#off topic but op you draw him so fine

[russilton]

Hi Mark! Absolutely fine if you don't wanna answer because I know you're a big fan - so am I, technically - but you're the first person I felt like going to with this. Again, no need to turn this into discourse, though, if you're not comfortable with the topic. It's about this anon information about Carmen and brands she promotes:

https://www.tumblr.com/wejustvibing/735261797962203136/i-think-tommy-attempting-to-do-something-with

And I was wondering if you know which ones are meant/if you think she is (should) be aware of that? Again, only if you want to comment. This stuff is important to me, so I'll guess I'll look into it too, but I like your straightforward opinions. I don't know how articulate better. Don't feel pressured to answer, however!

Hi anon, first of all I just want to say I’m genuinely thankful as to how you phrased this ask, it’s incredibly polite and i really appreciate that. Sometimes I get asks that feel a bit like a demand and those end up being the ones I avoid. You’ve been super respectful here and that means a lot. I’m not looking to start a discourse here either and I wont engage with it, but I figured I’d answer to say what I thought and leave it at that. Everyone is entitled to draw their own lines on this kind of thing, and they may be different to mine.

I think I have to split this answer into a couple small clusters and add a starting disclaimer

I don’t say this to defend her or whatever, but the original anon in that post is already coming in with a set feeling, and their language reflects that. Carmen isn’t a full time influencer, she very much has a job of her own and literally just finished a charity ride from London to Paris with them. Say what you want about the nature of her job in finance, or her position in the paddock, (plus jobs should not be used as a reflection of worth and respect), but she has one. I’m guessing the anon may not mean that and might be referencing past posts, but I don’t follow op so I don’t know.

Additionally, the op of that post, as far as I’m aware, is no longer a George fan, if they ever considered themselves one. So if you’re taking info from their posts and anons about George, it’s unlikely to be framed in the best light. Op is very much allowed to do that, you wouldn’t come to me for unbiased info on Max Verstappen and Kelly piquet would you? Of course not, I’m set in my feelings and I’m not gonna answer asks praising him, but I might share stuff pointing out crummy things he does because it reinforces my feelings. That’s just how tumblr works, I’m not saying it as any kind of insult or accusation, it is LITERALLY how we all blog post.

What I’m trying to say is while there and elements of truth in that post it’s… the way it’s conveyed is a bit twisted by the anon, and even op is pointing that out. If she has pull, they’ll keep sponsoring her.

Yes, Carmen does a lot of sponsor work… as does George, every time he steps into the paddock. As does LEWIS when he chooses what he dresses in. We often write off drivers sponsor work because we see it as a side obligation of their jobs, like how just today we had new Petronas photos of George and Lewis at their campuses/worksites. Much as we all, really want to ignore it bc it’s not fun to think about, Petronas is an oil and natural gas company, that wants you to think it’s green so bad. Every single person in the paddock has moments they choose money over ethics, even if it’s for a greater good eventually, it is what they do.

I don’t know specifically which brands the original anon is referencing when they mention homophobia and autism eugenics, but the note about Israel is probably linked to DIOR. While I firmly believe in following the BDS boycott, we just aren’t going to see these people do that. And comparably it’s a non starter when Lewis and George are walking around in puma Brand race suits and sport clothing, and Lewis wears Dior himself. What I’m saying is while I think they shouldn’t be wearing it, they’re on a level ground. I tried to do a little research on the recent stuff she’s been promoting, and came up without much result, BUT I’m so painfully not aware of the fashion scene. As my friends are deeply aware, and laugh at me for.

Could she stop wearing these things? Absolutely, and she should. She should also educate herself on these topics. But what I think should happen, and what I expect are two different things in the world of sport and influence. She’s not a driver, but she is almost certainly looking to expand into some level of fashion and model work alongside her job, because it’s something she enjoys. In the same way Lewis worked hard to build his brand and reputation with fashion houses who fight to clothe him now, she’s making connections for herself while working remotely as she travels with George. What she’s doing is no different than what the drivers do for themselves, the change is that we are not privy watch her do her job (can you imagine if there was an entertainment market for watching accountants lmao)

I think sometimes there’s a tendency in fandom to needle the partner people of the paddock for things we shake off their partners doing without blinking. It’s fine for Lewis and George to wear puma it’s their sponsor they probably aren’t thinking about that - but if George’s partner wears a famous brand like Dior, she should know better. Lewis and george promoted ftx, a now notoriously bankrupt crypto investment scene, and we just all went “well that sucks but they’re in a bubble of a different world, so we’ll ignore it”. While, it’s unlikely that Carmen is actively choosing to ignore these problems, she exists in that bubble with George, where they’re comfortable to only toe into charity and betterment when they feel like It isn’t interrupting their day. Lewis said it himself recently, he’s on the road so much he ends up unable to catch up with it all, if even someone as equality conscious as Lewis struggles to stay up to date, someone who isn’t minded like that probably doesn’t even notice (again, im not saying thats a good thing, it isnt, but it is the reality of it)

I’m also not surprised Tommy is clothing her, nor should any of us be. If Lewis had a committed partner who visited the track, Tommy would likely be reaching out to her too- Carmen gives them a chance to showcase their feminine clothing lines that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do in the way they use Lewis and George. As much as we all want George and Lewis to rock up in a dress and blouse, it ain’t happening. By paying Carmen to show up in their clothes alongside George, they get to show another half of the market what they might be interested in, if they aren’t going to buy the masc clothes George and Lewis wear. If they could get Susie Wolff to do it too they probably would, the difference is that Carmen is only there for George, Susie has an independent job to do and showing up in sponsored clothing would undercut that message. Tommy aren’t favouring George by clothing Carmen, they’re just trying to buy more influence. YOU are allowed to not be comfortable with that, but there’s not an ulterior motive to it either.

I spose the summary of this post is that accepting the reality of something doesn’t mean you’re okay with it, it just means you don’t lose energy over a likely outcome. In essence this what I do with Carmen. I treat her much like the drivers, held accountable but with a certain realism to it, and I don’t judge her more harshly than them, cause thats a brand of sexism I see a lot online- the drivers are babies just trying to go vroom but their partners should know better- grow the hell up.

I don’t like when Lewis and George represent crypto, or AI, or oil based companies- but in a sport like F1 they are going to do that. A lot. And instead of letting those instances demoralise me, I ignore them and try to refuse to give them the marketing they are paying for, while instead promoting and encouraging when they support the things I do. In an advertising marketplace you are the product, by speaking up and creating positive attention around something you want them to keep doing, it becomes profitable for them to do so. Is that fucked and capitalist as hell? Fuck yeah! It sucks! But its not going ANYWHERE any time soon, and if you use it to your advantage you can do good- I grew up watching as brands lurched away from any mention of gay people- to pride icons and pink washing. Change happens in strange ways. I hate pink washing but FUCK am I glad that it’s profitable to be sold to. I’d rather be sold to than silenced and othered.

Well that was a bit of a heavy one wasn’t it, welcome back to the cash is king sport.

#asks #anonymous #wank/rants

[yannysifgen]

Hiya! :-D I've been meaning to reach out w some questions and finally decided to commit!!! ;v;

Idk if it's stated anywhere, but I'm curious what inspired the concept of the game? And what made you choose Lucien as his name bc it fits him so well <3

I'm also really curious abt the original plot of Rosalind's Lie, how much of in-game lore do we get to see? Or is it only mentioned in passing here and there? Just the idea of a game's storyline (RL) inside another game's storyline (IITAOAYD) intrigues me a lot

Sorry for the long ask ;v;!

Hii!! Thanks so much for reaching out! If you think your ask is long then wait till you read this answer haha... But on that note it's totally fine, I absolutely love reading any and all ramblings because I'm a rambler myself (it's the adhd) and like to consume new knowledge, even if I can't actually retain all of it :') (btw I love Mychael and can't wait to see what you do with the rest of the game aaa)

Honestly, the idea just kinda came out of nowhere one day (my brain does that) because of the recent(?) boom in yandere games, I was thinking what kind of yandere I might make and just thought of a concept where mc might be isekai'd into the yan's garden and he kind of immediately gets attached because they're 'untainted' by the world and other people and wants to keep it that way.

I should mention that I'm a fan of isekai genre in general because it's such a self-indulgent escape from our boring mundane lives, a kind of fresh start that a lot of people wish they had access to. Ironically though, I prefer the isekais that are more focused on living a new life as opposed to getting op powers and making waves in the world

Back to the topic, didn't really think too seriously on it till I saw the yanjam announcement and decided why not. Then I decided to add the reincarnation/otome isekai tropes into the mix to make it more interesting, except that mc is themselves and not another character. So stories like "My next life as a Villainess: All roads lead to doom!" and "Death is the only ending for the Villainess" (I promise it's two different things) come to mind for inspirations.

The game will lightly parody these popular tropes, which is why if Lucien looks like every other 'Duke of the North' with his red eyes and black hair(but less buff as I'd like because drawing men is an ongoing struggle for me) then it's on purpose. His name....... well it's honestly embarrassing but it really just comes from angel/demon inspo while talking it out with a friend, since Dukes are mostly portrayed as 'monsters' in comparison to the angelic Prince or so, when in reality it's the other way around. So its kinda like Lucifer...Lucien... yeah, not very creative but I also wanted a name that could be turned into a cute nickname(Lucy) so I decided to roll with it.

Since I gave such a specific name like "Rosalind's Lie" for the og game, I do intend to flesh out the story at some point, though for now I only have rough concepts because I'm terrible at planning lore I'm so sorry. But that somehow didn't stop me from being ambitious with it because I'm weird like that. Anyways, Rosalind's Lie is named so because the titular character Rosalind kicks off her relationships with the eligible bachelors through lies. As for why, it's because she was born in the slums and orphaned at a young age, and had only herself to rely on to survive. Thanks to that she's very street-smart and cunning, and by chance she caught the attention of a kind Baron who decides to adopt her. He was nice enough, but not very smart or ambitious, which she felt was a waste, so she decides to make her own fortune in life and marry rich - she's really more like a villainess than a heroine lol but basically she encapsulates both roles. Her "lie" in Lucien's route is basically her nicking his brooch during a ball and pretending she found it and returns it to him, which prompts him to invite her for lunch or something as thanks. And then she plans various other small schemes because he's notoriously hard to get a hold of but eventually starts liking him for real.

I'm actually not sure how much of the og lore I'll involve in yanduke, other than mc occasionally making some callbacks when they're reminded of something, because mc is isekai'd before the plot of the game starts this time, which is ofc heavily derailed and non-existent by then thanks to our yan.

Sorry for the late reply, I actually had to knock around the old noggin to articulate an answer, but again, questions like these are always welcome because it actually helps me formulate some plot points too!

#yd ask #yanny talks #yd lucien #isekai'd into the arms of a yandere duke #yd #yandere #yandere vn #so sorry for my ramblings my brain is a mess and I can't help it #im honestly not organized enough to create a whole ass game but I still enjoy doing it!! #if you're into isekai pls give ascendance of a bookworm/honzuki no gekokujou a try its so good the worldbuilding is something I aspire to #but also its not at all romance focused so lol

[unprofessional-bard]

Chapter 4 - The Grown-Ups

Losing My Religion Series Masterlist

Unprofessional Bard's Masterlist

Previous Chapter • Next Chapter

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female!Reader/OC

Warnings: Fluff and angst on equal amounts // mentions of depression.

Summary: The long awaited confrontation finally happens between Joel and the reader, Ellie not so completely oblivious to what happened between them. The reader sorts things out with the older Miller and Walt but things don't go as expected.

Word Count: 5.263

Author's Note: The chapter name is from the 12th episode of Mad Men's third season... most of my chapter names are already named after Mad Men episodes bc why not? I also feel like I couldn't write this chapter very well so I'm sorry if you're confused about some stuff but I'm currently working to fix those in the next chapter!

Enjoy!

"Holy shit," you gasped lightly, then quickly looked through your rifle's scope to make sure that those people were actually who you thought they were: "Open the gates! They're friendlies!"

"You know them?" Walt asked while you ran down the stairs and greeted your visitors who were none other than Joel and Ellie.

"Of course!" You replied and watched as Ellie's smile stretched to her ears.

"(Y/N)!" Ellie exclaimed and quickly walked over to you. You opened your arms with a soft Oh, Ellie and caught her in your embrace. "Aw man, it's good to see you."

"You too, darling, you too," You smiled, relief washing over you like a whole tsunami. "It is so good to see you Ellie."

You heard the door close after Joel walked over to the both of you. As glad as you were to have them back in Jackson, you hadn't forgotten about Joel's behaviour before he had left.

"(Y/N)," Joel cleared his throat. His voice, oh how you'd missed that voice of his, made you look up as Walt approached you all.

"Joel," You greeted him in a less excited tone, which made Joel look away with slight guilt on his face.

"I'm sensing some history here..." Walt commented quietly, which you ignored.

"I'm gonna take them to Tommy, I'll be right back," You spoke and turned around, holding a confused Ellie's hand and walking away. Joel gave Walt an ugly glare, then began tailing you.

You'd be lying if you said you'd forgotten about Joel - you thought of him when you thought of Ellie. Here he was now- here they both were, in the flesh, which made you incredibly happy. You knew you couldn't stay mad at him for too long, you had unintentionally grown a soft spot for the man, who saved you and gave you his water. You'd be forever grateful for him, even though he was an ex-Hunter. You remember the day Tommy had revealed it to you: Both of you were chatting and patrolling around town back in February and the topic was why the brothers had disagreed. You had stopped walking when he mentioned Joel was a Hunter before he became a Smuggler.

"You probably noticed the way he fights, he's good at killin' people in many brutal ways... The way he handled things? It just didn't sit right with me. After the Fireflies, I didn't look for him. Came here instead, you know the rest."

You couldn't belive you'd been travelling with a Hunter - you should've known, like Tommy had said, he was too brutal.

You had a few awful days after that, not leaving your house and bed. You had cried, slept and thought about everything, but eventually moved on, thinking you were never going to see him again anyway, that it was pointless to be upset about it any longer. Yet here he was, walking behind you.

Ellie talked all the way to Tommy's office, tried involving Joel from time to time but gave up eventually. Your mood improved instantly thanks to her though, you'd really missed the little rascal.

"Tommy, look who I have here," you spoke when you entered his office. Maria was there too and greetings were exchanged as you waited by the door.

"I have a house saved for y'all," Tommy said, his mood also better than it had been in a while. "Dolly, will you take them there?"

"Dolly?" Joel raised a brow as you threw daggers at the younger Miller with your glare.

"She'll tell you about it on the way," Tommy smirked as you led them out of the office. Ellie asked why he called you Dolly the moment you stepped out.

"I, uh..." you sighed. "I sung 'Jolene' at the diner one night-"

"Dolly, as in Dolly Parton?" Joel chuckled but you just rolled your eyes.

"Apparently I sung a little too well, they didn't take an ex-spec-ops for a singer," you ran your fingers through your hair.

"You should sing again sometime, maybe Joel will play the guitar-"

"Ellie." you hissed and Joel growled at the same time, which only caused her to smile wider.

Ellie requested to stay at the empty shed behind Joel's house instead of staying in with him, which you didn't understand but didn't ask about either. You showed Joel to his house and as he looked around you waited at the front door.

"Home sweet home..."

"Right," Joel hummed awkwardly.

"Well, I'll leave you to it," you sighed and turned to leave but Joel stopped you.

"Wait, uh... I-"

"Dolly!" Walt suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "You lucky gal, they ended your shift early for today. I was looking for you but if you're busy..."

Godfuckingdammit. You pinched the bridge of your nose and sighed, exasperated: "No, no, I was just leaving."

Walt was a bastard and knew better, of course: "No worries Doll, come to my place later eh?"

And just like that he skipped away with a grin on his face. You closed your eyes and pinched the bridge of your nose again when Joel spoke: "Seems like you fit here just fine-"

"What do you want?" You groaned, already unnerved by his poor attempts at making conversation, but regretted it.

"Look I just wanted to... I was being an ass that day and-" he slowly got closer to you, but you took a step back. "I'm sorry, is what I was tryin' to say. I was just- It wasn't my place to say those things and uh, I hope I can make it up to you somehow... Some day."

You were impressed. Quite impressed as you weren't expecting to get an actual apology out of him. You looked him up and down, pissed at him a little but mostly feeling awkward, then sighed after a few nerve wracking seconds: "You're an asshole alright," you looked away and hugged your waist. "And damn right it wasn't your place to say those things..."

"Well, uh," After giving him a look in the eye, you saw that he was actually looking quite guilty. It made your soft spot act up, his hazel eyes boring into yours apologetically; for a few more torturous seconds, whatever pride you had left crashed with all the good he's done for you, eventually making you say: "Look. The moment you left I thought I'd never see you again, a part of me disagreed but here you are. You could say I'm over it but... Eh, nevermind... I'll see you at dinner, I guess?"

Joel was dumbfounded for a moment, but he immediately cleared his throat and nodded: "Yeah, alright..."

Instead of going over to Walt's, you immediately found Maria, who was still with Tommy at his office. You thanked them for giving you the day off when Tommy smirked and leaned on the table.

"What?" You gave him an annoyed look.

"He's not going to leave your tail until you smile the tiniest smile to his face." He said, crossing his arms.

Dinner was awkward. You gladly gave all your attention to Ellie, ignoring the men at the table; Joel was sat on Ellie's left, you were on her right and Walt was on yours. You were tense and Ellie could clearly see it on your face.

"Dolly-" Walt attempted to whisper, but you cut him off immediately.

"Please stop calling me that," Only Ellie seemed to have heard the exchange as the chatter around the table continued.

"(Y/N)?" Ellie suddenly intervened, not sure about what to say.

"Yeah, Ells?" You put a smile on your face before turning to her.

"Uhh- when can I see your house?" Ellie blurted out.

"Now if you're done with your dinner- Or tomorrow, if you're too tired of course." You said while practically begging her to pick 'now' with your eyes.

"Let's go!" Ellie smiled awkwardly and got up, drawing attention.

"Where are you going?" Joel inquired the moment she got up.

