#still not 100% sure what counts as meta tbh

[asimplearchivist]

‘ 𝓾𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓵 𝓶𝔂 𝓿𝓸𝓲𝓬𝓮 𝓲𝓼 𝓰𝓸𝓷𝓮 . ’

𝐂𝐇. 𝐈 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒.

[𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓶𝓹𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓬𝓱𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓼𝓽'𝓼 𝓶𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽] [ 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐊𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓 ] AO3 | SPOTIFY | PINTEREST summary ☾ ⤏ steven, unbeknownst to him, meets the love of his life at one of its lowest points. pairing(s) ☽ steven grant/reader word count ☾ 15.7k a/n ☽ [gif credit] ⤏ aka my personal love letter to one steven grant (and myself, because I want to be loved like I love just once). ⤏ i am going to be completely honest on this one, guys: this is a borderline self-insert fic that is 100% self-indulgent on my part bc i have felt like shit the last two months and want to treat myself. ⤏ i kept it as a reader-insert because a) some people (including myself) enjoy experiencing different ‘pov’s of reader-inserts, per se; b) it’s easier to be kinder to and romanticize myself when it’s ‘not me’; and c) i feel that it’s still vague/inclusive enough to be counted as a general reader-insert versus labeling it strictly as a self-insert/original character. i really only describe personality traits and the reader being petite, really (bc nothing comforts my 5’0” ass more than knowing i would actually be able to kiss the boys without craning my neck all the way back tbh). i use a few southern colloquialisms, too, just fyi. :) ⤏ typical moon knight fanfic disclaimer: I don’t claim to know very much about did beyond what I’ve gleaned from both the show, the various meta posts I’ve read on tumblr, and from other fanfics themselves, so please forgive and correct me on any glaring discrepancies/issues I may have presented here (or link me any posts that discuss more accurate representations of did, perhaps—that’d be greatly appreciated). some of the terminology/technicalities escape me. I tried my best to get their voices and characterizations just right, and I sincerely hope I succeeded bc they’re very special to me. ☽ MASTERPOST ☾ ☾ ☥ ⤏ NEXT CHAPTER ☽

The first time Steven met you, it was strictly by happenstance.

He had always considered himself a man with many friends. Although his routine was relatively simple compared to other Londoners who thrived in social settings and spent all of their free time anywhere but home to mingle and chase tail, he had familiar faces he saw frequently. He committed their names to memory when they’d give them off-handedly, he made a point to speak to them in passing even if he or they were otherwise occupied, and he kept a mental list composed of all the details he was able to glean strictly from observation when they didn’t readily volunteer the information.

Perhaps it was a little silly. All lot of them had trouble remembering him, sure, but he couldn’t hold it against them—tons of people had trouble keeping track of faces and people. Sure, JB never quite got his name right even after Steven had worked at the museum for a couple of months by now, but he was a busy man monitoring the security cameras all day long and stayed distracted (with his infatuation with otters, no less—as endearing of a trait as any for someone with a secret soft side). Donna stayed in a tizzy, always worked up over something beyond her control (Steven couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be dealing with the higher-ups trying to meet goals and attempting to exceed them). He didn’t really dislike them for it, even if it had grown rather grating as of late. (Even if it would only take them both a moment to look at his conveniently given and placed nametag.)

Crowley didn’t talk much, all part of the gig, so Steven didn’t hold their one-sided conversations against him, either. The gentleman with the broom cart (whose name Steven never had managed to catch, as gruff as he was) seemed only to ever respond with grunts. The security guards, the tour guides, the usual suspects on the morning and night bus rides…Steven interacted with them all, and they had enough good graces to acknowledge it most of the time.

Over time, however, as his dreams (or perhaps more aptly named nightmares) grew more vivid and more bizarre, as he seemed to lose track of time more and more (how exactly does one manage to miss an entire weekend when one isn’t a blackout drunk?), and as Steven’s anxiety led him into taking more and more precautions to make sure his self-diagnosed sleepwalking disorder didn’t strand him on the other side of London (again), it became more readily apparent that those people with whom he took such care to converse did not seem particularly inclined to return the favor. Sure, he’d accidentally nodded off a few times leaning on the other passengers in the morning bus, ran a little late at times getting to the museum (much to Donna’s ever-increasing ire), and maybe got a little carried away with his nattering when he got invested in something he was excited to share information about, but…would it really kill someone just to respond long enough to reassure him that he wasn’t virtually invisible?

It was one such morning after he overslept, convinced he was late, and worked himself into a right and proper state trying to get to the museum on time that he realized that it was, in fact, Sunday, not Saturday. Much to his bewilderment but proven by his phone, the museum stood barren and closed, doors locked and lights off. He stood at the entrance staring at his dumbfounded expression in the glass for a good five minutes, thoughts racing as he tried to recall anything about the previous day. There was no way he slept an entire day, right? He hadn’t been staying up too late trying to manage his disorder, even if he had been running a little tired lately.

His distress was punctuated by a fat, chilly droplet landing right on his nose. The early spring weather was unseasonably cold this year, leading to an abnormally wet season (as if rain could ever be abnormal in London, but the meteorologists remained convinced), and within seconds of Steven turning and trotting down the steps the skies parted and released their torrential downpour as if just to spite him specifically. Everyone else in the immediate vicinity, if they weren’t holed up in their cars or the myriad establishments bordering the museum district, already had their umbrellas up to shield themselves from the frigid onslaught, ambling along and circumnavigating the puddles lingering from the storm the night before..

Steven shrank into his coat, tugging the collar up and over his head as best he could as he crossed the street and aimed for the first building he saw with its neon, ivory OPEN sign glowing against the gloom—on the corner directly across from the museum entrance. The door was heavy, the handle cold enough he was surprised his palm didn’t stick to it, but he managed to pry it open and tumble inside.

A few people glanced up from their tables to give him a range of skeptical to humored looks before going about their business. Steven hedged to the side of the door in case someone else came in, dripping onto the old hardwood with no small amount of regret.

It was a coffee shop. Comfortingly warm against his numb face, he basked in the scents of espresso and sweets permeating the place. His attention was caught by the bookshelves on the wall to his right, and he was entranced—all until a barista slipped out from the kitchen and addressed him with a croon. “Oh, goodness, look like the weather caught you!”

Steven almost accidentally ignored you thinking that you were talking to someone else (for so rarely did someone speak to him in a tone that wasn’t irritated or dismissive). After his cursory glance in your direction, he did a double-take, realizing you were looking right at him.

“Yeah, I—looked at the forecast wrong, methinks!” he responded sheepishly (and he had—he’d been expecting Saturday’s overcast mist, not Sunday’s shower). “I’m makin’ a right mess, aren’t I? I should probably go before I warp the stain—”

“No! No, just wait a second.” You raised a placating palm before dipping below sight behind the counter. You emerged and rounded the corner next to the display case holding a towel, walking right up to him and offering it to him with a sympathetic smile. “I can’t count the number of times I thought I could beat Mother Nature,” you joked. “It sucks that it’s been so cold on top of it. I’m surprised I haven’t gotten sick.”

Steven accepted it graciously, muttering his earnest thanks as he went about mopping up his sopping curls. Once he’d wiped all the rain he could off of him, he handed it back to you. “Hope I don’t get one, neither,” he responded. “It just wouldn’t do to catch cold in the middle of all this, would it? No.”

You chuckled a bit, eyes glittering with mirth. “Maybe it’ll help if I get you something hot to drink?”

Steven glanced at the menu hanging on the wall behind the counter, eyes rounding a little at the prices. He’d overspent on books again after payday, so he was having to be a bit more frugal this week than usual. “Oh, no, don’t go to the trouble, I’ll just call a cab and get a ride home before it gets too bad.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” you assured him, wringing the towel between your hands. You hesitated only a heartbeat before you leaned in a little closer, smile turning a bit bashful. “I’ll make it on the house, how’s that sound?”

Steven normally considered himself one to give where charity was concerned, but he had to admit that the sound of something warm on his urgently empty stomach was divine at the moment. He cleared his throat, glancing towards the other customers still wrapped up in their own little worlds. “No, I couldn’t—wouldn’t want anyone jealous that they’re not gettin’ the special treatment, you know.”

“It can be our little secret,” you offered quietly, winking conspiratorially at him.

He blinked, heat creeping up into his face. “Oh, well. If you insist, then…just this once?”

“All right.” Your smile lit up your entire face, and you headed back behind the counter to deposit the towel in an unseen hamper.

Steven followed, training his eyes on the menu—the standard fare was reasonable, with alternative options for dietary restrictions. A lot of the custom concoctions did seem lovely, and he was a tad surprised to discover that they served breakfast and lunch, also—with vegan options, most notably. “Wow, I never even knew this place existed. I must’ve been walkin’ right by it this whole time.”

“Do you work at the museum?” you inquired, folding your arms over the counter and propping your chin up in your palm.

“I do, actually,” he beamed, though it was dashed a tad with his next confession. “I want to be a tour guide one day—you know, I’ve been studyin’ up for it and all—but they’ve got me in the gift shop. For now! They said they’d move me up with a new position becomes available.” They said that they would consider him for the role, but Steven clung to his hope that they’d soon realize how bloody good he’d be at it, as hard as he’d been working for it for so long.

“You always have to start somewhere,” you replied warmly. You gestured to the shop around you. “This is just to hold me over ‘til I’m finished up.”

“Are you a transfer student?” Steven asked.

Your brow rose slightly, but your smile didn’t waver. “How observant. Most people ask me how I got lost on this side of the pond.”

“It isn’t often I see Americans anywhere but in the more touristy spots,” he agreed, “but the university is quite prestigious. You must be very academically successful if you landed a transfer scholarship like that.”

“It took a lot of work,” you admitted, “but it’s been worth it. I never thought I’d do anything like this, and I would’ve laughed at you a couple of years ago if you’d told me I’d move this far away from home. I’ve never really been the traveling type, but I’m so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to do so.”

“What are you studyin’?” Steven inquired. An English major, perhaps—you struck him as the literary type with your articulation, despite your soft, southern drawl.

“Oh.” Your face darkened and you fiddled with the hem of your sweatshirt—dark gray, warm flannel, with a silver astronomical design embroidered into the front. “Well. I went to a university back home and got a degree in writing—” Nailed it! “—but I was notified at graduation that I qualified for this so I thought why not? It’s a bit self-indulgent, really, as I’ve always been a history nut, but I’m, um…” You reached up and scratched the nape of your neck, glancing away as though embarrassed. “...focusing on Egyptology?”

Steven’s brows shot halfway up his forehead. “No kiddin’!”

“Nope,” you confessed, a bit sheepish. “I picked up a book with pictures of King Tutankhamun’s treasures when I was three and I’ve been in love with it since. Maybe it’s a little niche, but it makes me happy—I’m taking other history classes, too, so I’ll end up with an Ancient History major with a minor in Egyptology—that’s just my main focus since I always wanted to be an Egyptologist when I was little. I don’t know that I could ever stand the heat, though, so I’m happy with writing in the comfort of my own home.”

“No, that’s great!” he raved, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m a bit of a history buff meself! The museum has a huge Egyptology exhibit coming up next month, so I’ve been brushin’ up on it all. You know, in case I get to audition.”

“Oh, yeah?” you tried, emerging from your shell just a bit. “Do you have a favorite period?”

“New Kingdom, definitely,” he said immediately. His heart was thrumming, and he was trying (in vain) to contain at least the majority of his enthusiasm. “There’s just so much material to go through. All the texts recovered from Deir el-Medina fascinate me to no end!”

“Yeah, Paneb was a right bastard,” you joked. “He had the whole town stirred up all the time. But we’re not going to talk about Ea-Nasir.”

“Oh, yeah—imagine keepin’ all your hate mail for posterity,” he returned, strumming his fingers against the inside of his sleeves. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’m an Old Kingdom gal,” you said with a chuckle. “Pepi II’s letter about the pygmy won me over. Not to mention all the drama with Teti’s assassination. The workmen’s village at Giza? Oh, how could I pick one thing?”

Finally! Finally, it felt like Steven was talking to someone that spoke his language!

“It’s really hard to, isn’t it?” His stomach was starting to grumble. He cleared his throat, tamping down his anticipation just enough to concentrate on the matter at hand. He glanced up at the menu again, a little remiss with some of the unfamiliar choices—most of those displayed were coffee, but he’d been trying to curb himself off of it in favor of cutting out caffeine altogether for a better sleep schedule. “I, um…sorry, got a little sidetracked there. What would you recommend that’s decaf?”

“Oh, I love chai,” you told him. “Most of the teas we carry are decaf, though we do have decaf coffee, too. We’ve got all the usuals like chamomile, mint, Earl Grey…” You tilted your head slightly. “I’ve been avoiding caffeine since I was a teenager—it makes me antsy.”

“How do you normally take your chai?” he queried, curious.

“As an iced latte,” you said. “Cold foam, cinnamon, whole milk. I like it warm, too, especially this time of year, but there’s something about it iced that I can’t seem to part from—maybe that’s the southern upbringing in me.” You gestured to the equipment behind you. “Would you like to try it?”

“Yeah, sure! But with oat milk, please?”

“You’ve got it, darlin’,” you beamed, and set to work immediately. “I usually drink a small since it’s a bit sweet, that okay?”

“Certainly.”

Never would Steven have thought that he’d find such a deeply kindred soul a stone’s throw away from his workplace he’d never even noticed before today. He had to confess that he was charmed by you almost instantly. It had been a while since he’d met someone so engaging and open—not to mention generous and drop-dead gorgeous to boot! Ironic, really, that the foreigner was treating him more kindly than his native kinsmen. What did the Americans say about southern hospitality?

“Thank you so much,” he said when you returned with the cup and set it in front of him. “It looks great!”

“Go ahead and try it,” you suggested, “and if you don’t like it, I’ll replace it for you with something else.”

Steven had absolutely no intention of telling you to your face that he disliked your favorite beverage, even if he did decide it wasn’t to his taste—much less make you go out of your way to make him another free drink. But as he sipped the heady, sweet mixture the spices melted over his tongue. Despite being served cold, the flavors warmed his mouth and settled cozily into his belly.

“Oh,” he suspired, licking the foam from his lips, “that’s lovely. You’ve won a convert.”

Your smile was nearly blinding with delight. “I’m glad! It’s not for everyone, certainly, but those who do like it always seem to love it. No in between, I guess.”

