#wild stuff going on in the link episodes lmao

[quil12]

You know, I've never really shipped them, but like... how is the game expecting me to take this???

[elizabethshaw]

hm. thinking thoughts

under the cut for spoiler reasons:

this is literally just me writing stuff up in no real order so there is probably not all that much coherence to it. ah well

loved how unsettling it was having something wrong with the tardis! the tardis (in the tv show at least) is usually the one guaranteed safe place in any given dr who episode and so to have it suddenly a threat like that felt genuinely unnerving

the time window sequence was cool. really liked the fuzzy, there-but-not-quite-there visual effects

i also loved the monologue/prophecy/whatever, built things up very nicely and idk. i just vibed with it. i have more to say but the words are not coming to me right now

"and standing on high is the Mother and Father and Other of them all" i haven't even read lungbarrow but them saying "other" here immediately got my attention lmao

for an episode called "the legend of ruby sunday", it felt like (particularly in the last third of the story), there was remarkably little actual focus on ruby. while i do genuinely like her as a companion, i do feel like she's been one of the biggest casualties of the shift to a shorter series length with less time for "filler" episodes - we simply haven't had the time to get to know her on a deeper level, and i was hoping, given the title, that this story would do something to rectify that a bit. and then it didn't.

saying that, i did appreciate them giving her some more scenes with her mum this episode, i think she has a really nice dynamic with her family and we haven't seen enough of it since the christmas special imo

no trickster :( he got a mention at least but i was hoping he'd be the villain ngl

i have watched pyramids of mars once, four years ago, and barely remember the plot (my main memories of that episode are sarah with a gun ngl), probably going to have to rewatch it before next week. dailymotion you may have to be my saviour once again

not entirely sure how i feel about sutekh as the main villain. this is at least in part because my memories of pyramids of mars are hazy as anything, but i'm just... undecided. to its credit, the episode itself actually did a good job of getting me very excited about the reveal while i was watching, but as an overall thing? i don't know yet. i think i'm going to have to wait until i've watched the finale next week to form a full opinion

i reckon he must have hitched himself onto the tardis around/during "wild blue yonder" though - this is the first time where the tardis starts making The Noises, and is also the first time susan twist turns up, and that can't be a coincidence, especially given that, as previously established, it was likely fourteen's salt trick in this episode that let the toymaker back into the universe

i rewatched "the church on ruby road" earlier this week bc i figured it'd be a good shout and i hadn't watched it since broadcast, and during that i felt like mrs flood was maybe a "retired" companion, possibly a future companion (maybe of a future doctor) that we haven't met yet. after this ep though, i'm not so sure. she seems at least aware of sutekh in some way, and also seems potentially antagonistic, but i'm not sure she's actually directly linked to him. i'm fairly sure as well rtd said at some point she's more of a mystery for later series so. hm. it'll be interesting to see what more we get of her in part two

i can't shake the feeling that they are going to do something with susan further down the line. there have been more mentions of her in this series than in basically the rest of new who put together and i can't help but think that this must be for a reason even if susan twist wasn't her

anyway the real mystery for me: what is the vlinx. i have been thinking about this on and off since december. what is it. how did it get into unit to begin with. i need answers

[toh-tagteam-au]

Tag Team AU Synopsis – Lost in Language + Once Upon a Swap

Synopsis Masterpost Link

Previous [Hooty's Moving Hassle]

Next Part [Something Ventured + Escape of the Palisman] [coming soon]

WOO first double episode post! I'm going to double-up on certain episodes since some are too short/don't have a lot of substance to justify having their own posts/are too much like canon. So, let's vibe. Library time.

Lost in Language

Eda gets the bat baby again. Hunter shows up to tell Eda that he’s going to the library to research and he’ll take her books back for her.

(lmao it’s because he’s helping the palisman eater)

Once he gets to the library, he researches for the whole day until the Blight twins start talking to him, saying they were impressed by how he made a quick negative first impression on Amity at the covention. He doesn’t like them immediately, but Edric invites him to come to the library at night.

So they do the wishing star stuff and Hunter actually ends up having fun. Montage Moment. Eventually, they take him to Amity’s study room and reveal their plan, which Hunter HATES.

He leaves the study room, but not before stealing Amity’s diary without the twins noticing. 

He then literally runs into Amity, who overheard the twins inviting Hunter to the library earlier that day. Hunter gives her the diary, saying that even she doesn’t deserve to be screwed over by family. 

Otabin suddenly attacks, and Amity and Hunter have to save the twins from their own creation. Everyone sticks around to clean up the damages, and Hunter encourages the twins to apologize to Amity. 

Oh and also

Once Upon a Swap

Episode opens up at the market, with each character having the same gripes as canon except instead of Luz’s problem with Eda not wanting her name in lights, Hunter has a problem with Eda not explaining how her human stuff works to her customers. Body swap is the same, Hunter in Eda’s body and King in Hunter’s body.

The narrative sticks with Hunter pretty much the whole time, who tries explaining how human things work to customers. Eventually, people stop coming to his stall because there’s no mysticism surrounding the human stuff now that they know they’re just normal objects. He gets caught by coven scouts at some point during this, and Lilith visits her “sister” similar to canon.

Hunter explains to Lilith in VERY detailed terms that Eda does not want to be part of the Emperor’s coven.

Basically, Hunter’s “lesson” that he learns is that people will not always listen to you, regardless of how many facts your side is based on. 

Cut to King, who is doing teen stuff in Hunter’s body, when he’s pulled into an alleyway by Luz the Golden Guard, who tells him that Eda was arrested and they have to bail her out. 

So King knows now.

Cut back to Lilith and Hunter when the Golden Guards arrive. Hunter is understandably terrified seeing King there while Luz smooth-talks Lilith. Luz gets into a stalemate with Lilith before King speaks up, to the confusion of Luz. Apparently, the Owl Lady performed a body swap spell in the market today, so even if they DO put a sigil on her, it won't stick! (He is lying about the sigil thing).

The bodyswap spell is backed up by a few other scouts, who mention they did hear “bodyswap” be yelled earlier, and eventually by Hunter, who says that he is in fact Eda’s new apprentice. Lilith says that Eda did mention him at the covention.

Luz, quickly using the excuse that this isn’t Eda and thus a false arrest, escorts King and Hunter out of the station and drags them into town before Lilith can wisen up. 

Eventually, Luz and Hunter beg King to not tell Eda that Hunter is a Golden Guard, saying that they’re trying to help someone with knowledge of wild magic, and Eda is their last shot. King tentatively agrees, as long as they keep Eda safe and don’t hurt her. 

Eventually, they all converge together so King, Eda, and Hunter can end the bodyswap spell and get away like in canon.

Previous Part [Hooty's Moving Hassle]

Next Part [Something Ventured + Escape of the Palisman]

Synopsis Masterpost Link

[arcplaysgames]

yeah because Mitsuo is not the killer, I know this, you know this, we all know this

if finding a fake killer gets me tuna tho i'm in, i'll frame a man every day, i don't care

WAIT WAIT THE STORYBOOK FROM THE SUN LINK IN P3P GOT PUBLISHED? Man its a dark children's book. Beautiful but nihilistic. You know the kids who read that are going to have a lot of difficult questions their parents do not wanna answer. Good, though.

Summer Festival! Nanako is adorable. AND GET THIS. BRACE YOURSELVES. MAKE SURE YOU ARE SITTING DOWN AND HOLDING ONTO SOMETHING.

DOJIMA ACTUALLY SHOWS UP TO TAKE CARE OF HIS DAUGHTER. I KNOW. I KNOOOOOOW. Shocking. Usually this girl is being raised by six teenagers and the human personification of a mascot character.

A STUNNING turn of events!

Teddie is such a manipulator lmao. First he suggests everyone pair off to enjoy the festival bc That's What You Do At Festivals, then gets the boys deliberating who should go with who, then while everyone is all turned around, he swoops in to take all the girls out around the festival so no one is 'left out.'

lmao. i love Teddie. I'm actually trying to pin down why Yosuke's horny boy bullshit annoys me but Teddie does not. It may be because he's SO flagrant about it, he's SO over the top, you know going in its a Yes, And scenario. Or, you can slap him, lmao.

After, Rise invited me out to a one on one date to the festival. She's very funny and boisterous but I think I'm friendzoning everyone in this playthru. I haven't found anyone I wanna date. And I know there is one more option coming so I don't want to accidentally pen myself in, like with Akihiko and late-comer Aigis. Poor Aigis.....

Not about to let anyone begin to assume he's a good dad, over in the Hierophant SLink, Dojima reveals that his wife died in a hit and run while Nanako was in nursery school. Which explains why Nanako barely remembers her.

Dojima's whole deal is that he's still working that case, still trying to find out who killed his wife. He claims its for Nanako, that someday in the future, she'll appreciate it.

And listen. The trauma of your spouse being murdered is not a joke. That's really heavy stuff. Your life falls apart as a pillar is just suddenly taken out, and surviving the loss of that kind of load-bearing structure is very fucking hard. I got zero judgement there.

However. Nanako doesn't give a shit. Her mother is a distant figure that doesn't affect her life anymore but via her absence. There is zero doubt in my mind that Nanako would remember Dojima more fondly as a man who stepped up to be her fucking father rather than having the closure for, sorry, a woman she has likely already forgotten the face of.

So again: get your shit together, Dojima.

SUMMER BEACH EPISODE. lmao poor kanji on his bike. also, Teddy is in bear mode. WHY is Teddie in bear mode? That seems much harder to travel with.

I'm not even gonna squint at Yosuke. Yosuke, someday, you will look back on your youth and feel so goddamn embarrassed at yourself. You are the very model of a modern repressed bisexual.

LMAO irl cackling. his response is so blaise. "why would i????" hahaha

lmao i missed it but chie and kanji were racing at like mach speed.

Of course because we need shenanigans, Teddie has been pulling at swimsuits to no avail. Well, almost no avail.

Hey, what is with the lightning bruiser boys and their tiny swimsuits, lmao. We are creating such a Specific trope here with them, it's bemusing. The venn diagram is something all right.

(Wait i JUST fucking noticed that Kanji has a fucking scar in the exact same place Akihiko does. What the fuck. That is a WILD coincidence.)

