#figured I’d post some of my op stuff here sometimes

[doffies]

i imagine family photos are a nightmare for them

[fancyfade]

Post theme going around on LoCG where people say whre they want the batfam members to end up.

I figured I'd share my post (link) here on tumblr b/c I have way more tumblr followers and post many dc thoughts here anyway

original post:

Anyway, where the Batfam members end up in a couple years in my opinion:

Bruce: I honestly think he should retire. Is this ever realistic? No, he makes too much money. But he’s got to be getting what close to 50 by now? He needs to quit before he dies RIP. I’d love to see him trying to do what he can to help the community as Bruce Wayne (which I don’t think he never does as Batman – we see comics involving it. But like more emphasis).

Cass: I view Cass as the logical successor to Bruce. She deserves to be Batman (and wants to be and embodies his ideals very well).

Barbara: I think it’d be neat if Babs (as Oracle) kind of expanded BoP so we have different subgroups… we got a tiny bit of this might be happening at the way tail end of New Earth continuity, with babs faking her and oracle’s deaths to get the heat off and allow herself to dedicate more attention to major operations rather than being everyone’s problem solver, and her training Wendy as a protege… just pick that up. I like Wendy Harris being involved, and I think Helena is a good candidate for an op leader (more on that later)

Helena: Helena should work with a small team of Birds and take on missions that require some convincing undercover work – shout out to both her mob deconstruction plan in Simone’s BOP and her past as a Spyral agent in this continuity. The team should be flexible, but I’d like to see Steph occasionally team up with her… her forgotten-by-continuity adopted son, James, should also help on tech stuff IMO.

Damian: I like the idea of him doing Batman and Robin stuff in Gotham and more globe-trotting stuff on his own, using Maya and Suren and other friends. He also definitely will try to reform any kid/teenage supervillains he comes across, so he should probably fight mostly adults :p

Duke: I think Duke should stay as the Gotham daytime hero, in contact with the kids from We Are Robin, but… get more appearances. Him being in everyday contact with more normal people could be an important storytelling avenue.

Dick: What Dick’s currently doing is fine, no need to change. He’s already got his niche.

Tim: DC doesn’t know what to do with Tim… I think Tim should honestly go into semi-retirement, coming out for big stakes plots and to train younger heroes. In my head this would be after a 12 issue mini series where Tim contemplates how much his life has changed since he started being Robin, with his initial goal that it was going to be something he does his time in and then gets out, out of obligation, and then slowly he had no normal life to get back out to… we’d bring back Dana as a character to bounce thoughts off, as well as the YJ kids especially Cissie who has also retired as a superhero.

Jason: I think what Task Force Z was doing for Jason was perfect, I’d love to see things continue along that line where he like *wants* to do good and to not be the person he used to be, but he sometimes (often) fails… and leading around a team of other equally-or-more corrupt people is fun. That’s as heroic as I feel like Jason should get, if he’s just turned into pretty much another hero it’s like… offbrand nightwing???

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Okay, I finally have time to sit down and do this properly. New season! I am so excited for this one, I could have watched the episode yesterday before work but I wanted to save it for when I could really enjoy it. And stop and write things down when they occur to me.

Though I will say, I’m not going to set a precedent here. I started doing these posts, where I watch the new Taskmaster episode and liveblog it, at the beginning of season 11. I think I did every episode of seasons 11 and 12, and then struggled more with 13 because it aired during my in-person co-op placement last year, and it was hard to find the time. Then 14 was during my second placement, same issue. 15 I just had other stuff going on. So in those seasons, I liveblogged some episodes but not others, but felt like I should with all of them, and that at some point became a problem. Because I couldn’t just watch a Taskmaster episode when I had time, I had to keep saving it until I had 2 or 3 hours (it takes a surprisingly long time to watch these when I’m pausing to write notes and take screenshots all the time, especially if I’m cutting out video and making it a gif too), and the mental energy to write it while taking notes. So I’d put the episode off and try to figure out when I’d have that time and energy, until watching my favourite currently airing TV show started feeling a bit like a chore.

No one told me to do that. I didn’t feel any obligation to do it for anyone else’s sake (my liveblogging posts are nowhere near interesting enough for anyone to bother being disappointed if I don’t do one). But I do really enjoy writing down the stuff I think as I watch Taskmaster, because it’s fun to share that with people. That’s why I made this blog in the first place – too many Taskmaster thoughts and no one to share them with. It’s more fun when I share it, especially when I watch a new episode for the first time. But also, my free time is more limited than it was when I first got into it during lockdown, so I don’t want to feel like I can’t just sit back and enjoy an episode unless I have a three-hour block and the energy to take notes. So I thought it might be easier for myself if I say from the outset that I make no plans to do this every week, or even most weeks. Let’s assume this will be the only one of these I do for season 16 and we’ll see how it goes.

However, I have to do it for the premiere, right? I’m so excited for the premiere. I told myself I’d stay off Tumblr from when it airs until I watch it, to avoid spoilers, but then I broke that rule. I’ve seen a few very mild spoilers, but not too much. I do know a couple of my predictions have already come true. My prediction that Lucy Beaumont’s baffling comedy persona (the baffling part is trying to figure out how much is a character vs how much she is like that) will fit in perfectly on Taskmaster – I’m getting that that came through in interesting ways during the premiere. And my other prediction was that it would take exactly one episode for all of Tumblr (probably other parts of the internet too, but this is the part I know) to fall in love with Sam Campbell – that appears to also be happening. I think at some point earlier in the summer I said something along the lines of “If you think you know who your favourite season 16 contestant will be but you don’t know who Sam Campbell is, don’t lock your answer in just yet,” and it looks like that’s working out.

Okay, without further preamble, on with the liveblogging. Thoughts on Taskmaster s16e01, written as I watch it:

First thought: wow, why does he look so much older than I expected? Next thought: oh right, because I only really know him for old episodes of WILTY and 8 Out of 10 Cats, and time passes sometimes.

First thought... seriously, and I promise to avoid saying this constantly during the course of this season (yes I know I promised something similar about Mae Martin last season and then regularly broke that), but how the hell do they get away with continuing to do jokes on Catsdown about Jon Richardson not being attractive to attractive women when we can all Google his wife?

First thought... seriously, I have trained with at least eight different people who look just like that. There is a "wrestler look" and that is weirdly exactly it. Please, someone, make this man fight something in a task so I can find out if it's in his blood. If he walked around a varsity tournament this year and just went up to the tables and said he came second the 61kg division and wants his silver medal, they'd hand him one no questions asked, they wouldn't even look it up to check. He looks exactly like every guy who came second in the 61kg division at the provincial-level university tournaments for the last eight years.

This is good observational material, I promise. It's unfortunate that if I do another comedy set (which I am intending to do, have just put that plan on hold for a few weeks as I settle into a relatively new-ish job) it will be to an audience that is insufficiently familiar with my life experiences to get the joke.

First thought... I already used my "talk about how hot comedians are" quota for one post on Lucy Beaumont, I am trying not to just constantly write it down if I see a comedian and think that, so in interests of general decorum, I will pass on writing my first though here. Or my second or third.

First thought... I know very little about her (aside from she was good in Crazyhead), so forming much of an opinion based on this shot, and coming in strong with purple eye shadow and giant earrings with a pink tracksuit. That's a look. This will be fun.

Strong combination of facial expressions here:

I'm working as an autism therapist now, and one thing we do is show kids pictures of stock image people with different expressions on their faces, and ask them to label what emotion it is. I could print this screenshot out and use it in the sessions. Okay, kids, see if you can put a name on those five. See if you can guess which two already have a long and extremely successful TV career behind them, enough so they can sit comfortably and relatively placidly on a show that would be "big break" material for anyone who hasn't already "made it" to the absolutely highest level of mainstream TV success.

Love that one of the throne cats is still there:

We open on a food-based bad Alex Horne pun. We're back, baby!

Is Sue Perkins' Napoleon Dynamite shirt part of a task, or is she just wearing that? Either way I approve.

This is almost exactly the same as the "best wooden thing" prize task in season 9, but I don't mind. I guess if you have Julian Cleary you have to open by giving him some chances to make jokes about wood (I don't actually know much about Julian Cleary, that view of him is based on what he was like on 8 Out of 10 Cats in about 2008).

I was genuinely impressed when Julian Cleary introduced his prize without making a joke on the word "wood", and then I saw what the prize was.

Yeah, all right. I'm down for a season of watching the guy in the traditional old man chair bring in sexually suggestive furniture. I've heard worse ideas for how to go on.

I have just listened to Lucy Beaumont's entire boxer dog story, and I still have no idea. No idea if we're supposed to think she really believes in dog ghosts possessing beds and picture frames, or whether it's entirely a character. Either way, I'm mildly obsessed with how well she sells it. Though I am all for some pedantry about prize tasks, so thanks for pointing that she should be only judged on the frame since the picture's not wooden, Greg.

Sammy C opening on a surreal puppet joke. I wouldn't have expected anything less. If anyone else had done that, I'd have brought in some more pedantry to say there's no way he's had that for a while, he clearly just asked the production team to make it. But given what other things I've seen Sam Campbell make in his weird videos, I think I can believe he might have made this himself.

For anyone keeping score at him, my first proper, out-loud laugh of the new season came from Sue Perkins calling this mixed media:

Under seven minutes in and we're discussing ghosts of incel monkeys that missed the orgy. They're settling in fast to this one. None of the stilted awkwardness that you get in early studio portions of some seasons, as they figure out how each other are. Everyone's clicking in this one, or maybe Sue Perkins is just able to click with anyone.

I think Susan Wokoma must be the first person in Taskmaster history to apologize for her prize task not being haunted. It is quite beautiful, though. Only person to bring in someone genuinely beautiful (well, Lucy's picture was all right). Also, side thought that occurs to me as I write this, is this the first time one season of Taskmaster has had two contestants with the same first name?

I'd just written that these people are clicking faster than most casts, when Julian points out Susan's prize isn't "really wooden", and reminds me of the opening of season 13. That was another season that had a very strong first episode, partly because everyone got so comfortable so fast with picking at others' performances. And by "everyone", I mainly mean Ardal O'Hanlon immediately started heckling all his fellow contestants. Love that Julian Cleary is sitting in Ardal's seat and taking up his mantle.

Ooh, I love the decor this season:

The art style is rarely a thing I get excited about in Taskmaster, but I really like this one. That'll be fun to watch for ten episodes.

Ah, Taskmaster. I've missed this sort of thing:

Glad you're back, Alex. Glad you're back to making people look at you with that exact expression on their face.

Again, I'm enjoying Susan Wokoma's look.

A look at the trailer suggested to me that they haven't gone too big on the costumes this season, but strikingly blue nail polished paired with sparkly overalls is fun.

Lucy, I don't care how much is a character. I'm obsessed with you.

Several more large, out-loud laughs as I watch Lucy Beaumont struggle to leave a room. Taskmaster should blindfold people more often, that shit is never not funny.

From a pure Taskmaster nerd perspective, I like tasks that involve filming in the hall so you get better idea of the layout of the house:

Someday I'll go to Chiswick, jump the fence, break in and write down the blueprints.

Ah, I see, it's already a tower. That's a clear idea, and surprisingly doesn't feel recycled even though it's season 16, I don't think they've done that before. Set a task where it's actually already been done and their job is to just not ruin it. Surely that must have been done before at some point, right? Anyway, watching those cans fall on Lucy was glorious. That's all I really need from comedy, apparently. Just blindfold people and then drop cans on them.

Lovely tableau here:

Alex saying "All the information is on the task" to someone who's blindfolded is also amazingly funny.

So, if we wanted to be pedantic, which I do, we could discuss whether just leaving a tower up counts as "building" it. I think Susan is fine, because she put the cans on top of the tower that was already there. So she helped to build the tower, and it didn't say she had to build the whole thing by herself. Not sure Lucy's should count, as she didn't participate in the act of building it at all.

Julian and Sam up next, so they're saving Sue for last. Great, can't wait to see what disaster she created that got her put on her own.

What I've learned from Sam Campbell's stand-up and weird internet videos is that he's got a pretty strong comedy persona/brand, off-the-wall energy that I've heard some of his comedian friends say is very much based on his genuine personality, but obviously it's dialed up in a specifically planned way. They say Taskmaster is great at knocking people out of their carefully planned personas and forcing them to just be themselves, at least more than they do during shows where they're in control. I'd say blindfolding someone and making them walk around a house, especially once they've realized there might be a fragile tower in a room that they can't knock down but they don't know where it is or even for sure what it is and they only have five minutes, seems like a good way to strip away any acting. Which might be why I was struck by how incredibly genuine, and a bit off brand, the repeated swearing from Sam Campbell sounds.

Not that Sam Campbell the comedian wouldn't swear, but I don't think he'd drop the swear words quite so casually or quietly. That is a man who has genuinely recognized some bullshit and wants to share that fact with the people around him.

"I've never felt such a high things" feels like a more on brand quote, but also the sort of thing you'd say when you genuinely don't know what's going on. There's some nice editing here, contrasting Sam's utter bafflement with Julian Clearly calmly and easily reaching to the top of the tower. A combination, I guess, of Julian being calmer in general, and of him being taller so grabbing the top is not such a big deal - this task would have Lucy Beaumont, whom I'm pretty sure is tiny, at quite a disadvantage, if she'd actually found the tower and reached for the top, which she didn't. (It's okay, Sam most wrestlers are shorter than average. There's a place where you'd fit in fine.)

Another brilliant tableau: Julian standing there holding the cans at the height they were before the tower started falling, as though he thinks that's still the top of the tower, while Alex visibly winces at how badly he's fucked up:

Yeesss, my boy Sammy C is coming through with exactly what I expected from him (oh right, forgot to mention at the beginning of his post my first belief that Sam Campbell's work demonstrates the skillset necessary to do very well in the Taskmaster tasks, not just for comedy but in terms of winning the most points, I predicted he'd win so now I'm rooting for that like he's a sports team, this is the side of me that uses Taskmaster as a sublimation of my competitive nature coming out)! Perfect execution. Find it, instantly figure out the game, carefully put the thing on top, and then just lie down so they can't fuck you with you further and make you mess it up. That is how you play.

No, no, don't give me that. You lay down because you figured out that that would be the best way to make sure you didn't ruin your chance of winning the task, even if it also meant no more comedy for a few minutes. And I respect that level of play. Sure, fine, find a comedic explanation for it to give in the studio. Do that all you like. Just please keep playing this well in the house because I have backed you pretty hard to win at this point.

Lovely. They implicitly promised us a disaster by saving Sue for last, and what a way to deliver. I like the level of profanity this task is generating. I think everyone's level of profanity increases pretty fast if you blindfold them and drop cans on their head.

Further proper, scream-laughing out loud is coming from Sue Perkins repeatedly demanding to know whether there's a tower in some other spot, reaching with her hand to show what spot she means, and in the process, knocking over what few cans were left in that spot. Fucking brilliant. Using this as the opening task was a great idea.

My favourite screenshot of the episode so far:

Team task! Hooray! We don't usually get one of those in the first episode, love this.

Team Sue! Team of Sues! I approve of that.

Susan Wokoma not noticing Sue Perkins has walked into the area would be funny if it were any two people, but it's especially funny because it's Sue Perkins, who is more famous than a lot of Taskmaster contestants. What would you do if you were just minding your own business and then Sue Perkins of Mel and Sue walked in behind you? I mean I'd probably do exactly what Susan Wokoma did, which is scream in a very amusing way.

