#ive only read through the third volume

[lizzzardwizard]

Fine. I'm about to say it.

svsss is mxtx's best work.

[cowboy-robooty]

Robooty Reviews: Oni To Tengoku (8.9/10) ROBOOTY PERSONAL FAVORITE

(in my heart its a 10/10)

Atsurou Aoki is an english teacher who has some mad fuckin self esteem issues. hes our beautiful pathetic man protag and he ends up tangled up in a relationship of sorts with the school nurse, Manabu Tengoku. Its a dry premise and honestly the first volume requires you to sludge through a lot of average yaoi evil shit but please please please im begging you endure okay. i have been an oni to tengoku-er since 2019 and ive been following the development of the sequel (oni to tengoku sai) and the (now third) sequel (oni to tengoku kyuu) of this series and GOD. ILL BE REAL IM A MANIAC AND PROBABLY GOT A LOT MORE OUT OF THIS SERIES THAN THE AUTHOR INTENDED AT ALL BUT IDGAF PLEASE READ IT PERHAPS YOU CAN EXPERIENCE THE SAME ENLIGHTENING AS ME. READ MORE HAS SPOILERS BE WARNED (PART 1 CUZ OF TUMBLR IMAGE LIMIT)

this will be a little different than usual because i have a whole lot to say about aoki and tengoku. Really, a lot of this will be just talking about how and why i like their relationship so if you end up liking this you should most definately read the full manga to experience it for yourself

Despite all the fuckin bullshit of the first volume, the manga is really fucking good at interweving in its core themes and setting up the psychological basis of Aoki. Aoki was abused by his mother as a child, but i think the depiction of abuse is really realistic because even though she whittles down his self esteem and makes him feel worthless she hugs him afterwards and still is motherly towards him, this aoki doesnt hate his mother and fully cut her off per say but she is a demon to him. its pretty realistic imo where parents can do awful things but they buy you a donut and then its like ermm well.. they bought me a donut and do this in my best interest so its okay. Aoki is fucked in the head though. because he doesnt feel like he can be loved deep down and his entire career path is something he chose only because it was expected of him by his family (and his entire life is grasping at straws in an attempt to not disappoint people)

he wants more than anything to just not be an embarassment and be "worthy" of being loved. I like how this is depicted because again it feels more realistic in that he isnt outwardly a freak about it or anything he doesnt have breakdowns in public or anything thats enough to warrent himself to feel like he needs to get help. but he definately does need help of some sort because his way of thinking and the constant guilt and shame he feels is just something thats normal to him now. hes just tired and a bit worn down, but its not like anything is exceptionally bad, since humans are surprisingly adaptable and hes just lived with feeling like hes an embarassment who disappoints people his entire life so its norm.

Tengoku obviously doesnt mean it in the way aoki is taking is. but its things like this that make the themes feel well interwoven to me. Aoki doesnt look tengoku in the eye and say "i have mommy issues and feel like being an embarassment is the reason i cant be loved" but he still shows it in a way that we the audience can see he means, since we can put together aoki's lifestyle and viewpoint from his inner dialogues and flashbacks to his mother's abuse. Aoki wants more than anything else to be a good boy because only good boys can be loved. and unfortunately for aoki san this kind of means he has developed a praise kink and good boy fetish which tengoku just naturally leans towards so erm haha tengoku just pushing those buttons all willy nilly!

Tengoku isnt an idiot though, as he pursues aoki he can definately connect the dots and all that shit for how aoki ticks. This isnt exactly hard to do anyways, since aoki passively talks about himself to tengoku during non crazy scenes and its not like hes an enigma or anything because again, he thinks that the way he lives is completely normal for a guy like him. Tengoku likes aoki and chases him and aoki isnt exactly a willing participant. Tengoku likes aoki because hes a fun plaything and interesting and pure hearted and everything tengoku is not and aoki begins to form an affection for tengoku because he itches the mental illness brain damage spot by pursuing and wanting him consistently and not getting bored.

These panels are true brain damage pages because it hits upon how all aoki wants is for someone to look at him directly and still want him. His greatest wish (that he doesnt even believe could come true at the bottom of his heart) is to have someone that could see him for who he is and despite all his flaws. despite how hes useless, despite how hes not good at anything (to him), despite how hes bad at relationships, despite how he cant talk with other people, and despite what an embarassment he is, still love and want him. Seriously, I must recommend you to read this for yourself. Theres the yaoi bullshit sludge but every chapter has bits and pieces of Aoki's mindset that is an insanely good representation and depiction of how that kind of mentality and acceptance is like.

Volume 2 is where things really pick up. Yaoi sludge has been toned down to make way for FUCKING SWAG!!!! the set up for aoki's mentality is done now were onto getting into the way tengoku and aoki's personalities actually interact with eachother. Along with dipping into tengokus crazy bitch syndrome

Over this volume, were shown that actually aoki and tengoku are a good match for eachother. At least, tengoku provides something special for aoki in that he doesnt know from personal experience the feeling of needing to earn love, but because of that he bounces off well with aoki because he shows basic interest in going "well your feelings and thoughts do matter though. youre a person too". this isnt explicitly said, but its little things liks this that end up making aoki fall in love with him. Aoki falling in love with tengoku is also interesting because this is his first time actively liking someone else because its what he wants, not because its what the other person expects. Despite how terrible their relationship was at first, it set a ground where Aoki was able to create a strong connection with someone without the initial fear of disappointing them since he even didnt like tengoku at first. Honestly with the way Aoki is I think that is why hes able to love tengoku out of his volition, since he already has shown his shameful parts to him and tengoku still wants him-- in fact tengoku is the only person who has seen Aoki's shame and refused to let him go, this lets Aoki take a breather and think about what HE desires for once instead of how to keep someone with him or do whats good for the other person/not shameful.

Also a new teacher is introduced who actually is one of the many guys Tengoku had play-boyed before who became a teacher just so he could try to win tengokus love lol. but he serves as a plot device for that yaoi jealousy arc WOOOHOOOO! I love the jealousy chapter a lot though because BOTH CHARACTERS experience jealousy in their own way. I'm not sure if what Aoki experiences can be classified under jealousy or not, but ill just say it is because thats easier. The chapter is wonderfully done though because see Tengoku has always been the one who chases Aoki but also the one who reminds him that he doesnt fall in love this is just a sex playboy thing. Aoki is the one who has fallen in love and does show this by treating Tengoku specially, but Tengoku obviously doesnt reciprocate this since the way he acts at least is more like Aoki is his favorite of a bunch of toys rather than his one and only like how Aoki sees him. Aoki feels bitterness over this because he wishes he could be loved by Tengoku since Tengoku is somewhat wishy washy and gives Aoki just enough to keep hope but also smushes that hope by refusing a drop more. (this is done though bc this is fucking yaoi ofc tengoku loves aoki to bits and pieces back but tengoku is just scared of liking aoki too much and showing it too much but hold on we havent gotten to tengokus insanity yet jeeeesus christ!). Also im kind of at the tumblr 10 image limit but I think showing these next three pages are really important so ermm me when i post this and then add a reblog or two with MORE BULLSHIT. I'll properly tag the versions with my reblogs

[beclight]

so uh.

i saw the news this morning and sparklecare is going 18+ and. to say im shattered would be an heavy understatement.

dont get me wrong, i understand why kneeby took this decision. but come on, i feel like it shouldve been 18+ from the beggining, not a third into the comic's public release. after many now "underage" people got foxated on it and have had 6yrs (reboot) to start reading it, and especially not after building a community, a fandom, that is mostly composed of autistic people that lowkey rely on it in their everyday life;;;;;

sparklecare was everything to me. everything.

(more personnal stuff and opinions under cut, i just needed to vent and let go. read tldr at bottom if lazy.)

it has been my main hyperfixation for more than a year and a half now. literally all i think about, all day. my only consistent fixation and the first one that lasted as long as it did since years, and was so prominent in my life. genuinely my only constant source of happiness that would help me through the hardest moments of the past nearly two years, and now its.. out of reach, gone, until i turn 18 in two years.

i hate to say this. i hate it so much, but its so, so disappointing. why was this comic, which is mostly aimed at mentally ill people lets not lie to ourselves (literally every single person i met within the community was autistic/nm and taken aback in the best way possible by the amout of mental health awareness and representation in the comic and it's AUs), taken back halfway through, after it has now become thousands of people's hyperfixation, and for the most, a life altering one..? its. so sad. ive been shaking all day i dont want it taken away from me, not now. not so soon.

as i said previously i understand kittycorn's decision n everything but considering the ENORMOUS amount of trigger warnings for literally evrrything on the site (which im not complaining about dgmw!!! i think its great to have sm and for everyone's triggers :] but you cant deny that not every warning is necessarily triggering to the biggest amout of peole reading it), -

- ,it feels like making the comic, the AUs, the fandom, LIKING the characters, and engaging in the community ALL 18+ ALL OF A SUDDEN in the middle of it is... too much?;

it may just be my opinion but considering how heavily everything is triggered, and how every slightly bloody/nsfw joke scene has a clean transcript avaible to replace it, it's kinda silly to me that everything has to be 18+ now.... kit's blogs i can understand, shes an adult and may not feel comfortable with engaging with minors anymore and that i understand and respect 100%!. but making all her previous current and future content and ocs un-likable by minors, even stuff that was released before TheGreatMinorBan™, considering how many people kin characters from sch, have it as their main hyperfixation and escape from the outside world, is way too much in my opinion, or the decision shouldve been announced and only enforced when a really triggering volume was about to get released(since now nobody can go back to make it 18+ from the start..). you can ask people to stop interacting personally with you or engage with your online profiles but taking away their hyperfixation for content that has been released for years without any real limit out of seemingly nowhere, after spending months teasing the future of your work.. is really disappointing. :/

i legit dont know what ill become for the next two years without sparklecare. i wouldve genuinely "unlucky-friend-of-hemera-that-has-their-limbs-attached-to-her" 'd myself if i hadnt stumbled accross it and idk how im expected to just? forget about it? for years untill i become 'of age' again to read.

i know lurking from alts is a thing but thats dogshit to me. i wanna interact with and be a part of the community, which is such an amazing one. i had sm art i wanted to make and share with the world. i dont want to not talk to anyone or pretend to be a person that i'm not to stay up to date with my favorite author's work and other bloggers' fanart surrounding it. feels scummy and would prolly hurt me more anyways.

tldr;

sch shouldve either been 18+ from the start - annoucned that itd become 18+ but kept at 15/16+ until the announcement of a RLLY triggering volume - or just kept at 16+ all along considering literally everything has trigger warnings anyways. idk it feels sooo shitty to develop an enourmous fixation on smth for years just for it to one day out of nowhere have it taken away from you in the middle of it's release because a character will verbally mentions j3rking 0ff in a volume released in 5yrs, and be expected to JUST FORGET IT EXISTS..

no hate for kc's decision, i understand and respect it, but it hurts like a bitch to have your fixation taken away from you, and in the middle of it too. ..

