#but also are you fucking kidding me with thes

[panzershrike-pretz]

THIS! This tag game seems so fun! Made by the amazing @ronald-speirs!

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited?

That would be either the alps in Germany or the Salinas beach, here in Brazil! I adored both the snow and thes amount of stuff i find at the beach there

Something you’re proud of yourself for?

The amount of progress I made since being diagnosed with autism, depression and anxiety. Even if I stopped going to therapy, I feel like the diagnosis (esspecially the autism one) shed so much light on my life, and I was able to makes the world around me (even if just at home) more confortable for myself by understanding myself more and adjusting the way I do things so it's easier on me.

Favorite books?

Hmmmmm let's see- the Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children series, obviously, but I also LOVE The Book Thief, American Gods and definetely Warrior Cats (I only read the first arc, so Idk how good's the rest xD)

Something that makes your heart happy when thinking about it?

My dog and my characters! Love them :]

Favorite thing about your culture?

Hmmmmmm probably food? But I'm extremely picky so I don't even eat most of our stuff 💀 i do love feijoada, brigadeiro, pastel and coxinha tho- Idk about the rest KAKAKAKA other than that, the slangs. So cool. Love it

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched?

Back at the end of 2022 or early 2023 was when I first heard about it, but as for officially joining...? Probably like. 5 or 6 months ago? I have no idea what time even is-

The first show was Band of Brothers :D

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite?

Nope. And won't.

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them?

Webster. Him shoving himself on the ground was the best. Just like me fr💕

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?

Uhhhhh I make memes and occasionally fanart? I wouldn't classify this as content but when I'm really into something I take some aspects of it for my own world, so I can always keep it close to me, even if the hyperfixation faded a bit with time

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?

I know no one- but I do like Bud Spencer and Terence Hill's movies. They are the only actors I know the name of 💀 I like the funny coeboy movies, many good memories watching them with dad when I was a kid (and still doing so, every now and then)

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?

"I'll beat you with a dead cat 'till it starts mewing" - a popular brazilian saying (the best ever)

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?

HmmmmmmmmI share so much about myself that I don't even know 💀 probably that I once fell facefirst on a river when I was 4, while I was fishing? That was A Day

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?

I don't write much but!! I did write something yesterday about my characters and idk if I should post, but if you're interested, I can show you :D

Three things that make you smile?

My dog, my characters, birds

Any nicknames you like?

Based off my real name I like "Rah", but only when used irl. As for the internet, I love Pretz! And I have a special one my best friend @isazmoon gave me, which is Pretzu, but this ones I feel like it's only hers :3

List some people you love to see around on tumblr!

@1waveshortofashipwreck @xxluckystrike @ronald-speirs @ronsparky @minha-xuh @whollyjoly @sweetxvanixlla!! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!! AMAZING PEOPLE!!

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse?

What would I live for, my stupid ass can't even run 😭 i'd die fast as fuck. And I know all my friendswould die too so we all just perish together 💕💕💕 friendship goals

Favorite movie?

How To Train Your Dragon? Wolfwalkers? Saving Private Ryan? Pirates of the Caribbean? Can't probably choose only one, it's torture

Do you like horror movies?

Ehh, not much? I prefer animations

Tags (no pressure): @xxluckystrike @whollyjoly @ronsparky @sweetxvanixlla @grumpy-liebgott @1waveshortofashipwreck @blueberry-ovaries @minha-xuh (hey Gih, if you want you can take off the HBOwar bits and/or replace them with MPHFPC, since you're from another fandom, feel free!)

[littencloud9]

anyway. that was so fucking good so as usual have my post watch thoughts:

vanitas - i am putting him in a fucking blender and then giving him a big hug. give this guy a BREAK. there is something so wrong with him and i love it. him and noé are so incredibly well-done. pure opposites and they clash but it works. him and mikhail devastated me. he is so insanely kind and you dont expect it bc he keeps shoving people away?? and hes so snarky but hes doing everything to save others??? sacrificing his body to countless experiments as a child so that other children wouldnt suffer the same, saving the vampires with the book even as it chips away at the humanity he struggles to keep, being a DOCTOR. im gonna throw something

noé - i’m in love with him. that’s it. jk but he is AMAZING and his love for domi makes me wanna cry and also him and murr are so funny and when he said he’ll never set vanitas free, something in me revived. i love that his first instinct is always to protect, whether it’s by his own body or by inflicting violence. he is just so sweet and has a big big heart and i think im gonna go cry actually

jeanne - JEANNE!!! I LOVE HER SO MUCH. her arc with chloé was WONDERFUL and she’s the cutest and coolest ever. im putting her in my pocket and patting her adoringly. she’s so fiercely loyal to her duty but when it comes to people she cares about she struggles because her heart is so big and i am JUST. I LOVE JEANNE

dominique - I ALSO LOVE DOMI. HOLY SHIT shes probably my favourite as of now. i didnt have much of an impression of her in s1 (tho she was so cool) but s2 hit me like a truck. i love that we got her pov of the whole thing with louis! doomed siblings haha my weakness. the scene of her holding back her younger self and louis just watching WAS SO INCREDIBLE. domi looking into her most vulnerable self and being forced to confront her past MMMM. her as a child chopping her hair off after louis died like WOW that murdered me. her saying she hates herself but fighting to stay alive anyway. AND HER AND THE SICK ASS ICE POWERS. AND JEANNE SAYING SHES BEAUTIFUL. and her with the line about protecting others or something. BECAUSE AT THE END OF THE DAY DOMI IS A KNIGHT! AHHHH GOD I LOVE HER

mikhail - this kid both freaks me out and makes me miserable. as a child screaming help me big brother while he was being dragged away, and then when the book was eating him alive and he was screaming at vanitas to help him again. that killed me. and him doing everything because he wants to bring back their family. being stuck in the past and begging for vanitas to return with him IM GONNA THROW UP

chloé and jean-jacques - they aren’t my favourites but their arc was wonderful!! oh the tragedy of being childhood best friends in this show. i love that they found each other when it was needed. i love that they did everything to protect each other. i love that they saved each other. i love that both their true names have something to do with flowers, the same as the place where they first met (unless i’m remembering things wrong do not come at me it’s been a While skfhekfb)

vanoé thoughts - because vanoé is what i came for. i was Not disappointed. thejr dynamic is so silly and fun but also devastating. their designs being parallels, being Meant To Be, is great. vanitas having to hypnotise himself to kill noé, yet being unable to do it even with a KNIFE TO HIS THROAT. and noé also holding back, despite knowing that he is completely capable of killing vanitas too. and the rain and everything and ohhhh my god i will die. and vanitas leaning on noé in s1 and noé leaning on vanitas in s2 HECK YEAH. AND THE SUN RISE IN S1 WHEN NOÉ PROMISED TO STAY BY VANITAS’ SIDE. AND THE SUN RISE IN S2 WHEN THEY MADE UP. AND VANITAS TOOK NOÉ’S HAND! AND ACCEPTED HIM INTO HIS LIFE! after hiding everything about himself from noé, and now letting him see just a piece of him. and them arguing like an old married couple but also instinctively protecting each other. these damn gays

domijeanne - when do they kiss. like for Real. man i love that they hold such high admiration for each other and they support each other so much. and domi who harbours so much self-hatred and compares herself with jeanne, but jeanne just sees her as strong and beautiful and incredible. i love that they’re genuinely friends and always go to each other and ALSO LETS NOT FORGET THE DANCING SCENE! and also jeanne the hellfire witch and domi with the ice powers LIKE! INCREDIBLE SHOW STOPPING. pretty please i need them to kiss

overall - love the op and ed so much. love the colours and vibrancy and how during the last fight it was all grey and dull and ugh. studio bones KNOWS how to do symbolism with these damn colours. incredible and devastating writing and im definitely gonna go read the manga. drop dead gorgeous art style like all of these characters are BEAUTIFUL. a perfect mix of silly and pure horror and genuine love (both platonic and romantic and maybe some of these characters are trauma bonded but they come together anyway and that is just great) and tragedy. i love vnc. the bsd-mtp-vnc pipeline so real. they are all incredible shows but i think vnc has my favourite storyline out of them all so far. thanks if u read til here LMAO 🫶🫡

[la-squadra1234]

Of course I can! BTW everyone this is the person that requested my last story so thank you to this person. I appreciate you so much!!!

 So the only thing that I could come up with other than a kind of family reunion scene, which obviously would never be a thing is them having a way to touchy PE teacher because they are always touchy so I hope everybody is OK with that And if you aren’t well, then, too bad because it takes me time and energy and effort to make these stories and I also have to think about things even though they are requested so it’s even harder but that’s OK

Let’s get into this!

Full credit to la-squadra1234

Feitan-his first thought it would be to ask his kid what is going on in private and what else has this PE teacher done to make them uncomfortable  after his kid explained everything even if it wasn’t that bad, nobody is going to be touchy to his kid and not receive a major consequence and of course he skin the PE teacher alive in the gym because he has no chill

Phinks-he would not pull his kid aside he would pull the PE teacher aside, and he would tell the PE teacher to smarten the fuck up and to never touch his kid ever again not even a little high five or a pat on the back nothing and God for bid phinks sees the PE teacher, touching his kid again. Oh my God he will rip his body apart in front of all of the kids and parents and teachers. 

Nobunaga-he would immediately grab the PE teacher by their shirt, collar or sweater. Whatever they are wearing, and he would start punching them in the face and just beating the hell out of them and yes, you best believe his kid was watching the entire thing go down

Chrollo-he’s a little more old fashion and nice about it he takes it up with the principal and he has a talk with his kid about it in private and then also with the principal not only that he keeps an eye on his kid and the PE teacher and if the PE teacher does anything else  he will take the PE teacher into a private room, or the staff room, a place where only the teachers can go and he will make it a very gory scene and then he will leave a little note, telling everybody to not ever touch his kid in any way, shape or form

illumi-honestly there would be no chance of something like that ever happening because he would make sure butlers are always by his kid at all times, and he would try his best to keep an eye on his kid as much as possible, and his kid would definitely be homeschooled the same way that he was along with the rest of his siblings (sorry if you really wanted to see some thing like that with illumi but I just can’t imagine it happening as it would never happen and nobody in their family would be too touchy at all at most a little pat on the head or a two second hug)

Hisoka-this man literally wouldn’t notice anything off because he is super touchy himself, so why would he notice anything but eventually his kid would come complaining to him about it and at first he would just think that his kid is lying or something like that because some kids do things like that to get teachers that they don’t like in trouble but once he actually witnesses it for himself, he follows the PE teacher home and slit their throat, and he make sure that there is blood everywhere and of course he would make sure that there is no trace of him even though he doesn’t really care he just wants it to be a little mystery. All for his sick way of fun.

Silva-if I couldn’t think of anything for illumi I know damn well I will not be able to think of anything for Silva again there is like no way that that would ever happen. He would definitely be even more cautious than illumi because he doesn’t want anything happening to his kid and he doesn’t want to hear kikyo yell at him, and just annoy him (sorry if you wanted to see something like this with Silva)

 that’s it for today everyone I am sorry if it seems kind of half assed, I promise you I wasn’t rushing this time. It was just kind of hard to think of a sort of scenario that would fit these characters but I hope everybody enjoyed it. it was honestly pretty fun making!

I am sorry if any grammar is bad, but I am not going over to fix it, so just fix it yourself in your head. It shouldn’t be too hard as long as the whole paragraph is as I wrote it😅

Thank you so much to the person who requested this it’s pretty fun to do request. It’s so nice to see that other people have so much creativity!!!!

I will see you guys all in the next Post bye now!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

the difference between kataang and zutaras is zuts ignore her canon moments of affection towards aang/ and prop up momtara while kataang fans view her as a kid and dont treat her moments with zuko like he's pure evil towards her, i think most of us agree the times they got along were sweet moments.. and we know she didnt want to be vied as a mom she said so to toph in the runaway. we also know that didnt let everyone walk all over her/do chores cause she told toph that everyone did their fair share/ We also know that she cares about aang and was deveasted he almost died and dont consider her threatening zuko as just being mad he nearly cost them the war/avatar and that she mad cause her best friend died . and losing him is her biggest fear cause she loves him.. any katara that hates aang/ consider him childish/ a baby and wants to be saved by zuzo is ooc.. kataang fans know her character on this site.. zutaras ignore everything and call you a sexist bryke fan if you point out canon mometns cause they just hate canon i guess.. if you ask me ignoring kataras acutal words in thes how and calling em ooc is taking her agency away more than bryke ever did

I'm far from being a bryke stan and I do have some issues with some of their writting choices, but holy fuck, the way Zutarians talk about them is some Alex Jones shit.

They made up a whole conspiracy on how they were trying to sabotage The Dragon Prince, Aaron Ehasz's show, because he commmited the mortal sin of shipping Zutara - even though he has repeatedly made it clear that he loves Mai and Maiko. They straight up use a FAKE interview to "prove" he was on their side and that Zutara was always the plan, but evil Bryke ruined it.

They also like to use Dante Basco as an excuse to be shitty to other fans because he likes Zutara - even though he already said he likes Mai, and doesn't really have a problem with the way the show ended. The concept of multi-shipping doesn't exist to them.

They're not satisfied by just finding someone to "blame" for their ship not being canon - they're making up "saviors" for their OTP, which does nothing but make them look unhinged.

[away-ward]

Hello, I was unsatisifed with a lot of background things happening in DN and the way PD wrote them, and here are the two main things i wanna share with you: pregnancies and worldbuilding (?).

Tbh, i was a bit sad, angry and pissed off with the way PD handled pregnancies in the DN series. For a series that's so "forward", "not following the crowd", and "make rules for themselves", these characters are all always so stuck in the past even when they shouldve already moved past THAT past. EVERY DAMN COUPLE had to have children, and somehow, outsiders' opinions of their relationships, even after getting together, still mattered a LITTLE BIT TOO MUCH. Understandable that some opinions could affect them because how could they not, no matter how much they wanna say they wanna do whatever they want, they still live in a society, and that society is the highly judgemental, political, and corrupted town, Thunder Bay. Considering that they still have feelings and could be affected by hate comments etc., they just cannot always act like it didnt affect them, like the way rika thought michael would leave her because she couldnt get pregnant and how that also relates to her "worth" as a woman, especially in a heavily judgemental society like TB, where even when a lot of them wre "progressive", a big part of the community were still holding up to traditional values of what women are, should be, should do etc. They're not living in some wonderland or some shit like that, ok fine, BUT what i dont understand is how these opinions wouldve affected them so much even after getting together for YEARS, and even worse, they just never really communicate about them, butthen they fight, fuck, and just got over it as if every thing is fine all over again. So whats the point of that dramatic infertility announcement in conclave then? Stupidity!