I think I need to enter this one into the contest for Best Tableau of the Episode:

Seeing the initial duos, I immediately assumed Lucy would be on Team Sue. Because, I don't know, I guess women vs. men is something they've done before so I expected it again. Also, Sam/Julian has such a specifically odd energy that it felt like they'll stick with that as the team of two, and then the women who were excited to see each other could all be excited together with Lucy on the team of three. She'd fit in there.

It is so much funnier to have Lucy, instead of joining the Sues, awkwardly walk in on the awkward moment that Sam and Julian are already having and make it even more awkward. Love that none of those three people appear to know what to make of each other.

Taskmaster team tasks are fun that way because good chemistry can of course make a good team, but total lack of chemistry can also make a really fucking hilarious team. And it's really good when you get a season with one of one extreme and one of the other, like last season with the total dearth of chemistry that was Frankie/Ivo, contrasted against Mae/Kiell/Jenny who had a great time together. Looks like we might get something similar this year, given how well Team Sue instantly got along.

"Connect the most individual parts of one person to the most individual parts of another person. All members of your team must be connected. Your time starts now." No winning criteria specified there, which means that's only part one. So this is some season 8 shit, like the time they put a garbage back on Paul Sinha's head. Get tangled up but then the real trick is you have to do something while tangled. But will the contestants know that?

Team Sue does not. I don't know if this season has any proper Taskmaster nerds, which you'd really have to be to pick up on the fact that all tasks have criteria for winning, so if one is missing that then it's not the whole task.

They sure did have a great time, though. Team Sue confirming while tying each other together that they have not, in fact, met before. They just instantly got along. Again, I think Sue Perkins might just be able to connect immediately with everyone. What a fun time, and it is so clear that their task attempt is being edited in a way to emphasize the harmony, for maximum contrast against whatever the fuck the other team does.

Title drop! Greg Davies gets the first title drop of the season, sarcastically calling the awkward team "the natural friends". Some solid facial expressions here from the friends in question (well, two of the friends - Julian Clary remains fairly facially unflappable) that seem to confirm that they are remembering how right Greg is about to be proved about their lack of chemistry.

I've been trying to think of a portmanteau for the team of three, because finding portmanteaus is a lot easier than writing "team of two" and "team of three" over and over. Season 12 was so easy to write about because "Vicotrialan" and "Morguziree" went together so easily. One of those is easy this season - I'll just call them Team Sue. But the other one - God, they're so mismatched that even their names don't go together. Not enough syllables among them. Lusamian? Cleaubell? Not many good options.

What did I say? What did I say about Sam Campbell? I said he has the specific skillset that it takes to win Taskmaster. That skillset includes the creativity to immediately realize hair counts as a body part, combined with the audacity to be some guy from Australia who's half Julian's age, and we willing to ask famous TV comedian Julian Cleary to cut off stands of his own perfectly curated hair five minutes after meeting him. And, I guess, the abandon to have no hesitation about sacrificing some of his own hair for the task. God, he looks so much like a wrestler. I'm watching this and all I see is a first-year athlete who was a hotshot in high school but new to university sports, moves to a big city to be on a big varsity team, and on their first day decides to fuck with the best guy on the team. I've seen that happen more than once, and it usually involves the little guy getting beaten up quite quickly.

Oh, and then you throw Lucy into the mix, this is perfect. Julian is clearly trying to find the least inappropriate way to tell this kid asking him to cut his hair to fuck off, while Lucy launches into a long and unnecessary explanation of how her child got food in her hair. I've said "give these [two/three] a sitcom" about Taskmaster teams before, but rarely do I want that so badly, so early in a season. But I don't want them to write a sitcom together. I just want them to have to hang out and film their lives. Lucy could organize it, like Meet the Richardsons.

As far as tableaus go, this one's not bad:

To be fair, I guess I was wrong to assume Team Sue was being edited as a contrast against the disastrous performance of Team Cleaubell. The latter's performance was very good. But showing how much fun the Sues had together was certainly a funny contrast in chemistry levels.

Sam's story about the divers that were "not, like bubbly personalities, no offence [to Team Sue]" has again upped the already impressively high laugh count of this episode.

Ah, that's the sort of thing I hoped for when I heard we'd get Sue Perkins on Taskmaster. Her cheerfully calling Alex Horne a shitgiblet. Good stuff. This is all good stuff.

Quite a few more laughs in watching Team Sue drag themselves, each other, and a box across the finish line. That's some season six shit, reminiscent of Russell Howard and Alice Levine. Two people crossing a field while tied to each other and dragging a box - just some solid, classic good old fashioned Taskmaster fun.

I know Alex is kidding when he says he's going to "spoil" us with a location task, but that really is the case. A team task, a two-parter, and a location task all in episode 1. That's not common, but I like it. Show us everything we're working with.

I hope the editors had a really good time adding all that creepy animal footage.

Greatly enjoyed Lucy's story about being good at hook-the-duck in school (no idea what that is - is it a British school game or some shit that Lucy Beaumont had a dream about once?), because she could hook the ducks. I remain obsessed with her whole thing, whatever the hell it is.

First thought on hearing the task instructions: obviously you pop the inflatable duck, right? Does anyone pop the inflatable duck? It doesn't say you can't pop the inflatable duck.

And now we come to one of things I had seen spoilered, I saw a screenshot set of Lucy's utterly ludicrous talk with Greg about having arms where her legs should be. Amusing in screenshot form, obviously hilarious in the video. Lucy. Lucy, what are you? How do you work? Tell me your secrets.

I keep calling him "Sammy C" when I want to slightly ironically (honestly, not as ironically as I'd like to be about it) refer to Sam Campbell as something like the star of a sports team I'm rooting for, when I want to call him really good at the competitive elements because that's the sort of way his name would get abbreviated in a sports setting (I think I may have used the term "my boy" to describe him earlier in this post, also a thing people in a sports community tend to say about athletes they support, and I'm hoping my use of that term came off as a ironic even though in real life I absolutely use that term unironically and I was really being insufficiently ironic when applying it to Sam Campbell). However, someone else is looking so impressive here that I think I have to apply the same sports-style hype to her performance: Susie P! Susie P coming through with the lateral thinking of moving boundaries! What a classic! Fucking right!

...Is it weird that I think I've maybe never been more attracted to Sue Perkins? Which is saying a fair bit, as I was first attracted to her when I was about 19 and getting into The News Quiz.

That post-duck conversation was great, it's amazing how the studio banter is sparkling right from episode 1. They're all playing well off Greg and Alex, maybe a little more hesitation in playing off each other, but that's coming though. Great confused pleading from Lucy. Great sarcasm (that's not quite the right words, I guess - comedic condescention?) from Sue about the difference between a TV show and the law. Sam Campbell giggling in between them as they argued over him was a delight. But most of the credit for that what made that bit funny has to go to Lucy Beaumont - whatever her character is, she hits its notes perfectly.

Watching Julian Cleary get right up to a flamingo and then just not care and go right through it was funny. Obviously my favourites are the Taskmaster contestants who care way too much and get obsessive and competitive and argumentative and throw themselves right into it. But if a season has just one contestant who doesn't give a fuck, that can be funny. And I feel like Julian Cleary is perfectly suited to the "doesn't give a fuck on Taskmaster" role.

Well no one popped it, but Susan and Julian did find solid techniques. Showing that it's really not that hard to get it through if you spend about ten seconds finding a slightly different way to do it. I don't know why three people went with rolling it.

Okay, from a purely sports fan perspective here, nice that it turns out two people cheated so the one task in this episode (so far) where Sam did badly, he still finishes in the middle. Solid showing. Sorry for bringing sports competition into Taskmaster. I am, just so everyone knows, aware that it's the wrong way to watch it. I'm not like an American TV viewer who thinks there's a real prize. I like the comedy. But I really like competitions.

All right, this episode/post has already taken up most of my afternoon, so I decided to watch the entire live task instead of taking notes throughout it. That was great fun though. I always like the ones like that, where they get one turn at a time. Obviously got some good laughs on Sue calling Alex an "utter shit", and a bigger one on the "child of divorce" line (though that laugh would have been even bigger had I not seen a spoiler about it, I really need to stay off Tumblr until I watch these episodes). Loved the ending, that brief moment of glory when it looked like they weighed the same and he called it.

I can tell if Sam Campbell was being intentionally weird by not doing anything with the prizes after he won and then wandering away, or if he actually just didn't know what to do. Either way, that was also funny.

God, what a fantastic opener. Great season that it's setting up, I think, but also just really strong for a first episode. I cannot wait to see the rest of this.

[ponds-of-ink]

Thoughts on that one Midnight Motorist section that I need to get out

So, it seems that a post on Freddit was right about some of the cars driving on the “wrong” side of the road. “Wrong” for the U.S., that is.

But for England?

Nope. To anyone from Britain, it’d be the “right” side of the road.

Which means, all things considered, some bloke is disobeying all the traffic laws somewhere in Britain— not Hurricane, Utah. Which also means that we can eliminate Jr’s being a Freddy’s location, since Freddy’s hasn’t gone international by this point. Or just Freddy’s Pizzeria/Fredbear’s Diner being a thing to even consider here.

So, uh… What’s the point of this game if it’s got nothing to do with Freddy’s? Or Fredbear’s?

Welll, there is a theory that one YouTube comment introduced in some Midnight Motorist videos, and I’m here to relay it to y’all… Kind of. I actually do have some thoughts of my own.

Paraphrasing TL;DR: The Orange/Mustard Guy is William’s Father coming home from… somewhere… and he stops by JR’s, a local bar he’s been kicked out of. A Green Dude basically tells him “My guy, you know you can’t be here. Please go”. So, Mr. Mustard Afton comes home in a rage and leaves The Gray Person alone. But his own son? Nope. Bang, bang, bang goes the locked door and thump, thump, thump goes the unseen boy’s heart as he runs for his life with some mysterious figure. Mr. Mustard Afton realizes that his son’s gone back to “that place”, vows that “he’ll be sorry when he gets home”, and ends the hidden part of that mini-game.

Now that we’ve got the basics, I’d like to add some more headcanon/speculative stuff. Yes, even more than the above. Because at least OP could back up stuff better than I can right now.

Anyway… If I combine the potential backstory we might’ve learned in Security Breach’s therapy CDs, I think I can infer even more context into this. First of all, I’m pretty sure this would take sometime after the infamous custody case Lil’ William had to deal with. His father’s going out more often and coming back way, way too ornery and trigger-tempered to deal with. A sick, tired, and mourning Lil’ William decides enough is enough. Through some miraculous feat of strength, he shatters the window and hobbled over to someone in huge, rabbit-like shoes. They flee the scene together, with Lil’ William hoping The Grey Person doesn’t take the blame for him.

Of course, he came back to that house. He’s always had that habit to return— for better or for worse.

Where did he go, though? Well, I have a guess.

There are two things that are his trademarks in this franchise that’s not his purple-colored sprite: Circus-themed animatronics and rabbits. So… What if this place was where it all started for him? What if it was a circus starring some rabbit mascot as a ringmaster? Maybe even a precursor to Frebear’s and Freddy’s, thanks to the Circus Animatronics and Freddy’s Singin’ Show being confirmed to exist.

I know the last part’s a bit out there, but it might be a bit better than William putting on some rabbit shoes and sneaking off to his mom’s grave at a nearby graveyard for solitude.

Obviously, I’m just spitballing here. Until Ruin or the movie comes out, we’re not gonna actually know anything about William’s past.

Oh and uh… Not sure about The Gray Person’s identity. Definitely has long legs, though, so it’s probably an adult. William’s Uncle who’s come to visit, maybe? William’s brother? Cousin? Huh.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Some Reasons I Love One Piece

So I set up a poll to ask what I should do for my 4000 follower milestone, and something like 85% of the responses to my poll said you wanted me to do a compilation of stuff I love about One Piece! So hell yeah, get ready for me to talk about pirates for way too long (a sentence that could also serve as an accurate blog description).

Before that though, lemme just say- thank you all! Seriously! When I started this blog I figured I’d be extremely lucky to end up with like a thousand followers, and now I have four times that and it just keeps growing, which just constantly baffles and amazes me. I adore every one of you, and you’re providing me something fun and productive to do in quarantine, and I love you for that.

Anyways! Let’s talk good shit.

Let’s start with Luffy. The whole story starts with him, after all.

I love Luffy, just as a character. He’s one of my favorite protagonists in anything, ever, when ordinarily protagonist characters don’t really appeal to me all that much. I genuinely think he might be my favorite character in One Piece now that I sit down and really think about it. I love how unconventional of a main character he is- he actively shuns the idea of being a hero and is in fact the most chaotic neutral motherfucker on the planet, and yet he’s so friendly and loyal and fun that you straight up can’t not love him both in-universe and out. 

I also love the Strawhats just in general, both as a group and individually. Found family is one of my all-time favorite story tropes, and they do it better than like, the vast majority of stories out there. They’re all so completely unique from each other and play off each other so well and they really do feel like a family. I love how often Oda just shows them fucking around and hanging out. (One of my only gripes with post-timeskip is how much time they spend split apart.) I think it says a lot about them that I struggled so much when someone asked me to rank the Strawhats a few months back and had to rearrange the list like four times. I just!! Love them all!!

One of my favorite things about One Piece is that it’s the story of Luffy’s rise, and that it occurs in a world that’s so solidly scaled and well-developed that all progress he makes actually feels tangible and impactful. Some of my favorite moments in One Piece are the ones where we can see how far he and the crew have come and see other people’s reactions. His reappearance at Sabaody after the timeskip is my favorite scene in the manga, full stop. His entrance at Marineford and all of the Decks of the World cover stories delight me for the same reason.

Speaking of the worldbuilding, god it’s so good? I think one of the greatest potential strengths of a long manga is that its just got so much time to establish and build on so much information, and sometimes that leads to mangaka kind of tying themselves in knots with too much lore and explanation, but Oda just fucking nails it. 

I recently read a conversation during Zou where the Strawhats are talking to Inuarashi, Nekomamushi and the Wano folks about all their mutual acquaintances on the Roger Pirates- Brook asks about Crocus, Franky mentions Tom, etc- and I had a moment where I realized how in pretty much any other series all those connections might seem contrived, but in One Piece it works so well. So much time has been dedicated to establishing all these facts and characters and connections over years and hundreds of chapters that when they do come together, it just feels so satisfying. 

Like, at Twin Cape Crocus mentions he was a ship’s doctor and then mentions Roger as the Strawhats leave, at Thriller Bark we find out he’s Brook’s friend, at Sabaody in conversation with Rayleigh we find out for sure which ship he was a doctor on and that he joined them to look for Brook’s crew- and it all just falls together so nicely. One Piece is maybe the strongest series I’ve ever read in terms of how it establishes its characters and concepts and how they all fit into the world and cross over and connect with each other. The world of One Piece is huge, but it also feels so alive and interconnected, and that’s just wonderful. 

I love how hopeful One Piece is. I was talking to a friend a couple months ago who doesn’t watch it, and she kind of dismissed it as ‘a show where nobody dies.’ Which- setting aside the fact that that’s just not fucking true- my first response to that was, “So?” I think it’s nice that we can all know for pretty much certain that the Strawhats will achieve their dreams in the end. There’ll be a happy ending, and Luffy’s going to be Pirate King, we’ve known that from the start. The fun is in seeing how they get there. 

