#the issue is sorta vague on purpose but yeah

[yuckydraws]

Sleepless, Snowy Nights

Pairing: (Wine/reader)

~~~~~~~~~~~

You sigh as you watch the falling snow, your breath clouding around you for a moment, before dissipating. You have work in a few hours. You should at least try to get some sleep. Yet, your bare feet don’t move from the cold concrete of the back patio. The brisk chill of the winter air should feel frigid, but after the nightmare you just had, it grounds you. These past few days have been full of stressful, restless nights, and you’re starting to feel the effects.

The end of December, and the first snow of the season is finally here. Chunky, full flakes fall delicately on the grass, slowly yet surely covering up the green.

It’ll be a snow day tomorr- er, later today.

But for now? It’s just quiet. A quiet that only a good night-snow creates. Cars rarely fill up the roads, it’s too early for the plows to be out, and it almost seems as though everyone else in the world is peacefully asleep.

Except you.

“MY LOVE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE IN JUST YOUR PAJAMAS?” You hear your ‘mate’s voice call as the back door creaks open.

And Wine, apparently.

“Just watching the snow.” You answer softly, exhaustion creeping into your voice.

You turn your head to peek at him over your shoulder, to find him approaching you with a blanket. He drapes it over your shoulders, effectively covering most of your body, besides your feet. It doesn’t take him long to notice that, either, because just as he settles in, hugging you from behind, he lets out a small gasp and pauses in the kiss he was about to leave on your shoulder.

“STARS! NO SHOES EITHER? ARE YOU TRYING TO GET SICK?” He chastises, adjusting his hold so that he can instead scoop you off of your feet - holding you in a “princess” style. Once there, he uses his blue magic to tuck your toes under the blanket and cocoon you in. “THERE.” He smiles, satisfied with his work, only to falter when he meets your tired gaze.

“… WHAT’S GOING ON?”

That’s all it takes for your lip to start quivering, and your eyes to well up with tears.

“Oh Dear, Let’s Get You Inside, Hm?” You just bury your face into his chest to avoid answering.

You hate crying.

Shaking, whether from the cold or from the pure exhaustion you’re experiencing, you’re not entirely sure. Nor do you really care.

Wine squeezes you close to him, opening the door with his magic, and closing it behind him. You hadn’t realized just how cold you were until the warm air from your heated home engulfs you.

He doesn’t take you all the way to bed, like you were expecting him to. Instead, he beelines to the living room, carefully sitting on the couch, cradling you in his lap. You just let him adjust your body, too tired to bring your face from its hiding spot. His carefully manicured claws move to stroke your hair, and you feel his worried him reverberate through his ribcage from where your face his pressed against him.

He doesn’t push, or prod, or rush you, he simply lets you release a little bit of that stress into the embrace - and it doesn’t take long for your tears to slow to a stop.

Even crying seems to take up too much energy.

You risk peeking up at your ‘mate… only to find those knowing lights of his trained on your face.

There’s no hiding from Wine. Stars knows you’ve tried.

“IS THIS ABOUT YOUR DOG?”

“… kinda.”

“THE HARDEST PART IS OVER. HE’S OKAY. YOU’RE THE ONE WHO’S NOT OKAY. DON’T THINK I HAVEN’T NOTICED HOW YOU’VE BEEN SLIPPING AWAY FROM BED AFTER YOU THINK I’VE FALLEN ASLEEP.”

Busted.

“I-I just didn’t want to wake you. Just because I can’t sleep doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

“I BEG TO DIFFER, WE BOTH KNOW THAT I RUN JUST FINE ON A FEW HOURS OF SLEEP. YOU, HOWEVER, BECOME A WALKING ZOMBIE.”

You scoff.

“I do not.”

He deadpans.

“BUN, WHY ELSE WOULD I FIND YOU HALF NAKED OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW?”

“… I don’t find you funny.”

“THAT LITTLE SMILE YOU’RE TRYING TO HIDE SAYS OTHERWISE.”

“Wipe that smirk off your face.”

“NEVER.”

You grumble, knowing you’ve ‘lost’ this round. He is right, though, you can’t keep having sleepless nights… it’s really getting to you.

“WHY IS THIS HINDERING YOUR SLEEP? I KNOW YOU’RE WORRIED, BUT-”

“What if I wake up and he’s gone?” You interrupt, causing his jaw to click shut as his sockets widen ever so slightly. “A-and I would’ve had the chance to help but I was fucking sleeping, and he was just alone in the end?”

Oh, well, hello tears, nice of you to make another appearance.

“Oh, My Love… I Hadn’t Realized This Was Getting To You That Much. I Am So Sorry I Assumed You Were Okay.”

“‘s fine.” You croak, wiping at your face.

“It’s Not, Though, I Did Exactly What Those Assholes Used To Do To You.”

You bite your lip to hold back a rising sob, taking a deep breath, instead. Your next words need to be spoken with certainty, not shakiness.

“You’re not them. You couldn’t be, even if you tried. Despite not being a big fan of dogs, you’ve been loads more supportive than they ever were.”

“I Appreciate That, But I Should’ve Been More Mindful, I’m Sorry.”

In lieu of answering, you just reach up to flick his nasal cavity, causing him to scrunch his face up a bit.

“Stop apologizing for something that isn’t your fault.”

“OKAY, OKAY.” He cracks a smile at you. “BUT, YOU KNOW… YOU ARE SAFE TO SLEEP.”

“B-but-”

“HE’S OKAY. HE’S JUST RECOVERING AND HE NEEDS TIME. AND SLEEP. JUST LIKE YOU, BUN.”

“Okay, b-”

“AND, WE HAVE THE WORLD’S BEST ALARM SYSTEM, ON THE VERY UNLIKELY CHANCE SOMETHING DOES HAPPEN - HIS SISTER WON’T LET HIM MAKE A PEEP OF STRUGGLE WITHOUT ALERTING THE WHOLE HOUSE.”

You snort.

“… I guess you’re right.”

“I THINK YOU WILL FIND THAT I USUALLY AM.”

“Okay, mister, tone it down.”

“ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE SO TIRED.”

“Lucky me.”

He just chuckles at your grumpiness, leaning down to press a skele-kiss to your temple. You can’t help but lean into the affection.

“MAY I BRING YOU BACK TO BED?”

“Are you coming on to me right now?” You tease, earning you a roll of his eye-lights. Your giggle turns into a squeak when he pinches your bum and all but tosses you over his shoulder as he stands up.

“ALWAYS, BUT WE BOTH KNOW YOU DON’T HAVE THAT ENERGY RIGHT NOW, SO HUSH UP.”

“Ppppprrt.” You blow a raspberry in response.

“MATURE.”

Your cackling takes on a little bit of a hysterical form, but it feels good to be laughing.

It’ll be okay.

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

Damn now other people are starting to send asks...I need to up my annoyingness ante more /joke /lh Kazui and Amane will be the last two I ask about since you already did posts on them, and Es and Jackalope will be the next one, so as I see it the next one on the list isss...Yuno! She's currently fighting in my mind to turn my favorite quintet into a senary because one of my friends really likes her and it kinda got me to analyze her more, so I'm interested to see what you think !

Yeah I don’t why why everyone suddenly started sending asks I wonder who gave them that idea Õ_o /j /lh

CW: Abortion, sex work, suicide.

Uh… so you know when I said Shidou was the character I thought about the least? I… may have deadass forgotten Yuno existed when I said that ngl. I’m sure I’ll go insane over her when I get to analyzing her videos more in depth, but for now she’s kinda flown right under my radar. I’m sorry, I just weirdly can’t find it in me to care much about her. Obviously it's perfectly fine for others to enjoy her, and I don't think there's any major issues in her writing, it's just I can't get too invested.

I mean, it’s sorta similar to the Mahiru situation for me. It’s implied by the fact she really doesn’t seem to care about money that she was engaging in compensated dating just for fun, which… I just can’t relate to, I don’t like sex or dating. But sure, stay safe and slay or whatever.

(T1) Q20: The most expensive thing you've ever bought?

Y: What did I buy? I think a stuffed animal.

(T2) Q7: What would you do if you receive One Million Yen and you must spend right now?

Y: I'd have a nice meal with my family, then give them to my friends.

Now, I actually could sorta relate to her whole deal about always seeking “warmth” because she always gets bored of things easily (I think that’s what’s going on anyways).

(T1) Q24: Do you have a future dream?

Y: I wish I can find something I can really get absorbed into.

Me before DRDT and Milgram.

However, I just feel like it’s not explored in a very interesting way? She's not exactly Veronika Grebenshchikova you feel. Maybe I’m missing something, but “bored girl finds a hobby” is not the most compelling storyline in Milgram. Am I supposed to be scandalized by her compensated dating? Cause I’m not. I’m not gonna tell her how to live her life.

You could argue there's maybe safer and possibly better things for her to get into, but any actual discourse which could exist around that part of her story comes from the subject matter more than Yuno, if that makes sense. And I'm just personally not very informed in the whole subject of compensated dating, plus I find it a bit uncomfortable to research too much for personal reasons, so I feel like I can't fully immerse myself in it.

Which gets us to her “murder”, and I’m gonna be honest, I feel there’s some kinda culture shock thing going here. Because a big part (read: the main damn point) of her second VD is that it’s stupid we try to justify her actions for her, that we pity her without knowing the full story, that she doesn’t want to hear our excuses for being forgiven, etc…

Tear Drop: Feeling magnanimous? INNOCENT? I'm so not that

(2nd VD) Y: Even if I was scorned by you, I would have been okay with being told I'm not forgiven. I don't believe I'm not in the wrong. I'd accept it.

So she doesn’t think she’s innocent necessarily. She speaks vague on purpose, but that’s what’s she’s getting at. She thinks if we vote her innocent it must be because we’re looking down at her or assuming things about her life which aren’t true, it’s the main point of Tear Drop.

But… We don’t need excuses, Yuno. You did nothing wrong.

I usually say that as a joke, but here it’s just true. And any kind of moral ambiguity which may have existed is completely thrown out the window by the fact we’re comparing it to actual first degree murder. Girl we forgave the fucking organ harvester three numbers away from you why do you think we need excuses to forgive you? Innoing her is the easiest decision in all of Milgram imo.

Like I said, possibly a cultural issue? It’s not like I live in a particularly progressive country, but in the online circles I run in its very much accepted abortion isn’t murder. Yet, that’s not what she believes.

(2nd VD) Y: I have no intent to say abortion isn't murder. I'm a respectable murderer.

Or… does she?

(2nd VD) Y: To the extent of understanding the feeling of actually taking a life... I couldn't feel that that was a life. A discomfort and…the sensation of a foreign body….

Girlboss make up your mind.

The point is that she even regrets what she did, and wishes she could have prevented it.

(T2) Q10: If you could turn back time, would you commit the same murder once again?

Y: I'd make sure that I won't have to commit it. That's it.

In any case, I hope I'm making some amount of sense, and I can get across why I struggle to really get invested in analysis of her. Sorry.

Of course, voting isn't the only aspect of Milgram, but I also just don't find her personality and character arc all that interesting. Personal opinion, I don't think it's badly written or anything, but I just find it significantly less interesting than other characters.

That said, the most interesting thing to me is that she might be dead?

Y: Oh! Also, that reminds me, there was one thing I'm curious about. Es: What? Go ahead and say it. Yuno: Am I…really alive? Es: That's…what do you…. Yuno: Hm…if you don't know, then it's fine. Es: Yuno…. Yuno: Hey, it's time, right? Es: Y-yes. Prisoner number 2, Yuno. Sing your sins.

That's peculiar. Given the Haruka suicide theory I brought up in my post about him, it's definitely a possibility she's dead. It's possible she went through an unsafe abortion, given this question:

(T2) Q20: Did you hate the person you killed?

Y: It was too much of a pain to for me to think about anything.

So there's potential death one. Potential death two is her Undercover silhouette shot.

Given I have no idea what the deal with this scene is, it's possible she jumped from here? I guess she does fall from stairs at the end of Umbilical, although she lands upright, though maybe that's her landing in Milgram? The issue with this suicide idea is this answer:

(T2) Q17: How many years do you want to live?

Y: About 40 years would be just right, I think.

... Okay, well, that's a concerning answer, kinda wish we got a bit more insight into what the deal is with that, but the point is she's currently not forty, so.

Anyways, that aside, I don't know what else to say. Yuno really hasn't rotted my brain as much as the other prisoners, so, uh, sorry I can't go any deeper atm. I feel kinda bad I can't say anything more positive since you clearly like her (_ _). Hope it's alright! Take care!

[whatnext]

skz as ppl i’d have a crush on: BANGCHAN EDITION

school AU type beat ! this is all fluff

A/N: it’s been a minute since i’ve written and consumed any fanwriting so expect it to be messy and tangential. anywayz brief series of whatever this is (is it a scenario?? I RLY DON’T KNOW)

the only reason you know him is because he sits in the row in front of you during english.

super polite to the people sitting around him. would give you a wave once in a while 

absolutely nails every socratic circle. the teacher loves calling on chan for questions because he knows exactly what difficult-to-interpret themes the author is conveying.

and you have to give it to him, he really does have a way with words. his slam poem presentation for the poetry unit was brilliant. 

you made an effort to remember him. he just seemed so interesting.

so interesting and yet so. incredibly. BUSY

he’s an athlete. like a swimmer or soccer player? maybe he runs track? or all three? you just see him all over the place.

he’s also in a big friend group because OF COURSE he’s the type to get along with everyone. he’s always posting about how crazy his night was or something

you think he DJs? or he goes to raves? his story has lots of loud audio and shaky camerawork of him next to some speaker. maybe he makes his own music?

you’re pretty sure he doesn’t sleep.

you’re convinced that chan is just an enigma for you to never know. and you made peace with that; english class would suffice.

but one day (pretty sure it was a tuesday, ugh) he’s walking down the hallways with his friend group, laughing super hard at something stupid one of them said, and one of them bumps into you hard

you end up dropping your things and you want to scream how awfully cliche this all is, but your only reaction is the embarrassment burning your cheeks.

his friend shrugs it off with a halfhearted “i’m sorry” but chan makes him apologize sincerely and helps picks up your items

him: “you okay?”

you: “yea... he should watch where he’s going though.”

him: “yeah, sorry about that. he’s stupid, but he tries” he shrugs, ignoring the outburst of denial from his friend, “anyways this pen is yours?”

you: “yep, thanks. i gotta run to class, like, right now though.”

him: “atta girl. don’t be late.”

and just like that you leave.

ohmygod, he said ‘atta girl’  not gonna lie, it was sorta hot.

feeling: fuzzy

now that you think about it, he’s like a super sweet, kinda goofy reincarnation of shakespeare (”grow up” was such a good poem, you really can’t get it out of your head. it should be a song or something)

soon, you’d be making an effort to catch his eye during english.

