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fitzs-trained-monkey · 3 years

Text

Chapter One: Lonely Together

Jack Kline x OC

Rated: PG

~I might hate myself tomorrow

But I'm on my way tonight

Let's be lonely together

A little less lonely together~

Sent: 10:52 PM

Merry Christmas, stranger. I hope yours is as bright as new fallen snow. Stay warm.

I smiled down at my phone before clicking it off and slipping it into my pocket. I didn't know who I had sent the message to. It was just a number I had punched in at random. I didn't expect anyone to reply.

Wrapping my dark green cardigan tighter around my body, I pulled my knees in closer to my chest and pressed myself closer against the wall of the bakery. The wall was only slightly warmer than the frigid air around me. It was December 2nd and icy gales were blowing in from Lake Superior and stinging the skin of the city's occupants.

The sky hung dark, low, and flat over Copper Harbor, Michigan. Copper Harbor was an itty-bitty town at the northern most tip of the northernmost part of Michigan. You know that piece of land that's only connected to the mainland by a highway, that in-between place that really should be Canada, but isn't? That's where Copper Harbor is and that's where I was.

Copper Harbor was the sort of town where newcomers and visitors are as common as flying pigs and are treated with about as much scrutiny. It's not one of those small, friendly towns just off the highway; the ones that are pleasant to find yourself in if you've taken a wrong turn. It's quite the feat to get lost and turn up in Copper Harbor, considering its miles away from anything and everything remotely interesting, unless you're searching for Bigfoot or a drunk Canadian that took a wrong turn. Though those two things might just end up being one and the same. No, nobody came to Copper Harbor unless they had a reason. That's just the sort of place it was. And aside from the mind-numbing cold, it was exactly the sort of place I wanted to be.

The clouds were so heavy with the snow that now drifted down, dusting everything in a layer of fine white powder, it seemed that someone standing on even the lowest rooftop could reach up and touch them. The snowflakes raining down from those clouds gave the appearance of tiny shooting stars. Many would have found the sight beautiful. I didn't. I just found it cold and somewhat depressing. Some people say that shooting stars are angels, falling to the earth to bless the lives of people in need. I've never liked those sorts of stories. The stars belong in the heavens. The dust belongs on the earth. Collecting in puddles, the sparkling, sugar-like ice crystals did nothing to ease the bitter cold. I shivered and coughed, my breath fogging in front of me.

I should have frozen to death hours ago.

But I can't die. At least, not that way.

Suffering, on the other hand, I can do that to no end.

I put my head between my knees, hoping to retain what little heat my walking corpse had to offer. I struggled to remain conscious. The story of the little-match-girl was playing in my head. I'd never liked that story's ending. Hallucinations really weren't my thing, especially hallucinations about things I tried not to think about, the things I tried to burry in the farthest corners of my mind. I had to distract myself, to think about anything that would keep me awake. The problem was, there was nothing to distract me.

Pling!

My phone buzzed in my pocket with a text. I grasped it quickly, greedy for a distraction, but I paused upon seeing the number displayed upon the screen. It was that number I had texted the Merry Christmas message to. Whoever it was had texted me back. I unlocked my phone and peered at the mystery person's message.

Received: 11:18 PM

Merry Christmas to you as well!

The message read. I smiled a little, surprised that anyone would care to return my quiet Christmas wish. The screen of my phone lit up with another message.

Received: 11:19 PM

Who are you?

The question was a simple one. Though tone can often be difficult to infer over written text, the question seemed to bear no hostility, only innocent curiosity. I thought for a bit about what to say, the answer was not as simple as the question had implied.

***

Located quite literally one thousand miles away from Copper Harbor, was the small, out-of-the-way town of Lebanon, Kansas. Now, in the outskirts Lebanon there was a hill. The hill was modestly sized and carpeted with thick grass painted with a layer of frost. Although it was a rather pleasant sight for some stray hiker to find, the hill was really quite unremarkable. That is, if you ignored the hulking steel door built into the side of it that looked like the entrance to a post-apocalyptic hobbit hole. See, built under that hill there was a bunker. It looked like any ordinary bunker if one can ever describe a bunker as ordinary. But inside this ordinary looking bunker, sat something rather extraordinary and his name was Jack.

Jack Kline was quite happy where he was. Sitting with his legs crossed on a chair beside the bunker's fireplace, Jack held Sam's beloved lap-top between his knees. Sam let him borrow it on the nights he couldn't sleep. Those nights were many. Sleepless nights were one of the many side effects of being half-angel, but he didn't really mind. Jack wasn't overly fond of sleep, not like Sam or Dean who adored the few hours they got. Jack would much rather be awake because if he was asleep then he couldn't observe. He liked to observe. He loved learning. He loved taking in anything and everything going on around him, soaking it all up like a sponge with legs. He especially loved to soak up a story. Epic ones with heroes that defeat powerful villains. Jack loved stories.

So, no; Jack Kline was not overly fond of sleep. No, Jack preferred to just sit quietly and watch those epic stories as they played out in front of him on the screen of Sam's lap-top.

Currently, he was watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The computer had said he would like it, and the computer had been right. He had just finished season 2 and had begun on season 3. Some small voice in the back of his mind told him he should slow down and draw the series out a little longer, but Jack just couldn't find the will to do so. This story was just too good to stop. Jack shoved a hand full of popcorn in his mouth as he pressed the play button on the next episode. He had managed to sneak several bags of popcorn from the kitchen and into the secret stash in his room a few nights earlier. It was perfect, except popcorn needed to be popped and popping the kernels without attracting notice was a bit of a challenge. But he found that if he popped them during the day, when everyone was clamoring about and busy with whatever, the noise from the popping kernels wouldn't peak any suspicion. The only downside to his strategy was that it left him with cold popcorn. Though this too could be remedied via his angel powers, if he was careful about it, he could warm up the popcorn undetected.

Now, don't get the impression that Jack was being starved, or held in this bunker against his will, or something awful like that. As was mentioned before, Jack was very happy there. The Winchesters, Sam and Dean, and the angel Castiel, lived there with him and took care of him. They were his family and Jack loved them. The only reason he had a secret stash at all was because Sam was the only one in the bunker who cared about the importance of having a somewhat healthy diet. Whereas Dean let the boy eat pretty much anything he wanted and Cas- well in Cas's mind food was food and that's all there was to it. But Sam didn't like it when he caught Jack eating what he referred to as 'junk food'.

Somehow, Sam always caught him.

"That stuff’ll rot your teeth, Jack!" He'd sigh, as he'd flip on the kitchen light and catch Jack eating cereal sometime around midnight. Then he'd look at Jack with a disappointed look on his face until Jack threw the cereal away and went back to bed. Jack hated it when Sam looked at him like that, he just couldn't bear to let the Winchesters down.

But Jack loved to eat. Eating was enjoyable as it brought with it something new every time. Yet more things to absorb and to experience. Although the younger Winchester disapproved of the more sugary foods; Jack liked those a whole lot more than the salads Sam tried to get him to eat. Jack didn't like the salads or 'Rabbit Food' as Dean called it. No, Jack liked popcorn a quite a bit more.

He smiled as he brought another handful into his mouth. Yes, Jack Kline quite enjoyed eating.

Plip! Ploop!

Jack's head swiveled away from the screen to stare at the phone laying face-up on the arm rest of the chair in which he sat. The screen was alight with a text message. He picked up the phone and unlocked it. The message read:

Received: 10:52 PM

Merry Christmas, stranger. I hope yours is as bright as new fallen snow. Stay warm.

That was all. Jack was quite confused; he didn't know that number. Who had sent the text? What should he do? Should he say something back?

Curiosity and caution struggled in a match tug-of-war in his head. He wanted to know who the message had come from. He wanted to know why that person had sent it. He also wanted to know why he had a strange feeling that whoever had sent the message was horribly sad. But would the Winchesters be mad at him if he answered? Sam and Dean had given him the phone just a few days earlier.

"For emergencies," Sam had said as he laid the device in Jack's hand before resuming his packing. Jack had stared at it, rather confused as to its purpose. Castiel had been off somewhere doing something and Sam and Dean had been leaving for a hunt, leaving him alone which Dean was completely and utterly against.

"Only for emergencies," Dean had stressed, jabbing his finger in Jack's general direction as he inspected various articles of clothing before tossing them into a duffle bag. "That means don't text or call unless someone is breaking in or you're dying!"

Sam shot his older brother a warning look. Dean ignored it and pulled a pair of socks out of his dresser, sniffing them briefly before making a face and chucking them to the other side of the room. Jack looked back down at the small black rectangle in his palm.

"Okay so, only text or call in case there's an emergency. Got it." Jack clinched the thin black box between his thumb and forefinger, carefully lifting it up as if it might explode in his face. "But, one question, if something happens like-like you said, like somebody breaking in or me dying, how-how would I do that?" He asked, looking back at the two brothers. They both froze their hasty packing and pivoted to stare at him, their eyebrows raised with disbelieving question.

"What?" Dean asked the young Nephilim. Jack shrank away a little, not wanting to upset the older Winchester.

"How do I text or call you? I don't know how to do that," Jack had timidly replied. Dean just shook his head and returned to over-stuffing the duffle. Sam, however, was much more understanding.

"That's right, you-you don't, do you?" Sam asked, realizing his mistake. Jack turned his attention to the younger of the brothers, shaking his head in an answer to Sam's question.

"Unbelievable," Dean muttered, rolling his eyes. Sam shot him another glare which Dean merely shrugged off.

"Well, come on then, I'll teach you," Sam had said. Jack watched as Sam set the contacts and explained how everything worked. He showed Jack how to send a text, how to dial and answer a call, and all the other things Jack would need to know. Jack just watched him and took note of every little thing. Watching and replicating was how Jack learned best.

"Now, if I don't answer my phone, you call Dean. But if he doesn't pick up, I want you to call me again, if I still don't answer a second time, I want you to call this number right here. That's Jody Mills, she's a friend of ours and she'll help you, alright? You get all that?" Sam finished explaining and looked for Jack to confirm his understanding. Jack nodded.

"I got it!" He said, enthusiastically. Sam gave the young boy a nervous smile.

"You do? Can you repeat it back to me?" Sam asked Jack the question the same way Sam and Dean's father had always asked them.

"If something happens, call you, and if you don't answer, call Dean. If Dean doesn't answer then I call you again, but if you still don't pick up, then call Jody Mills." Jack repeated all of Sam's instructions perfectly, grinning proudly at the younger Winchester when he finished. Sam laughed a little, but nerves twinged his voice.

"Good, yeah. Okay," Sam paused, thinking things over, "You know what, Jack? If neither of us answer your call and it's really that urgent, don't bother calling me a second time. Just call Jody right away if you can't get through to either of us. Alright?"

"Alright!" Jack nodded, grinning. Sam nodded back, stiffly.

"Alright." He seemed like he wanted to say something else but didn't know how to say it.

"You two done in there, Sammy?! We gotta go!" Dean called, walking in from another room. Sam stood and looked at his brother.

"Uh, yeah. I think we're good," He took a few steps towards the stairs that lead up to the door before pausing and turning back to Jack, "We're good, right? You're gonna be okay here by yourself?" Sam asked again. Jack grinned and gave him a thumbs up.

"I'll be fine. You don't have to worry."

Sam nodded and smiled with so much nervousness it almost hurt to watch.

"Okay, good. It's good. We're good," He said, nodding and trying to reassure himself more than anyone else. Dean raised an eyebrow at his overly anxious little brother, tugging his old leather jacket on over his shoulders, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he directed his remarks at Jack.

"Hey, kid. Whatever you do, don't do anything stupid," He'd said, half glaring, "We'll be back in a few days." Then they'd left.

Now, Jack glanced back down at the phone in his hands, remembering Dean's warning about not doing anything stupid. But his curiosity regarding the sender of the message was overwhelming. It couldn't hurt to text this person back, right? Was that what Dean had meant by his warning? Did this count as something stupid? What was the worst that could happen? Deciding that the benefits outweighed the risks, he texted back.

Sent: 10:18 PM

Merry Christmas to you as well!

Jack wrote.

Sent: 10:19 PM

Who are you?

No sooner had asked his question, he began to worry that he might have sounded rude. He waited with anticipation for the mystery person to reply. He didn't have to wait long.

Received: 10:20 PM

It doesn't matter, you don't know me.

I'm just someone wanting to give you a warm holiday wish.

Jack frowned. Again, he got the distinct feeling that the person on the other side of this conversation was deeply saddened by something. He desperately wanted to know what. So, he did the thing he did best. He asked and waited to see what would happen.

***

Received: 11:21 PM

If you don't know me, why do you care?

I don't mean to be rude. I'm just curious.

Why do this?

I read the person's question once, then twice, then three times and I realized that I didn't have an answer. Why did I care? Why was I texting some random person a Christmas wish? For all I knew, this person may not even observe the holiday. I had so many of my own things to worry about I was nearly drowning in them. I didn't know this person. I had nothing to do with them. So, why did I care about their holiday season? Why was I doing this?

I told myself it was just a random act of kindness. But deep down I knew what the reason was, and even if I didn't want to think about it, I felt it in my heart. I was doing this for the same reason I did everything. So, I took a few moments and came up with a reply.

Sent: 11:25 PM

I'm doing this because I believe that no one should ever have to be alone,

especially during the holidays.

I sent my reply and remembered to keep on shivering. I could hardly feel the cold anymore, I had gone almost completely numb. But I knew if I didn't keep moving, I would surely freeze in place and be unable to move until spring came. I vaguely wondered how cold it was. I remembered having heard on someone's car radio that this was supposed to be the coldest winter Michigan had experienced in the last decade. Though winter had only just begun, it was already cold enough for the district council to be suggesting face coverings to prevent citizens from getting frostbite and losing their nose.

I sneezed. I had no such face covering. Hell! I didn't even have a jacket! Let alone a coat or anything mildly warm. All I had was my oversized green cardigan, my black Star Wars t-shirt and my black jeans. That was it. Yet here I sat, outside a bakery in well below freezing temperatures, shivering myself into next decade.

I could go to a shelter. At least there I wouldn't have to endure the bitter biting of the wind as it gushed with double its normal force through these tight, abandoned alleyways. But if I went to a shelter then there was no chance of leaving undetected, I reminded myself. No, it was better to stay here, cold and alone, than to risk human contact.

I was pulled from my thoughts by another pling from my phone. Another message from that unknown contact.

Received: 11: 27

Are you alone?

Again, the question was simple. And although the mere thought hurt like a knife twisting in a fresh wound, I looked around at the dark, trash littered alleyway I sat in, watching the scattered rags of paper flutter and tumble in the winter gales, and I looked at the brutally beautiful puddles of speckled ice gathering along my body and melting on my skin, and I examined the bleak night sky, choked starless by the drifting dreary clouds; and the utterly silent stillness of the sleeping city revealed the harsh reality of my answer.

No one was here.

Nobody cared.

Not even the stars would keep me company. Because the stars never cared who I was.

So, with no reason to keep the truth hidden. I answered the question honestly.

Sent: 11: 29 PM

Yes.

Sent: 11: 30 PM

I am alone.

I was completely and utterly alone.

***

Received: 10: 30 PM

I am alone.

Once again Jack got the distinct impression that these words carried a heavy burden. It made him frown. What could he do to help a person he didn't even know? He wanted to ask this person if they had any friends, but something about those words told him the answer. When this person had said they were alone, Jack got the feeling they weren't just talking about the current moment. But maybe that's what this person needed. Maybe they needed a friend.

Sent: 10: 32 PM

Well, I'll be your friend and talk to you. There, now you're not alone anymore!

Jack smiled as he sent the text. The reply didn't take long.

Received: 10: 33 PM

Thank you.

You don't have waste your time on me but thank you.

It didn't take any special powers to read in between the lines this time, anyone could see the sadness in those words. Though Jack wasn't sure if it was his powers causing that strange feeling or if he was just imagining things.

Sent: 10:34 PM

I don't mind. Really!

Besides, I don't have anyone to talk to either.

Received: 10: 35 PM

Well, in that case, we can be lonely together!

Jack grinned. He'd made himself a friend. He couldn't wait to get to know them.

***

Received: 11: 36 PM

Since we're friends now, what's your name?

I smiled down at my new mystery friend's message. There was something about the words that made them seem innocent and earnest. It couldn't hurt to give my name, right? It’s not like he could find me. After all, I'm supposed to be dead.

Sent: 11: 37 PM

My name is Martina.

I sent my name and waited for the response. It came quickly.

Received: 11: 38 PM

I like your name Martina!

It's very pretty.

I flinched as I read the text. Something about seeing my name written in the text brought me back to a conversation with a different person a long time ago. It was a painful memory, and I didn't want to see it anymore. I didn't want another reminder of the still bleeding wounds in my heart. I remembered why I didn't let anyone call me that name anymore.

Sent: 11: 39 PM

Thank you.

But I would prefer you call me Marty.

I didn't want to be so sensitive to things like this, but I just couldn't help it.

Received: 11: 40 PM

Alright! I like Marty too.

It's a fun name.

I smiled; grateful they didn't ask why it was so important that they called me by a nickname.

Sent: 11: 41 PM

Thanks for understanding.

So, what's your name?

Received: 11: 42 PM

My name is Jack!

I grinned to myself. I'd made me a friend. I just couldn't wait to get to know him.

Sent: 11: 43 PM

Heya, Jack!

It’s nice to meet you!

I think this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

Received: 11: 44 PM

I agree, Marty. We are going to be great friends!

Sent: 11: 45 PM

So, what's your favorite movie?

And just like that, we talked until the sun came up. And suddenly, for the first time in quite a while, I wasn't completely alone.

***

"Hey, uh, Jack? We're back!"

Sam's voice drifted in from just outside Jack's bedroom door. Jack was surprised. He hadn't heard the brothers come in which, for him, was quite peculiar.

The door creaked open and Jack hastily attempted to pretend like he hadn't been using the phone.

He failed.

Miserably.

The device slipped from his hand and he fumbled to catch it before it smashed against the grey, polished concrete floor. He let out a sigh of relief as he snatched it just in time.

Sam peered around the door, checking in on Jack, who was now hanging halfway off his bed and clutching the phone. Scrambling to sit upright, Jack gave Sam a half-panicked smile.

"Hi Sam!" He waved a greeting, shoving his phone behind his back. Sam raised his eyebrows in a questioning expression and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. He folded his arms and leaned back on his heels.

"Hey Jack," Sam seemed a little distracted, "Have you seen Cas?" He asked. Jack shook his head vigorously.

"He's not back yet," He answered. Sam nodded and started to leave before stopping and turning back. Only now seeming to notice Jack's odd behavior. Sam gestured at the phone hidden behind the boys back,

"So, what were you doing in here just now?" Jack's eyes flew wide as quarters and his gaze shifted rapidly around the room, focusing on anywhere but Sam. His mind was working overtime trying to find a viable excuse.

"Uhhhh...Nothing!" Jack tried; his brain had gone blank. Sam raised an eyebrow.

"You sure about that?" Sam leaned forward a little, narrowing his eyes. Jack leaned back to match; his face scrunched up with the guilt he was trying very hard to hide. Everyone in the bunker knew how terrible Jack was at lying. He might be able to pass a few simple fibs by a stranger, but his family saw through him like he was made of glass. He couldn't deceive them. But that didn't stop him from trying, however.

"Yes..." Jack said slowly, his eyebrows pulling together in a rather sad attempt at looking sincere.

"Jack, what were you doing?" Sam asked more sternly. Jack looked at his feet and didn't answer. His shoulders moved up and down in a shrug.

"Do I have to go get Dean?" Sam pressed. Now Jack's head shot up. He stretched his hands out in a pleading gesture.

"No, no! Don't tell Dean!" Jack begged. Sam's expression shifted into one of concern.

"If you tell me, I won't tell Dean." Sam agreed, moving to sit on the bed beside Jack who shifted to give him some space. Sam waited patiently for the young Nephilim to speak. Jack kept his head down and rubbed his hands together nervously as he tried to think of how he should explain himself.

"Well, last night I was watching Netflix when I got this text from somebody wishing me a merry Christmas-" He started.

"Someone we know?" Sam asked, interrupting. Jack shook his head and continued.

"I asked them why they would do that, and they said it was because they thought that nobody should be alone this time of year. So, I asked if they were alone and they said, yes ─" Jack looked the younger Winchester in the eyes ─

"I don't know why but I just got this- this feeling, and they sounded just so sad, and now we're friends! But Dean said not to do anything stupid, and now I'm worried that I did! Are you mad?" Jack finished, worry coloring his features. Sam blinked. Once again astounded by the size of the half-angel's heart, he shook his head.