Aside from a few specific cases, I also really like how Oda does his character writing just in general. The female characters in One Piece generally get a bad rap, largely from people who haven’t watched the show and judge it on the (admittedly exaggerated) artstyle, but fuck if I haven’t seen such a widely varied and developed and flawed female cast writing-wise since- I don’t even know. Oda does a really good job of giving his characters, both male and female, unique and memorable personalities, which is super fucking impressive considering just how many there are. Similarly, I’m impressed by how new characters are introduced without getting repetitive or annoying, and very often those characters are really fantastic. I could talk about all the different One Piece characters I love and why, but we would legitimately be here all day. 

I also love how unlike a lot of long-running series like this, characters don’t just go away when their time in the spotlight is done. In just about any other series, characters like Buggy and Coby and Crocodile would just be gone and never to be heard from again after they’ve served their purpose. Instead you have the stupid clown villain from the second arc becoming a fucking shichibukai several hundred chapters later, and it makes sense in the context of the story! The whole concept of the cover stories works really well towards this aspect of One Piece, letting us see what all these other characters are up to without taking attention off the main story. This fits in with the interconnectedness I mentioned earlier, too. 

And I like how (and I know there are people who will argue this, I have had them in my inbox, but I do not care) One Piece has stayed so strong for so long. I’ve mentioned before that both of my favorite big arcs are pre-timeskip- Alabasta, for the civil war storyline and great supporting cast and villains, and W7/Enies Lobby, for the epic emotional highs and lowers + ANOTHER great supporting cast. But like, I’ve been enjoying the more recent arcs just as much! Honestly, now that I’ve finished Dressrosa, I think it definitely ranks up there among my favorites as well, for how chaotic and fun and high-stakes the whole thing felt when I was binging through it. I’m only a few chapters into Whole Cake Island so far but it seems very promising, and I’m really excited to get to Wano from what I’ve seen of it.

I haven’t even really touched on the art yet, either. I know the artstyle turns some people off of the series, for how kind of cartoony it is sometimes and how different it is from most other series, but honestly I just love it. I wasn’t sure about it at the start but it grew on me very fast. Hell, I have a whole tag (which I should use more) dedicated just to appreciation of pretty panels.

And the action scenes in One Piece are so fun and expressive and creative and almost always at least a little silly just by the nature of Luffy’s powers. I don’t think I’ve ever been bored during a One Piece fight. And the splash pages are frequently just breathtaking. I’m a writing person, not an art person, so I’m bad at putting this kind of thing into words nearly as well, but- yeah. One Piece Art Good. (My friend Narramin also has a really, really good series of posts about how great the visual storytelling in OP is starting here that I highly recommend, if you’re interested.)

Finally, I think my favorite thing about One Piece is that it’s all one story, start to end. I kind of touched on this above with the worldbuilding thing, but you can see what a ridiculous degree of thought and planning Oda has put into his story, and how well everything comes together. It’s the main aspect that got me to give One Piece a try in the first place- I heard how good and thought-out the long term storytelling is, and I just eat that shit up. I don’t think I’ve ever had the level of trust in a creator to handle and end their story satisfyingly that I have in Oda. It’s a good feeling. 

[anonymoushybr1dity]

i have,, a big ol god/deity au for the dream smp,, but i have no plot based ideas yet,,, i wanna get this idea out Somehow so i am making a snazzy tumblr post about some stuff i enjoy from it smile

- there are four different status levels someone can have in this au: gods, who are the top of the top, immortals with complete control over and abilities pertaining to 1-3 traits; Beings (capital B), who are immortal as well, but are more like the figureheads of certain traits, rather than controlling them. still powerful, but less so than gods; immortals, who are people gods or beings liked enough to decide to keep by their sides for their endless journeys; and then everybody else who just kinda runs around and lives their mortal life. just ur average joe

- gods/Beings/immortals (we’ll just group em together as gods for now) usually have very ironic powers. for example, tommy is both the god of chaos and discipline, ranboo is a Being of memories, new beginnings, and sides, tubbo is god of illusions and power, etc etc. it’s very unfortunate lol

- completely unintentional, but twitch prime and channel membership are a part of this au? to the point where the majority of my structuring centers around them lmao,, they are twin gods of prosperity and punishment, people tend to say “prime is prosperity, channel is punishment” but they equally share power of the titles (prime subs - tos, channel members - demonitization)

- dreamXD and The Blood God are in the au as well :] dreamXD is the Being of control and The Blood God is.... u guessed it.......... blood. and also voices. it was originally meant in their power as “giving voice to the people” in the form of violence, but it manifested itself as the years went on as Chat

- the original point of me making this au was to make tommy and ranboo gods... it spiraled out of hand Very Fast as you can see

- charlie slimecicle is an immortal!! ppl tend to leave him offerings and build temples in his name because he’s been around for That Long, but he’s just immortal, not a god or Being. (they think he’s god of strife and joy)

- since foolish is canonically a god (??? HELLO) he’s one in this au as well,,,,, even tho i don’t anything about him pensive emoji fist emoji

- bbh is also a Being... he is adoration and fear (hello eggpire community)

- there are four people on the smp who follow specific gods- everyone else is just ur basic twitch prime or channel membership follower. since specific followers are very uncommon nowadays, they’re usually given some sort of ability, and those abilities are usually op if they leave sacrifices. these four are:   - dream, follower of Chaos and Control. leaves sacrifices for Control, given admin abilities in return.   - techno, follower of Blood. leaves sacrifices for Blood, given immortality (and chat, by accident) in return.   - karl, follower of New Beginnings. no sacrifices (given time travel (and memory problems from the time travel))   - sam, follower of Illusions/Power (both aspects). no sacrifices (given perception alteration)

- dreamXD is... not a great god. none of them are, really, but dreamXD is arguably the worst. he plays heavy favorite and gives out abilities if someone so much as drops food by accident at a temple for him. he’s v obsessive and tends to lose control over himself at the slightest hint of things not going his way (irony coming out)

- i have a whole number-system list of how much each person on the server believes in twitch prime... for context of what that means, bbh is a 1.5/4, tommy is a 4/4, fundy is a 4/4, and wilbur was previously a 3/4, now a 0/4. each one has a reason for it (bbh streams on both platforms & is now engaged with the egg, tommy Is Literally A God, fundy was raised on it in a very prime-engrossed enviornment... remember when wilbur came back after nov 16 and said he looked god in the eyes and decided they didn’t exist?)

- tommy’s video where they made the holy lands is canon in this au, but the actual events are pretty different… they were discussing the old books about the ancient religions of prime and channel and how much (if at all) they believed in it. the bit got out of hand and tommy+tubbo proposed the idea of building a church to prime. they were doing it to make their friend happy, but dream and quackity just thought it was for the bit, so they agreed. midway through construction, prime just. descended from the heavens. and walked amongst the mortal men once again. they does not possess dream; rather, they take on a vaguely humanoid form and help them with the construction (blessing the waters that run through the fountain as well as the bell) before leaving.

- the egg is a gross byproduct of dreamXD and The Blood God that spiralled way out of control

- prime and channel are usually associated with bells :] villages will typically have communal bells which everyone is free to use for either god. it’s more common to see a bell that’s specifically dedicated to channel than it is to see one specifically dedicated to prime because the followers of channel are typically less lenient, but it’s far more common to see one dedicated to both of them than either of those options.

- philza got his wings from prime in this au. he no longer has his wings on the smp. interpret that as you wish.

- dream (c!dream, remember, this is an au) is vewy religious in this au. like. excessively so. that’s why he’s so op, why he has access to creative, why he somehow has the time and ability and resources to build shit like his vault or the obsidian walls. he obsesses over Control and Control obsesses over him in return. The other Gods are getting wary.

- on a more lighthearted note, slime and twitch prime are homies. they canonically meet for brunch every other month :]

//

i’ll add onto this post as i go along and have more things!! so far, though, this is all the important stuff i figured i’d spit out onto here lmao. i have a couple of drabbles written up, but since they’re v short, i’ll probably post them here (and make up a tag head in hands) sometime in the future rather than on ao3!!  hope u enjoyed if u read this far <3 suprise hydration check go drink some water!!!

[iacon-stargazer]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE: MUN & MUSE

fill out & repost ♥ this meme definitely favors canons more, but i hope oc’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. multimuses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

tagged by: stolen from @oneshallfall like.... months ago. im a slow gremlin hjksd. it's been in my drafts and i finally decided to finish the last few sections while working on clearing them out

tagging: steal it

MY MUSE IS.   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless

is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO.

is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  Well.../ NO / IDK. (i know optimus is but i don’t really... know about orion? i have seen a handful of fanartists who turn him into a very sexualized moe baby but i’m not sure about the fandom at large)

is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

are they underrated?  YES / NO. (lmao there’s like no fan content with him unless it’s with megatronus) 

were they relevant to the main story?  YES / NO.

were they relevant to the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO. (not yet.... lol)

how’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

HOW STRICTLY DO YOU FOLLOW CANON?

This... this is a trick question in this goddamn mess of a continuity. That said, I try my absolute best to make my portrayal coherent with the TFP show... even if said show contradicts itself at times. I take inspiration from the earlier parts (the thirteen primes section) of the Covenant of Primus for his origin backstory, but ignore the rest of the Covenant since it makes absolutely no sense with his characterization in... literally anything else. I’ve peeked at Exodus and it utterly sucks, but I’ve picked up bits and pieces of concepts that originated there just from spending time in the fandom. Aside from that... I spend a ton of time thinking about how to weave everything together in a way that both makes sense and makes for a character development arc.

SELL YOUR MUSE! (aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.)

Orion is genuinely kind, thoughtful, and introspective, very loving of the world around him.

He’s also a more complex character than is initially obvious - despite mostly being good sweet pure baby nerd he’s still flawed, with many of those flaws being his strengths put into the wrong situation. His strong morals can lead to dogmatism, and he’s only slightly less likely to deliver lectures than Optimus. His determination to be kind and help everyone can come off as unintentionally patronizing at times; he has a very “well-intentioned semi-privileged middle class” perspective that he’s not always self-aware of. However, he’s also willing to look at himself critically and learn/adapt. 

Essentially, he has many of the same traits as Optimus... just more or less apparent and/or developed. He's less confident than he eventually becomes through his future experience with leadership, wanting to change the world for the better but sometimes struggling to ground his plans in reality—something that continues to apply, but with reduced intensity and frequency over time. Idealistic cinnamon roll will eventually develop some realism, though never really quite enough. His selflessness remains a strength for now, but we know that eventually it will dip into martyristic tendencies.

NOW THE OPPOSITE! (list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?)

He could be potentially ‘boring’ in some senses. he’s the polite, considerate ‘next door’ type, who has for most of his life has just lived as a very average middle caste nobody. He’s more laid-back than he eventually becomes as optimus, but where others might get into trouble and shenanigans he’s most likely to just express concern. And since I try to keep him at least mostly ic, even with non-serious posts, this can derail ‘fun’ stuff and I fear dissuade some interaction.

While I try my best to give him realistic flaws that work with his character, he could still be seen as a little too good. very kind, understanding, forgiving, patient, considerate... almost endlessly so. A lot of my “he’s so good and pure” interpretation comes from using his having been the thirteenth prime as backstory, where he was pretty much the epitome of that, but some might not like the “he was a literal deity in a past life” idea for its “super special chosen one protagonist” elements.

His responsiveness to his environment can also be a downside. He’s not the type to start things; he just reacts and responds, standing his ground and finding himself when things get crazy around him. without megatronus, he may have eventually attempted political campaigning, but it wouldn’t have gotten very far. He needs to have more intense characters or events around him for major plots to really go places. Without those nothing would ever happen besides slice of life fluff, because he’s content with that kind of life.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO RP YOUR MUSE?  

Honestly I just wanted to write op/ratch fhsjkdjsdh. But I also wanted to be able to interact with a variety of muses and so I chose Orion over Optimus because he’s not so emotionally closed off, which I figured would give more flexibility beyond the handful of characters op would reasonably have close personal and/or plot-important relationships with. Also, I can relate to him on a thought-process level which lets me get into his head easily, which additionally made him an appealing choice for my first real rp muse.

WHAT KEEPS YOUR INSPIRATION GOING?  

I just love him so much, especially with the layers of his character I've built up around him. I don't always have inspiration to write or rp, but I think about him a lot. When I do find motivation to write, it's generally out of wanting to continue to work on developing him and just having a chance to express his characterization.

SOME MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN.

do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO.

do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO.

do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO.  (i should do it more...)

do you think a lot about your muse during the day? YES / NO.

are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO. (at least most days fhsdhfskj)

are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO. (it waxes and wanes. I know I'm a good writer but I could still be better...)

are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO.

DO YOU ACCEPT CRITICISM WELL ABOUT YOUR PORTRAYAL?

I’ll be honest; I’ve never gotten criticism. I haven’t been here very long in comparison to some and I’ve never been that popular, so I figure I’m pretty easy to just ignore. I guess how I would feel about it would depend on what it was and how it was delivered, though I like to think I would be reasonable regardless

DO YOU LIKE QUESTIONS, WHICH HELP YOU EXPLORE YOUR CHARACTER?  

yes? yes absolutely?

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES TO A HEADCANON OF YOURS, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?  

I would be curious to hear their reasoning, but I think enough about how everything fits together that chances are I would agree to disagree

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH YOUR PORTRAYAL, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE IT?

Depends on if their disagreement makes sense. Maybe I’ll give back my own reasoning for why I characterize the way I do. Maybe I’ll just agree to disagree, if their view is just totally different from mine. If they have valid points I’ll probably overthink it and spiral into self doubt. In all cases I’ll spill my thoughts to friends on discord.

IF SOMEONE REALLY HATES YOUR CHARACTER, HOW DO YOU TAKE IT?

......Orion in general or? ... fhsjkdhf...... Well if it was mine specifically that might hurt lol. But at the same time.... I doubt i’d agree with their takes either so... fair enough.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PEOPLE POINTING OUT YOUR GRAMMATICAL ERRORS?  

Sure. I’m good at grammar so if something glaring is there it’s probably a typo I missed and I’ll be grateful for the chance to edit it out before more people see it lol

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE EASY GOING AS A MUN?  

Yeah. I’m pretty quiet most of the time because I just don’t have energy to talk to a lot of people, and I never want to get caught in drama. I honestly wouldn’t know what to do in a situation like that. I tend to avoid conflict, I’m quick to apologize, and polite with anyone I don’t know very well.

[duhragonball]

Yamcha if you're still doing the character meme?

I am still doing these, and I’m enjoying it, so keep ‘em coming.   Before I start, let me promote the original post, in case anyone else wants to start their own thing.  I’d link to the OP, but I guess they deleted this from their blog, probably because their notifications went nuts.

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: Let’s be honest, Yamcha doesn’t get a lot of big “hero moments” in Dragon Ball.   Or Dragon Ball Z, or Dragon Ball GT, or Dragon Ball Su-- Look, you get the idea.   In most arcs, he’s the first one to get benched.   In tournaments, he always loses in the first round.   He spent the King Piccolo Saga recovering from a broken leg.    Against the Saiyans, he was the first one to die.  Against the Androids, he was nearly killed and had to sit out the rest of that arc.   In the Buu Sagas he was retired.    In a number of major storylines, he just isn’t there, because no one called him.

