#and then when the writers do try to expand his back ground

[oifaaa]

"what did Alfred do???"

Be British, next question

Like fr is there any other reason I need as a irish woman

[1-800-cr33py]

WRITE A STORY WITH ERIC DRAVEN PLSSSSSSS

Of course, though I am going through a bit of writer’s and artist’s block, so i deeply apologize for the quality.

A/N: Angst w/comfort, reader is depressive, something quick might expand on this later though. Eric is…eric.

Hands a bit too cold to be considered normal traced the plain of your stomach, the skin warm beneath his calloused palm. Eric was many things, a murderer, spiteful, any name under the sun one could think of, but in the current moment he was envious. Envious of you, sleeping beneath the many blankets of his bed, practically a nest for the both of you now. He was envious of your warmth, your liveliness, your mortality. There may have been a time when he’d daydream of what his life could have been like in his older years, hair graying and fading and worn band tee shirts. But those days would never catch up to him, but you still remained. Fuck if you didn’t stay glued to his side. He remembers seeing you after he was brought back, the black tears staining your cheeks as you tried to look through him, trying to rationalize the sight before you.

You sat upon the brick wall of what was once a shared apartment, bottles and cans thrown haphazardly around the creaking floors. You, a husk of the person you used to be, in the middle of the mess, eyeliner running down your cheeks and eyes hollow, eyes once so full of life and contentment, now dull, sharp even. If his heart could, it would break at the sight of you. He stalked you from his shadows, not yet ready to face you. Oh how he longed to hold you, to remind you he’d take care of you like he promised so long ago, to simply feel your skin against his would be enough. But Eric remained still, continuing to watch you gulp down more cheap vodka like it was water. Erin grimaced, he didn’t like the sight before him. He saw himself lingering within your behavior, saw his influences in your mannerisms. You, none the wiser to his position before you, didn’t even jump when his footfalls fell upon your ears. Maybe you were to drunk, or maybe it’s because you were to far gone to care.

“ Look dickhead, I don’t know what the fuck it is you want but I-“ your cold remark was cut short, far to short with a familiar laugh, a laugh you hadn’t heard in over a year, actually thats a lie. It was the same laugh that had been haunting your nightmares for so, so fucking long.

“ Such harsh words from such a pretty girl, you kiss your mother with that mouth pretty? “ Eric drawled, nearing you. You, bottle just an inch from your agape mouth. There he was, face painted a sickly white and black smeared haphazardly across his eyes and lips. It was like time stopped, only the two of you existing at once. Eyes welling with tears, you stayed silent. What could you do? You were there when they put him into the cold hard ground, there to pick up Sarah when her mother couldn’t give less than a fuck about her. You. Eric, now squatting before you, searched your face, for any sign of emotion, emotion he didn’t find. You wanted to scream, to hit yourself and down the rest of the bottle, telling yourself you were dreaming, but you couldn’t. His cologne had long since faded from everything that was left behind, but here now you could taste it. Mouth gaping akin to that of a fish out of water, the bottle fell, clattering onto the floor as your hand reached to his face. Just a touch. Just something to tell yourself this was real, that he was real. With a trembling finger, you pushed the wet stray hairs from his painted face, moving to trace his jaw. He was real this time, a tangible thing before you blessing your teary eyes with a pained smile.

That was a long while ago, he’d yet to find a real reason to pass on yet, though the Crow had quit trying to urge him now. The night was young, though the city lights didn’t make it seem that way, still, you napped, curled underneath the blankets. Eric let out an audible sign, cold fingers mindlessly tracing shapes onto your skin. He’d give anything, anything at all, just to fully feel the true extent of your warmth again, the warmth he felt when he was alive, not just a walking corpse. Eric longed to be the softer man he once was for you, but he knew as well as you did, that man was gone. But for now, he’d be content with this, relearning and healing alongside you.

[this-is-a-podcast-fanblog]

Continuity and Tonal Shifts in Season Ten

This is gonna be a really long meta describing some of my frustrations with the current writing decisions. I'm approaching these as someone who loves the show and wants it to succeed, and I'm not making any sweeping "the show is problematic" or "the writers are bad" statements, just that the writing decisions lately have been poor in my opinion and I need to express my thoughts on that.

So as a lot of people may or may not know, Fink and Cranor alternate writing episodes, and according to Patreon, they have minimal communication about what is going to happen in the next episode, giving the other relative creative freedom. This often works when the style of Night Vale is random, disjointed, and with a lot of left-field plot devices, but with this current plot line so grounded in literal stuff and reality, it is SO FRUSTRATING. Especially because Fink mentioned in a patreon post that he only backreads the past five episodes to maintain continuity - something that clearly does not work when your show is over 230 episodes long, has had tons of live shows, and expanded into three books. I feel like the last three episodes have had a very off-putting disconnect, and that makes this writing decision REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS in a glaring can't-overlook-it-anymore way.

There's no way to know which writer wrote which episode, but we'll say "odd writer" and "even writer" for continuity's sake. I have my personal opinion about which writer wrote what, but I don't want to share that here. It could be that Fink is odd writer and Cranor is even writer, or it could be the other way around, but what matters is that odd writer and even writer didn't communicate.

227, written by odd writer: Blake lures Cecil away with a made-up sob story and Cecil departs the station. Lubelle comes to the radio station and gives a long speech about Night Vale, condescends about Cecil's hold over the town, explains away the weather, says outright that she's taking over, and leaves with the ominous "show over, Night Vale, show over" closing tag. What's going to happen? Find out in two weeks!

228, written by even writer: Actually she just briefly broke into the radio station and left without a struggle and Blake was just tricking Cecil and let him go, and now Cecil is back and Lubelle hasn't taken over anything yet, nor kidnapped him. But science is going to be made illegal to stop Dr. Lubelle and the Univeristy, and that will really mess with Carlos! What's going to happen? Find out in two weeks!

229, written by odd writer: Science is illegal but the University decided to just straight up ignore it and continue with all of their stuff using a bunch of technical work-arounds and sheer numbers to overwhelm the town, so it doesn't really affect anyone other than Carlos, who by the way is barely in an episode that's supposed to be about his struggles. Anyway, Lubelle brought all of her faculty into town, so that's probably bad. What will they do? Find out in two weeks!

It's starting to feel like we're reliving the Star Wars sequel trilogy, except there's two JJ Abrams and neither of them is talking to each other. Every episode ends on this intense buildup and then it immediately fizzles away at the start of the next one. It's like getting edged by someone who keeps pulling their hand away so they can go on their phone and type "actually everything is fine now" before they get back to it.

There's one other thing I want to mention about this odd writer/even writer dilemma, which is episode 225. This was an odd writer episode, and in it, Lubelle asks Cecil to come down to the University for some "tests", an offer that he finds very offensive, but one that's punctuated by Dr. Jones snickering that Station Management has been explained away. It really feels like odd writer is trying to set up plotline where the University becomes interested in Cecil, whether that's for his connection to the town or his relationship with Carlos, and even writer just does not want to let that happen.

There's even a bit of a tonal shift, where odd writer paints Dr. Jones as cunning, "Couldn't be station management. They don't even exist. They've been, well... they've been explained." (episode 225) "Looks like Blake succeeded in tricking that fool away from his mic," (episode 227) and then even writer does an about-face and makes him cowardly instead, forcing odd writer to go along with that characterization; so odd writer decides to just write him out of the story without really doing anything.

The lack of communication between the two writers is becoming more and more obvious, and for the fans, more and more frustrating. There are also so many great fan-assembled resources that demonstrate every episode a character or plot point has appeared in, so I feel like it shouldn't be that hard for the writers to find their own system of continuity - or hell, just borrow ours and then throw in a "extra thank to the contributors of the Night Vale wikia" in the credits or something. You guys do this for a living! Is it so much to ask if we'd like you to be good at it?

[sassykinzonline]

Another Chance - oneshot

this takes place after VOTE 2, hospitalized upon hitting konoha and induced into unconsciousness to heal more painlessly from the injuries. its weird to write about myself but it helps. im writing these in one go so typos will be inevitable. im not a writer either.

--------------------------------------------------@

By now, Sasuke had lost count of how many times he had woken up in a hospital room. This was one of the rare times where it was his own fault. It was also the first time he woke up with someone beside him-- who else but Naruto?

"This was the one promise he should've allowed himself not to keep."

Sasuke surprised himself by chuckling at his own thought. He didn't know how long it had been since he had laughed so freely so many times in a row.

Ah, freedom. Maybe that was why?

As he closed his eyes and took in a slow, deep breath, scenes from whenever his eyes were open last played in front of his eyes. An idea. Revolution. Isolation. Burden. War. Despair. Darkness. Death. Hope. He breathed out. Turning his head and opening his eyes to the sound of rushing water, to the sight of Naruto. His face mottled purple, blood both fresh and dried, eye swollen shut. A pool of blood where his arm should be. Where his hand should be linked with Sasuke's. That's when he noticed that his own blood came to meet Naruto's, and Sasuke wondered if this meant he had lost his chance. After all, how many times did Naruto hold his hand out? How many times did Sasuke meet it with his honestly? He spent all his life running...running forward...running away...running. He was tired. He sat up, a part of his mind ringing with Naruto's voice.

"If we too much, we'll die."

Another failure then. He felt his chest expand as he took in a breath to avoid sighing, his eyes carefully scanning Naruto's supine body for further injury. At least Naruto hadn't move, that would mean--

Naruto hadn't moved. In all this time, he hadn't moved at all.

Sasuke activated his sharingan immediately, throwing himself towards Naruto while checking for even the most minute movement. A throbbing vein. A strained throat trying to pull in air. A twitch in his toes. Naruto moves in his sleep. He tosses and turns. He grabs for the air. He snores with his mouth open, drool pouring out the corner of his mouth. Even in his sleep, Naruto is so alive. Naruto is always alive.

His earlier thought echoed in his mind, pounding against the back of his eyes. He had once again wished for Naruto's death. But that isn't what he wanted this time-- or all the other times--No. That wasn't true, but what he meant was that Naruto should've left him alone--No, not like this. Naruto should've given up on him--Sasuke watched the stillness of Naruto's heart. Naruto had given up on him. This wasn't the success he wanted. He wasted all his chances. Again and again. He had tried to cut Naruto down again and again, but this time was supposed to be different...but...not like this!

Sasuke visualized his body. His skin and his hair. Useless to him in this moment. He went one layer deeper: muscles. Perfect. He focused on his tongue, lifting it slightly to meet his teeth. Next his lips, relaxed so they would slightly part. Lastly, his jaw tensed ever so slightly. One more layer down to his skeleton. The abrupt feeling of bone ending was odd. He wondered if the edge was jagged or smooth. Another layer. Good, his brain. His mouth had succeeded in forming the phoneme for "n". This would be the start of his attempt to call out Naru--

A jolt went through his mind. This was futile as Naruto was dead. No. Sasuke doesn't kill. Sasuke never succeeds. Sasuke is too weak to do such a thing. Sasuke has always wanted to protect those that he loves. He never succeeds, but he wants to. So he reaches for Naruto's body, forgetting he has no arm to balance his weight on. He crashes onto the hard, cold ground. Sasuke doesn't have time to feel the pain. He's going to use lightning release to jumpstart Naruto's heart, and stimulate his brain. He knows how to do this. He trained and studied.

But he can't move. He can't breathe. Naruto doesn't move. Naruto doesn't breathe. He needs to. Sasuke feels himself choke. First his stomach comes up, then his heart. He sees it all. Then the bile. Then his breath. Then his words. Words for his feelings, those get stuck too. Then the fear. The despair. The loneliness. That's all he has. He gave his all. He has nothing left.

He's too late and Naruto is dead in the Valley of the End. He blinks. He's too imprecise and Naruto is skewered on his sword at Orochimaru's hideout. He blinks. He's too desperate and Naruto is skewered on his arm in the Valley of the End. He blinks. He's too clever and Naruto is skewered on his arm on the hospital roof. He blinks. He's too slow and Naruto is skewered by hundreds of senbon needles in a dome made of ice. His blood pools onto Sasuke's hand. His skin is unusually pale. He doesn't move and he doesn't breathe. Naruto is no longer alive. He's dead on the forest floor in the Land of Waves because Sasuke was too late. He's dead in the Forest of Death because Sasuke is too weak. He's dead and his blood rains down on Sasuke, who sinks into quicksand because Sasuke isn't clever enough. He lays dead in the Valley of the End as Sasuke sinks to his knees, and rain pours down.

Sasuke looks up. The moon is a bright white, and it's so so close. It burns his eyes. His tears burn behind his eyes as he runs home, praying for a miracle. Itachi stands over his parent's dead bodies, skewered by Itachi's sword as their blood pools. The scene burns behind his eyes and Itachi reminds him he's too weak. He reminds him that he is a failure. Sasuke's lungs burn as he runs from hotel to hotel, praying for a miracle. Itachi stands over Naruto. This time Sasuke will skewer Itachi on his arm. But Itachi reminds him that he's too weak, that he is a failure. Sasuke chokes.

Oh, he had something left after all. His hope. He doesn't want it anymore. The butterfly at the bottom of the box is dead. One wing crumpled, one wing torn off. It cannot fly. It cannot escape. When the box opens again, all it will be able to do is wait. Wait for the light. Wait to be freed.

The box opens and light floods his vision, it is painful and pure white. It is so clean. He hopes it will cleanse him too. He wants a reset, so he can try again. The light gets stronger and his eyes burn. He thrashes in an attempt to avoid it, to stop the pain. But he can't. His eyes will always see, especially when he doesn't want to. A voice calls out to him from above, and he stills with relief. He is finally home.

"Ugh, you're still as noisy as ever."

Sasuke bolts upright, his eyes open wide so he can truly see. Is it really his voice? He's in his hospital room, but on the floor this time. Naruto is beside him, on a bed, covering his head with a pillow. Sasuke reaches his arm out, but he's too far away. He looks down to prepare himself to stand, the pain of his injuries suddenly flooding his senses.

Before he can remove his hand, a warm hand grabs it tightly. Sasuke holds his breath and looks up. He stares at a face with flushed red cheeks, covered in bandages, and into true blue eyes. Then the eyes squint, but Sasuke cannot move. Not even the smallest movement. Not even blink.

"Noisy AND stupid. You're making the dumbest face right now. What's your deal?"

With the grace of a baby deer, Naruto swings his legs over his bed and slides off it, joining Sasuke on the floor. He squeezes Sasuke's hand once, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow. His eyes scan over Sasuke's face, then his body, stopping once in a while at every point Sasuke feels pain.

"...I just fell," said Sasuke as he blinked. His thumb twitched, accidentally caressing the rough knuckles Naruto had earned through a lifetime of fighting. Naruto stiffened and slowly looked down at their joined hands, and Sasuke willed his heart to stay the same. He willed his brain not to produce adrenaline. He willed his muscles to stay as they were.

"Sasuke, are you okay?"

Naruto mumbled out his question, then held his breath. He stayed as still as possible, yet his body thrummed with tension and his gaze burned a hole into the corner of the blanket that Sasuke had pulled down with him as he fell.

Sasuke smiled to himself, looking down as well then softly letting air out of his nose in a snort at Naruto's behaviour. Even when Naruto is trying to be still, he is so so alive. Just to make sure, Sasuke slid his palm upwards to hold Naruto's wrist. He felt the thump thump thump that he needed, and pulled Naruto into him.

As he wrapped Naruto in a one-armed hug, he whispered in his ear, "I'm okay now."