"No, Jack. I'm not mad," He said, softly.

"Really?"

"Really. I think you did a good thing. Everyone needs a friend." Sam patted Jack's shoulder and smiled. Jack looked down, grinning to himself as pride filled his chest.

Sam waited a moment before getting up from the bed. Stretching his back out and groaning a bit as he stood. It had been almost 48 hours since he last slept, and he was more than ready for a long nap. His hand rested on the doorknob and he paused a moment before turning back around.

"Hey, uh, Jack. Just one more thing. Do you by chance know this person's name?" Sam asked. Jack looked up briefly before looking back at the floor again, trying to hide the embarrassment creeping up to stain his cheeks.

"It's, uh, it's Marty," He replied. Sam nodded and moved to leave again but he stopped. His eyebrows pulled down with confusion before he turned back.

"And uh, is that a boy's name or a girl's name? Do you know?" Jack turned his head a bit to the side and picked at a thread in his jeans.

"Does it matter?" He questioned back. Truthfully, it didn't. Sam wouldn't make Jack stop if he didn't want to. But to say that the boy's current evasive behavior didn't pique his interest, would be a lie. Though, the kid’s flushed cheeks told him quite a bit about the answer.

"It doesn't matter," Sam said, shrugging, "I'm just curious is all." The tall man watched the boy's reaction. Jack nodded and shifted as if uncomfortable.

"Marty's a girl." He answered, trying to force his voice into sounding nonchalant. And failing.

"Okay, cool." Sam nodded, turning around again, and reaching for the handle. Jack's head whipped around.

"Wait, Sam!"

Sam looked over his shoulder.

"Hmm?"

"Don't. Tell. Dean!" Jack stressed. Urgency was evident in his voice. Sam huffed a laugh.

"Okay, Jack." With that, Sam pulled open the door and walked out letting the heavy steel swing shut behind him. Behind the door, Jack sighed with relief. He'd dodged a bullet with that one.

Walking a ways down the hall, Sam got to Dean's room where his older brother was now unpacking. The younger brother leaned on the door frame and expelled the laughter he'd been holding on to since Jack’s room. Dean turned around, holding a pistol and a pair of weeks old and hopelessly blood caked socks in his hands, he faced Sam with a questioning look.

"What's got you so giggly all of a sudden?" The older of the brother's asked.

Dean glanced at the pair of socks in his hand. He grimaced at the stench and held them further away from his face, trying not to breathe. It didn't work. The socks odor was so pungent, Dean could smell them through his mouth. There was no hope of washing them. Nope, those things would have to be burned. Though, taking another whiff of them, Dean wasn't sure that even incinerating the socks would do him much good now. The stomach-turning stink would be branded into his memory forever. Sam straightened up, shaking his head of shoulder length hair.

"It's just something Jack said." Sam smiled and laughed again before taking notice of the unholy stench wafting off the socks. He coughed. "Dude, those stink. Bad!"

"Yeah, it's a sad day, Sammy." Dean nodded solemnly. Sam covered his nose.

"Why?"

"These were my second luckiest pair of socks."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Well, they're not anymore," Sam pointed out. Now, they were just rancid.

"I think we should give em' a Viking funeral, something to honor their service. I mean, I remember one time when I wore these things for two weeks straight!" Dean reminisced, grinning. Sam looked mildly disturbed.

"That's, uh... nice... But, uh, is there somewhere we could put them before the funeral? Because they, uh, they reek." Sam was trying hard not to gag and couldn't understand how Dean could be holding them and remain unaffected. Dean smirked.

"You wanna go put em' somewhere?" He asked, waving the socks into Sam's face. Sam leaned away.

"Ah! God! No! Put those things somewhere! Please!" He choked out. Dean just grinned and moved to the other side of the room. Grabbing a cardboard box from off the shelf, he shoved the socks in there and sealed the lid. The stench quickly began to dissipate.

"Better?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"We're gonna have to burn that box too."

"Yup." Sam still felt a little sick but at least the socks were gone.

"So, what was it Jack said that you thought was so funny?" The older brother asked.

"Oh, uh, nothing. It was nothing," Sam said. But laughter began to creep up on him again. Dean rolled his eyes and went back to pulling more dirty clothing from the duffle bag.

"Are ya gonna stand there or are ya gonna spill?" Dean pushed. Sam sobered up again.

"Well, I'm not supposed to tell you," He said.

Dean shook his head, mildly annoyed. He knew Sam was going to tell him whatever juicy information he had gotten, just like he always did when he got that sly look on his face. Sam could be a bit of a schoolgirl that way. Except, of course, when it came to the important things, the things Dean was supposed to know. Those things Sam always kept to himself.

"Well, Sammy, if you ain’t gonna spill─" he used the gun in his hand to gesture from Sam to the duffle bag─ "get workin'."

The younger Winchester moved to the bag and started unpacking, grinning his face off all the while. Dean knew his little brother was waiting for him to ask about the thing with Jack again, so he said nothing. He just waited for Sam to look over to him eagerly, which is exactly what Sam did.

"So get this!" Sam started.

'Here it comes.' Dean predicted internally. Sam kept starring.

'Yatzee.' Dean thought. He knew Sam like the back of his hand. Actually, he probably knew his brother better than that.

"Apparently, Jack got a text from some random person last night wishing him merry Christmas. And, well, you know Jack! So he─" Dean stopped his brother mid-sentence.

"What's her name?" He interrupted. Sam looked confused.

"I didn't say anything about a girl," Sam trailed off. Dean sighed and shook his head.

"Geez, Sammy! If you love drama so much, you should go be an actor. You ain't foolin' anybody. We both know where this is goin' so just cut to the chase!" Dean sighed, opening a trunk and tossing in the gun he'd been holding along with several knives. His small outburst had startled his younger brother, but Dean didn't really care. Sam wasn't the only one who hadn't slept in 48 hours. Sleep was calling and Dean wanted nothing more than to answer. Sam frowned.

"Marty. The girl's name is Marty," Sam stated, sounding rather put out that Dean had guessed at his not-so-cleaver ploy. The older if the pair turned to the younger with a perplexed expression.

"Wait, wait. Marty?" He clarified. Amused disbelief written all over his features.

"Marty," Sam confirmed.

"Marty?"

"Yeah. Marty."

"Like the zebra in Madagascar, Marty?" Dean asked, grinning. Sam nodded.

"Yeah, like that. But remember, you didn't hear anything from me!" He answered, smiling as well. Dean laughed as he turned his attention back to the mess of clothing and weapons surrounding him on the floor.

"Yeah, whatever, drama queen." Dean rolled his eyes and kept working. The room was silent for a moment before the older Winchester burst out laughing again. He couldn't help himself; he found the subject hilarious.

"Ah, man. Marty! Now there's a name!" He exclaimed as he started folding the few clean clothing items laying in the pile. "What? Did her parents just take one look at her and say: 'Look at our beautiful baby! Let's name her Marty!'" Dean scoffed.

Sam snorted and shook his head at his older brother's bad joke. Then he leaned his head back and yawned.

"Man, I think we need some sleep," Sam sighed. Dean smirked.

"Is it your bedtime already?" He taunted, expecting a playful retort. But this time, Sam didn't argue. He just nodded.

"Yeah, I think it is." Though worried about his little brother, Dean held his playful smirk in place perfectly, just like he had been doing for so many years.

"Well, you go ahead and hit the sack. I'll finish up here." He said, easily. Even though he was just as tired and Sam was, he would finish out like always. Sam raised an eyebrow.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, o'course. There's not much left anyway." That was a lie and they both knew it, but Sam took the offer of sleep while it was on the table.

"Thanks, Dean."

"You're welcome, Sammy."

Sam patted his older brother on the arm as he stood and left the room. Traveling down the corridor he got to his bedroom and was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Meanwhile, Dean mouthed the strange name of Jack's mystery girl and chuckled about it to himself. Sitting on the floor in his room as he continued folding the rest of the clean clothes, cleaning out all the weapons and putting everything back in its place. The chore took him two more hours to complete but when it was done, he stretched himself out and laid back on his bed.

"Marty. Now, that's hilarious." Dean snickered to himself as he drifted off to sleep.

~I might hate myself tomorrow.

But I'm on my way tonight.

Let's be lonely together.

A little less lonely together~

Lyrics from: Lonely Together by Jasmine Thompson

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literaphobe · 3 years

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hi michelle!

could you rate the mcc games pleaseee, i would love to hear your thoughts :)

(also, i hope you're having a nice day!!)

here are my ratings for the games :) only mcc16 but u can ask for non mcc16 in another ask this just got long

sky battle: very pog. i like how u have to run around to various locations to get loot, but also u get to kill people but also u gotta be fast bc oh no the border is closing in!! bridge u little bitch!! jump! fly! run! i think it's cool how it's all up high so u could fall to ur death but also that gets annoying esp towards the end of the game n idk it makes it harder to clutch up bc of how the arena is built so u get many oh :( moments instead of oh!!! moments. plus the thing at the bottom kinda sucks like ok so u jump there as a last ditch attempt but there's no Real thing to save u there so u just die its stupid. make it worth it. i like the three round thing tho :D like its ok that u died u can try again bb!!! and im interested to see more cool ways to kill people in this than just standard pvp like dream used the fishing rod n it seems he has more tricks up his sleeve so im excited to see him 'make them regret allowing fishing rods' like he said. 8/10

battle box: my beloved!! i like the 9 rounds thing where u go up against every team n each member gets a Cool Thing that can help them in special ways. the wool thing is cute too. good game that tests pvp well! i like the maps mostly n the kits r usually cool unless they suck then they like make me go ugh 🙄 9/10

to get to the other side and whack a fan: it's cute bc there's quite a bunch of maps for this n there are 6 rounds so u can still come back even if u fuck up a round. but some maps r annoying bc they are frustrating n not intuitive or they are just annoying or like if u fuck up the first time ur almost guaranteed unable to finish or u get real close n then fuck up n then can't finish or some shit. sad :( i like it when the pov im watching does good but if they don't do good it sucks and the map is lousy >:( but its a very cute game n i think the punching is funny unless the pov im watching gets punched >:( then what the FUCK bro that is SO messed up WHERE is the sportsmanship :/ dhfshsfj 8/10, but that score rises depending on the maps

parkour tag: im glad because it reps parkour but it's got this unpredictability of one person having to catch three different people presumably all running in different directions. a balance of skill timing n luck n also teamwork :) also like battle box i like the 9 rounds. however the scoring is a bit scuffed n unless they change it its always gonna pull down good hunters who don't have other good hunters on their team etc, i can elaborate on this using dream as an example but that would have to be another post. 8.5/10

sands of time: i really like the some of the new changes like how they have brain puzzles in the form of the blue wool thing so it's not just ur skill in the game but also it combines various skills like fighting strategy and maze running and also parkour it is very satisfying to watch but also scary it really keeps u on ur toes and its fun watching people solve stuff and get the coins its like a treasure hunt i love it more just thinking about it... the vaults r cool the sand to give more time is cool n its awesome when the whole team works great n gets themselves a lot of time n farms a lot of coins hehe the downside is it can get terrible if u die or ur teammate dies and ur sandkeeper doesn't communicate well enough n no one gets saved then that is sad :( still tho conceptually i like it a lot n its potential is cool n the suspense of not knowing how well all the teams did until the end is good too 9/10

survival games: this is like sky battle but on da ground and u get a lot more loot but also if u die thats IT like ok too bad u lose no coins no redos u cannot redeem urself u cannot come back time for u watch the other teams play ig :/ like it's too long a game to have three rounds for too so losing means gg n u gotta wait a while. cute maps tho n its fucking awesome if the pov u watch doesn't die :) n they kill a lotta people :) 7/10

build mart: EWWWW 0/10 GJHJGH jk ok i genuinely do think it's a good game even tho there are certain issues like how despite the changes made its still a tad bit disadvantageous to colorblind players and also it can be disorienting in certain ways like depending on how u look at it a part of me thinks its annoying to collect materials n maybe they should just have everything at their disposal another part of me thinks its cool that they go out shopping for their littol building materials flying around n shit or even in the old shopping cart version its like a warehouse they got stone in BULK boys 6.5/10

ace race: god its fun i like the tridents n the BOING noises n how they go Zoom n Fly n Jump i like the pretty maps but i also do hate player collision n some of the glitches but they have fixed that so hopefully all things go smooth soon :) 8/10

hole in the wall: what the fuck its so glitchy. get well soon but it is kinda funny but it has also caused wars to break out. i like the three round thing as usual n i like the various jumping and shifting strats for various holes to go through (hehe) it is a pretty suspenseful game n i do hold my breath at some jumps bc u don't always know when they hit spacebar if they r getting through or dying. 7.5/10

grid runners: i don't fucking know man they haven't played it yet

anyway these ratings could go up or down. it all depends on how good the pov im watching does 👍 hope this helps

#ask #mcc #mcyt

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nooneelsecomesclose17 · 4 years

Text

You are the absolute best idea I ever had - part 1

Ok so I’m still not sure about doing the chapter thing because it’s been so long since I wrote anything I have no idea how long my inspiration will last (or my fingers for that matter) but let’s go for it. *bites nails nervously*

Thanks as always to @amandaj718 for listening to me ramble about this and convincing me it was a good idea. It’s based on Red, White and Royal Blue, probably fairly loosely in some bits and more in others. We’ll see.

(They’re a similar age here and about Aaron’s age on the show when they met, maybe a bit younger, but it’s not vitally important)

AO3 Link

*******

Robert looked round the room as he dumped his bag on the bed. It did look comfortable he supposed, but that didn’t mask the fact that he didn’t want to be here. The room itself was nothing special, nothing like most people would expect in the home of the British Prime Minister he had no doubt. It was bigger than he expected, no doubt thanks to the Blairs and their renovations back in the day. It wasn’t his home though. He had a flat, a perfectly nice flat in the middle of the city that suited him and yet here he was.

“You’re here then.” He turns to see his Dad standing in the doorway, suit as immaculate as always. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look casual, even when his Mum used to force him into a sweater or polo shirt during the summer.

“You didn’t give me much choice.” He’d expected the call, as soon as he’d woken up to a phone full of news notifications. He supposes it’s not every day the son of one of the most popular Prime Ministers in recent history is caught red handed with the sister of his beloved wife. It didn’t matter that in private their marriage had been over for months, that Chrissie was already with someone else. No, he was the one at fault, all manner of rumours doing the rounds, because they’d kept their separation private so as not to harm his father’s reputation.

What rankled most, as it had most of his life, was that his Dad hadn’t even called himself, not even his closest assistant had been the one to make the call, a lowly staffer was all he got, telling him that ‘the PM thinks it best you move into 10 Downing Street for the foreseeable’.

It wasn’t that he wanted to be front page news, he didn’t go looking for it like some, but ever since his father had swept to power on a promise of reuniting the country, the press had been on him like bees round a honeypot, half the time making up their own gossip without him even leaving his living room. He wasn’t like his brother, the fine upstanding Andy, who still ran the farm that their Dad had grown up on, Andy with the sick daughter who everyone doted on, including Robert, he’s not that terrible a human being. Then there was Vic, the darling of the press, who smiled and waved every time she left the building, who would often take some of her newest creations out to the waiting press gaggle for them to try. Robert was just trying to live his life, but that wasn’t good enough, never had been.

“I need you to come with me tonight. I think it would be a good idea for people to see you doing some good for a change. Diane is already attending a charity event.”

“Where is it?”

“The palace. Be ready for 7.” He turned to leave. “And Robert, I don’t want any silliness, not like last time.”

Honestly, you get slightly merry one time at a Downing Street party and you never hear the end of it. It’s not like he declared war on anyone, he just, well he might’ve broken a vase. It was hideous anyway and deserved to be broken, but apparently it’d been a gift from some country or other that the country needed to trade with. Robert really didn’t think that trade deals depended on a frankly ugly piece of china but as had been pointed out to him many many times he knew nothing about politics and should keep his nose out.

It wasn’t that he was politically ignorant, he voted, he read the news, he researched anything that might be relevant to him or his job, but after years of hearing his parents fighting because his Dad was forever away from home or spending more time sorting out his constituents problems than those in his own family, as far as he was concerned the whole thing was a pantomime. The happy family that had stood on the steps outside, smiling and waving, was nothing but a charade. He and Andy barely spoke, which was fine by him, his Dad could barely stand the sight of him and Diane and Victoria just wanted them all to get along and that meant Robert should shut up and get on with it.

“Robert?” He stops unpacking and turns to see his little sister leaning on the doorframe, hair done up in her usual braid, already coming loose at the front. She’s holding a plate in her hand, his favourite flavour of doughnut sitting proudly on top. He’s missed her. The downside to avoiding his Dad is that he doesn’t see her as much as he likes.

“Hiya trouble.” He pulls her into a hug. “That for me?”

“Thought you might need it. Dad said you were going with him tonight?” She hands him the plate before bouncing on the bed. Sometimes it’s hard to believe she’s a fully fledged adult.

“Not willingly.” He mumbles around his food. “This ’s good.”

“It’s boring is what it is. Why won’t you try some of my other flavours?”

“Because you do not mess with jam doughnuts Vic. Some things have to remain sacred in this world.” He smiles a little at her huff and licks the sugar from his fingers before joining her on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go tonight?”

“I went last time. Besides, it’ll give you the chance to stare at you know who all night.” He groans, regretting once more the late night conversation a few years ago when he was still living at home.

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“Debatable. Anyway I don’t want to stare at anyone, least of all him.”

“So the words His Royal Hotness didn’t pass your lips?”

“Vodka had passed my lips.”

“So you don’t fancy the second in line to the throne then?” He shakes his head at her, irritated but loving her all the same. She was the only one of them who knew he was bi, well no, he supposed his Dad did even if they’d never actually managed a conversation. He idly wonders what it’d be like to tell everyone what had happened, the see the scales fall from the eyes of the nation about their perfect leader. He’d never do it, would never hurt Vic like that, but sometimes the look on his Dad’s face if he did would comfort him somehow.

“No!” He could admit, if pushed that Aaron was good looking, he wasn’t blind, but so were lots of people.

“Hm.”

“The man never smiles Vic. Last year, at his cousin’s wedding, did you even see him without a scowl?”

“You took notice of him then?” He half heartedly smacks her arm, making her laugh. “I’m glad you’re here, Rob, I missed you.”

“I’ve been here.” It’s lame, because he hasn’t, not really.

“I mean more than a couple of texts and a phone call once a month. How long are you going to be here?”

“Until I’m not grounded anymore.”

“Idiot. I’m going, Adam’s picking me up at 4.” She’s gone before he can even ask who Adam is. It just proves how distant he’s been from her and he feels guilty all over again.

*******

“I meant what I said Robert, best behaviour tonight. I think you’ve made enough headlines with your dalliances for a while, don’t you?” It’s on the tip of his tongue to drag up Rachel, something else that no one knows but family, but he stops himself. It’s not worth the hassle. Hopefully if he gets through tonight he won’t be asked again for a long while.

“Just once it’d be nice if you pretended to have even an ounce of faith in me. You do know Chrissie is right now shacked up with someone else, don’t you? And was before I went anywhere near Rebecca.”

“No one cares about that. Just behave yourself. Is that too much to ask? This isn’t just some party, it’s the Queen and her family. Show some respect.”

Privately he thought that Queen Faith looked rather fun and would be quite at home gossiping over a few glasses of red rather than endlessly shaking hands but he keeps it to himself as they pull up the gates of the palace. He can’t help looking up at the building a little in awe. He’s wouldn’t really class himself as a monarchist, but he doesn’t wish any of them any ill, and he watches all the pomp and ceremony on TV like everyone else. He just doesn’t particularly want to spend the night minding his P’s and Q’s because he’s really not all that good at it.

He takes a deep breath as the car stops and the door is opened. As he watches his Dad step out he can’t help but think his world has really taken a turn in the last 24 hours.

#I am incredibly nervous #because it's been a year almost #but here you go #enjoy #i'm taking liberties with lots about politics and the royals but hey who doesn't #right?#robron fic

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somegirlsnerdywords2 · 4 years

Text

Anime i’ve Watched

That begin with a N (Part 2)!

Yep this is how i’m going to bring over all the anime and manga i’ve watched and posted about on the old blog. It’s not so detailed but it will have to do. Anything new I watch or read from this point on will have their own posts.