But he remains a fixture in the franchise anyway, because he’s always showing up for more.  Let’s take the Buu Saga as an example.   It didn’t surprise me to find out he had retired, mainly from a dramatic standpoint.    There’s a lot of new characters in the Buu arc, and it made sense for some of the older characters to step aside and make room for them.   But he’s still there, because he wants to see Goku one last time, and he wants to hang out with his friends and watch some of them kick the crap out of each other.   It was kind of sad to see him stay behind while the others rushed off to follow the Supreme Kai, but he’s retired, after all.    Also, they didn’t stop to fill him in on what was happening.    I suspect he might have tagged along if they asked.  

As it was, he still ended up getting involved, and he was with the Dragon Team right up until Super Buu cornered them on the Lookout.     And the next time we see him, he’s on the Grand Kai Planet with Krillin, and King Kai seriously considers sending them in to take on Buu in case Goku and Vegeta can’t get the job done.   

And that’s a big deal, because it even comes up in the anime.   King Kai tells them that he arranged for them to keep their bodies as a precaution, but he’s totally in favor of letting them remain on the Grand Kai Planet with all of the other honored warriors, like Goku.  So you start with this desert bandit, a highwayman without a highway, probably because he’s afraid of all the women that use the interstate.   But he gradually overcomes his fears and insecurities, never completely, but just enough to put one foot in front of the other and become a better man.    And finally he ends up receiving a place among the great heroes of old.  

So why doesn’t that get more attention?   You could make a whole epic story out of that, except it’s not Yamcha’s story.  He’s a supporting character.   So the franchise itself tends to play it down.    Even Yamcha doesn’t really take it all that seriously.   I don’t know if that’s modesty or cluelessness or Big Himbo Energy or what, but that’s why it’s so easy for everyone to write him off as a loser or a failure.   They’re overlooking the bigger picture.

The best way to illustrate this is with this TFS short that serves as an epilogue to their DBZ Abridged series.   Yamcha goes back to playing baseball for the Taitans, only to get fired, because he’s so talented that he’s literally broken the game, and no one buys tickets anymore.    But he gets a gigantic severance package, and he still goes down in history as the greatest ballplayer in history.  What always gets to me is that they have to explain to him that this is actually a win.  As his coach puts it, “you do nothing but win.”   

Like Yamcha himself, we often see him from the lens of these insane Dragon Ball adventures, where you have to have glowy hair and a hot cyborg wife to be considered a success.   But to the rest of the world, he’s a jacked up millionaire with fantastic hair, and he’s a real sweetheart.   Who couldn’t like this dude?

Why I don’t: As you may have noticed, I tend to only use this section to talk about why I disliked the characters initially.   I have to think back to 1999 when I was still having trouble keeping track of who’s who.   In particular, I found Yamcha’s presence frustrating because he looked and dressed almost exactly like Goku, but not quite, which seemed bizarre.    Later, I picked up on the context, and it didn’t bother me as much.  

Yamcha does have a bit of an overconfident streak in some situations, which might look like unfounded arrogance, but I think it’s really just his carefree nature and enthusiastic can-do spirit.   He was confident about their chances against the Saiyans, but I don’t think that was him being cocky.   He just knew they had all trained hard and he was stronger than he’d ever been.    But that’s easy for people to jump on as a reason to hate the guy.  

Future Trunks claimed that he fooled around while he was involved with Bulma, but come on.    Does anyone really buy that?    Besides, at best, that would only apply to Future Yamcha, the one who died in the other timeline.   Once Trunks changed the past, all bets were off.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): I’m gonna get a little nuts here and go with TFS’s playthrough of Legacy of Goku I, where they decided to level up Yamcha and have him solo Broly.

Basically, in an RPG game like this, Wolf Fang Fist can do monster damage, so they maxed out Yamcha’s stats to wreck the game’s hidden superboss.  You have to skip to 1:40:00 or so to see the successful attempt, but I loved this video.   This is where I learned to respect the utterance of “Roga... fufuken!”  Broly probably would have respected it, too, except he died from all those hits he took.

Favorite season/movie: You know, that fight with Tien was a classic.   Not sure it’s in my top ten, but it’s on a lot of people’s lists, and I absolutely get that.

Dumb as it may sound, I enjoyed seeing Yamcha in the hospital, wrestling with his own despair as he recuperated from his broken leg.   And when he shows up at the end to congratulate Tien and accepts Tien’s apology, well, like I said, Yamcha has this great character arc, but it’s easy to overlook with everything else that goes on.

Favorite line: I forget which game it was in, maybe Budokai 3, but one of his pre-fight taunts is “Watch this, Puar!  I’m gonna win!”, which always makes me think of Puar sitting just off-camera, watching the action from a little lawn chair.  

Favorite outfit:

I may take some heat for this, but I like the Androids/Cell Saga version of Yamcha, with the short, spiky hair.  This dude’s long, luxurious rockstar ‘do is a national treasure, sure, but I dig this look more.  

Also, I consider Yamcha to be the only guy from the Turtle School who pulls off the slippers and no-blue-undershirt look.   It looks off when I see it on Krillin and Goku, but with Yamcha it just feels right. 

OTP: This guy gets shipped with a lot of people, probably because he’s one of the major characters without an established love interest.   Folks still carry a torch for Bulma, some people ship him with Tien, Frieza hit on him in FighterZ, and I’m still trying to make sense of that.   He flirts with your character in the Xenoverse games.    Years ago, I considered doing something with that, but I’ve fleshed out my OC enough to where I don’t think that fits. 

At the end of the day, I can only see Yamcha getting together with @cozymochi ‘s OC, Marzi.  

Brotp: Tien, Krillin, Goku.  Hell, I always figured Yamcha was one of the few people Vegeta could get along with to some extent.  

I mean, Tien couldn’t stand to be one the same planet as Vegeta, but Yamcha keeps coming over to have hot dogs at Bulma’s place, long after the Namekians have left.  

Head Canon: He’s Luffa’s type, don’t get me wrong.    I just don’t see any room in my fic for a whirlwind courtship.    The stars just don’t align.

Unpopular opinion: I’m not really behind this notion that they should give the humans more stuff to do in future series.   When it comes to supporting characters, sometimes they get phased out, and there’s no point in phasing them back in unless there’s a compelling story idea for them.   

I think it’s dumb how they teased Yamcha in the Tournament of Power prelude, only to leave him out of the tournament itself.    On the other hand, they put Tien on the team and barely used him, which tells me that even if they’d put Yamcha on the team, it wouldn’t have amounted to anything.   

I get it, people love these characters and want to see them used more, but I’d rather have one strong Yamcha story than a hundred non-starters.  And at this point, I think the only thing anyone can do is rely on fan-created content.    Be the change you want to see in the world.

A wish: Crap, it’s after ten pm.    I dunno, I wish Marzi was canon.  

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I feel like the character’s already been through worse than I could come up with for him.   

5 words to best describe them: Cat loves food, yeah yeah yeah.   That’s six, but who cares?

My nickname for them: Yeah, I don’t have one.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep10

I’d like to make some sort of jokey light-hearted intro, but this episode was just straight up painful [in a good, intentional way]. Ryukishi clearly has a lot of personal experience dealing with child abuse and the ways that social services operate, and this is the part in Higurashi where that really starts coming through.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

My memory of how this whole arc plays out in the VN is super foggy, so it’s hard to tell exactly how this compares to it, but I think this is still continuing to be like 90% the same as Tatarigoroshi, at least, but there’s still lots of hints that things are gonna start diverging heavily soon.

I haven’t actually watched the 2006 anime yet, but going by the Wikipedia plot synopses for it, it seems like this episode pretty much covers up to the same point as the second episode of the Tatarigoroshi anime adaptation, with them both ending with Satoko’s panic attack in the classroom. So things seem to be going at a pretty similar pace, and we know that this arc will be five episodes long, like the old Tatarigoroshi anime arc was, but I think the next episode will be where things start to heavily change as a result of the foreshadowing we’ve gotten in these last two episodes.

Going by what Wikipedia says again, the third episode of the original Tatarigoroshi anime arc is where Keiichi comes up with and then executes his plan to murder Teppei, but I think it’s pretty likely at this point that that won’t happen this time. This episode started with him having a flashback dream to him killing Teppei in Tatarigoroshi, which I think is a pretty big hint that things will play out differently this time. I think in this episode he was also notably less aggressive and over the edge about the whole abuse situation compared to the VN, so I think the dream ended up subconsciously pushing him away from the idea of going into murderous rage about the whole situation.

I don’t think the situation is going to be resolved quite as diplomatically as in Minagoroshi, but at the moment it feels like we’re in a middle-ground between that, and having Keiichi jump straight to murdering Teppei. But even if Keiichi ends up not resorting to murder to try and solve the situation, that probably just means that at this rate someone else is gonna end up murdering Teppei instead.

I still think it’s very likely that we’ll see Shion at least try to murder Teppei, even if she doesn’t go through with it. I like the theory that she was pretending to be Mion for at least some parts of this episode, but apparently some of the stuff with Mion being kinda zoned out and forgetting stuff already happened in the VN, so I dunno how much I want to read into that. But one way or another she’s probably gonna find out about the abuse situation, and going by her being in more or less the same place as Minagoroshi, she’d probably immediately start plotting to murder Teppei.

From a meta perspective, I think that Shion should probably be the ‘culprit’ in this arc to make up for how Watadamashi ended up being more of a Mion arc than a Shion one, and it’d be pretty fitting if we get a ‘Keiichi decides not to murder Teppei, but Shion does it for him anyway’ development, considering how the last two arcs were specifically built around the idea of having tragedies occur even when Keiichi makes the right choices and learns from his past mistakes.

It’s possible that the two of them will end up teaming up to kill him, but that seems unlikely. And maybe Rena could end up getting involved, but at this point that doesn’t seem to be where they’re going with it.

There’s always the possibility that Satoko herself will murder Teppei this time, but I’m really not sure how I feel about that. But in general I have a lot of mixed feelings on what I think is going on with Satoko at this point, lol.

After how this episode went, I really don’t think she’s some kind of actively malicious, antagonistic force in the story like some people think. I’m also getting a lot more doubtful of the idea that she’s experiencing the time loop.

I’ve seen people speculating that she might have been faking her whole panic attack, but I really doubt it. It’s not impossible, but I think people are just being nitpicky about how they think the scene was directed, and they’re trying to fit it into their existing theory. I also just think that the idea of her going that far to fake a panic attack seems extremely implausible for a variety of reasons, and I also just kinda feel like it would be an insensitive portrayal of trauma and abuse in a way that Ryukishi just wouldn’t do. This episode does touch upon the idea of ‘faking abuse’, but there’s a drastic difference between Satoko calling social services and lying to them about being abused, and everything she did in this episode. So I think everything that’s going on with her at the moment is more or less the same as in the VN.

It’s still possible she’ll end up killing him, but I don’t really think she has any meta awareness of what’s going on, or anything like that.

I do think she’s going to be important to Gou’s overall meta-narrative, but rather than her being the villain, or being some kind of looper, I think it’s more likely at this point that a witch might be using her as a piece, for some reason or another. Or maybe there actually isn’t any important meta stuff going on with her, lol.

On the whole topic of Gou’s meta-narrative, I’m starting to think that maybe these arcs are like forgeries that someone’s writing about what happened in Hinamizawa. I think we’ll have more evidence one way or another by the time this arc ends, but there’s various things that make this feel like a subtly warped version of the original story written by someone who has incomplete knowledge about what was actually happening.

Mainly this just stems from me thinking about how they’re going to handle stuff like Takano, the virus, and the GHD later on. Especially if we assume that this will just be a self-contained 24 episodes with no sequel. Like I’ve said before, I think that Takano isn’t going to be the villain anymore, and they won’t really have as much time as the VN and the 2006 anime had to get into the background political conspiracy stuff, but there’s still elements to Gou that point toward the Yamainu still being around, the virus still existing, and Takano still having been adopted by her grandfather.

So I’m wondering if maybe this is basically being written by someone post-Matsuribayashi where the GHD never happened in the first place, and information about the virus, Takano’s villainy, and the background politics surrounding everything, got suppressed. So they’d only have a surface-level understanding of Hinamizawa’s history and the nature of the curse. Which could explain the idea of Takano seeming to be the same as the VN in the surface, but not actually being a villain this time, if the ‘author’ knows about her but just thinks she’s some random nurse. And they could have a vague awareness of there being shady people working with the Irie Clinic, without actually knowing what their whole deal is. 

Which raises the question of who could be writing forgeries about Hinamizawa, if it’s anyone specific or important at all, and going by the OP I think it’s safe to say that it could easily be Featherine. It’s 100% her sort of thing to learn about Hinamizawa’s history and to write her own murder mysteries based on it. We also know that in Umineko she’s Bernkastel’s master, and that she likes to get people to read her stories for her, so it’s entirely possible that Gou’s whole plot is about Featherine getting Bern to read her forgeries about what happened in Hinamizawa, and we’re seeing the process of how Rika is going through these different fragments without knowing what the actual purpose of this all is.

If this is anywhere close to being accurate, then it’d make me even more salty if we don’t get any type of Umineko anime remake after this, lol. But either way we’ve literally seen Featherine in the OP, so it’s pretty likely she’ll be relevant to this somehow, and that in general Gou might exist to help bridge Higurashi and Umineko. 

I think that sometime in the second half of Gou we’ll flash forward to Rika as a teenager post-Matsuribayashi, and we’ll see how she ended up coming into contact with Featherine, and probably ended up giving her enough info on what happened in Hinamizawa to write her own stories based on it.

Lambda might also be involved in all this, but I’m not really sure how that’d work. 

Anyway, about how this arc will pan out over the next three episodes, I still think that at the end they’ll include Keiichi’s letter from Onikakushi, since there was a line from it in one of the PVs that hasn’t been used yet. So maybe Keiichi will end up going down an Onikakushi-style path of paranoia even if he doesn’t kill Teppei.

My main question about how this arc will end is if it’ll involve the GHD, since this is the first arc in the VN where it really comes into play, and whether or not it happens here would go a long way to confirm or deny some of the theories I have about what’s going on.

I’m also gonna be keeping an eye out for what goes on with Takano and Tomitake in this arc, since I still want to figure out what exactly is going on with Takano this time around.

I think this might also more or less be the final ‘question arc’ for Gou, so this would be the last time to cement any patterns and provide any big hints about what’s going on. Going by what little we know about Gou’s structure, I think the fourth and fifth arcs will be the two ‘answer arcs’. It’s possible that the fourth arc will be another question arc, and only the last arc will be an answer arc, but I kinda doubt it. There seems to be an intentional divide between the first 13 episodes of Gou and ep14 onward. I think the broadcast schedule will be adjusted for the second half, with there maybe being a one week break between ep13 and ep14, and I’ve heard rumors that for ep14 and onward the subtitle of the show will change, which would imply a shift into Gou’s equivalent to the answer arcs.

With that in mind, I’m still going with my theory that the next arc will basically be Gou’s version of Meakashi [but probably more specifically focused on the flashback content since it’ll only be four episodes long], and then the final arc will probably be a mix of going back and directly revisiting the first three arcs, and showing the whole teenage Rika time period in more detail to tie the whole story together. 

