#but probably most people haven't watched the anime lol

[meownotgood]

he's not my csm fav but i don't understand why anyone would pass on aki. did they not watch the morning routine scene in the anime??? did they not see him with his hair down???

LITERALLY ANON because how is the poll almost 50/50 that's aki fucking hayakawa... he would treat you right...... they're missing out... LMAO

[yusiyomogi]

From what I've gleaned through talking with translators, Dungeon Meshi doesn't use Japanese honorifics as often as most manga. Is that true? If so, can you tell us all details about who uses honorifics, when, and for whom? Would love to hear all about it! (Room Surprise)

it's true and you can notice it easily when you watch the anime in japanese. i think it happens pretty often when manga or anime try to portray western settings, especially fantasy settings, since they come with their own set of tropes. most obviously, you'll notice that [ちゃん] "chan" and [くん] "kun" honorifics are almost entirely absent, since their role is less important for casual conversations. but here is where manga usually encounter the problem that it still needs to use some honorifics to show the difference in the way people address each other: you can't just use "mister" or "miss" or "sir", it'll look unnatural. so, no matter what, manga still needs to use honorifics.

the first and most obvious honorific you'll encounter in the manga is [兄さん] "nii-san" - "older brother", the way falin usually address laios. it seems like falin, in general, a character who uses honorifics pretty often, likely to give her speech more cute and polite tone. another notable example is when she calls marcille [お姉さん] "onee-san" - "older sister" in the flashbacks, something that girls sometimes use to call their older friends. i haven't noticed her using it in the current time though, she just mostly calls her "marcille".

probably the funniest use of honorifics in the manga is in chapter 13, after chilchuck says that he's actually 29 years old. while senshi and marcille react like chilchuck is still young, laios with some hesitation and awkwardness calls him "chilchuck-san". obviously [さん] "san" is pretty known honorific that's used to show respect, often to older people. chilchuck was not amused.

i'll mention here that most of the younger characters still address much older characters with "san", like in a case of tansu, even if it's not necessary applied to characters like senshi. but this is a common rule, "san" is still used most of the time for older characters, since it'd be simply too rude not to use it. students in magic school from flashbacks also use "san" to refer to marcille, but it has less to do with her age and more with their admiration of her.

island governor uses [殿] "dono" to address tansu, which is one of the most respectful honorifics, but often used by people of the same high social status. it also can be translated as "lord" in that setting, which is more appropriate, i think. tansu calls the governor [島主殿] "shimanushi-dono", literally "the lord of the island" and that's how other people call him too.

interestingly enough, that's also how yaad calls laios in their first meeting - "laios-dono", likely because yaad is both extremely polite and wants to show deep respect to someone he already sees as future king.

as you can guess, characters from fantasy country inspired by japan also use some specific honorifics. maizuru and the rest of toshiro's team calls toshiro [坊っちゃん] "botchan" - "young master", which is very polite, but can feel a bit humiliating for adult man, i think, since it has a secondary meaning of "greenhorn" or "spoiled kid" (lol). not necessary in that setting or context though!

kabru is one of the politest people in the story, so he uses respectful honorifics pretty consistently. he pays a lot of attention to social hierarchies and has a good control of the way he speaks and how familiar he can act with other people. he addresses toshiro as "toshiro-san" throughout the story and he also calls laios "laios-san" at least a first few times they speak to each other. I noticed that when he speaks with laios he also adresses falin as laios' [妹さん] "imoto-san" - "younger sister" in the same respectful manner. he usually drops the honorifics when he feels like he's gotten close to a person.

canaries aren't particularly respectful in their speech in general, though they still abide to general rules. when it comes to specifics, pretty much everyone in the story uses [隊長] "taicho" to address mithrun. it can be translated as a "squad leader", but usually translated to something like "captain". for example, it's the same honorifics people use for major kusanagi in "ghost in the shell". as far as i can tell, the only time mithrun was addressed differently is in chapter 94, when kabru was trying to bring him back from his stupor and called him "mithrun-san" instead.

that's what i've been able to find so far! if i find anything else, i'll just add it to this post.

[goobbgoober]

I hate watching OUAW will being someone who works with animals. There's so much reptile knowledge I have that I can't apply to Kremy because he's never a real alligator. I SPENT 5 HOURS WITH A CROCODILIAN TODAY. It's so hard for me to take him serious when I know so many things that he should be doing or whatever.

Honestly, Frost is kinda fine, he's a mammal lol, so kinda hard to get him wrong.

But Kremy??? (Probably Briggsy too, but I haven't gotten that far) I have so much I could rant about. But also I love him so much, I can't hate Richie at all lol. Most people aren't constantly surrounded by wild animals, lol.

[hyewka]

OKAY. OKAY HEAR ME OUT. Hybrid (member of ur choice) trying to be top but then u accidentally brushed against their ears/tail.. they freeze and suddenly whimpering from it because you just touched their sensitive parts ???!! and boom they just submit to you LOLOL and probably hybrid reader whose tail cant stop wagging at their cute little hybrid being submissive ~

- ur loyal follower

warnings: bunny hybrid!soobin, fox hybrid!reader, sub!soobin on top, softdom!reader, overstim, pet names, titty sucking, size kink (?), breeding kink, insecure soob + praise kink, established relationship, dry humping, possessive soobin? lol this is kinda angsty i have no idea why... also very much not proofread my apologies 😵

a/n: i'm overthinking this hybrid stuff ..what is the lore?? do hybrids have places to live??? or are they just in the wild???? lol it took too long to figure the setting out

soobin who just wants to fuck you right--days of preparing by fisting his cock, back against a nearby tree where no one could see him, biting down on his plush lips, as he thinks of getting on top of you and hearing you moan. he wants to take care of you, make you think hes better than all your previous partners.

people have been whispering about the oddness of your relationship. hybrids rarely mated with hybrids outside of their species let alone the general animal family.

and the fact that soobin was one of the lowest classes of the kingdom--a bunny, a prey-- heated up a lot of off-handed comments hurled towards him.

the most insulting being that he can't possibly make you finish. that he's a baby who can't please his girl--the bunny who probably cums in his pants from slight teasing.

the thing is, both of you haven't reached that stage anyway. so the rumors were groundless--that's the excuse that served to calm soobin for a few weeks.

though, that didn't seem to be satisfying anymore as he tossed and turned, wondering if you felt the same as everyone else--that he can never satisfy you. so, that led him to decide he had to take matters in his own hands.

you were both comfortable on your couch, watching a movie, all lights turned off. you whine a little when he pulls away from your hold, the warmth gone. "where are you going?" you pout, your eyes following him as he gets off the couch.

he gives you a smile, his dimples still so visible to you even in the dimness of the room. "i'm coming back, just a second."

after a few minutes, you admittedly forget about soobin, his elongated absence not fazing as you find yourself a little too immersed in the movie playing.

finally, your focus lifts from the screen, noticing soobin standing by the couch, staring at you. you tap next to you signalling him to come over, then tune in to the movie again.

but he doesn't budge, still standing, so you look over at him again, a confused smile on your face as your brows crease.

"what's up bunny?"

the pet name seems to snap soobin out of his daze, the feeling of insecurity washing over him again as he bites the insides of his cheek. "don't...i don't want you calling me that."

your brows raise, a little confused at his request and the change of atmosphere. before you could say anything, soobin is on the couch, his knees sinking into the leather, and big hands cupping your cheeks.

for a second, you stare into his eyes, your lips parted ever so slightly. but your thoughts don't come to finish until his lips crash onto yours, first soft then quickly turning filthy, spit hungrily exchanged, as he guides you to a change of position--your head on the armtrest, laid on the couch as his body hovered over yours--pulling away to quickly latch his wet lips onto the flesh of your neck.

you don't know where this was coming from until he continues to talk. "i'm not your little bunny," he grunts against your neck that he so desperately is sucking on, breathy moans escaping your lips, eyes closed, as your hands tangled themselves on his pretty hair. "i can be big and strong like yeonjun."

you furrow your brows, disrupting the pleasure you're feeling as your eyes hesitantly open. why did he suddenly mention your ex? you're not an idiot, you know soobin's been effected by the response to your relationship; you've been trying to reassure him by taking things slow, making him know that he was wanted, that you liked him.

you pull his head away gently, trying to put an end to his marking, but his lips chase your neck needily, so desperate to make you feel good. "no, bunny--soobin, stop." you correct yourself. he obeys, though his fringe covered his eyes a little, you can still see the way they were like big orbs, puppy-like -- being paired with the way his bottom lip pushed upward, a pout formed on his lips, it made your heart swell a little.

but you have to talk to him. "soobin, what's wrong? tell me." you caress his cheek a little hoping he'd give in...and for a second, he leans into it before he shakes his head like hes fighting against himself. "jus' wanna make you feel good..."

he cuts you off--your once opened mouth meaning to say something is closed once he buries his head in the crook of your neck again, his hot breath fanning against it, clothed growing bulge grinding between your legs, increasingly getting needier and needier.

you sigh, letting him have his way--you'd normally never let this happen, but you had a soft spot for bunny soobin, with his cute pink lips, blue hair, fluff ball of a tail, who wouldn't?

"let me make you feel good?" it comes out as a pleading question, even if it's soft and quiet, barely a whisper--you notice it and nod.

fortunately for soobin, your shorts are skimpy, easily pulled down as he tries to get access to your pussy, which were uncomfortably sticking to your wet underwear, result of all the dry humping.

you see a slight smile make way on his lips when he examines the wet spot on your panties.