Before he could think of what else to say, Naruto's warm face separated from his. Sasuke furrowed his brows at the cold that replaced it, while suddenly being met with Naruto's discerning stare. Completely confused by Naruto's reaction, Sasuke slightly raised an eyebrow and met his stare. Naruto's eyes widened as he shivered, clenching his teeth.

Suddenly, Sasuke flew back at the push of Naruto's hand and his back hit the side of his bed. Naruto shot up, and Sasuke's eyes followed him. His confusion only increasing by the second. But he was patient. And Naruto loved to talk. Naruto would explain it to him.

"What the HELL was that?! Did they give you too much morphine? Did you bump your head?! DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER WHO I AM?! I'll call Sakura, that's who you need to see right now--"

Sasuke lunged at Naruto and covered his mouth. Once again he forgot about his newly gained imbalance, and they both fell, bounced off Naruto's bed then crashed onto the floor. Sasuke fell on his knees, caging Naruto beneath him, still covering his mouth. Fear flooded Sasuke's body given the position they found themselves in. He couldn't predict what would happen next, so he simply readied himself by trying to analyze Naruto's eye movements.

Naruto laid his hand over Sasuke's and clutched it. Sasuke's eyes widened as he let out a slight gasp. He didn't account for this possibility. Then he suddenly felt himself falling for the third time. Directly onto Naruto, who had yanked Sasuke's hand off his mouth, causing him to lose the only thing holding him up.

Their lips crashed together, and Sasuke was suddenly transported to his first day as a genin. Again asking himself, "What the fuck is wrong with Naruto?" Then he was swatted to the side using his own hand, allowing him to land on his back with significantly less pain than the first time Naruto pushed him. The impact of his back to the ground brought him out of his stupor, he glanced at Naruto beside him. Naruto's eyes as wide as could get, then slowly narrowing in anger.

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! AREN'T YOU A NINJA?! Why didn't you DODGE and ROLL?--"

"I should be saying that to you! You never use your fucking brain, what did you expect would happen if you removed the only thing holding me up?" yelled Sasuke, his body instinctively wired to rise to any challenge Naruto laid out for him.

"No comeback, loser? I knew you kissed me on purpose the first time, this just proves it. You've always been completely forceful and backwards about your feelings," deadpanned Sasuke as he rolled his eyes and let out a sigh to mask the feeling bubbling up through him. He was met with silence, an unusual condition when around Naruto. He turned his head to discern the reason for Naruto's speechlessness. He was met with a picasso-level distortion of an expression; Naruto's eyebrows were raised in concern, his nose scrunched in discomfort, his mouth twisted in a grimace of disgust, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and his eyes shining with honesty.

He couldn't help it-- he guffawed, curling on his side with his arm clutching his stomach.

As Naruto scolded him through shaking him by his collar, yelling profanity, and sputtering out obvious lies about his experience with kissing and romance. After the third "pisshead motherfucker", Sasuke turned to Naruto and smirked.

"Oi, Naruto. Calm down, I'll give you one more chance to try again."

[asinfullangel]

Hey, I see that you are a great writer!!!!!!

so could you write a vore story of rengoku swallowing akaza?

First, thank you for being the first to request me to write out (to the best of my abilities and knowledge) these two in an entertaining scenario. Do note that I’m not so familiar with the two and did use the wiki to understand the characters, so what I wrote is what I could think of based on knowledge only.

Now with that out of the way… What could I see happening between these two, a demon slayer and his demon opponent. I suppose I could see:

In the dark of night and these two facing each other in a duel in hope of defeating the other, determination written in their eyes as they wait for the first move to be made. In the whole mess of sword and fits meeting each other with ful powerful blows that somehow this demon Akaza try his luck and went for Rengoku’s face to be surprised by where his fit landed right inside the slayer’s mouth, stunning both fighter with confusion till Rengoku made use of this odd opportunity and swung his sword for this demon’s head, missed and only cut off his arm, but strangely Rengoku with a severed arm hanging out of his as a new one regrow back on the demon he sucked in the limb before the battle continued on, seems as if the taste of this demon must be good enough for him to swallow a limb whole before Akaza return to battle…

Or why not an unsavory situation where Akaza showed up to face Rengoku in a public space, without a care of who’s in the way, if they get hurt before he could kill them himself or use these humans as leverage to get the upper hand against Rengoku. How could this demon slayer possibly get one demon out and away from anyone that can get hurt or killed during their fight… Until he recalled a special kind of technique he had learned, observed from another, or only knew of from old texts written somewhere that he had read. Whichever it may be, it seems like a good time more than any to use it, getting Akaza's attention and as soon as an opening becomes visible he’ll use this technique hopefully without ending his life. Of course this strange move did work when such an opening came about and Rengoku had Akaza’s hand deep in his throat along with his arm held in place with his teeth inside his mouth. The demon’s taste was pleasant enough, but taste really isn't all that needed when containing Akaza was more important right now…

And one more idea that comes to mind would simply be that this came about as an accident most likely involving Rengoku preparing an speedy attack and somehow he made a misstep or Akaza managed to dodge the attack while reangling his body’s position to end up… head and most of his neck trapped in Rengoku. Both were confused by this before the demon felt his opponent’s tongue slither around his face, disgusted by strange action before he heard the sound of a moan…

No matter how it came about, Akaza will end up in one place alone and trapped for a while if Rengoku so chose to. In these 3 situations Akaza will travel inward inside the demon, feel his tongue snake around his funneling body and receive an echoing moan of how his skin tastes, struggling to the best of his ability. His body lifted off the ground once half of his body remained on the outside and gravity assisted in the demon’s descent downward, one of the slayer’s hands pushing in Akaza while the other rubbed over his expanding stomach. Eventually the last of Akaza sliding down his throat after one last taste of his soles and all of himself trapped within the tight embrace of Rengoku’s stomach, demanding to be released so they can continue face to face while he uses his strength to break free. The slayer wherever he may be will surely using his fire breathing technique to increase the temperature of his body and give Akaza a more unpleasant stay inside as he locate a place to sit or lay down, adjective to this added weight while rubbing his stomach and thank him for the delicious meal that is Akaza himself. The slayer spending his time containing this demon and his contain attempt to punch his way through or back out of his mouth as the heat increase within, making sure that this demon will meet his end within hopefully soon enough, at the end of this he’ll be left with what’s left of his body to disgust and train the demon pudge off of himself in the days to come after.

[flipper-kisses]

lol anon back (same anon that listed why Rami is amazing)! I got more 🙃

He’s our clumsy king and owns it

He fell at the Oscars, fell/pushed off a side railing, did parkour only to fall when he started running on the ground (it was a Mr. Robot blooper), fell backwards in a fucking chair, and tripped during the Red Carpet at the Met Gala. This man literally trips over air and himself but we still love him ❤️

Spending time with Emma who is non-binary

Literally does make a difference because it helps non-binary people feel like they’re noticed!

Puts so much thought and consideration i to his characters and roles!

Just think about all he had to do for “The Pacific”, “Mr. Robot”, and “Bohemian Rhapsody”! Definitely lots of dedication and hard work and passion for his roles, like wow. 

Rami’s hair

Never gets old and I love his curly hair era! Also wavy hair too! Wonderful hair lol

He has great expectations for his roles

In an interview, Rami was asked if he was happy about “Night at the Museum” casting a pharaoh correctly. Rami’s reaction literally said, “that shouldn’t be something to be super overly happy about, it should just be casted correctly”. Good expectations honestly. 

Rami was the side character for so damn long and steals every scene he’s in

Rami is literally amazing in all scenes he does and even if he’s not the main character, all eyes are on him (at least mine are 😌)

He’s one of the best versatile actors I think I’ll ever witness!

This man has literally played: a gay teenager who was crushing on his best friend

traumatized war veteran who has a thick Cajun accent

an iconic and memorable lead band singer

Alcatraz prisoner who plays the violin

ancient mummy pharaoh that comes to life at night

hacker with d.i.d and ptsd

a doctor named Adam Terry

random dude in Battle Ship

a vampire with a cool scarf

a mountain man and in real life Rami gets the chance to squabble in a tiny boat with his identical twin lmao (best sibling fight we’ll ever witness, @the-real-ramimalekpeen have you used this scene for Twin Tuesday yet?)

a 6’0 tall guy in a video game who was said to most likely have schizophrenia

a dude with a beard

a weirdo guy in the literal fucking show “BoJack Horseman”

and like so many other characters I’m choosing not to describe

Already said he was a “bad boy” and pranks people but he’s literally really funny 

Have you seen him in different interviews? Such a charmer and pretty funny as well.

Like the interview with Charlie Hunnam where there was a question about Rami’s eye color and he and Charlie were teasing each other and trying to find out Rami’s eye color. Then some pictures are also pretty funny.

Also the “DoLittle” game with Robert Downey Jr (Rami’s whole outfit and appearance during the Ellen Show with Robert Downey Jr 😩👌 literally here for his outfit, freaking immaculate lmao)

“wE sHot LiVe aiD oN dAy onE” 

That’ll be in my head forever, thanks Rami

“A playful smooch”

I don’t think I’ll recover from the shocked looks on everybody’s faces when Rami exposed how he had a kiss with Daniel Craig. 

His fans are wonderful 

This man has the best real fans. Which includes the fan artists, fanfic writers, and people who just appreciate him and/or his films! also people who stand up for him which is YOU Flipper and RamiPeen 👏

Photo shoots

How can you look at his photo shoots and NOT smile??? Precious but also sexy man. 

Again he has a literal soft spot for children

That one time where I’m pretty sure he read a book to a few children

Best hugs

He seriously gives the sweetest and warmest hugs. Like can I get a hug?? 🫂 

Oppenheimer moments

I don’t care what anyone says about his role in Oppenheimer. He had literally eight minutes of screen time yet still went for the fucking jugular and was successful. 

The bulge

He has no shame and no, I won’t expand on this except… @the-real-ramimalekpeen 😉

Doesn’t give a fuck about haters

Lmao y’all hated Rami in Amsterdam and thought his character was stupid? Well he probably doesn’t give a shit (or is obliviously living his best life) lmao. 

Ages like fine wine 

God he looks like he’s in his fucking thirties in so many pictures. Raise your hand if you ever looked at a picture of him and thought, “oh a picture when he was in his twenties!” and it turns out the picture was taken in his fucking 40s… a few days ago… Unproblematic people age perfectly. 

His smile makes me smile

Could he be any cuter??? His smile literally is so wonderful.  

Most caring thing you’ll see all day and is husband material

When he was giving Emma his jacket, comforting the woman (friend) who was crying and thanking the waitress, and so many other events 🥺

Okay anyways got even more than this lol… sorry for rambling on about our Rami. I’m just so happy I finally get the chance to share my Rami findings and thoughts I’ve collected over the years.

I love your love for him!

[sweetestlamb]

My Brother's Keeper

Summary: Young-woo gets a visitor after the case and reveals a secret to Jun-ho.

Author's note: I thought we were completely off the rails and then the writers pulled it together for the things I cared about: whale couple and attorney Jung. My favorite scene today was Young-woo finding out she's a big sister and everything her eyes and body did, ergo I wrote this fluff to expand on that because I love that she has a little brother to protect now. She gets to take care of someone🥺 please bring him back in season 2!

"Attorney Woo I'll drive you back to the office." It's hard to keep the smile off his face, to remain professional when all he wants to do is tell everyone that they're back together. They had both decided that they shouldn't break up because they could only be happy together.

"Okay." He hears her curt reply, sees her affirmative head nod in the corner of his eye and all he can do is stare in awe. Despite his initial confusion about her unusual investment in this case and her ability to meet with someone like Tae Sumi, he had felt nothing but pride watching her run off with that heart stopping smile on her face as she decided to do the seemingly impossible.

But the impossible became possible for her. She was brilliant and kind and had one of the purest souls he had ever seen. Just being the one beside her was enough for him.

"Noona, wait!"

He can feel her jolt beside him before peering over her shoulder slowly twisting to find the voice, and he turns as well watching Attorney Tae Sumi try and fail to wrangle her son before he can rush over to Young-woo.

His eyes are bright and filled with wonder despite the outcome of the case, despite his own inevitable punishment.

In that moment, watching the brave young boy on the stand he reminded him of someone else with the same sense of righteousness. It was hard not to see the resemblance.

The younger boy stands right in front of them before bowing at Young-woo. He carefully watches the interaction between the two, confused but endeared by the sight.

"I wanted to thank you again. For helping me and convincing ou-um my mom to let me testify. The guilt that I felt is starting to fade, maybe one day all those people and even Mr. Bae will be able to forgive me."

The mistep is minor but it stands out in his mind. Ou...what word did he initially intend to use? But Young-woo's response distracts him from thinking about it further. He can't help but notice the way that Sang-Hyeon avoids his gaze eyes locked on Young-woo instead.

"I'm not sure if they will. What you did wrong and foolish. If something went wrong it could have affected eighty percent of the country."

The young boy's gaze shifts with evident shame to the ground and he winces at the frank and deceivingly cold words but he can't help but agree with her and so he remains silent, a mere audience member.

"But you confessed and you apologized. I've had many cases now and that's even hard for adults to do, they usually try to lie and hide." She says the last bit with a frown on her face as if remembering those dastardly clients.

He smiles in admiration, grinning when the boy immediately perks up a small smile on his face now. That was the first time he'd ever seen her comfort someone, it makes his heart swell.

"I did the right thing, right noona?"

It's hard to miss the obvious look for approval.

"Yes, you did what is legally right when you commit a crime. But you shouldn't break the law anymore."

"I promise I won't."

She nods evenly at the promise looking satisfied.

"Noona?"

"Yes?"

"You were really cool today. I hope you keep being that cool, I want to be like you when I grow up."

"To be like me?" She looks confused, pointing into her own chest as if she never expected to hear anyone utter such words.

"Yes. You're the coolest person I know."

This time he can't remain silent, not when he agrees so passionately with what the young boy is saying.

"I agree Attorney Woo, you were super cool today."

She tucks her chin into her chest as if to hide the wide gleeful grin that spreads across her pretty face, thankfully it's not hidden well and he's blessed with its beauty.

"Are you.....are you someone special to my noona?" Sang Hyeon finally acknowledges his presence peering up at him with a suspicious weary gaze.

My noona.

He can't ignore the slight possessiveness in his tone and he raises a single brow at the tone. Did this little punk have a crush on his Young-woo? It was as cute as it was annoying.

However there is no longer any uncertainty in his reply this time unlike that other night, he knows what he is to Young-woo now. What they are to each other.

"Yes. I'm her boyfriend."

He could proudly announce that now to people. He had already changed her contact in his phone and each time she called just because she missed him he would see my girlfriend across his screen and that made every day a great one indeed.

"You have a boyfriend?" Sang Hyeon spins back to Attorney Woo who only pauses for a second before nodding and answering, "Yes, this is my boyfriend Jun-ho ssi. We are officially dating now so it's acceptable for us to kiss outside my hou--"

"Attorney Woo!" He cuts her off with an embarrassed squeak, red flush rising on his neck and cheeks. But the young man seems unfazed by her inappropriate comment, glaring at him now as if he's searching for something.

After a silent stare off, the boy finally says,"Take care of my noona. If you hurt her, you already know what I'm capable of."

This is a first for him, being threatened by someone so much younger than him but he can't help but grin at the hard glare being sent his way.

"I will always take care of her." And he means it with his whole heart, even a few days without her was torture he never wanted to go through that again.

"Okay. Good."

They seem to reach an understanding but then he watches in amusement as Young-woo reaches out and grabs the younger boy's ear, twisting it with her thumb and index finger it's such a strange sight that he can't help but laugh loudly.

