#i noticed his character growth around the middle of the series and it made me smile how much he's changed

[mikurulucky]

Me at the start of Harlock '78: Tadashi... dude... you seriously doing this? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Me towards the end of Harlock '78: Tadashi, you've really become a man, haven't you? I'm so proud of you. 😊

[turtletaubwrites]

I Won't Waste It ~ Part 7

Pairings: Zoro x Fem!Reader, Sanji x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2,738

This is part 7 of the Series 'We've All Got Needs,' linked below:

We've All Got Needs Masterlist

Ao3 Series Link

Summary: You set ground rules with the cook and the swordsman, and spend some much needed time with a friend. Zoro speaks up.

Rating/Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content, Fem!Reader, 18+ Only, MDNI, Reader-Insert, Smut, Alcohol, Rough Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Swearing, Casual Sex, Overstimulation, Multiple Orgasms, Condoms, Shameless Smut, Hair Pulling, Aftercare, Friends With Benefits, Crewmates With Benefits, Relationship Discussions, Zoro is a dick at first, but he's learning

A/N: Alright friends, please don't get mad! Zoro can be a dick, but we love character growth over here! I hope you enjoy this installment, and the next will be posted tomorrow! 😊 (Y'all can thank medical leave for these quick updates, today was the first day I've left my house in a week, lol)

Scowling at your morning reflection, you leaned your elbows over the sink. I’m fucking beat.

You took a little extra time getting ready to try to make up for your exhaustion. Especially since breakfast was starting to feel like a battlefield. 

As you greeted everyone, you noticed Zoro leaning against the wall. He followed, and sat next to you. Robin’s knowing smirk made you bite your lip, looking down at your plate. 

Zoro kept a grip on your thigh under the table, while Sanji brought you a caramel latte with a flower design on the foam. Usopp had asked you something, but you couldn’t hear over the assault of attention, until your captain spoke up.

“I told you Usopp, Y/N’s sick. Chopper, can fevers make you go deaf?”

“Actually yes, a high fever can cause cochlear damage-”

“She’s not sick, she’s just been having trouble sleeping. Right, Y/N?”

Nodding, you gave Robin a grateful smile. 

Needing some air, you avoided their eyes and walked out on deck, yawning as you stretched.

“You’re coming to my room tonight.”

Zoro’s whispered demand tickled across your neck before you turned to face him. 

Yawning again, you leaned toward him.

“I can’t tonight, Zoro. I need to get some rest.”

Your breath hitched when you saw his eyes shift, and you took a small step back.

“What, now that cook treats you like a little princess, and you don’t want to fuck me?”

The sound of a lighter sparked behind him.

“I believe the lady told you she wanted a break, Marimo.”

Zoro spun, his fingers touching the handle of a sword.

“Fucking stop it, both of you. I’m not a piece of meat to fight over.”

Sanji looked at you with wide eyes, while Zoro clenched his jaw. You glared at him, stepping forward again. “And Zoro, I enjoy our time together, but there’s a line. You agreed to this, so speak up if you can’t handle it.”

Zoro’s lips pursed a bit, and it looked like he was grinding his teeth while you continued. 

“Clearly we need some ground rules.”

You sighed, walking over to the railing. You caught Nami waving from the crows nest, and you held in a laugh, grateful to know she was there.

When you turned around you could almost see the violence in the air between them

Oh fuck, what have I gotten myself into. 

“Okay, rule number one; no fighting over me. The whole point of this arrangement is to keep things casual, and I won’t put myself in the middle of your feud.”

Zoro's veins pulsed in his arms as he clenched his fists, and Sanji seemed to be desperately trying to ignore Zoro’s presence.

“Rule number two; no one gets their feelings hurt when I want to take a break. I’m fucking tired, and I’m not a doll you can use whenever you want.”

They both looked appalled, Sanji flashing hateful eyes toward Zoro as the swordsman swore, and started to apologize.

You held your hand out to stop them, and kept going, trying not to draw their eyes to the thumbs up waving from the crow’s nest.

“Rule number three; we need to come up with some sort of system to keep things fair. I don’t want to have to choose between you guys, and get caught in your pissing contest.”

Sanji looked at you with puppy dog eyes, while Zoro crossed his arms with his signature scowl. 

You paused for a moment, feeling exhausted.

“So, what’s the system?”

“Let her catch her breath, moss head.”

“You don’t know what she needs, waiter.”

“Guys, seriously? Stop.”

They had leaned toward each other, and you could practically see their hackles rise. 

But they went instantly silent at your words, and turned to face you.

You held in the shiver that ran through you at how these two powerful men just obeyed your command so quickly. 

“Let’s alternate. One day with Zoro, then the next day with Sanji. And I get to take breaks without you destroying the ship.”

Zoro kept scowling, and Sanji still looked like everything you said was magic. Again, you had to bite back laughter at these two ridiculous men.

“Plus! You can both sleep with other people too!”

The blank stares they both gave you made you pause for a minute. 

“... Okay then, good! Do we all agree to the terms?”

“Of course dear-“

“Sure-“

“Great! I’m going to get some work done.”

You practically ran away from them, chewing on the inside of your lip to keep from squealing. This is insane!

You didn’t want to spend the day in the kitchen making oils and tinctures until you’d seen Zoro again. They’d agreed to the rules, but you didn’t want to test his limit while he watched you spend the day with Sanji.

Instead, you spent it with Chopper. Now and then he’d share some interesting facts from his books while you were cataloging ointments, salves, and other supplies you’d made. Making sure they weren’t expired, and logging what you should make soon.

“We go through arnica cream like crazy, I’ll put that on our priority list.”

“Good thinking!”

It was so hard to be in a low mood around Chopper, and you found yourself smiling, even as you made your way through the hall to dinner. 

“Y/N.”

Zoro’s voice was low behind you, and you took a breath before turning to meet his eyes. He was looking everywhere but you, and you’d never seen him with his shoulders slumped like this.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”

You stared, watching him struggle, clearly feeling shitty about this. 

“No, you shouldn't have.” 

You said it with a soft voice, but stayed firm. 

He nodded, meeting your eyes. 

“It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”

You nodded, releasing a breath. 

“Thank you, Zoro. We can talk more tomorrow if you want. I’ll meet you in your room after dinner?”

Zoro’s lip twitched just a bit, and that tiny smile made you feel at ease. He nodded, heading into the galley.

After dinner, you walked toward your quarters in a daze. 

Nami caught your eye in the hall, and she flashed a bottle of wine from under her jacket while nodding toward her room. 

You closed the door behind you both, then mock hissed at her. 

“You thief.”

“Former! Now I’m a pirate. And pirates plunder.”

She took a swig before handing it over.

“I figured you could use some company that isn’t trying to stick a flag in you.”

“Oh, you are so right.”

You probably should have gone to bed early, but you had needed this time with your friend. You’d managed to spend a decent amount of time not talking or thinking about boy drama, but it inevitably came back up.

And this time it was all your fault. Maybe I’ve had too much wine.

“Soo, Nami?”

“Uh huh?”

She’d been digging in her closet, but twisted around to face you. 

“Would you, uh… Would you want to join an arrangement with either of them?”

Her mouth fell open, and she laughed loudly before clamping her hand over her face and sitting next to you. 

“I’m sorry, I didn't mean to laugh like that.”

You were laughing yourself, leaning your head into your hands.

“No, it’s totally fine. This whole thing is fucking ridiculous.”

“No, it’s not that, I just…”

Her tone had gone soft, almost serious, and your laughter faded. 

“I just, I don't know. I've never been interested in that. I’ve tried before, but-” 

She glanced at you, then shrugged before staring up at the ceiling.

“I know it sounds weird. I love to hear about it, but I just… don’t want to do it myself. With anyone. If that makes sense.” 

You smiled at your friend, touching your hand to hers. 

“It makes sense, Nami. I don’t think that’s weird at all.”

She beamed at you, and you felt shivers of warmth for your friend.

“I’m just bummed you won’t be able to carry some of this load for me.”

“Ha, ew! I don’t want any of that load, you can keep their junk all to yourself!”

Finally crashing in your room later, you felt so filled with happiness that you didn’t even think about tomorrow. 

Luckily tomorrow included the boys on their best behavior, although they were still vying for your attention during meals. 

I need to set another rule for that.

You felt Sanji’s eyes on you as you left after dinner, and shivered as you made your way to Zoro’s quarters. 

He let you in, as if he’d been waiting behind the door. You half expected him to pin you against the wall. Instead he led you in, sitting on the floor across from his chair. You took a seat, barely breathing. This was not Zoro’s typical stoic silence. Your knees fought as you tried not to bounce them. 

He started to speak, then coughed, clearing his throat a couple times. 

“I’m really sorry, Y/N.”

“I know-”

“I’m not good at this.”

He gestured vaguely between you, then looked away. You chewed your lip not to smile. 

“I just. I like you. And I like what we’ve been doing together.”

“I’d say ‘like’ is an understatement, Needy.”

You caught yourself teasing his own words back at him before you could stop it. You had a second of panic, worried you’d pushed him too far.

Zoro looked up at you, his face tilted with that evil smile that made your pulse race. 

He seemed to be fighting to keep his voice even, but the heat kept building.

“I promise to do better. Can you forgive me?”

Your breath was high in your chest as you felt the air shift around you. 

“Yes, Zoro. I forgive you.”

He lifted onto his knees, coming only a fraction closer to you. 

“Can I make it up to you?”

You gave a small gasp, and his smile of satisfaction made your eyes flutter shut for a moment.

“Y-Yes, please.”

Zoro was suddenly kneeling between your legs in his chair, hand fisting in your hair. He gripped you hard enough to make you whimper, loving the feeling of him taking control. He licked along your neck, sucking and biting your earlobe as his free hand gripped its fingers into your thigh. He pulled your hair even tighter, and you cried out for him as he chuckled in your ear. 

“I knew you needed me to touch you like this. You need me to hurt you, just a little bit. Don’t you, Y/N?”

You couldn’t keep your back from arching, and he used the hand on your thigh to pull you roughly until you were sitting on the edge of the chair, quivering for him. 

“Should I repeat the question, Needy?”

His dangerous words had your body aching, wetness pooling between your thighs. 

“No. I, uh-”

“What do you need?”

He breathed those words against your lips as his eyes burned into yours. 

You could barely hear your desperate whisper as you answered him.

“I need you to hurt me, Zoro. Use me, please.”

He forced his tongue into your mouth. His kiss felt like he was taking from you, and you moaned into him. 

You fell back into the chair as he released you. Your eyes rolled back in your head as he pulled himself out of his pants, dragging a condom over his long, twitching cock. 

“Wrists or throat?”

You looked back at his eyes, his growled words not registering. 

“Pick one.”

“Uh, wri-wrists,” you whispered, almost panicked.

“Get on your knees.”

You joined him on the ground, heart pounding. 

Zoro tore at your pants, dragging them down just above your knees before grabbing you by the hair again. 

“Beg me.”

You almost went limp, his grip in your hair keeping you upright.

“P-Please fuck me, Zoro. Please let me feel your cock-”

Zoro shoved your head down to the side, and you caught yourself on your hands and knees. He moved behind you, and you whined. Needing him, dripping for him. 

Feeling his length dragging along your skin, you begged even more. He leaned over you, grabbing and pulling you by the arms until you were upright, flush against the front of his body. He nipped along your neck while you shook.

“I’m gonna give you what you need. And I'm gonna take what I want. And you’re gonna keep your fucking mouth shut while I do it. Does that work for you, Needy?”

“Y-Yes, please, Zoro. I need you.”

He growled, and you gasped as he forced your arms behind your back. He pushed you forward, but held your wrists in one of his strong hands while he circled your entrance. 

You chewed your tongue, panting with pain and pleasure as he slammed into you, so fucking deep. He used your arms like handles, pulling you while you whimpered, trying so hard not to scream. 

Tears were streaming down your face, and you were overwhelmed, overpowered. Your pants still trapped at your thighs created so much pressure as he fucked you from this angle. 

“That’s right, Needy. You want me to fucking use you. That’s why you’re being so good and quiet for me, huh?”

You nodded for him, whimpering as he shoved into you even harder.

“I can be that for you, Needy. I can be the one that makes you feel this way. Fuuck… Your pussy loves being used, doesn't it, baby?”

Tiny sobs left your lips as your body proved him right. 

The angle he was holding you at was wearing you down, but he held your arms where he wanted you, forcing himself into your body as it tried to go limp. 

You came on his cock, tears and drool leaving your face instead of screams. And he didn’t stop. 

Zoro pushed you forward, using an arm to catch you before you hit the floor. 

Then he shoved you face to the floor while he kept ramming into you. 

“Finger yourself, Needy. I’m gonna take what I need now.”

Moaning, you tried to move your arms, but they were still almost numb from his grip. You didn’t need to though. The new angle, and Zoro’s groans above you brought you close again. 

“Fuck, I know what this needy pussy wants, huh, Y/N?”

He fisted your hair as his thrusts became erratic. You moaned your ‘yes’ for him, writhing under his control. 

“What do you need?”

Panting, you begged while he brought you again, your pussy milking him.

“I need your cock, Zo-Zor-”

You had to stop talking or you would have screamed. You shook under him, body bucking while you came so fucking hard. Even with your own body convulsing, you felt Zoro pulsing inside you, loving the moans he let out as he released. 

You lay together, gasping and twitching, until the sensations were too intense and he pulled away, cleaning himself off while you tried to relearn how to breathe. 

Zoro came back to you with a towel, cleaning you off before rolling you onto your back, and helping you slide your pants back on. 

His face was unreadable, and you stopped yourself from asking if he was okay. He promised he’d use his words. I can’t let myself worry about his every expression, it’ll go too far. 

You swallowed as you tried to listen to your own advice. 

Then he sat against the wall again, dragging you to lay across his chest. Your breath froze as he gently stroked your arm while he rested his head against the wall to look at the ceiling. 

You didn’t know what to say. This was the most awkward moment you’d felt with him so far, and you were trying so fucking hard to not take responsibility for this grown mans feelings. 

“Thank you.”

You gingerly pushed yourself up, sitting against the wall beside him so you wouldn’t have to look up at him. 

“For what?”

He met your eyes, his lips twitching into a small smile. 

“For giving me another chance. I won’t waste it.”

Your lips parted as you stared into his deep, dark eyes. His words sounded so soft, so genuine. Your breath seemed caught in a strange moment, like you were somehow separate from the room you were in. Zoro didn’t look away. 

“You’re welcome.”

Thank you for reading! 💜

TurtleTaub Fanfic Masterlist

Part 8

Buy me a coffee ☕🙏🏼

Tag List: @astheni-a

A/N: I'd love to hear your thoughts on Zoro here. 💚 I hope you enjoyed the ride!

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

EVERY WEEK I WILL POST VARIOUS REVIEWS I’VE WRITTEN SO FAR IN 2024. YOU CAN CHECK OUT MY GOODREADS FOR MORE UP-TO-DATE REVIEWS HERE.

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87. Sidekicked by John David Anderson--⭐️⭐️⭐️

SIDEKICKED was a fun adventure following a kid who has extra strength in his senses (sight, smell, etc). He was paired up with a less than interested mentor who is never really there to save him when he needs it the most. While there is definitely an emphasis on the idea of good vs. evil and what that entails (and the black and white levels of moralities that come with these two terms), we also get a pretty good insight into a middle school young teen boy and his varying emotions about his crush and the new kid in his secret sidekick program.

I honestly thought the concept of this book was fun, especially because we got to see the world of superheroes from the perspective of a younger kid. And because I've always been a fan of superheroes and stuff, so that's always a fun thing for me to read. But the tone of this book felt...older? The main character was sassy (which I loved), but his thought processes also felt like this book would have been better set in high school.

But that being said, this was fun for what it was. I felt really bad for him and the hand he was dealt in the mentor department. But I did enjoy seeing how everything came together. I can see 11+ year-olds really enjoying this. I think it would make a good movie too, tbh, made me think of Sky High a bit, too!

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88. Cherry Magic! Vol. 2 by Yuu Toyota , Taylor Engel (Translator)--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Okay, I'm officially obsessed with this series. I know this is only volume 2, but sometimes I just know when I'm going to devour a series and this volume is it for me.

Still not the biggest fan of the artwork, but I love these two characters and the hilarious thoughts and commentary. I also love this idea of a character who isn't popular being romanced by another character that everyone else wants. I love this and need more!!

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89. Stay Gold by Tobly McSmith--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It took me a while to pick up STAY GOLD even though I knew I was going to love it (I was right). From the very beginning, I was pulled in by the personalities of these characters and how well they worked off each other. I also felt their emotions and frustrations as they navigated the difficult and sometimes dangerous halls of high school. I also appreciated how McSmith navigated the complex emotions teens have of how they are perceived by the people around them.

This was such an emotional punch and I think that some trigger warnings will need to be read by those who are sensitive to suicidal thoughts, misgendering, dead-naming, and homophobic violence. The way McSmith wrote on these topics also showed me how having people who love you surround you is so incredibly important. It was also a great insight into how one's experience can't be seen as everyone's experiences. There was one character who was pushing the MMC to do something that though could be helpful to a group of people, it could be incredibly dangerous for the MMC.

I'm cis, so I am privileged enough to never have to deal with this level of danger, but it broke my heart to see the MMC torn between what others believed to be right and what was right for him.

The FMC had such great character growth and is proof that sometimes patience is a virtue--but also hope.

I just really loved this book and I'm so glad I finally picked it up! Now I have to read McSmith's other book!

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90. Cherry Magic! Vol. 3 by Yuu Toyota , Taylor Engel (Translator)--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ugh the cuteness. I can't. Watching the MMC slowly fall and realize his feelings? Please.

I remember finishing this book and immediately cursing myself for not having Volume 4 readily available to read right after. I'm excited to see how those around them react to their slowly forming love. I also love seeing the jealousy and how intense the love interest is with the MMC.

Also, something I noticed is that the volumes have a content advisory but these are pretty clean (so far). Gay manga must equal parental advisory, I guess LOL. Please.