when he walked in, you’d smile vaguely in his direction (don’t want to seem to desperate)

he’d smile back at you or maybe he was smiling at the person to your left, han jisung, making another fart joke, who knows?

during socratic circles, you’d add onto what he was saying and build upon his point. you were definitely building tension in there with that one.

whenever he needed to borrow something, you were always willing to help (he ought to notice your kind, generous heart). need something to write with? you had an extra pencil. another sheet of paper? yes, my liege.

you SWORE that you were sending so many signals, but after two weeks of the effort, you decided it was best to be upfront and ask him for a study date because you’ve suddenly forgotten what rhetorical appeals are (how convenient, almost like it was for this very purpose!) and chan is the best person to ask for help in the class.

he’s pretty friendly so you weren’t too nervous about approaching him.

you checked yourself in your phone camera one more time then decided to make your move.

you lightly tapped on his right shoulder, “hey chan!” 

“oh hey,” he grinned (so cute, he has nice dimples) “what’s up?”

“nothing much really... actually, i came to ask you about something”

“yeah sure of course, ask away.” he’s so earnest about it too, you kinda melt a bit

“so i was wondering,” you began “well if it wasn’t too much of an issue..” (admittedly you began to stall. you were getting nervous to ask)

then, your deskmate and cockblocker extraordinaire, han jisung, butts in before you can even finish your statement.

“hyung, we got a gig tonight and i need you to listen the beat i’ve been working on,” jisung says at rapid fire speed “see, hold up, let me pull it up. it’s on my phone, gimme a sec...”

“jisung, i-” chan raises his hand to stop his ramble, but han keeps going.

“see i added this guitar part and it sounds hard asf, but like i need you to come up with a couple bars. or we could get seo to freestyle over it...”

chan looks over at you and mouths a quiet “sorry.” 

you nod in understanding. after a few months sitting next to jisung, you knew once he gets going, he doesn’t stop (endearing really, but if you could fight him in this moment you would)

after a solid three seconds of waiting to see if jisung would stop, you knew it was your cue to leave.

you grab your things and wave a subtle “goodbye, i hope you knew i was about to shoot my shot” at chan.

he gives an apologetic smile and brings his hand to his mouth. “text me” he mouths.

with that sentiment, you rush out of the room, stupid smile plastered on your face.

you were about to pat yourself on the back and congratulate your undeniably smooth pickup skills before you realized you forgot to ask for his number.

pain.

man, you really really hate crushes :,)

[fire-lady-ilah]

Thank you to @theboyfrommakapu for the tag! Post under the read more.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

26 total (although I think I have 2 or 3 that I either orphaned or deleted, can’t remember) on uhmeduh.

Oh, and 2 on another account I made specifically for my bad 10 year old me’s fanfics. No, you don’t get that one.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

126 862. Which is, frankly, more than I thought. I think it’s grown quite a bit in 2021, to be fair.

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

7, according to AO3. One is an original work, so I guess 6? Except Far Cry 4 and 5 are considered different by AO3, as are Persona 2 and 5. I personally consider it like 4 or 5 fandoms.

A:TLA— 20 fics

Persona 2 & 5— 1 fic (crossover between the two)

Far Cry 4 & 5— 1 fic (crossover between the two)

PJO and related fandoms— 3 fics

Original Work— 1 fic

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Silence is a Virtue — 191 kudos

2. sometimes you’re born evil (sometimes you’re not) — 149 kudos

3. In Which Ajay Just Wants a Vacation — 91 kudos

4. musings of a common man — 75 kudos

5. Lost. [tied with] undercurrent — 37 kudos each

Silence is a Virtue and IWAJWAV are both multi chapter fics at 23.6k and 19.2k, respectively. sybe (syn), moacm, and undercurrent are all part of the same series of short fics and range from 4.4k (unfinished) to 7k. Lost. is a theoretical first chapter of a multi chapter fic. 4/6 fics are ATLA, 1 is Far Cry, 1 is PJO.

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

Yeah! I used to not because I’m incredibly awkward about it, but when I started commenting on fics myself and realized how nice it is when the author replies, I started doing it myself. I really enjoy recognizing regular commenters. I just need to stop talking so much about worldbuilding and hinting at stuff in my replies, I think ^^’.

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

Hm. Probably either what is a legacy to a dead man (it is worth far more to those still living) or Shattered Porcelain. The former is most likely more angsty to readers, but the latter holds a special place in my mind because I know my OCs intimately well.

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

Most of them, to be honest. I am, at my core, a fluff writer, even if I also enjoy throwing in sprinkles of angst every so often. The entire the dragon king series is going to end pretty happy if it goes according to plan. If I had to pick a finished fic then probably Apricot Blossoms— it’s just sweet kids in love, you barely notice the darkness on the horizon.

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

Kinda? Sorta? Not really? Two of my published fics are crossovers but they’re like, crossovers within the same extended fandom.

Oh, wait, that one fic I wrote and published when I was 11 was a weird Harry Potter and mild Avengers crossover. So yeah, I guess.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really, no. I occupy a pretty niche area in all the fandoms I write in, so you kind of have to search out the content I make. I’m also not popular at all in the grand scheme of things, which I’m mildly thankful for. I have some popular fic writers as friends and I see some of their commenters sometimes.

10) Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I guess? It’s not something I make a habit of, I just in general am not that horny, but I have one published smutfic on AO3 and a ficlet on Tumblr that, if it isn’t really classified as smutc definitely is close. The smut I write is pretty soft and loving and is exclusively LuZhao so far.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. If someone wants to I’m all for it, and theoretically I could translate my own fics into two other languages, but if there isn’t a demand there wouldn’t be much purpose other than me practicing. Who knows though, maybe one of my fics on my account will show up translated into French or Norwegian by me. Or maybe Russian, but that would be an effort. My Russian... isn’t great.

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

Currently (kinda, fixing my laptop has made it take a hot second) co-writing an OC centric fic with @theboyfrommakapu. I also betaread two of @izzymrdb’s fics, and she called me their coauthor in a comment once so... I guess that counts? I also had plans to make a massive crossover with my own fic and two of my friends but then I fell out of PJO and into ATLA pretty hard.

14) What’s your all-time favorite ship?

LuZhao, definitely. I’ve just created enough stuff around it to make it my favourite. I’m also quite fond of Jastavian in the realm of PJO.

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

I fully intend to finish my two main multichapter fics eventually, but I doubt I’ll ever finish Butterfly Kisses. Especially to the extent I have it in my mind.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Uh... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe worldbuilding within an established world? I actually prefer AUs to canon compliance, but when I want something to be canon compliant then I will make sure that it is as fully canon compliant as possible (or, to the extent that canon doesn’t contradict itself). For example, at the moment all of my OCs are completely canon compliant. If I somehow were asked to publish them, they would not contradict any existing work. I put a lot of work into my OCs and worldbuilding and it definitely shows.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

If you asked my girlfriend? My paragraphs are too long and I don’t know how to use commas. She’s right about that, of course.

If you asked me? I’d probably say something a little more vague. I’m bad at the whole “communicating just enough” aspect of writing (and of life). I tend to get absorbed by my worldbuilding and want to tell everyone every little detail, which makes no sense because you don’t need to know it for the fic’s promises.

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

So long as a translation is provided, I see no issue if it’s accurate. One of my first fandoms was Hetalia so... yeah.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I’m not sure if it was Harry Potter, Sherlock, or Hetalia. But it was definitely one of those three and I was about 10 when I wrote it.

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

Surprisingly I haven’t mentioned it so far, but solntse moye / luna moya. Azulon and Ilah have a relationship I really like, and they both have such distinct inner voices.

Tagging:

@percabeth4life @izzymrdb @crookedmouth-mountainbones @ohmygodtheywereparabatai (I know you write on Tumblr so this would be hard, but consider it another request for you to post your stuff on AO3 ❤️) @thetruecthulhu9 @ariya-167

[phoebehalliwell]

AU Chris is Paige and Richard’s son. What would his power be? What about Chris’ relationships with his parents?

chris being paige and richard’s son would like totally explain why he’s Like That actually that would be a great au so once again i’m gonna bring up my conspiracy theory that richard was dosed with the blood of some greater being as a baby by his parents in the hopes of making some superwitch but as we all know from dr curtis williamson of astral monkey fame receiving the blood of someone more powerful than u can create some disastrous consequences, which i believe is exactly what we see with richard and his fucked up relationship to magic given richards advanced powers (namely conjuration) and also the fact that the montana family probably didn't want it to be obvious that they y'know experimented on their kid imma say richard was somehow infused with avatar blood, seeing as they were basically unknown beings until s7, so no one would really be able to id his powers. i also think that explains how we saw richard get so insanely powerful towards the end like in i dream of phoebe he was even able to manifest a teleportation power through conjuration bc as we learned, avatars draw their power from a collective, so i’m positing that having a relationship with paige especially like y'know it's physical there's an intense emotional element that we see she even lives with him so like. it's a Relationship™. yeah that whole relationship only added to his own powers as paige sorta became his collective (i don't think this takes away from paige's powers at all more like if you shine a flashlight into a mirror it bounces back that light it's not taking away any light from the flashlight it's simply using what it was given to create more if that makes sense like in the abstract we don’t need to talk the physics of how light is reflected think of this in vague terms) so uh yeah that’s what’s up i think if richard did not have avatar blood he would just be a normal telekinetic which is a power we see him display at various points at just sort of a normal level couple that with the fact that paige is also a telekinetic and i think it is very safe to say that their child would have telekinesis i think telekinesis is the brown eyes of the magical world the dominant gene in the punnett square or whatever 7th grade was a long time ago i also think they are bound to some sort of teleportation power as both paige and richard can teleport i’d love to see it me some hybrid between fading and orbing as they are the first witchlightvatar i feel like they should have something wholly unique to show for it for another active power projection is an option as it is very close to conjuration while simultaneously being a power in the warren line but i wouldn’t want to give chris the same power as wyatt tho seeing as chris is a family name from leo’s side it wouldn’t quite make sense whenever i write about a paige/richard child i always call them bennie named after richard’s father which i think still works as chris is also named after his paternal grandfather but yeah the point i was making is having bennie travel through time and like exist in like this juxtaposition with wyatt idk i feel like it’s not as fun if they have the same power set so maybe i’ll take richards conjuring and modify it to match paige’s past life and say conjuring the elements? the entire montana family line seems to have energy balls as a power so like . that could add to that theory maybe. like the evil enchantress could conjuring lightning i think the avatars also had lightning powers but i think that was purely a leo addition and an elder power and paige has no ties to an elder status so. idk. i sorta like the conjuring the elements power i do think richard is the firstborn of his generation and paige is technically sam’s firstborn so i think they both get Legacy Points there and then bennie would go on to be the first born in the montana line so i think that could justify very op power like conjuring the elements i think that they would inherit some of richard’s mania to some degree i mean as we know there is a genetic component to addiction and both paige and richard have suffered from it but i think since the foreign blood is a) diluted and b) in a host with a greater power capacity (as we know, witches get stronger with every generation and adding a charmed one into the mix is definitely an added boost) i don’t think those genes would manifest themselves in the way they did with like richards obsession with magic however i think substance abuse and also probably and anxiety disorder are very much on the table if we’re talking bennie replaces chris as the one to come from the dark future quite frankly this kid’s gonna be more that a little fucked up bc lord knows nothing stable ever happened there i also think they wouldn’t be nearly as good of a liar as chris as i think they’re gonna have ten times more impulsivity i also think they wouldn’t tip toe around the truth so much like i know chris is really anxious about like negatively impacting the future i do not think bennie would give nearly as much of a shit like the future already sucks that’s why i’m here so Sit Down bc i have some Very Bad News for y’all i think like within the first ten episodes of season six bennie would have already made it very obvious that wyatt goes full dark no stars due to something that’s about to happen i do think they would wanna keep it under wraps about their specific lineage bc like they’re here to change a whole lot of things but i think they’d still like to exist at the end of the day but i do think that phoebe would find out and the news would spread i think in the light future without an evil wyatt bennie would not end up remotely as fucked up as they also probz wouldn’t be an orphan which i imagine is really likely in their dark future i think richard would strip his magic and live as a mortal but still teach bennie what he knows about magic and potion making bc like. he’s well verse. there are also a lot of montana traditions and secret recipes i think he would want to pass down but like not for one second i think richard would regret stripping his powers i think he would be making a potion with his kid and just be like yeah i’m so glad i’m not actually magical anymore this is just like making weird soup i’m not getting weird vibes and strange jolts of magic and funny voice in my head there’s no pressure to get it right if it’ll work or not i’m just here throwing ingredients in a cauldron w my kid : ) i also think richard would get like hella into tai chi or something very focused on medicine and alternative healing styles oh richard like paige was definitely also a pothead in high school but the point is bennie would be like very well versed in meditation and what’s it called not aromatherapy but like. apothecary? herbaltherapy? plantohealing? you know that thing people are into like teas and herbs that fuckin uhh help with colds and stuff basically like the non magical properties of the world in fact i think they’d be the most knowledgeable out of anyone from gen2 on like nonmagical uses for things like there are mortal ways to solve problems that can work just fine and i think yeah bennie does know richard’s past and the issues with magic i think that that’s something that personally scares them not enough to like not practice but like enough that they don’t ever like use magic for unnecessary purposes like they will Not be telekinetically closing the manor door shut at the end of the season they will be closing the door like a normal person that type of thing. in regards to a relationship with paige i think in the trying to fix the future part of this au bennie would get really close to paige bc like again paige probably was murdered in the dark future but i don’t think bennie would be like chris like she’s just gonna die so why get close i think bennie would really utilized the time that they do have to just like. be with their mom. i think paige would definitely be freaked to like be a mom bc she’s like woah i’m not that old and like have a 22 year old call you mom like definitely ages you but like i do think paige would see a lot of herself in her kid especially as this version of bennie like grew up really without parents and like this that and the other they’d also really remind paige of the kids she saw at social services and i do think paige would be very like mom-y around her kid like i would not describe paige as a motherly woman i would never call her the mom friend but like around bennie she like goes full mom like cuts crusts off sandwiches and everything mode (piper and phoebe find it fucking hilarious)

[lemongogo]

You know, I'm honestly curious about one thing, people in the bnha tend to dislike Endeavor (including me) but seem to like villainous characters like the members of the lov, who aren't good people themselves, what do you think makes a character likable or not?

yeah definitely !!

from the beginning, you’ve never been able to align yourself with endeavors goals or ideologies. at the most basic level, he derives a person’s worth based on the power of their quirk; aka people who have issues with their quirks (or even low profile powers) are inherently seen as “failures”(similar to what geten talked about during the mla battle). he’s abusive and selfish. his sole purpose for having children was so they could replace him in the battle to defeat all might and take the #1 hero position in his name for his honor. he beat his wife and kids. he emotionally manipulated them for years and didn’t give a damn about it. his very character goes against what it means to be a hero, yet here he is at the top. 