"Noona!"

"You shouldn't threaten my boyfriend or your elders. Where are your manners?"

He's almost certain it's something she has seen on a show or heard from someone else about scolding your juniors.

"I'm sorry noona, I was just joking." He squirms in her hold but makes no real attempts to escape, accepting his reprimand without much fight.

Several eyes turn to watch them in shock and confusion, all except one. Attorney Tae Sumi, who he can only describe as stunned. There's an indescribable look in her eyes but her face is softer than he's ever seen on a woman like her who is a master of hiding her emotions. He blinks blankly as she turns away from the sight with a hand pressed to her mouth and suddenly starts to leave with her bodyguards never looking back.

"Noona, I think I have to go now. Thank you again." He rubs at his ear now looking at his mother's retreating back.

"Okay. You're welcome."

They stare at each other before the young boy turns to follow his mother but he can see how he hesitates. Motionless for a long moment before turning back around with a hopeful look in his large eyes.

"Noona, is it okay if.... could I maybe...."

Young-woo waits for the rest of his sentence patiently perceivably unaware of what Sang Hyeon wants to ask but he can see it written all over his face.

"CouldIhugyoujustonce?"

It all comes out as one jumbled mess, his tongue tripping and stumbling over the words and he looks weary as soon as they leave his mouth.

Young-woo tilts her head still looking at him in confusion.

"What?"

And the other boy looks too scared to repeat the question so he helps him out.

"I think he wants to hug you. To show you his gratitude."

She turns to look at him, it almost makes his heart jump. Who's he kidding there's no almost about it.

"To show his gratitude?"

She echoes back at him then looks over at the younger boy whose eyes are now glued to the ground. She contemplates the question, he can see her processing- watches her lips twist and her eyes dart around until her body calms.

"Okay. You may hug me."

Sang Hyeon looks just as surprised as he feels but he doesn't hesitate for a moment, stepping forward with open arms and wrapping them around a stiff Young-woo who doesn't reciprocate, at first he worries that she's pushing herself despite being severely uncomfortable but then he sees her arms lift and she starts to pat Sang Hyeon awkwardly with just the tips of her finger.

Returning the hug in her own way.

Tap. Tap.

Tap. Tap.

And he already knew this but he can't think about anything but how much he loves this woman and her huge heart.

He was deeply in love with Woo Young-woo.

"I....am Tae Sumi's daughter."

He almost drives them off the road at her sudden confession, swerving back into his lane and accepting the horns that he receives from other drivers. He deserves them.

He tries to keep his eyes on her and on the road simultaneously.

"What?!" He can't help but exclaim, everything suddenly making perfect sense beneath his surprise and confusion.

"My father met her in college and they had me. But she didn't want to have a child and my father begged her to let him have me."

He's not at all prepared for this conversation. Could never foresee this being the secret she promised she would tell him about. It was like something out of a drama.

He takes a deep breath before finally speaking.

"It must have been hard for Attorn--your mom. It must have been unbearable to make that decision."

She's silent beside him and when he glances over he can she can brain working, as if the idea never occurred to her.

"You think it was hard for her?"

"Well I don't really know, but I imagine it would be hard for anyone to give up a baby they had with them for nine months."

"Oh."

That's all she says and he doesn't push it. Has no right to tell her not to resent the mother who refused to raise her but was raising someone else. And then it hits him suddenly, everything falling into place.

"Sang Hyeon is really your brother. You're really his noona."

And this bursts the bubble of melancholy that had settled in the car, breaking her from her silent thoughtfulness.

"Yes. He came to me for help because he said that he knew that his noona wouldn't listen to mom." Her smile is surely enough to power a city it's so illuminating.

"Are you that happy to have a little brother?"

She turns to him this time and he doesn't care about the cars behind him or their horns honking or anything else, nothing else matters so he meets her eyes and doesn't look away, not even for a second.

"Yes. I like it. I've always been someone that others take care of and now I have someone that I can take care of. Someone who comes to me for help."

Yeah. There's no doubt, this is the woman he's in love with. And he's going to love her for the rest of their lives.

[guizh0ng]

Remember

Chapter 7: Kyoto, Japan

(WARNING: ALOT OF WORLD BUILDING SO SHUT UP, and confusing crap, I had to fight writer's block)

It had been a few months since Sora had arrived at the agency, and things had been going well so far.

Amara's physical therapy and daily checkups had kept Sora in the clinic for quite a while, but her injuries had healed in the past few weeks.

However, every once in a while she would still feel a slight sting where she had been shot at, it was quite a nuisance for her, especially when eating or just using her hands in general.

Nemo's presence and constant attempts to get to know her was also a nuisance to her.

She appreciates his company and his genuine interest, but she often avoids him or tries to escape him.

She doesn't trust him that much but in reality she just didn't want to talk, and was content being alone in the library.

It had become her comfort place, and she found that it provided her with some sense of stability and sanctuary.

She had noticed that most people didn't read there and that she was mainly on her own there, except for when Viktoriya would come to get some books she needed at work.

Speaking of, Viktoriya had eventually started to teach Sora some basic English, and she was beginning to make some progress.

Sora was now able to speak straight without having to think too much about it, though they were still working on some more complicated words.

Still, she was happy with the progress that was being made, and she was eager to learn more for her benefit.

To add to that, Viktoriya also helped Sora learn some Psychology for her position.

Sora wasn't sure why Psychology was even included in an agency, but she felt like she would find out soon enough.

For now, she was just focused on her work and trying to do her best.

And then there was her training...

"Ugh..!" Sora grunted with frustration as she fell on the ground once again, losing her grip on her penknife as it rolled away from her hand.

She was annoyed by this setback, and she was feeling more and more frustrated as she failed over and over.

Her efforts were going nowhere, and she couldn't get the hang of this.

She was feeling extremely discouraged, and she wanted to just give up at this point.

"This is the easiest as it can get, Sora" Adrianne blurted out as she pointed her pocketknife at Sora, almost as if boasting.

Sora raised her head, but she felt a sense of annoyance within her as she stood up once Adrianne turned her back on her.

She bent over to pick up her penknife on the ground, while Adrianne was still turning away from her.

Sora rolled her eyes at this and just turned away as well.

She walked to a bench and sat down, crossing her legs and trying to calm down.

As you can guess, Adrianne hasn't made it easy for Sora during training, even though Amara had told her to tone down her approach.

Sora felt like nothing had changed except for the fact that Adrianne was now hitting her anywhere except where she had been shot which changed nothing at all!

Barnaby or Iris would have been much better mentors for her, as they wouldn't be as harsh and critical as Adrianne.

The only thing that Sora liked about the training was the new training fit.

Iris had wanted to expand her wardrobe, as she had only two outfits from her previous mission and her casual fit, but she didn't mind on keeping wearing the same clothing all the time.

She wore a lilac cropped jacket with a black tight shirt underneath.

She matched this with a pair of fingerless gloves, and she wore dark violet cargo pants with black military boots to complete the look.

Adrianne wore a white shirt, which she tucked into her dark green cargo pants.

She completed her look with a pair of brown Military boots, which matched well with the outfit.

"You both look like you're working hard, Are you sure you aren't going too hard on Sora?" Viktoriya suddenly entered the scene, and Sora looked quite happy to see her.

Adrianne crossed her arms, and seemed amused by her appearance, "Well look who finally went out of their workshop, and here I thought you died in your workload, C'mere!" Adrianne immediately went over to Viktoriya and hugged her.

However, Viktoriya pulled away just as quickly as Adrianne pulled in, "Yeah, okay that's enough of that, I'm here to pick up Sora, Iris said she needed to talk to her in her office" "After Viktoriya placed her hands on Adrianne's shoulder, she looked at her back-side to see Sora who was already listening in on the conversation.

Sora knew what she needed to do as she nodded and stood up to change her clothes in the changing room.

_____________________________________________

After Sora changed her outfit to her casual one, Viktoriya led her to the hallway.

Viktoriya had been silent, which did not sit right with Sora at all.

Sora felt like it was out of character for her, and she wasn't used to the change in attitude.

She appreciated the silence, but she also felt uneasy about it.

After several moments of walking and remaining silent, they ended up in front of a green door.

Viktoriya went ahead and opened the door for Sora, revealing Iris who was sitting across the room from her table, "Oh hey Sora, come in!" Iris offered as Sora stepped into the room to observe it.

The room had a scarlet tint of paint on the walls, but the paint was peeling off in some places.

Other than that, there were a few potted plants in each corner of the room and front of Iris's wooden table was a red carpet with yellow woven threads in it.

Also, a few paintings hung up in places but she couldn't see the last painting behind Iris due to the lighting in the room, maybe she'll get to see it later.

"You may be wondering why I brought you here, yes?" Iris asked to which Sora nodded.

"Great..well a few months ago since your first mission, we, fortunately, have succeeded in diffusing the bomb, which was nice work by the way and uh, since our Data Scientist couldn't come with Viktoriya to find more clues in the warehouse, she decided to go alone" Iris started as she kept eye contact with Sora, but with her looking away in return.

"Right," Sora confirmed.

"Alright I'll get to the point, we found this." Iris placed a pair of sunglasses on the table as Sora just looked down on it, confused.

"We examined the sunglasses and found out, easily, that this product was only produced in Japan, they probably purposefully placed it there so we could pick up the clue" Viktoriya continued.

"You're telling me this because..?" Sora wasn't getting the gist of this at all but she could feel she wouldn't like it at all.

"We need you there as a mole, it's hard to gather information if the other side knows you're there and it takes a while till information spreads across a group, like us, they probably don't even know we have a new member yet so yes,  we're asking you to be there as our wild card so when they're busy fending us off, you'll be there to attack them in behind, it's not a clear plan but with what we have and what they know, it's our best bet" Viktoriya ended.

That sounded suspicious.

But putting her suspicions aside, Sora started to think about her purpose in this mission, she was also scared of the potential for injury or even death on this mission.

Despite this fear, she was also strangely bothered by the fact that she had said 'Japan' the very first language she was told she could speak ever since waking up here.

The place of her origins, maybe she would learn something or recover a memory there.

She prioritized her needs, and she looked at both of them and paused.

She nodded finally as she decided to ignore the flaws of this mission for now.

"Great! You three will leave in an hour, and take the train to Kyoto." Iris gave Viktoriya three tickets for her to keep and Sora asked, "Three?"

"It's you, Viktoriya and Adrianne, oh right! I forgot to bring her here!" Iris slammed her fists on her palms, realizing her mistake as Sora also realised her own.

"Wait, Can I–"

"Alright, let's go fetch Adrianne!" Viktoriya exclaimed as she dragged Sora out of the door back to the training room.

She's starting to regret her decisions already.

_____________________________________________

Sora has started to think that none of the people in this agency knows what they're doing, which has been a concern for her.

Right after they got Adrianne, Iris had sent them a taxi.

Although Viktoriya had informed Sora that this taxi was the government's and used for missions by some agencies, she felt that they only got lucky for getting at least a few resources from them.

During the taxi ride, since the 'driver' knew they were agents anyway, she let them do their own thing for their mission.

Viktoriya silently ordered them to put on their disguises, while also helping Sora in hers.

Viktoriya, being an expert in missions, quickly got to work.

She put on a disguise mask that made her face appear more flat and pale.

It also had a striking effect on her eyes, making them look slimmer and more pointed on the sides.

Sora was slightly confused by this, as she could see a makeup set in Viktoriya's belongings but she didn't use it.

Sora was wondering if she should ask her why she chose this mask, or if that would be impolite.

"I don't wear makeup." Viktoriya's sudden speech took Sora by surprise, and she was caught off-guard for a moment.

Viktoriya whipped up her hair into a braid on the side, and she quickly got to work on Sora.

She made a few adjustments to Sora's eyes with just eyeliner since she already looked like someone from where they were going.

Although there wasn't a huge change needed to make her look authentic, Viktoriya still applied a few touches to make her appearance look more natural and fit the role they were playing for the mission.

Viktoriya brushed some of Sora's hair, making it look smoother and neater.

Sora noticed that Viktoriya seemed to be rather calm, and she thought that maybe it was because she was a beginner and she was just anxious.

Sora wanted to get this over with already.

An hour passed, and the taxi came to a stop at the airport for the mission Viktoriya gave her a nod before they got out of the taxi and walked off, entering the port, after they got their baggage.

They entered the airport, and Viktoriya slipped them their identification cards just before they approached security.

Having these made it easy for them to pass the guards without any trouble.

Sora was bothered when she took a glimpse at the card and saw that it didn't look like her name at all.

It made her feel uneasy and anxious, as if she were someone else entirely now but who is she to think that 'Sora' isn't even her.

She decided to wait until the scenery is more..private.

The flight attendant was a friendly and helpful person.

She assisted the women on board, ensuring that they were seated in their assigned seats.

Viktoriya seemed to have a good rapport with the flight attendant, and she was polite and courteous in her interaction with her as she nodded at her, sending her away from their seat.

Now that the three of them were seated, Sora sat next to the window, with Viktoriya in the middle seat and Adrianne on the other side.

Sora pulled out her 'I.D. card' and began examining it, double-checking the details to make sure everything was correct and accurate.

Sora examined the I.D card closely and double-checked the details.

Her name was "Akari Yamada" with her birthday set to April 30 and her age at 25.

This was really for her ironic since she already had to pretend to be someone else.

Despite this irony, she shrugged and accepted the identity for the mission.

_____________________________________________

During the trip, Sora tried to stay awake while Viktoriya worked on her laptop and Adrianne casually looked out at the surroundings.

Sora was bored, as watching the clouds was not really that..entertaining.

Despite her boredom, Sora managed to stay awake until the pilot announced their landing through the speakers.

As soon as the plane landed, Viktoriya ordered for the three of them to get off the plane immediately.

They all got off as quickly as they could, and Sora was happy to finally have the mission ongoing.

They walked their way to the baggage claim area, and Viktoriya rushed straight to the baggage claim, not even bothering to stop at all.

She immediately grabbed two suitcases that just came out of the area and quickly passed them on to Adrianne and Sora.

Sora was beginning to think that she may have been wrong about Viktoriya, as she didn't look calm at all.

She was rushing through everything she did, and Sora wondered what the reason was for her sudden change in behavior.

Was she just anxious about the mission? No. She couldn't be, it's Viktoriya, she only knew her for a few months but Viktoriya doesn't seem the type to stress but keep her head cool..right?

They managed to finish all the business they needed to do in the airport and got out, as Viktoriya hitched them a taxi.

She put their baggage in the trunk and got in as well, and Sora and Adrianne followed her inside too.

"Watashitachi o Kyōto ni tsureteitte kudasai" ("Take us to Kyoto") Viktoriya pulled out a handful of yen and gave them to the driver.

The driver nodded in acknowledgement and accepted the currencies.

He then immediately started driving them towards the set location.

The air inside the taxi was indeed very stuffy, as nobody was talking at all.

Sora sighed and gazed out the window at the various buildings passing by outside, her eyes suddenly grew full of wonder and curiosity as she admired every little detail.

She had never seen the outside world before, at least not in this conscious state, and she felt enchanted by it all.

The sun still set high up in the sky, and its rays radiated the colourful signs on every building.

People were casually crossing and greeting each other as well, and the clear atmosphere made everything seem even more fascinating..to her.

As the ride continued, the scenery slowly changed as well.

Sora saw the city gradually shifting into a more traditional area.

She didn't mind the change, and she enjoyed observing the scenery as she saw the sun slowly setting.

Sora noticed the cherry blossoms all around, and a mountain was even visible further ahead.