By extension I think that they’re entirely gonna skip Himatsubushi, and instead of Rena getting her own answer arc, I think they’ll just dedicate part of arc five to revisiting Onidamashi from her side of things. For all I know that might take up most of that arc.

Anyway, I think we can all agree that the main take-away from this episode is that watching Satoko suffer never stops being super painful.

[Also, shout-out to Satoshi for finally getting a proper appearance in Gou, lol. I’m still hoping we get more of a satisfying resolution to his whole role in the story this time, but we’ll see how it goes]

[elcorhamletlive]

fandom: MCU (Post-Avengers) relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Bruce Banner & Clint Barton & Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark & Thor, Nick Fury & Avengers Team, Maria Hill & Avengers Team, Nick Fury & Tony Stark tags: POV Outsider, Fluff and Humor, Team Feels, Truth Serum My fic for the Holiday Exchange, for talesofsuspense! Summary: “Look, I’m not thrilled by the prospect of spending my day here either," Nick said, "but there’s no postponing this. We can’t give them a chance to combine stories.”

“Right,” Hill said. “And I’m sure they’ll all be very…cooperative.”

“Hope you didn’t have any dinner plans."

Hill’s sigh mirrored his own so much it was unnerving. “Okay.” She leaned forward and pressed a button on his desk. “Send in the first one.”

Hill flipped through the pages, making the already thin folder appear even smaller. “Not much of a starting point,” she said.

Nick leaned back in his chair. “No,” he agreed. The report from Stark’s A.I. was very brief, and the rest was just what the scavenging team managed to comb through from the quinjet debris. “The press will not be satisfied with that. And there is a key part missing. We deliver this to the Council, they laugh in our faces.”

Hill raised an eyebrow at him. “So our job is to make the folder thicker?”

“Our job is to understand what happened,” he replied. “So we can deliver them something slightly more coherent, and they can feed the reporters whatever they want.”

“And you think this will work?” Hill gestured to the room around them. Across the desk where she was sitting, on a perfect diagonal view from Nick’s eye, there was a single, empty chair. “Seems like a criminal interrogation.”

“Maybe it is,” Nick said. He wasn’t sure if the superficial report was an intentional cover up or just plain sloppiness – both were equally likely when you had people like Romanoff or Stark in the middle of an OP – but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. There was a hole in the story, and the World Security Council didn’t deal with holes. “Look, I’m not thrilled by the prospect of spending my day here either, but there’s no postponing this. We can’t give them a chance to combine stories.”

“Right,” Hill said. “And I’m sure they’ll all be very… cooperative.”

“Hope you didn’t have any dinner plans,” Nick quipped.

Hill’s sigh mirrored his own so much it was unnerving. “Okay.” She leaned forward and pressed a button on his desk. “Send in the first one.”

-

“There isn’t much to tell,” Romanoff said, and, if Nick wasn’t sure there was something being hidden before, now he did. “I believe JARVIS sent you a detailed account, didn’t he?”

“Depending on what you consider ‘detailed,’” Nick replied. The report had extensively covered the material damage to the quinjet, as well as the information pertaining to AIM’s plan and how it related to it. It was just lacking in the “explanations” department, and it seemed to jump in key time periods between events very hurriedly. Either Stark’s robot was a shit storyteller, or the human factor (specifically the “what the fuck were your team of freaks thinking to let something like this happen, director?” factor) had been strategically avoided.

And there was the matter of the tapes. The security footage recovered from AIM’s quinjet seemed to cover just about every angle of the battle - that is, up until a point right where everything just faded to static before it returned just in time to record the crash.

“This is standard procedure,” he continued as Romanoff’s eyes studied him attentively. “Which, I’d like to stress, is actually a kind way to go about it.” Romanoff quirked an eyebrow at him. “The Avengers initiative isn’t the most popular plan SHIELD has ever come up with, agent. To the world, you might be celebrities, but a lot of people on the inside see you as - how did Banner put it? Oh, yeah - a time-bomb.”

Romanoff smiled. “We’ve made it work so far.”

“Only barely,” Nick said. Romanoff didn’t deny it, nor could she - ever since they had all decided to stay at Stark’s tower, after the battle of New York, Nick had kept his eye close on their performances, be it on the field or with the press, and though the initial animosity seemed to have lessened, they were still a far cry from a synchronized, united team.

The Council had been against them moving in together - there was just too much potential for the proximity to make things go south again - but Nick had argued in favor, and they ultimately decided to allow it. Nick himself knew he was making a risky bet, but at the end of the day, he figured a bunch of anti social people on the edge of normal society had a better chance of making it as a team if they could at least learn how to deal with each other on a friendly basis. And Stark putting the damn A on the tower was as close as he’d ever get to admitting he wanted the company, so Nick didn’t want to deny him it. Hill had a laugh at his expense, then, saying he was getting old and soft.

None of them knew about any of this, of course, and they would never find out. But if Nick Fury made a bet, he wanted to ensure it’d pay off, and crashing a quinjet belonging to one the world’s largest weapons manufacturers in the middle of rural property of the some of the richest people in America was far from a reward, especially while keeping potentially vital bits of information in the dark. That wouldn’t do, and he was determined to get the full picture of what had gone down, whether they liked or not.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning, agent?” Hill suggested.

Romanoff’s eyes blinked astutely before she smiled. “Of course,” she said, much more kindly than Nick would have anticipated. “It started at the fair.”

-

“I wouldn’t normally have come,” Dr. Banner said, straightening his glasses. “The events we get invited to, they're… not my usual scene.”

“Too many reporters?” Nick asked. He knew Banner wasn’t the press’ favorite target - Stark and Rogers, both recipients of huge celebrity fame way before anyone added superhero worship into the mix, were tied up for that position - but he also knew the Avengers in general were the go-to topic for any gossip show running out of material. The fascination with them pendulumed from healthy curiosity to obsessive speculation way too often for Nick’s liking.

“Too many people,” Banner said, with a nervous smile. “The other guy doesn’t like crowds. But AIM said they were interested in having me and Tony speak. ‘The science bros.’” He made air quotes. “Or something. And, well, it was a nice idea to hang on a science exposition. I looked through the flier, and there were some interesting exhibits.”

-

“The whole thing was just a blatant rip off of the Stark Expo. But you know how it goes – imitation, flattery, yadda yadda.” Stark leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk as if it was his office. “So, we get the invite, and, not going to lie, I was a little curious. Pep said we should make an appearance, smile a little, make niceties – but, well, you know me.”

Nick raised an eyebrow, unimpressed by the display. “We do?”

Stark smiled. “I don’t like to do things halfway. I’m just not built for it.” He shrugged. “So I decided to come, and I thought it would be good if everyone else came too, and that we should try out some of the exhibits together – team bonding, you know? Sometimes it’s nice.”

-

“Stark wanted to show off,” Barton said, taking a sip of his water. “He thought there was no way Hammer’s people could organize something on that scale, and he wanted to drag us all there to see it because he was sure it would end up being a huge mess.” He sighed. “I guess at the end of the day, he wasn’t wrong.”

-

Rogers’ jaw clenched so hard Nick thought he’d pull a muscle. “Everything went normally. We got there, took some pictures, got inside… Nothing out of the ordinary.” He looked at Hill. “But, like I said, this is all in JARVIS’ report.”

“Right,” Nick replied. He tilted his head to get a better look. Rogers was as tense as a wood board, and his effort to not let it show made things a lot worse. “I have to say, Cap, I was a little surprised to not get the usual report coming from you.”

Rogers shifted on the chair. “Tony—” He cleared his throat. “We, uh, we thought JARVIS would make one more quickly.” His eyes turned towards Fury, defiant. “From what I understand, every piece of information the Council needs should be in that file.”

“Need and want are two very different things,” Nick said. Rogers took a deep breath, and Nick couldn’t help but frown. “So, you guys started to mingle, right?” he asked, wanting things to get back on track. “That was when you decided to go to Hammer’s stand?”

“Yes. He… invited us.” He paused. “Well, Tony, at least.”

“Right,” Nick said. “But you also ended up going, right?” Rogers gave a reluctant nod. “Why?”

There was a moment of silence, and Rogers said, “It seemed like it could be an interesting experience.”

-

“Stark dared him to do it,” Thor stated bluntly. “Said Steven was probably too scared to lose to him.” He smiled, amused. Nick was fighting against the urge to underestimate him, but boy, was it hard. “It reminded me of some of my disputes with my brother, when we were both younglings and daring ourselves to attempt to steal Heimdall’s helmet.”

“Well, that’s a nice thing to hear about two adults who are constantly in charge of saving the world,” Nick deadpanned.

Thor looked at him disapprovingly. “They are worthy warriors,” he said. “They just… get a little wrapped up in their blind spots, sometimes.” Nick and Hill stared at him questioningly, and Thor looked away, coughing on his hand. “Uh, well, where was I? Right – the stand.”

-

“It was a silly concept – melt stuff with our new laser project, whoever melts the most wins, woohoo! - but I’ll admit it seemed like it could be fun. It took place in a separate room, though, and they were only letting two people in at once.” Stark straightened his tie, looking away from Nick for the first time since he walked inside the office. “So me and Cap decided to try it out.”

“Why just the two of you?” Hill asked, precise as a whip.

Stark stayed focused on his tie. “Well, I wanted to check out what was so great that Hammer was showing off in public. As for Cap, who knows? You should probably ask him.”

“So it was a spontaneous thing?” Nick pushed. “You didn’t ask him to come along?”

Finally, Stark looked at him. For a second, his expression was downright defiant. Then it all melted away in a shrug. “I might’ve. I wasn’t driving back home, you know? So I had a few drinks, and I was saying a lot of things, and maybe I asked if he wanted to try it out.”

“We heard you dared him,” Nick countered. Normally he wouldn’t put the cards on the table like that, but something in Stark seemed to favor a more direct approach.

Stark’s expression didn’t change. “Again, I might’ve. What’s life without a little challenge, right? But, still, if you want to know why he came in the stand, you should probably ask him.” His eyes darted towards the window, avoiding Nick and Hill. “Maybe he just… needed a distraction. He hates those things.” Nick tilted his head, noticing the strange thoughtfulness in his voice, but as soon as it came it was gone, and Stark was rambling at rapid fire speed again. “Anyway, I suppose this is where I get to the gas, right?”

-

Hill turned a page of the folder. “This is where the truth serum got them, right?”

Barton gave them a lopsided smile. “Stark would blow a fuse if he heard you calling it that,” he said. “But, yeah. Exactly.”

read the rest on ao3!

[jackedspicer]

my worst mistake ever was giving shnitzel a crush on rhubarb because once i started shipping them i was toast

under the readmore are silly tidbits and scenarios taken straight from some of my instagram stories. it’s a bit of fun

“canon” stuff

September 27:

“lordy there are some bits and pieces about rhu and shnitzel i havent talked about yet...

for one thing. i draw them together a disproportionate amount bc in my brain they dont have THAT much screentime. itd be a sorta thing where rhubarb is in whichever episode for reasons and if shnitzel happens to be in the same room then we see the gag where he gets all stiff and DUMB [id previously talked about how he had a crush on her so bad that he locks up and gets real stupid. think of mr gar from ok ko. it’s like That.]

except there’s one episode where it’s brought to the table called Shnitzel’s Crush or some corny shit and it’s 11 minutes of the other characters mercilessly embarrassing him

also he literally never says a word about it to her. the whole time. hes silent. he just likes to give her a hand and help her with errands here and there. like carrying the heavy stuff for her stand n whatnot. she thinks hes this big sweet fella so she gives him presents sometimes

and we know hes supposed to be this big stoic guy but we already know hes a SOFTIE so you can obviously see him being secretly sweet on this nice mom lady”

November 16

“i keep thinking about a Funny Moment where mung calls rhubarb over to the catering company because shes ‘just GOT to see something’

the camera is on shnitzel who is just mopping when the door swings open and the bell rings

rhubarb walks past and says hi to him real quick and a couple beats after shes gone he just

shatters like glass

and then it just cuts to whats happening”

-

“i feel like i need to go into detail about the glass shattering

he maintains a straight face the whole time.. completely unremarkable

and after a few moments, in a fraction of a second his whole personhood CRACKS across with a glass shattering sound effect.. pieces dont fall or anything, it would be as if a window cracked all over because of something loud

his face doesnt even change hes just there all fucked up until the next shot”

-

“more than anything i am about gags where he cant function around her... over time they just get more nonsensical and painful.. i already said the shattering one but i also have one where a boulder just drops from under his apron and cracks the ground like he shat himself

the comedy of his suffering is integral to the experience”

October 5

“shnitzel will do all kinds of stupid shit just because rhubarb asked him to. there is literally no limit he just bites his tongue and does it all cause he’s not disappointing her. it’s all harmless stuff but if anybody else asked he’d be like... No

like as for the beach episode thing i posted, she asks him to bring water buckets for their sand castles, and even though part of him just kind of wants to just do the sand castle, he buckles down and brings those damn buckets! and he cant work up the NERVE to sit next to her and build a sand castle anyway so he accepts it. also chowder is there and there are too many things that could go wrong. this is his life”

November 16

“i want you to know tht rhubarb drives shnitzel to work so he doesn’t have to take the bus [this becoming routine would actually be later on but the following bit is what’s in the visible window of canon]

so the first time she gives him a ride is when he agrees to help her carry some heavy stuff for her business

and he goes up to this kind of oldish snail car and shes like ‘ahh sorry about all the bluenanas.. theyre for a bluenana bread i havent baked yet you can just put those in the back seat’ because the car is literally full of bluenanas

-

and it’s this really awkward drive because there are bluenanas EVERYWHERE and the stack of things hes holding is blocking his vision and hes almost dead silent all while shes making momversation

-

i forgot to mention that was AFTER theyd stopped at her house to get the things

she baked him cinnamini rolls as a thank you but she didnt know he was allergic so he sneezes so hard her roof caves in so they have to call his cousin beef stroganoff [a chowder oc i made ironically] and his son banzo [short for garbanzo] over to fix it [this was a reference to a post on here about a landlord’s son bonzo coming over to fix op’s roof with a blowtorch].. he ends up taking the cinnamini rolls as payment

-

well okay it’s not the first sneeze that caves the roof in, first he sneezes and shes like ‘oh no! im so sorry let me get you a tissue!!!’ n when she comes back theres MORE snot so she leaves again and comes back with a BATH TOWEL and THEN he caves the roof in”

November 5

[i was talking about how rhubarb’s dream was to have her own bakery before i led up to this bit]

“and in the scenario that takes place 20 years in the future, theyre married as id said before, except mung daal is telling chowder ‘because you never grew up, shnitzel got fed up and left the catering company!’

and then we see him happily married and co-running a bakery with rhubarb. as if that’s a bad thing

‘you fucked up, chowder. you ruined a perfectly good shnitzel is what you did. look at him. he’s got dignity.”

November 9

[this next bit can be attached to the previous thing i said. it’s an ongoing Thing but it’s only seen when theyre like obviously married onscreen]

whenever rhubarb calls shnitzel by a little cutesy nickname he gets all bashful.. he cant take it bro

this burly 7 foot man gets called ‘pumpkin pie’ and absolutely melts”

---

*this was all the stuff i had so far on various stories that take place “onscreen” since i figured i’d get caught up and start posting all the junk i had lying around. i have other tidbits too that take place between the sorta goofy window of canon and the 20-year timeskip, which i might get into on another post. thanks for reading xoxo i love u

[theninjamouse]

Title: Wisdom

Summery: It’s time for that dreaded procedure. 

