#having trouble deciding if my character would do that from a role playing perspective

[py-dreamer]

Rant about shadowpeach (WARNING! Mac slander)

I'm sure you've all heard this time and time again but you know what screw it I'm tossing my 2 cents into the ring

I think my bias for Wukong definitely has a part in this but I will try to be as neutral as possible which is impossible. My personal opinions will absolutely shine through but it is just that: a personal opinion

I love my trio of gay monkeys, I really do.

Is Macaque a good character? Yes

I do think he's a genuinely interesting character, with cool mystery ,interesting backstory, cool powers, he's fun to watch, has a kickass theme song and aesthetic and I can see why a lot of fans attach themselves to them.

Do I love seeing him with Wukong? Yes

Their banter is fun, past shadowpeach can be sweet as sugar (or spicy, I don't judge) and their angst is real yummy.

What I don't like is when the angst is all Wukong's fault. And everyone and their grandma will harp on the Monkey king and just ignore all of Mac's bullsh!t. Especially in fanfics.

Like don't get me wrong, keep writing that good stuff! But like...jeez

The amount of smack that the golden monkey goes through in this fandom is like...yikes.

Look, I know we're all hung up about the bloody murder thing.

(Personally I'm on the theory that Wukong didn't actually kill Mac, if they were really that close he wouldn't have acted so casual upon their battle after he murdered him, but I digress)

And Wukong should be called out on that BUT.

Mac also isn't blameless here.

(If you like toxic shadowpeach, fine. But this is for peeps who think that Wukong is the only toxic one and Mac was just a victim.)

Take it from this perspective:

The two were really close during the brotherhood era. Wukong kept doing stupid things to gain power and getting them in trouble and in the final battle did something astronomically stupid and they all lost.

Then they all ditch him...leading to his imprisonment (five phases mountain) and torture (furnace and also being fed iron pellets and hot mercury)

Fair, Mac probably shouldn't have been trapped too but he visited once out of 500 years, had a fight and never came back by the looks of it.

He assigns himself the role of the warrior who always stood by his king's side.

And then ditched him in his time of need.

Mans really failed at his own self proclaimed job.

Fine, he probably should've taken a break, none of them were in the right state of mind and Wukong was being very bratty.

BUT

IF HE TRULY VALUED THEIR RELATIONSHIP (from the looks of his lil gay play, he did) HE WOULD'VE Y'KNOW. COME BACK AND TALK?!?!

If he really valued their relationship, outside of calling him a coward and LEAVING, never to visit again. Would that not be a perfect opportunity to communicate?

Like, my dude. He's stuck in the rock. He can't run. Could you not find the roots of the problem and solved it?

But lets say "He was too busy taking care of flower fruit mountain"

(despite him literally EATING one of the monkeys in JTTW, but that was JTTW and I don't think its canon in Lmk. But still, interesting to note.)

I'm sure his subjects were worried about their king? Did he never answer them? If he really valued their bond, could he not have I dunno, shadow portaled some monkeys to see their king or like put time aside to communicate and update the monkeys?

But lets say "He was too traumatized from the burning of his home and was too angry"

500 gosh dang years seems like a long time to take a break.

I feel like at that point, he should've let go of Wukong

BUT NOOOO HE DOESN'T NOW DOES HE.

We establish that their relationship is kinda wrecked.

They don't communicate.

He ditched Wukong for 500 years.

But when he see's the pilgrims decides that Wukong ditched him and the brotherhood..?

So by his logic, Wukong has abandoned ffm the brotherhood and him, after they ditched him under a mountain for 500 years, never visited, never talked, never tried to rebuild their relationship.

Sees the circlet being used, sees the pilgrims not trusting him, sees him go on this journey unwillingly, not allowed to leave the monk unprotected, and comes to the conclusion that Wukong is a traitor...?

But plans to free him because he's being abused and forced to do it?

Pick a lane my dude. Did he abandon you or not?

BUT THEN.

He impersonates him, destroys what little trust the group had

WHILE TRIPITAKA STILL HAD EASY ACCESS TO THE FILLET MIND YOU

hurts Wukong multiple times, till he gets banished. And tries to kill Tripitaka as he still had the bloody circlet?!

This isn't sad lover getting revenge at being abandoned.

This is bitter jealous ex getting petty revenge and still expecting to get back together like this.

Also he says he watched as the pilgrims tortured him with the fillet. If he watched them, he'd know that Wukong is also obligated to fight and most of the time he does kill them, despite the pacifist monk.

He's required to PROTECT THE MONK AT ALL COST.

So tell me...

WHAT THE HELL WAS HIS PLAN?!

He does realize that like this was mandated by heaven right? And there'd be huge consequences to killing the monk right?

So basically:

Mac: yea so my plan is to impersonate you and commit crimes you didn't do, get you in trouble and inadvertently hurt you severely, traumatize you even more then kill the monk so we can go back to flower fruit mountain like we wanted to right?

Even though there will probably be astronomical consequences for you, me probably the rest of the monkeys for letting me kill this monk on the trip mandated by heaven. By failing to protect him, redeeming yourself and also losing a close friend heaven might probably put you under another mountain again probably forever this time, and I will probably use my powers to get out scotch free and we'd all blame you even though I killed him.

But you're still to blame for abandoning me, the brotherhood and your subjects even though I never visited you after our fight, calling you a coward, immediately leaving never to come back and update you on what happened. Its your fault the mountain is like this even though I never asked you for help or advice or even contacted you to let you know our home was destroyed.

Meanwhile I'm the victim and you never valued our friendship.

.

.

.

This idiot-

In summary, he abandons his king, accused him for ditching them all comes back claiming to help him by antagonizing him, hurting him and puts himself in a position where he kinda has to do something?

Because Mac was set on killing the monk.

Everyone acts like he just visited, said something mean and Wukong played the stab game bit too hard.

But he tried to kill him and wouldn't back off?

Seriously what did he expect Wukong to do?

The fandom acts like he was given a pass to not die when he's already broken off the relationship and put Wukong in an impossible situation where Mac wouldn't freaking leave or let go about killing the monk.

I'm not saying that Wukong should've killed Mac on the spot. But I just wish that everyone stops acting like he was being such an asshole and killing him out of nowhere.

(for someone with six ears and is meant to be all hearing he sure is bad at listening)

Then he gets revived by the lady bone demon and let me check:

steals all of Mk's powers

tries to kill the kid despite having no bad blood with him

antagonizes Tang, ridiculing him and calling Wukong a coward despite ditching him under a mountain

makes a copy of the TEA van to kidnap and traumatize Mk even more

Traumatizes Mk AGAIN in the shadow play and steals his friends souls

Hold Mei and Sandy hostage for the rings and tries to squeeze the life out of them

Shooting the airship down (OOOHHHH WUUUKOOOONG this ape is down bad.)

Chokes Mei and uses her as a hostage again for the samadhi fire ritual

Immediately leaves after Mei's firey outburst

Wants to leave possessed Wukong to the clutches of LBD

never gives Mk the full story in the ink scroll that he tried to kill Sanzang or how he never came back.

NEVER APOLOGIZES

I don't even think Macaque has apologized for any of his bullsh!t.

Some of his acts were necessary but he just makes it uneccessarily cruel and revels in their pain

And the fandom makes them all buddy buddy at the end, excuse all his actions and collectively hate Wukong?

Yes he does help Mk in fighting possessed Wukong but like LBD's reign would end the world as he knew it. What else could he do? DBK would probably do it in his position.

But he never apologizes to any of the cast.

I've seen fics where he does apologize which is good.

But he also never apologizes to monkey king?

But that will be in pt2. Yes there will be a goddamn pt2 cause I've not even scratched the surface when it comes to fanfics.

But I will take this chance to share a fic that does tackle this issue really well:

Fractured Pieces make a mosaic by @furornocturna

Cause this fic is genuinely so good I am vibrating at the seams, its one of my favs (also furornoctura's writing is good in general)

One of the only fics I've seen where the characters all call out Mac being a jackass and in an interesting way.

One day I will make some fanart for this but till then this will do

Their writing is so yummy go check it out

[suspiciousbluejay]

Random theories, head cannons and predictions for Roots of Chaos books

I have been rereading both "Priory of the Orange Tree" and "A day of Fallen Night" and have been noticing new things and creating my own theories and head cannons. I'm listing these theories from the ones I consider most likely to the lest likely/ones that have the least evidence.

1.) The Earl of Honeybrook (Kits dad) or one of his ancestors was a practitioner of sterren. Samantha Shannon has confirmed that Kabala's last words "beware the sweet water" refers to Kits family. At the beginning of the book its revealed that "The Earl of Honeybrook stood with the other members of the Virtues Council. He did not look troubled by the absence of his son, who he resembled in every way but the mouth, which never smiled.". We know that the use of Sterren affects offspring by making them look identical to the parent. I believe that at some point after A Day of Fallen Night when Kabala regained her strength she decided that she wanted a child to train but instead of taking another child from the priory she chose and Inysh child and taught them how to use sterren.

2.) There is a 4th Siden tree. In A day of Fallen Night, Wulf mentions rumours that there is a valley in the north beyond Hróth where the eversnow melts (I can't find the exact quote -sorry). I believe that this is because there is another siden tree located in this valley and the fire from the siden causes the snow to melt. Apart from this rumour this theory doesn't not have much proof in the book but I believe it because one of the major themes is balance and having 4 trees, one in each main location (North - Hroth, South - Lasia, West - Inys/Nurtha, East - Komoridu) makes sense from a narrative perspective. Also Samantha Shannon has hinted that later books will explore the Hurin in more detail and as we know that there are Hurin in the north beyond Hroth.

3.) The lacustrine legend of "The little shadow girl" will appear as a narrator character/a character in a future book and tells us that the balance of the universe has been disrupted before. The legend of the little shadow girl tells the story of a little girl who "‘In the time before the Great Sorrow, a fire-breather flew to the Empire of the Twelve Lakes and ripped the pearl from the throat of the Spring Dragon". We do not know how much before the great sorrow this legend takes place but as it features a wyrm it means that this wyrm is either the Nameless one (which is not likely as we know when the nameless one first appeared he stayed in the South) or a new wrym which we have never met. We also know that "As the Spring Dragon mourned for her pearl, a most unnatural winter fell over the land". This makes me think that in the very ancient times when the balance was disrupted a diffrent wyrm was created (possibly from one of the eastern volcano's instead of the Dreadmount) stole the pearl which either caused a "unnatural winter" or coincided with the times that sterren was in power (which caused the "unnatural winter"). I think that this legend will play a large role in a future book (possibly the very ancient book with Siati the Dreamer).

4.) The "Melancholy King" for who the "desert of unquiet dream" is named, was affected by sterren not a desert mirage. The king first sees the mirage when he is in his palace which is in the middle of a city. In real life mirages only tend to happen when you are in the middle of a desert not when you are in a city environment. Because of this and the Kings steadfast belief that he is in fact in a dream makes me believe that he was seeing an illusion created by someone using sterren. I don't know who or why someone would do this though.

[dormanta036]

it's about half past three at night and I really want to rant about my characters and my... deviation from canon, let's call it that. how do you, guys, feel about anti-villains? in my potential future fanfic (or all least in my drawings) my nerevarine is anti-villain and antagonist for most part of story.

he forced the more worthy in his opinion candidate to mantle nerevar, while convinced everyone dagoth ur included that she is true incarnation, only for using her as a weapon agains temple when the sixth house will be done away with. the same sixth house to which he swore allegiance and for which, in fact, for most of the story, he works honestly. because he needs their resources to get rid of the empire and because he need influence the opinion of the sixth house regarding cooperation with camonna tong, convince that they are untrustworthy and aren't useful enough for being allies and should be replaced or better destroyed so they won't create a trouble.

in other words, his idealistic stubborn soul is determined to fight at all with everyone at once, using enemies and allies, pitting them against each other.

he has an idea of ​​​​an ideal world and, in an effort to create it, he deceived and betrayed everyone who was close enough to him and almost drove himself crazy. how so? he was tired of imperial corruption and lawlessness, angry with the slave-owning orders of morrowind, saw stagnation in the theocracy. in his eyes vvardenfell was a cup filled to the brim, from which all anger will soon overflow. instead of waiting for the catastrophe to happen, he decided to try to get it under control, direct it to the destruction of what should not be and try to hurt everything else as little as possible. but there will be destruction and shambles. this is the burden he will have to bear. he started and won the war, reduced the influence of the temple, hunt down and killed almost all of crime syndicate members, destroyed the heart... and burned down half the cities of vvardenfell in the process.

his "nerevarine project" results both of his denial about being incarnation and wish to stabilize chaos he created by beacon hero-figure, direct consequence of learning about mantling from his telvanni friend's rant. nerevarine himself was sure that he couldn't be that hero, cause of his deceit, hypocrisy and cruelty. and he already played a different role in this party. the hero would definitely not have to be either a sixth house spy in the house hlaalu or a master thief, if the latter was still acceptable, since the thieves guild had the potential to become something more worthy, then the former was not. at least not such a terrible combination. the hero must be convincing, not to achieve his goal by manipulation, threats and blackmail. it had to be someone more in line with the temple description of the nerevar. it has to be someone who won't hesitate to strike. definitely not him.

despite nerevarine's always existing plans of betrayal, was he really...devoted to dagoth ur in his own way? they ill relationship is a thing that I have no idea how to integrate into the narrative from the perspective of my protagonist. i will simply say that the plans of the nerevarine, somewhat distorted under the influence of the heart, included the death of the nerevarine himself at the hands of a false incarnation as part of the mantling of the nerevar by the false incarnation, and the nerevarine himself in this scheme, respectively, took the place of the voryn dagoth. that, provided that dagoth ur will be dead by this time and the nerevarine himself will die while mantling voryn dagoth it should make them the one. well, he wishes to believe it will

[skywitchmaja]

while her father torbjorn turned to drink to cope with the loss of friga shattershield, nilsine has evidently turned to tomatoes

[lebomboniere06]

✈️ Akaso Eiji (Umezo Takashi)

He is the son of the owners of okonomiyaki restaurant "Umezu" next to the Iwakura family, and is the same age as Mai. He is kind and sensitive. When he was young, he encountered poetry at the second-hand bookstore "Derashine" and became interested in creating "words." For Mai, he eventually becomes like an oasis in her heart.

Takashi is very gentle, and will not impose on others at all, and is the type that gets along well with everyone. Although he is a company employee, he is unwilling to be "ordinary" and feels doubt and the difficult of life. Even so, do not behave differently from others. Will cooperate with the surrounding environment, just because his heart is too clean so rather think life it's difficult because that.

