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wittyrosebush · 3 years

Text

Dream SMP Reacting to a Witch!Hybrid

Pronouns: they/them

Includes: Dream, Quackity, Wilbur, qnd Tommy (PLATONIC)

Warnings: Meantion of drugs, swearing

A/N: This is based off of the canon characters and is set in the time of the Pogtopia/Manburg war!!! I might write a second part if this goes well. Also, this is the first thing I have written for this fandom, so I hope I get the character personalities correct. This is not beta read, so please don't attack me on my poor grammar skills. 😅

I hope you all enjoy!!! 💙

Dream

He was mining when he first met you

Dream heard a malicious cackle on the dark side of the cave and slowly drew his sword

He decided to charge towards the strange noise and was quickly met with an invisible body under him

He furrowed his brows and felt the body shuffle out from under him

"BEGONE STRANGE MAN"

"... excuse me?"

After a moment, Y/N's potion has worn off

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-"

Dream chuckled and put away his sword, deciding the person in front of him wasn't a threat

After Y/n calmed down, the two had a talk, explaining the situation

Turns out, you had thought of a joke while mining for redstone (hence the laughter)

"So where is your hat and huge nose? You are really attractive for a witch."

"Luckily, I got my attributes from my father. What was that last part?."

"Wait, what about your hat?"

"I haven't done laundry in a few days.... hold up did you just say I was attractive?"

Ever since then Dream has had you by his side partly because he is a little clingy creating potions for him and the rest of the dream team

"How do you feel about cursing children?"

"I'm not that kind of witch, Dream."

"But what if he was being a little blonde bitch?"

"DREAMWASTAKEN I SWEAR TO GOD-"

Loves bringing you stuff to use for your projects

Need blaze rods for a new brewing stand? Done.

Need lapis lazuli so you have a chance for better communication? Done.

Anything you want? Done.

He will literally go to the nether for a few hours and come back with his arms full of whatever you need

And if you don't need anything or just need to take a break, he'll spend the day taking you anywhere that he think you would be happiest

He has you make him a lot of potions, bragging to everyone on the server how much better at creating potions you are

"Y/n's potions last longer, are more effective, prettier-"

"Are you sure? I think-"

"Tell me what you think, I fuckin dare you >:( ."

Overall, he is your #1 supporter

Quackity

The day had been long, dealing with Schlatt definitely tires a guy out after 5 minutes

On his walk on the outskirts of the Manburg wall, he spotted a suspicious row of blaze powder leading to the woods

Dawning his armor and a sword, he followed the trail to a small hut

He could see the outline of someone in the hut nervously pacing around

Deciding what he thought was the best possible option, he knocked on the door of the hut

There was immediately the sound of glass bottles falling on the floor and muffled words

Soon, the door swung open to reveal a disheveled being with a nervous grin

And Quackity went from tough to awkward

"C-Can I help you with something?"

"Uh, do you waNT SOME DRUGS?"

"ExCuSe Me?!"

Everything was going to shit

After a moment of awkward staring, a glass bottle tumbled off the brewing stand

Upon focusing on what was going on behind the two people trying and failing to act normal, they both saw that every brewing stand was on fire

"ARE YOU ACTUALLY MAKING DRUGS?!"

"NO I'M JUST REALLY BAD AT THIS POTION."

Finally putting the fire out together, the two looked at their now soot stained clothes

The witch hybrid ran a hand through their hair and sighed

"Well this is completely ruined."

Quackity frowned a little hesitant to offer his help

"If you need to you could borrow some brewing stands-"

"Really? *-* "

On the walk back to Manburg, you explained who you were

Quackity was still a little confused

"Wait but what potion were you even brewing?"

"Fire resistance."

He immediately burst out laughing, which ended up with you slapping his arm repeatedly

Eventually, you two became the definition of the "friends to lovers" trope

You often helped him de-stress after stressful days in office with Schlatt

He'd try whatever you recommended

"I'd suggest putting quartz on your nightstand."

"Cool!"

Later that night, you forgot something at his house

Once you walked into his house, you could see stacks of quartz next to his bed.

He really trusted any advice you could give him

And on days where people would criticize you for being part witch?

Big Q will attack anyone

Even if he knows he will lose

And at random parts of the day he'll just tell you oddly inspirational thoughts

"You are a bad bitch, dare I say a bad witch. Own that shit."

"That is oddly motivational, thank you. :) "

Wilbur

The former president was strolling along the side of a river, trying to form a coherent plan of action

Upon noticing a person trudging out of the water fumbling with glass bottles, Wilbur jogged over to them and put a careful hand on their shoulder

"Are you okay?"

The person moved the soggy hat out of their face and smiled

"Yeah, I just fell in the water while trying to fill up some of the bottles, but thanks for checking on me!"

He hummed in response, wondering why he was already so interested in the being before him

"Well I should probably get going, but thank you!"

"Wait! What's you name?"

"It's Y/n, and you are..?"

"Wilbur Soot, it was an honor meeting you, Y/n."

This man spent the rest of the night thinking about you and who the hell you were

He didn't know much about the mysterious person, but he did know that they were one of the most alluring people he had met in a long time

It was weeks since he saw you, Wilbur nearly gave up searching

That was until you walked into him on a rainy day

The brunette immediately went in defensive position and pulled the stranger to his chest, despite the dampened clothes

"Um, Mr. Soot?"

He looked down to see you and his face lit up

"Y/n! It's a pleasure to see you again."

He took a small step back and kissed your hand

No one can convince me that Wilbur "Gentleman" Soot does not flirt by giving hand kisses

The two went into Pogtopia and Wilbur almost immediately wrapped his coat around you

"What were you doing out there? The rain is coming down so hard you must not have been able to see well."

"I was going to ask if I could borrow a few golden carrots for a potion I'm making."

Wilbur nodded and walked towards the stared and whisper shouted down

"TOMMY BRING ME SOME GOLDEN CARROTS!"

"BUT WILBUR, I-"

"PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME LOOK BAD IN FRONT OF THE STUNNING WITCH!"

The boy at the bottom of the stairs grumbled and the tall man sat next to you once more

After a few minutes of Wilbur fawning over everything you did, a blonde male walked up the steps and glared at Wilbur as he handed you the carrots

"Simp..."

Wilbur dramatically gasped as you chuckled next to him

You eventually started coming over to Pogtopia practically every day

Most of the time it was to see Wilbur, but the rest of your time was spent creating potions for the war

As the nation grew, you were brought out of your shell more with Wilbur introducing you to everyone

He didn't want you to feel uncomfortable in a new place

You often walked along the same riverbank where you met

You have definitely pushed each other off a few times

He keeps small things that you enjoy on him at all times

He keeps a tiny bottle of sand from the river you met at, a piece of your old robe, and so much more in his pockets

Whenever he feels like he's in a dark place or justneeds to ground himself he takes out one of the items and just holds it close.

Mans is so in love

Tommy

He met you in the nether while you were farming netherwart

The blonde was thrilled to find a new fortress and decided to raid it before reinforcements came

Seeing a sleeping figure next to a bed of sould sand, he took a few congident steps forward

Once close enough, he poked you with the stick

"You good?"

"I was good when I was asleep."

"AYE I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD SO-"

After arguing for what felt like hours, you both stormed off to find both exits being blocked by wither skeletons

Tommy had gotten beaten up pretty bad after the fight so you took him back to your hut to get all patched up

"I didn't even need your help. I'm tougher than I look."

"You legitimately passed out twice on the way here."

"HOW DARE YOU, I WAS RESTING MY EYES!"

After a few hours of healing and a ton of laighter, you two became the most chaotic duo in the smp

This british raccoon child would often steal small potions to pull pranks

But unless they were really important and you needed them back, you'd always join in on the pranks

He tried to get you to make a potion using the 'Tubbo Bath Water' one time

It did not end well

At the point in your friendship where you revealed you were a hybrid, Tommy was so confused

"That makes no sense, witches are still humans, right?"

"Yeah..?"

"So how does that make you a hybrid?"

👁👄👁

"Listen here you little shit-"

He likes to show you off to anyone that can listen

"You think you're special? HA! I have a best friend that is part witch and they will kick your ass. >:)"

He is really interested in everything you do but will never ask

But if you tell him about what you're doing unprovoked?

Tommy would get so happy

He is so excited to learn what you have to teach and would be one of the best friends ever

#dream smp x reader #tommyinnit & reader #wilbur x y/n #wilbur x reader #wilbur x you #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur soot x y/n #wilbur soot x you #quackity x you #quackity x y/n #quackity x reader #dream x you #dream x reader #dream x y/n

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themandylion · 3 years

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97 & 41 jaytim

Oh wow, this ended up long. /o\

97 (Time Travel) + 41 (First Kiss) + JayTim

He's boosting tires in the Bowery when the thugs find him. Crowd him up against a wall and threaten him with bodily harm for horning in on their territory, even though this part of the city is a free-for-all, with no one reigning supreme. There's three of them to his one, all of them full-grown men with bulging muscles and nasty tempers and Jason knows he's in his final moments, that there's no way he's escaping this. Still, that doesn't mean he's going to go down without a fight. He squares his shoulders, plants his feet, raises the tire iron in his hand, and—

Between one blink and the next, the back-most thug is on the ground, groaning and clutching his crotch. There's a blur of red, and then the next one's down on his knees, the crowbar he was gripping half a block away and the hand that was holding it pinned to the wall by a slim, sharp-edged disk.

Silver flashes through the night, and the final guy collapses in a heap, just sprawled out on the pavement like he's not even human anymore, just a pile of discard clothes over something lumpy and unmoving. Someone lands on his back, light and nimble and impossibly tall. "You okay there, kid?" the new person asks, crouching down so he's at Jason's level and smiling.

"…Batman?" He's only ever seen the Bat from a distance before, but he's heard about the cape and cowl, and this guy has both.

The guy shakes his head. "Nope, not him. I'm his partner, though."

"Robin wears green," Jason feels compelled to point out, because he's definitely seen Robin before, though always on the TV, when the Teen Titans are fighting really scary bad guys elsewhere in the world.

This time, a shadow seems to pass over the man's face, sad and unhappy. "I'm a different kind of Robin. Red Robin. I'm pretty new, it's not surprising you haven't heard of me." He leans back on his heels and glances around at the thugs, frowning. "I've got to tie these guys up and leave them somewhere the GCPD will find them. Do you think you can get home on your own?"

Jason gulps, staring up at him, at the way all that tight leather and spandex hugs his body. Gee whiz. "Yeah, I. I can take care of myself. Thanks!" He surges forward, practically smacking his mouth against Red Robin's cheek, before running off into the night. Maybe not headed home, but to as close as anything gets, these days.

---

Two weeks later, Batman catches him boosting tires on Crime Alley. A week later, he's going home with the man. Jason asks about Red Robin and gets a confused, clueless look, which is strange. With everything else happening, he forgets about the man in the black cowl with the silver staff, but he still finds himself drawn to that one particular shade of red.

---

He forgets until the memory is jarred out of the deepest depths years later on the other side of the multiverse, when he's bound to a chair and staring down the barrel of gun. A gun held by another Batman, a different Bruce. One who did all the things he thought he wanted his Bruce to do, only to end up a broken man as a result. Jason tries to explain himself and his presence, but it's hard to when he keeps seeing that suit in the case over this Batman's shoulder.

They reach an understanding, a kind of peace. Both of them, finally, for the first time in ages. This other Bruce offers him the suit, and Jason doesn't think twice before putting it on. He's traveled across the multiverse, seen places where dead people live again, where evil people are good and vice versa. It's not too far a stretch to believe that somehow, he's going become his own childhood hero.

When he finishes pulling on the last piece, Bruce looks on him with pride and announces, "Red Robin lives!"

"Red…?" Jason murmurs, more than a little startled. It's been so long, he'd nearly forgotten the name, but it fits, it makes sense. Finally, he's back on the right path, back to being someone the boy he once was could be proud of. Will be proud of, when their paths cross again, which he's sure they will.

---

The other Batman dies.

---

They get back, finally done traveling across the multiverse, fleeing across Apokolips, running from plagues and maybes and might-have-beens. Donna and Rayner return to wherever they call home, and Jason... He thought he finally found himself when he put on the cowl and became Red Robin, but with everything that happened after that moment, all the contrition he gained has been too long stewing in a half-broken heart. He isn't sure who rescued him when he was a kid, but it wasn't him, and it wasn't the long-dead Jason of another world. Maybe it was no one at all, and he made it all up and convinced himself it was real.

He runs back to Gotham, strips off the cape and cowl, the bandoliers and leather. Throws it all in the trash and goes to knock some heads and blow off some steam, anything to escape from what the rest of the Justice League brought with them—a sob story and a broken, days-old body.

---

The suit disappears from the can where he threw it, and he thinks good riddance to bad rubbish, but the person who's wearing it now doesn't understand the significance, the legacy. Doesn't know what it symbolizes, a last chance at redemption, a final loss of innocence.

The new kid distracts him, muddies the water and still Jason doesn't see it, doesn't realize what's happening. Even when the kid takes the cowl, adds it to his green-free suit, he doesn't see it.

Jason's too busy fighting, too busy screaming, raging, being angry at himself and the world to realize how things are swirling tighter and tighter, closing in, twining together, weaving themselves in an intricate, impossible mesh that's new and old and always existing all at the same time. The three of them—him and Dick and the new kid—push and shove and fight and scream and grieve in their own ways, trying to figure out who they're going to be now, what the world is without Bruce.

He ignores overtures of friendship, leaves the kid broken and bleeding out and thinks nothing of it, still too busy hurting and too busy denying he hurts.

Thinks nothing of Robin back on the streets in red and green and black and yellow, a different boy, an actual child.

---

Bruce comes back, but he's just as stubborn as always, and Jason burned the last of his bridges while the old man was playing possum. There's nothing left for him to do but lurk in the shadows and grit his teeth and watch Drake bounce around the city in a costume that isn't his, telling himself he doesn't care, that it doesn't rub him the wrong way.

Doesn't actually realize what's happening until one day he's watching as Drake races across the city, ready to step in and stop him if he dares to cross into Red Hood's territory when suddenly—

There's no one. The roof's empty, not a soul in sight.

He swings over, investigates. There's a strange acrid smell in the air along with the faintest traces of sweat and exhaustion, but there's no clue to where he's gone, no hint. Minutes pass and the sky is getting darker as evening turns into night. Just when he's given up, Drake reappears, but still, unmoving. One hand grasping his staff while the other touches his cheek and he stares into nothing, dazed and unfocused.

His attention snaps up, and Jason is too startled to move, still standing there in the middle of the roof, the two of them locked in place.

"Holy fuck." He can't. This isn't—

He's tried to kill Drake multiple times over the years. They've barely had a conversation that hasn't ended with Jason drawing a knife or a gun, and more often than not he comes out on top. Leaves the guy knowing that he's alive at Jason's mercy.

But now he's standing there, finally grown into the Red Robin suit and name, filling it in all the right places, all the right ways, grasping a staff that Jason somehow failed to recognize until this exact moment.

"I never—" He never thought to make the connection, always assumed it had to be someone else, some one huge. Big enough to match the larger-than-life figure that dominated a half-forgotten memory.

"Huh." Red Robin collapses his staff, clips it his belt. "Random time blip? I didn't even realize."

Which would explain it. Of course he didn't realize—no way would he have helped that other, younger Jason if he'd known who it was. Why save a boy who's going to grow up to become a monster bent on destroying him over and over again. "Sorry," Jason says, startled, confused, unable to wrap his head around it all as he stumbles backwards, tries to do what he always does when he's confronted with too much, too fast—run.

Red Robin—Drake—tilts his head to the side and then does something completely unexpected. He shoves back the cowl and studies Jason with cool, clear eyes. "I have a feeling this has been a weird night for both of us. You could stick around. We could figure this out together."

So help him, Jason hesitates. "Time travel is pretty weird."

"I was thinking more being kissed by my childhood crush. But yeah, that too."

"Your… what?"

"Come on," he says, holding out a hand. "I think it's time we finally talked. Maybe without the death threats this time?"

Gulping, Jason takes that hand in his.

It's not much, but. It's a start.

(The Fanfic Trope MASH-UP is still open for asks!)

#JayTim #time travel #Red Robin #ask meme #anonymous #themandylion writes #my fic #weirdly canon compliant in its own special way 🤔#trope mash up

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concerningwolves · 3 years

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I finished The Irregulars earlier this week and i was going to do a scattered, flippant bullet point “review” as i often do, but after stewing in my feelings about it for a few days i want to talk about this properly, actually.

Something I absolutely adored was the way people’s powers manifested / the way their monstrosity was directly connected to the monstrous things that had happened to them. The concept is that a rip has opened in the universe, which allows something to extend its power into our world. This power grants people supernatural abilities when they seek help by praying/asking spirit boards for guidance/seances etc. The in-world explanation for this is that the rip takes the darkest parts of people and brings those parts to the fore, thus making them do monstrous things.

(I did feel like the show sometimes contradicted itself, one minute saying that when someone is made into a monster by the cruelty of the world they ought to be met with compassion, the next minute killing off these sympathetic monsters or subjecting them to cruel fates. The fact that Arthur Hilton, a man whose grief and trauma over the deaths of his wife and child drove him to abduct babies, was locked up in Bedlam in a windowless cell left a nasty taste in my mouth. I understand that they needed to have him there for Narrative Purposes, but after using the episode’s climax moment to reveal that this man is suffering – basically to tell us that he isn’t a monster, but someone who needs help – it felt very cheap to use him as a pawn for the plot instead of further exploring that sentiment.)

I’m a HUGE fan of the way the powers reflected the wielder, i.e., Clara (Ep. 4) was sexually abused and given syphilis, which took away her ability to have children. We learn as the episode unfolds that she’s obsessed with the idea of a family because she never had one of her own, and makes little taxidermy family scenes with dead animals. The syphilis made her hate herself and her own skin, so the rip granted her the ability to literally steal people’s faces and become them – an ability she then used to kill the men who abused her with the final goal of assuming the last man’s identity because he had a family. It was a really haunting exploration of monstrosity / what makes us monsters, and it made me go a bit feral with appreciation.

