#but I didn’t have a timeline or even a true PLOT it was just kind of my brainchild

[unboundbnha]

I’ve started *gags, chokes* writing….again….*spits out blood, gasps and gurgles as I fall to the ground*

[cartoonartistpng]

Mephiles the Mind, Iblis the Heart

Basically a breakdown of how I interpreted 06 but also a foundation I use for all my AUs.

Mephiles is highly intelligent and apathetic while Iblis relies on emotion and is more like a wild animal. Mephiles does not have full access to Solaris' time powers, but Iblis does. However, Iblis does not have the mental capacity to actually use them.

Things that are less “interpretive” and more “theory”:

This is why Iblis needed a powerful emotion to be released

In the original timeline, the one which led to Silver’s future, it was Elise’s death which released Iblis. Because the seal was broken improperly, Mephiles could not recombine with Iblis. Therefore, he would need to look for a different way, but he can’t with Sonic being there and being an obstacle (not while Mephiles is still weak). Hence why he brought in Silver—a powerful hedgehog determined to save his future no matter the cost—who is also a completely new factor to change the timeline. Silver would keep Sonic busy while Mephiles figured out how to properly release Iblis… Since letting her die didn’t work last time. When Silver began figuring out the charade, Mephiles didn’t care enough to try hard with his manipulations, especially if it meant Silver would help keep Elise alive. However, once Mephiles realized the way to release Iblis was via an extreme emotion from Elise well… how convenient that the Princess grew attached to a certain blue hedgehog. Turns out killing Sonic really was the key all along. And if you want something done right… you gotta do it yourself.

Essentially (to explain Mephiles’ weird planning in canon), Mephiles did not know the seal was reliant on Elise’s emotions in the beginning, so he sends Silver to distract Sonic while he figures out how to actually free his other half. How ironic that killing Sonic is indeed what needs to happen. Mephiles basically has a “wait, it’s actually that simple?” moment

The strong emotion can be anything—grief, anger, joy, fear—it just has to be strong. Like a “consuming your mind” kind of strong.

The original explosion which killed Elise was too sudden for any strong emotion to pop up. (Even in her last moments, she had faith Sonic would save her.)

Mephiles is the mind while Iblis is the heart. Only once combined does Mephiles—or Solaris now—actually feel feelings. However, Solaris is still adjusting after the disoriented episode of being literally split in two and so acts completely on his anger toward mortals for taking advantage of him.

At the end of 06, Solaris isn’t destroyed but rather is scattered/subdued, and everyone will already be long gone by the time Solaris’ pieces are reunited. Like “after Dark Gaia and Light Gaia have restarted the planet” kind of long time. They are gods after all. Time is different for them.

The rest of this is sparked from my “Trinity Gods” fanon. Aka, Gaia, the Master Emerald, and Solaris are the three gods who created Earth, as well as any planets prior to Earth. The Master Emerald is also called “Mother Chaos”.

While Gaia slumbers, Mother Chaos and Solaris watch over the planet to protect it. During Earth’s creation, Mother Chaos took on a physical form (ie. The Master Emerald) to live on Earth amongst its creatures. Curious about all Mother Chaos learned whilst living amongst mortals, Solaris decided to also take on a physical form and live amongst them. However, this meant limiting his ability to see the future—or rather which future would come true. Thus, Solaris did not see what the humans planned on doing with him until it was too late.

Gaia and Mother Chaos are A-Okay with Solaris destroying the planet. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time one of them has, after all. It’d be a bummer for it to end so soon, but they can just make another one. It’s because of this that they don’t interfere with Solaris’ plot… as well as the fact that their creations had hurt their friend.

It’s also this familiarity that means the Chaos Emeralds will so easily obey Mephiles. Doesn’t matter who posses them or if they’re on the other side of the planet, if the gods call, they answer.

[sinsandsweetness]

Inclination (sex and zombies- chapter 1)

all chapters here

pairing- {Daryl x fem!reader}

summary- Reader is crushing on Rick, but someone else offers to take care of her needs.

warnings- 18+ content, MDNI, smut, rough sex, dirty talk, begging. I think that's all.

notes- I just thought I would cross post these chapters on here. They definitely don't need to be read in order and can all pretty much be standalone fics if you want them to be. However they do follow the timeline of the show and have a bit of plot I sprinkled in, so I feel like it makes a better story all in order.

**(The entire work has both rick x reader and daryl x reader scenes. definitely more rick though cause... I mean can u blame me?)

Let me know what you think!

“Hot?” A deep voice asked from behind you. You looked over your shoulder. 

Your cheeks turned warm and you could tell you were blushing. So you stepped even further into the quarry. 

“A little,”

He smiled at you. You turned around and dipped your whole self into the water, then moved to lay down and float on your back. You were bored. And hot. Going for a swim seemed to be a decent solution for both of your issues. 

However, you weren’t really expecting company. Especially not Ricks. 

His gaze made you want to disappear under the cool water forever, but you needed air at some point. 

He was still standing there. A couple buckets of water on the ground now filled. But he was rolling up his jeans and stepping in. Cooling his feet off. He sighed up at the sun. 

You couldn’t even help but stare at him. 

“Y' know Shane was getting worried about you. Thought you ran off or something,” 

“Ran away from him maybe…” you muttered. Not realizing that the water made it loud enough for him to hear you. Shane had wanted to teach you to clean guns. You didn’t really care. He’d already showed you twice. 

“He can be kind of intense.” Rick said with a smile. 

“Yeah, intense. Overbearing. Annoying. Just a few among his many outstanding qualities.” You joked. 

“He is a little protective, I’ll give you that.” He grinned. “I guess there’s a few guys around here who are a little protective of you huh?” 

You didn’t really know what to answer. Not entirely sure what he meant. Shane? He was protective of everyone. The whole group was his responsibility at one point.

Rick must have seen the confusion on your face. 

“I just mean that you’re young. They don’t… want anything to happen to you,”

“Who?”

“Shane, Dale, Daryl,” He paused for a moment. Reaching down to feel the cool water. “Me.”

That made your heart flutter. Just a little. 

But he was married. And he didn’t mean it like that. He meant like a sister. Or a kid. Probably anyway. 

“You?” 

“Yeah, y’know Lori has nothing but good things to say about you.” 

That was probably true. 

“Well I don’t think Daryl here gives a rats ass what happens to me,” you brought the attention to behind Rick. Seeing the man walking over to the two of you. He had blood on his arms. And dirt. Mostly dirt actually now that he was up close. 

“The hell are you doing down here? Shane’s been looking for you for over an hour,” Daryl asked you. Not even acknowledging Ricks presence. 

“Tell him to come down here and get me then.” You taunted. Just a little. 

Rick chuckled, slid his shoes back on and grabbed the buckets of water. He started back for the camp. 

“I’ll let him know you’re here,” he nodded a sweet goodbye at you and you smiled back. But Daryl didn’t leave. Instead he started washing his arms in the clear quarry water. 

“Seriously? You couldn’t do that anywhere else?”

“What he can be here but I can’t?” He motioned to Rick who was well out of range now. 

“You’re getting the water all gross.”

He grunted. Standing up and drying his arms and hands off with a rag from his pocket. 

You started to swim back to shore, standing up and wringing your hair out. 

“You know he’s married right?” 

You glared at him. 

“I’m aware.” Painfully aware. 

“Then maybe you shouldn’t invite him into the water when you’re wearing next to nothing.” He pointed to your bare legs.

You looked down at your now see through tank top. Very see through. And some cute little panties with flowers all over them. But they were more modest than Daryl seemed to think. Regardless, he seemed irritated. 

“I didn’t invite him in-"

“Oh you’ve been ogglin him since the moment he got here! Giving him them bedroom eyes,” he muttered the last part. But you still heard. 

“Bedroom eyes?” You scoffed. 

“Uh huh,”

“What would you even know about bedroom eyes Daryl? You ever even had a girl in your bed?” You were being kind of mean now. But he was most of the time anyway so you didn’t feel too bad.

“Wouldn’t be too hard to convince you would it? Little slut like you would fuck anything that gave her a lick of attention-“

This wouldn’t be the first fight you two had gotten into. There was one about Merle and the way he was trying to take you to his tent after a scavenged bottle of wine. You called Merle a few crude choice words. Daryl got up in your face. 

Shane broke that up quickly. Telling you both to calm down. But Shane wasn’t here now. 

So you lunged at him. “Prick!” You started to push at his chest but his hands caught your wrists, twisting them downwards. Trying your best to kick and hit him, but he just moved you against a large rock. Rather aggressively you might add. 

“Don’t fuckin’ touch me,” you spat at him. Wrists still pinned to your sides. Pressed against the cool shaded rock. 

“You’re the one who started it,” he points out. 

Finally you stopped struggling against his touch. And he loosened his grip. That was his mistake because as soon as your wrist was free, you reached up to slap him. Not very hard but enough to get a reaction. 

He immediately shoved you up against the rock with his whole body, pinning your chest with his forearm. 

“Are you mad that I called you a slut? Or mad that you know I’m right?” He was up in your face now. Actually up against your whole body. Your wet clothes dampening his own. 

“Get off me,” you say through clenched teeth. 

“I think,” Daryl’s free hand moved to the front of your panties, pressing against your clit.  “That I’m right. It wouldn’t be too hard to get you in my bed would it?” 

“Screw you,” unfortunately the pressure of his hand elicited a physical reaction from you. Definitely not in agreement with your words. 

“Yeah you wish,” 

“Daryl seriously stop,” you tried to grab at his arm, and pull it away from between your legs. But he didn’t let up, instead he put more pressure, rubbing messy circles on your clit. 

You choked back a moan. 

“You want me to take you right here? Give you some relief before you go back to daydreaming about officer friendly huh?”

His moved your panties to the side and dipped a finger inside. Breath hitching in your throat. 

“Daryl…” 

“I’ll stop if you really want me to.” He pulled out of you, “But I got a feeling that you don’t,” he brought his finger up to his mouth, tasting you and then dipping down again, inserting two digits this time. He got a noise out of you that time. Curling up to hit your g spot. 

“You want me to fuck you?” He asked quietly into your ear. 

You shook your head. No way.

His fingers were curling and thrusting into you at a perfect pace.   

“You like that huh? Tell me how bad you want it.” He asked. 

And with those words in your ear you gave up. With a quiet sob you rested your forehead on his shoulder. Allowing yourself to give in to his torture. Suppressing your moans into his shoulder. 

Not that you didn’t want anyone to hear. No one would. You just didn’t want to give Daryl the satisfaction of making you moan. Of having any effect on your body. 

“I’m gonna need an answer, sweetheart” he pulled his fingers out and dipped his head down to your chest, pulling your tank top down and sucking and nibbling at your breasts. 

“Yeah…” you whispered. Loving the way his mouth warmed your wet skin. 

He leaned back and grinned. You could see his hard on through his jeans but he took his hands off you. 

“That’s all it took? Like I said, just a few minutes of attention. Got you begging me to fuck you,”

Annoyed at his little games you rolled your eyes, "I’d hardly call that begging,"

He grunted and reached into his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. 

“Seriously?”  you were really annoyed now. You could feel your wetness pooling in your panties. And here he was lighting a damn cigarette. You were over aware of how empty you were, a strong need for where his touch was just a minute ago. 

“You want it?”, he took a drag of his cigarette, “Then you can beg for it.” 

“I am not fucking begging you for-“

“Then go back to camp. See if Shane will help you. Rick definitely won’t.” You squeezed your legs together. Trying to get some form of relief. 

“Or you can go back to your tent, all wet and needy. You can try and do it yourself. Don’t think your fingers will fill you up the same way one of us could but-“ 

“Daryl come on,” you grabbed his arm and pulled him back towards you, hoping he’d give in before you actually felt the need to beg. You fumbled with his belt, while trying to catch his lips. You could hear the sizzle of his cigarette against the rock beside you. 

“Say it,” he said against your mouth, hands now both going to your hips. 

“Fuck me.” You demanded. Not asking. 

He grinned against you, letting you slide a hand into his pants, stroking him a few times. 

“What’s the magic word?” He was breathing heavy now. He wouldn’t walk away now. 

You rolled your eyes. But when he dipped his hand back under your panties, you bit back a moan. He went in with two digits right away. Plus a thumb on your clit. Working together clumsily. 

“Just once.” He said softer this time. Asking nicely. 

Another stifled moan escaped you. 

“Fuck- Daryl please…”

“Atta girl,” he spun you around, face smashing up against the rock now in front of you. He smacked your ass hard. Earning a squeak from you. You looked back at him, 

“Ouch!”

He didn’t acknowledge your moment of pain. Instead tugging on your panties, pulling them down to your knees. 

His hands started to play with your ass, caressing up and down. Spreading you open for him to see. 

“Daryl…” you were impatient. 

“I know, I know,” he lined himself up with your entrance and pushed in. An inch or two at a time until you were completely filled. You closed your eyes relishing in the feel of him stretching you out. His hands gripped onto your waist, pulling you down against him. Meeting his thrusts halfway. 

He pounded fast and hard. Not caring about your poor face hitting the rock in front of you. His hand came up and pulled on your hair. Throwing your head back, you cried out. A mix between a sob and a moan. He liked that. 

A lot. 

He tightened his grip on your hair and started pounding into you harder. 

“Fuck,” he was grunting behind you, the sound of skin slapping filled the air between you. 

You could feel how close you were. He was hitting that hot bundle of nerves deep inside of you. Pushing you to the edge. Within no time you came hard with a drawn out whine. But Daryl wasn’t done yet. 

And when your knees started to give out he noticed. 

“I knew I’d have you coming all over my cock,” He kept going, the arm around your waist the only thing keeping you upright at this point. It was getting to be too much. 

Suddenly he pulled out and used the hand tangled in your hair to push you to your knees. Rather hard. The gravel underneath you digging into your skin. He turned you towards him, twisting your body awkwardly and he jerked himself above your face. Instincts told you to open your mouth and the second he felt your wet tongue on the bottom of his tip, you were rewarded with his salty seed. You swallowed it all. Looking up at him with doe eyes. Your knees and scalp hurting from his agression. 

He swore under his breath. Finally letting your scalp go. Tucking himself back into his pants and doing up his belt. You stood up slowly and started to dress yourself again. Grabbing your shorts and the flannel you’d left on shore before your swim. 

“You ok?” 

There was a cut on your knee. A tiny droplet of blood trailing down your calf. 