then, endeavor (rather, horikoshi) tries to kickstart a redemption arc despite not deserving it. the only catalyst that motivated his “desire” to change was the fact that he jumped into the number 1 position against his own terms, not because he realized he was a shit human being (although that train of thought does develop afterwards). he still hasn’t made any actual, concrete efforts to “atone” for his actions (as he puts it). all he’s done thus far is provide a vague apology because he’s upset that his family is at a point where they can personally confront him and call him out on his bullshit. even then, fuyumi is still holding the family together in his presence. he hasnt seriously tried to understand natuso’s emotions or viewpoint and he has yet to actually apologize to shoto about his behavior (not that it’ll change much). if you think about it, not a lot of time has passed between him telling shoto “this is why i created you” vs “my family hates me and is so much happier when im not around :’(” (maybe a few months in canon?). either way, it doesnt feel genuine and it doesnt replace the fact that he intentionally terrorized his family for personal gain. i think his character is so purposely flawed that we’re not supposed to like him (thus allowing us to sympathize with shoto, especially during the sports festival)

the league, however, have turned to villainy because of external factors. shigaraki, as we’ve come to find out, aspired to become a hero, for it was his desire to reach out and save people like nana did. but he was an unfortunate victim of circumstance, and he lost his entire family when he was just a child due to a spontaneous quirk mutation. worse yet, no one was there to save him. all for one, to shigaraki, resembles a hero in the sense that he was the only person to to help him out. it’s obvious that afo and ujiko groomed him into villainy by encouraging the development of maladaptive behaviors and unhealthy coping mechanisms. we can sympathize with him, mourn for him, and celebrate his achievements when he gets closer to acting on his own volition. dabi is also another good example, for he’s the result of all that is wrong with hero society. he was pushed to the brink of death by the hand of his own father and was continuously told he was too weak, that he “failed” in his “purpose”, etc. and that he has no worth in a society that only values strong and powerful quirks. obviously, the league isnt going to be perfect and you’re not always going to be able to agree with certain actions, but i think that’s sorta the point.

so the difference is definitely in ideology and circumstance imo. endeavor, a 46 year old man, consciously made the decision to harm his entire family for YEARS on end whereas characters in the league like shigaraki and dabi are the result of environmental and external influence (endeavors and afo’s abuse, spontaneous quirk manifestation, quirk disability, etc). 

i think what makes a character likable is either your ability to relate to them or their capacity to demonstrate change, neither of which endvr possesses 

[its-morphin-time-xiv]

Ooh! I'm excited to learn more! Three of Wands, and/or Six of Cups.

ー☆* Three of Wands - do you have any long-term plans for your character?

I do, actually! A few things I suppose, mostly out of purpose and goal rather than plan. But, yeah, i do. Minna is, well, if it hasn’t been notioned or picked up quite just yet, would and will be who this blog center’s around. I haven’t quite yet managed to adjust details and pictures to be more Minna but they are coming. 

As to how and why, well, how is by the typical comicstrip introduction i’ve done in the past and why? Well... Minna is a little lot less weighted down by what I’ve done with things through Belladonna. As much as I love my midlander as a character, she is very.... heavy to do things as, if you catch my drift. There’s a lot of history that’s tied into rather difficult aspects of the origin that aren’t... easy to play anymore. It’s not quite fun for me anymore to always be taxed by a character, so... Minna was my out and path forward. Bella will still get her share of love on this platform though, so don’t go missing her too much! 

After some placing and pacing and figuring things out logistics wise, Minna will be another chapter and new face in the Ranger saga I have planned as well. So I hope you look forward to it as much as I do!

All of that was a bit vague, but I don’t wanna spoil too much!

I’ll put the second answer below the cut!

◥█̆̈◤ Six of Cups - describe your character’s childhood in as little or great detail as you prefer. 

Here!

I tend to go on tangents and really.. just find it difficult to find stopping points but I haven’t really gotten to delve too much into Minna’s childhood beyond a few things so I’m happy I got this one!

Minna’s childhood was actually fairly mundane! She is actually the 4th oldest of her family, out of 6 children! 2 older siblings and 3 younger. However, she is the only one of her family to have left the village and not returned. 

Being a Veena, she grew up in the snowy forest mountain village, Kaslan. (Oh yeah, custom village lore... sorta.) Her first years, growing up, she was given string and woodwind instruments to learn and play, in order to properly follow her village culture and tradition. However, she was and is unable to play them to the capacity seen to fit for placement in proper jobs and roles in the village.So, she was given a town-guard status and was planned to be trained in such arts of the spear and bow in order to properly be a guard. Much like her aunt, ended up becoming her aunt’s favorite for that same reason. 

Unfortunately, however, at an early age, they had realized that Minna has rather poor memory tracking and memorization skills. During school years, she was found to struggle with some memorization tasks and such. Eventually, her teachers found that having her practice with memory games to help her pass her tests, like numericals, speaking classes and training! To be a village guard, one must be proficient in speaking local common for travelling merchants and such.If you think she was bullied and made fun of for her memory issues, you can be damn sure about that. Does she remember it though, that’s another matter. (she doesn’t.) There are things that she does remember though, like her family. They made sure that Minna remembers them rather well, and they did fight to protect her against those that sought to bully her during the school years. 

Since learning through memory games was her forte, she was also given photographs of certain events, people, and places to help her with things. And that practice has been maintained, so if she’s seen taking pictures, it’s more than just because she’s a photographer!

I hope that’s a fair start on her childhood for a few things! There’s more, of course, but I suppose we could be here all day if I had myway of it. 

Thank you again! I hope you enjoy these answers.

@pugsleybro

[plcasantnights]

eddie dean and his knowledge of previous turns 

if ka is a wheel, eddie dean has been on this bitch for too long 

( i’m tired and will probably revisit this at some point to change or reiterate some things but hi hello. )

ka is a wheel and it’ll always return to where it started. it’ll always come back to The Tower, The Boy, The Prisoner, The Lady, and The Gunslinger. all unaware of these turns, all unaware of having done this before, all unaware of their choices and their judgments being refined throughout the ages. 

in @gunslingxr and i’s lore, roland has lost gilead and his friends a lot more than just one lifetime. he’s lost them hundreds of times, thousands even. and he’s followed the man in black across the desert and he’s drawn the other three in for their journey to the dark tower. and they’ve gone to the dark tower before. they all know that place because that’s the beginning and end of all of them. 

eddie as he is on this blog has kind of stepped out of the frame in which the dark tower story takes place and that’s messed with his perception of where he should be in the story. he should be somewhere along the beach with roland, but since he’s stepped out, he no longer can really place himself properly. he has vague knowledge of what’s to come and what’s to happen because he’s done it before. maybe not this time and not as the person he is now, but he’s absolutely done it before. 

he can’t remember specific details. like, he won’t remember a conversation from however many turns ago and he probably won’t remember certain decisions, but he can remember larger things. he can remember events that left more of an imprint on him or gave him something that other turns hadn’t. generally he can recognize the others in his ka-tet. doesn’t always get the names but he can just sorta feel that pull and know “yeah this is right and this is what i do”. sometimes he can even retrace his steps from previous turns. 

remembering specifics about turns tends to yield mixed results. there’s information that’s left an imprint that won’t cause any sort of damage. remembering people in his ka-tet or retracing something he had done without thinking about what exactly he was doing it for are some things. sometimes, much like roland, he has flashes of intuition. generally these are things that he’d done or tried before. 

anything more specific than that tends to be messy and painful. trying to remember if he’d said or done something Before gives him nosebleeds and headaches. even thinking that there might have even been a Before tends to be pretty bad. everything that’s done in terms of “remembering” previous tries has to be done automatically rather than with any purpose behind it. he literally! cannot remember anything without his brain just saying “oh, no, not allowed” and blocking him of from it. 

it’s a defense mechanism and a hindrance. eddie would not handle knowing he’s done this all before very well. even just the suggestion kinda puts him on edge. but at the same time it’s an issue because he doesn’t always remember his mistakes. 

eddie has been doing this for a long, long time now and he’s getting closer to understanding that something isn’t right. but that all can change on another go ‘round. 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

so being abused the entire first 2 decades of your life: what’s up with that? Night Posts Edition

- classic when finding some “uh oh relatable!” content abt various Disorderres and there’s some thing like “many symptoms overlap with ptsd” and it’s like ooh which one is applying to me?? i mean spoilers the idea that The Grouping Of Non Nt Traits And Experiences Into Distinct Classifications is not actually...an exact science and for all intents and purposes it makes no difference if i am going “oh god #me” at an informative post about adhd if actually its ptsd acting exactly the same anyways so. but yknow it’s wild n zany being like “am i overstepping my bounds b/c this was caused by coping with trauma possibly? what audacity” and etc when it really....that doesnt matter....

- also ugh @ retaining things that downplay abusers’ responsibility for their actions (in specific things you’re personally dealing with, not like, as a general stance) and shift blame onto yourself like........you have to get so used to treating someone’s Abusive Behavior as something inevitable that you can’t ever expect them to stop doing, and thus pretty much considering someone abusive like a force of nature because they’re just gonna do what they’re gonna do whenever they next get Set Off rather than like.......a person who is responsible for their own behavior and in control of their own choices and like. especially zany when you’re a kid and they’re your parent so there’s the Power Imbalance of them being an adult and the other power imbalance of them being in control of your whole existence. but so like even just the other year i was taking the blame for calmly speaking back to a grownass man close to thrice my age raging at me and saying like, not verbatim but the idea of like “ugh i know it was partly my fault for even saying anything back to him because i knew he’d just continue to yell but unfortunately i just refuse to weather that kind of behavior without standing up for myself at all anymore” but like no!!!! that’s shifting all the responsibility for this other person’s behavior onto myself, like i Made him choose to shout at me at like 4am because he sucks and has some kind of superiority power trip issues. cuz i am well within rights to respond to anyone addressing me and it’s Not my fault at all that he chooses to react the way he reacts. 

- also that i was ready to excuse my being blamed for this by others because they were closer to that person than they were to me and i was gonna be like “okay i Get wanting to defend someone who’s closer to you” but no!!!! actually!!!! i may get it but i don’t condone excusing anyone’s horrible behavior in the least just cuz you know them or they’re friends or family or something. in fact that’s terrible. i’m just primed to be Used To It because of the weird situation of parental abuse where there’s other people also trapped in this location and daily life with an abuser and if someone “causes” the abuser to start being shitty then they’ll get blamed / resented for that. me and my siblings seem more like friendly acquaintances b/c we had to be pitted against each other in these kinds of ways for eons until we were all in our teens and got some more Space and kind of realized that we weren’t each others enemies and got closer and my dumb little brother was old enough to stop being a whiny binch and Owed me for helping him with math hw over the phone from 2 hrs drive away lol.....jk, sort of.....we did get along great eventually but then i left thanks to said abuse and us talking via twitter isn’t at all the same as us being able to talk in person :/

- also one thing that sometimes Strikes me is that when i’m like blandly recalling incidents of abuse like “oh yeah, that time” it bothers me less to think about stuff that happened to me specifically than to think about times it was Other people who were being treated that way. the latter was always equally or probably more upsetting and it always felt just as bad in the moment anyways, there was no major distinction in the Abuse In Progress experience if it was directed mostly on you than on other people

- all my life i’ve also been super stubborn which never helped and even Abuse MaGee would have to try to get creative with Disciplinary Systems and there was this golden “punishment” which was eat dinner in your room by yourself and i was like oh my god can i really. the horror of Family Dinner was like, this dark comedic farce playing out in that house for all our lives. christ. speaking of being stubborn this one time my sister cut my toe with a knife (half accidentally) because i refused to stop swinging my legs despite her holding the knife under the table lol and i also refused to tell on her b/c we were All In This Together (that is, Us vs The Abuser, which always took precedence over any internal conflict in our faction lol)

- always remembering how my “’”””””””defining”””””””””” trait was always getting good grades except the only reason i ever felt this pressure was the time my sister caught shit for getting a C, and i wasn’t even getting A - F letter grades yet and was already like jfc guess i can’t like....get a single C ever.....the joke is i’ve always been a godawful student who hates school, i just also managed to get great grades fairly easily, b/c of the devil probably. i’m sorry

- love to wonder what interests i might have been able to explore if i didn’t want to hide anything i was genuinely interested in and other True Thoughts And Feelings from my ‘rents. who knows!!! even now i’m not sure what i like and my vague ideas about it are all mostly In Theory and i don’t have any hopes and dreams b/c of never being able to really consider my own interests and desires and also because when every day of your life is basically spent in survival mode about everything else, that’s not really conducive to having dreams and ambitions. see also: like, being really poor

- The Weird Experience when only one of your parents is abusive and the other parent is also experiencing spousal abuse and so like, even though they’re your parent, you know that they don’t really have equal power as the abusive one because they too are being abused? it’s a complicated thing b/c that’s how every individual experience with abuse is (complicated). and so you’ve got this bizarre situation where maybe someone cares about you but they can’t really protect you from this other person. and like, my dad is crap and in some areas even a crappier person than my abusive mom and also i hate him, but i only hate him for certain things lmao not for being abused or some ways he tried to deal with it. i know what’s trash and what’s not

- the zany experience of No One Will Help You Ever.....lucky for me i eventually figured out on my own that what i’d been living with all the time had actually been abuse for real all along! and yet still i knew that like, there wasn’t much i could immediately do with that information because..........yknow, what do you actually do. i was basically already 18, so. and even if i hadnt been. there’s nothing to do for it!! just sucks to be you, basically. but an exception is that when one day i texted my friend to ask if i might be able to leave my house overnight and crash at their family’s place for a little bit, their parents immediately were like Yes Of Course and they let me stay there for a week and were very nice about all of it. between them and the nice trans lady who gave me some more Housing Assistance by letting me stay in her spare room for like, most of december.....my Allies. plus someone who talked to me via online once i bailed on my ‘rents! if they read this they know who they are and they have continued to be so kind and generous ugh love and appreciate you

- god just individual occasions of “THIS bullshit that i went through this one time” of especially ridiculous incidents.....i could go on for eons

- sort of tangentially related and related to the first point but ugh specific memories of Moments In Which It Continued To Be Revealed To Me That I, Individually, Was Prone To Being Kind Of Socially Ostracized.....like my ass started noticing that shit as soon as i was around other kids aka preschool aka 4 yrs old.......like i’m usually somewhat withdrawn and cautious and quiet in social situations especially what with the association that “misbehaving” = trauma exposure so, yknow, that might be a way that you’re pressured into just keeping to yourself and keeping your head down. but talk about “i don’t really relate to other people my age” lmao like i always preferred interacting with adults really while by and large dealing with the other kids felt like a challenge that i was never gonna actually come out on top of and i still remember individual Efforts i’d make to ~fit in~ and Participate that just fell flat or got me actively excluded....Ugh City........and it’s like, i could make a list of Social Traits i think i have that help make it difficult for people to be interested in interacting with me, or “contribute” to those joyous occasions when you get to sit back and take in the thinly veiled contempt directed at you by various shitheads, but like, even that’s not really the right way to explain it. its kind of more a Greater Than The Sum Of Its Weird Parts sorta combined experience where i guess i just have this kind of Negative Je Ne Sais Quoi that gets ya the social brushoff / rejection. c’est ce que c’est. the joke is i actually like people and socializing In Theory, i just usually don’t get to do it. shoutout to the advanced relatability of alana calling everyone Acquaintances b/c i literally did/do that lmao......like are we friends if we don’t talk all that often? it’s part on me cuz i’m crap at being the person to initiate conversation cuz too often i assume i’d be an annoyance and also b/c conversation with me is like, not great lmao but still......ce’st l’a v’ie

anyways (clip from that fuckin song where it’s like WHO CAN RELATE lmao.mp3)

[liskantope]

A meta-complaint about complaints

A lot of drama arises when people make complaints (for the purposes of this post, I don’t mean against each other, but just complaints in general). I would argue that at least some of this drama arises from misunderstanding, and this is all tied up with the fact that the concept of complaining is hard to talk about; a lot of the time we don’t realize that there are multiple senses of the term.

