#anyway. decided to post these to my main bc I have entirely stopped giving a shit

[entropyvoid]

HKVH Fic Recs List

I had such a stupid amount of tabs full of HKVH fics open that I was reluctant to close, that I decided to just bite the bullet and compile a list of fic recs. And I figured if I was going to do that, I may as well share them. Unorganized and in no particular order.

every good intention (is interpolation)

A month after Alhaitham has gone missing, Kaveh finds a journal when rumaging through his things. The journal is encrypted in an ancient script that few know, and the only reason Kaveh does,
is because Alhaitham had him learn it during their shared project in the Akademiya.

Below are the transcripts.

Alhaitham character study, angsty with a happy ending, might come for your kneecaps if you’ve got autism feels™

Flower Language, Sickly Sweet

It would not happen. Not ever. Not with the way they always fight, nor the way Haitham subtly knocks his ego down a peg, nor the way Haitham ignores his presence altogether when he doesn't feel like entertaining Kaveh’s whims. It’s not the actions of a man in love. Kaveh would know. He’s been in love for years.

He’d only just recently accepted it, but it is true, undeniably so, and a sick sort of dread had crept up his stomach ever since he figured it out. Not the fluttering butterflies of an innocent crush, but the weight of knowledge that can never be shared.

Boundaries. He reminds himself. Essential for a healthy bond.

Kaveh starts coughing up Padisarah petals just as his life starts turning around—of course this would happen, with his luck.

Hanahaki fic with a happy ending.

Spend A Little Too Much Time Together

Kaveh finds a young Rtawahist scholar breaking down in the corner of Lambad's, and makes the best mistake of his life: adopting her with Alhaitham.

Found family fluff with some funny moments.

truck, barter, and trade

People keep coming up to Kaveh to congratulate him. Kaveh doesn’t really know why, and he’s a little too scared to ask at this point, so he heads back home, content if not a little bemused.

He is, unfortunately, reminded of it the very next day, when the door slams open and Al-Haitham stalks in. “Mind telling me why everyone was congratulating me today?” he demands. “About your pregnancy?"

Or: Al-Haitham is, without a doubt, the most annoying person Kaveh knows. Maybe the world’s second-most annoying person can help Kaveh figure him out.

Another comedic and fluffy found family fic with Kaveh and Alhaitham accidentally adopting someone, but this time the child is Wanderer.

hemlock lovers

He pulls out his cards, and then Kaveh watches as Alhaitham pauses for a second, blinking quickly. Like trying to focus his eyesight. He had only had two glasses, hadn’t he? Surely Alhaitham wasn’t already feeling the alcohol. He was not a lightweight like Kaveh was.

A night in the Tavern goes awry, fast.

Sickfic, Alhaitham gets poisoned.

…and they were roommates

Kaveh is looking for his keys. Al Haitham is a brat. And Nahida? Well, Nahida knows her things. In words of General Mahamatra: being roommates always meant somehing more interesting.

Short and comedic.

Like This

Alhaitham wakes and recognizes not the maroon of his wine nor the crimson cover of tonight’s text, but the garnet of irises near enough to his own that he can clearly see the flicks of obsidian within them. This is the common room, he realizes. He has fallen asleep here while reading often enough for that thought to come easily. All others, unfortunately, ping uselessly against his consciousness like water droplets sliding over oiled skin. How can he think, in this situation? He has lifted a gaze blurred with sleep only to find Kaveh leaning over him — a hand braced somewhere on the back of the divan and a knee pressed into the cushion between Alhaitham’s thighs.

Or, in which Kaveh crosses the line between them and Alhaitham does not let him take it back.

fast as you can

“I returned to the tavern after I brought you home, found the man whose name you told me and punched him square in the face. Are you happy now?” Alhaitham leaned closer towards Kaveh. “Do you believe me?” There was a strange intensity to his eyes.
The unexpected honesty had Kaveh utterly confused. For a moment, he was quiet as he ran his fingers over his temples.
“I don't understand why you would do this for me. Is it to put me in even more debt? Don't I owe you enough already? Tighnari is convinced you did it for my sake.” He let out a dry laugh. “Unless you're like, secretly in love with me, there'd be no-” Kaveh's words, uttered without much thought, got stuck in his throat when for the shortest of moments, a conflicted expression ghosted over Alhaitham's face. Kaveh felt like the air was being pushed out of his lungs.
“W- what was that?!”

A Quiet Thing

Alhaitham cursed, clawing at the creature whose jaws were still firmly affixed around the delicate bones of his wing. He felt warm liquid rush down his hand as he pushed at the creature’s face, heart rate spiking as he realized it must be blood.

Then, a noise that would stick with him for the rest of his life.

Alhaitham obtains a grievous injury during an investigation, and learns to deal with the aftermath. Kaveh is there to help, but the road to recovery is not a smooth one.

Wingfic, injury/recovery and getting together, a bit on the longer side.

Scarlet Sands and Crimson Eyes

Inspired by the movies Hush (2016) and Revenge (2017)

During a mission out into the desert to round-up an extremist group being led by one of the former Sages, Alhaitham's headphones are destroyed. He decides to stay behind through the night to fix them, but gets ambushed by leftovers of the Eremites and dragged across the desert. He gets nearly assaulted, thrown off a cliff, impaled on a tree, stabbed, and shot, and all the while can't stop thinking about Kaveh. It must be because he didn't want to die while Kaveh was still living under his roof, right?

Deaf!Alhaitham fic, dude goes through it but it a badass. Pretty long but will have you on the edge of your seat the whole time.

Appeal to Stone, Ascend to the Skies

“So much for solidarity,” Alhaitham said.

“You’re not even on your own side, you harpy,” Kaveh grumbled in reply.

Alhaitham unexpectedly wakes up with wings, and must learn to come to terms with absurdity.

12 chapter wingfic, a bit of a character study for both of them (but mostly focusing on Alhaitham.)

Wine Red

A scene has been on replay in Al-Haitham's head for the past two weeks, so vivid that it only seemed like yesterday that it happened.

It began like this: Kaveh was absolutely hammered at the bar, and although Al-Haitham had reservations about bringing him home with him, the tavern owner begged him to take his roommate home. And so, Al-Haitham had an arm slung over his shoulder, supporting Kaveh as he stumbled like a newborn foal, quiet and dazed.

“Pretty.”

And with that one tiny, drunkenly made compliment from Kaveh, his daily routine was thrown into disarray.

OR: Al-Haitham has feelings, disregards them, but is forced to confront them anyways. How lovely it is to be in love with your roommate. Hurrah.

testing, testing

When Kaveh discovers that Alhaitham has been reading a book about human sexuality and kinks, he generously offers to assist Alhaitham with some sexual exploration. It’s a risky proposal, and one that could end very badly—thanks to their falling-out years ago, the two of them have trust issues galore.

But it turns out that Kaveh and Alhaitham are surprisingly good at trust and communication when it comes to sex…which raises some questions about the nature of their relationship, and where exactly this whole experiment is leading them.

“Look,” Kaveh says, “if you’re going to approach sexual pleasure like an experiment, most potential partners won’t take too kindly to the idea of you having sex with them for science. Therefore, to spare all the poor people you’d inevitably insult in your quest for data, I am willing to be that person.”

“How charitable of you,” Alhaitham says.

“And I assume that you’re somewhat comfortable with the idea of having sex with me,” Kaveh adds, “or else you wouldn’t have been so willing to have my fingers in your mouth just now.”

but what would you do if I went to touch you now?

Al Haitham directs half-lidded eyes at Kaveh, his wet hair sticking to his forehead, his sweater stretching over the planes of his torso as he raises his arms to lay his head on his hands. Kaveh finds the charcoal and resists the urgent need to tell Al Haitham to stay still so he can capture him like this, made up of shadows and comfort. “I suppose having a rope doing the work for me would be best for the mental and physical effort of it. I commend you for thinking of that.”

“Don’t flatter me now,” Kaveh half-heartedly protests, wincing slightly. It’s so odd when Al Haitham does that; as much as Kaveh complains about him being rude, there’s nothing more off-putting than Al Haitham’s backhanded idea of compliments. Finally pulling out the cotton rope, Kaveh sighs and makes eye contact with him, shaking the item in his hand. “You might hate this.”

“I might like it,” Al Haitham refutes, raising an eyebrow. Kaveh struggles to justify the little jolt from his heart at the idea.

-------------------------

In which Al Haitham (rather charitably) allows Kaveh to use him as a model for his art projects, Kaveh has an idea, and it all spirals from there.

The Dragon Rises in Wartime

The anonymous complaints confessions of a long-suffering Sumeru resident regarding his horrible roommate and his one-man war against said horrible roommate's purchase of the ugliest bed in all of Teyvat.

Although really, the most important question here probably is:

Why are you sleeping in your roommate's bed?

A really funny reddit-post style fic, with a little bit of explicit recordings on the side.

#hkvh #haikaveh #kavetham #haikavetham #woe! fic recs be upon ye! #they are wildly unorganized bc I’m suffering through no wifi and one bar if cell service #and any edits I make have a 1 in 3 chance of actually saving. #anyway. decided to post these to my main bc I have entirely stopped giving a shit

[measureyourlifeincake]

Malevolent E9 (not specifically about that ep but yknow. i havent listened past it so if anything i say is contradicted by anything in later eps, that's why): Been thinking about how Malevolent's story is so defined by the constraints of its creation and the problem-solving used to get around that (I mean, I suppose the same can be said to some degree for nearly any piece of art, but it really jumps out for me here).

The first and most obvious example is Arthur's blindness, with John "acting as his eyes" by describing their surroundings for him (and the audience)—it's (to me at least) clearly contrived as a way to get around the "This Gun In My Right Hand Is Loaded" problem, but it also is kind of the main conceit of the plot, and immediately defines John and Arthur's relationship—Arthur has to rely upon John from the jump, even though he has no real proof of his intentions or trustworthiness. "I have your eyes," John says, a threat as much as it is a fact. All John has to do to harm Arthur is stop talking and watch him blunder around without his help (which he does do eventually, but the threat hanging over his head is, at least initially, enough to convince Arthur to cooperate with him). It's an interesting tool for the audience to understand what is going on at any given point of the story, but also, it has real actual consequences in the story that reverberate through the narrative.

(putting the rest under the cut bc this got Long)

There's also the fact that John and Arthur are constantly recapping what has happened and laying out what all their options and potential consequences of said options are going forward. To me, this (as well as the above) feels like the author's main goal is to make sure the audience is clear on Exactly what is going on At All Times. The episodes only come out once a month, after all, and it could be hard to remember what happened in the last episode if you haven't revisited it since then (also I am just now realizing that this is sort of paralleled with Arthur's month-long coma). There's also the thing about how apparently Patreon supporters can influence where the story goes, and I'm not entirely sure how that works, but it gives Guthrie another incentive to make sure the audience has all the possible options laid out for them.

But, while I do think this is done mainly for the audience's benefit, it does also tell us a lot about Arthur and John's characters/relationship. It says that, despite any differences of opinion or questions of trust they may have—they do view whatever they have together (which I have been told... changes over time, but for right now I'm just talking about their relationship up until where I've listened) as an actual partnership—they want to make sure they are on the same page, or at least understand what the other is thinking. They may disagree on the correct course of action, but Arthur pretty much always tells John what he's doing instead of trying to get one over on him. Also, since they do try to reason out everything they do, and Arthur keeps charging into risky situations ass-first anyway, it tells us that Arthur sees himself as a very intelligent and rational man, when really he just seems to be very good at justifying whatever stupid decisions he might make in the pursuit of Knowledge.

And then there's uh. Women. (I sorta mentioned this in a different post but I can't stop turning it around in my brain)

So it seems that Harlan Guthrie a) has decided to not hire any voice actors and just voice every character himself, and b) doesn't seem to believe himself capable of convincingly voicing a female character (or just doesn't want to. idk).

This doesn't mean that there aren't any women or girls in Malevolent—on the contrary, the podcast is full of them. They are all either old crones or daughters—crazy old women and wraiths and babies and missing girls and missing girls and dead missing girls. They cry, they wheeze, they laugh, they write letters to close friends (but of course, their friends are not there to read the letters), but they can never speak for themselves, in their own voices. They must be dead, or wordless, or both.

They haunt the narrative, and haunt the narrative, and haunt the narrative. They are metaphysically incapable of doing anything else. They can save Arthur's life, help guide his way, but they can never have a simple conversation with him. Obviously Arthur had to be in a coma for just long enough that Amanda/Sarah died before he could talk to her. It couldn't ever have gone any other way—the world doesn't work like that.

And then there's Arthur's daughter. She's dead. It hasn't been explicitly stated yet at the point I'm at (she's mentioned for the first time at the end of E9), but it's pretty obvious. Not only did he mention her name first when he was literally dying, but just. Of course she is. There's no chance she isn't, that maybe Arthur thinks she's dead but really something else has happened to her—all daughters are dead. That's just how it works. (except for that one baby, I suppose. The baby is interesting—I notice they explicitly refer to her as female when I don't think they had a way to know that*. She just Is a girl, she has to be. She needs protecting, therefore she is a Daughter, plain and simple).

And learning that Arthur has (had) a daughter has caused me to look at the rest of the girls in this podcast differently (and is honestly a big reason why I wanted to write this post in the first place.) Those missing-turned-dead girls, the baby, all those young girls haunting the narrative—they're all his daughter, naturally. (not literally but y'know, meta-narratively or whatever) They're not just haunting the narrative, but haunting him specifically.

Anyway, girls haunting horror stories and fridged women and whatever other tropes that keep women from fully participating in stories are nothing new, obviously (and I imagine that Guthrie is very intentional when he invokes those tropes—this whole thing is a big ol' nod to Lovecraft, there's no way this guy is doing horror tropes by accident), but the fact that it seems to be like that mostly because Guthrie just Didn't Want to Hire An Actor makes it way more interesting to me.