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91. The Haunted Forest Tour by James A. Moore & Jeff Strand--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Holy crap, THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR was such a fun and bloody horror. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. The brutality and blasé way that the authors killed off characters was actually amusing. I don't think there was a heck of a lot of depth into this book, but I honestly just had such a good time reading this.

The one thing I wasn't a fan off and why the one star was taken off was the unnecessary mentions of these creepy men wanting to bend over certain women to have sex with them. It just felt predatory. Like the dude who had to constantly remind himself he was married. Or the ones who were always thinking about having sex with women who had no idea they were thinking these thoughts. It was creepy and unnecessary. God forbid we have a horror book where women aren't sexualized for the sake of making the reader either uncomfortable or just...because male authors can't help but comment on women who are "do-able".

Anyway, other than that, this story was pretty original and so, so bloody. It's a perfect October read tbh. Surprised the hell out of me. Would also make a great movie.

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92. The Escape by Katherine Applegate--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I'm starting to find that I really like the story told from this perspective. I think this character is one of the more underestimated ones because when we see him from other characters' POVs, we see someone who is one way, but from his perspective, we see his true depths. Which is something he touches on here: he's the funny friend; the one who never seems to take anything too seriously, but this kid wears the humour mask as a survival thing.

This was a great addition to the series because of the emotional aspect. And THE ESCAPE also makes me want to read more of the series just so I can see this character get his greatest wish granted.

Also, loved how great they all worked together!

Will hopefully read the next one soon!

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93. Cherry Magic! Vol. 4 by Yuu Toyota , Taylor Engel (Translator)--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Stop, I can't with this adorableness.

The fact that these two characters are so different but not at the same time kills me. One is very good at hiding their nerves and if it wasn't for these powers, the MMC wouldn't even know it. Sigh, both a gift and a curse.

I love that the character growth in this one--especially as someone with social anxiety--happened so organically. The MMC is going at his own pace but is still keeping the love interest's feelings in mind. I seriously can't wait to see how this all develops over the next few volumes!

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94. Dick Fight Island by Reibun Ike--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My adventures in Boy Love Manga has led me to this interesting work of art.

While yes, the majority of this is definitely porn, the storyline was actually really interesting and unique. And the artwork is freaking stunning. My friend told me that he didn't finish volume 2, so I'll probably just stay with this one and remember the story (cough) fondly.

I'm happy I read this because it was truly something else, but if you're thinking of reading this, be prepared. I don't think I'd recommend reading this on the bus.

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95. Dread Detention by Jennifer Killick--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I read this book under a different name and I was so surprised to see it was the same book (I just bought a physical copy of this book and the other books in this series, so that was a nice surprised.)

I genuinely really enjoyed DREAD WOOD (or DREAD DETENTION). It definitely gave me EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS vibes, especially with some of the scarier scenes. I love middle grade horror books like this one because it's just pure story--sometimes, older books have too much focus on the characters themselves rather than the scary side of a horror book. I thought there was a good moral story behind this and I think it's great kids will (hopefully) get this message.

I also was reminded of the Katherine Arden middle grade horror books where kids work together to solve monster and scary mysteries.

DREAD WOOD did have moments where it felt older than its intended audience, so I'd probably recommend this to the older side of middle grade.

If you're scared of spiders, you'll either have to miss out on this one or you'll have to find your bravery!

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Have you read any of these titles? What were your thoughts?

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Happy reading!

[rei-caldombra]

Parasyte: The Maxim Anime Review

I can often struggle to find the time to watch older shows due to consistently following the seasonals. I finally got around to watching Parasyte: The Maxim and I absolutely loved it. This is a thoroughly engaging and thought provoking story from beginning to end. It was hard to get myself to stop watching so I could spread it out. There will be heavy direct spoilers.

Parasyte excels on every front. This show is a suspenseful thrill ride from beginning to end. There were so many sudden "oh crap" moments that made me terrified for what was about to come next. The way the plot flows feels very natural and logical. The characters are very nuanced and always changing. The story is super interesting but I always got excited when the action picked up again due to how well done they are. I do think the peak of the show is in the middle surrounding the scene of Tomura's death but all the way through it is thoroughly engaging and thought provoking. The scene in the park was utter perfection, a beautiful and emotional culmination of everything the series was building to at that point. Everything concerning Tomura is fantastic, she is such a rich character. The entire story is rich with detail. The production value is extremely great, featuring smooth animation and great attention to minor details that add more to the scene. The character animation is so good, with lots of small and/or short movements or extra detail expressions that accentuate the character's emotional state.

The biological angle of the show is just so interesting. I love the level of detail we get into how the parasites work. Every time they took the time to explain how the parasites work I happily devoured every little detail. And the time and level of detail is justified because they end up being relevant to the plot and fights. You get satisfaction from paying attention because you understand why things work or don't. It's not mindless repetitive details just for the sake of padding out the runtime. I love when we get to learn about the unique organisms in fantasy and science fiction and Parasyte satisfied me perfectly.

A big focus of the show is on change, particularly adaptation and evolution. I love that Shinichi's growth as a character was not a simple downward slope. He has ups and downs, goes back and forth on believing in different ideas and perspectives. One point I love is how long it took for him to recognize that he was changing. Noticing yourself changing is pretty difficult. People can overestimate the self awareness an individual has towards their own behavior. You often do need someone else telling you you are changing and a serious low point for improvement to truly happen. With see this play out with his tumultuous relationship with Satomi. His failure to open up to her at the park was so painful. He is continuously falling for much of the series but we see moments of self realization and trying to fight against it as well as giving in. It's like a seesaw. He may have lost a lot of his emotional responses, but he did still have very strong responses to the topic of his mother. Then he later regains them. In the end he becomes not necessarily a perfect person, but a more complex person who can view life from a better perspective. It hurt so much to see him struggle because of how real he felt. We also have Migi who ends up being a very dynamic character. He starts out as being entirely utilitarian and self serving. His rationality reacting to Shinichi’s “irrationality” is very engaging and interesting to follow. But over time we see him better understand Shinichi and humans. He goes from demanding Shinichi do what he thinks is objectively best to trying to do the best he can while working within Shinichi's boundaries. He even learns to have a decent understanding of human ideals. The relationship between him and Migi is a dense swinging pendulum of comradery and antagonism that ends in mutual understanding while still recognizing the differences between them.

Watching the parasites evolve over the course of the story was so engrossing. Them slowly becoming more like humans is amazing to watch, especially when it is contrasted with the way we see Shinichi become less human. We see Parasytes go from simple minded predators to developing individuality is so interesting. The way they copy humans to the point of developing individuality and forming an organization which leads to their downfall is perfect. This duality is so engaging. Migi's desire for learning is my favorite trait of his, and it ending with him trying to evolve into something truly unique is perfect and fits the theme of individuality between all creatures. I loved watching him evolve over the course of the story.

I have heard some criticism of the story with the segment that lead's to Kana's death. Yes, Kana was very stupid for leaving her phone behind. But I think it works for her character. It felt in line for a high school girl who desperately wanted connection and to chase the strong feelings she never felt before. She wanted to feel special and believed in the romanticized idea of the “fated lover” that media often portrays. She believed in Shinichi being her "fated love" so strongly that she was willing to risk being wrong. These are all understandable desires, especially for someone of her age. I remember thinking similarly when I was her age. And even if you didn't this is showing how people have different belief systems and do not live entirely based on rationality. These ideas fit great into the show's themes. Her death is very important to the story and I think the way her death comes about is very well written. I think she was a great character and have no major issues with how her story goes.

Difference in perspective is also a big point of the series. Migi and Shinichi see life and other creatures in different ways. But both are presented as valid perspectives. You should seek to understand other people’s viewpoints, but expecting to entirely understand is not possible. As your experiences can never truly be the same. This is not posited as being negative, and I agree. It’s just the reality of existence. I agree that there is arrogance to believing you can understand how other people feel. Assuming other people’s perspectives can bring a lot of harm. We can be empathetic and do our best to act on their perspectives, but you will never truly have the same perspective. Every creature is unique based on their own individual differences. We should respect each other’s independence and uniqueness as living beings. A single actor cannot represent an entire species. Migi and Shinichi both desired to understand each other. And this is what allowed them to succeed. While parasites like Gotou forced their will onto others and failed because of it.

This show brings up so many great philosophical questions. They confirmed parasites can live without eating humans, as they can survive on the normal human diet. Which is how you can contextualize their killing of humans as wrong. But humans can survive without eating animals. So are we wrong for killing animals when we don’t need to? Should causing the death and/or suffering of one organism be treated differently? You could think it's wrong that Tomura viewed her human child like an experiment. But do humans not conduct experiments on animals? Is that so different from a parasite experimenting on humans? What about humans experimenting on Tomura’s child? Is there much of a difference between a creature like the parasites that kills humans and a serial killer? Can different creatures truly understand one another? Are all living creatures not doing their best to survive and thrive? Do all living things not have the right to live? They were born into this world with desires the same as us. They search for purpose the same way humans do. Should we judge all creatures based on human values?

There are plenty of series that explore human nature. But many lack the nuance and good writing that Parasyte has. My main point being that the humans here are not ridiculously stupid and unrealistically vile. There was not a single time I felt the intelligence of human characters were degraded for the sake of the plot or to make a point. Even during moments of arguable immorality like the soldiers killing humans had a clear utilitarian basis. In other worse shows you have people killing other with no good reason just so they can say humans are cruel. We do have a truly cruel human in Uragami but he serves clear narrative and thematic purpose.

I think there’s a lot of value to the killer’s inclusion as a human antagonistic force. While people like him are the vast minority of humans, they do exist. He acts a lot like the Parasytes as a predator. He brings up the point that stepping over others is the "natural order of things" that humanity has lost. The last plotline is a reminder of how cruel humans can be, and that being more compassionate to others is for the best. There are some points that can argue that thinking selfishly is not wrong, but this segment makes it clear that selfishness to the degree that he promotes is wrong. This story was not about some threat to human society, with humans being innocent victims. The final confrontation was around him and her because of the themes of love and human capabilities. He is the more pure human heart of the series. Amongst the chaos of the parasite stuff she keeps the story grounded. She represents the noble and caring side of humanity while he portrays the dark side. And through love the positive side of humanity is shown. Their relationships shows the importance of love in humanity. We succeed through our connections. The connection between Shinichi and Migi that was unique to them is what allowed Migi to evolve further that we see his character end with pursuing. Early in the series they state that creatures like the parasites should all act similarly based on their shared directive but we see this not end up being true. Creatures do not have some singular directive that dictates their behavior and makes them all the same. Creatures across the scale of simple to complex are unique. Shinichi is truly able to grow as a person and regain his will to live through his relationship with Satomi. Their love gets more into the point about how your close relationships should be a main focus of an individual, rather than looking entirely from a collectivist perspective. The right spot is in the middle.

By the end the show is clear in criticizing humanity because of the negative impact it has on the planet. But where it differs from other perspectives is following that up with whether something being harmful does not necessarily mean it should die. Both sides in the human vs parasite war wanted to protect their own interests and projected their values onto the other. You have to look from different perspectives. As Migi says, do we have the right to say we are doing something “for earth” when it is not a living being you can attach values to? It's very interesting that Shinichi changes his mind from letting him live to killing him. He goes from believing he has the right to live and that he should let nature take its course, but then flips to deciding to ensure his and his family’s safety by killing him. He goes from acting from a macro perspective to a micro perspective. And is the showing saying this is how we should think? Do the best you can for the people around you, rather than attempting to act on what is best for a collective? In the end, are we not all acting in our own self interest at its core? This fits with that one biology lecture, where the debate about whether things can truly act outside of self interest. It is important to consider the environment but a lone person should not overestimate their ability to alter it. There is the criticism of humanity but it clearly states that feeling terrible about ourselves as humans is not the message. This is clearly shown through how Takeshi is portrayed, with him being an environmental terrorist who says humanity should be diminished. I do believe that as humans we should be a lot better to ourselves, each other and our world. But we are all just trying to live in the system that we are born into. Our world does not allow up to better ourselves with absolutely no consequence to others. And allowing humans to die on purpose is not the solution. We should love ourselves while also seeking to improve. As the old lady said, be flexible and never give up.

This show is fantastic and one of my favorites I have watched in a long time. It is just that good. There is so much worth talking about that I did not even get into. But I'm no perfect creature so I cannot singlehandedly represent everything in this story. And that's fine. There are plenty of other unique perspectives to read/hear. Feel free to add yours in the comments! Thank you for reading!

[thatdammchickennugget]

Premonition - Chapter Ten

The Start Of Something New

pairing - george weasley x original female character

warnings - none

wordcount - 2.4k

set - september 1994

series masterlist - previous chapter - next chapter

King’s Cross train station was packed. Children were running around wildly, not paying attention whose path they would run into. Some of them stopping after seeing a dark-haired girl pulling not only a cart packed with luggage but also a younger boy behind her. Two little kids stopped and pointed at her luggage in awe, staring at the tiny owl sat in her cage on top of one of the suitcases. The girl sent the children a quick smile before taking a better hold on her cousin’s arm and proceeding to pull and steer him through the masses of people trying to manoeuvre around the train station. The boy’s eyes fixed on a book, not watching where he was going, only grunting whenever she pulled on his arm particularly hard.

When they finally reached the platforms, the girl spotted a myriad of red heads with one single head of raven hair peeking out in the middle, standing in front of the pillar they were trying to get to. She tried to push her feet forwards even faster, hoping to catch up to the black-haired boy with the thickly rimmed glasses, who was starting to run at the pillar, tightly gripping onto the bar of the luggage cart in front of him.

By the time they stopped in front of the pillar in the middle between platforms nine and ten, only two Weasley’s had yet to run through. Ginny was getting into position to start and took off when her mother gave her the signal.

When the girl vanished, the woman noticed the kids standing behind her and turned to greet them, recognizing the girl immediately. “Hello, dear. It’s nice to see you. Harry just went through onto the platform, he thought you would already be waiting for him,” she said touching the girl’s shoulder and stepping back to let them go first.

“It’s nice to see you too, Mrs. Weasley. And I would be if someone had not made us late,” the girl replied, glaring at the younger boy beside her. Theodore rolled his eyes at his cousin but did not try to defend himself. He finally closed his book and smiled politely at the woman in front of him. Elliana gave him a nudge forward, telling him to go and that she would take care of the luggage and that she will see him later. Without another word he made his way to the platform.

Ellie went next, waiting for the kind red-headed woman before continuing her way to the train. The older woman was making polite small talk, asking about her summer and her brother as they walked and searched for the rest of the Weasley’s. They were not hard to find, and Harry spotted them arriving first. He quickly jogged over and helped Ellie with her cart, pulling it to a stop next to his. Before he could say anything, the girl had already engulfed him in a bear hug. She then grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him away a little, taking a look at him.

“How are you taller than me now? What have you been eating?” she joked and let out a groan when she caught sight of Harry’s best friend standing behind him. “You too, Ron?”

Mrs. Weasley let out a laugh, ruffling through Harry’s hair with a loving look on her face. “I have been feeding him well. You will have to get used to it. I’m the shortest person at the burrow now, Ginny had a growth spurt as well this summer,” she told her and mentioned towards the younger girl, now standing at the same height as Ellie.

Ellie went to greet the rest of the Weasley family, shaking Mr. Weasley’s hand and sending the twins a wave and a smile. “It was nice seeing you all again. But I’m going to go try and find my friends now.” Ellie bid the group goodbye and took a hold of her cart again. “Let us help you with your things.” Harry took the cart from her, and Ron took the one he was sharing with him, as they followed her to the luggage wagon.

The younger boys helped lifting up hers and Theo’s suitcases and stowed everything away except for her book bag and the cage her owl was sitting in. They told her not to worry about the cart. She thanked them, hugged her cousin one more time and then shouldered her bag and picked her owl’s cage off the floor to go look for her friends.

It took her a while, but she managed to find the compartment her friends were sitting in before the train took off. Two girls inside let out excited squeals at the sight of her and barely let Ellie set down her owl before throwing themselves at her. A second later the three of them were a giggling mess on the ground, each of them talking over each other until the blonde boy sitting by the window finally had enough and let out a loud whistle, catching their attention.

“Hey, I’m also here,” he said, and Ellie pulled herself out of the other girl’s grips and plopped down on the seat next to him, leaning over to give him a hug.

“You know you could have just joined us on the floor,” she told him and sat back, taking a look at her best friend. Her mouth fell open and she reached out a hand to touch the little ponytail at the back of his head. “I like your new look, golden boy.”

He smacked her hand away, rolling his eyes. “Tell that to my mom, she hates it. She threatened to cut it off in my sleep.”

“Well, good thing she didn’t. It looks hot,” the girl sitting cross-legged on the seat across from him said. The Slytherin girl had her shoulder length dark curls pulled into two little pigtails and was sporting a brand-new leather jacket.

She was now arguing with the boy in front of her as the train slowly started moving. “I will not let you braid my hair, Jim,” Cedric told her, making her groan out loud.

“Please, Ced. Just once, I swear it will look good,” Jimena shot back and Ellie decided to ignore them both for now, until she was pulled back into the conversation by her friends.

“Ellie, Simone. What do you think?” Jim asked, knowing the girls would probably be on her side, no matter what they were arguing about.

The dark-skinned and freckled girl sitting curled up across from Ellie, nose already back in a book, did not even look up from the pages, just nodding her head and holding up one of her thumbs. Jim sent Cedric a triumphant look before asking everyone about their summer.

Hours later Ellie was sat between Cedric and Simone at the Hufflepuff table, everybody chatting about some great announcement Dumbledore would make after the feast. Apparently, a lot of other students had been told about some competition that would be held at school this year. Ellie chose to stay quiet and listen, not having heard anything of the sort from her uncle.

The hall fell silent as Professor Dumbledore stepped up to the podium after everyone had stopped eating. The professor cleared his throat, making sure he had everybody’s attention.

“Well, now that we are all settled in and sorted, I would like to make an announcement,” he started talking. “This castle will not only be your home this year, but home to some very special guests as well. Hogwarts has been chosen to host a legendary event: The Triwizard Tournament.”

