#& it's also got some nice representation of various sorts! there's like. one bit that's a little bit iffy i think though

[spookfished]

sept+ oct media roundup

hi again :3 this month in september i was really busy with school so busy that i didnt make a media post for a whole month!!!! lol and also ive been getting back into FINAL FANTASY XIV: ENDWALKER grind lmfaooo so i wasnt really on that #mediagrind as much as i could be… but i still have some things to talk about :3 by sakshis (@.lilquill) suggestion, im also talking a bit about the music ive been listening to! this is also being crossposted onto my extremely barebones neocities

books/comics:

paladins strength by t kingfisher: m/m romance about a coroner and another former paladin! still psrt of the saint of steel series. i thought it was, once again really charming and grounded! also it involves a death room and i love those. the authors idea of 'these two characters are hiding something from each other' feels a little bit more contrived this time on pipers end, but i still had fun :3

home comforts: the art and science of keeping house by cheryl mendelson: nonfiction instructional manual on how to do various homemaking activities: cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. ok ngl i got this book bc a book i was reading about 27/7 service..? was like "if you have never cared about housekeeping before this ones pretty useful." bc of various life and medical issues, the house i grew up in never really cared much about this kind of thing, except for cooking and self sufficiency. home comfort was written by a full time lawyer who was raised w the idea that she would grow up to be a stay at home wife, which i think is pretty interesting! it manages not to fall into tradwife ideas (imo?) by reframing these tasks as like.. a cyclical, rhythmic kind of self care that serve to make your home feel more safe and cozy. kind of like the marie kondo idea that folding all your clothes by hand puts like intent into your them; not practical for everybody, but sometimes a nice idea! also has a bunch of practical stuff, much of which is not particularly useful if you live in a college dorm. this book made me make my bed more often lol. i wish it had an updated section about tech (especially cord management)

the maid by nita prose (dnf): thriller about a (strongly autistic coded) maid who gets caught up in a murder at her hotel. i dont know i feel like i could have powered through this, but the way that the maids autism, and the way she interprets situations vs how the audience interprets situations is either played for pathos or laughs (its sometimes hard to tell which) rubbed me the wrong way. her life just… sucks? so bad? i feel like other people reading it may find some validating representation, and the voice is certainly interesting and brisk.

lolita by nabokov: doesnt really need much of an introduction. not going to lie, i read this bc i like nabokov but also to silently feel superior to all of the discourse girlies on tumblr. i did enjoy it though! in a way, at least? it's definitely a novel that can only be taken in small bites. i feel like a lot of the wordplay went over my head, and i'm not sure how much of that is due to me not knowing french and how much of it is due to the english language evolving so much after publication (and how much of it is just my own lack of knowledge. close reading is not really one of my strongest suits) . i was relieved to find that people call it funny, because it honestly was at some points. its really interesting when people can balance revulsion and humor and sick fascination, but that ratio is a pretty personal thing

she who became the sun by shelley parker chan: a retelling of the rebellion against the yuan dynasty, except the future ming emperor is a woman instead; part 1 of a duology. i really liked it! i liked the idea of like ummm sort of the two genders being Agency and No Agency. i thought baoxiang was pretty great love a fruity queerbaiting bureaucrat. thought it was pretty interesting that he continually tried to assert the importance of his own work and also worked really hard despite the fact that approval was obvioiusly never going to happen--so was it really that kind of futile endeavor, or for other ends….?! ooh so mystrious very excited to see him feature more in the second book. (spoilers for the book) some scenes that especially stood out were actually with some of the side characters! such as the mayors wife :3 the climactic scene with ouyang and esen was very delicious

he who drowned the world by shelley parker chan: sequel to she who became the sun! zhu yuanzhang has clawed her way up to her very own army and the yuans power has been destabilized, but everyone else is still racing for the crown. dude. i liked this book so freaking much. sooooo freaking cool it expands on a lot of the ideas and i also liked the development of the yingzi/yuanzhang relationship. additionally it managed to display the kind of like. trans horniness that (DISCLAIMER: I DONT FUCK) i dont really see in a lot of published books.. pretty cool! reminded me of when i went to a burlesque show and saw a woman (medical horror cwwww?) stick a needle through her hand lol. fantastically well balanced cast. do you think about the EROTICISM OF VIOLENCE? and GENDER ROLES? please read this book it made me so stressed. i really believe that at the end of the book baoxiang becomes a stay at home prisoner war

an unkindness of ghosts by rivers solomon: scifi about "exploring the conjunction between structural racism and generation ships" where medic aster uncovers a grand conspiracy! i thought the world building was reallyyy fun ship that has Been Voyaging Forever is an old and good trope, and this book goes hey but class and race will still exist though. to the point of like um recreating plantation dynamics i think? very anti utopian in a way i enjoyed. the mix of advanced scifi stuff and also having no resources was interesting :3 i liked giselle and theo a lot, and pretty much all the supporting (+sympathetic) characters besides aster? who took a lot longer for me to warm up to--shes definitely given a lot of nuance and life, but i think overly literal autistic/coded characters are a bit cringe..? im sure it meant a lot to someone (esp having a black autistic char?) just not me personally. oh but i really enjoyed the difference in voice between all the povs they were really distinct and fun. also aster and giselles rship! i think it would have been nice to have more intense moments, but thats also a personal preference for dramatics kind of thing--a lot gets glossed over in a 'past trauma' kind of way.. neil is right that i mostly have been reading books that blast you though lol. i really liked the scene at the end though like wow.. returning to the earth.. that was really good honestly. the stuff about archives and memory keeping was interesting --there was definitely like a thread through but i wouldn't have caught it w/out leo mentioning it. something about multiple interpretations..? something about history being passed from person to person rather than through physical means….?? its a strong debut i think :3 felt kinda movielike in an interesting way. rlly wish theyd went into The Gender more although i guess it mostly wasnt about that yeah and i wish the ending had more to do w like. her doctor stuff lmfao it was a little disconnected

video games:

13 sentinels: 13 teens intertwined stories come together in a story about love, mechs, and every scifi trope in the universe. also, the past and the future! the background art is sooo gorgeous i think my usual attention span for visual novels was increased significantly just by being able to walk around while dialogue was playing… if you have a low tolerance for heterosexual "pair the spares" type behavior, this may not be for you--i really liked some of the romances though, like with fuyusaka and sekigahara.. i liked the themes of like. idk you can try to relive the past, but all itll do is stall you from moving forward--we can examine past mistakes but we cant ever get a 'redo.' alsooo people were haters about the battle segments but i played it all on hard and really enjoyed it. tbh anyways would recommend!

boyfriend dungeon: dungeon crawler where you can date your weapons. well i 100%d this (except for the whip) but for all of the gameplay bits i was mostly thinking "man i wish i was playing hades". probably not a fair comparison, but it does lack some polish in that department, and overall. all the same, i enjoyed this game! it has a nice soundtrack and art, and i thought some of the love interests were pretty charming :3 also appreciated the flexibility in love routes. it really got a bad rap from the stalker plot huh…pretty solid game and worth playing if the initial concept grabs you. i did borrow neils copy though

hades: after beating bf dungeon i immediately redownloaded hades lmfao. sooo good theres not a lot to say about it. still havent managed to beat the final boss even after all this time bc im too stubborn to turn on godmode >:T

dave the diver: casual sort of dungeon crawler, except instead of killling monsters you catch fish for your sushi restaurant, which you also run. dave the diver stacks on a bunch of mechanics in a way thats… surprisingly manageable? and really charming honestly. im having a lot of fun with it :3 a few awkward boss fights that werent really that fun (and stealth segments..my enemy) havent gotten in the way of like all the rest of it i loooove exploring the ocean and finding new ways to get fish and all of the gorgeous pixel art and also the FALL GUYS GUY is doing the OST. this game is blowing up a little bit rn but honestly for good reason. such a good gameplay loop that also adds in variety over time

manga:

hirayasumi: slice of life about a part-timer working in tokyo who inherits an old womans house--its all about slowing down and enjoying the pace of life--and also how hard that actually is. dude hirayasumi is sooo fucking good im always trying to get people to read this manga i think its adorable and also beautiful and bittersweet. its about growing out of your 20s and the friends around you who are moving up or moving on or even just stuck in place. super awesome

ao no flag: romance coming of age w lgbt themes. a timid high school girl is trying to work up the courage to confess to her crush, and enlists the help of her crush's childhood friend to do it. the mixed-up shenanigans of adolescence ensue. man you know i really love the art for this manga (faces and expressions! so good!) and i think all the characters are really compelling! the trio just have such a cute dynamic and like all of the waffling over feelings honestly feels real. the ending was really disappointing though honestly. still worth a read imo but prepare to be mad. ok here is my longer rant about it (spoilers) ughhh ok its like. initially i thought masumi getting a boyfriend was SO fucking disappointing. especially given that she kinda got the least focus out of the main 4? some reddit comments were like "maybe her boyfriend is trans" but i think that something like that would be……….really complicated honestly? and something that id really want to have explored more outside of just a singular epilogue chapter? and i dont think the implications were that strong there. and given that it would have been good to see more indications that they were actually happy together bc its like the first thing you think when you see her is "oh, she gave up" WHICH IS SO FUCKING DEPRESSING AUGH and she never even confessed to futaba :| futaba and taichi breaking up makes a lot of sense and im like, whatever not really going to object to that esp bc the whole theme is like youthful love. but then on the SAME SIDE OF THE COIN its like it makes no sense for taichi and touma to get together either then!!!!!!!!!!!!! like what a copout. it kinda breaks the whole original premise. AND it feels like its just (whats that word thats like playing to? favoring?) fujos reading the comic and all those ppl are like the girl should DIE for getting in the way of my two gayboys. and aslo the convo with kensuke and the other girls and especially that other guy really felt like i was reading a reddit thread. or like some of the most frustrating conversations that ive had and overheard. like hmm i sort of get what it was trying to say. and i agree that peoples frustration and idea of whats 'right' usually isnt the best rhetoric.. and above all sometimes youre not focusing on your ideas of correctness Or proper rhetoric but having an honest and open communication? but its likeeee well i kinda dont care? sorry

nana: coming of ageish? nana, a flighty girl who's quick to fall in love, and nana, a tough rocker trying to make it big in the city, coincidentally become roommates, and become fast friends despite their disparate lives/personalities. this one is one of the classics! i still havent finished it yet (its also unfinished) but idk i really like it. always fond of flop women like hachi lmfao. the older art style did take a bit to get used to for me

i want to hold aono kun so bad i could die: horror manga about a high school girl who gets her first boyfriend--who then dies only a couple days afterwards. yuki kariya is willing to do anything to make sure aono stays with her, even letting her possess her body. but should the dead and the living really be so closely intertwined? ok the art in the first couple volumes may be a little offputting but this is REALLY good ok. and it has some really chilling panels that i love a lot. aono kun begins with the pretty classic "awkward loner girl x popular boy", but it quickly starts getting into ideas about like…. purity and "the filthiness of desire" and stuff like that. recently has been getting more into why the characters are the way they are? in some uh, really chilling and realistic depictions of abuse within a family. check the cws but mr chainsaw man recommended this manga so you should read it too.

movies/tv:

skibidi toilet: humor/action webseries?? ok so its about this war between the skibidis and the cameraheads, which escalates in technology over time as the cameraheads bring in other objecthead allies and the skibidis grow stronger. me and neil and alena watched all compiled 40 minutes of this in a straight shot, which was kind of like frying our brains in a microwave. kind of like those stickfight videos for a cocomelon generation, the relentless pacing will suck you in kinda like…. a skibidi toilet…. really well made imo but probably only worth watching if you really like cool fights and/or gmod

the shining: prestige? slash? horror a father and his family take care of a hotel only to find out things are FUCKED.. i really didnt know what this was about besides the here's johnny scene before i watched it :3 pretty crazy it really just is a good movie. sucks that the filming was so terrible though

fight club: ok so to me this movie is about colelctive action and gay people. like they had so many people mobilized for radical action and whatever and all they did was blow up a bank. LAME! anyways i really liked it a lot despite the everything. ive been entering my film bro era with neil i hope we watch pulp fiction next <3

music:

this is a couple albums ive been listening to over the past couple months!

THE CLOD(瓦合) by no party for cao dong: taiwanese post rock. im a big fan of this band so i listened to a bunch of the album tracks as they released!! like the first album, each track flows together into a coherent whole, and it retains the upbeat despondency from the servile. however, it feels like theyve also been more willing to branch out musically! especially with tracks like damn and daydream. overall, the album has a grittier, grungier feeling as well. also i know more chinese so i can sing along a bit now :3 (also, their lyric translations are always so good?) a few highlight tracks for me are lie (床) and the human the hole and the mountain. (人洞山).

CRAWLER by idles: british "crankwave", whatever that means. idles is also a band that i really like :3 sometimes i try and listen to other things in its genre and im like well…. this isnt idles though… sorry.. i like things that are the same forever…. i listen to this music a lot when im cleaning haha. it has such a feeling of overwhelm and tearing through rock bottom thats very satisfying! crawling hurts but it works for me and so on. with crawler and the clod both, every time i listen i have a couple favorite new tracks but rn i like the end and progress.

UMURANGI GENERATION OST primarily by adolf nomura: jungle music for a photography-based game (umurangi means "red sky" in te reo). i mostly end up listening to the tutorial + mauao view tracks. well….. i have a huge jungle music bias. unfortunately. but i think a lot of this music really captures the sort of "flow" feeling that you get when working on something creative! this game has an incredible sense of atmosphere i would really recommend checking it out. highlight tracks are swears in ps1 and BEAT THE POLICE

SCALES by king isis: indie pop. i saw them perform live at a concert this august!! so freaking cool :3 to me has all of the self indulgent sadness and rich vocals of an early mitski track but ALSO is an ''indie gem''' (this is their debut album). songs are fun to sing along to :3 my favorite songs from her are 4 leaf clover and im fine thx for asking! but apparently their new mv has sexy vampires in it so maybe go check it out?

as always if you read (or skimmed) to the end, thanks :3

#txt #you might say #hey. isnt it almost the end of november? #well yes! you are correct

[vitaminwaterreviews]

After School - Virgin

Okay… Wow. Like, wow. I expected … I dunno, kinda shitty synthpop, something along the lines of Twicetagram? But it turns out First Love isn’t the exception to their sound: it’s actually a pretty good representation of what they can do. I really need to see the song average for my own sake, so let’s see:

Average score of 8.1 which is stupidly high compared to what I was expecting. But this album kind of shattered every expectation that I had for it. It was well-written, it was well-arranged, it kept me interested the whole way though. Raina impressed me, Nana and Lizzy did more of the Orange Caramel thing, the trainees blended in just fine. The MV was a bit weird but honestly kind of wholesome in the end.

And ultimately, this album really wanted me to look into more of their discography. Like, I keep coming back to the word “mature.” And when I say that, I don’t mean sexy: I mean mature. And this was just 2011! They existed for several years before and after this, with subunits and japanese releases and all of that. So I guess now I have so much more to look into.

-

Alright, I’ve just done some cursory Googling and already this album seems crazy. It’s got re-recorded versions of various singles, as well as some solo- and unit-songs. So really, less than half of this album is actually new, full-group content. But even more interesting, it features Kyung-Min, a “pre-school girl,” which is kind of a weird way of saying “trainee”. So I looked into it, and it seems like she won some sort of contest to become the newest member of After School, but she never actually debuted with the group! The only references to her are short, like a single sentence, so that’s kinda neat. Anyway, I heard Bang! one time like a year ago and I don’t remember a thing about it except that it was marching band themed.

Let’s Step Up

Steps

Breath?