Takashi's line, "When you say 'dried dog,' you mean me," left an impression on me. He has a great sense of coming up with the word “dried dog” as a word that fits his own feelings, and it is an impressive word that describes the character of Takashi

Because I have to face many things as my career as an actor, Takashi tries to use words to express his heart, if he have doubts ask questions from a different angle than other people , and when he will face himself directly, "Why now I'm feeling this way?", He will went to explore it. Reading books I can relate with these aspects. He seemed to understand what he heard from others, but in the end, he isn't satisfied unless he finds out or realize it himself .

Living in the noisy city, there will be times when you lose yourself. I can understand Takashi's desire to move to a place where all the five senses are stimulated, where's nothing but nature. In modern times, there are many people who have the same troubles as Takashi, Too much information, good and bad will come into view. on the surface you can overcome it with skills,but I don't think it's easy to live honestly with yourself. If there are people like this who can relate with the role of Takashi, I will be very happy.

In this work, you can emphasize with the Heroine moving forward step by step, and as well I think people can resonate with the family problems of the characters. As for me I want you to look at Takashi as well, It would be nice if he could be a support for Mai, support her behind her back, and become an oasis for the heart.

Adlib

By the way, the okonomiyaki of "Umezu's house" is super delicious. When I ordered the pork and egg flavor, ( butatama) the actress who plays as my mother said, "You always eat this," so after Kuwabata Rie san said this on adlib, I couldn't order any other flavors (laughs).

Recommended Points from the Editorial Department

Takashi's biggest point is his enveloping kindness and the soft smile he shows when he's with Mai was so healing just by looking at it. Also, a certain event triggers Takashi to break out of his shell. I'm excited to see that he's not only kind, but also more attractive as a person! ? Takashi, who was worried alone, decided to take a certain action. He is kind and considerate to everyone, but he suffers because of his kindness. And then he will take action... I can't take my eyes off how he changes from this mass of kindness!, Takashi will make your heart beat faster! ?😳

Kuwabata Rie san mentioned Eiji on part of her interview ⬇️

When filming begins, I treat Takashi, performed by Eiji Akaso, as if he were my real son. I also have three children, and I think of him as my eldest son when we talk. Something happened to Takashi, so I desperately hold back tears,I thought that I had controlled the strength and weakness in my own way, but I slapped his cheek with more force than I thought. but, Akaso-kun said, “its ok if you are a parent, so it’s really okay.” I'm glad I gave birth to him (laughs). For now on, I will continue to support Mai-chan and Takashi from the perspective of a parent as they work hard while worrying!

Question for Matayoshi Naoki san as

Yagi Iwao [Bookshop owner]

What are your memories?

"I was looking at the books while thinking that both the Kid Takashi and the young man Takashi are people who look good with books , Iwao Yagi doesn't seem to be good at socializing, but he can trust people who can build a trusting relationship with books. Takashi seemed to have a particularly strong attachment to Yagi, like a pupil & a master I'm looking forward to seeing how his relationship with Yagi will affect him.

Eiji Akaso san, who performs the role of Takashi, is also a charming person who looks very attractive(suits) with books."

Cc: Guide Book:小説 舞いあがれ! Part1 (1) (NHKドラマ・ガイド)

Eiji's cut from the Maiagare SP watch here.

[purrincess-chat]

So, I've had some time to sit with Gang of Secrets, and I know everyone in the fandom probably has their feelings about Alya finding out first, especially two episodes after she just told Luka she can't tell him, but let me tell you why Alya is the most obvious and best choice.

First of all, it's a commonly used trope in shows with secret identities that the hero's best friend finds out their identity first. Lots of other shows, comics, and books have done it, if fact early concepts for ML had Alya knowing from the beginning, so it's not really surprising that Marinette confided in her first. Alya was the first hero that Marinette picked, she is her best friend, she is arguably the person Marinette trusts most (save Chat Noir who we will talk about later). Marinette telling Alya makes sense whether you like it or not because of the role that Alya plays in the grand scheme of the story.

All stories utilize tropes. They're not a bad thing. Some of them are overdone, sure, but it's more about how you use them that matters. Most stories follow a certain formula so viewers/readers know what to expect, and yes, even stories with big twists follow the same structure. Telling the best friend from a storytelling perspective makes sense. Telling the alternate love interest who isn't crucial to the story doesn't.

Take off your shipping goggles for a second and look at things from a storytelling perspective. Remove everyone's names and forget how you feel about them, and just look at the character roles. You have a protagonist, a main love interest, a best friend, and a temporary side love interest. Who does the protagonist trust most in this circle in a normal story? Who learns the secret first? Writing is a balancing act. You have to choose which characters to develop wisely, and I'm not going to argue that ML is a golden standard of storytelling and writing. It's not. But telling a secondary love interest in this case would add a more important role to a character who really wasn't designed for that. That doesn't mean they can't still develop that character in other ways, but for a plot point of this caliber, the best friend takes priority over the love interests. Both of them. Because while the love interest can be a friend, a confidant, a shoulder to lean on, their primary function to the protagonist is romance. Meanwhile, a best friend can be all of those things and more. The best friend can be whatever the protagonist needs in the moment.

Now, let's look more closely at this specific situation. Marinette was spiralling. She couldn't keep up with both of her lives, and the stress was literally eating her alive. She just decided that she can't be in love with either of the boys she likes because she would always be keeping a secret from them. She was heartbroken, stressed, and exhausted. Yes, Chat Noir attempted to be there for her and support her as best he could, but the problem here is the role Chat Noir is playing. He is for lack of better terms, the superhero sidekick, but also still the love interest. (Even if LB doesn't know it) And in this case too, she knows Chat Noir is in love with her, and for a girl who has recently decided that love is off the table, you can see why she didn't want to confide in him. Would he have understood her stress if she told him? Sure. But revealing their identities to each other now would have been detrimental to Marinette, and here is why:

Marinette gave up on love for the time being. We, the audience, know that Chat Noir is Adrien, the boy she loves. For her to say, I can't be in love right now, only to turn around and find out that the person she was confiding in and leaning on for support was, in fact, her love interest, it would have made her spiral even worse. No where would have been safe for her. And you can argue what a good bean Adrien is, and whatever, that's not the point here.

Marinette takes her job as Ladybug very seriously. The reason she is so stressed is because now with the added responsibility of being the guardian, she risks losing not only her Miraculous, but also the entire Miracle Box. That's a lot of power in the wrong hands, and she knows that quite well. This caused her to lean on the side of hypervigilance. She was always transformed and looking for trouble because she was paranoid that she was going to miss something and fail again. With so much changing on the superhero side of her life, she needed an anchor back to her civilian life. So that's where Alya comes in.

Alya provides her with a sense of normalcy, a reminder that she has a life outside of the mask. She grounds her to her civilian life and provides her with support she needs to juggle her superhero life. (And yes, she still does this even if you hate her) On the opposite end of that spectrum, Chat Noir grounds her to her superhero life, and so much had changed for her on the superhero side of things with the introduction of her guardian duties that revealing her identity to Chat would have just been one more change to that part of her life with nothing to fall back on. By keeping their identities in place and giving her an anchor in her regular life, Marinette can find better balance between the two. Her secrets with Chat Noir are a constant, or a "normal" that she can use to ground herself. She is used to them, she expects them, it's part of her schema for her superhero life. She shows up, her goofy partner cracks some jokes, they beat up the bad guy, they go home. Chat Noir is playing his role perfectly in this sense. He offered to be there for her, but he wasn't who she needed at the time. The scale had tipped too far in her super life, so she needed something to tip it back toward her civilian life. So, we got Alya. Which makes logical sense given her role in the story. It's the role she was born to play. Whether you like it or not.

I know all the shippers are thirsty for content, trust me, I am adrinette trash, and I want the children to kiss each other on the face just as much as the next shipper. But I fundamentally understand why that can't happen right now in canon. And that's why fanfiction exists. I can make them kiss whenever I want. I can make them reveal whenever I want. I can write as many reveals as I want. Canon can only do it once, and idk about you guys, but I'd like their eventual reveal to be for a better reason than "I'm spiralling out of control please help." I'd also prefer for it not to be in a random ass episode in the middle of the season. I want it to have its moment. I want it to slap me and take my wallet, so I can tell it thank you. I want the reveal to be that bitch. Doing it here would have been cheap, and it would have cheapened the rest of the season for me. Now, if they wanna do it in the s4 finale when shit is getting lit? Sign me up. But right now, it wasn't the right call. And that's fine.

[blushing-titan]

My reasons to ship Erehisu

About two weeks ago, I got an anonymous ask that reads:

what made you ship erehisu? I don't ship anyone in the series (and defo not eremika lol) and I want to understand the reasons

...but when I tried to answer it on my app, it turned out that I can only post 10 pictures per post, so I decided to make a longer, regular one with my thoughts on this topic 😄 Erehisu remains one of my favorite ships in the series (...with the other ones being Yumi/hisu and Levi/han), so I really enjoy talking about it (...well, at least I did, before I started moving away from the series after that mess of a finale). Without further ado, my reasons to ship Erehisu are under the cut (just a quick warning: the pictures are obviously not mine, and there are some anti-eremika themes in this post).

They had an actual developement

As we know: in the beginning, Historia was pretending to be this good, selfless girl Krista. Later on, we learn that Eren was not particularly fond of her façade (...keep in mind he was the only person who noticed that she was acting off, too - obviously excluding Ymir, who was Historia's closest person and knew about her secret). As Historia chooses to embrace her identity and stop pretending, his opinion on her changes - he reassures her and appreciates the real Historia.

You’re just normal. Just a normal girl who’s absurdly honest. (Eren, ch. 54)

Eren...that day...the time you called me...normal. That made me really...happy. (Historia, ch. 65)

Later on, after Historia saves Eren in the Reiss cave, his thoughts on her change even further. There isn't just something that he likes about her anymore - instead, he starts to actually admire her strength and actions.

(ch. 68)

(ch. 70)

Even further on, he prioritizes her safety and hides an important piece of information that could help Paradis' cause - only because it could potentially put Historia in harm's way.

(ch. 89)

(ch. 90)

(ch. 106)

Keep in mind that there was a time skip in between these chapters, which means Eren kept this secret for years. He hid it even from Armin and Mikasa. After it's finally revealed, he strongly disagrees with, and fights against Historia becoming a titan for the sake of the island. Eren’s sentiment towards Historia is even noticed by Hanji on a few different occasions - it’s something that Hanji brings up while questioning him, later on.

(ch. 107)

Eren also meets Historia in secret, warns her of danger, and downright doesn't let her sacrifice herself - even when she assures him that she's ready to do it. 

(ch. 130)

She's also one of the only people with whom he shares the information about the rumbling. He also brings up her own words that she said to him back in the Reiss cave.

(ch. 130)

I believe he doesn't fight for her just because she's one of his friends. It's a natural progression that comes from the shared experience they had in the Reiss cave. Eren got to know and appreciate the real Historia, so whenever she reverts back to the Krista persona, he's there to remind her that she should live for herself and don't let others use her - just like Ymir told her, and just like Historia told him in the Reiss cave. When Eren stands up for Historia in ch. 107 and blatantly refuses to let her get sacrificed, she's actually touched to the point of tearing up.

Their relationship changes and deepens with time, and it's actually shown in the manga - not just as symbols or small hints, but actual, full-fledged conversations/actions. In my opinion, this should be the base of any well-estabilished ship. We have quite a few one-on-one moments with these two that illustrate this progression. There are also panels in which we can peak into Eren's thoughts on Historia, which makes for an unfiltered source of his opinions on her.

They can relate to each other

Something I find really important as well is that Eren and Historia can find each other very relatable, and therefore - understand each other's struggles better.

Both were used by their fathers, and both caused their demise. Both were fiercely protected by someone. Both felt like the world would be better without them, at some point. Both had a big role to play, despite having doubts if they can do it right (Eren, being humanity's titan; Historia, being the queen). Both wanted to sacrifice themselves for their people's sake - and both intervened, saving each other from actually going through with this decision.

Their relationship is well-balanced

Eren and Historia don't clash when it comes to their personalities. As their relationship grows, they mutually admire, protect and motivate each other, while still remaining two separate characters - with their own goals and traits. They freely talk to each other about their struggles; they also care about each other’s actual feelings on them.

(ch. 54)

(ch. 70)

I can easily see them as partners, which is something I've always had troubles with when it comes to EM. It's just hard not to make this comparison, since Mikasa's character has always been pretty much fully centered around Eren, which - in my eyes - made their relationship look unbalanced and toxic. I've already spoke about my issues with EM in depth in this post, so I won't elongate this one with repeating the same arguments - still, one of the reasons I started shipping Erehisu in the first place is the fact that I immediately saw it as a much more normal, healthy, and well-balanced alternative to EM.

Parallels and relevance to the story’s themes

Parallels are something that, for some reason, make a lot of people mad. I have no idea why - these things appear in the manga, so why not talk about them?

Aside from parallels between Eren and Historia (...please, keep in mind that I didn’t list all of them in this post), there are also a lot of obvious parallels between Historia and the founder Ymir - to the point, when the entire Requiem der Morgenröte ending revolves around this theme:

I've also already spoke about how Ymir/Historia parallels could possibly be tied to Eren in this answer.

(Historia on the cover of vol. 16/Ymir in ch. 122)

Aside from that, there are a few subtle Grisha/Dina and Eren/Historia parallels, as well. Historia is a royal, hiding as a regular person - just like Dina did, before joining the revivalists. Dina also tears up when Grisha stands up for Eldians, just like Historia does when Eren stands up for her.

(ch. 68)

(ch. 86)

(ch. 67)

(ch. 86)

(ch. 56)

(ch. 86)

(ch. 107)

(ch. 86)

Quite interestingly, in a lot of these parallels Historia and Eren act in an opposite way as to previous generations. While Frida teaches Historia to be a good, selfless girl, Historia ends up abandoning this persona to save herself and Eren in the Reiss cave. She doesn’t want to devote herself to fate - instead, she’s prepared for a showdown with it. While the founder Ymir’s children are ordered to eat their own mother to ensure her power’s succession (...and a few hundred years later, Grisha fights to return the founder’s power back to his wife - Dina), Eren does everything he can to ensure Historia and her children are safe and never even titanised in the first place. 

As the story unfolds, we learn about it’s leading themes - some of which are: oppression and fighting for freedom, desire to change history, the mechanism of circle of hate, and how it affects children who are a part of it. In my eyes, Erehisu just perfectly fit with these themes, especially considering how later on Historia’s pregnancy was handled in the manga.

There were countless ways to answer the who’s the father question? immediately, without even starting up conversation about it - for example, I don’t understand why it was needed to bring up the fact that Historia didn’t marry the farmer in the first place. What was it’s purpose, aside from stirring up theories - especially considering how in the last chapter it’s revealed that they are married, after all? Why end up the Eren/Historia flashback on the What do you think about me having a child? question, when the whole conversation they had beforehand was literally about Eren disagreeing with Historia wanting to get pregnant just to save herself? It doesn’t make sense, and led me (and many other readers - judging from opinions I read online and chapter reactions on youtube) to belive that there were other reasons, and that there was more to this conversation then was initially shown.