"(Y/N)'s going to show me her house," Ellie pushed her chair in and grabbed her empty plate, practically running off to the kitchen while you slowly got up.

"The energy she has," You shook your head and forced a smile when people gave you a quizzical look, then walked off to the kitchen with your plate.

"Thanks for that Ellie," You sighed the moment you two stepped outside the house.

"You were squirming on your seat - that Walt guy was making you uncomfortable so I thought-"

"Oh," You interrupted her, beginning to walk. "He wasn't actually. We- I mean I had an awkward moment and I'm kind of struggling to look him in the eyes now."

"... So you're uncomfortable?"

"Well, yeah but- it's just so awkward?" You struggled to find the right words, eventually giving up and telling her what had happened between you and him while going over to your place. Ellie grinned and listened and when you finally got to your doorsteps, she turned to you and said:

"What I got out from all of this, is that you say Walt, but your eyes are on someone else..."

"What the hell does that supposed to mean?" You looked at her in disbelief. How on earth was she coming up with these lines?

"I think you know who I mean," Ellie just smirked and walked in through the door. You just stared at her, dumbfounded, then followed her inside. She liked your house and asked if she could stop by from time to time, to which you replied Of course, I'd like nothing more, but your garden stole the show for her.

"Wait until you see it in the morning," you smiled as she looked around as best as she could with the streetlights illuminating the garden. You two talked a little more, which made you feel like her age again. Talking to Ellie without feeling awkward came to you naturally and it was obvious that she appreciated how you were attentive toward her. Around ten minutes later, there was a knock on your door.

"I'll get it," you chuckled when she huffed. It was Joel.

"Uh, hi," He muttered awkwardly.

"Hi..."

"It got a bit suffocating in there." Joel explained. "Went out for some fresh air and decided to take a walk around when I heard Ellie's voice..."

"Wanna come in?" You asked, opening the door wider.

"Don't let me interrupt-"

"Nonsense." You opened the door fully, internally cursing at yourself: What the fuck are you doing? "It is suffocating in there, we thought we could escape for awhile."

Joel stood at the doorway: "It's better if we go back actually."

"You're right, it'll be rude." You nodded and called Ellie.

"Your boyfriend doesn't like me very much." Joel offered a small smile as you both waited for Ellie to grab her backpack.

"He's not my boyfriend," You sighed, exasperated.

"Right, sorry... he just gets a little too involved when the topic is you."

You gave him a look, confused: "Involved how? Were you talking about m-"

"Do we have to go?" Ellie interrupted you, looking at Joel.

"Just this one night kiddo," Joel patted her shoulder as she passed through the door. The both of you shared a final look -Joel's was unsure and yours was suspicious- before you closed the door.

That's pretty much how everything began again. You begged asked Maria to change your patrol partner for awhile, not really wanting to deal with this new, curious side of Walt when you were too embarrassed to look him in the eye because of your rejection. What he didn't know was you became more and more torn between him and Joel every day. You could say your soft spot went wild as Joel did exactly as Tommy said he'd do: He tried to be around you as much as possible. He took advantage of your closeness with Ellie to take a better look at how you viewed him. Were you hostile, netural or actually good with him? He definitely could see your behaviour toward him and only him had changed as you treated Ellie the same as before.

He was curious about you - even if Tommy had told him a little of you. He wondered how you were, how you had been and what you did in Jackson and he wanted to hear them from you.

After patrolling for a whole week and avoiding people as best as you can while you cleared your mind, you finally approached Joel and Walt - on different occasions, of course.

You came across Joel first. Walking past his place while on your way to Walt's, you decided you should get it out of the way while you were at it. You knocked on his door and waited patiently. He was really surprised when he saw you.

"Hey," It was you who offered a smile this time.

"Hey," Joel, quite shocked. "Uh, Ellie's not in-"

"I know," You quickly interrupted him. "I'm here for you, actually."

"Me?"

"Yeah... I wanted to see you." You smacked your forehead mentally but kept your composure, immediately adding: "We, uh- couldn't really talk ever since you two came back, so... I figured I should stop by."

You don't think you could ever get Joel to look this surprised if you tried: "Yeah," he cleared his throat and put an arm on the door frame, leaning on it. "Yeah, uh, sure."

"I need to do something right now, but if you're not busy, why don't you come over to my place?" You asked, expression soft.

"Uh, I dunno, I-"

"I've got some coffee," You smiled. "The weather is nice- the sunset particularly favours my garden in exactly half an hour."

Joel looked down, bit his lip as if he was thinking about his options, then smiled shyly: "How can I say no to that?"

You chuckled and nodded before walking away: "I'll be waiting, cowboy."

Joel's cheeks were dusted pink, but fortunately for him, you didn't see it. He just stared, still dumbfounded at what happened, but he didn't complain - even if it took a torturous week, he finally knew you were good with him.

Your cheeks were no different, glowing red under the sun as you walked over to Walt's place. You knocked on the door and called his name, but he wasn't there. Just as you turned around, you saw Bonnie and Walt approaching, holding each other's hands. You pursed your lips at the sight, shoving your hands into the back pockets of your jeans. Walt froze when he saw you, letting Bonnie's hand go: "(Y/N)?"

"Hey," the edges of your lips turned up, still pursed. "I- I wanted to talk to you, but if you're busy-"

"Oh, no it's fine," Walt climbed up to the porch with Bonnie, letting her in: "It won't take too long, just wait for me okay?"

"Okay," Bonnie nodded, giving the both of you an odd look before going in.

"I don't wanna take up your time-" You stood across him.

"No, no-" Walt reassured you with his hands doing a stop motion. "We couldn't talk properly- I don't blame you. I never apologized for calling you Dolly and-"

"No, it wasn't about that." You interrupted him this time. "I needed some time to collect my thoughts about- stuff- and I was paired up with Eugene this week so, I wanted to apologise for not sparing time for you."

Walt's cheeks reddened lightly at your words: "Oh- no it's totally fine. Nothing to apologise for, really. You- You're lost in work again eh?"

You sighed, relieved, then smiled and nodded: "Yeah, you could say that..."

"Listen," Walt straightened his posture a little. "How 'bout we make it up to each other, huh? Come over tonight and we'll talk over dinner- you can tell me about this Joel guy and everything else I've missed?"

Your expression morphed into a partly angry one as you crossed your arms: "Why are you so interested in Joel all of a sudden? What do you care about our 'history'? I told you everything I went through with him already- no more, no less."

"I- well- I'm not?" Walt took a step back but you stood your ground.

"Don't." You said in a stern tone. "Did you really think he wouldn't tell me about how you had been acting towards him?"

"Even if we did have a history, it wouldn't have been your concern." You added, frowning when he stayed silent.

"We tell each other everything, why are you so squeamish about this all of a sudden?" Walt blurted out defensively.

You stared at him, then scrunched up your face: "You don't even tell me you've got a thing with Bonnie, blame me for not taking notice and you think you have a right to know what happened between him and I? Please..."

You immediately began walking down the porch: "(Y/N), I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like-"

"Of course you didn't," You growled and turned around. "Just- let's not talk for awhile, okay?"

You heard him call your name but you didn't mind, walking away, fists clenched. What is wrong with him?

You felt like beating the shit out of slapping him - it was the first time you two had an argument. You had indeed told him everything there was to tell about your time with Joel, leaving out certain details like that time in the cabin, because he wasn't as curious about Joel as he was now. You didn't think those details were necessary either, you were developing a crush on Walt at that time and the thought of Joel distracted you from that. But you forced yourself to move on as you were convinced that you'd seen the last of the smuggler and that you'd never have a chance with him. Little had you known...

When you reached your house and checked the time, you saw that there was still some time before Joel arrived: The thought calmed you down a little, so you decided to clean up the tiny mess in your room and wash your face to cool off. You changed into a thin, off-the-shoulder sweater once you were done with the cleaning around. You really liked the color and it was ideal for a weather like this. Just as you started making the coffee, there was a loud knock on your door. You tensed and listened, trying to figure out who it was when the person behind the door announced who they were: "(Y/N)? It's Joel."

You walked over to the door and with a deep breath, opened to see him in his brown jacket, which looked like it was made for him: "Hey."

"Hey," You gave him a genuine smile and stepped back after a moment of staring into his eyes: "Come on in."

Joel walked in, heart beating faster than he'd like to admit. He quietly observed his surroundings as you closed the door and led him to your kitchen: "You're in a good mood."

"I always am," You said jokingly, suddenly feeling bad for giving him the cold shoulder for a whole week. "It'll be ready in a few minutes, follow me."

He nodded and followed you out of the kitchen, through your bedroom to the balcony. His eyes got caught on the picture of you and Kurt (which was now framed and stood on your nightstand) before he walked out. Joel's brows raised as he saw the scenery before him: Your garden was almost as big as your house itself and it truly looked gorgeous with the sun shining down on it. You waited for him to sit down, him not being able to take his eyes off the piece of heaven as he did.

"You like it?" You asked shyly.

"You were right," he nodded, appreciative. "A beautiful garden you have here."

You simply smiled and looked at his hands on the table before speaking: "I really don't know where to start."

Joel chuckled: "Well then, let me start with a how are you? and continue with how are things?"

You smiled, a little embarrassed, then put your arms on the table, hands right across his. You thought on the conversation you had with Walt a few minutes back, which made you want to scream because the difference between him and Joel was just-

"I'm fine," You nodded. "I've been better but I've also been much worse. I'm not complaining. Things are... complicated on the side, but mainly good. Better now that you two are here." Joel smiled slightly before you continued: "What about you? My goodness, there are so many things I wanna ask. Didn't want to ask Ellie about them, her mood changed when I tried talking about it this one time..."

"Yeah, well," Joel shifted in his seat, pulled one arm down onto his lap. It reminded you of the time when you two first met in the tower: "She went through a lot."

"From the way you speak, so have you." Your smile slowly disappeared.

"It wasn't a pleasant journey," Joel sighed, looking away.

You gulped, feeling a little guilty but also very upset. You couldn't even begin to imagine the trauma they had to endure on their journey: "Look, we don't gotta talk about it. You can tell me whenever you're ready, okay?"

Joel gave you a sad but surprised look: "Okay."

You suddenly got up, went to the kitchen, leaving Joel confused; coming back with two mugs of coffee a minute later: "I know this'll cheer you up."

Joel almost melted away when the smell of coffee filled his lungs: "It sure will."

You sat across him as he brought the cup to his lips and blew on the liquid: "God, I'd gladly kill for this. Thank you."

You giggled and watched him take a sip, face twisting when his tongue burned. The butterflies in your stomach changed colours as your attraction and soft spot for Joel settled somewhere in your chest. After how Walt acted today- you didn't want to jump to conclusions on an impulse, but he offended you and since he had a girlfriend now: You knew that even if you have a chance with him it was going to be much later. You didn't know how long him and Bonnie were going to last, but now with Joel taking back his place in your thoughts, you noticed how you worried a little less about your her and Walt. Plus, who's to say he wouldn't pull off some stupid shit like that whenever you were around Joel? You felt like you had perceived him in a wrong way, as if he had more to him than it seemed.

Joel, on the other hand, seemed so natural. You knew there was also more to him than he showed - but in a good way. Someone had to melt the ice around his heart to bring out the soft side. Other than that, he was just... Joel. Grumpy, protective guy with an awful past, which had shaped him as a person throughout the years. You knew of those awful events, you also mostly knew what to say to him, but more of what not to say. He appeared as though he had lost his humanity a long time ago like many other people, but you knew that his wasn't lost, just buried beneath layers of walls. However, you were sure that Jackson was going to see to the destruction of those walls and bring out the human in him. He already showed hints of that soft side you thought so much about by the smallest gestures, you were certain there was more to come.

"So," Joel leaned back on his chair, mood significantly improved. "How is everything? How do you get along in Jackson?"

"Pretty good, I'd say." You nodded. "It's hard to adapt to at first, but the people are decent. They accept you when they see that your intentions are good and that you just wanna help... Plus, they feed you until you can't breathe, which I think is nice for Ellie."

"Yeah," Joel chuckled.

"Other kids gave her odd looks when she saw all the food standing there and stuffed it in her backpack, but, I think this girl called Cat likes her already."

Joel smirked and took another sip of his 'medicine'. He had no doubts that the kids around Jackson were a big help for you to complete your healing process and settle down. He saw from time to time how the kids enjoyed being around you and even admired you.

"Miss (Y/N)?" A boy named Jesse had approached you and Ellie two days ago.

"Hey Jesse," you smiled warmly, moving your rifle from your chest to your back. "Have you met Ellie?"

"Hi," Ellie smiled awkwardly and extended her hand over to him.

"Hi," Jesse smiled back shyly and shook her hand. Ellie then saw Joel and went over to his side while you slightly kneeled in front of Jesse.

"Could you do me a favour?" You smiled and Jesse nodded eagerly. "Will you and the others include Ellie whenever you're hanging out? She may seem reluctant but she'll come around once she gets used to this place."

Just then, another girl named Cat approached you both: "I like her, she seems nice."

You smiled and fixed your posture, then thanked them both before they ran off to some place, looking after them a moment too long. When you turned around, eyes searching for Ellie, your eyes locked with Joel's. Your smile stayed on your lips as you stared at each other for a moment, then you walked away. Joel absolutely admired the way you were with children, he could almost say you were more comfortable with them comparing to adults.

You sat in silence for awhile, enjoying each other's company, but it got ruined with another knock on your door. You flinched, anxiety going up once more as you got up, leaving Joel confused once more.

"(Y/N)? Please answer the door, let's sort this out?" It was Walt.

You stayed silent and listened to him knock on the door loudly. You really weren't in the mood to deal with him even though you agreed that it had to be sorted out.

"What's going on?" Joel asked, voice deep and laced with worry and confusion. He slowly walked towards you from the bedroom as you turned around to face him, leaning your back on the door. What the hell were you supposed to do now?

"Go back to the garden, I've got thi-"

"(Y/N)? Come on, don't act like this..."

You closed your eyes and sighed, cursing at your situation: "Please, Joel." You whispered. "Just wait in there and let me handle this real quick."

He did as you told and stepped inside the living room before you opened the door: "Look, I told you to not talk to me for awhile. It's a part of the 'sorting out' process if you didn't understand. I need to cool my head-"

"But I feel terrible," Walt insisted. "You're not busy right now, let's just sort this o-"

"She is busy," You heard Joel's southern drawl call out from behind you. "She has guests over."

Thank god, you thought. You didn't know if he said guests on purpose, but it clearly made Walt think that Joel wasn't the only person there.

You froze as Walt's eyes moved up to Joel's, then back to yours: "Well, don't let me interrupt."

"Damn right," You growled, getting angry at his attitude. "Get your goddamn priorities straight and go back. We'll talk when it's time."

You shut the door and let out and exasperated sigh, leaning your back on the door once more. Joel put his hands on his hips and stared at you, a soft smile playing on his lips: "Leaves his girlfriend at home after we fight and I tell him to leave me alone just so he can come 'n talk to me..."

Joel chortled in amusement, his voice filling your ears like a bucket of water on a small fire: "Glad you find this so entertaining!"

"No, nothing like that," Joel gave you a charming smile. "You wanna talk about it?"

Your eyes slightly widened as Joel chuckled quietly, following you back to the balcony. You quickly explained what happened before he got here and he nodded but eventually asked:

"Why exactly were you avoiding him?"

You took a big, long sip of your coffee to hide the redness of your cheeks: "Something happened which made me feel real embarrassed. He was unaware of course. I couldn't face him; but then you arrived a day later and he got a little too curious about you."

"Why?" Joel gave you a displeased look.

"He thought that we had some sort of history, if you get my meaning." Joel sighed and you rubbed your temples. "I don't know why he's so interested all of a sudden. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was jealous."

"Maybe he is," Joel hummed and crossed his arms. "I saw the way he looks at you- and me. He adores you, but despises me."

"What?" You giggled as if you were saying are you out of your mind? "I mean, we're good friends, nothing more. He's with Bonnie."

Joel raised his brows and pursed his lips: "Well, we'll see I guess."

"What are you saying?" You said after a moment of silence, leaning forward a little, voice hushed as you gazed into his hazel orbs.

"I'm saying," Joel sat up and leaned forward as well. "You won't see much more of them if we keep this up."

"Keep what up? Having coffee and catching up?" You licked your lips and shook your head. "You saved my life all those months ago, Joel..."

"I know," He nodded, voice low and husky.

"You're an important person to me whether Walt likes it or not- I don't really care what he thinks, in fact. I'm grateful for everything you've done for me."

Shut up! What is wrong with you?!

"(Y/N)..." Joel blinked, blushing lightly. The sun had disappeared and the sky was turning a dark shade of blue.

"I don't-" You leaned back. "I was supposed to die in that building. I wasn't supposed to survive, come here and start again. But you and Ellie saved me and Tommy and Maria helped me get better. How can I not be grateful for any of you?"

Joel gazed at you, a meaningful look on his face, full of emotion. He was grateful that he'd found you and saved you too: If it weren't for you, he or -more importantly-Ellie would've been dead on many occasions. You cared for and took care of both of them like a guardian angel. You may not be aware, but you helped Joel keep calm on many occasions, even when he didn't trust you completely. You always kept your head up and saw to everyone's survival - didn't matter if it cost you an arm or a leg. You were loyal and caring- human. Tommy had told him of your health conditions and everything you've done to get better, which gave Joel a heads up when approaching you... knowing what and what not to say to you.

Maybe he was supposed to find you in that building. Maybe you were meant to survive and be a part of their lives- his life.

Maybe it was meant to be.

#joel miller #joel x reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller imagine #the last of us #tlou x reader #the last of us x reader #tlou fanfic #the last of us fanfiction

[sherry-l]

Why YGO Vrains is such an immeasurable disappointment: a list

First of all, I need to make it abundantly clear that Im a big fan of Vrains – I love Yusaku, Ryoken, Ai, Kusanagi... you see them very often on my dash. I fantasize about the ideal version of Vrains that’s written well, the Vrains that’s fully exploited its potentials, every night in my sleep. I wrote this list PRECISELY because I love Vrains. That’s why I got so frustrated with its cardinal writing issues (and production issues). It physically pains me to hear people calling Vrains the worst and most boring series of YGO – but the fact that I couldn’t argue against that because it’s true pains me more.

