#btb series ask

[okamirayne]

I was curious if you would ever write something else for NejiShika? I know you wrote a whole series for BTB (while also writing a ton of Original work, which, wow, you're amazing) but if you ever got another idea for NejiShika would you write it? Or is the BTB series a "just kind of happened" one time thing? I think I remember you once said you were inspired to write BTB because of a dream you had of Shikamaru and you found that Neji was just the perfect other half for that version of him and that's the only reason you started writing the pairing. I guess I was just curious if you would ever write something else with the pair since BTB is such an amazing series and I love your characterization of them. Also, is HHU the last one in the series? Or are you planning anything else? Sorry for the rambling, I just wanted to ask 😅

Hey there, Anon! Thank you for dropping by with your ASK, Luv ☺️

I was curious if you would ever write something else for NejiShika? […] if you ever got another idea for NejiShika would you write it? Or is the BTB series a "just kind of happened" one time thing?

Do you mean would I write more about them together in the BtB world? As in, additional stories to add to the BtB series. Or do you mean would I write an entirely different NejiShika/ShikaNeji fic outside the BtB-verse? Because yes to the former, no to the latter.

I think I remember you once said you were inspired to write BTB because of a dream you had of Shikamaru and you found that Neji was just the perfect other half for that version of him and that's the only reason you started writing the pairing.

Correct! I couldn’t see who Shikamaru was chasing in the dream, but when I began to follow the plot bunny consciously all roads led to Neji.

It was such an organic and intuitive thing, as well as a logical one. It was always meant to be.

I guess I was just curious if you would ever write something else with the pair since BTB is such an amazing series and I love your characterization of them.

Oh yes, I believe I would. Aww! Thank you so much! I’m super excited and happy to know their characterisations hit the spot for you. The characters are always my primary concern and I try my best to do justice to them, bearing in mind any creative leeway/divergence from canon with the story/pairings.

Also, is HHU the last one in the series?

Yes, insofar as a post-war conclusion. That said, the BtB story, right the way through from the first instalment to UtS, is meant to be a standalone series regardless of HHU. HHU is pure masochism on my part 🤦🏻‍♀️

Or are you planning anything else?

I never say never. Ideas pop up. It’s just hard to commit for several reasons.

1) Severe bloody Burnout recovery 😭 🔥

2) My brain currently holds 3 separate novel series, all of them big-world stories. Which is a hell of a lot to hold in my brain cavern.

These original characters and their worlds are my heart and my kismet 💜

3) I am clearly challenged when it comes to writing one-shots…I fail so hard…

4) The investment of time/energy vs the payoff of writing fanfic (especially when you’re a masochistic moron like me who writes LONG SHIT). Understandably, and rightly so, fanfic doesn’t pay for the investment put in, so a lot of the payoff for me (and a lot of fanfic writers) is the reader-feedback exchange regarding the story/characters (otherwise I guess we’d just write it for ourselves, you know?) and sadly readers don’t necessarily engage as much anymore even though they may devour the content. Which is why I absolutely adore, admire, and am so grateful to reviewers 💜; to those who did, still do, and who were so outstandingly supportive of me in the past and still are to this day. They are beautiful treasures. That’s why I always aim/aimed to deliver the best I can/could for them and not short-change them. I’d never have finished the BtB series without them. 💜

As for Rambling? No way! Absolutely no need to apologise!! I’m very, very touched you care enough about the series/characters to ask 💜

Thank you! ☺️

[honesttoglob]

Worthikids describing his childhood characters which he based Steve and Cesare of as "buddies" and "best friends who go on an adventure" solidifies my headcanon that Steve and Cesare will end the series as buddies into a diamond.

[gesamkuns-twerk]

Like that previous post, it’s hard to obsess about objectively good media because I don’t feel like I need to fill in gaps. When something is good it’s all there.

