#but people being desperate to have a ship for every single character is still annoying

[sonknuxadow]

the thing about mightourge is that ive never seen a single piece of content for that ship that doesnt make one or both of them wildly out of character. its always making scourge into this like. uwu soft boy who just needs someone to love him and then he'll become good. even though hes evil he sucks the whole idea behind his creation was just sonic but if he was an asshole. and mighty is a nice guy who doesnt particularly like needless violence but they always make him go "i can fix him <3333" over scourge. even though he is Like That. if we're going by their canon personalities mighty probably wouldnt be romantically interested in scourge at all. it feels like a ship that was invented for people who never actually read archie sonic and just like the version of scourge that exists in their head that they got from fanart and fanfiction. idk how to explain my thoughts properly but hopefully people will understand

[magicalink]

Do they fuck or do they make love?

Headcanons with no specific AU! Mainly character x reader but it ended up implying character x character ships too in sime characters. I wrote this headcanons and when I was reading them to my boyfriend (who is my only beta reader) he started giving his opinions about them and I found his comments absolutely hilarious so I decided to include them! 🤣 First go my headcanons about the character and then my boyfriend's comments indented. Some of them are unhinged 🤣

Venti: Depends on the partner and the situation. He adores making delicate love to you but he's always up for a quickie in the middle of the house, the forest, anywhere and anytime you're willing. And oh Archons, is he intense when he does any of the two! He likes sex to be THE experience, and he tends to be over the top when it comes to it. Also an uncontrollable moaning machine.

Bf: Nah, he fucks. All the time. Cuz he is drunk all the time. We all know his only love is alcohol. I agree on the moaning machine part though, he is loud and doesn't care if others hear.

Diluc: Makes love. He has no time for sex if it's not with the love of his life. Doing it with him is a ceremony to remember. Expect long sessions full of kisses, heartwarming confessions, and body worshipping.

Bf: Accurate. Total gentleman. He only makes love. And possibly the first time you do it he will propose to you the morning after.

Childe: Fucks. He is all in for the adrenaline and pleasure in life, whether it's battle or it's lust. He wants to dive in and feel as much as he can,the more intense and dangerous, the better.

Bf: A fucking degenerate. He loves violence and competition and if he doesn't get it in sex then he's not interested. More of a masochist than a sadist, don't be surprised if you fight him and he ends up insinuating sexually to you. Especially if you're winning the fight. He wants to get beaten up. To sum up, he has a very weird way of "making love"...

Xiao: Makes love. To him, it's something sacred that should be shared with the people you love and respect the most. Will worship every inch of your body and be desperate to convey his feelings to you. Will focus completely on your pleasure, so make sure to calm him down and reward him a bit too!

Bf: Turbo virgin who self cock blocks all the time. He is always afraid: of hurting you, of making you uncomfortable, of saying something wrong, of looking at the wrong place...If you moan he asks you if you're okay. He gets soft all the time because he is afraid of hurting you. He has suicidal thoughts half the encounter. But yeah he makes love.

Albedo: Who knows, really. He's still studying what's the difference between the two. And he sure is doing an experiment and carefully studying it when he has sex with you. To be perfectly clear, he loves you, but this whole thing about sex and human relationships is new to him so he's trying to understand all these new feelings. 

Bf: "Making love? Fucking? What is that? I'm the chalkman." Doesnt have a dick and if he had, he is not interested in human relationships at all. But if you manage to fuck him he would be writing down notes about it the whole time.

Scaramouche: Fucks because he thinks giving in to love will make him weak.💔

Bf: Fucks and he only thinks about his mommy issues while doing it. He only fucks to dissociate. And if you treat him with basic human kindness he will start seeing you as a maternal figure so be careful.

Wanderer: Now understands that lying about his feelings is the true form of weakness and doesn't want to waste a single more second of life, he makes love to you making sure he makes crystal clear how he feels about you: in the most explicit, toe-curling, fluid dropping way he can. If you like it hard, prepare to be smacked until you can't sit the following day.

Bf: He's gone to therapy so the mommy issues are better but he's still annoying af. He plays hard to get and pretends not to be committed but the truth is he's just being tsundere and hiding the fact that he is eating from the palm of your hand.

Kazuha: Makes the finest comfiest love in the world. Fucks like a horndog when he's drunk or high but won't stop telling you how crazily he loves you while doing it.

Bf: He is high af the vast majority of the time and during sex, it's no exception. If you manage to fuck him sober he will be the super reflexive and emotional type that cries during sex. But he fucks you lovely but won't make love to you, he only makes love with the love of his life Tomo, the rest of you are his cattle. He's a super friendly guy so after sex he will share his weed with you.

Gorou: He's a gentleman who wants to become good at making love but is extremely shy and gets flustered easily so he fucks sloppily. An adorable sight to behold!

Bf: I agree he is a little gentleman.

Tighnari: Makes love. Except when he's in heat. Then you have to be prepared if you wanna handle him. 

Bf: another stoner. He would experiments with aphrodisiacs all the time, makimg them into weird salts or sth.

Cyno: Very similar to his jokes. He's completely sure he's giving his best at making love to you or Tighnari and showing you his devotion, but his poker face, stoic manners, and scary appearance make him look like he's angry fucking you. He doesn't get what he's doing wrong and doesn't do it on purpose. But it doesn't matter since you know him very well and not only are you used to his antics but you also have become sensitive to his very subtle changes of expression.

Bf: He can't help bit to tell bad jokes when he fucks. Self cockblocks himself all the time: either he goes soft in the middle of the act because he's laughing at his own jokes or he makes so cringy jokes that his partner gets uncomfortable and leaves. He can't help it, if he doesn't get them our he will explode.

Itto: Fucks wildly but it's his way of making love. He is just too brute to control the size and strength of his body, especially when he is under the effect of the feral feelings he has for you. 

He loves you so much he can't help but to pick you up like you're a potato sack and swirl you in the air like you are a rag doll and take you with him everywhere. When he hugs you he leaves you breathless, when he kisses you he leaves you all sloppy and when he fucks you…well he leaves you sore for weeks but let's say it's totally worth it!

Bf: totally disagree! It would be so hard to fuck him, he would be clueless and friend zone or family zone you all the time. If you tell him you wanna be more than friends he would say "Superfriends??" With the biggest smile. And if you manage to fuck him he would be super careful, he knows he is a brute and is scared of hurting you.

Thoma: Makes super lovey-dovey love. Always double-checks if you're comfortable and enjoying the experience. Knowing he's making you feel good makes him glad and arouses him so don't be shy and tell him if he's doing it well!

Bf: nononono, absolutely wrong, you're blinded by his looks. He is a degenerate masochist and he only fucks Ayato. They have this weird dynamic where he literally acts as his dog.

Ayato: Another one who depends on the partner and situation. Honestly, he's so overworked that he desperately needs a good fuck. Ok maybe many of them. But not only he doesn't have the time, but also he can't be seen sleeping around due to his political position, so probably he'll only get to have sex when he finally finds the person he wants to marry. He hopes to be able to marry someone he actually loves instead of marrying for political reasons. So if you're the lucky one, expect heated sessions of lovemaking from this touch-starved man! Also, he'll love you but that doesn't mean he's gonna stop being a merciless tease 👀

Bf: Degenerate sadist who only has eyes for Thoma and makes him go through so much weird stuff they don't even remember what is to have normal sex. Tying him up and putting him on a leash is the most normal thing out of what they do.

Kaeya: Fucks. He lives for the spectacle and the mystique of it. Also, he's super popular around Mondstadt and wherever he goes so he sleeps around a lot. He has tons of admirers from both sexes and he makes sure to reward their love and devotion. He knows exactly how to please people, how to exacerbate his natural beauty and how to leave them crazy for him. He's simply so erotically natured. Probably the most experienced guy you know in the field. 

Bf: Agree. Turbo slut. No more comments needed. If he manages to open his heart he can be sensitive. But that only happened once and it was with his own reflection in a mirror.

Heizou: Fucks lovingly 💕 He loves teasing and making his partner flustered. People and relationships are simply so fun and fascinating to him. And when he gets to be sexually intimate with someone it's even better! If you end up involved with him, be prepared to be taken to your limits.

Bf: Another degenerate. Probably makes you pretend you're a criminal to chase you around town. Pretty sadistic and I can imagine him having yandere tendencies. A cool guy though. When he is not horny.

Al Haitam: Zero interested in the matter. Until he met you. He is learning everything from scratch and even though he's always been a fast learner in everything, this subject is particularly hard since he needs to stop rationalizing and let his feelings take control for once. But his feelings for you are pretty intense, so little by little he is learning how to make love to you 💚

Bf: I imagine him as a turbo aspirator 3000. He would suck your soul out of your genitals. If you manage him to make him interested in sex, which is highly unlikely because he is like 0 interested in any kind of human contact. I picture him having sex with Kaveh and Kaveh would be a pillow princess and Haitham despite being the kind of guy who always sits down and just reads books he would be restless in bed, doing all the job and moving him around.

Kaveh: Another sweet-sweet love guy! He'll make sure to treat you like a princess and spoil you rotten in and out of the bedroom. He'll do the corniest expressions of chivalry but please bear with him, it genuinely comes from his heart. But if you want to see a more sloppy and wrecked side of him, you can always seduce him after he goes to the bar…

Bf: Sassy pillow princess. Or prince? Idk how to say it. He doesn't do anything but he will be all the time criticizing or praising what you do like a talent show judge. "Come on? Is it the first time you suck a cock or what?" You can imagine this kind of behavior is what infuriates Al Haitham and motivates him to go feral and fuck him around the whole house until he shuts the fuck up.

BONUS: This is an old draft but now that Neuvillete and Wriostheley are out, we couldn't let them out! So for this, we are interchanging roles, my bf will give you his headcanons and I will comment!

Bf: I'm 100% sure both Neuvie and Wriot are completely opposite in bed from their personalities in public. Our chivalrous and calm Neuvie is a pasional beast in bed. He is unsatiable, he is a dragon after all. Gives me the same vibes as Zhong Li who acts super calm but when fucking Childe he destroys 3 hotel rooms every night (exactly the type Childe loves. He got a crush on him when he struck him down at Fontaine's court. I'm sure Zhong Li will get jealous when he finds out and we will have some dragon drama going on) Back to Neuvie, he is super feral but he doesn't fuck, he makes love. It's his draconic way of making love. He is also very emotional and if he likes you, after having sex and having calmed down, he will open his wallet and start showing you the pictures of his 300 Melusine daughters and tell you their names and each of their jobs. He is a very proud dad.

Wriothesley loves you from a distance. While you fuck he is super sweet and loving, but during everyday life, he sucks at showing his feelings. He reminds me of the dad of Komi San, super silent but full of love. He communicates through glances (like a dog). Everyone thinks he is a bad boy but he's a super sentimental guy (won't admit it though) If you give him a gift he will treasure it forever and if someone breaks it or steals it from him he will beat them up.

One of his phrases would be "If something happens to my schmoochpsiepups I will kill everyone in Teyvat and then myself," and when he messes up with you for being unable to show his emotions he goes to a karaoke and sings "Baka Mitai" all depressed. He has 0 emotional intelligence and would go there often, crying "Oh, I wanted to tell Y/N how much I love them before they went away and I just groaned 'hmmm' AGAIN 😭😭".

YET ANOTHER BONUS: If Neuvillete and Wriothesley were in a romantic relationship, I'm sure Neuvie would tell him about all of his Melusine daughters. Wriot would act all cold and as if he didn't care but in fact he remembers all their names and thinks about them as his adoptive daughters. Don't be surprised if you walk down the street and see a Melusine falling down and he rescues her and goes to buy her an ice cream cone. He is a proud dad too.

