#there was no characters specified so i hope its cool i chose these two

[in1-nutshell]

How would the tfp autobos react to kid seeker bot buddy thinking starscream looks cool when flying and wants to be like him someday?

Seeker Buddy is in for it when their admiration of their idol gets heard. Since you did not specify which characters you wanted, I chose some at random.

Hope you enjoy!

Bot Buddy the kid Seeker having Starscream as their idol with Wheeljack, Bulkhead, and Optimus Prime

SFW, Platonic, Familial, Cybertronain reader

TFP

Wheeljack

“…Excuse me? Can you repeat that? Cause I thought I heard you fan about Starscream.”--Wheeljack

“I did.”--Buddy

“…You do remember that guy tortured me, nearly killed Arcee and Jack, right?”--Wheeljack

“Yeah, but have you seen how he works in the air! I can barely make any of those turns without nearly clipping my wings and thrusters!”--Buddy

“…”--Wheeljack

Wheeljack understands that everyone has an idol or someone they look up to.

Miko for example. She looks up to all the Wreckers, even though they have more extreme methods, they are at least one of the good guys!

Starscream is the farthest thing from being a good role model, or descent mech.

He makes it his personal mission to get Buddy to find another idol or mentor within the team, he’ll even settle for Knockout or one of Vechicon’s that’s strangely nice to humans.

What was his name again? Sean? Shirley? Stephen?

To a point Wheeljack understands why Buddy sees him in such a way.

Starscream isn’t the Second in Command of the Cons for nothing. Also taking into consideration that Buddy is on a team that is all land-based vehicles, he understands that Buddy might fill left out of the mix.

If Buddy feels lonely flying around, Wheeljack is grabbing the Jackhammer and is going to go flying with them.

Is this going to make Magnus nearly blow a gasket? Most likely.

Will it be worth it in the end? Absolutely.

If he sees Starscream try and recruit Buddy to the Cons ranks, the Second in Command is leaving the battlefield without a servo or entire arm. Buddy isn’t going to go anywhere near that Con if he’s around.

Wheeljack does tell Buddy after the ordeal is over that they are a valued member of the team. Just in case they didn’t already know that.

“…You know we care about you kid.”--Wheeljack

“Hmm?”--Buddy

“You’re a good kid, Buddy. A brilliant Autobot Seeker and the best air support we could ask for. Don’t forget that, okay.”—Wheeljack

“…Thanks Jackie.”--Buddy

Bulkhead

“What?”--Bulkhead

“What?”--Buddy

“You sounded like you were complementing Screamer.”--Bulkhead

“I was.”--Buddy

“Why? You know he tortured Wheeljack and nearly offlined me in that cave, right?”--Bulkhead

“All I’m saying is that the way he did his barrel roll was awesome!”--Buddy

“…Hey, how about we go see Ratchet…”--Bulkhead

Bulkhead is seriously going to have a sit-down conversation with Buddy about this.

Like Wheeljack, he is going to make it his personal mission to find Buddy another idol/ mentor.

He does see how Buddy might feel different from the rest of the team based on their alt mode so he tries to be as inclusive as he can in other activities.

Buddy feeling bored? Now they are lobbing with him and Wheeljack.

Buddy feeling lonely? Just wait until its night-time, then he can go drive underneath Buddy’s flight path and the two can talk about anything Buddy wants.

If Starscream tries to get Buddy to come to the Cons ranks, Bulkhead is going to get nervous, but that nervousness is going to turn to rage as he uses his wrecking ball to make some brand-new dents along his chassis.

He does ask Buddy later if they are okay with their spot on the team, and if they aren’t to tell him why. He wants his friend to know that they are wanted on the team, not just as air support, but for the bot they are.

“You okay Buddy?”--Bulkhead

“Its gonna take a bit more than just a couple of baby missiles to take your air support down Bulk.”--Buddy

“I’m not asking about our air support. I’m asking my tiny friend if they are okay.”--Bulkhead

“… I’m not that tiny.”--Buddy

“Its okay if you don’t want to talk now. But just know I’m here and so is the team.”--Bulkhead

“…Thanks Bulk.”--Buddy

Optimus Prime

“Pardon?”--Optimus

“I just really like how Starscream, despite all the odds against him in the air, he was still able to get away using some of those complicated moves! If I tried those right now, I’d have to go to Ratchet for repairs and be stuck there for a month!”--Buddy

“…I see.”--Optimus

Prime is troubled.

On one servo, he understands why Buddy might feel this way about Starscream.

As Second in Command of the Decepticon army, Starscream has gain feats and recognition as a terror in the skies amongst the Autobots. He is wild foe that while not always efficient but a near master in the artistry of flying amongst the Seekers. Buddy being young and a seeker themselves is going to look up naturally to one of the biggest names in Seeker history.

But…

Optimus does have a talk with them about Starscream.

He respects Buddy wanting to look up to the Seeker, for his flying abilities, not morality.

Everyone has someone they look up to whether it be good or bad, it is on the bot themselves on how they want to interpret that idol.

However, Optimus does draw a line when Starscream tries to get Buddy to join the Cons.

Dad mode activated.

He is going to make one clear warning to Starscream to leave Buddy alone before the blaster starts firing.

After dealing with the Decepticons, Optimus makes it clear to Buddy that if they want to talk about anything, that he is there to listen.

“We are a team Buddy, a family. If you feel that you are, otherwise, you are sorely mistaken. You may think that you are not, but you are and always be a part of this family.”--Optimus

“…”--Buddy

“If you ever have the need to talk about something, you can always come and talk to me or anyone else on the team. But please reach out so we may be able to help you with whatever you may need.”--Optimus

“…Thank you Prime… really it means a lot… Thanks.”—Buddy

“Thank you, Buddy for being a part of our family.”--Optimus

[solongandgoodnightxoxo]

//ooc

I kind of have the urge to loredump for this blog, don’t know why. Keep in mind that its 3 am while I type this and I haven’t had a coherent thought in 30 minutes.

(Just found the best way to describe this: Jekyll and Hyde)

So basically, theres two sides to this coin

Gideon

He tends to be closer to the comic/movie version, full throttle on the evil and bitchyness for him (though he is slightly nicer to his partners and lucas, he still wont hesitate to treat them like lesser human beings)

Gordon

Basically just anime gideon in all of his glory. Hs’s way nicer, but don’t let that fool you, he’s still very evil, and very rude. He’s typically really nasty to everyone except close friends and partners. (Unlike gideon, who’s only slightly nicer to partners and lucas specifically, gordon enjoys company of all the exes)

The one thing the two have in common is how they treat others, but that mainly just applies to anons.

The switch to “Gideon” usually happens whenever he’s plotting, going through shit, or just really annoyed. So in theory you don’t see this side of him often, but theres really no warning for when he switches.

I’m not exactly sure if this would be a personality disorder, but I do think he’s bipolar and has BPD, but thats just Gideon in general to me.

If you want, you guys can send in asks and specify if you want him to be Gideon or Gordon.

Basically how im separating it is, I like both spto and the comics a TON, so I don’t want to chose just one version for him to be. I figured if I separated him like this, then I can have both (if that makes sense)

Backtracking to the personality disorder thing, I feel like its not fully that (im still a firm believer that this character in general has BPD or a bipolar disorder based on his actions and motives) but more of a status thing. Gideon is usually how he wants the public to see him, cool, tough, everything that makes him hot essentially. But then Gordon is just who he really is, a dumb little dork who loves his lady and throwing rocks at cars with Lucas.

Though I do like the idea that no matter what, he’s still evil within. Even as Gordon, he’s not opposed to messing things up and making lives hell, its just not his priority.

I hope this made sense, I’ll edit in the morning when I’m actually thinking straight (maybe)

[incorrectzep]

Max: There's no "I" in team, but there is one in pizza!

Simon: So you're not sharing?

Max: I am not sharing.

[tears0fsatan]

hi there!! if im not mistaken, i think you can write for zhongli?? so may i request zhongli comforting the reader (gn or male, i dont really mind) who's feeling really anxious and dreading a future event?

𖥻 characters... zhongli x gn!reader

𖥻 genre... comfort + fluff !!!!

𖥻 warnings... relationship between zhongli and reader isn't specified, but zhongli calls u endearments such as 'dearest' and 'my dear' hope that doesn't bother yall, a little ooc zhongli im sorry its been so long since i've seen his ancient ass

𖥻 a.n... AAAA thank you sm for sending this req !!!! my inbox has been filled with two people telling me to kay why es n its really nice to see such a wholesome request ૮  ˶ˆ꒳ˆ˵ ა !!! i hope im not the only one who calls my friends 'my love', 'darling', etc etc .... anw i hope you like this n im wishin the best comes ur way anon <33 !! ヽ(。˃ ᵕ ˂ )ﾉ

you sighed for the umpteenth time today, as much as you had tried to distract yourself from your anxiety, it always managed to worm it's way back into your current train of thought.

zhongli paused in recounting one of his many sentimental memories, he had sensed something was off the moment you arrived at third round knockout but chose to stay quiet and observe your reactions as the night went on.

"[name], are you alright?" zhongli asked, worried about what you could be fretting over.

you looked up at him in shock, you had completely forgotten about him. you had been so lost in your thoughts you forgot zhongli was talking to you.

"oh-oh! yeah yeah, i'm sorry," you laughed lightly, waving your hand dismissively, "what were you saying?" you smiled at him, taking a bite from your dinner and focusing your attention onto him.

the geo archon reached over the table, gently clasping your hands in his with a worried expression adorning his features.

"what's troubling you, my dear?" his tone alone nearly made you burst into tears, but you held yourself back, opting to distract yourself with the feeling of zhongli's thumb rhythmically stroking your knuckles.

"it's- everything's fine." you winced upon hearing your voice crack, completely giving you away.

zhongli shot you an encouraging smile, in hopes of coaxing the truth out of you.

you groaned, unable to hide your feelings from the man. zhongli's chuckle indicated that he knew he had won too.

"it's nothing really, just a bit of anxiety but that never killed anyone." you laughed, with the aim to change the subject. however, the geo archon knew better than you and looked at you expectantly.

you sighed once more, "i'm feeling a bit anxious about an event coming up is all, nothing to worry about."

zhongli closed his eyes and hummed in apprehension, knowing full well where you were coming from. after all, he's been around for six thousand years, he's had his fair share of nerves.

abruptly, zhongli pushed his chair back and got up, your hands still in his.

"there's a place i visit when i feel troubled, would you accompany me there?" with such sweet words, how could you not agree?

"but- zhongli- we're in the middle of dinner?" you asked, taken aback and confounded by his sudden spontaneity, yet stood up nonetheless.

as soon as you were on your feet, zhongli was tugging you towards the exit.

the walk to this mystery place the geo archon wanted to show you was tranquil, the two of you didn't utter a word but it didn't bother you, in fact, you rather enjoyed the silence.

the night was chilly, gentle wind blowing from the ocean filled the night air with the scent of the sea breeze. zhongli's hand in yours contrasted to cool night, which helped soothe your annoyingly increasing anxiety.

admittedly, you were once more overtaken by your thoughts. you took a sharp inhale as the thoughts began crowding your mind, so many swarming your head at once that you couldn't make out one coherent thought.

thoughts ranging from "what do i wear?" to "how will i get there?" to "who'll be there?" and more pounded into your head causing you to lose your footing and slip. luckily, before you could be seriously injured, zhongli caught you.

"be careful now dearest, that could've dangerous." you blinked a few times, confused as to what just happened. you looked away from zhongli's warm, prying eyes, in hopes of willing away the embarrassed blush that had worked it's way onto your face.

"we've arrived, why don't you take a seat?" you looked around, noticing the geo archon had dragged you to the valley of nantianmen, underneath the great tree that served as a tomb for zhongli's old friend. you noticed zhongli had pointed to a spot near the foot of the tree and sat down, the archon following suit.

you two sat there in silence, basking in the peaceful atmosphere that surrounded the two of you.

"i don't know why i'm so nervous, i guess i'm just worrying about everything." zhongli hummed in acknowledgement, showing you that his focus was on you despite his eyes being glued to the blanket of stars that had seen everything.

"it's not that i don't want to go- i do! but i'm also just.. so scared. i don't know what to expect and i think that's what scares me the most. i've been trying to tell myself it won't be as bad as i've made it out to be but my mind keeps coming up with more things i need to worry about." you let out all your pent up thoughts, coming undone under the moonlit sky. it felt nice, archons it felt so nice to talk about how you actually felt.

"i see.." zhongli stayed quiet for a few beats, assumingly trying to find the right words to respond with, "there are still a few days until this event takes place, are there not? you could use the upcoming days to prepare yourself. if you would allow, i am more than willing to be of help."

you felt tears welling up in your eyes and you let your head rest on his shoulder, eyes still trained on the vast expanse of twinkling lights.

"though the days awaiting an event are unfavourable, i believe you are more than capable of overcoming such a feat. you have faced far worse, you may even be the most ardent person i have had the honour of knowing in all my years living in teyvat."

the tears you had tried so hard to keep inside began to fall down your face and you let them.

"your patience is commendable, if you can sit through one of my many ramblings of the past, you will be able to sit through the event." the two of you let out a small laugh, the cool night air making the tear tracks feel sticky on your warm skin.

you took a deep breath and closed your eyes, holding it for a while before releasing it. you could take things step by step and zhongli would stand beside you every step of the way.

© 2022 TEARS0FSATAN. please don’t repost, modify or translate my works anywhere!