Every time we got something good for the characters' progression, PD always had to ruin it by regressing the progress of their characters, and worse, these characters don't even talk about what they want or expect from each other in their relationship. Not one, even KaiBanks, the seemingly "most mature" couple in thes series. The immaturity of these couple were on another level! This was one of the aspects of DN that unsatisfied me the most. I HATED how reductive PD made pregnancies and child planning look in DamonWinter's story. Like they have a litter of children, while being emotionally, mentally and financially irresponsible adult themselves, and ijust couldnt enjoy any kind of child-related things in this series honestly. Not even WillEmmy! Why cant we just have couple who take their times to get to know each, settle down everything first, then be fucking mature adults and plan their future together? This "reckless live to the fullest" sounds so bonkers, because it doesnt involve the horsemens and their wives anymore, theyre bringing their kinds, who are INNOCENTS (!) into this world and lifestyle without thinking about it further. The only person who had put a thought (even a little bit) towards this issue was Will and that says a lot because he wasnt even always sober before Nightfall! It was clear even when he wanted Emmy in his life, and his implied thought rpocess of taking revenge on her, that he couldnt just force her to live his lifestyle, or even bear his kids, because it's not just gonna be Willemmy anymore, it's now WillEmmy + their kids + their nephews and nieces + the others now. Everyone's live couldve been on danger and some innocent couldve suffered. Because of this, I feel like DamonWinter are just so immature and selfish as a couple and parents because its always about what THEY want, but not what the CHILD needed (before winter got pregnant), like they never really thought things through in a longer run, and feeling everything and having fun, is all they cared about at the moment. Damon never really thought about building skills and get a job like a mature responsible adult and partner until Winter reminded him, and im just so done! I love that that Damon's hater ask pointed out his incompetency because i so agree with them, and i think this is one of the aspect of his (and others') incompetency. They just think like children, and they do not have the maturity of a grown adult who has to work with others around them, it's insufferable! On the other hand, i also think thats why each of them were writter so diffrent yet similar with one another because they needed this balance. Not evryone has to be the same, as an individual, they had their weaknesses, but as a family, theyre perfect for each other.

As for my other own personal in depth unsatisfying feeling about the pregnancy aspect of this series, i just cannot stand to read rika's big ass meltdown about her infertility in conclave, and this does not come from a place of lack empathy about her situation, rather it's because of the way PD wrote it. In fact, i was FUCKING LIVID with the way PD was so quick to just label Rika as the one who was infertile, when there were no medical checkups done on Michael, as if the responsibility or for a lack of a better term, "fault" for infertilities all lies on the shoulder of the women-here, and it's Rika. Sure, her period cycle was fucked yada yada yada, but from the start, i always read it with an implication that it's rika who had to deal with all that pain and shame, and this is definitely a heavy blame on the writer because PD couldve literally balance it out with michael's possibility of being the one who was infertile instead, or made rika said something to michael about doing body checks or checkups as a married couple, but PD. NEVER. DID. God! This was why that whole infertile thing was so infuriating to me. Also, If PD already knew that rika was already handling with so much responsibilities with people around her, why on earth would they put more stress on rika's shoulder? Rika was in college (probably full time and on her last year, yeah), so she probably had a lot of things to prepare for, then she had the fane empire business to take care of, the mayor election campaign, being an NBA's star's partner making time in her pact schedule for michael (she's probably gonna have to be dealing with a lot of press not just for her main job, but also for this NBA thingy too), travelling from one place to another for college and business, oh and she's a fencer, works at the dojo, a local town campaigner, a sister who checks up on everyone etc. so why the hell would preganancy at the age of 22, mind you, would be so important when she already had so much on her plate, and she hasnt even reached her mid-twenties yet? It's FOMO, but the way PD wrote it made it felt so weird to me, and it shows rika's immaturity (understandably so) of dealing with sensitive issues that a lot of women around the world had to go through, instead of a woman who we could sympathise or empathise with for going through all of this at 22. And that's the thing, Rika was already dealing with a lot, didnt even really talk to michael because she was worried for his career (but she could talk to KAI OF ALL PEOPLE and damon? Huh?), and now PD just had to put some unnecesaary implied cheating drama and stupid plot about infertility here? For what? For the drama? The infertility conversation didnt get solved with sensitivity or further couple planning, it just went over their head, and suddenly, OF FUCKING COURSE RIKA HAD A MIRACLE BABY BEFORE SHE TURN 33, OMG SHOCKING!!! I'm so tired reading these books with suden pregnancy tropes, because a lot of authors just cant write this trope very well, so it always comes off immature, romanticised and insensitive to others. Some people dont even enjoy reading this trope for whatever reason that is, so this plotline just ruins their story further. I just can't stand the silly logistics of it all. Like Miss Girl, you're 22, sit down! Rika couldve used that time to built her skills to be a good aunt, a competent political debater, a businesswoman AND a politician so that she could be an amazing women figure in their family for herself and others, and then run the Fane empire and the mayor thing slowly so we can see her like Banks' short scene in nightfall's epilogues dealing with some political stuff, but noooo, it all just happen at once and we're supposed to but that? Like she doesnt even have the BASIC SKILLS to run a town, why dont PD start from there first? I think if she was given more trainings and drills, she can make a great politician in the future, but unfortunately, we never got to see that.

And that's the thing, even if rika IS the town's sweetheart, what kind of town, with the majority of people there being people with high profiles, political connections and corruptions, would just listen to this 22 year old girl preaching about "kindness" when all she did, was just being family to a bunch of similarly privileged new adult pranksters with a history of crimes and "not fitting in" with the rest of the crowd? Do they not understand how political agenda or advertising work? Thats not how politics and organised systems work! If i was a resident in Thunder Bay, rich as fuck i couldve bought almost anything in this world like (Gabriel Torrance), i would not even pay a single mind to rika or the horsemen, in fact, i would usurp her position and gang up with some other locals in town, just for fun, to piss the them off. Like What happens to voting systems? It just doesnt make sense. They treated the town's safety and mechanisms like it's a child's play and not some serious and dangerous political business that requires working with so many people from so many different industries so that a town could work fine. Every time rika opened her mouth to talk to her workers or people in conclave, i swear i throwed up a bit in my mouth because of how cringy it was. That Ninja comment by Damon was even cringier. If PD wanted to convince us with this IT Thunder Bay couple of the successful Michael, the NBA player and the own sweetheart Rika, the TB Mayor + business owners couple bullshit, they gotta make it make sense you know. I GAGGED when they threw that engagement party in kill switch, then damon dissed them thinking "what the fuck is this all" because that was the first time ever that i agreed with damon lmao! It's really not on rika at this point, i noticed, PD was just always shit at writing logistics, because they're a very idealist writer. As long their idea works, nothing else matter and that's why, all these important logistics seem to fly out the window in their every. damn. book. in this series. And somehow they always got their redemption arcs and turned out to be Mary Sues and Gary Stus by PD, even Damon! Oh, please! Anyway, I just know by now that if i wanna enjoy PD's books (aside from birthday girl), i gotta turn off my thinking hat so that it wouldnt ruin my fun of reading their books. (Don't even get me started with Alex's jobs because aside from MichaelRika, Alex's was the most unbelievable among them all, but one thing i liked about her story was that she was childless, like YESSS GIVE US SOME RICH SUCCESSFUL AUNT CHARACTERS yk). PD did a great job at the fall away series, the hellbent series, and birthday girl's worldbuildings though, so maybe they should just stick to writing about middle class suburban characters who just mind their own business, and not high profile people who's about to rule the world.

What do you think about this? Or have this part of DN series never really interest you much?

Hellllloooo! I’m laughing because you said “background things” so I was expecting things that happened in the background plots but then you listed worldbuilding, which to me is pretty significant. I don’t know why, but that got a chuckle.

I mean, to start with, I think I agree with you on most of your points. For me personally, this is not a series that’s meant to be dissected and analyzed to the degree at which we’re doing it. Once you start pulling at strings, it all comes crashing down. Our MCs are all “morally gray” but for the “right reasons”. They always get what they want and always come out on top. When I go into their world, I try to turn off my head and just have fun. I find that’s when I enjoy it the most.

But yeah. I’ve thought out it in terms of “what in the world is this. This wouldn’t work.” and I've ranted about it plenty too.

Re: the pregnancy the issues you brought up - I also didn’t like that everyone had kids at the end. I didn’t take issue with the lack of planning, but that could just be me. I also didn’t mind that none of them chose to remain childless. I feel that most people grow up knowing they’re going to be parents, or at least get to that point in early adulthood. It’s not so much a question of if, but more of when and who with? And I think the latter is the most important question to answer. I’m happier knowing that these people had already committed to each other before having children.

I was upset because CC introduced the idea that Rika and Michael couldn’t have children of their own. I was intrigued with the idea that this couple, the first couple we followed, wasn’t going to get everything they wanted. So much as worked out for them, but this big thing…that’s being withheld? I was intrigued with where this was going to go. I would have been super happy if M&R had committed to the idea of being childless and focused on other aspects of their very full lives (as you brought out) and then Aaron came along. I would have even been happy if, after Rika voiced her concern, Michael calmed the situation down and reassured her in some way. His immediate reaction seemed to confirm the reasons why she didn’t tell him in the first place, not to mention his reaction to her confiding in Kai (are you not all family? Doesn’t she get to have as strong a bond with him, as with any of the others? Why does he get all your suspicion? It’s hardly fair.). But if he said he didn’t care about any of that, he just wanted her and their lives, whatever came at them without going to the other extreme first, then I could have dealt with them adopting. I didn’t like how Athos came into their lives though; just so perfectly plopped into their laps.

Basically, I wanted to see Rika and Michael struggle. Or know that they struggled and got through it together, before getting everything they wanted. But it was all handed to them and that made me mad. It also upset me that it felt like the message was “a child will fix a marriage” or “children are needed for a happy family”. There didn’t seem to be any creative thought for what a family could look like.

I personally didn’t have a problem with Damon having a big family. Honestly, that makes the most sense to me. Though at the end, with Emmy, it did feel like a rush to fit all of the couples having at least one child, but then that also kind of makes sense. Will was 27 by the time Indie was born. He’s not a young parent by any means, and all his friends already had children. If he wanted his kids to grow up with them, then he didn’t have time to wait. I also think when you consider the age gaps with Kai and Banks kid’s (11 and 5) and Will and Emmy’s kids (9, 5, and a mystery but still young), then they probably did some planning. And they probably didn’t have to do as much planning as you’d think. They’re financially secure and own their company. Money isn’t an issue for them. They live in a small town and their kids will go to private school, so picking a good neighborhood isn’t necessary. They live around extended family and have hired help, so who’s going to watch the kids in case of an emergency is settled. The only thing they’d really have to think about is raising children, knowing the kind of enemies they’re going to have, but there’s always risks to anything involving children, so it’s either do or don’t. What I liked was that they were committed to being parents. It didn’t just happen and now they have a kid they didn’t want or an unexpected, unhappy accident. That would have been sad.

I mean, I agree that they should have thought it through before becoming parents – it seemed for the narrative that Banks and Winter were sort of…surprised to be pregnant? Like they didn’t think it could happen or was going to? (And wasn’t Winter also on birth control when she became pregnant with their second? Or am I making things up again??) But who knows, maybe they did discuss it and we didn’t get that part of the story.

None of the guys thought about getting jobs; privilege gives you that kind of freedom. Michael only wanted to be a pro-athlete. The others didn’t even know what they wanted to go to school for. Kai figured it out in prison when he had no choice, Damon thought he was going to inherit his father’s empire, and Will probably thought he was going to work for his grandfather in some capacity. Or travel until he couldn’t anymore. All of them were immature.

I thought Rika said she went to the doctors, but I could be wrong. Not picking up CC for that. Anyway, I didn’t pick up on Rika accepting the blame of infertility. I think society places a lot of responsibility on the woman to bear children, so it didn’t strike me as odd that she would assume she was the problem. This is probably something a lot of women go through and might have felt relatable to some readers. And I have no desire to be a parent, so the level at which she was distraught over telling Michael didn’t hit with me, but I assume for someone who does want to be a parent, Rika’s reaction and handling of the situation might also be relatable. No idea. And when people are so wrapped up in their emotions, their reactions to things aren’t always right. I just know how I would have liked the situation to be responded to when emotions calm down, and I didn’t get that. So ...

Rika and Michael’s communication and trust issues, especially around Kai, are one of the issues I brought out in another ask. They really need to get those sorted out; it was getting ridiculous.

Overall, the first time I read CC, I got the impression that the infertility issues might have been something PD brought in from their real-life experiences. Maybe not them personally, but someone they knew, served as the inspiration (But that is just a guess and I have no way of knowing. I could be completely off). And then at the end, they wanted Rika to have a child, so we got Athos. Later, it all works out for them and Rika gets to experience pregnancy, so we get Aaron.

It’s one of those things that yeah… it can happen in real life. But should it happen in this story? Does it add or take away something? I felt this plot point took away something from the story.

As far as Rika becoming mayor, this point had me scratching my head and laughing because yeah…she was still in college, or recently graduated, and she has all those other responsibilities on her plate. I mean, I don’t really care about her age. I’d look to Parks and Recreation, because wasn’t Ben mayor of his town at like…18 or somethin? But then he was bad at it because of inexperience. So yeah, Rika becoming mayor and then being good at it felt like overkill, for reasons you said: other members of community, more mature and experienced members, would be going that position of power, and also, she would be inexperienced in that sort of leadership role.

Which is why I always assumed she got the position through intimidation. Specifically through the Torrance’s name. Say what you’d like about Damon, I wouldn’t want him breaking into my house to “earn” my vote for Ms Fane. And let’s not get started on Bank’s taking control of Gabriel’s empire. Banks and Damon totally got anyone who challenged Rika to back down, and then pushed her into position so that they could all control the town and do what they wanted.

So Rika standing there and gaslighting herself “we’re not really criminals” is hilarious to me. Yes. Yes, you are. You are a criminal. You will be a corrupt mayor. Just because it’s “for the good of the town” and not just yourself doesn’t mean what you’re doing isn’t shady and corrupt. But sure, keep lying to yourself.

I don’t remember the Ninja comment but I’m sure it was cringe and I’m choosing to forget it.

But like I said, this series was just supposed to be fun. We’re not meant to think deeply and make sense of it. Just turn off your brain and enjoy the ride. Anything more than that, and starts to fall apart.