The sky looked to be a mix of light pink and gray, which was a different view than she had seen before.

Everything felt right to her.

'If it was THIS good now, I wonder how it all looks like upclose..' Sora thought.

She felt at peace with the scenery and the environment, as it all felt so tranquil and welcoming.

"Koko ni ita." ("We're here.") The taxi driver informed them, and Sora snapped out of her trance, brought back to reality.

She sighed at having been yanked out of the peaceful vibe she had managed to achieve in her mind, but she simply accepted it.

All three of them gathered up their luggage, and the taxi left as soon as they did.

Viktoriya turned herself around and started to walk down the route.

The taxi driver dropped them off at a remote path near the woods.

The path had dim lanterns on the side to guide people to the village square.

Sora liked the texture of the road made out of smooth stone, and she observed as the sun began to disappear and the moon shone in the night sky.

She didn't realize that it had already taken a full day for them to arrive here, and she presumed that they would officially begin their mission by tomorrow..or by tonight, depends on what Viktoriya has planned.

As the moments passed, they eventually reached the village square.

Sora couldn't believe how busy and lively the area was.

The lights everywhere grabbed her attention as she observed people wearing traditional kimonos, lanterns and masks being made in nearby stalls, and she was completely captivated by the sight.

Her eager curiosity led her to get a bit closer to observe the various goods, but she was stopped as Viktoriya gripped her by her back collar, "Okay, you don't wanna get lost here, do you?" Viktoriya almost whispered to her as Sora was reminded by the mission.

Right, she's in an agency, somehow.

Sora pouted at being stopped as she crossed her arms, slightly annoyed being denied the chance to check out the different stalls and goods she was interested in.

Still, she continued to follow Viktoriya's orders, though, and she slowly followed her as they made their way towards the receptionist.

The receptionist was waiting by the window of the minka they were walking towards, and Viktoriya started to approach them in a rather calm manner.

"3-Ri heya o onegaishimasu" ("Room for 3, please") Viktoriya spoke up once they made it to the receptionist at the minka, and the lady receptionist smiled fondly of their presence.

She got out of her booth and stood in front of the three of them, "Kochiradesu" ("Right this way") She turned her heel around, gesturing them to follow her as they did.

Sora looked around with admiration as she witnessed the traditional look of the building, with its wooden floors, sliding doors, and wood pillars.

The view of the night sky seemed peaceful and serene, and she could see a crescent moon against the dark sky.

She was impressed with how calm the whole atmosphere seemed to be, and she couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of the place.

When they stopped in front of their room, with a view of the garden in front of them, Sora realized that the building must be surrounded by the garden except for the front.

"Koko ni imasu" ("Here's your room") The lady receptionist slid open the door to their room, revealing a spacious interior suitable for the three of them.

Sora saw three futons already set out for them, and she noticed the traditional decor and furniture that dominated the room.

She was impressed by how authentic everything seemed to be, and she couldn't help but think how different this was from anything she had ever experienced before.

"Arigato" ("Thank you") Viktoriya said to the receptionist as she bowed her head slightly and left them alone.

"Alright, let's go get changed, we'll start tomorrow, but for now let's rest" Viktoriya grabbed a stack of clothing out of the suitcase and set it down in the room.

Once she did so, she proceeded to walk towards the attached door to get changed there.

"Alright! We'll just change here" As Sora saw that Adrianne also began changing into her jinbei, she swiftly made her way towards the suitcase that Viktoriya had provided her with.

She opened the suitcase, somehow, she'd have to ask Viktoriya about that later on, and was surprised to find a complete outfit inside that was tailored to her size and proportions.

She knows Iris prepared this, but how did she get her siz-

Nevermind.

Sora carefully took the outfit out of the suitcase and clutched it in her arms.

She slowly made her way towards the other side of the room, away from Adrianne, as she proceeded to change her clothes.

She found it difficult to stretch due to her bullet wound, but she stubbornly pushed through the pain and continued to try to change her clothes anyway.

"Ya need help with that?" Adrianne queried, Sora turned around to see Adrianne having already changed into her outfit, a green jinbei with some floral designs on it.

Sora forced a smile, "No, thank you" She said in a sweet tone, trying to mask her bitterness.

Sora quickly made an attempt to remove her top just to prove a point to Adrianne, but as soon as Adrianne saw this, she simply shrugged and walked out of the room without a second thought.

Once the door was closed again, Sora slowed down her movements and winced as the pain from her bullet wound kicked in once again.

She slightly regretted her actions, but soon Sora eventually managed to successfully remove her top, revealing a purple jinbei with light stripes it underneath it.

She started by putting on the top first before continuing with the bottom.

After successfully completing the whole process, Sora looked at herself, and she couldn't help but admit that it looked quite..cute.

Iris certainly had great taste in clothes,  Sora won't deny that.

It was a cute outfit, yes, but Sora's mind began wandering back to the lights outside as soon as she remembered how beautiful and appealing they were.

She badly wanted to try out everything and explore the place to her heart's content, but Viktoriya was always there to stop her...

Speaking of, It's been a while since Viktoriya was in that other room..

Sora wasn't too worried about Viktoriya staying there for so long, but it did seem somewhat..suspicious.

But perhaps she could take advantage of the situation and slip out for a while to take a peak at the outside.

She was curious to see what she might find, and she couldn't help but feel thrilled and elated at the idea of exploring.

Besides Adrianne went outside too so she couldn't see a reason why she can't aswell.

Sora decided to make a move, and she slowly approached the door, trying her best to act as quietly as possible.

Sora thought about her decision one more time as she reached out to open the door.

While she understood that this didn't seem right, she also felt like it felt right for her to go ahead and explore the outside a bit.

Sora was tempted to venture beyond the safety of the building so she could discover everything she wanted to see and experience.

She was aware that this would lead Viktoriya to be worried for her safety and come looking for her, but the temptation was too strong for her to resist.

'NO! I can't leave her, I can't leave anyone alone, I should atleast wait until Adrianne is back..' Sora was in great conflict between her thoughts and feelings as she held back and closed the door once more.

As soon as she did, Viktoriya managed to come out of the other room, right on time.

Viktoriya wore a plain dark blue jinbei that looked quite comfortable and suited her quite well.

Sora immediately froze upon seeing her, and she tried her best to avoid any eye contact, fearing that Viktorida would notice she had attempted to slip out of the room, "So, uh, what took you so long?" Sora asked, hoping Viktoriya focused on this conversation instead of what she was doing.

"Oh! I just had to work on something..business you know" Viktoriya responded, slightly taken back by the question "Wait, Where's Adrianne?" Viktoriya suddenly noticed the other agent's absence in the room.

Sora was still trying to recover from attempting to secretly slip out when someone else slid open the door.

To her surprise, she saw Adrianne, who was carrying a folding table below a plate of dishes in her hands, and that she was accompanied by two young women holding folding tables of their own, "Hi guys! Look, I got us food!" Adrianne cheerfully informed them as she settled down the folding tables in the ground, with the other two young ladies.

"Wha– How did you even ask them?" Viktoriya was obviously skeptical, and her gaze remained sharply focused on Adrianne.

Viktoriya was about to press Adrianne with more questions, but she was swiftly silenced by Adrianne's shushing.

Sora watched as Adrianne proceeded to push Viktorida down to make her sit in front of the table.

The two young women then exited the room and closed the sliding door behind them, leaving the three of them alone.

Sora sat down in front of the table, ready to finally have a tasty meal.

The meal consisted of a bowl of white rice, a plate of two tempuras, a bowl of Miso Soup, and a cup of green tea.

It all looked extremely appealing, especially the tempura.

She looked at her side and observed Viktoriya on how she uses the chopsticks.

Sora attempted to use the chopsticks, but she struggled with picking up the smaller pieces, so she resorted to grabbing the bigger pieces and scooping the rice by making them stick to eacg oher, into her mouth.

Once she managed to do so, she sighed and decided to just use this technique for the rest of her meal.

After their peaceful meal, the three of them swiftly went to bed, seemingly quite exhausted from the day.

Sora was also starting to feel that this was more of a vacation than a mission, but she decided to trust Viktoriya's pacing as she definitely knew better in this regard.

She decided to just go along with whatever she had planned, and she closed her eyes, hoping for a restful sleep.

Sora laid down on her futon, as tired as she was, but she simply couldn't sleep.

She tossed and turned, unable to stop wondering about the sights outside the building.

The delicious meal she had just enjoyed only contributed to her desire to explore further, and she couldn't let go of her wonders.

Adrianne slept soundly on the other side of the room, while Viktoriya laid facing her back on her side.

After lying awake in bed for a while, Sora finally decided to get up.

She took a look at her sleeping fellow agents and then towards the door.

Putting those things together, she proceeded to stand up and look back at her fellow agents, with a skeptical look on her face.

'It's going to be alright, right..? Since I'm technically not leaving them since they're not alone, they have each other..' Sora looked back at the door again, gathering up her thoughts 'Ah, fuck it, if I don't do this now, I probably won't later on..'

Sora finalized her thoughts over as she quietly approached the door, gently sliding it open and before she could leave she looked back at them, 'Still, I should be back quickly..just incase'

Sora made a move, closing the sliding door behind her.

She proceeded to silently run down the path, attempting to find the way back to the entrance.

Seeing the path that they walked that brought her here, Sora knew that her only way back was to keep following that exact path.

She was filled with excitement but also caution, as she was determined to see everything outside.

However, she tried not to let her excitement get the best of her and kept a steady pace as she marched forward down the path.

She was about to make a turn until,

"Kikoeta no.."? ("Did you hear..?")

Sora stopped in her tracks as she heard a woman's voice.

She quickly crouched down against the wall and tried to hide her body from their sight.

'Ofcourse there's still people awake at this moment! I mean who else will guard this place, tch, Japanese people..' Sora mentally rolled her eyes 'Wait I'm a Japanese perso–'

"Kore mo aoi kara kiita itsuwari no hanashinara chikaimas–" ("I swear if this is another fake story you heard from Aoi—") Another woman spoke.

"Nani? ! Īe! Sōda ne, demo konkai wa hontōda yo, o bāchan mo mita nda yo!" ("What?! NO! Well yes but this time it's true, even grandmother saw it!")

"Mā, hontōni? Sorehanandesuka?" ("Oh..really? What is it?")

"Shinden. Sono gādian ga kaettekita" ("The Shrine..Its Guardian is back")

_____________________________________________

Back in the agency, Iris sat down at her desk and began to bury herself in paperwork.

She scribbled down everything like she was running out of time and had to finish up the work as quickly as possible.

Her eyes moved back and forth rapidly as she made sure not to miss any details in writing.

Every movement was swift and efficient, like she was a machine operating at maximum efficiency.

Suddenly her office door opened and a figure holding a tray entered the room, walking to her table.

Iris noticed this but she doesn't even bother to look up, "Thanks Azzura, just leave it on my table please"

"Oh wow, okay, so I'm Azzurra now, huh?" Iris looked up when she realized that the figure carrying the tray was actually Amara.

Amara chuckled at Iris's reaction, probably finding it amusing that she was so focused on her work that she didn't notice her presence until now, "And where do I even put this with all the paperwork on your table?" Amara pointed out as she began trying to clear up her table for Iris's food.

Iris quickly stood up from her desk when she realized that it was Amara that had entered her office.

She grabbed a piece of bread from the tray that Amara was carrying and looked towards her.

Iris wanted to ask something, but she wanted to wait until the bread was in her mouth before she started talking "But I sent Azzurra here, didn't I? Why are you here instead?" Iris finally spoke with a full mouth, her tone friendly and lighthearted.

"I was just in the kitchen anyways and might aswell say hi since you didn't talk to me all day!" Amara jokingly nagged Iris as she put her hands on her hips, pouting in a playful manner.

Iris chuckled at her act, finding it quite humorous, "Okay but really why are you here?"

The mood in the room suddenly shifted to a more serious one, as Amara crossed her arms and looked at Iris with a disappointed expression on her face.

Iris had a feeling that she knew what the reason was, but she hoped what she was thinking wasn't the same thing as Amara's.

"You sent Sora to the mission, didn't you?" Amara asked.

"Well yes, duh, we needed someone new so they won't suspect it coming besides, so we can get her to get used to this" Iris shrugged as she placed the bread back down on the plate and brushed her palms together.

"We both know that's not the only reason.." Amara added as Iris slightly looked away when she said this, knowing that she was right.

She knew whatever she told Sora isn't the whole story.

She knew it was wrong to lie and mask the truth from her

But,

She also knows Sora can't handle the truth yet if she ever heard 'that' reason.

"Yeah.."

[ae-azile]

For the ask fic game: 1, 11, and 14 for your Dancing Hedgehog series? Please and thank you!

1. What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Giant Dancing Hedgehogs are Nightmare Fuel started as a one-shot and has grown into a multi-fic series that is several hundred thousand words and has both prequels and sequels. So it was far what I expected to write, but I guess - once I decided to go back to the one-shot and continue it - I decided to approach it to explore some of my favorite genres: angst, romance, hurt/comfort, and absolute crack/comedy. All at once. I did this because I feel like KP is the perfect fandom to explore these genres with. The series is filled with dramatic romance, angst, trauma, and wildly comedic moments. I just took the last two up a notch and added a magical weighted blanket, but gave myself wiggle room to write a more serious and angsty ArmKhun centric prequel (which still has comedy, but it's a bit more grounded), and a very serious VegasPete centric prequel. The sequel focuses on making things more fantastical and plot heavy with dream sharing, hidden sisters, Tawan's angelic doppelganger brother, forced memory loss, and captive mothers that need to be tracked down and saved. So I feel like the inspiration from the series developed gradually because I left the genres broad enough to be as angsty and silly as I wanted.

11. What do you like the best about this fic?

There are different things I like about each one so I will list them. This answer is long, so I am putting a cut.

Giant Dancing Hedgehogs are Nightmare Fuel

This is the fic that kicked the series off. From a completely biased perspective, the thing I like best about it when I read it is how it reunites the cousins and lets them hold themselves accountable for their actions in ways that don't bring them complete shame. They have chosen a path towards healing their wounds, understanding the perspectives of others, and trying to find clarity after being manipulated/abused by their fathers for so long. So I like that this does that and still finds ways to be silly, because laughter is a great medicine. The boys need to laugh.

As a writer? I am impressed and annoyed by how much it evolved as I was writing it. I did not plan out shit, no matter how it looks, and I love and hate that the backstories and offhanded remarks I would write that would fully flesh it out found ways to spiral into full plots or stories in my head that had to be further explored. Like, there was going to be no magical blanket. That wasn't thought of until Vegas wakes up holding it, saying it's an entity or haunted. The mothers weren't going to be alive. Gun and Pete's dad weren't going to have some past affair as a skeleton in both of their closets. Idk, I just made stuff up and wrote it down whenever I thought it was funny.

5, 3, 1, and On

Out of all of my fics, this might be the one I am most proud of. It feels the most mature to me without losing a comedic element or ignoring the gravity of Arm's and Tankhun's past traumas. Also, Tankhun is probably my absolute favorite character. I want all fics to be about him. I think I may be one of the only people to post a novel length and complete fic where Tankhun is part of the main pairing (if I am wrong, send those long fics my way!)

As for Arm, his tragic backstory was interesting to develop and also flexible, because we know very little about Arm. We know he is incredibly capable and should be the head guard now that Chan is gone, but he is also a part of the mafia. I feel like people who accept that kind of job have a story behind why. So making Arm kill a dozen pedophiles singlehandedly and expose his Dean for embezzlement seemed like it might be a way that touches upon just how capable he is. He is sent on missions, he hacks into other networks and systems, and is so good with Tankhun. And that's just from the little we do see. Expanding on that with an off take was fun.