[writingwithcolor]

Jurassic period alien interacting with key cultures and historical figures in Middle East & Asia throughout history

@ketchupmaster400​ said:

Hello, so my question is for a character I’ve been working on for quite a while but wasn’t sure about a few things. So basically at the beginning of the universe there was this for less being made up of dark matter and dark energy. Long story short it ends up on earth during the Jurassic Period. It has the ability to adapt and assimilate into other life animals except it’s hair is always black and it’s skin is always white and it’s eyes are always red. It lives like this going from animal to animal until it finally becomes human and gains true sentience and self awareness. As a human it lives within the Middle East and Asia wondering around trying to figure out its purpose and meaning. So what I initially wanted to do with it was have small interactions with the dark matter human and other native humans that kinda helped push humanity into the direction it is now. For example, Mehndhi came about when the dark matter human was drawing on their skin because it felt insecure about having such white skin compared to other people. And ancient Indians saw it and thought it was cool so they adopted it and developed it into Mehndi. Minor and small interactions though early history leading to grander events. Like they would be protecting Jerusalem and it’s people agains the Crusaders later on. I also had the idea of the the dark matter human later on interacting with the prophets Jesus Christ and Muhammad. With Jesus they couldn’t understand why he would sacrifice himself even though the people weren’t deserving. And then Jesus taught them that you have to put other before yourself and protecting people is life’s greatest reward. And then with the prophet Muhammad, I had the idea that their interaction was a simple conversation that mirrors the one he had with the angel Jibril, that lead to the principles of Islam. Now with these ideas I understand the great importance of how not to convey Islam and I’ve been doing reasearch, but I am white and I can understand how that may look trying to write about a different religion than my own. So I guess ultimate my question is, is this ok to do? Is it ok to have an alien creature interact with religious people and historical events as important as they were? Like I said I would try to be as accurate and as respectable as possible but I know that Islam can be a touchy subject and the last thing I would want is to disrespect anyone. The main reason I wanted the dark matter being in the Middle East was because I wanted to do something different because so much has been done with European and American stuff I wanted to explore the eastern side of the world because it’s very beau and very rich with so many cultures that I want to try and represent. I’m sorry for the long post but I wanted you guys to fully understand what my idea was. Thank you for your time and hope you stay safe.

Disclaimer:

The consensus from the moderators was that the proposed character and story is disrespectful from multiple cultural perspectives. However, we can’t ignore the reality that this is a commonly deployed trope in many popular science fiction/ thriller narratives. Stories that seek to take religious descriptions of events at face value from an areligious perspective particularly favor this approach. Thus, we have two responses:

Where we explain why we don’t believe this should be attempted.

Where we accept the possibility of our advice being ignored.

1) No - Why You Shouldn’t Do This:

Hi! I’ll give you the short answer first, and then the extended one.

Short answer: no, this is not okay.

Extended answer. I’ll divide it into three parts.

1) Prophet Muhammad as a character:

Almost every aspect of Islam, particularly Allah (and the Qur’an), the Prophet(s) and the companions at the time of Muhammad ﷺ, are strictly kept within the boundaries of real life/reality. I’ll assume this comes from a good place, and I can understand that from one side, but seriously, just avoid it. It is extremely disrespectful and something that is not even up to debate for Muslims to do, let alone for non-Muslims. Using Prophet Muhammad as a character will only bring you problems. There is no issue with mentioning the Prophet during his lifetime when talking about his attributes, personality, sayings or teachings, but in no way, we introduce fictional aspects in a domain that Muslims worked, and still work, hard to keep free from any doubtful event or incident. Let’s call it a closed period: we don’t add anything that was not actually there.

Reiterating then, don’t do this. There is a good reason why Muslims don’t have any pictures of Prophet Muhammad. We know nothing besides what history conveyed from him. 

After this being said, there is another factor you missed – Jesus is also an important figure in Islam and his story from the Islamic perspective differs (a lot) from that of the Christian perspective. And given what you said in your ask, you would be taking the Christian narrative of Jesus. If it was okay to use Prophet Muhammad as a character (reminder: it’s not) and you have had your dark matter human interacting with the biblical Jesus, it will result in a complete mess; you would be conflating two religions.

2) Crusaders and Jerusalem:

You said this dark matter human will be defending Jerusalem against the Crusaders. At first, there is really no problem with this. However, ask yourself: is this interaction a result of your character meeting with both Jesus and Prophet Muhammed? If yes, please refer to the previous point. If not, or even if you just want to maintain this part of the story, your dark matter human can interact with the important historical figures of the time. For example, if you want a Muslim in your story, you can use Salah-Ad-Din Al-Ayoubi (Saladin in the latinized version) that took back Jerusalem during the Third Crusade. Particularly, this crusade has plenty of potential characters. 

Also, featuring Muslim characters post Prophet Muhammad and his companions’ time, is completely fine, just do a thorough research.

 3) Middle Eastern/South Asian settings and Orientalism:

The last point I want to remark is with the setting you chose for your story. Many times, when we explore the SWANA or South Asian regions it’s done through an orientalist lens. Nobody is really safe from falling into orientalism, not even the people from those regions. My suggestion is educating yourself in what orientalism is and how it’s still prevalent in today’s narrative. Research orientalism in entertainment, history... and every other area you can think of. Edward Said coined this term for the first time in history, so he is a good start. There are multiple articles online that touch this subject too. For further information, I defer to middle eastern mods. 

- Asmaa

Racism and Pseudo-Archaeology:

A gigantic, unequivocal and absolute no to all of it, lmao. 

I will stick to the bit about the proposed origin of mehendi in your WIP, it’s the arc I feel I’m qualified to speak on, Asmaa has pretty much touched upon the religious and orientalism complications. 

Let me throw out one more word: pseudoarchaeology. That is, taking the cultural/spiritual/historical legacies of ancient civilizations, primarily when it involves people of colour, and crediting said legacies to be the handiwork of not just your average Outsider/White Saviour but aliens. I’ll need you to think carefully about this: why is it that in so much of media and literature pertaining to the so-called “conspiracy theories” dealing with any kind of extraterrestrial life, it’s always Non-Western civilizations like the Aztec, the ancient Egyptians, the Harappans etc who are targeted? Why is it that the achievements of the non West are so unbelievable that it’s more feasible to construct an idea of non-human, magical beings from another planet who just conveniently swooped in to build our monuments and teach us how to dress and what to believe in? If the answer makes you uncomfortable, it’s because it should: denying the Non-West agency of their own feats is not an innocent exercise in sci-fi worldbuilding, it comes loaded with implications of racial superiority and condescension towards the intellect and prowess of Non-European cultures. 

Now, turning to specifics:

Contrary to what Sarah J. Maas might believe- mehendi designs are neither mundane, purely aesthetic tattoos nor can they be co-opted by random Western fantasy characters. While henna has existed as an art form in various cultures, I’m limiting my answer to the Indian context, (specifying since you mention ancient India). Mehendi is considered one of the tenets of the Solah Shringar- sixteen ceremonial adornments for Hindu brides, one for each phase of the moon, as sanctioned by the Vedic texts. The shade of the mehendi is a signifier for the strength of the matrimonial bond: the darker the former, the stronger the latter. Each of the adornments carries significant cosmological/religious symbolism for Hindus. To put it bluntly, when you claim this to be an invention of the aliens, you are basically taking a very sacred cultural and artistic motif of our religion and going “Well actually….extraterrestrials taught them all this.”

In terms of Ayurveda (Traditional holistic South Asian medicine)  , mehendi was used for its medicinal properties. It works as a cooling agent on the skin and helps to alleviate stress, particularly for the bride-to-be. Not really nice to think that aliens lent us the secrets of Ayurvedic science (pseudoarchaeology all over again). 

I’m just not feeling this arc at all. The closest possible alternative I could see to this is the ancient Indian characters incorporating some specific stylistic motifs in their mehendi in acknowledgement to this entity, in the same vein of characters incorporating motifs of tribute into their armour or house insignia, but even so, I’m not sure how well that would play out. If you do go ahead with this idea, I cannot affirm that it will not receive backlash.

-Mimi

These articles might help:

 Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens

A History of Indian Henna (this studies mehendi origins mostly with reference to Mughal history)

Solah Shringar

2) Not Yes, But If Ignoring the Above:

I will be the dissenting voice of “Not No, But Here Are The Big Caveats.” Given that there is no way to make the story you want to tell palatable to certain interpretations of Islam and Christianity, here is my advice if the above arguments did not sufficiently deter you.

1. Admiration ≠ Research: It is not enough to just admire cultures for their richness and beauty. You need to actually do the research and learn about them to determine if the story you want to tell is a good fit for the values and principles these cultures prioritize. You need to understand the significance of historical figures and events to understand the issues with attributing the genesis of certain cultural accomplishments to an otherworldly influence. 1.

2. Give Less Offense When Possible and Think Empathetically: You should try to imagine the mindsets of those you will offend and think about to what degree you can soften or ameliorate certain aspects of your plot, the creature’s characteristics, and the creature’s interactions with historical figures to make your narrative more compatible. There is no point pretending that much of areligious science fiction is incompatible with monotheist, particularly non-henotheistic, religious interpretations as well as the cultural items and rituals derived from those religious interpretations. One can’t take “There is no god, just a lonely alien” and make that compatible with “There is god, and only in this particular circumstance.” Thus:

As stated above by Asmaa and Mimi, there is no escaping the reality the story you propose is offensive to some. Expect their outcry to be directed towards you. Can you tolerate that?

Think about how you would feel if someone made a story where key components of your interpretation of reality are singled out as false. How does this make you feel? Are you comfortable doing that to others?

3. Is Pseudoarchaeology Appropriate Here?: Mimi makes a good point about the racial biases of pseudoarchaeology. Pseudoarchaeology is a particular weakness of Western-centric atheist sci-fi. Your proposed story is the equivalent of a vaguely non-descript Maya/Aztec/Egyptian pyramid or Hindu/ Buddhist-esque statue being the source for a Resident Evil bio weapon/ Predator nest/ Assassin’s Creed Isu relic.

Is this how you wish to draw attention to these cultures you admire? While there is no denying their ubiquity in pop-culture, such plots trivialize broad swathes of non-white history and diminish the accomplishments of associated ethnic groups. The series listed above all lean heavily into these tropes either because the authors couldn’t bother to figure out something more creative or because they are intentionally telling a story the audience isn’t supposed to take seriously.*

More importantly, I detect a lot of sincerity in your ask, so I imagine such trivialization runs counter to your expressed desire to depict Eastern cultures in a positive and accurate manner.

4. Freedom to Write ≠ Freedom from Consequence: Once again, as a reminder, it’s not our job to reassure you as to whether or not what you are proposing is ok. Asmaa and Mimi have put a lot of effort into explaining who you will offend and why.  We are here to provide context, but the person who bears the ultimate responsibility for how you choose to shape this narrative, particularly if you share this story with a wide audience, is you. Speaking as one writer to another, I personally do not have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I think it is important to be face reality head-on.

- Marika.

* This is likely why the AC series always includes that disclaimer stating the games are a product of a multicultural, inter-religious team and why they undermine Western cultures and Western religious interpretations as often (if not moreso) than those for their non-Western counterparts.

Note: Most WWC asks see ~ 5 hours of work from moderators before they go live. Even then, this ask took an unusually long amount of time in terms of research, emotional labor and discussion. If you found this ask (and others) useful, please consider tipping the moderators (link here), Asmaa (coming eventually) and Mimi (here). I also like money - Marika.

[lovinkiri]

Idk if you write about this kind of stuff but what about the Bakusquad celebrating their last month in the UA getting high one night... And the weed shows their true nature. And on one hand we have Bakugou that goes in the middle of the night to his y/n room and he became super cute and clingy and tells her that he loves her for real. And on the other hand, we have a feral Kirishima who goes to his y/N dorm and demands affection and shows his love in a really dominating way. Mayyybe it gets a little naughty... Idk I let you decide that. If u feel uncomfortable with this ask, just ignore it please.

Under The Influence

Author's Thoughts: I have never once gotten high so I don't think this'll be good but I really wanted to try 💜 Also, no other characters were specified so I only did Bakugou and Kirishima, I hope thats fine.

Warning: Making Out, a bit of biting, a bit of marking.

ALL CHARACTERS ARE 18+

Katsuki Bakugou

Honestly, Katsuki didn't even wanna go to the celebration. He didn't see the point, he wasn't planning on getting high, and he could be sleeping.

But you convinced him, wanting him to have fun.

"You'll regret it if you don't go," You said.

"C'mon, you don't wanna miss out baby," You said.

"These are memories you'll want to share one day," You said.

And though he acted like those were terrible points, they weren't. So the night of, he went to Sero's dorm. They had specifically chose this night because Aizawa was going out for drinks. Well, he was dragged out but you get it.

You were hoping he'd loosen up, have some fun. Mina had invited you but you declined. Bakugou deserved a night with his friends. Besides, it was the Bakusquad. You had no idea what they were planning for tonight, but Mina and Denki usually found a way to get scolded by Aizawa. You wanted none of that.

So you decided to just catch some Z's.

And Bakugou?

Well, Mina eventually convinced him to join in their activities. And of all of them, Katsuki was the quietest when under the influence.

Then he suddenly stood up.

"I'm gonna head out. This was cool, I guess. Night, love you idiots."

And he was gone. Leaving the Bakusquad in disbelief at what they'd just heard leave their stubborn friend's mouth.

"What did he saaaay?"

Katsuki ignored the loud exclamation from Denki and went straight to your room, giving the door three sturdy knocks.

You're eyes fluttered for a moment and you sighed, forcing yourself out of bed. "The league better not be attacking again.."

Making your way to the door, you paused before opening it. "... Who is it?" You asked cautiously.

"Y/n, open the door already.."

You quickly did so, seeing as though it was Katsuki and not the little perv known as Mineta.

Katsuki stood there, eyes tinted pink and half lidded. You let him in, closing and locking the door after him. You couldn't help but laugh a little.

"Seems like you had fun after all, huh Katsuki?" You looked over, watching as he climbed into your bed.

He only grumbled something softly. You walked over and crawled over, sitting next to him.

But you hadn't expected a strong pair of arms to pull you closer.

You yelped softly and looked at him in shock. "Uh Katsuki? Are you okay?"

"... What? Can't hold you?" It was barely made out, his voice muffled as his voice was muffled by your torso.

You watched his face disappeared into your stomach. "You're different.." You giggled and curled your hair in his sand-blonde locks.

He sighed contently and the two of you stayed like that for a moment. The only sound was your breathing and the slight wind coming from your window. Then he spoke once more.