Steven resisted the urge to suck the entire thing down, folding it between his hands instead as he committed more details of your appearance to memory. Your black apron was a bit big for your frame, dwarfing you a bit, but your sweatshirt did, too—your jeans were well-fitted but not snug. You were wearing very little makeup, just a touch around the eyes, but it emphasized your lashes like a fawn’s. While comfortable, if a bit plain, your ensemble made you seem like the epitome of homey.

“How long have you lived in London?” he asked after another delightful sip.

“Since the start of spring semester,” you said. “It was a big adjustment to show up at the tail end of winter, but I think I’ve gotten the hang of it now for the most part. I still get lost occasionally, but that’s why Google Maps was invented. I’d be up a creek without a paddle without it.” You leaned against the counter again, bracing yourself on the stained surface and gazing up at him as if there existed no other person in the world. “I live right next to the campus, but I work here to get away even though my scholarships carry most of my bills and fees. Ironic, though, ‘cause I don’t exactly consider myself a socialite.”

“You’ve fooled me,” he said with a chuckle. “Bit odd bein’ an ambivert, yeah?”

“I really only talk a lot when I get excited or when I’m with people I’m comfortable being around,” you confessed shyly. “I’ve been told I talk too much about stuff nobody really cares about, so I try not to bother anyone.”

“Now who on earth would have gone and told you that?” he pressed, heart aching all the while. How many times had he been told the very same thing, sometimes with less polite wording?

“Oh, not exactly like that,” you rectified in a hurry, “it’s just…you can tell, you know? When someone isn’t really paying attention to anything you’re saying. I usually get interrupted anyway, so sometimes I find it easier just to keep quiet.” Your skin darkened again, and cleared your throat as you dipped your face to conceal it with a hand. “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I went into all that. See? Rambling too much—words got away from me.”

It was like looking into a mirror—so much so that Steven almost felt a bit of deja-vu.

“No, don’t be sorry,” he said softly. “I understand completely—really, I do. Better than you might think.”

You raised your gaze back up to him, and he understood at once why the philosophers and poets both waxed so romantic on the concept of windows to the soul. He could see your tenderness, your diffidence, your sincerity all there in your jewel-like eyes.

“People talkin’ over you all the time,” he continued with a low murmur, looking down at the cup when the intensity of your stare grew too much—just like looking directly into the sun, “actin’ like you’re invisible or somethin’. Gets frustratin’, yeah? Couldn’t even bother to act like you’re there, could they? No. Seems like too much to ask.”

“Yeah,” you said somberly, but when Steven dared a glance up at you, your expression was one of complete understanding. Never before had he felt so seen. “It doesn’t help when you’re really not a people person to begin with.”

And now that Steven considered it more deeply, he realized that you were right—why did he prefer to stay home rather than go out? Keeping company with a goldfish certainly wasn’t an extrovert’s definition of a good time. Hell, the only reason he really went out of his way to engage with those on the fringes of his daily routine was because he felt it was rude not to because of constant exposure, not because he was itching to have the conversations themselves. He worried constantly that he’d overshare or annoy people, when most wouldn’t even think of it.

He let out a soft laugh, pressing a palm across his forehead.

You quirked a brow, your expression perking up just a bit at the sound. “What?”

“I just realized I’m not really a people person, either,” he said, shaking his head. “Thought all this time everyone else was just awkward at social interaction.”

“Oh,” you chuckled, and there was that ephemeral sparkle of mirth back in your eyes. “Well. Better late than never, right?”

“Right.” He paused, then set the drink on the counter to fish around in his pocket for his wallet. “Here, since you’ve been an absolute angel—”

“Oh, no, please,” you said, waving your palms at him in an attempt to dissuade him, “it was my pleasure. Finding someone else as big of a nerd about Ancient Egypt was tip enough, thank you. You’ve made my whole day.”

And even though his morning thus far had been an utter disaster, Steven believed that you had made his entire day, too.

“Well, all right.” He pointed a finger at you with a wry, toothy grin. “But next time you won’t be able to talk me out of it.”

“Next time?” you echoed, and the unadulterated hope in your eyes made his heart clench.

“Yeah,” he said, “where else will I be able to order the ambrosia of the gods? And nerd out about ancient civilizations? Not all baristas carry a double-edged sword like you do.”

You bit your lip, rolled the hem of your sleeve between your fingertips, and looked down and away. “Oh, stop it. It’s really just a hobby.” You gave him another cheeky smile. “But, if it would make a difference to you, since you seem the type…” You leaned in across the counter, and Steven found himself copying the action as though you had magnetized him. “...there’s a bookstore upstairs, too.”

Oh, bloody Nora, as if you weren’t already perfect enough.

Read the rest of the chapter here! :)

[miralines]

So I know we’re all pulling for a Vespa episode (and believe me, I am too), but the more I think about it the more I think we’re gonna have to wait for that. I could be totally wrong, but our reasoning for Vespa being next is that the blade was the next thing Buddy mentioned in Man in Glass, right? But in Tools of Rust Buddy and Jet talked about how they’re going to be in the middle of nowhere for a while. She said something like “a lot can happen in a few weeks,” I think? So I’m thinking we might have a break before the next big heist.

Plus, Rita went through a lot in Tools of Rust. We see her grappling with morality, and expectations vs reality, and that’s before M’Tendere dies right in front of her. And we didn’t get to see the aftermath of that with her at the end. So I’m thinking the next episode will be from Rita’s perspective, with the crew on the Carte Blanche traveling to the Outer Rim. The conflict could be anything from mechanical errors to space pirates, but I think we’re going to see more of how Rita’s mind is working. And it’s probably going to hurt.

[illeaadante]

Passive Ecto-contamination and how Jazz Fenton is probably classifiable as a meta in the DCU

So, I’ve been on a Danny Phantom and Batman crossover binge recently, and I have to say, we don’t talk enough about how likely it is that the entire Fenton family, but especially Jazz, probably has enough ecto-contamination to count as a meta-human. 

This girl has lived her entire life around ectoplasm (bc Maddie and Jack were working with it before they were together and you know they don’t care enough about lab safety to have stopped when Maddie was pregnant or when Jazz was little) and her late teens living two floors above a dimensional rift. She may not be a halfa, but she is 100% not fully human after living her entire life being surrounded, and sometimes ingesting, ectoplasm and it’s radiation.

I think Jazz in particular would get some more passive ghost powers. She’s got her own obsession in her drive to be a psychologist, but I’m pretty sure she’s also tougher than a normal human. She can take blasts from Vlad pretty much on par with Danny, and while her parent’s inventions don’t work on her as well as they do Danny, the do still effect her. (Yes, I might be extrapolating from the vacuum gag, don’t @ me.)

Her eyes probably glow a bit in the dark, she heals faster than a normal squishy human, and she ages slower than she should if she weren’t ecto-contaminated.

All of this to say, that I 100% think that if they existed in the same universe, the Lazarus waters would just be, like, rancid ectoplasm that’s been cut off from the Zone but still retained its powers (probably because of all of the dead people shoved into it tbh) and that it would be really fuckin’ funny if a fully healthy Jazz Fenton was pushed into the Waters, only to come up spluttering and complaining about how gross that is.

small not-fic thing under the cut

Could you imagine. Like, I’m picturing Jazz had moved away to Gotham or Bludhaven and started dating Dick, only to wake up suspended over a very familiar glowing green pit. And the League of Assassins is reluctantly impressed with her apparent lack of fear when they explain what the waters are, but she just hangs there mentally groaning about how long it’s gonna take to wash her hair, and how much she’s gonna have to explain to her boyfriend once he gets here (and this is Jazz, she clocked that Dick was Nightwing almost immediately, the only thing that had tripped her up about Danny was the fact that Phantom was dead.) On the up side, she’ll no longer have to pretend to ignore all of the blatant signs of vigilantism that her boyfriend puts out. (Under the false bottom of a shared dresser drawer is not the best place to hide your electrified escrima sticks, is all she’s saying.)

So Nightwing and a few of the batfam come to save her and just as the fight seems to be turning she’s dropped into the pit. Dick is enraged, Jason took the opportunity to reload, Damien never stopped swinging, but then.

Splash splash. Coughing and spluttering. An irritated whine.

Everyone looks over to the pit where a very much Not Dead Jazz Fenton is wading out of the waters. She’s shuddering, and seems to be in some pain, but she’s rather nonchalant as she wrings out her hair.

Everything just. Stops. All of the assassins stare. The batfamily stare. Ra’s al Ghul isn’t thinking anything right now, as his brain needs to reboot, but afterward he’s gonna develop quite the obsession. One thought goes through every single person’s mind.

“What the fuck.”

Jazz looks around, tossing her still gross hair behind her to hit her back with a thwap, and she just looks around in mild concern.

Anyway, once they get Jazz back to Gotham and do the whole vigilante reveal (”yes, I know who you are.” “How?!?!?!?”) they realize that Jazz isn’t dead, but she isn’t in great shape either. She is supremely unconcerned, and texts Danny to get their parents out of the house for a few days so that she can take the Spectre Speeder and go see Frostbite.

Thus becomes the Batfamily’s crash course intro into Ghosts, ectoplasm, ecto-contamination, and the Infinite realms. Jason demands to come see these ghost healers too, it becomes a whole field trip. They get to the Far Frozen and that’s when Jazz has to do explanation round 2: yes, my little brother is the King of All Ghosts, which means that, despite being alive, I am also a  Lady of the Infinite Realms. 

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom season 2, episode 17-20 thoughts! finishing up season two! the finale is the THIRD 2-PARTER OF SEASON 2. that's so many! I wonder how many season 3 will have?

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-UERGH WHY DOES VLAD HAVE AN AI WITH MADDIE'S FACE ON IT. SOOO CREEPY. AND MORE 'CREATIONS' waiiiit. vlad is Dr. Frankenstein! (despite his ghost design obviously referencing vampires) HE HAS 'CREATIONS' HE MAKES THEN WONT TAKE REAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR!!! this bitch.

-danny was late and his friends immediately start going off about how hes inconsiderate, and has been treating them like sidekicks??? he just overslept, my god. chill. even if he has, be nicer about talking about it with him?? he really can't help that he sometimes has to chase the ghosts, or has a secret identity to protect...

-'what kind of ghost haunts a miniature golf course' umm. me as a ghost. next question

-imagine going home and theres a tiny child on your bed claiming to be your cousin. with as many cousins I have, I would probably believe her. but the 'ran away from home' BIT....SHES 12?? SHES SO TINY. I hate that they have her belly out in her ghost form, but I like how her colors are asymmetrical. something about her design...maybe the proportions?? are weird to me...anyway danny was good to feed her, but he shouldve taken her to his parents FIRST. or, tbh, probably jazz. (JAZZ DIDNT EVEN GET TO MEET HER!!! NOOO. I mean she said she'll be BACK BUT STILL)

-ANYWAY. shes voiced by AnnaSophia Robb, the girl who was in because of winn dixie, played as violet from charlie and the chocolate factory, and was the girl from bridge to terrabithia. (the movie that made me cry hysterically when I was 12 and I never watched it again because it Broke Me!) thats super cool.

-vlad sucks: the episode, basically. what's new!! I love how he's like, I'm Not A Villain. *immediately cuts to him torturing danny to make him transform, to get mid-transformation DNA, to perfect a Clone.* *immediately shows that he doesnt give a shit about his new daughter Dani and just wants a ''more perfect clone'' and will put her in danger to get that. will let her DIE to get that*

-Dani is danny's clone and is a girl? transgenderism....one of them has to be trans. or they both are.

-dani just. leaving at the end. WHAT? SHES 12. DONT JUST. NO!!! SHE WAS PROBABLY JUST BORN, A MONTH AGO AT MOST, RIGHT?? SHE NEEDS...SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. MONEY? FOOD?? A FAMILY?? AN EDUCATION???! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S LEAVING!!! OKAY BYE I GUESS!!! D: concern!!!

-the next ep opens with skulker chasing a ghost down. ...does skulker count as a ghost hunter in the way valerie and danny do? I mean, sure, he hunts the good guys too, but he. he hunts ghosts...also, we haven't seen his Real Form since his debut episode! tiny...

-the guys in white are back! ngl, I assumed they were a gag for that one episode. you're telling me they might actually be a threat? ok.

-valerie in her lil nasty burger uniform looks so cute!! glad shes not in that mascot uniform this time. I guess she stopped hiding that she's working there now?

-gregor having white hair, dressed in black and white...and green eyes...sam has a Type, I guess.

-danny being unnecessarily hostile about gregor. danny!!! hes been nice so far. he looks a little...tall to be 14, but. danny doesnt know anything about him! (he does Suspect, but...you cant just spy on people and be rude to them from a hunch.) also, gregor kissed her, and when she freaked out, he was like 'oh no!! sorry, we can take it slow! I understand!' which was NICE. I hate jealousy plots still tho.

-altho. umm. tucker, being concerned about danny spying on them??? SAM AND YOU WERE SPYING ON DANNY AND VALERIE A FEW EPISODES AGO!!!!! im not saying its RIGHT, but dont be a hypocrite!!! AND THEN SAM BEING MAD ABOUT IT, TOO.

-DANNY IS A 7 ON THE SCALE OF ECTOPLASMIC POWER!!! out of 10? so I want to know where the other ghosts rank...I mean it's a list from the guys in white, so, it may not even be accurate, like, they havent seen ALL of his powers, have they?

-Lancer being like 'im not cooperating with the FEDS' until they said they could access his tax records. they already did that joke with jack, but like, its still funny. kings of tax evasion.

-tucker's aggressive third-wheeling. but gregor being super into it. gregor/tucker is the real ship here. then gregor kissing danny on both cheeks after hugging him. bi poly king gregor. (he does turn out to be a liar with a phoney accent. unsurprising, BUT THE CONCEPT OF HIM BEING GENUINE AND THEM ALL DATING IS FUN)

-THE...GUYS IN WHITE THINKING GREGOR IS DANNY PHANTOM. LMAOOO. GET HIS ASS. or,, Elliot. lmfao

-sam saying tucker is part of the package because theyre friends was super sweet <3 but also 'part of the package'...polyships are obviously the solution to these dumb jealousy/love triangle plots.

-danny crashed a whole plane. the collateral damage...

-is he....

-you know....

.... (ITS NOT GAY IF YOU'RE DOING IT TO PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE YOU'RE NOT, AND LIE TO A GIRL. RIGHT? he was getting a little too into pretending to enjoy tucker's company, and the above...c'mon, guy.)

-lmao, freakshow is in actual prison. I didn't expect a follow up, or for him to show back up! in the finale of this season, too!