(Hi, this is a silly little thing that I’ve wanted to write for ages and last night I stayed up way too late finally writing it. I’ll put it up on ao3 as well but for now, have this)

-

There comes a time in many people’s lives when they must face against a truth. A truth that cannot be avoided, nor ignored in the intensity of its pain. You had hoped against hope that perhaps, you would be spared this fate but alas!

Your time has come.

~~~~~~

Grillby stares at you, blinking slowly. “They’re going to…what?”

You sigh. “I just explained it through dramatic monologue!”

“Give me a summery.”

Pouting, you monotone, “My wisdom teeth have grown in and it’s making all the rest of my teeth shift and it really hurts so they’re going to knock me out and remove them.”

Your explanation has not eased Grillby’s perplexion at all. “But…why would you grow them in at all just to have them removed?”

You shrug helplessly. “I didn’t choose to grow them in! It’s just a thing human mouths do sometimes!”

“Why?”

“Why does the human body work at all? It’s a mystery, honestly.”

Grillby scrubs at his face. “Okay so…afterwards?”

“Afterwards I’m going to be extremely out of it. The medicine they give you is uh. Well, it depends on the person but usually it makes you really loopy. There’s tons of videos online, I’ll have to show you some.”

“Will you be okay?”

Aw and there he is. The soft and caring boyfriend that you love so much. “Yeah, I’m gonna be fine,” you assure him, taking his hand and squeezing it gently. “I uh, I feel awkward asking but, I’m gonna need a few days to recover and I’d feel better if I was at your place. Please?”

A few sparks lift from his head, the equivalent of silent laughter. “You know that you don’t even need to ask.”

Sheepishly, you look down at your feet. He’s right but anxiety is still twisting at your gut. Whenever you got sick growing up, you didn’t exactly receive a lot of loving care, even though a part of you longed for it. The first time you came down with a cold, Grillby’s constant and gentle attention was almost too much for you and you had hidden under the covers and cried the moment he left the room.

This isn’t quite the same as getting sick but you’re still a little concerned about how you’re going to act after the procedure. But you’re going to need help, that much you’re sure of and there’s no one you trust more than him. “Just a warning, I really have no idea how I’m going to act after the surgery. I had a friend in high school that bit her mom when she tried to change the gauze.”

“Gauze?”

“Oh, it’s a sort of cotton sponge. To soak up the excess blood.”

He pales to green at that. But he quickly shakes his head. “I’ll be fine, it’s not like you could hurt me if you bit me.”

“Don’t I know it.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, blushing. “Anyway, I’m more than happy to take care of you.”

That stupid, choking emotion is already grabbing hold of you, so you hug him tightly, pressing your face into his chest. “Just warning you, I take no responsibility for my post-surgery actions.”

He scoffs quietly. “I think I can handle whatever you throw at me.”

~~~~

The surgery center is bustling with activity. You rub anxiously at your thumb, the soothing motion doing very little to calm your building nerves. Grillby puts a hand on your knee. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs. The assurance is a little less effective thanks to the anxious green and white flashing across his face.

“GRILLBY IS RIGHT HUMAN!” Papyrus’ voice booms over the hushed murmuring of the waiting room. Every head turns towards him and he waves his hands enthusiastically. “THOUGH I MUST ADMIT, IT SEEMS A HUGE OVERSIGHT IN THE HUMAN DESIGN FOR THESE ‘WISDOM TEETH’ TO CAUSE SUCH A COMMON PROBLEM!”

Grillby, for all of his support, only has his rarely used motorcycle sitting in the skeleton brother’s garage. Seeing as how you wouldn’t be in any shape to drive after the surgery, you had reached out to those with licenses and cars for a lift. Papyrus had responded so eagerly and loudly that you simply couldn’t turn him down. He did have a sweet car after all.

In the seat next to him, Sans scuffs his foot against the worn linoleum. He looks far more uncomfortable than Papyrus, but he had insisted on coming along. At first, you had been touched that he cared enough to help out.

Then he had pulled a camcorder out of his pocket.

He turns it on you now, little red light blinking. “any final words before enlightenment?”

You fix the camera with a stare. “If I don’t come out of there, I want my full tab transferred to Sans.”

“GRILLBY! YOUR GIRLFRIEND HAS A TAB?” Papyrus tuts loudly and Grillby sighs.

A nurse steps out from the door leading into the back of the facility. She calls your name and your heart leaps into your throat. You scramble to grab Grillby’s hand and give it a final squeeze as you stand and hand off your bag. “Well, see you on the other side I guess?”

Grillby nods, still rather pale.

“GOOD LUCK HUMAN! YOU’RE GOING TO BE FINE!”

“that’s the tooth.”

“UGH!”

You follow the nurse back into a room that smells strongly of disinfectant and climb into the chair. You’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be just fine, it’s a common surgery, nothing’s going to-

The nurse, smiling gently, sticks the needle attached to an IV in your arm and tears immediately start pouring down your face.

You! Hate! Needles!

It’s a few minutes later when the doctor comes in to find you still sniffling. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

You try to smile, blubbering out, “I j-just don’t l-like needles is all, I’m f-fine!”

He smiles gently and gives your shoulder a pat. “You don’t need to worry, everything-”

His voice suddenly warps and fades away as his hand suddenly shifts to a gentle push. Without being really aware of falling, you suddenly find yourself floating along a river. It’s cool and pleasant to the touch. When you look at it, it shimmers like gold and you realize that it’s not water at all but golden coins carrying you along and oh, this is actually kind of nice! The river rocks you with a gentle motion and you could almost fall asleep, cradled in the gentle hold of gold which actually, that’s a little strange now that you think about it but oh, thinking is hard right now and everything just feels so warm and nice…

“…op rocking okay?”

You blink blearily. The river of gold is gone but the rocking continues. It’s nice. Everything is so nice!

“Shore, you have to stop rocking, okay? You’re going to make yourself dizzy.”

You’re already dizzy! You’re gonna keep rocking cause it feels nice!

There’s a blurred figure in front of you, holding a patch of white. “Here, wipe your eyes,” the garbled voice continues.

Oh! You’re crying still! Huh, that’s weird! You reach for what you assume is a tissue and miss. The figure takes your hand and places the tissue in your palm and the tears rush out even faster. “Fank you, fat’s so nice!”

“You’re welcome Shore.”

You lift the tissue to your face and miss your eyes, dabbing your mouth instead.

You’re not sure how long you sit there, watching the blurred shapes of people moving back and forth. It’s nice to just sit and rock. Eventually though, another lady-oh she’s so pretty, that’s so nice!- approaches you with a wheelchair and helps you ease into it.

You’re wheeled down a hallway and you wave at the blurry figures passing by. What nice people, taking care of you like this!

You hear a whoosh of automatic doors opening. The cool air of the surgery center gives way to sunny warmth. You turn your face to it, smiling blissfully.

The nurse brings you to a stop. “Okay Shore, here’s your ride,” she says in a bright and cheerful voice.

You look forward, delightfully surprised to see Grillby, Sans and Papyrus standing there. Oh that’s right, they’re here to take you home! You point, “Look, thaaaaaat’s my boyfriend!” you crow proudly.

“Oh wow, that’s awesome!” the nurse answers. She helps you to stand and fortunately keeps her hand on you because your legs don’t bother buckling; they simply refuse to work, and you nearly slide to the ground before she catches you.

“uh…doc is she actually ok to leave?”

“Oh yes, she’s fine, here you are.” The nurse hauls you up and pushes you forward into Grillby’s arms. He’s so warm! This is so nice!

You snuggle into the warmth, humming happily.

“…ore? ….kay?”

“PERHAPS WE…CAR…MEDICINE!”

Their voices dip in and out but you’re too concerned with keeping your face pressed against Grillby’s chest to really listen because good heck he smells amazing.

You blink again as Grillby very gently pries you off him and guides you into the car. The moment you sit down, a wave of exhaustion takes over and you close your eyes, thumping your head back against the headrest. If the Earth would stop swirling that would be wonderful.

Your head rolls loosely when you feel the warmth of Grillby’s body next to yours. Your eyes feel like they’ve got sandbags attached to them, but you slowly peel them open.

Oh no, he looks so concerned! He’s pale green, very gently cupping your cheek with his hand. Smiling as best as you can with your mouth currently crammed with fluffy clouds, you reach for his cheek, miss, and bap him in the center of his face.

“I’m okay!” Your voice sounds funny, all stuffed up and slurring. “Don’t…don’t cry, okay?”

“I’m not crying.”

“Don’t cry.”

“I won’t.”

“you’re the one who’s crying, tibia honest.”

You pull your gaze away from Grillby to Sans. He’s in the front passenger seat, mostly turned around to look back at you. He’s got that camcorder going. “Why didnja use your phone? It has a…a, a camera y’know.”

“i do know but let’s not talk about me. how’re ya feeling?”

“Good!” you slur brightly. And it’s the truth! You’re still feeling super floaty and stuff. It’s nice. “This stuff’s like maaaaagic.”

“magic huh?”

“Mmmyup! Am I still crying?”

“YES, IT’S ACTUALLY QUITE DISGUSTING,” Papyrus chimes in from the driver’s seat.

Disgusting?! You’re disgusting!?

“aw paps, you made her cry again.”

Papyrus looks back at you through the rearview mirror. “I’M SORRY SHORE! IT’S A HUMAN THING, NOT A ‘YOU’ THING!”

That’s…that’s fair. “Yanno what’s…what’s gross they, they puta thing in my nose and like, I was crying, and stuff and the snot got all caught in the tubes. It was groooss.”

Sans has a hand over his mouth and his shoulders are quivering a little. “oh my god this is amazing.”

“S’not amazing…” Hey, you made a pun. “Heh, snot.”  You giggle and choke a little.

“you ok?”

You hum, leaning on Grillby’s arm. “I’m…good. Where’re we going?”

“THE DOCTOR TOLD US TO GET YOU A MILKSHAKE WHEN WE GET YOUR MEDICINE! IT’LL HELP YOUR CHEEKS TO NOT BE SO PUFFED UP.”

Oh right. Yeah, that’s the usual thing to do after stuff like this. Right? “I gotta stay on liquids and stuff. ‘Member that!” You poke Grillby. “No chewing stuff. Cause like, I’m all…” You pat your swollen cheeks lightly. “Nuh uh.”

You can hear Sans doing his best to muffle his cackling.

Looking back up at Grillby, you say, “You got the good stuff right? Lotta…lotta um….”

Grillby runs his hand over your head. “Soups and ice cream and jello.”

“What about pudding?”

He frowns. “You told me you don’t like pudding.”

“Oh yeah! I don’t really like pudding. Well, the chocolate stuff’s okay. But not banana. It’s gross.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

You nod, contented. “And…where are we going?”

“To get your medicine and the milkshake.”

“Oh yeah.” You smack your lips together a few times. They’re starting to buzz and tingle. “There’s bees in my mouth.”

That draws a huge bark of laughter from Sans. “bees?”

“Mmmhmm.” The tingling brings with it the feeling of bubbles. You’re not leaking blood, are you? You don’t want to make a mess. “They’re making it bubble. Am I bubbling?” You open your mouth as wide as you can at Grillby, leaning in close.

Somehow, he pales even further. You hear a soft thunk as his head hits the window.

“uh…paps i think grillby just passed out.”

“HE WHAT?”

Sans leans into the back a little bit more. “hey bud, lemme see your mouth.”

You oblige him, opening up. “Is there blood? Am I bubbling?”

He makes a face. “yeah, that’s uh…that’s getting kinda nasty. Maybe you shouldn’t talk so much?”

Your lip quivers a little, more tears spilling down. “’m sorry.”

“ah, no, it’s fine, don’t cry uh…here.” He fishes in his pocket and pulls out a rumpled napkin. “it’s clean so uh, maybe wipe up a little before grillbz wakes up?”

You take the napkin. “Sans you’re so n-nice and Paps you are too. You guys are the best.” You dab at your lip, or what you hope is your lip and look to Grillby. His eyes are shut. “Is he taking a nap?”

Sans snorts. “something like that.”

You poke Grillby. You wanna ask him…something. You can’t remember what actually. Maybe what he needs is a kiss to wake him up, like Snow White. You try to lean over to him, but the seatbelt stops you. You fumble with it, whining quietly. Since you can’t seem to figure it out, you settle for kissing your finger and pressing it against his cheek.

He stirs. It worked! “I’m Prince Freaking Charming,” you say proudly to San’s camera.

“yeah ya are.”

Grillby sits up, looking so utterly confused that you start snorting, which makes you choke and sputter on the bubbling sensation in your mouth. “You don’t like the sighta blood huh?”

“No, I really don’t,” he says faintly.

“Walking Dead eat your heart out!” you crow, sticking your bloody tongue out.

Grillby groans loudly and hunches over, head in his hands. “Please don’t do that.”

“You big baby. When we get to…” You look back to Sans. “Where’re we going?”

“to get a milkshake.”

“Yeah! When we, we get to the milkshake, you can get one too to make you feel better.” You pat his back.

“Thanks.”

“You’re sooooo welcome!” You lean on his back, head resting on his shoulder. “I love ya so much. So, so much.”

He tinges blue and takes your hand. “I love you too.”

“Am I a good person?”

“One of the best.”