"I know.. That I can be an ass. But I love you, alright? A lot. So.. I know its selfish. But please let me love you. Until I can be better."

You couldn't help but stare with wide eyes before smiling softly. "Katsuki.. I'm not quite sure if it gets better than this."

Eijirou Kirishima

Eijirou was excited. A night to spend with his best friends, celebrating everything they'd been through, and how they'd survived it.

It was his job to bring the snacks, as they were bound to get hungry. Mina was going to bring the music. Sero brought the weed. Bakugou brought the blankets. Denki brought, as he put it, the good vibes.

Eijirou only wished you were there, but you'd told him you wanted him to spend time with his friends. If you went, you were worried you'd ruin the vibe. And he was always by your side nowadays.

"I'll still be here tomorrow." You told him.

So he gave you a kiss, wished you goodnight, and went off to Sero's room.

You spent the night watching movies, as sleeping became a bit difficult without your redheaded boyfriend.

During the fourth movie, said man entered your room. You looked over in confusion before smiling. Usually, Eijirou knocked before entering, so his sudden appearance surprised you.

"Hey, Eij. Did you have fun?" You watched him approach and climb in the bed.

He gave a nod and slowly climbed on top of you. "Yeah.. Missed ya though." He pressed a small kiss to your lips.

You blushed and returned the kiss, placing a hand on his chest. "Mmm.. I can see. Missed you too, babe."

He peppered kisses down your jaw, pulling your body further again his.

He couldn't help it. You just looked so good. Almost good enough to eat. Good enough to..

"Are you-" You cut off with a squeal, feeling his teeth sink into the soft flesh of your neck. His tongue ran over the spot in an attempt to soothe the sudden pain.

"Just lemme mark you up a bit more.." He growled lightly. "Make you all mine."

[mvnvgedmischief]

unremarkable days.

summary: sirius black is trying to be a good man, a good brother, a good person. Sirius has a steady job designing book covers for a publishing house, a flat he never leaves, and a traumatized brother who was just removed from the custody of his parents. All in all, it's wildly unremarkable.

chapter:  5/?

characters: sirius black, regulus black, wolfstar, background marauders

tags: tw: canon compliant abuse, child abuse, social services, abuse, eating disorders

read it on ao3 here

read the last chapter here

words: 4.2k

Sirius felt his mind whirring, as usual. God, it was so hard for him to be normal, to cope with the stress and the frustration and the exhaustion. He didn’t know how he was meant to. He remembered just a month ago, when Alice told him he should take a parental leave. Six weeks off he could have had if he wanted them. But he wanted to keep his trajectory undisputed. It was a mistake, in hindsight. He didn’t know then just how difficult his parents would make things. He didn’t know then what he knew now. He would have said “fuck it” to his trajectory if he would’ve been able to sleep. After all, it was the only thing he really wanted. It was the only thing, other than Regulus’s safety. 

He knew that he couldn’t do anything about this Remus situation. It was too dangerous. If he did something, he didn’t want it coming out in court. If he didn’t, Remus would probably never approve a design again. At least, not from him. So he chose to do what anyone would in his position. He called Marlene and looped in Alice. The calendar invite specified the meeting would begin in twenty minutes. He had titled it “Team Touchbase: The Girls are Talking Shit Again” in hopes to lighten the mood. However, there was no way that it would work. Not with the conversation he was about to have. 

He found himself breathing deeply. Trying to muster the courage to do this. They would be upset. He was sure of it. Especially when it was something this earnest, this niche and close to his chest. But Sirius didn’t have any other choice. Not as far as he could tell. So instead, he made plans for all of the inevitable ways they would try to convince him not to do this. But his mind was already made up. There was no going back now. Not when he was already this committed to the decision. 

“I need to be dropped from this project.” He doesn’t even bother with pleasantries. “Alice, please take me off of this project.”

The scoff caught him off guard. In all the time he had spent working closely with Marlene, she had never scoffed at him. Then again, he’d never asked to be taken off either. “You’re gonna let one bad meeting get to you? It’s not that big of a deal, Sirius.” Marlene was looking at him expectantly. As though she expected him to realize that he was wrong and laugh about it. 

“They’ll all be bad. I need to be dropped from the project.” He stated it like a fact. Maybe because to him, it was one. He just kept repeating it because if he said it enough times maybe they would just believe him and drop him from this book, and this chaos.

“What happened in your meeting earlier? I feel like I’m playing catch up.” It really wasn’t fair to Alice that she didn’t know. But Sirius didn't feel like explaining. 

“Sirius wants to get dropped from the poetry book.”

“But—“ Alice paused. She looked like she was sussing something out. “But aren't those your favorite pet projects?” 

“Yeah, but—” 

“So what’s the problem? “ Marlene cut him off again, and Sirius was beginning to lose his will to do this. He knew he couldn’t just not show up to meetings, but it would show them he needed to be taken off this project. 

“Alice, I have so many projects right now where the author doesn’t hate me. I don’t really have the time to be on a project where he does.” He wasn’t even acknowledging Marlene right now, because she clearly didn’t understand. why he wanted to be taken off. And that was okay, he didn’t mind, as long as he could get off this project. 

Marlene and Alice were good people. They weren’t going to make him do this when he reminded them of how much he was doing, how much weight he was actually pulling. He was sure of it. 

“Bullshit. He doesn’t hate you.”

Well that wasn’t what he anticipated. 

Marlene wasn’t having this. She began to extrapolate on her point, and Sirius was only half listening. “He thinks you’re cool and intimidating, Sirius. He was trying not to feel small. It might not be your style to take that on, but he doesn’t hate you and you know it.” Marlene seemed really keen on keeping him on this project. Sirius wondered why for a moment, but he couldn’t be sure. He didn't know how hard she worked to put him on this account in the first place. 

“Marlene, I don’t know how else to tell you this, but,” he could feel his tone rising. He was starting to get upset. “I don’t have the luxury of time right now to redo the last week of work by myself. Especially when he wants it by today. I don’t have the fucking time. All because he doesn’t like me. I don’t have the time. Take me off the fucking project.” 

“I’m sorry what? What even happened in this meeting?” Sirius wished she had just been there. He wished she watched it happen, because the idea of going through all of the gory details all over again made his skin crawl. 

“Her,” It was probably unfair to place that much emphasis on the word, as though it was Marlene’s fault, “client told me to start over, and when I asked him for any feedback, he essentially told me that if I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it that I should be out of a job.” 

“You’re being dramatic, Sirius! He didn’t say that! He just said that–” She paused, and Sirius assumed it was because that was exactly what Remus had said. “that you were the artist, not him.”

“Marlene, we don’t let our junior designers take project lead most of the time. I know you really wanted him on this project, but one of the reasons that junior designers don’t lead projects is because a team of two designers on one project is less likely to get bullied. Start cc’ing me on all your emails, I’ll be overseeing this project. “ Alice was speaking with conviction and grace, something Sirius knew he lacked.  He knew that lacking in that made him hard to root for, but he didn’t care. 

“Can I clear out my schedule from these meetings? I really don’t want to even look at them anymore.” He wished he didn’t sound like a kicked puppy right now.

“No.” Alice affirmed, “You are not about to let a client bully you out of your job. Besides, I’m overseeing this project, and this relationship. If you’re not there, there is no relationship.” She really had an air about her that made her hard to question. Sirius wished he had that. 

With that, the conversation was over. Neither Marlene nor Sirius look satisfied, but Alice has provided her mentee as good of a solution as he was probably going to get right now. And effectively Marlene got what she wanted. Sirius was still on the project. 

“Both of you, take the day to cool off. I’ll be getting in touch with the client later today to make sure that our client relationship terms are actually being upheld. Something tells me he didn’t read them.” 

Sirius nodded numbly. He felt emotionally tapped out. There was no way that this was going to work. How was he supposed to juggle all of this, on top of his already stressful life. So instead, he logged off, like Alice suggested. He was not going to be logging back on any time soon. He could practically guarantee that. 

Sirius found his way to the couch, with its ever inviting comfort. All of the coziness of falling asleep, none of the bedroom associated trauma. That was definitely a bonus. Falling asleep on the couch always seemed far safer than falling asleep in his bed. There was less likelihood of nightmares, less anxiety, less flashbacks. It was a wonder Sirius ever made it to bed. Today, he didn’t. He sat on the sectional, curling himself into a small ball in the corner, and turned on something low intensity. He put on a documentary series about penguins, which felt like it would be soothing, and before he knew it, he was asleep. 

He was lucky when he logged out of his email, it auto populated his Out of Office message. Or at least, usually he thought that. Today he would have rather died, then have that functionality turned on. Because he was sure it was what prompted Remus to wake him from his peaceful nap with a call. 

Well, peaceful was a strong word. It definitely had its own fair share of thrashing, but Sirius would take thrashing and nightmares he couldn’t remember over this phone call. He dreads it until he slides the accept call button.

“Sirius Black.” He begins, because what is there to say. His voice sounded thick with exhaustion. He could hear it.

“We need to get that meeting on the calendar.” Didn’t Remus know he could just send a calendar invite? This remote thing wasn’t nearly as complicated as he made it out to be. 

“I’m out of office Remus.” His tone was dripping with contempt. He didn’t want this. He wanted to sleep. 

“You’re always out of office. You never answer when i call you, it’s fucking nutty how hard I have to work to get you on the phone.” 

“It wouldn’t be if you could just check the google calendar or get your nose out of my business.” Sirius didn’t know he was feeling this spicy today. But apparently, he was enjoying controlled confrontation.  

“i don’t think that’s—“ 

“Stop asking people why I’m not in office. It’s none of your business.” He wasn't pulling any punches right now. He was going to get this man off of his back. “It’s fucking weird. I don’t know you.”

“I was just–“ Remus wasn’t going to get a word in edgewise. Sirius wasn’t going to let him. 

“And for that matter, it shouldn’t matter whether or not I’m remote. It seems to bother you so much, but you were the one who tried to put me on the project. You were the one who asked Marlene about it. I’ve been remote since before you got picked up, it’s not news to anyone else on the team. It’s weird that you’re so concerned with me.”

“You were the one who—“

“That was a big fucking mistake.” Sirius spit in response. Sure, he wanted to see Remus again when he had asked him on that date. But putting it all in perspective, he couldn’t do that. And he didn’t like that Remus was pressing everyone for the details of his personal life. He would rather cut this off here, not risk the court date and the details being aired out. Especially not since they could be used to take Regulus from him. He couldn’t risk it. 

“What was the point of it then? Why’d you ask me and then pull this?” Remus’s voice sounded small. Like he was going to cry. 

“I liked you until you started prying into my life. I don’t need more people running around trying to dig up information on me.” Sirius shouldn’t have said that. He felt it in his chest, but he couldn’t take it back now. He practically wants to scream, you could have just waited, I would have explained. But he could not do that, because it definitely wasn’t true. 

“Oh.” That’s all Remus said, before he clicked the phone off and hung up. 

Sirius didn’t have the time to think about that. He just didn’t. While six months ago he would have spiralled out of control thinking about what that short “oh” meant, but he couldn’t spend that time right now. Shit. What time even was it? He checked the time when his eyes began to focus again, and took a moment to try to collect himself. It was half past five, and he had no time because Regulus would be home from football in twenty minutes and Sirius needed to have dinner on the table. So he jumped off of the couch, and tore from the living room area into the kitchen. What was he even going to make? How would he even pull this together? 

He was moving at a speed he wasn’t sure he even possessed these days. He was running through what he could make mentally, trying not to come up with anything that would wear on him too heavily or signal a lack of effort to Regulus. It was a fine line that he walked every night. When food was too terrifyingly bland, too ashen in his mouth, and too overwhelming to his mind, how did he settle on something comforting for his brother? And on top of that, he needed to be quick.  He was running out of time.  He grabbed a jar of pasta sauce that he had made earlier in the week, and a box of spaghetti, and hoped that this would be enough. It wasn’t good enough to stand up to the chefs in the Black family home, but then again, he didn’t think Regulus wanted that anyways. 

When Regulus finally walked through the door, Sirius was almost done cooking. He had meatballs in a pan, the pasta was strained, and the sauce was warm. Maybe this would be enough. Maybe he would have done enough for them to just enjoy dinner, and have a normal night. 

“Hey, Siri.” Regulus looked calm for the first time in a long time. Hopefully tonight would be a good night. Hopefully they could have a normal meal, laugh and smile and have a good time. It would be nice. 

“Hey, Reg.” Sirius replies, putting together a bowl for his younger brother. He wanted so badly to just let things be normal. He puts one together for himself as well, and brings them over to the table.  If he needed to do it, he would. He didn’t want to be anything other than a positive force in Regulus’s life. He didn’t want to cause problems for him. “How was school?” 

Regulus looks up, god, when did his eyes start looking so sad. Where did the light he used to have in his eyes go? Had Sirius really missed so much  of his life? “School was fine. Kind of long. They sent me  to the  social worker today. Grilled me on what it was like living with you.”

Sirius felt his eyes go wide. Sure, it wasn’t surprising that they did, but still, it terrified him. 

“I told them everything was awful, obviously.” Regulus chuckled, and for a moment, Sirius’s heart dropped. However, in a moment, he was laughing right along with Regulus. Of course it was a joke. He hadn’t told them that, because he didn’t want to go back. Sirius was terrified of anyone taking Regulus, but Regulus seemed to be terrified of being taken away. At least today, he seemed to be. “I told them it’d be easier to get acclimated if someone stopped mum and dad from taking us to court all  the time.” That statement was smaller, more fearful. It was as if Regulus was afraid he had done something wrong. 

“Mate, I–” Sirius began, but Regulus stopped him, “Siri you can’t stop them. You don’t need to apologize to me.” 

That sentence could have made him crumble. It probably would have, if they weren’t interrupted by a knock at the door.  Sirius felt himself jump, and he watched Regulus do the same. God, Sirius wished they weren’t so fucking damaged. He wished that any noises that they didn’t know was coming didn’t startle them.  He wished they hadn’t been conditioned to be afraid for so many years. But then the key is clicking into the lock, and  Sirius is jumping up. He  doesn’t want this right now. He can’t do this right now. He knows it’s Jamie as soon as the sound of the tumblers click into place.  So he walked over  to the door with speed and a mission. He would keep them out of his home if he could help  it,  because he couldn’t do this tonight. They needed a calm night at home, a night of peace and family time, and Regulus was shifting uncomfortably  in the chair. 