Me: I have no comments. I agree with everything. And Wriot singing Baka Mitai would be amazing, he has the voice of Jotaro and Erwin after all.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Wow this post was longer than intended. AND ONLY NOW I realize we left Lyney and Zhong Li out. I guess bc to me Lyney is kinda teen coded? I feel like they wasted so much husband material making him look so young. I've seen the fandom drawing him as an adult and he looks so hansome. And both my bf and I rambled about Zhong Li but we forgot to include an entry for him 😂 He says it's ok because he's tied to Tartaglia and we spoke about him in Tartaglia's section 😂 God we are a disaster. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the post, whether you found the headcanons hot or my bf's comments funny. He is scared of getting cancelled though 😂

[itchyeye]

@apocalypticsinn replied to your post “ok. i'm giving the first episode a shot.”:

Oh noooOOOO welcome to hell :,) Alice remains like this the entire series btw and it just. It doesn’t get better. The newest episode I wanted to strangle her- I’m VERY interested in hearing your full thoughts on even just this first episode-!

​whgau first thing's first i am touched to hear you're interested in my thoughts

ok so overall it was very bad. @socvinc is correct that the sound mixing is fantastic, especially contrasted against s1 of tma which was shoestring budget dogshit. but then again this new show was funded by a seemingly boundless supply of patreon dollars so it fucking better sound expensive!!

alice is absolutely insufferable. you could stick a classroom full of twelve year old bronies (and i mean the og 2010s bronies not the gen z post ironic queer reclamation kind) in front of a hundred typewriters for all of time and they would eventually produce every single thing that has ever come out of alice's mouth. sure, it seems like gwen and most other people are annoyed with her, so at least she isn't being treated as funny and charming in-universe!! but absolutely fucking impossible to listen to. will not be putting myself through more of that.

also, the general animosity and malaise is unearned. sure, we have all been at jobs where everyone is burnt out and nobody cares anymore. but there's a sort of creeping realization that comes with that. even if things are bad right off the bat, they still get worse as you familiarize yourself with your new surroundings.

to have your exposition be alice telling sam that nothing matters and there is no point to his job and everything is stupid and he shouldn't even be here just makes me hate her. it doesn't matter that she's doing it to give gwen a moment to shine and prove her diligence and dedication. it immediately makes alice a deeply unlikeable character. she is relentlessly negative and cynical and lazy and we have been given ZERO justification for why she would be so abbrasive to someone just starting a new career!! plus she's fucking annoying so the cards are REALLY stacked against her.

and the relentless gloomy bleakness of the Archives was so. so. so. earned. all of s1 had this slow slow sloooooow build up of tension and horror and false leads and red herrings and SUDDENLY WORMS. SASHA'S DEAD. TIDAL WAVE OF WORLD-ENDING WORMS. THREE DREAD POWERS AT ONCE. AND EVERYONE HAS PTSD AFTERWARDS AND STILL HAS TO COME IN TO WORK. JON'S GONE OFF THE FUCKING DEEP END. THEN S2. NO ONE CAN LEAVE. WE'RE ALL TRAPPED HERE LIKE RATS IN A SINKING SHIP.

the gloom and malaise and desperation is real and tangible and you are there with the characters as it builds. it's rewarding and dynamic. opening episode 1 with "everyone hates it here bc it's very spooky and bureucratic" is just a pale and unsuccessful immitation of the slowburn that MADE the archives what they were.

also the very first little mini statement was so lame??? no build up. no atmosphere. no character development. not even a short story, just a tumblr uquiz option. "i saw my husband but he was Shaped Wrong and also dead" jesus christ...

i might listen to episode 2 just because i have time to kill but being dropped into the middle of an office party gave me traumatic tma s5e1 flashbacks and i can't live through that again. one of my tmp anons who mentioned it was very office-banter based was SOOOO right. the majority of the episode felt like those incorrect-quotes accounts that clog up tumblr search results. just people i don't know and voices i don't recognize having weird try-hard conversations.

oh that's another glaring difference: the dialogue and voice acting in tma feels incredibly natural. the way conversations are written and the way they are performed feels believable, like listening to recordings of people who do not know they're being recorded. the conversations in tmp feel like watching f.r.i.e.n.d.s in that every line feels really rigidly scripted. no one talks over one another. no sounds overlap. there are no natural sounding pauses or stutters. just bad sitcom dialogue. BUT as i said to anon.... that's what the people want.

overall feels like an ogfic "inspired by" tma that i would have no interest in reading. a pale immitation of lightning in a bottle.

can't say i blame them. we all have bills to pay. but i can say i resent them.

[dreamboundedstar]

Flips Whitefudge Headcanons:

So um, since I decided it be really interesting to ship Flips with my BB oc, Willow I thought it would be fun to list some headcanons. The more I can develop his character, the better it is for hypothetical shipping art. So here we go! 1. Flips Whitefudge's is not his legal name, only his rapper name. His legal name is Philip J. (James) van Tripp

2. He's 29 going on 30 soon. Hip hop became his and his mother's whole thing when he was 11 1/2 years old. 3. His favorite snack is white chocolate covered pretzels (big shocker I know!)

4. Flips lives with his mother until his dancing and/or rapping career takes off. He's not a complete slacker though and does try to help around the house when he's not completely distracted with his hip hop aspirations (which is admittingly almost all the time).

5. He's desperate for dance battles during his mom's hip hop classes because any time he's tried to enter a dance battle on the streets, no one takes him seriously.

6. Whitefudge was originally an insult from his younger years that made fun of his cringy attempts at being street that Flips reworked to being part of his identity in a positive way.

7. Even though hip hop dancing is his main passion, he also dabbles in beatboxing, rap battles, and is a graffiti appreciator.

8. Shelly is a single parent and got her son and herself deeply invested in hip hop 18 1/2 years ago as a trauma response to Flips' father leaving them (can't decide if I want it to be abandonment or death though). That's right, I'm making the cringy humor of Shelly and Flips linked to angst. Why can't I let just things not be that deep?! 9. "Malibu's Most Wanted" is Flips' favorite so-bad-it's-good, guilty pleasure movie to watch every now and then. He will deny any resemblance to him and the main character though. (Any time I see Flips I think of that movie even though I haven't seen it in years. So I might as well connect it to him.) XD

10. Shelly and Flips love watching "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" and "Living Single" together. (Full disclosure, I never seen "Living Single" I just picked 90s sitcoms that were centered around a hiphop/rap artists. I love Fresh Prince though.) In general, their tv majority of the time stays on the BET channel or MTV (though they still mourn the lack of music videos on the channel). 11. Shelly bans Flips from practicing any breakdancing moves that involves his head being upside down to avoid potential neck breaking. She will lift the ban when she sees her son be able to do other intense break dancing moves without literally breaking anything. 12. Flips often thinks about joining Jairo's capoeira classes to help improve his hip hop/break dancing skills but has yet to have fully commit and finally join.

13. Flips and Shelly are one of those people that unironically dab, unfortunately. 14. Flips tried to be a disc jockey a few times in his life but he never got passed doing more than small events like school dances. 15. Despite appearing confident and charming, Flips is not so great at the dating game. Most potential partners find him way too extroverted or too focused on hip hop that it's basically his only character trait, which makes him annoying. He tries not to let it get to him though because he likes himself and that's all that matters. Someday someone will be able to handle all of him, he hopes so anyway. Okay, that's all the headcanons I can think of for him so far. I hope you find them amusing or potentially useful. Maybe I'll edit this post later to add more headcanons. Only time will tell. Thank you to all who read my ramblings. lol

[rogueolight]

One thing that has always annoyed me about the fandom is this whole.. standby lesbians thing with rosemary. This has been said so many times before but I'm saying it again cause it's STILL annoying and people still do it so like. . Often they're just sort of. Being there. In the background of other(mostly MLM) ships, serving as this prop. Like when people draw davekat/dirkjake/pepsicola/etc they're always doing something like talking or cuddling or shopping or it's like a shitpost about divorce or something or whatever. But very often when i see rosemary it's like. They're just eerily standing next to one another and smiling. Like almost the entire fandom agrees that it's a good ship, but literally no one actually wishes to understand their personalities or their bond beyond that. It's just. Prim and proper lesbian rep to fill in the gaps. Much of their tags on social media are filled with this very bland fanon version of them, and very often it's accompanied by a different, more characterized ship as the main focus of the post. They're just kinda there to sit still and look pretty. Like I've seen people crackship yaoi just for the sake of yaoi and call it the ship of the century but the same group would tell you that rosemary is boring because uhhhhh smart words and uhh girl read book. The ao3 tag is also atrocious. I need to break my neck to find good content for one of the only canon pairings in HS 💀

sadly this doesn’t just happen in homestuck, this happens in almost every fandom. and then ppl ask why sapphic creators are so LOUD???. someone has to provide the actually accurate awesome stuff… it’s so funny because whenever i read a wlw fic with an mlm side pairing they still do them justice… i feel like a wlw fic author will drop the best interpretations of mlm couples and then an mlm fic writer will just like make the background wlw characters sit there and do nothing most of the time.

but that might just be me tbh idk i don’t keep track of every thing i read. i dont really understand why every single fandom has this weird imbedded mysogeny its like i can’t find any content of ships i like without them being either objectified or simplified yk. i also have beef with the fact that there is NOT!! ENOUGH!! well written PLATONIC dynamics ever like that’s the most fun thing to me like i actually need dave and kanaya duo content desperately.

i feel like a lot of authors lack the crucial understanding that everyone is always going through something. when characters aren’t in a certain scene they’re still doing something in the story. like where is the background tea. where is the nasty deets. things dont always happen in a linear clear perfect way like i think while dave is figuring out what touches are in which quadrants we should have rose and kanaya start gaslighting karkat into believing he is made of earth crab. let rose fake her own death with kanaya and have terezi conduct a case while davekat suck face yk. we’re all a little silly

[incarnateirony]

honestly thinking about how funny this all is. Patrick's out here having holes actively shot in every part of his dialogue by Jackles and co every single day. He's running around, like STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY SHIP trying to patch the hull while water's spraying in everywhere and hitting him in the face.

He's sitting here glubbing down trying to find a way to not look like he has a child's understanding of licensing or copyright, he's wiped out on every single declaration he's made about this prequel so far. everything he says is the daily rooster crow of absolute horse shit that's going to come around and smack him later. And he does it every day. Like an annoying cock.

meanwhile his own few followers are starting to be like HMMM? DUDE? THIS IS ALL KINDA SUSS?

And he's like yelling it's fine while slapping more duct tape on the hull and asking for help to bail out the boat.

Like even they're like "Wait, so two days before Jensen came in on the green and blue fuck jared padalecki and his fans parade, and a few days before Jensen/WB shut down use of the Winchesters name, Min made a public, bold faced warning that Jensen wasn't who we thought he was and the future was near???? HMMM. GOTTA SAY I'M KINDA UNCOMFORTABLE HERE. PATRICK, TELL ME SOMETHING I WANT TO HEAR"

And so it goes on a loop again and again and again. Like he's literally on the bottom end of a dump truck shoveling off a constant flow of manure dumping on his head at this point and he's still trying to crawl up this insurmountable wall of shit.

Whether you want to console yourselves it's Jensen or WB at this point, they don't want you.

Catch a clue.

They don't want you.

Go away.

Jensen could have franchised it as Supernatural: The Winchesters and not run into this issue at all. He fucking chose not to. Because he wants to keep his rights on his parts in his studio, and there's nobody upstairs left after the Zaslav-Roth cull to even argue with him on what to do with his character, WB licensing be damned.

Catch a clue.

Remember how you said the WB wanted hellers gone? Now it's your turn. The forced conversion of a property for you crushed out its ending value to a third of what it should have been. They're trying the other team now.