If the conclusion to this plotline was always supposed to be that she got pregnant just to save herself...then what was this mysterious built-up for? Why show this conversation in the first place, and in such a weird manner, too? Why not have Historia just say it out loud in ch. 130: yes, I got pregnant to save myself in the beginning, and spare us this whole I will not allow it talk...you know, instead of ending the conversation on the What do you think about me having a child? when the whole previous talk was about Eren fighting against it? Where’s the logic?

The truth is - from my perspective, Erehisu had a lot of logical build up that would benefit the story, and stay true to it’s already established themes and both characters’ previous developement. On top of that, I also think they simply had great chemistry.

That’s all from me today 😄 I apologize you had to wait so long for this, anon...life got in the way, and as I said - I think I’m just getting over this series. Hope you’re doing well anyway 😊

[just2bubbly]

Sometimes Love Stays

Masterlist

TLC Ship Week 2021!

*written for tlcshipweek2021- kaider for the prompt 'In another life'

@kaiderforever

Summary

"Hmm.."

"Do you?"

"Wish you happiness? Yeah, Kai, I do- with all my heart."

"I wish you were happiness!"

Sometimes love becomes stronger overcoming the obstacles thrown along your path, but when the obstacles never end and you become tired enough to want to stop, will 'Love' help overcome the new problem or would it be succumbed to obstacle?

When their future doesn't play out as they want to, will they dare to take a chance or lose everything without trying?

Reading an article, Cinder is thrown back into the past, trying to figure out if the choices she made were right.

A look at Kai and Cinder's relationship through newspaper article fragments.

--

Ship: Kaider

Words: 3.2k

Genre: Angst

Prompt: 'In Another Life'

Note: A Canon Divergence AU from Winter- major character/ relationship reflection. Bold contexts are newspaper articles!

Cinder's Perspective:

"Sometimes love stays."

The article read and Cinder could not bring it upon herself to understand the implications of those three words. She considered it was the most preposterous sentence to start a piece of news informing about a break-up. Her mind could only fathom that a hopeless romantic had written this article, one who most certainly believed in unrequited love and stuff- That she could be sure from the very first line. "Many times love seems to not reside in a relationship as the lovers struggle to continue to live together after years of togetherness, but this does not appear to be the case in the infamous royal courtship that lasted for over 10 years but was suddenly called off 2 years ago- Yes, we are talking about no one but The Emperor of Eastern Commonwealth and The Queen of Luna- " Cinder seemed to convince herself that she was only reading it because it was the most trending news on Earth. Yet it was no new news to her or even anyone on Earth and the saint forsaken rock Luna as well. The article had become famous only for its illustrating language and artistic words that seemed to give the entire ordeal a new look. Hence, after having ignored, overlooked and unseen the article, its rumours and the stink eye that her aristocrats sent along her way. She finally decided to read it and fucking get over it- just like she got over him. It was fucking simple until it was not. "The infamous break-up of The Emperor of EC and the Queen of Luna happens to be no news to us. It has been two years since the two royals called off their relationship in the name of diplomatic and personal reasons. However, it appears that the years apart have done no good to their awkward and unresolved heartfelt tension." She wondered which newbie journalist had decided to write about this- about them, the two lovers madly in love with each other, stubborn enough to put others above themselves and naive enough to let it all go. She could feel her body going stiff as she tried to muster up the courage to continue reading. Her mind going numb just like it always did when thoughts of Kai resurfaced. The memories and the murmurs, their banters, his adoration all seemed to drown her with misery- one where she could not shed a single tear but only carry the overwhelming weight of the past of what they had- of what they had lost. It had been good- going at first with the frequent comms in their free time, flying kisses from literally two different worlds, exchanging gifts thanks to the Rampion, jumping at the first chance to meet each other. They were happy and yet they were not. With near to 10 years into being the Queen of Luna, she had thought that maybe she had given her bit to the moon, and now she could step down from her role and convert Luna into a republican state. She had planned her future, their future, the future of thousands of people and had acted accordingly to liberate Luna from the clutches of a single person, forgetting about what the people would have to say about it? Apparently, Lunars loved royalty more than equal representation! Consequently, when she had put the matters of 'abolition of monarchy' to vote she had been made a fool in her own court with the outcome - her vote against all of them. When she had demanded an explanation out of Iko for such a bizarre scenario. She had acknowledged, "They seem to like you as their Queen. It is clear they don't want you to step down!?" "But what about equal representation?" "Cinder you are already giving it to them!" "And what about the aristocrats- Don't they want more say in the administration?" "They do want it but not with the responsibility. Thus they have started preaching about royalty and stuff..." she trailed. Dumbstruck, she had thought how can one gift someone freedom when they don't want it? That's where things started looking down. This made all her plans go downhill. Because hadn't she planned that she would step down, abolish the monarchy and turn it into a Republican government? Hadn't she decided she would be free to live her own life on Earth?

Hadn't she wondered how she would travel with Thorne on Rampion- be truly free for once in her life before having to settle down? Before having to go to New Beijing.

Hadn't they planned that they would stay together- and with every passing day weren't they coming near to achieving their intention to constantly stay together and make up for all the physical affection they had been deprived of over the years? Wasn't it what their future was going to be off? With this new hurdle, plans had to be changed and when she had mentioned this to Kai, he was grief-stricken. Even then, they came up with alternatives, for at that time it was clear- they wanted to spend the rest of their together. They had discussed spending their time between Earth and Luna, tackling the barriers of distance and royalty. It's not like they did not try, it's just that every time they strived harder to stay together- fate made it impossible to. A year later, the realization dawned upon her. It had really taken a long time but it had finally crashed- the full reality of their long-distance engagement relationship, that maybe it was taking a toll on them. That maybe they would not survive through all the distance separating them. She had been avoiding thinking about it lately but she knew even if they tried it was not going to work out, that sooner or later they would have to call it off. 'Call what off?' She had asked herself, wondering how things were going to change. 'All of it' a tiny voice in her mind replied. The engagement, the relationship. Everything. That night she decided against comming Kai, instead, she confronted Iko speaking of her troubling thoughts aloud and from the dark blue, somewhat grey colours of her eyes, Cinder understood how truly sorry she was.

She sat in the arms of Iko, wanting to whine, yell and cry. However, the cruel fate left her with a throbbing sensation in her head and an itchy feeling in the throat. She wanted to see Kai, but she had not the heart to tell him the truth. She presumed he already knew what was troubling her- troubling them. She had not the courage to see the sorrow on his face, so she pretended that everything was fine even when it was not. She smiled and teased him at all the opportunities she could possibly get knowing very well that one day that they would have to stop. One day he would have someone else do that to him. Therefore the next time she had gone on Earth she had confessed it to him. He had listened patiently without a word and had calmly accepted it. The unforgettable silence that followed would haunt Cinder forever. She thought they had fooled themselves enough trying to make the impossible happen, justifying their actions as a result of love. In the end, he had sighed, tears reflecting in his copper-brown orbs and croaked, "I guess this is the end?" She had nodded failing to meet his eyes. "Sorry, Kai", she had uttered, feeling every ounce guilty and sorrowful. They had stood like that for a long time, feet shuffling- gazes never meeting each other until he was called. He did not shed a single tear before her. On her last night at the Palace, she felt a sort of Deja-Vu for all the things around her. Her thoughts roamed around only a single thing- 'After today, this place would no longer be home'. He had come to her room that night and once they had gotten over the awkward small talk of the breakup, he had launched at her and hugged her till her bones crushed. "I love you," he whimpered. "Don't forget it- don't forget it, Cinder. Even when you go to that fucking rock in the sky." And Cinder could feel something warm- not inside her but on her shoulders.

Kai's tears had been falling on her shoulders and she had chanted sorry all the time they stayed like that.

'What do you do to calm two heartbroken souls?'

He was in her arms hearing her speak, though her words were not soothing, they did not reduce his grief like they ought to. They were bitter truth of their future, their fate. They were apologies for what they had lost. Her words were not comforting. She was not going to tell him how they will be fine when she knew they would not. There was no point lying- telling him nicely painted lies of their future when their present was broken like that. She had no idea how but they fell asleep together, a mess of tumbled limbs on the carpet for the last time. And when the streaks of sunlight fell over their sleeping forms, it was not out of hope.

"It seems that it's over for the two royals, one of them the Queen of Luna and the other The Emperor of Eastern Commonwealth. Queen Selene, 26 and Emperor Kaito, 28 called off their relationship yesterday. Emperor Kaito in his latest press speech stated that "Myself and Queen Selene are no longer together- we have parted ways on good terms. However, we are no longer involved," when one of the reporters asked if there was any wedding to be expected soon. The Queen of Luna also addressed this in one of her official posts, saying "It's been great 10 years with Kai but we can no longer stay together," with a bittersweet smile. The two refuse to brief about this. It just seems like just yesterday they were THE happier and attractive couple dancing at the Annual Peace Ball and -well now they are not, we are sure their fans all around must be heartbroken but worry not you can catch up on their relationship through the years-" Two months later, they formally announced their break-up. They called off everything- all of it just like she had thought. The world did not know- they did not know how Kai had gone down on his knees and she had said yes before he could even ask. How she had pieces of her never- going to happen wedding vows drafted somewhere in her brain. It was only them, Torin, Iko and their friends who knew the disaster of grief they had unrolled in their life. He had refused to take the ring back, "Keep it to remember me by." He had insisted and she had not-so jokingly replied, "I don't need jewels to remember you by." Returning to Luna had been the harder task, She-They had cut off all ties except maybe friendship (?) but things were going to be different- they are different.

It felt hollow for months later, she drowned herself in work to forget about the messy-haired boy, to forget that there was no one waiting for her comms now, that she did not have someone to whisper 'I love you's too', to kiss him and be found by someone, no reason for Thorne to shout 'Get a room.'

She had for the first few days been hopeless- locking herself up, both metaphorically and literally only to realize that Kai had been an integral part of her daily schedule and world even from thousands of miles away. The breaks that she once looked forward too, taunted her of what she had lost- so she was hell-bent on working the day without breaks. She forced her mind to not stray around to the boy on Earth. The only moment she had let her guard down was when Thorne was visiting- because he was her BFF and wasn't he the one who teased her all along about Kai and his heavenly copper-brown eyes? Wasn't he going to be her rock where she had lost her anchor? At the sight of his friend's dark circles, thinner than the usual frame, Thorne and Cress had bear-hugged her and the only thing that she felt was it felt good to be embraced by someone other than Iko. 'I'm so sorry, Cinder', Thorne had said and she had croaked, "Don't be sorry." She had cracked that day.

"I DON'T WANT PITY THORNE, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR HOW PEOPLE THOUGHT WE WOULD GET MARRIED AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. I DON'T WANT THE MEDIA TO TELL ME HOW WE LOOKED GOOD TOGETHER. I FUCKING HATE LUNARS TELLING ME THAT THEY HOPE I FEEL BETTER. AM I NOT IN THIS CONDITION BECAUSE THEY CHOOSE TO BE SELFISH? THORNE, I WANT TO CRY AND MY STUPID CYBERNETICS WOULD NOT EVEN ALLOW BE TO CRY FOR MY EX-FIANCEE." She might have been a bit tipsy to blow up like that but she was past caring. She had been pretending that everything was fine while she was falling apart inside. "What sort of cruel joke is this? Haven't I already endured enough? I don't want anyone's fucking apologies. I don't want that crap, I- I want K-Kai."

She yelled as her face echoed pain. "Do I not deserve love, Thorne?" She had demanded, looking very vulnerable. She never said a word after that. The next big blow came when she had attended the world leader summit. Thankfully, it was a virtual thing or she could not have gone through the entire ceremony without a mental breakdown. She had felt the air knock out of her lungs at the sight of Kai after six whole months. He looked paler than normal, his always messed up hair looked neatly fixed in place with layers of hair gel. And his ever blinding grin present at even stupid meetings like this was now merely his lips pressed together in a thin line.

How was Kai who was her joy in human form suddenly became the picture of grief? She wondered how she looked to him if even he was out of breath at the sight of her- realizing how she was drifting away from the main reason she was attending the summit, she forced herself to look at anywhere but him. That night she slept thinking about how she was not the only one suffering. "-The Emperor of EC starts a new journey in his life at 30. However, there are no wedding bells in the air as of now, making the world and the EC anticipate the future of their Emperor and their nation. At 30, the Emperor not committed to anyone nor having any living heir had caused multiple questions to be unanswered about the legacy after him. Hopefully, he will find his partner to secure their future until then we wish him a Very Happy Birthday!" Marriage. Wedding. Love. Hadn't it been what they had lost? She knew this was going to happen. Then why did she feel like drowning all over again? Why did her heart shatter yet again? He was no longer hers to worry about...Was he even part of her world anymore? She knew it very well that he was supposed to marry someone. He must marry someone and have an heir to the Commonwealth. Cinder was asked to do the very same thing. They were monarchs who had to keep their legacies alive. The next time she was invited for the Annual Peace Ball, Kai had cornered and said, "They want me to get married." "Tell me you are saying this because you want the ring back." She had jokingly said, swallowing the sadness and jealously that threatened to submerge her. Her mind asked if he would go down on his knees at the Ball just like he had done for Levana. But that was just her stupidity, misery and desperation mixed together. How was her tyrant aunt going to manage her marriage with Kai by living on Luna along with her sinister motives?! "Cinder" "Kai", she pleaded, underlying the please without saying it. She averted her eyes and nonchalantly asked," Have someone in mind?" "No", he replied without a beat, making her at ease but what he said next crushed her healing heart again. "But I have someone in my heart." She could not stand around him without wanting to kiss him senseless. Therefore, she said, "I wish you happiness, Kai." And tried to walk away until he questioned, "Do you?" "Hmm.." she replied, looking back at him. "Do you?" He repeated. "Wish you happiness? Yeah, Kai, I do- with all my heart." "I wish you were happiness!" Looking at his lean frame dressed in the colours of EC she dared to speak, "I wish that too." She had not returned after that episode but maybe she would have to. Soon. "The Emperor has been sighted with Chen Daiyu, daughter of Chen Zian, the Chief Commandant of Light Chariot, she is an activist working towards the liberation of perils faced by cyborgs in modern society, along with being a psychotherapist by service. It's not the first time that they have been seen together making people hope that it's not the last. There are rumours about their courting with no confirmation from any one of the two-It appears the Emperor has finally moved on from his last date with Queen Selene. Only time will tell if the Emperor has found his Empress or not." She could not blame anyone. They were just pressing time trying to avoid some inescapable future- yet why did her mind ask if he had learned Chen Daiyu's favourite flowers? or Did he hold her as he had held her once? Wondered if he explained to her why there was a cyborg's foot in his room? She was cursing goddamn every star because it was not just him but even she was looking into suitors!? She had gone on dates with a few, noticing how one of them grinned like Kai with a dimple on his left cheek, how someone scratched their necks when they were flustered or how some of them had a struggle keeping their hair in place- without wanting to she was searching for Kai everywhere in them. None of the two was married yet. It was okay to imagine about him for a while. It was okay for grief to overwhelm her. Maybe that's what she needed to

move on from her past.