[lumonafox]

Watching Van Helsing for the first time and I have thoughts and feelings

Disclamers first: My previous experience with the movie was clip of the masquarade on youtube and some Leather-Jackman encounters on my dash every once in a while. I only know Dracula and Van Helsing by name and at this point I can’t be bothered to memorize the rest. My taste in men is questionable and unapologetic, if fancy vampire Count kissed my neck and said he wants me to be his spouse, I would simply fold. Not entirely into the idea of laying clutches of cocoabean-like-gremlin-eggs for him, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it I guess. With that out of the way, let’s begin. Quick notes during the watch: 1 they gave Jackman machinegun-crossbow and he still can't hit shit with it 2 if Dracula got pegged every once in a while he might be a little less edgy and murdery which would make the world a better place overall 3 Catherine Zeta Jones got even more faisty, corsetty and not-catherine-zeta-jones-y, I guess the budget only had place for one big name 4-derpy little monk with his derpy little sunshine invention and derpy little forshadowing 5-Zeta Jones is surprisingly tan for a Transylvania native. 6-why does everyone seem to want to fuck everyone? To be fair... I too want to fuck most of them. Point taken. 7-if thes had stopped dropping their weapons for one second the plot would have been over in first 30 mins...you mean to tell me that trained killers can't keep a hold on their gun? 8-ofc the bro is the new werewolf but also does his transformation NEED to be such artistic spin-aroundy balerina style? (Also naming the werewolf brother Velkan is about as clever as naming him Remus, Lupin, Remus Lupin, Barker, Wolfer Mc Wolfenstein etc...) 9-nobody in this movie takes fall damage and Dracula has literal gravityhacks. It should be threatening but it is hilarious 10-young Jackman during night rainstorm looks like Orlando Bloom in Pirates of carribean (I refuse to elaborate, just trust me) 11-Vampire kids look like cocoa beans before they hatch. After getting tazed they turn into bat gremlins. Then they feed (?) and turn into hot-wife-in-grayscale material (?) Having larval and mid stage would imply that vampires are some sort of insect which makes them considerably more yucky 12-Gabriel? Is he also a vampire? Serving the church? Is he anti-vampire? 13- *little evil man voice* we have SUCH history Gabriel (we broke up during the crusades and I have gotten three wives to compensate) 14- funky little monk, sorry, a friar, and funky little loopholes 15- not to ruin your happy moment but the roof is still very much on fire and there is still mr Wolfenstein trying to kill you 16- can't turn into a werewolf it you already are one my dear Helsing, yknow. friar found the knight fighting gif... 17- Did she just MOAN? (lowkey same sis) 18- the whole masquarade thing is slightly disturbing but mostly hot 19- he just proposed to her 20- monsterhunter with few levels in rogue, undersood 21- sorry to break it to you love but you will not kill all of them vampires with one flail and rage 22- so he IS werewolferized? Shouldn't that be fixed by rubbing some wolfsbane on him? 23- the group shares one braincell, which is mostly with the friar, sometimes borrowed by van Helsing to keep them alive in the more pragmatic sense 24- so NOBODY touched any of them ‘inconspicous’ wall decorations or translated the latin text on the SUSPICIOUSLY large wall map even though they have been searching for clues for hundereds of years in the house...sure 25- password protected mirror teleport 27- say friend to enter...wait, wrong movie 28- the banter, the writing, god I love this (why should I not kill you? Uhmmm...) also (Cut off his finger...I'll cut off SOMETHING) 29- convenient amount of storms in the area 30- assuming they need a living matter to conduct the electricity couldn't they just strap a jellyfish in the box and be done with it? Does the matter need to be inteligent? If so, how much? Would like Eel level sufice? Was this tested or did he just go like NAAAH NOT DRAMATIC ENOUGH 31- conveniently placed ball of steel-melting acid in a glass jug 32- fidget-spinning-vampires 33- what method of conduction do they use ffor reanimation process? Nobody wants partly fried offsprings or an undercooked batch 34- nobody in this movie takes fall damage...except for poor Igor 35- after a brief pause, Dracula accepted Gabriel as a furry and tried to get back together with him 36- slowest clock ever, since the first strike, they managed to throw eachother around, Zeta Jones befriended the Frankenmonster, defied gravity, killed vampirewife, almost killed the friar, boys had some more toss-around and we’re still not done... 37- we could have been friends, partners, brothers in arms (no homo) 38- convenient cloud for conversation purposes 39- she dead? She dead dead? 40- *sad werewolf noises*(but seriously...after ALL THAT FALLING the thing that kills her is lying down a bit faster on a cussioned sofa??? Seriously?) 41-yep, she dead...lol

Afterthoughts: 1-so what exactly is Van Helsing? Apparently immortal yet neither vam nor were? 2-can't bring myself to care enough about the monster to dive deeper into his very much unresolved ending or story in general but big F for him 3-Zeta Jones got into heaven because Dracula died like three minutes sooner than she did, imagine if the timing was other way around. Gotta love contracts. 4- so is this like post-high fantasy?  Lost technology (teleports and cures for werewolfism) and ancient order with access to higher technological level than common folk (Helsing's spinning pizza cutters, machine-bow, the holy sun-granade)? It could also read as steampunk but there is not nerly enough cogs, brown and brass and too much horny, edgy and dark for that I think. 5- Faramir? In this economy? More likely than you think. 6- I couldn’t get the spelling of friar right, so I settled for calling him a fryer during the watch. It didn’t seem right but it looked wrong enough to be something christian. Spellchecked after and I’m glad I did. 7- The soundtrack slaps and the writing is solid, 10/10 would recommend

[healingheneree]

Last letter of 2022

Dear Tam,

Well it's been a while since i actually wrote. I think it's been a choice the past couple of weeks to avoid and to feel past it.  Knowing things are a choice is a bit different and a change but i think it's a start. In my head I had so much I wanted to say but now writing it and ready to put it on paper feels different. 

So the end of the year is here. The feelings i have for you and this family i currently accepted that it is me and it makes no sense but at the same time who the fuck cares as long as it makes sene to me and i am getting there but learning to be happy thats all that matters right now. I have this weird fuck it mentality that i think i abosorb from you sorta i dunno how tho. But we are going to dance the rest of our lives. One reason is we love these kids so much and we both know how much the mean to us and the relationship and dynamic of this family is will and always be my #1 priority. So what thes Plan B that the kids get the best of everything especially from us. I will get better at setting boundaries I will actually stay within. And we will have to compromise but  from a  place where we are both ready and can trust the intentions.  These past couple days have been interesting. I knew your trip was coming up and I know it's so easy to get emo and be in that place. But like it said its a choice.Those feelings are there and they do fucking suck. Like you I'm going to be with it and cry it out. And come back here and be present and know it's ok to drive and morn and still love and want PLanA but a new plan is here and we are committed. All in as always. No clue what the motto ended up being for this year for us lol.  I know its a long journey and its going to be hard but fuck we do the hard shit and it always pays off and we just have to have faith and hope and i do so its going to be a great new year. 

You have always and still will forever be my best friend. You just know me, know me and I know you know the flaws as I do, but you never really give up. For that i love you so much and as easy as it could be for me to not try. This will never be one of them. I am always going to try to be your friend and put in the work. But it won't work because it's just part of who I am.  I finally accepted that it's ok.  The reset button has been pressed. Saved points erased forever. Time to play again now with a lot more knowledge on how we want to spend the rest of our lives.The forever Journey lol. The game of Life.  I am very happy you are happy. But I am also sad. I feel less happier than you. A little bit of jealousy in there is an emotion that is new to me to sit through. One of the ones on the list that I def avoid feeling.  But I also know this part is out of my control. I am working on making the best of it as fast as possible. Wish you were home so we can play some overwatch. And kill people and enjoy the present. You have taught me so much over this past decade and I hope I have done the same for you. I know deep down we balance each other out in all ways The so called GOOD and the BAD. We make a great team but it's not an easy Dance. But i'm ready and excited to see what happens in season 5 of the Tam and Henry Show. haha every 2 years can be a season. Many people would love to watch us. But anyways there is a place where we are so comfortable with each other and that's our zone. We will get there where  it's within each other's boundaries.  

I cannot wait for stories about your journey bubs. 

Love always,

Henry

[mauloveskpop]

[SIREN:DAWN] • Higher CONCEPT PHOTO #SIREN_SUN WOW, JUN & DONGHUN

[xplrvibes]

Any and all opinions are my own, and are not law.

Sigh.

I rewatched the Witches Forest in its entirety, because I have no morals.

This gets...long. And rambly. And nonsensical. I started out with great intentions of writing out something coherent, but my brain had other ideas.

Sorry.

Before I get into this, I want to say: while I did miss their comedy and friendly dynamic, their paranormal content back then was just...annoying. And, to be honest- the traphouse did not work well together in the paranormal sense. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. Sam is too bossy and skepitcal of everyone else's experiences, yet totally fine with his own overreacting about everything; Colby is the tired mom that is over everyone's shit and is tired of keeping it together; Corey resents the secrets and the rituals and the way they don't take it seriously, which causes him to overreact and subconsciously sabotage by pumping the brakes every time they hear a creak; and Jake is trapped somewhere between not being able to take any of this seriously, and being completely apathetic about everything.

They are the freaking Bestles, and this is their Magical Mystery Tour era.

Anyway, onward.

First of all: I forgot how...kind of dickish they were about this poor Jennifer girl (who yes, was weird, but damn fellas, maybe don't call her out so callously in a youtube video).

Can I be honest? I still find this whole thing hard to believe. They meet this random girl at the Stanley Hotel, who is an actress and is totally cool with just following them around for the entire night. Before she leaves them, she ominously tells them that she knows of a super spooky forest they can film in, which perfectly sets up their next series. They call her weeks after the Stanley, and she immediately answers a random number she doesn't know, and is like, "Oh yea, weird kids from the Stanley that i dont really know...come meet me in the park at midnight so I can give you THE KEY TO MY GRANDFATHER'S CABIN. It's scarier than the Stanley Hotel, which is perfect since this video is a sequel of sorts to that, but we didn't set it up that way at all. Also, I have a bestie out there who will totally let you in her house and give you a tarot reading. Ok, bye now! Oh by the way, its super scary there. Ok, bye for real now!"

Fucking what?

*

Jake: "We're not some LA douchebags."

Colby: "Yea, we're Kansas douchebags."

Peak traphouse humor right there. 🤣

Honestly, and this is a running theme through this, so I'll just put it here: when the four of them were gelling, they were all did work fantastically off one another, comedically speaking. Their timing was *chef's kiss.* That is something that all four of them are lacking in any of their interactions with anyone else these days.

*

Another running theme with this video: holy fucking filler, Batman.

There is so much crap in this video that could've been cut out and we still would've gotten the damn point. I'm literally 16 minutes in and they haven't left the fucking apartment yet (except when they met Jennifer in the park to get the key). Like, get to the POINT.

*

Hey, remember that time Corey said he never said he didn't want to do haunted anymore?

Maybe he should watch this video.

Just saying.

*

"It's always been us four. If we ruin that now, it's not going to make sense. It wouldn't feel right."

Oh, 2019 Colby Brock, with your aqua blue hair and your delusions of grandeur, you poor, sweet summer child. 2022 Colby Brock has got some news for you.

*

18 minutes in and they FINALLY got in the car.

*

Ok, so, they promised Corey that they wouldn't do any seances or rituals, and then they took him into the woods and did a horribly researched ritual.

Maybe this is why he doesn't fuck with them anymore, lol.

*

Fast forward through another 5 minutes of filler and we finally arrive at Jennifer's Wiccan friend's house.

These boys are very afraid that everyone is out to murder them (Jennifer, the Wiccan...). Yet, this does not stop them from meeting these people in dark parks at midnight or going up into the woods to meet these people at their houses.

What I'm saying is, they have zero self preservation skills and I don't know ow how they've made it thus far.

*

The Tarot Card reading is actually still fascinating to me. She predicated chaos, the death of an era (👀) and "being more afraid than you actually need to be."

Maybe they should've listened to her.

*

34:50, they FINALLY get to the woods.

*

This is where my frustration kicks in.

They are in the woods. Woods with commonly used trails. Woods with commonly used trails on a windy, rainy night.

Every little creak and noise they hear, they go into full panic mode, for no reason.

At one point, Corey demands they leave the tent, which probably isn't the best idea. They get out of the tent, and Colby (who I lowkey think is done with them all by this point) is trying to say, "I think a pinecone just fell out of the tree guys," but the other 3 are just too far gone to hear him.

At one point, Corey gets a couple spam calls and gets so freaked out that he just...walks into the woods by himself. Sam and Colby follows him, and Colby is just mom voicing him so hard. "You can't just go off by yourself, Corey!" And I'm just over here, like...this man, who did not even want to go with them, who was terrified before they even got out of the car, decided to just wander off by himself on a foggy night because he was getting prank called?!

I can't believe I never realized this, but Colby was the voice of reason all along. He's over here, trying to wrangle everyone, begging them to calm down and get organized, reminding them of the tarot card reading they got that said they would be more afraid than they needed to be, keeping them from running off by themselves...

...and then he goes and ruins that by running off into the woods by himself, but I'll get to that shortly.

*

This ritual is fantastically stupid.

*

Interesting tidbit: Corey decides he's going to burn an XPLR sticker because, and I quote: "Ever since I stopped playing with the Ouija Board, the only thing that's made my life haunted is you! If it wasn't for y'all, I would have never brought back this Oujia Board crap."

But, you know- he's been into this consecutively since he was 16, independently of anything anyone else around him was doing. (Salty moment is over)

*

I remember Jake burning the Shrek VHS, but I totally forgot that Colby ripped half of his cardboard cutout face off and burned that.

This ritual really is stupid.

*

Ok. Now we're at the part where Colby literally flips ass over teakettle because he saw a shadow and, a couple things:

First: Sam accusing Colby of fucking with them pisses me the fuck off. This man is the only one who has been logical the entire night thus far, and he just did a backflip off his chair cause he was so shocked, and this is the man you want to accuse of lying? Bro.

Second: this is where everyone kicks their annoying into high gear. Corey refuses to leave the fire. Colby just flips out and jets into the woods like a bat out of hell (RIP Meat Loaf). Sam and Jake wander off to...look at a branch that they think looks like a hanging baby.

And they're all just yelling and talking over each other the entire time.

Ugh.

*

So, they've lost Colby. They put the fire out for some reason, and then start yelling, "Colby! Come back to the fire!"

Um...he can't? You put it out.

*

I cannot deal with this chaos.

*

So, we've finally arrived to Jennifer's cabin, after 42 hours of these idiots running around in the woods cause they heard a rustling noise.

I forgot that after Sam lost the key, Corey blamed him for losing Colby in the woods. I don't understand this leap, but sure.

*

"Let's go to this lady's house- who we just met today- at 3 in the morning to see if she has the key. Totally good idea. Not at all supremely creepy."

*

Sam (about the lady and her friends): "They were probably put in the woods doing some Satanic shit!"

Sam (in the next breath): "I'm not judging or anything."

Jesus, Sam.

*

"But nothing actually happened to us tonight."

And that is my problem. Nothing happens in this video, really. Nothing of true interest, at any rate. And yet, they react to every non-event like it's a full bodied appartion just popping down in front of them and punching them in the dicks. It's too much.

*

Corey Scherer (the man who never said he wasn't going to do haunted anymore): "This is definitely my last video with something like this. Not for y'alls kind of haunted stuff. I'm staying away from Ouija Boards, I'm staying from seances...I don't want nothing to do with it."

