#arakawa really puts a lot of thought into her stuff so it’s really cool to see it pay off like this

[lenaisanerd]

i know it’s expected that i be serene

When Clary texts Simon requesting Fullmetal Alchemist, he knows something's up. But Clary seems to be in denial, and so Simon dispenses the ultimate cure-all: Hanging out with her best friend. (ca. 3500 words)

tunes.

Read on AO3.

 This story was co-written with my darling @raisehades. Please enjoy the hard-earned fruits of many late-night Google Docs comment battles.

Clary: can i come ober

  Simon: Ofc

  Are u okay?

  Clary: yes i just want so talk and cuddle or something

  Simon: Okay. Want me to set up anything?

  Clary: fma? 2009?

  Simon: I gotchu

Simon was slightly worried.

First of all, Clary wasn’t usually this reserved in her texting. Her lack of exclamation points coupled with the request for her favourite show could only mean one thing: his friend was way more down than she was letting on.

But he would deal with that when she brought it up because, well, he was also happy; Clary and him used to do this a lot – go over to each other’s (parent’s) place to hang out and watch something they both more or less enjoyed and maybe even talk about their lives and their feelings and- stuff.

But ever since the whole… half-angel manic pixie dream girl mom reveal (the HAMPDGMR) and everything that went down in consequence of the HAMPDGMR, they simply hadn’t done this sort of thing anymore. Sure, they hung out with all their other friends, at parties at Magnus’ loft or karaoke night at the Hunter’s Moon. And while that was fun, it was different when it was just the two of them.

Even during their brief dating stint, there wasn’t much they did that they’d done as friends. Simon had enjoyed what they’d done together, of course, but looking back it had been obvious that this wasn’t ideal for them.

Ideal was this: Lugging the connector cable for the TV into the vicinity of his laptop, powering both up and then loading a site with English subtitles of Hiromu Arakawa’s masterpiece Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

Also ideal: Clary bringing weird snacks with unpronounceable names from the Polish bodega down the street from their old high school. That store had become their first stop after class when they were younger and would sneak candy into movie theatres or curl up on the couch in Clary’s living room and watch Audrey Hepburn flicks with Dot. Simon was almost certain he would be able to eat some and keep them down by now.

Well, actually, in a perfect world, Simon would have loved to cook something for Clary (the food at the Institute was a far cry from what any sane person would call comfort food. Or edible). But one of the results of moving out of his mom’s place just after he’d become a bloodsucking creature of the night was that he owned basically no dishes, or pots, or kitchen utensils.

Even compiling his stuff with Maia’s (who had lived next to a Chinese restaurant for her entire adult life) yielded five plates, one bowl, two chipped mugs, and somehow a ridiculously large amount of cutlery. So cooking anything more than a bowl of cereal was out of the question until they got around to buying some usable stuff. Simon could already see himself and Maia filling their birthday and Christmas/Hanukkah wishlists with basic household items for years into the future. Ah, the joys of adulthood.

Still, this was almost the Saturday morning of his dreams. In the past year, Simon had come to understand that while moments of normalcy were few and far between, when one came along they had to hold on tight for as long as they could. Which was exactly what he was planning to do.

“I’m telling you, Polish Bodega lady has to be a Downworlder. We just have to find out what flavor she is.” Clary started on her new favourite topic as soon as Simon opened the door. She draped her damp jacket over the back of a kitchen chair to dry, dropped a plastic bag on the table, and re-tied her wet ponytail.

Simon started rummaging through the contents of the bag. “Okay, one: I don’t like “flavors”, at all, two: how do you know she’s not just a normal human being who just happens to own a windowless shop where she basically lives 24/7? Oooh, you brought those weird milk drops!”

Clary had her back turned to him while she stretched as far as she could to reach the plates and mugs on one of the high shelves above the sink, not quite managing it. “She never sleeps. Sometimes I come by that store when I’m on patrol, and she must be there all night. Every night. And every day, too. Either she never sleeps, or she has at least two clones.”