FUCKING YOSUKE AND REVERIE'S AVERTED GAZES LMAO. gdi teddie.

the voice acting here is a fucking treat, i cannot tell you enough.

everyone's doing amazing, sweetie

compared to the spring camping trip, this is a ten out of ten

[angryborzois]

YOOOO

it has been a long time since I’ve hopped in the ask box but unfortunately it will be the last time for a bit since I’m prepping for my exams. Luckily it ends on the 9th of March so I will probably make my presence known by then. In the meantime, I’ve learnt how to queue properly and now have a bunch a stuff that can be posted in the wild so let’s enjoy that

Enough of that, today is Valentine’s Day and while my aroace ass won’t be doing anything, I hope you are receiving the highest quality chocolate there is and fun times with your friends.

Thanks to your posts about Alice in Borderland I actually watched the show and it is REALLY GOOD. My favourite is Ann and Arisu though Kuina, Chishiya and Usagi are quite close. Im almost finished with 2 episodes left so when I come back I’ll probably chat more about it.

guess what. Finally named my oc after the many jokes. Their name is Tadaomi and I’ve been really invested his story as a consequence of the jjk brainrot I’m going through. Made a whole doc for them and everything. Maybe I’ll send it to you when It’s done ( do you have the tumblr dms open maybe I’ll drop it there).

thats’s pretty much everything i got here so I must depart. Here is a collection of all the cat photos I have rn. Hope you get plenty of water and sleep and see you on the 9th💫

AKAVABSHD YO HI

GOOD LUCK ON UR EXAMS U GOT THISS and ill be eagerly waiting till march 9

(also u gotta teach me how to queue things properly becuase last time I tried it didn't work...yes im a dumbfuck)

anyways thank youu, i prob wont be like receiving things because im not popular lol but like you said ill have fun with my friends as best i can <3

OMGOMG YOU ACTUALLY WATCHED ALICE IN BORDERLAND (not me being giddy and grinning nonstop at this) and in case it wasn't obvious enough kuina and chishiya are my top favs (kuina is such a girlboss i love her sm)

I DIDNT THINK YOU WOULD WATCH IT SO IM LIKE SUPER HAPPY AA

I've been dreaming about Borderland too much lately lol (im just too lazy to post them); sadly I haven't seen Kuina there but I have briefly seen Chishiya (honestly it's just Arisu and his og trio that I've interacted with). I gotta rewatch season one though because I actually don't remember anything from it and I get so confused when I see mentions of Season 1 because my brain goes "woah when did that happen".

But I only really remembered and started posting about AIB because of that one anon from Jojo's posts who talked about who Nijiro was (i gotta thank them cause they really got me into that chishiya brainrot and helped me get out of that damn geto brainrot)

actually ok maybe i lied because A SMALL PART OF ME STILL LOVES THAT DAMN MF GETO ARGHDGFHD I HATE HIM. (Speaking of that I never finished that animation of Gojo's Past Arc I was working on...)

ANYWAYS.

YES i'd love to see your oc's entire lore i have my tumblr dms open so 🤲🤲🤲 dont be shy drop the link 👀

Aww ok I'll be waiting until March 9 and in the meantime I'll be brainrotting endlessly for Geto ahem I mean Chishiya because Chishiya is just better. Make sure you get plenty of water and rest too bro (I'll make sure to get water but I prob wont be getting enough sleep lmao)

ANYWAYS SEE U SOONN 👋

[yeolmae-s]

a chanbaek analysis from a veteran exo-l (part 2)

CLICK HERE TO READ PART ONE

Writing this was a bit harder in comparison to the first part, because I wanted to organize things into a neat timeline, but I ended up not having enough patience for it lol specially because both of ChanBaek's main archive blogs seem to have deleted their pages documenting each date of EXO's early years. Therefore I apologize in advance if this part is a bit more messy. Also, please don't forget that all of this is my opinion and I don't mean for any of it to be taken as truth!

I kind of want to jump from MAMA era directly into Wolf era, since we don't really have a lot of cover regarding their debut phase besides Chanyeol's overeagerness and Baekhyun's awkwardness towards it, so to sum it up, I felt as if Chanyeol was more confident and consistent on what he thought an idol should act like, while Baekhyun (sweet, innocent Baekhyun who was a trainee for less than a year!) was still unsure on how to act on camera.

On the few early variety shows/interviews EXO appeared on, the members always pointed out how funny Baekhyun was, how good he'd be at variety and at doing imitations, but he never really lived up to all the praise on camera, although off of it, he most likely was as good as his members claimed.

He was a bit stiff on his early days in comparison to what we see today, and that's normal, I guess, since he debuted really quickly, but when you compare him to Chanyeol the contrast is so interesting, because the latter was able to latch on to a persona as soon as the public gave him one, while to me, Baekhyun was still doubtful regarding what to put on display. In the end, deep inside, Baekhyun is a private person, and was even more so when he wasn't confident enough to talk to fans like he does today.

Once again, I’m sorry for not being able to upload the gifs directly into the post, so I’ll just link them like I did on my last one.

This is another one of the moments where Baek appears to tell Chanyeol to just. Hold on for a bit.

There's another one similar to this where Chanyeol does the same thing (try to whisper on Baekhyun's ear) and Baekhyun fake laughs and stares at a fan's camera right after. Then, his expression just goes blank. It's really interesting to watch because you can just see the gears spinning on Chanyeol's brain as he stares at Baekhyun for a second and clearly thinks alright, fanservice time, and leans in to whisper something: it happens so fast you just know it wasn't genuine whispering, just a playful interaction for the fans, and Baekhyun's direct stare to the camera as soon as it happens just confirms this for me. 

1: Chanyeol spots his target.

2: He’s really thinking this through.

3: Baek's in a perfect position for whispering-time, so he leans in and does his thing.

4: Baekhyun laughs.

5: And stares directly at a fan's camera.

6: Immediately regrets his life choices. Chanyeol looks pleased.

It's actually better to watch the whole thing, so I'll leave it here. (starts on 0:28!)

(Random note: on this date EXO perfomed a cover of H.O.T's We Are The Future, and I feel like a lot of new EXO-Ls have not seem it and I adore this performance, so I'll link it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1-z4s3fdgo)

Now let's jump on to Wolf era, shall we?

Wolf era

I can't help but laugh when I think about how wild 2013 was for both EXO and EXO-Ls. They had their first hit song (which was Growl, not Wolf) the fandom grew considerably, shippers where just discovering the cute ISAC moments between "BaekYeol" and "HunHan"... Or at least that's how everyone remembers most of what happened during that year.

Are we forgetting the rumoured ChanBaek fight?

Considering their past interactions on airports, SMTOWN concerts, ISAC and other events, ChanBaek was now widely known to be close to each other. Baekhyun even said Chanyeol was the one who made him open up, and both of them mentioned feeling this "connection" to each other as soon as they met (although jokingly).

After Mama, the fandom was content-less for a considerable period of time, and what most people did was sharing around old performances and repeat overused memes.  I think that in every fandom there is a period where fans establish their main inside jokes and basically just get together to create a collective line of thought for perceiving their idols. That being said, one of the most well established facts in the fandom was that Chanyeol and Baekhyun were close. That was a fact.But then Wolf came, and they suddenly were not. 

This gif is a good example of how awkward their interactions were. Not even my delusional shipping brain in 2013 was able to come up with an explanation for it.

They simply did not acknowledge each other at all, and Chanyeol appeared to be closer to Kyungsoo (I think Baekhyun interacted a lot with Tao, but that may have been during the Growl era, not Wolf. As I said before, I'm a Chanyeol stan guys, sorry lmao).

Point is, these two boys who seemed to be best friends suddenly were clearly distant from one another.

What added fuel to the fire of the rumours was their appearance on Sukira, a radio show, where Sehun cried because the members sometimes had fights. Here's a fanacc:

[130530] EXO at Sukira

Sehun cried because the members sometimes fight.

Sehun: "Let's be loyal to each other, don't fight, and go until the end"

D.O: "We've been under a lot of stress lately because of the comeback, so I wish we won't fight in the future and do our best"

Here's a video cut of this part of their interview. 

I think this ask on lets-talk-baekyeol, a popular ChanBaek analysis blog from back in the day, shows how curious a lot of fans were.

What happened back then?

There's really no answer for that. On my opinion, not even Chanyeol or Baekhyun could give us a concrete answer on it, because I don't think an actual fight happened. For me, it was most likely a personality clash, a disagreement that probably wasn't even voiced out loud, just both of them noticing how uncomfortable things got, if Baekhyun's reactions to Chanyeol's fanservice is any indication. I somehow doubt there was a specific episode that created this distance between them, specially because during Growl, they went back to being friends, although not as touchy on camera as before, as if one of them had established their limits (oh, I wonder who!), but I still have this feeling that all of this was unspoken, because unspoken things seem to be a pattern on ChanBaek's relationship (something I'll touch on later, hopefully).

But it was during Growl era that I noticed something else about Baekhyun.

Wolf era

EXO'S Showtime was a such a gift. I recommend reading lets-talk-baekyeol's blog for this. I don't really agree with everything they say they do present a lot of relevant points. I may repeat them here, since I noticed them myself as well, but credits for them nonetheless.

I remember finding the lack of ChanBaek interactions during the episodes really dissappointing, but considering the Wolf Era drought, this was better than nothing.

My 13 year old self was devastated when Baekhyun appeared so quiet during Chanyeol's birthday episode, and during a recent rewatch of it, I think realized why.

Baekhyun doesn't like superficial things. It's not that Chanyeol is insincere, but he's just better than Baekhyun is at handling people pleasing, even when he doesn't really mean what's he saying/doing. The Chanyeol birthday episode was heavily centered on Chanyeol's random admiration for Kai, which I think we can all agree that it was a little bit scripted or a really spur of the moment thing that they just ran along with and oh man. Baekhyun did not want to be part of it.

During ChanKai's hug, this is what he looked like on the background, and the poor boy even refused to eat cake. He's just in the back, which is weird, because he's such a talkative person and Chanyeol is one of his closest friends. The only moment where he seems to be genuinely comfortable is when Chanyeol blows the candle and it's really cute. To me, it seems that he was kind of embarrassed to witness so much acting from everyone else and was unable to participate because he struggles with things like this, but the moment Chanyeol blows his candles to comemorate his birthday seems sincere enough for him to fondly smile.

This ties in so well with everything from Mama Era. He's just unable to keep acting/people pleasing on the same easy way that Chanyeol does, but this time he's not as nervous about it as he was on his earlier-early days, where he probably felt pressured to actually do stuff. Now he just doesn't do **it, he just doesn't do something that he dislikes doing, and that sadly creates a distance between them on camera and probably on a deeper level in their relationship as well, because both are just realizing how different their perceptions over their jobs is.