But when the credits of the last episode rolled, I just felt... dissatisfied. I was bitter at how although the casting was supposedly colour-blind, the main villain was a black man and the one “sympathetic monster” who gets killed off (Jean Gates / the Tooth Fairy) was a black woman, both with very dark skin. John Watson, meanwhile, is portrayed by a lighter-skinned POC and although he’s written as cruel, aggressive and threatening, he’s given the chance for a redemption while the Linen Man and Jean Gates get killed off. I’m not entirely comfortable talking about this aspect because i’m white and still very much learning about racist and colourist tropes, but I just kept thinking about the colourism and implicit bias in Bridgerton, and couldn’t help but feel that The Irregulars had fallen into the same or a similar trap? (If anyone has any more thoughts on this I’m happy to listen!)

I didn’t like the fact that the writers decided to acknowledge the homoerotic subtext in ACD’s Holmes canon by making John Watson manipulative and controlling, then justifying that as an act of his (unrequited) love for Sherlock. Like, it wouldn’t be so bad if there were other examples of queer love in the series (save for the one f/f couple at a fancy rich party), but when your only explicitly mlm named character is miserable, alone and pining for an oblivious/uninterested love interest – a love interest who is killed off, may I add – it’s Not Fun. Queer rep doesn’t have to be good and pure or whatever (NBC’s Hannibal, anyone?), but sure would be nice to have some positive representation first! It also seemed to me that John’s redemption was directly tied to him giving up his love for Sherlock, which I was in two minds about. On the one hand, it could be seen as him realising his love had become something deeply toxic and so he had to let Sherlock go (and that really excites me! Complex and angsty relationships are most delicious), but on the other hand it got very close to a Bury Your Gays moment so my feelings the entire time were just :/

Lastly I was super excited about Leopold because disabled character! But it seemed as if his disability just got put to one side unless it was relevant to character arcs and/or plot moments. His leg is absolutely fucked up from the first episode, but he abandons his cane? I did really appreciate the whole “you’re not broken” angle they took, though. I think it was a genuinely good-faith representation, it just didn’t quite hit the mark (which is how I felt about a lot of things in the show tbh, so... :shrugs:)

To conclude this wall of text: monsters and the takes on monsters were very tasty, and the supernatural elements and worldbuilding filled me with glee; other bits like representation and narrative choices were dissatisfying. i am now tired and out of spoons, will probably come back and clarify this tomorrow.

#the irregulars #i uhhh idk what tag to sort this into #the hyperfixations tag #monsters & monstrosities

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damnedparker · 4 years

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comedown

pairing: alex law x reader (gender neutral; no y/n)

warnings: angsty hurt/comfort, sad and probably mildly out of character alex law, showering together (no smut or anything though)

summary: after the events with his roommates and their situation with hugo, alex feels crippling regret, knowing nowhere else to go except to his best friend, and the one person he cares deeply for.

title is from the song comedown by bush. i recommend you give it a listen, and it feels very alex to me <3

so this just kind of exploded out of my keyboard? i kind of thought of this as maybe what’s going on underneath alex’s loud, brazen personality during the events of shallow grave. may have taken too many liberties, as he’s quite soft and sad during this but i wanted to try something different. my trope of intimacy via showers is still here though because i am weak.

The alarm clock at your bedside blared the red numbers 4:12 into the black of your room when you were awoken by the crack of thunder, followed shortly by a knock at your apartment door. You sighed, staring at your ceiling for a moment before dragging yourself out of bed, all fucks having been lost back with your unconscious self, and threw on an oversized red shirt to cover your pants-less legs while you went to answer the door.

“Alex?” You woke up a bit more at the sight of your best friend, half-soaked in his usual many layers of jacket, flannel, and sweatshirt, except said layers were a bit askew and dirty. “What— are you okay?” Alex just shrugged, looking at you with tired eyes. Usually, some exploitive or loud comment would immediately escape his lips, so his silence concerned you.

“Sorry, I just-I needed to see you,” he stuttered out. You stepped closer to him, tilting your head in concern. His eyes were shining with tears he was clearly holding back. “I know it’s fuckin’ late.”

“No, it’s okay,” you shook your head, reaching up to brush his hair away from his eyes. “What happened?”

“I…” He took a deep breath, looking away. His eyes seemed to cloud over, and he got lost in his thoughts for a second before he finally broke and the tears began falling. In all your years of friendship, you had never seen Alex cry before, and this completely broke you. Something was wrong.

“Oh, Alex,” you murmured, pulling him into a tight hug. His head fell forward onto your shoulder, wetting the shirt you had pulled on. You ran your fingers through his hair, letting him hold you tightly. The thunder continued outside, filling the silence around Alex’s small sobs and sniffles. You stood together near your front door for a long time, just holding each other.

“I probably just ruined your shirt,” he inhaled and lifted his head finally, going to fiddle with the sleeve of said shirt before realization came over his face with a small smile. “Or my shirt.”

“You must have left it here last time you came over.” You replied quietly. His eyes met yours and suddenly you were very aware of how close the two of you were.

“Yeah,” his voice was soft. “Suits you.” He took a deep breath, continuing to finger the hem of your sleeve.

“Alex… what’s going on?” Your hand pushed forward to intertwine your fingers with the ones messing with your shirt sleeve. Alex swallowed, opening his mouth and closing it, not able to speak for a moment.

“It’s complicated.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m…” He pulled away, walking past you and standing in the middle of your living room, his back to you. “I don’t think you want to know.”

“Of course I want to know,” you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion, following him. “Alex, I know something is seriously wrong. I want to help.”

“There’s nothing to help with. It’s-it’s already done,” his voice began to break again. “And I don’t want to scare you or-or make your opinion of me change. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Alex, you’re scaring me by not telling me,” you took his hand again, pulling him back towards you. He smelled of something earthy, mixed with his regular musky, spicy cologne. You wanted to drown in his scent. “Please.” Your best friend looked at you for a long time, his eyes full of both fear and great care for you. Alex would never admit it, but he was absolutely soft around you. You could tell. He didn’t act like this around anyone else, and although he had certainly never cried in front of you before now, he had definitely gone sweet on you in your moments alone. Which only grew your suspicion of him returning your feelings.

“I don’t deserve your care, sweetness,” the pet name he used for you in moments of rare sincerity made warmth crawl up your spine. “I don’t deserve to be your friend.” Your gaze and his were locked together, unmoving, and you decided to take your chance.

“Then don’t be,” you murmured, leaning against his chest. “Be something more.”

“I love you,” Alex murmured. “I should have told you a long time ago. Before what I got myself into. Because now I’ve dragged you into my fucking mess.”

“I don’t care,” you looked back up at him. Your hand caressed his cheek, and he leaned into your touch gratefully. “I’m in far too deep, you annoying shit.” Alex scoffed in amusement before leaning forward to steal his first of many kisses from you. He leaned back only ever so slightly; his breath warm across your lips. You chuckled half-heartedly, still feeling the distress and sadness emanating from him. “You smell like dirt.”

“Yeah, no shit,” he huffed. “Can I use your shower? And then we can… talk about things.”

“How about we both have a shower and talk about things?” Another kiss. You didn’t wait for an answer before tugging him along with you to the bathroom.

While the shower began to heat up, you kept the lights dim, and lit a few candles so the both of you wouldn’t slip and fall just trying to move around. Once you finished, you found Alex still standing in all his messy clothes, just watching you with a soft expression on his face. He squeezed your hand once it was in his grasp again.

“You gonna shower in your clothes or what?” You kept your teasing soft, trying to keep him in decent spirits. Usually, Alex would respond immediately with a sarcastic or witty comment, but he continued to be quieter than normal. You began to take off his many layers, and he pushed on with your encouragement, beginning to help you with your clothes as well. Eventually the two of you were both completely undressed, about to step in the shower. In any other version of this scenario, you would be all over each other already and probably waking your neighbors, but the sadness coming from Alex’s unknown problem still hung in the air. You pulled him underneath the water.

Alex let the water wet his hair, already rinsing out some of the grime left in it from whatever the hell he had gotten himself into. He just stood there, eyes closed for a while, taking in the warmth of your body as well as the water and steam around the both of you.

“Bend down a bit, let me help you, baby.” Alex heeded your instructions, almost keening from the feeling of your fingertips against his scalp. His thumb traced circles on your hip as you stood closer to lather the shampoo all over his head. “Will you tell me what’s going on now?”

You didn’t know what to expect when Alex began to explain everything, but to say the least you didn’t expect it to involve a dead body. You were completely shocked, and felt a little sick, not knowing how you were ever going to respond to this. It wasn’t until Alex got halfway through and started breaking down again, tears flooding his eyes, that you realized what was going on. The crippling guilt and regret he felt. The nightmares he was having. The palpable tension between his roommates and the lack of security he felt after being attacked. Soon enough his words were going a mile a minute, and he was in a loop of rambling about how he knew it was his fault, it was his idea, his mistake, his stupid fucking misguided decision.

“Alex,” you said, but that didn’t succeed him in stopping. You kept repeating his name, but he couldn’t stop the words pouring out of his mouth, not when his body began to shake, the tears overwhelmed him, or the water ran cold. “Alex.” You placed your hands on his shoulders and squeezed, almost reminding him you were still there. He finally stopped, chest heaving in stress and panic, and he just looked at you with an expression that said help me. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“How—"

“Take it a step at a time. We’ll figure it out. I’ll help you.” You told him softly, reaching for a towel to help dry him off. When you were finished, you wrapped it around his shoulders, and he clutched the two ends together like a small child.

Once you were able to guide Alex out of the bathroom, now dressed in an old t-shirt of yours and his previous pair of boxers, you quickly threw on a similar outfit, a t-shirt Alex had gifted you a few months ago for your birthday, and your underwear. The two of you sat on your bed facing each other, legs crossed and knees touching. You reached over to brush his now wet hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ears. Alex was the first to speak.

“I understand if you never want to speak to me again—”

“Alex, please,” you shook your head. “I love you. What you did, I mean, you and I both know it was…” You couldn’t find the right words, but he nodded, understanding. “But I know you. And the fact that you came to me, the way you reacted… you regret it. If it wasn’t for that I don’t know if we’d both be sitting here, you know?” Alex nodded, now fiddling with one of your stuffed animals that took residence in your bed, one that Alex usually made fun of, but was now holding for comfort. “You can move past this. I’ll help you. I’m not losing you now.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, words you had rarely heard from that obnoxious man’s mouth. “I said it before but I really don’t deserve you.”

“You deserve to be loved,” you held his face gingerly in your hands. His skin was warm, jaw only just a bit prickly from not being freshly shaved. “And I love you.”

“Don’t know why,” he took one of your hands and kissed your palm before cradling it to his chest. “You’re a right fucking idiot for that.”

“Probably so,” you smiled at his small effort at banter that was returning.

“Can we cuddle for a while?” The hair behind his ear returned in front of his eyes as he tilted his head at you in question.

“Of course, you big baby.”

“You’re going to drive me fucking insane.” He mumbled and kissed your forehead, pulling you down on top of him as he made himself comfortable in your nest of pillows. You rested your chin on his chest to look up at him as he stared at the glow in the dark stars sprinkled across your ceiling, now fading a bit with the approaching light of dawn coming through your window. “Are you going to stare at me while I sleep?”

“If I so desire,” you grin, sitting up just a bit to lean over him. “You’re pretty easy on the eyes.” He grinned, clearly never not in the mood to have his ego stroked. You planted a kiss on his lips. Alex hummed into it, hand slipping down to pull your thigh across his legs, so you were positioned like a koala, half on his chest, with him hugging you protectively.

Tomorrow would be a new, better day. The start of a second chance.

#alex law x reader #alex law #shallow grave #alex law fluff #alex law angst #ewan mcgregor x reader #my fics

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nagisasstunningpersonality · 3 years

Text

TINSITOGS, a retrospective (happy birthday)

(yes I’m like two days too late I know I’m sorry)

Why hello followers and ass class fandom, nice to see you there. I’m sure MOST people know about this, but in case you don’t, hi. On AO3 I’m better known as livixbobbiex, writer of maybe one of the most infamous Assassination Classroom fics.

Which I mean like, if you haven’t read it yet you totally should it’s fanlore at this point I promise-

Shameless plug that I don’t need aside, I felt that, on its first birthday since actual completion, I just wanted to share some things about it. Some tit bits about writing it, fun facts, maybe even some author advice TM. I appreciate that it’ll be super annoying if I do that in the tags, though, so that’ll all be under the cut. If you don’t want to read the whole post, then no matter what, thanks for the support in general!

I also want to take the opportunity to announce that I’ve reopened my discord, so if you want to talk about my fics with me (and others), you’re more than welcome to join! (the link is here)

The origin story

I’ve stated this many times, I think, but TINSITOGS was never supposed to be a serious story. Taking you back, quite a long time, it actually started in a facebook DM with a friend. We used to come up with “head canons” with each other, which were basically just very condensed fanfiction plots over a multitude of text messages. I believe I was trying to cheer her up, and I tried to come up with some kind of plot line.

At the time, I was fairly fresh to the Ass Class fandom, and I was joking about how there were no teen pregnancy melodrama fanfictions. It wasn’t that I wanted one, I just thought it was strange for a school centric anime with a bunch of ships to NOT have one. And, back then, I only really cared about karmagisa. So I just decided ‘right it’s happening’. The reason I decided to make it ABO was due to ‘it making sense’. Fun fact: it was almost written as AFAB trans Nagisa, but I decided against it as I didn’t rate my ability to handle it well back then. Looking back on it, I’m glad I made that decision.

Over around two months, writing out the plot of this story took over my life a little bit. I had no idea where I was going with it, but I was having so much fun with the drama that I decided that Karma and Nagisa shouldn’t get together soon at all, and I had a lot of fun teasing my friend with the ‘will they won’t they’. It was only when I got bored that I invented this intense drama plotline to finish it all off.

That period of time was a lot of fun. And whilst that friendship didn’t end well, I still have a lot to thank her for. She chose Daichi’s name because I had no idea, and she wanted to annoy me because I didn’t like Haikyuu. When I couldn’t decide on his hair colour, the purple was her suggestion because ‘why logic?’ Daichi speaking Korean was because of how much she liked Kpop. She even helped me choose the title of the actual fic, so there’s a lot you can thank her for, honestly.

After I finished that story, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Whenever I daydreamed, I used to think about that damn Daichi Akabane, and how much I wanted to tell his story. I’d even come up with extra stuff to fill in a lot of the gaps, and developed his character in my mind. I decided that I was really desperate to write it down. Usually that worked when I had an idea I wanted to work through.

I wrote the first chapter in late 2017, and then the next two as well. I just, kept going, and realised that I could go further still. TINSITOGS was never something that was supposed to be shared, but I decided I may as well. After all, that fated ‘teen pregnancy drama’ fic still didn’t exist, and I thought it would be funny to make it happen.

Yes, as I’ve stated publicly a few times, TINSITOGS was a crack fic. If I wanted attention from it, it was infamy. We even joked about me cursing the fandom if it ever became the most popular fic (whoops?). What I wasn’t expecting was a bunch of people, in a fandom where at the time there were NO ongoing karmagisa fics and it was pretty dead, to really seem to enjoy it. It was enough to have me keep writing it, at least. I still don’t know at what point I actually started taking it seriously, but somehow I did, and the rest is history?

The reception

In my wildest dreams, I never thought that I would be the author of one of the most popular fics in the fandom. To this day, the amount of views TINSITOGS has is insanity to me. For the record, across all platforms it’s on today it has 238,000, which is literally a number I can’t even visualise anymore. Almost quarter of a MILLION. To this day on AO3, it’s the most viewed Ass Class fic that’s an ACTUAL ass class fic (the others are multi fandom compilations). So yeah, I achieved the original goal, I guess?

Now you might be wondering, “omg the karmagisa fandom is fujoshi trash”. And, considering the origins, it is kind of funny. The thing is, though, TINSITOGS was written at incredibly good time. It was written when there were, essentially, very few long form Karma/Nagisa stories. If any other fics did get posted on occasion, they were usually just oneshots. I was also, at that point, writing very fast. A symptom of ADHD is becoming obsessively productive over certain things. Since I was able to get a 3k chapter out every few days/once a week, TINSITOGS was consistently bumped to the top of AO3′s default view. And some of those first few chapters were altered canon, and transcribing the canon dialogue didn’t take very long. The more views it got, the more people would read it out of sheer curiosity.

I think it also helps that, at least after it started getting some positive feedback (which was honestly after the pre written chapters), I purposely tried to make it ‘not terrible’. I mean, I personally think the first chapter is pretty weak and if it wasn’t somewhat iconic to a lot of people I’d rewrite it. But in general, I purposely tried to make the world of ABO my own, to make it more accessible to those who don’t like that genre, and stay away from the inherently grosser stuff as much as possible. I genuinely do get comments about how I introduced people to the genre as a whole, still not sure if that’s a GOOD thing but hey, it happened.

TINSITOGS turned into a lot more than just a joke. It turned into my favourite hobby. It turned into a research project (honestly, you would not believe the amount of mummy vlogs and legit scientific articles about child development I consumed). It turned into something that, at least I believe, was widely loved.

Meaning

I think it might be wrong to say that I don’t have AN idea of when I started to take the fic super seriously. For me, it was around the time someone commented something along the lines of saying my writing meant a lot to them, that they’d spent all night reading it and had been unable to put it down.

Not to get too dark here, but I do have a past in writing a very long, somewhat popular fic (it’s still on my fanfic net profile if anyone’s interested, but I don’t recommend it). However, in the latter part of my teenage years, the depression struck. Writing was the love of my life, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. Maybe I’d be able to muster an idea or even a chapter at the best points of that, but I’d never completely finished any story. Starting to write again was a huge step in my recovery, and one of the reasons I convinced myself that life was worth it was being able to impact someone’s life somehow. Even to this day, I still remember the fics I read when I was, like, thirteen. How much I still remember them, and how much they meant to be at the time. I wanted to be that writer for someone else. To be honest, it was actually Yuri!!! On Ice that got me out of the super bad, but I still never wrote anything of real consequence. TINSITOGS was the first time in a long time I actually committed to something.

And, to be completely honest, there were a lot of times I was tired of it, and wanted to just quit. But, the thing was, I felt like people depended on me in a way. I got so many comments that were just FILLED with support, telling me how much they looked forward to every update. It wasn’t just empty words, either, a lot of the times these comments would be super engaged with the actual writing. I can’t even describe just how much they meant to me, how much I would look forward to reading everyone’s opinions. And then discord happened, which was a lot of fun.

TINSITOGS went a lot further than I ever thought it would. There were comments, discussions, fan art, fan FIC (which is honestly incredible to me). Someone even added it to TV Tropes, at one point. Not to mention the Cards Against Humanity deck and quiz It makes me so unbelievably happy that I could inspire that much creativity, but it’s a two way street. It was all of that which inspired me to write, too.