"come on, unbuckle your pants big boy." you tease with a pout, your hand pulling on the hem of his jeans-- his poor dick being restricted by the tightness.

he looks up at you, out of his daze, a big smile as he quickly fumbles to unbutton his jeans, and pulling them down. now it was his boxers, big dick rubbing against your pussy as he leans in to sloppily kiss you, you making sure to moan against his lips to soar his confidence a little more. soobin on the other hand, was suppressing his moans, making them come out as grunts instead. you don't seem to notice.

your hands instintively go over to reach for his fluffy ears, so soft against your touch, so addictive to rub gently up and down--but this causes soobin to pull away slightly from your lips, his breathing heavy.

you breathe out his name hesitantly, "soobin?"

he doesn't respond, instead, a sudden movement of his hip makes you gasp, his head buried in between your chest. "t-touch me again" he manages to blabble between the fabric, drool already staining your shirt.

you're confused, mind a little hazed with the way your pussy was pulsating, so desperate for his bunny cock inside you.

he manages to pull your shirt over your tits, behavior so closely resembled to a rabid dog, so hungry and frantic, not missing a second to grab your breasts and attach his bunny teeth on your nipples, nibbling and pulling.

you moan, the pleasurable pain making you reach his tail like a sort of stress ball, but that makes him whine, his hips snapping into you until he gets more frantic against your clothed pussy, his length pressed against your slit.

"shit soobin--take off your boxers!" that halts his movement, face previously buried in the softness of your breasts--that were now covered in spit--slowly raising to look at you, face red and a pout on his glistening pink lips.

you feel a warmth between your thighs, and you realize he just came. he also knows because after a few beats of silence, his lips quiver, tears forming in his eyes.

you pout, hand on his face prepared to wipe away any pretty tears of his to stain his cheeks, trying to comfort your bunny. but his tears come like a waterfall anyway when he tries to talk between his hiccups, "i-i'm just...i'm just a dumb bunny...i can't make you feel good a-and i cum before having my dick inside you, a-and--"

you catch his lips with yours, putting an end to his incoherent ramble, then pull away momentarily before it got too heated. "baby...listen to me, alright? we can try again."

he looks up at you with those big orbs quietly asking if you'd let him, and you nod, fingers still gently gliding under his eyes.

to not much of your surprise, soobin is down on your breast again, swirling his tongue around your abused nipples, sucking like he was a baby that needed its nutrients. it's a little endearing, looking down at the back of his head as he moans against your tits--he was getting off from sucking.

you know because you feel pressure on the side of your thigh--he got hard. you don't want him to feel embarrassed again, so you do your job of pulling down his boxers, which is a hard task as his body is pressed against you--but you manage to get his fat cock flinging out eventually.

you feel it pressed against your wet slit until suddenly, before you could remind him to go in, his tip finds a way to enter by having pulling your underwear to the side revealing access to your cunt.

his mouth pulls away from your nipples, head back when he feels the warmth of your pussy just on his tip, it was a lot better than having his hand wrapped around his dick is the only thing on his mind.

chasing your warmth, soobin wastes no time to push in his entire cock, so big it almost suffocates you with the way it fills you up, your breath hitched in your throat.

it stays in there with no movement, soobin just staring at you. you think he's about to cry until he says, his voice broken and hoarse "m-mommy, touch my ears..."

you don't question his request, your hands reaching on his floppy ears, rubbing circles.

that seems to get soobin in action, his hips suddenly moving, cock hitting far into you, places you're not sure any hybrid found their way to. you bite down on your lips, using his ears as a stress toy, pressing down on the sensitive body part.

his thrusts become frantic, as his lips part, drool running down. his mind was a haze, so cloudy he can't think straight. "am i making you feel good? am i making you feel good? is bunny a good boy?" he questions, but it comes as an insecure hurd of questions, breath unsteady as he searches for your approval.

you found it adorable, pulling him down by wrapping your arms around his nape, catching him in a sloppy kiss. he melts into it, dick still roughly thrusting with no sort of rhythm, so erratic into you like a bunny in heat.

when he pulls away, unfortunately, tears come down his cheeks again, as he hiccups, contrast to how he was wrecking your poor pussy. you think something upset him again but that isn't the case.

"wanna breed you." it's a soft wish, a naive one -- bunnies can't breed foxes, it's physically impossible, but you nod anyway, giving him some hope.

"breed me bunny."

those words seems to get to soobin, his hips stuttering, feeling his fat cock twitch inside you as strained moans come from the bunny. "'m cumming, 'm cumming!" he cries out. you couldn't help it, you bit your lips at the erotic sight above your head, ears twitching at the way he was fcked dumb, only thinking with his dick.

the warm spurts of his bucket of semen in you elicit an unexpected orgasm, making you both cum in unison. after his orgasm, soobin's body falls on you, boneless and exhausted. even as it suffocates you ever so slightly, his large body encasing yours, you let him lay there, his cheeks in contact with your breasts, playing with his hair, sighing.

he doesn't seem to want to pull out, dick still firmly buried inside your cunt. "bunny...tell me what you're thinking."

"i just made you finish," his tone is cheeky but you're not having it. "soobin, i'll make you pull out if you don't tell me whats been bothering you."

that makes him panic, almost immediately sputtering out his thoughts. "i just thought...i just thought you would think that your other big and strong, powerful exes are better than me and--and maybe they are--"

"bunny no," you signal him to pull his head up to look at you, your hands cupping his cheeks, "you're the one i chose, i'm choosing. you don't have to be big and strong, you are, but you don't have to be. you make me happy soobin."

"really?" it breaks your heart how his voice is so unsteady and uneasy, full of so much doubt you want to kiss away.

you smile instead, "who has his dick buried in me right now?"

you see a hint of pink rush to his cheeks before he cutely goes to bury his face in your breasts again, whining against it. "stop it..."

your hand play with his hair, the tv still playing the movie.

the entire night, soobin does end up laying on top of you, a little on the side to give you more access to breathing, but this was his safe haven, laying on top of your plush breasts, his dick comfortably inside you. sometimes, he'd move his dick, slowly as to not wake you up, but then he loses control, thrusting into you, breathy moans filling the room as he lewdly watches your breasts bounce--then he cums inside you again, filling you to the brim.

he'll breed you, he'll find a way. he'll make you his--only his.

[the-one-who-lambs]

9 people you would like to get to know better tag meme

except I'm starting a new post because the one I got tagged in was long as shit. I was tagged by @tacofuus, thanks so much!

Last song: Batter Up by Babymonster. It's a solid 6.5/10 check out

Favorite color: violet/lavender. Really any shade of purple

Last tv show/currently watching: I honestly don't really watch TV. I genuinely cannot remember. The last series I actually watched was Death Note with my best friend and that was last year/beginning of this year. I used to be into anime when I was in middle school and this felt like a return to my roots lmao

Sweet/spicy/savoury: I go with savory most of the time, but my favorite is sweet for sure.

Relationship status: narilamb

Current obsession: Writing fanfic for cult of the lamb. It's been just about a year and a half now and I don't see this dying down anytime soon, cotl has squarely entered full special interest status for me so I'll be here for at least another 3 years. I have a bad habit of making a new fandom blog every time I get a shorter-term hyperfixation, writing for it, getting kindasorta recognized in the fandom, then abandoning my works and deleting the blog when I'm not interested in it anymore. Maybe some of y'all followed me in my previous fandoms and y'all would probably never know bc of orphaned works that I can't find anymore. ...anyway. I've made too many close friends in this fandom to pull that stunt again. the-one-who-lambs and my cotl fics are here to stay. I'm rambling

Last thing you googled: 600 cc in cups (I was making soup but all the good noodle packets from China+Korea give units in cubic centimeters. It's about 2.5 cups btw)

Uhhhhh I don't know who to tag so I'll just pick the most recent 9 mutuals in my notes who haven't been tagged already by taco or the people they tagged lol. Don't feel pressured to do it, though! @artsycryptix @just-a-random-demon-official @miallurk @pikos-den @tokyonymph @mianing @bamsara @coffincrows @fanged-cotl

[chaoticspeedrun]

Oh,you should try watching though,it's a pretty good show but if you don't like anime just ignore what i said lol.

Another ask you say...

Maybe i have one? Yeah,i have!

How would be our precious blue boy dating his first girl? I headcanon Leo been pan but for mostly of the times,he dated mens until a girl (reader) really interesting just show up in his life and after some time knowing each other,they start dating and well,how this goes?

Rise!Leo BF headcanons

AN: I do like anime and have been meaning to watch it! I just haven't gotten the time to do it and also have a lot of series and movies waiting already, but I will at some point!

Pairing: Rise!Leo x Fem! reader

Summary: Leo dating his first girlfriend

Type: Headcanons

Warnings: None

MASTERLIST

•I headcanon Leo as pan too, you know that dialogue people use of him going "You think I would deprive half of the population of all of this?", 100% him.

•Despite this, Leo so far had only ever dated boys.

•It wasn't for any particular reason, most of his female crushes had just been fictional or celebrity crushes.

•That was of course until the first time you laughed at one of his jokes. Do you believe in love at first laugh?

•Coincidentally it happened the day you both met, and maybe his eyes hadn't left you the whole night before that but it was probably just because you were a new person to get along with.

•Surely.

•No, he stopped deluding himself once he saw you laughing unabashedly at a pun he had made while the rest of his family rolled their eyes, his pupils were suddenly heart shaped.

•Raph freaked out when he saw it.

•So after a while of you hanging around and him constantly stealing you from his family to spend time together one on one, he finally got the courage to confess.

•He was over the moon when you agreed, beaming at you as he twirled you in his arms.

•Dating Leo is sweet.

•He loves PDA and showing you off to his brothers.

•"Have you seen my girlfriend? She is just so adorable, so perfect" "Oh, my girlfriend would love that, it's her favorite flavor" "I dedicate this skating trick to my lovely girlfriend~"

•He loves the word girlfriend, his brothers are exhausted of him.

• Since he had only dated guys before at first he worries a bit about what differences a relationship with you will have, maybe you'll have certain expectations of him as a boyfriend.