I'm sure most (if not all) of this has been discussed in the fandom already, but I haven't read any meta or anything yet and I just wanted to get my thoughts down. Honestly, part of why I made this post is that I feel like I can clearly see what Guthrie was going for in how he built this story (/is building this story) and how it works within the world of the characters, but I'm still trying to puzzle out how I personally feel about the choices he made. (ex: do I appreciate how clear he makes things for the listener or do i feel like my hand is being held to much and i'm not being trusted to understand what's going on? if the latter, is it integrated into the story well enough for me to forgive it?) Writing this has... not actually helped much. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

*Okay I went back to the transcript, and it seems they start using she/her pronouns for the baby as soon as the old woman gives her to them. I assumed that the baby was wearing clothes or swaddled in a blanket the whole time, but I don't think this is ever explicitly stated, so it's possible it could've been clear once John was able to get a close enough look at her. Still, this is very much glossed over. Which, granted, it would be weird if they took a moment in the text to like, look at the baby's genitals, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#i had to stop myself several times from implying that i know exactly what the writer was trying to do with any of this #bc while it does feel really clear to me i dont actually have any word of god on this #and its all just my interpretation of what i *think* he was going for #so i could be wrong #(i do think im right though) #(or at least mostly right) #(there could easily be some nuance i'm missing) #malevolent #malevolent liveblog #malevolent meta

[milf-harrington]

Hi hello hi it's been a long time I'm just passing through and i just wanted to say that I am ABSOLUTELY enamoured with the st dirty dancing AU it's starting to take over my brain and so here's your free pass to rant about it if you want !

Sincerely hope you've been doing great! Much love /p

–💐

OH HI HELLO OKAY UHHH

so. stranger things dirty dancing au: ronance edition, here we go.

in terms of characters i've got: steve as johnny, eddie as billy (who is johnny's cousin in the film, but is just steves friend/friend-he's-in-love-with in this au), robin as penny, nancy as baby/francis + then jason as either robbie or that annoying dude (kellermans nephew, cant remember his name bc i dont like him lmao) aand finally higgens as the main boss dude

(this is probably how the characters would work in the steddie version as well except technically eddie would be in baby's character slot but also the way it works in my head is different but this isn't that post so *waves it away*)

in terms of plot: it would still follow the same general storyline of johnny and baby in the film, (they meet, johnny needs a partner bc penny's gonna be out of commission, they practice, they fall in love, johnny's accused of theft, "nobody puts baby in the corner", they presumably live happily ever after) but with some adjustments!!

i'm cutting out most of the conflict with baby and her dad + lisa and robbie just bc it wouldn't fit in anywhere naturally yknow?

okay this is going to get a bit long so it's going under a cut <3

so the Wheelers go to some fancy resort-type thing for the summer and Nancy and Mike are both kinda moody about not getting to spend summer with their friends/doing what they want but Mrs Wheeler is like. trying to fix her family yknow so they're there.

Nancy sees Steve and Robin perform on that first night, after being forced to dance with some dunce and when she finally manages to escape she decides to go snooping, bc she's a Journalist (very much a "this sign can't stop me bc i can't read" type situation), and she ends up stumbling across Eddie who is attempting to haul like three entire watermelons on his own so she gives him a hand (he makes the lamest attempt ever at telling her she's not allowed there, and she ignores him and he's like 'aight') so she follows him to the staff house where they're having their lil party and then Robin and Steve come in again and dance some more but it's totally different to how they were dancing down at the main house and Eddie's like "That's Steve Harrington, he's one of my best friends- he actually got me the job here." and then he's like "And that's Robin Buckley, she's my other best friend and she got Steve his job here." and Nancy's trying to be totally normal about how Robin is moving bc sheesh is that a lot of hip work ("You'd think they were together!" "They're not?" "Nah, they're platonic with a capital P, if you can believe it.")

anyway so Robin is the one who comes over and hip checks Eddie and asks what Nancy's doing here and Eddie's all "she's here with me" and Nancy doesn't quite get why that makes Robin laugh but she's also sort of distracted by how pretty Robin is when she laughs and then suddenly Robin is dragging her on the dance floor to teach her how to dance like the staff kids and it's all sorts of accidentally flirtatious and boom Nancy's got a crush now

and then a few nights later she's being uncomfortably flirted with by whoever-i-decide-that-guy-will-be and he whisks her off to the kitchens where she see's robin curled up in a corner crying but trying to be quiet about it bc holy shit that guy is her boss and Nancy gets him out of there and then she finds Eddie and tells him and then Eddie tells Steve and then Steve immediately starts heading to the kitchen and it turns out Robin was having a meltdown due to sensory overload and Robin's kind of mad they told Nancy bc she's worried Nancy's gonna go tell someone from management that she's not fit to dance there but Nancy just wants to make sure she's okay

she comes back to the staff house another night just to check on Robin and finds out that Eddie's band has their first gig of the season lined up at a bar somewhere and at first Nancy doesn't get why Steve seems so upset about it until she finds out that it's booked the same night that Steve and Robin have a show at the other hotel so Steve won't be able to go and Eddie's trying to tell him it's fine but Steve's like "but i've never missed your first show" and Nancy's like "well can someone fill in for you so you can go?" and they give her the whole spiel about how everyone works there so everyones booked in doing other things and then Robin's like "unless you wanna do it" and then Steve's like "I mean..." and Robin elbows him and tells him it was a joke but then Eddie points out that Nancy can sorta dance, she picked it up fairly quickly that first night so now suddenly Nancy is Robins partner for this show that they've got in two weeks.

all the usual practice shenanigans happen, with the "this is my dance space" and the "see this? spaghetti arms" and "don't put your heel down!" until we finally get to the "are you trying to kill me?! is this your idea of fun?!" "oh yeah- we've got the show in two days, you won't show me any of the lifts, im not sure of my turns, im doing all this just to save your ass when all I really wanna do is drop you on it." "well then let's get out of here." and then they go practice in the woods.

(side note: the reason im so hellbent on figuring out a steddie version of this au is bc i just know they would be so perfect for the above scenes, i can imagine eddie saying the thing about dropping steve on his ass so vividly)

they do the show and Robin is really pleased with getting to wear a suit instead of the dress, and Nancy spends half the night trying not to get distracted by the sight of Robin in a suit, and then when they get back they find out Steve got his shit rocked bc some homophobe saw him and Eddie kissing outside the bar (Steve did win tho so he's got that going for him) and Eddie's like. still too mad about Steve getting hurt (not mad at steve, just heated yknow?) to really be useful and Robin doesn't want to leave them so Nancy like. breaks into the main office bc that's the only place she knows there's a fully stocked first aid kit and she does her best to fix Steve up

later she goes to Robin's room to like. apologise for fucking up some parts of the dance and also for not really being able to help Steve 'enough' and then that's how they have the whole "You're not scared of anything-" "Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, what I did, who I am. And most of all, I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life...the way I feel when I'm with you." interaction where they wind up dancing in a scene that is probably more sexually charged than any sex scene could hope to be and then they DO sleep together and then they're all couple-y and shit

and then blah-blah-blah maybe someone see's Steve's face or whatever and makes a tasteless comment and Robin rocks their shit bc no one gets to talk bad about her best friend and then that ends up being what prompts someone to accuse Robin of being the thief and there's the whole thing with Nancy trying to convince everyone it couldn't've been Robin without giving their relationship away until she finally admits they were together all night so there's no way Robin could have stolen anything

and they find the real thieves but they end up firing Robin anyway bc the dance staff aren't supposed to mingle with the guests and Nancy is both outraged and upset but Robin's just touched that she stood up for her and she tells Nancy she'll be okay, she's always landed on her feet and they have a teary goodbye and yeah (i've decided that Robin still can't drive, but Steve quit when Robin was fired bc they're a DUO (but Eddie is gonna stay until the end of the season bc Steve and Robin were both like "dont you dare-") so he drives her sjdfshk)

BUT THEN THE NIGHT OF THE TALENT....NIGHT (for those who haven't actually seen dirty dancing, im so sorry about the lack of context for some of the things im saying sjfhsdk bc im aware that this seems to have come out of fucking nowhere) and Nancy's hidden away in the corner with Mike and their parents while they watch the opening but then! who comes through door? it's Robin! and she grabs Nancy (i dont know yet if i'm gonna use the iconic line or not, bc i am thinking of actually having Nancy known as 'baby' throughout the fic and then they can have the "what's your real name, baby?" "Francis" except this time it's "Nancy." but idk yet) and she gives her little speech about she's sorry for crashing but her and steve always do the last dance and seeing as her and steve are technically fired, she's gonna do it her way.

Eddie's already there changing the music bc he's probably the one who helped her sneak in in the first place and then they do their little routine from the show at the other hotel and then Robin jumps into the crowd and all the staff kids are dancing their way and it's chaos in the best way and Nancy joins her in the crowd and they dance together before slipping away and Nancy's mum stops her and just kind of looks at them and then hugs Nancy and then they escape into the night or whatever.

and then maybe there'd be a time-skip and Robin and Steve are now freelance dance teachers and Nancy comes in to show them the article she wrote, fresh off the printer, that boasts the opening of their brand new dance studio.

#stranger things dirty dancing au #the ronance edition anyway #i think the steddie one would follow the plot a lot more loosely #but anyway yeah can you tell i've been thinking about this all afternoon/evening? #asks #💐 anon

[bananonbinary]

Time for a Salty Meta Post about Martin!

people who’ve followed this blog for a bit know that spending six hours combing through text for some goddamn sources is my specialty, so i compiled every time jon ever talked about martin’s work in season 1. which for the record, he stopped complaining about all the way back in episode 26, where he was angry that martin of all people got hurt.

things jon gets mad at martin for:

not being able to find records that don’t exist

not being able to find someone based only on a first name

the Dog

not wearing trousers in his off-hours

being the one that got caught up in the jane prentiss thing

mag 004 and mag 012 both have jon taking potshots at martin over research that was proven accurate by outside sources

things jon has never once complained about:

martin not understanding the filing system and just putting stuff away at random

martin being clumsy, constantly ruining things, spilling tea everywhere everyday, etc

martin turning in incompetent, poorly-edited, or badly formatted reports

martin not understanding the terminology used, skills expected, etc., and generally being extremely new to the field

please for the love of god stop making martin the silly bumbling idiot who can’t do anything right just because he doesn’t have a formal education. there’s zero evidence for it in the text, and it’s really weird to act like a 4 year degree would outweigh the *10 years* of job experience he has, not just in academia, but in the institute itself by season one. my boy has worked there longer than ANY of the rest of the main cast. screw you guys.

tl;dr: martin is never once shown to be bad at his job, jon pretty much only ever gets mad at him for the really stupid first impression and also not finding stuff that no one else was able to find either. after martin got hurt, jon talks about his research basically the same way he talks about tim’s or sasha’s work.

fucking proof under the cut:

(i didnt include the s1 finale or martin’s statement bc that’s just...two entire episodes of them talking to each other, but there isn’t really any notable Martin Complaints in either of them imo)

I swear, if he’s brought another dog in here, I’m going to peel him.

[pre-launch trailer]

.

Well, technically three, but I don’t count Martin as he’s unlikely to contribute anything but delays.

[...] Alongside this Tim, Sasha and, yes, I suppose, Martin will be doing some supplementary investigation to see what details may be missing from what we have.

[MAG001 Anglerfish]

.

Martin couldn’t find any records of Ex Altiora as a title in existent catalogues of esoteric or similar literature, so I assigned Sasha to double-check. Still nothing.

[MAG004 Pageturner]

.

I had Martin conduct a follow-up interview with Mr. Woodward last week, but it was unenlightening. Apparently there have been no further bags at number 93 and in the intervening years he has largely discounted many of the stranger aspects of his experience. I wasn’t expecting much, as time generally makes people inclined to forget what they would rather not believe, but at least it got Martin out of the Institute for an afternoon, which is always a welcome relief.

[MAG005 Thrown Away]

.

Martin was unable to find the exact date the original house was built but the earliest records he could find list it as being bought by Walter Fielding in 1891.

[...]

We cannot prove any connection, but Martin unearthed a report on an Agnes Montague, who was found dead in her Sheffield flat on the evening of November 23rd 2006, the same day Mr. Lensik claims to have uprooted the tree.

[MAG008 Burned Out]

.

According to Martin, who was here when they took this statement, it was at this point in writing that Mr. Herbert announced he needed some sleep before continuing. He was shown to the break room where he went to sleep on the couch. He did not awaken; unfortunately succumbing to the lung cancer right there. Martin says the staff had been aware of how serious Mr. Herbert’s condition was, and had advised him to seek medical aid prior to giving his statement, but were told rather bluntly by the old man that he would not wait another second to state his case. I can’t decide whether this lends more or less credibility to his tale.

[MAG010 Vampire Killer]

.

“Veepalach” might also be a mishearing of the Polish word “wypalać”, according to Martin, which means to cauterize or brand. Admittedly, if Martin speaks Polish in the same way he “speaks Latin,” then he might be talking nonsense again, but I’ve looked it up and it appears to check out.

[MAG012 First Aid]

.

I sent Martin to look into this ‘Angela’ character - not that I want him to get chopped up, of course, but someone had to. Apparently, he spent three days looking into every woman named Angela in Bexley over the age of 50. He could not find anyone that matches the admittedly vague description given here, though he informs me that he had some very pleasant chats about jigsaws. Useless ass.

[MAG014 Piecemeal]

.

Martin declined to help with this investigation as he’s “a bit claustrophobic”

[MAG015 Lost John’s Cave]

.

There simply aren’t enough details given in this statement to actually investigate, short of Martin confirming that Mr. Vittery did indeed live at the addresses he provided.

[MAG016 Arachnophobia]

.

Oh, he’s off sick this week. Stomach problems, I think.

Blessed relief if you ask me.

[...]

I asked Martin to try and hunt down Mr. Adekoya himself for a follow-up, but have been informed that he passed away in 2006. 

[MAG017 The Boneturner’s Tale]

.

MARTIN

Well, I need to tell someone what happened, and you can vouch for the soundness of my mind, can’t you?

ARCHIVIST

…

That is beside the point.

[MAG022 Colony]

.

Martin! Good lord man, if you’re going to be staying in the Archives, at least have the decency to put some trousers on!

[MAG023 Schwartzwald]

.

Martin found one other thing while combing through police reports for the Hither Green area. About a month after this statement was given, on May 15th, 2015, police were called out to once again investigate the chapel.

[MAG025 Growing Dark]

.

I know, but it would have to have been Martin, wouldn’t it? I mean, anything goes wrong around here, it always seems to happen to him. Anyway, we’re getting off topic. Why didn’t you report this?

[MAG026 A Distortion]

.