And now, an incomprehensive list of the faults of Yugioh Vrains.  

1.      What the fuck is wrong with the character designs (beside that of Yusaku and Ryoken???) Everyone looks aesthetically displeasing – characters in real life look incredibly boring they could easily drown in a crowd of background characters, but their avatars are OSTENTATIOUS. Seems like the character designer had no clue what “less is more” means – blue angel, soulburner, and Bohemann for example, look like they were immersed in a bucket of glue and then dumped into another bucket filled with random accessories.

(from a fan artist’s perspective…Im especially salty about takeru, akira, Kusanagi, and the Knights of Hanois’ designs…like, their designs don’t inspire me to draw. Their personalities might be interesting, but their looks lack the vibrant, enthusiastic energy that the 5Ds, Zexal, and Arc-V characters possess)

(imagine how many fanfics and fanarts of Kusanagi x Yusaku there would be had Kusanagi looked HALF as hot as Ryoken)

And don’t even get me started on the colour palette – whoever decided on the colours just cant make up their goddamn mind! Colour saturation is way off the charts, the range of colour is too wide the audience simply dont know where to focus.

2.      Forgotten plotlines. Yusaku’s link sense? Hanoi’s spy in SOL? The Queen and the rest of the chess pieces? Yusaku’s forgotten memories? The rest of the victims of the Lost Incident? Just to name a few. 

3.      Character relationships are weak to minimal to none. Bonds and friendships – the vital element in all previous YGO series – is practically non-existent in Vrains. Where’s the camaraderie between our main casts (Yusaku, Aoi, Soulburner, Ema, Onizuka, etc…)? They don’t feel like a team fighting the evil together. They’re completely separate individuals who don’t give a single fuck if one of their…acquaintance…dies in a battle. We don’t have heartwarming moments of friendship blossoming and consolidating. It’s honestly such a let down.

4.      Interesting and debatable topics thrown away. The conflict between artificial intelligence and humans could spark so many in-depth discussions, but then the writer just decided its all Lightening’s fault. No morally gray situations, no ambiguity between the line of good and evil. It’s just all Lightening and his petty jealousy… yeah.

Oh and if Ai lives on the world will blow up. Why? Do we have a concrete reason to back that statement? eh...

5.      Overall quality of the animation. I don’t know if its because the animation staff was short on time or low on budget, but for a megacorporation (konami cough cough) that makes billions every year, they certainly are capable of investing more in this anime series. I can count the number of episodes in which the characters don’t look wacky with a single hand.

6.      Character development, wasted potentials. Ryoken is the only character who received decent treatment. The rest of the Vrains cast are all disappointments. Original concepts are cool and promising – Yusaku, a victim of child abuse with PTSD, embarking on a journey to overcome his reclusiveness and learn to open up to people around him? HELL YEAH. Aoi, a teenage idol with depression developing into a more mature and responsible heroine who saves Link Vrains? IM ALL FOR IT.  Soulburner’s character arc is fine overall but personally I don’t feel like it’s expanded enough. Also, there’s the mistreatment of side characters like Onizuka, Ema, Akira, the list goes on. I got so furious just looking at these characters and remembering that they’re all wasted and sidelined.

7.      Incoherent/ random plotlines. IDK all episodes in season 1 (Hanoi’s arc) felt pretty consistent, focusing on a linear theme – Yusaku’s revenge on the Knights of Hanoi. But after that it felt like the writers gave up writing outlines and just wrote whatever he pleased/ considered more convenient for the sake of…a plot…that he had no idea which direction it was headed for. This is reflected in the amount of forgotten plotlines we listed previously.

8.      Weak villains. Kinda related to point 4. Bohemann, Lightening, Windy, and Haru are all one-dimensional, flat, predictable villains with the cliché goal of “destroying humanity cuz humans are dumb and Ais are superior”. Not likeable, not fun to watch, not morally gray (something I expect from well-written antagonists), they are just there to serve as symbol of evil for the protags to defeat.

Honourable mentions - what I personally want to see in Vrains, really. Very biased.

-        The familial interaction between Yusaku and Kusanagi? Brotherhood, perhaps? Without any mention of Yusaku’s parents, Kusanagi is the closest Yusaku has to a brother figure. I crave for some wholesome brotherly moments between these two.

-        More slice of life episodes please.

-        The friendship between Yusaku and Takeru. Please. Please. PLEASE. From the second opening we can see the animation staff CLEARLY intended for there to be a strong bond between Yusaku and Takeru – Takeru probably was written to serve as a Jounouchi/ Johan/ Crow sort of character. Yusaku and Takeru could bond over their trauma and overcome their PTSD together. AND IT WAS SO HEAVILY HINTED AT IN THE 2ND OP!!! fam what the fuck happened to that friendship, Im so robbed.

-        Yusaku and Ryoken’s duel or tag duel. These two haven’t duelled AT ALL since the first season ended. Isn’t Ryoken Yusaku’s official rival? Isn’t it Yugioh tradition for the protag and the rival to duel like, a trillion times? AND ISNT IT ALSO A YUGIOH TRADITION FOR THE PROTAG AND THE RIVAL TO TAG DUEL?????? The fact that Yusaku and Ryoken never had a tag duel haunts me every night in my worst nightmares afjw4ot9wgrk

-        Topologina Nabee

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, this marks the end of my rant on YGO VRAINS DISAPPOINTMENTS. Again, I harboured no malicious intent when I compiled the list – its more like a vent of frustration than actual criticism. I would pay billions to see a Vrains reboot or, if there exists an alternate universe where none of the writing/production issues above are present in Vrains, I would do a Kaiba and build a dimension travelling machine and immigrate there.

TLDR: wasted potentials. wAsTED PoTEntialS. WASTED POTENTIALS!!!!!!

#yugioh #yugioh vrains #rant

[matoitech]

is there anything about the character designs you would make? like changes to their outfits build etc? (not including aina's whole outfit i think most of us wanna change it)

ohh good question.. i don’t think or know a whole lot abt character design (tho i’d love to see other ppl who r smarter abt it talk abt it 👀) but hmm.. lets think abt this.. im prob gonna miss some things ive thought of in the past buut heres a few

id change varys and vulcans designs for obvious reasons. esp vulcan god. i guess i get what they were going for w varys trying to go w ‘american cartoon’ style thats a common character design but that doesnt make it NOT racist, esp when both main Black chars look similar like that.

i’d decide on like heights and builds to Stick With and draw them looking the same way mostly lol. galo as relatively muscular like hes drawn in official art but like 5′8 maybe (thats what he is in my head) compared to lios canon 5′2 (short kings need rep <3). and aina is taller than galo in my head at like 5′10 to 6 ft smth so i think thats a good idea :) the women r typically drawn w less extreme shoulder to waist ratios than galo and lio which i find funny and kinda transgender so id keep that in lol

and give them organs. like i know its stylization but can we get some fat on these people

top surgery scars for galo (and lio if u wanna have some explanation for how he got top surgery on the run lmao? fire surgery? or he just has tiddies) bc theyre a rly obvious easy way to make a character trans. just like, stuff like that for various characters whatever way the gender transes. if /i/ was making promare anyway. if trigger was then i dont trust like that beyond post op scars tho

i think some of the outfits aren’t rly cohesive but that’s kinda part of the charm. especially for lucias since she looks like she stole from a hot topic which fits her character. id give her baggy pants though, like, if u keep her running around in a sports bra at work, big baggy pants would b a fun contrast, like winry fma style. also why is she wearing goggles and a gas mask. im like, okay with it, you do you lucia, im just confused <3

yes galo runs around half naked but its not treated the same way aina is treated w her outfit so yeah like. outfit changes w that. if the women all wear like crop tops then so should the men. equality.

actually thats a good idea. consider galo and lios shirts (lios under the jacket) but theyre like crop tops. genius. maybe if men showed a little more skin (i say as galo dresses like That)

but yeah can we like talk about how ainas outfit makes no practical sense. neither does galos but again, difference in treatment. i like her leather jacket though!

galo would have a prosthetic arm instead of a sleeve just cuz it would b better imo <3 also other ppl have mentioned this but he would prob realistically lose his arm after getting shot w the ice gun on it

if galo has a prosthetic arm i dont mind kray having one too honestly since both the hero and villain do, BUT i still think making kray b a disabled villain was shitty so

heris and remi have kind of boring basic designs to me but since i think thats like.. intentional maybe? its like. Fine. neither of them deserve cool designs.

there was one version of lios design where he had an off the shoulder shirt and a corset and im not like saying he should wear that bc it isnt rly practical but at the same time. what a look

honestly idk i mostly like the character designs beyond just some things to change up a bit! i like what they did with like the mix of anime and the american cartoon palettes they were going for. theres probably some things im forgetting, but just in general i dont RLY want to change anything, bc i think the designs of galo and lio in particular are pretty good and they look good together. one time i saw someone say they were gonna redesign galo to make him look not boring and then he looked like an asshole and i was upset -_- he is perfect leave my man alone

#THANK YOU! #anon #fess replies #long post

[vierafication]

Last night around 4 am, I reblogged a certain post about "villainous rp" and added my own two cents to what had been discussed within it- mostly just venting about behavior I'd seen in the past. I didn't think much of it until I saw the next day it had been reblogged, and reblogged again, and again, by some folks who seemed pretty unhappy about what I'd said. I was told I needed to get a life, that I clearly can't separate IC and OOC, that maybe I shouldn't be writing at all. That hurt. I was irritated, then, feeling like I'd had words shoved in my mouth, like I was being purposefully misinterpreted. I typed up a clarification post explaining my previous points and pressed send, but it was seemingly ignored.

I talked with @damankjol about it later. He's the best, if you didn't know. And he rp's villains! I don't think he's a sociopath! He's very empathic and honest and understanding and cool, and he helped me realize that people weren't just angry at me, they were genuinely hurt by what I'd written. I went back and reread what I posted, as well as the responses, with a more critical eye. And... yeah. What I typed up wasn't clean, organized, or coordinated. I was venting and the tone that came off was irritated and rude. While not my intention, what I wrote sounded pretty fucking disrespectful and downright mean. And, frankly, my intentions don't matter, anyway, since I wasn't able to convey them properly. I just put some angry bullshit up on tumblr way too late at night, and I didn't expect anybody to even look at it, let alone reblog it- but I should have. Tumblr is a public platform and I should have approached my post the same way I'd approach any other one during the normal hours of the day. Thinking critically is always key, but audience is too- a vent post is a vent post, but I should have thought before I vented about a topic other people were sensitive to, and properly indicate specifics instead of vague generalizations. So, yes, I really wanted to apologize to anyone who that post hurt. I’m genuinely sorry. I should not have generalized like that. It wasn't even my intention in the first place. I was disrespectful and now that I think about it, incredibly hypocritical to boot. So yeah. I really am sorry. I respect @damankjol and @miqojak a lot as writers, and it would never be my intention to tear them down. Or anybody else, for that matter- rp only works when you rp with others, after all.

Once again, I'm sorry, and I hope you won't hate me for eternity or anything. Storytime and critical analysis under the cut.

One of my first, and worst, experiences in the ffxiv rp community was a good couple years ago. I was describing my character to a “friend,” and that character happened to be Lionnet Blodoint, my Ishgardian chirurgeon. Lionnet was not a good person by a long shot, to begin with, and from his time serving during the Dragonsong War, he’d developed quite a bit of PTSD relating to any and all things draconic. He hated dragons. He didn’t even like Au Ra. “Wow,” said the so-called friend at the time. “Your character is a nazi.”

“What? No!” I exclaimed. I tried to explain that he was NOT a nazi, he was just a traditionalist Ishgardian who hated dragons because they had been, at one point in time, absolutely hell-bent on destroying his home and everything he knew. I thought it was a pretty reasonable character trait to hate, or at least fear, dragons after serving in the Dragonsong War. The core of how I’d planned to develop him would be overcoming or at least coming to terms with his trauma, and no longer seeing it in every dragon or Au Ra he met. “No,” they said. “Your character is terribly written. They’re awful and nobody would ever want to rp with them. They’re boring because they’re so full of negative traits. They’re racist and thus, a nazi. And you are just as bad, because you’re defending them! You’re a nazi too!”

So yeah, they are NOT my friend anymore. But that whole convo really stuck with me, and I was afraid to bring out Lio afterwards- it took me another year before I actually began to use him in rp. And he turned out wonderful! His story became one of my favorite rp character stories of all time, and he had great relationship development and a happy ending. He’s still around, canonically, but I have a different main toon now.

So it shocks me that what that person told me about Lio is more or less the same as what I wrote in that post. I’m honestly dumbfounded at how I could just casually type that up and post it, when it draws so many parallels to the way I was bullied back then. So yeah. Huge hypocrisy right there. I swore to never act like that. And to an extent, I suppose I have. But that post I made was pretty fucking close- just directed at a vaguely generalized audience instead of a singular person and character. Maybe that’s actually worse. And I am sorry. I guess because it wasn’t directed at anyone but the void (even the op’s url doesn’t exist anymore), I just didn’t think about it. Which sounds like a lame-ass excuse, but... it’s true. I just wasn’t thinking. I was just venting. It’s really fucking with me that I could’ve hurt somebody so much completely unintentionally, to be honest.

So, what did I say- or, to be more clear, what was I attempting to say? What was my intention, and what wasn’t? I’m going to go over that now, more for my benefit than anyone else’s. Please note that I am not trying to make excuses or shove any blame elsewhere. I am just trying to clarify what I meant and address the issues that made my post so negative, for my own sake.

To begin, I’m gonna link this post by @lilac-memorials. It goes into detail about the trouble with “villain” discourse, and addresses a number of issues from a much more unbiased standpoint, far more eloquently than I could. Also, it seems to reference (the worse) parts of my posts at some points, or maybe I’m just paranoid. Regardless, it’s a much better post than the trainwreck that was the original one, and I agree with every bit of it. It also addresses the difference between a “villain” and an “antagonist,” which is something I attempted to go into but failed miserably.

Anyhoo. My post began with this paragraph:

Seriously. I do not trust anyone who refers to themselves as a “villain” rper. A character can take an antagonistic role in another character’s story arc, that’s fine, that works. It goes back to the “everyone is the hero of their own story” sorta thing. But playing a villain, only as a villain… what’s the point in that? It’s just someone roleplaying as an evil asshole that expects to be treated as stronger than other characters, expects to be feared. It reads like some twisted power fantasy. It doesn’t sound fun and it sure isn’t fun for the people rping with you. Like dude, calm down.

To begin with, yes, I am indeed a little distrustful of people who label their characters first and foremost as villains, before anything else. I am more suspicious of engaging in rp with them than I am with other types of characters, because I have seen some pretty crappy villains out and about and I just don’t wanna deal with that. Next, I go on to try to draw the line between a villain and an antagonist, and how I am much less suspicious of “antagonistic” characters than straight-up “villain” characters. “But playing a villain, only as a villain... what’s the point in that?” I ask. Very rudely. Insinuating that their is no point whatsoever in playing a villain. Which I didn’t intend to. But honestly, I don’t know how else that would’ve translated- I don’t know what I was thinking. I go on to describe this “villain” as somebody who is an evil asshole with a power fantasy, and how it ruins fun for anybody. Which can be read very easily as saying “all villains are like this.” No, they are not! I was describing the bad type of villain rper. The rper who “plays a villain, only as a villain,” and not as a character. Do you get what I mean now? The controlling, toxic, power-hungry rper that plays a villain as an outlet to be further controlling, toxic, and power-hungry, moreso than they ever could in reality. We all know that type of person exists. We’ve met them, somewhere. Sometimes they aren’t playing the villain at all, anyway. They’re playing the hero, or somebody else entirely. But here, I am just venting about that type of person. They are what my post is about. The key line should’ve been “playing a villain, only as a villain,” but it was shoved into a passive-aggressive question addressing self-worth instead of a proper sentence describing the difference between a well-written villain and a badly-written villain. And thus the post begins as if it had been rudely addressed to all villain rpers everywhere, labeling them as the evil asshole with a power fantasy, instead.

Next is: Anyway hot take but maybe the reason people kept trying to “redeem” and “change” OP’s character is because their character is boring af!

Yeahhhh, that one’s just mean. And, given the first paragraph, easily able to seen as an attack saying that if you are a villain rper, your character is boring af. They’re not! The op’s post is a little much, to be honest, and I guess I thought I was feeling spicy at 4 am. Now I think I must’ve just been being mean. Aurelia explains what’s wrong with the initial post here, though, instead of trying and failing to poke fun at it in that special pseudo-mean tumblr way like I did.

Lastly, Like, honestly! Play a character as a foil to another, play to fucked up ideas about morality, play an antagonist arc to a protagonist character, play a character who makes bad decisions. But don’t play a “villain.” Don’t play a character whose core personality traits are simply being cruel/evil. Don’t play a character whose sole focus is to kill npcs, be scary, and lord over other players’ characters. Don’t play a character who never develops or changes, and doesn’t facilitate change in other characters. Just don’t be an asshole edgelord. Don’t be flat and one dimensional. Don’t use rp to live out your fucked up power fantasy. Get therapy instead.

Honestly, I think this is the most clear part of my entire post, and also the worst, at the end there. I just am listing off behaviors that this figurative “bad villain rper” exhibits, and what offsets them. Play a villain that’s complex, had depth, nuance! I’m saying don’t play the “villain,” and then listing off what this specific hypothetical villain is. The opposite of deep and nuanced. The “bad villain rper” type the whole post is a vent about.

Then comes the dreaded “ Don’t use rp to live out your fucked up power fantasy. Get therapy instead. “ The villainous power fantasy. No, I do not think everyone who rp’s villains is like this. Yes, I believe there are people like this, who are INCREDIBLY few and far between, and if they solely use rp as an outlet to harass others both ICly and OOCly, that is bad! And maybe they should get help! And even, then, that was only half-serious! But therapy is a serious subject and I should have known better, and done better. Did all of that come off as intended? Hell no! Instead, it was the final nail in the coffin.

