#i barely have anything for them yet story wise yet but <3

[frostios]

ive been so busy all week so tonight i give myself the treat of make some ocs

#frosti draws #frosti ocs #hyaline oc #chrys oc #tiri oc #i barely have anything for them yet story wise yet but <3 #sonic oc

[suunkiised]

Poppy Chapter 3 Thoughts

Just finished watching Manly's play through of Chapter 3 and I have many thoughts as a viewer of the game.

First things first! Very polished, not very buggy and has a lot of nice environments. It's interactive and gives and you a better understanding of everything that happened before the deaths of the employees.

The sound design is a major improvement. Chapters 1 and 2 were mediocre in the sound department, nothing stunning or special. This chapter was way better and provided more and went above and behind!!

Also, lots of new mechanics that make the puzzles interesting and keeps things from being to repetitive. It's engaging and the puzzles are easy to understand, they're a little tedious at times, but they're efficient and you get the hang of them quickly! You also don't get overwhelmed.

Now for spoilers, click read more if you want to spoiled :)

I'll talk about the things I don't like first.

The main factor being the major lack of Catnap. The trailers and everything made it seem like he was a bigger deal then he actually is. I get the fact that he's supposed to hide in the shadows, but he barely has a presence until the last half of the game and it's a disappointment.

Even worse, his boss fight dragged on for too long. It's repetitive and not interesting in the slightest. Mommy's boss fight was long, but you not only got more time with her, you also weren't confined to one area. Catnap's boss fight was boring at most and uninteresting at worst.

His death also didn't seem to have that much of an impact. Sure, we know he worships the Prototype and seeing him offer himself to it was pretty sad, knowing everything that happened. But, again, we don't see much of Catnap in the chapter, which really just doesn't make me feel for him.

Ending this on the things I liked / loved!!

I loved Mrs. Delights section, save for the flickering lights, her design is scary and her movements are horrifying. She's a real danger and you can feel it when we get to her. While her death wasn't anything groundbreaking, it made me wince just because she was stuck under there and not cut in half.

The Play Area was fun! The little critters scuttling around and shooting them with the flare gun was fun to watch. I felt bad for DogDay, he was cut in half and his body was used against his will to hunt the player. It was gross and horrifying to watch. The chase was amxiety inducing and you can feel the urgency as you run away.

Poppy had a more prominent role in this chapter, and I'm glad we saw her! Also, Kissy is nice, I understand why they didn't want these two to follow the player aroun. Would have caused some complications with some areas.

Also, seeing Kissy being passive towards us, not only because Poppy is there is calm her down. But also because she's afraid and constantly on edge, and she wants to get out.

Ollie... Is suspicious. I don't trust him but jury's still out there on what his deal is next chapter.

Story-wise, this chapter really focused in on The Hour of Joy. It was nice to get a visual on the massacre, knowing that no one was spared from the wrath of the mascots.

I like that we got some more information on the workers. Knowing that someone of them probably didn't even know about the experimentation going on and thought they were doing good. But, also knowing that so many people were experimenting on the children...

It's chilling, because you know some people didn't deserve this and yet they're dead now.

Also, confirmation on the player having worked there, but left. This makes me think that the Prototype was the one who sent the letter, wanting every employee to suffer.

As for the ending, I suspect that Kissy got attacked by either Boxy or the Prototype. Meaning that she's either dead, or going to die next chapter.

This also means Poppy is likely to stay by the players side for a good portion of the game, I suspect until we meet Ollie, where she'll stay with him.

Overall I think Chapter 3 is a solid 7/10.

I wish we got more Catnap since he was the main antagonist, but I think the rest was handled well and I'm very impressed by the team. They did a lot of work and I applaud everyone who worked on this chapter!!

#poppy playtime #poppy playtime deep sleep #poppy playtime chapter 3 #poppy playtime spoilers

[ceaseless-watchers-special-girl]

you guys. you guys you guys. i think i know what i want from the final season of the penumbra podcast. i have spent the past ten minutes pacing around my room. yesterday i read up to chapter 17 of prydon's fic separate but syncopated (https://archiveofourown.org/works/30943430/chapters/76417991) which let's be honest, you've probably read already. it's phenomenal. if you haven't, you should.

so i've been thinking. i just really want to go back to brahma. i want to go back to brahma and take down the guardian angel system.

the thing is, the junoverse is a very character driven storyline, and i love that about it. the second citadel is more event driven i think, and it was more difficult for me to get into that storyline and stick with it (i'm weak i'm sorry). for example, although the first season focuses a lot on juno solving the whole martian artefact doodah, back then the penumbra crew were still finding their feet.

then junoverse season 2 happened, and the entire point of that season was basically "get juno over his trauma" (that's why it was so long oh my god). sure, there was a whole plot with ramses and the theia souls, but i think we can all agree that was secondary to juno's character development.

next, season 3. season 3 is definitely character driven, you literally can't deny it. it focuses on each member of the carte blanche in turn, and it uses the plot, finding the curemother prime, as a secondary tool to further the true point of the season: getting to know the characters.

season 4 i'm a little less certain about because i'm typing this post straight into tumblr fresh out of my brain (if anyone wants to help out with the analysis i'd love that). but i think the point of season 4 is to test and showcase the bonds of the carte blanche with each other, and juno rescuing them all is not only a good story, but also a good way to show off the relationships they built in season 3. his relationship with nureyev is shown through periodic reading of the journal, and juno's copious inner monologues (i say like i'm one to talk when all of these thoughts are swirling around in my own head).

then, season 5. the point of this season mirrors that of season 2, but this time, we need to get nureyev over his trauma. this is way trickier, because we're not inside nureyev's head, we're still in juno's. it's still character driven because the aim is to help nureyev, but the plot is given by juno having to chase him across the galaxy. hence, juno's hesitation when he finally finds nureyev.

well, steel, you've caught him. now what the hell are you going to do with him?

there is no plot to drive the character study anymore. our goal was to help nureyev, and juno (poor juno) has done all he can. the ball falls squarely into nureyev's court now, and juno has no say in the plot of the rest of the story. this is why i have been chewing myself alive since the last episode — we know what's next for the characters emotionally, but we have absolutely zero idea what's happening next plot-wise. it's killing me.

(what was the point of this post again?)

OH WAIT I'VE GOT IT. so. since our whole thing for this season is helping nureyev, and we all want him to go batshit fucking insane, i really want nureyev to go back to brahma, and finish what he started two decades ago. i think it's the perfect circular story arc to keep them occupied while nureyev heals emotionally from the fallout from everything going on with slip.

also, sorry to get real for a second, but i've just been tearing myself apart being morally outraged at the world we live in, and the fact that i'm barely able to do anything about it. maybe one day i could, but until then, it would be nice to see my favourite space gays set an example.

now, i know there's complications with this. nureyev refused to take the guardian angel system down in the first place because of the damage it would cause, and i'm willing to bet he hasn't excised that moral core just yet, no matter how hard he's trying. but i'm sure they can find a way to make it work. they have rita, after all!!

they're definitely hinting at a homecoming arc for juno. i think nureyev needs one too, is all.

#tpp #the penumbra podcast #junoverse #peter nureyev #juno steel #rambling again sorry #dear god penumbra has me in it's grips will it never let go? #essay #i genuinely for real did not intend this one to be an essay i promise #it just happened my brain doesn't shut up

[readingadream]

BE THE LIGHT

Chapter One

Word count 1,620

1 | 2 | 3

Wooyoung POV

What would you do if a random person came to you and asked to trust him? Saying that he would be the reason the world would change. Would you trust him? Would you think he was bat shit crazy like me? 

Wednesday night, there was a full moon and a chilly breeze that made leaves fall so beautifully to the ground. Though like the story's told by our parents, the most intresging people came out that night. I should have stayed home, but of course my friends always loved to go out.

“Yah! Woo, hurry the hell up.” Shouted by my friend who was almost as short as I was, light brown hair that had just barely covered his ears and of course not styled much since he had been partying most of the night. I rolled my eyes and waved as our group of friends walked to the next bar. 

“Mm, Go ahead without me. I think Imma catch the bus home. It's late and I need to wake up early anyways.” I waved my friends on as I walked to the convent store, grabbing a thing of ramen, a hangover drink, and some chips. Perfect late night snack plus medicine to help me not feel like absolute death right before work in the morning. The store was oddly quiet tonight which was unusual for a Saturday. Saturdays usually were busy, many drunk young adults like myself grabbing snacks or buying more alcohol. Walking to the front to pay I noticed a younger male who had red hair trying to do homework. Remembering those days I’d felt a little bad for the boy. 

After paying I grabbed my bag and quickly ran to the bus stop that was just about a block from where I’d been. Hopefully my luck would work tonight and not miss the last bus back home. Though when has luck ever been on my side? Never. I watched it drive past me. Looking up at the sky I let out an annoyed yell. “Fuck!” 

I was about to turn and call a taxi when a shorter male approached me, his hair was the color of dark chocolate, and his skin pale like someone who seemed to avoid being outside during the day, and lastly his eyes were dark brown as well but almost black. Though it was hard to see them clearly in the darkness that surrounded them due to the lack of streetlights where they currently were. Who'd have thought a bus stop in the middle of the city would be poorly lit?

“Apologies, I didn't mean to scare you. I know I'm a nobody but would you trust me? Help me out and I can promise you glory.” The stranger's voice was a slightly higher tone to an otherwise velvety smooth lilt, the kind of sound that the perfect melodie wrapped up in a song; a lullaby.

Tell me why I wanted to say yes? Why would someone like me decide to agree to help with something that my dumbass didn't know anything about. Shivering from the cold breeze I let out a breathy laugh as I looked at him. This male had a surrounding feeling of confidence and yet felt so mysterious as well.

“Who is stupid enough to say yes? Me apparently because I'm curious, also because your friend who has been standing behind you closely seems like he can trust you.”

I looked at the male behind him, white hair that looked like snow, was close to shoulder length, and the look he gave was one of seriousness. The male who  spoke let out a faint laugh, waving off the one who stood behind.

“Seonghwa is very close to me, he's our most precious member. Ah, I'm Hongjoong by the way.” Holding his hand out for me to shake. His hand was cold, silver rings on most of finger as well as a few bracelets on his wrist. Was it wrong to mention the fact his hands were smaller then mine? Though this man whose name was Hongjoong was also shorter than me so it made some sense in a way. 

“Wooyoung.” Giving the stranger my name so easily, probably not wise and used a fake name but we only lived once right? What could be worse than a stranger leading me to my possible death.

Seonghwa looked at me, like he was questioning why I'd agree so easily, who could blame him though? because I still was unsure. I used him as an excuse to be completely honest. Moving he points to the black BMW that had been pulling up and parking next to us.

“Our ride is here, you will stay with us from now on. You can gather your stuff tomorrow though Woo, right now it's late and you've seemed to have a long night.” Seonghwa spoke for the first time, voice sounded like thunder in the distance yet also a lullaby that if he sang a gentle song would make all worries go away.

Nodding my head I took a step towards the vehicle, “Promise you won't be killing me?” 

“I promise doll, you are safe with us.” Hongjoong gently patted my shoulder as he walked to get into the front passenger seat.