The first sense I’ll mention is the one that’s mostly likely to be considered obnoxious, which is when someone complains about some aspect (or many aspects) of their life and how bad it is. This is never in a context where the receiver of the complaint can do anything to fix the problem; rather, the only apparent purpose is to elicit sympathy or simply to vent. While this is something everyone is entitled to do from time to time among friends, it can obviously be an unattractive behavior if it goes too far or is done in a thoughtless way, for instance by exaggerating how much one’s entire life sucks or by implying that other people don’t have real problems compared to one’s own, etc. This is the kind of complaining that’s most often branded as “whining” and is frequently met with attitudes of “Nobody likes a whiner” and “Quit whining and actually do something about it.” For lack of a better term coming to mind at the moment, I’ll just call this complaint-as-venting.

A second sense is complaining about a specific thing that the listener can do something about, with the implicit or explicit intent of getting that person to remedy that thing. For instance, a guest in someone’s house might complain of being cold so that the host will turn up the heating, or someone might complain to their boss about the behavior of their coworker in hopes that the boss will intervene. I’ll call this complaint-as-request.

I first started thinking about this years ago when someone I knew in college was roundly criticized by those close to her for doing way too much complaining-as-venting; she seemed not to see the distinction between that and complaining-as-request and in trying to fix her behavior felt like she was no longer allowed to directly request things if in order to make the request she had to explain some way in which she was suffering.

(As I write this, I realize there’s another sense of complaint that kind of lies between these two, which I might call complaint-as-request-for-advice and is fairly hard to distinguish from complaint-as-venting. So the confusion deepens.)

Now there’s still another sense of complaint which, to my mind, isn’t even necessarily a complaint per se (see my example about speaking Italian below), where someone goes into an explanation of something in their life that they don’t like in order to explain a preference or decision. I’ll call this complaint-as-explanation.

Although I’ve vaguely considered all of this for some years, what spurred me to write this today is that lately I’ve been finding it particularly frustrating the way my complaints-as-explanation tend to get misinterpreted as complaints-as-venting (or complaints-as-request-for-advice, or even kinda-sorta complaints-as-request!), which makes me feel like a whiner and like a generally frustrating person when I then resist engaging with their assurances or suggestions. This is a difficult thing to socially navigate: if you express a complaint in the course of explaining why you want or plan to do something, and you’re asked to explain or elaborate on the complaint, the conversation winds up being entirely focused on your topic of complaint rather than on the expressed preference that brought the whole topic up.

To make my meaning clearer, I’ll get specific about the main context where this comes up for me nowadays. I get asked by people (on almost a weekly basis!) about how I like Italy and whether I plan to stay here. When I feel the context calls for an honest answer, I tell people that while the people here have been kind to me, I hope to leave Italy and that I certainly don’t intend to find another job here when my current contract is over. So then of course I have to explain to people why I really don’t like the idea of living in Italy in the long term. This mainly boils down to the most fundamental complaint I’ve had about my life for the last several years: that I’m starved for intimate relationships (I mean platonic as well as romantic). And I’ve gradually decided that it seems highly unlikely that this could get any better for me personally as long as I keep living in Italy. Therefore I want to leave and start a new life somewhere else as soon as I can.

But it turns out to be really hard to break down exactly what it is that I’m starved for in terms of forming close relationships or why the local culture makes it hard for me to do so as a foreigner. I get a lot of skepticism about my claims and why I’m so frustrated with life in Italy, and so I wind up delving into it pretty deeply, at which point it seems like I just want to vent or whine, or like I’m hinting to the person I just met that I want them to extend an offer to hang out or something because I need a better social life. And the fact is... at this point, in these particular months, I no longer care to better my social life here. This is mainly because I pretty much have to move out of the country late this summer when my job ends anyway, so there’s little point in trying to build close relationships, but also because I’m way busier and more stressed about work in these particular months than I have been usually. (And of course the suspicion that someone’s offer to hang out is largely motivated by pity only makes me feel worse about it.)

If I try to explain that I’m actually kind of busy and stressed at the moment and not up for much hanging out, then I come across as someone who just went on a big long rant about a problem that I won’t actually lift a finger to do something about. And if I try to eschew people’s advice/offers in the first place, then I’m just someone who likes whining simply for the sake of hearing myself whine without listening to anyone’s responses.

And then sometimes this conversation turns towards my claim that the language barrier is still prohibitive for me in terms of making deep connections with people, which is invariably met with (I think quite sincere) responses of “But [Liskantope], your Italian is so good!” (amid other forms of skepticism which are less complimentary like, “But you still don’t have it too hard because most people you’ll encounter speak some English”, but I won’t get into that).  So this inevitably leads to my explaining that my Italian still isn’t really good enough to overcome this problem in my personal life, that as good as I am already I feel like I’ve maybe hit a ceiling that I suspect I’ll never rise above no matter how long I stay in this country. When I try to explain the level I can’t seem to reach (”I’d need to get to where I can hang out with a big group of Italians in a bar with background noise and not only entirely follow their conversation but have energy left over to contribute to it intelligently”), it really sounds as though I’m lamenting how discouraged I am about not getting far enough with Italian. And in fact, the opposite is true! Learning Italian is one thing in my life that’s gone really well and is something I’m proud of! So as far as this is concerned I wouldn’t complain at all! But specifically in the context of an explanation for why I find it unlikely I’ll ever get the life I want in Italy, yeah, my Italian just doesn’t seem good enough.

The more I argue with Italians who tell me how great my Italian is, the more I look like I’m either humblebragging or determined to have low self-confidence about something I’m obviously good at. And the more I eschew their advice (no, I’ve tried watching films in Italian and this just doesn’t work because of my attention issues and in general I don’t care to prioritize more time and energy into my Italian because in any other context it’s already something that’s gone really well for me compared to most other things), the more I once again come across as someone who only wants to hear himself whine.

TL;DR: I want to be able to explain my preferences and choices (in the above example, my choice to leave Italy) without having my explanations treated as complaints that must be dealt with as such.

[EDITED TO ADD: This post has been a meta-rant which is itself a complaint-as-venting I suppose, and the rant about my difficulties with my life in Italy is only a complaint-as-explanation to support the meta-rant, but I don’t really mind it being treated as a complaint-as-venting or a complaint-as-request-for-advice. My fears of coming across as a whiner don’t apply in the same way in the Tumblr context, for the obvious reason that the social mechanics are much different here: blogs are meant for long, ranty monologues and someone who doesn’t feel like being an audience can always scroll down.]

[a-wanderin-whirlybird]

A Chameleon meets a Family of Ghosts

Summary: After Karmeleon/X-376 was found and 'captured' sorta, by his fellow clones and discovering the purpose of the Ghost squad he is taken to the Cantina to meet Kiddy's family. They are... Not like other Clones, significantly crazier it seems.

Karmeleon belongs to @taka-hardt!

Kiddy led Karmeleon down the hall to the Cantina. He hoped that the food was still warm at least. And that Karmeleon didn't run off wheb theyr an into...

"Kiddy! Whose this?" Rider exclaimed, hooking his arm around Kiddy's own. Karmeleon flinched and froze and Rider glared him down. But that was just Rider.

"X-376, Rie its ok. Let him be." Kiddy drawled patting Rider's head.

"Well what's he doing here!?" Rider hissed. And Kiddy sighed good naturedly.

"Easy Rie he just got curious. He's fucking good at his job and he found me during a mission overlap. He wanted to make sure we meant well. Now come on! We got food waiting yeah? Or did Millhouse eat it all?"

That seemed to calm down Rider who started laughing.

"Regal managed to save some for you guys. Its Noodle night, Millhouse is a Noodle fiend!"

The three entered the Cantina to the sounds of chatter and a scuffle. Isabel was holding Millhouse back as he shouted out various sounds none of them were words. Kiddy and Karmeleon flinched as Isabel hummed a song. Regal approached the two.

"Sorry about this, Millhouse is have a bad time right now. One second." Regal said gently taking Kiddy and Karmeleon's shoulders and moving them aside as Millhouse and Isabel walked by. Isabel nodded to the three, holding the shaking Millhouse to her chest. Once gone Regal sighed.

"Well, introductions are in order yes? I am Captain Regal, leader of the Ghost squad. I must apologize for the turn of events and any stress it caused!" Regal said his voice shaking a bit as he scratched at his arm. Karmeleon simple nodded and said nothing. Kiddy grabbed Regals hand and smiled.

"You don't gotta apologize Regal, I do. I screwed up and caused everyone trouble yeah? I'll be more careful." Regal smiled and nodded.

"Thank you Kiddy. Now my dear Brother! What is your name?" Regal asked, turning to Karmeleon who shook his head.

"Designation X-376." Regal blinked and Rider sighed.

"Nah, not your number! Your name! What do we call you?" Rider exclaimed.

"You call me X-376." Karmeleon hissed. "You may call me nothing else."

There was silence but Mighty spoke.

"Ok, dont worry. Just sit down and get some food." Mighty exclaimed.

"Not hungry."

"Fine but your still sitting down ok? Im the Medic and I need to check your damned lungs. You wheezed like a Nerf." Might scolded as the group moved to the seats. Mighty stood up and moved towards Karmeleon who flinched away, reaching for a weapon. Mighty lightly slapped his hand down.

"Put those down I ain't gonna strip you or nothin. Just let me scan your lungs, and keep that inhaler on you at all times!" Mighty growled and Karmeleon obeyed. Mighty fluttered around the grey Armored clone muttering and chewing his lip. Kiddy chuckled.

"Mighty is a good doc, he won't hurt ya. Are you sure you dont want some food? Regal made the Noodles himself!" Kiddy said. Regal beamed.

"Yes please do eat! You will need your strength before we send you back to your squad."

"No." Karmeleon hissed. Regal twitched uneasily.

"We arent here yo hurt you I promise. Just eat some? You dont habe to fully remove your helmet either." Regal offered, his voice shaking.

"I agree with Regal, You need food!" Mighty said, having finished his scans. "Your malnourished!"

"Who is? Did Kiddy not eat again?" Isabel asked walking up the the table. Her speech was slow and deliberate. Rider shook his head.

"Nah I make sure to feed my best bro. Its the Visitor guy, he is." Isabel turned her stare to Karmeleon who looked at her with a mixture of awe and confusion.

"You, need to eat. Yyou mu-mu-mu... Need to." Isabel hissed as the words came out stuttered. Kiddy made a mental not to make sure Isabel slept in the next day. She was too tired.

"Im fine."

"No ya aint brother, eat something!" Kiddy insisted.

"We dont want you hurt." Mighty said, shoving a plate of warm spaghetti under Karmeleon's nose.

Karmeleon stayed still as the group stared at him intently. And it remained so for sometime. Then slowly Karmeleon lifted his helmet slightly and took a bite. Then he began to shovel food into his mouth as the others shared a sad smile. Once the plate was empty Karmeleon shoved his helmet back over his mouth and bowed his head.

"Thank you." Karmeleon whispered. Isabel rubbed his back soothingly.

"Better? We got to move now ok? R-r-r-r... Bro's ship is ready to go." Isabel said as she gently led Karmeleon and Rider to the hangar bay. As she left Mighty turned to Kiddy and Regal. Once out of earshot Might spoke.

"His lungs are clear but somethings still off." Regal nodded.

"Are there any records for his designation Kiddy?" Kiddy shrugged.

"What records there are arent helpful. Theyre sparse and vague. He's got a squad called X-Squad but somethin's off about it all. It dont sit right with me Cap." Regal nodded.

"We have a mission in a few days on Tatooine after that I want you to focus on uncovering as much as you can about X-Squad. The Jedi may ignore issues but we dont. And keep an eye on X-376 please? He looks like he is about to break."

"Is that an official Order Captain?" Regal nodded to Kiddy who kicked up his feet and gave a loose salute. "Then I shall exceed expectations."

"As you always do. Mighty, was the Beacon afixed for the current mission?" Mighty nodded.

"Its active in that Sith's belly as we speak. They will be out of commision for sometime so we can strike true." Regal smirked widely.

"Make it hurt Brother. In like the Reaper,"

"Leave Nothing but Ghosts." Mighty finished. The three theb seperated, moving to prepare for the coming mission, and to set up an extra room for their brother.

[murasaki-murasame]

Danganronpa V3 Liveblog Part 17 [Chapter 5 - Trial]

Aaaaahhhhhhhh.

Thoughts under the cut.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. There were like . . . a thousand things that happened that I could talk about first. Wow. This goddamn trial sure took me for a spin and left me completely dazed and overwhelmed and depressed by the end.

I probably should have seen Kaito being the culprit coming. I just assumed that it would be ‘too easy’, since it was the second most obvious answer after Kokichi. But I can definitely say that even if the ‘who’ wasn’t too inherently difficult, the ‘how’ sure as fuck was.

It’s slightly lame that a good amount of the mystery of this trial revolved around stuff that only happens during the trial itself, but it’s fine. The shit that went down in this trial was oh so worth it.

Funnily enough, the thing I thought was a spoiler about Kaito being a culprit probably wasn’t actually intended as a spoiler for it, but it still lead me to the right conclusion. I saw a spoiler-free review that talked about how some of the motives in this game are lame, and I vaguely remember them mentioning the idea of someone killing because they had a terminal illness, which immediately made me think of Kaito once that whole plot point started up, but since his motive for murder had nothing to do with his illness, I think that person was just throwing out a generic example of a cliche motive, but it just so happened to still point at someone who ended up being a culprit anyway. They probably should have chosen a different example, lol.

Anyway, this trial was just sorta . . . insane. Wow. I wasn’t even able to definitively guess that the person in the Exisal was Kaito because his entire demeanor, especially when he switched over to ‘being Kaito’, felt too uncharacteristic of him to be true. But it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t actually Kokichi. Though even then, I still wasn’t sure if that meant Kaito was actually the killer.

Especially with the mid-trial swerve of Maki seeming to be the culprit, and genuinely believing herself to be the culprit. I was skeptical about the idea of the killer being spelled out before the intermission phase happened, but her whole story seemed too good not to be true.

