#i can’t tell if my kids tag is the funniest thing on the planet or if i just need to go to sleep

[purplesurveys]

1047

What’s the most historic thing that has happened in your lifetime? I can think of a few things. There’s 9/11 though I was barely conscious then, Osama Bin Laden’s death, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, 2011 Japan earthquake, and the H1N1 and Covid pandemics. In my country, there were typhoons Ondoy and Yolanda, the Manila hostage crisis, and the Hello Garci election corruption scandal. Out of these, though, I’d say the heaviest ones to bear have been 9/11 and Covid.

What happens in your country regularly that people in most countries would find strange or bizarre?

We use a spoon and fork to eat and only really fancy shmancy restaurants give you a knife and a fork. Many eat with their hands as well, though this is way more common in provinces.

Everyone is late to everything and punctuality isn’t a thing, which is a big culture pet peeve of mine and I still like arriving early/on time anywhere.

This applies to Asia in general lmao, but shoes typically aren’t allowed or at least frowned upon if they go beyond the main entrance of houses.

We start Christmas as early as September, and we end it by the last week of January

When families get together, aunts/uncles will usually greet their nieces/nephews by asking if they already have a boy/girlfriend and/or telling them that they got fat. Horror relatives will greet you with both.

People generally like to keep to themselves, so striking a friendly conversation with strangers even if you have the pure, genuine intention to be simply friendly will just lead them to think you’re being a creep lol

What has been blown way out of proportion? The effects of video games and the question of it increasing violence among kids. Sure there’ve been gruesome accounts and no one’s invalidating those, but the overwhelmingly vast amount of people who play video games end up okay. I had so many killing binges on GTA but to this day I can’t even look at a real gun without shuddering, lol. When was a time you acted nonchalant but were going crazy inside? This is me every morning at work. 9 AM-11 AM is always the busiest period and it’s a lot of shit happening at the same time and a lot of morning deadlines to meet, but unlike college I can’t exactly call for a timeout whenever I want and have panic attacks anymore.

What’s about to get much better? I hope my fucking life is next in line. I’m tired of being tired of being tired.

What are some clever examples of misdirection you’ve seen? Probably all the times WWE would mislead viewers on a rumored return or debut of a big name by saying they’re in another city, implying that there’s no way they’d be appearing on a WWE show. This happened with Ronda Rousey and it was so fucking exciting when she finally showed up, haha.

What’s your funniest story involving a car? I don’t know, really...I don’t try to be funny when I’m on the wheel lol. Probably the time I let Angela use my car on campus, and when she needed to make a u-turn she ended up doing an awkward 90º turn and had an SUV nearly crash towards us. She had only driven a handful of times at that point so she was a little clumsy, but neither of us had any idea she’d fuck up a simple u-turn as badly as she ended up doing lmao.

What would be the click-bait titles of some popular movies? I can think of more clickbait posters than titles, but I can’t seem to remember what those films are called right now.

If you built a themed hotel, what would the theme be and what would the rooms look like? Themed hotels generally make me cringe. The most theme-y place we ever stayed at was the lodge in Sagada and it was really just more homey than anything. I’m not into themes when it comes to hotels as I find it a little cheap lol and I’ve always preferred a straightforward experience in the places I stay at for vacations.

What scientific discovery would change the course of humanity overnight if it was discovered? A way to live forever. < This is a good one. Also, maybe a huge asteroid or meteor bound to hit the planet that will make widespread extinction a certainty? I can’t even begin to imagine the panic that will rise from something like that.

Do you think that humans will ever be able to live together in harmony? I doubt it. It sounds difficult especially when you realize we’re 7 billion in total.

What would your perfect bar look like? As long as there aren’t any annoying younger college kids, who are almost always the loudest crowd and not in a good way, I’m okay with any kind of bar.

What’s the scariest non-horror movie? Some shots in 2001: A Space Odyssey are freaky as fuck. There were several scenes that included sudden HAL shots, and I did not enjoy those. How the fuck Kubrick managed to make a computer scary is beyond me. I’ve also always skipped the vortex scene with the creepy face shots after seeing it once.

What’s the most amazing true story you’ve heard? This is a really vague question... a few months ago I watched this video diary of parents who had a child born at like 25 weeks. Just way too early, basically. And they recorded the kid’s weekly progress, how she kept fighting, and her journey of being transported from one machine to another while she still needed them. It was beautiful to see her get bigger and plumper with each week that passed and it was just such a feel-good story to watch. I was so relieved when they showed footage of her as a normal, healthy toddler by the end of the clip.

What’s the grossest food that you just can’t get enough of? I know balut is pretty unpopular in the Western part of the world, but I’ll gladly eat a dozen of them in one sitting. In general Asian street food is usually considered gross - pig intestines, chicken intestines, chicken feet, pig ears, etc., but all are normal in the culture I was raised in.

What brand are you most loyal to? It’s annoying and I can’t help it, but Apple.

What’s the most awkward thing that happens to you on a regular basis? I try not to make it regular, but sometimes a mistake on my end will slip through in an email I’m sending and I have to send another email correcting myself and apologizing for the oversight. One of my least favorite parts about work.

If you had to disappear and start a whole new life, what would you want your new life to look like? I’m not wishing for much. I just wish it was easier to remove any trace of me on social media sites and have it be as if I never existed because I think that would make it easier for me to move on from...well, you know what. I still have trouble verbalizing it and I don’t feel like mentioning it tonight.

But idk, I like staying connected to my family and friends, so idk if I can ever achieve that. And that said, I think I’m bound to always keep seeing her around.

What movie or book do you know the most quotes from? I memorize a pathetic amount of dialogue from Love Actually, Twilight, Titanic, and The Proposal.  What was one of the most interesting concerts you’ve been to? I guess Coldplay? They gave assigned lightsticks for each section and the crowd looked amazing when the production crew activated the lights for certain songs. I still have some of the clips because I posted them on Snapchat, so I’m really glad I did that; otherwise I would’ve lost the videos forever.

Where are you not welcome anymore? I’ve felt pretty unwelcome around her. How she could do a 180 and just not be interested in having anything to do with me is really soul-crushing.

What do you think could be done to improve the media? Fact fucking check, please. Also keeping sources balanced, avoiding clickbait headlines, being more objective than neutral, and don’t fucking sensationalize. How timely that this landed on a journalism graduate, hahaha.

What’s the most recent show you’ve binge watched? Start Up but I haven’t continued in the last two weeks :/ I think it’s because I know I’m nearing the finale and I subconsciously just don’t want to run out of Start Up episodes to watch lol but yeah, I still have four episodes left and I have no clue when I’ll watch it again.

What’s a common experience for many people that you’ve never experienced? Being close with their mom and considering them as their rock.

What are some misconceptions about your hobby? I don’t know enough about embroidery to know misconceptions about it.

What did you Google last? 2001: A Space Odyssey because I needed to be sure of the scenes I planned on citing in the question above that made me mention the movie.

What’s the dumbest thing someone has argued with you about? Not being able to find a restaurant to eat at. The backstory is a little complicated but it’s the same fight that led my younger brother to slap me across the face, and what subsequently led me to stop speaking to him.

If money and practicality weren’t a problem, what would be the most interesting way to get around town? Probably a tank.

What’s the longest rabbit hole you’ve been down? It’s always the ones on Wikipedia lol. I find weird and interesting articles on there all the time; there’s always something new to read.

What odd smell do you really enjoy? The rain, though sometimes it can be too overpowering when the humidity has been high. I like it for the most part, though.

What fashion trend makes you cringe or laugh every time you see it? Streetwear is so fucking dull to me. I never saw the appeal.

What’s your best story of you or someone else trying to be sneaky and failing miserably? Hahahaha this happened just a few weeks ago actually. My parents and I were headed out to have some ramen, and I opened the car door to hop onto the backseat. They didn’t prepare beforehand and they left the Christmas gift I asked for - a corkboard - in the backseat, so I was able to see the whole thing, unwrapped and with price tag and all. Their mortified faces knowing that their secret’s been blown were hilarious. They had no choice but to just give it up, and the corkboard has been on my wall since.

If you had a HUD that showed three stats about any person you looked at, what three stats would you want it to show? I guess the stability of our relationship, their general mood for the day, and erm how badly they need a hug because I’m always willing to give some.

What’s the best way you or someone you know has gotten out of a ticket / trouble with the law? My mom fake-cries her way out and it’s always been hilarious to see a grown ass woman do it and pull it off every time.

Tear gas makes people cry and laughing gas makes people giggle, what other kinds of gases do you wish existed? I don’t really want to manipulate people’s action in this way, so pass.

#survey #surveys

[eninilaup8]

10 Questions Tag! 💗

Rules: Answer the ten questions, write your own, and then tag ten people.

thank youuu @jongin-be-my-jagi for tagging me, your questions were sooo interesting as well as your answers 

1.  What is your idea of a perfect (or, almost perfect) day?

hmmm, first it has to be sunny and warm, but not too warm and with a little breeze. i would be around my best friends, we would be talking and laughing and seeing pretty things, eating good food, drinking wine and just enjoying each other’s presence. simply :)

2.  Do you have a "type" - a type of person you generally find attractive? What qualities do you like best in people? (Can be physical traits, character traits, or both.)

i kinda do? physically, i’m generally attracted to dark-haired, dark-eyed guys, and i do particularly enjoy tan skin. but i already have been attracted to guys that were blonde with light eyes and lighter skin, so i guess he just has to attract me somehow, vibes are important :) However... i’m pretty picky in terms of personality; i like open-minded people (not judgmental, tolerant, supportive of differences, not racist, not homophobic/transphobic etc, not sexist (i’m a woman, wouldn’t make sense) anyways you get it :) i also like people who make me laugh, and who are kind, peaceful and mean well. i also tend to like passionate people, cause it is something we share :) (i cut it short cause it was going to be hella long) 

3.  Is there anything you would never do for any amount of money?

the first that came to my mind was killing an innocent, cause... obviously? (capitalists are shaking) i can’t think of anything else cause that’s just the only horrible thing i can think of right now? but there are probably more things for sure 

4.  What makes you feel most alive?

helping someone, being helpful. i feel like my existence is useless if it only concerns me and impacts no one else, it’s just a “selfish” and self-centered existence, but to me having an existence that matters means being involved in making the world a better place, and making other people’s lives better at the same time. also, i feel alive when i do something i have been waiting to do, a goal that i’m achieving like, going to a concert or visiting a country i really wanted to visit. 

5.  If there was going to be a movie made about your life, is there a movie director you would like to oversee the project? Who would that be? What genre and mood would your life movie have

hummmmmmmm that’s so hard to answer cause my life isn’t special lmao also, i don’t know that much movie directors so i can’t really tell :/ i guess if my life is not special, the film would be a slice of life kind of film, obviously a comedy too cause me and my bffs are the funniest people of this planet ngl, but yeah... just a film about an ordinary girl and her ordinary life (i wouldn’t recommend watching it, don’t pay for that, it’s a waste). but the scenes and mood and music would definitely be veeeeeeery aesthetic and very pleasant.

6.  What is something valuable you have learned in your life that you would like to pass on to others?

i think it would be the fact that you have to work hard for what you want, and when it gets hard, remember why you’re doing it and where this will lead you (the achievement of your goal), you can’t expect things to be given to you on a platter, sometimes they are and you’re lucky, but it won’t always be that way, and you have to be ready for that. also, surround youself with good people, who are here for you and who look out for you, this helps in every situation that can occur in one’s life. if they don’t make you happy, do not waste your time and energy on them and find better people, you deserve better. 

5.  Who is your ultimate bias? If you met him or her in real life, what kind of relationship do you think the two of you might have?

this question is tricky cause, how to sound not delusional or creepy? but you know what, fuck it i know i’m not. my ultimate bias is mister kim jongin, and if i met him in real life i’m almost certain we would at least be very good friends. from what i know about him as a fan, and what i’ve seen, we’re pretty similar (mbti twins🤪), we share the same passions and whenever he says something deep, about his thoughts and ways of being, i can usually relate. also i’m almost certain i would fall in love with him lmao have you seen the guy he is?? but i obviously don’t know if the feeling would be mutual :)

6. Is there a song that captures your mood recently? What is it?

i recently discovered artist Summer Walker, and i fell in love with her voice, style and entiiiire discography. i don’t know what my mood is these days, i don’t think i have one tbh (i sleep at 4am and wake up at 2pm i basically am a soulless body walking around the house), but one thing i know is that she captures my favourite kind of music. 

7. What are three books that are important to you?

ok so most of the books i have read were given to me by my teachers, they asked me to read them, and i liked some of them but they aren’t important to me, except for one; The Awakening by Kate Chopin (very beautiful, feminist, and revolting), but that’s honestly the only one that has a deep meaning to me so far :/

If you could meet anyone in the whole world, who would it be, and what would you do with them?

meet donald trump, put him in a cage, and leave him there. lmao no more seriously (i’m not kidding tho), the only person i would love to meet right now is jongin, and i would just talk with him until we have nothing else to talk about (if that can even happen). he’s the first person i’m thinking about atm, but i’m sure if i think hard enough there should be other people i would love to meet, for other reasons. 

My 10 questions;

1. What is happiness to you?

2. What kind of people (or if there is someone particular, who) inspire you?

3. How would you describe your fashion sense?

4. How do you know you like someone? (platonic/romantic)

5. If you HAD to move to another country, where would you go and why?

6. What is something you always remind yourself?

7. What form of art do you prefer? (dance, paintings, sculptures etc...)

8. If you could make a song, what kind of song would it be? (and also what genre)

9. What’s one goal you have set for yourself?

10. If you could have any career for a week, which one would you choose?

i’m tagging @salt-andmud, @amandoaexo and @mayrubyy, enjoyyyy💓

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian episode 4 rewatch thoooughts no one can stop me

- the absolute steely world-ending rage on omera’s face as she sees what’s happened to her village is A+

- the baby’s delighted cackle when mando lifts him to his seat at the table 😩❤️ im emotionally compromised 

the idea of mando doing that thing where you throw a baby just a little bit into the air and catch them again while the baby laughs is now taking up 100% of my brainpower I’m lsofsdfhfsajhfaksd 

- the design of the restaurant/bar is so light and airy and pleasing to look at, I love star wars interiors so much. both this building and the ones in the village sort of indicate it doesn’t rain a lot around there, the roofs and especially the walls don’t look waterproof in any way

- god gina carano has such an amazing physical presence right from the beginning. I know it’s partially the cinematography but you see her there in the corner and you’re immediately like ‘OH SHIT’

- mando’s conspiratorial little lean towards the baby when he says “Looks like this planet is taken” is one of the funniest and sweetest acting choices in this whole show

- I love the scene where the two villagers are driving up to mando’s ship and it’s framed in a way that makes it feel almost mystical and otherworldly, like they’ve come upon a figure out of legend in the woods and are slightly in awe... and I’m sitting here like ‘that is my DAD and he’s grumpy because he’s trying to fix his OLD JALOPY OF A SPACESHIP because JAWAS TOOK IT APART AND HE AND KUIIL HAD TO PUT IT BACK TOGETHER WITH ONLY A BLOW TORCH AND A DREAM’ 

just a split second shot of baby yoda sitting in a little puddle of blanket -- maybe the one mando uses to sleep? it looks tan-ish in colour and a bit rough texture wise -- watching them unload crates <3<3<3 god this is why I love this show they know I’m always asking ‘but where’s the baby in all this?!’ and need answers and reassurance 

- I’ve made this point in tags before but it bears repeating: mando and cara are both being so blasé about the whole thing until they get to the village and see the children and promptly visibly turn into marshmallows. in the end they’re like ‘...okay we’ll help you but you’re not allowed to tell anyone we’re actually nice think of our reputations’ 

- omera’s soft amused realization that mando’s still new at this parenting thing and worries about  e v e r y t h i n g  is so sweet. like his plausible deniability that he hasn’t been this little green baby’s dad from the moment he saw him is effectively zero 

- I love how well but unintrusively they convey that mando is always checking in with the kid. like if you pay attention to him you see him turning his head every so often to see how the baby’s doing even while he’s doing other stuff

- OH that soft, soft repeat of the mando flute in the background while he and omera talk in the barn ;______; also can I just say that I FUCKING LOVE that omera has pockets/pouches around her waist as part of her costume design, it makes it feel so much more real and practical (I like the design of the whole village really it does feel like a farm, as someone who has worked on a few)

- I can’t praise how pitch perfectly they’ve pulled off mando’s physicality enough. in some ways he is so expressive and easier to read than anyone around him from body language alone -- a necessity since we don’t get to see his face -- and he still feels like such a self-contained and low-key character despite that. that slight exaggeration of movement is more usually seen in comedy and god knows they make it work like that in this show too sometimes but he really is just a joy to watch in general and his voice plays into it so well too and fjskdhfdsa I love this character

also we see the baby mimicking mando’s mannerisms very directly in this episode when they both lean back and can you IMAGINE him doing mando’s cool guy hands-loosely-crossed-in-front-of-him lean when he’s older but even as an adult he’d still be y’know yoda sized... these are the things that get me through the day honestly

- I’ve said it before but mando and cara fighting together continues to be the most fun, be back again in season 2 please cara

#star wars #the mandalorian #baby yoda growing up to recognizably have some of mando's mannerisms is now DESTROYING ME but in a good way

[kuriboo]

so here we are, y’all. i’ve finally reached the end of the zexal anime, and, uh, it sure was a ride. a ride from start to finish. i’m gonna write out some final thoughts, if i end up forgetting something i might make another post of this, but, don’t count on it. but, before anything, i do intend to read the zexal manga at some point as well, and when i do, you might see me post some funny or interesting screenshots in this tag too? probably not a lot, i don’t know, i’ve never read the zexal manga either. just be aware that the zexal liveblog might not actually be over.

i know people like to talk in terms of zexal i and zexal ii, but hulu doesn’t split up zexal like that, it’s actually in three seasons? i think i generally know what people are referring to with zexal i and zexal ii(?), but i’m genuinely not sure and the terms feel super weird to me anyway, but just to be safe, i’ll refer to things as the first half and the second half. the first half ends with the duel against dr faker and yuma vs kite, part 2 picks up with...whatever the hell happened after the yuma vs kite duel, which certainly wasn’t a continuation of kite’s character arc, but we won’t worry about that.

with that, uh, let’s go high-five the sky

before starting zexal: i’d pretty much watched all the other yugioh series, and was keeping up with vrains as much as i could as it aired. i saw one episode once, before i started watching the whole thing, that aired on some channel we normally don’t get but got a like free preview weekend of it or something. the episode i saw was the episode where yuma meets the guy who makes the statues, i think. whatever it was, the impression i got from what i saw was: this yugioh protagonist is really bad at card games, whines a lot, and his voice kinda grates on me, and also this protagonist is younger than i was at the time, which tended to lead to more annoying behavior. this kid didn’t want to shut up, man. couldn’t sit through the whole thing

so, this was how i rated zexal against the other yugioh series, keeping in mind that this is a rating of series, and not yugioh protagonists, and noting that the members of the A tier are not in any sort of order and all members have equal ratings: 

(sevens is unrated because it’s just barely started.)