Stepping into the back with Seonghwa, I noticed the driver. He looked around my age, tired, and his eyes dull like there was no life left in them. I noticed his hair was the color of a faded pink or maybe orange? It was hard to tell in the little light that was provided due to the door being open momentarily. Though, maybe that's because of how late it was and the male was tired.

“This is Yunho, our sunshine most days. I swear he isn't as gloomy as he looks, we just haven't gotten much sleep lately and it takes a toll on us.” Listening to Hongjoong explain who the driver was, I noticed a small smile appear from Yunho. 

“That's because you made me wake up at 2am the other night because of your wild idea. Anyways, it's nice to meet you newbie.”

Newbie? He knew? Of course he did you idiot. “It's Wooyoung.” Letting out a soft yawn I just relaxed in the back seat. The leather seats seemed to be heated which warmed my cold bodie but also made it incredibly hard to stay awake much longer. Looking out the window as we drove, watching as city lights passed by quickly and things became a blur as I fell asleep curled up in my seat and just enjoying the warmth while it lasted.

Feeling someone shake me is what had finally woken me up, I usually slept hard and long so without thinking I shove them off. “Fuck off.” Mumbling and turning slightly. 

That's when I remembered that I wasn't home, it wasn't Changbin waking my lazy ass awake. I shot up and met eyes with Seonghwa. He didn't look bothered by my actions.

“Well you clearly will get along with Sannie, he loves his sleep and once punched our captain in the face for trying to wake him.” He points to a warehouse, it was definitely worn down but also if someone looked closer they would see that the building had been worked on. Looking over to where he was pointing I noticed a few boys outside playing basketball. “Welcome to our little utopia, it isn't fancy but we all have adjusted. You will too in a matter of time.”

When the car parked I noticed a boy with red hair running over holding a basketball. “Hyung! Did you guys get the snacks? Please tell me you got more banana milk because San hyung drank the last one that I was saving.” He pouted and it was cute, like a little bear pouting.

“Wooyoung, this is our youngest member. Jongho, this is our new member. I want you and San if he's awake to get him all taken care of.” Hongjoong spoke as he got out of the vehicle. “Yes we got snacks and more milk, Hwa wanted strawberry milk anyways so he bought a few packs of both.” 

San must have known he'd been spoken of, walking out to help with the groceries he took notice of the new male. Looking him up and down before shrugging.  

“San, this is Wooyoung. I want you and Jongho to get him set up, we will get his stuff tomorrow after we've gotten some well deserved sleep.” All San did was nod. Handing me a few bags before walking towards the building.

Following inside I had noticed the couches in the middle of the building, a few desks around it and then another couch off to the side by the door. The warehouse was old for sure, and looked like they'd made the place for all 7 that there was. Well now 8. 

Ladders led up to a second floor, everything seemed new like they had built the second floor themselves, so it was safe for them to walk on. Lastly, he saw the makeshift kitchen. Everything they would possibly need was there. A microwave, stove and oven, dish washer, a coffee pot, and just basic items you'd generally see in someone's kitchen. San points at the groceries “I'll put these away, so just set them on the table for now.” Of course, I just nodded my head, setting them down. Yawning for what seemed like the millionth time in the last 10 minutes. I walked around as the others all came in, talking about who knows what. He'd tuned them out for a moment as he realized things were about to be a lot different from now on.

#ateez fanfic #ateez #ateez au #woosan #seonghwa #hongjoong #mingi #wooyoung #jongho #yeosang #yunho #stray kids #park seonghwa #fanfic #cross posted on wattpad #cross posted on ao3

[critter-rarepair-reccs]

Hey all, hope everyone's having a good Wednesday! Today we have eight whump fics for your enjoyment! Some are on the lighter side, some are much heavier, so don't forget to mind the warnings! As always, you can find them below the cut and if you check any of them out, I encourage you to leave kudoes and comments to spread the rarepair love 🩷

if you must falter, be wise by mabarihound (3,546 words, Explicit) Pairing: Eadwulf Grieve/Essek Thelyss (Esswulf) Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Unhappy Ending, Dubious Consent, Cannibalism, Body Horror

Wulf dies but Essek brings him back as a vampire, a la the Briarwoods.

Reccer Says: unhappy ending TO YOU. I'm built different. Essek is so fucking insane in this, Wulf is barely human, there's so much blood and bad sex, it's gruesome and sad and amazing. Love doesn't fix anything but it makes a thrilling story!

The Self in the Other by fjorests_of_wildemount (1,010 words, Teen) Pairing: Astrid Beck/Eadwulf Grieve (Blumenduo) Warnings: None

After killing some of Trent’s loyalists, Astrid and Wulf head home to tend their wounds.

Reccer Says: It’s a delicious glimpse into what post-C2 might look like for these two and I love it. Their dynamic oozes of the decade and a half of history between them and it’s so good.

Crowned Teeth (or, an Offering Revoked) by fruitzbat (130,570 words, Mature) Pairing: Kingsley Tealeaf/Original Female Character Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Slavery, Mentioned but Not Depicted Sexual Violence

Kingsley escapes being kidnapped by pirates after being mutinied against. Finding himself a long way from home, Kingsley then resorts to hunting the people responsible down with the help of a new ragtag bunch of misfits that call him captain.

Reccer Says: With respect to the rarepair, I think it's a fun dynamic. fruitzbat does a really good job of capturing all of those weird, uncomfortable nooks and crannies that come with new relationships. And I think most importantly, Kingsley really stretches his wings as his own person. There is such a clear vision of what he's like and how that's distinct from Molly and Lucien, and that clearness really carries throughout both this piece and the rest of the series.

which is a tenderness. by redhoods (5,724 words, Mature) Pairing: Fjord/Caleb Widogast (Widofjord) Warnings: Fjord-typical Self Harm, Fantasy Racism

Caleb returns to the tavern and learns Fjord has gotten hurt in a bar fight then locked himself in their room, refusing healing.

Reccer Says: Fjord angst and tender wound care *chef's kiss* (and also just a touch of trans Fjord)

i feel you, your precious soul by glossolali (6009 words, Mature) Pairing: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss (Shadowmauk) Warnings: Offscreen Past Non-Consensual Body Modification, Mentions of Limb Loss & Amputation, Mentions of Disordered Eating, Selective Mutism, Panic Attacks

Essek, a cyberware expert, medical technician and researcher, helps his friends save Mollymauk’s life using what he knows best. What he didn't count on, was the connection that would develop between them, and his own misgivings about it.

Reccer Says: Cyberpunk/cybernetics AU, Essek has mixed feelings about fixing up Molly, and about initiating a relationship (established shadowgast, established widomauk, but Essek hasn't said anything to Molly about them yet). Its great <3 mollymauk's half cybernetic/prosthetics, and the malfunctioning is pretty oof

fell in love with the fire long ago by BananasofThorns (2,501 words, Teen) Pairing: Fjord/Caleb Widogast (Widofjord) Warnings: Mind Control, Burns

Caleb has been mind controlled and is attacking the party with deadly intent. Fjord has a ring of fire resistance and a bad plan.

Reccer Says: What's not to love about a person being forced to hurt those they care about and then blaming themself for it? I've rearead this 3 times.

by the water by nonbinarywithaknife (578 words, Teen) Pairing: Veth Brenatto/Yeza Brenatto Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Nott-Typical Alcoholism

In Felderwin, Nott sits by the river and remembers.

Reccer Says: Mostly sad, briefly sweet. She's really been going through it😢

Peace At Last by HyperKid (4,770 words, Mature) Pairing: Jester Lavorre/Mollymauk Tealeaf (Jestermauk) Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Mentioned Past Character Death

After Cognouza, Jester takes some quiet time to herself in the Blooming Grove. Molly finds her and they cuddle and talk through some difficult emotions.

Reccer Says: It's heartaching and sweet in equal measures. The atmosphere is beautiful and suits it so well. Molly and Jester fit together so well, like the softest of puzzle pieces, if that makes sense. Their relationship feels natural and you can sense the strength of their bond in each moment. It's got some wonderful mentions of Jester's struggle with being the Happy One and Molly having lost so much time while his friends have grown as well, on top of all of the other deliciously angsty feelings the two of them are coping with.

Thank you for joining us this week's recc list! All the love to everyone who submitted a fic 🩷 All enclosed recommendations were submitted by the community via our submissions form, which you can find here. All fic information is as it was provided by the reccer, so it may not be accurate to the author’s intent or the precise contents of the fic itself. Please assume good intent from all parties 🩷

Submissions for next week’s list are already open! We’ll be featuring Pre-Relationship fics. If you have any you’d like to highlight, you can send them in here. The week after that, the theme is Canon Divergence and the week after that we're taking recommendations for rarepairs including Keyleth! Submissions for both themes are also currently open.

If you want more rarepair fic, check out @cr-summer-wildflowers and their event collections on ao3! If you want some friendship after all this romance, take a look at @critter-genfic-events and their recc lists! And if you’re interested in everyone’s favorite wizards, you can’t go wrong with the lists at @aeor-is-for-reccing !

Thanks all and have a lovely day/night/timezone! 🩷

#critter rarepair recc lists #esswulf #blumenduo #kingsley x oc #widofjord #shadowmauk #veth x yeza #jestermauk #critical role #cr fanfic

[spinningbuster98]

Castlevania Symphony of the Night Part 4: Nocturne in the Moonlight

Up until now I’ve been singing this game’s praises and, to be fair, I will continue to do so in future videos. However I believe the time has come for the other shoe to drop so to speak and ask a very simple yet tricky question:

Is this a Castlevania game?

Some may think this question to be stupid but others may understand what I’m getting at here

Sotn marks a major departure from what had previously been established in this series. Keyword being MAJOR

Nowadays we live in an era when popular game franchises are applying drastic changes to their formulas, often taking elements from other more popular series, in other to gain more appeal. Zelda and Sonic have gone open world, God of War has gone The Last of Us with RPG mechanics etc

And honestly? Sotn is not different in this regard

This game not only has barely anything in common with the previous ones but it’s also their complete opposite in many ways

Gameplay wise? The classic games were linear, level based, tough as nails and gave you limited movement and resources that you had to make the most of

Sotn is non-linear, it’s one big map, it’s FAR easier and it gives you a ridiculous amount of movement options and items, 90% of which you’re never even gonna use

Story wise the Classics were very simple, Sotn and onwards will try to be more story focused (well relatively speaking) and melodramatic. Some future stories also jump the shark according to some fans but we’ll get to those in the future

Even its artstyle! I love Kojima’s artwork don’t get me wrong, ESPECIALLY her work in this game which I think is her strongest, but I absolutely hate it when people talk about her as if she was the one responsible for creating the series’ visual identity, as if the previous games had no art directions

I know people joke about Conan the Belmont Simon but...that was the series’ artstyle! Gothic, drawing a lot from classic horror but with super macho barbarian men dressed like He Man! We only chuckle at them now because Kojima’s bishonen artsyle replaced them. And no: I am not bitching about “muh yassification of muh manly men” or anything like that, mine is an issue of visual identity: the series literally flipped the switch from one extreme to another

Some poeple may say that at least narrative continuity is kept with the previous entries but that’s not fully true either, as this game retcons Alucard and Dracula’s backstories in order to introduce the stuff with Lisa, when both characters already had a backstory as told by the japanese manual of Castlevania 3! And yeah I do prefer the version introduced in this game, as I feel it creates at the very least more narrative contrast between Alucard and his father, for them to draw their opposite resolves from the same tragic events. But the point is: rather than trying to fit into the established canon, this game’s story forces its way into it by erasing the parts that don’t suit it

For as beloved as this game is, there are quite a few fans who despise it, everything it stands for and everything that followed it, considering it Castlevania in name only, something that killed the actual series and then went around wearing its skin

And honestly?

