#keep the themes for all i care just have some confidence that we can actually UNDERSTAND a theme and dont need to be told on repeat every ep

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

that was kinda underwhelming ngl. I really expected that either Dean would show up, or we’d meet the “Queen” (it feels so weird to not call her The Empress/The Condesce/Meenah). Neither of those things happened.... yknow I keep saying that if the writers were confident enough in their ability to convey themes that they didn’t spend 15 minutes of every episode looking directly into the camera to talk about generational trauma (...and then illustrate it just fine immediately after, might I add. they don’t need to explain it all. the themes come across just fine) we would have a LOT more time for actual plot and the story wouldn’t fucking crawl like this.

[mjolnirswriststrap]

Not My Type Pt. 2

(The look on Steve’s face when he realizes what your doing 😭)

Part 1 Masterlist

Bucky Barnes x Plus Size F!Reader x Steve Rogers

Word Count: 2,623

Summary: Your night couldn’t get any better.

Warnings: sub!bucky, no explicit smut, but suggestive themes.

Tags: @mereptt @mcira @blackhawkfanatic @misz-adrii @f-1-refly @bbhaughen

You couldn’t feel your legs. They were completely numb from the cold. Steve showed no signs of even having a chill. Meanwhile you were reduced to hobbling one leg after the other, only 5 blocks in.

Focusing on the walk, and keeping your breath even; so Steve doesn’t notice how winded you were, sobered you even more than the cold. You now realized your situation. Confidence boost drained as soon as Bucky was out of sight.

You’re grateful when traffic causes you to stop at a crosswalk. You bury your arms under each other and try to stay warm in place. Steve noticed you shivering 10 minutes ago. He didn’t have a jacket to give you so he knew making it home was the best option for warmth.

He didn’t expect to stop, and have a moment to do something about it. He quickly wrapped his arms around you from behind, pressing his full body against you. Your legs were still cold but he provided more than enough heat to warm you. You didn’t mind that no words were shared between you the whole walk, he didn’t seem to either, still smiling when you made it back home.

Climbing the stairs to your door, you search for words to say. Are you both seriously going through with this? Did Steve mean it? Sweat was forming on your palms, you noticed when your keys almost slipped out of your grasp, or maybe it was the trembling.

“I-“ you begin, instantly being cut off. “We should talk, inside.” He says, and your heart drops. He regrets it, of course he does, that’s your luck. You knew it was too good to be true. “No need, I get it.” You say, dropping your head.

“I just can’t do this to Bucky.” he says, sitting down on your couch when you made it inside. You were confused, you thought you were doing this because of Bucky. “What?” Him not being into you was less confusing.

Steve sighs, “I like you, and I wouldn’t mind making you forget all about some asshole at a bar.” Your cheeks flush, you knew he meant fucking you till all you could think about was him. “If that asshole wasn’t Bucky, and I didn’t know just how much he really does care about you.”. Oh.

“Let me get this straight, you’re defending him now?” You stand in front of him, placing your hands on your hips. He has to look up to you. “Don’t stand there like that and yell at me, it only makes me want you more. It’s making this harder than it has to be.” You scoff, “Okay Steve, my brain is literally going to explode if you don’t start talking.” You sit down on your coffee table, letting your knees brush his.

As if this is harder for him. You were dragged into a bar to embarrass yourself by friends that meant well. You found out your work crush wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot poll. You somehow told said crush off in an alley after kissing Captain America. Your night couldn’t get any more rough.

“I know he likes you, he might deny it, but I can see the way he looks at you. He has a weird way of showing it, I know. But tonight, I just kept pushing him and I know he regrets what he said. He’s just degrading you to cope with having actual feelings.” He now takes his turn to face the ground, not being able to meet your eye.

“The way he talked about you didn’t sit right with me. I was trying to show him that looks don’t matter, we looked pretty good pressed together in that alley, and I know he saw that.” He paused, thinking over his words.

“I do like you, I don’t want you thinking any different. But I don’t want to carry on with this if Bucky still has a chance, it wouldn’t be right.” You can tell how sincere he is being, and it has you already forgiving Bucky without even receiving an apology from the man himself.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Steve.” You rub your sweaty palms on your bare knees. “I can’t just pretend like he never said that. I can see that how much your friendship means. It’s no hard feelings, really. But I wouldn’t put myself in a position where Bucky could hurt me again, if you paid me.” You laugh, getting fully used to douche bag guys.

Steve nods his head, understanding that you owe neither of the men a thing. “He would have to crawl in here on his hands and knees begging for a chance with fatty.” You shrug your shoulders, keeping your integrity.

“That could be arranged.” He smiles, breaking up the tension with dopey grin. You mentally face palm. “Go for it tiger, but I won’t be a part of it.” You give him a thumbs up, and suddenly you’re exhausted.

“Tonight’s obviously not happening, and I have to be in your office with everyone else in,” you squint at the clock on your microwave. “, 7 hours. So, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, leave my apartment Captain America.” You pat the side of his knee, reassuring him that you’re being lighthearted.

“Fine, but I will see you at 8 sharp.” He says, standing from the couch and making his way to your door. You follow behind him, needing to deadbolt it. “Why is he the way he is?” You blurt out, figuring Steve’s the only person who could answer that question.

“If you find out I’d love to know.” He throws his hands up. “People like to think I’m close to Bucky, but he never let anyone in after he was deprogrammed. Not even me, so I think he’s just having a hard time letting feelings for you in, his brain won’t let him.”.

“Why go after my weight?” You ask, as if Steve answers for him. He shrugs “Cause it was basic, and cliché. Made it seem like something was wrong with him, not you. I’ve tried to wrap my head around the new word, ‘fatphobia’ but I can’t, it seems like a personal problem that people project onto other heavier people.” How was he real? Steve Rogers continues to amaze you with every word that falls from his lips.

When Steve opens the door you both come face to face with Bucky. Standing there, having followed you home. Staying a hundred yards back, watching your every move. He stood outside and heard every word shared between you and Steve.

He knew the only thing he could do to make it right. So he did, wordlessly dropping to his knees on your doorstep. “What are you doing here?” Steve tries to interject, but you press your hand to his chest, needing him to be quiet for a minute.

You can’t break eye contact with Bucky, unable to believe what he’s doing. His eyes are red, cheeks stained with tears. A smug smile falls on your lips and you pull Steve along with you as you walk backwards. Giving Bucky room to step into the house.

He leans forward, placing both palms on the carpeted entryway. Your hand on Steve’s chest can feel the shallow breaths he was taking. But you couldn’t think to hard about him right now, Bucky was crawling on his hands and knees towards you, with giant blue puppy dog eyes, that literally leaked with regret.

Once Bucky made it to your feet, he sat back on his heels, holding his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry.”, his eyes fill with more tears, “Everything Steve said was right.” He sighs, looking over to his friend.

“I don’t know how to let people in. I’m insecure, and possibly the dumbest man alive.” He reaches out and grasps your hand, needing you to feel his sincerity. His eyes set hard, having difficulty admitting the next part, “You scare the shit out of me.”.

You let out a laugh, breaking up the tension in the room. “I scare you?” You didn’t mean for it to come out as loud as it did, but you were still upset. He nods, pressing his eyebrows together. “Yes.”. He comes closer to you, till his chest bumped against your knees. He held both hands now, “Please, forgive me, I’ll do anything. You’re the only person in this new world that makes me feel, anything. After I was deprogrammed, you were the only thing that felt normal, like home. Not Brooklyn, the past.” He takes your stoicism as an invitation to rest his hands on your thighs, wanting to physically connect with you while he rips himself open.

“The way you smelled of honeysuckles.” He presses his face against your stomach, inhaling deeply. “Red lipstick always on hand, making your smile brighter than any I’d ever saw. The way you walked up to me on your first day, so brave and confident. You remind me of home and it’s scary.”.

Your heart sank. This whole time, this is how he felt? All the harsh staring and denial was just, homesickness? You look down and feel yourself begin to feel guilty, even though you’ve done nothing wrong. “I didn’t know.”.

Steve, who had stayed silent this whole time, face set in stone, finally speaks up. “No, you didn’t know. So don’t feel bad. Again, it’s his fault for being dumb.” He steps closer to the two of you, starting to feel possessive over you. He wasn’t going to let Bucky get by with a half hearted apology. He could tell he was holding something back.

“I don’t believe it, you’re scared of her because she’s perfect for you?” He squats down to Bucky’s level, trying to intimidate him. Bucky looks between you, not sure if he should answer him. You raise your brow, letting him know Steve peaked your interest.

“Everything I’ve ever known or loved is gone, relics of the past. I’m scared that you might go away too, if you got too close to me.”.

Steve was visibly hurt. Did he not remind Bucky of home? He’s known Bucky his whole life, why couldn’t he let him in? He knew Steve wasn’t going anywhere. The Captain stayed silent, knowing tonight was about the hurt Bucky caused you, not him. He would pay for Steve’s emotional wounds later.

Before he can plot anything in his mind he’s being pulled up from the floor by you. “What do you think his punishment ought to be, huh Stevie?” When he looked at your face all he could see was deviance. Playing along, he pinches his chin in thought. “Hmm, you know, I’d hate to leave without finishing what we started earlier.”. He spins you to face him, letting his hands find the curve of your ass.

“I like that idea.” You bat your eyelashes at him. Your raise yourself up on your tippy toes and kiss him, tangling your fingers in his hair. You hear a whine from the floor beside you. Bucky’s face is red and you can tell he’s confused. “You sit there and be a good boy, then I’ll forgive you and maybe even let you touch me.”. You say, letting both Steve and Bucky know, you’re not the same person in the bedroom.

You loved degrading men. In your everyday life you might come across as sweet, unsuspecting, inexperienced. But you weren’t, there’s no shortage of men wanting a woman to dominate them. You’d never had the pleasure of using one this far out of your league.

Tonight, you were going to take advantage of it. Seeing Bucky crawl on his hands and knees lit a fire inside of you. You didn’t need to hear his apology at that point. Everything after it was pure showmanship. The performance of your life.

The morning came before you knew it. Your 7am alarm blaring through your studio apartment. Steve and Bucky left earlier, waking you up with goodbye kisses, but your foggy, half asleep brain barely registered that they left. You wore your hair down today, letting last nights curls be free. You didn’t opt for makeup, knowing the intense winter training would melt it off anyways.

When you make it to work, you see a lot of sunglasses. “Is everyone hungover?” You ask Natasha who’s nursing a black coffee. “Almost everyone.” She nods towards the two super soldiers standing behind Steve’s desk.

You blush when Steve gives you a wide smile, hoping no one in the office noticed. But of course Wanda senses the change in your footsteps and the buzzing reverberating off of you. She sits beside you in the semicircle of chairs, leaning over to whisper “I’m gonna need details.” She nudges her shoulder with yours, teasing you.

Before you could retaliate, Steve starts the debrief. “Winter training, gotta love it.” The whole room groans as Steve laughs. “I won’t keep you too long, I know you all have a long day ahead of you. But I like to think a good ole pep talk is the best thing for a team.”.

You roll your eyes. You liked Steve, but boss Steve was exhausting. You press your forehead on Wanda’s shoulder, you both hated this cringy kind of thing. “I’d like to remind you all why we train so vigorously. Teamwork. We all preform better together. We have to constantly be adapting to eachother, our strengths, and weaknesses.” He looks into each of your coworkers eyes, trying to drive his point.

“We change, just like the seasons, so pay special attention to your training partner today. They might teach you something new.” The inspirational speech was enough to have you wanting to go back home and go back to sleep, something you only received 3 hours of.

“Wanda, Sam, and Bruce, I want you guys down at the lake. Yelena, Natasha and Clint, go to the helipad, further instruction will be waiting.” He looks at the tablet infront of him, reading off bullet points.

“Y/N, Bucky and I are scheduled to be in the gym. Peter and Vision are already with Tony and Rhodes in the lab. Any questions?” He dismisses everyone after that. He changed it. So smoothly that no one noticed, you’d been scheduled to be at the lake with Wanda and Bruce. Of course Sam wouldn’t protest the change up, Steve just had to ask nicely.

When everyone shuffled out of the room, Wanda reminded you she wanted details over lunch later. Once everyone was gone you were suddenly aware that you were left alone with them. You were blinded by lust last night, not realizing the position you put yourself in. Were you with Bucky now? His confession was pretty serious. Were you with both of them? Was it a one night stand? Are they done with you now that they’ve had their fun? A million questions ran through your head while you waited by the door.

“Ready?” Bucky opens the door for you, ushering you into the hallway. You give him a tight lipped smile, not knowing how to interact with him not on his knees. You definitely weren’t the same person in the bedroom. Your regular self was awkward and embarrassingly nice at times. Would either of them still want you, once they see how different you could be?

They knew you before, and even liked you before. But now they have something else to base it off. Was your dominance too much for a long term thing with them? You have a feeling you’re about to find out, as you all pile into the small room with a wall of mirrors and elliptical.

[hpalways]

yandere!harbingers

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Characters: Pantalone, Dottore, Arlecchino, Tartaglia x GN!Reader

Warnings: yandere themes, obsession, death, also may not be accurate

A/N: Lowercase intended. A reminder not to romanticize yandere behaviors!! Also these are just headcanons for now, but I do hope to actually write drabbles/oneshots of them as yanderes :)

Pantalone

very manipulative, just look at him and that smile! when things do not go his own way, hell erupts quick. he will do anything to guilt trip you, bringing leverage from the past. you quickly learn to feel anxious when he gives you that type of smile. 

from his childhood, he feels as though the world is against him. dealing with poverty and financial issues, it was what pushed his determination for wealth. and because he has learned to be so determined, he will be the same way with you.

since his influence is stretched far and wide, nothing can go underway him. he uses his power to keep an eye on you -- to make sure you don’t run from his clutches. 

if you disobey him, he will train you like a dog, taking everything and everyone away from you and isolating you. the better you behave, the more he’ll return it all, treating you perfectly.

he loves you dearly, but he is somewhat of a perfectionist. your mistakes define him. he wouldn’t want that to happen, would he?

he lashes out in a dangerously sweet way, to anyone who dares question or insult you. he will also use his wealth to find people to do his dirty work, if necessary. 

when he hugs you, his entire cloak traps you, to the point it almost feels suffocating. he can’t get his hands off of you, no matter how uncomfortable you would get.

once you find out how obsessive he truly is to you, he confesses smoothly and offers you a deal. “[name], we can do this the easy way or the hard way. either you come to me nicely, or you don’t and i kill anyone who gets in the way so that you can learn your lesson.”

Dottore

dottore easily fell in love with you when the two of you both went to Semeru Akademiya and you were the only one who made an effort to talk to him, despite him being shunned out by everyone else. that was your first mistake.

obsessive since then, he still continues to perform experiments on people and the moment he joins the Fatui, he makes brutal experiments on the ones who picked on you. 

while very merciless with everyone else, he goes soft on you, showering you with his adoration, doing anything possible to be in your favor. he lies to you that his experiments have changed since then, to become better and less harmful. 

when sent to Mondstadt to fulfil his mission for the Fatui, he essentially kidnaps you. this is where you learn his true colors, and the first time you are truly fearful of him. he no longer makes an effort to conceal his identity, declaring to you and the world that you are his to keep. 

he forces you to watch him during his projects, gleefully taking in your reactions and only falling in love with you more. he doesn’t mind that you are scared of him anymore; as long as you’re by his side, he is satisfied. 

at some point, he even performs experiments on you and though they are painful, he never overdo it to kill you. he cares for no other human life but yours. 