So! That’s what I was trying to say. Badly-written villains are a pain. If I had written up a post like I am now, with this long-ass thing, actually trying to be eloquent and clear. Not 4 am word vomit. This 4 am word vomit instead has gotten me to be read and interpreted as:

-being completely unable to separate character and player to the point where i think every villain’s player is a Real Life Bad Person and/or needs mental help

-saying all villains are boring because they’re not heroes, and thus are incapable of being complex and nuanced

-saying people who play dark/antagonistic characters are, in general, living out their fucked up power fantasy through them

-thinking that villainous characters are incredibly boring and just plain terrible

No! None of that is what I think! Absolutely none! I’m not going to go in and refute each of those claims, because, like I said, I’m not trying to make excuses here. But I WILL end this thing with what I do think of villainous characters and their players:

They’re fucking great, okay? A good story is made a gazillion times better by having a good villain in it, be the story a book, a movie, or an rp scenario. Well-written villain rpers are a TREASURE, and need to be appreciated! It is often harder to find rp with antagonistic toons, to begin with, and their players may find themselves getting shit on more often than others, which should absolutely not be the case. Characters that are complex and deep and nuanced are great no matter what their alignment is.

There ARE some pretty shitty villain rpers out there, too. And, in my own personal experience, they tend to be much more obnoxious than shitty hero rpers. A badly written hero will ruin a villain’s rp. A badly written villain may well try to ruin everybody around them’s rp.

Badly written villains suck. They’re the worst. And they make things worse for those that dedicate a lot of time and effort to crafting complex and cleverly written, compelling villains! Badly written villains are something I can and will complain about, just as well-written villains are something that I can and will praise. But I’ll try not to complain or vent on this platform anymore, to start.

And I do NOT blend IC and OOC. That’s the rper’s taboo! I will critique others who do it, though, which ironically is what I was sort of trying to do- complain about those specific villain players who do that. But anyway. If you’ve read this far, good for you! This has been way too long.

And. Please. If I do say or do something that hurts you in the future, regardless of what type of post it is, talk to me! Tell me what’s up! Thank you!

#THIS IS A LONG ASS POST U HAVE BEEN WARNED #u dont need to read all of the rest if u dont want to #in fact u dont need to read it at all if u don't know what post im referring to anyway

[argylemnwrites]

Nimble Fingers

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x MC (Cassie Vanderfield), Sienna Trinh & MC (friendship) 

Book: Open Heart (somewhere around Book 1, Chapter 7)

Word Count: ~1250

Rating: PG

Summary: Cassie bumps into Bryce in her apartment for an unexpected reason.

Author’s Note: My long overdue Autumn prompt as requested by @sunnyxdazed (knitting). Sorry this is so late (and I still have one more Autumn prompt left, yikes!), but I also tied it into day 2 for 41 Days of Cheer (stripes) because why not?

Cassie felt disgusting. Her face was oily, her hair was greasy, and she knew she smelled like some awful blend of sweat and the hospital. And while she’d dumped her nasty scrubs in the laundry bin in the locker room, her tank top, underwear, and socks couldn’t get into her hamper quickly enough.

It was her first 28 hour shift ever. In med school, she’d had a couple of 24 hour shifts, but those extra 4 hours were brutal. Actually, it was closer to 6 extra hours, but Cassie knew she would fudge that so she wouldn’t get flagged for a duty hours violation and have to meet with Dr. Hudges. Elijah warned her about that after he recorded his hours a little too accurately. Regardless, it was close to noon and all she could think about was crawling into bed.

She walked down the flight of steps as she entered their building, drudging down the plain hallway before she unlocked the door to their apartment. She was immediately greeted by the smell of something sweet baking in the oven and Sienna’s laughter. Cassie raised her hand, hoping for just a quick hello before she crashed, but was surprised that Sienna wasn’t laughing at something Elijah, Jackie, or Landry had said. Instead, she was sitting cross-legged on the couch with Bryce, a pair of knitting needles in each of their hands and a pile of various colors of balls of yarn on the coffee table in front of them.

 “What are you doing here?”

“Well, hello to you too,” Bryce replied, not taking his eyes off his hands as he wrapped the green yarn around one of his needles.

“Yeah, hello. What are you doing here?”

“He asked me to teach him to knit,” chimed in Sienna.

“Why?” asked Cassie, rubbing her eyes. She was so exhausted and this whole thing seemed so strange, she half felt like she was hallucinating.

“Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine on this fine Saturday?” said Bryce, still focused on his project.

“She just got off a 28 hour shift,” explained Sienna.

Bryce finally paused his knitting at that, looking up at Cassie for the first time. She felt very subconscious about her appearance. She and Bryce had hooked up a few times at this point, and while she didn’t always look hot at the end of a shift, she knew this was a whole different level of ugly. The only saving grace was that Bryce was halfway across the room and probably couldn’t smell her at the moment.

But Bryce had no reaction to her appearance, at least not one he let on. Instead, he looked her straight in the eyes as he asked her, “First one?” Cassie merely nodded, hoping to end this conversation quickly and head to shower and then her bed. But Bryce smirked and kept the conversation going.

“They say you never forget your first,” he said with a wink. Cassie shook her head slightly, a smile creeping onto her face no matter how fatigued she was. Sienna was either oblivious to Bryce’s innuendo or was choosing to ignore it, merely checking the evenness of her last few stitches in the sweater she was making for Wayne before she leaned over to check Bryce’s work. “You’re really getting the hang of it!”

“Of course I am. My hands are spectacular. Isn’t that right, Cassie?”

Cassie’s eyebrows shot up as her tired brain raced to try and come up with an appropriate retort. Flirty, teasing banter was nothing new for them, even if this one did imply a bit more first-hand knowledge than usual. Normally, Cassie would be able to dish it back, but right now, she was drawing a blank. She blamed sleep deprivation.

“Why would Cassie have anything to say about your hands?” asked Sienna. Her question was a naive one, but the glint in her eyes implied that it was anything but innocent, and as she glanced between Bryce and Cassie, it was clear that she knew exactly what she was doing. It also made Cassie wonder how much her roommates knew about her and Bryce, but that was a topic for later, when she wasn’t ready to crawl into bed.

“Oh, you know, because she’s consulted on some of my post op patients.” Bryce said with another wink to Cassie before returning to his knitting.

“Uh huh,” said Sienna as she rolled her eyes, but before she could push the topic, Bryce redirected the conversation.

“I’m ready to switch colors, I think.” 

Sienna leaned over, counting his rows before picking up the grey yarn off the coffee table. “Yeah, that’s a good stripe width for a scarf. So, what you need to do is drop the green, and then I’ll get you started with the next stitch with the grey, okay?”

Sensing an opportunity to sneak away and get cleaned up before she went to bed, Cassie turned and headed down the hallway towards the bathroom, barely noticing Sienna and Bryce calling out, wishing her “Goodnight” in spite of it being the middle of the day.

Twenty minutes later, Cassie blissfully climbed into her bed, not caring that her pillow was going to be soaking wet from her hair. Her sleep was deep and wonderful, not even the bright light pouring through her blinds impacting her ability to finally get some rest. Hours later, Cassie awoke to a light tapping on her door. She contemplated ignoring the noise, rolling over and going back to sleep, but a quick glance at the clock convinced her that she should get up, at least for a few hours, maybe get something to eat.

“Cassie, are you still asleep? I wanted to see if you were hungry. I’m making stir fry for dinner if you want some,” Sienna softly spoke through the door. Sure enough, Cassie could smell something delicious wafting into her room. So she pulled on her robe and joined Sienna at the table, grabbing a plate and loading it with rice, chicken, and vegetables.

It was just her and Sienna at dinner that night, both Jackie and Landry working and Elijah out with Phoebe and some of her friends on something he had insisted wasn’t a date. At first they ate in a comfortable silence, but eventually Sienna spoke.

“Bryce is really nice.”

Cassie cocked her eyebrow at Sienna as she took another bite. Sienna blushed slightly, “I obviously don’t mean for me. It’s just, I hadn’t really spent much time one-on-one with him, but I like him. For you, I mean.”

Cassie shook her head. “We aren’t dating, Sienna.”

“Well regardless of whatever is going on between you two, I just wanted to say he’s a good guy. He’s much kinder than the rest of the surgeons, and he was surprisingly easy to teach for someone with that much confidence.”

“Why did he want to learn how to knit, anyway?”

“He told me he thought it would improve his dexterity in the OR. Plus, he said he doesn’t really own much cold weather gear, so he thought a scarf would be useful.”

Cassie nodded as she kept eating, but Sienna wasn’t done.

“I know it’s not my business if you guys are dating or just friends with benefits or something else, but I really do think you guys are pretty well suited, and I just like him.”

She looked so genuine, her eyes wide and earnest as she looked at Cassie. So Cassie just smiled, “Yeah, me too.”

Tags: @mfackenthal @lilyofchoices @thequeenchoices @octobereighth @feartheendlesssummer @tallulahshh @fortunatelywaywardsandwich @dreaming-of-movies @choicesarehard @universallypizzataco @omgjasminesimone @srta-give-me-my-jax-rl​

#bryce lahela #bryce x mc #41daysofcheerchallenge #open heart fanfiction #open heart #choices fanfiction #choices #playchoices #choices stories you play

[shhhhyoursister]

Could you write “It’s just a  ___, nothing to worry about.” from the dialogue prompt? (Davenzi). I really like your posts!

ahhhhhh thank you???? i had a couple ideas for this one but this has been the main one, what if i wrote two things for one prompt hmm 🤔 (whoops it also feels a llil strange writing something on this topic considering recent events but as of right now in canon david is still pre-op so its fine) 

“Hey, what’s this?”

Matteo had been sliding his hands up David’s sides under his shirt, when he felt a mark on the skin that was usually smooth under his hands. David had flinched when Matteo’s fingers had grazed it, but he rolled his eyes at Matteo’s question.

“It’s nothing, come back here.”

Matteo let himself be pulled back into a heated kiss from his position straddling David’s thighs. David was leaning back against the wall at the head of Matteo’s bed, his hands low on Matteo’s hips as he yanked him closer. 

It wasn’t until a few minutes later when Matteo’s pinky dipped under the collar of David’s shirt and he flinched again that Matteo pulled back. He cocked his head to the side and when David did nothing except huff out an exasperated breath, Matteo huffed back and pulled the collar aside.

Matteo was confused at first by what he saw. David had taken his binder off once they had gotten into Matteo’s room after a long day with Matteo’s mother (who was almost as in love with David as Matteo was), so the sight of David’s shoulder sans binder was very welcome. What was less exciting were the angry red lines running parallel across David’s skin.

“David, what?” Matteo asked, worry in his voice as he went to raise the side of David’s shirt to look at the spot on his ribs that made him flinch. David just rolled his eyes again and let his head drop against the wall as Matteo glared at the matching red lines that were on David’s side.

“It’s just a few marks from my binder, nothing to worry about.” David tried to grab Matteo’s shoulder to pull him in for another kiss, but he refused to move, just frowning slightly while his eyes flit from David’s shoulder to his side to his face.

“I haven’t seen marks like that from your binder before.” Matteo shifted off of David’s lap and David groaned in frustration, rubbing his hands over his eyes. He had felt the marks when he took his binder off initially, and knew that Matteo would worry if he saw them.

“Okay, I might’ve worn it a little too long today. But really, Matteo, this just kinda... happens when you wear a binder.”

Matteo hummed but he still looked so sad and David regretted his words. He didn’t want Matteo feeling bad for him, he was the one who chose to wear the binder in the first place. He knew the risks, had felt pain from it way worse than what he was feeling from the gentle touch of Matteo’s fingers. He didn’t need Matteo looking at him like that.

“Matteo, it’s fine, really. You don’t need to like, feel bad for me or whatever. It happens.”

“I don’t feel bad for you, I’m sad that my boyfriend is hurt, is that not allowed?”

David smiled, and put a hand on Matteo’s cheek, drawing him forward until their lips met.

“Of course that’s allowed. But you really don’t have to worry about me binding unless I stop breathing or something.”

“Oh, so I can worry if you stop breathing? That’s good to know.”

David grinned and pinched Matteo’s side just to hear him squeak, and then used the same hand to wrap around his hip and pull him back into his lap. 

“Now that we have confirmed that I’m fine unless I stop breathing,” Matteo chuckled and pressed a kiss to David’s cheek, “can we go back to making out now?”

“Wait.” Matteo scooted farther back on David’s legs and lifted his shirt again, and David let out an airy laugh when Matteo leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the red mark on David’s ribs. He smiled and rolled his eyes when Matteo moved closer again and pulled his shirt collar down to kiss each of the red lines on his shoulder. Matteo pulled away with a satisfied grin on his face, and David couldn't stop the smile on his face from widening even more.

“God, you’re so cute.”

“Shut the fuck up and kiss me, you ass.”

#i had some free time so!! #noggins #thots and feelings #davenzi fic #davenzi fanfic #davenzi #david schreibner #matteo florenzi #matteo x david #druck fic #druck fanfic #im a trans guy that binds and in know breathing issues arent the only issues that can come from wearing a binder #i just didnt want to make this like #a fic about unhealthy binding practices

[bytheangell]

if you're still taking prompts, could you write something (maybe set in the future like post finale when they are ... happy at last) about the fact that alec's self-harming habit has come up again? (like in 3x16, and kinda in what he does with his hands at the end of 3x17 too). i feel like the show is not gonna bring it up again and i would love to read a fic where magnus & alec talk about it!

shed my skin, my scars(Read on AO3)

The mission went so wrong, so quickly, none of them had time to process what was happening until it was all over. The intel was bad and instead of just a demon or two the patrol Alec sent out on what should’ve been a routine mission found itself outnumbered by a clan of rogue vampires. They were down three men before they knew what hit them. By the time Alec arrived with back-up the patrol of 7 was a patrol of 3, and they lost half a dozen more after that.

It’s one of his first back after his and Magnus’ honeymoon - which Magnus had to practically beg him to take in the aftermath of everything with Jonathan and Asmodeus and a very long string of ‘what can go wrong, will’ messes to clean up. Things looked like they were finally settling down. He was happy. They were happy. So of course it couldn’t last forever.

“I’m just going to finish the report then notify the families. You can go,” Alec dismisses Jace who hesitates.

“It isn’t your fault, Alec. We all thought the Intel was solid.” “Yeah, I know.” Alec nods, but they both know he doesn’t agree.

“At least let me help. You don’t have to do this alone, Alec,” Jace insists, lingering by the door.

“No, it’s-” Alec sighs. “They were my responsibility. I’ll handle it.” Alec looks back down resolutely at the paperwork on his desk and ignore the unsure look on his parabatai’s face until he hears the click of the door closing.

A: Hey, this is going to take all night to wrap up, so I’m just going to crash here when I’m done. See you tomorrow, love you

He sends the text off to Magnus so that he doesn’t wait up for him, not wanting his husband to worry.

Alec finishes the filing. He makes all the calls, one after another, nine in a row. Each one breaks him a little further. Each one weighs a little heavier, hurts a little more. He feels guilty for not doing this in person but there are too many, it’d take all night and half the day tomorrow that way.

When he’s done he doesn’t go home - he goes to the training room, taking off his ring and placing it carefully to the side, but forgoing gloves or bandages as he starts on the bag. Slowly at first, hard and controlled, until the hits grow sloppy and desperate. They’re soon accompanied by sobs that sting his throat and tears which blur his vision of the splitting skin and bruising. He’s already exhausted from the fight and the fact that he’s been up for nearly 20 straight hours now, but exhausted is good. Exhausted is what he needs. Alec hits and kicks until he doesn’t think he’ll even have the energy to make it back up to his room and debates collapsing right there on the mat until he hears a voice at the door.

“Alec?” It’s Jace. Of course it is.

“Hey,” Alec huffs, reaching out to lean against the wall. He wipes the moisture from his face, not sure if it’s tears or sweat… probably both, before carefully shoving his hands into his pockets so Jace can’t see the extent of the damage. “What are you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same question.”  His parabatai’s voice is suspicious. Alec knows Jace isn’t stupid, but Alec also knows that Jace isn’t about to come at him while he’s like this, either.

Alec glances at the clock on the wall and sees that it’s 4:00 in the morning. How late did stay up making the calls? How long had he been in this room?

“I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep,” he lies, quick to cover for either. Jace relaxes under the false belief that Alec at least got some rest, and some of the tension in Alec’s shoulders eases as well. As long as Jace doesn’t push this, as long as he doesn’t have to snap and get defensive, it’s fine for now. “But I’m actually pretty worn out now, so I’m going to shower and see if I can sneak another hour or two before morning patrol.”

Jace nods, watching as Alec wipes the bag down with a black towel he carries specifically so it won’t show the blood stains. Alec frowns lightly as he uses it - he didn’t plan on doing this, it just happened. Or at least, that’s what he tells himself, ignoring the fact that he subconsciously grabbed the black towel he hadn’t used in months, the one reserved for this very scenario.

Just a convenient coincidence, he tells himself, because he’s better now. This isn’t him any more, though the throbbing pain in his hands says otherwise, especially as he slides the ring back on over a swollen finger. He does nothing about it through the rest of the day’s training and missions, and only reluctantly allows Magnus to heal the worst of it when he goes over that night, the lie that the injury is fresh from patrol sliding past his lips with terrifying ease.

--- --- ---

“Jace, you’ll head the team canvassing the north end of the city. I’ve got the south. Everyone grab your weapons and get ready to roll out in ten.”

The group of Shadowhunters in front of him disperses, breaking off into their teams to strategize and pick the best weapons for this particular strain of demon infestation. It’s nothing more than a bitter warlock summoning nests of lesser demons to make their lives miserable, chaos for chaos’ sake, but it’s spread far enough that it takes half the institute to split up and cover the ground needed before things get out of hand.

Alec already has his bow and arrows in hand, and so he lingers in the Ops Center waiting until it’s time to go. He watches as everyone leaves except one person - Underhill stays behind, not going to the weapons room with everyone else straight away.