These people are...not exactly wrong

At least when other series change, even drastically, you can usually tell that their later games are supposed to be part of said series. Yeah Frontiers is a BOTW knockoff, but it still fundementally plays like a boost game, a formula that, while divisive, still derives its most basic idea from the general concept of “hedgehog goes fast and busts up robots” of the first few games. Yeah BOTW has alienated lots of old Zelda fans due to its hyper focus on open world design vs actual dungeons, but at least said open world structure had already been contemplated in a way by the past titles, not to mention many other gameplay mechanics from older games, like lock on and sword fighting, are still being used

If you take away the ability to get hearts from destroyed candles and the classic subweapons that is it. Gameplay wise it’s got nothing else in common with what came before and for that alone I can’t say that the people who hate this game are unjustified, not to mention that it’s got flaws of its own even ignoring any identity issue, though more on that at a later time

I, however, am not one of them

Let me ask you another question: if this game is not Castlevania...then what exactly is it?

Because, to go back to the earlier comparisons, games nowadays (hell ALWAYS if we’re being honest here, remember all the Sonic knockoffs in the 90s?) tend to quite clearly chase trends and you feel it when they’re just chasing trends because they tend to just adopt elements from what is hot and popular at the moment without actually doing anything truly unique with it

I can’t quite say the same about Sotn

Oh sure it quite clearly uses Super Metroid’s design philosophy as an inspiration, and the devs themselves have stated that Zelda was also an influence (and of course Simon’s quest), but it doesn’t just stop at emulating that formula

Keep in mind that back then there was no Metroidvania genre, there weren’t a million indie games taking a crack at the style, there was only Metroid, which had 3 games and wasn’t super popular. That formula had been established by only 3 games and by a generally strict set of features. Sotn was the very first game to look at Metroid’s general design philosophy and decide to do its own spin on it

Because to say that Sotn is just a Super Metroid clone and little else would be untrue I believe, as the two games, despite their similarities, play very differently

Metroid has a greater focus on mobility and acrobatics, on speedrunning and long-distance shoot em up combat

Sotn has rpg mechanics, close quarters combat using swords, spells and features transformations as a way of getting around fast

Yes there are clear similarities but it’s sort of like comparing Mario and Sonic: the latter was very clearly inspired by the former as they both are in the same genre, and since Mario defined platformers as we know them today, it’s inevitable that Sonic would take plenty of cues from him, but to say that Sonic plays the same as Mario just because he adopts those same base gameplay mechanics that the plumber introduced is untrue

Does this mean that it’s unjustified to criticize the game for how different it is? No. What I’m saying is that I don’t believe Sotn to be a simple case of just shamelessly ripping off another series. It has certainly shed its previous identity in an unceremonious way and that is absolutely a problem, but in the process it also created for itself a new identity that, while not for everyone, is absolutely its own and no one else’s, complete with its own set of positives and negatives, just like the Classic games before it (because yes people: Classicvanias also had issues, which is something that I generally don’t see people talk about a lot, probably because the discourse tends to boil down to “old game bad”, but maybe for another time...). If you wanted to play a Metroidvania game back in the 2000s your options were limited to either Metroid or Castlevania, and there were good tangible reasons to play one or the other. There is a reason why Sotn is considered the forefather of the genre alongside Super Metroid: one founded the formula, the other showed that it was flexible. Of course I have to admit that I’m a bit biased, since I already love Metroid’s core formula so Sotn’s style naturally appeals to me, but generally I’m someone who tries to look at the positive aspects of a game, even when it doesn’t necessarily respect its roots, as I believe that if something is good and fun, at least to me and my tastes, then it doesn’t deserve to get thrown in the trash on principle. But I can totally understand those who don’t think themselves, I myself have my limits on this as well

So to answer the question: no Sotn is not a Castlevania game. But it’s also a Castlevania game, just one that is its own thing that is unique

If you ask me most of this issue boils down to Konami deciding to focus exclusively on this formula while completely ignoring the Classics. If they had tried to keep a sort of balance, to release games of both styles in tandem things would have probably been more balanced. But I suppose this just wouldn’t have ever happened in the 2000s, when short level based sidescrollers not named Mario were seen as old news

#youtube #akumajou dracula #castlevania symphony of the night #my gameplay

[lattedecoffee]

Sara and Kurumada Minisode Thoughts

So I just played both minisodes and have to spout my thoughts somewhere. Spoilers for YTTD below, the new minisodes ofc but also anything up to 2-2 (I’ve played up to 3-1B but only stuff up to 2-2 ended up being relevant to the post really)

I’ll start with Kurumada’s because I have more thoughts on Sara’s than his

I love my boy Kurumada. One of my favorites of the dummies (alongside Mai and Anzu). And getting to see his idol and his journey through boxing was great! Couldn’t find anything lore-wise that was interesting, but loads of great character moments of my guy. Beating up the guy who sent Kuboshi to retirement was so satisfying, and realizing Kurumada was basically shunned from the boxing world now was so sad.

Just a great little story, not much to say.

NOW SARA’S ON THE OTHER HAND

Okay so there are actually two endings to this one: normal and red. I’ll start with the normal end.

First, that opening cutscene of the email between Kai and Sara’s dad. Most of it is text we’ve seen before, but I find it interesting that Kai could tell Sara wants some space from her dad. He decides that’s too much and deletes it, but the fact that he noticed in the first place is interesting nonetheless.

The little minigame was pretty fun imo, but then again I love most of yttd’s minigames. Plus Sara’s different opponents were interesting given we know some of them. Opponents 4-6 are Anzu’s friend from her minisode, Ursheen from Samurai Yaiba, and Shin respectively. Pretty interesting that Sara + Joe and Shin have apparently already met. Although it’s possible that wasn’t actually Shin, as I could see it being Midori in disguise. No way to prove either way, but it’s interesting to think about.

Joe was amazing the whole way through and I love and miss him. And that comment about his dad being dead, and Joe barely having any memories of him (implying Joe was very little when his dad died) makes the “Mr Policeman is Joe’s dad theory” stronger than ever.

As for the normal ending, we got to see Ryoko! Seeing the ever so famous Ryoko x Joe date was very wholesome and I almost cried at the end with Ryoko being worried about Sara and Joe and wondering if she’ll even see them tomorrow.

And then there’s the red ending. Holy shit the red ending. A presumably post Joe’s death Sara wonders if things could’ve been different. She ponders about a world where Joe is voted and he and Sara escape, leaving everyone else to die. It’s reminiscent of the massacre ending (aka lesbians ending), with Sara being horrified and Joe/Nao trying to comfort her. But then we cut back to current Sara who, as it turns out, often worries if she might drag those she’s close to into some sort of darkness. The fact that she has this worry, even if she considers it irrational, makes me wonder. Is it because of Kai that she’s worried (at this point she thinks he’s just a random stalker)? Or does she have a hunch that her family is not as it seems? No way to know yet, but very cool to think about

Wow that was a lot of thoughts. I kinda just rambled but hopefully some of it was interesting lol. Can’t wait to see what others have to say on these in the coming weeks!

#yttd #your turn to die #sara chidouin #naomichi kurumada #joe tazuna #ryoko hirosue #yttd spoilers

[stuffedsand]

Haruka - 1, 2, 5, and 9

Fuuta - 4 and 19

Mahiru - 3, 11, 12, 13, and 14

Woah that's a lot!! Ty for the ask :p under the cut cuz my answers r gonna be long tm

Haruka 1,2,5,9

1. Favourite song lyrics?

"if only I could do what anyone else could, the right future unfairly chose the wrong me"

It's the most obvious but I really like it :p

2. Favourite MV moment?

These!!!

They're really pretty and I just really like the collage aesthetic of some of the shots, also the one at the start before the song even starts and the uhhh. Bludgeoning of the dog👍

5. Favourite VD line/moment?

To be fr I barely remember the vds,,, but moment wise I do like when es fucking. Threw him across the room (t1) because what the fuck es+the character thing of how he really just wants any type of attention and is glad that es is even listening to him in the first place,,,,like boy no,,,,,

9. Do you forgive their crime on its own?

..........aughgh. ok I don't. Particularly forgive it. Sibling of his or not the girl hasn't been shown to have done anything wrong? Also murder is bad 👎 so by virtue of a direct murder I probably wouldn't forgive him. I will forgive him t3 but like...not his murder itself yk

Fuuta

4. Favourite minigram moment?

The one where they make fun of his height lmaooo hold on I can find it

THESE 2 the height one is funny as hell they didn't have to use 2 other prisoners just kotoko would've been fine but they doubled down on the "haha short" lmaOO

And the kendama one is just silly look at his face

19. What do you think their teenage/childhood years were like?

Honestly I think he's been chronically online for a WHILE. Definitely was part of "the boys" in like. What middle school? Around 13-16. He was definitely one of them and god would he have been insufferable. So relatively normal. At least by today's standards. Apparantly the "boys are absolutely fucking insufferable save like 2 people" thing is almost exclusive to my cohort so. Maybe not as normal. He reminds me of them tho./neg

Mahiru

3. Favourite non-MV official illustration?

Ainandesuyo album illust!!!! It's so pretty

Honorary mention to the 2nd anni illustration cuz I have the acrylic standee of it :p

Piss ass quality photo of said standee (I'm not at home rn so I can't take a better one lmao)

11. Favourite parts of the story n narrative surrounding them?

One that surprised me that I was interested in was how she views love. I'm aroace so I usually am. Really disinterested with themes and topics of romantic love especially (hence why I thought she was kinda boring when I first got into milgram) but honestly I love seeing how her perception of love is and how it's warped and yet she clings onto it so tightly that she says she'll die if she can't love the way she does (iirc. Haven't watched vds in forever but I swear she said something along those lines)

Within Milgram story wise I do think it's interesting how her injuries affect not just her but those around her, and I think it's interesting how they have it affect different characters differently, even to the point of being a big factor in another character's changes between trials. I like when characters affect other characters

12. What do you wish would be discussed more about them in the fandom?

I'm gonna be real I barely discuss mahiru myself 💥 cuz I tend to hyperfocus on the characters i was originally the most interested in. HOWEVER idothink she should be discussed more in general. She's a very interesting character and I want to know others people's thoughts on her and her murder and allat. Yippeee

13. Any idea on how their MV would've been like with a different verdict in t1?

OUGH ok hm. I think it would've stuck more closely to ainandesuyo's vibe. Esp since her ideals on how love is wouldn'tve been rejected. Think the rose tinted glasses parts of daisuki. Yeag mostly that. Maybe a few more cracks on the surface than ainandesuyo tho.