More steps

Oh okay it’s rhythmic

Lol this is really cool

Okay here’s the synth

Yes I’m ready

“Ah ah hi ah ah ha”

Yeah this is cool, I really like this

9/10, I’m such a sucker for a good intro

Shampoo

I’ll watch the MV for this one, but not the others

Well she certainly is wearing a backpack

Photos

Oh okay we’re synthy now

Butts

Wow look at those waists

Yeah this is more or less what we’d expect

Dude what is this filter though

This song feels super AKB to me for some reason

Actually … maybe that makes sense

Yeah that groove with this instrumentation

The MV is lowkey kinda wholesome tho

Oh no she felllll

Okay wait but

Huh

Yeah that’s … a bit awkward

That said I do appreciate a nice instrumental break in a song

Wait whatttt no way she looks like 12

I know I haven’t talked much about the song but I’m vibing

I’m gonna Wikipedia this before I rate it

Wait there is no Wikipedia article!

Well my guess is that the new girl is E-Young, bc this probably would’ve been her first thing with the group

Alternatively its a pre-school girl

If it is E-Young, then she’s 18 in the video, so fair enough I guess

Okay wait these lyrics are kinda wild

Honestly I might regret this buuuuut

9/10

Virgin

Mkay we’re all buzzy now

It suddenly occurs to me that I don’t actually know Madonna’s Like A Virgin off the top of my head, and maybe that’s an issue here

Pretty straightforward synthpop so far though, kinda want more from it

“Diva diva diva”

Mkay that was a nice bridge, I’ll give it that

Also I really do enjoy the Vibe of this song

8/10

Bang !

Mkay yep we have some horns going on here

I dunno what to think of this tbh, I feel like I really ought to be seeing the MV here

Pretty vocal harmonies

I’m not convinced that this is very similar to the Bang! that I heard a while ago

But also I don’t know a thing about that Bang! so who knows

Okay I just clicked through the original and it’s pretty damn similar so I dunno

7/10

Play Ur Love

Mmmm this is nice

What a coincidence, I also wanna stay with them!

Woah her vocal tone is So neat here

Wait why the random synth?

This is unironically pretty though, like if you didn’t tell me that this was After School then I’d have guessed like, Apink maybe

9/10, I feel like I should stop giving these out so freely but I’m honestly so impressed by this

Dream

Pre-school girl #1

Nice 6/8 groove

This is fun, I dunno if I buy it though

Okay well the bridge kinda just saved this song for me, I was getting bored but that tied it together really nicely

Haha the saxophone

8/10 I guess finneeee

Because of You

Mmm piano

Whispering and vocoded vocals

Oh okay we get a nice hard rap out of nowhere

I totally buy this

I think strong rapping over an otherwise airy song is one of my favorite tropes

Also kind of getting 2NE1 Go Away vibes from the chorus and the vocoding

8/10

Depend on Time

Mkay, groovy

Nice acoustic guitar and kind of a slow jam groove

But it’s not a slow jam it’s more folky

Mmmm okay now that the bass is here, maybe it’s a slow jam

Their vocals! Are impressing me!

Mkay I guess this definitely fills the slow jam role, but it’s not nearly as … obnoxious as some others

Maybe I should revisit some of the old SM albums sometime

WHY ARE THE VOCALS SO PRETTY THOUGH

Ohhhh wait that was just Raina?? That’s actually fucking crazy holy shit

9/10, I just had to re-listen, I am so impressed by her like wow

Nothing to complain of

Piano moment

Honestly I’m amazed by how mature this album is? Like yeah they do their sexy thing and all that, but it’s clearly well-written and arranged and like it’s just well done

Compare to Twicetagram

Okay, this is the slow jam haha

I’m just never going to get over that Raina song though like wow

8/10

Funky Man

Right after I just got done calling them mature lmao

No for real though this is Great so far like wow

Nana, Lizzy, and a pre-schooler

Like, this feels way more Orange Caramel than Depend on Time

Although I think I do prefer Depend on Time more

Still, I appreciate this a lot, and it fits well in terms I album structure

Guitar moment

Yeah, this is nice

8/10

My Bell

I dunno who Jung-A is but apparently this is her solo

Well she certainly has a pretty voice

I would enjoy this song a lot more if IU did it, and I’m not sure if that’s because I prefer IU’s voice, or if it’s because IU’s name carries that much weight in my mind

It’s not a bad song at all, but I don’t really care for her voice in it, and also I don’t really care for the OST-style ballads

6/10

When I Fall

Piano~

Oh okay nice, glad we get a good beat here

And that was a synth hit

Lovely harmonies

Honestly this feels SO f(x) so far

Like if this was just casually the last song on Red Light or whatever then it wouldn’t feel at all out of place

(I love Paper Heart though don’t get me wrong)

I do hope this has like, a Grand Climax or something though

Mkay, it didn’t quite get to where I wanted it to, but still

8/10

#album #kpop #After School

[mntcoronet]

What game is it

it is called Hades !! the main character is not actually Hades btw, somewhat misleading, it's his son

#maggles answers / sage advice #it's very fun even for those who are bad at such games (like me) & manages to make every run unique in some kinda way #especially cos it has an option thing that increases damage resistance each time u die - a must have for me #& it's also got some nice representation of various sorts! there's like. one bit that's a little bit iffy i think though? #but judging by what the devs have said & all the other stuff I'm pretty sure it's a case of good intentions but with an awkward plot bit #yknow #i mean that particular bit is optional anyway but yea. it was tough to work around but i think they did well & i still like that bit #also it's v funny too!! main character is full of sarcasm and also love for his good ol 3 headed dog #it's on Steam / pc and switch for relatively cheap as far as switch games go :] #also there's a character who is... a lot like one from a different game i like & i do feel called out by how much I'm like 'mood' at em both

[lovelylogans]

the words you read (my heart’s been displayed)

how did you know 'cause I never told but you found out I've got a crush on you the words you read, my heart's been displayed you found out I've got a crush on you —“crush on you,” the jets

warnings: awkward clueless teenagers, crushes, slightly overbearing matchmaking uncles, mentions of government surveillance, mostly fluff, please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairing: virgil/logan, secondary patton/roman and janus/remus

word count: 5,761

notes: this is for day 5 of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “vocab card/skateboard” and i have decided to write about vocab card! please enjoy!

⁂

In Virgil’s opinion, Logan Sanders is the cutest boy in all of the sophomore grade.

He was the cutest boy in freshman year, too, and eighth grade, and seventh, and all the way back to kindergarten, but Logan’s changed over the summer. 

He’s sprouted up a few inches, so now he’s a half-head taller than Virgil. He still looks a little gangly, like he’s going to grow more. He’d always been shorter than Virgil before. He’d gotten new glasses, too, black frames that suit him way better than the silver ovals he’d used when they were little. His voice has gotten a bit deeper, his jawline’s gotten stronger, and Virgil’s helpless crush on him has only grown with Logan.

Logan isn’t just cute, either, he’s smart. He carries around stacks of notecards, blank and filled in, and there’s all sorts of things written on it—interesting fun facts and the latest slang terms, in rubber-banded stacks next to rubber-banded stacks of notecards of terms that will be on their next exam. Logan has a way of explaining anything and everything in a way that is really understandable and never makes you feel dumb. Logan’s always top of the class.

And to make matters worse, they’re next-door-locker-neighbors this year, because Chloe-who-was-between-them-alphabetically moved away. Which means that Virgil cannot quite get away with admiring Logan from afar, the way he has since they were little. Which means that when school starts, on the first day when Logan asks him what homeroom he’s in this year, Virgil’s brain can only go ahhhhHHHHHH and the fact that oh my God Logan is tall now oh my GOD Logan has the locker next to mine now! makes him delay his answer because he’s just staring at Logan, and Logan looks at him a little oddly and then repeats his question as if he thinks Virgil didn’t hear him, and Virgil kind of wants to crawl into his locker to hide there forever thanks.

“Oh,” he manages. He closes his locker. “Um. I’m in Mr. Morales’ homeroom this year.”

Logan smiles at him. Logan SMILES AT HIM. And then he says, “I am, as well. Perhaps we’ll be seated next to each other in homeroom, in addition to being locker neighbors. I would enjoy that.”

He would ENJOY THAT!!!!!

Logan clears his throat and fiddles with his glasses, finally just pushing them a little further up his nose, even though they’re pretty high up on his nose already. “Would you like to walk together to Mr. Morales’ classroom? I was in his home economics class last year, I know where it is.”

“Um, sure,” Virgil says, voice cracking embarrassingly, and he considers opening his locker back up again so that he can hide there. He’s pretty skinny, he might be able to fit.

So they walk to Mr. Morales’ classroom. Logan’s the one talking, mostly; Virgil’s grateful for that, because he’d probably just be rambling nervously the whole time, and it’d be tempting fate to have his voice crack in front of Logan again. But now he can just listen to Logan’s various opinions about their summer reading for their English class, which is much safer. He sure has a lot of opinions about it, which makes Virgil sweat a little nervously—Logan sounds like he’s ready to sit down and write an essay about it, as if they’re going to have to, and Virgil’s pretty sure that if he sat down to take a multiple-choice quiz about that book right now he’d flunk it.

They end up not being assigned to sit next to each other. Mr. Morales says to just sit wherever, since they’re all going to go to an assembly once he takes attendance anyways, and that he probably won’t assign seats for the whole year.

And then Logan ends up sitting next to him anyways.

Like he really meant that he’d like to be next to Virgil in homeroom.

Mr. Morales smiles at them, and then, inexplicably, gives Logan a double thumbs up? And then Logan’s cheeks go kind of red? Logan turns his face away from Mr. Morales, turning to more fully face Virgil.

“You were in his class last year, right?” Virgil says.

“Erm, yeah. Yes. I was.” Logan clears his throat, turning away from him. “He supervises my study hall, too.” Then he mumbles, “also he’s my uncle.”

“He’s your uncle?” Virgil repeats. This is news to him.

“Through marriage,” Logan explains. “Mr. Regnant is my father’s brother.”

Mr. Regnant is the arts-and-music teacher, and, though they don’t talk about it very much (students do, but then, students always gossip), Mr. Morales’ husband.

Mr. Regnant is also, not that Virgil would ever tell him so, Virgil’s favorite teacher.

“Which dad?” Virgil says, because Logan’s two dads were basically his only version of real-life gay representation when they were really little. He knows Mr. Sanders better than Logan’s other dad. 

Mr. Sanders always volunteered to be part of the PTA moms who supervised them during holiday parties and field trips, though, looking back, he doesn’t think the PTA moms liked him very much. The kids, on the other hand, loved Mr. Sanders, who would treat them like very short adults and once a year would bring in his mamba Eve for kids to pet and hold.

Logan’s other Dad had been the one who encouraged the kids to throw paints and roll around in the mud and tear things up. Logan’s other Dad had come to supervise one holiday party and was politely asked to never do so again.

“Not Pa—I mean, Janus,” Logan says, looking briefly embarrassed. “He’s Dad’s—Remus’—twin brother.”

Virgil makes an “ohhh” sound, because that makes sense. Now he’s thinking about it, Mr. Regnant and Logan’s dad really do look alike, if one looked past their contrasting senses of style. 

“That’s cool, though,” Virgil says thoughtfully. “That you’re related, I mean. Mr. Morales is really nice.”

“Yes, he is,” Logan says. “It’s been a bit strange to adjust to calling him Mr. Morales instead of Uncle Patton, though.”

“Yeah, I guess it probably would be,” Virgil says. 

The bell rings, and Mr. Morales ushers them off to the assembly.

Logan sits down next to him on the bleachers at the assembly, too. Their knees bump together as they listen to the principal welcome them back from summer vacation and give some announcements.

And Logan keeps sitting down next to him.

At lunch, in their two shared classes, in homeroom. He wishes Virgil a good morning and good afternoon every day at their locker. As the months of the school year slowly creep by, Virgil definitely does kind of feel like crawling into his locker, sometimes, but less and less so, because.

Because he and Logan are kind of friends now.

Logan asks him about his favorite hot beverage and then starts bringing him chai when he and his uncles stop by a café before school. Virgil sketches out drawings of astronauts and space when Logan goes on a loving tirade about it that lasts, on-and-off, for a week. 

He still definitely has a crush on Logan. His increased presence near him is both a blessing and a curse.

They share earbuds and laugh at videos in homeroom, they sit quietly side-by-side and do their homework together in study hall. Virgil even tags along, sometimes, when Logan takes time out of his day to visit his uncles. His uncles always seem delighted whenever Virgil drops by, which Virgil guesses makes sense—Mr. Morales is just kind of Like That, and he’s been taking classes with Mr. Regnant since freshman year, and they’ve been sassing at each other for just about as long.

Logan makes those visits rare, though. He always seems a little self-conscious about how excited his uncles are during their visits, the way they elbow Logan and give him thumbs-ups and wiggle their eyebrows. Virgil doesn’t really get it—he thinks it’s nice that his uncles are so excited to see Logan with his friend.

But then his mom unexpectedly comes by and drops off his lunch and ruffles Virgil’s hair right in front of Logan, and Virgil spends the rest of the day going beet red even Logan assures him that it’s okay and he thinks it’s nice, something in his brain... clicks. A little bit. Even though it doesn’t make sense.

Does Logan...?

No, his brain tells him. There’s no way.

But Virgil keeps an eye out for the next week anyways.

On Monday, Logan’s uncles give him a ride to school and also drive him by the café, so Logan hands over a chai for Virgil. Virgil smiles and thanks him.

Have Logan’s ears always gone red whenever Virgil thanks him for bringing him tea?

On Tuesday, their fingers brush when Logan’s passing over a stack of notecards for Virgil to study for an upcoming exam during their study hall. Simultaneously, they look away from each other, redirecting their attention to their textbooks.

Have they always done that?

On Wednesday, Logan and Virgil swing by Mr. Morales’ classroom. After Virgil laughs at a somewhat sarcastic comment that Logan says, and redirects his attention to the sketch he’s been doing to turn in for approval for his end-of-semester art project, he peeks through his bangs to see Mr. Morales waving his hands eagerly, and Logan go red and gesture sharply for him to stop.

Has Mr. Morales always been so excited whenever he and Logan spend time in his classroom?

On Thursday, Logan seems chilled by the overenthusiastic air conditioning, so Virgil gives him a spare hoodie he had in his locker. Logan looks at him, looks away, and then proceeds to huddle in Virgil’s hoodie for the rest of the day, even after the school adjusts the temperature and it isn’t quite so cold.

By then, his brain saying no way! No way, you cannot afford to be wrong on this so you aren’t even going to try, there’s no way—

It’s after school on Thursday, and Virgil makes sure Logan has already gone home when he descends the stairs to Mr. Regnant’s art-and-music studio.

“Oh, Virgil, hey,” Mr. Regnant says, distracted, looking up from the sheet music he’s laying out across four desks. “Gimme a second, I’ve got the feedback for your sketch on my desk somewhere—”

Virgil looks to Mr. Regnant’s desk. He can’t even see the mug of pens on his desk that Virgil knows is there, it’s so buried in papers and models and paint palette piles. It’s like an avalanche waiting to happen.

“Uh, that’s not—you can give it to me tomorrow,” Virgil says awkwardly. “Um. That’s not why I’m here.”

Mr. Regnant blinks at him. “All right.”

“I,” he wipes his hands on his jeans and grimaces, not quite believing that he’s about to do this. “I need advice.���

Mr. Regnant pauses, before he manages to find an empty desk and sets down the sheet music. “Okay.”

“Before I say anything,” he says. “I need you to give me this advice as Mr. Regnant, faculty supervisor of the GSA club.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Regnant says. “Yeah, ‘course, Virgil. I’m always—”

“Mr. Regnant, faculty supervisor of the GSA club, is a separate person from Mr. Regnant, Logan’s Uncle Roman,” Virgil interrupts, twisting his fingers together anxiously. “Right?”