“Jamie, you can’t  be here.”  Sirius began, before he even opened the door. 

“Mate, you didn’t come to the family dinner. We wanted to see you, so we came  to you,” James laughed and when Sirius looked around, it was the team. Including Remus. 

“No,” Sirius puts his foot behind the door,  holding it closed with only  his head poking out. 

“But Sirius it’s been forever since anyone’s seen you,” Peter called from behind him.  

“No, lads. Go home. It’s a school night.”  Sirius wasn’t budging. In fact, he was pleading.

“You don’t have a kid.” Remus called, clearly looking bitter. Sirius wanted to scream that he didn’t know what he’s talking about, because he didn’t.

“Go home, guys. You can’t come in. It’s a school night.” He repeated. They couldn’t. He didn’t want Reg to be so uncomfortable, which he clearly was. 

“Fine.” James looked irritated. Sirius understood why. He understood that he had forgotten the plans James made, but at the same time, he couldn’t juggle this right now. He didn’t have the time for all of this. He knew he had been MIA from his friend’s lives, but this wasn’t forever. It was just until he was done with all of these hearings. Just until his parents would stop. Just until Regulus felt more comfortable. Just until the chaos ended. 

Sirius returned from the door, and sat down at the table again. He didn’t really care to talk about it, but his brother looked so guilty that he felt like he had to. 

“They could’ve come in. I would’ve eaten in my room.” His eyes welled with tears, and he looked so deeply uncomfortable. 

“Reg, this is your house. Not theirs.”  Sirius responded with as much authority  as he could muster, but he definitely didn’t want to scare him. He didn’t want to seem like his parents, he didn’t want to behave the way that they did ever. It was a fine line to walk, and he knew it would get harder when he needed to put his foot down, be a disciplinarian in any way. But for right now, that wasn’t a concern of his. Right now he was much more focused on making this a welcoming environment. It needed to be comfortable for him before they could handle anything else.  

“It’s your house, you can have people over if you want.” Regulus’s voice sounded thick with concern, laced with guilt. Sirius was terrified that he was royally screwing this whole thing up. He wanted to be a good brother, a good guardian, a support system. “I don’t wanna cause problems.” There it was, the sentence before the crumble.  Sirius could see it coming, because it was like looking into the past. Regulus reminded him of himself so much that it hurt sometimes. 

“Reg, mate,”  he started, and then he stood up (and pretended that he wasn’t seeing stars). “You aren’t causing problems,” in just a moment, he was beside his younger brother and his arm was wrapped around the teen’s shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re here. All I’ve ever wanted is to get you out of there. I just couldn’t before. The council wouldn’t let me.” 

“But– but–” Reg was stuttering and spiralling, “If I wasn’t here they wouldn’t be taking us to court all the time, there wouldn’t be private investigators, you wouldn’t have to worry.” His words felt like burns on Sirus’s skin. It felt like a vice gripped his heart, and all he wanted to do was support his brother.  All he wanted was for everything to finally be okay. 

“Reg, look at me.” Sirius’s calloused hand gently pulled his brother’s shoulder to face him. “I want you here. I have wanted you here since I left. I missed having my kid brother around, alright?” 

“Oh,” Reg responded, but he had already become despondent and detached. He wasn’t coming back from the stress and the emotional turmoil tonight. Sirius understood. He had been like that when he first left. Hell, he was still like that. He didn’t have the energy to do for himself what he had done for Regulus, by getting him the best treatment he could, and making sure to keep him together. He was trying to do for Regulus what Euphemia and Monty had done for him. He knew that he wasn’t measuring up to them, but he was trying. He knew that he had taken for granted what they had done, he was re-engaging in behaviors that weren’t healthy for him. Things they had worked so hard to pull him out of. But he was trying, and he didn’t have the time to take care of all of those old behaviors that had flared up. He didn’t have the energy to work on himself, when he had all of this going on. 

Shortly thereafter, Regulus decided to go to bed. Sirius understood, it had been a lot of effort to go to school, and footie, and deal with the stress of Sirius’s friends showing up out of nowhere. And Sirius was thankful in a way, because he was about to rip into James for doing this again. He should know better. Within minutes, he was ringing James and seething. He can barely wait until the phone is done ringing to start going in on him.

“Jamie, you can’t fucking do that to me.” He began, “You can’t just bring people to my fucking house, especially not people who don’t know what is going on. I can’t have people over– they have a fucking PI looking into me, documenting everyone who’s here, when they’re here. I can’t have a bunch of people over on a fucking school night! They’re going to try to take him from me over the smallest fucking thing, let alone having several twenty somethings over in the middle of the week out of nowhere!” He was not even taking a moment to breathe, “How could you fucking do that to me? Why do you want to help them?  I can’t even fucking leave my house without being fucking interrogated about it every two weeks in court! You can’t bring people here!” He reached up to push his curly black hair out of his eyes, and he realized that he was crying. He was really caught off guard by it. 

James waited a moment, before responding. James was always much better about keeping his cool than Sirius had ever been, and if he was honest, Sirius appreciated it. He appreciated that James kept it together when he couldn’t. “Sirius, I didn’t know. I don’t want you to get him taken from you. I’m sorry.”

“Jamie they can’t do it– they can’t take him– I can’t let them–” Now it was Sirius’s turn to spiral. The anger had subsided, and all that was left was his fear. He was terrified that he was going to lose his brother again, and he couldn’t handle that. 

“Siri– a judge would have to be mad to take him from you.” While that might have been true, it didn’t quell Sirius’s fears. 

“They have so much money, Jamie. They have so much power. They can do whatever they want and get away with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s legal.” Sirius wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. He was so terrified, and there was nothing that anyone could do to make this less terrifying. It was almost terrifying just how much power the Black family actually held. Sirius wasn’t sure that he could do enough to stand up to them. 

“I’m worried about you, Pads.” James let out a sigh, it seemed like this was a conversation he was dreading having. “You’re alone all the time. You never go anywhere. You’ve been lashing out at people— Pads, I can’t remember the last time it was this bad.” He sounded almost as terrified as Sirius felt. 

“I see them more now than I have in years, Prongs. I can’t handle this.” His voice is breaking. He was trying so hard not to lose it, but it hadn’t worked and it probably wouldn’t anytime soon. 

“You haven’t been seeing your counselor.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. 

“You don’t know that.” He was right, Sirius hadn’t been seeing his counselor. 

“Yeah I do. You’re online when you usually see her. Is it about the money? Me and Lil can help you out with money.” Sirius hadn’t expected to be called out like that. He didn’t have the energy to handle this conversation right now. 

“I can’t do this right now.” Sirius responded, “I’ve gotta go.” He didn’t really, he just wanted to be alone. He just wanted to not talk about it anymore, pretend everything was fine, dissociate for hours. That was what he wanted. It was completely unremarkable. 

[miraculouscontent]

Askplosion #12 1/4:

.:Asks Referring to Previous Miraculous Posts:.

Anonymous said:

I think that story with Delmar, Sabrina and Alya is only type of Alya demonization you accept.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Absolutely.

I also accept “demonization” for like--comedic purposes. For example, if they had Alya be all in on the love square and all no Marinette you’re not allowed to give up on Adrien if it’s Lukanette endgame and Alya’s (and possibly the rest of the girl squad) “demonization” is for the sake of their dramatic reactions to the mere idea that Marinette would be both not into Adrien anymore and also into someone else.

I just think the idea of turning things on its head by making the people around Marinette the subject of jokes instead of it being Marinette herself.

Anonymous said:

Alya going "Need Some Help?" reminds me of Karma and Nagisa from Assassination Classroom(I said it right this time!). Obviously Alya is Karma and Sabrina is Nagisa(and now Karma's jazzy motif is playing in my head). And Delmar is probably(and by probably I mean almost fucking definitely) Kayano. For real though, I didn't even know Delmar's name until I read that ask/response now. I mean, like, that's how forgettable and underutilized he was. And no, Ms. Bustier isn't worthy of being Koro-sensei.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Still not familiar with Assassination Classroom so I will let the other anons who are familiar with the series silently judge for themselves. ;P

As for Delmar, don’t feel bad; his name actually isn’t mentioned in the special to my knowledge, and it was a tweet that confirmed his name.

Anonymous said:

Oh yeah, the "Astruc gets hit with a washboard" was SUPPOSED to be a shout-out to Koro-Sensei Quest, in which Karma gets hit with a washboard(don't ask where it came from or where they go when they hit the ground, the world may never know) every time he acts like a smug-ass little bitch. You know, like Astruc. Often, the washboard will ricochet off his head and hit a red button, which then opens up a pit which Karma then falls in. In other words, Karma getting Karma! If only Astruc could too.

(the post this anon is referring to)

khfjdgdg ahhh, yeah, thanks for explaining! I’ve always said that I’m not very media-savvy so sometimes I don’t know about more popular shows.

Anonymous said:

Eventually Salty Decadent Court

(the post this anon is referring to)

lol we just slowly upgrade our way through the salt ranks

Anonymous said:

I was thinking about your edit of Desperada, and how I would definitely love to edit the ATLA finale to cut out Kat/aang and Mai/ko stuff lol.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Oh yeah, that’d be amazing! I imagine it’d be difficult, but not impossible. Sometimes it might be better to sacrifice good shots or move scenes around for the sake of making things cohesive.

Anonymous said:

Kagami when adrien its back from NY: I'm sorry adrien, but I have feelings for two blueberries, we have to broke up

Adrien: eh? Broke up? We were dating?

(the post this anon is referring to)

I like how this ask doesn’t specify whether the joke is that Adrien might’ve just been way too “friendly” with Kagami and gave her the impression that they were dating, or a joke on the fact that the show itself doesn’t specify that they’re dating, or both.

A+ 10/10

Anonymous said:

If Adrien does get akumatised because of jealousy about Marinette, I hope someone (Kagami would be great) points out that Marinette was never akumatised for that reason even though she had waaay more scenarios that could have turned out that way. So don't blame yourself, Marinette!! (I also hope Kagami yells at anyone else *cough*Alya*cough* who tries to blame Marinette.

(the “Didn’t Need Burrow” that this anon is referring to)

We just want someone unambiguously on Marinette’s side, is that too much to ask?

Anonymous said:

"It's difficult to animate" hasn't stopped others before (Lord Shen, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, etc). You may do it as a hobby, but this are professionals who should have done more than the bare minimun.

(the post this anon is referring to)

I agree. I’m just trying to keep things like budget in mind. A bunch of free-flowing clothing is fine but I’m basically like--okay, but you don’t NEED the stuff that would hamper the budget to make things look good.

Anonymous said:

I don't know why, but I'm picturing Ladybug confronting Chat Noir after he gets back from New York like a mother scolding her teenage daughter for sneaking out at night.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Honestly? Accurate.

Anonymous said:

Clara Nightengale: I sensed Marinette was in trouble, so I came to this school on the doub-- Jagged Stone: It's okay, I already got her.

(the post this anon is referring to)

jdhgdjkfgkjfg Jagged and Clara walking down the street together all cool, Jagged still having Marinette slung over his shoulder, and everyone watching is just, “??????”

passivedecept said:

Honestly

After reading your last bit i feel cheated that Jagged isnt included more

But it may be better that he isnt like luka's dad.

Can you imagion?

Luka: dad. I like someone.

Jagged: who?

Luka: a real nice and talented girl name marinette and- who are you calling?

Jagged: penny because we need a place for your wedding STAT!

Because i firmly believe if jagged had a son who was dating marinette he would do everything to get mari as his daughter in law.

Okay that was it. Love every fic and small bit you make. And i was wondering if you had your own fav. Like. What have your written so far that you like the best yourself?

(the post this anon is referring to)

Do you mean it’d be better because love square is endgame so it’d be messy? Because otherwise, not gonna lie, Jagged meddling and being super supportive sounds fun. :P I’m not here for love square meddling but Lukanette meddling is cute because both parties would be mutually aware of it and also be into it.

As for my favorite fic I’ve written? That’s probably too tough to answer, ahaha. For sure, it’s something Lukanette-based, but I know that doesn’t narrow it down much at all. It would also probably be one of my fix-its/canon divergences because I’m crazy for multiverse/alternate timeline stuff (I hate time travel, but I’m all about multiverse, I adore that stuff).

Anonymous said:

In one of your Didn't Need Burrow masterposts, when someone said that Marinette and Adrien had kids and a hamster who'll get Miraculouses, I somehow misread that as "the kids as well as the hamster itself will all get Miraculouses".

(the post this anon is referring to)

I’m sure at least one of my anons would snap back at that with a joke like, “well, with the standards set for who gets a miraculous, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

rogueinthedigitalworld said:

Would like to pop in for a second to say that yes, Maribat *did* start out as a spite ship, because the original creator was a heavy Adrien salter and wanted someone to replace him… and chose Damian Wayne, for some reason. Since then, Marinette has been shipped with all the Robins (and from I can tell, they’re all warped into actuallynice!Adrien with two gimmicks added from the *actual* characters). I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting something, but that’s the gist of it.

(the post this person is referring to)

Thank you for the response! Yeah, I didn’t know if it was like Spider-man and Ladybug - which I don’t think is a spite ship but I might be wrong - so I didn’t want to say that it was a spite ship without being sure (and obviously, some shippers of it could be just genuine shippers, who knows).

Anonymous said:

Okay, but seriously, when I first joined the ml fandom I was so confused about the maribat. I'm not really a big fan of either romance or comics (except for sandman lol) so I kind of filtered them out but it's kind of an experience tbh. I'm pretty sure it started on tumblr though- everyone sites it as the ozmav au

(the post this person is referring to)

Thank you for the extra clarification, anon! Yeah, I have that ship blacklisted (so I don’t see it around) but not really out of hatred for it; I tend to blacklist names/people/ships that I’m either indifferent to or don’t like (I immediately blacklist people who write angst, people who cross tag, and people who do onesided-Lukanette and don’t tag it that, even if it’s just one offense; I don’t play games, lol, if anyone does something I don’t like, I filter it out because I filter everything).