-THE SICK TATTOO GHOST IS NAMED LYDIA!!! more Lore On her. freakshow seemed genuinely concerned about her. also, is she mute? I don't think she talked the first time we saw her, either. and we didn't know freakshow 'envied' ghosts, either, the first time, we just knew he was controlling them. interesting!

-...they literally stole the infinity gauntlet from marvel and called it the reality gauntlet. is that legal. what the fuck. even with the gems in the lil slots, having different powers...they had freakshow in jail, but didnt check his pockets??! hes just still in his lil outfit??? what kind of ...oh, its in amity park. yeah, all of the adults are idiots, okay, sure.

-'freakshow!' 'in the anemic flesh!' dude take some iron pills then. also, sure, the red eyes could be contacts for his aesthetic, but the whites of his eyes are yellow! does he have jaundice?! he severely needs more...like, every kind of vitamin. (this is what im worried about as freakshow attacks danny with giant robots)

-again, goth circus is a sick theme, and I love his goth train.

-oh FUCK every single person saw danny transform. on a stage. including his parents via TV. oh god. the guys in white and immediately like 'youre coming in for experiments!' SCARY. at least the crowd is willing to help him to escape...perks of now being a local celeb! even the kids at school are accepting :) this is what, the third time his family has found out? its always been an alt timeline tho. and danny fully intending to just rewrite things again instead of...I dunno, trying to roll with it this time? hes really worried his family won't accept him, huh...

-'maybe our son IS THE GHOST BOY, but its not as if our family's ghostly activities have EVER PUT YOUR FAMILIES IN DANGER' maddie. mmmmmmmmmmmm. okay.

-danny 100% prepared to run away from home because of this :( oh :( and saying his parents are 'looking for him, or a scalpel to dissect him with' ouch...

-THE GUYS IN WHITE TRYING TO ARREST A 14 YEAR OLD. fuck da feds.

-side note (another one about voice actors...) freakshow's voice actor, Jon Cryer, was lex luthor in pretty much every DC tv show, which is why I recognized his voice, because my dad loves those shows so I've seen a good bit of them without seeking them out...)

-the old man saying 'hey, i still had minutes left!' and danny saying 'you gotta watch those roaming charges!' about danny destroying the people in the diner's phones so no one could report seeing him...would kids today understand these things. can you even BUY minutes anymore...I remember my first phone being a flip phone, and the fact I always had minutes when my sister ran out super fast, because I didnt have friends calling or texting me like she did...:/

-the fentons being genuinely like 'why didnt danny trust us and tell us this, we love him :(' and JAZZ LAYING INTO THEM WITH THE 'DISSECTION/MOLECULE BY MOLECULE' LINES. LITERALLLLY. they need to apologize

-technically, lydias stronger than you! -jazz lesbianism moments! when did you even learn her name!!! but also get freakshows ass. lydia is also cooler looking. looove her design sm still.

-jazz psychoanalyzing freakshow... (also, her also having ghost envy? au where jazz is a ghost!! id like to see it)

-im glad the kids still got to go to their respective vacation things, even if they cant really stick around and enjoy them much...

-furry: confirmed. (also tucker calling her hot. tucker is a furry confirmed)

-danny being mad someone at the comic con is selling comics of him without permission, lmfao. give him his royalties!

-freakshow > thanos because hes a drama clown and does use his gauntlet to be FLASHY AND DRAMATIC.

-jazz's 'USE PYSCOLOGY' to danny about freakshow LMAOO. AND THEN IT WORKING. but, oh, freakshow's ghost form sucks. I like him as a clown better tbh. good thing danny took away his ghost powers!

-his parents hugging him and saying theyre proud :"( and saying 'of course you lied to us, we never gave you a reason not to!' and saying they were in the wrong basically for always talking about hurting ghosts aaaa :""(

-then he WIPED THEIR MEMORIES AGAIN!!! FUCK. I can understand him wiping the goverments/student bodies' memories, but why his parents?? they were being accepting!! ARGHHH. season 3 couldve been them all trying to adjust to them knowing!

-I know, on a meta level the showrunners probably wanted to just reset things to the status quo of him having a secret identity. But. We've been doing that for (2) seasons, I'd love if season 3 could be like, his parents adjusting to this and trying way harder to learn more and accept it (and the shenanigans that could come from that) and for fun, if he didn't wipe the students memories, it could be him being popular for a while, then everyone slowly realizing, oh, he's still Danny. Like. he might have ghost powers but hes Just The Same Guy instead of putting him on a pedestal (and seeing them all try and help him hide it from the giw/people who don't know!!)

-fuck they didn't even explain WHY he wiped everyone except sam, tucker and jazz's memories. he just Did It right when his parents were saying they loved/accepted him!! and sam and tucker didnt question it at all!!! HELLO??? very annoyed about this turn of events.

-anyway. onto season 3! I know its shorter than the first two seasons, and is the last season... I might just do it in 2 bursts if I can... :3c depends on the episodes' content and how much I want to say about each!

[jacaranda-bloom]

FIC WRITER QUESTIONS

Thank you to the lovely @allwaswell16 @runaway-train-works @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed @uhoh-but-yeah-alright and @evilovesyou for tagging me to answer some questions about my writing.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

47

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

901,445 (Hoping to hit the Magic Million by the end of the year!)

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

1 (One Direction)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

When Tomorrow Comes 1155

The Baby Whisperer 950

Love, Ever After 898

Harry Poppins 856

Play Me A Memory 760

More under the cut…

5) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh gosh. Uhm. I don’t really write angsty endings? All my fics have Happy Endings and most have epilogues to round them out and tie them up in a bow. Perhaps I’d say If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow) purely because (spoiler ahead) the epilogue is written 100 years into the future so they’ve both passed.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Interestingly, I would actually say the answer is the same as above, If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow). The epilogue is so uplifting and I cry happy tears every time I re-read it. It’s written from the POV of their granddaughter and you get to see the world they had a hand in changing for the better through her eyes, so you get a sense of how impactful their lives were on the rest of society. Oof, tearing up right now just thinking about it.

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Yeah, I have actually. I really enjoy doing new takes on an existing universes, although they aren’t always the easiest thing to pull off tbh. I’m not sure which I would say is the craziest, but the hardest to write was definitely The Peter Pan/Hook AU.

Harry Poppins - Loosely based on the book/movie Mary Poppins, but without any magical aspects.

Playing To Win - Set in the Big Brother house.

The Pirate and The Piper - A Peter Pan/Hook AU which I took a lot of liberties with.

In The Still Of The Night - My Dirty Dancing AU.

A Hungry Heart - This is a Great British Bake Off AU that is due out in September for the Cliche Fic Fest!

8) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Whoa Nelly. Yeah, I do. All the time. Every fic actually. There’s only one, Exposed, the only fic I’ve published that’s not rated Explicit and doesn’t have smut. But, to be fair, the challenge was to write exactly 666 words and I still managed to get the implication in there. Plus, Louis was naked and Harry was applying body paint for the majority of the story, so like, I think I can get a free pass on that one - I tried!

In terms of what type of smut, I guess it varies depending on the story. I tend not to push the boat out too far, but I do dabble in BDSM in quite a few of my fics. A recurring theme in the comments I receive is that my smut scenes are well constructed and detailed, without being too tedious or drawn out, which is lovely feedback to get because they can be challenging to write.

9) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Absolutely. Every single one.

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not often, people are usually so kind, but there have been a couple.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, quite a lot, particularly on Wattpad, all with my full consent. That said, I’m thinking of stopping this because it’s getting a bit out of hand and I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about it recently for various reasons that I won’t bore you with here. 

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope! I don’t think it’s really my thing tbh. I get very in my head about writing and struggle even to brainstorm or share too much until I’m well into a story.

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

Of the 47 fics I’ve written, there are 45 Larry, 1 Narry, and 1 Louis/Dermot O’Leary (I think mine is still the only fic with this ship hahahaa), so that’s probably a good indication of my fave writing ship.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I have one lonely WIP sitting on AO3 from 2018. I keep promising myself I’ll finish it and it’s on my schedule every year, then I get distracted by other fics/fests and it gets pushed back. Plus, it needs a complete rewrite because my style has developed so much since I started it, so it’ll be a big job. Based on that, I think that the fic, in its current form, won’t ever be finished as the rewrite will completely wipe out what it was, although the underlying plot will still be there.

16) What are your writing strengths?

World building (or so I’m often told). I write very visually and people often say they can imagine the scene exactly, or that it’s like a movie, or that they think it’s actually a real place I’m describing, when most of the time it absolutely isn’t, it’s just something I’ve created in my weird brain.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue (although my lovely beta disagrees) and telling rather than showing. They’re both things I’m actively working on.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve never really considered it. It’s not something I’d shy away from necessarily, but it’s just never come up.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

One Direction. First and only.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Wow. This is really tough because it changes over time. I find that once I’ve finished a fic I don’t want to revisit it for a few months because I’m kind of over it. But I find comfort in them after a while, like I get to go back to that happy place and immerse myself in that world and the characters again, similar to catching up with an old friend. It’s familiar. I think I also like different stories for different reasons and I’m drawn to various ones depending on my mood. My top 3 (although, ask me next week and the list will probably be completely different!) would probably be:

1. If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow). Written for the hybrid fic fest (a fest I created just for this fic lol). It’s not everyone’s cup of tea due to the hybrid aspect, but it’s one of the stories I feel is the most rounded from a character development perspective and the world building was pretty epic, if I can be so bold as to throw that out there myself!

2. No Going Back. One of my Big Bangs from 2020. I adore the way their relationship develops in this fic and the setting (as remote lighthouse keepers) was such a lot of fun to write. Plus I got to collaborate with an amazing artist who created an entire website as an accompanying travel blog which was truly wonderful.

3. From The Heart. This is a series I wrote for wordplay back in 2019. I had no idea that what I was doing was so unusual and so meta by having Louis essentially write for the equivalent of wordplay in the fic. It was such an fun way to share my writing process and challenges I encounter (exactly how many synonyms tabs do I have open at any one time?!) and I thoroughly enjoyed the outcome (although getting there was definitely a struggle).

~

This was really fun and thanks to anyone who made it this far! Writing brings me so much joy and is a wonderful outlet for all the imaginings in my head, so I appreciate everyone who supports me and joins me on that journey.

~

I’m pretty late with this and I’m not sure who has already done it but I’ll tag @fallinglikethis @homosociallyyours @lululawrence @reminiscingintherain and @beau-soleil-louis if they’d like to do this and haven’t already.

[bluinary]

gag anime that you need to watch maybe

 hi hello my name is juli and i will now gently guide ur attention to some top-notch shows, please pay attanetion

(this list is for people who don’t watch much anime or who are new to it. if ur a fucken weeb youve probably seen it all. dont @ me i want to help the kids)

ONE PUNCH MAN (the obvious 1st choice lol)

Genre: Action/ Shounen

Expectation: OP protagonist with riveting backstory fights to become the strongest hero, makes many friends along the way who recognize his talents and pure heart, big bad scary villains make him stronger

Reality: OP protagonist is already the strongest hero. His backstory? After fighting a lobster-man with nipples drawn on him with a Sharpie, Saitama decides to do a workout routine every day, and somehow ends up becoming the most powerful known being in the universe. His main issue is that now, he literally can take down any villain with a single punch, and he’s very bored of it.

Best Qualities: Animation is bomb, music is dope, humor is funnie, and Best Boy is a man whose superpower is riding a bicycle. Also Saitama egg head

If you were in a coma for all of 2015, this is the main thing u missed. Moving on.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (Monthly Girls’ Nozaki)

Genre: Romance/ Comedy/ Slice of Life

Expectation: Smol shoujo protag girl grows closer to her oblivious crush through a fated, if awkward, incident which reveals an embarrassing secret that has to be kept at all costs. Through one another they gain more quirky friends, help each other grow, and, eventually, the male lead realizes that what he needs has been beside him all along.

Reality: The crush writes romance manga, and that is literally all the man cares about. It’s not a secret, but when he told people they didn’t believe him. Nozaki and Sakura grow closer, but only because he confuses her confession with a request to be his Beta. They gain quirky friends through one another, but there is zero character development throughout the entire fucking cast. Every episode is run by Idiot Plot. All the characters share a singular brain cell. There’s a tall butch lady turning every girl in the school gay. Please watch

Best Quali-teas: Everyone is baby, lots of gay shenanigans, and toxic masculinity does not exist, the OP is pretty nice, too

I literally heard about this damn show, like, two months ago. This shit was released circa 2015. Pleeze watch

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. / Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan

Genre: Shounen/ Supernatural/ Fucking Everything tbh

Expectation: Slice-of-life supernatural where protag has psychic powers, albeit limited ones, and has to keep them a secret at all costs for fear of his safety. He has a few friends he loves and cherishes, and at least two girls who are in love with him that he has to choose between-- all of which are people he wants to protect from his double-life.

Reality: Kusuo is very aware that he is the protagonist of an anime, and he does not want to be. Born with pink hair? He rewrites the human genome to make colored hair normal. End of the world looming? He just keeps rewinding time so he doesn’t have to deal with it. Harem situation? He actively uses his powers to avoid all love interests at all times (see the above). The plot of each episode is him trying to stop the plot as quickly as possible without killing anyone. The main issue is that everyone around him is either dumb or just generally attractive to plot-driving circumstances, and they all, for some reason, want him to be in on their adventures.

Best Qualities: Heavy “me and the boys” energy, plenty of Idiot Plot, so funny that my 47yo mom who hates anime admitted that it’s funny, meta as fuck, occasionally sweet scenes, equally good dub and sub, Saiki is babie

The fandom for this shit is like. Nonexistent. Apparently it came out the same season as Mob Psycho 100, so that might be why. I almost didn’t watch it, but I got bored and it turned out to be a serious gem. Go watch if ur having a bad day, it will make u cry laughing

Sakamoto Desu Ga/ Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto

Genre: Slice of life/ Comedy

Expectation: God I don’t even know. I’d say a typical slice of life where the quiet kid is bullied but makes friends, there’s a love triangle as they grow up together through high school, yadda yadda, but look at this dude. I can’t imagine him being anything other than what he is-- a legend.

Reality: The entire show is just a question of how extra one man can be, and how well he can pull it off. Sakamoto is an “average” high school senior (in the sense that he has no supernatural abilities), but he’s....far more than that. He’s Sebastian Michaelis if he’d never been a demon. Everything always works out for him in the most ridiculous of ways-- he’s just that good. He makes a McDonald’s uniform look like Prada. He’s so smooth his bully ends up having a crush on him (and yes, it is a gay crush. no heteros in this show). 