“Something wrong?” Alec asks. They’re on good terms - friends, Alec would go so far as to label them, though he hasn’t had enough of them to say for certain. But he doesn’t like the anxious look on Underhill’s face just then.

“May I be honest with you for a minute, Sir?”

Alec rolls his eyes. “If you’re calling me ‘Sir’ this can’t be good. You can always be honest with me, you know that.” “Right. In that case - I think you should sit this one out.” Underhill says, coming right out with it. His eyes flicker across Alec’s face, no doubt taking in the dark circles underneath his eyes, before dropping to where his hands rest at his sides with the slightest tremble from the amount of coffee he drank that morning to compensate for the lack of sleep he got the night before.

“And why would I do that?” Alec asks, growing immediately defensive, a flash of his eyes daring Underhill to say he’s unfit for duty.

“Because you didn’t come in from last night’s patrol until 3 am, and then you woke up at 5:30 to go out with the morning patrol at 6. And you tagged along with Nightshade’s group to handle that single rogue werewolf after lunch-”

“What are you, keeping tabs on me?”

“I’m Head of Security, Alec. I’d be a shit one if I didn’t keep tabs on who comes and goes, and that includes you. Tell me the last mission you dispatched without going along?”  The challenge in Underhill’s tone isn’t unwarranted after Alec’s initial defensiveness but it still rubs Alec the wrong way.

“Just because I’m the Head of the Institute doesn’t mean I have to live behind a desk,” Alec deflects, willing Underhill to drop the topic. He begins to fidget with the ring on his finger, twisting it back and forth between his fingers without realizing.

“Just because you’re the Head of the Institute doesn’t mean you have to be there to personally protect every Shadowhunter you send out. We all know the risks. What happened last week--”

“This isn’t about that.” Alec cuts him off, believing the words that leave his lips about as much as Underhill appears to.

“It is. You’re torturing yourself over this, Alec. You need to rest.” Underhill looks like he’s about to say much more than just that, except the first of Alec’s squad comes back from the weapons room before he can.

“Ready, Sir?” The Shadowhunter questions, and Alec nods.

“What I need,” Alec says to Underhill, ending this conversation in no uncertain terms. “Is to go lead my team. If you’ll excuse me.”  

He doesn’t look back, grabbing his stele to activate his stamina and endurance runes right off the bat - well aware that this isn’t the first time that day he’s used them, and positive it wouldn’t be the last.  

--- --- --- 

The following weeks draw on in a similar fashion. Alec spends longer hours at the Institute. He appears to be fine on the surface but that’s just because of the care he puts into keeping up appearances - gloves cover the bruising on his hands, long sleeves hide the marks from where his bow snaps back to sting his arm during practice and field work. He tells himself it’s because he’s too busy to stop and heal himself, that he’ll get to it later, except he never does.

That’s the same excuse he makes for eating, too. Always on the go, he tells Magnus in the morning as he skips breakfast to catch the morning patrol that he’ll eat at the Institute. Once he’s at the Institute he swears he’ll grab something on his way home from patrol. At some point of the day he’ll grab something to get through the day - a banana, a muffin, a mostly stale pretzel from a cart along the street - but if asked he’d be hard pressed to recall the last full meal he sat down to.

Or the last time he sat down at all.

He chalks it up to being busy and forgetting, nothing more. It isn’t a big deal.

He’s wrapping up a report to head back to Magnus’ for the night when Izzy stops him at the door to his office. “Want to grab dinner? I’m famished after a day of scouring the sewers.”

“Sorry, I’m heading over to Magnus’. I’ll eat there.”

Izzy sighs.  “Fine. Guess I’ll brave the cafeteria on my own.”

Alec laughs, shooing her away so he can finish getting ready. It’s about an hour later when he finally makes it to Magnus’, greeting his husband with a long, lingering kiss before collapsing onto the sofa.

“Please say you’re up for a night of cuddling and terrible reality television?” Alec half-suggests, half begs.

“Whatever you want, darling,” Magnus agrees easily, though a small frown catches on his face. “Are you hungry? I can cook some dinner first.”

“Not really,” he shrugs, settling into the sofa.

“Did you eat at the Institute?” Magnus prys, an eyebrow arched. Alec knows he should admit that he hadn’t, he’s pretty sure he grabbed a hotdog from a stand near the park that afternoon… or was that yesterday?... and a voice in the back of his head reminds him how much he loves Magnus’ cooking. But he’s tired. And he doesn’t have much of an appetite lately. He’s too exhausted to be hungry just then, and all he wants is to have Magnus wrap his arms around him for the evening. Is that so much to ask?

“Yeah,” he says, figuring it’s easier than explaining all of that. “I already ate.”

“Alright, then.” Magnus says, changing direction and heading back over to the sofa to join him where they both fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the second episode of a show they put on mostly for background noise.

And when he wakes up before the sunrise the following morning Alec slips out before breakfast without a second thought.

--- --- ---

A quick glance at the calendar shows him it’s been three weeks since the Mission Gone Wrong. He makes his third set of weekly check-in calls to the family. He doesn’t have to but he wants to, making sure they’re doing alright and asking if there’s anything they need. Anything at all he can do for them in the aftermath. He knows he can’t give them what they want, but he can do the next best thing. He owes it to them.

Each family says the same thing - that they’re fine. That these things happen. That it isn’t his fault.

Except that it is. Their loved ones died following his orders, on his watch. He should’ve been there. It wasn’t their oversight that sent everything sideways, it shouldn’t have been them to pay the price for his mistake, it should’ve been--

“Alec?”

He looks up to see Magnus opening the door to his office, sliding in quickly before shutting it behind him. The look of concern on Magnus’ immediately softened features is the first sign that something is wrong. It’s only when Magnus approaches him slowly, bringing a hand up to wipe away something from his cheek, that Alec realizes he was crying. “What are you doing here?” Alec asks, clearing his throat and forcing his lips to turn up at the corners.

“Checking in on my husband who was due home for dinner two hours ago,” Magnus states, but he doesn't sound mad about it, instead taking Alec’s hand to lead him away from the desk and over to the sofa for them to both sit down on. “Talk to me.”

Alec sighs. “It’s nothing. I’m fine, really.” His hands rest on his lap, thumb nail picking idly at an already split patch of skin on the side of his left hand, and both of their eyes fall on it at once. Alec snaps his hands back to his sides.

“Alec, please. Talk to me.” When Alec remains resolutely silent Magnus speaks again instead. “Then how about if I talk? Because I’m worried about you.”

“You don’t have to be. I told you, I’m fine-” Alec starts again, but this time Magnus cuts him off.

“I think you really believe that, which is what worries me the most. You haven’t let yourself rest long enough see what the rest of us have.”   

“The rest of you?” Alec asks, frowning.

“Maryse noticed you were losing a lot of weight lately, which is when Isabelle and I pieced together that you haven’t been eating anywhere. Or sleeping much. Or resting at all between missions. I should’ve realized when you kept coming home hurt--”

“No, this isn’t… you shouldn’t have noticed anything. I didn’t notice what I was doing, how the hell could you have?” Alec knows that isn’t entirely true, but he caught himself in moments, in bits and pieces of the whole. To hear it all thrown together like that is jarring, even for him.

Magnus doesn’t sound upset, and it’s the only thing that encourages Alec to lift his gaze up from where it rests stubbornly on his lap. “I noticed it before, when I didn’t have my magic… just little things here and there, and I thought maybe it was just a one-time thing so I let it go.  But ever since that mission you’ve been getting worse, and… I don’t know how to help you besides forcing you to acknowledge it. I know you don’t want to but I can’t just let you go on like this.”

Alec nods. “I’m sorry I worried you, Magnus, I-”

“Don’t apologize. That isn’t--” Magnus sighs in frustration. “I don’t know how to help without making you defensive. And I don’t want to push you away.”

“I don’t want to push you away, either” Alec agrees, realizing that’s exactly what he’s done. And not just to Magnus, but Jace and Izzy and the others as well. “I guess I haven’t been myself since that mission.” He knows he doesn’t have to say which mission he’s referring to.

“Or perhaps you’ve been entirely yourself since that night. Alec, you care so deeply for everyone around you. And you take your leadership position to heart - maybe more than someone who is bound to lose good men and women should. But you can’t just distract yourself and hope it goes away - and you can’t punish yourself the way that you do. Hurting yourself isn’t helping them.”

Alec knows that, on some deeper, rational level. But it doesn’t take away that it makes him feel better, at least in the moment, to hide behind the pain and self-inflicted punishment.  

“Do you want to talk about it?” Magnus asks again, but with everything out in the open and nothing left to dance around the question seems to hold that much more weight to it. Alec can’t lie and say he’s fine again this time.

“No,” Alec admits instead. “But I can try to anyway.”

It’s a small step, but an important one. He doesn’t talk about everything that night, not even close, but it’s enough that there are fresh tears stinging his eyes when he finishes and Magnus portals them both home for the night, not allowing Alec anywhere near the bedroom until after he eats a full meal. He gets a text from Jace (You weren’t in your office when I came to look for you. Good. If you’re late tomorrow that’s even better. Get some rest, man.) and, when he winces sliding into bed, reluctantly asks Magnus if he wouldn’t mind healing a few cuts from a demon’s claw he didn’t iratze away in time. Magnus agrees with unchecked enthusiasm.

They’re all little things but they feel so monumental. And maybe, Alec starts to realize, it doesn’t always have to be all-or-nothing. He doesn’t have to flip a switch from ‘not okay’ to ‘totally okay’, and that’s, well, okay. As long as he’s trying.

As long as he’s letting people catch him when he starts to slip.  

Because he isn’t alone in this, not by a long-shot; so long as he has Magnus to catch him Alec knows he never has to be afraid of falling.

#alec lightwood #magnus bane #malec #shadowhunters #shfanficnexus #jace herondale #andrew underhill #isabelle lightwood #canon-compliant alec self-harm #self-harm #SORRY THIS TOOK A LITERAL MONTH #and less to the convo itself >.> #and also sorry that I shifted the focus to the set-up way more than I meant to #but I hope you still like it! #elle writes a few deadbeat lines #anon glamour activated #ask rune

[gascon-en-exil]

Lords and their Knights: When FE Chivalry Goes Gay

@mwritesink prompted me to write about my favorite tropes in FE and how they evolved over the course of the series. I already crossed a few others off in an earlier post, but this one is a particular favorite of mine where M/M romance in this series is concerned and one I felt had enough examples to constitute a piece of its own. Let it not be said that this is merely the gay variation on the well-worn heterosexual romance trope of a lady and her knight (ex. Eirika/Seth), because negotiating the fundamental power imbalance in this type of relationship takes on different dimensions when both parties are male. I draw a closer comparison to courtly love, which in the traditional sense is also socially transgressive (being adulterous) and not consummated via marriage or other public means...which in FE terms means an S support and possibly a eugenics baby. A vassal in love with his lord rather than his lord’s wife is not only cutting the female intermediary out of what can already be a very homoromatic scenario, but it’s directly tangling together a kind of martial romantic love and ideas about what knighthood/vassalage even is or ought to be - two topics FE loves to explore. I’ve therefore compiled a few of the most notable examples of this trope across the series to talk about in more detail, because if one is willing to be liberal with subtext there’s surprisingly quite a few to pick from.

(And yeah, this is also in part because I like hot rich men who take orders, and this series already has plenty of gay or otherwise ambiguously non-straight mages, thieves, archers, and their ilk without my help.)

The Sad Gay Knight: Quan/Finn

This one I’ve talked about before in a fair amount of depth, from my hopes for how a Genealogy remake will treat Finn to speculation on just what Quan got out of this relationship besides a devoted retainer and (we may assume) a nice piece of ass. The summary here is that Finn’s love for Quan supersedes anything he’s shown to feel for any of the various women he can hook up with and quite frankly astonishes in its ramifications for the future of Leonster and Thracia as a whole. It’s poignant, adulterous (but Ethlyn’s probably ok with it?), and messy as all hell once you factor in whatever’s up with Glade and whatever Lachesis wasn’t feeling about the whole situation. It is also, naturally, very sad; Finn loses his lord when he’s only around eighteen, and with their kingdom collapsing around him and the entire continent consumed by war he dedicates the next twenty years of his life to raising Quan’s son to be the king Quan himself had wanted to be. And for all his labor he apparently derives no lasting satisfaction, spending his epilogue wandering around the Yied desert and at last returning only to (possibly) pen the history he’s helped to make. 

Finn is the embodiment of knighthood loyal unto and beyond death, and that paired with all the romantic and erotic subtext surrounding the two of them - Finn as Quan’s treasured favorite, his catatonia after Yied, the obsessive polishing of the brave lance that Quan gave to him, his inability to satisfy women in some vague way - makes them the defining example of this trope in Fire Emblem. I look forward to seeing how remakes will handle them; Finn’s presentation in Heroes is definitely cause for hope there. As for the issue of yet another story in media of gay men beset by tragedy and death, I did draw up a long headcanon on the technically crack pairing of Diarmuid/Tristan that specifically plays into the lord and knight trope while also allowing Finn a chance to pass his experiences on to a later, happier generation. IS is free to take notes, just saying.

Pretty Blond Twinks and the Men Who Love Them: Perceval/Elffin and their lasting influence

Moving on from Jugdral, I’ve got to say that I’ve really been sleeping on the original gay Elibean duo. Before Raven and Lucius (but chronologically after, because these games are out of order) there was another feminine young man with long blond hair beloved of a severe-looking warrior. Binding Blade gives us the bard Elffin, who in another life was Etruria’s Prince Mildain and Perceval’s liege. The Knight General takes Mildain’s alleged accidental death about as well as Finn takes the death of his lord and lady; he turns grim and humorless, and without a dying dream to guide him he follows the command of the corrupt revolutionary faction of Etruria with little protest. It takes learning that Mildain is alive and in Roy’s army for Perceval to drop the halfhearted Camus routine and switch sides, and the strength of his fealty not to his nation or even to his king but to the prince he’d thought dead is absolutely touching in the moment not to mention incredibly useful since the guy is one of FE6′s best units. 

Binding Blade doesn’t give anyone but Roy and his harem paired endings, but there’s still a fair bit to be gleaned from their support lines, both what is in them and what isn’t. Perceval and Elffin each have supports with women, but nothing remotely romantic - Perceval’s support with Larum is particularly amusing since he clarifies that her, ahem, dancing does nothing for him. Also worth noting is that neither of them can support with Clarine, even though one would think they’d make fine romantic choices for her given their statuses and physical resemblances to her beloved brother. Their own support line is quietly intimate. Elffin has changed since his near-death experience, and Perceval is still struggling to accept that their relationship can’t be as it was, that in fact for the time being they can’t now be a knight and his prince. Perceval also frets over Elffin’s refusal to see his father the king, and he later extracts a promise from Elffin to come home to Etruria after he’s done traveling the world as a bard, in one of the series’s several instances of writing what sounds like a marriage proposal in ambiguous terms. Per Elffin’s ending, he’s only gone for a few months after the war, so their promised reunion isn’t long delayed. I’m interested to see what a remake would add to their relationship, because as it stands Perceval/Elffin has an established romance arc that deserves a paired ending or at the very least more suggestive epilogues.

Further compounding their underrated signficance, it’s not too difficult to trace a line from Perceval/Elffin to a number of other M/M pairings in the two later GBA games and in Tellius that present some variation on this theme:

As mentioned above, Raven/Lucius is physically similar and performs a nearly identical gameplay function, with the pretty blond waif again responsible for recruiting his surly but protective boyfriend from the ranks of the enemy. 

Gerik/Joshua meanwhile borrows the character of the end of their support line and turns it into a genuine paired ending, with a prince incognito recruiting a swordsman to come work for him. They being who they are however, it’s all handled a bit rougher, with Gerik being impressed by Joshua’s “swagger.” Take that as you will.

Ike/Soren may be the defining seme/uke dynamic in Tellius’s overflowing fount of queer subtext, but Tibarn/Reyson smashes that trope together with this one and FE’s power couple unit archetype plus a dash of whatever the avian equivalent of furries is for wholly unique results. Although both of them are technically royalty, only Reyson is a prince by heredity whereas Tibarn presumably became king of Phoenicis by beating the crap out of any rival contenders as most laguz prefer to do. One can therefore read shades of a courtly relationship in Tibarn’s decision to zealously take up the cause of justice for the Serenes massacre in Reyson’s place. Combine this with Reyson’s characteristic edge that even Tibarn is forced to rein in at times and their relationship comes off as surprisingly more egalitarian than the sum of its parts. Oh yeah, and blond waif dancer + premade OP unit with ludicrous physical stats and movement again.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the conflict of the Tellius games Zelgius -> Sephiran explores what would happen if a gay Camus archetype chose instead to dedicate himself to an antagonistic lord. Sure, you can still recruit Sephiran via a convoluted and unintuitive process, but Zelgius is doomed no matter what.   

They Can Say It, But They Can’t Do It: Awakening and Fates

Ugh. If I must....

I’ve made no secret of my ambivalence toward FE13 dragging the series into open acknowledgement that same-sex attraction is a thing that exists, handled as it was with a lot of explicit homoerotic denial and an assortment of cheap gay panic jokes and...whatever the hell Victor and Vincent are supposed to be. Chrom/Frederick, hot though it may potentially be in fanon, is one of those jokes, making a parody out of a knight enamored of his lord and leaving it to mean absolutely nothing since Awakening’s relationship endgame is invariably S supports for time traveling eugenics babies. FE has taken cracks at the overly dedicated knight before - see just about everything involving Kieran from Tellius, up to and including his overzealous devotion to his superior officer - but Awakening plumbs the depths of Frederick expecting Chrom’s nude image to raise the army’s morale. Just..what do you even say to that, apart from the awkward sputtering that comprises most of their support line?