The Weighted Blanket Ad No One Expected (But Everyone Deserves)

This one is a bit easier to answer: I love the girl power. I love that I was able to make Namphueng a more complex character, brought in four significant female OCs in the form of Vegas's mother - Milan, Vegas's grandmother - Fern, the major family mother - Dao, and the secret, long lost sister who is a teenage bodyguard, a baddie, and a dancing fiend - Aree. I really enjoyed developing all of them, especially Aree since creating her showed Porsche and Chay just how much they were robbed of and what Aree was robbed of.

I also love Benz. The readers also seem to love Benz, and I love this because when he was first introduced (prior to him saying a word) everyone wanted him dead due to looking just like his biological brother (who he never met). After a couple of scenes, everyone who mentioned him in their comments were ready to kill for him. I also liked including him because Vegas's and Kim's autism (in the fic) is able to go by without being easily detected if you don't know them. I have written Vegas as someone who has learned to mask over the years - especially after his mother died - and Kim as someone more introverted, which makes it so his symptoms might be dismissed as just that. With Benz, it's much more noticable. He stims in public, struggles with speech off and on, is extremely picky with food, likely has an auditory processing disorder paired with sensory issues, and hyperfixates on his special interest intensely. His symptoms have also likely become more profound due to the consistent emotional and physical abuse inflicted on him by his mother, not being diagnosed and supported, and not having other family members to fall back on until Kim welcomes him in and makes it a goal to protect him, with Aree following that goal after witnessing just how awful Tak (his mother and Korn's fiancee) is to him. So writing him as a multi-faceted character that readers empathized with is a pride moment.

Also, I like my two semi-original couples in it: Macau/Aree and Namphueng/Milan. This BL world NEEDS a token straight couple and lesbian couple! 😂 While Namphueng and Milan are rekindling their old teenage romance secretly at the moment, I have been developing Macau and Aree since chapter 7, I think? I loved making Macau confirm that he is straight, loved having Vegas empathize with Aree's past and situation rather than deem them as reasons Macau should reconsider his feelings for her, and just like what they have brought out in each other. I also like inverting expectations by making Macau the soft and inexperienced one and making Aree the more blunt, forward, and physically capable one (not that Macau isn't. He likely grew up training to defend himself and others. But Aree is fucking FIERCE).

So yeah, I really loved creating the OCs/semi-OCs, along with writing them in pairings that seemed to still stay engaging to readers somehow. I also loved incorporating sign language as a way to give Namphueng access to communication. I loved it so much that I have used it in multiple fics, just like I love Aree and made her a character in Lay Me Down to Sleep with a similar background but facing very different circumstances. ♥️

Before We Forget

This one is only 6 chapters so far and I update it sporadically, but I love exploring Vegas as a teen. This is before his first kill and shows how his first relationship with Pete developed. This is a Vegas who knows he has to be guarded, but he's too honest and desperate for someone to just see him and take an interest in him. He's sensitive and is not good at covering sadness. It's an emotion he feels a lot of due to the hot and cold treatment he receives from his father, being parentified (despite loving his brother very much), missing his "dead" mother desperately, being disconnected from his cousins since his mother and aunt died and resenting them, being pumped out for deals, and falling in love with the new major family bodyguard close to his age. The thing is - and maybe because it's from Vegas's POV - but I feel like he wears his heart on his sleeve more than Pete does. Pete puts on such a convincing happy demeanor that Vegas has yet to catch on that Pete's history is not a good one. Pete, however, catches onto Vegas struggling. I think he has barely scraped the surface, but he can see Vegas needs a friend who will provide some comfort. But that's hard to do in a secret, teenage romance. So yeah, I think writing Vegas as someone facing so much but still so hopeful for love and change is what I like the most. ♥️

14. Is there anything you want readers to learn from this fic?

I guess considering the series is all over the place in terms of genre, I suppose I want readers to find the joy in cross-genre fics, since life is full of happy, funny, romantic, sad, funny, and enraging moments. If they are thinking of writing, don't be afraid to write something weird, put your characters in absurd situations, or give them specific characteristics or quirks that aren't normally found in media. Absurdity can bring on beauty and broaden your writing skills, since it's fun to implement those absurd or over-the-top moments in a way that aligns themselves with the story's tone.

Thank you for the ask @fawndlyvenus! ♥️

[popculturebuffet]

Into The Spider-Verse: Spider-Man, Miles Morales (Ultimate Fallout #4, Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1-5)

Hello all you happy wallcrawlers! It's time to once again swing into the Spider-Verse as we cover the various people who've worn the mask across the merry marvel multiverse, all building to a look at Into The Spider-Verse in time for it's sequel.

So naturally after looking at the humble origins of the first spidey as he battled with loneliness, fame, dead uncles and of course Crackers and Milk, it's only fair we look at the actual protaganist of the film, the ultimate spider-man, the one the only Miles Morales!

To properly get into Miles and his origins in the comics though we have to talk about the world he was created for: The Ultimate Universe. The Ultimate Universe was the idea of then editor Bill Jemas, who felt Marvel's massive continuity could be daunting to the new readers the company badly needed after the comics crash and marvel's subsquent bankruptcy.

So he tapped writer Brian Micheal Bendis. Starting with Spidey.. honestly makes perfect sense to me, as while a major part of the marvel universe, his corner is diverse and unique enough to carry itself and to see if this could work, something EIC Joe Quesada had doubts about, doubts he somehow didn't have later for the character when he decided "Huh you know I don't like his marriage because my ship didn't win, maybe I should just have satan break it up eh?", born of a previous attempt, not helped by Bendis famous love of using decompressed storytelling, i.e. spreading a story out over several issues instead of packing it into one or two barring big sagas.

Despite these doubts from Quesada and from Artist Mark Bagely.. the book was a MASSIVE hit. It likely helped Ultimate's stripped down back to basics peter was a RELIEF after the complex shenanignas of the clone saga nad after. It was just what people loved: a down on his luck kid dealing with usual life struggles while also having to fight crime on top of that. It had a bunch of nice updates too that would become a staple of adaptations from here on out: Harry Osborn being a close friend from the start, MJ being a high school friend of peters, and Aunt May being a cool old lady instead of on the precipice of death, something that would carry over. This success helped revitalize the main spider-man with JMS' fantastic run.. that granted petered out into Sins Past and One MOre Day, but both are stories for another day.

Ultimate Spider-Man was such a hit the universe naturally expanded.. and that became a problem. See Bendis' ultimate spider-man really nailed the idea of the ultimate universe, a clean slate allowing the writers to really play around with things, while not threatning the main universe. Death was permenant, the stakes were high and it allowed new fans a godo start. Sure it buitl up it's own complex story, but with graphic novels plentefiul, it was easy to keep up. I read a good chunk of it in my teens and loved it and it seems to mostly still hold up.

The problem is out of the three spinoffs only one really got what you could do with the concept, Ultimate Fantastic Four, which simply made the team all teens connected to a fancy think tank while keeping the tight knit "family of choice" dynamic and adventure, simply in a more grounded context.

The other two were by mark millar

I'm not a fan of his, and these books are a large reason why. Ultimate X-Men is a mixed bag, having good ideas, such as a teenage storm and nightcrawler ala evolution along with a gay colossus, and the more military costumes ala new x-men, and is a book i'd love to review sometime now i'm more deeply entreinched in x-men, especially since I read that as a teen too, on the wohle it's got a LOT of edgelord in it's dna, with Jean sleeping with a 40 something year old wolverine, Wolverine trying to murder cyclops to get to jean, and Magneto being simply a racist dickhead. It has great parts and Brian K Vaughn's run after Millar's is even better, but it's just a bit too edgy for it's own good.

Ultimates however…

Ultimates is fucking awful. The designs and art are top notch, Thor , Cap , Hawkeye and Nick Fury all got their MCU designs here, but the actual story is a bunch of edgelord bullshit. IT's clear Millar at least had SOME respect for the x-men, but he hated the avengers and it shows: Tony is constantly drunk, Thor is a new agey asshole, Hawkeye and Black Widow are black ops murderers, and grossly the scarlet witch and quicksilver are mostly defiend by being a couple.

He also pissed me off personally as a fan of the ant family by making Jan an airhead, and making Hank's abuse and inferiority complex his entire character instead of the worst moment of life and his greatest flaw respectively, and had him ATTEMPT TO MURDER JAN. As you can probably guess i'll also have to tackle this at some point, and I wouldn't be suprised if one of my patrons inflicted this on me at some point via comission. Oh and of course we have Captain America, whose a racist sexist jingoistc asshole because Millar REALLY hates the character and considered the idealistic depecition of him being a progressive "unrelaistic. " It's bad and we'll get to it.

This edgelord apporach to these books worked at first as early 2000's audeinces ate that shit up, but eventually it reached it's apex, ironically after Millar had left. He was replaced by Jeph LOeb, who I don't care for as much these days but HAS made good stories. His ultimate work.. seems to be truly awful, with the confusing mess that was ultimates 3 and the utter nightmare that was ultimatium.

Ultimatium was a crossover event.. that started the universes march to death. Granted it took a while for it to kick in, but this crossover wrecked it so throughly it never really recovered> It was an edgelord mess where magneto killed most of new york, blob ATE the wasp on panel, and dozens upon dozens of characters died, with the x-men and ff utterly decimated and scattered as a result.

It killed Charles Xavier and Magneto which COULD'VE been intresting.. but in practice it just lead to more mediocre stories, a status quo no one liked, and exttra super duper mutant prejudice that was somehow legally legislated.

So why hash all of this out. It's simple, while the Ultimate Universe was in it's slow years long death spiral that would cumilate in the universe being wiped out in secret wars, though it may be making a comeback with Ultimate Invasion, there was one part of it that caught massive attention, did great sales and was critically loved. Just as he was the one to jumpstart the universe, Spider-Man was likely what kept it alive as long as it did, only the costume, and the person inside it both changed.

Miles came from editor axel alonso floating around the idea of a black spider-man in the ultimate universe shortly after Barack Obama won presdiency, though they decided not to introduce him post ultimatium as planned to give them time to work out the story for this. Bendis was further inspired by Donald Glover showing up in spider-man pajamas during the first episode of season 2 of community, a nod to Glover trying out for Amazing Spider-Man and somehow not getting the part. Glover would continue to be an influence on the character, and got to voice him in Ultimate Spider-Man and play his uncle aaron in Spider-Man Homecoming. Artist Sarah Pichelli designed his now iconic costume, smartly giving him the awesome looking black and red look, with the two color sbecome a staple of any version of miles costume while also serving as a nice nod to spider-man's orignal colors.

So now we have the behind the scenes stuff out of the way how did a 13 year old, yes really, from Brooklyn become the Ultimate Spider-Man? What happened to the previous one? And will anyone actually accept miles in the role? All valid questions, so swing with me under the cut as here comes a spider-man.

So naturally for Miles to take over… Peter Parker had to go. In this universe he was still a teen as like most comics despite a decade and change worth of continuity at this point, time moved slowly. But his life was going pretty well: he finally got back with Mary Jane Watson after a long time hinting towards it, Gwen Stacey, his friend and live in roomate, long story, forgave him, and after ultimatium new york loved the hell out of him.

So naturally this being spider-man, this coudlnt' last and soon his precious little life.. came to a tragic and epic end. This Peter was the character who really made Bendis' career, for better and for worse, so if he was going to die, Bendis was going to have him go down epically.

Like in our universe Peter's worst foe was the Green Goblin, only here he was more of a monster man and less a creepy guy in a suit, but no less psychotic or obessive, having attempted to kill MJ, actually killed his own son and peter's best friend, and in general been the worst. So wanting to kill peter once and for all, on his sixteenth birthday he broke out of jail, took the sinister six with him, and went on a rampage, heading straight for peter's loved ones. Peter went to intercept but had to stop the punisher from shooting captain america as a war between Frank's avengers and Captain America's ultimates, which was a thing that happened but I don't care enough to find out why. I have limits.

So while nursing a bullet wound, peter stared down his foes, with aunt may assiting by fucking shooting electro, putting him in a coma and as a result casuing his powers to go hawywire and narrow the fight down to just peter and Gobby. Sadly while Peter won… an explosion and his wounds from botht he fight and the bullet meant he didn't survivie it, but he got to go down defeating his greatest foe, saving those he loved like he coudln't save ben and in the arms of the girl he loved most.

So as a result the ultimate world was left a world without spider-man, and the ultimates themselves shook, paticuarlly cap who, as is his nature, was a massive dick to peter right before peter took a bullet for him. But it wouldn't be too long…

Miles was first intorduced at the tailend of ultimate fallout, a mini dealing with the fall out of this and setting up the three comics for the ultimate comics relaunch: ultimates by jonathan fucking hickman, which would end up vitally important ot his future works, x-men by nick spender and later sexual harassment brian wood and this very comic.

Miles part of it is very brief but well done: post peters death he shows up in the costume, battles d-list villian in any univers kangaroo, and admits the costume probbaly is in poor taste while taking it off to reveal a fairly young kid. and that spider-man is black. Which naturally isn't the shocker it should be after years of the character being rightfully promoted to hell and back.. nor was it then as it got revealed in the press ahead of time and was a big deal and put a LOT of expectation on the book.T here was also of course stupid racist idiot backlash about WEH THEY MADE SPIDER-MAN BLACK and your standard "people dont' get there's multiple versoins of this caharacter' misreporting, but it's best to plug your ear. My faviorite part of this coverage is that when I was binging it a while back, the comic strip baldo naturally comented on there being a prominent latino spider-man (again but we'll forgive cantu and costelanos for not knowing 2099 existed)

Tia Carmen being judgemental aside, it showed just how big a deal it was and thankfully the book was high quality enough to match thehype. So now we finally come to ultimate comics spider-man itself.

We open issue 1 with Norman Osborn citing the myth of arachne a while ago, back when he was a respectiable industrialist. This is how ULtimate Spider-Man #1 started though it almost feels like Bendis parodying himself as this time the guy listneing to osborn is bored and then thrown off when Norman threatens to kil lhim if he tells anyone this is how spider-man got his powers. Classic norman.

Anyways they do manage to make a new spider using peter's blood, as in this universe the oz serum was used on the spider, and then on norman himself instead of radioactivity and such. One of the spiders gets loose though with no one noticin

We cut to.. some time later as the Prowler, a masked thief in purple, breaks into Ozcorp.

Yeah it took a bit of googling to answer all of this, as I was confused both by Ozcorp still being around even after it's CEO publicly turned into a monster man and killed a bunch of his own employees, and by the spider somehow being ALIVE.

The former..was shockingly easy. It's nightmarishly hard, nay impossible to peg most comic universes into hard and fast years, with character ages being "whatever we need" and holidays being thrown around, not to mention countless time skips for story reasons to start off a run (Both Spider-Man and Fantastic Four just did this for their latest volumes). At this point i've just given up and say "it takes place because shut up" Granted I still peg peter parker as over 30 as anyone should, same with the original x-men and co, but that's not really the takeaway. So while a lot of stories have happened probably not a lot of time has passed.

Adding to that spiders live up to two years average according to a quick google and can live up to 20 in captivity… and of course this is a genetically altereted super spider, so in hindsgith I have to ask myself why that was one of my questoins to begin with.

