#funnily enough there was a guy there who had the same code as me and she said my name and I was like ah Jsem!! me!! tady!!

[all-thestories-aretrue]

Like i've lived in the czech republic before. But I didn't order packages a lot and my place had a place to put them onsite.

I don't have that anymore. So when I wasn't here yesterday when they delivered my packages (two hours early) they put them in a pick up location.

Said pick up location was a butcher/meat shop. Is this normal??? Do random shops double as postage pick up locations??

In other news i have an oven!!!

[makeitmingi]

The Cat and Dog Game [Chapter 23]

Genre: Romance, Fluff, Comedy

Pairing: Yunho x Reader (y/n)

Characters: Chef!Reader, RestaurantOwner!Yunho, MaitreD!Hongjoong, Waiter!Yeosang, Waiter!San, Waiter!Mingi, SousChef!Seonghwa, SousChef!Wooyoung, PrepChef!Jongho

Summary: Yunho's dream was to open and run his own restaurant. But he doesn't know anything when it comes to cooking. Until you came along and accepted the job, bringing with you a small crew. How will the black cat tame the energetic golden retriever?

Word count: 3.3K

"So, I went on a date yesterday... With Yunho." You finally said, glancing over at Seonghwa from the passenger seat. You had no intention of hiding it from Seonghwa, you were going to tell him.

"Oh, how was it?" He asked back. Seonghwa didn't look all too surprised, did he know?

"Wait, you're not surprised or shocked. Did you already know? Did Yunho tell you?" You blinked. Not that you expected Seonghwa to be appalled or anything. You were just curious about why he had a lack of expression or reaction.

"No, I didn't know, he didn't tell me. Well... at least, I didn't know about the date. But I did know that Yunho has feelings for you." Seonghwa explained.

"Is it that obvious to everyone?" You mumbled. After Jongho told you that he notices Yunho following you around with heart eyes, you have been wondering if you're just oblivious to these things.

"Yes, it is. Plus, he told me." Seonghwa revealed. Now, you were the one who was shocked.

"Wait, wait, he told you? When did he tell you?" Now it was your turn to be the shocked one.

"Yes, he told me. He told me the day that I said I ran into him when I was out. I think it was that day off after we cooked for the parents." He explained.

"And all this time, you didn't tell me?"

"(y/n), as close as we are, you know it's not my place to tell you about his feelings. That's just not right for me to be exposing his feelings to you like that. And would you have really wanted to hear about his feelings from me rather than directly from him?" He asked back. Seonghwa was right.

"Yeah, I know, Hwa. Why did he tell you though? Or why did he tell you before he even told me?" You asked.

"That I can tell you. Funnily enough, poor guy felt guilty for having feelings for you because he thought we were together. Some bro code about having feelings for your friend's girl." He chuckled.

"He thought we were a couple?" You cringed. Seonghwa hummed in confirmation.

"Well, I guess that's normal. At some point, everyone we've met thought we were a couple." You shrugged.

"That's true. But back to the main point, yes, I knew that Yunho had feelings for you. And I guessed that at some point he would ask you out. You didn't have to hide your date from me."

"I wasn't trying to hide it... I would have told you like I am now. I was just really stressed." You sighed.

"Stressed? Why? Do you not feel the same way towards him?" Seonghwa asked.

"I think I do? I had Wooyoung sort out my feelings for me when he came over that day and we concluded that I do have feelings for him. But it's scary, Hwa. You know, I don't like my feelings. And I'm scared that I can't meet expectations." You revealed.

"Sweetheart, there are no expectations, okay? You shouldn't feel guilty or pressured into feeling a certain way just because Yunho told you his feelings." He advised.

"I know but-"

"And I know it's daunting to have such feelings for another person. But I see how you are with Yunho, without even knowing, you do care for him a lot. Just take it step by step, at your own pace." He said.

"But did you enjoy the date? Tell me more about it." Seonghwa probed.

"I did, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. We went to the aquarium and went for dinner." You said briefly.

"You always wanted to go to the aquarium when you were little. I'm glad you enjoyed it, I'm sure Yunho made it even more fun." Seonghwa chuckled.

"He did. I realised how observant and thoughful he is. You can tell he really tried his best to make sure that everything went well and that I had a good time. Everything he did, he did it with me in mind and I appreciated it. I felt bad that he didn't let me pay or do much for him." You laughed.

"So after dinner, he was still hungry so I made him a snack at mine. He did research for a nice degustation place but the servings were small and just like you, his appetite is too big." You added.

"Tasting menus always have too little food." Seonghwa scoffed.

"But doesn't mean Yunho did all these nice things to show his feelings for you, means you must reciprocate those feelings, okay?"

"Alright, thanks, Hwa." You smiled gratefully. Seonghwa put the car in park and wrapped an arm around you, pulling you to his chest. He stroked the back of your head.

"Yunho is a good guy. It's okay to trust him." He whispered.

"I know and I will, slowly." You said. Someone knocking on the car window made you and Seonghwa pull away.

"Hey! No cuddling in the parking lot!" Wooyoung shouted with a frown. You laughed and unlocked the door to open the door. Wooyoung grinned but was shoved aside by Jongho, who held a hand out to you to help you out.

"YAH!" Wooyoung yelled. Jongho ignored him and smiled at you, squeezing your hand. You leaned back into the car to retrieve your bag and slung it over your shoulder.

"Wow, no one came to help me out of the car?" Seonghwa joked as he locked the car.

"You're not princess." Jongho rolled his eyes. The 4 of you headed to the restaurant, entering the dark kitchen.

"Let's get the caneles going first since they'll take the longest." You said as everyone put on their aprons and prepared their stations to start the bakes.

"I can do it with Seonghwa hyung?" Wooyoung asked. The oldest nodded and went to wash his hands.

"After they go in the oven, can you guys start the peach roll cakes? I'll start on the Opera cake. Jong, can you do the German chocolate cake?" You asked. Jongho nodded and went to the pantry.

"Alright. Let's start." You all went into baking mode right away.

"Caneles are in the oven. Wooyoung is good on the peach roll cakes. What should I do?" Seonghwa came over to you. You slid the list over to him so he could pick what to do. He did the pumpkin spice muffins with streusel-topping. There were too many layers to the opera cake, you were stuck on that.

"Good morning." Yunho came in.

"Morning." The 4 of you greeted back. Yunho's eyes narrowed in on the back of your head and a smile formed on his face. He was excited to see you again even if you just saw each other yesterday.

"Alright, lover boy. Don't block the way." Wooyoung said, pushing Yunho so he could get to the pantry.

"Wooyoung!" Seonghwa scolded. Your head sunk further, all the more you didn't want to turn around to face Yunho now.

"I..." Yunho grew flustered, running to the locker room to hide and cool down his burning cheeks. You whipped your head around to glare at Wooyoung.

"Shut up." You hissed.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about, jagi." Wooyoung pinched your cheeks and cooed at you. You elbowed him in the ribs and went back to fixing the cake. Yunho emerged again, with an apron on. He went over to where you were.

"Hi, (y/n)." Yunho greeted softly as he stood beside you. You didn't stop your movements, focusing on the cake.

"Good morning, Yunho. Want to help me make coffee syrup for my cake?" You asked.

"Sure. What are you making?" He asked back.

"Opera cake. I need 300mL of strong coffee in this glass container for the syrup. And I need 100mL of strong coffee in a cup, I'll mix it into the buttercream later." You handed him the vessels.

"I can do that." He nodded and went to the front. You continued to mix the Joconde sponge and lay it out onto the backing sheets.

"I'm done." Yunho came back in with the two containers of coffee that you needed.

"Check the recipe card for how much sugar to mix into the glass container for the syrup. Leave the other one aside to cool." You told Yunho as Jongho helped you load the sheets of cake into the oven.

"I'm back." You came back to your station, where Yunho was mixing the sugar into the hot coffee to make the syrup that will go over the sponge cakes. You set a timer for the cakes and tucked the timer into the pocket of your apron. As you made the other components for that cake, Yunho assisted you.

"My cake is waiting to go into the oven. What's the last thing to do?" Jongho asked.

"French toast bake." You replied. However instead of using regular brioche bread, you decided to use leftover croissants, cut them and pour the egg-custard mixture over to bake it.

"What goes into an opera cake? It looks like there are a lot of components." Yunho tilted his head.

"It's thin layers of sponge cake then we paint syrup over it. We layer it alternating between coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache."

"That sounds difficult to make." He chuckled.

"It's not the easiest cake. But when you pour the chocolate glaze over and cut into it, seeing all the layers is really satisfying." You laughed. Yunho nodded, understanding where you were coming from.

"Morning!" Soon, the other boys arrived too. Although they didn't think much of Yunho standing at your station, talking and assisting you, Mingi sure knew the underlying meaning. After all, he was the only one that knew about the date that happened.

"Did you sleep well?" Yunho leaned over, asking softly, just for you to hear.

"I slept well with Yunnie by my side." You admitted, clearing your throat in embarrassment. You ended there, of course you wouldn't include that you hugged the manatee the whole night.

"Alright, front crew. For the french toast bake, it'll be inside on the warming plate." You said as you came out of the kitchen.

"Yes, ma'am." The 4 boys straightened up, paying attention to you.

"Then drizzle some maple syrup over and put a scoop of the mixed berries before serving. I'll leave the jug of syrup here." You placed the jug down on the counter.

"We can do that. Thanks, (y/n)." San smiled, his cute dimple popping through. You chuckled and headed back in.

"I mentioned mixed berries earlier, can you do that?" You spun on your heel, facing Yunho.

"Uh, yes?" Yunho leaned back slightly from how you suddenly spun and were nearly body to body with him. You smiled and nodded in approval before going back to the opera cake you were working on. Yunho stood there, dumbfounded. Honestly, he had no idea what he needed to do.

"Raspberries, blueberries, quarter the strawberries and half the blackberries." Seonghwa said as he walked past Yunho to go to the walk in to retrieve an ingredient.

"Right. I knew that..." He laughed nervously and went to the walk in, behind Seonghwa to get all the berries.

"Took you long enough." You teased when he returned to your side with the berries, a small chopping board and a paring knife.

"You made me flustered and just left me there all alone without helping me." He complained.

"Well, you said you knew what to do so I assumed you really knew what to do." You argued with a shrug. He let out a small 'hmph' before he began preparing the berries.

"First batch of caneles out." Wooyoung announced.

"You! You're not a part of the kitchen team, come out here to help when you're done." Hongjoong said, pointing at Yunho. Yunho pouted, he didn't want to leave your side. But he knew he needed to as the owner of the place.

"Finish up here and go help your team." You nudged him slightly, mixing the chocolate glaze for your opera cake. Yunho nodded obediently and continued his task.

"I have time before I'm assembling my cake. Anyone need hands?" You turned to the rest.

"I need help rolling the other roll cake." Wooyoung said.

"Hwa hyung, your timer is up. I'm pulling the first batch of your muffins out." Jongho said. Seonghwa nodded and helped Wooyoung with filling the canele molds to put the second batch in the oven.

"Roll cake is pre-rolled and resting in the towel. Where's the filling?" You asked Wooyoung.

"Whipped cream is in the walk in. The peaches have been skinned and are in the metal bowl at my work station." He informed.

"Got it." You nodded. Turning around, you saw that Yunho had already gone outside to help them set up for service. You knew you needed to focus on getting the morning bakes out so you did that. The boys and you pushed out the first round of stuff to put in the display case, giving some to the boys as breakfast.

"The muffins are good." Mingi said, breaking into one and giving Yeosang the other half.

"I like the crunchy top." Yeosang added, his mouth full of food. San put drinks on a tray for the kitchen crew and brought it into the kitchen, placing them on the middle island.

"Thanks, San hyung." Jongho came over first.

"You're welcome." He smiled. You took the iced coffee and took a sip, sighing blissfully as the taste of coffee.

When all the morning bakes were done and the restaurant was opened, you went out to take a break, wanting some fresh air before working on dinner stuff.

"Back from my break. Go ahead, Yunho." Mingi patted his best friend on the shoulder.

"Thanks, man." Yunho grabbed his coffee with him and headed straight for the kitchen. He didn't even need to check, he knew where you were, making a beeline for the back door. There you were, sitting on the curb like always. You turned around when you heard the door.

"Oh, Yunho." You visibly relaxed, a small smile on your face when you realised that it was him. That small gesture made Yunho proud, that he could get you to 'relax'.

"Hey, do you need your space? I can go somewhere else." Yunho politely asked first.

"No need. I don't mind you being around." You said, patting the space beside you like always. He sat down and smiled at you.

"What?" You chuckled as you took a sip of coffee. Yunho shook his head and ducked down to rest his head on your shoulder, the top of his head nuzzling your cheek like a puppy would.

"Is this okay?" Yunho cautiously asked. You let out a hum in response.

You both didn't know what kind of boundaries there were after the first date but individually, you were both more comfortable with showing affection to each other.

"Do I make work awkward?"

"No, you don't. I think it's normal to feel a little lost seeing each other outside of the date, especially at work. I don't know how much you want to tell San, Hongjoong and Yeosang, assuming Mingi knows almost everything already. But Wooyoung, Hwa and Jongho know about the date." You informed.

"I wanted to ask you before telling the rest. I wasn't sure if you were comfortable with that. But if you are okay with it, I'll tell them." Yunho said, lifting his head. You felt touched at how respectful he was.

"I'm fine, Yunho. You can tell them." You smiled at him.

"So, what's this about you thinking I was dating Seonghwa and that you were breaking a bro code?" You teased.

"He told you?! I mean, of course, I knew he would tell you. But you guys are always together so I just thought that you were dating already." He whined.

"It doesn't help that he calls you 'sweetheart'... Even Wooyoung calls you 'jagi'!" He added.

"Well, Wooyoung calls everyone 'jagi'. And I'm just teasing. At some point, everyone thought we were dating." You giggled.

"You're always teasing me." He playfully glared at you and jabbed your side.

"Seonghwa and I are just close. Like I told you yesterday." You assured him. A part of you wanted to add that he was the one you liked but you hesistated, it felt too fast and too soon to be blatantly declaring that to Yunho now.

"Anyway, next week, the Spring Carnival is coming. Would you like to go with me?" Yunho invited.

"As our second date?" You asked. He nodded his head, suddenly feeling a little nervous. Was a carnival too corny or childish to go to for a date?

"I'd love that." You said. Deep down, you knew that you would have a good time with Yunho no matter what you did or where you went.

"Although, I have something planned at noon. We could go afternoon or evening." You informed.