14. Any appearance headcanons?

Idk I like to think she's a lil chubby. I follow milgrams designs almost to a T but I do also think she'd have slightly tanner skin. Maybe cuz she reminds me of a friend lmaooo

#Thabjyou for the ask ✨✨✨✨ I love talking about characters even if i dont ten dto think abt them much #sand speaks #ask game shenanigans

[https-furina]

“fresh out the oven!” this order is for anonymous:

“hello and congratulations for 500! i would like to order a croissant, if that is fine. my star signs are: taurus sun, cancer moon and scorpio rising. my hobbies are singing, photography and writing. i also would love to get into astronomy, but unfortunately i barely have the mind for this. although i plan on studying law, i always wanted to be either a singer, or a theatre actress. personality wise i am, how i like to put it, a nice person until i am not and someone pisses me off. which is actually quite hard, but that's on a side note! i find no reason to put my anger in minor things. i value my own peace and comfort plenty, willing to do a lot to not disturb it. i am a rather quiet person, but with friends i do not mind getting loud and having fun. i am very stubborn and will not hesitate to argue for my right if needed. i am also a hopeless romantic! it gets terrible for me sometimes. i dream of a pretty romance story, yet i know i probably will not experience it. i also tend to daydream a lot, stuck in my thoughts and stories that will never see the daylight. my love language is quality time and acts of service. i do not mind the gender, the choice is yours! thank you in advance and have a good day/afternoon/night!”

notes. thank you so much anon !! and thank you so much for all the info, i hope you don’t mind me adding that you seem like an absolutely sweetheart to be friends with !! <3

thirsty? see our café menu before you order! | order receipts

hi anon, your croissant is ready! miss serafina from the https-furina café matches you with…

thoma!

—

as a taurus, you’re very relationship-oriented and you have a knack for everything artistic, so the information you gave me checks out! taurus are compatible with fellow earth sign capricorn which provides a very harmonious relationship actually. both signs are very down-to-earth and guess who happens to be a capricorn… thoma!

i think that thoma would be very supportive no matter which path you take since you always wanted to be a theatre actress or singer - perhaps he’d enjoy listening to you sing in your spare time together when you’re doing your own things in each other’s company (he might pick up the songs you sing, humming them around the kamisato estate during his chores.)

you seem very doubtful about your capabilities in pursuing a hobby in astronomy and i think that thoma would be very reassuring that you are more than capable. he’d most likely use his connections to help get you involved with people who specialise in astronomy or equally like it too. thoma also has a knack for showing he has a love language for acts of service & gifts so it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he gifts you something space related out of nowhere!

thoma very much matches you personality wise. you’re both very kind people that i’m sure everyone would love together! equally so, you’re both that perfect amount of nice until someone gets on your bad side (perhaps thoma is more likely to get mad or defensive - i can see him doing it on behalf of you!) thoma can be a little more sociable than how i picture you which is perfect! he’s not particularly loud but he’ll do any talking for you.

as for your apparent stubborness, thoma isn’t exactly stubborn but i think he’d know exactly how to deal with your stubborn attitude! our poor boy is a little bit of a people pleaser but your souls intertwine exactly the way hopeless romantics should and he’ll do anything to make your dreams a reality to the best of his abilities.

i can imagine thoma taking you on dates to the withered sakura in inazuma city just to introduce you to the stray animals there - it isn’t the most peaceful location but it’s quiet and nobody would dare interrupt such a cute scene.

additional choices: mona, faruzan & chongyun.

© https-furina 2023 | please do not copy, re-upload or translate my works on any form of media. heart banner by @/cafekitsune.

#⌞a café on the sea front !!⌝ #https-furina #genshin matchups #genshin fluff #genshin x reader #genshin #genshin impact

[rawliverandcigarettes]

For the fanfic director's commentary, I'd love to hear your thought process behind Anetha—especially (if you're willing to share) hints about her side of the story post–Chapter 8 of Halfway Home. If that's too spoilery or involved, more general rambles about Chapter 8 would be cool as well!

Hey thank you so very much for the ask!! I'm super sorry about the time it took me to get to it!!

Actually, I kind of wanted to have Chapter 17 out so I could dive deeper into her psychology without revealing anything about her attitude towards The Event and without spoiling anyone. But now it’s done, it’s here, it’s messy: I think we have enough pieces to start unraveling what’s going on in her brain.

That being said, spoilers for Halfway Home below for those who may dabble --and beyond the plot spoilers: I think that if you want to keep your opinion on Anetha neutral, or decide for yourself first by reading the whole thing and then potentially coming back, it might be a wise thing to do so because we're truly vivisecting my girl in the reply.

(edit post me writing the answer to the ask: WOW I rambled like CRAZY, so also beware that I do ramble like crazy oops)

So Anetha… Honestly kind of appeared in the story as I was drafting it?

The very very first draft that I ever did, that was actually in French (!), initially only explored Rhanda and Shandri (and Rhanda and Nagatha used to be the same person too), and Anetha was added compulsively because I felt like there was a giant room for conflict begging for someone to take up that space and act a little cooler and more rebellious than the rest of the cast, and that Shlee needed that sort of energy in his life (though the stakes were much lower at the time –or rather, they were as bad, but I had yet to understand just *how bad*). I think that, partially because she erupted into the story rather than being carefully placed there, she was the first character to click for me and the rare beta-readers at the time. Her motivations and psychology didn’t really change since 2017, I merely streamlined them over the course of the drafts –the scenes with Anetha in the spotlight may hold the prize for highest percentage of scenes that barely changed since draft 1 actually!

In the first draft, the breaking point between Shlee and Anetha used to happen in much more defused way. The moment when they were separated was extremely different: chapter 8 used to have a much more traditional Mass Effect flair and involved an attack by batarian slavers, fucking Jondum Bau was there (fun fact: Accano used to be Jondum Bau for a very long time –Accano is actually the conglomerate of two different turian characters that were both scrapped, Jondum Bau and Mordin Solus that were all squished into the blackpink icon that we know and love the slightly unnerving STG agent with a Mission TM), and Shlee was forcefully separated from Anetha during the attack.

Then, it was while Shlee tried to contact her from Omega that the first seeds of doubt about her intentions were planted, especially since the story used to have one of Anetha’s exes showing up and trashtalking the hell out of what she was like as a girlfriend, forcing Shlee to see his sister from an outside perspective for the first time (I still kept her setup in Chapter 3 because I think it still reveals some of these dysfunctions and they're interesting as a pattern). Then, there was the “hey” scene, that cemented the fact that Shlee kind of hated her guts now.

Beyond the fact that I made strides to make the story punchier and more compact by dropping a lot of storylines, and this could be condensed significantly while making my point clearer (deepening not widening etc), I decided that dropping the attack for something that was much more… mundane, in a way, helped to reveal an uglier interior facet of Anetha’s brain –though one that I, sadly, believe to be much more relatable than it may seem at first glance.

(I mean, traveling semi-illegally via a spaceship that side-hustles by smuggling batarian refugees from point A to point B and then being caught by border control is not exactly a regular or normal occurrence, but it could have just been a weird anecdotal bleep on their journey if Shlee didn’t brutally discover that he has much more in common with these batarians than his sister through his absence of administrative existence and being, therefore, inherently illegal).

.

So I’m going to be relatively vague with the details since Anetha will be dissected further both in The Empire of Preys (though not a lot since she was younger and kind of existing in the background) and Override (where she will be a PoV character yaaay I’m excited for thaat), but to keep it simple: Anetha’s circumstances were already messy as hell before Shlee even showed up.

This is all hinted at in Chapter 8, but I do get into deeper details here, so… vague spoilers? I don’t think they are, but I do expose the events from her perspective, which I didn’t really do before so beware!

The relationship of her birth mother Priin and Rhanda was very complicated (and not even because of Rhanda!! wow), forcing Anetha to build up huge emotional walls to protect herself from her mother’s wild strides in the mental health department since she was a child, culminating in the moment where she had to take care of a SA emergency all by herself –leading to Rhanda taking the ONE (1) good responsible decision of her life and breaking up with Priin, which unfortunately led her to become unstable and distant and then pushed her to the breaking point when Priin ended up taking her own life years later, even though they had not spoken in years.

So Anetha was holed up to her aunt (not yet a bajillionaire at the time) and her weird human boyfriend while the only parent she had left went to fuck off somewhere to avoid exploding in front of her daughter and making the damage even worse. Anetha hated that move, feeling abandoned and burdensome and reacting by becoming as spiteful as she could towards her Dad, especially when said Dad returned with a small child and another failed relationship, a child she also dumped on her lap to go work on Illium soon after (this moment is much more complicated than this, Anetha understood what she wanted to understand, but TEoP is a lot about that exact moment so I'll keep it vague for now).

And then, just a few years later…… Rhanda returns, pale as a ghost, wrecked with something she will not speak about, only for Anetha to discover that her Dad has a literal stolen child stored in the trunk of their car, then transfered to the bedroom of the apartment they all share.

.

Anetha’s aloofness is a survival strategy. It is basically all she has to defend herself from the people in her life, who should know better yet do not, consuming themselves in extreme behaviors at the slightest opportunity (Priin being Priin, Rhanda being Rhanda, even Nagatha deciding to Uno Reverse the free marketplace and becoming a kingpin for the Great Kapital qualifies I think –I could talk for hours about the two T'selvi sisters and how they mirror each other but that’s what TEoP is for so I will calm down and focus on the ask sorryyy). There’s a reason why Edwood, of all people, is probably the best influence in her life (shoutout to Edwood for being the only normal, not-unhinged person in this entire clusterfuck) and why she took after him so much.

I think what’s complicated with her, is that while she’s developing this whole rebellious, no-strings-attached, too-cool-for-you persona to master her emotions and avoid hurt at all cost (especially anything tied to abandonment and grief), she’s also constantly put in situations that demand her to be responsible: beyond her upbringing, she was effectively the adult in both Shandri and Shlee’s life for a good chunk of it, as Rhanda was unable to provide the basic necessities of safety and care more often than not. Not to mention: she knows full well her family is doing serious criminal things that nobody bothers explaining to her, and she must shoulder the burden of being put in constant danger for reasons she can’t begin to fathom. Every time she tries to grasp some normalcy in her life, the people who are meant to protect her put everything in disarray, and then demand her to be mature and practical and unflinching as if that’s, like, a reasonable thing to ask of a teenager forced to brace through the notion that everyone she loves is being tracked down by government officials. Even something as simple as her last name, she’s asked to abandon.

So THEN comes Shlee, and this makes everything so much more complicated for her.

Shlee is the literal representation of everything going wrong in her life: a growing organism forcefully brought in from outside; alien, diseased, destroying every safety net she may have built for herself, soaking up Rhanda’s attention as well as being the direct reason her Dad became the most deranged version of herself to date, something that may drop dead if not cared for correctly, and worst of all –something that demands that she acts as an example for his own growth, forcing her into a caretaker role whether she wants to or not through imprinting.

And he will die in like 30-40 years, which, fucking great, that's like in five years for her, and so the last thing she wants to deal with emotionally on top of everything else. So this is why she refuses to engage with him for such a long time: it’s too messed up on too many levels, and she wants to preserve herself from the general madness (understandable honestly).

During the first brush with Accano, Anetha basically has the exact same thought process that would come back to haunt her in that fateful chapter 8: Accano represents the authority of the state. The STG agent may be a maniac that will destroy her and everybody else, or he may be normalcy and order offering her a way out a situation that is getting more and more out of control. Maybe Rhanda did kidnap a salarian child in a crazed frenzy, and the best course of action would be to reunite him with his people.