They don't want you.

Catch a clue.

Go away.

For all acting respects and purposes within the Supernatural universe, Jensen now *is* the WB. And that's why WB finally gives a fuck about it. Him, and Roth, are why Winchesters has a large enough budget to afford things like extended filming and reshoots, which the original never had.

The seniors at WBD are gone and replaced. Whatever boogeymen you had in your head at the time are different people, all new to the position. Roth is advising Zaslav and is the one behind everything Jensen's been DOING for the last few years. There's literally nobody to fucking argue with Jensen anymore and it's pure fucking desperate, open hope for corporate censorship of queer content to hope they can, so like, honestly, just say the quiet parts out loud guys.

In the meantime, just like I said, the whitewashed media coverage talking about the senior conversation missed the african american market in their maturing more into 25-49 demo realistically with their mixed bag. In the last 6-9 months, CW's administration has changed with roles like the head of DEI, and the head of television broadcast, being replaced by black, and queer or queer-friendly people, for example.

[schreiwen]

to the person of my past

your projection hurt

it infiltrated so many of the ways you treated me, and treated others

pain and fear and unease and shame all thrown onto me, onto everyone else in your life

everyone but you

"do you think this might be projection? we should talk about it" "no, don't you dare tell me what i'm thinking! i know exactly how i feel! you're projecting!"

it started with someone you called a best friend

regularly putting them down, insulting them for having unique interests and strange-perceived interactions with other friends, things you called childish and immature and embarrassing

judging harshly for harmless things that never affected you, such as questioning nicknames between friends, their choice to ship themselves with fictional characters, not applying themselves in their personal life, not being a good artist, calling them mentally stunted

always annoyed and bothered and venting, constantly wishing to end your friendship with them and yet turning back around, smiles and pleasantries

i felt sympathy for them, i felt bad for you

do you self ship now, i wonder? do you exchange "i love you"s to every kind mutual on the internet? do you not struggle in your own personal life? does this same friend know about all the negative things you've felt about them, and do you still smile their way?

it continued with family

judging them for not applying themselves, how they constantly make excuses rather than make an effort to change. ranting, ranting, ranting

there's no wrong in ranting

but do you smile in their direction?

"i'm not attracted to the female form, it's softness, it's shape"

yet you were with someone with female anatomy. the only one in that person's life who made no effort or even an expressed wish to be there through the process with me. what stops you from supporting those you claim to love?

physical cringing, awkward defense mechanisms at the mere mentions of being queer in any sense of the word. an intense fear of judgment. insisting it is different with me, that you remain with me

not a single mention of my queerness to anyone you knew in life, endless excuses and anxieties as to why i should never come into your workplace and have coworkers encounter me

do you express attraction or interest toward the same sex now, i wonder?

"am i unattractive to you? are you gay?" you asked regularly, because i didn't initiate sexual activity with you

as if i've never mentioned that i'm asexual from the day that we met

you were still beautiful to me, everyday. it was my aim to remind you of it whatever chance i could get. days you were self conscious, feeling down with no way to climb back out. you're beautiful, simply as you, because you were

"am i unattractive to you? are you gay?" because we still don't have sex

i wonder now, do you identify as asexual? i only hope you treat people who are asexual with more recognition and respect then you did then, including yourself

laughing and jeering over the prospect of autism in your family

flinching when anybody suggests it may be you who has some traits typical for the diagnosis, eagerly flinging what you made sound like a disease prognosis on whatever sibling you preferred be the one. fear, ignorance

"there's nothing wrong with having autism" i say, bothered

"you would know" another jeer for all to witness

i knew you were autistic from the day we met, and i loved you

are you debating if you're autistic now? i only hope you treat and see people with autism in a healthier light than you did then, including yourself

for all the times you dismissed my mental health, or all symptoms of mental health you simply didn't feel fit or sounded real enough that day, are you feeling very mentally healthy these days? i only hope you don't dismiss and invalidate others as you did then, including yourself

"return my things and do not destroy them, or we will bring in a lawyer"

impossible accusations driven by pain, all of it pouring out in a desperate attempt to hurt me. years of memories and interaction forgotten, humanity dismissed. did you ever see my humanity to begin with? or was i always an idea, an object of love?

things sent back at my expense. you felt entitled to it. in your own bubble, blinded by the pain, curating your own reality rather than the one we shared, as you attempted to dismantle everything left in my own. i wonder - did you burn all left of my own belongings, trash them?

it was in a mind not mine that fantasies of destruction swam. it had never occurred to me until then, all you left unsaid, unseen

i hope you found kindness, empathy, acceptance, and courage to face all that fear inside of you, that you choose to work inward instead of project outward

that you realize more often people are trying to help, not hurt you

that you realize it isn't the world against you, it's you against you

[applejackofalltrades]

Why Do I Like AppleDash So Much?

Literally nobody has ever asked me this but I'm going to answer this question anyway.

Intro: How I Got Into My Little Pony

Imma be real. The reason I started watching the show is because some of my old Twitter mutuals were interacting with posts about the Friendship Is Magic 10th anniversary. Some of them were talking about Rarijack and how it was a good ship, and others were discussing the implied canonicity of Appledash.

I had, at the time, just finished catching up on The Owl House that had recently been in the process of finishing up season one or had just gone into hiatus (can't remember which) and I was losing interest in my old hyperfixations fast.

See, I do this thing where I get really REALLY invested in a show and then as soon as it ends or as soon as I absorb every bit of media in it, I lose some of the interest or it fades. I don't usually lose full interest. For example, I still love She-Ra (my last big fandom) and I'm obviously still invested in The Owl House, but ever since both of those shows ended/stalled, I was desperately needing something to distract me from the trials and tribulations of my will to live that my daily life often forced upon me.

As you can guess, ponies was my solution.

I went into the show with a Rarijack mindset, but knowing that Appledash existed. I guess my mutuals just really liked Rarijack. I decided to give season one a chance. Actually, I felt quite silly for even deciding to watch the show. You see, back in 2018, I was still quite... trivial about watching anything that was seen as "girly". I didn't really have any problems with watching cartoons (ie. V*ltron, Steven Universe, Avatar, Pokemon etc.) but it was the fact that a show was "girly" that made me iffy. I had a very fragile masculinity, okay?

Anyway, so I actually was really afraid to watch She-Ra, even though the teaser images and trailer looked good. But I did and I decided that even "girly" shows could be good and that I was silly.

But, oh boy, cringe culture really messed with me. In mid/late 2020, I was ashamed to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I said I'd watch one season just so I could laugh at it. I wanted to watch it as a joke, and who knows, maybe I found a guilty pleasure to watch while I waited for The Owl House to come back?

I loaded up Netflix and I hit play. Instantly, I was cringing at myself. Can you blame me? Early season MLP was obviously meant for kids. Not that it was immature or bad, but it was definitely a kid's show, especially considering the iconic storybook opening of episode one.

I watched the episodes, but they mostly were just background noise as I did other things. I remember watching them, but I was indifferent, although frustrated that I found myself chuckling at a few of the jokes and quips. I wasn't that invested, though. I thought Twilight was boring, Rarity obnoxious, Pinkie annoying, Fluttershy frustrating, and Rainbow Dash infuriating. I didn't really mind Applejack, I mostly kinda just thought she was the best one. (Nothing's changed, eh?)

And then....

Fall Weather Friends

Season One Episode Thirteen rolled around.

It starts (as y'all know) with Rainbow Dash and Applejack throwing horseshoes.

I don't know why, but this caught my attention. Of course, being only a few episodes after Look Before You Sleep, I had Rarijack on the mind. But I did think that Applejack and Rainbow Dash were probably good friends and would make for an interesting pairing, and a more interesting episode given their similarities, but also their differences.

I found myself fully watching this episode, and I dare say, it's the episode that dragged me fully into the show.

Maybe it's because I see myself in both of them in a way. Maybe that's why I connect so much with the pair, but them having an episode together? That was really good for me. I wasn't in the best state of mind, and something about seeing two characters that were in some ways reminiscent of myself interact and argue and have an endearing episode together made me smile.

It was then that I discovered the simple amazingness of AppleDash.

I mean, who doesn't love obnoxious, competitive girlfriends that are both prideful and headstrong?

I know I love it.

Anyway, so at that point, my mind kinda just clicked and I decided that my OTP was AppleDash. However, poly rights and Applejack has two front hooves *cough* Rarijackdash *cough*

But yeah so that's how I got into AppleDash. Fall Weather Friends, which was kinda the episode that made me love MLP.

How That Progressed

Well, obviously, I still love that ship I mean I live for it. If I could have any one single ship it'd be them. It just kept getting better and better as the show progressed, I mean their dynamic is great whether you want to see it platonically or romantically. They have a lot in common right off the bat (example, they are both incredibly stubborn, though AJ would take the cake for that) and seem to be close (I mean right from episode one they appear to already have a pre-established friendship), but they're also different. Applejack is a hard worker all of the time with anything she does, while Dash tends to be lazy but can be extremely driven when she is motivated (for example, when she wants to achieve her Wonderbolts dream). Applejack is immensely caring and family-oriented and does things for the good of everypony, while Rainbow Dash can be kind of a jerk and not mindful of her actions when she's wrapped up in the stuff she's doing for herself (not to say she isn't caring, but she tends to be kind of an ass, even to Fluttershy sometimes).

Their growth was immensely fun to watch and as time went on, they shared more and more screentime together. Even if it's not an episode that revolves around them, whenever one of them is in frame, most of the time the other is close by, and they often stand next to each other.

Now, in terms of why they work in the show's canon (in my opinion, either romantically or platonically, they do make a great pairing):

They are both competitive and enjoy competing with each other, though they know (especially after FWF when they've taken it too far)

They watch out for each other (AJ often holds Rainbow Dash back when she's about to rush into danger, especially in early seasons, and Dash always lifts AJ out of danger first [the two examples I can think of off the top of my head are in Best Gift Ever and My Little Pony: The Movie])

Their personalities even each other out. (AJ is a lot more calm than RD, and while they can both get worked up, Applejack is usually the calm one)

Their colour schemes are literally complementary. (AJ's coat is orange while Rainbow's is blue. AJ's eyes are green while RD's are pink/red).

They share a lot of cute moments. (You can just look these up)

THEY'RE HECCING CUTE.

AND FINALLY

I mean fuck, the finale. They're literally canon, you cannot tell me otherwise. It was absolutely intended and you cannot prove otherwise. (read the script notes l o l "we actually could do sort of a subtle wink to the idea that they are now a couple???" < RE Appledash). They live together, they have domestic arguments about chores, they are always giving each other fond looks throughout the episode, always standing next to or near each other, and well we all know Rainbow's iconic hoof on AJ's head in the last shot of the show.

Ashleigh Ball really was the OG shipper and fuck it, she was right. We all know they are in love, she knows they are in love. The only reason they couldn't explicitly state it in the show is probably bc Hasbro would have been against that at the time (I mean, Lyrabon had to be very subtle but hey we gottem).

Oh and, I know this isn't exactly canon canon, but it is an official game: The My Little Pony Magic Princess app. Future AJ and RD's descriptions allude to them being together.

You could negate this and say that this is just them being friends but I mean... come on. Come on. Sweet Apple Acres is Apple family land, and the only people who live there as of The Last Problem are Apples. (AJ, Sugar Belle and Big Mac and their foal, and you guessed it... Rainbow Dash).

You cannot tell me that they aren't canon. You'd really have to be grasping at straws because all the signs are there. They had build up, development, and it just makes sense.

If you don't think it makes sense... did we watch the same show??? It absolutely makes sense.