Had they moved on? Had they stopped loving each other? 'NO!'- she shook her head violently to no one in particular.

She loved him even now. There will always be some part of her mind that will love him. Maybe it was treasuring their memories while making new ones. Two years later reading an article about them, she thought if maybe she had tried harder, would they be together? Alas, there was no point fantasizing when both time and distance had separated them? Could they start from where they had left? Or would they be two broken pieces no longer fitting?

"Sometimes love stays," The article read again. "But lover's don't." Maybe if distance, time and qualms of royalty were not preventing them then things could have been different, their lives could have been different. Perhaps in a life with different circumstances, they would have been together unlike this one- where they had briefly touched, in another life possibly their tale could have had a happy ending. Maybe if she was Cinder and not Queen Selene Channary Jannali Blackburn of Luna, and if he was just Kai and not Emperor Kaito of the Eastern Commonwealth then they would have made it till the end.

But they were not and that's what mattered. __

A/N: We are done! :)

I know you would likely want to hit me right now since I promised certain someone that there would be no angsty fics for at least a few months and yet HERE I AM!

I have kinda portrayed Iko in this really bad, so sorry about that! And you have no idea how much frustrated I was that Cinder could not cry, like crying is such a essential part of human behavior and having to describe her grief without tears was certainly a challenge. I hope I did her character well- You guys have no idea how much break-up articles I have read just to get the news articles right. I might as well do a course on journalism later ;)

Was that a bit too much angst? and yeah in this fic they are secretly engaged!

This was written for the TLC Ship Week, the word prompt for this one was 'In Another Life'. However, I had already planned it beforehand with no idea of  how the ship-week was going to give me the perfect opportunity to post this. I know I'm cruel right?

This idea had been going a lot in my mind since I made @salt-warrior write her fic 'Anyone Else', and read the fic 'After' on AO3, along with 'Once' by @/betaluz. I just thought that maybe Cinder failed to get past the boundaries of royalty on Luna and converting it into a Republican, wondering if that happened what would happen to her relationship with Kai. Hence, this sudden angsty take.

Tell me which is your favorite part from this?

And don't worry I have more angst lined up for you! <3

Taglist: @cinderswrench @gingerale2017 @linhcinder686 @shellyseashell @ladyvesuvia @shelbylmkaider @levanariddle @cindersassasin @kaider-is-my-otp (Tell me if you wanna be added/removed)

[heloisedaphnebrightmore]

Sirius Black Masterlist by Heloise Daphne Brightmore

Harry Potter Characters Masterlist | Masterlists 

All the fics are in alphabetical order, for the newest fics, please head to Recently Posted.

If you enjoy my stories, please consider donating and supporting me on Ko-fi. <3

Sirius Black imagines/blurbs

[A] Alive [0.3k words]

Sirius gets injured and regardless of his reassuring touch, you find it hard to process that he’s alright.

[U] Unbroken promise [0.9k words]

Sirius promises a breath-taking date, only to leave you waiting. When Remus arrives, your heart realises before your brain does that something might not be right.

Sirius Black one shots

[A] A haunted night [1.7k words]

Sirius has been battling with his nightmares, but he decides to fight them alone, fearing to share his weaknesses with you. That is until you can't stand his pained whimpers echoing across the corridor anymore.

Absurd ideas [4.7k words]

Sirius’ jealousy causes a misunderstanding which inevitably ends up with him getting worked up and everyone else being confused. Most of all you, when you realise he thinks he knows what you feel, but he couldn’t be farther from the truth.

All your fault [1.9k words]

Sirius’ boredom causes you to end up in detention. Or so you think, but he has a different perspective on the events and you clearly can’t find the golden middle.

Alone? Together! [1.5k words]

The war has taken a toll on everyone and Sirius finds himself useless whilst hiding at Grimmauld Place. His own thoughts are eating him up, wanting to be reckless, but not daring to lose those he loves. When you arrive to sooth his worries, your strength reassures him that he is not alone, that whatever happens, you can face it together.

An unrefusable offer [3.2k words]

Sirius has been trying to get you to go out with him for the longest of time, but you can’t accept his interest in you. Will his cunning little plan change your mind at Lily and James’ wedding or will it end in a disaster?

[B] Be my (fake) girlfriend [4.8k words]

Sirius is fed up of girls throwing themselves at him, so he asks you to be his fake girlfriend, but you seem to enjoy the fake relationship more than you were supposed to.

Best Christmas Present [3.1k words]

Sirius goes back to you after he has escaped Azkaban. But when he finds you with a son, he wants nothing but to escape the heartbreak, not even listening to your explanation.

Beyond Friendship [8.3k words]

To get back at your good-for-nothing ex-boyfriend, you ask Sirius to help you out and pretend to be your new boyfriend, which seems to agitate your ex just as you expected. However, you couldn't have anticipated how Sirius’ infuriating presence could actually turn out to be not only fun, but almost essential.

Bitter Past [3.8k words]

Sirius has been relentlessly asking you out on dates, when you finally agreed, but in your mind it’s all about revenge.

Bundle of joy [1.4k words]

Part of the series What they call home, but can be read separately. When you realise there’s a little baby growing in your belly, it terrifies you. Both you and Sirius had a rough childhood and now that there’s a new life inside you, your ability to raise a child concerns you, especially as you’re in the middle of a war.

Busted [4k words] [18+]

You and Sirius have always been close, but in the last year you have been even more involved with each other. However you didn’t want others to know about it, so you kept it a secret. Up until you both made a mistake.

[C] Christmas lie [1.8k words]

Your relationship with your parents has never been a good one, therefore they plan to spend Christmas without you. But you don’t want Sirius to spend it with you either, knowing he would have a better time with his friends. So you decide to lie.

Cookies [1.6k words]

You always loved to bake, so spending time in Hogwarts’ kitchen has become a daily activity of yours. This time however Sirius joins you and he has other ideas beside tasting your delicious cookies.

Crimes of jealousy [3.8k words]

Sirius becomes jealous when he hears that you agreed to go on a date with a fellow Gryffindor and he decides to do something about it.

Cuddles [1.1k words]

Sirius and you are cuddled up in a bed, enjoying a warm, sunny morning with a couple of sweet confessions.

[D] Damned words [2k words]

Friends. And a bit more of the benefits. That's what you and Sirius were to each other. Until he uttered those damned words maybe in the heat of the moment, maybe as a result of the amount of alcohol he consumed. Either way, you should have escaped.

Degrading feelings [1.8k words]

James thinks his friendship is more important than your relationship with Sirius so you and Lily decide to take revenge

Distant friend [3.8k words]

When rumours start about you and your housemate, Sirius decides to keep a distance from you, which you do not take well.

Do you mind? [1.9k words]

You think you know better what Sirius would say and when you actually do, Sirius ends up speechless. However, what you don’t know is what Sirius would do.

Don’t play games with me! [2.5k words]

Having a crush on Sirius was as normal as the sun coming up every day, but as a friend of his, you tried to keep it a secret. But then James decides to get involved and corners you in an uncomfortable conversation.

[F] Fear of prejudice [2.2k words]

You didn’t find being a barista a particularly attractive career, but when Sirius takes on the role, it stirs up some unexpected feelings inside you. However the reason behind your newfound interest isn’t in his occupation, but something that you dare not to voice, ashamed of your sinful thoughts.

Feelings [1.2k words]

You have been having all sorts of feelings, causing your head to become a mess. Sirius, being a sweet boyfriend stays by your side.

Fluffy supporter [2k words]

You have been in need of a support animal since first year, but unfortunately your puppy couldn’t accompany you at the start of year. Padfoot comes along to help you out, without you knowing that the dog is actually your boyfriend.

[G] Gentle Seduction [3.5k words]

You are more than aware of Sirius’ feelings towards you, but he doesn’t seem to want to take the first step. You decide to force him to realise he has no other options.

Go on a date with me! [3.6k words]

You have had enough of craving for Sirius’ attention so you decide to take the first step. Things however might not turn out to be so great.

[I] I missed you [1k words]

Sirius is missing you, his girlfriend, and James finds the situation rather entertaining. It seems James and you are on the same wavelength when it comes to Sirius being a love-sick puppy.

Interest in you [3.2k words]

You have been interested in Sirius for years, but you didn’t want to date him. It has been bugging him to no end, leaving you annoyed.

[M] Make me [3k words]

Sirius is unable to shut up and you are at a tipping point. Even after being kindly asked to shut up for a mere second, Sirius doesn’t take your request seriously.

Memories of a Pensieve [3.4k words]

Your friends have been tired of you and Sirius dancing around each other so they show you what they see on a daily basis to convince you.

Misunderstood feelings [4.1k words]

Being Sirius Black’s girlfriend had its pros and cons, but unfortunately you could only see what was missing recently.

[N] Not so perfect [1.6k words]

Sirius is the perfect son. Captain of his quidditch team, Headboy of Slytherin, dashingly handsome with perfect grades and proud parents. Expect that he has fallen for a Muggleborn Gryffindor.

[R] Relying on [2.5k words]

You are not sure if you can rely on your friends anymore, the continuous bullying and harassment, the mean words playing in your head over and over again, almost pushing you too far from them. [Platonic]

[S] Second chance [2.4k words]

Sirius has been distant and rude, eventually breaking your friendship. He is angry, you are hurt, both of you pulling away even further. That is until James and Remus decide to meddle.

Space that he already had [5.3k words]

Your boyfriend, Sirius has been more distant than ever and he doesn’t even realise it even when you confront him.

[T] Teacher’s pet [5.3k words]

Sirius being your teacher meant he was someone you could never have. You are struggling with your feelings and how ethically wrong what you feel is, even though he is only 5 years older.

Truth behind the Polyjuice [2.3k words] 

The marauders decide to take your love life into their hands, but things turn out badly, leaving you full of anger towards them.

Truth or Dare [4.5k words]

You and your friends are bored so you start playing a little Truth or Dare, but it doesn’t necessarily go as planned. Or does it?

[U] Unexpected expectancy [3.4k words]

You and Sirius have never talked about having a family on your own. When you become pregnant, you panic and don’t know what to do.

Unforeseen mission [5.8k words]

You have always thought Sirius cheated on you back in Hogwarts, so you avoided him. But then Dumbledore decides to send you on a mission together and you accidentally agree.

Unprotected experience [3.1k words]

A couple of nights of fun left you sick and vulnerable. When you finally realise the cause of your sickness, you do not know what to do.

[Y] Your decision, yours only [1.7k words]

Sirius is having trouble with his family and you are trying to be there for him.

Sirius Black headcanons

[M] Movie genres [0.2k words]

What movie genres Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and James Potter like.

[P] Pets they brought to Hogwarts [0.4k words]

What kind of pets Sirius Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew and Regulus Black brought to Hogwarts in their first year. 

Sirius Black mini series 

[F] Facade pt. 1|2 [1.1k words] Facade pt. 2|2 [1.1k words]

You have been silently suffering pretending to be someone else, but noone can see the real you.

[H] Hot stuff pt. 1|2 [6k words] Hot stuff pt. 2|2 [4.2k words]

University is causing you a great deal of stress, you are couped up in your room, having your own cave. That is until your friends decide they have had enough and drag you away from your studies for a night out. But when your eyes meet a familiar face, one that you thought you would never see again, you find yourself once again captured by him, the reasonable part of your brain betraying you.

[L] Like a dream pt. 1|2 [3.4k words] Like a dream pt. 2|2 [2.9k words]

Sirius and you were supposed to be enemies, but your crush on him might not be as unrequited as you thought.

Lesson from a Prefect pt. 1|2 [4.6k words] Lesson from a Prefect pt. 2|2 [4.4k words]

Being a prefect meant you didn’t have a good relationship with the Marauders. However Sirius takes an interest in you after you give him a piece of your mind. You are tricked into going on a date with Sirius and you are dreading every moment of it, but he turns out to be more than a lost because.

Love in the Order pt. 1|2 [3.3k words] Love in the Order pt. 2|2 [3.3k words]

Finally finishing your mission you return to the Order’s headquarter as per Dumbledore’s request, where you run into Sirius Black, the man you have been craving to see. Feeling the happiness of being reunited doesn’t last long, you have to part ways with Sirius to attend to another dangerous mission, but things don’t turn out the way you have planned.

[T] Teach me how to kiss pt. 1|2 [3.7k words] Teach me how to kiss pt. 2|2 [3.7k words]

You have asked your crush out on a date, but you never dated before. You ask your best friend, Sirius to teach you on the physical part of dating, which he reluctantly agrees to. You realise that you have caught feelings for him, but knowing he would never return your feelings is beyond painful. 

[U] Useless warning pt. 1|2 [3.9k words] Useless warning pt. 2|2 [3.5k words] 

Sirius is one of your best friends who happens to be dating Marlene. She isn’t particularly a good friend of yours, but you do get along. She agrees to go out with Sirius, all the while she is aware of your feelings. Things get complicated as you are unable to keep your feelings to yourself anymore.

Sirius Black series

[W] What they call home [14.3k words]

You’re in need of protection and Albus is ready to give it to you after years of help you have been providing the Order with. However your presence is not welcomed, especially by Sirius Black himself as you already have history behind you. However Sirius agrees to the wizard’s wishes, which forces you to be trapped in the same household. [Completed]

© All rights reserved ® in regards to my characters, their behaviours and personality. I, however do not own the rights to the gifs and photos presented in the chapters, unless stated otherwise and any of the characters and story line matching the original script by J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros.

[imaginariaextraordinaire]

Episode 8 is one hella packed episode and it is an absolute joy to unpack it, beginning with this:

Clever, clever idea to have Ji-Woo repeat the line that Mi-Joo just said to indicate Ji-Woo is taking charge of things as far as Assemblyman Ki is concerned. It's also a good reminder of how tone and intent can change the meaning of a sentence even if the words are exactly the same (which is why we need good translators).

Seeing Mi-Joo stride across the screen with Seon-Gyeom behind her, it struck me that we've seen a variation of this many times before, beginning with the credit titles. While Seon-Gyeom is the sprinter, the one we see constantly trying to up the pace and charge ahead is Mi-Joo. She's always intent on moving ahead faster — perhaps to outrun the past that she finally makes peace with during the marathon? — while Seon-Gyeom moves at a slower pace, disentangling himself from the constraints of his troubled past and troubling father. The only one time we see him race ahead (in episode 2), we also see him come back and slow down.