“to me, you are very indispensable, my love.”

Arlecchino

when she falls in love, she falls deep and passionately. out in the snow, she finds you there playing with the orphans that would only grow up to dark future. though you do not know that, she could not help but grow a bond with you. 

she is willing to do anything for you, even betray her closest confidants or the Fatui organization. in her eyes, you are the one to show her truth. after all, her loyalty with everything else is weak. she will remain loyal to only you.

very impulsive and act on her feelings quick. there is no hesitation when it comes to protecting you. if coating the snow in red is a must, then she will simply do it. if she must stand among dead bodies in the blizzard to see you safe and sound, she will. 

holds you tightly, with a grip so strong that it pains you. she does not realize this -- the intensity she keeps when she is with you. it is a ticking time bomb, ready to go off to announce that she wants you. 

the moment you find out that she works for the Fatui and the deeds she’s done, you feel betrayed and afraid. she pleads you to stay, growing furious and laying everything she’s done for you.

in the end, she forcibly pulls you along, threatening your loved ones. then she returns to pleading act, promising that she will quit the Fatui. it terrifies you... this double-edged sword. 

“don’t you see? i only want you. my eyes are only on you.”

Tartaglia 

fighting has been his obsession his whole life. adding you into the mix simply means that he will fight for you as well. that’s what he’s good at. fighting. he loves the thrill of it. so when you give him a similar thrill, he is ecstatic and knows that he needs you. 

his ‘Childe’ persona blinded you at first. he appeared to be so charismatic and outgoing that you found yourself pulled in anyway. the more he spent time with you, the more he found himself thinking about you in every second of his day. 

he battles with anyone who gets on his nerves when it comes to you. his anger paints his world red, resulting in many deaths from how merciless he acts. 

his facade sometimes drops, growing bitter and cold, which concerns you. he turns into a new person, deep in his thoughts. 

and as it finally reveals to you that he can no longer stop himself when it comes to you, he unleashes his true persona, smiling at you with blood smattered across his face. feelings are confessed, because he knows you can never escape him. his skills make sure of that. 

his words always say one thing, but the tone would say otherwise. they are often sweet and covered in oozing poison as well. 

“comrade, you don’t need to worry about a single thing. i can kill off anything for you.”

[darkonekrisrewrite]

The Lov’s bonds with each other are all they have + Dabi Recovery Theories

(Second Side Meta) (Spoiler warning, short meta + theories)

It doesn’t really matter if the Lov inner relationships are unhealthy or if they encourage their worse traits because they don’t have anyone else but each other, even at this current point in the manga.

Excluding Dabi, maybe.

Shigaraki’s family is dead, Toga’s parents were horrible and Spinner’s family was presumably close to the same as he never mentioned them or at least they’re not present in his life.

And while we don’t know much about Compress’s family other than his Grandfather being a “peerless Thief”, the fact that he wound up in the Lov implies that he doesn’t have much, if anything, going for him either.

The individual members of the Lov have nothing to go back to and no one from their pasts that they could depend on in any circumstances.

So the small and pitfall ridden bonds that they share with one another are their only human connection and what connects them to their own humanity.

(I don’t really have any concrete proof that this ^ scene isn’t a manipulation on Dabi’s part but the art framing and overall plot relevance of the scene heavily implies that it isn’t a manipulation but genuine in its sentiment.)

Showing tears for others (Toga), their loyalty to others (Spinner and compress), and that despite everything they’re still themselves (Dabi and hopefully in future coming chapters Shigaraki too).

(Forgot to put this scene in earlier Meta, Spinner loyalty ^ here)

Whether these sentiments and actions have a good result is nearly irrelevant, as the actions and feelings themselves drive the Lov on the only path to survival that is currently available to them while at the same time showing that they do still have many forms of Love inside them.

And the path that they’re currently on is still definitely the only path that could have a chance of them surviving, because the Hero Kids are not where they need to be in the saving department yet.

(This ^ does not inspire confidence.)

Unless it’s made clear that when the hero kids say they intend to stop/save their respective villains, they mean not only from death but also from being locked up to rot in prison forever, and they’re willing to actually fight in anyway that’s needed to make sure that doesn’t happen, the hero kid’s intentions don’t mean anything.

Because obviously throwing the Lov in prison isn’t saving them, there’s no way the hero kids can save the villain’s hearts from outside of a metal box (a key theme of saving in Bnha is saving the Heart).

That’s not even saving the Lov’s lives either really, because that’s just another form of killing them slowly and depending on perspective, with even more cruelty.

Dabi is both different and similar, as he does still have his family that does care about him but his future with them is still very uncertain.

They all came together to save Touya and each other which is good but Natsuo then saying that things will be “Hell” from now on, whatever that means, leaves Dabi’s fate on pretty much one of only two paths.

With Hero Society or with the Todoroki Family.

It can’t be both, because after everything that’s happened and the parts Dabi played in trying to take down the current system, Hero society won’t let him be saved in any way that could really count as saving.

Dabi Recovery Theories

Personally, what I think should happen, if the Todoroki’s are really intending to follow through on saving Touya and making sure that he can make a full(ish) recovery, is fake his death.

Someone as connected/wealthy as Endeavor must have access to private medical facilities, someplace they could stash Touya to keep him alive.

And with some heroes loyal to Endeavor or Shoto, or if they’re capable of exiting the area themselves with the help of the rest of the Todoroki family, take Touya and escape, hiding him there while saying that the villain Dabi fully incinerated himself in the near explosion.

Dabi is dead to the world but Touya can live and heal.

It’s pretty clear from the framing that Touya will live but for how exactly he would survive with his current injuries and fully recover, I have three theories.

The first theory being that with the right medical attention, Dabi could simply survive more or less as is.

A simple thought but plausible, because excluding one of his arms and some outer muscle lost, Dabi’s injuries aren’t so much worse than what he already went through and survived as a child.

As long as his insides aren’t burned up (which they aren’t thanks to the appearance of his dormant Ice Quirk), he should be able to survive with medical attention.

And for making a full recovery (maybe not exactly a ‘Full recovery’ in this case as while they could feasibly replace his lost skin, the burned muscle might be different story) prosthetic limbs are pretty common in Bnha’s world, with even Compress being able to get his hands on a metal arm while on the run with the Lov.

The second theory is using Eri’s rewind Quirk, using medical equipment to ensure Dabi survives long enough for Eri’s horn (her power) to regrow and rewind Dabi to a state before he was so severely burned.

This is another simple solution (personally not a fan of this one) but entirely possible, although the heroes continually using Eri to solve their injuries/problems is a bit sketch (even the heroes admit that), so there is one very interesting theory left I can think of.

The Third theory: The heroes (specifically Endeavor) could try to use the imprisoned Doctor Garaki and the high-end Nomu to save and heal Dabi.

By transferring the high-end Nomu’s regeneration quirk (something all the high-ends have, implying that the power can be replicated and transferred) to Dabi, using the doctor’s knowledge and previous experience of “grafting quirks” onto other beings (the Doctor said he could accomplish this action even without the AFO Quirk).

As for how this scenario would be possible, Endeavor would finally have to step up as a Father instead of as a hero, in fact risking his life/status as a hero.

Either by forcefully taking the Doctor and the Nomu from Prison himself or by leveraging his status as the Number one hero (what’s left of it) to force this plan to happen for Dabi’s sake.

And I personally think that this would be a great ending to Endeavor’s story as a hero, if he truly does regret everything he did.

Endeavor risking or sacrificing everything he personally has left (his hero existence) in the present to help the Son he chose not to show up for in the past, finally putting Touya first to fully save him from the flames.

That seems like good narrative storytelling to me.

[lovelytaes-blog]

reach the top (3) - jjk

pairing(s): jungkook x reader; (brief) jin x reader

synopsis: when your volleyball team gets cut and your brother, who is recently enrolled to your rivalry school, needs you to help him attend his classes while he continues to pursue his rap career; while you try keeping your volleyball dream alive, by serving sweet revenge on those that didn't believe in you.

genre: crack, fluff, angst; strangers to lovers/roommates to lovers; university au.

warning(s): mature language/themes, gender role implications.

word count: ~3k

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↳ main masterlist

↳ series masterlist

“How’s classes going?”

“Oh, you know,” You mumbled brushing your fake bangs out of your face, “It’s class.”

“I owe you a ton, for this. Thanks, sis.”

“Don’t mention it…” You trailed, holding the phone against your ear and shoulder as you finished a calculus equation, smiling in triumph when the question ends up being right.

“How’s volleyball? Did you girls figure out a way to get funding?”

You scoffed, “Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, that’s good right? You don’t sound so excited?”  

“No, I am, “ you sighed, “It’s just, hard yenno, not easy… being compared to your ex? Just tired of from practicing so much…”

Your very first try out was two days ago, you had never been so excited. You had been running every morning and practicing drills by yourself to prepare yourself for the battlefield that is the volleyball court. You were confident that you would have made the team—that was until you actually watched the starting line up play a game. You had gotten to the gym early, in hopes that you would be able to practice some more drills, but you were beaten by the starting line up.

Of course, Jungkook, Jimin, and Taehyung were part of the starting lineup. They were accompanied by Choi Beomgyu, who was the team’s designated Libero (who played extremely well, which was not what you were expecting from the boy that embodies the definition of sloth); along with a kid named Yeonjun who also played Middle block, and Taehyun who played right-side. You had always known Ridgecrest was prideful of their men’s volleyball team, but you were not expecting them to be this good…

“First off,” Your brother scoffs, “Fuck Seokjin, I don’t care that he’s older than me, he had no right to treat you like that… I hope they lose against Ridgecrest again! We all know that they’re so much better than our volleyball team anyways.”

It was true; you did know these boys were good. You had a taste of their talent at the annual homecoming games between Cypress and Ridgecrest, and because you were the star player’s girlfriend (at the time), you were obligated to attend.

“No, you’re right, Hobi,” You sighed, “I just hope we – I mean, Ridgecrest wins this time around… From what I’ve been hearing is that Jin and Namjoon have been getting service aces left and right… Which never happened before. I guess I’m just a little worried.”

“Dunno, maybe they’re on some black magic shit.”

“I’m serious, Hobi, I don’t think I – I mean Ridgecrest stands a chance, I’ve seen them and how they deal with serves, it takes them a bit to get used to it.” You sulked.

Hoseok tsked, “Have a little faith, Y/n.” You hear your brother sigh, “But if anyone can beat Cypress, and beat them bad, it’s Ridgecrest.”

“Damn,” You giggled, “America’s changing you already? You’re so positive!”

“Aiiish, you’re such a twerp! I’m a ray of sunshine, I’m always positive!”

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“Are you sure you were an Ace?”

It has now been well over a week of practices, and while you thought you were getting better, it seemed that the starting line up of boys were getting just as good, just as fast. To say you were irritated was an understatement. You knew you had a disadvantage—being a female against ginormous boys definitely has it’s difficulties—but it didn’t help that you were endlessly being teased by Jimin; Taehyung and Jeongguk had their moments, but for the most part they just went along with the shorter man, laughing when he made a snide comment on your height.

“Do you ever get tired of being annoying?” You snarled, wiping the sweat off of your forehead, eyes glaring at the setter.

“Do you ever get tired of being annoying,” Jimin mocks, “As a matter of fact, I do not. Blehhhh.” Jimin pulls one of his cheeks down and sticks his tongue out at you, like the child he was.

You swear he reminds you of that one volleyball character on that one anime…

Tor-Torro? Oikama, was it? You couldn’t remember, but ironically enough—you were positive they played the same exact position.

“Can you stop tormenting the kid,” Taehyung swats Jimin’s head, earning a whiny Taehyung-ah, along with a pout.

“I’m not a kid!” You grunted out serving another ball over the net, that Beomgyu retrieved no problem. You tsked in annoyance and grabbed another.

“Your height could’ve fooled us.” Jeongguk snickers, easily serving a beautiful overhand serve, to which Beomgyu didn’t catch.

“Nice one, Kook!” Beomgyu utters out, eyeing the stary ball with a look of determination, “I’ll get the next one.”

“Do you boys ever get tired of, I don’t know, picking on me?”

“Nah.”

“You make it easy.”

“I barely pick on you, why am I being included?”

You could feel your blood boil as you toss up the ball, your feet quickly rushing forward to jump. As your feet left the ground, your body arches, coiling back and winding up for a hard hit. The adrenaline pumping through your veins echoed in your ears as the ball stops spinning for a brief moment, your arm making it’s way to strike the white ball. As your hand connects with the volleyball, like you always do, everything stilled.

Your eyes followed the quickness of the white ball, as it touches just the inside of the volleyball court, Beomgyu nowhere in sight, as you fall back to the ground, the sound of rubber hitting the floor harshly fills the quietness of the gym. Breathing heavily, cracking your neck to the side, your gaze drifts up to the libero; his eyes wide with shock, as he stared at the now stationary ball that sat behind the court, near the bleachers.

“Wh—”

“How?”

You turned around to see your three seniors staring gobsmacked at you. Feeling a sense of pride and confidence, you rolled your eyes.

“By the way,” You walked past them to grab another ball, “I did play Ace, and I was actually Cypress’s best.”

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

“Jeon and Jung!”

You groaned, today had already sucked; the fact that practice ran later than normal this morning (which, really sucked because now, not only could you feel the dry sweat sticking to your body, but you weren’t able to do your normal morning routine where you were able to hide in a shower stall just at the end of the hallway of your dorm room, but when you had gone to check, that bathroom was out of order) but now you were partnered with one of the boys that mocked you.

“Alright, pair up,” Your professor claps, “and say hello to your partner for the rest of the semester! I expect you all to be mature adults and ready to work on the upcoming labs—starting with the first one on Thursday! Please have your pre-labs done, along with having read the material so that you’re well prepared to start right at 2. Don’t forget to cite any work that isn’t your own. I will be docking off a mark for those that do not cite their work.”  

As your professor finished her speech, the chair beside you scraped noisily beside you, indicating your partner’s presence.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jeongguk grunts at your figure, “I’m not thrilled either, Chibi-chan.”

“Do you ever get tired of pestering me about my height?”

“No.”

“I’m not even that short!” You exclaimed throwing your head back in anguish.

“Hm,” Jeongguk hums, turning to face you and giving your slouched body a once over, “still shorter than me.” He shrugs.

Above all the people your professor could pair you up with. It seriously had to be this guy. Really? What had you done in your past life to deserve this? Did you murder someone?

“Whatever, Jeon,” You uttered out, “let’s just get through this term.”

“Kinda hard when my partner doesn’t want any of my help,” He sneers.

“We haven’t even started!”

“And?”

“And…” You mocked him, “how do you even know I don’t want your help if we haven’t even started the stupid lab, dumbo?”

“And this is why you’re single.”  

“What, just cuz I called you a name? Grow up, Jeon.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been growing, you however, have not.”

“Quit pestering me, you gigantic muscle-bunny.”

“You did not compare me to a fucking rodent.”

“If the shoe fits!”

“You’re such a—”

“Knock it off!” Beomgyu snarls causing the two of you to stare wide eyed at the libero who threw his hood up to continue his nap.

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

“Again, Jung.” Coach Kai sighs, watching you miss another toss from Jimin.

You were drenched in sweat, body aching, and your feet was starting to swell in your shoes with the amount of jumping you had been doing. You didn’t want to admit it but it seemed that you just weren’t getting to the tosses fast enough.

The practice this morning had killed you. You were barely able to keep up with the boys this morning; after the full day of classes, how were they still so energetic?