Writing

The only real goal I actually had was aiming for around 3000 words per chapter. I had a whole facebook log of plot points as planning, and I was mostly just trying to expand on them into prose. I honestly thought that, at its completion, the entire fic would be around 100k words, if that. Not, at one point, being literally the longest ass class fic on AO3.

There are a lot of aspects that were directly adapted from the original messages, and I tried to stay faithful to it more so at first, even if I later removed some of the pure crack. But the style was also vaguely similar, with the story being told mostly from Nagisa’s perspective with swaps to Karma when it made sense. All the main plot beats, too, are pretty much identical. The plus to this was I was able to add a lot of really fun foreshadowing, and I feel like it’s a fun reread because of it.

Honestly though, if there’s a demand to release those OG message logs, I will. Mostly because it’s kind of funny, and interesting to see. Isogai and Nagisa were engaged at one point, even.

Obviously, it changed somewhat. 3000 was the minimum length, and the time to completion was whenever it felt right. One of my big concerns was about pacing, so it took a lot more fleshing out and maybe ‘filler’ content for some of the main arcs to work.

There’s parts of TINSITOGS I don’t think aren’t written that well, and some that I’m still super proud of. I think you can definitely tell there’s a gradual shift in style, and I get a lot more comfortable with writing them as characters as it goes along. To be honest, my pride for the fic overall is what it represents.

It is funny to think about the places it got written in, though. I started it when I worked at McDonalds with no life direction, then it went through my first year of university with me. It’s been written in at least four countries. Aeroplanes, night clubs, long haul buses, a train through the Japanese southern coastline. Even the start of covid. TINSITOGS managed to see a lot. I even turned a scene in (the boat scene during the India chapter with altered names) to my university as a legitimate assignment.

There were also a few messages I wanted to achieve, once I realised I had the platform to put them across. One of them was, obviously, ‘use protection kids’. It was important to me that I didn’t glamorise it too much, and I think that came across. I also wanted to dispute some of the issues with ABO, and subvert the consent issues as much as I could. An arc I really ‘liked’ writing was how abuse doesn’t always look the same way, and that it can be a drawn out change in behaviour. How the most important part of ‘being a good parent’ isn’t perfection, but genuinely loving and doing the best you can for your kid. How love doesn’t solve everything, and effective communication can take a very long time to learn and build a functional relationship. I mean, there definitely was a lot I tried to put in, and you’re free to interpret it all how you want. But, I like to think some people learnt some of these things, at least.

Daichi

Honestly, Daichi developed almost of his own free will. I had a good idea of his appearance, and that he was smart. Writing him from birth until around nine years old (older if you read the sequel fic) pretty much allowed that fluidity. It was really fun to explore a nature vs nurture development, and let his own characteristics speak for themselves.

He’ll always have a special place in my heart.

This is the first image I ever made. When I was trying to figure out what Daichi looked like, I honestly just edited Karma’s hair (pretty well, actually? I’m impressed with my past skill). That’s where the ‘he looks just like Karma’ meme kind of came from.

This was the first image I actually created of Daichi. I THINK it was on rinmaru games mega anime creator or something, but it’s literally not available on the internet anymore as far as I can tell, so I can’t double check. This was in the pre-piccrew days. His eyes are closed because they didn’t have the right tone of goldish/silver.

His sister, Kaguya, didn’t even exist originally, even though I decided on that ending pretty early on. Actually, she was going to be called ‘Irina’ due to some hijinks. Initially, when Karma found out about Irina’s pregnancy, she was going to get super emotional and mad at him and basically force him to name his first born daughter after her. Karma agreed to shut her up, never intending to have another child, so when the surprise second child later came along they had to live with the pain. However, to be honest I just forgot to write in the actual scene that set it all up, and I decided against adding it anywhere else. The name Kaguya was a very last minute decision, and it was a chance for me to explore some ideas that didn’t fit with Daichi’s character.

Interestingly too, Daichi and Nao were never intended to be a thing. I only decided that towards the VERY end. Even though the reason I named Nao that was because of a ship I had in a J Drama (Good Morning Call). It just kind of ended up happening because I won myself over with imagining the cute.

The music

I used to write with a lot of background music, though not all the time. Particularly towards the start, there was a lot that didn’t really make sense thematically, yet I would write to a lot.

Here’s a link to the spotify playlist if you want it it’s basically all the ones I noted I’d listened to a lot. Not including the smut ones, though, I have a whole playlist for that.

Some of the notable ones:

Five String Serenade - the first scene I wrote of the entire fic, in Chapter 25 New Year Time where they fell asleep cuddling.

Cosmic Love - when I wrote Nagisa’s love confession scene in hospital (I also wrote this pretty early on)

Northern Downpour (though it was actually a cover by Emma Blackery) - The chapter after Daichi’s born (30)

When The Party’s Over - Confession Time Third Period, Chapter 69. I literally listened to this song on REPEAT when I planned and wrote the kind of ‘break up’ scene, and it’s one of the few parts that made me cry writing.

Turning Page - I know I said no smut, but this song actually gave me the idea to have the “I love you” in chapter 108 be less on a whim and actually more built up. In the original plan, Karma really did just say it without thinking. I’m glad I changed that.

Bury Me Low and Numb - pretty much all I listened to when writing the last few chapters, because Evil Nagisa core. So much so that Bury Me Low was in my top 2020 songs rewind.

As for the title, there’s actually quite a funny story. I had no idea what to call the fic, and when that happens I usually just try and find some song lyrics. I really wanted to use something from ‘October’ by the Broken Bells. Not only because it’s my favourite song (has been for years), but thematically it really worked. The issue was, it worked as the WHOLE song, there were no individual lyrics that captured everything. And, if they did, they didn’t flow very well. And naming the fic ‘October’ would have been weird for a lot of reasons. There Is No Sweeter Innocence That Our Gentle Sin really was just plucked randomly, in a desperate search to find any snappy lyrics from any song that had some kind of meaning. After a bit of discussion, we settled that it kind of worked... if Daichi is innocent and they committed a sin or something. It also wasn’t the most obvious lyric from the song (Take Me To Church if anyone doesn’t know) so I just went with it. It works out, I think, because TINSITOGS turned out to be a pretty good acronym and pronounceable word in its own right.

The merch redbubble drama

It’s a well known fact that I’m not very good at art. However, I decided to try pixel art because it seemed the easiest to not mess up. I made Karma and Nagisa, before deciding to also give Daichi a try.

This, to this day, is the only good quality art of Daichi that I actually own. The only one I’m actually happy sharing and thinking it doesn’t look terrible. As much as I love people sending me fanart, it’s not ‘my property’, right.

So, I was kind of joking about TINSITOGS having merchandise. At first I just made two funny quote things, and uploaded it to redbubble. I was never intending to actually make money from this, and I’d agreed to myself that if I did, I would just donate it to charity. I was joking with the quotes, but since I had this artwork I figured I may as well uploaded. Separately, there was also an image that had pixel Daichi next to pixel Nagisa and Karma (which I also created).

Aside from showing up in a few people’s adverts across the internet, there was no real harm with this. In fact, I didn’t make money anyway. It was just... more the joke of it existing. I did, however, buy myself a Daichi phone case, which is one of my favourite possessions.

The funny ‘drama’ comes in when they got taken down due to copywrite. Sure, the one with Nagisa and Karma, I understand. But the other three literally had no mention or anything to do with Assassination Classroom, aside from being from a fanfiction. So basically, someone who owns those rights claimed my OC as theirs. Which makes Daichi canon? Whatever the case, I found this hilarious don’t worry.

How has TINSITOGS changed my life?

This is quite a strange thing to think about. Because, in a lot of ways, it really hasn’t. As I’m sure a lot of people know, I don’t really consider myself to have any real ‘fame’, despite the impressive numbers. Whenever I tell people in my personal life, they seem to think I’m some sort of internet celebrity, but that’s never been the case for me. I mean, it’s hardly a cultural phenomenon.

In a lot of ways, I’d much rather befriend someone than have them admire me. Possibly because being someone’s inspiration is kind of weird... I’m just an awkward duck who likes to write after all. I don’t mind it, though. I genuinely find it an honour, even if I don’t necessarily agree. I also want to take this time to say that if anyone ever wants to talk or message me, you’re more than free to do so. I’m usually super casual with people who do that, I promise.

TINSITOGS was the first story I ever finished in the way I truly wanted to. Start to end, a full narrative. And it took a LOT. There were so many times I almost felt like quitting, or took super long breaks. For me, ADHD queen, actually finishing something was a huge deal. And I know I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t owe it to everyone who read it, and myself, to see it through. You know like, if I were to die tomorrow, at least I’ve left something behind.

In a lot of ways, it’s changed me for the better. It’s helped me develop my writing styles, and way of thinking. It encouraged me to become more active in the fandom, and develop some important friendships. I always feel like my Tumblr and Fanfiction ‘known’ factor is separate. I think most of my Tumblr following is more to do with my theories/Japanese context research if anything, for example, but I know I wouldn’t be so interested in that if TINSITOGS hadn’t lead me to deeply examine character and really look into analysing source material for clues. I also think there’s just... a lot of myself in it.

I was 17 years old, when I first came up with the idea. I finished the story when I was 20. Now, at the time of writing, I’m 21. That time has seen some pretty significant changes - just in general life facts and my own personal human development. For me at least, a lot of that was pretty turbulent, and TINSITOGS stands as a time capsule for that, in a way.

I know I gained a lot of confidence, and it affirmed to me that writing is what I love. Telling stories and sharing them is what I love.

Conclusion

Do I think TINSITOGS is an outstanding piece of writing, or the best fic ever? No. I really don’t. It’s strange to say because I definitely spent a lot of time on it, but it’s not like I put my full unbridled efforts into the story. I don’t fully plan, use a beta, or even read through on my own. And that’s okay - that’s not what I write fanfiction for. Fanfiction is my place to have fun with characters and stories I like, without the pressures of having to stand on my own complete originality. Yes, I’m fully confident that I can write at a “higher quality”, if I really wanted to. I’m also aware that some authors put their full effort into their fics, and that’s just as valid!

It feels odd to say this about my own writing, but I honestly think there’s just something in this story. It might not be written in the best prose ever, and the premise might be kind of dumb for a lot of people. But, I think, there’s some part of this fic that managed to grab people. Somehow, at some point, many readers get captured into the emotions and so drawn in that ‘they just have to finish it now!’ Again, I’m not sure myself how I actually achieved that. Of course, that won’t apply to everyone, but I do feel there’s some truth in it. And it makes me happy, to have caused that.

If TINSITOGS is your favourite fic, or if you genuinely think it’s the best story you’ve read, then thank you. I really appreciate your support, and I’m happy to have been a part of your life, I guess. I know how much fanfics can mean to a person, and that’s why I’m not going to take it down, or edit it at all. And it’s fine too, if you loved the fic for a while and moved on -i t happens. Whatever the case, I’m very honoured to have been able to occupy a moment of your life. Or if you find this fic in 10 years time, even, I still wholly appreciate you.

This story was incredibly important to me, and thank you for reading if it was ever important to you too.

You may ask, what now? Well, this is only intended to be a detailed look back for whoever’s interested, and it’s likely the only one I’ll actually do, a year after completion. Of course, if you ever want to ask me anything or just discuss the story, you’re honestly good to contact me in whatever way I have available.

I’m still writing my ongoing stories, of course, despite taking a small break due to the university work load. I fully intend to complete the stories I’ve already started to tell, at least. After that... I’m not sure if I’ll still write fanfiction. Don’t panic, this isn’t a ‘I’m quitting writing’ thing. I may, however, have bled the Karmagisa genre a bit too dry at that point. Who knows? I am pretty interested in writing something original for once, so maybe that’ll work out.

For now, at least, thank you to anyone who read this fic. To anyone who commented, liked, or interacted with me over it. To anyone who created or learnt from it. I’m really glad that I got to share this story with you all, and ultimately left some kind of mark, no matter how big or small.

Happy birthday, TINSITOGS. I had a lot of fun writing you.

#ass class #assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #tinsitogs #karmagisa

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zirkkun · 3 years

Text

I can't sleep so I'm gonna ramble for a minute here about. uh. 2020 i guess lol everyone else is so might as well jump on the bandwagon.

Be aware this is really really fucking long so it's a commitment to read it lmao sorry i just cannot sleep and i guess i had more on my mind about this year than i thought. I also did not proofread this at all. I just started writing and didn't look back lol

This year was... Weird for me. It started out with me feeling my best in January, comfortable and positive as I did my nth playthrough of DBH with friends and finally having enough alts of my boy Alfonse in FEH to have a team of Just him to fight with. (Priorities, right?) February hit, and things were still going good. I met Ray Chase and had him sign a print I did of Roy and Alfonse in some casual outfits for a scrapped au I wrote years ago. (And I gave him one 😊). Hell, like, covid was just coming around when me and my friends went to the con that weekend and a breakout of it hit the city just south of where the con was like a week before, but I was genuinely so excited for it that like I was like "Yeah, if i die, i die. Whatever happens happens." God, at this point, the Alfonse gc I was in was still alive and I still didn't talk to anyone in the group outside of that gc. Lowkey miss it tbh. But oh well. Things move on.

But that con was like... Stressful. I usually have fair amounts of stress at cons, being around so many people, I fear theft, unwanted contact, y'know, the standard; but my friend group was so filled with tension that it was absolutely painful. We'd been split most of the weekend, and if the two groups came together, it was hell, because it just caused unwanted arguments. I felt really bad cause I didn't want them to be upset, yknow? But i also wanted to hang out with my friends all at once. So i swapped between the groups a bit over the weekend. And blew WAY more money than I should have and lowkey it kind of fucked me over for the rest of the year cause I haven't had a job all year outside of, like, a local church job that pays at a rare max of $100 a month ;w;

I'd been struggling in school the previous semester already, about halfway through having just stopped going to classes altogether, yet still somehow managed to pass everything with B's and A's. The next semester rolled around, and I thought at first the distraction and inability to do anything was because of the con, and as it persisted after, I thought it was just post-con depression. But, as it turned out, no, it's just been my biggest relapse of depression since the end of high school, and frankly, it's only gotten worse since. I can't sleep rn because I'm between not wanting to do anything because I have a lack of emotions and motivation and not feeling deserving of sleep lol. I checked out of school on February 28th, however, I was convinced I was merely demotivated by my surroundings -- at this point, I was studying Japanese, and one of my friends at the time was a (although probably unintentionally) complete braggart about how much he was studying and how he was improving... not to mention he was textbook example of "This is an Actual Weeaboo, don't Fucking Do this." (One of many reasons i said friend at the time lol) it was just... So draining being around him, and I had to see him in class every day of the week. I barely scraped together assignments last-minute and never studied under the idea of "What does it matter if I'm not putting in my 100%?" So I checked out, with plans of transferring for the following semester.

Well, then March hit. Y'all know how March went down lmao.

I pretty much locked myself in my room at all times during March, going between Animal Crossing and BOTW (which actually racked up like 200ish hours i think according to the nintendo year in review i had lmao). I started making a bit closer online friends at this point, notably @levitumbling who decided to take me in as his channel designer for YouTube and I've been ever since! But. Of course. My first task? A Sans meme. My payment? One Switch copy of Undertale because he considered it a disgrace that I'd never played the game before.

Now, let me tell you. I was fuckin scared to play this game. I held onto it for weeks between the fear of "My friend bought me this and i should play this" and "I told myself I'd never touch this game with a 20 mile pole because of how much it's been shoved down my throat over the years." So, one day, I don't remember when, early April, I said, fuck it, I'll play it for a little bit, just enough to say "hey i played it for a bit!" and then never go back.

The only thing that stopped me from beating the whole thing in one sitting was it was the crack of dawn when I passed out, extremely tired and extremely frustrated by the fact I couldn't beat Muffet. Yes, I got that far in one sitting I intended to play for 15 minutes tops.

Now. Let me fuckin tell you. About my first playthrough of Undertale. I haven't gone into a game knowing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about it like... I think ever. Usually I know what style of game it is, the genre, the main plot premise. I knew nothing other than the existence of Sans (and, as it turned out, I'd heard some of the soundtrack pieces before, notably Bonetrousle I heard this cover of it in a radio livestream a while back and never really looked it up, but was always excited when the radio looped back around to it being on; and I'd heard Dating Start! because that's Alpharad's go-to sponsorship ost lmao.) But anyway. I was completely in the dark. Do yall mind if i just go through some highlights of my favorite memories? This is supposed to be a summary of the year but I mean, I think this made a big enough impact on me to really like. Discuss it a bit.

I watched the whole opening cutscene, started a new game under my old screenname, "Yoru," since in naming the "Fallen Child," I assumed they were dead. Well, I was a little surprised to just be that child, alive, two seconds later, but whatever, I rolled with it.

I genuinely trusted Flowey right away. Like no shit. He told me run into the "friendliness pellets" and I didn't even fucking question it. And when Toriel came in? And she said to follow her? I straight up was like "Why the hell should I trust you?? That guy just tried to kill me what says you wont?" I followed only because the game made me but i was Wary the whole time. It took me a LONG time to warm up to Toriel.

Now. Let me tell you how stupid I am as well. The game says over and over right, "Don't fight. Spare. Have Mercy when names are Yellow." Well, I took this literally. I didn't understand the Act mechanic most of the time, and when something didn't work I just said, fuck it, and fought them. If their name didn't turn yellow, I just fought them. "They don't want Mercy if their name isn't yellow, right?" After a while, I'd started getting bored of fighting and would just run away, but like, I came to a point where I was like "I have a really low level, I'm really going to regret this later on if I don't grind for a while."

I don't know when I stopped but. I think I was only one or two kills away from a genocide run accidentally my first playthrough, based on how I think I was LV 3 and looking at genocide playthroughs, you're LV 3 or 4 when you fight Toriel. Like. Holy fuck. I can't imagine what I would have thought of this game if that happened lmao.

Speaking of Toriel, still didn't trust her, at all. When we got to Home, and after I did Every Single different phrase she says when you go downstairs before you talk to her reading about snails; I did not Hesitate to ask "cool uh when the fuck can I leave?" When we got to the Ruins exit I was like, ah, here it is. The betrayal from her I was expecting, where she tries to kill me. Well, nothing on the Act menu worked, right? So... I fought and killed her. I didn't really care, actually. I just kept going.