"I could pick you up and we could go from there if you'd like." Yunho offered. However, at his offer, you froze a little, it was as if he could see the cogs turning in your head.

"It's okay, I'll meet you at my place instead... Let's say 3?" You suggested. Yunho nodded, not insisting but he couldn't help the curiosity he felt. Especially when you had such a reaction.

"Alright. It's a date." Yunho let out a cheeky laugh of excitement, his eyes turning into cresent moons. One new thing you realised was that you would never get tired of looking at Yunho's smile. Unlike others, you didn't find his smile annoying or overbearing. It made you want to smile as well.

"Ah..." You threw your head back with a groan, shocking Yunho slightly.

"Are you okay?" He asked, concerned.

"Sorry, I just... I don't know..." You let out another groan of frustration. Yunho slightly ducked down and hugged you. You slowly hugged him back, arms wrapped around his neck.

"You know, usually the dog is the one with big feelings. Not the cat." Yunho chuckled, his chin resting on your shoulder.

"Did you just call me a cat?" You asked in disbelief. You felt Yunho nod, making you scoff.

"Cats and dogs traditionally aren't friends, you know?" You pointed out but you still made no move to pull away from the hug. Yunho didn't want to either, his arms wound around your waist.

"It's okay, we'll be the first cat and dog to become friends and then a couple." He joked.

"You're unbelieveable." You rolled your eyes. Seeing that the two of you had been out here for too long, you both went back in. Seonghwa shot you a look with raised eyebrows while Wooyoung nudged you teasingly.

"Stop it, let's prepare for dinner." You told them, grabbing your knife. The 3 boys snickered but obeyed. Yunho walked to the front, meeting the judgemental gazes of all his friends.

"What?" Yunho blinked.

"What do you mean 'what'? Yeosang caught you two cuddling out back. Since when?" Hongjoong asked.

"Okay, firstly, we weren't cuddling. It was just a hug. And secondly, we just had our first date yesterday. Nothing is official yet." Yunho sighed as he explained.

"And when were you going to tell us?" Yeosang crossed his arms.

"When (y/n) was ready for you guys to know. You know she values her privacy and the last thing I want to do is make her uncomfortable or awkward." Yunho replied. Mingi nodded in agreement.

"Wait, you knew? And you didn't mention anything?" San pointed an accusatory finger at Mingi.

"Hey, man. It wasn't my place to tell, you heard him, he's waiting for her to be ready to tell. And of course I knew, I'm his best friend since forever. Plus, it's just a date. Everyone goes on dates. Why are you so invested in Yunho's date?" Mingi shrugged. San, Yeosang and Hongjoong facepalmed.

"You know, Mingi ah, sometimes I'm glad you're the way you are." Yunho laughed, patting his best friend on the shoulder.

~

Series masterlist

[window-view-orion]

I miss Zombaes Forever so much.

My first was She’s Shady last July after having seen those coffin-shaped boxes in the doll aisle for a while. Cringily, my first thought the first time I saw them was “pah, Monster High ripoff”.

Not everything spooky-themed is a MH ripoff, 9-months-ago me.

Anyway! Funnily enough, I’m almost positive that box had been opened in store and put back. Her sticker sheet was missing and she was out of her little paper body bag already. She still had her character card though, and she was so cute!

Then a few days later I went back. The first series was running out of stock at the only two Targets I went to back then, so I picked up three of the second series instead. ✨ Wild Vibes ✨

I opened them in my car because I was pumped. It’s so funny I got the three beach themed ones all at once! She’s Got Bite was the first I opened, and still feels special. Her cracked goggles, little swim trunks, and one-eyed shark are great examples of the absolute best of Zombaes.

I picked up the rest of Wild Vibes over time, with liberal use of the codes. I never got the rare ‘Spacing Out’ though, which I’m still bummed about. I would go into Target very frequently to check, and anytime there was a So Chill (the one who had the same code as her), the box would be roughly open and rifled through. People really have no shame, though it definitely is frustrating that I ended up with multiple So Chill’s myself from all that searching 😅.

When I finally found a good Walmart in my area and started shopping there too a couple months later, I found they somehow still had a few boxes of series 1, so I ended up getting a Miss Everlasting and a Rock in Peace.

(I had to rubberband Shady’s parasol to her hand because she kept dropping it, as you can kind of see here)

It’s such a shame that this line seems to have been quietly canceled. I have the pet shop set and the bride-and-groom set now as well, and I hope to eventually get the other sets too as they lower in price. But there is such potential for more in these guys! They’re all so bursting with creativity and incredibly clever and cute designs. The art is so good, the collectible cards and little stands and coffin box, the little paper body bags you unwrap them from! They’re my spooky little zombie Polly Pockets, and Spinmaster can pry them from my cold undead hands.

And honestly, with Wild Vibes especially, the price was pretty good too. $9, and then $7, for all of that?? The big sets aren’t even expensive! Though maybe that was the problem in the end, along with people cannibalizing the displays as I saw all the time.

I did email Spinmaster’s media relations about a month ago to ask for any info they could give out, even though it’s a long shot, and I’ve not received a reply. In the unlikely event that ever changes I’ll update this post I suppose, but at this point I’m sadly considering these girls as dead in the water. It’s a tragic cancellation, but I’m really glad I got into the hobby just in time to experience them. And I absolutely love all of the ones we got. 💕

[yakool-foolio]

this is just a loser finding ways to partially vent but my story it's cringe, undeniably funny, and related to Danganronpa in ways So, uh yeah, if you want to read that'd be nice but if not I understand. When I say Danganronpa is the most impactful media I've ever consumed in my entire life I'm not joking.

I got into Danganronpa after GameGrumps played the first game in 2020, when they finished it I loved it so much I went on to watch someone else play Danganronpa 2. At the time my life was pretty awful, I was sort of becoming numb emotionally everything felt the same day after day, and it's stupid, but when Nagito Komaeda made me feel something after feeling so numb during that time I kind of got obsessed. It was so bad not only did I make myself so much lonelier, but I had to research hyper fixations to know I wasn't insane. So you could say Nagito caused me learning and acknowledging i'm autistic! Which sounds like a big impact until you hear the biggest one.

It was 2021 now, I was still obsessing over Nagito Komaeda and the fixation was so bad that I joined the fandom early before playing v3, Danganronpa on the Nintendo Switch was announced and I was eager and excited so I looked up a ton of reactions on Youtube. A day later Youtube recommended me a live stream, two guys were just joking and playing Danganronpa. My humor was changing but I knew that I laughed at their streams and videos so I stayed, I watched every stream I could and every video uploaded. Eventually I joined their Discord Server, I edit videos so after a while I asked the main owner of the channel for advice on videos and such, and then we bonded over some videos and songs like the v3 hated by life itself animation. After that I always thought of something to text to him every day, as a matter of fact we talked so much that I became behind on School because I'd be talking to him instead. After a while we started calling every day, and then we started face timing, and after that he had confessed to me. At the time I wasn't sure about my sexuality and I had repressed any attraction I felt for anyone out of "respect" So when he confessed to me I was able to think about it finally. It took me 3 days to think about my life and myself and I said yes and we started dating. We met in person 2 times, and dated for 2 years before he broke up with me a few months ago just because life has been hectic I suppose. The channel doesn't have any of its videos public anymore, the server is somehow barely alive for now despite one of the owners already leaving and the other just not talking much, and basically anything that came from all of it no one will know about other than the small group of mutuals that keep in touch and me making these. Most of those mutuals still don't even know that we ever dated. The channel is Emigc btw I think the only thing ever left public is someone reacting to a video he made on Danganronpa S.

anyway boohoo story sad ending but yeah that's how Nagito Komaeda helped me experience my first romantic love and know that i'm autistic, that's it. he's still funnily enough one of my favorite characters of all time i'm normal about him now at the very least Lmao. I finally got into Rain Code after the breakup since I got it for Christmas and it's stupid but it really does feel like the next step? if that makes sense? Danganronpa was the impact to my life, Rain Code is what I'm loving in the aftermath of what Danganronpa has done to my life. I honestly have loved Rain Code somehow even more than I loved Danganronpa, maybe not to the insane extent of Nagito though Lmao. Oh yeah, I also completely skipped over how Danganronpa helped me bond even more with my best friend who feels like a brother to me now but this is already long enough! I've just been making messages about what happened because those were the happiest years of my life and I miss it.

thanks for reading if you did

Goes to show that media really does have a grand effect on our daily lives. From my personal experience, I wouldn't have met any of my friend group, aptly named Ding Dong Bing Bong, without Danganronpa. Long story short, I started playing the first game after watching Game Grumps' playthrough of the 2nd game (and proceeded to spoil myself about the entire trilogy), and I did so in a Discord server. Someone ended up joining me during the start of the prologue, and we shared in voicing the characters. After a few days, another person joined, then another, then another. And now we're a tight huddle of ten after more than a year of playing games together!

It's interesting to hear how the Dangan series, Rain Code, and other media has affected other people as well. Meeting new people, discovering new things about ourselves, and watering our creative roots! Looking back on the moments can boost our spirits, too! I hope the future bodes well for you as you continue to enjoy your interests!

[akantorrr]

video game asks: 9, 12, 20

!!!

9. A game you played completely blind with no prior knowledge of and enjoyed/loved

12. A character you particularly like in the game you're currently playing

20. A boss you think is really cool

-----

9.

Ultrakill! Funnily enough I had NEVER heard of it before, never saw a screenshot or video, nothing! I've never even played boomer shooters before, but I do love me some movement shooters (Titanfall 2 my beloved)! I share my Steam library with my brother and I was looking for something new to play, so when I saw Ultrakill I just went "hmm. This one." and oh boy,,, It took me a couple of days to finish the Prelude cause I got overwhelmed so easily, the game was so fast and intense that I had to take breaks, but I do remember the moment I hit 1-1- it literally hit me like a brick wall! I was expecting the whole game to be like the Prelude, but when I saw Limbo I knew I had already fallen in love with the game. And I wasn't wrong! Shit skyrocketed to my top 3 favorite games ever and it's still in early access!

-----

12.

I meannnnnnn 👀 Mister Gabybel Ultradie - he's the subject of ~90% of my art for a reason xD From the design, the color scheme, the shapes of the armor and the (pixelated) details, the music (GOD the music), the arenas, the voice acting (thank you Gianni), the LORE- There's SO much I could say about that funny angle guy but it would make this post 12x longer pffft The reasons why I like him get personal too- one of them is sharing the same name lmfao And above all, the way this fandom/playerbase draws him (and many other characters too) as transmasc- it always hit me right in my heart and soul too. I kinda like to say it's thanks to that bunch of pixels and lines of code that I had the courage of coming out as trans, and the fact that I had chosen his same name way before I even knew of the game kinda felt like a kick in the ass to just- do it, you know? Anyways, yeah, ask game, right

-----

20.

I bet you were expecting me to say Gabriel again but HA! I mean there's so many I could choose from, but I'll go with my absolute favorite:

Phalanx from Shadow Of The Colossus! There's so much I could say about SOTC, SO many of the colossi are absolutely amazing fights and designs, but Phalanx always has a spot in my heart. The immense desert that is the arena you fight it in, The music with the violins and harp starting so gently, the bells... Phalanx floating around, just minding its own business really- Then the music swells as you burst its air sacs and jump onto it, and even then the fight is mostly between you and the wind and gravity, not you and Phalanx. It tries to shake you off, sure, but who wouldn't swat at a mosquito? Then when you plunge the sword into the sigil for the last time, the way Phalanx all but gently and softly floats back to the ground, ever so graceful. I love it so, so much.

Thank you for prompts! :DDD

[the-writings-of-kaos]

A telepaths Requiem ch 1

Written by Kaos-makes-death.

———

Hey everyone! Here is the beginnings of a new series. Funnily enough the inspiration for this was from an odd dream I had, it is much different from the other more popular of my posts; that said I hope you enjoy!

Fair warning to all readers, this story involves death, abandonment, and certain levels of realism. Please be advised.

———

——

—

The sound of a infants wailing filled the hospital room, as doctors and nurses rushed in. Urgently helping the mother and child through the deliver, as the mother began to shake violently.

“She’s having a stroke!!! Code yellow! Code yellow!”

Doctors filled the room, administering medicine and all manner of medicinal fluids to the mother; as the infant was rushed out of the room.

— — —

“What’s going to happen to that child…? She was a single mother… on-top of that the child seems so… scary. It’s weird but just looking at it frightens me.”

The nurses gossiped among themselves.

“Who knows, I hope that cursed child can be taken care of by someone who can-“

Just then a squad of soldiers surrounding a man dressed in black walked past, opening the door to the baby incubation room striding over and lifting the child out of their incubator and rushing it out of the hospital.

“Well… should we tell someone…?”

“I don’t think… we should… the head nurse probably already knows.”

The soldiers slammed the doors behind them, as the baby’s woke and began to cry.

———

——

—

“That’s the last of them Monger, everyone found and accounted for. Should we eliminate them? The threat they impose might just be-“

“No.”

“But… general, was that not what the order was? Shouldn’t we eliminate the threat?”

“I said no soldier, the commander and I have a better idea; the brass even gave us the go ahead. These little girls and boys you see here, they are going to be raised here with the upmost care this facility can provide. T

Who knows, they might grow up to be the perfect weapons.”

The soldier salutes his superior, before marching back to his post. As the general watched the children in their beds.

“Ugh, dammit. Making infants into soldiers, makes me sick.”

“You know the truth general, so do I. If we’re lucky, they won’t have to see a single day of combat.”

The commander walked over to the window, standing beside the general.

“I know smith, but it just ain’t right… couldn’t we have put them in homes? Even a sponsored facility would have been a better call…”

“I feel the same way Warren. But for now, all we can do is be the best figures these children have. After all, everyone of them has the potential for unrivalled ability; that sort of thing simply can’t just be left in civilian light.”

“Fine… I didn’t sign up for the secret forces to father a classroom of kids.”

“Neither did I, but hey, seems you’ll get those father day gifts a little more often then before.”

The general snorts, holding back a laugh; patting the commander on the back as they both left for the mess hall.

— — —

12 years later

— — —

“Cmon guys! Let’s go practice our powers! Hey Megu! You coming?”

“Sorry guys… I need to go see the general today. He said he wanted to talk with me.”

“Pfft what? What did you do to get on generals bad side?”

“I don’t know, all I did was take a spoon from the cutlery bin for my desert. He saw that and told me he wanted to talk to me after lunch.”

“Did… maybe you stole it without knowing?”

“I don’t think I did… it was just a spoon in the cutlery bin. Everyone is allowed to take cutlery from there.”