“Maybe she has an identical twin sister.” Simon took pity on her and handed her the dishes. Clary took them and ducked out under his arm from between the sink and his body in one fluid movement. Then she set to digging through the fridge for some soda for herself, and a bag of A+ for him, hugging the plates and mugs to her body with her free arm.

“I think I caught her staring at my runes. She definitely at least has the Sight.”

“Oh, so your angel-ninja sense is tingling? Tell me, is there a type of demon that loves to disguise itself as an old lady and watch reruns of Polish soap operas?”

“There’s only so many demons that can be terrorizing Manhattan bankers at a time, you know.”

Simon let out an undignified snort of laughter, of the kind that, had he been drinking at the time, would certainly have made him exhale his drink through his nose. Clary stuck her head over the fridge door grinning triumphantly. Then she emerged fully from its depths with a bottle of coke wedged horizontally under her chin, the plates under her arm, right hand holding the mugs, and left hand holding the blood bag. Standing up was a precarious balancing act, and Simon rushed over to take the bottle from between her chin and collarbone. After he snatched up the bags of sweets from the table they continued their procession into Simon’s bedroom.

Maia and him had moved in together just after New Year’s, into a tiny two-bedroom apartment in Fort Greene. They had decided against sharing a bedroom, though, mostly because of their sleep schedules. As Maia had put it, one partner strangling the other because a certain vampire keeps making noise all through the night while a certain werewolf is trying to sleep is not very conducive to a healthy relationship. Of course, they often spend the night together anyway, although those weren’t the nights when they did much sleeping.

“Come lie down, thought you wanted to cuddle,” Simon said, sitting down on the bed and patting the spot next to him. Clary flopped down and threw her legs over his. Balancing the snack plate carefully on her lap she fluffed the pillows behind her and finally settled down.

It was several skipped episodes, an entire bag o’ blood, and a good two thirds of the coke later when Simon got to find out why  exactly  Clary was in such urgent need for Comfort TV Time.

“Did you know jat Ling’s name doejn’t need the ng sound at all? It’sh Lin in Japanese and”, Simon swallowed the milk drops, “the Chinese translation both, so they just changed it for us for some reason.”

“You’re going to regret eating those,” Clary said with such a comical expression of distaste on her face that Simon couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She rolled her eyes. “Suit yourself. I won’t mop it up, though.”

Simon was still grinning when Clary reached forward to pause the episode on a rather unfortunate still of Major Louis Armstrong in motion.

“Do you think Izzy would like this,” she said, suddenly serious.

“Who wouldn’t like Fullmetal Alch- ”

“You’re right. Of course she would. Continue.”

Simon took her vague gesture towards the screen as a command to unpause. About half a minute later she piped up again, this time not even bothering with the pause button. “Her favourite character would have to be Mei-Chang.”

“Really?,” Simon indulged, reminding himself that he had in fact watched this episode several times in his life(un-life?) already and could live (hah) with not catching every subtitle, “I would have thought Olivier, Lan Fan… or maybe Riza? One of the really cool badass ladies.”

“Izzy may be a really cool badass but trust me, she loves little girls with a passion for science. Did I tell you about that dinner party at Magnus’ place? She was off in a corner with Madzie all evening, talking about chemistry or something. It was adorable.”

“Yes, I – I don’t know how I managed to forget. You’ve told me about it... several times now.” Simon was quite proud of his wallowing pause here.

Clary said, “Well.” and when Simon looked over to her she was visibly re-invested in subtitles. He suppressed a fond headshake and decided to let her have this one.

The next time they got through a good fifteen minutes during which Clary only noticeably stopped herself from interrupting twice and Simon started quietly wondering if eating those drops was a bad idea after all.

“Could we invite her to something like this?”

“Izzy, you mean?”

“Ah, yes. I just mean, like, we’ve hung out at the Hunter’s Moon and the Institute and stuff but I don’t know, would she like just… watching anime? Snacking?”

Simon really did put up with a lot, huh. “I don’t know, what do you think?”, he said in his least exasperated voice and leaned forward once again to press pause. He looked over to Clary, who was searching through one of the bags of candy for the last red one with the utmost concentration.