*

Ok, overall, this really did suck.

I'm honestly just tired and frustrated watching this. I didn't like this one back when they first dropped it, but time has really not done it any favors.

The one bright spot about this is that you can watch this, and then watch their newer videos and really get a sense for how far they've come, professionally and as people.

I'm literally giving this a 1 out of 10. Like, they're literally getting that tiktok trend treatment. If I could give this a 0, I would.

[redvanillabee]

The OTP ask, all multiples of 7, whichever OTP you want to answer about <3

Thank you for the ask! I am so tempted to do Klaine because they do have a special place in my heart, but I decided to go with JackDaniels from Agent Carter ultimately. Rare pair needs more content. So: full steam ahead on JD!

7. What is something they’d want to change about the other if they could?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jack is doing the world a favour if he stops being such a prick.

Daniel wishes Jack would learn to let his guard down more, to not put up so much of a wall. It’s a sight to behold, watching him get through the front door when he comes home from work. One second, he is perfectly put together. Once over the threshold, he just softens and becomes pliant and far less guarded.

Jack likes it when Daniel is confident and takes charge. He is definitely quieter and more reserved when they first met, but watching Daniel eventually get out of his shell was immensely satisfying.

Also Jack likes to chastise Daniel’s fashion choices

14. What song fits them perfectly?

This really depends on how angsty we want to make things. I always feel that Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams is them if they can’t stay together in the end. For something less angsty, I think Taylor Swift’s End Game. (Can you tell my music preferences are extremely narrow)

Also--Glee Cast Version of I Want You Back is peak when Jack messes up and he’s trying to charm his way back into Daniel’s favour. (Jack and Sebastian Smythe have the exact same kind of energy. I don’t know how to explain it, but they do.)

21. Are they interested in having children? Why or why not?

Before he ended up with Jack, I’m pretty sure Daniel has considered it. He is the fun uncle to the kids in the family, and having his own kids in the future just felt like something he would like to take on.

Jack, on the other hand... I think his experiences with his own father has made him extremely hesitant. What if he fucks up likes his old man? What if he passes on, as we call it today, generational trauma?

but autumn arrived while i was asleep by cloverpaloma has a really good scene showcasing how these two are with children and pondering whether they’d make good dads. It’s very cute.

28. Are they jealous/possessive of each other?

Yes.

At the start of their relationship I can see them being insecure enough that they could get jealous. Feelings like ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘he deserves someone better’, ‘I’m holding him back’ could definitely be there.

But once they settle into the relationship, ooh boy, they lay claim.

35. How do they deal with being away from each other for a long time?

Depends on whether they have means to contact each other. If they have, phone calls. Long calls. Like how they are in 2x01.

If they can’t contact each other, say, one is on an off the grid/undercover mission...

Daniel buries himself in work, even going so far as to rearranging and organising the filing cabinet just to distract himself. It’s too quiet at home without Jack.

Jack, on the other hand, tries to recreate the comfort he gets from Daniel. He raids Daniel’s closet for soft sweaters and night shirts. This is the only way he can get any semblance of sleep alone.

42. Who is the sensible mature one?

these two barely share one brain cell are you kidding me

Daniel. Jack just has...a penchant for the dramatic. In face of a problem or a crisis, he tends to jump to the worst conclusions, he tends to spiral.

(Not that Daniel is incapable of being dramatic, Mr. I moved across the country on a perceived unrequited crush. I think he’s just less afraid of failure than Jack, and less likely to jump directly to the worst case scenario should something arise.)

49. Do they match outfits for special occasions?

mid-century men’s fashion is boring enough that everyone matches anyway

not necessarily. I think their styles and colour palettes are different enough that matching is hard. But, I like to think that these two have no personal boundaries when it comes to accessories. I can imagine Jack appropriating Daniel’s cufflinks, or Daniel going to work wearing Jack’s watch. Just small, nondescript things that remind them of each other, that only they know.

[washipink]

Madoka 1-4

It’s finally time for us to get to the “Urobuchi” in the Urobuchiverse project. Today we start Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a magical girl series that... fuck it, this show needs no goddamn introduction. If you’ve been on the internet in the past 10 years, you know of Madoka at the very least.

For my Madoka rewatch, I’ve actually brought along a few friends to talk with so I can get some new perspectives I wouldn’t have had otherwise. As such, these posts will be covering a few episodes at a time rather than just one. This also means Madoka should be done by the end of the week and then we can start the Kamen Rider Gaim coverage.

I do want to say right of the bat that this show is still visually stunning. There is a lot of artistic merit in the show from the animation department. Madoka Magica absolutely holds up in that regard and you should assume that I’m thinking this for each future post unless I say otherwise.

There were quite a few small details that I wouldn’t have noticed were I not watching this through the fresh eyes of one @gaycodedvillainy. For example, Right before Homura dumps her weird trauma on Madoka in episode 1, the teacher does the SAME GODDAMN THING. Over EGGS. (Wrathe also mentioned that Kyubey describes Magical Girls... then describes witches as something similar but different that cannot be seen by regular people... and then REFUSES to explain what the fuck he is, which kinda points in the direction of Kyubey BEING a witch...)

There’s an interpretation of Madoka where Kyubey is a metaphor for recruiters of child talent and it is EXCELLENT. It gets to the core of Kyubey’s weird obsession with recruiting Teenage Girls for... reasons. He keeps saying Forge a contract, Forge a contract. But will he ever say what that contract entails? No. Not even once. There are so many details of being a Magical Girl that he will not elaborate on in the slightest.

Episode 3 will probably be the main focus of this post because it bares a STRIKING resemblance to a certain episode of Ryuki... In it, Mami has Sayaka and Madoka shadow her on a few more witch hunts. At first the tone is pretty much the opposite of Ryuki 27, but by the end, it’s wrapped back around to having the exact same message. “Stay far away from this fight.” Gen saw this one episode and thought “I will stretch this as FAR as it can fucking go.” and y’know what? The bastard actually did it. I didn’t notice this as a kid, but Mami’s downfall was genuinely her own need to showboat for the new girls. She laid it on way too thick to try and recruit Madoka and Sayaka. If being a magical girl is a cult then Mami has ABSOLUTELY drank the Kool-Aid by this point. Instead of actually warning these girls about how dangerous this is and telling them NOT to do it, she keeps trying to recruit them day after day. She’s almost as invested in making new Magical Girls as Kyubey is. It makes you think she knows something she really shouldn’t know at this point, honestly.

Even having seen Ryuki this time, it hasn’t impacted my ability to like this show. But then again, this is just the start. And there are a few things that make me feel Not Great, like Kyosuke’s entire arc. Which is very much just someone suffering to make us feel bad. And then he lashes out almost entirely unprompted so that Sayaka can also feel bad. It was just kinda rough to watch and I did not enjoy it.

We should talk more about the Ryuki similarities in these first 4 episodes because that’s kinda the point of this whole tag. To compare the show I’m watching now to the one I watched last. A few obvious ones: They make it clear that a Magical Girl’s number one enemy is not a witch, but other magical girls. Familiars growing into witches makes room for the type of girl who would rather just let a familiar roam, eating people as it goes just to make sure she can get a nice Grief Seed once all is said and done. Kyubey really is just like Shiro if Shiro was an UwU Baby tbh. Where Shiro has Tatakae, Kyubey has Contract. These two characters exist purely to force people to fight each other. Not saying it doesn’t work, but that is the case. The girls fight over Grief Seeds to prolong their own magic energy. Much like in Ryuki, where your contract monster will EAT YOU if you aren’t fighting, there’s some kind of punishment awaiting Magical Girls who do not collect grief seeds.

The inspirations are very much here. You watch an episode of Madoka after watching Ryuki and you can tell this is someone who has seen that show. It manages to take the ideas presented in Ryuki in a new direction, though. I appreciate that it’s not just a straight rehash of existing work from 9 years prior.

Speaking of rehashing existing work, I found out Gen Urobuchi wrote Kamen Rider Gaim only TWO YEARS after Madoka came out, which is insane to me. That the two of his works most often compared didn’t even have a middle school’s length apart? That he delved right back into the Ryuki Inspiration Idea Pool so soon? And I thought *I* fixated on stuff hard.

(Oh there’s also the very shallow but admittedly funny similarity of “Yellow One Dies First”)

https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/16616580

[manyblinkinglights]

MY PERSONAL TAKE ON UNITY-”HUMANOID” FERAL AVATAR RIGGING FOR VRCHAT

First of all: this is actually not that bad. If you avoid the many pitfalls I will lay out for you in this tutorial, the worst thing about the hookup process is the same thing that’s bad about everything in Unity: dragging the little thingies into their little boxies gets kind of tedious. 

NUMBERED LIST: 

1. Start with Rigify’s meta-human. 

2. Modify it by deleting extra bones, and

3. altering the hips and legs and shoulders for compatibility with VRChat’s full-body IK, as per Kung’s YouTube tutorial. 

4. Build your quad model around the head, neck, chest, spine, and hips of your Humanoid. 

5. Lock your Humanoid legs and arms out of weight painting.

6. Rig your quad model, and

7. Get it into Unity. 

8. Start putting rotation constraints on all/most of your quad model’s bones (I’ll tell you TWO BIG SECRETS). edit: I forget what two things were supposed to be the secrets. Pick whichever two things helped you most and let’s just call those the secrets. 

9. Build and test your avatar, then start tweaking your constraint weights until you get the effect you want!

**

ADVICE: 

part A: You can test an activated quad leg rotation constraint directly in your scene by applying it, and then grabbing your humanoid thigh or shin transform and rotating that, but YOU HAVE TO CTRL-Z IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS. NEVER apply a rotation constraint to a bone that’s been left out of its default position!

part B: Always, always, ALWAYS and only, only ONLY work on your Armature in Blender from full X, Y, or Z isometric view with X-mirroring on.  

KNOWN LIMITATIONS: 

The levelling bone in your backbone always points directly back, relative to root, from the user’s hips; they twist up and leave it behind if they turn from side to side too far, all the way around, or, god forbid, hit VRCEmote 6 (backflip). You cannot sexy poledance or flop onto the couch in this style of avatar without making a spectacle of yourself. 

If there’s some crazy calculus that’d spit out the exact right leg lengths and constraint weights to perfectly eliminate foot-vs-floor clipping at every height, I do not know it. There are just too many variables at play; put whatever leg lengths onto your quad that it requires, and then try to come up with rough, biomechanically-inspired values for your constraint weights such that your quad feet wind up near the same elevation as your Humanoid core’s feet when you enter the Humanoid sit position. If you do this your end result will be PRETTY DARN GOOD at standing and bending/dancing heights, but it WILL get squirrelly as you approach crouch. That’s just the way it is; in fact I recommend replacing the prone and crouch animation blendtrees with the standing ones. While this tutorial will generate an avatar that crouches and crawls around prone okay/amusingly, you do get sent into the floor in crouch/prone and there simply isn’t anything to be done about it. 

There is also NO WAY to migrate rotation constraints from one avatar to another. You can copy a fully-constrained avatar and hot-swap in your own edited mesh, but you (basically) CAN’T EDIT bones in an already-constrained armature without turning it all into spaghetti. 

**

ONE.

You need a working, full-body-tracking compatible biped skeleton to start with. But... there aren’t any out there (that I’m aware of) to start with, so I recommend scaling up a meta-human out of the Rigify add-on for Blender... here’s a guy walking you through that bit of it: https://youtu.be/DS885Sk1gSs?t=30 (we will not be making an “animation rig,” we are just getting a human-shaped Armature into the project with almost all of its bones named correctly already. So just do that part.)

TWO.

...and then deleting the face stuff, some other stuff, and the extra four non-finger hand bones out of each hand (make sure not to accidentally nuke part of your thumb, like me, because you might not notice until way later that you’ve given yourself a stumpy single-jointed thumb). You want to go from this:

To this:

I mean, I guess you could leave them, but too many useless bones will come back to bite you later if Unity decides it can’t figure your shit out and makes you drag every. single. handbone. into. the L and R hand slots yourself. Set yourself up for success and don’t skip this deletion step. Also, now’s the time to rename your hips -> spine -> chest -> neck -> head chain, since Rigify has them all as like spine01 spine02 etc.

Your penultimate guy:

THREE.

Now modify its thighs and hips as per Kung’s tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sfTEBAl8sA

Basically, for this armature in particular you need the tops of the thigh bones to be below the entire hip bone, as follows: 

AND you need the hip bone to be above the thigh bones (Rigify’s is too far back). Personally, I got good results from just grabbing my legs and scooting them backward. 

If you DON’T do this, PC people and three-point tracking people will still be able to use your avatar fine. But full-body people’s hips will jut forward in a super fucked up way. IF YOU FOLLOW THIS TUTORIAL EXACTLY and include a BEND bone, this will be a problem. IF YOU CUT CORNERS and disregard the BEND bone (and/or you choose to lock the hips out of weight painting--valid), you can skip this step. But you seriously might as well do it. 

IMPORTANT! The lengths and angles of your bones here determine, in part, the later behavior & vivacity of your finished model. I like this modified Rigify base because VRChat’s IK makes it nice and lively. If you use a different Humanoid base, like a ramrod straight turbocompatible one, or a cool but non-fullbody-compatible style one (hey, go for it! PC and three-point tracking people have rights too!) the flavor of your animations later on will be different! 

FOUR. Build your model around the head, neck, chest, spine, and hips of your inner Humanoid! Don’t hold me liable for anything that happens to you if you change the armature proportions, but based on this one time I helped a kid hook up their quad horse, you can get acceptable/interesting non-full-body-compatible behavior if you do change them (to perfectly follow your cool dragon neck or whatever). I will continue on as if you did not change them! Anyway, do your thing. If you’ve got someone else’s mesh for this step, do your best to pose it in a neutrally upright standing position, and then put the Humanoid in it like they’re the front half of a horse costume, scaling the whole rig up and down as necessary. Again, ANY CHANGES YOU MAKE TO THE PROPORTIONS OF THE HUMANOID RIG WILL CHANGE YOUR ANIMATIONS LATER, and break full-body compatibility if you go too far!  Here’s mine, see the little guy in there? Try to pick him out from the rest of the rigging:

Your head needs to be placed so it does a good job aiming its head/so you can set the view orb so you more or less see out its eyes, and your neck, chest, spine, and hips should be in its neck and forequarters, but your legs and feet DON’T have to match up with your quad forelegs or forefeet! Your quad feet can be anywhere relative to your Humanoid ones so long as your quad is in its symmetrical, neutral standing posture. 

You can see that mine are a bit in front. It’s fine.

