#i never feel more seen or included than when I read his books

[4dkellysworld]

Lester Levenson's self-realisation story

This is the more detailed version of Lester Levenson's story of releasing thoughts & feelings to self-realization that should have been in his autobiography (you can read the more condensed version from the book here). It is a much more detailed account of Lester's process and journey to self-realization in the three months, a very short version was included in this post on why clear the subconscious mind to realise Self.

Reading this was enlightening to me - perhaps it will spark some resonance in you for your own path and practice :)

(I didn't include the parts before this excerpt where he just started self-inquiry after his health issue, the excerpt below starts from when things really progressed for Lester)

In the morning, he woke very early feeling rested and refreshed. His first thought was, "Well, then, what is happiness?" He laughed at his tenacity as he rolled out of bed and into the shower. Preparing breakfast, his thoughts continued to explore the question which dominated his mind. Well, then, what is happiness? What is the common denominator in all these moments? There was Sy, there was Milton, then June, and his Nettie... What was the common denominator? Somehow he knew it was tied up with love, but he could not, at first, see how. When it finally came, it was so simple and pure and complete an answer that he wondered why he had never seen it before.

"Happiness is when I am loving!" He realized that in every instance, his feeling of love for the other person had been intense and that's where the happiness had come from, from his own feeling of loving. It was so clear to him now that being loved was not the answer. He could see that even if people loved him, unless he felt love in return, he was not going to be happy. Their loving might make them happy, but it would not, could not, make him happy. It was a new and mind-boggling concept and even though he instinctively knew that it was correct, his old scientific training didn't allow him to accept it without testing. So he looked into his past, remembering those times in his life when he had been loving and happy, and he recognized that at those times, the other person had not necessarily been loving him.

He looked at the other side too, the unhappy times and now that he knew what to look for, it was very obvious that he had not been loving. Oh, he'd thought at the time that he loved them, as with Nettie and June. He loved them, needed them, wanted them. But was that love, he wondered now? No, it was painful... he was experiencing pain that they didn't love him. And even though he called it love, he was really wanting to possess them completely, thinking he needed all their love to be happy.

That was the key! He had been experiencing a want or lack of love, expecting the other person to supply the love, waiting for the other person to make him happy. He had to laugh, it seemed so ludicrous. To think that someone else could make him happy seemed like the funniest thing in the world. He knew, better than anyone that no one could ever make him anything. He'd always been very proud and stubborn and self-sufficient, sure that he never needed anyone or anything. "What a joke!" He thought. The truth is that he'd been all the time dying inside for want of love, thinking he had to get it from someone. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he laughed and laughed at the realization that what he'd been looking for all his life was inside him. He had been like the absent-minded professor looking everywhere for his glasses which were on top of his head all the time.

"What a shame," he thought, wiping away the tears. "What a shame that I never saw this before. All that time, all those years wasted; what a shame." "But wait a minute!" he thought. "If happiness is when I'm experiencing love for the other one, then that means happiness is a feeling within me. "And if I felt unloving in the past? Well, I know I can't change the past, but could I possibly correct the feeling now inside myself`? Could I change the feeling to love now?"

He decided to try it. He looked at his most recent unhappiness, the day he left the hospital. "First," he asked himself, "was I experiencing a lack of love that day?" "Yes," he answered aloud. "Nobody gave a damn about me, not the nurses, not the orderlies, not even Dr. Schultz. They did not care. As sick as I was, they threw me out, sent me home to die so they wouldn't have to watch one of their failures. Well, the hell with them. They can all go to hell." He was shocked at the vehemence in his voice. His body trembled with rage and he felt weak. He really hated the doctor. He could feel it burning in his chest. "Oh, boy," he thought, "this sure isn't love."

"Well, can I change it?" he asked. "Is it possible to turn it into love for the doctor?" "Hell, no," he thought, "why should I? What did he ever do to deserve any love?" "That's not the point," he answered himself. "The point is not whether he deserves love. The point is, can you do it? Is it possible to simply change a feeling of hatred into a feeling of love—not for the benefit of the other person but for yourself?"

As the thought crossed his mind, he felt something break loose in his chest. A gentle easing, a sense of dissolving, and the burning sensation was gone. He didn't trust it at first. It seemed too easy, so he pictured again the scene with Dr. Schultz in the hospital. He was surprised to find that it brought only a mild feeling of resentment rather than the previous intense burning hatred. He wondered if he could do it again.

"Let's see," he thought, "what did I just do? Ah, yes. Can I change this feeling of resentment into a feeling of love?" He chuckled as he felt the resentment dissolve in his chest. Then it was totally gone and he was happy. He thought of Dr. Schultz again, pictured him in his mind and felt happy, even loving. He saw now, reliving that last meeting, how the doctor had hated to tell him the things he had to say. He could feel the doctor's pain at having to tell a young man in the prime of his life that his life was over. "Doctor Schultz, you son-of-a-gun," he said, grinning, "I love you."

"Well, it worked on that one," he thought. "If my theory is sound, then it should work on everything." Eagerly, he began trying it on other moments, and the results were consistently the same, each time that he asked himself if he could change the feeling of hostility or anger or hatred to one of love, the dissolving process took place. Sometimes he had to repeat it over and over until he felt only Love for the person.

At times, the entire process would take only a minute or two; at other times, it might take him hours of working on a particular person or event before his feelings were only loving, but he would doggedly stay with it until it was completed on each person and each incident.

His entire life came up for review in bits and pieces. One by one, he changed to Love all the old hurts and disappointments. He began to feel stronger as the weight of his pain dropped away. He was happier than he had ever been in his entire life, and he kept it going, feeling even more happiness with each new thing corrected. He stopped going to bed because he had so much energy that he couldn't lie down. When he felt tired, he would doze in his chair and awaken an hour or so later to start in again. There was so much to be corrected in his life that he didn't want to stop until he had looked under every stone and around every corner.

Another thing that intrigued him was the question of how far he could take this. As he corrected each thing, he became happier, he could feel it; but he wondered how far he could go. Was there a limit to happiness? So far, he hadn't found any boundaries to it and the possibilities were staggering. So he kept on, around the clock.

His strength was returning, but not wanting to be distracted, he avoided getting involved in social activities and would sometimes even pass up the Sunday get-together with his family. He did his food shopping in the middle of the night, around two or three in the morning. There were very few people up and about at that hour, and he enjoyed the quiet of the city. He went on correcting his life, even while doing the necessaries. And he noticed that when someone in a store or on the street would annoy him, he was able to correct that response with Love either immediately or shortly thereafter. This pleased him, and he found himself loving others with intensity far beyond anything he had imagined possible. As he described it many years later, "When I mixed with people, and again and again when they would do things that I didn't like and within me was a feeling of non-Love, I would immediately change that attitude to one of loving them even though they were opposing me. Eventually I got to a point where, no matter how much I was being opposed, I could maintain a feeling of Love for them."

He continued to correct his life with consistent results for about a month until one day he got stumped. He was working on the last time he had seen Nettie, the day she chose someone else. He had already corrected a lot of the pain with regard to her; she had come to his mind again and again, and it had not always been easy. In fact, it had been very difficult at first to work on that old relationship but gradually as he gained strength, he had been able to confront some of those long-buried feelings and correct them.

But on this particular day, no matter how hard he tried to correct it with Love, there was still a feeling of despair which he could not dislodge. He wanted to escape, to get out of his chair and run, to get something to eat, to do anything that would get him away from his intense feeling. Instead, he decided to sit there until he handled it.

Something told him that if he let that feeling push him around, if he lost that battle, he would have lost the war. He stayed in his chair, determined to ride it out. He probed, "What's wrong here? Why isn't it dissolving? Nettie, oh, my Nettie." He began to cry now, tears streaming down his cheeks, all the pain he had locked up on the day they parted came now in a flood. "Why did you do it, Nettie?" he cried aloud. "Why did you do it? Why did you leave me, my darling? We could have been so happy, we'd have married and been so happy."

"Damn," he thought, "why do people do things like that? They throw their happiness away and everyone else's, too. They have no right to do that. They shouldn't be allowed to do that. There should be some way of making them change; some way of changing the things they do and the effect they have on people."

He felt the old pain of ulcers starting up again in his stomach and realized with certainty that the ulcers had started that last day with Nettie. He'd drunk the beer and thrown up; that had been the beginning. He wished it had been different. More than anything else in this world, he wanted to change what had happened. He wanted to go back and live it over again the other way with Nettie choosing him, with them getting married and being happy forevermore.

"Well, you can't change it, stupid," he shouted at himself, "so you might just as well stop trying to." That jolted him. He saw that he was still trying to change something that had been finished more than twenty years ago. "No, it can't be finished," he cried. "I won't let it be finished." His throat hurt now and he felt like screaming and smashing things. Then, like instant replay, he heard what he'd said, "I won’t let it be finished." That was the source of his anguish; he'd wanted to change it all these years and so he kept it alive inside himself, buried deep, eroding his happiness. "Well, to hell with that," he said, almost flippantly. Suddenly, with that decision, the whole thing was gone. He couldn't believe it. He felt for the hurt, the pain, the despair. It was all gone. He thought of Nettie as he remembered her, so young, so beautiful, and he simply loved her. There was none of the old painful feeling left.

He began to look now in this new direction. He realized that the cause of his ulcers was that he had wanted to change everything, starting with his nearest and dearest and extending out to the rest of the world, including the United States, other countries, government heads, the weather, endings of movies he had seen, the way businesses were run, taxes, the army, the President; there was nothing he could think of that he had not wanted to change in one way or another.

What a revelation! He saw himself subject to and a victim of everything he wanted to change! He began dissolving all that. When he thought of something that caused him pain about a person or situation, he would now either correct it with Love or dissolve wanting to change it. This added a new dimension to his work, and his progress accelerated.

By the time a second month had gone by, it was all he could do sometimes to stay in his chair, he became so energized. And there were times, when he had worked on particularly painful incidents in his life, that he literally could not sit and would go out into the city and walk for miles, reviewing, correcting, dissolving until he had burned off enough energy to sit still again. Sometimes he felt as though he had hold of a chain with many links of incidents on it which needed correcting. Once he got hold of the chain, he would follow through incident by incident until there was nothing left to be corrected. An example of such a chain was jealousy.

He had always been intensely jealous but managed to hide it most of the time under a facade of not caring. Nevertheless, his insides used to burn if the girl he was with so much as looked at someone else, or even mentioned another man. He decided to correct this tendency in himself. He would probe his memory for instances where his jealousy had driven him; correct it; then look for more. When he thought it was cleared out, he tested himself by imagining the girl he loved most making love with the man he would least want her to be with. It was a good test because he could see immediately that there was more work to do. Sometimes the intensity of his feelings would almost drive him mad, but he continued for days until there was no last vestige of jealousy left in him. When he could finally enjoy their enjoyment of each other, he knew he was finished with jealousy.

Insights came with increasing frequency. He would often gain a sudden, complete understanding of something which had always puzzled him. Philosophies he had studied became clear, and he could see that they had often started off on the right track, only to veer off into distortions, having been diverted by an incorrect idea springing from the author's own storehouse of uncorrected feelings. His mind began to feel like crystal, clear and sharp. "Colors seemed brighter and everything was more sharply defined" says Lester.

"Above all, I saw that I was responsible for everything that had happened to me, formerly thinking that the world was abusing me! And I saw that my tremendous effort to make money and then losing it was due only to my thinking; that I had been always seeking happiness, and thought that making money would do it. So whenever the business started to make money, and the money did not bring me the happiness I wanted, I began to lose interest and the thing collapsed. I had always blamed it on other people and circumstances, not realizing that it was simply my subconscious knowledge that this is not happiness which caused me to lose interest and that, in turn, caused the business to collapse."

"This was a tremendous piece of freedom, to think that I am not a victim of this world, that it lies within my power to arrange the world the way I want it to be; rather than be an effect of it. I can now be in control of it and arrange it the way I would like it to be. That was a tremendous realization, a tremendous feeling of Freedom."

"Discovering that my happiness equated to my loving, and that my thinking was the cause of things happening to me in my life gave me more and more freedom; freedom from the subconscious compulsions that I had to work, I had to make money, I had to have girlfriends. Freedom in the feeling that I was now able to determine my destiny, I was now able to control my world, lightened my internal burden so strongly that I felt there was no need for me to have to do anything.

"Plus, this happiness was so great. It was a new experience for me. I was experiencing a joy that I never knew existed, never dreamed could be. So I decided, "This is so great, I'm not going to stop until I carry it all the way." I had no idea how far it could go. I had no idea how joyous a person could be. But I was determined to find out."

During the third month, things went even faster. There was a depth to Lester’s feelings that threatened to bowl him over at times. His knees sometimes buckled, but he stayed with each feeling until it was corrected. He was becoming happier and happier, still looking to see if there were any limits to what he could accomplish with this new process.

"How much further can I go?" Lester would ask himself, then push it even further. It was also during the third month that he ran into an old adversary, one he had seen out of the corner of his eye again and again throughout his life. It had lurked nearby, always on the periphery and he had never before been willing to meet it head on. It was the fear of death.

Now he recognized it as the basis of every single feeling he had ever had. He began to coax it out into the open, wanting to take a good look at the biggest foe of all, which had so very nearly won the battle only a few months ago. He began to lure those feelings into the open and to dissolve them. And it worked!

He got to the place where, with great confidence, he laughed and laughed and laughed at this foe which had kept a fire lit under him his entire life so that there had not been one moment of real peace, ever. This last of the monsters turned out to be, after all, only a feeling. As he dissolved the fear of death, he realized one day that his body was sound, healed. The physical impairment was corrected. He couldn't explain to anyone how he knew; he just knew it as surely as he knew who he was. His body was sound.

At the end of the third month, he had slipped into a blissful, joyous state, which he could only describe as feeling like a million orgasms surging all at once through his entire body. It went on and on and he realized that this feeling, although not sexual, was what he was always been looking for but never found in sex. He felt light, living for weeks with joy exploding inside him every moment. Everyone and everything became exquisitely beautiful to him. He kept looking for more things to correct, but there didn't seem to be much. Occasionally something would occur to him, but it would be gone almost before he could define it and the joy would surge through him even more strongly.

After several weeks, he began to wonder if there could be anything better beyond this joy. He was sitting in his chair in the usual position, slumped down, legs stretched out, chin touching his chest. He had an idle thought without expecting an answer, but the answer came.

What was beyond this incredible joyous state that didn't stop? He saw that it was peace, imperturbability and he realized with certainty that if he accepted it, if he decided to move into that peace, it would never, ever go away. And he went—slipped into it so effortlessly – with just a decision to have it. He was there.

Everything was still. He was in a quietness that he now knew had always been there but drowned out by incessant noise from his accumulated, uncorrected past. In fact, it was more than quiet; it was so far beyond anything imaginable that there were no words to describe the delectable deliciousness of the tranquility.

His earlier question about happiness was answered too. There were no limits to happiness, but when you have it all, every minute, it gets tiresome. Then this peace is just beyond and all you have to do is step over the line into it. "Is there anything beyond even this?" he wondered. But as he asked, he knew the answer.

This peace was eternal and forever and it was the essence of every living thing. There was only one Beingness and everything was It. Every person was It, but they were without awareness of the fact, blinded by the uncorrected past they hold on to.

He saw this Beingness as something like a comb. He was at the spine of the comb and all the teeth fanned out from it, each one thinking it was separate and different from all the other teeth. And that was true, but only if you looked at it from the tooth end of the comb. Once you got back to the spine or source, you could see that it wasn’t true. It was all one comb. There was no real separation, except when you sat at the tooth end. It was all in one’s point of view.