“Fine” 

“You know you can come by my tent later if that wasn’t enough-“

“Don’t tell anyone about this ok?” You cut him off.

He scoffed. “What you embarrassed or so-“

“Seriously Daryl if you ever want anything like that to happen again, you’ll shut it. ” You buttoned up your flannel. It was two sizes two big. 

“Damn already asking me for more! If I’d a known-“ 

You walked by him and smacked the back of his head. Kinda hard. Harder than you meant. 

“Aw fuck,” he rubbed at the back of his head and jogged back after you. Walking the both of you back to camp. 

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

“The hell happened to you?” Shane came over quickly. Seeing the blood on your knee and the scrape on your face. 

“Nothing I-" 

“You do this?” His attention now drawn to Daryl right behind you. He started to grab the man’s collar but you got in between them quickly. 

“Hey Shane! No. We had a little fight ok, but it was my fault.” You pushed on his chest, leading him further from the bowman. “I’m serious, I’m fine. He just put me in my place that’s all.” 

Shane was scowling hard. He didn’t believe you. “Put you in your place-“ 

“I swung at him! We had an argument and it just got a little heated ok. We talked it out. We’re good.” 

“You’re telling me-“

“You heard her man, she swung on me!” Daryl piped in to his defence. 

“I did.” You looked back at him with a warning glare. “But we’re good now right?” 

He nodded. “Mhm.” He paused. Praying he wouldn’t say anything crude. “Best friends.” He teased. 

You looked back at Shane. A few others from the camp had made their way over after hearing the little altercation. 

“See?” You tell Shane. Assuring him you were fine. He continued to scowl at Daryl, but wrapped a possessive arm around your waist, guiding you back towards the main camp.

Maybe Rick was right about a few men being a little protective of you. 

(next chapter)

[mswyrr]

more on michelin stars

I genuinely think it's going to be an important plot point in s3 re: why exactly Sydney wants a star and why *one* specifically. I went and researched and discovered something I used in my fic, which is that one Michelin star restaurants are excellent cuisine that normal people can still afford. And that connected, for me, to what Sydney had told Marcus about how going out was so special when she was a kid and she wanted to share that kind of amazing thing with people:

We didn't really like eat out a lot growing up, so when we did, it felt special even if it wasn't.... I wanna cook for people and make them happy and give them the best bacon on Earth (1x08)

I'm so hopeful/convinced that the research they have with, like, Matty (the chef who plays Fak) right there on set, means the writers know that about what one star places can be like. And that it's meant to be part of this - more humane vision of excellence for Sydney, where their spot is AMAZING, but it's not a cruel kitchen culture, it's not only for the rich.

For her, it’s *part* of her vision, where she says: 

“I think this place could be so different from all the other places we've been at. But, in order for that to be true, we need to run things different.“ (1x03)

But Carmy sees a star and all it means (all he’s ever known it to mean) as a repudiation of that kind of humanity. You say the word "star" and immediately Carmy goes "fuck stars" (2x01) as pure self-defense - because stars are just pain and suffering to him. They're NYC chef and everything that mess became.

He's so traumatized by the whole thing he doesn't think to ask the right questions: why do you want one? What is your vision for it? Why do you specifically want *one* instead of two or three? What timeline do you have in mind for getting there and how can we strategize on this together?

Instead, because he wants so desperately to please her, despite that instinctive, self-defensive "fuck stars" he relents and asks - okay, are you sure? Are you positive this is what you want? Really?? It's terrible. It's just dread and fear and throwing up every day before work. You really want me to give you this?

(I’ll give you anything you want)

He never asks the right questions. Just assuming the level of pain which is his only experience of this is what the thing IS--playing into that theme about how people only know what they're taught, only know what they are given, and if we are given pain and patterns of it it is so hard to even imagine things can be different and, when you can imagine it, still so hard to actually get there.

(It’s not a coincidence that the ASL sign is one of the few positive, healthy examples of kitchen culture Carmy witnessed - we only know what we’re taught, and it can be hard work to even figure out what “not shitty” IS let alone doing it)

So he's assuming all of that and it's like - if she's his CDC, does she want him to push her as hard as he was pushed? Push himself that hard again? He doesn't want to do either of those things. But that's all he knows. And she keeps saying this is what she wants. And he wants to give her everything she wants.

(In the same conversation she kept saying yes, this is what I want, she expressed admiration for the designer chef outfit he later buys her as a gift - he wants to give her everything she wants, even when it seems like a terrible idea he’s torn about)

I think this misunderstanding is intentional and it’s going to come out in S3. A one star restaurant fits so perfectly with what we know of Sydney’s goals and love for her work! And Carmy not able to even conceive of something better because of the patterns he’s stuck in and finding his way to her vision makes sense for him.

I think Carmy figuring out how this work can be joyful and humane is going to be a huge part of S3. Sydney not becoming lost in the high stress environment, not following in younger!Carmy's footsteps living a life of pure drive and dread, and Carmy finding that for the first time.

I do think that, given where they both end in 2x10, there’s going to be a period of conflict and a real bunch of issues for both of them - but with themes and ideas like this seeded into the story there’s so many ways to make s3 start out in a bad way and then really end in joy in a beautiful way?

[coolstoriesbro]

FOR THE ONES WE LOVE | CH. 2

FANDOM: The Walking Dead

SERIES: For the Ones We Love

STATUS: Ongoing

ERA: Prison

PAIRING: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader (No Use of “Y/N”)

CHAPTER TWO: New Girl

WORD COUNT: 4k

SUMMARY: After spending the last few weeks getting to know the other residents of the prison, you begrudgingly join Daryl on a hunting trip at Rick’s insistence.

RATING: Mature

WARNINGS: Language, Animal Death (Hunting)

SERIES MASTERLIST

A/N: I’m completely blown away by the response that Backseat Driver received, and am now planning to turn this into a series entitled For the Ones We Love. Thank you for all the likes, reblogs and comments. They definitely helped in getting this next chapter up so quickly. (Also, couldn’t resist since yesterday was Norman’s birthday!) My plan for this series is to start from the Prison Era, and go all the way through to the Commonwealth Era. I will not feature every event in my series, but the key plot points will be mentioned and it will (more or less) follow the same timeline. Readers, please be forthcoming with what you’d like to see. I have my own favorite tropes that I’m going to follow, of course, but would love to hear yours as well. You never know what will inspire a writer!

“Mornin’,” Rick greeted you when you joined his family in the part of the prison where everyone ate their meals.

The former Sheriff’s Deputy offered you a warm smile as you sat down across from he, Carl, and Judith. While they did have an actual cafeteria available, it was a good distance from their living quarters and a trek through the tombs, so the group had decided to move a few tables just outside their cell block instead.

When Daryl brought you back after his run several weeks ago, Rick had been surprised to hear that he’d found you alone. A woman by herself in the middle of nowhere was always an eerie sight, but even more so these days. That knowledge alone was enough to tell him not to underestimate you. The fact that you had been able to stay alive while on your own also made him think you could become an asset to the group, which he discovered was true after he’d taken you for target practice the other day.

Carl was all smiles around you, which Rick was relieved to see. His son hadn’t had much to smile about, not since Lori died giving birth to Judith just a few days after they arrived at the prison.

“Morning,” You replied, returning Rick and Carl’s smiles with one of your own.

Rick Grimes, the leader of Daryl’s group, had kind eyes that made you feel welcome. He was a good man, and had gone out of his way to reestablish society within the prison. Upon arriving, you trusted your first impression of him enough to relinquish your weapons, temporarily and just as a precaution, he’d assured you. His rules were fair and easy to follow, and you found yourself incredibly lucky to have landed in his group. You could recall the feeling of relief settling into your tired bones; a feeling that you’d thought you’d never experience again, when you and Daryl pulled up outside of the prison that first night. Daryl may have been a lot of things, but at least now you knew he wasn’t a liar.

Over the past few weeks, you had made your rounds, getting to know all the other residents of the prison. You weren’t sure how long the group had been together before you came along, but it had certainly been long enough for them to develop friendships — even romantic relationships. You had warmed to Glenn quickly, much to his girlfriend Maggie’s dismay. There wasn’t a physical attraction on either end, but you could sense hostility coming from Maggie every time you were near. As much as you enjoyed Glenn’s company, you’d decided not to make a habit out of being alone with him. The set-up at the prison had very much saved your life, and you didn’t want to blow it over something nonexistent.

Being the leader of the group, Rick always seemed to be busy with something. Maggie’s father, Hershel was an older gentleman who spent a lot of his time planning a garden out in the prison yard, and you welcomed the things he taught you about harvesting. You noticed more than once that Daryl stood off on his own most of the time, but when he did speak to anyone, it was usually to Rick or an older woman named Carol. The truth was, Daryl hadn’t spoken more than a few words to you since the night he brought you back to the prison. While you weren’t exactly expecting that the two of you would become best friends, you wondered why he seemed to be keeping his distance.

Which left Carl and the baby, Judith. While your chores kept you busy, there was also a fair amount of downtime, and you usually spent it with them. It began gradually, since you felt it was best to keep your distance out of respect for Rick. After all, you were a complete stranger and the man was kind enough to allow you shelter in his makeshift home. You didn’t want to make him uneasy by spending too much time with his children. Carl, however, always seemed to find you, and where Carl was, Judith usually was as well. Regardless, Rick had gotten to know you well enough that he didn’t seem to mind, and had even started to ask you if you minded watching Judith when he was busy.

“What’s for breakfast?” You asked, your eyes going straight to the two beige plastic bowls that were currently sitting in front of Rick and Carl.

“Oatmeal. Actually, you can have mine!” Carl offered graciously, pushing his bowl towards you. “It just cooled off; I can make another one.”

Before you could reply with so much as a “thank you”, the younger boy hopped up and hurried over to a counter that housed the breakfast foods.

“I’ve never seen him so excited about oatmeal before.” Rick grinned, finishing off his own breakfast as he cradled Judith in his arms.

You returned Rick’s grin with one of your own. You had been given enough attention by boys and men in the past to know that Carl was crushing on you. He was a cute kid, and you enjoyed his company, but didn’t want him getting his hopes up. You were more than twice his age and any feelings you had towards him would only ever be platonic.

“Hey Juuuude,” You sang softly, leaning over to give Judith’s smooth head a gentle stroke. You had formed a habit of singing that song to the baby as a lullaby during the days you put her down for her naps. You remembered how your mother used to sing that song every time it came on the car radio, and the memory made you smile.

As you hovered over Judith, Rick was practically beaming. You were kind, and so good with his children. Hell, you were honestly a blessing after the death of his wife had taken place so recently. Rick’s smile grew as Judith waved her arms and kicked her legs excitedly at the sight of you.

“You know, she never gets this excited when I sing to her.” He commented, a comically offended tone taking over his voice.

“That’s because you don’t sing her the right songs!” You teased, sitting back down at the table and taking a bite of oatmeal.

“That right?” Rick chuckled, taking a sip from his cup of coffee just as Daryl exited C-Block and joined them.

“You headed out?” Rick asked, looking up at him.

Daryl nodded. “Can’t live on this prison chow forever. Gonna go to the woods, try to find some meat.”

Daryl took quick notice to the fact that you were spending time with Rick, Carl, and Judith. Again. It didn’t annoy him so much as throw him off. For so long it had just been them: Rick, Carl, Carol, Glenn, Hershel, and Maggie. He knew he’d done the right thing when bringing you back that night, but he still hadn’t gotten used to your presence.

Daryl may not have said much to you over the past few weeks, but he’d gone out of his way to keep an eye on you, whether you realized it or not. The truth was, he had never had to deal with a newcomer apart from Rick, and that had been entirely different. Before Rick, he and Merle had been the last to join the Atlanta group, and after that they’d all become the new addition when ending up at the Greene Farm after Carl’s accident.

“Why don’t you take her with you?” Rick suggested, nodding towards you as he patted Judith on the back.

“Why?” Daryl grunted as he lifted a cup to his mouth.

Rick glanced at you, an apologetic look on his face. “Because we could use another hunter around here, and she’s been doing great at target practice. I have a feeling she’ll do just fine.”

Daryl made a noise, somewhere between a scoff and another grunt, but nodded his head whether or not he agreed with Rick’s suggestion.

Scrunching up your nose, you spooned a few more bites of oatmeal into your mouth in attempt to hide just what you thought of Rick’s feeling. While you didn’t mean any offense to him, hunting had never been a favorite pastime of yours. You’d gone on many trips with your father and brother when you were younger, mostly as a way to spite Evan when he got cocky about his skills with a shotgun, but you’d never enjoyed it.

Then there was the thought of going off alone with Mr. Pleasant.

Oh, joy.

“You OK with that?” Rick asked.

“Sure.” You nodded, pushing yourself up from the table. “Gotta start earning my keep around here.”

“I didn’t mean—“ He started.

“It’s fine, I want to.” You smiled reassuringly at Rick, even though you were lying through your goddamn teeth after witnessing how Daryl seemed less than thrilled by the idea of you tagging along.

“Can I come?” Carl asked when he returned to the table with another bowl of oatmeal.

Opening your mouth, you were prepared to agree if Rick didn’t object, when Daryl shook his head.

“Takin’ the bike, not enough room.”

You could see how bummed Carl was by the way he slouched back into his seat, which you hated to see. Especially now that you’d learned his mother had passed away so recently.

Not wanting to disappoint the kid, you stepped in front of Daryl.

“You mean the bike that broke down?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest.

“It’s fixed now.” Daryl said defensively, coming to a stop in front of you as he pulled on his leather vest.

“More like for now.” You mumbled, smirking as you caught Carl’s amused gaze with your own.

Carl chuckled at your smart ass comment about the bike, but after catching sight of Daryl’s face, suddenly became very interested in Glenn and Maggie as they sat down at the next table.

“That’s right, ya only like backseats, don’tcha, Betty?” Daryl asked you tauntingly.

You frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Rick shook his head. “Daryl, ease up.”

With a shrug of his shoulders and another grumble, Daryl crossed the room, busying himself by adding his cup of coffee to the tub of dirty dishes. You narrowed your eyes, watching him as he walked off.

Rick stood up, handing Judith to Carl before stepping over to you.

“Sorry about that.” Rick began, lowering his voice. “He’s just—“

“An asshole?” You finished for him, raising an eyebrow.