It definitely didn’t help that Jeongguk was doing fuck all during the remainder of lab; you guys barely started the pre-lab and you had wanted to finish it before the weekend… Clearly that wasn’t happening—since you had a practice match at Nikoli this weekend. Coach Kai had bumped you up to their pinch server—the player that gets called to disrupt the flow of the match in hopes of favouring the players team for the rest of the game. You hadn’t ever been just a pinch server, but as long as you were a step closer to being a regular, you’d take it.

However, that’s easier said than done.

Jeongguk played annoyingly well. His line shots were are amazing. The amount of times during practice he’d get it perfectly on the line was annoying. He made hitting he ball look so effortless that you can’t help but watch him hit the ball. His blocks are insanely high, that you for sure would love to see him block one of Namjoon’s spikes. His serves… His serves were just as amazing… It’s no wonder he’s on the starting line up, he could do it all—better than you. He truly deserves the Ace title… but you’d never admit that out loud.

Taehyung’s blocks were no joke. From what you remembered from watching their games at Cypress, Taehyung and Jeongguk were considered the Iron Wall. One of the tallest blocks in the prefecture. It helped immensely that their verticals were much higher than the average verticals for their heights, but even so, their arms added onto the height. Their strategical blocking skills are the types of blockers you hated.

Back at Cypress the highest blockers in the prefecture for girls was, ironically, the girls team for Nikoli. You remembered losing to their team during your first year; this was the first game you had ever lost since coming onto the team. Euna played extremely well, getting the ball to you wherever you needed it; Somi receiving the ball each and every time… It had been you. You couldn’t get it past their blockers, you couldn’t find a way to slam the ball down on the other side of the court… You had always gotten shut out. That must’ve been the day you set out to become the best Ace in the prefecture. You worked on your shoulder mobility, becoming more fluid and flexible in your movements. You were thinking more rather than relying solely on instinct and intuition. You were determined to become the best; and the best is exactly what you became.

So, you can imagine how hard it is to start from the very bottom and work your way up. Especially with a new team.

Jimin’s sets are absolutely lethal; his precision on tossing the ball to his spikers were unmatched. He knew how to toss perfectly to his spikers—knowing the exact angle they want, and the perfect speed to get it to them. It hurt you to say it, but he was even better than Euna…

The only problem was that you’d never had this issue with Euna; her tosses were easy to hit, she made sure everyone was able to hit her tosses… Why was it so hard to hit Jimin’s?

“Jimin.” You huffed.

The setter turns to glance at you with his cat like eyes, “Hm?”

You sighed annoying, “Slow your toss when you pass to me.”

“Excuse me?”

The court was silent.

“I said,” You glanced up at him with tired eyes, “slow your tosses when you pass to me.”

“You want me… to slow my tosses?” Jimin hisses, “And why would I stoop to your level? I know my tosses are good.”

Furrowing your eyebrows, you crossed your arms, “I know your tosses are good—they’re great,” You huffed, “but, just slow them down for now. Let me get used to them.”

“And why should I fix my game play for someone who’s benched?”

Taehyung quickly puts out a hand between the two of you, “Hey, Chim, calm—”

“Cool it, Park.”

Your eyes widened when Jeongguk pushed through to where you and Jimin were, wiping off his sweat with a towel.

“Just give him a slower toss. It’s just a practice anyways, he’s not playing at homecoming.”

“Well, it’s my goal to.” You grunted, Coach Kai giving you a reassuring smile.

Coach Kai turns to Jimin, “Slow your tosses, Jimin. Let Jung get used to it, then pick up speed after, but for now respect his wishes; remember Park, it isn’t you that distinguishes how that ball goes over the net.”

Jimin’s cheeks turn a shade of pink as he bowed, uttering a got it coach, before turning around to continue a mock match with the rest of the team.

Coach Kai then turns to you, “You’ve got guts kid, telling Park to slow his toss the way you did.”

You shrugged, “I just want to play the best I can…”

“And about homecoming…” Coach pauses, “You could still make the starting line up if you show improvement. I’ve seen your receives and your blocks, you’ve got some crazy agility. You’ve also got monster serves… If you could find a way to fight mid-air better and be able to handle Jimin’s normal speed tosses… You could be the next Ace of Ridgecrest.”

You gave Coach Kai a toothy smile, “Got it coach!”

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

“Oi.”

You peered up at the familiar voice of your teammate. You all had just finished up practicing—waiting for everyone to get out of the locker rooms, you sat in the lobby so you all could walk to the cafeteria together.

“Don’t ever tell me what to do.” Jimin snarls, shoving past you, “This is the only time I’ll slow my tosses; either get better or keep the bench warm, Jung. I won’t toss to someone that can’t win.”

Your gaze drops as you stare at the ground, avoiding all eye contact to the blond setter. The dull ache in your chest seeps its way to the surface as you bite your lip to prevent it from quivering more.

“Remember your place Jung; you just got here; you’re benched. I don’t know how it was at Cypress, but here, to make demands like that? You’ve got to be good.” Jeongguk bites.

“You say you were an ace? How can you be an Ace when you can barely keep up with our team? When you’re able to make amazing plays like the rest of us, then maybe, you can make demands like that. But until then,” Jeongguk bumps your shoulder roughly, looking over his shoulder to glare at you, “you have no authority to ask any of us to jeopardize our plays to accommodate you.”

Refusing to look up, you could feel your eyes prickling with tears. You quickly wiped your eyes before feeling a hand upon your shoulder.

“Don’t listen to them,” Taehyung smiles gently, “you got really good in one practice, they’re just jealous… I think your soft serves can give us an advantage,” Taehyung nods his head in the direction of the rest of the team as he walks next to you.

“Not to mention you were able to hit Jimin’s tosses easier in the last half hour.”

“He’s a really good setter…” You whispered looking down at your feet.

“As he should be—he was the starting setter for All-Stars Korea.”

You stopped, “P-Park?” Taehyung nods, chuckling.

“Yeah—he had the opportunity to play last year in the 18 and under category,” Taehyung shrugs, “He’s really talented, he’s normally really perceptive when he sets, so he’s able to change his tosses based on who he’s setting to, but with you,” Taehyung moves to turn to face you, “he couldn’t tell your style of play. Communication is key when it comes to Jimin, he normally knows exactly the type of toss to give his spikers, but for some reason… He couldn’t pinpoint what tosses you could hit.”

Taehyung shrugs again, continuing towards the cafeteria, “Not that, that’s a bad thing, but…” Taehyung looks over his shoulder with a smirk, “that may be troublesome to opponents on the opposite side of the court.”

And then it clicks.

This was why you were so good; this is why you were the Ace. Euna and you have history, she’s been tossing to you since middle school—so she’s grown accustomed to your game play—to your decoy moves. She knows when you want the toss, and she knows how to lead the opponents into thinking someone else will hit her ball.

But this is Jimin—a genius setter, he knows the type of set to give his spikers before they even know the set they want, he knows the best toss to give them so that they can play at the utmost best to their abilities…

Jimin’s talent is to bring out everyone’s 100% effort, no matter what team he played on. And that’s scary.

The chills that ran down your spine thinking about how amazing Jimin actually is, was exciting… If you and him could communicate better with your decoy moves and his genius setting skills… You just might be able to beat Cypress in their homecoming game.

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

taglist: @parkinglot-nights, @kissyfacekoo, @ sunwooful, @coralmusicblaze, @dirarajgor, @jjkw-7, @jnk-pop, @ashes69, @naru7777777, @dreamamubarak, @sparklingocean, @taolucha, @moonchild1, @generouschildcolor

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "Shroud of Darkness"

Heading back to Lothal for the beginning of the end arc.

We start right away In Media Res with Kanan and Ezra fighting the Inquisitors. And man is it amazing to watch how far they've both come in their lightsaber combat.

Ezra could barely duel Seventh for a minute back in "Always Two There Are" and now he's holding his own against her AND Fifth, with help granted but still.

Part of the reason why I think Season Two has to span the longest length of time out of all the seasons.

This is almost over-choreographed, lots of spins and lightsaber twirls that are frankly superfluous but they look cool so you know, whatever.

"I don't go for crazy... anymore." Do tell Kanan, lol.

It's funny because the voice actors are married.

NO I DON'T THINK THE SYMBOLISM OF EZRA DANGLING PRECARIOUSLY OFF A PRECIPICE WITH KANAN AS THE ONLY THING PREVENTING HIS FALL IS ANY KIND OF COINCIDENCE, GIVEN LATER IN THE EPISODE.

Rebels tends to be very deliberate about these things lol.

I don't think I noticed before but the past several episodes have had no fanfare and I think we all should have taken that as a clue or portent of things to come.

A+ padawan tossing Kanan, slick move.

Ezra's effortless flip over the Inquisitors. <3

Kanan complaining but ultimately having full trust in Ezra and the proud look he gives him. <3

Ezra being polite and thanking the tibedee, aww.

Okay I should stop before I gush over every second here.

Kanan expresses some rather natural worries about the fact that his and Ezra's presence is going to put the rest of the fleet at risk, since the Inquisitors keep finding them, and determines to bring in the big gun (Ahsoka) on this one. The expressions in this scene and the quiet subtle emotion is just beautiful, Kanan's worry about how to keep everyone safe just palpable.

RIGHT, SURE. SMACK ME IN THE FACE WITH PRE-VADER ANAKIN FEELS WITH ANAKIN MAKING HOLOCRON LIGHTSABER TUTORIALS FOR YOUNGLINGS.

Anakin would have loved Ezra. *sobbing*

Subtle animation appreciation moment: Ezra creeping around very carefully so as not to disturb Ahsoka's meditation, and the way his hand fumbles out for the seat.

Ahsoka talking so fondly about Anakin, ow.

I remember when this aired Ahsoka's line about, "The last time I saw him, he was running off to save the Chancellor." caused quite a bit of hullabaloo in fandom because, well, TCW Season 7 wasn't actually a thing yet, from our perspective she'd just walked off in Season 5 never to be seen again.

Writers decided to be all, "Let's incorporate unfinished storylines as if they're canon!" much to fan confusion, lol, wonder if they knew at that point that they were getting renewed to finish the last season.

"I can barely protect you." "I don't need protecting." *LAUGHS IN THIS ENTIRE SEASON* Right, how many times exactly did you get captured or in trouble this season Ezra? Yeah.

Our first hints of Hera's worried misgivings about Kanan's eventual plan to separate from the fleet.

The blockade hasn't returned yet to Lothal airspace, interesting. Maybe with the Spectres gone they loosened things just a little.

Our first time hearing Ezra's theme since I think "Legacy", a nice marker of us coming home.

Did... Ahsoka not know that Ezra was from Lothal before this? What's with the question? Did she think the Spectres just picked him up randomly on one of their adventures and take him with?

Still as pretty as ever.

Ahsoka's not confident enough in calling herself a Jedi to believe a Jedi Temple would open for her, boy this girl and her self-identity issues.

She doesn't think she deserves the title. She left and then everything fell apart and there was no more Order to return to, so she couldn't return, even though she maybe wanted to, even though she realized being a Jedi was what she did truly care about.

OH HEY, THERE'S THE DOOR PALPATINE STEALS.

And they walk down the exact same hall that Ezra would later walk down in the finale into the bowels of the Temple, excuse me, I need to--

*weeps*

I do love the Force Weirdness of this episode, how only Kanan can see the door bathed in light, how Ezra just sort of slips into the ether that is between the Temple and the Nexus of the World Between Worlds and disappears.

And I love Kanan's portion of this episode. Confronted by a vision of a dojo in the Temple and a Temple Guardian, Grand before he was an Inquisitor, who warns that trying to fight will result in failure and Ezra's fall to the Dark Side. (This speech sounds eerily similar to Grand's demoralizing speech to Ezra in "Gathering Forces" in fact.)

That immediate cold protective fury aaaaah I love it!

Grand's threat here was taken way too literally as prophetic foreshadowing by fandom BTW. Still is.

So Kanan and Grand square up and in the meantime the Inquisitors have found them. Again. I don't think they ever explained how, perhaps it's just that Inquisitor intuition that made Kanan and Ezra have to separate the first time, back in "Gathering Forces".

Hi Seventh! Hi Fifth!

Ahsoka reminiscing about Yoda. :(

Ezra, meanwhile, casually chatting the man up. XD

Kanan doing some casual Jar'Kai. Just cause.

[Insert "You're doing amazing sweetie" reaction image.]

OH BOY NOW WE GET TO DELVE INTO AHSOKA'S GUILT ISSUES ABOUT ANAKIN.

Bby girl knows deep down that he's become Vader but is still so vehemently in denial of it, the Force is smacking her in the face with the weight of her own guilt. Ahsoka feels like, "Maybe if I hadn't left..." but it's not about her, Anakin made his own stupid choices, there was nothing, metatextually, that Ahsoka could have done that would have prevented Anakin's fall it's not her fault.

:((((((((((

This is something I hope we will finally delve deep into and get over in the Ahsoka show. Babygirl needs to forgive herself for the wrongs she imagines she's done Anakin and accept that he made his choice, just like she made hers.

A snippet of Ahsoka's theme here, just for extra sads.

Oh good! It's time to play my least favorite game: Is this scene a commentary and critique of the actions of the Prequel Jedi Order or is this in-text Unreliable Narrator from Yoda as a person with obvious Survivor's Guilt.

It's especially annoying because Filoni you worked on TCW, remember all that enslaving, war criming, and general evil the Separatists were involved in on a daily basis? Are you saying the Jedi were wrong for wanting to try and stop all of that and protect the people put in harm's way? THIS WAS YOUR MATERIAL DUDE.

Love the subtle effect of the ring patterns turning red and the clear effort it's taking Seventh and Fifth to force their way into the Temple.

Kanan, meanwhile, confronted by his worst fears parroted by the vision of Grand, accepts that he cannot control his or Ezra's future, and that he should not try to. He lets go, gives up his fear of failing, gives up the instinct to cling tight to Ezra, his attachment, and acknowledges that what happens will happen, he will just do the best he can.

AND HE PASSES THE TEST AND GETS KNIGHTED BY THE FORCE ITSELF BABY!

I'm so proud of him. :)

Yoda is frustratingly cryptic, only telling Ezra, "Find Malachor" (which made KOTOR fans go nuts) before letting him fade back into realspace. To this day I'm still not quite clear just why Yoda decided to sent them that way except maybe to prove a point about what can happen when you act out of fear. Malachor does contribute to a lot of Ezra's character development, for both good and bad, so... I dunno.

Vision!Grand fighting his former co-workers aaaah I love it.

Yoda waving fondly at Ahsoka awww.

AND THE BIG DARK ASSHOLE HIMSELF IS HERE TO OVERSEE THE IMPERIAL DISCOVERY OF THE TEMPLE.

Again, I do wonder just how far back they planned the World Between Worlds reveal. Because yeah an ancient Jedi Temple is a pretty nice find but Palpatine being personally pleased with its discovery?

This episode is obviously very Plot Important but I do tend to skip it when I'm rewatching episodes, I'm not fond of the kind of downer ambiguous ending or the vaguely Jedi-critical sentiments that maybe lace through the episode.

That being said, it is a good one and definitely worth at least a couple watches. Contributes to the melancholy, "Everything is going to change" feel the last few episodes leading up to Malachor had. And that was one of this season's strengths, the build-up to what they knew would be a status quo-changing finale. Also contributes to the wider arc of the "five year plan" and the secret reason Palpatine was interested in Lothal, laying down the tracks for that reveal eeeearrrly so that it feels completely natural.