[quotes-and-recs]

There's a special kind of ecstasy I feel when I read an Andrew Joseph White book and his protag unapologetically talks about the horrors of being a woman (without pulling any punches), and talks about the horrors of being a woman when a woman is not what you are

[impactedfates]

Detective Oblivious - Various Genshin Characters x GN! Reader

★ Summary: Your best friend lately has been acting strange. Could they have a crush on someone?! You have to get to the bottom of it…though perhaps you can start by noticing how they look at you

☆ Characters Included (Separate): Alhaitham, Ayato, Kazuha, Xiao, Yelan, Ningguang

★ Genre/Trope: Romantic + Fluff + Maybe a bit of Crack

☆ Warnings: None

★ Extra: HSR Ver Here // Semi-Proof Read

Honestly I don't blame you for not noticing Alhaitham likes you. He's very hard to read. But at the same time, it doesn't take a detective to notice how he's more careful with his words when talking to you. He doesn't necessarily care what you think of him, even if he likes you, however he does wish for you to see him in a more positive light.

So even though you've been friends for so long, his sudden change in how he talks to you is so you can hopefully see how he feels about you as he believes you'd be able to notice but well...much to his dismay and annoyance, you don't.

You got the part that he likes someone, but not that those feelings are directed towards you. Have you not seen the longing stares he gives you when you're doing anything? How he's more lenient in what you're doing?? How when he was The Acting Grand Sage, how he always looked over anything you wrote to him first???

Clearly not as, as when he enters his home he can see you talking to Kaveh to see if he knows anything about who he likes. Kaveh, noticing him behind you, simply smiled. Although Alhaitham wants to confess to you, he'd rather him telling you directly or you finding out yourself without the need of help from others. And Kaveh knew this...

"Oh, he likes yo-"

A book was suddenly thrown at Kaveh as the Scribe quickly took you away.

"Wh- hey! He was going to tell me something"

"Didn't want him to say something I should be saying...I should be the one telling you I like you"

Many people caught on to the way Ayato treated you differently towards others, in fact. Both Ayaka and Thoma knew he liked you before he himself knew. Yet, why was it that everyone but you knew how much he held you dear to his heart?

Ayato never had much free time to be frank, however unlike his other friends and even family. He would never send anyone as many gifts as he did to you. Anytime you liked something you'd have it delivered to your house right away. You always thanked him for it, beaming as you looked at it. Although you did slightly feel bad as some of the things you off handily mention wanting are quite expensive. But the Commissioner doesn't care. Seeing that smile is enough for him.

What he does care about however, is how dense you are towards his acts of affection. As stated, he gives you more gifts than anyone else he knows. But another thing he does that he's surprised doesn't get you to catch on, is him "jokingly" calling your Mx Kamisato (he's half joking, he does want to marry you)

What surprises him more is that you somehow think it's directed to someone else?? You question him on who he's referring to even though he was looking directly at you.

Eventually he gently backs you into a corner and makes you face him, turning your chin towards him.

"My dear...I've tried everything but you don't get the hint. So I'll say it here...I love you~"

You found some poems that Kazuha had written, and it's about someone. In fact, it's about someone romantically. This caused you to quickly search for who said love poem is about.

One of the kids witnessed you ranting to yourself about who could've taken the samurai's heart and told Beidou, who then found it amusing enough to tell Kazuha who at first laughs it off before realising you've likely read the poems he wrote. He is thankful you haven't found out it's about you, but at the same time. He doesn't think you've met anyone that's like you, and the love poem does describe you near perfectly. Still...at least you haven't found out?

He watches from a small distance as you glance at him before looking away. This happens a lot, especially when he's talking to a friend who questions your behaviour. In fact, you've done this so much that people assume you're Kazuha's partner and want his attention. They even comment about it to which you both politely explain that you're just friends.

Eventually though, he makes no comment when someone assumes the two of you are dating, which makes you question him which leads to you finally figuring out who the love poem is about.

"Wait so...the love poems..."

"Is about you yes, I like you"

I can see him being quite confused himself when he realises he likes someone and might even tell you about how he's feeling. He won't directly say who it is but he tells enough to let you know he's fallen DEEP in love with someone.

Now the two of you are trying to figure out just who's the one making his heart beat faster and clouding his mind. In truth, Xiao quickly realizes it's you that's causing it. But he can't tell you, he's a bit too flustered to tell you, especially with how cute you look trying to figure it out yourself.

So he lets the search go on, he allows you to drag him to meet various people and see if he feels his heart beating faster. And while it does, that's only because you're beside him. Nothing else. He was happy enough to let you guess till you gave up, he didn't think you'd like him back anyways.

However Hu Tao would beg to differ, she's been listening to you rant about how you loved Xiao and all that stuff. In fact, she's even heard from Zhongli that Xiao likes you. So when you come along with the Adeptus in tow and ask him if he feels any different towards her. She has a feeling she knows what's going on. And why not play matchmaker?

"You don't feel anything at all?"

"No..."

The funeral directly quickly piped up, gently pushing you into Xiao's arms and watching his face burst into shades of crimson.

"What about now? Having the love of your life in your arms is bound to make you feel something right?"

She...out right flirts with you. And not in a way to get info from you, just...actual flirting. Yelan knows what she wants and tends to get what she wants. More so in terms of information, but she also wants you and will try anything to make you realize her feelings for you.

She probably knows you like her as well, so this should be easy right? Just flirt with you and you'll get the picture right?...Yeah...

"I would love to spend the future with you y'know darling~ Especially in the same house"

"Oh that would be great"

"Exa-"

"Rent would be so much cheaper if we were roommates"

She...finds your obliviousness cute...in a weird way though. She finds it even more cute that you do in fact recognize her flirting eventually...but think she's using you as practice. Now she spots you trying to figure out who it is so you can help her more. And "act" like her crush. She does need to eventually tell you so you can stop searching, I mean. The answer is clear if you look in a mirror.

"C'mon Lanlan, you need to tell who you actually like"

"Hm? Oh but I am sweetie~"

Ningguang is obviously highly respected and of course has her own set of admirers. You used to see her reading each letter with care and consideration before laughing. Not in a hateful way, truly she's grateful people like her that much. But recently she seems to read them a bit faster, seemingly searching for one name in particular.

It's clear to you she wants a certain person to be in her pile of confession letters. And you'll figure out who. I mean, what better way to help your friend then finding out who she likes and seeing if they like her back right :D

Well...word got to her that you've been searching through some of her things, nothing personal but just around her office. Not to mention observing her more closely lately which she plays off as you being interested in what she has to say. But when she hears that you've apparently scared a poor soul with some of your questioning she goes to confront you.

To which you weakly explain you want to help her find out if her crush likes her back or not. She simply laughs a bit, surprised. She's been giving you special treatment ever since she found out her feelings for you. You've been given bigger discounts because she just cannot let her "darling" pay so much. Alongside other things she thought were obvious hints in the hopes you'll write her a confession letter.

"Well...if you want to help me find out if they like me back, answer me this"

"Yeah?"

"Do you like me?"

Anyone else find it hard to know when someone likes them? Cuz I do, hence this idea sprang forth. Not all the characters included are ones I simp for but I thought it would be interesting to add them (I literally only simp for Alhaitham and Ayato out of the characters included tbh nsoaorgr)

[sexlapis]

i only see you

⤷ cw : jealousy, doubt, a little bit of arguing, angst to fluff but not too bad :)

actor! toji x gn actress/actor! reader

a/n: i decided to put these two asks together. great minds think alike!

masterlists

actor!toji masterlist

you regret coming here.

arms crossed, lips downward, and brows so furrowed that they basically cast a shadow over your eyes as you watched toji and his…co-worker from afar.

toji was played a minor role in quite a popular tv series and that popular tv series included a..love interest. now of course, toji asked you first if it was okay - he would’ve never agreed to the role if it made you sad or uncomfortable. being the good partner that you were, not wanting to limit his career choices because of your own feelings, you easily gave him permission to do so.

you’re starting to regret that too.

the actress is so obviously into him, which of course wouldn’t have been a problem if toji wasn’t your boyfriend. she has been like this all of the times you have visited toji on set. you two haven’t decided to go public yet, but god right this second, you wish you had.

and she is gorgeous. tall, long and silky brown hair, bright green eyes, a model-like visage…you attempt to push down that nasty feeling of jealousy that builds up inside of you, but it’s useless. you hated seeing this, really. and if you are honest with yourself, you’d admit that you never want toji to take any acting roles where he would have a love interest, because you hated seeing toji being lovey dovey with another person. even if it was just ‘acting’.

toji sits in his directors chair on his phone while the model stands besides him, speaking. you can’t hear what they’re saying, but she’s clearly trying to look attractive for him - twirling her hair, discreetly pushing her cleavage together, biting and licking her lips…you know your boyfriend was hot but god, does she have to be so obvious? it made you kind of sick.

and then she does something unbelievable.

the model runs her finger up toji’s bicep, circling around him like he’s prey to stand behind where he sits and starts massaging his shoulders.

your jaw is basically on the floor at this point, shocked at her audacity (even thought she is doing this under the assumption that toji is a single man).

toji eyes widen a little, and he looks a little awkward. and then he looks up at her and smiles.

smiles?

your eyes wander around and you see that the crew members are also looking at this little display of…whatever the hell it was. they whisper amongst themselves, taking small glances at where you stand and you decide you’ve seen enough, already embarrassed enough, you leave the set without saying goodbye to toji. you want nothing more than to return home to the comfort of your apartment.

౨ৎ

it’s the next day and you haven’t spoken to toji since that..incident.

you decide to distract yourself with baking, reading, crocheting, painting, all of your hobbies to make you forget about what happened yesterday.

sure, you could just speak to toji, but this has happened twice now, so you think you have the right to give toji a little silent treatment.

you’re laying on your couch reading a booking when your phone buzzes on the coffee table. sighing, you pick it up, unlocking it. there’s a message from your friend shoko.

————

shoko

[link] ???????????

————

you hesitantly click on the link, lowkey scared for what it is. it’s a celebrity news article from a few hours ago, talking about how toji and his new co-worker are dating.

“inside sources have told us that toji and his co-worker, a model playing his love interest, are dating! sorry tojiyn lovers, your ship has sank!”

it’s mocking wording pisses you off and makes your eye twitch. no matter how long you have been famous for, the lies of the media are something you will never get used to.

————

shoko

it’s already trending on twitter…

————

that sets you off and you throw your phone across the room, screaming in your hands.

it was probably those crew members, you thought bitterly.

there is a knock at your door. that’s odd, you weren’t expecting any visitors or packages today.

sighing, you walk over the door but not before looking through the peephole first. the sight has you huffing.

you open the door and there stands toji.

“you ready to talk to me now or what?” he asks in his usual brash, straightforward manner.

you’re already walking away to the kitchen to make yourself tea, leaving the door open as an unspoken invitation. “wow, not even a ‘hello?’ she really has changed you, huh?”

“what?” toji walks to where you are, careful not to make any sudden movements that would piss you off more than you already are, “who’s she? what the hell are you talking about?”

you grunt, setting the water to boil and taking your favourite mug out. you turn to retrieve a teabag but toji is cornering you, pressing and trapping you against the counter.

“ugh, toji!” you groan, trying to escape his arms for barriers but he doesn’t budge.

“no.” he says firmly before taking on a softer tone. “talk to me..please.”

crossing your arms, you lean back on the counter and look at the floor. “what’d you wanna know?”

“i wanna know why you ain’t talkin’ to me.”

“i don’t know why don’t you go ask your new girlfriend!” you shout, ashamed to admit that a few tears formed in your eyes after that outburst of yours.

“my new-? _____, what are you…oh…this is about her.”

“her who?!” you almost shout again, impatient and throwing your arms around. “the one who you let just fucking touch you and massage you all the time?”

“oh, baby.” toji sighs, cupping your face, wiping the tears that you didn’t even know started to fall. “i know, i know. i shoulda told her to cut it out way sooner than i did..jus’ didn’t wanna make shit weird on set. but that don’t matter, i shoulda done it to make you feel okay..’m sorry..”

you hum, nuzzling your cheek into his palm. you missed his touch even thought it had only been a day.

i’m so lame.

toji hugs you and you wrap your arms around his waist, resting your face on his pectoral.

“..and i did tell her i’m with someone.” you look up, afraid he told her about your relationship. “i didn’t tell ‘er it was you, don’t worry. ‘said she was sorry and won’t push any boundaries.”

“…you believe her?” you ask, honestly doubtful and still a little jealous because of that whole fiasco.

“well, ‘m just gonna have to.” he kissing the top of you head before pulling your face away from his chest, making you look up at him. “but hey, you don’t gotta worry about anythin’ like that, sweetie. seriously. i only have eyes for you. nobody else. i…i only love you.. believe that.”

“toji..” you warble, pushing your face into his chest again.

toji chuckles, face a little red due to his own words and speaks again. “but you gotta promise me you’ll just talk to me if i do somethin’ that makes you sad, okay? i don’t wanna go around pissin’ my girlfriend off all the time.”

you laugh, sniffling. “yes, i promise.”

toji smiles down at you, kissing your forehead. you both stand there embracing each other for a few moments before he decides to break the silence.

“why don’t you make toji some tea too? ♡.”

a teabag is thrown in his face.

tag list: @tiredslepz | @hayatslife | @shxyxyxxxx | @snowprincesa1 | @laylasbunbunny | @mimiemie | @raven-r0ses | @ib4ryuguji

a/n i enjoyed writing this one a lot <3

[nickeverdeen]

Hi could you do a five hargreeves x female!reader where reader is normal and doesn't have powers but she's a genius and basically has a photographic memory, and she meets five and he's a bit mean and snarky but eventually he starts to fall for her

I also think it would be funny if she was kinda best friends with Klaus and he kinda teases her about five, but you don't have to include that

Guns And Brains | Five Hargreeves x genius fem!reader

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x fem!reader, Klaus Hargreeves x fem!reader (best friend)

Warning: None

PS: Sorry for the unoriginal title

———————————

You were used to being the smartest person in the room. It wasn’t arrogance; it was simply a fact. Your photographic memory allowed you to absorb and recall information with an almost eerie accuracy. In school, you never needed to study, and in life, you rarely encountered a problem you couldn’t solve. You had grown accustomed to the bemused looks and occasional irritation that came from people who found your talents either intimidating or annoying.

Yet here you are, standing in the middle of an ancient-looking mansion, face-to-face with a boy who exuded an air of superiority that rubbed you entirely the wrong way. Five Hargreeves—if you remembered correctly from the vague mentions in tabloids about the dysfunctional Umbrella Academy—was a strange, prodigious enigma. He looked like a teenager, but there was something in his eyes that suggested he was anything but.

From the moment Klaus had introduced you, you could sense the tension brewing. It wasn’t just the way Five had narrowed his eyes at you, or the clipped tone he used when addressing you. It was the challenge in his gaze, the unspoken assertion that he was smarter, quicker, better. The way he practically dared you to prove him wrong.

“Who’s this?” Five had asked, his tone flat and disinterested, as if your presence was more of an inconvenience than anything else.

“This is Y/N,” Klaus had said cheerfully, apparently oblivious to the storm clouds brewing between them. “She’s got a brain like a supercomputer—remember everything she’s ever read, seen, or heard. Thought she might be able to help us out.”

Five’s eyes had flickered with something—annoyance, skepticism, you couldn’t quite tell. “We don’t need help,” he’d said brusquely. “Especially not from someone who thinks they can waltz in and solve problems that are far beyond their understanding.”