[joachimnapoleon]

My friend Jonas De Neef’s new book, Through Fire, Frost, and Failure, is now available through Lulu (links below), and should be available through Amazon in the coming weeks. I had the privilege of getting to read through the initial draft and found this to be a very engaging, lively, well-written memoir, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Napoleonic wars and the 1812 campaign in particular. Here’s the official description:

The Russian campaign is the theatre of war for the third volume of this series of compiled French eyewitness accounts from the Napoleonic Wars. Compared to the previously published books, we will follow the story of an Italian officer in the Grande Armée’s fatal expedition to the East. Whilst the French perspective for the 1812 campaign is well represented, testimonies by French allies are often overlooked and, most of the time, have not found the authors to translate them either to French or English. Of the many non-French contingents that marched to the Russian plains, the fate of the Italian IV Corps, led by Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, has been described before in the memoirs of engineer officer Eugène Labaume. Now, we have the opportunity to expand our knowledge of the exploits and suffering of this corps through the words of Adjutant-Major Césare de Laugier. This officer’s account has featured before in the brilliant Russia 1812 trilogy written by Paul Britten Austin, however not in full. The following pages will fill in the gap and the text has been expanded with useful notes, where de Laugier’s testimony is compared to those of compatriots and recollections of French soldiers and officers. While the famous military clashes of the campaign are featured, de Laugier pays great attention to the life of the soldiers and their attempts to not only take on their enemies, but also the plethora of illnesses, supply issues, weather conditions, … Topographic descriptions enliven the account as well. The latter however does not negate the narration of the general hardship the men were subjected to. The Russian campaign of 1812 certainly made its mark in history, as it most certainly did on the life of de Laugier.

Hardcover

Ebook

[randomwriteronline]

Krakua thoughts... Krakua thoughts? Krakua thoughts. Krakua thoughts

Since thinking of human!Krakua as albino ive decided he cant see for SHIT. my boy can distinguish Colors and Vague Shapes and that is IT. He can read only if he squashes his face on the tablet or someone reads out loud. this does mean that the details he finds important and the physical descriptions he gives are very funny tho. like Axonn is "very wide, big hands, silver-red-black", Mazeka is "small, goes vroom, white-grey", and Jerbraz is "noisy"

Speaking of Jerbraz, hes the one Krakua is usually assigned to when Helryx decides to send him on a mission. Partly bc they get along fine, partly bc Jerbraz has a sort of "least likely to hurl the boy through the roof by accident" babysitter feeling about him, partly bc who can sneak better into places than a permanently invisible guy and a dude who can just Not Make Sound

Also Jerbraz is easily Krakuas fav member of the order. Like a large fucked up invisible cousin who can and will kill for you if you ask him nicely

Second favorite is Axonn. Big hamds comforble. Perfect to nap in

He used to be incredibly soft spoken due to Loud Sound Will Kill Us All but has since grown into speaking at varying volumes between normal and deafening, though if greatly distressed he will go back to barely perceivable whispers

I do think he absorbs all sound all the time as a reflex, at least in part to avoid fucking Dying (sound cant hurt him in the lethal way it used to when he was a matoran anymore but you know, the trauma of everyone he knows dying due to loud noise might have left some lasting impact. Just guessing). He doesnt get overwhelmed by the build up of elemental energy bc hes constantly making noise purposefully or not so hes in a sort of feedback loop where he supplies his own noise to absorb so he can make more noise etc etc

He loves being around people! People are mildly terrified of him. It doesnt help that hes very sneaky and will show up Anywhere uninvited no matter how krakua-proofed one makes the place. He crawls in like hi guys what are we doing :D and everybody else has a heart attack

I cant get over the idea of him meeting Jaller and being so immensely excited about finally having a chance to experience a sonar so he can replicate it that hes just like BLAST ME BLAST ME BLAST ME (sonar blast) (the worst 15 seconds of his life) OURGHHHHH OK IM GOOD DO THAT AGAIN (sonar blast) (another properly horrendous 15 seconds) AURGHRHHHHHH and Jaller is like "can i stop" and Krakua goes NO ANOTHER TIME IVE ALMOST GOT IT (sonar blast) EIURGRAGURGHHHHHHHH

I may have mentioned it before but Krakua is fucking brutal in combat. Sparring with members of the order could kill a weaker being very easily and he refuses to tone the intensity down in actual fights because hes learned the best enemy is the one whos knocked out cold on the ground where they cant bother you anymore! He's been taught to try and not kill whenever possible since hes still a Toa and not technically fully affiliated with the order, but they do still need to get their hands dirty so he has full permission to torture, scar, threaten, gravely injure, break, debilitate or overall traumatize opponents if he deems it necessary or useful. You can see why other people might be scared of him

Also bc i think of him often being all up in peoples faces due to shit eyesight, lots of excitement and very poor socialization i for some reason have imagined him all over that boy like some kinda lovestruck siren. Third time his captain of the guard charms strike. Bitches love a man who can never die correctly ig

Flapper girl. Thats it thats the thought

Related to that, a fight with him is like a rhythm game in hell. Its a rhythm game for him bc hes hitting every clue flawlessly. Its hell for his opponent bc theyre getting beaten within an inch of their life

In somewhat direct relation to the above, he should also have Something going on with Tobduk. I dont mean friendship or romance or rivalry or mentorship i need something more sinister. Its about their similar backgrounds and trauma and their place so strangely close to Helryx's side. Some kind of grim feeling between them, like a sense of terrible inevitability. You will be me. You will become me. You already are me. It pervades everything when they're in each others presence. Tobduk finds some kind of cosmic irony in it. Krakua doesnt like it. They speak of it in long uncomfortable silences, mental shields rendering the Suletu's powers null, and it's very unpleasant.

His staff should be hollow so he can play it like a didgeridoo. Imagine being in a fight with some willowy kid and he pulls his staff to his mouth and a loud wooaoaooo sound just fucking crushes you against a rock. Thatd be baller

I think he has. Some mildly morbid thing about destiny. He doesnt really have a duty nor unity so instead he leans hard into the third virtue and more specifically the whole "there is an unavoidable reason for why everything happens" aspect of destiny, because it makes terrible things like the mass murder of his village and the possible repeat of that situation with the Order of Mata Nui (if you interpret him becoming "the lone hero of a besieged island fortress" as all other members but him dying) more bearable. Maybe once he meets his destiny he will just wait to die, because what needed to happen happened and he has no purpose anymore. Maybe he will be caught in a loop where his destiny keeps fulfilling itself over and over, because he keeps seeking out the requirements to fulfill it whether hes conscious of it or not.

[boundinparchment]

Deus In Absentia - IV

The first time was a coincidence. The second time was a fluke. But the third time? You were starting to think it was fate. Or, more likely, a calculated trap. Reposted from my previous blog, @/zhonglis-empty-wallet AO3

As you imagined, there was only the illusion of choice; if a Harbinger wanted a resource, they got it, one way or another.

You were given quarters among some of the other, higher ranking Fatui members; a small room with a single window, bed, wardrobe, desk, and attached bathroom only large enough to serve its purposes.  At least you didn’t have to share.

The room was a respite you would probably use very little, you came to quickly realize.

Most of your time was spent in Dottore’s labs and the adjacent rooms down in Haerasys.  Reading, organizing, sorting.  You tried not to think too hard about the dark stains at the edges of stray pieces of paper or the screaming from the sub-basement.  

The tour you received of the facilities didn’t include the cells where specimens and subjects were kept.  In fact, you were explicitly told to not go down there.  Probably for the best, if the topics you were glimpsing over were anything to go by.  Krupp had dragged you along once, and only once, and you suddenly understood what he meant by ‘human resources’ in your first meeting.

You’d held your own throughout Krupp’s tirade, expressionless, until you arrived back in the privacy of your rooms, where your stomach protested what little dinner you’d eaten and your mind refused to let you sleep.  Human experimentation, especially on children…confused, lost, scared…it was wrong.

And you would, no doubt, join them when Dottore was finished with you.  Death would be a mercy.  And he was the furthest thing from merciful. ____________________

“Archivist!”

You winced. Over the past few weeks, you learned quickly to distinguish the differences in his tone when he used your title.  He never called you by your name.  It was better that way, you supposed.  Professional.

Or perhaps, as you occasionally heard from recruits in the hall and the hushed whispers people dropped in your ear, he was entirely incapable of connecting with others.  The other Harbingers kept their distance unless otherwise required.  Their own staff were just as wary.  After all, Dottore loved to see them squirm whenever he had the chance.

He shouted again, more frustrated than before, and you hastily made your way to his main workshop.  The Second had his back to the entrance as he scanned a large bookshelf, one you only finished organizing days prior.  Already in disarray.  Again.

“Yes, Lord Harbinger?”

Krupp referred to Dottore as master.  

You would do no such thing.  You, at least, had dignity.  Dottore might have taken everything from you so far but he couldn’t take that.

The good doctor held a book in his hand and waved it about, making it difficult to see the title.  “Where are the additional volumes for this?!  They were right here!  You’re making such a mess, Archivist.” 

Dottore’s fury initially made your blood run cold when you first experienced it but you’d pushed through it as soon as you realized you were right about the topic.  He wasn’t much different than a disgruntled customer at times, really.  Others on the receiving end of the Harbinger’s ire were quick to beg and soothe and plead.

Not you.

You approached cautiously, as you had on the first day in Haerasys, and held out a hand for the book.  Dottore frowned but begrudgingly handed it to you before crossing his arms.

“The shelves were reorganized to their initial system you used, based on Universal Decimal.  Topics regarding Divinity and the Abyss are…” you ran a finger lightly over spines as you made your way across the shelves, “here.  They’re then sorted by title, since most of these are written by unknown authors.”

You pulled out the additional volumes in question and presented them to the Harbinger.

“The shelves are labeled, Lord Harbinger.  And there’s a list of inventory attached to the end of the shelf with their intended location.”

Dottore clicked his tongue against his teeth and took the books from you in a single sweep of his arm.  He brought the titles back to the table where he was tinkering on a smaller device and was quickly lost in his work again.

Your system would be useless if he didn’t use it as intended.  The entire point was to eliminate this exact situation, so his resources would be easy to find.  Tools and instruments were labeled, returned to their locations; why wouldn’t his research materials be treated the same way?

You turned on your heel to leave and then, against your better judgment, turned back towards Dottore.

“Is the system I’ve come up with useless for you, Lord Harbinger?”

You hadn’t meant for the exasperation to be as pronounced.  The system was easy enough for customers to follow in your store, after all, or a similar version.  He seemed to navigate the shelves during his visits with ease, immediately understanding the organizational structure.  But if it didn’t work, it was better to know and resolve it than continue on under false pretenses that everything was fine.

Dottore held his place on a page with a finger and looked up, red eyes wider than usual.

“What gave you that impression, Archivist?”

“If you’re unable to find what you need–”

The Harbinger cut you off.  “Few have efficiently stuck to a system that makes sense long enough for it to be useful.  Even one as peerless as myself can adjust when something is more optimal than before.”

You held his gaze, remembering his words to you regarding displaying your organs, and nodded.  In the distance, you heard a shrill scream from the nearby staircase that led to the sub-basement.  You suppressed a shudder, remembering the wide eyes and the pleading, weakened and starved bodies...

Dottore drew your attention back to him as he said, “I expect nothing less than perfection.”

You bowed, your mouth suddenly refusing to work, and before you raised your head, Dottore continued.  

“You’ll know when I’m dissatisfied, Archivist.”  His tone was final, dismissive and threatening.  

You didn’t want to linger anyway.

[everydaydg]

That wierd time manga was on the 3DS eshop

Available only in Japan and France

Dokopon Choice

While looking for MH Stories on hshop (not gonna sugarcoat it, that was what I was doing)

I ran into something that caught my eye... a strange name Ive heard of every MH game on the platform so something was off when I saw a name I didnt recognize.

MH Flash... huh?

It coudnt be a game considering it was literarly 75MB and there were like 7 different volumes

looked it up and realised that was a manga... I thought it was going to be some sort of tie in bonus, like a series of 3D videos, because I never heard of anything like the 3DS having actual manga publications but...

No that wasnt the case actually, it was just a whole issue of Monster Hunter Flash

The menu did leave me asking some questions. it didnt look like something capcom themselves made, instead a platform that was made by a third party which lead to the question

"are there more of these?"

yes. there were.

And so I present to you one of the neatest things ive ever ran into while looking into the 3DS's catalogue

The French and Japanese eshop's selection of digital manga!