BTB is different though. I think it’s objectively great - original, well-written, beautifully designed, funny. But I still *wonder* about many things in that universe, and there are a lot of things that haven’t been explored (Clown Planet, the underworld/Upper Management). However these don’t feel like hooks or “big reveals.” They just feel like part of the show that just hasn’t had any attention yet.

Also Zomburger is uniquely hilarious because their business model is just part of the narrative and not a point of contention. They just make bad food, that’s their thing. It’s a little weird but that’s showbiz. They are a little weirder for trying to destroy their rival food truck (in character).

I love the casualness of Worthi’s humor. I love that everyone is fully immersed in the story and that nobody pulls back like “are you seeing this (audience)???” Even Billie who asks the most questions is in-universe.

Back to my original point: BTB is a good series that I still really enjoy analyzing and speculating about even though I don’t have as many questions for good shows.

[beatcroc]

Do u think u could elaborate a lil about btb and pizza tower lore?? Thank u

oh god i'm not the most well-read on either BUT uh. spoilers for both medias i guess.....i need to stress that these should NOT be seen as like dramatic edgy series because of what's going on under the hood though, that's not the point of them or what they focus on, and it'd be a huge disservice to think of them as 'taking themselves too seriously' type things for this, haha.

EDIT: it's been a bit since i made this post and in looking around since then i've discovered i might've gotten the wrong impression about some of the pizza tower stuff. i intended to only mention what was fact/hard canon here, but some might be extrapolated anyway, so take it with a pinch of salt.

---

bigtop burger is, for all intents and purposes, a chill and lighthearted series of animated shorts about a bunch of college kids who work at a clown-themed food truck. their clown boss is more than a little strange and suspicious but they're content to let it slide because he's generally friendly and well-meaning; and again, the series is only really About the kids and their day to day lives, and the wacky cartoon antics that may occasionally come with that. such as, say, watching their boss slice a truck in two with a katana. it's a little weird for sure but we don't question it.

they have a rival burger truck, zomburger, which is zombie themed, and led by a guy who is defintiely totally not actually undead. the kids this guy employs are pretty into the whole gimmick [because theyre theater majors and "get paid like thousands of dollars per hour" <-presented as the most bizzare thing that's happened], and so have no issue doing things like firing cannons at our clown-thmed protags during a highway chase. their boss has some kind of serious beef with the clown boss, but that's their problem. the kids are chill with eachother.

what they're Not telling you is that the clowns and undead have some kind of ancient feud [possibly even a war???] going on, and zombie guy was apparently[?] only using the food truck thing as a ruse to get at clown guy. both types of guys are insanely powerful and it's heavily implied that neither of them should be mingling with normal humans in the first place, which is why the food trucks and the other employees have their respective gimmicks as cover. also magic of some kind seems to be real, with illusory and portal-type stuff seen so far.

there is a possible implication that clowns are Actually Dangerous and the zombie guy's hunting them is like warranted, but given this unrelated short by the creator apparently set in the same universe, i'd like to more confidently say that it's just zombie guy being an asshole assassin type and they're both high-ranking freaks duking it out in public which is like the worst place possible given their general disinterest in hurting anyone else.

aside: bigtop's lore is a lot more plainly-presented and actually meaningful to the series and the character dynamics, but as it is currently it's nothing more than a backdrop for The Hijinx to play off of so they still never really say anything too direct about it or have characters respond to it. [that said, the most recent episode could easily be considered a turning point so we'll see how things go from here]

----

pizza tower is, for all intents and purposes, just a funny 2d platformer game where lots of silly things happen to its really excitable protagonist and you get tons of endlessly amusing expressions and animation out of it. it feels somewhat like a playable 90's cartoon, and this is its primary charm. again, you aren't supposed to really question the framing of everything. that'd be like asking why bowser is a fire-breathing turtle. because he is. that's just how it works who gives a shit. pizza tower has you kill a big pillar guy halfway through a given level and then you have to get the hell out on a timer before it all collapses, and there's a funny little janitor guy you can get as a bonus pickup to help you out in each level. each floor of the tower has a different Theme for its set of levels. traditional game stuff. you get to the top of the pizza tower and beat up the jackass pizza guy that threatened to blow up your own pizzeria. [there's more to the gameplay than that but this is just what's lore-relevant]