Rick chuckled. ‘Asshole’ had definitely been on the list of words that he’d categorized Daryl Dixon under after first meeting him a year ago, but that had recently changed. The youngest Dixon had stepped up when he’d gone out of his way to track Sophia back at the farm, and had only continued to prove himself since then. Stepping in when Rick struggled to put Dale down himself; protecting their group as they moved from one location to the next; hunting and providing food for them — the list of his good deeds went on and on. Since then, Daryl had more than earned the title of Rick’s right-hand man. Rick just wished that he would open up and show his softer side to you as well.

“He’s a good guy. I think you know that, given how you met.”

“Well, I’m starting to think that he’s regretting bringing me back here.” You muttered.

“Give it some time.” Rick pleaded, placing his hand on your shoulder.

“Ya comin’ or not?” Daryl asked, reappearing with his crossbow and the rest of his gear over his shoulder.

At Daryl’s question, you looked to Rick, who shot you another sympathetic look. Before you could respond, he raised his hand to signal for Daryl to wait. “Hold on.”

Turning away, Rick hurried down the hallway to his cell, returning just a moment later with your revolver and knife in his hands. While you’d felt safer in the prison than you had in a very long time, the sight of your weapons brought a smile to your face, as did the thought of what it meant that Rick was returning them to you.

“I take it I’ve proven myself not to be a total psycho?” You smirked at him.

Rick chuckled, nodding as he handed your weapons over. “Just try not to kill him, would ya?”

“No promises.” You muttered, the smirk never leaving your lips as you slid the knife beneath your belt and the revolver into the waistband of your jeans.

When you joined Daryl outside by the gate a few minutes later, he unceremoniously tossed you his backpack before hopping onto his bike.

“Ya ever ride before?” He called over the rumbling noise of the engine.

You nodded, pulling the backpack onto your shoulders and adjusting to the weight of it.

“By yourself, I mean.”

“No, but my ex had one.”

Daryl grunted. “What kind?”

You hesitated. “A . . . fast one?”

As you watched Daryl’s reaction, you could have sworn that you saw the corners of his lips turn up with the slightest hint of amusement, but he soon made another disgruntled noise, making you assume that you’d imagined it completely.

“Yeah, well, mine’s faster.” He grunted. “Get on.”

Raising your hands at his declaration as he turned his back to you, you made a face as if to say “Ohhh, I’m so impressed — NOT!”,  then rolled your eyes while swinging your leg over the seat and climbing onto the back of the bike. Men were absolutely ridiculous when it came to their motorcycles. It was truly the biggest dick measuring contest there was.

Daryl felt the bike shift slightly from your weight, but kept his feet placed firmly on the ground as he straddled it, making no move to go. With a confused frown, you leaned in towards his ear. “I’m ready.”

“Told ya it’s fast.” He grumbled.

Finally understanding that this was probably as close to a warning as you were going to get from Daryl Dixon, you scooted your body closer to his, lowering your hands to his waist and gripping onto the worn leather of his vest a little harder than necessary. It wasn’t that you were nervous on bikes, just that you could feel another smart ass remark dancing on your tongue and were trying hard not to say it out loud.

Shut up. You promised Rick.

At the feel of the warmth and proximity of your body behind him, Daryl kicked his bike into gear just as Carl hurried over to open the gate. Beaming at Rick’s oldest, you raised your arm and waved goodbye as Daryl pulled the throttle, sending you both hurtling past a cluster of walkers that had gathered at the entrance of the prison.

When you arrived at your destination several miles down the road, you followed Daryl’s lead and slid off the bike before walking a couple of paces behind him into the heavily wooded area.

“Soil’s pretty soft here.” He stated, though his tone wasn’t exactly conversational. Mostly he seemed to be thinking out loud. “Gotta be somethin’ close by.”

You squinted at him in the daylight, your hands on your hips. The Georgia sun was unforgiving, as fucking usual, and you were quickly remembering another reason why you hated hunting.

“So, how’d you learn all this?” You asked; your attempt at small talk.

“Gotta eat.” He replied simply.

“But who taught you?”

Daryl shrugged.

“Your dad?”

“Not really.”

When Daryl refused to elaborate, you got the hint. His father obviously wasn’t on the list of topics that he liked to converse with people about — if there happened to be any at all. The next few hours went by agonizingly slowly as you trekked through the woods together. Though Daryl’s personality left a lot to be desired, you had to admit, the man was patient. You, however, were not.

“Maybe there’s a creek nearby?” You suggested, standing up from where you’d been leaning against a tree and brushing your hands off on the back of your jeans. “We could look around.”

“Ya bring along any fishin’ poles? Any bait?” He grunted, making you feel like an absolute idiot.

“Well, there could be mussels . . . or something close to shore.”

“There ain’t any creeks nearby.” He assured you, hefting the half dozen squirrels he’d shot and strung together over his shoulder.

As you pressed your lips together, you chanted that same mantra in your head, over and over again:

Shutupshutupshutup. You promised, Rick. Remember your promise to Rick.

As much as you wanted to keep said promise, the sun was close to setting and your patience was wearing thin. You were about to say as much when you caught sight of several streaks of gray just a few yards to your left. Daryl, clearly having had enough of you, had gone off in the opposite direction. He’d walked too far for him to hear you speak unless you shouted, and you weren’t going to risk scaring these rabbits off.

Remaining where you were, you raised your revolver in both hands, closing your left eye and lining up the barrel of the gun with a rabbit. Releasing a deep breath to steady yourself, you slid the hammer back and pulled the trigger three times in quick succession.

One – two – three.

The bullets fired and soared through the air, hitting two out of your three targets. Daryl whipped around at the sound of gunfire and watched you from behind as you stood with your back straight, your gaze focused. After slipping your gun down into the waistband of your jeans, you did a little happy dance while making your way over to collect your prize.

Picking up a rabbit in each hand, you frowned down at their corpses and muttered under your breath. “Sorry little dudes; gotta eat.”

When you looked up you found Daryl staring at you, and hesitated briefly before deciding that you weren’t going to let the permanent scowl on his face ruin your joy of contributing to their dinner.

“Aww, you’re jealous that I found them first, aren’t you?” You called tauntingly, smirking as you watched him walk towards you, shoulders tense.

Daryl huffed, readjusting the strap of his crossbow. “Beginner’s luck.”

When you returned to the prison about half an hour later the sun had begun to set. Once you secured the gate, you both headed towards a small area where a campfire was set up. Stepping towards the pit, you watched as Daryl got to work on building a fire, your gaze going to your knife as you laid the rabbits down on a nearby table. Then realization suddenly dawned on you. You may have known how to shoot those rabbits, but you had absolutely no fucking idea how to prepare the meat.

“Not so cocky now, are ya?” You could hear the smirk in his voice as he seemed to read your mind.

When you looked up to find Daryl staring back at you, your first thought was that he might actually be cute if he didn’t glower all the time, but that feeling was quickly replaced with annoyance over the fact that he was trying to take you down a peg or two.

“You know, I’m surprised you can shoot anything with that hair hanging in your eyes all the time.”

He scoffed. “Been huntin’ longer than ya been alive, girl.”

“In that case, maybe you’re getting a little too old for it?” You suggested, not even missing a beat.

While you didn’t know Daryl’s exact age, you were assuming that he was in his mid-thirties, which made you over ten years younger, and therefore gave you every right to refer to him as “old” — whether or not you actually thought that he was.

Daryl scoffed once more, but grew quiet, his steadfast gaze easing slightly.

“That wasn’t luck; your shootin’.” He finally spoke a few minutes later. “It wasn’t somethin’ ya picked up from a few days of target practice neither.”

“You’re right.” You admitted, and as you looked at him your grip tightened on the handle of your knife. You may not win this damn staring contest that he’d started, but you were at least going to give him a run for his money.

Daryl hummed and began chewing on the inside of his bottom lip as he appeared to be thinking about something. As much as you were tempted to keep an air of mystery about yourself in the same way that he seemed to like to, you sighed, deciding to just take it as a win that he was at least talking to you now.

“I have . . . “

Had?

No, that hurt too much to think about. Until you knew for sure, you would continue to use present tense when referring to your family.

“ . . . a very protective father. He wouldn’t let me move out on my own until I got a gun permit and went to the shooting range with him for an entire month. He also took me and my brother hunting when I was a kid.”

Daryl seemed to take a moment to consider that.

Again he stared, and again you stared back, wondering if perhaps he might take this opportunity to share something about himself. Instead, he finished building the fire and dusted his hands off on his pants before walking over and setting the squirrels down on the table across from you.

While you were lost in the puzzle that was Daryl Dixon, you’d mindlessly started to work the rabbit over with your knife. With a tilt of his head, he removed his own knife and slid the blade into the stomach of one of his squirrels.

Catching your eye, he nodded in the direction of your rabbit. “Try cuttin’ closer to the bone, like this.”

Your gaze went from Daryl’s face to his hands as he demonstrated by slicing into the squirrel. After a moment spent studying his technique, you used one hand to slide your blade deeper into the animal, and the other to hold it steady. Glancing up at him, you opened your mouth to ask him how you did, when you caught sight of movement behind his shoulder.

Out in the field beyond the fence stood an injured, dark-skinned woman with dreadlocks. At first you assumed it was just another walker in the crowd that seemed to permanently loom outside the gate, but then you looked closer. She was limping, bloodied, and beaten — but what truly stood out was the fact that her eyes were also dark, not the otherworldly green that all walkers possessed. This woman was human, yet surrounded by the dead, and they were completely oblivious to her presence.

“Holy shit.” You breathed, looking to Daryl before raising your arm and pointing out towards the woman. “Who’s that?”

CHAPTER THREE

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Taglist: @azanoni​, @rickysgrimes​, @dillie60​ @darylsmavis​, @starfirette​, @dxrylswalker​, @luckily-gray, @nuhogom​, @ibellpepper, @angel-winchester-dixon-mendes​, @tryingddfffggt, @averyhockstetter​, @geronimasyaferninblog, @jackstergrey 

[oopsgracie]

my thoughts on loki season two so far…

i’m really struggling with this season of loki because i want to love it but why so many filler episodes? i feel like this did nothing to develop plot or relationships or even loki as a character. true, i do like the whole OB as a science teacher come wannabe bestseller and his role in helping loki control time slipping, and i enjoyed seeing their original timelines but i feel like this could have been done differently, perhaps not in less time, but in a way that made it feel like loki genuinely connects with these people. i don’t remember him having a conversation with b-15 about anything other than the T.V.A, similar situation when it comes to casey although they’ve had more screen time together. if his life’s new glorious purpose is wanting to reunite his friends and restore order, then put some effort into making their bonds with loki and each other more authentic?

can we also talk about why sylvie and loki weren’t reset, i know this might be answered next episode, i just hope it doesn’t become a plot hole.

we’re so often reminded that he’s a god, but it seems to be that everybody else has forgotten he’s the god of mischief, chaos, that this man invaded the whole of new york less than a month ago. with some good character development, or even a plot in which he questions his choices and desires and finds this motivation within himself later, maybe i could believe that he truly wants to restore what he has always sought to remove, but i feel like the loki i saw in this episode is no different to the loki i met at the end of season one, or even s2ep1, when his biggest concern was sylvie’s wellbeing, except that he’s done a one eighty in what he believes and has become this blindly led hero figure.

also loki and sylvie in general, i know it’s unpopular (coming from somebody that really loved their relationship) but also integral to the first season. you can’t erase a relationship that has already driven the plot of six episodes and dare i say most of loki’s character development? except apparently you can, because that seems to be what the writers have chosen to do. push any kind of tension you like, have him hate her for what she did, have him try to do everything without her and fail, but at least give them some screen time? what happened to her being his glorious purpose? what happened to finding a place on the timeline together? what happened? i love mobius and OB, but they don’t replace the dynamic of two loki variants trying to navigate the ideas of a multiverse, order against chaos and what it means to be loved. that’s what made season one so compelling and now it’s been replaced with a vapid quest to fix up a rusty old loom. i don’t know if people who disliked their relationship were listened to and that was the catalyst for such a change, and i get that it’s not for everyone, but if that’s the decision they came to at least break it off in a way that works with the storyline rather than immediately end it with no explanation. no character has mentioned how they’re feeling after everything’s gone down and with such clear moments in which these conversations could have been had, they just didn’t. the pie room— with both sylvie and mobius, the bar scene, the ferris wheel. i feel like i’ve heard sylvie say the same few lines over and over again, that she hates the T.V.A, hates HWR, wants to be free from the time fascists and make her own choices and then she leaves. even after loki speaks of thor, they talk but they don’t say anything that’s hasn’t already been understood. it goes nowhere and feels unsatisfying, like we’re going round in circles which ironically, but i suspect unintentionally, seems quite fitting with the story.

this season has its moments, i just wanted something of substance.

that’s not to say i don’t enjoy watching it, any loki content is content i’ll find joy in and i truly love the concept of this season, exploring time loops and the ouroboros, how terrifying kang is made out to be, sylvie realising she needs the T.V.A, science and time-travel to hunt down a rogue miss minutes and renslayer (who doesn’t love loki in a suit?), but i think that what matters (loki, his development and his relationships) has been executed poorly, sacrificed to advance the MCU rather than the series, which seems a shame when they had already been so well established coming into the second season, or maybe my expectations were just too high. i almost hope they don’t push any intense friendship/love interest moments in the final episode when it’s all been so neglected.

absolutely no hate to those who feel differently i just needed somewhere to point out all my frustrations :)

[teecupangel]

AU where (I've never played Valhalla, bear with me) Aletheia had been lying out her ass about the whole "heir of memories must save the world from the- *spins wheel* ...magnetic field" and the whole thing was a ruse to deliver the staff (and thus, Aletheia) to someone more susceptible to Isu brain manipulation who would do as told and die to revive Basim

Imagine Layla and Desmond in the Grey finding this out and losing their shit, then starting a revenge plot through time to kick Aletheia's ass and free Kassandra (Layla), seduce save some of their ancestors/fellow Assassins along the way (Desmond), and try to keep these two near gods from destroying reality (Clay, whose brain is still a bit fried and doesn't know how he's here but he knows these two idiots are somehow his problem)

It would be fun if it was Clay who told them about Aletheia’s true nature. Hell, if you want to fully kick Aletheia to the villain category, maybe the whole ‘Yggdrassil problem becoming the next catastrophe’ had been her doing in some way, to force Layla to give up her life and Desmond, as the Reader, didn’t see it in the Calculations because he was, after all, not exactly Desmond Miles anymore. To be more accurate, he wasn’t entirely human anymore so he had ignored the ‘emotional element’ of the Calculations.