"どこぽんちょいす" - "Dokopon Choice”

Sadly its french equivalent had no such name holding everything together

No this is not homebrew, no this isnt a joke. This happened.

Where do I begin...

The 3DS has a neat history with ebooks

There were two services that provided ebooks on the system, these being: HONTO for 3DS and Dokodemo Honya-San. both exclusive to japan.

Honto had a more general ebook line up. no manga

Honya-San was kinda like that but you also had a whole lot of manga baby

So where does Dokopon Choises fit into this?

Well Dokopon Choise was the name for standalone releases of things found on Honya-San

Imagine it this way, in Honya-san, releases are treated like DLC

Through Dokopon its treated as its own app.

Purchases of Dokopon apps and Honya-San books are treated as separate so you could end up buying the same thing twice (its actually aknowledged on every dokopon release on the eshop, be careful that you dont buy the same thing twice by accident)

Both were managed by Librika, a digital book distribution company

That leads the question as to why I didnt make this post about Dokodemo Honya in general as that service has alot of things to talk about

Well Honya-San didnt make it out of japan... The only one that got out of japan was Dokopon Choise which is why I want to focus on it.

its an incredibly neat oddity for the system

Some day Ill have to do more propper research on HONTO for 3DS but for now lets focus on the french manga

So Japan makes sense but... France? why france of all places

Well from what ive read, apparently out of most countries in Europe. France had the largest audience for manga, which made something like this profitable.

Even then because of the small selection that made it over, it mostly feels like a small experiment more than anything

The french eshop had the following series:

Nisekoi

Professor Layton

Little Battlers Experience

Rock Lee (Manga spinoff)

Blue Exorcist

Monster Hunter Flash

Inazuma Eleven

Beyblade Metal Fusion

Beyblade Shogun Steel

List of series originally found on GBAtemp by user "Asia81"

I did go ahead and verify this list and indeed. this was everything that came out of this in france.

All of these with various amounts of volumes released. I believe the series with the most volumes on the service was that of beyblade metal fusion at a whopping 11 Volumes

What an odd bunch. France never got Dokodemo Honya san in any shape or form. only these series.

I wonder if the experiement worked out in any way.

Something I find wierd is that some of the ones here never got a Dokopon release in Japan. They most likely were stuck on Honya San

I sadly dont have any pricing information on these, there is alot I havent been able to find about the french releases... I hope some day more about these comes to light

So what about Japan? well to start, the selection was waaayy bigger

98 volumes of multiple series made it into the eshop. Thats quite a substancial increase.

(The following list is comprised (mostly) by the localised names of the series for the sake of making it easier to read. Romaji will be provided for some so they are easier to look up

and so you can see a few familiar names -w-

its also organized in order of release on the service)

The JP selection was:

Attack on Titan

Love's Reach

Magi

Detective Conan

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Screaming Lessons

DRAGON BALL (colored version)

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid

Monster Hunter Flash

FAIRY TAIL

Yozakura Quartet

Chihayafuru

HUNTERxHUNTER (colored version)

Sweet Devil Laugh - 甘い悪魔が笑う

Today, Our Love Begins (Kyō, Koi o Hajimemasu)

Grandpa Danger

Kuroko's Basketball

Kitchen Princess

Hiyokoi

My Little Monster (Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun)

Hell Girl

Hell Girl R

Thermae Romae

Stardust Wink

MONSTER HUNTER EPIC

Ro-Kyu-Bu!

Lotte's Toy!

Spice and Wolf

Ayakashi Hiougi - あやかし緋扇

The World God Only Knows

Monster Hunter Orage

1st grade, 5th group, Ikimono-gakari - 1年5組いきものがかり

Kings of My Love - Oresama Kingdom

Hozuki's Coolheadedness - Hōzuki no Reitetsu

Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple - Shijō Saikyō no Deshi Kenichi

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches

BLACK BIRD

Space Brothers - Uchū Kyōdai

We Were There - Bokura ga Ita

Tonari No Atashi - 隣のあたし

Shugo Chara!

Kids on the Slope

Inazuma Eleven

Lucky☆Star

Super Mario-kun

Blood Lad

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya

Sgt. Frog

Gakuen Basara

Nobunaga Concerto

Mushishi

Monster Hunter Play Manga

To Love-Ru (color version)

Prince & Hero - Ouji to Hero

Jimikoi

2.5D Boyfriend - 2.5 Jigen Kareshi

iShoujo - i・ショウジョ (color version)

I”s

Aoha Ride - Ao Haru Ride

Ane Doki

Ichigo 100% (color version)

Tokyo Ghoul Remastered Edition

Hatsukoi Limited.

Nisekoi

MY GOD thats alot more stuff than the french eshop

Something I would like to note is that these were sold as multi packs on the eshop. Tonari no Atashi has a Vol.1-10 pack which retailed at ¥4,400

The prices for the packs with multiple volumes are all over the place but they tend to float arround ¥1,800 to ¥5,125

Price depends on the amount of volumes offered and the series.

Jimikoi and 2.5D boyfriend were the cheapest of the entire lot at ¥400 and ¥880 respectively

And the most expensive release was in fact Tokyo Ghoul Remastered at a whopping ¥7,000 for Volume 1-14

Source

The list here did not include prices because most of these had multiple... multi packs like dragon ball.

Dragon Ball had like 1 pack for every arc and that would have been a pain to keep up with. maybe some other time I will go ahead and organize that info.

Something I found interesting is how the file size for the JP manga are considerably bigger than that of the french releases, most likely due to the french releases not being in multi packs.

The French releases were 75 MB a pop. No multi packs to my knowledge.

While the japanese releases often go over 200 MB. Most likely due to having most of the volumes in one singular download.

Keep in mind that the list here is only for what was on Dokopon Choise. Dokodemo Honya-San had even more things... but sadly due to the nature of it being a digital platform and its downloadable content not being shown on the eshop... I cant find more info on what was on the service...

Most I have is tweets of people talking about the service.

I found a tweet that showed how JOJO was on the service, ive seen tweets mentioning people reading nichijou on the service too

Photo by Twitter user: TOUTO_jojoDR

Original Tweet

I also sadly I cannot check on the application itself due the service shutting down and no clear archive of this stuff being out there. some day ill find a way to look more into this

Dokopon Choise got new releases from 2013 all the way to 2016.

Last release being Nisekoi in Japan.

I sadly dont have data on when they released for french audiences, I just have data on the JP releases.

All of the releases under Dokopon Choises were removed from the eshop in January 31, 2019

Source

and subsequently, Dokodemo Honya-San got removed in 2020

Users could buy manga up to February 28, 2020

And they could redownload their stuff up to July 30, 2020

Source

Luckily for anyone who purchased content on the 3DS, they had a chance to move their 3DS library to their web library.

Honya San wasnt only on 3DS, same as HONTO, it had a web client under the name Dokodemo Bookstore

To my knowledge it seems like users who still have the app, on their 3DS, with downloaded books can enjoy them just fine.

And despite Librika merging with MEDIA DO in 2019, it seems like Librika still operates their digital bookstore to this day on mobile platforms.

What an odd piece of nintendo history isnt it.

I thought I was going to make a short post for once but no I ended up having to do a bunch of research for this. Because if I didnt... who was going to talk about the damm book services on 3DS.

I think making the list of manga on the service was the worst part.

But yeah! I recommend giving these a shot! even if you dont understand japanese, its still really cool being able to show off manga on your 3DS outside of the homebrew manga reader.

Ima leave this off with two silly tweets about boobs being uncensored on the release of Dragon Ball on the platform lmao.

"What the Hell! The 3DS is increasingly becoming a wonderful piece of hardware that creates special fetishes in children!!"

That is going to live in my head rent free for a month LMAO

[thecolorfulloko]

its modelo time she said

the following takes place close enough to hear the waves break natural oils salt washed and golden skin sun baked our dirty heads soaking up the minerals together sinking into the water and drying out on the sand where the living breathing ocean spares us from going any further beached as it made for the shore stacks of buildings strand along the coast in one of many communities that carve into the edge of her country here ive headed for the summer already mistaken for a native she let me crash in her hammock introduced me to her circle i dont know why i fool myself everyone is only out to see her shes got connections all around the square social currency to get us into the best parties well spent on the most potent i can experience we’re polishing our third eyes picking up higher vibrations wiping away the clouds my mind has a clear view im looking down at the deep like a wellness retreat i found it making sense the rush in my heart when i hear the soul in her records beats to fall in love to what she produces is plentiful a shine she carries bright a glow to her face that reflects shes got the right idea and she really means it and im convinced of the magic she possesses its a potion given in small doses shes sweet as sapote now sometimes its her that i crave we sat on the curb in the plaza she promises she can heal me with herbs the right frequencies and meditation ritualistic methods of relaxation consuming ceremoniously proper respect for the dead before we kiss the especial we can reach the gods and make an offering our devotion through these spiritual interfaces reading from her book of hymns the goal is for the sermons to travel all throughout collective consciousness music is the best way to spread the word i asked for some recommendations she made me a sample worthy mixtape i saved it in my song machine a composer and singer, yours truly and i havent died yet just let me come up a little watch me turn the switch insert the tape set the levels on the EQ now we're talking we style like dub all-stars we've got creative control as long as we hold those crystals we can sustain and we can endure turning up the volume a little ghetto blasting the streets like this swimming through this heat even when the lights turn on up until then we were casual my gold under an open collar the short skirt for Milena my comments were at least respectful and we got down drunker than ever staying out late as we wanted restless legs in the night clubs frame by frame   flashes of her dancing closer to me then it got darker i was close to blacking out but from what i can remember the pitch was lower the tempo was slower i made the move she held on like i was saying goodbye her tears pressed against my cheek thats when she let go of my hand knowing we were more than friends i guess shes better off with her backup plan but her gentleman still bites his tongue and that girl looks cute with anyone even as her relationship began to stagnate a harsh contrast to the honeymoon phase it can be such an ugly feeling to betray Milena says she will love the best she can so this is how it ends and this is how i romanticize everything was perfect for a while everything was right when we were alone i returned still tripping on my feelings drifting in and out of regret staying awake to all of the noise in my head losing touch and recovering from the withdrawals a ways away and im near sighted shes out of focus a million miles from her and i was tempted to send my love but like all my former sidekicks the years passed and corrected dressing us definitely theres no going back and no more rewinding our soundtrack i stopped the tape and put in another   proud of myself for going this far being like i want everyday without a fantasy reality is a fruit ripe to eat oxygen is delicious repeating my affirmations until i fall sleep sometimes dreaming of Milena im swinging in that hammock carried away by the stars underneath my eyelids and i can still taste the sea on my lips

[tristan-v-saxophone]

Psalm

A Love Supreme, Pt. IV - Psalm

Without a question, this is my favorite track from my favorite Coltrane Album. Between the free nature of time and expression and the powerful background, listening to this track can only be described as a Spiritual Journey.

But what is it that makes "A Love Supreme" such an experience? As said, it really stems from two factors, Freedom and Meaning, both of which are incredibly deep.

Freedom. The freedom to express one's music separate from time and tonality, that is the true musical freedom. Many cats have done this, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Peter Brötzmann, but none compared to the freedom Coltrane displays in "Psalm". The roll of the timpani, the open tones being played by the piano, a perfect setting for the gorgeous improvised melody being played by Trane. The very first notes create a simple melody, of just four notes. Coltrane, unlike much of his playing, chooses to say very little, creating small but powerful statements. To do this, Coltrane plays his notes with a soft tone quality and a lot of rubato. His soft tone and stretched melody over the ambiguous timpani rolls exposes the listener to his inner emotions, in this case, his thankfulness to God. His use of very 'open' sounding intervals, like fourths, fifths, and minor thirds, give his melodies a sort of hymnal feel. As he plays, he increases intensity, through volume, range, timbre, and pacing. He stretches his phrases less, his sound gets brighter, more brilliant, and he begins to push into the high range of the saxophone. As he does this, the rhythm section simply follows him, allowing him to play whatever he feels, allowing him to truly play as free as possible. These elements create an incredibly open and spiritual feeling soundscape in which Coltrane can say very little and have it mean far more than if he'd played a lot of notes. Of course, the freedom alone doesn't make 'Psalm' great, it's also the depth of the meaning, a thank you to God.