Best Qualities: lots of homo content. the side characters, inspired by Sakamoto’s grace, all become better people, and you root for them. The circumstances are always average, but the presentation is fucking riveting. Watch to send ur depression into remission.

Another one no one talks about????? U all were so busy with ur broku no hero macadamias and ur Nartoes that you slept on this. Now’s the time to take back what was lost. Love yourself and binge this shit. 

Nichijou/ My Ordinary Life

Genre: Slice of Life/ Comedy

Expectation: Cute girls do cute, girly things and have fun with Their Close Good Friends (TM).

Reality: Cute girls get into very bizarre situations with extremely manic energies. Sometimes, the situations are normal, but the girls react in a bizarre, manic fashion. It will make you alarm-laugh.

Best Qualities: Adorable art style, little continuity, relatable as fuck

A nice little watch if you’re bored. I think the eps are on YouTube.

Pop Team Epic/ Poputepepiku

Genre: Only God Knows

Expectation: Probably a cutesy 4koma-type thing with 2 schoolgirls having shenanigans.

Reality: A regular acid trip with lesbian icons Popuko and Pipimi who are not schoolgirls, but gods. Like if Eric Andre and Hannibal Buress were turned into omnipotent anime icons. Watch at your own risk.

Best Qualities: Lots of unexpected parodies and references amongst a shitpost of a show. The OP is a bop. Popuko terrifies me, but also empowers me as a young woman because she will not hesitate to kill a bitch. She and Pipimi love each other a whole lot, so it is LGBTQ content, which is always a plus. 

I’m sure you’ve seen this one floating around. It will make you feel fear, and then laugh. Now, finally...

Ouran Highschool Host Club

Genre: Romance/ Comedy

Expectation: The protagonist is a girl who is mistaken for a boy and must be the servant of six rich, handsome young men, all of which are in love with her, and her secret must be kept at all costs. A reverse harem anime with plenty of fanservice.

Reality: Haruhi is a genderfluid queen who doesn’t give a fuck what others think she is. Because she broke a Conveniently-Placed Vase and is relatably poor, she has to pay off her debt by being a host herself-- which means male-presenting when flirting with her female classmates to make her dough. The six rich, handsome young men all share three brain cells, and most of those cells go to the character who has one line per episode (usually, it’s “Yeah”. I hope that VA got paid well). The only love interest-- the “leader” and most popular of the six men-- is so dead-set on their club being his Found Family, he confuses his romantic feelings for Haruhi with paternal ones. This is obvious to everyone but him. He never gets the brain cells. 

Best Qualities: Trans characters!! Lesbians!! Extreme “me and the boys” energy, except they’re all rich, so shenanigans skyrocket. Many 4th wall breaks. The most powerful Host looks like he’s 5. Any “fanservice” is never played straight. Takes the Found Family trope to a whole new level. Nice Parks & Rec-quality balance between hysterical and sweet. Everyone is in drag at some point.

I know all of us senior citizens grew up on this shit, but you younguns need to watch the classics to appreciate the newfangled stuff. I recommend watching when you’re in a cheesy rom-com mood. 

Honorable Mentions:

I can’t count these as gag anime, but they’re still ridiculously funny.

Mob Psycho 100

Scissor Seven

Kill la Kill

Cells at Work!

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure 

Ones I haven’t seen but have heard a lot about

Osomatsu-san

Himouto! Umaru-chan

Azumanga Daioh

Gin Tama

Sgt. Frog

Okay that is all just limke put this in ur feel-good tag because these shows will make you happy and donut for get to like and describe to my channel, where I post literally nothing at all ever good night.

[wh33zy]

1-3, 10

I don’t know which one you want me to answer these questions for so I’mma do all three of the recent ones i reblogged in rapid succession because I’m extra and cringey like that: 

Fanfic Writer Ask Game- 

1. Has a comment left on a fic of mine ever made me laugh out loud? 

Not yet! They always tend to make me smile a lot but I haven’t lol’d yet!

2. Has a comment ever made me cry? 

I’m going to be honest and say that whenever I get comments from people, saying that they read all my stuff, that they always look forward to an update from me, or that my writing is helping them through a difficult time, I tear up! It hits me in my chest like GWAH.

3. Have I ever made myself laugh out loud or cry when writing? 

Never cry but definitely laugh! I like writing comedy or adding it in my writing a lot because it’s fun for me and fun for the reader. It also gives me an excuse to get my horrible jokes out of my brain. 

10. What word do I keep using like it’s going out of style?

This is a hard one because I’m not sure! I spend a ridiculous amount of time worrying about repeating words. I know I love using the word ‘polite’ and ‘huff’! Also ‘offer’ and ‘oblige’. 

20 Fandom Ask Memes- 

1. If I could hit any character, who would it be? 

This is a hard one because I wanna hit A LOT of characters with no repercussions. Because I’m still VERY EMOTIONAL about Yakuza 7, I would like to hit Sawashiro as hard as I can. I know that I would also love to beat up Sid the Sloth from Ice Age. Lloyds from Tiger & Bunny. Oh! And Fuyuhiko from Junjou Romantica as well as Takano from SIH.

2. What fandoms am I no longer a part of? 

I also can’t really answer this one because I don’t really join fandoms. Like, the main purpose of this blog was to say whatever came to mind in regards to characters I liked/disliked whether or not I’d be met with hate from the fandom. So far, the reception for my stupid posts have been positive in JR land! I would say that I am not really in the One Piece fandom anymore. This is because I don’t write OP fanfiction as often as I used to and I find the discords to be rather intimidating because not only do A LOT of members tend to overwhelm me a bit but I’m so afraid of coming across as a bad person or cringey or stupid. TBH did leave an OP discord over something stupid I said that I know I blew out of proportion by overthinking. The discord was kinda dying anyways. [shrug]

3. Characters I’d marry in an instant? 

OMG EASY: Kasuga Ichiban from Yakuza 7 (he’s the perfect man), Legosi from Beastars (if only I were a white rabbit), and Sadie Adler from RDR2 (I have the biggest crush on her omg).

10. Characters that deserved worse? 

Hate to say it but Barnaby from Tiger & Bunny. I dunno, I felt like he kinda got off a little too easy with the way he treated Kotetsu in the beginning. (Kotetsu was his partner for their work as heroes since they have the same powers and they didn’t get along because of their differences. However, while Kotetsu was at least trying to befriend him after a while, Barnaby seemed to make more of an effort to be an ass.) 

Also, Takano from SIH. He deserves to be punched in half by Donkey Kong. Hiroki from JR needs a big serving of humble pie. Fuyuhiko from JR should be thrown in a well somewhere. 

Fun Meta Asks for Writers- 

1. Current projects? 

I signed up for my first ever creative writing class, so I’m working on a couple original stories that I have been way too lazy about AND finnicky about because I want my writing to be 100% perfect ALL THE TIME AND THE FIRST TIME OR I’M TERRIBLE. 

For fanfiction, I’m currently working on a Spiderman AU for JR, a Professer AU for Egoist because i guess I want to rewrite their story lol, FEUD of course, and for a T&B work called Firsts: Necessary Evils. 

2. What I most look forward to writing? 

In FEUD, I’m really looking forward to writing a new conflict that’s coming up between Ijuuin and pretty much everyone else. 

I am mainly excited about the Spiderman AU because I LOVE superheroes and I think the style and plots that I have for it are very good! I have it set up quite different where there’s a chapter where Akihiko is Spiderman, then another chapter where Misaki is, and the last chapter is them both being Spiderman. What I have set up for Misaki when he’s the hero is just YES SO MUCH FUN! 

For the Professor AU where Hiroki and Nowaki are both professors, I’m excited to be kind of boring. It’s a sweet, slice of life story about two dorks who are a little awkward falling in love. It’s charming and not very dramatic. I just want to take the advice of my creative writing prof which is to dare to be boring. 

Other than that, it’s my original stories. I’m becoming less afraid of writing them so the more I do, the more excited I become to write more.

3. What is one scene I want to write but at the moment can’t be arsed (I fucking hate this word ugh ‘arsed’ it sounds stupid)? 

I’m so sorry for those who read FEUD but it’s literally the next part of this coming chapter. I dunno, I’m just...lazyyyyyyyyy. Lol I’M GETTING TO IT, but at the moment, I’ve been kinda lazy with my writing. I don’t know why, probably because it’s sad bitch hour every hour. 

10. How would I describe my writing process?

I don’t know if I have something that counts as a writing process, but I just start writing when I feel really compelled by an idea. If I am inspired enough, I just write. Then, I figure out a beginning to it or an end to it or how to blend it into a story if I wish to. Afterwards, I edit the shit out of it and then let it sit on my laptop for a while until I’m brave enough to post it since I think a lot of what comes from my hands is terrible lol. If I’m craving inspiration, I’ll look up quotes and just go from there. I also tend to think about scenarios A LOT in terms of my favorite characters so I always seem to have some kind of idea. 

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE ASK!! This was fun!!

[moontheoretist]

I already told you all that I love Mirko, but I didn’t tell you exactly why and what is the downside of loving her. I love Mirko, because she is the exact same type of character I usually make as an extension of myself - cheeky, full of swagger strong woman, who loves the thrill of a battle, who jumps ahead of everybody else and attacks first, destroying enemies with their brute force - the type of person which I admire for their strength and lack of shame when it comes to being themselves, and whose violent approach I love even though I do not personality believe that violence can actually solve issues without causing even more harm. Those characters usually come off as mean, even if they have good intentions, therefore why they are seen as arrogant, narcissistic and incapable of empathy, but that isn't the downside which I initially meant. 

The downside of loving her is that her character design and meta messages it sends is harmful. She is one of the two women featured in top ten Hero Board Chart, and she is also the second dark skinned hero we currently know about. The problem here is that the type of personality I love in characters is also the type which paired with dark skin is stereotypical and racist as it plays into all harmful tropes about dark skinned people - that they are inherently more prone to violence, more mean, less empathetic etc., so even though Mirko is second dark skinned hero and is one of a few examples of dark skinned characters who are actually on the “good side” instead of the “bad side”, I cannot just ignore that she is an example showcasing how deeply ingrained is racism in Japanese society. I do not write it to say “Horikoshi is racist and evil”. I write it to say that societies where majority of people is either white or light skinned have deeply ingrained issues with darker skin, as they associate it with a lot of bad things like “dirtiness”, “brutality”, “meanness”, “danger” and that this is a bias which those societies are raised with as if they were part of the norm and therefore seen as non-problematic and easily forgotten, thanks to what they are very hard to unlearn as you have to actively do it - but to actively do it you have to be aware of the issue and keep yourself in check at all times to deal with it for sure. And even when you do that, you still may catch yourself falling back into old ways of thinking and habits, so you are never 100% rid of it and stereotypical portrayals of darker skinned people really do not help, which makes me say this: We need more darker skinned but also diverse characters in anime, enough so one day we would stop seeing dark skinned character and be like “oh, I know this trope, they are either really mean friend of the protagonist or the antagonist”.

And I don't believe that I have to say it, but changing thanks to being beaten in something by the protagonist doesn’t count, as it further perpetuates the harmful idea that only after darker skinned characters are put in their place by white/light skinned people they are able to reconnect with their inner empathetic self.

(TBH even Lock Rock comes of as mean when we see him for the first time. We know he has a wife and it is the reason why he is so strict, but he is still portrayed as mostly mean even though he is mean, because he is worried).

[murasaki-murasame]

I was planning to make my own post about how I think the wind mana spirals will go, and then Cygames went ahead and laid it out for us way earlier than I expected, lmao.

But anyway there’s some interesting stuff going on here that I have some thoughts on.

Basically all three of these characters went in slightly different directions than I expected. Mostly Hawk and Lin You, but still.

I thought that they’d give Hawk the exact same buff as Nefaria, maybe minus the buff dispel, but even though they still stuck poison on him, his S2 is at least slightly different to hers, since it’s now a skill shift thing where the first round lets him inflict stun and poison via his next two force strikes, and then the second round is a damaging skill with poison punisher. He also gets loses the Full HP condition on his A1, whereas Nefaria still has hers, so that’s interesting.

I’m very curious to see how much this helps him, since Nefaria got a MASSIVE boost to her DPS through her mana spiral upgrade. Though she also got some unique utility with her buff dispel that gives her a meta position in Kai Yan even if you ignore her high damage. Hawk doesn’t really get any sort of unique utility like that, but maybe wind Agito won’t really require anything like that. And tbh I’m glad that it means he probably won’t serve the exact same role in wind Agito as Nefaria does in Kai Yan.

It’s kinda hard to tell if the skill shift on his S2 is going to raise or lower his overall DPS, if you compare him to Nefaria. Her altered force strike is apparently extremely powerful, so Hawk might be held back by having his S2 only change his force strikes half the time. Although Nefaria’s S2 powers up her next single force strike, while Hawk’s powers up his next two force strikes, so that also might influence things.

He might still be very good as a poison enabler in wind Agito when that comes out, but I’m not sure if he’d be good enough to break into the HMC meta. The poison meta has had a very hard time catching on in HMC, and we already have Joachim as a poison-enabling wind bow, and he at least has the appropriate status resistance. It’s possible that there’s cheese strats you can do with Hawk’s stun, though. I feel like that’d only be relevant in mHMC though, not eHMC.

I probably won’t build him up, since that’d take a lot of resources that I don’t have, but I’m glad he’s getting the buff.

I had a feeling Lin You was gonna be the mystery third mana spiral unit, but I’m still kinda salty that Sylas continues to be on the back-burner, lol. He desperately needs any sort of buff. Maybe we’ll get another round of wind mana spirals next month, if they release wind Agito next.

I wasn’t really sure what they would do with her kit, since she’s already a pretty solid unit all around. I honestly thought they might make her S2′s heal effect the entire team to help her sub in for Wedding Elly in HMC, but it looks like they decided to make her more like Ezelith. Which makes a lot of sense, honestly. She has a crit rate passive, her themed wyrmprint gives crit rate, and the dragon that’s basically paired with her gives crit damage. She’s not exactly the same as Ezelith, though, since her buffs are more about her building up to a 50% or so crit rate for most of the fight, compared to Ezelith getting 100% crit rate in short bursts. I think it fits the axe play-style nicely, though.

I was kinda worried at first that it might be really hard for her to keep up her combo count, since axes are kinda slow in general, but then I saw that they’re also giving her a combo time ability like Valerio and Mitsuba, lol. That’s one way to make it more feasible to maintain high combo counts on slower units.