You giggle quietly, eyes slipping shut. Maybe it’s time to take a little nap before you get to…wherever it is that you’re going. “You’re a good person too,” you murmur. He says something in return but you don’t catch it, already slipping away into unconscious bliss.

~~~~~~

It takes you many hours and several naps to completely come out of the haze of post-surgery. Most of that time is just a blur, though you do recall Grillby nearly passing out again when he helped to change the bloody gauze out of your mouth. Papyrus had stepped in, loudly tutting and complaining about how Grillby should have a stronger stomach given how much greasy food he works around.

When you finally wake up for good, that wonderfully light feeling is gone, replaced by an awful heaviness that makes it hard to even form a coherent thought, let alone move. You’re on Grillby’s bed, propped up by many pillows and blankets. Grillby himself is just visible through the open doorway. At your low groan, he quickly puts down whatever he was doing and comes to your side.

“Hey,” he says gently, taking your hand. “How are you feeling?”

You blink slowly and blearily. “Like I got hit by a train. How do I look?”

“Like you got hit by a train,” he says, grinning weakly.

“…Did you pass out in the car or did I imagine that?”

He ignores that, which you take to mean that yes, yes that did happen, and instead says, “Do you feel up to some broth?”

“Not really but sure,” you breathe.

He pats your hand and leaves, returning shortly with a bowl of broth. “It’s not hot,” he says apologetically. “But it shouldn’t hurt this way.”

“Mkay.” You reach up to pull out the gauze and he blanches again. “Wow, big strong elemental really is a baby when it comes to blood.”

“Only when it’s yours.”

Oh, now that’s just sickeningly sweet. “Well good news is I think it’s stopped.”

“Thank the stars.” He takes a seat on the bed and spoons out some broth. Carefully, he spoon feeds you. Normally such a thing would have you red with embarrassment, but at the moment you’re honestly too weak to really care. He’s patient and gentle, never pushing you. He’s…he’s so nice and good to you and-!

You sniffle. He flashes pale, pulling the spoon back. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

You shake your head, blinking out tears. “You’re just so nice to me and I don’t feel like I deserve it.”

“Oh, hey, hey it’s okay.” He sets the bowl down on the table and climbs into the bed next to you, very carefully pulling you into his arms. “Of course you deserve it.”

You lean against him, letting the gentle warmth of his soak into your aching body. “No, I don’t.”

“You do. And I’m going to keep being nice to you, even if you don’t think you deserve it.”

“Cause you love me?”

He smiles and presses a kiss to the top of your head. “Because I love you.”

“Even with the blood and big old chipmunk cheeks?”

“Especially with the chipmunk cheeks.”

You chuckle quietly, closing your eyes and letting yourself bask in the security of Grillby’s embrace.

[ayy-spec]

Anything to Add?

The final question in this survey was a write-in section for people to leave any additional comments. 113 people responded.

Important/Particularly Interesting Comments

• I hope this goes well for you because you seem nice and if you have any advice for new to the community 15 year olds like me, don't be afraid to share because I'm trying to embrace my sexuality as much as possible but it can be hard when I don't know where to go or turn to to find what I'm supposed to do and where to ask questions and just fully embrass this part of me and it can be hard when I don't even know many if any aspecs so representation is great and it is helpful to hear your experiences and how you handle certain parts, so just keep doing what your doing because it is making a difference [note: 🥺🥺😭]

• i often consider myself more as just aroace rather than aro and ace seperately so i prefer seeing the blue and orange aroace flag over the individual aro and ace flags

• I don't really shorten my identity often with aroace, only when im feeling very romance repulsed and its been a while since I felt romantic attraction. I am a pan-demiromantic asexual. My pan label makes me feel more connected to the lgbt+ community bc it feels like my nonbinary and intersex status doesn't count either. I know I belong in the queer community, but the lgbt+ community is so sexual orientation focused.

• Thank you for having a wide variety of labels to choose from in the options!! I don't see the term aegoromantic very often on things, it feels nice to be known I guess haha

• Thank you for this, i recently started thinking about being in arospec and it was so relieving, all this time i thought something was wrong or maybe i was broken. I'm still trying to learn more about it, and I'm grateful for people willing to teach and help

• didn't realize I hadn't experienced sexual attraction until I finally did and was like "OH, no wonder all my other relationships felt like I was playing pretend"

• I dont often tell people I'm gray aroace. Not because of shame or it not being "as important" (I'm a gay trans dude) but I think because I just feel its a very intimate part of myself, as well as my romanticism and sexuality (in terms of like asexuality) feeling as though it doesn't always need a label. I'm fine just being myself most of the time, a lot of labels can be tricky for myself I think. I'm happy the label exists nonetheless though because Its nice to know I'm not the only one who feels like this.

• I'm queer! But if I'm getting down to the bones of it, I'm pan/ace. Still relearning how to be proud of that, after The Grand Clusterfuck years back.

• even though I would be considered to have an alloromantic orientation, alloace isn't really a term I feel any strong connection or attachment to

• i'd like to add that i do consider myself alloaro and use that label openly but i'd also not consider myself 100% allosexual. i'm questioning my sexuality but even if i do end up feeling more solidly ace-spec i'd still use the alloaro label

• Idk who else does this or if this is interesting enough to write down, but I thought I would! I use Aroace as a label. Other, smaller labels inside that would probably fit me better! Aroace feels too big, like it doesn't *really* define exactly who I am. But at the same time, I prefer using it because more people know what Aroace means (at least compared to myrromantic and myrsexual). I use Aroace so the public can define me. I don't typically use it around my close friends 'cause they already know my idiosyncrasies and where I really am. They already made their own definitions for me, so I don't have to make one for them!

• I'm still figuring myself out, so I leave myself at the blanket terms and hopefully everything'll work out in the end

The rest of the responses are below:

Comments Alerting Me About Typos (that I was then able to resolve)

• There's a typo in your "sexual orientation labels" question, because you have Aroflux listed and not Aceflux, but I didn't want to confuse things so I put Aceflux (which I do use) under Other. I also am polysexual (I flux between polysexual and asexual but I am always aegosexual) but didn't know if I should but it under Other anywhere since it's not an acespec label. I consider my polysexuality tied to me being aego/aceflux though, which is why I mention it here.

• the sexual orientations options are the same of the romantic ones ( for example, there's arovague and arospike in the sexual cathegory)

People Clarifying/Expounding Upon Their Own Identity/Experiences

·  to clarify: i'm unsure whether or not i am demi or aceflux; so i use graysexual since both labels technically fall under that as an umbrella term.

• I’m still a confused gorl and I really only know that I don’t like sex it sexual acts but I do like romantic and sensual acts

• Sex/romance repulsed and I have aesthetic attraction

• I'm also animesexual and fictosexual (and romantic I guess but I don't like using the SAM for myself).

• I have never seen most of these labels, haha, I expect one of them is the one I always forget that's for being aro due to past trauma but people always assume it's romantic/sexual trauma so I don't use it and thus have forgotten it...but that's the essay I'm not usually up for writing: was biromantic but then had several awful life events on top of each other and had a complete breakdown and have been aro since. Unclear if it's permanent but it's been 14 years now. [note: I believe this person is thinking of caedromantic]

• I tend to use the word ace more than asexual because it's shorter, but I don't feel more favorably about one than the other.

• i can't tell the difference between platonic vs romantic attraction, and am unsure if people i have "liked" in the past was romantic, platonic, or a fake stemming from peer pressure.

• Also Gender-Neutral/Agender

• I’m gray-aro but identify more with being biromantic even though I know I’m aro-spec. As for sexual orientation, I’m just completely ace xD

• The fact I'm still trying to figure out my gender makes it harder to pinpoint exactly what my orientations are :( but I usually say I'm queer, and if it's safe: Bi Ace, and if I can get more specific: biromantic grey-asexual

• I also use a platonic label (biplatonic). I use it not in a friendship way, but more like in a QPR way.

• Thank you for doing this! My identity on the aro/ace spectrums has shifted a lot over the years and while I’ve just settled on aroace and queer for the most part, this community is so diverse and under appreciated. People who find joy in/identify with micro-identities are valid and deserve representation!

• I'm still figuring out my romantic orientation but it's looking less allo by the day lmao

• My romantic label is very fluid, but in terms of sexual labels, very sex repulsed Asexual

• Content with just Aspec cause it's difficult to pinpoint anything but cool with both asexual/ace and aromantic/aro

• I think of my romantic orientation as halfway between aromantic and homoromantic

• I'm a polyamorous ace, if there'd be a way to include that sometimes that'd be neat :)

• I am still questioning my identity

• I used to identify as 100% ace but now I have no idea other than that I seem to be pan-ace in some way shape or form so my identity is ???people???

• Sex/romance repulsed and I have aesthetic attraction

• to clarify: i'm unsure whether or not i am demi or aceflux; so i use graysexual since both labels technically fall under that as an umbrella term.

Queer Rights

• Trans rights, baybee 🤠🦂

• I just hope a-spec and aro-spec people will experience less negativity and hate this year <3

• Aspec rights!!

• aspec rights, baby

People Being Nice to Me  (I appreciated this thank you everyone!!)

·  :)

• Have a good day

• Uhhh, cool survey, nice to see a lot of labels.... good job! Nothing I have to add, it was great

• Have fun chief, thank you for your work

• Thank you for creating!

• thanks for the survey! I don't know too many aspec in person so I love participating in things like this about the ace/aro community!

• Thank you for what you’re doing

• just hi :)

• thanks!!

• I really love your blog! Reading your posts always makes me happy :) [note: thank you!]

• Good luck, have a nice day !

• I hope you're having a good day :)

• you're lived and valid af!! have a great day!!!

• Thank you for all your hard work i really appreciate it ☺️

• Drink some water Right Now OP

• Nope, :> hope the best for you.

• Cool survey, 10/10 would survey again.

• 💛

• Have a nice day uwu

• Nope! Have a nice day!

• Thank you for making pride flag edits! They're really nice! [note: thank you!!]

• nope, but this is really cool!!

• ❤️

• Have a good day.

• I think this survey idea is super cool! Definitely a great way to see what sort of aspec people are on tumblr :)

• You are doing the lords work

• Thank you for asking us.

• good luck!

• This is really cute idea :)

• I hope you're having a nice day!

• Good luck in your endevours!

• Thank you for making our community visible!

• Have a good day :3

• Have a good day!!

• Keep doing great stuff!

• Thank you for all the positivity I get from your blog! It's super helpful, keep it up :) [note: thank you!!]

• thanks for doing this. recognition is always nice

• Have fun <3

• Lots of love 💛

• This is a cool project, thanks for doing it and good luck! :)

People Saying They Love Me (and I love you, random a-specs)

·  i love you OP!!!!!

• love you, hope you have a great day

An A-Spec Person Being Rude to Other A-Specs

• If you enjoy sex with your romantic partner then you are not asexual

A Person Who Is Not A-Spec Being Rude To A-Specs

• sweetie im sorry that you're so insecure that you feel like you have to make up new identities to feel better about yourself. if you are a lesbian or bisexual please know that you are welcome in the community, but other than that making thousands of microlabels like this makes a huge joke out of what was once an important and respected group. nobody takes us seriously anymore because of this shit. does labelling your identity like this really help you with anything? demisexual and fraysexual and all this are just fancy words for normal human feelings that everyone has. there is no need to microlabel it.

Other

· [variations of “no” (12)]

• not sure that helps lmao but still hope it does. all the best

• Axolotls (or as I like to call them, asexulotls) are amazing and I love them [Note: the man in question]

• Sorry, I can't remember the names of any blogs that do edits

• Ok random but the colors of the aro/ace flag? The blue and orange one? They’re gorgeous.

• I'm not so sure if I should use the aroace flag, I feel comfortable using both aro and ace flags, but I don't like the colors for the aroace flag :c [note: these are in chronological order, it’s a total coincidence that these comments are together]

• Curious to see where the survey goes

• It would be cool if you could also do some aplatonic-spectrum edits!

• there were fully half of the terms on that list that i had never even seen before. like, everything below litho down to no label was entirely new to me. at some point i will look into those! (but not right now, my brain is full enough at the moment)

• actually had to look up the majority of these orientations. Thank you for the opportunity to learn!

• Gonna reblog and follow and hopefully learn a bit more, about others and myself

Note: The only comment that is not listed in order is the first comment, which I put at the top because I found it the most important. It’s so important that kids and teens have space to explore their identity and learn about themselves. The reason I made this blog in the first place was because I was 19 and working on figuring out my gender and sexuality. Now that I’m a bit older and understand things better, I’m so glad that I’m able to help people in this way. 

I make it a point to be very openly queer in my life and at work because I need LGBTQ+ people, especially youths, to know that we’re here. I’m lucky that I live somewhere that I can be visibly queer and speak about it openly. We are everywhere, and there’s more of us than you think!

Something that I really like about the comments at the top is that they show how diverse we are, and how people use words differently. Some people feel like they’re more aroace than aromantic and asexual separately, and others consider their romantic and sexual orientations to be completely different things.

I definitely relate to the person who identifies are myrromantic and myrsexual with their friends but just says aroace when speaking with people they don’t know as well. I believe a lot of people use different words depending on who they’re speaking with.

[ourimpavidheroine]

An Anniversary

Five years ago today, the 13th of February, 2015, I published, all in one shot, a piece of fanfiction called Please Excuse My Penmanship.

I hadn’t, at that point, written - never mind published - any fanfiction for over fifteen years. I had written some X-Files fanfic back in the day but I’d lost it; my backup floppies disappeared when I moved to Finland and, like just about everyone else back then, the places I had posted it to online disappeared without warning. (Toss a coin to your Archive, oh valley of plenty.) I’d been pretty torn up about losing my fic that way, which put me off writing. Time went on; I had twins in 2002 and they both turned out to have non-verbal autism and different flavors of ADD/ADHD and my life got very complicated and very difficult for a lot of years there. Writing for pleasure wasn’t even on the table.

By 2015 my life had settled a bit. My wife was disabled and suffering from severe and untreated depression and the kids were in special ed and a lot of therapies but we were managing. I had watched Avatar: The Last Airbender with my kids (on DVD - they were too young for it when it first aired) and had gone on to watch The Legend of Korra with them as well. 

I really liked Mako as a character; he was too internal and complex for most of the kids watching, however, and wasn’t well liked. Most fans saw an inflexible jerk who caused and fucked up a love triangle; what I saw was an autistic man who was suffering from pretty severe PTSD. He grabbed my interest. I related.

I really liked his dynamic with Prince Wu, despite the fact that he was a really annoying character. Queer-coded as fuck, although the showrunners were plainly ignoring it. And I started to headcanon who they would be as a couple. How to make Wu less annoying while still making him canon Wu? How to humanize Mako while still acknowledging his autism and PTSD? Headcanon was all it was, though, a way for me keep myself occupied. I’ve been writing stories inside my head as long as I can remember. It’s what I’ve always done.

I read a post on here on Tumblr where the OP stated that there was no such thing as a good Letter Fic; I thought to myself, Bet I could do it. And so in the end of January 2015 I sat down at my PC and started to type up all of my headcanon.

I went back and forth with Wu. What I first started to write was too clumsy, by half; I tried to stick to his endless slang and it was as annoying as it had ever been on the show. I knew if I stuck to that shallow, silly, stupid, canon Wu he wouldn’t be interesting to read. I struggled with it for a time until I remembered something.

My maternal grandmother told me a story once about a girl from Mexico. Claudia was her name; she was a year older than my mother. Her own mother had died when she was born; her father, who was one of my grandfather’s business partners in Mexico, had left her in the care of her grandparents, who were extraordinarily wealthy denizens of Mexico City. At some point the adults involved thought that it would be a great idea to send this girl to stay with my mother’s family to learn English; in return, my mother would then go and stay a summer in Mexico City to learn Spanish. (Which she did; she’s fluent to this day.) Claudia had no English at all but my grandmother had working Spanish and I guess they all figured it would be enough for this poor girl? 

The first day Claudia arrived in San Francisco my grandmother kindly showed her into the bathroom and told her to take a shower. My Grams realized about ten minutes or so later that the water hadn’t turned on; she went to check on her and there she was, sitting obediently on the toilet seat, fully dressed, waiting for the maid to come and undress her and turn the water on for her shower. 