Net-juu no Susume (Recovery of an MMO Junkie):

Genres: Game, Comedy, Romance, ONA

Synopsis: For the first time since graduating high school, 30-year-old Moriko Morioka is unemployed—and she couldn't be happier. Having quit her long-standing job of over 11 years, Moriko quickly turns to online games to pass her now-plentiful free time, reinventing herself as the handsome and dashing male hero "Hayashi" in the MMO Fruits de Mer. With the pesky societal obligations of the real world out of the way, she blissfully dives headfirst into the realm of the game, where she promptly meets the kind and adorable healer Lily. Befriending each other almost instantly, the two become inseparable just as Moriko herself becomes more and more engrossed in her new "life" as Hayashi. Eventually, Moriko adopts the reclusive lifestyle in its entirety, venturing out from the safety of her apartment only when absolutely necessary. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Moriko, a timid 28-year-old corporate worker named Yuuta Sakurai has also logged onto Fruits de Mer from the other side of town. Coincidentally bumping into each other at the convenience store one night, both write off their meeting as no more than just another awkward encounter with a stranger—however, fate has more in store for them than they think. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2017 with a total of 10 episodes

My Thoughts: The male lead wears glasses! In case that’s something anyone but me cares about... Aside from that I can’t remember much about this one which is never a sign of an amazing anime so it’s up to you friends! Will you watch it or leave it?!

Nijiiro Days:

Genres: Comedy, Romance, School, TV Short, Shoujo, Slice of Life

Synopsis: Nijiiro Days follows the colorful lives and romantic relationships of four high school boys—Natsuki Hashiba, a dreamer with delusions of love; Tomoya Matsunaga, a narcissistic playboy who has multiple girlfriends; Keiichi Katakura, a kinky sadist who always carries a whip; and Tsuyoshi Naoe, an otaku who has a cosplaying girlfriend. When his girlfriend unceremoniously dumps him on Christmas Eve, Natsuki breaks down in tears in the middle of the street and is offered tissues by a girl in a Santa Claus suit. He instantly falls in love with this girl, Anna Kobayakawa, who fortunately attends the same school as him. Natsuki's pursuit of Anna should have been simple and uneventful; however, much to his dismay, his nosy friends constantly meddle in his relationship, as they strive to succeed in their own endeavors of love. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2016 with a total of 24 episodes. Each episode running about 13 minutes in length.

My Thoughts: Love the manga, which I keep meaning to finish because it is a completed title... and I should probably finish it before manga gets even harder to find online with the way things are currently going...

Anywho, the anime! Pretty good. The episodes are about half that of a normal anime but you have a 24 episode count so it’s basically the same as having a 12 episodes run with the usual running time! I’d watch it is you want more content after the manga, but keep in mind that the anime does not cover the entirety of the manga!

No Game No Life:

Genres: Game, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Ecchi, Fantasy

Synopsis: No Game No Life is a surreal comedy that follows Sora and Shiro, shut-in NEET siblings and the online gamer duo behind the legendary username "Blank." They view the real world as just another lousy game; however, a strange e-mail challenging them to a chess match changes everything—the brother and sister are plunged into an otherworldly realm where they meet Tet, the God of Games. The mysterious god welcomes Sora and Shiro to Disboard, a world where all forms of conflict—from petty squabbles to the fate of whole countries—are settled not through war, but by way of high-stake games. This system works thanks to a fundamental rule wherein each party must wager something they deem to be of equal value to the other party's wager. In this strange land where the very idea of humanity is reduced to child's play, the indifferent genius gamer duo of Sora and Shiro have finally found a real reason to keep playing games: to unite the sixteen races of Disboard, defeat Tet, and become the gods of this new, gaming-is-everything world. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2014 with a total of 12 episodes.

My Thoughts: I have a laundry list of things i’m meaning to watch, read or do. Watching the No Game No Life movie on Netflix is one of those things. Anyways! I recall this one being alright, nice art/ animation/ character design and an interesting premise but too short and underdeveloped. One of those animes that may have benefited greatly from a longer run or second season.

No.6:

Genres: Action, Sci-fi, Mystery, Drama

Synopsis: Many years ago, after the end of a bloody world war, mankind took shelter in six city-states that were peaceful and perfect... at least on the surface. However, Shion—an elite resident of the city-state No. 6—gained a new perspective on the world he lives in, thanks to a chance encounter with a mysterious boy, Nezumi. Nezumi turned out to be just one of many who lived in the desolate wasteland beyond the walls of the supposed utopia. But despite knowing that the other boy was a fugitive, Shion decided to take him in for the night and protect him, which resulted in drastic consequences: because of his actions, Shion and his mother lost their status as elites and were relocated elsewhere, and the darker side of the city began to make itself known. Now, a long time after their life-altering first meeting, Shion and Nezumi are finally brought together once again—the former elite and the boy on the run are about to embark on an adventure that will, in time, reveal the shattering secrets of No. 6. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2011 with a total of 11 episodes.

My Thoughts: Just read the manga and watch this as extra, I can’t remember if the anime covered the entirety of the manga’s story but either way check out that source material first! The manga series is also completed which is a huge bonus. High point: The relationship between the two leads.

Noragami:

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Shounen

Synopsis: In times of need, if you look in the right place, you just may see a strange telephone number scrawled in red. If you call this number, you will hear a young man introduce himself as the Yato God. Yato is a minor deity and a self-proclaimed "Delivery God," who dreams of having millions of worshippers. Without a single shrine dedicated to his name, however, his goals are far from being realized. He spends his days doing odd jobs for five yen apiece, until his weapon partner becomes fed up with her useless master and deserts him. Just as things seem to be looking grim for the god, his fortune changes when a middle school girl, Hiyori Iki, supposedly saves Yato from a car accident, taking the hit for him. Remarkably, she survives, but the event has caused her soul to become loose and hence able to leave her body. Hiyori demands that Yato return her to normal, but upon learning that he needs a new partner to do so, reluctantly agrees to help him find one. And with Hiyori's help, Yato's luck may finally be turning around.

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2014 with a total of 12 episodes.

My Thoughts: Yes! Watch it! Love it! And also read it. Big downside: The updates for this manga are slow and the story is unfinished obviously. Upside: Two whole seasons of anime goodness, and if we’re really lucky we’ll eventually get another? Ok maybe not... but a girl can dream! Also this anime has one of my all time favourite opening themes! Amazing!

Noragami Aragoto:

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Shounen

Synopsis: Yato and Yukine have finally mended their relationship as god and Regalia, and everyone has returned to their daily life. Yato remains a minor and unknown deity who continues taking odd jobs for five yen apiece in the hopes of one day having millions of worshippers and his own grand shrine. Hiyori Iki has yet to have her loose soul fixed by Yato, but she enjoys life and prepares to attend high school nonetheless. Taking place immediately after the first season, Noragami Aragoto delves into the complicated past between Yato and the god of war Bishamon. The female god holds a mysterious grudge against Yato, which often results in violent clashes between them. It doesn't help that Bishamon's most trusted and beloved Regalia, Kazuma, appears to be indebted to Yato. When lives are on the line, unraveling these mysteries and others may be the only way to correct past mistakes. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 13 episodes.

My Thoughts: Another amazing opening theme! Seriously this series really knew how to pick them! Also have crushes on a solid chunk of the cast... so there’s that.

#Ona #anime #net-juu no susume #recovery of an mmo junkie #nijiiro days #tv short #no game no life #no.6 #noragami #noragami aragoto

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yurimother · 5 years

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Top Yuri Anime Poll Results

Whether it is subtext or explicit, cute or sexy, school love or gay action thrillers I love yuri anime. These series either focus on or contain elements of female same-sex relationships. Pride month is the perfect time to look back and reflect on the best of this genre. I teamed up with OG Man of The Yuri Nation (yurination[dot] wordpress[dot] com/) and together we put out a poll asking what you thought the top yuri anime series were and over 1000 of you responded submitting almost 5000 different entries. We spent hours combing through the data, analyzing and commenting on the results and we would like to share our thoughts with all of you. Enjoy the reflections of me the yuri critic and OG the dedicated yuri fan!

These are the Top 20 Yuri Anime as voted by you

1. Bloom Into You - 692 Votes

OG: Be it East or West the YagaKimi took the world by storm. Citrus and BiY once again taking the top two spots remains unsurprising.There is something undeniably fascinating about our leading ladies consisting of an asexual slowly coming to love her senpai back but restraining herself for various reasons. The biggest one being said senpai having a deep case of self-loathing and a fear of romantic reciprocation, also for various reasons. She is like “I love you but please do not love me back”. Then there is one of the most popular “cursed” lesbians of all time in Sayaka, the fantastic adult side-couple (The world needs an anime starring lesbian adults/mothers) and the various other characters who have their own interesting tales to tell. The series absolutely deserves a spot in the Top 10 though it would not be in my personal Top 3. Oh and as Yurimother said the presentation was fantastic.Visually stunning from start to finish in my opinion. Special mention goes to the criminally underused first-person “camera”. So cool.

YuriMother: I agree with this series deserving a spot in the top ten even if not the number one slot. For me, it was good but not great. Moments such as the aforementioned adult couple as well as stellar art and a phenomenal score made this series enjoyable but they were not enough to overshine the problems of the narrative. For the love of the Yuri Goddess, this series is crying out for asexual representation but insists on carrying on with its confused romance. Enough complaining though, many people love Bloom Into You despite its faults and I agree. The characters are interesting and lovable and it manages to tell a yuri story more real and complex than the typical fluffy girl meets girl narratives.

2. Citrus - 452 Votes

YuriMother: The presence of Citrus and Bloom Into You prove two things to me, the importance of recency, as both anime aired only last year, and the sheer popularity of these series. Both had established and extremely successful manga runs which were adapted into English by the publishing masters of yuri, Seven Seas. Citrus is a contentious series, to say the least, as it includes elements of (non-blood related) incest and non-consensual actions as part of Mei and Yuzu’s “relationship.” However, if you possess the magical power to turn off the part of your brain screaming at you that those aspects are deeply problematic or if you seek a different interpretation then Citrus can be downright WONDERFUL. I actually loved this anime series for its characters, amazing animation, and salaciousness. As OG said, it is an operatic concussion of emotion (seriously everyone in the series needs therapy) but my is it fun to watch. The Citrus anime also holds a special place in my heart, as the first serious piece I ever wrote was a review for it over on Okazu (nice plug)! Citrus is certainly not for everyone but those that stuck with it and overlooked some of the problems ended up loving it.

OG: Here we are again with Citrus at #2. My thoughts on the series remains the same as in the previous two lists I discussed (the Akiba Research and goo Ranking Japan lists), overrated. Good soap opera/telenovela-esque series but my feelings on the cast are mixed (which I imagine was the writer’s intent). My main issue has always been the obstacles repeatedly challenging Yuzu and Mei’s feelings for each other instead of it focusing on “Hey. We like each other but our parents got married. What do we do? Can we keep our desires for each other in check?”. Instead it is one newcomer after another who want to eat either Yuzu or Mei and Yuzu repeatedly asking herself if she really wants robo-stepsister patties? I will give the anime adaptation credit. The story was easier to enjoy animated than drawn. It also helped that I grew up in a telenovela loving family. The characters’ actions, reactions and emotions were depicted better in the anime. I still consider the show’s greatest accomplishment being the humanization of Mei-Tron. In the manga it took a post-epilogue continuation to show readers “Hey everyone. Mei-Tron was human all along.” whereas in the anime I sensed the small bit of humanity quicker than in the manga where I continued seeing her as a block of wood with a brain up to the point where I dropped it. Harumin though is the greatest regardless of anime or manga adaptation. Bless her. Regardless of how I feel about the series I get its massive popularity. After all, were the rest of the story to get an animated continuation I would gladly pick it up...Not the manga though.

3. Sakura Trick - 342 Votes

OG: There are fans who understandably would disagree with Sakura Trick’s praise but I will always defend it and the anime as one of the very best in the genre. First off it aired at a time where animated on-screen close up kisses (specifically consensual ones) between ladies were rare. Haruka X Yuu’s relationship was believable for the most part. Even their season finale resolution, them not getting what being “in love” meant at the time, made sense though I get why it left some scratching their heads. Probably not the best “manga lure/bait” end I suppose. On the bright side Kotone X Shizuku’s story definitely did not have the two doubting their true feelings for each other. I do hope Kaede X Yuzu eventually hooked up in the manga as they too had potential to be a lovely couple.

YuriMother: Sakura Trick has no real narrative, no great insight, and offers little intellectually. As a teacher, it makes me furious, as a fan of yuri, elated. The anime is beloved for its plentiful soft service, presenting a plethora of kisses, cuddles, and awkward thigh shots (ew). However, it was one of the first anime to include this much explicit yuri service without being pornographic. All the characters were cute and fun, even if there was little in the way of development or complexity, it worked for the series. If you want something to make you think or to learn about yuri, pass over this one. But, if you want a cute and meaningless anime definitely watch it.

4. Yuru Yuri - 337 Votes

YuriMother: OG may not be a fan of Yuru Yuri but I certainly am, which is fairly obvious to anyone who observes that a solid 20% of my communications occur in the form of gifs from this series. It is hilarious, cute, and playful. Just like Sakura Trick, this anime is an easy watch with ultimately little substance. However, the part of me that is not rolling of the floor laughing every time I watch Yuru Yuri lives in a state of pained existence with the knowledge that this work of all things ended up being so popular when people are telling interesting stories about queer women and people in actual relationship that manage to still be funny and adorable while having something to say.

OG: The undisputed most mainstream friendly yuri series there is. It is also one of the funniest. My one gripe is that excluding a select few the main draw of the show besides the comedy and yuri is the ship wars, meaning (almost any girl can be shipped with each other). Not a fan of that but hey, it brought Namori the big bucks so who am I to judge? In any case not much else to add. It deserves all the adulation it gets but the free for all shipping irks me. Reminds me of how they botched Chika X Riko in the Love Live! Sunshine!! Anime. If you were going down the Riko X Yohane route from the start then why give us Chika X Riko in the first half? Ship wars yo. Tch. Hopefully I properly explained myself..

5. Kase-san and Morning Glories (Asagao to Kase-san) - 289 Votes

OG: Still wish this got a 12-13 episode anime. The glorious movie showed how much it deserves one. Whether it will happen or not remains to be seen. In any case the beauty of Kase-san X Yamada is how simple their romance is. No strings attached whatsoever. It is as straightforward as a self-proclaimed “ordinary” cutie, Yamada, having a crush on the super cool school beauty Kase-san. Said beauty is revealed to be just as “adorkable” as Yamada. The other highlight is their story not ending once they officially started dating (as is the case with many romance stories) but that being only the beginning, like real life. From then on, side-stories aside, the two biggest challenges for the two is Yamada accepting that it is okay for someone as “ordinary” as her to be the “cool babe”s girlfriend and Kase-san finding different ways to express her love/hunger for the cutie. As for the OVA, cramming the second part of the first series in an hour definitely had the downside of excluding some important moments, yes, but it at least covered some of the best moments in the manga. The first half of the story was summarized in a five-minute music video. One last thing. The animation, though a bit too brought for some, was glorious. It also had some long pauses which were effective (The bus stop scene being the most infamous) but while I did not mind them at all even I will admit some pauses went a bit too long. A small nitpick all things considered. Fingers crossed one day we either get that 12-13 episode anime for the first series, the sequel or both. That is one of my dreams.

YuriMother: At last, an anime that I do not have to react cynically to! Kase-san is one of the single greatest works of yuri animation to ever to be created and its glory is rivaled only by the manga from which it originated. Despite being only a one hour long OVA this adaption told such an engaging and realistic (finally) story of romance and personal growth. We get to skip the meatless girl meets girls arcs and get into the depth and complexity as Yamada and Kase work to further their relationship. They struggle with the fact that they are two different people who want different things out of life and love and have to actually work on their partnership. Kase-san also includes signs of physical affection and love that are never lewd, immature, or gross, I do not even think I could refer to them as “service”. However, for me, Kase-san’s greatest victory (both the anime and manga) is in its escape from school romance, which in this genre is often a shelter from reality, allowing for women to be in relationships without actually being queer. Kase and Yamada instead make an effort to continue their romance and build a life that includes their relationship once they graduate in a triumphant final act. This anime is a slap in the face to the class S stories and sloppily sexualized works which proliferate the yuri genre. Asagao to Kase-san shines as a holy beacon for the greatness that this genre can achieve.

6. Puella Magi Madoka Magica - 286 Votes

YuriMother: Hurray!! For two entries in a row, I get to talk about series that I wholeheartedly adore without having to constantly attach caveats. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is not considered by all to be yuri, and that is certainly not what it is best known for. PMMM is however famous for twisting the tropes of the magical girl genre and creating one of the most cohesive and thoughtful narratives ever put to screen. This series summoned a new era for the magical girl genre (what OG humorously referred to as the “Moepocalypse”) but no other title managed to top Madoka Magica’s runaway success. Every aspect of this work is highly polished including character designs, a phenomenal soundtrack, and superb writing. This is not only the definitive work of its genre but of all postmodern anime. Whether or not one is a fan of yuri every anime fan should give Madoka Magica a watch.

OG: Meduka Meguca. Its impact in the “Moepocalypse” (Shows where cute and sexy girls consistently suffering physically and emotionally. These are usually dark magical girl shows.) genre and legacy are undeniable. It deserves all the praise it gets. It scarred many unfortunate souls, Homura is a legend in yuridom, Kyouko X Sayaka are glorious (Especially in Rebellion), Meduka’s Mom Junko is a Top Tier Sexy Mama, Charlotte the Witch is a very strange girlfriend and of course Hitomi is a walking anti-fun meme. The animation, especially the creepy doodle like monsters known as Witches are memorable. However, it is not my favorite Moepocalypse show. That honor goes to Yuki Yuna is a Hero.

7. Strawberry Panic - 224 Votes

OG: Like it or not Strawberry Panic is a yuri classic. I have a strong feeling that like many readers around my age (31 during this writing) this was their first 100% yuri anime. The cheese is real but it is the yummy kind of cheese and I loved almost every minute of it, except Amane X Hikari. That was the weakest of the love stories going on. Poor Yaya trying too hard (Not saying this in condescending way. She literally tried too hard). It is like a young adult lesbian novel but more fun. I mean Nagisa X Shizuma might as well be “Lesbian Twilight but not crappy”. Let us be honest, Shizuma is a vampire. Chikaru is an undisputed goddess and Kagome is the cutest.

Oh and I will repeat this statement till my last breath…

#TamaoWasRobbed.

YuriMother: I may be almost a decade younger than OG but even for me Strawberry Panic was my first yuri and it more than earns its nickname as the “gateway yuri,” although last year’s Citrus and Bloom Into You may be presenting serious contenders for this title. If for no other reason than nostalgia, Strawberry Panic remains my favorite yuri works but this ridiculous soap-opera of an anime does deserve a fair amount of recognition. I see Strawberry Panic as the culmination of the S subgenre revived by Maria Watches Over Us. However, this work succeeds at both parodying many of the tropes of S and yuri while breaking a few. However, its greatest accomplishment is introducing many of the young western fans of yuri to the genre. Strawberry Panic, you are an overly dramatic mess but thank you for all you have done.

8. Revolutionary Girl Utena - 176 Votes

YuriMother: Another gem of the yuri genre, actually scratch that, if works like Kase-san are gems then Utena is the minerals from which gems form. I think that is how it works, I am not a geologist. My poor analogies and subtle nods to Steven Universe aside, Revolutionary Girl Utena is one of the single most important works of yuri anime, possibly even more so than Sailor Moon. These two works were the dawn of the current age of yuri, an era spurn on by social progress and the internet into a place where more yuri works featuring honest depictions of homosexuality are flourishing. Utena laid the groundwork for queer representation in anime and for that I remain forever grateful to this masterpiece.

OG: I must confess. While I saw the movie long ago and thought it was cool I have yet to sit down and finish watching the main series. I cannot say much about this show other than it is another yuri classic. Possibly one of the biggest. I think I will leave this to Her Holiness because even if I had seen it I do not consider myself someone who possesses the sufficient intellect to properly explain why this is a legendary show.

9. Flip Flappers - 132 Votes

OG: I would need an essay to explain why this show is legendary. Let me see. It is a story of a girl who discovered her gayness thanks to her growing attraction to a lovable idiot/genki. There are references to Western media, dimension hopping (including Class S Hell), self-discovery, a sexual orientation journey, a tree, armored wedding gowns, crazy third wheels, Ku Klux Klan stand-ins…You know what? Just watch Flip Flappers. It is a hot mess of random, crazy, creative and thought provoking awesomeness with a wonderful dose of gayness. Glory be to PapiCoco. However, as Her Holiness mentioned this is essentially Ikuhara-san levels of weirdness (though not as complicated I feel) but as the plot thickens it all (sort of) starts making sense...eventually. That tree yo.