Clay could have woken up because he felt Layla and she was an anomaly in the sense that she wasn’t meant to die and become part of the Gray in the first place.

It would be Clay and Layla who makes the plan to screw up the timelines to kick Aletheia’s ass and set up the Grand Temple to automatically turn on without the need of anyone operating it on December 21, 2012.

The Reader says that the possibility of success is too low to even try and Layla suggests they find a way for the Reader to regain his humanity and be Desmond Miles once more.

Clay’s grin is full of mischief as he goes “Oh, I have an idea how we can get this idiot back to his old self.”

Cue in Layla and Clay’s “Let’s Fuck Up The Timeline To Save The World!” plan begins.

Layla insists that the best way to fuck up Aletheia’s plans is to destroy the damn polestick (“Isn’t it a-” “Shhhh, we’re calling it a polestick now.” “Yeah, okay.”) before it could get in the hands of Kassandra.

Clay suggests they just punch an old man and take the polestick. Layla is a bit hesitant about that since there was this whole thing about Pythagoras and Kassandra getting into some kind of resolution before he gives the polestick to Kassandra and Kassandra deserves that.

Clay then suggests they hijack the Atlantis memory thing that Kassandra goes thru and take the polestick from Kassandra. Layla says no to that one too since Kassandra would kick their asses.

Clay snorts and points at the Reader with his thumb as he says, “Not this guy.”

“There is a-”

“Fuck the probabilities. We’ll tag team her while Layla runs away with the polestick, okay? All we have to do is keep her busy until the polestick is destroyed.”

“Can you two even handle Kassandra?”

“I’ll have you know we are certified Bleeding Effect graduates… in the sense that the Bleeding Effect has effectively fucked us over.” (sees Layla’s expression) “Which just means Kassandra would have two Ezio Auditores to deal with. It’ll be fun.”

Cue the trio trying to get Kassandra to lower her guard enough for Layla to take the polestick by pretending to be citizens of Elysium.

Their chance finally comes when…

It became clear Kassandra was flirting with Layla.

“I think you should sleep with her for the betterment of mankind.”

“What.”

“Please, you’ll like it. We’ll steal the polestick while she’s busy with you.”

“Oh my god. What are you talking about? I am not having sex with Kassandra!”

“You want to though. This would be the two birds one stone kind of deal.”

“Clay, shut up.”

“Hey, Reader, what’s the success possibility of us getting the polestick if Layla has sex wth Kassandra?”

“Eighty-nine percent.”

“See? That’s the highest success rate we’ve ever got! You gotta take one for the team, Layla.”

“Oh my god.”

Of course, Layla does agree because, let’s face it, she wanted to get some with Kassandra anyway. Then Aletheia starts screaming bloody murder and Kassandra realized something is up.

Cue a chase scene where Clay and the Reader are both running for their lives while Kassandra runs after them and Layla runs after Kassandra.

Some clothes might be missing during the chase.

This is when Clay gets a bright wonderful idea to start Phase 2 of the plan and opens a new portal for another time period.

Kassandra enters the portal as well.

And Layla has no idea where they were. Considering the building architecture she just saw, she was betting somewhere where there were a lot of Muslims?

Oh, god…

They were being chased by knights with-

Oh shit.

They were knights!

She barely heard Clay say, “Your turn, Reader!”

And Clay gives the polestick to the Reader before bodyslamming him straight to a trio of monk-

No.

Assassins.

Oh shit.

Layla remembered those robes.

They were the Assassin robes worn by the Levantine Brotherhood.

The Reader falls on top of one of the Assassins and Clay hides behind the other two as he points at Kassandra, “Brothers! That woman is trying to get an artifact that the Brotherhood has been protecting!”

Oh god.

Oh my god.

Clay was insane.

The knights have also caught up to them.

And they were now surrounded and…

Wait.

Layla focused his attention to the Reader and the Assassin he had toppled and they were still in the ground, staring at each other.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Unorganized Notes:

Clay specifically opened a portal that brought them to Jerusalem just before Altaïr, Malik and Kadar infiltrated Solomon’s Temple.

Clay’s mighty plan to bring Desmond back can be summarized as “get the Reader to remember how much Desmond Miles loved his ancestors……… and maybe get him laid… that might help… we’ll play it by ear.”

Altaïr would be adamant that it wasn’t love at first sight but there was… this strange connection that he couldn’t shook off the moment their eyes met.

The Reader will admit that he did feel something… ‘foreign’ when he saw Altaïr and he agrees that Clay might be on the right track.

Layla is just confused because Clay’s usual plan seems to be to get her and the Reader laid.

Clay doesn’t deny it.

Kassandra becomes a reluctant ally of theirs because she is stranded in this timeline while they charge up their ‘portal juice’. Layla was sure that portal juice was not an actual thing.

The way their time hopping mechanics work is that they need a POE to charge it up and it will completely drain the POE afterwards. For their first portal jump, it was a freebie because they were in the Gray and it had the same ‘power source’ the POEs have. Clay even explains that the Gray is where the main power source of the POEs come from and the Isus just found a way to harness and store it in the POEs.

So they need a new POE to use to get Kassandra back to her time. Layla suggests they use the Apple in Jerusalem but the Reader goes “No.”. This is the first time the Reader had been adamant in his opinion about how the Apple belongs to Altaïr and no one else. Layla stares at Clay with an expression of “holy shit, Clay may be up to something with this whole getting someone to fuck the Reader to bring back Desmond Miles” and Clay just grins at her as if to say “I’m a genius right?”. It should be noted that, at this point, the Reader have not yet been fucked… yet.

That is how far I got because, okay, so my problem is if we continue with the idea that they’re trying to save (and seduce) Desmond’s ancestors (and fellow Assassins), this will be bittersweet since it’s like Desmond would have a relationship with some of them and then break up with them given a long-distance relationship was not viable.

Of course, considering how I write Altaïr, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up with the trio going their merry way screwing up the timeline by timehopping and then they later find out that Altaïr had been following them, looking for Desmond, and had been getting stubborn tagalongs along the way who were also looking for Desmond because he’s always a few steps behind the trio. (In other words, Desmond’s harem has been growing and chasing after him the entire time)

This… would be the kind of idea that Clay would definitely be on board with.

Although… considering the Reader is meant to have a connection to the possibilities, this meant that he should have seen this possibility… and did nothing to stop it. Which means… he wanted Altaïr to find the others and chase after him. XD

[pastelsalmonsworld]

My personal timeline as a multi shipper

Here’s my controversial MHA (I know I know) ship timeline. I see a pattern of simply liking a ship because the two characters had an interesting interaction or exclusive to Izuocha, where Ochako can only likes Izuku. This is in order by timeline. I want to to spread this to show people that you are not hated by 100% of a group of anybody. We are all multi-faceted beings. My ships are based on interesting dynamics not canon-ness thereby superiority. This list is based on a timeline, not my interest.

‘Shipping’ in my case is simply enjoying the characters in a fanart or fa fiction outside of canon which is deemed more than is needed to understand the charcters. Support romantic or otherwise fanart with mainly two characters basically. It doesn’t even mean I see how they would be together in canon. Before bakudeku, I read most of these at the same time. I felt I had to have one ship only at some points too which isn’t true.

Maybe shipping for me is just liking an aspect of a story.

Izuocha. I liked this ship because it seemed like it was going to be obviously canon. I enjoy a lot of canon-ships like NaruHina, KanaTanjiro or just about any of my favorite shoujo and boys love pairings. Also a few spare girls love comics too; cute! I just thought that’s how it was. First friend and supportive and obvious.

Kacchako. I enjoyed their fight in the Sports Festival arc of mha because Katsuki didn’t hold back. I agreed with most of the crowd, he’s /kind of/ insane in how he acts at his point in the series. I fully believed he would go Sasuke or Villain route in this part of the series. I liked that he didn’t treat her differently because she’s a girl despite his intentions. Ochako put up her best fight and found something new in herself that she hadn’t before; the wit and quick thinking to fight back against a super strong unrestrained Enemy. I ended up seeing a BEAUTIFUL fanart of him sitting at a desk and Ochako sitting at a wind that was amazingly rendered. I read a lot of— let’s just say extremely out of pocket fan fiction about this rare pair. I felt insecure about this ship because it got made fun of online. Also Bakugo’s ‘nothing frail about her’ comments in the relationship connection extras. Regardless, interesting, fun, imaginative, unexpected.

KiriBaku. This seems to be the mostly widely /accepted/ ship in my opinion. I feel like it has the most support in the American fandom. Kiri was super popular at the time I joined my hero and I was deep in the weeb-tok era of 2019 through 2021(anyone else miss the “Iwa-Chan, kageyama!/ I know that I’m gonna slaughter dis” sound? And OH the cosplays). MAN I miss it it was so fun and less dodgy than boring-ass takes and blind fighting on twitter. I was a bakudeku hater at this time because I blindly believed the death threats were true. I didn’t hate the ship personally feel deep down but I thought actual death threats would’ve been too far. I often dumped mean and repetitive comments on anti-bakudeku tiktoks. I really enjoyed an actor au where the author switched the moha characters to playing their Japanese voice actors. Baku go/okamoto really wanted to play a canon gay character in the drama they were actors in but Izuku got it first which caused his continued resentment of izuku because he assumed he was not gay. It was really fun and some of the fics were very memorable and wholesome. Good times! At the transition between these two ships the fandom was all happy and the fanfics were funny and Bakugou was being supportive of his friends in his own way at this point.

Bakudeku. The plot twist of the century. But, not really. See, I hated bakudeku mostly because I wanted to fit in with the popular opinion and simple “they hate each other!!”. In order to seem normal and not insane since it was so hated. Again, I already thought bakugo’s character because it humanizes a bully in a realistic way. I usually live for those crazy ass villains anyway; it’s just anime. Death Note??? But obviously, I never would have put Bakugou in Izuku together. Rewatching season 1 that shot was terrible as fuck and heart wrenching and I feel so bad again after watching and I can see why I absolutely hated Katsuki when I watched mha. I can see why people still hate him. Again, I started looking at the fanart out of spite and saw a lot of fanart with one of them looking at the other back and watching them from behind. It’s really true to the series. It is so heart wrenching to watch and read. That’s why I like reading it. I’ve read SOO many fics where either of them die mostly Izuku, because of the suicide comment, but eventually with the event of black whip, mostly Katsuki for obvious reasons. There’s a deep theme of saving and winning and even the horror of death when you love someone so obviously I was captivated. Some fics, and I mean A LOT, basically predicted word for word the hospital scenes. I don’t like ‘I know your secret power’ tropes, but it’s there. There’s just so much between them it’s crazy. The way /The Way You Used To by: edema ruh/ has like the exact hospital scenes that LATER!!!! Happened in the manga… the death, the emotional power-ups, the connection of a separate soulmate ( ‘nother person in your body thing like the vestiges) quirk, PLUS ofa transactions inspired by two heros that canonically seem like they’re about to happen. You’ve got the Volume cover and everything to show for it too. Themes of almost Spider-Man and Gwen???? I rewatched Spider-Man 2 and it’s like huh??? And also Izuku is inspired by spider-man as well? Oh SHIT, is bakugo Izuku’s failed save? I’m gonna be SO FUCKINNG MAD if that happens, but I’m one of those people who enjoys angst a lot at the same time and I will appreciate it. I’m so everything for this ship for this ship platonic friendship or not I may just ship their friendship

TodoIIda. Usually, I don’t find a lot of my ships seeming canon except for this one. I already know that any important relationship or friendship between characters can be shipped but since they aren’t seen interacting on screen much next to the scene where iida saves him instead of going ahead, it really stuck. That must have been Horikoshi’s intention because he came back to them recently like they matter to each other. I JUST remembered the stain arc and how IIda and Shouto’s can relate on wanting revenge. Iida’s motto to help someone anywhere any time relates to Todoroki’s helplessness as a child. They’re important to each other. Friends, family.

Togachako. I didn’t consider this a ‘ship’ per se until recently, but I was obsessed with how Toga wanted become Ochako and the people she loves also how they like the same boy I guess?? Izuku seems oblivious and somehow even unrelated to their relationship even though it started it. There was this one cosplay tiktok with a poppy sound on it and I was OB- SESSED. I told you I love me some crazy simpy villains and Toga is just that. Unexpected was how Ochako starts to focus on her specifically and want to save her. I was NOTTT expecting her to say she was jealous of her smile. I was so sad when Himi said she didn’t want to talk to Chako anymore so I was PUMPED to hear people spreading the misleading togacjako canon on twitter. Toga biromantic/sapphic vampire whose blood-sucking is like kissing, is getting blood from ochsko for the rest of her life. I don’t know if toga really cares anymore. I also enjoy their possible relationship to Yuki-onna. Would love if something came out of them in canon, though I just realized toga explicated said she wanted to go out with Izuku so why can’t she do it for ochako?

dabihawks. I was SO confused why people shipped this when they barely showed their interactions. I only realized when a mostly canon style fan manga dubbed did a dabihawks comic. I then realized they are are almost the same childhood reflections of each other, neglected, abused by their parents

As an end note, I learned that every ship dynamic has to be romantic, but usually it is because of recent fan culture. I’m 15 but I know a lot about older fandom because I was an avid Kaichou Wa Maid Sama fan and used the less popular fan fiction.net. People are a lot nicer on fanfixtion sites than on social media sites, I’ve learned also older fandoms didn’t get massively hated on like MHA does. There’s just more people in the world who watch now. Remember to be yourself because there’s always someone feeling just like you out there, I promise. Chaio;3

[blorbologist]

heyooo I just started writing fan fic and I really have no idea what I'm doing haha, can you explain how you draft and edit and write you long fics? i don't know what to do besides just starting at the beginning and writing to the end. (also sending this to multiple writiers so I can get lots of opinions)

Hi anon! I’m really flattered you’ve reached out <33

An amorphous list of advice from someone who has written over 300k words in under a year:

Make sure to note all your ideas for the fic down. You will not remember your plot twist thought up on the walk home in a few hours - *write it down!* It could be gushing to a friend about it or a notepad or whatever - and then make sure to compile it wherever you’re keeping your ideas for that fic. 

Be kind to yourself! Sometimes it takes weeks or months to write a scene the way you want it - maybe you aren’t inspired, maybe you can’t get it to Work, maybe, maybe - don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s art. There is no timeline. 