“I think she’s probably never been able to do something like this but that… she’d probably like to try. And I guess it depends on the show if she’d enjoy it. Her attention span is better than ours’ for sure, though. Maybe I’ll ask her.”

“Instead of me?! I’m hurt, Fray.” Simon placed a hand over his unbeating heart and pulled what he hoped to be the most devastating pout since Shrek’s puss in boots. He probably didn’t succeed in that.

Clary repaid his efforts by hitting his shoulder. He whined out an ooow and curled up to smoosh his head into Clary’s side. Her shirt muffled his sigh, and she recoiled from his breath, pushing him away with a giggle.

“Simon, stop that! You know I’m ticklish!”

Instead of letting up, Simon wrapped his arms around Clary’s waist.

“Zis vasn’t my decision.” Simon was using his best Bela Lugosi accent. Clary’s eyes widened in mock horror and the corner of her mouth twitched upward. “You brought zis on yourself. If Izzy is going to be your new best friend now, you must face...ze octopus!” His legs wrapped around Clary’s knees while she wriggled and squirmed and laughed.

“Hang on, what do you mean ‘my new best friend’? Simon Lewis, you’re not suddenly getting jealous, are you?” Clary asked when she had successfully freed herself from Simon’s grasp and they were both lying on their backs, looking at the ceiling.

“Pssh. No,” Simon lied. Clary had the decency to look slightly guilty. “Maybe you just have a crush on Izzy, ever thought about that?”

He had expected a pillow to the face for that tease, or another assault on his shoulder, or a bit of banter. What Simon had not expected was Clary suddenly looking all serious.

“Huh. You know, I’ve never considered that. Thanks, Simon,” she said, and Simon was quite proud of himself for being as good at identifying sarcasm as he was, but he really and truly couldn’t tell what Clary was thinking then. As his friend leant forward to unpause their series he decided she must just be a bit tired of antics for today. Understandable, really.

Yesterday’s summer storm had turned into persistent rain. It pitter-pattered against the fire escape and the windowsill, occasionally cutting through the sound coming from the TV’s speakers. During the peak of the heat wave, Maia and Simon had opened all the windows in the apartment to let in a breeze and had jammed whatever was handy at the time underneath to keep them from closing. There was a guitar foot rest wedged in the crack of Simon’s bedroom window.

“Simon?”

“Yeah?”

“I definitely have a crush on Izzy.”

The pause button had never been pressed so quickly. It would have been a world record, if world record judges liked to hang out on rickety fire escapes peering through windows to see if random teenagers performed laws-of-physics-defying feats from the comfort of their beds.

Simon lay back down, face to face with Clary. She seemed way more casual than what Simon thought was appropriate for the situation.

“So…Izzy. Isabelle. Really tall, beautiful, kinda scary. Terrible cook. We’re still talking about our Izzy here?”

“Yep.”

“Huh.” Simon let that sink in for a minute.

“And, uh. How long have you known?”

Clary let out a hollow chuckle. “Consciously? About 30 seconds.”

Simon sat up. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Clary. I know you won’t like hearing it, but I’ve been your friend for over ten years, so I feel it is my duty to tell you this: You are such a dumbass.”

With a big sigh, Clary rolled over and buried her face in a pillow. Simon could barely make out her voice, but what she said sounded distinctly like a whine.

“What was that?”

Clary came up for air. ”I know.” Definitely whiny. With a very long vowel sound.

“I mean, you’re in so deep that I’m surprised you don’t need scuba gear yet.”

A groan.

Simon bumped her shoulder gently with his elbow. “Did I make you skip to the ‘wallowing in your own misery’ phase of having a crush?”

“No, it’s just...I can’t believe I never noticed.” Clary sat up, her legs crossed, facing Simon. “I only spent, oh, the last year with Izzy, every day. And– and looking back on some… things, it’s becoming really clear that I’ve had a crush on her for a while. And now I just feel like the biggest idiot in the world, and also what the fuck do I do now, Simon?” While she spoke Clary had let her head sink into her hands. Simon was of the opinion that they had just passed ‘wallowing’ and were well on their way to “breakdown”.

Simon leaned forward and, as gently as he could, pried Clary’s hands away from her face and held onto them for safekeeping.