•And you realize he is acting weird, like he is trying to force himself into a certain role.

•So you reassure him that you both just have to be comfortable with each other and that you already know what he is like, that's exactly how you like him.

•He melts in your hands at these words.

•On his most confident days Leo loves being the big spoon, but sometimes he needs you to hold him, to ground him and just stay there for a moment, giving him reassuring words.

•When he looks up at you during those moments while you caress him and sees the absolute adoration in your eyes he feels like he could cry; how can you look at him like he is everything in the world even when he feels at his weakest?

•You both go out on dates often and whenever you end up at a store he starts looking for blue items and clothing for you.

•In fact, he starts sneaking into your wardrobe whenever he hangs out at your place, and some of your clothes start disappearing, while some of his or new clothes in blue pop up in there.

•From both of these things your wardrobe is so filled with blue over time that people start doubting you possess any other colors.

•Though you're certain the black hoodie Leo was wearing on lazy days around the lair was very familiar.

•Loves when you call him your champion, he is absolute puty in your hands when you compliment him, you can use this to your advantage because he will agree to anything you say during these moments.

•All in all, Leo loves you very much and he is really proud to be able to call you his.

[akutasoda]

HELLO HELLO 🐊 ANON. IS BACK HERE WITH ANOTHER WEIRD AHH REQUEST OR IDEA WHATEVER :333, soo may i pls pls request bsd men with a fem reader who is literally Krul Tepes from Owari No Seraph :D? Like she is an all mighty vampire queen idk i just saw her wiki but i dont know how to describe her personality 😭😭 i saw the anime a long time ago and i dont remember anything smh😢😢😢 but anyways thats all, could it be crack and fluff? :P the characters would be Fukuzawa (can u tell im a bif fan of this ancient man:3) Bram, Dazai and Mori (ofc if you write for him)

So heres the idea, fem reader like i said is a vampire too like Bram, she is a member of DoA but she didnt joined to 'end wars' she joined to end with humanity, like her wiki said 🤓🤓 she sees humans as mere cattle. But her wiki didnt said anything about her personality 😭😭 so i guess shes bratty and laizy bc she looks like it lol i love her sm.

Anyways thats all i have to say, if u dont want to make the request is fine i have other few ideas too lol, take care of yourself and drink water, thats all ty for reading me <3 also i saw u have a lot to write from other requests, no matter how late you make this one, take your time, the least i want you to be is stressed, byeee 🐊🐊

vampire among livestock

synopsis - how are they with someone like krul tepes

includes - dazai, fukuzawa, mori, bram

warnings - fem!reader, fluff, slight crack, wc - 755

a/n: hello hello anon!!!! i haven't actually watched or read ONS in ages either but we do love fukuzawa here.. take care of yourself aswell <3

osamu dazai ★↷

↪rather amused by the fact that the doa was harbouring two vampires among their ranks. and in honesty, he figured that you were probably just as concerning as bram and you both needed to be kept an eye on.

↪extremely intrigued when he heard that one of them, you, held the title of a 'queen'. he didn't understand why but it was interesting nonetheless and was curious as to how one obtained such a title.

↪mainly you for the fact that you're goals simply didn't stop at 'ending wars', you had a much wider goal of 'ending humanity' as a whole - seeing them as only mere livestock. this reminded him of fyodor a tad but atleast he only went after ability users.

↪your natural pride and temperamental nature definitely gave you an advantage at reaching your goal. dazai also sought a great amount of amusement from hearing your confident talks even when in battle.

↪what was also rayher noticeable was how you took a more natural role of leader even when you really weren't meant to - whether or not the other members would assist your goals or not was still unclear.

yukichi fukuzawa ★↷

↪the doa was already a loooming threat as is, he didn't need to learn that they had gained another member who also possessed vampire traits. it certainly was a concerning factor for the ada.

↪your rather excitable and outgoing personality definitely reminded him of a certain great detective, your slight bratiness didn't get really help either. that same sense of pride was definitely prominent aswell.

↪it was certainly interesting that you didn't share the same goals as your colleagues, not like you had to but it was certainly intriguing. although your goal was certainly more alarming and serious than just 'ending wars'

↪to him, your views on humans were certainly interesting... to say the least. he'd never ever seen someone that viewed humanity in such a derogatory way yet be so insistent on their beliefs.

mori ougai ★↷

↪for the most part, he stayed out of the doa affairs personally - only really sensing his own people to get involved. but he couldn't help bit become intrigued when news of two vampire like people being involved.

↪especially when he learnt that one of them allegedly held a title of 'queen', of what he didn't exactly know but it surely wasn't an everyday title. the same one who also apparently never held back in putting people in their place.

↪your goals, per say, were also extremely intriguing. seeing humans as mere livestock that would do anything for personal gain. he could see where you were coming from.

↪the natural sense of leadership that you carried certainly was challenging to overcome, especially paired with the pride that you carried yourself with. ypu certainly could become an issue, especially when you're desire to achieve your goals clearly wouldn't be stopped so easy.

bram stoker ★↷

↪when he first heard of the new member and then found out they were a fellow vampire like him, he was both relieved and slightly intrigued.

↪relieved, as he felt like you could be the only tolerable member of the doa. he didn't exactly want to be there and the people he was forced to work with weren't exactly the best. so he figured someone like you would be his only hope at getting along with.

↪intrigued, as he'd never met another vampire before - sure there were the one's under the influence of his ability but they were practically brain dead. you would be thw first vampire he met that he could actually talk to, even more intrigued by your title of 'queen'.

↪surprisingly enjoyed listening to you ramble on about how humanity were mere livestock - it was either that, complete silence or listening to fukuchi. bram could see where you were coming from and he could definitely help you if he chose to.

↪im honesty, he thought you were a better leader than fukuchi. you always took on a more authoritive role and he preferred when you did so, even more when you'd shut down fukuchi.

↪your temperamental nature could be a bit much for him sometimes but he adjusted to it when you started talking to him more often.

taglist - @little-miss-chaoss, @vi-chan07

[plague-of-insomnia]

I'm sorry if this is a silly question but I'm just curious. Do you know how much time Ciel and Sebastian spend in Weston? I haven't read the manga in a while but while watching the anime I just feel like everything is happening too fast??? Luke the whole are was done in 2 weeks max

Hi, anon, I am not someone who pays super close attention to the chronology of canon (as in, exactly what day/date things happen) partly bc I care more about the overall story and themes and the characters than minutiae like that. Not bc I think people who do are dumb but bc I’m more of an AU creator than canon so knowing the details like that to extreme doesn’t really benefit me much so it doesn’t interest me to spend the time doing it. (Though I know at least one person did come up with a timeline through a certain point in the manga years ago, which you may find if you do a google search.)

But what I can tell you is Ciel comes home from the Campania before Easter and arrives at Weston presumably after that holiday, so likely in March or April. (I could probably find out exactly when Easter happened in 1889 but I honestly could care less lol.) We also know from McMillian that he is joining mid-term. It’s actually a clever way for Yana to have the school “begin” in Spring (which is familiar/nostalgic for Japanese audiences, where school years begin in April, usually) while still reconciling with the Western tradition of beginning in the fall.

We also know the cricket tournament takes place on the 4th of June—probably a day Yana picked since it plays with the theme of four (four houses, four prefects) in the arc but also because the number has an association with death in Japanese.

This means that Ciel is not a student at Weston for very long at all—only 2-3 months at most—since the midnight tea party happens after the cricket completes and presumably marks the end (or close to it) of the school year/term.

Honestly, until the last episode I think the anime has been perfectly paced with the manga. They’ve really made only minor shifts and mostly expanded things, so they’re following Yana’s vision fairly closely.

The one major thing is that this episode shoves most of two chapters into one, when it really could have been done in two. But that would mean 12 episodes. and I suspect the team was worried if they didn’t get the cricket part over fast, they might risk losing/boring their core audience.

One huge change they did was take out the explanation of the game itself and its basic rules, which Bard explains in the manga. This was likely done for time/space reasons but also because they may have figured most viewers don’t care and they can communicate enough for people to understand and follow along even if they don’t understand the rules of the game itself.

This is partly perhaps because the cricket part of the arc was not well received in Japan and was one of the least popular chapters, supposedly. It’s why I was shocked they turned it into a musical a couple years ago.

I was a bit disappointed to lose all that not only bc we lost a nice scene with Bard and the servants (they cut a scene with them where they have lunch, though it’s possible that could make it into next episode, but I won’t hold my breath), but also bc I’m like the ONE person who genuinely enjoyed the cricket part of the arc, and it’s one reason this arc is my second favorite in many ways.

I LOVE seeing Ciel and Seb working together in devious ways to get their mission accomplished, and how far Ciel is willing to go to win. Ofc we can still appreciate it anyway, but the fact that he so carefully works within the limits of the rules— and in fact, I learned in commentary on the arc that some of the rules Ciel takes advantage of were actually changed not long after this period of time, which is a fun detail.

So it could be things feel like they’re moving fast because in a sense they are, but it also could be you’re sensing that urgency from how rushed this last episode was. But I suspect when all is said and done, and you watch the entire thing, it probably won’t feel as off. Book of Murder took place over only 3 days, and Seb and Ciel were not at the circus long at all. I can’t be sure but maybe only a week or two? And ofc the campania adventure was also only a few days. In fact, this may actually be the longest mission in the series to this point. So it seems like most missions don’t take too long.

Hope that answers your question! I’ve been looking through the chapters in this arc before every episode to get a sense for the pacing and they’ve generally fallen exactly where I expect. This episode being one exception since they really did condense a lot.

[inkovert]

Writeblr (Re)-Introduction

« A B O U T »

Hello there! Call me Ink (she/her pronouns). I'm a black female writer in my late 20s. I've been on writeblr since 2018 (according to my ~ archive ~) and I've probably made a couple intros since then, but nothing quite as organized/formal as this so - here we are!