“Aww, boo. Oh well, see you later Megu! Cmon guys! Let’s go have fun in the training grounds!”

The other kids ran off, as Megu glumly put away his dirty plates and dishes, washing them in the sink before setting them to the side to dry.

‘What else could I have done… let’s see… what did I do today. I played in the green-space with Max and Olive, I went sledding outside with Jack and Flint; and I had lunch… did I break something? Maybe I killed one of flowers general got from Lily when I was playing in the green-space…’

He kept think and thinking, walking idly as he made his way to the generals office. He waved to the soldiers on patrol, getting one of the candies the soldiers always handed out when they went through the living spaces.

He stopped in-front of the generals office. Looking around, before he stepped inside.

“Uhh, mister Warren? I’m here, just like you asked me to be.”

“Ah, Megu, right on time as always. I wanted to ask you about that new power of yours.”

“New power? What do you mean?”

“When you made that spoon out of thin air.”

“I did what? I thought I brought it over to me from the cutlery bin.”

“Nope, you got a new power. So that makes… hmm. You have telepathy, telekinesis, terra-kinesis , pyro-kinesis , and now you have conjuring. That makes 5 powers now, are you sure your alright my friend? I don’t want you to get sick or over load yourself.”

“I don’t know how I’m getting these powers mister Warren… they just happen.”

“I suppose we’ll have to wait and see, maybe you absorb elements or energy somehow and gain these powers as a result.”

The general pondered quietly, jotting down some things on a piece of paper.

“Any other weird things you did before?”

“I went sledding with Jack and Flint.”

“Oh? And did you make the snow? Or the ice?”

“No, Jack made the snow and ice, and Flint ran to get the sleds.”

“What was weird about that?”

“I flew instead of slid.”

“Ah, your telekinesis was acting up.”

“Oh, then that’s all I can think of.”

Megu paused, going silent in his chair.

‘Aww crap, I made the little guy sad’

The general went over crouching down beside Megu.

“What’s wrong buddy? Did I make you sad?”

“Mister Warren, do you think I’m scary.”

‘Uh oh…’

“Why would I think you’re scary?”

“B-because I have all these powers, and mine are a lot stronger than the other kids…”

“I’m not scared of you at all Megu. Your powers are just unique, everyone’s are. We just don’t know what your exact power is yet, we’ll figure it out some day.”

“Okay… then, can I ask you something else?”

“What is it buddy? Do you want me to get you a new toy? Maybe I can add something to the lunch menu.”

“Do you think… I could learn about things? Things outside of the facility, and maybe I could go to the outside world one day, just for a little while with the guards perhaps.”

“You’d have to ask the commander about that, then he’d send a note to the more important people. But I’m sure someday you’ll be allowed outside the facility.”

Megu nodded, standing up and hugging General Warren. Before he left the room, still sad and sulking.

As the door shut behind him, the general stood up, looking at the door.

‘It wouldn’t hurt if the little ones could get an education. Heck it would make the prospect of them being soldiers a more easily made reality, but… some of them might not take to it very well.’

The general sat back down, setting about making the appropriate preparations.

— — —

Excitement was on the air, as the children talked amongst themselves. For the first time in ages, a new person would be coming to the facility. Everyone waited near the front gate, watching for a car to come down the road. When they finally saw one come in over the hill they were ecstatic, cramming by the gate to see who would come out.

Megu sat by the front door, watching everyone; he wasn’t quite sure what they were so excited about. The guards changed every month or so.

‘Maybe they won’t be a new guard.’

Shrugging, the little Megu sat against the wall and began to play with his new conjuring ability. Making a stuffed squirrel for himself to play with, letting it dance along the ground before it began doing so on its own volition; acting almost like a real squirrel. He continued to play, waiting for whoever was in the car to come out.

The door to the car opened, and out stepped a woman with a school bag.

———

——

—

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this new series! Work is coming to a close and I hope to come back to writing!

As always credits to my fellow authors, prompters, and commenters.

And as always have a very nice day!

[stars-and-spice]

I’ve seen a few people suggest this show queerbaited because it ended with a male/female kiss, and so now I need to rant. (under the cut cuz looooong)

I don’t think this show is queerbait (in regards to it not having a male/male relationship). I really don’t. As far I know they never implied there would be a male/male relationship to promote the show. 

I DID see a couple people saying that it was said that Loki would have a male and a female romantic interest, so you know what I did? I LOOKED IT UP. All I found was that an “industry insider” (read: someone who is not involved in the show and probs just wants to get a story) claimed that was the case. (here’s the original source but be warned it has some Bad Takes), so unless you want to be all conspiratorial and say they deliberately leaked this to the insider to lure the gays in without being held responsible... which sure, is possible, but as far as I know there is no proof of this so I don’t feel comfortable making that accusation.

Now I admit that I have only been following this show for a week but I haven’t heard about any other hints at a male/male romance in the lead up to the show. If I’ve missed something then I sincerely apologize.

As for what’s actually in the show ...this is quite subjective, but I don’t think Loki and Mobius’s relationship goes as far as queerbaiting. I get why people ship it. They have a fun dynamic and they have that reluctant-allies-who-grow-to-care-for-each-other thing which is popular in romantic ships... but it’s not exclusively used for romance, and I did not notice more unambiguous coding, for instance jokes about they being couple-like, or lingering stares, things that you often see in actual queerbaiting. And I’m not the sort of person to miss subtext, whether I ship the pairing in question or not.

If, after seeing how popular Loki x Mobius is, they start actually queerbaiting them in season 2 (fairly possible imo, that sort of thing has definitely happened before) then I’ll... idk, make a disapproving tumblr post (i mean, I don’t have a Disney+ subscription to cancel so...) but that hasn’t happened yet.

So what is the bait in this supposed queerbait then??? The fact that he’s bisexual??? Please do not tell me that we’re calling a main character being unambiguously confirmed bisexual queerbaiting because he doesn’t end up with a man??? I get wanting him to end up with a guy because it would mean the studio taking a stronger stance, and (particularly if you’re a gay/bi man) because you just enjoy seeing two men in a relationship, but that’s got nothing to do with whether this is queerbaiting. 

This argument is seems weightless enough as is but let’s also add the fact that in the same episode that they confirmed he was bi they started to clearly set up the male/female romance, so they hardly fanned the flames of false hope there.

Now I do agree that it’s very likely that had writers wanted to do a male/male romance (and maybe they did, we just don’t know) Disney would have shut it down, and you can call that homophobic, cuz it is... but it’s NOT QUEERBAITING.

I just feel that using that word here is unjustified and actually diminishes it’s impact for when it’s properly used.

HOWEVER, this is just about accusation of queerbaiting about a male/male romance. I DO think they queerbaited about gender fluid rep, but funnily enough I don’t see so many people talking about that...

[bethhxrmon]

passed down like folksongs, chapter thirteen- steve x reader

[gif credit to @flyingrichardgrayson​]

chapter thirteen- i didn’t know if you’d care if i came back

series summary: Living in Hawkins was never easy for anyone. However, it becomes ten times more difficult than usual when you catch feelings for one Steve Harrington. What should be a simple schoolgirl crush ends up being complicated by your step-brother, Tommy Hagan, and the mysterious goings on in the town of Hawkins. [masterlist]

pairing: steve harrington x female! hagan! reader

chapter summary: The summer of ‘85 takes a turn for the worst when Steve helps investigate a Russian Base within the mall. Though, it does leave him realizing a thing or two about his own feelings.

warnings: swearing, ANGST, season 3 shenanigans

word count: 2.5k

a/n: Sooo this is mostly a Steve-centric chapter, really hope that y’all enjoy and that this goes in the steeb tag because it’s the main way that I get more readers. Though, reblogs also help a lot!!

~*~*~*~

The only major thing left in Steve’s high school career after prom was graduation. Somehow, he managed to get through it. If he was being honest, he firmly believed that you were the main reason he got through that last month of school. You would have insisted that he was the one who pulled it off. If anything, you were just the person who helped him get ready for his finals.

No, he wasn’t going off to college like Tommy was, but he made it out of high school. Steve wasn’t sure what he would have done if he flunked. At least he didn’t have to wonder about that anymore. Instead, he had to get on with the rest of his life. Whatever that was supposed to entail

College was out of the question for the next year. He got a job at Scoops Ahoy in the new mall, but after even the first day of slinging ice cream, he knew that he wanted nothing to do with that. It was advantageous to the kids since they used his position to get to the movies for free, but it didn’t have much for him. Not unless he moved up, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be anything more than where he was at. Otherwise, that kind of implied he was going to be stuck there for a long time.

There were two pastimes that Steve didn’t mind so much. One was flirting with girls so Robin could have some kind of entertainment, and the other was talking to you whenever you showed up to the mall. Funnily enough, that was rather often.

You didn’t get a summer job, and that meant you spent most of the season bored. All you could do was either garden or go to the mall. Especially since Steve was working so often. Though, you were sure it would feel like a normal amount once you were busy with school for most of the day again.

For reasons you couldn’t quite explain, you knew that you were glad that Steve was going to be in Hawkins for just a while longer. It meant you didn’t lose your closest friend. Though, Robin would regularly tease the two of you whenever you stuck around to chat. It was nice getting to hang out with her too.

While there was still a glimmer of what you once felt for Steve two years ago, you were content with the way things were. You liked hanging out with Steve after he got done with work. Nothing was ever going to happen and you finally made peace with that. If anything, you dared Steve to ask out and flirt with his customers. Mostly because he always struck out and it was hilarious.

There was still a part of you that wanted Steve to say things like that to you again, but maybe it was for the best that nothing happened. The friendship you both had was so good.

One summer afternoon you found yourself in Scoops Ahoy and Steve was at the counter like he normally was. He always gave you a discount if he didn’t just let you take the ice cream. 

“Hey, I’m gonna have to raincheck on hanging out tonight,” he said as you stood at the counter, “My parents are having some family over and they wanted to see me since they didn’t make it to my graduation.”

You frowned a bit and then nodded, “Okay, well, then you have fun with that. Oh! Speaking of family shit, there’s gonna be a Fourth of July party at my house. Would you wanna come?”

“Depends on if we sneak off to go to that carnival,” Steve replied.

You grinned, “Obviously, I need a buddy to sneak off with, though, so what do you say?”

“I’ll be there,” he said.

Steve hated lying to you and what he hated even more was how easily it slipped out of his mouth. Once again, there was something he just couldn’t tell you. Even though you were probably someone who would want to help with sneaking into a Russian Base, he knew Dustin would have a cow if anyone else knew what was going on. Regardless of the fact that Steve knew he could trust you with his life.

Though, it wasn’t like getting into the base would be anything that could possibly take the literal days before the fourth. You’d never know what happened and it would be fine. He really wished he could tell you everything, though.

Having Robin right there with him as they snuck into the storage space with the kids was nice, but he really couldn’t help but imagine that you were there with him. It was an emotion that was only multiplied at the realization he was far too deep into this ordeal.

Getting stuck at the bottom of a Russian elevator with no hope of getting back up wasn’t something he put into the equation. Though, a part of him was glad he didn’t tell you anything because the less people having to experience this, the better. And maybe he would tell you about it this time around. This whole thing with the Russians wasn’t like everything else with the government. He could talk to you about this. Although, he was sure that you would have a hard time believing him.

Still, he knew that thinking about telling you all this stuff was more and more of a stretch in the first place. Mainly because that involved getting out of the elevator without dying. If some Russians spotted them, he knew for a fact that they were done for.

That night in the elevator was easily one of the worst nights ever. The only relief was that Robin was there to try and talk with him about the situation. A situation that had no solution.

“Do you think we could end up getting ourselves killed?” Robin asked in a low voice just in case Dustin or Erica happened to be awake.

Steve shook his head, “Nah, we’ll get out of this. It’ll be okay.”

Though, now that Robin mentioned it, the more he couldn’t help but wish that he told you everything. How he truly felt about you and what happened to him in all that time. You deserved to know.

Then he realized another reason as to why he had to get out of this okay. If he died, you wouldn’t have anyone who you were nearly as close to. No, you wouldn’t be as isolated as you had been after Barb died, but he knew it would hurt you. He knew  what you were like when you lost someone you were so close to. And worse, if everyone just said he disappeared? You would go looking and you would probably never stop.

He had to get out at any cost. If not for himself and the kids and Robin, then for you at the very least. Not even to tell you everything in his head, but just so you wouldn’t have to be alone. So you could have someone to go to that silly carnival with. There wasn’t any other option.

The main priority was to stick together and find a key to get out and use the elevator. Then, they were home free and could do whatever they decided to do. Maybe telling someone like Hopper was a good place to start, but he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. Getting out was the goal.

For the first bit of it, Steve had a cautious optimism about the whole situation. They didn’t get caught in the elevator. If they could just keep up that same trajectory, surely they would be able to get out. Then, they would be home free and there would be nothing to worry about. He would feel silly for even thinking that it was possible he wouldn’t make it out. It was silly. After everything he had been through already, this was almost nothing.

While a Russian Base as a concept was petrifyingly scary, it wasn’t anywhere near as awful as those tunnels. The base was going to be filled with people, and while they could cause a lot of harm, it wasn’t nearly as much of a death sentence as a hoard of man-eating monsters. Besides, if worse came to worse, he just wouldn’t lose the next fight he got stuck in the middle of.

Steve wasn’t sure how well sneaking around would continue to work as they got closer to where all the Russians were. The only Russian any of them knew was what was on that code, but if someone asked him to repeat it, he wouldn’t have been able to.

Still, they made it all the way in what had to be the comms room. Or something like that, Steve wasn’t sure what any of the rooms in this place could be called. Not that it mattered because they were all face-to-face with a Russian. He couldn't figure out who was more surprised to see who. Probably the Russian who was starting to pull out his gun.

Well, he promised himself he would win the next fight he was in. So naturally, Steve started off by screaming at the guy. Then, he just went for it. His heartbeat was through the roof and he hardly recognized just what he was doing as he punched the guy and tackled him. He barely realized he smacked the guy with the phone until Dustin’s voice kicked in.

“Dude, you just won a fight!” Dustin exclaimed.

They needed that key, but Robin seemed to be focused on something at the top of a staircase. Steve and Dustin went up to see what was there. He felt his heart sink to his stomach when he realized just what they were looking at.

Both of them specifically agreed that it couldn’t be this again. Yet there it was staring them in the face. Why in the world would the Russians want anything to do with the Upside Down? It was only going to get everyone killed. Now they had more of a problem on their hands than ever before.

He had to tell you, though. That was the important thing. The last thing he wanted to do was continue lying to you for the rest of his life. Though, that would have to wait as Erica noted that the Russian had left the room.