And there it was—the gauntlet thrown down. You had felt your spine stiffen, your own competitive streak flaring up in response. You didn’t like the way he assumed you were just some book-smart outsider with no practical experience, especially when he hadn’t even given you a chance to prove otherwise.

“I’m not here to solve your problems,” you replied, your tone sharp. “But from what I’ve heard, you could use all the help you can get.”

Klaus had tried to mediate, sensing the tension. “Alright, kids, play nice. We’re all on the same team here.”

But you had seen the look in Five’s eyes—a mix of condescension and irritation. He clearly didn’t think much of you, and that was something you weren’t about to let slide. If there was one thing you despised, it was being underestimated.

The first few days in the mansion were… interesting, to say the least. Klaus had introduced you to the rest of the siblings, all of whom had their own unique quirks and issues. Luther was stoic and serious, Allison was kind but guarded, Diego was intense, and Viktor was quiet, almost withdrawn. They were an odd bunch, but in some ways, you felt more at ease with them than you did with Five.

Five, on the other hand, seemed determined to make you feel unwelcome. Whenever you offered a suggestion, he’d shoot it down without a second thought. When you tried to engage him in a discussion about the theories he was working on, he’d dismiss your opinions with a wave of his hand, as if your thoughts were nothing more than background noise.

It was infuriating.

At first, you tried to stay calm. Your reminded yourself that you were here to help, not to butt heads with a stubborn man who had likely seen more in his lifetime than you could ever imagine. But as the days passed, you found your patience wearing thin.

The breaking point came one evening when you were all gathered around the dining table, discussing the latest anomaly that Five was trying to unravel. He was pacing back and forth, spouting off calculations and theories at a rapid pace. The others were listening intently, but you could see the confusion in their eyes.

“Maybe if we adjusted the parameters slightly,” you suggested, your tone measured, “we could account for the temporal flux and—”

Five cut you off with a snort. “That’s a ridiculous idea. Adjusting the parameters would only destabilize the entire equation. You clearly don’t understand the complexities of time travel.”

Your jaw clenched. “And you clearly don’t understand the value of listening to other people’s input. Just because you’ve traveled through time doesn’t mean you know everything.”

Five stopped pacing and turned to face you, his expression cold. “I’ve spent decades—decades—working on these equations. You’ve been here for a week. Don’t presume to know more than I do.”

The room went silent. The others exchanged uneasy glances, but you didn’t back down. You were tired of Five’s arrogance, tired of him treating you like you were some naive child who had wandered into his domain.

“Maybe I don’t know more than you,” you said, your voice steady. “But I’m not an idiot, and I’m not going to stand here and let you treat me like one. If you’re so confident in your theories, then why not test them? Or are you afraid that someone else might actually have a better idea?”

Five’s eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he said, his tone icy. “Let’s test it. And when it fails, you can stop wasting our time with your half-baked theories.”

You didn’t respond. You simply nodded and turned your attention back to the problem at hand, determined to prove him wrong.

The next few days were tense, to say the least. You and Five worked together, but it was clear that neither of you were happy about it. Every interaction was laced with sarcasm and thinly veiled insults. Yet, beneath the hostility, there was a grudging respect forming, though neither of you would admit it.

Despite his arrogance, you couldn’t help but be impressed by Five’s intellect. He was brilliant, there was no denying that. His mind worked at a speed that rivaled your own, and his knowledge of temporal mechanics was unmatched. But he was also infuriatingly stubborn, refusing to consider any idea that wasn’t his own.

For his part, Five found himself both annoyed and intrigued by you. You were smart—smarter than he’d initially given you credit for. Your insights were often sharp and on point, even if he was loath to admit it. But what bothered him the most was how you challenged him, pushing back against his authority in a way no one else dared to. It was unsettling, and yet… he found himself drawn to it.

One afternoon, as you were pouring over another set of calculations, you suddenly spoke up.

“I’ve been thinking,” you said, not looking up from the paper in front of you.

“Dangerous,” Five muttered under his breath, but there was no real bite to his words.

You ignored him. “You’re right about the temporal flux destabilizing if we adjust the parameters too much. But what if we didn’t adjust them directly? What if we introduced a stabilizing agent that could counterbalance the fluctuations?”

Five paused, considering your words. It wasn’t a completely ridiculous idea. In fact, it was… interesting. But he wasn’t about to let you know that.

“It’s a long shot,” he said instead, his tone dismissive.

“Maybe,” you conceded. “But it’s worth a try. Unless you have a better idea?”

Five scowled, but there was no real heat behind it. “Fine. We’ll try it your way. But don’t get used to it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” you replied, a small smirk playing on your lips.

As you worked together, there was a noticeable shift in the air between you two. The barbs were still there, but they were less sharp, the insults less cutting. It was as if you were beginning to acknowledge each other as equals—rivals, perhaps, but with a mutual respect that was slowly, begrudgingly, forming.

Weeks passed, and the initial tension between you and Five began to ease, replaced by a rhythm of sorts. You still bickered, still challenged each other at every turn, but there was a camaraderie in it now. A strange, twisted camaraderie, but camaraderie nonetheless.

The others noticed it too. Klaus, in particular, found endless amusement in your interactions, often teasing you about your “little crush” on Five.

“Admit it,” Klaus says with a grin. “You two are just one good argument away from kissing.”

You roll your eyes, brushing off his comments, but you couldn’t deny that there was a certain… tension between you and Five. Not that you would ever admit it out loud. The last thing you wanted was to give Five the satisfaction of knowing he got under your skin in more ways than one.

But the turning point came one evening, when you were working late in the mansion’s library. The room was dimly lit, the only sound the soft rustle of papers as you pored over your latest set of equations. You were focused, your mind fully absorbed in the problem at hand, when you felt a pair of eyes on you.

You looked up, only to find Five watching you, his expression unreadable. For a moment, neither of you spoke. There was something in his gaze, something that made your heart skip a beat.

“What?” You asked, your voice softer than you intended.

Five hesitated, as if weighing his words carefully. “You’re not as annoying as I thought you were.”

It wasn’t exactly a compliment, but coming from Five, it was close enough. You felt a small smile tug at your lips. “You’re not as unbearable as I thought you were either.”

Five’s lips quirked up in the faintest hint of a smile. “High praise.”

You fell into a comfortable silence after that, the tension between you two shifting into something else. Something neither of you were quite ready to name.

[aphroditelovesu]

Yandere Golden Trio Headcanons (Platonic)

❝ 🔮 — lady l: another Harry Potter headcanons because my mind is buzzing with ideas yayy!! I hope you like it and forgive me for any mistakes! 💜

❝tw: obsessive and possessive behavior, jealousy, overprotection and implicit murder.

❝ 🔮pairing: yandere!golden trio/harry potter, hermione granger and ron weasley x gender neutral!reader.

You probably did not know, but they were obsessed with you from the first day of class at Hogwarts. All of you were new and some strangers to this world and they needed something they could cling to, something that would not leave them and that someone was you.

You met on the train. You and Hermione sat together and talked a little until you went with the other boys, at her insistence, you went along and that was when you met Harry and Ron.

They were ecstatic to discover that you were new too and couldn't wait to be with you at Hogwarts. Once you were selected into a house other than theirs, they would sulk and even get angry. But if you were a Gryffindor like them, there would be no problem to deal with.

They are incredibly possessive of you and they will get upset and irritated when you are with someone other than them, especially if it is someone like Draco Malfoy. You are theirs, you had become theirs since the first conversation on the train and you would continue to be theirs.

Harry is the least possessive, but he is still very jealous of you, even with his own friends. He is very kind and polite, so loyal to his friends and so adored, there is no bad intention in his actions and his thoughts are all about you. He needs to protect you, take care of you because he can't bear to lose you.

He is very calm and rarely loses his temper, Harry just wants to protect you and take care of you. He can't lose anyone else and he can't lose you. Harry is very overprotective and suffocating at times, wanting to know how you are and what you are doing. He's just looking out for you like a good friend would.

Ron is very possessive and suffocating, his insecurity will take him to extremes just to get your affection. He is very lively and optimistic, he is always the one who will lift you up and make you laugh every time you are feeling bad. He cares for you very much and secretly longs to be your favorite.

He is very insecure deep down and fears being abandoned by you, and he can't have that. Ron likes to keep you with him, always keeping you safe and secure, and most importantly of all, just with him. Ron is very spontaneous and lively, desperately wanting to be loved by you.

Hermione is the most balanced, or so she likes to think. She is very intelligent and kind to you, always making sure you are well and happy. Hermione likes to stay by your side in silence, whether it's reading a book or talking about something. She would love to help you with your studies, even if you don't need it, but it would make her very happy.

She is very possessive and manipulative, having seen you first, she should have more right to you. Hermione is fiercely protective of you and jealous, wanting to be the only one to have your attention. She is very careful about you and is always trying to help you, even if you don't need it, but this helps her feel needed. Hermione is a big fan of hers, always rooting for you.

They are extremely protective of you and they are willing to do anything for you, including using forbidden magic. Harry is very suffocating and needs constant reassurance that you are okay, Ron desperately wants your attention and affection and Hermione needs to care and guide you.

You will always be theirs. There's no way to walk away, even if you wanted to. They would never dare to harm you in any way, but if you are resolute in doing things that they vehemently disapprove of, punishment will be meted out. They don't want to scare you, that's the last thing they want, but they have limits.

At any sign of conflict or danger you will be removed. It doesn't matter if you know how to fight or are good with spells, they won't risk your safety and your life. And if you are hurt, they will go into a frenzy of rage and worry and will not stop until they find the culprit and deal with them. No one can hurt you.

Harry would always protect you and be by your side, holding your hand if you needed it. Ron will always cheer you up and say the right things to make you happy and Hermione will always guide you and take care of you in her own way.

Once they become obsessed with you, there is nothing to be done. Not even Dumbledore could help you, not when the obsession, the need to protect you, was already so ingrained in the Trio. You would have to get used to being deeply loved and protected because they aren't going anywhere and neither are you.

[princessofgondor]

the lord of the rings characters + cuddling with them 🩷

Characters Included: Boromir, Faramir, Aragorn, Arwen, Éowyn, Éomer, Legolas, Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry

I decided I wanted to try doing some LOTR preferences! This is my first time writing for all of these characters besides Boromir so I’m still getting a handle on them. If anyone has any requests for preference posts they’d like to see, please send them my way and I’ll see what I can do!!

Author has only seen the movies, so please forgive any mistakes/inaccuracies!

Boromir is definitely pretty touch-starved, and after cuddling with you for the first time he’s very surprised how much he loves it. It becomes a common occurrence for the two of you, something he looks forward to — especially after a long day of training with his soldiers. He loves being the big spoon, and burying his face in your hair or your neck.

Faramir is a big cuddler for sure. You don’t even need to ask — as soon as you rest your head on his shoulder (when you’re sitting together) or on his chest (when you’re laying down together), he’s got his arms wrapped around you, holding you close. He gives you a lot of forehead kisses when you’re cuddling together.

Aragorn loves the moments where the two of you can just relax together, especially when things are getting stressful. He’s happy for the two of you to simply lay there in silence, holding each other, but if you need to talk about anything he’s always ready to listen.

Arwen has an incredibly calming presence, and cuddling with her can improve your mood no matter how bad you were feeling beforehand. She holds you close, whispering comforting words in your ear and pressing gentle kisses to your face and lips every so often.

Éowyn isn’t used to cuddling, but like Boromir she comes to really enjoy it. You make her feel peaceful and happy in a way that she’s never experienced before, and so she loves to be close to you as often as possible. She has a tendency to play with your hair, and she likes it when you do the same to her.

At first, Éomer tries to look tough and doesn’t admit how much he likes cuddling with you. But each time, it becomes increasingly obvious how much he loves it. Similar to Éowyn, he likes it when you play with his hair.

Legolas finds it adorable how much you love to cuddle with him, especially when you get cold. As an Elf he can’t feel the cold, but he can always tell that the temperature is dropping when you cuddle up to him. He’s perfectly happy to stay bundled up with you for as long as you need him there.

Frodo loves when the two of you cuddle up while reading a book together, though sometimes he gets distracted from the words on the page because he’s looking at you. If this is after the main events of LOTR, I could see your presence/touch being able to help Frodo heal from his traumatic experiences, at least somewhat.

Sam is incredibly affectionate, so he definitely loves cuddling. He’s a bit shy about it at first, getting a bit embarrassed and not knowing what he should be doing — like where should his arms/hands be? He doesn’t want to upset you or make you uncomfortable — but once he’s used to it, it’s his favourite thing in the world.

Pippin absolutely loves cuddling with you and he doesn’t care who knows it. Honestly, if he could spend his entire life cuddled up with you and some snacks then he’d be the happiest Hobbit who ever lived. It doesn’t matter where you are, if you’re near each other he’ll want to either have his arms around you or be resting against you.

I think that like Pippin, Merry loves cuddling, but he’s a little less likely to do it publicly. When it’s just the two of you however he loves nothing more than being close to you. He probably makes little jokes and lightly teases you for being so eager to cuddle with him, but it’s all very light-hearted and you know that he loves it too.

[k9effect]

I thought about Mav passed out at his work desk with headphones on and it spiralled into this whole thing

Mav always felt a little lonely.

Even when he had people around him who loved him, he always ended up on his own one way or another and felt that loneliness seeping in. Goose was the first to notice. Before Goose's trips back to Tennessee to see Carole included Mav, he would come back to base to hear about how his pilot had lost a bit of his shine while he was away.

That's when Goose started making the recordings.

It was a small gift, but it meant the world to Mav. A brand new walkman, headphones and all, and a single cassette tape. This tape didn't have music on it, no, it contained a three hour recording of Goose reading though the F-14 Tomcat Flight Manual and adding in his own comedic commentary.

He wasn't sure what Mav would think of it, but when he returned home from another trip and found his pilot curled up asleep on the lounge, headphones on, walkman clutched in his hands, the tape run through, he realised he had made the right decision. Once Mav stirred, realising Goose had returned, he pulled the RIO onto the couch and thanked him for how thoughtful and considerate of a gift it was. That it made him feel less alone.

Goose continued the recordings. They were simple things he could make while completing other work. An hour recording here of Goose rambling while he completed chores, half an hour recording there of Goose muttering while he completes some paperwork. Even after Mav started joining him on his trips to Carole and they inevitably became attached at the hip, Goose continued making recordings. They grew more sincere over time, telling Mav that he was loved and he was strong and could get through anything.

Maverick was very glad he continued making them. It was a piece of Goose he could always carry with him.

Because one day, Goose wasn't there anymore.

Ice was never quite certain why his wingman was always listening to music on a busted walkman, but he never questioned it.

That was until he was packing Mav an overnight bag after an accident and Mav had specifically requested the walkman. Ice had taken a closer look at it and seen the writing on the cassette.

‘GOOSE - 12’

Curiosity got the better of him and he pulled on the headphones and pressed play.

“Y'know, Mav-” It was Goose's voice, Ice realised with a pang deep in his chest, “- I'm pretty sure, by like, most, if not all, the laws of aviation, you should have broken our Tomcat's airframe several times over. I honestly don't know how she's still together-” There was the clinking of dishes and sloshing of water along with the distinct sound of a bristly, sudsy brush scrubbing metal. “- What sort of demon did you make a deal with to manage this? I'm not arguing, I'd rather not face a board of inquiry again, but I'm curious.”

Ice paused it.

He realised very quickly what the cassette was and that, judging on the number, there were more of these.