Love that. Between that and Ezra and Kanan being badass it's not terrible, just not my favorite.

[total-drama-takes-takes-2]

tta episode 12

“Last time, on Total Takes Action: the four final players competed in an all-out western challenge… an all-outback western, that is! From kangaroo wrangling to outback cow herding to giant, man-eating spiders, this was the real-ish deal! Scruffy overcompensated for their failing love life, but it was Peter who saved the day, and a sick Scary who took the fall. Who will survive this episode? And who will be eaten? Find out now, on Total! Takes! Action!”

The final three stand in a line outside the craft services tent while Chris sits in a director’s chair in front of them, his legs crossed and his eyes studying them intently. 

It’s been some time now, as evident by the beads of sweat on O’s forehead and the twitchy movements Peter keeps making out of nervousness. Finally, the host clears his throat. 

“So, I’m sure you’re all wondering why you’re out here,”

“Yes!” All three say in unison. Chris chuckles. 

“Today is the penultimate challenge- three players enter, two players leave! And you dudes have a lot riding on this- one million dollars is nothing to brush off,”

“I don’t care about the money!” Scruffy pipes up. They look exhausted.

Chris rolls his eyes. “Much like yesterday, today’s challenge is inspired by another popular subgenre of western- the science fiction kind!”

“Running out of ideas?” O asks, crossing his arms. Chris glares and pulls out a futuristic looking taser gun, then stuns him. He falls to the ground with a thud. Peter and Scruffy stare. 

“That’s better. Anyway, today is going to be an all-out… LASER TAG EXTRAVAGANZA! That’s right, it’s every man and Scruffy for themselves on a souped-up race to the finish line. The first two players to reach that line secure themselves a spot in the finale- the last will go home. Across the set, there are various… um, roadblocks that will stop at nothing to tag you out with one of these babies,” Chris says, pulling a few large laser guns out of nowhere. He tosses one to each contestant- a neon green one for Scruffy, a white one for Peter, and an orange one that lands on the ground next to O. “Not to mention your fellow campers- if you get tagged out, you’ll be sent to our brand new…. Cactus Pit! For about fifteen minutes.”

“Cactus pit?!” Peter asks. 

“Yeah, we couldn’t think of another way to incorporate the western theme without importing more sand,” Chris chuckles. “Go meet Chef in the craft services tent to get geared up and meet me back out here in five!”

---

Scruffy straps a large, futuristic-looking chrome vest to their chest and slides on knee and elbow guards while Peter watches on from afar. O is just now recovering from the stun gun, though his legs are still partially frozen as he slides on the metallic shorts provided with the outfit. 

“You feelin’ alright, little guy?” O asks, fastening the vest buckles. “Need any help today?”

Peter turns back. “No, I’ll be okay. If I can survive a heart-to-heart with Scary, I can survive anything, right?” he chuckles to himself. “Thanks for the offer, though. Good luck!”

Peter jogs outside, leaving a slightly despondent O behind. 

---

O: “Well, I guess I’m not needed anymore. Good-bye, friendship!”

---

Scruffy whistles the show theme song under their breath while bouncing their gun in their hands. They seem… oddly relaxed. Confident, even. 

---

SCRUFFY: “I’ve been training for this all season- an obstacle course? Every man for himself? Dangerous threats along the way?! This is perfect- finally, a chance to prove myself,” they put on their safety goggles and then blow a kiss at the screen. “Wish me luck, Jules!”

---

Chris paces back and forth in front of the geared-up contestants, snacking on a Slim Jim very loudly and reading the paper. He turns. “Oh, right. We’re still doing this. Okay, gang, you ready?”

The campers look between each other, then nod. 

Chris pops in a pair of earbuds, then pulls out an air horn and blows it, forcing the final three to duck and cover their ears before they can actually start moving. 

“GO!”

Peter starts off first, jogging towards the city set as a heavy fog rolls in, misting the set and making everything but the fluorescent lights of the other players impossible to see. 

O follows Peter, looking around before colliding face-first into a brick wall. “Yeowch!”

A nearby clicking sound and a shower of white light greets O on his left side, and Peter emerges from the fog, holding up his gun. “Who goes there?”

“Woah, truce, truce!” O sets down his own weapon and puts up his hands. “I wanted to talk.”

The much shorter player lowers his gun and blinks. “About what?”

“I think we should stay in an alliance,” he says. His own orange getup casts a warm glow in the fog. “Scruffy has a super unfair advantage over both of us, and if we stick together, we might be able to make it to the final two! Wouldn’t you wanna be in the final two with me?”

Peter thinks for a moment. “Huh… yeah, I guess that’d be fun. Friends in the final two…”

“Right! Friends!”

He smiles and holds out a hand, which O gladly accepts. “Truce,”

“Truce!” O shakes it confidently. 

---

Scruffy stalks through the fog on the forested set, the fake trees casting a dark glow over them. They’re crouching, close to the ground, crawling between plastic ferns and foam rocks, somersaulting into hollow logs and watching the entire scene with suspicious eyes. Their tactic is clearly trained to perfection, so when a shadowy figure dashes behind them in the background, they’re already prepared. 

Scruffy whips around and fires his laser gun, and a cartoony “pew” sound effect lights up someone’s vest red. 

Chef sighs and walks out of the shadows, dressed as a StormTrooper in a laser tag vest. He grumbles. “This wasn’t in my contract,” and he walks off. Scruffy pumps their fist. 

---

O and Peter walk casually down the middle of the road on the western set, aiming at random cacti and tumbleweeds to practice shooting. 

O holds up his gun and fires at a moving cardboard road runner, the red laser dot directly on its side. It, of course, does nothing but light up the set piece for a brief moment. But Peter is impressed nonetheless. 

“Wow, you’ve got a good shot,” he says. 

O lowers the gun. “Thanks. Michela taught me how to aim,”

“Were you guys close? While she was here, I mean,”

“Uh, kinda. I thought so. But then Max came back and she didn’t need me around anymore, I served my purpose,”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“Well, you know. I did my job! And she got better, so she moved on, right?” O says, aiming the gun at a saloon sign. “That’s how this stuff works.”

“Friendships? I don’t think so,” Peter says. “They’re not… transactional. I mean, they can be, but like me and Scary- I would consider us friends now,” he pauses. “Don’t tell her I said that, though.”

“You and Scary? What could you have to offer her?”

“My time, my care. My patience. And she helped me out too, in return, and even though she’s gone, we’re still friends-ish. Same with Al,” Peter continues. “Friendships shouldn’t end after you give them something. I had to learn that the hard way. I’m sure if you talked to Michela, she would still call herself your friend.”

“Huh,” O thinks. “Weird.”

A sudden rustling behind them makes both jump and aim their guns. But it’s only a squirrel, skittering across the set with a nut between its teeth. 

Peter turns to O again. “You don’t have to ally yourself with me because you think I’ll only want to if you’re useful. We can be ally-friends, too!”

O smiles and nods before a sudden whirring overhead catches both their attention. 

“Did you hear that?”

A fleet of flying saucers appears in the distance, laser beams gearing up as they approach the two. Peter and O look at each other, then scream and run in opposite directions. 

---

Scruffy hears the distant sound of screaming and pays it no mind. They chuckle to themselves. “Amateurs,” and press on, past the haunted mansion set, past the courtroom…

They re-enter a thickly wooded part of the set and scratch their head. “I was just here,” they think aloud. “I have not been walking in circles! My tracking skills are flawless!”

A sudden rustling in the foliage catches their attention and they aim their gun, but only Peter falls out of the bush. He groans and rubs his head. 

Scruffy grins and clicks his gun, ready to fire. 

“W-wait!” Peter begs. “Don’t!”

“Why not?”

“Cause… I know the way to the finish line!”

Scruffy lowers their gun for a moment and thinks. Then, they sigh, and put away their weapon, pulling Peter to his feet. “Fine. But as soon as we’re there, I’m shooting you,”

“Sounds good to me!”

---

O tiptoes through the maze, completely lost in its long halls. The sounds of distant barking are making him more nervous with each passing second. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he mumbles to himself. “Get a hold on yourself, Oliver. Breathe. Count to ten.”

He takes one deep breath, then another, before the barking picks up again and he loses count. “Dammit! Why isn’t this working?!”

The barking grows closer and he shakily holds up his weapon, backing himself into a corner. Before he has time to prepare himself, two coyotes jump out of the darkness. 

“Coyotes!” he shrieks. A red light emanates from something attached to their backs. “With guns!”

He screams as they fire at him, tagging him out. His vest glows red and he shrieks again as a trapdoor opens from under him, pulling him into the darkness. 

---

“That sounds like O,” Peter says, those distant shrieks echoing again. “We were supposed to be allies today… I should go help him-”

He starts off, but Scruffy grabs him by the back of his shirt and turns him forward. “Not so fast. If you run, I’ll shoot the sensor on your back. Think smarter,”

Peter grumbles to himself but they press on, eventually exiting the forest and re-entering the walk between the mansion and courthouse. 

“So, where is this magical finish line, anyway?” Scruffy asks. “If you and O were allied, he must know too, right? He could be there this very second.”

“He wouldn’t. He would wait for me. We’re friends,”

Scruffy laughs. “There are no ‘friends’ on Total Drama. Only allies, and alliances are thin. Breakable,” a serious expression crosses their face. “The second they sense weakness, they leave.”

Peter watches their expression cautiously. “Do you want to talk about something?”

“No. I’m fine,” they insist, speeding up. 

---

Chris watches O balance on one set of tippy toes and flail his arms around to avoid falling on any cacti in the glass holding cell he’d been chuted into. 

“Man, this is great,” Chris sighs, crossing his arms. After a few more seconds of amusing himself, he turns with an annoyed expression. “Where are my salmon and goat cheese crackers?!”

Chef walks up to Chris with a covered dish. 

“Finally! I swear, these interns are so busy on their phones they can’t even bother to wait on me hand-and-foot!” the host rolls his eyes, then holds out a hand to the plate. "Gimme gimme."

Chef smacks it away and pulls the lid off the dish, revealing nothing but a black landline. Chris sighs. “It’s not my job to answer phones around here,”

“You’re really gonna want to answer this one,” Chef says, his voice completely deadpan. 

Chris grumbles angrily to himself and picks up the phone. “Yello?” He takes a swig from a coffee-filled Thermos. 

A voice on the other end says something indistinct and Chris spits out a mouthful of piping hot coffee, just barely missing Chef. 

---

“And then she just- started dating him, I guess. Like I don’t even exist!” Scruffy throws out their arms for emphasis as the two pass the trailers. “Not a word to me!”

“Do you think she didn’t think you’d find out?”

“No, of course not. Jules knows that I’m a capable player, I hear about everything worth knowing. And this was definitely worth knowing. Why didn’t she tell me?” they pout. “She could’ve sent a letter!”

“Maybe she wants to tell you in person?” Peter asks nervously, watching Scruffy flail around their gun with every word. 

“No, she wouldn’t. The only logical explanation I can come up with is that… well… it’s more beneficial for her to be with him than stay friends with me,” Scruffy sighs. 

Peter furrows his brow. “There’s that talk again! What’s wrong with you people!” he says. “Relationships aren’t about what you can give, they’re about who you are. If Julia really cares about you, then what someone else can offer her shouldn’t matter.”

“But it obviously does,” they sigh. 

“It could be a million things,” he pats their shoulder. “Trust me, I’ve done my fair share of overthinking. I’ve been in so many transactional friendships, witnessed so many petty breakups, and I refuse to believe that that’s what’s happening. You shouldn’t have to prove yourself to anyone.”

“I know, but… I mean, she likes that I’m a good competitor. If I win, maybe…”

Peter sighs. “Do you really think staying in the competition will help?”

“It would help with a lot, really,”

Scruffy looks down and Peter sighs, pulling the picture of his girlfriend from his pocket. “I guess I understand. We have to do hard things for love, too,”

Just as they round the corner of the trailers, a click sounds from behind them and they both turn, then freeze in place. 

O, covered in cactus spikes, aims his gun right at Scruffy’s chest. 

“Game over,” he says, his forefinger pressing on the trigger. 

“No!” Peter shouts- but it’s too late. 

O pulls the trigger, and the mist rolls over set once again. A “pew” sound, and the “schwoop” of a hit target rings out. 

But as the fog clears, Scruffy is still green, and the red glow of a hit soldier is coming from the ground. 

Peter, his girlfriend’s picture clutched in his hand, lies. O gasps, then drops to his knees. “NOOOOOOOO!”

Scruffy holds up their gun, aiming at O as he grieves, but then shakes their head and simply flees into the brush. 

O holds Peter’s head in his lap and pants. The former’s glasses are cracked, and there’s a spider crawling over his cheek (which O quickly sweeps off). 

“Peter, I’m so sorry, my aim- I thought my aim was perfect-”

“It is. I jumped. I had to let Scruffy get away,” Peter says. “They have to win. I don't… My life is already pretty sweet. I don’t need the money.”

“You sacrificed yourself… for them?” he makes a disgusted face.

“They need this. I’m already pretty set,” he holds up the picture of his girlfriend. “I could’ve won, but I chose not to. Because some things in life are more important than transactions.”

A chute opens up beneath Peter and sucks him in, sending him to the cactus pit. O hangs his head. 

The opening in the grass closes over and O takes a moment to breathe before he stands, now more determined than ever, and begins running. 

---

Chris’ director’s chair is empty as Peter falls into the glass cactus tank at the end of the set, the finish line mere meters away. 

Scruffy comes barreling in first, crossing the checkers and panting. 

“Yes- yes! Final two!” they turn. “Chris?”

The set is empty. Chris and Chef are nowhere to be found. Panic crosses Scruffy’s face. “CHRIS?! I NEED SOMEONE TO VALIDATE MY WINNING!”

Peter taps on the glass of the container and winces as he’s poked. “I’m here,”

Scruffy turns. “Oh,”

O comes jogging after, crossing the finish line. He collapses to the floor shortly afterwards, his gun skidding across the pavement. 

The intercom crackles to life. “Woo okay, final two. Scruffy and O,” then disappears. 

“What’s he up to?” Scruffy wonders aloud, O and Peter both making pained groans in the background. 

---

Peter disappears in the Lame-o-Sine, both Scruffy and O waving as the black car disappears into the city. 

“Good guy,” Scruffy comments. 

O glares. “The best,”

The two walk back to the trailers, avoiding looking at each other until they’re at each individual door. Scruffy pauses, their hand on the doorknob. “What do you think Chris is doing?”

“Something bad and mean, probably,”

“No, I mean… he didn’t even show up for the elimination ceremony, and he loves gloating. Something’s going on,” Scruffy says, rubbing their chin. “Maybe Scary was right…”

O massages his temples. “Good night, Scruffy,”

And without another word, he walks into his trailer and slams the door behind him.

[finalbossanalysis]

Final Boss Analysis #3

Yasutaka Shirakaba

Lost Judgment: The Kaito Files

Guess who just finished The Kaito Files? Here we have a shorter analysis compared to the last two, but he's a noteworthy and unique final boss in RGG nonetheless.

Shirakaba is not a Judgment Final Boss

Throughout the Judgment games, we've seen a stark contrast between the final bosses of the Yakuza games, and those of the Judgment games. While Yakuza titles usually consist of manly men ripping their shirts off to duke it out for their ideals, the trend of Judgment final bosses seems that they're going to be more dark characters, like Kuroiwa, Kyoya Sadamoto, and partly Kuwana.