Likewise, if you’re new: I’d really recommend against a longfic! Do some oneshots first - seeing a work to completion and posting it will really help your confidence. A longfic is a long commitment, and if you end up changing plans or abandoning it it can be very discouraging for you to have that incomplete work be one of your first. It’s like training for a marathon :D

Get a bullet point list if you can of scenes you want to do or information/things that need to happen for those scenes to make sense. Even if you don’t have the details - I have the note ‘they find Tary in hell, because he overheard them and thought it was an adventurous place to be’ in my main fic doc. I didn’t know *how* they were going to meet him, or under what context, and figured that out as I wrote. You don’t need to break it up by chapter, just timeline. 

Speaking of timeline, here’s a neat trick: muse is a fickle thing, you don’t *have* to trudge through content you don’t want to write to get to the good stuff. I usually prefer to - I like having the full emotional context for scenes clear in my head - but when writer’s block gets me I’ll often jump to self indulgent writing something fun I’ve wanted to get to. You can always go back and edit things and add in a scene later, so long as you haven’t posted yet…

… which is why I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend having a buffer when you can, or at least letting a chapter sit overnight while you sleep on it. I get the urge to post something you just made, hot off the press, but you would not believe the number of typos or inconsistencies I find after reading things over with fresh eyes. This is true for both oneshots and longfics - the chapters y’all are seeing for Two for joy were mostly complete around November during NaNoWriMo! It also means you have room to go back and edit things - if you stumble on a cool plot twist you can foreshadow it more effectively, or if a character arc changed in ways you didn’t expect you can lay more groundwork for it. It’s less stressful knowing that if gradschool goes to hell I’ve got… hang on… 13 weeks of wiggle room while still keeping to my schedule. And even if it did run out - this is free content, people would understand if I went on hiatus for a bit. You have all the time in the world - use it!

BUT, in a similar vein, feedback and encouragement are super important to keeping your muse up. Which is why I strongly recommend having a friend or two in fandom you can bombard with snippets and spoilers and ideas! One for sorrow / Two for joy would likely have sputtered and fizzled out without @rightpastnowhere, @katia-dreamer, @burr-ell, @essayofthoughts, @romeoandjulietyouwish - and the fandom community I found early on that were so excited for the fic! Engage with your commenters, they can make for really great friends, betas and/or tormented souls when you offhand chuck your most evil plot twists at them >:D 

Remember that fanfic is supposed to be fun. You’re having fun. You’re writing, for free. I’ve mostly written for Critical Role as a fandom, but I promise you it’s not as scary as you might think it is. I haven’t gotten a single nasty comment or anon yet, despite, uhhhh, breaking up my OTP and piling angst galore on people (and making Vax trans). By in large, it's a supportive space - but don't be afraid to curate it to your needs. Writing is for you and whatever you want to get out of it: validation for your ideas/HCs/skill, new friendships and a sense of community, improving your own skill, self-indulgent things you want to see in fiction, working through trauma, hella hot porn, etc. We’re all allowed to look to fic for different things, If it stops being what you need, if it feels like work, like a chore? You can drop it. 

Hope this was of some help!

[assorted-nothingness]

Jokes about Loki standing 30 feet away aside…

The confrontation between Sylvie and Mobius felt very needed.

Now, yes I do think she was a little harsh, but she was clearly upset. And when people are upset they say awful things. We’ve all done this before, no need to pretend it’s a crime when Sylvie does it.

But like, it made sense. She thought that time was falling apart, she was anxious and scared and freaked out. And Mobius suggested they hang out and get pie. Pie!

Now, from Mobius’ POV, he’s obviously not being malicious or even uncaring. He’s honestly trying to be kind, to alleviate the situation, because he knows there’s nothing they can do while waiting for the nerds (affectionate) to solve the plot. So he suggests pie to decompress, because tbh it seems like Mobius likes sweets to cope with big emotions, which is cute! So, he offers pie as a way to make the situation more bearable.

But Sylvie, she sees it as dismissive, as uncaring, and that’s because she would believe that of anyone. Sylvie is deeply untrusting, especially of TVA agents, understandably, so she’d get her hackles raised by anything Mobius said in that moment honestly.

Nonetheless, Sylvie goes off on Mobius. And she is harsh, but the things she says aren’t necessarily untrue. She claims that Mobius (And the greater TVA) are irresponsible and careless. And although we have been there to see Loki and Mobius and Hunter B-15 lead the charge in changing the TVA, Sylvie has not. (Because she refused to. But Loki does address that in a follow up scene that I LOVE so we won’t go into that right now) So Sylvie accuses Mobius of not caring (or showing care) for the situation, specifically because he hasn’t allowed himself to be connected to the timelines.

Which is true! He went over it in a previous episode (again, that Sylvie was not present for, so how would she know his complex feelings on it). He expressed that his entire life is with the TVA, that’s all the memories he has, and he’d prefer to keep it that way for fear of what his life on the timeline may have looked like. For better or worse. Better? He might feel immense sadness for the life he lost. Worse? He might feel guilt for having “got out of it” when so many others didn’t. Either way, it would suck. So I completely understand not wanting to know.

And although his decision is valid and his choice, it does make Sylvie’s words just as valid. How can Mobius feel a connection to and empathy for people and their lives when he refuses to even see himself as one of them? He is explicitly distancing himself from the people of the timelines. That means he’s distancing himself from caring, in a way.

So Sylvie has a point. But she shouldn’t have been so cruel, but then again, she wasn’t there to learn about Mobius the way we have. And besides, Loki gives her a good talking to later. So I think it works out

[crazy-god-bunker-jughead]

Rank the secret siblings. Metric of your choosing.

Ok going least to most iconic secret siblings.

Ethel - I love Ethel, but the reveal didn’t really do anything if we’re being honest. She immediately left Riverdale afterwords. And we don’t even know if this is canon to the main timeline or just a S7 thing,

Claudius - Just kind of forgettable. Maybe once I got to him and I rewatch I’ll have more thoughts, but he just kind of fucked around then died.

Frank - Not necessarily a secret from Archie, but a secret to the audience. I hate Frank, we all hate Frank. But he is saved from the bottom because they realize how hate-able he is and then lean into it in later seasons.

Chic - Cunty King and extremely entertaining to watch, but he’s not a TRUE secret sibling.

Julian - The doll died in Vietnam. A spectacular spook and an iconic S4 plot line. The homophobic Archie double and natural redhead we deserved.

Hermosa - Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss. Only really present for like one season but the INSANITY she brought was pretty spectacular. Yet another Lodge woman competing for the love of Hiram and affirming that Veronica is her father’s specialist girl. Insane dialogue.

Charles - I love Charles. Betty and Jughead’s SHARED brother who hangs out with them and guides them along their paths and is also a serial killer? And they never talk about this being weird at all? Mwah spectacular. But also let’s talk about how Charles clearly really just wanted belonging and family and was just coincidentally also a serial killer. Like he legitimately helps Betty overcome her darkness, was willing to cover up Jughead’s death if she was implicated, ran around doing random stuff and abusing his power for Jughead, and then specifically kills Jug’s would-be-murderers. He’s the REASON Betty decided to join the FBI. And even after she puts him in jail he still wants the family to be at his wedding and tries to kill her weird ex. He’s so HAPPY in S4 when he’s telling Chic how Betty trusts him now. He CARES, in his strange way. And FP literally NEVER acknowledges Charles as his son and only talks to him for work stuff. Like that’s so fucking tragic. Charles is my special boy and I love him.

[andiwriteordie]

Question on your & @messrsbyler’s atla au—would the party be living in the colonies??? To explain how they all know each other/are childhood friends??? Earth-benders & fire-benders living side-by-side, maybe the Byers have to hide their airbending (do we still have the air nomad massacre or no? Bc El’s a waterbender, right? And is she being trapped in ice or no?). Maybe the Sinclairs are descendants of a small waterbending sect that didn’t live at the poles, like the Swampbenders but not—culturally waterbenders but also culturally members of this Fire Nation colony in a formerly Earth Nation (but that was a long, long time ago) territory? Isolated within the community bc of this (ie the racism Lucas experiences in canon & Lucas on the Line but atla-ified ig)? (Also when did the war start for this au? The fire nation still has to attack, right? Are the Wheelers any kind if nobility/royalty, are we even really aiming to fill the roles of the show or just parallel (“we” lol sorry im invested in this but it’s 100% ur & messrsbyler’s au i was just Having Thoughts plz don’t mind me or feel obligated to answer)? Or are the main villains just Brenner & Henry, deviating from atla plot/villains entirely?)

every time someone asks me about atlagate i grow in power and the devil on my shoulder (*cough* nic *cough*) cackles maniacally tbh.

so, a caveat to alllllll of this is that i'm just pulling things out of thin air and building off of things nic and others send me too, so idk what nic is thinking for this nor do i have a true outline/world built for all of this. just vague ideas that i like to word vomit.

anyways! rori (/rotisserie5107) actually sent me an ask asking something that i think is a bit similar, ella (/nancysglock) wrote some beautiful stuff about lucas which i added onto here that might help out as well, and toy (/toystoryfan) asked also asked some questions here about what the party's childhood would look like!

that was a long winded way of saying, i think when it comes to setting i am imagining something more along the lines of the stranger things timeline (1980s) but set in the avatar world. so similar to how LoK is essentially the 1920s but in a world with bending, when i imagine what i'd write, it's a 1980s bending world! so i think things would probending would exist, we'd see inventions that utilize bending, we would have political turmoil related to issues of bending, etc. also like i told rori earlier lmfao, how that fits in with the true AtLA/LoK timeline is beyond me because uh... korra is water... el is water... i guess all the others in between them died real fucking quickly if we want el to be a reincarnation of folks like korra and aang LOL.

so, with that in mind, if i were writing this, it would more so follow the stranger things story itself but adapted into a world wherein bending exists. the catalyst for the story would be will's kidnapping by henry (who i have hc'd as a fellow airbender), and the kids would discover el (the avatar, who nic with their giant amazing big brain created a headcanon of how sick and incredible it would be if el didn't even realize what the avatar was or that she was special. she just knew that she could bend those four elements). obviously, things within the story would be adapted to draw on the avatar lore and things like that and create au, but i think when i'm imagining it i see the 4-5 part book/season arc that stranger things has created. (i say 4-5 bc i know canon is 5. but if i wrote it, bye bye s3, simply so i can have 4 books for the 4 elements lol.)

but that's what i love about aus so much because there absolutely is room to create an au where it's the stranger things characters dropped into the avatar storyline and there is just SOOOO much there!!! so much untouched potential!

[academiaipromise]

everything i want everyone to know about the return of true tv pt 2 (riverdale season 7 episode 2)

jughead (who of course no longer remembers the present storyline) submitted a story to a comics company and they STOLE it i get it jughead i really do

oh thank god we’re having a sock hop this week 

fun fact about this comic book theft storyline is that every person i know (including me) who works in creative industries has a story like this. i feel like someone in the writers room is taking out some frustration. protect your work!!!! no one else will.

i forgot to say last week but betty and kevin are dating in this timeline...so i’m sure that’s gonna go well. i wrote this comment about kevin famously being a flaming homosexual with no regard for his own safety but i am watching archie and betty dance together and they actually might be the more immediate issue 

ETHEL “WE’RE GONNA BE A SHIP” MUGGS IS BACK (good for shannon purser i guess?) 

“we’ve been dating for months and we’re not even going steady yet...you haven’t even pinned me yet.” i’m in PAIN. 

they introduced clay walker in this episode, who is kevin’s husband in archie comics. eat your heart out mcu film bros i am an easter egg master. 

ARCHIEKINS has made its first appearance in the 50s timeline

i somehow missed how toni moved here an episode ago and joined a gang. sorry to those who rely on me paying enough attention to follow this but there’s a lot going on. anyways, she is threatening the sock hop! so cheryl has narrowed in on her enemy (to lover, obviously)! 

archie coming out in his suit that doesn’t fit is very high school musical 3 to me. no further comment. 

“ah jeez mom” AGAIN 50s archie is oddly endearing. 

archie writing a poem for veronica but then giving it to betty to read...i never said the writers weren’t plotting. 

VERONICA INVITED ALL OF THE POTENTIAL DATES OVER AT THE SAME TIME?! perhaps i am anti girlboss i’m sorry to admit this during the week of barbie supremacy 

“what if we went together?” “like...for kicks?” [i am on my 50s jughead canonically ace agenda i don’t have time to get into it here but this made me laugh] 

molly ringwald is kind of chewing her dialogue a bit good for her she really called her son simple (affectionate) 

maedchen amick is also...kind of terrifying in this episode. i support the older riverdale cast just doing whatever the hell they want at this point 

....is the show. implying that hal cooper was also gay in the way kevin is gay. or am i reading too much into that dialogue. anyways, we don’t have time to get into this. 

is ethel still in a cult in this universe or did everyone get a blank slate? perhaps she’s just still creepy 

betty clearly on her way to ask archie to the sock hop now that veronica is no longer taking him only to be stopped by kevin to give her this PIN so that they can GO STEADY genuinely makes me kind of sad like there is no way for this to end well. pinning someone won’t fix your problems kids!

ethel muggs didn’t show up for the detention she got for drawing her illustrations for jughead’s story and hurray! they got the job! take back ownership of your work kids

fangs breaking out into tutti frutti really got my “watched grease/other 50s-setting content as a kid” fight or flight instinct 

damn if my principal singled me out to wax homophobic righteousness i think i would have to resort to something drastic 

well okay cool yeah happy the creepy music following ethel around went somewhere (the sock hop episode ended by implying ethel killed her parents). 

important follow-up: again, the episode ended with ethel, covered in blood, saying “something terrible’s happened.” this was the immediate trailer for the next episode:

anyways. who’s excited for veronica’s make out party??? (my eye twitched writing this)

[dethbug]

dear maria count me in, ain't it fun, and bring me to life for ur choice!! :3

HI HELLO THANK YOU!!!! :,-D for this....ill do mr CFO himself... charles offdensen !!! tehe thank u again :,-) pls enjoy this gif of him ... "rapping"..............