I really, really liked this whole trial’s set-up of having both a mystery victim and a mystery killer. That was a really interesting idea. Especially with the additional layer of it being intended as ‘a mystery that even Monokuma can’t solve’. It made things feel incredibly baffling. In a good way.

The most negative thing I can say about the mystery itself was probably that, in the end, it ended up being almost exactly the same sort of scenario as case five in DR2, with a character setting up an insane murder mystery with themselves as the victim, set up in a way to expose and destroy the mastermind. They definitely played out in different ways, but the similarity was a bit too hard to ignore.

As a whole, though, it was great. It at least felt more satisfying than chapter four, even though I get in hindsight that chapter four’s trial was ‘unsatisfying’ for very intentional reasons.

It even made me warm up to Kokichi a lot as a character, which I wasn’t expecting. Now that his motives and feelings are more or less clear, it’s easier for me to understand him and appreciate his choices. I still can’t help but see him as a version of Komaeda that has a more off-putting personality, though. He’s definitely a fun character, but his personality just irritates me a lot of the time.

The first half or so of the trial wasn’t super hard in terms of the logic and the minigames, but it definitely picked up in the latter half once things got more and more weird and complicated. That was good. Sometimes the exact logic behind certain things still bugs me, though. I think I mentioned it before, but the ‘pick one of your truth bullets from the full list’ parts can sometimes feel a bit non-intuitive. Like when you have to point out that the crossbow was used, but you have to specifically pick the crossbow itself, because picking the arrows makes the other person be like ‘what, are you saying that they just stabbed someone with the arrows?’. That felt a bit dumb. It should have been immediately obvious what I meant by that. But it’s a minor point.

On a similar topic, a lot of the mini-games still feel kinda unnecessary, but that’s always been an issue with this franchise. There’s not really much to say about it at this point. Though I should say that it threw me off so fucking hard when I got a hidden Monokuma inside one of the Psyche Taxi segments. I had no idea that was possible. And on THAT note, I’ve had no real luck at getting those. This one was literally the second one I’ve found in the entire game. I know I missed one because I only noticed it in the background right before I started a free time event with someone, though. Maybe it would have been there if I went back for it later, but I didn’t bother.

I’m also getting better at the Argument Armament sections, somehow. They’re still stressful as heck, but I’m slowly improving. [And on the note of this chapter’s one, I guess I was right in assuming that if Kaito was this chapter’s killer, someone else would try and defend him]

I feel almost silly for suspecting Keebo so heavily, but both Kokichi and Kaito felt a bit too easy at the time. Oh well. I have . . . things to say about Keebo, but I’ll leave that for later, I guess.

Back on the topic of the murder itself, the whole set-up of it really was kinda ingenious, and really could have been an unsolvable mystery if things had gone differently. Especially with the whole element of there being no real proof as to whether the victim died via Maki’s poison arrow, or the hydraulic press. In the end, it basically came down to personal feelings and belief, rather than cold hard evidence.

Which reminds me, I also really liked the whole theme of Shuichi’s intuition as a device vs his feelings of belief as an individual. That was neat. Especially when it got to the point where, even after using evidence and deduction to figure out that Kaito was the culprit, he decided to lie in an attempt to stand for what Kaito believed in, and was risking his life for. Which, sadly, ended up being the final push that got Kaito to give up.

I actually tried like three times to vote for Kokichi even after that scene, since I still wanted to support Kaito, but the game didn’t let me. Oh well.

Before I forget, I may as well get back to my whole [apparently ongoing] rant for a little while.

As I’ve said before, I still personally interpret Shuichi as having a crush on Kaito that he’s trying to deny. I also said it before, but I’ve been aware from the start that this probably isn’t ‘canon’, especially after this whole trial happened and it didn’t get mentioned, but it’s still something I believe in. Especially with how heavily Shuichi and Maki were getting paralleled in this trial. Either way, at this point it feels safe to say that whatever Shuichi feels for Kaito is equal to or stronger than whatever he felt for Kaede [and had much longer to develop], and the game’s obviously already framing her as his love interest, so yeah.

I guess it goes without saying, but with how this whole game is about the nature of truth and lies, and about criticizing the idea that exposing and living with the truth is always necessary and good, it feels rather fitting that I’m choosing to treat this as my personal truth, even if it might just be a lie.

And for the record I still find Maki’s crush on Kaito to be really adorable and also heart-wrenching in this trial. If anything that’s just part of the reason why I’m seeing Shuichi’s feelings as basically being the same sort of thing.

Rant time over [for now], lol.

I guess there’s not much more to say about the mystery itself, so I should start talking more about the aftermath of the trial.

To start with, I figured in advance that Kokichi probably wasn’t the mastermind, since it felt too ‘obvious’ and happened way too early. I think I also commented on how it was a bit odd how the Exisals and stuff were treating Monokuma, but I didn’t quite guess what the full situation with that one was. 

I’ll talk about the concept of the ‘true mastermind’ in a minute. Before that, I wanna say that it was really fitting and amusing that Kaito’s execution was a spin on Jin’s from DR1. I really should have seen that coming. It was a nice little throwback. I also really, really liked the detail of Kaito dying from his injuries rather than the execution itself. It may not have been a complete victory, but it was a moral victory.

Though on the flip-side we have the whole reveal that Kaito probably had the plague that killed off most of humanity, which in itself wouldn’t change anything, but it carries the really uncomfortable implication that maybe everyone in the cast had the same plague, and he just had his symptoms show up first. Which would just make this entire scenario even MORE depressing than it was before.

This whole chapter’s just making me more and more unsure what the deal is meant to be with Rantarou and the Monokubs. I still feel like they have to be related to the overall story somehow, but I’m getting less and less sure about what their purpose could be. I’m still assuming that the Monokubs have AIs that are based on the personalities of other people in the last killing game Rantarou was a part of. Maybe the other survivors of said killing game. Which makes me wonder if we’d ever get any idea who they were as actual people. 

With the reveal that Kokichi ISN’T the mastermind, and might not have had anything to do with setting up the killing game, now I can’t help but wonder if it was Rantarou who set things up. Obviously SOMEONE had to, and I assume it’s one of the main cast members. It’d also explain why he knew about the killing game in advance, and why he seemed intent on winning it. It certainly hints at him being kinda . . . malicious, but that was already clear enough. This would also explain what he meant about how this is a killing game that he wanted to have happen.

Presumably he’s genuinely dead, though, so that pokes some holes in the idea of him being the mastermind, assuming that ‘the mastermind’ is a currently living person. If we limit it just to the main cast, then Keebo seems like the most suspicious person, since he’s a robot who could be running some sort of sub-program to control Monokuma, in a way that might not even be conscious on his part. But, again, I’ll talk more about him in a moment.

First, I should talk about the plot point that I’ve been holding off on mentioning for this entire post, and that’s Junko. I’m laughing so hard at the implication that she’s the goddamn mastermind for the third game in a row. It’s such a brilliantly polarizing writing choice. Part of me had been genuinely hoping it would happen. I have a soft spot for Junko as a villain, if only because I love seeing people get so angry over her. The ways that she causes despair and frustration in the fandom just by existing kinda validates her status as the main villain of the series.

I’ve mentioned before that it feels like they’re setting up some sort of a twist about the events of this game being fictional, even in the context of the DR universe, and this is making me even more certain of that. Especially with the focus on the topic of ‘the people who this killing game are being shown to’. The main thing that always bugged me about the apocalypse idea was that broadcasting the killing game had always been the top priority, and so it felt weird to imagine a killing game happening in this sort of scenario. I kinda assumed it was to do with there being a new mastermind with new priorities, but the idea of Monokuma still abiding by his own rules is definitely too strange, even if we make that kind of assumption. So it makes sense that he’s broadcasting this to SOMEONE. The question is who.

And honestly my best guess is that this is setting up some abstract meta-twist about us, as the players, being the people who the game is broadcast to. I’d been idly considering that for a while, but seeing Junko show up, and seeing the references to how the characters are all ‘easily replaceable’ and that ‘the killing game can happen again and again’ makes me think that, in-universe, V3 is literally some kind of story that Junko’s writing. Maybe not in a literal sense of her writing a book or something, but maybe the game takes place in a DR2-esque simulation, and she can just restart it again and again to create an unending killing game of unending despair. It seems like the sort of thing she’d do. And obviously it’d work pretty well on a meta level as commentary about the franchise itself. Which to me got pretty definitively confirmed when Junko mentioned ‘supply and demand’. V3, and it’s killing game, only exists because we, the fans, financially supported this series enough, and wanted to see more killing games happen enough, that this game got made. It seems like the natural end point of how this series likes to comment on the almost voyeuristic nature of murder. This game only exists because there was an active demand for it. Because we like seeing people kill each other in video games. Because experiencing intense emotions through media is a cathartic experience that people want to go through again and again. I’m not trying to be like ‘violent video games are bad!’ or whatever, I just mean that if this game is going to end with the big bad villain literally being the people playing the game, then it’s certainly justified.

Though on the same level it also makes it feel like this is the furthest the series could ever go, and that any more games being made would just feel uncomfortable and weird. But even if this game ends in that sort of way, there’s still going to be demand for more games. We’ll still want to get another killing game, and another, and another, even if we complain about how discomfiting it is to have a game turn around and criticize us for our enjoyment of it.

If we assume that this is where it’s going, I wonder how chapter six will go, and how the game will end. Will it be like DR2, where we get to argue against a digital version of Junko? That’d be a bit . . . odd, and probably kinda depressing, since if this is all just a story being written/programmed/etc by Junko, then no matter what the characters can to do her, it probably won’t kill her. She’ll still be alive in the real world.

On that note, if we’re meant to assume that Junko is alive ‘in the real world’, it makes me wonder what point in the timeline we’re working with, since her physical body got pretty definitively destroyed at one point, unless the person we saw in that one CG near the end was her in a robot body made to look like her. Who even knows.

Also, this whole Junko thing makes me even MORE unsure how the hell Rantarou and the Monokubs fit into the story. Is their backstory all part of a fictional setting she made up for this game? I have no idea.

I really can’t help but wonder if Kodaka will try and continue the series after this. I guess it wouldn’t be impossible for him to do so, but I just . . . don’t know how it’d work, really.

I still find it incredibly fascinating how utterly depressing and miserable and filled with despair this entire game is, especially as we understand how it connects to the entire franchise, compared to the far more hopeful ending that DR3 gave us. Though it’d be a lot less depressing if the entire apocalypse scenario was also made up by Junko and didn’t actually happen. But to be honest I kinda love the sheer audacity of Kodaka writing such a hopeful direction for the story and it’s universe, only to completely tear it apart by literally putting it through a fiery apocalypse, so either option works for me.

Anyway, I wonder if we’ll get any more deaths, or if it’ll be like the last games where nobody in the main cast dies in chapter six, ignoring the mastermind. The game is REALLY hammering in the concept of ‘the killing game will end when two people are left’. So it just makes me wonder if that might really happen. Though since only two people died in this chapter, we’d need to get a scenario of two victims and one culprit in the next chapter, to create a scenario where we’re then left with two people. Or maybe three people will just die normally. It just depends on whether or not we get another trial, really. I’m not really sure what I expect to happen, but the most important thing is probably that, if this really is all fictional, to some degree or another, then the concept of someone surviving becomes a bit meaningless, so on some level it kinda doesn’t matter. But it’s still interesting to speculate about.

I really would not be surprised at this point if the next chapter involves Himiko and Tsumugi dying, and us getting one last trial between Shuichi, Maki, and Keebo, who all definitely feel like the most major and plot-important characters right now. That might be interesting.

But it also makes me wonder if we’d then get ANOTHER chapter after that, or if we just might not get a trial where we face off against Junko specifically. Who knows.

Either way, Himiko and Tsumugi definitely feel a little expendable right about now, and I’m incredibly suspicious of Keebo and his plans right now.

I wasn’t really expecting his inner voice to just . . . malfunction and stop working after he gets hit with a rock. That kinda came out of nowhere. And now we have this bizarre scenario of him powering up and flying around while apparently bombarding the school with missiles. I wonder if his plan is just to burn everything to the ground so that the killing game will forcibly come to an end. It’s kinda hard to imagine Keebo doing something so violent, though.

I did really like seeing the remaining survivors, aside from Keebo, start training together. That was really sweet. I really love the sense of friendship and companionship between them. Well, mostly between Shuichi and Maki, but you get what I mean.

I have no goddamn clue where the next chapter is going to go, at this point. The end of this chapter raised so many questions and cliffhangers that I feel like things can just go in any direction they want now.

But as a bottom line, I can only imagine this game having a depressing, or at least bittersweet, ending. Especially if everything is some sort of fictional story. But even if it’s not, the characters have no real future left. No matter how much hope they have, they’re stuck in the academy. So I just can’t see this ending happily.

Also, as a final note, I tend to be pretty bad at expressing the exact extent of my emotional reactions to stuff in this game since I’m having to talk about so much in these posts and I try and keep them at least relatively concise and orderly and whatnot, even if this isn’t meant to be any kind of a professional review or anything, but this whole trial and it’s conclusion was depressing as fuck. It tore me apart. I knew something like this was gonna happen, since I was already bracing for this ending with Kaito dying in some way or another, but actually seeing it happen really hurt. I’m not kidding when I talk about how much I love the entire Kaito-Shuichi-Maki trio. I honestly think that they’ve become some of my all-time favourite DR characters. I get why a lot of people might think they’re a bit boring and plain [other than maybe Maki], but I absolutely adore them. Out of all of the ‘main trios’, they’re far and away my favourites at the moment, although there’s a lot of recency bias going on there, since I still have a huge soft spot for the main characters of DR2. Mostly Hinata and Komaeda, though. The fact that I like Maki a LOT more than Nanami is probably what weigh things out in V3′s favour. I don’t really wanna pit any of the characters against each other.

Anyway yeah, this chapter put me through an entire rollercoaster of emotions.

[winterscribe]

That Vampire Hunter D thing I’ll eventually write coherently

So now that I’ve FINALLY found the Vampire Hunter D Fandom I’m working up the courage to share some of my headcanons (my stupid anxiety makes it irrationally hard) The problem is a lot of my headcanons require at least basic knowledge of the fantasy world that I started when I was 14?Ish? And the Ocs I created. Like I decided to yank D out of his post-apocalyptic hell world and put him into this peaceful world populated by non-assholes, or in some cases, slightly less homicidal assholes… ok the number of assholes is much less than on the frontier, and even the homicidal ones usually need a good reason to be homicidal. None of this “I’m gonna experiment on thousands of individuals and put my son through a living hell for shits and giggles” - LOOKING AT YOU DRAC, LOOKING AT YOU!  

Anyway it’s really long and rambly so READ MORE-

Anyway I’m gonna make a series of posts explaining the basics, who’s who, How D got there, basic worldbuilding, that kinda thing. I’ll go through and link ‘em as I finish them. And I’ll make a masterpost because there are a few tags on my blog about the world and D’s family.