YuriMother: Flip Flappers was almost too strange and abstract even for me, and that is saying something. However, upon further examination, one of the most interesting works of yuri is revealed. This heavily stylized anime delves deep into the sexual maturation of its protagonist while examining the yuri genre and representation in media. Flip Flappers is the perfect marriage of heavy visual style and intellectual substance. Definitely give them one a.. err better make that three watches, as you will want to be sure to get everything out of this beautiful series as possible.

10. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid - 131 Votes

YuriMother: This series is the closest anime fans have to a lesbian couple having a family that we have, and that is a shame. I LOVE family narratives, outside of the yuri genre Usagi Drop is my favorite anime. To me, seeing women balance life, a relationship, and children is some of the best queer representation there is. However, for every point in Kobayashi’s favor, there is also a glaring fault. Kobayashi is a modern woman in the workforce providing for herself and her “family,” but is borderline abusive to Tohru. Kanna is an inquisitive child being raising by two women, but there are weirdly sexual scenes featuring her. As previously mentioned on this list, if one can silence the reasonable part of the brain this work becomes enjoyable, hilarious, and adorable. Unfortunately, its faults prevent it from being more than an amusement and I seriously doubt that they will fade in the second season. But hey, it sells a ton of figures so… YAY!

OG: This series is one of the closest yuri fans have to a series starring a lesbian couple with a daughter and it is wonderful. Is the tale of an eternally grateful dragon who wanted to repay the human who saved her life, albeit drunk, by becoming her live-in maid. Tohru being a dragon girl had incredible power and could easily crush everyone in sight but preferred to try and understand humanity so she could live in peace with the woman she loved. It of course was hard at times but thanks to Miss Kobayashi slowly growing to accept her back (romantically she had a ways to go) and the two raising the adorable bundle of mighty puff known as Kanna they became a happy family. How long this relationship will last and whether Miss Kobayashi would come to fully love Tohru back romantically remains to be seen. I have high hopes it can and will happen. Kanna X Riko is precious (Yes. Even that scene). We even have a potential BL couple, which is nice. Not a fan of Lucoa X Shouta the shota. Not because of the age gap but it not being my kind of romantic comedy. It is the same reason I have a hard time buying Tsubame X Misha from UzaMaid. Mya-Nee X Hana from Wataten...maybe. At least Mya-Nee showed she is patient. Back to Dragon Maid. Great series. Naughty of course but great.

11. Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana) - 119 Votes

OG: Megane girl falls for a cutie but has a hard time confessing to her to the point she gives a relationship with another girl a try. Said other girl has troubles of her own courtesy of her own views on what love. Do not get me started on the OTHER girl who likes megane’s girlfriend. I did not even mention megane girl’s first love interest who she herself eventually begins questioning her feelings for the glasses wearing maiden. While this is well known throughout the history of yuri anime Aoi Hana made it clearer than ever that Yuri + Classical Music go hand in hand. Plus the show is quite pretty. Ultimately enjoyment of this series depends heavily on viewers’ patience.

YuriMother: Aoi Hana was ahead of its time in many regards. Most yuri during the early twenty-first century was unrealistic and melodramatic, especially with the revival of S stories. Aoi Hana instead presents a calm and realistic story that we still rarely see in yuri anime today. Instead of relying on tricks like service or comedy Aoi Hana presents a serene and character-driven story which is matched by equally calming scenery. It is certainly not the most thrilling watch, but a slow and beautiful slice of real life that remains one of the all-time strongest yuri works.

12. Yurikuma Arashi - 99 Votes

YuriMother: Yurikuma Arashi is strange, to say the least, but this is not out of the ordinary for legendary director Ikuhara, who also directed Utena. Parallels are easily drawn between this work and Flip Flappers, as they are both complex and encoded with enough symbolism to drown a bear. Yurikuma is one of my favorite works in the yuri genre and I have had more than a few heated discussions about interpretations of the work, including one memorable occasion when I was visiting a college professor and we ended up in a shouting match in the middle of the hall. However, while Flip Flappers holds a high degree of polish the same can, unfortunately, not be said here. Yurikuma Arashi has more than a few scenes of fanservice many of which overly fetishize the characters and relationship and some of the symbols, particularly lily flowers and the word “yuri” are practically beaten to death with an object I refuse to come up with because I am starting to have my fill of symbolism. However, despite some of its sloppiness, Yurikuma is one of the single most interesting and well-formed anime out there and analyzing it is practically a right of passage for seasoned yuri fans.

OG: Yurikuma Arashi is my favorite of Ikuhara-san’s series. To me it was the least complicated of his works but even so I needed help to understand the show. Luckily I had plenty of assistance. The meat of the story is more complicated but put simply it is about a war between a group of bear girls (and some human girls) who want to freely express their love and/or desire/hunger for each other and another group that amounts to Right to Censor from WWF. Like I said it is far more complex than that but that is the gist. The anime is quite ecchi and it has good reason for it. Again the gay bears are the more liberated of the groups and them getting more sexy scenes is meant to showcase that. Our heroine has good reason to be grumpy and a divine entity was introduced alongside a certain someone from a certain dark anime we already discussed.

In the end it is a show starring lesbian bear girls. I love love stories between women and i love bears. It was obvious I would end up enjoying this one. Like other complex stories it is not for everyone. Shows like Flip Flappers, Utena and Yurikuma have something of a learning people will have to get accustomed to in order to enjoy them.

13. Whispered Words (Sasameki Koto) - 88 Votes

OG: To me Aoi Hana and Sasameki Koto were always connected despite the former being a drama and the latter a comedy. Both star a female protagonist struggling with how to best tell the girl she likes her true feelings whereas their love interest for one reason or another makes it all the more challenging to get their feelings across. Both shows aired during a time yuri was not as popular of a genre as it would become over time. Perhaps if they had come out a little later when yuri was becoming more popular in the mainstream they would have fared better…Then again they may have helped set the groundwork for future yuri shows so it’s just as well they came out when they did. In any case both good shows worthy of “best of yuri” lists. SK has the dynamic of the megane in love and her somewhat airheaded love interest who specifically likes “cute girls”. Poor megane has a hard time figuring out what the airhead defines as “cute”. The show also features an amusing side-couple of an ojou-sama and her tsundere girlfriend. Not to mention the somewhat controversial side-girl who plays a more prominent role in the 2nd half of the anime. Heck, even Mr Crossdresser himself is cool. Let us not forget Miss “Ha Ha Ha!” Another really good show that I would love to see the rest of the manga get animated someday but considering most anime are essentially manga commercials and the SK manga ended the odds of a 2nd season are close to 0.

YuriMother: 2009 was a great year for yuri anime, with both Sasameki Koto and Aoi Hana, among other works, airing. But while Aoi Hana sought to resist many of the common tropes of the genre and tell a simple grounded story Sasameki Koto appears to have looked a the list of every convention possible and say “yeah I can do that.” It has melodrama, comedy, one-sided love, friend love stories, I worship this genre but even I think there is a limit. However, Sasameki Koto is one of the most competent yuri anime works of the current era. While all the tropes are present most of the problematic aspects of the genre are not. The story is well written, characters enjoyable, and art that is really well done for the time. I enjoy every watch and if I ever want to quickly download the genre’s tropes into another person's head I need only duct tape them to a chair and throw on Sasameki Koto.

14. Riddle Story of Devil (Akuma no Riddle) - 77 Votes

YuriMother: Akuma no Riddle was highly anticipated back in 2014, sporting a premise of student assassins that, while certainly not unique, was outside the norms for the yuri genre. It promised a dark and thrilling take on the yuri genre that would not become popular until the yuri horror trend a few years later. At first, it looked like this would be successful with an excellent setup and some pretty compelling characters but ultimately Akuma no Riddle fell flat and became more derailed as it continued. The monster of the week style of episodes left little room for complex plots and plans or proper character development, which is a shame because of how engaging so many of the assassins were upon original presentation. However, this show still has some of the best action in the yuri genre, placing it alongside series like Cannan and Utena despite its flawed storytelling. If nothing else, the anime may compel one to read the manga, which expands the story and characters more than the show was given time to.

OG: Professional assassins secretly gathered at an academy in an attempt to take the life of a seemingly innocent cutie to win the ultimate prize, one of whom wishes to protect the adorable redhead. Yes the manga, which is pretty much a Director’s Cut, is better and the anime would have benefited from having 20+ episodes instead of 12 and a delightful beach OVA but the show did a good job of showing viewers what each assassin was like, their motivations (though many of their origin stories were summarized in written biographies during commercial breaks viewers needed to pause to read) were clear enough and the duels, as brief as some of them were, had enough spicy goodness in them to be memorable, especially the ones in the latter half of the show. Oh, and although the manga wrapped up after the anime it had a very similar ending.

15. Revue Starlight - 72 Votes

OG: Gay theater girls who strive to become the top star, meaning the best actress or lead actor of the cast. How do they do it? By working hard and overcoming their personal hardships? Yes. That. What makes this show so wonderful despite being almost a year old as of this writing is not only do the ladies all have interesting stories to tell but so does the stage. Every song, prop, movement, dance, gesture etc. It is like the performers and performances are united. It is like in Spongebob where not only does the person in the boots tell a story but the boots as well.

Oh yes. I almost forgot to mention the mysterious underground theater and talking giraffe. Never forget the talking giraffe from Hell. #Wakarimasu.

Super cool and super gay.

YuriMother: Bushiroad continuously gets better at what they do, creating media franchises of cute girls filled with music and making mountains of cash from smartphone games. Inspired by the likes of Love Live, they created BanG Dream and last year Revue Starlight. However, where these franchises fell short Revue Starlight success. It never twists its characters to tell a story but rather creates compelling arcs around them. I thoroughly enjoyed and agree with its place on this list.

16. Konohana Kitan - 68 Votes

YuriMother: I know of Konohana Kitan for its constant presence at yuri events more so than the anime or even the manga. It is adorable, relaxing, simple, and fun. While it does not add anything super substantial to the genre it does not take anything either or present any objectionable material. The “plot” is nonexistent but that does not matter, as it is not trying to tell a story or make commentary, just be fluffy and simple.

OG: Konohana Kitan to me is a Girls Club (Cute girls doing cute things) and iyashikei hybrid anime. It is visually stunning as it is relaxing with Yuzu pretty much one of the cutest demigoddesses in existence. She of course is a chick magnet but her heart will forever belong to Satsuki.

17. Destiny of the Shrine Maiden (Kannazuki no Miko) - 65 Votes

OG: The other stuff on the show is still not that great but ChiMeko will forever stand the test of time as far as I’m concerned. Top 10 for their love story alone. Yes. I know THAT ONE SCENE continues being controversial and talked about every time curious new yuri fans witness greatness…but I will forever defend Chikane because I get where she was coming from. Would I have done something different? Yes. The thing is you need to put yourself in her shoes and understand what she wanted to accomplish and how far she would go to get it done. Kotoha is best side-character and Souma Ogami is real man’s man who does not deserve the hate. He was an honorable warrior to the end. He fought well and accepted defeat like a man. Plus his yell is inspirational.

YuriMother: My feelings on Kannazuki no Miko are incredibly mixed. It has many of the worst facets of early current era yuri anime, tropes include S, rape and… am I reading this correctly, demon mechs? Worst of all it presents a cycle, a never-ending loop that haunts the characters in the overarching plot and it does not resolve it. If a work ever presents such an element, like Puella Magi did, it must be overcome or confronted at least. Its presence makes the already cringy story feels cheap and lazy. However, I love the two female leads and their difficult relationship. I love the music, especially the hauntingly beautiful ending theme, and the final moments of episode 11 are some of the greatest seconds I have ever seen in an anime. I cannot wrap my mind around my view of this series but at the end of the day, I understand it. I do not believe that work like it would ever be warmly accepted today but for its time it does stand as a breakout piece of yuri anime.

18. Princess Principal - 61 Votes

YuriMother: Princess Principal is one of the best anime of the past few years. It had everything, an interesting premise, great characters, an incredible soundtrack. Alongside all this is the sharp writing and thrilling story. Princess Principal did everything Akuma no Riddle wanted to with an intriguing and action-packed story featuring strong characters. On top of all this, the animation is top notch. A six-part movie sequel is planned which has me somewhat concerned, but I am glad to see that it is being continued as the ending to the series was one of its weakest aspects. Now if you will excuse me, I need to listen to some jazz.

OG: Cute and sexy gay spies in a dramatic British Steampunk setting. What more do readers need? Allow Her Holiness to elaborate a bit further. Currently waiting for the multi-part cinematic continuation.

19. Izetta: The Last Witch - 60 Votes

OG: I am known for loving shows people do not think as highly of. Izetta: The Last Witch is no different. I love this show so much. Besides how certain events transpired some complained about the depiction of WW2. Basically think about people ranting about storylines and content featured in certain Call of Duty and Battlefield games. Here however, it is clearly a fictional great war inspired by WW2. I was invested in the following:

-The cute and sexy ladies.

-Seeing two badass lesbians lead an army against an evil empire.

-FiZetta’s romance. This of course being the major highlight. I love FiZetta so much. My sexy lesbian babies and Anne X Grea’s mentors. They taught them everything they know after all.

It is similar to how I felt watching Kannazuki no Miko where my focus was primarily on the leading ladies’ developing romance. The difference is that unlike Kannazuki I was also somewhat entertained by our heroines’ enemies along with their allies. Basically viewers’ enjoyment of the show depends on how seriously they take their history and are willing to overlook the liberties this story takes with its depictions of the weapons, military and the familiar evil empire. FiZetta are one of my favorite lesbian couples of all time.

By the way, in that famous scene, yes they did. Viewers just have to squint their eyes to see “it”.

YuriMother: Another show that I consider to have squandered its potential. I know that lots of people enjoyed this one, including OG but I could not bring myself to finish this constantly mediocre series. Perhaps I am tired of alternative light-fantasy European-war inspired plots. Trying to stand out in this bloated genre is difficult and Izetta fails. Izetta started strong and hooked many viewers with its amazing visual and auditory polish but this was quickly lost in the plot which, while set up well, struggle to gain any ground of pay off what had been established. On the yuri side, it did not really do anything interesting or satisfying, with plenty of scenes feature the character’s standing next to each other looking cute and one or two moments of actual yuri. I am glad that some of you were able to enjoy this one more than me at least.

20. Maria Watches Over Us (Maria-sama ga Miteru) - 57 Votes

OG: Like Strawberry Panic this is a “Like it or not” classic. Despite being a Class S show it did its own thing and became a pioneer for . It’s also responsible for the many yuri jokes related to all-girl schools in anime.Shimako X Noriko best Grande and Petite Souer! Yumiko X Sachiko were great too as the two grew to better understand each other. Most memorable scene for me was the panda costume. Even Sei is a sleeper icon in all yuridom. Yoshino X Rei had a very interesting dynamic. I actually think they are the real pioneers of relationships between cousins. Thank you YoshiRei. HaruKana, Kaede X Sara and several others owe you two much appreciation.

YuriMother: Another great and significant series, Maria Watches Over Us, took the tropes of early yuri works, Catholic schools, a lack of men, piano scenes, and emotional relationship rather than physical ones and turned the dial up to 11. For better or worse, it single-handedly revived the Class S genre and was copied (and parodied) endlessly for over a decade. However much I complain about S I actually do not think that we would have the current age of yuri without its popularity and proliferation at the beginning of the century so I owe a big thank you to Maria Watches Over Us for that. Ignoring its historical importance and literary significance the anime still presents an engaging plot with wonderful characters and more butchered French than my last trip to Europe. It is certainly worth a watch and worthy of a place on this list.

What do you think should be on this list?:

YuriMother: As I previously said, this is a pretty perfect list. As far as missing titles I can think of the following.

Simoun - not the greatest in terms of plot or animation but it had cute service and a fun action-packed plot.

Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl - This series may be strange and present the dreaded love triangle but it did its best to tell a transgender narrative in 2006, naturally this involved aliens, and I applaud it for its attempts.

Cannan - This series is light on the yuri but heavy on the suspense, action, and amazing character designs. The terrorist plot is exciting and the final train fight featured in the series is one of the greatest action spectacles in anime that somehow manages to remain grounded.

OG:

-Harukana Receive: Best all-female sports anime ever made. Plus the gayness is not subtle at all.

-Mikagura Gakuen Kumikyoku: Eruna Ichinomiya is an underrated yuri icon. While not the first of her kind (That honor, I think, goes to Galaxy Fraulein Yuna) she set the standard of cool and inspirational badass lesbian protagonists who are proud of who they are and...also happen to be super perverts. Eruna made it cool to be such a protagonist. It is nice seeing a lesbian lead who does not care what anyone else thinks. She is hungry for cute girl booties. While she often loses her control in the presence of pure beauty she, as an inspiration for others like her, has enough self-control to not go overboard (most of the time).

-Symphogear: Symphogear is love, Symphogear is life. Hopefully Season 5 will keep up the good work.

-Rinne no Lagrange: My favorite mecha anime and the reason I embrace OT3s when the signs are there. Not the greatest but man was it fun. Plus Madoka Kyouno is still sexy.

-Yuki Yuna wa Yuusha de Aru: My favorite Moepocalypse anime of all time. Yuna X Togo taught me to love and trust some people outside my closest family again.

-Mouretsu Pirates: If someone were to ask me “Hey OG. What to you is the perfect anime?”. I would tell them Mouretsu/Bodacious Space Pirates.

-Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl. Thanks to the first fan commenting and reminding me of it. Definitely worthy of a spot. #HazumuWasAlwaysFemale

Final Thoughts:

OG: Pretty good list and close to what mine would look like were I to make one. Reason I have yet to do so is because I do not feel confident enough to pick a favorite yuri anime of all time. Favorite yuri manga and couples? That I can do, but anime always seems to give me a hard time choosing my absolute favorites. Like I said though, a potential yuri list of mine would look something like this. I also found it interesting how similar the Top 10 are among both our respective fanbases and visitors to the poll conducted by the Akiba Research Institute.

YuriMother: I may have done most the complaining and left the praise to OG but I actually and really happy with this list. I think that every title presented is a worthy addition and while I would certainly move some higher or lower than their current placing I do not believe that these are too far off from my own opinions, which is surprising for a popularity poll. More than anything I am thrilled to see that works I dislike that I thought to be popular did not make this list. Perhaps I should have more faith in people and their opinions. Everyone did such a wonderful job voting and I am so grateful!