Shirakaba clearly does not fit the description of dark, or mysterious. He's timid and lonely, but he's good hearted, and strong enough to protect those he cares about. Keeping Mikiko in the dark was questionable at first, but when you learn the alternative is her getting gutted by Sadamoto, it actually seems pretty reasonable.

The Duel

Here we have two shirtless manly men duking it out for their ideals. See? Yakuza final boss.

Mikiko and Jun are finally safe. However, Shirakaba still has unconfessed feelings for Mikiko, even though he knows he will probably get turned down, he resolves he needs to get it off his chest anyway, even if it ends in denial. Knowing Kaito, and his feelings for Mikiko, he sends him a letter, asking him for a duel, giving Kaito a chance to show Mikiko his dedication, and Shirakaba a chance to show off the guns he was secretly packing all along.

The Theme: Duel Of Love

The soft guitar, violin, and piano take the center stage here, backed by an electric guitar and some subtler electronic sounds. It has feelings of happiness, determination, and finality. There is no "off" sounding note here. Everything down to the instrumentation seems intentional, not hiding anything from the listener. Other Yakuza final bosses can be well intentioned, but are usually held back by ambition, emotion, or jealousy. But I can say with confidence to Shirakaba is a good man, through and through. (A first for Yakuza final bosses. (Kinda))

Fighting Style

Shirakaba's style is karate, and he is exceptionally skilled. Sadly most of his moveset is borrowed from Shibusawa from 0, but he does have a few unique attacks to keep you on your toes. Once you drain all his health, he'll regenerate everything, and enter heat mode.

Heat Aura

Shirakaba's aura is pure white, untainted by any ill will, or anger. It's kind of reminiscent of Kiryu's Legend Style aura from 0.

After The Duel

After losing to Kaito, he simply accepts defeat, thanking Kaito for helping him communicate his feeling for Mikiko.

Conclusion

Well, that's another one checked off the list. Apologies for the shorter format here. Next up i'll probably take a look at Tsuneo Iwami from 6, or maybe i'll do a non-Yakuza villain.

Blah blah leave comment for boss ok bye

[peachymilkandcream]

I know they didn't have the technology, but still, what about a remote controlled vibrator in her panties while they are in public?

Levi x Evelyn -> Shock Therapy

(A/N: This would be literally impossible with their level of technology...but I'ma do it anyway :) Thank you all for distracting me even temporarily from the craziness of my simpage [Ps. this one is shorter because with another ask I'm making a part 2])

WARNINGS: noncon, dubcon, manipulation, domestic abuse, yandere themes, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, stockholm syndrome, violence, mind breaking, misogyny, etc.

=============================================

Evelyn woke up to the feeling of pressure and pleasure filling her core. It didn't bother her too much, figuring it was just Levi trying to take care of his morning wood. The soft chuckles as she slipped from the subconscious to reality solidified the fact.

"Levi..." She murmured, her eyes opening slightly.

"Good morning sweetheart..." He kisses her cheek, pumping the thing in and out of her a few times before settling it inside her. "Shall we get going?"

"Going for what?"

"Thanks to your rebellious streak I haven't been able to take you out much anymore, so because of that people wonder what happened to you. I have to run some errands and you're going with me. Maybe then mouths will shut and we can continue on peacefully. Get dressed." He gets up but she still feels full inside.

Gingerly she reached down and feels the hardened rubber. "What's this?"

"Don't worry about it. If you take it out you'll be punished though." He keeps his back turned from her, sliding into his dress pants and buckling them up.

She stumbles out of bed, putting on her underclothes and stockings, watching Levi for any sudden movements. One could never be careful enough to make sure Levi didn't move suddenly and pin her down. It had happened before, many times before, so even when he seemed completely unthreatening he was still a risk.

The way he smirked at her the whole time was a cause for concern however.

============================================

Sunlight was a rare treat, Levi had deprived her of it for so long each time was like a gift from heaven. Her hat covered most of it since Levi despised freckles, but on her mostly bare arms it was lovely. Seeing people was even more rare, however now she had even more of a reputation than when she was in the Scouts full time. She was no longer "Evelyn Glass, a Scout", she was "Mrs. Ackerman, wife of notorious Captain Levi", it was like she was being studied.

He was proud of her on his arm, she knew, his posture was a little straighter, his smile actually evident. It was almost infectious, making her stride a bit more confident, she was somebody, she was important. She had only been a street urchin who stole from the rich for years, now she was the rich, one of them in their society.

As she made her way around the marketplace she felt a sudden sensation and vibrating within her, nearly making her stumble. Her arms held tighter onto Levi, leaning on him for support.

"Something wrong?" He asks, almost too smugly.

The pleasure coursing through her is so much it barely registers. "L-Levi- I don't know-" Just as quick as it came it's gone again, allowing her time to recenter and calm her shaking legs. "What was that.."

"Not sure."

She can almost hear an audible click before the sensation returns, making her panties wet with arousal. She turns to Levi to hide herself and starts reaching into her underwear when he catches her by the wrist.

"Leave it, or I'll break your hand."

"You're doing this?"

He innocently holds up a little remote. "Guilty as charged."

Pathetically she tries to grab it, but in heels and not as strong as him he easily keeps it out of her reach.

"This isn't funny Levi, we're in public."

"Do you think that really will stop me? If I had my way you'd be bent over right here taking my dick for all to see."

Reasoning with Levi wasn't an option, she wasn't allowed to have an opinion, ever. She would just end up making a fool out of herself.

"Don't worry sweetheart, behave and I'll treat you well at home."

She knew that resisting would only lead her to more humiliation and pain later on, so for now she could only comply. The sensation between her legs was unbearable, she had to lean heavily on Levi to avoid falling from her weak legs. The cruel bastard even made her talk to others and try to hide the arousal in her voice.

By the time they were through she was worn and deeply unsatisfied, he had brought her to the edge many times before forcing her back down. Thankfully he wasn't prepared to humiliate her that much just yet, that is until they came home.

He purred in her ear while taking her hat and his coat off. "You were such a good girl for me...I think it's time for your reward..."

[the-kipsabian]

is kip sabian a tumblr sexyman

//kinda heavily edited 7/28/23. im trying to be more neutral about this, still keeping this within just the on-screen character. added in a few more things that are on the list linked below, so the results have actually kinda drastically changed now these are still just my opinions and ofc this doesnt negate how hes really perceived, its just interesting to see this being called out so many times but when you put actual evidence on it, boy how the tables turn lmao

so we all have probably heard the question by now

seeing this post on my dash, i have found resources now to see for myself, collect data and give you the actual result to this burning question

i got you tropes, my takes on them and whether they apply to him under the cut. things to note, this is my personal view tho im trying to keep it neutral, and im only tackling the on-screen character as its been portrayed on tv and some other special occasions when it has specifically shined through (take him invading ocs streams for example)

green is yes red is no yellow is maybe anything in italics are an edit from the original post

4th wall blurring - technically wrestling is already very blurred lines, but take the kip/oc feud for example and the lengths he took it to on social media, twitch etc. outside the ring

Androgynous - arguable, its the eyeliner for me bro. that and the way he carries himself. currently this also includes the hair/hair colors and the eye shadow. gender is a social construct

Animal theming

Angst - it depends how you view it. its not like full blown angst sadness, but it sure does exist, especially with how he talks about himself tbh

Bait - he just organically formed into this shape. i dont believe he specifically designed this style or characteristics to make himself be perceived as a tumblr sexyman

British

Burton

Capitalist

Chaoslord

Chronokinetic

Criminal

Cosmic

Clown

Controversial - i dont know why some of yall hate him so much but apparently people do so. whatever

Deadpan snarker - he can be, but not to a point of a defining character trait

Dealmaker

Detective

DILF - not yet

Distinctive voice - so the source list updated this to feature catchphrases and yes. "embrace the change", "time doesnt heal it changes you", "underrated and over it". you get the deal

Divorced

Dominating - there are cases. but mostly i think hes just a pathetic fool idk. but also this is a theming in wrestling in general so like. go figure

Duality - with and without the box, there is a difference

Egotistical

Eldritch - only in fanon i think ive seen this one. and partially personally applied this one lol (tho i mean idk if we get the box back in some form we might see more hints about this so it might turn into a maybe!!)

Eye imagery

Fanon splintering

Forest Dweller

Gay/LGBTQ+ coded

Girlboss

Glowing neon

Goo

Himbo - okay listen. as much as i would LOVE to mark this one as a solid yes, since we are strictly talking about boxman era and after on-screen kip, this doesnt stand, as he doesnt show himbo behavior on camera. im keeping it as a maybe tho, just for the sake of showing that im aware and i care <3

Hot-headed

Intelligence - also counts for the sub category smartdumb. an idiotic mastermind

Johnlocked - dont get me wrong, ive seen ships, but i dont think its ever been super extensive or overpowering. yall need to work harder lol. unfortunately despite my personal bias and seeing its growth in popularity, i still cannot mark this even as a maybe

Knifemurder

Mad scientist

Magnificent bastard - im just gonna copy the definition here. "As per TV Tropes, a Magnificent Bastard is a "villain (or morally gray character at best) portrayed as confident, charming schemers who thinks on their feet, outsmarts their competitors with style and grace, and remains graceful even in the event of defeat"."

Marked canon/fanon divergence

Monster features

Mysterious - boxhead in the crowd for months building intrigue + the unadvertised meet and greets at events. plus seemingly extensive lore we never get/got, unexplained box mysteries, etc.

Neurodivergent - i was thinking about excluding this, but he talks about his adhd so openly PLUS a big part of boxman came from the depression and anxiety of when he was on the shelf after surgery so. it counts for me

Nonhuman

Object head

Obscured face - technicality, but i count it as he wore the box for so fucking long. we didnt see his actual face for literally a year

Obsessive - HAVE YOU SEEN HOW OFTEN HE TWEETS AT OC i rest my case

Oncelerization

Pale twink - im making a personal decision to say no on this as none of the definitions really hit the mark like, at all. literally the only ones on the list are 'young' and 'dude' like. nope

Parental figure

Parental issues

Pathetic - A THOUSAND TIMES YES

Perpetual smiler - he gets the shit kicked out of him in the ring and still fucking laughs at it on the spot

Power

Power of love - yall have seen penelope, right?

Religious imagery - no, but marking sub category demonic as a maybe since connections to penelope

Retro - this is interesting, im putting it down as maybe since its not really showing but the current design choices with the grayscale gear makes me think about old timey stuff

Robot

Royalty

Scars

Secret agent

Short

Tall - im withdrawing this one, since the definition is "really/abnormally tall" and hes only 5'11 so. this was marked as a 'maybe' before

Teacher figure

Theme song

Thin - "characters that are fairly slim but dont fit under pale twink" i can accept this lol

Traitor/Twist villain

Twisted freaking cycle path

Unkempt

Upper class - i dont necessarily consider it but i guess. keeping this as a maybe since the suit aesthetic is very high class so

Urban legend aesthetics - CRYPTID RIGHTS FOR KIP

Villain/Morally gray/Refined villain/Technically antagonist

Well-dressed/Suitguy/Long coat - suit, pinstripes, long coat. i kind of want to also say the alt fashion counts here since he can be very emo but you know

White twink humanization - all im asking is that you dont humanize that box. please

White hair

29/75 40/75 6/75

final thoughts:

so i see where this thought comes from. he definitely hits like some of the biggest tropes (fancy british man with an object head, a stupidly catchy theme song and catchphrases, a hot wife and a plan to dominate orange cassidy the world), but we are also missing some obvious ones like him being just a stupid murder whore so like. go figure

this is a very subjective list im aware, there are a few things that could probably be seen differently but i, as a self proclaimed Expert And Conspiracy Theorist In The Kip Sabian Space™, will hold this belief system until someone tells me otherwise lmao

anyways this was just for fun dont take this as seriously as i did the first time around lol. enjoy, just dont argue with me. if you need any tropes need explaining, look at the link above and/or just ask and i'll let you know what i was thinking with marking them if there arent notes explaining or if they are confusing

✌

[yourlocalartsonist]

ROTTMNT Moths Fly In Packs - Chapter Four

A/N: Hello I have returned with yet another chapter for y'all to feed on! I am lowkey so happy the fanfic's going on for so long cuz I have a history of abandoning projects after like the third chapter, so clearly tis a sign I might actually keep this fic long running for years and years to come :D I know I have a lot of ideas for it so I'm def taking a few years on this one but oh well I'm having fun. Hope you guys like this one, tidepod duo is one of my favs and I got to implement some of my own lore bits here and there and foreshadow certain things... Also can y'all believe the Hidden City Zoo was mentioned in one of the episodes but we never got to actually see it like fuck u Nickelodeon, now I'm forced to write a self-indulgent fanfic so my brain can finally rest >:( But yee tell me your fav parts if y'all feel like it <3

Also! Credit to: @sweaterrat for being my beloved beta reader, and my irl friend "The Leo Hater Reading a Leo Fanfic" for inspiring some quotes~

*Phuphu means "paternal aunt" in Bangla

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

Chapter One

Disclaimer: Chapter involves themes of abusive family, mention of death, violence, and curse words. If you're sensitive to that stuff, scroll past and stay safe!

“Remember we’ll be back by nine, this place better be spotless or you’re staying up and making sure it is!”

“I know Phuphu*, I’ve got it. You and Meeta just enjoy your day.”

My aunt called for her daughter who was still at the mirror adjusting how she looked, smoothening out her patterned gold dress and putting any flyaway strands back in place. They were both going to a birthday party for one of my aunt’s friend’s sister’s brother-in-law’s son and, as usual, I wasn’t invited. Instead, I got tasked with keeping the apartment in check while they’re gone in case there’s an explosion or something. They never give me a better reason. 

“Hurry up child, we’re going to be late!”

“Mommy you’re the one who always says beauty takes time.” 

Meeta took one last look in the mirror and joined her mom at the door.

“Well, don’t you look stunning!”

“Um, of course I do? Have I ever not looked perfect?” There it is, my ever so humble cousin. I mean don’t get me wrong I admire her confidence, just crosses a line when she starts putting others down for not looking as good as her. And by others I mostly mean me.

But regardless, it was true. Meeta did look stunning all day everyday. She’s only fifteen but still considered the beauty of our family, especially to our relatives outside America. Tall, dark eyes, milky skin. Shiny black hair done up in a tight bun. Meeta takes great care to always look picture perfect.

I waved goodbye as they left for the party. It did feel a little bad, never getting to tag along and join them anywhere. But then again, eight years of technically being in debt to my aunt didn’t exactly leave any respect for me so parties are the least of my concerns. She acts as if not yelling at me for one minute would end with tragedy just because she’s letting me stay here for free. My only form of compensation: taking care of the house. Cleaning, shopping, running errands, all that jazz. It’s either that or a job so I chose household chores, it’s got more perks.

Like getting to choose my own schedule! As always, I was told ahead of time that they’d be out today so while my aunt and Meeta were sleeping last night, I got the majority of the cleaning done (with the exception of their rooms, of course). I asked Jaiden if we could hang out today and miraculously they agreed so I had to make sure today's cleaning would take no more than an hour, even if that sacrificed a little bit of sleep yesterday. All I’ve gotta do now is just some light sweeping. Totally worth it in my opinion.

Soon after I was done, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and saw it was a call from Jaiden. Fumbling with the buttons I eventually managed to answer.

“Jaiden? Are you out already? Give me like ten minutes I’ll-”

“I can’t make it.”

Wait, what? “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I can’t make it today, something came up. I just wanted to quickly call you and let you know.”