The change in her abilities is probably the biggest deal out of her mana spiral, but I’m curious to see the full details on how her S1 changes her next three force strikes. It’d be nice if the cyclones are multi-hit attacks that help her rack up her combo count quickly.

I’m not entirely sure how much this will help her break back into HMC, since her buffs are purely about her personal DPS, and she still doesn’t have the team utility that Wedding Elly does, but it at least makes her an even better unit for general content. Maybe she’ll suffer a bit from also not having anything related to poison in her kit, but honestly we need more DPS units who aren’t wrapped up in status afflictions to achieve their full potential.

I think she has a lot of potential to be a great DPS unit for wind Agito when that comes out, though, for basically the same reason as why Ezelith is a core DPS unit against Volk.

I don’t think I’m very interested in investing in her mana spiral since I have like no testaments at the moment and I already main Noelle in HMC, but at the very least it looks like she’ll probably benefit most from using Long Long now, which is nice for me since he’s my only strength-based 5-star wind dragon that I have max unbound, lol.

If there’s any unit out of these three that I might actually invest in, it’s probably Su Fang, and that’s mostly just because I really like him as a character. In the long run I should probably save my resources for other 70MC characters, but at least on paper I think his mana spiral might make him a really strong unit.

I was kinda hoping they’d give him more of a crit-based kit, but I can see why they didn’t, since they chose to do that with Lin You instead. It’s still a little bit lame to see him get the poison treatment, but realistically I think he’ll benefit a lot from it.

I had a feeling they’d give him poison punisher on his S1, if they went this route, but I didn’t expect them to basically give him the Delphi treatment by having his S2 give a poison effect to his next force strike. I imagine that unlike Delphi his poison mods are going to be normal, though, since he’s a normal DPS unit outside of that.

In general his S2 got a pretty big buff, which I’m glad to see. They bumped the strength buff from 25% to 30%, while also increasing the duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds, which I think is a fairly sizeable increase to his damage across the board. Though some of that time will probably be spent by you using a force strike to inflict poison. But it still seems like a pretty big improvement.

I’m curious to see if they’re gonna buff the damage mods on his S1, since they’re pretty low, or if they’ll be kept the same, and the poison punisher damage mods will be the main buff.

Since he’s just a welfare 4-star unit his abilities didn’t get changed much, but there’s a lot to be said for his skill damage passive going from 20% to 35%. I mean, that ended up being one of the core reasons why Xania became a meta flame unit. So I think he might end up being the dark horse of this batch.

I’m not sure if this will help him break into the HMC meta because of the recurring issue of raw DPS units not having the utility that Wedding Elly brings, but he might end up being a really good poison enabler for poison comps. Hopefully.

I think he also has a lot of potential in wind Agito, for basically the same reasons as Lin You. It’s a long shot, but I really hope that the phase 2 form of the wind Agito boss is classified as a Therion, like Volk, so Su Fang can take advantage of his Therion’s Bane ability getting buffed to 35%. That might really swing things in his favour, but even if it ends up being a dead ability, I think he might still be good for that fight. At the very least, his crit rate coability would probably sync nicely with Lin You’s new play-style.

There’s a pretty high chance that I’ll 70MC him as soon as I have the materials for it, but I at least want to wait and see how his mana spiral compares to Hawk and Lin You, in the long run. It might just not be worth the investment. I really want him to be good, though.

Even though I mostly just want Sylas to finally get a buff, it’d also be a shame if they skip over Ku Hai, since he got introduced along with Lin You and Su Fang, and he also has a pretty lopsided kit. If he got more reliable sources of crit rate I think he could be really good. This event also introduced Xiao Lei but she’s from a different element altogether so it’s not a surprise that they’re skipping her for now.

But on a related note, since we’re getting mana spirals for Su Fang and Lin You to go along with this event rerun that’s coming up, I have a feeling that instead of us getting a new wind banner, they might just rerun the Lin You banner and put Hawk on rate-up along with it. It’d be a nice way to showcase their new mana spiral upgrades. And tbh we don’t really need an entirely new wind banner at the moment, since we got the Kirsty and Joachim one really recently. Maybe we’ll get an additional new banner for a different element along with a banner rerun, though.

Also, I think we’re still expecting mana spirals for 3-star shadow units at the end of this month. I’m curious to see how that goes, but I feel like it’s going to be too little too late. They already gave mana spirals to just about every shadow 5-star, and the meta for both HJP and Kai Yan have had time to solidify, so 3-star units aren’t really going to have much of a chance to meaningfully compete against that. I feel like they’re basically all just going to be budget options for existing 5-star units, and they’ll only be worth investing in if you either don’t have those 5-stars, or you really like some of the 3-stars as characters.

I still hope they’re planning to give mana spirals to 4-star shadow units like Norwin, though. At this point he’s probably never gonna be as good as Nefaria, but I just want him to be viable in endgame content, lol.

[janiedean]

the gwendoline christie meet-up of doom recap

... wow it’s been a week and I still hadn’t managed to do it hahahaha ops. okay I hope I haven’t forgotten any details klfjlak anyway HERE HAVE THE FULL-ON RECAP OF THE GWEN CHRISTIE EXPERIENCE OF DOOM.

so: of course the con had to be in dortmund which meant that getting there directly was Not Doable and I had to go to @incblackbird​‘s in belgium first and then take a bus with her to germany and back and guys let me tell you dortmund is a piece of work but it has a very nice subway at least. NOW, as everyone knows if they’ve been around here for more than one month I really have Personal Reasons To Be Into Brienne As A Character and since I was like ‘okay she does a lot less cons than most other got actors so idk if I’ll have a second chance to meet her I’m going all out on this’, instead of going empty-handed as I usually do because I have no imagination for gifts to the actors and I can’t exactly bring them fanfic I figured I’d polish some old meta, maybe write a bit about Brienne’s Importance As Rep For Not Standard Attractive People and give it to her. which was all good but since I also wrote some stuff on jaime and brienne for merel’s cersei book (which then obv. got edited to hell and back to fit that topic XD) I figured ‘heeey I can just put the unedited version in there as well’ aaaand.... then I was like ‘oh well if I went through all of asos then I should also do the jb-related parts in affc’ which added to the brienne-only related introduction ended up.... being..... long around 50k (with quotes of course but still) because of course WHO knows how to be a synthetic person around here? certainly not me. anyway, this was the thing:

(yes the cover is what it is but you don’t even wanna know the levels of GOING TO SLEEP AT THREE AM FOR TWO WEEKS PLUS PRINTING IT THE DAY BEFORE LEAVING that preparing it reached flgdsk)

soooo I’m skipping on organization-related details/trip details because no one needs to know and on saturday I get into the con place with my trusted and updated catelyn cosplay like THIS IS POTENTIALLY THE MOST EMBARRASSING CELEBRITY MEETING MOMENT IN MY EXISTENCE, I go to the panel where someone asked her about how she feels playing someone described as *ugly* in the book and she gave a honestly touching long answer about how she felt like it was a privilege because you don’t get many not-standard-attractive characters, that she wanted the role and she thought actually it wouldn’t be popular because *ugly* female characters aren’t usually popular and that she felt it was important to have more of that variety on tv and I was about like ‘oKAY NOW I KNOW I’LL NEVER SURVIVE THE AUTOGRAPH’. hahaha. soooo I tried to go and get it so we could do the photo op later but obv. the queue was long as hell and I got there just when she left for lunch so I had to do the picture before the autograph, now sadly since there was a long queue you couldn’t exactly do anything too complicated with the pictures but she 100% was lovely to everyone, said hi and goodbye to everyone who came up to her and she totes recognized the cosplay my heart. (also in the panel she said she wanted to resurrect cat BLESS YOU GWEN BLESS YOU.)

aaaand. you can probably see that I was about to go like OMG HOW DO YOU EVEN EXIST YOU’RE TOO MUCH FOR ALL OF US MERE MORTALS but anyway:

sjdgldsjk if I think about it I’m still like HOW DID IT HAPPEN HOW DID I SURVIVE IT. anyway.

after that I go immediately to autograph queue again and like I would like to specify that the queue was insane like there were a lot of people and while I was EXTREMELY happy to see it because your favorite getting long lines is always an extremely good thing I also was kinda worried they’d cut things short same as they did with the photo op and I wouldn’t have complained if they had because I totally get it was a lot of people but ANYWAY. I queue again (while @incblackbird was also there and probably being extremely amused at my distress), I get there, I miraculously don’t faint the moment we make eye contact (could have happened tbh) aaaand I go like ‘okay about that thing you said at the panel before when it came to representation, HMMMM I’ve got to tell you something’ and thank fuck no one stopped me, I managed to more or less tell her that I read the books before season two and I really had a not so mild case of relating to brienne because of shared life experience and I was really hoping that the show would find an actress who’d make justice to the character and she one hundred per cent delivered on that and then I probably went into a string of embarrassing compliments while still trying to sound like a reasonable human being (count that I hadn’t had time for lunch or anything so I was running on adrenaline lmao) aaaaand...... she answered going more in-depth about the stuff she said before in the morning for... a good five minutes actually? I mean we definitely talked about it and she said the same things except more one on one obv. and she also said that she had read the book and realized What She Was Representing but she wasn’t sure people would grasp it and I was like NOOOOO DON’T WORRY SOME OF US DEFINITELY DID and honest she really took the time to talk to me when there was a really long queue behind us and it wasn’t basic niceties - like I’ve done enough signings at cons to grasp the difference and it definitely wasn’t, I left her a copy of that meta in the middle of all of this and she was like ‘for one I wasn’t expecting for people to be as much into brienne to actually do this kinda thing’ or something like that and she also signed my copy... with the goddamned golden pen like after I show it to two people they go like ‘aw how cute she used the lannister pen’ and I was like ‘..................... LMAO I WAS SO STARSTRUCK I DIDN’T NOTICE’ ops /embarrassment anyway at some point saint merel goes like (because I had totally forgotten) ‘btw she came all the way from italy just to see you’ and she was like ‘WAIT REALLY OH WOW THANK YOU’ and I was like ‘NO THANK YOU IT WAS ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT’ aaand we shook hands and I left after some good five minutes I think which is... kinda more than I ever talked with anyone in an autograph line in my entire life lol honestly I was just glad I didn’t end up doing something terribly embarrassing like dunno getting too emotional but thankfully I didn’t and it was honestly... really the best autograph experience I’ve had I think? or better time #1 with alfie allen also was great but I wasn’t exactly you know discussing stuff that was personally affecting me so yeah haha that was it and she was absolutely worth getting there and back and this woman is too good for this world and yeah. best idea I ever had tbh or top ten ideas I ever had a+ would re-do it in ten seconds.

(if anyone’s interested in the lannister pen autograph:

... aaand okay that was it when it came to gwen because she had no panels the next day and I used up both picture and autograph on day one but again, 100% worth it would re-do it immediately and she’s the best and yeah I’m still like DID IT HAPPEN and it’s been a week. she’s the best okay? k.

(also, someone’s already asked, so if anyone wants to know if I’m planning to share that meta: the ending was polished stuff that’s already on tumblr, I’m planning on posting the first part on here because it’s a question of principle and the rest I need to re-elaborate because at this point I might just throw in catelyn as well and do a full-on brienne text analysis idk but anyway at some point I’ll make it surface somewhere uu)

[parkshuppy]

skam fic questions!

I was tagged (a very long time ago - sorry!) by @canonicallyanxious to answer these fic questions. I’m gonna have a go even though my memory is awful and I’ve probably missed out a bunch of very good fics, (since this fandom is incredibly talented) and I’ll rely on my bookmarks and see how we go.

The first fic you fell in love with: in better light, everything changes was the first fic I remember deciding to read. When I first started watching Skam I was insistent I wouldn’t read any fics for it (look how well that worked out - lol). But I read this one and it was delightful, made me smile a lot, and I sat and read it all in one sitting. So, from there I started my descent into scouring A03 for all the evak fics I could consume.

The last fic you fell in love with: my heart held a ledger, for sure. I stopped reading fics for a while because life stuff got in the way and I was always busy. But I’m lucky enough to be friends with the two incredibly talented people who wrote this fic, so I knew about their plans to write it, and got to read it as it was being written. Literally from the first sentence I loved it, I love the universe Sarah and Lyds have so carefully built, and how intense and complex it is. I’m very excited to see where they go with it!

The fic that you’ve re-read the most times: Probably True or False, it was one of the first fics I read, and despite me having read it multiple times (throwback to me being late to work cause I was sad and decided to read it), it still makes my heart wanna burst every time. I’m a sucker for childhood best friend AU’s and this is endlessly adorable and so well written.

A fic that you didn’t expect to love as much as you do (based on the description, a pairing or whatever): sitting on the fences, I didn’t ship Jonas/Mikael before this (more of a Jonas/Mahdi person tbh), and obviously Mikael was not really given his own personality in Skam. But this fic gave him a personality, gave him depth, and paired him with Jonas, and I absolutely loved it. It made everything make sense, and gave Mikael the characterisation he deserved.

A fic you knew you were going to love from the first paragraph or even just reading the description: Easy - stay a minute. Before I was friends with Kathi I’d read her Inception fic and absolutely adored it (despite never having watched Inception), and when I saw that she’d posted a new fic that was Actor!Isak and Director!Even, I remember being absolutely beside myself with excitement. I knew just from the description it would be amazing - and I was very, very right.

A fic that makes you feel like shouting about it to anyone who listens because everyone needs to read it: a mental archive of love unwanted, its incredibly well written, and has so many ‘punch in the gut’ lines, as well as having the characterisation spot on. There were so many times I teared up and audibly gasped and clutched my chest whilst reading this fic, and I remember yelling about it to all of my friends whenever I read a new chapter.

The fic you are/were the most excited to be updated: I don’t read a lot of WIP’s, but I remember having notifications on for Checking From Behind and being super excited whenever it updated.

The fic you caught yourself thinking/theorizing about the most during your everyday life: take me to the stars, since it’s still a WIP and has a lot of twists and turns and builds itself up really well, I find myself thinking about it a lot and how the guys in that verse are doing.

A fic you want to print out and have it among your books on the shelf: making new clichés, it’s basically a novel in its own right, because its so complex and has so much depth to it. Sarah made sure to completely create a universe of her own for the MNC boys, and it could easy be a book. (Even if....say...you swapped the boys for lesbians???? ha.)

A fic universe you want to live in: the SAM universe, solely cause I wanna see Even’s movies, since they sound amazing and super artsy and exactly how I’d imagine Even would be if he were a director. Their version of Romeo and Juliet sounds way better than the original, tbh.