Now, since this world was started when I was 14 there are some things that are a little...odd. Names that Stuck and I can’t change because I’ve been calling it that for over 5 years, plot lines that involve characters from a different franchise but i haven’t figured out how to replace. Seriously I have GOT to figure out how to replace Fucking LOKI. FFS I haven’t liked that character for 2 years WHY is he STUCK THERE

I’m currently worldbuilding and planning a few novel’s based on Avaleara’s life, but the first 2 would be before she met D so I don’t think anyone would be interested. I’m gonna write certain scenes though, like Avaleara and D’s first kiss, the emotionally overwrought scenes that bring them together, stuff like that. But hey, if you like really overthought worldbuilding and sprawling sci fi/fantasy worlds, lord knows i could talk about Rev’haros for hours, so feel free to hit me up.

Story

D’s Part of the story line starts when Avaleara was punted through the barrier between universes by her uncle’s failed experiment and ended up on the frontier. By sheer happenstance, she landed right in front of D, who pretty much ignored her because she wasn’t trying to kill him and he needed to get to a job. Avaleara decided “Hey, there’s a fifty fifty shot he’s heading towards civilization, Im’ma follow at a respectful distance” Now, while Avaleara is decidedly Alien in appearance (aprx 6 ft tall, really dark purple skin, has horns, bio-luminescent markings, ALIEN) she has interacted with humans before, has even been to an Earth before, (Multiverse ftw) she has a pretty solid glamour already prepared, so while D knows what she looks like cuz he saw her, she can blend in on the frontier.

Except yah’ know, she doesn’t speak the language cuz the only Earth languages she knows are Japanese or English from circa 2000. Her trying to figure out the frontier dialect is like someone who speaks old English plopped down in the middle of modern day- She can sorta kinda figure out the gist but dear god is it difficult and makes her headache. On top of that since she comes into town a few hours after a Dhampir, well people don’t want shit to do with her, so she keeps vaguely wandering after D. I haven’t figured out the turning point yet, but eventually D interacts with this strange woman trailing aimlessly after him even as he cuts through an incredibly deadly forest and other such frontier horror ‘scapes that should have gotten her killed but didn’t. Because it’s D, he has a better grasp on “ancient” Japanese (Also I headcanon that his mother was of Japanese descent because Tony Thornburg) So they can communicate better.

Eventually they sorta travel together (Again I need to flesh this out) for a few years. About a decade of sorta traveling together (though niether of them will admit it, and certainly won’t admit that they enjoy eachother’s company) Dracula decides to be an asshole. For Hand Wavy reasons he comes up with a test for D and Left hand, that involves poisoning D. (IDK i’m kinda toying with the idea that Dracula had another success that was better than D, and decided to get rid of him, buuuut that would mean another character and i think it really goes against canon so idk if i’m gonna go that route)

The thing about Avaleara is that she is really possessive (part dragon) and fiercely protective of those she’s attached to. So Drac didn’t count on being hit with 900 pounds of sheer protective RAGE. Seriously Avaleara is the kind of person who, if she has something to protect, she will get back up no matter what she gets hit with. Spear through the heart? Bitch please she has two and you just handed her a weapon. Cut off an Arm? Regenerative powers and a history of being tortured so she doesn’t even flinch at the pain? Fire? She’s been burned alive before and it awakened her latent dragon genes. Water? She was born with an innate gift for controlling it. (so i kinda gave her every power I ever thought was cool, oops. HI MARY SUE)

She doesn’t kick Drac’s ass, but she does seriously wound him which is enough to startle him and, since he’s already accomplished poisoning D, he retreats, firing off a psychological attack as he goes. At that point Avaleara has one of two options. Use the last of her strength to fight off the attack, or draw the poison from D into herself (I had a reason for this but it's in a notebook buried in a box somewhere. God I hate moving) Another thing about Avaleara- if it's a choice between saving her life and saving someone else's, she will save someone else's. Every. Time.

So She saves D’s life, but falls into a coma fighting both the poison and Drac’s attack. At this point, her father, Maruketsukai (there’s one of those names I can’t change) appears, because her family had been keeping an eye on her but hadn’t pulled her back home cuz reasons. D does not trust the guy that appeared in midair. D owes Avaleara a debt because she saved his life. D also wants to know how the fuck she managed to wound the Sacred Ancestor. D is a stubborn bastard who will recklessly enter a portal to another universe because he owes someone a debt. He will also stand guard at their bedside for 5 years while they are in a coma because they saved his life.

(I think this is still in character- I mean he wouldn’t do it for just anyone, but shit this person fought Dracula and lived. For Him. yeah he’s gonna stick around and make sure they’re safe before he fucks off.)

His protectiveness earns him the undying loyalty of Avaleara’s family. Like, he’s obviously straight up ready to cut his way out of the room if they so much as breathe wrong in her direction. Ordinarily death threats aren’t the way to endear yourself to your in laws but Maruketsukai and Nikara are… not ordinary.

During the 5 years that Avaleara is in a coma, D learns a lot about her world, her family, and her past. Like the fact that she’s second in line for the throne, and that a previous lover had betrayed, kidnapped, and tortured her and that she had extreme PTSD and massive trust issues because of it. That’s why they had left her on the frontier, because for the first time in two thousand years, Avaleara had sorta trusted someone, or at least, didn’t seem overly paranoid about them, and they wanted to see what would happen.

D spends a lot of time with Takashi and Mizuki, because they speak Japanese. Takashi is the son of Sesshoumaru and Kagome. (Yes from the anime Inuyasha. I did mention this started when I was 14 right?) That’s why he speaks Japanese. Also He drags Avaleara and Mizuki to Earth occasionally which is why Avaleara has a human glamor. Its interesting for D to meet another half breed who is so blase about it, but Takashi grew up in  La’ Shevare, where genetic modification for the express purpose of interspecies breeding has been a thing for several million years. Pretty much no one is a pure blood. But since he’s also the nephew of Inuyasha and has listened to his father express his regret over how he treated his brother, he at least partially understands where D is coming from. Sorta. Academically. Ok not really but he tries. And totally has a talk shit get hit policy when it comes to D. Like call Takashi a half breed, make fun of his heritage, whatever, so long as you don’t make fun of his parents, he don’t give a fuck. Call D a half breed, make fun of D’s heritage, prepare for at least 3 broken bones. Probably more. Seriously. He’s 45 years older than Avaleara, held her in his arms as a baby, grew up with her and fell in love with her sister. She’s Family.  He was helpless when the man she loved broke her and twisted her into someone else, was helpless during her recovery because she wouldn’t let anyone in to help her. The moment D popped up, planting himself between Avaleara and any perceived threat, was the moment he became Pack. And you Do Not Fuck With a Dog Demon’s Pack.

Eventually Avaleara wakes up, except thanks to the psycological attack, and her previous ptsd related issues, Avaleara first thinks D is a hallucination. It takes awhile for it to set in and stick that he’s not. D sticks around, convincing her that he’s real and she’s not going insane, and just being really patient when she freaks out and thinks she’s seeing things, because hey, it was his asshole dad who did this to her so he kinda feels responsible. Plus he’d still really like to know how she wounded him.

It boils down to - Avaleara has spent the last 2 thousand years studying a variety of fighting techniques from all over the Rev’ Haros System, a system whose recent history spans back a few million years. D may know all the fancy vampire tricks, but 10,000 years is a drop in the bucket, a single lifespan of a person from Rev’ Haros. The whole system is so much more advanced than even the vampires at their peak, just because they’ve had the time to develop so far. The average person could go toe to toe with greater nobility if they had to, nevermind the people who are actually trained. Not to mention their fighting styles are so different, so alien to anything on Earth, that Dracula was at a significant disadvantage from that alone.

Avaleara happily agrees to train D in some of these styles. He doesn’t plan on sticking around long enough to learn them all. But he does, and she happily teaches him everything she knows until he is literally the only person who has a prayer of killing her. Shes very proud. Their sparring matches are epic and terrifying.

[gulescamisade]

Alaska:  Day 7

DAVE: -this guy is no longer dying. is he dizzy? yes. is he shivering? yes. that's good. do his fingers and toes look relatively normal now? yes. suffering maybe, but not dying. hell no. NOT TODAY.-

[[ That's the spirit! ]]

[[The blizzard still raged overhead. This is sure a hell of a storm. ]]

REDGLARE: -she has been SLOWLY circumventing the radius of the cave, looking for exits. Wherever and whatever they may be...-

DAVE: -watching redglare as she goes around. ENTERTAINMENT-

MITUNA: -He's been alternating, maintaining the "ceiling" and dumping the snow elsewhere. As of now, he rests.-

LATULA: -RUBBING HIS HEAD-

[[ With thorough searching, time, and scruitiny, Redglare may be able to hear a hollow sound over the snowstorm overhead. It sounds akin to wind being pulled through a tunnel. ]]

[[ A wind tunnel, so to speak. ]]

REDGLARE: -She's been dragging a little rock along, scraping the floor so she'll have a line back. She attempts to put her arm through the windy wind tunnel. JUST SORTA FEEL AROUND OUT THERE-

KARKAT: =watches this and stays huddled with Dave.=

DAVE: what is she doing

[[ It's not so much a tunnel yet as it's a hole the size of a dime. By placing her hand up to it, Redglare can feel a coolness against her hand. ]]

REDGLARE: -hm. Some more testing. She takes the sharp rock and begins to attempt to dig around the hole, trying to feel if the surrounding area is soft enough to make it a little bigger.-

DAVE: i hope thats a sharpies pick of a rock

ARANEA: -watches redglare also. by this point she's huddling with daelos again.-

DAVE: if were gonna be diggin our way to minnesota

REDGLARE: -she can't really hear them but she's vaguely aware of the fact that she's being watched. Not that it matters too much to her.-

[[ Success! It breaks away bit by glorious bit until the soil falls away, falling down from the larger rocks littering the base to the floor. Come to think of it, this area actually appears to look like it had been a cave-in at one point. The hole has now grown big enough for Redglare to stick her head through. ]]

KARKAT: =That seems. Like a bad idea. Sticking heads in random holes=

DAVE: thats gotta be a glory hole for a giant dick

KARKAT: Stop talking about dicks, Dave.

ARANEA: 😒

REDGLARE: -2 bad she doesn't really have any source of light... sticking her head through is something she WON'T Do. instead she's gonna stick her arm through and feel around a little.-

DAVE: -DONT DO THAT HAVE YOU SEEN AMERICAN HORROR STORY ASYLUM WHERE ADAM LEVINE STICKS HIS HAND SOMEWHERE AND IT GETS EATEN-

[[ CHOMP! Nah, jk. ]]

KARKAT: =Wow. SPOILERS=

[[ It's chilly where Redglare's arm has decided to be. But the other side is hollow. Any amount of flapping around will only pass through empty air. ]]

REDGLARE: -She's trying to find the floor, if any exists. Does this simply open to some kind of chasm?-

DAVE: -IT HAPPENS IN THE FIRST EPISODE HE DIES RIGHT AWAY-

KARKAT: =Maybe he's still on season 1 or something!=

[[ With effort, her fingers brush something on the other side. It feels like gravel and loose soil, much like what has fallen to the ground on her side. The ground feels like it might be gently sloping downward. ]]

REDGLARE: -She pulls her arm out. It's dusty and covered in dirt and her fingers are a little achy, but she raises her arm and gestures towards the group.-

KARKAT: What is it? I'm hoping you're about to say "a hot spring".

REDGLARE: -Shakes her head. She does a sign for 'wind' and 'down'. Not much ELSE than that, but she can barely see over here.-

DAVE: maybe some clothes

KARKAT: Some place down.... hang on. =Rubs Dave's shoulders and scoots him close to the fire then goes to see what Redglare means and it already feels cooler... but probably because there's no fire on the other end=

KARKAT: Should dig it out you think?

REDGLARE: -NODS-

KARKAT: Alright. =He starts to dig his claws in to try and widen the hole more. Haha good thing it's not all collapsing on them!=

DAVE: careful of the dick

KARKAT: =Sighs.....= Dick just... comforts him. For some reason. =Says to Redglare, or to himself=

REDGLARE: -LISTEN SHE'S JUST SURE THERE'S SOMETHING OUT THERE. Maybe even... THE OUTSIDE?

KARKAT: =Okay but the outside is.... very not great=

[[ The winds howls above, reminding them of the shitty storm still in progress. ]]

KARKAT: =The outside is very not great=

REDGLARE: -well she's not gonna stop unless someone stops her-

REDGLARE: -that's for certain-

[[ With Karkat's help, much of the gravel and slightly larger stones have been moved aside. All that is left now are the larger rocks. There are some the size of their fists and some the size of bowling balls. Down at the very bottom by their feet, there one particularly large one that may need at 2-3 people to move. ]]

[[ But progress is progress and for now they are MAKING some. ]]

KARKAT: =Maybe he can use this dirt and gravel to bury his matesprit, oh wait he doesn't have her body and trolls don't do that haha. Claws out more gravel and dirt, just keeps working=

REDGLARE: -WORK THROUGH THE PAIN. She's going for the big rock and gestures at Karkat.-

REDGLARE: -C'MON-

DAVE: -going to carefully...push...himself up. oooowwwwwwwwwww. USE. YOUR ARMS. DAVE.-

KARKAT: =YOU LAY BACK DOWN, but he's coming Redglare lets get this BIG ROCK.=

REDGLARE: -She is doing her best to get har arms around it, shoving her body weight and attempting to roll it out of the way a little at a time.-

[[ It doesn't roll so much as slide. There is an extended grinding sound as it's moved about an inch. ]]

DAVE: -OH GOD HIS LEGS ARE NUMB SHIT SHIT SHIT okay they're fine now. he's actually managing to stand and it makes him incredibly dizzy and now his HEAD is screaming with pain. but at least the frostbite's gone. he wants to see what they're doing. give him a second. he's basically a turtle with this back sitch-

KARKAT: =DAVE HE SWEARS TO GOD and also huffs a little trying to drag this rock up and out of the way. The grinding sound is annoying and defeats the purpose of them having to be quiet but it's GOTTA GO=

REDGLARE: -YEAH. they might need stuff on the other side. Like more rocks, or plants. Or mushrooms?-

ARANEA: -dave you fucking fuck. hisses a little at him.- (Don't hurt yourself...)