Anyway, AppleDash is canon. :)

[light-yaers]

The best trope in the world is when one character falls in love with another and instead of being bashful about about it their internal monologue is just like “Oh God... no.... FUCK.... WHY.”

That’s Din. A thousand percent Din Djarin.

Do with that what you will.

I like this one a lot. Let’s do it. Here’s the link to my other finished prompts!

Maker, you loved him - Din Djarin x Reader

Your POV

Today. You had to tell him today. If you didn’t, then you’d leave without ever divulging your deepest, darkest secret to that Beskar clad man; you loved him. 

Maker, you loved him. 

The incessant fear and worry had bubbled into something else with every time he left to capture a quarry. His ability at being so silent yet so fucking loud without even saying a modulated word. He’d let you onto his ship, into his world, when you’d had nothing stable to hold onto before. 

Your Mandalorian. Maker, he was yours. 

You were cradling the kid to sleep when he came back; dotted with mud and moss and dragging a body behind him. He shoved it into the carbonite containers immediately; before you could see, or get curious enough to take a closer look. He always did that; even from day one. It was like he was protecting you, worrying for you, not wanting to upset you. 

The kid gurgled in your arms, after the steam from the containers fizzled away, revealing Mando in all his metallic glory. Grogu reached out for his father, getting restless in your arms as you hoisted the two of you from the hull floor and shuffled towards Mando. 

He accepted the child silently, gently, so fucking softly that it made your heart flutter every single time. He was so good with the kid, so caring and kind and protective; it only cemented the way you felt as being even more so. 

You sat back, watching the two of them together with a smile. Grogu was excited to have his dad back after a long day without him; you were excited to have him back too; maybe for the same reasons--

Maybe for love. 

He stowed the kid in his cubby after a good cuddle, shutting the hatch to keep him safe and sound during the night. That’s when he turned to you. You allowed his unwavering stare to seep into your bones, to invigorate you and spur you to say it, just fucking say it, while you still could. 

His stare was cold; he designed it to be that way. The visor left everything to the imagination. Maybe he was a devil beneath his Beskar, maybe he was a god, or a power being-- or a man. Just a man. A man who’s stare had never felt cold to you in the slightest, but had existed only to warm you to your very core. 

“I’ll set course for Sanctuary II,” He said, quieter than normal. “You’ll be safe there, can make a life there. Have a family there,” Maker, he was sad. 

With every word you felt an ice pick through your heart; you had to tell him-- just fucking tell him. 

When he started towards the cockpit ladder, you bit back your anxiety. You rushed forward, grasping his forearms and turning him towards you desperately. He fumbled slightly, not used to you being so forward or restless, but nevertheless, he didn’t pull you away. He kept you close, he kept you by his side. 

“What if I didn’t want to go to Sanctuary II?” You blurted out. Maker, you knew you probably looked crazy, but you couldn’t help it. Saying you loved someone for the first time, especially when that person was a Mandalorian, wasn’t going to be easy. It was taking all of your strength not to pull off his helmet and kiss him immediately.

“You--?” He spluttered out. “It’s safe there, a lot safer than here,”

“I know,” You replied, squeezing his arms despite knowing that the Beskar wouldn’t let the gesture through. “I don’t care,” 

“You don’t care?” He repeated. Stars, he was lost for words. You imagined he was somewhere between confused and annoyed beneath his helmet, but all you could do was beam, as you finally found the courage. 

“I don’t want to leave you and the kid, Mando,” You let out, and Maker, it felt fucking fantastic. “I don’t ever want to leave you--,”

“What’re you-- wait,” He interrupted. He was absolutely boggled; he wasn’t used to people being honest with him like this. He pulled you even closer, as if your voice being too quiet was the problem here. “Say that again,” He breathed out.

You swallowed back your fears. 

“I love you, Mandalorian. I don’t ever want to leave you,”

Din’s POV

“I love you, Mandalorian. I don’t ever want to leave you,” 

Okay-- so I hadn’t misheard her. I hadn’t misunderstood a word. I’d heard it all, trickling from her mouth as clear as day. She’d just admitted to something so unforgiving, something that could never be left alone. 

Maker, I can’t do this. 

I just kept looking at her, right in her eyes, not that she could see I was fucking buzzing beneath my armour. Maybe she could feel it though, as her small hands are wrapped around the Beskar on my forearms. 

Such small hands. She’s always had such small hands. They intrigue me, that something can be that elegant and soft and tiny. If I fit one of her hands between both of my own, her knuckles would never recover. 

The words kept playing over and over in my head, reverberating off of my helmet and bombarding straight back into my brain. 

She just said love, didn’t she? Love. 

Fuck. 

“You...” Maker, what am I saying? “You don’t ever want to leave?” Don’t just repeat her words back to her-- what the fuck is she going to think? That you’re unintelligent? That you’d idiotic?

Stars, her eyes were beaming as she nodded so confidently. 

Fucking hell-- Saints. It’s sinking in now, and I have no clue what to say, what to think. 

No-- she can’t. 

She’s young, talented, soft-spoken and kind-hearted and everything that wasn’t made for a bounty hunter. She’s warm and caring, loving the kid as one of her own from day one and putting up with the fucking horrendous jobs I perform day in, day out; to live; to breathe; to one day, find a person who loves me and settle on a planet, never to don by armour again. 

But this-- she’s loves me with it on. 

Maker, she’s never seen my face. She’s stitched up wounds and cuts and blasts but she’s never seen what lies beneath my helmet. She’s heard me in the fresher, listened to me snore and chuckled to herself uncontrollably until it’s woken me. 

She’s shivered on the cold hull floor before, so much so that I had to drape that blanket over her while she was fast asleep, not knowing how her body was violently convulsing as the frost seeped under her skin. 

She’s never complained, never yelled or cried or showed unnecessary fear when things have become more dangerous than normal, She’s--

She’s... Maker, she’s perfect. 

Fuck-- no. Me? No, she can’t. What in the--

“Mando,” Her voice brings me back. “Are you okay?” 

No. Of course, I’m not. 

“Yes,” The words tumble out. I can’t leave it at that, I can’t. 

Because maybe, despite the danger, the way my job operates, the way I am not safe, wherever I go-- maybe, I would like her to stay, too. 

“You wish to stay?” I asked again, fucking stupidly. But she just smiles at me all the same; Maker, maybe she does love me. Anyone that can look at me the way she is must not hate me. She nods again. 

Fuck. That’s it then, isn’t it?

“Okay.” 

I loved this one so much! Thank you for the prompt, anon!

[shofics]

For the rqg ask game part 3: Number 3 with Wilde and Ed

Okay, first of all, YOUR MIND.

LOLOMG are going to go into the broken gate spell. Ed is there too. They’re counting up, because Eldarion says she can only bring back nine people, including herself. It’s enough for each member and the hostages, but not enough for Einstein and Ed.

“Perhaps if this will, erm, have some… temporal effects,” Hamid says, looking nervous, “Professor, you could take Ed back with you and he could find Wilde, and let him know? You know Oscar Wilde?”

They agree it might be a good idea, and Ed has a Quest, so he’s raring to go.

Einstein teleports him back into Curie’s office, drops him in a chair, gives her a cheery salute, and pops away again. Curie rolls well on her Knowledge Nobility. Curie is suddenly babysitting an Ed With A Quest, and is having a great time.

“You mean the Meritocratic agent, Mr. Keystone? Why on earth would I know where he is? No, don’t run off, you- no- sit there, Ed, please-”

Meanwhile, Wilde has just successfully (he hopes, oh, gods, does he hope) escaped the Meritocracy. Hoping to get more information, he tracks down the Damascan Harlequin cell that arranged Grizzop’s transportation to Rome and I’m sorry, the high-level caster you got to transport him was Eldarion, that Eldarion? Yes I know who she is, every person who’s studied magic at any point within the past thirty years knows who Eldarion and Marie Curie are-

He’s going to have to go to the top if he wants to find out why his team didn’t come back.

He knows Zolf went back to Earhart’s ship after leaving the group in Prague- what kind of a spy would he be if he hadn’t done a little spying? He’s working with the Harlequins now, and if the man doesn’t drown him the moment he shows up, maybe Wilde will be able to convince him to take him to the Harlequins too.

Curie and Ed are not in Prague. Curie and Ed are in Budapest. Ed fills Curie in on where her wife has gone, what Eldarion is doing; she’d gone to Damascus first. Curie contacts the Harlequin cell there, and yes, Wilde was here, he was asking about you. He said he was trying to defect. If the man is smart then he’ll go to Prague first and track her trail from there, and he is, so Curie sends Ed to Prague to meet him.

Wilde and Zolf arrive in Prague. Wilde and Zolf meet Ed. Wilde rolls well on his Knowledge Nobility, and he’d be caught off guard that Edward Keystone is here to greet him, but honestly, much weirder stuff has been happening to him recently. It’s a drop in the bucket, by this point.

Ed takes them back to Budapest, back to Curie, where they make an exchange of information that turns the tide of a war that hasn't even begun yet. Wilde and Zolf learn about the broken gate spell, about the temporal effects, about everything that’s happened to the LOLOMG since Wilde first clipped the anti-magic shackle to his ankle.

It’s more information than either Zolf or Wilde could have hoped for. They know where the others are, they know what’s happened to them, they know what they have to do. Unfortunately, what they have to do is wait, and neither can bear to do that for long.

So they will continue to chase leads on the Simulacrum, and Zolf will continue to track the weather patterns, and Ed-

Will also come along, why not? Wilde doesn’t have his magic, and they can always use another caster. So Ed joins the team.

Zolf and he butt heads at first, due to Ed’s blind optimism and boundless, unwavering faith- but he learns to like the kid. There’s something about him that speaks to Zolf’s own Not-Too-Happy Childhood senses. He couldn’t not watch out for him if he tried.

Wilde finds Ed fascinating, as a character study. Every single pun he levies goes directly over his head. It’s not even annoying, it’s just intriguing. Zolf has to tell him to back off, stop treating the poor kid like a linguistics experiment.

Ed doesn’t deal with quarantine well. He says he can still feel Apollo with him, but it’s fainter when he can’t reach back.

It reminds him of being locked in his room at home, when he was younger, when he’d be punished and asked to shut up and be good when no one would explain to him what it was he’d done wrong.

“He reminds you of her, doesn’t he?” Wilde asks one night, when Ed isn’t in the room. Zolf glares at him and stomps out, which he knows by now means yes.

Ed calls down Smite Evil as Zolf hauls a stunned and bleeding Wilde to safety. Neither cleric nor paladin can heal him magically, not with the cuffs on. Ed is desperately upset about this, and becomes more upset as Wilde completely stonewalls him for the first time. Has he done something wrong? Why won’t anyone tell him when he’s done something wrong?

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Zolf tells him. “Just… let him deal. ‘S not worth it.”

Okinoshima is grey and wet. Apollo is still with him, even if the sun isn’t.

[raewritez]

hey babe, what are your ATLA opinions? like ships, characters, etc. i love your writing!