What I particularly love about Park Shi-Hyun's writing is that in addition to all the layers and complexity she's written into the scenes and characters, she's also written a very, very funny show.

Both Shin Se-Kyung and Kang Tae-Oh do such a fantastic job with both the physical humour (without being over-the-top) and the timing that's needed to play up the wit in the dialogues. Not that Siwan and Soo-Young do a bad job — the scene in which Dan-Ah proposes to Seon-Gyeom is hilarious. My favourite is still May, who is very funny throughout this episode (the shot in which we learn she sleeps with her eyes open! GOLD).

The transitions in this episode are so well written. The insights from one scene ricochet off the next. For example, Dan-Ah in the scene at the bar — where she tells the bartender she can't risk keeping the book in her own study because she can't risk people guessing she has anxieties — gives us a look at the problems of the privileged. This is followed by a scene in which Yeong-Hwa and Mi-Joo discuss student debts, which is a relatable middle-class problem. This in turn is followed by Tae-Woong saying that he takes selfies because he's addicted to the validation he gets from the likes each of those photos gets him — a Gen Z problem. And so it is that we get a spectrum of problems that people face and hide behind performative façades.

The likes that Tae-Woong talks about pop up with manic frenzy at the end of the heartbreaking scene with Dan-Ah in the parking lot, presenting the viewer with a terrible contrast — driving away from him is the love and acceptance that he yearns for from a sister who (he hopes) knows him. All he has to hold on to is the superficial attention of the love professed by a fandom that doesn't really know him at all. Soo-Young's performance is fantastic in this scene, especially when she asks in a voice tinged with desperation why Tae-Woong keeps coming back to her despite her treating him so badly. For the first time, you realise how much it takes out of her to lash out at this desperately-sad boy. "It takes effort to hate someone," Tae-Woong tells her. My heart!

Another fantastic set of transitions comes later on in the episode, when Mi-Joo and May are unwinding at the end of a long day at the film shoot.

This is such a great example of writing inter-generational female friendships. When May remembers not being paid for working overtime, it's an acknowledgement that things are better for working women (especially in film) than it was before, but as Mi-Joo's experiences show, there's still a lot to be done because women are still driven by a certain insecurity and anxiety to push themselves way too hard (as we see a sick Mi-Joo do later in the episode).

Of course a man tries to break this gathering up — because he wants to go to bed. Superb excuse, particularly because these women are talking how much they have to work — and it is deeply satisfying to watch all three of them shut him down and establish their right to unwind.

This scene of female friendship is followed by one that shows the friendship between the three runners. Then we get to see a fight scene full of male actors. The machismo of that performance is a sharp contrast to the awkward tenderness of Woo-Sik and Yeong-Il's conversation.

While on the subject of toxic masculinity, this is the episode in which we find out Dan-Ah's father forged Myeong-Min's birth certificate to make him legally older than Dan-Ah even though he's actually 10 months younger than her. All to ensure he has a male heir. It's a nice detail that Myeong-Min's mother is the one laying out the memorial service for Dan-Ah's mother because it hints at a sense of solidarity.

Also dismantling traditional notions of masculinity is Seon-Gyeom, whom we see at his most domestic as he cooks and packs meals for May and Mi-Joo, and does chores around the house once they're gone. It's very much an inversion of the standard male-female gender roles with the woman going out to work and the man as the homemaker. To underscore this point, we see Seon-Gyeom consider the leopard-print shirt (that May and Mi-Joo hang to give strangers the impression they've got an alpha in the house) for a second before putting it away.

Speaking of alphas, Mi-Joo's really got a thing for wild cats. In addition to that shirt, her blanket is also a leopard-print and when we see her calling Seon-Gyeom, she's standing in front of a painting of a tiger. All these seem to be digs at her posturing that she's strong and invulnerable and I burst out laughing when Seon-Gyeom folds the leopard-print blanket while muttering, "I'd have guessed this is hers even if she hadn't told me."

As disinterested as Seon-Gyeom may be in films, they play a big role in sustaining him emotionally. In this episode, it's the film set that helps Mi-Joo and him come together after their stupid disagreement. Equally importantly, the film set is where he gets the time and space to reconnect with his mother.

Run On has so much fun being meta with the film bits. The film shoot within a drama is indeed an old fake.

There are two film sets we see in this episode — one with Ji-Woo and the other with Mi-Joo. While Ji-Woo's set feels relaxed, the one Mi-Joo's working in is chaotic and taxing. The two women are also at different ends of the professional spectrum. Ji-Woo is a star while Mi-Joo is not just working behind the scenes, but she's come to fill in for the person who was the juniormost member of the crew.

When pointing out the main players of their film crew to Mi-Joo and May, Hui-Jin describes the cinematographer as "a bit racist, but still a gentleman". (Mi-Joo's response is superb: "Weird.") It's an interesting choice to make the cinematographer racist because that's the crew member who decides how subjects and scenes will be framed. "Racist but a gentleman" feels like a precise summary of the orientalist perspective which (aside from being overwhelmingly masculine) shows the East through stereotypes that are often superficially beautiful, but also reductive and damaging. Not surprisingly, this cinematographer is the reason Mi-Joo flounders while translating on set.

The film set is also the first time that Seon-Gyeom sees Mi-Joo's vulnerable side when she falls ill. It's such a clever choice to have Mi-Joo stop performing in a setting that's all about performances. Not only does Mi-Joo give up the alpha act when she's sick, she admits to Seon-Gyeom that when she's feeling helpless, her instinct is to resort to a performative lie — calling out for mom because that's what she saw other kids do as a child in a sick ward (imagine how isolated and neglected she must have felt to do this. Also, she's felt this way so many times that this performance has become second nature to her).

The anecdote suggests Mi-Joo's mulish championing of her self has its roots in past incidents when she tried to fit and either failed or was rejected. And yet, for all her strength and confidence, she's chasing phantoms and has been doing so since she was a little girl. All because she was alone and didn't have anyone she could reach out to for help. Which is why what Seon-Gyeom tells her at the end of the episode is so relevant. He helps her to reorient.

To which Mi-Joo, bless her leopard-print-loving heart, responds with

But my favourite part of this episode is the conversation that Ji-Woo has with Seon-Gyeom when he visits her set. First of all, Ji-Woo is playing a "vegan murderer", which is brilliant as ideas go and it's adorable how delighted she is about her violent roles.

I love how Run On doesn't punish Ji-Woo for sacrificing her family life for her work. Instead, it holds out the possibility that it is ok if you have that imbalance. In this scene, we see Ji-Woo's family reforming at the film set with Eun-Bi sending the coffee truck and Seon-Gyeom showing up just because Ji-Woo asked him to be there.

The mother-son conversation gives us a glimpse of Seon-Gyeom's bleak childhood and we learn that everything Seon-Gyeom did for his father was actually him doing what his mother had asked him to do. It comes as a surprise to Seon-Gyeom that his mother has noticed what he's suffered and that she understands how he'd hoped silently suffering would keep the family together. It's almost as though he's feeling seen for the first time.

Much like Dan-Ah, Ji-Woo may seem self-centred because of her ambitiousness, but she does notice what's happening beyond the obvious, especially when it comes to people she cares about. Both women are up against the worst of patriarchy. Also, I love that when she's talking about motherhood, Ji-Woo is blood-spattered — after all, being a working woman and a mother in a patriarchal is nothing short of fighting a war.

In previous episodes, it seemed as though Ji-Woo was the 'bad' (or at least not ideal) mother while Director Dong was the ideal, modern mother. Yet in comparison to how Director Dong later reacts to her son coming out, you can't help but feel Ji-Woo, with her unconditional support for her kids, might just be the better parent. What is great about Run On though is that that the script doesn't pit the two older women against each other as competing examples of motherhood or femininity. The point is that everyone's struggling, making mistakes and trying to learn from them. Ji-Woo is doing that and so will Director Dong eventually.

Love that the scene ends with Seon-Gyeom effectively declaring himself his mother's son. Take that, patriarchy.

[alyblacklist]

New interview from Vanity Fair (Italy) with James Spader (in Italian).  Translation via Google translate below (corrections welcome):

Eight years after its debut, the TV series with Megan Boone and James Spader is back on FoxCrime. Already renewed for a ninth season, the show won't provide any representation of the Coronavirus or American politics. "We are an escape from reality and we want to remain so." 

"In eight years, not a single episode has gone far and wide." The voice of James Spader, on the last Friday in the red zone, peeps out from a distant space, from an America in rebirth, whose present enthusiasm has not found any representation in the television series of which he is the protagonist. Spader, The Blacklist's Raymond Reddington, has strenuously opposed the possibility of contaminating one's fictional universe with the dross of the present. "Our show has always existed within a parallel world. Over the years, we have never bothered to plot a plot that had to do with real life, with newspaper headlines and news stories ». The Blacklist, whose eighth season is set to debut on FoxCrime on prime time on February 12, "has defined a universe of its own, to which it has remained faithful." Therefore, no Joe Biden, in the twenty-two new episodes of the television series. No pandemic. 

The Blacklist, on air since 2013, will only find the characters who have made it a cult. Raymond Reddington, a repentant criminal whose decision to cooperate with the police is not the daughter, alone, of a sudden goodness of heart; Elizabeth Keen, special agent responsible for following his confessions; Donald Ressler, Harold Cooper, the set of FBI agents and gangsters whose "Red" is determined to secure a future behind bars. 

Many television series usually set in fictional universes have, however, decided to make an exception and give their own representation of the pandemic. Why this categorical "no"? 

“For a few, but effective reasons. I think one of the strengths of our show has always been its verisimilitude. The Blacklist is a parallel universe, in which credible characters live. This allowed the audience to find an escape from reality in the series. I think many viewers watch The Blacklist because it allows them to detach themselves from the problems related to everyday life, and this has led us to exclude the pandemic over everything ». 

However, you will have had to face the restrictions that the Coronavirus has brought with it. 

"Absolutely. We had to deal with many restrictions, we had to limit the number of people present in a given location. But, net of the difficulties and the productive effort that required us, I think I can say that a magnificent job has been done ». 

Work that will continue: The Blacklist has already been confirmed for a ninth season. What still remains to be told? 

"Much. It may seem absurd, but in eight years we have never found ourselves beating around the bush. No episode, in the eight seasons, was thought of as a filler. I remember one day talking to Jon Bokenkamp, ​​the director. He had a twenty-minute longer bet on his hands. We tried to figure out how to cut it, which unnecessary scenes to eliminate. In the end, it was twenty minutes longer than it should have ”. 

Aren't you bored playing the same character for eight years? 

"No. On the set of The Blacklist, I've never had a mediocre or mundane day. The series has always been very exciting and the very idea of ​​moving forward excites me. There are many surprises in this new season. There are more for the public than for me. The writers and I talked for a long time about what we were going to do, so nothing could surprise me once shooting started ». 

And this would lead us to think of a certain repetitiveness ... 

“It would induce, though. When I play the part of Red I'm not surprised by the story we're telling, but by the world we're making it in. ' 

 Explain. 

"One of the great entertainments of being an actor is being able to be surprised by your reactions: there is amazement in the physical and emotional responses that are given in certain situations. There is some wonder in seeing a location for the first time. There is growth in looking at a problem or a fact from a new perspective. The surprise, when you are an actor, is not about where you get to on the show, it's about the little things, the details, even personal, that we discover as we go on ». 

So what has Raymond Reddington left you over these eight seasons? 

"From the beginning, what I loved most about Red was his irreverence, his sense of humor. I discovered and learned to love his pervasive and profound longing for life ». His character is highly ambivalent. 

Has he really never despised him? 

“I don't usually make judgments about my characters. I have a deep understanding of everything Raymond stands for. Rather, I'd say there are things about Red that Red doesn't like: his brutality and the danger he poses to others, for example. But I think Red is aware of the qualities that make him strong and able to survive the worst circumstances in life. He saw the tremendous price of loss and witnessed it. He feels how bad death does. This led him to strongly desire sweetness, calm, love. He is a dichotomous character, and it is this ambivalence of him that has made him so interesting ».

 He often talks about his collaboration with the writers. What exactly does it consist of? 

«In a real collaboration. Let's talk about everything that has to do with the show. We talk before the writing of the scripts, during the shoot. Let's talk about the new entries and the possible suppression of some characters. We are talking about subplots that can last years, months or days. Let's talk about the tone of the show, the dialogues. We talk during the holidays. This series keeps me awake at night ». 

 And do you think it's a good thing? 

“Let's just say I've always had trouble sleeping. When I wake up, my mind begins to travel fast. I tend to be an obsessive compulsive person, so I often stay up at night shaping ideas about The Blacklist. It happens that I waste hours trying to remember them, so as to put them on paper the following morning ». 

Elizabeth Keen, the special agent played by Megan Boone, is one of the strongest female characters on television. How do you judge the change that Hollywood is aiming for, the progressive abandonment of gender roles? 

«I find it fundamental. For me, as a man and actor, it always has been. I have always felt more comfortable in the company of women. I grew up with a female majority in the house, a terrific mother and two older sisters. I've always been attracted to strong female characters and the ones I've met in my films have been. I've always looked at the world from a female perspective, and I can't imagine doing otherwise. I understand, however, that it took the industry some time to get here. Today, I feel like saying that it is only a matter of time for the real and definitive change to be achieved ». 

 Digital has imposed a decidedly sustained production rate, even on linear television. Do you find such trouble to be good? 

«I state that I, on the other hand, have never felt in competition with digital or Netflix. Netflix aired The Blacklist, creating added value for all of us. Streaming brought us audiences, and it was great. In general, I'm happy to have the huge amount of programs we have now. Competition is a good thing, it leads to excellence, it spurs commitment ". 

 Cinema, television, theater. In his career he has done everything. Which medium did you prefer? 

“On television, I found a greater opportunity for further study. The Blacklist is the second TV show I work on, and has been running for over 150 episodes. My first character I played in The Practice, then in Boston Legal. Either way, I found it fascinating to see how it evolved, not in history, but over time. My TV characters have aged with me, and I with them. I think it's the best thing about working on television ».

Nothing bad then?

“You wake you up in the morning.When I started acting, I found myself working on the stage.It was a night job, and I've always been a night person, not a morning person.So when I found myself making films, I always tried to play characters who lived at night. What, this, that I managed, if you notice. It was television that forced me to turn. TV is a day job, which starts very early in the morning. It was a shock.I haven't gotten used to the sound of the alarm yet. '

[sarunohadaki]

DQXI/Octopath Traveler Crossover

Crossover week: Home | 1 | 2 | 3| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |

Anyone call for a story idea with just character roles planned but no plot? Oh boy do I have the post for you! I’ve only played through chapter 2 of Octopath but from how things are going I have a few ideas for plotlines… on the whole, however, this post outlines each of the characters and their backstories.

Character descriptions under the cut because it’s long! Mentions of a character who's deaf, another character who's trans, and another character with DID.