Then meeting Sans and Papyrus happened. I lost my fucking shit at this part, mostly when they were talking, because every time Sans made a pun it would zoom in on him and do a rimshot. The puns were not funny and I was definitely on Pap's side of "oh my GOD shut up." But that fucking zoom in and rimshot was just so fourth wall breaking and unexpected. Fuck, it still gets me. Anyway. Game continues. I again lose my shit at (insane spinning in random directions) "OH MY GOD! IS THAT A HUMAN?" "uh, i think that's a rock." "OH. WAIT! WHAT'S THAT IN FRONT OF THE ROCK?? (IS IT A HUMAN??)" "(yes.)" "OH MY GOD!!!" and still think these two moments in the game are Peak comedy. Oh, and let me tell you, I did not like either of these two at this point. Sans I was like, okay, hes kind of a dumbass in a funny way, but Papyrus is a dumbass in a way that just annoys me. Genuinely the archetype that misses social cues and therefore has miscommunication usually just annoys me to no end. (Mostly for the miscommunication. It's my least favorite trope and makes me unreasonably angry.) But yeah. Wasn't really a fan. But out of everyone so far? Definitely found Sans to be the most tolerable. But that's about all I thought of him lmao.

Getting to Snowdin, with the Papyrus battle, remember how I said I didn't like Papyrus? And yes, this was something I genuinely thought at one point, I genuinely hated Papyrus, imagine that. What a wild world that is. But anyway. You know how his Act menu has the "Flirt" option? I, for no reason, gunned it for the Flirt option, even though I did not want to. Then when he was like "WE'LL GO ON A DATE! LATER!!" i was like yea sure okay lmao. Again, couldn't figure out the Act menu to turn his name yellow, so I fought him, and he was one or two attacks from dying (miraculously) when he ended the battle. I spared him here cause, well, he spared me, it was only fair. Then this guy again is like "ILL BE AT MY HOUSE WHEN YOU WANT TO GO ON THAT DATE!" and i was like haha funny but still turned around to go on the date. Like why? I have no idea. I think I was more like "haha hes probably not gonna be there and its just cause i picked that option and lo and behold there was an actual fucking date. Oh my god. I have never in my life been on a video game date where one party was convinced I was infatuated with them and im here on the other side of the screen like "oh my god make this end i can't stand being around you.???" But still. The date was. Really fucking funny. I wish I could experience it for the first time again like holy shit. There are few playthroughs I did after this where I didn't go on the Pap date, even if I just spedrun through it.

So then you get to Waterfall and Sans is there like "hey wanna go to grillbys" and i was like sure why not so we go there and my choices were fries & ketchup (so i did not get the legendary scene where he chugged a bottle of ketchup, but i sure did my second playthrough, and let me tell you, i was disgusted). But like. This whole experience at grillby's like, the whoopee cushion, him using a comb on his bald ass skull, him just fuckin unapologetically scratching his ass for no reason?? Bro i was like "why the fuck is this guy part of the Tumblr Sexymen™ group ??? He's so ????? Gross???????" and like i still have this question tbh lmao. But like. Okay so he asks you "what do you think of my bro?" And my genuine answer was "uncool" and he was like "hey man sarcasm isnt funny" and can i just mention how like inheritly manipulative sans actually is like fuck he does things like this where he throws your answer the other way a few times and Every time it actually swayed me the other way. Because right here I went. "Oh. Maybe Papyrus is better than I thought." Like holy fuck maybe i should be more aware if something like that can sway my opinion so easily LMAO.

Anyway waterfall i genuinely was very bored of the whole time. I spent like a genuine 20 minutes figuring out the puzzle where you have to talk to a wall and I actually didn't realize you could move the telescope around. What helped me solve it is my friend's advice before I played it. "Inspect everything. Even talk to walls. Trust me." And literally thats how I solved it. But pretty much everything in Waterfall otherwise bored me. I did think it was pretty though, and did enjoy reading the lore, but when it started talking about monster biology my one fear had been realized: oh god, oh fuck. My original species for my own series also has physical Souls and die by turning to dust because they're made entirely of magic. God fuck. My luck, it has to be something popular, so now everyone's gonna think I'm a ripoff. But, at the same time, I do think it helped me understand monster biology (and it helped me come up with the ULR biology) better, because I've put in a lot of thought to existence of a species that exists only by magic and a Soul (which, mine only actually have half a Soul, as a full Soul makes a being immortal, which was also similar to the boss monsters in a way). It definitely made a lot more sense for like, the skeletons n stuff for me, because like my characters are wholly shapeshifters but usually take human form, and while they have "organs" in the places humans would have them, they don't operate. They're just placeholders, because they just live with their Soul. So I've always thought the same with UT monsters, since the skelebros can live without organs, that means so do the rest of the monsters, even if they have animal-like appearances.

Off topic lmao. Back to UT. So, the Undyne fight was kind of the turning point for me. She was pissing me off so much during this whole game and like I was like "if theres another fucking part where I have to run away from her im going to scream." Well, once again, her name wasn't yellow, so I wasn't going to spare her... and, actively, I made the decision to kill her, because I didn't want to deal with her still chasing me later on in the game. It took me a long time to beat her, and when I did, I texted my friend (@cheshiregrinnbuttoneyes ) in excitment like "YES I FINALLY KILLED UNDYNE" and she texted back like "YOU DID WHAT?????" and i was like "i.... Killed Undyne????" she replies, "YOU DONT HAVE TO OMFG WHY" and im like "I DIDN'T HAVE TO?? THERE'S OTHER OPTIONS?????" and shes like "YES OMFG THAT'S LITERALLY THE PREMISE OF THE GAME" and im "WHAT."

So then. I get that call from Papyrus like. "HEY! YOU ME AND UNDYNE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME!"

oh my god the guilt i felt.

alphys on undernet being like "omfg i forgot to watch undyne fight the human. ah ill ask her about it later she never loses <3"

bro. i nearly fuckin cried. i was like. Not to mention I'd gotten the crush question right for Mettaton's quiz in answering Undyne (bc i was like "plz be gay plz be gay") so it fucking cut like a knife what I'd done.

I don't remember when I let myself get passed it. But I do know that the whole story arc between Alphys and Mettaton went way over my head. Like, i know im probs the minority on this, but I adore Alphys, I have since I first met her in game, and like, when Mettaton was like "ALPHYS HAS BEEN LYING TO YOU!" i just went "...nah."

Also, I didnt like mettaton at this point, cause I thought he was being really obnoxious, and then the turn around to betray Alphys really kinda pissed me off.

But like.

Oh my god.

Remember how I said I swapped my opinion on Pap earlier bc of Sans's comment? Yeah that was a pretty fast turnaround, but it still took me a few times.

But the second i saw mettaton ex

I was like

"HIM. HE. HE'S THE ONE I LOVE."

Like, full turnaround from Undyne, I actively refused to kill him. All times I thought he was an asshole? Forgotten. Me thinking he's a selfish prick? Gone. Nada. Nothing. Pure adoration. Suddenly every flaw he had was pushed aside purely from how hot I thought he was. Also, fuckin, im really glad i played this when no one in my house was awake, because I still didn't understand the Act mechanic here, and every time you attack mettaton he has this like moan he does and im like oh my god. stop. omfg.

At the end, too, when there was the calls and everything, when he had his big turnaround, I was just so happy for him I genuinely cried. Also, I had to do his battle probably the most out of everyone's in the game (not including genocide), so when it came around to his battle during the (glitchless) speedruns i did, i was more invested in how fast I could rack up points, cause you need 10k rating points to pass, and I actually did get that before he lost his legs, but apparently he needed to lose those too before you passed lol. Unfortunate.

Anyway after Alphys talked to you and everything, i genuinely went to see if Mettaton was still there, but he wasn't :( so i just went to New Home. I was very ill prepared for the fight against Asgore and the only reason I struggled with it so much was because my only healing items were like. Something that healed like 10 or 12 hp and the snowman piece. I was LV 9 when i finished the game, so like, my HP was pretty high, but i didnt have the G to buy items, so i was pretty much fucked. Yes. I had to eat the snowman to win.

Oh speaking of terrifying shit though. Photoshop flowey? My god. I haven't been afraid of a video game boss so much since I was a little kid. It was like 3 am and i was not prepared for him to just delete my save file and then kill me on repeat, glitching and breaking everything as he pleased. Bruh i was genuinely scared. Like, not even just, "oh yikes :(" or something. Like, crying scared. Lmao im an emotional bitch by nature.

I of course had to restart from the beginning again to get the True Pacifist ending. I was very careful to never touch the Fight button literally ever. And, it actually took me a while to reset, because I hate erasing my original save files, yknow? But, well, as it turned out? While technically New Game+ by naming, resetting doesn't erase everything you did. It wasn't a new file. I was a little confused at first to be honest. Toriel saying things were familiar, remembering things I said, Papyrus and Undyne both recognizing me, like. It was unnerving.

When I got to the end, i had to look up how to get Alphys's date (since my friend told me the way to unlock TP was to go on all the dates, but Alphys's was definitely designed in mind of you turning around from New Home and going back to talk to people rather than a new reset. So after unlocking it, getting through Alphys's date (i still remember being like, verbally, "omg alphys you look so nice??" When she came out with the dress on and then had a thought to myself like... since when do i care about what people look like? since when do i compliment people? At that point, while I didn't consider myself to be a rude person, I definitely wasn't exactly all that concerned about others for anything. Sure, I cared about others' lives, but I tended to be a bit more judgemental internally, and just. Didn't really give a fuck about what people did in the most negative sense possible, unless it involved me. Yet, it rolled off my tongue like it was something id say normally to anyone. I really wonder if this is the true turning point for me this year.)

Getting to the end, with everyone cheering me on. Hoo boy. This was the start of many tears to come. Papyrus's "DO WHAT I WOULD DO! BELIEVE IN YOU!!" sticks with me the most. I wasn't surprised by Flowey's actions, but what fucking threw me for a loop was like. When Flowey was revealed as Asriel, I was genuinely jaw-drop shocked. I was like. Holy fuck. I thought he was dead. What the hell. To this day, though, i still think Hopes and Dreams hits me the hardest out of all the boss battle themes. It doesn't super bother me, bc like, difference in opinion is whatever, but like. Whenever I see Megalovania at the top of someone's ost list for Undertale I'm just... Why? Maybe it's because I'd overheard it meme'd to much before I played the game, but like, i dunno, it's not a bad song, but it's not the most emotional provoking piece for me, so it's pretty far down my list. Hopes and Dreams will still remain my #1.

I really did feel determined during this battle. I really felt a lot of emotion. I felt excited. I felt frightened. I felt ambitious. Asriel's battle is probably still the hardest for me, and yes, I'm counting genocide this time. I can't grasp his magic patterns at all, and I more so played it as a "okay, how much damage can i take? Whats his next move?" As i healed every other turn. It took me a very long time to beat him (though no 11 hours like Sans, this was more like, 2 or 3 max) and when I got to the part with the Lost Souls, most of the characters just said their "we hate you" piece and i was like "nope you're controlled" right.

But then there's Sans's "just give up. i did."

I genuinely had to stop. I set down my controller and just sat for a minute. I'd mentioned before how much I've been struggling with depression for years now, and it's at the worst it's been since high school. Maybe you'd think when I saw that, I was like "sure, maybe I should give up." But... It's really the "i did." that hit me like a rock to the stomach. While I do know a couple other people with depression, the most discussion we have with it is "haha i wanna die" kinda jokes yknow? Nothing really serious. And, well, I've always been the type to lean to fictional characters for support more than real people, since I've just been so disconnected from a lot of friends growing up and was too scared to talk about anything with my family.

So seeing someone else say "just give up. i did." hit me so fucking hard that I just started crying. I had already been in a real sappy mood cause the whole scene was so emotional as it was, even if merely the cliche of friendship will save all, y'know what? Its a good ass fuckin trope and makes me emotional lmao.

So, naturally, I was more hyperaware of Sans's implied depression from here onward. The conversations with everyone post-battle left me crying. God, so did the hug with Asriel. I was just fucking bawling.

Oh god. I didn't even mention. "Despite everything, it's still you." Another line that just hit me and I had to pause.

So admist my crying mess, I was telling my friend I'd beat Undertale again. He asks me "so... you gonna play the genocide route?" And I already had from the beginning. I always want to play every available route in a game. I see no point in paying for something and then not playing it all. I'd consider myself a completionist who doesn't ever actually finish anything lmao.

I definitely put my emotions aside for genocide. The absolute hardest kill for me was Papyrus, though. And i was absolutely fucking heartbroken when he said he still believed me as his last words. But I forced it aside. I didn't want to reset. I wanted to beat it to have it under my belt that I had. I was pretty sure the Sans battle would be here, since I hadn't heard Megalovania in the game yet, and I was aware of how hard the battle was, despite never seeing it.

Undyne's battle I'm more emotional about in retrospect than I was at the time. At the time, I didn't care, didn't like the theme much, and the dings gave me a headache. Undyne isn't exactly my favorite character (though definitely not my least favorite, that role is given to Frisk with Toriel not close behind ahdhsb im sorry), so I really wasn't concerned about it. Not to mention, I don't know why, but all of the battles I struggled with EXCEPT Undyne's I ended up liking the character more as a result. Maybe it was the dinging lmao.

Bro you shoulda seen how prepared I was for Mettaton NEO's battle to be hard as fuck. I was like sitting upright, took deep breaths before hitting fight, then when he died in one shot i just kind of "wh...what." Still very disappointed lol but I guess that's kind of the point of the genocide route.

Then came the Sans fight. As I said, I spent 11 hours on this. I genuinely didn't pay attention to what he said after a while, but I do remember the first time I read it, I was fucking terrified. Usually, sarcasm, hatred, and sass is very hard to convey through pure text, especially when it's said in the same tone as his usual talking. But the absolute harshness, the coldness, and the lack of any fucks given Sans had at that point was so plainly transparent through everything he said that it fucking scared me. Toby Fox's writing here was fantastic. I can only dream of being able to write like that. Frankly, I love his writing in general. Actually, fuck it, I love all of the artistic takes of this game. This is gonna sound weird but... The "childishness" of it just is so good. Like, there's no rules. Every socially accepted rule of art, writing, character design, speech patterns, and even basic grammar are thrown aside. He didn't just think outside of the box, there literally was no box. I call it childish only because like, children also create with no rules. They have no rules to restrict their creativity. And seeing that embraced in Undertale in every form possible just blows me away.

Anyway. The battle. It. Was hard. Thats a given. I spent about two weeks playing it on and off, and it's probably the most healthily I've treated myself in recent memory, because when it became too much for me to handle, I set it down and took a break. I would retain what I memorized and use it for the next time I picked it up. Frankly, it came to a point where every time I opened up Undertale to play, it was more just cause I wanted to see him lmao. The guy hated my existence at this point and it's not like i disacknowledged that. But it just felt like every time i opened the game... Idk. I don't know what I felt. I can tell you for sure this isn't the time when Sans started slipping into my favorite character spot over Mettaton, that didn't come until the development of Act to Flirt's first demo, which was a month or so later lmao.

I was very excited when I beat Sans.

But then, after it was over, I felt very empty.

I didn't feel good about beating genocide. I still don't. I want to play the boss battles again, cause they were really fun, despite how hard they were, but I can't bring myself to.

When I got to Chara, and everything went to black, I just wiped my save and started fresh. I think this was the first time I used the name "Willo" for anything. I just picked a random name to use, and Willo was the first thing that came to mind.

I beat neutral again many times, trying to unlock as many secrets as I could. I accidentally spent like, way too long trying to get Sans's room, because I couldn't figure out how to do it... which is when I started speedrunning the game, because I was just so used to going through it all. I timed myself once, and I got somewhere around 1:20:00 ish, which puts me at the very bottom of the NG+ Glitchless runs by like 30 minutes, but hey, it's still not too bad all things considered.

I'd started working on Act to Flirt sometime in between the speedruns. I was playing Papyrus's date again, and I had this thought of. What if Undertale... but all boss fights are instead like Papyrus's date?? I pitched the idea to my friend who was like "thats definitely been done before lol" and immediately I almost shut down the idea. But then I still had that glimmer of hope that, maybe, since I haven't made it yet, people would like my game because it was by me. Besides, quarantine was getting to me. I needed some way to spend my time. So on May 6th to May 7th, I spent the whole 24 hour period making the first proof of concept for the game, which was UI setup and Flowey's tutorial date. I hadn't made any of the art yet, so it was a black background with Flowey's undertale sprite. I originally was going to make everything more visual novel like in the sense that, so like on Papyrus's date, you could make choices like "unwrap the present" "dont unwrap the present" or "you look great" "you look terrible" and getting the ending would involve pretty much just saying the right things at the right times. But this alone was... Yknow, already done before, and part of what makes Undertale so great is that it's, despite its many outside influences, very unique in its gameplay. So I decided to make the dates more like puzzle-solving RPG's, and frankly, since doing that, I dont know if I want to go back to making other visual novels lmao.

After making the first demo and releasing it, I hit a creative funk. I wanted to make the next demo right away, but I forced myself to stop (since i was working 16+ hour days to finish it in exactly a week. I didn't eat much and i slept very little during this time too. Dont do this lmao). I didn't know if the game would be received, and frankly, I'd had many failed projects in the past due to lack of support. I lost a lot of support in the past due to the dropped projects I kept starting and quitting because I had such a small audience, and that made me lose a lot of interest and motivation to work on them. So I posted the first demo and waited. I was very shocked to have a YouTuber with over a million subs play it that weekend. Dantekris I think was her channel name. She speaks Russian, and I never understood a word she said, but I've still watched her let's plays because I enjoy seeing her reactions. I hate that YouTube keeps deleting my responses on her videos, probably because they're long and in English so it's marked as spam on a comments section full of purely Russian comments yknow. But it makes me feel like such an ass ;w;

Mairusu is the next large YouTuber who played it and my god I love seeing when he uploads a new update for my game because I genuinely have no idea what to expect from him. I don't know what it is but he's just so absolutely funny to me. He also seems to be the most common breaker of my game though. Stop making your own bugs!! I try to testplay to find the bugs he gets and it's like.... what did you do.... how did you skip that whole date im so confused thats not supposed to happen..... He accidentally skipped all of Muffet's date because of this too and hers is supposed to be the hardest in the game right now so I'm very upset by it;; i dont know how it happened, it never happens for me.

But like. I was definitely struggling a bit with the direction I wanted to take AtF. I wanted there to be a core message, like with Undertale and many other of my favorite things. When there's a core theme to write about, it makes things a lot easier to compose than if you have a plot with no meaning to it. It ties it all together for a common purpose. But, as I started diving more into the fandom around this time, finding not only it being still alive but still enormous and filled with passion.