“Hey, slow down, ‘cause this is bringing back really bad memories of pre-finals all-nighters.” This at least got a little smile out of Clary. “Now, can we back up just a bit to the ‘things’ you’re currently re-examining?”

Clary thought for a moment and then answered slowly, as though she was choosing her words with care. “Like, for example, why I love when she does my makeup. She’s really focused and just gets so close to my face and then she does that thing were she bites her lip and narrows her eyes, and sometimes I just want to lean forward and… kiss her?”

Immediately and seemingly instinctually, a grin tugged its way up the corner of Simon’s mouth. “Should I go get that scuba gear?” Clary rolled her eyes in response, but continued her recounting of Isabelle’s many virtues.

“And, uh, I always pick Izzy as a training partner, even though she does not go easy on me, because I kind of like when she kicks my ass.”

Simon only held in a dirty joke by viciously biting his own tongue. Clary was in distress. In distress.

His friend looked up at him from behind a strand of hair as if sensing his struggle but, judging by the nearly imperceptible untrackable movement of her eyebrows, refusing to acknowledge it. She headed on.

“Like, Izzy isn't really like anyone I've ever met before? And it's so - uh, exciting? Just to see her, like, do things her way. From the start she's made me feel like I belong, when, like, no one else really bothered to try?” Clary exhaled and shook her head. “I don't know. Maybe that's a bit much. I mean, what if we start dating and it immediately goes sideways? It’s just - we have too much history together. Maybe that doesn’t make any sense?”

Simon frowned. “No, I get it. She's really important to you.” He tilted his head to catch Clary’s gaze again. “And I know you’re really important to her. I don’t think one bad date could end your friendship. Also, you’ve known her for a year. If you want to call that ‘too much history’, I guess it might be, but when has that ever stopped you?”

Clary barked out a laugh. “Yeah, our relationship wasn’t exactly a success, though.”

“Okay, that’s fair, but Izzy isn’t me. And you aren’t the same you you were a year ago. Things are different.”

Clary looked ready to argue again, but kept quiet. Her body language was singularly vulnerable but her expression was more thoughtful than anything, brow furrowed tightly. She picked absently at her fingers which were still stained with oil paints, green and purple and gold. The rain continued its assault on the fire escape.

Eventually, after a long moment of silence, Clary stretched out on the bed next to Simon and, tugging at his shoulder, gently nudged him to lie down too. Clary tilted her head so it was lying against his shoulder and they lay there listening to the city they had been hearing their entire lives. But it was different now, wasn’t it? Simon had super vampire hearing and Clary had her angel ears and this wasn’t the city they had known anymore, because they knew what hid under the surface. But then, well, New York had never been the city they thought they knew. Simon had meant what he’d said: Clary had changed, and he had changed, and their old world felt lifetimes away. A year ago he would have said this was a bad thing. Today, he... wasn’t so sure.

“Should I tell her, do you think?”

“Hmm? What?”

“Izzy.”

“Oh.” Simon tried to get his train of thought off the existentialist detour track. “Uhh,” he said, intelligently, “I don’t know. Give me a sec.”

“Yeah, of course. Can you think while we watch?”

Simon nodded and Clary unpaused the episode. She propped her head up on her hand to get a more comfortable angle at the screen, and Simon’s eyes caught on the rune on her neck, right against the edge of her jawline. That was the first one, the healing rune that had seemed so out of place the night he’d found her by the church. By the Institute. Now, he couldn’t really imagine Clary without the runes, each a different part of her new life. There were the quick, simple ones Jace had drawn in the beginning, joined by the strong, decisive strokes of Isabelle and the slender script that indicated Alec, and of course Clary’s own hand, elegant and curving. Some for protection and some for strength, for courage and speed, fresh ones and older, darker marks. There was a story for every single one. A bit of experience. A battle won or lost.

He didn’t often dwell on this, but it sometimes occurred to Simon just how strong his best friend was. She had been through so, so much and come out on the other side a victor, maybe through luck, but also through sheer stubbornness. It was one of the things he loved (and sometimes loathed) about Clary. Simon was extraordinarily grateful that, even though both of them had lost a life, they had gained a new one, and one that had the other in it.