There's also this moment that the mods on lets-talk-baekyeol pointed out.

On the Christmas episode, when the members leave the couch to go get their presents, Chanyeol stays seated while Baekhyun gets up to fetch his. This is the sitting arrangement before (almost) everyone got up:

But when Baekhyun comes back, there's free space next to Chanyeol, however he's hesitant to sit by his side. He actually hesitates and doesn't sit down. Jongdae even gives him a little push right after.

Baek just seems hesitant to do things on camera, to interact with Chanyeol in front of an audience. For this moment, I feel like he's afraid to sit next to Chanyeol and end up having to over act. It's not that Chanyeol himself makes him uncomfortable, but the image of the friendship that they ended up creating for fans demands a lot from him.

And when I say hesitant to do things on camera, I really do mean it, because when Baekhyun thinks he is not being recorded/seen, here's what he does:

Here and here.

Their relationship clearly changed, and I think the reason for it is actually simple: both of them were under the impression that they were compatible with each other when they actually were not. Their personalities are extremely different, even if the way they present themselves is sometimes similar. Wolf and Growl era was our way, as fans, of watching them navigate around each other and finding out how their relationship was supposed to work.

And you know what's nice about that? The members watched all of it unfold. Their reactions to some of ChanBaek's interaction is a gold mine when it comes to analyzing them, because they clearly know, just as we do, that their relationship is kind of complicated. But I want to talk about it on the next part.

I am sorry for cutting this off again! I don't know if the next part is going to be the last, because after Growl there's Overdose and we all know what happened on 2014 [coughs] dating scandal [coughs] god help me I don't want to talk about it [coughs] so there's a lot to uncover and I need time to organize stuff.

Thank you for reading!

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 15

first time reader - click here

TW/SUMMARY: Is bad humour a trigger? Cards against humanity. Loki in the wild. Chaotic Tony, chaotic Reader. Team bonding, a gag chapter lmao

My beta is babey 🥺 @miscmarvelwritings

If someone had bothered to ask me what kind of relationship I had with Tony, it would've made my brain glitch. In the weeks we spent fucking, sciencing and hanging out with the Avengers, it never once crossed my mind. We had fun and it was easy. Unlike both of our lives, it didn't require much mental energy for us to get what we wanted from each other. For me, it was easier to ignore my skin aching for Tony when he was already spending so much time on me. I wasn't sure if it would ever be enough, really, so taking exactly as much as he was giving was my best bet.

We built things in his workshop with Pete by our side and it wasn't awkward. The spiderling said he was happy as long as we were happy and didn't mind it too much when Tony got handsy. The man had at least some morals and stuck to kisses, ass-slaps and lewd comments which made Peter snort and fake-retch sure, yet the boy never displayed any real discomfort. It was endearing. He really became the little brother I never thought I would have.

The sex was fantastic, to say the least. We fucked on just about every flat surface on the residential floors. Steve caught us once, although I am almost hundred percent sure Tony staged it all on purpose. The good Captain didn't even blush, instead just silently closed the door behind him as I stared in his face, gripping Tony's head with my thighs.

The weather grew dreary yet both of my parents still stayed out of New York. Mother went back to Canada and dad continued his never-ending party on the West Coast, conquering California and living his best life. My house was dark and cold, and I started hanging around the tower more often than ever. If I wasn't with Tony, I was busy catching up Wanda and Bucky on pop culture, teaching Thor how to bake cakes and doing other meaningless, domestic stuff. The Avengers tower bustled with life at all hours and there always was someone...

I never felt lonely. It was such an unusual experience. Comfort and reassurance was always one room away. Be it Thor with his gratuitous amount of physical affection or his brother's incredibly witty, dark humor, I never had to stay one-on-one with my thoughts for too long.

Personally witnessing Bruce's coming out of his shell was the highlight of my life, no lie. I was so used to the quiet, mousy Banner that my brain refused to acknowledge his amazing sense of humour at first; I wasn't sure if he was joking or ... Or what? Truth to be told, Brucie-bear was as snarky as Tony,Loki and Stephen. The sorcerer had started visiting more often too, under the guise of tutoring Wanda, but all of us saw the way he lingered in the communal areas after their study time came to an end.

If loneliness was a sickness then the tower's inhabitants and frequent visitors were beginning their recovery journey.

"Have you guys heard about Cards Against Humanity?" I asked one evening once the movie credits began rolling. Wanda was squished into my side with her legs in her brother's lap; Clint laying atop both siblings like the trash bag that he was. And I meant it fondly.

On the other side of me, I had Bucky and Loki, who had begun to discuss their respective collections of sharp and pointy things once they deemed the movie lacked action. Legally Blonde and action, did they really think..? Nevermind.

"Yes, and if you're offering, the answer is yes," Clint mumbled, reaching for his second pack of Cheetos.

We gathered in a circle as I brought the shoebox that had the original deck plus a couple of expansions. This was beginning to look interesting. "So, I have the special Avengers edition right there..."

"Say no more," Clint even abandoned his snacks. "But I'mma put on the episode of Lucifer I missed. Multitasking," He winked, wrestling the remote from Pietro. We waited patiently as they finished the obligatory round of horsing before settling down for the game.

I explained the rules of the game, choosing to disregard Loki's scoffing and Wanda's doubt about the quality of the humor in the game. We played a few rounds with me explaining some of the deeper pop culture references. At a point where all of us were engrossed, laughing and poking fun at each other, more of the Avengers parked themselves on the couch.

Stephen, Tony and Bruce evidently had been sciencing, all three men having had their safety goggles perched forgotten atop their heads. Sam, Natasha and Steve - probably sparring. All three of them brought the smell of soap and laundry detergent to the room. All of the newcomers observed us with mild interest, periodically glance at the TV.

It was Wanda's turn to be the card Czar. I had to take a moment to finish my last giggling fit.

"Okay, the white card goes..." She paused dramatically. "I never truly understood blank until I encountered blank." With that, she poked the timer app on her phone. The sixty second countdown began.

I did a quick inventory check. Then I snorted. I had to quickly stuff two knuckles in my mouth, biting down, to attempt to silence the hysterical fit of laughter I was on the brink of. Loki was definitely going to stab me but the opportunity was too good to pass. No fear, we die like men.

"Ooh, she's got something," Clint teased, having noticed my shaking shoulders.

The timer beeped. Naturally, Loki went first. He wore a mildly disgusted smirk. "I never truly understood parting the red sea until I encountered third base," The trickster caved and began chuckling.

Somewhere behind me, Sam and Tony began cackling while Stephen and Steve groaned loudly in mild distaste.

"Press F to pay respects," Pietro clapped Loki on the shoulder with a sympathetic chuff. "I raise you - I never truly understood licking things to claim as your own until I encountered the clitoris," The young avenger struggled through laughter, followed by everyone else this time.

"That's a keeper, ladies," Sam's rich baritone quipped.

I laughed along, inwardly preparing for the inevitable. "Yikes," I whispered, side-eyeing Loki. "I never truly understood daddy issues..." I trailed off, hearing Bucky and Steve beginning to tease Tony. "... Until I encountered Loki, the trickster God."

The room drowned in a sea of laughter, Tony and Clint busting a gut so hard they fell over. Said trickster God was less than amused, however, glaring in my direction with the force of a pissed off bee swarm.

"Ow, that's cold, Princess, that's just cold," Clint squeezed out.

"Loki," I abandoned my stack of cards, crawling over Pietro and Bucky on all fours, settling prettily on my knees in front of Loki. Making my very best puppy eyes. "I love you, with all my cold black heart. And you're technically the patron saint of fun and shit, so that means you must approve of this very clever joke," I pouted, batting my eyelashes.

"Baby girl, I think you're laying it on too thick," Tony gasped, slumping on the couch, holding his sides. Everyone kept laughing, now at my feeble attempt at placating the upset Loki.

Who, by the way, looked a bit spooked. Subtly but surely, the raven-haired Asgardian leaned away from me.

"Don't be mad, I'm too cute to be mad at," I finally snorted, pat-pat-patting him on the shoulder. "It's okay, you can join my club. We have hot old dudes and cookies."

That broke it. First, the corner of his mouth twitched. Then, Loki looked away. I saw the storm before it crashed; with a weird noise of his own and his cheeks puffed out, Loki joined in on the shit-fest, howling full volume and doubling over. I followed suit, until all of us were writhing around on the floor. We'd stop and then someone would make another remark and it would go into another round again.

"Menace," Loki scoffed at me, smiling. "And for the record, the hottest old dude, as you put it, would be me." That said, he went back to calmly waiting for his next turn. "I'm about a thousand years old."

"Thor's older," Bruce noted thoughtfully.

Loki scoffed. "That man cannot chew with his mouth shut. If that's considered attractive, I'm leaving this forsaken planet."

That struck a thought within me. One that was brewing a long time, to be honest. "Thor is the god of himbos," I said with the same tone as "Eureka!".

"Shit, you're right," Sam exclaimed, following with another, weaker fit of laughter meanwhile Bruce had to be the one explaining the term to the poor, poor, clueless members of the Avengers.

I need to find a way to award them some kind of points for learning the gen-z lingo. "Patrick" stars maybe, since they lived under a fucking rock?

"Princess, never a boring day with you around. You don't half-ass this shit," Tony's warmth reached me as he shuffled around on the couch, sitting directly behind me. I leaned my back against his legs.

"I'm not a clown," I shot back. Tony stiffened. Dramatically flailing my hand I announced: "I am the whole god-damn circus!"

As the game progressed, we found out that Clint was That Guy - meaning, the dude every CAH group had, the one who grossly overused the "Bees?!" card and made Star Wars references whenever humanly possible. The only even slightly funny joke was about a lightsaber up the ass, in the end all of us finding out that Bucky knew a little too much about modern sex toys - "Hey, I saw one on Amazon, I'll send you the link, Birdman" - to Steve's open-mouthed horror.

What Loki lacked in references he made up in wit. The play on "During sex, I like to think about genetically engineered supersoldiers" had Bucky scrambling to switch places with Wanda whilst Loki himself was attempting to shoot bedroom eyes at Steve. It was a mess.

Bucky's own play had Steve abandon all pretense at being in any way appropriate as he struggled for air. "The Avengers new rules prohibit using Mjölnir as a dildo." Me and Tony became somewhat of a messy guffawing octopus of limbs for a moment after the super-soldier said it.

"Don't. Tell. Thor!" Strange gritted out, hiding his laughter behind a palm, uncharacteristically having lost his stuffy attitude. By god's will the man was attractive when he smiled.