Thank you so much everyone for reading and for voting in the top yuri anime poll. To see the full results of the poll and to support yuri news, reviews, and content, check out the YuriMother Patreon. Happy Pride Month

#yuri #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+#pride #pride month #queer #gay #anime #cartoon #tv #lesbian #lesbians #girls love #wlw #gl #poll #manga

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terminally-karkalicious · 3 years

Note

allow me to rant about the only thing that has been in my brain for the past two months and that is doll customizing babeyyyyy

i know there’s a 90% chance that you wont give a Shit about any of this but here we go anyways

SO first you gotta choose a doll. preferably one with a high range of motion to avoid creating new joints or having annoying limitations like not having elbow joints for some fucking reason. what the fuck mattel. give monster high dolls back their ball jointed shoulders and elbow joints. smh

the most common dolls ive seen used as bases are monster high and ever after high. most customs ive seen are highly stylized so the stylized face molds work well for those types of dolls but dolls like barbies are good for when you want a more realistic face-ups.

once you’ve got your base picked out you gotta wipe that bitch’s face off with like. acetone or nail polish remover or something strong like that. you can also use acetone to shrink doll heads which is cool as hell imo. n e way once the face is wiped you gotta chop off the hair and remove the hair plugs from the inside. ive seen this done several ways but the easiest and most common way ive seen is to dunk the head into boiling water for ~30 seconds until it gets squishy and malleable. once you’ve got the head back, you can use pliers (i think tweezers would work in a pinch) to pull out the hair plugs which are kinda icky because theyre covered in glue and other gross shit. ew

now you must decapitate the doll. dunk em back in the boiling water to soften them back up then just tug the head off. the neck pegs look funky and are usually a different color than the body so thats cool ig

once the head’s off, you can start the face-up which is basically just giving the doll a new face using stuff like watercolor pencils, acrylic paint, gouache, and a whole lot of other stuff. hell ive seen people use person makeup on these dolls.

next,,,,, hair. there’s about twenty million ways to do hair from gluing yarn wefts to sewing to rerooting with purchased nylon doll hair or yarn wefts but i’m gonna talk about the most common one ive seen which is rerooting and gluing.

before you can reroot, you need doll hair. which, as i mentioned, can be bought at stores like the doll planet or made at home with yarn in literally any color. have fun with it! make rainbow hair or something idk

to make homemade wefts, you take some acrylic yarn, cut it twice as long as you want the hair to be (keep in mind you can cut and style the hair once it’s been rerooted), fold them in half, and tie it to something sturdy like a wire coat hanger for the next step.

once you’ve got your yarn tied to your hanger, use a pet brush and brush the yarn until it’s wispy and looks like hair. then take a straightening iron and iron the weft flat. then remove from the hanger and boom. hair wefts. ta-da

to reroot the wefts onto the head, use a rerooting tool (which can be as simple as a needle with the eye cut at angle) (just google it please i’m shit at descriptions)) to poke small sections of the hair into the head. you can use the pre-existing rooting holes for your own reroot as they’re usually pretty reliable. to reroot, take a small length of you doll hair (about 10-15 strands), loop it in half, and put the middle of the loop into the reroot tool. poke the end of the tool with the hair on it into the pre-existing hole and remove the tool. the hair *should* stay in and fill up that plug!! also remember to plug thickly at the hairline and part of the hair where it's most noticeable. it doesnt matter as much in the center of the head as that’s not usually visible on the doll. once you’ve rerooted, squeeze in strong glue through the neck hole and squish around the head to make sure it covers all the plugs and secures them in place. then pour hot water onto the head to make the hair lay flat for styling later.

also, you can reroot yarn directly into the head to make thicker, more textured hairstyles. and since the yarn is thicker, you dont need to glue the inside of the head for the hair to stay in place!!

if youre not doing body modifications (which are also cool as hell) then it’s time for clothes but clothes are boring and i like body mods more so i’m gonna rant about them instead

the material ive seen most doll artists use is apoxie sculpt, which is like play doh on steroids. it comes in two parts which you gotta mix together for some reason. why dont they sell it pre-mixed. what was the reason. also once it’s dry it’s super super strong and you can sand it, drill into it, paint it, and all kinds of stuff. very nice and i want some for myself.

you can use hand saws and drills and shit to whack off doll limbs to make stuff like digitigrade legs or new joints. also dont be afraid to use other mismatching doll parts when customizing like heads and bodies and forearms and hands and shit. it literally does not matter if youre gonna recolor the doll anyways so have fun with it. make frankenstein’s doll if youre feeling spicy

accessories my beloved. stuff like tiny beads and clay baubles and shit will literally transform the entire doll plus they’re adorable and multi-purpose

i suppose i must talk about clothes now. ah well. you can find great clothing patterns if youre new to customizing on other customizer’s etsy shops and probably google although those will probably be lower quality than paid pattern pieces. and keep in mind that if it exists as clothing irl, you can likely make it doll-sized. there are literally no limits to your clothing options as long as you can execute your idea.

the once all your components have been made, you can assemble the doll again!! and finally see what all the parts look like together!! very cool 10/10 stars.

ight that wraps up my doll rant. i could really go into more detail on certain parts but thats a whole other rant for a whole other day smh. sorry for fucking flooding your inbox ender ahaha……………. you asked for this

little did you know that dolls have been one of my favorite things since like ever. if i can read a 25 chapter long fanfic i can read this B)

mattel definitely fucked up by completely ruining MH doll designs and just stopping EAH, alot of their profits most likely came from people who collect and customize dolls and by changing MH doll designs/Stopping EAH dolls they 1. most likely lost a small (or big if we're not jus talking people who customize dolls) part of their profit and 2. made it harder for doll customizers to make dolls/get commissions out rather quickly because they probably have to waste more time making joints or learning how to make joints.

EAH/MH dolls (specifically MH dolls) had AMAZING MODELS because there was so much variety with height, face shapes, etc (my favorite molds had to be the short/tall dolls and the cat molds because of the tails) and doll customizers really went all out with enhancing a molds unique features. The only "downside" abt MH dolls is that they (or atleast most)(from what i remember)) had slimmer faces but wider eyes while EAH dolls have wider faces with slimmer smaller which left a canvas for the face and not the eyes (and vice versa for MH dolls)

I've never seen any videos where a barbie is customized (maybe because i absolutely despised barbies at the time) so I'll definitely have to check those out but they seem to be good for realistic makeovers. I've seen like like semi realistic makeovers for EAH/MH dolls that were pretty good too tho (pretty sure mostly EAH dolls since yk MH dolls were used for creature makeovers while most EAH dolls weren't)

yeah i was always amazed by the head shrinking with acetone. honestly i still am?? idunno i have no idea how that chemical bullshit works. Ive seen a few of uh makeovers that just pain over the face (in multiple layers ofcourse) but that's usually when they're painting the entire body a different colour (again usually when they're turning a doll into a funky little baby man). I've also seen a few that just chop the hair off and take out the hair plugs yk without uuh like softening the head or just go straight for the hair plugs after taking off the head (i used to do that it was funny to me??). i always really liked when they used watercolour pencils or just colour pencils in general to draw/sketch on the face cause like wow ur drawing on ur doll without ruining it?? kinda epic maybe even poggers and pogchamp?? oh god my brain is failing wjshsmsj.

Watching them putting the hair back on the doll was, other than the face stuff, was the BEST part for me. Favorite type of hair was iuuuuuh was either thick yarn or brushed out yarn. Literally worship the people that would reroot the hair, theyre the most patience people on this earth!! it's literally insane but i guess that's what happens when you've been doing that for years? you guess kinda get used to it. when they put glue into the head does it just become stiff?? like it's just a clump of dried glue or does it like..hollow out again??

dude you literally cannot convince me most of the supplies used for doll makeovers. APOXIE CLAY LOOKS SO FECKING GOOD. its edible and i will die on that hill. The body mods are literally so amazing!!!!! it's so impressive how theyre able to imagine certain features THEN LIKE ACTUALLY MAKE IT LOOK ACCURATE TO WHAT THEY WANTED TO LOOK LIKE AFTER LIKE ON TRY (or many yk trial and error is very necessary for..everything). Absolutely loved when doll customizers would saw off a dolls legs and use different ones or just completely get rid of the torso to use a different one. it's like uuh that one big guy that's mismatched and sewn together. very cool. The accessories are so fun!! just small little details you seen really need but can add because it's your feckin doll!! I used to be absolutely obsessed over the doll clothes i would find on etsy, so much so that i started sewing shitty shirts and dresses for my uh "customized" dolls (they were absolute HORRORS idk WHY my mom let me feck up my dolls like that).

Thank you for this!! i haven't been able to talk about any of my interests for a while and this just really made me happy!!

Question fer u my fellow MH/EAH enthusiast: what was your favorite MH/EAH movie/episode and doll series. Mine was The fusion dolls (MH obvi) and that MH movie "Haunted" cause we got to know more about Spectra :D

#YOOOO LONG POST?!#long post #:) hehehe #this was very fun to read cant wait for ur next fanfic length ask #asks :D #theoreticallyjasper

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steve-rogers-new-york · 4 years

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August

Warmest greeting my sweet, soft snickerdoodles <3

Last Month — July

What a shock! Last month I got up-to-date on all my physical perks, posted all my scheduled posts, and made great headway on one of my long-term, major-massive-huge projects for the blog. So progress. So success. So respectable adult! It was so cool to post two posts I had been looking forward to: The US flag one and the Dip Pen’s post :D I hope you guys enjoyed them! I also revived our old love: Recipe Wednesday! I’ll try my best to keep them up.

The aforementioned mega-huge-totally-all-the-work project is an extensive list of period accurate slang terms. If you’ve been with me a while you may know I have a gorgeous 720-page dictionary of slang (”The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English”) that is a beloved fixture of my small SRNY-related bookshelf. I have been, for a while, going through and compiling a list of terms that are historically-accurate language that would relate to both our boys, as well as Steve’s mother, Peggy, and the other Commandos. It really is a long-term project, and I am only just finishing up the C’s, but when I’m done, I’ll have the full list available to everyone for fic (and other) reference, as well as a series of themed posts!

Aside from posts, I have been trying to be more sociable. I’ve been semi-active on the Put on the Suit Stony Discord server, so if you see me (Owlish Fun) over there say hi <3 I’ve really enjoyed chatting with peeps over there about fic and cannon, and you know, whatever. And obv, I’m still loving the SRNY Discord, we’ve getting some new members recently and we’ve been having some great research-related chats!

Upcoming Posts — August+

August is a little behind on the post due to some health issues I’ve been having the last couple of week (see later in this post), so I might not get as much up this month as I would like :( I alway have a number of projects on the go, so below are some you can expect to see in the next month or so:

Asthma Cigarettes — Part of Patreon Ephemera Club Perk

Art Deco (art, furniture, architecture etc — on special request)

More Recipe Wednesday!

Coney Island’s Thunderbolt — Part of Patreon Ephemera Club Perk (late)

More 1920s-1940s slang

August Ephemera Club Perks (Patreon)

This month’s perk theme is medications, and will include...

ONE box for "Dr. Guild's Green Mountain Asthmatic Cigarettes" and TWO matchbooks featuring advertisements for medicines available during this time period! I was so excited when I found these boxes, and I’m really excited to share them with your guys! They have all the directions and commentary for the products, as well as price. I still have two more sets of these items for new subscribers in August, so if you would like to receive your own and support the blog, you can join the Ephemera Club tier over on the Patreon!

What’s Up with Me

So, as you may already know from my earlier post, I’ve been dealing with a rather persistent ear infection this past couple of weeks. Not only is it really painful and annoying, it also makes is nearly impossible to focus properly. As such, I’ve pretty much been unable to work on the blog for more than short bursts, and I’ve not written anything new in a while. I’m trying to be productive despite this, doing some clean-up of existing research notes and minor additions. Mostly, I’ve been working on the aforementioned vocab list of slang-terms from my dictionary. It’s just absent minded enough I can do it without too much trouble. I’ve actually made great progress actually, finishing the B’s and soon the C’s! I’m new about 1/4 the way through the dictionary! Very excite.

So yeah, I’m still under the weather. Most of the stronger pain is going thanks to a course of antibiotics, bit I’ve still only got about 20% hearing in that ear, near-constant ringing, regular discomfort and with occasional stabbing pain, and just generally feeling off thanks to having a problem ear. I guess the good news is that two doctors have said their pretty confident I don’t have COVID, so joy? It’s not fun guys — 0/10, would not recommend.

Beyond all that, I also moved at the beginning of this month, and how is that not the biggest news I have?? Dang health. I actually just moved (quite literally) around the corner from my other place, so with the help of my old housemate the move was quick and easy. The house is lovely, my new human housemate is great, and my new feline housemates are good company, if crafty and mischievous. Only downside is that I am allergic to cats xD Not extremely, but i get all-day sniffles if I don’t take antihistamine daily. Totally worth it.

August is a bit of hurry-up-and-wait. I start my Masters programme next months, and nearly everything is sorted by this point. I was lucky enough to be in a small programme so I got into all my first choice courses (enrolment was at 6am on the the day I moved, such fun!). This week I’ve been giving my credit card a work-out getting supplies so I’m ready for courses, including notebooks and other stationery products. I’m pretty picky about notebooks, so it took a month to finally settle on which ones I wanted to get. I might be mad.

I guess the last life note to make is the fun mid-point I’m occupying between intentional deluded calm and constant panic over my finances. I’ve been luck enough to live in a country that is providing financial support for those effected by COVID, so I have been receiving financial aid from the Canadian government since March. However, it’s going to be coming to an end soon, and with me starting a Masters degree in Sept, and my job still not really existing because of the pandemic (I work in tourism), it’s unclear what I’m doing for money come October. I have a line-of-credit set up to cover rent/food should it come down to it, if I cannot get any government assistance and my job continues to be unable to get my work. But that will just add to future Me’s debt coming out of my Masters, and a course I’m trying to avoid. I wasn’t able to get any scholarships this year, which was a huge let-down, as I had the academic clout that should have made me a shoe-in. While it is weighing on me, there is only so much I can do about it, so I’m keeping positive and know I have the worst-case safety-net of credit if it comes to it. In the meantime, I’m working on framing some vintage prints and comic book covers to offer on Etsy — something I’ve been wanting to do for a while but kept putting off. They’ll be items at a higher sell price and hopefully will bring in a little more income from the store. I’m also looking for suggestions on what other things people would like to get out of the Patreon, things that might make it more appealing for new and existing Patrons. I have recently added a Patrons-Only perk of a Masterlist of and access to my full research notes for existing and un-finished blog topics.

Ugh, this personal section won’t be this long in future, It’s just been a very eventful month so far. Love you guys, D.

[ Support SRNY through Patreon and Ko-Fi ] And join us on Discord for fun conversation! I also have an Etsy with upcycled nerdy crafts

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nikkalia · 5 years

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Storytime with Auntie Dragon: Betrayal edition

Gather round, children, it’s time once again for “Storytime with Auntie Dragon.” Today’s episode: NYC & Betrayal, a tale of adventure, excitement, and how a certain actor is seemingly easily impressed with modern technology. Hey, it’s pretty snazzy stuff…

We begin our tale at the dawn of November. Your dear Auntie D had just purchased a house, and because closing fell in such a way that I had no housing payment in November, there was some spare cash to be had. A friend of mine who lives in the UK (@mrshiddleston-uk) had been talking about her upcoming trip to the states to see our beloved Mr. Hiddleston in his Broadway debut, and after careful scouring of countless calendars, I decided that the Boychild could miss a day of school to make the trip and decided to go. Another friend ( @silverink-goldenlies) came along for the ride and the trip was set.

THE TRIP: Bloody hell, why is it every time I drive north, roads are torn up? I mean seriously. I spent more time on the brakes because of construction than I did with the cruise control engaged. For 698 miles! I did not, for those who may be curious, drive up I-95. Oh, the hells to the NO. I have driven that stretch of disaster quite enough to know that it’s a toss-up as to whether you get Hell on earth or a multi-lane, multi-hour parking lot. And that’s just around Richmond. D.C. is worse. Much. Worse. But I digress…

I-78 is (mostly) a beautiful drive. Lots of mountains, rolling hills, farmland, all that. From southern Virginia up through parts of New Jersey, there are lots of farms. LOTS of farms. With cows. And steers. And horses. And even an alpaca - dude had a long neck. Somewhere along the way, every time we passed a farm with cows, @silverink-goldenlies would just blurt out “cows.” In the middle of a conversation, “cows”. Passing silence for miles and suddenly, “cows.”

And occasionally, “cows. And horses.” The boy child would even chime in now and again.

THE ARRIVAL: We made it to NYC around sunset. When we were 25 miles or so out, I spied the city skyline and told @silverink-goldenlies to look out the window. Poor thing was so excited I think she almost cried. We took the Lincoln Tunnel into the city because I missed an exit. Which reminds me, Google Maps, get your turn-by-turn shit together. I spent more time on the road than necessary due to a lack of “in 500 feet, turn here.” Waze doesn’t treat me like that. It just crashes. And Waze has Cookie Monster voice. Anyway…Lincoln Tunnel. That was fun, kinda. I kept having flashbacks of Independence Day with the fireball coming up the tunnel following the alien attack. Not cute.

We emerged in the city and I very quickly learned that upstate NY driving is totally different than NYC driving. I lived in Albany for a couple of years, and in upstate, you can use your signal and mostly expect someone to let you in, or at least get out of the way. Not NYC. Nope nope nope. You signal, insert the front fender of your car and hope the person you’re essentially cutting off is paying attention. It only took one missed turn (thanks Google) for me to learn the ways of the natives and navigate correctly through the city. Which I did successfully. At rush hour. Praise Asphaltia, Goddess of the Road.

Cows.

NYC: After a night of bullshit sleep thanks to the rock-solid beds of the LaQuinta - Queens, our party was up and in the city by 9:30 am. I’ve always had this mental image of NYC being small because of how tightly packed everything is. My friends, that is absolutely not the case. The city is M A S S I V E in both size and scope. I was totally a tourist, videoing everything in Times Square and looking up like I expected the sky to fall. I learned something I never knew, and never really thought about: they leave the big crystal ball on top of the building after New Year’s. It’s sitting up there, pretty as you please, changing colors all year long. Who knew?

We hit the highlights of Manhattan like my son speed runs through Dark Souls. Times Square, Hard Rock New York, the M&Ms store (3 floors…3 FLOORS of chocolatey goodness), one of two Lego stores, and Rockefeller Plaza. The tree is up, but not on display. I need them to slow down on the trimming it back. There won’t be any tree left, and it’s looking a little scrawny, to begin with. Ice skating was in full effect, but we didn’t go. I knew I had a show and another 10-hour drive back to NC to get through, and doing it on a seriously bruised ass would not have been a good look.

Noon hits and we head back towards the Jacobs theatre. By the time we got there, the box office was open and there was already a line. Thank the gods for online purchases. Easy in, easy out. Around 1 pm, we met up with the lovely @mrshiddleston-uk and attempted to get lunch at some Irish pub. @mrshiddleston-uk briefed us on all things stage door and helped to craft a plan of attack to get the best spots for meeting the cast. The line to get into the theatre was already formed and growing by the time we decided to bail on the never appearing food.

THE JACOBS THEATRE: This is a gorgeous space. The theatre is on the small side, but I genuinely believe that there isn’t a bad seat in the house. We were in the balcony house left and could see every bit of the stage. Beautiful architecture, comfy seats - if not a little (LOT) short on the legroom - and a pretty chandelier made the place feel cozy and warm. The staff was wonderful as well. I’d totally see another show in this space.

BETRAYAL: So here’s the part you all came for, right? Right. Cows. To be honest, I’d never heard of Harold Pinter before Tom Hiddleston took the role in the London production, much less read any of his work. I didn’t know what to expect except for what I’d heard from @mrshiddleston-uk after her viewings of the London show. The concept of the show is intriguing enough - following a love triangle in reverse order with a minimalist set and lighting design. I’m a tech nerd anyway, so I was excited to see how well this would work.

Oh. My. Goddess. This show was AMAZING. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been to a show that totally sucked me in to the point that I was actually invested in the story. Betrayal did just that. From the moment the curtain rose (more on that in a sec) until the stage went black, I was sucked into the world of Robert and Emma and Jerry and how the affair went from disintegration to conception. I have absolutely no sympathy for any of these characters at the end of the day. They are all seriously flawed and have caused themselves the pain that they experience in this story. But, that’s what makes good drama, right?

The sheer lack of set made it easier to pay attention to the actors and the script, which is a huge perk in this game of verbal tennis. The characters go from normal speech patterns to the famed Pinter pauses to this back and forth without missing a beat (or a syllable) that will make your head spin. The boychild told me later he found it a little hard to follow, which is understandable if you’re not used to hearing it in an English accent.

There was a lot of play with light and shadow in this show. It’s no secret that all three actors are on stage for the duration of the play, with the “odd man out” lurking somewhere in the shadows. It was thrilling to see, to be honest, because you catch yourself looking around to see what the odd man is doing while the two in focus characters are speaking. Robert standing against the back wall facing the wings; Emma curled up on the floor eating an apple; Jerry sitting off the side with his back against the back wall. All making little gestures or motions that hint at what that character is experiencing in that moment in time.

Even the shadows themselves told a part of the story. The sharper focused shadows cast by Robert and Emma when she confesses the affair created a tension that doesn’t exist when Robert is lurking in the background of scenes involving Jerry and Emma or Emma hiding almost when Robert and Jerry are in the forefront. I found myself watching the shadows in this scene more than the actors themselves. It’s that intense.

One other tech geek note: the back wall moved. Now, I’ve seen plenty of moving sets. Hells, I’ve moved a few in my time. But this simple change had a tremendous impact. When the wall moved forward, it cuts the surface area of the stage down to 1/8th of what it was at the beginning. It puts the confession right in your face. You can’t get away from it, just as the characters can’t. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. They, and you, just have to deal with it. Absolutely brilliant on the part of the designers. Enough about the sets, or lack thereof. Cows. I could go on all day.

THE CAST: We’ll start with Zawe Ashton. She’s a perfectly lovely woman, all smiles and bubbly at the stage door, very sweet. I don’t know that I like her as an actress. Or maybe I don’t like her character, Emma. I haven’t really decided yet. But, if there was a downside to this show, she was it. Her laughter was fake to the point of cringy, and there was something noticeably self-absorbed about her on stage. The other thing I noticed is that she was never standing or sitting straight. She was always twisted, curled up, or otherwise contorted in some fashion, and that gave me a twitch. An acting choice? Maybe. It would stand to reason that this was some subconscious outward expression of Emma’s mental/emotional state. She struck me as whiny, and maybe a little “woe is me” to boot. My thought throughout the play was, bitch, you got yourself into this. Suck it up.