What makes the melodies Coltrane plays so powerful, beyond the music aspect, is that he is playing lyrics, to a poem thanking God for his life and his music. Knowing this elevates the listening experience from one of experiencing Coltrane's exploration of his sound, to one of Coltrane telling a story. His performance is so effective that while listening, if you read the poem alongside the track, you experience hearing the lyrics he is playing on the saxophone. Coltrane put his soul into this track, and it shows, elevating "A Love Supreme Pt. 4 - Psalm" to one of the few tracks I believe to be a spiritual experience.

[roger-that-cap]

tolerate it

part 2/2 of cardigan!

so, this is the follow up to my first ever one shot (guess not anymore LMAO) up here! i sincerely hope that you guys like this, because it was like pulling teeth for this one. every now and again i’d find a golden one and smack it in there and hope that one decent line made up for all the others.

natasha romanoff x fem!reader

this was the hardest thing ive ever had to write (simply because there was so much emotion in it and it was hard to reel myself back in just to cast out again) and i had to write a paper on nathaniel hawthorne.

warnings: pretty angsty for me, bittersweet, um- why do i write angst, DRAMATICS hahaha

word count: 4.5k!

would like to remind you that i do not own taylor swift songs! this one borrows a little from tolerate it, the best song on evermore imho (tied with coney island).

You knew that opening the door was going to be a hard part, but what you didn’t prepare for was actually listening to her. You could have stared at her for eternity in silence, just harping on everything good and bad that ever happened between the two of you. You could imagine a thousand different scenarios where the two of you were happy and none of this had occurred, but that wasn’t the case. She didn’t come to you to stare and leave.

“Thank you,” Natasha said, her voice throaty as she took a cautious first step into your space. Your space. It sounded weird, and you knew that it felt weird to her. You two had shared everything for the longest, and now you had your own place to live in. “Thank you for letting me in.”

“You came to talk,” you said, wrapping your arms around yourself protectively, and she didn’t miss the obvious tell of your body language. “I won’t make you waste your time. Say your piece, and then...” you trailed off, both of you knowing full well where you were going with it. 

“Can I just start with the fact that I’m so sorry,” she blurted, and you have her an unamused look as you sat on your couch, and she sat on the edge of it. “And that I don’t know why that happened. I don’t expect for you to ever forgive me, and I don’t forgive myself. I won’t ever forgive myself for hurting you so badly, and having such a lapse in judgement. I’m sorry.”

“What was it that was different?” You asked, the question that had been haunting you for a while now finally escaping your lips. When she gave you a confused look, you stared back at her. “What was so different about whatever happened on the mission?”

You didn’t ask what you did wrong, because you didn’t do anything wrong. It took you weeks to know that, weeks to come to the conclusion, but you knew. It wasn’t anything that you lacked, it was something that Natasha did. Whether it was loyalty, restraint, a moral compass, or even something else, you didn’t think that it was you.

“There was nothing different.”

You were trying to hold it together, but you knew that you were seconds from falling apart right in front of the person who had destroyed you. “You don’t have to lie.”

She made a face. “There wasn’t. There was nothing about her that was better than you, I swear.”

But there was nothing different. There was nothing different in the way that you held her to the way that Abigail did, then. There must have been nothing different in the way that you kissed her in the morning. Nothing special about how you would dance with her on the third of the month simply because you liked the number three. There was nothing special about the way you held her hand and rubbed her back and sometimes sang her to sleep when she needed it. And there was certainly nothing different or special about the way that you let her put her head on your chest, just so that she could hear your heart beating.

Maybe what you did was different or special to you and not to her. And maybe it was time for you to finally realize it, whether it hurt or not.

Your emotions were threatening to come through, and you couldn’t have that happen. “I thought you came to talk. Talking requires truth.”

“I did,” she rushed, and then she sighed and wiped her palms on her thighs. You knew what that was. Of course you knew what she was. That was her being nervous. “I just wanted you to know that I love you, I love you so much, no matter what you choose. I never meant for any of it to happen, and I hate myself for making you feel that way.”

“You knew what happened with the others,” you said, and you knew that she knew that you were talking about the men who used to cheat on you without thinking twice. You saw her wince. “You knew how I felt about dishonesty. You knew how long it took me to be fully trusting of you, and you ruined it for two months of fun?”

“I know I did.”

“Do you know that, Natasha?” You asked, your voice starting to raise a bit. “I trusted you, and then I gave you everything I had. There wasn’t a piece of me that wasn’t for you, don’t you get that? I painted a portrait of us with the best colors I had and you opened the door on me doing the finishing touches and threw black paint over it.”

She was surprised that you were actually allowing yourself to be angry, and that made you even more upset. You were allowed to be pissed. “I’m sorry,” she breathed out, a thin layer of tears in her eyes.

“I did- I had everything lying out on the table for you emotionally. It was wrapped so pretty for you when I helped you through your own stuff, and it waited until you were ready. There wasn’t a thing you didn’t know, not a secret kept from you. And I still can’t believe that you returned me being in love with you, with that.”

“It didn’t mean anything to me. None of it meant anything to me at all, I swear.”

“It meant something to Abigail,” you said, and you saw her flinch. “It meant something to the girl that told you that she loved you. And if I’m not mistaken, you told her the same. So did it really not mean something, or are you an even larger liar than I thought?”

“It didn’t mean anything.” For a spy, she was quite easy to read. Or maybe you just spent so much time knowing her that it was impossible to not know her inside and out. You knew her every movement that she made when she lied, and you knew what she looked like when she was telling the truth. This, this wasn’t it.

And it destroyed you.

“Don’t you understand how that feels? It feels like being cut a thousand times by the fancy blade that you made yourself. It feels like being bitten by your own dog. It feels like being nearly drowned in the oceans that you’ve swam in for forever. We were so close! We were so close that I was sure that we were predestined or some of that cheesy shit, Natasha. I could have sworn that we were meant for each other, but now I know that we were, because the betrayal that you did cut me down into a million pieces. That was something that neither of the others were able to do. That’s something that only you could do, and I trusted you not to do it. I never thought you could do it. I thought that you loved me far too much to pull the shit that you did.

“Maybe I was foolish enough to make the knife right in front of you, but I trusted you to know it was there and not use it against me. And you still stabbed me with it.” Your voice cracked and you could feel warm tears falling into your hand, but you didn’t care. You had to keep going. “How could you see me give and give and give to you, for you, and then tolerate it and go see someone else?”

She was breathing heavily after your rant, like she had spoken the words instead. A singular tear came down her face, and you thanked whoever was sitting above and watching for the crack in her mask. You were begging to see her half as emotional as you, half as hurt by her own actions.

You knew that it was different when you saw her wipe her tear. She never wiped her tears around you. You were the only one who got to see them, but you supposed not even you were allowed to see it anymore.

“I can’t even begin-” her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I regret what happened.”

“How do you regret-” you pursed your lips and shook your head, closing your eyes for a second as your heart clenched. “How do you regret falling in love with someone?”

“I don’t love her-”

“Do you love me?” You asked.

“More than I love anything else in the entire world.”

“You loved her more if you risked me losing me, Natasha.” You said, and her brows shot up at your conclusion. “You know what would happen if you did that to me and I found out. You knew you would lose me, and you did it anyway. So you two must have had something special. Congrats.”

“No, you’re-”

The temper that you tried to keep in check was bubbling over again, and you realized that there was no checking yourself. “Do you know how long I waited for you and never cheated? Never had sex with anyone else, never went on a date with anyone else? For just as long as you were supposed to! And I managed! So what’s wrong with you?”

“Y/N, I think we should calm down a little. Let’s talk it out for a second.”

“I’ve been talking it out. All by myself, actually, because you’re too afraid to do a damn thing and admit that you fucked up for two months straight.” You closed your eyes again as you felt the hurt come back up. “How do I know it was just that time? How do I know that?”

There was a silence that spoke volumes. “You don’t.”

“And what if we got back together, after all of this?” It was hypothetical, but seeing the hope perk up in her sparked something that you hadn’t felt towards her in forever. Or, you had, it was just smothered by the heat of your fury. “How would I know that you aren’t off pulling the same thing you did earlier?”

“You’d have to trust me.”

“Well, I can’t do that. I literally can’t,” you cried out, putting your head in your hands and shaking you head. It was quiet except for the sounds of your cries, and it was ominous. There was never a quiet moment between you and Natasha, but you were dying out, fizzling away. You already had your Big Bang, now you were creating black holes that would forever remain on opposite sides of the universe. And you both knew it.

“You- you humiliated me,” you shook your head from left to right again, face still hidden. “You had an affair with a younger girl, you did it in front of the people I shared a living space with. You did it shamelessly in front of the people I cooked meals for every day, the people who’s fucking uniforms I ironed! They were my friends too, Natasha, and you humiliated me. You made them keep your dirty secret, did you apologize to them?”

“I haven’t spoken to them much.”

“I had to figure out from Pepper in front of the wedding dress store,” you continued, your throat tightening. “I was there getting the dress that I was going to walk down the aisle in. Everything was perfect, and then you did something that shattered what I thought couldn’t be broken.” You had thought that you and Natasha were rock solid, the hardest stone. You two were diamonds that sparkled and prevailed together, until you learned that you were truly just glass.

She leaned forward, giving you a look that you knew meant honesty. But it was far too late for that, and it wasn’t going to do Natasha much good now. “I wish every second of the day that I didn’t do it, Y/N. Every second of every day.”

Your lips turned into a scowl. “Wishing doesn’t do anything for us. We’re not little kids and we’re not princesses.”

That word, wishing, must have been the one to do her in, because she was sobbing right into her own sleeve, an arm covering her eyes from your sight. Your tears were subsiding, and you watched her with thinly pressed lips. Watching her cry was never pleasant.

“I’m so, so sorry. I can’t- I can’t imagine how you must feel, but I’m so sorry. I don’t know why- I can only apologize to you and beg that you’ll welcome me back to you, where I’m supposed to be.” Your eye twitched as you listened, and told yourself to keep your strength up. “I fucked up. I fucked up so bad, baby, but I know now. I know who I’m meant to be with, and it wasn't her. It’s you, it always has been.”

You knew that. You had always known that. It was a fact, something that had always rang as true as the beating of your own heart. You knew that it was written in the stars for you by some gracious god who decided to reveal what could have been your present and future to you, but you guess the other half of the tale never saw it herself. She knew now, sure. But she learned a little too late for your taste.

“Please, you have to know. You have to know that I didn’t- that I would never do it again.” 

How could you tell someone that their apology wasn’t enough? How could you reject someone when they were at their lowest point? How were you going to find the strength in yourself to turn down the woman that you still very much loved? The one that you thought that you lost to another was right in front of you, begging for a second chance, but was it right for you to give it to her?

But how could she see you at your most vulnerable every day and know that you loved and cared for her with your whole heart and still do what she did? How was she okay with ruining you after all that you had been through? How did she not feel bad for two months about betraying the one person who she knew would be forever in her corner?

Whatever her method was to do things that hurt the people she supposedly loved, she found a way. And so would you.

“Have you said what you needed to?” You asked, your tone slow and deliberate as you fought for your tears not to ruin your words. Just as slowly, she nodded. “Then, please leave.”