As time ticked, each one of the starting players had attracted a newcomer. There weren't enough cards for everyone to play (Tony had, of course, ordered additional ones but they wouldn't arrive until the next day) so people kind of whispered and pointed at what they thought would fit.

Natasha conspired with Wanda, Sam went to his bird-bro, Bruce was forcefully dragged by Bucky to his side. Surprisingly, Steve teamed up with Loki which made Pietro stick his nose up in the air and promptly declare he needed no backup.

I already had Tony on my side. The genius wasn't of much help, however, he simply annoyed me out of my skull by randomly giggling and making immature jokes. It should've alarmed me that Stephen was eager to join me and Tony - usually he just butted heads with anyone who had any opinion whatsoever.

I was left bewildered upon discovering the wizard liked drama as much as the Kardashian clan and was quite competitive at causing the most shit.

My clown crown felt threatened.

"This one," Tony poked at a card in my hand.

"If you think that's funny, your intellect is obviously overestimated." Stephen dismissively waved a hand. "This one," It was unmistakable whom the trembling finger belonged to. It pointed at a card on the other side.

"Wizards are just hilarious," Tony seeped sarcasm.

"Try me, Beyonce," Stephen murmured darkly.

That was just background noise to me. I had all my undivided attention on the TV, my last two functioning brain cells focused on the scene unfolding right in front of me. The Lucifer episode, the devil and his insatiable thirst for honey. The timer buzzed but I was still drawn towards Tom Ellis dipping two of his fingers first in the honeypot, then in his mouth, all the while looking like a damn snack himself. Illegal. I've never simped so hard for a fictional character.

A golden glow snatched a card out of my grasp, levitating it.

"Girl, what the hell?" Wanda saw my face and attempted to revert me back to earth. "Someone turn off the TV, there's not enough water in the tower to quench her thirst."

"Hey, did you two just - don't ignore me!" Tony whined, managing to tug on my hair and attempt to reach for the card now held in Stephen's grasp, simultaneously.

"I don't blame her," Clint mused. "That right there is one very fine dude."

I shook my head, clearing any untoward thoughts. Focus. "First of all, Bird, you're a dude. That there," I pointed up at the TV. "Is a man. A Man." I emphasised, getting a jealous poke in the back from Tony. "Second of all..." I turned towards Stephen. "The quaffle, the snitch and the AUDACITY OF THIS BITCH!" The last of my sentence was pitched. The sorcerer had raised his arm, clutching the card, and I struggled to reach it.

"What... What did you just say?" Stephen was laughing, not at all phased by me climbing him like a tree to take hold of what's mine. Tony was actively helping - or, trying to. One-handed. The other hand attempted to snatch the rest of the cards from my grasp.

"And that's an F on teamwork," Bucky's sarcasm was complemented by Steve's famous Captain America Is Disappointed In You look.

"Uhh... Guys? What's going on?" Peter's timid voice leaked confusion.

"Hello, friends," Thor boomed, drowning out the boy's questioning noises.

"We're playing a game. Cards Against Humanity."

Wordlessly, Peter towed Thor along with him to find a spot amongst us. And even if Thor didn't get any of the references, he still was good fun. His laugh was infectious. The way he cheered for every winner was incredibly wholesome. Golden space puppy. The urge to immediately pet Thor and give him endless pop-tarts was strong in me.

Loki was one dramatic, vengeful bitch. "Women get turned on by the Devil himself"? I was ready to throw hands with the trickster. Everybody's laughter drowned out any cursing I might or might have not directed towards Loki who looked far too satisfied with himself. I was going to substitute the sugar for his tea with salt one day, mark my words.

I wouldn't admit it over my dead body, but the way he got back at me for the daddy issues joke was kinda funny. Okay, very funny. It was fucking hilarious. I admire a clever man.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit ​ @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby

[remythologise]

Along with the absolute trashfire that the finale was, it's still amazing how they managed to create an absurd amount of new plot holes with the last REMAINING episode.

Like I dunno how excruciating it must've been as a writer to leave the story so wholly unfinished.

Everyday I find more and more examples of how badly the C*W fucked up, it's just laughable

this has already been discussed at length by various people on this cursèd webbed site but it’s literally so wild let’s go through and point out the plot holes as mentioned by linked posts and how they could have been fixed very very obviously from 15.18 (I mean every dumb filler episode should have been nuked, looking at you 15.16, and the Cas sacrifice happened sooner so we had more time for a full ending, but;)

Castiel’s grace was fading: obviously this was a cheap way to nuke Cas’ power levels for Power Level Reasons whenever convenient, however if he had become human and therefore been able to escape from the Empty OR sacrificed the last of his grace to do something cool we would be talking!

Ruby asks Castiel to save her from the Empty/Dean doesn’t ask Jack to rescue Castiel/Jack’s explosion in the Empty made the Empty loud/Are the other angels all out of The Empty too, or did Jack make more creepy human-angel hybrids?/Where’s Benny now?: completely obvious, the Empty and afterlife generally should have been dismantled with Cas’ help - either have Dean save Cas from the Empty and destroy that structure at the same time or have Cas restructure the afterlife and textually, on screen, include the fact he rescued the angels and demons in the Empty, redemption for the angels he killed during the show (Balthazar!). Have those entities given life or peace. (Ideally, demon souls are just human souls so they should be reformatted and perhaps reincarnated.)

The demons were rising up against/betraying Rowena/Did the gates of Hell ever get closed?: lmao I didn’t even remember this one but see above re; dismantling the structure of the afterlife because it’s always going to be inherently flawed. Personally I would have gone for a His Dark Materials/Good Place ending on this one (where either the characters are alive BUT when they die their souls become part of the universe like Jack, OR they exit the show with their own death and open the door to a new universe that we don’t get to see them in, literally outside the story) but that’s just me

If Chuck was gone, why give him his ending?: bad bad writing, but I also want to point out that Chuck literally got a better ending than ANY of the main characters, he was just made human. Like??? He can still abuse people and be a bad person or try to gain his power back??? He knows how the whole world works and could manipulate that to his advantage??? At least put him in jail??? Dean’s line about not being a killed was great but that didn’t mean they should just LEAVE THE DUDE THERE. Really feed into that humans = life, non-humans and minorities = death coding the end of the show leaned into hard (and s15 did as well in general)

Dean/Amara/Chuck: Dean’s connection to Amara and Amara’s connection to Chuck should have helped them defeat Chuck in the end instead of just erasing her existence. It should have been an Amara/Chuck situation where they both bequeath the Earth to the others and leave/die together.

Dean says the only way to honour those they lost is if the keep living: well first of all they didn’t need to lose anyone because Jack but secondly Dean Winchester should absolutely have gotten to live his toes in the sand ending with his remaining found family. Lamp episode

Sam forget’s about Eileen in 15x20 / Obviously no closure on Dean and Castiel: there are multiple references to Sam/Dean talking about settling down with someone ‘from the life’ and how that could work when a civilian life wouldn’t AND THEN----- (also we can’t talk about how the ‘don’t you ever think about it?’ Sam says is now LITERALLY A REFERENCE TO CASTIEL)

Dean says he’s not the ultimate killer and then goes back to being a killer: see above. He was going to live and maybe occasionally hunt but mostly live and grow and love.

All of the side characters/other hunters get Thanos snapped and then we don’t hear from them again/What was up with Sam’s witchcraft and leadership arc that never went anywhere?: Picture this: Sam and Eileen head up a new network of hunters which honours (OG) Bobby’s memory. Hmmm. Winchester legacy. Hmmmm. Leadership arc. Sam should also get into Witch stuff and draw in the other factions of magical humans into the hunter/MOL fold.

What happened about Heaven’s power issues?/Time moves differently in heaven how/Who’s running Heaven?: Call me a non-Christian, but Heaven ending is so wild and bad. Do bad things ever happen in Heaven? Is there conflict? How boring is it? Why bother living a life on Earth if you can live one in Heaven? How is Heaven vs. Hell allocation decided? WHY IS JOHN WINCHESTER- anyway, the point is, human ending where they live and are happy thanks

Adding my own in for fun: How come Jack and Cas consistently think they might not be truly loved by the Winchesters and are just useful to them and Dean NEVER REASSURES EITHER ONE OF THEM OF THE TRUTH BEFORE THEY ARE SACRIFICED: anyway! as I said, Destiel endgame and Jack shouldn’t have been God (or if he had to be, he should have also have still been able to be a kid too, because he’s worth more than his use to the Winchester Brother Freedom Cause). But once again just think there’s no real reason he had to be God

Becky and Atomic Monsters: I would also accept Becky being revealed as God at some point, but at the very least she should have been given a meta-adjacent scene in the finale. The way she literally called out every way the finale would be bad... brain worms

[scarabbai]

Are there any changes to what goes on in events like Ghost Marriage or Fairy Gala in the RR AU? Considering how huge RR!Jamil’s ego is, would he be offended that the ghost bride thinks Idia is the ideal prince and therefore better than him? Or is it a different case due to the likelihood that the events take place after main story?

ANON....YESTERDAY I SPENT MY ENTIRE MORNING AND PART OF MY AFTERNOON WATCHING TRANSLATION VIDS OF THE ENTIRE FAIRY GALA AND GHOST MARRIAGE EVENTS JUST FOR YOUUUUUU :D !!! I don’t usually keep up with the events bc I skip whatever I don’t understand in-game and can’t stay focused/engaged with the story unless I watch subtitled videos of the events themselves (so if you know a place where I can get subbed translated vids of Dance and Wishes or maybe a line by line translation of each of the event episodes please link me 👀) SO I ACTUALLY HAD NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED IN EACH EVENT ASIDE FROM LIKE...OVERVIEW SUMMARIES THAT DON’T GO SUPER IN DETAIL ON WHAT WAS SAID LMAOOOO

So right now I’ve watched the Beans Day, Fairy Gala, and Ghost Marriage events and can answer your question somewhat decently! (I might have to revisit after watching Dance and Wishes, I really have noooo idea what goes on in that one lmao) We know Beans Day takes place in February (before or after VDC...? Man, we really don’t know...), Fairy Gala is supposed to announce spring (which I’m told begins...sometime in March? Or does it start later, in April? I live in a place with no change in seasons so I’m not sure lol), and Ghost Marriage is...idk it’s a mystery but I assume it’s in June? Dance and Wishes...no idea at all, someone please enlighten me!