Mav was always listening to Goose talk.

He packed the walkman into the overnight bag with much more care than he offered possibly anything.

Mav stared.

He blinked once, then twice. But it changed nothing.

There was a cassette sitting on his bed. On it, was scribbled a name and a number.

‘ICE - 1’

Beneath it was a small, simple note.

‘Listen to me.’

Mav pushed the cassette into his walkman and, sitting down, let it play.

“Hey, Mav. Sorry if this is weird for you, it sure feels weird for me. I- uh- I realised what the walkman is for. I'm sorry I teased you for it, it's not dumb and old. I know Slider thought you were pretty cool for having one. He's got one too. But anyways, I found a recording of Goose and I realised why you have this so I thought, y'know, maybe I could make you some new ones? To make up for the teasing at least. I mightn't be as good as Goose but I'll give it my best shot. I've got a book here, I'm just gonna read it out loud for a while, okay? Okay. Here we go…”

Mav listened to the whole thing in one sitting. It was long and sweet and Mav felt something aching inside him, something that hadn't ached in a long time.

Every week or so, Mav would find another cassette in his room with an increased number on it. It was just Ice for a while, but then he found one labelled ‘SLIDER - 1’. Then another a few months later labelled ‘HOLLYWOOD - 1’, then ‘WOLFMAN - 1’. His collection grew as more people helped continue Goose's legacy.

The day he found ‘VIPER - 1’ he felt like he was five again. Viper's recording was two hours worth of him recounting childhood stories of Mav, stories of him with his parents, of just his parents, and deployment tales of his dad.

Once Mav buys his first proper home, an old hangar out in the Mojave Desert, he builds a small shelf to hold all of his cassettes instead of keeping them in a bag or a box. It's then, when they're all neatly organised together, that he realises just how many he has.

The original thirty-one from Goose.

Three from Carole.

One short one from Bradley.

Seventeen from Iceman.

Ten from Slider.

Seven each from Hollywood and Wolfman.

Four from Chipper.

Three from Sunny.

And, so far, Two from Viper.

He doesn't feel so lonely anymore. Everyone he loves has put time and effort into making sure he doesn't feel alone. That instead, he feel loved.

And he sure does.

Even now, years down the track, Ice will stumble upon Maverick passed out at his work desk late at night ontop of a half finished project, with his old walkman next to him, headphones on, listening to Goose laugh his way through the Tomcat manual.

[twstowo]

Hello! I absolutely love your work it's always such a joy to read them! So, when I saw your asks were open, I had to ask fast! Can I request for a fluffy work where Jade, Rook, and Vil are painting their S/O? You can add on more if you need to.

I hope you have a nice day! ₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗SYNOPSIS: They paint/sketch you.

♡︎I almost exploded on Vil’s part.

♡︎Includes: Jade, Rook and Vil

♡︎Warning: Jade smirking

⋆⋅☆Jade

I can't picture him painting you, but I see him having some sketches of you in a notebook, probably filled with information about mushrooms.

After classes ended, you had a habit of lingering at Monstro Lounge. You'd order a drink, often covered by Jade's generosity. There, you would study, awaiting Jade's arrival whenever he was free. On one particular day, he observed you from a distance, engrossed in reading potionology books for an upcoming test. Although you were engaged in a mundane activity, he felt an unusual urge to capture you in his notebook, akin to documenting a rare mushroom.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

"Jade, is that me?" you questioned as you spotted a peculiar doodle of yourself in his mushroom-filled notebook. The two of you had gone on a hike, and to assist him in identifying mushrooms, he handed you his notebook. To your surprise, amidst the detailed fungi descriptions, you discovered a drawing of your face stuffed inside a book. Much to your dismay, Jade responded with a smirk rather than a straightforward answer.

⋆⋅☆Rook

Now Rook would be the type to paint you and have those paintings of you on the walls of his room, no shame at all. If someone entered his room, he would spend hours talking about the artworks, explaining how divine you looked to the point that he had to capture it for eternity.

He would find you in the botanical garden, staring at some flowers, and out of nowhere, you'd see him with a canvas and an easel running towards you. You have no idea how he managed to get those so fast, as you were just talking seconds ago.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

“Is this really necessary?” You were already embarrassed by the fact that he wanted to paint you, but the constant remarks about your beauty made you almost pass out.

“Oh, mon Trickster, I only wish to capture forever what I deem worthy of being seen by millions, as your beauty is undoubtedly impossible to-” And he kept on talking about how much he loved you, how amazing you were, how breathtaking you looked, and how his actions were undoubtedly more than worth it. With each word, you felt your legs growing weaker.

⋆⋅☆Vil

This might start with Rook wanting to paint the two of you together as a cute couple since he was your ultimate shipper. However, Vil never seemed pleased with the paintings, stating that something was missing. You thought he was talking about him not looking as good as he wanted, but after some days, he asks you to come over, and to your surprise, he tells you that he wants to paint you.

──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

“Potato, stay still!” By the Seven, you only wanted to scratch your nose. It had been almost an hour, and you were starting to feel really hungry. You'd have to curse Grim for wasting money on his cans of tuna, leaving you with only sandwiches until the smell made you feel sick. You stared around his room, waiting for the work to be done. After all, it surely couldn’t take that much more. “Come see it.” You saw him lower the brush as he looked at you with a smile, and as you approached, you had to grab your jaw or it would drop to the floor. The way he had drawn you had nothing on Rook’s style. You looked so beautiful, it almost didn’t feel like that was you. So, that was how Vil saw you? And he was just mad that Rook couldn’t see the same thing he did.

“Oh, Vil!” You sounded so lovesick as you gave him a hug and a kiss.

[webanglikethat]

“Gabe wasn’t abusive enough”

as a victim of abuse myself, everyone complaining that Gabe is not ''abusive enough'' makes me SO fucking enraged. just because we don't see sally limping with a black eye while blood is rushing down her face, it does not mean she's not abused. one thing that is extremely important to recognize when it comes to abuse is that abuse can manifest in various forms -> including emotional, psychological, verbal, and financial abuse and even many more. it is not always visible or easily identifiable. abuse leaves scars that aren't always visible to the naked eye. stop pretending it is always black and white.

now to Gabe -> he is financially abusive: he is unemployed and seemingly devoid of any inclination towards responsibility. he shamelessly exploits Sally's hard-earned money and so, her efforts to secure a stable financial future for herself and Percy are callously disregarded as Gabe channels those funds into a destructive vortex of gambling.

-> he is verbally abusive to Percy: he always belittles him, undermining his self-esteem and sense of worth. Percy is barely twelve, living in a world that was not crafted for him, and he is trying to come to terms with that and there is Gabe, taking advantage of that. the psychological impact of Gabe's actions goes beyond mere verbal jabs; it seeps into the very fabric of Percy's self-concept. if you want to believe it or not.

-> he is okay with physical abuse: when Percy mentions he got kicked out for ´´assaulting a girl´´, instead of the expected concern or guidance everyone would expect from a normal person, Gabe's response is a simple yet chilling "okay," delivered with an almost impressed and approving tone. rather than condemning the use of physical force, Gabe's indifferent response basically indicates that he too would be okay with it and that perhaps, Percy's house isn't the safe place he thought it would be. (which we know is true, if you have read the books)

-> he is mentally abusive: HE answered Sally’s phone and spoke to the principal at Yancy. Gabe, ever the puppeteer, attempted //again// to extend his pathetic influence by seeking to control not only the household dynamics but also the very upbringing of Sally's son.

-> coercive control: Gabe is exerting control over the family's mobility by dictating access to the car. by making Sally negotiate, Gabe is asserting dominance and creating an environment where Sally feels compelled to seek his permission for everyday activities.

-> neglect: believe it or not, but failing to provide basic needs, including emotional support, is a form of abuse. Gabe's complete disregard for Percy's well-being is neglectful and abusive. period.

-> and I cannot believe that twelve year old Percy saw the red flags before some of you all -- who are grown adults -- did. Percy's recognition of the subtle manipulation tactics employed by Gabe literally showcase the emotional intelligence and observational skills that children can only develop when navigating difficult circumstances (shoutout to my psychology class).

and also, fuck you. what is abusive enough to you? as a survivor of abuse, I find this idea so fucking deeply troubling. what exactly constitutes 'abusive enough' to you? is it only valid if there's kicking or punching involved? let me be clear: abuse isn't just about physical violence. it is such a complex issue with many facets - emotional manipulation, verbal degradation, financial control, and psychological torment are all forms of abuse that can leave lasting scars. by suggesting Gabe needs to be 'more abusive,' you're unintentionally trivializing the experiences of countless abuse survivors whose abusers never laid a hand on them. this often prevents victims from seeking help. many abuse survivors struggle with self-doubt, wondering if their experiences 'count' because they don't match the extreme portrayals often seen in media. abuse isn't a spicy sauce you can just keep adding to until it burns. it’s not a competition to see who can be the most horrible human being possible. also how exactly are you measuring here? do you have a handy little scale? oh, he only emotionally devastated her today. that’a like, a 3 out of 10 on the abuse-o-meter. needs more punching!' Newsflash: abuse isn't some kind of a spectator sport. it’s not here for your entertainment or to meet your arbitrary standards of 'enough.'

so you know what? I think TV shows need more representation like this. the portrayal of Gabe as an abuser who initially appears harmless and quite stupid aligns with the reality of many abusive relationships because contrary to popular perceptions, abuse doesn't always manifest in blatant physical aggression or explicit threats. more often than not, it takes on subtler forms, such as psychological, emotional, or financial manipulation (as I already mentioned).

and I am so proud that the show chose this narrative path because it sheds light on the less-discussed aspects of abuse. in my opinion, the show proves to be a valuable resource by deviating from conventional tropes in its portrayal. victims often hesitate to seek help when their experiences deviate from the expected narrative, and bystanders may struggle to recognize the more subtle aspects of abuse, perpetuating a culture of silence and impunity for abusers. so good job to the percy jackson directors, you got my respect. <3

[itsmarsss]

a great thing [Miguel Diaz x Fem!Reader] (Cobra Kai)

(~from the vault~)

He left you a voicemail telling you he had news less than an hour before he was kicked down the second floor.

Word count 3,060

[ . . .]

Exhausted was the word.

For exactly two weeks and two days, you slept on the unbelievably uncomfortable couch in Miguel’s hospital room, adamant about doing so no matter what anyone told you.

And everyone tried to tell you something.

Carmen, Rosa, Sensei, Demetri, Hawk, Aisha (through phone), even Sam. Nothing made you budge: you were staying until he woke up and that was final.

You’d wake up in the morning, have lunch with Carmen and Rosa, talk to him in hopes that he could hear you, go home, take a shower, change, get back and repeat. Every single day.

Every day was harder.

Every friend that came to visit with that look on their face, every visit from Sensei, every time his mom would break down crying and beg for him to make it through, every prayer from his grandma, every one-sided conversation you’d have with him as he stayed unconscious. Everything was harder these days.

So yeah, you were exhausted.

Sometimes Hawk would bring you lunch for you to share, and he’d distract you with conversation that he’d occasionally include Miguel in with a “you hear that, man?” or something of the sort, which made you smile.

Or Demetri would bring you comic books to keep you entertained, staying a couple hours at a time and silently reading beside you to keep you company.

Aisha called every day to check in and Sam visited once in a while. Sensei Lawrence visited all the time, his mom and Yaya were obviously always there, even Daniel LaRusso visited once. But nothing really felt like real company when Miguel was there but not really there.

You’d been spending day after day without your best friend and you were starting to grow a sort of anger towards everyone and everything, replaying the fight over and over in your head and growing more and more irritated as the days went by. God help Robby Keene if he ever got face to face with you.

And then Miguel woke up.

After two entire weeks and almost everyone around you losing hope, he woke up, while you were asleep. You woke up scared, groggy, confused about all the noise: the loud beeping, the yells, the motioning, the sudden amount of people in the room, Carmen yelling Miguel’s name- oh no, was he… no, his mom wasn’t yelling out of despair. She was happy.

And you realized it: he was awake.

He was awake!

He was awake and trying to talk and god damn you couldn’t see a thing through the tears and it was like you were paralyzed, unable to move as you processed the situation, barely believing what was happening. This had to be a dream, it had to be, but it wasn’t!

The day after that, you slept in the hospital room yet again. In the same unbelievably uncomfortable couch, but you slept way, way more comfortably than the nights before. The usual ‘good night’ directed at him every night was met with a smile this time.

The day after that one, you went home. For the first time in two weeks and three days, you slept in a bed. Your two-week suspension was already done with, but you let yourself sleep well into the afternoon.

Everything that happened during the days after that was a blur, nothing short of a rollercoaster. You cried silently while Miguel and you watched as a doctor told his mom he would maybe never be able to walk again and you hugged Hawk tight when he told you he’d gathered money to help pay for the medical costs and you went back to sleeping on the couch in the cold hospital room after the surgery.

And then the day came. Miguel was finally out, and you couldn’t even believe it.

He deserved a great thing, for a change.

“Holy shit! You haven’t seen actual sunlight in so long! How’s it feel?”

“Yeah I kinda feel like a vampire,” he remarked, covering his eyes from the sun with his hands. Carmen and Rosa walked within a distance behind the two of you as you pushed his wheelchair forward.

“You know you don’t have to push me?”

“Yeah but it’s fun.”

“Not more fun than being the one riding the wheelchair.”

“Oh we’re bragging? Push yourself then.” You pretended to be mad and retrieved your hands from the handles, crossing your arms in front of your chest in fake indignation, and he turned the chair to face you, feigning offence.

“Wow I thought you’d go easier on me after everything!”

“I would never go easy on you.”

“Wait! I just had the best idea.”

“Okay?” You said as for him to go on, not entirely trusting him.

“Sit on my lap.”

“What?” You ignored the burning feeling on your cheeks, blaming it on weirdness of the proposition, not what he was telling you to do.

“Sit on my lap! If you’re so jealous I’ll take you with me.”

“No way.”

“Why?”

Yeah, why? “Because- because we’re so gonna fall!”

“No we’re not! Do you not trust me?”

“I don’t, actually!” You let out a laugh.

“Shut up!” He exclaimed, smiling that smile of his.

Yeah, that one. Could you really say no to that? “Oh, my God,” you muttered, but did as he said, carefully sitting yourself down on his thighs.

“Okay, ready?”

“No?”

“Wrong answer!” He pulled on the wheels fast, picking up speed, and you had to support yourself by wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Miggy! Don’t do that!” His mom yelled after you, and you both laughed, out of breath with the adrenaline, when he stopped.

You waited as Rosa and Carmen walked up to you, only noticing you were still on his lap when Rosa shot you a funny look.

[ . . . ]

“Oh my God, Carmen, this is so good!” You exclaimed as you ate, Miguel agreeing with you eagerly by nodding his head.

“Thank you, mija! I missed having dinner with my baby,” she added, smiling at Miguel.

“We’ve had dinner together every day since I woke up!”

“Not proper dinner at the table! Different things, Miggy.”

As dramatic as it sounds, you couldn’t help but think about how utterly alive Miguel made all three of you.

You finished the food quickly and took off to Miguel’s room. You both laid on his bed on opposite ends, both facing the ceiling, in a comfortable silence that came after about an hour of talking about random things.

You propped yourself up by your elbows to face him. “Do you want me to stay over?”

He tilted his head to look back at you. “What?”

“If you want me to. I know it’s your first night out and all-”

"Why wouldn’t I want you to?” He smiled, and you couldn’t fight a smile yourself.

Then there was a knock on the door. “Guys?”