FE14, for all its stumbling steps toward something less completely offensive, fares little better in this particular regard. Leo/Niles is a deeply troubled albeit thought-provoking callback to the subtextual lord/knight relationship, one where it’s hard to imagine them finding a healthy way to navigate the power differential. Then there’s Ryoma/Saizo. It’s nothing special in localization, but the never-localized festival DLC involves Saizo’s ardent desire to warm Ryoma’s clothing in his cleavage. That sounds like absolutely normal behavior for a servant and not a rehash of Frederick’s shenanigans, uh huh. Fates may indeed be said to be slightly better about playing palpable homoerotic tension for drama rather than comedy...but only slightly.

Paving the Way for an OT3: The Deliverance

This is, incidentally, yet another reason to appreciate Echoes for doing so much to redeem the 3DS games in the realm of (male) queer content. Yes, there’s a large and unaddressed divide between the openly gay and very modern Leon and the heavily subtextual faux-historical queerness of the Deliverance, but taken independently the two presentations work for what they’re each separately aiming to be. Among Clive’s gay entourage are not one but two men who’d dearly love to be the knight to his lord, and Forsyth’s strong desire to put Clive on a pedestal evokes the earlier spoofs of this kind of relationship precisely because Forsyth is that kind of vassal, the kind that would read Ribald Tales of the Faith War and cry like a heavily erect virgin bottom getting his first taste of dick at the brief interludes of tender manly love between Quan and Finn. He’s played for comedy just as much as Kieran or Frederick are, and yet Echoes comes across as less down on the concept as a whole for several reasons, being that

1) Python’s snark over Forsyth’s attraction to both Clive and Lukas is genuinely funny, much more so than when it’s the object of these affections quietly groaning his way through them,

2) Lukas is also there, and his desire to be Clive’s beloved knight is not played for comedy at all but is allowed to be unrealistic and unsatisfying because Clive will never get it,

3) everyone wants to screw Clive for some reason, not just his subordinates but also his sister and the estranged BFF who dies in his arms...and the guy is shown to be unworthy of all of them, and

4) all the characters involved are allowed other avenues for romantic attraction outside of a lord who’s just not that into them. Forsyth has Python, Lukas has both of them as friends and possibly more later, Clair has Gray (...at least he’s not her brother?), and Fernand has a bad rebound that goes to hell in the manner of Zelgius and Sephiran but at least ends with him getting to reconcile with his former friend before he dies. 

The setup for the Deliverance’s overarching queerness is a bit strange as it rests on all these characters somehow finding Clive attractive, but nonetheless it makes for an unexpected and refreshing critique of the lord and knight trope, given a situation where the lord just isn’t that into it and in fact doesn’t seem to realize that he can be into it. It’s a good reminder that this isn’t a particularly good dynamic for a stable and lasting relationship, and that as hot as it can be it takes more than impassioned one-way devotion to make it work in the long term.

The good news if you’re into this kind of relationship like I am is that it’s a trope with some life in it yet. Echoes came at it strong, and prerelease information on Three Houses suggests a few possibilities for this dynamic in that game. I’m especially keeping my eye on Dimitri and Dedue, whose relationship appears to contain echoes of the original duo of Quan and Finn. I highly doubt there will be anything on the level of S supports acknowledging this type of attraction, but I’ll settle for some suggestive A supports.

#Fire Emblem

[dr-gloom]

Muted

I couldn’t find the post on my blog because there’s just a lot goin on, but this is based off a post that was like: 

Person A, C, and D, all chanting in a group voice chat with B: UNMUTE! UNMUTE! UNMUTE! 

Person E: guys, shut the hell up, this is very stressful for them.

[Person A, C, D, and E all go dead silent when B finally unmutes their microphone]

Person E: ...B, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk, I get why.

Person B, softly and quietly: I-It’s okay, I’m just nervous-

Person A, distantly but very clearly: HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK I’M IN LOVE!

To be clear I did not write that post, I just can’t find the op

Anyways, they’re having a video chat on skype because I found it easier to work with an added video aspect. And Virgil is a transmale who’s only been on T for a short while. 

Part 2

Fandom: Sanders’ Sides

Pairing: none/platonic TLAMP?

Warnings/Tags: trans character, trans!Virgil, anxiety, Human AU

Read it on AO3

fic masterlist

like what I do? buy me a coffee or GoFundMe

Virgil wasn’t the most verbal person out there by far; no, that was probably Roman. Virgil hated his voice, hated talking (hated the dysphoria that would settle in his lungs and press down on his shoulders). He didn’t see why he had to - if he had something important to say, he could just write it down or type it out. If the person/people he was talking to cared, they’d wait for him to finish writing or typing. And this worked out fine for him, especially since his only friends were all hundreds of miles apart and he only talked to them on Skype. He’d met Thomas and Patton through Tumblr, and through them had met Roman and Logan respectively. The five of them had become extremely close in a short amount of time, and Virgil wouldn’t hesitate to say he thought of them as family. 

The first time they had all had a Skype call, Patton and Roman had spent at least ten minutes freaking out over people’s hair/faces/voices etc. and chattering excitedly about how they were so happy to finally put voices and faces to the names on their screens. Virgil was too, really, but he’d kept his mic off. The others knew he had anxiety so they didn’t push him or question it too much, and Virgil was glad they didn’t. Only now, he almost wishes they had, so he hadn’t had the chance to get too comfortable and scared to speak. 

Like he was now. 

What had started as a regular bi-weekly video chat between the five friends had quickly taken a turn for the worst (at least to Virgil) as Roman requested Virgil finally turn his mic on. “Come on, Hot Topic, it’s been months! I’m dying to know what you sound like.” Virgil frowned slightly and shook his head, typing in the chat component. 

Emo Nightmare: not a chance

Patton frowned, looking dejected, and Virgil instantly felt guilty. “But why not kiddo? We won’t judge you, we’re your friends!” Thomas nods emphatically. “Exactly. We just want you to be able to join in our conversations without having to type everything out. Surely it gets annoying sometimes.” Virgil pursed his lips.

Emo Nightmare: i guess, but...

“Then unmute!” Roman shouted excitedly, making Virgil jump. Oh no. “Unmute! Unmute! Unmute!” Virgil watched Roman as he pounded his fists on his desk to match his chanting, glancing at the other squares on his screen that his friends’ faces resided in, his stomach tying in knots. Patton’s grin grew as he pushed his rainbow hair out of his face, and Thomas laughed. “UNMUTE! UNMUTE! UNMUTE!” Thomas and Patton had joined Roman’s chanting, all banging their fists on whatever surface their computer sat on and it made Virgil’s heart rate speed up. Maybe he should do it? They deserved to know what he sounds like after all... Right? But he was nervous; he hadn’t been taking T long enough to really change his voice - it was only just starting to crack and deepen. Barely. He glanced down at his hands, picking at the cuff of his hoodie sleeve before responding.

Emo Nightmare: i dont know guys...

Thomas grinned as he read the message and egged him on. “Come on Virgil, we want to know what you sound like!” Patton and Roman agreed, a chorus of “come on Virgil”s and “it’ll be fine”s. But what if it wasn’t fine? What if they laughed at him? what if they took back their support and started calling him a girl? Or worse, what if they started using the wrong pronouns by accident? Because that was the truth of it; he was afraid his voice would invalidate everything he’d spent months building with his friends. That hearing his smooth, unmistakably feminine voice would make them forget who they were talking to, and when they weren’t looking they’d associate the wrong pronouns to the voice. It’d happened so many times before - he passes rather well, especially when he wears slightly baggy clothes, but as soon as he opened his mouth people would correct themselves and apologize for thinking he was a male. Virgil didn’t think he could take it, because somehow being accidentally misgendered was so much worse. 

Logan spoke up, having been sitting back in silence while the others chattered and badgered Virgil. “Everyone needs to shut the hell up, this is stressful enough for Virgil as it is.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and gave the other three males a pointed look. Virgil tried to hide the smile on his face (holy crap, Logan swore) by ducking his head down, his purple fringe covering much of his face at this angle. “Aw, we’re sorry kiddo! We didn’t mean to make your anxiety worse!” Patton practically launched himself at Virgil before remembering that there’s two computers and 500 miles between them. Virgil shrugged, typing his response as Roman spoke up, clearly looking regretful even as the smile remained on his face. “Whatever our Dark and Stormy Knight is most comfortable with is fine by me! ... But I’d still love to hear that mysterious voice of yours. I’m sure it’s positively wonderful!” Roman gestured enthusiastically. 

Emo Nightmare: thanks guys...

He could trust them. They were his friends. Thomas opened his mouth to say something when Virgil quickly turned his mic on, the soft background noise of Fallout Boy coming from his speakers. Whatever Thomas was going to say died on his lips as he realized what’s happening, and the other three seemed to be waiting with baited breath, expressions a mix of enthusiasm and excited tension. Logan’s mouth quirked to the side. “...Virgil, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk, I understand why.” Virgil swallowed and shook his head, speaking a bit hesitantly, his voice quiet. It’ll be okay. “I-it’s okay, I’m just nervous-”

Suddenly, Roman shot up from his seat, sending the rolling chair across his room as he dashed out the door suddenly. Virgil paled, feeling his heart shrivel in his chest. Oh god, Roman hated him now. He’s freaked out, disgusted. Maybe he was only trying to be polite earlier? Maybe he thought Virgil would sound more masculine by now? He wasn’t going to want to be Virgil’s friend anymore. He was going to start calling him a girl. Virgil started panicking, and Patton must have seen this, because he smiled weakly, speaking up and trying to draw Virgil’s attention. “Don’t worry Virgil, I’m sure he-”

Roman’s voice cut through, slightly muffled, but it’s clear he’s yelling from somewhere inside his house. “BY ODIN’S BEARD I’M IN LOVE!” 

There’s a beat of silence before Patton and Thomas start laughing. Logan smirks, and Virgil sinks down into his seat, his face absolutely red. “Oh my god....”

Logan looks right into the camera, making Virgil feel like he’s looking right at him. “I believe it is clear that you won’t be muting yourself anymore, Virgil.”

A/N: So yeah, super short, but it was fun.

Projecting? Who’s projecting their insecurities onto Virgil? Totally not me. 

Anyways I wrote this at school with a bunch of noise and forgot the word for enthusiasm so that was fun. 

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #virgil sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #trans male #sanders sides fanfictio

[damnit-samnit]

Chapter 22 Preview

Here’s a preview for the chapter that will drop after the holiday chapters (so first week of Jan).

Hope you guys enjoy it.

---

Hospitals had a very distinct smell to them.

It was hard to describe -- a strange mixture of sterileness, flesh, dankness and cleanliness that settled not just in your nose but at the back of your tongue too, adding an unpleasant level of taste to it. The combination of notes was very specific to hospitals. An aroma not easily replicated and, strangely enough, wasn’t particularly permeating either. Once you left the building, the smell would be gone.

But boy was it memorable. If you were ever on a game show and needed to ‘Guess That Smell,’ it would easy to pick out the stench of hospital among those presented.

You didn’t want to be there.

The large elevator you were standing in was slowing its already snail-like pace, carefully settling itself flush against the third floor.

You were headed to the fifth.

Two medical personnel in well-worn green scrubs were chatting to one another as the elevator doors opened. Though they caught sight of you waiting inside, they didn’t cease their conversation on medication dosage or change the decibel of their voices as they entered. They just pretended you weren’t there, which suited you just fine.

You gripped the stuffed bear in your hands tighter, staring at the elevator buttons, drawing imaginary shapes and lines in the grid-like assembly. Part of you wanted to mash ‘door close’ but you refrained, afraid your new companions would think your impatience was a slight against them.

The newcomers hadn’t selected another floor.

You were all headed to the same place.

It was hard not to listen in on what your the elevator’s newest occupants were talking about. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy resulting in complications. Bile leakage. Fever of 39 Celsius. Suggestion? A handful of milligrams of some kind of multi-syllable medication that mentally made your tongue twist yet they said so effortlessly.

The elevator was crawling to a stop again. The fifth floor. When the doors eventually opened, the two hospital personnel burst out with quick, purposefully strides. A stark contrast to your meek, hesitating form. They knew where they were going.

You did not.

Arrows pointing to clusters of room numbers were fixed on the wall in peeling black stickers. You were looking for room 523, which was to the right.

So, that’s the direction you headed in.

As you walked, you peeked into the rooms you passed. Nurses tending to patients in beds, crisp blue privacy curtains drawn, family visits in progress...

But mostly, you saw loneliness. Boredom.

517… 519… 521…

The door to Room 523, you could see, was propped open.

You stopped just shy of it.

Anxiety.

Just do it. Just do it. Just do it.

It was a hospital visit you had been putting off.

But you couldn’t put it off any longer.

You stepped into the doorway, rapping lightly on the heavy wooden door, not quite crossing the threshold into the room. The mousey woman seated on the bed looked up, breaking out into a smile when she caught sight of you. Gently she called your name, gesturing with her head for you to enter.

“Hey Mikki,” you said, the ghost of a tired smile appearing on your face, worms still wriggling in your belly. What to say? What to say? “How you feelin’?”

It was a dumb question and immediately you thought about using your quirk for a possible redo, but Mikki was giving you a one-shoulder shrug.

“Hanging in there,” she said with a smile still affixed to her face. “I’m glad you came! It’s been so slow today!”

You nodded as you tried not to look at the arm settled limply in her lap. She wasn’t a fool, she could obviously see and feel your uncomfortableness.

“Why don’t you pull up a chair?” she suggested, pointing at the empty seat in the corner. “My husband went to go pick up the kids from school, so he won’t be back until after dinner.”

“Yeah, sure… Oh! Here, I, uh, got you this…”

You held the stuffed bear out to her before faltering, afraid that maybe having her hold something wasn’t the best decision, but Mikki was already reaching out for it with her good hand.

“Thank you,” she said brightly, taking the creature and settling it on the bed beside her. “It’s cute. I love him.”

After dragging the chair to her bedside, you fell into an awkward lull, unsure where to start. Maybe ask her how she was? How her kids were? How her husband was? What was it like to have a wonky arm? Drag her into a conversation about yourself? You didn’t want to immediately start talking about your issues as she was obviously the one going through major trauma but damn if you didn’t have a lot you wanted to get off your chest. You weren’t sure you even should address the feelings that had been plaguing you since Odaiba Research’s destruction.

It wasn’t that you weren’t close with Mikki but it was a work friendship. She was your co-worker. Your relationship was not like one you had with your real friends -- they had been a choice, she hadn’t been. There was an obvious wall there -- a general niceness that wasn’t so much forced as it was required, as she was someone you had to work with.

It was just lucky that you did genuinely like her.

Kids seemed like a safe topic, so you cleared your throat, prepared to ask about them when she beat you to the punch.

“I want to thank you,” Mikki said after a quiet inhale. “For saving me.”

That was the last thing you wanted to hear.

It was like an arrow straight into the whirling eye of contempt you had for yourself.

Your shoulders slumped, distressed creases forming on your forehead. Everything in you was untying all at once and you just wanted her to take what she just said back.

“Mikki…” you voice sounded strangled and you swallowed but that squeeze of emotion hadn’t released its grip on your throat. “Please…”

“If you hadn’t been there, I would have died.”

“Mikki…” Don’t admit it. Don’t admit it. “Please don’t thank me. You don’t understand, I don’t deserve--”

“Stop it. You know--”

Don’t admit it. Don’t admit it. Don’t admit it.

“I wanted to leave you,” you blurted out in a great rush, the need to get the truth off your chest too great to ignore. She looked taken aback by your outburst. “Don’t think I was some real hero. Please. I was looking for a way out the entire time. I wanted to leave you, Mikki.”

Quiet filled the room again. You could hear voices in the hallway perfectly. Nurses talking about what they had for dinner.

It would be a short visit, wouldn’t it?

That truth had been the reason you had avoided visiting her ever since her injury. You were ashamed that you had taken on the title of hero when, in truth, you were very far from it. Instead of owning up to your failings as a human being, you kept quiet.

Sure, you weren’t boasting about the misappropriated praise -- in fact, every meeting and photo op made your stomach churn. Still, you didn’t fess up to the truth. You kept silent.

You were guilty of being a coward.

“But you didn’t,” she murmured. You paused before lifting heavy hands, showing her your palms, still very much defeated.

“Only because I was afraid of the guilt.”

“You didn’t,” she repeated with more force. “You didn’t leave.”

“I--”

“You stayed. You could have just ignored me but you didn’t. You stayed and when I--” she cleared her throat. “When I was… crushed. You… saved me. You brought me back.”

And then she was crying, great globs spilling from bright brown eyes. Your throat went even tighter and you felt yourself inch toward the brink of tears as well.

“I died,” she said, her crying turning into sobs. You were getting more and more distressed, your empathy on overdrive for once. “But you saved me. You could have left but you didn’t and you saved me. I still have my family.”

What could you say? Nothing seemed… worthy of saying at the moment.

So you sat quietly, staring at your hands, waiting until Mikki settled down into body-rocking sniffles.

“I don’t want to be labeled a hero,” you mumbled, picking at your cuticles. “That’s the last thing I want.”

“You’re a hero to me.”

“Please don’t tell me that. Please.”

You weren’t a hero. You were far from it, actually. You knew your true heart but the world at large didn’t. They just thought you were a citizen-turned-do-gooder, someone who risked their life to partake in a selfless act in a moment of crisis.

Not someone who gave villains the tools they needed to cause chaos. Not someone who inadvertently gave bad guys the means to hurt, maim and take lives. To rob and destroy.

For money.

Not someone who had been sleeping with All Might for months.

Had been.

“So it’s official that you’re leaving, then?” you said, forcing the conversation in a new direction. Mikki wiped her nose on the front of her hospital gown before nodding.

She had been in the hospital for weeks and you hadn’t worked up the courage to face her. Or steeled your stomach enough to pretend you were the hero the big-wigs had been making you out to be. When she finally got access to her cell phone, you had sent a few polite messages to each other -- you always doubling-down on the promise that you were going to visit soon.

In the last real message she sent you, she revealed she was being discharged.

And would promptly be relocating to Denmark.

That had been the push you needed to commit to your first, and what would probably be only, visit.

Mikki nodded, a large sigh expanding her chest.

“There’s a doctor there who has a quirk that might let me use my arm again. But the waitlist to see her is quite long. My husband was able to get a transfer to his company office there and has been working on getting our visas together.”