“Clary.”

She turned her head so she could look at him. One side of her face reflected the  flickering lights of the TV. “Yes?”

“I think you should do what you think is best. Trust your gut. You’re gonna be fine.”

Clary looked disappointed. “That wasn’t much of an answer, oh great oracle,” she said.

“Well, that’s the only one you’re gonna get. This oracle is closed for the day,” Simon replied. He crossed his arms over his chest to emphasize his statement. Then, very quickly and stumbling over his words a little, he added: “I just really respect you and I think you’re really smart and have good judgement, and you can sort this out for yourself. Also if anything goes wrong this means you can’t blame me, so–” The rest of the sentence was cut off by Clary rushing to hug him. Her shoulder banged into his chin rather painfully. He would, of course, not have it any other way.

“Thank you, Simon. I love you.”

Simon smiled into Clary’s shoulder. “Love you too, Fray.”

#shadowhunters #shadowhunters fanfiction #clizzy #simon lewis #clary fray #brotp #shadowhunters writing #fanfuckery #finally got this posted on the tunglr as well

[libralita]

Week of Bookblr - Top 5 Best Books of 2018

So, while I did read some really bad books there were also some really great books this year. I actually narrowed my list down to the top five books that I thought were really great. So without further ado let’s get into my top 5 books of 2018

#5 Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Shusterman always has these great premises and this book is no exception. In this world humanity has basically cured death. The only threat is overpopulation so you have these people called Scythes who’s job it is to maintain the population. Shusterman some how figured out my greatest irrational fear is immortality so that’s terrifying. Along with a creepy AI, some really great characters, and an appropriately asshole-ish villain this book deserves the number five spot. Rest in peace Shawn Dobson.

#4 Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 8 by Hiromu Arakawa:

Words cannot describe how much I love Fullmetal Alchemist the series. It probably the closest thing to a perfect series. I absolutely adored it and my favorite volume of this series was the penultimate Volume 8 (the omnibus version). First of all the van Hohenheim and Father stuff was amazing. I love seeing Mustang’s crew and the Briggs troops take over the city. It is so cool how clever these characters are. Mustang going absolutely nuts with Envy and that talk was so beautiful. Then when Mustang apologizes to Riza, I just teared up. It had my second favorite fight scene with Greed and Wrath. So awesome to see Greed and Ling work together. But it also had the best fight scene in the entire series which is when the Armstrong siblings and Curtis couple fight against Sloth. I did not know I wanted to see these four characters fight together but it was the most epic thing I have ever seen. I loved it so much. It was bad ass and powerful and SO AMAZING! I loved it.

#3 The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick:

I read and listened to this on audiobook and it was unbelievable. It was a mixture of the wonderful writing and the sound design that made this story come to life. Selznick was a new to me author and I so happy that I found his books. This one especially was whimsical and charming. It had beautiful artwork. The characters felt so real and it was so heartwarming. This is something that you need to read when you’re feeling down and need to put a smile on your face. It’s a classic in the making.

#2 Skyward by Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah I have to put Brandon Sanderson on this list. I think the real shocker is that he isn’t number one on this list. Nothing this year really felt like it deserved the number one spot. Legion and White Sand Vol. 2 were both five star stories but I think Skyward is the best that he published this year.

The reason that this book does deserve to be on this list is the characters, especially Spensa. If you saw my Top 5 Worst of the year list you’ll see that I hate overly aggressive main characters. When I first read this book, I had the kneejerk reaction to hate Spensa. She was aggressive and violent. However, I actually really liked Spensa. I cannot believe it. Brandon Sanderson took the trope that I hate the most and made it something I liked. I’ve talked with other people who HATE this trope as well and they were shocked at how well Spensa’s character was handled.

I think there are three reasons why Spensa works. First is that she is given a logical reason for acting this way. First when she’s young it’s more child-like and then as she gets older it’s because she’s an outcast in this society for what her father did. Second, it’s a lot of talk. She generally never really physically hurts anyone. She’s never really mean. There’s no mean-spirited-ness to her. Third, and this is the most important thing: she is not automatically great at flying. Spensa loves flying and wants to do it more than anything in this world. But she is not automatically amazing at it. She has to work her butt off to become great. Which not only ties into the theme of meritocracy but also shows a character having to work for things.