FIVE. Parent the mesh to the armature (or uhhh is it the other way around? Whichever way around it is, do it) with empty groups. Go into your Vertex Groups panel and lock out the limbs--that’s shoulders, upper arms, forearms, hands and fingers, thighs, lower legs, feet, and toes. You want them zero and kept at zero (unless your want your arms for a taur). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG82fogtuCg WATCH THE ABOVE VIDEO IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY. :V You can run the auto weight paint from here and/or start dinking around with weight painting your quad’s neck however is most comfortable for you if you want, but you still need to

SIX.  rig your quad model! Okay, here’s the one big rule for your grounded legs (wings and funky lil extra limbs that just wave around can do whatever): 

you must leave your Rigify legs straight up and down, no angling outwards, and YOUR QUAD LIMBS MUST BE STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN, NO ANGLING OUTWARDS.  

See mine: 

You don’t have to have them all perfectly in line from the front like I do, you could have your legs be set at any widths (say, wider stance in the armature hind legs than in the Humanoid ones, if your quad has wider hips), but they HAVE to all be exactly straight up and down, just like the Humanoid legs are. I tried matching my actual gryphon limb angles like in normal rigging once, and it resulted in incorrect foot placement/limb angles when standing neutrally (because VRChat’s neutral stance is not a perfect T- or A-pose). It’s fine if they’re different heights, though--here’s a side picture where you can see that my hind legs are lots taller, and my forelegs a little taller, than those of my Humanoid core:

Okay so maybe this belongs up there under FIVE. but, since you CANNOT add any jaunty character to your quad by adding naturalistic/sideways angling in its armature, the mesh, instead, must deviate from the armature to give you the illusion of a jaunty stance, and I DO recommend doing (just a little of) this. Your bones don’t HAVE to be in the center of your mesh volumes to still work okay, especially when they’re only serving as relatively-restricted legs (knees don’t twist, and neither do a bunch of quad bones driven by them). So, feel free to “pose” your quad legs in an interesting way around their upright bones, especially when it comes to giving your hind legs a different character from your front ones. Otherwise it’ll be way more obvious they’re rigidly linked, despite their different proportions. I recommend angling the apparent set of your hind legs out just a little, so your hind feet seem to be set wider than your front ones.

Not only does this help give each set of your legs its own character, to help with the illusion that they’re actuating totally differently, and that these are definitely your own original character do not steal’s full custom animations and not VRChat’s default ones--but your back legs are going to be operating the reverse of your front legs. This means that when the wearer adopts a wide stance, with their feet well apart from each other (as in many dances), YOUR BACK LEGS WILL CROSS. The amount of space I left between my gryphons’ hind legs, above, accommodates the normal amount of moving around that people do pretty well, but be advised that making a beautiful character with its hind legs neatly, narrowly posed might hit you with some heartbreak later! (You could get around this by instead rigging your quad to have its forelegs be the reversed ones, but this might be a little disconcerting for a fullbody wearer; or you could give yourself a “pacing” gait, where both your front and back left legs step forward at once, but this is a glaringly visible design choice for the kinds of people who notice these things. If you do this, make it a choice, not what-you-did-because-it-turned-out-you-had-no-choice.) 

(I did a bunch of bogus shit to make it so I could switch between regular locomotion and a pacing gait, but that’s outside the scope of this tutorial.)

Now, your BOB, LEVEL, and BEND bones!

BOB: Somewhere on your armature, put an unparented bone (any size) along your midline called BOB. (I put mine below my hips and called it dingle.dangle.) Ever ported a model in and left something unparented accidentally? Remember how it disconcertingly gets “left behind”? Well, we’re using that phenomenon to our advantage! BOB will be our rotation reference bone for LEVEL and BEND. 

LEVEL: So, LEVEL. Your quad’s back/torso should be/have one big bone coming out of the back of your Humanoid hips, call it LEVEL. It should be the parent for all your quad’s limbs, except for anything you have coming out of the head or neck (idk, whiskers, chinwings, whatever).

BEND: BEND is optional, but recommended; a bone that also sticks out the back of your hips, and stretches out more or less to the end of your ribcage, maybe to the middle-ish of your ribcage. Mine is parallel to the floor but that doesn’t matter much, and weighted at around strength .4 to the ribcage behind my shoulders, a little bit of the back of my shoulders where they meet my body, and tapering off towards my waist. Basically when you wiggle this bone up and down, it should arch and bow your back a little bit, over the top of your other weight paints, in whatever way is visually acceptable to you. Mine does this:

SEVEN.

Now, into Unity. Navigating Unity is mostly beyond the scope of this tutorial, but if you can add a VRC Avatar Descriptor, you can add a rotation constraint. It works the same, you just go find the bone (”transform”) in the hierarchy that you want and add a rotation constraint component to it. 

So, get your .fbx out of Blender and into your Assets folder or whatever. Click on it and go to Import Settings, set it as Humanoid, apply, configure. Pick out and add all the bones of your Humanoid armature to the Humanoid panel (if it hasn’t autopopulated--it might!), reset your pose and then enforce T-pose if necessary, delete the reference to Jaw, put Chest in and make sure there’s no Upper Chest, etc., all the usual things. You should see a little green T-posing person in the forequarters of your quad! Hit Done and you’re done. (Look up ordinary VRChat avatar 3.0 import tutorials if you’re having trouble with this step; you’re Humanoid at this point already, same as anybody). Now drag your newly-confirmed-for-Humanoid .fbx into your scene. Open up its hierarchy and look for the LEVEL bone; it should be under hips. Put a rotation constraint on this bone (click on it, Add Component button, search “rotation” or “constraint,” pick Rotation Constraint). Click the little plus to add a target, and drag BOB in there from the hierarchy. Leave the strength 1 above and 1 below (the 1 below will always be left alone at 1 unless specified otherwise), and click Activate. There! You did it! Now your whole entire ass won’t wave around!! You can hop right in and Test Avatar if you want--your head and neck will be the only things that move while your legs will all be stiff like a piñata, but by god, your back will be staying level. Try crouching and going prone!

Enjoy this first, sweet taste of quad success if you’ve gotten this far, because there are many, many ways to screw the rest of this process up, and even with me guiding you, you might find some brand new ones. Applying a rotation constraint correctly is as easy as above, but here are some pitfalls: if you move any bones in Unity with active constraints on them, or bones upstream of an active constraint, they get fucked up. If you activate a constraint on a bone that’s been moved, moving the bone back afterwards will fuck the constraint up. LEAVE YOUR MODEL IN ITS DEFAULT POSE AT ALL TIMES, UNLESS YOU’VE MADE SURE TO SWITCH TO GAME MODE. (Sometimes you get lucky and you can rescue a ruined bone by deactivating its constraint and then going to Modified Component -> Revert on the transform itself. But don’t count on it.)

If you change any values within a constraint while it is active, it gets fucked up. Uncheck “Is Active” before modifying any constraint!

But wait, there’s more! If you hot-swap your model (minimize Unity, open Blender, do edits, export your new .fbx, delete your old .fbx in the save dialog and replace it with your new .fbx, WAIT A FEW SECONDS because opening Unity in the middle of the hotswap borks everything, maximize Unity, it thinks for a second, then accepts your new model while hey presto preserving your rotation constraints), AFTER ARMATURE EDITS, so, again, if yo-- if you--*about to sneeze voice*--

If you hot-swap your model after armature edits, the whole thing can get fucked up and you might have to re-apply all your rotation constraints again. 

hhhhh that’s better. Now, you MAY hot-swap your model after wholesale bone additions and deletions, but rotation-constrained armatures lose their tiny minds if you change constrained bone lengths, positions, or angles!

Moving on! You just did LEVEL, now let’s do BEND.

BEND is constrained at .5 strength to BOB. Add a rotation constraint to BEND, set the strength to .5, hit the plus, drag in BOB. (Dial your reflexes in on this sequence because you are going to be doing it a lot.) The purpose of BEND is to bring a little life to your otherwise ramrod-stiff quad spine; you can experiment with strengths (of weight paint, of constraint weight, of bone length) but I recommend you try copying me to start. So that’s: BEND, a bone sticking out to about the end of your ribcage, weight painted at .4 or so to your ribcage and gradienting smoothly away, constrained to your unparented bone BOB at .5 strength (waving around without any constraint put too much wiggle in my gryphon). 

BOB, LEVEL, and BEND are the major engines behind my quad rigging giving an acceptable effect! You don’t need to throw $90 at Final IK if you’ve got some time on your hands and BOB, LEVEL, and BEND. :)

Now for ALL THE REST OF YOUR LIMBS!

A note before we begin. Unity rotation constraints can’t ever go past 1:1, that is, there is no way to “amplify” a motion to make it a bigger one. You can only approach parity with the reference motion, never exceed it. The clearest example I can think of is a tail. My tail is six bones, and I thought I could constrain each one to the head at .1 and they’d “stack” and make it so a small motion of my head would put an attractive curl in my tail. Lol, nope. The first one rotated the tail .1, the ones that followed each inherited that .1 rotation from their parent and had their constraints satisfied, and did nothing, and I had a tail that barely moved at all. (Blender’s bone constraints work differently and allow this kind of amplification; you can also test things out in there, but I could never figure out which settings would give me Unity-like behavior.) So, with that in mind, bring up a gait cycle of your target animal. If a video is too confusing, look for some static images (like an animator’s gait cycle) that show the gait. Try to see which bones rotate the most, and which rotate noticeably less. Use this to inform your constraint weight values later. If you picked a static image, you can even measure the rotations throughout the cycle to see which move most and least! I don’t know enough to use exactly specific language here, so, to the extreme literalists in my audience.... sorry about what I just said. If you find your ability to magically pick up on what I mean is poor, I’ll just give you my gryphon numbers later! Or you could just try some stuff, like having every bone at max strength & seeing what happens, and then picking just one to turn down to .5 strength and testing again. That should clarify the concept for you quickly.

Alternatively, the quick-and-dirty “I’m NOT HERE to acquire any sensitivities I don’t ALREADY HAVE” test is to just try to get your quad feet as close as possible to your biped feet’s level/height when the biped thigh is picked up to 90 degrees and the shin hangs straight down (the “sit position”).  Here’s how mine do:

Now, that’s half of the challenge, noticing which bones in the legs ought to be more or less responsive, and then roughing out an idea of the relative weights/responsivities each leg bone needs to make that happen, deciding which bones are liveliest and should be set at or near 1 and which are stiffest, or least active, and should go around .5 (you might even dip to .3). But (you might scream) what are you weighting these guys RELATIVE to? What are their TARGETS? Well!

...I’m not going to try to explain this. I’ve confused everybody every time I’ve tried. :p Just start with the shoulder constrained to the thigh, then the next bone down to the shin, then the NEXT bone down to the thigh again, then the shin again, and so on (thigh shin thigh shin thigh shin). This will get you 98% of the way there because most of the bones in a tetrapod leg-chain operate in simple opposition to each other. Basically, by rotating the shoulder like the thigh, when you raise your leg, your quad will start to raise its shoulder. By having the next bone rotate like your shin, and then continuing the pattern after, contracting your knee will make your quad contract its whole leg. This breaks down a little at the paw-and-toes, or the distal complexities of the horse, but just start with this pattern by rote. Then test it, and if one of the bones is obviously backwards, swap its target to the other one and test it again.

Last concept: if you have two bones in a row weighted to the same thing (like where you’ve got two bones that do not work in opposition to each other), the second one needs to have a bigger weight to the target than its parent. Because it inherits the parent’s rotation, and then only adds whatever amount that’s bigger. So, for my forepaw, I have it at .5 to the shin, and then the toes are at 1 to the shin. The whole paw acts as a shin-unit, but weighting the hand less than the toes allows the toes a little of their own flair. :v

(Okay that was a third-grade-biology-textbook lie. I actually have my upper paw .5 to the shin and my toes/beans at 1 to the foot. I might have a little bit of weight to the foot in the upper hand/palm part of my eagle foreclaws too. But I don’t recommend you add any weighting to the foot until you’ve got a good baseline result with just weights to the thigh and shin!!!!! The foot does things that you might find confusing and upsetting and which can introduce a LOT of incorrect limb placement/clipping, especially the further up the chain you allow it to interfere; it should be used sparingly or (as in my hind legs) not at all.)

Finally, the more your bone lengths and angles resemble your target animal’s (use a skeletal reference!), and the better you are at deciding which bones should respond a lot (and be weighted with high values) and which should respond less (and be weighted with lower ones), the more visual interest and species-specific character your quad avatar will have! You can see my gryphon’s rig above; here are its constraint values (where I go LR to LR, the left bits of the Humanoid control the left bits of the quad; where I go LR to RL, the left bits of the Humanoid control the right bits of the quad):

Back: LEVEL: 1 to BOB BEND: .5 to BOB Wings: upper_arm.LR.001: .5 to upper_arm.LR forearm.LR.001: .5 to (forearm.LR .5, hand.LR .5) hand.LR.001: .5 to hand.LR Hindlegs (targeted to the OPPOSITE side human legs): thigh.LR.002: .7 to thigh.RL shin.LR.002: .6 to shin.RL foot.LR.002: .9 to thigh.RL toe.LR.002: .7 to shin.LR Forelegs - EAGLE: thigh.LR.001: .7 to thigh.LR shin.LR.001: .8 to shin.LR foot.LR.001: 1 to thigh.LR toe.LR.001: .5 to (shin.LR 1, foot.LR 1) toe.LR.003,5,6: 1 to shin.LR toe.LR.004: 1 to thigh.LR Forelegs - LION: thigh.LR.001: 1 to thigh.LR shin.LR.001: .5 to shin.LR foot.LR.001: 1 to thigh.LR toe.LR.001: .5 to shin.LR toe.LR.005: 1 to foot.LR Tail: tail.001: .5 .5 to head tail.002: .6 .6 to head, etc. ***

REITERATION OF IMPORTANT PROTIP: Again, the quick and dirty test of your targets and values is to switch to Game mode and hike your Humanoid’s leg up so the thigh is parallel to the floor and the shin’s straight down (the sit position). Does your quad also hike its leg up, so its foot is in the neighborhood of your Humanoid’s foot level? Are all of your bones bending the right way? (Any that aren’t need their target switched to the other kind of leg bone.) If your quad is more or less “also contracting its leg so now it’s up,” then you’re either finished, or really really close!! If your quad daintily raises up its lil’ ol’ leggy for you, test your gait in-game and decide whether it has the right “feel”. If one of the bones is too stiff or too crazy relative to your reference animal’s style of motion, change its value so it behaves better, and hang the sitpose test. People mostly spend time standing, anyway, and your quad will likely look great standing and moving around even if it doesn’t do well at the sit test. 

[mamashitty]

fic writer interview

tagged by the lovely & talented @blackinkpen

Name: Ash

Fandoms: the big and most obvious one: Check Please! it’s really the only fandom that I’ve written fics for. it is also the fandom that I reads the most fics for as well. it’s my little bit of comfort. I have done a lot of writing in what could be considered the HP fandom, but I never wrote fic for it. just over a decade worth of RPing with a close group of writing friends. we’ve completely made our own (and may I biasedly say better) world within that world. I’ve never really read HP fic, and never written it. I focus on OCs who technically live in some version of the world, so I don’t really consider myself part of that fandom anymore.

other fandoms I love to read but am too chicken shit to write in: Hannibal; One Last Stop; Schitt’s Creek; Red, White, and Royal Blue; The Old Guard.