Mr. Regnant opens his mouth. Closes it. He gestures for Virgil to sit on one of the choir risers, settling there himself, but Virgil sits on the floor. This is a time in which floor-sitting is necessary.

“He could be,” Mr. Regnant says eventually.

“Well I need him to be,” Virgil snaps. “Okay?”

Mr. Regnant presses his lips together and nods.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice a little higher pitched. His lips twitch and he clears his throat. “Yeah! Yeah.”

“Oh my God, you’re about to laugh at me,” Virgil says, horrified. “I knew this was a terrible idea, forget it—”

“No!” Mr. Regnant says hastily. “No I’m not, no I’m not. I swear I’m not. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is not about to laugh.”

“Is Mr. Regnant Logan’s uncle about to laugh?!”

“I thought they were different people,” Mr. Regnant sasses back, seemingly on instinct, and Virgil buries his face in his hands and screams a little bit. Just a little bit.

“Shi—shoot, I mean shoot!” He says, and tugs lightly at Virgil’s arm. Virgil peeks at Mr. Regnant from between his fingers.

Mr. Regnant’s face is very serious. There is no more sign of lip-twitching, throat-clearing, or mirth in his eyes.

“Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is here and listening,” he says. “Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA does not have any relatives to speak of. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA does not have any twin brothers or nephews. What on earth even are those? Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA would have no idea. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA doesn’t even have parents, or a husband, that’s how absolutely relative-less he is. Okay?”

“Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is an asshole,” Virgil mutters.

“Faculty supervisor of the GSA is starting to not sound like words anymore,” Mr. Regnant says, “also, you are so lucky school is technically over, otherwise I would have totally given you a detention for language.”

“You’re such a hypocrite, you literally just almost swore.”

“Almost,” Mr. Regnant says, “is not the same as did. Now. What can I do for you, Virgil?”

Virgil takes a deep breath in.

“What do you do if you think the boy you have a crush on likes you back?”

Mr. Regnant’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, but otherwise, he doesn’t react.

“You could talk to him?”

“Okay, maybe I should be more specific,” Virgil says, “What do you do if you have an anxiety disorder, and you think the boy you have a crush on likes you back?”

“I know you’re not gonna like this,” Mr. Regnant says, “but my answer is still you could talk to him.” 

He holds up a hand before Virgil can protest. “I know it can be scary, I know it can be anxiety-inducing. I know that can be a deterrent for a perfectly neurotypical person, let alone someone who’s got a diagnosed anxiety disorder. But, I mean. Your only options, as I see them, are, A, tell him, or B, sit quietly and wait for him to maybe make the first move.”

“But how can I be sure?” He says.

“Well, why do you think he likes you back?” Mr. Regnant says reasonably.

So Virgil tells him. Virgil tells him all about it—thinking he was cute since they were kids, then suddenly becoming friends this year: the chai, the sketches, the music listening, the blushing and the awkward chats, and how they’re friends now but Virgil still really likes him in a romantic way.

“Does that sound like he likes me back?” he asks anxiously. 

Mr. Regnant bites his lip. “As the faculty supervisor of the GSA? I think it could definitely be likely.”

“Likely?” Virgil wails.

“Well, as the faculty supervisor of the GSA,” Mr. Regnant enunciates carefully, “I can’t be certain.”

“I can’t go and tell him based on if it’s just likely! I need to be sure he likes me back or else there’s a chance he says he doesn’t like me and then I’m going to have a heart attack and die!”

“Virgil! As the faculty supervisor of the GSA! I really think you should go for it!”

Mr. Regnant looks like he’s about to reach out and start shaking Virgil by the shoulders. His eyes are huge, the way he always looks at actors onstage who have forgotten their lines, like by just staring at them he’ll be able to psychically impart the script to them.

“Forget it,” Virgil groans and reaches for his backpack, swinging it over his shoulders and standing up. “I’m doomed to suffer in silence. Thanks, I guess, I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Please don’t tell anyone I told you all this.”

As Virgil is closing the classroom door behind him, he’s pretty sure he hears Mr. Regnant screeching.

Honestly, Virgil should be the one screeching. He can’t believe he just told him all that—who knows if Mr. Regnant will be able to keep the information of a crush concerning his nephew to himself?!

⁂

“Okay, here’s your mocha-with-extra-espresso, please don’t tell your Dads,” Uncle Patton says cheerfully, passing back a to-go cup to Logan. “And the chai! I think it’s very sweet that you keep getting this for him, kiddo.”

“Gestures are a good way to express affection,” Logan says anxiously, carefully setting the chai in a cupholder. “I’ve been trying to vary my approaches based off the five love languages. I’m not sure if it’s working.”

Uncle Roman in the passenger seat, his arm thrown over his eyes, makes a sound of great discontent, the way he’s been doing for the past week whenever Uncle Patton has tried to give him any advice concerning Virgil.

“Are you okay, Uncle Roman?” Logan asks again.

“Thinking about being the faculty supervisor to the GSA,” Uncle Roman moans, as if in pain.

“Is the club schedule about to be particularly busy?” Logan asks, frowning. “You typically enjoy your work with the GSA.”

“You could say that,” Uncle Roman says tightly, then groans again.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do personally, in order to relieve any undue stress,” Logan begins, but is cut off by Uncle Roman shrieking.

“Um,” Logan says, looking to Uncle Patton, who snorts, shaking his head.

“He just, um,” Uncle Patton says. “Well, I think something’s happened, except he told me he can’t tell me what it is without betraying someone’s trust, so.”

“I see,” Logan says, frowning, except for the part where he doesn’t see, really. But that happens fairly frequently with Papa and Dad. Honestly, it’s rather curious that Uncle Roman has not acted in a way that seems strange to outsiders. Dad does it all the time, and they’re twins.

Oh, well. He’s sure he’ll understand eventually.

“I’m fine,” Uncle Roman says, and he sniffs loudly. “I’m fine, it’s all—fine.”

Uncle Patton pats his hand sympathetically, before directing their car to school.

Logan sips his drink, before he says idly, “I think I’m going to tell him I’ve had a crush him today.”

Uncle Roman immediately spews coffee onto the windshield in an impressive spit-take. It is hilarious. Even though Uncle Roman is choking a little. 

Uncle Patton meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, his eyes bright with excitement. “Really?!”

“Really,” Logan confirms. “I mean, it’s been—it’s been a couple months. We are friendly enough. I do not think that Virgil will discard our friendship if I confess that I have had a crush on him since last year.”

“Well!” Uncle Patton says, so flustered that he accidentally turns on the windshield wipers when he means to signal a turn, and then when he tries to fix that he turns on his hazard lights, before he manages to get the car under control again. “Well, that’s great, kiddo! I’m so excited for you!”

“You are the smartest kid I know,” Uncle Roman says, turning in his seat to face Logan, his expression near-worshipful. “I love you.”

“Um. Thank you?”

“I know you don’t believe in psychics, but are you—?”

“Why are you bringing up psychics?” Logan says, perplexed. “I figured—well, I’ll tell him. And it is time that the Halloween festival will begin this weekend. That seems like a date that Virgil would enjoy.”

“Right,” Uncle Roman says. “Okay. Well—go for it! Please go for it!”

“I have already told you I will,” he says. 

“I think it’s gonna go great if you go for it!”

Strange. Uncle Roman is acting as if he has had too much caffeine. As far as Logan is aware, the beverage they have just stopped to get is his first coffee of the day, and he does not metabolize the effects of coffee that quickly.

“Right,” Logan says, adjusting his glasses and taking a sip of his coffee. Then, “Right.”

Then, “What if he says he doesn’t like me back?”

Uncle Roman throws his arm across his eyes and makes that same groaning sound again.

Uncle Patton absentmindedly reaches over and bracingly rubs Uncle Roman’s thigh, again meeting Logan’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Well, kiddo, if he says he doesn’t like you back,” he says, then frowns. “It’s understandable to be disappointed, or a little bit upset, but it’s important to accept his answer graciously and kindly. No means no. No is a full sentence. But Virgil seems like a very nice boy, I can’t imagine he’ll be very mean about it at all, and you two have gotten close over the past few months. It might be kind of awkward for a bit, but with a little work, your friendship will be able to survive it.”

“I suppose,” Logan says quietly, looking down at his lap.

“But,” Uncle Patton adds hastily, “I think the chances are really good for him saying yes to the date! We both do, don’t we, Roman?”

Uncle Roman lets out a very strangled “mm-hmm.”

Logan chews his lip, before he says timidly, “Can I borrow one of your phones to call my Dads?”

“Cupholder, just a bit in front of ya,” Patton says cheerfully. “You already know the password.”

Logan does. He swipes it in—his uncles’ wedding date—and presses on Papa’s contact number. Dad’s phone is lost more often than not, and almost always turns up in strange places, like inside the gateau he’d tried to make, or inside the neighbor’s rain gutters.

His father picks it up almost immediately.

“Patton, if this is about the adopt-a-thon, if I have told you once I have told you a thousand times—”

“Um, hi, Papa,” Logan says awkwardly; he does not want to get into the family squabble about sharing a pet between their households again. Eve is a sufficient pet, even if she’s not as cuddly as Uncle Patton might like.

His father’s voice transforms from chiding to concerned in a second. “Logan, is everything all right?”

“Yes, everyone is operating under adequate parameters,” Logan says. “Is Dad there?”

There’s the sound of something crashing in the background, as if on cue. Knowing Dad, it might have been.

“I’ll get him,” Papa says wearily.

He hears his Papa say Remus, our son is on the phone, please put down the—Uh, Jan, sexy-pie! I thought you were! On the way to work!—what the—REMUS, we’ve TALKED about this, how did you lay hands on a HERON—and then the conversation gets a good deal more muffled. He is pretty sure that Papa is shouting at Dad about capturing local wildlife again.

He waits patiently, before he hears the clatter of the phone being passed into someone’s hands, and Dad asks, “Did someone die?! Do you need help covering up a murder?!”

“Remus, please,” Papa groans, “the boy is too smart to implicate himself by opening the opportunity to be recorded over the phone lines.”

“That’s right, Logie-bear, the government is always watching,” Dad says solemnly. “Big brother, all hail. Also lean over and give my little brother a wet-willie for me, it’d be so funny—”

Logan, accustomed to conversations of this tone since birth, continues stolidly onward. “I’m going to tell Virgil I like him today.”

“Finally!” Dad hoots.

“That’s excellent, Logan,” Papa says placidly. “Please know that I am fully aware of the misogynistic roots of the what are your intentions discussion, and I’ve been doing research in order to make our version as feminist as possible. Also, your father has been warned to discuss minimal amounts of gore when he comes to our home.”

“What is the point of a shovel talk then!”

“We already agreed no shovel talk,” Papa says irritably. “When we threaten the boy, we’ll do it subtly.”

“Please don’t threaten him,” Logan says anxiously. “I don’t even know if he likes me back yet.”

“Of course he likes you back!” Dad says, outraged on his behalf. “Why the hell wouldn’t he like you back?!”

“How did you two know that you loved each other?” Logan asks. The question feels slightly childish, and he feels even more so when he curls up in his car seat, but he cannot deny the posture brings a certain level of comfort.

There’s a pregnant pause.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Papa says.

“I’m sixteen in a matter of weeks!”

Dad makes an absurd gagging noise, because he is ridiculously averse to the concept of Logan (and therefore, himself and Papa) aging. Logan thinks that it might have to do with a latent existential crisis, but he has not asked, because knowing Dad, he will spin it out into thirteen separate absurd reasons, and ten of them will make Logan cringe away, repulsed.

“Trust my judgment on this,” Papa says. “You do not want to know the origins of how our romance developed. However, when we actually had the discussion concerning feelings, your father—”

“I wrote him a beautiful letter in my best calligraphy,” Dad says proudly, then, “You probably don’t want to hear about the ink, do you?”

“Is it disgusting?” Logan asks warily.

“Quite, but,” then, in a voice that literally every other person wouldn’t realize is Papa’s version of profound sappiness, “that’s your father.” 

There is the sound of kissing. Logan resists the urge to make a gagging noise of his own, because somehow, he is the mature one in the entire family.

“As it is, just,” Papa says, then sighs. “I cannot believe I am about to give such... Pattonish advice. But. As it is, just be yourself. If this boy likes you back—”

“—as he should, and if he doesn’t he’s in desperate need of a lobotomy,” Dad mutters.

“—then he will like you for you, just the way you are,” Papa says, as if Dad had not said anything remotely worrying. “Tap into your strengths, Logan. You are intelligent, and observant, and thoughtful—”

“—and the best son there is—”

“Well, that goes without saying, clearly,” Papa says. “As long as your confession comes from you, then there is no way that it can go wrong. You are simply too excellent a person for it not to.”

“Even if it turns out he doesn’t like me?” Logan says timidly.

“If it does, then have your uncle forge an excuse note for you to get out of school early today and we’ll plot accordingly,” Papa says evasively. “But I do not think that outcome likely.”

Logan chews his lip. Papa is the best liar he knows, but—

But hearing his encouragement is too comforting to really analyze if he is lying.

“Thanks, Dads.”

“Knock him dead, kid!” Dad shouts. “And if he doesn’t then I will!”

“What did we just say about discussing potential evidence over the phone lines,” Papa scolds, and Logan hangs up, smiling.

Just be yourself.

Uncle Pattonish advice it may be, it has given him an idea.

⁂

Waiting over this past week to see if Mr. Regnant will crack and spill to Mr. Morales, or even worse, Logan himself, has been absolutely agonizing and Virgil’s kicking himself over going to Mr. Regnant for advice surrounding Logan at all.

That morning, though, Mr. Morales is at his desk, and a chai is waiting for Virgil at their usual spot, but Logan is nowhere to be seen. Virgil tries his hardest not to act too much like he’s keeping an eye out for Logan, but he is pretty sure he’s not succeeding, because Mr. Morales is smiling at him way too wide.

He actually seems really excited about something. Like, Mr. Morales usually gets excited when it’s fresh chocolate chip cookie day at lunch, but this is beyond the pale for fresh chocolate chip cookie day. Maybe the assembly they have today is something special? Except Virgil’s pretty sure it’s to pass out honors for the last quarter and talk about fall sports. That’s nothing particularly special.

Logan slides into his seat just before the bell rings, though, wrapping a rubber band around one of his notecard stacks. It’s a thin stack, it must be for something that’s just started; usually Logan compiles every unit of every class into thick stacks, able to be differentiated by the different colors of the notecards. These are just basic white ones.

He fiddles with it, darting looks to Virgil as Patton takes attendance, and, as they’re all filing out of the door, Logan holds out the stack of notecards.

“Here,” he blurts out.

Virgil blinks. “I don’t think we have a test soon?”

“They’re not for a test,” Logan says. “Just—take them. Read them during assembly. Please,” he adds belatedly.

“Uh,” Virgil says and takes them. “Okay?”

“Okay!” Logan says and nods. “Okay. Okay. Great! Um—please take your time to consider them carefully, and I await your response,” and then he practically runs off to fall into line near Mr. Regnant.

So that’s... weird.

But Virgil sticks the notecards into his hoodie pocket, anyways, ready to read them during assembly like Logan directed.

He waits until the principal is droning on about the importance of school spirit to take the notecards out of his pocket.

He spares a glance for Logan—who is several rows ahead, near the faculty, sitting next to Mr. Morales and Mr. Regnant, Mr. Morales occasionally reaching over to rub Logan’s shoulder bracingly—and then angles the notecards so that a teacher looking into the crowd wouldn’t really be able to see them.