I’ve been loving Octopath Traveler, but if there’s one thing I had to nitpick, it’s that there’s not enough moments woven in between all the characters! There’s a “travel banter” feature that covers the thinnest bases, where at some points in the game, the option for travel banter will appear on your screen and you can select it to see two characters have a short conversation. You have no choice in which characters talk to which, and you can’t go to that chat feature whenever. Also, let’s say you’re doing someone’s storyline. The other characters don’t talk in other’s cutscenes!

It sort of feels like there are eight games in one when you format the game that way. It's a little… disjointed.

Premise: Another fusion fic where the eight characters in Octopath are swapped for the team in DQXI (plus Gemma). Each character can still have their own backstories and subplots, but I am hankering hard for an overarching plot and antagonist. Maybe there’s, like, an evil League of Villains or some cult. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a place to slot that in, right?

Just like in the game, you stick to one character’s perspective and travel around to pick up the rest of your team, only in this fic, there’s varying dynamics between all the characters and oh boy it’d be prominent.

Characters

H’aanit ➡ Elimelech (El)

The Hunter

Born deaf, Elimelech hunts with his wolf companion and a quiver on his back. Despite appearances, El is not one to be underestimated; he is the pride of his village, which has recently celebrated his rite to adulthood. However, with adulthood comes an unexpected discovery, one which spurs him to leave the village in search of answers to his true heritage.

A literal strong, silent type. But has his shy moments, too. I can imagine you having to tap his shoulder to get him to see you talking to him sometimes, and he has this cute, brief look of curiosity on his face… 🥺

Similar to how H’aanit spoke in Middle and Old English, I think sign language would be interpreted the same way in this world. So everyone’s comprehension of SL is good, signing back… maybe not so good.

Animal companion (Sandy but beefed up into a wolf) would help him interact with the world, or at least keep him out of trouble.

Therion ➡ Erik

The Thief

Like the muck wiped off someone’s shoe, Erik’s not much wanted in most places, but luckily not thought about, either, which helps when he’s stealing coin purses. After a heist goes wrong, he’s tasked with retrieving priceless heirlooms to get back something important.

Does Derk fit well as replacement for Therion’s best buddy? (Sure?)

Therion was apparently well-known despite no one knowing what he looked like. Maybe I can make the opposite work for Erik.

The whole thing with Therion was getting a silver band off his wrist but I still like Erik’s canon plot more, so I’d find a way to shove that in.

Tressa ➡ Gemma

The Merchant

An ambitious and overly friendly adventure wannabe, Gemma uses an anonymous journal as her guide to the wonderful — and perilous — world beneath her feet.

Original plot for Tressa tracks fine, although wouldn’t it be cool if Gemma’s journal were written by Sudo Nim??

Old Dragon Quest had merchant classes, too. Wonder if there’s anything in those mechanics I could add to this fic.

Gemma and El hit it off right away and converse excitedly about everything from cuisine to cute boys. Though… no one tells Erik, who thinks they’re crushing on each other. (love triangle that really isn’t, haha!)

Cyrus ➡ Rab

The Scholar

Newly retired and looking for a new purpose in life, Rab decides to answer a decade-old mystery. While scholarly work has always been a hobby for him, he’s prepared to get to the bottom of this puzzle and hone his analytical skills in the process.

Definitely NOT following Cyrus’s plotline here

I could still have fired Rab (similar to Cyrus) and claimed workplace discrimination, but I like my alternative: “Rab was the head of a royal estate but got bored and ‘quit,’ putting someone else in charge so he could go fart off elsewhere.”

Is Rab related to El in this??? He could be. (Sercretly.)

Alfyn ➡ Sylvia

The Performer

A talented performer with an elusive path, Sylvia has called many places home. Following in the path of a traveler who once changed her life, she sets out to bring smiles to people’s faces and avoid the roots of a past that refuses to leave her alone.

Alfyn was last on the list when I was doing matching so sorry Sylv that you got matched with this backstory. But I can adjust it to make it work

Sylvia and Alfyn both have the goal of cheering up sick kids and ya know I think Sylv could learn some healing stuff along the way! She’s much more than just a pretty face, you know.

Someone from Sylvia’s path definitely shows up again and that will be trouble for her

Primrose ➡ Jade

The Dancer

Jade’s patience and sharp mind have sustained her through years of hard living, although it is all worth it when she finds her chance to exact revenge upon those who killed her father.

— Pretty straightforward, can take a lot from Octopath’s plot for this one.

— Hard decision of whether to somehow incorporate this into Hendrik’s storyline or make Jade’s father and the king Hendrik serves two completely different people

Olberic ➡ Hendrik

The Warrior

An erstwhile knight of a fallen kingdom, Hendrik melts into life in a quiet mountain village until word comes of a former comrade who’d turned traitor and killed their liege.

Jasper is the traitor, obviously!

As for their slain liege… can it really be Carnelian again when that’s Jade’s storyline? Like a plot twist that they were both following the same guy this whole time? Probably not. Probably needs to be someone different. Or Carny can just be twice as dead.

Ophilia ➡ Serenica (Serena and Veronica)

The Cleric

A level-headed cleric, Serenica serves the faith alongside her adoptive family. She takes up the torch to fulfil a traditional pilgrimage to rekindle light across the realm.

This one is complicated and I’m not sure how I’m going to do it yet

I wanted Veronica and Serena to both inhabit the same body and considered them having Dissociative Identity Disorder. I am very not sure about this. If I do it that way, I’d want to do it properly, with a sensitivity reader, research, etc. Because being respectful is Cool.

(P.s. There was fanart but someone (me) misplaced the art and never took photos of it???)

[im-thinking-arson]

Hi wow depression is a hell of a thing.

I'm sorry for the relative silence here, considering everything that has been going on in the last (roughly) year and a half it has been really hard to focus on any creative outlets. Everything has felt pretty heavy as I have been piecing together what exactly happened to myself and the people I used to share a community with.

Although my former FC is basically non-existent at this point, I feel it is appropriate to say that I no longer associate with its' leader @morganaux (sernoudenet on Twitter and formerly here) and to clarify why.

I have been struggling with what to even say about the situation. There are so many layers that I don't honestly know if any single cross-section could explain all there is to unpack. When it takes multiple people six months to explore everything they know as fact... I think that shows its not so much of a 'he said, they said' scenario as the few people who still support Morgy have tried to claim.

I feel guilty not speaking up sooner, considering this person is a member of the FFXIV community who I'm fairly sure some of my mutuals follow. Its so hard to speak out when he publicly acts innocent, like he has quietly moved on and refuses to acknowledge what he's done.

The reality feels so cold in contrast, with the knowledge I have- that he has done this multiple times before, burning down or wearing down those he has hurt with false sincerity; claiming innocence, claiming people misunderstand the significance of the intentions behind the knives in their backs, claiming he is the truest victim of the mess wrought of his own actions.

He quietly retweets fan art, cute animals, head canons, and all kinds of fandom things- but also others' tweets to identify with their own traumas- the same traumatic thoughts and feelings he incites in others through a mixture of gaslighting, lashing out, and playing the victim. He tweets passive aggressively about people he feels the victim of, (justified or not) even amid posts about his dearly beloved OC.

At this point I should just block him and try to scrape all memory of what I went through from my mind, but un-fucking-fortunately I know him too well to believe it's over when it's over. He still makes passive aggressive tweets about people he hasn't talked to in one, two, ?? years, a person who was a good friend to him for 10 years before he scapegoated them to maintain his own sense of righteousness.

Seeing as I witnessed him maintain not one, not two, not three- FOUR venting channels in his own discord, including at one point one specifically made for sh*tting on a single person, defending it's use and encouraging others to participate saying 'this is how victims cope'...

I know it's not over, and if he had a single shred of...anything... He could leverage against me he would have already tried to 'cancel' me. I'm not turning my back again to see if he decides to throw another knife.

For a long time I wanted to believe I had simply misunderstood the situation, that his intentions weren't so self-serving. The more I saw, the more I heard testimony from others that matched my own, the more I began to un-repress and process my own memories and connect the dots... And the less sense his own account made.

While I tried to maintain my friendship with him I ignored all the red flags, my own rise in anxiety, the isolation I felt. I felt so much pressure to fit into his equation, to be a supportive friend, to keep track of how he was feeling that I stopped taking care of my own mental health.

All the while he got angry for people not checking on him when he asked for space, threw a fit when anyone failed to accommodate his whims, and even accused his three closest friends of purposefully excluding him by taking screenshots without him in them or even hanging out together when he was offline..

And he would have people believe that most of the issues he was involved in centered on his friends not communicating with him. But in my case at least, nothing could be further from the truth.

I told him I felt uncomfortable with the fact his (at the time) friend had publicly lashed out at me in his discord server for stating my opinion. He suggested I work harder to befriend this person, that he couldn't and wouldn't approach his friend about it because he wasn't a FC member and only there as a friend of himself and his two closest friends.

He lashed out at a former friend (and FC mate) of mine -on my behalf- because they wouldn't stop messaging me while I was at work... And when this person subsequently put me on blast thinking I had put him up to it I mentioned considering posting my side of the story- to initially be shamed (by the person mentioned above) for suggesting I protect myself, stating it could make things worse for the people who had already publicly attacked this person...

I approached him about another former friend of his angrily ranting about a character I had though at the time they knew I was planning to RP (I had spoken about it both in-game and in a discord we all shared) because I didn't know them well enough to feel comfortable saying that made me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in the space. I approached my former friend because I knew from experience he took things like this seriously and he was the one who had invited this character TO role play in the first place.

He reacted by telling this person he had no idea why I was upset, asked them to address an issue they had no context for - prompting them to write an apology, and then reinforced their worry that I hated them by saying I "probably disliked them since [I] hadn't written them an apology" in return. I had thought they both wanted to drop the subject because he stopped responding about the situation.

He decided the situation was resolved and kept inviting us around one another for at least four months while keeping up the illusion that I disliked this person despite me trying to remain friendly- and said nothing about the situation until AFTER he had nuked his FC and almost everyone was done with his bullshit. I had asked him to be honest about the situation and finally got "[name] thinks you dislike him" ???

(I might add more details about these situations because it's honestly much more of a mess than it might seem, but I'd probably have to write a fucking book to explain everything well in-sequence of events.)

But those examples aside, I told him up front that the favoritism he showed and my concerns being glossed over was messing with my head, that I didn't know if I felt safe in his FC, that the whole situation was making me feel like I was losing my grip on reality, that at one point feeling like I was being discouraged from defending myself was beginning to make me feel su*cidal. These are things he knew.

He reacted to this ignoring both cause and effect, ignoring me unless I reached out first or it concerned RP, continually inviting me to hang out with people he knew I felt uncomfortable with (or vice versa) and normally turning down anything I invited him to do otherwise- including several times that I offered to help him with Eden or dungeons he wanted to farm when he previously said he was free to do so. A couple of times he declined saying he was waiting to see if he could convince another friend... and then threw a fit about 'no one wanting to help him' despite declining my offer and not reaching out to me after his other friend declined (I was still online but he decided to vent on discord instead).

Behind my back he talked shit about me, enough that someone who had known him 10 years and was familiar with his behavioral patterns qualified it 'constant' bashing, whenever I came up in conversation. And even included confronting me about the three situations I mentioned above in a plan he was working on to 'fix' his FC, as if he thought I was reaching out to him to stir up drama.

Eventually it came out that the friend I mentioned in the first example was emotionally abusing his friends (and I found out later told him two of them were talking shit about him- prompting HIM to lash out at them). One of them mentioned that person had still been talking shit about me 6 months later on a private account and when I got upset that THREE people I had thought were my friends didn't tell me, I made a few jokes in poor taste (that I do now regret) about the situation to try and prevent myself from having a mental break down.

The person he led to believe I hated left the discord server at that point and he decided to divert some of the blame for (in his words) 'being worried for this person's life' -whom he had attacked over the situation- to me... blaming them leaving and him having trouble contacting them on me.

I told him if this former friend was indeed attacking people and he was so worried we needed to talk about the situation, since in other situations his response was to ignore the hurt caused. He blew up about me messaging him at work, he blamed me for every situation I had brought to his attention. He went to his mods to rant about me and sent one of them to scope out the situation in hopes they could shut me up.

This is the friend of 10 years, who quickly became concerned and not for the reasons he had hoped. They shared a few screenshots of things said to gaslight me behind my back as the conversation progressed. Eventually the other mod jumped in and, knowingly or not proceeded to gaslight me FOR him, based on what they were told. By him.

They reinforced everything he was saying in guise of a neutral perspective and my efforts to prevent a full-scale breakdown failed. I lost all grip on reality for several days- in which at some point I wrote an apology to him for accusing him of several things that were later proven true- and one thing he, himself, proved he'd lied about to the other person involved.

I spent almost two weeks in a self-imposed social break to sort everything out and attempt to cope with what I was told was reality. I fell into the deepest depression I've been in since I had to run away from home, and honestly if it wasn't for my wonderful SO and our house mates, I might have really hurt myself.

It turns out another situation had been brewing parallel to my own. People had been coming to the social mod, the friend of 10 years, with their own worries about him. Almost every. Single. Member. Including at least four people who came forward with fears that if they did a single thing that he interpreted as an insult or threat they would find themselves exiled, called out, and ranted about in a jumbled mix of truth and fictional-malice until their own friends turned on them to support his victim complex.

These four people came forward on the condition that their names be kept anonymous to protect their identity. He didn't take kindly to this, quickly demanding names so they (his mod team) could handle the situation. The mod refused, knowing he has a history of lashing out at any criticism against him and to protect those who were already afraid of bringing the problems up to Morgy.

He reacted by lashing out at this person, claiming they ruined his life, and attempting to weed out those who had spoken out against him by kicking anyone he didn't feel 'safe' being around from his FC. He posted a message in his FC discord about resuming his 'reign of terror'... Which, even if it was a joke, was in in poor taste after pruning his FC of anyone he didn't think could be convinced of his 'good intentions.'

I missed this first culling of his FC members, I assume, because I had apologized and at the time submitted to his version of events. He approached me soon after I noticed the changes in the discord and FC roster; claiming he really wanted to work things out and remain friends- going as far as to say he was so nervous about my reaction that he was shaking.

I wanted to take him at face value despite everything that happened because yeah, I did want to believe he was sincere, that he was a good friend, and that all of it had been an unfortunate misunderstanding. And at first I did until I started talking to other people who knew him and getting their side of the story. Nothing he said added up. Between first-hand testimony and over a hundred screenshots from multiple people the ONLY things that were clear and consistent were that he lied and fit his narrative to whatever he wanted to achieve.

He tried to reduce conflict by omitting information, he controlled people's perception of one another by how he spoke about them and how close he let them to himself and others, he built a support group by polarizing his friends against his 'enemies' and if anyone had a problem with him... They were wrong, and got added to the pile of 'aggressors' he had accumulated over the years, to be bashed and spit on for years to come.