I primarily write contemporary/literary fiction (which I know isn't super prevalent on writeblr so happy to bond with any fellow litfic writers). I enjoy writing deeply introspective, character-driven stories (I think because, I'm learning, I'm a deeply inspective person lol) so if that's your cup of tea then check out my WIP(s) below :)

Links/places to find me (if you are on any of these sites, pls connect with me! I'm actively looking for other writers to follow)

Wattpad

Instagram/Twitter: @rianeblackwell (my writer pen name!)

Random things about me/how I run my blog

I'm a dual-degree bio graduate student so I spend my days pipetting shit in a lab

outside of writing, I enjoy reading (when I have the patience and bandwidth for it), watching anime (fav: fruits basket; currently watching: one piece), (guided) painting, and...sleeping?

I am ask game and tag game friendly! Though it may take me time to respond to tag games.

You will typically find me posting my random thoughts about things (tagged: inkoverted thoughts) - as I said I am introspective af so this constitutes like 90% of what I post. my writing you say? yeah we're still working on growing the gonads to post about that consistently or at all :^)

Because I have so many thoughts, I just started a writeblr discourse series called Spilled Ink (tagged: spilled ink) so that I'm not just shouting into the void and can (hopefully) have people talk back to me and share their opinions

I am always down to talk! seriously. a message in my ask box will never fail to brighten my day so come talk to me about anything and everything.

« W I P S »

Again, unlike most on writeblr (I feel like such an oddball here sometimes), I do not have a trillion WIPs to list and advertise. I'm very much the person that prefers to focus on one WIP at a time. That said, I do have one main WIP and a side-WIP that I started out of spite (and haven't touched since):

My Dearest Enemy (YA literary fiction) | WIP intro | WIP tag | read on wattpad

a coming-of-age story about a 17-year-old aspiring artist whose artwork is deteriorating as she struggles to come to terms with the death of her father a year prior. as the story unfolds she meets a series of new people who force her to contend with the bleak reality she's settled for. the emotional journey that results opens up her world, and ultimately unearths a shocking truth.

Untitled Romance WIP (Contemporary fiction) | no tag or intro just yet

a story about a black female physician assistant living a life of self-sabotage as she jumps from one unfulfilling "relationship" to another. she's been convinced, by society and past experiences, that someone as "dark" as her needs to settle for any form of affection she can get. fairly tale love stories with happy endings don't happen to people like her. But when her crush from high school who unknowingly started her streak of self-sabotage suddenly reappears in her life, she has to decide whether it's worth giving him another chance.

[nemaria]

For the WIP game, super curious about 800 Years of Virginity and a Near Death Experience Makes You A Wizard!

Thank you for the ask!! That one is a sort-of AU of Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!

in case you haven't heard of it, it's a BL manga/drama/anime where the premise is that if you're still a virgin at 30, you'll turn into a "wizard" who can read people's thoughts by touching them.

I say it's only a "sort-of" AU bc the original is modern-day and set in an office, but I wanted to keep my version in the canon TGCF universe! And also the plot will be pretty different - I'm mainly just taking the mind-reading when touching idea lol.

A lot of it is still in flux so things might change, but the original idea was:

Mu Qing almost dies and is kind of hanging between life and death at Meng Po Bridge for a while because no one is there at first to give him the tea/soup.

Eventually Meng Po does appear and explains that he is very nearly dead, but not quite, and that he’d be fully dead if there weren’t something firmly tethering him to the living world.

He has two choices - sever the connection with the tether and pass over the bridge into the next life, or let the tether pull him back to the living world.

Either way, he must drink her tea - but she cautions him if he chooses the latter it won’t make him forget everything since he isn’t dead, but it will definitely do something to him - she’s not sure exactly what. The god that grows the tea for her has good intentions, he really does want people to make the most of their second chance at life, but he is also quite mischievous, so the way the tea ‘helps’ will probably be more fun for him to watch than it is for you to experience.

Mu Qing is alarmed at not knowing what it will do, but she assures him it won’t do anything bad. Probably. At the very least his body will be restored to perfect condition.

(Spoiler, but not really: the tea turns MQ into "a wizard" at the very least, and maybe will have some other effects too depending on how much of a hard time I want to give him lmao)

[bonefall]

shit it's clanmew day already?? after last clanmew day i translated a buncha my OCs names, here are the ones i'm proud of (and one that makes me want to rip my hair out). also these are for fan clans who i decided give honor titles very liberally so like no one has the prefix they were born with LOL. also also all the translations are based on the notes i jotted down while translating and that was nearly a month ago so if some are bad.. y'know how it is.

hawkstar - yi'ishai or eeaoshai. "hawk" originally came from his honor title that he got for viciousness and cunning in battle, so within his clan he's called yi'ishai or sparrowhawk-star, but outside the clan he's known for his bloody battle tactic of attacking nurseries - thus red kite-star, since red kites are known for stealing kits.

mothwatcher - ffipkeslaou. i know there's a clanmew name for watch(er) but i went with divination cause it sounded cooler. her name was given because she deciphered an omen involving moths (haven't fleshed out what the omen was bc i suck at my job). also used the word for plume moth specifically because she's kind of weird lookin.

aspenfall - kossakanoch. least direct translation as "tree-broken in half" since her name was given when she retired due to an injury from a falling tree.

tawnyberry - pyowaworrpraw. used the word for poisonous berries for her, she changed which word for berry was used in her name as a symbol of her grief and desire for revenge after her apprentice was killed.

brokenfall - fewlkiseplur. "fall-interrupted" since her name was given after she caught a kit who had fallen off the top of the nursery.

snailstripe - hehhefshofi. "slithering-trail" since he was named for the trail of slime snails leave behind. just thought this one was cute tbh.

beaverstream - kenkagargerreboshush. when i tell you this name made me lose my mind know that i am telling the truth. i could not find the clanmew name for beaver so i went with "built barrier-stream" since her name was an honor title for her building skills.

Just in case your name changes in the future, I need to state for the scientific record that your avatar is Jerma with a lesbian flag and it's the second most based thing I've seen today. what will they think of next

FANTASTIC names! Excellent use of poetic meanings, I love Mothwatcher specifically, "Watcher" brings out the best in people doing translations for some reason!

Here's some snails 'n beavers for you!

SNAILS

Snails and slugs are considered a type of worm (Pusa), divided further into several more generic categories. I'll give you ALL the generics, and a few specific species of snail.

ALSO: Be prepared, ShadowClan has more vocabulary around snails than other Clans, because they are the only Clan that eats them regularly. I'll be making sure to note when and how their dialect differs.

Slug (Mostly gastropods... and mussels) = Ssloo Slimeworms are any worm that's ESPECIALLY slimy. They are defined by being the wettest worms. Leeches have an interesting relationship to the Slimeworm category-- ShadowClan considers them their own category under Pusa, probably because of their deep relationship with them, and define the different species. The other four lump them in with slugs, and call all three species ssufrru.

Snail (A slug with a shell) = Kewiha (Comes from cave, "Ken", baby-they "Wi", and bringing, "Hageesh." Ken-WiHageesh, "The little thing brings a cave," contracted.)

Arion (Snails that live in water) = Alof Marine snails and mussels. This word is usually referring to marine snails, but could mean any shell-producing animal regularly collected by RiverClan. Also used by other Clans to describe RiverClan's shell goods. Jingleshells (an instrument), shell necklaces, and also occasionally windchimes that contain no shells at all. The etymology of this term initially came from freshwater mussels alone and had origin in Parkmew, but after mussels died out in the River Chell, it came to describe anything in the water with shells.

And now, specific species of Snails, in both Kewiha broadly and Alof... and GET READY FOR SHADOWCLAN TO MAKE THINGS DIFFICULT

(NON-ShadowClan) A white-lipped OR a brown-lipped snail = Porsh Other Clans do not care about the difference between these two snails, owing to their natural diversity of shells. Both species are used in a type of divination, called Shai-een-Sek... EXCEPT in ShadowClan, where both species have unique names and uses.

(ShadowClan) Delicious Snail (White-Lipped, Cepaea hortensis) = Gapor THIS snail is eaten as a delicacy, and in LARGE amounts. Processing these snails makes for delicious treats in ShadowClan, especially for kittens who have fun figuring out how to get the meat out of the shell. Because they are eaten, their shells are a byproduct, and considered sacrilegious to use in divination.

(ShadowClan) Herald Snail (Brown-Lipped, Cepaea nemoralis) = Poen But you can't just use any Brown-Lipped snail in ShadowClan. StarClan only deserves the best snails, you must present them with something worth their time. They come in many colors and morphs, but a proper Holy Snail has a distinct white swirl on its brown shell, with a brown lip around the rim. You may not use the OTHER morphs.

(ShadowClan) Cosmic Dust Snail (Also Brown-Lipped, Cepaea nemoralis) = Porsh OR Keshof. Using the word "Porsh" in ShadowClan is referring to a Herald Snail with an off-color shell, also sometimes called Kewiha Sh'hoffes, or Keshof. ShadowClan believes that these snails are the byproduct of StarClan working upon the world, bearing the "cosmic dust" of their work upon their backs. It can be a bit derogatory in ShadowClan, like calling someone an accident, and they insist that the other four can't tell Porsh from Poen.

Garden Snail (Cornu aspersum) = Mokew The most common gastropod that Clan cats encounter. Also eaten by ShadowClan, but not considered quite as delicious as a gapor. Shells are occasionally used in decoration when the patterns are particularly bright or contrasting.

Kentish Snail (Monacha cantiana) = Meyloo The waste-snail. Mostly used by ShadowClan out of disappointment they taste bad, but will be eaten when starving, other Clans just lump them under Kewiha.