Finally as for Ozcorp it's SOMEHOW still running. I mean a ceo's bad behavior not tankin ga company isn't unheard of: Papa Johns fired their racist as hell ceo and are doing just fine, and Tesla somehow manages to function despite it's ceo being Elon Musk. Really the questions I have say mroe about me than they do abotu the actual writing of htis comic.

Point is Prowler steals some neat stuff and accidently takes the spider with him. As for who he is.. well under the mask we'll naturally meet. As for overal the Prowler is new to this universe but is an old foe turned friend of spidey's in the main universe. Inventor Hobie Brown created a super villian persona in order to commit a crime, then return the money as himself to get funding. He fought spider-man about once, but the two became friends and Hobie wore the costume on and off. Prowler is also specail to mne as I had a guide to spider-man as a kid and the costume, backstory and intresting status as a former villian when most of spidey's foes really .. dont' stay reformed for long, comic books and all, have made him a faviorite of mine, and I ended up loving this version even more.

We then cut to our hero, Miles Morales, a kid about to enter middle school… and having to rely on pure chance to get into a good one. Miles is going with his parents, Jefferson and Rio to a charter school raffle something I still can't honestly belivie is a thing. A charter school is a fancy, private style school outside of the regular school system, that will have raffle for those in poorer areas and thus a child's future can literally be determined by a plastic ball. America everybody!

I love the choice by bendis to do this: Peter got to go to a pretty nice school simply by luck and where his grandma was, if a public one. For Miles to have a better chance.. he has to simply rely on luck and HOPE he gets it, and even fi he does.. it's at the expense of other kids who didn't quite make it.

You'll also have likely noticed the "Enter middle school part", especially if your more familiar with into the spider-verse, where he's 17 (even older than his 616 self), or most adaptations where he's a year or two older , usually to match peter. Yeah Bendis decided to further crank things up by making Miles way younger, forcing a child into this. I'm entirely used to this as most cartoons use 13 as the default age for their heroes, but it , like the ultimate universe did at it's best, uses htis realistically: this is a child thrown into this. Peter was only slightly older.. and the comic pulled zero punches showing how much this fucked with him. And now we'r ethrowing a younger chlid into an ultimate universe.. that's frankly only gotten worse; at this same time the goverments being torn down, more on that if I ever do any of the followup arcs, mutants are hunted and thrown into camps that are somehow legal, and new york just got flooded b y magneto 6 months ago. And i'ts only going to get somehow WORSE from there. A child is going to have to face all this.. and starts having to just wait for pure luck to get school.

While fate isn't on Miles side in inevetibly throwing him up against super villians, a collapsing us goverment and the end of the fucking world, TWICE, it is in getting into the Brooklyn Visions Academy. What I like is that artist Sarah Pichelli takes time to focus on two kids who DIDN'T get in and miles face after. It's simple but i'ts the clear guilt of a child who simply feels bad his getting a nice school means other kids didn't. HIs parents try to ease his guilt, but he ends up instead going later that day to visit his uncle Aaron. Uncle aaron.. both has solid advice.. and looks like this

Yup for whatever reason they decided to base Aaron on Snoop Dogg, and I for one loved his duet with kirby so i'm entirely for this

So i'm fully on board with this. Naturally Aaron is the prowler, and while he swipes whatever he stole from a curious miles, the spider bites his nephew, causing him to pass out. Naturally Aaron calls his brother.. who then accuses him of drugging his own nephew, yells at him, and is generally a dick, especially since while he told him to "stay away from my family".. MIles came here of his own free will and is ONLY here because Jefferson didn't tell Miles WHY he dosen't like his brother anymore. This naturally causes the small child to flee…., and to find out something new about himself.

Next issue Miles discovers he can also jump good and zap people, doing so when some idiots try to rob him.. but we also get a sense of WHY unlike both Peters, who were naturally excited to have dope new powers, Miles.. is fucking terrified. He thinks he's a mutant, and while we know he isn't, I was NOT joking about the camps thing. Since Magneto destroyed new yorks mutants are turbo hated and feared and if you've watched or read ANYTHING x-men related, you know the regular hated and feared is bad enough.

Miles goes to one of the best parts of this book and his best friend Ganke, a loveable chubby lego loving lad. It's a funny sequence at first as miles tries to do the invsiblity thing but instead looks like he's about to take a dump (Ganke's words) and then displays his other power by destroying.. something Ganke had been hard at work on with Ganke begging him not to try it again on something that took him three weeks.

Ganke thinks the powers are dope.. and is the rational one here, realizing that mutant powers wouldn't manifest overnight, and that he got bit by a spider with the bite suddenly disappering. They don't have time to figure things out as Jefferson tries to prove to his son he's a calm reatoinsal indivdual.. by barking at him to come with him and then asking him this

While Jefferson.. has good reasons… what I like about this is while he is sympathetic, something bad could've happened to miles.. and nearly DID had he not found out he has spider powers.. Jefferson is also an asshole, often far too stern and gruff at this point for his own good. It takes him a minute to get why maybe accusing his brother of hurting him, yelling at his son, then yelling at his son AGAIN and yanking him out of somehwere he feels safe might be rattling, and as we'll learn right after this.. Jefferson is a racist towards mutants, blaming them for things. What makes it work though is that he's complicated… his reason for being so hard on aaron.. is that both of them used to be criminals, which gives nice weight ot what Aaron said earlier: NEITHER of them want Miles to end up like them and to have a better life, not having to steal and do worse just to get by. The diffrence is Aaron stayed in the game while Rio convinced Jefferson to turn his life around. Granted his whole understandable speech about "You shoudl feel you can open up to me" gets ruined by his bigoted statments towards the all new all ultimate x-men a second later I hinted at, but it still shows Jefferson is'nt just an asshole or in the case of pre-character development 616 aunt may, an obstacle just so Miles can't easily reveal his identity. Instead Miles has good reason as his dad hates superheroes and may not have a heart attack but as we've seen can be quick to rash decisions. He'd come around eventually but to a 13 year old kid already scared at what he's becoming, this may not be something he wants to risk dealing with.

At any rate the next night Ganke texts miles with a bunch of message board bits that can basically be summed up as "Your a spider-man, spider-man, genetically altered spider-man" and a bit of celing crawling confirms this to Miles horror. Onto issue 3 as Miles naturally goes to Ganke again and I like the continuing contrast, likely mirroring the two types of reader this would hit: Ganke sees the escapism element and the awesome: MIles has fucking spider-man powers and now can be a spider-man. This is so cool! Miles… is the more realistic reaction, not wanting to throw himself in danger. Ganke also easily figures out that the spider was an experiment: miles mentioned numbers, normal spiders dont' have that, case closed. While Ganke is clearly operating off of a 13 year old nerd's perspective, he's not exactly wrong. He's also got a howard the duck shirt, which adds nothing to anything, I just think it's neat.

Ganke also convinces miles to go visit Aaron. Miles is reluctant given well.. everything that just happened yesterday, but Ganke has a point: he's the only one who'd know what the hell is going on and might be able to help them, sketchy or not. Naturally though after brothegeddon, Aaron has bugged out, pun not intended, as he had other buisness to attend to...

So Miles is on his own in figuring this out and finding a way to try his powers out

Cue plot convience as a fire has broken out and Miles charges in there to help… and once again we get a nicely realistic reaction: While Ganke is , like us an observer and sees what miles did as cool.. Miles is still a 13 year old that just charged into a burning buildling so while he did good and saved some people… he also is scared out of his mind, seeing the current spider-man as having action as his reward and loving it , not getting that peter was also scared out of his mind, but hey , that's part of why you wear the mask. He cries and decides not to do it and Ganke reluctantly agrees. It shows not EVERYONE would be super hyped to do this and not everyone has to: at the time there is STILL a spider-man. Ther'es no reason for miles to use these. .yet.

Our heroes get moved in, as naturally Ganke is Miles roomate along with Judge. He's mostly around to make hiding Miles identity difficult. He's alright. He likes legos. At any rate we get a nice montage of Miles having nice classes and being encouraged to read… before a not so nice nightmare of electro killing him…. and this turns out ot be prophetic as news of peter being shot has hit.. and his death is in progress.

Taking a moment between issues , i'd like to take a moment ot discuss how much I love the pacing here. While decompressed storytelling can be bad, there have been event comics that coudl've easily been a few issues shorter and didn't need tie in one shots and shit, this comic shows why when Bendis or others using it are at their best, it works well. We're three issues in and HAVNE'T seen miles really be spider-man yet. We saw it in ultimate fallout, but that was a jump foward and maybe a few pages, pages many readres probaly don't see. Yet everything here is important: it defines who miles his, who his family is, lets us meet hima nd get to know him as a shy, inquisitive, smart young man whose DEEPLY terrified of what he's been thrown into. Some comics would try to jam in flash fowards as him as a hero to get more action in.. but Bendis gets that's not really wha'ts important. It's awesome and the superhero stuff matters, it's why the comics called ultimate comics spider-man and not ultimate comics: miles morales, but who this character is, why he's doing this and why he does things matter> He's a kind, empathetic boy unsure of his place in the world. It's the key to a good superhero comic: you have to care about the hero or heroes at the core as a person, or it just dosen't work. And this.. this works.

So next issue, Miles has Ganke cover for him to go see what's going on and arrives just as Peter smashes norman's head in and collapses, being happy he could save those he loved as htey all sob. Miles saw peter's death and it was likely planned by Bendis he'd been there the whole time, but it's a nicely done retcon, if you can even call it that, as MIles is angeld off camera and the only thing we see from him is asking Gwen who he was.

And the next day… Miles blames himself. In a nice twist of fate… Peter is his uncle ben and his reasons for not having acted are way more undrestandable.. but it's understandable why Miles feels this way: he could've done something, he coudl've helped. Ganke does help again though.. this time not with wide eyed fanboying but again showing that while Miles is emotonally and empathetic and thus blames this on himself, Ganke his logical and thus uses the logic to help miles; He could've helped.. or he could've died too. He did get these powers for a reason.. but it wasn't to pitch in not knowing his powers and to die… but that with Peter gone… Miles can take up the mantle. It dosen't come off as wide eyed as before either but just one friend helping another realize both what he can do with his powers.. and that this death isn't his fault. Peter died a hero.. and while Miles could easily share the same fate he can also do what was right.

Miles isn't convinced though and they go to peter's funeral the next day. We do get a nice moment with Gwen Stacey. In this continuity Gwen was a close friend of peters, being his best friend besides MJ. They dated very breifly in the previous volume.. but it was clear Peter was still hunt up on MJ and only lasted to just before his death, and was never really something fans liked. Still she was close to him, a major supporting character.. and will continue to be here eventually. Not during this arc, she and Aunt Man, her legal guardian and surrgoate mom hence why the romance thing also felt kind of eugh, are going off to france for a bit to mourna nd do some work for tony stark (his mentorship of peter, while breifer and less involved, was taken from this universe), Miles does have a question: Why did he do it? and her answer.. is one of my faviorite moments int he book:

It sums up Spider-Man perfectly: He does it because something that wasn't his fault he still felt responsible for, it's the right thing to do and the mask is both because he wants to protect those close to him.. and because it looks fucking cool. As are you gwen, as are you.

That night Ganke brings Miles something from home: his halloween costume from last year.. the bombastic bag man@!

No of course it's spidey and this leads into the scene we saw earlier, miles first outing where he does beat the kangaroo if barely.. but everyone thinks him doing this is in bad taste. Aftewords Miles is understandably freaked given being told your disrepsecting the dead man your TRYING to honor isn't a great start, and the boys discover they can't lock the room as it isn't policy and the dorm guy's a real dick about it. Like.. did you tell them this at orentation? and if so WHY did you put locks on the rooms? I mean I get it if a shooter comes in or something but why not have electronic locks then. Also why would Miles being seen be an issue just say he was doing some cosplay, most people arne't going to connect the dots. What i'm saying is this scene, while necessary to set up the unique challenges miles has, is very dumb.

MIles decides to try again the next night though, and we get a nice bit of internal monologuin as he enjoys this… right before a bad case of boot to the head

It's obviously spider-sense. This isn't Funky Winkerbean.. but whose boot it is… isn't good for Miles

Okay so while the comic itself dosen't explain it, i'll explain who Spider-Woman is. In the Main Timeline it's.. a lot to unpack: She's a private eye whose dad experimented on her. It's a very long story ill get into more another time, possibly next year when we do this all again for Beyond the Spider-Verse with the spider-men and women from Across. I love her and her solo series which is on my very giant to do list.

This Jessica Drew has the same name.. but is actually a clone of peter complete with memories but as a woman, woh works closely with shield and has joined the ultimates. I don't know much about her, just that she saw peter like a brother for understandable reasons.. and that she's naturlaly very pissed at the small child wearing his costume without realizing it's a small child. So we've come to our final issue for today, and the confrontation.. goes how you'd expect. Jessica demands to know who Miles is… Miles not knowing there was a spider-woman or WHY she's taken this personally refuses, and it's a comedy of errors as she webs him up , he tries to go to the cops and she takes him to the Triskeleion, headquarters of the Ultimates and finds himself in a cell.. and in front of the ultimates, or at least Nick Fury, Jessica, Iron Man and Hawkeye. Cap is missing and that's a good thing. We'll deal with him, much like gwen, if we pick this up again another day.

For now Nick questoins what he actually DID, while Tony finds out he's enhanced to everyon'es shocked.. and Clint rightly points out Jessica could've asked him instead of laying in screaming. While it's understandable why she opened the coversation with boot to the head… it also meant MIles tried to you know run and get the police instead of actually talk to her. Nick Fury shoes everyone out. Nick is a bit more of a bastard here, and given 616 Nick Fury (the older one not the one resembling this nick whose that nick's son because comics everybody) tried to buy out Tony Stark's company to force him to make weapons again and once lead a bunch of heroes on an unsanctioned black ops mission he didn't tell them was unsanoctioned, that's a low bar to clear but manipulating other universers and basically telling Peter "When your 18 your ass belongs to me" before easing up into "Okay we'll just train you and stuff), he clears it.

He's more sympathetic here, clearly having grown a bit and thus is gentle with miles. While he's frustrated with miels just kind of nervously spouting off whatever, the humor in this book is really good and makes me question why Bendis is so awful at it not long after this, he's gentle asking if his parents want to let him know, letting him know he knows aaron was the one who gave him the spider.. and it turns out while Jefferson coudl've handled things better… yeah Aaron is an fbi wanted criminal not just a small time one so.. good call on keeping his son away. Or trying to anyway. Nick understands though: With great power comes great repsonsiblity. He also gets i'ts you know a child.

But naturally things can't go easy as Electro is under sedation..a nd the nurse gave him 10cc's instead ofa 100 meaning he's awake and pissed and starts rampaging through the triskelion, easily taking out iron man and hawkeye since… well Tony's suit runs on energy and Tony gets super cocky when facing electro instead of you know.. .readying a countermeasure, while Hawkeye.. didn't think to go get any arrows or equipment. EARTH'S MIGHTEST HEROES PEOPLE.

Jessica does slightly better but still gets jobbed out and Nick Fury, no matter the universe.. is still nick fucking fury and tries shooting him. It dosne't exactly work.. but ti's clear he's more trying to distract the guy and get his people clear than actually win. Unfortunately their in the chill of the night at the scene of a crime.. and while he may not be in a streak of light.. he's certainly arrived just in time

While obviously Miles isn't really on the skill level to beat electro normally, the combination of Electro thinking h'es peter and having a breakdown over it and a Venom Blast, the electricty thing hinted at earlier, powered punch get him weak enough for Nick Fury to play count the bullets with him. Electro is down and the next day Nick Fury says they'll talk.. and MIles finds out what that means that very conversatoin as jessica shows up with a new costume for him.