(there’s not really much of anything that could top gx, tbh, because gx got me through the hardest time, the hardest year, of my life, and i don’t know where i’d be without it. gx helped save 17 year old me from myself)

now, i’ve finished zexal. i’ve watched every single episode of zexal. it’s important to note that i watched the dub of duel monsters, the dubs of gx and 5ds along with the sub of their non-dubbed final seasons, the dub of zexal, the sub of arc v alongside a stretch of dubbed episodes towards the end, and the sub of vrains along with the dub of the first 20 episodes. i’m aware zexal’s sub was better than the dub, but i generally prefer dubs when possible and also i’m largely comparing it against every other yugioh dub. it’s not an unfair comparison. 

so, here is how i now rate zexal against the other yugioh series, keeping in mind the members of the A tier aren’t in any sort of order:

you may have noticed this is the same as the previous rating. that’s correct. zexal was my least favorite yugioh series before i began watching it, and now that i’ve finished, it’s still my least favorite yugioh series. i know for a lot of people, zexal was their favorite yugioh series, but i simply can’t vibe with that. i’m sorry. i’m also aware the dub of zexal is a lot worse than the original. that doesn’t change the fact that i’m mostly rating dubs against each other here (haven’t seen enough of the arc v dub to account for that, but every other series i’m strongly thinking about the dubs). also, i’ll still give zexal credit for that. i’ll excuse some of its bad points as bad dub writing. some.

this chart, though, doesn’t paint a complete picture of how my opinion of zexal has changed. because it has. i like zexal a lot more now than i did before i started really watching it.

we’ll address good points first, so if anyone wants to bail for the bad points to avoid any sort of hurt feelings or anything like that, they can while still reading good stuff. again, i know a lot of yugioh fans’ favorite yugioh series is zexal, and my opinions are directly opposed to that, and again, i’m sorry. 

there was some pretty cool new cards in this one, particularly in the numbers side of things. shark drake was cool. i liked all of the arclights’ numbers; honestly, how could i not love dyson sphere or number 69? i’ve forgotten a lot of it by now but there was some cool stuff especially in the first part. 

the two best characters in this series, in terms of both writing and personality, were easily astral and shark. astral’s probably my number one, shark’s probably my number two.

astral was definitely great. his observations he kept making about humanity based on yuma was definitely one of the funnier things in the series, and the last duel of the series ending with astral’s last observation was poetic. he talked smack about yuma a lot, and a lot of the time it was pretty well deserved, and that was very cathartic and very good humor. his whole arc where he learns to trust yuma in part 1 and they truly become partners, then yuma meets vector who convinces yuma to keep pretty big secrets from astral, then astral realizes yuma’s been keeping these big secrets from him which is something astral never thought would happen by that point, and astral almost loses himself in that darkness of feeling betrayed and angry and sad, that was all really really good. yuma and astral not not immediately going back to loyal trusting partners and needing time before astral could truly trust yuma again also felt natural and real and i enjoyed it a lot. i like astral’s hairstyle, i like his dub censored ass, i like his whole ghost-like vibe. i don’t appreciate that astral is a nudist, even among the other residents of astral world who all wear actual clothes. i kind of wish astral would wear clothes but i would still want his ass to be censored because it’s hilarious. there is a lot i like about astral. i also just think he’s neat. my easy favorite. cannot go wrong with snarky glowy alien boy.

shark surprised me. i didn’t like him for a fair amount of part 1. he hurt yuma’s feelings a lot and i hated that. but when he started accepting yuma’s repeated attempts at friendship and turned around, i liked him a lot. he’s got purple hair, he plays a guitar (i think electric guitar? might’ve been electric bass), and his development was super interesting. i figured he had some kind of shitty home life that yuma would help him cope with using the power of friendship, but it was quite a bit more than that. he got disqualified from a tournament he desperately wanted to win because of a trick his opponent pulled, eventually evened out and became a pretty cool chill dude, and then it turned out he was like the head emperor of an alien planet that astral had set out to destroy?? he was the leader of a group of people and then blamed himself for their destruction?? he felt torn between his guilt/duty to his people and the new friendships he’d made with yuma and astral?? and he ended up deciding to go back to his alien emperor ways even though it pitted him against his friends which was hard but he had to make it up for the people he’d lost before?? but then he learned don thousand had been manipulating for a long long time and then faced against don thousand at yuma’s side een though he chose to turn his back on that friendship?? he didn’t let some fanfic choose his life for him??? he had shark drake??? there’s a lot of cool shit about shark and he’s got a lot of interesting shit going for him. i love a character that gets me to analyze what’s going on in their mind as they do certain things or make certain choices. i also love me a character who ends up getting/remembering magical powers. sorry shark astral’s in first but i still think shark’s neat too.

byron arclight!!! byron arclight! he’s not on the same level as astral and shark, but mAN i love byron arclight. he was constantly roasting everyone when he appeared and had some of the funniest dialogue in the entire series. anyone he looked at he’d be like “look aliens made me physically look like a child, my sons are taller and look older than me now, i couldn’t possibly give a shit about whatever your deal is.” he got super strong magic powers and used them to kidnap a small child. he became evil and told his sons to be evil with him because he was mad at dr faker, but they all kinda sucked at being evil and decided to be good guys instead by part 2. it’s honestly a shame the arclights didn’t appear in the series, especially part 2 (and especially byron, i’m p sure he appeared the least of the arclights) because i like them all actually. that episode where trey erased yuma’s like most important memories... dyson sphere... quattro telling off shark for dueling poorly while shark was sufferering the effects of POISON... what absolute legends. also byron had number 69.

yuma’s pretty cool, ended up being a more compelling character than i thought he would be. he’s a sweet kid, he’s annoyed initially by astral’s presence but he still helps astral with his quest to gather all the numbers anyway and he likes astral the more they hang out. that episode where yuma loses his memories because of trey really showed yuma’s pre-series development pretty well. yuma talks a lot and shouts the same few catchphrases a lot and it can get annoying, but there’s a lot more to yuma then that. at his core, he’s actually a pretty scared and lonely kid who doesn’t believe in himself, he looks at his current situation and goes “there’s no way i can win this duel there’s no point i might as well quit”. he’s not inherently upbeat and positive and self-confident like he usually appears. “feel the flow” is his source of strength, it’s what gets him going, gets him to believe in himself and inspires bravery in him. he’s actually one of the strongest people in the show for it, to be honest. his friends are so important to him, he cares about them so much and would do anything for them, even when his friends aren’t acting so friendly to him. even when his friends want conflicting things he tries his best to appease both sides. he becomes a voice of reason a lot in part 2, honestly. he kept voicing my thoughts and things i said throughout the season, which at times was really cathartic honestly. he kept challenging the status quo. why do we HAVE to do this, why can’t we find a compromise for THAT. he’s a good kid. i’m adopting him.

kite in part 1 is a cool Strong Opposition To The Number Hunt guy. he needs a glasses prescription but refuses to do anything about it and dies on the moon for it apparently, which i think is pretty funny of him. since he’s not astral he has to number hunt differently and the way he does it hurts people, but he’s only doing it because if he has all the numbers, then there might be a way to help his little brother who is suffering some big shit. his life literally revolves around his little brother who wants kite to just live his life for himself and be happy and have fun, to which kite replies “i don’t know how to do any of that”. relatable. eventually he realizes his dad is a dick. and beats him up until his dad says okay i’ll be good now. i won’t throw trash at astral world anymore i promise. kite’s hear to kick ass and take names and he runs out of names before he runs out of ass. but he gets new names by the time he runs out of ass so it’s okay. kite does some pretty fun stuff in part 1 and actually gives astral a run for his money which doesn’t happen often in part 1 so that’s pretty fun. also. his name is kite and his brother’s name is heart. dr faker is the worst at names but i’d expect that from someone who’s name is faker. it’s pretty funny, honestly

dumon is great. he’s a nice guy who is always trying to help out his friends. him first meeting shark and them pretty much despising each other and then realizing hmm maybe that other guy isn’t as obnoxious as i thought all before shark even realizes he’s nasch and nasch and dumon are like best friends? top-tier, def funny. after like that first meeting though dumon always came off as a nice guy. i like dumon. also, his dub voice actor voices dub yusaku and i was assigned yusaku by the government so i really appreciate that. he does a good job as yusaku. and honestly a good job at dumon, too. dumon is one of the best voices in the whole show. he’s great. i just think he’s neat

rio!!!! once rio wakes up, she’s great. you can tell like within an episode that she and shark are the kind of siblings that constantly snark at each other but would do literall anything for each other. shark tried to do anything he could to help her before she woke up, and rio stuck by his side no matter what in the barians vs astral conflict. the foreshadowing in that episode where she pretended she was knocked out like the rest of yuma’s friends but she really wasn’t!! within like a week of waking up she reveals shark can’t sleep in the dark and i think that he hates onions. she’s the picture of confidence, and it seems to come more naturally to her than yuma’s forced and learned confidence. she believes in herself for sure, she’s a great duelist and she knows it, she’s got that ice aesthetic that i love, she’s cute... i’m gonna go adopt shark and rio right now. she’s also fiercely protective of her friends. but she’s not afraid to tease them either! and she will do it! she’s unrepentantly herself and i love it. 

vector is funny. vector had some great lines in part 2. “ray shadows” was always predictably not what he seemed at first glance but that’s not a bad thing. just because i knew “ray shadows” was bad didn’t make the reveal of him being vector any less satisfying, honestly. that whole sequence of what happened when vector revealed himself was one of my favorite parts of the second half. vector constantly leading yuma into “the ray way” (usually a poor way), then after reealing himself talking about doing things the ray way, absolutely poetic. that reveal causing a huge shift in yuma and astral’s relationship, beautiful. did you just say the b word??? he also had funny lines. most major villains in zexal (byron and vector) were pretty funny honestly. neither of them were the ultimate antagonist which is fine, but probably the best humor in the series to me came from the major villains. it made them less intimidating, maybe, but it made them a lot more enjoyable to watch.  

number 96 looked like a dark version of astral, which is essentially what he was, but like, he literally looked like astral. but you know what? while astral’s ass was censored, number 96′s wasn’t censored in the slightest.  to this day i don’t understand why but this is so funny to me. 4k media really said astral wasn’t valid but number 96 was. 

there’s a lot of good stuff in zexal. and i enjoyed it! at the end of the day, that’s what i care about the most. doesn’t matter as much if something’s good or bad as much as if i’m enjoying it. and i enjoyed quite a bit of zexal. 

i did say it was my least favorite yugioh anime currently, however. which means there must be parts of this anime i didn’t like. so let’s get into the aspects of zexal i didn’t like. feel free to bail now if you’re not interested in that. i’m not interested in hurting any feelings or tarnishing anyone’s love for zexal. 

yikes

for what it’s worth, i like the first half a lot more than the second half. most of the problems i have with the first half are also present within the second half, but the second half has a lot of unique things i don’t like.

i know i said something doesn’t have to be good to be enjoyable. anyone can enjoy bad things. i enjoy plenty of bad things! look, i watch sword art online!! i’m no stranger to the concept. but a lot of things i didn’t like about zexal were just...too glaring for me to enjoy anway.

let’s start with cards.

i think xyz summoning should’ve been pronounced as x-y-z and not x-eez. i hated it from episode one and i am still holding to that.

i don’t like tori’s whole fairy cheerleader archetype. i don’t like the way they all look. these things were in arc v, too, and given to a slightly better character but i didn’t like these things in arc v and i don’t like these now. arc v gave me something to look forward to when i needed it most, i don’t say many bad things about it. but i hate these things in both series they were featured in. i think that says a lot. it’s the combo of the hair and the eyes. their hair is way too big. their eyes tend to look bad. it’s just not a great look.

the series started off with a very simple set of rules for number cards: number cards come from astral, and there are 100 of them (and only number cards can only destroy other number cards, which is less important here). the first half of zexal stuck to that prett well. the second half of zexal just laughed at the idea of rules and said i’mma break them. characters are suddenly given number cards that go over the number 100. all these characters are barians. and these cards didn’t come from astral. what the heck! you’re breaking rules left and right! and then don thousand comes out with his stupid imaginary number, and then two duels later yuma comes out with his own new number, future number zero. you’re breaking all the rules. you’re breaking all my trust in everything. you’ve stopped pretending there’s any sense of rules entirely and you’ve started making things up as you go. i don’t like that!! especially imaginary number and future number zero had basically no explanation as to where these things come from, how do these characters have these cards? it’s one thing when yuma comes out with a new gagaga card or something, that’s acceptable and makes plenty of sense, but the new number cards don’t. also, don thousand, yuma doesn’t know enough math to know what an imaginary number even is.

astral’s whole deck angers me. astral is one of the most important characters of the series, and you couldn’t bother to give him any non-xyz monsters. his whole deck is spells and traps. you gave tori, who only duels once and isn’t very good at it, her own whole archetype, but you couldn’t bother to think of a single monster to give astral. and even then, the only xyz monsters astral uses are utopia forms, (not including shark drake and galaxy-eyes, who were only brought out to serve as material for a utopia monster. this is the laziest deck in the whole series, and you gave it to a major protagonist. like, the second most important protagonist in the whole series. i get he only duels without yuma once, but dude. i hate this.

i also really don’t like that the only number yuma and astral use most of the time is utopia. i know utopia was the first one they had together and it’s popular and shit. but there are other numbers! other numbers yuma gains! that i would like to see him use! but instead the show just...keeps giving him new forms for utopia? for some reason? at least on one occasion one of yuma’s new forms has like the same exact ability as another number yuma has at the time. it’s infuriating. to me, at least. plenty of other characters only really use one number most of the time the duel, but most other characters only really have that one number and maybe another form of it or maybe two other forms. yuma doesn’t have that excuse. i’m not saying i never want him to use utopia ever. i just like variety. if you’re introducing the idea of collecting a lot of things, i wanna see those things used.

i hate don thousand’s dueling gimmicks most of all. he gets access to the numeron code and uses it to cheat in his duels, even though kite has it and zexal really gave the impression before this point that you needed to obtain the numeron code to use it, but don thousand’s just like, i fused earth and barian world and somehow i can use the numeron code now. ??????? no fucking sense. on top of that, his cards are super unbalanced. i could not stand watching this duel.

i don’t like the literally no excuse given of other characters besides yuma, the arclights maybe, and the barians maybe, the literally no excuse given for other characters suddenly being able to see astral. being able to see astral required either special powers or special circumstances but then at the end of part 1 going in to part 2 characters were just like “i can see astral now!!!” and that was the end of this and this was the stupidest laziest thing ever. dunno if this was a dub-only thing, maybe the sub explained it, but it really bothered me and still does.

i don’t think chaos was explained very well, at least in the dub, and i looked it up later on and know pretty much what it is now but when you introduce new concepts and ideas, please explain them to me or else i feel like there’s literally no rules to the universe and characters are just making things up as they go.