With these timeframes in mind, I think the role reversed au versions of each event would go as follows:

For Beans Day, Kalim is still on Farmer Team and Jamil is still on Monster Team. I think by this point in time (unless ch5 comes up with some wild stuff that keeps them too occupied) they would have finally gotten together and thus would officially be in a relationship. However, since it’s a relatively new development and Kalim is surprisingly shy about it, they probably keep their relationship status lowkey. This secretiveness leads to them agreeing to sneak away during Beans Day so they can see each other. As a result, instead of being found eating at the botanical gardens, Kalim is basically nowhere to be seen after some time into the game. Both him and Jamil still end up getting knocked out of the game though bc they playfully “betray” each other when they meet up! As Jamil hugs Kalim to “catch” him, Kalim squishes a bean against the front of Jamil’s jacket. They both laugh about it before stealing a kiss and hiding away in the woods for the rest of the day. The fact that they’re both able to make light of/lightheartedly joke about topics previously sensitive to them (betrayal) would be proof of them growing past the trials they faced in ch4. They trust each other again, now more than ever.

For Fairy Gala the same people get picked, though since the theme is just “harvest season, but make it Fashion™” (bc miss me with the whole “exotic” theme), the reasoning behind the dorm leader picks are Leona and Jamil’s connections to nobility and Crowley’s desire to mess with them both for their past bad attitudes. This irks Jamil greatly bc Crowley doesn’t outright say who he really is or what his social status is (even with ch4 I don’t think that info would have been exposed), but lumping him together with Leona makes Jamil look odd even if Crowley claims it’s bc Jamil has a history in dance. Also, aside from Jamil and Kalim swapping outfits bc their dorm positions are the opposite from canon, everyone’s clothing remains the same. Much like ch5 is shaping up to be, this event is Kalim’s moment to SHINE. As a skilled entertainer with lots of experience and training in regards to dancing, singing, and acting, he’s in his natural element here! Additionally, Kalim looks up to Vil since they both act in some capacity, so he listens well and learns quickly in order to be his star pupil. As a result, it’s actually Jamil who falls behind and needs to practice more to keep up with Kalim! That’s fine by him though since he gets to spend more time up close and personal with the one he loves. Their main show stopper is an animated couples’ dance with a beautiful and heartfelt declaration of blooming spring love as their final act!

For Ghost Marriage, I have a few different scenarios in mind depending on when it takes place and what I decide for the role reversed au’s future. If it takes place prior to June or otherwise not very close to the end of the school year, Jamil laughs upon hearing about the failure of all the other students, decides this is NOT a worthwhile use of his time, and very firmly refuses to help out not only bc he doesn’t want to but also bc he knows whatever he tries won’t work. He’s not offended whatsoever over not being Eliza’s “ideal prince” bc he knows Kalim loves him for who he is, what he does, and how he looks like, and that’s more than enough to make Jamil happy already. If it happens close to June or at the end of the school year, Jamil might be more defensive and refuses less bc he thinks he’s above all this nonsense but rather bc he’s busy being very clingy. Depending on what information we receive and how ch5 plays out, Kalim might actually be leaving NRC after the year ends, in which case Jamil would either be even MORE clingy bc he’s upset over how little time he has left to spend with Kalim in person OR he’s busy moping around bc Kalim already left the campus and he misses him. Regardless of how or why it happens, Jamil is highly likely to refuse bc he already has someone to love and thus his proposal won’t be very convincing.

In Kalim’s case, he might actually consider saying yes if asked. I don’t think he’d do it for Idia in particular (ouch, that’s cold) but rather bc a lot of his friends got caught up in the mess. This means he’s pretty likely to say no if he’s sought out more toward the beginning of the event since there wouldn’t be nearly as much at stake and, much like Jamil, Kalim is pretty sure any declaration of love from him will be too hollow to be believable. Of course, Kalim has some acting ability to him and is an excellent singer so he might be able to get at least somewhere if he tried, but ultimately I think he would get rejected bc he didn’t meet the ridiculously specific qualifications and/or Eliza could tell his heart belonged to another. It’s important to note that if Kalim agrees to go, Jamil will as well, albeit very reluctantly and with a high chance of being rejected due to his impatience and/or insincerity. However, it’s also of note that Jamil will complain/nag him to say no and stay safe with him at the dorm if he catches wind of the whole thing before Kalim does. This all is, ofc, assuming the event takes place at a time when Kalim is still at the school. If not, then...he’s literally not even there.

For Dance and Wishes, idk if they have any impact at all in the event story but I can say that their wishes aren’t really decided/set in stone yet. However, I do have some ideas for what their wishes might be, and they might end up being what I decide on for them!

Jamil’s wish: “For Kalim to always find happiness.”

Kalim’s wish: “To always have the ability to put a smile on people’s faces.”

[hirazuki]

Ooo I'm curious about your hot takes on the Inuyasha reboot after reading your tags 👀

Ahaha, where to start XD Idk if they are hot takes, but here are my thoughts in bullet point form for coherency, I couldn’t figure out how else to organize them. Under a cut, as usual, because it got lengthy... as usual :D

We are 13 episodes in, and I still have no idea wtf is going on or what the series is actually about. And yes, I’m aware that we didn’t know of Naraku’s existence or of the overarching plot until at least episode 16 of that series either and Inuyasha was still very episodic in nature at that early point too, but here’s the thing: Inuyasha did not build upon a pre-existing series. For better or for worse, Yashahime has certain expectations to live up to that the original anime didn’t, by virtue of its being a sequel. Unfair? Maybe, but tough; that’s what happens when you make a sequel. Additionally, despite us not knowing The Main Plot™ of Inuyasha until later, the basic framework for it was laid out clearly by... episode 2? I think? Find and collect the Shikon Jewel shards. Boom, done. Were there distractions or fillers? Sure, but you never got the sense that the characters simply up and forgot about the shards. Even in fillers, the shards often made some kind of appearance. With Yashahime, there’s like three potential storylines going on: 1. The most obvious: most of our main cast from the OG is missing; where are they? Apparently no one in-story cares! :D Inuyasha, who’s that lol. I’m all for a sequel focusing on the new generation with cameos of the old crew; after all, they already had their own series. But this is like... no one cares about them? No one talks about them? And the more characters go about not mentioning them, the stronger their absence is felt. Like, for instance, Kaede knows Moroha is InuKag’s daughter. Moroha grew up on her own, doesn’t know her parents. Kaede doesn’t mention them to Moroha, doesn’t even spare a passing thought about them for the audience’s benefit, Moroha doesn’t ask. Kagome’s family in the present day meet Moroha, recognize her as Kagome’s daughter and... say nothing??? Souta shows Towa Kagome and Inuyasha’s old photos, but doesn’t say a word to Moroha?! Like. It makes no sense. By people not even acknowledging their existence, it makes the fact that they are nowhere to be found even weirder. Also the new gen girls don’t care about their parents or finding out who they were/are... like, okay, it would maybe be in character for one or two of them, but all three don’t give a fuck??? 2. Kirinmaru/the rainbow pearls: Idk how familiar you are with the story, but similar deal with Naraku and the shards here. Kirinmaru is being set up as the villain, still a mysterious figure; our new gen trio is supposed to collect the rainbow pearls that... some of his henchmen have? Or he is after them? Or is that Riku? Unclear. ANYWAY the new gen girls often forget all about the pearls’ existence :D 3. Setsuna’s memories: Setsuna’s dreams have been stolen by the dream butterfly and they need to get them back, because without her dreams she has no memories and is unable to sleep. Cool! Finally a solid, easy-to-follow plot line! Except wait! Towa, who supposedly made it her goal to get Setsuna’s sleep back, forgets all about it! All the time! Like, none of them make an effort to look into this other than being like “oh yeah, know anything about the dream butterfly?” to random folks every now and then. The Inugang back in the day was putting some grad school level research towards their goals, just saying. It just feels like everything’s all wishy-washy and there’s nothing really solid tying the series together. People just remember shit exists when it’s convenient.

.

Character development is MIA. I’m not expecting ground-breaking char dev in 13 episodes (though I do know 12 episode series that were phenomenal in that regard), but like... I do expect the series to focus on building the dynamics between the main three characters. So far, the series is more focused on teasing the audience with glimpses and promises of the OG cast instead. The creators are using nostalgia and bait (esp of a certain pairing) to drive interest in the series, rather than developing the new characters as fully-fledged characters for their own sakes. 

.

Moroha is was the only thing I actually liked about the series. She is a little spitfire and you can somehow instantly see both Inuyasha and Kagome in her, while she also remains very uniquely herself; I have never seen such a successfully developed main pairing child in any series. She featured quite prominently in the first few episodes -- and unlike both her parents, she’s got a great memory and knowledge of lore -- where she balanced funny moments with badass fighting moments and being the token supernatural encyclopedia. It was great! And then... they’ve like... forgotten her. She’s been left behind so many times by the twins. She’s the butt of every joke. She’s become the type of comic relief that’s, well, insulting. More like a buffoon than anything else. And it’s basically all for the sake of giving the floor to Towa :/

.

Setsuna is okay. Not offensive, but unremarkable. She’s got her dad’s personality but like way toned down due to her different growing up circumstances, which is nice, but like... I feel she isn’t given any room to grow or breathe or anything. She’s also basically there as a device to enhance Towa’s development.

.

Towa... oy. I tried to like her, I really did, but she just doesn’t work for me. They set her up having a very Kurosaki Ichigo type deal with beating up bullies and getting into trouble at school and shit -- I’m fine with that. That’s cool. Esp if it’s linked to not feeling like she fits in bc she’s a hanyou? Awesome. Except once she travels back in time to the feudal era it’s all “Oh killing is bad you shouldn’t kill people” and “even though they attacked me I can’t possibly hurt them” and “you need to empathize and talk things out” and “friendship is magic” and shit. It feels like she had a personality transplant, it literally makes no sense. Her design is totally nonsensical too -- out of everyone at her school, she’s the only one dressed in a bright white suit? Do protags not wear the school uniform? Someone should tell Kagome lmao. She’s a pro at hand to hand, and she can absorb demons’ powers and fling them back at them like a personified Tessaiga, and she has a lightsaber sword, and she’s immune to miasma, and -- like... you get it. It’s too much. It’s way too OP for the type of universe that Inuyasha/Yashahime is set in. She’s hanyou for fuck’s sake; remember all the training Inuyasha had to go through? When he couldn’t lift his sword? When his sword attacked him? Sango, Miroku, Kagome, even Sesshomaru all had trouble with their weapons and had to work to become stronger. But Towa? Nope. Towa is straight out of the Yas Queen/Girl Boss manual, so she gets a free pass on everything.