The chattering around the hall picked up again at that and Cedric turned to look at his friends, excitement written all over his face. The professor had to clear his throat once more to get the students to pay attention to him again. “For those of you who do not know, the Triwizard Tournament brings together three schools for a series of magical contests. From each school a single student is selected to compete. Now let me be clear,“ he looked around the hall with a serious expression. “If chosen, you stand alone. And trust me when I say, these contests are not for the faint-hearted.”

Ellie looked around at the other students at their table. Everyone seemed to be excited and many of them looked eager to compete. She then shared a look with Simone, and the girls did not need to exchange words to tell the other they would rather go on a date with Professor Snape than compete in a deadly tournament. The boy to her left did not seem to share that opinion. He was already telling the students sitting across from him that he hoped to be selected.

“The schools joining us this year are the Durmstrang Institute and the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. They will arrive the day before Halloween. The three champions will be chosen after the Halloween feast. And one more thing.” Professor Dumbledore’s face turned serious again. “The contest is made up by three extremely dangerous tasks. For this reason, the ministry has seen fit to impose a new rule.”

He then introduced the head of the department of International Magic Cooperation, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, but before the man had the chance to start talking the rumble of thunder was heard from above. Everybody’s head shot up, seeing lightning flash across the enchanted ceiling. For a moment the hall fell into chaos, people started screaming and the teachers looked confused. But then Ellie saw a grizzled looking man walking on a wooden leg storm into the hall, whipping out his wand and casting a spell. The ceiling went back to normal, and the hall fell silent once again.

The man stowed his wand away and made his way to the front of the hall. Ellie could hear people whispering about him around her, but she recognized him easily when he got close enough to see his face. It was Alastor Moody, probably the most famous Auror of all time, and she remembered his face from some of her parent’s old photographs. The man hobbled up the small staircase leading to the raised floor the teacher’s table and the podium stood on, limped past the long table with the teachers and went to shake Professor Dumbledore’s hand in greeting. He then walked to the corner next to the table, turned his back to the hall and quickly took a couple of sips from a flask he pulled out from his coat. Well, that was certainly weird.

Mr. Bartemius Crouch then stepped back to the front, spreading out his arms as he began talking, explaining that no student under the age of seventeen was allowed to partake in the Triwizard Tournament. He earned himself a round of booing and shouted complaints, the loudest coming from the Weasley twins at the Gryffindor table. Dumbledore stepped in to silence the angry crowd of students.

Soon after the students were all on their way to their respective common rooms. The three Hufflepuffs made a quick stop at the Slytherin table to talk to Jimena before the Slytherin girl followed her dormmates down to the dungeons. Ellie excused herself from her friends to hurry over to the Gryffindor table, where Harry and his friends were getting ready to leave. Ron immediately questioned if she was going to put her name up for selection and she sadly had to disappoint him by saying no. They all bid their goodbyes and she caught up with Cedric and Simone again, walking to their common room.

Feeling extremely tired, not having been able to sleep due to nightmares the night before, she told her friends she would go to bed early, while they went to take a seat on one of the couches with some other students from their year. She slipped through the big round door to the right and made her way to her dorm room.

Ellie smiled when she pushed the door shut behind her, seeing the small owl staring at her from her cage, that was placed on the trunk at the end of her bed. She walked over to it, opening the latch, and finally let Nora out of her cage. The little owl nibbled at her finger for a moment and then jumped out of the opened cage door, flying onto the owl perch at the side of her bed. The girl reached into her book bag and fished out a bag of treats, feeding Nora one before throwing her bag down next to her bed, letting herself fall backwards onto the mattress and covering her eyes with her arms.

No matter how tired she felt right now, she was treading the moment she turned off the lights and actually tried to fall asleep, not feeling very lucky tonight. While Dumbledore had been a big help with her problems, they still had not found a way to keep the nightmares in check. The only thing that had helped so far had been sleeping potions, which the Professor had advised her to not take every night as you can get addicted easily. And even those failed to work sometimes.

It did not help that her brother, Dominic, had not responded to any of her letters in six days. If he was busy, he would often not find the time to reply for one or two days. But he would at least send her a note saying so and letting her know he was busy, writing her a full letter back at a later time. This was the longest she had not heard from him, and she grew more worried every day.

Deciding to give it one more try, she pushed herself up, taking a quill and a sheet of parchment out of her bag. Taking a seat at the desk next to her bed, she dipped the quill into the ink and began scribbling on the parchment. She did not write a lot. Just including that Harry, Theo and her had made it to Hogwarts safe and that Dumbledore announced that the Triwizard Tournament would be held here this year. She signed her name and rolled the parchment up, grabbing another treat from the bag and walking over to where her owl was sitting. She fed Nora the treat and then handed her the letter, telling her to bring it to Dominic and apologizing for making her fly this late.

After closing the window behind the owl, she grabbed her pyjamas from her suitcase and went to get herself ready for bed, hoping it would be a nightmare-free night.

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[taggingtim]

Why I love Pre-Boot Tim Drake and why the Reboot has ruined him

I love Tim Drake.  He is my favorite comic book character of all time.  I’ve been really upset the past few days about what DC has been doing with him lately, and I thought it would be cathartic for me to write something up about it.  (No, this isn’t a rant about Tim being bi/gay; it’s a much larger problem than that. But I’ll get to that in a bit.) Bear with me for a bit of history, first.

When I was a kid I loved the Batman Animated Series.  I know this will lose me a lot of internet cred, but I always preferred the fourth season. In particular, I loved Tim Drake. He was fun and funny and I absolutely adored him.  I used to beg my mom to take me to the mall so I could buy issues of Gotham Adventures. For my birthday one year my parents got me a subscription to the comic, and I was blown away by the idea that I could have comics MAILED to my HOUSE.

Around middle school I started collecting Marvel comics, mostly X-men stuff.  I loved them, but when I started college I quit the hobby for financial reasons.

 Fast forward a few years, and I felt I was financially stable enough to start buying comics again. Rather than going back to Marvel, I decided to give Batman comics a chance.  I had no idea where to start, and when I found out my beloved Tim had his own comic series, I thought it was a perfect entry point into the Batman universe. I bought the complete series from a local comic shop and dove in.

 Tim’s Robin series was exactly what I was looking for in a comic.  He was very different from little Timmy Todd from BtAS, but I loved him. I built the rest of my comic collection around him, grabbing up every book that he was featured in, from Young Justice to Teen Titans to Batman, Detective Comics, Nightwing, Red Robin, and many others.  I have random books from series like The Demon just because Tim was in them.

 So why did I like Tim so much?  What about this character made me so excited for more?  I found in Tim something that I had never seen in a comic book before: character growth.  Somehow, though he was written by many different authors over many different years, Tim managed to have a character arc that is consistent and makes sense. Sure, there were a few small bumps along the way, but on the whole Tim has always stayed true to his character, and he’s developed in a way that the big name characters, like Batman, never can.

 When we’re first introduced to Tim, he’s a young teen who has been neglected by his parents growing up. He’s smart, healthy, and strong, but he lacks so much self confidence and has little sense of self worth.  Tim notices Bruce’s increasing violence as he grieves for the loss of his son, and Tim knows he needs to step in and help.  Batman needs a Robin.

 For most characters, this would be the part where Tim put himself forward for the job.  But he doesn’t.  He seeks out Dick Grayson and begs him to come home instead.  It’s only when Batman and Nightwing are in danger and there is literally no one else to help that Tim steps up and dons the cape. And once he does, he’s constantly plagued by self-doubt, terrified he will screw up and leave Batman worse than ever before.

 From there, Tim undergoes intense training.  He never begs to be in the spotlight, doesn’t push to go out on the streets before he’s ready.  His goal is to help Bruce as much as possible.

 Here’s where I started to fall in love with him.  All that self-doubt, the constant need to be useful?  That’s exactly what you would expect to see from a child whose parents had ignored and neglected him.  He finally has a parental figure who sees him, who values him, and Tim does everything he can to make himself worthy in the hopes that Bruce will keep him around.

 This is the first example of character consistency that we see with Tim.  And it continues.  When his mom dies and his dad is put in a coma, you see Tim struggle to come to terms with losing the people he loves, but never had a relationship with.  Tim almost never mentions his mom after her death, because she just wasn’t present in his life.  When his dad recovers and decides to stick around, Tim struggles to build a relationship with him.  He’s plagued with guilt because he’s finally found the father figure he needed in Bruce, but he thinks that he’s supposed to feel that way for Jack.  It’s a running undercurrent in their relationship that creates distance between them for years.

 This is already so long, so I’m going to try to summarize a bit more.  We get to watch Tim grow up.  We see his awkward relationship with his first girlfriend, Ariana.  He doesn’t know how to treat her; he’s never had the opportunity to observe a healthy relationship.  But he tries so, so hard.  All of Tim’s relationships are awkward, because he’s never had a model of a good one. Steph is a great match for him, because she’s very vocal about what she wants and needs, and she isn’t afraid to call Tim out when he messes up, which is exactly what Tim needs.

 Big things happen to Tim. He’s stuck with Jean-Paul Valley, who slowly goes insane, leaving Tim to try to keep the city in one piece.  He’s infected with the Clench, a plague that sweeps over Gotham and kills everyone it touches, and barely escapes with his life. His girlfriend is sexually assaulted, leaving him to deal with the fallout.  His family moves out of Gotham, and he has to sneak back in during No Man’s Land to help.  His relationship with his dad has intense ups and downs, resulting in him being sent to boarding school, punished in a variety of ways, and generally caused a lot of trouble in his life.

 Then people start dying. Over the course of about a year in his life, Tim loses his girlfriend, his dad, a close friend, and his best friend, each of whom dies under tragic conditions.  Tim’s grief is intense, and he is understandably traumatized by the losses. We see fundamental changes in his character.  He changes his costume from something bright and cheerful to something darker that reflects his emotional state.  He’s more subdued, his adventures a little more serious.

 When Bruce first tries to adopt him, Tim literally creates an uncle and hires an actor to play him, just to avoid dealing with the situation.  Bruce has viewed Tim as a son for years, so to him the adoption is an obvious step.  For Tim, it feels like a betrayal of his father, and it takes a while before he’s ready to accept Bruce’s love, home, and a place in his family.  

 When Damian shows up on the scene, Tim really struggles with him, and not just because early Damian is a horrid brat who tries to kill Tim on multiple occasions.  Tim has always felt the need to earn his place with Bruce, and Damian constantly throws all of Tim’s biggest fears in his face—he’s not wanted or needed now that the “real” son is here, he’s not worthy of a place in the family, he’s not good enough.

 Tim tries to clone Conner, his best friend.  He’s lost so many people, and he’s desperate to get them back.  Conner was cloned to begin with and fully matured over a very short period of time; the technology clearly exists, so why can’t Tim use it to get his best friend back?  And if he can get Conner back, why not the others he’s lost?  He eventually gives up, but when he eventually gets access to a Lazarus Pit, he immediately wants to incorporate the waters into his process so he can revive his loved ones.  With Dick’s help, Tim eventually decides to let it go, but it’s such a poignant moment for the character.

 Then Bruce dies, and Dick takes Robin away.  Tim switches to the Red Robin persona as he travels the world, alone, trying to prove that he was right.  He has to deal with the trauma of losing another father, finds out that his girlfriend never died but let him hurt so much for so long.  His brother and the only close friend he has left both think his grief has overwhelmed his sense and that he’s gone crazy.  He’s utterly alone.

 The Red Robin series is such a great culmination for Tim.  He finds a place for himself as a hero, as a CEO.  He gets parts of his family back—Bruce, Steph, Bart, Conner.  He finally figures out who he wants to be and creates a place for himself.

 This overarching character development is what I love about Tim.  His many, many traumas impact his decisions, and you can clearly see how he changes over time as a result of them.  I didn’t even go into his development as a leader from his early fumbling with Young Justice to his strong leadership of the Teen Titans, or how his relationships with Conner, Bart, and Cassie develop so fluidly and realistically over the years.

 This is why I love Tim. Characters like Batman are static; nothing that happens to them will ever have a lasting impact, because in the end the character always returns to what they were.  Tim, on the other hand, has changed and developed A LOT since his initial appearance.  His growth has always been consistent and logical.

 When the reboot happened, all of that character growth was lost.  Tim was replaced with a jerk who betrayed his friends and cheated on his girlfriend.  DC has basically retconned all of this and tried to turn Tim back into who he was, but by taking away all of the things that have happened to him over the years, Tim has lost SO MUCH.

 I keep looking for my Tim in recent comics, and I just can’t find him.  It breaks my heart, because I love him so much, and it feels like he’s lost to me forever.  The most recent Young Justice comic series actually gave me hope; I felt like maybe, finally, someone was going to write Tim correctly.  He had his primary friendships back, his relationship with Steph was developing (even if they seem to have completely dropped all the development around Steph’s decision to let Tim think she was dead).  The actual book itself wasn’t fantastic, but it felt like they were headed in the right direction.

 Over the last few days, I read the Batman: Urban Legends books.  I actually read the Batman/Red Hood story first, which was fantastic.  I was really excited to read Tim’s story (though I already knew how it ended).  Jason’s character was handled so well, and he seemed to actually have some character development that will hopefully last.  I anticipated the same for Tim.

 But Tim’s story was awful. The plot was all over the place—kids are being kidnapped, so Tim has to join a pain cult to get them back?  He’s somehow helping Oracle with computer issues while simultaneously questioning witnesses?  He’s broken up with Steph, off camera, shortly after telling her how much he loves her, but Steph somehow thinks that they should have a caring relationship where Tim tells her what he’s feeling?  Bernard has somehow become a good enough fighter to stand side by side with Robin?  Tim STILL doesn’t have a code name?  Why is everyone suddenly hounding him about what he wants to do with his life?

 It’s just such a mess of a story.  If it didn’t end with Tim agreeing to go on a date with Bernard, no one would ever have even mentioned it.  There’s nothing particularly re-readable or enjoyable about it.

 I actually liked that they brought Bernard back. I really enjoyed him in the original Robin series. It’s been a while since I read that part of the series (I’m actually working my way back through it now).  I know Bernard always read as gay to me, yet somehow I felt like he was out of character in these books.

 And then, the climax of the story.  Tim is bi, or gay, or has at least agreed to go on a date with a boy.

 If this had happened in the pre-boot, when Tim was Red Robin and had an actual character arc, I honestly wouldn’t have had an issue with it.  I do think it would have needed a LOT more build up than it was given here.  Tim has always been a very introspective character, and we’ve been party to so much of his internal monologue over the years.  It seems very strange to me that such a huge thing just sneaks up on him out of nowhere when he’s never even thought about it before.

 But more than that, this story just feels like the final death blow for the Tim I loved.  The whole arc is about how Tim doesn’t know who he is or who he wants to be.  What will his hero name be?  Will he go to college?  What is he going to do with his life?  These are all great questions, and his answer to all of them is… date a boy?  

 Is this going to be his defining characteristic going forward?  From here will we just see Tim exploring and discovering his sexuality?  The Tim we have now doesn’t have a family, a team, a purpose, or even a code name.  Why was this the thing that DC decided to give us?  It feels like they wanted to make a gay Robin and decided it would be Tim because they didn’t know what else to do with him.

 It’s stupid, but I honestly feel like I’ve spent the past few days grieving the loss of a loved one. The Tim that DC is presenting now is just not the person that I knew.  Tim would never break up with Steph that abruptly for what he admits is no apparent reason.  He would never say “just call me Robin, since Damian’s out of town.”  Everything that I love about Tim seems to be gone, and in its place DC has given me a date with a boy.  

 Again, it’s not Tim being not-straight that I have an issue with.  I’ve never read the character that way, but it’s something I can live with. My issue is the way it was handled. Why not make Tim an actual person first, and then explore his sexuality?  Send him off to college!  He’s obviously thinking about it!  It’s the perfect opportunity to give him his own book.  He can move to a different city, choose a new name, and DC can introduce a whole new set of characters.  Figure out which parts of Tim’s backstory are still canon, and which have been dropped. Make him a person again, and then let him explore his sexuality.

 I know this post is all over the place, and I don’t have time right now to go back and edit it.  I just really needed an outlet for my frustration.  Right now it feels like there are so many people who are so excited about Tim being bi/gay, but they don’t know anything else about him.  I keep seeing people comment how DC has been “dropping hints for years!” with no evidence other than “he and Superboy were really close!”  I guess I’d just really like to have some dialogue with other people who are fans of Tim, rather than fans of Tim-as-bi/gay or fans of Tim-as-straight.

 Does anyone else feel this way?  I’d honestly like to have a dialogue about it with other long time fans.

[pip-or-something]

last twilight in phuket analysis

on growing up

1. hokkian mee

teh making hokkian mee seems very symbolic of growth here.  throughout part 1 he’s always saying his mom will make it for them, but this time, his mom isn’t around, so he makes it himself

2. the loss of the private beach

@liyazaki​ pointed out that they have to make room for themselves in the public beach and that’s brilliant and i love that take and i think it’s important and correct!  carving out your spot in an unfamiliar place is definitely a part of the learning to be an adult vibes

my focus in this scene was a bit different initially but still in support of that same positive change.  i noticed that it is oh-aew who’s most bothered by their private beach being closed and not teh.  remember when teh couldn’t even admit to himself that he wanted to be close to oh-aew?  and now he’s holding his boyfriend’s hand in public!  now they’re hugging on a public beach, and he’s emotionally aware enough to comfort oh-aew!  *hugs teh*

3. the closing of funan tutorial school

funan tutorial school was this place kind of like their beach - the two of them knew it inside and out, so there were spaces that felt like just theirs. it’s a short scene, but that shot of them being locked out through the inside is really showing that they’re now on the outside of phuket - or at least they feel that way.  i also think that scene is one of the many hints that teh, even though he’s mostly comforting oh-aew in this, is also unsettled and upset by the upcoming change.  

the view zooms out after that, though, showing that they’re part of a much bigger word - rather than being locked out, it gives us the perspective of looking inside from a place of greater freedom

if we want to get really abstract, it could be symbolic of the kind of inward self reflection that occurs when we see that the world is much larger than we thought

parallels

1. this scene

has a backdrop with the same very distinctive teal color that we saw at oh-aew’s house in itsay

the scenes ultimately are like the same thing but they play out differently.  the same because it’s always been oh-aew making teh come to him but now they’re actually talking like teh’s asking why and oh-aew is telling him to come closer and when teh doesn't want to do something he just explains why instead of forcing himself and it ends up being cute instead of angsty i’m so proud of them!!!

on top of that in the itsay scene they were deliberately hidden behind that staircase and now here they are out in public and teh’s shy but it’s okay because they understand each other now!  and by this i mean teh understands himself enough to communicate that and not overstep his own boundaries and oh-aew understands because!  again!  talking!