what the game slides under the radar with its completely-dialogue-less style is that the big pillar guy more or less IS the tower, pillar and janitor were the original residents of the tower before it got turned into the pizza tower [yeah.], and the little janitor guy, who is pillar's brother, is generally fine with helping you destroy the place because for the past [amount of time] he's been fighting a losing battle of helping keep his bro intact in the wake of it being taken over by the jackass pizza guy, who has pretty much defiled it beyond repair for his own amusement since finding it. pizza guy cloned pillar guy a bunch of times and split his consciousness between the duplicates and made them all keep all the portals to the pocket dimensions in the tower [the levels] open. pillar guy's original body has since become derelict and horribly overgrown with.,....pizza..., and it's the last one you destroy to bring the whole thing down. he gives you a tired-looking thumbs up as you blast him off the screen.

none of this has anything to do with the protagonist, who doesn't know about any of it and is Exclusively there to beat pizza guy's ass for threatening his business. and if he has to bring down pizza guy's whole tacky-ass establishment to do that then SO BE IT.

you might notice in the larger background screenshot that the protag guy is Also being cloned in that facility. you do fight a clone of him as the 4th boss and encounter more of them in the level that background is for, but there seems to be very little concrete canon for what exactly pizza guy's intention with protag and his clones was.

aside: this isn't even touching on the other side to this, which is the weird amount of actual character depth that mr. funny cartoon protag man himself seems to have. i am not going to get into that on this post because it will make me really abnormal but oh my god dude.

[chickenpoxfordinner]

Evidence Steve from Big Top Burger is a good frycook

[essential content: okay i have three pieces of evidence that [Steve’s, from Worthikids original series Bigtop Burger] food is good 1) the guy who asked for a burger in episode 1 that got a steve burger (from under his hat no less) is eating a burger in the last episode, he has either come back for seconds OR he has saved it/savored it until then because its that good (i am inclined to say the latter because he specifically references how they had met in the morning, implying he hasnt seen them again until then [despite eating ten feet from the truck but shut up]) 2) this shot transition gag has Mike Myers as Austin Powers (or actual Austin Powers if theyre in the Austin Powers Universe???) patronizing their restaurant so it clearly has a celebrity following 3) Zomburgers' rivalry with BTB is based around Cesare saying hes cracked the code by selling bad food which implies Steves food is at least okay

[unusual-ly]

Send some WIP words!!! Or any other asks!!!! *^*

[bang-tan-bitches]

Cmon we all know our boys meant for those jacuzzi photos to leak🤫🤨😏

What?? Nooooo....

Our innocent Immortals boys would ~never~

[teacup-tai]

Tai Recs: Crazy Looong Fics

My best friends used to have a running joke about my fanfic reading habits, saying that "Tai wouldn't touch anything shorter than 50k". Let's say they were not far from wrong. xD #facepalm

I am a sucker for really long stories. How writers provide us with a crazy amount of world building and character's development/study, and all kinds of mix of Slow Burn, Scorching UST, Brilliant Case fics, Political Plots, Adventure, Action, Beautiful Slice of Life & etc!

I devote my whole heart, gratitude and appreciation to all the Monster Writers, for such incredible long rides, for your time, hard work and for sharing this huge gifts with us!

Welcome to the: Crazy Long Fics 'Rec List! (>300k)

Drarry Favourites

TURN by Saras_girl (E, 306k)

One good turn always deserves another. Apparently.

A classic. No one in the Drarry fandom can go without having read, or attempted to read, Turn. The kind of fic that make you question your life and decisions. The kind of fic that don't let you go untouched.

Twist of Fate by Oakstone730 (T, 302k)

Draco asks Harry to help him beat the Imperius curse during 4th year. The lessons turn into more than either expected. A story of redemption and forgiveness.