Anonymous said:

Your images of Luka and Marinette kissing are so super kyute! What program do you use to render them?

(the post this person is referring to)

Thank you! I made them myself!

The program I use is MikuMikuDance, using an edited version of the shader “GreenerShader 1.14″

[squidproquoclarice]

You said Charles in the Epilogue bugs you. I don't see a post about it so can you explain?

I’ve written on this before but given it’s been a while and I usually have some new facet to consider, plus Tumblr Search is such ass, let’s do this thing!My beef with Charles in the Epilogue is how it takes a character who’s earned his independence and happy ending, and strips that away from him.  Charles in the Epilogue honestly does not make sense.  He’s Charles Ex Machina, a plot device who also knows things he logically shouldn’t.  And denying a MOC his own story to make him a tool in service to the stories of two white men (Arthur and John) is…kinda not cool.I think at the end of Chapter 6 we got a good ending for Charles.  He’s rejected the gang and all its bullshit.  He’s found his place with people who need him, who accept him.  He’ll become a protector of the Wapiti, presumably raise a family, and in my HC, also becomes an adopted son to Rains Fall, who desperately needs that himself as part of his own healing given the raw wound from the death of Eagle Flies.  He’s moving towards a brighter future, and choosing that for himself, rather than being obligated to stick around as an actor in someone else’s story.  He more or less says to Arthur, You’re my friend and I know you have to see this through, but I’m leaving.  These people need me.  I’m done with all of this.  It’s a meaningful exit, and a respectful goodbye between two friends who see they’re on very different, divergent paths in who they’re choosing to stay with and protect.  There’s a grace and dignity and agency to letting Charles make that reasonable choice, and not stay until the very end.  Charles is also one of the chars we actually get an actual exit from, unlike Mary-Beth and others who slip away sight unseen.  It’s a good farewell, and it’s respectful of Charles and Arthur both.Then in 1907, it’s all walked back.  We find him prizefighting in St. Denis, having left Canada and the tribe for reasons never specified.  His dignified choosing of a home with the Wapiti is stripped from him.  We’re told that he heard all the way up in Canada (how, precisely, when he’s had no contact with any of the gang?) that Susan and Arthur died, and then came to come bury them, when he left before the end and couldn’t even know exactly where their bodies were, particularly Arthur’s.I dunno about you, but I think it’s kinda absurd that they decided Charles needed to be all about Arthur to the point that they completely abandon plot and character logic. They don’t see how strange it is they decide he abandoned the very vulnerable living people he chose to protect, probably in winter to boot, to come on what likely had to be a weeks-long journey just to search for, find, and bury two long dead corpses.  That doesn’t sound much like the Charles Smith I know.  He loves, but he cares deeply about protecting the living first and foremost.  He wouldn’t abandon his chosen family like that.  Nor would Arthur have wanted him to–they both made that choice to protect and save the living at the Wapiti reservation.  I get that on the surface “Charles buried Arthur” works as a nice emotional beat, but when you dig into it, I think it feels cheap and unearned.  It’s tell, not show of something we were already shown: Charles and Arthur were good friends.  We don’t need Charles to drop everything important of his own to go on some epic burial quest just to prove he was a good friend.  He’s proven it already.After that, as I pointed out, in 1907 Charles’ peaceful life in Canada has been sacrificed (and never explained either).  I’m back on the gang’s bullshit I had firmly rejected, because I guess they need a strong back and Arthur’s dead.  He’s there only so he can do one thing: he’s there to help build and defend Beecher’s Hope.  He’s become an actor in John’s story, without aims or desires of his own like he had in Chapter 6. And I argue yes, it’s one thing he does in the Epilogue, two if you count our being told about burying Arthur.  He’s not even allowed to meaningfully participate in hunting down Micah, given he’s ridiculously nerfed from the fight like two seconds in by a sniper wound.  He’s not even given the dignity of being involved, because fulfilling that quest to kill Micah for the sake of the man he supposedly dropped everything for before can apparently only belong to John–and notice who’s racing up the mountain alone at the end?  Even Sadie, who actually led the whole damn thing, has to be reduced to a damsel in distress in the end.So Charles, a biracial man of color, exists in the Epilogue for two reasons: to have abandoned his chosen Native American family to worry about burying a dead white man, and to build a white man’s house and help him win his girlfriend back, all while apparently having no aims or agency of his own.  I dunno, but that’s kind of yikes?After all that, he rides off to go back to Canada again, and take up the peaceful life he should have been living all along and go have a family, still without any explanation of what happened to make him not have those things except apparently plot demanded it so he would be available.  I guess maybe he had amnesia for the past 8 years, since they don’t seem to have existed for him.So yeah, in conclusion, I will forever argue that Charles Smith was done super dirty by the Epilogue, given his role makes no sense, and there’s no char growth, there’s actually char regression given the things forced on him actually walk back a lot of his agency and growth that he had in Chapter 6.  

[apathycares]

Do you have any tips on starting a blog like yours? Mine just isn’t catching on ;-;

Hi there anon. I hope you’re feeling good. Don’t worry about catching on as you say too much, oftentimes it’s not you or your content.

Let me explain.

When I was younger and first got into fanfiction, it took me about three years to muster up the courage to try my hand in writing some myself. It wasn’t really courage to be honest, more like venting my anger in a healthier (?) way rather than blowing up on people. Of course, fourteen year old me chose to go down the Naruto road. I created what I thought to be a bomb OC, typed up my fic and posted it on ffnet and wattpad. I spent hours refreshing the page, spent days obsessing over revising my OC, wondered why my story hadn’t blown up yet. And I don’t mean blown up like a thousand likes blown up, because I was realistic enough to know that wouldn’t be happening any time soon, more like at least five people who thought it was worth it. Because I was frustrated and beginning not to.

I realized a few years down the road that it wasn’t really me, it was just that the popularity of the anime and the Naruto fandom itself was slowly dying out as the manga was drawing to its conclusion. It wasn’t me because OCs in fanfics weren’t really popular at that time. It wasn’t me because certain sites weren’t known for certain fandoms.

Of course I wasn’t so experienced and I kept publishing a billion other works and kept moving from site to site and that was all my fault but ignore all that. We’re trying to lift spirits here.

My point is, hope is not lost. Here are a few suggestions you can try that I found worked well enough for me.

1. Start off with a character that you know for a fact you can do justice.

Let’s be honest. Some characters are more popular than others, so the seemingly smart choice would be to go for a more popular character, right? True, but if you’ve thought of this, chances are others have too, and who’s to say you could write said popular well enough to be received as well (or better) than the others? I hate uncertainties like that, so I always start off with someone I know I can do ideally.

If it just so happens to be a popular character, go for it.

2. Choose your tags wisely.

I’m going to make a completely undramatic confession. I’ve tried Tumblr three times before I got to this blog. Two of those times failed before I realized I never really gave much thought to tags. I’d put about five or six and shrug like “‘Kay cool” and post it, then sit there a month later wondering why I didn’t get a single interaction. Tags are your friends. I’m kinda extreme, so I’d go dive into the fandom and read up on fics similar to the ones I’m going for, see what common tags they have and go the extra mile and add a few more just in case. Use up all thirty tags shamelessly.

You can check out any one of the four (lol that’s sad) posts I made and get a good laugh at how extreme I am.

3. Consider the fandom you are going into.

Like I said in my bs up there, I went into the Naruto fandom whilst it was losing fanfiction cred. Maybe people at that time preferred to read it and not give any likes or reviews and I never liked to demand them, but consider the demographic you’re going for. A while and a half after Naruto, I decided to do an Attack on Titan fic right when season three was a few episodes in, and surprisingly enough (for me at that time) I’d received followers and reviews a half hour after I published it. So that kinda confirmed my theory.

I’m not saying drop out of the fandom you’re interested in just because it’s been dead for years. I’m saying consider this as a possible reason, and decide on whether or not you’ll be okay with that. In the end, there’s always that one person who wants a galactic mermaid invading your kitchen AU and would be happy to indulge in your blog. So if you feel like a particular fandom is lacking something you can give, or you want to mess around and have fun with it, or you want a safe little haven for your passions, do it. Do it and experiment and be patient. Six years later I’m still refreshing pages and checking a billion times if I got an ask or something. No shame in that.

4. Develop a style that’s uniquely you.

Most prompts have been overdone. The good girl/bad boy thing? The took-a-bullet-for-you-and-is-now-dying significant other? It’s all been done before. But why are we writing or requesting these despite it, and why do we and our readers enjoy it? It’s because most writers have their own way of portraying a prompt that’s special to them. No one wants to read the same thing worded differently. We want to see how you’d interpret it. So taking advantage of that, if you don’t have a particular style you lean towards, experiment and find out. Don’t be afraid of trying new things and messing up. It took me ages to get to the current take I have on writing (slightly comedic, a little more realistic, carefully worded to end in a way that wraps it up but leaves the door open for a follow up).

Don’t be afraid to turn that bad boy/good girl trope into a secretly bad boy/secretly good girl with them getting all Hannah Montana with it.

5. Be consistent enough.

I’m not going to leave it as just “be consistent”, because that would imply you don’t have a life in the sense that nothing could take you off your consistency. I’m not saying you should sit there, breathing on your device, and as soon as you get a request or an ask (or an epiphany) you jump out and start typing furiously to meet it. But I am saying that we all like seeing our requests answered and our favourite fics updated regularly enough. Unless you specify a time frame in which people could expect you to update (which in my case, I avoid because I don’t like that pressure), usually, people would begin to lose interest after a week. Therefore, just when you’re starting out, I’d say update regularly. After that, update it as frequently as you can.

Don’t feel bad if you miss a week. Or two. Or a month. Or a year.

But don’t feel annoyed when your numbers decline either.

And that concludes my tips on how to get your blog going!

Of course, all of this could be moot if you’re talking about a different type of blog. If that’s the case, feel free to send as many asks as you want, or you can message me directly and I’ll be happy to help. Maybe we’re into the same stuff and help each other grow.

Thank you for reaching out, and I truly hope you get the type of success you’re looking for.

[llycaons]

further black sails finale thoughts

the fact that we see mr.s hudson reunited with her children is very sweet but we don’t see julius or any of his people? the entire former slave community of nassau???? ruth and eme??? the only maroon camp person we see is madi so the audience has no idea how the people living there are taking this besides like. leaving.

also WHAT happened to kofi did he die?

we don’t even know if slavery is still used on providence island! I mean, max is in charge now and the treaty written by rogers specifies that the people on madi’s maroon camp will all be free - does that mean every single person from every island that came to join their fight? what about the people still left on nassau? did they take over the estates they used to be enslaved at?

for all of max’s explanations that slaves can easily escape and join pirate crews from nassau, we actually see very few pirates who aren’t white. joshua and joji are the only two I can think of, besides split-second background extras, and that group from s1ep1. and they all die.

idelle and featherstone have been a thing for a while but I wish we got to see if she actually loved him back...not that marrying a guy for other reasons is wrong but it would have been nice to know she was in love as well as him. god, idelle is so cool. the scene telling off anne for killing charlotte >>>>>

max and anne’s handhold was a slow repair of their relationship, gradual and realistic, but I would have liked to see them together one last time. max maybe made the biggest journey of anyone except like, silver

anne in her final scene still has her old hat and trousers, but she’s smiling a lot more openly now and appears to have some authority on the ship. self-discovery and acceptance, reconciling with max, having jack by her side, and doing the work she loves - anne’s character arc and how her story ends is so heartwarming. genuinely.

the person who really was fucked in all this was madi. her hope, her trust, her beliefs, her faith, her love - it all must seem spoiled now

rogers also betrayed the woman he loved “for her own protection,” he was ruined and she died. silver gets madi back, and that. like. okay I was lukewarm on silvermadi, like it’s fine, I’m glad she’s happy, but it’s upsetting to think how deeply she was betrayed and how she still chose to marry him. like, I don’t want that for her? I want her to be with someone she can actually feel close to and trust? idk

i feel like the writers shortcharged her in order to make silver’s wife in treasure island this woman. after building up this kind of person, would she really go back to him? like, for him? i still dont get it! he’s a smooth-talking little weasel man with major baggage. and I don’t like how he talks to his loved ones, even when it’s supposed to be an emotional moment.

i think im in the minority when I say I just do not feel the emotion from silver’s character. like, luke arnold’s a fine actor I just see nothing to relate to no performance that elicits connection from me no relationship with anyone that I felt the slightest hint of care for. barely with madi, certainly not with flint, for all the subtext of that relationship. silver isn’t even funny anymore. s1 silver was funny at least

one last observation on how women are written in this setting - they are, by and large, not fighters. but this doesn’t mean they have no agency and its certainly doesn’t mean they have no power. and it’s a nice way to showcase women as human beings rather than “she fights so she’s a feminist character” (even though I love women who fight and anne IS a feminist character)

but like. women move the plot without ever fighting, or being expected to fight, or being considered weaker for not fighting, miranda using her connections and anger to push flint to kill the hamiltons, max controlling the sources of information for the entire island, eleanor brokering deals to keep commerce alive (ugh) and using her experience to set rogers up, marion stepping behind her husband’s back to run the business, the maroon queen ruling her kingdom, mrs. mapleton ferrying information between enemies, mrs. hudson lying to her spanish agent and causing the entire debacle with jack, anne’s emotional finale of accepting an apology and reaching out to her love, and madi - steady leader, trustworthy and wise, voice of the maroons. like flint’s, their stories are mostly silent in history

I still am upset that madi’s agency and her choices in the finale were taken away (by the writers, for the plot) and even though silver made decisions against her will she still goes back to him...sigh

anyway, excellent show if you can get through s1, heavy use of metaphor with these inexplicably articulate pirates, themes of stories and shame and monsters and freedom and dark and light, high rewatch value, high production value, THRILLING fight scenes, gay protagonist, three wlw secondary protagonists, absolutely brilliant character writing

warnings for: lots of sex scenes, lots of violence/gore, racism, major character death, not exactly a happy ending but a quietly hopeful one, look up the trigger warnings for sexual assault in s1 if that would bother you

[zayntoxicateme]

After the overwhelming success of his debut solo album, all eyes are on VMAN38 cover star Zayn Malik as he readies to release his follow-up. If you think the attention might have gotten to him, think again: music's most in-demand superstar may also be its most humble.