He stares at the title on the top notecard. Blinks hard. Blinks again. Looks down at Logan’s back, then back to the notecard.

Reasons why I have a crush on Virgil.

He reaches over to pinch himself. Nope. Not dreaming, then.

And Logan really doesn’t seem like the type of person to make a joke like this.

He flips the cards and reads them slowly, savoring each and every word written in Logan’s blocky, neat script.

He is exceptionally witty.

He is knowledgeable about a great many things, such as music, art, spiders, novels, and mental health issues.

He is sarcastic.

He is thoughtful and deliberate in the formation of his opinions, even ones as small as the proper preparation of chai.

He is very handsome.

He is never rude without reason, and when he is rude, it is usually because the other person is “an asshole” and should be receiving backlash.

He is a remarkably talented artist.

Virgil keeps reading on, he is, he is, he is...

When he gets to the end—I would like to take you on a date. I would also like to be boyfriends, though I understand if you would like to table that conversation until we have established a rapport. Please let me know if you would be amenable to that suggestion.—he feels kind of dizzy. His throat is tight, his heart is pounding, and his hands are so sweaty he’s had to wipe them off on his jeans twice already.

Is it really possible that someone as wonderful as Logan would think of him so highly? 

It’s like he’s describing someone entirely different—awkward, anxious Virgil couldn’t possibly be the snarky, witty, caring, deep-thinking guy that Logan’s writing about. There’s just no way. But, Virgil thinks, heart twisting, but Logan doesn’t lie about things like this. Is this the way Logan sees him?

Is it really possible that someone as wonderful as Logan would have a crush on him at all?

He likes Virgil. He wants to take Virgil on a date. He wants Virgil to be his boyfriend.

There’s the rumbling of everyone standing up from the bleachers, and Virgil jumps—has it really been the entire assembly?—and hastily gets to his feet, so he won’t get swept up in the crowd of students returning to their classrooms.

As he’s heading for the door, Logan practically materializes in front of him, hugging his books tightly to his chest.

“Did you read them?” He asks fretfully. Now that Virgil’s close to him, face-to-face, he isn’t sure if he’s ever seen Logan so nervous. He isn’t sure if he’s seen Logan nervous at all. Logan’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, drumming his fingers on his books, holding the books like they’re a teddy bear.

“Do you,” Virgil says, his voice cracks, and he clears his throat. “You really like me?”

“Since last year,” Logan admits.

“I’ve liked you since kindergarten,” Virgil blurts out.

Logan blinks at him, jaw dropping. Then he says, “Really?!”

“Really,” Virgil promises. “My mom has this journal entry saved where I kept writing about how I was going to be Mr. Virgil Sanders, oh my God, she’s going to be so embarrassing about this—”

Logan snorts, ducking his head. “You’ve withstood my uncles handily.”

“Your uncles are cool, though,” Virgil says, confused.

“My uncles are embarrassing,” Logan says, “and my Dads are going to be so weird, I’m very sorry in advance, but—but if you can handle all of that, then I’d—I’d really like to take you out to the Halloween festival. I’d really really like that.”

Virgil’s smiling so wide that it hurts his face. “I’d really really like that too.”

And then the bell rings, and the pair of them jump at the sudden loud noise.

“I—we have to go to class,” Logan says, sounding very put out.

“Yeah,” Virgil says, then, “I’ll see you at lunch?”

Logan beams at him. “Lunch sounds wonderful.”

Virgil hesitates, before he reaches out and places a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He leans in and presses his lips to Logan’s cheek.

Logan’s bright red when he pulls away.

“Lunch?” Virgil confirms.

“Lunch,” Logan squeaks out, his voice cracking.

They emerge from under the bleachers, and have to split ways. Even when Mr. Regnant pulls him out into the hall under the guise of talking about his project and starts whisper-shouting about “do you know how HARD IT WAS to keep QUIET when i KNEW all along that you both LIKED each other bacK,” even when Mr. Morales ducks his head into his math class to pass over papers and gives Virgil some super-obvious thumbs up, even after he texts his Mom and his mom sends him screenfuls of exclamation points and immediately asks him to invite Logan over so that she can show Logan all of Virgil’s baby pictures—

Virgil cannot stop smiling.

#my post #text #my fic #analogical #analogicalweek #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #logan sanders

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

the wolf should’ve been afraid of me.

Titans 3.04

just under the wire! ... i hope.

like with the previous review, i’m typing this up as i see the episode. here we go!

spoilers ahead.

1. ... well. that was an interesting cold open.

1.25. i don’t know whether to admire this show’s restraint when it comes to gotham and its excesses, particularly arkham asylum. it’d be easy to go hammer and tongs, like suicide squad (2016) did, or any number of bat media did, at a tropey, colourful~~insanity~~ that can be quite damaging, casting mental illness in strangeness and criminality. it definitely shows gotham as... separate from the rest of the country, its own ecosystem of heroes and villains, a sort of rogue state. 

but that ecosystem is still human, with its heroes needing to clip parts of themselves away just to survive, growing old and needing to be recycled, its villains languishing in the same kinds of systems that fail everybody else who needs to be helped. it’s a quieter, tenser sort of wrongness: not strange enough that you can dissociate, but not close enough that you can completely empathise. gotham is its own creature.

1.5. i know that the reasoning behind this is more doylist than anything, but i’m so glad that joker was killed off with little fanfare right at the start of the season. he is the one man in the batverse that’s transcended its confines as this sort of ethereal boogeyman/eternal edgelord and to justify his presence in the series would mean giving him this tired, overblown importance and too much of a stab at colourful, tropey “madness” in this otherwise-subdued series. i wish all batmedia would follow suit and get rid of this fucker.

1.75. so jason is bucking scarecrow’s control! or reminding him of who exactly holds all the cards right now. circling back to what i talked about in the last review, it’s remarkable just how little time it’s been since jason’s “death” and he’s already got ‘minions’ and elaborately set up plans to track, break and kill the titans. just how long has he been planning this? when did he first look at WE weapons prototypes and think that’s something i can use to blow somebody up? and the most unsettling question: did he plan his own death at the hands of the joker just so that he could break batman?

at this point it’s obvious that the scarecrow at least started jason down this path, but it’s frightening just how far he’s travelled already.

1.8. aaagh, less than one minute in! i’ll shut up. 

2. conner washing his hands at the sink reminds me that he was directly in the line of explosion when hank got blown up and he’s probably got atomised hank-bits all over his skin that he’s desperately trying to wash off.

... you’re welcome.

2.25. conner, don’t you speak to gar fucking logan like that, sir, no!

2.3. if anything it’s the lex part of him that gave him the knowhow to recognise the weapon and build a de-activator for it. 

anyway, for that ‘half-breed’ and ‘talking tiger’ comment?

(i wish, tho, that we actually see conner more interested in the superman part of his legacy, like maybe listening to stories from gar, or even better, dick, so we get a better idea of the pressure he’s feeling to live up to that part of him and not the part that’s lex.)

((i talked about conner’s stages of moral development in his introductory episode last season, but i wonder if the next stage of his self-actualisation would be to further integrate the parts of himself and realise that they are only parts and he, conner, is an entirely different person unto himself that can make decisions on how to use what he has and what he knows. his superman abilities can be used to destroy. his lex knowledge can be used to save.))

3. oh dawn :((

3.25. is this the last we see of dawn and hank? i mean, we know donna is coming back; would it be a stretch to think they’ll try to have a go at resurrecting hank as well?

3.5. “deathstroke didn’t make us into killers.” good, because deathstroke didn’t make jason a killer either. there’s a missing step there you need to be looking for, dick. 

3.75. dick did try to break the cycle, step away from gotham, run from the possibility that he could turn into batman. it didn’t help; he couldn’t fully withdraw from his vigilante persona the same time he loathed it, and batman literally haunted him both asleep and awake. but maybe gotham doesn’t have to turn anybody into anything. maybe gotham has nothing to do with it at all. it’s about taking responsibility, realising some sacrifices are pure bullshit, and building an actual family instead of merely a team.

anyway: hugs!

(oh, also? mr “i hate flying”? i mean, there’s perfectly valid reasons to hate flying that’s not related to childhood trauma, but then again, this guy was literally a ‘flying grayson’ once. also also, remember that he also gets sea-sick. must’ve a lot of fun stories to tell.)

4. ooh that gar/kory confrontation was brief but cool!

listen, i have never seen a psychiatrist with that extravagant an office and SIR I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW--

4.5. kory’s so unused to reaching out for help and it’s breaking my heart that HPG likely is some kind of impostor that’s maybe causing her symptoms in the first place. 

kory and dick have mostly been apart this season but it’s remarkable how their journeys have paralleled each other; kory processes her grief, isolation and existential dread into a determination to take care of this new family she has, no matter what it takes; dick does much the same, forging ahead with plans and solutions until he has no fuel left in him and spirals into a massive breakdown.

4.25. listen titans this really is a TERRIBLE continuity error. we aren’t goldfish; we can clearly remember that two minutes ago it was gar’s upper arm that was burned, not his forearm. COME ON.

“sensory deprivation tank” *SNORT*

anyway, gar is the BEST

4.5. i wonder where these visions of experimentation took place. was it on tamaran, or on earth, after she came to hunt down rachel/trigon and before she lost all her memories? is HPG a part of the scientist group that experimented on her? ... god, i hope not. i mean, i think he is, but it would be cool to have some positive therapist representation in media. 

5. you’d think the van transporting a dangerous supervillain that only batman could catch would be more secure but... i’m also not entirely surprised. 

5.15. i love dick gives ZERO shits about hiding himself or even ensuring scarecrow is adequately contained. just turns away after kidnapping him in BROAD DAYLIGHT and says ‘let’s go’. I LOVE THIS DUMBASS

6. lmao gar is having a really really shitty day SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN A BREAK or just a goddamn story arc of his own

6.5. i’m really confused about the timeline here. so... sometime ago, kory came down to earth to hunt down trigon, yeah? at some further point down the line she and her sister were kidnapped and experimented on. THEN she somehow escapes but... loses her memory? a few months pass and then we see blackfire alive and well and free; she kills faddei, can impersonate other people, and is clearly seeking out kory. but now she’s still in the experiment facility...? what’s going on?

i’m not entirely surprised about the facility being mostly deserted. either the biggest investors in this project gave up on it and it was left to the most fanatic to carry on, or they were deliberately trying to lure kory and get her to free blackfire--expand the environs of the experiment, so to speak.

7. hopefully barbara is going to get something to do other than listen to various men give her Attitude

8. how do you terrorise a terrorist? well:

i love when dick is a scary-competent motherfucker.

8.25. ooooh, the attack on crane at arkham a ploy to get crane to blackgate? nice one dick, i didn’t even think of that. but why though? to protect crane from the titans? to intercept the van to blackgate and “rescue” him? seems likely--red hood was there, except dick got to crane quicker.

9. still reeeallly unclear about the komand’r situation. was komand’r captured after s2? is this all A TRAP?? if so, why are you stepping into the only thing that can contain you, kory????

9.25. so... definite parallels between dick/jason and kory/kom here. i’m just. i’m still. really confused. i’ll shut up now.

10. this may be my favourite dick look yet:

woodsman!dick in a beanie.

10.5. i unironically love how titans has made this bizarrely-devoted-to-his-moniker, toxin-spewing supervillain into a tamer version of hannibal, psychoanalysing his victims into submission. it’s of a piece with how inward looking titans is, the way all of its villains are obsessed with how our protagonists’ minds work, to the point where they would actually spend time inside of them. 

there are no big plots to end the world. no apocalypses or endgames here. these villains collect the titans’ insecurities like infinity stones. the way the titans defeat them is by achieving character growth--literally winning by the power of love. literally “the real superpower is the friends we made along the way”!

10.7. anyway, i’m betting dick is used to this bullshit from crane and is humouring him in the service of getting more information. the story about the wolf? an implicit threat, not to mention dick getting to control what crane knows about him and what methods he would use to manipulate him.

am i giving dick too much credit here? i don’t think so. he’s really impressed me so far this season.

10.75. like. there’s a real unreliable narrator vibe coming off with every person that talks about bruce (much like how the various members of the titans talked about jason’s motivations) and to buy into crane’s talk about bruce being a psychopath is to fall for the same manipulation that jason fell for. dick is the only person who hasn’t really psychoanalysed bruce this season, and i think some part of his detective brain is piecing things together into a bigger picture.

11. i’m glad kory rescued kom but did she have to kill the scientist?

(i mean, yeah, probably - the less people know that kom escaped the less likely they’re going to have the fucking govt on their doorstep, but still.)

11.5. dick’s gonna come back to wayne manor, stare straight at komand’r and go, well which room would you like? because the team might as well adopt ANOTHER person, yeah?

12. oh MAN that red hood/nightwing fight was AMAZING! and he did the thing! the boomerang escrima thing! i’m so delighted!

12.5. the anger and disbelief in dick’s voice when he says you told crane EVERYTHING?! tells me that he knew exactly what he was telling crane himself.

12.75. “everything you are is because of him” - oh that reminds me of halluci!bruce from last season. i hope we see halluci!bruce again--he is so vicious but so entertaining... so much more effective at tearing dick down than crane or jason combined. goes to show that dick’s biggest enemy is own fucking head.

12.8. oh no! dick’s shot! crane is in the wind with red hood! blackfire is now with the titans! i love it!

honestly this season’s pacing is such a big step up from the last couple. gold star, show.

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #dick grayson #koriand'r #garfield logan #komand'r #conner kent #dawn granger #jason todd #jonathan crane #a byronic cupcake #badass strawberry truffle #manic pixie pop tart #a tragic jalebi

[fanartfunart]

@sapony01​ commented on one of my Sides Swap posts: Can you explain their function and personality a bit better/explore them? Some are kinda obvious but some kinda confuse me

And, but of course! I’m totally open to it! (I’m mostly making another post for it because otherwise it’ll get absurdly long)

To summarize, the main idea is that they keep their personality and secondary traits they represent (Like Ego, Emotionality, ect), while further representing the Main Trait (like Anxiety, Creativity, ect)

The rest under the cut:

Anxiety

Roman: His key representation of Anxiety would befall closer to overemphasizing bravery and ignoring problems, and of course, insecurities. Thus a focus on Dangers you can Fight, and avoiding things you can’t. A emphasis on the Knight theme as a representation of bravery. He’d use ego and theatricality as a cover- a ‘be weird before people can accuse you of being weird because then it’s on purpose’ type logic.

Patton: The type of Anxiety where you emotionally over extending yourself because you’re scared of social-emotional repercussions. Caring so much that there’s no time and energy to care for yourself. Also a good representation of the Dad-Friend override for Anxiety.

Logan: A representation of over-analyzing the world like an outsider, that emotional distance that, while you’re curious of all the things around you, you can’t help but focus on the bad. Avoidance becomes a key factor and everything is categorized as bad or good off of exaggerated ‘proof’.

Janus: Very self protective to the point that things outside the Comfort Zone are almost always negative and overwhelming. Sarcasm, brittleness, and lying as a way to avoid things outside the Comfort Zone.

Remus: Overthinking creating an Anxious reaction. Basically seeing things in the shadows and over-analyzing interactions. Essentially worries cropping up out of the idea of various terrible things you can think of possibly coming at you from the smallest of hints to it. Also Knight theme because why not.

Creativity 

Logan: A more organized and analytic approach to creative works. Prone to being a literary critic. Draws from media to explain a point. As creativity would likely be the type of writer that hides details and metaphors in everything, focus on foreshadowing and the such.

Janus: Never lets anything be direct, people should be able to make their own conclusions about the meaning of the text. Probably thinks method acting is fun. The kind of actor/writer that easily shrugs on different types of characterizations that it makes other people dizzy seeing him switch between them.