🍷 DEAR MARIA, COUNT ME IN :: What’s your s/i’s relationship like with this character?

we have a looong slow burn, starting with becoming his assistant -- and for anyone unfamiliar with the series -- that means i was a klokateer, meaning i had my identity erased + am permitted to wear a hood [like this] ... so he genuinely knows nothing about me at the start aside from the number i was assigned once i got the job ... which makes it even more interesting once things from my past do come up, and he comes to find out im a lot more intertwined in the narrative than he'd ever thought .... HMMMMM.... but yes we do fall in love and kiss HAHJASD

🍷 AIN’T IT FUN :: When in canon does your s/i come in? Do they play a certain role in the plot?

thats a hard question to answer because im still plotting out specifics, though i have the major bullet-points down ^_^ so i dont have an EXACT answer but i want to say halfway through... season 1? because narratively its important im present for the s1 finale yk? dont quote me on that though, like i said very up in the air -- my next move is to bullet point all the episodes and figure out the timeline so i can insert fake episodes that hint at my backstory, so theres proper build up for the big NO WAY hypothetical "reveal" as if my lore was canon YOU KNOW AHJHFDS im crazy i think

🍷 BRING ME TO LIFE :: What’s the one thing that your s/i deeply regrets more than anything else? Was it something they did? Or was it something they didn’t do?

OHHH VERY HARD QUESTION bc i think there are a handful of things, but the main one is not helping pickles sooner as kids? LET ME EXPLAIN-- i know we're talkin' abt charles here but even in the timeline where loffdensen becomes canon, pickles is important to my insert lore ^_^

idk if this needs a content/trigger warning but i do briefly touch on a**ction / a*use / n*gl*ct in the below segment!!! nothing graphic, just generally kinda heavy subject matter

so, in my canon pickles and i grew up as neighbors and were close from day 1, meaning i knew about the ab*se/n*gl*ct caused by his parents-- but we always had each other ... i was there for him yk

but in rehabklok we find out his first drink was when he was 6, and i think as his a**iction gradually spiraled as he grew into his teen years, resulting in him keeping more things from me and generally distancing himself from me :-( so i think when he was kicked out [presumably at age 16-17, unsure if we have a canon age for when this happened, i just remember he was a teenager] he fully cut me out -- not because of anything i did, he just wasnt in the right emotional/mental place to accept help because he was angry and hurting ... and spiraling into a world of a**iction as i said :-( i think id carry the burden of the idea that maybe if i had found a way to help him sooner he wouldnt have gone down that path, even though logically i knew that wasnt true bc we were both just kids who only had one another looking out for each other -- and i tried in smaller ways but he already felt too far away for me to reach yk DONT WORRY all this gets resolved in my canon and things are good -- if anyone is kind enough to read all this and wants to know more id love to answer any questions anyone happens to have !!!! anyone taking any ounce of interest in my writing means the universe to me and even that is an understatement DSFHJSJHD SO THANK U

[iridescentoracle]

okay so i know i disagree with the Entire Rest Of The Fandom Except Nyquildriver, Apparently, on a lot of stuff, but this does still feel a bit like sacrilege to say, but i’ve been thinking it for over a year now:

i do love the concept and a lot of the individual bits are great, but honestly i didn’t think chat blanc was like, super well-written—the concept is great but the execution was lacking—but not for the reasons i’ve seen anyone else argue. the problems i’ve seen other people have with chat blanc were all down to characterization (of marinette and/or of her parents, mostly) and that all worked totally fine for me.

the problem i have with chat blanc is the way the time travel/flashbacks are handled—having bunnyx frantically flipping back and forth between the chat blanc/ladybug conflict & the how-we-got-here just feels contrived, like if the solution here is having ladybug deakumatize chat blanc then why does it matter what happened, why are you so desperate to find the answers, and if it does matter that much and bunnyx does need to know, then… why doesn’t she do anything with the information

but then there’s also all this focus on “oh she has to find the akuma so she can fix everything!!!!” but surprise that didn’t fix everything and actually now you have to go back in time and avert this whole timeline so actually you could’ve dipped on the fight ten minutes ago and gone back to erase the name as soon as you found out he knows who you are and everything that’s happened since was totally pointless

and while i think that could have been done well—you thought everything was fixed but SURPRISE OH NO—it actually just felt anticlimactic? and the “actually this whole fight was pointless bc she’s erasing this bit of the timeline” could’ve been really poignant—she knows she should just leave and fix things before the timestream breaks down but she can’t bear to leave chat noir like this even in a future she wants to prevent from happening in the first place—but again, as it stood it just felt pointless

like, the problem with how marinette is written in this episode isn’t about characterization, it’s about agency. between dropping off the hat and erasing her name, nothing she does actually matters or drives the plot, and basically ditto bunnyx; she’s great in theory but doesn’t actually do anything that like, a random time portal marinette accidentally trips through couldn’t have done.

and i feel like i’m making it sound like i don’t like the episode, and that’s not even true!! i cannot possibly overstate how much i love the idea of it, i’m all about time travel and alternate timelines if they’re handled well, and i have happily eaten up every temporary identity reveal the show has given us and hoped for more! to borrow a description from nyquildriver,

it honestly does feel like all its impact on the story is to give marinette some PTSD "gotcha, can't fall in love with chat noir, okay"

and i am just fine with the actual plot impact going forward being "marinette has PTSD around the idea of falling in love with chat noir now," [kicks a non-trivial amount of my ao3 history under the bed], so at the end of the day i’m still really grateful that chat blanc is an episode that exists, but i’ve never been able to watch it without thinking the whole time that they had all the pieces of a top-tier episode and put them together clunkily enough it’s actually just kind of okay.

which is WILD because holy shit what a concept. like even from years in the future when we’re a couple episodes from the end of season five i still can’t believe that’s actually a real episode they gave us. i wish it were more than the sum of its parts but what parts

[connan-l]

Steins;Gate 0 scattered thoughts

Sooo I finally managed to finish Steins;Gate 0………… (NO I STILL HADN’T FINISHED IT…… I put it on hold last summer and didn’t get the occasion to continue it until now lmao. WHICH is stupid because I really didn’t have a lot left to read lol)

Anyway, it was okay! I enjoyed it overall but man, the story is really a mess and there were some parts particularly frustrating and disappointing.

I think S;G0 is interesting in how it is basically a Frankenstein story. The writers took some bits and pieces from other stories (ie the original Epigraph light novels from which it was inspired, and the Arclight CD drama/manga most notably), then added some other stuff and sew all of this together. Which, at times it does give some interesting things, but at others it just fumble really badly.

The original S;G was pretty flawed, but at least it was clear that the narrative knew what it was doing and what the plot was about; all the plotlines and characters had a purpose and it was able to come all together at the end pretty neatly. In S;G0, there are just a lot of story bits and plotlines that simply… never goes anywhere, never get concluded in a satisfying manner, or just seems to be forgotten altogether. Which means that even if they did an interesting and cool thing with the final and true ending in tying the two principal routes, the narrative as a whole still feel very disjointed and awkward. I honestly think they should have tried to do a more linear storyline, rather than doing the double routes thing.

This VN just isn't sure what it wants to be at times, so it does throw at you some potentially cool concepts and ideas but never know how to properly handle or explore them as it should. The pacing as well was all over the place, because in the first route it has a very slow build up and meander around until it all explose at the end but it doesn’t really feel super earned, and in the second it kind of get lost here and there, then throw at you some cool stuff to keep you entertained (ie Okabe going to the future), and then go back to just meandering around (seriously, the end of Kurisu’s route felt very… anticlimatic in a lot of ways).

The most glaring thing regarding this was that plotline with the encephalitis patients and where Okabe arrive in warzone Okinawa in the timeline where the URSS still exists or something, with also that Fubuki girl who apparently has Reading Steiner, and it just…. Never leads to anything?? Like what was the point of this whole thing? It feels like a plotline they originally intended to have but then scrapped at the last minute, but for some reason they still left some of its plot bits here and there??

Also someone will have to explain to me WHAT was the point of Fubuki and Kaede’s characters as a whole. I don’t have anything against adding new characters to the cast (I mean, I absolutely ADORE Maho, and even if her character have a lot of issues I still like Kagari), but in their case they… literally served NO purpose, to the point where they actually annoyed me whenever they popped up because!! I don’t care about you two!! Who are you, what are you even doing here. You could get rid of them and lose practically nothing of the story. They pissed me off because it felt like they were taking away plot points and screentime that could’ve been spent on, oh I dunno, some actual established characters like FARIS AND LUKA??

Seriously Faris and Luka were SO sidelined in that game it’s not even funny. Imagine how much better this whole storyline with Fubuki would have been if it had been with Luka or Faris instead! Imagine one of them actually getting Reading Steiner and the narrative making something interesting with it! How cool it would have been?? But no, instead we’re stuck watching those nobodies doing nothing for the entire story. The only thing I like about them is actually seeing Mayuri hanging out with her own friends without Okabe being invovled, but y’know, we could’ve had that without this bullshit.

It’s all very frustrating and confusing because, the encephalitis thing could’ve been so interesting if dealt properly! I really love the perspective of other characters getting Reading Steiner and the Evil Scientist OrganizationTM trying to experiment on this once they learn about it; I think it ties pretty nicely with Okabe’s conclusion in the original game where he thinks that in the end, everyone probably got Reading Steiner on some level. How come this plotline didn’t get actual consequences on the overall story and true ending. Hell, maybe have the real Yuki involved in there too! Poor Yuki as well was treated so badly orz

Now, to be more positive, on the things I liked better compared to the original game: the POV switch! I know some people will argue with me that it makes sense the og game had only POV from Okabe because he’s the center of the story and it’s kind of thematically important for him and us to have a very tunnel-vision of what’s happening, which yeah I get that, but man, the story felt SO much more alive and dynamic when we’re allowed to follow the perspectives of other characters. And it also does wonders for those characters; whenever Maho, Suzuha, Kagari or Luka were allowed to have their little introspectives tidbits it added so much depth to them.

I also really like that the labmems where allowed to have more relationships with each other; in the og S;G, most of them were friends with Okabe but didn’t have any relationship with others except some rare cases like Kurisu and Mayuri or Mayuri and Luka (but even then, it’s not like we saw a lot of these friendships given everything was in Okabe’s POV). Because of this the labmems have always been a bit weird, because sometimes the story tries to push for them to be this group of kind-of outcast, weirdo friends, but… none of them are really friends exactly, they’re just friends with Okabe and because the story is so focused on him we barely see any of the other potential relationships. So here it was nice to see Luka and Faris being friends, or Suzuha and Mayuri having a peculiar relationship, or of course Maho and Moeka’s slow burn romance budding friendship. It made them feel… you know, like an actual group of friends with different, complex dynamic. And I also really liked how most of them got to know and be involved directly in the time travel shenanigan right off the bat instead of being kept in the dark; in the original, it’s really only Okabe-Kurisu-Daru-Mayuri and Suzuha for a time who knows the whole truth, Luka and Faris are always sidelined and kept out of the group which I never liked. (It’s especially wild with Faris because like… with her wealth and connections you’d think she’d be super useful in the plot?? And with the fact we knows her dad was researching time travel with Suzu Hashida AND was a friend of Kurisu’s dad?? Gah, Faris was so wasted in the original story! And unfortunately she was wasted in S;G0 as well -_-).

On that note, I also loved the endings much more than the ones from the original game. The thing with the different endings from the og S;G is that, most of them are basically ‘here’s an ending for each girls that Okabe get to more-or-less date!’ in that typical harem fashion. Meanwhile S;G0’s endings actually focused on the characters individually and actually offered different interesting alternatives to the events? Like, I was SHOOK when I saw that Maho’s ending was ENTIRELY about Maho and her complicated feelings about Kurisu and her friendship with Moeka, or when Kagari’s ending was entirely about Kagari and Mayuri, and that Okabe had almost NO role at all in either of them! Like wow, a S;G game where its female characters don’t entirely revolve around Okabe, incredible, right?

Like it’s funny saying it like this, but thinking about it in a way S;G0 actually did a better job at letting its female characters exists by themselves and having motivations and goals that doesn’t relate to male characters — things like Maho’s relationship with Kurisu, Mayuri’s relationship with Kagari, and Suzuha’s relationship with her mom was even arguably more important that the one with her dad at times (they still fumbles with it and drop the ball after a while. But still. It was nice while it lasted.) Given how nonenxistent moms were in the original S;G compared to the dads, that was a neat improvement imo (I mean, we even got a brief cameo of Okabe’s mom lol!)

All in all I think S;G0 really worked the best when it came to (some) of its characters and emotional moments; there were some raw scenes that were well executed, especially for example with Okabe and Maho’s grief over Kurisu, or with Suzuha and her complicated feelings about her parents and her situation, or hell even if I have issues with them even some Mayuri and Kagari scenes were pretty effective. (Suzuha and Maho’s breakdown scenes in Mayuri’s route, for instance, were both very well build up and handled.)

But in the end the best thing the story has to offer to me is, hand down, Maho. Even when the plot isn’t necessarily about her, she’s still the character that manages to shines the most, and she’s just… such a cool, charming, complicated person with lots of intricates relationships; and she just always made me smile whenever she was onscreen. Like, if you ask me if S;G0 is worth it, then I’d say yes 100% just because of Maho.

And to be honest, that’s kind of an impressing feat to accomplish? Because the thing is that, the writers really weren’t in an easy position I think when they decided to make Steins;Gate 0; they had to make a Steins;Gate game where Kurisu isn’t in it AND with a new heroine, and given Kurisu’s literally the most popular character of the franchise and basically the emblem of S;G as a whole it must have been a bit of a challenge. I think I’m not the only one who were feeling not super invested in a big S;G story where Kurisu is just dead in it. So they had to make it so that new heroine manage to 1. stand on her own without feeling like a Kurisu 0.2 and 2. still not make it feel like she’s ‘‘stealing’’ Kurisu’s place as the original main heroine.

And somehow it worked? Maho is similar to Kurisu on a lot of points (young brilliant scientist lady, strong character and harsh and cynical personality but still pretty kind person deep down, asocial/lonely person) but she still manage to stand on her own, have a very good and compelling arc even in the route/ending that isn’t her own, and have a very interesting dynamic with the rest of the cast, especially with both Kurisu and Okabe.

I absolutely loved her complicated relationship with both Kurisu and Okabe; here too it’s actually impressive they were able to implement her friendship with Kurisu in a way that you can buy the both of them were really close and had a deep connection, despite the fact that this is a retcon (as originally Kurisu was meant to be a lonely person without any friends in America) and that Kurisu is dead for the entirety of the story. They do such a great job at portraying Maho’s complex feelings of admiration and resentment and jealousy, all while without never negating the deep love she has for Kurisu, and, as a result, how much she’s struggling with her death (once again, her ending!! is so good!! and her last conversation with Kurisu in there is aggghh. Or how in Mayuri’s ending Amadeus says to her she thoguht Maho was the real Amadeus all along… They’re the second best ship of the series, don’t @ me (even first depending on your perspective ;p)). And in parallel the relationship she slowly builds with Okabe is also very cool and interesting on its own, with how they instantly connect with each other through their shared love of Kurisu and grief over her and manages to develop a deep friendship over it and how it balances and contrast their own character development; I said it during my playthrough but those tow as well as their complex relationship with Kurisu are the actual driving force of S;G0. She basically manages to be a foil and parallel to both Kurisu and Okabe at the same time and it’s just. Very cool.