Almost on cue, more Russians came in. This wasn’t a fight he was going to be able to win. Not when all he had was himself. He wished that he had thought to bring his stupid bat. Instead, he thought fast and moved to get the kids in front of him. If anyone needed to get out, it was them.

As for Robin and himself? Well, he wasn’t too sure about getting out now.

It wasn’t that Steve gave up all hope, but he knew that he couldn’t count on anyone saving him as soon as he got taken by the Russians. All he had with him was Robin, though he supposed being alone would have been worse. He was pretty glad he didn’t tell you about any of this, though.

That was the only thing that kept him sane as he was punched across the face by one of the Russians. It didn’t matter what he said. He told a half-truth. Sure, he sort of knew what he was getting himself into, but he wasn’t involved with the US government. If he were, then he probably would’ve gone about this in a smarter way. Probably.

All that mattered to him was that Robin was okay. As long as there was no mention of Dustin and Erica, he was sure that was a good sign. Robin was still very much alive. There had to be some way to ensure they got out, but Steve had no idea.

Sure, the implied plan was for the kids to get out and get help, but he wasn’t sure how that was going to work. Although, it didn’t take long for any feelings of concern to subside. Whatever drugs the Russians had up their sleeves were, he couldn’t deny just how great they felt. It was just like the times he did weed with Tommy, only it was better.

Everything went by in such a blur that Steve could hardly describe what was going on. Hell, he barely registered what he was saying by the time Dustin burst into the room. If Steve thought everything was strange before, he knew that he was about to eat his words as he was swung through the whole base.

He couldn’t remember a whole lot before the high came crashing down around him and he was vomiting in the bathroom of the movie theater. At least, that was where he was pretty sure he was.

The only reassuring thing was that he wasn’t the only one puking his guts out. There was something nice about having an actual friend next to him as all this happened. Not that you weren’t his friend, but it was different.

“Have you ever been in love before?” Robin asked.

While the question took him by surprise, what caught him even more off guard was when he talked about Nancy. And sure, he had loved her at one time, but he was starting to realize that he had been in love more than once before.

“Wait, you don’t love me, do you?” he asked.

Robin was silent until Steve slid under the stall to see her. It seemed like she was almost in a different place entirely.

She shook her head, starting to explain that she was never in love with him. Instead, when she claimed to be obsessed with him it was because he had been the object of Tammy Thompson’s affections. Someone Robin had hoped to win over somehow.

Suddenly everything made a lot more sense and he almost felt a wave of relief. Even if learning the truth about Robin was a bit surprising. So he did what he did best, made light of everything with Tammy Thompson. Which only reminded him of the girl he actually wanted to be with.

He felt his face fall, “Shit! I was supposed to go to Y/N’s party!”

“What? Steve, it’s just a party-”

“But she doesn’t wanna be there, we were supposed to go to the carnival together. And I- I don't wanna leave her alone there.”

Robin nodded slowly, “I think I was supposed to be there with the marching band… wait, Steve?”

“Hm?”

“Are you sure you don’t love Y/N?”

Steve shook his head, “What? No, o- of course not! Even if I did, I’ve screwed it up so many times there’s no way she would ever be able to love me back and I know that.”

Maybe he did love you.

“The worst she can do is say no,” Robin pointed out.

He laughed, “Nah, she’d tell me to go fuck myself and I wouldn’t blame her.”

“You didn’t just get out of a Russian Base to not take a chance with Y/N. Come on, there’s no way she comes by almost every day just because she likes the ice cream. There’s gotta be something there.”

Dustin barged into the room and Steve couldn’t quite comprehend what the kid was saying. What he could comprehend was that he needed to finish this and quickly if he was going to get to your party.

taglist: @flyingrichardgrayson​ @stonersteve​ @scooprtroopr​ @insideafictionaluniverse​ @l0ve-0f-my-life​

[cynthiaandsamus]

Custom Toonami Block Week 73 Rundown

Code Geass: Lelouch and co. are still stuck in China and Xingke’s flipping out because the Chinese assholes are gonna kill the Empress and go with someone less problematic for their political marriage to Britannia’s creepily overaged prince. However Lelouch pulls out a Knightmare that’s basically the Twink version of the Gawain and busts everyone up as well as pulling a Father Cornello on them and letting the people know they’re all elitst 1% assholes that don’t care about them, which I suspect all countries probably know about their leaders but it sucks to hear it in a recording so riots show up all over China and CC Geass Flashes Anya to take her out so Britannia has to back out because the Chinese Hierarchy are now the least popular people in the world. So Xingke gets to be with his Empress and joins the Black Knights but Dietard wants the Empress to marry someone on their side so they can basically do the asshole move Britannia just tried to do but for them. All the girls are like ‘hey no’ and Lelouch is like “Oh hey Tamaki buddy, let’s go talk and get me the fuck out of here” so before Lelouch actually has to give Tamaki more lines and elevate him beyond the Black Knight’s Yamacha Shirley calls and Lelouch just straight up asks Shirley about love in a weirdly forced series of circumstance. But Shirley’s like “Yeah don’t fuck with love, don’t you love anyone?” and Lelouch is like “Yeah I do, Nunally!” and I don’t think that’s at all what Shirley meant but it does mean Lelouch sees that fighting for something beyond politics is powerful and agrees to not marry off the twelve year old girl, so that’s good. Lelouch decides to return home while they hunt down the Geass cult which is in China for some reason despite that being one of the like two places on earth Britannia doesn’t control and the Geass Cult largely being a Britannian affair. Meanwhile Sayoko is basically a Lelouch Vtuber at this point with her insanely accurate Lupin III mask of Lelouch and kisses Shirley so Shirley’s a little bit more gay than she was before and is not sure how to feel about that. When she’s about to tell the real Lelouch he kisses like a girl, Anya and Gino show up because we’re retreading the whole ‘sleeping with the enemy at school’ thing from the first season except with way less interesting enemies. Also the preview for the next episode is Lelouch dramatically talking about enemies finding out he’s Zero overtop footage of Shirley and Milly absolutely naked in a batthouse scene so I think we know what kind of episode that’ll be.

Inuyasha: The Panther Demon filler concludes with everyone meeting at the site where the Panther Master is being revived behind a strong barrier, if only someone just got a barrier upgrade to their sword, oh wait. But yeah everyone manages to free the hostages so even though Kagome’s jewel shards revives the Panther Master he’s still a zombie without a sacrifice which is weird since Naraku managed to completely revive the Band of Seven with one jewel shard each from skeletons and the Panther Lord has three shards so idk the rules here but yeah he steals the souls of his own men to revive and is Wind Scar Proof because he just is. It’s pretty cool to see him shooting his claws and lightning and shit but he’s too big and slow for it to be much of an interesting fight. Sesshomaru’s about to go full demon which would be interesting since we haven’t seen his full demon form since he lost his arm but in a neat bit of character development, Tenseiga calms his rage and tells him to use it instead. You get the feeling Sesshomaru only goes full demon when he flies off the handle and forgets about speed and strategy so him opting to not repeat the mistake he made against Inuyasha is pretty cool. Anyway Tenseiga heals the souls of the Panther Demons and drains their energy from the lord so he’s back to Zombie Cat Man which Inuyasha can Wind Scar because that’s what happens to villains on this show, all Wind Scars all the time. The Panthers don’t wanna fight anymore since their boss just killed them and tell Inuyasha to tell Sesshomaru the feud is over and they’re going back to the West. Honestly this is basically the same backstory they gave Kirinmaru in Yashahime so it’s funny for them to say they’re going back to the same place Kirinmaru is from, wonder if it’ll ever come up in Yashahime since most filler seems canon there.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke and Kuwabara continue the assault on Tarukane’s compound and basically plow through the lower demons easy since they’ve been fighting minor deities up to this point. It’s always pretty cool in Shonen to just have a few rounds to show how much power creep the heroes have had where certain things just don’t bother them anymore. Toguro murders a Chimera which has an oddly similar backstory to Nina from FMA and he seems really bummed about it but he’s like “Hey we’re both monsters made by humans telling us to do shit, so sorry for killing you bro”. And Tarukane basically sees Toguro is the next boss and is like “Yup time to scam some people off of this” and he sets up a betting ring for how far Yusuke and Co will get into his compound. This is kinda neat because it puts Tarukane in the weird position of betting against his own guards and hoping Yusuke will make it all the way to Toguro and then lose after everyone else has seen how awesome Yusuke is and bets on him. And funnily enough Sakyo’s in on the betting and he’s watched anime before so he knows to bet on the plucky teenagers with weird powers. So yeah Yusuke and Kuwabara finish plowing through the demons while Hiei kinda stalks them and remembers getting his eye surgery and wanting to help his sister but it’s kind of against spirit world rules for demons to just go plow through humans even if they’re scumbag humans so now Yusuke and Kuwabara have to go fight the Triad of boss demons Toguro has under him before Hiei busts in and just murders everyone for kidnapping his bird-loving jewel-crying little flower of a sister.

Fate Zero: So Kiritsugu can break Kayneth’s Terminator 2 Gaara defenses with rib bullets that just say ‘no’ to using magic and fucks his arrogant ass up. Saber and Lancer do some combo shenanigans to stab Caster right in the book and disrupt all his hentai tentacle demons but the book heals so idk why he can’t just make more. Kirei fucks up Maiya and Iris but didn’t double tap Maiya and DID double tap iris but she’s got Saber’s bullshit healing scabbard on her which no one knows about so Saber’s like “uhhh why are you healing” and Iris can’t tell her so she’s basically “Uhh internet?” Lancer comes in to save Kayneth’s worthless ass and tells Kiritsugu to stop being a dick to Saber because she’s pretty dope. But as usual for an early Fate encounter, no one dies and nothing of terrible consequence happens despite it being teased a couple times. I’ve noticed a trend with Fate that it really doesn’t like killing characters early so you’re basically guaranteed to have the first 2-3 major battles have a zero net gain/loss. Rider in UBW was probably the subversion to that since it happened crazy fast and anticlimactic but even that wasn’t till like ten episodes in.

Konosuba: So we finally meet Wiz the big booby Lich and Kazuma learns a new skill, both fun things. Also the gang gets a house to stay in after escapades with an army of haunted dolls and the most “I need to pee” in a horror setting since Corpse Party. But yeah, good progress this time honestly, the living in a stable gag was getting kind of old so Kazuma’s a bit stronger now and they have a home base so that’s pretty cool. Also Wiz is a Demon General or some shit but no one cares cause there ain’t no money in murdering busty zombie waifus.

Sailor Moon Crystal: So turns out Minako is Princess Serenity, except everyone who knows anything about Sailor Moon or indeed plot structure knows Sailor Moon is Princess Serenity, that’s like the Luke I Am Your Father of this series. But still turns out Minako has been guiding everyone with the power of video games but also thinks the power of friendship sucks and she’s gotta go do everything alone. This makes things super awkward because Mamoru’s pretty sure he was in love with the Princess but likes Usagi, now instead of running with this interesting thread of a reincarnation falling in love with someone new we’re gonna do the reveal that Usagi’s the princess and the whole ‘till death do us part’ part of marriage was just a metaphor and you’re stuck with one person no matter how many times you reincarnate. But yeah, Minako fights the bad guy on top of the tower but he has Naraku’s Barrier now and Minako doesn’t have the Red Tessaiga upgrade yet so she needs the power of friendship but this barrier is friendship-proof and this fight is basically a bunch of kids on the playground making up increasingly stupid powers that negate the other powers the other guy just made up. Anyway Tuxedo Mask shows up and is like “Holy shit Sailor Moon I love when you kiss me and kick ass, go get em sweetie I’ll hold your flower” and they kiss and Usagi has learned that if she just pretends she got this the power of her confidence will beat the bad guy. Unfortunately she does not got this and Tuxedo Mask has to pull a Piccolo and throw himself in front of the blast.

Durarara!!:  So now that we’ve had our climax for the arc we have a six month timeskip and everyone’s just kinda living life, Mika and Seiji are being clinically insane together, there’s cops harassing Celty to the point of mental breakdown (normal cop stuff) Shinra’s dad’s in town, Namie’s become Izaya’s secretary for blackmail shit, you know, normal stuff. Also there’s a katana-wielding maniac going around slashing people and Anri’s being bullied and sexually harassed to the point of mental collapse, normal stuff.

[hphmmatthewluther]

When Your Reflection Plots Against You: Part 1/3

Matthew Luther sighed, and leant onto a sink in the boy’s toilets. It had not been going well for him today. He loosened his blue and silver tie (he preferred it to the more traditional blue and bronze tie, and was glad to have a choice in the matter) and pushed the hair out of his face. No, today had not gone well. To start, he was nowhere nearer to finding his brother or the next Cursed Vault. Then, he found himself unable to focus on any lessons as a result, and finished the day with a shouting match with Merula Snyde, which led to Snape banning him from Hogsmeade for a week. These arguments usually made him feel a little better, though something was...off about today. Her insults seemed to hurt more, for some reason.

So there he was, looking up and seeing his hair flop in front of his face again in the mirror. Could nothing work for him today? He scowled at his own reflection.

“It isn’t fair. Everyone else seems to get by just fine. But oh no, not me. I bet even Merula does better than me. I have to be the one who struggles along...” He grumbled to himself.

“Hey...keep on stepping, my guy.” came a voice. Matthew scanned the room, hoping to see whoever had spoken.

“Nope, over here, in the mirror, you know?” He looked up, and was slightly surprised to find his own reflection replaced by someone else. He had black-and-white hair and was wearing denim jeans and a red flannel shirt. On his back was a large guitar case, which he put down at his feet.

“What’s shaking, dude?” he asked, in a way Matthew hadn’t heard anyone speak for nearly ten years. He had a smirk on his face that put Matthew off. However, it wasn’t like he had anyone else to talk to.

“Um...did you hear what I was saying?” he asked, looking around to make sure nobody saw him talking to a mirror.

“I caught a bit of it, y’know, this and that...” he said, looking around. “Sounds like you could use some assistance.”

“Well, that would be-” Matthew had to stop himself. “Hang on, who are you even?” he had to ask himself.

The boy in the mirror gave a laugh. “Right, right, sorry. I’m Edwin. Edwin Luther.” he announced, giving himself a small flourish as he did so. “And you?”

“Oh, well, funnily enough my name’s Matthew Luther.”

“Really?” said Edwin, his eyebrow raised. “Maybe we’re related.”

“Doubt it.” Matthew said, looking away. “My Dad was a Muggle, so that probably isn’t it...” 