Virgil: Your inner Emo Art Phase personified (everyone has at least one somewhere in there). Would prefer to be either a lesser known creator, or not let Thomas use his real name (thus Ghostwriter), because being Known is Awkward and his work can get too real, being known as a real person could detract from the art. Focus on art as an outlet for expressing negative feelings and stress relief.

Patton: Take your craft-happy relative who always hand-makes gifts and you’ve got Creativity Patton. Just wants to have fun and share the fun. Draws from positive emotional experiences for creativity because he wants to give everyone who sees said art a hug through said art. (Yes, his design is vaugely based off of Disney’s Pinocchio Geppetto aka Pinocchio’s dad.)

Remus: Take Remus as he is, and then take the ‘intrusiveness’ out of him. He basically has all the same horrifying ideas, but he doesn’t use them to make Thomas upset or anything, he’s just making stories.

Logic

Patton: Sorta a relaxed logic, understands not everything can be solved with a clean logical solution and that emotions hold a important space in people’s actions. Is that little logical voice when you’re super mad going ‘you’re mad because this, this, and this, and this is probably an overreaction to what you’re expressing your anger to, but it’s still valid.’ Prone to emotional fallacies though.

Virgil: You know any super cool teacher/professor who teaches you what the book says and then closes the book and says ‘ok now guess what, they’re also wrong, and I’m probably wrong too’?? Virgil as logic. (also why I kinda gave him the ‘tired + university hoodie’ style) Emphasizes learning from various sources and never trusting any of them 100%. Doesn’t trust his own information either, and it makes him stressed.... but like, he’s always stressed anyway so it’s chill. 

Roman: Bounces from topic to topic to learn. Very curious and easily inspired- also easily distracted. The definition of what a liberal arts education should be doing- aka, connecting seemingly unrelated topics. An Encyclopedia of very specific information. But, once he’s got a set of information it’s hard to let go of it, which makes it hard to adjust to being told he’s wrong.

Janus: Emphasis on how information is always being adjusted, and people’s biases are always present in studies and interpretation. Focuses on debunking things. Also kinda makes it hard to 100% be sure of any information presented.

Remus: Enjoys abusing the ‘technicalities’ in things. A little hard to follow in terms of train of thought. Disturbing Facts are still facts.

Morality

Virgil: Emphasis on sympathy and ‘do what you’d hope people would do for you’ moral arguments. Focus on social structure for the ground rules for moral behavior. That guy who’s constantly nice because he wished someone was nice to him, ya know? Hates the idea of being a bad person so much that it causes a lot of guilt and mistrust of the self.

Logan: Thinks of moral behavior as an equation of sorts. People do good things and that causes good things and that allows the social structure to work as it should, so do good things. Draws on philosophy and other social sciences to argue his points. Easy to readjust his thinking with proper reasoning.

Roman: Just wants people to be happy! And to be good! Emphasis on the reactions of others and how that effects your social/emotional well-being. Do good because it feels good kinda guy (he wants to be somebody’s Hero, ya know how it be).

Janus: Understands that morality is such a grey place that most anything can be seen as bad if you argue it enough. Places value on the self as someone deserving of feeling good as well, and bases moral values on what you as an individual wants to do. Also still kinda morally grey in general and probably shouldn’t always be listened to.

Remus: I Follow no Rules but My Own. Full rejection of social pressures. What precisely that means for his resulting moral standing is up to debate.

Deceit

Logan: Woorsst lair because he’ll twist truth and facts into it and it’s hard to pick out what’s the lie. Very blunt about his role as deception and its benefits and drawbacks. Very good about remembering which lies were told when and to who. Not the kind to lie more than seen necessary.

Roman: Focus on lying as acting and getting to where you need to go in life. ‘Fake it til you make it’ is his motto and it also includes mental states. Makes it hard to be honest about feelings. Very much a ‘lying to yourself’ aspect.

Virgil: Lying to avoid perceived negative repercussions. Lying still bothers him- as lying can also cause negative reactions. Focus on lying in reaction to events, less so on lying to the self. Not every lie is especially necessary though, knee-jerk reactions and fear make it very easy to lie. Lies of omission being the most utilized.

Remus: The opposite to Roman’s ‘lying to yourself’. Lying to others just to see their reactions. Uses being ‘blatantly honest’ about taboo subjects to seem honest about other things.

Patton: Lying to spare people’s feelings and being perceived well. Focus on lying or omitting the truth to seem like everything’s awesome.

Intrusive Thots

Patton: Makes emotional reactions overwhelmingly hard to gauge and control, results in terrifying thoughts and feelings with little control or filter. Gets stuck on ideas because of how hard he’s trying to push it away (yea know, like the white bear experiment).

Virgil: Thinks in problem solving, but the problems are of course, the thoughts of his own creation. Incessant about ‘solving’ the perceived problem.... not much else changes.

Logan: The Mad Scientist aesthetic is fun, what can I say? Takes facts and focuses on the scary parts, and then brings them back up on the slightest hint of relevance, and sometimes just Because. Some of it is curiosity taken into a frightening territory and gets overwhelming.

Janus: Emphasis on what happens if terrible things happened. Also likes using the ‘you’re gonna go to hell anyway just dive in with me’ argument. Occasionally pops up in a way that sounds almost nice, then turns horrifying very quickly.

Roman: Take Roman, make his ideas more Remus. He’s already Loud and Proud, just make him scarier, and a little more incessant and probably a little more arrogant for good measure.

#sides!swap #jobflop au #roman sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #intrusive thot #deceit!sides #intrusive!sides #creativity!sides #anxiety!sides #morality!sides #logic!sides #snake tw #sword tw #I forget most of the tags for these #chat a lat #reply #famart

[the-girl-with-the-glass-heart]

I wanna make Logan autistic in my high school au and I figure I should share my notes about it in case there’s anything I need to be corrected on

I want to make Logan autistic because as a neurodivergent person myself I figuired it would be good to add more neurodivergent representation in my Au.

I have done a fair amount of research such as reading blog posts about writing autistic characters from actual people on this sight with autism, fact checking various misconceptions or questions I have about autism, reading published news articles about writing autism from people with autism (completely avoiding anything autism speaks has ever said) and basing it a little off of personal experience because while I don’t have autism, I have ADHD and they tend to have an overlap of symptoms.

So please, if you are autistic please read and correct any information that you feel is incorrect or could be improved anyway, I really want to portray this right!

FYI I also tried to mention a bit how this affects his personal relationships since this is a big part of his identity.

-He was diagnosed when he was 12 years old and entering middle school.

-He stims by pacing, sorting things by color, hand flapping, fidget cubes and chewing pens.

-His special interests include: Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, psychology and even though he’s some what embarrassed to admit it, Crofters (he collects the jars after he’s done eating the jam and keeps them all nicely arranged on his desk for decoration, he knows a lot about how the company was founded and the personal lives of its founders)

-He has poor motor skills so he doesn’t partake in physical activity much, he can understand how sports are played but when it comes to actually playing the game he just can’t get the hand eye co ordination right, so he decides to sit on the benches instead.

-He’s sensitive to a lot of certain noises like balloons popping, books slamming on a table, really loud clapping, ect. so patton bought him a really fancy pair of indigo noise cancelling head phones for his birthday.

-For a while he was insecure about his stimming so he would sit on his hands to prevent it, Virgil actually encouraged him to be more open about it since he knows the importance of stimming.

-He doesn’t understand quite a few jokes and has trouble expressing himself partly due to a fear of being too childish and needy since he knows how often autistic people aren’t treated seriously because of their autism and are seen more as permanent children, he also can’t really express himself in the same way as others because of his autism, he often says something and it completely comes across the wrong way.

-He’s a picky eater hence why he eats crofters on toast so often since it’s one of the few foods he likes the taste and texture of.

-when he was first diagnosed he was very scared to tell his friends and honestly started to feel insecure about his intelligence, their town is very small so the autistic community was practically non existent so Logan didn’t have many resources to learn about his autism, his parents had to sit him down and talk to him about it in order for him to understand what autism fully was.

-Patton and Remus absolutely adore every time Logan infodumps about his special interests since Remus loves when people rant about weird stuff and Patton just loves how happy Logan gets when talking about it.

-Logan attends physical therapy every two weeks and has a friendly relationship with his therapist, he also sees a regular therapist every two weeks since his moms wanna make sure their little boy is doing okay all the time since they know he’s kind of a stoic over achiever.

-he often gets crushes on guys who share the same interests as him or just any guy who lets him infodump on them with out any shame *cough* Patton and Remus *cough*

-his friends always try to comfort him during meltdowns by staying calm and patient, with the expecting of Virgil of course who will panic and feel the need to leave which everyone understands, even Logan told him at one point that he doesn’t have to stick around if he thinks the situation is too stressful.

I considered making science, reading or math one of his special interest but since most resources I got for writing a character with autism told me to avoid that since it’s mostly a stereotype associated with autistic people being genius’s so instead, While Logan is smart and loves science it’s not one of his special interests, the best way I can describe it is I have ADHD so I have hyper fixations (examples: monster high, Cinderella and sander sides) and I also love art and do it all the time but that’s more of a general hobby than a hyperfixation for me.

So yeah... tell me if I should add or take away anything, don’t be shy, your feedback is definitely appreciated!

#Logan sanders #logan sander sides #sander sides au #sander sides Logan #Thomas sanders #sander sides #sanderssides #sandersides #sanders sides

[babylooneytoonz]

Blood Trails [ Pt. 7 ]

Chapter Summary: Time skip to two weeks later, when Tony Stark comes up with a fool proof plan on how the Avengers will protect Johanna. Although Bucky doesn't agree, he still decides to go ahead with this. Is this a coincidence or is Bucky having other hidden interior motives? Who knows?

Warnings: Cute fluff, daddy daughter moments

Word Count: 2900+

Masterlist

You had been living at the Avengers Towers for two weeks now, two mostly uneventful weeks; where you had been interrogated almost three four times again, and then on the fourth day, for some reason, you didn’t know why, they had decided to take you off the cuffs when they saw that you were pretty much behaving yourself and not giving them a hard time. The truth was, you were sort of liking living here. It was much better than the crap and the torture that Vasili gave you and this felt refreshing. In fact, Bucky even let Sasha come see you, and for some reason, the little girl pushed the monster in you into hiding, bringing out the real hidden you that had been laying dormant for ages.

“You do realize that we are actually hiding a fugitive in here, don’t you?” Tony crossed his arms dismissively over his chest. He had always liked you , you were one of his favorites, and this was the only single reason he had not blurted out to anyone that the Avengers were actually hiding a HYDRA assassin and protecting her from law.

“What do you want me to do? Throw her out? Hand her over to the CIA? They will rip her apart. Besides, she seems to be doing better.” Bucky’s eyes turned towards you, as he noted you making weird googley eyes at Sasha, who was standing outside the glass room where you were locked in, but the two of you looked merry, even with the glass separating the two of you.

“Oh, would you look at that Barnes? The mother of your child and your child are just getting along so perfectly. Who can say that she doesn’t remember a thing?” He dramatically pretended to wipe a tear, and then smiled, this time a genuine, carefree one, directed towards you as he cleared his throat and turned towards Bucky. “I think she isn’t as bad as how you used to be initially.” Bucky just rolled his eyes at Tony’s words, but his eyes were fixed on you as he studied you. He could see that you were kneeling down, your palm was pressed to the glass, and Sasha had, for some reason, her lips pressed to the glass where your hand was. Bucky couldn’t help but smile at what he was looking at, before Tony’s phone started ringing, and he walked off, speaking on the phone.

Bucky made his way to the coffee vending machine, and he poured you a mug of coffee. With equally slow steps, he walked up to where his daughter was, and when Sasha saw him towering over her, she turned around and smiled, Bucky looking down at her as he said, “You wanna come inside with me? We can give her a coffee. She looks miserable without it, don’t you think?” He threw out his hand towards her, and could notice that you were noticing the small interaction between the father and daughter from behind the glass, a hint of a smile playing against your lips.

Sasha took her father’s hand excitedly, and there was a glimmer of excitement in her eyes. She was finally going to meet you, without having the wall of glass separate the two of you. As Bucky and Sasha reached the door, he slowly lowered himself so he was in a squatting position in front of her, and face level with her face, “Sash, I know you’re my big girl.. and Daddy can tell you anything.. right? And daddy also knows that you will understand.”

“Yes daddy, you can talk to me,” the little girl smiled, her blue eyes radiating with warmth as she ran her fingers through her loose strands that had managed to fall out of her fishtail braid.

“Well, ah – “ Bucky squinted his eyes slightly, “she, uh doesn’t really remember anything. The bad place we got her from, they did some things to her, that made her forget..”

“Is that why she doesn’t remember who I am?” She asked, her eyes widening, with a glimmer of sadness in them, and Bucky nodded.

“Yeah, which is why.. can you try not to call her mom, baby? She might just get scared, you know?”

“I will try, daddy. I don’t want to scare her away, now that I’ve found her.”

“You do know that you’re my best girl right?” Bucky smiled, and the little girl fixed her forehead with Bucky’s, chuckling in her sweet, childlike voice. “Yeah, I am your best girl.” Bucky chuckled genuinely, and he stood up, taking her hand again, her tiny fingers clasping naturally against his hard metal ones, as the glass door swiped open automatically, and you turned towards the two of them, still kneeling by the glass.

“Well, hi. Is that for me?” You pushed yourself up to your feet, awkwardly shuffling the weight of your body from one foot to another. You were dressed in a loose fitting tunic that reached your knees, and you didn’t care that everyone in here could see the various marks and dried up cuts that covered your legs.

“I thought you could, uh, use some caffeine.”

“I really do, appreciate it.” You smiled, taking the mug from his hand and bringing it to your lips, as you blew twice on it and took a sip, letting the froth give you a fake moustache, to which Sasha just started giggling.

“What? What’s so amusing, скучать?” You looked down at her, amused, and then back up at Bucky Barnes, noticing how he was also trying to muffle a smile from breaking out against his lips. That’s when you realized that you probably had froth all over your face. Embarrassed, you pursed your lips together, your cheeks flushing red suddenly, as you turned away and quickly swiped your sleeve over your lips, trying to ignore the little child’s very obvious giggling.

“Well, I think we should leave – “ Bucky began speaking; but Friday’s voice ringing through the cell suddenly made him clasp his mouth shut, as the two of you started looking at each other; your frown only widening.

“Sergeant Barnes, Mr. Stark wants to see you and the rest of the team in the meeting room. They’re all already there and waiting for you now.”

“Thank you Friday, I’ll just – “

“Also, Mr. Stark wants you to bring Miss Johanna to the meeting room.”

You raised your eyebrow questioningly towards Bucky and he just shrugged, running his hand through the back of his head.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Your stomach felt like it was knotting up, and you began nibbling on the insides of your cheeks to make your nervousness go away. It wasn’t nervousness per say, but you really didn’t understand why you had been called suddenly, when all you had done the past two weeks was be nice. You hadn’t tried to escape, you had listened to what was asked of you and yet, today you had been called into the meeting room. Your first thought was whether they were planning to send you back..to Vasili Dreznov. You dreaded it, but at the same time, you mentally scolded yourself for being so paranoid. Sending you to Dreznov will be the last thing to cross their mind.

Bucky cleared his throat, and you were pulled out of your thoughts, your head sharply turning towards him. He raised his palm slightly, asking you to step into the meeting room before him. You nodded, and stepped in, your footsteps loud enough to alert the other occupants of the room enough to turn and give you a glance.