A noise left her throat. “Please, wait. Wait.”

“There’s nothing left to say, Nat. We said it all.” You stood up, and she followed. “Fix your relationships at the tower, alright?”

“Don’t,” she muttered, tears streaming down her face. “Please don’t tell me that you don’t want to try and then act like you care about me.”

You both walked to the door, because you knew that I the end she would do what you asked of her. “We were friends first.” You insisted. “We were friends first, Natasha, so I care. So, because we were friends first, I’ll tell you to get better. Work on yourself. Fall in love with someone else. Maybe not with two people at the same time.”

Her face was utterly pitiful. Her eyes were watering in a way you had never seen them do before, and her hands were shaking. You had seen the most of Natasha that anyone had in the entire world, yet you had never seen her so torn apart, so open. She laid it all out for you like you had been doing for her for years, and now you were finally the one to ruin the pretty picture. “Please.” 

As soft as a gentle breeze came your next word. “No.” You yanked your apartment door open, and then you were both shivering. She looked up at you, her face full of an expression of the most shattered you had seen her yet, and the part of you that still ached prayed that it would be the last time you would ever see her at all.

Your body moved on its own. It asked for one more point of contact, just one more before you deprived yourself from the person you loved the most. Your lips pressed against the crown of her head as you told yourself it was for your own good. Your eyes shut as you put your hands on her shoulders, and tears were turning spots of her red hair dark. She was shaking underneath you, crying even harder than you were. You pulled away from her and opened the door wider.

“Wish you all the best, Nat.”

She walked away, off of your porch and into the night. You shut the door.

§§

You figured that you would miss her, but it wasn’t as bad as it was in the early part of leaving. By the time you moved on, it was far past the date of the wedding and even further past your anniversary. Sometimes it still hurt to think about how your life could have been had she chosen to stay faithful, but you learned that the scenarios hurt more than they helped and stopped.

You had a steady job, could keep up with the rent on your apartment, had enough for groceries and even had spare to get your nails done if you wanted to. You were doing it all, and you were doing it well after being attached at the hip to someone else for years and years.

There was a time where you would have thought that living without Natasha would be excruciating. The first night after you stormed out and cried yourself to sleep, you were sure that it would be painful, every night without her next to you would be like a stab in the gut. But after a while, it really wasn’t.

At first, it was. You missed her terribly, and, a part of you still did. You missed the good things that happened, but you realized that the good didn’t erase the bad, and that the bad didn’t erase the good. So, after a long time of thinking about her, your stance on Natasha Romanoff wasn’t hateful, or upset, or vengeful. You barely had one.

You thought about her and saw a book that you had finished reading a long time ago. Impactful at the time you read it, of course, and it could leave a longing imprint, but it was over. You could never relive that exact moment ever again that you read her, not a good one or a bad one. The hardest, most intense part of it was over, so far behind you that you could breathe again. 

And damn, did it feel good to breathe. 

§§§

Seeing her was awkward, and it was something that came straight out of your outdated imagination. You were by yourself buying apples at the market that you always went to because you adored fresh fruit, checking for bruises on them that were never there. You were carrying four in a bag with a content look on your face, just walking around and looking at other fruits and vegetables when you felt someone’s eyes on you. You looked up.

Sam Wilson was looking right at you, his jaw a little slack as he recognized you. You hadn’t seen him since you stormed out of the compound god knows how long ago. Within seconds, your life at the tower and memories with him flashed in your head. You two would cook together side by side often, and that's where you would do most of your bonding and talking with him. Your heart clenched for a moment, and then you raised the hand that wasn’t occupied and gave him a wave and a half smile, one that you hoped told him that you weren’t angry.

You looked back to the vegetables and then at the sign on the table. Damn, that’s kind of expensive. You shrugged your shoulders and put the greens on the weighing machine anyway, and pulled the money out of your purse for it. You smiled at the vendor and left with your new bag, wiggling your eyes at the strawberry table and starting your approach. 

“Hi,” an achingly familiar voice called out while you were steps away from the table of deliciously red strawberries. You could smell them from where you were at. You turned around still, even after easily identifying who the voice belonged to. “How are you?”

She was as beautiful as ever, the top of her head under a blue ball cap and her eyebrows perfectly done. Her eyes were hidden by shades, but you didn’t need to see them to know what she was thinking. Her arms were loose at her sides, but her fingers were moving strangely, and you noticed them immediately as her nervous tick. You took in a deep breath. 

“I’m good, how about you?” You asked Natasha back, and she gave you a pained smile.

“I’m alright.”

“Oh, sweet,” you said, and then gave her a parting smile before turning towards the strawberries.

“Wait,” she called out.

You stopped and turned your head, even though you wanted more than anything to forget that you ran into her. “Yes?”

There was a moment of silence between you two, and then she took a step forward. “Are you still upset?” She asked, voice lower in volume than usual. 

You almost scoffed at her. “I’m an adult, I can’t really be sad for long or I’ll forget to pay a bill or something.”

“Can we talk?” She started, and you held up a hand.

“Let’s not open up old wounds,” you said, already knowing exactly where she was going with all of her hesitance and fiddling with her thumbs.

“I need to apologize for what happened.”

You shrugged. “I forgive you. Actually, I forgave you weeks and weeks ago. It’s okay. We can move on from it.” We need to move on from it. 

You saw your old lover’s face light up in just the slightest, but just as fast as you saw it, it was gone. Her lack of wanting to express to you didn’t hurt anymore. “We?”

“We can move on,” you repeated, “just not together.” Her face dropped at what you said, and you shrugged your shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, I fucked up.”

Yes, you did. “It’s in the past now.”

There was a pause, and you could hear your heartbeat in your ears. You wondered when your heart started to beat on its own again and not for the woman standing so close yet so far away. You wondered when you started to do anything for just yourself, and you wondered when you had stopped doing that in the first place. Her voice brought you out of your thoughts. “Is it?”

You almost had to ask her to remind you what the conversation was about. “Oh. It is,” you said gently, but your voice was still stern. “All good things must come to an end, and what we had was good. It was great, and that must have meant that we were destined to end fast.”

She shook her head slightly. “If you- if you forgive me, it doesn’t have to be over.”

“It does.” You looked at your phone and sighed. “I have to leave.”

“Okay,” She said softly after a moment, and finally took a step back. It was a small one, like her body was trying to override her brain. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you, Nat.” You saw her wince, and if you hadn’t made peace with everything, you would have, too.

She took another step back and cleared her throat, just as Sam started making his way over. She nodded at you, and you gave her a small smile, almost encouraging. Just walk away, this is the last time you’ll have to do it. “Later,” She said, her voice a little hoarse as she turned on her heel and walked right past Sam.

“Later” meant never. And you didn’t know if you were supposed to feel nothing or everything about it.

§§§

The last time you saw Natasha Romanoff was a year later, when you were holding hands with a pretty woman from an art show that you went to. She stole your heart with her work, and she turned out just as beautiful on the inside as she was with a brush, and on the outside. Her name was Julie, and she was great. She was honest. 

You really liked Julie. She wasn’t Natasha, though, and it was both refreshing and saddening, because you knew that what you felt with Natasha was a one time thing. You two had one chance to keep the bond that was seemingly inseparable and stronger than steel together, and everyone was rooting for you. And then, it just fell apart.

You knew that Natasha was your first actual love, and the only person who was ever going to be able to love you emotionally like you needed to be. The two of you were, in your mind, made for each other. If soulmates existed, Natasha would have been yours, and you would have been hers. You knew that even five years after not being with her, and while the hole in your heart wasn’t hollow, you had a feeling that a little something was always going to be cold, like a cavity that was never filled. Someone saying her name or asking about her was like chewing ice on it.

But people moved on. Just like you did. And you had moved on from the beautiful yet icy mountains of Natasha and into a soft and whimsical meadow, and that meadow was Julie. 

You were holding hands with Julie, arms swinging as you were leaving the donut shop and talking about silly things that made the both of you grin when you caught a familiar flash of red. Out of instinct, you looked over your shoulder, and what you saw made you freeze.

Natasha Romanoff was with a girl with brown skin and black hair that was glinting in the sunlight, and she wasn’t focused on the way that you and Natasha locked eyes in that moment, the moment that seemed to last years. You didn’t think you were still moving, and it certainly didn’t feel like you were taking a step, but you were. You saw her blue-green eyes blink at you, and like you were still stuck on the same wavelength after all that time, you both raised a hand and gave a timid wave, small smiles gracing the both of your faces.

You saw the girl tug lightly on Natasha’s arm, and your grin stretched. Natasha looked over at the girl, and an immediate smile, one similar but not quite the same as she used to give to you, was on her face. You turned your head forward, a light smile still on your own face as you watched it all happen in a split second.

You both kept walking.

*****

ahahaha wow, that hurt really bad actually - never doing angst again i’m a fluffy type of gal

so i’ve never done a taglist before! so i hope i’m doing it right otherwise this’ll make me look incredibly dumb-

@messuhp @username23345 @fishlikestuff @thelastavenger-3000 @grievingfortheliving @madamevirgo @dontmindmejustreading @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @sourpatchspinster @fayhar @sarcasticallywitty15 @normanijauregui

[apollos-garden]

Thrall

A/N: in this, you’re an Avenger who has atmospheric / air manipulation powers. So basically you can move air, shove air, make a high/low pressure bubble, make a force field of wind, etc. 

Word count: 1878

Summary: mind controlled Bucky is ordered to fight you

The metal-paneled hallway was silent as you snuck along the side. You’d successfully retrieved the element core from under heavy guard at one of HYDRA’s last bases without notice. Just a bit longer, and you’d get outside. Tony’s quinjet was as close as possible to the base without triggering the sensors, about a 3 minute run. At the end of the hallway, you saw Bucky waiting to make sure you weren’t ambushed and cornered in the narrow corridor. You quickened your steps, eager to get away from the flickering fluorescent lights and eerie echo. Suddenly, the speakers in the ceiling came on with a crackle. 

Was that... Russian? “Желание. Ржавый...” You slowed in confusion, but Bucky’s eyes widened in horror before you could register the pattern. “No!” he shouted, plugging his ears in a desperate attempt to override the code, but the volume was deafening. “...Возвращение на Родину. Один...” In a last-ditch attempt to interrupt the sequence being read out, you sent a bolt of high pressure air hurtling towards the nearest speaker, crumpling it, but the others lining the hallway were more than loud enough to compensate. “Товарный вагон.” Silence resumed for a moment before Bucky straightened. “Я готов отвечать.” Ready to comply. 

Your heart sank. “Bucky, pl-.” You were cut off by the voice in the ceiling. “Dispatch subject in possession of element core and return it to the base center. Do not damage the core.” Bucky’s eyes locked onto you, and he raised his gun. Panicking, you threw up a force field. It held off the first spray of bullets, but in a confined and stuffy area like this, it wouldn’t last for long. You needed to get outside. The door was in your line of sight, directly behind Bucky. That was the problem. Strengthening the field as much as possible, you slowly began advancing towards him. 

As you got closer, the bullets’ ricochet paths started veering dangerously close to Bucky. Realizing this, he positioned the gun back across his shoulders and swapped to his knife. Bucky kicked the force field right in the middle, and although the winds spun his foot off, it wavered, weakened from the bullets. After absorbing another kick and two punches from his metal arm, the rushing air finally flickered down. You were completely unprotected. You had a knife in your belt and some explosive beads in a satchel, but even as you reached for the blade you knew you wouldn’t be able to hurt him. 