ToF is another huge Drarry classic. It goes without saying that it will grab you and not let you leave without finishing. The angst is brilliant, the canon rewrite magnificent. A must read.

Foundations !verse (Series) by Saras_girl (E, 364k)

Harry is about to discover that the steepest learning curve comes after Healer training, and that second chances can be found in unexpected places.

This series is composed by 2 main fics (Reparations (87k) and Foundations (236k)) and 11 adjacent oneshots. Healer Harry wasn't something that I knew I needed until I read this. I learned so much with this universe; about being human, about learning from one's patients, about working with people. Reparations is my fave Saras_girl fic.

The Secret Language of Plants (Series) by @llendrinall (373k)

“Just… tell me. Tell me what is going on, Snape.”

What was going on was that Severus Snape had no trouble tracking down one Petunia Evans, now Dursley, to a little town in Surrey where he saw how exactly she was treating her nephew. Which somehow led to last night and Severus knocking on Lupin’s door with a toddler half-asleep in his arms.

This amazing series is composed by 4 parts, and it starts with Snape and Remus stealing and raising Harry, while falling in love with each other. It's bloody amazing how Endrina retells the story with such a nice canon rewrite, and gives us Drarry with such a nice twist <3

Tales From the Special Branch (Series) by @femmequixotic (E, 1.214k)

When Gawain Robards asks him to form Special Branch seven-four-alpha, Harry Potter knows they'll have to work outside the confines of the law--even though they are the law.

This is one of the most intertwined and interesting Drarry plots I've ever read. The amount of world-building in this 5 amazing fics is insane, the backstories to all the characters are impressive, how everything connects in such perfect way is amazing, how the plot thickens is breathtaking and the sex- lol hotter than firewhiskey. A mix of Action-politics-scorching hot smut-Slytherins being aurors-Harry Potter being a hot mess. (warning: WIP. ;_;)

Next in my to-read list:

Hush of War by @lol-zeitgeistic (E, 453k)

Conscience by sordidhumor (E, 1,450k)

Blood Magic by houseofhebrideanblacks & Thestralsofspinnersend (E, 335k)

My Favourites Outside HP fandom

I'm adding 2 non-HP series, bc I honestly think it is such a loss that there are folks in the world who never read it, so here, have at it:

Death Note (L/Light)

Those Who Stand For Nothing Falls For Anything - The Hinterland Doctrine Series by @halfpromise (E, 676k). 4 fics, WIP.

Light is a politician. What could go wrong?

Look at me: this is THE BEST POLITICS AU FIC I'VE EVER READ IN MY WHOLE LIFE. This is crazy long, crazy intense, it has a very very dark sense of humour, a very narcissistic and unreliable first narrator (Light) and it is such a toxic relationship. It's a utter delight to appreciate how Laura put it so well together, this is a literary recommendation for those with a strong stomach. Check the tags. (I've read it twice)

Naruto (Neji/Shikamaru | multiship)

Break to Breathe (Series) by @okamirayne (E, 1.240k). ffnet | AO3

Neji has always been in control. There's just one problem. It's killing him - and only Shikamaru can tell. But sometimes being pulled back from the edge is just as dangerous as being pushed there.

If you like Naruto and deep psychological plots, you should read this masterpiece. BtB is one of the biggest loves of my life. It should be published in a big editing house! xD Ninjas gone deep and real and raw and in love! This is a monsterfuck rollercoaster wrapped up in 4 books (1.240k). Rayne does a really good job in delving her fingers in the characters and making them hers but never making them OOC. Now my favourite Monster Writer is back and giving us a bit more of deep angsty-post-war-vibes <3

[agustdakasuga]

3, 12, 27 <3

3. favourite line/scene you wrote this year

Hmm... I guess the scene that stuck with me the most this year would be in Reflection of You. When king!Yoongi said goodbye to y/n

12. favourite character to write about this year

Obviously, Jisung from BTB series

27. favourite fanfic author of the year

Man... there are really so many good works that I read this year, it's so hard to pick one!!! hehehe I mean, you guys know I love @taegularities , @amourtae and @ressjeon . All the hard work and effort they put into their works is just... *chefs kiss*

What do you want to know? Ask me from fanfic end of the year asks!