“Well, Y/N.. I mean to say Johanna, why don’t you take a seat?” Tony pointed towards a leather chair that was a few steps away from where you were standing. You turned to give Bucky a quick glance and he blinked, as though telling you that it was okay to do it. Biting your lip, you lowered yourself into that chair, placing both your elbows on the table as Tony cleared his throat again, “Well, I’m not going to beat around the bush, but we’ve got a problem. I just received an anonymous intel.. something is going to happen. Something bad, something dangerous, something that will change everything.”

“Well, you are sort of beating around the bush here. What’s the crack?” Clint walked up to the empty chair next to you, pulling it casually and plomping down on it like this was the most normal Avengers meeting and you were a normal part of it, which was hilarious. Nothing about this meet made you feel like you were a villain that had actually been caught by these people.

“Way to ruin my mood, Barton. Well anyway, there is something weirdly fishy going on here.” He clapped dramatically, and the holographic screen started displaying a video footage. The footage playing was of a colony. Everything looked normal; women and children walked about the streets, cars passed by, and everything looked like a normal upper middle class colony. “Now I know you all must be thinking what’s so fishy about this little colony in New Jersey. This is what’s fishy! Nothing really looks fishy?”

“You’re really not making any sense,” A female voice called out from behind you, and you just turned around, to see a woman with a slender frame, and long dark hair step in, her eyes darting around the room and fixing on you for a bit before fixing on Tony. You knew her as Wanda Maximoff, and you knew her from your third day of captivity in here when she had come to see you, immediately returning from her mission.

“Thank you for your input, Miss Maximoff,” Tony mumbled, faking an accent and then turned back to the holographic scene. “Jokes apart, something is going on in that colony, and that’s what the intel said, and that is what we must find out, what exactly are they hiding?”

“This is still vague, Stark.” Bucky raised an eyebrow.

“Well, Barnes, this is all I know. It could be anything, someone in that colony might be making a freaking bomb that may destroy all of America for all I know, but I don’t.” Tony continued, glaring at Bucky before he abruptly turned and bent over the keypad, his fingers typing something against the keys and an animated 3D representation of the colony sprang up in the middle of the room. “Well, I’ve done you all the favour of narrowing down your search for you. Well, technically my systems have. And these are the only suspects that have been narrowed down.” Two houses out of the entire lot were suddenly highlighted as the color of their rooftop started turning red. Tony explained in a detail that the mission involved going to live in that colony in New Jersey undercover, and trying to find out what exactly was going on there, and it meant, that the interaction had to be formed with the occupants of these two houses because these were the most suspicious ones, and one of them was definitely hiding a secret.

You kept sitting there awkwardly, listening in, trying to process the information that was so openly being discussed between you, which you had no idea why. Little did you know that Bucky and the rest of the team also had the same apprehension and thoughts as you, in fact everyone except Tony seemed to think this. Finally, you gave up when you could listen no more and slowly stood up, your sudden movement causing a sudden hush to fall over the room.

“I’m sorry, I think there’s been a mistake here. I don’t understand why I have been asked to be here. I’m not one of you,” you frowned, looking at Tony.

Tony smiled, and the next moment, he had turned round the desk, and was already walking towards you, while you looked on in confusion. He finally stopped walking and fixed himself just next to you, and cleared his throat. “On behalf of the rest of the team, I don’t think they’re gonna mind, I would like to make you an offer. You’ve been here two weeks now, and I was wondering if you ever considered joining us.”

Bucky’s eyes almost widened, when he heard what Tony had just said to you; so much so that he pushed himself closer to Sam, and mumbled into his ear, “What the hell is going on? You knew about this?”

“No freaking way, Barnes,” Sam whispered back, just as startled as Bucky was.

“Woah, hold on a minute. You’re offering me a position here? Knowing well who I am and who I worked for.”

“Well you said it yourself. Worked. In past tense.” Tony mumbled, scratching his jaw when Bucky grabbed his arm forcefully and literally pulled him aside so he could talk to him, alone, “Okay, what the fuck are you trying to do?”

“Hey, you’ll thank me later, metal man,” Tony yanked his arm away, and walked off, letting Bucky just glare at him, like nothing had even happened.

“So Johanna, you in?”

You couldn’t hide the budding frown on your forehead, as you suspiciously eyed him, trying to psychoanalyze him, try to figure out if he was just mocking you, but Tony Stark looked at you with what looked like an utmost sincerity, that confused you even more, “What’s the catch if I say yes?”

“If you say yes, you’re protected, you’re not a fugitive anymore you’re free from HYDRA, atleast to an extent that you don’t have to work for them anymore, and if you say no.. you’re a traitor to this country and you know the rest.”

“So basically –“ your arms crossed over your chest as you took a deep breath, “ трахни мою жизнь but I don’t have another option is what you’re telling me. Because it’s like choosing between wanting to die either by consuming poison, or by drowning. But you got to die in the end.”

“We aren’t that bad, Jesus. You make us sound like we are horrible. Well woman, we have fans all over this world – “

“Tony, seriously that’s enough. Give her a break,” Wanda stepped up next to you, and for once you were thankful that someone had spoken, broken their silence for it felt like you were being cornered in here by one man.

“Tony, can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?” Bucky finally spoke, and that’s when you realized that he had been strangely quiet all this while. You watched from the corner of your eye, as Bucky and Tony stepped out of the meeting room, and the door slammed shut, leaving you alone with the rest of the team.

“What the fuck was that?” Bucky almost growled, when he had brought Tony out into the hallway.

“I am only doing you a favour. Isn’t that what Steve did? Did you forget about yourself?”

“That was different.” Bucky stated, simply.

“Yeah you’re right Barnes. That was different. I didn’t like you back then, and neither do I like you now, but her –“ Tony crossed his arms over his chest, and took off his glasses, now standing chest to chest with Bucky, “ – she was a nice one. I knew her before you even knew her. And if there is anything I can do to make sure she doesn’t have to step foot back from where she just came here I’m going to do that. And besides, I cooked up just the best little plan so she gets her memories back.”

“So that’s what you truly want,” Bucky deadpanned, and shook his head, moving away, back towards the meeting room, leaving Tony to quietly follow him until all eyes turned towards the two of them, including yours. You finally took a deep breath, and brought your hands up to your hair, fluttering your eyes shut just for a split second, before you opened them again, “I accept.”

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Three days later, you found yourself in your first official meeting as an Avenger. Natasha and Bruce Banner still weren’t back from Afghanistan, so it left Bucky, Sam, Clint, Tony, Wanda, Vision and you.

You kept watching as Tony slammed two heavy looking files on the round table in front of you.

“Johanna.. Bucky..” Tony deadpanned, grabbing a file out of the two and tossing it into the air, that Bucky caught midair using his metal arm, “that mission I was talking about. The one about that colony in New Jersey.. You two would be going undercover.”

Bucky looked at you, and you looked at him, then back at Tony, nodding. This seemed fairly easy, for your first official mission. It was only when you felt Bucky almost groan, and you noticed that he was reading the file that was handed to him, that you realized that this wasn’t the end of it. You snatched the second file that was laying on the table, and a frown caked over your forehead when you saw what the mission was all about. You and Bucky were going undercover, pretending to be a newly married couple who were expecting their first child together.

Of course, it just couldn’t have been a straightforward, kicking some asses kind of a mission for you.

“Come on, it won’t be that bad,” Tony chuckled, and Bucky just threw him a glare, knowing well aware the games that he was trying to play, and the conversation he had with him three days back came spiraling back into his mind; where he had confessed that he had an idea that could bring your memories back. Maybe this was this intelligent idea of Tony Stark, when even Wanda and Vision could have been send undercover, he actually chose the two of you.

“When do we leave?” You turned to Bucky, your expression blank.

“Tomorrow. Think of it as a vacation. The two of you deserve it.”

Permanent Bucky Barnes Taglist :

@really-dont-forget-it @thepeakygurl @all-art-is-quite-useless @baumarvel @janajjj @chipilerendi @nyotamalfoy @skittychat @allidoiswritewritewrite @jessyballet @x0xchristine @evansgirl7 @laisbeltrans @thegayseance @marie1115 @supraveng @booty-ass-hoe @1-800wildluna

Want to be added to the Taglist? Pls fill the form on this link here. 💚

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #james buchanan barnes x reader #james buchanan bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #winter soldier x reader #winter solider imagine #bucky barnes x you

[jojo-reader-hell]

Bucci Gang x Reader: Adheridos Separados

A story about coming home from a foreign country. Focuses on Hispanic!Reader because I need representation. So if you’re not Hispanic congrats, you are now.

You’re filthy.

You smell like a mixture of crotch, urine, and death breath. Didn’t even brush your teeth the morning you left Helsinki nor did you bother at the various terminals you visited.Just jumped out of bed and took off, didn’t even change out of your pajamas.

Hair in knots, beat up leather jacket around your shoulders, you sneak glances here and there as the plane descends. Thank God, she gave you enough money for two tickets, so you were able to avoid tormenting an unfortunate seatmate for five and a half hours. Instead by your side sat your black guitar case, the sole piece of luggage you carried with you wherever you went.

Please… Fucking shit… Please let them be there…

Thank God Finland was only one hour ahead. At first you were worried you wouldn’t make it in time, they didn’t linger during lunch. Not when there were other things to take care of, if the boys got into a fight they left early, or if one of them got a wild hair and decided to eat somewhere else, Libeccio might very well be empty by the time you found a taxi and this makes you sweat even more.

Hurry the fuck up!!

Your boot makes a pattering sound as you bounce your leg in anticipation. You keep muttering under your breath for the pendejo flying the plane to hurry his lazy ass up, hand wrapped around the handle of your guitar case as though you’re going to swing it out at the first person who tries to line up before you in the skinny aisle of the plane. Around you, the world moves on. Some people speak in Finnish, occasionally there’s the obnoxious American tourist gushing and you understand simple words like “ocean” and the ever annoying “oh my gawwwwwwwd”, even some Italians are on this flight, complaining about the lows of negative seven Celsius and how they’re looking forward to the warmth back home.

“Apurate cabron!” you nearly scream it out but it catches hoarsely in your throat.

No one seems to notice your distress. It’s probably for the best. You don’t want to talk to anyone else right now. You’re itching to go, bouncing in your seat when the wheels touch down and barely hearing the roar of the brakes through the pounding of your heart in your ears. You stand even before the seat belt lights turn off, conventional airline etiquette can suck your clit if any of these fuckers think for a minute you’re going to wait for them to get off first.

Rude as ever, you push your way to the front, earning a lot of complaints from the passengers but silencing them with a red hot glance of murder when you bullied your way to the front of the plane.

You don’t even bother to take in the sight of the white walls of Napoli Airport like the tourists do. You book it out of the gate, guitar case swinging haphazardly as you break into a sprint out of the terminal. This time, you didn’t bother to waste another minute with a letter. If you had, they’d be waiting for you with a car, and this would have taken seconds to quell the heartache you felt in your chest.

But to hell with wasting time that could get you home quicker. You didn’t even wait for the snow to melt in the country you were staying in. As soon as she gave you the money to leave you left, not even pausing once to say goodbye to the two old women that had shown you what was in your heart.

Scanning the front of the airport for a familiar yellow color, you manage finally to flag someone down. Quickly you enter, slamming the door once you’re seated next to your guitar case. You don’t let the man get a word in edgewise. Waving a stack of bills in the driver’s face, you tell in lispy Italian where you need to go, not caring that his smile is really a cruel mockery and turning it into a frown when you open your mouth again.

“Did you hear a word I said? Hurry up and drive me there! I know my Italian is not so very bad. ¡Ya me tienes harto! ¡Vete a la chingada!”

The effect is instantaneous. Both languages are not so different that the Italians cannot understand what you’re saying. Often you talk a lot of shit in your native language, earning mean looks from the person that hears it, and the driver swears at you before peeling out of the front of Napoli Airport. There’s something in your eyes that makes him afraid to do more than call you a dirty whore, he didn’t even kick you out when you started back at him in Castiliano. The both of you argue the whole way, bitching at one another until you throw the stack of bills on his lap before you exit, leaving your new best friend with a nice piece of advice:

“¡Tómate tu dinero y mételo en el culo!” you scream.

“Vai a cagare brutta stronza!”

You laugh. You start fucking howling when you slam the door of the taxi, leaning on your guitar as he peels off. Of course the entire street is staring, but you could really give a fuck less.

God dammit… You’re HOME!

“Bahahahaahahaha! D-did you see that?” you’re too choked up, shaking even as it appears you’re talking to thin air. “He… he called me a bitch! HAHAHAHAHA!”

A throaty metallic laugh sounds off next to you, a rather tall figure in black puts a hand up to the only part of her face that’s not covered by her helmet. A filthy word in Spanish blinks across her helmet, and you laugh harder, clutching your stomach and not even bothering with the looks or the mutterings of what a freak you are. You must look like some smelly nut job, but you could care less.

“Come on,” you tell your Stand, gesturing with the guitar case towards the restaurant. “Let’s go!”

The Brainwasher’s coo sounds almost like a chirp. She follows eagerly behind you as you walk the few blocks towards the restaurant. Stubborn asshole didn’t even drop you at the front like they usually did, probably shouldn’t have said you fucked his mother, but whatever. It wasn’t like you were ever going to need to take a taxi again in your life anyways. Finally you look up at the streets you couldn’t stop seeing in your dreams. Everything is clean, just how you left it before the beginning of autumn. Everything stays, but there are some subtle differences in how you perceive the facades, the green awnings and black telephone wires with birds, the red brick buildings and the smell of freshly cooked Napoli fare. It hits you how hungry you were, not just for a meal, but for the comfort you had here in this town.

They have to be here, you think to yourself as you slow your pace and your racing heart, I made it just in time… They probably just sat down to eat and I’m going to walk in on them drinking, probably starting on torte alle frogole or perhaps I’ll catch them in the middle of a bite of veal… And when I get my kisses, they’re going to taste so sweet no matter what they’ve been eating…

Your Stand chirrups in delight, the word “Papi” blinking across her helmet in pink along with a series of hearts all in the different colors of the rainbow. You smile at The Brainwasher, and she gives you a toothy grin in return as the both of you take your time to savor the streets of Naples. You want to take it in slowly, it’s been too long already… But on the opposite side of the coin you feel as though you’re merely trying to hold back the full body vibrating you feel at the prospect of seeing the loves of your life for the first time in what feels like forever.

Strange, you think as you enter the restaurant and see the host’s eyes light up, It never used to feel like I was away very long before. It felt like I’d never left, and I’d actually start feeling an anxiety… now… I feel like I’ve been away too long…

“Singorina Esposito!”

You laugh.

“I told you to call me by my first name.” you grin. “Please, is he… are they all…?”

The words can’t come to you, but he knows what you want and wordlessly ushers you through the tables to the back.

“Of course Singorina Espo- I… apologies! Yes, they’re all here today!”

The fake name you’ve been given never ceases to amuse you. With a bit of morbid curiosity, you’ve come to find the identity one of your boyfriends has given you in order for you to stay long periods of time actually is a throw away name for Italian orphans. But it’s more amusing than insulting, because it can also be a cute way of calling someone “husband” in your native language, and you waste no time informing your boyfriend.

“What? You miss me that much you want to marry me?” you’d asked coyly, laughing at his red face. “Uh? Am I your husband, and you’re the wife? Pining for me every time I have to leave for work? Then come here and give your esposo a kiss~.”

“SHOW HIM SOME RESPECT!”

You stop short of the archway and peer into the reserved area. There’s tea all over the table, the remains of a shattered cup staining the floors with dark liquid and you catch a whiff of Darjeeling. One boyfriend screams at the others, a stranger next to him with gold hair as both have their backs to you. Your breath catches in your throat… There’s an air of uncertainty. You want to call out to them, to say something, but all the things you intended to say to them clog in your vocal cords and you can’t even gurgle out one word in Italian.