2. the dancing around each other at the beach scene in part one

vs. the dancing to each other here

the connection here is pretty blatant in my opinion but the change is sort of subtle.  in itsay, they ended up falling on top of each other, but then oh-aew essentially said he was hoping to run into teh, and this happened:

here, we have a role reversal where oh-aew is chasing teh, and when he gets there, they stick together

i just can’t get enough of teh being open to vulnerability here!  and in public nonetheless!

i’m refusing to delve into too much color theory here but i mean-- in itsay we had the blue scene and the red scene and here there both blue and red scenes alksdjflaksjflkjaslkdjf

maybe the most important thing i have to say

at the beach, teh says “there may be lots of changes,” empathizing with and validating oh-aew’s sadness and fears, which is lovely because, wow!  teh experiencing and expressing emotion fully?  again, ✨ character growth ✨ 

and then there’s this thing: we know that teh is a problem solver.  i know that he is because my brain works that way, too, and sure enough, i think he found a solution

when he says “i love you” he doesn’t just leave it at that.  he says “i’ve never told you, not once” and he very effectively reminds oh-aew that not all change is bad 

ahhhhhhhh everything in this series is so deliberate 

barely coherent thoughts

i can’t believe how nostalgic this made me??? about a place i have never been???  the music and the locations and just!!!  it hasn’t even been a year since itsay and i’ve rewatched it too many times to count but it feels like ages and it feels like coming home

twilight literally means half-light so as usual the nadao team is super on point with their titles - i mean it’s the perfect middle between the sun and the moon, the perfect compromise

the shirts and their colors are so unsubtle i love it

lkalkjsdfalkjasdf the blanket in the first scene i’m Suffering - i caught myself looking for yongjian on the wall lmao

did they not show them playing in the water because pp is scared of it because if so: that’s really considerate and cute and appreciated

i looked it up and lavender roses symbolize enchantment and love at first sight which is very cute and also feels like it demands growth, which would be fitting in terms of everything else i said.  they also happen look very similar to genetically engineered blue roses which are actually super interesting to read about and symbolize the unattainable.  so that’s very much in line with our title :’) in this case, rather than the romance specifically, it would be more likely to symbolize the inability to truly revisit the past, if that’s even what they’re going for

teh said i love you while oh-aew was filming them helpppppp i bet did that on purpose so that oh-aew will have it with him at all times when they’re apart [queue intense sobbing]

i think teh also needed to hear oh-aew say “i love you” here too and i have a lot of thoughts on how teh was dealing with all of this but i can’t figure out how to put it into words???  i wanted to peg him as someone who doesn’t do well with change but i think it’s more like he dislikes being in control and i confused the two because there tends to be overlap and here i think there’s multiple things happening.  he’s mostly in control of the change, he’s always wanted to go to the city for university.  but i don’t think he expected the emotion that is coming with it (and i really fully believe he’s experiencing the emotions for himself, too, not just empathetically with oh-aew).  he seems to be handling the emotion pretty well?  he’s not telling oh-aew anything outright but i don’t think he needs to, he’s expressing himself a lot more here than he ever did in itsay and oh-aew still read him like a book then

anyway i feel like we’re going to get a focus on oh-aew in this second part (it’s what i’m hoping for!) but i want to remember to keep an eye on teh and his progress as well because it might be more subtle but i am sure it will still be there

[magical-girl-coral]

et any more than ten notes, but fuck it, here are the reasons why Entrapta should have been kidnapped instead of Catra :

Catra's redemption would have felt more well earned - if Catra was trying to find a way to help Glimmer and Entrapta, then her change would seem more legitimate. She already showed signs of guilt through her nightmares of what she did to Entrapta. Instead of falling to her old ways like in Prime's ship, she would most likely go through a complete 180 and almost kill herself while trying to prove her worth. Imagine Catra trying to befriend Emily and Imp so they could find a way to save Entrapta, putting aside her past grievances with them so they could signal Entrapta on Prime's ship. Maybe Imp was the one collecting robot bits, so they could give it to Entrapta once they find her. Maybe Emily showed one of Entrapta's old recordings before she was sent to Beast Island for the sake of filling the empty space she left. The possibilities are endless.

Making the princesses look more justified in their anger - The princesses' ableism was handled terribly. There is no way around this. Neurotypicals obviously wrote episode two, and it shows*. However, once you replace Entrapta with Catra, their anger, hostility, and Scorpia's timidness make way more sense. Mermista's rage especially makes the most sense since Saelinas was the kingdom was fell first thanks to Catra and Hordak. Instead of making all of our favorite characters, ableist assholes, this plotline makes them more human. The power of friendship can only run so far, after all, and every single princess is allowed to have a breaking point in trust. 

It would showcase Entrapta's real priorities - For most of the show, both fans and characters see Entrapta as someone who would never care about anything other than tech. Now, if that were true, then Entrapta would have no problem joining Prime's side. But that's not what would happen. Instead, Entrapta would unleash hell on Prime's ship without Prime even noticing. Sending signals to Etheria and new tech designs, helping Glimmer escape and sending her back to the Best Friends Squad, all while showing zero hesitation. Entrapta loves tech unconditionally until it starts to mess with her friends.

It could show ableism correctly through Prime with how he would treat Entrapta - This is my scenario of how Entrapta ends up on Prime's ship (please tell me if you have anything better): Prime, after looking into Hordak's memories, sees a young and brilliant scientist. Prime decided to show her his ship, trying to seduce Entrapta into improving his tech while convincing her that a 'defective, retarded, emotionless' Etherian like her could never truly be great, so she might as well give up now. He would touch without her consent and shame her for turning his "affection" away. Instead of falling to his manipulations, Entrapta realizes that he is afraid of her. She's biologically different then most Etherians, and Prime doesn't know how to control her. That gives her the final push of courage she needed to have to go behind Prime's back and rescue Glimmer. By making Prime ableist instead of the princesses, the show tells us how ableist is bad and disables people deserve more respect (I know that most of the show's fans are above fifteen, but with how the fandom has been acting, they deserve to be taught like children).

It would give a parallel 'be careful what you wish for' between Entrapta and Catra - At the start of the series, all Entrapta wanted was to see more advanced tech, and all Catra wanted was to see Etheria conquered. They both got exactly what they wanted, and their lives couldn't be worse. 

A chipped Entrapta breaking free from the hive mind because of her autism would be awesome - That's it. That's the pro. I'm incredibly desperate for more good autism rep, and this would be amazing.

Catra and Adora bonding while in space would be excellent for both characters - As much as I love the angst from chipped Catra, it feels more like fanservice now. At the end of the day, it felt like Catra and Adora didn't bond enough to have a solid devolvement in their relationship. This could change if they went to space together with Bow. Instead of spending just half of the last season together, they spend the next eleven episodes bonding in the insanity of their situation. It would also allow more time for Catra to understand Adora's abuse under Shadow Weaver. By forcing those two into a close space in the middle of nowhere, they would have no choice but to confront the other about their issues. And speaking of much-needed bonding time.

Glimmer would get a chance to face Catra about Angella's death - If there is one thing I will never forgive season five for, is forgetting Angella's death.  It was Glimmer's main motivation to take more action against the Horde, it was what almost drove Micah to despair, and it was the final nail in the coffin for Adora, making her stop taking the blame for everything and take Catra's threat to the world more seriously. But then season five happened and they just... forgot about her? She was never mentioned again because if she were mentioned, Catra would look bad, and Glimmer would have a reason to hate her. But if Glimmer were to meet Catra again outside of Prime's ship, with all the trauma she went through there, she would definitely take out on Catra (kind of like how Katara took out her anger on Zuko after he joined the gang).

Hordak would join the Best Friend Squad early after they save Entrapta and would get more devolvement as a result- If you think for one second that Hordak won't abandon Prime after what he did to Entrapta, then you haven't been watching the same show. I don't know how he joins the BFS. Maybe Catra tried to find him to fix her mistakes**, maybe he finds them by accident and remembers some of the past events as a result, or maybe he was one of the clones that witnessed chipped Entrapta and got a wake-up call. Either way, he wouldn't sit back and watch Prime continue to ruin his only friend's life. This would give him more screen time to show his backstory more clearly, give more sympathy for the clones along with a better redemption arc. And finally, the most crucial point.

Catra's growth would be more consensual - Most of Catra's maturity seemed to be out of her control. She helped Glimmer because she felt like no one wants her anymore. She had her hair cut because Prime wanted her to look more tamed. She was buddy-buddy with Glimmer and Bow because the plot says so. Nothing that happened this season seemed to be with Catra's consent, which made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Instead of watching Catra go through glorified torture porn, imagine her changing from her own free will. She cuts her because her hair reminds her of how Shadow Weaver's hair looked wild when she was angry. She changes clothes because she didn't want to wear her crown anymore. She goes to space with Bow and Adora because she wants to do good with her life, and is tired of being the mean old bully she was never meant to be. Doesn't this seem more satisfying?

*here, here, here, here and here are some metas about why Entrapta’s treatment was written terribly. I’m too tired to explain myself, and these posts tell the show’s problems better then I could

** I really like the idea of Catra finding the Luvd crystal and returning it to Hordak as a way apologize for how she has separated them. It would also be a cool parallel to all the times she took the crystal out of Hordak’s suit.

Edit: holy shit, there were so many typos here. Why didn’t any of you guys tell me?

Double edit: soooooo... I may or may have not written a fic...that you can read here...please support me, my brain is begging for more serotonin.

[charmspoint]

how was it ^-^

Let's seee. It was good, perfectly enjoyable, it reads fast and i was never really bored with it. I'd give most chapters like a 7/10 and then chapters 71-82 like 8 or 9/10 and then back to like 7/10 and the ending was weird but also kinda sweet in its own way.

Now to preface anything else: This isn't my type of manga. I can easily see it being a 10/10 for someone who really likes fight scenes and death and gore and what not. I'm not really into that, I'm a character and story driven person which is why the manga as a whole scored as just goodish to me while chapters 71-82 which kinda make a lot of emotional and psychological aspects of the chapters before them come to culmination scored a lot better. You know I don't GET fights. Chainsaw man was very gory but I didn't even really register it. Like because of all the gore I feel I heard people say it has horror aspects but I never really felt scared or off put or anything. It was just kinda like 'oh a lot of people are in pieces rn, okay, that's a thing that's happening'. So yeah that's why the score is the way it is, it simply isn't a manga that focuses on things I like and that's perfectly alright. I couldn't buy into the hype like I did with jjk and I certently didn't feel 'oh this is the best thing ever' like I felt with witch hat atelier.

With all that out of the way let me talk long and hard about Denji and sexual aspects of the series in a surprisingly positive light:

I like Denji as a character. I think he's still a bit rough around the edges but he's not a character made for introspection so that's fine, you really kinda have to take what he says and how he acts and think about it because the author won't do it for you. That being said, I think Denji is probably the most compelling shonen protagonist I've read so far. Like when I read bnha or jjk I see Izuku and Yuji and I'm like 'this is a shonen protagonist'. They are a likable character but they won't be your favorite character. They are largely made for japanese high school boys to project themselves on and I'm not a japanese high school boy. That being said, Denji feels like a character of his own and not something meant to be projected on to. Honestly if anyone projected on to Denji I'd be worried about them. But that makes him probably the most compelling shonen protagonist I've ever read. You just wanna dig a shovel into his skull and go 'man kid ur fucked up'.

I know when you first read csm you were off put by Denji because it felt like a manga put a pervert character as a protag which is naturally off putting and I can 100% see that. Now be it because I was warned about it first or something else, I didn't actually find fanservice jarring at all. It kinda was integrated into the world in a way that made me think 'yeah of course it's like this'. This is a very grim and rough and drty world and things in it would be just like that. It is a story about base desires and sex is one of those. These are people who expect they will die any day now and Denji is a person who's just now getting to experience a somewhat decent standard of living. Here's a thing I noticed though: even as Denji thinks many sexual things (which, he's a teenager, that's normal) he's actually very respectful. I don't think I've ever seen him touch anyone without their permission, in fact i think things like that mostly happen to him. Like example how Power comes in just as Denji is in the middle of his 'i wanna touch some boobs' phase. You would almost expect that what happens next is we see him try to grope Power as she's sleeping or something. But no, he doesn't do a thing until she asks him to help her save her cat and he gets to touch her boobs for it. And it's like this with p much every other sexual encounter through the series. Both partners are consenting and getting something out of the whole thing. Sexual aspects are used as normal bartering chips in a world where your whole body is a bartering chip. It's normal and no one is forced into it. I've told you before that my biggest misgiving with fanservice is that it's often based on embarrassment and unwilling participation of the girls. Like fanservice isn't fanservice because you saw a boob it's fanservice because you saw a boob when you weren't supposed to, when the girl didn't want you, when she's angry or scared or embarrassed because you did. A lot of fanservice feels very much like taking something from the girl, debasing and humiliating her for the sake of watchers/readers satisfaction.

Despite all it's sexual jokes and themes and everything else Chainsaw man never once made me feel like that. It never once made me feel like the author expected me to gain sexual satisfaction out of debasement of female cast. Which is why even though boobs and naked women are literally all over the manga I didn't mind it at all. It stopped being fanservice and became just a natural part of characters lives as sexuality and sex is a natural part of real world.

Back to Denji.

So I mussed a bit about Denji and Maslow before but here it is in total

Denji is 16 years old and at the beginning of the series he's just starting to have his physiological and safety needs met. Like he doesn't live like a human being at the start of the series and Makima recruiting him is A BIG CHANGE for him. Like for a good while Denji is like 'Now I have three meals a day and a place to sleep at so I'm good with whatever'. He's given reliable sources to fulfil his needs and he's given a way to keep those sources stable. He has a job, it's not a good job but he has it. He has a place to live and a theoretical safety net. He's immortal so there's nothing to fear in the death and injury department which means the otherwise unsafe job is perfectly fine for him. Now what Denji gets stuck on through most of the series is Love and Belonging. Because you can't just give someone love like you can give them food (not that Makima doesn't try). People are more complicated. Compromises need to be made and human connections are hard to establish, especially if you are someone like Denji who has no idea how to interact with others aside from obeying orders. This is why his need for love and belonging first manifests as a sexual need (that and he's an allo teenager). Human connections are hard but sexual contact doesn't have to come tied with connections so it's easier (if unsatisfactory as Denji finds out with Power) to achieve. A lot of Denji's personal growth is tied to him finding out that this need can be fulfilled by other things alongside sex. This is why I love chapters 71-82 so much because they are really a culmination of Denji's emotional journey in that category. Along the way along with sexual love he finds romantic one. He wants to spend time with girls he likes, he wants them to like him beyond the sexual. Of course sexuality is always an aspect of it but after that scene with Power it's never the only thing. Human connection, understanding the other person, knowing them, loving them, making them happy. And it all culminates in the familial love he finds with Aki and Power, taking care of someone and being taken care of for no other reason than they are your family and you love them, you care for them, you want them to be well and happy. There's this scene with Power later on when they are taking a bath together and Denji is like 'huh we are both naked but it doesn't feel naughty at all'. He's stopped seeing Power sexually because he started to see her as his sister and it's just really nice, those few chapters we get to see them as a family are really nice.

By the end of the series Denji starts checking off the esteem box too, by people accepting him and loving him and him feeling like he wants to respond to that, but I feel like that aspect and possible self actualization will be more explored in part 2.

There you have it, my essay about why Denji is the most compelling Shonen protagonist I've ever read :)

Also I really liked the girls in this series, it really isn't afraid of letting it's female characters be weird and gross and in Makima's case just plain evil and I appreciate it for that. I just wish Quanxi got more time and things to do but she's a side character and it's not her fault she's cooler than the whole main cast (Power best girl tho).

I feel like I talked a lot already about what was my most important take away from the whole thing but yeah, in general: pretty entertaining read, would probably be a complete blast for someone who's invested in fights, a little thin on psychology and emotion for my tastes but when it delivers them it delivers them good.

Also I like how it basically ended on 'you should give people more hugs' it was cute

Additionally I think the authors idea to basically release manga in seasons like you would an anime is straight up genius I hope that more mangakas start picking this up because it allows them more rest in between big arcs.

Ok now that's it for real this time.

[veliseraptor]

Down in the Yi City Pit: A Recs Post

So as anyone following me may have noticed, I’ve been spiraling ever deeper into a pit called Yi City Feelings. I’m down at the bottom and I’m still digging. This also means I’ve been doing a lot of fic reading, and I figure it’s about time that I wrote a recs list, since I said I’d do it and some people expressed interest.

Heads up that I am a dirty Xue Yang stan first and foremost, so this list is going to skew in, uh, that direction. Just so we’re all aware.

Divided these into canonverse recs and modern au recs, since apparently this is the only thing I’ll read modern aus for! It’s a brave new world out here. 

Also like. blanket warnings across the board here for The Inherent Dubiousness of Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen as a Pairing, Generally. I’ll offer more specific/major ones as they’re relevant/I remember, but please check the tags/authors notes as well.

CANONVERSE

lover to your nightmare by Zaatar (@ameliarating) . Xue Yang uses Xiao Xingchen getting sick as an opportunity to fuck around a little. Second person POV sickfic, except XueXiao flavored sickfic which means it’s messy and full of good things like “delirium” and “people taking advantage of other peoples’ confusion and disorientation to mess with them psychologically.” This fic also does the thing I love really well where Xue Yang’s internal monologue/self-justification is full of indications that he’s having Feelings that he neither recognizes nor acknowledges. Crunchy, delicious.