DAVE: what am i gonna do die in this cave DAVE: no thanks -he's walking pretty funny to try to avoid further injuring himself, and he's still dizzy so it takes intense focus to head in the right direction-

[[ Little by little the rock is moved away, grinding along as it's pushed. The dirt the rock had been holding up near the sides shifted, raining down small particles over the entrance they've created, but their work seems to hold. There doesn't appear to be another cave-in happening today. ]]

REDGLARE: -oh hey it feels like her leg is on fire. and bleeding again. She inhales a sharp breath as it finally, after so much effort, gives way to a reasonably-sized opening.-

[[ Well done everyone!! ]]

[[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi4jKa6jaek ]]

KARKAT: =Huzah.=

KARKAT: =Now what the heck is in here?=

REDGLARE: -hm. She takes a rock and then she just. GENTLY ROLLS IT DOWN. see how far it goes and whether it makes a sound...-

[[ It's large enough to crawl through, even for Daelos, but they will have to crawl. The hollow, airy sound Redglare heard before is much louder now. The rock disappears through the hole, rolling for a second or two before seemingly stopping. There is nothing but darkness beyond. You'll need a light source to proceed. ]]

ARANEA: -wobbly follows after dave-

KARKAT: =Someone snap Mituna like a glowstick=

REDGLARE: -DO NOT SNAP MITUNA-

DAVE: -did someone ask for sick fires-

KARKAT: =Sick fires not a sick human.... eyeballs Dave= Sit down...

DAVE: why

KARKAT: Because you look like shit, which coming from me doesn't mean much butif you look at everyone comparatively you look like shit.

REDGLARE: -signs. HAVE LIGHT? It's a long shot.-

DAVE: thats cuz im the only human and not a troll

DAVE: no light

KARKAT: No. I'm sure if we had a seadweller that wasn't a mutant freak then they'd be fucked too. =He looks to the fire=

KARKAT: We can use one of the smaller pieces of wood... not the best idea but it's all we got for now.

ARANEA: -NO LIGHT NO LIGHT IN YOUR BRIGHT BLUE EYES I NEVER KNEW DAYLIGHT COULD BE SO VIOLENT-

DAVE: -too bad my eyes are red-

KARKAT: =He's also thinking about dicks right now so=

REDGLARE: -THIS WOULDN'T BE A PROBLEM IF LIGHT WEREN'T SO FUCKING METAPHORICAL!!! stupid paradox space-

[[ The cave waits... seductive and windy. ]]

KARKAT: =Don't...... and he also goes to get a stick..... a log..... a stog from the fire= Alright. Let's hope nothing in there is hungry.

REDGLARE: -frowns, slightly. It's windy. It may not last... but she's not voicing any of those issues. She just nods.-

DAVE: -steps backward because from what he can feel...that's another one way trip to frostbite land-

REDGLARE: -She's going to go in first, getting low to the ground and gradually shimmying down the slope. Just in case.-

[[ Once on the other side, Redglare finds she is able to stand. What light their stog gives illuminates off of the walls of the cave, showing there is much more to the other side than they thought - it is a series of caverns, leading downwards and deeper with no presumable end in sight, far larger than the pitfall into which they were lowered. ]]

KARKAT: =Good, he nods to Dave= We'll be back. =He follows Redglare trying his best to sheild the fire at least a li-- oh= Fuck.

REDGLARE: -Frowns. But then, that's why she's been marking the floors. Now she's going to start marking the walls, too.-

REDGLARE: (3v3ry tr1p m4k3 4 n3w l1n3. know wh4t to follow b4ck.)

DAVE: you better -without much of anything else to say...he very carefully....tries to sit down...-

KARKAT: =Nods at her instructions=

REDGLARE: -BASIC MAZE RULES-- follow the left wall.-

REDGLARE: -that is to say that's what she's doing there. Slow and a bit overly cautious-- or, at least, masking the pain from walking with caution.-

KARKAT: =Would she prefer he piggyback her?=

KARKAT: =To be fair... her leg is pretty gross bad=

REDGLARE: -...SHE WOULD NOT PREFER THAT OK-

REDGLARE: -She takes a deep breath of the air as they go, glancing back at Karkat with the fire.- (how th3 h3ll d1d th3y f1nd th1s pl4c3?)

[[ Meanwhile, in the original skylight cave where everyone else is, howling of a different kind can be heard mixing with the howling of wind from above, along with distant snarls. ]]

DAVE: -furrows his eyebrows and looks at aranea- (what was that)

[[ Redglare and Karkat are quite ambitious for undertaking such a task, but it must be done. It is much quieter in here and their soft voices seem to penetrate the silence. There is nothing but gentle drip dripping sounds from stalactites onto the cave floor. For now. ]]

KARKAT: (Some bullshit asshole luck I'm sure....) =He looks around the place following Redglare and wishing he had some kind of weapon on him at least=

REDGLARE: -well there ARE stalagmites.-

REDGLARE: -she eyes them. fuck u thousands of years of gelogical development they gotta survive-

KARKAT: =True.....=

REDGLARE: -she pauses at all the drip-dripping...-

REDGLARE: (could dr1ng 1t. 1n drops.)

KARKAT: (Could be piss, or bacteria infected.... we don't have anything to boil it in)

REDGLARE: (w3 don't h4v3 4nyth1ng. cl34n w4t3r, 31th3r.) -she continues to walk...-

KARKAT: (True... guess we can't be picky.) =Follows her and keeps the fire sheilded from winds=

[[ There is the occasional flapping of wings and high-pitched chittering that grows louder with their approach. Seems like bats live in here too. ]]

[[ More soft animalistic noises can be heard, little chunks of snow falling from the hole... And then, suddenly, something much larger, flailing in the air before hitting the ground with a crack. ]]

REDGLARE: -She flinches at the sound of the... thing. That crack sounded pretty sickly.-

REDGLARE: -She takes a step towards the noise.-

KARKAT: =Oh.... fucking...... christ. He puts his hand on-- oh=

KARKAT: =Oh fuck. Not that he knows=

KARKAT: =Wait, FUCK BATS.... fuck off bats=

DAVE: -startles and- (FUCK ) -not good for the back. this old man. he tries to move himself backwards as much as he can while he figures out what this thing is-

REDGLARE: -oh ok nevermind that then. She's seen enough about earth bats-- they're not really all that scary, compared to echobeasts. They don't prey on humans.-

MINDFANG: -She had been trying to sleep when whatever the hell it is crashed into the cave floor.-

MINDFANG: (Hhhn-the fuck--??)

[[ Blood pools around it on the ground from what they can see. It's furry. A wolf. ]]

MINDFANG: -What is it DOING down here though.-

MINDFANG: -She squints and slowly, stiffly, makes it onto her feet.-

KARKAT: =.....But they aren't humans. aaaaaaaaaaaaaa not really=

[[ It fell from the hole. Oops?? ]]

REDGLARE: -AAAAAA!!!-

MINDFANG: -Then its a dumb animal.-

MINDFANG: -Shes moving towards the fallen wolf to investigate. It is dead right?-

[[ No need to scream. These bats are harmless and they're more afraid of these large creatures invading their home than you are of them. ]]

DAVE: (what the fuck what the fuck)

KARKAT: =He wants to eat them..... but will leave them alone. For now=

[[ It's not moving currently. Blood continues to spread around it. ]]

[[ If a bat could speak, it would likely say, "You gotta reach us first. Fool." ]]

KARKAT: =That sounds like a challenge you little shit=

REDGLARE: -MAYBE THEY COULD DISCOVER BAT TRAPS. Just like don't starved. And SPEAKING of don't starved, she's going to get a big chunk of Better Rock from one of these stalagmites.-

MINDFANG: -That is not a direct answer.-

MINDFANG: -Shes keeping a small amount of distance then for now. Is there any obvious injury to it besides the whole falling stories thing?-

[[ It's a little too shadowy to tell completely what its injuries are. But before she can get too close, it starts moving again, twitching at first. ]]

MINDFANG: -JUMPS BACK, her metal fist is raised just in case. She can punch really hard with this robot arm, Wolf, just TRY IT.-

KARKAT: =Good, he'll just man the light for now as they continue down this path=

DAVE: (dont move)

[[ It squirms, twitching still, and there's soft cracks and crunches as it limps to its feet, blood still dripping down its fur. ]]

MINDFANG: -Dang, that sounds painful. She grimaces at the noises its body makes.- MINDFANG: (Its alive........ For now.) -Shes not taking her eyes off it.-

DAVE: -he's frozen. being here with a wolf is such a bad idea. no use running cuz that sure as hell isn't going to happen. WATCHES. QUIETLY-

MINDFANG: -Dont worry squishy human, she will protect you.-

DAVE: -thanks...-

[[ It limps closer, dripping. It seems to be approaching toward the direction of the people and the fire. ]]

DAVE: nice dog

DAVE: wolf

DAVE: i have a wife thats kind of a part robot dog

DAVE: maybe you know her i dont know

DAVE: from canine school

REDGLARE: -THE VAGUEST FEELING SOMETHING MAY BE GOING WRONG SOMEWHERE-

MINDFANG: -If it really is getting closer, shes not going to allow it. She picks up the nearest rock and whips it at the over grown puppy.-

REDGLARE: -she sucked the moisture off the stalagmite she broke off. it probably tastes bad...-

KARKAT: =Same...=

KARKAT: =He's jealous and disgusted=

[[ The rock bounces off of it, and it pauses only a moment before it keeps moving. ]]

[[ The bats chittering become louder and their squirming becomes more restless. Suddenly, the bats take off, flying deeper into the cave. ]]

DAVE: (DONT)

REDGLARE: -She flinches.-

REDGLARE: ...

REDGLARE: -Then she starts to back up.-

REDGLARE: (b4ck.)

MINDFANG: -Damn, shes grabbing another rock, this one is much larger.-

MINDFANG: (What is Your suggestion for what we should do then??) -She hisses at him without looking away from the animal.-

DAVE: (wait because its not attacking)

KARKAT: =Oh.... She doesn't need to tell him twice, he just. Puts his hand on her shoulder to guide her as they back track slowly.... nope. NAH=

MINDFANG: (So is your theory to w8 until it does??)

DAVE: (its really hurt tho thats the thing) -carefully extends hand toward wolf-

REDGLARE: -YEAH NAH. if the bats don't wanna deal SHE DOESN'T WANNA DEAL NEITHER-

REDGLARE: -brandishing this big rock-

MINDFANG: -Dave you are going to lose that hand.-

[[ The closer it gets to the firelight, the more they'll seem to see something strange about this wolf. At first it might be interpreted as bone and organs sticking out, but the longer they look, the more it seems to have some sort of... biowiring device on its back. ]]

DAVE: ...

MINDFANG: -That is arguably worse then bones and organs.-

MINDFANG: ..........

[[ With a gurgle, it opens its bloody mouth and snaps for Dave's hand. ]]

MINDFANG: -At the snap she is throwing the second rock, right at its face.-

DAVE: -RETRACTS HAND- (shit)

DAVE: (shit shit shit)

MINDFANG: Move 8ack!

DAVE: -in his attempt to move backward, something...doesn't sound right in his back at all. he just FUCKED SOMETHIN UP REAL GOOD- FUCK

[[ It's hit with a thunk, but the wolf doesn't seem deterred. Much like it isn't noticing much of anything they do. ]]

MINDFANG: -DAVE YOU USELESS HUMAN.-

MINDFANG: -Seeing how the youngest strider seems indisposed, she rushes to get between him and the wolf.-

MINDFANG: -Shes going to punch it right in the doggy snoot.-

DAVE: -he can work with LEG INJURIES AND FOOT INJURIES AND HAND INJURIES but THIS BULLSHIT IS STUPID-

[[ Redglare and Karkat can now hear distinct sounds of struggle and alarm from their "camp" back in the pitfall. ]]

[[ DOOF. It flies and rolls back a few feet over the ground, but it twitches back onto its feet within a few moments. ]]

KARKAT: !! =Okay, he's not going to make her run but he is going to kind of hoist her a little to get some support off her bad leg= (Fuck we have to go back!)

MINDFANG: -!!!??!-

MINDFANG: -Shes staying between it and Dave.-

REDGLARE: -!

REDGLARE: -IS HOIST-

REDGLARE: -she's not arguing but HECK-

DAVE: -got his dukes up just in case-

MINDFANG: Is this normal for earth canines? -Shes pretty sure it shouldnt be.-

DAVE: no

DAVE: no its not

KARKAT: =RUNS BACK... Well. Goes back quickly, here they come bustin in on the scene=

MINDFANG: -Thats just disturbing.-

MINDFANG: -She hisses and advances on the wolf. No sense in giving it a chance to get the first move in on them especially since they have no real weapons.-

MINDFANG: -Here comes her strong fist to its skull again.-

REDGLARE: Wh-

REDGLARE: -what the fuck???-

MINDFANG: -Hey Redglare watch her punch this wolf!-

KARKAT: =WHY, but also kill it=

REDGLARE: -SHE'S NOT YOUR MOM JEEZE-

[[ THUNK. This time it's another sickening crunch, but even bloodied and misshapen, it still tries to struggle up. It appears brain damage does not deter the beast. ]]

MINDFANG: -WITNESS HER.-

MINDFANG: -ALSO GROSS.-

REDGLARE: Wh3r3 d1d th4t com3 from? -She pulls away from Karkat. SHE'S GOT A SHARP ROCK CLUB-

MINDFANG: -Shes not giving up, she will punch it as many times as it takes.-

MINDFANG: -But yeah please get over here quick with that rock club.-

REDGLARE: -She aims it at its back-- pointy end down as hard as she can, to get it between the neck and shoulderblades.-

MINDFANG: -Quickly moves back for Redglare to do her thing.-

[[ Just around the time Redglare aims, something jumps from the wolf and onto Mindfang's metal arm. It's the biowire device, looking like some kind of insectoid creature with dangerous spaghetti wires hanging from it. ]]

[[ The wolf's body collapses in a heap to the stone. ]]

MINDFANG: -UM NO-

DAVE: -oh...my god...-

KARKAT:= WTF=

REDGLARE: -that... wasn't effective in the way it should be. She turns sharply.-

MINDFANG: -The second she sees it she is going into a frenzy to brush it off, get it off, anything.- MINDFANG: Wh8t the SHIT!!

[[ IT GOES FOR A CRAZY BUCKING BRONCO RIDE ON MINDFANG, but it seems like it's trying to crawl onto the rest of her. ]]

REDGLARE: Th3y.

REDGLARE: sh3 w4rn3d m3 to b3 qu13t.

REDGLARE: Som3th1ng would h34r us.

REDGLARE: th1s must b3 1t.

MINDFANG: -She is going to try and grab it with her normal hand and rip it off her. Nope. N O PE.-

DAVE: -IT SUCKS BEING HELPLESS!!!!!!-

DAELOS: - It takes him a while to drag himself to her huffing and puffing, but when he gets to Mindfang he attempts to slap both hands together, intending to squash the creature between them-

[[ It squish crunches grossly, and maybe stabs Daelos' hands a little bit. It twitches for a few moments before going limp. ]]

MINDFANG: -That is disgusting, that was ON her.-

MINDFANG: -She is turning and putting distance between herself and Daelos while she wipes off her metal arm just to get the feeling of it trying to crawl up her away.-

MINDFANG: (What the F8CK!)