And what a relief that would be.

So of course, that doesn’t happen and then Shlee starts becoming an actual person in her eyes, one she has to spend time with and care for; in so many words, a new constant in her life. There’s the component of being won over in spite of herself as he becomes sharper, wittier and a partner in their survival and co-raising of Shandri, aaaand of course there’s the other component of Shlee being her only concrete way to get back to Rhanda in any significant way.

She does want to help Shlee become his own person, like Edwood helped her once; her behavior is not manipulative on purpose, but her subconscious also sees this opportunity to take back control over the narrative by overpowering Rhanda’s influence over Shlee’s life and becoming his new reference point, his new everything, in no small part for the spiteful pleasure of ripping the last shreds of stability her Dad still has after being forced to survive her whims for so long. She really wants to sweep Shlee away and save him from Rhanda, preserve him from the unbearable fate of rotting by her side, but Anetha also wants to know that for once in her life, she won’t be the one to mend the pieces of what once was.

.

So OKAY now we’re here (sorry this has basically turned into a short story length-wise, I think this is a result of concentrated blorbo frustration of not being able to talk about them with that level of details accumulating over 7 years; expect the same kind of outbursts once I am allowed to talk about Nagatha, or Jurlan, or even Rhanda in greater details 😭).

Chapter 8. The Citadel Border Control has her brother pinned down as everything he technically is: someone that will inherently destroy her life through the simple fact that he exists. At this point, Anetha’s brain is overridden with the refusal to be shoved back into Rhanda’s crimes kicking and screaming. She’s livid. She feels trapped and overwhelmed, and she’s been training her emotions to initiate shut down upon meeting a critical point of fear, powerlessness and general absence of safety. Empathy is the first thing to go when it comes to protecting herself. Maybe, if Shlee didn’t take the snap decision of running away, she might have calmed down and figured things out with him in a detention cell somewhere, but both of them are basically as emotionally triggered as it gets, and so Anetha shuts down while Shlee panics and makes a drastic decision to not trust her and save himself.

And Anetha does not take kindly to being abandoned and left to puddle in Shlee and Rhanda’s mess Yet Again.

There’s other reasons why she doesn’t reply to his texts to begin with –having to deal with Citadel Border Patrol to begin with, and then more that will be explored in Override. But in essence, once she’s let out, Anetha is pretty much… free. Free to figure herself out without the pressure of her insane family getting in the way (oh no does that sound like someone else we know having a similar character arc somewhere else surely not, a foil in my fanfiction it's more likely than you think etc).

Of course, there’s that pesky guilt and her complete refusal to handle grief in any way, and that feeling does linger, and so her willingness to handle the situation upfront is very much hindered by this (beyond the practical reasons why she might not be able to help). The whole “hey”/”hey” fiasco really does nothing for either for them (I think it was the best she could do and the most she was willing to leave herself open, and Shlee shutting that down meant every single one of her walls was back up and reinforced). The passive-aggressive nature of their conversations through bank expenses made mostly off her own paycheck is also a very bad way to communicate, and most of what Anetha sees for a year are receipts for ridiculously expensive cocktails and cheap bomb shots from Afterlife. Doesn’t really help our frog’s case as far as she’s concerned (even though she does realize it’s probably a bad sign and probably her fault that a shy nerd like him would be taking that hard of a plunge towards alcoholism, regardless of the reasons why –but she’s also pretty much there herself sooo not the best at recognizing the pattern).

Also she’s having mercenary times and they are Bad Times. Doesn’t help with the whole numbness/detachment problem either.

Speaking of Eclipse: the whole mercenary thing comes from that urge of trying to reconcile her desire to be independent and freed of responsibilities with that yearning for safety in a world where she’s always yeeted out of what is normal and safe without her consent anyway, starting with the fact that she’s pureblood and inherently looked as wrong –and just the general romanticizing of herself as a stone-cold badass as a way to one-up Rhanda on her own field, aaaand maybe a little bit a way to feel closer to her/make her react, because to be frank a lot of Anetha’s bullshit is about wanting Rhanda to react to said bullshit and act like a responsible parent, and be there, and not abandon her/de-prioritize her constantly, and be a source of stability rather than an endless distress generator.

(the seed being planted by the mercenaries hired by Nagatha at one of the most stressful points of her life is actually a rather late addition, but I think it works!)

But yeah, Anetha has SO MANY similarities with Rhanda it’s both hilarious and pretty tragic, but I’m really discovering how badly that's the case while working on The Empire of Preys, and… yeah. Generational Trauma. It’s a thing.

To conclude my ridiculously long answer to your ask: I’m sorry I spewed an entire essay about Anetha’s brain, but also I’m so happy you gave me an opportunity to pry her open for everybody to see the gunk there. Honestly a good half of the joy of getting other eyes than mine on Halfway Home is to watch them grapple with their emotions towards Anetha, as she can make herself so easy to love, and then immediately sooo hard to love. But I do love her (but I’m biased since I love literally every character except maybe… like one and a half? fuck içalec all my homies hate içalec), and so I’m really happy you were kind enough to encourage me to deepdive into her edgy brain!!!

#asks #anetha d'nasan t'selvi #anetha #shlee #halfway home #the empire of preys #override #halfway there #fanfiction #asari oc #rhanda #nagatha #this is a WHOLE ESSAY I'm SO SORRY #I just!! love #thank you so very much for the ask #anyone who wants to tempt the beast (my brain at night) may send me another ask #but now you know what you may be in for

[cruelsister-moved2]

Im the hater anon omg i didnt mean to lead u astray but i haven't finished it i'm just over half done. i probably will finish just so i can coherently say why i don't like it bc rn my thoughts are all over the place but  u hit all the major points im like nodding and taking notes rn.  Its very shallow lore wise like its all overly complex exposition that barely effects the plot. I could write about this for 100 years but basically it was boring and i just feel like it has nothing to say like theres no purpose or message and i think speculative stuff should have SOME weight behind it idk.  That paired w how the writing itself is like..not pretty or artful or anything………………….

And on top of that its not even actually funny. Instead of real jokes its just 100 million mcu quips awkwardly inserted so that no situation is ever treated genuinely or seriously or with depth. For example. My personal least favorite part beyond general quality so far is how often they bring up gideon being inappropriately horny… idk how else to word it.. Its one of her 3 personality traits. they mention her porn collection i swear every couple of pages. its played 4 jokes but like the rest of it its literally unfunny and feels so out of place. Like this is right when they just discovered an incinerated body → ”she looked troubled, which made Gideon sad, but she was also soaked right through to the skin, which made Gideon need a lie-down.” Its like if someone whose only point of reference was tiktok during that era where every vaguely masc woman got made fun of for being a quote hey mamas lesbian unquote tried to write a masc woman.  Reading it as a masc lesbian myself is just sort of embarrassing idk if other ppl feel differently but it just feels overplayed and goofy. 

Anyways… this is all very long and incoherent but thank u for complaining and vindicating me… i started reading it a couple days ago on a whim bc ive been seeing ppl talk abt it a lot lately and i was instantly SOOOOO disappointed. Part of it was definitely that i was expecting something very different because of how people talk about it but also its just like bad. Its insane. I also had no idea abt the roachpatrol thing so ummmmmm :(

hiiiiiiiiii omg so your suffering isn't even over yet my condolences.

the worldbuilding exposition industrial complex needs to end im so serious. I just had such a nice conversation with some writer friends about soft vs hard magic systems and world-building and how frustratingly common the assumption that more complex lore you dump the more sophisticated your story is at the moment. in reality many more sophisticated stories deliberately utilise abstraction and whimsy for thematic statements. v happy for brandon sanderson fans but again, a lot of those stories are basically like mystery novels except the magic is the mystery, whereas the speculative fiction authors who... actually speculate...are often using it as a tool to speculate about our own existence.

and the writing is so ugly like I've read a couple of chapters and I feel like i could get through a mid story if it's at least well written but it wasn't even inoffensive it was actively offputting like that prose was stinkyyyyyyyyy..... and the quips exactlyyy like who is laughing at none pizza with left beef anymore and the fact a lot of it isn't even the author being witty but just like. a reference to a meme? it's literally supposed to be like gritty but then everyone is memeing and quipping all the time how are you meant to take that seriously?

and okay the like sexualisation of Gideon had kind of been my suspicion but I hadn't read enough to make that claim for certain so. that's disappointing to have it confirmed. given that the author is a fem woman who calls herself a lesbian whilst being homestuck married to a guy, it really brings up some kind of discomfort in me to be using masc women that way and making a joke out of them and their sexuality and calling them himbos and shit like. it really doesn't seem like she actually knows any masc women??? and when that was a huge part of the marketing for the book it comes to feel exploitative.

one thing to be aware is that tor like. pushed it really hard marketing-wise for whatever reason. I guess they feel it symbolises a new era of sci-fi and like were using it as an outreach effort to engage the generation that mostly only reads fan fiction or whatever which I guess cheers if it achieves that. but the majority of negative reviews are specifically that it was nothing like what they expected it to be, because of the.... super gimmicky marketing.

the tagline being sword necromancer lesbians in space or something so lame 😭 and it really seems like the elements came first and the justification came second so it's never really explained why they use swords instead of more technologically advanced weapons (bc the answer is 'it sounds cool') or really why it needs to be in space at all (because the answer is 'it sounds cool'). even the necromancy is supposedly fairly tangential and ive seen people be underwhelmed how much actual lesbianism is involved too 💀

9mbut yeah the r0ach patr0l thing I wish people were more aware of because honestly above anything else, I've seen people who were fans and then found this out and felt super uncomfortable so I think people deserve to know what kind of background she has, and this is literally where she developed her writing and her name as a BNF so it's directly connected to her current career not just like a celebrity who tweeted something dumb when they were 14. like I think it's fair to take that into account + idk it's INTERESTING to me that she went from that to debuting with a masc lesbian whom she projects like comic hypersexuality onto it really is all much to think about truly

#ask #anon #I remember there was a bit that said smth like 'there was a sort of clanging sound' or something #and I just was like........................... has this not had any line editing stall #*at all #what do you mean SORT OF. #+ I feel like the author is that gross and is projecting it on butch women which like. category 5 fem woman moment #the homestuck het marriage is just so lame sorry im going to make fun of that #esp bc she used to also write the redacted redacted fanfic with that guy

[farlynthordens]

criticism of the writing of bisco & pawoo’s relationship and ways it could have been improved. CONTAINS MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS UP TO VOL 7

this is not “boo straight people 🤢” or anything like that because i legitimately believe it COULD be good, but it’s done so bad in canon that it makes it difficult to enjoy their relationship. especially the writing of pawoo’s character in particular

Pawoo’s age is never revealed

we never learn how old pawoo is and this irked me from the very beginning. all we know is that she’s older than milo. I got weirded out by pawoo coming on to bisco in volume 1 because.... my guy was only 17. if pawoo was older than like 20 (which I personally believe she was) it would make things really weird/creepy and I’d rather their relationship just have never happened in this case (or not happen til much later). BUT assuming the age gap isn’t weird...