I’m still kinda’ anxious about writing in the Check Please! world, but I’ve done it, and I’ve always had fun when I get the courage to do it, and the will to finish things.

Two-shot: I…I have probably read a few two shots, but none are springing to mind. I’d call myself a fan. I like even numbers. I’ve never written one myself. but I’d be willing to read some if anyone wants to suggest ‘em from: Check Please or One Last Stop or any of the fandoms listed above.

Most popular multi-chapter: Samwell Elementary School (it's my only!)— I am proud of myself for finishing it! I know I had a lot of fun writing it, but I haven’t revisited it. I want to change the title as I don’t think it quite fits. but I have no regrets writing it, and I’m still proud of it even if I think it’s probably fairly weak in terms of the writing.

Actual worst part of writing: anything where I need to do a lot of description. OR where my characters are supposed to be suave and flirts. like, I dunno how to flirt. and also when my characters are supposed to be smart? like, I’m not smart and that’s okay. but I have this sick fascination with smart characters and then I’m screwed when I need to make actually use their smarts, yanno? dialogue too can trip me up, but I think that’s because I’m so used to RP writing where I can bounce off of someone else’s dialog. when I’m writing it all myself I worry everyone sounds the same. just gotta’ practice more.

How you choose your titles: song lyrics, random words from the story, objects that are in front of me, filler titles that I mean to change and then never do, ridiculous one sentence summary of what’s happening, quotes, anything that amuses me. I’m a wild card when it comes to titles, I guess. it changes with the mood.

Do you outline: not really. for longer ones I try to at least do a bullet list outline, but often I deviate from that. I like to just let my writing go where it wants to go, even if it wants to go in the EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITE DIRECTION I WANT IT TO GO. I’m one of those writers… especially with my original characters who has like very little control over WHAT their characters do. I dunno. I tell them to do something and they laugh at my audacity.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to but wouldn’t it be nice: so. many. ideas.

but there’s this big one with Zimbits where they live in a world I’ve created, and I’ve started this fic so many times and just. stopped. but there’s magic and Jack and Bitty and the rest of the gang. and I do want to actually write it one day. I have images of it in my head, I can almost smell it and taste it and feel the magic but when I sit down to write it I just fucking freeze.

there’s also this AU where Bitty is a dog trainer and Jack gets a doggo, and I just want them to bond over their pets. and Jack’s competency kink at Bitty being really fucking good at his job even when he’s pointing out where Jack could use some work. I used to work at a pet store, and I just got inspired by the doggos and trainers there lol.

another version of the Samwell Elementary School but this time *everyone* is a teacher. And there’s tension. BECAUSE OF COURSE.

Librarian!Bitty and single!dad Jack.

OH oh oh. Flea Market Flip with the Samwell Crew. So many ideas. So little faith in myself in actually writing thes lol

Callouts @ me: stop being afraid of my ideas and insistent that I can’t do them justice. because I’ve been doing some kind of writing my entire life, and I’m not complete garbage. trust that people like what I write if they told me that they do. fake it ‘til you make it with the confidence or something.

Best writing traits: fuuuuuuuck. so, I dunno. But I’m good about writing nearly every day. most of that is in RP with my friends or my attempts at novels. I wanna get better at consisent fic writing—but I’ll say, I’m good at at least making words come out even if I’m not always good at finishing longer things. At least I make time for myself and my writing. with two young kids and a parnter, I think that’s cool. highfive to myself.

Spicy tangential opinion: writing is hard, but I think a lot of times, we get so stuck in our own heads that we make it harder than it needs to be. even if what you write is pure garbage, you are getting something out. and that something can be edited and turned into something amazing. give yourself time and the grace to fuck it all up. no one is perfect, but your fics and your ideas, are still fucking amazing and probably better than you realize. its hard, but doable. eventually.

tagging: @wrathofthestag @doggernaut @marvel-girl-13 @weneedtotalkaboutfic and anyone else who wants to do this!

[gildedmuse]

So... I have this bad habit where sometimes, when attempting to summarize the idea for a fic, I go into waaay too much detail.

Like, I don't go as far as to actually wrote the damn thing because, you know, effort and laziness, but... Well, it's a close call. It gets to the point where it's less a summary and more what my friends use to call a Quick Fic. All that's .kissing is the actual dialogue and descriptive narration.

Having said that....

Here is a "summary" of an ZoLaw AU where Law works for Doflamingo...

What happened was, basically, Law got caught by Doflamingo after eating the devil's fruit which eventually allowed him to cure his dieses, thus why he's still alive. Or, at least, isn't dead from lead poisoning. Because let's face it, Doflamingo could have just killed the boy then and there. Sure, he'd have to find the fruit all over again, but better that the deal with this little traitor

Except really it was his brother who had been the traitor. Law is still just a child, and children can be so suspectable to any number of ideas so long as an adult gives them a pat on the head and a treat after.

Which is when Doflamingo realizes that he can just manipulate Law into being another loyal follower. Then eventually - when he's no longer useful - Doffy will have him sacrifice his life for his own immortality. By that point Law will be family, and family never lets Doffy down. Not anymore.

So it's under Doffy's personal tutorage that Law grows up, and as much as he might resit the man who imprisoned Corazon, it's hard not to eventually fall to all Doflamingo's sweet praise and promised. And Law gets what he had wanted all along: a way to get back at the world that willingly watched his home wiped off the official world map and would be happy to see the entire town dead to the very last one. This Law truly earns his title Surgeon of Death, acting as the top officer of Hearts in the Doflamingo crime family. And yet despite his cruelty, he isn't even on the government's wanted list; protected under the Shichibukai's jolly roger.

In the meantime, the Strawhats are still doing their thing right on through Punk Hazard (which they somehow manage to not only live through but actually do more damage and cause twice as much chaos. The biggest difference is that Ceaser and Monet escape and Sanji can't perv out over being in Nami's body). So this time when they roll into Dressrosa it's less "backing up the plan of an ally" and much more "on complete and total accident" and "without a damn clue".

Yeah, basically they're the Grand Line's easiest prey.

But, hey, it works out! Well, no, not really. But Sanji does meet Violet, Luffy meet Sabo and help recover Ace's devil's fruit, and Zoro does get lost and require a magic fairy guide. Plus, hey, since they're not really there for any purpose other than that they happened to be passing by, it's not like they can't pull a dine and dash. They may be unprepared, but The Monster Trio can still keep up the fight until everyone is back on the Sunny.

A perfect escape!

Except no.

Because Luffy isn't totally ready to leave, not when he wants to know more about what Sabo is doing and help his new friend Rebecca. Not that they have time to debate the merits of staying or pulling a tactical retreat since at that poing Big Momma is on their ass. And that scary dude in the long black coat is still somehow following them, teleporting himself through the fucking air like wtf why is this happening now!? Nami is forced to make an executive decision: they're can't stay. Also, oh God oh God they're trapped and they're going to be killed and oh God.

It's moments like these you're almost thankful one of your crew members is a total maniac. Because in the middle of all this mess, Zoro just smirks, tells Nami to just concentrate on getting away from that annoying ass ship, he's got their other attacker covered. Which only makes everyone freaks out MORE because what is Zoro thinking: he'll be killed! ("Not immediately, of course. First they'll likely torture him for information, perhaps even kill him as slowly as possible." / "What? Why would you say that? That is not SUPER helpful to hear right then!") The Sunny goes into an all out panic attack. Everyone is yelling or crying or both.

Except Luffy.

Luffy who looks at Zoro, at the singing ship, at the dark power user trying to slash their ship apart, at the shore line of this island and the way it radiates a fake happiness covering Rebecca's very real pain. Luffy who just lowers his hat over his eyes and gives the nod.

Zoro smiles, and is immediately almost clobbered by a giant Chopper. What is Luffy saying? Don't they realize that is the same guy who almost took down Sanji, Zoro AND Luffy only moments ago? Zoro can't fight him alone! Sanji, more calm than the rest, lights a cigarette while explaining that he's not trying to stop Zoro from getting himself killed or anything, but Chopper is right. That guy was incredibly tough, and there's no way Zoro can do it alone ("Shut up dartbrow! You don't know what the hell you're talking about! I could take him down with just the two swords! With one hand behind my back!" / "He already kicked your ass once, Marimo! Or have you forgotten because of all the head trauma!?" / "The only reason he kicked OUR asses is because YOU kept getting in my way you damn weak-ass cook!" / "WHAT DID YOU CALL ME, IDIOT MARIMO!?") Franky tries to regulate the fight but he's busy blocking those deadly aimed slashes from hitting his poor ship while Brook and Kin'emon work on stopping the incoming cannon balls. Either way they're going to have to do something SUPER fast if they want to get out of here. Yeah, Luffy, we need an actual plan. We can't just send Zoro out to-

"Zoro", Luffy says and despite everything going on around them the deck of the Sunny goes really quiet. They all know that tone. "Zoro, I need you to take care of this until we can get back. I still need to kick Mingo's ass for a friend."

At the sound of his captain's no nonsense voice, Zoro is suddenly easily able to stand, shrugging off the pile of people trying to stop him from jumping to his death (and by pile of people I do mean the coward trio and Sanji, who is mostly just trying to get in a few kicks). He draws Wado, clutching the katana in his teeth and yet still somehow manages what you know is a smirk. It's a promise.

And like that, Zoro is launching himself right into the blue sphere of the battle.

A battle against one of Doflamingo's top officers. A devil's fruit user with a twisted heart and home field advantage. Needless to say, it does not end well for our hero.

—🧡—

Although, Law has to give his rival swordsman some credit. He has his share of fun toying with the boy, and despite never standing any real chance of victory Law can admit the strawhat pirate puts up a better fight than most. Far better than Law had been expecting from some one so new to the New World (supposedly he got Mihawk to agree to train him, but Law has met the Hawk Eye and finds the idea utterly absurd). Then there is the way his smile had just an edge of what Law could only call manical delight, even when it became clear he'd long lost. This greenhaired kid really is stupid enough to believe his captain will come back for him. As though he would come charging back into Doflamingo's territory a second time just to retrieve a single crew member. One who was not only crazy enough to sacrifice himself but couldn't even win the fight. At the same time the swordman's loyalty and faith - as misplaced as it is - is kind of... Adorable. Who knew someone could come so far on the Grand Line and still be so innocent?

Law immediately wants to corrupt it.

Thes other family members will whine tell you, Doffy has always had... Let's say... A "soft spot" for Law. He's spoiled that brat for years, is what they mean but don't dare to say. Sure enough, Law barely has to work to talk Doffy around to letting him personally see to the prisoner's arrangements. Doflamingo is a little suspecious at first (he can never truly trust Law, not after the Corazon incident), but he quickly dismisses it. He's had the Heart Officer's loyalty for years now.

Of course, when he sees the spark of interest light in his apprentice as they eye their newest spoils of war, he can't help but tease Law. After all, Zoro is quite an enticing young man and Law isn't the only one there who likes pretty things. They're so fun to destroy which - judging from the way Law shivers when Doffy runs a hand through thick green hair before yanking the boys head back against the wall hard enough to leave the young captive panting and dizzy - is precisely his protege's plan.

(Doflamingo also happens to know Zoro almost definitely had trained under Mihawk, and he would love to see his fellow warlord's eyes flash with barely contained anger when he learns how Doflamingo has broken his favorite toy. It's not his fault - Mihawk is always so uptight and repressed, it makes agonizing him too much fun for Doflamingo to resist.)

In the end, though, he knows when Law's determination is set. And for whatever reason the boy has decided he absolutely has to be the one to keep their guest "comfortable" while his captain makes up his mind on what he'll do. So Doflamingo only teases for a bit - touches a little, plays with the barely conscious boy kneeling at his feet, enjoys the way Zoro still has enough spirit left to try taking bite when Doffy's fingers trail to close to his bloody lips (oh, and, what a joy! Law nearly growls at the prospect of not being the one to ruin the boy!) - but eventually he stops his little game. He gives in, telling Law to have fun with his treasure. He is the one who took him down after all. It is only fair he keeps him.

Just try not to completely break the poor thing, not until Strawhat returns for him.

Law snorts at the very idea. This is hardly the first time they'd done this. He's never seen a single captain try and retrieve their stolen property (he has of course, but he doesn't remember them). He doesn't see why Strawhat-ya would be particularly special.

Before Doflamingo can come up with a clever, vague answer about Law trusting him, Zoro suddenly gives a bark of laughter that would have scared lesser men senseless. It only serves to draw the two men's interest back to their little pet.

Luffy won't come back for him, Zoro confirms, much to Law's surprise (he personally never thought Strawhat-ya would, but then why would the swordsman sacrifice himself so willingly for a man he has so little faith in?) and has Doflamingo raising an eyebrow in.... Interest. Zoro looks at both of them with no fear, like he hadn't taken a humiliating defeat and is even now bloody and chained up, helplessly listening in on these two infamous pirates talk about him like he is a mere object. Actually, if anything, he appears to be wearing a smirk under all that blood. Because he knows something they don't.

Luffy won't come back for him, because his captain knows Zoro doesn't need to be rescued.

To Law, this makes Zoro look like an even sweeter treat. Doflamingo is simply amused, remarking that perhaps their little pup has yet to realize the leash around his neck is shaped like a noose.

Zoro meets his gaze, steady yet daring. He promised Luffy that he'd take care of it, and so that is what he will do. He'll never go back on his word, especially when it comes to his captain. Something Doflamingo with his distrusting and fear-toed crew couldn't understand. So see, their plan to use Zoro as bait will never work, because Zoro swore to Luffy that he'd be take care of it. So he will. Luffy has enough faith in Zoro that he'd never believe anything less and would never turn around out of doing to try and mount a rescue.

No, when Luffy comes back it will be for the sole purpose of kicking Doflamingo's ass.

The mood darkens. In a flash, Doflamingo is in back in front of him, yanking Zoro forward by the chin. He squeezes hard enough to bruise. You can hear the cracking of bone as he explains to Zoro exactly how precarious his current position is only to grow second by second more frustrate by Zoro's completely lack of fear. So he squeezes harder. He slams the boys head back into the wall and starts smiling when he gets a since from the stoic swordsman.

Before he can do any real damage Law steps in, reminding Doffy that he promised him he could have the boy. And just like that, Doflamingo's whole mood appears to shift back to calm. He puts on his fake smile and let's Zoro go, even pets the boy's hair. Of course, he had promised. And he, too, is a man of his word. Something Zoro will surely learn in time now that he is one of them.