Martin made contact with the son, Marcus McKenzie, but he declined to talk to us, saying that he’d “already made his statement.”

[MAG027 A Sturdy Lock]

.

Tim and Martin had a bit more luck investigating Tom Haan, though only really enough to confirm that he seems to have completely vanished following his departure from Aver Meats on the 12th of July.

[MAG030 Killing Floor]

.

Martin’s research would seem to indicate the place employed a reasonable number of international staff they preferred to keep off the books

[...]

TIM

Ah well, that’s actually what he was asking, huh! Um, apparently Martin, uh, took delivery of a couple of items last week addressed to you. Did he not mention it?

ARCHIVIST

No, he… Oh, yes, actually. I completely forgot. He said he put it in my desk drawer, hold on.

[MAG036 Taken Ill]

#the magnus archives #LISTEN #i am once again asking people to remember that martin has MORE job experience at the institute than literally any other character #(except elias or i guess maybe rosie) #he's the goddamn veteran not the newbie #fan wank /

[thomaslightwoodenthusiast]

hey you guys, here is a little something i’ve been working on! it’s going to be quite long so apologies, but i am going to eventually post it on wattpad too! enjoy!

(this piece revolves around thomastair, but is NOT thomastair only. they are going to be the main theme, but i don’t like writing pieces only on a ship. also it’s gonna be good anyways bc it has drunk and pining charles at one point)

A NOTE: i realised there is a problem. if i wrote the entire thing in a tumblr post, it will be far too long. but it also isn’t long enough for a work. i have decided i will upload in different parts. please let me know if after reading this you are still interested! if not, that’s fine and i’ll probably post it to wattpad lol. but i haven’t written in a while now and i am scared it’s not as good lol. anyways here u go

enjoy!

desc: in which christopher decides that everyone needs a pick me up after recent events, and concludes that the best way to do so is to hold a talent show at the institute. what could possibly happen?

———————————

Alastair scrunched up yet another ball of paper and threw it atop the ever increasing pile beside his desk. He had been trying for days- no, weeks now, to write a letter to Thomas. Despite feeling that he did the right thing in walking away, he could not scratch the feeling that he had hurt him. He wanted at least to apologise, and to let him know he believed it was the best decision for them both.

But was it? Alastair could not lie to himself. He did not feel as good as he thought he would. I’m doing this for his sake, he thought. He is more important to me than I will ever be to myself.

“So, what do you think?”

Alastair looked up. He’d almost forgotten about the ‘Talent Show’ Christopher Lightwood was arranging at the Institute. He was actually considering turning up to prove the point that he was not going to accept Matthew’s ill treatment of him, but he had little energy and currently could not be bothered to waste time on him. He knew that Cordelia was going. She and Lucie had chosen to audition together. They were going to act out a scene from ‘The Beautiful Cordelia’, with Lucie as Cordelia and his sister as one of her many lovers Lucie provided her with.

She was wearing his clothes.

“I think you look utterly mad. In a pleasant way, of course.” It was true. Cordelia looked amazing in his clothes. Not as good as he did, but a close second.

“Thank you, oh cheerful brother of mine. Are you quite alright? There is a rather large pile of paper beside you. Not to mention you look as if your eyes have cried the tears of the earth’s oceans,” she replied. There was the usual sibling tone of mockery in her voice, but also a tone of genuine concern. Alastair looked at himself in the window and realised Cordelia was right; he must have been crying, though he had no recollection of doing so.

“I am fine. Go and have fun. You deserve to, after this gargantuan mess.”

“Alastair, I am not stupid. I know when you are hurting. And what’s that on your desk?” she asked. Before he could stop her, Cordelia had made her way across the room and grabbed the piece of paper sitting in front of him. Alastair had not realised it, but he had written a few of his earlier thoughts on the page.

Cordelia frowned as she read out loud, “‘He is more important to me than I will ever be to myself.’ Alastair, I swear on all of the angels if this is about Ch-“

“It isn’t! It isn’t. I...well I suppose it’s just thoughts. Feelings.”

Cordelia was not having it. “If it’s not about him, who is it about?”

“Well, if you want a clue, his friend is the reason I cannot be at all bothered to attend tonight.”

Cordelia thought, and there was a long pause. She furrowed her brow. She seemed to be remembering something. “It’s not...is it Thomas?”

Alastair closed his eyes, as if the name pained him. “How did you guess?”

Cordelia had to admit; she wasn’t entirely sure. But a few observations she’d made over the past months had made her think. She remembered the time on the bridge when Thomas refused to show his tattoo- until Alastair had asked to see it. The time at Anna’s, when she had asked everyone what names they would want and Thomas had quietly admitted he would want only one, never saying who.

The time she and her brother had been speaking with Charles, only for her to notice Thomas had been staring at them.

“I don’t know. Sisterly instincts, I suppose. Do you want to tell me about it? Actually, no, hold on. I will not give you the option. You bottle up far too much, Alastair. Please, pray tell me, what this is about?”

Alastair sat for a moment, unsure where to start. “You remember the day, don’t you? When I defended Thomas in the Sanctuary? It starts long before that; but I fear if I tell it all you may miss out on your night. I had said that I followed him because you were fond of him. That was...” He trailed off. The words were not leaving his mouth. Cordelia smiled sympathetically. “It was only part of the truth. I came to find that I myself was indeed...quite fond of him. And I was afraid that if he went out alone with a murderer on the loose, something would happen. I couldn’t bear the thought of it being my fault; I have done enough damage. When I saw him being arrested I panicked and did the only rational thing I could think of.”

Cordelia raised her eyebrow. “Follow him the whole way to the Sanctuary risking getting caught by the Inquisitor, then further increase your risk of getting caught by sneaking into the Institute and hiding until you were needed?”

“What can I say?” her brother replied, seeming distant. “You do...odd things, when you care about someone.”

“Alastair, you risked your own safety doing what you did as well. I do not know what on earth I would do if something had happened to you without my knowledge.”

“My dear Layla. When one’s heart is so encompassed with love for another, rationality is quite frankly defenestrated.”

“What exactly does ‘defenestrated’ mean?”

“Thrown out the window,” Alastair replied, matter-of-factly. Cordelia moved towards the door of his room, realising she had to leave soon. “I only want to ask one more question. Is Thomas aware of your feelings for him?”

Alastair laughed to himself. “Quite. In fact, in the Sanctuary, I discovered that being held in confinement with someone who is as handsome as he is kind can result in interesting outcomes.”

Cordelia mocked a gasp. “Alastair Esfandiyār Carstairs, did you spend that whole night-“

“Ah ah! An honourable man does not kiss and tell.”

Cordelia’s eyes widened. “YOU KI-“

“Fine! Quieten down, lest mother is given a heart attack! Look, what happened is staying between us only. But I can tell you this; we did have a long conversation, in which he told me that he liked men. He also told me how he had figured that out; turns out that it was essentially me. I was quite shocked, because I thought he was referring to our school days when he mentioned feelings for me. I was, however, promptly proven wrong, shall we say.”

Cordelia’s face burst into a grin, before she sensed there was something else to the story. “Wait. What happened? What did you tell him?”

“You must understand, Layla, I really do care for him. But his friends- they hate me. Matthew cannot even be in the same room as me without hurling an insult. I cannot be with him; it is too complicated. I do not want to break that poor boy’s heart again, not after the Academy. I told him what I just told you, though I fear my last statement may have been too late. The letter you have in your hand and the paper you see on the floor are all my attempts at an apology. I just...walked away. Left him there. If only I had the chance to apologise to Matthew, this could have been different. But he will not accept it. He will not stop hounding me with comments, and I feel as though I can never stop being fifteen years old. I know I deserve better, but it can be tiring to fight when all your life you’ve been at war with yourself.”

Cordelia made a decision in that moment. She looked at Alastair and observed the similarities in how he and Thomas had been acting. Thomas looked a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, only to have one twice as heavy dropped on again. Alastair seemed even more quiet than usual. “You are coming with me. I don’t care when you turn up, you are turning up. I will ensure there is a piano nearby so that you can demonstrate your own incredible talent. If Matthew makes a jab at you, I will take care of it. If these rules are not met, you will be cut to pieces with Cortana. See you there,” she said, concluding her speech and leaving. Alastair watched as she left the house. He felt inspired by what she had said. He realised something within himself, too.

I cannot run from my past, but I cannot be forced to stay in it either. I am worth more than that.

And I’ll take any opportunity possible to make sure Matthew knows I refuse to take it anymore.

#shadowhunters #the shadowhunter chronicles #chain of iron #lgbtq #queer #cordelia carstairs #alastair and cordelia #alastair carstairs #the last hours #chain of gold #thomas lightwood #christopher lightwood #james herondale #matthew fairchild #will herondale #lucie herondale #thomastair #alastair x thomas

[whatdoyouwanttobecalled-1]

Welcome To Another Rant About The Bi/Pan Discourse

(people who genuinely want to have a conversation where we're all respectful of eo are welcome to debate, discuss, and ask questions, if you're being rude, downright hateful, disrespectful, etc, you will be blocked bc I can't fucking be bothered ty)

1. Can we stop comparing pansexuals to super straights???

Regardless of how you feel about pansexuality that's just fucking disgusting end of discussion

2. Can cis people pls stop speaking for and over trans people when it comes to this and well literally everything and anything else?

I've yet seen v few trans or nb people say that the fact that there are multiple mspec labels is transphobic or othering in itself. And yk, democracy exists for a reason, so unless it's a majority opinion then while it's valid it's not enough to justify saying that we're all transphobic. Just yesterday I was talking about this w my whole friend group, and lemme just give you an overview of who's in this group: 1 cishet girl, a possible aroace girl, 2 people questioning their gender, 4 cis bisexual girls, a bisexual trans nb (afab, uses he/they pronouns), my genderqueer girlfriend who's possibly on the ace spectrum and who used to identify as trans boy, my non binary omnisexual best friend of 5 years, and an aroace nb

Not 1 person in that group has a problem w mspec identities

Not 1 person in that group knows anyone who has a problem w mspec identities

Literally not 1 of them thinks that any mspec identity is harmful to any community

Since seeing all this discourse and the fact that transphobia is often the main argument as why we shouldn't have multiple mspec identities, and before I started identifying as pan and was identifying as bi, they all had the same opinion they do now

I've also seen countless posts saying "but mspec identities are transphobic and biphobic by extension", where the replies are filled w trans and nb people saying to stfu and that they don't have a problem w them

Stop using trans people as a scapegoat and let them speak

3. I've yet to see 1 argument as to why mspec identities are harmful to bisexuality that isn't referring to v small percentages of each community, and that couldn't be solved by the entire lgbtq+ community universally deciding to stop treating eo like shit

"some pan/omni/polysexuals only identify that way bc of internalised biphobia"

Keyword: some

Not all

Not most

Some

Most of us just enjoy having a more specific label bc the mspec community is so big and varied and having a smaller more specific community to identify w makes us feel more confident and valid in our identities

In fact a large amount of us use our label interchangeably w bi bc guess what? We know we could identify that way if we wanted something more vague

"I like identifying as bi bc it's vague and that's kinda the point"

Okay

That's really cool

I like identifying as pan bc it's not vague and that's the point

Also if you're asking "how are these labels more specific?", but then saying you like identifying as bi bc it's more vague and inclusive of all mspec identities at the same time...do you not see how you're contradicting yourself???

"having so many labels confuses people"

If you're bi (or any other sexuality) and confused by the different labels refer to my previous points or ask me I'm happy to explain

If you're referring to straight people then...stfu they're not part of this community it doesn't effect them (ofc if you're straight and looking for education or clarification, that's fine, I'm talking about people who say it's wrong bc straight people don't understand it)

"it makes us look like a joke"

It really doesn't 1st of all

And even if it did

It's only to a certain group of people

Who I thought we were past the point of conforming for

Who see us as a joke anyway regardless of what we do

???

There are a lot more but you get the point

Long story short:

You don't have to understand something to respect it

Microlabels hurt nobody, you're just believing the uneducated people you see on the internet

Pls do your research

Don't even come at me w "do your research" believe me, I have, I dealt w internalised homophobia and internalised biphobia for years before I came out but after doing my research and accepting myself I can assure you I've done my research

Don't be a dick

Listen to trans and nb people instead of talking over them

Remember that there are problems within every community but that doesn't mean we should just get rid of them, we should just remember to be critical of the media we consume, and the ideas we form

Just let people identify how they want smh it's not that hard

#pansexuality #pan pride #pan positivity #pan discourse #why is this even a thing #bi/pan solidarity #bi/pan discourse #mspec #mspec discourse #mspec solidarity #don't be a prick #don't be a dick #you're valid #rant #discourse #lgbtq2s #lgbtq community #lgbt girl #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbt discourse #stfu #listen #do your research #be nice #gay pride #spilled thoughts #wlw #bisexuality #omnisexuality

[gopeachllama]

Why I think Feysand were OOC in ACOSF

I hope that no one misunderstands from the title but let me say this is a 100% PROfeysand post. so if you hated feysand even before acosf, then this post isn't for you.

So i've seen a lot of interesting theories about feysand's and in particular rhys' behaviour and choices throughout acosf. and while alot of them seemed possible and may have been the case canonically speaking, even as a feysand stan i just couldn't seem to wrap my head around some of the things they said and did in the book. they just both seem OOC, its the only pausible explanation for me.

To understand why feysand were OOC in the book we have to look at this through a narrative perspective. as in we have to ask why would the author write the character/s in this way?

a quick overview of what a character arc is

so there can be a lot of variations of a character arc in a story but the basics is as follows (how does the character go from point 'a' to point 'b'):

the 'big lie' - the views/beliefs/actions the character has at the start which will be challenged throughout the story (this is point 'a')

the 'incident' - a plot point in which starts development of the character. something that spurs the character into action, this most ofter happens when they are placed in an unfamiliar situation. this usuallyy is the intial challenge to their 'big lie'. at this point the story will move forward and theres no going back.

the midpoint - the character changes conciously or subconciously, they start to recognise their own flaws in the 'big lie'.

world collaspes - this is usually on the heels of a victory, the character reaches the lowest point in their journey. they finally confront 'the big lie' and forces to stop this deception they inflict on themselves. they can destroy it or it will destroy them.

the climax - the reason for the story. the reason why the character had to take this journey in order to get to this moment. the moment that the character will decide once and for all whether they will go forward to point 'b' or regress back to point 'a'

the resolution - the character reaches point 'b'. their view/beliefs/actions have changed, they no longer believe in the 'big lie'.