Beep!

They hung up.

My heart sank thinking about their words. Something came up? I’ve been so excited to hang out with Jaiden all day and now something came up? We already haven’t spent much time together lately. They don’t talk as much at school and stopped responding to my texts. I got worried I did something wrong but every time I’d gain the courage to ask they’d just say they were low on energy and I’d accept that answer because what else could I do? After all of this time of practically begging them, I finally got them to agree on making plans in hopes we could talk and now today of all days something just happened to come up? 

I sighed and quickly returned to rationality. It must be a last minute situation, I mean they barely even called for a minute. Probably something important or maybe a parent randomly said no. Jaiden did say their parents are a bit flip-floppy. Either way, no point in getting mad at Jaiden, it’s not in their control. I begrudgingly shoved my phone back in my pocket and paced around the house trying to entertain myself. I’ve already cleaned every nook and cranny I could bullshit into justifying as a mess so that’s not an option. I don’t really have any inspiration to work on my art or writing either. 

I went into my room and flopped on the bed. 

Ugh, this sucks! It’s only three pm, I still have so many hours to kill. Maybe I should just take a nap. 

Before I could try to doze off to dreamland, a sound forced my eyes back open.

A knock? At my window?

But when I stuck my head outside no one was there. So either the wind was being a little bitch or I’m so depressed I’m hallucinating. I groaned and was about to go back to bed but, the very second I turned my back, two voices shouted in unison before I got tackled to the ground. 

“Surprise attack!”

My poor back stung against the hard floor as the two mutant idiots curled around me. 

“Leo, Mikey! I missed you guys! But, um, I do still need to breathe.” 

We sat up, still on the floor and my soul eventually returned to my body. 

Mikey flashed a vibrant grin “So, whatcha doing? Any plans or are you free today!? Please say you’re free!”

“Oh, I am now, I guess. I was supposed to hang out with a friend but they canceled last minute so my day just about cleared up.”

“Aww sorry to hear that Salena.” And he’s back to hugging. I’d be more annoyed if Mikey didn’t give such great hugs, he’s as soft as a sponge. “But, on the bright side, that means you can come hang out with us now! Leo and I were planning on going to a zoo and-”

“A ZOO!?” 

Am I dreaming because holy daze it feels like I am! I could barely contain my giddy giggles the entire walk over. 

“I’ve always wanted to go to a zoo literally my entire life! Getting up close and personal with all the amazing different animals! I mean don’t get me wrong, books are great but it’d be so different to see one in person! I feel like I’d get carried away and go inside the enclosure, though, but that’s fine! Just the usual intrusive thoughts and stuff!” 

“Hey Salena, love the enthusiasm and it’s really great to see you so happy but, maybe you should save your energy for when we actually get there?”

“Sorry! I’m just so excited!”

“Yeah, I had a feeling you’d enjoy this.” He smiled and turned back to Mikey. “Hey Angelo, we there yet?”

“Yepperoni! Just give it a sec and let the Master of Mystic Arts do his thing.” Mystic arts?

He held out his hands and they started glowing. Contrasting with the neon blue I’m used to seeing, a portal opened up in sunset colors. 

“Guys, am I missing something? Why are we opening a portal?” I glanced over at Leo for some answers only to be met by his stupid amused smirk.

“So, we may have hidden a tiny little detail about this zoo trip.”

“Damn, you don’t say?” 

Mikey, the only thing between me and the glowing mystery hole, stepped off to the side. “We weren’t just gonna go to any regular zoo. We’re going to the Hidden City Zoo!”

Hidden City? Oh wait, that’s the place Raph talked about, the reason why there were so many Yōkai near my house! This is probably one of the gateways to it? I leaned in a bit closer, a little more cautious than usual. It sounded thrilling to explore the Hidden City but a zoo? What kind of animals could a mutant zoo have? 

“Um, we’re not gonna get immediately mauled death by some crazy rabid mutant lion or something, right?”

“Dunno. Only one way to find out!”

“What.”

The blue bastard pushed me through without hesitation as my poor knees made contact with the hard, rocky surface on the other side. I thought of letting my violent desires get the better of me for a minute. Until... 

The new world in front of me left me starstruck.

The sky painted in various hues of pink and gold, an enormous entrance built on seafoam-colored stone displaying the words Hidden City Zoo. Peeking inside it only got better, the place was littered with wild and wacky creatures I’ve never even dreamed could exist! And in the distance, I think I can make out a rollercoaster?

It seems like Mikey’s in just as much awe as I am “Omigosh look at how big it is! And it has an amusement park nearby? This place is even cooler than I thought!”

“Dudes, what’d I tell you, this was totally a great idea! Ugh, I should’ve gone here last time instead of that stupid spa.”

“Why didn’t you just go after the spa?”

“Oh cause we all got thrown in jail. A dumb bird and an evil wig framed me for theft so that kinda took up the whole day.”

“But Dad and I bailed them out and saved the day! Who’s the best turtle now Leon~” 

A giggle escaped my lips “The fact that I’m not even surprised. Now c’mon, enough blabbering, we gotta go explore!” 

A mutant zoo is somehow exactly what I expected it to be but also completely different at the same time. Most of these guys look like regular animals, just bigger and louder. But a few others actually reminded me of more traditional Yōkai I saw in a book about Japanese folklore. I remember Mom used to hate how interested I was in it, which was pretty strange since she herself was Japanese. That was the only thing I ever knew of her heritage. She kept trying to tell me Yōkai knowledge was useless and I’d have way more fun learning about real animals instead. Unfortunately for her, my curiosity was not one to be quenched so I simply ended up learning about both. 

I looked at one of the bear Yōkai, they’re called onikuma I think. We made eye contact and either I need to get my vision checked or it just smiled at me. Weren’t these supposed to be wild animals? Come to think of it actually, the more Yōkai-looking creatures resembled the mutants outside the zoo enclosures more than the ones inside. You know, the guys walking around on two feet wearing clothes and taking pictures on their phones the same way we were and are very obviously not wild animals. 

“Whatcha writing, Salena?” the tangerine looked over my shoulder while I was typing on my notes app.

“Oh, just trying to learn a bit more about these guys. I don’t know why but something just feels-” 

Before I could finish my sentence, my stomach chose violence sending a sharp pain through my body as it rumbled louder than a whale call. 

“Oh yeah, I forgot to eat today.”

“You do that too?”

Mikey let out a dramatically loud gasp “What is wrong with y’all? How can anyone forget to eat? We’re getting food right now.”

“Chillax Mikey, I’ll be fine! We can wait a little-”

“Don’t make me go Doctor Delicate Touch on you.”

“N-Nevermind.”

We were unwillingly dragged by the terrifying midget to a food booth nearby. I mean, it’s not too bad honestly, the food in the Hidden City is way better than in New York. We got a super delicious burger packed with juicy meat, creamy cheese, tomatoes that actually taste like something, and… worm fries. I avoided that last delicacy but Leo seemed to enjoy it. Mikey on the other hand wrote down every tiny detail while rambling to himself the whole time. 

“Don’t mind him, Mikey loves to cook. Sometimes he tries remaking recipes of any food we liked outside.”

“Ahem, I don’t just recreate them, I improve them!”  

I looked at the giant burger in my hands amazed at Mikey’s confidence. “You want to improve this? This is literally the best burger I’ve ever had in my life! How could you top this?”

“Yeah, Miguel, you sure you’re good enough for this one?” He glared as Leo playfully stuck out his tongue. 

“You’ll just have to wait and be impressed! But on another note, how’re you doing Salena? Enjoying the day so far?”

“Enjoying doesn’t even begin to describe it! Everything is so cool here! I’ve always wanted to go to a zoo like this. I bugged my parents about it a lot when I was younger but we never had enough money for the tickets and stuff. They promised they’d take me one day but…” They died before they could. 

I never realized how I completely forgot about that. Life got so busy that getting upset over zoos seemed too silly to do anymore.

I snapped back to reality feeling the boys’ eyes on me.

“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to ruin the mood-”

They hugged me. 

“It’s a good thing we took you here then!”

“Yeah, consider it a thank you gift for Mr. and Mrs. Moni.”

This feels… warm. And familiar? It’s a hug. I’ve hugged plenty of people. But those hugs felt different. I feel so small right now and that’s strangely a good thing. Everything is warm and cozy and a little dreamy. 

I think the last time a hug felt like this was when my parents were still here.

The rest of the day went by delightfully. We took a stupid amount of pictures - mostly because Leo wanted to boast to Raph and Donnie later - and Mikey even dragged us on to a few of the rides at the amusement park. The mood felt a little softer than before. I’m not entirely used to it but I honestly don’t mind.

But as usual, the pleasantly chill vibe can never last for too long. A loud crash grabbed our attention towards one of the exhibits where a bunch of employees were scrambling around with cages in their arms. Mikey managed to stop one of them mid-panic to ask what’s going on.

“Something broke the glass and now they all escaped!”

I caught Leo inspecting the broken glass. Following his eyes, they landed on what seemed to be a giant crab claw. He quickly noticed the two culprits in the distance frolicking around in acrobat uniforms and groaned. “Ugh, I think I know who that something was.”

“Who are those guys?”

“The Sando brothers. We just can’t enjoy a single day of peace can we?” Mikey grit his teeth with a murderous glint in his eyes. Like I said, soft as a sponge. Just when he’s mad, he’s as soft as a sponge left out too long without water.

The employee was focused more on the escaped critters and rushed off before we could ask anything else. “They’ll wreck everything! We need to catch them before they wreck everything!”

“Hey wait! What animal got loose!?”

I squinted at the label trying to read the small text, immediately filled with dread now understanding everyone’s panic. One of the raccoon-sized demons hissed to my right, preparing to pounce.

“Uh, guys? This was a shrew enclosure!”

“A what enclosure?”

“Duck!” 

“Wha- GAH!” It would seem I managed to avoid it at the expense of traumatizing the blueberry. “GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME!”

Mikey kicked the shrew off revealing poor Leo’s scratched up and terrified face. “Why are they so violent!?”

“They’re shrews, that’s their job! But they’re usually no bigger than a human palm, I can’t believe ooze could supersize them that much.” I quickly wrote down the new info on my phone as Mikey helped Leo up.

“Leo, what’s the plan?”

He looked at the crabs while dusting himself off “We should probably take care of the circus clowns before they destroy anything else. What do ya say, Angelo? Think you can keep up with professional acrobats?”

“You know I can! Cowabunga!”

“Wait! What do I do?” 

“Oh, Mikey and I can take care of this. You don’t wanna just lay low till we’re back?”

“And let you two hog all the fun? I thought you knew me better than that.”

He softly chuckled “Right, adrenaline junkie, how could I forget?” He looked at the several mutant shrews raging havoc all over the place “Well, we could use someone to help catch the… shrews right? You seem to know a bunch about them. Maybe you could help make sure they don’t destroy the whole place.”

My eyes lit up “You got it chief!” 

“If you need any help, holler!” 

I went over to the employees. Some of them were still trying to capture the tiny devils while a few others were getting a mystic wall ready where the glass broke, I’m assuming to temporarily keep them in. I’ll need a plan to get all the shrews in there. Mindlessly chasing around already proved to be a fail. 

I know I definitely read about this before. Shrews are carnivorous, they like eating things like snails and slugs but those were the regular-sized shrews. What could I feed these giants?

Think, think, think. There’s gotta be something around here I can bait them with…

“Wait! The burgers! Of course!”

I bolted inside a kitchen and scanned around for any giant clumps of meat.

“Hey, kid! Who are you, what are you even doing here?” 

“Sorry, I’m in a hurry. Shrew problems.” 

“What?”

I looked past the confused guy and saw what I was looking for. Shoving down my guilt, I grabbed a bunch of bacon patties and ran out the kitchen. 

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry, it’s a necessary sacrifice!”

Back outside, I found a shrew and waved one of the patties, catching its attention. 

“Over here, buddy!” Usually, thin bacon strips would be enough to lure them but I figured giant meat circles were more appropriate for these guys.

Once I got it close enough to the enclosure, I threw the patty in letting the shrew jump after it, getting trapped behind the transparent magic wall. One by one, all the menace mice were eventually recaptured. Not gonna lie, I’m still a little surprised it actually worked. 

“Salena, look out!” 

I dodged to Mikey’s instruction just in time for another giant crab claw to fly bullet-speed past me getting absorbed into the wall. It would seem mystic glass can’t really be broken, good thing too since the shrews escaping again would’ve broken my will to live alongside it. 

Unfortunately, I spent too long collecting myself and got snatched up by the back of my shirt, now facing the presumed Sando brothers.

“Look Carl, it’s the gross little human that keeps ruining our plan!” 

“Ha! Look at it swing!”

“Put me down you bald red freak!”

He suddenly looked at me in pain as if my dream of breaking his dumb claws open had actually come true “B-bald?..”

“Did you just call my brother bald!?”

“I can’t believe that’s the part you’re focused on.”

“I… I used to be so beautiful with my luscious long locks before I got turned into this! You still got to keep your hair, why was life so cruel to me!?” The red nuisance began pouring a waterfall of tears.

“See what you did!? Now you made him cry! Hey, it’s alright Ben, that human doesn’t know beauty when they see it.” Are you serious.

“You’re right! We should do something awful to it! Something that’ll make them regret calling me bald!”

“Yeah like!.. Like…”

“Ooh, I know! We should eat it!” 

“DUDE! Why is that the first thing you think of!?”

A familiar taunting voice joined in the conversation “Lame! You guys are so awful at plans, no wonder you got outsmarted by a regular ol’ human!” I’d be offended if I wasn’t preoccupied with my confusion. 

“Excuse me!? Did you just call my brother lame!?”

“Why does the universe hate me today!?”

“I’d like to see you idiots do any better!”

“Oh-ho we could do so much better, right Mikey?”

“What are you guys-”

“Duh! I mean there are rollercoasters everywhere and they didn’t even realize higher ground would speed things up by a trillion.”

HUH!? “No no no no no no! We do not need to go higher ground!”

“Hey come to think of it, Mike, dropping someone from a high place is a pretty heinous thing to do, too. Way worse than eating them.”

“OH YOU TWO ARE SO DEAD IF I’M NOT!”

“Ben, they actually have a point.”

“Y-yeah they kinda do… Welp doesn’t matter if we take credit for it, anyway! See ya later, jerks!”

They jumped onto the coaster as I helplessly awaited my fate, praying the dumbass turtles had some sort of plan and didn’t just use me as live bait for the crab monsters. 

“Look down at your death tiny pest! I bet it’d take you days just to finally hit the ground!”

“Woah, you really think we’re that high up, Ben?”

“Yeah! Or actually, no not really, I think it’ll only take like a minute or something.”

“Really? That doesn’t sound as cool. Should we go higher ground-”

“UGH! Why does it matter, I’m dead either way you buffoons!”

“Oh yeah, good point.” He let go of me and off I was screaming as I fall to my doom.

But just above me, a pair of chains wrapped around the rollercoaster and snapped it like a stick, sending idiot crab men falling down with me. Still in shock, I didn’t notice the blue katana fly by, teleporting a smirking turtle just in time to catch me. 

“Leo?”

“Missed me?~” He drew his blade mid-air and opened a portal landing us to safety. 

“You didn’t think we actually ditched you, did you?”

“Aha, I was starting to…”

I looked past his shoulder towards the sound of Mikey’s hyper yelps.

“It’s mystic time, baby!” I gawked as the orange portal, just like the one from earlier today, opened up swallowing the terrified acrobats and sending them to who knows where. 