a lot of the time in the second half, astral is written really weirdly and, not as good. especially post-vector reveal. i’m not talking about any stubbornness on astral’s part because that’s who he is. part 2 starts going in and after a while of it already going, astral just comes in and explains things to yuma that astral definitely didn’t know before. i know astral starts out with almost no memories and regains them all throughout the series but i don’t think any of this like came right after astral regained some memory. the numeron code seems to come out of nowhere, and oh, by the way, this thing can rewrite the entire rules of the universe. it’s a race to see who gets the numeron code first! except, uh, kite ends up winning it i think but that ends up literally not mattering because don thousand and astral both finds ways to use it without even having it. so there wasn’t much of a point of a lot of the duels before the don thousand duel, huh. that’s a lot of time wasted. and apparently astral can use the numeron code after regaining all 100 numbers, but. i don’t remember when astral first introduced that fact and when he got all 100 numbers. but it only is relevant after the duel against nasch and astral only makes any attempt to use the numeron code then. i don’t even know how he got the numeron code after that duel anyway. kite had it and he died on the moon. don thousand could use it without actually having it but then he was defeated. was astral always able to use it without actually having it like don thousand? why didn’t he does this before, then? everything related to the numeron code is vague and explained poorly and every time the numeron code comes up someone makes up some new bullshit thing related to the numeron code and i hate it. i hate the stupid numeron code.

back on track with astral. there’s other stuff besides the numeron code he seemed to know about without any real explanation. i do not remember a lot of them. besides the numeron code. i think i repressed the rest of out of annoyance. i think the worst astral was written was right before his duel with yuma. i get that astral intended to use the duel to help yuma and not hurt him. but he could’ve accomplished this without being an entire jackass. yuma’s mourning the loss of friends that he’s also blaming himself for. and then astral decides to resolve that by telling yuma that astral’s gonna go kill a bunch more people and yuma can’t stop him? that’s uh, not helping anything astral. you had other options to get yuma to duel (while yuma was in a state of not wanting to duel ever again) rather than telling yuma more people are about to die. the point of the whole duel was to remind yuma how to have fun in duels. but uh. when you put a bunch of lives at risk like that after a bunch of people just died, that’s not a great way to introduce fun. yuma promised astral to duel against him before astral left earlier on in the series! you had other options! astral acts like he doesn’t have other options but he literally does! there’s stupid stuff like this astral does earlier in the second half but i have forgotten the details. i get astral’s an alien who’s pretty socially awkward and doesn’t get earth people super well, but b the end of the series he certainly should understand them a little better, or at least, he should understand yuma pretty well, after hanging out with yuma literally all the time. it’s stupid! astral’s better than all this! there’s no way this is the fault of dub writing! unless 4k media made entirely new animation for multiple episodes. like. of the entire episode. 

there were multiple times in the second half i didn’t understand character motivations in certain events at all and had to really come up with my own weird headcanons to make sense of it. this is probably largely a result of dub writing.

i wish the arclights were more relevant in the second half. most of all they did was watch things happen. they’re cool and powerful give them something to do.

kite felt extremely pointless in the second half of zexal. he was given a clear character direction to go after the first half and basically abandoned it the second the second half started. he had this pointless rivalry with mizar that only ever felt relevant when they dueled each other on the moon to get the numeron code. kite realizes he needs glasses. he wins the duel. and then he fucking dies somehow. and everyone else gets access to the numeron code. it’s all really stupid and makes no sense. i wouldn’t care about him not being as narratively important as yuma, shark and astral. kite’s not from astral world, kite’s not from barian world, and he doesn’t have any partnership with anyone from either world. at most, he thinks astral’s neat now. but they keep dragging along this stupid rivalry between mizar and kite that literally amounted to “my galaxy-eyes dragon is better than your galaxy-eyes dragon”, these two idiots dueled about it multiple times, and it was just pointless. it ate up too much time. i could feel myself aging. the second half of zexal had enough filler episodes that made me want to tear my hair out without this stuff.

i hate mizar so much. he’s probably my second least favorite character in the series. all mizar EVER does is duel kite over who has a cooler galaxy-eyes dragon, which isn’t even a question because kite’s is cooler and he had it long before mizar ever showed up which at most makes mizar a copier idiot. the most relevant thing mizar does is duel kite on the moon for the numeron code, but i’ve been over that. you could take mizar out without changing much. he’s by far the least interesting barian emperor. mizar is more annoying than kite ever was, and is more annoying than the other barian emperors ever were. and yet mizar lives longer than pretty much every barian emperor except nasch. he got the honor of being written out of existence by don thousand himself. radical. cool. get him out of my sight. i can’t stand him.

there’s a point where there’s a number shown on baby vector. i really wanted to know what was up with that and how it was relevant. this was never explained at all. i’m gonna assume this was don thousand altering vector’s memories or something and move on and never address it again because this show just did and said so many things without explaining any of it whatsoever. this stuff needs established rules and explanations. otherwise it just feels like everythings made up on the fly, it’s all completely random shit with not much planning behind it, that the writers don’t care...it feels insulting. i had this same issue with the infinity stones in the marvel cinematic universe. this is not something i just don’t like because it happened in zexal. i like knowing things.

so if mizar’s my second least favorite, who’s my least favorite character overall? i’ll tell you who

tori fucking meadows.

tori. geez. has there ever been a worse character? yes, mineta from my hero academia exists. but what exactly is tori’s crime? what has she done to make me dislike her so much. well, nothing. ‘nothing?’ yes. she didn’t do anything. but at the same time, she didn’t do anything. my problem with her is she literally does nothing, she barely has any sort of relevance to anything, and she’s annoying. i’m very serious. there’s only two things she’s ever done: she got possessed by a barian emperor to duel against yuma once, and there was that time she challenged yuma to a fashion contest, which was a little entertaining. those are the only things she’s ever done. and yet, somehow, she finds her way into every single episode. it is rare for an episode to go by without her. well, if she’s in so many episodes, surely she must be doing something of importance? nah. her only purpose is to cheer yuma on when he’s discouraged and to get distressed when yuma looks like he’s in a bad spot. this is not a joke. this is not an exaggeration. there are entire episodes where her only dialogue is “(sad voice) Yuma...! Astral...!” i constantly forget she’s there and then the show reminds me she’s there and i get mad because she doesn’t do anything. it’s either be sad about duel going well for yuma, or tori going “yuma you can do it” and yuma going “YEAH YOU’RE RIGHT THANKS TORI”. yeah, she doesn’t even give good motivational speeches, she just says the laziest most generic thing possible, and yuma just cheers himself up anyway because that’s usually what he does anyway. there’s not point to her being there. oh, and she got to be the damsel of distress once to convince yuma to duel. that’s great. lovely. that’s definitely not shady/shifty as hell. all girls are only good for fueling boys’ pain and suffering, right. 

but lemme ask this. let’s replace tori with a very pretty lamp for the entire series. how much of the show would change? and honestly? it’d mostly be just like, bits and pieces of three episodes. she’s literally just taking up space. she doesn’t need to duel to be relevant and do meaningful things. maybe she could do more to help yuma convince astral that blowing up barian world is a bad idea, maybe she’s able to come up with the right words where yuma isn’t. maybe she catches on that something’s wrong with shark before shark switches sides, she doesn’t have to convince him not to and i’d rather she didn’t but she can be an uninvolved person to listen and tell shark it’s not an easy choice for sure but she supports him whatever he does and she’s sure whatever he chooses will be the right choice for him. maybe she could get astral some fashionable clothes. i don’t know! she could actually do something! i’m not asking much here i just want her to be something besides a generic love interest (gross) or a generic supporter with generic advice (annoying).

a lot of yuma’s friend group have similar similar issues, but at least they have parts to play. bronk’s probably the best written of the bunch in part 1 before he dissolves into randomly in love with rio taking over his entire life (gross). cathy honestly is better than average too. rio is exempt from this paragraph because she doesn’t spend too much time in the friend group before bailing to her past life which is valid. yuma starts out with only bronk and tori for friends but he gains a lot of friends during the number hunt. most of these friends were possessed by numbers and yuma befriended them afterwards because ultimately his goal is to have fun and make friends by dueling. but they all stick around and don’t not hang out with him and don’t do much after yuma helps them. yuma has way too many friends that he drags around with him everywhere, and then some combination of the arclights, shark, kite, vector, and rio is often there as well. It’s way too many people and no wonder most of them never do anything because often all the things that could be done are taken. Most of these kids need to stop following Yuma everywhere. For the most part, they’re all annoying, too. I really only care for Bronk and Cathy.

i get it. the protagonist always has friends that are ride or die and help them out no matter what. i get it. but there was never this many constantly around, often times they’d switch around each other if anything, and they always all were either relevant to the plot or played good important roles in helping the protagonist, and they always had development. i think the most development any of yuma’s friend group (ignoring brinks negative development) had was cathy’s hatred of dogs getting a bit less intense. flip’s literally a shitty dude who cheats and yuma told him “hey maybe be less shitty next time” a couple of times and flip said “sure” each time but then never put any effort into being better and just kept being shitty towards other people. caswell just...reiterates what’s happening half the time ans starts literally every sentence with “in the end”. all they’re good for is filler and zexal has really bad filler. they’re not good for anything. they should’ve showed up less at least after the heartland tournament arc if not sooner. i get that the whole thing is to show that yuma wants to make friends through duels but this is unnecesasary and eats up time that could be better spent on other characters who actually do things and who actually are relevant and develop and stuff. the protagonist’s friend group was never this annoying before zexal and it never was after zexal either. when they all got sent to barian world and stopped showing up for like ten episodes i almost finally new peace if those ten episodes weren’t like some of the worst content zexal had to offer.

there’s a lot of pointless boring uneventful unnecessary hetero shit all over the show, too. obviously, the whole deal with yuma and tori, while yuma really has no interest in romance at all and tori can’t take a fucking hint and then somehow the last episode decides to make them start dating for some reason. bronk falls for rio (understandable) and then in a filler episode asks for shark’s permission to date her (gross), shark misunderstands what bronk’s asking and is like “if you wanna deal with me or rio you gotta beat yuma in a duel first”, bronk gets it in his head that means yuma likes rio and duels yuma over rio (gross) and this is all supposed to be a funny whole series of events but it’s not funny and it’s kinda gross actually. orbital and lillybot!! yikes!! i don’t like orbital anyway. lillybot is amazing and great. the show decides to assign lillybot female (tori just says lillybot’s a girl and we’re supposed to take tori’s word for it i guess) so obviously the assigned male robot and the assigned female robot have to date, right! they MUST like each other because he was a boy robot, she was a girl robot, can i make it any more obvious. it’s annoying and stupid. they have kids!!! they have kids for some reason!!! why do they have kids!!!!! zexal never interact with me about romance again.

the girls in this show really get the shit end of the stick, huh. i feel really bad for them. obviously we have tori. who was there the whole time but really didn’t do anything except be generically sad or generically positive. cathy’s a little better than that. she has a bit more personality going for her. she likes cats, she makes cat puns, she duels a dog, she did get possessed by a number... she’s got a few things going for her, but she doesn’t do much either. she doesn’t do anything worth noting in the tournament in heartland, she barely does anything of note related to the barian emperors or don thousand. so that’s not much better. rio probably got the best treatment of any of the girls in zexal. she is a major player in the second half of zexal, being one of the barian emperors. she’s got a very strong personality and did plenty of important things. she helped her and her brother deal with the barian emperors before realizing she was one herself, she reclaimed her title of barian emperor and tried to kick vector’s ass. rio and shark brought a lot of life to each other. she revealed her brother’s need to sleep with a nightlight and she was allowed to be good at dueling! but also, she spend the entire first half of the show in a coma. she wasn’t allowed to have any part in the show before astral and the barian emperors did their thing. so in a way, rio also got the worst treatment, too. discounting rio, though, i think the girl who got the worst of it was actually kari.

i know, i know. kari’s an investigator, a journalist! she’s always after a scoop, she’s always looking after yuma, and she deals with old friends/enemies. she’s not just some generic friend like tori, she’s not in a coma like rio! kari’s great! and i love her! but this isn’t just about girls not getting to do things that matter or girls not getting to have personalities. this goes in a bit different direction than that. she wanted to go out and explore with her dad, just like yuma did, but her parents always brushed her aside and made her do more “girly” things because “girls can’t do what yuma and your dad are doing”! she didn’t get a wole lot of agency in her own life. her parents all but told her that yuma was more important than her, that he had this big destiny related to dueling and that all she was good for was watching out for yuma and making sure he was okay because she’s his older sister. and then both her parents disappeared! and she was just left with that! she grew to hate dueling, to push yuma away from it because their parents basically told her yuma would be in danger because of dueling. which is a totally understandable reaction to your parents telling you that out of seemingly nowhere! except the show doesn’t treat it that way. the show puts her in the wrong for not liking dueling! because everyone has to like dueling kari!! how dare you not like card games. how dare you have any interest in anything else. i’m surprised she’s not more bitter towards her parents for this whole fiasco. she just gets slammed into a caretaker role because girls can only be love interests or caretakers! (tori, cathy, and rio were all set up as love interests at least one time or another, while yuma would rather eat another hot dog than deal with that) but honestly, she does her best to do what her parents told her: take care of yuma during his big dangerous dueling destiny. she watches out for him, she tries to steer him clear of the thing that’s supposed to be dangerous for him. and as a journalist she has to be constantly up to date on current events and happenings, so if something happens that might endanger yuma with his big dangerous dueling destiny, kari’ll probably be on of the first people to know about it in all of heartland. that’s not to say that’s not the only reason she took up the profession. she definitely seems passionate about what she does, she takes it seriously, i’m sure she does actually like being a journalist, but it does help with yuma, too. her parents basically forced her life to go exactly one way. and that’s not shown in a bad light against her parents! if anything, the show basically acts like it’s kari’s fault for not being happy about it every second. all this while yuma gets to be whoever he wants to be and do what he wants to do their whole childhood, he gets a lot more freedom than kari for sure. yuma got the childhood kari wanted and she’s not allowed to grieve what she could’ve had. because it’s not just “kari’s parents forced her into a very specific role for her life and gave her no choice in any of it”. that can actually be a really cool thing to explore. i love chazz princeton! kari has plenty in common with chazz! but i don’t like this setup like this. chazz got to be right about being bitter about what his brothers did to him, about breaking away from them and living life the way he wanted to. but making kari’s parents the right ones in this whole situation is just kinda gross and disgusting. if you’re gonna frame it like that don’t bother. cannot stand the “your parents are always right” sort of shit.

speaking of? goddamn i hate kazuma. i hate yuma and kari’s dad. i would say he’s the worst dad in all of yugioh, but he didn’t start an interdimensional war, so we’ll say he’s the second worst dad in all of yugioh. ...if i tie dr kogami with leo, but either way, leo, dr kogami, and kazuma are the top 3.

how can kazuma be in the top 3?? with leo and dr kogami?? leo and dr kogami are evil villains!! kazuma’s not a bad guy! he helped give yuma more self-confidence! he wanted peace between astral world and barian world!

first of all, if you skipped the paragraph related to kari, go back and read it. it’s required reading for the “why kazuma sucks” portion of our program tonight. okay good, you read it. here’s more reasons why kazuma’s a pretty sucky dad.

this here is a bullshit man.

kazuma had good intentions, i think. he wanted to be a good dad but intentions don’t really mean a damn thing when you look at the results.

pre-zexal, kazuma tsukumo knew about yuma’s destiny and told kari about it. how did he know this? how did he figure this out? that’s a good question. i have no idea why he knows about yuma’s destiny, or how he knows about it. the wiki just says he “showed great intelligence and foresight”, whatever that means. my best guess is that honestly? once kazuma saw what was happening in astral world, he created yuma’s destiny himself. he gave the key to yuma, and then he fucked with astral’s shit so that astral would meet yuma. yeah, kazuma looked at everything going on and was like “i’ll put it on my 12 year old son to save three worlds at the same time! what could go wrong”, and told kari about it beforehand and was like “lol kari can’t do it she’s a girl so i’ll just decide her entire life for her a different way”

uh, clearly yuma was not emotionally capable of dealing with the shit kazuma pulled him into. yuma was ready to never duel again because dueling killed his friends. and then kazuma talks to astral about the whole thing and is weirdly smug about the whole thing related to yuma’s lost friends and lost love for dueling. so like...was that part of your plan or not? do you give a shit about your son’s feelings regarding your whole plan for his life or not? 

after yuma falls into a portal in the hell dimension he ends up being a prisoner on astral world. which was definitely not explained well in the dub. but he and his wife just hang out freely and openly in remote parts of astral world so he sure as shit doesn’t look like a prisoner. and while he’s there he certainly looks like there’s no place he’d rather be. wait, his wife? how did she get in astral world? that’s a good fucking question and i sure would love to know. i guess she’s not allowed to exist outside her relationship with kazuma.

after kazuma is stuck in astral world, everyone thinks he’s dead for a while, but then when everyone finds out he was alive, he’s treated as this all-knowing projection/recorded hologram who is always right about everything. he always has all the answers and if we don’t know what to do about something then kazuma definitely knows! and after he appears to die he can sometimes appear to people somehow, how he can do that is never explained well at least in the dub, and there are arbitrary conditions to it also never explained in the dub. he can appear in the emperor’s key. he only really seems to do this once to have a weird conversation with astral, and then he also...was able to help vetrix make a barrier during yuma and nasch’s duel, somehow? i mean, i get tron’s whole thing, but kazuma, not so much? if he can appear to astral and vetrix why does he never try to connect with yuma? i’m guessing he probably can’t appear to yuma directly but he never tries to leave a message with astral either. he has these arbitrary weird abilities never explained well (in the dub, at least) and it feels like he’s playing calvinball to make himself seem like a hero or something.

honestly, everthing about yuma’s dad being seemingl dead but still alive, creating his son’s destiny and being this vague benevolent being who is always right and is never allowed to be seen in a bad light related to the consequences to his kids for his meddling, it all seems familiar....

that’s right! it all comes back to sonic!! once again i am literally unable to talk about anything without bringing up sonic, i always bring everything back to sonic!!!

i explained this all a lot better a year ago so i will let myself speak i guess

obviously kazuma isn’t as bad of a person as locke the echidna, not nearly as bad, but there’s parallels, anyway.

so if you agree that yuma is the old comics knuckles of yugioh, if you look at the bad dads section of this article (in case you think i wrote it for some reason, which i didn’t, thankskenpenders did) you can understand why locke is a horrible dad, and looking at the similarties pointed out between locke and kazuma (again, locke is a much worse father than kazuma) you can understand more why i hate kazuma.

so, yeah. i can go on and on about all the things i don’t like zexal. the writing is sometimes sexist and lazy, there’s way too many characters hanging out with the protagonist and most of them have nothing to offer. sometimes things just don’t get explained, or are barely explained. it’s a big ol’ game of calvinball sometimes. and i am aware and accept that some of this is the fault of the dub writers. but there’s also a lot of good things i like about zexal! astral, shark, and yuma were all written really well! there were some really cool monsters in this show! there were some moments of good jokes! the show had good messages and a lot of characters had complex motivations you can sympathize with even if you don’t agree with what they’re doing. this show was very good at being yugioh. and it’s a pretty good show in my book. i enjoyed watching it! it just doesn’t happen to be my favorite yugioh. or like. anything but my least faorite yugioh. but that’s okay. really, the most important thing with watching a show isn’t how well it’s written, how good the visuals are, or anything like that, the most important thing is whether you enjoyed it. and i enjoyed it!

i enjoyed watching yugioh zexal.

if you followed me through my journey watching the anime, thank you. i appreciate it.

this isn’t the end of my journey through zexal. i intend to read the manga too, so when i do get to that, if i end up wanting to post any screenshots or anthing i’ll be using the same tag. that’s sure to be an interesting journey as well.

but anyway. if you read this entire post, thank you. this is over 8,000 words long, damn. 