Passion. Hm. That's familiar. That's the trait I gave the player character, rather than determination. While it was intended for giggles "haha dating game u have passion wink wonk," it started becoming more than that. It started becoming a manifestation of what I really felt upon finally soaking myself into the deep end of this pool I'd once been too afraid to step into. Passion. Everyone here is so driven by their passion for this game, the characters, its story. Everyone is so inspired and creative. That's it. That's what I wanted Act to Flirt to be.

A game made for those who have already dived deep into Undertale. A game made for those who have the same level if passion I've wittnessed. A game that someone might stumble upon, merely wanting any Undertale content they can find, and a dating sim leaves them grasping at straws, only to find it's a game instead deeply rooted in how much they care about this world and its people. You have a Soul of Passion, because your passion for Undertale brought you to this game. That's what the core message is. Every ending is supposed to depict different kinds of empathy, and True Passion shows you truly cared the most you could for all of these characters. Sans is so blocked from it because, well, how can he really believe it? "if we're really friends, you won't come back," right? But here you are. Again and again.

And Heartbreak. Whose heart is really the one breaking here? Taking the Hopes and Dreams of every single character you've grown to care for and crushing it beneath your feet... who is the one suffering in the end?

I just... I'm very excited. I've written that game with the player as the main character. Not Willo. Not Frisk. Not anybody else. You, the player, are the main character. I've honestly done a lot of looking around in the DDLC code to make this game as 4th wall breaking as I can (without like. Disrupting it as a game experience like ddlc is, with monika deleting things and stuff). Just enough to leave the player unsettled and confused. Like. "Me? Are you talking to me?" Yes. You. Directly to you.

I started sketching out designs and ideas for ULR around July. I genuinely loved Underlust after finding out about it, even though it was posed to me as an insult about the contents of Act to Flirt. I was both like "uh... Act to Flirt is nothing like this. Maybe in reversed roles at best but..." and also "okay but this? This shit is good. Thank you." But finding out it was discontinued and wanting more, well, that's when I decided to make ULR. I presented the idea to my friends, who were like "please stop making aus," and then continued onward. I told myself I wasn't going to work on it though until after I finished Act to Flirt... Then after the next demo came out... Then it turned out I was working on it too much and it resulted in me rushing my release of the 3rd demo of AtF because I'd been so distracted I was going to miss my release deadline of the end of August, before school. I... Still kinda regret that a lot. It's still very buggy. Though I hope I got them all for the next demo...

But speaking of school .... ha... Remember when i said i was going to transfer to another school? Well, I did, and for the first few weeks it was fine! Then I started skipping assignments I didn't want to do. Then I started panicking about my low grades. Then I started getting behind on assignments. Then I stopped going to classes. Then I lost all motivation to work on anything at all. I just locked myself in my room and did next to nothing with the occasional drawing here and there, for weeks. It came to the point where I was like "I just have to get through this semester, then I'll drop out." But if I ever wanted to go back to school, having all F's on my last report card would not bode well for my acceptance. Which lead to more stress. I didn't want to fail, but I also didn't have any motivation to work. I would do one assignment here or there, feel good about myself, then realize I was still months behind on work and suddenly oh god oh fuck finals are next week. And my solution? I just. Fuckin dropped out. Oh my god. It was such a relief to just get that weight off my shoulders that I'd been carrying for months on end, preventing me to do anything I wanted to work on.

Well. Then my car tires died. So that's a thing. But good news! Between commissions and gifts, I have enough money to get them replaced! I don't think I've ever like... Been so excited about that before.

And, well. Now I'm here, pretty much. God, I just went through my entire year summary, and it feels like it was both forever long but also not long at all. I don't get it. 2021 still feels like a far off future, despite the fact I'm now 5 hours into it. Yes, I spent 4 hours writing this. Whoops. Oh well. I couldn't sleep anyway, so it's not that big of a deal.

All in all though... Despite being locked inside, away from my friends, unable to talk to anyone about the things i was enjoying, and living in fear of getting sick at all ever with anything, 2020 definitely fuckin changed me for the better. It was a hellhole of a year and I'd never do it again or wish it upon my worst enemy, but I came out a better person... I think. I hope.

It seems cliche to bring back but fuck it. Undertale? My friend insists its core message was that anyone can be a good person if they just try, which I mean, it definitely probably was intended that way. But that never was the message I felt while playing it.

What lesson I took from it was "things aren't always as they seem."

Flowey betrays you immediately, but then you find out he's just the remnants of a boy who died years ago and is still grieving over the loss of his best friend, whomst, despite how much he cares for them, recognizes they weren't good to him and he'd been manipulated and used by them.

Toriel is a kind and caring woman, a still grieving mother over the loss of her children, who seems to have kindness to no end, but is actually filled with such hatred and depression that she regularly gets drunk, swears, and still, without resilience, hates her ex husband.

Sans is a playful character who is full of puns, a gross atmosphere, and decided to break physics just because he can. He's the embodiment of a comic relief character. But at the same time, he's suffering, struggling, in constant pain and worry. He's lazy, but quick on his feet. He's harmless but will kill without hesitation if need be. He's both caring and the least caring of them all.

Papyrus is like... a self-centered asshole in a way, when you first meet him. He prides himself and everything he does. Yet still, he's actually quite open and accepting and loves everyone. He loves talking with and being with other people, even if maybe sometimes he has a different interpretation of social interaction from the "norm."

Undyne comes off as cruel and deadly, such even being emphasized in many points. But, deep down, she's extremely caring for those who are close to her, and her only cruelty is dealt to those who have wronged her in some way.

Alphys is a sweet and nervous wreck who comes off as helpful and lacking a filter due to her tendency to ramble. She seems to be merely anxious due to likely social anxiety... But you eventually find out that she's a liar who merely wants to create a world to be a better place, and by doing so, she pretends all the bads do not exist.

Mettaton comes off as an absolute self-centered asshole. Like. There's no way around that. He seemingly has no regard for other people with only full intentions of helping himself. But, deep down, he actually cares a lot for other people, especially his family and friends, and just tends to get caught up in things while he's in the moment.

Muffet seems to be greedy with how much money she begs people to give her for the spiders, but, as it turns out, she's flat broke and drops no G when you beat or kill her. She merely needs the money to help the spiders.

Asgore, too, is built up to be this ruthless killer throughout the whole game, and when you finally meet him, he's an incredibly sweet guy who's only filled with regret, and because of his past decisions, has decided to put aside his hopes for the sake of his people.

I...

Didn't see any of these characters for who they really were right away. Why would I? Few of these archetypes are explored much in a lot of fiction lately, or at least what I've been consuming; and is more focused around how someone can change their flaws into something positive... Not how to accept someone for who they are, despite the wrongs they may have committed or the lives they lead. Everyone's different. Everyone's grown up differently. Everyone has a reason for what they do.

And it took me playing this game to realize such a simple concept that I probably should have learned years ago.

That's why I really think 2020 changed me for the better. I made a realization that I should have had many years ago, and it's made me a lot more confident in expressing myself, accepting people for what they do, and seeing the brighter side to everything. I say that, sitting here filled with nothing and void of all emotion whatsoever... But it's a conscious thought i have. My emotions are so weird... They're either on full blast or I feel nothing at all. But yet I have... Thoughts of what i should feel? It's weird. Idk. This is why I'm getting therapy LMAO

But yea. 2020? Fuck you. But also thank you. But mostly fuck you and good riddance lmao

#zircon rambles #a lot #lol #its very long im sorry #i spent way too long writing this too #also please don't reblog this

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disgruntledspacedad · 3 years

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the mandalorian season finale that i wish we could have

Take with a grain of salt that while I am well-versed in the OT and the prequels, my knowledge of CW and Rebels is pretty limited (I’m watching now), and I know nothing about the EU. Disclaimer that this isn’t quite fic, or headcanon, or meta, or speculation - kind of a bastardization of all of the above, maybe.

Because he is a man of discipline, and because he suddenly finds an opportunity to channel all of that downtime in hyperspace into something productive, Din decides as they leave Corvus that he has no excuse for letting the kid’s powers fade.

He has no delusions that floating the shifter knob across the cabin is in any way challenging to the kid. Kriff’s sake, Din’s seen him lift a mudhorn and channel a gods-damned explosion. But Din knows from hard-won experience that there’s a major difference between power and finesse, and that the more comfortable the kid becomes with casually accessing his powers, the easier his eventual reintegration with the Jedi will be.

Besides, if Din is to be responsible for delivering the child to his kind, then he will see to it that he’s done more than just the minimum of keeping the child alive and unharmed.

They start with simple things. A quick game of catch with knob, Din asking the kid to reach his own utensils, rather than Din handing them to him.

Din realizes quickly that the child, like any child, is quickly annoyed with the exercises. I know you are capable of so much more, Din thinks, raising his hands in a moment of frustration. He only realizes that he’s spoken aloud when the child blinks up at him.

Din has a distinct feeling of frustration. It raises a memory, long since forgotten, of his early combat training. He’d longed to go out to the range and shoot his blasters, rather than endlessly taking them apart and reassembling them.

Connect with him, Ahsoka had said on Corvus.

So Din does.

He learns to make it fun. Grogu, like any other gifted child, craves a challenge. “Float the ball,” becomes a game of catch. Silent steps evolves into hide and seek. One day, Din lowers to cabin temperature to near freezing, then watches proudly as the kid summons his blanket from the lower level.

Din also learns the value of calling the kid, Grogu, by his name.

Din doesn’t tend to think in the way of proper nouns. He is a Mandalorian. His charge is a Child. This is the Way. To separate the individual from its classification only complicates things.

But the kid, Grogu, likes being called by name. At first, Din uses it reluctantly, as last-ditch effort to capture the child’s attention. But there’s this subtle thrum of rightness that swells briefly beneath Din’s skin when the kid hears it. His eyes light up, and his ears quirk, and Din finds himself smiling beneath his helmet. The name quickly becomes habit.

As Grogu’s reluctance to tap into the force fades, Din’s challenges become more complex. Din learns, little by little, what Grogu is capable of, and he adjusts his training accordingly.

He’s getting better at reading Grogu, too. It starts as little impressions - the thrill of anticipation while watching him hunt yet another frog, the dread of bathing afterward, a sense of weary contentment as he settles Grogu into his hammock after a long day.

Then the dreams start.

At first, Din doesn’t remember them. He wakes with vague impressions, confusion/fear/longing/emptiness. Din isn’t usually a dreamer, and the intensity of the residual emotions unsettles him.

He rolls with it, though, like he rolls with every bizarre development that the universe throws his way, until one night he wakes panting, sitting straight up in his bunker, cold sweat running in rivulets down his spine.

Darkness. Fear, no, terror, pervasive and all-encompassing. The acrid scent of smoke and cauterized flesh. Screams cut violently short. Heat and heavy footsteps. An eerie blue glow that hums as if alive, familiar and dreadful and encroaching ever closer. Loss, aching and empty and devastating beyond belief.

A familiar trill brings Din back to himself. Grogu is sitting up in his hammock, wide awake, staring at him with his head cocked.

And suddenly, Din understands.

He doesn’t speak, just lifts Grogu from his bedding and holds him close. Grogu snuggles close into the softness of his cowl, and Din feels his tiny heart beat fluttering wildly in his chest.

“Ni ceta,” he tells Grogu. I’m sorry.

From that moment, Din starts to become aware of a bond between them. The intense, foreign feelings, the dreams that feel so real, that new, instinctual understanding... it’s all Grogu.

Now that Din is aware of it, the connection is obvious. Grogu doesn’t communicate with words, no, but if Din is concentrating, he can determine which emotions are his and which belong to the kid.

At first, it terrifies him, and twice, he nearly sets a course for Corvus to ask Ahsoka just what the kriff is happening in his head. But Grogu understands more than Din has ever given him credit for, and Din knows, whether by instinct of through the force, that Grogu won’t use his power to harm him.

In fact, Din finds that their bond is beneficial for more than just mutual convenience. Sure, he knows when Grogu is telling him that he’s tired or bored or hurt or hungry, but Din discovers that if he quiets his mind and concentrates, he can get a vague impression of how Grogu is doing. Where he is, if he’s content or not. Din can’t initiate a conversation between them, not in the way that Grogu seems to force himself into Din’s brain with all the subtlety of a baying bantha when he pleases, but Din finds that this casual awareness of Grogu’s continued existence is enough to convince him of the utility of their connection.

He even finds that he appreciates it.

Grogu, for his part, comes to recognize that Din is more than just a passing master who is casually training him in the ways of the force. Grogu doesn’t have words for what Din is to him, but his instincts determine that it is something outside his own experience. He is familiar with the concept of master and padawan, and the bonds between them. This, still, is not correct. Mando, as others call him, or Din, as the Mandalorian calls himself, is not a master. That much is clear. The Jedi Order doesn't have a term for what he is, so Grogu lifts the term from the Mandalorian’s memories as he sleeps.

Buir.

At some point, Moff Gideon is going to catch up to them. Din discovers the tracker in the Razor Crest too late, and Gideon takes Grogu. Din is angry, rabidly, ferociously so, until he feels that oh-so-subtle, familiar prompting at the back of his mind.

Reassurance. Safety for the moment, if not comfort. Absolute, unassailable trust that Buir will find him.

Din chokes. It’s the first time that he’s heard that term so clearly in Grogu’s thoughts, and it alights something primal in him. He contacts Navarro on a secure channel, delivers his message, and then retreats to his cot.

The Mandalorians of old told legends of the Dream Walkers, warrior sages who harnessed their dreams to tread the stars, to learn visions of the future and past. Din knows already that his bond with Grogu is clearest in his dreams, so he calms his nerves, tamps down on all of his adrenaline, curbs the instinct to go/run/fight/protect, and sleeps.

Din dreams of steel corridors and bright lights. He is strapped down, facing many open windows that look to the sky above him. Cold drips into the crook of his elbow, running chills up his skin.

The stars, Din thinks as loudly as he can, as aware as he can be. Look up, Grogu. Look at the stars.

Then Grogu looks up and sees the stars.

Din wakes alert and jittery. less than 90 minutes after collapsing into his bunk, and sets a course.

Cara meets him planetside with a ragtag team of hunters and ex-rebels. More are coming, she promises.

Din won't wait.

They surround a small moon on a backwater planet at the edge of the galaxy. Din doesn’t know the name of the system. He doesn’t care.

Grogu is here.

They fight. Din makes it to the lab, nearly has Grogu in his arms before imperial reinforcements swarm the base. Din is overwhelmed, and Grogu is pulled from him.

Knocked down, but not quite out, Din watches as the star destroyer prepares for the jump to hyperspace. With all his strength, Din reaches for his kid, and his kid reaches back. “Cara is coming,” Din says aloud, hoping that Grogu hears him as he stumbles to his knees.

He is overwhelmed with images and impressions.

The stark chill of hyperspace. A growing dread. Hands that grip him too tightly. A thin voice behind him, panicked, pleading. “We don’t know how it could affect the final results!”

A struggle. Fear. Pain. Anger.

“Surely, Pershing, you understand that the final results is are irrelevant if the initial samples cannot be gathered. This will ensure that there are no more undue... interferences.”

“No, please! He’s only a child!”

A mind-shattering scream, cut ominously short.

And then, silence.

So I’m tired of writing this like fic. I’m fairly sure it’s canon (or at least, it’s very popular fanon) that force blocking technology is a Thing. Gideon might not be force sensitive, but he’s probably studied Jedi, and could reasonably assume that there’s some sort of communication between Grogu and Din. At the very least, Grogu would use his newly redeveloped strength in the force to make things difficult for Gideon, and it would certainly be worthwhile for Gideon to cut him off.

But silencing Grogu’s access to the force would disrupt the bond between Grogu and Din. Din, who in true overprotective space dad style, has become dependent on that bond in order to assure Grogu’s comfort and safety. The sudden loss of the bond would certainly be absolutely shattering, and Din, who has no other context, would naturally assume that Gideon killed Grogu.

Now, I’m a slut for the “presumed dead” trope. Din would-burn-the-galaxy-and-everyone-in-it-if-you-harm-a-hair-on-his-head Djarin seeking vengeance for the murder of his little green son is something that I would pay dearly to see. We’ve never really seen Din lose control, not like this. We’ve never seen him fully invested, with absolutely nothing to lose.

I want to see him bet everything on this, call in every favor and exhaust every contact on tracing Gideon’s star destroyer around the galaxy. I want him to have time to acknowledge his grief of losing Grogu. I want him to accept that Grogu was his kid, and to regret never taking those Mandalorian adoption vows. I want Din swearing justice, knowing that infiltrating Moff’s star destroyer is a suicide mission, and just not giving a shit.

Cara manages to talk a little sense into him. Wait, she says. I can’t understand how you feel, but I know why you have to do it. Let me get some people together, let’s do this as a team. We can take them all out, make sure they can’t harm anybody else.

It kills him, but Din delays his vengeance long enough to allow them to form a plan.

I would really love some scenes between Din and Ahsoka, with Ahsoka attempting to help Din deal with a severed bond. Though her padawan bond with Anakin Skywalker wasn’t quite the same as the bond that Din had with Grogu, Ahsoka has experienced a similar loss before. It’s all a little more complicated because Din isn’t inherently force-sensitive.

Basically, Din is shattered.

The Day comes, and Din tears though the destroyer, cutting down anybody and anything that dares stand in his way. He takes great delight in blasting Pershing three times through the heart, but the sniveling imp presses a code cylinder into his hand as he dies.

“Take it,” he chokes, looking desperately into Din’s visor with glazing eyes. “Save... save him...”

Din grips the cylinder, still clammy from where Pershing had held it, and something in him quickens.

Ignoring the ensuing battle and his mission to find Gideon, Din hacks into the ship’s computer. He finds a lab, well hidden, accessible only to Pershing and Gideon himself.

Hope rises, fierce and glitteringly painful, but Din tamps it down, doesn’t dare give it power over him. He storms to the lab anyway, using the code cylinder to make quick work of the security protocols, and there, just beyond the door, is Grogu.

Bruised, anemic, far too thin, but alive. Reaching for him.

Ad’ika, Din is suddenly aware of saying it aloud. He still can’t feel Grogu, is still painfully aware of the emptiness at the back of his mind, but the word feels right, and Din says it again. “Ad’ika.”

Grogu coos, and Din notices the manacles on his wrists.