“How long will you be there?”

“I don’t know.”

You nodded, shifting your jaw, realizing this was already morphing into a possible goodbye conversation. Sheepishly you looked up to her arm, eyes darting away when you saw your glance had been noticed by her. She gave you a lopsided smile that didn’t quite match her usual matronly appearance.

“They were able to bring in a specialist with a bone and tissue regeneration quirk,” she said, looking down at her unmoving limb. “But they couldn’t fix the nerve damage. They said the doctor in Denmark might be able to but the more time that passes, the lower the odds become. That’s why we’re on a bit of a time crunch leaving.”

“Can you feel anything?” you asked, compelled by morbid curiosity. She shook her head.

“No. I can’t move it and I can’t feel anything there. It’s strange, I sometimes think I can still feel it. I usually wear it in a sling but…” she trailed off. “For now, it looks like my costume designing days are over.”

“Mikki--” you said, brows furrowing.

“Who knows, maybe not for good. But it’s hard to sew with one hand. And sketch. We’ll see what the future holds. People can do amazing things when given tough circumstances.”

It was such a mom thing to say. Despite the levity of the discussion, you found yourself grinning at the floor.

“I’m gonna miss you, Mikki,” you said, momentarily squeezing your eyes closed. “I really am. You were the best thing to come out of my time at Odaiba. I’m glad to have met you.”

“Don’t act like we’re never going to see each other again, kiddo!” she said face lighting up that the mood of the room was shifting. “You’ll see. I’ll bet my good arm I’ll be back here in two years time, maybe three!”

“Once you get all patched up, open up your own business and let me come work for you.”

“Deal,” she said with enough conviction that something airy bloomed in your chest. “Have you gotten a temporary work assignment yet? Some of the others have been emailing me. Looks like everyone on our team is getting split up.”

The airy feeling was gone already.

“Yeah,” you groaned, body growing heavy. “I’m being assigned to assist on the Endeavor Agency team with Doctor Kravitz as an assistant. I start in a week, I think. The first day I’m due in at 5 a.m.”

“Very prestigious,” Mikki commented. You shrugged, playing with the cuffs of your hooded sweater and she narrowed her eyes slightly. “Something is bothering you.”

“I’m just tired,” you said almost immediately, so used to using the excuse that it was second-nature to default to it. “It’s been… a trying couple of weeks.”

It was a gross understatement but you weren’t about to delve into the deep fissures that had cracked and ruined your heart. You didn’t have that type of relationship with her and, frankly, you didn’t want to talk about it.

Some people had the ability to cry and share their feelings with others.

It wasn’t so easy for you.

“You can tell me,” she said so soothingly, having caught the shadow of an expression on your face. You cracked a smile, blinking rapidly as you looked at the grating, cheap blankets on her hospital bed.

No, you would never talk about All Might to her.

There was, however, something else you could admit to her. A kernel of a thought that had appeared in your mind and had grown larger and more encompassing at each passing second. Hell, you were a failure already. A ‘nobody’ as a certain someone so eloquently barked at you.

Why not prove them right again?

Why not fail, again?

That was the one constant about you.

“I think…” you inhaled loudly before clearing your throat, finally meeting her eyes. “I think I’m gonna quit.” You paused before shaking your head. “Actually… no, this is not an ‘I think’ -- I am gonna quit the lab. Officially. I can’t do it, Mikki. I can’t. I’m just… I’m not cut out for it.”

[sangriatimes]

Nintendo Switch saves Valentines Day

Can you believe that we are almost half-way done with January? Maybe it’s just me and the countless hours I put into reviewing the latest titles for the Nintendo Switch...which is our focus point that can change the tide if you hit a hard spot this V-Day. Maybe you don’t have enough money for that dinner, movie and gift. Maybe you thought that restaurant you made a reservation at is more expensive than you though. Maybe you just started a new relationship but you still have some awkward silences that seem to kill the mood. Whatever the situation may be a Nintendo Switch can get you to second base and home plate...trust me.

So let’s look at some of the titles for switch that are great to play with that special someone. (Games are listed in no particular order; games are not based on “)sales”; Games are mainly hidden gems)

1. Monopoly | 9.5 out of 10

Hear me out. I was one that grew up playing the original board game with my family and the overall appeal of the game was astounding, but I lost interest when I got older and noticed how long it takes to make everyone go bankrupt. ...but this is something...otherworldly. The first awesome thing you will notice when you pick up this title is the use of the Joy-Con controllers to shake the dice and throw them. Though this is still the same mechanic in spirit as its predecessor but with the newly animated boards populated by Mii’s and watching a living city grow as you play and add properties adds an entirely new respect for Money Bags. Our team lost track of time having so much fun with this one and before we knew it, we had seen 5 hours pass. (No one wants to play Monopoly for that long.) 

2. Uno | 8.5 out of 10

Uno is another one of those games I grew up playing with family. When I purchased the game, I was expecting some sort of controller mechanic similar to Monopoly’s dice...but with cards instead...but I was let down. None the less, going into this, I didn’t even know that there were so many ways to play Uno besides the normal rules. Once again, I was amazed at how much more fun this was than the physical cards themselves. Rules like “Stacking. Where Player 1 can play a “Blue Draw 2″ card and Player 2 can counter play a “Draw 2″ card as well. ...but if Player 3 doesn’t possess a “Draw 2″ card, Player 3 then has to pick all 4 cards from the previous turns” was so exciting to try and there are many other ways to customize rules and play styles. 

3. Super Smash Bros | 9.0 out of 10

I really don’t need to go into detail about this one. My only issue with the Smash series is I would really enjoy a multiplayer adventure mode or campaign. I was quite pleased with the full roster of characters though. Disclaimer: Make sure your partner isn’t a sore loser. We all know about SSB’s steep learning curve for beginners. “Don’t be a butt...”

4. Diablo 3 | 9.0 out of 10

I remember having this title on my old PS4 and being able to enjoy it on my PS Vita while I was in a relationship with someone who liked the game as much as I and we would both take our Vita’s to the restroom with us so we could keep the experience going. This title can definitely be used to understand the mindset your partner has by the way they customize their character and the actions they take in response to events. It’s a top-down action-adventure-role-playing-hack-n-slash (inhale.) It is a port of it’s original released on PS3 & 360...the price tag is still $59.99. That’s a deal breaker in my book.

5. NES Emulator | 7.5 out of 10

I honestly chose this one because of how many gamers I know and how 89% of them are males. This is something for those who don’t game to get their feet wet. The emulator is free on the eShop for a 7-day trial but comes with a subscription cost after. Pretty inexpensive for the titles they have. Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Metroid, and many more. It even comes with special versions of some of the games which gives the player the experience of playing with Game Genie cheats.

6. 99 Vidas | 7.0 out of 10

Your probably thinking, “ Why is this even listed?” Well, just in case that partner your with doesn’t dig the 8-bit look or the low-res adventures of the NES Emulator and desires a little more action and has a fetish for Streets of Rage and Beat ‘em Up’s. Simply. The available characters are cool enough to get players to find a favorite out of them. ...so...that’s good!

7. Oh Sir...The Hollywood Roast | 8.3 out of 10

After seeing the Samuel Jackson clone named “Bad MotherHugger” who’s personality is totally canon, I had to dig deeper. If you didn’t play the prequel, you don’t need to. I honestly only used the first title to learn how to play. In this installment, you and a co-star face off on a movie set where your scenario is to insult the other the worst. It plays like a fighting game, complete with health bars, special insults, tag team insults and so much more. For the price it is, I was expecting something way less entertaining. Oh, and one point or another you will joke against a Deadpool copy...a less funnier Deadpool but funny enough.

Consider this the American version of The Office.

8. Oh Sir...The Insult Simulator | 7.8 out of 10

Obviously, this is the European version of The Office. I won’t say this is better than the sequel and I can’t say it’s worse either but I will say “I am an American...” What this game does is teach you how to layer your jokes and how lay the foundation for repetition in your topics to create combo’ s. I like to let the opponent bombard me with little weak jokes and build a super mean and super long insult that grants victory for only one joke. I call it, “The Kamehameha Effect!”

9. No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Back

The third installment to the series hits the eShop and retailers in a few days and I am super excited to get my copy. If you aren’t familiar with the series, let me fill you in:

Travis Touchdown is the protagonist of all three games. In NMH1 we find Travis at his lowest moment in life. Jobless, hopeless and drunk, he runs into a mysterious woman who offers him employment with a sketchy syndicate group he knows nothing about. Luckily he had lost all his money by winning a bid at an online auction for a Beam Katana,  his main choice of weaponry. Not long after, you find out you were hired as an assassin in a shady game by her higher-ups. Travis takes the job after being promised some passionate TLC if he can take out all 10 of the already top ranking assassins all over the world. Travis is a pretty simple guy. He likes mecha anime, luchador wrestling, old school video games, porn, sex, and sleeping on the toilet.

In NMH2, Travis finds out that after becoming the #1 ranking assassin in Santa Cruise, he finds out that he actually has hundreds of more assassins in a new ranking system where Travis is the lowest ranking.

This time around, Travis is joined by the father of one the assassins he killed in NMH1, and the co-op option is something that would have been outstanding to have in NMH2 but none the less the developers always deliver great content in their titles and this one will not disappoint. Couples will enjoy the kinky nature of the series for sure. It has been proven many times.

10. Broforce | 9.5 out of 10

Every wanted to play Super Mario Bros on NES but with guns? Ever want to change Mario for, let’s say...any huge action movie star from the 80′s, 90′s, 00′s? Ever wanted it to be a co-op experience with up to 4 players with local and online co-op? As a mercenary for the USA, you are sent to 3rd world contries to liberate them from the evil control of Satan and his hell spawn. Before that, you will have to fight through waves of kamikaze soldiers, war dogs, giant helicoptors, aliens (...from the movie “Aliens”) and much more. Along the way, you will recruit an entire cast of badasses. From Rambo to Robocop, you will find Chuck Norris, Neo, Blade, Bruce Willis, Terminator, Preditor, Machette, Michelle Rodrigez, The Bride (Kill Bill) & so many more including Mortal Kombats Raiden.

Very easy to pick up, very hard to put down.

11. Nidhogg 2 | 8.0 out of 10

2D-Side Scrolling Fighter. You start of with a sword. When you die, you respawn with a dagger. When you die, you respawn with a bow and arrow. Die again and respawn with an ax. Die again and respawn with your fist. This cycle will continue until you our your opponent makes it to the opposing end of the map. Maps are relatively small and consist of about 2 to 3 different frames. Sounds easy on paper right? 

Tons of laughs to be had!

12. Tales Of Vesperia

If your looking for an in-depth RPG you both can play while she sits between your legs and you both focus on the Switch screen laying in front of you: this is for you two. The co-op system usually only functions when you enter battle. Player 1 will always be the one running around the world map but this is still fine if you keep an open-mind and communicate on decisions that impact the story and more. (Keep track of your own money.)

side-note: All Tales games are co-op in this sense, even the Super Nintendo picks.

13. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope

I’ve been a Harvest Moon fan since Super Nintendo and got my first copy on the N64. I know a lot of people see this game and hate the thought of a farming simulator but unlike it’s counterpart with the same name-sake; Harvest Moon is so much more. This can easily tame the craving for an adventure-rpg-dating sim with a very rich story and characters that actually grow on you. I have not had the chance to play this particular version yet, but I saw it was multiplayer and that sold me. If you want to try a good yet cheaper version, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature is by far, one of the best, next to Harvest Moon 64.

So there you have it, our picks of love for your love to love with their love! Honestly...I don’ t celebrate Valentines Day (poly-gang), but I love exposing partners to new things that they can enjoy together.

OUT!

#cyt magazine.tv #sangria times #sangria times publication #dreadsperado #cytmagazine.tv #@cytmagazine.tv #deangilo willis #cel-man iller #Nintendo switch #monopoly #uno #super smash bros #super Mario party #diablo 3 #nes emulator #99 vidas #oh sir #insult simulator #Hollywood roast #no more heroes #no more heroes 3 #travis strikes back #travis touchdown #goichi suda #suda51 #grasshopper manufacture #broforce #bro force #nidhogg #nidhogg 2

[thenichibro]

Spring 2018 Anime First Impressions

Two weeks into the season - basically on schedule by my standards! This season, as always, has ups and downs as well as popular shows I’m not watching (Megalobox) and shows I immediately regret starting (Devils Line). As a further point, I don’t do impressions of sequels, and in this case I’m including Steins;Gate 0 as a sequel because it is so based on the events of the main show. Regardless, here’s what I’m watching with MAL links and original shows marked:

Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Die Neue These (MAL) Look, I'm not going to immediately say go watch the original LOGH, but I'm kidding that's exactly what I'm going to say. LOGH is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. My issue with this series is not that they will not represent the characters badly, but that 110 episodes shoved into 12 episodes and three movies is simply not enough. LOGH has a scale, a grandeur, a weight that is conveyed as you invest yourself into it for hours on end, from bombastic space battles and the minutiae of day-to-day politics. You need both scales, the imperial and the individual, to really experience LOGH, and I feel like 12 episodes isn't enough time to have both. The LOGH remake looks and sounds fine (though with way too much CG and a bit of same-facing with Reinhard and Kircheis), but I am incredibly nervous about the pacing. This is a first impression, and if Production I.G. pulls this off it will be a classic reimagined for a modern audience that deserves it. But I simply don't think that's going to happen. I'm hopeful, but apprehensive. And again, watch the original. It is pure class.

Persona 5 the Animation (MAL) Play the game first. Please.

Devils Line (MAL) A world where vampires exist under the guise of normal people and some lose control and kill under cover of night. Basically Tokyo Ghoul with less of a vampire "society" and more just individual threats, with more of a sexual twist. Tsukasa is our helpless college heroine, adrift as she finishes school, when she finds out the guy who likes her is a serial murderer who wants blood! So wacky! She's saved by Anzai, a calm, collected member of the agency tasked with dealing with vampires, before unintentionally revealing himself a vampire. Yet we are expected to just accept Anzai forcing himself on Tsukasa because he's the savior? Right. Background sound design isn't bad, art/animation are bland and at times awkward. Devils Line is trying real hard to be a new Tokyo Ghoul, but now with more sexual undertones for whatever reason. Pass.

3D Kanojo: Real Girl (MAL) Ah, otaku love. At least it can't be worse than Saekano, right? That'd be a serious challenge. 3D Kanojo follows Tsutsui, an otaku that suffers the typical ostracization of anime, when he meets Iroha, a blunt girl who for once doesn't ostracize him. The first episode has plenty of the classics - falling into a pool, talking about "3D women" being out of his league, heroics when he knows he can't win. Everything you'd expect. By the end of the episode, things progressed a helluva lot more than I expected, in many ways. It seems thus far that the otaku thing is the impetus for Tsutsui's low opinion of himself, rather than anime being the point of the show. More introspective than I would otherwise think, I think 3D Kanojo holds a lot of slight surprises. It's interesting, for sure, and I hope it continues that way.

Tachibanakan Triangle (MAL) One of two short anime I'm watching this season, Tachibanakan follows a girl who moves into a girls apartment complex and gets more yuri than she bargained for.  We've got the fang-sporting short one, the quiet one, the onee-san, the blonde foreigner, you name it. I don't expect a lot of character development or anything similar, but three and a half minutes of yuri sounds just fine to me.

Uma Musume (MAL) First off, props to the show for making the horse girls' names just as stupid as those of real racehorses. I mean, I know it’s because the girls are named after real racehorses, but still. Uma Musume involves a world where horseracing is hugely popular, only the racers are anthropomorphic horse girls. Our main girl is Special Week, a newbie transferring to a popular racing school in Tokyo. She's your typical genki type - eager, energetic, bright-eyed. Enthralled by one of the top girls Silence Suzuka, she aims to become one of the top horse girls in Japan. Oh, and the top horse girls perform as idols after each race. This sure is a mobile game adaptation, god damn. P.A. Works' art looks solid as always (props to the flowing tail animation); the OP and ED are pretty standard idolish stuff. I prefer the ED. Anthropomorphic racing is fine, yet for some reason the idol part is what makes it weird for me. This show is strange, but if it's not much more than cute horse girls doing cute horse girl things, I'll keep paying attention.

SAO Alternative: Gun Gale Online (MAL) I hate SAO. I have a laundry list of reasons that I despised both seasons of SAO. The reason I'm giving GGO a chance is because the main charater is a girl playing a cute chibi girl in-game and she just wants to make friends. Hopefully, that will avoid the terrible pitfall that was anything relating to Kirito. GGO starts right in the action, with a topical Battle Royale mode putting our pink girl and her partner right into the action. The tactics are good and help set up the basic premises of the gametype, if that necessitated a bit too much monologuing by M, the partner. Also, plenty of pouts. Always a bonus. As always the invincibility of the protag is annoying, but I don't really expect breakthrough plot changes from an SAO spinoff. I mean, SAO S1 was good for the first 10 episodes too. Keep this cute girl and not-harem, focus on connecting with others through video games rather than shanking perverts in a parking lot, and it'll be solid.

Hinamatsuri (MAL) A super-powered middle-schooler falls into the life of a nicer-than-normal yakuza. Nitta is the yakuza, with a penchant for fancy porcelain. Hina is the middle-schooler, your typical otherworldly killing machine set into an unfamiliar world. Hinamatsuri puts a lot of good spins on the taking-care-of-a-supernatural-girl trope, with the main character being a yakuza rather than an "average high schooler." Furthermore, there are some nice father-daughter vibes going between the two, though it's clear Hina maintains the upper hand. Won over by Nitta's refusal to use her as just a tool, their life together begins. The comedy is your standard boke/tsukkomi, but the lightning-quick delivery of the lines had me cracking up regardless. Hinamatsuri looks like it could go darker any second, but if it doesn't I'm perfectly content to stay around.