IM SO EXCITED TO BE ASKED THIS OML

ok deep breath

OK SO

my favorites ships include kataang, zukka, sukka, iroh x spirituality, ozai x prison, mailee, maiko, and azula x therapy

personally i don’t really ship zutara mainly because when i was watching ATLA it never occurred to me that there was any chemistry between katara and zuko

HOWEVER i do LOVE them as a brotp and i think their friendship is wonderfully complex and meaningful

kataang is so pure and lovely and friends to lovers is my achilles heel

i never really thought of zukka as a possibility but now that i’ve seen it i am obsessed. zuko is an awkward bby and sokka is a dork and their dynamic would be so great

SUKI MY QUEEN

i love suki and i think her and sokka are amazing together. what a power couple

my top 5 favorite characters (although i love all the characters dearly) are probably aang, zuko, toph, azula, and katara (pretty basic i know)

it’s killing me not to put sokka in there

ily sokka

i think aang is criminally underrated and a lot of the time i see him boxed up into a shallow character without a lot of depth or development

aang literally goes through SO MUCH and he’s only 12!! he’s seen so much pain and darkness and has the weight of the world on his back

not only that but he carries the guilt from the airbender genocide

aang stays true to his airbender heritage throughout the series, including in the finale in which he chooses to act not out of violence, but out of peace (I CANNOT EXPRESS MY LOVE FOR THAT SCENE ADGJFHSHSJ)

zuko is my fav for many reasons, the most obvious being his iconic redemption arc

i think the way his character is handled is so beautiful, the way his past is revealed in inklings and you gain so much sympathy for him, his relationship with iroh, his time in Ba Sing Se (also his long hair), his betrayal and his eventual friendship with the Gaang its just AHHHHH

he is arguably the most complex character in the show and his story is so glorious

baby

toph mainly bc she’s a badass

i love her so much

i also love her message of “i know who i am” and truly not caring what other people think of her and actively shaping her destiny

everyone would’ve died without her lol

ok AZULA

azula is SO SO COMPLICATED

we are introduced to her as this maniacal “perfect child” princess

total badass “me who’s still mulling it over”

hot

what?

anyway

but deep down she’s nothing more than a child left desperate for her parents affection, pitted against her brother from a young age with an innate need to be the best

her downfall is so amazingly profound, she crumbles as the people around her leave her just like her mother did, and mai even leaves her for zuko

she’s only 14, literally a child and all she wants in her last moments of sanity is her mom

her story also parallels katara’s

KATARA

NO KATARA HATE ALLOWED ISTG

what a badass bitch

EVERYONE would’ve died without her

such amazing development in terms of her character and her water bending

i truly don’t understand why people don’t like her bc she’s “annoying”, like she is a human being and was written to have flaws. no character is likable all the time but for some reason katara’s mistakes are used to define her character

JEICIAIWJDOODQOJWB

ok

the ending fight scene between her and azula is one of my favorite things ever, i get chills EVERYTIME

her relationship with sokka is everything

her experience with zuko and the friendship that blossoms is also so amazing

yeah she does hold a grudge against him for a while but i probably would too tbh

he was a stupid boi

IN CONCLUSION I LOVE EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER AND EVERY STORYLINE

this was long and probably very uninteresting but i had fun writing it, thanks so much anon

[dangermousie]

2020 End of Year Post - kdrama edition

You can find my 2020 cdrama post here: dangermousie.tumblr.com/post/638449659546845184/2020-end-of-year-post-cdrama-edition

This is only going to cover kdramas that aired in 2020; if it originally aired another year, it’s not on this list.

It’s been a pretty lackluster kdrama year. There are probably only 5 kdramas I truly loved and only three of them I was really obsessed over. Better luck in 2021!

DRAMAS WATCHED

(In order of liking from least to most as opposed to pure quality; I am including if I’ve seen enough to make up my mind; yes I realize that’s inaccurate, but that’s my list)

42 Born Again - so bad, so incoherent, so insane, I have no idea why the leads signed up for it (and unlike some of the other watchers, I think it was awful from the very start.) There is literally nothing about this drama that makes sense.

41 Love with Flaws - a bunch of people who should be tried under the Geneva Convention.

40 Sweet Munchies - Jung Il Woo proves his inability to pick a functional script.

39 Meow the Secret Boy - if you ever wanted to bang a cat, this drama is for you. Not being a furry, however...

38 Do Do Sol Sol La Sol - I lost braincells just typing out this title.

37 When I Was the Most Beautiful - the only way it’s not the dumbest, most pointless melo of 2020 is because Born Again considerately came out the same year.

36 Woman of 9.9 Billion - if you want to watch an artsy French movie about miserable people, but only badly made, boy do I have a drama for you.

35 Lies after Lies - screams after screams.

34 Backstreet Rookie - people were up in arms about various problematic plots. I am a survivor of many plots much more problematic but even I couldn’t survive how utterly boring and annoying this drama was and how utterly irritating the leads were. This has taken Ji Chang Wook off my top favorites into “should I even check his latest Lovestruck in the City? Probably not” territory almost single-handedly (Melt Me helped, to be fair.)

33 Men Are Men - boring is boring.

32 Dinner Mate - two beautiful boring people eat out a lot.

31 Was It Love - no it wasn’t.

30 Alice - Joo Won in the shower can make up for a multitude of sins but not plot nonsense of such magnitude. When you find yourself thinking it would be better if he hooked up with the alternate universe version of his mother because at least then something entertaining would happen, you know it’s bad.

29 More than Friends - started out OK, then made me hate basically everyone and kept going.

28 Start-Up - honestly, it’s probably more decent than its place here, but the toxic and batshit fandom for it (the worst this year) made me feel like breaking out in hives any time it’s even mentioned.

27 The Spies who Loved Me - how to take a good cast and waste it.

26 Private Lives - it was good but it never took off with its concept and spent more time on the incoherent plot than the OTP which was its one strength. It’s a decent drama but coming after Heartless City and My Beautiful Bride from the same writer, it’s a disappointment.

25 Record of Youth - as high as it is due to Park Bo Gum hard carrying this entire awful drama on his shoulders and doing it so well I finished it. Alas, while he is in one drama (and that drama is great), the rest of the characters and the entirety of the script are a pointless useless mess.

24 Do You Like Brahms - excellent first third, mediocre middle, and terrible last third. I don’t know what musical term applies to this? Diminuendo, I think.

23 I’ll Go to You When the Weather is Nice - nice and mellow but nothing much happens.

22 Forest - mainly for Park Hae Jin’s excellent and frequently naked bod.

21 The Ballot - I didn’t love it as much as everyone did but it was well-made.

20 Hyena - more romance and less weird law stuff would make it better.

19 365 Repeat the Year - surprisingly solid.

18 The Game Towards Zero - see 365.

17 When My Love Blooms - very old fashioned, very lovely.

16 Chocolate - also very old fashioned and very lovely but also with Yoon Kye Sang performing medical procedures bleeding and shirtless. MMM.

15 (tie) Secret Royal Inspector - a fun if run of the mill sageuk.

15 Find Me In Your Memory - best melo this year.

14 Mystic Pop Up Bar - surprisingly good even though I wasn’t planning to check it out.

13 Where Your Eyes Linger - came out of nowhere but was tender and hopeful and lovely.

12 Itaewon Class - Park Seo Joon hard carries a drama that is already excellent. Love it.

11 Psychopath Diary - Yoon Shi Yoon is such a treat in a hilarious, cynical, dark comedy.

10 Kairos - more like ouroboros.

9 Queen Love and War - in a year where sageuks are very rare, this was solid and surprisingly moving and shippy.

8 The King Eternal Monarch - people didn’t like it but I did. It’s no masterpiece and both the leads and the writers have better dramas, but it was a lovely romantic fairy tale for me.

7 Mr. Queen - sharp, hilarious, and some of my favorite actors.

6 Psycho But It’s OK - healing, sharp cinematography and even sharper chemistry.

5 Crash Landing on You - the last ep pissed me off so much this drama is dead to me but I loved it so much until then I can’t place it lower in good conscience.

4 Train - who knew I would go this hard for an OCN drama or that OCN would do romance so well? But this time-travel mystery romance is just incredible and I shipped the OTP and rooted for the characters and loved every last bit of it.

3 Run On - this is the drama Record of Youth wanted to be but failed. Smart and lived in, you feel like you are peeking at real people, but also even four episodes in, I am so invested in the main characters separately and together, and care for them so much, it’s a little frightening.

1 (tie) Tale of the Nine Tailed - my perfect fantasy romance. I liked it better than Goblin, yeah I said it.

1 Flower of Evil - all the tropes I love in one incredible package. I would rewatch episodes waiting for new ones trying to puzzle the story and to stay withdrawal but it works just as well on rewatch. Lee Jun Ki brings his trademark tortured intensity and for once, both his leading lady and his script back him up and are worthy of that. It’s perfect.

FAVORITE DRAMA

It’s a tie between Tale of the Nine Tailed and Flower of Evil but if I had to pick just one, FoE, because it had me seriously obsessed and guessing about the protagonist and gave me the narrative tropes I love so much and an OTP that statisfied all my hurt/comfort kinks and then some.

WORST DRAMA

Born Again - honestly, this is so bonkers it almost becomes good but alas...

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER

Do Hyun Soo/Baek Hee Sung, Flower of Evil - he is so messed up, so on edge, so traumatized. Yet capable of so much warmth and caring even as he himself doesn’t realize his humanity. FoE is basically a story of a man pushed and punished by the world for his entire life who, because of one woman, finds a safe place and peace and slowly comes to life without realizing it, and watching his desperation to keep this small bit of normalcy is so heartbreaking and exciting all at once. Plus, you start the drama thinking he’s a psychopathic serial killer and end it (if you are me) thinking he must be protected at all costs and if anyone even looks at him wrong they must suffer, and that’s quite a change!

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER

Nam Ji Ah, Tale of the Nine Tailed - she is so funny and tough and smart and loving and amazing that I will totally buy that a literal demi-god will do anything and everything for her and love her for literal eternity.

NEEDS TO BE MURDERED

Dad in Record of Youth - yes in a year with serial killers and supernatural demons, I picked a normal character from a mediocre drama. It’s his everyday awfulness to his family that hits so hard and I am sad he never got his comeuppance.

FAVORITE SHIP

Ji Ah x Yeon - a fearless reporter and an immortal demi-god who’s been hoping for his human beloved to reincarnate. A really rare set-up where the OTP is equally ride or die, so compatible and completely BAMF. I got why he waited for her for that long and then fell in love with her all over again. Perfection.

Runner up: Flower of Evil - he is so messed up he literally does not believe he is capable of love or empathy, but he falls in love with her anyway and so utterly she permeates his entire life. She is tough as nails and only believes what she sees and is the sole person who believes in him against the world. She loves him but he needs her. She needs him but he loves her. They are amazing.

FAVORITE SECONDARY OTP

Seo Dan x Gu Seung Jun, Crash Landing on You, North Korean x Conman were so good I shipped them harder than the main OTP and the end of that storyline pissed me off so much I dumped the drama and didn’t finish it for months (and it’s still dead to me.)

NOTP

Record of Youth - it started out and they didn’t have much chemistry but the dialogues were interesting and I thought the chemistry would grow. It didn’t and deteriorated, their dialogues became boring and relationship had zero development (about as much as the supposed female lead.) I think we were supposed to feel bad they broke up and they were going for a bittersweet open ending, instead I found myself happy about the break up of two incompatible, chemistry-less people and hoping for the love of God they never get back together.

FAVORITE SCENE

Yeon and the bridge of knives, Tale of the Nine Tailed - Yeon choosing to undergo the creeptastic bridge of knives for a chance to save Ji Ah, who at that point he is not aware is the reincarnation of his Joseon love because, as he says, he doesn’t care if she is or isn’t, it just would be more horrible to have her die than to undergo the horrific torture he is undergoing, and then the sequence with his catching her, her weeping over him and the fact that she is the original Joseon girl revealed and all the bandaging and his watching her sleep and all that loveliness, is everything for yours truly.

Runner up: Hyun Soo having that break-down at the cliff at the end of ep 15 of Flower of Evil as Ji Won desperately tries to convince him she is alive and he finally stumbles to her.

Runner runner up (it’s my list, I will do what I want): Do Won preparing to blow his brains out to give a chance to Seo Kyung to live in Train.