Bucky jabbed with the knife at your stomach and you sent a focused burst of air hurtling towards the blade, averting it at the last second. Your mind raced, trying to come up with any strategy to get to the door. Narrowly dodging an elbow to the face, you saw your window. Shoving him to the side with a gust of wind, you launched yourself past him, diving onto the hard floor. Rolling, you made a mad dash for the door. You heard a whooshing noise and your left calf erupted in pain, his knife clattering to the ground. Stumbling, you reached for the door handle when you heard the characteristic click of a gun cocking. 

You threw up a force field behind you, blocking a stream of bullets. You reached blindly for the door handle behind you, tugging it open. As you turned, a bullet ricocheted past the wall of wind and ripped into your right side as you almost fell outside, slamming the door behind you. Shaking, you reached for your radio. “Tony, Bucky got triggered and is trying to get the core back. I can’t hold him back for long. I need you to pick me up.” Not waiting for a response, you ran to a nearby tree, crouching behind it just as Bucky burst through the door. If you got the chance to form a low-pressure partial vacuum around his head, you might be able to make him pass out from hypoxia. You held out your hands, hiding them as best you could in the brush around the tree, and began to form the vacuum. Focused on tracking the blood drops you left in the muddy grass, Bucky didn’t notice the faint blurry film cast over his vision. 

The sound of the rain pattering on leaves masked your heavy breathing. Your vision was also starting to blur, but from blood loss and exhaustion. The bubble had sealed, and oxygen levels should have fallen enough to be noticeable. And noticed it was. Bucky clawed at the bubble, but since it was just air, there was nothing to punch through. Unfortunately, he realized that he needed to find you before his air ran out at the same time that the blood trail ended right in front of you. Your eyes locked. 

You formed your third force field just in time to block a kick that would have hit you square in the nose. It was stronger now, with the storm and free air, but you weren’t sure how long you could hold it and maintain the vacuum. Time to try something different. Hooking your foot around Bucky’s ankle, you took advantage of his air-deprived dizziness to flip him onto the ground, slamming his head onto a tree root. Summoning a concentrated force field around both his wrists, you kept both hands pinned to the ground. He strained against it and your head pounded with how much force you needed to exert to keep him there. Blood trickled from your nose. This could last for 10 seconds, tops. 

Your head snapped up as blasters started firing from the rooftop of the base at the approach of Tony’s quinjet. By this time, Bucky definitely should have passed out. You turned your gaze back to Bucky just to see his metal arm rip through its confine, and then the other one. With alarm, you saw no sign of the bubble you had put in place. It must have fizzled out when you had to focus so much power on keeping Bucky restrained. You raised your hands to cast yet another force field to hold until the quinjet landed, but they shook badly and all you managed was a feeble puff. Bucky unslung his gun from his shoulders and you dive away, but a round of bullets rip into the air and one lodges into your bicep. You look up to the quinjet to see Hawkeye on the hatch shoot an arrow into Bucky’s leg. The last thing you see before your vision fades to black is Bucky crumpling to the ground next to you and Cap leaping from the quinjet. 

________________________________

You slowly open your eyes. Your head feels pleasantly fuzzy, almost warm. As you open your eyes, some of that fogginess morphs into nausea. You’re in the quinjet. It’s quiet, the only noise the whir of the turbines and the splashing of rain on the roof and windows. Taking a deep breath, you push up onto your elbows. Your abs and arm burn, but thankfully the painkillers flowing down the IV line in your wrist numb most of the pain. “Woah, sit back down!” came a voice from behind you. You turn your head to see Natasha. “Oh. Hey, Nat.” 

“Lie. Back. Down.” Geez, okay. You settle back onto the medical cot. Natasha dragged her chair over to you. “How’re you feeling?” You smirked. “Actually, pretty okay. This is some heavy stuff. Maybe I should get shot more often.” Natasha just raises an eyebrow at you. The memory of what happened gradually returns as you shake free from the analgesic mental fog. “Um, how’s Bucky? I saw him get nailed by Hawkeye.” Nat sighs. “Well, he’s fine physically. That was a hollow arrow filled with a fast-acting sedative, just to get him out of Winter Soldier mode. Mentally... well, he’s outside. Do you want to talk to him?”

You nodded, biting your lip in concern. Natasha got up and dipped around the door, saying something. Once she was gone, you sat up, leaning against the wall for support. After a moment, Bucky’s head peeked around the door. He didn’t seem like he was going to move. “Hey, Bucky. You can come in, you know.” Slowly, he walked in, stopping near the door. He hugged himself with one arm, holding onto the bicep of his metal arm. He didn’t make eye contact. You tracked his gaze, eyes fixed on the bandages wrapped around your waist and arm. “Don’t worry about those. Bruce used some of his cell matrix regeneration support bandages. I’ve read about them in journals. Bullet wounds don’t even scar over if you get one on fast enough.” Bucky nodded. “Could you maybe come here? I would move but I’m tethered.” You motioned to your wrist. Reluctantly, he walked over and sat where Nat had been.

Bucky still wouldn’t meet your gaze. “Hey. It’s okay. You couldn’t do anything, and I don’t blame you for it.” At that, his eyes snapped up to meet yours. His eyes were red. “Why didn’t you stop me?,” he asked hoarsely. “If Tony had got there any slower, I would have killed you.” You sighed. “I knew if I tried to really hit you, I would have pulled my punches. So then I wouldn’t have made any real attack and I would be close enough for you to really mess me up. Just holding you down and blocking was the only way for me to get out alive. Anyway, we both made it out.” 

“It was this close to only one of us making it out!,” Bucky exclaimed. “I don’t get it. You almost died! Because of me!” His shoulders sagged and you could hear his voice crack. “I thought I lost you.” Bucky looked back up at you, blinking back tears. Some managed to escape and trail down his cheeks. Your own eyes stung seeing Bucky like this. “I’m right here, Bucky. I’m alive and so are you.” You pulled his head forward to kiss his forehead, then wrapped your arms around his neck. “It’s okay.” Bucky let himself be moved without resistance, but his hands wavered before settling on either side of the cot, not wanting to further hurt you. Silently, you lower one hand and intertwine your fingers with his, resting in your lap. 

Eventually, Bucky’s back stopped shuddering with sobs and his breathing evened out. You wiped away residual tears with the back of your hand, gently tugging him next to you on the cot. The combined effect of keeping yourself upright with damaged ab muscles and the steady flow of the painkillers was beginning to take a toll on you, and you leaned a little into Bucky’s side. His brows furrowed in concern. He remained still for a moment before cautiously guiding your head into his lap. “Sorry, I guess these drugs are pretty strong,” you mumbled. “ ’S okay,” Bucky replied, running his fingers through your hair. 

After about thirty seconds, you were already dead asleep. Bucky tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Your pulse was slow but strong and he could just barely feel the beat on his thigh where your neck rested. You both stayed like that, still and safe, until the quinjet landed.

[love-neptune]

bnha x aot au + gn!reader

no bc ive been thinking about this for a lil while...

cont.>>

bnha x aot au but have isayama’s quirk be that anything he writes into the manga is all true and all the characters are real people who disappeared from the bnha universe and sent into the aot universe,,

im thinking he just draws their faces and their names pops up underneath and boom! new character unlocked. also out irl another person goes missing.

the disappearances start gaining media coverage when 4 foreign students, who planned to attend the annual ua visit, go missing after their arrival at the airport (their visit is more like a training camp,, getting to train with new types of quirks and how to become more adaptable to them,, something reasonably ya know?)

this would be their third year going so they’ve really gotten to know 1-a and grew with them until their third year. the four who’d gone missing were part of the few consistent students that came, so seeing reader and their classmates’ faces show up on the news with the words missing underneath really was gut wrenching

of course the class makes an effort to help with the search party or try to be of use to the investigators in charge of the case but they’d always come back to the dorms empty handed.. it was so emotionally draining that they start to feel like shells of their former self,,

then there’s that lingering question, what kind of quirk had been used on the students that kept them from defending themselves? these students were heroes in training so there was no way they’d leave without a fight. nothing seems to add up and it only feeds into the idea that their friends’ case is growing cold.

it hits hard when they near their graduation day and see the director of the foreign student program with a large bag in hand. the director gives them a teary smile

he came with gifts that their friends’ families had sent to the whole class. a thank you for their dedicated search for their children and for wanting to bring them home safely

but life goes on and so do they or at least they’re still trying to. the class graduates, but not without feeling like there should have been 4 more graduates with them and they soon become interns

soon days turn to weeks which turn into months and then low and behold it’s been a good 4 years pass since they graduated ua

a few classmates still hold on to their friends’ missing persons case and even review it as a team now that they’re well known heroes. the few that still look into the case were the closest to the 4 missing students.

todoroki was one of those few, more so with reader than any other of the students, but still he’d do anything to bring them all home

now a day off is rare for such a high ranking hero and usually todoroki likes to spend his off days at home, resting, but this time around he had ran out of mangas to read and to the book store he went

cue the a new manga that catches todoroki’s eye,,

the cover page has a familiar face and at first he doesn’t seem to notice when he’s reaching for the book. all he can focus on are the familiar face that he’s seen so many times on the missing persons report stored away somewhere in his office cabinet

and then he takes a closer look at the cover and pages.. were these hand drawn? was this homemade? it definitely wasn’t up to par with the others beside it. and no author name to claim the work.

he skims through a few pages of the other books and there were the other three he’d been looking for. it leaves him confused, did the family give permission to use their son’s/daughter’s whole identity for some character in a manga?

because he was sure that eren yeager of all people wouldn’t have wanted that. he was sure that yn ln would hardly approve of it either. the author would be caught dead if annie leonhart had heard that her name was in any part of this. maybe jean kirstein would have but what good what it have done to him if he wasn’t here for it?

the gut feeling in todoroki kicks in and all he can think of doing is to buy all the available volumes that the book store has. and surprising enough they have a total of 15 volumes but no more than 2 copies each. not a single copy is left behind.

“oh, im not too sure ya’ll like this one. it isn’t very popular and honestly I’ve been thinking of just returning them to my -.” don’t, todoroki tells the old store owner. the hero comments that he’d be glad to buy any and all copies the man orders and better yet order up to the most recent volume! he bids the cashier a quick ‘goodbye’ and heads straight for his office.

with a quick text to deku and dynamite to meet him in his office, todoroki holds on tight to the two bags filled with manga. he can’t help the sick and twisted feeling that whatever happened to his classmates that day has everything to do with the manga is his hands. and now that they have a possible lead, he’ll be damned if he lets this opportunity slip from him.

[the-littlest-goblin]

Hey! For the WIP thing, e/c college au?

ooh this one’s fun. Shadowgast college/modern with magic au with a whole lot of academic magic talk. Caleb and Essek are research assistants to Yussa and Waccoh, respectively, who are forced to work together on a research project despite their long-standing rivalry. While their bosses go on an enemies-to-colleagues (to lovers, maybe???) journey, Caleb and Essek bond over dunamancy.

I really love this au but it lacks enough plot to justify the worldbuilding, and also parts of it got piecemeal-ed into other fics so it seems kind of redundant now. I haven’t totally given up on it, but it’s definitely on the back burner. since I’m so fond of it, you get a much longer excerpt than necessary: 

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life!” Professor Waccoh announced her arrival by shoving the door open like it had wronged her in a very cruel and personal manner. Yussa stormed in behind her, his robes swishing aggressively, as if they too were possessed with a righteous fury.

“Your plan will never work!” he cried. “The experiment will be over before it begins, because all our materials will have melted.”

“They won’t if we get mithril sheets instead of steel!” Waccoh countered.

“And blow a third of our grant funds on day one? What lunacy!”

Caleb and Essek exchanged long-suffering looks. Their first day as co-lab assistants to the joint research team of Waccoh and Errenis was not looking to be a pleasant one.

“Are we still on for tutoring later tonight?” Essek whispered under the noise of their bosses’ continuing argument.