Edwin sighed, and leant forward on the reflected sink. “So, you need my help. You want to be better around people, right?”

Matthew nodded. It certainly would be nice...sometimes, it seemed like everyone except him knew what to say, and anything he said or did only made things worse, and so often he was left doing very little...but he didn’t completely trust this guy just yet. “Okay, hang on. Before anything else...what’s your story?”

“Me?” asked Edwin, moving back slightly, “I’m trapped in all the mirrors of Hogwarts, y’know? Been here for a while, too. Most people just seem to blow me off, but you...you can see me. There’s something about you, dig?”

Matthew thought about this. One the one hand, he really ought to know by now that not everyone could be trusted. But his thoughts lingered back to his last argument with Merula...if he had done something different, maybe…

“How can you help me?” he asked, leaning closer to the mirror to get a closer look.

“Look, kid. I know people. Just, for now, you go about your day and I’ll give you advice.” Edwin explained. “In return...well, as you may have guessed, I’d like to blow this popsicle stand and return to the land of actual people...but that can come later.” He put his hand towards the mirror, and it appeared as a ghostly image on the other side. “So, we have a deal?”

Matthew looked at the spectral hand, then moved his own hand towards Edwin’s and shook it.

“Far out!” exclaimed Edwin, drawing his hand back. “Let’s boogie!”

“Before we carry on, when were you sealed in that mirror?” Matthew asked, “Cause the stuff you’re saying is...painful to hear.”

Edwin laughed and picked up his guitar case, slinging it onto his back. “Well, I was last out and about in, ooh, 1976, I think.”

Matthew’s eyes widened at this. “Blimey...ten years...okay, now what?”

“Do you have something reflective on you?” Edwin inquired. Matthew fished around in his pockets until he pulled out a silver spoon that he used in potion making. He watched as his warped reflection disintegrated, replaced by an in-proportion Edwin.

“Lovely jubbly, Matt.” began Edwin, moving around his new environment. “Now, what do you really want help with, hm?”

Matthew initially wanted to ask about the Cursed Vaults, but he somehow knew to keep that to himself. Ravenclaws were good at reading people, and there was something about Edwin that made him unsure about divulging information. Instead, he focused on what Edwin already knew.

“Well, I’d really like to do something about that argument with Merula.” Matthew whispered, as he left the toilets and joined the crowds of people in the corridors.

“Hmm...Merula, huh? So there’s a girl involved, I see…” “What? No, nonononono!” Matthew hissed, hoping nobody was paying too close attention to him. “It’s not...she isn’t...we’ve been enemies since our first year, ok?”

“Okay, you’re saying that, but it sounds to me like this bunny-”

“Don’t call her a ‘bunny’, she’d rip you apart for that.” Matthew noted.

“Righto, righto...” Edwin trailed off, “Still, it’s a route you could go for...”

“Trust me, Edwin, it really isn’t.”

They had made their way down to the Dungeons, for their last lesson of the day: Potions with Snape. Matthew was dreading this. He didn’t even have Rowan with him, as he was in Hogsmeade for the day. Then came a moment he was dreading:

“Oi, Luther!”

Matthew spun around and saw Merula Snyde walking up to him. He heard Edwin squeaking from his pocket.

“Wow, man...what did you say to her?”

“Nothing...” Matthew muttered before stepping forward to meet the Slytherin girl.

“Well, well, well. I suppose it’s time for you to make a fool of yourself. Again.” Matthew wanted to say something back, but something was stopping him from fully focusing.

“Why aren’t you at Hogsmeade?” he blurted out. He could hear Edwin sighing.

“Oh, boy...”

“None of your business, Luther!” she shouted, stomping on the ground. Edwin, who had been complaining for a few seconds, suddenly stopped.

“Hey...those are some killer boots...why don’t you talk about them? Change the subject!” he suggested. Matthew had to work very hard to mask his shock at Edwin’s advice.

“No, no, think about it. It sounds like you two talk about what keeps you apart all the time. You need to try different avenues.” Matthew was going to ignore this, but Edwin hadn’t finished. “Come on, dude. You hate each other already. I doubt her opinion of you can get worse. What do you have to lose?”

Merula was getting impatient. “Well? Cat got your tongue, Luther?”

“No, I just...never mind. Sorry for intruding, I guess. But, I...” Matthew sighed. Here we go. “How’d you convince Snape to let you wear combat boots?”

Merula looked at him, the malice in her expression replaced by pure confusion. She took a quick look at her feet, then looked straight back up at Matthew. “I...I...what?”

“Justify the question, mate. Doesn’t have to be anything good...I think her brain’s stopped working.” Edwin ordered, the smirk on his face palpable.

“It’s just...well, Flitwick’s always really on the ball about what we wear with our robes, and I’d imagined Snape would be even more on it, so...”

It was a few seconds before Merula’s brain started working again. “Oh, that...I mean, he’s never really said anything about it...”

“That doesn’t sound like Snape.” Matthew observed.

“Hah, yeah, I suppose not...” Merula pushed a hand through her hand, offering a rare smile. “I mean, if you’d seen the shoes they expect us to wear you’d do the same, if I’m honest!”

“Yeah, the dress code for boys is ever-so-slightly shorter for boys than for girls.” Matthew admitted.

“You can say that again!” exclaimed Merula, laughing at herself slightly, “You’re luckier than you know…” she paused and looked around. Nobody else was there. They had all gone to Hogsmeade, which made sense seeing as it was the first trip for the third-years. The crowd that usually watched their ‘debates’ had vanished. Now they were gone, there didn’t seem to be much point. Matthew sniffed the air. Merula coughed into her elbow.

“Um...where is Snape?” Matthew asked aloud. The two-third years looked around the Dungeons, but the man was nowhere to be seen.

“Do you think we could knock on his office door?” Matthew inquired, moving towards a dark green door that was near the empty potions classroom. However, before he could knock on the door, his arm was pulled back by Merula.

“Wait, you idiot!” she whispered, her eyes darting around the empty room. “I think he’s in there! If you interrupt him, you’ll get in trouble, and I’ll get in trouble, and...”

Matthew wanted to respond, he really did, but he was too focused on the hand that was gripping his arm. Merula must have noticed this, as she suddenly pulled her arm back, clearing her throat with it.

“Not an option, hmm?” Edwin remarked, “You two...compliment her again! Go ahead! Say how nice she looks!”

Matthew had half a mind to chuck that silver spoon out of sight, but before either of them could say anything, a ringing noise emerged from behind Snape’s door, causing both teenagers to jump. It was high-pitched and buzzing, and sounded somewhat...mugglish.

Matthew heard footsteps from the other side of the door. There was the sound of latches being undone, followed by the door being pulled open, and there in the doorway stood Professor Snape, looking rather surprised.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, the alarm still ringing, “Why are you not in Hogsmeade?”

“You barred me from going as punishment.” Matthew reminded the man, “Sir.”

Snape looked at Matthew like he had sprouted an extra head, then turned to Merula. He looked like he was about to say something, but stopped himself before doing so.

“There is work on the board.” he said hurriedly, flicking his wand at his desk to turn the ringing off. “I suppose if you finish early, you may return to your common rooms.” And with that, he was gone. Merula and Matthew stared at the corridor he had darted down before entering the classroom and getting their notebooks out. The silence was deafening. Matthew tried to focus on his work, but couldn’t help but wonder why Merula was here with him. Why hadn’t she gone to Hogsmeade?

“Am I blocking your view of the board or something?” she asked indignantly. Matthew quickly shook his head and looked back at his notes. He eyed the spoon. Edwin was smiling.

“I don’t believe it. Sev’s still at Hogwarts after all this time.” he mused. Matthew took a scrap of paper and wrote ‘You knew him before?’ on it before moving it so Edwin could see.

“Very clever, mate...and yes, I did know him. We got on well when we wanted to, but I doubt he’d be pleased to see me.”

‘Snape isn’t pleased to see anyone’ he wrote back. That got a laugh out of the strange wizard. Suddenly, something occurred to Matthew. Quickly, he wrote another note: ‘You are a wizard, right? Just checking.’

Edwin looked at the note and laughed. “Of course! Y’know, back in my day we started calling Muggles squares.”

Matthew could imagine Edwin calling a lot of people squares. He tried to focus on the work, but it was difficult to do so as Edwin kept moving across anything with a reflection, making loud observations as he did so (“That was there back then !”). What Matthew did notice, however, was that Edwin never appeared on the silver bracelet Matthew always wore. He had had an inkling that it was magical, considering how he got it, but knew very little about its origins. But no matter what, Edwin never crossed it. Matthew made a mental note of it; he was still a little unsure that he could trust him. It was then that he noticed Merula staring at his arm as well.

“What?” he said suddenly, the theories in his head quickly dispersing. “Am I doing something- I mean,”

“What is that?” she asked, pointing down.

“What?”

“No, not your bracelet, you dolt. That.” she said, poking at the biro Matthew had been using. He hadn’t even realised he was using it instead of his quill.

“Oh, that’s a pen.” Matthew explained. Merula still looked lost. “It’s like a quill, but you don’t have to keep dipping it in ink every few seconds. It’s way better.”

“Oh...” said Merula, glancing down at the several inkblots on her parchment. “Well, I think quills are better. We’ve used them for centuries, after all.”

“Yeah, I mean, so did Muggles.” Matthew reminded her, “But then we found a better way of doing things.” There was a silence, and Matthew could see Edwin examining the situation. But then, the obvious solution hit him. “Do you want one?”

Merula looked up from her parchment. “Do I...what?”

“I have loads of spare pens. I was asking if you wanted one.” Matthew fished an identical biro out of his pencil case and placed it on the table. Merula slowly moved her hand towards it, before snatching it quickly, eyeing Matthew with suspicion. She looked at her parchment, before slowly writing out a sentence with the pen. Then she kept going. She looked at the pen, then at Matthew.

“A-..And M-Muggles have been using these for...”

“A good hundred years or so, yeah.” Matthew finished. It only then occurred to him just how backward the Wizarding World could be. I mean, they had house-elves, they didn’t have electricity, and they still worried about ink stains. It was just so...trivial.

Matthew saw Edwin give him a thumbs up, before moving off to explore elsewhere. The Ravenclaw stared at his work, and quickly realised he had done very little. Furthermore, it looked like some of the most difficult potion work devised by wizardkind. A few minutes later, Merula slammed her quill on the desk in a rage.

“Aag! This is impossible!” yelled Merula, “Why isn’t this...in any way...for third-years?”

“Because it probably wasn’t for third-years.” observed Matthew, putting his own quill down, “I imagine he would have made it a test if he hadn’t been distracted by whatever that alarm was.”

“But...why would he give such advanced work to us?” Merula asked.

“Actually, he probably planned to give it to me.” Matthew looked over at the board again. “He wasn’t expecting you to be here, remember?”

Merula nodded at this, frowning. “Thanks for the extra work, Luther. Much appreciated.”

“Anytime.” Matthew replied with a smile.

Merula returned a smirk, before gesturing at the work before them. “Well, if you’ve got any ideas, I’m all ears.”

Edwin had been silently guiding Matthew for a lot of this, but was starting to get slightly louder now. “Okay, now flirt a little.”

Matthew really had to focus to keep his face still now. He stared at the problem at hand. With regards to a Dreamless Sleep potion, discuss whether the Fleamont or Daedalus approach is more effective at preventing Rapid Eye Movement, and-

“Oh come on, dude!” Edwin moved from the spoon to the various bottles around the room, passing by the reversed lettering on the labels. “You are alone with a girl. How much more perfect can this get?” Matthew was surprised to find himself considering the previously unthinkable. Sure, these sorts of thoughts had started showing up recently, but they were never...realistic. But he had to admit that Edwin had a point. Nobody else was around. They could talk without being egged on by anyone nearby. They could just...reflect on things.

“Well?” said Merula, leaning forward slightly to hover over the book, “Anything?”

Matthew shook his head, turning towards the Slytherin. “‘Fraid not. I mean, we haven’t learnt either of these approaches, and all I can tell you is that one of them is named after Fleamont Potter, but that���s about it.”

Merula didn’t move back, but pulled the book closer to her, albeit with Matthew’s hand still on it. She gazed at the question with clear irritation. Edwin looked on from a nearby flask.

“Hey, Matt...you thinking what I’m thinking?” Both boys turned around and looked at Snape’s office through the open door. Even from here, they could see a large file on the desk, but not what had caused the ringing.

“What is it?” Merula asked, noticing that Matthew had turned away from the work.

“This is going nowhere.” Matthew admitted. “We don’t have a solution, but I imagine Snape might...”

He turned back to her and pointed at the office. Merula eyed it for a moment, then turned back to him. She seemed to be processing what Matthew was suggesting.

“If he comes back, we’re dead.” Merula said, looking straight at Matthew.

“If we don’t do the essay, we’re dead.” Matthew reminded her, trying desperately not to sound stressed.

“You really think Snape’s stitched us up?”

“Well, if the Greatest Witch in all of Hogwarts can’t do it, who can?”

“Good point.” Merula got off her stool and moved towards the corridor. “Nobody’s there. Let’s go.”

They quickly slipped into the office, Matthew closing the door behind him. It was just as dark and dingy as the rest of the rooms in the Dungeons, although this room was slightly more colourful, with a large red chest of drawers behind the desk. On the left wall of the room was a large silver box with a bell on it, which he assumed had made the alarm. It reflected everything perfectly, yet for some reason Edwin didn’t appear in it. It was like he couldn’t even see it was there. Attached to the box was a note, which read:

Severus,

Before she died, she returned here to place one of these in each of the Heads of House’s offices to warn us when they rear their heads again. She also said that if one was ever to emerge, they would have to be banished again via the way they came in, if that helps any. The devices are a mixture of magic and “science” the likes of which the world has never seen. I can only imagine the things she could have done with her magic if she were still with us.

Good luck, and do Slytherin proud,

-Horace.

“Find anything?!” Edwin yelled from the other side of the room. He was awfully loud, yet it was odd to see Merula completely unable to hear it. Matthew quietly shook his head, and left the box alone. 

The two scoured over the room until Merula noticed an open book on Snape’s desk.

“Hah, here it is!” she exclaimed, leaning right onto the desk so that her feet left the floor. Edwin chose this moment to reappear in a nearby mirror.

“Wow, you choose well...that is one fine...”

“Shut up...” Matthew said under his breath. He didn’t just hate that Edwin was saying some outrageous things when Merula was right in front of them, but he hated that he found himself agreeing. He moved next to Merula, keeping his eyes away from her lower robes, and positioned himself next to her.