Zoro, now with blurred vision and the taste of fresh blood on his tongue, is smart enough not to answer. But not smart enough to lower his head or try and appear humbled. Lucky for him, Doflamingo decides the boy isn't worth it. When he turns around he notes the hungry way Law is eyeing the kneeling prisoner behind him. Which brings a crueller, yet more genuine, smile to Doffy's featurss. The Strawhats vice captain may act invincible now, but he's never faced Doflamingo's own Surgeon Of Death. As disinterested and put off as Law might usually act, the boy can be dangerously twisted. He's sure his top officer will break the young pirate down bit by bit - both literally and figuratively - long before his captain can come running back in to try and find him (and Doflamingo is sure Strawhat will, no matter what Zoro might think).

He leaves with one last reminder to Law not to completely shatter the infamous Pirate Hunter. No, Doffy would hate to see their newest family member treated so poorly, especially seeing as he has much bigger plans in store for the young Mr. Roronoa. Specifically, he wants to see the face of Monkey D Luffy when he watches as the last bit of his first mate's spirit broken.

And because Doffy practically raised the boy and knows exactly the right buttons to push, he decides to give Law a little extra motivation to bring Zoro to that point. Just in case that interest turns into something dangerous like longing or - laughable as it is - actual fondness. It's so simple, too: as he walks by he simply whispers how there is nothing like crushing the heart of unrequited love.

It will be such a treat, tearing Zoro from his captain, and watching Luffy realize he's lost his chance to love the other man, wouldn't it Law? What a truly tragic romance. It almost makes you hope the two of them at least had some time together. Law didn't happen to give them a moment along before forcing Zoro to throw himself into the fight, hmm? Just a small, precious second or so for the two to share a final kiss. After all, not even Doffy is so cruel as to deny the poor boys such a tender moment.

Sure enough, Law's eyes immediately narrow and Doflamingo can feel the jealousy rolling off him. Not because Law gives a damn for their prisoner's feelings - Doflamingo raised him better than that - but he always has had a possessive streak. Having taken an interest in the swordsman, he will hate the thought that the boy might even think of another or that Law won't be the first to possess him in ever possible way.

Doffy leaves with a cruel, deep laugh. He can't wait until dinner, when he may just happen to remember the rumours about his "friend" Mihawk and his taking a young green-haired boy under this wing and in to his bed. By tomorrow he suspects every part of Zoro's body will bare at least some mark that he now firmly belongs to no one but Trafalgar Law.

[tardytothepardy]

Fruits Basket - Vol 21

"What do you have there?"

"A knife!"

"NO-"

That's probably all I can say about this one lmao

Kyo's still thinking back to when he met Kyoko, and how he felt about her as a kid. It was strange to him, in a way, but very welcoming, because unlike the majority of people around him, she treated him like a spunky kiddo(that's what she called him because he never told her his name) who seemed to have a hard life, but still seemed nice. In other words, Kyoko treated him kindly, something that Kyo had only experienced with Kazuma, which is extremely heartbreaking, oh my god.

But that only made what happened later hurt that much more, when she died. He heard her say that she won't forgive him, and those words have stuck with him to this day. After Kyoko's death, Kazuma took Kyo to the mountains, "to train". There wasn't much training, honestly, because Kyo was thrown into the depths of just,, self-hatred, mourning, regret, all of it. The only way he could get out of it was to place blame elsewhere, and that elsewhere was Yuki. It was easy, to be expected, almost encouraged in a way. It's not even that Yuki did anything in particular (I doubt they were even around each other enough for Yuki to actually do anything to Kyo), it's just that it was easier. And that helped Kyo enough that Kazuma let him return back home, which is around the time that Tohru showed up at Shigure's house, and the start of the series. When Kyo first saw Tohru, he couldn't believe it. He just wasn't allowed to forget what had happened, was he? It was interesting, in a way, to finally meet the girl that Kyoko was always talking about, to finally hear her voice rather than a picture, anecdotes, and a lonesome dinner. But it also hurt. In the end, he says he won't forgive himself, and he doesn't expect Tohru to forgive him either, for holding all of this back.

Tohru doesn't like that though, only having those two options: to forgive or not. It's really not that simple. She doubts that her mom meant that, "I won't forgive you", because she wasn't that kind of person, and even if she did mean it, Tohru's going against it, because her love for Kyo overpowers her love for her mom. She screams at him that she loves him, regardless of all of that. It doesn't matter dude! He can't believe it though, and he runs off, with Yuki, who overheard a portion of all of this, chasing after Kyo, with the spirit of "jfc you fucking moron get back here".

Oh remember Akito? And how she was thinking about Tohru? And how she has a knife? Well, she just entered the chat. 🔪🔪

She enters the chat by vaguely saying that the curse is breaking, to Tohru, who at the moment is partially occupied with thinking how fucking miserable Kyo looked before he ran off, but now Akito's here. (That sounds bad, like a "now Tohru has to deal with Akito 🙄" thing, that's not really what I mean. Tohru's just going through a few things at the moment) She asks Tohru if she's happy now, now that Akito has became the outsider, the loner, the bad guy, after waltzing into her life (and the lives of the Sohmas) and completely disrupting it, without a speck of dirt on her hands. Tohru's putting two and two together and steps toward Akito, asking if she was there the whole time (at this point Tohru did not know Akito had a knife), and oh jeez Akito just slashed at Tohru. Despite Akito yelling at Tohru to stay back, Tohru starts thinking of things through Akito's lens, how this whole time, Akito must have been so lonely. She was marveled for being God, but because of that (and her lashing out but hush), no one ever wanted to be around her. She was told that she was above everyone else, and she treated them as such, and they did the same back to her.

Tohru mentioned how Akito always spoke of permanence, because it was the only thing that Akito ever had to hold onto. Akito lashes out at that (i don't think she cut Tohru, but Tohru does end up having two cuts, so i think this was the second, both times they were just on her arms), saying that Tohru doesn't know what she's talking about, she won't fall for Tohru's crap! She can't be won over by nice little words like everyone else (are you sure about that dude). Tohru doesn't really deny it, she agrees that she is dirty, and bad. She wished for her own permanence, to forever be with her mom, but that didn't and couldn't happen. She says that realizing this is very lonely, realizing that you can't make anything stay, you can't grab onto it with all your might and beg for it to stay, it will move on in its own time. This ends up further upsetting Akito, thinking back to Akira and what he said to her as a child. She screams that she doesn't want to be left behind, alone in this huge world of strangers who don't know or care about about, or need her. She's terrified, and she says there's no saying that someone could ever love her, she'll be all alone when the curse breaks. Tohru then offers to be her friend. (Honestly this scene is kinda heartbreaking for me, seeing Tohru all scuffed up with tears in her eyes, offering to be Akito's friend. This girl does so fucking much all the time, regardless of the fact that she just heard that the boy she loves was involved in some way to her mother's death, her personal crisis of Kyo becoming more important to her than Kyoko, and now she's cut up and bloody, probably soaked through by the rain, trying to console a thoroughly upset Akito, like,, jfc Tohru)

Akito smacks Tohru's outstretched hand, saying she's mocking her, that when Akito starts to get upset, she'll get irritated, when Akito complains, she'll get mad, she'll hate Akito, she'll abandon her, but Tohru just puts out a hand, offering to be Akito's friend regardless. And once Akito realizes that Tohru would totally be there for her if she needed Tohru, Tohru literally falls off a cliff. Kinda. Do you remember back in the beginning of the series when Shigure mentioned that the ground is kinda unstable, and that's why there was a landslide? This is the same kind of thing, the ground crumbled underneath Tohru, and she fell. The first time I read that scene, I wasn't entirely sure if it was a metaphorical thing or not. It was not.

After Tohru fell, Akito just started screaming (fair enough, honestly), screaming for someone to come help, anyone! Shigure and Yuki come (and off in the undisclosed distance, Kyo also hears the cries), and Shigure actually asks Akito if she pushed Tohru off. Akito manages to explain what happens, and Yuki calls an ambulance. Shigure takes Akito back to the house, and a little bit later Kyo comes back to the house, and overhears Shigure explaining things to Hatori over the phone, and fuckin bolts over to where Tohru is. She's unconscious, scuffed, with cuts and blood on her, and holy shit, remember that one dream Kyo had a while back? Yeah, well, this looks wayyy too close for comfort to that dream, and Kyo's pretty freaked out. Distantly, Tohru can hear him crying, and she's just like, "Don't cry, it'll be okay, there's no reason to cry." She thought about how she worried that her love for Kyo ended up hurting him, and she was sorry for that, but she couldn't help it. It's revealed that Tohru fell in love with Kyo around the time of the Dark Form/True Form thing was going down, I think when Kazuma first showed up. She wishes for Kyo to be able to live a full life, even if it's hard, even if they aren't together. (Very emotional stuff, really.)

The next day, Yuki sees Tohru's grandfather at the hospital (who is visiting Tohru as well), and he asks about "that orange-headed boy", and Yuki says he was just an idiot that has bad timing, and he made Tohru cry. He can make her happy better than anyone, and he did that. He stopped himself short, but Tohru's grandfather was like, "About that," and presumably told Yuki to fucking brawl with Kyo, because that's exactly what he did after hearing from Haru that Kyo didn't try to see to Tohru. Before the fists went flying, Yuki asked Kyo about it, and Kyo said it was for the better, that all he'd do was hurt Tohru further. He couldn't protect Tohru when she needed it, he didn't want to do further harm.

Now the scene has shifted to the hospital, with two people being stuck in bed: Tohru and Kureno. Kyo tries to see Tohru, to apologize, to talk, something, but Hanajima and Uotani are not having it. Hanajima points out that apologizing wouldn't even mean anything, because Tohru doesn't blame Kyo for anything that happened. Hanajima says that there's other things that Kyo needs to do before he can see Tohru. Certain Things, and honestly I'm not sure if she was just bullshitting and using her ominousness to her advantage or if she actually knew something, but Kyo agreed (internally, anyway): there was something he had to do before seeing Tohru again.

Yuki might as well have said that was complete and utter bullshit, who does Kyo fuckin think he is? A goddamn superhero, able to fly in the second Tohru's in trouble? Doesn't he see the way Tohru acts around him? The way she smiles whenever he's near? Kyo's shocked by that, but he doesn't like the way Yuki said it, so he asked why couldn't Yuki do it (this is actually out of order but shh), he's already so perfect and shit. Basically, he's finally saying that he has always envied Yuki, because it just seemed like he got everything that Kyo wanted, especially when they were kids. Through the flying kicks and punches, Yuki says the same thing, but in the end, he can only be himself, same thing for Kyo. Neither of them (or anyone else) can be anything other than themselves, and sometimes there are things that only one person can do. In this case, only Kyo can kinda,, make her happy, I guess. I think that was the implication, which is nice. Kyo then goes off to see Tohru at the hospital, but the visiting hours are over, but y'know it's the thought that counts, right?

(Meanwhile) (btw how many times do these kinda things wreck Shigure's house like can they not take these things outside or something)

On the part of Uotani and Hanajima (and really everyone else who is visiting Tohru at this time), there's another level to keeping Kyo out: it's that everyone kinda knows that Tohru might be a little messed up if she did see Kyo again so soon after that whole shpeal that happened before Akito showed up. Tohru had a bomb dropped on her, and then she helped Akito calm down, and then she fell off a cliff; she didn't have any time to process the things that Kyo told her, especially that last line of his, the whole, "I'm disillusioned" thing, which all the significance that I personally can find within it is that he said that he wouldn't be disillusioned when Tohru was telling him about her father, but there really seems to be a bigger thing here that I'm not getting, idk. Anyway, there's that whole mess as well. Besides from that, there also seems to be this idea, I guess, that once Tohru is around Kyo again, they won't really be apart, so this is kinda like the last few moments with just Tohru? Or something? Hanajima and Uotani were talking about how Kyo's gonna "steal Tohru away", and seeing as Tohru is their close friend, I suppose it makes sense, from a selfish perspective (but not in a bad way), that they would want to "have" Tohru as long as they could.

Meanwhile (y'know that 60s Batman scene transition thing? That's always what I imagine when I write that, with the music included. Imagine how annoying it'd be if I put in a gif of it every time), Akito is having a Struggle Moment. She's at the hospital, and holy fuck is she guilty about stabbing Kureno, which is nice she totally should be it'd be really concerning if she wasn't, and Momiji pops up and asks if Akito came to see Kureno or Tohru (oof that guilt it's now been doubled), and Akito bursts out with confusion: why doesn't Kureno blame her?! He could've (should've-- wait what) blamed her, gotten angry, something?? Momiji says that it's because Kureno and Tohru (because Akito also visits Tohru) are that kind of stupid: they just don't blame people for things, they're always allowing for forgiveness. So why question it, why not just accept that Kureno isn't angry at her, isn't blaming her, just accept the kindness.

Akito thinks back on when she visited Kureno, and he asked her if she was okay. She thinks that if she had said she wasn't, that Kureno would have gone back to her side, and stayed with her, despite what she had done to him. He would stay with her until she no longer needed him, because he just has that kind of unselfish kindness. This kindness, in retrospect, doesn't make Akito feel much better though, as she thinks (realizes?) that she's basically been killing him, this whole time (before the stabbing, of course). No apology could fix this, no matter what Kureno would say, Akito wouldn't ever stop feeling bad for what she had said and done, not to him but to the other Juunishi as well (I suppose the Sohma family as a whole, honestly). Momiji just says that Akito has to take care of Kureno from now on, and to make sure that she doesn't do something like this again. Then he tells Akito a story (i don't get to hear it and that makes me quite sad ngl) and later Akito visits Tohru. But that'll be talked about later. Now we're talking about

(60s Batman transition sound) Yuki! And the other people in the student council. Kakeru mentions how the school is abuzz with what happened to Tohru, and how rumor has it that Kyo's the one who got her in the hospital. (Yuki doesn't really deny that, btw) Unsurprisingly, it's not really something that he has talked about, seeing as it's not very casual conversation, and it is a bit of a downer, but he realizes that he's not too upset by it. (By that I mean the overall recent series of events, not solely Tohru's accident) I guess violence is the answer, sometimes.

Kimi then asks what Yuki's relationship with Tohru even is, and Kakeru, unfiltered as usual, just drops, "She's like his mom, in his mind" as if that wasn't something that Yuki was struggling with for a long time??? Whatever dude, but one day Yuki'll probably have his revenge. At any rate, there were a lot of shots to Machi doing her thing, so if it wasn't already clear from the story so far, Yuki likes Machi. If you hadn't picked that up, it's a whole thing.

Anyway, later on Yuki and Kakeru are looking for get-well gifts for Tohru, and Kakeru just straight up says, "If I don't know what to give to someone, I'll just choose something I like, so that if they don't like it, I can take it, and I'll like it," which, as it turns out, Machi does the same thing. (That comes later but it's the not most important thing so shh) After getting a gift, Kakeru says that he's going to visit Tohru, but he insists on doing it alone, and so Yuki wanders off, walking down the street (he's makin his way downtown, walkin fast, faces pass), and he thinks about how, when he was in big crowds, he used to wonder, if he disappeared, would anyone really notice? Now though, that's not really a worry. He knows that there is at least one person who would notice, who would be worried if he disappeared. And holy shmow, he just found the perfect gift for her! He calls up Machi, and they meet up at a train station, I think, I'm pretty sure it's a train station idk I've never been in one, and it turns out that she got a gift for him as well. (It's fertilizer, remember back to that scene, with the,, yeah. Ok.)