#zexal liveblog #long post 235

[dandylion240]

Siblings Interview Tag

I was tagged by @lyrea a long time ago. I’m slowly trying to catch on things I was tagged in while I was on vacation. Not going to tag anyone since it’s been so long but if you see this and want to do it consider yourself tagged.

For this one I decided to do Toby and Tristan Queen. This is kind of a time jump considering one is still a toddler and the other just aged up to child in my game play.

1. Which one of you is the older sibling?

Toby: he is. He’s an ancient alien disguised in a twenty year old’s body.

Tristan: I am not. He’s kidding. 

Toby: how do I know? You are an alien.

Tristan: I thought you gave up this weird obsession of yours a long time ago.

Toby: it’s not weird but yeah I did. 

Tristan: so I’m not an ancient alien?

Toby: no your my dorky little brother. But wouldn’t it be cool if you were an ancient alien?

More under the cut

2. What do you like about your sibling?

Toby: he’s like the smartest person I know.

Tristan: smarter than you anyway.

Toby: aren’t you going to say what you like about me?

Tristan: hmm....you’re adorable. Like a puppy. You make messes and people still love you.

Toby: I’m not sure if I should feel flattered or insulted. Seriously a puppy?

Tristan: I did say adorable.

3. What annoys you about your sibling?

Toby: he’s an alien with a free invitation to go to his home planet anytime and he won’t take me.

Tristan: I don’t want to go. 

Toby: why not? 

Tristan: I was born here. My family is here. Why would I want to go there?

Toby: if we went together you’d still have family

Tristan: and that’s what is so annoying. You won’t give up.

Toby: I just don’t understand why you don’t want to know more about your people.

Tristan: They’re not my people!. 

4. Describe your sibling(s) with three adjectives.

Toby: intelligent, stubborn and an alien

Tristan: persistent, stubborn and incorrigible

5. What is your sibling’s/siblings’ biggest talent(s)?

Toby: he’s like this walking brain. He can read anything and remember it like months later.

Tristan: it’s called having a photographic memory. It’s not a talent.

Toby: it is to me.

Tristan: you’re weird.

Toby: being weird is not a talent.

Tristan: no? It must be because you’re so good at it. 

6. What is your sibling(s) really bad at?

Tristan: this is easy. He’s really bad at being serious.

Toby: I’m serious when I have to be.

Tristan: which is never

Toby: well you’re really bad at being an alien. What happened to the guy I was scared of?

Tristan: ugh how many times do I have to tell you I don’t want to talk about that?

Toby: until you tell me the truth. I know there was something about you when you first arrived.

Tristan: I was born. I wasn’t hatched and found in a cabbage patch.

7. Do you have nicknames for each other?

Toby: alien 

Tristan: don’t call me that

Toby: why not? You are one aren’t you?

Tristan: human

Toby: yeah we don’t really have nicknames.

8. What’s one thing you can do that your sibling(s) can’t?

Toby: he has all these really cool alien powers.

Tristan: I may have alien powers but at least I know how to keep my mouth shut.

Toby: whatever

9. Did you get along when you were younger?

Tristan/Toby together: No

Toby: I hated sharing a room with him. I told my parents I was scared of him.

Tristan: and you were.

Toby: of course. You were strange. Kind of like someone was controlling you.

Tristan: (squirms uncomfortably giving him an almost guilty expression) It got better as we got older

10. What is your funniest childhood memory of your sibling?

Toby: there was this one time that Tristan walked in on our parents while they were...

Tristan: they don’t need to hear that story (attempts to cover Toby’s mouth with his hands)

Toby: (laughing too hard to talk) he thought someone was killing them!

Tristan: I was four and thought that....never mind.

Toby: you thought what?

Tristan: doesn’t matter. I was four. It was scary. I didn’t know what was happening.

Toby: I think there’s more that you’re not telling me.

11. Are you closer now or when you were younger?

Toby: definitely closer now than when we were kids.

Tristan: we got closer once he decided I wasn’t going to kill everyone in their sleep

Toby: I was a kid and you acted strange. I still say something was controlling you and somehow you were able to block them.

Tristan: argh nothing was controlling me. I was a kid. Kids do strange things.

12. Did you compete with each other?

Toby: not really.

Tristan: he was too busy being scared of me to want to compete with me.

Toby: yeah that’s true. Kind of hard to compete with someone when you think you’ll be killed if you win.

13. Which one of you is more likely to turn out like your mum or dad?

Toby: Tristan is totally clone of our dad Titus

Tristan: I hope it’s more than the fact we’re both aliens.

Toby: yeah it is. I was never afraid of him like I was of you. So this is a good thing.

14. Which one is most likely to have a big family?

Tristan: he is.

Toby: me? Why me?

Tristan: because you’re a Reagan and they all have big families.

Toby: not all of them...

Tristan: most of them.

15. What is one thing about your sibling(s) that has changed as you’ve gotten older?

Tristan: he’s gotten less scared of me

Toby: you’ve gotten less scary

17. Who is more pessimistic and who is more optimistic?

Toby: Tristan is more pessimistic than me I think

Tristan: not going to argue that. He tends to optimistic even when there’s no reason to be. Must be the puppy in him.

18. Is there anything you don’t like doing together?

Toby: sharing a room together.

Tristan: he’s a slob. 

Toby: he’s a neat freak

19. Which one of you do you think will get married first?

Toby: him

Tristan: I was going to say you

Toby: um maybe we’ll get married at the same time

Tristan: yeah no let’s not.

Toby: yeah it’d be too much like sharing a room. 

Tristan: neither of us plan on getting married.

Toby: yep single forever.

20. Lastly, how often do you argue?

Toby: I think a better question would be when don’t we argue?

Tristan: we don’t argue that much do we?

Toby: you’ve got to be kidding.

Tristan: ok we argue a lot. 

#siblings interview #toby queen #tristan queen #character development #ts4

[enniewritesathing]

Sibling Tag - John and Jacob Davidson

I was tagged by @rosiereallyplaysthesims (thank you!)

(let’s uh... pretend Jacob’s still alive and very well lol)

1. Which one of you is the older sibling?

(They look at each other) Jacob: “Me?” John: “What? Why are you asking me?” Jacob: “I dunno, man! I... I think I am.” John: “Your birthday is on the second. Mine’s on the third. Jake was born thirty minutes before me. We usually celebrate it that weekend, so whatever Saturday we have our birthday on, he thinks it’s that date.” Jacob: “Huh. I am older then.” (John pinches the bridge of his nose.)

2. What do you like about your sibling?

John: “Jake doesn’t give up on anything. Call him stubborn, but that’s something I really admire about him.” Jacob: “Johnny’s a very... uhm, honorable person. When he makes a promise, he will make it. No matter how absurd it is. Dude’s intense about it.”

3. What annoys you about your sibling?

Jacob: “He sheds everywhere. John’s like, a cat or somethin’ and hair is just everywhere. He took so much time getting ready for school because of that.” (John makes a mocking hand gesture.) John: “Jake is a loud eater.” Jacob: “It’s not loud, you’re just listening too hard!”

4. Describe your sibling(s) with three adjectives.

Jacob: “Loyal, honorable, tenacious.” (He squints at the last word. John squints back.) “Okay, so I just wanted to throw in a $10 word.” John: “Alright. My brother is... resilient, amicable, and stubborn.” Jacob: “Oh, come on. You can’t just bust out words like that! I’m not that stubborn.” John: “He is.”

5. What is your sibling’s/siblings’ biggest talent(s)?

Jacob: “Johnny has this insane ability to attract cats. No, no, seriously! Like, a cat just walks up to him all friendly. We used to have an old neighborhood cat. Old Man Jenkins. Jenkies for short. Meanest cat on the planet. And this guy? Best friends. My brother is a cat whisperer.” John: “Jenkies was a tomcat with one eye and like this big tooth stickin’ out. He just looked mean. Meanwhile, Jacob can talk to people like he’s known them for years. Let’s just say, it’s gotten him and us out of trouble. He knows how to read people better than I can.”

6. What is your sibling(s) really bad at?

Jacob: “John is terrible at talking to girls and guys. (whispers) He’s scared of ‘em.” John: “Bullshit! No, I’m not. I’m just shy, and they’re beautiful, and, my brain just shuts off and I get all sweaty... you know how it is.” Jacob: “You should have seen him trying to talk to Brian. I don’t even know how that even worked.” (scoffs)  John: “Jake doesn’t know how to cook. I’ve got food poisoned by him three times.” Jacob: “You just have a weak ass stomach!”

7. Do you have nicknames for each other?

(Jacob looks at John with a big smile. John sighs.) Jacob: “Vinny. Johnny. (snickers) Jojo.” John: “Ugh. I hate that one. Wanna know what I call ‘em? Phoenix.” Jacob: “Really?” John: (nods) Jacob: (gasp) “Oh my god. That’s really badass. (laughs) “I’m gonna use that.”

8. What’s one thing you can do that your sibling(s) can’t?

John: “Cook.” (Jacob punches his arm. He smiles.) Jacob: “Dance.” John: “What?!” Jacob: “You dance like Dad.” John: “You take that back! No, no, I know how to dance. He’s just never seen actual dancing.”

9. Did you get along when you were younger?

John: “Oh, yeah. I mean, there wasn’t too much of anything that we actually fought over.” Jacob: “Old people that knew us always went  (in ridiculous voice)‘oh, there goes the Davidson twins, always makin’ trouble’ and... y’know, it’s like a running joke at this point.”

10. What is your funniest childhood memory of your sibling?

Jacob: “The first and last time Mom tried to cut John’s hair.” (John facepalms) “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone run so fast from a pair of scissors in my life.” John: “I just hate the sound of them. My little brain just went like ‘no.’ Dad... (laughs) Dad had to really talk to Mom about not cutting it because there was gonna be some trauma. That and it was better because people can tell who’s who. Not that it’s difficult... we don’t have the same eye color.” Jacob: “You’d be very surprise on how many people still mix us up.”

11. Are you closer now or when you were younger?

John: “It’s hard to say. We’re twins. But, I think when Jake had cancer and y’know, the recovery, you couldn’t seperate us for a while after that. Jacob: “That was a rough time. I’d say we’re apart now but we still have our twin thing.”

12. Did you compete with each other?

John: Oh, we definitely compete with each other. Jake had some serious catching up to do, but he’s back on the level. We’re due to have a match in a couple of months. Jacob: It’s gonna be great. This will be our... John: Third time. We’ve both won one.  Jacob: Johnny always says “We’re not brothers in the ring.”  John: Don’t say it like that. I don’t say it like that. Do I? Jacob: “You absolutely do.”

13. Which one of you is more likely to turn out like your mum or dad?

Jacob: That’s kind of a hard question... I’d say John’s like Ma, and I’m like Dad. John: Really? Jacob: (shrugs)

14. Which one is most likely to have a big family?

(Jacob claps John’s back.) “I have a feeling Johnny’s gonna have a big ol’ family. And I’m gonna be the fun uncle.” John: “Oh come on, Brian and I are not ready for kids. Not yet. Some day. What about you and --” Jacob: (shakes his head)

15. What is one thing about your sibling(s) that has changed as you’ve gotten older?

Jacob: “John’s gotten less... uptight about being protective of me. Like, I can handle my own shit now, but sometimes that little brother instinct kicks in. (to John) Not that’s bad or anything. I know he gets worried every now and then, but I got it.” John: “Jacob’s more extroverted than I am. Invite him to something and he’ll show up, even if it’s just a few minutes. Less serious about things.” Jacob: “I think it’s a coping thing...”

16. Who’s better at maths?

(They point at each other.)

17. Who is more pessimistic and who is more optimistic?

John: “It depends. When I was a kid? Oh, I was stupid optimistic. The sort that’s like ‘oh, that poor boy’s gonna be heartbroken when he’s disappointed’ kind of optimistic.” Jacob: “I had to be optimistic, but there were days I thought I wasn’t gonna make it. Couldn’t say it, but now? I can be freely pessimistic. It’s great.”

18. Is there anything you don’t like doing together?

John: “Is there?” Jacob: “Hm...” John: “Oh! Car rides. When we have to ride in the back seat.” Jacob: “That’s because you suck at Punch Buggy...” John: “No, I don’t!” Jacob: “Alright then. Next time, we’ll play it. Deal?” John: “Deal.”

19. Which one of you do you think will get married first?

Jacob: (grins) “So, when you gonna pop the question to Brian?” John: “I’m working on it.” Jacob: “You’ve been working on it for the last four years! Just do it already! Elope! You’re basically married now!” John: “Shut up!”

20. Lastly, how often do you argue?

Jacob: “Life is way too short to be arguing, so, we really don’t. Besides, if the argument is that bad, we can always take it outside.” John: “That or Mom squashes it for us.” Jacob: “Yeah... she can be scary...”

I tag @pink-chevalier, @99simproblems, I know ya’ll have a bunch of Sim siblings uh ... anyone who has siblings!  

#tag meme #oc: john #oc: jacob #ts4 #sims 4 #the davidson twins #au #;A;. #sorry this took so long to do lol

[id-rather-be-an-outsider]

tagged by @lucypcvensie uwu thanks for putting up with my weirdo self ily <3

How tall are you? 5′2 

What color and style is your hair? lots of people say my hair’s a light brown, but hair stylists say it’s a dark blonde so I’ll trust their judgement // my hair’s curly

What color are your eyes? blue (with these little flecks of gold right around the irises, you can only see them if you look real close)

Do you wear glasses? I have glasses, don’t necessarily wear them all the time

Do you wear braces? I used to, but I developed root resorption and had to get them off early (spring of 2017) so now none of my teeth toouch except for in the very back :( makes it really hard to eat samiches (yes that’s how I like to spell sandwiches fight me)

What’s your fashion sense? so I don’t count most days as my fashion sense bc I wear athleisure ish allllllll the time out of laziness, but when I do make an effort I have two ends of things bc I’m androgynous. so on a day when I’m feeling more masculine you’re gonna see me in a sporty-type-look (spandex, just barely sagging joggers, a graphic tee, my gold chain and jordans, I usually pull my hair into a ponytail and lay my edges), but on a day when I feel more feminine you’re gonna see me in some tried-and-true type of clothes (cute shirt, leggings, heels, jewelry, makeup did, hair down and [hopefully] acting right), but on a day when I’m feeling in-between I’ll try to experiment or be “edgy” (basically mixing and matching or trying something I saw a celebrity do and thought was cute). regardless of any style I’m in, though, you’re always gonna see me with my nails done, whether that means I got acrylics on or that I painted them myself... just know. that’s how we do. and by we I mean me.

Full name? I won’t share my last name, but Eden Amaris (fun fact: amaris can be pronounced two ways!) Is my first and middle

When were you born? December 18, 1999

Where are you from and where do you live now? was born in Federal Way, WA but I consider myself to be from Tacoma, WA as I’ve spent all of my most important years there (early childhood + hs + uni). I now live in Tacoma.