“Now how were we supposed to know that?” Merula said, scowling, before turning to Matthew. “Well, I mean, how were you supposed to know that. It’s...it’s...”

He nodded in return. “It’s bull. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been doing this the entire time. Hang on…” Matthew sifted through the papers, until he caught a glimpse of a tiny post-it note with three equations on it. There was one labelled “Slyth'', one labelled “Other”, and one filled with division signs called “Weaks''. Merula’s jaw dropped.

“He’s...he’s been...but that’s...” she stammered, taking the post-it note with her hand. 

Matthew didn’t know what to say. He knew exactly what sort of thoughts were running through her head, as they’d run through his head time and time again. What on earth could he do? Edwin saw them struggling, and pointed at a sheet of paper on the far side of the desk. It was a collection of raw test scores. Matthew allowed himself to smile.

“Merula, look.” he said, offering her the table. “It’s the scores before they’ve been altered.”

The two gazed down the list until they came to “Snyde, Merula”, under which there was a list of perfect scores. Merula took the file with both hands as a smile formed on her face, as her breathing began to relax.

“So...panic over?” Matthew asked hopefully.

She looked up at him, the happiest she had been for a while. “Panic over, Luther.”

After about half an hour, they had both written an essay which was good enough to get a pass but original enough for Snape not to notice. Matthew put his hands behind his head and leant back on his stool.

“Boy, I can’t wait to see the look on Snape’s face when he sees our essays.” he mused, “He can’t even punish us! We’ve done the work!”

Merula smirked as she packed her things away. “Don’t get smug, Luther. He’ll find something to get you for next lesson.”

“Maybe, though I doubt it.” said Matthew. “Now I know his secret he’s a lot less of a threat.”

“As if!” Merula retorted. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around at all. They hadn’t heard anyone nearby, not even the first or second years.

“It...really is quiet, huh?” Matthew said, turning back to Merula.

“Mm, funny that.” said Merula. She paused. “Are we really the only ones here?”

“Yes, yes you are, Matt.” said Edwin, grinning, “Think of what could be!”

Matthew’s imagination began to kick into high gear. Moving towards her. Telling her how he hated their rivalry. How he wanted to be friends. How he wanted…

“Well,” she said, moving towards the door. “That’s that, I suppose.”

“Wait!” Matthew said suddenly, surprising himself. Merula looked a little shocked at that too.

“Come on, the castle’s all yours, right?” whispered Edwin, “You can do whatever you want...” At this, an idea suddenly struck Matthew.

“I was just thinking.”

“First time for everything.” Merula remarked.

“No, listen. Most of the school’s in Hogsmeade, right?”

“Yes...”

“So, nobody’s going to notice us if we...look for clues for the next Vault?”

Merula stared at him for a moment, then smiled. “Alright, sure. I suppose you won’t get another opportunity, and why wouldn’t you want to work with Hogwarts’ Greatest Ever Witch?”

“Quite so. Shall we?” Matthew said, gesturing up the stairs.

Merula smirked, and headed up the stairs, Matthew following after. This could actually work out, Matthew thought, glancing at Edwin in the silver again. He was grinning wildly. He moved around all the metals they passed as Matthew and Merula scoured the grounds for clues. As they did so, something occurred to the Ravenclaw. Edwin was a wizard, and he clearly knew Snape, but something was off. He meant to ask the strange boy about it, but he was too close to Merula at any given time to risk it, and that was a distraction in and of itself. Nevertheless, the question remained:

Where was Edwin’s wand?

[uwuessays]

Supernatural isn’t queerbaiting, you guys just romanticize everything

So supernatural and queerbaiting are terms that are not unfamiliar with each other, I’ve seen so many people say “ supernatural it’s promising to make destiel canon, but never doing so because of X reason that it made me stop and wonder…where does this shit come from?

One of the thing that made supernatural stand out in its first day was that there wasn’t any romantic storyline going on, it was a story focused in 2 brothers, their journey and relationship with each other, funnily enough, one of the only things that have remained constant over the years has been this idea.

On one interview a writer, sera gamble, jokingly said that Spn was “the epic love story of Sam and Dean”. Now, remember this. this is key for the point of this shit. Also, kriple once said that spn has never been about that type of love, he just wanted a story with a bond between two men who weren’t romanticly involved and sucked at talking about feelings.

So it has never been a secret that spn isn’t about couples and love in a not platonic way. I f I’m not wrong… queerbaiting would be doing the opposite… it would be the creators and writers would not say shit like that, they would give vague answers, say that they have never rejected the idea.

Hell, they have changed lines and scenes so the audience wouldn’t get wrong ideas. like Jared said at some con. but go off, I guess.

So the first point is made: Supernatural has never EVER promised a romantic plotline.

So what about “SuBTExt”??? well, this is different, the thing with subtext and destiel it’s that, according to some shippers, is that destiel is “romanticly coded” or in other words, they had put tiny little clues that make the audience think that there is something more going on.

Now, I know where they are coming from, spn has had scenes between castiel and dean that are kind of “romantic” WHEN you put them out of context. I could go all day putting examples, but I’m going to mention my faves:

a) Dean saying castiel “I need you”, context: they needed cas to fix the mess of the season.

b) Dean and Castiel looking at each other intensely in season 4, lot of tension in the air: context: Castiel had just said  that if dean disrespected him once more, he would throw him to hell (this screencap has been used as proof of “eye-fucking”, like wtf guys??)

There is obviously more and these ones are the most popular ones like I said context, my dudes.

Other reason why the supposed subtext thing doesn’t make sense it’s how easy it would be to do the exact SAME thing with wincest and dare I say easier. For every “romantic” scene that there is between C and D you can take two of Sam and Dean, and sometimes you don’t even have to take them out of context:

a) Sam and Dean have a heart to heart in a church where they chose each other instead of yeeting the demons out of the earth: context: that it is it, that’s literally what happened.

b) Dean is forgetting all his memories, even his name, but hears Sam scream and recognizes his scream and says his name: context; that is it.

Am I saying that wincest is canon? No!, what I’m saying is that if you are going to say that destiel is canon by subtext, then you are also saying that wincest it is too.

Now here is the funny thing: Never I’ve seen one person say that spn is queerbaiting with wincest, never once. And do you remember that quote of sam and dean epic love story? Why don’t wincest shipper jump on the train of queerbaiting too? why don’t they say that they are being pandered too?

Well my friends, here it’s the thing, they know it’s not possible, not only they are brothers and this is not Game of Thrones, that is not the focus of the narrative.

Spn has never been about Dean and his sexuality or his love interest. spn it’s about two brothers, about destiny and fantasy and shit and they have never claimed otherwise.

You can do meta all you want and make all the posts that you like, but it’s not going to change the fact that they have never lied to you.

sure the actors have made jokes about it (some more than others, but that’s for another post) and the show has even too, especially in the first seasons, when the destiel shit had just begun and the fans weren’t many (aka before shit hit the fan, and fans started to harass the crew). But back then, they were just jokes, no one really thought that they would be taken seriously, they made the same joke with wincest and over the years it’s clear to see that they do not make that many jokes anymore.

in conclusion, destiel was never promised and taking things out of context does not mean proof of a subnarrative about the ship, and if it were then wincest would be queerbait too.

PS: before you go and say I can’t compare destiel with winces because wincest is incest (like no shit, sherlock), remember that destiel is technically bestiality since c is an angel and D is human… different species and shit… so both are equally wrong in a… morality way

xoxo- uwuessays

[emathevampire]

Compass for team chaotic good

Compass: who’s the moral compass? in general: what are your OCs’ morality like? do they have high morals, or not? are their morals self imposed, or do they base their morals on religion/family/influence of others?  Well, considering that they’re called Team Chaotic Good, that should give you a pretty solid idea of what they’re about! But not everyone is ACTUALLY chaotic good. Some aren’t even Chaotic. Or Good, in fact! Funnily enough, about half of them are Lawful, actually. So here’s the breakdown. Team Chaotic Good has quite a few members, so I’ll put it under a cut, as it’s a bit long.

Kíhyué: The team leader. Is Actually Chaotic Good. Has a very strong moral core, and while he doesn’t expect everyone he associates with to actually BE good-aligned, he damn well expects them all to act like it. The society he was raised in was largely Lawful/Neutral, but his outlook ended up completely different as a result of the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of strict laws and “neutral” stances that did more harm than good. “No such thing as an innocent bystander. You stand by and do nothing, you do not want to get involved, fine. But do not call yourself innocent. Do not say you did no harm when you could have done good instead.”

Inimicia: Sort of like his second in command, she’s Exalted Lawful Good. Not something you’d expect from the infamous Assassin Queen, or a half-vampire, or someone whose name literally means “the enemy,” but she’s had a long hard crawl up from being born chaotic evil and like hell she’s going to give up the good fight now. Her morals are 100% self-imposed, and she goes out of her way to find others in need of similar impositions and help them learn how to use objectively evil powers for good. Her order of assassins is ironically mostly good aligned, and she works very hard to keep it that way, sending them on missions to slay demons and devils and other undeniable evils who’ve managed to blend into society. This often leads to them looking like the bad guys, of course... nobility who keep their sinister deeds well hidden suddenly drop dead murdered in their own homes, and no one understands why. No one, except the victims of their cruelty whose pleas Inimicia’s spies overhear. She’s especially wary of religion, and any religion that claims to serve “the greater good.” A deity, of course, has the power to decide just what they think the greater good actually is, and cannot be trusted not to be acting solely in their own self-interest, or to actually do good deeds at all. “Go ahead. Paint me as your enemy. The world can believe you all it wants to, I’ll be the villain if you make me. I’ll still know the truth... and so will you.” Xadrea Shadowborn: Is Exalted Chaotic Good out of sheer spite and determination. Unlike Kíhyué, she absolutely expects Good out of everyone, even if she has to drag them kicking and screaming into behaving like decent human beings. Arguably this is the result of outside influence, though it’s... complicated. Essentially, she and her companions in a different universe had been given these artifacts that would tempt them into corruption in exchange for power, ultimately transforming them into an avatar of one of the Archdukes of Hell if they succumbed to enough temptations to lose their souls. Xadrea watched this happen to SEVEN of her party members. She outright refused to fall, ended up hosting the deity Heironeous instead of an archfiend, and saved the universe, all thanks to pure fucking spite and refusing to do as she was told by the voice in her head. Her sense of justice and honour don’t always conform to what one would expect of a literal divine embodiment of Valor, but she argues that’s what makes her best for the job, since she absolutely will not get caught up over doing the lawful thing as opposed to the right thing... something she and Kíhyué both agree is what makes their approach to fighting evil the best one. Her morals, ultimately, come from the shitty little slothful voice in the back of her mind that wants her to lie down and accept defeat, protect herself and forget the world... “Oh, you wish I’d quit, don’t you? Well it’s not gonna happen. NEVER gonna happen. You want apathy from me? Get bent, devil. I’m going to CARE. I am going to care SO much, ON PURPOSE, about EVERYTHING but you, and you can’t fucking stop me.” Anaziah the Kind: A paladin of freedom, Anaziah is another actual Chaotic Good member. If her former epithet of “the Wrathful” isn’t enough of an indication, she certainly didn’t used to have a moral compass, and it’s a testament to her strength of will that she’s managed to change and become a better person. She’s still pretty new at this whole “being a good person” thing, and looks to Faendys and the others for guidance, very grateful to all of them for giving her a chance instead of judging the Drow book by its cover. “I was raised to hate everything that wasn’t like us. To hate, to subjugate, to destroy. But... I was never really like ‘us,’ was I? All they ever really taught me was how to hate myself. The surface world isn’t like that. I’m free here. I’m allowed to love instead. It’s not easy, but, doesn’t everyone deserve the chance to try?” Faendys: Neutral Good, Faendys is the very calm one, who’s never trying to make any sort of deep commentary on anything on purpose, but often ends up making unsettlingly wise comments anyway. They rarely have to say much, and rarely do say much when things get serious, but their small voice piping up with something profound is always what gets the rest of them to shut up and act reasonably when their opposing alignments cause conflict. Even if it’s just a simple “That’s... not okay,” Faendys trusts their gut when it comes to tough ethical dilemmas, and the others generally listen to them. “I know it sounds hard. And it’s probably going to make us a lot of enemies. Even if we get away with it. But... we haven’t been afraid of that before, have we? They need our help, and we know it. What makes this time any different?” Arekos Aidoneus: A dread necromancer who’s also the party healer, Arekos is Lawful Neutral, and the only thing preventing him from being Good is the fact that many of the spells he casts are technically evil (see: raising armies of undead). However, he’s very careful to only use these spells for good purposes, and also has a few spells from the Book of Exalted Deeds on his list... his moral fibre is rather complex. His approach to the subject is based very strongly on his culture and religion: keep the balance in all things, use your dark powers only to serve the light, and defend the cause of good for the cause of evil needs no help to prosper. This creed is how he stays lawful despite actively working towards arguably chaotic goals, because dismantling the government brick by brick is, in fact, something he is required by his social and religious obligations to do, provided that the government in question is evil. Kíhyué and Xadrea absolutely hate it when he brings this up. “The world would love to prove that we cannot be good, that we cannot be kind, that we cannot be anything but evil and should not exist. I should very much like to prove them all wrong.” Amanthos Panideios: Also Lawful Neutral, with a heavy emphasis on Lawful, this librarian monk knows full well that he does not really fit in here... so he follows the others’ lead more often than not, managing to stay lawful despite the chaotic things they get up to the same way Arekos does. He also just... avoids getting directly involved with anything that would involve breaking the law in ways he can’t rationalise. Amanthos is not Moral, he is Ethical, and this is both a good thing (he’s able to rationalise many of the chaotic things he engages with as actually complying with the code of ethics he is meant to follow) and a bad thing (not everything has an easy answer, and it’s very easy for him to potentially fall into Lawful Evil behaviour if someone else isn’t around to check his work). “Oh dear... we didn’t cover this in any of my moral philosophy lectures... Arekos? Arekos, do you know the answer to this one?” Psamion: The bard, the sea captain, the Chaotic Neutral (but good-leaning!) one. He did his time as the hero, and quite frankly he hated every second of it, it traumatised him thoroughly, and he never wants to speak of it again. He’s perfectly content to continue doing his best to help people, in his own way, but absolutely does not want to let himself get dragged into another high-stakes demon hunt to the Hells and back, because he barely came out of the last one alive. That being said, Kíhyué is his closest friend in the entire universe, and he would do anything for him... so, naturally, when Kíhyué says “We have to save the world again,” Psamion just sighs, packs his things, and says “Can’t it just stay saved for once?” as he follows Kíhyué out the door. “Look, I don’t much care for this whole ‘getting involved’ thing, but if Kíhyué says it’s time to put up a fight, and he needs my help, you’d best believe I’m pulling out my knives and hucking a flaming bottle wherever he points me to. The world’s in trouble, and damn it all, by some miracle I’m STILL one of the idiots who lives in it, thanks to him... If I’m gonna fight, it may as well be a good fight.” Eomer: Is a gryphon. Kíhyué raised him from a hatchling, and their moral cores are as such pretty much identical... though Eomer is much more empathetic and often needs to give Kíhyué a kick in a more compassionate direction. “I think you very brave for trying. Maybe we fail, yes, happen some times. But what if not! Any thing can happen! Good thing, even! You would not even try for good? For happy thing? Stupid. Go try. Come try with me. I will go by myself, yes? No? Good! Together, we stand a chance, always worth a chance.”