Samsara / 輪迴 by ForgivenMemes. Upsetting fic full of every content warning ever alert! (Off the top of my head: violence, rape, suicide, self-harm.) I keep going back to this fic and rereading it because it hurts so bad and I love it, because it hurts in the best worst self-sabotage recapitulating-mistakes-over-and-over way. Like, I am a sucker for a time loop fic always, and usually I read them as a route to fixing things - but honestly I’ve always loved the part of time loop fics that’s “everything getting worse first.” And this is a whole fic of “everything getting worse.” Aka, the one where Xue Yang has thousands of chances to get it right, but there’s no getting it right.

compromise by Sectionladvivi. Xiao Xingchen convinces Song Lan and Xue Yang to kiss. (aka, obviously Yi City AU where Song Lan gets folded into things, Xiao Xingchen still doesn’t know about Xue Yang being Xue Yang, and an uneasy detente where the two of them don’t touch each other gets interrupted by Xiao Xingchen Wanting Things, which is, of course, a priority always). 

til dawn by Sectionladvivi. Xue Yang takes care of Xiao Xingchen’s body after his death, and mind the tags. This is that perfect Yi City level of “horrifying and also very sad, I feel bad for my boy but also he is sort of defiling a corpse (though it is just kissing).” This might not sound like a recommendation but it is absolutely a recommendation.

Our Antebellum Innocence by spockandawe (@spockandawe). First time XueXiao. Xue Yang lays the groundwork for his first time with Xiao Xingchen with meticulous care.  This author always delivers, both in terms of excellent porn and in terms of characterization, and this is no exception. 

life’s illusions I recall by Sour_Idealist (@souridealist). The basics of this fic is just “outdoor sex at a river” and it is delicious for that, but what I love about it in particular is this author’s Xue Yang voice. It’s always good (they are the genius behind the incredible Jiang Yanli/Xue Yang fic - no, really), and this is a fic I come back to a lot for that reason. I also love the tag “two characters experiencing two very different fics” which feels like a very apt description for the XueXiao dynamic, generally speaking.

Selenographia by lightningwaltz. A lovely, short-ish fic about the Yi City years. I don’t feel like I have a good description for this one - it’s just one of those beautiful character/moment portrait pieces, very well done.

Stories from A Lonely City by blackwatervial. A series of snapshots/vignettes from the three years in Yi City. Sweetness, bittersweetness, and of course, ultimately, a sad end. This was one of the first Yi City fics I read.

yi city depression hours by glueskin (series). Just. You know. Some feelings. There’s two fics in this one, both short character study type fics making me feel feelings.

a bird caught in this winter blizzard by cherriru. I do love a good grief/mourning fic, especially featuring someone realizing slowly the sheer miserable depths of their fuck-up. Aka, Xue Yang after Xiao Xingchen’s death. It’s just sad. 

all I ever knew of love by Sour_Idealist (@souridealist). See what I said above about the Xue Yang voice and this author; this one also featuring blistering hot porn (first time), a little light praise kink, and huddling for warmth as an excuse for sex. It’s a perfect blend of filth and tenderness and I love it.

revelations wallet wood burn art by Sectionladvivi. This one describes itself in the summary as “grim pwp” and yeah, that fits (and also! is such a XueXiao vibe, whoop whoop); it’s based off the simple premise of ‘Xue Yang tells Xiao Xingchen who he is, in the middle of sex.’ Honestly, one of my favorite things about this fic is the ending, which is horrifying in the best possible way.

Your Heart Inside My Hands by williamshooketh (@ectoplasm-james). This fic is fabulously made for me in the specific subgenre of “Xue Yang thinks he knows what he is getting into when having sex with Xiao Xingchen and, it turns out, does not.” This one featuring some of my favorite things including praise kink and Xue Yang getting extremely fucked up by someone being very nice to him.

Sleep Until the Sun Goes Down by spockandawe (@spockandawe). Love me some Xiao Xingchen seducing Xue Yang with candy. First time fic, second person POV, absolutely delightful.

pass the time by short_tandem_repeats (@yiling). A-Qing and Xue Yang bonding hours. I am actually such a sucker for their weird relationship (I don’t poke at it enough in my own stuff, should work on that) and the way they recognize each other in ways that Xiao Xingchen doesn’t, and also a-Qing having to reckon with the ways in which she’s more like Xue Yang than like Xiao Xingchen. Just a very good fic with a delightful a-Qing.

Three Springs by Verbana. Just a really excellent Xiao Xingchen POV of the three years in Yi City and a developing relationship between Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang. Beautifully written, a lovely escalation, and I’m absolutely delighted by the gentle loneliness of the Xiao Xingchen POV here.

Red Azalea by CeNedraRiva (@cenedrariva) (WIP). A longfic in progress following the continuing adventures of the Yi City Crew after Xiao Xingchen survives his suicide attempt and Xue Yang reconsiders some life choices. Recently got tag-updated to SongXueXiao which has me absolutely thrilled. Updates every Wednesday.

ephemeral by im_krying (WIP). Xue Yang, traveling around wearing Xiao Xingchen’s face, decides it is time to go looking for the last remaining part of Xiao Xingchen that he doesn’t already possess. That is to say, the eyes in Song Lan’s head. I’m really curious where this is going - it smells up my alley at this point though it’s been a bit since the last update. 

Heaven Has a Road But No One Walks It by Silvestris (@silvysartfulness) (WIP). Things I love: beating on Xue Yang, SongXueXiao, terrible road trips, fix-its where there’s a lot of suffering involved. Things this fic has: all of the above. I’m in love.

MODERN AU

(There are other recs to this one but for various reasons (pwp reasons) triggered my self-consciousness slightly too much to put on this post. Go check my bookmarks, you’ll find stuff there.

Most of these are PWP to greater or lesser extents (Rewritten and Misalignment are, I’d say, the exceptions); all very hot and fantastically written.)

circling like vultures by brawlite (@brawlite) (series). Truly quality porn, featuring mostly Xue Yang/Song Lan both pining for Xiao Xingchen, which is a thing that it turns out I really like. The sex is rough and mean and I’m really into it. (Okay, mostly the sex in the first one is mean, the second one is actually XueYao, and the third one is actually verging on nice. Wow! Growth. Anyway, it’s all very good and very My Scene.

Rewritten by incendir (series). This series is like. Everything I want from a modern AU and that was true even before the most recent fic gifted me a beat up Xue Yang suffering, so you know. I don’t have a good summary for this series other than that it’s basically a married Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen adopting Xue Yang as a third partner and it’s just. So well done, such good writing, such good characterization, I would read 20,000 more words of this and probably still be hungry.

catalyst by Ajaxthegreat. If there is a porny fic I’ve reread more than this one, I’m not sure what it would be. I’ve reread this one a lot. It’s very good. It’s very hot. I’m trying not to be self-conscious. SongXueXiao first time rough sex and boy is it tasty.

biting the bullet by Sectionladvivi. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t want to have to choose between his two boyfriends and so he doesn’t. Sectionladvivi in general writes some very sexy modern au PWP (including a few different Xue Yang/Lan Wangji fics which...didn’t see that one coming! But it works when they do it), so general rec for author but this one (as, you know, SongXueXiao porn), is one of my favorites, probably. 

sxx configurations by rynleaf (series). This is a SongXueXiao series on AO3 based off of @kevinkevinson‘s modern reincarnation AU and I am in love with both the art for that AU (go look!) and these fics, they’re so good, I’ve reread several times. 

Misalignment by Kasasagi (WIP). The one with a reincarnated Xue Yang and a Xiao Xingchen who arrives in the modern world from the past, fresh off his suicide.

And Once Again, if I’m Allowed to Rec My Own Fic

a kindness you can’t afford. Early days in Yi City after Xue Yang wakes up.

lick your exit wounds. I wanted canonverse-era bottom Xue Yang praise kink, so I wrote it for myself in the hopes others would also find this an interesting prospect.

this place could be beautiful. Xue Yang vs. domestic living.

tear out all your tenderness. Xue Yang gets turned on by murder and makes it a project to get Xiao Xingchen to lose control.

the beauty of your repair. PWP, modern AU SongXueXiao; there’s not an inkling of plot here, it’s really just an excuse to get Xue Yang wrecked, but nicely.

[sincerelyella]

RAMifications Chapter 6 - Breathe

Book: The Royal Romance (AU)

Pairings: Liam x MC (Ella)

Song Inspiration: Breathe by Faith Hill

Characters belong to Pixelberry; MC Ella Brooks belongs to me.

A/N: The entire idea for this series came from @burnsoslow​ and her unBEARable series featuring her OTP Drake and Alyssa. This is Ella’s backstory and how she met the love of her life King Liam of Cordonia and became his Queen.

Kind of a filler chapter, I guess it was necessary though..?

Catch up here

Warnings: None really

Words: 1943

“What in the hell is going on?” Standing at the door was King Constantine, his guard Bastien, and Queen Regina, who just gave Liam a sympathetic smile.

“F-father,” Liam was taken aback at his father’s harsh tone, even more so at the fact that all of them were standing there at his front door. Constantine pushed his way inside his son’s quarters, his feet stomping on the hardwood floors. Regina quietly followed behind him and patted Liam on the shoulder.

“Why did no one tell me that House Beaumont’s young lady has backed out?” The King’s voice boomed and could be heard throughout every room.

Liam looked at his father’s guard Bastien and gave him a look. Bastien gave him a tight smile, bowed his head and closed the door while staying outside.

Liam cleared his throat and turned. “Father, House Beaumont has a lady they will be sponsoring.”

Constantine turned to face his son. “Oh? And why weren’t we informed of this change, Liam?” The King gave him a pointed look. “I know the social season isn’t something you were … agreeable to. But this is tradition,” his face softened looking at his son. “Liam, you need a queen to rule alongside you.”

Bertrand appeared next to Constantine and spoke before Liam could respond. “Your Majesties,” he bowed. “So sorry to blindside you with this situation. House Beaumont does have a young lady we are sponsoring. She is here if you would like to meet her.”

“Yes, we would both like that, Duke Ramsford. Please lead the way,” Regina spoke up for the first time since walking into the room.

Liam, Regina and Constantine followed Bertrand into the living area where Ella and Maxwell were waiting.

“Lady Ella,” Bertrand widened his eyes while he faced her, gave Ella a stern look and mouthed ‘curtsy’ before speaking again. “This is His Majesty King Constantine, and Her Majesty Queen Regina of Cordonia,” Bertrand turned to the King and Queen. “Your Majesties, this is Lady Ella of House Beaumont.”

“Your Majesties,” Ella curtsied as low as she could.

Regina stepped forward and wrapped a warm hand around Ella’s. “It’s so nice to meet you, my dear,” she said softly.

“You as well, ma’am.”

“Lady Ella,” Constantine took in the woman in front of him, then softly smiled at her. “It’s a pleasure meeting you. You’re American?”

Ella nodded. “Yes sir, I’m from California.”

“Ahh California,” the King looks up wistfully. “Liam’s late mother and I went there for a business event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. It was a conference that supported world trade and investment,” he looks back towards Ella and his face takes on a more serious expression. “What are your thoughts on world trade, Lady Ella?”

He’s testing me. She looked at the King, held his gaze and swallowed the lump in her throat. “World trade is definitely vital for economic growth, sir. With the size and shape of the economy changing considerably in recent years, established patterns of trading have had to change along with it,” she paused briefly to take in the King’s expression, which was pure astonishment. Ella took a deep breath in and continued. “The challenge is to essentially make sure that the regulatory framework keeps up with modern times.”

Regina smiled wide at Ella and winked. Constantine, Liam, Bertrand and Maxwell’s eyes were all wide, mouths open in shock. “Ah … well said, Lady Ella,” the King finally responded.

The queen, still smiling, spoke up. “Lady Ella, what did you do in California before coming here?”

“I was going to school at UCLA, ma’am, for my bachelor’s degree in nursing. My ... parents wanted me to major in something other than history and political science.” 

Regina’s eyebrows went up. “They didn’t like that you majored in those subjects?”

“They wanted me to pursue a degree much like my grandmother, mother, and aunt who are all nurses.”

“So,” Constantine’s voice carried through the room. “You’re here for the study abroad program then?”

Ella made eye contact with Liam and he gave her a small nod. “I initially came to Cordonia for a study abroad program, yes sir, and interned in the children’s hospital for six weeks,” she smiled at the memory of her taking care of those little patients. “It was a rewarding experience. I fell in love with your country and made arrangements to study at Cordonia University.”

Regina looked pleased by Ella’s answer, Constantine had a blank look on his face. “That sounds amazing, I’m so glad you love Cordonia,” she looked up at her husband. “Isn’t that right, dear?” She elbowed Constantine in the side.

He flinched, then looked around and met all gazes in the room before speaking. “Yes … yes quite right. Very glad.” He gave Ella a small smile and cleared his throat. “The Queen and I have a meeting to attend, everyone,” the King turned to Liam and clapped him on the shoulder. “Son, we’ll see you in Applewood.”

Liam nodded. “Yes, I’ll see you then.”

Constantine turned back to Ella. “Lady Ella, again, it was a pleasure to meet you. We shall see you in Applewood as well.”

“Yes sir, I’ll see you there.” Regina nodded to everyone and murmured her goodbyes. The King and Queen walked towards the door and let themselves out of the apartment. As soon as they left all eyes turned to Ella in a silent question.

“Why are you guys looking at me like that?” Ella chuckled, knowing exactly why they were staring.

“You know about trade and investment? And you’re studying to be a nurse? Isn’t that, like, almost being a doctor?” Maxwell babbled. “Then how come you were delivering flowers? And wh-”

“No, we’re not even close to being doctors, Max,” Ella interrupted as she giggled. 

“You’re so smart,” he stared down at her, marveled at his new best friend.

Ella hated having to try and sell herself to people she didn’t know. Guess I’ll be doing that regularly now. “Why is everyone so surprised anyway? I took a few classes on international trade and economic diplomacy back home and that’s how my political science degree happened.”

“You’re full of surprises, Lady Ella,” Liam smiled, stepped towards her and leaned down to place a quick kiss on her lips. “My Father and Regina were impressed with you.”

Before she could respond, Bertrand cleared his throat. “Yes Lady Ella, that was an … appropriate answer. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet. Maxwell and I will escort you to your room.” He looks at Liam and bowed. “Your Highness, we will see you in a couple of days.”

Liam nodded with a small smile. “Yes, thank you,” he looks down at Ella, then turns to the two men. “Can you please give us a moment alone?”

Maxwell and Bertrand nod and let themselves out of the quarters.

Liam wrapped his large hands around Ella’s waist and pulled her up to meet his lips. She felt his smile get bigger as the kiss lingered. His arms wrapped around her and she sighed happily, melting into his embrace; not even noticing that her feet were high off the floor. They finally parted and grinned at each other.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since you walked through the door,” he murmured. His words gave her goosebumps all over her body. “You’re really doing this,” he whispered, almost in awe, as he ran a finger along her cheek. Liam said it somewhat out loud, more so to himself than to Ella. He was still on cloud nine, he couldn’t believe she would willingly would join in the middle of the social season just to be with him. Not for a crown, not for power, not for wealth … but for him.

“Yes, I am.” She bit her lip and gazed up at him. “You’re … still wanting this?”

God yes! ”I still want this, Ella,” He leaned down to kiss her, urgently now, not like the soft, lingering kiss he gave her earlier. He pulled away, set her back on her feet and rested his forehead on hers. “You have no idea how much I want this,” he whispered.

She grinned wide. “Then I guess I’ll see you at Applewood then, Your Highness.”

“Who knows … maybe you’ll see me sooner than that,” he winked and reluctantly loosened his arms around her, his hands lingering on her waist. “You should go, Bertrand gets impatient.”

Ella nods, quickly places her hand on his cheek and walks out of the apartment.

Bertrand made eye contact with Ella as she slipped out the door and he began to walk. Maxwell dragged Ella’s suitcases behind him and flashed her a cheesy smile. She followed both of them with wide eyes as they walked through yet another hallway in the palace. The trio arrived at a door and Bertrand turned the knob and pushed it open.

“Alright, let’s go over some things, Lady Ella,” he turned to look at her while she flopped onto the bed with Maxwell. “We leave for Applewood Manor in a matter of days. You will be watched by not only the King and Queen but also by the other suitors and the press. I have arranged for you to do an interview with them before we leave. That way, they can get to know you and be able to tell the people your story.”

“When is the interview?”

“Tomorrow afternoon!” Maxwell bounced on the bed next to her. “I’m going to help you find something to wear. We need to make sure that the press and the people know who Lady Ella is,” he grinned wide at her when he took in her stunned face. “It’ll be fine! We got you!”

Bertrand frowned. “Yes, well … that remains to be seen. We need you to show the press that you’re competent in matters of the court; especially with trade deals and tariffs the King and Prince Liam will be negotiating with other countries.” He eyed her carefully. “Especially if you are to be queen someday, you will need to know these things.”

Ella blew out a breath. “I understand.”

“We will let you get some sleep then, Lady Ella. Be up bright and early tomorrow and we’ll go over things for the interview. Have a good evening.” Bertrand gave her a curt nod and turned to walk out of the room.

“Goodnight, Ella!! I’ll see you in the morning!” Maxwell gave her a quick hug.

“Goodnight, Max!”

The men left and closed the door behind them. Ella looked around the room, took in every detail. From the plush bedspread with gold embroidery, to the enormous bed frame, the impossibly high ceiling with the diamond encrusted chandelier in the middle of it. This is a little much. Will I ever get used to all of it?

Ella never thought in a million years she would be sitting in a palace, falling for a prince. A literal Prince Charming. Thinking about Liam got her feeling giddy, like a kid in a candy shop. She never, ever felt that way with Ethan. Not even a little bit. That has to mean something.

A knock on her door had her swiftly turning head away from her phone and towards the sound. She walked over and opened it quickly with a smile on her face, thinking it was Maxwell or Liam. The smile faded when she saw who was on the other side.

“Your Majesty?”

King Constantine looked down at her, lips tucked between his teeth. “Lady Ella. Might I have a word?”

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Weird q..but i really dont understand why most fans hate season 4, especially the last episode. Why? I think it gave us a deeper look on both sherlock and mycroft! I felt it tells a lot about mycroft how he had to step in and take control of things ever since he was a kid himself. Also he is not a robot or a killer. Also redbeard thing. It was an appropriate deep psychological trauma (cause most shows usually disappoint in that area). I am not trying to impose my opinion. Just want to understand

Hey Nonny!