“Yeah mom?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah!”

With that, Carmen opened the door immediately, smiling at the sight of the two of you. “Just making sure. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, mom,” he laughed. She’d been checking in way more often than usual, but Miguel understood. He always understood.

"Just asking,” she smiled. “Do you need me to take you home, sweetheart?” She asked you, and you turned to Miguel, sharing a look that silently told him ‘I’m not the one asking her!’

“Um can Y/N stay over tonight? Just tonight?”

“Yeah of course! Sweetheart you know you can always stay over. I’ll bring you some blankets, we can-”

“Anything’s fine! Really.”

“Oh honey I’m sorry you won’t be comfortable-”

“It’s alright, promise!” You reassured her, and she was back with about 5 blankets in no time, laying four on the floor right next to Miguel’s bed for you to lay on and handing the fifth to you for you to cover yourself with, along with a pillow too.

[. . .]

You were both stupidly tired-- and reasonably so- but neither of you could sleep. You tossed and turned around on your make-shift blanket mattress but just couldn’t seem to find a comfortable enough position, sighing in frustration at the empty tries.

“You okay?” Miguel spoke up in a whisper, scaring you. Wasn’t he asleep?

“Did I wake you up?”

“No. Was awake.”

“Can’t sleep either?”

“Is it the floor?”

“No, it’s fine-”

“You wanna come up here?”

“What?”

“I think there’s room for the two of us. I’m not that ripped, you know, I don’t take up that much space” he joked.

You chewed on your bottom lip, unsure if this was a good idea. "You sure?”

“Yeah it’s fine.”

As you went silent, deciding on what to actually do, you head Miguel shifting his body around to try and make room for you.

“Just- just climb up here.”

You got up and did as he said, struggling to make yourself fit in the bed with him. "This isn’t gonna work,” you commented.

“Yes it is, wait,” he moved your shoulders, turning your back to him, and scooted closer to the wall to make more space for you.

“Isn’t this uncomfortable for you? It’s gonna give you pressure sores.”

“How do you know about pressure sores?”

“I pay attention to what your doctors say!”

“Stop worrying!” You could hear him smiling as he whispered to you. “My legs are positioned right, if you wanna know so bad.”

“Fine. But you better not be lying.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’m… not gonna invite you to my ninth birthday party.”

“Okay that’s way too low even for you.”

“Yeah so I’d be careful.”

“Copy that.”

It was all peacefully quiet for no more than about twenty seconds before he started moving his arms around.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know where to-” he moved his arm around, settling on placing it around your waist, carefully. “Is this okay?”

You felt yourself inhale a sharp breath. It should be okay. Right? It should be completely and totally chill and fine and normal. “Yeah it’s fine.” You didn’t know if he had heard the hesitation in your voice, but he questioned you again.

“Is this weird?”

“What do you mean?”

“This? We’re kinda cuddling.”

“Why, is it weird for you? I- I can go back to the blankets-” you were already moving to stand up but he pulled you closer to his body by your waist.

“No! I- I mean- it’s not. I’m just asking. Cause I don't want you to be uncomfortable. This is fine.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure you’re not uncomfortable? You know you don’t have to lie right?”

“No, I'm not! I promise. This is… nice. Uh- you know what I mean.”

You didn’t, exactly. “Yeah.”

Silence again.

“Did you actually sleep on that couch every night?”

"Why are you thinking about that?"

"'Cause we're talking about being comfortable and that did not look comfortable."

You laughed. “Yeah it wasn't exactly the best sleep of my life."

“Was it better than my bedroom floor?”

You let out a loud laugh and elbowed his chest slightly. “Your mom was very nice for setting that up for me!”

“Hey don’t hit me! I just got out of the hospital!”

“Oh that’s very sweet of you to think I care.”

“Oh I know you care! ‘Cause someone slept in the hospital for two weeks for me.”

“Okay, okay, let’s get back to talking about your bedroom floor.”

“No take backs! You were worried about me.”

“Yeah no shit.” Your tone wasn't playful anymore.

He paused. “I’m sorry I scared you like that.”

“Dude, you’re the one who got pushed down the second floor. You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yeah,” he let out a weak laugh. “I guess.”

God, these silent pauses were getting unbearable. “What were you gonna tell me?”

“What?” He questioned, clearly confused.

“You left me a voicemail. Before- you know.”

“Yeah. Right.” Was his heart actually beating a little faster or were you imagining it?

“I know it’s probably something stupid that probably doesn’t matter now, that’s- that’s why I didn’t mention before but-”

“But?”

“It’s stupid.”

"You can tell me.”

“I uh. I replayed it a lot. While you were- you know.”

“You did?”

You couldn’t believe he sounded so surprised. Was it that surprising that you wanted to hear his voice again while was in a coma for weeks?

“I mean it was kind of the last thing you said to me before it happened. I didn’t actually talk to you that day so.” When he didn’t say anything, you tried to lighten up the mood, cursing yourself for bringing it down. “I’ve even got it memorized!”

“No you don’t,” he laughed.

“I do!”

“No way!”

“Do too!” You fake-gasped feigning being offended, turning around to face him- startling yourself for a half-second when you realized how close your face was to his, causing you to turn a bit more to lie on your back so you could face the ceiling instead of him, though he very much hadn’t let go of your waist in the process.

You once again set your mind elsewhere to avoid thinking about it too intently, clearing your throat dramatically before imitating the way he spoke.

“‘Um. Hey. Sorry I didn’t walk with you today. I’m not- I’m not ignoring you or anything. I just- I figured something really important out last night and I- I was gonna tell you like… 10 minutes ago but I didn’t- shit I have five more seconds anyway I’ll tell you at lunch bye-’ and then you got cut off.”

“Holy shit. I don’t even remember what I said word for word like that.”

“You had other things going on,” you joked, looking at him (though not turning your body to face him again yet) for a moment before averting your eyes to the ceiling again.

“You replayed it every day?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s cute.”

“Shut up. So… what is it? You made me wait for weeks, you need to tell me!"

He shifted a bit. “Uhhhh-”

“Come oooonn, you seemed excited about it!”

“Yeah but it’s not- it’s not that big of a deal.”

Now you’d gained back enough composure to actually turn your head to look at him. “You said it was really important!”

“I… didnt?” He tried.

You only quirked an eyebrow up at him. He sighed.

“Did you actually get back with Sam? Is that it?”

“What?”

“I mean Tory was obviously pretty pissed. And the same day barely half an hour before all that happens you tell me you’ve got big news?”

“I’m not back with Sam.”

“I’m not gonna judge you if you are! Well I am actually. Obviously. But not that bad!”

“I’m not with Sam!”

“So Tory really did all that for nothing?”

“I mean, kind of? I did break up with her the night before. Right before Sam found me. And then Sam kissed me and guess Tory saw it but- we didn’t- we didn’t get back together.”

“What was it you wanted to say then?”

Silence.

“Did you get yourself in something? Is it bad?”

“I- I’m in love with you.” He was so quiet you almost didn't hear him.

“I mean it seems-” wait. “what?”

He let go of your waist, pushing his body up so he could sit down, you doing the same. “I’m sorry. I didn’t- I wasn’t gonna tell you like this. That’s- pretty obvious, but- I even. I left sensei a voicemail about it too-”

Non-stopping rambling from his part, complete silence from yours.

“I- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you like this and it’s- it’s fine if you don’t-”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Shut up. Just- for a second.”

“Oh- okay.” He stopped the rambling, but his widened stare kept itself trained on yours, as if trying to pry your thoughts out of your head through them.

You took a deep breath, trying to rationalize out loud what he’d just told you. “You’re in love with me. That’s what you were gonna tell me.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know?"

He seemed taken aback by the question. It was understandable that it was not the first think he would've imagined you to say in return of his confession. “How do I- know? I guess. I guess Sam kissed me that day. And I tried to kiss her back to see if there was anything still there, but there… wasn’t. And I had like just broken up with Tory for that exact same reason. I was dating these girls I didn’t have feelings for and I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t have feelings for them.”

“'Cause you’re in love with me,” you said, more to yourself than to him.

“I mean- yeah. I’m sorry. I can- I can sleep on the couch if you want-”

That snapped you out of your trance-like confused state. “I’m not making you sleep on the couch, idiot!”

“But-”

“Are you sure? Like 100%?”

“Yeah, but-” It was impulsive, and you knew you probably should’ve said something before doing it, but what better way to show him you liked him back- as you’d just figured out yourself that very moment- than kissing him? So you did just that: you kissed him. In the dark, in his room, on his bed, with a million different problems to deal with, but that little moment, with him smiling against your lips, that was yours. A tiny little great thing in the middle of the chaos around you.

Yet another silence followed after you slowly pulled away from him, but this one was comfortable, content.

Miguel smiled at you. “So does this mean you like me back ooor?”

“Shut up,” you muttered, smiling too, before pulling him closer to you by the collar of his shirt and kissing him again. You could definitely, without a doubt, get used to this.

“We’ve been friends for years and we haven’t done this before?” He asked, out of breath, when you pulled away again and you laughed, feeling light as a feather.

“We should go to sleep, Diaz." You teased. "Your mom’s gonna get mad at me if you don’t sleep enough.”

“I am so in love with you.”

“Aw you have a crush on me? that’s embarrassing.”

“Shut up!”

"Yeah, yeah I'm in love with you too or whatever."

Maybe you deserved a great thing for a change too.

[deathbxnny]

HI BXNNY MY LOVEEEE

hehe I'm here another time with a platonic pairing~

Once again with a fem, little sister child! reader but this time it's not a specific scenario like my recent request for Aventurine, just headcanons with Argenti (never seen you write for my man? Idk if you write him, feel free to ignore him or add another character if you don't ♡) Jing Yuan and Dr. Ratio?

TAKE CARE OF URSELFF💕💐🌻

Hey there, dear moot!! This is such a cute idea, and I'd LOVE to write for Argenti, so thank you for including him!!<3

Content: Reader is a child, fluff, unserious, big brother characters, platonic relationships, slight angst, sfw

Reader is afab here!!

((Not proofread))

》ARGENTI

Argenti saw you as a blessing from Idrila, something he was very vocal about to everyone and especially his little sister. He spoils you greatly and has an inability to say no to you. However, he often still wonders if it is right to bring you along on his journey through the cosmos in search of his lost Aeon. He knows it's dangerous and most likely could cause his death one day... but he still can't find himself leaving you behind.

Since he is such a strict believer of Idrila, you ofcourse begin to mimic his devotion in your behavior, something that means way more than words could describe to him. His heart swells with pride when he sees you recite the prayers and praises or dress the way he does. It makes his worries and doubts melt away.

With that said, you truly have him wrapped around your little fingers, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

》DR. VERITAS RATIO

His expectations for you were high and perhaps even stressful at times. He wanted you to be the best, to exceed him in ways not even he ever could. Ratio believed that what he was doing was for your own good, for your own perfect future... which, however, unfortunately meant that he often times forgot that you were still simply a child. This, in turn, just means that he'll self-reflect often and try and give you more breaks in-between classes and studying whenever you need them.

With that said, he is a busy professor and scholar, which often leads him to not be home as much as you want him to. He tries his best to find some time to spend with you however when he is home, although that's usually spent either reading books or listening to long lectures from him. He thinks that that is great bonding time for the both of you.

Ratio may not be very vocal or open about his love for his little sister, but it's obvious with how much he cares for your well-being and future, even when he can come off as mean or harsh at times. He wants you to have a good life without him one day and will make sure you're prepared for it.

》JING YUAN

Jing Yuan adores you greatly and doesn't shy away from spoiling you with anything you want. He often gets accused of perhaps spoiling you even a little too much from Fu Xuan, but he simply waves it off with no concern. You deserve way more than he can offer you, after all.

With that said, Yanqing is indeed your designated babysitter, much to the boy's annoyance at times. On one hand, it's because Jing Yuan trusts him way more than anyone else with you... and on the other, he knows that the blonde will learn to behave himself and slow down better with you around. Or so he thinks, at first. Once you're old enough to become best of friends with him, the days of your mischievous pranks on the general start, mainly out of spite.

Jing Yuan finds it cute and amusing until he's dowsed in water as you both run away laughing hysterically. Maybe Fu Xuan was right...

Alrightttt... I hope this was okay, dear moot!! Thank you again for the request!!<33

[cosmicatta]

One Piece Novel: Law — a short analysis

So, after a long time trying to get my hands on the Law light novel, I was finally able to read it recently! And, because I'm an obnoxiously intense person who can't just be normal about things, I found myself taking notes about everything I judged interesting.

And I thought I could share! So here's a mostly improvised essay about the Law novel, how it portrays Law and what it reveals about him as a character.

Some notes before I start:

The edition I've read of this novel is the official Spanish translation by Planeta. When quoting and mentioning numbered pages, I'm referencing that edition.

I originally posted this on Twitter as a thread! If it sounds familiar, that might be why.

For those who haven't read the novel and might want to: be mindful of some trigger warnings, including gruesome medical descriptions, suicidal thoughts, mentions of abuse, and violence in general (I won't be touching on these subjects here though).

These are just my personal impressions, I'm not trying to tell anyone how they should interpret the novel or Law's character. I'm just doing this for fun!

The story takes place right after Cora dies, following young Law's journey as he makes it to Swallow Island and desperately tries to survive. There, he will meet Bepo, Penguin and Shachi, as well as Wolf, a novel-exclusive character that welcomes Law and the boys into his home as a family.

Overall, it's a very short read, agile and straightforward. The style is very juvenile, but that was to be expected, and I'd say it does a pretty good job at capturing the feeling of watching a One Piece episode. The novel does kinda feel like a mini arc.

I'm unsure if light novels can be considered 100% canon in general, but since the contents don't contradict anything from what we've already seen in the manga/anime, I'm going to assume we can at least take the events described in this one as canon.

But I'll leave the plot aside a little bit to focus more on Law's psyche, analyzing everything in the novel as material that helps us further understand him.

The entire book (save from a few specific passages) is written from Law's point of view and in first person, so it offers a more in-depth look at his way of thinking, motivations and ideals.

What I find most interesting in this sense is that the whole story is very centered around Law's kindness. Though he does admit several times that he had wanted to see the world burn when he was under Doflamingo's care (as we already know from the source material), the novel makes it very obvious that Law's true nature is compassionate. His inner voice even explicitly states that he enjoys helping and making others happy. (Quotes roughly translated from Spanish):

P. 27: "And I felt very comfortable collaborating with the task of helping others."

P. 92: "Knowing that I was going to free a person from their pain [...] gave me a joy I had never experienced before."

P. 136: "Just imagining the surprised faces of the Old Man, Bepo and the others brought a smile to my face" [when planning on getting fresh fish for dinner as a surprise].

And, despite living under Wolf's motto of "give to take," Law never expects anything in return for any of his good actions. In fact, he gets furious at Wolf himself when, after saving his life, the old man insists on giving Law anything he demands as compensation.

P. 120: "I didn't save you because I wanted a reward!" [...] They [Bepo, Shachi and Penguin] burst into tears of happiness when they realized that you had survived. That's more than enough for me! [...]" I won't let you belittle their tears!"

But even then, Law keeps arguing that he only saved Wolf "on a whim," much like he would say years later when asked why he chose to save Luffy's life. This is a common theme throughout the whole book (which is also pretty obvious in the manga)—Law doesn't recognize his own kindness.

It's not modesty or shyness, his inner monologue makes it very clear that he doesn't see himself as good-natured, and is often confused at his own motivations.