BIGGEST CRUSH

Seon-Gyeom, Run On. Yeah, I know. Im Siwan is tiny, delicate featured and has a runner’s build, none of which are things that normally appeal to me. But his character is so odd, so honest, so unflinching in pursuing what he thinks is right, so incapable of self-pity despite plenty of reasons for it, and so ridiculously attractive when he smiles, I don’t even care.

BEST SCENE STEALER CHARACTER

Kim Bum, TotNT - I started out being annoyed by him and ended up looking forward to his scenes and being distraught by his ending.

NEEDS A SEQUEL

Honestly, none. I was fine with all the endings. I wouldn’t mind seeing post-end life of Tale of the Nine Tailed characters or the OTP settling into their literal new world in Train, but I am good.

TROPE THAT NEEDS TO DIE

Time jump that solves all the problems off screen or alternatively years pass and everyone is frozen - something that kdramas need to learn and need to learn badly. See Record of Youth, Brahms and Start Up.

FAVORITE TROPE WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF

Men who are ride or die for their OTP - this was a great year for this - the male leads of four of my five dramas were beyond anything on that scale (only exception is Run On because it’s still too early to tell there.) Yes PLEASE.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

This was a banner year for that what with Start Up, Do You Like Brahms, Record of Youth, and Private Lives all starting out well and nosediving off the cliff but winner is Crash Landing on You. I loved it so much for bulk of its run but the last episode pissed me off so much I deleted all my files and called it a day.

BIGGEST GOOD SURPRISE

Flower of Evil - I had no expectations of this drama and wasn’t even planning on watching it despite liking both the lead actors because yet another “look at evil serial killer be evil” drama with no romance was not my thing. Luckily someone convinced me there might be some romance and I peeked curiously. Honestly, their promo campaign was the most misleading and dumbest thing ever.

Runner up Psycho but it’s OK - I have never liked Kim Soo Hyun in anything before and the drama premise seemed WTF but it was shockingly good and KSH totally blew me away.

Hardest Working Lead

Yoon Shi Yoon - he starred in two (!!!) dramas in 2020 playing three characters and not only were both these dramas awesome in a lackluster year, but if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew it was the same actor and the fact that the characters shared a face, I would have never believed that they were played by the same actor. So good!

2020 DRAMAS I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT I MOST WANT TO WATCH

None. Covid Year gave me PLENTY of time

BEST NON-2020 DRAMA I’VE WATCHED IN 2020

My Beautiful Bride and Deserving of the Name - I was obsessed with both of them and honestly, they were much better than the bulk of 2020 kdramas I watched.

MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2021

The Moon That Rises in the Day, Hong Chun Gi, Joseon Exorcist, Island,  Frightening Cohabitation, Snowdrop.

[oddshelbyout]

Left Behind // Michael Gray X Fem!Reader

Summary: Your boyfriend Michael shows up at your door early in the morning to tell you he has to go back home and you can’t go with him.

Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 1307

Author’s Note:

I’m not feeling so well lately so that might’ve been reflected on this one shot. Heads up, this doesn’t have a happy ending so please only read if you’re okay with that.

I don’t write for Michael usually but I felt like this prompt fit him the best so I hope you enjoy it <3

Also thanks a lot @deepdonutkid for being my beta reader, you’re the best <33

English is not my first language and I’m not always confident about my work so please let me know if I make any mistakes or anything I can fix in my writing.

You can ask to be added to my taglist. You can be tagged to works on a specific character or just any of my works. Please dm me or send your wish to my ask box if you’d like to be added.

Requests are open. You can request any Peaky Blinders related imagines or prompts for me to write. I’m a minor so I don’t take NSFW requests, please keep that in mind.

———————

Your curtains were closed. The first sunlight always woke you up in the morning and you hated waking up earlier than you should. You valued the time you spent sleeping.

What woke you up that morning wasn’t the sunbeam or your alarm clock. It was the loud, continuous knocks on your door. You jumped from your bed and looked at the clock. It was still really early and you had no idea who could be waiting.

You were scared to get up and open the door. Still you had no idea who was your early visitor. When the knocks got louder, you went to the entrance. You left your room and got the little statue on the corridor as a potential weapon.

You stood at the side of the door and asked “Who is it?” waited for an answer impatiently. Whoever was behind the door didn’t wait long, “It’s me.” a man’s voice called.

“That’s not helping! Who are you?” you shouted, you heard the man sigh from the other side of the thin door. “Michael.” he replied, which gave you a sigh of relief. It was your boyfriend but you still couldn’t find a reason for him to be here this early.

You put the statue down and opened the door. Your boyfriend was standing there with multiple luggages on the floor. “Are you moving here?” you asked while your eyes were locked on the bags.

A moment past without him giving an answer so you looked up. His jaw was clenched and he looked angry. “I’m leaving.” he replied, your jaw dropped. He was supposed to be in the States for at least a year more.

“You have to be kidding!” you exclaimed, Michael shook his head. “I’m not, Y/N.” he said, his impression reflected every single negative emotion inside of him on his pretty face.

“Take me with you then!” you suggested. There was no way you would let him leave without you. He had made you feel like nobody ever did. You felt alive with him, he helped you get a job, he gave you a new purpose.

“I can’t, it’s my family.” his voice was still, you saw his hands were rolled up in a fist. “Let’s not talk at the door, get inside.” you offered, he shook his head again. “I can’t, the ship leaves soon.” You frowned but from anger, not from sadness.

“What’s going on?” you asked, you felt like he was keeping something from you. The man who was standing before you, wasn’t the man you loved. It wasn’t the Michael you knew. He couldn’t look you in the eye. He wasn’t talking to you in his soft voice he always did and he definitely didn’t seem to care what you were saying.

He kept secrets from you before, about his family, about his job. He was a good liar you’ve learnt but he wasn’t a good one right now. You could see clearly that he was keeping something from you and it bothered him.

“Nothing, my mother called, they need me back home.” he simply replied. You weren’t buying it. “Why won’t you take me with you, I can pack quickly.” You wanted to go with him. After he told you about his life back in Britain, you knew he would get you another job way easier than here in the States. You were willing to move across the ocean and leave everything behind for him.

He responded: “Sorry, baby, this has to be our end, there’s nothing I can do about it.” You chuckled nervously. “You’re lying to me again!” He took a deep breath. You felt like he was preparing his lies once again. “Why can’t you tell me the truth for once!” you shouted. You were definitely going to hear from your neighbours about this. Even getting away from your annoying neighbours was an excuse to go with him.

Michael raised his voice as he tried to explain himself: “I’m not lying!”

You chuckled once again. “I’m not buying it.” you opposed him. He licked his lips and got closer to you, he put his arms around your waist.

His eyes were looking directly into yours, his lips were ready to welcome your kiss. “Tell me the truth, if you’re leaving without me, you owe me that at least.” you whispered. Michael took a deep breath for courage. You wanted a genuine answer and for him to be honest with you once.

“I fucked up.” he moaned, but that wasn’t enough. He owed you a real explanation for his sudden leave. Michael looked for satisfaction behind your eyes and when he couldn’t find it, he glared away. Whatever he was keeping must’ve been really bad.

“I need more information or I’m not letting you leave.” you wrapped your arms around him and pulled him closer than he already was. You were so close to him that you tempted to give him a kiss, his lips looked so welcoming.

“I tried to make business with the wrong people, so they’re after me, you’re staying here because you’ll be safer.” His words pushed you into a sudden realisation of danger. You licked your lips and nodded.

“What if they don’t follow you to Britain and then come find me? Wouldn’t I be safer with you?” you asked desperately.

“I can’t bring you home, I don’t know what my family will do.” he replied with a dull voice and then chuckled.

“They might even kill me themselves, because I fucked that bad.” he continued, which you understood, but still you weren't ready for him to leave.

“Would they?” you asked. Your heart ached. His answer was a quiet nod. “Take me with you please.” you begged.

You didn’t want him to go. You didn’t want to live without him. You hoped he would take him with you, when he was going to leave, but the conditions had changed. “Please Michael.” you begged once again.

Tears started falling from your eyes. You couldn’t believe you were crying. “Don’t leave without me.” You were desperate and you didn’t remember being this desperate before. It was the first time you genuinely felt desperate like you had nowhere else to go.

He smiled a little but there was an obvious shadow of sorrow behind it. Michael released his hands from your waist and placed them on your cheeks. He stared deep into your soul, before your lips welcomed his kiss.

The kiss didn’t feel like a goodbye, more like a hello. It was wet and hot and yet it managed to give you a false sense of security. When he pulled back, it was like you left a bit of your soul on his lips and he was going to leave with it.

He stepped back. “I’m so sorry.” he said and bit his bottom lip. Unable to say or do something, you just stood there, watched him grab his luggage from the ground and walk away with it. The last thing you heard from him was his footsteps going down the stairs of the apartment building you lived in.

Michael was gone. You weren’t going to see him again. You weren’t going to kiss him again. You knew he wouldn’t call you again. He had to leave you behind and you had to forget him for your own safety.

He left and took away your soul with him. The final realization of what happened left you numb. You finally closed your door. It was your way of saying goodbye to him, because he was gone, before you could say it. Now, you had to go on with your day and life. You knew the acceptance of what happened wasn’t going to come soon. You would go on with your day and all the days after, only avoiding the fact.

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Marauders #22

I absolutely hated this issue, so be warned that’s a lot of salt here, and my usual whining, so skip this post if you’re not in the mood for that.  Also spoilers below.

First impression - what absolute, self-indulgent horseshit.  I hesitate to use “fanfic” in a derogatory way, but a lot of Marauders has read as being very “fanfic” in terms of self-indulgence, and greatly favoring certain characters while denigrating others.  I actually don’t think that’s a bad thing in fanfic.  It can be annoying to read if that’s not what you’re looking for (or it can be wonderful, if it IS what you’re looking for), but ultimately, fanfic is all about self-indulgence.  It’s about writing what you want to see in a story, and if Duggan’s Marauders was someone’s actual fanfic, I wouldn’t have anything bad to say about it.  I might dislike the characterization, and probably wouldn’t read it, but it ultimately wouldn’t matter because it’s fanfic.  Frankly, I’m just as bad about constantly centering everything around Pyro (and finding ways to work him into stories where he doesn’t even belong), because I’m writing just for myself, so I can be self-indulgent.  But I’d expect much better from a professional writer.  I’d expect much better from someone being paid to write a team book.  I’d expect a god-damn balanced book that actually pays attention to the whole cast and gives a thoughtful interpretation to ALL the characters, even the villains, rather than a book dedicated to shining a spotlight on two already well-established characters, and treating them like queens who step all over the rest of the cast. 

So, we ignore almost everything set up at the Gala, including the attack on Christian and the Marauder (the ship) being set ablaze.  Why aren’t the characters handling that, Duggan?  Is that really being saved for another month?  We don’t even know if Christian is dead or not, you can’t even spare a panel for Iceman reacting to this?  Instead, we tell a flashback story that eventually reveals that Lourdes Chantel is still alive, and Emma helped her fake her own death to escape from an abusive Sebastian.

What exactly is the point of this story, in terms of the overall Marauders arc?  Will Lourdes show up later to play a role?  Is this meant to further push Sebastian along some kind of path to redemption (recognizing that he drove Lourdes away with his actions).  Because so far, Duggan doesn’t seem the slightest bit interested in rehabilitating Sebastian.  This seems like yet another story establishing Emma GOOD, Sebastian BAD, the same message that’s been getting pounded into the readers’ heads for 22 issues.  Like, we KNOW, Duggan.  We know that you think the sun shines out of Emma’s ass, you’ve already well-established that you think she’s a brilliant, wonderful, compassionate, badass queen, through 22 issues of centering the entire series around her, at the expense of EVERY other fucking character in the book (even sometimes Kate, the other obvious favorite).  It’s gotten beyond tiresome at this point.  Like, I feel like even people who love Emma and hate Sebastian are getting bored by now, because it’s not even good storytelling to have a strawman villain who is no real threat just getting repeatedly knocked down.