The Brainwasher flickers to life next to you.

“Ya llegué.” She whispers softly.

Time stops. Six pairs of eyes fall on you, one unfamiliar, the other five with some sort of confusion. You see the emotions mix, tumble over one another, until warm recognition makes you smile in delight.

“H-…”

A scream, a yelp of your name is all you hear as you’re suddenly pinned to the floor by an overly exuberant mass of orange, leather and messy black hair. The case in your hand is pulled out of your grasp last minute by The Brainwasher, and she has only moments to react before you are completely taken over by bodies.

“MIA RAGAZZA!”

All of them are screaming your name, kisses are planted on every bit of exposed skin. Someone bites your earlobe and you exclaim out in pain, the one who tackled you takes advantage of this and you taste the sweetness of his tongue against yours, hearing him moaning loudly into the kiss. Your tangles are yanked back and you’re separated from your attacker, mouth taken up into another kiss that tastes of strawberries and cream while your lips are smeared with purple lipstick.

“Where the fuck were you all this time?!” screams the one that bit you.

“You didn’t even call or write!” whines the tackler.

Another body just as ripe as yours heaves you all up off the floor.

“Yuck! You stink!” he cries, and you feel tears dribble onto your face as he clutches you tightly to his smelly chest. “You’re so gross… You… You…!”

This whole time you haven’t made a sound. You’re far too caught up in the lips and the tongues that pull you in several directions at a time to notice that you’ve drawn the attention of everyone in the entire restaurant. You don’t even care that The Brainwasher has disappeared and dropped your case to the floor, not when your heart is bursting and you’re being showered in all the love you’ve craved over the last few months. What a difference it made, now that your eyes were wide open and you could see clearly without the other emotions bogging you down.

Remember what I told you. Hold them close. Be thankful for the freedom they’ve given you…

You look up when you hear your name murmured.

There he is… He’s still as handsome as ever. Looking you over with those ocean eyes as his face contorts like he’s going to cry at any moment. The others let you out of their grasp reluctantly, you still feel fingers on your back as you step closer, but you don’t have to move any further.

Olive toned hands take your face up, your skin is covered in lipstick and tears and snot bubbles and you still smell like a toilet but he doesn’t care a whit. He merely swipes a thumb across your cheek, his eyes squinting into a smile, lower lip quivering as though he’s afraid to kiss you.

“I’m home.” You tell him simply. Like you went to the grocery store for some milk.

He says nothing. Takes you up in his grasp and kisses you like his life depends on it, the clean taste of his mouth against yours as you wrap your arms around his neck. As Bruno Buccellati kisses you fervently, you feel the bodies of your other lovers engulf you. Leone Abbacchio’s large hands caress your waist, Narancia Ghirga pulls on the hem of your pants, Pannacotta Fugo and Guido Mista can’t help but take each arm and pepper kisses on every inch they can get a hold of. You’re ensconced in this feeling. Well loved. Steaming hot and relieved from the cold of loneliness you’d been feeling the entire winter.

As you’re being showered in affection, you don’t notice the last pair of eyes viewing this display with a strange, mounting envy. You don’t notice him cock his head as the boys kiss and complement you. Wanting to know who this stranger is, and why it seems that the gangsters before him are so desperate to shower you with affection.

Much to his displeasure, he wants to know why he suddenly wants to take the time to greet you with a kiss as well, to see you squirm and giggle and moan beneath his touch…

#bruno bucciarati x reader #leone abbacchio x reader #narancia ghirga x reader #guido mista x reader #pannacotta fugo x reader #giorno giovanna x reader #jjba x reader #jjba reader insert #jjba #jojo’s bizzare adventure vento aureo #jojo's bizarre adventure #reader insert fiction #hispanic!reader

[thessalian]

Thess vs ‘Going Corporate’

So I happened to see this thing on Facebook. And while hoping that Hot Topic properly commensurated Critical Role LLC or whatever for the licence, it occurred to me that there’s a subset out there that believes that the cast of Critical Role is ‘going corporate’.

I mean ... yeah. That’s what becoming incorporated means.

But that’s not what they’re talking about. They’re talking about “They’re now asking for money for all this stuff they’re making for us and it’s so unfair! They’re just in it for the money now!”

...Listen, dipshit:

The game? The game was never about the money. Yes, some people would like to think it is, but it’s not. There’s no script. The game at its core is not about the money. The game is about a bunch of friends who just happen to make their living as voice actors, having fun and letting other people watch. That was the idea at inception, and that’s how the game itself has remained.

(Which, incidentally, means that it would be really nice if people stopped giving the players crap about things their characters did or how their representation sucks or whatever. That’s a fair argument when it’s a bunch of people in a writer’s room. It’s not a fair argument when you get individuals playing the characters they wanted to play in a story they’re shaping with the DM’s help as they go. This is not “people sitting in a writer’s room deciding that only Straight White Alpha Males sell”. This is people who decided they wanted to play X Character this time around. But that’s another thing.)

Thing is, while the game itself was never about the money, it got ... bigger than could be contained by one little studio. This is a bunch of hugely creative people who have things they want to do and show and create and provide. Know what?

THAT TAKES MONEY.

Yeah, sorry, it does. They need money just to keep the game itself running, since they can’t stream from home very well. They need to pay rent and utilities on their gaming space. They need money for cameras and various other tech bits and upgrades. Upgrades for the actual game table too - minis and terrain and the like. Anyone who’s ever played Warhammer knows the financial outlay required for a good terrain map. Also? They need to eat, and pay rent and utilities on their own residences. Yeah, they have day jobs, but...

Voice actors don’t make that much. Sorry; they don’t. They had a whole big strike about that, some of y’all may recall. That was not well-received, and while those who are a bit more in the know about this sort of thing were loud, there were a whole lot more people who didn’t seem to care much either way.

There are only so many hours in a day. You know the saying ‘time is money’? It kind of goes both ways. The less time you have, the more money you need to use that time most effectively. And if they had more time - like, fewer VA roles? Less money.

Oh, did I mention they also have staff? Staff who might like some money? The more branches they open in this budding company of theirs, the more staff. Do you really want them paid a pittance? Or do you want the CEO to be able to pay them properly and deal with things like medical insurance and the like? Because if you don’t think Travis ‘Poppa Bear’ Willingham, CEO of Critical Role Inc, is going to pay his employees a decent wage, you don’t know the same Travis Willingham I’ve seen.

Also y’all may have noticed that nasty little pandemic. That’s gonna hurt. They don’t make that much money, the safety requirements will make things hard for VAs as much as anyone else, they still have to eat and pay rent and all that, they had to redesign the studio to allow for social distancing so they didn’t have to play in masks, extra maintenance charges for in-depth cleaning...

So no, they can’t just give all these nifty bits of merchandise and story and animated series and all the rest of it away. If they want to make something more of this than something they do on Thursday nights (and with the way things are going, they kind of have to, for their own protection if nothing else), that’s going to take money. Thus, I’m all for Critical Role, Inc.

They’re not going to be the TTRPG world’s answer to Jeff Bezos, people. Want to know how I know? Because you can’t become a billionaire without bending everything towards maximum profits, including basically ignoring the issues of the rest of the world except when you need a tax break. The fact that one of the first major branches of the company was the Critical Role Foundation, a charity (to which I have every intention of donating when I have paycheques regularly) ... well, that says to me that they’re going to use the money responsibly. Then again, watching them raise money for 826LA back in the day told me that a loooong time ago.

I personally feel that if you’re bitching about the cast of Critical Role ‘going corporate’, you’re part of one of the problems I’ve seen developing over the internet - entitlement. Just because you see it online doesn’t mean you’re entitled to every scrap of ancillary thing about it. You see them; they make you laugh and cry and smile and scream and all of that, but they’re not yours. And they’re not just puppets there for your amusement. They need to eat. They have aspirations. They have ideas. They are creative people and they deserve to be paid full market value for their work.

...just like every other artist of any kind on the internet, by the way. Grudging Critical Role their success that might actually keep them solvent and us entertained both by the Mighty Nein’s adventures and the cast and crew’s various projects (like Darrington Press, for example - run by Ivan van Norman, by the way, who was the Storyteller for both Sagas of Sundry seasons, so that should be fun) ... it’s like grudging artists on Tumblr who want to be paid commission prices - fair commission prices - for their work. PEOPLE NEED TO EAT, AND PEOPLE DESERVE TO BE COMPENSATED FOR THEIR WORK.

#Thess gets aerated

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

You mentioned earlier that you'd be willing to give book recs? If you still are, what would you recommend for fantasy/sci-fi not about straight white guys? Got a lot of recs for those already.

while I take umbrage with your url, I have many recommendations! In fact, most of the sci fi and fantasy books I have read as of late feature nonwhite and/or LGBT characters and many are not written by straight white guys either, which tends to help. Here’s an incomplete list thereof. Other people looking for recs, this is a pretty broad list ranging from fairly classic fantasy to modern urban fantasy to a couple different forms of sci fi, so you can probably start here.

Currently I’m reading the Foundryside series by Robert Jackson Bennet (I read book 1, I’m mostly through book 2, I don’t think book 3 is out yet) which is best described as cyberpunk, but in an otherwise low-tech fantasy world. The plot and themes are great, the characters are great, the exposition in the first book is a bit heavy-handed like dude we get it you program but the second book is much tighter. Most of the characters are described as being nonwhite, and the main character of the first book (who’s still a major character in the second; it’s just more of an ensemble) is a wlw. Note: I  think these are the only books on this list written by a white guy, so again, look for women and LGBT and nonwhite authors and often they will make characters who are like them.

N. K. Jemisin is a good author not only to read but to follow in that as one of if not the most prominent black sci fi/fantasy authors she makes recommendations of other authors and pushes for recognition (basically, her point is that she did not come in to take Octavia Butler’s seat and you can have more than one black woman writing sci fi). The City We Became is based on a phenomenal short story that she wrote, about the city of New York coming to life through various human avatars; almost all are nonwhite and several are gay, bi, or lesbian (there’s a minor supporting trans character who I hope gets a larger role in the next of the series but the first book just came out). The Broken Earth trilogy is maybe one of my favorite series I’ve read in the last few years; most of the characters are black and a decent number are LGBT.

Speaking of Octavia Butler, most of her characters are black and she’s also just a modern classic sci fi writer for a reason. I’ve only really read short stories (the Bloodchild collection), the Patternist series, and Kindred. She does dip into horror themes at times and I respect if people aren’t into that, but she was a brilliant author. Most of her characters are black and The Patternist series includes shapeshifter characters who have romances with people of various genders.

I was frustrated by the pacing in The Priory of the Orange Tree, but not the characters. The worldbuilding could also stand to be a little better in that it’s clearly like, Europe and Asia of our world circa 1600-ish but with different names for things and also some magic. Plenty of nonwhite characters, some lesbian romance. (Author is Samantha Shannon).

You have probably seen stuff for Gideon The Ninth on Tumblr and for good reason; it’s very good. The tagline on Tumblr is often Lesbian Space Necromancers which is true but also it’s just incredibly funny and dark and well-written. (Author is Tamsyn Muir).

You may have also seen things for the Shades of Magic series on Tumblr; it’s a really cool conceit, one of the two main characters is a woman, and there is significant gay romance among the supporting characters. It’s got epic battle vs. evil for the soul of the universe stuff as well as interdimensional portals but also pirates and the elemental magic olympics, somehow. I do feel sort of ambivalent about the author saying one character is likely genderfluid but doesn’t know that it’s an option because on the one hand I do not like the author saying things and it counting as representation, but on the other said character comes from early 1800s London and this would not be an unreasonable way for them to feel. (Author is V. E. Schwab)

The Raven Tower is super interesting and I only read it because my mother had it out of the library when I was home for Thanksgiving and she said ‘here you might like this’. It’s sort of a retelling of Hamlet, it’s got weird deity lore (which I happen to love in fantasy), and the main character is trans. (Author is Ann Leckie).

A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is sci fi and while there are challenges and real plot involved it’s just like...kind of a fun adventure book? I just remember finding it fun, despite the seriousness of elements of the plot, and I say this as someone who often does like a good epic good vs. evil plot but it’s kind of nice to read a book where the hardships are like, needing to fuel your spaceship in a weird place. Some of the human characters are nonwhite (I’m of the opinion that aliens don’t really count as representation), and several characters are not straight. (Author is Becky Chambers).

The Golem and the Jinni is about the early 1900s immigrant experience in lower Manhattan, but through the eyes of a golem woman living in the Jewish community and a jinni in the Syrian community who become friends due to being displaced magical beings. (Author is Helene Wecker).

Alif The Unseen is by G. Willow Wilson of Ms. Marvel fame and is a technological fantasy novel that takes place in an unspecified Middle Eastern country in roughly the modern day. It came out in 2012 and was clearly (and thoughtfully) influenced by the Arab Spring of 2011; most characters are Middle-Eastern or South Asian Muslims.

Finally on this list, though not of the many books one could read, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is by Samuel R. Delany, a gay black man, and while it’s been a couple years since I read it it was so brilliantly written and different than a lot of space sci fi that I’ve read and it hit me in such a way that I keep meaning to reread it. The main characters are also black gay men.

#sci fi #fantasy #book recommendations #paladins-are-dumb

[yamayamawrites]

meet me in the hallway - kiribaku

A/N: Hi friends! As always, thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings! This is a fluffy one-shot because I have so many WIPs that I’m stressed and needed to just write without the pressures of updating a fic. Anyways, hope you enjoy! You can also read this on AO3 by clicking here or read below. Thanks again for reading!

‘Meet me in the hallway.’

It’s a simple text message, really. And Ei would be stupid not to oblige. Bakugou, wanting to meet up in the hallway at midnight on a school night? Really, it can only be an adventure waiting to happen. Or a League attack, or something. But Ei’s willing to risk his sleep for it.

So he changes out of his blatant pajama pants into pajama pants that can pass as casual joggers, throws on a Crimson Riot hoodie and steps into the hall. And Bakugou’s there, just as he expects him to be, twirling his car keys around his finger. “Didn’t think you’d be awake, Shitty Hair,” he grunts, and his voice is quiet in the still of the midnight air around them.

“You know I don’t sleep,” Ei teases back, flashes a sharp-toothed grin and Bakugou doesn’t even look back at him, just nods towards the elevator.

It’s not the first time Ei has been invited to go on a drive with Bakugou. It seems that, now that Bakugou has his license and a car he can access whenever he wants to, he wants to drive everywhere. Ei’s gone with him to fast food places during lunch, they’ve gone for random drives across the countryside. He wonders why, though, Bakugou’s dragging him along for a midnight ride. It seems a little…sudden. Not that Ei is one to complain about spending time with Bakugou. They’re practically inseparable now that they’re third years.

The parking lot is sort of a hike across campus. It’s closest to the third-year dormitories, but that doesn’t mean it’s close, in general; they walk a kilometer or so in the cool summer air to get there. Ei’s shivering, even in his hoodie, and he wishes he had a warm Quirk like Bakugou’s. Bakugou wears a muscle tee and basketball shorts, and it’s unfair how nice Bakugou is to look at – those biceps, calling his name. He invites himself to look, since Bakugou can’t see him – his back is turned to him now, as they search for Bakugou’s car.

It’s easy to pick out among the rest. It’s a red muscle car, and really, Ei thinks it’s a perfect visual representation of Bakugou’s personality in a car. He lets himself into the passenger side and brings his feet up to the dashboard, only for Bakugou to swat at him. And he laughs, and it feels wonderful to laugh. The way here was nothing short of silent, even a little uncomfortable, but with Bakugou muttering under his breath about Ei being disrespectful to his car, Ei can’t help but laugh more.