[eulerami]

Questions for an Author

Tagged by @xbaebsae, thank you! It was interesting to read your answers, and good luck with your projects! 

Tagging: @writerofblocks @megafreeman @kitkatpurrpurr @theodoresart @arduyn @isthemedia @werdbytes @erenaeoth @madame-rebel @wachsamekatz @awsnapanat-20 (I know you do a lot of original characters and D&D stuff, but I figured I’d tag ya anyhow) 

Name: Euler

Top 5 3 Fandoms Written:

Fallout: New Vegas 

Mortal Kombat Cumbath (shoot me) 

Saints Row

I’ve done some Borderlands stuff too (the first game,) but nothing much really. All of my focus has been on these three games for the past eight years or so as far as writing and art projects go. 

Top 5 Fandoms You Want To Write For/More: TES, and I want to get back into Fallout eventually. I am enjoying working on my SR stuff right now. I think after I’m done with it though I’m going to take a very long break from fanfic and work on my original stories. (Although, all this FC5 hype, I really am like ???? Yo?? I need? To try that shit? I played all the OTHER farcrys, lmao) 

Stories You Wish More People Knew About: Do you mean mine or other folks? There’s plenty of fics by other people I wish were more popular because they’re really good, but if you’re asking for mine, I don’t know. Right now I’m just working on one (BTB) and it’s the only one published. I’m satisfied with how it’s doing viewer-wise, I guess, I dunno. 

Ship(s) Written The Most:

Ermac x Kenshi (MK) 

Nacho (Playa/Boss) x Troy Bradshaw (SR) 

Character(s) Written The Most: Kenshi, Ulysses (F:NV), Mordecai (Borderlands 1) and Troy Bradshaw (SR1) 

How Many OCs Do You Have: Just one that you guys have seen, and that’s Nacho. Some of my longtime followers may recognize Kres, my courier from FNV, or my Dunmer bard Kayachi from Skyrim/Solstheim. I have two whole universes worth of OCs for original stories though too lol 

How Many Series Do You Have: Just the one right now. Bite the Bullet is the first in the series; there’s gonna be two more installments. 

What Do You Do With Fics You’re No Longer Interested In?: I stick them on the Harddrive of No Return 

Coming Soon: BTB getting finished, and moving on to SR2. Since it was rewritten, I have a lot of catching up to do, but the point at which I stopped to rewrite it was about 75% done with the story. So, it shouldn’t be long now, I’ve just had a million catastrophes and horrible shit happen IRL that has made writing very very hard. 

Line From A WIP: (I don’t have one right now on hand lol) 

Do You Accept Prompts? Do I accept them? Yes. Do I think I’ll actually get to them? Absolutely. Do I? ...Usually not, no. I’m sorry. 

How Do You Feel About Kudos? It’s great to see that my shit ain’t just floating around out there in the void, it reminds me people are clicking on it, so I appreciate them. 

Do You Read Fic As Well?: I do, and I try to whenever I get some gaps in activity at work. I got a massive reading list, lol 

[eigensinnig]