“Mikey can open portals, too!?”

“Don’t tell me you thought there was a gateway to the Hidden City directly outside the zoo.”

“Actually, yeah I kinda did.”

Mikey walked over pressing against the glass wall between us. Wait, glass? Where even are we?

“Leo, Salena! Are you guys okay?”

“Don’t worry, little brother, we’re perfectly fine. We just gotta get out here.”

“Uh…L-Leo!” He followed my frightened gaze to the giant mutant bullfrogs behind us. 

“So that’s what the glass was for.”

“RUN!”

I grabbed his hand and started sprinting away from the green enemy, making sure to dodge the enormous pink tongue currently hunting us.

“You know, for someone who supposedly failed gym, you’re pretty light on your feet.”

I furrowed my brows, more towards his accusation than his inappropriately relaxed smirk “I did fail gym! You’re just lucky dodgeball’s the only sport I’m good at.”

We hid behind a nearby rock, gasping and trying to catch our breaths.

“Man, of all the places you could’ve picked, why’d you portal us here?”

“Hey, it’s not like I meant to! My portals mess up when I panic.”

“You were panicking?”

He looked just as surprised as I did “Ah-”

“Guys! Are you dead?!” his comms let out Mikey’s panicked voice.

“We’re okay, Mikey. Just resting for a bit.”

“Oh good. Cause uh, THE COPS ARE HERE! WE’VE GOTTA MOVE!”

“The cops? Eugh boy.”

“Wait why is that a bad thing? Does the Hidden City not have Good Samaritan laws or something?”

He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck “So uh, remember the whole ‘us getting thrown into jail’ thing? Yeah, we may or may not still be wanted criminals for that whole shebang.”

“You said you got bailed out!”

“I never said legally!”

“Oh my god.”

He peeked from behind the rock, making eye contact with Mikey still waiting for us outside the enclosure.

“Okay, I’ve got an idea but we’ve gotta make a run for it. You ready to leave the zoo?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve had enough mutant mayhem for one day.”

We raced past the mutant frog. Leo swung his sword one last time, creating a portal, and shoved it so it reached both sides of the glass barrier. The three of us dove in as it closed behind, falling back to a soft carpeted floor. 

I rubbed my head and looked around “My room… M-My room! Omigosh we made it guys, we’re alive!” 

Mikey and Leo were a little less celebratory than I thought they’d be. 

“Sorry for dragging you into a fight, Salena. Again. Man, that’s the second time that’s happened. Which, I guess it isn’t a lot, but still weird it happened twice.”

“Ugh, this was supposed to be a fun, relaxing trip to the zoo. I can’t believe those stupid crab jerks showed up and ruined it.”

I had no idea they’d be so dejected over this. 

“Who said anything about ruined?” They looked at me puzzled by my unfazed smile.

“Did you hit your head or something? We should check for injuries. Leo-”

“No, guys, I’m fine! Really!”

“You almost died twice today and you think that wouldn’t ruin anything?”

“Okay, yeah, that would’ve been inconvenient if I did, but I didn’t! I mean, come on! Think about literally everything else that happened! My first ever zoo and we just so happened to save it from disaster that exact same day? Guys, this was amazing!” I let myself breathe a bit, feeling the adrenaline calm down. “Life’s been so much better ever since I met you.”

Leo stared at me silently while Mikey caved into his emotions. “That’s it, I can’t take it anymore! Group hug!” 

The teary tangerine pulled us in. For a while, we all stayed like that, cuddled on the floor. Warm, cozy, and comfortable. As weirdly thrilling as the danger was, I think the hugs were still my favorite part about today. 

I would’ve loved to just enjoy it a bit longer but my phone alarm rang, the one I always set to be an hour before my oh so beloved family returned.

“You better go. I don’t think my aunt would be very happy with two random turtles in my room.”

After our goodbyes, I happily jumped into bed ready for some quiet downtime. I guess even though I didn’t get to hang out with the person I initially planned to, today might have turned out better this way. I opened up Instagram and started scrolling and catching up on everything else in the world. A YouTuber posted a new video, a couple and their cat went on vacation, an artist opened up commissions. All in all, seemed to be a pleasant day for everyone else, too. 

My thumb paused. A new post from Zane. They were pictures from a party he went to today, seemed like he had fun.

I got to the last picture on his post. My eyes went wide, staying glued to the person next to him. Heavy eyes. Dark hair straightened into a ponytail.

I felt my stomach doing flips realizing who it was. 

“Jaiden?”

Next Chapter

[tanjir0se]

Ok I’m gonna actually be real for a minute. Now that I’ve unfortunately watched enough anime to consider myself an Anime Fan™ (welcome to cringe city population me) I think I can confidently say that Demon Slayer is on a completely different level.

1. The Animation. This kind of goes without saying. But literally even the early seasons felt alive, even mid range episodes look beautiful, and this most recent season has cemented KNY as being in a completely different league to anything else I’ve watched. BNHA, AOT, even Chainsaw Man and Trigun literally don’t even hold a candle to Demon Slayer when it comes to the animation. The fire and sparks and lightning GLOW from inside whatever screen you’re watching it, I don’t even know how they do it. Attack animations and fight choreography are so gorgeous and well timed and just so fucking beautiful to look at. I could go on forever.

2. The story. This is a controversial one because I have heard some say that the plot is nothing special for a shonen. Which I actually think is a good thing? The setup is simple, the mechanics are easy to understand and make sense, and I don’t have to wait through 19 episodes of lead up before something interesting happens. It’s just a straightforward story about a boy who loves his family. Also, Tanjiro’s power crawl is INSANE, every huge overpowered moment he has feels so earned.

Further in defense of the writing in KNY, the story feels so tight. Like we don’t really waste time with shit in KNY, everything feels focused and purposeful with the exception of maaaybe a few more comedic relief moments especially early on. But even those I don’t mind, they keep the tone light but consistent and develop the kids’ characters.

3. The MUSIC. Holy shit the music. It never stops!!! The way the character and action themes kind of blend into one another throughout the episodes, how hearing the melody of your favorite character start playing at certain moments can just rip your heart out. HOW YOU CAN PREDICT PLOT BEATS BY LISTENING VERY CLOSELY TO THE SOUNDTRACK. Literally unrivaled. LITERALLY unrivaled. It only stops when they purposefully drop it out to emphasize something. The musical beats and stings can build tension like nothing else, I will always be insane about the music in Demon Slayer.

4. In the same vein, the sound design I think is often overlooked. The swords clanging whenever they change position. The roar of Tanjiro’s sun breathing and the hiss of Hinokami escaping through his teeth. The clap of Thunder when Zenitsu breaks out thunder breathing. The way jewelry and chains jingle, the way his earrings clack against his collar, the way jaws snap shut or footsteps crunch in the snow, it’s all such excellent attention to detail that you don’t really notice until you Notice and then it’s always there.

Maybe Aniplex or Ufotable is putting something in their water or maybe I love my blorbos so much it’s making my brain smooth but it really feels like a passion project. It feels like the animators and writers and voice actors just deeply deeply give a shit about the art they’re making. Every single frame just oozes love and care for the source material and it comes through so beautifully. And this season is really taking all of everything I just said to the next level.

Anyway, watch Demon Slayer, love yourselves and turn off BHNA and AOT

[linagram]

To the 2(3?) wardens: Now that trial 2 has begun, what have the prisoners been requesting? As before, whether they actually got the item or not is irrelevant.

okay, so the thing is that i'm not 100% sure if the guilty prisoners are still allowed to ask for things in canon, like i thought they can't do that, but now i'm, again, not completely sure (like for example, fuuta still has a different outfit in season 2), so i just want to say that in my ocgram guilty prisoners can't ask for anything "officially", so if they have a request, they have to ask innocent prisoners to get those items for them or they can ask miki and hope that eiji doesn't find out. there's also another way for them to get the stuff they want though..

guard 003 can't leave his room, so he can't actually bring the things prisoners need himself and also they can't pay him a visit (most prisoners don't even know if there's a third guard), but because he still has so many cameras and he also can listen to everyone's conversations, he can take "secret requests", so if an innocent prisoner wants to ask for something, but they can't for one reason or another, if the guard 003 is feeling like it, he will grant their wish. he can do the same for the guilty prisoners, but only if he feels like they deserve to get those items. ah, and he just asks jackalope to bring them those things while everyone is asleep. he really just turned his own boss into a delivery guy.

as with the t1 version of this question, the guards will answer instead of prisoners. guard 003 will talk about the secret requests and not the regular ones. (note: not all prisoners make requests like that)

Miki:

Since Miyagawa-san was voted guilty, he's not allowed to ask for anything, even though I really want to help him.. Usually Aimi-chan is the one who gets everything for him, but considering his condition, it's mostly things like bandages or medications that can help with his pain at least a little bit. Of course, his injury is serious and we need to do more about it, but because of his verdict and because both me and Eiji-san are not particularly good at taking care of injuries.. Sadly, we can't do much.

About Aimi-chan.. Aimi-chan is mostly worried about Miyagawa-san and she says that she doesn't really need anything herself. Though she did ask for some cute hair ties for her braids and I got her some cherry blossom-themed ones. She really likes them, hehe..

Ishizu-san's requests are a bit.. They're just a little bit weird, haha. If we're not counting his new outfit, I feel like he's been mostly asking for things that remind him of Kei-san? Like, maybe I just don't understand something, but why would he need sunglasses in prison? He doesn't even wear them, unlike Kei-san, he just keeps them somewhere in his cell and I can see him looking at them sometimes. He asked for some other accessories that Kei-san was wearing before his punishment and again, Ishizu-san doesn't even wear them, he just.. collects them, I guess? And about his other requests.. He keeps asking for things like manga and light novels and some of them are.. U-um.. Y-you know, maybe he's right, maybe I just don't get them.. Like he told me that they actually have a very deep meaning and that I'm just a bit too young for that. I probably should just agree with him for my own sanity.

Eiji: Naomi, as always, thinks about other prisoners more than herself and she rarely requests things that she herself needs and not anyone else. I asked her about it, considering that she's slowly becoming more confident and open about her dislike of certain prisoners, but she just said that she really doesn't need and doesn't want anything. She also said "Sorry, but I don't want to cause you any trouble, unlike Asahi-kun".. Is she trying to make herself look better than a kid? Well that's just pathetic.

Kei's not allowed to ask for anything and I also make sure to ignore any requests he has. He's guilty, so he doesn't deserve to get anything he wants.. H-how did you- Listen, the only reason why I bring him food when nobody can see us is because I don't want him to die until this whole thing is over. No, I do want him to die but if he dies too early.. I-I don't know if those people will like it.

Eiko still mostly asks for things like hair products, accessories and all that. She also asked if she can have a full-length mirror in her cell and if she's allowed to decorate her cell.. I answered yes, but only so that she could leave me alone after that. She also has this weird habit of requesting things and then giving them to me now. I told her I'm fine and I don't need them, but she insists and says that I can consider accepting them another request from her.

Miki: Yano-san's requests are mostly the same, though now he asks for even more attention from me and a lot of his requests actually sound like "Just sit with me and talk to me about something" or "Sit next to me while I eat", etc. I don't know why, but he's become so attached to me for some reason.. I don't really mind though, when we spend time like this, I realize that he's actually a very sweet kid, he's just.. not that good at understanding his own feelings and expressing them. O-or maybe he's just only nice to me and not the other people here.

Eiji: Yurika is not allowed to ask for anything and even if she begged on her knees, I wouldn't listen to her. She's too dangerous right now and I feel like she has the ability to turn literally anything into a weapon now. Well, she doesn't really try to request stuff anyway.

Miki: Wait, what am I supposed to call him now? Our relationship is kind of.. U-uh, anyway, Riku-san asked for some hair dye recently, he said that he kinda wanted to change his appearance. He asked for multple different colors and ended up using only two of them and when I mentioned that, he just said that since we don't know how much time we'll have to spend here, he's sure he'll get a chance to use those colors too in the future. As for his other requests, he somehow broke his guitar, so he asked for a new one.. And then he broke it again like three days later. Eiji-san said that it's probably just a way to relieve stress for him, s-so.. I got a cardboard box and drew a guitar on it and gave it to him. He got confused and said that he actually does need a guitar, so that he can play music, but I was so afraid of him breaking it again and I was so tired, that.. u-uh.. I ended up yelling at him and telling him that if he's talented enough, he'll be able to play music with a box. I still feel bad for saying that..

As for Himura-san, she actually spends more time with me rather than Eiji-san now, though I think it's mostly because most of the things she asks for are obviously meant for Kei-san and she doesn't want Eiji-san to know anything. When it comes to what she requests for Kei-san, her requests are a bit similar to Aimi-chan's, but she doesn't only ask for medicine, for example, she has recently asked for a hairbrush, so that she can take care of Kei-san's hair, since it's really messy now. She also wanted to get some new clothes for him, but she knew that Eiji-san would notice Kei-san wearing something different, so she changed her mind. As for her own requests.. well, she asked for bubblegum once? Also I found out that she doesn't like strawberry flavor.

???: Let me think.. Well, Akio-san still wants to read a lot, but obviously, he doesn't have the energy for that at the moment and he, uh, literally can't read right now. I feel sorry for him, honestly.. Also I made Jackalope get some better medicine for him, so that at least he can get some sleep. I kinda have experience with that stuff, haha..

H-huh? You want to know Shun-san's secret requests?.. I don't think you want to know the answer. Seriously, this guy is either going to kill everyone here if I ever end up bringing him the things he wants or he'll just.. I don't know, brainwash Kei and turn him into his pet or something? I don't wanna know what's going on in his head.

Naomi-san's secret requests are a bit scary too and no, I didn't bring her anything. To be honest, I feel like she's planning to hurt or even try to kill a certain prisoner, so.. Yeah, I probably should ignore her.

Kei-san's camera is broken now, so he can't use it and he mentioned that he wants a new one even though it's too hard for him to take pictures right now, especially because of his eye injury, but I still got one for him. I don't know, I thought that he should have at least some fun. Also Reina helps him take pictures, even though he always ends up telling her that she's not a professional and she should just let him do everything, but it's fun to watch them.

Asahi-san actually wanted to impress Miki-san with something, but he didn't know what, so I tried my best to find at least some information about her interests.. But then I found out that she has two main interests: forgiving everyone and everything and cute guys. So, uh.. Sorry, Asahi-san. I tried.

Yurika-san's secret requests are even worse than Shun-san's! I swear, they're all going to kill each other if someone doesn't intervene..

Riku-san's secret requests are just.. sad. You don't wanna hear about them.. Wait, is he planning to hurt himself again or is he planning to hurt others this time? In any case, it's still not good.

Reina-san is an interesting one. She doesn't have any secret requests, but sometimes I can see her standing somewhere and staring right into the camera. I don't know if she noticed it or it's just a coincidence. But I'm starting to feel like she did notice it.

[dnpanimationstudioclone]

About Sam🦇

"Sam Manson, Aka Amity Park's "Ghost Girl" is well known for her love for the supernatural and paranormal, ESPECIALLY for Ghosts. She lives for all the crazy horror that happens around her town. Imagine how she feels that one of her BFF's a super cool ghost! She's always ready for an adventure with her friends, her motto, the crazier the better!"