I also really dig the inherent tragedy of their relationship, because like… obviously I’m sure Okabe and Maho will be able to become friends again in the Steins;Gate world line, but it still will never be the same thing as the deep bond they formed in Beta. In Beta, they specifically became friends throughout Kurisu’s death; that’s something only the two of them can understand and the first thing they’re able to relate to each other, so without it, their relationship will inherently be different — and they know all that, yet are still willing to sacrifice all this just to bring back Kurisu in their lives. And I love how in that sense it also sorts of parallel Kurisu’s sacrifice in the Alpha world line ; just like Okabe and Kurisu’s meeting and romance, Maho and Okabe’s friendship could have only happened in world destined to die.

Although I absolutely could have done without Maho catching feelings for Okabe… I SWEAR I know that S;G is a pseudo-harem but not every single woman needs to be in love with this guy! Stop it, writers!! (I also rambled in lenght about it on my twitter back then but I genuinely think it harms Maho’s character.)

My only grip with them is that it’s actually wild that there is no actual proper confrontation or big reveal over Okabe killing Kurisu. Like it’s something they tease and build up in the two routes, and yet it’s another one of those plotline that is just never resolved? I know the game seems to imply that Maho must have guessed what happened, but there still should’ve been a more emotional confrontation between the two of them at the end; I think it should’ve also played a role in Okabe finally deciding to ‘revive’ Hououin and work towards saving Kurisu; especially if Maho had been the one to forgive him explicitely? But no, I guess, whatever lol.

Anyway, in the end I just… love how they actually allowed Maho to be this very flawed and messy person in her own right and not just go for the route of her being another cute additional girl with yet another crush on Okabe (…even if her STILL getting a crush was annoying but well sdsdfs). What I personally find the most compelling with her is that… honestly, in all of Steins;Gate she’s probably the one character the story... really allow to have ugly and messy feelings? To actively be unlikeable at times. Other characters had that in the og story with Okabe kind of, and a tiny bit with Moeka and Kurisu, but it was never to this level and because S;G0 actually let its characters other than Okabe have POV then she feels much more fleshed out and solid than just the glimpses we get. Honestly, dare I say that even Kurisu, for as much as I love her, doesn’t get as much as a proper arc and character exploration as Maho does in S;G0 (which makes me very mad tbh lmao) There is her entire ending/route dedicated to her to showcase this of course that is very good, but that scene specifically in S;G0′s bad ending ‘Gehenna’s stigma’ is the one that stand out the most to me about this (Gehenna’s Stigma is very messy and weird, but Maho steal the entire spotlight and is amazing in it so I still really like it just for her sdsfs).

It’s not like her character writing is perfect either, because like I said earlier the route structure make it that… in the end some of her development and conclusion either feel pretty rushed (the end of Mayuri’s route) and almost completely cut (Kurisu’s route), and it’s really only in her ending that she gets to have that proper closure. It’s frustrating, because man, it’s your main heroine, you should have done a better job with this! I think Maho’s arc should have been what she goes through in Mayuri’s route + her friendship with Moeka + her ending ALL throughout the game. Also her relationship with Moeka is one of the best thing of the VN and it should have absolutely been a more important part of the story, especially given aside from Maho’s ending Moeka is treated pretty shittily.

Also, man I really hate how in the true end Maho’s codename is ‘Kurisu’? Like!! You do realizes that the biggest point of her character arc is about how she wants to step out of Kurisu’s shadow and how she needs to learn to respect and love herself and her abilities as a scientist and person? Giving her the codename ‘Kurisu’ just goes against everything about this, it just sucks!

Okabe was pretty solid in this too. It was honestly refreshing to have him just be… a normal dude for most of the VN. Because to be honest, one of the things I like the most about Okabe is that he is not actually a ‘chuunibyou.’ He pretends he is one for Mayuri’s sake, but in reality he’s very self-aware about being a very average guy, who is even actually a pretty serious, socially awkward introverted person at heart. I’m always sad that’s not something that’s much more explored than that in the original story, and even here the duality with his made up persona is very… not dvelve much into, or at least not in the way I personally wish it was. Still, here in this case he just feels particularly relatable as a mentally ill, depressed college student desperately trying to run away from reality with the end of the world looming over his head lmao. It was… actually kind of surprising they handled his struggle with PTSD/mental heath seriously and this more-or-less throughout the whole story, with actually showing how much he suffers from panic attacks (well. They still could’ve done more with it though. How come his therapy sessions never come up again after the prologue? I’m so also pretty sure the Epigraph manga actually made a big deal of him being very dependant on his meds, but it’s not every seen mcuh in the VN which is a shame.) But his actual character arc still feel a bit either too rushed at the end or not well-implemented. I don’t like that they choose to have two separate occasions where he ‘revives’ Hououin, because it felt like it lesser the impact it should have had. Personally, again, I think the narrative should have been more linear, and that his ‘revival’ should have ultimately happened after a combination of Mayuri leaving with Suzuha + time travelling into the future + confrontation with Maho about Kurisu’s death.

(The bit with him time travelling in the future is such a cool thing too but I hate how much they... rushed it. Okabe should have stayed a lot longer in the future I think, and it made him seems like an asshole that he wasn’t even williing to interact with Mayuri & co. It’s also super weird that him staying in the future for, like, an hour manages to convince him that war sucks, but in the Vega & Altair route when he’s stuck in warzone Okinawa where he stays A MONTH he’s just like... ‘idk whatever, let’s ignore this and move on’?? WHY are you so inconsistent game!! Although I do hate the way they killed off Luka in the future just to further his angst, it felt veru cheap and shitty.)

One thing I got pretty disappointed about concerning Okabe, though, was the way they didn’t touch much on some of the impact and consequences his actions in the orginal Steins;Gate had, specifically regarding time travel. By which I mean, obviously we see the consequences the events of S;G had on him, but it’s mostly focused on his trauma regarding Kurisu’s and Mayuri’s deaths. There are zero mentions of his guilt regarding what he did to Luka and Faris, for instance; which feels especially off when this time around, Faris and Luka knows about the time travel stuff. You’re really going to tell me that someone as perceptive as Faris never connects some pieces together and confront him about her father? I know that really comes from the fact that, again, Faris and Luka’s presences in the game are nonexistent, but it’s so frustrating. There IS a little bit of something when it comes to Suzuha and Moeka; I really like how initially he feels very awkward around Beta Suzu because she is so different from Alpha Suzu, and how he specifically mentions her suicide in Alpha as one of the events that marked him the most and as to why he refuses to get involved with time travelling again, but honestly in the end there’s almost no conlusion in their relationship (like, they DO try a little in Kurisu’s route, but it still feel unsatisfying?) It’s wild to me there’s no followup, for instance, on Suzuha’s breakdown in Vega & Altair where she threatens him with a gun, we just... never seem them discussing this incident at all afterwards, like it’s just forgotten, when it should’ve been a big deal? And with Moeka/Tennouji, his reaction and relationship to them is also really bare minimum stuff, when again, with them being proper allies this time there should’ve been a lot more done.

So, regarding Kurisu/Amadeus… See, I actually really liked the idea of Amadeus. I think it’s a pretty neat way to use and showcase Kurisu’s research and neuroscience skills --- and yes it was also a way to have ‘Kurisu’ still be in the game even though she’s technically dead, but I think it worked really well in the sense that it ended up making her some sort of ‘ghost’. In general, for the most part I quite liked some of the ways they handled Kurisu’s presence, the way that even if she’s dead almost everything still revolve around her and her ghost haunt every single actions that is taken in the story, not just by Okabe and Maho, but by all the characters. Characters who are dead but still end up haunting the narrative is actually one of my favorite trope in fiction, and that’s why I really enjoyed that aspect of S;G0 because there is something very cool that they do in the way the different people remember and portray Kurisu after her death. So, Amadeus really works for this, in being there to haunt Okabe  (and Maho) every step of the way and never letting him escape what happened, no matter how much he wants to (which is then made double so by Kagari’s presence). But it is a little frustrating that in the end… they didn’t do as much as they could have with her? There’s this storyline they hint at about Amadeus developping ‘normal’ human feelings (and specifically romantic feelings for Okabe) and the way she’s Kurisu but also not Kurisu, but they never really do much with this at all? I also dislike how little weight the story give her being deleted in BOTH routes when it should be a much bigger deal, especially emotionally for the characters (again, the only time where it worked for me where in Maho’s ending, which is truly the superior end of them all). So, yeah, Amadeus was a cool concept, but as most cool concept in S;G0 it ended up falling kind of flat at the end.

(On Kurisu, though, I was surprised her parents had no role at all in this. I would’ve expected her father, and hell her mother too, to have a bigger presence. Especially with the way moms appeared to have a much bigger role in S;G0 contrary to the og story, i would have really worked well thematically.)

And, on that sense, although I really liked the way the story make a point to presents Okabe angsting over Kurisu’s death in almost every scene and the whole OkaKuri tragedy (that one moment where they meet again in Alpha…. Yeah it worked for me lol), I felt disappointed that she… didn’t seem to play much of a role at all in the final part of the game. Like yeah obviously in the end Okabe still does all this for her, but that’s why I thought she should’ve been… idk. More integrated in the the final. It felt off, like she was almost sidelined.

And then, there was…. Mayuriiiii…. SIGH. So Mayuri’s the character who disappointed me the most. S;G0 is so damn weird about her, because on the one hand, it is INFINITELY better than what she had in the original game. Like them actually giving her some agency and an actual storyline that doesn’t involve Okabe? GOOD! Because let’s be honest, Mayuri in the original game doesn’t really… does anything besides dying and being Okabe’s motivation for most of the game. And yeah slapping him at the very end too I guess. So S;G0 was definitely a step further from that, and I also think that them deciding to make her a mother was such a great choice; you can argue maybe giving one of your most traditionally feminine female characters whose story only revolved around the male protagonist before now a story that now mostly revolve around her being a mother is not super great, but I think it works specifically because Mayuri’s biggest problem is that she’s always SO infantilized, not only Okabe but the narrative as a whole; so her getting a kid was a really good way to have her actually grow up and some great interesting character development. And she Does get it, for the most part — the last part of her ending where she decides to actually get invovled in all the time travel bullshit and went with Suzuha is one of my favorite things! But then, as I’ve rambled in those threads at large last year,  they still… never do more than that with her. Even her big moment at the end of her route come off as not as impactful as it should be, because they don’t build it up at all throughout the route! (Especially since we get NO POV from her, even when the game actually does POV switch! Which is just WILD)

Her perspective on being a mother and her relationship with Kagari is dealt with a little bit in Kagari’s ending, but it’s very… superficial, it never goes into details about what it must be like to suddenly have a grown up traumatized daughter thrown at you when you’re barely an adult yourself, which sucks when that’s the most interesting part of those types of storylines (they do the same with Daru and Suzuha, to be fair, but yeah, it sucks here too lol.) They never let her get angry, never let her move on properly from her codependant relationship with Okabe, hell they STILL barely let her know about hte Big Plot Stuff happenings, EVEN when it concernes HER OWN DAUGHTER. It’s bonkers to me that she never actually get to know what truly happened to Kagari or that she plays no part into getting her back when she’s kidnapped by the Evil Scientists OrganizationsTM.

Mayuri should’ve just been A LOT more involved in the plot as a whole, not just at the very end of her route, and I’m endlessly frustrated that they consitently refuse to let her grow from her Innocent Ditzy Childhood Friend/Little Sister archetype whom Okabe is obssessed to protect, even when S;G0 gave them the perfect occasion to do so!! Her ending was good, but there should’ve been a more proper buildup throughout the narrtive, with moments including her POV; there should’ve been a narrative about her remembering her deaths from Alpha and actually deal with that trauma, there should’ve been an instance where she remembers KURISU too, have her interact with Amadeus and Maho and deal with her complicated feelings regarding her sacrifice, and it should’ve deeply impacted her finale decision to time travel and help save her (seriously, why was Kurisu and Mayuri’s friendship was so undermined??); and ultimately, I’ll always maintain that she and Okabe should’ve had a falling out of sorts at some point and gotten a Divorce Arc, and it doesn’t make sense that there’s no big clash between them other than the fact that the writers refuses to let Mayuri act like a normal, real young woman her age rather than a fantasy. Like… I’ve seen people who apparently complained about her big love confession at the end (although mostly from anime-only viewers, because in the VN Mayuri having feelings for Okabe is pretty explicit) but I’m going to be honest, it’s the least of Mayuri’s problems as a character. I don’t like her being in love with Okabe either as I much prefer their platonic, siblings-like relationship (and to be fair yeah, there are some parts they handled this in S;G0 that I think was shitty, like Mayuri having this speech where she says that in the end she’s the one who loves Okabe more than Kurisu?? Like okay??? Way to randomly do the misogynist trope of pitting your two main heroines against each other), but if they’d given us a proper arc with her where she’s treated like a real person I wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass about this. You people really have weird priorities.

(And on a personal level? I actually like the perspective of Mayuri feeling jealous of Kurisu and Okabe’s bond and feeling left behind (especially in S;G0 when it’s about a dead girl she knows nothing about and who, from her point of view, had nothing to do with Okabe up until now), if only because it’s the ONLY instance where Mayuri is allowed to have ugly feelings and, y’know, feel a bit like a multi-layered normal teenage girl; but it should definitely be handled with nuance and never undermine her love for Kurisu either, which... tbh I don’t trust the S;G to be able to write this lmao.)