Pond Snail/Whelk (Lymnaea stagnalis) = Wook The marine snail that RiverClan is most familiar with. Though it's not actually a type of Whelk, I encourage using it as a translation just so it looks good in a name, and has a similar spiral-shaped shell.

Freshwater Pearl Mussel (Margaritafera Margaritafera) = Kofoo From Arion + Lake. An extremely rare creature back in the Forest Territory, mostly spoken about in legends. The water quality was just too poor for these animals to thrive there, and they died out in the River Chell around the same time as SkyClan's exile. Once the Clan cats came to the lake, they were able to see these creatures for the first time in generations. The word Alof (which originally meant mussels) was combined with the word for lake, creating Kofoo.

Here is a bonus; some group-words for the various categories!

Patch of mussels = K'kbw OR Kikibwa Important because RiverClan makes notes of these locations and makes sure they don't take too many. This word is made to be said underwater, between cats who are diving. It's two clicks and a bubble. Above water, spoken with air, it becomes Kikibwa.

Beautiful shell = Sek Contrast with Eksh (hard shell, of mussel, describes curled horns of rams) and Babaak (exoskeleton, shining shell of insects.) Sek are the shells of most snails, decorative things that can be strung on a necklace.

A type of divination using the shells of Porsh/Poen = Shai-een-Sek [Star-inside-Shell]

The Lake = Oorr Sangkoorr A word that means "Lake Lake Lake." When Daisy was asked the name of the Lake, she explained it was called "Sang Koorr," which is a corruption of the ENGLISH word for SANCtuary Lake, which became Sang in Seamew, combined with the OLD LAKEMEW word for lake, which was Koorr. Lake Lakelake.

BEAVERS

AND, LASTLY, before we close out, Clan cats DO have a word for beaver... and here is a little tidbit from BB;

European Beaver (Castor fiber) = Hyoog Also sometimes called the Ukum Kenkagarn in ShadowClan. The Construction Buddy. Dovewing had a great reputation in ShadowClan LONG before she joined it, it was her quick thinking and great hearing while on her quest with Tigerpaw and the Beaver Patrol that made her realize the strange creatures were defending kittens in their dam. Rather than just destroy a structure the beasts would surely rebuild later, the patrol clambered in and stole the kits, luring the family all the way back to the Lake. While Rippletail died in the process, his sacrifice wasn't in vain. ShadowClan is very fond of the creatures and their willingness to help with Blackstar's Bog Project, protecting them zealously.

Side note: This is actually what a beaver sounds like. In fact, I want you to imagine what you thought a beaver sounds like right now.

Play it in your head a few times.

Got it?

Listen to reality;

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

Hi i have sigewinne thoughts id like to hear your takes on

It is established that sigewinne is in the fortress wayyyy before wrio because she was also incarcerated for something right (or maybe she just has weird lingo that makes it SOUND like she committed a crime idk). And its still unclear exactly when she went from being an inmate to a working nurse (could be the same as wrio or she was also one of the people who chose to stay in meropide after her sentence is over who knows).

But like the warden before wrio is horrible iirc. And idk man horrible warden would equal unhappy, starving, desperate, and violent (and most importantly DEAD!) prisoners right?

I know melusines has this higher being-esque distant way of how they view humanity. They talk about humans being adorable like how humans would describe pets and animals. Im not saying its in a deragotory way, but theyre... a lil bit tone deaf because of it ya know. Like they KNOW they should do good for good sake but not exactly comprehend that good would make humans feel good (sedene literally went 'ah yes i remember that when humans are sad, you feed them, then theyre not sad!)

Do you think sigewinne would just... people watch? Would help humans that approach her yeah but she just... is aware that the humans around her are the sad and the hungry. And they are just less so when the warden changed? I doubt ANYONE would stay in meropide after their sentence during the previous warden era, but her staying solely to people watch and keep them healthy isnt.... that... farfetched.

And i love sigewinne, would probably need that level of distance to be a tiny nurse in a fortress of criminals. I just wonder how she is during the previous warden era because i dont really see her getting along with them either (or the warden kept her around for free labour who knows)

Sorry for the late reply, my social spoon has been low. The yap machine broke LOL

ANYWAY the melusines. I do honestly think Genshin Often write themselves into a hole with how they want to keep things "light" while still ... doing ... dark crazy shit. Putting a Melusine in Jail. Why. And also genshin's writer team is just... not good. But we have been through that I've rambled At Length about what I think there so.

Here's specific thoughts about Sigewinne.

Firstly............ what? I haven't touched new content since Fontaine MSQ finished, disclaimer, so I'm just taking your word for it. Secondly, making Sigewinne an ex convict is just so immensely Dumb of Mihoyo because that meant. Neuvillette had to sentence her. Right?? And how is That not more prominent to his story than him having to sentence Vautrin or even Wriothesley for that matter, given how he canonically feels about the Melusines and their safety. Sending one of them to Prison, where all of the Bad Guys who Hates Him and would kill the Melusines to get back at him. would ... have to fuck him up. Like he reacted so severely to just Hate Mail. How was Sigewinne's story Not At All impactful to his?

This is almost surely a Teams Not Communicating and/or Mihoyo Haven't Released Her So Everything About Her is Under Wraps thing. Which also makes no sense because.................. Wriothesley's sentence was literally referenced by that file on Neuvillette's desk. Which by the way is insane like sir it has been years. Put it away. But did they do anything like that for Sigewinne? I dunno. Haven't played in ages. The fact that she works down there At All is kinda wack if you consider how protective Neuvillette is.

So........ like... were the Melusines around even Before he was Iudex? He only brought them out of the water and into Fontaine but it's not stated that they're actually younger than him... or younger than 500 years right....... Was she sentenced by the Previous Archon? How can MHY tell a story that says so much and yet answers nothing.

Anyway, about Sigewinne and the Melusines' inaction specifically, I don't actually mind too much. They are so extremely different from humans in terms of how they age and what their maturity looks like, and that it's not too hard for me to grasp that they're just gonna act in ways that make them seem................... so out of touch. This layer actually adds so much to them in my mind in terms of how their immortality works compared to say, the Adepti, and how their emotions and memory function. I once had a thought that because they are so unaffected by loss and death all around them that they might... literally... be one of the only immortal species on Teyvat that is immune to corrosion lol. Or at least, the emotional anguish kind. In the sense they're almost like slimes. Where they just:

1. Don't recall their history with much intensity at all (that one melusine literally forgot Carole died. Or maybe it wasn't made clear to her that one of them just vanished. Maybe a lot more Melusines have died than we thought).

2. Don't care. #Live in the moment.

3. Don't ruminate (I literally said this in my fic funnily enough AHAHAHA).

Like if anyone in Fontaine is truly seriously impartial to humans, its them. Their ability to be so detached to suffering looks Frightening to outsiders (layering on their history with discrimination here lmao) but in actuality, if you consider that they're legitimately another species with a different brain, you'd be able to see their behaviour through less of a moral lense. It's literally as if they don't fully comprehend life and death— even Carole doesn't seem to fully understand death itself. And they forget things (Elynas, their 'father') which is arguably Not Erosion (forgetting small stuff is normal, and if you live as long as they do, yeah, you're better off forgetting things from 298274 years ago). Even if they remember it's probably like. Oh, that was sad! Anyway, what was I doing?

They just don't. Ruminate. They aren't built like that.

And I don't think that means that they don't care. They're just genuinely very different from humans in how they think and feel. And I refrain from saying "they're autistic" or "emotionally stunted" because these are human conditions and human terms, even if I very much frame my understanding of them through my understanding of these other human conditions. Which is why Neuvillette isn't exactly autistic either. But it's very Hard to say in his case because there's not exactly. Other Water Dragons for us to compare to and see if his cognitive/emotional abilities are Different from them (Unless it's modern au. In which yeah, he is lmao). But all the Melusines have this sort of detachment as if like, emotionally, they don't have... the trauma function basically. Or at least not one that's comprehensible to us.

So in my head, I do think Sigewinne tries her best, but she just simply isn't as emotionally charged by her experiences as, say, Wriothesley. She worked in Meropide while Wriothesley was sentenced there, so she did work under the previous warden as well, and I'm sure she did her job Well and she had her own way of caring for people but if they drop dead... genuinely, I think she'd just be like. "Aw, how sad. Anyway, I have other people to treat." Which, arguably, makes her a much more efficient nurse LMAO.

And it may seem so cruel to people do view her through a humanistic lense, but if you see it as like, if she's reached the level of enlightenment that Buddhist practitioners could only Dream of, and she's able to literally let these heavy events wash over her without letting it affect her, all while still being a caring being, this all would hopefully feel less uncomfortable. I do genuinely think she cares, but her emotional range and cognition just reaches. This point. Which is fine and doesn't make her inherently a bad character or person, I think.

I do literally think she can sit down with someone grieving and be like, "I understand that you are going through a process, and I will let you process things at your own rate, while I administer care as well as I can."

And they can be like, "Why don't you give a shit that they died?!!"

And she'd be like, "Would me feeling worse bring them back?"

Then, depends on how they react, she would continue like. "Unfortunately I do not feel things the same way that you do, and I do understand that humans often want their conversation partners to be able to relate to them, to feel as though they aren't alone in their feelings. Perhaps if you attend the memorial later, you'd be able to find those who can grieve with you. But if you feel any pain, or need any medicine, I will be here to help you!"

Yknow like. She's not Unkind. But she's very much... not gonna feel the same way about death as her patients. If anything this might make her the Best Suited person to be in charge of care in Meropide, and she might have already figured that out herself, and was like, "Monsieur Neuvillette, only I can do this without going insane. Please let me do this."

And he's like............... (shaking with fear for her) "Alright."