Pawoo & Bisco’s marriage happens against his will

Bisco is blindfolded and led into a room under the assumption that something different is happening. he doesn’t know he’s getting married until the vows are already said. also, the wedding happened at pawoo’s request because it was essentially her “final wish” before she planned to die in battle.

it’s a SUPER contrived way to put them together, especially because bisco barely even likes pawoo as a person yet. it only works out because bisco starts liking her a couple years later.

the marriage was half for comedic effect and half a bizarre plot to trick apollo.... but then they just decided to keep being married? tho honestly, this scene could have added a lot more comedy for later on if at the end of vol 3 when pawoo doesn’t die, she doubled back on her request like “oh... well. haha, sorry for making you do all that for me, let’s get divorced/pretend that never happened.” i think that would VASTLY improve the situation and be way funnier. ESPECIALLY when bisco starts liking her romantically, there could have been some jokes about re-falling for your ex or something. this would also have solved the issues stemming from...

Bisco stays married to her out of an arbitrary sense of duty

there’s nothing wrong with loving your wife. the problem is bisco DOESN’T love his wife for first like 2 or 3 years they’re together. he never considers leaving her, because the logic presented is that he’s now her legal husband, so he has a moral obligation to be nice and protect her forever because that’s his duty whether he signed up for it or not. this isn’t completely out of line with bisco’s character, but the author keeps bringing this up over and over unnecessarily and, once again, it feels very contrived. it’s like bisco is forcing himself to like her.

despite his supposed moral obligations, bisco and pawoo barely interact for the majority of vol 4 thru 6 (over a year!!!). the one time pawoo tags along on a trip (beginning of vol 4), bisco treats her like a nuisance for most of it. in vol 7 we learn that bisco has purposely tried to keep her at a distance in order to not interfere with her life/put her in needless danger, but that just feels like another reason they shouldn’t have been together yet?

Them being married adds nothing story-wise for multiple volumes

considering that pawoo is irrelevant to the plot of 4+5 and is brainwashed for all of 6, them being married adds nothing to the story there. had they NOT been married, it would’ve made the ending of 6 much more impactful when pawoo says she loves him and bisco admits he likes her too - they could’ve had a true reconciliation of their relationship and try to start rebuilding up to what they had accidentally forced themselves into in vol 3, rather than it feeling like “oh fucking finally, they like each other so now their marriage isn’t weird.”

i don’t think that removing the marriage would completely remove their ability to care about each other. if nothing else, pawoo is milo’s precious older sister and bisco is milo’s beloved partner. pawoo keeps imihama safe and bisco is trying to save the country from rust. plus they’ve fought together and helped each other out a lot in the past. they still have many reasons to want to jump in when the other is in danger.

Pawoo’s “character development”

put in quotes because she doesn’t get a lot beyond what we see of her in volume 1. pawoo is talked about A LOT in vol 7, but almost solely thru the perspective of what bisco is thinking about her - how he’s assumed what’s good for her life, etc - we’re not actually seeing pawoo herself.

her whole thing is that she’s ridiculously strong and hardheaded, but then she falls for bisco. in addition to the (potential) age gap problem, pawoo is also a bit... creepy? in how she approaches him sometimes. like she kisses him against his will (a problem with multiple other female characters as well), when bisco is turned into a literal child (vol 5) she comments that she’ll love him regardless of age.......??

the only development pawoo gets is THROUGH her relationship with him - discussed in some more detail in a previous post here. TLDR, we learn that pawoo does have a soft/caring side and she wants to become a good wife. there’s very little to learn about her outside of that. there are villains and minor characters who have far more depth or canonically noted personality traits than she does.

I honestly would love if more time was spent on pawoo as an individual. we get less backstory for the nekoyanagis than pretty much anyone else, but at least milo has a lot of personality and a huge character arc over the entire series. i really want to know about her and milo’s childhood especially - what was it like for her to lose her parents at a young age and have to take care of an infant brother? is that why she was so overprotective of him, because she knows what the loss of immediate family feels like? how/why did she come to be the leader of the imihama watch? did she have to make sacrifices to send milo to school and give him a better life than what she could afford for herself? what sort of things does she like to do? it’s hinted that she likes fashion and makeup, so is that something she’d pursue more if she had the time? how does she feel now that she’s separated from milo most of the time? does she trust in him a lot more than she used to?

pawoo COULD have so much to her if questions like the above were ever addressed, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i don’t even really mind that pawoo was absent from the main adventures in vols 2/4/5 since i’m not sure what she could’ve added. but it would’ve been cool to see more of her doing her own thing, especially if we saw more of her fighting, or moments building out her relationships with tirol and jabi, since they’re together in imihama a lot but we barely see their interactions. it’s not like the series is alien to the concept of throwing in chapters that interrupt the main plot progression.

HOW TO FIX THIS

I listed some of my ideas above, but to summarize things:

Vol 1: bisco/milo are made older, or pawoo is given an age that wouldn’t make things creepy

Pawoo doesn’t forcefully kiss bisco in front of milo’s damn face when she already knows he likes him. but there’s some signs that she’s into bisco too

More hints are given when she’s present in vol 2-beginning of 3

Vol 2: probably a good place to put the nekoyanagis backstory? since in this vol pawoo is still pretty protective of milo, so that could lead to a conversation where bisco asks him why she’s like that and then we get ~sad lore dump~. it would also help bisco come to respect/understand her more as a person.

Vol 3: bisco and pawoo get married to fulfill pawoo’s final wish. after the battle, when everyone is alive and well, she decides to annul the marriage and pretend it didn’t happen. she was supposed to take this fantasy to her grave, but now it’s a huge awkward point she has to remember every time she looks at her crush

Post-divorce, there’s plenty of jokes from milo or others about “getting back with your ex” etc anytime bisco and pawoo have a civil moment or one of them talks positively about the other.

Vol 4-5: character building moments where we see what pawoo and tirol are up to in imihama

Vol 5: remove the “i’ll love you regardless of age” comment please that’s literally it

Vol 6: the whole thing with pawoo being brainwashed, but still being able to break through the brainwashing due to her love for bisco, could stay exactly the same and still work. it would show how her feelings for him never went away and have really only intensified. when bisco saves her and they admit they like/love each other, they’re able to reevaluate their relationship. maybe they can try being a couple for real...?

Vol 7: we get to learn pawoo’s feelings of isolation FROM HER DIRECTLY and not through bisco’s interpretation of her thoughts. i want her to show that she is craving adventure and desperate to leave imihama.

it might even be good if at the beginning, pawoo and bisco have an argument that mirrors youkan/geppei where she gets angry at him for assuming what she wants.

End of vol 7: the trio runs away to live their best lives. both pawoo AND milo get married (unofficially because they all pissed off the government) to bisco? 😳😳

#sabikui bisco #sbkb summary series #<- for good measure ig since i keep putting all my meta there anyway

[nibwhipdragon]

bruh suzi is such a massive victim of yaoi it's not even funny. like the whole "oooo joseph fell for her because she reminds him of caesar" and later "oooo joseph cheated with tomoko because she shared caesar's feisty personality" wtf

like bruh caejose isn't even canon. it's a playful casual flirt at most. and joseph never even brings up caesar after he dies except for the headband thing which feels more like "honor a fallen comrade" more than anything romantic and yet the fandom likes to treat old joseph like he still can't move on from caesar after 50 years. bro he probably doesn't even remember who he is at that point

tbh the whole "joseph cheats on his wife" felt so out of character. probably just a cheap excuse for josuke to exist. don't get me wrong i love josuke but couldn't he be like, a distant cousin or something?

ANON YOU ARE SO RIGHT HERE

I'll never forget like. Last year or so. Went through Suzi's tag on here and found a post made by someone who got mad at her for "getting in the way" of caejose and. They were calling her a hag and a lot of other stuff I cannot remember. And just. You are being misogynistic at that point. It's not even funny. You are being misogynistic. I could probably find the post if I wanted to but I'm not starting stuff. It was so bad. Suzi has done absolutely nothing wrong she is just a silly little gal and she barely gets screentime as is WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP IT STOP IT NOW PLEASE THINK BEFORE YOU SAY THESE THINGS GOD

And yeah the whole cheating thing bc of Joseph's feelings for Caesar? It. Makes no sense. Maybe thats because I'm aroace but personally I wouldn't cheat on someone bc their personality reminded me of a dead lover bc it's not them that makes no sense wtf. And Joseph loves Suzi and this is shown very much which just. Refutes the whole "he married her bc she looked like Caesar" thing people think. Joseph keeping Suzi in the dark in part 3 about what he was doing (claimed he was on a business trip) and that Holly was only ill, not on Death's door bc of her stand was from a place of love, wanting to protect her from the fact that not only was he putting his life in danger again but also that their daughter would die if he failed. Suzi herself comes to the conclusion that he's lying about all that and literally says that if he's lying about it then it's for a good reason because he loves her and wants to protect her. And the Tomoko personality thing is just. Their personalities are completely different I cannot see a similarity between the two other than the fact that they have anger issues. It really does feel like people are grasping at straws here. Massive stretches. I feel like if I sat down and looked back down on part 2 3 and 4 in detail I'd be able to refute all those takes in more detail than here. And cite sources specifically. Because they are that big of a stretch.

Though tbh with you bringing up the fact Caesar isn't mentioned past part 2? I understand that yeah but. This has made me think and part 2 is so neglected overall in being mentioned in part 3 onwards? Smokey was a close friend of Joseph and isn't even mentioned, the only part 2 characters mentioned are Erina and Speedwagon, and even then they are mentioned like once. And you'd think they'd be mentioned more because it's literally Erina and Speedwagon and they knew Jonathan personally and had to deal with Dio in part 1, it would make sense for them to be brought up by Joseph more than once, no? Nothing with Joseph talking about the suffering Dio brought to them both? Huh??? Especially since part 1 and 2 were so intertwined story-wise (Part 1 cast present, talks about part 1 frequently, was affected by part 1 and can see through character actions, Caesar brings up Will's death, you find out who made the stone masks that caused part 1, etc.) and DIO is LITERALLY the main antag for part 3 so it makes sense to have this same sort of consistency but with part 2 and some of part 1 (Joseph did not live through part 1 so knows less) instead. Especially since jjba was planned to finish at part 3. Why would Araki make part 3 so disconnected from 2 like that. Why.

AND YEAH THE CHEATING IS SO OOC. Joseph has flaws. Araki sees him as more of a conman than a hero. However he has lines he will not cross. He cares for his family and loved ones a lot. Therefore it is more logical that he would not cheat. It makes no sense. You're right Araki coulda found another way to bring about the 4th Joestar (could've been Jolyne/a Jolyne equivalent. Jotaro was right there.) but he had to jump straight to cheating. And now so many people think Joseph is genuinely a cheater when that's so ooc for him to do. Poor guy is done so dirty by the official writing he may as well be a Sonic character at this point

#i get anons all the time for the most randomest of things (<3) but i can tell this one is probably on anon to protect yourself #because oooooh boy. shippers can get a little feral/neg when it comes to stuff like this (used to be friends with a mha fan. i know.) #however. i can and will take any possible hits that come this way for this take 🫡 I'd rather die standing and spitting the truth #than live kneeling #it's so hard being a caejose and a joseph fan you have no idea. #answered asks #anonymous asks #long post #araki please give jjba to me i will treat it right.

[acourtofthought]

Hi! :3 I'm new to the acotar fandom, and I'm addicted to your blog!