A fic to which you would read endless amount of follow-ups, one-shots, meta, etc. by the author: ok so literally any of these fics, I’d be happy to read extras for. But I’m especially lucky because I have friends who’s writing I all love dearly, and who often give me little anecdotes and meta’s to do with their stories. I absolutely love the fact that all writers create their own universes, and I love to hear extra parts of their stories, and to find out what their characters are doing in the future. Gimme all the extra content.

The scene in a fic that made you laugh the hardest: I remember being full on hysterical in a lot of scenes in take me to the stars, especially when Isak makes Even waddle over to his music with his pants round his ankles to change the song.

The scene in a fic that made you cry the hardest: I cried at the end of with love, from anonymous, which, considering I never cry at stuff, was a big thing. I remember crying because I was so emotional at the last line (Even’s little note on the page ;-;), and then laughing at myself for being ridiculous.

A scene in a fic that left you hot and bothered: Not applicable to me, I’m afraid.

A scene that squeezes your insides and hard to read but in a good way: not a scene, but the literal entirety of if you must live, darling one, just live, the whole thing is heart-wrenching, and you feel Even’s sadness and hopelessness all the way through, and the little things he and Isak do for each other also make my heart squeeze. The whole thing is just painful (in the best sort of way)

A twist that made you gasp out loud: idk if it counts as a twist as such, but I do remember gasping at the end of chapter eight in Lost Boys (Not Ready To Be Found), because I was def not expecting what happened, and I was very glad I didn’t have to wait for the chapter to be posted since it was already complete when I started.

A line, scene, a metaphor or an idea in a fic that made you think: “I was thinking about the idea of needing people,” Even says. “And how it’s true that we rely on other people a lot, and it’s okay to do that. But also how unfair it can be, sometimes, when the need you have for someone else outweighs what they need. And how when that happens, if they decide it’s too much, you can’t really begrudge them for that. You just have to let them go.” - From MNC, I remember this really resonating with me. Sarah always manages to get in kickass lines and metaphors in her fics, tbh.

A character you fell in love with because of a fic (or multiple fics): Mikael! Like I said above he didn’t have much of a character when Skam ended, but the wonderful people of this fandom gave him his own personality and now I love this dorky boy. A lot of fics I’ve read have contributed to this tbh, especially wlfa, sitting on the fences, a mental archive, and don’t want anything but all of you, which conveniently are all mentioned in here.

A pairing you’ve grown to love because of a fic (or multiple fics): Mikael and Adam! I knew people shipped them but wasn’t entirely sure why, but then I read don't want anything but all of you, and it made 100% sense. Lyds completely sold me on these two soft boys and I love that pairing now.

A fic you (re-)read if you have a bad day / would recommend for someone to read if they’re having a bad day: when your heart is bleeding, i'm coming to get you. Its unique in its plot, but the characters are very recognisable, and I just love the whole story - it always makes me smile whenever I read it.

A fic you (re-)read when you really miss Skam / would recommend for someone to read when they really miss Skam: I’m gonna be lazy and say all of the above, because they’re all wonderful and well characterised and bring me back to the Skam universe whenever I reread them.

Gosh that was a lot. I’m gonna tag @holocene-days, and @boxesfullofthoughts if you guys want to do it!

[calzonekestis]

@agent13: Jackie hasn’t been active in quite a while, but she’s always been kind to me and her blog has has A+ opinions and content. 

@ar-se-ne: IDEK how long I’ve been following Cristian, but he’s a really nice guy with whom I have similar interests. He’s also someone that I’ve kind of of been inspired by in some ways. I don’t want to get too personal information, but it involves introspection and self improvement and yeah. I’m proud of him. He should be proud of himself.

@chujo-hime: I remember like circa 2012-2013 I had a ~moment~ because the webmaster of FYBN followed me. Chujo always has quality content, and is someone I respect for being very genuine and respectful. If something’s drawn her ire or made her bitter, she has a reason for it, and can write a solid meta on why it’s bullshit. At the same time, she’s someone who I’ve looked to when I consider how to handle my own fandom disagreements. It’s not worth arguing with people on the internet, it’s never fun. So long as people enjoy what they enjoy? Stay in their lane and let others do the same? We can all get along~~~

@cimikat: Katie is another person who I don’t even remember following. I can’t really remember my tumblr experience before her, though? I can say without any hyperbole though that she’s probably the nicest person I’ve ever encountered on this website? Literally, I can’t think of a single time I’ve seen her be salty. Upset and disappointed, sure, but she doesn’t wallow in negativity the way some people do and have in the past. If she enjoys something, she’s enthusiastic about it. If she no longer enjoys it? You won’t see her b*tch about it. She’s just very upbeat.

@dazzledfirestar: Daz shares my love of certain villains (Sin and Crossbones) while fully recognizing they’re deplorable human beings. That’s just one of the more superficial reasons I respect her. She’s another person who’s also genuine, and whom by following I feel like I’ve actually learned a lot? And I actually like to learn. Ignorance isn’t always mean spirited, and in the past I’ll admit I’ve been an ignorant white boy. Not that I was prejudice, there was just a lot I was either blind to or unaware of.  I’ve learned a lot about Romani culture by following Daz. A lot of history, a lot about the struggles and persecution they still face to this day. I also learned lot about the LGBT community; which honestly was a big help when I was trying to figure out/accept my bisexuality.

@diaryofawriter: What do I even say about you? believe we met because we both RP’d in the same fandoms and enjoyed the same content. Comics, OUAT, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. She’s both listened to me flail or rant countless times, either feigning or expressing genuine interest… for that I’m truly appreciative. She’s also helped me when it comes to letting go of things that are no longer fun or enjoyable for me (OUAT) and focus on the things that do bring me joy. A role model in that sense. >.>

@diisnerd: Leah. Leah was someone I met though a mutual friend, and while they’re closer than I am with her… I let me just say I have so much fucking respect for Leah. She’s just a good, loyal, protective, and caring friend. We have a lot of the same interests, too. We don’t talk all that often about them, but when we do it’s always an enjoyable conversation.

@dreamimpcssiblethings: Kath. Jesus. You know how much you mean to me, I should hope. You’re one of my best friends. It’s not even that we like a lot of the same things (we do) but you’re just very hard not to like? You’re super intelligent, super passionate. Be it about fandom things, classic literature, or just life. If one good thing came out of the rise and fall of my OUAT fandom, it was meeting you. All the salt is worth it for knowing you~

@ilikethequiet: Ally was one of the first people I met in the OUAT fandom, via a mutual friend/aquiantence. She’s a wizard when it comes to making edits and graphics. She’s someone with whom I’ve been salty on many an occasion, and I lured her into the iZombie fandom with me when our favorite actors transitioned over to that show. She’s just a delight. She also somehow made an AU graphic for a trashy ~problematic~ hateship look classy? Real friends hunt down topless screencaps so they can make you smutty collages for your birthday.

@jjoelswatch: Sarah is one of the first people I can remember following on tumblr. She’s another person where I wouldn’t recognize my dash without her. I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but I really respect her. She’s just a good person, very down to Earth and very witty. We don’t talk that much, but it’s always very pleasant when we do? Sarah was the first one to reach out and respond when I came out as bi. I’m still not out to my family. When I posted that little confession, I didn’t know what to expect. I simultaneously cared and didn’t care how people responded. It was weird, because it was something I had tried to deny and rationalize for so long. It’s something that no one should even care about, but Sarah empathized and realized it was kind of a big deal for me? Her reassurance that I wasn’t alone, even in such a short and concise message meant a lot. She’s one of my favorite mutals tbh.

@kennyhoemega: Bethany is a Goth Goddess. I’m not just saying that because she demanded the best compliment. On a superficial level, she’s just really pretty?? Now that’s out of the way, let me tell you legitimate reasons why she’s one of my favorite people to follow. She’s got great taste in music, she loves Star Wars, dabbles in Marvel and Harry Potter. You see a theme here with people I follow. She just also tends to reblog really neat things unrelated to those? I’ve gotten into astrology because of her. It’s mostly her fault that I’ve started watching wrestling again, bc there’s nothing good on TV and her passion is contagious and the gifs she reblogs are wild. She also has the best tags out of anyone I follow, bar none. I don’t even know when I first followed her either, around 2012 or so, but I know that it was absolutely 100% Sarah’s fault. Thank you, Sarah. TBH the first time I remember interacting with Bethany was when I added a gif and sarcastic comment to one of her salty posts about people trying to woobify Brock Rumlow. The next day, I realized this was likely not the best way to make a first impression? Fortunately she assured me that she got it, and that we were cool. Which is a relief, because as I’ve told her (and IDK if she believes me) she’s probably one of the coolest people I follow? It’s come to light that neither of us are big talkers, so we don’t actually talk that much… but she’s really rad. IDK when it started but she’s consistently been in my tumblr crushes for ages. Lots of mutual reblogging, again, lots of respect. She’s witty and intelligent. That’s not butt-kissin’, I’ve seen her post about certain tests and looked them up out of curiosity and wow. Yeah. Bethany also has the longest compliment, so that should make her happy. There was something about my needing a nuclear bunker if she wasn’t on this list. She deserves it though, she’s another one of my faves.

@kittenspawn: Nichole is my unofficial big sister. I say that as someone who actually has a big sister. She messaged me in 2012 with questions about Bucky and Natasha, and from that point on she was screwed. She got me into Hellboy in turn, but I like to think I’ve thoroughly corrupted her and caused her to spend far too much money on certain things. Nichole is someone who I can go weeks without talking to, and yet we can fall right back into conversation as if we talked the night before. She’s been a terrible enabler over the years, but she’s also been there for me during some difficult times and when I’ve done very stupid and questionable things. I know she’ll say I’ve been there for her as well, but the scales are seriously tipped here. When I need advice, or when I need to talk to someone about something serious… she’s the person I go to. I can always count on her, and she’s pretty much family at this point.

@ohmygil: Gil. I think I found you through Davis? You’re just a very sensible person, and very rational about a lot of things. It’s refreshing to see that on the internet these days. You’re someone who I don’t think I’ve ever had a actual ‘discussion’ with, but I’m including you here because I really enjoy your presence on my dash. I stopped reading DC regularly with the New 52, and pretty much all my DC intake these days is absorbed through your blog. You also get points for liking Superman. Some people think he’s too powerful, or a big boy scout, and while I’ve never regularly collected his titles I am a fan.

@prof-anity: …You know, I was tempted to leave you off this list just to be a dick. Yours would be the longest entry, so I’m keeping it short because what is there to even say? How much needs to be said? Seven years ago you met a bitter teenage douchebag on a message board. You made the mistake of accepting his friendship when he reached out to you. You’ve stuck with me through highs and lows, man. It’s one of those relationships again, where we may not talk every day. We may not be up to date on the details and goings on in each other’s lives… but you said it yourself. Our friendship has been one of the best constants in the past seven years. A third of your life, btw. Isn’t that depressing? You are, truly, the best friend I have ever had. One day I’m going to meet you, hug you, and then insult you to your face. You’re truly a brother to me. I love you.

@readytocomply: Stef! Stef is a delight. Always pleasant, always fun. She’s also super creative? She makes great edits, great cosplays, and is just pretty damn great over all. Stef is another person who I try to model myself after when it comes to shipping things. Re: Multi-Shipping. Stef ships Steve and Bucky. I do not. Stef also ships Bucky and Natasha. Stef respects canon and appreciates Sharon Carter. All this may sound inane but I’m glad I didn’t meet Stef until I did, because 2013 Tim might have been a little asshole re his ships and missed out befriending a great person because of his own stubborness… that could cross into douchebaggery. Stef has quality content on her blog at all times. Sebastian Stan. Marvel. Star Wars. Mark Hamill.. Harry Potter. Tron. Just general film. Chicken nuggets. Stef is a quality person with a quality blog.

@rocktheholygrail: Dana is someone I met through the iZombie fandom, and she is another wizard. A gif wizard, who has too often indulged my requests or suggestions. She’s another person whose enthusiasm is contagious. I was able to convince her to watch the entirety of Prison Break (save the revival) in less than a month before it was taken off Netflix. I don’t think I ever apologized for that. Dana also is trash tho, bc like me, her favorite iZombie character is the trashiest. I say that tongue in cheek, at least the first part. It’s really been great though to have someone who recognize a character as both human and horrible, and who is capable of watching and enjoying them despite their being problematic. If this was another fandom, I’d expect to be judged or ostracized, but instead I’m enabled once again.

@swanmagic: Gia is another person who doesn’t post on tumblr much (at least her personal) these days, but I’m including her because she’s been one of my favorite RP partners for years and we still talk from time to time on twitter. She’s just a great writer, great person, great friend. She’s another person who has excellent (and varied) musical taste.

@thealbooty: I met Alberto through Davis. It’s another thing where I don’t remember the circumstances, there was just one day where suddenly Alberto was in my life. Alberto is just a good guy… and I just mean good. He’s pure. If Davis is Spongebob, I’m Squidward and Alberto is Patrick. Only not as dumb. We don’t talk as much these days which makes me sad, but I love him too. Back in the day the three of us used to have group Skype chats and watch movies together. There was one day when Davis couldn’t make it or wasn’t online, and he and I just watched Hellboy and chatted for a few hours. That’s when Alberto went from being a friend of a friend to my friend. I’m glad he’s my friend.

@thejazzdalek: Max is another person, like Gil, who I’ve never really had a discussion with? He’s followed me for ages though, both on tumblr and on twitter and I appreciate that. I don’t really know him that well after all this time, embarrassingly. He seems like a nice guy, though. Big into Doctor Who, OUAT, DC, Marvel, just sci-fi and fantasy in general.

@timelessmulder: Emily-Alice is someone who I’ve been mutuals with since like 2012 I think. I don’t even know if we’re in the same fandoms anymore, but we keep following each other regardless. Over the years we’ve discussed everything from OUAT to DC, and these days when we talk it’s mostly to pick apart The Flash. She’s someone who has been with me for ages though, and has seen things.

@uhohjonsnow: So Betty is one of the first friends I actually made on tumblr when I engaged in fandom? I was an obnoxious teenage white boy who thought he was straight and acted like it, and she tolerated me anyway. Again, she’s someone who was witness to a lot of nonsense. We really were dicks to each other, lmao. I adore her though, bc she really is sweet and laid back. We went for years without talking,not due to any falling out, but we just drifted apart. She actually took a year off tumblr and recently returned, and we reconnected. She also accidentally deleted her blog and started fresh, so um, go follow her!