It’s all good, and I totally respect your opinion and how you enjoyed S4! It’s totally okay! I know that there are quite a few who got a lot of of S4, and who genuinely enjoyed it.

Sadly, I am not one of those people, and I’ll try to be as diplomatic a possible in my response, but PLEASE know that I don’t think you’re “terrible” or “stupid” for liking S4 because I DO get passionate sometimes in my responses, and I’m just merely speaking as someone who studied the series very closely for quite a long time before S4 aired, and as someone who knows Day-One-ers (ie., people who watched Sherlock on its day one airdate) who also are a large majority of the people who did not like S4. This is just me simply stating why I didn’t like it, but it’s different for everyone.

Stating what I DO like: The acting and cinematography of the first two episodes were brilliant for what they had to work with, and I’ve never faulted any of the actors for the flaws of S4. And for TFP, they did the best with what they had to work with.

That’s… pretty much all I really liked about S4.

Now, here’s my problems with S4:

Nothing made a LICK of sense to the narrative that they were telling in Seasons prior. 

This series was always based a bit in reality, and suddenly everything became comic-book rules: X-Men villains, shitty “redemption” arc, destroying favourite characters just for drama, ludicrous physics, explosions that only destroyed one small room in an apt where in previous episodes one explosion destroyed an entire block, etc.

Sherlock was OOC.

Mary was being built up to be a fantastic villain? Ah, nope, here’s the lacklustre twist where tee hee Mary’s just an assassin with a heart of gold that still emotionally abuses Sherlock and John and just won’t fucking stay dead.

And speaking of this, the DVD’s make NO LOGICAL SENSE unless she was planning to kill herself

AND she tries to make her death equatable to Sherlock’s??

Everyone was RIDICULOUSLY out of character in TFP, I’m so sorry: Mycroft is a bumbling coward for the most part, Sherlock disregards John when he gives the Vatican Cameos warning, the Holmes Parents are assholes because Mycroft COULDN’T SOLVE A PROBLEM WHEN HE WAS 12?? ARE YOU SERIOUS???? And that creepy Moriarty / Eurus thing, and LITERALLY they’re implying that EVERYTHING HAPPENED BECAUSE EURUS DIDN’T GET A HUG. Like, I’m so sorry, but that’s lazy writing.

And don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness of the entire character of Eurus. She LITERALLY had X-Men powers, and like… just nothing made sense. Her involvement in the entirety of S4 MADE NO SENSE. Why go back to prison if you can get out?? WHAT IS THE POINT?? AND I repeat: She did all this because she didn’t get a hug. Yes. I’m oversimplifying, but at the base level, that’s what it was, because she wanted Sherlock’s attention. Welcome to the club, kid, stand in line, everyone on the SHOW wants his attention.

The ENTIRE plot of the first 2 seasons got wiped out all because it wasn’t Moriarty who was interested in Sherlock, but Eurus?? What… What about Carl Powers?? Like…. the ENTIRETY of season one and TGG makes no sense now, because of that one 5 minute scene where Eurus “enlists” Moriarty. I… ugh.

The SUDDEN tonal switch from kind-of Sherlock to James Bond, for some fucking reason.

And on that note, how terribly lazy and cheap TFP looks in comparison to the other two episodes. The whole episode looks like it was filmed in a small house with 4 identical rooms.

EVERYTHING that was etablished in 2 episodes prior were COMPLETELY forgotten when Mary was “shot”.

The complete character assassination of one loyal blogger John H Watson in favour of Mary for some fucked up reason, even though AT HIS OWN WEDDING HE COULDN’T STAND BEING AROUND MARY. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe for one damned second that John would EVER forgive Mary for murdering his best friend after seeing what it did to him. That’s not love from her, and that’s NOT John’s character EVER in the ENTIRETY of the series.

And speaking of character assassinations, Molly’s character being devolved to S1E1 Molly, where instead of giving her agency like they were doing with her the ENTIRE series, so much so that Sherlock picked up on her dominance enough to give her a big role in his mind palace in HLV and TAB, only to make her a sad little self-insert Mary Sue pining for the main character, and in turn made Sherlock a TERRIBLE human being for MAKING HER say what she did. It’s gross.

AND speaking of Molly’s character, they’ve been setting up Mollstrade since as early as ASiB, but I guess that plot line got shafted. Look I LOVE Hopkins, and I am ANGRY they didn’t give her more than 3 fucking lines in the entirety of ONE episode after HEAVILY promoting her actress and character, but they essentially reduced her to a piece of ass for Lestrade to chase. AND THAT’S NOT HIS CHARACTER EITHER. EW GROSS.

The constant plot holes being gaped wide open, and the Chekov’s gun moments where they bring up shit but do nothing with it!! 

TD-12? Nope, just a lame reference to a story we like. 

John got shot at the end of TLD with a VERY REAL FUCKING GUN? Nope, it was a dart gun. 

John not suddenly knowing how to be a doctor.

The TGG one I mentioned up above. 

What was in the letter? And who was Anyone??

Moriarty essentially being erased as anything other than a hired thug and had no part whatsoever in Sherlock’s history. 

Eurus… Just all of her character is asinine. 

Everyone in T6T suddenly not knowing John’s the blogger, which is in direct contradiction to literally the entire series. 

The AGRA plotline was ridiculous, in the end.

Baby? What baby? It was only there when convenient.

They dropped whatever plotline they were going to do for Mycroft: He was being set up as either dying, or the villain.

Redbeard. I’m sorry, I disagree with you on that. Mofftiss is trying to tell me that a little boy fell down a well and went missing, and that WASN’T the first place searchers / the police wouldn’t have looked? Sorry, no. And then. AND THEN his parents just… go along with this thing where Sherlock shuts down and they DON’T get him therapy? Yes, I agree the mind is a funny thing, and we can be traumatised into forgetting or dissociating from traumatic events. I GET IT. But… like I don’t believe the Holmes are so heartless as to just never grieve or have memories around about their supposedly dead daughter. It’s another OCC thing for me.

John’s cheating.

Disappearing and reappearing characters, like this scene, and the entirety of the aquarium scene.

Mary and John being terrible parents

OH GOD THIS FUCKING SCENE. That bomb SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED THE ENTIRE BUILDING.

What… who was this girl on the plane? What? Like I know WHO, but if she’s supposed to be Eurus talking to Sherlock, why don’t we see Eurus… talking to Sherlock? I … Ugh.

NORBURY. 

The glass SUPER SECRET GOVERNMENT ROOM THAT NO ONE SHOULD SEE INTO in T6T.

Sloppy camera work that some believe was intentional, but if it wasn’t, jesus c’mon.

The RIDICULOUS amount of 4th Wall Breaking. Like… even the actors didn’t give a shit.

Essentially, everything on this list here and in this blog tag here.

And everything mentioned on these three posts:

T6T: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night 

TLD: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night

TFP: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night

There’s SO much more I can go into, but please go through my “something’s fucky” tag in that last link.

Notice how probably 90% of that has NOTHING to do with “johnlock not becoming canon” because the Johnlockers get MONSTROUS accusations as to THAT being why we didn’t like S4, even though it was, like critically panned by the GENERAL AUDIENCE who have NO investment in the series other than “I liked it in the past”.

Two of my fave YouTubers have interesting (not perfect, but still good) takes coming at the series as casual viewers:

‘The Day Sherlock Died’ by The Closer Look

‘Sherlock is Garbage, and Here’s Why’ by hbomberguy

So it’s NOT just Johnlockers. I’ve talked to Sher1011ies at 221B con who didn’t like S4 either, because most of them realized how shitty Molly was treated in the last episode. So yeah, a big middle finger to those who think I dislike S4 because of  “no Johnlock”. No, I disliked it because I need my stories to make logical narrative sense. I disliked it because I love John and they ruined his character all for the sake of drama and because Moffat has a “hurting Ben” kink. I disliked it because Mary should NOT have been “redeemed” because she was an abuser. I disliked it because Moriarty was turned into a cartoon villain, even though he was already overused in the series. I disliked it because the core of the show – the FRIENDSHIP of Sherlock and John, and their solving mysteries together – did not exist at all. I disliked it because John got sidelined. I disliked it because TFP was a ridiculous episode that, if you replace ANY of the characters, it wouldn’t make a difference, because it didn’t feel like an episode of Sherlock. I disliked it because everyone was OOC.

Anyway. Sorry. One too many accusations my way over the past 1100+ days LOL.

As for your assessment of TFP, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you. There was no growth and actually it implies something far more sinister: That the Holmes are and were terrible parents that gave no shits about their daughter, their traumatized son, and expected their eldest to essentially be a parent. It implies that Mycroft, at 12 years old, orchestrated the ENTIRE Sherrinford thing… Look I can suspend my disbelief, but there’s limits, and this is one of them. A LITERAL CHILD. Perhaps Uncle Rudy had a hand in it somehow, but then why not shit on Uncle Rudy? Why is Mycroft blamed for it all?

Look, I don’t doubt Sherlock had a traumatic experience regarding “Redbeard”. But then why play into the fact that he was a dog? Why bring another character into the series just to have a gotcha moment? Because Mofftiss wanted a “Shyamalan twist”, that’s why. They threw EVERYTHING away for a twist ending either because they GENUINELY thought it was good, or they got tired of doing Sherlock. ALL of TFP is LITERALLY a really bad plot twist because reasons. TFP makes no sense to the ENTIRE narrative structure of the previous 12 episodes. It erased EVERYTHING from the previous episodes, and coated it with a gross closing by a character no one wanted in the series, and then tried to convince us that it’s a new beginning – “a journey they had to go through” – but it SOLVED NOTHING.

Anyway. I have big feels about S4, and the only way I can enjoy it is to watch it subtextually, but even then, I cannot sit through TFP without cringing. 

That said, Lovelies, please do not attack Nonny for enjoying S4! I know you guys won’t, but Nonny came out with an olive branch and they just want to understand why the fandom is passionate about S4′s… whatever it was. We can have a civil discussion about it, and point out – without attacking – why S4 is universally panned. It’s okay to like things no one else does, and Nonny was respectful to me in this ask! 

So with that, feel free, lovelies, to express why YOU didn’t enjoy the series, or why you did! I’m interested in both “sides” / pov’s whatever :)

[im-the-punk-who]

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@rnmmarchformeta​ Day 1: Tonight’s theme is: Themes

Malex and Music: Tracing a relationship through music used in the show - Part 1

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Given that both Michael and Alex have a personal connection to music, I wanted to go over some of the intricacies of what the music choices and lyrics/stories behind the songs used might tell us about Malex. The music choices in Roswell New Mexico are deliberate and often incredibly pointed. Particularly in the case of Michael and Alex there are elements of their relationship that are not so much underlined as written about only in the lyrical choices that play under their scenes. This choice for me made rewatching the series a lot of fun because as I discovered the lyrics to some of the more obscure song choices I kept discovering new intricacies and motivations for each of their decisions. Below the cut for length.

(Author’s note circa 2007:  (rawr xD) I’m focusing specifically on the parts of these songs that play over or in direct correlation to scenes where Michael and Alex are both present. I would love to explore this theme in the wider context of the whole show and how their interactions with other characters might change some of these but...this is already like 6k and that’s just how the peas and carrots cooked. That said I will be referencing other characters and relationships as relevant, particularly, I will be talking at some length about Milexa and the airstream scenes in 2x06. I personally have a favorable reading of the scenes and what they mean for Michael and Alex. I also talk briefly about Milexa in a few other spots - they’ve been marked as ‘Milexa’ or ‘Miluca’ if you wish to skip them, although I don’t know if this will make sense as a whole without them. But, should you wish. Proceed accordingly. <3)

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Posted on AO3 here.

Sedona - Houndstooth (1x01)

The first song we hear in relation to Malex is ‘Sedona’ by Houndstooth. The song plays during the reunion as we see Alex confront Michael about the chemicals found around his airstream. The verse that plays underneath the scene references how, due to its scenic beauty, the town of Sedona was once a highly sought after filming location but had fallen into obscurity when cowboy movies went out of style in the late 70′s.

Similarly, Alex tells Michael that he is ‘wasting his life.’

“Does the macho cowboy swagger thing ever get old for you?”

“Did it get old for you?”

For me, this scene is as much an introduction to the past between these two as their present. Gone but not forgotten, their interactions are a ‘script’ that the two of them play off of. In other words, Michael and Alex don’t so much interact as play off of what the other expects from the other. This becomes especially clear when in 2x05 we learn that Alex has at least once before warned Michael about ‘wasting his life.’

When The Truth Hunts You Down - Sam Tinnesz (1x01)

The next scene is this one, in which we see Alex contemplating an old picture of himself. We then see Michael watching him.

Later, the last line is overlaid with Jesse telling Kyle about the existence of aliens.

The truth about Michael’s alienness is quiet literally hunting them, but so is something about Alex’s past. As we get to know him, we learn just how much his father is interconnected with all of the worst moments in his life and everrything he has buried and tried to run from in order to avoid it. Michael, Roswell itself - Alex ran halfway across the world to try to run away from the trauma of his youth, and yet here he is.

“Nostalgia’s a bitch, huh?”

“You know I thought when I got back from Iraq you would be long gone.”

“Is that what you want?”

“We’re not kids anymore. What I want doesn't matter.” 

We also find out something of the nature of his and Michael’s relationship and that there are clearly still feelings between them - no matter how much Alex is trying to deny it.

Give Me The Night - Des Rocs (1x02)

This is one of my personal faves from the Malex soundtracks. It just *slaps* okay?

Aside from the obvious nod to Michael’s alienness, this song underscores the divide still between Michael and Alex despite the passionate kiss they shared at the reunion. Michael is initially flirtatious and full of swagger - until Alex shuts him down.

The fallacy of Alex’s rebuke and his dismissal of the feelings behind the kiss are underscored by his refusal to even look Michael in the eye as they talk. Even if he tries to deny them, the truth of his feelings hunts and haunts him because he feels he can never act on his own desires. And in turn when presented with the about face, Michael turns bitter as the push-pull is reinitiated. Michael falls back to the script they’ve been rehashing to save his feelings - ‘puts on a show’ as it were, and Alex falls for it hook, line, and sinker. He is still unwilling or unable to see the truth that lies beneath the surface.

“Isn’t there some law about building on a historical site?”

“A historical - oh you mean because the UFO crashed here? Yeah, we’re not supposed to build on Santa’s workshop either.”

For Michael, who at least to me was obviously hoping things would change this time around, this must feel like a bucket of cold water, especially in the face of Liz Ortecho’s knowledge and seeming easy acceptance of the aliens’ existence. While Max might get his happy ending, Michael is left to keep hiding from the person he loves, never being seen and wondering if Alex’s feelings are even real. 

Two Princes - Spin Doctors (1x02) (Miluca)

In rapid fire we have the next three songs as Michael and Alex spend some time at the Wild Pony. This verse plays under the interaction when Alex comes in the bar and spots Michael.

“Though he got kinda hot. In a ‘sex in a truck, smells like a river, never introduce him to your mama’ kind of way.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

My boy. My child. My bluntest instrument in the tool kit. Has no one ever told Alex Manes that saying you hadn’t noticed an objectively hot guy is hot is basically code for ‘I haven’t stopped staring at him since I walked in and my brain is not functioning at a high enough level to mask that fact’? Son, please, this is a drunk Wendy’s.

(Also this is huge foreshadowing for Miluca - Michael and Maria don’t have sex *in* a truck but it’s pretty close, we find out later that Michael/the aliens smell like rain, and she tells him he’s not meeting her mother at one point. The angle of this shot is also, for me at least, a hint that Michael is going to become the object of these two ‘princes’ affections, at some point.)

Anyway this is basically poking fun at Alex Manes, repressed disaster, for having no clue what love is and trying to express his affection through like, everything except anything anyone would understand as romantic love. (And we will see this in the flashbacks as well as present day - that Alex mostly uses his station or advantages as a way to show the people he loves he loves them, rather than using words. When he offers Michael the shed, brings him the guitar, uses his military connections to find out about Michel’s mom, hacks into Maria’s computer...listen I got more.) But that isn’t enough, as we’re learning. If only there were some way Alex could also learn that lesson.

And seriously, “This one said he wants to buy you rockets?”

How’s It Going To Be? - Stephen Edwards (1x02)

“Is there really nobody in this world that you wouldn’t risk everything to save? Sad.”

Oh Isobel, if only you knew.

So, aside from returning the kiss Michael initiated at the reunion, Alex has soundly rejected every advance Michael has made for a relationship. Despite that Michael seems to have been harboring some hope that things might be different not that Alex is back more permanently. But now with Isobel bringing into question what he’s willing to sacrifice, I think he might be realizing that toll has been extremely steep already.

(Also truly obsessed with how both Alex and Michael have positioned themselves so that they can casually glance over at each other without arousing suspicion. *Boys*. It’s not that complicated what is this middle school?)

We know that Michael doesn’t like having to keep secrets, and again I have to wonder if he’s regretting not telling Alex he’s an alien, or wondering how that conversation would have gone.

From the previous scenes we can tell something in their relationship is coming to a head - maybe Michael is hoping it’s that he can finally stop keeping secrets from Alex and show Alex who he really is - that Alex will stop misreading him. That Alex will change.

But there is also the expectation that if that happens, Alex will likely leave again. Not just because that’s what Alex’s trauma makes him do, but also because that is how Michael frames all of his relationships. As ‘until you leaves’. He is shown to have a habit of catastrophizing because he doesn’t believe himself to ‘belong’ anywhere(HA) and this is one of those times we’re shown that.

Come With Me - Gold Star (1x02)

“Home can be a person.”

And here we have Alex “thinking about who he was” as Maria closes up the bar. Given where this scene leads with him and Michael, I think the rest of the lyrics to the song are incredibly poignant.