[p5re-reignitingreality]

Here is a wonderful Kasumi edit done by my friend @coolman229

So story time.

I was already planning to write my fic long before Royal was even announced. I had huge plans for a female OC that plays the role of a female protagonist alongside Joker’s story. She was always meant to start off as the Nuetral party, to set her apart from Joker-the Hero and Akechi-one of the villains.

I had most of this OC’s story already planned out. Originally this character ended up turning into Ren’s sister Reika who cameos in the story. The reason for the change is when I saw the teaser when Kasumi’s design first showed up I immediately fell in love.

I changed it so Kasumi is the female protagonist. Kasumi will be vastly different in my story as I avoided spoilers like the plague and I kept the same story for my original femaleOC, I just switched the design of the character and name to be Kasumi’s. So even though she has Kasumi’s design and name she will be quite different.

The reason for this color change is the biggest reason for my fic was inspired to fix some of the problems I had with how Akechi was handled. I adore P5...except for him. Akechi went through a major overhaul so he feels more natural to the story and how his betrayal is handled. I even changed the design of Akechi PT outfit because how much I disliked the original. To reflect this Kasumi’s colors needed to be changed too. As my design for Akechi is predominately white with blue accents, where as Joker is black with red.

Since Kasumi is the nuetral character at the start I wanted her to be in between. Purple and gray. Funnily enough this was the color scheme I had for my original OC, I just applied it to Kasumi when I made the change.

Another funny thing is originally before P5R was announced...my female protagonist OC’s code name was long picked. I came up with...Royal.

Yes I know wtf no way? Right??? We’ll see my reasoning is Ren is Joker. I changed Akechi’s code name to match with his new design, Ace. And the female OC was Royal, like Royal Flush...I thought a playing card motif would be great for these three. So you can imagine my surprise when Person 5 Royal was announced. I was like WHAT NO WAY?! So it works even better with Kasumi as it makes for a cute reference too.

Though this will be the only reference to P5R as I avoid spoilers for that game like the plague and will not look into it until it comes to the states. This fic is based on the vanilla version, Kasumi is the only character that gets a reference from P5R.

But enough of me babbling. I hope you guys like the edit!

[jaqfms]

there's     jacques    ‘jaq’    daingerfield   !     though     on    their     socials     they     go     by     @thedangerousq     .     i     heard     he     is     originally     from     paris     ,     france     ,     but     made     the     big     move     to     los     angeles     to     join     TWENTIES     .     you     haven't     heard     about     it     ?   well     ,     apparently     their     dream     is     to     design     his     own     video     game   ,     but     they     have     no     chance   unless     they     quit     being     so     cocky     &     lazy     .     that     said     ,     those     behind     the     scenes     have     said     they     can     be     witty     &     charismatic     too.     guess     we'll     have     to     watch     and     find     out     !     ━     &    laughing     until     you     cry     ,          a     cartoon     theme     song     paired     with     a     hip     hop     beat     ,     a     juul     behind     your     ear     ,     vines     quoted     in     a     thick     french     accent     .    (     timothee     chalamet     ,     cis male     ,     he/him     )   (     pepper    ,     she/her + they/them     ,     est     ,     twenty four     )

ABOUT THE MUN.  are ya in a relationship? you think i can convince someone to do that?

hello, it’s me again. i tired myself out with haisley’s so jaq’s if going to be considerably shorter. let’s go. 

BIO.  aaaahhhhhhhhhh shhiiittttt *begins understanding things*

jacques daingerfield was born in france to two very average parents. like his mother was a teacher and his father was a financial analyst. nothing wild or crazy going on there, and to top it off he was the middle child, and well, you can tell. 

he has four siblings. he was the third kid, and well, he spent most of his childhood fighting for any kind of attention, usually by making inappropriate little jokes or you know, fart noises. yes his parents were generally exasperated with him, but that behavior made sure they paid attention to him. and honestly that was all jacques wanted. 

again, jacques had a pretty average upbringing. he went to school, he was actually pretty popular among his peers despite being so annoying (definitely very unpopular amongst his teachers for generally that class clown that sat in the back and always interrupted), and he excelled academically without really trying too much. well, in every subject but english funnily enough. jaq always struggled in english, which is why it was incredibly ironic that when his parents separated they decided to move to uk with his father. jacques was ten at the time, and he still doesn’t understand the decision.

so yes, jacques was the kid in class with the weird name and weirder accent who could barely communicate with his classmates. it didn’t take long for them to stop really trying to pronounce ‘jacques’ properly. jacques became jack without much input on his part, and by the time jacques had got enough of a handle on the english language to correct them the americanized name had already stuck. even at nine jacques was smart enough to know that insisting on the correct french pronunciation of his name just kind of made him sound like a pretentious french asshole, so instead he spun it. he embraced it. started signing all of his papers and assignments with ‘jaq’ with a q like it was his brand or something. even as a child jaq will give himself credit for being clever af. 

it actually worked pretty well honestly. the older jaq got the more he grew into himself, and the more comfortable he got with the english language. honestly a lot of how jaq learned english was through video games and youtube videos and cartoons, like those were some of his go to resources. spent a lot of time playing games with strangers and tested his english out with colourful trash talk. actually started his first ever youtube channel was basically that as just a way to practice his english a bit. all he did on there was play video games, and honesty he didn’t even show his face. the channel wasn’t that popular, but he had fun making it. 

jaq on the other hand had gained popularity by the time he was in middle school. granted, that popularity was mostly due to the fact that he had a popular older brother and sister, was french and therefore ‘cute’ (jaq didn’t pretend to understand how girls brains worked then, and he still doesn’t now) and his family always had the newest gaming system at their household, and even then it wasn’t wild popularity. but it was enough that barely anyone teased him for his thick french accent anymore, and yk what jaq would take it. he weirdly got even more popular with the guys in his grade when they found out about his youtube channel. they found it funny, and they would generally watch his videos and come tell him about their favourite parts later, ask him about how he got past a certain level or learned a certain cheat. jaq soaked up their admiration like a sponge, right into his ego. they were the beginning of jaq getting the big head he proudly sports today. 

that said for most second form jaq’s youtube channel was just a hobby. something he did for fun. like i said earlier, jaq actually did really well in school and his parents always expected him to follow in his father’s footsteps and go into something in business. after all, it would be an easy transition with both french and english under his belt. they knew he would excel. 

but then he met madi. and somehow the two started doing videos together for fun, and it quickly expanded into something a lot bigger. something that jaq wouldn’t have even dreamed of doing before. suddenly the picture perfect future he had planned for himself just seemed boring in comparison to what he and madi had going on, and so jaq easily picked that instead. his parents weren’t all that happy about it, of course, after all jaq had full scholarships to some schools just waiting for him to accept and he ignored all of them in favour of making videos of him playing games online. they still don’t understand, but jaq doesn’t really need them too. he’s happy with what he’s doing and he figures he can always go into business when he’s old and boring. 

he moved out of his parents house straight into an apartment with madi when things between them started getting really tough. they can’t really speak without the whole ‘we’re so disappointed in you’ conversation coming up so jaq doesn’t really speak to them unless he has to. both of his older siblings went into business like their parents wanted, and his younger siblings are on the same path. his little sister wants to be just like him though, and that warms his heart tbh. 

has come to TWENTIES to have a good time! wants to break into the acting industry like dylan o’brien and maybe show his parents that a ‘real’ career can come from something like this. his parents begged him not to come on this show and embarrass them so that is definitely what he’s about to do. 

HEADCANNONS. there are a lot of people who need to shut up.  not me though 

thinks he’s funny! sometimes he is

will answer to jacques, jaq, jaqi, or q! you can call him daingerfield if you want but not many people do

fun fact, made his instagram handle as a joke, much like awkwafina. was just supposed to a little dig about how many times he has to say ‘jack with a q’ whenever someone spells his name. but now the dangerous q is his brand, and just finds it really dumb and funny. 

a bit of a kleptomaniac. will swipe something he thinks is cool mostly just to do it. has very little impulse control. loves to pull pranks and generally make trouble, but not in a way that will ever actually hurt anybody because he’s not a whole idiot. not the biggest fan of cops. 

is an artist. will spray paint your walls and probably has spray painted the walls of his apartment. will doodle weird things all over napkins or receipts or whatever he can get his hands on. has drawn out little video game characters he wants to be in his future games, and actually is considering going to school for a video game programming degree just for that. the funny thing is with his grades he could probably do it. is teaching himself coding in the mean time. 

 the type of person to start drumming on the counter or desk with his hands or like pencils or pens when he’s bored. will make up fun little raps on the spot. 

incredibly intelligent but doesn’t like to talk about it. would much rather act dumb than act like he has any braincells. he doesn’t want to give anyone expectations. 

all the youtube success has definitely gone to his head in the way that?? he just thinks they’re untouchable like he cannot compute the concept of their channel failing or their future endeavors failing. definitely thinks that TWENTIES will lead to much bigger things for them. will walk into his future acting auditions like he’s the shit. 

an introvert with extrovert tendencies. needs to be by himself to chill out and recharge but can like work a room honestly. can make friends pretty much everywhere he goes. a bit of a charmer when he wants to be. 

a smoker unfortunately. also a bit of a stoner. definitely has a juul on him at all times, like i said he tends to keep it behind his ear and then be like ???? where’s my juul. 

needs glasses but refuses to wear them. is very stubborn about it tbh. does not want to get contacts because he hates the idea of putting something into his eye. so you can catch him squinting sometimes like a fool. 

one of the first things he treated himself to with his first big youtube check like outside of rent was a tattoo! it’s on his ribs and it’s just a drawing he did himself but he loves it and it was the start of an addiction. he has about five. also has a few helix and orbital piercings on his left ear. 

another muse of mine with a tiktok, but jaq just uses his to make music for the most part. will turn the mickey mouse club house theme song into bars! (if you’ve seen that tiktok,,,, ily) 

a big nerd. reads comic books. watches anime. will get very reasonably upset about the avatar the last airbender movie whenever it’s brought up.

can cook really well, but whenever he does it it’s pure chaos. like julian/brad leone in the kitchen for sure. but the food comes out tasting really good, so???

is jewish af. knows a bit of hebrew and a bit of yiddish because of his grandparents mostly. is kind of ??? a lot more lenient with things now that he’s not around his parents as often i’m ngl. 

brings his ds everywhere and you can literally catch him on the bus vaping and playing animal crossing because he hasn’t bothered to get a american license yet 

is always willing to take a picture with a subscribers and they’re always the weirdest thing. there are pictures of subscribers like pretending to stab him in the eye. prom pose pictures with subscribers. the weirder the better tbh

has gone to vidcon a few years in a row, always has the wildest time. there is video footage of him waking up in some strangers bathtub with a feather boa around his neck. it’s probably on instagram. 

is also bi af. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS.  very proud to announce that i am officially a lost cause! 

BEST FRIENDS.

A BROMANCE. 

FWB/EWB.

EXES. 

FANS OF HIS YOUTUBE VIDEOS. 

and here’s his wanted tag, i forgot to do the same for haisley so here is her wanted tag. 

and many more, y’all this took so long and i’m so tired but like this and i will slide into your dms for plots!

[quu-kii]

Jake Gyllenhaal Filmography Ranking

My personal ranking of all Jake Gyllenhaal movies from October Sky onwards with some brief thoughts on each of the movies. Honestly the exact number ranking of these movies is probably not super accurate and could be liable to changes, but I tried my best with the ordering.  

Amazing Tier (My favorites)

1. Brokeback Mountain - This is such an emotional and heartbreaking movie. I knew it was going to have a sad ending going into it, but still I was not prepared for how strongly it hit me in the feels. And it’s not just the ending that is sad; you can tell that the love between the two leads is doomed from less than the midpoint of the movie, and it keeps going downhill from there. Overall, I think the movie is a perfect tragic love story. As well, there’s this very subtle and natural feeling to the whole movie that is difficult to describe but works really well. There’s just something truly special about this movie that makes me want to place it as the #1 best of Jake’s movies.

2. Nightcrawler - A highly suspenseful movie with an amazing lead performance by Jake as the sociopathic lead character Lou Bloom. Jake is really a big part of what makes the movie great, as he is such a strong focus of it. Lou acts so off, but it’s just impossible to take your eyes off him, and he is so interesting to watch since you keep wondering what he will do next. The other part of what makes this movie great is the writing and dialogue. There are just so many memorable and great lines, especially for Lou. Along with these factors, the subject matter of the movie, that of the career of selling violent news footage to news stations, is pretty unique, and there are some interesting ideas and themes in the movie as well relating to success and the news media. Overall I really love this movie. If there’s one thing I would say I might not like about the movie, it is the music. It can have an uplifting and hopeful vibe in dark scenes, which lessens the tense mood of some scenes. But I understand that the music was made to reflect Lou’s mood in the scene, which is a very interesting decision in itself and helps add to Lou’s character, since you can notice the contrast between how disturbing the scenarios he is in are and how Lou himself feels in such scenarios. So I at least admire the music for this aspect.

3. Enemy - A tense and psychological movie. I really love the heavy and surreal atmosphere of this movie, added to by the yellowish filter which is present throughout the whole movie as well as the score, which is ominous and used to amazing effect in the movie to enhance the dark mood. Also, I think this movie is both enjoyable when taken in at face value, being about a man who finds that there is a doppelganger of himself, and when looking deeper at what the “real” story is, taking into account the symbolism and various small details placed throughout the movie. It’s an interesting movie to think about due to its openness to interpretation. And lastly, Jake does a great job playing the two lead characters in the movie; despite the characters looking the same, they give off quite a very different vibe.