I also really loved most of the side characters. Jorgen was a tad bland for me, I hope that we get to see a little more of him, maybe even add his own POV chapters. I was really sad when someone either left flight school or died (and man do a lot of characters die in this). The story is portrayed very realistically to how you’d think flight school would work. It also gave Spensa a chance to grow and realize how dangerous this path could be. M-Bot is obviously the best character. He funny, sarcastic and an obvious self-insert.

#1 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I am so mad at myself for waiting so long to read this absolutely brilliant book. This book is about a girl living in Nazi Germany where her adoptive family hides a Jewish man in their basement. I know, so uplifting! This story is absolutely heartbreaking (no surprise there). Towards the end I was just crying nonstop at everything that happened.

First of all Zusak really humanizes the Germans, even those who belong to the Nazi party. He doesn’t make them all evil and cruel. All of these characters are human beings. These are people who are just trying to survive and you really feel for all of them. This plays into the Death being the narrator. Death does not discriminate and thus he can have an objective point of view when it comes to what is going on. He is so alien yet relatable. Despite being Death he brings some light heartedness to this story. Zusak pulls no punches. When Liesels parents die it is the saddest thing imaginable. I am tearing up right now as I write this. Zusak made me feel like I too had lost someone. It is so heartbreaking. I am glad that Max had lived and found Liesel. It was the most beautiful thing.

This book is truly a classic. A book that will never leave me and that why it deserves the number one spot.

#2018 #Top 5 Best #Week of Bookblr #WoB #Bookblr #Scythe #Arc of a Scythe #Neal Shusterman #Fullmetal Alchemist #Hiromu Arakawa #The Invention of Hugo Cabret #Brian Selznick #skyward #Brandon Sanderson #The Book Thief #Markus Zusak

[ao3feed-shindeku]

// Hey y’all !! If you’ve been looking for stuff to watch, I have a few suggestions! Some have already been/are already pretty popular but I know not everyone has watched them, so yeah! This is a bit long so I’m putting it all under a Read More. ^^

Ore Monogatari (Comedy / Romance / Shoujo ; a really sweet and fun teen romance anime, one of my favorites!)

Tiger & Bunny (Action / Comedy / Mystery / Super Power ; another fave of mine, that I would LOVE seeing in a crossover with BNHA! Also available on Netflix. It’s about pro heroes, and it has two movies as well ! You can find them on the left of the page, in “Franchise”. There is also a live action show which you can watch here, sadly it doesn’t have subtitles but that didn’t make it any less fun imo, and Kotetsu and Barnaby’s actual seiyuus played them! How cool is that!! And last but not least, a side-story called “Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth”.)

Ao No Exorcist (Action / Demons / Fantasy / Shounen / Supernatural ; yet another face of mine, such a good and interesting plot. However I do recommend to read the manga as well since the first season doesn’t follow it after a while ; season 2 does though, and there is also a movie! Once again you will find all that in “Franchise”).

One Punch Man (Action / Comedy / Parody / Sci-Fi / Seinen / Super Power / Supernatural ; very good action anime, there is a manga, too, if you don’t wanna wait for new seasons, as well as two OVAs!)

Saint Oniisan (Comedy / Seinen / Slice Of Life ; PLEASE WATCH SAINT ONIISAN I SWEAR YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT!!! It’s about Jesus and Buddha and their life in Japan. There is also a manga, which I definitely recommend you buy, and a movie too!)

Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous (Fantasy / Seinen / Action ; very good story with a lot of potential !! It’s about sentient gems who fight “Moon Dwellers” to protect an apparently humanless Earth. The truth about all that is only known by the gems’s master, but he hides it from them... There is also a manga which I highly recommend.)

Samurai Champloo (Action / Adventure / Comedy / Historical / Samurai / Shounen ; oldie but goodie!)