@uminoko: We’ve been mutuals for like years, and she’s just a nice person? Again, that’s a pathetic compliment, but it is true. She’s also another individual who I feel I’ve learned from by following? Part of that has to due with her being a former civil rights lawyer, but beyond that she’s just yet another smarty pants who I don’t talk to that much. She also  messaged me privately when I came out, and made me laugh when I needed it. Also, she’s an actual Russian who is a fan of Black Widow and Winter Soldier.

@uncleclustersthirdbrain: Donnie. This might be a little weird, because Donnie and I only reconnected like two weeks ago after three years of not really talking to each other? Again, there’s no bad blood, and he deserves to be on here. I’ve actually known him for five years, we met through his girlfriend Morgan. Donnie’s another person who has seen things, re seen me at my worst. Most obnoxious, outspoken, salty, dickish… and so on. I’ve always sort of looked up to him, though? Back when 17 going on 18 year old Tim met him, there was a sort of ‘notice me sempai’ thing going on. He’s yet another person who is too cool for me. In spite of toolish tendencies, there were times when Donnie reached out to make sure I was okay when I was being dramatic and having anxiety attacks over damn comic books. It sounds ridiculous, and it was, but at the time comics were my escape and how I dealt with a lot of tough shit I was going through. I was invested. Heavily invested, to an unhealthy degree. He’s just a good person who cares about his friends, and people in general. He’s also a fucking brilliant writer, who just recently put out his first comic. So I’m going to use this as another excuse to pimp it for him. Not because he’s my friend, but because I’m a selfish bastard who wants to read more and wants you to give him money so he can make more. He makes no personal profit from it, all the money goes towards paying his artists and the production. I’ve pretty much walked away from buying monthly comics, but as I’ve told Donnie, this is one I would pull. The first issue of And The Hare had some of the best dialogue I’ve read in a comic in easily the last year. At least.

@xeleyan-tequila: I met Chelsea through the OUAT fandom, and like me she gave up on the show a long time ago. She’s another person I don’t really talk to that much these days, but she’s a lovely person with a lovely blog who posts a little bit of everything. There are personal details to our relationship I won’t get into bc it’s no one’s business, and though we’re still friendly we sort of fell out of touch. I enjoy following her though, and she’s a wonderful human being.

[ark-of-eden]

Accidentally drifting away from IDW Transformers?

(R:) I realized recently that I can't remember the last time that I bought, or even really looked forward to buying, any IDW TF comic. I remember a while ago when I was united with other fans who were excitedly posting things like, "Only three more sleeps until release!!" I used to mark release dates on my calendar and sit around on Comixology, refreshing the site until the early hours of the morning so I could get issues right when they came out. My life's been in kind of a shitty place for a while, but IDW TF stuff used to be one of the few things that actually got me excited and that I looked forward to. Now I just kind of...vaguely recall that new issues have been happening when somebody posts a screencap that I haven't seen before. I don't really know what's been happening since I suddenly stopped reading months ago, but since people are barely posting spoilers and big meta analyses anymore (used to be that the day after an issue dropped, screencaps and spoilers were so thick on the digital ground that there was no way to dodge it all unless you filtered everything), I suspect that a lot of other people are feeling this as well? Maybe? :/

When I tried to encapsulate what was causing it, the biggest reason I could think of was that a whole lot of things that were relatable to me or that were interesting just definitively ended all at once. Even though I was following several series, this sort of happened simultaneously in all of them, which caused that sense that IDW TF as a concept wasn't really relevant anymore.

Examples of things that are now gone that were evidently more important to me than I'd originally thought:

* TAAO ended, and it seems up in the air as to who is going to continue it (if they continue it somehow) and what they're going to do with the plotline and main characters despite the dangling story hooks. I admit that I haven't even bought the last issue because hell, there's nothing coming after it, and this way I can at least pretend that it's still ongoing and I just haven't caught up. I was invested in Starscream because his situation mirrored some parts of my actual life, so I wanted him to succeed despite acknowledging his personality failings. Apparently there is good Starscream in that other Vs series that started recently and which I am so invested in that I can't even remember the name of it most days ("Starscream of Gor"?). But that seems to be Starscream chewing up scenery by being classically himself, as opposed to being something related to his TAAO character development.

* Megatron. It's not that his arc was bad or that the ending was bad, but interesting things were being done with him and now that he is gone all those interesting things are over. Previously, he was the Soulless Evil Warlord Who Keeps Being Disturbingly Heroic Sometimes. Then there was the weirdness of Autobot Megatron, which at least provided fuel for interesting philosophical thoughts. (Ravage is also gone, but he was underutilized, IMO, so there's the added tragedy of nothing interesting ever being done with him in the future.) I get that Megatron might be coming back later, but then he'll be...Atheist Jesus Megatron? I felt that there was more mileage left in him as he was, so even if the character comes back, those previous versions of him will still be gone.

* Tailgate. TBH, I think this was the last thing that I was curious about in post-Megatron LL plot country, because it was dealing with the transformation of a powerless person into an overpowered person and how he was changing, his relationships were changing, and it was all very complicated and muddy and fascinating. I'm sure that he'll be rescued eventually, but who knows when. In the meantime, there's a void where that whole plotline used to be.

* Skids, or specifically Dead Skids. Apparently there's a plotline going on where people are trying to resurrect him? And maybe they won't succeed, but the fact that this is even a thing made me realize that I've hit critical mass in my tolerance for people being Surprise Not Actually Dead. JRo has this weird reputation for being a monster who is constantly pawing the Sudden Character Death trigger, but he really doesn't kill main characters all that often. Trailbreaker/cutter and the DJD are the only main, ongoing characters who died and stayed dead, IIRC? Like, I really appreciated the emotional impact of Rewind's death, but a new Rewind showed up quickly and all that emotion went flat. Tailgate was dying dramatically and then got 100% better at the last minute. Pharma was infected with Robo Ebola, got his hands cut off and was left for dead in the middle of nowhere, was implausably rescued and got all better, got his head blown off, and is foreshadowed to be coming back AGAIN. (Don't get me wrong, my warped ass loves Pharma, but seriously??) Cyclonus dramatically shielded Tailgate from a hail of bullets and seemed dead, but showed up later with only cosmetic damage - Accidental Dead Universe No-Sell FTW. The entire cast, including bonus Overlord, got slaughtered, but it was another dimension so it didn't really count for anything (except that replacement Rewind). And Skids dramatically Died For The World's Sins and who knows, they might succeed in bringing him back too. I am actually cashed out on the experience of being emotionally affected by a person's death/dying only for it to un-happen shortly afterward. If you're going to tearjerk by killing people, just fucking kill people.

* The DJD. Tarn was another person who uncomfortably reminds me of me in too many ways, enough so that I at least wanted him to be around for a while so he could fuck up his life and everything around himself in relatable ways that encourage me to drink heavily. (I have a historical weakness for characters like him, so this isn't specifically a Tarn thing - Tarn's just the local incarnation of that type.) Character development for the rest of the guys definitely wouldn't have hurt either. Their deaths made plot sense, but they're gone now and I don't think they'll be easily replaced.

* Deathsaurus and his merry mecha. Sure, they're also still out there and are supposedly going to come back at some point, but they were interesting and now they're gone.

* Most of the interesting things in the Optimus Prime series, particularly now that Prowl is gone. Prowl jumped series and is now on LL Bad Cop Vacation on the moon? For some reason?? It was never clear to me why he got it into his head that he had to go there, but he is no longer pulling strings on half the plot and just seems to be retired. While I'm happy for him, he was a huge part of why I even bothered with that series. There's some interesting stuff going on with Optimus Vs Pyra Magna on the religious front, but LBR, that series is fucking crawling with humans and human concerns and all that crap, so I need a real good reason to spend time in that environment. (I deal with humans every day of my life. I don't need humans in my escapist media.)

* Nick Roche, may his sanctity endure forever, is done making Wreckers series? I think I heard? A portion of the perfect light of mercy has departed this sinful world forever. TTnTT

That's all that's coming to mind at the moment, but that's rather a lot of things that used to be vital to my interest and which are now gone. Mostly I read a whole lot of fanfic and get excited about those plotlines instead of whatever's going on in canon because people are still writing a lot of fic set back in the parts of canon where things were still cool. :/

I dunno. I'm sort of peripherally aware of what's going on, but it keeps slipping my mind to get recent issues and catch up. :( I'm not switching fandoms, so far as I can tell (is there anything besides TF and 40K where you can read an entire book with few or no humans at all? ...True, maybe those various YA series where all the characters are animals...), but maybe I'm just turning into one of those people who ignores current canon and hangs around in the rosy past instead? :/

[shadowtongued]

Meta: GALRA and similarities that Galra and Mahjarrat share.

send me a topic to write a meta about my muse on(no rly plz. almost anything is fair game. even grody/gory/immoral/nsfw shit. help me world-build a species/character with like hardly any lore)

forewarning: not all answers to this meme are canon, some is headcanon based on personal interpretation. differing opinions are a welcome thing here/on this blog.

blue, this is the fucking best question :,,)c , i s 2 g . this right here is one of the main reasons i NEED™ to sit down and write out a VLD verse bc, tbh, there are A LOT of similarities. some i probably haven’t even thought of yet.

i had waaaay too much fun with this. this was a fuckin’ 10/10 question.

- both are very warlike. galra more militaristically so, but mahjarrat parallel in the factor that where there’s a fight, there’s a chance they are interested. their whole home environment of freneskæ was essentially ‘if you survive maturity, congrats. you’re still eligible to die in a rejuvenation ritual for the better of us all. make sure you contribute to an enervation ( their breeding ritual ) so we don’t go extinct. no one really cares about what you think about it all.’ i have a feeling they would agree whole heartedly with zarkon’s statement of ‘weakness is an infection’ and the galran concept of ‘success or death’. they make it pretty culturally obvious through their rituals that only the strongest get to move their species forward and it’s super canon that despite the factor there is >10 mahjarrat left ( RIP what’s left of my baby boy tbfh post-endgame), those >10 are very intimidating and powerful through years of culling and being the winners. put it this way, unintentional genetic/natural selection took place and even their rituals ( which was stated after they were introduced, they literally built their culture around the rituals ) are super political; post-zaros’ banishment/post zamorak’s ascendancy and the factor that they SPLIT into two ‘political’ sides you win a fight and you kill the sacrificial kin/show your prowess over the others, you get to be closer to the ritual marker and get most of the energy. you drag ass and barely survive or just sit there and agree sycophantically with the others on a decision on who dies; you get to be in the back line and get just enough to get you through the next five centuries, sucks to be you. should have shown off and taken a risk.

- i’m not in the recent season yet, but from spoilers, i get the feeling in the past before the current paladins, zarkon/some galra were decently peaceful. which is cute. it kinda makes me realize before seren ( look, i love her but her choices had a huge impact : ((( ) showed them the rituals in order to preserve mah ( mother mah the stunted elder god who created both zaros, seren, and the four tribes, is by far my favorite ) the mahjarrat and other tribes were probably nothing more than little, confused nomadic people, worshiping their creator, who were probably hardly violent, if at all. seren’s implications of using the rituals to find a balance between the safety of mother mah and the four tribe’s population/creation to cycle energy between them all went haywire and ended up breeding hatred, spite, and hostility between each other, even what ‘family bonds’ they have are very, very fucking shoddy ( i.e; they aren’t above sending their relatives to slaughter: zemo turning on his cousin lucien ). it’s much like the headcanons i adore from you and your friends where some galra have no problem assassinating each other if they want a military rank freed up for thier possible taking.

- physiology wise? it’s not really too fuckin’ mentioned/paid much mind in RS but some mahjarrat look super fucking different from each other ( uhhh, pre-god, mahjarrat legatus zamorak has totally different horns than most of them and hardly any skull ridges ), hazeel bby obviously doesn’t count with his Massive Horns™ because he’s a Transformer: Mahserrat in Disguise, but some mahjarrat really look like they can physically differ a lot for being one tribe, out of four ( unless there actually was some form of breeding between tribes before they all in unison decided to Hate Each Other, we just don’t fucking know lore wise when it comes to pre-ritual/early freneskæ life ). just like how there are so many different galra traits, mahjarrat in RS kinda are streamlined for the sake of just….. being lazy and reskinning facial models, but i’m very sure and headcanon that some of them look vastly different from each other. i mean look at fucking azzy’s goddamn glorious chinspikes compared to the rest of them. look at how fucking towering at 8″ zemo and lucien are to the average 7″ of the rest. look at how only certain ones, sliske included, have more pronounced, horn like first ridges on their skulls. look at how some have one crystal in their forehead, and some have a whopping four or more. BREATHES DIRECTLY ONTO AND KEESES THIS CONCEPT ART OF MOST OF THEM.  i could go on. but in short, they have a lot of various species traits like galra. i love it. i love them both. they both have fucking wicked teeth and eyes. i’m 100% sure most galra could look at sliske/any mahjarrat and go ‘what fucking hairless subspecies are you?’ sans his obvious obnoxious yet fantastic taste in clothing, he physically might fit in**. low key strokes those stripes, don’t get me started. ** also, uh, there are so many inconsistencies in RS lore/concept art, i don’t at all accept that slissy has a fucking Stereotypical Villain Goatee™ in my linked fav artwork. he has nice chinspikes, not facial hair…. mahj just…. don’t…. fucking…. have hair. it’s not canon to me personally. we don’t talk abt that inconsistency, just like i refuse to believe in his horrendous endgame model and 360 personality change…… endgame sliske who???? who’s that??? i don’t know him??? n e ways…..

- they both can rely on energy sources: quintessence and the raw elder energy. galra can survive without it obviously versus mahjarrat very fucking much having a need for it lest they become skeletal and not as powerful. but it’s still neato they can absorb that tasty energy. 

- this is half baked and more of my yelling at a screen, but the druids totally, straight up, without a doubt, reminded me of mahjarrat. i remember just seeing that first fight between keith and the druid and later shiro with haggar and yelling in my room. the teleporting. the magic use. THE FUCKING SHAPESHIFTING AND ILLUSIONS. all of that is hallmark mahjarrat strats and i was just sitting there like (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و !!!! 

[miyaio]

desu2!!

desu 2 meta brings out the tl;dr beast in me b/c i’m always thirsty to talk excessively abt this game.