And honestly, I also didn’t like the fact that Okabe end up going to ‘save’ her and Suzuha at the end, because it feel like it undermines the ONE heroic moment of agency that they gave Mayuri, to still makes it all about goddamn Okabe in the end. Mayuri and Suzuha DIDN’T need to be saved, because regardless of what they do they’ll get to Steins;Gate afterwards either way so? Did we really need to STILL relegate Mayuri to a damsel in distress status AFTER her big moment?? CAN’T MAYURI HAVE ANYTHING IN THIS GODDAMN SERIES

Related to this, Kagari was… god, she’s such a mess of a character lmao. Okay, so, the thing is that for some reason I can’t really explain I’m actually kind of fond of her. Maybe blame it on Megumi Han’s voice acting that manages to makes her super endearing, but yeah I do actually like her and I genuinely think there could’ve been… so much they could’ve done with her. She’s just a pile of wasted potential. Her story with Mayuri was very touching, and one of my favorite part of the game actually, but they could’ve done MORE. Because in the end, she only really feel… either very bland or annoying. And it’s like, I’ve seen some people who called her… ‘cringy’? Which is a bit of a weird term because, what does that even mean concretely, but it kind of bugs me a little bit because I don’t think there’s something inherently wrong with the way she’s portrayed. She’s a war orphan who was then forcefully separated from her mother and family and was tortured and groomed most of her life, to the point that even as a 22 years old she still has the mind of a child. She’s heavily traumatized. To me her behaviour about being so clingy to Mayuri and throwing tantrums about not wanting to change world lines makes sense, because Mayuri is quite literally her whole world and there’s nothing else that matters to her. Like… it’s wild to me how dismissed her concern that she wouldn’t get to be with her mother again if they go to the S;G world line is, because she’s right? Suzuha seems to have at least some guarantee she’ll still be born (and even then, it’s weird that it’s not something really questionned either), but Kagari has no such thing. Her very existence and only happiness was threatened. So calling her ‘cringy’ annoys me because she’s literally a mentally ill child with such heavy baggages, like what else would you expect from her?

However, I do agree that her writing and characterization is way too over-the-top and super clumsy at times, which makes the character feel very off (…and, also, there’s this fucking stupid twist with Yuki BUT it is one of the worst twists I’ve ever seen in any fiction so let’s just pretend it doesn’t exist lmao). The thing with Kagari, is that I’m very invested in the idea of what she could’ve been; of her being this traumatized girl who has this idealized version of her mother as this perfect, kind person, but who still felt horribly hurt by her when she had to abandon her, and then when she goes to the past she actually has to reconcile those two things all while actually meeting her mom’s younger self and realizing she is her own, flawed person as well. At the same time, I think I did like the arc they tried to give her in her ending of her deciding she couldn’t just cling to Mayuri forever and actually take the active decision to time travel with Suzuha (even if honestly it doens’t make much sense… like what would Kagari do once she gets to the past??), but it didn’t really feel… well build up or earned. I also dislike that the abuse and grooming she went through is like, heavily brushed aside; and her relationship with Okabe was… interesting but also really messed up, and it’s never properly addressed. Because like, Okabe heavily project Kurisu on her, at times even struggle to see Kagari as her own person, but this and the whole plotline where she gets Kurisu’s memories implemented in her just… never really leads to anything…

And honestly, same thing with her having Kurisu’s appearance, like what was up with that? I DID thought it was interesting, and I was so sure they were going to reveal something about how she was a baby created with Kurisu’s DNA for X reason or something, but no?? Apparently she just looks like Kurisu for no reason. Like man. Why. It’s just… I think the idea of her being both Mayuri and Kurisu’s daughter in SOME way was a pretty cool concept, and it especially would’ve been nice to explore this with Okabe’s projection of Kurisu on her and the memories implant where you could’ve had an arc with Kagari ultimately asserting herself as her own person.

And also… I kept thinking that honestly, I think that she could’ve been a very cool final antagonist in a way. Because again, I do believe Kagari’s motive to not go to Steins;Gate are very emotionally resonnant and valid, because from her point of view that’d mean losing her mother and her entire life altogether. This plus with her being abused and groomed by Leskinen, it would make sense she would try to stop the group from saving Kurisu (which would be darkly ironic if Kurisu had been her kind-of bio mother), and actually give her some agency in that story where she’s not just a victim who, in the end, doesn’t really do much of anything in the storyline. And you know, I kept thinking that, I hate what they did with Moeka and her relationship with Kagari in the Vega & Altair route, but I genuinely think that Kagari and Moeka’s relationship could have been very interesting because of how similar they are (both are heavily traumatized and orphaned young women who are desperate for love/parental approval and get used/manipulated into doing terrible things because of this). Imagine if we had a proper redemption arc for Moeka that would have paralleled Kagari’s descent into villainy, and how in the end Moeka could have fought to save her because she knows what it’s like to be in her place?? And how they could’ve done something with Moeka and Mayuri’s relationship through this as well??? (Yes I’m just writing fix-it fanfics at this point but!! Idk it would’ve been cool.) Kagari’s ending in the true end also feel… kind of off but whatever.

Also it’s a detail, but man, I think it’s really ridiculous they gave her some Upa as Mayuri’s memento instead of Mayuri’s grandma’s watch. Like what the hell, the watch would make a lot more sense thematically and emotionally than some random Upa. …Actually, it made me realize that Mayuri never ever bring up her watch at any point in S;G0 which, honestly, is super fucking weird. Did the writers just forget about it???

But anyway. Suzuha is also a character that I really like, and I specifically really love Beta Suzu, and during the first part of the game they actually… do some pretty interesting things with her. At least in Mayuri’s route. For the first part of this route, I love the way they characterize her as being this traumatized, no-nonsense young woman who is struggling between her responsability towards her missions and just spending time with her family that she never gets to have while growing up. I think they do a good job at portraying her complicated feelings towards her parents, and especially towards her mom, and the way at first she keeps exhausting herself until she has a breakdown and threaten Okabe on the roof. That’s one of the rare arc that was actually build up and earned properly in the whole story. However… well, the thing is that after her breakdown they really drop the ball hard with her? There’s no actual proper conclusion to her arc, not with her mother, not with Okabe (they have a little something in Kurisu’s route but not by much), not with trauma. They seemed to put forth an arc where she learns how to be, like, a normal girl her age again in the present era,bu they just… never deliver in the end. I was also surprisingly invested in her relationship with Kagari; the responsability she felt towards her as a big sister and how she failed her and is struggling about the perspective of having to fight her (and the guilt she felt towards Mayuri because of this too!), but here too it’s just… never lead to anything, except for a little bit in Kagari’s ending, but barely so.

And then in Kurisu’s route she doesn’t even get an arc at all. No like seriously, she’s only there to occasionally be a badass and say stuff sometimes, but that’s it. Like?? That’s so disappointing. I’m very sad they didn’t do anything, with, like the resentment and anger she’s implied to have towards her parents and Okabe at times. I swear, Beta Suzuha has so many interesting aspects but in the end they all feel glossed over. (And also, unlike Okabe they do a pretty poor job at handling her trauma… Like guys she was a literal child soldier, you’re not going to tell me she doesn’t have a minimum of PTSD.)

Special kudos too to that one Kagari/Suzuha fight scene where she’s completely naked, and she doesn’t have any scars or muscles or anything. Like okay, man. I think S;G0 in general had a lot of inappropriate fanservice that actually deviated from the story too; like obviously the original game had these too, but they didn’t feel as overwhelming as those and they didn’t pop up in serious moments at least. Seriously, why was S;G0 so horny with no reason sometimes, wtf.

I do really appreciate that they actually took the time to develop her relationship with Daru this time. Daru is also a character that is greatly improved in SG0 because this time around he actually feel… well, you know, like a character, instead of a plot device. He’s still not Good and I hate that they won’t let got of his gross jokes but at least he feel more like a person than just a walking stereotype who’s here to facilitate the plot (that scene in Mayuri’s route where he punches Okabe?? That was very cool. And there’s even one scene where he comforts Okabe after he’s had a panic attack which is… surprisingly sweet?? Like, wow, some genuine feelings between thos bros that let you know they do actually like each other, amazing.) I love how somehow the writers suddenly woke up and where like ‘Hey what if we Tried to write this guy as an Actual Character who's allowed to show varying emotions instead of as a joke?’ But anyway, yeah, it was nice and it really reflected in his relationship with Suzuha; which, again, had its issues but at least it was a lot better than what they did in the original game. Here I could buy at least that he genuinely come to care for Suzuha even while being a bit awkward with having this grown traumatized daughter thrown at him out of nowhere, and even despite some bullshit moments they still had a few nice scenes

Yuki’s character on the other hand was just… fucking bullshit lmao, like god. You know, initially I was pretty excited to learn that Suzuha’s mom would be introduced and play a major role in that story, because I always disliked the way she was completely non-existent in the og story, just as a joke “lol Daru will end up marrying a hot wife.” (Seriously, Suzuha herself barely talk about her when she’s the person who RAISED HER?? ALL ALONE? She should be a lot more importnat to her than her dad!) But in the end... well, there was one of the stupid twist I’ve ever seen in a story with the whole ‘well she was actually Kagari all along!’ in the Vega & Alair route and it’s just!! WHAT was this twist! It’s so ridiculous and in the end serves absolutely zero purpose I’m just… why! Why what the point of showing us those scenes of Daru & Suzuha bonding with Yuki if it was to undermine all of this for that….. And then in Kurisu’s route idk. She’s just there I guess. Being almost as useless as Kaede and Fubuki. Man, would it have really killed the writers to give her some personality and an actual arc and role in the overall story??? Even just a SMALL one? PLEASE? Even her romance with Daru was subpar and like I said her relationship with Suzuha lead to nowhere, so EVEN at just being A Wife and A Mom she fails at it!! (And again, that sucks because imo, her relationship with Suzuha could have been very interesting and nice, and HELL even her romance with Daru could’ve been cute (as long as they portray him as an awkward smitten nerd and not a gross perv)). I hate you, S;G writers. I hate you.

The rest of the characters though were just… kind of there. I’ve already rambled about how useless Fubuki and Kaede were, and how Faris and Luka really SHOULD’VE had their screentime as well as a bigger rôle; but honestly I could say the same with say, the Tennoujis. They also had no purpose in this story, just popping up to reminds you they still exist I guess. Moeka was lucky enough to get a pretty nice short development in Maho’s ending, but it WAS very short and ONLY in Maho’s ending ; the rest of the story she’s either pretty sidelined or treated pretty shittily (like seriously… the way they handle her character in Vega & Altair makes me want to punch someone. She deserves better than this!!) It sucks because her friendship with Maho and the development she gets in her ending is the best thing that happened to her character! I don’t understand why we couldn’t have gotten something like this throughout the entire game? Have her (and Tennouji too!) get a proper, actually ‘redemption,’ this time around (even if they don’t remember what they did wrong) ; let Moeka have a more solid character arc where she learns how to value herself properly thanks to Maho and have her actually interact witn Tennouji so that they resolve their issues too? Idk. I DID like they were allies to Okabe this time, but like… they could’ve done so much more with them it’s disappointing.

And then there were the bad guys, which…. Ugh, okay, not gonna lie but Leskinen and Reyes were very weak antagonists. See, one thing I actually really like in the original S;G is that there is not really a ‘proper’ villain. Moeka and Tennouji all play the part of antagonist throughout the story, but in the end they’re mostly like, victims of circumstances (well, there’s Kurisu’s dad too but he’s something else entirely). The ‘true’ big bad are either : SERN, which for the entirety of its story is just some formless entity that we never concretely ‘meet’ or really understand what it’s about, or it’s just… ‘fate’ or the ‘universe’ itself, as the the thing keep killing Mayuri over again (or Kurisu at the end). And I think that’s one of the coolest aspects of S;G that works very well as its overall theme of coming-of-age story for Okabe. So it was pretty disappointing that they decided to have a pretty classic ‘bad guy’ in Leskinen. Like he and Reyes feel very flat and corny, the story never tries to give them any depth and deeper goals beyond being Evil Mad Scientists,’ and yeah it makes sense as they’re mirroring Okabe what with them being Actual Mad Scientists and all but they still… could’ve had more? There are some instances with Leski & Okabe and Maho & Leski where I thought they had the opportunity to make them interesting, what with him feeling a bit like a father figure for them at times — and the story was very centred around parenthood — but they just never do it, so their ‘betrayal’ are incredibly predictable, and end up feeling ridiculous when Okabe seems so hurt over it too, so in the end they mostly made me cringe. (They could’ve very compelling stuff with Leskinen’s relationship with Kurisu compared to his relationship with Kagari, but noooope... Like I said, it would’ve been SO much more interesting to get Kagari as the final antagonist but ohhh well!)

Anyway, yeah, that’s pretty much it. So I complained a lot, but I do think S;G0 was an interesting ride in the end. I’m glad I got to finally play it because I’ve been wanting to try it since, like… 2015 lol. I feel like there’s some very mitiged receptions on it; I’ve seen some who says it’s better than the og game, and others that it’s worse. Personally I’m somewhere in the middle, but in general I dont think both stories are comparable, they feel more… complementing?

There’s a lot I liked about it, sometimes more than in the og VN (again, stories that dealt with messy grief are always my jam), but also I’m just very disappointed about cause so many cool concepts that could’ve been so much better. I’ve also seen some complaints that the time travel stuff was less well-written than in the original, like with things like Mayuri and Kagari’s song being a bootstrap paradox, but... I dunno, I think there are problems that can be easily found in the original story too. Like, yes, I do think the worldbuilding and time travel science is generally well put togeter in the original story, but at the same time it was never mean to be very grounded or realistic, so those type of details don’t bother me. Same with the ridiculous bigger plot points and all, where it’s like... obviously the whole thing about World War III and the two secret organizations and all are kind of silly, but that’s a type of silliness and over-the-top-ness that’s expected from S;G and that works within its universe. I’ve sait it before I think, but to me Steins;Gate have always been more of a coming-of-age story for Okabe than a time travel stotry, really, and that’s how it works the best.

Now an odd criticism from me maybe but I... didn’t like huke’s art in this? Like, it is a lot more... polished and ‘standardized’ than the art in the first game, and as a result didn’t feel much like S;G. I don’t know, I’m aware some people don’t like it, but to me huke’s arstyle is definitely one of the most charming and defining aspect of the VN (and why the Elite version sucks ass, just like the anime’s artstyle), so I didn’t like seeing it being made more... ‘normal anime,’ I guess. I was pretty disappointed with the music as well too? Like most of the tracks were either the same than the original game, or utterly forgettable...

But yeah! The only thing I really take from it is Maho (she’s now officially my second fave S;G character <3) and everything related to her; her ending is just the best, as well as Maho/Kurisu and Maho/Moeka, truly the best parts of the story, the Okakuri angst, and a liiiittle bit what they tried to do with Mayuri and Kagari. A little. The rest is kind of *shrugs* to me.