THE INDIVIDUAL, THE ANTI-UNIVERSAL. “All that is individual, incomplete, diverse is claimed to be merely preliminary, superficial and inadequate,” wrote Austrian-born British philosopher Sir Karl R. Popper. What he meant by that was that totalitarian systems, which strive for unity and wholeness, perceive plurality and individuality as a threat. Another philosopher, François Jullien, identified “the Universal” as the foundation of such closed systems: “The Universal considers itself as complete, as a final achievement, and it no longer asks whether something might be missing; it rests in its positivity and sees no reason for further progress. It does not initiate anything anymore.” A static Universal, doomed to stand still: Nothing happens anymore. Open societies need the Individual, it is the only possibility for plurality to develop. What is this Individual, what does it do? It is non-static, constantly in motion, constantly changing, standing out from the Uniform, constantly questioning itself. It is the only way for new things to arise, it is the only way to escape what author Juli Zeh, in her novel “Unterleuten”, called a “brave new world - standardized, entertained, administered; a herd of citizens”. Where does one find one’s Individual, which leads to plurality, openness, and eventually to something new? Frequently, it can be found in the gap, in the “active, inventive Between” (see posting “The Between”), and it is always located outside the Uniform, outside the herd that never asks why. Book Recommendations: Sir Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Publisher: Routledge (1945) François Jullien: There Is No Such Thing as Cultural Identity, Publisher: Suhrkamp (2017) Juli Zeh: Unterleuten, Publisher: btb (2017) (From our series "What inspires us")

[okamirayne]

(got cut off) the thought of hinata feeling guilty is now occupying my brain, and hanabi? I was actually a little surprised she agreed to drop food for naruto, but that gives me hope that from the events in UTS they are still in a good place but, Im still scared that neji's death has put a major strain on them. The hyuga clan must be a mess of emotions right now *cries*

Hey there Anon! 💜

Damn that sudden word restriction on anon ASKS 😑 how dare it eat this part of your message.

Ah, Hinata 😔 — yes, Neji’s death has definitely had an impact on her and Naruto. Though the Hyūga sisters have found some solidarity.

As for the clan itself…Oh indeed, there is much afoot in the Hyūga household…especially with their most severe lord and leader…

😬 Here there be a very pissed off white-eyed ‘Godfather’ 🫣🫢

Not a Happy Head Honcho at all.

[praefah]

THE AIR THEY BREATHE

14/10/19

Site 1: Green Park [Layers E, N]

An average car emits 5 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

An average tree absorbs 1 tonne of CO2 in its entire lifetime.

Despite the daunting statistics, trees play an important role in offsetting rising carbon dioxide levels on a global scale. The environmental rig is designed to measure atmospheric CO2 concentrations in Green Park on an hourly basis using a system of sensors placed at regular 100m intervals along the path.

Average CO2 levels in the area can then be calculated from the sensor data. Using photometric gas sensing methods, it is possible to visually represent atmospheric CO2 concentrations: bromothymol blue (BTB), an aqueous chemical, gradually turns yellow depending on how much carbon dioxide it is exposed to. This is because BTB is a pH indicator, which changes colour in the presence of acids and alkalis,* and CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid.

Situating the rig in the park puts into perspective the enormous responsibility that weighs upon the engines of nature. We fell forests acres at a time to make space for urban schemes and cattle ranching; we hack away at the lungs of the Earth even as we ask them to breathe. There is such thing as too much air, especially when it comes to the air that suffocates us, and it is our responsibility to know just how much of it there is.

*BTB is also used to test for acid rain

[thatsdadstuff]

Bedtime Strategies

The following series comes from other Dads... What works for you when trying to get your kid(s) ready for bed... I welcome your feedback, and please comment on what methods you use...

Bedtime Strategies for Dads Intro

My son suffers from a syndrome not yet recognized by the American Medical Association which I call BTB.  It stands for “belligerent time bomb” and goes like this: 

The instant my son wakes up in the morning around 6:30am, he is the most even-tempered kid you’ll meet.  Patient, kind, well mannered, he’ll even obey our instructions from the Friday night before and play quietly in his room while mom and Dad sleep in a bit.  On school days, he rolls out of his bottom bunk (top bunk is currently subleased to thirteen stuffed animals and 3 pillow/light projector things) with a smile and doesn’t even fuss if the first words he hears from me are “clean your room and meet me downstairs for breakfast”…  90% of the time I’ll get a “Yes Dad” and he’ll spring into action.  Boy, do I love that kid.