Comic Girls (MAL) Probably the most classic cute girls doing cute things show this season, Comic Girls follows a group of mangaka girls living in a dorm together. Moeta is the worrywart crybaby, Koyume's the genki blonde, Ruki is the less-than-secret pervert, and Tsubasa is the tomboy. There's plenty of nice compliments between the girls' personalities, and Koyume and Moeta seem like a great fit as the newbies in the group. Furthermore, their personalities being informed by the manga they draw allows for a nice exploration of manga cliches through their interactions. This looks to be more on the character-driven side than a deep dive into the logistics of manga production, but that's just fine. Animation and sound aren't really anything special, but they're by no means bad. As a slice-of-life fan I'm all in, even if this show doesn't turn out to be anything super unique.

[ORIG] Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai (MAL) Tada-kun follows, well, Tada-kun - a student and photographer who runs into Teresa, a rich European while taking pictures. Tada-kun, following the show's title "Tada Doesn't Fall in Love," has a calm, somewhat stoic demeanor, while Teresa is your bright, beautiful girl finally in the Japan she'd only seen on TV. After meeting multiple times as Teresa wanders lost, Tada helps her out of the rain before she finds her hotel, right next to his family's coffee shop. And then, of course, she transfers into his school along with her bodyguard, the fiery-tempered Alec. The art is crisp and animated well, and both the OP and ED have their charms. I personally like romance focused tightly on a single pair (Tsuki ga Kirei and Ore Monogatari are two stellar examples), and I hope this delivers. With a single couple development becomes the key, but if this show keeps it up - increasing interactions leading to discovered feelings, all starting from a photo (sounds a bit like Just Because, don't you think?), this will be a emotionally engaging experience.

Fumikiri Jikan (MAL) The other short show I'm watching, Fumikiri Jikan is about conversations while waiting for the train to pass. The first episode ran the gamut all the way from peppy slice of life to romantic character drama. Being so tightly focused on conversations and with limited time, a show like this needs to nail the dialogue to set up the characters each episode. I felt like I almost watched a movie in three minutes this time, and that's a good thing. The main sticking point is that with individual stories each time, quality can vary wildly. This show is a bit strange but equally interesting, but it will certainly depend on the story being told.

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii (MAL) Ah, otaku love. It can't be worse than Saekano, right? That would be a serious challenge. Wotaku ni Koi puts a spin on the genre by situating the main characters as adults who met each other in middle school and just now reconnected. The main cast of four and especially the banner couple Hirotaka and Narumi are uniquely quirky and their personalities gel so well with each other. Despite the long gap in meeting each other I feel the chemistry immediately between the two, and as episode one ends with their relationship actually beginning I'm all in. Not only does Wotakoi change things up by having the main characters as adults but it also gets past all the roundabout bullshit that often bogs down high-school romances. Furthermore, the true enthusiasm with which Hirotaka and Narumi can nerd out about what they like is refreshing, kind of like Animegataris before it became the Matrix. Combine that with a crisp art style and great musical themes, and maybe Wotakoi can provide the grounded otaku love story we've been waiting for. Oh, and fuck the Saekano shout-out. Not that I'm going to let that cloud my thoughts on Wotakoi - I just really, really don't like Saekano.

Golden Kamuy (MAL) This season's "a popular manga is finally getting an anime" show, Golden Kamuy is the story of a soldier and an Ainu girl suriving in the north of Japan in the Ruso-Japanese War era just after the turn of the 20th century. The pair aims to find a hidden treasure, stolen from the Ainu and stashed by a criminal somewhere, with the location hidden on tattoos of various escaped prisoners. I enjoy historical shows, and Kamuy is great in that it is more than just feudal Japan or something similar - the snowy, late-Meiji Hokkaido setting is undoubtedly unique. Sugimoto, the soldier, has earned his nickname "Immortal" due to his war exploits, and his personality shows it - confident in his skills yet cautious of threats. Asirpa, the Ainu, is the resourceful, collected partner Sugimoto needs in the wilds of Hokkaido, and shares Sugimotos motivations, having lost her father to the criminal who hid the treasure. The art is clean, and while the main characters look good there needs to be mention of the awful-looking CG of the two bears and the wolf that make appearances in the first episode. It just looks horrible. The dynamic between Sugimoto and Asirpa is great - the contrast between violence and peace especially - and I look forward to see where they're going. I only wish the overall tone was more consistent - the first episode is a great solemn look at the task in front of them, while the second episode inserts a whole lot of "comedic" moments that seem out of place with the action and Sugimoto himself. Regardless, quick shout-out to Man With a Mission for the OP - one of my favorite bands and this song is no exception.

#legend of the galactic heroes #persona 5 #devils line #3d kanojo #tachibanakan to lie angle #uma musume #sword art online alternative: gun gale online #hinamatsuri #comic girls #tada-kun wa koi wo shinai #fumikiri jikan #wotaki ni koi wa muzukashii #golden kamuy #spring 2018 anime #my anime reviews

[reddiess]

[stan_the_man messaged you]

For the anon who wrote:  "stenbrough social media/college au where person A is an instagram model and person B is a fan who has a friend that forces them to follow and comment, and !! person A notices him!!!!" i’m so sorry something was wrong with the connection so i either didn’t post it or deleted it but shoot me a message if you liked it op! you can also find this on my AO3 Requests are open, shoot me a prompt for a fic or headcanon!! Summary:  Stanley Uris has an undying crush on Instagram model Bill Denbrough. Which is fine, until Richie Tozier goes and messages him. * The moment Stanley Uris spots his best friend with his phone in his hand, suspiciously only tapping once on the screen and with purpose, is the moment he knows Richie Tozier is fucking dead. "Richie," he draws the word out as if to question his friend's entire existence. "What are you doing with my phone?" The traitor looks up and has the audacity to smile innocently, like he doesn't know what Stanley is talking about. "Um... Nothing?" "Nothing my ass," Stan murmurs under his breath before sizing the situation up and jumping into action. He throws himself over the back of their leather couch but Richie is already out of the living room, wheezing as he bolts towards the kitchen door. Stan stops and crosses his arms in front of his torso, waiting for the inevitable— CRASH! He watches with perverse satisfaction as his flatmate trips over the ironing board standing in the entrance to the kitchen, toppling to the floor. "There's something in the way," he deadpans. "Watch out."

"Fucking bitch." Richie pushes himself up. Somehow, there's still an unnerving grin splitting his frog face in two. "I still messaged him though."

Stanley's eye twitches. "Who exactly, again?" He stomps over to the monster he calls his best friend and rips his phone out of his hand. "WHAT THE FUCK!"

*

DING!

stan_the_man followed you

DING!

stan_the_man mentioned you in a comment: @billyboy boi fuk me up u fiiiiiiine

Bill Denbrough's eyebrows draw together in confusion, his stare almost piercing holes into the touchscreen of his phone; what kind of language...?

DING!

stan_the_man messaged you: dam boi are u a pair of ray bans bc ud look great sitting on my face ;);););)

The line is so out of the blue and bizarre that Bill actually bursts out laughing. He sits up and quickly screenshots the ridiculous message to send to the groupchat with his closest friends.

Out of pure curiosity he clicks on stan_the_man's profile and is surprised to find that the guy looks fairly normal – handsome, even – and not at all creepy like he would've expected. There's also no trace of the attitude or the, um, grammar he used in his direct message to Bill. He actually just looks like a regular guy who's nice and hot and therefore way out of Bill's league.

He goes back to the direct message to type in a reply but changes his mind pretty quickly. Should he even address something as childish and weird as this message? Should he even...

DING!

He almost drops his phone in surprise.

stan_the_man: Oh God, sorry. That was my roommate, this is so embarrassing. He thinks he's funny.

No emojis, no pickup lines. But at least the guy has good grammar. That's more than what he normally sees on Instagram these days.

*

Stan tries to forget all about the most embarrassing event of his life, also known as the time Richie dm'd his Instagram crush with a godawful fuckboy one-liner. He doesn't unfollow Bill Denbrough though because why would he?

He does still spend a good majority of his free time stalking the guy's profile. What can he do when Bill is literally perfect with all his black and white photoshoots and colorful model shots in European countries and mirror selfies with his dog? What is Stan supposed to do, ignore it? Yeah well, not today - and not only because he's a photography major and the shots make his heart weep but also because Bill is ridiculously perfect.

So here's the brief story of how he found the guy: He was exhausted after a long day of work and was in search of a movie stupid enough for his mushy brain to absorb. In this state of mind, a person's brain capacity is not exactly at its full potential, and so that's his excuse for clicking on a Buzzfeed article titled "21 Hottest Male Models We Shamelessly Follow On Instagram". Go figure.

All of them were hot, of course. But Bill Denbrough was... something else. All Stanley could think about was photographing him. Most of the models were these muscly, handsome machos with chiseled jawlines and messy hair - your typical, well, douchebag look. None of them were Stan's type by far, so he was ready to close the article but then he saw number 21, Bill Denbrough aka @billyboy. Bill was... stunning, to say the least. For starters, he didn't have any facial hair, one point for him. He was not buff, more of a tall and lean type, another point. Not the average face that's considered universally attractive but more of a unique charm and he seemed to have a dog; more points. His bio said:

Bill Denbrough 23yr old model based in New York, loves dogs, books, nature and tv shows. Advocate for LGBTQ+ and homeless youth. For business inquiries, please contact...

His pictures all matched with his bio, Stan realized as he scrolled through his profile. He really was a dog and nature lover, liked to read and was actively helping the LGBT and homeless youth - infinite points and there went Stanley Uris' heart.

So that was then. Now is now, and now... Stan is getting a message from him.

What!?

Stan clears his cache, force stops and restarts the Instagram app and cold boots his phone but it's still there:

billyboy: Haha, no problem man. I know a lot about annoying roommates. I like your work btw!

What. The. Fuck. He doesn't know if he should smack Richie or kiss him.

stan_the_man: Wow, thank you! I'm a photography & imaging major so they're mostly my assignments, but some of them are just for fun. Are you still studying?

Lame, but kind of okay. Acknowledged Bill's compliment, gave a bit of insight related to the topic, asked to show he's also interested in having a conversation. That's normal, right? He waits a couple of minutes before sending it just so he doesn't seem desperate but gets a reply almost instantly.

billyboy: Yeah, I'm studying creative writing, it's my last year though. Can't wait to be out of uni tbh.

stan_the_man: same, I'd sell my soul at this point for it to be over

Bill laughs, or at least sends a laughing emoji so Stan guesses he does. That's how he starts talking to his Instagram crush.

*

It doesn't help much with his crush, talking to Bill. If anything, it makes him like the guy even more, which in turn just makes his heart hurt when he thinks about how he doesn't have a chance. Sometimes he has a flicker of hope, like when Bill says something especially flirty or compliments his new picture. He doesn't post many selfies but the one he does Bill ends up commenting on ("What a handsome curly man #crying") and Stanley ends up gaining 300 followers overnight.

And his infatuation with the model just keeps growing and growing. He's certain Bill is not perfect, he can't be but what can a man do when it sure seems like he is? Stan has no chance. So he does the stupidest thing he can do and invites him out for coffee. As soon as he sends the message he throws his phone across the room, the childhood habit of biting his fingernails making a short but threatening return. Get your act together, Stanley thinks. He's just a guy.

He's Bill Denbrough, he's not just some guy! His mind helpfully supplies.

You're arguing with yourself again. Stop it.

I do whatever I w--

DING!

That has to be Bill. It has to be. Stan carefully rounds his bed and reaches for his phone, pushing the home button so he sees his lockscreen. The preview of Bill's message starts with Sure! When are you... and then it's cut off.

Stanley looks around to see if Richie is in hearing distance, and when he finds he's in the clear, he does a dance of celebration.

He really should give a present of gratitude to Richie now.

*

It goes well. Coffee, that is. They hit it off right away because as normal as Bill comes through in his messages, his humour actually aligns with Stan's in that dry, passive aggressive, death loving kind of way. Which is fine. Amazing.

What's not amazing however, is how perfect he actually is. Stan sees his clear skin and perfect hair and amazing body proportions and red lips every day on Instagram but it has nothing on the real thing. There's just no way any camera could ever capture the charisma the guy has.

(Stanley is going to try though. Even if Bill wouldn't have agreed to it, he would somehow bribe him into modeling for his portfolio. He did agree though, and without any extra convincing too so Stan is going to make the most of that promise.)

It turns out that Bill's favorite tv show is Supernatural, bless his soul, but his favorite movie is Edward Scissorhands, which Stan also loves. They also realize they go to the same university and actually took a course together last semester – some bullshit class where attendance wasn't mandatory – except Stan never realized it. Bill traveled a lot last year due to his modeling career and Stan literally never was there so there was little to no chance of them meeting; which is nice because he would have had an aneurysm on the spot.

When he gets home that afternoon Richie is already sitting in the armchair in their living room with crossed legs.

"I see you've had a fun day," he waves his phone at Stanley, who has to squint to see that Bill has uploaded the selfie they took together to his Instagram.

"None of your business," Stan replies and automatically turns to leave. Well, he would if Richie Tozier didn't jump on his back the next second and really, how is he that fast?

"Tell me EVERYTHING Stan the man, don't you even think about sparing me any juicy details!" Richie booms in his ear before he manages to shake him off enough that only his arms remain locked around Stan's neck. "Come oooon, I hooked you guys up!"

"What the fuck do you mean you hooked us-" DING! "Excuse me, I have to go." He unceremoniously bites Richie in the forearm until he has no chance to let go with a yelp.

"At least tell me later!" his best friend shouts after him but he's already halfway to his room. He plops down onto the light blue bedsheets he changed just yesterday, and the faint smell of the detergent kind of reminds him of how Bill smelled when they half-hugged while saying goodbye.

billyboy: Thank you for the coffee today! I actually have a confession to make.

billyboy: Tell me if I got the wrong message or anything but I had a very hard time not kissing you after we met. I just thought it would be fair to tell you.

Stan turns so his face mushes into the pillow and screams.

*

("When were you going to tell me this?!" Richie shouts, pushing his phone screen into Stan's face. "HUH?"

It's a picture Bill took on campus of them kissing - he uploaded it onto his Instagram story which in turn spiked hundreds of fans to raid Stanley's DM's – mostly with positivity – and Richie to, apparently, have a mental breakdown.

"Just die," Stan replies, pushing the oversized phone out of his face, but he is smiling. "I was going to tell you later, maybe when we're not in the library? You're making a lot of noise."

He's pretty sure he can see Richie's face turn purple with how much he's trying not to scream.

He is going to buy him a present, don't worry. But for now, he has to work on his assignment so he can go meet his boyfriend.)

#stenbrough #stan uris #bill denbrough #fanfic #it #it 2017 #it movie #stenbrough fanfic #djskjfsdjfk i love this pairing so much im gonna kms #hope this doesnt suck lmao

[rachaelburkeme2]

Studio Research: Fine Arts/Term 4 (Weeks 8-14)/Semester 2 - Exhibition Practice.

Conversation with Jill after looking at series of manipulated black and white photographs from “The Power Of Us - New Zealanders who dare to dream”

Poignant questions to consider;

Look at the book you are referencing? Why are you using it? How does it relate to your practice?

Where did you buy it? Look at when the book was published - looking for indicators, clues that work with your concept.

Who is the imagery of?

Research the photographer. What kind of work is he making? - traditional portraiture, abstract etc....

What happens when you re-work another photographers imagery? You are appropriating an image - If I was to exhibit these publicly I would need to make contact with him/her.

Who are the people you are photographing? What are they doing now? Are they continuing in their success?

Do these images align with the conceptual ideas developing in your work, or would it be worth obtaining other books from the op shop?

Three people I have chosen to exhibit for critique.

Rhys Darby - Comedian/Actor

Recently sold his Los Angeles home for 3.9 million - Still working successfully in American film/television industry.

Dame Susan Elizabeth Devoy

Former 4 time world squash champion. In 2013 was appointed race relations commissioner for New Zealand. 2019 pulled out of Tauranga mayoralty race due to unforeseen family reasons.

Sir Eion Edgar

Stockbroker/Accountant/Reserve Bank Director/Currently Chairman of Forsyth Bar   

Adrian Mulloch - Photographer

Adrian is an independent photographer specialising in photography of people in their environments - 25 years working as a photographer for daily newspapers.

He says “in a world that has plunged down the rabbit hole of heavily retouched photo fantasies, he instead, seeks honesty and a real sense of the people and the society they live in from his photographs.

To me, Mulloch’s photographs seem staged, they do capture something of the person in their related environment but I don’t see them emanating truth and honesty, instead it all seems rather contrived.

There is a blurb on Mulloch’s website about “The Portrait” - I will not pose for you. Instead, I create a situation and then notice when you get interesting. Taking my cues from what you say, how you appear and what you do. This approach is revealing and goes beyond flattering you. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable enables us to see your strength, and the person within. 

There could be some relatable content to extract from the above text to apply to my black and white photographs, however, the images are not of the photographer they are the people that sit for him - all notable New Zealanders described as change agents, living treasure, toanga. The book was made to celebrate their achievements, innovation and creativity. The three people I chose to potentially exhibit are still doing credible, engaging work.

if I am going to exhibit this work I need to fine a reason as to why I am manipulating their images, especially when appropriating another photographers work. Could the idea be that successful people often have a veneer/facade, but inside they are vulnerable/exposed? Could it be something along the lines of Guy Debords notion of celebrity in  “The Society of the Spectacle” - “The individual who in the service of the spectacle is placed in stardom’s spotlight is in fact the opposite of an individual, and as clearly the enemy of the indvidual himself as of the individual in others. This is going off topic - contemplating what ideas are driving my work does not particularly relate to celebrity culture (not that all the people I am focusing on are celebrities), they are people who inspire, and I think the tall poppy syndrome thing in New Zealand is not interesting enough as a concept, and in fact, has potentially evolved. It is a shame I cant draw relevant ideas to these people as the images are powerful, however, it has been an excellent exercise in finding material that relates, extends and develops the conceptual notions driving my practice. You cant just use images because they are exciting images, well you can, as long as there is a reason for doing so.  

I do find it interesting that this beautifully bound, black and white photographic book full of inspiring, prominent, live changing human beings was found in a box, under a trestle table in a hall in New Lynn - purchased for $ 1. In a moment hugely influential, then discarded.