August 16, 2017                                                                                                       Over the week leading up to my interview with the elusive Zayn Malik, much of my time is spent reading up on the endless list of articles that paint him as the bad boy who broke millions of teenage hearts after leaving One Direction. While it would be a much easier story to tell you that Zayn fulfilled every post-Destiny’s Child Beyoncé, rogue boy bander stereotype imaginable, that wouldn’t be honest. The truth is that Zayn Malik is not a "bad boy" at all. In fact, he might be the furthest thing from it.

When we connect, it hardly registers that the person I’m speaking with is a celebrity—let alone one that has accrued 23 million Instagram followers, over one billion streams on his critically acclaimed debut album, an estimated net worth of $45 million, and the world’s most in-demand supermodel as a girlfriend. (Not to mention that his name literally translates to “beautiful king.”) He speaks with ease, offering the types of down-to-earth insight that I would hardly expect from someone who has been known to cancel arena-size shows due to anxiety. When we converse, I begin to understand that this is because I’m not speaking to Zayn, the ultra-famous boy who left One Direction—a fictionalized character and narrative that’s as publically manufactured as the now-dismantled band itself—but rather Zayn, the artist and individual.

“I hope people get an insight to me as a person, because I’m not the most open book in terms of my personal life. I hope people get an understanding of where I’m coming from or what I’m thinking and what I’m going through, and feel closer to me through that,” he offers earnestly when I ask him what motivates his work. “I just want my music to speak for me, and if it does that successfully, then I’m happy with what I achieve.”

Zayn’s first solo album, Mind of Mine, was heralded as his musical declaration of independence, and that understanding colored the ways in which it was discussed. The album was a commercial success and positively received, but the overwhelming majority of what was written about him in that time period failed to focus on the album’s innovative sonic qualities—of which there were many, most notably the way it blended so many musical genres. Instead, many chose to endlessly dissect what it symbolized. One recurring narrative saw critics interpreting the record’s unabashed sexual overtones as a statement that Zayn was no longer a boy in the eyes of popular culture.

“I don’t think it was necessarily that experience that made me a man,” he reflects. “I was becoming a man at that time anyway, and that experience was a validation of my decision-making at that time. Maybe I became a bit more in the driver’s seat—a bit more in control—and that was the first decision I made that reflected that in my life. I think it was a natural growth as a human being and as a person. I feel like I’m still growing every day, as everybody is. I don’t know everything and I’m willing to learn, so I believe everything is a natural progression.”

Zayn seems to acknowledge that Mind of Mine was a testing of the waters. When speaking about his forthcoming sophomore album, this becomes clear: “I feel like my songwriting definitely developed, just because I’ve been doing it so much. I feel like the songs are a bit more organized, where I felt like, before, that Mind of Mine was a brainstorm. That’s why I called it Mind of Mine, because it was ideas that I had that I put out. This one is more thought out. I had more time to process everything and go through it all. It’s an evolution.”

According to him, this evolution means building on the hybridized pop-R&B-soul sound he introduced on the first album, which he accomplished with the continued help of sonic wizard Malay (the same Grammy-winning producer responsible for large parts of Frank Ocean’s two albums). “There’s a couple of songs on the record that I’ve done with Malay that for me, personally, I’m really proud of,” Zayn says. “Just in the sense that I feel like they’re real songs. And I don’t mean to say that to discredit the songs that are out on the charts at the moment. I just feel like there’s something really classic about some of the music that we’ve done together, and for that reason, I’m really proud of some of the songs that are going to come out. I feel like it really shows me as a songwriter and a vocalist.”

He also hints that the new record will see him experimenting with hip hop, thanks to a few featured guest artists whom he’s wary to name so early on (the album isn’t due until later this year). A popular Internet theory is that Nicki Minaj will be one of them. Given his collaboration with Taylor Swift on the smash hit “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” at the beginning of this year, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he would bring in more heavy-hitters to assist.

This blending of musical genres will also see further homages paid to his ancestry. When speaking about “Intermission: Flower,” a beautiful track off Mind of Mine sung in Urdu—the language of Zayn’s Pakistani father—he says that he was touched by the overwhelmingly positive response to the song and that we can indeed expect to see more music drawing on his heritage: “I definitely focused on that for a couple of songs on this record that got this same underlying tone of India and the place that my grandparents originally came from. There’s definitely influences of that in there. Hopefully people like it this time around, as well.”

In his creative process, Zayn doesn’t limit himself to any strict methodology: “I can hear something in the moment and then record on the mic. Sometimes, it might not be a lyric or it might be a sound. I’ll come back to it later,” he explains. “Or sometimes, I’ll have an entire song written on my phone and I won’t know what the melody is yet or how I’m going to sing it, but I know what I want to say.” He clarifies, “I go into the studio with that already written and I’ll try to fit lyrics into a melody. I do it both ways, depending on what I feel is good to do on that beat.”

If he’s feeling any pressure regarding his sophomore release, it doesn’t come through—nor does any desire to fulfill anyone’s expectations of him. When we begin to talk about the various narratives that have dogged him throughout his career—including “the mysterious one,” as he was dubbed in 1D—he shrugs it off: “For me, personally, I don’t ever try to dwell so deep on labels and boxes and places that people want to put you. I believe that we as individuals are in charge of the way people perceive us. There are negative and positive sides to every human on this planet. That’s the way it is. You just have to accept that. If I were to overthink that, it would affect me.”

One such label that Zayn must frequently deal with when it comes to the media is his status as the most widely known Muslim in the western world. But again, he tries to let this roll off of him, demonstrating a healthy boundary with the public. “My faith is between me and God, and whatever that God is, that’s between me and them,” he maintains. “That’s where I draw the line: the specifics. I am a spiritual person and I do believe that everything happens for a reason, so I do have faith in something. I just don’t wish to specify what that is. I don’t want anybody to feel like I’m trying to dictate or wave my opinion on anything. I’m just doing what I’m doing. My religion, or whatever that is, is between me and God, and that’s just how I want to keep it.”

This same struggle to embody certain prescribed ideals and ideologies is also what Zayn cites as the root of his anxiety, which is now largely behind him thanks to an enlightened, almost Zen disposition. “When people don’t always fit that grain, it’s very confusing for the public eye that’s watching because they don’t understand the full ins-and-outs of every emotion that that individual is going through,” he offers. “I think the anxiety comes from the frustration of not being able to explain that to people. Since I explained that I have anxiety, I’ve diminished it because I dealt with what was giving me anxiety: feeling the need to uphold all of these fucking pressures and these things that people want from you. Once you let that go, the anxiety diminishes. It doesn’t really exist anymore because you only care about what it is that you want to give to people. Whether they perceive that in the right or wrong way is ultimately not your choice. It’s out of your control. You can’t always control it, and you just accept that. With that goes the anxiety. Anxiety comes from not being able to control every aspect.”

In a culture that still has a stigma surrounding issues relating to mental health, Zayn’s openness about his anxiety is a sign of bravery that shouldn’t be minimized or overlooked. It’s the hot-button issue for Generation Z, among whom anxiety and depression are on the rise according to recent studies and surveys conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One cultural mechanism Zayn cites as a contributing factor to his generation’s collective anxiety is social media: “It’s become ridiculous to me. Even angles of pictures can’t be taken a certain way because that’s not the cool way to take an angle of a picture. Everyone’s personal opinions and what they believe in, how can you amalgamate all of that into one thing and expect that not to create a problem for people’s minds? That’s my personal opinion, [that] it’s not really that developing for us as people. That for me is the main reason why I don’t believe in [social media]: because I believe it breeds sheep and not lions.” (Zayn himself largely reserves social media use for interacting with fans about his music.)

When you ask an artist what they would be doing if they weren’t creating music, you often get a passionate answer akin to “I was only ever going to do music,” but this is not the case with Zayn. After being presented with a question about what his life might have looked like had he not shown up for his fateful X Factor audition, he takes a moment to contemplate. “I think about that quite a lot. I think about alternative realities. I think I’d be at university and I would have done my English degree. I think I’d be looking for some employment to do with English lecturing or literature. I love poetry and writing—obviously, I’m a songwriter—so, it would’ve been something that would still give me the feeling of a creative outlet within my writing.” It’s an alternative that seems unimaginable to his audience of millions, but to Zayn, it’s entirely plausible.

Of course, even in this reality, music isn’t Zayn’s only creative venture. In 2016, he published Zayn, a photographic autobiography of his life post-One Direction. If Mind of Mine is to be read as the musical insight into how his brain operates, Zayn is the visual companion. Earlier this summer, he dropped a highly anticipated capsule collection designed in collaboration with Donatella Versace for the brand’s Versus line. If you had told him that this was to be in his future a year earlier, though, he would have humbly insisted that you must be lying. “I had no idea that Donatella even knew I existed,” he gushes excitedly. “Then, she started to make a few outfits for me, and a few looks for performances and red carpets. I built a relationship there. She mentioned to me that she wanted me to be involved creatively and asked me to draw some ideas and we had a couple of meetings. I sent her some stuff and she liked it, and we went from there. It’s crazy. I’m honored to be involved, and it’s been a really fun experience.” The chance to collaborate with Donatella Versace is an experience that hardcore fashion devotees would dedicate their lives to having, a fact that is not lost on Zayn, who seems awed by being offered yet another creative outlet by a world that’s embraced him to such an unfathomable degree.

Zayn Malik does not come across as a celebrity because celebrity is, essentially, a distraction to making music. When I ask him if he has any personal philosophies that help him stay grounded, his response strikes a note that reveals him to be both the average 24-year-old and the wise-beyond-his-years artist I’ve come to know in our brief exchange: “Don’t take things too seriously and always try to have a laugh. I think that’s the main point in life. We have such limited time, and the main thing that we have to do is have as much fun as we can. That’s my main mantra that I try to live by.”

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: Death Parade

An anime about death, set in a food-service purgatory where people must play games to be judged and have their ultimate fates decided, with an inappropriately upbeat OP, and a good balance of distinctive characters and intriguing world building?

This is the most on-brand thing for me, it’s literally just missing a couple pairs of glasses and a dog.

I was turned towards the series after hearing it be described on (I think) Desert Bus, and I thought ‘Okay, I’ll add it to the queue’. Then, when trying to decide on what to follow Samurai Champloo, I chose to give this intriguing show a go as my bedtime anime.

I watched the first episode, and thought ‘Eh, I have time for another episode.’ And watched three more episodes.

The next day, I binged through the remaining eight episodes. I so very rarely binge through a series that hard. It’s usually one or two episodes a day, dragged out if I’m watching it with my brother and our schedules aren’t aligning. I don’t typically have the attention to just burst binge.

Death Parade was balanced just right to really grab me.

Now, I must write about it. As is my duty. (Spoilers ahead!)

Okay, let me temper my previous excitement a little bit, because the episodes were arranged in a manner to trigger a skinner box reaction in me. The episodes mostly alternate between one about judging guests (which I loved) and an episode about the world and myth arc, which I was less enthralled with. So I saw the first episode, which established the structure of Two Dead Guys arrive, get manipulated into a classic game ramped up to craziness, and we learn about their lives so we (and Decim) may judge them. That was pretty cool, and I wanted to go another round.

So I went onto the second episode, which flipped the perspective of the first episode to introduce Decim’s new assistant and teach about the world. Which is fine, but I still wanted to see another game! So obviously, I had to move on to episode three, which satisfied that desire and was really cute, and I wanted to see if the games would continue. Which, fortunately, episode 4 delivered on, so I got a nice trio before laying my head down for sleep.

But, as the series continued, the problem remained: I was really into the episodes that focused on the series gimmick, but when it tried to focus on the overarching arc, I became unengaged. Because while the moral question of judging the deceased and what contexts should and shouldn’t be used were interesting, the effort to keep the higher levels and specifics of the organization vague meant I had no context to Oculus or what Nona’s trying to accomplish. I didn’t see enough about the extended cast to care about what they’re trying to do.

What I had hoped to see is more of what they did with Ginti, taking episodes to show how the other Arbitrators perform their duty. Compare and contrast the styles of them to help highlight to inherent problems with the system, and maybe highlight how Oculus is outwardly affable, but deeply sinister under the mask.

If there’s something I wish caught on more in anime, it’s Princess Tutu’s plot structure.

That’s right! Let’s take a detour through ballet time!

One thing that all media (including film franchises and other animated works) needs to learn from Princess Tutu is putting in the ground work.

You know when Princess Tutu gets to its actual premise? Season 2. The first season was entirely a formulaic Magical Girl show, a format series creator Ikuko Itoh learned from her time working for Sailor Moon. The entire first season exists to lure the audience into a complacency and educate them about what a Magical Girl anime is, with a few hints to a larger meta-arc. The end of the first half resolves the collectathon of the series, and would’ve made a passable series on it’s own.

Then the character who’s been acting as a sort of narrator steps up with a chuckle and basically tells the audience ‘Wasn’t that quaint? Well, hold on, because we’re going wild now.’ There are a couple episodes of the second season that seems to be just more of the same Magical Girl trope work, but then the central cast shift roles and the subversions and meta blooms.

And that’s not emotionally possible without spending thirteen episodes establishing a formula and the cast. It’s why Princess Tutu is essential anime.

Boy is that a risky premise. Because to do that, you have to trust viewers to take the first season in good faith.

You wouldn’t be able to pull off Princess Tutu nowadays, with reviewers only giving shows three (and sometimes only one) episodes to sell them. If it’s not a Shonen face-punch show, studios seem reluctant to commit to multiple episodes. 26-episode animes are becoming increasingly uncommon, with thirteen being the norm.