Beskar, but not any alloy that he’s familiar with. They are warm, almost painfully hot even through his gloves, and Din can see the scars from where their heat has burned Grogu’s skin.

Din hardly has time to process this before he realizes that they are not alone.

Din naturally has to have a massive showdown with Moff Gideon in order to take his kid back. Lots of darksaber/mandalorian/beskar/jedi lore that I don't have the knowledge to delve into, but in my head, it’s pretty cool. No idea how Grogu would get rid of his manacles, but I would love to give him something to do in this fight, rather than him just being rescued by Din. I imagine that the beskar gets hot when Grogu attempts to tap into the force; the scars on his wrists are from the many times he’s tried to defend himself or reach out through his bond to connect with Din.

Also, damn, as soon as the manacles are off and Din can feel Grogu in his head again, he’s going to be absolutely overwhelmed, but in the best way.

Lots of healing/comfort in the aftermath. Din is dealing with some heavy guilt, especially as he’s tending to Grogu’s scars. Grogu is pretty insistent that Din doesn’t take the blame, and eventually, they work it out. Din drops his helmet and swears those adoption vows as soon as they are alone on the Crest, and the bond between them only strengthens because of it. Din learns a lot about Grogu’s history and the Jedi in general. Ahsoka is much more helpful now that she knows that Din is committed to raising this kid and not just fobbing him off on her.

Din turns down the title of Mand’alor, unceremoniously tossing the darksaber to Bo-Katan because he just doesn’t give a shit about it. All Din wants is his ship and his kid, and that’s what he gets.

#the mandalorian #tm spoilers #din djarin #baby yoda #grogu #the mandalorian headcanon #the mandalorian fic #mandadlorian #dad din djarin #the mandalorian meta #metanalysis #star wars #chapter thirteen the jedi #the jedi #ahsoka tano #cara dune #mandalorian #probably a lot of this is based on coffee-quill's amazing fic #and possibly others #the truth is i've read way too much good fic in the last two weeks to remember who inspired what ideas #but feel free to inbox me and i will give credit where credit is due #dream walking is based on lucid dreaming #which is a real skill that anybody can learn to do #din djarin is a good dad #they live happily ever after #traveling from temple to temple learning jedi shit and picking up bounties along the way #grogu grows up to be this scrappy little mandalorian/jedi/force-using abomination #and dad is so stupid proud of him #guys i need fandom friends #feel free to shoot me a message or hit up my inbox

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makeste · 4 years

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BnHA Chapter 255: "Hospital”

Previously on BnHA: Aizawa and Present Mic found out their dead best friend Shirakumo was necromanced by All for One and Ujiko and turned into everyone’s favorite villain mom bartender M.D., Kurogiri! Gran Torino and Naomasa were all “hey you guys should talk to him and see if you can restore his memories through the power of friendship” and so they all sat down together to do that. Kurogiri was all “so tell me how is my son Shigaraki Tomura, I love him so much, he is so emo and I must protect him” and Aizawa and Mic were all “THIS GUY HASN’T CHANGED ONE IOTA” and Aizawa started crying and was all “SHIRAKUMO LET’S GET MARRIED AGAIN AND BE HEROES TOGETHER LIKE WE ALWAYS WANTED.” Oh and also we found out Aizawa only fake expelled his previous students and it was just so that he could PREPARE THEM FOR LIFE!! and afterwards they got to go back to U.A. again and live happily ever after. And so basically I’ve lost track of how many hugs Aizawa needs here now but it’s a lot.

Today on BnHA: Shiraguri’s brainwaves start going all wonky and everyone is like “OH SHIT IT’S WORKING” and Aizawa and Mic decide it’s time to shift this drama into overdrive, so they get right up against the glass and start shouting “YOU’RE OUR FRIEND!!” and stuff over and over until IT FINALLY WORKS!! and Kurogiri’s face shifts into Shirakumo’s. Somehow the effect is incredibly sad and moving rather than terrifying as fuck, but unfortunately all Kumo can manage to get out is “hospital” before his mind overloads and he passes out. Fortunately for our heroes, “hospital” is actually an awesome clue which can totally lead them to Tomura and Ujiko’s location if they play their cards right, probably! Or at least Hawks seems really psyched about it, idk. Anyway so the chapter ends with Ujiko going FULL MAD SCIENTIST and wreaking havoc on Tomura’s body in order to -- I’m pretty sure, anyway -- turn him into some kind of fully sentient ultimate high end Noumu. Welllllll shit.

so that sure was a fun little wrinkle last week, huh. the two biggest scanlators deciding that in the spirit of the holidays, they were going to stop translating WSJ series and instead support the official releases out of the goodness of their hearts and definitely not at all because Shueisha was eyeing them threateningly and making little throat-slitting gestures. that was a ride. these are interesting times lol

but at any rate, if this is how it’s going to be for now then I’ll adjust! it is nice to have everyone support the official release, and obviously the image quality is way better, and Caleb’s translations are by and large pretty good. and obviously we’ll get used to reading the chapter on Sundays instead of Fridays (hell, I remember when the SJ leaks still came out on Wednesdays, so it’s not like we haven’t done this same old song and dance before lol). but Friday did happen to be a more convenient day for my schedule personally, so it might take a bit of adjusting for me to figure out what my posting schedule is going to be moving forward

anyways so I’m sorry this recap is so ridiculously late, but here we go at last!

so the Tartarus guard, who by the way is very clearly Seiji’s dad (WHEN ARE THE SHIKETSU KIDS COMING BACK), is tapping frantically at his touch screen even though it’s not doing anything, and he says he’s detecting unusual brainwaves. omg

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK IT MEANS, OBVIOUSLY THEY UNLOCKED THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, MAN! THEY DID IT

omfg. the guard just says “he’s agitated.” I’m going to need you to have more hype than that my good sir. please

holy shit Nao

attention everyone, HAS ANYONE SEEN NAOMASA’S FUCKING CHILL, BECAUSE HE SEEMS TO HAVE FUCKING MISPLACED THAT SHIT. someone please explain to this man that there is a time and a place to play good cop bad cop and this is not it. “oh, Shirakumo is starting to recover his memories? well then [busts into the prison cell and grabs him by the collar and slams him against the wall] WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR!?”

(ETA: so apparently Nao’s detective instincts are cleverer than mine. he saw that Kumo was potentially going to emerge, but probably not for long, so he gave him the most important question so he could focus on answering that. good job! still not a lot of chill but hey.)

meanwhile Aizawa is all “if what they said is true I’m looking at my friend’s corpse”, while still crying by the way, and yeah, so MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE. this year Santa decided to change it up and just make everyone real sad. happy holidays

lord he’s leaping to his feet and shouting “WHO DID THIS TO YOU”

meanwhile I can’t stop staring at Present Mic with his tongue sticking out. why are you sticking your tongue out. why are anime characters like this. you know, Stain also used to stick his tongue out. Present Mic U.A. traitor confirmed

also!! so many people have beef with Ujiko, though! pretty soon they will have to take a number and get in line

oh no Kumogiri is malfunctioning

Aizawa’s all “ANSWER ME SHIRAKUMO” and OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS

I HAVE NEVER SEEN AIZAWA SHOUTA SO INTENSE AND I CAN’T TEAR MY EYES AWAY FROM THE SCREEN AHHHHH

so there’s some more of “WE WANTED TO BE HEROES TOGETHER” and “YOUR NAME IS SHIRAKUMO OBORO” and all of that other “SNAP OUT OF IT ALREADY” stuff, and you’re damn right I am eating ALL THAT SHIT right up, hell yes. IT’S A TROPE FOR A REASON PEOPLE

oh my god

bwo...hh...?

(ETA: I feel like I should explain that although I have a subscription to Viz, I really hate how their chapter viewer is set up, so I read the chapter on one of the vertical scroll-to-read sites instead. I prefer scroll-to-read for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is so that I can read the chapter slowly (since I’m writing as I go) without spoiling what’s in the next panel. that being said, this next page is one of the few where Viz obviously got it right, so I’ll be posting the full image.)

SDFLSDLFKHSDLKJGOISDJFOSK

（┐° o ° ┐） ( ｣｡╹o╹｡)｣

feelingsfeelingsfeelingsFEELINGS

(ETA: on a reread I am fascinated by the fact that that bandage on his nose actually seems to be A PERMANENT PART OF HIS FACE APPARENTLY lol what.)

READ THE FUCKING ROOM, DUDE. also look how tiny Gran Torino is. he thought we wouldn’t notice through all of our tears. but we did. would you like me to fetch you a box

ha ha ha so now back to the drama

heh so anyway, the fact that this smoke Shirakumo face still looks like a child is straight up destroying me. how are you guys. how is everyone. feliz navidad

FKSLDJSLK HOLD UP

IS HE TRYING TO SAY “SHOUTA”, I CAN’T, I’M?!?!!!!

ADSLFKJALSKDJW

(ETA: I think you can see Shirakumo’s eye rolling back here as he fights against the brainwashing omg. this chapter’s fucking art, though.)

YESSSSSS you keep on ticking off that checklist of clichés, Horikoshi!! I’m so weak for this shit it’s not even funny. actually that’s not true, this plotline is usually hit or miss with me, but I’ll tell you what though, if there’s one guaranteed way to have me freaking the fuck out rather than sighing and rolling my eyes, it’s to have AIZAWA FUCKING SHOUTA be the one pounding on the wall of glass and screaming at his former lover to fight the layers of conditioning waging war on his mind. ohhhhhh god

lol the brainwave detecting screen is losing its fucking shit also and beeping like crazy. this tension is so thick you could plant a flag in it yeesh

is this Kumo remembering stuff??!

(ETA: thank you to the anon who pointed out I posted the wrong image earlier lol.)

why do shounen characters always recall events from a third-person camera view. curse this ambiguous flashback

AHHHHH

HOSPITALLLL ahh what??? “SHOUTA, HOSPITAL.” oh my god. Shirakumo I commend you for not having your first words after dying and being brought back to life and brainwashed for 15 years and then waking up in a straitjacket in a prison cell be, “FUCK ME OH FUCKING SHIT WHAT THE FUCK.” you and I are very different people but I respect that

HOLY SHIT HIS HEAD EXPLODED

so now everyone’s freaking out and we’re zooming in on Kumo’s eye again. by the way this is going to kill me when it’s animated oh god

OH NO THE PANEL WENT BLACK AND IT GOT ALL SILENT

(ETA: hmm I don’t think Caleb Cook knows what “whump” means nowadays. whump is what I wish we had here. instead it’s just lots of hurt but very little comfort. JUST LOTS OF PAIN AND SADNESS.)

Horikoshi please have mercy oh lord. also I see their hands touching, you. they honestly should be gripping each other fucking white-knuckled, this is all very traumatic. I think that if Shouta was holding Mic’s hand while his other hand was pressed against the glass I would probably start sobbing for real

what the fuck

did they knock him back out?? they seem really calm and optimistic about all this lol

oh godddddd

HE’S NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING SHUT UP. GOD, MIC, WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST GIVE HIM A HUG ALREADY??

so now they’re bidding farewell to Nao and Gran -- and HOLY SHIT --

okay hold up -- I just realized -- Kumo was trying to give them a hint about Ujiko’s location. holy shiiiiit. PLEASE START INVESTIGATING HOSPITALS, NAO AND GRAN. holy shit the Noumu arc is heating uppppp

Aizawa’s asking what’s happening with Kurogiri now, and I feel like he maybe should have asked that immediately after the fact rather than as an afterthought while they were getting ready to leave but okay

Nao says he kind of “short-circuited or something” and yeah that tracks with what we saw. though it sure does make that “THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY FOLKS, GOOD JOB BOYS, YOU GET A GOLD STAR” business just SUPER WEIRD though, but let’s be real, Nao has been swinging and missing with striking the right tone all day today

and now Gran is apologizing to Mic and Aizawa for the exquisite emotional torture he just put them through, but he says something is bound to come from it. WELL YEAH NO SHIT IT HAD GODDAMN BETTER

Aizawa apparently hasn’t run out of sad/tired/haunted expressions yet, if you can believe it

pretty soon everyone is going to be sad, tired, and traumatized! heh. it’s going to be so fucked up hahaha crying smiling emojiiiii

oh hey and we’re cutting to another flashback of AFO doing what he does best, being callously dismissive of human lives!

this guy. right here. is a rat bastard. for real. also Horikoshi sure picked a hell of a chapter to go all out on the art again, jesus. this is probably the first time I’ve looked at AFO’s fucked up face and actually thought “yep, that’s a mutilated human man” rather than “shouldn’t you be out floating in space with your asteroid friends trying to smash the Millennium Falcon?” so anyways yeah this panel is a big NOPE from me, thank you

but on the other hand, when Horikoshi uses those art powers for good, such as carefully penciling in every last individual hair of Aizawa’s perpetual five o’clock shadow, that I don’t mind so much!

yes. yes good

so now they’re vrooming off, and we’re hanging back with Gran and Nao for a minute

YESSSSS GOOD JOB NAO!!

looooool it’s ringing up the head of the HPSC and her phone’s buzzing and she’s giving it this hella dramatic look. like this is some patented Todoroki-level dramatic whooshing right here

that’s just how dramatic this entire arc is going to be, hopefully

WAIT WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW

IS THAT A CODED MESSAGE FOR HIM TO GO CHECK OUT THE HOSPITAL. AND HOW BUSY ARE YOU, HAWKS. ARE YOU THE “I AM IN SOME DEEP, DEEP TROUBLE” KIND OF BUSY, OR JUST THE STAYING-IN-CHARACTER KIND OF BUSY. YOU CASUAL BASTARD, WHO CAN EVEN TELL WITH YOU, I’LL JUST HAVE TO SCROLL DOWN TO SEE

oh hh my go

“LITTLE LATE TO ASK ABOUT THIS STUFF” so he comes from the Bakugou Katsuki school of tutoring, eh

I love that he actually followed through on explaining the PLF’s philosophy to Twice. and Twice is such a good boy. he’s studying so diligently. look, he didn’t ask to join a doomsday cult, it just kind of happened so now he’s just doing his best to figure it all out

and it definitely was a coded message, then. smoooooth, HPSC lady, smooth. so I wonder if the fact that she gave him a specific hospital implies a time jump. because I don’t think she’d have him investigate just any old hospital until they had a better lead and/or a more solid idea of what they were looking for

lol what the fuck

well I sure do not have any idea what this man is talking about

-- HOSDFLKJDLY SHIT WE’RE CUTTING TO UJIKO WE ARE CUTTING TO FUCKING UJIKO RED FUCKING ALERT!!!

HE’S TALKING ABOUT TOMURA I’M NOT CALMMMMMMMM AHHHHHH

FUCCKLKL FUCK THE WHAT HOLY SHIT WHAT DID HE DO

oh my god oh my god oh m

he made Tomura a Noumu. holy fucking shit that’s what he did. of course. so he’ll be able to possess multiple quirks, but because he benefits from Ujiko’s years of high end Noumu research, his sense of self will remain intact

AND DOESN’T THIS PROCESS JUST LOOK EVER SO PLEASANT. jesus christ. he’s not even allowed to lie down, for some reason this procedure can only be done while he’s hovering over the bed Exorcist-style with his mouth locked open in a silent scream (ETA: or is that actually his laughter we’re seeing?? because this panel wasn’t raw enough already I guess??) while random spurts of blood come chucking out all over the place. well that’s just

and Tomura fucking volunteered for this. how many scores of others didn’t?? holy fucking shit Ujiko. it’s not easy to be the most evil man in a chapter where a foil-wrapped potato with eye holes started waxing poetic about all the children he harvested and killed like some kind of bloodthirsty sommelier, but YOU FOUND A WAY. dancing a fucking jig while your so-called masterpiece is being gruesomely tortured in the foreground. man if there’s any justice in the world, we’ll find out in this arc that Ujiko used science to make himself immortal so that once he’s finally captured they can just keep killing him over and over again. I do not like him!!

so that’s it! we really are doing this thing, holy shit. Noumu arc here we come. see you guys next decade har dee har

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keiziahknight1886 · 4 years

Text

Change

[Change (A Connor x Reader story based on Detroit: Become Human)]

MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR Hey, it's Kei! I'm so excited to start and write this story since I had the idea! First off, shout out to my good sis @findart.me (https://www.instagram.com/findart.me/?hl=en) for going through this adventure with me and for making these covers!! Omg it was so hard to choose but I chose the one I liked the most HAHAHA.

I'm in love with Detroit: Become Human and so I became DBH trash lol. I had been looking for fanfics about DBH, specifically Connor since I'm in love with the smol bean. There are a lot of stories about Connor and I love each and every one of them and I've seen the trope of being Hank's daughter and the more I read I wanted something more that I don't think I've seen yet. I mean I have seen something similar but not completely the plot that I was looking for so I decided to write my own.

Keep in mind, I have no idea about some of the details in the story like how police work actually work so I just trusted google with the research lol so please don't pay attention to the wrong things since it is just a fanfiction and I'm not the best at writing.

I'll be pushing to write all of this in the same canon of the game but with the inclusion of reader since there are more paths and whatnot and just- basically I'm adding canon and non canon stuff together so-

SPOILER ALERT!!! I want to make it as real game as possible so that we can have that feeling that it's not too far from the game and it could actually exist, I don't know if you guys get me but I want this to be as close to game reality as possible so that we could really feel close to Connor and the other characters. Now keep in mind that I just went through the game like only a few times (I have yet to complete it a hundred percent because God knows that take HOURS like omg one chapter is like 4-7 hours of replay) so as detailed of this as I want I may get some things wrong. Anyway that's enough about me, feel free to comment as much as you like if there are mistakes and hope you guys enjoy the Detroit: Change experience! Note: *The reader will be female *Mostly on 2nd person, rotating between Connor and reader *I copied some of the texts from the original game's script to make it more immersive, please don't clock me on that lol *I already finished the story but I'll be posting them daily for pacing and checking purposes. *Major credits to the original creators, I can only take credit for the plot and story itself but as for the characters that will be use on this story they solely belong to their owners.

Prologue

xX0Xx

Y/n Anderson is her name.

She grew up in a loving environment and she loved her family more than anything. She grew up with a lot of love from her parents but she was particularly a daddy's girl, holding him high up on a pedestal and hoping to one day achieve as many great things as him.

She looked up to her father who was top of his class and was also a valedictorian, he was a very intelligent and talented man and so she wanted to follow in his footsteps. That, and he constantly spoiled her and showered her with love and gifts that sometimes her mother says it's too much.