My favorite parent-child relationship

- i think otome and koharu win by default, tho io’s brief scene w/her mother and the background we get on her relationship w/her parents is v heart-wrenching.  i love the way otome’s single mom status is depicted–it feels very nuanced and sympathetic, without shying away from the way having parenthood thrust upon her would realistically impact otome’s life and koharu’s.  when otome mentions in tri arc that she misses being koharu’s mother, despite how selfish that would be (as it would come in exchange for her cousins’ lives), i teared up, ngl.  koharu herself is also really precious, tho i wish we had a consistent appearance for her–it seems to change between vanilla desu 2, ds2a, and tri arc?  

runner-up goes to airi and her dad, despite the fact that she thinks he’s dead.  the dera-deka sub-arc is well-worth doing at least once, imo.  it made me bawl, and it’s also necessary for 100% compendium completion.

My favorite sibling relationship

- can i say saiduq and the other septentriones?  yamato and miyako are the only sibs we see onscreen (tho airi mentions having a little brother), but tbh, i’m more interested in miyako’s side than i am in yamato’s.  what goes on in the septentriones’ minds–if they even have “minds” as people would perceive the concept–is fascinating to me, and i really wonder what saiduq thinks abt his former “siblings”.  does he simultaneously pity and envy them for lacking his autonomy?  does he see them as extensions of polaris’ will that deserve to be beaten down by humans?  the denizens of the akasha stratum are one of my fav aspects of desu 2′s worldbuilding, so i’m always hungry for meta on them.

My favorite family relationship (other)

- airi and ronaldo in a found family situation………  i love the way their dynamic develops, w/neither one aware of how strong a connection they really share.  i do wish we’d had more of them bonding over their memories of airi’s dad (which i’ve always hc’d as happening at least on egalitarian route), but seeing how similar the two of them really are is always cute.  airi loves her gay uncle 2k17

My favorite friendship between two people

- uffff this is so hard b/c i like a lot of my ships b/c of their friendships……..  ig i’d make it a tie between hibiki + daichi and jp’s trio’s dynamic as a whole?  even tho jp’s trio isn’t two people, haha.  one thing i really like abt hibiki in comparison to like, every male protag ever, is that it’s p heavily implied that he’s not popular at all.  the one thing ds2a did right was hibiki’s backstory, which i think still fits in w/gameverse!hibiki’s description as someone w/a “blank” past.  his friendship w/daichi and the relationships he forms w/the main cast mean a lot more in the context of daichi really being his only close friend at the start of the game, imo.  s/t i love abt hibiki + both daichi and io is that their friendships are based on equity, abt hibiki supporting the others and working w/them as equals to help them realize what wonderful ppl they are in their own right, rather than him being the ultra-charismatic authority who’s always Cool and in control.  like, this is the guy who has such Serious dialogue options as “RAINBOOOOOOW!!” and “tell everyone yr gay for yamato”.  hibiki being really isolated from most ppl aside from daichi feeding into his decision to pursue the human admin end of br is a meta for another time, ig.

jp’s trio’s various relationships are all v interesting, in terms of the spokes of the triangle and all three of them together.  it’s really refreshing to see that kind of dynamic between adult women who are professionals–their bond feels a lot less??  transient than it might between yet another group of high schoolers.  you get the sense that all three of them being adults is what lets their friendships bloom and be so important to them, as the people they were in high school are hardly the same people they are now.  the event in tri arc where fumi and makoto take care of a fatigued otome and tell her that she can lean on them, too, really made an impact on me.  all three of them play off of each other so well in a variety of settings, and it lends a v mature, multifaceted air to their dynamic.  otome taking a different faction than fumi and makoto, and how different fumi and makoto’s own reasons for joining yamato are, is also worth mentioning in that the three of them aren’t always in agreement, and that’s a part of friendship, too.  

My favorite friendship between a group

- team nagoya………  i’ll be the first to say that i dislike both the extremist routes.  whether or not the writers intended to make the player feel that way is subjective, and may well depend on where a player falls on the smt alignment continuum, or even on desu 2′s version of that continuum.  either way, i at least liked egalitarian better than meritorious b/c team nagoya has such a strong rapport w/one another, compared to the cognitive dissonance-riddled mess that is team osaka.  based on their dialogue from any daichi route, the members of team nagoya definitely know they’re not necessarily vying for the best solution to their very legitimate concerns.  they’re a lot easier to sympathize with b/c their grievances are very real–as joe says in “dream’s end”, while society may be growing less prejudiced over time, for many people, there is no time to “wait for things to get better”.  the problem lies much more in going thru polaris to make a change, as the ending p clearly (and horrifyingly) demonstrates that polaris just uses team nagoya’s passion for its own ends.  

at any rate, the interactions between the four of them are great, from ronaldo and airi’s aforementioned dynamic, to joe and otome’s complimentary playful attitudes, to how airi represents the future that all three adults are fighting for.  it’s really telling that team nagoya consists of three adults and one teenager–otome puts it most clearly in her post-defeat dialogue on daichi routes when she says that she was fighting desperately (yet short-sightedly) for the future of the world’s children.  imo, airi really represents that future to the three adults, as a teenager who has already had so many doors closed in her face due to inequity.  airi’s own stubbornness, selective self-flagellation, and issues w/moving on aside, schooling in particular really is s/t that can shape a child’s entire life, and i’m sure ronaldo, joe, and otome realize that.  so seeing how well all four of them interact w/each other and how airi represents both the best and the worst of team nagoya’s ideals def makes them my fav faction.

My favorite mentorship

- speaking of airi’s interactions w/the adult cast, makoto + airi is so good…..  i love how constructive makoto is w/airi, giving her the tools she needs to move forward in life w/o telling her to get over it, or denying that airi’s been screwed over by forces well beyond her control.  makoto’s not a perfect mentor, but (as her name suggests), she’s honest w/airi, and owns up to it when she reacts too harshly.  i think it’s great to see makoto helping someone in a way she knows for sure is right, in contrast to how uncertain her cognitive dissonance abt other issues in sep arc must be making her feel.  on the flipside, airi gets to begin moving forward w/life again, which in turn contributes to helping her reconsider her own alienating abrasiveness (can you tell i like airi b/c she and severa are so similar……).  the moral of airi and makoto’s mentorship isn’t “never ever give up on yr dreams b/c you can only ever have one True goal in life”, nor is it “there’s no need to challenge injustices done unto you b/c if you don’t rock the boat, life will move on eventually”.  airi’s sub-arc comes to a more nuanced conclusion, and i don’t think she could’ve gotten there w/o makoto’s influence.

My favorite rivalry

- does hinako and yamato count?  i love how often she calls him out, and how she’s not afraid of him in the least.  while i doubt yamato sees hinako as much of consequence, she makes her beef w/him plain, w/o going “DIE HOUTSUIN MY JUSTICE IS SCREAMING” ala ronaldo www  her voice is much-needed in a lot of situations, too.  her confrontation w/yamato over whether or not he cherrypicked the results of the medium compatibility tests to get rid of io is really well-done, esp if you infer that hinako knows abt io’s own disastrous confrontation w/yamato earlier on friday.

My favorite hatred/antipathy

- while i know miyako and yamato don’t straight-up hate each other, their dynamic as enemies (or at least in opposition to one another) is great.  i’m not just saying this b/c i love seeing yamato get dragged, i promise–there really is just s/t satisfying abt miyako not taking his shit at all, despite her own cognitive dissonance and his valid points abt the futility of her plan.  yamato -> saiduq is also fairly interesting, tho ds2a bloated itself so much w/a tepid exploration of how their dynamic could potentially be explored that i’m not too keen on meta-ing it more.  yamato is kind of a hate sink amongst the cast, tbh www  saiduq’s own rebel angel-turned-usurper dynamic w/polaris is p unambiguous hatred, but it’s v interesting, given how saiduq feels he has no choice but to die as polaris’ sword on every other route.  really seeing him shuck that alcor designation (ppl who call saiduq by that name when he explicitly says he dislikes it still drive me bonkers in 2017) and take up heaven’s throne is v satisfying.

My favorite potential relationship between characters who never talk in canon

- do u have a moment to talk abt how we were robbed of more io-joe interactions………  if anyone’s actually read this far, you probably do lmao  in any event, i think this is mostly a limitation of how the fate system is constructed, and you can see the writers stretching and experimenting w/it in tri arc.  if future desu games expand into s/t like fe’s support system, where you can see the fate system-equivalents between all characters, sometimes w/o the protag even present, i think that’d be a great step forward.  i bring this up for one area in particular where i really wanted to see more joe-io interactions: on tuesday, after io’s parents die.  joe has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line in his own fate system w/hibiki abt how his own parents are dead, but it’s not framed in a more genre-typical “tragic orphan backstory” way.  it really raises the question about when someone whose parents have died is too old to be called an orphan, given that joe is only 25.  

this dialogue suggests that the losses are then fairly recent, tho joe writes them off w/his patent-pending brand of escape-avoidance.  for all his flakiness (his term), tho, joe really does try to fill a big brother role for tokyo trio, and this is where i think he and io could have some v fruitful interactions.  i think that most of the cast isn’t really faced w/the immediacy of the high likelihood that their families are dead, w/the exception of chars like joe, jungo, airi, and keita, who all lose parents prior to the game.  io, on the other hand, watches her mother die in her arms.  she displays astounding resilience and focus in how quickly she draws herself back together after the loss, despite her r5 confirming that she had pretty constant suicidal ideation throughout the rest of the week (and quite possibly before the game, too).  as joe is the closest to io out of the four aforementioned characters at that point in the game, i really, really would’ve loved to see his take on providing her comfort and guidance in the wake of her sudden loss.  i think it would’ve been a good set of conversations for both of them, especially if you buy into the reading that both joe and io let themselves die should the player fail to prevent their death clips.  in this respect, i’m interested in the similarities between joe and io, and i think a good heart-to-heart between them early on in the game would’ve led to a variety of other interactions.

[janiedean]

Meta question: If Cersei and Robert both died very young (may the gods be thanked) and left the trio orphaned young, how would Jaime as the next of kin be as their guardian/dad? Canon and Modern AU meta welcome, I just simply want a universe where Jaime can actually be a dad to his children for once. IDM

hmmmmmmmmmmmm WELL let’s count that all of the kids have to be born before the parents sadly leave this world and the ages - there’s four years between joff and myrcella and one between myrcella and tommen.

now, before I go into it, canon-wise I honestly don’t know if he’d be given a chance to parent them FULLY anyway because he’s in the kingsguard and unless someone appoints him as joffrey’s hand (doubtful given that the one before was jon arryn and everyone bar the conspirators was fine with jon arryn) at most he could like BE NEAR THEM and shit but not fully get custody or anything unless he wants them all to die. I would suppose that given a scenario in which cersei/robert die when tommen is idk ONE (let’s spare him and myrcella trauma), myrcella two and joffrey six people would appoint jon arryn as a regent or co-regent with stannis or something until joffrey comes of age and at that point one would think that if he was six there’d be time to, er, deal with whatever issues robert and cersei’s parenting had created at that point (I mean at thirteen he’s what it is EXACTLY because he’s the kind of person who’s never been told no in his life but at six I suppose that if you take that away immediately you can still put a remedy to it). at that point I guess he’d do what he tried to do with tommen in affc and he’d have been a lot closer to them than he is in canon but like, in that sense. I don’t really think there’d have been a way to do it even if he gave up the KG and got married, because as far as everyone knows they aren’t his kids and they’re heirs to the throne, you can’t just raise them somewhere else.

now, MODERN AU would be a lot more interesting because he could actually ask for custody as next of kin without people knowing he’s the father and if no one on robert’s side is interested they would most likely go to him. since at this point we’re in full-on fanfic territory let’s go with two scenarios.

scenario one: the one stated above where he has a one year-old, a two-year old and a six-year old on the way to become a little asshole in training. I think:

in this case tommen and myrcella would actually get spared a lot of shit because tbh they wouldn’t even remember robert/cersei at that age, which means that bar the fact that going from living alone (or with your girlfriend lol) to HAVING TWO KIDS THAT YOUNG AT ONCE would cause him endless sleepless nights and to completely renew the house (you need toys/beds/supplies and shit) he’d be fairly good with it because hey they’re not even old enough to go to kindergarten, he doesn’t exactly have to break out any special parenting skills

(that said: if he lives with brienne she’d go like ‘WELL FINE I FIGURE THAT DISCUSSION WE HAD ABOUT KIDS SOMEDAY IS SETTLED’ and they’d split 50/50, if he lives with idk BRONN that’d be about the most hilarious shit ever but nvm)

joffrey would be way more complicated because again, young enough to still avoid major damage but not enough to have not absorbed cersei + robert’s Bad Parenting TM so while jaime tends to be the good cop he’d end up having to play the bad cop for a while ie giving the kid some limits, actually not justifying everything he does and telling him no and cooperating with the teachers and so on

(joffrey’s teachers weep in joy when he shows up at school like ‘oh yeah my sister was terrible we need to make sure he doesn’t think being an asshole to other kids is fine LET’S COOPERATE’ because until then they just got cersei absolutely denying that her kid couldn’t be Perfect TM)

EVENTUALLY he’d manage that after like months of trying eventually joffrey turns out not the best person ever but way better than canon all praise

(this with brienne playing the extra bad cop, bronn going like ‘kid my parents broke my nose when I was twelve you should think about how HORRIBLE you say jaime is to you’ and tyrion getting calls at random times with jaime ranting like HOW DID I EVER SEE ANYTHING IN MY SISTER SHE WAS TERRIBLE AT PARENTING TOO)

scenario two, slightly more complicated:

if we make them slightly older (idk four/five/nine) you get the Possible Angstiest Scenario because obv. joffrey would have had time to cement his bad habits and to be terrible to the both of them, which means that the moment they change environment and the responsible adult(s) side with tommen/myrcella rather than him it’d make AN INTERESTING SITUATION

(in which if brienne or bronn or anyone else is involved it becomes even more tense *violin music*)

because of course joffrey wouldn’t take well to suddenly being in the minority or being told no or being given limits while those other two poor souls couldn’t believe someone’s finally sticking up for them in the house damn it

tbh this one situation would end up with family counseling or smth especially if the other two have issues tied to either the bad parenting or joffrey or both but as far as jaime’s concerned he’d suck it up and go because he’s doing this seriously damn it

(obv. tommen/myrcella are like NEW FAVORITE PERSON [if brienne’s around most likely she’s the second new favorite person], joffrey’s like I HATE YOUR EXISTENCE)

so that would be more angst fodder X°D but anyway 100% he’d try to step up to the game and when in three years he realizes he totally has this parenting gig down however it goes he’d be like ‘WELL LOOK AT THAT I MADE IT’ ;)