Death Parade is a twelve-episode anime.[1] Less than 288 minutes to tell a complete story, and I’m not calculating out the OP and EP on that. It’s not enough space for the metatextual story it wants to tell. Not enough time to make the audience complacent with the current Judgement system before having someone slide in and say ‘charming fantasy. Now, let’s explore the flaws.’

Decim makes his big judging mistake in the very first episode, and it’s called out in the second episode. I thought of the same objections the Black-haired Girl presented, but was willing to take it for granted the arbitrators were relatively omniscient in their judgement. That’s called into question immediately.

Which would’ve been okay if the thrust of the series (or just the first season) were independent formulaic stories where dead people arrive, play games, remember their lives, and Decim (or other arbiter) makes their judgement while the audience deliberates for themselves how to feel about.

Kind of a Kino’s Journey (2005)[2] thing, you know? No overarching plot for the first 12 episodes. Only in the last episode of part one would someone question the ethics of the situation, then in season two we can unveil and build upon Nona’s schemes. We’d have had the time to know the cast a little better, and give actual weight to attempts to reform it.

Heck, maybe even have time for a solid resolution beyond a ‘Well, that happened I guess’ and Oculus adding a new rule.

Want to go real wild? Have Chiyuki take over Decim’s job at either the end of season one or the end of the series. Either had merits.

As it is… the story is too crowded in the actual twelve episodes we got, so I can only focus on the Death Games, since those were independently strong.

Heck, it was obvious they were intending parallels when Ginti got Mayu hanging around his bar, but the two didn’t receive enough screen time to be properly compared to Decim and Black-Haired Woman.

Do I put too much weight on wanting more episodic shows? No… it’s the industry that’s wrong…

However, this pacing is only the major misstep. The art and animation is fantastic, the writing is good when focused on the gimmick, and the elevator operator manages to toe the line of Yu-Gi-Oh hair yet still remain just understated enough.

Like a good episode of Kino’s Journey, Death Parade doesn’t dictate what your take away should be. It merely presents the story to you, and the actions and reactions of the characters, and lets the viewer reach their own conclusion. When should a character’s sins condemn them to the void? And how can context shift that? Is the extreme situation built into the games a fair way to judge someone’s character?

Admittedly, I’d probably reincarnate everyone except the police detective,[3] but I’m also a softy frightened enough by the concept of oblivion to not wish it on anyone.

The mystery around the Black-Haired Woman is also compelling, even if it ended with the usual generic Test of Character. I like recurring motifs when they’re actually addressed in the plot, and Chavvot was a good example of that.

Maybe if they focused on how the Black-Haired Woman personally would’ve judged the games she was witness to, it would’ve been stronger. There’s parallels to be drawn for most cases: Death Seven Darts has doubt leading a man to self-destruction; Rolling Ballade is a tale of lost opportunity; Death Arcade[4] is literally about unintentionally hurting your family through selfishness; then episodes 8 and 9 are the most emotionally intense as they pose the question “what is justifiable violence?”

Death Parade is plagued by its raw potential, and failure to give a satisfying ending. It’s a series whose soul deserves reincarnation, if I ever saw one.

Okay, that was cheesy, sorry.

Just watch it, if you can do so legally. It’s good!

If you enjoyed this… stumbling ramble, feel free to send me questions and comments, I love any excuse to over analyze media. And consider supporting me on patreon. You’ll be granted early access to my work. I make good stuff sometimes! Thanks for indulging me.

Kataal kataal.

[1] Not counting Death Billiards, which I haven’t gotten around to yet… [2] I resent that I need to specify between the two series. [3] Also maybe Light Yagami, who makes an inexplicable cameo, and knows what he signed up for. [4] Which my gut reaction was to discount as a filler episode.

[syrupwit]

Letter for Chocolate Box 2017

Hello! Thank you for considering making something for me. I am not that great at letters, so please contact the mods or send an anonymous ask message if anything is unclear. Also! I’m probably not as picky as I sound.

In general, I like:

Femslash, slash, and gen (most of these prompts are f/f or m/m but I also like gen a lot!)

Pretty girls wearing pretty clothes

Supernatural creatures looking rad

Cool monsters 

Humor and crack!fic

Supernatural horror, especially ghost stories and cosmic horror

Isolated or "outsider" characters finding true friends

Powerful people/beings who are unusually loyal and attached to less powerful people/beings

Pining

Sexuality angst, whether it concludes with gay/bi characters being hopeful or determined and more comfortable with themselves or getting further entrenched in self-destructive spirals

Women being really important to other women, whether their relationship is overall positive or negative or conflicted or whatever

Unconventionally attractive characters/couples

Domestic slice-of-life with a slightly weird twist 

In general, I do not like:

Het as the main romantic pairing (unless it’s for Katanagatari)

BDSM (unless specified in a prompt)

M/f femsub. I know this is implied to be a DNW by the bullet points above, but this is a hard squick for me so I want to make sure that's made clear!

Romances where one character becomes a ghost over the course of the story (it's OK if they start out a ghost)

Issuefic

Onscreen rape/noncon (unless it’s Korse/Party Poison i guess)

Onscreen child abuse

Fandoms I requested:

Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

“The Hound” (H. P. Lovecraft)

Katanagatari

Original Work

Revolutionary Girl Utena/Shoujo Kakumei Utena

Prompts/DNWs for Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

The only pairing I’ve requested is:

Korse/Party Poison -- Hero/villain! Post-apocalyptic dystopia! Mind control! Do Killjoys really never die? Has Korse ever captured Party Poison pre-music video canon? Is post-comics Korse imprisoned by B/L/I/N/D and does he then meet a brainwashed Party Poison? Or perhaps the characters have another past together, one that either or both have forgotten? (If you have a messed-up idea, please feel FREE to run with it for this canon.)

DNW: Child abuse. Also, although I am well familiar with the variety of ways that bandom and Killjoys canon have been integrated over the years, I would prefer it if the characters of Party Poison and Korse were kept separate from their bandom counterparts for any fills or treats made for me in this challenge.

Prompts/DNWs for "The Hound” by H. P. Lovecraft

("The Hound" can be read in its entirety here.)

Narrator/St. John -- When they're not busy stealing cursed amulets, examining the treasures in their underground collection of sacred objects treated disrespectfully as Goth memorabilia, or discussing the finer aesthetic points of their mutual ennui, what sorts of activities do these graverobbing hipsters get up to in that big empty house on the moor?

DNW: Necrophilia, guro, het (m/f).

Prompts/DNWs for Katanagatari

I fucking love this anime, occasional fanservicey shots of Togame and all. If you aren’t familiar with it, and you like or at least don’t mind anime, backgrounds that have more definition than characters(’ noses), borderline-supernatural fiction set in historical Japan, and outlandishly dressed people having slow, lengthy, at times philosophical conversations while ostensibly doing sword things at each other, then I recommend that you try it out! 

In any case, here are my pairing-specific prompts:

Togame/Yasuri Shichika -- Togame and Shichika being happy and enjoying time together ;__;

Hitei-Hime/Yasuri Shichika -- Post-canon, Hitei-Hime and Shichika are set upon by bandits and must dispatch them. These bandits don’t know what hit them!

Togame/Yasuri Nanami -- AU where Nanami, not Shichika, accompanies Togame on her quest.

Hitei-Hime/Togame -- Hitei-Hime and Togame matching wits pre-canon.

I also just think Hitei-Hime is super super pretty, and I love her character design. So... If you feel inspired to draw even a small or sketchy picture of her? I’d totally be pleased.

DO NOT WANT: Hitei-Hime/Togame/Shichika that posits Shichika as the focal point of the triad.

Prompts/DNWs for Original Work

My likes and DNWs are well specified at the beginning of the letter, so here are just prompts for the pairings listed:

Female Non-Humanoid Robot/Female Humanoid Robot -- Uh. Anything, honestly! What do they do? How did they meet? How did they fall in love? ...Robot sex?

Female Cryptid/Female Human -- Female Human gets lost in the woods and is rescued by Female Cryptid.

Barista/Vampire -- Hardworking Barista just wants to take out the trash so they can go home and wash the scalded milk smell from their clothes, but then they are attacked on the way to the dumpster. Who to the rescue but that slightly creepy customer who orders their own weight in coffee and sits in the darkest corner of the shop all day? (Why were they loitering in that alley anyway?)

Necromancer & Demon Summoner -- What is the relationship between these two? Are they friends? Friendly acquaintances? Professional rivals? Do they set up shop in different suites in the same aged, sparsely populated office building, and gradually come to realize that they work in similar fields? Do they totally fight a monster or some aspect of city bureaucracy together? Is there a regrettable incident where a ghoul called by the demon summoner wanders off and consumes some of the necromancer's employees? Or do they just trade professional anecdotes over a cup of tea?

Female Demon/Female Human -- A female graduate student, lonely and bored with being single, accidentally summons a succubus. But it works out!

Female Alien/Female Human -- Female Human is exploring some strange ruins when she encounters Female Alien. (If you wanted to make Female Alien a more Lovecraftian sort of alien, tentacles or gelatinous shapeshifting abilities or POWER TO INSPIRE INDESCRIBABLE FEAR or no, that would be awesome.) 

Prompts/DNWs for Revolutionary Girl Utena

I love Utena! What a great show and character. I love the movie too, and could happily expound on why I think it functions as a sequel to the anime series more than an AU, but this is not the time or place for that.

Some general likes for RGU fic and fanart:

Surreal tone

Absurdist humor

Roses

Beautiful uniforms and dresses /o\

RGU-specific dislikes/DNWs:

Explicit sexual content -- not for this fandom please. Implied is welcome!

Works focused specifically on how characters recover from abuse and trauma

Noncanonical character death

Juri or Utena paired with male characters romantically (though one-sided crushes are fine)

Prompts for each pairing listed:

Anthy/Utena -- Utena is an enthusiastic but inept barista; Anthy is her favorite customer.

Anthy/Utena -- Anthy, Utena, and Chu-Chu have a nice time at the beach. Or anywhere, really.

Akio/Touga -- Akio reveals to Touga that he is dead.

Anthy/Kanae -- Angst! I requested this pairing because of this fan theory about Kanae being a former winning duelist who chose to become Akio's princess, and Anthy having bitterness towards her because of that: http://rosepetalrevolution.tumblr.com/post/152521898992/  You don’t have to go along with the fan theory -- anything angsty with Anthy and Kanae would be great.

Juri/Shiori/Ruka -- (Please no Juri-->Ruka or Juri reciprocating Ruka's feelings.) Shiori cottons on to Ruka's feelings for Juri and suggests they all do an activity together, hoping to shame both of them with her knowledge. Things do not go as planned.

Nanami & Tsuwabaki -- Nanami rents a house for summer vacation. Tsuwabuki accompanies her. It turns out the house is haunted... or is it?!

Utena/Wakaba -- Wakaba gave Utena chocolate for Valentine's Day. What does Utena give her for White Day?

Touga/Saionji -- Touga is a ghost, and everyone has forgotten him. Then Saionji starts having strange dreams...

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 366: Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes

Or A Tinne Fot Hetves if you go by a literal interpretation of the font.

        Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes

Hungary

ArtGame (developer); International Computer Entertainment (publisher)

Released 1992 for Amiga and DOS

Date Started: 15 May 2020

          It’s nice to see a new country enter the CRPG fray. We’re going to have four games from this country in the early 1990s (including Abandoned Places and its sequel) and then nothing for a decade. It’s also nice to see a new take on a familiar template. I had a fun first session with Abandoned Places, and I’m looking forward to my next one. I just wish Ultima VII hadn’t gotten bungled, because this would be a near perfect game to trade time with that one. 

Abandoned Places is based heavily on Dungeon Master, right down to the framing story, which has a benevolent mage going to a crypt to resurrect former heroes rather than create characters from a living population. This was the least satisfying part of the game, as I was asked to choose two warriors from a selection of six and one mage and one cleric, each from a selection of three, based on nothing more than their character portraits. I was assisted in this endeavor by Saintus’s 1992 coverage of the game, in which he tried all possibilities and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses. I chose the fighters Lianon and Cromer, the cleric Felius, and the mage Pomphis. My primary concern was that I get a cleric with the “Create Food” spell because I hear that the party gets hungry fast in Abandoned Places.          

Assembling a party.

         The game manual has nothing on the backstory, so we have to rely on the opening animation. Information is scant. It is told from the perspective of a mage who awakens the deceased heroes.

             The ancient scrolls have led us to the location of the Heroes, the Champions of Kalynthia, turned into living stone, waiting for the time to once again fight evil. The council emissaries will travel across land and sea to the Temple of Heaven’s Fight. There, far below the surface, the Heroes are to be found, but our powers are waning and we only have the power to turn four of the heroes back to flesh and bone. No one can tell what the effects of 900 years as statues will have on them. But they are now our only hope to stop the cursed Bronakh. May luck be with us all.

        An unnamed mage restores life to some statues.

           The game begins as the four heroes wake up in their crypt with no equipment and a couple of gargoyle-looking things prowling the rooms. Fortunately, it’s sufficiently like Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder to figure it out in a hurry. You right-click on hands to attack, after which there’s a “cool down” period. Only the first two characters can attack in melee range, but the rear two can use missile weapons and cast spells, and the mage comes with a useful “Magic Bolt.”               

Almost immediately, the game thrusts you into combat.

         The interface is fairly intuitive. You left-click to move objects and right-click to use them. Everything is contained in one window. The developers sacrificed exploration window space to keep the inventory and character sheet always visible. You click on the character portraits to cycle through their inventories. The character with the active inventory and character sheet is different from the character with the active combat options; you change those by clicking the number buttons right next to them. Because of the nature of the interface, you really need a mouse so that you can drag items from the floor to the characters, operate switches, and so forth. But it does offer keyboard options for commands such as movement and–thank you!–attacking. You can also specify the direction of attack with the little pad beneath the character portrait, but I haven’t played with that yet.

     The gargoyles dropped a couple of keys, and the room was scattered with rocks and torches. One of the keys went to either of two doors at the south end of the room, both of which opened the way to the same area of a higher level.           