It's a nice parting and with that Miles now has his iconic costume, his one shot… and as Ganke puts it as his friend swings off having finally achieved his destiny

As you could probably guess I fucking love this arc and this run on the character in general. But this story well sets up who miles is, what the stakes are him for, stealthy sets up the big bad and miles first real threat for the next arc, and is an expertly crafted story about honroing legacy. While Into the Spider-Verse's story is mostly it's own, a LOT of the dna of who miles is was there at the start. As i've hinted at I do not like Brian Micheal Bendis, his writing took a hit and it was while writing several properties I loved with no regard for how to actually do that and he's only recently thankfully stepped away from the big two. But while he was there I can't deny he created two of the best spider-man runs of all time, one total if you count both spidey tenures together, and one of the best additions to spider-man period. Part of spidey's popularity is anyone could be behind the mask.. but this story made it a glorious reality, creating a spider-man just as compelling as one with a long storied history and tons of adaptations in 5 issues.

Will I return to Miles Story? Will you guys someday see what's up with his uncle, the country disolve, venom cost miles greatly, the rise of a new group of ultimates and so much more? Probably. When I can't say, that's up to either you guys to comission or me to fit into my schedule once this arc is done. But after reading this I was reminded how great this run was and how it deserved to be shared with webslingers all across the spider-verse

Next Time, we tackle our tritagaonist of this film series, as we look into the punkstastic origin of Spider-Woman, aka Spider-Gwen! Oddly not spider-punk, totally diffrent person we'll get to in that sequel I mentioned. Thanks for reading true beliviers.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 023

tfw you’re in Dragon Ball Super Episode 23.

So for the last few episodes, Goku and Vegeta have been training on Beerus’ planet, and then Beerus ordered Whis to send them to some other dimension where they could supposedly improve faster.   But for Whis to do that, he had to send his staff to the other dimension as well.  This backfires on Beerus when he starts eating all the pizza Whis brought back from Earth, and Whis can’t bring him more because he needs his staff to do it.  So Whis has to bring back Goku and Vegeta to get his staff.  This whole thing is just a pointless waste of time.

I think the idea was that the writers on DBS wanted to show Goku and Vegeta training to achieve their Super Saiyan Blue forms, which they revealed in the Resurrection F movie.  In the movie, it was established that they reached that level off-screen, but this anime expands on the story.  So you would think this would give Toei a chance to tell some story about how they reached Super Saiyan Blue.  Except.... there is no story.  None at all. 

Part of the problem is that they probably didn’t want to show them transforming until the fight with Frieza, which is sensible enough.  That’s how the movie played it, after all.  But then we still have these scenes of Goku and Vegeta training with no apparent point.  Beerus just tells them their time in the other dimension did them a lot of good, even if they weren’t in there for very long. 

I guess it was like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, at least in the sense that they were stuck there longer than the amount of time that passed in the outside world.  Anyway, they had to eat all of Beerus’ extra pizza in order to avoid starvation, so yeah. 

So now that they’re back and Whis has his staff, they can finally find out about Frieza’s invasion, and Goku can try to teleport back to Earth.  Only it’s too far away, so Gohan powers up as high as he can go, and this gives Goku something to lock on to.  Wait, was Frieza’s power level not enough?  Everyone’s been talking about how amazingly strong he is, to say nothing of Tagoma’s body, now inhabited by Captain Ginyu.  You’d think there’d be plenty of strong ki powers for Goku to sense. 

Anyway, Frieza tries to finish Gohan off, but then Goku appears in the nick of time and blocks the shot with his crappily-drawn arm.  This episode sucks ass.

I tend to focus on the misshapen faces in this series, but there’s a lot of poorly-drawn fingers and hands.   Parts of this show look like fan art drawn by a talented-but-inexperienced teenager.  Like these should be the before shots next to a much better drawing in a social media post where the artist shows off their skill development over several years. 

Anyway, Vegeta quickly polishes off Captain Ginyu, thus bringing an end to the decades-long running gag of that frog showing up in different scenes.  I’m not sure what happened to Tagoma-in-the-frog’s-body, but it doesn’t really matter, since no one cared enough about Tagoma to care if he keeps the gag alive. 

Also, I’d just like to say that this series keeps using shots like this of characters in the mid-ground, even though the artists seem to really, really suck at drawing figures on this scale.  Like, what is the point of storyboarding for this sort of thing when you know your staff can’t execute it without making it look pathetic?  This isn’t a new problem, either.  This is Episode 23.  By now, everyone at Toei should be fully aware of the limitations of this production.

Anyway, Frieza pisses and moans about his revenge and goes to his fourth form to avoid the mistakes he made during his first encounter with Goku.... Except this is exactly what he got wrong on Namek.  He took forever to use his full power against Goku and the others, and kept giving them chances to put up a fight.  Now, he’s doing it again, because his fourth form is no longer his strongest form.  He’s holding Golden Frieza in reserve, and for no good reason. 

And you know, if that’s how Frieza wants to play it, fine.  But don’t tell me he’s correcting his past mistakes this way, because he’s not. 

If this seems kind of brief, it’s because I skipped over countless reaction shots from other characters, and this annoying thing where the “camera” would rush from one set of characters to another.  Also, Jaco did a lot of whining about wanting to run away, and none of it matters.  This episode bites.

[glassautomaton]

incomprehensible lightlament tagger here so I feel obligated to defend my honor.

I think for me it comes down to 1) a lot of the (especially earlier) senior staff writing kind of sucking objective ass but then having these brief flashes of the most intriguing shit you’ve ever seen in there. mediocre stories with a great deal of potential are like crack to me (at least when it comes to actually making fanwork) bc they get my braingears turning as to how to expand on them (+ of course the handful of fucking brilliant senior stuff tales hidden in the clutter that will fuck you up forever that work precisely bc of the notoriety of the characters theyre about and that, I suspect, were created by people who felt very similarly to me) and 2) I just. rlly like the foundation as a setting and like pretty much every goi-associated character the senior staff all ultimately offer some unique perspective on foundation doctrine; clef is interesting bc of his shitty self-loathing deflection complex motivated by his past on in the goc & the fact he doesnt even work here of his own accord (see: the vanguard side of the no return canon for some pretty cool recent writing on this), light is interesting bc of her determination to hold on to a veneer of morality despite the general fuckedness of everything which, given the prominence of her being in some way entangled with the o5s, can turn her downright hubristic in some tales (see: the new faces splintercanon on the resurrection hub for this). which isnt to say original characters cant be that but having these established fairly iconic characters can be a useful shortcut and with the sheer context of everything that already exists on these guys you can usually end up somewhere very interesting a lot quicker than if you were to build your own characters from the ground up.

I will say though I immensely respect the notion of just straight up not caring about any of the big name characters, I kind of envy you if I’m honest. I think like stroytelling enjoyer motivations aside part of the senior staff’s appeal does also stem from people especially in fandom being more willing to engage with stories that have characters they’re already emotionally attached to in them which, y’know, isn’t a sin, people like what they like, but I do think people miss out on some real bangers hidden on the wiki because of it. I recognize I am part of the problem here, but, yknow, I dont control what the brain attaches itself to.

anyway, cheers! sorry again about the lightlament, i will say that isnt normal youve just accidentally stumbled into a mutuals circle of people who are categorically not normal about dr light. spiders georg etc

I think I get what you’re trying to say here, and again, it’s largely similar to why I wanted to write Resurrection-family articles in the first place. There is a bit of a difference though: I read Resurrection when I was a lot younger, when it first came out. Back then I hadn’t really been as discerning or critical of what I read on the wiki, so I either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the flaws in the story, and I liked it pretty uncritically. Even back then I wanted to write for it, and years later, when I decided to write for the Wiki, I still did. At that point, I noticed a lot more issues with Resurrection on re-read, but I was already attached to the canon. It was really influential to how I viewed the wiki, so in spite of its flaws it’s important to me as an SCP writer. These days, though, I’m probably far too critical to get attached to things in the same way, hence my general apathy towards staff stories (though it might be worth noting that even back then, I found senior staff stories annoying as I outlined in a previous post).

I also understand your second point about the staff representing interesting aspects of the setting. As a writer, though, in a lot of cases I just kind of figure “why bother with all that baggage when I can just write my own character that I’ll enjoy writing more and is better tailored to my needs?” And, again, these characters just seem too ill-defined to get a good bead on. That sort of falls back to the whole “why bother with wrangling all that when I can make my own character.” I wrote Iris because I find her whole deal as an established SCP to be interesting at a basic level, even if I find the original SCP-105 article itself to be bland and uninteresting. I am aware that by trying to write one solid interpretation of her I am only adding fuel to the fire of her having too many interpretations but one day I’ll have the majority of 105 tales under my name. Then who’ll be laughing.

And I definitely get just wanting to use characters that people already know. From a more cynical standpoint, it would help with interest in your content - as I’ve said before, my tales featuring more original characters haven’t done well - but just on an “I have an interest in this thing and I want people to talk to about it” level I get it. Lord knows how many times I’ve latched into a character from something only to see a grand total of two dudes and an ambitious octopus who also like them on the internet.

[ruki--mukami]

Hello admin. I'm the same anon who asked about Ruki's redemption arc. I wanted to ask you how YOU would write Ruki's MB redemption arc. Or how you would conclude his MB route as I trust your writing more than Rejet's inconsistency.

🧩 To be honest with you, Anon, I’m flattered you trust my writing more than Rejet’s (I believe they change their writers with each game, which explains their inconsistencies) but I don’t have an answer as to how I’d redeem Ruki in the context of his MB route in particular. Not yet, at least. Maybe one day I’ll write my own version and post it. That’s something I’ve always wanted to do: take the original chapters of his route and expand upon them because omg are the originals short. 

If anything, I see the three routes (MB > DF > LE) as three parts to a larger story. I know they tried to redeem Ruki by making him seem like a character you can sympathize with, with the whole turning human by the end of DF cliffhanger and him learning the truth behind Karlheinz in LE. I believe they tried to turn him human again to use the common trope of making villains select right over wrong in hopes of redeeming the character (except Karl chose it for him and he just… agreed, of course, which doesn’t make it a redemption per se). And the whole aristocracy plot twist is supposed to make you feel sorry for him, which is ironically what he hates.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, after all the awful deeds Ruki has committed, at this point he is an immensely difficult character to redeem. And I am no skilled story writer by any means. I’m more so good at tapping into Ruki’s character and riding off of other people’s ideas, using him as a devil’s advocate or even antagonist to their stories more often than not. My redemption might look like a lot of torture and suffering inflicted by Ruki in the beginning, only for him to gradually help you with challenges that come your way. You soon learn that, despite him hurting you as much as he did, he’s adamant about being the only one who has the privilege of doing so.

For instance, perhaps they could’ve explored more of Ayato kidnapping Yui. It would’ve been interesting to see Ruki fight harder and formulate an elaborate plan to take her back after realizing the Sakamakis don’t love her like he does. Instead, canonically he just lets her go, and is shocked when she returns to him. But I know most people don’t like a story where the writers introduce a bigger villain to mitigate what the original villain did. Hence, why I’m not a very good storyteller, ahaha. I am working on my own Ruki route, though. 

I also think I’m probably the last person you should ask about redeeming Ruki. My love for the character really shows in my failed attempts to redeem him, because I often make the mistake of thinking people will grow soft on him because he shows one or two vulnerabilities amidst all the torture. He could step on me and I’d probably thank him, so there’s that. In a lot of the RP threads I have going, you may have noticed typically OC’s will develop a hatred for Ruki, and reasonably so. However, on a case by case basis I’m willing to allow him to compromise on some things. For example, in one ship I made him relinquish his master-livestock dynamic (although I really normally wouldn’t do this because the master complex is actually one of my favorite traits of his lol, so don’t expect that to recurring).

There are many ships I want to see thrive on this blog but even I don’t know how they’re going to get past the conflict. I try to have a mix of bloodsucking scenes and regular “bonding” scenes where they just share a normal conversation and find potential common ground, but whether or not you can call that redemption depends on the person’s tastes, which makes redemption for any character very, very difficult to write. And truth be told, I’d rather not diminish Ruki’s sadistic nature to make that happen, since I love the idea of this powerful, feral Vampire being obsessed with your blood only and the moment someone else tries to hurt you, he snaps. The “how dare you touch what belongs to me” possessiveness. Perhaps there should’ve been more scenes where you fall ill or sustain an injury outside of his punishments and then he shows genuine care over you, since even his possession is not allowed to hurt themselves and all that, but I’m just brainstorming now. These are just ideas on a whim that should be taken with a grain of salt, but when I write my fanmade route I will definitely take the time to flesh out these ideas into something workable.

TL;DR: I think my problem with redeeming Ruki is, I love him the way he is canonically, so to take away from his sadism in an attempt to redeem him never turns out well for me which is why I continue to make him sadistic, but just sprinkle bits of fluff here and there and then hope for the best. 🧩

[gwydionmisha]

Strange New Worlds

I am still digesting Strange New Worlds: All Those Who Wander

Here there be Spoilers:

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I am still so angry about the ableism and the teasing us with what looked like could have been a really interesting character and rare representation if they had wanted to explore it, then yoinking it right the fuck away, that I'm struggling to work out what to say, but I'm going to try.

The thing is, I actually was liking it up until that point despite the issues and some choices I was not best pleased by.  I rather liked them making Pike the man Kirk ended up spending his entire adult life trying to be and not pulling it off.  I was cool with them showing how Uhura started to become Uhura, because it meant that character getting a real arc, and they definitely are showing the canonical character's strengths, even if the drifted into Starfleet thing was not a choice to my taste.  This is a thing early 20somethings can struggle with.  Just because I'm not the intended audience (I hardly ever am outside of things like Torrchwood, Black Sails, and Our flag Means Death) doesn't mean a thing is bad, if that makes sense.  I really like the Nurse Chapel upgrade, even though I have concerns about what they might do with her Spock wise.  (I'd rather see her with Erica Ortegas).  They gave me men in my age range to look at who are worth looking at.  I liked the pretty doctor, but I am really hoping there is more to him in season two.  I really, really liked Erica Ortegas, even though I feel like the writers didn't bother to develop her properly, trusting Melissa Navia's charm and swagger to paper over them not bothering to give her an arc.  I rather liked them giving the original series network execs the finger by bringing Una back.  I have hopes that La'an's arc will do more with recovering from/learning to live with trauma, since they laid some ground work there.

I don't want to get into the whole Spock T'Pring issue or the Spock issue in general because that's a whole other massive and complex ball of string and I wanted to be asleep an hour ago.  Just... take as read my thoughts are complex here and I'm still digesting, okay? (Update: two and a half hours ago as of this going up on Tumblr Sunday morning.)

And then there was Hemmer, who was my favorite, once they started to give the actor things to do, because the actor was really fun to watch and it's hard to emote that well through that much make up.  (Yes, I know the actor knew when they hired him.  This isn't about that).  Seriously, they had all the ingredients to do all sorts of interesting things with him.  They could explore his culture.  They could explore his back story.  They could expand on the nubbins of a character they had only started to hint at that i had every faith that the actor could have pulled off.  There was so much potential for this to be a break out character and... They decided to fridge a rare character with a disability played by an actor with a disability on the first day of Disability Pride Month because... Why?  Shock value?   Because they realized killing off the barely characterized fat character by himself wouldn't pack a punch and we know a bunch of the characters need to survive for ToS?  (Were there any other fat characters with names on the ship?  it's possible I missed one, but the fact that I can't think of one is telling.  Fatphobia is an exhausting problem in media too).  Because they need to make the Xenomorphesque Gorn the new Borg so instead of killing some red shirts, they decided to kill the OC off with the most potential who also happens to mean a lot to an under-represented group of viewer Paramount doesn't care about to make the stakes feel real?