So obvisouly the main character in acosf is Nesta. What sjm does in her books is that every plot point and development of secondary characters is in service to the arc of the main character. None of the character's outside of Nesta have their own development. Not even Cassian, any sort of changes or developments he undergoes is in service to Nesta (a complete missed opportunity for Cassian but that a whole other point). And before anyone tries to say otherwise, you can have development for characters even if they are secondary ones (and for a book that is 800+ pages long it is definitely possible). An example is with his can also be seen with Gwyn. Her leaving the library for the first time was a huge moment for the character, but she did so, in order to comfort Nesta after her big fight with Cassian. It was also so that Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie could all be together in Illyria so they could be kidnapped and forced to enter the blood rite (where the final showdown occurs with Nesta and the villan).

so what has this got to do with feysand and why are they OOC?

In fact the entire plot with feyre's pregnancy was made to give chracter developments for Nesta. There was nothing written in the book that suggested any developments for feyre and rhys. it did nothing for them. Nesta needed to become central to the story and the only way sjm thought to keep feyre side lined was to make her pregrnant. It was also just lazy writing and world building bc there is no way that rhys would have though of this when he and feyre were trying for a baby.

SIN #1 The Shields

Rhys practicing shields (shield thats doesn't even allow anyone to even touch her) on feyre, which she just allows. the book explains because of the fact that there is more danger to her now that she's pregnant. Narratively, this would make sense if there is a payoff. Like later in the story if feyre was in physical danger and the shield saves her or if the shield became a detriment to her in some way. But no nothing like this happens. Rhys 'practices' the shield on her and thats it. Rhys, who was the same person that trusted feyre enough defend herself against the weaver. It was totally out of character that he would shield her to the point that Cassian can't even kiss her on the cheek (sounds familiar huh). and the same goes for feyre, who has no problem with this (*cough* tamlin locking her up *cough*). Thats is some OOC behaviour.

So what were the point of the shields? well since sjm made it canon that fae can smell when a female is pregnant, the biggest way they came into play was in the scene when rhys lifted it long enough so that everyone could sense that that feyre was pregnant. And It could have been just that, feyre and rhys were expecting a baby, and Nesta can go along with her development, they did not need to intersect. But it did, and we'll come back to that later. This scene is a lighthearted moment in the book, one of the rare few where all the characters are happy and celebrating a good thing. acofas we knew that rhys and feyre decided to try for a baby, and seeing it pay off here was enjoyable for the readers.

But what else does this scene do? through Nesta's perspective, we can read her thoughts on it, and though she doesn't reveal much its an important character moment for her. the readers can see that she can feel happiness for someone else beyond the self-loathing she guards herself with, it shows that she is a character worth rooting for.

SIN #2 Rhys concealing the dangers of the pregnancy from feyre

oof this one is a doosey. this was the most baffling thing to come out of acosf for me. there is literally no reason or explanation that would make sense for rhys to lie to feyre like that. It offers no development for the two character it affects the most: rhys and feyre. there no fallout on rhys' end for lying to her, and there is no turmoil for feyre such as falling into depair like we told she would (the whole reason that rhys was hiding it in the first place).

When Nesta finds out that the pregnancy was most likely going to kill feyre and the baby. instead of Nesta disagreeing and urging Rhys to tell feyre, she doesn't say anything and forms a temporary truce with him, a character she has always had conflict with. It also serves as the incident that allows Nesta to have her 'world collapse' moment in her character arc. How else was Nesta going to realise what a shitty person is was being if she didn't do something so absolutely shitty? in a fit of rage, Nesta reveals to feyre that the pregnancy was going to kill both her and the baby. she get taken away on a hike in illyria (because???) and she reaches rock bottom after she comes to term with what she did. the story is taken away from velaris and the inner circle, and any conflict and resolution that happens between feyre and rhys, if it even happened at all, happens off page. again furthering my point about the pregnancy having no impact on the two characters is affects the most. After Nesta's fleeting moment of enlightenment, and her swordplay sex marathon with Cassian (urgh) she returns to velaris and nothing has changed between rhys and feyre. there isn't really much of a development with Nesta's relationship with feyre, their 'reconciliation' occurs all of less than one page and doesn't even happen out loud, just mind to mind. Now that Nesta has had her important character moment, nothing else matters (again lazy writing).

SIN #3 Everyone dies

ok so yes everyone has said their two cents about this and i agree with it. Feyre and nyx had to die so that Nesta could have her climax moment. It is the climax of the story since it is the big story development right before the resolution. and about the bargain - feysand decided in acofas that they were going to try for a baby. meaning that it was after this decision that they struck the bargain that they would die together. so at some point they would have thought of the fact they would have a child/children when the both die. im sorry but do they seem like the kind of ppl that would make a suicide pact even if it meant leaving their children behind? TOTALLY OOC for me. and i dont know i guess also the stakes weren't high enough with just the threat of feyre and nyx dying.

So feyre and nyx are dead and rhys will soon follow and Nesta intervenes to save them. Its also a self-sacrificing moment bc she has to give up her powers in order to do this... Showing that she does truely love her family and the depths of her powers. (seriously idc how you stan or hate how does anyone this good book?). don't doubt that in the future books sjm will find a way for Nesta to get her powers back (whatever they are (pure death WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???))

So Nesta saves the day, everyone is fine and nothing has changed except Nesta is nice now probably. the end.

welp this got way longer that i expected but anyways long story short there was nothing about the pregnancy that gave development to feysand characters and it was all for the development of the main character.

i don't claim acosf!feysand and sjm better fucking leave them alone in the rest of the books.

#acotar #acosf #anti acosf #rhys #rhysand #pro rhysand #feyre #pro feyre #feysand #pro feysand #nesta #this is not an anti nesta post #at least i dont think it is #but this is definitely a fucking anti sjm post #anti sjm

[lunartearrose]

hello. bestie. info about this fantasy au WHEN 👀👀👀👀👀

Aaa I can give you some right now!!!! For some reason this au comes to me whenever im working so thats why its art is all on stickynotes audjskjsj

BUT ANYWAYS uh. No better way to say this but it all started out with a modded skyrim character creator that i made skull in! I thought it was cool and going thru both main q and whatever stupid civil war to skip the broken seasons unending quest is annoyin but fun was had for maybe some hours

But! I had to make skull twice due to the first skull files getting corrupted. So that has a piece to it

But anyways context over and now this au has been in my brain with only vague skrim assets because i fucking hate that that civil war has anything to do with anything of the main questline it can FUCK. Right off

Basic storyline premise my brain had! We start out with a currently human vintage caught between a mysteriously similar civil war :) he's chosen neither side but since his home was destroyed by the stupid shit idiot war he's basically gotten really good at pissing off both sides. Sometimes he gets caught! And the good-ish soldiers will see that he is you know a still kinda baby-side teen full of anger and try to lrt him go with a talking to. But his worst encounter would be when the angy soldiers catch him and beat him up, which just deepens his hatred. And one time someone really messed him up bad!

He ends up limping away into an enchanted forest and drawn by a really good smell, he passes out just in front of this really beautiful lilac tree that was in a clearing like "ok this is a nice tree to die by. Peaceful" but ofc he didnt die. He just woke up to a nymph of the tree he chose taking him up to the center of the tree. And that's how he befriends Skull, he's recovering with him and keeps mumbling about how nice the smell is while skull both cares for him and looks around for his potion savvy friend. Once vin is healed up by aviators he realizes pretty quick that this forest is very much between the war path and figures it's highly appropriate to set traps all over!!! But ofc giving avi and skull very specific instructions on how to avoid the things he sets. He also makes good pals with omega in the town nearby bc she helps at an institude and she's been sneaking him into their library to read up on nymphs and share his own notes in return. Shes like you're my little brother and hes like fuck u (but also thank you sorry) and he gets to discover he has a high affinity for magic despite being human. Weird! Anyways now that he has a place of study he can figure out how to teach skull weapons.

But all is not peaceful for long, bc some old shitty wizard trails this knowledgeable little jerkwad, because variant nymphs are rare! And as the guy comes out of the bushes and pisses vintage off by treating skull like a specimen and taking out a pair of scissors like, "i wonder if its really true that you can take memories of one by severing branches from its tree:)" Vintage basically attacks the guy! Because no taking Skull's memories! And skull helps of course bc friend, but unfortunately this guy is very strong and seasoned. So when vintage almost gets a good life ending hit, the wizard wounds him heavily (resulting in an x-shaped scar deep on his face that got him bad in one eye) and opens a portal to basically hell! Vin is gonna fall in but skull makes the effort to try and use the roots of his tree to pull him out. But knowing he can get sucked in too, vintage just makes a promise to get out somehow and come back, sealing it by giving the gift of a small ring he was saving. Unknown to him once he falls and portal closes, skull definitely makes the wizard into plant food! But on the floor of this hellscape, vintage finds himself with some flowers and seeds that had fallen from the tree, a tail, and a new nubby pair of horms and wings. But despite this, he gets up, gathers the seeds, and thinking back on his affinity for magic, he decides he will grow the lilacs while he figures out an escape, all the while being reminded of skull every time he looks at the stuff. It takes some years, and some demons also looking for an escape love his tree and his story (mainly double who helped persuade spirits into protecting the tree and gave vin tips on horn and wing upkeep) but eventually vin has his break when he hears omega call and together they pry open a portal out of there. He's pulled along by a red sole (very excited feral magician) and now he and double are finally out. Double introduces himself while vintage, with magical hell-lilacs tied around tail, disguises his demon features and runs off to find skull.

Only to find the entire forest burned down. He's in shock for some time, wanting to know how and why. One of the last things he saw was a killing blow from skull, it couldn't have been that wizard- but then he spots a soldier's settlement nearby. Hidden amongst charred trees. They chatted merrily, loading up gathered game, and when he asked, they told him the forest was another victim of their pointless war. It wasn't even a turning point, and one of them even laughed and said they'd get "the bad guys" next time.

When the sick of this, much older teen, gets angry enough that his horn-hiding illusion falls, they all quite suddenly realize they've majorly screwed up. And vintage figures out that he has a taste for souls. Red finds him again after though with a gift, a calm pet and a gentle informing that he should be able to visit his hell lilac tree anytime he wants at least. A nice gift, but vintage is too angry at the moment to appreciate it and decides that hes ending the war himself by killing every single person directly involved with it! At times the armies had tried to work together to stop him, but with the power to morph melificent style into a dragon is a pretty solid way to make sure you're just wasting lives, and people figure out pretty quick it's the commanders he wants. Those are sacrificed, but now you just have a very powerful demon with nowhere to place his still burning grief that's very very hard to approach! But word gets around as it does and a blue group of adventurers take up the task of calming the demon and dealing with his haywire magic and deliver a hard truth - that he might have to move on with the friends he made along the way. Post fight, the vampire cruising with blue team scoops vin with some tlc plans and asks that blue team to locate the friends vintage had, and maybe even look into his older friends. And once vintage is awake in a rather cleanly and impressive vampire mansion, he's given news that emperor had heard of a wood elf taking care of a rather flowerless and purple nymph, working with a lot more potions than usual. One can't even begin to describe how relieved Vintage is by this info that his first friend, at the very least, is still alive. It may just take time to get to him with post-magic owchies and all, so emperor decides to send out a nice and classy letter to those friends he had found, inviting them over.

Oh and the only reason skull miraculously survived the warring and forest fire is definitely becausee of the lilac tree currently sitting pretty in hell

SO UH YEAH THATS MY PLOT SO FAR FOR THIS FANTASY AU YEAH VERY WILD I HATE CIVIL WAR QUESTS FUCK CIVIL WAR QUESTS

#ask #coroika #splatoon #fantasy au #kingboos #vintage xblood #skull kun #aviators kun #team xblood #skullvin #aviskullvin #maybe i just. make a new tag of kingly polycules bc i shove a lot of what i like into relationship sections of the aus #but yeah!!! vintage is a demon and Avi is trying to get skulls memories back

[fandom-blackhole]

First of all give Gwen a good belly rub and a kith om her head. I bet she is a good girl. Also, I don't know what kind of force bond thingy is this but you and I think in almost the same wa. No worries me likey!

AAA I was thinking about Fennec too! See told you we are connected,

Boba having grandpa moment sksksks but yes, he loves Fennec as much as he loves you,

Also, for the love of God, don't ask him to take photos of you,

All your selfies with him end up looking like this 😐Boba 🤗You,

Boba was feeling extra and bought two diamonds collars, one smaller for Fennec and a bigger one for you,

If, he was not a crime lord and didn't meet you he would end up being like a crazy old cat lady,

Is your head okay? It must be painful to have a brain the size of the universe.

Yes, yes, yes Paz definitely helps hurt animals and went out of his way to get rhe right diploma for that,

Din is butthurt when children flood him with question when will Mr Paz come again,

But he swallows his pride and totally participates in eco wokness classes,

Recently I watched a documentary on YouTube about japanese bunny cafe sooo

Paz has also area for the rabbits in the restaurant???

One day on his way to work Paz came across a pupper in distress and he performed a cpr on the dog, someone filmed it and it went viral,

You were scrolling through Instagram and had to double take

Wait was it? No it can't be

Omg Paz my hero, being friends with animals like a Disney princess,

I need you to lay down, your back must be hurt as well. Hurt from carrying this AU on your back queen.

Space themed room for Grogu 10/10 idea and your idea for the metal ball works so well!

Grogu + Din + Running = one day you end up tending to your boys, there are some scratches on their knees and elbows, but mostly Din took the damage(like it was bound to happen there are compilations of din landing on his butt),

Grogu's stroller must be made out of some, really resilient material (beskar??),

Grogu being freaked out by Fennec, like he sees a kitty but the kitty behaves like a doggo??? (srsly Maine Coons are the best high five bestie),

Boba tried to snap a pic of Grogu and Fennec, yeah, we know how it ended up looking,

Grogu desperately tries to steal and sneak in snacks for uncle Paz' pupper because it's so tiny, must feed it a lot! (oh bless his poor soul, little angel),

You and Din spent a whole day shopping for a space themed blankie, literally went to every shop possible, you were too dedicated to the cause but you ended up placing an order on-line,

When Boba had to go abroad for business, you settled on having a FaceTime date,

You wanted to surprise him so he would try his best to come back home as soon as possible,

You call him up appearing on his screen, wearing his favorite lingerie,

Only to end up to a close up of Boba's forehead and him saying

Princess I can't see you, can you hear me, baby girl are you there??,

Srsly what's wrong with him not being able to use the technology correctly,

You decided on sending him pictures, yours were really spicy, you wanted to show him what he was missing,

Well, he send you a pic too. You weren't sure if it was his arm, leg, or his dick.