Charlie Cox as Jerry. Great guy at stage door, seemed to be enjoying the fans. Again, I haven’t read the play so I’m not 100% on what Jerry is supposed to be, but Charlie was giving some serious lovesick puppy vibes for this show. And that’s all I got from him. Maybe bits of remorse here and there, but not much. Some great comedic moments, but otherwise, he really didn’t stand out for me.

Tom Hiddleston as Robert. We’ll discuss stage door in a minute. I’ve worked in the arts and journalism long enough to know that you often hear about how someone “is” but that’s not really who they really are. They pretend to have a presence that doesn’t exist, or they’re not as talented as they, or their agent, would have you believe. And sometimes that “wonderful” actor is really just a prick in real life. Children, I am here to tell you that Thomas William Hiddleston is EVERYTHING he’d cracked up to be.

When the curtain goes up at the show open, Robert is sitting in a chair, and all you see of him is legs. The man has legs for days…digressing again. Cows. Tom has such a presence that you know exactly where he is. When Charlie and Zawe are sharing their scenes, your eyes can dart straight to Tom. I remember actively looking for Charlie and Emma in scenes they weren’t involved in, just to see what they were doing. Never, ever had to do that with Tom. He was always there, always on the edge of the shadows.

His performance as Robert is an emotional roller coaster. I watched him run the gamut and back again several times over the course of 90 minutes, and really wonder how the hells he does it every day (and has been since June). No wonder he looks exhausted. He was giving that trademarked smile in some scenes, growling with anger in others (your Loki is showing), and on the verge of tears in still others. I looked down at him during the confession scene and his eyes were brimming, reflecting the bright white light that was shining on him. That one hurt my heart. Dude can do anything, and I need someone to give him more meaty roles on film. And for the love of the Gods, cast him in a romcom, comedy, something! He’s proven time and again he can act - let him have something besides Loki.

Disclaimer: I love Loki, don’t get me wrong, but I hate to see talented performers pigeonholed into one role. Tom is so much better than that, as most of them are.

STAGE DOOR: The show ends, the lights come up, and I can’t get the damn Hard Rock Cafe bag out from between the seats. So this is how it’s gonna go down, eh? WRONG. ANSWER. I get downstairs in record time only to be blocked by old people who can’t decide if they need to pee or not, then distracted by Tom speaking on stage about the fundraiser the theatre is doing. That voice, those long assed legs, and holy hells is the end of the stage right fucking there???

FOCUS WOMAN! Cows. Eldery folks having determined that yes, in fact, a stop by the loo is in order, I’m out the door, still struggling with the bag and my coat and not being run over by those who are sprinting to the barricades set up to queue for stage door. Sprinting. Really? It’s like, 300, 400 feet maybe, from the entrance to the stage door. I wanna have 0.5 seconds in front of Tom too, but damn y’all. It ain’t that serious.

Secure in our spot upfront and personal by the lovely @mrshiddleston-uk, I got myself squared away and place the Facebook group chat video call. We all agreed that since @firithariel, @igotloki, and @mischeviousbellarina couldn’t be there in person, we’d bring them along digitally. For once, my phone behaved. Did I remember to put them on speaker? That would be a no.

So, Zawe comes out first, signs programs and chats with fans. She really is adorable. Charlie comes out next and follows the same route, and then the man of the hour (and really the whole point of this trip) emerges in the “uniform”, looking a little frazzled. But, he makes the rounds of autographs, even going so far as to sign a Thanos Funko.

Really? REALLY? Thanos? How you gonna do my boy wrong like that? Grrrr….. Amusing thing was that Tom really didn’t even acknowledge it, but he looked annoyed by it.

That’s when Tom got to our merry little band. @silverink-goldenlies showed him the tattoo done by her husband of a Loki helmet with runes surrounded by flowers. He seemed thoroughly impressed with it. I’m next, with our video chat going strong. I asked him to say hi to the girls, and he got a weird look on his face until he saw the phone. He did a double-take, “There are four people on the screen! How did you do that?” We told him about Facebook group chat and where the girls were located. There’s a video floating around Instagram/Twitter of his reaction. It’s entirely too cute. He leaned in and smiled, said hi to them, showed them an autographed program, and handed them to me. He looked me right in the eye for about a second and a half then moved on. I can still see it in my mind, and it makes me smile every time.

Tom finished the autographs and came back around for selfies. Mine is blurry AF, because of course, it is. It’s the only one I have of him. Maybe I’ll try to fix it in Photoshop. A fucking photographer can’t take a damned selfie. SMH Oh well, you can tell it’s him. @mrshiddleston-uk got some great shots, and I’ll always know I was there, that we spoke, however briefly.

I’ll spare you the details of the trip home because, well…traffic. And cows.

And so ends the tale of the very long too short awesome weekend in NYC where I got to meet Tom Hiddleston.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#betrayal #tom hiddleston #nyc #road trip

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serendipitous-posts · 4 years

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Top 10 Best Rwby Fights

Waiting for the new volume, thought I would rank the top 10 Best Rwby Fights so far.

Ranking under the cut.

5. Food Fight (Best Day Ever)

This is absolutely delightful, just eight friends dicking around and playing with their food. It's the only time we ever see Rwby and Jnpr go head to head, and different team members with different styles are pitted against each other (Ren and Yang, Pyrrha and Blake) as well as people with similar styles (Ren and Weiss, Nora and Yang).

The ideas was very simple, 'let's just have a stereotypical food fight, but with warrior children' and everything about this episode conforms to it to create an amazing display. I mean, they even remake their weapons with food, and use their semblances to give themselves an edge!

It's fast paced, and keeps up it's rhythm throughout, never faltering. It's as fun to watch as I assume it was to write and animate.

4. Rwby vs. Paladin (Painting the Town)

I have always been incredibly fond of team fights; of multiple people being so in sync that they just mesh together in battle, and Team Rwby vs the Paladin in Painting the Town is the very first example of this. While Yang is the one to bring Roman down in the end, it's the team's dynamics that severely weaken it.

Bumblb, Checkmate, Ladybug, Freezerburn, Ice Flower, all these attacks combine the two girls unique fighting styles to create something completely new, and it's great. It's a shame that these never come up again, because it would be interesting to see how they changed from then.

3. Pyrrha vs. Cinder (End of the Beginning)

Pragmatic fighting is one of the best forms of fighting, of using the area around you to your advantage to try and win a fight, and holy hell, is it used here. Cinder is basically a demigod now, but Pyrrha is still ready and willing to throw down.

Cinder is stronger than Pyrrha but Pyrrha's prodigal combat training means she can keep up with Cinder as they both try and get an edge over their opponent.

Pyrrha using the clock pieces to try and kill Cinder on the tower is amazing, as is Cinder summoning the dragon to distract Pyrrha. Neither of them are fighting fair, and it's great, because that is what a fight to the death should look like. No wondering about playing fair, of hesitation, they are both trying to kill eachother.

2. Neo vs. Yang (No Brakes)

Ah, Neo. When I first saw her, I thought her design was interesting, and then kind of put her out of my mind. I didn't even know who she was the first time around, it was only when I rewatched the series that I realised the girl from Painting the Town was the same from No Brakes.

Yang's style has always been pretty generic; just basic punches and kicks with some explosions thrown in between. Nothing wrong with that, it's always good to have a brawler, but that kind of ridiculously offensive fighting, trying to force a weakness in your opponent has it's downsides.

Enter Neo, who, in the span of three minutes, stole my heart. Her style is ridiculously simple, and the complete opposite to Yang's; she stays on the defensive until an opportunity presents itself, and she focuses on momentum, not brute force. Her method of dodging is usually just . . getting out of the way, usually by twisting and sidestepping. It’s as straightforward as you can possible get, but mixed in with Neo’s acrobatic fighting style, is very, very effective.

Yang is also amazing in this. There are several points where she changes her own style to try and catch Neo, only for it to fail, because Neo is just that good. She manages to actually grab Neo at one point, but Neo uses her momentum to escape unharmed.

The writers and animators had a blast doing this fight, from Neo using her umbrella to temporarily blind Yang with flames, to Neo sitting down in the middle of the fight on a crate. That last one is especially important as it shows that CRWBY were paying attention to the background during the fight. Neo is such a beloved character by the fandom for her incredibly graceful fighting style. Almost everyone else has this over the top, flashy style, and so nobody else in Rwby has a style like hers, which makes her, and all her fights, incredibly memorable.

1. Neo & Roman vs. Ruby (Heroes and Monsters)

Remember how I said I loved Team Fights? Well, Neo and Roman put Rwby and the Paladin to shame.

Ruby has superspeed, a spinny scythe and plot armour, yet she still spends the entire fight getting her ass kicked. She doesn't even win by herself, a Grimm is the one to finally end it.

The choreography in this is absolutely incredible. When you get down to it, Ruby's fighting style isn't actually that special, she mainly relies on her speed to get her through it all. But Neo and Roman aren't having any of that shit; dodging and misdirecting blows easily.

The two criminals are so in-sync, unlike with Painting the Town, they don't have to call out their attacks for the other, they just . . . do it. There's one part where Ruby lunges at Roman, only for him to duck and allow Neo to use him like a gymnastics horse. There's another where Roman slams his cane into the ground, fire off a shot to hit Ruby in the face, and then shoot her again.

This is how you choreograph a fight scene with more than one person. It's things like this that make other fight scenes so disappointing, because this shows you just how amazing Rwby can be if they really try.

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dicecast · 5 years

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Blast to the Past: What is the Appeal of Fallout

Ok so last time we covered why people are really into the Baldur’s Gate series, which sort of invented most of the CRPG genre (Ultimia is very sad right now)., Now for the other major Isometric game series, which launched one of the most influential series in Gaming history, I speak of course of Fallout.

Now I haven’t played Fallout since I was a kid because I remember the interface being extremely frustrating compared to BG (which like...that is saying something) but what people love about Fallout is primarily the story and the roleplaying. So what makes Fallout 1 so appealing

1) The post Apocalyptic genre, Fallout and Road Warrior probably define the aesthetic of that genre more than any other, and if that is your jam, then Fallout is for you, it is not just post-apocalyptic but it is deeply interested in the tropes and conventions of that genre. Now Cards on the Table this is actually a minus for me, I’m more of a fantasy man myself but diversity of genre is good so this likely makes fans of the genre very happy, especially since this game has done more for the genre to anything since Road Warrior

2) Classless system. Fallout doesn’t have classes, instead it has a very elaborate system of mechanical perks, stats, traits and skills, each of which can change a lot in how you play the game and express your character. You have a low more flexibility in building your character than the more rigid focus of Classes+stats+skills of D&D, though personally I prefer Character from Mechanics rather than Mechanical from character. However you want classless roleplaying, Fallout starts the Computer trend

3) Social as a real option. I think today people overestimate this in regards to fallout and seem to imagine that you can talk every enemy down, and that really isn’t the case, but certainly for the time Fallout was far more evolved in terms of social dynamics than Baldur’s Gate, and a social character is entirely viable. Critically you can defeat the final boss entirely through dialogue options.

4) Dialogue options are more like puzzles. Hbomerguy pointed this out in an earlier critique of Fallout 3 but I think it is worth repeating, in Fallout winning at dialogue options isn’t as simple as just finding the option with “Speechcraft 67″ written next too it. If you want to defeat The Master, you don’t just need a high Speech, you also need to have found the information necessary to change his mind (specifically that the Super Mutants are sterile), external evidence of said proof, and you also need to carefully pick the dialogue options to do so. Your high Speech and Int only open the door for you to be able to defeat him, you still need to have done your own research, asked other people questions, and brought evidence with you, which makes choosing the right option much more satisfying than just saying “you are wrong and I have 100 Speechcraft)

5) Variable play experience. This is true of all RPGS, if I play a male Dwarf Cleric in BG II and a male human wizard I am going to have different interactions but most of fights will be similar. But if you choose the “Jinxed” Trait at the start of Fallout, which basically dramatically increases everybody’s chance of Critical failure (including your enemies) the entire game is utterly different and a horrific tragicomedy of needless violence. But if you take this combined with 9 or 10 luck, then you will fail less and everybody else will fail more. It totally changes the nature of the game. If you choose the Empathy Perk, then bad dialogue options are highlighted in Red so you know not to pick them. If you choose Mysterious Stranger perk, a Clint Eastwood ripe off will sometimes show up to help you out in combat out of no where and then leave just as quickly.

6) Negative effects from stats. If you have a 3 charisma in BG, your party members will fight more, you will get worse rewards for quests, and you will get worse prices, but your dialogue options will largely remain the same. You won’t get the special bonus dialogue options open to high charisma characters, but you basically have the “default” dialogue options at all times. If you aren’t a caster, there really isn’t too much of a downside for having a low Int in BG, you are much weaker to mindflayers, as logn as you have some smarties in the party you should be fine. Not so in Fallout. If you play a low Int character, you are barely capable of speech so you have unique dialogue options and the game is totally different. Its objectively worse and kinda sucks but there is a lot of comedy gold in playing an absolute moron. Later games will pick up on this more, with New Vegas taking the cake with your own brain attempting to quit from you in protest.

(This is from fallout II but the point is the same)

7) Random Encounters. In BG, random encounters are all roughly the same, a different type of enemy shows up and attempts to murder you until you murder all of them. There are a few of those in Fallout but you also have much more inventive random encounters. just to list a few from the first game

You can find a wandering singer who will perform for you and increase your charisma by 1

A unique merchant named Duc, who if you kill, you will trigger a random encounter where his men seek revenge.

A random wounded Peasant which will give you some kind of prophecy

A Brotherhood of Steel person who will give you some information

Walk into a fight between two different factions (lots of variants of these)

Corpses which you can loot

Some travelers who can give you directions or info

And a fucking crashed Alien Spaceship which you can loot

Seriously far better random encounter design than most RPGs ever

8) Ideological conflict. This doesn't actually make Fallout better than BG, whose overall themes are more mythic than ideological but it makes it different, Fallout is effectively a story about adaptation, about society, technically and what does it mean to relate to the past. The Vault wants to effectively deny the outside world and pretend WWIII never happened, The Brotherhood of Steel is creating this weird dogmatic elitist technology cult in response to it, the Master wants humanity to evolve to a new species to solve the problem, and what will be the New California Republic wants to recreate the pre War United States. Different ideologies existing in opposition to each other is a core part of this series and Fallout starts it

9) The Aethetic. Fallout has a very unique look and feel which is so iconic that other video games keep ripping it off, and that I have been to multiple fallout themed bars in my life. This isn’t really evident in the game-play graphics which I think are objectively uglier than BG’s painted backgrounds, but more in the objects, interface, and interactions, like the claymation models you can talk to

10) Ending slides. Fallout starts the tradition of having a slideshow at the end that shows exactly how each of your actions changed the world in a different way.

12) This one doesn’t count because it didn’t really work but Purely turned based combat. Fallout uses the Action Point system rather than the semi real time/Turn based of BG. Now....this is more of a hypthoetical benefit because the turned based combat in Fallout doesn’t really work at all, so BG is just objectively better, but if it was polished it could be a radically different way of playing the game.

12) Dogmeat the Dog

There is a reason why this game is so beloved to this day, it brings a lot of very radical mechanical innovation to the table, even though it is borderline unplayable at times.

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robininthelabyrinth · 5 years

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Fic: An Internal Affair - Chapter 23 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: Leonard Snart, the CCPD Captain of Internal Affairs, is known as Captain Cold for a very good reason: He hates corrupt cops with a merciless vengeance, and once you’re on his list, you’re in serious trouble.

His next target?

A CCPD lab tech named Barry Allen who’s developed a suspicious habit of disappearing at random intervals.

—————————————————————————————————

"I think this is the best date we've ever been on," Barry says.

Len, who's tugging at the blanket currently covering both their legs so as to get it into a more optimal cuddling position, pauses, blinking. That was - random.

"We're not doing anything special," he points out. "We're just going to watch some TV and eat some take-out, whenever it arrives."

"Exactly!"

Len looks at Barry, awaiting an explanation.

"It's normal," Barry explains, grinning. "Just two slobs, hanging out and planning to stuff their faces with Thai food while watching some dumb sci-fi - because someone vetoed mysteries -"

"I hate mysteries," Len says stubbornly.

"They're fun! Figuring out the puzzle out of the clues -"

"Real life doesn't have convenient clues."

"You're not wrong, but that's why we're watching TV."

Len rolls his eyes. "You agreed to watch sci-fi tonight, so stop whining. We can watch a mystery next time."

Barry beams. "See, that's why this is the best date ever. There's going to be a next time."

"I feel like there was going to be a next time as soon as we had that first date," Len says dryly. "You remember, with me talking myself into investigating you for corruption and you carefully omitting anything about being the Flash?"

Then he winces.

He still feels bad about what he did, back in Iron Heights - making the cold, rational decision to risk Barry's life and to strip his powers away if it meant defeating Wells and saving their city. Yes, both Mick and Barry have told him that he's being ridiculous - well, Barry's told him he's being ridiculous, Mick just asked where the hell he'd gotten an overdeveloped conscience from and told him to check whether they had a valid return policy - but he can't quite help it.

His decision robbed Barry of his powers. Len’s very aware that by that point, they’d already become a major part of Barry’s identity, and Len just made that decision for him.

He’s still grateful it wasn’t Barry’s life.

He’s painfully aware that he would have made the same decision even if that had been the cost – a speedster like Wells could have murdered an army and would’ve had time to slaughter civilians by the dozen before anyone even got close enough to stop him – but he’s desperately, pathetically grateful that he still has Barry here, by his side.

In his – well, couch.

"It's okay," Barry says, noticing the wince. "You know that I'd rather be sitting on a couch at regular speed with you than have both of us still be lying to each other at super-speed."

"Smooth," Len tells him fondly, "except for the way that metaphor got away from you towards the end there."

"Yeah, I wasn't sure how to bring it back from a plural to a singular. You know what I meant, though."

"You get points for effort." Len leans over and kisses him, just to make sure that message sticks.

Also because he can do that now.

He can just kiss Barry, any time he likes - well, anytime he likes as long as Barry isn't buried in one of his cases, anyway; Len's discovered, to his amusement, that Barry gets just as cranky as Len does when his train of thought is interrupted by nonsense like affection from a loved one.

It's apparently a tendency shared by all CSIs, no matter how usually cheerful - Barry's been having regular study groups with his CSI friends in his little on-site nook at the CCP, and even the perkiest among them growls like an angry terrier if Len’s decision to meander by to see if Barry is free for lunch disturbs a time-sensitive experiment.

But when Barry (or Len, for that matter) isn't busy, it's free season for stealing kisses.

Len’s a very good thief.

But it’s okay, because Barry steals just as many.

Because they're officially boyfriends now.

Len spends about half his time terrified that he's going to screw this up and the other half deliriously happy with how things are going.

They’ve had several long, in-depth conversations about telling each other the truth, several even longer discussions about various facts about their respective lives that might be useful for the other to know about, and finally, even longer than that, several make-out sessions to prove that they did, in fact, still want to go forward with this relationship.

Very important part of the truth-telling process, that.

(Really, the only downside of this is that Barry has now officially joined the group of people who can’t stand Charlie; Len has no idea what’s wrong with the way he’s explaining the guy that this keeps happening – Charlie’s harmless! Really! – but it does.)

But it’s not just their relationship that’s going well.

For what may be the first time in Len’s life, everything seems to be going well.

After all, he’s somehow managed to keep his current job, which he actually really likes, and, with Kara's much-faster-than-normal help, he's actually finished the gigantic mound of paperwork that resulted from him getting both the blame and the credit for the quelling of the Election Day Riots, as they're now being called by the local media.

The national media keeps trying to call them the Primary Day Riots. Shows what they know.

To be perfectly honest, though, Len is just relieved that he narrowly missed getting elected mayor by write-in, and that only because people didn’t have time to agree on what position they wanted him to be serving in, which – no.

Just…no.

They can’t make him take a political job.

...he thinks, anyway. Good thing he didn't win.

At any rate, Len is pretty sure that the roomful of paperwork was meant to be an informal punishment from a governor, who was also awarding him a medal of some sort in recognition of his role in helping save the city. Joke's on her; she wasn’t aware that he had superheroic help.

Though it would've been nice to have Barry's help as well...

"Cisco says they're probably coming back, you know," Barry says, observing Len's expression and correctly figuring out where his thoughts are going. "My powers, I mean. Mardon's did, remember?"

"Nah," Len says. "The fact that we're having 20 degree weather in July's totally escaped me."

"Hey, the team at Mercury Labs swears they've almost got his powers back under his control..."