[bluegekk0]

Mossbag made a new video 'Exploring the Pale King's Anatomy' and the first thing I thought about was you. lol

Hahahah yeah I think FPK is a little bit too out there anatomy wise to ever be considered by Mossbag. From what I've seen he mostly stuck to an analysis similar to what Mebi did, which makes perfect sense for the canon.

---

I go fully with the idea that most of the characters in the AU have actual skeletal structures, which is probably a bit unusual since from what I noticed most people stick to a more insect like direction. Makes sense I guess, though I'm still in the "bug is just a term and doesn't necessarily mean they're insects, some of them are just inspired by real life bugs" camp. Perhaps one of the first civilizations was actually more insect-like in origin, so the term "bug" stuck around even for species that are far more similar to other IRL animal groups. Or maybe "bug" in their universe has a completely different etymological origin so it doesn't even mean anything close to "insect". I mean, it is just three letters, so it just being a coincidence that it means "insect" in the English language is definitely a possibility. It's not like there are no words across languages who look the same but have different meanings, right?

So in the AU, "bug" is just a general term to use for everyone in the language used in Hallownest (and possibly more, if they come from the same language family), like "person" is for us.

The downside: well, it gets a little tiring having to explain my interpretation, since it isn't something a lot of people think (at least to my knowledge), and you could argue it's more convoluted than in needs to be (probably true). The upside is that, if it is such a broad term, then it doesn't discriminate against anyone in their world who doesn't look like an insect. Everyone gets called "a bug", regardless of their anatomy, their species and their ancestry. Which definitely fits FPK's wish to unite everyone under his rule (and because he looks nothing like an insect himself), though I don't think he was the one who started using the term that way, it just happened to fit his vision.

Of course, I won't go arguing about this cause I realize it is a bit of an unpopular take, but for the AU that's what I'm going with. Which means that every time someone calls my AU characters (especially FPK and Grimm) "insects", part of me is like... Have you seen them? I keep it to myself and it doesn't actually bother me, I just think it's a bit funny to see people call my very clearly mammal looking Grimm an insect, probably just because that's what they're used to haha

---

But I got a little carried away. I might check the video in full one day, though I tend to stay away from canon-friendly analyses these days. Not because I think my interpretations are better, no, I think they're all valid, it's just hard for me to separate my own thoughts from such interpretations, especially if they're very different to what I envisioned. Makes me go "no that's not how I see it at all" instead of just reading through it as its own thing. Does that make sense? I hope it does, and I hope it doesn't come off as rude or dismissive. My brain is just a bit hard to cooperate with 😭

Though I will say, I do appreciate Mossbag pointing out that Wyrm is a term connected to dragons and other reptiles, and not just worms. I guess that's one thing FPK has in common with that analysis. That, and having bones i suppose, though I haven't watched the entire video so I only know that Mossbag mentioned bones, I don't know what his final conclusion was.

[toshio]

Hey, love your blog 💗Random q: if you’re into tv shows what’s your top 3?

LOOOL omg okay this is vague question. because you could either mean like REAL hollywood production stuff or like anime. i'll give you both haha. EXTREMELY LONG list of my favorite american shows (reality TV included) and some of my all time favorite anime. read below if you're interested. it's a lot. buckle up.

well for actual TV shows (like american produced i guess) i really enjoyed American Horror Story, my favorite seasons were season 2 (asylum) it's about a spooky asylum with nuns possessed by satan/demons and a bunch of other messed up villains. Jessica Lange CARRIES this season with her incredible acting.

another actress who i LOVED in season 2 was Lily Rabe, she plays the possessed nun (her character is supposed to be an innocent nun but she gets corrupted) and she's super badass while she's under control by the devil LOL. like amazing acting, she's just pure femme fatale and is a perfect villain that you actually WANT to lowkey root for because she's so cunty. UGH. i remember getting my life from her. this entire season is carried by these two characters.

and you didn't specify if you wanted regular TV shows or reality TV shows, but i am a huge reality TV fan! i'm gay/bi so i absolutely LOVE watching rupaul's drag race LMAO. season 16 is the most recent one that just finished airing, i absolutely loved every minute of it, the show is just endlessly entertaining and showcases queer people in such a vibrant and fun life that would make straight people jealous HAHA. but it's a show for everyone obviously, as long as you enjoy drag queens and expressing yourself and stuff.

and another reality TV show that i enjoyed was "flavor of love" it's a reality TV competition show where a bunch of women from the 2000s were competing to win the love of "Flavor Flav" who's this rapper who's like 65 years old now. LOL. it sounds crazy but this show was HUGE back then, and the breakout star was a contestant named "New York" but her real name is Tiffany Pollard and i LIVE for this woman, lmao. she's so iconic and has the best quotes ever, she's regarded as a gay icon within the queer community. VH1 loved her so much that they made a bunch of other spin off shows featuring her in it, just look her up on youtube haha.

i wouldn't say these 3 shows above are my absolute favorites of ALL time but they're definitely up there! just can't think of anything else, and they're my recent hyper fixations.

and i'm not sure if you're an anime watcher/fan but my favorite anime of all time is probably an anime called Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. it's literally regarded as one of the best animes of all time, you should watch it if you haven't already. i got a tattoo of it because i want to remember it for the rest of my life LOL. IT'S SO GOOD. without spoiling it, it's like action/adventure/brotherhood with some philosophy thrown in it. i think people often belittle anime/2D animated stuff but this show is a masterpiece. 11/10.

second anime TV show i recommend is Death Note, it's another iconic anime you should watch. to summarize the plot, a death god (shinigami) gets bored one day and drops his "death note" (a book that allows you to kill ANYONE in the world if you write their name in the book) and a really smart student named Light Yagami (main character) picks it up after his class in school. and he decides to use it for his own good, trying to make the world a better place, but really smart detectives eventually figure out that something is happening, and he tries to stay incognito. if that doesn't sound interesting, then hell. i really enjoyed this one, it's a classic anime that you should see.

i'm gonna give you two more anime shows because my taste level is all over the place LOL but the third one i recommend is "Akame ga Kill!". it's about a guy who joins a group of assassins who he ORIGINALLY thinks are evil people who kill innocent people, but it turns out the capital city is secretly corrupt and it's all a facade, the assassins he joins are actually the good guys (at least in their eyes).

if you enjoy fast paced anime where lots of people die, action, fighting, cute anime girls, and there's even a buff gay guy in the show (YAY) then this show is for you. the main character is really badass too, her name is "Akame". now i will say a lot of people criticize this show but since you asked for my opinion, i think this show is a 9/10. it's not perfect but i enjoy the world, the animation, the characters, music, etc. this show just really made me happy. the dub and sub are good, if you hate reading subtitles. i watched both.

the last recommendation i have is Blood-C, i know it looks similar to Akame ga Kill but i promise you it's a different show LOL. it just has two black haired anime heroine characters who use a katana/sword to kill. and they're both bloody/action packed.

this show is EXTREMELY bloody, extremely violent and bloody, there's gore guts and action. if that isn't for you, do not watch it. i however, enjoy such morbid things, and since it's not real gore/violence, i can stomach it much better.

Blood-C (first episode air date was early July 2011) is about a sweet girl named Saya Kisaragi who goes to school as a normal girl. at night, she protects her village and friends from strange human eating monsters. i'm not going to spoil much else, but if that kind of stuff interests you, please watch this one! i really enjoyed it. again, people have criticisms about this show, but i fucking loved every minute of it. it's only about 12 episodes. i have a strange love for female protagonists in anime because they're so badass and i just love strong independent women in animated things, i've always had an affinity for it. i was always that nerdy kid in school who drew anime girls and stuff in class, LOL.

alright LAST anime recommendation i have for you if you enjoy my taste, is "Claymore". again, it's about female heroes with swords who slay creatures, you seeing the pattern here? LOL. i just like badass women who can fight. DON'T JUDGE ME OKAY?

one of my favorite anime shows, i watched it in early 2018 when i was taking college classes, so this anime holds a special place in my heart. it's about female swordsmen who slay human eating monsters with their giant swords. these terrifying monsters can disguise themselves as humans, and it gets worse than that. it's set in a dark fantasy medieval type of alternate universe. again, if you enjoy badass anime women, this show is for you! who doesn't enjoy that?

if you read absolutely everything, thank you. and let me know if you watched any of these. i'd love a follow up message from you. enjoy!

[papakhan]

You mentioned toys what else do you think the Khans would make for toys for kids and up bc it’s very interesting

Oooh I think Khan kids get a lot of hand made toys like straw stuffed dolls and carved wooden or clay or bone animals that get gifted to them when they're born. I think it's a general opinion amoung Khans to pass on things you don't use anymore so a lot of toys have really been through the wringer. Think like a little kid who absolutely adores their headless armless stuffed toy lol

I think they also have "toy" versions of cooking equipment that are actually sharp enough to cut fruit and vegetables, just so they can be taught how to handle knives at a young age (under direct supervision. Most of the time

I think a lot of Khan kids didn't really need toys past a certain age and just kinda played with sticks and rocks and wrestling with eachother. Like idk age 10 and they're like Catching bugs and using rouge pieces of sheet metal to sled down hills. They probably get stuff like leather balls to kick around and airsoft guns to shoot at animal skulls and drums and stuff. They probably get taught to do more practical stuff around this age like ride horses and idk help with little chores and ""safe"" raids which is actually just like salvaging scrap yards and stuff

I think the concept of "childhood" is fairly new to the Khans and kind of novel to some of them, so each generation they're getting slightly better at just letting kids be kids. In the fallout bible section by Scott uhhh I can't remember his surname but he basically said that in the og Khans as soon as kids were old enough to hold a gun they were brought out on raids. Obvs by the Great Khans they don't do that anymore but I think there's at least a vocal minority of Khans who think they Should go back to the old ways ie Bitter Roots dad, but I think kids in the modern Great Khans enjoy a surprising amount of protection rights (which is why bitter roots dad took him out to shoot at the NCR in secret)