.

UGH they are doing the VLD/bad writing thing where things happen (like, BIG THINGS) and none of the characters actually react to them. Or stuff happens and there are no consequences. No one ever talks about anything. It’s wild.

.

Everyone has amnesia!! :D People either don’t know or don’t remember anything or anyone. People who absolutely should know things all of a sudden magically don’t know them. Like, Kohaku -- traveled with an undead priestess, spent years in the company of demons, traveled with Sesshomaru... and yet had NO CLUE that Setsuna is Sesshomaru’s daughter or that she is hanyou, despite her living and working with his team of demon slayers all this time. Like... how, man. How. And Kaede! Don’t get me started. Since when does she perpetuate random demon-boogeyman type stories as facts? Demon children will kill each other in the nest so that only the strongest one will survive, therefore Setsuna must have killed Towa when they were infants. O_O What are they, sharks? Has she been hanging out with Kisame? Wtf?? And she’s speaking about Sess’s kids as though she doesn’t know him or anything about him, when she has had Rin under her roof all these years. It just makes. no. sense.

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Things that happened in the original series are happening again now! Because that’s the best we’ve got, recycled plot elements wooo! No, but really, characters that died or things that were resolved in Inuyasha keep coming back. Why? What was the purpose of bringing back Kinka and Ginka? To have a foil for Towa and Setsuna as twins? Someone please tell Sunrise they can just create new characters. Like, it’s one thing to have call backs to the original or cameos, references, whatever. But like... this is entire (dead) characters and interactions.

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No one knows how long it’s been since the original series ended. Fans initially heard 20 years from promo material, then “over 15″ and “10 years since” in-series regarding two different events, and now in a future episode summary we’ve gotten 18 years since Hosenki II gave Inuyasha the black pearl. But like, which black pearl? Because the one in Inuyasha’s eye doesn’t exist anymore, but Hosenki II had told Inuyasha that it would take 100 years for him to produce one. So, are we retconning that or where the fuck did it come from? Also, this doesn’t help one bit, it just confuses things even more. Back to the point, though, we have no coherent timeline or real frame of reference whatsoever, and I’m betting it’s in large part to keep the mystery of who is Sesshomaru’s wife going, as it keeps Rin’s age very vague. Everything is vague and mysterious in Yashahime, to the point where no one knows what’s going on, in fandom or in-story even. It’s kinda like how too much plot twist/shock reveal ruins a story, too much mystery does the same. It’s insane that both shippers and antis of that ship can lay equal claim that the “18 years since” announcement works in their favor.

tl;dr: Idk man, Yashahime is a clusterfuck of a series. Even if the mother of Sess’s twins is either of the characters I ship him with, I will still not like the series. There’s no saving this writing. Every episode feels like this:

[carltonlassie]

2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread love and link each other to awesome works!

@goobzoop thank u for tagging me ily <3 ur my number one woohoo

...... so to be entirely frank i only started writing fics and drawing shit in 2020. I guess there were attempts like 10 years ago, but then it never really went anywhere and my English probably sucked back then lol idk. So this will be a cool record of what I’ve done this year and a celebration of more stuff to come ahh

I would tag sum peeps before the cut so u don’t have to read below if u don’t want to, but the only person i know that comes to my mind who creates content is @jawnwicks. I see grendel creating things but I don’t know him personally..... i am always looking respectfully though. But anyone! If u see this feel free to do one and tag me! I wanna see :)

📼 Bow Chicka Wow Wow [Shawn/Lassiter, Psych]

My first ever published Psych fic 🥰 I read through this again (even though I’ve vowed to never read my fics again bc... what if it’s embarassing) and it’s actually hilarious. I think I’m hilarious. I don’t know where the idea came from and who wrote it, but it’s a solid story. The pacing is pretty good too and there’s enough details I think to get the story going. Also goobzoop’s accompanying art is so good. 10/10

🍊Orange Creamsicle [Shawn/Gus, Psych]

I know Shawn/Gus isn’t a popular pairing, but I absolutely believe that Shawn would just be like, wanna blowjob? And give Gus the most amazing blowjob he’s ever gotten. And he’d be completely nonchalant about it too skskdfs. Also I have such a hard time writing oneshots and endings, and i think this was a pretty solid attempt at both of them. I think the ending could have used more care but like eh, it’s out it’s good.

👔 Drawing of Professor Hotchner [Reid/Hotch, Criminal Minds]

When I read the first few exposition chapter of @goobzoop’s fic I was like holy....... i can literally imagine the scene and i just had to draw it. I think this is one of my first proper drawings involving people too. I remember i was trying out different brushes and just kinda seeing how it goes... and i was like hm, how do u background... and just slathered colors until it looked serviceable haha.

🩲Drawing of Pinup Lassie [Psych]

I absolutely think this is hilarious. Lassie with a bootyshort. It’s so wild because the drawing just kinda came out in one sitting and i was surprised that i drew it afterwards. I got a new brush set and i finally found a brush i liked so i guess i was in the zone. I absolutely think they should make a psych episode where it’s full of bad porn tropes such as this drawing. Anyways. If you’re interested in the time lapse video, here it is! I still think it’s wild that i drew that even as I’m watching the time lapse video. WHy can’t i draw stylized characters like this anymore. Why must i go through a faux-realism phase. Idk

💭 Mr. Monk and The Dream [Monk/Stottlemeyer, Monk]

And I think as the final one, I Have to mention the fic that started it all. My first ever published fic. I was so scared to post this since this was for Monk who’s canonically against anything sex or anything that involves touching other people’s body or exchanging bodily fluids lmao... I remember posting all seven chapters at once and bailing because i was so scared of reviews haha. But the response I’ve gotten was so good and i was so encouraged by everyone who left such nice comments <3. All I remember was that I kept on having this scene playing in my head, and more scenes kept on coming and coming until it HAD to be written. I published it late July, but I must have started it around April or so. I wrote the entire fic on my phone, lying in bed past 4am, 5am, until there were birds chirping outside. Unhealthy, but we were all going thru unprecedented times and quarantines lmfao.

So you somehow made it all the way down here! Here’s the stats on all the written work that I’ve accomplished in 2020. Wild

I still don’t really know stuff about writing and I’m learning every day, I just write in a style I like to read, what is worldbuilding and what is consistency and POV. Idk, i just work here. I still have absolutely no idea how to tag things on AO3, but keeping the spreadsheet above is helping me with continuity and avoiding plot holes, and honestly just getting motivated to actually do things because i love completing tasks and putting lil check marks and labels on them haha monkey brain go boop booop

[eldritchsurveys]

1135.

by ausmuh

1. What's one TV episode that makes you laugh out loud every time you watch it? >> There’s an episode of Person of Interest -- “Number Crunch”, I want to say the episode’s name is? -- where an antagonist slips MDMA into Harold Finch’s drink and then pops something explosive in the microwave and leaves him to his fate. And here’s Finch, dopey and smiling, thinking it’s popcorn in the microwave and sway-dancing happily as he waits for it to be finished (meanwhile, one of his companions has broken into the place to rescue him and is just like “are you fkn kiddin me” lmao). He’s just so adorable in his impending doom, haha. Sigh... I love that show so much.

2. Who's one person you'd like to see a biopic made about? >> I don’t care.

3. Is plot an important aspect of books and movies to you, or do you care more about things like character development, themes, etc.? >> I really can’t imagine a plot that doesn’t include extensive and intricate character development. I guess I just don’t read plot-driven books, or something? I don’t know what a “plot-driven” book is. All the stories I enjoy are character-driven and the characters drive the story along... that’s just how it works for me. I guess I’d need an example of a different kind of story to understand.

4. What song hit you so hard that you remember where you were the first time you heard it? >> Awake O Sleeper by The Brothers Bright was like that. I was living with Hallie at the time. I wish I’d awakened to the bullshit I was dealing with, lmao. Regardless, that song hit me like a ton of bricks the first time I heard it sitting on the couch in the office in that house.

5. What's your "brand" of fictional character, the type you always get attached to (ex., "perky girls with deep-seated mental health issues," "guys who you would want as an older brother," etc.)? >> A few of my brands are “grumpy old magic man”, “probably a trickster god”, and “queer-coded villain”.

6. Are there any conspiracy theories that you kind of believe in? >> Nope.

7. What's the best "fake" song (one that exists only in the world of a TV show or movie)? >> I would name Dethklok songs but those songs are pretty real, lol. They used to have concerts and everything. I can’t think of any fake songs.

8. If you use Spotify, share your 2020 Wrapped! What are your overall feelings about it? Is it what you expected? >> Here’s the playlist link. And yeah, it’s what I expected -- the car playlist skewed a lot of the results, which is why there’s far more MCR and FOB and shit on there than seems logical. But You Ain’t Coming Back by Zeal & Ardor being the number one song is absolutely on point, lmao. I put that song on repeat on several occasions, which is novel for me because I don’t usually do that.

9. What's a film you watched recently that you can't stop thinking about? >> Possessor was wild. Fuckin Cronenbergs.

10. If you’ve been in lockdown/quarantine for most of the year, describe the different “phases” of quarantine you’ve gone through (whether defining them by an obsession you had, what you were doing most at the time, how you felt, etc.) >> I didn’t really have phases. Being forced to stay inside all the time was only different from my normal life in that I couldn’t choose to do anything different, which is the main frustration -- I didn’t exactly go out a lot before, but at least I knew I could if I wanted to (and sometimes I did). But in practice my life didn’t really change all that much, so I didn’t feel as disrupted as most people did. I kept doing the same shit I’d already been doing.

11. The last TV show you watched is now getting a crossover with the last video game you played: what is the unholy abomination that has just been created? >> It’d be fairly easy to recreate Bridgerton in The Sims 4, I’d think, particularly if you have some custom content installed.

12. What's an invention you’ve spent a lot of time wondering about the creation of (ex., "how did hourglass makers decide how much sand was needed and how thin the waist had to be???")? >> I think about that kind of thing randomly, but not extensively enough to warrant notice.

13. If you’re a ~gamer~, what are your top 3 all-time favorite games? >> FFXIV, Journey, and Hades are my current faves.

14. If the pandemic had happened just a year earlier, how different would your life be? >> Well, the wedding would have been cancelled. I might not have gotten to see Phantom of the Opera. 2019 was a good year and I’m really glad it wasn’t ruined by a pandemic.