Gin no Saji (Comedy / School / Shounen / Slice of Life ; an anime/manga about teens who are students in an agriculture campus! The author is none other than Hiromu Arakawa, who also made Fullmetal Alchemist!)

Koe no Katachi (Drama / School ; this is a movie about a deaf girl and a boy who used to bully her when they were kids. They meet again years later and he tries to make it up to her. Very touching story. There is also a manga.)

Kimi no Na wa/Your Name (Drama / Romance / School / Supernatural ; another movie, this time more supernatural. Such a good story, I definitely recommend it! I think there is a manga as well.)

Soul Eater (Action / Adventure / Comedy / Fantasy / Shounen / Supernatural ; a classic! It also has a sequel, “Soul Eater NOT!”)

Little Witch Academia (Adventure / Comedy / Magic / Fantasy / School ; a cute little anime about a seemingly magicless girl who goes to a witch school. There is also some kind of pilot episode from 2013 and a movie, however they’re not really canon.)

Tokyo Godfathers (Comedy / Drama ; a movie about homeless people who find a baby. They take care of the little girl while searching for her parents. Very funny and touching.)

This is all I have for now! Don’t hesitate to DM me for more recommendations, and please tell me what you thought of something you’ve watched from this list! c:

#mine

[inkuisitivskins]

Top 5 Series that fundamentally shaped you as a person

Ask Me My Top Five Anything!

ohhhhhh yikes. Lemme think haha, there’s several that immediately come to mind but I really wanna put some thought into this uwu I’ll try to put them in some semblance of a rational order heh

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (and slightly 2003)

I had always been into “anime” like Pokemon and Hamtaro when I was a kid, but it was about seven years ago when I started watching actual anime. My first was Kekkaishi on Adult Swim, and I liked it enough, but that was also during the first English dub airing of Brotherhood, and it would come on right after Kekkaishi did, so I would watch it sometimes. I think the first episode I remember seeing was a flashback of Ishval, and one scene I prominently remember was Riza talking to Ed in her apartment (when she’s cleaning her pistol and she asks Ed if he loves Winry LMAO). I thought it looked cool and I realized that my mom’s friend’s (she lives with us) son had all but one dvd set of the original 2003 anime. I binge watched it (only missing the short dvd arc where Hughes was killed, which was later in 03 than in Brotherhood), and I fell in love. After that, I dove into Brotherhood and started buying the manga volumes (which were also being released as the anime aired). It remains my favorite franchise to this day, and I’m honestly glad that I saw 03 first because??? there’s certain things I still like about it, and even though Brotherhood is the superior and truest (to Arakawa’s actual vision of the story) version, I’m glad I was able to appreciate the original. I feel like I’d be turned off by it if I watched it after the fact, you know?

What I love about Fullmetal is just the thought that goes into the characters and the events that go on. In Brotherhood, every single character, including fuckin side characters like Yoki, have a specific purpose. The story and lore of the world is so immersive and well thought out and just so intelligent? I love all of the scientific and historical allusions Arakawa makes, and the character development is so beautiful and wonderful (namely in characters like Ed and Al, whose quest changes from something that only concerned themselves to something that concerns literally their whole country and eventually the entire world, if they hadn’t have stopped Father– and Scar, who only wanted revenge, but eventually saw past it and recognized the same greater good that Ed and Al did, even going as far to make the huge mindset change from REVENGE IS ONLY THE ANSWER AND I WILL DISOBEY MY GOD IN ORDER TO ULTIMATELY SERVE THEM to Miles’s mindset of I will use what has been given to me to change minds and make the world a better place for my people)

No joke I’m literally so tempted to apply for a panel at a convention that would just be a huge love letter to this series, where I discuss all of these things I feel in depth. I have 0 idea how to apply for a panel tho haha

2. Pokemon

When I was little, I would go to my mom’s work and just hang out after school. There was one coworker she had who was a young guy, like early twenties, and he really liked me. One day, he brought Pokemon LeafGreen for me to play, and I absolutely fell in love with it (literally my first playthrough, I got in one of the Ye Olde Metapod vs Metapod Fights hahaha). I think that was around first grade, soooo like 2004 ish? It just so happened that I had a friend who was getting a DS, so she gave me her gameboy advance SP and I bought LeafGreen uwu

After that, I’ve had at least one pokemon game from each gen and a few of the spinoffs since. I have FireRed and LeafGreen, Emerald, Blue on the virtual console, Gold, Crystal (that didn’t work), Pearl, Diamond, Platinum, Black, White 2, Y, Omega Ruby, Moon, soon Moon Ultra, Mystery Dungeron Red and Blue rescue teams, Mystery Dungeon Darkness/Time/Sky, Trozei, Rumble Blast, Battle Revolution, and the original Pokemon Ranger. 