She had no idea how to do either of those things for herself. She had never, at the age of thirteen, undressed herself or operated a shower. And there it was, the opening of my story. Wu remembers arriving in Republic City on the run from the Red Lotus, checking into the hotel, and having no idea whatsoever what to do next. And I thought to myself...What if he isn’t actually stupid? 

And there he was. My Wu. Just like that.

I wrote feverishly for a week, drawn into the story that was sitting in my head, waiting to be told. I didn’t have a Betareader; my wife liked my writing but rather tersely told me that TLOK wasn’t her fandom and she wasn’t interested in reading it, something that hurt me pretty deeply, especially since my X-Files fanfic was how we’d actually connected in the first place. 

(She was, at that time, in the process of slowly dying of heart failure, but I didn’t know that then.)

I wasn’t going to publish it. I just wanted to write it, to see if I still had it together after a seventeen year hiatus. Wuko wasn’t at all a popular ship; after the show finale a couple of months prior all the fanfiction being feverishly written and published was Korrasami. (In fact, I checked AO3 at the time and found exactly two Wuko fanfics, both of which were one-shots and not to my particular taste.) I went back and forth with it and then thought, Fuck it. I’ll just do it. And maybe no one will read it but at least I’ll have done it. I read it through one more time and then, on the thirteenth of February, took a deep breath, told myself to stop being a coward, and posted the entire fic at once. 

I got my first comment, and I was elated. And then I thought to myself, Well, fuck, you may as well write some of the other stuff in your head. You might learn something about yourself as a writer on the way.

Then, a few months later, on the seventeenth of June, my world fell apart. My wife, staying at our summer cottage with our twelve year old twins, died of a heart attack while the kids were off playing and I was here at home, getting ready to travel down the next day on the train to meet them all for the summer. My daughter was the one to find her; she was long past saving at that point. Family friends brought the children, our pets, and our car the two hours back home as I collapsed on the floor of our flat and rocked myself back and forth, wordlessly keening, my hands trembling uncontrollably.

The next year was unspeakable. I was a widow at forty-six; I was living in a foreign country with two disabled children, with no family or friends nearby and an imprecise grasp of the language. My wife had told me she had life insurance; she lied. I was flat broke. My grief was deep and whole and devastating; my children were traumatized and barely functioning. I had no one to help me, and I’d cook meals at midnight so my sleeping children wouldn’t hear me sobbing in the kitchen.

And I wrote.

And I wrote.

And I wrote.

I wrote out of desperation; I had to do something to keep me tethered to this world. I wrote of love and families, of a traumatized child from the street that was my daughter’s age, full of bravado and choked fury. I wrote of an autistic boy growing into a man, bullied and shunned, aching to be free, much like my own. 

I took my children to more therapists. I took myself to a therapist that turned out to be homophobic; I found another one. I made dinners; I cleaned the house, I walked in circles around my living room, whispering over and over to myself, You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay you’re okay, before making another phone call.

And I wrote.

In August of 2018 my daughter attempted suicide and was hospitalized. I was trying to write I Do Not Ask The Night For Explanations and I had to stop. I had severe panic attacks whenever I tried to work on it. I brought her home and I cut my work hours down to four hours a week so that I could be with her at all times; she wasn’t safe to be left alone. I cared for her. I cared for her twin, who was terrified, unable to sleep, afraid that if he wasn’t watching her she’d try it again. I fought until I got them different therapists. I stopped sleeping. My health suffered.

And I wrote. When I could. It was, without any doubt at all, the only thing that was keeping me going during that time. I would tell myself that I had to keep going, that I still had so much of this story in my head, I needed to get it out. Sometimes I would write while sobbing. Sometimes I would sit here at my desk and nothing would come. I just kept going, though.

It’s better now. She missed most of last year of school and is making it up this year and doing so well. Her brother is at a new school and has, for the first time in his life, made friends. I was able, in December, to actually leave them for three days; the first time I had been away from them since we lost their mother. 

They’ll be eighteen this summer and we’re finally able to breathe. We’re moving forward, the three of us. We’re still broken, but we’re making something new out of the pieces instead of trying to put them back together.

My writing is what saved me. It wasn’t about how many hits/comments/kudos I got; I appreciate every single one I get, believe me. But the writing was making me hold myself accountable, making myself get out of bed, get dressed, brush my hair and teeth, sit down and try. Sometimes that was all I could manage; the writing just wasn’t happening. But it gave me a goal when I needed one. And boy, did I need one.

Thank you all for reading. For those of you that have been there since the beginning and those who just started reading now. For those who faded away from the fandom over time or who left because they didn’t like how the story was going; I wish you well and thanks for reading when you did. Thank you for the hits and the kudos and the comments. You may not have known you were helping to save me, but you were. So thank you.

I am not done writing yet. I am not oblivious; I know I am so far in AU territory now that you’re for all intents and purposes reading original fic. That’s okay. It’s the story that was in my head, that is still in my head. Maybe someday I’ll try to publish it and maybe I won’t, and I’m fine with that. I’m not ready at this point to do what’s necessary to take it past fanfic and that’s okay. It has served and is continuing to serve its purpose for me; if you all enjoy it then that’s just biscuits and gravy, as my Great-Aunt Margie used to say.

I wrote us all a little anniversary ficlet; this takes it full circle for me. (And then back I go to Wu and Qi’s wedding!) 

Mind the warnings at the bottom if you think you need them.

Chapter 132: 252: Wu

[electronicyarn]

NOT Live Blogging RWBY Vol. 7

Guess who has two thumbs and finally finished watching RWBY Volume 7? This gal! So I decided I’d post my thoughts on the volume. I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t get to properly live blog it, but I guess right now this is the best I can do.

(So is…is tumblr still a thing? Or has whatever company that owns it now finally run the site completely into the ground. Maybe the question I should be asking is: does anyone still follow my blog?)

I think in the interest of not rambling too wildly I’m going to organize my thoughts into broad categories. So, here we go.

Visuals

If nothing else, this volume was a feast for the eyes. I’m impressed that RWBY continues to noticeably improve its visuals with each Volume. Honestly, at this point I don’t see the need for further improvement. The character models are appropriately stylized, the backgrounds are gorgeous, and the last of the kinks have (finally) been worked out of the animation.

What I’m less enthused about is the costume design. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad. It’s just not great. Penny’s new design works. Ruby’s outfit is virtually identical to her last one, so she gets a pass. Weiss’s is close, oh so close. I like the basic design, but I think the colors needed some more tweaking. Blake’s outfit is…. Well, I don’t know. I think I’m going to call it mildly nonsensical. I’m digging the haircut though. (Same goes for Jaune!) Yang and Neo’s new clothes are so-so at best, and Cinder’s are downright awful. Strangely enough, it’s Team JN_R that wins the best-dressed award in my book. They’re new outfits look far better than Weiss’s, Blake’s, and Yang’s by a mile.

I guess I should count my blessings. After Neo and Cinder’s new outfits debuted at the end of Volume 6 I was afraid that everyone might end up looking like lampshades. Or maybe fetishists not fully committing to the part.

Story

Up until about Episode 10 I was going to call this volume the good twin to Volume 4’s evil twin. A volume of RWBY that lacked the high-highs and the low-lows that are so endemic of the franchise. The difference between the two being that Volume 4 was painfully mediocre, while Volume 7 was pretty good. But it turns out I was wrong. The entirety of Volume 7 was, in my opinion, nothing more than a build-up to the big finale. And what a finale it was! But maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.

The first episode really won brownie points with me for basically doing the bad part of Volume 6 (Team RWBY spitting in the face of authority) except doing it right. It turns out that authority figures aren’t always “whimsical” caricatures masquerading as antagonists. (Sorry, I really hated Caroline, and not in a good way.) It also turns out that sometimes the authorities aren’t utterly incompetent. In many ways the Ace-Ops arresting Team RWBY reminded me of a less extreme version of the ending of the fourth Hunger Games movie. Specifically the part where Katniss and company decide to storm the castle and utterly fail. You know, the part where the movie transformed from an uninspired parody of itself to the absolute highlight of the entire franchise?

And then a bunch of stuff happened, some of which I’ll discuss in the next section. And then there were some really great fights. Oh yes, and then Salem shows up. Bye-bye Atlas! You. Are. Outta here!

Honestly, the only thing I didn’t much care for story-wise was Penny becoming the new Winter Maiden. It’s not because I don’t like the concept; it’s because it feels like they didn’t put any thought into the idea other than “let’s make Penny the Winter Maiden”. I’ll withhold judgment for now. It’s only fair that I wait and see where they go with it.

Characters

Believe it or not, I don’t have much to say about Team RWBY themselves in this section. Development-wise this volume was almost exclusively focused on other characters. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, although it wouldn’t be my first choice if I had my druthers. Honestly, Weiss, Blake, and Yang’s character arcs have largely been concluded at this point. Only Ruby’s left with outstanding issues regarding her mother. So…yeah. Maybe that bodes poorly for the franchise’s future now that I think about it? Or at least my own personal enjoyment of it? Eh, I’ll worry about that later. I should talk about all the other characters!

Team JN_R – I was a bit surprised at the lack of Jaune-related content this volume. They didn’t even deign to make him suffer much. But with a cast as big as RWBY’s, it’s not the first time we’ve seen a character take a volume off as it were. The big news here is that they actually attempted to give Ren a character and bring him into conflict with Nora. I…. Well, I don’t really think they succeeded, to be honest. As is a common problem in RWBY, there really wasn’t enough time to let the idea be fully realized. But I appreciate the effort.

The Ace-Ops – Oh, I had these guys pegged as the volume’s final bosses from the get-go. And I was not disappointed. As one-off antagonists, they worked. I can’t remember any of their names though. Except for Clover’s, and I’ll talk about him and Qrow in the section below.

Penny – It’s about time she came back. We all knew that was going to happen, right? And while I’m on the subject, Pietro was a nice side character too.

Oscar – He was there.

Robyn – I’m not sure what to say about her, to be honest. She was a good enough character, and played her role in the story well. But I never felt like she rose above her role.

Neo – You know who my favorite RWBY character is? It’s Yang, obviously. And do you know who the most strongly characterized RWBY character is? It’s the late Roman Torchwick of course. But do you know who takes second place in both of those categories? Neo. Kind of ironic for that second one given that she doesn’t speak. Neo did not disappoint this volume. She never disappoints. And I’ve said it before, on this very blog I think. In terms of raw-skill, Neo is one of the most dangerous characters in the RWBY-verse. Team JN_R vs. Neo? No contest. Although I am amused that Jaune got the only real hit on her. I’m even more amused that it somehow felt appropriate.

Cinder – Again I continue to really like post-Volume 4 Cinder. No matter how hard she tries, the universe just won’t stop kicking her in the teeth. And it just fits her character so well. Bravo Rooster Teeth!

Winter – Winter’s battle might not have been the most fun. That goes to Neo vs. some bush leaguers. It might not have been the most creative. That goes to Team RWBY vs. the Ace-Ops. But by God, no one put in more effort than Winter. She has my utmost respect.

Weiss’s Mom – Hey, she exists! Nice!

Dr. Watts – So much smarm. So much arrogance. I should hate him, but I really don’t. He’s just great.

Ironwood – And the best for last. Oh my. Oh my, oh my, oh my. His arc this volume was absolutely perfect. It was given enough time to be believable, amazing for a show like RWBY, and every step along his journey made sense. He’s become my absolute favorite kind of antagonist, the kind that believes what they’re doing is right. And here’s the thing, I can’t say that Ironwood is wrong. I don’t think he’s right, but I can’t say that he’s wrong. Give me an Ironwood over a Tyrian any day of the week. Please give me an Ironwood over a Tyrian.

The Gay Agenda

*singing* Qrow has a boyfriend….

Er…. Qrow had a boyfriend. And then Clover got Bury Your Gays’d. I’m kind of disappointed, but I’m kind of not. After all, the universe has long since ordained that it is Qrow’s lot in life to suffer.

To tell the truth I’m deeply divided on how I feel about RWBY’s take on the gays. The homoromantic subtext between Yang and Blake has reached levels equivalent to Season 3 of Xena: Warrior Princess. And Qrow and Clover were about there too. On one hand, I’m happily drinking it all up. On the other hand, I want to call Rooster Teeth a bunch of cowards. It’s not 1999 anymore. You can make characters gay. RWBY has made (side) characters gay. At best I’m expecting them to pull a Legend of Korra and only make things “official” at the very end of the show, a resolution I found deeply unsatisfying. But if I were running the show, would I do things differently? Well, yes I would. But would it be the correct decision from a revenue perspective? I’m assuming that RWBY is a, let’s say, important show for Rooster Teeth. I base this assumption on the fact that they announced three RWBY-adjacent spin-offs just after Volume 7 finished. Perhaps they feel they can’t take any risks with something so popular? Perhaps they don’t particularly care. Again, I don’t know how to feel about it.

Conclusion

Homoromanticism aside, (Never!) is Volume 7 the best volume ever? It might be. Only Volumes 1 and 5 can contend with it for consistent high quality. If I had to declare one volume as the best overall, this would probably be it. That being said, I doubt anything will ever supplant the Yang and Blake vs. Adam fight in Volume 6 as my favorite part of RWBY. I still can’t believe they paid that off so well. Three years of anticipation and they fulfilled my every expectation.

Wait, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah. Volume 7. It was good.

[tockzy]

Heya boys, girls and everything in-between or out-between (comedic genius I know) I'm gonna give y'all another one of those RWBY/Bleach crossover things sometime but for now please accept this little filler follow-up post to the first one while I figure some stuff out for a suggested idea. On we go!

So, today I'm just gonna place the girls of Team RWBY in squads and what position they'd be (bar Blake but I'll still talk about her.) Please note that they might end up in other squads and thus sorta ruin their team dynamic, however I'm just gonna say fuck that anyways and have them be posted on missions together all the time (again excluding Blake for now, I might talk some bit about their little story arcs further down the line.)

Ruby: So! It's been a moment since I've really looked into the different philosophies of each squad but I feel like our little punk aesthetic ball of sunshine would either end up in squad 13 or squad 5 (post Aizen with Shinji). Squad 13 is obviously because of Ukitake (or Rukia if you prefer Weiss parallels lol.) she'd fit right in with their very homely and welcoming vibe and I'd say she'd probably be 5th or 4th seat. Shinji's squad five is for an entirely different reason, that being that Shinji is a little shit with huge Uncle Qrow energy (before he kicked his alcoholism) and the pure Chaos she could bring to a squad like that would be GLORIOUS! Also she's Lieutenant material in this one don't @ me. Like Hinamori is great but after Aizen I think it'd be good to denote her to 3rd seat to ease her stress some.

Weiss: Squad 6. That's all.... What? You want a reason? Ugh, fine. Byakuya and her would get along great, and Renji... Has... Big.. Ruby energy okay I'm sensing a pattern here in me putting these two in different squads with characters similar to their partners and I PROMISE it's accidental lmao. Anyways she'd be 3rd seat because there is no way I'm demoting Renji.

Blake: now, if you saw my first post you'd know I said she'd be an arrancar, and I'm sticking to that here. However I will explain where she'd rank in Aizen's Army (with maybe a "hypothetical" shinigami squad placement.) So, she'd replace Aaroniero as espada number 9. And before you guys get upset with me placing her so low or ranking her so "weak" (she's still an above captain level fighter, just not OP like Ulquiorra and above) hear me out. She's a speed and tactics fighter like Aaroniero but her ability would be a bit more hax than just eating hollows and getting their abilities. Plus, in the show she's not a power type fighter, and putting her at number 5 or something wouldn't make sense in my mind since she'd figure out a way to outsmart the soul reapers instead. Anyways, yeah, she's an espada. Her fracciones would be Illia and Adam, though Adam would get killed at some point (most likely by Yang, with hidden assistance by Blake? Eh?) now for her squad placement it'd have to be squad 3 because of their symbol and what it represents (I don't remember off the top of my head rn because it's been so long)

Yang: oh boy, here's the one I bet you've all been waiting for. The sunny dragon is 110% in squad 11. I will hear no other suggestions (that's a lie I will) Why you ask? Her and Kenny would be unstoppable and that's that. Her rank? Lieutenant. Why? Cuz she's a bad bitch.

That's all folks! If you guys have any suggestions/opinions on where I put the girls don't be afraid to like, mass reblog or blow up my inbox or something. I'd love to actually start some discussions on this stuff. I will be posting more stuff on this concept sometime but right now I'm still working out some stuff for other posts.