KARKAT: What the fuck even happened?

[[ Shenanigans. ]]

DAVE: someones gotta be controlling that right

MINDFANG: -INDEED. Excuse her while she wheezes and tries not to keel over from the ache of her ribs coming back full force now that the rush of danger is gone.-

MINDFANG: (It fell. Through.)

DAVE: (the wolf)

KARKAT: It... God.

REDGLARE: -exhales.-

REDGLARE: ...th3r3's prob4bly mor3.

MINDFANG: Gr8. Splendid.

REDGLARE: d1d 1t hurt you?

KARKAT: So, what? We go fucking spelunking?

MINDFANG: Me? No. It didnt do anything. Asides from try and infect me with its 8ioware parasite.

[[ Past the roar of the storm, they hear the far off howls of the pack, followed by pained yips, then a terrible silence. Eventually, the howls resume, sounding different than before as though a wolf didn't know how to wolf. As though the biotech itself were recreating the sounds. ]]

MINDFANG: ...... -Thats not a comforting sound.-

KARKAT: Alright. Let's go spelunking.

REDGLARE: -She nods.-

DAVE: did you guys find anything like anywhere we could head to get out of this place

REDGLARE: Th3 c4v3s 4r3 3normous.

REDGLARE: But th1s 1s th3 only 3ntr4nc3.

REDGLARE: -she looks up at the hole...-

KARKAT: And there's bats.

MINDFANG: Quite frankly I will t8ke 8ats over more of those Things.

DAVE: are they attack bats DAVE: cuz if theyre attack bats that are trying to kill us then no DAVE: but if theyre normal bats idgaf

KARKAT: Great, let's go. =reaches for dave=

DAVE: about that

DAVE: i fucked up my back trying to get away from that wolf because im apparently useless

MINDFANG: -Good going Strider.-

KARKAT: You're not useless. You got the shit kicked out of you now come here. Let me try to pick you up. ..how bad is it?

DAVE: in medical terms

DAVE: not great

KARKAT: Then we'll. ...fix it down there maybe we'll find some underground grove. =here comes him=

DAVE: yeah and we can like use a stick to fight

KARKAT: Or rocks. =stoops to gently lift=

DAVE: slingshots good idea

KARKAT: =hoists, time to go into the hole=

DAVE: -here we go-

REDGLARE: -SHE'S STILL GOT A ROCK-

REDGLARE: >;I

[[ They can brave the caverns ahead or maybe possibly die in the pitfall behind them. The strange howls are drawing ever nearer. ]]

DAVE: -ANDALE-

REDGLARE: -Her vote is for the caverns, at least. They're bat people now.-

[serenagaywaterford]

Now back to the show, I am very much in agreement with you on Nick. He’s boring af, writers haven’t done him any favors, and Max so far has unable to rise above the material. He’s an important character, but I don’t care too much. Since I am predicting Fred’s death, I am thinking maybe Nick is spared? Killing off two big characters? Oh, the horror!!

As far as Serena kicking it, I think it’s unlikely, but if she gets a glorious death that she deserves, maybe fighting on the side of the good, I am okay with it. I kinda don’t want her fully redeemed. Conflicted bad guys are always far more interesting in my mind. Plus, I am a big Yvonne fan, so for selfish reasons, I’d like to see her expand her horizons and move on to other great projects. I don’t want the show to drag on, 5 seasons is enough for me. Anything longer, quality may suffer.

-----

Thank god. I mean, the amount of blind Nick/Max worship on this site is just exhausting af. And for some reason they all get posted in the tags/searches consistently and I am forced to see them on my dash EVERY FUCKING DAY (even when I’ve blacklisted the tags!!) but other blogs (like mine, for example lol) can only get like 1 of 10 posts to show up in the main THT tags. Anyway, that’s a personal tumblr gripe tbh.

I really wonder how much of my displeasure and boredom about Nick is because Max is subpar. There’s a certain level basically every other actor in this show is on, and then there’s him... way down below and it’s painfully obvious how out of his depth he is alongside them. I think, if it wasn’t for the talent of the main actors he works opposite (Elisabeth, Yvonne, and Joseph), it would be even more obvious. Also, I do not get the attractiveness thing. He’s not at all appealing to me personally and I can’t find him hot no matter how hard I squint. (Fuck, I think fucking Isaac was better looking! And we all know my terrible opinion about Fred, heh. There is an attractive man!) But then, how much of my inability to view him as hot is due to the fact his personality/character does fuck all for me? 

Actor opinions aside, I understand the purpose of Nick. I truly do and I accept it. I can’t denigrate the role he plays in helping tell June’s story. But I still struggle to care anymore (I skip basically ALL Ni*k/June scenes tbh. YAWN.). I certainly got the point of him in S1. He was very important for multiple reasons. But I find him to be a character who seems to get away with being a shitheel and fans just drool no matter what. And god forbid anybody criticise him for anything he has ever done! They have a woobie excuse for every single thing and nothing is ever his fault and he’s “just following orders so he doesn’t die too”. (OH YEAH. Cos that isn’t a historically problematic defense at all...)

At least we admit Serena is a horrible person lol and don’t justify or write-off every single thing she does. Cos, well, Nick has freewill too and he makes many, many terrible choices for YEARS and is completely complicit in Gilead as well, but hey, he’s so hot therefore who cares as long as we get to see him with his shirt off. Him and June are so in loveeee uwu!!!!! UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

But again, that’s a fandom issue of mine, not even a character/show issue. I just feel on the show he’s sort of... past his prime in terms of usefulness. Like, sure, he’s gonna help June escape (AGAIN) and that’s all well and good but like... been there, done that. Even this concept that he’s important because he represents the “brightness and hope” in an otherwise bleak show because ~tru wuv~ just falls flat for me. I think there are plenty of opportunities for longterm slices of hope --- like, I dunno, #resistance, Mayday, the women breaking out of their bondage and getting revenge... like, the entire point of the show, lol. I want women’s happiness without the need for men to be involved in it as a necessity; I don’t want “Men are the reason for women’s true happiness” as a takeaway from THT. As an aside, sure. But not THE focus. Not to mention it leads to “dick is imperative for women to be truly happy” and I just don’t even wanna go there with how problematic that becomes when taken as a generality.

So, yeah. Nick. He’s fine. He’s not a morally good character. He’s grey. Just like almost everyone else in the main cast. But he lacks the complexity of actually morally obtuse characters. While Fred may be becoming more and more cartoonish and 1-dimensional, he still has more complexity than Nick. And, really, the more they flesh out the female characters--even the “evil” ones--the flatter and flatter both Nick and Fred look, especially in comparison.

Maybe this is intentional by the show? It is, after all, a show about women and living as a female in an ultra-male-dominated fascist society, not an in-depth character study of terrible men and their awful ideas/choices.

I am definitely thinking Nick is spared. Probably until the end of the series, tbh. He’s just too much of a fan favourite. Sigh. And this isn’t GoT when you can kill anybody no matter how popular lol. If any male in Gilead survives, it’ll be him. We know that after the Waterford’s house burns down, everybody is fine. (Rita, Nick, Serena, and Fred.) Whether Fred does ANYTHING to Nick afterwards is debatable cos they need him around to be all uwu with June, who clearly comes back into the Waterford’s circle somehow. I would wager not, even though that is absolutely ridic. The amount of plot armour Nick has is atrocious at this point. He actively insubordinate--leaning on downright criminal (in Gileadean terms), sinful, etc etc and Fred just goes, “Oopsie daisy! Oh well!” And it doesn’t even make sense. June, I get. He’s obsessed and possessive. Nick though? Fred really must be the dumbest fucking guy, unless he thinks Nick is an Eye and will squeal on all his (and Serena’s) terrible shit. I dunno. It’s so vague and blah. [And the fact he wouldn’t try to seriously/secretly disappear the dude who’s shtupping the Handmaid he wants so bad is lazy, inconsistent writing.]

(Question: Is Nick actually an Eye? Is that confirmed? From what I recall, he sort of implies he is but we never see him doing ANYTHING Eye-like, and Eyes have a shit tonne of power, do they not? He doesn’t seem to have any pull whatsoever with anybody. We see him working for Pryce, sorta. But again, that doesn’t scream “EYE!” to me. But that could just be because he’s such a weakling. And really other than his hints, the only other suggestion is Emily claiming there’s an Eye in the house--which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.)

If Serena dies, it’d better be on the side of the good--or after she’s done good. I think it’s pretty impossible for her to fully atone or be redeemed, but hey redemption isn’t a line you cross, it’s a journey you take! I also think it’s 99.9999% certain she will not get a happy ending for the character. All that said, I doubt they’ll kill her off in S3 too. (Although it really does depend about her baby and her contract lol. Sometimes actors take time off to be there with their babies/toddlers. But also some don’t and considering her career is finally taking off, I feel it’d just be bad business to take a break.) I mean, I don’t want her to remain a bad guy, tbh. I’d rather her move from conflicted bad guy who does some good things here and there, to conflicted sorta-good guy who does some bad things here and there. 

I think Serena’s the type of character that would be impossible to fully redeem. She’ll always be selfish, she’ll always be looking out for herself, she’ll always have some skewed, icky views on things, she’ll always have a lack of foresight, she’ll always need to be pushed to do difficult but good things (lazy? cowardly? I dunno), she’ll probably always waver when really pressured. She’ll probably always make some choices that are not good, or at least not nice. And things that makes us go “FUCK!” I’m just really tired of the flip-flopping and inconsistency of S2. (2x10... ahem.) Going back and forth on things is fine, but going up a cliff slowly, and slipping sometimes, but still incrementally moving forward---and then just jumping off the side of the damn cliff for no reason is just bad writing, imo. (And then somehow expecting the viewers to... just, accept that she’s back halfway up the hill where she was before she jumped in like a week... ugh). Just no more of that, please.

I’m with you on the 5 seasons max. I feel like 4 is possibly even pushing it. I guess my opinion may change (or not) depending on how well S3 is done.

[raining-down-on-the-system]

Not gunna lie (a sorta update turned long rambley and dissociative

Crap's been bad. Stressful and hard are the best ways to describe the last 3(?) ish months... It seems like just as everything gets back to "normal" something else comes up... The vast majority has been external stress and happenings. Now though, certain things are transferring to internal bs too and there's literally nothing anyone of us can do about it. Our probably lowest functioning alter in our section was apparently just starting to make sounds, from what I understand there wasn't really anything close to words but sounds alone are a big deal for her. Well somehow word of this got to a persecutor - I really am not comfortable naming anyone here...idk it's all really personal and still really fresh so, yeah, you guys understand... - anyway our persecutor got a hold of her and brought her back to the section over, which none of us /but/ this particular alter has access to (unless she brings you there herself.. obviously) which is REAL damn concerning bc she won't tell anyone - including my bf who she's got a good relationship/trust with (or at least it seems.. idk I'm really sketched out by this tbh) - why/ for what purpose she brought her over there, or anyyyy details surrounding it besides just "it's Otherside stuff, don't worry about it" or hella vague statements like that... (Otherside is the name of the section over from... us? Lol idk how to word it, I don't wanna say "main section" but like???? We literally just call the section we're all in "Inside", the whole of the inner space is called "inner world" like.. 'normal' to differentiate, even though it's super close.. basically we've never been able to agree on a name for our section) Anywayyyy the worry is abuse happening innerworld/ Otherside more specifically based on what we know of her and Otherside.. I'd have to check the dates cuz I'm not 100% positive, but I'm fairly sure this all lines up with some intense and sudden family stress that I don't plan on going into due to contents of it.. idk why I feel the need to explain myself... pretty sure anyone following me who bothers to read all this will probably understand how sensitive content can be difficult/ triggering for both the writer and reader.. this is a damn DID system blog for fucks sake. But point being I'm super concerned for what this could mean, especially as far as unraveling trauma, because tbh I've basically been avoiding that like the plague in therapy... like I'm a crazy curious person by nature, and I want to learn all there is to learn, but am also like a pro at deflecting emotion and (trying to remember how my therapist says it and failing apparently lol) - I legit give up on the end of this sentence I've been trying to figure out the words or even remember for the last like 5mins but I'm tired and starting to dissociate and ughhhhhhhhh....... this is annoying but I just really want to be able to finish my vent... So attempting to continue on... I'm like no good at accepting/ dealing with trauma or anything when presented with it - except occasionally when it's presented purely as fact and void of emotional backing, intent or charge.. lol - which is part of why my bf and I work so well together, were both lower empathy so we often step back and speak theoretically and non emotionally which works really well for us especially when problem solving and stuff. Ok but I've lost track of what I was trying to say again. But I'm keeping all this cuz it's helping me process I think so I can hopefully stop thinking myself in circles RIGHT ok trauma work.. yeah I'm scared shitless of it even though some sick part of me desperately wants to know... And pieces of things are starting to fall together a lot quicker than I would like all of a sudden and too many things are fitting logically together to come up with a most and more than likely scenario of early life events that was only really theorized by me until now and idk that I'm ready to accept this it's too damn much too quick like I had my ideas but I also kinda thought it was all bullshit and nothing would come of it and I'd just be a stupid and crazy young adult with differing issues than originally suspected but I think that's exactly the "cover up" if that makes any sense. It's my safety screen because I'm too much of a p*ssy to face up to any of it... Whelp... congratulations Tumblr... you've officially seen my thought process in writing as I slowly dwindle into dissociation and an existential crisis simultaneously... that's just great.... I'm not deleting any of this tho because I want the record of it tomorrow so I can get it down on paper or something... My therapist is gunna love this lol (like in the sense that she'll approve of me looking emotionally at events and such and communicating them.. at least I hope so?? Hi Stace!!!! lol it's me from the past!!! F*ckin trippy! K but seriously do you approve cuz now I'm paranoid and probs might cry but actually also probably not... just sayin) Guys Idk how to deal with this... imma be honest I'm freaking tf out by everything happening all around me. Like now I can't escape it regardless of where I go - not that that matters because amnesia is still being a regular bitch which I blame on the constant stress???? Does anyone else have that problem??? Amnesia getting worse while more stressed I mean, not just like switching more or something, specifically forgetting any switch. Cuz for a while communication was getting better and now it's gotten worse again.... Normal? Anyone?! ALSOooooooo I'm going through a phase of remembering my dreams right now and with all the stress (and how vivid they always are anyway) they've gotten extra weird and uncomfortable and are pulling ideas from like every corner of our waking life and meshing them together into confusing and jagged (that's not the word but the closest approximation I can make right now) dreammares... like they're not quite nightmares but they leave us with this sense of unease for sureeee... I could still hear the small child from my dream screaming for like 5mins after I woke up... (in the head, not like a hallucination) which leads me to believe it was possibly actually coming from somewhere inside but I don't really have a good way to confirm that and again with the whole curious bit a pussy thing I kinda don't wanna knowww.............. but I do but I really don't but I also do so like... fucking send help???/!!!?!?!?!? K I'm don't writing I'm a fucking mess and I can't tell my ceiling from a sea cave right now... -Jinxy