Tell me what were you dreaming? Tell me who were you trying to reach? Gimme something real to believe in Or gimme a reason to leave So i left her standing under shining stars in the Silver moonlight by old Borough Hall - whoever you are

We know that after this evening Alex attempts to rekindle his relationship with Michael, still thinking about who he was, and maybe for the first time trying not to run from what he wants. He’ll be unsuccessful this time, but it’s the first clue that Alex is attempting to break a pattern that has held him in place for ten years.

While he may have been misreading Michael’s stunted growth, we’re starting to see Alex contemplate change in himself. This is the start of Alex’s two season long journey to break out of the fortress he’s built around himself. To ‘put his weapons down’ in an effort to be with Michael.

(She lets her guard down on her way back//to close her eyes and fall asleep - “It was late....I was tired.”)

God of Wine - Third Eye Blind

So clearly the writers were like ‘how can we hurt Milo specifically’ because these lyrics are *so good* as we hear malex talk about the way they view their relationship for the first time in the show.

The music starts just as Michael picks up the old photographs, first of the pod squad, then of himself and Alex playing guitars in the desert. As he packs up the airstream to move it off Foster’s Ranch, Michael is also thinking about the past.

Throughout the series, we’re given a bunch of musical lines about how Michael and Alex can’t go back to what they were, that they have to move forward. And it’s true - as we’ll see over and over again the dynamic they’ve had has been incredibly unhealthy for both of them. But they also cannot avoid the other’s orbit. And when Alex comes to talk to Michael it’s the first time we see him actually decide to initiate - to try and take what he himself wants, rather than waiting or hiding from it. But it is also very much Alex falling back into the ‘madness that holds a truth he can’t erase’ of Michael’s really, very, super, incredibly obvious feelings for him. Our boy is not subtle.

But Alex is still hunted by the past - before we know his history we assume that when Alex references ‘who he was before he went to war’ he means Iraq. But Alex’s war is his father. As much as combat can absolutely be a traumatizing experience, for Alex I never really read that as his main source. As he’ll tell Forrest later - “My PTSD triggers are a little more complicated”.

And so when he tells Michael he’s been thinking about who he was “before he went to war” for me that’s more a callback to who he was before Jesse found the two of them in the toolshed. “When this started.”

As Michael tells him “From where I stand nothing’s changed”  the words “I know, I know, I know” repeat in the background because WE KNOW. We all know, except Alex.

“And that’s a problem for me, Guerin.”

And the siren’s song that is your madness

“Because every time you look at me, I’m seventeen all over again.”

holds a truth I can’t erase

“- and I forget that the last ten years even happened. And then you look away and I remember all over again. And it almost kills me every time.”

All alone on your face

“I never look away. Not really.”

For Michael this is basically confirmation of what he’s been realizing over the last few days - that Alex has been totally misreading him and that yes, Michael, you’re going to have to use your words on this one. 

To which we see Alex’s brain 404-blue-screen for a minute as he realizes what Michael means. Which I personally really appreciate.

And especially since we’ve just learned that a lyric of this song was written on Rosa’s hand the night she died, I can’t believe it’s a coincidence in this being the song that plays underneath this scene - where Alex says he was thinking about who he was before. Everything changed that day for everyone - including Michael and Alex. Michael had gained a terrible secret he couldn’t share, that meant he changed his whole life and started needing to hide and lie and act out, and Alex - not knowing the truth - assumed that it was Michael’s way of trying to push him away and end the relationship. Which leads to the decades long miscommunication of Alex seeing Michael do that over and over again.

For the last ten years, Alex has been seeing Michael as the boy who looks away, then looks back. A Michael whose focus shifts to and away from him and who he sees as wasting his life; directionless and aimless. But as he realizes what Michael is saying he has to recalibrate everything he’s thought their relationship is.

This is possibly the first time Alex has realized that his view of Michael has been wrong. That he really doesn’t know Michael at all.

And we know this interaction has a profound impact on Alex in terms of how he views their relationship. I feel like this is one of those things that becomes a mantra for Alex, later down the line. He repeats it to Michael at Caulfield, and in his song as well, “You never looked away, now I won’t look away” to express his commitment to breaking down the walls he has built up for himself. 

Even though we know the relationship is doomed at this point, it’s the first time a stone falls from the walls Alex has built around himself in a decade.

Here - Chance Peña - 1x03 (Alternate title: “Home”)

Okay I would like to petition to make it illegal to have unreleased songs in episodes, Chance Peña help a bitch out. I had to watch a *fish show* to hear the full lyrics because they’re edited in the show! ( I will also note the next lyric is ‘goodbye, my dear’ which. rude.)

Anyway, we’re given these lyrics as Michael wakes up to seeing Alex has stayed the night. I took the editing, with the previous song choices, to be a reaffirmation of this being something new to Alex, but not necessarily to Michael. Michael knows what he wants from a relationship with Alex - even if he’s put the hope aside from time to time the want is always clear.

For Alex though, a relationship with Michael is something that scares him because of his fear that it can be taken away. (”I just thought that I could be happy, and not be afraid that if I loved anything my dad would destroy it.”) He is trying to make it work - “drawing near” to Michael - but he knows that in order to do that he is going to need to be uncomfortable. To face the fears that have held him back and kept him in comfortable limbo for so long.

I’m also going to flail about how, while RNM has the song listed as ‘Here’, the producer of the other show(Battlefish) identified the song as ‘Home’. I hope I don’t have to yell at y’all, other Roswell New Mexico fans, about how often that word has snuck up on me and knifed me in the back regarding malex. Especially since Alex *is* currently - well, here. With his home. Kill me please it would be kinder.

But then of course we see the old insecurities pop up again as Isobel arrives. Even if he is trying - Alex is nowhere near ready to jump out of the closet yet.

Fast Aint Good Enough - Inkwell Echo (1x06)

I debated adding this one because it’s a little bit reachy, but I thought it was significant in that even when they were seventeen, the thing Alex is ‘afraid of’ is his feelings for Michael - not necessarily of being gay but of what people like Kyle and his father do with information like that.

Wish I’d found the words when we were seventeen-

Kyle asks

“What are you so afraid of?”

-just as Alex catches sight of Michael.

(“I wanted to be the kind of person who won battles. It felt good.”)

Aside from Alex’s general need to protect Michael in any and all situations, I feel like the lyrics of this song - about the singer’s attempt to leave an abusive relationship - underscore that even before the toolshed, Alex was fighting. Even before the toolshed, he has been fighting to this cycle he is trapped in.

While he and Michael build their relationship he starts thinking seriously about leaving and not just surviving but he will ultimately choose to trap himself for years in order to hide his love for Michael.

Like so many gay kids, Alex is fighting a system that deems him guilty of sin - and takes his fighting back as a sign of his guilt. And in order to actually be able to love Michael, he is going to have to figure out how to put down the weapons and the hurt and break the cycle.

First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes (1x06)

Are they serious right now I swear to god.

So obviously, we’ve got the origins for everything we’re told about Michael and Alex’s lives changing based on their feelings for each other in like two and a half verses of song. Forget the entire second season we have everything we need right here.

“It was the first time I liked our hometown, though.”

-

“Alex made me believe there was a place for me here.”

We know that for both of them this is really a moment of self discovery as much as it is a discovery about each other. 

For Michael in particular, who doesn’t know why he’s here or who he really is, and who previously had no plans besides leaving the planet, this is the moment that he realizes what he wants - to be with Alex.

And for Alex, to me, this moment is a brief glimpse into what his life could be like. We don’t have any confirmation if Michael is his first kiss with a boy or not, but we do know that this moment is significant in that it’s the first that makes Roswell feel like a place he enjoys being.

And as he is realizing that, the lyrics echo it -

But I realized that I need you // And I wondered if I could come home

(Screeching from the background: WOULD YOU COME HOME)

But of course, as the song says, these things take forever because...well....

(It’s because Alex is dumb. My poor dumb emotionally stunted child. Please go to therapy.)

In essence, this is the moment that sets Michael and Alex on their entwined path. The path that Alex will have to fight to get back to - the path Michael will lose faith in before he later starts to regain the hope that it exists. I also like to think about the link between the last lines:

Remember the time you drove all night // Just to meet me in the morning?

and the line from ‘Would You Come Home’

Would you meet me in the middle // Could we both stop keeping score?

I like to think about the parallel here, about meeting people where they’re at, and the love and care and effort it takes to be willing to drive all night to meet someone. Listen a bitch is soft and gay don’t look at me.

You Can’t Love Me - Novi & Tyler Blackburn (1x12)

(*Whispers and rocks back and forth* this is fine it’s all fine)

Once again we have a song whose lyrics give us a tailor made road map to Malex, and will pop up later in ‘Would You Come Home’. We’ve already seen the implosion of the way Michael and Alex have been orbiting each other for a decade, but now that Alex knows the truth, he actually has the ability to understand Michael in ways he hasn’t been able to before. (Something we’ll see later in Season 2 when he talks with Maria.)

And because of that, we see the true beginning of the journey of Michael and Alex back to one another in a healthier way.

But part of that journey is going to be realizing that what they’ve been doing and the way they have loved each other in the past isn’t sustainable - and maybe isn’t even the way they want to love each other.

“They’re my family, Alex!”

“Alright, maybe! But you are mine. I don’t look away, Guerin.”

“No. We’ve been holding onto this thing. And it’s gotten us nowhere. Just let it go.”

Even though the words are said in anger, there is some truth to what Michael says. Their relationship so far hasn’t been a good one. Where Alex is trying to repeat the words that Michael said to him that made such an impact on him, Michael is (well, a, trying to save his dumb boyfriend from getting flambayed) using the opportunity to reveal how little faith he has in their relationship. To say that no, this doesn’t feel like love.

But as much as the song lyrics are about loving someone who isn’t good for you, they’re also about changing and growing, and about a commitment to be better.

(Sound familiar? Brb, I’m gonna go jump off a cliff.)

Love is messy, and especially for Michael and Alex, love has always been something that hurts. “Home is where the hurt is” - and a really important part of their journey is realizing that, and realizing there is a different way of loving each other.

Additionally for Alex, this is when he starts to realize the full extent of his family’s involvement in hunting and hurting Michael’s family. It isn’t just his dad - his entire family line has been involved in this since before Alex was born. And still is. This is really where he starts realizing the roots of the guilt and shame he’s going to have to deal with in order to be anything to Michael - not even a partner but a friend.

This is the first step in that journey. Not just the commitment that yes - I want to build a home for you - but that first, I don’t know, maybe I need to put down these weapons and pick up a different set of tools?

ON TO SEASON TWO

[thornescratch]

🖊🌙 😐📝

What time of day do you prefer to write? Why?

Late at night, more out of necessity than preference. It’s when I have the least amount of interruptions. Also, it’s a proven fact that the words flow best and hardest when you need to be sleeping or getting ready for bed. It’s just how it works in the universal scheme of things.

What embarrasses you most about your own writing?

When I realize that I’m projecting too much on a character or situation and making it obvious. Like, there are some tropes I don’t mind revisiting over and over, but I get twitchy when I realize, Oops, that’s my issue, not Character X’s, and it’s less realistic they’d feel that way. Or when I catch myself reusing a description or phrase too often. I need to stop limning people in gold; I do it way too often. Or focusing on sweat in weird places during sex scenes. Though, it’s my experience that you do always notice the sweat during sexytimes.

Sometimes it embarrasses me how appealing I find some really OOC or over the top trashy stuff, but everyone’s got their favorite woobie and tropes, so I’ve stopped feeling bad about that.

What is one growth area you have for your writing?

Pacing. I do outline, but for a couple of my stories that were written for exchanges, you can tell where I hit deadline and had to just get it done instead of having a few more scenes or length that might have improved it. (Or, conversely, I should have been more brutal and cut shit that I liked but which ultimately wasn’t necessary. But then again, it’s fanfic.)

Also, uh, just finishing shit. And feeling less silly about it. I don’t like posting WIPs because I like to finish them first, but then I get interested in something else or I think it’s not good enough to post, and it languishes on my hard drive for years.

Post a snippet from a current WIP.

Again, not sure what fandom you're from, so let's go back to hockey since I have it open right now.

"Hey, hi, so like, O and Backy turned into chickens, it's not my fault," Willy said, standing on his front step with a large cardboard box in his arms.

"It's his fault," Burky said from somewhere behind Willy.

"Totally Whip fault," someone else—Kuzy? said, also from behind Willy, who took up a lot of space on a normal basis and even more so when he was apparently hauling boxes around. One arm poked out from behind him and waved wildly, and then there was an unmistakable giggle, so it was definitely Kuzy. "Batya, let us in."

"Fuck you, it's not!" Willy said, and then hoisted the cardboard box up slightly. The box peeped at Brooks loudly, and he jerked back in surprise. "Here, let us in, lemme just explain," Willy added, and then Brooks had three—no, four, no, five, Djoos and Orlov were apparently quietly lurking at the back of the pack as well—teammates stampeding into his house like they were trying to outrun the cloud of youthful indiscretion that Brooks could just fucking see hanging over them.

"Curse my slow door-slamming skills," he said to his now-empty front step, and then closed the door and took a deep breath in order to prepare for whatever the hell was going on.

Most of them were all in his kitchen. Willy had put the box down on the kitchen table and he and Burky were in his pantry; Kuzy was looking in his fridge; he didn't see Djoos; and Snarls, bless his heart, was the only one being polite and standing near one of the chairs, clearly waiting for permission to sit down. Brooks made a mental note to tell Ovi about it, since Ovi believed in positive reinforcement when it came to nurturing the kids, and would probably buy Dima a new car or something.

The box on the table was still peeping. Before Brooks could deal with that, it was drowned out by an even louder noise, which was apparently directly related to Kuzy pawing through his vegetable crisper drawer.

"Batya! It's terrible!" Kuzy said, leaning out of the fridge and brandishing an eggplant at him.

"All of his crackers are wholegrain stuff," Burky called out from the pantry, muffled. "He doesn't have any chips."

"He's got two bags of Skinny Pop, though," Willy added. "Original and White Cheddar."

"Everything so healthy," Kuzy said, making a face. "It's terrible but I guess also good. I know we make best choice to come here."

Brooks took the eggplant away from Kuzy and slapped it against his palm once with a pleasantly solid noise. It had some good heft. "The last person who isn't sitting down at the table quietly in the next fifteen seconds gets to explain to Barry why they have to go on LTIR because someone beat them senseless with an eggplant."

"Like, a real eggplant, or is this a dick joke," Willy said, leaning out of the pantry before his eyes went wide. "Oh."

Kuzy was already opening his mouth with that glint in his eye again, so Brooks pointed the eggplant at him. "Sit. Down. Where's Juicer?"

"I was using the bathroom, please don't hit me," Djoos said meekly, slipping back into the kitchen and sitting down immediately, hands folded on top of the table neatly like a good little d-man. Brooks made another mental note to let Nicky know. Nicky had his own nurturing system for the kids, though that usually ran along the lines of a series of slightly less murderous than usual glares that he used for those currently in his favor.

"Can we bring some Skinny Pop?" Burky asked. "Actually, can we bring both bags?"

"I mean, actually you wouldn't really need to explain so much—" Willy said, and then Burky wiggled past him out of the narrow pantry doors with a bag stowed under each arm, and dove for the table, yelling out, "Hit him, Batya, hit him!"

"Hey!" Willy said indignantly, rushing after him and almost knocking Kuzy over in the process.

There was a briefly chaotic interval like a particularly violent game of musical chairs, but it ended with everyone sitting down in a chair, even if Burky and Djoos were sharing one. Less sharing, maybe, than Burky getting physically dumped out of two chairs in quick succession by Willy and Dima, and then Burky climbing into Djoos's lap, planting himself there, and winding his arms around Djoos's neck despite Djoos's wide-eyed expression of panic, but Brooks decided he couldn't afford to be too particular about it, and Djoos was just going to have to learn to desensitize himself to Burky-induced boners and personal space issues.

The box was still peeping.

Brooks eyed all of them, trying to decide who he had the best chance of getting the story out of the quickest, and then decided that he might as well give up on that and picked Willy, since he had a distinctly guilty expression that was only slightly marred by how he was currently shoving a double handful of Brooks's Skinny Pop into his mouth. "Willy. Explain. And no one else talk until I say they can."

Willy swallowed and licked his lips. "Okay, so. Magic."

After a minute when nothing else seemed to be forthcoming, Brooks cleared his throat. "That's it? That's all you got?"

Willy glanced around the table where all of his teammates were successfully avoiding his gaze (Kuzy and Dima were both pretending to read the nutritional info on the back of the popcorn bag; Burky was actually hiding his face against Djoos's neck; accordingly, Djoos's panic looked like it had ratcheted up by several degrees, and he was staring off into the middle distance with a muscle twitching in his cheek) and when it seemed obvious that no help was forthcoming, he shrugged. "Kinda?"

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 202

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 04 - “Deliver Urara’s Script!” Date watched: 19 December 2020 Original air date: 24 February 2008 Screenshots Transformation Gallery Project info and master list of posts

Sometimes you get an episode that shouldn’t work, but it just does because of the sincerity of the delivery. You may correctly assume this is that episode. It’s a mundane episode about returning a lost item, but the emotions on display are heartfelt and passionate. Let’s dig in.

The Plot

Syrup arrives at Natts House to deliver more letters from Milk and is startled by Urara tearfully proclaiming she has to leave. It turns out she’s practicing for an important audition and the other girls, especially Komachi, are giving her feedback. Syrup is still a bit confused since he’s not familiar with the concepts of acting or performance, but he watches anyway. After the intro, we go over to Eternal for a few minutes, where Anacondy praises Bunbee’s report writing after the last episode and tasks him with gathering more information, passing him a huge stack of papers. He wanders down the hallway and runs into Scorp, asking him for help in a gag that involves him calling him a different name every single time: Scorn, Stamp, Slipper, Skunk, and even Slump. Scorp is not amused and leaves to retrieve the Rose Pact. Back at Natts House, Coco and Nuts detect the presence of a Palmin, and they go outside with everyone to try to find it, while Urara prepares to leave for the audition. A glance at her script reveals it is absolutely filled with notes, and she gives it a hug. However, she looks up and sees the Palmin, so she sets the script down and tries to snapshot the Palmin when her manager Washio interrupts her.