I think I mentioned how some of the first Great Khan kids kind of grew up too fast because the Khans struggled and needed hands on deck basically and kids like Chance felt they were being burdensome by just playing around. Even a couple of generations later with Sun they still haven't quite figured out what kids should and should not be doing and seeing, but Sun got it slightly worse because he watched his dad execute people and do wack raider leader stuff. By new vegas I imagine they've backslid a lil judging by how Jerry and Bitter Root feel yknow

[eccentric-nucleus]

so, i finally finished (posting) my huge, novel-length teenage mutant ninja turtles fanfic. i just posted the final epilogue over on ao3!

here is my director's commentary on it, if you want to read even more about it. this contains spoilers for the whole thing. maybe read the epilogue first and sit with that for a minute. also this will probably be pretty incoherent if you haven't read the whole thing. it's just a disconnected series of thoughts i have about the story, really

man, this story. this is maybe the longest thing i've ever written? like 'the new hive' and 'hell game' had more words (i think) but they were mostly a disconnected series of sex scenes with thin connective tissue between them. this is ~200k words of a single, linear, mostly-plot narrative. i'm writing scenes that aren't just about getting the two leads to fuck!! that's weird. it's definitely the most ambitious thing i've written. kind of weird that it's tmnt fanfic. that's just how it worked out, i guess.

so back in 2022 i watched the rise of the tmnt movie because people kept talking about the animation quality of the fights and that got me into a spiral of actually paying attention to the ninja turtles. i had never been into them & genuinely i think a huge part of getting into tmnt stuff was that rise actually varied the design of the turtles so that they weren't all basically identical save for color-coding. turns out visual design was the missing mystery ingredient.

also in 2022 i was burning out on writing 'goblin cave', when what i had intended to be a fun little writing exercise ended up getting algorithmically surfaced and getting me hundreds of comments on each chapter. that got a little stressful and i wasn't really enjoying that, so i stopped. but i was like, hmm you know i mostly just write weird porn but maybe i should write something a little more ambitious. with a plot, and everything. 'goblin cave' was (in my mind) all about a character who was created for violence deciding art was a much more worthwhile pursuit. but the main character of that doesn't know what art is. because it's a magical dungeon core. and i was still thinking a lot about dead zones of the imagination, by david graeber. so i was like, okay, let's do this again but in a slightly more self-authentic way and make it weird gay porn with weird animal dicks. let's give michelangelo ninjaturtle a monologue about how the powerful are utterly insulated from any consequence.

(also early on, after watching most of rottmnt, i stumbled across this blog post about the tmnt comics and the end of the world. that ended up being deeply influential on the fic too. i've been kinda in a state for the past few years and this fic is absolutely a part of me working through a lot of complicated feelings about the world and the future. lol people talk so much about people writing dark fic 'to cope' but this was pretty much the first time i've outsourced my emotional processing by having bad things happen to fictional characters.)

so uhhh where to start here. the setting of the fic is this complicated messy mashup of a half-dozen tmnt continuities. it's very rise-heavy, since... that was the only series i had watched(/read) when i had determined the major plot points, but there's a lot of bits and pieces from all over.

to roughly outline the characters here, a huge influence on mikey's personality in this is... mikey's 'dr delicate touch' persona in rottmnt. in the sense that... okay yes yes that is a kid's show and all of his dr delicate touch lines are, you know, setups and punchlines. you think he's going to be nice but actually he's mean! etc. but in-universe it's like, wait hold on a second. mikey is like the most emotionally-intelligent of the four. he absolutely knows when people are on the edge of flipping out and need a calming out to a stressful situation. and instead he freaks them out more! mikey's hobby is: being mean to his friends & family, for fun! what a fun character trait.

i was thinking about this tweet a lot, too. i read some writing advice once that people tend to make characters who are supposed to be likable too squeaky-clean. nothing but positive character traits for them! but actually every 'positive' character trait is exactly the same as a 'negative' one; it's just a matter of focus and degree. a character is light-hearted and comedic? they can never take things seriously, even when they really should. a character is willing to do anything to protect the people they love? so they're violent and threatening and scary if they happen to decide you're something that they need to protect against. etc. i was really dedicated in this to bringing out the worst characteristics of everybody's personalities.

mikey was also very deeply inspired by: all the garbage progression fantasy stuff i've been reading. i've complained about this several times on this very blog, but a constant theme in most progression fantasy is 1. the main character will constantly get more and more powerful and 2. the main character will never really have their relationship with the rest of the world changed via that power. it's just stat-ups. they just have higher stats so they're more powerful. mikey is the most powerful person on the planet and it's fucking ruining his life. he knows that there's nobody capable of actually checking his behavior, & he's in this constant state of thinking he's maybe a few bad days away from murdering half the planet and incredibly aware there's not really anything he can do about that aside from constantly worry. he's kind of an anxious mess.

mikey absolutely thinks it's more ethical to murder somebody out of the sheer glee of seeing people crushed before you than murdering somebody for something as tedious as mob orders. you're satisfying a deep, raw desire felt from the heart! that's good!

what he'd like to do, in some sense, is just hang out in his studio and chill with other artists, but he knows the world is not gonna let him do that. things will come up. a lot of his being a creepy bystander thing while people get murdered is b/c he's very much formulated his morality to be like... it is not his responsibility to fix other people's problems. other people will do what they want and that has no bearing on him. is that a pretty cowardly and self-serving morality? sure! but he was kinda designed to rule the world & his flinch away from that pretty much defines him as a character in this. that's kinda the morality he needed to end up on to convince himself not to be a genocide machine.

he's incredibly aware he could basically be a superhero, & all it would take is... giving up on all his hopes and dreams and constantly engage with his abilities. and being a superhero isn't that many steps removed from living up to his full design spec and just taking over the world and ruling as god-emperror. idk how well i hit all those notes in the actual fic, but, that's what i was going for. mikey as the narrator clearly doesn't want to talk or think about it so it's never really directly confronted.

raph is... okay so i guess a fairly common piece of fanon, for rise especially, is to characterise raph as having multiple personalities? whether that's him just having alters or him having full-blown MPD depends on the fic. my fun little nod to that is that he's kind of a disassociative mess. he has kind of failed to reconcile the disparate aspects of his personality and he switches between one of several different facades depending on the situation. also, you know. the trauma.

(i didn't really mean for it to be as such, but there is this theme in the story about names? despite everything else mikey has a crystal-clear self-conception of himself and has one name, which he gave himself. raph, who has kinda failed to build his own personality, has a collection of name other people have given him, none of which he feels actually fits him. donnie has a more fluid self-identity and also has roughly a million aliases and false identities & constantly slips in and out of character when it's convenient. leatherhead still going by the name mikey gave him goes hand-in-hand with that bit where mikey meanly thinks about how maybe leatherhead's entire self-conception is hung up on something mikey said to him once, etc. this is one of those things that i'd go back and make more present if i did go back and clean up the rough draft, b/c as it is it's there, but it doesn't really do a whole lot.)

--

this fic was inspired by... i had read a few big aus that were just like, taking the characters and loose bits of setting and going off in completely different directions. some of NeiNing's aus were a definite influence, plus like, this one au where raph is an ex-con mechanic, etc, etc. just like "i am going to play out a completely unrelated drama using turtles as the dolls". maybe most directly influential was Of Knights and Thieves, where donnie & mikey are corporate espionage hacker/thief types and raph & leo are do-gooder vigilantes. the original concept for this was much more heavily focused on the art forgery. in a very early draft the idea was leo would get involved much more actively in trying to track down the creator of the false takenobus. then i was like, "i am going to crash a completely separate story concept about the dark armor into the side of this art-forgery story". the filename for the story is still 'lol grindr hookup art thief'. that is not really where the story went.

oh man, the art stuff. i made some posts about this at the time! that are now several years old. here's one! i did end up getting a traditional woodcut printing of Tokaido 53 stations, no. 11, Hokone. in a lot of ways doing all the art research was more satisfying and fun than writing the extensive downward spiral that was the latter half of the fic. but, hey, that's life too i guess.

also raph in this is... okay, so, i don't mean this in a mean way. i really liked the fics! but cndrow has written several raph/donnie fics where raph is just like... like a repeated theme in them is raph confessing eternal love & talking about how he's like, mentally planning on them being together forever. on the first date. and sure sure everybody has different tastes; i'm absolutely sure that my interest in guys who are mean leads to some stories that are extremely offputting to some people, etc. but it's like, oh man, raph, please slow your roll a little. if somebody said they were planning our future wedding all of ten minutes into talking to me i would flee the room. & the raph in blinded by the summer sun is very much inspired by that. sadly, i never fully committed to that. originally i even had a line in chapter 9 where slash was like 'please tell me you didn't drop the 'i love you forever' on this guy already' to imply that that was, you know, a theme for raph, but i chickened out and cut it. raph as a kind of rolling series of bad relationships characterized by him falling forever in love w/ his latest crush until the relationship detonates and leaves him not really understanding how things went wrong. but i don't think that's expressed well like, at all. but that ideally should characterize a large part of why he keeps chasing after mikey even well after the point where it would be reasonable to disengage. also to convey some of the downsides of a character believing in true love. it's rough out there in the world.

also thank you tumblr user averyterrible for writing this goncharov post. that was the point in the story where i was like, actually i have been writing raph as way too much of a sad boy. if i want to play in the space of crime drama, there needs to be some crime! he's a yakuza assassin. he needs to chop off somebody's fingers with bolt cutters.

--

to me, the central question in the fic isn't really 'will the mikey/raph relationship work out' or 'will mikey succeed in his plans', it's 'why is mikey doing these things'. & i think the leatherhead chunks in chapter 23 finally give enough context to what's going on with mikey to let people answer that? like oh, mikey is a mess.