What school do you go to? University of Washington

What kind of student are you? a fucking mess I’m quiet at first, but once I’m comfortable I’m rly talkative and answer so many questions that my teachers will literally stop calling on me unless if there’s no one else lmaooo, I’ve also had several classmates and teachers tell me I should be a teacher and surprise, surprise, I do want to be a teacher for some time

Do you like school? f-f-f-FUCK YEA I LIKE SCHOOL how is that even a question??? to take it down a couple notches, yes, I love school, whether it’s for sports or for learning, I’m always excited to come to school everyday wow what a frickin nerd amirite, frickin loser

Favorite subject? depends on my professor. at this point, I highkey hate all of my classes rn bc I don’t feel like I’m learning anything. that miiight also have something to do with depression and anxiety though so idk what to tell ya man

Favorite tv shows? not a super TV person, but I’m a thot for Steven Universe

Favorite movie? I love tf out of movies, my all time would have to be Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (I just pretend that WftPotA didn’t happen atm bc I hate sm of what happened in it), but in the last few days I’ve watched War Horse (I cried like a bitch lemme tell ya), Secretariat (didn’t cry like a bitch but got teary-eyed) and 42 (I did cry at certain parts but it’s kinda uplifting so ya know, wasn’t super sad) and they were all lovely so if you haven’t seen them yet, go watch them! They’re all free on Netflix

Favorite book? When I was little it was this book called Junket (that thing is older than my grandparents, good lordte), I think some of my favorites rn tho are Heartless by Marissa Meyer and Tales from the Perilous Realm by J.R.R. Tolkien

Favorite past time? a couple months ago you would’ve thought it was crying from how much I did that, but tbh it’s probably drawing, writing, reading, watching movies, listening to music, sewing, spending time/going on adventures with my friends and helping my friends with their lives. I KNOW THAT’S EVERYTHING BUT I CAN’T HELP IT REEEE my most favorite past time atm is helping my friend Charlie clean and organize his room and designing things for his business, also spending time with my favorite little niecey-poo in the WHOLE WORLD OMGOODNESS HERE IS A PICTURE OF HER BEAUTIFUL SELF I LOVE HER SM SHE IS THE SWEETEST MOST CUTEST AND FUNNIEST AND SMARTEST WITTO GIRL EVER AND I LOVE HER <3

Do you have regrets? boy oh boy, do I: taking so long to forgive my abuser (thx for destroying my childhood @ my biological father), procrastinating, not having enough self-love/worth/confidence, being complacent with so many of the friends I used to have, focusing so much on socializing in hs rather than my sports and my schoolwork, being so afraid to just be myself bc I knew most people don’t want to be friends with a weirdo, the list goes on, all I can do now is move past it though so... ohwell.

Dream job? oh SIS get ready for this: sooo I want to own my own business, known as LEAD Revitalization (L for Love, E for Equity, A for Advocacy, D for Diplomacy - these are the core values of my business), which aims to help revitalize underdeveloped and underserved ethnic communities in the US and around the world and fight against gentrification through implementing art of all mediums in or near historic locations in that community that is representative of the demographic living there (so if the area is a primarily black neighborhood, you’re gonna see art depicting black history and culture, and if the area is primarily Asian you’d see Asian history and culture). I won’t get too into it just bc that would make this post way too long, but if anyone’s interested or wants to hear more you can bml ;) like literally bc I’m passionate af about it so I will talk your head off for days on end if given the chance

Would you ever like to be married? yes

Would you like kids? yes

How many? two or three of my own (I’m hoping for a girl and a boy) just so I can have the experience of having kids, but once they’re grown and out of the house I would like to adopt more if I have the resources to. my cousin’s adopted, so like, idk. I think that if you can adopt a kid, you should, bc there’s so many of them just stuck in the foster system and that’s complete bs

Do you like shopping? yes but I usually don’t like getting myself things (unless if we’re talking groceries or something I actually need), I love to buy things for other ppl tho if I can

What countries have you visited? canada for like 3 days technically, I just went to Mt. Whistler for spring snowboarding (that shit hurted) with my aunt bc she paid for the whole thing and my passport

Scariest nightmare you have ever had? TRIGGER WARNING: DOMESTIC AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE - I had a nightmare awhile ago that this guy I used to be involved with raped me, I also used to have recurring nightmares after I stopped going to my biological father’s house for visitation where he would come searching for me trying to kill me and my older brother (he’s tried to kill me 3+ times sooo... it makes sense). so like. fun.

Any enemies? S A T A N and myself, or.... my brain, I guess. idk.

Self-doubt? you betcha

Any significant other? kinda? I’m currently fwb with my ex and still have feelings for him (oopsies), we split bc he was going through shit and needed to figure himself out, I’ve been close to him for a phat minute so I’m not really trippin about it. I also have crushes on other people, but nothing’s presented itself as something worth pursuing yet so. yakno.

Do you believe in miracles? lmao I would fuckin hope so, the very fact that I’m alive rn is a gd miracle so yea

How are you? I am so-so. If we’re just talking about today, I’m prolly fine, but if we’re talking long term, I’ve been going through it. I’m just trying to figure myself out atm, and it’s rough, but I’ll probably get there. My friends think I will, at least.

i tag: @crookedly-rainy @secretpatrolpiespy hi I don’t have any other friends on Tumblr so I tagged my friends from Amino Y E E T

#tag game #outsider rambles

[bevioletskies]

across the universe [1/8]

summary: Peter, the son of the Chancellor, has lived among the stars for the first ten years of his life. Gamora, the future Commander of Terra, has lived on the ground for the first ten years of hers. Though it’s finally time for the last survivors of the so-called apocalypse to return to Earth, they might not be prepared for what’s waiting for them. But when Peter and Gamora meet and find their worlds irreversibly tangled together, titles, obligations, and the impending war may be the very last thing on their minds.

a/n: The premise of this fic is very loosely based off of The 100, the television show more so than the book series. However, no previous knowledge is required, as I only used the basic concept and language, and none of the storylines or characters arcs from the show.

Fic title is from the song Across The Universe by The Beatles. Prologue can be found here. Warning for unnamed character deaths, injuries, blood, dry heaving, and Ego and Thanos being assholes to their kids.

word count: 10.2k | ao3 | tag

“Tell us more about Earth.”

Meredith turned to look at her children, who were seated beside her. They were properly strapped into their seats - she’d checked and double-checked and triple-checked that they were perfect, as she was oft to do with just about everything; what kind of doctor would she be if she wasn’t meticulous? - and gripping their seatbelts so tight, their knuckles were turning white. She was trying not to let them see the way her hands shook, too.

“What do we say, baby?” Meredith reminded him.

“Please?” He smiled angelically.

“I’ll admit, it’s not the most advanced of planets,” Meredith said, sitting back to think. “It’s diverse, though, where all walks of life can live together - or at least, try to. I lived in a place called St. Charles, Missouri, with my mama and daddy. They took me to church every Sunday at St. Peter’s when I was a little girl. My daddy would put on the news after we got home, and I liked to see what was goin’ on out there, outside our little house with a big yard. Wasn’t always so nice, but sometimes, you got to see the real good in humans. Or Terrans, as your daddy likes to call us.”

“Then Earth got destroyed by the bad air,” Peter added. “And that’s when Dad came to save everyone, an’ promised to help restore it with his powers so they could have their planet back.”

“Would you like to tell the story now, Peter?” Meredith teased.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

“Anyways, I remember when I first woke up from cryo-sleep, one of the first things I saw was your daddy, standin’ by my side.” Meredith smiled, reminiscing of a time not too long ago. “I asked him what he wanted. He said, ‘I visited your Earth once before. While I was there, I saw some of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen, and I’ve been across the universe’. I thought it was a little strange since we’d never spoken before, so I asked him what he meant. He described these flowers, these blooming, vibrant little red beauties, and I said, ‘you must be talkin’ about the river lily’. He laughed and told me I was just like a river lily - the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.”

“I like that story, Mama,” Mantis chirped, leaning around Peter to look at her. “It does not sound like Daddy, though.”

“No, he’s...not much like that nowadays, is he?” Meredith let out a false laugh that made Peter’s brows knit together, though he wisely decided not to comment on it. “Sit tight now. They’ve got officers coming ‘round to make sure we’re ready for departure.”

“We’re already here, ma’am,” a raspy voice said above them, causing the three of them to jump, startled by its sudden arrival.

“Kraglin? You’re not an officer yet,” Peter said accusingly.

“No, but cap’n got all his recruits on duty since there’s so many dang people to account for,” Kraglin grumbled, pulling out his holotab. “Can I get your names?”

“...you know our names, Kraglin,” Peter said, squinting at him dubiously. “And is Yondu here? I was hopin’ he could sit with us.”

“Cap’n’s sitting with the Chancellor and the Council, along with all them other important folk,” Kraglin shrugged. “Names, please.”

Frustrated, Peter sat back in his seat with his arms crossed. Meredith patted him half-consolingly, half-reminding him to control his temper, then began to neatly recite their full names for Kraglin’s records. After he left, she turned to Peter. “You know the rules, baby. Families sit together, and Yondu’s a good man and a good friend, but he’s not family.”

“Then why do I see him more than Dad?” Peter shot back.

“Peter!” Meredith exclaimed. “You know, I’ve just about had it with you sayin’ things like that like they don’t hurt. When we get to Earth, you’re...you’re grounded.” She paused, then, realizing the absurdity of her statement, let out a laugh that even caught herself off guard. Peter turned to look at Mantis, wondering if their mother had finally lost it after being cooped up in space for fifteen years as she continued to laugh like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard in her life.

Gamora woke to her usual morning soundtrack of clanging metal and warrior cries, the smell of oil and sweat permeating every fabric and every surface in every room on Sanctuary. Though she lived on the top floor, thanks in no small part to her status, there always seemed to be something going on in Thanos’s private quarters nearby. He trained constantly, and was never without his most loyal (and frankly, his most morally-corrupt) generals and advisors at his side, consulting on everything from war tactics to technology to governance.

She slipped out of bed, got dressed, and quietly made her way into the kitchen, another room accessible only by Thanos and his “children”, frowning at the sight of an excessive amount of rations that could...well, that could feed their whole army. Through the kitchen’s backdoor was a storage warehouse with rows upon rows of cured meats, a huge indoor vegetable garden (there were shutters covering an opening in Sanctuary’s vast ceiling that cast just the right amount of sunlight over it), and a whole wall of ice boxes that contained seeds and medicine that would last them for centuries. All of this, and she was allowed to speak about none of it to no one.

Gamora never understood why Thanos chose to form a settlement on Terra, of all places. She knew vaguely of its history, its tragedy, its rebirth, but it never stood out to her as particularly desirable compared to all the other places Thanos must have conquered in the past. She wasn’t oblivious to Thanos’s history, however - in fact, he’d told her outright that he had failed to save many planets from their untimely deaths, including hers and Nebula’s, and it meant he had to do a lot of unsavory things in the process. She knew there was a lot more to him than what he claimed to be, and she knew that she didn’t have to be a grown adult to understand that he was no savior. She also knew there was a lot she was still yet to know.

“Gamora.” She turned to see Nebula standing in the doorway, looking unusually tired. “Father has called for both of us.”

“It’s too early for a meeting, isn’t it? I thought people were still healing from last night’s attack,” Gamora commented, but she followed her sister regardless.

A few winding, eerily empty corridors later, the two of them walked up to the door to his war room, recoiling at the unwelcome sight of Proxima and Cull standing guard. “Children,” Proxima said snidely, barely sparing them a glance. Cull grunted.

“Adults,” Nebula snarked back. “Father wants to see us.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Proxima sniffed.

Nebula reeled back, ready to make another retort, but Gamora instead laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking her head in silence. It would do her no good to taunt their older “siblings”, not when they had the ability to kill them in seconds. Gamora smiled tightly at Proxima. “How is Corvus?”

Proxima’s jaw slowly unclenched. “Recovering.” She stepped aside. “Go on.”

They entered the room after receiving one last scowl, courtesy of Cull, and were granted the sight of Thanos stood by his various holoscreens, his back turned to them, Maw at his side. “Daughters,” he said curtly, still fixated on one particular battle plan that was blown up across six adjacent screens. “It’s time.”

“Time for what?” Nebula grouched.

Thanos turned, narrowing his eyes in her direction. “Watch your tone, Nebula,” he hissed. “It is time for the Sky People to descend to the ground. As of two hours ago, I’ve received reports from our scouts near Trishanakru that a vessel far larger than Sanctuary has broken through the atmosphere. I suspect we’ll be feeling their impact at any moment.”

“What do we do?” Gamora asked.

“We’ve already initiated a lockdown of all essential areas, and have made the call for all families to retreat to Sanctuary and stay in their quarters. And, of course, the army has already been sent out in pursuit of the invaders.” Thanos’s lip curled in an oddly contemplative snarl. “As for you two...I need children to act as my scouts.”

“And...why is that, Father?” Gamora said carefully.

“It won’t be all children, of course, just you and the other contenders. Your rivals, Gamora,” Thanos hummed, turning back around. Maw let out a delighted tittering noise that made both sisters want to punch him square in the jaw even more than usual. “The army has been ordered to kill groups on sight. But the children are to find isolated stragglers and bring them to me.”

Gamora swallowed. “Okay. When do we leave?”

“Now. And pack some rations,” Thanos said, fully directing his attention back to the screens, sweeping through page after page of his battle plans, arranging and rearranging as he saw fit. “Do not return until you have something of interest.”

Peter didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he was waking up, only he hadn’t exactly fallen asleep, he had been knocked out cold. Groaning, he rubbed his eyes, blinking blearily into the darkness. It wasn’t exactly dark, either; there was a bright red light flashing over and over again like a silent siren. Before he could discern what was happening, though, he felt something run into his eyes; Peter yelped in surprise and began wiping it out with the heels of his palms. Whatever it was, it was sticky and slightly warm to the touch.

He stumbled to his feet, trying to recall where he’d been last and when that had been, squinting at his pitch-black surroundings. We were headin’ to Earth, Peter thought, his scattered brain still buzzing with adrenaline, made even more disoriented by the flashing lights. Then some crazy stuff started happening when we broke through the atmosphere, and people were freaking out - Mantis! Mom! He looked down at his feet, where he could vaguely make out the silhouettes of Mantis sprawled out on top of Meredith, almost like she’d been thrown there. It was then that he realized the whole ship had crash-landed sideways; their seats were completely tipped in the other direction, the walls crushed against the ground.

Peter knelt beside them, shaking their shoulders urgently. “Mom! Mantis! C’mon, you gotta wake up!” He felt a knot of anxiety tying itself up in his stomach the longer they didn’t respond. “I think we’re on Earth, I don’t know why I don’t see no one else, I - Mom, I’m scared, I don’t wanna, I need, I - ”

“Quill?”

He let out a sob of relief, running in the direction of the familiar voice and flinging his arms around his waist. “Yondu!”

“Good to see you’re in one piece, though you’re bleedin’ a bit,” Yondu said gruffly, patting him awkwardly on the back. He drew a dusty rag from his utility belt and wiped Peter’s forehead; he belatedly became dizzy at the realization of what the sticky substance was. “Your mom and sister?”

“They ain’t getting up,” Peter said, tugging on Yondu’s sleeve to pull him back towards them. “What happened, Yondu, what’s goin’ on?”

“Well, to make a long story short - we crashed. Real bad,” Yondu sighed, lifting his flashlight a little higher, casting it over Meredith and Mantis’s faces. “Whole sections of the ship, they didn’t make it. Others, like you, were lucky. Relatively, o’ course. Been spending the last hour tryin’ to find survivors. Your mama and sister, I see their shoulders movin’, they’re breathin’, they’re okay. We’re gonna need Meredith and her team to help with some pretty nasty wounds - if she’s up to it, o’ course.”

“What about Dad?” Peter looked at him expectantly. “He said he was gonna come find us before we landed, and I thought he was gonna get us to sit with him on the command bridge.” He hung his head. “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Dunno what to tell you, boy,” Yondu said, his discomfort rapidly growing. “But let’s get you and your family outta here. Don’t need you seeing all this mess.” He gestured aimlessly at the other unmoving bodies. Peter didn’t want to think about which ones were never going to move again, or he was sure to throw up.

A few of Yondu’s guardsmen came in to help carry out the survivors, while Peter sat impatiently on a cot in one of the makeshift medical tents that the nurses had set up just outside. He tried not to look at the smoldering remains of the Ark, how crumpled and despondent some sections looked, while other parts looked relatively salvageable. Peter certainly couldn’t appreciate his first breath of fresh air, either, or the feeling of wind in his hair, or the beautiful lake on the other side of the tent. It all felt sour, it felt undeserved, it felt wrong.

“You doing okay, Peter?” the nurse asked kindly. “I took a look at your mom and your sister, they’re gonna be just fine. Good chance of a mild concussion, and Meredith’s got a bit of a dislocated shoulder, but nothing some rest and medicine won’t fix.”

“I’m not okay,” Peter mumbled. “People are dead.”

His face fell. “I know. But we can’t think about that right now, alright? We have to help the living.”

Another ten minutes passed before the tent flapped open, but instead of the faces that Peter wanted to see more than anything else in their new world, he saw the cape first instead of its wearer. “Peter! Son, are you okay?”