My map of most of the temple.

          The temple ended up being five levels, but with only three of them taking up any substantial space. The goal turned out to be finding the exit on the bottom level, which was the largest, taking up 16 x 29 coordinates, but using nowhere near that much space. (The game uses a “worm tunnel” approach, which automatically cuts out a lot of squares.) Standing in my way were things that looked like gargoyles, skeletons, and maybe fire elementals. They were all pretty easy to kill even though I never found any armor and the only weapons I found were minor ones: clubs, daggers, and one short sword.           

This thing looks like it ought to be harder than it was.

        I like the way the game allocates experience, which is by successful action rather than simply killing someone in combat. Fighters get experience for each hit. Spellcasters get experience for each spell successfully cast, including noncombat ones like “Create Food.” Nonetheless, by the end of the dungeon I did have a rather large experience imbalance in favor of the fighters. No one had reached Level 2 yet, though. I need to spend more time casting spells, since magic regenerates relatively quickly. As in Dungeon Master, a full spell point bar is just wasted potential experience.

Navigation puzzles were easy in the introductory dungeon, consisting of just a few keys, buttoned doors, and levers that opened new sections of hallway. Towards the end of the level, I had to avoid fire squares and water squares, although you can try to cross them quickly if you don’t mind a little damage. The only thing that bothered me was that I left four locked doors on the lower level for which I never found any keys. There was also a stairway on an upper floor that was blocked somehow. Maybe these were red herrings, or maybe we’ll be back to the temple later.            

A skeleton comes out of a buttoned door.

           There was a chest full of food on one level, but it barely did anything. If I didn’t have the “Create Food” spell, my characters would have been starving for three-quarters of the expedition. Starvation causes a periodic loss of 1 hit point. I also noted that the game told me the characters were “exhausted” quite early in my explorations and torches didn’t last very long. (By the way, to use a torch in this game, you have to hold a “firestone” in one hand and the torch in another and then right-click on the firestone. That took a while to figure out.) I suspect this all means that I have the cycles set too high in DOSBox. Discussion question: Is there ever a good excuse for a developer to base such considerations on CPU cycles rather than real-time or number of moves? It feels like authors in this era never considered the possibility of faster machines.         When we found the exit to the dungeon, I was surprised to find myself on a top-down overworld map. Well, not completely “surprised” because I’d read the manual, but still–this is an unusual addition to the Dungeon Master sub-genre. The rest of the game takes place over a reasonably large map with one large island and three small ones. The map is dotted with towns, castles, and ruins, and I assume most of them have some kind of dungeon to explore. (The overland map is similar enough to Legend from the UK that I wonder if the developers weren’t influenced by it.) I like the approach, as long as the dungeons are of modest size. If they’re each as large as the typical Dungeon Master clone, the game will wear it its welcome quite fast.           

Boarding the boat from the starting island.

           My first goal was getting off the southern island that houses the Temple of Heaven’s Fight. From atop the mountain, I could see a ship making daily trips from the large island to our small one, so we headed for that ship’s port of call. Along the way, the game said we found some horses. There’s a button that lets you switch between various modes of transportation. When we reached the boat, we switched to that, and it brought us to the “continent.”

I headed for the nearest city, which turned out to be a quiet little town called Frampton. It was home to a priest whose services I didn’t need. There were no other shops.                

The town was pretty, though.

            Lacking any guidance about where to go–Why didn’t the mage who awakened us stick around? Or at least leave a note?–I decided to work my way roughly counter-clockwise around the continent. A fortress in the middle of a lake with a long bridge leading to it looked promising. When I arrived, the game told me I was at Pedroc’s Abbey, but that it was closed.             

The overworld map has a lot of interesting-looking features. There just isn’t much to do when you get there.

             I continued moving over mountain and river until I came to a small town called Timberville, where “most of the villagers have some kind of weapon in their hands.” Timberville had another healer and a tavern, where we spent the 15 gold pieces found in the temple on a meal (2.0) and lodging (2.5). I’m not sure if either did anything for us, as I stopped getting messages about hunger and fatigue the moment I reached the outdoor map.

You occasionally have to fight wilderness combats, which take you to a small 3D map crossed with bushes and rivers. The only enemies I’ve had to face so far are giant bugs, which drop no gold. You can’t leave the fights until you’ve killed all the enemies, and it can be annoying to find them sometimes.           

Fighting a giant bug in the wilderness.

           I couldn’t even find the entrance to a castle (called “Twilight” on the map) across the lake from Timberville, and two villages further along the coast, Hyde and Trailcross, had the same options as Timberville. Something called the Tower of Scions was destroyed and offered nothing to do. Cities called Iron Home and Tol Al Nerak wanted 10 gold pieces to enter, which is all I had left. I saved and tried anyway, but both just had shops that had nothing I could afford.         

It’s nice to know such things exist. I’ll be richer someday.

       I ultimately spent the gold getting into Kal Kalon, the capital of the country, where I found a guild. The guild leveled up my first fighter and mage–fortunately, for free–and said I need a few hundred experience points more for the other two. I couldn’t take advantage of the other services and left.          

Not so much “bad luck” as “uneven distribution.”

        I finally found something to do at Souls Abbey in the southwest of the main island, nearly a full loop back to where I’d started. A monk told me he might have a job for us, but he’d need us to prove our skills first. He said his guards would take us to a “place full of monsters,” and that we would prove our worth by destroying all of them.          

Our first quest.

        We agreed, and soon found ourselves in a new, dark dungeon–the only problem being that we only have one torch left and it’s hard to see in the dark. Hopefully, we’ll find some more.           

Dropped off in my second dungeon.

        Aside from that hour where I was wandering around the land experiencing nothing, Abandoned Places has started relatively strong. To many players, Dungeon Master is perfectly satisfying on its own, but I’m rather glad to see a game that adds an overworld, an economy, and NPCs to the template. And while I always enjoyed Dungeon Master‘s approach to leveling through action, I’m glad to see it quantified (or perhaps I should say quantified in a way visible to the player) here. My major concerns are whether it will introduce more interesting puzzles than it has already, and whether the game world will open up a bit. It would be a waste of the overland map if you had to hit all the dungeons in a particular order.

Time so far: 4 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-366-abandoned-places-a-time-for-heroes/

[livinglifedrinkingwine]

Sunshine Blogger Award

This is really an honor to be nominated for an award. I want to give a special thanks to Karen Bradshaw at Themommylady85@wordpress.com who nominated me for this award on 10/17/2018. As well as a second thank you to Marta Azra at http://mischievouswordsbymartaazra.wordpress.com who also nominated me for this award on 11/12/2018. It is really appreciated that others really like my work. I can’t thank all my readers enough. Since most people I've seen get awarded a couple times and that's where it usually ends. I feel like even though it is a second nomination for me. I will still add to my post. By still answering the questions that I was asked the second time as well. Here are the rules❤️: Thank the blogger who nominated you and pop a link back to their blog in your post.Answer the 11 question which they posted for you.Nominate 11 more bloggers who you think deserve the award and create 11 new questions for them to answer.Notify your nominees. Here are the questions I was asked: What is your favorite type of foreign cuisine? I would have to say Chinese. I love to get orange chicken and of course Chinese donuts! To  top it all off with white rice makes it more of an excellent dish. What is your earliest childhood memory? Wow! This is a good one. There is so many I’m not sure which would be the earliest. I’ll have to go with when I was really little I remember climbing out of my crib and running down the hallway to see my Uncle who was visiting. I would say I was probably about two or three years old.If you could be any animal, what would you be? Usually I would say a penguin because they are my favorite animals. To be honest, I don’t like the cold so I don’t think a penguin would be a great idea. So I think I would go with a lioness. I would say a lioness because they are queens of the jungle. They obviously are mates with the lions who are the kings of the jungle. Most animals are afraid to be around lionesses because they are the predators of the jungle. Like a lioness I am the provider of the family with strong values. I don’t like to be pushed around. I spent a lot of my life being told what to do and now I know how to get passed that and be more empowering. Plus as an added bonus I think lioness are cute, like cats only bigger.Fantasy dinner guests, you can choose only five, who would they be? There are so many people that I would like to have as dinner guests. Since I can only pick five I will have to go with, first pick would have to be Leonardo DiCaprio. He is literally my all time favorite actor. He is my man crush, to me he is so hot. Second person would be Roman Reigns from WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) he is also my man crush, he is also really hot. Third person would be Nikki Bella from WWE. She has awesome style and she is one of my favorite women wrestlers. I’m actually gonna be her for Halloween at our annual Halloween party. Fourth person that I would have as my dinner guest would be Anna Kendrick, she is one of my favorite actresses, plus if I have Leo then my boyfriend would be sad that I don’t invite her. She is one of his women crushes. The fifth person that I would have as my dinner guest would be Carrie Underwood she is one of my favorite singers.Which is the most influential book you have ever read? I have to be honest I don’t read much. I have read a few books and I really like suspense and mystery books. I read a lot of those kind like, twilight that was a good series. So was Harry Potter. I guess I would have to go with Amelia Bedelia because even though she is not the brightest bulb in the socket she taught me what not to do. Of course definitely not to take anything literally.What motivates you to keep blogging on? The blogs I write tell people about my memories, what I have gone through, what keeps me going. Seeing my kids think wow this is cool mom you have your stories out there, it’s exciting. Knowing that my kids are excited about what I do and blog about motivates me. To see that my boyfriend is supporting me every step of the way, and I always know that he is the biggest fan I have out there. It truly is an award all in itself. All that motivates me. Yea I have writers block from time to time but I’m sure everyone does. That is what helps motivate me to remember something that I liked about my past that I want to write about.Would you rather be trapped in a confined space completely alone or with lots of other people that you don’t know? Well I have anxiety so for me to have people in a small space with me would really freak me out. So I will go with by myself. Only question is can I have internet, computer, my phone, and obviously food and a bathroom in there with me? That would make it even better.Name a fictional character with whom you identify most. Harley Quinn! She is sassy just like me and we don’t take any ones crap. Plus I talk to myself, well she has voices I just talk out loud my thoughts to myself that is the same difference.What fascinates you the most? I am most fascinated by really the world. I love traveling and doing things I’ve never done before or have ever been to before. It’s amazing what the world has that we probably never seen before.What three traits do you think are most important in a partner/friend/family member? Kindness I don’t like when someone is rude or mean to me. Committed, this goes towards a friend because I have lots of friends but yet I am the only one that commits to calling them trying to hang out. Yet I barley ever get that in return. Last one I would say fun to be around, I like to go out and have fun.If you could have a super power, what would it be? If I had a superpower… well I would like more than one to be quite honest. Since I can pick one I would go with being invisible. I say invisible for a lot of reasons, no one knows your there so you can sneak in different transportation and it will make it so you can travel without anyone noticing you. When I don’t want to be known in a room I can hide myself by going invisible. Now to who I am nominating for this award, who have excellent blogs and that I hope others can get to read their blogs and find them fascinating as well: 1. Family By Choice 2. Thoughts With N 3. Rebel Fish 4. Ellie Bear Escapades 5. Geraldine Talks 4. Travel to Recovery 7. Leah Saffron 8. Living as Allison 9. Bailey Leah 10. Two of a Mind 11. Diary of a Spanglish Girl Here are 11 questions that I have for you:What made you decide that you wanted to startblogging? Who/what is your inspiration? If you could meet anyone in the world who wouldit be? If you could trade places with anyone for a daywho would you be and why? What does blogging mean to you? Any exciting work that you maybe thinking aboutdoing in the future? If you could do one thing to change the worldwhat would you do? Where is your favorite place in the world? If you could bring back any celebrity who wouldyou chose and why? What is your dreams? What is your favorite tv show? Now the second set of questions I was asked by Marta Azra: What kind of music you like? I love all types of music. My all time favorite would be country. I do, however, switch back and forth between country and pop music the most.How do you manage everyday life with blogging? It is hard. I have to set aside time for me to do my blog as well as make time for myself and my family. People think oh well she must really be bored if she can find time to write. What people don't realize is that it is not that I'm bored. Writing to me is a way to express myself and show people who I really am. Most of the time I try to get my blogs done while my youngest naps. That's when it's the best time for me because it's quiet and I can think better. What is the hardest part of being a blogger? The hardest thing about being a blogger is coming up with the material, the thoughts of what to write and getting people to look at what I've written. I can blog all day but without an audience its harder to get my name out there. Also monetizing is hard to do. I can put ads up and posts about a product or a place but getting people to actually click on it and buy from it is hard to do. You can't force people to do it. At the same time that is one of the main ways that bloggers can make money from blogging.Do you have a hobby and if you do what is it? I love to sing. I've been told I have a great voice. I used to sing a lot but then I went through a bad time in my life and stopped. Now that my oldest loves to sing too, I try to sing with her and get back to doing what I love. What is your fav. Book? Man, favorite book, that is tough because I don't really read a whole lot. Probably Harry Potter series and Twilight series. Who is your fav. Blogger? I love a lot of blogs I would have to say Thoughts With N, I feel like her blogs get me. Who is your role model in life? My mom always has been my role model too. She is such a strong woman. Even though her dad died a year ago she has been hanging in there. I call her practically every day. That is something I remember my mom did with her mom. Every day she would call my grandmother. Whether she had a prose needed advice on or just to call her and talk to her. That's is what I do. My mom is not the best at keeping secrets though unless you specify not to say anything. If she is excited she seems to let it slip. But I wouldn't change anything for the world.Do you have any tips for new bloggers and what are they? Even if you feel like you want to give up just try your hardest to keep going. I sometimes feel like no one is going to read my blog but then I get a surprise when I look at my stats. Sometimes I get three views a day sometimes I get 100 but the more you write the more people will keep coming back.Share the best advice you ever got from somebody? Never give up! That is honestly the best advice I think anyone could have ever given.Do you have a book crush? And who is it? I am team Edward all the way. He is so sweet to Bella throughout the whole series.What is your biggest dream? To become a successful blogger. To show the world that I did it even when a lot of my friends and family thought I couldn't. Read the full article