Personality:

I know there's been ALOT of arguments about Sam's character, I figure we already know them. Point a lot of people see her to be very judgemental, selfish, hypocritical, causing trouble for her friends, especially Danny and have "I'm not like other girls" vibes. Tbh I think the main problem was that she just didn't have proper development. I think a lot of characters had that issue, not just her. Flaws and all she's a good character or atleast I think so. She cares a lot especially for her friends and what's right and I love that! With that said I am making some changes for my personal take.

A huge change is her idea on ghosts. While OG Sam said they're "too mainstream", my Sam LOVES GHOSTS!!!!

Another change is that she's on the more spontaneous, out there side, like(Mabel Pines, Marcy Wu, Louise Belcher, Anne Boonchuy, LMK Mei, Glitch Techs Miko, Luz Noceda, ROTTMNT April, Casey Jones/Foot recruit, Kid- Kid Cosmic, Molly McGee, NSR Mayday, Star Butterfly) vibes. She definentley vibes to Luz's "Us weirdos needs to stick together!" She is still unapologetically herself and wouldn't change herself for anyone. With that said is actually rather self concious of herself and secretly feels rather lonely, feeling distant from the people around her, being "too much or weird" for them, sometimes wishing she could fit in better with people. Atleast she has friends who like her the way she is.

For my version I also want her to be more focused on horror stuff, such as ghosts. I remember in ep 1 she thought they were "too mainstream". Scrapping that completely. I want this girl to be OBSESSED with ghosts. But at the same time her activism was a huge part of her character and I think that should stay. The main problem I think personally was her not properly learning better ways to get people to listen to her ideas.

My Sam-Klemper and Frostbite could remake all the polar ice caps, Lunch Lady could end world hunger and Sidney could straighten out the school system and how they tackle bullying!

My Sam's on the more immature, impulsive side and tends to dive head first into stuff. She doesn't take herself as seriously and like any kid doesn't always think things through. She'd be far more open to haunting pranks and goof around, doing crazy stuff.

I'm keeping her stubborn impulsive side. She's known for biting off more than she can chew and getting WAY ahead of herself in stuff, usually winding up into as well as cause some crazy trouble.

Overall she still has Sam's passion and care, I just also made her not as serious and more relaxed, open and unafraid to show how much she enjoys stuff, not caring if other people like it or not.

Facts:

Definetley keeping Grey DeLisle

Abilities-HUGE horror expert, huge occult expert, knowledge in nature stuff, chaotic smiling friends level energy, athleticism, agile, good fighter, knows self-defense, strong, creative, resourceful, confident, very motivated, comfortable with her own company, knows some natural medicines, good at sewing, cooking, can play the piano, ball dance, knows some ballet, multilingualism-knows Japanese(learned it so she can watch anime that don't have Eng Dub or Sub), likes to stay hopeful and never gives up for what's right!

Weaknesses- Reckless, stubborn, impulsive, tends to get WAY ahead of herself, has trouble talking about feelings, can be uintentionally insensitive, blunt, has trouble connecting with people, doesn't always think things through and tends to distract herself and get lost in her own world in order to avoid having to deal with her feelings and issues.

I see Sam make DIY horror themed art from recycled objects. Waste not want not.

Goes ALL out for Halloween🎃

Calls herself "gremlin" 😈 Has also been called "batgirl"🦇

Knows how to write in cursive.

Would LOVE stuff such as Ruby Gloom, TOH, Amphibia, Smiling Friends, Dead End:Paranormal Park, Final Space, TGAMG, Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss, etc.

Owns a sewing machine. Knows how to sew and knit. Perhaps learned from her grandma.

I can see half of her decor and stuff be made from recycled stuff she created herself.

Totally runs like Naruto.

Likes- A good chunk of what OG Sam liked, LOVES GHOSTS, hanging with Danny and Tucker, her grandma, when her parents aren't overbearing, Mother Nature, stormy weather, cult classics, night, stars, horror stuff, horror stories and media, animation, art, books, parkour, drawing, indie projects, webcomics, animals, conspiracy theories, testing out Tucker's inventions, stargazing with Danny, magic, bats, lizards, amphibians, insects and spiders, anything creepy, slime, classical literature, poems, the dark, thrift stores, explosions, antique and vintage stuff and people accepting her for who she is.

Fav animal-Bats🦇

Dislikes-Pink, bright colors, bright lights, brightness, Prep fashion, oversaturated colors, her parents, usually her mom trying to make her wear cheerier, gender rules, discrimination, injustice, ghost hate, bad reboots, when industries cancel good shows, toxic fake people, people trying to use her, especially for her money, Twilight(she HATES their portrayal of the supernatural, especially vampires and overall problematic messages. Sam- SOMEHOW THEY RUINED VAMPIRES MORE THAN VLAD DOES!, THE MAN!, pollution, NFTS, her parents trying to make her look "happier", ignorance, prejudice, being told how to be, being lied to and people trying to change her.

Writes fanfiction and does fanart✍️

Is VERY aware of Creepypasta.

Likes to do volunteer work.

I see her love vintage, antique stuff. For the aesthetic and cause its eco friendlier to use something that can still work than just buy something new. Wears alot of her grandma's old clothes👚👕

Sam has a YouTube channel. “Amity’s#1_Ghost_Girl💜👻💜”, and started a series, “The Ghosts of Amity Park👻” talking about all the ghosts that have been in Amity Park as well as their backstories. She also likes to talk about Cryptids and other horror stuff besides ghosts(urban legend, mythological creatures, you name it). It’s gotten a lot of subscribers lately because of all the latest ghost appearances. She even got Danny Phantom himself to do a Live Q&A chat. Paulina was SPEECHLESS! She also does some horror show/movie/book reviews, DIY art and decor vids, memes, Eco-friendly life hacks and tips as well as some yummy vegetarian and horror themed recipes. Also has a tumblr, insta, DA, Twitter and TikTok.

What do u think? How would u rewrite Sam? I'd love to know💖

[bisexualmikisayaka]

like... okay, being trapped in several layers of your own dreams is not a trope exclusive to this movie and has actually kind of been around forever, but the casca dream sequence that takes over all of 372 is a little perfect blue-esque, no? like that part where mima keeps waking up after increasingly unreal action sequences? there's also something to look at there with casca's own fractured identity as a result of trauma and the persona that gets created for her in absence of the "true self," shall we say, which isn't quite the same in PB but the themes definitely parallel each other. anyways big unpacking of 372 under the cut because i love a casca mini-arc!

once you get to the dream sequence itself it's quite interesting - casca is totally mute for the first "loop", and dressed up and paraded around in this illusion of a noblewoman's life. here we're going back to two major parts of her character - the first obvious reference is her life as "elaine" and the behavior she exhibited as a result of how extremely her trauma impacted her, i.e. not being able to formulate words anymore. the second is the corridor of dreams, and casca viewing herself as a broken doll, which is pretty heartbreakingly self-explanatory, but it's echoed here in her being moved around by these presumably illusory handmaidens and having no control over her own dress, movements, or life. she is, for all intents and purposes, a doll. the only time we see the true casca before the bath scene is when she cries at seeing the band of the hawk. the handmaids believe that it's because she's scared of the soldiers, which we obviously know is not true lmao. the one possibly good thing about this scenario is that casca, in her own altered state of mind due to whatever the fuck is being done to her, finally has a way to grieve the losses she experienced during the eclipse without relapsing into her trauma because of the memories that grief brings up. also her taking care of kids makes me crazy insane especially because of Everything with griffith and the moonlight boy but i'm glad she got to be happy and nurturing for two whole panels.

then we get the bath. again, here water serves as a vehicle for truth - just as casca's tears represented her knowledge that at some level, she knows what she's experiencing isn't real, being submerged in this water triggers her memories of farnese, schierke, and dannan plus everyone else on elfhelm. side note but i love that it's the girls that she immediately sees, it is so important to me personally that casca gets to have meaningful relationships with other women. anyways here's when demure, voiceless casca completely shatters with her waking up in the chair (beginning the second "loop") and screaming. i would need to reread quite possibly the whole manga to figure out if there's a deeper meaning to the setting that she awakens to so put that on pause for now or if you've got a theory, drop it in the notes!

here, we are introduced to something of a combination of cascas that the readers are intimately familiar with. her outfit in the simple white dress is pretty similar to what she wore for a while as "elaine," and you can tell that she's reacting out of pure instinct in combat situations much like "elaine" did. but even amidst her panic it's still clear that she's operating at the cognitive level of the golden age/restored casca and her confidence in her abilities to incapacitate and get past the guards is one hundred percent normal casca. nonetheless, i don't want to completely gloss over casca's emotions during this scene - she's scared. you could honestly make a case for her being terrified here. she is one hundred percent fighting off the flashbacks she suppressed during the first loop and does not want to be in this combat situation. it's clear that this is a casca who is traumatized by violence - that reflection of the sword in her eyes after she chops off that guy's arm is once again heartbreaking, and honestly probably warrants its own paragraph if not its own post - but ultimately it is a necessity to achieve her goals of escaping and getting back to guts.

and then she falls. this panel is pretty small so it doesn't get a ton of visual (and therefore emotional/narrative) impact, but i think it is really interesting that casca's final waking moment in the second "loop" is on her hands and knees, collapsed, surrounded by soldiers. i think that has the potential to be an incredibly triggering situation for her, when she's already very triggered by the violence she enacted onto someone else, and thus warranting her passing out. interesting to not emphasize that moment, but then we get the third and final "loop," which seems to be what's actually happening to casca. hazy-eyed, she looks at us once, before drifting back off to sleep, clearly artificially induced by irvine. it's difficult to tell if casca actually managed to wake up and attempt escape before being recaptured, but it's certainly a legitimate possibility. i would also not rule out everything being a dream, and irvine's mention of her "flight" could be her internal struggles to break free which he's currently stopped and put her under for good (for now).

breaking away from the girl of all time, briefly, i want to talk about zodd in this scene. he is away from the rest of the apostles, who are all gathered behind griffith, near irvine when he reports. he's not even by griffith, who he's supported throughout this entire endeavor (he was the one who flew him and casca back to falconia!). zodd's alone, arms crossed and with an interesting expression on his face - it honestly seems like he's eavesdropping. i think his expression is ambiguous enough that you can interpret it a number of different ways, but i'm choosing to see it as him experiencing some form of internal conflict. zodd is the only apostle who knew casca before, uh, everything happened. she's never really been of interest to him, but she was there when he first met guts and griffith (iirc, she's the one who starts launching the volley of arrows that enables them to buy some time during that first battle), she's there when he kills wyald, and she was the other survivor of the eclipse when skully spirited her and guts outta there. while his primary focus has always been guts and griffith, it would make sense for zodd to have at least noticed casca always being around. of course he's gonna support griffith in his abduction of casca (for purposes still unknown, probably to piss off guts but nothing's really been confirmed yet as casca seems to have been allowed some degree of privilege and autonomy while she was being mind-controlled but had no interaction with griffith or the apostles whatsoever before breaking free, which is honestly pretty interesting) coz he'll do whatever griffith tells him. but there's something about this situation that seems to have caused tension between him and his group. idk, i wonder if he's gonna bust casca out, or at least play a pivotal role in getting guts back on his feet and ready to go after her again. i guess we'll have to see where 374 brings us because things are certainly getting crazy on the ship in 373!

[amagicdoctor]

Hey everyone!

As we move into 2023, I wanted to reflect about the past year and talk about my plans for the upcoming months. Overall, I think 2022 went off better than I expected. Several great things happened, but I’ll mention a few that really impacted me:

✨I got into the monthly theme mode. This kept the blog well organized, and allowed me to tackle important blog lore. Also, you guys really got into it too, which is what I originally wanted! I received plenty of asks to keep me busy and for the most part I was able to answer them in time if they connected to a certain month’s theme. 

✨Blog interaction increased exponentially. This was a big one that I did not expect. I have to give a special shout-out to the X-Men side of my followers. I have never received this much attention before, and it was thanks to you guys that more of my followers felt confident sending in asks/comments/DMs. Besides the asks sent in to me, I’ve also got a big backlog of asks for the blog. Seriously, blog interaction really popped off cause of the X-Men fans. I think this thing started off because I was super curious about the Krakoa situation, and a few of my followers actually responded and spent part of their time to educate me. This has been going on for months and it makes me feel REALLY happy that you guys care enough to talk to me about this stuff.

I’ve mentioned this before, but knowing that there’s a section of my followers who are X-Men fans is very important for content creation. Now I know I have a certain audience and can personalize my content for them! This is not to say I’m gravitating all my future content toward Doctor Strange’s relationship toward the X-Men, these are just things I keep in mind. Asks are the driving point of this blog, and right now the X-Men fans are the most vocal. But we’ll see what happens with that in the future 😉. 

I’m very thankful to all of you (not just the X-Men folks!), and I hope we can continue this relationship. If there’s any crazy incident happening on another side of the Marvel universe that you think may interest me as a Doctor Strange blog, let me know! I'm mostly partial to the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. My asks/DMs are always open. This goes double for any DC comic fans out there too!

✨Art improvement. My art is the biggest selling point of this blog. Comic book illustration is such an amazing subsection of the art field. I grew up making comics, and I love seeing my progress in this year alone. I’m becoming more confident with drawing bodies and hairstyles. Faces are a work in progress, and I’m even experimenting with color schemes! I’m not an art student, so there are things that I have to learn all by myself. I don’t make art with improvement in mind, I just think of an idea I want to execute and then go for it. If I happen to draw something better than I did before, then yay me! But I literally draw everyday, and practicing overtime does show change. I’m super proud of myself and I’m amazed at how far I’ve grown from the end of 2021 to now. I hope you too have enjoyed seeing my progress. I can’t wait to see what I can accomplish next year, I hope you’ll join me on that journey as well!

Looking forward, I have some wishlist plans for next year, this includes:

Monthly themes featuring: the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the Scarlet Witch. Asks sometimes do drive the themes, so if I get an influx of asks about a certain character or situation, I’ll dedicate a month or so to it.

Speaking of certain characters, because I will be quickly moving this blog to match canon’s current timeline, I will not have a month dedicated to Clea’s time as a Sorcerer Supreme. Disappointingly, I have not enjoyed her run as much as I have wanted to. Maybe this feeling will change by the end of the Strange (2022) series, but this conflicts with the blog timeline that I have planned (this does not mean you cannot send asks to her and co. about her experience). I also won’t speak about the blog’s posting schedule in a separate post like I usually do. This is because there will be no “monthly themes” until further notice. Doctor Strange’s new series starts in March of 2023, and the blog will be just about caught up by then. My current plans for the next few months are going to be hitting major plot points like Krakoa, Doctor Strange’s death arc, and Clea’s Supreme arc. You'll actually start to see a bit of a... shift starting in February (hint hint, wink wink). I hope you will follow along as the plot thickens and send in asks when needed!

I also want to know what other types of content I should cover. The art on my blog always comes first, but there are more things that I can get into. I can make more graphics, gifs, and even commentate on some parts of the series. For example, one thing I tried to set up is my new Character Design mini-series, so I could play around with ideas like those.

I would also be interested in any collabs. While I am an artist first, I’m also open to writing and any other ideas you may come up with. Actually, it’s one of my biggest dreams as an ask blog to interact with other (art) ask blogs. Please DM me at any time if this sounds like something you would want to be a part of!

Finally, I wanted to end this off with a big THANK YOU, to my followers, and everyone else who pops by the blog. I have loved reading your asks, your comments, and connecting with you in the DMs. The comics fandom is small, and the blog’s growth is a work in progress, but we have good moments here. Your continuous support means SO much to me. It really has been a good year, and I’m looking forward to what the future may bring! Have a good New Year!

See you in 2023!