In their first meeting, when Bepo asks him why he is so nice to him, Law doesn't know what to answer; and after that, when Law finds himself wondering why he's trying so hard to save Shachi and Penguin despite their past history, he blames it all on "doctor's pride."

P. 48: "I wasn't even a good person."

Still, regardless of what Law might think of himself, living in Swallow Island seems to be making him progressively gentler. He was wary and hostile towards Wolf at first, but eventually lets himself trust people again, trying to honor Cora's memory and what he taught Law.

In Swallow Island he builds his new found family little by little, though never letting go of Cora and what he meant to Law.

P. 39: "Cora and I were family, that's what I felt at heart, I had no doubts. We had loved each other without saying it out loud [...] Would I feel the same for the Old Man and Bepo eventually?"

Slowly, he starts finding comfort and joy in community. He lets himself be carefree around his new friends, treating them with open affection, laughing and being surprisingly enthusiastic (although he quickly starts taking his role as a leader very seriously, and sometimes avoids showing weakness around them so as not to worry them.)

Law even gets to become an active part of life in Pleasure Town, where he and the other boys are cherished after 3 years living and working there. He's comfortable with his role in the community and appreciates the people in town. His sense of duty towards them shines especially when the pirates arrive to attack the town.

Again, this contrasts with how Law sees himself even in the manga/anime, where he insists that he acts mostly out of selfishness and only seeking his own benefit (or, in the best of cases "on a whim.")

But the truth is that Law's decisions are almost always related to other people's desires.

In this sense, the concept of guilt is also key to understand Law's motivations and his relationship with the world as a whole. This is especially obvious when it comes to Cora—Law even briefly wishes that they had never met, so that Cora would still be alive (p. 128-129.)

In a way, guilt is what moves Law forward, and what slowly starts transforming into a thirst for revenge, into rage and hatred towards Doflamingo and possibly towards himself too. It's a kind of tragic guilt born out of love.

His love for Cora still haunts him, his last wish for Law is the big enigma that he tries to solve during his 3 years in Swallow Island: be free. What is freedom to Law? How can he fulfill Cora's request? This is the question that gives meaning to the novel.

We know that Law wouldn't feel free until finally taking down Doflamingo and avenging Cora's death many years later, but he hasn't reached that point of determination in the novel yet. Maybe that's what gives the narration that hopeful and optimistic tone, with a young Law that's still finding himself, experiencing wonder in loving again, and learning what it means for him to be true to his values. It's the start of an adventure, and its core theme is love.

The ending illustrates this very well; I especially like the moment where Law names the crew as they're setting sail:

P. 243: "Cora's love that he showed me, Wolf's affection, the trust I had in my companions. One word embodied it all: Heart."

It is love that gives Law a reason to keep going. And I'm so glad that the novel doesn't shy away from this fact and isn't afraid of sounding "sappy" or "corny," because I do believe emotion is a very important part of Law's character.

The epilogue closes with a very interesting quote in the last page:

"You hear that, Cora? This is my... This is our pirate crew."

It is unclear if by "our" he is referring to himself and Cora, as if dedicating this new beginning to him, or if he means him and his crew. I'd personally like to think he means it both ways. But in any case, it's interesting that he openly shares the honor of "owning" his crew with someone else. He is the captain, but not the owner. It's another little way in which his generosity is evidenced.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable read, and it left me wanting more. Obviously, it's not a literature masterpiece, but it gives a lot of interesting material for character analysis, which is super fun.

Finally, here’s a few fun facts for those who can’t/don’t want to read the novel but enjoy the little trivia:

The Polar Tang was built and designed by Wolf.

Law’s first tattoo was "DEATH," and he got it at a local tattoo shop in Pleasure Town at around 15 years old.

Shachi and Penguin are childhood friends and likely met through their parents.

Shachi had always wanted to be a hair stylist.

Law is bad at cooking.

Both Shachi and Penguin are good at cooking, especially Penguin, who worked as a waiter in Pleasure Town.

The Hearts’ jolly roger was collectively designed by Law, Bepo, Shachi and Penguin days before leaving Swallow Island.

Law decided the name of their crew upon setting sail for the first time.

And I think that's all! ♥ I hope my rambling was enjoyable at least!

Edit: I've now posted an analysis of the Ace novels too!

[plotsignificanthaircut555]

Anniversary

Kishibe x Reader smut. 18+ only MDNI. AO3

7.5k words

You and Kishibe have been hooking up casually for a long time now. A year, exactly. You don't realize it, but he does. When he invites you over tonight, you start to get the feeling he has something else on his mind.

Content Includes: penetrative sex, oral sex, (he eats it from the back because I said so), uncomfortable conversations about the nature of relationships, choking, smoking, spanking, orgasm denial. it's nasty, hot, and wet idk what else to say. Kishibe may be OOC but i think hes more of a romantic than people think

It started so casually. You had been at the bar, too focused on the book sat open in front of you to see him moving to the seat one away from yours. Not that you would have minded, the reason you had come to the bar to read in the first place was to avoid being bored out of your mind at home. He opened the conversation, asking what you had to drink and if you wanted another. His intentions were clear from the jump, that’s what Kishibe was like: direct. He never seemed to have interest in ambiguous flirting. He spoke to you clearly and asked questions with easy answers. Even answered a few of your own. That night when he invited you to his place after last call. The sex had been excellent; he was focused and skilled, rough and passionate enough to keep you cumming over and over, but it wasn’t intimate, you could both feel the veil between the two of you. You hadn’t expected to see him again when you finally broke out of the post coital haze and back into your jeans and shoes. 

“You don’t have to leave. You can stay the night if you want.” He offered, sitting up against the headboard, a cigarette bouncing lightly between his lips as he spoke. A small burgundy bruise was beginning to form at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, your handiwork, you likely had a few of your own. 

You finished lacing up your final shoe and stood to grab your bag, “That’s okay, I’ve got an early morning. Thanks for this.” You knew it sounded like a cliche, but you really did have an early start to your day. Even as the words exited your kiss bitten lips, you felt the dread of tomorrow’s workload creeping up on you. 

Kishibe left the bed, sheets still rumpled from rolling around together. He stood before you, still naked, and crossed the room to you. You expected he was getting up simply to lock the door behind you after you left. To your surprise, he took your face in his large hands and kissed you. Not the teeth clashing, tongue tangling kiss of before, but a romantic goodnight kiss. 

“Be careful getting home.” He said, still holding your face, he released you and let his arms fall to his sides, “if I see you at the bar again, think I could bring you back here?” 

“I’d like that.” you were still a lot shocked by the kiss.

You left him that night, and found yourself frequenting that bar more and more. He did find you again, and again, and again. You’d drink together, talk for an hour or so before he would invite you to join him back to his place. Eventually you did start to spend the night, but only on nights when your sessions of pleasure had extended later than was safe to walk home. After the fourth or fifth time you had invited him to your apartment, saying your place was actually a lot closer than his (it was barely a four block difference, just in the other direction). He had slept in your bed, or tried to, smoked on your patio, even showered at your place once or twice if he was running late or met you afterwork and was still grimy. 

Kishibe was not your boyfriend. You were not his girlfriend. You didn’t go out together, the only time you could be seen out together was meeting at the bar and sitting side by side before leaving to one of your homes. More and more often you two would cut out the pageantry of meeting elsewhere and meet up directly at the home of whoever made the call. You knew he worked at Public Safety (the uniform and overall demeanor gave him away), and he knew the rough outline of your job. You didn’t have any complaints, you didn’t think he did either. He was a good fuck and a nice man, you got the sense he wasn’t really that nice of a man, but he was always nice to you. Ample orgasms, warm body to sleep next to, good conversationalist, if a bit reserved. You would often go weeks without seeing each other, before he would call you, voice already dripping whiskey through your phone’s receiver. Or you would call, too much on your mind, body begging for the clarity you’d get after the three or four orgasms he would give you. 

So tonight, when he called and asked you to meet him at a hotel, you were surprised. Of course you still agreed, changing quickly into underwear you felt sexier in than your laying around the house set, refreshing your hair, and packing a small overnight bag with a change of clothes and some toiletries.  It wasn’t until you were standing outside the room number he told you over the phone, in a much nicer hotel than you had expected, that the peculiarity of the situation really started to press on you. Suddenly your jeans and sweater felt sloppy, you wondered why he hadn’t just asked you to meet him at his place. One knock was all that was needed for him to swing the door wide, tie already removed, too few buttons undone on his work shirt, jacket missing. It was rare to see him smile, but here he was, scar crinkling and lips wide. You blinked in surprise at his quick welcome. 

“Hey kid,” he said, his smile easing down as he moved to the side allowing you to step into the lavish suite. 

“Hey.” You stepped inside, you didn’t hate the nickname, you were 20 years younger than him (give or take). In fact, something about it ignited a pulse inside of you that you didn’t care to examine that thoroughly. 

The suite was large, a sitting room with a patterned couch and coffee table comprised the main area, a door behind led to the bedroom, you assumed, and the bathroom was by the entrance. Even just on a side peek, you could see a large bathtub inside. The wall furthest from you was mostly glass, which appeared to let out onto a balcony, overlooking the city. Kishibe had drawn the curtains mostly out of the way, dark fabric fluttering in the window from the open sliding door. You’re sure your face betrayed your awe.  

“Don’t get used to this, alright?,” his breath was hot on the back of your ear, head moved right behind you, one of his hands slipped your bag off of your shoulder, “I got an extension on a job, and they put me up in here.” He set your bag down next to the coffee table, you turned to face him, still trepidacious. 

“So you called me?” 

“Yeah. Seemed like a waste to be here all by myself. You like it?” 

You took another look around the suite before nodding. This was by far the nicest hotel you had ever stayed in, used to mid range single rooms and crappy motels. 

“Why me?” You don’t even really know what you meant by the question, if it was only about the hotel, or if maybe this was a large inquiry about the nature of your relationship with him. 

He laughed, “Come on, kid, it’s not a proposal. I just like having you around. That so hard to believe?” 

He pulled a cigarette from his pack, holding it between his lips before gesturing to the patio behind you, “want a smoke?” 

You did. You needed something to ground your swimming head. You stay stiffly on the rattan patio set smoking your cigarette carefully, not wanting any ash to sully the pristine terrace. In juxtaposition Kishibe seemed completely relaxed, long legs stretched out in front of him, leaning against the back of his chair, not caring where his ash may fall. A small ashtray sits on the table between you, the summer night air is thick and sticky, if it weren’t for the soft breeze from being so high up, you would be shedding your top layer already. 

“Relax.” Kishibe exhales the result of a long drag. 

You do. Your shoulders loosen, your spine releases, muscles softening. You take a drag and allow the tobacco and nicotine to soothe your racing thoughts. He looks so good languidly smoking and watching you. He catches you staring and pats his leg, a practiced move you have come to recognize easily. You stand and move to sit on his lap. Immediately he wraps one strong arm around you to support your back. Your own find a home around the back of his neck. His hand moved up and down your back soothingly.

“I didn’t know you were so inflexible.” He teases. 

“Excuse me?” you laugh lightly at him preparing to joke about him knowing how flexible you really could be. 

“Didn’t think a change of scenery would rattle you so much.” his hand on your back sneaks under your top to trace lazy circles on your skin, you feel your body immediately relax under his touch, “You’re never this quiet.” his lips were right against your neck as he spoke, starting to trail hot kisses along the column of your throat. 

You could already feel yourself fighting the urge to rock your hips in his lap, getting wetter from his touches, the buzz in your head of nicotine adding to the haze of pleasure. You moved a hand from his neck down to the front of his shirt, undoing buttons and sliding your hand inside to touch the hair along his chest. His hand on your back traveled down to cup your clothed ass, your head tilted back allowing him better access to your neck and you could no longer keep your hips from rocking against his lap. 

“Guess it was foolish of me to think you’d like something special for our anniversary.” 

Every cell in your body stopped suddenly. Hips stilled, hands immobilized, moans halted despite Kishibe continuing his migration across your throat. You started to push him away, but before you could stand he gripped you tighter. 

“Don’t tell me you forgot.” His tone was joking, no, teasing. Was he fucking with you? 

Mentally you flipped through your calendar, it hadn’t been summer when you met him. It had been spring, right? It was warm, but not so warm, he had had his coat on. But then you remembered, it was summer. Last summer, exactly 365 days since he had taken you home that first time. He was right. You immediately felt guilty for falling short, but did you really need to? Why would he have even remembered a thing like that? What did dates and anniversaries mean when you weren’t together, when the only thing you did was fuck.

Was that all you did? Yes, right? 

So what if he kept a copy of a book you lent him on his bedside table at his place, small scribbles on slips of paper tucked in between the pages? He wasn’t a very sound sleeper anyway, you just assumed he kept it there for a quick way to lull himself back to sleep on rougher nights. Sure you always made sure to grab an extra bottle of his preferred whiskey for your pantry in case he decided to stop by when you were unprepared. But that was just to save yourself or him a last minute trip to the liquor store. That wasn't a relationship, not even close. You hadn't discussed families or dreams or personal histories, at least not a length. The spare clothes you kept at his place were for convenience, you started smoking his brand of cigarettes when you had run out of your own and bummed one off of him, he started making coffee for you himself instead of walking to the convenience store to save money, not to extend his time with you in the mornings.--Oh my God. 

You couldn’t stop yourself, suddenly every behavior became so loaded, carrying so much intimacy where there previously had been none. But there wasn't none, you just hadn’t paid close enough attention. He had never asked you to be his girlfriend, or even on a date. You didn’t even really eat together, sharing a coffee in the morning and drinks at night. Once or twice you had shared dinner or a late night snack, but never beakfast. Your mind raced examining and reexamining how you had gotten to this point with him, and if you were about to ruin it in your obliviousness. 

Whether it was the sound of your pounding heartbeat or the fact that you had gone mute, Kishibe finally removed his lips from you, his dark eyes patiently scanning your face. He brought his cigarette to his lips and puffed, exhaling through the side of his mouth still waiting for a response from you.

“But…we’re not dating.” was all you could manage. 

His head cocked slightly, brows twitching inward, you could tell he was amused by this whole situation-- whereas you were reeling “no we’re not, but it’s nice to celebrate milestones, isn’t it?”

He fished his flask out of his pants pocket, having to lift his hips, you on top of him, to do so. You knew how strong Kishibe was, you were intimately familiar with how easy it was for him to move you, throw you, fold you, however he wanted. Him arching into you brought his groin up to yours, you could feel him starting to get hard underneath his pants, you sitting on his lap often had this effect on him. Once he had retrieved his flask he held it up to you, you unscrewed it for him, allowing him to keep his other arm around your hips, once again starting to move under your shirt tipping his head back to drink. 

“Kishi, we don’t have an anniversary to celebrate. We aren’t together.” You weren't even sure what point you were trying to get across, whether you were trying to offload the guilt you felt for potentially undervaluing something that could mean a lot to him or just trying to remind yourself and him that you two had never had a conversation about the nature of your relationship. 

He was starting to be less amused, “You don’t feel like a year of good sex is worth celebrating? Guess it wasn’t as good as I thought. Although I don’t hear you complain, much.”

He tipped his flask toward you, punctuating his joke. Was he really messing around about this? 

You nearly accepted, desperately wanting the whiskey inside to bring you back to your senses, but you shook your head, opting to press forward through the discomfort, “Of course it's good. But aren't anniversaries for people who ...I don’t know…belong to each other?” 