“Everyone keeps askin’ me that,” Peter grouched, turning the other way. “What am I s’posed to say when people are dead, Dad?!”

“Whoa, now! Watch your tone,” Ego snapped, his face instantly contorting into something more cruel. He stormed over to Peter and grabbed his face, pinching his chin with one hand until Peter’s cheeks ached from the pressure. “What do you say, Peter?” The nurse let out a quiet gasp of surprise and promptly ran out of the tent.

“Sorry,” Peter said, his voice still hardened. Ego released him, though he didn’t look satisfied. Before he could respond, though, the tent opened yet again, and Meredith stormed in like a hurricane, still wrapped in a shock blanket. She whipped it off and promptly flung it at Ego, though it barely grazed his shoulder on its way down.

“Meredith!” Ego exclaimed, chuckling like she merely amused him.

She let out a feral growl in return. “I oughta give you a piece of my mind right now,” Meredith hissed. “You had no business bringin’ us down here when there was even a chance of death!”

“There’s always a chance of death, sweetheart, that’s how life works,” Ego said, waving his hand dismissively. “You think I didn’t calculate every single possibility, figure out every possible thing that could go wrong? You really think that little of me, Meredith?”

“Don’t make this about what I think of you, though I have plenty more thoughts I’d like to share,” Meredith snapped, picking up her blanket and wrapping it back around her body, shivering, though not from the blustery cold. “You got an estimate on how many people we’ve lost today? Or are you too busy going ‘round, pretendin’ everything’s just peachy?”

“Mom,” Peter interrupted. “Where’s Mantis?”

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry. Here I am ramblin’, and I haven’t even checked up on you yet.” Meredith went to Peter’s side, gently prodding along his skull and ribcage even though he’d already been checked a half-dozen times by her best nurses. She then held his face in both hands, cupping his cheeks, and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “Mantis is getting cleaned up a few tents down, she knows to come straight here after she’s done. Peter...are you gonna be okay?”

Peter choked out an insincere laugh. “I think so.”

Ego cleared his throat loudly from behind them. “I have to speak with the Council about setting up base here. Think we landed in a mighty good spot - lots of trees and water. It’ll be great support for the manufacturing stations.”

“Don’t you pretend you did a good thing here, Ego,” Meredith said, her voice scarily low. “And don’t you pretend our conversation is done, either. I’ve got plenty more to say.”

“I can tell,” Ego said blithely, turning and walking right out, his expression decidedly neutral. Meredith seethed at his retreating back, wrapping her arms around Peter even tighter.

“People are dead, Mom,” Peter mumbled into her shoulder; he was starting to sound like a broken record.

“We’ll do right by ‘em, baby,” Meredith promised, rubbing his back reassuringly. “Once we clean up the mess your daddy made, we’ll have a celebration of life, right out there on the lake. Did you see it?”

“Yeah.” He sank into her, drowning himself in her warmth, the smell of her perfume and shampoo, unable to hold up his own bodyweight for even one more second. “Yeah, it was nice.”

“Good morning, heda.” Gamora turned to see a rather snide-looking group of children around her age with a few that seemed significantly older, standing behind her, arms folded tightly across their chests. The first thing she noticed, aside from their unfriendly faces, was the weapons slung on their backs or holstered at their hips. “I hear we are following your greatness today.”

“Hey! I was the one who saved your parents’ lives yesterday,” Gamora snapped.

“Forgive us for not bowing at your feet,” another child sneered, one of the older ones, one who seemed far too old to be looking at Gamora with such unwarranted scorn. “Anyone with half a brain would have done the same.”

Gamora glanced over at Nebula, who merely shrugged; she was barely paying attention to their conversation. Unfortunately, it was like most conversations between them and other children, whether during classes or training sessions or unwanted encounters in the halls, and it hardly elicited a reaction out of Nebula anymore. Simply put, there was nothing that would convince the others that Gamora was worthy of what she’d been given.

“We’re losing light,” Gamora said coldly, turning back to look at the others. “We have our orders and our gear. Meet back here at sunset.” She then called for everyone to form small groups, and unsurprisingly, the majority immediately moved away from the girls so they could cluster up together, then took off in different directions the second they were ready, not bothering to announce their departure. Only one child was left standing, one that Gamora had seen many times before, one who never quite seemed to find his footing with the others. “Join us, Drax.”

“Are you sure, heda?” he asked, stepping forward regardless. “I would not want to slow you down.”

“You won’t. We won’t let you,” Gamora said, smiling faintly. “I’ve seen you train...you’re really good. I think your parents would be proud.” Drax’s face crumpled a little at the mention of them, but he quickly recovered, nodding and falling into step beside the sisters.

The three of them ventured across a seemingly endless field of lush grass, far away from everyone else, who had gone for the trees. They knew it left them open, vulnerable to attack, but Gamora told herself she couldn’t afford to be scared. She told herself that Thanos didn’t want to see her until they brought back a hostage. She told herself not to think about what would happen if she didn’t.

Of course, she hated the idea, but she was never going to tell him that. She had always been curious about the legendary skaikru, the people who were saved by a mysterious force right before their planet fell apart. They weren’t even considered Terran anymore, given that they’d been away from Earth for a hundred years, with children who had never breathed fresh air or tasted water that wasn’t artificially created. Meanwhile, the forest, the ocean, the wind and snow, it was all she’d ever known, but Gamora knew she wasn’t truly Terran, either. The idea of designating the Sky People as some “other” who were to be immediately tortured or killed for returning to what had been theirs disgusted her, but she knew no amount of reasoning would change Thanos’s bloodlust. His ongoing war with other factions that had split off from them when they first arrived was proof enough.

“I hear the river, heda,” Drax called; he was a good thirty feet in front of them, gesturing for them to catch up.

“Call me Gamora,” she insisted, her and Nebula jogging up beside him. “If skaikru were smart, they wouldn’t be out here. They would hide in the trees.”

“Then why did we not go to the trees?” Drax asked curiously.

“Because Gamora doesn’t want to be around the others,” Nebula interjected, smirking.

“Because we are looking for stragglers, not the entire group. If they ran or got kicked out, they would be far away from their camp,” Gamora reasoned, elbowing her sister in warning. Nebula’s face fell a little; it was hard to argue with that. “Do you see mud trails?”

“Why?” Nebula grumbled. “There’s mud everywhere.”

“It means someone walked across the river, and we could follow it to see where they went,” Drax volunteered. “The skaikru don’t know how to cover their tracks like we do.”

“Right,” Gamora nodded, pleased. “Let’s go.”

She and Drax immediately started walking again, while Nebula trailed behind sullenly, folding her arms across her chest. As they continued on, their eyes trained on the ground and the sky, Gamora couldn’t help but watch Drax, too. She didn’t know his story, aside from his parents being long dead, but he seemed like the type who could handle a fight. The other children didn’t like him much, but she occasionally saw him spending time in the Sanctuary’s hangar bay with two young engineering prodigies who worked under one of Thanos’s generals, Rocket and Groot. She wasn’t sure how their companionship had started, but she’d never been curious enough to ask. She was almost curious enough to ask now.

“Heda?” His voice broke into her thoughts.

“I said not to call me that,” she countered.

“Mud, like you said,” he said simply, pointing. Gamora followed his line of sight and jogged over, crouching down by the tracks. She wasn’t skilled enough to place any identifiers - height, weight, age - but at least it would keep them from wandering aimlessly forever.

Gamora straightened up, sucking in an unsteady breath. “Follow me.”

The mood at Arkadia was appropriately somber, the air thick with tension and unspoken words. Ego had made his usual rousing speech, swearing not to give up, to not let the “sacrifices” (and oh, how Peter and Meredith hated that word, like their deaths had been planned somehow) of the dead be in vain. It didn’t have the effect he wanted, much to Meredith’s secret satisfaction, and there were already whispers among their people that a new Chancellor was to be called for on the ground.

The ship, Ego’s beloved ship, was still a smoking husk of what it was just hours ago, and no one wanted to be reminded of the smell of death, so more tents were set up in a temporary formation, grouped less by station and affiliation, and more by relationships, families and friends who used to go weeks without seeing each other, who were now able to cross boundaries and set their own. Peter and Mantis went to take a nap in their tent after Ego’s speech, exhausted by the day’s events and their father’s empty promises.

“Are you awake, Peter?” Mantis mumbled, lifting herself up onto her elbows. Peter groaned and rolled onto his back. “Are you okay?”

“You tell me,” he snapped, though Mantis didn’t seem offended by his tone. “Everyone keeps askin’ me that like I’m s’posed to be okay with people being dead. People who didn’t do nothing.”

“There are always people who die who did not do anything.” Mantis turned away from him, unable to look Peter in the eye. “My real mama. For having me.”

Peter sighed, the fight leaving his body as he exhaled. “I wish Mom would tell us what happened, so I know what to be mad at Dad for.”

“You are always mad at him, though,” Mantis said blithely. “You are mad when he is here, and when he is not.”

“Yeah, what’s your point?”

“I think it hurts you more than it hurts him,” Mantis observed. “Maybe you should talk.”

“Yeah, right,” Peter scoffed, also rolling over so he was facing away from her, leaving them back-to-back. He curled further into his scratchy blankets and flat pillow, sorely missing his cold, unfriendly bunk back in their little apartment. It was hard for him to process that he would never sleep there again, considering he was almost certain he was going to live his entire life on the Ark, wasting his days and nights dreaming about Earth the way it was never going to be.

“I am telling you what you feel,” Mantis said, scrunching up her nose in anger at him, though he obviously couldn’t see her face. She got to her feet, staring down at him with fury burning in her eyes. “You said to tell you.”

He sighed again, burrowing into himself, wishing everything and everyone would just...go back to the way it was. The way he never knew he could want so badly. “Leave me alone, Mantis.” He heard her irritated grunt and the stomp of her feet, then watched her leave.

It didn’t take long for the tent flaps to open again, though a whiff of perfume told him that it wasn’t his sister. “You two fighting again?” Meredith said sternly, kneeling by his side. “Oh, baby.”

“Happens all the time, don’t gotta fuss about it,” Peter retorted.

“Sure. You’re both young and stubborn as mules.” At his puzzled expression, she added, “It’s a Terran animal. They sure love to dig their heels in the dirt when they don’t wanna go nowhere. Anyways, just because it happens all the time, that doesn’t mean it should. A few harmless fights can turn into a big one real quick, and next thing you know, you never talk again. Or you try to hurt each other in ways that only you know how.” She sighed, her intuition nagging at her brain, telling her to say it before Peter did. “Like me and your daddy.”

“But you still love him,” Peter said. He finally sat up, hugging his knees into his chest. “Or...I mean, yeah, you do, right?”

Meredith smiled another false smile. “Of course, Peter. Don’t you?”

Peter hesitated. “It’s hard sometimes. ‘Specially when he let all those people die.”

She reached out to cup his face with her hand, gently running her thumb over his cheek. “I’m mad at him, too. I’m furious. But you see, life ain’t as easy as one good path and one bad one. Sometimes it’s lots of paths that eventually lead to the right place, but getting there is what hurts. And sometimes, the paths don’t connect or make sense, and that makes it even harder. Your daddy’s doing the best he can with what he has, and I think if he tells us what happened, we can try to understand. Okay?”

He nodded, cracking the tiniest of smiles. “Okay.”

“Oh, and Yondu wants to see you, by the way. I already told him I don’t want to hear nothing about him training you again, but heaven knows neither of you listen to me,” Meredith chuckled. She took him by the hand and led him out of the tent to where Yondu was stationed, and for the first time, they could both appreciate the bite of fresh air along the way. “Come find me at the medical section when you’re done, alright? We’ll go have dinner together.” She kissed him briefly on the forehead before leaving, her mind already racing with the patients she had yet to see.

The guards’ quarters were merely just another long row of tents, most of which were unoccupied since the guardsmen were out helping the other Arkadians set up their temporary base, but Peter still couldn’t help but swallow down the lump in his throat. It was true; he had no interest in becoming a member of the guard since it felt all too rigid for him, too routine. He did like the uniform, though, and he did like Yondu and Kraglin, even though the rest of the guardsmen intimidated him. They watched him almost too closely, given that he was the Chancellor’s son, and he didn’t like that particular kind of attention. It was hard to do anything remotely adventurous with so many eyes following him everywhere he went.

“What took you so long, boy?” Yondu demanded. He was sitting at the front of the tent enclosure, his feet kicked up on a small, half-broken cooler. He seemed far less shaken than when he’d found Peter in the wreckage, though it was pretty typical of Yondu’s usual demeanor.

“Mom wanted to talk,” Peter protested. “She didn't even say nothin’ about you ‘til the end.” His eyes then brightened. “So are we gonna train more?”

“Surprised you can even think about something like that righ’ now,” Yondu shrugged.

“I just wanna think about somethin’ else, I guess,” Peter said quietly. “Me and Mantis had a fight, and I don’t wanna talk to Dad. So...are we?”

“Look, boy, there’s only one person I’m more scared of than your daddy, and that’s your mama,” Yondu said, chuckling wryly. Still, he gestured for Peter to come closer and sit beside him. “I know I told her it was for Kraglin, but she’s right. I could get any ol’ guard of mine to train with him. I’m doing it for you. But she’s your mama, and she knows you better than I do. So...we gotta stop.”

“But - ” Peter cut himself off, unsure of what to say. “We can still hang out and stuff, right?”

“What you wanna hang around an old man like me for?” Yondu exclaimed. “Don’t you got friends your own age?”

Peter shuffled uncomfortably, wringing his hands, and Yondu suddenly regretted asking. “Not really,” he mumbled. “No one wants to hang out with the Chancellor’s kids. Everyone thinks we’re weirdos for having powers, and that if they do somethin’ wrong, we’re gonna ask Dad to float ‘em.”

Yondu watched Peter carefully, watched his head hang a little lower, watched the corners of his mouth droop a little in despondence. He never quite knew what to say when Peter was in one of his moods - which was often - given that he’d never really had someone so young follow him around before. Sure, he had the occasional overbearing parent who insisted he train their “darling” son or daughter, but the child themselves were usually uninterested in the ordeal. Peter, on the other hand, had been in Yondu’s life since he was born, back when Ego liked to bring his infant son to meetings and show him off, excited that his Celestial powers were already beginning to manifest. Personally, Yondu thought it was more impressive that baby Peter was the only person who could make even the coldest of Council members smile.

“Just don’t be botherin’ me when I’m on duty, got it?” Yondu finally said, his voice gruff. Peter’s eyes lit up.

“Duties? What kind?” Peter asked. “Can I come?”

Yondu sighed, getting to his feet and gesturing for Peter to follow. “Guess your mama can’t fault me if you tag along on my rounds. C’mon, I hear there’s something goin’ on at hydra station.”

Gamora let out a surprisingly labored breath, sinking down onto a nearby fallen log, the palms of her hands digging into the wood grain, leaving painfully sharp welts as if to remind her of the time she was wasting. “I need a second. Let’s eat.”

Nebula looked down at her derisively. “Some heda you are. It’s only been three hours.” Gamora glared back, silently pulling her rations out of her bag and beginning to eat; she clearly wasn’t giving them a choice. Drax shrugged, not wanting to argue with her, and sat down to eat as well.

The mud trail they’d been following had eventually led to nowhere, drying up somewhere not too far from where they’d started, making it indistinguishable from the forest ground. Gamora, however, wasn’t about to admit she’d made a mistake, and was carrying on in the same direction. She supposed Nebula saw right through her, but she wasn’t certain about Drax. He seemed attentive for someone who barely knew her, but then again, maybe he just needed a friend. She also wondered whether the other children had succeeded already, if someone was bringing back a hostage this very minute. Thanos would probably - no, definitely - be disappointed if she wasn’t the first one back, would have some fresh form of torture ready in anticipation of her failure. Gamora glanced down at her arm, turning it over so she was looking at the inside of her wrist; a small glint of silver reflected back, reminding her of the last time she'd failed.

“What is that, heda?”

At the sound of Drax’s voice, she quickly pulled her sleeve down over her wrist. “Nothing.”

“Are you hurt?” Drax persisted, reaching for her arm.

“Old injury,” Gamora replied shortly, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “We should go.”

They continued on for some time, finding themselves starting to shiver when they came close to the border of Azgeda territory. Of all the warring nations, they were the coldest, both figuratively and literally, and even Nebula could muster up something resembling sympathy for any poor skaikru soul that ended up on their land. Not enough sympathy, however, to cross their borders in search of stragglers.

“This is stupid,” Nebula announced loudly about an hour later. “Who would stop us if we just stayed out here forever and never went back?”

“We’d die, Nebula,” Gamora reminded her. “Come on, we have to do this.”

“No, you do. No matter what I do, Father won’t care anyway,” Nebula said, sulking, her inky eyes narrowed to slits.

“You don’t know that,” Gamora protested. “If you bring someone back, if you tell him it was all you - ”

It only seemed to agitate Nebula further; she reared back to spit at Gamora, disgusted by her unwanted empathy, and then turned and began sprinting out of the forest and into the open, toward the dreaded border. Nebula screamed at the top of her lungs, something feral and raw and unintelligible that made Gamora’s heart stop for a split second, paralyzed with disbelief. She then went running after her, keeping her head low, hoping she wouldn’t be spotted by snipers in the tall grass; she could just barely hear Drax’s thundering footsteps behind her over the pounding of her heart against her ribcage.