Because of her desire to make her father proud she studied and worked hard to pass every exam she could and when the time came for her to take the exam for Criminology she passed with flying colors, both parents couldn't be prouder.

It was one of the happiest moments in Y/n's 18 years of life and she had another reason to celebrate because her parents had just announced that her mother was yet again pregnant and that she was going to finally have a little sibling.

She believed she had it all and couldn't have been more content with her life. Her years had been filled with love and laughter and when her younger brother came into their world their family became even better. Their family even got bigger when they got Sumo, the fluffy giant Saint Bernard, for one of her brother's birthdays.

Y/n's life was good, she was a great student and also graduated a valedictorian like her father and when she started working with him at the same precinct in the Detroit Police Department, she felt pride in herself and of course, her father was proud of her as well.

He made it known to just about everyone there what his daughter achieved and although it was embarrassing she was still happy. She loved her job of fighting crime, helping people, and saving lives.

But all that happiness ended when a series of unfortunate events took her brother's life, the one life that mattered to her the most, the one life she couldn't save.

An accident cost the life of her brother, this changed her life and perfect family into a living disaster.

Her father, whom she looked up to, decided to turn to alcohol to remedy the pain. Her mother had had enough of her father's drinking problem and his sometimes downright horrible attitude on top of the tragedy and it ultimately broke them apart.

When the divorce happened it left her in the middle, broken and lost.

Years passed by and her relationship with her parents deteriorated, still, she continued working at the same precinct as her father and stayed with him in fear that if he was truly left alone something bad would happen. Early on, her father showed signs of depression and her mother couldn't seem to handle it so she took it upon herself as the eldest daughter to look after him. She went with him when her parents decided to sell their house after the divorce and although the house he got wasn't the best she stayed with him.

When he would drink himself to the brink of alcohol poisoning she was there in the hospital waiting for him to get better, she had been nothing but patient when he would lash out at her and yell out hurtful words and she would be the one to apologize to whoever it was that his father pissed off.

What really drove her to yell at him was when she found out one night that he had been playing Russian roulette. She screamed and cried and he screamed in turn, not caring that his only daughter was crying over his actions. This went on to the early morning until Y/n finally had enough. She locked herself in her room silently crying while her father slammed the front door shut to get drunk somewhere other than home.

This was when their relationship finally broke.

Y/n still stayed at their home but would go out early and return when she knew her father wouldn't be home, she avoided him at all cost but would also watch over him when he was passed out drunk or just too tired to even get to bed.

Even at the precinct, she would make sure to avoid him by taking more assignments and never being in the same area for more than a few minutes at a time.

Her father didn't seem to mind, in fact, he didn't even show a smidge of regret or sadness and that hurt her even more. She had hoped that after a few days of it being like that he would come up to her and apologize but days turned into weeks and then into months.

It had been three years since her brother passed, three years since her parents seemed to have lost care for her, three long years of her father forgetting that he had another child that had done nothing but love and care for him. Y/n's life changed and even though she was trying to pull her life together nothing seemed to be changing for the better.

-------

AUG 15TH, 2038 PM 08:45:29

"Ma'am it's okay, I've just heard that the situation is under control." The soothing voice of a woman spoke as the sounds of sirens, helicopters, and yelling echoed around the area.

Lights of red and blue shone as the woman with a soothing voice slowly pats the back of another woman who looked ragged and is having a panic attack.

The woman had h/l h/c hair and was wearing a black bomber jacket, tight dark blue pants, and combat boots. Her badge was attached to her hip and it signified her position as a police detective.

"It's not okay! They sent an android to save my daughter!"

"Detective Anderson, we've got a new report." an officer spoke up and Y/n sighed.

"Lay it on me."

"The negotiator was successful, the girl's safe."

Y/n smiled and looked at the woman who was now looking at them and crying in relief.

"I'll go check on your daughter, please stay here and I'll make sure to bring her to you."

"Please... Please make sure my baby is safe." she sobbed and Y/n gave her another pat.

Detective Y/n Anderson, age 27, was one of the people who responded to the hostage situation since she was around the area patrolling with officers Deckart and Wilson, they were just having a chat when it happened. At that time, the three of them rushed into the scene after Y/n called for backup and there they met the android who shot

its owner and was taking a little girl hostage.

They had a standoff and Deckart was shot dead in the living room. She tried to negotiate with it with Wilson but the mother of the girl was screaming which had added stress to the situation. When it went to the outside, Wilson followed while Y/n tried to stop the mother from going further.

She continued to stop the mother from moving and potentially endangering herself, she heard another gunshot from outside along with a yell of pain and when she looked, the android was now on the edge while Wilson's body laid on the ground.

When the SWAT team finally arrived, Y/n had briefed the captain, Allen, about the situation and she was given the task to help secure the area downstairs.

After hearing that the situation had finally been defused, Y/n made her way up but not before noticing a taxi leaving the area. She looked at it in confusion for a bit since taxis shouldn't have been allowed in the area but disregarded it.

When she was upstairs, the SWAT team was clearing up and she went straight to the crying girl being treated by one of the medics. Y/n kneeled down in front of the girl and gave her a reassuring smile.

"Hey, there little one, my name's Detective Y/n Anderson and your mom sent me. You're going to be okay now, I'll take you down when you're done getting patched up, okay?" she smiled softly at the girl who sniffled and nodded.

"How's downstairs, Anderson?"

She turned to look at Captain Allen who looked less tense than when she first saw him tonight, she gave him a soft smile and a salute.

"Captain, all's well and handled downstairs. Great work up here."

"Yeah well, that piece of plastic gave us more trouble than its worth." Allen frowned and glanced at the little girl.

"You managed to convince it though, that's less innocent lives tonight."

"Yeah, well... We didn't do the convincing. Cyberlife sent this detective android in."

"A detective android?" Y/n raised an eyebrow and slightly tilted her head, she's never heard of a detective android before.

"Yeah, the thing managed to do the job but if they make more of that thing it'll be trouble for us."

"Well, let's hope it's a one-time thing then. Cyberlife probably just wanted to remedy their own problem."

"Yeah, well here's to hoping I don't see it again."

"She's done." the medic spoke up which got both of their attentions.

"You taking her?" Allen asked and Y/n nodded.

"Yep, told her mother I'd make sure she was safe."

"I'll leave her to you before we process things then."

"You got it."

Y/n gave a small salute to Allen who just gave a tiny chuckle and patted her shoulder in return. It wasn't a secret that Y/n was a talented detective, she was talented in many areas and, in turn. she's made friends and connections within the force. Most people liked her and those who really knew about her situation pitted her and hopes that she had a better life than she did now.

"Come on, sweetheart. Let's get you to momma."

Y/n extended her hand towards the girl and she took her hand, the little girl was still shaking but she seemed to have relaxed a little after Y/n squeezed her hand.

"What's your name?"

"Emma." the little girl answered quietly and she could understand why.

"Well, Emma, I'm going to make sure you and you're mom are taken care of."

-------

After the exhausting day she had, Y/n finally got home. She was dead tired and she could feel her eyes closing as she entered the house. A loud bark was heard as she entered and she couldn't help but giggle and pet the big fluffy dog that walked towards her.

"Hey there, Sumo. Sorry but Y/n's a little tired right now." she spoke softly as she patted the dog's head.

Sumo walked over to the couch and when she followed her eyes landed on her father who was passed out on the couch, again.

Y/n sighed before removing her jacket and putting it on the table where she saw the picture frame of her brother facing down, she frowned and shook her head and went to pick her father up. As she moved, she accidentally kicked a bottle on the floor and she looked at it in disgust.

"Be quiet while I move him okay, bud?"

Sumo whimpered softly before going to his own little doggie space and laying down. Y/n, who was already used to this, grabbed her father and slung his arm around her shoulder.

"Move." she groaned.

It felt like it took forever to move her father but when she finally placed him on the bed she took off his shoes and socks and covered him with a blanket. She looked at him one last time before leaving for her own bed.

When she finally laid down she felt almost everything shut down, she didn't even care if she hasn't changed, all she wanted now was to sleep.

As Y/n's eyes fluttered close to accept the sweet release of slumber, a loud alarm sounded and she jumped off of the bed. She looked around with adrenaline coursing through her and when she looked at her alarm clock it was already time for work again.

"Agh!" she let out a scream of frustration before throwing herself to the bed again.

Y/n laid down on her bed before ultimately decided to get up again for a shower and fresh change of clothes, begrudgingly getting ready for another workday ahead.

xX0Xx Chapter One

#detroit become human #detroit become human x reader #detroit become human connor x reader #connor #rk800 #x reader #reader insert #connor x reader #dbh connor #reader is an anderson #hank anderson #rk800 connor

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ziracona · 3 years

Note

i was just wondering what your favourite tropes and dynamics are to explore in fic? either to write yourself or to read!

Oooh, that’s a hard one to answer because I like so many! Uhhh...Let me think.

Well, one of my favorite tropes is definitely Found Family. What is really more satisfying and worthwhile than a group of damaged people coming together and slowly building trust and love until they are inseparably bonded and full of love and have found things they never thought they would?

I am extremely weak to memory loss both because I have some myself, and the American Dragon Jake Long episode Homecoming ripped out my heart as a kid and left me suffering, then Code Geass stepped on it twice with Shirley the same way. So I really like memory loss centered tragedy tropes bc I am 3x weak to them. I am also weak to that trope where one person is trapped in a room with a bomb, or going to drown, or for whatever reason cannot be saved from dying, so a loved one goes and stays and dies with them too just so they don’t have to die alone. Frkn /shatters/ my heart.

I love hurt comfort a lot. I think my favorite scenes to write and read are often one person is completely at the mercy of person 2, who they have no reason to think will help them and are terrified of being hurt by, but instead of person 2 doing anything bad at all, they are kind and look after them and save them. I die for that. It is the lifeblood of my soul.

I also like big character arcs and well done redemption arcs (bad ones make me rage tho. If I was a card in a tarot deck, I’d be Justice). Personal growth, finding hope again, learning to trust or love yourself. I really like character studies, and I like in-depth looks at serious issues and complex and messed up situations. I also am a big fan of deeply important and lasting platonic relationships, be it familial or best friends or whatever, and like romances where the two in question (or more if poly) just try really hard to be good to each other and communicate well and are full of love and would die for each other.

Love pets being a big element of story. Love language barriers, and like writing them/communication barriers. I am usually not very interested in stories (writing or reading) that don’t have good rep in a number of ways. Like writing disabled characters well because I see them get written very grossly so much (I like writing tons of groups this is just the one I did most recently, so it’s on my mind rn. I am disabled, but I’m also a lot of other things to & def don’t only focus on/be interested by my own stuff). I am kinda branching out from tropes to just elements now tho. Uhhhhh, tropes, tropes. I love the opposite of that stupid “If you kill an evil person you’re just as bad”--I am here to see people end the people who murdered their friends or abused them. It’s what they deserve. Not here for a woobie redemption arc for an abuser. Very tired of those & angy.

I love humor in the midst of intense drama or horror or sadness. I’m big into massive sacrifices, but especially if it’s something other than death bc those tend to be more well thought out.

I adore characters who have been through awful things and suffered and been abused getting to actually heal and live happy lives instead of just dying the second they start to taste happiness. I love themes and tropes about the value and lasting nature of human connection and how important and lasting it is.

(putting the rest under a cut bc I am having fun but this be getting long)

Uhhh, I am obsessed with free will > fate and choice, and I really like humanity and things about what it means to be human, and ethics, but like, in an interesting way? Like, Terry Pratchett’s stuff really appeals to me. Like “What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.” “Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle.” “The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).” “There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.” “There’s no point in believing in things that exist.” “You couldn’t put off the inevitable. Because sooner or later, you reached the place when the inevitable just went and waited.” and

“Yeah? How many worshipers have you got?” “Fifty-one!” The newt looked at him hopefully, and added, “Is that lots? Can't count.” It pointed at a rather crudely molded figure on the beach in Omnia and said, “But got a stake!” Om looked at the figure of the little fisherman. “When he dies, you'll have fifty worshippers,” he said. “That more or less than fifty-one?” “A lot less.” “Definite?” “Yes.” “No one tell me that.” There were several dozen gods watching the beach. Om vaguely remembered the Ephebian statues. There was the goddess with the badly carved owl. Yes. Om rubbed his head. This wasn't god-like thinking. It seemed simpler when you were up here. It was all a game. You forgot that it wasn't a game down there. People died. Bits got chopped off. We're like eagles up here, he thought. Sometimes we show a tortoise how to fly. Then we let go. He said, to the occult world in general, “There's people going to die down there.” A Tsortean God of the Sun did not even bother to look round. “That's what they're for,” he said. In his hand he was holding a dice box that looked very much like a human skull with rubies in the eye-sockets. “Ah, yes,” said Om. “I forgot that, for a moment.” He looked at the skull, and then turned to the little Goddess of Plenty. “What's this, love? A cornucopia? Can I have a look? Thanks.” Om emptied some of the fruit out. Then he nudged the Newt God. “If I was you, friend, I'd find something long and hefty,” he said. “Is one less than fifty-one?” said P'Tang-P'Tang. “It's the same,” said Om, firmly. He eyed the back of the Tsortean God's head. “But you have thousands,” said the Newt God. “You fight for thousands.” Om rubbed his forehead. I spent too long down there, he thought. I can't stop thinking at ground level. “I think,” he said, “I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one.” He tapped the Solar God on the shoulder. “Hey, sunshine?” When the God looked around, Om broke the cornucopia over his head.

Are all just from Small Gods, and like, boy is that my kinda good shit. Love history and sociology and anthropology.

I love people fighting to do something they know is doomed to fail just because they know it’s the right thing. I also die for characters who are loyal undyingly, and characters admitting they were wrong and trying to do better, and that trope where someone says something but the exact opposite is happening in the background or happens immediately after. Love that trope where someone should be dead but they just. keep. getting. back. up. to defend someone they love. Love the trope where character A dies and character B takes something of theirs like a bracelet or a necklace or a headband or something and wears it forever after. : (((

I know there’s a ton more but ima swap to dynamics.

Let’s see. I adore familial relationships so much? Blood family, adopted, doesn’t matter, it’s exactly the same. I am huge on one character becoming team mom or dad or parent, or adopting some of the others. I love parent-kid relationships, even with adults and older adults, because it’s just as important. I adore small children being cared for by gruff war-hardened people, or selfish dicks who have to be better for the kid, or kind people who always wanted a kid and lost their own or never had one, or who are happy to add one more, or big sisters Clemtine style stepping into parenthood. Live for that, and I seek out video games that let me play it. Very excited to be trying out Plague’s Tale Innocence, because you play as a big sis taking care of your little brother (he’s like 6? 5-8? I’m not sure). But it’s such a neat idea for a sibling dynamic to explore, because while they’re siblings and know each other’s name and have like, a familial bond, it’s also all kind of awkward and new, because he’s been sick for years and in quarantine with just their mom, so even though they’re siblings and love each other and like, baby brother trusts you, they don’t really know each other at all, and that is just fascinating and so cool to explore to me! I also love someone adopting someone else as their new sibling(s) and dragging them into the family. I love siblings where one starts to go evil or mess up, and the other sibling fights with everything they have to save them/bring them back/help them become good again, because it breaks my heart and sibling relationships are /so/ important to me.

I also love shit like Jeff in dbd, where one character adopts younger characters who just /super/ don’t deserve it, because as much as they’ve fucked up, they love them anyway, they just do, and they want to be there to give them support and a chance to keep trying if they’ll take it. And like, I love all of Legion’s relationships with him, but especially Joey, because it’s /so/ sweet, and Joey is just a scared kid hurting and alone and he wants /so bad/ just to be loved and thought well of and okay, but he’s terrified of getting hurt or killed, and confused, and guilty and afraid of what will happen because of all the bad shit he did, and Jeff is just so warm and forgiving and full of nothing but unconditional love and kindness, and in the sincerest of ways, and they’re such good friends, which is like, not optional to a good parent-child relationship. Or way older brother filling in for parent-kid, there’s a lot of overlap. Anyway! Also just cute shit where someone falls in love with the idea of getting to look out for and stay close to someone younger they want to protect and parent, and there’s this kind of hopeful and almost fragile unsureness that the other person will want or need them in that capacity, like Ace adopting Nea, and not just picking looking out for someone who needs it over former life of thrill, but like, never regretting that choice, and just being truly happy and fulfilled in the adventure they now are on.

For friendships, god. I like so much shit, I don’t know what to say. I am so sorry I am giving you a novel for an answer to this short ask, rip. But I just love all kinds! I like groups with an established rhetoric between them, who are just so comfortable in each others’ presence, and people you know love and value each other so much they’re going to be together forever just as much as the two other characters getting married. I love one is a nice person, and the other is an asshole, but they make an amazing team and balance each other out, and the asshole stops the kind one from dying doing shit for other people, and the kind one helps the asshole be just a little more in love with their friends and things other than themself, and they’re great together. I love idiot friends who riff off each other and do bits all the time, and ones who turn into the “Holy shit there’s two of them” whenever they hang out, and ones who are just so on the same wavelength they’re totally comfortable in silence together and seek it out and would die for the other. I like wingman to person who is dying of embarrassment dynamic, and hardcore fighty person protecting either small and easily hurt person, or just as great, protecting dedicatedly person who is ironically either just as tough as them or even more, but it’s still really sweet and kind of double soft and sweet because tough friend never gets cared for.

God, what don’t I like? ...People being toxic assholes together?

I like super opposites that mesh well, but look hilarious next to each other, and goofy best friends who shamelessly sing loud to the most embarrassing karaoke track they could find. Lesbian and himbo is pretty great. As is the opposite, gay dude and stupid amazing slut or bimbo. (Fkn Mateo and Cheyanne kill me). Sweetest person you will ever know surrounded by 20 people who would die for them. Person who thinks they’re unlovable and takes a long time to notice like all their friends already love them, and then they get to be happy. Person who has never once had a good relationship is dragged into a healthy friendship and /super/ suspicious at every turn because they just aren’t used to being loved and treated well, but eventually softens and probably straight up breaks down at some point.

Person who was formerly bad or did something super fucked up is forgiven and welcomed into a group which they can barely even understand, and they are full of guilt but their loved ones reassure them and help them heal and just accept them and support them. Friends who are super mean to other friend but like, in a loving way, and would also take a bullet for the friend.