(lol the initial setup for the early chapters are supposed to give an audience response of like, "oh no, raph has some dangerous secrets" "oh no, raph is a violent yakuza murderer! i hope mikey is going to be okay interacting with raph" "...oh no, i hope raph is going to be okay interacting with mikey")

a lot of the story really is about how... mikey & raph's relationship is in a lot of ways very adolescent? they have not had a lot of prior experience with healthy relationships, and they're trying, but, uhhhhhhh. mikey likes to act like he's so cool and above-it-all and unaffected by things happening, but that's actually just b/c he doesn't really care about most things. when something happens that he genuinely doesn't like he immediately snaps and has a giant meltdown. (we see this once with raph, when mikey has a panic attack and throws up when raph blows him off wrt warning him of bishop, and once with donny about the armor, where mike immediately starts tantruming and threatening to kill himself. mikey is very bad at resolving conflict. he's kind of a brat, actually.)

like every character in this is in some way their worst self. they're all pretty awful people. but they're all also trying to... grapple with their place in the world and try to be better people. to even figure out what 'better' means. this is a story about how 'being a good person' is a constant struggle, not to 'do the right thing', but to even figure out what's 'right'. it's about picking yourself up again after a bad period and going, well, let's keep going. like mikey has a lot of traits but one that i, the author, actually think is fairly admirable is his ability to get back up and keep going after a really bad period. which is funny b/c characterwise that goes hand-in-hand with his callousness. just shrug off all the misery you caused other people, i guess! see above about positive/negative character traits.

(also uh there's another tmnt fic author whose work has a lot of... a Bad Guy is constructed/identified. then helpless children (or teens!) are rescued from him. then the bad guy is ruthlessly & violently murdered. sometimes onscreen, sometimes offscreen. and then it's nothing but chapter after chapter of people being happy and cutesy to each other. and like, i get it. but the, like, recurring theme there of the Bad Guy having done something fundamentally unforgivable that separates from all understanding & mercy, to which the only justice is a violent death, just strikes me as... simplistic. sometimes people do really awful things and part of grappling with that as an adult with an adult moral conceptualization is realizing that you gotta look past your initial reflex to punishment.

or like, mikey's whole childhood in this really fucked him up but a huge part of his identity is him having to form an identity from that. having to make the determination of which parts of him are 'him' and which parts were done to him. lol @ him aggressively and extensively rejecting everything about what draxum made him to do & then blithely being like 'we were engineered to eat humans anyway' as a defense for all the corpse-eating. mikey you just like eating people & have decided that part does align with your self-identity. mikey would really not appreciate anybody being like 'i'm sorry nobody saved you from that' b/c that (to him) would basically be the same as them saying they thought he was fundamentally, irreparably damaged & was going to be forever incapable of being anything other than what draxum made him to be. he wouldn't take it well.)

uhhh what else. i mean there's a lot. fun fact pretty much every time mikey gets mad at somebody else he's hugely projecting. even his pacifism is like... hmm maybe he should have killed draxum. a lot of his talk @ raph about splinter is secretly mikey relitigating his feelings about draxum. oh what's that mikey you think that splinter is only playing happy family b/c he's immortal and he has infinite time to spend humoring somebody's illusions but that when push comes to shove he'll drop all that? gee i wonder if that might apply to any dynamics in mikey's own life. lol at mikey being like "wow red your life is kind of a fucked-up nightmare of weird psychopaths playing like they're happy family" and then two chapters is like "hey come meet my family. we live in my genocidal dad's bombed-out lab and we're treating him like a weird racist grandpa". i kinda wanted something that would complicate mikey just being like "i am a pacifist now and i don't kill anybody"; mikey that's all well and good but like half his inner tension comes from not being sure if he should've left draxum alive. that's kinda the mirror to him debating whether or not actually killing leatherhead would've been better. (in a few years shelldon is gonna go through a period of not wanting to talk to any of them. mikey & donnie are better parents than draxum but that's such a low bar.)

(likewise at the end when mikey is like "this is raph's healthiest relationship so far!" to leo, like, this is more mikey projecting. really the raph/casey relationship was probably better for raph & casey, idk, who can say. but is mikey's relationship with raph the healthiest romantic interaction he's ever had? yes, absolutely. we don't get to see the mikey/leatherhead relationship really up-close and personal but it should be pretty clear that it was pretty awful for everybody involved. compared to that, the mikey/raph is absolutely mikey's healthiest relationship so far. just. low bars.)

lol i am a little concerned that mikey's tendency to monologue, & especially his whole political monologue near the end, will get people to think he's just acting as an author's soapbox. i mean, okay, the little author's note where i'm like "as always, mikey is a perfect role model and everybody should do what he does" was a fun little joke. but, oof, the number of fics i've read where the authors feel the need to loudly and repeatedly disclaim that This Story Contains Things The Author Does Not Condone In Real Life is pretty disheartening. way to have absolutely no faith in your audience. but likie, the part where mikey is pretty much flat-out like, "actually i think my moral framework is whatever is necessary to justify my actions" is meant to be pretty damning. maybe not of mikey specifically as a character, just of, you know. the whole world where that's a pretty common outlook among people with power.

--

lets talk about the rape. part of it is that it felt like it would be inauthentic to go through the entire story without mikey seriously violating one of raph's boundaries. part of it is that mikey here kinda has the trifecta of ASPD, ADHD, & bipolar, and the thing with that is it's very easy to just say that but a little more difficult to convey the personality traits involved. this isn't really something ever stated as such in the fic, aside from various people calling mikey crazy + raph calls him a sociopath once. it's kind of too didactic to just flatly state "and this is what's wrong with mikey!" imo. but. this is a story about violent people. imo you can't just gesture to a character with the background level of callousness for the genre and go "okay this is a clinical sign"; you kinda gotta do something more direct. 'wow mikey sure is CRAZY and WEIRD good thing it only shows itself as him being slightly mean to people'. no. mikey has done some pretty horrible things in the past and clearly isn't fully done with that.

(i did pretty much go straight down the list of symptoms there. impulsive, suicidal, aggressive, violent, risky sex, arrogant, limited empathy, no regard for other people or social norms, difficulty with relationships, arson, etc, etc, etc. but it's not like he's a 'realistic' portrayal here, since... i mean, he is a super-powered ninja. there's a level of 'superficial charm' here but we do get enough of mikey's interiority to be able to tell he's a total mess in a way that's not particularly constructed.)

also it's like. raph graphically tortures several people to death & i didn't really feel the need to disclaim that here. murder is usually seen as a lesser crime in fiction than rape. people love their violent blorbos but the second there's the implication of sexual violence people freak out. the usual line people say is that the threat of murder is a little more removed for most people than the threat of rape, which idk if i fully agree with. but part of it is also to draw a line between raph's violence and mikey's boundary violation. like mikey says, well, raph tried to non-consensually murder him a few times too.

anyway i don't think i really stuck the landing with that either, in part b/c raph's response to it. he's a little too pathetically accepting of things at the end instead of being angry + violent. that could use a rewrite or two.

--

honestly i'm kinda sick of this story now? which sucks a little, since i kept realizing things about the story all the way up to the very last moment of editing. if i had waited to post any of this until i was done with the first draft... well, it'd be a very different story if i went back and turned this rough draft into something more complete. i never really did manage to hit the character beats with raph i was hoping to. oh well. like, i still like it. but i can definitely see all of its weak points. i guess that's just part of the process of writing. it'd be worse if you wrote a giant novel and came out on the other side not more aware of your failings as an author.

i feel like raph isn't super well-realized in terms of character motivations. or... his relationships aren't shaded in as well as they could be. if i were redoing this whole thing i'd definitely include some chunks of raph pov just to lay out more concretely what he's doing & what his life is like when he's not in the same scene as mikey. i kinda included that raph+donny conversation at the very end just for jokes, but actually ending every chapter with a little section of non-mikey pov would've helped ground a lot of the characters. raph isn't super well-developed and leo is pretty much incoherent absent external familiarity with his character's deal. they're not conveyed super well, in part because, well, any time mikey is onscreen everybody is having to deal with mikey. it's a problem.

but something that absolutely could have worked as a secondary narrative to the story is the whole thing with raph working w/ the oroku. that was a bit of a late addition to the story. it's meant as a reference to, you know, all the times raphael ends up being compared to/assuming the mantle of the shredder in the comics. but as it is since we don't get any real looks into exactly what's going on in yakuza town when mikey's not around none of that got developed very well, imo.

--

it was very important to me that mikey not learn any lesson here. where things are at in the end are pretty much the exact same as where they were in the beginning. the bit in the pizza scene where he's like 'you guys get to live and i get a boyfriend' is very accurate. literally the only change in mikey's life through this entire thing is that at the end he is in a relationship w/ a guy who he can tell some of what his life is like to. not that it's a super healthy relationship, but it is there.

well, that, and also now he's maybe out of time. (uh, so the laughter at the very end of the epilogue is mikey realizing he's out of time. the whole epilogue really is about how he's got all these conflicting tensions of who-knows-what in his life, & then right in the middle of the tension it's like, whoops, the utrom aren't coming in 10 years or 20 years, they're coming now. and in a week you're gonna be getting some really pointed questions about how you know the utrom envoy. and in a few years, well, there's gonna be some planetary evacuation) like the whole story is about... anxiety. mikey feeling the weight of the future on him in every moment. actually seeing things collapse would be a relief; you'd get the release of all the potentiality collapsing into an actual problem. the moral of the story is you get what you get and in the end all mikey's actions, good or bad or otherwise, have bought him is nine more months of ignoring his problems.

anyway sorry to all the tmnt fans who were expecting a happy cheerful mikey/raph story. this is actually about the fundamental injustice of existence. whoops!