15. Post a screenshot you particularly like from your favorite film without mentioning the film’s title. >> Nah.

16. Name the movie, book, TV show, etc. that you were most out of step with this year (meaning both the reviews and overall discourse was the opposite of how you felt about it). >> Hmm... I’m not sure.

17. What’s the biggest red flag you’ve ever ignored? >> Oof, just... Hallie’s whole fucking thing, lmao. But at that point I was so used to being treated any old way without care or consideration that I guess it must have seemed more normal than abnormal. Which really sucks. Because the stuff I went through with him is definitely abnormal and when I see other people going through similar things with their partners it’s really eye-opening.

18. What are some albums that “molded your brain” during middle and/or high school? >> My Own Prison by Creed, Something Like Human by Fuel, just... mainly those two. And my various mixed CDs recorded from the radio.

19. Without saying your age, post your favorite film that was released the year you turned 18. >> Hmm... The Jacket was good... Walk the Line too.... oh, Constantine! Fuck yeah! That’s the one.

20. What’s something extremely bizarre you believed as a very young child? >> I’m not sure, but I always think of this one story that this kid tried to convince me of when I was in second grade. He was light-skinned and he said that he used to be dark like me, but he started picking at his cuticles one day and peeled a piece of skin back and it kept going until he peeled all of his skin off and his current complexion was what was underneath. Kids, man... lol

[kotobukicutie]

It’s ass o’clock in the morning, I can’t sleep, and I really want to talk about this. Putting it beneath a Keep Reading for some spoilery stuff because there are somehow some people out there who might not have seen the beauty of an anime that is Kekkai Sensen. Please, if you haven’t seen it yet then go watch it. I genuinely cannot recommend it enough. This isn’t gonna be some extensive thing, it’s literally almost 5:30 in the morning and I’m tired but can’t sleep, but I need to at least air my basic thoughts. And now, to get down to what brass tacks I can reach at this hour.

I’ve seen people say that the Kekkai Sensen anime has no plot. That’s actually not correct from what I’ve seen. It’s all episodic plot points that, when you step back and think about them, link together in some way leading up to the finale. And it’s the same with the second season, as well. You have to step back and THINK to pick up on what’s going on, because it’s not outright stated what the plot is and what the point of the series as a whole is. And, frankly, that’s one of the things I love most about it. It looks like disorganized, disjointed chaos from the basic perspective and that’s what makes it such a fun watch even if you never pick up on the plot behind it all.  And more than that, the characters aren’t flat and underdeveloped. Y’all are just so focused on the “missing plot” that you haven’t been paying attention to the subtle character developments that come with each plot point. Case in point, Zapp is made out to be an absolute piece of garbage of a human being from the get-go. And yet in episode two he DELIBERATELY puts himself on the line to make sure they can track Leo down when he gets into trouble, even though he’ll deny it to Hell and back. He may be crass and, frankly, a bit of a bastard, but that one episode proved he’s not always as bad as he acts. Even if 99.9% of the time he’s someone you’d want to hit with a sledgehammer repeatedly. And then there’s Leo! He starts out a completely, easily frightened young guy who’s just gotten caught up in a shitstorm he never planned on. But by the end of season one he’s literally HIT Zapp for being an inconsiderate assbag at least once! He may take a lot of shit, but he’s come to the point where he’ll throw down when he feels he needs to or he’s just DoneTM. That? That’s growth. He has a heart of gold, but he does learn when to drop the nice attitude when need be - even if he still has trouble doing actual harm. And in season two, it becomes even more apparent. In the season two finale, he LITERALLY PROTECTS HIS SISTER AT THE COST OF GETTING REALLY FUCKING HURT. At the start of the series, he’d freeze up a lot when Big Shit was happening. But this time he was like “Nah, not happening my guy” and held it down as long as he needed to even though he was getting stabbed by needle arm...leg...things (look, idk what to call them even now). It takes stepping back and piecing the context of each episode together to see both the plot and the character development. Edit: One of my friends actually put it into better phrasing and perspective. “I mean, wasn't the whole aspect of being dropped right into the action and having to catch up as you go along an intentional feature that sort of reflects the chaotic vibe of HL? Somewhere that's so overrun with weird shit happening all the time isn't going to pause to take a minute and give you the 411 on the current socio economic status lmao.” The point being that the seeming disjointed chaos is reflective of the very setting they’re in. Something to be expected of someplace as wild and weird as HL! So even if you don’t agree that Kekkai Sensen has a plot, the absolute chaos that is the series was probably the point from the very start.

[youngestk]

I'm new to got7. How are they being mistreated?? I'm still trynna catch up in hard carry so 😭😭

oh hello new ahgase!! welcome aboard! 🥰 tbh there's like a huge list of what jype does, not only with them but with day6 and other groups as well. But let's focus on got7 right now, i'll give you some examples first, the ones I can remember and then links for more stuff.

Bambam had to move bc some sasaengs were following him.  Youngjae is always, and i mean literally ALWAYS posting stuff like "please stop calling me" "stop following me", etc. And jype does nothing. Nothing for their safety.

They promoted You Calling My Name for one week. The other week was for b-sides. The promos are always like this, they basically don't promote much. How can a group grown up and get recognition in their own country when they don't get fair promotion?

ahgases paid for youtube ads and on billboards. they've contacted shows like that one in usa, good day new york; Dingo, many others. jype didn't do anything.

ahgases are the ones that translate everything got7 do/post. Like I said, ahgase do the most.

also lol jyp himself is a JOKE. he didn't want all the boys promoting just by themselves on knowing brothers, he had to go there with them. that episode was wild. Watch it if you can! (there’s some parts in the video i recommended in this post but the most important part is this one)

jb had nosebleed of exhaustion bc he was working on jus2 and had to remake eclipse over 10 times until jyp liked it.

There's so sooo many examples. jype just don't care about them and their success. especially about their solo activities or their safety and healthy. Every single comeback it's the same thing about promotions since they just don't go in any variety show. Ahgases gather together once again this year, tried to contact the company and didn't have any answer, so they sent out a truck to the front of the agency, hoping that they could listen to us. Yugyeom saw that, thanked us :') I saw someone saying on twitter that the company tried to get the truck away but the driver said not today, satan lmao anyway, here's a thread of more old infos (x) and here's a video of some new stuff (x) 

also!! hard carry is reaaaally good! one of the best thing we’ve ever had 😭 having fun watching it! 💚🐣

[callunavulgari]

TOP 25 FICS OF 2019

1. these roads will take you into your own country by @notbecauseofvictories | American Gods | Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney | WIP | 33k

Here’s a joke for you: a Muslim, a zombie, and a leprechaun walk into a bar in Misery, Indiana. No one stares, because no one in the puckered, shitty asshole of Misery, Indiana gives a fuck. The Colts are playing.

Heather Says: So. It’s funny that another of @notbecauseofvictories‘s stories is at the top of my list again this year. Keep in mind this list is sorted by when the fic was read rather than favorites (because that would get real complicated real quick). Clearly there must be something about January. There’s just something about the writing that is easy to slip into, be it a Star Wars fic or a Labyrinth fic or even a fic about Johnny and the Devil. This was lovely and I can’t wait until it’s finished.

2. eighteen wheels on an uphill climb by @honkforhankcon | Detroit: Become Human | Hank/Connor | 91k

Hank is going to die. He’s going to die right here in Kentucky, 53 years old, halfway to broke, and tragically sober. Survived only by a nine-year-old St. Bernard and the 31-year-old twink who delivered the fatal blow.

Heather Says: I don’t think that this is the first DBH fic that I sought out after beating the game, but it is the first that I loved enough to make it to this list. I didn’t think that I would go for a modern au for this fandom, certainly not a modern au wihere Hank is a truck driver and Connor is a sex worker (albeit briefly?) but here I am.

3. Fuck pride (pride only hurts, it never helps) by ImogenGotDrunk | Detroit: Become Human | RK900/Gavin Reed | 41k

After the android uprising, Connor becomes a permanent fixture in the DPD. That’s fine. Gavin can accept that. The dipshit’s more human than he used to be, and a decent detective to boot. Gavin can deal with him being around. What Gavin cannot deal with is Connor’s replica; two inches taller, blue-eyed, and with a mouth that Gavin doesn’t know whether to punch or take between his teeth. The RK900 model has been assigned as his partner for the foreseeable future.

Heather Says: I also never thought that I’d like a fic with Gavin in it. But I got curious about all the Reed900, and well, this fic really won me over. The writing is fantastic, and it softens Gavin while still keeping him believable. Also, well, I like the enemies to lovers thing.

4. Almost Cool by @blacktofade | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 30k

While filming the Yuma Territorial Prison episode, Shane gets bitten by what he thinks is a bat. Spoiler alert: it's not.

Heather Says: This is actually the first thing that I read for this fandom. In fact, this is the fic that got me into Buzzfeed Unsolved in the first place. I’d seen a lot of art and gifs and fics pass my way, but I was only ever slightly interested in what I saw until this fic came through my inbox and piqued my curiosity. 

5. Pride by @astolat | Game of Thrones | Jaime/Brienne/Cersei | 22k

Jaime didn’t understand why Cersei suddenly insisted on trimming his hair and shaving his beard, but he also didn’t care to fight her on it, even though he’d just as soon have kept the beard: it was bitterly cold in the small tower room with its arrow-slits. 

Heather Says: Wowza. This fic was intense. I’ve always loved Jaime and Brienne. I’ve loved them since the second book, which was read at least a few years before I started loving them in the show. Adding Cersei to their dynamic would have probably been almost impossible to pull off if it was anyone else, but @astolat lives to surpass my expectations.

6. Skin and Scales by Ernmark | The Penumbra Podcast | Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla | 18k

The man glares, and this time, Damien is certain it isn’t a trick of the light: those eyes are violet as amethyst. He wears disdain like a second skin–- or, perhaps, like the scales that he is missing. “Lord Arum?”

Heather Says: I was one of those people who skipped through all of the Second Citadel episodes during my first listen through of Penumbra. The stories were good, but the pull of Juno was too great. A couple months after I finished, I went back and listened to everything I didn’t. And let me tell you. Lizard monster. Honorable knight. Bookish girlfriend. Poly. It hit every single button I had and then some. This fic really hit the spot when I ran out of story.

7. someone you like by caela | She-Ra | Adora/Catra | 5k

catwithabat u think ur so hipster but u just look like a lesbian 27m she_ra @catwithabat bc… i’m a lesbian. lmao 5m

Heather Says: Noooot usually a big fan of high school fics. Namely because I’m not in high school anymore and well, after you read so many in your teenage years they sort of lose their luster. This one was phenomenal enough to change my mind.