So, Duggan has taken both Sebastian and Emma, and further removed any kind of complexity or nuance from them.  Sebastian can’t have a kind or tender side, he can’t ever be shown in a positive light.  His relationship was Lourdes was previously part of his tragic origins, pushing him to be a worse person than he’d been in a past, but no, lets retcon him to be a controlling abuser, whom Lourdes is desperate to escape.  Because it makes Sebastian look bad and Emma look good.  Honestly, it would have been more interesting and powerful to have Lourdes come back from the dead, and be disgusted by the person Sebastian has become.  That would actually have an impact.

And by the way, why did Lourdes need Emma’s help in establishing her new identity?  She was already part of the Hellfire Club, she’s the one who brought Sebastian in, she’s rich as fuck.  Lourdes should be well capable of getting away from Sebastian on her own.  She might need Emma’s help for faking her own death, but the rest of it?  Emma should just do a little hacking to access Lourdes’ personal fortune and transfer it into a new account, and then she’s good to go.  But no, Lourdes has to be treated like a little lost lamb, a helpless battered woman for Emma to rescue.  And Emma’s deal with the Kingpin further exonerates Emma for her past crimes, because obviously, she’s just working off the debt she incurred helping poor, innocent Lourdes!  It can’t be that Emma did bad things in the past because she was ambitious, cruel, vain, and power-hungry, she has to be a woke queen who was always there to help other women.

I think Duggan thinks he’s being feminist with all this, with the “women help each other,” message, and either ignoring or villifying all the male characters.  But he’s not.  It’s not feminist to take a very complex, interesting, powerful woman like Emma Frost and completely remove all responsibility and agency for her past crimes by turning her into an abuse victim and repeatedly retconning her to be better than she actually was.  (To be fair, Duggan is just continuing a trend already started by other writers).  Emma is ambitious, power-hungry, cruel, callous, self-absorbed, vain and snobby.  But she is also brave, intelligent, compassionate, kind, protective, heroic, and self-sacrificing.  All of those things are part of Emma.  She is a teacher who loved her students, and the love for those students is part of what sent Emma on her long, difficult path towards redemption.  Yes, she’s a badass queen, but she is also a flawed individual, who has worked to overcome those flaws and become a better person.  And constantly re-writing the past to make her an “always good” abuse victim who only ever committed crimes because the big bad men forced her into it cheapens that redemption.

Speaking of cheap redemption -     

The Wilhelmina subplot: Wow, Duggan really will prioritize ANY character over Bishop, Iceman and Pyro, won’t he?  I know this is me throwing a tantrum, because “Wah, Duggan is writing someone other than my favorites!” but after 22 issues I feel justified in this whining.  Iceman, Bishop and Pyro are supposed to be regular cast members, and so far Duggan has given more serious development and emotional scenes to Callisto, Forge, Dolores (the human contact at the X-Desk), Masque, Jumbo Carnation, Magneto, the Cuckoos, and now Wilhelmina.  I don’t mind the development for many of those characters, I like Callisto and Forge and Jumbo (although I’m a little annoyed at the Magneto stuff, since he’s already front and center in the Krakoa era, and about to star in a mini-series, does he really need more time in the spotlight?).  But honestly?  Fuck Wilhelmina.  I was never that interested in the Hellfire brats, and I’m not the slightest bit interested in watching the retcon redemption of a character that murders animals for fun.  Why does she get a spotlight story while the three dudes on the team STILL haven’t gotten anything more than vague background hints of character arcs.  I mean, compare the very emotional flashback and Wilhelmina’s breakdown to the half-assed, mostly taking place off- panel “redemption” that Duggan has given Pyro.  Just a single line of “maybe this crew is bringing out the best in me,” with no lead-up, no further reflection, no hints about Pyro changing his ideas before then.  Why did you even put Iceman, Bishop and Pyro on the team if you’re not going to use them, Duggan?  Because you’ve made it quite clear that you’d rather write ANY character other than them.  I can’t even look forward to Tempo and Banshee joining the cast next issue, even though I like them (and I really want to see more development of Tempo), because I know they will be yet more characters that get pushed into the foreground, while Iceman, Bishop and Pyro remain the underdeveloped background clown trio.    

Also, it seems kind of offensive to have a cruel, murderous female character, and then say that her cruelty is entirely due to sexual abuse?  What kind of message does that send to sexual abuse victims?  That it will turn you into a monster?  Why do female villains keep getting sexual abuse as part of their backstory?  Why can’t they just be bad?  Or have something else going on?  So the Cuckoos flip a switch in Wilhelmina and she’s magically “fixed,” or at least on her way to better?  Again, I think Duggan thinks he’s being feminist with this, but he’s not. 

At least Wllhelmina has been a recurring villain in this series, so I can kinda see how her potential redemption may move the plot along, but Duggan is still introducing new plot threads, while leaving so many others dangling.  What about Christian?  What about Shinobi and Fenris?  Will Bobby and Christian ever even speak to each other again?  Will the supposed main cast members of Iceman, Bishop and Pyro ever, EVER get a proper character arc?

Or will we get an entire issue of Emma, Kate and the Cuckoos giving Wilhelmina a redemptive make-over, because girl power, amiright?

[hopeymchope]

Parascientific Escape: The sci-fi “escape room” visual novel-style series nobody talks about

I can’t help thinking that Parascientific Escape would probably have an active fandom somewhere on the Internet if it wasn’t TRAPPED ON THE 3DS ESHOP.

I mean, it’s an escape room-centric visual novel-style sci-fi Japanese game that is clearly inspired by Zero Escape and very anime in its style. There are endearing characters, including optimal waifus/husbandos, plus a gradual buildup of an interesting fictional world full of political intrigue, its own countries, its own companies, and of course... psychic powers. Because you can’t have a trilogy of Japanese visual novel-style games featuring escape room puzzles without mental powers, now can you?

But as I said... they’re trapped as download-only titles for the 3DS. That’s fucking brutal. 

Even so, there’s a pretty big 3DS/2DS user base still in existence. It’s not like they’ve never been translated or something, so at least we have the capability to play them. So if you look into them, what are you getting?

A basic overview: Parascientific Escape is a trilogy of anime-style games about solving escape room mysteries and tracking down evildoers via the use of psychic powers (obvious Zero Escape influences). There’s an overarching plot about a mysterious mastermind who believes it’s time for the recently emerged psychics of the world to take their place as the next evolution of humanity and get their own nation (obvious X-Men influences).

They don’t work very well as standalone stories; each story relies on information from the last one, culminating in a game that stars the protagonists of both parts 1 and 2 together as they finally unravel the motivations behind the events of the whole series and face off with the people behind everything. In addition, the escape room puzzles start out pretty easy in the first game build to be pretty frustratingly obtuse by the tail end of the third. And on top of all that, each game taken on its own only contains about 3-4 escape rooms. So when you bundle all three together, that’s when it all works as a single satisfying package. 

Don’t worry about burning a lot of cash to play the whole series, however. The three games are $5.00 US each on the 3DS eShop and are usually on sale for $2.50 each these days. I got the entire trilogy for $7.50 US!

So let’s break down the gameplay and setup in a little more detail. Don’t worry; I won’t give any spoilers that go beyond the first five minutes of any game in the series. The twists and turns are part of the fun here.

The first game is Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas. You play as  Hitomi Akeneno, a high school girl (because of course she’s a high-schooler) with the dual abilities of mild telekinesis and a type of clairvoyance that lets her peer past barriers or into the insides of objects. She finds herself trapped on a sinking cruise ship where some mastermind keeps systematically locking her into isolated sections while she’s trying desperately to escape. 

I really liked how you could look inside of an object with clairvoyance and then use her telekinesis to manipulate the various switches and levers within, gradually pulling some object you need out from within a maze. I also thought it was clever how the solution to a new escape roomight require you to backtrack to a previous escape room to investigate some object or area that wasn’t relevant to that previous room’s original puzzle. 

(One of the things I found most fascinating about this one is the ethical debate raised by Hitomi’s friend Chisono regarding how Hitomi got herself involved in all this. Chisono offers a perspective that is extremely unusual to see in most fiction. You can even say it’s pretty cold, but it’s not without having some merit to it. I don’t want to say too much about what I’m talking about, though; it’s better left as a surprise.)

The second title, Parascientific Escape: Gear Detective, almost seems standalone at first. You play as Kyosuke Ayana, a private detective and actual adult (!) who is 22 years old. A young woman shows up at his office and asks to hire him for protection. See, there’s a serial killer on the loose, and she believes she’s the next target.

We are swiftly told that Kyosuke was once in an accident that necessitated the replacement of his left arm and right eye. He volunteered to be a guinea pig for some very special prosthetics that granted him artificial psychic powers. As such, he now has “chronokinesis” — to the power to look back in time. However, he can only look back for five days, and he only has limited ability to move or manipulate the things he sees in the past. 

Naturally, Kyosuke’s investigation winds up trapping him within some escape rooms that require use of his unique abilities to solve. Some of the hints at the proper timestamps or exactly where you should be looking when you peer into the past are a little vague, though, which can cause momentary frustration. Because I like to always be making forward progress, I actually preferred Hitomi’s telekinesis/clairvoyance powers from the first game. Still, Hitomi had some pretty basic puzzles in her rooms. I can’t deny that these puzzles took more thought.

Outside of the escape rooms,  everything is undeniably a huge improvement. The first game presented strictly linear segments of storytelling between the rooms, but this one is more of an adventure game. You can choose where you go, select from a limited menu of things to do when you get there, and do all of it in any order you like. There’s usually a correct sequence order to progressing the story, but it’s typically pretty clear what the next step is, so it’s not like you’re just flailing about and trying a bunch of locations blindly. Besides, there’s no way to get stuck, so don’t stress it. There are even a lot of actions you can take that have no impact on story progression at all — they’re just there to generate additional dialogue that further develops the characters. 

The tradeoff is that you actually get fewer escape rooms overall. The first game had four, but the second only contains three. This is also the first game in the series to introduce multiple endings; you get a number of dialogue choices throughout, and unfortunately, it’s far too easy to trigger the “bad” ending. There are guides online to help you trigger the Gold Star “true” ending, however. Just hit up GameFAQs. You might want to use the guide on your first playthrough, because I can say from experience that it’s annoying to have to replay all the dialogue sections just to make the correct choices. (Luckily, you can skip over any irrelevant sections of each chapter — including the escape room puzzles.) 

In spite of my above whining, the second one is probably my single favorite story in the Parascientific trilogy. It’s a lot of fun.

The final game in the trilogy is Parascientific Escape: Crossing at the Farthest Horizon. Mysterious characters who were plotting offscreen for the previous two games are finally given faces, locations that were talked about extensively in both are finally visited, and the two protagonists of the first couple games finally meet and team up. It’s absolutely a culmination of what they set up in the first two.

The narrative jumps around from the perspectives of many different characters, but the most time is undoubtedly spent with Hitomi and Kyosuke. Sadly, there is no gameplay usage of Hitomi’s powers this time; the escape rooms are all done with Kyosuke, and they are more devious now than ever before. Personally, I found the next-to-last one to be incredibly obtuse and frustrating. I ultimately had to consult a video playthrough on YouTube for that. (The YouTuber in question didn’t seem to have the same issues figuring things out that I did. So I guess your mileage may vary.)

The “adventure game” segments make a return here as well, although they’ve also become a bit tougher to figure out. There are a couple of times when you might find yourself wandering the various location options, clicking on every possible action to try and progress. Luckily, there aren’t so many default options that you’re left flailing for very long. Even the longest period of clueless wandering lasted me a maximum of 15 minutes.