“Of course,” Caleb answered. They were both standing against the wall at the edge of the lab, awaiting instruction, writing utensils at the ready to take down notes, but neither Yussa nor Waccoh seemed to realize they were even in the room. They had eyes only for each other.

“Of course we have to enchant the materials first! It will be so much easier than waiting until everything is assembled!”

“So what am I supposed to do, just sit here twiddling my thumbs and wait an eternity for you to cast your stupid spells? No way! I’m building the engine first, then I can move on with my life while you spend another decade enchanting it.”

“If you would just listen to reason, Tuss…”

Essek leaned over to Caleb again. “Perhaps it would be more efficient if we start now?”

Caleb looked up from the cat he’d been doodling in the margins of his notebook. It looked more like a sausage with legs and a tail—he was no Jester.

“What do you mean?”

“Here.” Grabbing his bag in one hand, Essek put the other on Caleb’s elbow and guided him to the next table over. Neither professor commented.

Sitting down, Essek pulled a cinderblock of a textbook out of his bag. The front cover showed a galaxy of stars overlaid with geometric designs and bold, block letters reading: Fundamentals of Dunamancy. And under that, in slightly smaller letters: Leylas Kryn, PhD. It was littered with sticky notes poking out the side of nearly every page.

Essek flipped open to one marking about a fourth of the way through the book, labeled CALEB.

“So,” Essek began, and Caleb scrambled to turn his notebook to a fresh page. “We left off last time talking about dunamis, correct?”

“Yes,” Caleb confirmed. “And the beacons.”

“Right. So you understand the origins of dunamancy.”

“I am a little unclear,” Caleb admitted. Curious, he glanced over to the other side of the lab. Yussa and Waccoh had migrated to the chalkboard, where they appeared to be laying out their respective arguments in bullet-point form. They did not seem to be in need of any assistance. He turned back to Essek.

“The beacons are fonts of magic, but they are also religious relics, correct?”

Essek nodded.

“But dunamancy is an arcane subject,” Caleb continued. “It does not come from worship of this Luxon figure, the way clerical magic is derived from deities. It is a realm of academic study.” Essek nodded again. “So, where does the religious connection come in?”

“Well, you have stumbled upon a matter of great controversy,” Essek answered. “Personally, I believe religion has nothing to do with it. If you ask me, the beacons’ connection to the Luxon is a historical note, a misguided invention from a time with a more primitive understanding of magic. If we were wise, we would disregard any writings that talk of its divine origins and approach the subject from a fresh perspective. But,” Essek mouth twisted into a bitter smile, “if you ask Professor Kryn, you will get a very different answer.”

“I see,” said Caleb, mind whirring as it mulled over the new information.

“But that debate is not essential to our lessons. You don’t need to understand the depths of the beacons in order to practice basic dunamancy. Although, I appreciate your curiosity.” His smile softened as he surveyed Caleb. “You have an uncanny talent for getting directly to the heart of the matter.”

Don’t ask so many questions, Bren.

Caleb blinked hard against the voice echoing at the back of his mind.

“Have these beacons been studied very closely?”

Essek tilted his head to the side, considering. “A bit? It’s difficult, with them being such cherished cultural artifacts. Most of the examination that has been done was conducted by archeologists and historians. A handful of arcanists in recent years, including Leylas, have been permitted to study them, but it’s an extremely thorough vetting process.” He paused, jaw working as though he was unsure about whether to allow the next words past his lips.

“The vetting is mostly done by high level clerics within the worship. I imagine Leylas’ long history of devout practice made them more inclined to allow her access.”

Caleb noted the tinge of sadness—and was that resentment?—in his voice. But Essek was speaking again before he could comment.

“I can send you some articles on the topic, if you wish to investigate further,” he said. “In the meantime, we move forward.”

Though it remained open in front of them, Essek hardly consulted the textbook once as their lesson continued. It was difficult not to pay attention when he talked; the smooth timber of his voice paired with the undeniable enthusiasm he had for the subject kept Caleb enraptured, Even the most basic elements, clearly known by rote, Essek explained with a spark of passion in his eye, which grew brighter with every question or clarification Caleb parried back.

He was an excellent teacher.

They had almost entirely forgotten about the job they were meant to be doing, and their bickering superiors, until over an hour later. While Essek was guiding Caleb through a diagram of common somatic movements for dunamantic spells, Yussa called out,

“Caleb! I need you to go to my office and retrieve my copy of Otiluke’s Guide to Enchantment, Volume IV. I have a point to prove!”

ask game

[prurientpuddlejumper]

A Lipless Face That I Want to Marry, Ch. 1

Chapter 2 ->

Summary: Surviving being bitten and burned alive by the Red Dragon was the easy part. Frederick Chilton has a long road ahead before things will ever be close to normal again. But your fiancé is a fighter, and you’ll be with him the whole way. 

Sequel to A Punchable Face That I Want to Kiss

CW: hospitals, surgery, major injury recovery. Sorry for the silly title, this will, in fact, be an angst-fest. 

2,368 words

He seemed fine that first day—as fine as anyone could be after surviving what he had. His skin was red and cracked from being set on fire, and both his lips had been violently torn off—but they had found him in time. He was in the hospital recovering. Talking. You were able to speak with him, and reassure him that you still wanted to marry him, however long his recovery would take. Lips or no lips. You loved him.

You thought that meant he was going to be fine. The Red Dragon didn’t kill him.

But it wasn’t that simple.

His kidney started failing. Dehydration. He needed a massive amount of IV fluids to replace what he had lost and save him, but that volume of fluid had consequences. It made his body swell up to the point that you couldn’t recognize him—to the point that his airway was swollen closed and he couldn’t breathe on his own. And his single, struggling kidney might fail anyway.

Just a day ago he was talking to you, laughing as you teased him, telling you that you didn’t have to stay with him, and crying when you said you would. You had yelled at him for being such an idiot.

When you walked in the next morning, he was gone.

Overnight, he was like a cadaver, lying unconscious with ventilator and feeding tubes stuffed down his throat. Why did you yell at him?

You were so helpless. There was nothing you could do to make any sort of difference, not even encourage him with tender words or a joke. He couldn’t hear you. He was gone. Every snarky, sassy, smug, self-important, dramatic, gossipy remark was gone—silenced—leaving you with a body and no idea when or if he would wake up. All you could do was watch as he swelled, and hope that the fluids did their job saving his life before they killed him. All you could do was be grateful for every breath, every stubborn heartbeat, and pray they didn’t stop.

A doctor told you his chances of waking up would be slim for a healthy person. With ninety percent of his skin destroyed, bacteria could easily enter his bloodstream, and he could rapidly die of sepsis. The complication of his previous organ damage—especially the kidney Abel Gideon removed—made his probability of recovering next to zero.

“You don’t know what he’s lived through,” you seethed. “He did not survive three different serial killers just to die now. So you are not going to treat him like a lost cause, or…” You tried to think of what he would say, “Or I will sue this hospital for malpractice! That is the renowned psychiatrist and bestselling author Dr. Frederick Chilton, and you will not give up on him.”

Blustering didn’t suit you. And haughty threats couldn’t bring his swelling down. The doctors were doing everything they could, but the internal pressure became too much for him to breathe, even with the assistance of a ventilator and oxygen tubes in his nose. They carted him away to the operating room to cut more holes in him.

All you could do was watch.

“It will cause additional scarring,” a very kind nurse with curly hair explained to you as you blinked vacantly in a waiting room, trying not to break down, “but it should allow his chest to expand and save his life.”

You nodded, arms wrapped around your chest. He wouldn’t even notice a few more in the highway map of scars that his body had become. So long as he survived. You were supposed to get married. You just wanted him to wake up.

  ***

Frederick Chilton awoke in a bare and lonely hospital room.

A nurse came in to check on him after a few minutes of blinking groggily and trying to get his bearings through the static fuzz clouding his mind. She explained what had happened, reviewed the medications he was on, showed him the button to press to call for help, and handed him a remote control. No visitors to announce. No one waiting in the lobby all night, haggard with worry, for him to regain consciousness. No flowers crowding the bedside table.

The small television attached to the far wall, which he could barely see or hear, was less than useless, and the morphine drip prevented him from being able to focus enough to read a book. So he lay in bed, alone, in silence save for the tedious beep of the heart monitor.

It was so dull, he was grateful for having been unconscious for the last thirty hours, which was how long it took for the surgeons to get all the organs back inside of him that Abel Gideon took out, determining which ones were viable to go back, and which would go septic and kill him. Like a jigsaw puzzle. Humpty Dumpty, and not all of the pieces could be put together again.

Days passed, and his only visitor was a police officer there on a formality to take his statement.

He would have thought being disemboweled would make a man more popular. Of course it didn’t. This spared him his pride, at the least—he couldn’t tolerate visitors seeing him pale and clammy-skinned, whimpering with pain in a miserable little hospital gown—and for that he was grateful of his churlish nature, which pushed everyone well past arm’s length.

And yet, he wished they would at least try. He wanted people clamoring at his recovery room door so that he could send them away.

He would never be subjected to the indignity of being seen so weak—and yet, what he wouldn’t give to walk in to his office on his first day back and have all of his employees treat him softly, like he was some fragile thing, and not the tyrant they despised. To have them ask if he was all right.

Why didn’t he have more visitors? More flowers? More cards?

He was not well-liked, but he was distinguished. That warranted somebody stopping by with condolences. It was just that there was so little in his bare hospital room to distract him from the pain.

As the anesthetic wore off, a throbbing soreness radiated out from his abdomen, growing sharper with time. It was agonizing. With every breath, the contracting of his diaphragm and the expanding of his lungs and ribs tormented the stitches in his skin and the abused organs inside. He was either pumped full of so much morphine he couldn’t stay awake, or was clear-headed and wishing they would pump him full of more drugs so he could not be.

His mother sent a card, and so did the staff of the Baltimore State Hospital For The Criminally Insane. Both had flowers on the front, watercolor roses, and flowing script font in gold, and both meant equally little.

Perfunctory.

The one from the hospital had been insisted upon by the administrator, who had forced the staff to sign it. Each message was generic and impersonal, like they’d been taken from a standardized get-well form letter—although a few were kind enough to make him close his eyes and pretend they were genuinely meant for him. “We miss you, and wish you a speedy recovery!” His heart turned to think one of his employees really missed him and looked forward to him returning. He found the name signed under the message. He had no idea who it was, but he was certain he had never spoken to them.

The one from his mother had most likely been picked out by a maid, presented to her to mark her signature, and then mailed by said maid. It served mainly as a reminder that she hadn’t bothered to visit in person.

Both stung more to receive than if he had no cards at all—written proof that the only way anyone cared for him was as a formality.

There was a third card, however. The only one sent by someone who wasn’t socially obligated to.

You.

Unlike the others, it was completely unexpected. Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, or Hannibal Lecter he would have understood, but you were last person he expected to hear from.

It wasn’t even a real card, but printed at home on plain, flimsy printer paper with a cartoon dog wearing a cone-collar that said “Sorry you’re feeling ruff” on the cover. The inside had a short, hand-written message: Glad you didn’t die.

Childish. Cheap. He should have been insulted. The whole thing was obviously intended to convey how little you cared. But he kept the damned thing long after he’d thrown the other two in the trash. He wished you would come visit so he could tell you how tacky you were to your face. Perhaps it was best that you didn’t—he would have wanted to buy himself flowers to fill the room with first, so it wouldn’t seem as if you were the only one who cared, or that your tasteless little gesture was anything of significance to him.

He was Dr. Frederick Chilton. It was important for you to know that he didn’t need you at all.

  ***

Frederick’s eyes moved behind closed lids. The swollen purple lids began to twitch, then slowly creep open. The room was hazy and bright with colors streaking at odd geometric angles away from the lights that produced them.