You were a smart woman, educated, quick, employed well, you were fucking verbose but in this moment you couldnt string an articulate thought together for the life of you. Words felt jumbled, either too heavy for your casual situation or too dismissive of the ounce of vulnerability he was offering you. Did he mean for this to be the next step? Did he want you to be his girlfriend? Did you want that? How much would it really change? Before tonight everything had felt so simple, relationships were complicated and required patience and expectations, something you weren't sure either of you had time for. What if this was how this ended? What if you began to resent each other and you---

Kishibe tapped his fingers on your temple, “Get out of there. Come back.”

That had jostled you out of your spiral and back into your body, he was still so solid underneath you. Your silence does not seem to have scared him away yet. But he looked thoughtful, observant to your fluctuations, he was paying close attention to you, as though reading your thoughts as they were transcribed onto your forehead. He looked so sincere, eyes soft and warm, his usually furrowed and frustrated brows, relaxed.

“Belong to each other, huh? Look kid, I don’t usually keep up with one person this much. And forgive my assumption but, you don’t either. I like the nights we have together, I like the mornings too. You haven't told me about seeing anyone else, I don't mind if you have, but it certainly doesn't feel like you have been.” Even when he was being sincere he was a cheeky shit, “You don’t have to be my girl, if you don’t want to. Probably shouldn't be stuck with an old man like me, anyway. But I haven't just been wasting time with you the past year.”

Your heart surged, you hadn’t even realized it but you felt it too. Each encounter cracked through your barriers more and more. Even as recently as last week he had stayed at your apartment for two hours after waking up sipping coffee on your patio while you did the morning crossword. It was so domestic, you hadn’t clocked it then, as it was part of your routine. But that was exactly it, it was your routine and he had assimilated so seamlessly. How could you have been so blind?

“Kishi…” you brought your hands to the sides of his face, mirroring his first send off to you, “who knew you were such a romantic.” 

His scruff was rough against your palms, and scratched lightly as his smile rose to his cheeks, “Whaddya say? I like belonging to you, you want to belong to me too?” 

You couldn't deny you were nervous about what this establishment could change about your situation, but you want that so desperately. You had been on your own for so long, you couldn't remember the last relationship you had had. You were out of practice, but so was he, maybe you could figure it out together. 

“I guess happy anniversary.” You smiled leaning down to him and pressing your lips together. 

The hand he had kept on your back pulled you close to his chest, his other hand had abandoned his flask and now gripped your thigh. His mouth tasted so familiar, smoke and alcohol with the undernote of his mouthwash. You were so used to his taste, you rarely even noticed anymore, but with the new perspective this conversation had given you, you reacquainted yourself with what you had been taking for granted. Kishibe has always been a good kisser, directing your mouth against his, lips soft and warm, tongue agile and skilled against yours. What you hadn't realized before was that Kishibe may be the best kisser you had ever known. His teeth seemed to disappear, allowing your tongue ample room to explore his mouth. He knew just when to suck lightly on your bottom lip, when to allow you a quick breath while keeping you breathless against him. His hands wandered freely, one now tangling in the hair at the back of your head as the other slid down the back of your pants to grip the flesh of your ass. The feeling of his calloused hands on your body ignited your nervous system, you felt effervescent. Like champagne just before being popped, fizzy and sparkly. You were panting against him now, pulling away to shift your legs to straddle him in his chair which could just barely fit the pair of you. Your hands cupped his face, rounded his neck, mussed though his hair. You wanted to touch every part of him, feel how new he felt in the wake of your shared confession. Your hips rocked together, he was getting hard again, you could feel him right up against your core. You must have been radiating heat, the way he shuttered. 

“If I knew this is how you’d respond, I’d have asked you to be my woman a long time ago.” Kishibe slid his tongue into your mouth again, now running his hands up and down from the small of your back, to the back of your neck. 

His woman, His. When was the last time you had even entertained the idea of belonging to someone. You were filled with excitement, feeling yourself start to drip into your panties at his possessive words. You started to finish your earlier job of unbuttoning his shirt. Kishibe had an incredible body, caveat of age sure, but also for anyone. Strong muscles built over years, decades, of careful cultivation. He wasn't a cut as maybe he once had been, but the muscles in his abdomen were still clearly visible. Scars littered his whole body, obviously the most apparent being the slash from lip to ear you had felt against your own lips many times, but his torso and back resembled a spider's web, pale lines crossing and crisscrossing, so much pain embedded just under his skin. You found your eyes began to sting with unexpected tears as you beheld him. Breaking the kiss and allowing your hands and eyes to scan over the topography of his body. This was from your first time seeing him shirtless, you had observed his scars while laying together in bed, or in the mornings when he hadn’t yet gotten dressed for work. You wondered about each one, what sort of devil (or man) had marred him, leaving him with another etching. 

“Don’t start getting sentimental over me,” Kishibe slid his hands down your waist, once again knowing exactly what you were thinking looking at him, “I’m not gone yet. You can mourn me later.” 

His dark humor usually lightened you, but this one held a specific truth that you had not yet acknowledged. He was a devil hunter, he fought for his own life near daily. You didn’t know a lot about devils or devil hunting, but you knew it was rare for devil hunters to have survived so long without retiring. There was a very real chance that he could die on you, leaving you heartbroken and alone. But you were too far gone now, you didn’t know how this would end either in tragedy and heartbreak or something more hopeful, but you couldn’t control that now. You could only celebrate being here with him now. 

“That’s your big plan, huh? Get me all obsessed with you just so you can leave someone behind to cry at your funeral?”, you wanted to tease him back, meeting him on his own morbid level. 

He sat up pulling your chest flush against his, “Awe, you’d cry for me?”

“You’re sick.” you giggled kissing him again. 

“Mmmmhm” he mumbled against your lips, finally gripping you tightly to him and standing, his inhuman strength making your full form nothing for him to carry easily. 

Kishibe carried you inside, lips still against yours and brought you into the bedroom you had speculated about earlier. “Switch on the wall, hit it for me” he instructed through desperate kisses. 

Your hand flew out quickly groping the wall by the door frame before finding the rocker switch and pushing the top half, illuminating the space. Kishibe always wanted the lights on, wanting to see you come undone underneath him, see your body writhe and flush under his tongue, his fingers, anything. He had to see you to know it was real. He laid you down on the bed, the duvet was plush and sank lightly under you. This really was a nice hotel. The bed was big with a mattress that perfectly combined support with a soft spongy bounce. You moved back toward the center of the bed, enjoying the luxury as Kishibe stood at the foot of the bed, removing his shirt and pants. You shed your own top and wiggled out of your pants, leaving your bra and underwear. Kishibe liked taking them off himself. 

Standing at his full height in front of you, nearly six foot and five inches wearing only his boxers, your heart began to race. The way he looked down at you, with hungry eyes, pupils dilated in lust, lips parted already breathing heavily. He was already leaking against his boxers, a wet spot forming in the dark fabric.

He palmed himself, taking you in, resting on your elbows in barely anything. You had worn his favorite bra of yours, a sheer black underwire unpadded bra, so simple but so classic, he could see your nipples hardening through the material. Your panties matched, barely held together with the thin material, he could tell you had chosen this specifically for him. You had. You knew he liked you in black, and just barely covered. Desperate under his gaze, you moved forward to sit with your knees underneath you. Putting on a little show of crawling toward him, your position on the bed brings you much closer to eye level with him. Locking eyes you moved your hands down the expanse of his shoulders, he was so broad. His muscles twitched under your soft hands, a small groan leaving his lips, Kishibe tended to be quieter than you had expected. Dirty talk was one thing, but allowing himself to moan freely was difficult for him, it felt too vulnerable, too weak somehow. But this was different, things had changed, vulnerability was already present, he had already put himself out there to be rejected and hadn’t been. He felt lighter under your hands, in your gaze. An ever wandering hand of his found its way into your hair, pulling you into another deep kiss. 

“Love that pretty mouth,” he spoke hot against your lips, “show me how talented you are.” 

Your anxiety was shed at his instruction. This was how it had always been with him, he told you just what he wanted and expected you to do the same. Your kisses moved down the his throat, lips becoming raw against the rough texture of his stubble. You liked dragging this part out. Just before giving him what he craved, seeing how far you could push him towards begging. Of course he never did, and likely never would, he was more patient than you and more prideful. But you always tried. You run your tongue down the length of his torso, your own hand replacing his on his clothed erection feeling how swollen and hot he had become. His hand stayed in your hair, gripping the roots tightly as you teased him. Even breaths left him, but the hand betrayed his urgency, he wanted your mouth so badly, he was starting to consider begging when you pressed your face against the precum leaking through the fabric. Hot tongue flopping out to taste him. 

“You’re filthy.” He remarked with a pleased smile coming over him. 

You didn't respond, just nodded, feeling the combination of your saliva and his precum spread over your cheek. Finally you removed his boxers, his painfully hard cock springing free before you. Kishibe is a big man, tall, broad, big hands, big feet, he took up too much room in your bed, he ducked under doorways and struggled to find pants long enough, and his cock was no exception. Around eight inches in length, heavy balls underneath that were more sensitive than he let on, you needed two hands if you wanted to completely encircle his girth. No wonder he was so arrogant. Glistening pleasure leaked from the tip already, goading you to slip your tongue around his head, dipping it into his slit to collect his offering. His taste was as perfect as the rest of him, so unique to him, you could never get enough.  You let a moan loose as you brought him into your mouth, overproducing saliva to give your hand pumping the rest of him more lubrication. Kishibe groaned above you, head tipping back for a moment as he sank into your hot mouth. His hand as the back of your head was encouraging, pushing slightly but allowing you to go at your own pace. Not wanting to miss out on the sight of you sucking him off, he rolled his head to the side, half lidded eyes looking down to watch. You were skilled at pleasuring him with your mouth, moving your hand and mouth in tandem, leaving even an inch untouched. Your tongue swirled around the head, causing him to shudder. You pulled off from him, still working your hand up and down his shaft as you slid under him to tongue at his balls. HIs abdominal muscles jumped at the sensation of your sliding your tongue along the seam before sucking one ball into your mouth and then the other. 

“Fuck girl….” his voice was shakier than it had been before so his words became dirtier and more possessive, him trying to tip the scales back in his favor. You nodded under him, balls still in your mouth before moving back up to take him into your throat.

Having warmed yourself up, you could now take him much deeper into your throat, encasing the whole of his length. Both hands were now at the back of your head as he tugged your hair, pushing you down further. You kept your tongue flat along the underside of his shaft, tightening your throat around him and opening your eyes to meet him. A blush has spread from his neck across his shoulders and chest, he watched you closely, eyebrows pinching together as you gagged on him. Drool pooled and slipped from your lips, his cock leaving little room inside your mouth for anything else, it dripped onto the bed underneath you. Slowly you started to back off of his length, his hands no longer holding you in place. Instead they cupped either side of your face as you found your breath again. Kishibe ran a thumb across your bottom lip, collecting the spit there and spreading it further down your chin, your jaw hinged open following his silent directive. Leaning over you, collecting his own spit and releasing it into your open, waiting mouth, you moaned and swallowed gratefully. 

“Good girl.” He praised you, making your heart shimmer. He pushed your hair out of your face with one hand, stroking your cheek for a moment watching you bask in the golden light of his affection. But he could only be so generous for so long,  “Bend over.”

He joined you on the bed, mattress sinking under the addition of his weight, his hands staying on you however they could. You moved onto your  knees, turning around, shivering as his hand skimmed up the back of your leg. Calloused hands leaving gooseflesh on your soft, pleasure heightened skin. You posed yourself onto your hands and knees, back arching to lift your ass prettily. You always felt so pretty under his touch, no room for insecurity or self doubt when he was spoiling you like this. Kishibe moved behind you, hands moving up your back pushing you down into a deeper arch, face against the bed. Once he had you in his favorite position, he looped his thumbs under the delicate fabric of your panties, slowly sliding them down your legs. You had soaked them so thoroughly you could actually hear it as he pulled them away, pooling them around your knees. Now bare to him, the chill of fresh air hitting your core, you shivered again. One of his long fingers dipped between your folds, sliding up and down, playing with your wetness. 

“I don't even have to stretch you out, do I? She’s already crying for me.” you could hear the wicked smirk on his face without seeing it. 

“Kishi, please…Don’t tease.”You whimpered, pressing the side of your face into the duvet, peeking at him behind your lashes. 

He gave a small slap to your bottom, watching the fat jiggle, “Don’t get bossy, Kid. You know I’ll take good care of you.” His thumbs pulled your lips apart, showing him how wet you were, “You got this wet just from sucking my cock, huh? You really are such a slut.”

Your face burned, embarrassment daring to creep up but being cut short by the feeling of his fat tongue licking you from clit to hole. Your eyes rolled back, a throaty moan leaving your lips at finally being touched by him. He hummed at your taste, dipping his tongue into your hole to pull more from you. One of his hands moved up your back, keeping you pressed against the mattress as he ate messily. Wet slurping and lapping filled your ears, your whimpers and moans filling his. Eating pussy from the back was his favorite, yours too, he was so skilled with his tongue, unafraid to get drenched in your juices. His facial hair scratched your outer labia and the skin of your inner thighs, the light needling only adding to how fucking good it was. He slid his tongue up and down you all the way from the clitoris to your asshole. Convinced you wouldn't move from where he had posed you, his hand left your back and helped to spread you apart for him. He watched you twitch for a moment, both holes clenching around nothing, desperate to be filled by him. If he were a kinder man, he would show mercy and shove two of his thick fingers into your pussy, but he wasn’t a kind man. He loved watching you clench and pant, sweating under the absence of him inside of you. He wanted you whimpering, begging, maybe even crying before he filled you. 

“Kiiiiishiiii baby please…” You mewled out, burying your face into a duvet, muffling the sound of your begging. 

He resumed circling his tongue from your cunt to your ass, one finger circling your clit in time, “You know better than to cover up those pretty sounds. If you want something, ask for it.” 

You huffed out, moving your head from the bedding and back to look at his face buried in you, “Please, baby please fuck me, I need it inside. I need you Kishibe, please.” 

You could feel his lips curl into a smile against your folds, little shit was enjoying this too much. He hummed, vibrations resounding inside of you, “Cum like this, and then you’ll get my cock.”

You whimpered, as good as it was you knew you needed something inside to cum, “But…Ki--”

“I’m not asking.” He slurped loudly against your pussy. 

Of course he was an expert in your body, he knew you needed the joint internal and external stimulation in order to orgasm. He knew he was setting you up to fail, he wanted you to fail. He wanted to hear you completely fucked out, on the precipice of a release that couldnt yet cum when he finally pushed himself inside of you. Further emphasizing that he wouldnt be using his fingers to fuck you, he wrapped his own hand around himself, squeezing tightly. He didn’t want to cum too soon, the way you had sucked him earlier he had nearly spoiled it right then. Any other night he wouldn't have cared and cum right in your mouth, watching you swallow him down like the good girl he had made you into. But tonight he needed to cum inside of you, he ached to feel you spasm around him and milk his dick for everything he had. He carried on eating you out, feeling his regular drunkenness give way to the intoxication pleasuring you. You whimpered under him, rocking your hips back against his ever moving tongue. 

“Kishi ...please I can't…please. Baby please.”You felt tears slipping from your eyes, you wanted to cum so bad, the bastard behind you knew exactly what he was doing.

Raising his head from your pussy, Kishsibe looked at you crying and whimpering for him. Your lips wet and puffy, mirroring the set right in front of him. 

“Oh baby…you givin’ up?” He teased, how he was able to look so smug while literally covered in your juice was beyond you

“Yes fuck I give up, please fuck me please. I need it so bad, I need to cum please.” You didn't care to hide how desperate you were, you worried you might die if he wasn't inside of you in the next few seconds. 