The afternoon is a different story.  He arrives from school with a deceptively similar smile to the morning but if you look closely there’s a twinkle missing from his eyes. His backpack gets dropped on the floor so fast that it blocks the front door from closing.  His shoes, if he bothers to remove them, land somewhere in the hallway next to the scuff marked wall which he kicked them into.  Manners disappear as he grunts with hunger and demands a snack from the nearest parent.  My wife and I are too familiar with the routine and carefully tiptoe around his every grunt for fear of agitating his volatile mood.  We overcompensate with too much sweetness in our tone and almost sound like June Cleaver asking if he “would like some more milk with your cookies” and “how was your day”. 

We don’t recognize this boy who appears at our door every day at 3:10pm but we know it’s our son.  We know because I used a marker to put a dot on his arm once before he left for school and I verified the dot was still there when he returned.  So it's not a different kid and I don’t believe in aliens so what is going on?  We ruled out school being the cause because he pulls the same crap on the weekends.  Mornings are fantastic, afternoons are progressively worse and bedtime is terrible.  He’s irritable, aggressive, rude, sassy and mean. If we forget to tiptoe perfectly avoiding confrontation then he’ll go toe to toe yelling at us and we end up sending him to his room out of frustration.  He stomps upstairs in his rage and he’ll throw toys while we try to regain our composure.

Through trial and error, I pinpointed the source of the issue.  Sleep deprivation/exhaustion.  If we don’t get him to bed on time… – scratch that – …if he doesn’t fall asleep on time then he wakes up with half a tank of gas.  Sure, he’s fully functional in the morning but afternoon his energy starts to taper down with his mood tracking down with it on a perfect slope approaching zero (where zero = head spinning, knife-wielding psychopath kid which I’m required by law to love and protect).

Getting a 6-year-old more sleep is easier said than done.  I have developed some strategies which have helped us combat accomplish just that.  This series presents my strategies to cure BTB and hopefully stop the spread from reaching your household. 

We invite you to share with us your strategies for getting kids more shuteye (besides Benadryl).

[minatsuki-on-main]

for the character meme: laica 😏

…And this one is going to get exceptionally long…

(Ask meme)

What I like about them: To preface, I’ve had a thing for both quiet bodyguard type characters and edgy, tragic supervillains, so when you conglomerate those two tropes into one person, there’s no doubt I’m gonna like them. Since I finished watching BTB it was obvious. It was so obvious that I would be fucking obsessed with the Hat Man. It’s like somebody just made a character to appeal to my specific taste. It’s scary, really.

I feel like there’s something about villains that’s really hard to write; making them sympathetic without having them fall into some generally accepted ‘good person’ category. The fact that it was so well-done with him is the reason itself I realized this was a problem for me with other series. You know Laica is terrible, but he’s also not where the fault lies, which Keith even specifically mentions. It’s another good thing that the trauma he suffered was more internal than external (Gilbert just told him a bunch of lies and that was the shock, not some more generic dire outside circumstance, I don’t know if I’m explaining myself). It’s a smarter way of going about bad pasts.

Laica just really made me think a lot, he feels a lot more real than characters who have a schematically completed development and story arc just to obey the laws of fiction. For him it was cut short in the most tragic way before he could even find out half of his own backstory. His way of thinking is also messed-up on so many levels once you start musing on it, it just doesn’t end... He grew up in circumstances that would demonstrably ruin a person’s healthy development, there was Gilbert’s influence on him that he seemed almost unaware of, he has a disastrous way of conceiving human relationships (from what I’ve concluded after way too many considerations). Laica is a huge mess, but in a very deep and kind of subtle way. 

What I dislike about them: Listen, I’m in so deep he could do anything and I’d like it because he did it. If there’s anything... I’m disheartened by how absolutely batshit obsessed he was with the Jetblack, just because it’s what forever prevented him from having a better life. 

Favourite moment: When he talks about how he used to listen to the others through the window at Jaula Blanca because it just kills me inside. Or when he restrains Kamui because he’s all cool and it’s asmr to me. 