I just want to talk a little about theories for the next book (I'm sorry if that came up a lot and was discussed already). I just watched an interview where they asked SJM "Will Azriel get his own book in the future?" and she answered "I can't confirm anything officially right now, but once you get to the end of ACOSF, I think you'll know who the next book is about." - to me, her answer in this context is def a subtle confirmation that his book is next (Also the bonus chapter was in his POV). But if I think about acosf the person who has been the most set up to me is not even Az, but Gwyn :D and Eris tbh! So I think the next book will def feature some Autumn court drama. I also feel like the Valkyre storyline is not over yet, and there is a possibility of a civil war in Illyria.

But I also liked your theories about how Elucien could be the next book, and I agree that it would be a breath of fresh air tbh. Nesta's book was heavy dealing with mental health issues and healing, and I feel like Az's journey will be similar and a little dark. But at the same time, since Elain is the last Archeron sister, it would also make sense to me to end the spinoff series (for now) with her book.

I also read that cc3 will set up acotar5 plot-wise, and I have mixed feelings. I did not read cc yet (I read a lot of spoilers though, I don't mind them) and I wasn't planning to, but I probably will because acotar5 is still 5000 lightyears away and I'm losing my mind *sigh* but I'm a bit intimidated about this crossover. What gives me hope that SJM said that she wants to make sure that the books are understandable on their own even if you don't read the other series, so maybe it will be the same like the bonus chapters - relevant but at the same time, not that much.

Anyways, sorry if this was long and made little sense (English is not my first language and I tend to overcomplicate my sentences haha), I'd just like to hear your thoughts. :3

Have a nice day!

Your message was very understandable!!

English is my first language and I still overcomplicate my sentences 😂 If that was the only interview SJM had ever done than I think I'd be under the impression that Az was going to be the next book. She sounded excited to tell his story, she drew a lot of attention to his Bonus Chapter and she did comment on thinking it was obvious who the next story was about. But SJM has given other interviews and that adds a few layers to the whole mystery. Around the time SJM first signed on for the spin-offs, she spoke about how she was surprised to find the sisters would have journey's of their own. She spoke of how the second Nesta and Cassian sat down at the table together she knew they were it for one another. She spoke about how Elain had her HEA ripped away, how Lucien had always been one of her favorites and she spoke on how originally Nesta and Lucien were going to be mates until she realized they would be terrible together and that Elain was the one who surprised both she and Lucien. She mentioned that she knew who the first two spin-offs would be about but was holding off on the third as she was deciding between a few different pairings. She also said she had already done research for Elain's book and wrote about it in special edition of ACOFAS. So if those had been the only interviews we ever got, I think it would be safe to assume Nesta and Elain were the ones getting the first two books as she barely spoke of Az, she had mentioned the sisters had journeys of their own, and we knew there was the big mystery of whether Elain would accept her mating bond. After that, SJM got very tight lipped at Bloomsbury's request. So now, would she really be going against Bloomsbury to declare "I thought it was obvious" while answering a question about Az when she's said she's not allowed to spoil it? Could she simply be throwing us off by acting like it's Az's book when in reality it will be Elain's? Or could she be telling us the truth without saying the actual words? As far as CC3 setting up ACOTAR plotwise, from the interview I watched where she said that, I believe she only meant that with the arrival of Bryce in Prythian, it will now cause the characters of ACOTAR to wonder who else can enter their world. So I think it's less about the CC gang and what happens in CC3 and more to do with who else we're going to see enter into Prythian in later ACOTAR books. My theory on that is that some of the Asteri (Valg?) will find their way back to the world they originally came from and that will result in a major battle between the Fae / humans (that support the fae/human alliance) and the Asteri / Human Queens / Fae that are trying to take over more of the human lands / humans that are against the fae / human alliance. That's just my take on it though! She might have meant something totally different. 😁 Thank you for your message!

[bitch-butter]

I'm sorry to ask again so soon after you've filled the last request (which i loved <3), but 3 and 26 if you wanted to?

thank you for the prompt, and for your patience! I had some traveling last week, so i was a little distracted, but this ended up being much more thoughtful than I initially anticipated and very peaceful to write. more importantly it takes place in an au that @airsignss and i have been speculating over for a while, and it was tasty to explore it for real.

be well, thank you ~

"Let me do this" + "I almost lost you"

Every day I tried to be very patient with people. Easy, as much I can let myself be. Rarely did people give me that same courtesy back, and over time it opened up something in me that I didn't wholly know how to process or move through. I had anger, alive as anything, in my heart. I didn’t want to be nice to anyone, I was tired of thanking people, I was tired of being forced to apologize. All I wanted to be was wretched, alone, peeling myself slowly open until all the bad, gnarled parts of me were hanging out of my body. I didn’t want anything, or anyone. I didn’t want to fall in love. 

Of course - inevitably - I did fall in love. 

*    *    *

He honestly doesn’t mean to see it. 

On the best of days Joe kind of does need to be led towards David’s writing, so the fact that the manuscript had been left on the desk in the office was of very little interest to him. It isn’t that he dislikes it, not at all, it’s more that just by reading it he sometimes feels inadequate by comparison. David grew up with more books than friends, he knows words better than anyone Joe knows, even if the poor bastard can barely string a sentence together in person. 

He’s good with his hands, a trait he and Joe share. Joe fixes things, menial things though they are, works with them like a tool, like an extension of something greater than himself. David writes, not just with one hand but with both hands, and uses them to say what so often his voice can’t articulate. 

Joe admires him. It’s why reading his work can make Joe feel bad sometimes, like he somehow isn’t smart enough or wise enough to understand David’s words the way they deserve to be. It makes him go sharp, irritated, and he always feels bad about it and yet can’t ever smother the impulse as it flares up. 

Maybe he lets his eyes linger on it because he misses him really, really fucking bad right now and no amount of surly looking selfies taken in different airports is doing the trick. David hadn’t wanted to go on the tour at all, not after the way the hosts of the local morning show had basically humiliated him live on the air about some of the shit he put in the most recent book. Joe had read it by then, he knew there were stories in there that inflammatory didn’t begin to cover, but at the end of the day they all get to read about it in a book because David actually had to live it. 

If it makes people keep a closer eye on their teenagers then that will be David’s legacy for being the kind of asshole mothers had nightmares about. Joe has met David’s mother, he knows her face doesn’t just look like that. 

But after the spectacle on the morning show, where the hosts basically called him everything but a child of God, Joe hadn’t wanted him to go any more than David himself had wanted to. Joe would rather have him at home, swaddled if he could manage it, not being made to think about his fucking nightmare of an adolescence for ten minutes. Sometimes he thinks he has more of an issue with David’s past than he does, but that isn’t that surprising given the nature of things. 

Still, he had gone on the tour at the behest of his publisher and Joe is having a hard time being anything but glum about it. They talk every night, text almost all day, but still he finds that being alone doesn’t have quite the appeal that it used to. 

Adding to this the fact that he’s trying desperately to do his taxes and the CRP is decidedly not where David said he’d left it. Namely, in a folder labeled: Ass.

They live in a classy household. 

But David is either with The Public, such as it is, or on a plane, and is not answering his texts about any of this. So Joe feels it’s his motherfucking right to go in David’s office and look through all of his shit, especially when he’s basically asking for it by converting the second bedroom into a home office in the first place. 

It’s a small room, really, not much space left to lose in the scheme of their apartment which was big enough to comfortably house not only them but Babe and Gene just last week after Gene infested their apartment with bedbugs from a mattress he bought through dubious means. They bunked in the office and didn’t seem too uncomfortable with it, even if it is small and catches the most light of anywhere else in the place. He thinks that’s why David likes it here so much, the way the sun ran in through the tall window and laid itself down over the warm oatmeal color of the wall, making everything go bright, cheery, and slowly dimmed down into a thoughtful suggestion of a color. Even just looking at it in the dying evening light he can project new colors onto it, new ideas, and imagines thoughts might come easier in a place like this. 

Even so, he ignores the manuscript on the first go around, choosing instead to rifle through his drawers (junk) and his green file cabinet (copies of what seems like everything he’s ever written). But he doesn’t find the goddamn thing, and gives up in disgust with only a wayward glance towards the stack of pages set in his wire “???” folder. The paper is thin, almost translucent, and the blank cover page is so perfectly out of alignment that in just that one glance he can see his own name punched out in small, perfect Calibri. 

Which is enough to give him pause, looking down at it with a furrowed brow, the imprint of the window blinds cutting over his face as the sun sinks towards the horizon. 

David writes about everything, but it’s only in the last few years that his work has been anything like personal. Even if the articles that first put him on the map had definite personality he had been writing academic papers for too long, letting himself stay removed, and he only wrote the essay for New York Magazine on a lark. If Joe remembers correctly he didn’t even pick the title. Joe hadn’t known he had written it at all until his boyfriend was suddenly trending on Twitter for writing an essay about being a former yacht boy, all but naming a plethora of millionaires he had “been the guest of” in the time he was in college and directly after.  

But things had changed after that. He got real recognition, real attention, and after being persuaded to write the book he faced real consequences as well. 

Joe is proud of him. Proud, but wishes he’d give himself a break from looking backward once in a while. 

All of this he knows, and so he also knows that David doesn’t write about him ever. Not that he really gives a shit, because the only time his name got dropped at all in the deep, dark, often funny, pit of the book was on the front page, absent of rhetoric, rhymes, or adjectives. 

Thank you, Joe. 

It had been all he needed, honestly and truly. 

And yet, there’s his name. Black and white. 

He moves past it warily, like suddenly the thin stack of pages has come alive, opened an eye wide over his face and begun to stare at him like a predator about to strike. The door shut behind him quietly, and he moved away from it caught up in oddly racing thoughts, unable to determine if the feeling was dread, delight, or some unholy mix of the two. 

Beyond the apartment was quiet, the television still on in the living room where he had left his laptop, his tax materials spread out in front of the couch. None of it holds any interest now, not with the droning siren of his own name echoing from beneath the door of the office.

Huffing out a dejected sort of sigh, he hastily packs up all his materials over again, resolving to finish when David is next around to point him in the direction of the shit he actually needs. But this doesn’t occupy his hands for very long, and he finds himself standing in the center of the room between the coffee table and the TV with his hands on his hips, feeling bereft and distinctly Soap Opera-esque. 

“Shit…” he muttered under his breath, turning in a circle with no direction until he faced back down the hall again, the office on one side, the bedroom on the other, bathroom at the end. Slowly he made his way back down the hallway, eyes on the door to the office even as he turned into the bedroom, eyes trailing over the clumsily made bed and its sheets speckled with tiny little dots like pages in a comic book. He had picked them out when they first moved in, thought they would look nice with the light gray, almost purple, tone of the comforter David had picked, even if he had gotten innumerable comments about how childish they looked. 

What grown men have polka dot sheets? David had scoffed.

But he’d taken to them, and in time he suspects they might even be David’s favorites. Joe keeps them on the bed up until the day before he’s due back home just to hold onto the imprint of him over them, his scent, the way his body created depth, lines in the crisp perfection of their hold. He doesn’t know why he bothers to make the bed when he’s all alone, but at the end of the day getting in between the twin press of their sheets reminds him of being held, of the weight of being loved. 