4. Spider-Man: Far from Home - My favorite MCU movie. I love so many things about this movie: how it deals with the aftermath of the Blip in a light way, how it deals with Peter Parker’s character after Endgame and his desire to just be able to have a normal life, the overall story, the setting being Europe and having this fresh vacation feeling, the fight scenes, and of course Mysterio. Along with this, it has great music (especially Mysterio’s theme) and probably the best mid credits and post credits scenes in the MCU due to their plot relevance. All of the characters are very likeable too, from Peter and all his classmates and teachers to others like Nick Fury and Mysterio, which is important to me since likable characters is one of the most important aspects to me in any kind of story. This movie was such a pleasant surprise after Endgame, which was a great disappointment to me. Also, this movie is special to me because it’s how I discovered the awesomeness of Jake and thus indirectly the reason why I watched all his movies and made this list in the first place. I’m not sure if a future MCU movie can top this for me, but who knows.

 Great Tier

5. Nocturnal Animals - A harsh movie with an interesting structure of having two main stories, with one of the stories being a story within the main story (I will call this story the 2nd story for brevity). I think the 2nd story is where the movie really shines. This story was so tense and much more interesting to follow compared to the main story, and Jake portrayed the emotions of anguish and despair so well in it. It’s also interesting to think about how the 2nd story links with the main story, which gives more depth to the overall story of the movie. I find this and Brokeback Mountain to be the most emotionally harrowing of Jake’s movies, which is definitely a compliment since I admire when a work is able to make me feel so strongly. Also, I have to note that I disliked that there was a random jumpscare in the middle of the movie. It doesn’t lower my opinion of the movie, but I really don’t like jumpscares and did not expect one in this movie.

6. Source Code - A really solid sci-fi movie about Jake’s character repeating through a time loop. It is the only Jake movie to make me cry due to me being a sucker for tragic scenarios involving time loops/parallel worlds. It was just a very engaging movie to watch due to the intriguing premise and the very good execution of said premise.

7. Zodiac - I didn’t know that this movie was based off true events until almost the end of it. So the whole time, I was expecting there to be a conclusive ending when there was no way this would be the case, since the Zodiac killer case to this day hasn’t been solved. Because of this, I felt initially disappointed about this movie from a story perspective, since all the clues from the movie seemed to lead to nothing. This is my biggest “flaw” about the movie (and it’s not really the movie’s fault), but this factor aside I really liked this movie. Jake, RDJ, and Mark Ruffalo are all great in it, and I love murder mysteries so much, so the story had me hooked on this alone. It’s so interesting to watch the characters piece together clues for the case and try to unravel the mystery, as well as seeing how the case progresses (or well, doesn’t progress at times) over the years. Also, this movie just feels really good to watch; as in, the scenes and shots flow together so well. It’s a great movie overall I think.

8. The Sisters Brothers - A western with a kind of laid back feel to it. Also supposedly it is a comedy, but I found it not funny at all. It’s not that I see the movie attempting jokes and find that they don’t work; it’s more like I don’t see the attempt at humor at all, unless maybe it’s kind of a weird dark humor thing. Anyways, I really like this movie, and it’s mostly because I really like the main four characters and their dynamics with each other. Jake does a great job playing his character John Morris and has an accent which is pleasant to my ears, though I was sad that he (as well as Riz Ahmed) wasn’t in the movie more. Even though I was watching the movie for Jake, I found myself liking John C. Reilly’s and Joaquin Phoenix’s characters, the two leads, a lot as well. It’s a movie that shines because of the characters for me.

Very Good Tier

9. Donnie Darko - A pretty unique coming of age story with sci-fi elements. I’m still not sure what to think of this movie, though I think I liked it. Some of my favorite scenes are where Donnie goes off on these rants about what he believes to be the truth. These scenes are amazing to me.

10. Prisoners - I actually find the story of this movie to be not that great. However, what elevates the movie is Hugh Jackman and Jake and their amazing performances. Funnily enough, I found myself siding with Hugh’s character and against Jake’s as they both simultaneously tried to solve the case. Also, this movie is just really exciting and engaging to watch and is maybe one of the easiest to recommend movies on this list due to these factors.

11. The Day After Tomorrow - This isn’t a very deep movie or anything, but it’s a really solid disaster flick in my opinion. I love the visuals, and Jake is such a cutie in this movie, a factor that really elevates it for me.

12. The Good Girl - It looked like a comedy or something from the outside, but actually this is a rather bleak movie. It’s one of the duology of the Jake-being-into-older-married-women movies (and the much better of the two for me). I find this movie pretty underrated.

13. October Sky - It’s an uplifting and inspiring movie, and I love how Homer’s relationship with his father is portrayed here.

14. Okja - I love the stylized vibe of this movie. Jake isn’t in the movie that much, but I really like every time he shows up. He goes full wacky here and it’s fun to watch.

15. Brothers - Tobey Maguire is the real star here. I think he was great in the movie and I could really feel the emotions of his character, especially after he comes back from the war and is in a troubled state of mind.

16. Stronger - A good based on real life movie about a survivor of the Boston Marathon Bombing. Jake does a great job as usual, and I think the emotions of the story came through well.

17. Wildlife - A really simple and subdued story about a family, but I think it works well in the movie. It has a very quiet and natural feeling to it.

Ok Tier

18. Demolition - A quirky feeling movie about a guy trying to deal with the death of his wife. The scene with Jake dancing in the city is my favorite part. Also I thought Jake’s friendship with the kid in the movie was a highlight.

19. Bubble Boy - It's kind of a dumb movie with some maybe offensive humor, but I thought it was pretty enjoyable regardless. Jake is so adorable as the main character Jimmy, and it was fun to follow his journey across the country and seeing all the interesting characters he meets.

20. Proof - I thought it was pretty good, but then the movie ended just when I thought it was starting to ramp up the story to the conclusion. This factor brought the movie down for me.

21. Life - The monster design for this movie was pretty cool, and I liked the ending and the general space horror vibe. However, I didn’t feel much for any of the characters.

22. Everest - It was ok, but I wasn’t really into any of the characters here.

23. Southpaw - I think this movie is very impressive for Jake’s resume, considering how he trained a lot and learned boxing for it. However as a movie itself, I didn’t really feel much for it and felt like it wasn’t doing much special in the story department. I liked some of the parts in the earlier half though.

24. End of Watch - I just wasn’t feeling this movie. Maybe it was the found footage style or something. I feel a bit sad about not digging this movie since I see it is generally one of the more well liked ones in Jake’s filmography.

25. Jarhead - I really don’t like the vulgar tone throughout this movie, but I do like the general story and message. Also the movie looks really good.

Not That Great Tier

26. Velvet Buzzsaw - I love Jake’s character Morf so much as well as the general premise. However the movie itself wasn’t too great: I found most of the characters besides Jake’s to be unlikable, and also the movie felt cheap. It’s very disappointing since the concept for the movie (horror in an art gallery) seems so promising.

27. Prince of Persia - This was the first Jake movie I saw back in the day around the time of its theater release. I have to say I find this to be Jake’s weakest acting performance out of all his movies. For me, good acting is when the actor feels very natural as the character and is somehow magnetizing to watch. But for some reason I did not get a very natural vibe from Jake as Dastan in this movie. I do think he looks very beautiful in this movie though with his long hair, so that’s a big plus. The story of this movie feels pretty cliché and kind of lifeless in a way, but I still liked it alright.

28. Highway - I don’t really like the sleazy tone of this movie. However, I think Jake is very adorable in this movie and has this pure wide-eyed vibe about him (despite him being a drug dealer and sleeping with prostitutes and such).

29. Rendition - I found this movie to be aggressively boring for the most part. There’s this subplot which I was unsure why I should even care about until a reveal near the end of the movie, when it was too late to start caring at all. However Jake in a bloody shirt towards the beginning of the movie makes for some good screencaps and gifs, and I learned about the term extraordinary rendition through searching about it after the movie.

30. Moonlight Mile - I guess this movie might be considered technically good because it tells the story it sets out to do fairly well, but I just found it very boring. There is a part towards the end with Jake’s character being very emotional which I really liked.

31. Lovely & Amazing - It's actually decent, but really not my type of movie. It’s the 2nd of the duology of the Jake-being-into-older-married-women movies.

 Just No Tier

32. Accidental Love - I actually enjoyed the beginning parts of this movie (though what’s with the constant dutch angles in the earlier parts?), and ironically it is around the point of the introduction of Jake’s character where I felt like it started to nosedive. I felt my soul slipping away and my IQ dropping by the end of the movie.

33. Love & Other Drugs – I really, really don’t like this kind of raunchy sex comedy movie. That’s all.

[kitkatopinions]

Roman for the character ask? XD

`Plushie, I love you for sending me this because I was excitedly telling you that I hoped someone sent me this.

I’ve been writing non-published fan fics (with plushchrome/why-i-hate-rwby-now) and we usually ‘split’ the writing by dividing who writes for what character. Our first RWBY fan fic featured Survived!Torchwick drifting towards a redemption arc, and I was writing for him. And almost every single RWBY fan fiction I’ve written since has featured Roman because I love writing for him so much. So this one is going to be good because I’ve worked with this character for literally years now. (Some of my headcanoned stuff doesn’t fit with canon, but oh well.)

My top three ships for the character

Roman/Glynda. Their only on-screen almost interaction was their fight in ep 1 in which Roman acted annoyed at the sight of her and got Cinder to fight her instead of him, but boy golly could these two have one tension fueled ‘once in a dream’ sort of romance. Roman/Neo is something I don’t personally ship, but I do like the concept and every time I see concept art of it, my heart melts a little. Funnily enough, I also like the concept of Roman/Oz, but only as ‘Roman always used to tease him by flirting with him.’ (Honorable mention to two OCs who’d take the slots under Glynda if they existed. XD)

My three least favorite ships for the character

Roman/Cinder is a massive no, considering she’s the one who got him into the whole big mess in the first place and then essentially left him for dead. I mean, it’s clear Roman’s into her and they could have divorced couples energy, but boy howdy, this would be toxic in the not fun way. Pass. Roman/Tyrian is something I just don’t vibe with, I feel like Roman has enough street smarts to not instigate or tolerate any romantic vibes with Tyrian. XD Also Junior/Roman. This is apparently called Crimedads? Roman’s the only crimedad I need, I don’t want anything to do with Junior or his disgusting behavior or his stupid looking club.

My biggest criticism for the character

I feel like my biggest criticism is actually the way he’s been used (or rather, not used) after his death. I feel like it was a mistake to wait to bring Neo back until the sixth season, and to not really delve into her backstory and not paying much attention to Neo’s growth. It makes her feel like less of a character and, by extension, makes Roman’s death feel like a weaker motivation for it and makes it matter less to the audience. RWBY’s attempts to be a ‘slow burn’ often leave a lot to be desired, and Roman as a motivation for Neo is no exception to that.

My favorite thing about the character

He was the perfect villain for the first three seasons. He was more of a comic book villain than something we were supposed to take really seriously. He was a real threat, but he was also fun, colorful, he had a great voice actor, some slight sympathetic vibes, but still an obviously selfish, obviously bad guy that - like Watts - it doesn’t feel wrong or complicated to hate or love or love to hate him. His comic book villain vibes still had a little more under the surface, which was perfect for the looser, kids-fighting-monsters fun romp with deeper stuff under the surface. That’s why a part of me doesn’t mind the fact that Roman died, even though I think he could’ve been used after volume 3. They would’ve had to change some of Roman in order to fit in with the new more serious, in-depth storyline, and it might’ve taken some of the charm away from his character.

A headcanon I have about them

Buckle up, because I can’t pick just one. Roman came from a long line of Huntsman and Huntresses and it was a family tradition thing, but he actually really wanted to be a Huntsman for many of the same reasons Ruby had wanted to be one, even past family tradition. Roman’s Hunter parents died when he was young, and he was raised mostly by his aunt and uncle in Mistral, though his family tradition was to attend Beacon, so that’s where he went to school. His aunt and uncle (also Hunters) died while he was attending Beacon in his second year. He had a versatile skillset and was really into weapons construction and strategy, but didn’t apply himself very well in school and never went on to the two vs two rounds in the Vytal Tournament. He started experiencing depression during his time in school, which only started getting worse after he (for messy reasons that I can’t take the time to explain here,) was basically forced to run away with Neo (five years younger than him) during his last year of Beacon, dropping out and living on the streets and starting a life of crime in his increasingly desperate attempts to support her and take care of her. Eventually, he stopped working for criminal masterminds who he always had problems with and thought didn’t do good enough jobs and became one himself. And this one doesn’t line up with canon, but in my fan fictions, I always wrote Roman to have a passive ‘survival’ semblance that triggered when his parents died, that keeps him alive even in really bad circumstances (and even after getting eaten by a Grimm, in the fic. XD) His semblance kept him alive, but it also slowly shifted his moral code to accommodate what he needed to do to survive, and would block out grief sometimes (for instance, he never fully grieved his parents.) Obviously, this doesn’t fit with the canon where he does die in that Grimm, but boy howdy, it made him such a good character to write for in fan fictions.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

I know I said that I was glad that the writers killed him, but I might not do that tbh. If I was making a re-write, it’d be more for me than anything else, and I think if Roman had survived, it could be really good and fun. For one thing, he had a connection and some element of personal tension to Ruby and Blake and Neo had some of that with Yang, and that’s something that was lacking later. Roman and Neo could’ve been used to introduce Salem’s castle, faction, etc, and they could’ve been really good as unsure, out of their depth villains that start influencing Mercury and Emerald a bit more as well. But I don’t think I’d go whole hog on any redemption arc and use Roman and Neo as more gray, wild card type characters who are against Salem and have a line of what they think is wrong, but are still dangerous and violent and selfish themselves. 

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Roman’s character allusion to Romeo Candlewick is relatively loose. You can twist Roman into fitting it, as Candlewick wastes his time in idleness until he’s transformed into a jack-ass and then dies of exhaustion. But I definitely think that they mostly leaned into Disney inspired gimmicks like his red hair, hat, and cigar smoking. And more than that, I agree that he’s more based off of the Fox / Honest John Foulfellow, the deceptive conman who tries to trick Pinocchio in the book by pretending to be lame and attempting to kill him, only to wind up really becoming lame and impoverished and hungry. In the Disney version, he’s a more comical conman who expresses some hesitance on tricking kids into going to Pleasure Island and is being threatened into it, but had no problems with other cut throat villainy with no concern over how it affects Pinocchio. He uses a cane (but doesn’t fake a limp,) and his line delivery and body language is kind of close to Roman. Although this is yet another allusion that’s more based on Disney than the original, I think, I tend to not mind this one so much.