8. Sands of Time by @tirsynni | Legend of Zelda | Ganondorf/Link | WIP | 98k

Link awakens in the desert with no idea how he got there, to encounter his worst enemy...except it was the King of the Gerudo, not the King of Evil, he faced.

Heather Says: I have seen a lot of really good Link/Ganondorf art over the years, but never really stumbled across a fic that didn’t have judicious amount of non-con involved. But the Breath of the Wild 2 trailer happened, and everybody started drawing really pretty art, so I went looking. And lo and behold, @tirsynni saved the day with this gorgeous time travel/fix-it fic. 

9. killed with kindness by veterization | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 52k

Goro can't quite figure out why so many people keep acting like they're his friend. (Or: the one where the Phantom Thieves decide to know thy enemy, befriend thy enemy, love thy enemy, crush on thy enemy).

Heather Says: I’ve read a couple of veterization’s fics over the years, and to date they have never disappointed me. They published this in June, and I think I clicked on it mostly because I was bored and hadn’t read any good P5 fic yet. This was basically just what the doctor ordered, and I was really happy to find something where Akechi’s story went ever so slightly different.

10. paper thin by @ebonybow | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane/Sara | 9k

Shane’s new neighbors are a morning-sex kind of couple.

Heather Says: So I went into this one knowing very little about how Sara fit into things. I didn’t know she was Shane’s girlfriend. I’d never even seen her, but I clicked because I like poly and I trust the author. I was 100% not disappointed. There’s also another fic with a very similar dynamic here, which is also aces.

11. damn.nation, now available on itunes by @kaikamahine | Good Omens | Aziraphale/Crowley | 11k

When lowly tempt-pusher Amphora (formerly of Stairwell 7B North, before she Fell,) gets the notice that end times are nigh, she gleefully quits her job and cancels her Netflix subscription and takes her place among the legions of hell. This, it turns out, was a bad plan.

Heather Says: Elizabeth may have only written one fic this year, but she made it a damn good one. I’ve always loved her OCs especially, so I was pretty tickled that this is 10k+ of outsider pov. Also, demons! Demons are great! This demon is great! I want like 9 seasons and a movie about Amphora, just saying.

12. The Dragon and Her Wolves by hapakitsune | Game of Thrones | Jon/Sansa/Daenarys | 60k

When the truth of Jon's birthright is revealed, control of the North and Daenerys's claim to the Iron Throne are both called into question. To preserve their tenuous alliance and secure her rule, Daenerys puts aside her personal feelings to arrange a marriage of political convenience between Jon and Sansa Stark.

Heather Says: What do you mean season 8 didn’t exist and the show totally ended with a three way relationship between the two most powerful women in Westeros and Jon Snow? Never been a big fan of Jon/Sansa before this, but this is another of those writers that I would literally trust if they wrote a fic about a fork and a spoon.

13. never tell me the odds by @wildehacked | Wolf 359 | Eiffel/Hera | 9k

“I tried Star Wars," he says, adjusting the phone under his neck, "and it was way underwhelming.”

A shaky breath from her end. “Well, where did you start?”

Heather Says: I don’t remember which of @wildehacked‘s fandoms I started reading first. Most recently it’s been The Magnus Archives (more on this later). The point is, they’d written Wolf 359 fic and it had Hera and Eiffel and it was literally everything that I’ve been looking for since the series ended.

14. Find Me Somebody by raiining | Good Omens | Warlock/Adam Young | 11k

“You left me,” he said. “You both left me, for him. And I can’t even blame you, because I’d have left me for him too.”

Heather Says: There was an Art. The art was lovely. So I went looking, because that’s what I do when faced with beautiful art depicting a rare pairing. And I found the holy grail. Like, possibly my favorite Good Omens fic? Ever? 

15. flirting with fire by @brawlite | Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | WIP | 7k

Steve's a cop, Billy's a firefighter. It's not a grudge, it's just a regular old small town rivalry.

Heather Says: Okay so brawlite has written a lot of great stuff this year (more on that later), but I read this in bed at the beach house this August while I was reeling from both a horrible sunburn and like seven hours of mild to moderate day-drinking while everyone else was still throwing back shots right outside my bedroom door. Jaws was playing on the tv and I wasn’t even paying attention to it, because THIS. Long story short, I’ve been thirsty for more ever since.

16. gold, when you find me by mmtion | The Flash | Iris/Barry | 53k

It's not that Iris hates The Flash, per say - more that she hates writing about The Streak in a weekly, pun-heavy comic based on The Flash.

Heather Says: I never would have thought that a canon pairing would make it to my Top 25 list, but here we are. I like Iris/Barry a lot better when they don’t grow up together and spend a lot of time playing the Superman game, apparently. Also, this was really well-written, and sexual tension has never been something I’ve felt from Barry and Iris, but I felt it in this fic. Just. Damn.

17. never gets old by @brawlite & @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger| Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | 78k

Falling in love with a cam boy named KingSteve isn't the smartest thing Billy Hargrove has ever done, nor is it the most healthy -- but the good choice is rarely ever the fun choice, and Billy is all about living life fast and loose.

Heather Says: Told you I’d come back to it. brawlite and toastranger are a fantastic team. last year was cherry pie and under the covers, this year it’s camboys and cop/firefighter dynamics. Also, I have a really strange fascination with fics where a character has an instragram. It’s really, incredibly strange. Also also, every time I see this fic title I get that one Discovery Channel song stuck in my head. And no, it probably isn’t the one you’re thinking.

18. ways to save the world by @wildehacked | The Magnus Archives | Martin Blackwood/Jon Sims | 19k

“I left you,” Martin says softly.

Heather Says: And we’re back at wildehacked too! The Magnus Archives was a thing that happened to me. This is I think the first fic I read for it while listening, and it was so very close to what we got in canon. I think when it comes down to it though, I still prefer this fic, even if the ending of this season was pretty fantastic.

19. The Denial Twist by beethechange | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 35k

“This is kind of surreal,” Shane says, taking a sip of his tea. It’s piping hot and delicious, except it tastes like hot chocolate and not like tea at all. “Sort of—Wonka-esque, right? Or Alice in Wonderland.”

Heather Says: While the vampire one is my favorite both because it is excellent and because it was my first, this one was bizarre and sexy and also I read it like only a month or so ago! The dancing was my favorite part, but having dreams to work with made this story fantastically interesting and I loved every second of it.

20. silver in our lungs by taywen | Spinning Silver | Miryem/The Staryk Lord | 4k

The marks had been with Miryem for as long as she could remember. There were a number of them, all the same shade, following one after the other around her left wrist. They were pale as old scars, though they felt no different from the rest of her skin, and her mother claimed that Miryem had been born with them.

Heather Says: I really like soulmate aus. There’s so many different ways to twist them and the way they can sometimes change the dynamic entirely and other times not change them at all is just fascinating. I’ve been hoping there would be more Spinning Silver content on ao3 and running into this while I was trying to decide what I wanted to do for yuletide was a real treat.

21. you got me begging, begging, i'm on my knees by plalligator | The Queen’s Thief | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 5k

Costis has a particularly enlightening evening. (or, that struggle when you're a guard who's in love with your rulers and it turns out you would kind of like it if they bossed you around a little)

Heather Says: I accidentally re-read the King of Attolia and it made me consider ships I had perhaps not previously considered. This was really lovely and just steamy enough.

22. something more alive than silence by pageleaf | The Queen’s Thief | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 21k

It was a good thing that six months after the king had promised to halve the guard, he still hadn’t done it, because since then, there had been two attempts on the king’s life.

Heather Says: I want to only type the words AGONIZED NOISES to describe this fic because that’s basically my headspace when I get 21k of a shiny new ot3, but I mean. Really. This is super good and maybe my favorite yet? Why didn’t I start reading this fandom when I first read the books?

23. Timing it Right by DragonBandit | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 14k

The dragon chooses, Mark knows that as well as any boy born in a weyr. He'd never considered what that would mean if the dragon picked someone you hated. He's starting to think that was a mistake.

Damien's gold rises at Whitney. Mark tries to make things right.

Heather Says: This should actually be somewhere back in March, but I apparently closed out of the tab at some point. I never really got into Pern much. I have the first three books, but got most of the way through the first one a long time ago and then never picked it back up. I didn’t think I would like this, mostly because of the fact that I hadn’t gotten into the books, but was surprised to find that I absolutely loved it.

24. Keep It In Your Sights Now by LuckyDiceKirby | Shades of Magic | Lila/Kell/Holland | 9k

Holland travels with Lila and Kell. Somewhere along the way, they reach an equilibrium.

Heather Says: I love the new things I’ve discovered during my yuletide trompings. I don’t think I ever actually considered this pairing when I first read the books, but I am just so enamored with the idea of the three of them together. Like, why did I not realize that potential back then? This was lovely, and I loved it, and I want so much more out of this pairing than what ao3 has to offer me.

25. Charioteer by petrichoral | The Queen’s Thief | Gen & Costis | 13k

Captured in battle and stuck in the Mede capital, Costis has given up all hope of seeing his country again. But Eugenides has a habit of turning up where he's least expected.

Heather Says: Technically this shouldn’t be on here because I only read it today, but it was really wonderful and so canon typical. Gen and Costis were perfect in it, Irene was perfect in it. Everyone was perfect and nothing hurts.

[0ffgun]

thank you for being excited over more than just the bls. i love the bls too but i am kinda sick of people treating the others shows just because it's not what they want. girl2k seems to be very funny, girl next door and the shipper too, but i only see people already hating on it. sorry to be throwing it up to you, but sjhdjdjff just thank you for being happy with these shows. i am happy as well and can't wait to see them.

Yeah I know what you mean - the bls are definitely my faves but if I just limited myself to only bl stuff I’d miss out on so much great content! Don’t apologise asdfghjkl I love that you’ve messaged me to talk about this because some of the shows that are coming out look brilliant and I hope they get some positive attention too.

Girl Next Door looks so good, I adore those Thai dramas that are compilations with different stories in each episode that are all slightly linked, Singto’s one definitely caught my attention the most, it looks so cute! The Shipper looks like it could get a little messy so I REALLY hope it’s written well so that it’s a good watch. Girl2k looks WILD I can’t wait for it lmao I bet it’s going to be hilarious. My Precious looks nice too, like the kind of show that’s really chill and easy to watch and makes you smile, you know? Overall, I think next year we’re gonna have great stuff to watch and I can’t wait, bring on 2020!