I don't know, but I'm so angry about it, I'm not sure even Ortegas and Chapel can keep me watching, or my curiosity as to how certain other threads develop.  (Not a sentence it would have occurred to me at any age I would be writing about nurse Chapel until this show premiered).  I have a year to think about it, but I don't trust them any more at it will take a lot to win me back to this show.

Which brings me to my other main point: a lot of the problems not counting the finale are because they had so much stuff that needed to be in the first season and not enough time.  We know fuck all about Ortegas and hemmer's backgrounds and lives.  They didn't get arcs of their own.  Lots of characters had stuff seeded for future season(s) that would have had some essential breathing room if they'd had an traditional trek length season for wiggle room instead of the shortened prestige format.  

Trek needs that room to breath in order to work a lot of the time.  You have all these characters in a first season to meet.  They need to establish a group dynamic.  The audience needs enough exposure to each to get an idea of what's their deal, basically.  (Ex: Pike's foreknowledge of his fate, Una being a secret Illyrian, La'an's Gorn trauma, etc.).  Every episode needs a puzzle or an actiony thing or a mystery or whatever plot.  Every episode needs to advance one or more character arc.

The heart of Trek has always been it's characters and relationships every bit as much as the world building and science fictiony social commentary bits.  When Trek works well it balances these things.  (I still think DS9 is far and away the best old Trek and the Kelvinverse movies are unwatchable.  No, I won't be taking criticism on this, reasonable people can disagree and you won’t change my mind).  You need Serious episodes and big plot episodes (if you are TNG era or later) and silly episodes and exploring a culture or concept episodes and gee whiz episodes and weird historical exploration episodes and RL social commentary reflection episodes and cool puzzle episodes and character arc episodes, etc..  You need to be doing 2-3 of these things in each individual episode and pretty much all of them in a season.  It is pretty much impossible to jam all that into thirteen episodes when traditional Trek had approximately twice as many.  Were some of the individual episodes not great?  Absolutely.  (I grew up on ToS in endless syndication and watched the animated series in real time when they were new.  A lot of the oldest trek is not great.  TNG is super uneven and the first two years... not great.  I bailed out of Voyager a few years in.  I only managed a few episodes of Enterprise.  Even my beloved DS9 had duds here and there).  The thing is though?  The longer seasons gave them room to shake out the bugs, to experiment, to really explore cultures, and from the start of TNG on explore character and do long character development arcs, to build a real sense of who the crew are separately and together.

The season was too short to fully develop most of the characters.  It was too short to do more than give some of them, like Una, more than one character issue for us to look at.  Una is an Illyrian and second in command, but what else?   Dr. M'Benga is the Doctor and had a sick daughter, but what else?  Ortegas is butch and an excellent pilot, but what else?  Hemmer is blind and the chief engineer, but what else?  And yes, I basically know the TV shows and the movies (except the third kelvinverse one, halfish of Voyager, lower decks, and most of enterprise).  I loved that novel Garak's actor wrote about Garak.  I think we read some of the Diane Duane expanded trek tie books on tapes on care trips around the turn of the century?  I know the stuff I know pretty well, because I've seen the bits I like often.  I don't know the expanded universe outside the visual media much at all.  I know fuck all about Aenar and I'd really, really like to, but oh well.

I just...  idk.  I was really enjoying it, but I don't trust them to fix the problems.  Not anymore.

To be clear, I’ve noting against short formats in general, I just feel like this was better suited to a longer format schedule.

[darkspellmaster]

What are your thoughts on the whole Tim Drake story so far?

I'm mixed honestly.

On the one hand, I'm fine with Tim being bi, nothing wrong with that and it can cover a lot of ground if you have the right writer to work with it. However, I feel like, on the other hand, the choice of writer right now for him in regard to YJ and for his Solo series might not be the best.

My issue mostly stems from the same problem I have with the break up of Peter and MJ. Steph and Tim have been connected so long that it's very hard to see him dating others. This holds true for when the two of them broke up before and he ended up engaged to another woman. While I'm okay with them splitting, same with Dick and Babs, I personally am not liking the way it's being handled due to how OOC Steph is. She's kind of jealous, and has shown that in the past with the situation where Tim was with another girl. So why she's excited and shit is beyond me.

I need to see more of what she's going to do to figure out where this is going. Tim has such a long history and connection to so many characters that it feels like DC made a huge goof when they didn't transition the YJ gen into more solid roles before bringing in Damian and co. Don't get me wrong I love my young teams, it's just that it feels like a lot of the issue with Tim's story needs to be expanded.

I'm happy so far with him in Batman and Detective, and the focus there on building back his past to define him more against Jason and Dick. Looks like they're giving Damian Magic to make him different as well, so I'm all for that. I just want Tim to be treated as fairly as Dick is and how Jason is being given a fair shake now.

Part of the issue too is that there were also WAY better male characters to hook Tim up with, and ones that made WAY more sense.

Danny Temple, for example, aka Kid Kobra, was his room mate and Tim went to hell and back to rescue him. There was more chemistry between them than him and Bernard, and Danny had a way more interesting back story that could have played more into Tim learning about himself.

There was also Harper's younger brother, who said he had a crush on Tim. I mean, right there. You can bring in Blue Jay more and Cullen could play a larger role than he is right now. Which is just dating a member of the Royal Flush Gang apparently? Maybe? I'm not sure what they're doing with him.

I would say even Duke, but I don't know if DC would let that happen. So then you look outside of the Batfamily and you have one hell of a list if the Editors will allow the use of them.

Airwave -Aka Hal Jordan Jr. Hal 'Green Lantern' Jordan's nephew who basically admitted to liking guys to his uncle. And Hal told him to go get help learning to be a hero from, of all people, Batman.

Hartley Rathway -Aka the Pied Piper. I'm not sure how old he is in earth Prime, but assuming early 20s, it could be a fun look at how Tim could deal with someone like that, if they let the cross over happen.

Francisco Gracia -Son of Stefano Gracia. He's a classmate of Steph and has ties to Roulette.

Hero Cruz -one of the Dial H for hero characters. He knows Conner and the titans.

Joel Weinberg -aka Huston, a young hero who was trying to keep his family together after his parents died.

Kid Apollo -Hey look it's from Gen 13 and could be a fun ride if someone wanted to take it.

Miguel Montez -current owner of the dial H for Hero device. Also friends with the Titans.

Miguel Barragan -aka Bunker. Of all the characters to not use for this, why not use Bunker! He and Tim already have a friendship, he's not doing anything recently outside of the Teen Titans thing, and if anyone can help Tim navigate all of this it would be Miguel because he's been through a lot.

Raymond Terrill  -aka The Ray. Ray worked with Tim when he was in YJ so I would say old friends could rekindle something.

Rich Foley -You want to bring the Dakotaverse more into DC, you have Tim date Virgil's best friend.

Terrence Berg -Bring back Terry from Green Lantern. He's the same age as Tim, and is blonde too. He's already an established character and again would connect the bats and the Lanterns.

There are so many characters out there. I mean, you really want to throw people for a loop, have him date Jon.

Like I said I feel mixed. I'm happy that Tim's moving forward with stories and that his character is being explored more. But I just wish that some of it would be with a writer that I feel more confident about, and with a partner that was more in line with what we know about Tim as a character.

Again no hate for Bernard, I just don't find him interesting.

[turtlethon]

“Krangenstein Lives!”

Season 6, Episode 2 First US Airdate: September 19, 1992

A microchip mix-up leads to Krang’s android body going on a rampage through New York.

“Krangenstein Lives!” is the second episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season six. David Wise is again credited as writer for this adventure.

In the Lair, Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello battle dummies made up to resemble Shredder, Rocksteady and Bebop. Michaelangelo is preoccupied with a different challenge, sitting in the corner playing a hand-held video game called “Space Trek”. In the Technodrome, Rocksteady and Bebop are fixated by the same game, while Krang is busy servicing his android body. Testing out the robot’s size-changing powers, he has it scale down to become tiny, then rapidly expand to fill the entire room.

Rocksteady manages to spill a box of crackers on the table, which leads to Bebop accidentally chowing down on a computer chip that ended up in the mix. Worried about what will happen when Krang finds out the chip has been damaged, Rocksteady smashes Bebop’s Vid Kid handheld games console and substitutes one of its own chips.

During his continuing repairs, Krang places the voice enhancement circuit from Bebop’s game into his android body, mistaking it for the damaged motor co-ordination chip. In a scene reminiscent of the debut of the robot back in season one, Krang exclaims “It’s alive!” as flashes of electrical light fill the room. The robot sits up on its own and begins walking around, uttering phrases from the Space Trek game and opening fire.

After punching a hole through the wall, the android body commandeers a transport module and escapes from the Technodrome. Shredder assures Krang that he can get it back, leaving in a second module with Rocksteady and Bebop.

Back in the sewers, the sounds of Michaelangelo’s game continue to distract the other Turtles during their training session. Above ground, the transport module containing Krang’s body surfaces, with the robot going on a rampage that includes destroying a milk truck and flattening a taxi. Shredder arrives in the second module, and upon exiting it he falls into the hole created by the first one. Bebop and Rocksteady spot Krang’s body and confront it only to be hurled into some nearby trash cans for their efforts.

Shredder emerges from the hole in the street with no recollection of who he is: yes, we’re really doing an amnesia sub-plot. After wondering why he’s wearing a metal mask, the dazed villain wanders off.

At Channel 6, April is assigned the job of covering the chaos unfolding downtown by Burne. Vernon spots her leaving and hatches a plan to prove his own worth to the station boss by covering the situation first.

April informs the Turtles of the reports being received, and they agree to join her. Mikey makes a point of taking his video game with him, raising the ire of his team-mates. The group meet up with April as planned, but quickly find themselves cornered by the runaway android.

Act two opens with April and the Turtles running for cover as Krang’s body blows a hole through the wall behind them. Our heroes use this as a means of escape and after re-grouping, attempt to take down the robot. This doesn’t go well, with Mikey trying to hide in a dumpster only to be pulled out and jettisoned into the sky. Leonardo and Donatello are also sent flying, leaving Raphael to take a punch from an extending boxing glove hand. April films all this from nearby. Showing zero regard for the well-being of her friends, she follows the robot, excited about the great story she’ll be able to provide to Burne.

Shredder stumbles around in an alley as he continues trying to figure out who he is. When his com-link goes off he assumes it must be a pager, a possible indicator to his mind that he works as a plumber. He’s further confused by what he’s looking at upon seeing the alien brain on the screen. “What do you think I am – I'm KRANG!” exclaims the burbling warlord. Assuming he’s looking at footage from a monster movie, Shredder tosses the communicator away.

After declaring himself ruler of the alley, Shreds turns his attention to a pair of crooks attempting to rob a businessman nearby. (One of them appears to be the same guy who was hitting on Irma back in “New York’s Shiniest”, though the colours used for his design here are noticeably different.) Shredder knocks both villains aside. Both attempt a comeback, but are easily defeated in a particularly brutal fight sequence for this era of the show.

The grateful businessman introduces himself to Shredder as Barney Mushnick, owner of the nearby Big Bang Fireworks factory. He offers Shreds a job, assuring him that he’ll be completely in-charge, an offer that sounds good to the clueless villain.

Donatello and Leonardo find Raphael stuck in the mug of a novelty billboard that’s advertising coffee, which doesn’t make much sense as he was the only member of the team not sent into the air during the earlier battle. Michaelangelo is also nearby, and has been playing his game on a street corner while waiting for the other Turtles to rejoin him. The reunited team soon encounter Bebop and Rocksteady, and use the coffee mug sculpture from the billboard to trap the henchmen. After being pressed, The Boys reveal the robot’s rampage is due to a microchip mix-up, before escaping via a passing bus.

Shredder is introduced to his co-workers. A moustachioed man is immediately hostile to him, and begins to lecture the masked villain about how to handle fireworks. Intuitively not used to taking orders, Shreds hurls the man onto a nearby conveyor belt where he ends up in a box of outgoing product. He immediately starts working on a Scheme of the Day where the contents of the factory can be used to take over the city, on the basis that it feels like a natural thing for him to be doing.

The Turtles jump Krang’s android body, with Donatello flipping an internal switch that has the unintended consequence of making it grow rapidly in size. Now towering over the team, the robot continues its rampage as the second act ends.

Krang’s body flattens buildings before unexpectedly shrinking down to the size of a toy. The Turtles step in to retrieve it, only for it to grow back to giant size again. Meanwhile Shredder, still without his memory, has assembled an explosive device that he plans to use to take over the city. Elsewhere, Vernon remains on the prowl, having been searching all night for a means to outshine April.

After Krang’s body begins spouting lines from Space Trek, the Turtles realise that Bebop and Rocksteady must have placed a chip from the game inside it. Before they can take action, the giant robot shoves them into a phone booth and kicks them through the air. The group crash land outside City Hall, where they happen to see Shredder entering with his explosive device. Vernon emerges to request an interview, and much like in “The Dimension X Story” his line of questioning is entirely nonsensical. Along the way, he manages to make Shredder fall down the building’s steps, and you know how the rules of amnesia work: having bumped his head for a second time, the villain’s memory is now restored.

The Turtles tie up Shredder and leave him with Vernon while they deal with the impending arrival of Krang’s giant body. It begins shrinking once more, providing Michaelangelo with an opportunity and an idea. As it scales up again, he connects his Vid Kid console to the android. Now mounted on the robot’s shoulder, Mikey is able to control it via his joystick.

Shredder breaks out of the ropes restraining him, leading Vernon to flee as Bebop and Rocksteady arrive on the scene via transport module. Michaelangelo is able to prise the bomb away from Shreds and places it in the android body. The robot begins scaling down again, causing the explosive to be detonated in the process.

Later, Shredder, Rocksteady and Bebop return to the Technodrome with a still-smoking pile of the remains of the android body. Krang is understandably furious, warning Shreds that he’d “just better hope the damage is covered by the warranty!” (I mean, Shredder built the thing to begin with, if anyone would be responsible for covering the warranty it would be him, but let’s not split hairs.)

In the Lair, the Turtles watch April’s report on the robot rampage, which concludes with the revelation that Vernon has been traumatised by the entire incident and remains unable to talk. The other Turtles have now changed their stance on Michaelangelo’s video game given how integral it was to them saving the day... but after he resumes play, it too winds up exploding.

“Krangenstein Lives!” is a welcome step up after the frustrating season opener “Rock Around the Block”, the main thrust of the episode feeling like a concept that hasn’t been fully explored before. The idea of the Turtles battling Krang’s body on its own is fanservice-y but in a good way, the android going into business for itself feeling like something many of us would have speculated about when the show was in its heyday. Granted, there are parallels here to the first appearance of the android body back in season one, to the point where it almost feels strange that the Turtles don’t acknowledge they found themselves in much the same position before; presumably the decision was made not to reference that as it was five years ago, and a good portion of the audience will have either never seen those early adventures or have long since forgotten about them.

Shredder bumping his head and winding up with amnesia is an entirely hackneyed idea on paper, but David Wise manages to make it work with some genuinely funny material, elevated further by James Avery’s voice acting. It’s a shame we didn’t get more of Shreds working at the fireworks factory, but given how much is going on in this story I suppose something had to give.

NEXT TIME: An unexpected crime-fighter arrives on the scene in “Super Irma”!