"Poor guy," Len says, not without real sympathy. He likes Mardon; he liked him from the beginning, and the free grief therapy the guy is getting while sitting around Mercury Labs is only helping improve his personality. Clyde was always the more obnoxious of the two, anyway. "Weather control powers are one thing, a pretty awesome thing, but weather control powers that respond to your mood is just a curse. Not to mention the whole celibacy aspect..."

"Celibacy?" Barry asks, blinking; he’d clearly not thought about that. "Because he's being watched at all times by scientists and it’d be awkward?"

"Doubt that'd stop him," Len says dryly. According to Ramon, who watched over the prisoners in the Accelerator, it never did before. Not that Len has any sympathy – every time Ramon tries to complain, Len just reminds him that he's whining about that time he illegally imprisoned people and Ramon shuts right up. "No, I was thinking more about how the whole of Central City'd notice if his ‘cold wintery weather’ gloom gets abruptly interrupted by a sudden bout of nice weather, if you know what I mean..."

"Oooh, ouch. I hadn't thought of that. Poor guy. I hope Cisco and the others find him a fix soon."

"I'm sure they will," Len says. Rathaway and Ramon working together is exactly as terrifying as one would expect, and when you added Christine McGee to the picture...well. Len has no doubt that Mardon's powers will be under control soon.

Not least because Rathaway apparently has a vested personal interest in making sure that Mardon stops being involuntarily celibate as quickly as possible.

(Len really, really hopes Ramon’s offhand comment about there being a 10% possibility that everyone else involved in the Iron Heights battle would eventually develop powers over time turns out wrong. Ten to one are not odds he likes when it potentially comes to turning into an icicle or something irritatingly thematic like that.)

"Besides," Barry continues, "I don’t mind waiting for my powers to come back. It's not like I don't appreciate taking a few weeks off -"

"It's been nearly two months."

"- a few months off of the superhero stuff. It's like having summer vacation again. Especially since I can rest assured that Kara is keeping an eye on the city -"

"You mean Iris West is keeping an eye on the city," Len interrupts, rolling his eyes. "And Danvers is helping her enforce what she sees with her all-seeing eyes."

"And Mick," Barry adds mischievously. "Don't forget Mick."

Len rolls his eyes again, this time less at Barry than at his partner's antics.

Sure, it came as no surprise that Mick felt himself and his beloved heat gun were more suited for supporting Team (Now Licensed and Properly Supervised) Vigilante than the cops.

The surprise, such as it was, came from what he spent the rest of his time doing.

Out of all the possible outcomes Len might have foreseen with Mick waking up and accepting Len's job as police captain, Mick getting a job with the CCPN as Iris West's bodyguard-slash-photographer wasn't anywhere near the list.

Still, Mick seems happy - he likes having an opportunity to bust heads together, he likes Iris, and he apparently has a natural talent for photography, especially photography in high-stress situations. Like, say, investigating one of the few remaining Family outposts while getting shot at by the few remaining Family thugs.

(Mick is well aware that if he gets himself killed, Len will murder him. Iris has also been informed as much. Once that’d been established, though, Len gave them both his blessing to go as crazy as they liked, which both of them appreciated.)

By all accounts, Mick’s really enjoying his new work.

He's even taken up writing again!

Admittedly, he's still writing those weirdly addictive but somewhat embarrassing pulp romance novels, not journalism, but damnit, Len thought Mick was dead or dying: his joy at being forced to beta-read those novels again is inexpressible.

Especially since he's no longer Mick's only go-to proxy character. Len was getting tired of recognizing himself in both the snarky beloved sidekick and the villainous evildoer that shared a murky past with the hero, and he was even more tired of the not-so-subtle hints that said sidekick should consider getting laid because it would make him less tetchy.

Now – to convince Mick to start publishing…

Maybe under a pseudonym?

"He's doing really well," Barry says, sounding genuinely pleased on Mick's behalf, and not just for Len's sake, either. Len's really glad they like each other. "Iris says she's having to keep him from getting poached by other reporters. Well, the few that remain."

Len snorts at the reminder. When the Families put out the call on Election Day, it wasn't just cops that answered; a disturbing number of journalists were found to be involved. Some of them turned back once the amnesty was offered, but not all of them, and even the ones that did turn back are stuck on the non-political beat until they prove that their journalistic integrity can be trusted again.

In its own way, good journalism's ethical rules, however internal, are as strict as the one that govern the police...

Len scowls.

"Uh-oh," Barry laughs. "It’s the patented Leonard Snart vendetta face."

"I don't got a vendetta face," Len sniffs. "It's just..."

He trails off.

Yeah, he has no idea what he’s going to end that with.

It kind of is his vendetta face.

"Your 'no, actually, it wasn't just all about Mick-related trauma, I'm actually really just that personally offended by corruption' face?" Barry offers, his eyes crinkling with barely suppressed laughter.

"...possibly,” Len allows.

"You're already helping re-build the CCPD from the ground up, remember," Barry says, putting his head on Len's shoulder. He’s really good about signaling what he’s about to do in advance, which helps Len relax. Len’s never been great about physical contact, especially over-long contact, but he’s finding more and more that he’s able to get over that hurdle when it’s with Barry, who deeply enjoys occasional cuddling.

Len’s learned to cuddle. Will wonders never cease.

"Like, even putting aside your little purge –”

“It ain’t a purge. It’s an in-depth investigation and interrogation of every current member of the CCPD and the prosecutor’s office to find out if they have any vulnerabilities to blackmail or bribery and/or have experienced either of those recently. Totally different. We only purge ‘em if they’re still being blackmailed or bribed.”

“Yeah, yeah, but putting that aside, you’ve got the CCPD putting in place all those new mandatory ethics trainings, the lessons on improving community engagement, recruiting all those new people - some of them out of the slums, people who might not have had a chance before - even the courts are being cleaned up now that the equivalent of your position has been created to do that -"

"And yet we still have people thinking it's okay to turn a blind eye when it suits their personal prejudices," Len growls.

"This is about Wells," Barry concludes wisely.

"It's about Wells," Len agrees. He’s still pissed about that. He’s always going to be pissed about that. "Eobard Thawne or whatever. Don't get me wrong, we knew he was a serial killer -"

"Multiple murderer, Len, serial killer is a term of art and I know that you know that -"

"Whatever, he killed lots of people, sometimes in a serial aka sequential fashion -"

"I'll accept that.”

"- and I ain’t denying that it would've been hard to do it if we had to risk his powers coming back sometime, too, yeah, but damnit, the bastard still deserved a proper trial! Not to just get murdered in a cell somewhere!"

"Well," Barry says slowly. "And I know I'm biased here, being the son of one of his victims, but personally speaking I'm not all that upset that Wells got ‘accidentally’ locked into Iron Heights with a bunch of pissed-off Family members looking for revenge for the whole Election Day mess."

It was a nasty, ignominious death, stuck in a cell and forgotten about by everyone but the ones he thought he could play like pawns. A death without drama, without grandeur - without Barry, the subject of Wells’ long-running obsession.

Without the powers that made him something to be feared.

Without the Speed Force .

Len can see why Barry's main feeling on the subject is an overwhelming sense of catharsis. Not to mention that this way, Barry won’t have to go to court to testify against a man he once considered a mentor and even a father figure, and who betrayed him so thoroughly.

Still...

"I know," Len says, turning his head and kissing Barry's hair lightly. "And that's why you're going to go through the entire ethics course I've been designing with the criminal justice defenders' guild."

Barry pretends to groan, but Len knows he doesn't really mind. Barry's a good person at heart, but he's got some serious ethics relearning to do.

They all do.

Central City's getting cleaned up at last.

"It's for the best, really," Barry says with a sigh. "I went way closer to the Ralph Dibny Line of No Return than I'm really comfortable with."

Len smirks. Now that's one outcome he's not even slightly upset about.

It turned out Dibny did possess enough fellow-feeling to go assist the cops in keeping the riots down and restoring the peace, and he'd done a pretty decent job helping out. Decent enough, in fact, that Len had agreed for it to be counted in his favor during his sentencing.

"Sentencing?!" Dibny exclaimed when Len had told him as much. "What sentencing?! There was an amnesty!"

"Which applies to everything the Families manipulated or forced people into doing," Len agrees. "Funnily enough, though, according to what you told us earlier, no one was actually forcing you to blackmail the mayor..."

"That's not fair!"

"You'll have a chance to plead your case, same as everyone else," Len assured him. "If you can find a way to argue that the Family made you do it, it'd be covered by the amnesty."

"Oh. Okay. That's not so bad -"

"Of course," Len interrupted, putting on his best toothy smile, "that only applies to stuff within range of Election Day, and not, let's say, to earlier crimes. Like, say, revealing confidential intel about undercover officers..."

"Aw shit."

"You're probably not that bad a guy, Dibny," Len said thoughtfully, reveling a little in Dibny's disgusted expression. "I've seen your record. You started out - well, about as much of a misogynistic asshole as you are now, but at least you were straight. And then you weren't even that. Do the time you always should've done for what you did in the first place, framing that guy and selling me out. Take some ethics courses while you're inside, and maybe when you get out there'll be something worth keeping around."

Yes, most of that little speech had been at one Barry Allen's instigation, but Len wouldn't have said it if he didn't think there was the slightest glimmer of truth there.

"Thanks," Dibny grumbled, not particularly appeased. "Any chance we can do that without the prison time?"

"Lemme think about it - no, wait, already thought about it. Answer’s no. Go to jail, don't pass Go, don't collect two hundred dollars, and next time, don’t out undercover officers to mobsters. Officers, if you would..?"

At least there were enough cops going in at the same time that Dibny wouldn't run the risk of being shivved in his sleep by angry criminals.

Though if he didn't make an effort at improving that charming personality of his...

Yeah, that'd been fun.

Nearly as much fun as having Singh casually swinging by Len’s office to inform him, purely as a professional courtesy, that they'd finished processing one Lewis Snart. Moreover, in the process, they’d happened to find a whole bunch of open warrants, got a judge to put him on an accelerated trial schedule, and, before Len even remembered his dad was still in town, Lewis’d been sentenced and was going away for a very, very long time.

Len still can't really believe it.

(He's getting weekly text messages from the prison warden that re-confirm he's still there. Sometimes time-stamped photographic evidence is included. It hasn't stopped making him happy yet.)

"You know it's not actually called the Ralph Dibny Line of No Return, right?" Len asks, hiding his amusement.

"I'm going to call it what I like and you can't stop me," Barry declares, although the way he's now very comfortably snuggled in against Len's shoulder rather undercuts the forcefulness of it.

Len snorts. "Bearing a grudge, Barry? How un-heroic."

"I'd say something snarky in response, but I'm still awed by your hypocrisy there, Mr. 'All Cops Are Corrupt' Black Pot."

"Whatever you say, my little kettle," Len faux-coos, making Barry wrinkle his nose.

"I don't usually bear grudges -"

"Says the guy still guilt-tripping Joe West?"

"Hey, he's doing a lot better now," Barry protests. "He's talking with Francine through a mediator and going to family counseling with Iris and he's getting to know Wally - he's so proud -"

"I meant about your dad," Len says dryly. "That whole bit where West not believing you led to a good man rotting in jail for fifteen years while a mass-murderer ran around killing more people?"

"In fairness, it was a pretty unbelievable story," Barry says, managing to maintain a straight face for exactly three seconds before he cracks and grins broadly the way he does any time his dad - or his brand new acquittal - gets mentioned. "Yeah, okay, maybe a bit of teasing. For a bit longer."

Len looks at Barry skeptically.

"A bit longer...like maybe the rest of time," Barry allows, still grinning. "Okay, you're right, I'm never letting him live it down, but only because I was totally right, so there."

That's Len's Barry, in all his petty human glory.

Len still can't believe how much he loves him sometimes. It’s like getting punched in the gut every time he looks at him, a feeling that knocks the breath out of him, and yet he keeps looking over and over and over.

And best of all, Barry feels the same, so they’re both going to have many opportunities to keep looking as much as they like going forward.

"How is your dad doing?" Len asks. "That payment for his wrongful incarceration finish coming through yet?"

"Not all of it – some of it’s still tied up given how many of those payments are coming out all at once, since they don’t actually want to bankrupt the whole city – but he's got most of it by now. He's doing really great – he finally closed on that cabin in the woods not far outside Central he was looking at for so long, the one he swears used to belong to our family even though I don’t remember anything like that. He’s already in talks with lots of people to start putting his plan for the place into effect, too…he's turning the whole place into a halfway house for people who were in Iron Heights, did you know that? Anyone still suffering from the aftereffects."

"Yeah, I know," Len says, amused. Doc Allen - he's always going to be Doc Allen, no matter how long it's been since he was a practicing surgeon - came to Len to ask his thoughts on the subject before he started investing real time and money into the plan.

Luckily for the Doc, Mick was also there with Len when he asked, because otherwise Doc Allen might've mistaken Len's overwhelming horror at the thought of rustic rural living as disapproval of his idea, which would’ve been a mistake since Len actually thinks it’s a great idea. Mick, still a farm boy under all those criminal layers, was far more outwardly enthusiastic about the possibility of ex-cons - many of whom trusted Doc Allen after his many years of even-handed and generous provision of medical services - working out their issues and figuring out where they want to go next far away from the harsh public eye.

Len even passed on his personal recommendations for people to go there through the cardboard brigade, though he politely asked that Magpie not pass along his facial expressions at the thought of non-city life while she did so.

Based on what he's heard since, he's pretty sure she declined to grant that request, but apparently a Leonard Snart recommendation that went, "Well...if you want to leave the city...don't know why anyone in their right mind would, but if you wanted to...and you actually liked, y'know, trees and dirt and shit like that...in that case, Doc Allen’s probably the best option you’ve got." was significantly more believable than any more cleaned up version.

(Iris and Danvers and probably Mick all helped Doc Allen with his advertising posters, which is why that particular quote is now plastered verbatim on walls and lampposts all over the slums. Len has vowed to obtain vengeance at some upcoming date.)

"It's nice, you know?" Barry says, interrupting Len's drifting thoughts. "At first I was disappointed that he wasn't planning on staying closer, you know. I'd sort of imagined he'd be around all the time, be my dad again, except then someone convinced him to stick around for a week - I don't know who, other than it wasn't you -"

Len shrugs. Barry's not wrong; Len still barely understands why someone would be disappointed at having fewer father figures in their life.

Personally, Len suspects Iris. What else are best friends for?

"- and, you know, at first it was amazing but then I started to go back to work and it was weird. Like, I love him, don't get me wrong, he’s my dad! We had a few days of just catching up and it being great, but after that, well, I am just way too old to be parented 24/7 – the last time we lived in the same house, I was eleven, and oh boy can you tell – and on his side, he didn't have anything else to do during the day and...yeah. I don't know. Weird. Now we call or skype for a few minutes every night and I go visit him every other weekend and that's so much better."

"Everyone wants to see their dad at their own intervals," Len allows. Reluctantly.

Barry snorts. "Yeah, and yours can be measured in radioactive half-lives of several hundred thousand years."

Again - not wrong.

It’s kind of nice to have someone other than Mick or Danvers who can read Len that well.

It being someone he wants to kiss is really just a pleasant bonus.

"Still, it's nice," Barry says, returning to the subject. "Having all this family around is just the best. There’s Dad up at the cabin; Joe at work - don't make that face, he's gotten much better, especially now that he's dating that DA; Cisco and Caitlin working as scientific liaisons to the CCPD, technically as part of the CSI department – they hit it off fantastically well with Terri, Gila and Andre, you know, so that was awesome; Iris and Eddie moving in together and looking at houses and maybe setting a wedding date; Mick living with Danvers and making all that amazing food -"

That last one is a pretty recent development.

Mick started off living in Len's place, but there'd been a reason they usually stayed in warehouses when they’d been criminals and it wasn't because being innately compatible partners made them innately compatible roommates. They hated being parted, yes, but when living together they tended to fall back on habits developed while being cellmates in prison and that wasn't really great for anyone.

Len hadn’t wanted to trade in his comfortable apartment for a warehouse again. But on the other hand, Len hadn't wanted Mick to move out, either. He couldn't bear to lose Mick again, and it felt like he would if he let Mick out of his sight for too long.

Also not a great situation.

There was a lot of friction, to say the least.

And then Danvers found out that Mick could cook and liked to do so in very large quantities, and immediately (spontaneously) blurted out an offer to be her roommate.

Her current apartment was too small and too distant for that to work out, but with the addition of Mick's nest egg (both the legal one Len's been stockpiling for him and the slightly more illegal results of pawning his stash, which Len carefully opined on only in hypothetical terms) they were able to afford a nice two-bedroom apartment in the same building as Len - albeit on a much higher floor.

(Danvers needs the roof access, for obvious reasons.)

And now, Mick is only ever an elevator ride away.

Of course, now so is Danvers - the fact that she’d previously kept her distance is apparently the only reason he didn't figure out her powers before, because she's a great believer in the idea of "dropping in" by floating down to knock on his window anytime she had an idea or a question or Mick needs some extra eggs - but Len doesn’t really mind that.

He likes Danvers. Not just as an employee, but as a friend.

He’s still never calling her Kara, though. At this point, it’s not because he doesn’t want to get emotionally close to her – that ship’s already sailed – but rather because he’s just gotten so damn used to using ‘Danvers’ and because she thinks it’s hilariously detective noir of him.

He thinks it might be an in-joke. He’s never had in-jokes with anyone but Mick and Lisa before.

So yeah, he’s cool – pun intended – with Danvers living upstairs.

Now to make things absolutely perfect, all he needs to do is to get over himself enough to convince (or even, you know, ask) for Barry to move in...

Yeah. Len’s gotta agree with Barry: having family around is the best.

Actually, now that he thinks about it -

"Speaking of which," Len starts, "there's something -"

The doorbell rings.

"Ooh, hold that thought," Barry says, pulling away and leaving Len significantly colder. Cold puns and fondness for a nice chill aside, Len disapproves. "That must be our Thai food."

"Probably is. Someone should get it." Len gives Barry a pointed look when he doesn’t move. "Maybe someone like you, since I got up to get the blanket."

"But I'm barefoot," Barry whines. The way he’s already starting to unwind himself from the couch suggests that he’s already accepted his fate, though.

"So run," Len says mercilessly.

Barry sticks his tongue out at Len, laughs at Len's resulting expression, leans over to give him a kiss -

The doorbell rings again, somewhat more insistently this time.

Barry breaks the kiss, groaning. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he calls, climbing out of their little blanket nest on the couch while trying to expose as little of Len as possible. Sometimes (definitely not always) considerate, his Barry. "Hold your horses - yowch, this floor is freezing!"

"Run, Barry, run," Len teases.

Barry rolls his eyes at him and does.

In a flash of light and a crackle of lightning.

Well, that was unexpected.

Len's eyebrows shoot straight up, but it's not a bad surprise by any means.

"Something you forgot to tell me?" he calls out, putting on his best lazy drawl to hide his sheer glee. Barry’s powers are finally coming back!

"No," a very unexpected, very familiar, very welcome female voice drawls right back. "Something you forgot to tell me, I think."

"Lisa!" Len exclaims, beaming at her. His beloved baby sister - not so baby, of course, a fully grown woman, but his nonetheless. "I didn't think you were arriving till tomorrow."

"I got bumped onto an earlier flight," she says, coming over - holding a bag of delicious smelling Thai takeout that she must've lifted off the delivery guy - and giving him a brief kiss on the cheek.

Positively effusive, for Lisa; neither she nor Len were all that great at physical contact (Barry apparently excluded, on Len's part). She must've really missed him.

It’s been far, far too long since he’s seen her in person.

She looks as gorgeous as ever – formerly blonde hair gone brown, black leather jacket with gold trim matching black leather pants, make-up as ridiculously sharp as always…

His little baby man-killer.

Len can’t wait to inflict her on everyone he knows now.

"Sorry it took so long for me to finish things up back in Gotham," she adds insincerely.

Len snorts. "You were just waiting to hear that I got my stitches taken out for good this time."

"No lie," Lisa agrees comfortably. She’s utterly shameless when she wants to be, but she wouldn’t be his Lisa if she wasn’t. "Speaking of lies and omissions, though, something you failed to mention about the otherwise famous Barry Allen...?"

"I didn't know myself that his powers came back until just now," Len protests. "And there was no point raising your hopes by telling you about 'em if they never did come back..."

"I didn't know they were coming back either," Barry says dryly. "Or, you know, that your sister was coming to visit."

"I was planning on telling you. Just now, actually!"

"Hopeless, ain't he?" Lisa asks Barry with a smirk, which he returns with a smile. "So, all that about you being a superhero's true, huh? I thought Len'd gotten metaphorical in his old age -"

"Never. Take that back."