Uhhh, for romances, my fave is characters who just fucking love each other. I am real tired of relationship drama. Like pining and issues and star crossed lovers are all great (I think of those, star-crossed lovers is my fave), but I mean like, the shit where people keep having misunderstandings or not talking or cheating on each other just so there can be drama--that I am sick of. I love it when person A does something super badass and probably a little unexpected and person B is like “That’s my wife!!!” or just goes : O with love in their eyes, and this happens constantly. I love gushy mushy sweet displays of affection. I love relationships where the people who are dating were best friends first and still are after, all the way, and tease and rib and are so in love.

I like it when one person thinks they don’t deserve the other, but clearly their partner feels none of this and is always just like “Babe...” and hugs them and is just as in love, and helps them begin to love themself more.

Uhhhh, I like it when there’s someone who doesn’t think they’re in love and there’s that trope where they suddenly get it and you get the Oh or the Wait in italics as it drops internally. I like ships where the characters balance each other out well or provide good support and get better together than they were apart, triple points if they’re super aware of that and comment on it. Also whatever the fuck Maureen Robinson and John Robinson in the Lost in Space reboot have going on. That’s like, goals. She’s chaotic evil living lawful good by sheer force of will, and he’s a himbo too in love to realize any of that and never questions what she thinks they should do beyond the physical logistics of it and would die for her and not think twice about it or the fact that she moves really fast to the pragmatic “Okay,”--not because she doesn’t love him, she does--but because someone does need to be alive for their kids and she’s just wired too practical for him to have to pry her off sobbing to not stay and die with him. (This happens verbatim in like episode 6, but it’s not a mega spoiler bc he doesn’t actually die--he just almost does. She figures out a way to save them both right before committing to it.)

I also like “two fools both in love but really nervous about asking the other if they are because of their past, or situation, or because this is the first time or first time with that kind of relationship, so there’s just intense romantic tension all the time where they pause mid-sentence to just stare into eachothers’ eyes and forget what they were saying, but they’re both too ineffective to just fucking go “Do you like me?” for such a long time. Hurt/comfort paired with pining. Uhhh, but Star Crossed Lovers is up there for sure. I love the pain of two people wanting to be together but it’s just /impossible/ and they know it but that doesn’t make the feelings go away, and it’s miserable, and maybe they’re upset, because they shouldn’t feel this way, but they can’t not, and it’s confused, and it hurts, but they’re also so /happy/ when they see each other. I like that good shit in any romance where the characters can just look at each other and they know, and you know. That’s the choice shit, I tell you that.

Jeeze I’m sure I missed stuff but this is already so long. Uhhh, I like so much I don’t really know how to answer. But my favorite like, vibe/....flavor genre? Is Hope Punk. Uhhh, and mostly I dig any relationships that end up healthy and sweet. I really like second-chances, and characters confronting and moving on past their bad or complicated pasts, or trauma, and healing. Hurt comfort is love, and so is angst with a happy ending. I like a good villain or a wonderful asshole, but I feel like characters that are just good and doing their best really get overlooked and undervalued a lot, and I am here for them. Like Sam Gamgee? One of the /best/ characters in LOTR. So is Bob Newby--and I do get the irony in them both being played by Sean Astin. But uh, anyway, I really like to explore how decent people try to act when confronted with terrible situations and choices, because I really value people who stayed sweet and kind and merciful and full of love even after all the awful shit life has put them through, and I really like writing about how /hard/ that is, and what it looks like, along with the other stuff. I also like characters who are very flawed and very medium being given something to lose and something to gain that go in opposite directions, and being forced to confront their reality and make hard choices. I like people being given intense opportunities to grow or to rot, and seeing which they’ll chose and why and if they’ll make it to the end. Mostly I just really love characters who try, even if they fail, because that can be a lot harder to do than it seems. I like dynamics where one character is very flawed, or in a bad place, but they love someone they think is amazing, and so they’re working hard to catch up to them, or to get close enough they can reach out and hold their hand, and are fighting to make it to a person themselves who can do that someday. I’m sure I forgot a lot and that this was super rambly, but I hope you at least enjoyed some of it! Thanks for asking! ^u^

#ask #anonymous #personal #writing #Anonymous

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miserelysia · 4 years

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“I Watched the Artemis Fowl Movie and It Made Me Very Upset” Liveblog!

So I decided I had to subject myself to this movie despite being Extremely Aware that it’s a massive pile of firey garbage. It was about as painful as expected, so I liveblogged to keep my sanity. Here’s basically what happened in my head while I was watching:

Josh Diggums: I feel so bad for Josh Gad's voice because it's painfully obvious they just didn't want Olaf showing up so they forced him into some terrible Bale-Batman voice that keeps cracking

why is this movie taking itself so seriously

Book Artemis: eternally unathletic dweeb

Movie Artemis: SURFING MASTER

the fuck, Branagh

THIS VOICE IS SO DAMN BAD, JOSH PLEASE STOP TALKING

okay Artemis is appropriately a little shit for EXACTLY ONE SCENE

FUCK OFF WITH FRIDGING THE MOM, BRANAGH

"ur mom's dead and ur dad's gone so ur a little shit" WHAT A GREAT COUNSELOR

fuck's sake

Book Artemis: immediately falls off whatever this hover thing is

COLIN FARRELL. SEXY MAN.

I ALMOST FORGIVE THEM FOR BRINGING HIM BACK EARLY

AND..... KNOWING ABOUT MAGIC

SDJFKSDF

WHATEVER

I WAS PREPARED FOR THIS

this voice is still terrible, Josh. I'm sorry

this kid is a pretty good actor

"all i really want is to believe in you" that was actually well-delivered

"Arty"

OKAY IT'S NOT ACCORDING TO THE BOOK BUT FUCK ME THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS WELL DONE

i desperately need Butler to show up soon tho

I SPOKE TOO SOON

"DOMOVOI" ??!!?? YOU FUCKS

why

are his eyes

fucking ELECTRIC BLUE

HIS LITERAL FUKDFSUCING NAME IN THE BOOKS IS 'BUTLER' IT'S PART OF BEING AN INSANELY GOOD SECRET AGENT GUARDIAN HE'S NOT AN ACTUFL FUCKING BUTLER AND LITERALLY NO ONE EVER CALLS HIM "THE BUTLER" BUT HIS NAME IS BUTLER BECAUSE HIS REAL NAME IS SECRET HE'S FUCKING SECURITY FUCKING DID YOU READ THIS FUCKING BOOK SERIES AT ALL BRANAGH OR DID YOU JUSTDSJFKLDSHFSD:LFSEFAGH

i'm sorry

Butler is my absolute favorite character of the entire damn series and they fucking

can't even get OOOONNNNNEEEEEEEEE CHARACTER CORRECT

SCREAMS

did they think calling him "Butler" would be weird because they cast a black guy?????

AGAIN WHY WITH THE FUCKING ELECTRIC BLUE CONTACTS THEY'RE SO OBVIOUSLY FAKE IT LOOKS SO BAD. IF YOU MAKE THE DECISION TO CAST AN AFRICAN AMERICAN MAN JUST FUCKING OWN THAT HE HAS DARK EYES DON'T DO THIS

THE "OWL STAR"???? REALLY???? WHY NOT FOWL STAR

WHY

NOT

IT'S JUST SUCH AN ARBITRARY DUMBASS CHANGE IT MAKES NO SENSE

PLEASE DID I JUST MISUNDERSTAND THE REPORTER MAN

DID THE CAPTIONS JUST MISUNDERSTAND HIM?????

NOPE IT'S LITERALLY THE O W L S T A R

fuck off

i'm sorry

stuff like that just bothers me a lot

it makes ABSOLUTELY no sense to change it

Fowl Star made sense bECAUSE IT'S OWNED BY ARTEMIS FOWL

artemis has a lot more emotions than i remember him having

i will not forgive them for destroying the Butler/Artemis relationship in favor of a Dad they fucking fridge in the first half hour of the movie

oh boy nursery rhymes as codes

GROUNDBREAKING

i think the fairies would have something to say about you hiding their own shit from them, MISTER SENIOR

it's still a bad voice, Josh, I'm so sorry

okay Haven is pretty nice

"Haven" not "Haven City"

pretty sure

holly being a 13 year old girl is disconcerting

that was mentioned in a review

they're supposed to be Child-Sized not ACTUAL CHILDREN

also "small person = higher pitched voice" is such a stupid trope please stop

i like the Being diversity around the city

like lots of different types of humanoids

josh desperately wants to do the Olaf voice

i'm so sorry Josh

okay aside from the shit voice Diggums is pretty good

lol Cudgeon's already in jail

okay then

i know this is Opal Koboi

meh

i hate her in the books so they can fuck her up all they want

judi dench is batman too i guess

how many cigs you smoke judi root

OH BOY HOLLY HAS MISSING DADDY ISSUES TOO

fucking shit

"you're 84" and you look like a fUCKING THIRTEEN YEAR OLD

such bad choices

every time they say "Domovoi" i--

HISDFHSDHFH

JULIET

SHE'S

HIS

FUCKING

NIECE?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????

SDFJLS:DKF FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK YYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

FUCK YOU

FUCK

FUCK YOU KENNETH BRANAGH

SHE'S

HIS

FUCKING

SISTER

HIS BABY SISTER HE LOVES AND CARES FOR EVEN MORE THAN ARTEMIS AND THAT'S A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RELATIONSHIP THAN UNCLE AND NIECE

HOW COULD YOU LITERALLY DESTROY EVERYTHING ABOUT BUTLER AND STILL SLEEP AT NIGHT

eoin colfer i hope you made so much money off of this SHITSTACK

(genuinely tho that's literally the only consolation; now he can write more Good Books)

Juliet is cute but i know about all she does is make sandwiches

so fuck this

judi dench is Good

foaly is Okay

why's he wearing clothes tho

the chutes are a lot more... open than expected

BEECHWOOD SHORT THE TRAITOR

FUCK OFF

WHY IS HOLLY’S CHARACTER DEFINED BY HER FUCKING FATHER

THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE AN OUTCOME THAN I EVEN EXPECTED GIVEN THEY EVISCERATED HER CHARACTER'S DRIVE BY MAKING THE L.E.P. ALREADY HAVE FEMALE OFFICERS AND COMMANDERS

"get out cudgeon before i throw you out" okay they got Root completely right at least

aside from making him a her

but that's okay

because it's Judi Dench

awwwww happy flying scene bUT HOLLY YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SHIELDED GOt DAMN

“any update?” "yes. i'm freezing" amazing, Butler

i mean dOmOvOi

HOLLY YOU'RE STILL NOT SHIELDED

CGI isn't too bad in this but honestly that's not impressive anymore

awwwww cute wedding scene

troll is about as ugly as possible

LOL JUST FUCKING THROW TIME FREEZE UP LIKE IT'S NOTHING

OKAY

LOL HOLLY GO DEAL WITH THE TROLL DON'T FOCUS ON ONE SMALL CHILD

THAT'S NOT HOW A TIME FREEZE WORKS

i mean it's COOL

i love the little Men in Green zipping around

but it doesn't make ANY sense

LOL SO WHY DO THE PEOPLE THINK THE PLACE IS TRASHED

lol gently floating troll

Hollyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Judi Root continues to be amazing

ok tbf Opal Koboi would be after the Aculos if it existed

OP MacGuffin plots are so tired tho like really Branagh

i love the wings on her suit

ARTEMIS WHEN DID YOU GET TO THE TREE

holly ur a bad 84-year-old officer

LOL CUDGEON IS RIGHT ON

AND JUDI ROOT CONTINUES TO BE

"Not Happy!" lol wat

who wrote that bit of dialogue and said "yes this a perfectly good thing to have her say when she wakes up in a cage"

"mesmerism"

boy i love these exposition dump convos between Mr. Sr. and Arty

LOL "most human beings are afraid of gluten, how do you think they'd handle goblins" is a great line

out of touch, but still funny

...why does the time freeze take forever to generate now when you did it in TWO SECONDS BEFORE

calm down holly damn

foaly's very pretty

sO DID THEY FREEZE THE *ENTIRE WORLD*????????

I THOUGHT THE POINT WAS TO FREEZE THINGS INSIDE SO YOU HAVE MOONLIGHT LONGER

AND

whatever

i love this fucking ARMY coming out of literally everywhere

"TOP OF THE MORNIN'" OH MY FUCKING GOODNESS

whole movie is worth it

for that line

i love that they're entirely in green

and no one ever Shields

ever

they mentioned Shields once but NO ONE IS SHIELDED

BUTLER WOULD NEVER LET ARTEMIS INTO A FIGHT

SCREAMS

"TAKE THE SHOT"

WHY IS THE TIME FREEZE SO EASILY DESTABILIZED

FOALY

ARE YOU TELLING ME NO ONE HAS EVER SHOT YOUR FUCKING ENORMOUS DEVICE

omg no U GAVE OPAL KOBOI LEGITIMATE REASONS FOR DOING WHAT SHE'S DOING

YOU GAVE HER A SAD FRUSTRATING BACKSTORY

SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE AN ARROGANT SELF-SERVING BITCH AND NOTHING ELSE

TWENTY SEVEN MINUTES??????

hOW DID ARTEMIS KNOW ABOUT MULCH DIGGUMS SPECIFICALLY

lol that is 100% a completely inhumane prison what the fuck, fairies

why does Holly have human music

well i'm glad we didn't have to watch mulch almost eat a dude's head

"My father was kidnapped."

"My father is dead."

"Can I trust you?"

"You'll have to."

BUT WHY

WHAT IS THIS DIALOGUE

WHAT IS THIS CHARACTER PROGRESSION

THERE's NO REASON TO TRUST HER

OR TO NEED TO TRUST HER

THIS IS COMPLETELY UNEARNED AND STUPID

glad holly's entire character REVOLVES AROUND A MAN NOW, BRANAGH

LOL THEY JUST DIDN'T GIVE ROOT A FIRST NAME???

JUDI ROOT CONFIRMED

"listen to us, grunting at each other like a pair of hippos with a throat infection" LMAO

i hope that was Josh Gad improv

LOL HE JUST FUCKING DESTROYS EVERYTHING IN HIS WAY WHILE TUNNELING

YOU DIDN'T EVEN REALLY TUNNEL IN, MULCH

HOW DID YOU COME OUT OF A PAINTING

DO THEY HAVE PAINTINGS IN A BASEMENT???

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SHEETROCK OR WHATEVER

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO EASY TO JUST

UGH

FOLLOW THE BOOK

COME ON

MULCH YOU ARE THE WORST BURGLAR

"what would your parents be" THEY'D BE CENTAURS MULCH

is... is Mulch on the second floor

HE TUNNELED THROUGH THE WALL ONTO THE SECOND FLOOR

artemis... just.. lets holly out

ok cool

LOL HIS NOSE HAIRS GROW AND MOVE LIKE TENTACLES

stupid and... funny? i guess

at least Cudgeon is the piece of shit he is in the book lol

oh boy troll time

BUTER WOULD NEVER LET MULCH DIGGUMS PICKPOCKET HIM

"jam all magic" OMFG THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE

BUTLER WOULD NEVER LET ARTEMIS FACE DOWN A FUCKING TROLL

LOL THEY JUST FIRE THE TROLL LIKE A BULLET

A TROLL-ET

DOMOVOI YOU ARE COMPLETELY USELESS WHAT THE FUCK

i wonder if kids even like this movie

omg butler couldn't even jump

i don't understand

he literally DOESN'T HELP AT ALL

IT'S HIS WHOLE THING

IS BEING ABLE TO KICK ASS

FUCKING COME ON BRANAGH

yeah fuck you branagh

are... are the fairies just DYING TO THE TIME FREEZE COLLAPSE???

"goodbye my friend. i'm sorry i was FUCKING USELESS"

branagh you're trying to activate my feelings with this Sad Death Scene(TM) but i am IMPERVIOUS because artemis has had NO RELATIONSHIP WHATSOEVER WITH THIS """DOMOVOI"""

COOL HE'S BACK NOW I’M SO GLAD ACTUAL FULL ON DEATH HAS ZERO CONSEQUENCES NOW THANKS TO OP FAIRY MAGIC

WHAT GREAT WRITING THIS IS

"i didn't cry did i" FUCK OFF

WHY IS IT SO DANGEROUS WHEN THE TIME FREEZE ENDS

WHY IS YOUR TECH SO SHITTY, FOALY

TIME FREEZES AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE DANGEROUS TO THE OCCUPANTS

THAT GOES AGAINST ALL OF FAIRY RULES

...okay and then it just ends..........?

Domovoi: "you have to try!"

Artemis: "i can't, tho"

Domovoi: "it's too dangerous!"

WHAT IS THIS DIALOGUE

WHO WROTE THIS ABSOLUTE DRIVEL

"the aculos for my father"

THE L.E.P. DOESN'T EVEN HAVE YOUR FATHER YOU ABSOLUTE DOOF

holly how do u know how to do this

the... the aculos is just the fucking Book?

i feel slapped in the face

she just recites the words and. and.

whatever

i'm done

GO FIND YOUR DAD WHO'S MAGICALLY BACK

WHY WOULD HE BE IN THE BED ARTEMIS

YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A GENIUS

this girl who plays Holly cannot act

i'm sorry girl

MAGICALLY BACK DAD

HOORAY HOLLY'S CHARACTER CONTINUES TO BE DEFINED BY HER FATHER

FUCK

YOU

WRITERS

AND BRANAGH

BUTLER WOULD NEVER CRY, DOMOVOI

i like the cool earpiece they gave Judi Root to maybe? disguise her hearing aid?

Haven does look pretty cool

too much water above tho it’s not Atlantis guys come on

"i'm a criminal mastermind" LITERALLY WHEN DID YOU SHOW ANY SORT OF MASTERMIND BEHAVIOR OR CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

BESIDES BRIEFLY KIDNAPPING HOLLY AND THEN IMMEDIATELY LETTING HER OUT

LMAO THAT LAST SHOT OF JULIET JUST LOOKING EXCITEDLY OUT OF THE WINDOW AT THE HELICOPTER WHILE EVERYONE LEAVES HER BEHIND

WHAT'S THE POINT OF THAT EVEN

THIS POOR GIRL YOU’RE JUST LEAVING HER ALONE

WOW THIS PRISON/INTERROGATION PLACE HAS LIKE

NO SECURITY

HI HOLLY WHY ARE YOU HERE??????

THIS WHOLE ENDING IS JUST THE STUPID CAP ON TOP OF A STUPID SUNDAE

i need to go listen to the books again now

#artemis fowl #artemis fowl movie #liveblog #spoilers #flaming hot garbage #disney seriously who the FUCK did you make this movie for #cause it sure wasn't the fans

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