It really helped me when I was little because it exposed me to the world of creature design, which is like my ultimate career path (I would like to be a creature and character design artist for a game company, though for now I’ll settle on an art teacher haha). Some of my first shitty OCs were Pokemon ripoffs, heh. It’s just why it’s always been easier for me to draw animals and creatures; I’m only just now getting into humans tbh.

3. The Land Before Time

This is probably the most random series on this list lmao. I grew up with the original movies, like, big time. Ever since I was 5 until I was like 17, I had wanted to be a paleontologist because of these movies. I still absolutely love dinosaurs so much, and Imma rant for a second buttt

The main tattoo I want is of a Tylosaurus P. skeleton because??? i loved dinosaurs and I bought this wii game where you play as different prehistoric marine reptiles (since they’re not considered dinosaurs but still) ((and i recognize it now but that game was so bad but i loved it to death)) and one of them was a tylosaur, it was my favorite. Fast forward a few years, my aunt took me to go on a dig (which I hated bc it was out in the heat) but I met a woman there who worked at a museum and she??? invited me to come help excavate one in the lab???? and guess what the actual fuck it was

it was a tylosaurus p. skull. My exact favorite dinosaur, right down to the specific genus. 

That was incredible because I was actually able to touch and help excavate the skull? which is a big deal bc the skeletons you see in museums usually aren’t the real thing, just plasters. So the fact that I was able to touch the real deal was one of the best things to ever happen to me.

So yeah I fucking love dinosaurs and if teaching doesn’t work out I’m gonna try and do paleontology stuff

4. Okami

This was one of the first wii games I ever got REALLY SUPER into. If you don’t know what this game is, it’s a literal work of art where you play as the reincarnated Japanese sun goddess who took on the form of a wolf, and her power is that the tip of her tail is like a brush and she can paint things into existence. This really got me to make my first ever “real” OCs, even though they were mainly fan characters. One I’ve abandoned, but two became like their own entities. One I still call a fan character because her entire story has to do with the game and I can’t really tailor her into her own thing, but for the other, I made her her own series. Little Baby Dylan wrote enough content for 4 whole manga series with this bitch, because even I had an “I want to be a mangaka” phase. Obviously looking back on it now, they were garbage, but I really want to redo her series because I miss and love her. Anyway, if Pokemon introduced me to character creation, Okami introduced me to worldbuilding and lore development. 

I also kind of want to write fanfiction for the one fan character bc I feel her story is really good? I just don’t know if there’s a place for fan character-centric fics on Ao3, since she’s the main character and she only interacts with canon characters (especially since she’s kind of an OCxCanon thing and idk how well that’s accepted there;;;;; )

I doubt anyone would want to see them but I may draw them again sometime if anyone’s interested haha

5. Dark Souls

One of my first “more mature” gaming experiences along with Skyrim and Fallout 3, the Souls series exposed me to the wonders of Dark Storytelling and Dark Atmosphere and *gasp* Eldritch themes. The unforgiving and sinister nature of these games just fuckin drew me in, I was enraptured at the tone that this game was able to produce. When I branched off from the Okami verse and made the world for the fan-character-turned-original-character, I took a lot of inspiration from this game and the atmosphere it was able to create. The story was so dark and the characters were all very weird and even some could have been considered otherworldly. I still really love the feel of it all and, through it, I learned how to draw certain creepy things and evoke certain emotions from my art (see: that drawing I did of Envy’s true form haha)

Sorry this was so long Megan;;; Thank you very much for asking though!!

#askmeme #about me #princesstuttu