“Where are we going, Bakugou?” Ei asks as Bakugou puts the car in drive, goes as quietly as is possible in a muscle car towards the side gate.

“A drive,” Bakugou grunts back. He doesn’t look over at Ei, which Ei expects. When Bakugou’s driving, he wholly believes he has never felt safer. Which is odd; Ei remembers the first time he got in the car with Bakugou, fully expecting to face his friend’s road rage and end up in an accident. But Bakugou drives carefully, and while yes, he does cuss at people on the road under his breath, he somehow manages to keep his anger from boiling over.

“Where to?” Ei prods, rolls down his window despite the cool air. He likes to rest his arm out the window.

“Around,” Bakugou says, vague and quiet.

He gets like this, sometimes. Ei has been lucky enough to be let in on the secret. Bakugou isn’t always the stoic, angry, brooding teenager he portrays to the rest of the class. Sometimes he’s soft, quiet, contemplative, and Ei’s running theory is that when Bakugou goes to bed early, it’s because he’s had enough of his tough-guy act. That’s not to say Ei doesn’t believe that when Bakugou gets like this he couldn’t still beat the shit out of a villain. He’s just…he’s not so biting. Not so spiteful, maybe, is a better word. And Ei has never appreciated being let in on a secret more.

Ei turns on the radio, quiet and lulling in the late night. Bakugou’s rolled down his own window, and he lets his left arm sit on the edge of it, his right steering lazily as they follow the long, curving road from the U.A. campus. The wind, even, doesn’t seem to whip as hard at night. It provides ambience, along with the soft heavy rock playing from the radio between them.

Bakugou glances over as they turn out of the campus, onto the main road. Ei has yet to see another car on the road – which is expected because they just left campus, but less expected when they turn onto the road that he’s only seen busy. He blinks, stares out the windshield at the road, protected on either side by tall trees that are just beginning to hint at yellowing leaves with autumn fast approaching. “Bakugou,” Ei shatters the ambience between them with his voice, no matter how soft he speaks, “is everything alright?”

It’s like throwing a pebble into a lake, the way his voice ripples around them. Like it’s echoing in the quiet car, even though his voice has fled out the open windows, the sound of it nearly swallowed to begin with by the wind rushing through the car. It has Ei shivering, curling up on himself, but he doesn’t want to roll them up. And Bakugou glances over at him, then returns his gaze to the road, shakes his head minutely.

“Everything’s fine,” he says, but he doesn’t tack on an insult and for some reason that’s more of a tell than his head-shake. Ei leans closer to Bakugou’s face, crossing over the partition between them just a bit.

“You don’t look fine,” he states pointedly, and Bakugou reaches out and nudges his face away by the cheek without looking.

“Everything’s fine,” he repeats, and Ei can feel the warmth where Bakugou’s palm had just nudged him as he recedes back into his seat. He presses his hand to it, wishes it would linger, but it’s gone the second he brings his cold hand to it. “Are you cold?” Bakugou asks, and he’s not looking at Ei and Ei can’t really fathom how Bakugou can do that – how he can gauge Ei’s feelings without even looking at him sometimes.

“I’m fine,” he says quietly. If Bakugou can lie to him, he can lie to Bakugou.

But the problem is that he can’t, because Bakugou’s reaching into his back seat with his right arm – his left has come back from resting on the door to steer – and his eyes are still on the road while he’s reaching blindly into his back seat, and he comes back with a blanket. “I’m okay, really,” Ei says, but Bakugou’s thrusting the blanket into his lap anyway. And Kirishima has to wonder why the blanket is here, because Bakugou’s almost always too hot with his Quirk.

“I know you,” Bakugou offers as an explanation, and Ei’s really glad it’s dark in the car otherwise Bakugou would be able to see how red his face is. “You get cold easily.”

Ei laughs, rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I guess I do,” he says quietly. Then, he adds a soft, “Thanks.”

Bakugou just hums, turns the radio up a little louder. It’s a song Ei has heard before, playing from Bakugou’s dorm room on nights he goes to bed especially early, and Ei knows by now that Bakugou is fleeing so he can work out in his room or something. He’s still never been inside it, even in their third year here, but he’s caught glimpses of various weights and things splayed across the floor while walking by and Bakugou has his door open. Which is rare, admittedly, but over the years Ei’s managed to catch a few looks.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?” Ei teases as they’re nearing the small town just a few miles from the campus, heading towards one of the twenty-four hour fast food locations. And Bakugou exhales, loudly enough to signal to Ei that he’s annoyed.

“I want a coffee,” he gripes, and Ei blinks. Then he laughs.

“That’s it? You’re taking me on a late-night coffee run?”

“I didn’t say we were heading back after this,” Bakugou snaps back. Ei continues to laugh, the sound nearly drowned out when Bakugou turns the radio up even louder.

And they pull up to the driveway, and before Bakugou orders he turns to Ei. “What do you want, Shitty Hair,” he grumbles, but his voice isn’t as malicious as usual. Ei flushes a little, and now that they’re under the harsh fluorescent lights of the fast food joint, he’s sure Bakugou can tell.

He smiles, sheepish, and shrugs. “I don’t have any money, I left it at—”

“I didn’t ask if you had any money,” Bakugou shoots back. “What. The fuck. Do you. Want.”

“Strawberry milkshake?” Ei replies with an even wider grin. Bakugou rolls his eyes.

“Those are terrible for you,” he mumbles. “Can’t believe you’re as fuckin’ ripped as you are, Kirishima.”

Ei laughs, the fact that Bakugou used his name not evading him. It’s rare that Bakugou refers to him as anything other than Shitty Hair, and he’s taken it to mean that Bakugou’s feeling affectionate – that, or, the few times they’ve been in serious danger Bakugou has referred to him as pointedly not Shitty Hair. But most of the time they’ve been in danger like that, it’s been out on work studies, and usually Bakugou refers to him as his hero name in those instances. Still, it feels nice hearing Bakugou call him something else.

But ‘Kirishima’, he saves that. He saves that for moments like these, when they’re alone, and it feels like the rest of the world is turning a blind eye to them.

“…and two sides of fries,” he’s saying to the poor teenager who got stuck with the graveyard shift. Ei’s about to object, but Bakugou turns and glares at him. And the teenager is relaying their order total, and Bakugou’s thanking him gruffly.

Their order isn’t tricky, but it takes a bit. And Bakugou’s patient. Kirishima’s found this, too, when they go to get fast food over lunch. Bakugou is endlessly patient with people when it’s just them. And when Ei has pointed this out in the past, Bakugou has scoffed and said “I’m only patient to people who deserve it, and teenagers working shitty jobs at shitty fast food places deserve it.” And that makes Ei smile remembering that Bakugou isn’t always the angry ball of fire he portrays himself to be. He’s just a little emotionally stunted when it comes to the rest of the class.

Ei wonders if maybe it’s his doing.

They pull into a parking spot around the other side of the building. Bakugou passes Ei his shake and a side of fries. “You didn’t need to get me these,” Ei says softly.

“Shut up, Shitty Hair. I know you wanted some.”

Ei can’t deny that – he always wants fries from this place, even if they are pretty terrible for him. He glances over at Bakugou, eyebrows raised, a small smile on his lips. Bakugou just glares back, shovels a few fries into his mouth then sips his iced coffee – the combination is pretty gross – and lets the radio play.

They sit there until they finish their fries, and then Bakugou is getting back on the road, heading past this town and the opposite direction of the U.A. campus. And with the windows down at Ei’s strawberry shake melting in his hand, he’s glad he has a blanket over him. They’re heading for the next town over, driving through neighborhoods and going down slow roads. Exploring. Bakugou’s turned the music down by now so they don’t disturb people sleeping in the neighborhood, and the wind whips less intensely down these roads.

They end up at the shore of this small town, neighborhood houses on either side of them as they pull into the small parking lot of a private beach. “Did you know about this?” Ei asks, a little in awe considering the view they have. It spans wide, and a harbor hooks around to the left but doesn’t obscure much of the open water. He stares, though he can’t see much. It’s beautiful, watching the moon reflect off the slow-moving waves of the ocean, beautiful as they lick up the sand and beautiful as they recede. Ei wishes, impulsively, that his feet were in the water.

“No,” Bakugou replies quietly. He doesn’t sound angry anymore; he sounds exhausted, which is fitting considering the clock on the dash reads that it’s just past one in the morning. Ei had been drifting in his seat while they drove, but being stopped here now he’s wide awake. “I just saw a sign pointing to a private beach. Wanted to see the ocean.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Ei coos, and he hears Bakugou snort a laugh beside him. Normally he’d request not to be teased by Bakugou, or crack a joke or flash a grin but he can’t do any of that right now because it’s beautiful. It’s wonderful, and he finds himself itching to reach for the door handle and push himself out of the car and run, run along the sand and trip and fall and let the waves swallow him.

“Do you want to go sit down there?”

Ei turns his attention to Bakugou, who’s watching him now, waves forgotten. The normal crease in his forehead is gone, and in its place are soft eyebrows and half-lidded eyes. Ei reminds himself to offer to drive back, if Bakugou’s coffee doesn’t kick in. And he nods, once, short and happy, and they’re clambering out of the car. Ei brings the blanket with him.

There’s a bench down by the water, on a short dock that juts out at the edge of the private beach property. They sit there, watch the waves roll up. Every once in a while there’s one strong enough to wash some water onto the dock, but they don’t get wet sitting here, and Ei sighs, leans his head onto Bakugou’s shoulder. He feels his friend tense but he doesn’t pull back, and eventually Bakugou relaxes into the gesture, too.

“Eijirou,” he says, and it reverberates off the silent air around them the same way the waves do. Ei looks up, cheeks flushed; he doesn’t remember if Bakugou’s ever addressed him by his first name. It sounds nice on his tongue, Ei thinks idly, and he watches as Bakugou looks between the waves in front of them to the moon above. Finally his eyes settle on Ei’s, and his gaze softens, and Ei is sure he’s never seen Bakugou like this.

“Y-yeah?” he murmurs, cursing his own voice for cracking. Damn, he’s nearly eighteen and he still sounds like he’s twelve. “What is it?”

Bakugou looks back out on the water, his face beginning to scrunch that way it does when he’s overthinking. That way it does when what he’s thinking about is important and he can’t bear to make a choice because what if it’s not the right one, and Ei gently brings a hand up and rests it on Bakugou’s knee. And the surprise snaps Bakugou out of whatever spiral he was falling into, and he shoots a glare over to Ei, but it’s not very passionate. “I…need to tell you something,” he says softly.

And this is the part where Ei’s heart breaks, he thinks. This is the part where Bakugou says something along the lines of ‘we can’t be friends anymore after graduation’, ‘I’m leaving the country after we graduate and leaving all these dumb fuckers including you behind.’ Or, it’s the part where he says ‘listen, I know you’re crushing on me but that’s fucking gay, dude’. And he forces a smile to his face, hopes for the former to be what leaves Bakugou’s mouth because he can’t stand the thought of not being around Bakugou, of him not being there. He can handle not being friends, but if Bakugou isn’t there he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“What is it?” Ei repeats, and his voice is soft with the anxiety of what will leave his best friend’s lips next.

And Bakugou doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything, he just returns his attention to the water. His face is contorting again, and this time Ei doesn’t stop him; he watches. He watches the grimace on his face, like he hates himself, like he hates Eijirou, and Ei can almost feel tears prickling in his eyes. Is that the problem here? Has Bakugou figured it out, and now he hates him? He suddenly feels the need to put space between them, but the bench is small and if he moves even a little he’d have to support his own weight doing squats, and he doesn’t want to do that.

“I…” Bakugou starts, fixates his gaze on the far right pole on the dock, watches the water splash up and lick at it.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love with you,” he blurts, all at once, and time stops. Ei’s convinced even the waves have stopped; they’ve mellowed at the confession, as if Bakugou has threatened them with his squinting, told them if you fuck this up for me I’ll end you, and Ei is just…confused.

“Huh?” he says smartly, sits up a little so he can get a better look at Bakugou.

“Look,” Bakugou’s face is hardening, his jaw is setting, and Ei can only watch him close himself off again, “I don’t give a shit if you don’t feel the same. Okay? I just needed to fuckin’ tell you because it’s eating at me, Shi—”

And Ei’s regained the use of his limbs, and he closes the gap between their faces, their lips. He swallows that stupid insult, he swallows Bakugou’s fears, and the angle is a little weird so he forgets the blanket, kicks it aside as he throws one leg over Bakugou’s waist, straddles him on this stupidly tiny bench and almost sends them to the ground. And Bakugou’s fingertips burn, they burn against Ei’s hips, where they hold him tightly, but he seriously can’t think about anything beyond his lips on Bakugou’s, moving like they’ve done this a million times.

It’s anything but delicate. It’s hungry, passionate; it’s three years of looks exchanged, of being too close together and not close enough all at once. It’s Ei’s fingers knotted in Bakugou’s hair as he forces their mouths closer together; it’s Bakugou’s hips rocking involuntarily upwards into Ei’s and shared groans lost forever between their throats; it’s needing nothing else in the universe because Katsuki Bakugou is all that Ei has ever wanted. And they pull back, and when they do it feels all too soon. They’re panting, Bakugou’s cheeks are bright red, Ei’s sure his cheeks look the same.

“Fuck,” Bakugou whispers between them.

“Mm,” Ei hums his agreement.

They kiss again, and once more for good measure. They’re softer this time, more intent on learning each other’s mouths than desperately fighting for something that might not be true. They realize, in tandem, that they have time. Time is still, here. It’s nearing two in the morning, but here it’s as if time has frozen over, as if the waves are lullabies and the moon overhead is a night light, and it feels dreamlike but Bakugou’s lips are so raw and real against Ei’s that he can’t help but believe it to be true.

The blanket ends up getting soaked by a wave that rocks too hard on the dock and drenches the poor thing. Bakugou gripes about having a wet blanket in his car and Ei laughs, teases him and tells him that he sits in his car all the time, and they’re back to their normal bickering; Bakugou chases him around with a fireball in his hands, Ei hardens himself because knowing Bakugou, he will throw it. They wring out the blanket the best they can and put it in the trunk.

And Ei’s not cold on the way home, even without a blanket and with the windows down.

#my hero academia #kiribaku #bnha eijiro kirishima #bnha bakugo katsuki #fanfiction #ao3 writer #ao3 #one shot #pure fluf

[reflectionsofacreator]

As you find the shop, you can hear some men talking outside. One goes on and on about the various different taxations the Colonies have been subjected to, all without proper representation in Parliament. I actually stopped to listen for a good while, and he had a lot to say. 

It was really interesting to hear unnamed npcs talking about the underlying issues of why the American Revolution got started, with people discussing their daily grievances, especially framed as something you just happen to overhear while you’re running an errand. It adds a depth to the conflicts surrounding Ratonhnhake:ton, and fleshes out the world rather nicely. It also contextualizes history as something people lived, not just something I was taught about in school. 

Anyways, we go inside and Ratonhnhake:ton looks around a bit, and initially the shopkeeper is sort of hostile, but he clears up as soon as he sees the money pouch. I like that he was rather honest too -- Ratonhnhake:ton just dumped out the whole pile of coins in order to pay for everything, and the shopkeeper carefully counted out coins by saying what he could or couldn’t provide. It was a sense of honesty that really struck me, because I’m not sure if (at this point) Ratonhnhake:ton would be able to tell if he was being cheated or not. 

As we step outside though, errands done, something’s amiss. The sky’s turned dark from the hours spent inside, and we can see people fighting off in the distance, with what looks like British soldiers trying to restrain a lot of citizens. We find Achilles, and ask what’s up, and he guides us through the yelling crowds to figure out what’s going on. 

#creator plays ac3