Maybe you need to check if his camera is stuck on some type of foggy filter because it's just ridiculous at this point,

Sorry I kinda went all of the place with those. If you want to stick up to specific theme you can choose! Or we can just keep up the random brainstorming - 🐣

Kajdksmskaksb stop! You can't be this nice to me lmao. (Also its funny you mention that my brain must hurt bc I do have chronic headaches and migraines) oh and Gwen says thank you for the belly rub and kisses.....

Lmao Boba is a total grandpa when it comes to technology

He totally takes pictures for you like this

Diamond collar you say 👀👀👀 (Boba's princess is totally inscribed on the inside)

TRYING TO FUCKING FACETIME WITH BOBA OMFG

This man is just fuckinv holding the phone like you would when speaking on the phone, you're just seeing the side of his head

He totally tried to send a disk pick but he only got his thigh and like part of his left ball in the picture, not that you can tell

How the fuck does this man have a phone that has the ability to take pictures as good as the best cameras out there manage to only get pictures that look like they were taken with a flip phone?!?!?!

Din's students definitely ask every day when Paz is coming, they just love him and it takes sssoooooo long for him to come back lmao

Paz's restaurant has places for all types of animals, it doesn't matter what they are he has thought of something for them, and he has food for all of them

Paz totally accidentally becomes viral and gets interviewed by so many news channels, and of course he uses the exposure for good and makes an Instagram to show case the restaurant, his organization, and all of the charities he helps

The Instagram blows up and becomes verified and all the money he makes from it he donates to a new charity each month

(He starts hanging up all the fanart he receives all over the restaurant, especially the ones done by kids)

Ok so Din coming home just covered in scratches and your just like 'wtf happened?!?!!'

Turns out Grogu tried to jump out of the stroller while he was jogging and he had to catch him

Din's entire arm and knee + part of his cheek are just scratched to hell, Grogu hand has a small scratch and he's acting like its the end of the world

Grogu + Fennec = over protective pet and the child that it protects

Fennec is constantly pulling Grogu back from trouble by biting his pants leg

Paz's chihuahua (aaaahhh we need a name) loves abusing Grogu's feeding them habit, constantly begging for food around him and he A L W A Y S finds a way to give them some even if you are watching him like a hawk

Also I raise you, Grogu's favorite movies and TV shows are Star Wars

You are constantly trying to convince Din that he looks like Pedro Pascal, but he always deny it

Jokingly one day you say, "you know what you're right Din, Pedro is so much hotter."

He pouts for the rest of the day

For his bday you get Grogu a Luke figure and post it to Twitter, Mark Hamill sees it and retweets it telling him happy bday and may the force be with you

Grogu totally flips out in excitement

Din makes Grogu his own mandalorian helmet that he helps him paint what colors he wants

Paz gets Grogu a telescope and a book about stars

Boba of course spoils the kid and gets the giant lego star wars sets, as well as one of the actual blasters used on set of the OG movies (its one of the ones that that really cool green bounty hunter used 😏)

Also this is us:

Anyways, sorry I was all over the place, I just got so excited lmao!!!

(Send me THOTS!!)

#🐣 anon #modern au #din djarin x reader #din x reader #boba fett x reader #boba x reader #paz vizsla x reader #paz x reader

[yurileclercseyeliner]

A Dumb Rant About A Webtoon

Okay so I’m actually super into reading webcomics (I read them on both Webtoon and Tapas), and although this has nothing to do with my blog (I AM considering making a side blog for webcomic content/reviews tho) I sort of feel like ranting about one that I saw. I’m sorry, but if you like Athena Complex this is probably going to piss you off. Admittedly, I couldn’t get far into the comic without being upset about this so I stopped reading a few chapters in, so that may affect my opinion here. This is mainly my opinion though, and if you disagree with me it’s fine.

So I did mention in my Fire Emblem kelpie beast unit post my opinion on mythological adaptation. Essentially, I believe that when you adapt any sort of mythological being into your story you need to keep these two things in mind:

The recognizable features/symbols/abilities: by this I mean what physical features is this being known to have, what are their physical/magical abilities, what objects are they most associated with, etc. You don’t need to have every single thing that is mentioned in the source material, just a decent combination of them that can allow the reader to easily connect the adaptation to the source material.

This factor mainly applies to individual characters as opposed to a full species or classification of creatures (I have read a decent number of mythological adaptations and have seen a mythical species depicted as evil in one adaptation and benevolent or neutral in another and enjoyed both, it all depends on if it makes sense in the context). What are the character’s main personal views, goals, and motivations? By this I mean how do they think and what are their views on the world around them, and what is the context surrounding that? Essentially, what can their main personalities and motivations be boiled down to and why?

After those two factors, I think that you can then go buck wild with any other characterization as long as it isn’t contradictory and makes sense in your story.

Now that I have set that down here’s my deal with Athena Complex. Athena Complex is a Webtoon based on Greek mythology that follows Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and strategy. She falls in love with Poseidon, the god of the sea, and is rejected by him. Fueled by vengeance and a desire to win his heart she takes the form of a high school boy in order to take revenge on his reincarnation. Basically, this entire Webtoon is practically a public execution of a large part of what makes Athena, well, Athena.

First off, I will give credit to Athena Complex for at least getting the symbolism correct, Athena is a goddess of wisdom and war and when in the form of a goddess her design reflects that with her armor, among other things such as her association with owls, so the first aspect that I mentioned is fine.

Additionally there is the fact that they also did heavily tap into the prideful aspect of Athena’s nature. Essentially in the source material Athena is a VERY prideful goddess and will take any opportunity to prove her worth if someone attempt to upstage her, and gets very angry when she fails or is insulted in the process (ie the story of Arachne, the story behind the double flute). This aspect could also be seen slightly in Athena Complex’s Athena’s behavior, which I can also give them credit for.

But that’s where a lot of the similarities end. Tbh a large majority of these issues surround the second aspect, the basics of the figure’s personality and motivations.

First, Athena’s stance on romance. Original Athena...literally wanted nothing to do with any sort of romantic relationship. Seriously it’s one of her main things one of her epithets is literally “Parenthos”, which means virgin. No lovers, no sex, no marriage, no intentionally created children (I say intentionally bc she and Hepheastus accidentally created a child when his snot got onto a torn piece of her cloak, but that’s a different weird story), nothing. She solely focused on the expansion of knowledge and learning. She had no time for any sort of relationship. Making Athena in Athena Complex heavily motivated by an unrequited romantic attraction literally rips one of her main core values to shreds.

And this in my opinion one of the worst offenses, MAKING THE SUBJECT OF THAT ROMANTIC ATTRACTION POSEIDON. Literally one MAJOR thing for the original Athena and Poseidon is that they HATE each other. (Also Athena is literally Poseidon’s niece, but tbh that’s a less heinous crime bc Greek mythology was weird about that shit, multiple gods married their siblings/cousins/uncles/aunts/nieces/nephews/etc., it’s weird. Also in Athena Complex Poseidon acted the main person raising Athena, which is ALSO really fucking weird and concerning, anyway back to why they hate each other).

The Contest for Athens: Basically before the Greek city of Athens was called Athens the people were looking for a patron deity, and both Athena and Poseidon tried to lay their claim. In order to determine who the city would go to, they decided to have a contest of who could give the city the best gift. Poseidon gave the city some horses (for transportation and farmwork) and a small spring in the middle of the city (note: the water in the spring was salt water and therefore undrinkable). Athena gave them olive trees (for food, making oil, wood, etc.). The peoplr decided that Athena’s gift was better and thus named the city “Athens” after her, leaving Poseidon incredibly salty.

The Medusa Incident (TW: possible rape/non-con): So Poseidon was having a nice little affair with a mortal woman named Medusa (you notice how this name is familiar, right? that’s important). It’s a little iffy on whether or not this affair was fully consensual on Medusa’s end due to the sort of victim blame-y aspects to this story, hence the trigger warning. So Poseidon his having his fun and decides to find a nice little place they can go to do the nasty. Where does he think would be a great idea? One of Athena’s temples of course! You know, a literal place of worship dedicated to his rival who is known to dislike involvement in romantic/sexual relationships? Nothing could go wrong at all! They of course get caught, and Athena, being pissed, decides to curse Medusa with snakes for hair and the ability to turn people into stone just by looking at them (see why the name was familiar?) For good measure she also curses Medusa’s two sisters with the snake hair. The sisters are then dubbed the Gorgons and then go live in isolation on a island until they are killed by Perseus (a hero that Athena was helping).

So this Webtoon completely ignores the context behind this hatred and decides to make it into an enemies to lovers story based on unrequited feelings (the feelings of a person for their childhood caretaker too...still weird). I guess they wanted to do enemies to lovers and such based on a rivalry dynamic, but in doing so they erased most of the actual substance behind that rivalry by making it romantic and destroying the characterization of one of the main characters.

I can understand taking creative liberties, but before you do so you NEED to have a full understanding of the characters that you are adapting. If a mythological character is known for a certain practice (refraining from romance) or for having an extreme distaste for another figure (Athena hating Poseidon), INCLUDE IT. You NEED to have all of the bare bones basics before you start taking liberties.

For example, the original Athena:

Goddess of wisdom and strategy

Association with owls, olives, carries a shield known as Aegis

Highly values learning and knowledge

Prideful to a fault

Virgin goddess with no interest in romantic or sexual relationships

Extreme hatred for Poseidon as a result of repeated negative encounters

Those are the bare bones basics, after that you can do what you want.

Honestly I don’t think that this Webtoon is necessarily BAD, but it is VERY annoying when you have the context behind these characters (hence my frustration and inability to make it past 10 chapters). In my opinion, if the author wanted to write this storyline, they should have made their own OCs as opposed to butchering a pre-existing figure’s characterization.

(Also I’m so sorry I know that this isn’t relevant to my argument BUT THE POSEIDON REINCARNATION LOOKS SO BORING HE LOOKS LIKE A BACKGROUND CHARACTER WHERE IS THE FLAVOR????)

#athena complex #athena complex webtoon #webtoon #rant #again this is just my opinion #i don’t expect anyone to fully agree with me #tw mention of rape/noncon

[zigtheeortega]

PLATINUM WEEKEND PLAYLIST

in a spurt of energy i decided to finish the playlist i’d been working on for a while! this turned into a raleigh playlist, and i’m a little sorry about it but not really :/ this playlist is nsfw and all of the descriptions are under the cut! [there’s a line separating the spanish-language songs’ explanations]

1. anywhere

we can make love on the bedroom / floating on top of my waterbed / i'm kissing you / running my fingers through your hair / in the hallway / making our way beside the stairs / we can do it anywhere

most singers are influenced by their predecessors, so i have no doubt that raleigh listened to old r&b groups and practiced lead vocals, background vocals, & harmonies to them in the shower. this one stands out to me because i think it captures just the right amount of smooth sensual energy that raleigh exudes at all times. 112 is immaculate and no doubt one of raleigh’s favs.

2. nasty

promise I'ma give it to you like you never had it / i do it so good, it's gon' be hard to break the habit / you're like a whole constellation / swimming like you on vacation / promise i'm still gonna love you when you wake up in the a.m.

you can’t convince me that raleigh didn’t listen to ariana’s album when it dropped and went absolutely wide eyed when they heard these lyrics like “she really went there...” – but then it became a staple of every ~secret playlist to do the horizontal polka to~ 

3. sex money feelings die

all my lights off when i wake up / tears under my makeup / your lips will stay shut / wanna wake up, break up / i don't wanna think about, think about you / drink up, drink up / i'm so fucked up / all i want is you / no, i don't wanna think about, think about you / sex money feelings die / baby don't you cry

so this is the song i’ve latched onto for my mc dom. i have a headcanon (i think i’ve said it on main a lot, and i’ve even made edits for it) that after the breakup, which everyone else thinks is real, but they think is fake, but is actually real, dom drives to the studio super late at night and just belts out the lyrics while sobbing just to get them off of her shoulders. and it accidentally becomes a hit! which makes raleigh feel even more like shit 

4. facetime

back up all that shit you talking / facetimin' my baby tonight, oh / bet you wanna cop a feel / bet you wonder if it's real / facetimin' my baby tonight / and when you coming home / i'm gon' give you all of my love / i'm gon' put it on you / i said ooh you a hell of a drug

not to get too in detail but raleigh is an ~active~ individual, so i have no doubt that during long tours, they’re facetiming mc for some quality time. and this one’s just sensual and sweet like raleigh’s relationship is so!  