"Not in a million years, jerkface."

"Trainwreck."

"Cop."

"Ouch. Right where it hurts."

Barry laughs, his shoulders relaxing. Sibling bickering he knows how to deal with.

"Technically I'm a cop, too, you know," he says mildly. "I work as the on-site CSI for the CCPD, and, now that my powers are coming back, I can finally use that superhero license Len got me."

"He's classified as somewhere between a freelance employee and a tank," Len says proudly. That took some serious rule-smithing to get squeezed through, but the CCPD now has an officially licensed superhero division. Len pushed successfully to get it under Singh’s jurisdiction. Coincidentally, Singh’s precinct ended up being where Len decided the permanent offices of the internal affairs division would go, too. Purely coincidence, really… "Just with extra ethics courses."

Barry hadn't appreciated that very much, and neither had Danvers, but Len is adamant about it. If someone’s going to be acting as a standalone vigilante, even with city approval, then they are damn well going to know the laws of Central City inside and out, and know how to apply them in an ethical fashion to boot.

"Enough about tanks," Lisa says, waving a hand. "Allen, why don't you and I go to the kitchen to get some plates and cutlery for the take-out, and while we're there we can talk a bit more about shovels?"

"Uh. Sure? Len, should I be scared?"

"Terrified," Len cheerfully informs him.

"That's not promising," Barry says, but he follows Lisa towards the kitchen anyway. "It's not fair, you know. By the time we started dating - for real dating, I mean, after the whole blow-up - he was already friends with my best friend, a hero to my other friends, helped rescue my dad from prison and already threw my foster dad in jail once; there wasn't anyone left to give Len a proper shovel talk on my behalf-"

Len starts laughing even as Barry's voice trails off when he walks into the kitchen.

Yes.

Having your family all around you is the best.

#coldflash #barry allen #leonard snart #lisa snart #my fic #an internal affair

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ingloriousbi · 5 years

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Classic thoughts so far:

Way too many people to make questing a genuinely fun experience since everything is always dead and theres no loot/experience sharing. but in between everything I’ve found questing to be the most fun and relaxing part of vanilla thus far. Its way more grindy than it is now, which has its downsides (boring… drop rate is frustrating…) but also kind of fun and really inspires grouping up with randoms, even if just for 10 minutes to share the kill credit on whatever quest.

Old orgrimmar is literally better than I remember it. I love it, it’s easier to navigate then new orgrimmar, thrall is awesome (i forgot how much i genuinely loved the hidden enemies quest line and the text for it which probably sounds weird but i have vivid memories about it), the city feels lived in and real, like a much more worthy parallel to Stormwind despite its smaller size. My first character was an undead, so taking the zeppelin from brill, arriving outside orgrimmar, walking through the gates – that whole experience was really nice to relive after over a decade considering the first time I did that is a special memory to me

Old undead char opening monologue is v good and the current writers on the retail team need it tattooed in their eyelids for what theyre doing to sylvanas. classic is one big reminder to the fuck you the lore has become, even if gameplay has arguably largely improved

I knew a lot of shit – arrows, no hunter pet till level 10, weapon skills, being too broke to buy your class spells etc. – were waiting for me but there’s always another “oh ja kennis” moment and its really fun to re-explore everything I loved about classes back in the day, even if mana management is a pain in my ass and two spells into casting my mage is oom. I especially love that I have to read the quests again and how much more immersive the game is when there’s no icons on your map or blue areas marked for you. I think I read more quests than the average person and try to turn off icons on maps etc but the difference was v noticeable in a good way.

Professions are relevant again – this is prolly largely due to low level influx of players since no one is 60 yet, but the fact that I can make dresses and have them be useful long term and have the stats be meaningful is really… pure. It’s a pure experience and I enjoy being tailoring/enchanting; it doesn’t feel like a requirement to grind out useless shit until I can sell bags; I am using the shit I make, and if I don’t use it I know others will have use for it. Two out of three in my party are clothies also so the usefulness is exponential and It feels nice

Conjuring water/food and not being able to get rank 2 but having the rank 1 shit be useless, and then finally getting rank 2, costs half my damn mana to conjure water and I ONLY GET 2 WATER… boooooyyyyyy fuck you.

I forgot resisting spells was a thing mobs do and let me tell you I do not care for that shit

A lot of quality of life shit I miss (e.g. reagents, or just having a quest list right on my screen, even just “talk to dick mcdickerson” would be useful) but there’s something really charming about the barebones necessity shit of a lot of gameplay and UI. It might just be novelty, we will see if it wears off over time

i am embarrassed by the amount of fucking initialism i remember as i see it pass in trade. teen me was a loser and should be made fun of with the utmost prejudice for crystallizing this knowledge so good my adult ass still knows

People jerk off too much in the general chat of whatever place. Its nice to see the community alive again but they wont shut the fuck up and its all circlejerking abt who has the most vanilla knowledge vs “the loosers” that started in wotlk or after, and theres too much back-patting themselves for “being social again” bc general and trade chat isn’t dead anymore. Look, barrens chat was nice, but there was a reason it’s a meme and I sure as fuck don’t want durotar, or teldrassil, or fucking tirisfal glades to be full of non-stop shit in general chat. Every so often there will be a period of time where its really nice and just people grouping up, asking for and then receiving help, its really nice and talking about how fun it is, and then after those 15 min the Men come back and its all a circlejerk again abt whatever they can think of. haha mankriks wife jokes. haha mounts at 40. haha weapons trainer in UC for daggers, cant do it in org... shut the fuck up. we all remember - or are re-remembering - all this shit as we go. i do not need some dude with a stick up his ass who reread vanilla vs retail differences lists to give live-commentary on my rediscovery of a beloved childhood videogame.

#personal #i just want this on record so i can compare to like a month from now or w/e #for myself

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stopandimagineloveforever · 5 years

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Few TV shows have arrived as confidently as Schitt’s Creek did when it premiered four years ago; after all, the pilot took under two minutes to introduce its four main characters in instantly striking ways. We open in a palatial estate, where members of the filthy rich Rose family are reacting to news they’ve been defrauded by their business manager and left with nothing. Well, except the titular town, which Rose patriarch Johnny bought for his son as a joke birthday present years before. Immediately, there’s Moira (standout Catherina O’Hara), wailing to her husband about how she’s been “stripped of every morsel of pleasure I earned in this life.” In reply, her husband Johnny (Eugene Levy) complains about the shady business manager that landed his family in this mess. Nearby, their daughter Alexis (Annie Murphy) alights from a stately staircase while desperately trying to get the boyfriend she’s on the phone with to step out of the club he’s in and listen to her problems. And by the door, her brother David boldly berates a government official, calling him a “sick person” that “wants to get paid to destroy another person’s life.”

Dan Levy, who plays David and co-created the show alongside his father and co-star Eugene, is far less confrontational than his character, but no less animated. When I meet him in January for a late lunch at a sparsely populated restaurant in Rockefeller Center, the 35-year-old is upbeat and personable, despite the packed schedule he’d been navigating for the previous few days while doing press for the show’s fifth season.

The entire process is somewhat new to the actor, since Schitt’s Creek kept a relatively low profile in its earlier seasons. But as the show’s popularity has grown — with critics now hailing it as “the funniest show on TV right now,” a “gem of a sitcom,” and an “amiable and deliriously funny series” — so has Levy’s. After serving as the official showrunner for four seasons, he’s become a celebrity in his own right. Yet in midtown, as he makes his way through a grilled chicken caesar salad and a Diet Coke, Levy doesn’t appear to exhibit any of those expected pretenses; he’s quite laid-back and surprisingly gregarious, eager to talk about the little show he made which blossomed into something much bigger than he could have ever imagined.

Before Schitt’s Creek, Levy says he spent some time “figuring it out.” Growing up as the son of a comedy legend, it was nearly a given that he would do theater in high school. But when he graduated and actually tried to pursue acting as a career, Levy was held back by the nervousness he routinely felt at auditions. “As you can imagine, that was quite awkward for me as an actor,” he jokes. Instead, he landed at MTV Canada, where he cut his teeth recapping The Hills on the popular The After Show. That experience, he says, was where the idea for Schitt’s Creek was planted. “I was fascinated by these people who were raised around so much wealth,” he tells me. “And I wanted to know what it would be like if someone like that were to lose everything.”

He eventually took that inkling of an idea to his dad, and together, they fleshed it out into the show it is today. In the earliest stages, Levy recalls looking at “sexy and stylish” series like Sex and the City for inspiration, which ultimately lead to his decision to build each character around a distinct style that mirrors their personality type. Artsy David would be into neutral tones and architectural Rick Owens; business-minded Johnny would always wear classic tailored suits; histrionic former soap star Moira would have a flair for the dramatic silhouettes of McQueen; and boho-chic Alexis would be ready to jet off to Coachella at a moment’s notice.

To this day, Dan still takes the lead on much of the show’s wardrobe. It’s one of the most rewarding parts of his job, he tells me, and it’s a good excuse to indulge his shameless shopping addiction. He sources most of the garments seen on the show online, perusing for new duds on designer resale apps like The RealReal and Grailed, but it’s clear that his sartorial eye is just as keen in person. Upon arriving to the restaurant, the first thing Dan does is compliment my sunglasses, which were sitting on the corner of the table. “Congratulations on those boots,” he told me as we left, pointing down at my footwear. The only apparent downside to his side gig as a personal shopper is that it can be difficult to stop himself from getting too out of control. “I just keep buying for future seasons,” he jokes. “If the show ends, I’m just going to have all these random Alexander McQueen pieces in my room! I’ll have to call up some of my friends and ask if they want to come buy some.”

Hopefully, we’ll never reach that point — at least not for a while, now that the show is finally getting the respect it deserves. Days before our lunch, Levy and his fellow cast members had experienced their first A-List red carpet event when they attended the Critics’ Choice Awards, where they were nominated for Best Comedy Series. “It’s so crazy to think that this little show was there amongst all these real celebrities,” he says, emphasizing the word real in a way that lets you know he still doesn’t understand just how famous he actually is — or does a good job pretending not to, at least. The performer says he was most excited to meet Jodie Comer, but in retrospect, he wonders if he maybe went overboard when he approached the Killing Eve actress to “fan out” and enthusiastically tell her how much he loved her.

Schitt’s Creek didn’t win that night. But it’s not difficult to imagine the show becoming a serious awards contender in the future, especially now that it’s established a real audience. Levy and the entire team are rooting particularly hard for Catherine O’Hara, whose indelible, no-holds-barred performance as Moira has rightfully inspired a few internet campaigns to get The Television Academy’s attention.

Yet it’s probably Levy himself who has galvanized the most fervent response from audiences. His character is one of the only pansexual men on TV today, and in the show’s currently-airing fifth season, his same-sex relationship with newly-out Patrick (Noah Reid) is one of the biggest ongoing plot points. As a gay man, he says it was always important to him to bring positive queer representation to his show — which is ironically why he had David sleep with a woman (sardonic motel owner Stevie) before he ever got with a man. “I did want to play with people’s expectations a bit,” he admits. “David is flamboyant and I knew people would assume he was gay, so I wanted to subvert that and show that you can’t always judge a book by its cover.”

Nevertheless, Levy is now fully invested in exploring the much-beloved relationship between David and Patrick, which he’s made a deliberate effort to ensure is not met with any homophobia in the titular small town. It’s what he would’ve done anyway, but it doesn’t hurt that he’s seen firsthand just how much their relationship means to the fans at home watching. When I ask about the response he’s received from the queer community, it’s the first time during our meal that he seems to get really emotional. “I got a letter recently that made me cry,” he begins, tearing up ever so slightly. “This woman wrote to me and told me that her son had just come out. She didn’t have a problem with it, but she was scared about what other people would think. She told me that my show made her feel a little more comfortable.”

It’s surprising how novel it seems to create a show where homophobia is just... not allowed to exist, but it’s comforting to see how normal it actually looks in practice. Just people being themselves without judgment: It’s all part of this world that Dan Levy was inspired to create after watching too many reruns of The Hills. Back then, he set out to create a show that uncovered what would happen when the self-obsessed wealthy wake up to find themselves penniless. If the series’ first five seasons have offered us any sort of answer, it’s that they will learn and grow, facing truths about themselves and their privilege that will only benefit them in the long run. They will form stronger bonds with themselves and with each other. Hell, they might even find true life-fulfilling happiness.

That is, as long as they find their way to Schitt’s Creek.

Schitt’s Creek airs Wednesdays at 10:00pm on Pop.

#schitts creek #dan levy #david x patrick #them.us #lgbt #march 2019

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batfam-imagines · 7 years

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A Cat-Astrophe

Had a lot of people ask me for some Damian x Reader. This was a story I wrote on one of my other blogs, and I liked it so I rewrote it for Batfam! It was originally a T'Challa x Reader on my blog @mymarvelimagines, and I rewrote it to be Damian x Reader

“Sparrow, I need you to get back to the Cave”

“I’m almost done with my patrol, B, give me 10 minutes and I’ll start heading back”

“I need you here now. Sparrow … it involves Robin”

“Shit, why didn’t you say that?! I’m on my way now. What happened?”

There’s a sigh over the comm, “I can’t tell you over the comm, it would be better if you just came and saw for yourself”

“Damnit, I’m on my way”

–

Your bike barely has time to stop completely before you are flying off of it and into the main part of the Cave.

“Bruce, what’s wrong?” Your eyes dart to the medical bay only to find it empty, “Where’s Damian?”

Bruce sits down heavily in front of the large computer screens, “Nothing is wrong with Damian, however there is a slight problem with his -”

There’s a soft sound behind you. You whip around, coming face to face with the largest black panther you’ve ever seen. Letting out a high-pitch shriek you scramble backwards, managing to perch on top to the computer console, “WHAT THE FUCK?! Is this why you called me?! Because Damian brought home another pet? You can’t just spring a fucking panther on someone, Bruce!”

Bruce groans, “I told you to stay hidden until I told her what had happened. Now look what you’ve done”

The big cat hisses at Bruce, but when it, he, turns back to you he lets out a soft, sad thrilling sound. “Bruce, you have 10 second to explain what there is a panther in the cave, why the hell you called me here, and to tell me where the hell my boyfriend is before I lose completely lose my shit!”

“Y/N, I called you here because you are the only person that I could think to call, as for why the panther is here, I have an explanation for that … the panther is Damian”

Your eyes zero in on the large cat, who lets out a soft chuffing sound that sound suspiciously like Damian’s typically ‘tt’, before he walks closer. Slowly you slide off the console, and Damian hesitantly approaches you, “Babe? Is that you in there?”

Suddenly you have a lap full of purring cat, who’s enthusiastically rubbing his face against yours. You look up at Bruce, eyes wide, “We had an unfortunate run in with Circe. She decided to try and test a new spell on me, one that would turn me into an animal, when Damian jumped in the way. Apparently, it was supposed to turn him into a house-cat, but for some reason the spell malfunctioned and turned him into … this”

You gently run behind Damian’s ears, “How long will the spell last”

“We don’t know for sure, however once we captured Circe she said that the spell would last for about a week.”

“You’re gonna be a panther for a week” Damian snorts and lays his head in your lap. “Has anyone called Dick? He’s gonna need to know about this before he tried to come visit the Manor”

“I was hoping that you would call him”

Damian lets out a huff, and nuzzles into your neck. “Fine, I’ll call Dick, it’ll have to be a video-chat. He won’t believe me otherwise, and he’s still going to come over”

Taping on a few keys, you quickly pull up the video screen. It takes a few minutes for Dick to answer, “Hey, Y’N! I didn’t expect to hear from you so early, aren’t you supposed to still be on patrol? Oh, have you heard from Little D? He was supposed to text me when he got in, but hasn’t yet”

You chuckle, “That’s actually what I was calling to talk to you about. Damian’s been … turned into a panther and will probably stay one for about a week” you rush. Damian sits behind you, in full view of Dick.

“Little D?” Dick’s face gets closer to the camera, and Damian lets out another chuff, “What happened to you?”

“He and B had a run in with Circe, Damian got in the way of one of her spells”

“Only Damian would manage to get himself turned into a panther! Have you guys tried to call Zatanna, see if she can do anything?”

Bruce speaks up from outside of the camera’s view, “Yes, Dick, we have. Zatanna said to let the spell runs its course, that if she tries to tamper with it we run the risk of Damian being permanently stuck as a panther”

“Alright, so is this you warning me not to come to the Manor? Cause I don’t know if I’ll really believe this until I see it in person”

“You can come over, you’ll just have to be careful. It’ll be a little different if you piss of Damian now. It won’t be an 18-year-old vigilante trying to maim you, it’ll be a fully-grown panther”

Dick chuckles, “I’ll keep that in mind, Princess” Damian growls and hooks one of his paws around your waist, his chin coming to rest on your shoulder, “Don’t worry, Little D, I’m not making a move on your girl!”

“I’m gonna go, Dick. It’s late and everyone it tired”

“Alright, Y/N, I’ll see you all tomorrow”

Damian hums low in his throat, “Buy, Dickie”

–

Having your boyfriend turned into a large, protective cat has its ups and downs. On the upside, you get all the cuddles you could possibly want, on the downside, he refused to let anyone in his family touch you.

“Y/N! Come spar with me!”

You groan, burying your face deeper into Damian’s fur, “Do I have to?”

“Yes, you’ve been skipping out on training because of Demon Brats … problem. Dickie’s out, and Babybird off with the Titans.”

Gently nudging Damian off of you, you and Jason head down to the Cave to spar. “I’m thinking that we can spar hand-to-hand, and then pull out the weapons”

“Alright”

You and Jason quickly stretch and take your positions on the sparring mats, Damian sits primly at the edge of the mat.

“Ready?”

Jason lunges forward, trying to use his size to overwhelm you. Fortunately, you’ve had training from Wonder Woman, and know how to take down men that are three times his size. The sparing goes on for a while, everything is fine, until Jason manages to land a hit on your unprotected side.

“Shit!” The punch lands right in your ribs, and within the blink of an eye Jason isn’t anywhere near you.

Jason’s pinned under Damian’s bulk, Damian who’s teeth are bared and poised over Jason’s throat, “Damian! NO!”

You lunge forward, grabbing onto your boyfriend’s scruff before he rips out the older man’s throat. Thankfully, Damian gets off Jason, but he makes sure to keep you behind him. Jason sits up cautiously, “Damn, kid, you’re heavier than you look”

“Yeah, he is. I – um – I think it would be best if we called it day, Jay” Damian lets out another thunderous growl, and uses his head to nudge you toward the stairs, “Alright! Alright! I’m going, babe. Calm down. I get it, no sparring when you aren’t human”

Eventually, the two of you get back to his room, Damian continues to nudge you until you get up onto the bed, where he proceeded to gently lay on top of you. His large muzzle nudges under your chin, settling quietly beside your neck.

“Did it bother you that I was sparring, or that I was hit?”

Damian raises his muzzle and gently nudges your side, where you can feel a bruise starting to form.

“I’m sorry I worried you” Damian chuffs, “Let’s take a nap, kitty cat. I’m tired”

Damian settles on you more firmly, making sure that you are warm and comfortable, but also making sure that if you try to get up he’ll know. You can’t help but feel safe whenever your boyfriend is around, no matter what form he’s in.

–

You wake up decidedly more comfortable that when you fell asleep. Curling up on your side, you snuggle deeper into your blanket.

Shooting up, you look around your bedroom frantically, because you distinctly remember falling asleep under a panther, and now there isn’t one anywhere in the room. “Damian? Babe?”

The bathroom door opens and out steps your, now very human, boyfriend, “Hello, Beloved”

Eyes wide, you scramble out of bed and fling yourself into Damian’s arms, “I missed you”

His arms wrap tightly around your waist, crushing you to his chest, “I was always with you”

You sniffle and tears blur your vision, “I know you were, but you couldn’t hold be when you were a panther”

“Do not cry, Beloved, I am here now. Come, lay with me, I have missed having arms to hold you with”

“We need to tell the others”

Damian chuckles, “I will tell Father in the morning. For now, all I want to do is lay in bed with you”

“Of course, I’d never say no to that”

You and Damian end up lying in bed until late in the morning. Curled up together, and comfortable, finally happy to be back in each other’s arms.

#damian wayne #damian wayne imagine #damian wayne x reader #older damian #batboys #batfamily #batfam #batfamily imagine #bruce wayne #bruce wayne imagine #dad bruce wayne #jason todd #jason todd imagine #dick grayson #dick grayson imagine #damian is a panther #animal transformation #panther transformation #crackfic (kinda)

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