She hastily grabs her bag and rushes him out the door, accidentally leaving her script on the table. They arrive at the site of the audition, where a dozen other girls are already practicing, making Urara neverous. This is when she realizes she forgot her script, and at the same time, Nozomi and the other girls discover her script. Without hesitation they agree they need to deliver it to her, and they ask Syrup to do so, but he says he only delivers stuff for work. SIDE NOTE: as far as we know, he isn’t paid, so them asking him to deliver something is as much a job as delivering letters to and from the Palmier Kingdom. But whatever. Since Syrup won’t deliver it, the girls drag him along with them as they travel by foot to the audition. They take a “shortcut” that involves them climbing a hill with a ton of switchbacks, and Syrup really doesn’t like that. (BITCH, YOU CAN FLY) Nozomi and the girls explain that Urara will be worried without her script, and that her feelings are very important to them. They press on, despite Syrup’s complaints. They finally make it to the top exhausted, when suddenly Scorp shows up to rain on their parade. They protest that they’re on an important mission but he counters that obtaining the Rose Pact is equally important to him and he’s not moving, so the girls implore Syrup to take the script while they fight Eternal, and be begrudgingly agrees.

He dodges past Scorp and runs off while Nozomi, Rin, Komachi, and Karen transform and fight Scorp’s Hoshiina, which he has made out of the cobbled road itself. They throw it around but it manages to sneak in some hits on them and they lay on the ground, weakened, engaging in a battle of words with Scorp about the importance of Urara’s dream. Syrup reaches Urara and gives her the script, only for her to explain that she already has it memorized, but having everyone’s notes in it lets her feel like they’re right there with her. She picks up that something is amiss and demands that Syrup explain what’s happening to her friends, and he spills the beans but tells her to focus on the audition. It’s her turn to go up, so she enters the audition room and faces the panel of judges, and then.... she says she’s worried about her friends, tears up, apologizes, and runs out of the room.

Syrup delivers her to the battlefield, where the Hoshiina is just about to deliver the final blow. She tells Scorp she won’t let him hurt anyone anymore, then transforms, and the full team of five leaps into battle together, in a wonderfully animated sequence as they lay into Scorp and declare again that their strength comes from their bonds. Lemonade unleashes her new special attack, Prism Chain, where she creates two chains made of butterflies and swings them from behind her to directly in front of her in a pincer move, causing the chains to wrap around the enemy and dissolve them. Scorp dodges the attack but it manages to destroy the Hoshiina.

now watch me whip

Later, back at Natts House, Nozomi laments that Urara had to leave, though she assures her it wasn’t her fault. Washio shows up, telling Urara he heard about the audition, and he understands, he’s not mad, there will be plenty more opportunities for her. As he says that, his phone starts ringing and he takes the call. Syrup is still confused that she only needed the script for encouragement rather than the contents, so Coco and Nuts explain that the girls’ feelings are very important and powerful, they’ve left an influence on each other as well as the fairies of Palmier Kingdom, and they show him pictures that Milk has sent of life in Palmier to demonstrate. Just then, Nozomi notices a Palmin, and Urara captures it to make up for missing it earlier. Everyone gathers around to see what it turns out to be and..... it turns into the King of the Donuts Kingdom, one of the four monarchs!

The Analysis

As I said in the cold open, this episode doesn’t seem like it should work. It’s another cheesy filler plot with no stakes, not really any room for character growth, no impact on the plot (until the end). However, the writer for this episode has a knack for turning mundane premises into strong scripts, and a good director and animation director were tasked with bringing it to life, so it all comes together to be a strong episode.

Although it’s not as much about him as the previous one, this episode is framed mostly from Syrup’s perspective. This means we come into Natts House at the same time as him, in the middle of Urara practicing, and we see his confusion. This is actually clever, because while most of the audience already knows that Urara is an actress from watching the previous series, there’s always new fans who may not have seen the last season, so explaining Urara’s profession from the perspective of another outsider is an unobtrusive way to acquaint, or reacquaint, viewers with her. Furthermore, we stay with Syrup throughout, even when the focus shifts to other characters it’s still largely seen through him. He objects to delivering the script but they drag him along anyway up the cliff. When Urara asks him what happened to her friends, the cut to their fight is also framed such that it could be his vision of what’s happening, while simultaneously being what’s literally happening. And then, once again, the episode ends with Syrup ruminating on Urara’s acting process and the symbolic importance of her friends, as represented by her script. He’s starting to learn what makes the girls special and why their friendship is powerful. It’s a multifaceted framing device.

The real star of this show is Urara. She’s really pouring her heart into this part, but it’s the unquestioning support of her friends that keeps her motivated. This is most directly manifested by her script, but of course her concern for their well-being is incredibly powerful. She is absolutely terrified that Nozomi and co are going to be defeated by Eternal and that supersedes everything else. There’s obviously a tinge of irony that delivering her script to help her out is the catalyst to her leaving the audition. If they hadn’t, or if only Syrup had gone, then they wouldn’t have run into Scorp and Urara probably would have gotten the part. However, all four girls decide without a moment’s hesitation that they have to deliver Urara’s script and so they encounter Scorp, and this leads to her saving them at the last minute. This, as I say sometimes, is peak Precure. Her little speech to the panel of judges where she says she has to leave to save her friends is so emotional. Ise Mariya puts forth a strong performance but it’s the animation that really sells this sequence. She’s teary-eyed, and then the run down the hallway is well-drawn, and it culminates when she steps outside the building. There’s a gorgeous 360 degree turnaround as she scans the horizon for signs of her friends. This sort of shot is hard to do in 2D animation.

Also the music swell helps to sell the intensity. Urara’s desperation is tangible. She wants nothing more than to rescue her friends in this moment, and nothing can stand in her way. When she arrives at the battle, her friends are on the verge of defeat, but as soon as she joins the fight the battle turns around. It’s a fast-paced fight with the girls swooping in, beating up Scorp, and then unleashing the finisher. It’s another well-animated sequence and the contrast between how the team of 4 and the team of 5 fights is night and day.

Once again you’ve got the continuous spinning camera that helps sell the scene. The distortion of the characters, especially Scorp, actually works in favor of the speed and excitement of the scene. This is what Urara brings, this is what they can do when they’re all assembled. That’s what I mean when I say this episode is better than it ought to be on paper. It’s a threadbare plot but the emotions and the artwork come together beautifully.

The major theme of the episode is support. Nozomi, Rin, Komachi, and Karen support Urara’s goal whole-heartedly. They help her rehearse, giving her tips and people to play off of. They run to her aid when she needs it without a second thought. Even fighting Scorp is a way of showing their support, they’re keeping him from attacking Urara during her important audition while sending Syrup to give her the script. And at the end, Washio is also being very supportive, and I appreciate that. He doesn’t act sad or disappointed or upset at her for bailing on her big audition, he understands that she had her reasons and just says there will be another chance. The support network of friends who have each other’s backs, who care about each other, who are stronger together, that’s what makes this larger team dynamic work well and stand apart from the duo series. There’s obviously something powerful about the two girls who can only transform together, and I love the Futari wa shows for it, but the larger team of heroines who can operate independently if necessary but are exponentially stronger together is also wonderful, and this episode really exemplifies that.

Also a quick note, I wanted to briefly discuss the geography of this town. In the middle of the episode, there’s a gag where the girls are climbing a huge cliffside because it’s the shortest way to their destination.

If you recall, all the sweeping shots of this pseudo-French town have shown it to be fairly flat. For there to be a cliff face somewhere in the middle of it with a bunch of switchbacks is incredibly unusual, and I don’t think this setting has been seen before or since. It’s just there for the gag of them running up this huge thing.

All told, this was a phenomenal episode and I’m glad for it. After a disappointing first couple of episodes, this one really hit the mark.

Next time, on Precure Daily, Karen is taking suggestions for the school! Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 kettei!

[forgottenluck]

So I am finally caught up on Arise. I’ll admit, going into it I was apprehensive, and I know very little about how the game actually plays so i can’t judge it on a gameplay point....

So what follows is my Personal opinion on it, and if you don’t like it, then that’s your fault. I’ll post it under a readmore, but i’ll try to avoid spoilers...will still tag it as spoilery though, since i know many haven’t finished the game.

Beware, this got a lot longer than I expected.

I personally believe that Arise is one of the weakest of the tales games. I can’t say much for the mobile games, and i”ve heard good things about them so i may go and try to look into them....but from the games that I’m familiar with, Arise has the weakest plotline.

I’ll start with what I liked about the game though.

It’s story had genuine moments that surprised me. They were well written moments, that stood out in a positive way. I think some of the characters have extremely good character growth, and very real situations. One of the most surprising was Dohalim. I’m genuinely impressed by how he grows through the game, and the ending result. They handled him extremely well, and he’s by far my favorite character. 

There were also a few moments in the story that actually caught me off guard. Like I knew there would be a twist, but the twist that actually does happen is...not what I expected, and is done in a really interesting and integrative way.

The villains were well thought out, at least Lords wise.

....but that’s...about where my praises end.

It’s hard to put into words just everything that....disappointed me about Arise, but i’m going to try.

My first biggest issue is the first few hours of the game. I know i’m not the only one who does this, but I try to connect with the Main Character, in as many ways as I can....but it’s incredibly hard when the character only has a vague personality and literally no face. This was a cause of great unease, and disconnect for me, which put me off the game almost immediately. I’ll admit, i grew even more critical of the game after spending almost 3 hours watching a character I couldn’t connect with interact with a character who made it impossible to like right off the bat. And I do understand why they did things this way....but it was a huge turn off for me.

The characters themselves felt flat and forced, the motions didn’t exactly link up with their emotions, and felt stiff. I’ll go over these in detail, trying to avoid spoilers as much as I can.

Alphen is a character that...well, I actually like the least. He’s supposed to be the main character, but I honestly don’t really care for him that much. I feel he’s a lot of wasted potential, but at the same time, extremely overbearing. He has no rhyme or reason for his sense of purpose and justice.....other than “slavery bad. need to free.” That’s literally what his personality boils down too for the majority of the game. When he does get his memory back, it’s all of a sudden “omg i’m a horrible person” which is entirely contradiction to his character building up until that point. Granted this was meant to represent a mental breakdown, but it just....wasn’t handled well. I’ll admit he gets more tolerable around the ending but all of his speeches were the clique of clique. I get that nothing’s really unique anymore...but it just takes the cake on how clique you can get. 

Shionne is....a complicated mess. She’s supposed to be prickly, and unlikable at the beginning. I realized this and didn’t pass judgement until a good ways in to the story, to give her time to develop. I do like what they tried to do with her. But I don’t think they managed to get what they wanted across. She’s very unlikable at the beginning, and only gets a little better by the middle of the game. She only truly develops towards the point of the Last Lord, and a little after. Especially towards the final battle, when she finally opens up....but even that feels...forced. A lot of the characters final growth feel extremely forced and rushed, like they accept everything at that moment only because the plot forces them too. Shionne is no exception, though her situation is the least jarring. (On the topic of Shionne though, I will admit that the romance plot between them is one of the more natural ones in the Tales series, it does develop over time, but I think the ending is still very much rushed.)

Rinwell is my next big issue. She would be my favorite character by far if it wasn’t for the major fault in her personality: her racism. It bothered me a lot, and it felt so very forced. Of course, Rinwell has plenty of reason to hate, but there was just so much of it in that tiny little body that it didn’t come across as natural. And she doesn’t get better through the game, even when traveling with two Renans for a while. She has a very real and understandable trauma, however it felt unrealistic especially when it was revealed her past. The only time she gets better is towards the end, when it’s like a sudden revelation hits her and she’s suddenly nice and happy. It was a dramatic shift to me that didn’t seem to fit with her personality.

Law is a character...I actually don’t have a lot of issues with. My main issue is how he was sort of forced upon the player out of nowhere. He’s a good, well balanced character, that really doesn’t need a lot of growth to him. Sure he has a lot of hate built up in him, but he does his job; which is the comic relief. he’s the natural born airhead, and he does a good job at it. There are a few out of character deep moments, but his tendency to just say whatever comes to him is what moves the plot along at times. I just hate how he was kind of forced upon us in the early game due to what happens with his father.

(Zepher is a character i am very conflicted about because on one hand I really liked his character, it was one of the best ones in the game in my opinion, but his speech during the second Lord’s domain was super forced in my opinion. I felt what happened with him just was very forced and quickened to make the plot go further.)

Dohalim is by far my favorite character. I actually don’t have a lot to say negatively about him. I feel like he’s the best, well written character of the group. His wants, needs are very realistic, and his desires and actions compliment that. If anything I think he takes the ‘atone for my sins’ thing a little too far at times, but he’s the character that has the most realistic growth of them all.

Kisara....I don’t have a lot to say about. It’s not that I didn’t like her. I did. She was a good, motherly character to the group, who keeps them in line for the most part. But...that’s it. I feel like she got past her anger and hate too quickly, accepting what had happened as if it was just daily life and moving on. It didn’t feel natural, but I assume she’s just the type of character to keep her worries and feelings to herself so that she doesn’t worry those around her. Which matches her motherly character.

Those are my feelings on the main characters. I won’t go into the villains for obvious reasons, but I will admit i found that the villains were well written for the short amount of time they were on screen.

I’ve seen a lot of praise for the story line.....but I don’t....really see what’s praiseworthy about it. I realize i went in extremely biased and critical, but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.

I’m not exactly a fan of how Bandai has ‘reworked’ the Tales formula. I was extremely put off with no buildup to the first baddie, I felt like I had no way of knowing what the character that was in front of me was like. Not only did he have no face, but he felt so flat, mold-able....that it was off putting. To be thrown directly into the heart of a dark, devastating world was jarring enough to me to make me think.....which normally wouldn’t have been a bad thing, but with the combination of the lack of connection with the main character, I was just....lost. I wasn’t exactly interested in the story at that point. Which to me is a failure in writing. The first few hours of a game are critical in keeping someone interested enough to keep playing. If there’s a lack of connection, a lack of understanding, and a general sense of unease, followed by no real interesting reason for the characters to be doing what they’re doing that doesn’t boil down to “slave bad must free”, players are likely to put the game down. And I’ll admit, this put me off the game real fast. (But again, this is my opinion, please keep that in mind.)

As the story goes on, and we meet more characters, I did start to get interested, but it was then I noticed a lot of glaring flaws in the story itself. The first thing was that it was extremely predictable. I predicted what happens to Zeypher really fast....like only a few minutes after he was introduced. I figured out what was wrong with Shionne and her motives relatively quick. I figured out what Alphen was, or possibly was within the first boss fight. Things like this kept happening, i kept being able to predict the next big event in the game and....that sucked the interest out of me. If i can predict the game, what’s the point of me keeping going? I will admit, there were moments that I didn’t predict, like what happens in Menecia. and within the Valley of the Four Winds. But for the most part, the game was so predictable that I just felt bored more than half of the time. Tales games are usually masters of storytelling, able to put twists and turns, and turn your predictions on their heads to an extent. Of course, I understand that no story is going to be unique....but i just feel appalled that no one looked at the script and said “maybe this is a bit too predictable?”.

The second thing I noticed was that parts of the story felt extremely forced. Like it was rushed, unnaturally so. Cyslodia was a main contributor to this, the whole time was extremely forced and rushed, especially with Zeypher and Law. Later, the whole issue with Shionne and her Thorns just....bam, suddenly it’s ‘lets talk’ and it was just....not good. A lot of the skits felt like this as well. Rinwell and Law’s skits were usually not too terribly forced, but a lot of Alphen and Shionne’s skits felt forced and unnatural, mainly because of Shionne’s character flaw of not opening up. they felt awkward and again, unnatural.

By the end of the game, I realized something big, as well. Now, I understand, as I’ve said, that no story now is going to be unique.....however I feel like this story line takes the cake on a whole new level of ‘rehash’. The similarities to Vesperia and Graces are uncanny. Arise took the “planet eating world ending entity, with a child heralding the end of times (estelle, child of the full moon)” of Vesperia and the “There’s a whole nother planet out there and oh, by the way it wants to kill us, along with an entity made of energy that just wants to live” of Graces and combined it into one story. And it’s not even that well done in my opinion. Sure, it threw in a few curve balls like Renans, Dhanans, and the Heganquil.....but....at the end of the day, it’s just....a cross over of the two series with new characters? At least that’s what it felt like to me. Taking the two major plot points of previous games, one of which was recently re-released, and putting them together in one game? I wouldn’t call it lazy, but it’s definitely not the best decision i’ve seen.

Finally, I’ll talk about the ending.....while trying to avoid as many spoilers as I can. Tales games have been known for their clique “good conquers all, everyone wins in a heartfelt tearjerky way”....but it seems like that Arise took all that they could, all the cliques in the book, and put them in their ending. As well as doing things in a completely unrealistic unreasonable way. Sure it’s a good ending for the game, and it’s a happy one, but it leaves a LOT of unanswered questions. Mainly my question is ‘how the fuck is everyone still alive after that?’. (if you haven’t beaten the game, wait until you have, you’ll know what I mean then). It’s just....a confusing clusterfuck if you think about it, and have finished the game and know what I’m talking about. Most Tales games end with at least a definitive ending, that answers the questions of the game....but this one just felt so out of left field to me that it was unnatural and jarring.

Please keep in mind that these are my opinions after analyzing the story and characters, and watching an in depth play-through. You likely will have different opinions if you’ve played/watched the game yourself. I admit again, I probably was overcritical of the game, but this is the first Tales game since Abyss that i did not enjoy for the most part. It definitely has it’s good points, the characters are well designed, even if their personalities and stuff fall flat. It genuinely surprised me at times, which is a good thing. I just feel like the cons of the game outweigh the pros, in a serious way. It’s not a great game, it’s not a bad game, it’s simply....mediocre in my eyes, which is something that very few Tales games can be ranked for me. This is just my honest opinion on the game, and if you like it and disagree with me, that’s fine! I’m not gonna force my opinion on you in any way!

And that doesn’t mean I will not roleplay with characters from Arise! I want to see how people change, improve and characterize these characters! Everyone will see them as something different, and I can’t wait to see how people play them, because I felt that while there were definite issues with the characters, they were definitely the strongest part of the game.