Least favourite moment: Having his head chopped off would mayhaps be one.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more: ANYTHING. I’M DYING OF THIRST.

An interesting AU for this character: Anything sci-fi where his brainwashing translates to messing with artificial consciousness. Or AUs where he’s actually Koku’s brother and they’re constantly frustrated with each other, in any shape or form. Then I had another AU I actually started writing where he’s a bodyguard. Shove him in any AU and I’ll like it. 

A crossover: At one point I realized that what I call ‘prohibition era mafia AU’ is really just a 91 Days crossover... It might be the fact that Laica already kinda dresses like that, but I want him to be surrounded with those good aesthetics. Maybe be that one person in the mafia who does all the mundane jobs and carries around liquor but is secretly very important. What goes in canon, just in that setting. 

OTP: Minatsukicest, also known as the bane of my existence because I can’t stop craving content and writing fics constantly, I’m really invested in it.

Other ships: I’ve reached the stage where I started shifting away from ships with him and anyone other than Minatsuki, but either way. Laica/Koku sin. Extra sin. I wash my hands because it was someone else bringing it to my attention. Laica/Izanami I still prefer as brotp, but not bad, as I already said. 

BROTP: With Izanami; I already ranted about why in the other ask.

NOTP: I’m shifting towards having everything non-minatsukicest in this category... And either way, I’d be the last person to give ideas for bad ships with Laica, I don’t want to start reflecting on it.

An assortment of headcanons:

To elaborate on what I already mentioned; he doesn’t know what a human relationship is to a tragic degree, which would be unsurprising since he spent most of his childhood either alone or being raised by Gilbert. He thinks manipulation is part of it, sort of (considering who he learned from). 

The extent of his fatalism comes from how many psychological boundaries he has; he can’t go up against Gilbert, he has to behave how he was instructed to at Jaula Blanca, he has to do this, and that, etc. so it feels right to him that nobody would have a choice in anything besides what the Jetblack says.

He has a hard time controlling his eye and keeping it from randomly transforming in some situations purely out of anger, hence the sunglasses.

The reason he implanted resentment towards Koku into Yuna is specifically that he knew Izanami was also in love with Koku and thought they’d like it as a sort of gift to try and fuck it up for kokuyuna. The followup to this hc is that Izanami didn’t appreciate at all and was mostly just terrified.

His is not just a resting bitchface, it’s him not knowing appropriate facial expressions because he didn’t learn from seeing them on other people’s faces a lot when he should have. The creepy ep12 smile is kinda just instinctive and due to the epiphany of fighting Koku.

All he did as a kid besides looking out the window was drawing; only the very few times he was given tools though.

He’s the one responsible for the clown aesthetic, and it comes from Gilbert taking them to see a circus once and small Laica thinking it’s the coolest thing in existence. (This was from a convo from long ago but I just had to bring it back.)

Gilbert taught him some very basic medicine so he could give the reggies their dose, check the drug’s quality, inject it properly, etc.

(I could continue the hc list forever onwards but I won’t exhaust it here, I’ll just keep talking about Laica on the daily because that’s how we roll here.)

[unusual-ly]

Updating taglists

I’m about to start posting new one-shots again so I thought it’d be a good idea to check my old taglists and ask if anyone wants to either be removed from or added to any of them. New readers can ask to be added to any of them too~

Current lists:

Limelight: @the-duke-remus, @kokinu09 specifically for Zebelle fics, @secondbutthole specifically for Rozeira fics

Beyond The Barrier (BtB): @the-duke-remus, @disneyfan50, @thedesignateddreamer

Zombie History Lesson: @the-duke-remus, @whatevenisyourdeal

TV series fic: @fist-it-out, @kokinu09, @thedesignateddreamer, @disneyfan50, @whatevenisyourdeal

There’s also Another Girl, Another Zombie (AGAZ) which doesn’t have a taglist atm but could come back so if anyone wants tagged for that, let me know~