He may have sensed my change in opinion when I directly asked him to help me reach out to the person who thought I disliked them-  managed to come to an understanding and we mutually apologized for the situation... Without his meddling. Or maybe when he realized I was still on talking terms with the people he had lashed out at and directly asked him why he had kicked people who did absolutely nothing to him... Or it could be that I kept in contact with the person who 'ruined his life' by trying to protect his friends from him. I don't know.

While we were still talking he tried to identify with me and bond over the feeling of loosing the FC, a group of people that despite the anxiety, and pain I had felt in the environment he'd built I did deeply respect and care about... Despite the dissolution of that group and the abuse I suffered being -at the core- his own fault. He even went as far as to say my description of the PTSD and fear I was experiencing described exactly how he was feeling, too.

As our conversations further weighed on my mental health I had to take a break from interacting with him. I was honest again, with what I was told, what I knew, and asked him for honesty about the situation... What he had said about me behind my back and why because I wanted to hear it from him. I wanted to see if he would acknowledge the harm he caused both to me and the rest of the (former) FC.

He never did, and probably won't. He asked for some time to tend to his own stress levels and mental health and then blocked me on all social media and discord, and kicked me from his FC without ever making an effort to reach out.

Of the few people who are still close to him, one of them suggested that "maybe he just decided he didn't want to be friends anymore." But after him begging to have a conversation to iron out all the facts, claiming to be so anxious about such a conversation going well that he was 'shaking', admitting that what he did hurt people and that my being wary of him was understandable, asking me -directly- to let him know if he did anything 'shady', and stressing he REALLY wanted this conversation to take place when we were both able to handle it because of how important he felt it was...

I feel like its fair to say that him suddenly cutting off all contact isn't quite so simple. He could have done that at any point. Before pointedly ignoring my concerns, before gaslighting me, before blaming me for the results of his own actions, before accepting an apology for accusing him of things he did legitimately do, and certainly before directly telling me had no real problems with me, that he it was super important to him that we remain friends, and that I deserved his honesty.

I'm not going to try and tell anyone who they should be friends with or not. Frankly, people can change and in a lot of cases experiences with individuals will be different.

But on that same note, if I had known then what I know now I might have saved myself from roughly two years of anxiety and avoided the state of dissonance I now find myself in. I still have moments where I want to doubt the things I experienced first hand. My mind is still trying to repress my own memories to cope.

A part of me still cares about him despite everything because as far as I knew, he was my friend and I am still trying to reconcile what I found to be true.

At this point I feel like I should say please don't harass Morgy if you read this, but honestly? If you have any reason to hold him accountable go for it. He needs it. And if you have any gut feelings about him or anyone in his circle please listen to it. The few supporters he still has are willing to ignore anything he has done previous to the fall of his FC and have shown they are willing to debate and accuse people who speak out about legitimate concerns involving him.

If anyone has any questions I am willing to answer them and share the proof I have.

And in the off chance anyone wants to (further) argue with me about my experiences or whether or not I suffered enough to be considered a victim, please Google some images of a hand giving the middle finger. But if after that you still really want to play stupid games? I can find you some stupid prizes.

I don't owe him my silence. Or peace of mind. The only thing I owe him is to be as entirely, brutally, honest as possible given the information I have. I think it's a fair offer considering the mind-numbing volume of honesty he -still- owes all of us.

- - - - -

I may add more onto this. Unfortunately the entire situation is a lot more complex, but I wanted to get the backbone of my own experiences out there and there is so much bullshit it can't all be seen from any one direction. A lot of the circumstantial evidence loops back into other situations and makes it hard to comprehensively represent everything on any sort of singular timeline. As I said in the beginning there is a reason it took a small group 6 months to piece it together.

I am far from the only person hurt, and the entire situation was a mess with people feeling unnerved or pressured into going along with his agenda. For the most part now that I have more context I don't blame most of the people involved for their own actions. I fully support those who can't or won't come forward about the situation whether they just want out of his drama, or are afraid to come forward.

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket,Se03, Ep7 (part 2)

Toxic kindness (Kureno):

I’ve touched upon this in se02 finale, but kureno’s toxic kindness mirrors the foolish traveler story. The foolish traveler says “ thank you” as he dies. Kureno ignores the knife in the hands of a person whom he saw with his own eyes abuse a number of children repeatedly. Kisa, Isuzu, hatori & yuki bodies testify of being beaten, cut, & bruised. Kyo’s psychological abuse was announced in front of kureno himself before akito summoned him in the beach arc. Akito has strangled her mom & screamed, cried & went manic in front of him. Yet, kureno walks toward her ignoring the knife, hugs her & tells her to press the button of change. Easy, right?

I highly respect the author that Akito didn’t respond positively. I don’t want kureno to be stabbed or want akito to run away & hurt the others.  Also, I hate cheap drama. So, I’ll never support dramatic confrontations just for the sake of it. I want a realistic depiction of trauma & mental illness. The person who lived her entire life entitled to be obeyed, feared & having extreme authority, won’t just change cuz a foolish guy told her to.

-The responsibility of Nurturing children:

Akito’s outburst represent the author’s view on the role of nurturing children properly to teach them to be decent human beings. Akito was raised with extreme views neglect & narcissism. You’re special & must be loved (said her dad), Others MUST obey you (said the old maid), No one truly loves you (said her mom). So, her entire life she craved showcasing her power over these unfortunate zodiacs as it stems from the notion that they live for her sake.

Tohru on the other hand was raised with compassion, love & appreciation of other ppl. Tohru being timid, shy or unable to stand for her self are personal struggles that tohru deals with & not related to nurturing , While her trauma might be caused by a parent, it didn’t prevent tohru from being a kind & compassionate person because she was raised & taught abt these things.

The faults of abusing a child might lead to create faulty mentality & social issues. these kids might even grow to implement similar abuse onto others, while all that is understandable, it will never excuse their behavior. A lot cases of real life abusers were once kids who were abused. It is tragic. It explains why they become the horrible person they are today, but it never excuses the harm of others. The victim is not responsible of your screwed upbringing. Kisa, kyo, yuki, & Isuzu have nothing to do with Akira, Ren or akito’s troubles. They are victims themselves but they didn’t go & inflect harm upon others. Yes, they each developed a faulty coping mechanism &  showed tendencies of rage, withdrawal, misplaced pain, but they were never a harm towards the society, & their peers.

Akito’s outburst paves the path for her redemption. How it will happen? I duno. Will someone once again holds her cheeks, talks her into bettering herself? I duno. She will atone. I can guess that based on the ED. but Will she be rightfully punished for her crimes? I duno. I hope so. Forgiveness is different from punishment. Thus, a type of punishment should be implemented. Abusers, whether victims or not, or atoned or not, must receive it. It is only fair.

- What will happen with tohru/ kyo’s confession/ confrontation? What is the exit from kyoko’s harsh last words! How can Furuba’s best mom hates kyo! My mind goes crazy!

Perhaps the following will happen:

(a) Kyo will confess the past, tohru forgive, kyo relieved, they kiss or whatever (happy ending). This could happen but while I would be happy for them, I’d hate that kyo’s entire trauma goes away with a simple “ I forgive you/ I love you”. Trauma doesn’t have a button you magically shut down. Kyo must unload his burden first! open his lid, then deal with it. Also, How will kyoko’s last words fit here? Are they just kyo’s imagination? really? it seems so anti-climatic. Imagine living with kyoko’s words for two seasons only for it to be in kyo’s mind! I really need kyoko to have bigger role than simple imagination. She’s either a haunting ghost or a holy perfect mother, rarely a real human character. Also, I need to include Akito. In this happy version, Akito gets stopped by shigure or even yuki! .. possible but too light for all the buildup drama & endless cliffhangers! lol

(b) Kyo will confess the past, tohru won’t forgive, kyo hurts himself as he sees her pain (dark ending). This ending is too dark for both. kyo hearing tohru’s words of un-forgivness will echo what he himself believe in he should be. Then where is hope for him? T_T Tohru not being able to forgive is logical since her mom is her world, but it also further ties tohru to her mom. She’ll be stuck again remembering her mom’s tragic words & last moment. Also, tohru will loose another person she loves even more than her mom. Here Akito will interfere somehow. Perhaps tries to kill tohru, then kyo sacrifices himself saving her. I duno.. too dark for furuba! lol

Ok. I give up. Anything I think gets stopped by kyoko’s words. I need kyo to push tohru away cuz this is the only logical progression for his trauma! I refuse to believe that kyo’s trauma was pushed into the climax & was written to embody furuba’s most mature themes of guilt, self-forgiveness, repeated mistakes, depression & others only to be quickly solved. But, tohru’s own issues were quickly presented & addressed in one short ep so..... augh! I want to hope for more from tohru, but I duno.. her growth has been so inconsistent, & I’m tired of being disappointed.

Next ep could either become furuba’s best ep or the worst ever!!! & this scares me so much. 

Side Notes:

Kyo was repeatedly punished for his mistakes & faulty coping mechanism throughout the series, He is yet to be forgiven by someone or forgive himself. But he has been living the punishment of his own trauma.

Why is momiji still speaking German in the dub? I know his curse break is a secret, but He’s still holding on the facade of identifying with a rabbit in his burger, imitating his mom’s accent as he’s still so attached to her. I thought he let go of the past while bravery acknowledging it & moved on. Starting brighter, happier & with more hope. He isn’t still holding on to pain. He is looking forward now. =/

At first, i didnt recognize the room tohru & kyo are eating in! XD. It’s their living room, right? first time seeing it with all doors closed. weird.XD

Seeing Hiro’s curse break further reinforces that there is no logic on its breaking order. It just breaks. that’s all. If there is any reason behind it, then, momoji should be the first. He had always developed outside relationships with others way before tohru & not exclusive to her. Seeing as he has lots of friends playing with him. Also, he has always dealt with his own issues with level headed perspective, never too absorbed in sadness, never too self-focused, he never withdrew or lashed out. He never looked down on kyo, heck! I’ll argue that he even looked up to him!. hiro could've happened earlier too, as he was always protected from trauma & in a loving home, then yuki as he not only opened his lid but told akito in her face that he will forgive her & decided to never be by her side. His curse should have broken right on se02, ep25. You can place anyone afterwards. So, yeah, the curse just breaks, perhaps akito herself has a role as her insecurities increases. duno.

I dont care for the curse itself at all. As far as I’m concerned it is (a) fun gimmick, (b) analogy for abuse & trauma. The later is the core of furuba.

plz let next ep be well-done, well-written & well-direct. plz! T_T

[miraculousgemscc]

Not So Berry Extended

I was inspired to write out a few more generations for the Not So Berry Challenge! I’m currently playing it in my spare time as a Vampire Not so Berry (cause why not?) and i’m having a lot of fun playing it and watching others play through the challenge! If you’d like to see more of these or maybe another version of Not So Berry Extended but with more of the careers then please let me know!

NOTE: This hasn’t been play-tested! If whatever’s listed below is impossible to complete please let me know and i’ll make the needed changes!

Gen 11: Black

(Requires Snowy Escape, Get Famous, Parenthood)

Growing up, you always thought you had the perfect life: You had the dream house, the dream family. Until one day you found out that your mother/father/parent had a secret affair. This completely broke you and in order to cope with the news, you decided to become a rebel. I mean, don’t we all go through a rebellious phase in our lives? Your whole perspective on life went 360: you changed your sense of style, your personality, etc. all at once. At least you had the great outdoors giving you comfort during your “everlasting phase”! Your favorite season was Winter because you could ski/snowboard all day, everyday. And what about those dreams you had of becoming a famous skier/snowboarder? Well we can do that too!

Traits: Hot-Headed (give as a teenager), Active, Self-Assured

Aspiration: Extreme Sports Enthusiast

Career: Manuel Laborer, Ski/Snowboarding YouTuber (once you reach Level 10 of Ski/Snowboarding)

Rules:

Must enter “rebellious phase” either at the end of childhood or beginning of being a teenager (you don’t need PH for this, it’s just apart of storytelling) (this is when the black color of this gen. should occur)

Must get the Argumentative, Insensitive and Uncontrolled Emotions Character Value traits (PH)

Must max either the Skiing or Snowboarding skill (SE)

Must enter the Manuel Laborer job as a teenager and stay in that job

Once your able to create Snowboarding videos, you must make your money off of your videos only

Reach at least Rising Star of Celebrity level (GF)

B-Lister is preferred but since getting fame with Get Famous is hard as it is Rising Star is ok

Must move to Mt. Komorebi (SE)

Gen 12: Dark Academia

(requires Get to Work, Nifty Knitting) Your mother/father/parent was one of the most famous skier/snowboarders in Mt. Komorebi. She/He/They always encouraged you to spend your time outdoors and take in the fresh air. Yet, you preferred to spend your time indoors, curled up in bed with your tea and book in hand. You craved to enter the fictional worlds you’ve read in your books from a young age. When you entered high school, you found your love for the arts and decided that you’d become an artist. At least then you could bring the worlds you’ve read to life on a canvas! And why not have a little snack while we’re at it? You can just learn some new foods you can make through cooking books after all!

Traits: Bookworm, Creative, Art Lover

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire

Career: Stay-at-Home Painter, Painter career (⚠️Only if you get offered the job⚠️)

Rules:

Must complete the Painter Extraordinaire aspiration

Must max out Painting skill, Cooking or Gourmet Cooking skill and Photography skill (GTW)

Must make your money through your paintings only

if you get a call about joining the Painter career, you must accept

Must move into a “rundown” lot/apartment with only a kitchen, bathroom, and a bed (and maybe your books if you want but you can’t sell these for money)

your funds when you move out after moving into your house must be $60

(this will be enough for your painting and some extra money to spend elsewhere)

Must have a library in your house

Must have 3 kids (biological or adopted)

spouse must be employed as a Salaryperson and/or Business career (recommended if it’s game generated but you can give them either job yourself)

can only marry partner towards the end of adulthood

Must purchase Knitting Skill Book 1 from bookshelf (NK)

Gen 13: Pastel

(requires Nifty Knitting, Get To Work, Get Together) Your family was pretty stable for the most part. Sure, you may have had trouble paying the bills here and there but what mattered most is that your family was together. Even though you enjoyed your mother/father/parent’s love for Forrest Green, Rosy Brown and overall Earthy tones you felt like you needed a bit more color in your life. And by color, you mean bright and colorful. One day while going through your mother/father/parent’s library you discovered a book on knitting. Figuring your mother/father/parent spent all of their time cooking and painting anyways you decided to take the book and learn how to knit. Yet, knitting cute decor and beanies isn’t going to put food on the table and a roof over your head. Guess running your own business is going to have to wait. Oh yeah, you also have a weird obsession with the letter B...