He stands and looks down on the bed, arms crossed and tongue pressing against the wall of his cheek, feeling old scars on the inside of his mouth from braces past whose influence has long since left the slowly rearranging set of his lower teeth. For a moment he considers texting again, but knows a response isn’t likely in the late afternoon, as David is likely occupied talking (as per usual) or flying.  

Fuck, he misses him. Disgusting.

Absently, he spun in a slow circle to look back out the door of the bedroom and towards the office.

What would be the harm in looking? It has his name on it, after all. Technically that gives him the right to look at it, whether David ever intends to show it to him or not. 

For a moment he lets himself feel a little guilty for both considering the gentle breach of privacy and a little flare of self-shame at his own narcissism. On a good day David has to ask him nicely to read his shit but here Joe is practically foaming at the mouth to read it when he knows his name is inside of it somewhere, it’s ridiculous. 

And yet…

“Fuck it,” he muttered, striding back out of the room and pushing through the door to the office that he had only barely closed behind him a scant few minutes ago. 

The room is unchanged, and the stack of pages is still undisturbed in its place atop the desk, practically waving at him like the white flag of surrender as he moved towards its pull with open, ready hands. Almost perfunctorily, he perched on the edge of David’s chair, sliding it forward so he could hunch over the wire bin as he pulled it in under the canopy of his body and flipped the cover page over to reveal the tightly spaced maze of text.

Breathing in a slow breath, feeling oddly apprehensive, he shook his head at himself in annoyance even as he began to read.

I fell in love with Joe right away, faster than I thought I could love someone. Like the speed of light, one day I was someone else, unhappy, seeming perpetually on the verge of leaving but never managing it, and then in the next moment everything had changed. 

We weren’t supposed to be together. Really, the only use I had for him was to be the key to my finally unlocking myself from my ex-boyfriend once and for all, and in that way he served his purpose tremendously. 

It made him smile wryly, the memory of the first time they looked at each other and saw something like possibility. Web was with That Asshole who cheated on him constantly, and Joe was still in the latter stages of his commitment-phobic era, and they were never meant to be anything more than means to an end to one another.

But he’d tasted something he liked in their first kiss, smuggled away together like two secrets coming apart, something he easily allowed himself to get addicted to. A month after their first kiss they kissed again, again, and on to Cleveland for that glorious, spontaneous trip where they fucked for the first time. That too had been something he got addicted to.

That was meant to be the last of it, that hot, harried embrace in the kitchen that my boyfriend walked in on, and I was going to move on to better things. What those things were I didn’t know at the time, the tenderest part of my ego like a spot of light in my vision blurring the path forward, but I knew to put one foot in front of the other. 

He was in front of me that whole time, as real as the warmth of the sun. Felt, if not seen. 

I don’t think he would mind it if I said he did not fall in love with me as fast as I fell in love with him. Understandably so, as I wasn’t myself around anybody for a long time. At turns I was trying to give him what I thought he wanted me to be while also being easily the worst version of myself I ever was, all filled up with desperation, anger, paralyzing need and loneliness. He didn’t see me, all of me, for a very long time until I couldn’t hold myself in anymore. 

He made me feel ashamed, and I didn’t want to feel ashamed for living, for doing what I had to do or thought that I had to do. I blamed him for my shame, and it made him blame me for his anger. I thought we were something that we weren’t, and by the time he was turning around to tell me that we weren’t anything, weren’t worth anything, I was already running away.

He remembers it. It floods back into his body like a building collapsing, all fire and heat straight to the center of him, the softest parts of him. 

David had loved him fast, needed him even faster, and Joe hadn’t been ready to give him what he wanted. Or he had thought he wasn’t ready.

In any case, they had destroyed each other gorgeously, split apart like atoms and exploded through the meager life they had been building like children at play. It had been the single most devastated he had been in years, the day David left his apartment, and almost the moment the door slammed shut behind him he’d been consumed with the kind of shame he hadn’t experienced since he was a teenager in a police station waiting for his mother. He might not have been in love with him then, or at least wasn’t prepared to acknowledge that he was falling at all, but he pushed with his entire body while David had barely poked him. David may have set the charge, but Joe was the one who pushed the button on their dissolution. 

I almost lost you then, he thinks, and feels the muscles of his hands twitch like he could hold onto the present tighter.

They hadn’t spoken for a week and a half, and even if nobody outright said it he knew the whole time that David was probably staying on Babe and Gene’s couch. It put the burgeoning hostility between he and Gene into sharp context, the fact that David’s presence probably put a massive dent in their regularly scheduled trips to Fuck City. He acted like he didn’t care very poorly for about a week before turning up on their doorstep smelling like pure defeat (cigarettes and booze), only for Gene to stare him down looking similarly dead inside until he was able to talk his way into the living room, David like a sickly Victorian maiden on the pullout couch, pale and despondent. 

For a long time they didn’t speak.

When he finally did, halting and low, the memory of the words made him cringe.

I don’t want you to leave. But don’t make me lie to you.

You don’t love me, David had said, a sorrowful understanding.

No, he had lied. Not yet.

It’s a miracle David had given him even the ghost of a chance again. It’s a miracle that he was ever given an opportunity to see David at his worst, get a glimpse of the wounds he had that might never, ever heal.

It was maybe the first time I saw all of him, too. It would be a lie to say I liked everything that I saw, in that first, fleeting glance I got of him. But I let him lead me back, I let him undress me down, down, down until it was like he was kissing my bones, kissing places inside of me that made me want to disappear. The first time he looked at me, as horrible and insufferable and manic as I was, and said: “Let me do this” I was already gone. Gone for him, gone to him, gone somewhere outside of myself the way I had longed to be my entire life, completely removed from the tethers of my pain. 

I knew it all then. Maybe that's silly, maybe that tells you something about the kind of life I’ve had, but I don’t care.

I love him. I love him. I’ll always love him, even if he falls out of love with me. There’s nobody else like him, and thank fuck for that. 

He swallowed against it, hands against the page like velvet, like something that had been sent to him through time, a precious artifact. Why David wrote it he couldn’t guess, couldn’t know, and he considers the idea that he was never meant to read these words, that their intent might never have been known to him. David could have written this for himself, to preserve the memory of a feeling, capture a portrait of Them, just as they are, as they were, even while not knowing what they might still become. 

Everything in their past, like teeth closing around him, cuts him down into tiny parts, separate pieces to be swallowed around. It’s bizarre to look back towards the not too distant past and realize the person you were is so far from who you are now, that he mind as well have been a mask pulled over Joe’s face, nothing more than a disguise over the part of himself that had so deeply wanted to love and be loved. How did David ever see past him? Has it been hard to look?

They had once been different people together. It’s stunning and sweet, the ways that they had grown alongside each other like trees, their limbs tangling up and mingling to cast wonderful shadows. 

There are moments in his life where the depth of David’s love for him is almost too much for his consciousness, like staring up at a clear, unbroken sky. Like trying to look at the bottom of the ocean. 

Suddenly, almost nauseatingly powerful, he wants to tell David that he loves him. He can’t write it down, he doesn’t have the capability to lay that part of himself bare, but he can be brave the way he often yearns to be, tries hard to be, and he can say it in words. If David was in front of him now he would wrap his arms around him, pull him into a kiss that would feel like an anthology of their life before now ending, and he would look into his horrible, beautiful face and tell him he loved him more than anything in the fucking world.  

As soon as the thought closes in his mind he hears the sound of keys in the door, and his heart slams back into his body as he surges up to his feet, leaving the room empty in the low light of evening.

#webgott #prompt #this AU brought to you by me and Sarah #sponsored by jim henson #Actually Competent Writer!Web #my achilles heel

[thoughtsonhurtandcomfort]

Fountain of Youth pt. 6b - Gluttony

Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6a | 

Synopsis: Emmeline is discovered and held captive by a pirate captain and her crew who are searching  for a source of eternal youth and health spread through stories. When they find someone who doesn’t die or age they believe they’ve found the secret - and will do anything to Emmeline to get it.

Tag List: @deluxewhump​ump -  @whumpinggrounds - @yet-another-heathen - @its-mysweetlittlesecret-blog  - @killtheprotagonist  - @kixngiggles   - @averyskellybro  - @whumpingmydarlings - @starnight-whump - @thecloudattack - @whumpitywhumpwhump - @i-can-even-burn-salad  - @evilwriter37​  (please let me know if you’d like to be added/removed!)

Author’s Notes: so like turns out I had this and some of part 7 finished months ago? I just kind of lost interest for a while, and might again, but I wanted to at least post what I have! This part is pretty short, just the next day after 6a.

Also, Part 7 is the “Lust” chapter and as such will be n*sfw. There is a warning at the end of this chapter as well, and it will be tagged. It anyone isn’t into that you can skip to the 8th part once it’s up, you won’t have missed anything important. :)

Content Warnings: lady whump, immortal whumpee, female whumper, pirate whumper, sadistic whumper, intimate whumper, captivity, starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, poisoning, illness, dread, seeking comfort from whumper

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The following morning most of the crew is hungover or still asleep. Only Captain Bellamy and a couple others are fit to set sail, but then, she expected as much. She’s strict and unsentimental, but knows that a reliable stock of alcohol and a night off now and then to let loose helps keep them loyal.

Once the ship is back on course, she gets to have some fun of her own.

Mara descends the stairs to the storage room where her captive, too, sleeps off the night before. She’s curled in a corner facing away from the door, a slight and broken form still wearing a fraying makeshift dress with bloodstained rips across the back and sand clinging to her bare feet.

The Captain loudly sets down a ceramic bowl, half-filled with dried fruit. The sleeping woman startles at the sound, mumbling incoherently as she wakes and turns over, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

At the very sight of Mara she curls in on herself. Wise of her, really: Mara was just considering the damage a swift kick to her middle would do with her in this state. But for now the Captain has other plans.

“Those are going bad,” she nudges the bowl with her boot. “That’s all you’re getting.”

The girl stares incredulously at the offering. Mara watches emotions war on her face as she tries to parse out whether this is a trap or a trick, if she’ll be punished for eating or have it taken away before she can even try. 

Her hunger wins out. She reaches for the bowl.

Within minutes it’s made clear that this, like every other false kindness, was only designed to hurt her. The effects are swift and brutal. The prisoner doubles over and groans, clutching her stomach. She starts to shiver, while at the same time growing warm and flushed. When she opens her eyes and looks up at her captor, her gaze is hazy and panicked.

The Captain watches the immortal’s condition rapidly deteriorate. Then the girl begins to pull herself towards Mara, shaking like a leaf. She drops her head into her lap and grasps the Captain’s coat in one hand.

“Please,” she whispers meekly. “I’m scared…”

Captain Mara grins. So it works.

She always heard that a sense of dread was a side effect of this poison but she never expected it to be this effective. It has the pitiful thing clinging to someone she fears, begging to be held, protected from some unseeable danger.

“Oh, love...” Mara runs her fingers through the girl’s hair, eliciting a grateful sigh. Her lips curve into a smile when she thinks of something she hadn’t before. Now there’s an idea…

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WARNING: Part 7 is NSFW. Feel free to skip to Part 8 once it’s up.

Part 7 -->

#lady whump #immortal whump #captivity #pirate whumper #female whumper #sadistic whumper #starvation #dehydration #exhaustion #poisoned #illness #fear #seeking comfort from whumper #whump writing #my writing #my ocs #emmeline #mara bellamy #fountain of youth