5. only 1

i know all the competition that's after you / so i get to thinking, is this too good to be true? / i can't, be your, only one / no i can't, be your only one / 'cause you look twice as good as anyone i ever met / and your love is three times better / how could anyone forget? / as I'm layin' down, with you every night / it still gets to me, that you remain by my side / i ain't saying that i'm not deservin' of you / but i was dreaming, bigger than i ever knew

raleigh’s convinced they don’t deserve someone as good as the mc and this for sure seems to be one of those songs that they heard when ari’s album dropped and they were like “jeez this is sappy” then they turn out to relate to it super hard like the clown they are

6. kissin’ on my tattoos

now i ain't ever been the jealous type of guy / but i want you to myself, i can't lie / i know we ain't on no one on one thing / but baby, it should change / 'cause when i be out with other chicks i be thinking 'bout you / and when you be out on dates you be texting me too / i don't want nobody but you / kissin' on my tattoos / i don't want nobody but me / talkin' to you / until you fall asleep / we better stop playing (we better stop playing) / before we mess around and someone gets hurt

now this... this is THE quintessential raleigh song for me. like when i think of raleigh this is THE first song that comes to mind. the entire song beginning to end is raleigh singing about mc. like i am convinced if this existed in their universe, they ghostwrote it for mc. genuinely the MOST raleigh song in existence and i cannot be convinced otherwise

7. life of an outlaw

not gonna put the lyrics but this would absolutely be on one of raleigh’s playlists that they play pre-concert to get hyped up, or a workout playlist. i just feel it in my bones that their fav music is from the 90′s ok

8. watch ‘n’ learn

i'ma do it, do it, do it / on the bed, on the floor, on the couch / only 'cause your lips say make it to my mouth / just because i can't kiss back / doesn't mean you can't kiss that / baby all i need / all doing on me / like you aimed to please / show me how much you mean it / by the way that you please me, baby

another song on their freaky deeky playlist ! i know raleigh’s prob tried to get with rihanna at least once in their lives

9. freaky girls

i'ma be your freak any time or place, any day of the week / said i'ma let you hit it, i ain't scared, i ain't shy, it's cool with me 

yet ANOTHER song on their freaky deeky playlist ! sorry im not taking this more seriously im just daydreaming ab the songs that raleigh would add to their secret playlists

10. thinkin’ bout you

thinking bout ya, dreaming bout ya / i don't wanna be without ya / pillow talking, heaven walking / been about ya, still about ya / you ain't gotta worry bout it, baby girl, you know i got you / drinking out the bottle to deal with all my problems like / i should call / i thought i had the right one the last time around

god this is post breakup raleigh through and through. i have a hc that raleigh ghostwrites a lot of songs for people especially ones that fuck with their brand – they collabed on this with micah and a popular rapper and micah was like :/ come on now raleigh i KNOW who this is about

11. un-thinkable

moment of honesty / someone's gotta take the lead tonight, who's it gonna be? / i'm gonna sit right here and tell you all that comes to me / if you have something to say, you should say it right now / you give me a feeling that i never felt before / and i deserve it, i think i deserve it / it's becoming something that's impossible to ignore / and i can't take it / i know you said to me / this is exactly how it should feel when it's meant to be

raleigh’s confession!!!!!!!! lord this reminds me of when they were on the beach together just talking and vibing – or really any time that they took

12. kiss it better

been waiting on that sunshine / boy, I think I need that back / can't do it like that / no one else gonna get it like that / man, fuck your pride, just take it on back, boy / take it on back boy, take it back all night / what are you willing to do? / oh, tell me what you're willing to do? / kiss it, kiss it better, baby

i think raleigh would cover this omg and maybe im biased bc it’s my fav song of all time but it just exudes raleigh energy!! plus i think this might be on their freaky deeky playlist LMAO

13. unrequited love

lost in the flames of love / unrequited love / time won't always heal / and it eats at my mind / because you're the one that got away / sometimes i feel alone / tried to hold my breath / somewhere deep in space / and i felt like you understood / what it truly means to be in love / now i'm wide open, it's so hard to focus / now that it's the end, i guess you'll always be / the one that got away

you know raleigh was super in their feelings after the breakup – i don’t think they knew how fast they’d fall for the mc. even if they didn’t admit it out loud, i think they were convinced they wouldn’t find someone like the mc again. anyways this song is sad as hell

14. you’re mine

come a little closer / let me tell you something / eat your ego honey / honey swallow your pride / i spotted you the second you walked in the building / i knew that you had let me get you high / i wanna hear the things you say when no-one's listening / no one's gonna save you / use you up and break you / i'm the one who plagues you every night / 'cause you're mine.

so the song itself is ab a toxic relationship, but tbh i can picture my mc dom and raleigh singing this duet on stage together and the chemistry would be absolutely off the charts oh my god. 

––––

[disclaimer, i do not speak spanish, but i grew up listening to it and a lot of them have a lot of significance to me – i hope the rough translations i found online will do! some of them are very rough so i’ll just put the spanish lyrics]

so with all of these spanish songs im convinced that raleigh would cover any of these! most of them are really romantic and have the same vibe as what i imagine raleigh would have !! not gonna do a lot of explaining here because i think this explanation speaks for itself

15. viento

préstame tu peine / y péiname el alma / desenrédame / fuera de este mundo / dime que no / estoy sonándote / enséñame / de que estamos hechos.

lend me your comb / and comb my soul / untangle me / away from this world / tell me i'm not / dreaming of you / show me / what we’re made of

16. visita

que no es gusto, no es mi voluntad / que es lo que te digo / que aunque no me veas yo voi a estar / siempre contigo / la semana me parte en dos / de viernes a domingo / tu visita me repara cuando nos conecta entonces / quiero que te vengas a vivir, todos los dias conmigo

do not have a translation that makes a lot of grammatical sense for this one, but it’s generally about wanting to be closer to each other and move in together rather than visiting! it’s a really sweet song and the distance aspect reminds me of raleigh and mc

17. te quiero

te quiero / no, ya no me llores / no me vayas a hacer / llorar a mí / dame, dame tu mano / intentalo, mi niña / quiero verte reir / necesito verte / donde quiera que estes / te quiero, te quiero, te quiero / y no hago otra cosa / que pensar en ti / solo vivo y respiro / para ti 

i love you / no, don’t cry for me anymore / don’t make me cry / give me, give me your hand / try, my darling / i want to see you laughing / i need to see you / wherever you are / i love you, i love you, i love you / i don’t do anything else / than thinking about you / i only live and breath / for you

imagining raleigh singing this for mc......... swoooooon

18. maría

not offering a translation, but it’s a sad song that i think raleigh would potentially cover!

19. efímera

nos miramos a través del cuerpo y la piel / se conectaron nuestras almas / es que tus ojos de miel deslumbran mi ser / cuando la oscuridad me atrapa / cuando me besas / me siento en otra parte / me hierve la sangre / me derrite el corazón

we saw each other through our bodies and skin / our souls connected / its cause your honey colored eyes dazzle my being / when the darkness traps me / when you kiss me / i feel like i’m in another place / my blood boils / it melts my heart

“it’s like every song i’ve ever written was about you” this is one of em for sure

20. obsesion

son las cinco de la mañana y no he dormido nada / pensado en tu belleza en loco voy a parar / el insomnio es me castigo, tu amor será mi alivio / y hasta que no seas mía, no viviré en paz

it’s five in the morning and i haven’t slept at all / thinking bout your beauty, i’m gonna end up crazy / insomnia is my punishment, your love will be my relief / and until you’re mine, i will not live in peace

raleigh and mc would duet this!!!! the lyrics themselves aren’t really about their relationship but i think the vocals would be perfect for them

21. quiero ver

quiero ver tu risa todo el día / escuchar la melodía de tu voz / quisiera ser el brillo de tus ojos / el peine que desnuda tu esplendor / la esquina que te ve cuando caminas / y quiero ser tu último dolor / te pido que me cures esta herida / yo sé muy bien que no es tu obligación / tan sólo si amortiguas mi caída / será mi salvación

i want to see your smile all day / listen to the melody of your voice / i wish i could be the brightness of your eyes / the comb that undresses your splendor / the corner that sees you when you walk / i want to be your last pain / i ask you to heal this wound / i know very well it’s not your obligation / just only if you cushion my fall / it’ll be my salvation

this one makes me so soft oh my god and its another “it’s like every song i’ve ever written was about you” type of song

22. más que tu amigo

es un secreto / que tan solo quiero compartir / con esos ojos / que le han dado luz a mi vivir / y en esta noche no hay más luna / que como tú me alumbre más / que en mi alma crece una fortuna / por tanta dicha que me das / te quiero, te quiero / se oye en mi pecho / es el grande amor que me has hecho / latido a latido / te siento conmigo / yo quiero ser más que tu amigo

it is a secret / i just want to share / with those eyes / that give me light to live / and tonight there is no more moon / that shines on em as brightly as you do / in my soul grows a fortune / for such happiness that you bring me / i love you, i love you / you can hear in my chest / it’s the great love you’ve made me / heartbeat to heartbeat / i feel you with me / i want to be more than your friend

god i can just imagine them singing this to mc teasingly during their fake relationship and she’s like “sounds pretty i love your voice” but it’s really a confession AHHH

23. peligroso pop

no explanation on this one either! i just think this spanglish song would no doubt be on a playlist of raleigh’s !!! i’m also imagining raleigh dancing to this or going to this artists’ concert or something. idk it just reminds me of him !!!

24. eres

aquí estoy a tu lado / y espero aquí sentado hasta el final / no te has imaginado / lo que por tí esperado, pues eres / lo que yo amo en éste mundo, eso eres / cada minuto lo que pienso, eso eres / lo que más cuido en este mundo, eso eres

here i am by your side / and i’ll wait here, sitting, until the end / you haven’t imagined / what i’ve waited for you, because you are / what i love in this world, that’s what you are / every minute in what i think, that’s what you are / what i treasure most in this world, that’s what you are

this entire song is raleigh singing to mc, but like this little section is just SO sappy. that one line i keep mentioning? yeah that’s this song

25. locos

estoy contento de tenerte cerca / muy cerca de mí / que me digas loco / que me des besos / y que te rías de mí / y sé que nunca te lo he dicho / y me da miedo confesar / pero antes, quiero besarte / que llevo loco, tratando de decirte / que ya no puedo vivir sin ti

i’m happy because you’re close / very close to me / cause you call me crazy / cause you give me kisses / and laugh at me / and i know i’ve never told you this / and i’m afraid to confess / but first, i want to kiss you / i’m crazy, trying to tell you / that i can no longer live without you

god this reminds me of raleigh so much like ??? ok i dont know if this makes sense but imagine raleigh not being able to quite say the words they’re feeling so they just sing a song in spanish instead because they one, express their feelings through lyrics better and two, they know mc doesn’t understand spanish (this is specifically for non spanish speaking mcs)

26. no te puedo olvidar

sé que nunca me equivoqué / en lo que siento / y cuando me tocas la piel / me desvanezco / sé que miraremos a la última estrella / así nos conectaremos / yo te necesito más de lo que piensas / más de lo que puedo creer / vives en mí y en mi materia / no te quedo olvidar

i know i was never wrong / about what i feel / and when you touch my skin / i vanish / i know we’re gonna stare at the last star / that’s how we’ll connect / and i need you more than you can imagine / more than you can believe / you live in me and in my matter / i can’t forget you

this is one of the most romantic songs i swear to gooooddddd i think if raleigh and mc ever broke up this would be what they wrote afterwards – but also i think in general he’d write this about her without the breakup ! idk i’m just in love with this song. anyways

OKAY I’M DONE RAMBLING I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS PLAYLIST !!!! this is what i’ve been listening to while i’ve been reblogging posts today !!!

#playchoices #platinum #platinumweekend #raleigh carrera #raleigh carrera x mc #playlist

[travesty-majesty]

Postwickshipping fic bc I’m in the mood

(I’ve never written a pkmn fic before so hopefully I get the characters ok! This is basically a comfort ship for me)

(Set five years after main game! Assuming the characters were around 16 in main game, around 20-21 now)

This was it, the fifth year Gloria was taking on someone to defend her title as Champion. Hop couldn’t make it to the stadium as he was holed up in the lab to keep an eye on some Pokemon, but he was watching it from his phone, cheering for his girlfriend.

They had started dating maybe a year or two after Gloria became champion. Despite Gloria often being busy with her Champion work, she always made sure to stay over in Hop’s house once a week. Any day one of them had off they spent with the other in their workplace, and if they both had the day off, date night!

It was going great so far. Gloria often complained of all the work being the Champion took, and how she’d love to be able to settle down with someone (preferably Hop). Hop just laughed and told her it’d calm down at some point. He’d never admit he wanted the same thing. He’d love to be able to have normal meals with her, go out exploring together... He just wants to be with her as much as he can be.

One day Gloria joked that if she ever lost her title she wasn’t entirely sure what she’d do. Hop threw out there that Sonia could always use another assistant, to which they both laughed. Hop didn’t think much of it.

He turned his focus to the match. Both Gloria and her opponent were on their last Pokemon, down to very low health. Hop liked to predict what her next move would be, and this one was obvious.

“Well, if she uses Quick Attack now, she’ll definitely win! She outspeeds Cinderace, so even if they both use it, she’ll go first! She’s got this in the bag.” He described to himself, punching the air before she had even won. The Rockruff that had been bounding around stopped and looked up at him, barking once.

“See? It’s easy! Oh, wait! It’s her turn.” He turned up the volume. “C’mon, mate...”

‘Mate’ always slipped out, even though they’re dating.

Gloria didn’t act for a moment, all cameras turned to her. She looked like she was planning something. Then she looked right into one of the cameras, looking directly at Hop. He almost felt like he was there. Then, she sighed and smiled.

“Inteleon, use Double Team!” She commanded with the confidence of someone who’d thought they’d won.

But everyone knew, even Gloria.

She’d doomed herself.

Hop gasped, dropping the phone.

“WHAT?! No, they’re gonna attack! You’d gonna lose! Gloriaaaaa..!”

Rockruff barked again.

“Oh, shush and let me be emotional!”

Inteleon used the move as told, and as Hop had imagined, the opposing trainer had gone for an attack, knocking Inteleon out.

That was it.

Gloria was no longer Champion.

Hop was speechless as the award ceremony was carried out. She lost? How? She was amazing at these battles, how did she just lose? While he wondered, the host asked “Anything you wanna say to the people at home?”

“One specific person, actually.” She said, taking the microphone.

“Hop.”

He looked at the screen again.

“Keep the door unlocked, ok?”

- - -

It had only been two hours since the championship ended. As soon as it did, Hop had unlocked the door like she said, then promptly collapsed into the couch. He knew he wouldn’t be getting any work done, so he absent-mindedly stroked a Pyukumuku as he thought. Gloria didn’t seem upset at all, which was odd; many losses at Monopoly on her part had showed him she always gets at least a little bit frustrated.

So why did she just take it?  

It’s not like he was angry, or disappointed or something. He was just... confused.

As he wondered, he heard a bit of a commotion outside. Sighing, he stood up and popped his head out the door. People were crowded around the train station.

‘May as well go check that out. Get my mind off that.’ He thought. He stood up, bringing the pokemon back into their pokeballs before he left.

He made his way down to the station, hearing people chatter about the match. It’s not like he was the only one watching; everyone in Galar was watching.

When he got there, he had to push his way through a crowd, but when he got to the front, he saw...

“Gloria!”

Gloria, who had been talking to an excited fan, spun around when she heard his voice.

“Hop! You’re here!”