Traits: Perfectionist, Cheerful, Childish

Aspiration: Lady/Lord of the Knits

Career: Barista (teen), Business (young adult), Business owner (adult)

Rules:

Must complete the Lady/Lord of the Knits aspiration

Must max out Knitting skill, reach required skills needed for jobs before quitting them (ex. If you need Level 3 of Charisma for the Business career but you’ve age up to an Adult, you must reach level 3 before quitting the job)

Must Donate to Charity at least once a week

Quit your career in Business and open your own business as an adult (GTW)

Must get 2/5 stars for your business

Must live in Windenburg and have your business in the Old Platz neighborhood (GT)

Must create a Knitting Club and meet your friends (GT) when you reach Level 3 of the Knitting skill

Can only have relationships with immediate family (siblings, parent(s), grandparent(s), aunts/uncles) until you create the club. Once you create the club you may make friends.

Must become good friends with club members and best friends with one of the members

Marry your partner from the Knitting Club

Must have their first and/or last name start with B (you can cheat the name if you want)

Gen 14: White (Requires Get Famous, Get Together, City Living) Living in Windenburg for most of your life, you always loved how the town was so inclusive to everything and everyone. You always found yourself vibing with the music and dancing whenever you had the chance. But you also had a passion for music, specifically rap. While browsing the internet one day you came across some videos about some kid with blue hair rapping with his friends and you immediately became obsessed. (yes, I just made a FNF reference) From that day on, you wanted to become a Triple Threat: a dancer, musician, and a producer! The world isn’t stopping anytime soon so you gotta act fast and get your dance on!

Traits: Dance Machine, Music Lover, Geek

Aspiration: Musical Genius

Career: Entertainer Rules:

Must max the Dancing skill, Media Production skill, and Guitar/Violin/Piano skill (your choosing) reach level 6 of Singing skill

Must complete the Entertainer career

Must be signed to a Record Label and release your music (GF)

Must marry someone named Keith and has the Proper trait (you may cheat the name only)

Have a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner in high school but break up with them before becoming a Young Adult

must be Hot and Cold with High School love (negative friendship, positive romance)

Have Dance Battles with your friends at least once a week

Have at least 2 Enemies (you can have more if you wish) (this doesn’t include your High School love)

Gen 15: Navy Blue

(Requires Discover University, Eco Lifestyle, Parenthood) Growing up you tend to lean towards a more sophisticated lifestyle thanks to your father. With having good role models around you and supportive parents, you were able to pursue your dreams of becoming a lawyer. Helping those in need was one of your biggest goals in life. The world right now isn’t perfect and you strive to change the world for the better. Having been the smartest kid throughout your school career, you were given the chance to jump straight into the Law career. Although you were grateful for the opportunity, you decided to continue your studies and learn as much as you could before going into Law.

Traits: Proper, Ambitious, Genius

Aspiration: Academic

Career: Law

Rules:

Must complete the Law career

Become a Private Attorney

Must max out Research and Debate, reach level 5 Logic skill, reach level 8 Charisma skill

Must complete the Whiz Kid aspiration and Academic aspiration

Must attend college for the Law career (you may disable aging while you go to college if you want)

Must get an A in school (child and teen)

Must have the Responsible and Mediator Character Value traits

Must make your neighborhood a Green neighborhood (EL)

Attend volunteer events at least once a week (PH)

Never get married, only have 1 child

(can have boyfriend/girlfriend/partner)

Must move to Britechester when you start the Law career (you can live in Britechester while attending college if you want)

Gen 16: Phoenix

(Requires Vampire) You grew up wanting more from the world besides all of the “change the world” stuff your mother/father/parent kept blabbering on about. Instead of changing the world, you wanted a change of scenery. While roaming the world trying to find your new normal you discovered the world of Forgotten Hollow. There, you met your soulmate and later the person who would eventually turn you into a vampire. As crazy as it sounds, the minute you became a Young Adult you up and left your home in Britechester and moved to Forgotten Hollow. This you thought was it! You were finally free to be yourself! Until the dreaded accident.....

Traits: Loves the Outdoors, Romantic, Erratic

Aspiration: Master Vampire

Career: none

Rules:

Must purposely burn in the sun and die

Must have no kids

Must complete Master Vampire aspiration except the, “Survive for an Additional 20 Days as a Vampire” section (you must Die by Sunlight before this reaches the full 20 Days)

Must max Vampire Lore skill and Pipe Organ skill, reach level 5 Gardening skill

Have your own garden in Forgotten Hollow and make your money through your garden only

Must unlock the Thin Skinned weakness from Vampire levels

Must immediately move out as a Young Adult to Forgotten Hollow

your partner must be a Vampire and turn you into a Vampire

And that’s it! I hope you find this as interesting as I did! :D

If your wanting more ways to spice up your gameplay, I have a save file that i’ve been working on the past couple of years! You can find it here.

[androgynousblackbox]

I saw The Squid Game and here are thoughts (spoilers)

-First of all, maybe is my non korean ass being ignorant, but the shape they use through the entire thing to represent the Squid Game looks absolutely nothing like a squid and that has bothered me the entire time. I was waiting for someone to make sense of it and never happened. Was it just me? I was the only one who cared about the accurate representation of marine creatures through basic shapes? Yes? I am just being nitpicky? Okay.

-I already liked the actor who plays Jang Deok-su because of his role on another korean show, Beyond good and evil, that is an excelent mistery show I totally recommend, where he also plays as some kind of mafia lord that gets into trouble and is a little shit. Also he is hot as fuck, so that helps a lot. He was my personal favourite character right after Ali, a pakistan immigrant that was desperate to provide for his family, because Deok-su was such a fucking asshole that legitimately didn’t give a fuck about anything and that is always fun to see.

-And now that I mentioned him, Ali was too good for this fucking world and he didn’t deserved shit of what happened to him. Even before ever entering the game.

-The premise of this show is basically to contrast against how capitalism screws over people against basic kindness, which is antithesis to capitalism itself, and that i show we get to the final winner of the whole game. Now, there is a space to talk about how these type of stories could come across as kinda simplistic, but it doesn’t feel like the purpose of the show at all is to go out of it’s way to argue so much about this issue as just show the issue, show the consequences and talk about it within the context of a narrative.

-This is why my favourite episode of all has to be the one in which the majority of players decide to go home, after witnessing literal mass murder during the first game, only to realice life still fucking sucks for all of them and that is why they chose to participate on the first place. They still struggle to deal with the shit they did before, they still struggle to find money, even on circunstances in which nobody should have to fight so hard. It talks about a type of system that is so fundamentally broken and fucked up that it would really leave a diabetic elderly woman in pain to walk away to keep working simply because she doesn’t have the means to pay for her necesary treatment or even for her house if she doesn’t do that. -And sure, the reason why this happens is mostly because the protagonist had a gambling addiction that made him to waste all the money they did have, but ultimately he is not responsible for creating such hard conditions in the first place and the show goes out of it’s way to show different ways in which people are screwed over in ways they could have never had any control over, no matter how hard they worked. Some people chose to make their own mistakes and screw other people over, and they got to live with the results of that, but ultimately is all about the money and who has it, who gets it and who doesn’t, not about fairness or justice. So, when a big chunk realice that the outside world is just as hostile and unforgiving as before, they decide to come back because yeah, it’s hell, but at least they have a promise that things could turn better even if the cost is their own lives. Outside of the game they didn’t had not even that.

-I also really like how they contrasted the supposed principle behind the game against the actual structure of such, because at least I read it as a microcosmos representing the outside world as it is. Like of yeah, very fucking equal are people inside of this island where chain of command are still a thing, where they are still fucking pawns on someone’s else game whose rules they didn’t create or chose to, and where the people with the money literally laugh at their death because it’s that insignificant to them. Alright, yeah, keep telling youself that. But that is also the rationale outside, right? “Everyone has a chance to do better, if only you worked harder and keep trying surely you would be fine. Forget that the game was rigged against you from the start and don’t even fucking mind about the literal piles of bodies of nobodies that didn’t won like you did, because they didn’t worked as hard as you did. Don’t think too hard about it. Just keep working and then enjoy that money.” I don’t think you are meant to believe on that shit, but it’s what the Front Man tells himself to keep going. Everyone is equal… but some are more equal than others.

-On that sense it feels very reminiscent of the vibe that gave off Parasyte in it’s treatment of the same issue, so you can definitely enjoy it from that perspective or, if you don’t want to, can simply enjoy it as a entertaining, well made story about human drama and people literally struggling to survive, with some moments that will punch at your fucking heart and make you feel like shit as good stories tend to do.

-It’s a very aesthetically pleasing show, I can tell you that much. It’s not super artsy fartsy with a lot of symbolism going on, or maybe it was but it’s a cultural specific symbolism I didn’t catch on, but it’s still very competently made with a lot of just fucking beautiful shots in which every single frame matters and used with purpose. I don’t remember a single second that I was “why the fuck are you showing me this” because it’s actually what they DON’T show you what ends up mattering.

-Having said that, the show does have it’s twists and turns but they aren’t super difficult to not see coming if you pick up on how the show works. I wasn’t shocked by the ending because I had already seen the hows, they actually help you to come to it by going out of their way to always show you the dead bodies of past characters, so when they don’t actually do that it does stand out and if you pick on that then you can see it coming. So I personally wouldn’t recommend this show on the basis “the twist will surprise you!” because I don’t think that is right mindset to come into it. Come for the story and stay for the characters, that are all well worth it, not for the twists.

-The ending was an obvious cliff hanger for the next season, which I am fine with, but I also liked it because it kept consistent with the main character himself. Like sure, he does see how bullshit the whole game actually is, but it’s also, and this might be just my own interpretation, keeping up with what we have established already with him about having a gambling addiction because he genuelly enjoys the thrill. It’s not about the winning money, because if that were the case then he wouldn’t be immediately giving it away the second he has some, but just the winning and losing only to try again which keeps him going on. Also there is a tiny little implication that the man actually is using his gambling addiction as a consequences of untreated PTSD after watching his friend die during a protest like some form of self medication, since when he is losing or winning at least he is not having flashbacks or thinking how he tried to fight the system before one single time and it was all downhill from there. But that might be just my own intepretation again and not necesarily something they wanted to establish. In any case, that his entire character arc ends up being “he wins all the games for the first time… but at what cost” is still a very satisfactory one, so for him to be the only one to come back to play, hopefully so he can destroy it from within, is really the most interesting ending I could have imagined for him.

-I also really liked how they firmly established a narrative where some people come together through pure generosity (the group that the protagonist made) or through fear/intimidation (the group that Deok-su made). Every member from the first group comes to unite through little acts of kindness and then the protagonist just kept winning because they helped him out one way or another. He didn’t just won because he was the smartest, the most resilient or anything, but because he formed strong enough relationships with everyone to allow him keep advancing, showing another flaw of the game’s logic. See, because you are meant to work all on your own and be a lone wolf in wolf street and eliminate everyone that gets in your way, because that is supposed to be the only way you can “win”. But he doesn’t win like that, he literally just stumbled on with people he was nice to and then they were nice back to him until the end, where he kept betting on people being decent and end up winning the last bet.

-Of course, this winning doesn’tcover still for the great devide that exist between the protagonist and the men who put him through that hell. The comparison of the old man does between what a poor person with no money and a multimillionare have is fucking bullshit that rings hollow, because the poor person would have never have the power to do what they did to anyone and the things the poor person concern themselves with are note ven a thought for the powerful. But it makes sense that he thinks that way when he is literally an observer of the common people from a literal tower, safe by all the medical care that his money could get him. The biggest difference between him and the protagonist is that of looking at the value of human lives, and then their only point of connection is the love of games. The old man was looking at everyone losing their lives but he himself was never in any danger from it, so of course he got to just have a good time fooling everyone and playing around.

-Honestly, the more I think about it, fuck the old man, what a fucking dick.

-Until I see a dead body I won’t believe that the cop is dead, and I hope he isn’t because he and The Front Man have pending a long fucking conversation about what the fuck happened. It’s obvious that the Front Man has fully bought on the nonsense of the system, but the fact he still is pained for what he did to his brother could hint to him having a change of heart somehow that could be very interesting to see if well handled.

-The lady that was briefly with Deok-su was just mean. She and Deok-su made a good couple of two perfectly mesh dickheads, and I was actually kinda sad when they had to go but also thought it was the only appropiate ending for the both of them so, good job on that one.

-The way that the norkorean lady was finished was fucking bullshit though. Like, equal opportunities my cat, how the fuck is fair to make players play after recieving injuries from easily preventable hazzards made AFTER already beating a game? It would be like the doll detecting someone that someone still had a finger on the other side of the line and shooting it anyway even though the rest of the body was out. Like, they literally set that up in a way to hurt someone and they got what they wanted, but if different chunks of glass just perforated the skull of the three of them or something like that? Then there wouldn’t be any game for them to enjoy and no winner either.  All those richy rich richsons would have made their travel all the way there for fucking nothing. Yeah, it’s a very slim possibility but why even risk it like that so close to the finale? Narratively speaking I know why it happened, it makes sense because that allowed for the rest of the story to advance, but in-universe it really doesn’t and it was literally just to take her out of the way quick for the next plot point to take place. That was literally the only death that left me actually unsatisfied because it came out of nowhere, it wasn’t because of anything she did or could have prevented and it was so unceremonious. Like, you could have probably think some way for her to reach the same place without making so obvious you are pushing her there.

-She did looked very good on that suit, though. I wonder if the reason they gave her a suit and not a dress was because they never imagined that a woman could ever reach that far in the competition, because somehow I doubt they were specifically pushing for breaking gender norms. During a lot of the games everyone talks about how having women in your team is a disadvantage because strenght and “makes you look weak”, so I guess it makes sense that the people behind the game also had the same rationale and never even fucking bothered to get something new for her even when she turned out as a finalist. It would also explain why there is not a single employee on the entire island who is a woman, or at least none of the ones whose faces we actually get to see. Which I guess could work as another subtle evidence that despite all the posturing, there was never a “equal opportunity for all” sentiment behind any of it. The women were there literally assumed to be destined to fail from the very start. I hope that if that was the intention we get to explore a little bit of that on the next season.

-I have already seen some opinions about the show, so I might be alone on this one, but I appreciated the character of Sangwoo for what he was and how, despite all the bullshit he pulls, he is not all that evil like Deok-su and the mean lady. He genuelly helped Ali at the start without expecting anything in return because Ali helped the protagonist first, not even because he was the one getting the benefit himself, but he was also the man who turned himself into a criminal because he got greedy and wanted even more than the money he had. Like yeah, he was a selfish piece of shit, but he was allowed human moments and kept it interesting until the end. Also the actor was hot so that didn’t hurt.

-In conclusion: Ali was too good for this world.

If you enjoyed this sorta review, rambling or whatever this is about the show, and want to see more, consider supporting me through Ko-fi.