Gamora wanted to call out, but she knew Azgeda warriors were notorious for hiding themselves right outside their walls, and she wasn’t about to announce where she was. The further she went, the harder it was to see, and all she could see was a blurry glimpse of Nebula just up ahead, making it impossible to figure out which direction she was going, swerving and turning at random.

Nebula’s sustained cry was interrupted by a sudden panicked yelp, followed by a sickening crunch. Gamora felt her heart leap in her throat, threatening to spill right out, and she sprinted faster, at a speed she didn’t know she was capable of. She and Drax came to a stop and nearly skidded right into the hole that Nebula had fallen into.

It was at least ten square feet across, and a good fifteen feet deep; laid on top of its opening was an intricately weaved net of grass and branches with a break in the middle, clearly where Nebula had taken one wrong step. She now laid at the bottom in a crumpled, undignified heap, still conscious and breathing, but now clutching at her broken leg. Nebula clenched her jaw, staring up at them with a burning hatred in her eyes as if they’d put her there.

“I see guards, heda,” Drax said, his voice trembling. “What do we do?”

“Gamora.” Astonished, Gamora looked down to see her sister’s expression had changed to something that seemed far more suitable for the child that she was than the adult she was trying to be, the hardness of her eyes melting away in favor of desperation. She grappled at the side of the pit, but the dirt crumbled beneath her fingers.

Gamora turned to look back at Drax, unsure if Nebula wanted her pity. “Carry her back to camp. I’ll fight the guards,” she ordered, missing the way her sister’s face fell.

“They are adults, Gamora. You are just a child,” Drax protested.

Gamora scoffed, putting her hands on her hips. “So now my name is Gamora. I am your heda, and you will listen to me. Take my sister. I’ll follow.”

Drax nodded, though it wasn’t without apprehension. He knelt on the ground so he could contort the net into a makeshift rope for Nebula, his brow furrowed with effort. Gamora smiled tightly at her sister, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she’d ever see her again. She then turned, gritting her teeth, and began running toward the oncoming rush of Azgeda warriors.

Dinner was about as tense as could be expected, with every last Arkadian either sitting in stone-faced silence, shouting and spitting in the faces of the Council members who eventually retreated to the safety (and cowardice) of their own quarters, or sobbing into their stews. Even Ego had to return to his own tent by the time it was dark, unable to face the faces of his people, who at best, felt betrayed, but at worst, were vengeful.

Upon his return, he found Meredith, Peter, and Mantis sitting on the ground, ignoring the cots he’d lined up neatly along the back wall. The children were snuggled into Meredith’s side while she read to them, laughing and interjecting with comments in the appropriate (or in Peter’s case, inappropriate) places. They all looked up at the sound of his footsteps, genuinely surprised to see him. “Ego,” Meredith said, slowly closing the book over her thumb, holding her place. “You’re back early.”

“You never came to dinner,” Ego said airily, striding over to the cots so he could sit down and take off his boots, keeping his back to his family.

“Peter wanted to eat with the guardsmen. Kraglin’s a very good friend of his,” Meredith added.

Ego glanced over his shoulder to look at them, his eyes hard. “I know who my son is friends with,” he said shortly. “But it’s Yondu you’ve gone and gotten attached to, isn’t it, son?”

“I like ‘em both,” Peter said carefully, shrugging. Ego didn’t seem satisfied with his answer, but he didn’t press further. Instead, he reached for the haphazardly-drawn blueprints in his bag and passed it to Meredith, his face relaxing into a gentle smile at the crease that formed between her brows in confusion.

“Construction starts tomorrow,” Ego said, wanting to lean over and press his thumb to her forehead, smooth out her worries, but he wisely decided against it.

“This is...it’s a mansion, baby,” Meredith finally said, her eyes still roaming over the building plans. “Are you gonna have the strength to make that many big ol’ houses for everyone?”

“Come on now, Mer, that’s our house,” Ego chuckled. “Everyone else will get something a little more...standard. Except for the council members, of course, you know how they get. And farm station will need extra land for cultivating - ”

“We don’t need all that space, it’s only us and two kids,” Meredith interrupted. “Do you even know that there’s some families with over twelve people that lived in them tiny apartments on the Ark? Now they could use a big house.”

“I’m going to build you a ballroom, just like the ones you described,” Ego continued like he hadn’t heard her. “Big windows, lots of light, columns that go all the way up to the ceiling - I thought you’d like that, darling. So we can have a proper dance, whenever we want.”

“I do like that idea,” Meredith admitted. “But we don’t need a kitchen with all these extra little gadgets, or three sitting rooms. And I think Peter and Mantis can live with sharin’ a bathroom. I had a brother growin’ up, we survived.” Her expression faltered. “Or I guess... I did.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother, Mama,” Mantis chirped, her large eyes flickering back and forth between them. Peter clapped a hand over her mouth before she could inquire further, his blood running cold in realization of what Meredith meant.

“This is what we deserve, Meredith,” Ego insisted. “We’ve been stuck in that tiny little place on the Ark for too long now, it’s about time we get some breathing room.”

“‘We’? You were only home two nights a week, if you were there at all!” Meredith shot to her feet; her cheeks were flushed red. “And I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean by ‘deserve’. What makes us better than any of the rest? We ain’t gods, Ego, we’re just like everyone else.”

“That’s the thing, sweetheart, we really aren’t,” Ego sneered, his voice rising. “I’m the chancellor, you’re the head medic, and we know Peter’s gonna follow in his old man’s footsteps when he’s older, isn’t that right, Peter?” He didn’t bother looking to see if Peter so much as reacted. “And if you think we should still be in a tiny little dump just so we can be ‘like everyone else’, you got some strange ideas about how to live!”

“And I don’t know where you got your idea that you could talk to me like that,” Meredith’s eyes were blazing with a kind of fury that neither of her children had ever seen. Mantis cowered behind Peter, peering gingerly over his shoulder. “We don’t need a big house, we never did. We don’t need more space between us, we need less, so maybe we can go back to being a family. If we ever were a family.”

“Meredith - ”

“Do you know how embarrassin’ it is, going about my day, hearin’ all the things people say about you? All them rumors about what you do when you’re not home, who you’re really with, who Mantis really belongs to?”

Mantis gasped. Peter pulled her into his arms so he could steady her breathing against his chest, wishing fiercely that he could stop the sobs that rattled through her throat. “Mom, c’mon, you’re scarin’ her.”

Meredith turned to look at her children then, almost as if she’d forgotten they were there, and the fire in her eyes extinguished, her expression melting back into something more recognizable. She knelt beside them, reaching for Mantis. “Baby, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to - ”

Mantis merely curled into Peter further, rejecting Meredith’s plea. “You want him to hurt,” she mumbled. “Why does everyone want to hurt each other so much?”

“It’s what Terrans do, Mantis,” Ego said coolly. It was the first time he’d said her name in days. “Come on now, we’re just having a little argument. Nothing to get upset about.”

“I do not just feel what is in here, but everything out there, too,” Mantis said, slowly unravelling herself from Peter’s grasp. “Everyone is sad...and angry. They want to hurt you.” She paused. “I feel...others. People I do not know. They want to hurt you, too.” Peter shivered.

Ego knelt in front of her, bringing them eye-to-eye, gripping her shoulders so hard that his knuckles went white. “And what does that mean?”

“Frag emo op!”

For the second time in twenty-four hours, Peter felt his whole world spin on its axis, only this time he was conscious enough to remember it - remember the way Meredith immediately leapt to cover them both, pinning him and Mantis to the ground, remember the way their tent went up in flames, crackling and hissing and spitting as the fire devoured itself, remember the way Ego went charging out into the open with his hands outstretched, powers at full blast, searing blinding white light across the expanse of their settlement, roaring with anger.

“What’s happening?” Peter exclaimed frantically once he found his voice again, barely noticing the sour taste of dirt in his mouth or the scrapes on his elbows and knees.

“I don’t know, baby, but stay calm,” Meredith murmured, helping to push his hair away from his eyes, though she sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “We gotta get movin’ before we inhale too much smoke. Follow me.”

The three of them belly-crawled across the ground, keeping themselves beneath the flames that licked at their heels and the putrid air that danced in their throats. After what felt like the longest minute of their lives, Meredith pulled them both to their feet and they all began to profusely cough what felt like the entire contents of their lungs out. “Wait - what - what about Dad?” Peter wheezed. “I got powers too, I could help - ”

“No. We don’t know what we’re dealin’ with here,” Meredith said firmly. “That language they spoke? That don’t sound like nothin’ we’ve ever heard before.”

“What do you mean?” Mantis asked.

Meredith paused. “It means we aren’t alone.”

“Alone?” Peter repeated.

“We can’t think about that right now, okay? We need to get to safety. Your daddy will find us later, he always does,” Meredith promised, pulling them both in for a brief embrace. “Let’s go find Yondu. If he’s doing his job right, he’s already got an evacuation plan up and runnin’.”

They ran through the camp, dodging the panicked Arkadians sprinting past, screaming themselves hoarse trying to find their families and friends. Peter could also hear the heavy footfalls of unfamiliar boots, the metallic clang of weapons striking their targets, the sickening crunch of bodies collapsing to the ground. The loudest sound, however, was Mantis crying frantically beside him, her breath running ragged, clutching to him and Meredith so hard that her fingernails were digging welts into their wrists.

Then, a flash of metal appeared in the corner of Peter’s peripheral vision - bright, brilliant silver, coming straight down toward Mantis’s head - and he shouted, bringing his hands up without hesitation. A blast of white light burned from his palms, stronger than any light he’d projected before, flinging the attacker clean across the field before they could even graze his sister’s shoulder.

Heads turned his way, faces that he didn’t recognize, some humanoid and some entirely alien, all snarling and spitting and full of vitriol he didn’t know was possible. There was a single pause, then they came charging at him, chanting in the language that none of them could understand, holding their swords and guns and spears over their heads with the intent to bring them down on his head. So, Peter did the first thing that came to mind - he ran.

Meredith and Mantis screamed after him until their throats were raw, watching helplessly as the soldiers tore past them in pursuit of Peter, but he wasn’t about to stop, not if his powers would distract them, would keep them from hurting his people. He ran and ran and ran like everyone’s lives depended on it - and in a way, it did - occasionally turning to blast them again, sending them crashing to the ground. It was only when the last of them had finally fallen that Peter realized how far he had gotten and what he had done.

“Mom?” he said rather stupidly, coming to a halt. He knew she couldn’t hear him, not when he was miles away. He turned, then turned again, trying to figure out where he’d come from, but he had zig-zagged all over the fields, through the trees, remembered his feet hitting the water of a shallow stream at some point, and - oh, he thought to himself, unable to find his voice again - I’m lost.

His belly twisted itself in knots the second he realized it, and he clutched at his rapidly beating heart, willing himself to stay calm. He had never been lost before; though the Ark was a behemoth of a ship, there were always people nearby who could help him find his way, no matter how far he wandered off in search of adventure. This was no adventure, this was a nightmare, one in which his vision was getting swallowed up in the darkness, where everything looked the same, but nothing was familiar.

Then, Peter heard a rustling in the nearby bushes. He spooked instantly, leaping backward with a soft yelp. “Don’t be a baby, Peter,” he chastised himself.

He suddenly felt something wrap around his ankles and yank him right to the ground, hitting his chin hard against the dirt. Peter shouted in pain, feeling blood pool in his mouth and nose from the impact, but he was quickly silenced by someone’s hand over his mouth and the weight of someone pinning him down. “Shof op, kepon.”

Peter lifted his head, terrified it was the last thing he was ever going to see, and nearly fainted in shock (and blood loss) at what he did see - a young girl, about his age, baring her teeth at him, blood streaked across her face. He could barely make out any other distinguishing features in the darkness, but he could see the ferocity in her eyes, the kind he’d never seen in someone so young. “You’re a kid,” he said breathlessly.

“Yu...laik goufa.” She looked just as confused as he did, like she was only just seeing him for the first time. She eased her knee away from his stomach (he could feel the bruise already beginning to blossom across his torso) and withdrew the blade she had pressed to his throat, though she still had a tight grip on the advanced-looking device she’d used to bind his ankles. “Chon yu biliak?”

He blinked. “How come my translator don’t work on...whatever it is you’re sayin’?”

She eyed him warily as she got to her feet. “Hakom yu kamp roun hir? Yu hir frag ai op?”

“Look, I don’t know - I don’t - please, you gotta let me go. We just got attacked by - I dunno, prob’ly your people - and I ran and I got lost, and I...I don’t know where I am or what’s goin’ on or - ” His breath rattled between his teeth. Feeling rather silly, Peter held out his hand, scraped raw, blood running down the lengths of his fingers. The girl looked at it with wide eyes, horrified to see what she’d done. “My name is Peter.”

“Ai laik Gamora kom Trikru.” With a soft shnk, his bindings were released, retreating back into the small device she was holding before he could blink. She knelt beside him, pushing her dark hair out of her eyes so they could properly get a look at one another. Her face was softer now, almost regretful. “My name is Gamora. You’re one of the Sky People.”

“Is that what your people are callin’ us?” Peter to struggled to sit up; it felt like every part of his body was aching from the sheer force of her attack, as if a fully-grown adult had attacked him, rather than a girl who had to be at least three inches shorter. “So you do speak...something my translator knows.”

“Trigedasleng is for my enemies, my language is for my people,” she said neatly, almost like she was reciting it from something. “Other children are not my enemy.”

“So what were you gonna do if I was an adult?” Peter asked, incredulous, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Gamora’s eyes couldn’t meet his. “That isn’t for you to know.”

“You coulda killed me! I think I oughta know,” he protested.

Sighing, she sat back on her haunches and began re-pocketing all her weapons; he was alarmed at the number of pouches and loops she had on her belt. “I would take you back to my leader as my kepon - captive. But I didn’t mean to come this way. I was near the Azgeda border, on my way home, when I saw light - your light. So I wanted to find you. I didn’t know you were a child.”

“So, what, your people don’t kill kids? ‘Cos it looked like they were doin’ it just fine back there,” Peter snapped. He then inwardly cowered for doing so; she seemed merciful so far, like she didn’t want to do what she was doing, but he had a feeling that one wrong word had the potential to change her mind.

“We aren’t the same. I can’t hurt you like I hurt the others.”

“Others?” he echoed.

“Never mind.” She got to her feet abruptly, turning her back to him, the last of her knives back on her belt. “Go home, Petr kom Skaikru. I’m letting you live.”

“Wait.” Peter reached out, clasped her wrist to hold her there. His blood smeared across her skin; she shuddered. “I don’t...I don’t know how to get home. I dunno where I am or how far or...or nothin’.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “My people are looking for me.”

“Yeah? So are mine,” Peter retorted, smiling slightly when her expression faltered. “Lots of people died trying to get here. More people are dyin’ right now. I don’t want my mom and sister to think I died, too.”

“You...have a sister.” Gamora turned to fully face him, her expression unreadable. “Fine. I’ll take you back.”

He bit back the urge to draw her into a grateful hug, instead electing to let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank you, um, Gamora kom...kom...I dunno what you said.”

She rolled her eyes, gesturing for him to fall into step beside her. “Ai laik Gamora kom Trikru, ‘I am Gamora of the Forest Clan’. If you and your people are going to stay, they need to learn Trig. Some factions won’t speak anything else.”

“Then teach me,” he said far too eagerly for someone who she’d tried to kill just ten minutes ago. “You said I was - ”

“Peter kom Skaikru - ‘of the Sky People’,” she replied with a huff; she wasn’t sure if she’d ever been so annoyed with someone’s existence so quickly. “Why would I? We’re never going to see each other again.”

“I guess not,” Peter mumbled. “I mean, with your people tryna kill my people and everything.”

“Wamplei ste komba raun,” Gamora said, her voice low.

“What does that - whoa - ”

Peter nearly tripped over something, unable to see much further than a few feet in the darkness. Bile burned in his throat when he realized it was a body, a body he’d put there. A man in armor, tall and lanky and long-limbed. He reminded Peter too much of Kraglin. Gamora stared down at it, unseeing, barely flinching when the man twitched, gasping for breath, his cold-gray eyes flying open.

“Heda?” he asked, his voice thin. “Heda, beja…”

“Okay,” she said, swallowing. She knelt beside him and motioned for Peter to join her. He did so automatically, too numb to realize what his body was even doing, the metallic smell of blood overwhelming all of his senses. “Leidon...reshwe.”

It took Peter too long to realize what was happening as she drew her blade from her belt, then drove it into the man’s chest. His eyelids fluttered closed, an eerily serene smile on his face, and he drew his last breath. Peter let out a gasp of horror, turned to dry-heave over the grass, but nothing came up. “How could you - ”

“I said we aren’t the same.” When he looked back at her, her eyes were wet as she calmly cleaned her blade with a small cloth.

“I killed that guy,” Peter breathed. “All those soldiers, I - they’re dead, and I - ”

“No. I killed him,” Gamora said. Her breath shook. “He asked me to.”