She made her way over, immediately hugging him. Yes, she was on her tippy toes. No, nobody mentioned it.

“I was gonna surprise you at the lab, you know.” She said. Hop laughed, hugging back tightly.

“Well, I’m here now, mate. We could still go, though, if you’d wanna?” He asked. She nodded, glancing around.

“Sure. Gotta tell you something in private, anyway.” She said.

Ominous much?

Either way, Gloria gave one or two more statements before taking Hop’s hand, leading them both back to the lab. Her hand was pretty warm, he noticed. Why, he couldn’t tell you. I suppose you just notice those small things when you’ve been with someone for so long.

- - -

Gloria collapsed onto the couch, sighing. “I sure missed this. You’re lucky, getting to sit here each day!”

“What are you, a couch expert?” Hop asked, both of them laughing. Eventually though, when both had calmed down, Hop spoke up again.

“So mate, about your match...”

“Oh, that? Nothing much.” She said nonchalantly.

“Wha- you lost! You lost your Champion status! Doesn’t that bother you?!” He asked. Gloria laughed, putting her hand over his.

“I thought you woulda realised. I lost on purpose.”

Hop didn’t react for a moment. When the words sunk in though, his eyes widened.

“What?! On purpose?! Why?!” He exclaimed.

“Well, a few things.” She started. “You know how I’ve been talking about how hectic becoming champion gets. I just... wanted to get away from it, I suppose. Besides, having ‘past Champion’ on my record is gonna be great for the ol’ resume.” She explained.

“I mean... Wow. So you’re just, ok with this? You’re not mad or anything?” He asked, still kinda surprised.

“Yep. I figured five years was good enough. Besides...”

She squeezed his hand, sighing.

“I wanted to be with you. Only seeing you on my days off just wasn’t enough for me.”

“Pfft- Well, same here! In a weird way, I’m sorta glad. Now I get to see your face whenever I want! And not just in your battles.”

“Do you watch all of them?”

“Every single one.”

Gloria laughed again. Hop smiled, just happy to be seeing her in front of him. It felt... almost surreal. He was happy, though. 

“But, uhh... there’s a second reason I decided to give it up. I wanted to settle down. Like, get a house, job... you know.”

“Oh, really..?”

“Mhm! But... obviously, I’m not just gonna move in somewhere on my own. So, I have two questions for you. One... would you be interested in... well, living with me- ah!”

Gloria was cut off by Hop suddenly throwing his arms around her. “Yeah! Yes, definitely! I- this is awesome!”

“Hahahaha! Glad you’re so enthusiastic.”

“Of course I am, mate! Do you think I’d say no?”

“Not really.”

They laughed again, pulling away. 

“And... ok, ready for question number two?” She asked.

“Not sure how it’s gonna get any more intense than the first question, but sure!”

“Ok, well... here, stand up.” 

Gloria stood up, pulling Hop to his feet. She was surprisingly strong, considering her height and build. When they were both standing, still giggling slightly, Gloria took a deep breath.

“Ok, ok, I- stop looking at me like that!”

“Can’t. You’re just too cute.”

“Dork.” Hop laughed at Gloria’s pout. She took a deep breath, then began speaking again.

“Ok, Hop. We’ve been together for years, and despite the long distance, we’ve been really happy together, right?”

“Right.”

“Ok, good. So, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I’ve finally decided to ask. Hop- gah, screw this gammy knee-”

Gloria stretched her leg, then dropped down onto one knee, pulling a box out of her back pocket. Hop covered his mouth, eyes wide. He was pretty sure he knew where this was going.

She flicked open the box.

“Hop, will you marry me?”

Hop instantly pulled her to her feet, kissing her. After a moment, Gloria smiled into the kiss, returning it. They stayed like that for a moment, just being happy. Eventually though, when their need for air tore them away from each other, Hop smiled.

“Yes. Definitely yes.”

~ ~ ~

Ik it’s probably bad but I really wanted to try my hand at postwickshipping so it probably isn’t perfect but it’s fluffy marriage proposal so :>>

(Sorry to all my non-pokemon followers lol) (which is probably a lot of you bc I’ve never posted pokemon content before)

#Pokemon #Pokemon swsh #postwickshipping #hop x gloria #Gloria is so hard to write because she has NO dialouge #Being the protag and all #Hop is just :)) with an inferiority complex

[starshine-selfships]

1, 10, 11, and 12 for the ask game ? 😺🙏💟

Hi hi hi!! You're getting long answers to these bc any excuse to talk about this man makes me go crazy stupid 🙌🙌🙌💕

1) What's a Hot Take you have about your f/o?

HE👏IS👏NEURODIVERGENT!! I'm specifically talking adhd, but he checks a lot of boxes for something more ambiguous too. I'm actually rewriting my adhd sh.aiapouf post and I'm gonna put it here too, but the cut time version IS: noticeable hyperfixations/special interests in music and the monarchy, practically no empathy + has difficulty understanding the emotions of others, fast thinking + thinks a LOT, almost weirdly analytical + book smart with little to no interpersonal skills, extreme emotions all over the board, like there's a LOT here and it explains like 80% of why he's Like That 😤

10) How did you feel when you realized "oh of course I had to like That Character"?

Okay I have a lot to say on this one djnfkffk please bear with me as I write a whole novel

✌U_U ✌

Honestly,, , I wasn't happy LMAOOO, around the time I watched the anime for the first time i was actually still pretty into j.jba and unfortunately was really into dio U_U

I was fascinated by pouf as soon as I saw him in the opening, lots of neat ant designs and then this butterfly man?? I need to know everything about him 👀 His intro with the rainbows in the wings, the fairy chimes, the solo violin, all had me like 👁👁 Sir I Am Going To Study You Like The Insect You Are, and then I saw him actually play the violin and was sold lmao. He was funny as far as comic relief went and then? The giant improv ballet breakdown and antagonistic turn drew me in further and then I was invested in a no going back sorta way as soon as he went chibi for the first time, just watching the chaos of the entire scene with this ridiculous huge grin dhjdkxkf every single thing he did was in the extremes and it was like watching a train de-rail in real time, I saw him face down in the dirt at the end of the arc and didn't even feel anything, he was just so WILD

So I finish h.xh not too long after that and texted a friend and was like hmmm. I need to watch j.jba to return to my roots and also to forget that I think I might've accidentally given myself a lil crush on the butterfly man 😳 idk if that return ever happened but I DO remember being frustrated with how pretty he is,, I didn't really wanna shift hyperfixations at the time and also didn't know if it was attraction or gender envy bc. what I would give to simultaneously look so fem and so masc 👁 either way it was a 3 month struggle of "oh no oh my god I wanna kiss a bug so bad?? 😞" and then I caved at midnight in a denny's and was like okay. fine. I'm gay for a bug, I really really like him but *i* don't have to like that 😤

I did, in fact, proceed to like it, enough to make an entire separate blog for him. It was a slow progression of "I mean, I'd share a ballroom dance with him, like a waltz maybe", "hmm okay he's funny but whatever", "oh uh. he uh. I mean he's neat, a lot of people didn't like him but I just think he's an interesting character 😳" and. and then I finally caved and I never stopped talking sjdkfkf though to be fair, I was already talking about him a LOT on my main, I just decided that maybe it would be nice to have a space to just. contain 90% of my poufposting LMAOOO

Final note on this, but I think what really got me is how many characters are in this series and yet I gravitated towards the one no one could stand 😞✌ though to be fair the hatred for him has definitely gone down compared to what I can remember from a few years ago; absolutely does not change the fact that He Is The Way He Is, but I saw the war crimes, malice, potentially treason, and I won't name it but it's by far the most uncomfortable thing to sit through in the arc, I saw ALL of that and still went hmmmm yes I want that one U_U true love huh

11) Do you think it's better to have copious amounts of content for your f/o, even with the risk of finding a lot of ship art, or better to have a lot less?

The art situation with him is strange bc there's a decent enough to be notable amount of art of him captioned with some variation of "I hated him but he had a really cool character design", but it's still content. Surprisingly, I actually don't track the tag for him but take a look at it anyways almost every day and there's maybe one new thing there like once a week, minimal content bc so many people just didn't like him, which is fair!! But also, he was definitely there as a prominent character, I'd just like to see more of him U_U I would put more art here but I'm too conscious of the art ops seeing my bs over here jdkdkfkk

There actually are a handful of ship art drawings of him, which astounds me bc this man wasn't there to make friends, not even with his own siblings :/, but the errant art of him with morel or kite is honestly pretty cute, please just let this man be happy, I love to see him smile 🥺

12) Aren't you tired of being nice? This is an excuse to rant.

He wasn't the worst guard!! All three had reasons for doing what they did and arguably, pouf's motives were the most complex. Yes he did some pretty awful things, but he considered them to be the right thing to do without a doubt in his mind, all his actions were selfish in that they were based off his own feelings, but he did things ultimately for the king, so his actions also had an edge of selflessness to them as well. He was just. so much more than annoying and while his character development wasn't positive, it was still some pretty astounding growth; as an antagonist, he's also fairly plausible 👀 sometimes people just are manipulative, sometimes feelings do get the better of you, pouf just has all those factors amped up to 11 at all times so they're magnified. I have. a lot of thoughts on him, he interests me very much 😞👀🤔👀

#i am saying so much!! he is very meaningful to me!! #he resonates with me on a weirdly intimate level and while i still don't totally know how to take that #i suppose it's pretty neat nonetheless; i have MANY thoughts about him and i love being able to share them lmao #ty for the ask!!!! ❤💕 #lovebug #asks

[arrtemisia]

Hey so... If you could redo cannon Makoto what would you do? How would she change? I'm curious cause out of the main cast she was the only one that I just couldn't get a solid interest in (aside from Ann but that's just cause the idea of her being a fashion model confuses me more than anything I think)

God. So much stuff.

There's a couple big things about her that bug me, and none of them really change at all in her canon vs fanon portrayal, which means it's hard for me to enjoy her even in fanworks. In my opinion, I think her biggest flaw is that she's simply miscast, and her character would have worked much better as a confidant instead of a thief, which would've given her a place of her own to shine and avoid the weird dissonance between different aspects of her character (and this was actually their original plan, so Hifumi would have taken her place which. She would've fit in much better imo bc she's actually suffered under another's will like every single one of the others and she's an actual strategist instead of just """smart,""' but that's a topic for another post), but since we're talking about how I'd personally fix Makoto in the role she currently fills, I'm going to list some of the issues I take with her and potential solutions.

First of all, just to get it out of the way, she needs an actual reason to be here. She doesn't have one, full stop.

The big thing tying the thieves together is that they're all victims of abuse and oppression who rebel against their tormentors and want to prevent anyone else from suffering like they did. I'm not saying Makoto has never struggled, because she has, but it's really, really not the same type of struggle.

This leads to weird moments where everything about Makoto's personality and characterization, such as being a stickler for the rules, idolizing the police, etc mean that she has no in-character reason to stick with the thieves after kaneshiro is dealt with and should maybe even be opposing the thieves' way of doing things, but the plot drags her along anyway because the game really wants her to be a party member. And really, what's up with her awakening? She gets threatened once and then bang-boom-kapow she has a persona? It's weak.

Also before anyone says "well all those things about her personality change when she awakens and she sheds her good girl personality and yada yada," no she doesn't, actually, and I'm getting there I promise

The easiest solution here is also the most drastic. Swap when Makoto and Akechi join. This kills two birds with one stone; Makoto gets an actual reason to awaken through Sae, and Akechi's betrayal hits harder because he's pretending to be with you for longer (although admittedly this is much less needed on Akechi's part ever since royal).

Not only does this give Makoto a much stronger reason to awaken and join in the first place (Sae starts twisting into something horrible and Makoto wants to help both stop and save her), but it also gives her an internally consistent reason to stick around. Before, unlike the others (who all at least have "I want to stop others from feeling like I did," or in Futaba's case, "I wanna find the ppl who killed my mom."), once Kaneshiro is done with, Makoto has no real big personal reason to stick around other than "I'm a thief now and the plot says so ig." Now, of COURSE she'd want to go after Shido because he's the one that was manipulating her sister, and after that of COURSE she'd want to help take down mr divine sippy cup in order to get Shido tried and jailed.

However, if we're not going to shuffle around the order of party members bc that'd nuke the canon plot a little, then we need to rework the entire Kaneshiro arc and/or Makoto's backstory and values as a whole. Yeah this is why the first solution was the easy one.

I'm going to go in-depth about how I feel Makoto's personality and values should be reworked later I'M GETTING THERE, so I'll talk about that then. As for reworking Kaneshiro, I... don't have a whole lot of ideas. The palace itself is fine, it has one of the coolest atmospheres in the game (c'mon, there's got to be a fun bank heist in a game like this), but Makoto's connection with him is very weak. Maybe have it be that he was extorting her for years in secret and she never said anything? Maybe have him be the one that ordered the hit on her father? I'm not sure what would be strong enough to match to the other palace leaders, without feeling forced. I'll have to come up with more ideas for this one.

The second big issue I have with her is less of one specific thing and more of a collection of smaller problems that all come from the same source. She waltzes in, takes over, and starts acting like she's the boss of things. She then names herself the "strategist" and yet only ever states the obvious and, to use a word I hate, mansplains things to you that you already learned two palaces ago. She's constantly condescending and passive agressive to the other team members, especially Ann and Ryuji, berates everyone for not being as naturally book smart as her when all the other characters are smart in their own ways and just not good at academia, all the while everyone around her, even characters that normally wouldn't take that (ryuji, ann) or are too prideful to admit to anyone bring better (mona), are constantly like "You're so cool, Makoto!"

It's a classic case of show don't tell, and rhe game is obsessed with telling you that Makoto is "smart" and "cool." Once she joins the team, all the characters that were originally shown to be smart in their own ways are never allowed to say anything meaningful ever again bc Makoto is the "smart" one. She never does anything particularly different compared to the other party members, but the game is constantly insisting she's special.

I'm very hesitant to call her a mary sue, because I don't think she is one, and also I disagree with the use of that term at all as these days it's just meant to devalue powerful characters that happen to be girls, but I definitely think she's emblematic of a common writing flaw that can lead to mary sues. The problem with making a character the "smart" one as a personality trait instead of something that just comes naturally is that you have to dumb down everyone else's characterization to make them look smarter or cooler by comparison. It means that the character you're trying to prop up bends everyone else around them, making them act in ways they normally wouldn't in order to make the one character you're trying to look cool seem better by comparison.