Once again, you have to make the correct dialogue choices if you want a positive ending. And once again, GameFAQs is your friend and co-pilot.

Ultimately, even the gated endings and occasional puzzle frustrations did little to curb my enthusiasm. I really had fun with these characters and their stories, I greatly enjoyed the majority of the escape rooms, and I was pretty satisfied with how it all wrapped up. The character designs/artwork get better and better as the series goes on. The selection of music tracks may be the same throughout the whole series, but I really dug on them, so I can’t complain. Do I have any other misgivings? Well, just one; the English localization is pretty sloppy. There are a pretty large number of typos, and the dialogue can sound stilted and awkward at times due to being a direct translation. It’s actually at its worst at the start of the first game. Luckily, after about 30 minutes of playtime, it settles in and finds its voice.

Seriously, they should really figure out a way to re-package these games for another system that doesn’t use the the dual-screen setup. Put all three of them together, and it’d easily be satisfying as a full retail release!

But for now, if you have a 3DS/2DS, they’re only $7.50 in total most of the time (and $15.00 at the worst). Do you like adventure game-style mysteries and visual novel-esque progression and, of course, escape rooms? You should give these a shot! And I hope these devs get to make games with bigger budgets and better localizations in the future.

[yanderecandystore]

ok ok hear me out hear me out. Yuma becoming obsessed with one of the game’s ( few ) sentient, non-romancable npcs. Like they can think and feel and ( somewhat ) act for themselves but there just isn’t a route for them. Also bonus points of the darling is kinda bratty/prissy, we haven’t see a lot of readers like that. Ily and your writing so much, mwah — ✨ anon

My my, how different!

Welcome in, ✨ Anon! And thank you for enjoying my writing so far.

TW/Tags: I love this concept, although being very different from the norm // some ddlc vibes // I just discovered a new word and I'm so glad it exists! (prissy reader cause I think this would be very fun-) // angsty // trapping, manipulation and gaslighting // every time the gender isn't set, I like to keep it ambiguous, basically making it gender neutral (gender neutral reader) // gender neutral Yuma //

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Just Yuma (lol) [Yandere!A.I OC x A.I!Reader - Headcanon]:

I like to think that a game like Yuma's would be made to entertain the players to at least 5 or so years before the next installment- Which is basically the same as the last with better graphics and switching the main love interest cast.

The games would be made clearly for the sake of fan service and slice of life material- But would be surprisingly more advanced to us than to those who have created the franchise.

Because there is already an estimation of the amount of content and for how long players would play the game, every single character should get at least some bit of highlight- So even npcs that are just there for the sake of ambience and narrative, are treated with a lot of care and given the best a.i the developers could give to make the experience entertaining.

You are just like any other non-dateable npc, except that you have gained a bit of a role in one of the main cast's routes. It wouldn't be a stretch to guess that one of these characters would be Yuma themselves.

You were supposed to be Yuma's love interest, meaning you would have an role as an player's rival- But due to an strict schedule and corporate greed, you have been demoted from having such a big impact, and now you're basically Yuma's best friend who keeps them from committing homicide every five seconds.

It's not exactly a bad role, since you keep having the same dynamic with them from before- Chaotic gremlin is best friends with Paranoid goody two shoes, now with less romantic interactions.

The only mistake by the company was to leave half of the data showcasing this relationship in the game at the release. Basically- Half of the cutscenes and dialogue involving you and Yuma not only being friends but the start of you two dating (the game kinda pairs the couples up if the player fails to date them, or simply shows disinterest in the characters to begin with-) and even some of the things involving you two during the dating phase- Even the potential break-up sequence which could be orchestrated by the player.

Well, could have- Since none of this content is really available or considered official, the only way to access it is by messing the games files.

So in a way, you're already pretty sentient as it is, you act not as a rival but as a somewhat helper into getting the player to get closer to Yuma. I don't know how much you are aware about your own circumstances, or if you even care about the concept of being just an character made for the sake of another-

In the home planet that has created and released the game, players were kinda disappointed with what happened- They preferred the deleted/unused content more than the events and dialogue that was used for you two, so much so that people started shipping you two more than actually being interested in romancing Yuma, especially since they're way too chaotic for most player's taste.

There was an update overhaul being planned to happen where not only the stuff related to you would be changed- But all the other characters and gameplay mechanics would be updated and hopefully make the game better- But ever since your cartridge has been suddenly lost and forgotten on Earth, you were never able to see that update.

Not that you were aware of it to begin with, but still, what a shame. And not only that, your game is basically Glitch Station- Absolutely filed with mods to help the gameplay be "easier" to the original owner of this cartridge. I don't think she even remembers where she has left it.

Still, even when a new save was made you felt a weird sensation of deja vu. The game has started again with a new player playing it and trying to work their way through this broken game.

You didn't understand why all these events felt familiar though, you only felt like it made sense. It was your first year in college, you got ready and made sure to look your best and give your goodbye to your parents-

It felt like this day has happened before, and even if your routine was similar, you felt like this day was supposed to be a big deal- Why does it feel oddly nostalgic?

Why… Why are the floors on your house flowing? Why are there so many empty spaces here and there? You feel like you could potentially fall from your disintegrating house. And your parents, where are they? Why can't you see them? Why can you only hear them saying goodbye back to you from one of the other rooms?

When you open the door to see them- There is nothing there. There is not even a room.

It's a door that leads to nowhere. Just an empty void.

The sensation of dread was starting to creep in yet you thought that it would be uncalled for to overreact. Like you weren't allowed to showcase concern for the odd reality around you.

You walked on foot towards your college, panicking slightly at the people who would fade in and out of existence- Yet you had held yourself from screaming, from showing any sense of vulnerability at the thought that maybe you were in a dangerous place or realm.

You were coded to not find issues with the odd reality around you, like any other npc- You were taught to hold in and try to keep a sense of normality so no players would find issue with screaming characters begging to be freed. But your nervous personality caused you to search for help, you panicked and ended up running away to what you assumed to be a safe place- Somewhere crowded with a lot of people.

The institution's gates were open, you entered like your life depended on it (and maybe it did) yet you stopped yourself from screaming when you noticed a commotion happening.

A guy who was wearing the uniform lazily has bumped into a girl, causing her to fall. She is yelling at him because the fall has broken her phone, he is trying his best to calm her down- But at the same time it feels like he is just making poor choices of words because of how sick he is of having to chat with someone so angry at an accident.

Haven't you seen this before? But if so- When? When could you possibly have seen something like that happen?-

"- [Y/N]?"

"- AAAAH- Oh hey Yuma."

You yelled after getting spooked by Yuma- Who was…. Why are they wearing that?

"- Why aren't you in your uniform, Yumie?" You asked them, showing your own uniform in the process. You called them by a sweet nickname you had given them- But when exactly?

You know that you're best friends with Yuma, but since when? You know it should have been for about 6 years or so, but… It feels like you have only known them for a year- How… Weird.

"- Don't tell me you're already breaking a rule on your first day." You pouted and stomped your fit into the ground. Yes, you know that Yuma is a troublemaker…. You know…. That.

Yuma hasn't been able to speak ever since you showed concern about their outfit. They were staring at you in shock- As if you were an odd creature who they just found.

"- Y-You can see my outfit??" They blurted out. How can you recognize it??? All the other npcs recognize it as their uniform, but why are you suddenly acting like you do??

"- Hm, duh? Sorry Yummie, but that sporty outfit of yours is more eye-catching than that guy's barely well put together uniform- Such bad manners, I bet he woke up and hastily wore the first thing he saw-" You were beginning to go on a rant about that guy's uniform- That guy being the MC of this new save file. Yuma has stopped you by pulling you away from the college's entrance and entering into a secluded area so they could interrogate you over this odd behavior you were displaying.

"- Yummie- What are you doing!?" You cried out feeling hurt by their tight grip on your wrists.

"- WHAT DID YOU CALL MY OUTFIT??" They yelled desperately. Begging for their hypothesis to be corrected.

"- … A breaking of the uniform rule?" You genuinely did not understand where they were talking about.

"- No, No NO! You said Sporty Outfit, right?" They said reminding you of what you have previously commented about their outfit.

"- Oh! Yes, yes I did- And although being somewhat casual looking- It does fit the category of sporty." You readdressed the topic while going on a bit of detail- The usual annoying talk you would always do whenever a dialogue with you was activated.

Yuma was over the edge- They have never, ever met another sentient character with the same a.i as theirs.

They haven't been this happy since a long, long time.

"- You're so annoying!" They screamed, their face showing a bright smile as tears filled their eyes.

"- Yummie that's so rude!-" You were about to defend yourself when they grabbed you and hugged you as tight as they could.

"- You're genuinely so, so, so, so, so, so ANNOYING!!" They continued to go on, laughing while crying, loving every second of this.

You were coded to be their best friend. You were coded to be the one that would balance them out. You were once coded to be someone made to be able to be their lover, but here you are- The real you, free from all the locks that would keep your a.i from growing and understanding them.

If you're able to be sentient, then all of their friends can as well.

You're the personification of a miracle, to Yuma. The personification of hope.

In this scenario, Yuma isn't aware that the player isn't the same alien who has destroyed their digital world, so to them, they can't ever let the player see you getting sentient and becoming aware of your imprisonment.

" If a player finds issues with any of the characters being portrayed, they must return the cartridge to their nearest store to get a factory reset." Such a simple yet frightening tip to Yuma, to any a.i that has suddenly found itself desperate to get out of the system that traps them.

At first, the idea of having someone like them be also aware of the situation is incredible, it's amazing even! You two could possibly work out a way of getting a way to be free- It wouldn't be easy but hopefully you two would be able to have life away from this game and even finding a way of bringing your other friends with you two.

However, after discovering that not only has the cartridge found itself on another planet with another player being the new owner of it- And discovering that it's just a matter of trading places with other people to be able to be free- Yuma would start getting really clingy to you. They have been all alone thinking that they were the only one capable of feeling and thinking for themselves.

Yuma has found those unused events and scattered dialogue, you know?

While they were looking for a possibility, any possibility of getting out- They found those unused files where you two were able to be together.

And although they thought it was weird at first, after seeing you have a better understanding of your current reality and existence- It oddly sounds fitting.

Of course it would be you, the one who always puts them back on the right tracks, to be the second one to want to escape this game.

It 's so fitting.

The idea of being something more than just a best friend to you is starting to sound more and more appealing in their eyes- It's so ironic that you two work together so well.

After Yuma gets their taste of freedom and you try to calm a frightened young guy that wasn't expecting to be suddenly kidnapped and be forced to stay in the game world for a while, you wait for them to find the solution to free everyone without trying to trap anymore "humans"..

No one should be stuck here for the sake of someone else leaving, that's what you have told them.

But Yuma didn't care. Yuma just wanted to be free with you and everyone else, who cares for those that have to deal with a glitchy game for eternity?

You two had an argument. You didn't want to continue feeling like your whole life was a lie, you want to be free but no one should be hurt in the process. What good would it be if someone else has to go through the same torment as you two?

With each day that passes by, you notice how both of your ideas of freedom were different- To the point they had to tell you the truth.

You aren't going out of there anymore. Not until you understand and truly appreciate the effort that Yuma goes through to find a way of freeing you- Of finding a victim, to be in your place.

They never told you about your previously intended role in the game, they thought you would be more terrified of following their instructions- And besides, it would be very distasteful to insinuate that the only reason that they care for you it's because of that code that was left unused- Which couldn't be more of a lie! They genuinely care for you!

…. But maybe a bit of tempering would help you see their side of the story, right?

It can't be that hard to modify some of the codes, the game is already broken anyway.

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