All he could make out were flowers. Dozens of them, hundreds, surrounding him in a resplendent cloud cloud of white and lavender. Either he fell asleep outside in the garden, or he had died and somehow gotten into heaven.

“No, you’re alive, Frederick,” you said from somewhere close. He must have been whispering to himself out loud. Your voice was wavering with powerful sobs that you shoved down to force it to sound soft and patient, but he could hear the laughter in it, too. “You’ve been out for awhile, but you’re doing really well. You just had a successful surgery. They finished debriding your burns and installing temporary grafts so you don’t go septic. Oh, and they were able to get a skin sample! It’s already in the lab so they can start growing you some of your own new skin.”

“Where…?” he blinked a few times, and tried to move before realizing he couldn’t. His body was heavier than lead and a dull ache like paper being torn pulsed beneath his skin at odd intervals. He went to lick his lips, but they weren’t there. His tongue hit empty air above his teeth, and then nothing until it encountered a gauze bandage and a plastic tube going into his nose.

That brought everything crashing back, and he groaned at reality, missing the previous few moments of anesthetic fog when the Red Dragon was just a dream.

You sat beside his hospital bed, on the side of his good eye, watching over him with a hopeful smile, rambling on about how happy you were that he was awake. There was a blue hospital blanket folded over the arm of the chair, and your hair was a mess—he wondered how long you’d been there. Every inch of surface space that wasn’t needed for medical purposes was covered in roses.

“You bought out Holland’s entire stock of flower exports.”

The way the words scraped sluggishly and humorlessly from his hoarse throat, his eyelids drooping lifelessly, made it sound like a reproach—but you laughed. You always laughed at his jokes. 

“They’re all fake,” you admitted. “Hospital rules—you’re an infection risk.”

He wanted to flash you a charming smile, but he couldn’t. He did not know if his face would ever be able to produce a smile again, or how many agonizing surgeries it would take before it could. You wanted to squeeze his hand and kiss him softly, over and over, but you couldn’t. It would be weeks before you could casually touch his skin without the risk of it ripping off. At least now that he was wrapped head to toe in thick gauze, you could reach out and gently rest your hand on top of his. It stung bitterly, but he didn’t show it—he didn’t want you to take your hand away. The pressure was comforting, and your engagement ring sparkled on your finger. 

“I am… glad to see you. These places can be so dull.” He met your gaze, hoping his one functional eye could shoulder the entire burden of body language in conveying his gratitude. He felt so defeated. Hollowed out. He stared up at the plain white ceiling. His words were often callous; it was physical passion which had brought you together in the first place, and without it, he feared he may begin to push you away like everyone else.

“Frederick,” you smiled, but your eyes looked like they might cry. “I’m glad to see you, too. Really glad. I don’t know who was there looking out for you the last few times you were in the hospital, but I wanted to make sure you know how loved you are this time. I’m going to be here every single day with books, and podcasts, fake flowers, and anything you want that I’m allowed to sneak in, until we can go home together.”

He didn’t want to say something trite like, “I couldn’t do this without you.”

He could.

He had before. But he didn’t want to. He never wanted to again. You had wormed so deeply into his heart and given his world color and meaning he had never known, even in his darkest moments. You made the biggest things seem unimportant, and the smallest things monumentally significant. He could never tell you how important you were to him, what it meant to not be alone.

The heart monitor betrayed the warm fluttering in his chest as the slow, steady beeping rapidly increased. You glanced up at the machine with concern, then back down to him, a sly grin spreading across your cheeks. Prideful embarrassment was written clearly all over his face, even with only part of his face left.

You wished more than ever that you could kiss him.

[scotianostra]

On March 5th 1759 the lexicographer and church minister  John Jamieson was born in Glasgow.

I know most of you will not have heard of Jamieson, but his publication, Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language,  is credited with keeping the language alive. He was a bit of a polymath though and learned in many fields. 

The language I am talking about here is Scots, the Scot's Tongue as it is often referred to, If you have read some of my posts I like to dig out documents etc from days gone by, a most of these are written in Scots, you only have to read the poetry of Robert Fergusson or Rabbie Burns, the vast majority which is written in the language, or up to modern times if you have read any of Irvine Welsh's books, you will know that as a language it is distinctly different to what is termed as "proper English"

  Anyway a bit about the man, Jamieson grew up in Glasgow as the only surviving son in a family with an invalid father, he entered Glasgow University aged at the staggeringly young age of just nine!   From 1773 he studied the necessary course in theology with the Associate Presbytery of Glasgow, and in 1780 he was licensed to preach.

Jamieson was appointed to serve as minister to the newly established Secession congregation in Forfar, and stayed there for the next eighteen years, during which time he married Charlotte Watson, the daughter of a local widower, and started a family. Their marriage lasted fifty-five years and they had seventeen children, ten of whom reached adulthood, although only three outlived their father. He next became minister of the Edinburgh Nicolson Street congregation in 1797 where he guided the reconciliation of the Burgher and Anti-Burgher sects to a union in 1820.

In 1788 Jamieson’s writing was recognised by Princeton College, New Jersey where he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His other honours included membership of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, of the American Antiquarian Society of Boston, United States, and of the Copenhagen Society of Northern Literature. He was also a royal associate of the first class of the Royal Society of Literature instituted by George IV.

Jamieson's chief work, the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language was published in two volumes in 1808 and was the standard reference work on the subject until the publication of the Scottish National Dictionary in 1931. He published several other works, but it is the dictionary he is best known for. 

He had a particular passion for numismatics, and it was their mutual interest in coins which led to the first meeting between Jamieson and Walter Scott, in 1795, when Scott was only twenty-three and not yet a published author. Jamieson was also a keen angler, as the many entries relating to fishing terms in the Dictionary attest; and published occasional works of poetry, including a poem against the slave trade which was praised by abolitionists in its day. Entries provided by Scott include besom, which he described as a “low woman or prostitute,” and screed, defined as a “long revel” or “hearty drinking bout”. I wonder how many Scottish females have been called  “a wee besom” by their mothers with neither really knowing it’s true meaning! 

Jamieson’s association with Walter Scott was a two way thing, he wrote  a Scots poem ‘The Water Kelpie’ for the second edition of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. 

It was through his antiquarian research that Jamieson developed his practice of tracing words (particularly place-names) to their earliest form and occurrence: a method which was to be the foundation of the historical approach he would use in the Dictionary.

Jamieson wrote on other themes: rhetoric, cremation, and the royal palaces of Scotland, besides publishing occasional sermons. In 1820 he issued edited versions of Barbour’s The Brus and Blind Harry’s  Wallace.

Revered by authors including Hugh MacDiarmid, who used it to shape his poetic output, Jamieson’s dictionary has long been regarded as a crucial groundwork which kept alive the Scots language at a time when it was in danger of falling into obscurity.

John Jamieson died on July 22nd 1839 and has a fine gravestone in St Cuthbert's graveyard in Edinburgh, as seen in the third pic. 

[cornflowercanine]

just watched an hour long video a8t homestuck and mannnnnn. it just affirms how much i wanna go 8ack to how i liked? what i made of?? homestuck when i first got into it, just with more critical thinking and going hm this part of homestuck that is 8ad and harmful. is 8ad And Harmful

ram8ling so its under a cut sorry also it is very, very long under the cut

ive tended to summarize it as 'i like homestuck itself (save for the actually 8ad parts) 8ut i h8 the fandom' 8ut honestly thats not entirely true, watching a homestuck animatic made, 8y, A Fan Of Homestuck, made me so nostalgic and emotional over the Concept of homestuck i had trou8le sl33ping that night, and i do still usually r8 multiple drawings of homestuck chars that i like Daily, right? :P it's just that, i like homestuck itself and i like SOME fan content of it, i just don't like the like... social environment??? of the fandom.

which is like, 'strangers sending you death threats and making the most wild invasive outright insulting claims a8out you if you say, fucking, idk, 'this char is an a8use victim and so their story comforts me and i s33 myself in it!' or what the fuck ever' ASIDE!!!!!!!!!! i just don't like what most of the fan content out there makes of homestuck lol.

ive said it 8efore, ppl's entire idea of homestuck 8eing a 6-year-old memory of memory of when they read through 1/3rd of it when they were 14 of specific pesterlogs only logged up 8y fanart of hcs of "meta" 8ased in that specific person projecting (which while valua8el to that person and ppl who rel8 to them isnt gr8 as a source for the media it came from), and using that Idea of an Idea of homestuck made entirely of other ppl's also-fading memories of homestuck to have whole ass arguments a8t it and This Is Why This Char Is This, Not This, And You're Wrong And Malicious For Interpreting Otherwise, .....IT'S ALL JUST VERY EXHAUSTING AND CONFUSING AND STUPID TO READ and if i never s33 a hs fan deli8er8ly stirring up drama with other homestucks again itll 8e too soon XD

8ut like, homestuck is Right There, the chars i like are Right There, the fan content i like is right there chars/ships/etc i just dont wanna s33 are right there things to k33p in mind regarding homestuck's shittier parts are right there AND THE INTERMISSION AND ALPHA KID PARTS AND THE VERY ENDING POST-RETCON CONVERS8ION COMPIL8ION, ALL OF WHICH I PLANNED TO REREAD AT A L8R POINT THAT I COMPLETELY SKIPPED IN MY LAST REREAD OF HS, ARE RIGHT THERE AND I STILL OUGHTA GO THROUGH THEM AT SOME TIME XD, i can Like Homestuck and 8e into hs and like the chars+parts i like and 8e critical of the parts that are harmful, so i think the main thing 8arring me from 8eing a Homestuck Fan is the fact that... I WILL ACTIVELY LIKE HOMESTUCK AGAIN XD

all my friends, while if i ask 'hey how many spades slicks are in homestuck again???' theyll 8e a8le to answer, arent actively homestuck fans 8y really any stretch unless 8eing a kinnie counts XD so first off i'd kinda just have to 8e in [your silence speaks volumes so i am going to continue talking a8out this a lot] mode near constantly with how much i am thinking a8t and enjoying and talking a8t and making art and mini-writings??? a8out homestuck XD

8ut mainly its moreso just that liking homestuck and 8eing a homestuck fan is, em8arrassing??? the reflexive reaction to homestuck and ppl liking it is ew lol and/or fuck off lol (which isnt entirely unfounded im sure so many ppl having it as a neg8ive associ8ion/'please tag' thing doesnt come from nowhere), and just, wholeheartedly honestly daily...-ly loving homestuck is like, first off where do i take this, second off who the hell else likes hs as much as i do in the way that i do atm, third off God Im Sorry All My Normal Person Friends Added On Discord That Have To S33 Me Change My Pfp To Another Vriska For The 3rd Time This W33k

GAH THIS IS A REALLY LONG-WINDED POST MY POINT IS i like homestuck itself except for the parts where it is 8ad, homestuck fans 8eing kinda apeshit inside the fandom and . IDK HOW TO WORD IT IN A WAY THAT DOESNT SOUND FUCKING STUPID SO ILL WORD IT JOKINGLY, oppressed (/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj) outside of the fandom, so i am and for the past like 2 years have 833n in homestuckliking lim8o where im homestuck enough i wouldnt dare follow a normal ass 8log and i dont like regular ass posts when i r8 them to my normal-ass-person-cosplaying-side8log and think a8t vriska daily, 8ut not ....consciously? enjoya8ly??? homestuck Enough where im Happy to s33 fanart of it or i'll go 8ack and reread convos i really liked or remem8er those convos in the first place or POST!! a8out vriska past 'youre all wrong and my 8rain is huge' (/lh on that last one) so i have two options; give in and hold homestuck in my arms with a loving em8race <3333 or continue on the path im on in trying to stop liking homestuck to k33p up with my friends+not 8e legally declared cringe on-line