This has an easy solution: cut that shit out. Have her slowly find her place on the team naturally instead of forcing her way in as a pseudo-leader. Don't give every single "well, duh" line to her, and cut the scenes where she stands around explaining obvious things you already know in a condescending manner so she looks smarter. Let the other characters actually act like themselves when they're in the same room as her instead of bending around her to prop her up. Have her treat those characters with respect in turn, bc for all intents and purposes when it comes to thief stuff they are her senpai, instead of just having her act like she's better than them, or boss them around, or be passive agressive about the fact that their grades are bad. Show that other characters are smart in other ways instead of acting like Makoto's book smarts are the end-all be-all. And for fuck's sake, stop acting like "smart" and "punches stuff real good" are personality traits, which leads me into my last big point.

Makoto and Queen don't really feel like the same character. Okay, so to explain this, let's walk through her awakening again.

Makoto is a good girl who's a stickler for the rules, sucks up to authority, idolizes the police, is obsessed with her grades and academic performance, and looks down on others who don't do the same. A couple people call her useless and then she gets threatened by a mob boss, after which she decides to live her life for herself and completely shed her good girl lifestyle and rebel against everyone pressuring her.

That is, except for the teensy tiny detail where she doesn't.

Nothing significant about her personality changes all post her awakening and joining the thieves, aside from the part where she sucks up to authority maybe a little less. She's still uptight, her grades (and the grades of those on her team) are still her top priority, she still idolizes the law and those enforcing it.

Y'see, persona has a bit of a common problem with saying one thing about a character, be it making a reveal or saying they're gonna change in some big way, but not fully committing to it. You can see it most in p4 (party members saying they're gonna quit/stop/do whatever and then backtracking in the last two ranks of their social link), but it's rarely so severe that it completely ruins their personality and character arc as a whole. Makoto, I feel, is the main exception.

The writers want Makoto to become this tough, rebellious biker queen who oozes badassery in every move and will never follow anyone's wishes for her ever again, but they also want to keep her old personality of the uptight naive rule-following law-abiding academic. So, instead of altering one to better fit the other, they try to do both... badly.

Instead of integrating the two parts of her personality, it just feels like she swaps between them whenever the plot calls for it which is really, really jarring. She'll be stuttering about following the rules and getting to know her generation one second, and then the next she'll be yelling about mowing down shadows with her motorcyle the next. It feels like Queen and Makoto are two separate uninteresting half-characters, with only a couple personality traits each, instead of one whole well-rounded character.

Either rework Makoto's thief aesthetic to better suit her personality as a whole and give her something other than "I'm totally not a good girl anymore" to make her compelling, or actually commit to Makoto shedding her past life everyone around her had forced on her and change her personality. Have her grades start to slip, have her talk back to Sae, change the way she dresses so it's rougher and less perfect, hell, maybe even have her quit student council. Just, anything to make her more well-rounded as a character.

I have some other nitpicks with her here and there, like the fact that her confidant is actually just Eiko's confidant and doesn't give Makoto herself any development, or the way the game keeps trying to set her up as Joker's waifu or whatever, but those are just that; nitpicks. The three big things I mentioned earlier - her not having a compelling personal reason to be a part of the thieves, the way the writers shove her into the spotlight by putting down everyone around her, and the fact that her characterization is just one badass half and one smart half that don't mesh and have little else in between - are the problems I feel are what's actually holding her character back.

Again, I do think that all of this stems from the fact that she's miscast, but it's too late to fix that now. While I personally really dislike Makoto, I do kind of understand her appeal for others when she's written well, and she's a totally valid character to like. I just wish she was portrayed better.

(Also, if anyone wants to reblog this, feel free I ask that you please don't put this in Makoto's main character tag. I know how much it sucks to get a bunch of negativity in a character's main tags as I am an Edelgard fe3h fan)

#mod answers stuff #long post #really really long post #defiant-firefly #yeah so i know u were probably wanting just. a quick sum up #but i might have just. written an essay. whoops #sorry lol #there's just so much abt her that drives me up the wall

[charrfie]

Alright now that its officially Forzen Friday let's try this post again since it didn't show up in the tags last time-

I'M FINALLY MAKING A FORZEN HC DUMP (kinda AU-ish territory but not really idk exactly) AND NONE OF YOU CAN STOP ME

There are also a few other hcs sprinkled in here related to other characters (like Darnold and Sunkist for example) but Forzen is the main focus!! Despite him being a minor character I latched onto him and fleshed him out sm yall have no idea

Everything under the cut bc this shit is gonna be LONG (and there's also some more doodles that take up a bit of space!)

Also uhh if people like this I might take one for another hlvrai character later bc I have a lot to say about everyone!!

Forzen moved from France to the US with his parents when he was around 12 or 13 (yes, I'm aware that Scorpy and Holly are French Canadian and not France French but that doesn't mean Forzen can't be, I'm just being sure to say this now before someone says something to me about it)

He wanted to go to college and eventually become a game dev, but he didn't have the funds or the support for it (his family thought anything to do with games would amount to a career that would go nowhere).

Because of this, he instead was recruited in the US military. He originally had no intent to join, but after constantly being harrassed recommended to join and being entertained with the concept of being able to afford and pay for college, he caved (hence him telling the science team that his only goal is "to graduate").

He doesn't like his job very much if that wasn't clear.

And neither do most others that have the same job like him.

He was put on a "team" of his own, Team Nice, which was likely arranged as a guaranteed way to get Forzen in the way of danger, and with no one else fighting beside him, he would be easily dealt with- no one would have to worry about him bothering them again. However, he somehow manages to survive all of this, of course. Somehow. He likely knows the real reason he was assigned his own team (if you can even call it that), but refuses to fully acknowledge it for his own sanity, and instead pretends that he's some big, important person on a team that ranks so highly, he's the only one qualified to be in it. (I apologize ahead of time for giving one of the most shitposty and throwaway characters in hlvrai this much depth and angst, there was just potential there leave me alone)

Fast forward to the actual events of hlvrai though. This hc is a little outlandish but I really like the concept!!! So, at one point, Forzen is killed, presumably by some kind of creature that was out and about due to the RenCas. The science team + Benrey stumble across him (act 2 part 2 at around 13 min in for anyone curious), and Benrey decides to use the healing beam Sweet Voice on him. While Benrey and Forzen may not be on good terms anymore, Benrey still very begrudgingly cares about him and didn't want to see him get injured or die. Forzen wakes up a minute or so after the science team exits the room, assuming that he just passed out, nothing more, and goes along with things as normal.

He meets Darnold a while after his first (concious) run in with the science team. Darnold has recently dealt with the science team and helped them out, but is pretty bummed that he couldn't travel with them, as everything was far too scary and dangerous for him. Forzen, wanting to escape Black Mesa and the military altogether, ends up making a deal with him that he'll handle all the dangerous stuff if Darnold can show him a way out.

Now, meeting Darnold is a very new experience for him, since Darnold actually enjoys his company, and actually wants to befriend him! At first, Forzen openly tries to act as if Darnold is a huge deal to put up with- he goes along with with the whole "if you're escaping outta this hellhole with me, you better keep up" kinda deal (despite the fact that he kinda NEEDS Darnold to escape and show him the way out). His walls are still very much so raised, and he doesn't let his guard down as he's not used to others caring about him and his safety. But as time passes, he begins to realize that maybe Darnold DOES want to be his friend, and the tough guy act becomes less apparent.

To preface this next one- Sunkist sensed that something was up (he has a next-level sense of danger when it comes to Tommy's safety) and got to BM as fast as he could, searching every hallway for his boy. This is when Forzen finds him!! He figures that taking Sunkist as a hostage would be enough to get extra info out of the team that's been practically plaguing him lately.

Darnold doesn't know about Forzen's plans to take Sunkist hostage, so is completely fine with traveling alongside him. At one point though, Forzen and Darnold get separated (Forzen occupies him, makes sure hes safe and then runs off to deal with Sunkist). Darnold immediately uses his surroundings to model a quick little teleporter device to get Forzen back, because, you know, the man's a genius. Idc if its logical or not just go with it shhh I've gotta fill in the plotholes with something. That's why Forzen disappears all of a sudden after he's cornered by the science team. He just pops back in front of Darnold suddenly, all confused and loopy from the whole teleportation thing.

As things begin to wind down, Darnold and Forzen make it out of BM and start making a break for it, no idea how they'll get away from BM and to safety somewhere- they didnt really think things through.

Fortunately (or unfortunately for Forzen really), however, G-man picks both of them up. He means to drop Darnold off at Tommy's party, as he observed that Darnold helped his son to safety and is grateful for it. Forzen, though, he intends to "deal with" for messing things up so badly with Tommy, Sunkist, and all of Tommy's friends. This is where Darnold finds out about everything Forzen did and frankly gets really pissed with him since he thought he only had good intentions??? Luckily though, Darnold convinces G-man to give him a second chance, let him go to Tommy's party and apologize, and try things again. G-man, for some reasons agrees- probably bc hes in a good mood, as it IS his son's birthday.

The party is pretty uncomfortable to say the least. Tommy's extremely hesitant to talk to Forzen, but he does, and they end up on neutral terms by the end of it. Uneasy, but neutral. Tommy and Darnold hit it off though, and Tommy opens the invitation to Darnold that he can visit his place anytime now that everything at BM is over with.

As everyone's getting ready to leave, Forzen mentions to Darnold that he doesn't have a place to stay, seeing as the entire military was kinda. Yknow. Wiped out. Obviously wouldn't wanna go back to check anyways. And he has no interest in going home to his parents. So Darnold agrees to let him stay with him since they've become good pals over the course of everything.

Over time, Darnold visits Tommy more and more often. He starts bringing Forzen along, which Tommy is iffy of at first, but their dynamic starts to change and become more comfortable once Tommy sees that Forzen isnt interested in being enemies anymore.

Sunkist and Forzen still don't get along for a very long time. Or, well- it's moreso that Sunkist is very wary about Forzen, despite him not doing anything to harm either Sunkist or Tommy.

Oh yeah and almost forgot to mention one of my favorite hcs (that I PROMISE you started out as a joke but then I got attached) is Sunkist can talk!! So his first spoken interaction with Forzen after Forzen comes over to visit for the first time is literally just him being all threatening and laying down the ground rules bc he doesn't want Forzen to hurt Tommy at all in any way. And of course Forzen about has a heart attack bc "HUH??????? THERE'S A DOG THAT IS SPEAKING HUMAN WORDS TO ME"

UHH I HAVE MORE (I've written out so much shit about dynamics and what I'd think would happen even after all of this) BUT I DON'T WANT THIS TO BE TOO LONG like it already is SO I SUPPOSE I'LL LEAVE IT AT THAT FOR NOW!!!! I hope this isn't too ooc either, I just have Emotions about this series and write too much so why not share it yknow

#forzen #hlvrai forzen #hlvrai #hc time #PLEASE let this show up in the tags this time i will actually cry if not i spent so long on this

[ohahsoka]

The reason AM fails to stop Dwku os bc AM himself taught Deku that he has to do everything alone. AM spent his entire career alone, pushing people away, giving everyone the feeling that he was the be all end all.

And now, this same man is trying to tell Deku he can't do the same? Why would he listen? AM being powerless isn't it.

Hi, anon.

I deleted the post you’re referring to some time ago (is it still in the tags?), because I made up my mind about the chapter and my opinion changed after reading other people’s thoughts. So I can’t quote myself on anything, and maybe I didn’t express myself very well in the original post, but what bothered me about this chapter were Bakugo’s assumptions about All Might. (Or how I read them.)

Whether or not All Might could have gotten through to Izuku (if the latter hadn’t run away), it’s an entirely different discussion. People are speculating that the narrative’s setting up Bakugo for that role, and it would make sense given their history and the original meaning behind “Deku”.  

I personally think All Might could have convinced Izuku to stay if he used the right arguments. The kid is actively trying to repeat his worst mistakes, so expressing regrets about them would have forced Izuku to reconsider his strategy (if you can even call it that). There are definitely some things All Might should say to him. And he wanted to say them. But he couldn’t because Izuku left. This is why (in the original post) I said that being able to physically stop Izuku from leaving is absolutely necessary to save him. All Might tried and failed because he’s powerless. The students of Class 1-A are not. If they were, Izuku would just run away again.

Now, back to the actual issue I had with the chapter. Bakugo said that All Might wouldn’t be the one to stop Izuku’s destructive tendencies because he became the Symbol of Peace with the same mindset. I initially interpreted it as Bakugo believing that All Might wouldn’t question Izuku’s behavior. That they are very similar, and they would just enable each other. I saw a tweet conveying this exact message. It had over a thousand likes and its author wasn’t an All Might hater.

I hate that interpretation of Bakugo’s thought process because (1) it’s a wrong opinion to have about All Might (as proved by ch. 317), (2) it’s a shitty opinion to have about All Might, especially after their talk in ch. 284.  

Another interpretation of Bakugo’s statement is that Izuku idolizes All Might (and his methods) a little too much, and even if the latter tried to stop him, it wouldn’t work. You implied a (somewhat) similar reading in your message. This is the interpretation I decided to go with.

Now, about your message.

I don’t think All Might taught Deku to do everything alone. He told him to keep One for All secret (for a good reason), but that doesn't equal self-isolation. It’s an additional burden, sure, but it’s far from being Izuku’s main concern. Also, it was All Might who decided to add Bakugo to their little duo, hoping to heal the kids’ relationship.

If by “taught Deku” you mean an indirect form of teaching between the top hero and his admiring fan, then we are in agreement.

All Might *was* self-isolating during his whole career, and he ended up miserable because of it. One time he let someone in, that person kinda screwed him over. It’s late and I’m tired, and my English doesn’t cooperate with me on this hellishly hot evening, but Nighteye was a piece of work, both to All Might and Izuku. I just don’t have energy to complain about him right now. 

All this negative experience is why I think All Might could get through to Izuku, given a chance. We probably disagree on that, but that’s okay. 

Anyway, this answer is way too long.

#bnha spoilers #bnha 319 #bnha #toshinori yagi #izuku midoriya #i started writing 'izuku' instead of 'deku' and just went with it