The gift is a big Mogeta doll (probably like a stuffed animal), like the one that Ayame had in his shop, except he had the gall to write on it? Machi said that it was a limited exclusive item, but Yuki managed to find it (for a fair price too, apparently), and she really likes it. She says she'd like to thank Tohru for what she's done to help Yuki become who he is presently, that she's really glad that she was able to meet Yuki, because without him, she definitely wouldn't be the person she is today. It was some super soft stuff, there were plenty of "aw"s when I read that whole interaction. They're so fucking cute, it's great.

Anyway, other than Kakeru asking Hatori what he ate to look that handsome (which is something I still can't get over), there wasn't much else to the book, so I'll finally end this (I took several days in between writing this it's inexcusable). Yay ✨✨

[razorblade180]

Mother’s Day

[Twin Snowflakes]

It’s early in the morning. Weiss has just woken up to something a bit out of the ordinary. Someone had picked her outfit out already. It was an office dress; nothing too special. Except it was pure black with a glittery red belt and a slit in the dress on the left side. What made it strange though was Someone placed her black wig and red contacts next to it.

Needless to say, she was intrigued and was going to wear it. In a matter of minutes she was walking through her hallways in it.

Bleiss:Hello!? Yo, my little rugrats?.....Babe? I know one of you has to awa-

She turned the corner to see Jaune in a dashing white business suit and an over the top decorative bow on his head that was held in place by ribbon that went over his body; complete with a note.

Bleiss:Well hey there sexy. Looking a bit finer than usual.

Jaune:And you look every bit as gorgeous as the day I met you; better in fact.

Bleiss:*red* Are you going to read that note for me handsome?

Jaune:*clears throat* “Dear Mother Goose-

Bleiss:*snorts* (These kids...)

Jaune: “Happy Mother’s Day! We took deliberately or persuading dad to put on the suit you bought for him and waking up early enough to make breakfast downstairs. We’ll be out the house until dinner time. With love, you little rugrats.”

Bleiss:Should we be concerned our children basically know what we- what I like to do when we have alone time?

Jaune:You’re not exactly subtle when you’re like this.

Bleiss:I can’t help that you’re so irresistible. Though I don’t get what’s up with my suit.

Jaune:That wasn’t them. It was all me. I already said this but...

He saunters over to Bleiss who can’t help but smirk as his hand reaches for her waist and pulls her closer.

Jaune:You look really gorgeous today.

Bleiss:Isn’t breakfast waiting for us?

Jaune:That look in your eyes tell me you aren’t that hungry.

Bleiss:Not for food, no. So you gonna kiss me already or-mmph!?

Her words were cut off by a deep and loving kiss. What a good way to start the morning.

xxxx

Nora woke up and did her usual morning routine. Shower, stretching, and her workout clothes. Time to start the day. She walked over to her bed and kissed her sleeping husband on the cheek “Bye sweetie.” Nora said, before heading out of the room.

She almost made it out of her home when something caught her eye. A light from another room was coming from around the corner. The kitchen? Nora made her way towards the kitchen and hit with the glorious smell of pancakes. A hardy stack of them in heart shapes were on the counter while Valerie was washing the pan that they were made in. The girl grabbed two forks and an obscene amount of syrup.

Nora:Well whay do we have here!? Color me impressed.

Valerie:Happy Mother’s Day. How about we also make it a cheat day?

Nora:I say we are going to need a hundred more pancakes before it counts as a cheat day.

Ren:*walks in* Then I guess you need a master chef.

Nora:Oh you’re awake!

Ren:*kisses her cheek* Today is a special day.

Valerie:Let’s chow down!

Ren and Nora:Yeah!

xxxx

knock knock knock

Ruby:*opens door* Hello-

Summer:*holding a cookie jar* We know this might be a bit weird but....

Nick:*holding Roses* You’re basically like a mom to us too.

Summer and Nick:So Happy Mo-

Ruby pulls both of them into a giant hug and holds them close. The twins look a little stunned at first before hearing Ruby sniffle softly. They not wrap their arms around her in a loving embrace.

Ruby:Thank you....

xxxx

Veronica:Hey mom? Can you come here real quick and help me with some fabric?

Blake:I’m a little busy at the moment.

Veronica:*pouts* It would really be appreciated. If you could help. It would only take second.

Blake:*walking in* If it’s that easy than why- shut the fuck up!!!! Is this....!?

In that moment, Blake remembered what today was. She had been so busy with work that it crossed her mind. Even if she never forgotten, Blake would’ve been happy with a card. Instead she stood in front of an elegant kunoichi inspired outfit. The base was black win a purple haze design that went around it as if to give it a smokey look. Dark purple was also the color of the hems and sleeve cuffs with the black becoming accent on it. All topped off with a beautiful purple bow tied in the back. This alone was exceptional, but something made it better. It was....

Blake:Is this a replica of the main protagonist’s outfit from Ninjas of Love!?

Veronica:To. The. Last. Stitch.

Blake:*tearing up* Veronica this is outstanding! Wait, why are you reading-

Veronica:*red* I like the plot! Moving on... I hope you enjoy this and I don’t know if you’ll get the perfect opportunity to wear this but hey. I’m sure you’ll find an excuse.

Blake:You know I will. *hugs her* I love you.

Veronica:*purring* I know!

Yang:Hey have you seen- woah is that...?

Blake:Yeah it is!

Yang:Veronica knocked it out of the park this year.

Veronica:It’s you that’s the tricky one. *red* Your gift is a little more abstract. I know I’m usually busy and not the easiest person to deal with. I also know we don’t really spend time together that much anymore so-

Yang.*hugging her* Is someone trying to spend the entire day with me?

Veronica:If...that’s okay?

Yang:Silly kitty. It’s always going to be okay. I love you.

Veronica:I....I love you too.

xxxx

*door opens*

Nick:We’re back!

Summer:Please be decent!

Jaune:*making dinner* We’ve been decent for hours.

Summer:We never know with you two. (I’m surprised we don’t have another set of twins or something.)

Nick:Now then, did we come home to mother goose or mama duck? *smiling*

He got his answer answer in the form of long white hair coming from around the kitchen corner and rushing over to grab both him and his sister. All three falling over to the ground as they laughed and hugged each other.

Weiss:Hello my baby ducklings!

Summer and Nick:Happy Mother’s Day mom!

Weiss:It really is, isn’t it?

[Lasting Embers]

Raven:Hey, I’m going out Tai.

Tai:Before you go can you stop by Yang’s and drop off those sunflowers?

Raven:Her house is the complete opposite direction.

Tai:Just open a portal.

Raven:Fine. *opens portal* You know a present means more if-

Yang:SURPRISE!!!

Without warning, Yang comes jumping through from the other side. Tackling Raven right to the ground and hugging her. Raven’s face turns red as she notices balloons and a box with the Schnee logo; most likely some high quality dust blades.

Raven:Yang!? What are you-

Yang:Happy Mother’s Day you grouchy mama bird. *grinning*

Raven:....

Raven:*smiles* After all these years you’re as energetic as ever. Once a baby bird, always a baby bird. *hugs her*

Yang:!!?*red*

Raven:Tai where you in on this?

Tai:Duh. I’m also in on Yang’s gift.

Yang:My gift? I was just home and got a card.

Tai:*smiles* But now you’re here and not home. A lot can change in a matter of minutes.

That peeked Yang’s interest. Her and Raven stared at the portal that was still opened in curiosity before getting up and jumping through. Tai chuckled at their anticipation and went through as well.

He was rewarded with the sight of his daughter covering her mouth with amazement as she tried not to jump up and down like a kid. They were all outside, including Jaune who was smiling. As well as Yujin who was also covered in motor oiled while she posed arms crossed right next to motorcycle that looked liked Yang’s old one.

Yujin:Meet bumblebee 2.0! Built from the ground up by yours truly after months of hardwork. You have many people to think for this accomplishment since this was no blueprints for the original.

Yang:How the heck did you get so accurate! The leather even feels right!

Yujin:Someone remembers what it felt like when it ran full force into him.

Yang:No fricken way....

Yujin:Adam says you’ll personally have to fight him again if you launch this bike at anyone or off a cliff.

Yang:Damnit, no I have to thank him. That was probably his plan from the get go.

Jaune:Stop whinnying and take this thing for a spin. *tosses her a helmet*

Yang:Wanna come admire your handiwork with your dear old mom Yujin?

Yujin:Hell Yeah!

Yang:Let’s go visit Tenzen.

Yujin:*pulls out scroll* He’s a bit busy.

She flips the scroll around and plays a video from earlier today.

Tenzen:*grinning* Hey Yujin, I think my mom likes her present. What’s your opinion? *flips camera around*

Nora:*holding a sloth* This is the greatest moment that has ever happened in my entire life...! He’s so cute!!!

xxxx

(Night time)

Jacquelyn:*watering flowers*..... (Hmm, haven’t seen the kids all day. They must be planning something, or maybe they forgot. No...well, they have been busy lately.)

A frown crept up on her face. She was used to simple gifts since money was tight so that wasn’t a problem. She just wanted them to say. Jacquelyn continue to get wrapped up in her thoughts until something cool ran across the top of her forehead. She looked up to see an orbs of water in front of her. They were floating, all the water she was pouring upwards; her entire body was floating. “Huh?”

A shadow drifted over her during this clear moon lit night; shadows that had horns and cat ears. Jacquelyn looked up with big smile to see her daughters floating towards her with petals of numerous flowers following them. All of them a variety of colors that rivaled any sunset or rainbow. The two grabbed their mom and put her right in the center of it all as they held her close.

Sienna:Happy Mother’s Day to the women who brings color to our lives...

Jael:And sweeps us off our feet.

Jacquelyn:Awww you guys. This is gorgeous.

Sienna:It took us longer than we thought to find enough flowers. This is the desert after all.

Jael:Not to mention the annoying grimm, but we managed!

Jacquelyn:You could’ve just gotten me a card.

Sienna:We do that every year! This one had to be special!

Jael:Yeah, you’re the best! With your powers now your garden will be twice as big.

Jacquelyn:*tearing up* Thank you. (Heh, I almost forgot. With these two....)

Sienna and Jael:We love you!)

Jacquelyn:*crying* (I’ll never be forgotten)

The three remained floating up there enjoying the view. Not knowing a certain someone was watching from below.

Adam:*smiling*

[Premonition]

Blake:*writing*

Secretary:Uh, Mrs Belladonna? It’s time for lunch.

Blake:That’s fine, I’ll just work through it. I have to these documents done by tomorrow night.

Secretary: Ah yes, he thought you might say that. Or I guess he knew you would.

Blake:!? “Knew?”

The secretary walked in a placed a bento box on her desk before leaving. Blake put down her pen and opened it to find it filled with various sushi; cooked and uncooked. Along with heart shaped rice balls and a note. Blake smiles and read it immediately.

“Do your best to unite the world. Can’t do it on an empty stomach though. Happy Mother’s Day.”

Blake:.....

Lucas:*laying in a hammock* (I wonder...if she’ll like it? I followed dad’s instructions but that doesn’t mean she’ll like it.) Hmmm

Blake:Someone looks concerned.

Lucas:Mom!? *sits up* Shouldn’t you be working!?

Blake:It’s lunch break. I wanna spend it with my special little guy. You made way too much food for one person you know? *smiles* Almost like you wanted me to come home to share. Predict that too?

Lucas:*red* More like wishful thinking.

Blake smiled and sat next to him. She quickly learned in a kissed his cheek which made Lucas wanna curl up in embarrassment and Blake laugh.

Blake:Wish granted.

Lucas:Happy Mother’s Day mom.

Blake:Hehe, thank you.

[Rosebud]

Another day, another job well done. For the most part anyways. A couple of nevermore had taken the wind out of Ruby’s sails by launching a feather at her right ankle. Now she was walking home with a limp. Crescent rose on her back didn’t make it easier, or the fact she was going through sand. At least she had the brains to take off her heels before reaching she made it to the rough terrain. The sun was setting but no grimm scared her; at this point she did not care about making everyone of them stone. If she can get over the sand dune in front of her that is.

Ruby:(Stupid nevermore with their stupid sharp feathers. Since when do they curve through the air? That’s definitely new.) Ugh, I’m definitely taking the longest bath when I get home.

???:That sounds nice.

Ruby’s head perked up immediately. She was a bit more tired than she thought. On top of the dune was a person. Not just anybody though, herself? All she saw was a silhouette but she was definitely looking at her old clothes from Atlas. The figure stepped closer and out of the glaring sunbeam. It was Carmine, and she was looking a bit winded herself.

Ruby was thrown for a loop on why her daughter was wearing those old clothes or looked like she ran a marathon. She didn’t get a chance to ask before Carmine lifted her mother up and onto her back; carrying Ruby up the dune.

Ruby:Ummm thank you? What’s this all about.

Carmine:You’re hurt. Why wouldn’t I carry you?

Ruby:I was talking more about the outfit. You aren’t a fan of skirts or anything too fancy.

Carmine:*blushing* Yeah well, I know how much you think I look cute in them so I thought I’d pick the coolest looking one,

Ruby:Awww for me? How cute.

Carmine:This goes right back in the box after today!

Ruby:So is this my gift?

Carmine:You’re a third right. The other half you’ll see when we get to the top.

Ruby:Ooooo

A few minutes passed before Ruby got why her daughter was tired. As they reached the top Ruby saw nothing but what looked like an ocean of crimson that surrounded her house down in the distances. “Is that red sand?”

“Look closer..” Carmine said. Ruby squinted and on closer inspection Ruby realize that the red she was seeing was roses. Hundreds of roses that each shimmered faintly like raindrops being hit by sunlight. “Woah.....”

Carmine smiled confidently. “Now look at it as a whole.”

“A whole? What, is it a pic-my symbol!?” Ruby screamed in shock. The roses were postponed perfectly to recreate her symbol with the house right in the center of it all.

Ruby:How the- this is- Carmine this is amazing! I didn’t even think you could make this many roses!

Carmine:Not without dad’s help. He’s almost has burnt out as I am. I’m sure both of you though will find your second wind in time for bed though.

Ruby:*Blushing* Carmine!

Carmine:Don’t be mad because I’m right. I’ll be knocked out though so I doubt you’ll wake me or Garnet.

Ruby:What’s the third part of this present?

Carmine:He’s at home with dad making cookies.

Ruby:Fuck yeah! This day rules. Worth the injury. Thanks sweetheart. *holds on tighter* You’ve really grown up strong huh? I’m glad....

Carmine:Hehe, I... had good teachers. Happy Mother’s Day....