Kishibe gave you one last long lick end to end before straightening up, his lower back aching more than he wanted. Overcome with excitement at the prospect of finally being filled you raised your upper body onto your hands, only to be immediately pushed back down. 

“If you’re able to hold yourself up, maybe I should keep going until you can't.” Kishibe warned. 

A broken cry pushed from your throat. You couldn’t keep going, you couldn’t be held back from your release any longer. Tears flooded down your cheeks and you begged him not to, promising to be good and do whatever he wanted. He had done it, he had completely wrecked you. Leaning over you, cock brushing against your heat so deliciously, Kishibe kissed the side of your face, not stopping himself as his tongue lapped up the salty tears staining your cheeks. Big hands on your back unclasped your bra, sliding it out from under you and groping your chest. 

“There she is” His voice was so hot against your ear, rough and dripping with eroticism, “There’s my girl. And who am I?” 

“Master.”

He gave a smack to your ass, “That's right, baby. Now be good and take Master’s cock all the way. I don’t wanna hear any of that bullshit about it being too much or too big, Okay?” 

You nodded quickly, probably too many times but fuck you could barely think. Another slap to your ass brought you back to attention, “Yes, Master!” 

He hummed with pride. Aligning himself behind you once more, sliding his cock head up and down your slit. Anticipation nearly becoming too much, your whimpers increased before he mercifully slid inside of you. The combination of your natural lubrication and his spit allowed him to ease in with barely any effort, you were still so tight around him. He was so big, it felt like he was splitting you open. A gravelly moan rang out from him, coming directly from his chest as he became fully immersed in you. The force of his thrust rocked your whole body forward. One hand holding you down by the back of your neck, the other gripping your hip. You cried out his title as he pulled back nearly all the way before pushing in again. Finally you felt the white hot coil of orgasm building rapidly in your lower belly. 

“Fuck! Fuck Master, “You wailed, “Yes! I’m so close, Fuck, thank you, master!”

The hand on your neck moved to grip your hair, pulling it back harshly, forcing you to arch all the way back as he continued to bully his cock up inside of you, “You had your chance to cum, already. You’ll wait for me.” 

His voice was so husky against your ear, hair gripped tight in his grasp, you had to focus all your energy on not cumming despite how close his postponing cock was bringing you. Wrenching your head to the side Kishibe kissed you, rough and hot, swallowing down your moans before they could leave you. Your hands struggled to find somewhere to land alternating between gripping his thigh and traveling up to his neck and hair. The upright doggy position allowed him so deep inside of you, his free hand moving over your bouncing breasts and down to press on your lower stomach, feeling himself inside of you. He was so fucking cruel, you cried out, breaking the kiss, head falling back on his shoulder, eyes closed in blinding pleasure. You could still hear him grunting in your ear, his lips needed you and found their next best option, the side of your neck. Knowing exactly what he was doing he pushed harder, his other hand wrapping around your waist to pull you flush against him. 

“Stop Kishi, please. It’s too much.” 

His gripped your throat tightly, “I said no fucking whining. Did I already fuck every thought out of your head or can’t you remember?” 

You strained to look at him with pleading eyes choking your words past his grip, “I-I’m sorry, Master”

His hand around your throat had made you tighten around him, he was so close, he had wanted to drag this out more. Wanted to remind you who was in charge. But he felt himself faltering, hips shuddering, balls tightening. Kishibe released your throat allowing you to catch your breath, he stopped holding you upright and you fell forward, falling exactly into your previous position: face against the mattress, hips high, ass out. His grip on your hips was bruising, tomorrow morning he would be tracing those bruises as you stood making coffee in the suite's kitchenette. But right now you were made to take his cock, he could be gentle with you another time, not now.

“Touch yourself, cum.” He commanded having to focus all his energy on keeping his thrusts deep and even. Your hand flew between your legs, circling your achingly sensitive clit. His work earlier had you already twitching. 

He thrusted deep and jagged twice more before he felt your walls tremble around him, the sound Kishibe makes when he cums was almost always uniform, a low howl that erupted from his throat as he pressed right against your cervix. You joined him in his orgasm, the pair of you singing a private duet that only you would ever hear. You could feel his hot cum filling you, your orgasm covered you like being caught in a sudden rainstorm. Drenched in pleasure, your mind existed only for thoughts of him. His lips found your shoulder, still deep inside of you, Kishibe grew softer, both his cock and his treatment. 

“Good girl,” he spoke against your sweat-dampened skin, “did so good, baby.” 

You let out a strangled sound, still barely recovered from your mind melting orgasm. Another whimper left you as he removed himself from inside of you. You stayed on your stomach, but allowed your legs to relax, now laying totally prone. Kishibe moved next to you, catching his breath and allowing the feeling to come back to his lower half. You lay together panting, allowing aftershocks of pleasure to ebb and flow over the next few moments. Turning your face to look at him, you placed a hand on his chest. He took it and pressed the back of your hand to his lips. When you had finally regained your composure, you swatted his chest lightly, truly nothing compared to his brutal treatment. 

“You’re such an asshole.” You chuckled out, you slotted yourself against his side, draping a leg over his. 

“You love when I’m mean,” he rolled his eyes, “I can feel it, so don't try to lie. You get so tight when I push you around.”

He was right, you loved it. You loved-- no. not yet. You couldn't yet say that you loved him, that would be too much. But you knew it, and even if it was just for yourself, for now that was enough. 

“So now that we’re going steady, do I have to take you to breakfast?” he absentmindedly ran his fingers through your hair, dull nails scratching your scalp making you purr. 

“ ‘Going Steady’? Jesus, you are an old man.” You teased him through blushing cheeks. 

You tried to be careful when you poked fun about his age, but you saw the small curve of his lips that let you know you were off the hook this time. He pulled you closer to him, rolling his eyes again. 

“Big talk for someone who begs to cum around this old man’s cock like it's the only words she knows.” he tapped your temple once. 

You leaned up to face him, finally ready to ask him the question that had been burning since you had first arrived in the lavish suite, “Are you really on assignment or did you rent this room yourself?” 

If you didn’t know better you’d think he was blushing. But you do know better. Kishibe rested his head against the pillow and turned his gaze from you to the ceiling, “Maybe I wanted to do something nice for you.” 

You could help smiling widely at him, you had found him out, “I knew it! You are a romantic…awe all this just to ask me to be your giiiiirlfriend?” you elongated the title to see if you really could draw the blush out of him. 

He smacked your ass hard once, “Shut up, I told you not to get used to it! You’re not getting this again if you keep talking like that.” 

You ass still stung a bit from his harsh treatment earlier, so you snuggled back into his neck, kissing underneath one of his ears. His big arms wrapped around your back. Soon you would fall asleep, he would separate from you and go to have another smoke on the patio, tomorrow morning you would wake up together and he would treat you to breakfast. He could already feel your breaths growing relaxed, sleep starting to win you over and although you couldn't see it, he was blushing. 

[kitorin]

misalignment (n).

/ˌmɪsəˈlʌɪnm(ə)nt/

the incorrect arrangement or position of something in relation to something else. "in which, mikage reo finds himself both asphyxiated and confined within the unfortunate circumstances of his first love."

contents. mikage reo x gn!reader, unrequited feelings, no happy ending, right person wrong time (i think), reader and reo borderline drunk / wasted, unproofread misery, tiny implication at gaslighting but nothing like that happens, never written unrequited love nor experienced it (can't get rejected if i never confess !!)

Despite the intelligence and academic prowess he had maintained throughout his entire lifetime, Mikage Reo is fundamentally a fool; one who unwisely but desperately deludes himself as a means to remain blind to the truth.

The 'wanna hang out tonight?' text was the flame to his moth, effortlessly attracting him whilst having the full capability to incinerate his very existence, to destroy every part of him.

If years of friendship accompanied by unreciprocated feelings could teach him anything, it was that, to spend time with you, lining up was a prerequisite for Reo.

Free time for you was defined by work's leniency (which seldom seems to happen, but at least you enjoyed it), and the occasional period where you weren't obsessing over a drama or book series.

After that section of the queue, was quite literally everyone else. An invitation from you meant that Yukimiya was too preoccupied with modelling, Rin's overseas, Nagi was too lazy to respond and left you on read, Isagi's busy training, Kunigami's at the gym, and Hiori didn't have the time to travel that far.

Finally there was Reo, back up plan Reo, the friend that you could go to when no one was available; the friend you liked enough to spend time with but not enough to prioritise.

He steals a glance at you as you keenly sip from your glass. Self-hatred chews at his conscience, but the livid, and tired part of him shoos it away.

It's not a very nice thing to accuse one of thinking of another so lowly, especially a close friend, however the explicit signs of him holding little significance in comparison to others seemed to validate it. You and he have been drinking for a while now, without much word other than the 'hello's and quiet greetings when you first saw each other.

It's normal, the silence. It's just how things worked between you and Reo. Neither of you were particularly social, words weren't necessary to enjoy time together, that was one of Reo's favourite things about you.

He's always tired of speaking, having to maintain flawless image, that included appearing as someone sociable and eager to speak with others.

But with you, that expectation was nowhere to be seen.

You're now adults, but this is nothing different from the quiet walks to the bus stop back in high school. The ones where he'd do his best to steal a glance of how you look, soaked within the sunlight while smiling.

Chatter permeates the bar's atmosphere gently a few clinks of glasses can be heard which followed hearty laughter and the occasional cheer.

You're first to talk. "How's university been?"

"Good." Was the workload horrendous? Yes, and so was adulthood in general. Reo knows he has it easy; he can afford it easily and could still live comfortably without working a day in his life. But he still yearns for the same feeling high school had. "Hakuho was fun though."

You place your drink down, swallowing. "I know right? Never thought I'd say this, but I miss high school. It sucked most of the time. But you and the others made it so much better.”

Reo nods, as he gulps down more alcohol. “I miss it too. How has studying been for you?”

You huff. “It’s a lot. I feel like I spend more time studying than doing anything else. But it’s good. I don’t mind since I’m actually studying something I’m passionate about, you know?”

“I’m glad, then.” Reo stares at his whisky, swirling the amber in his glass. “Proud of you. I really am. You’ve come so far, and I just know you’re going to do well.”

Growing from a clueless high schooler to a driven, impassioned, medical student. A lot has changed, years pass yet he remains unloved by you.

God there he goes again, lamenting on his paltriness. It must be a relative of masochism; he could be safe and secure at home with a good book and cup of tea, yet he’s here drinking with the source of his pain, while tethering on the border of being intoxicated with alcohol instead of heartbreak.

With each drink, a wave of euphoria swallows him up, licking up his misery as if it were sand on the shore. Rationality and emotion bicker like seagulls quarrelling over food.

You laugh at his sweet words. “You drunk? Thanks though.”

“Drunk or not, I mean it. Seriously.” Reo knows his limits, but doesn’t bother correcting you. His face feels hot, not because of the soju, but because of you.

You’ve always been pretty, to a ridiculous extent. But absurd how a few years changes you so much. Reo can’t even identify the changes, he just knows you’ve gotten prettier; that his heart races faster whenever he sees you.

“Seriously.” You echo, and nod, and smile. “I miss seeing you every day. School was so much fun with you around.”

Another hasty gulp of soju. Reo can’t stand hearing those words.

I hate you.

Is it directed to you, or himself? Not even Reo’s quite sure. He does his best to ignore your kindness, if it were true then he would’ve been addressed you with a smile in the same way you’d speak to anyone else; he would know how his name sounds off your tongue. He would mean more than a last option, and all those texts wouldn’t be left on read, viewed out of genuine care rather than basic manners.

Even though he can go on about unfair this feels, it’s ultimately his fault for still spending so much time with you. You’re supposed to cut off the people who don’t value you. You’re supposed to only care for the ones who’d do the same for you. Reo should’ve cut ties with you long ago, yet he clings onto your relationship as if it meant more than anything else.

I miss seeing you at school everyday. Your words echo, and he does his best not to choke on his drink.

Formalities, not affection. It's not love, it's your way of manners. If you truly did care you'd be spewing those sorts of words out constantly, like when you're with Chigiri, or Anri.

"Reo? You good?"

"Yeah. 'm fine." It's a reflex, he barely had time to register the words leaving his mouth. "Are you?"

"Yah. I'm not the drunk one here am I?" You chuckle to yourself, bringing the glass back to your lips, averting your gaze elsewhere. "Were you always a lightweight? Your face is so red."

"And yours is so pretty."

There he goes, ruining your night with something stupid.

"Yup. Definitely drunk. You're saying weird things now."

And with that, Reo commands, requests, pleads himself not to cry.

"You know." Another shot of soju is swallowed down by you, punctuated with a refreshed gasp. "The me a couple of years ago would've been overjoyed to hear that."

It feels as though every interaction with you accentuates his one-sided love and it stings; time with you is mere salt to the wound.

Neither of you say anything for a bit.

Reo can recall your confession, an awkward text sent after a couple of months the two of you actually spoke. There's an unspoken boundary between you two, to not being up the topic of each other's crushes or of your confession.

A fair rule, but it's harboured questions. Reo hasn't got a clue on your love life and crushes. He knows of your obsession with romantic dramas, always binging whatever's trending, screaming on social media about having to wait a full seven days for the next episode.

If only the two of you were a part of one. But even fiction would probably destine him for solitude woven of heartbreak.

"I think you're the drunk one. Why bring that up now?"

You've finally halted on drinking. "Dunno. That was my first confession."

And you're my first love—he wants to say it, it's at the tip of his tongue yet he can't muster it to say it aloud to himself or even to Nagi; let alone you.

"Well, it was an honour."

It wasn't. Because the thought always intrudes into his mind. What if you had confessed a couple of years later, or even at least two?

Or what if Reo hadn't taken his sweet time to fall in love with you, if he had told you he wanted to get to know you first instead of a simple rejection, would you be in his arms?

"Shut up. I was a stupid kid back then. I promise you, I have absolutely no feelings for you. Not anymore."

Reo scoffs, he can't even fantasise of the potential between you two. You liked Mikage you'd see in the hallways; rich and top of the school; not clingy old Reo who feels ever so slightly too much for everyone he cares for.

Whereas Reo couldn't care less about l/n that just transferred to his class, but would die for the y/n he discovered throughout the years.

"Yeah yeah, I know. Never thought you did." He knew you didn't.

It wouldn't've saved him from his doom of unrequited love, but the timing was terrible. The heavens should've made your infatuation and his adoration align, at the very least. Even if it meant Reo remaining unloved.

A hiccup follows a breathless giggle. "Who did you like in highschool? There had to be someone. Why didn't you ever tell me though? You had so many fans, you must've liked one of them."

Because it's you. "Because you never asked." Reo shrugs, almost impressed at his own feigned composure.

"Now I ammm." Now your words are beginning to slur. "Whooo?"

It's you. And still you. Reo could say it right here and now. You're essentially wasted and probably won't remember it. And if you did, he wouldn't mind crossing an ethical line and fibbing if it meant concealing his pathetic vulnerabilities.

Perhaps one day he'll tell you, if the uninterrupted storm ends, and the skies clear, if Mikage Reo's heart will one day stop aching for you.

"I'll tell ya some day. When I feel like it."

"What?! You're not allowed to add that much suspense—and not tell me in the end."

And perhaps in another universe, he and you can be of the same constellation, instead of being galaxies apart.

taglist (send ask to be added) : @yuzurins , @pokkomi , @chigirizzz

© kitorin : do not repost, plagiarize, change, or translate

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year