“Do you just go around killin’ people ‘cos they ask?!” Peter’s voice was getting more hysterical with every word.

“Your people are that way.” She pointed in a direction he could barely follow in his haze. “I think I should go now.”

“Don’t.” Gamora hesitated, furrowing her brow at him. “I don’t know what messed-up stuff has been goin’ on here for the last hundred years, but I do know I’m never gonna get back without you. Then I really am gonna end up...dead.”

Wordlessly, she nodded, got to her feet, and began walking again. He followed her, fists clenched at his side. He’d seen more death than he ever wanted to in a thousand lifetimes, created it, even, but he knew he had no choice. Maybe it was better that they never see each other again, that she was some horrifying child assassin that he thought only existed in the books and films that his father told him he could never look at. For now, though, she was all he had.

The rest of the journey back to the Arkadian camp was in silence. Peter kept his chin high, knowing that if he looked down, he’d see more bodies, only these ones didn’t seem to have people who were going to come for them, not like Yondu and his guardsmen for the Arkadians. Gamora, on the other hand, seemed resigned, the confidence in her stride and her posture from their initial encounter entirely gone. He tried not to pay attention to the sharp inhaling noises she made every minute or so; he knew the sound of someone trying not to cry when he heard it. It gave him hope, at least, that she wasn’t entirely soulless. He supposed he should’ve already known that, given her mercy from earlier, but it was hard to erase the vivid image of her blade in the man’s chest, glinting tauntingly in the moonlight.

“We’re here,” Gamora said hollowly after fifteen minutes of uncomfortable quiet. Peter could smell smoke but saw no flames, heard the idle chatter that told him the fight was over. He heard his father’s voice, booming over all the rest. From his tone, he sounded angry but not stricken, and Peter could only hope that meant the rest of his family were alright.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice raw from disuse. He’d never gone so long without talking before. “Hey, uh, are you gonna be okay? About the...thing?”

She turned to look at him; her nose and ears were tinged pink, and it wasn’t from the cold. “He asked me to...didn’t he?”

I don’t know. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, he would’ve been hurtin’ for way longer if you hadn’t...yeah, he did.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. Her fingers flexed involuntarily, a motion that Peter had only seen Yondu and his other guardsmen do. He stepped closer, though he didn’t dare to reach out. Her sorrow felt contagious. “Sorry ‘bout getting all mad at you for nothin’. I guess I just...when we left for Earth, we didn’t think it was gonna be like this.”

“What did you think it was going to be?” She dragged the heel of her palm across her face in a feeble attempt to dry her eyes.

“My mom’s from here. She had all these stories about growin’ up in a place called Missouri. She went to church with her parents every Sunday at a place called St. Peter’s. That’s where she got my name,” he added.

“It sounds like it was really nice here...once,” Gamora said, a tiny smile beginning to form. “You should go to your mother now.”

“What about you?” Peter asked, stepping even closer; they were nearly toe-to-toe now. “Do you live around here?”

“You really want me to teach you Trigedasleng,” she drawled, almost like she was teasing him. “Even after - ”

“I mean it, it’s okay. Or I guess, it’s not okay, but...I dunno what I’m saying, my head hurts,” he admitted with a weary laugh. He was getting increasingly delirious with every word that left his mouth. Something about this particular time of night - or day, who knew - made everything feel hazy, dreamlike, uncertain. “So...maybe I’ll see you around.”

Gamora looked at him again, really looked at him this time - he was a skinny kid, the kind that Thanos recruited for thievery; he had inquisitive eyes and a curious mouth. His hair was a little long and his words were a little bit disjointed, but against her instincts, she found herself smiling a little bit wider. “Maybe.”

That seemed good enough for him, and he grinned in a charmingly lopsided way before turning to return to his people. The closer he got, the more his heart drummed in his chest, thrilled at the sound of his mother’s strong accent and his sister’s soft lilt. Peter turned to wave at Gamora, still stood atop the small slope, and called, “Thanks again, Gamora kom Trikru!” With a quiet laugh, her eyes damp with mirth, she waved back.

a/n: I love writing Peter and Gamora meeting for the first time in pretty much all of my AUs so that last sequence was so fun to finally get to! Also, I got a comment on the prologue from the lovely star_munches about being unfamiliar with The 100, so to give you some visuals, here is an idea of what Thanos's settlement would look like (with Sanctuary, his ship from Infinity War instead of the show's Ark), and here is an approximation of how Gamora and Nebula would be dressing at this particular age.

I'm not quite sure when chapter two will be posted, as I have a lot of due dates stacked up next month, but hopefully before the end of March! Thank you so much for reading, likes and reblogs would be much appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed :)

Trigedasleng translations: frag emo op - kill them all shof op, kepon - shut up, hostage / yu laik goufa - you're a child chon yu biliak? - who are you? / hakom yu kamp roun hir? yu hir frag ai op? - why are you here? are you here to kill me? wamplei ste komba raun - death is coming / heda, beja - Commander, please / leidon, reshwe - goodbye, rest in peace

#starmora #starmora fic #peter x gamora #gamora x peter #gotg fic #myfic #myfic: across the universe #marvel #have a good friday/weekend y'all!!

[moistwithgender]

(Overdue) Media round-up (January 2019)

Feb’s almost over and I was gonna write about what I’ve processed when I realized I only posted about the anime I watched, I think? So this is a catch-up post for manga and games, before the end of this month in a few days. If you want to read the January anime round-up, it’s in my “curry watches anime” tag.

Games:

Puresabe’s 2019 New Year Rockman Hack (NES): Puresabe does one of these every year and they are always pretty hard! But I think the last few years have been much more balanced than their older projects. They are always just boss fights, but with complex patterns and sometimes multiple phases. Being just a boss fight (or two) means they are super short, but you will spend most of your time learning them. Also there are no checkpoints, so every death means you’re back to phase one. It’s very fun when it’s a good hack, and this was a good hack. I had a very rough start to the year and considered giving up, but went back and beat it, for good fortune in the new year. (Beaten 1/2/19)

The 2nd Super Robot Wars (NES): I decided 2019 would be the year I got into SRW, and so I started here, because the first game actually has no hard plot. I enjoyed it to a point, but the difficulty climbs to an absurd degree, and I wish I’d cut my losses and just youtubed it. The game allows you to save at any time during a turn, and resetting the console means it recycles the RNG and you can get different luck. This is...required. Most of the way into the game, I was having to reset twenty times in a row per unit action, just to make sure I could survive an enemy attack, or successfully hit an enemy. The funniest thing is that when I finally beat this, I almost immediately started up one of the later games, so clearly the kernel of value was visible to me through all that bullshit. (Beaten 1/13/19)

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: World of Light (Switch): I had been chomping at the bit for what felt like forever just to play this mode of this game, and not only was it good, it surpassed my expectations multiple times. This mode has a lot of twists for something that mostly implies narrative, or otherwise ignores it. I’m the rare person who mostly plays Smash Bros solo because I have NO FRIENDS, and this was worth the price of admission for me. I don’t consider Smash Ultimate itself beaten yet because I haven’t beaten Classic Mode on 9.9 difficulty yet. I have finished with 9.8, like, four times. Please kill me. (Beaten 1/18/19)

PaRappa the Rapper (PSP): While taking care of my cat, I found an opportunity to actually use my PSP for the first time since...2008 or 09? When I bought it secondhand? Jesus. Anyway, it turns out that PaRappa actually has absurd input detection and an equally hard to parse system for what counts as “freestyling”, which ultimately results in a final stage where you’re...required to play notes that are completely unrelated to what it says to do on-screen? I still beat the game (in a single sitting, too. it’s short), but I was pretty frustrated. Greenblat’s aesthetic is iconic, and the songs are very fun to listen to (this game has maybe the only potty humor I actually enjoyed), but the game part is actually the problem. (Beaten 1/25/19)

Patapon (PSP): I played PaRappa spontaneously, but I’ve actually meant to play the Patapon series for quite a while. This is less a song-performing rhythm game and more of an action/strategy type of rhythm game where you consistently keep a beat to keep morale up. It’s pretty good, but missions can be 3-6 minutes of consecutively hitting four notes and then waiting four notes, and while that itself sounds doable, I am just terrible at rhythm and messed up a lot of good opportunities. The difficulty curve in this is high in the beginning, lowers over time, before hitting a huge spike and then being a cakewalk for the last four or so missions. There’s also a lot of grinding, which means this rhythm game came out to almost a 16 hour run. A bit tiring. Not sure when I’ll jump on Patapon 2, but I hope it’s easier to play, since my impetus for picking up the series was the intro FMV for the third game. (Beaten 1/30/19)

Games beaten in January: 5 Games beaten in 2019 thus far: 5

Manga:

Getter Robo Vol 2 (Finished): I didn’t feel like plowing through 51 episodes of the old 70s anime, so I decided to just read the much shorter, and somewhat unrelated manga. In the show, the heroes are what they are, heroes. Likable mains for kids to watch on Saturday mornings. In the manga, as per Go Nagai’s influence (and the main author, Ken Ishikawa, who I LOVE and who was Nagai’s assistant), the heroes are violent asshole moron sociopath terrorists who gradually become more unhinged as they are exposed to the very radiation that powers the machine they use to fight dinosaurs (though said gradual descent is more of a thing in the later manga/OVAs). Also, the villains are dinosaurs. Turns out they had the original ancient civilization and Getter Rays chased them into the Earth’s core and they want to planet back. That’s Getter Robo! It’s very good.

Getter Robo G Vol 1-3 (Finished): This is kind of more of the same as the first, and again, I didn’t want to watch the 39 episodes, I wanted the primer so I could play SRW. As I’ve approached the later games, it turns out they prefer to take influence from the shows, not the manga. Oops! Whatever. In this sequel, it turns out the Dinosaur Empire was a pawn or something to It Was Aliens, the Hyakki Empire, and it’s...more of the same. In both the GR and GR G mangas, I found the occasional chapter with wildly different art, and I figured that those were Ishikawa’s gorgeous art, and the majority was Nagai’s. But, I’m not sure, and I wonder if those were revised or extra chapters done years later. Idk. Anyway, they are both very fun reads, even if they serve more as primers of the lore.

Shin Getter Robo Vol 1-2 (Finished): HERE’s where things start to get really good, and surreal, and bleak. This manga is not adapting a tv series (though later OVAs would reference it. This manga is actually I think where a lot of the inspiration for Gurren Lagann came from, and if you like that series, you should read this to see the connection. I can’t really explain without spoiling either (though if in 2019 you don’t know what happens in Gurren, you are super lucky and need to go watch it all asap). NOTE, this takes place after the 7 volume Getter Robo Go manga, which has a show but I think is unrelated, but more importantly is probably the BEST Getter Robo series. I read that before knowing a thing about Getter and still loved it (though I think having context will really benefit it). GR Go is the biggest justification for getting into the series. If any friends of mine want to look into this series, I’ll actually help give them a guide. Interestingly, the most modern Getter series (of which the most recent was in 2004 (please come back)) all take reference from the darker mangas, not the old 70s show.

Mazinger Z Vol 1-5 (Finished): I think Go Nagai’s works are weird, melodramatic, gross, and just kinda badly drawn. They are great experiences, if you go in with a grain of salt and also avoid the *most* transgressive ones. Don’t google Iron Virgin Jun. Just. Don’t do it. Devilman is probably his best work, but Mazinger Z is another series with a much more famous long-running 70s cartoon (92 episodes!!!) and burned itself into the nostalgia of Japan. Whereas Devilman eventually becomes traumatizing, Mazinger Z is pretty laid back and goofy, while also being Nagai’s brand of The Most Dramatic Thing Ever. If you follow me, you might’ve seen me post pages in my manga tag. It’s a LOT. Though, actually, I don’t think this manga is all that great. It can be *really* funny, but I don’t even remember if the series actually ends. If you read one or two volumes and want to put it down, I think you’re safe to. You got most of the lore. The biggest events seem to take place in later series that I haven’t delved into yet.

UFO Robo Grendizer Vol 1 (Finished): I actually haven’t been able to find anywhere to read Great Mazinger, the sequel series, so I skipped to Grendizer, which is the second sequel. It’s pretty unrelated continuity-wise, so it’s easy to pick up. This is only one volume and yeah they really just want you to watch the 74 episode show, but I’m good. Still, this is a fun book, and Nagai throws in his batshit ideas. The main character is an alien prince whose tragic backstory is literally that the villain kidnapped his younger siblings and all the country’s children and just! Dropped them all from the sky to their death in the middle of the city! And they don’t censor it! GO NAGAI! I really need to read the autobio manga Gekiman because of what snippets I’ve seen, Nagai is actually a super mild-mannered dude who doesn’t really get where his ideas cross lines. If you want to say “oh that’s just wacky Japan”, it’s really not, he was public enemy #1 with parents all over the country for a long time.

Super Robot Retsuden Vol 1 (Finished): This is a single volume crossover of Nagai super robot IPs including Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Great Mazinger, Grendizer, and Steel Jeeg (a guy who’s more Ultraman-adjacent than super robot), and there’s no real plot beyond “oh no new bad guy! buy the toys, kids!” It’s throwaway, and I mostly read it to see who Jeeg is without getting into his own series. Also, it was drawn by Ishikawa, so I felt a bit obligated. His art is just so pretty.

Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer Vol 1 (and maybe 2?): Satoshi Mizukami is a godly storyteller who uses the language of shonen to tell deeply mature and introspective stories for adults and if you follow my posts you might remember me gushing about Spirit Circle and Planet With. I actually haven’t touched this series since February started but I need to get back in because the first two volumes out of ten are amazing (warning, though: there’s a pet death and it’s real sudden and was hard for me to handle). Please read Mizukami’s works.

Manga volumes read in January: 14-15 Manga volumes read in 2019 thus far: 14-15

---

Okay that’s everything. I wrote a lot more than I expected to. If you read all that, thanks. If you are interested in any of the things I wrote about, great! If you decide to play through SRW2, don’t, stop, don’t do that. In a few days I’ll be writing about a much better SRW game.

#curry plays games #curry reads manga

[voidfishersong]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Star Wars

I accidentally thought up an entire AU because I accidentally tagged an ike/soren post with ‘star wars’ because im stupid but NOW

Gawain was an exceptional Jedi Master who left the Order after The Thing happens (the Medallion is probably some Sith artifact)

Gawain’s padawan was Zelgius, who Fell and became Sith Lord Lehran’s apprentice

Elena was a Mandalorian, heir to a minor clan. They didn’t like a Jedi marrying her, but accepted her and her children

After Elena’s death, Greil, Ike, and Mist leave Mandalore since they are no longer welcome

They migrate to Naboo, ruled by Queen Crimea (Elincia)

Greil runs a group of bounty hunters

Titania is also former Jedi, and she’s an exceptional pilot (horsemanship skills are here translated into piloting). She wields a staff that has two blades of green lightsaber. the end result is like. really long

Ike isn’t Force sensitive, but Mist is

Ike and all the other kids know that Titania was a Jedi, but not that Greil was

Soren is extremely strong with the Force but was never trained and therefore doesn’t have a lightsaber until late in the story

When Greil is killed by Zelgius, in a fight that’s the first time Ike ever saw his father use the Force or a lightsaber, Ike takes up his father’s blue blade and begins to train

(Non Force sensitive kid in Mandalorian armor wielding a lightsaber is a rad image in my head)

The Goldoans are a clan of Grey Jedi (leaning Dark thanks to Dheginsea)

Titania is a red twi’lek. Shinon’s probably a weequay. Rhys is ???? but not human definitely. Maybe also a twi’lek?

Reyson is a Dark Jedi who will eventually become more Grey Jedi. He works for Tibarn, who is a pirate lord who basically runs several planets and controls most major shipping routes, including the Kessel Run. Reyson is ex-Jedi but left after his entire group of padawans were killed

Reyson can’t hold a lightsaber because of chronic illness (he was born with it), but damned if he isn’t strong with the Force. he really likes using Force Lightning even though it hurts him too. Tibarn doesn’t like it

Naesala is a Dark Jedi pirate, but he rarely uses the Force so most people don’t know his power

The Gallians are another pirate group, but far more legal. Or at least, they disguise themselves as legal, thanks to Ranulf’s insane negotiation skills

Ranulf is slightly Force sensitive, though he’d never admit it. People find him uncanny but no one really suspects except, like, Zelgius

Lethe hates Ranulf telling her she has to work with Mandalorians AND Jedi

Greil was well-connected to the Gallian pirate gang back when he first married Elena

Shinon claims the Force doesn’t exist. He watches Titania jump forty feet into the air, but the Force doesn’t exist. Soren levitates an entire building. What’s the Force lmao it’s just made up bullshit

Sephiran is the Supreme Chancellor. Sanaki, padawan to the Head of the Order Tanith, is supposedly his granddaughter, and is definitely his ward

Sanaki is barely Force sensitive, far less than she should be, but Tanith trains her nonetheless. She becomes incredible at wielding dual lightsabers. Eventually, she’ll get Altena’s legendary golden sabers

The Black Knight is a mysterious masked Sith who teleports using warp powder, thanks to the Sith Alchemy of his Master. No one knows this Apprentice is the same man as Zelgius, bodyguard (and lover) to Chancellor Sephiran

(Ranulf, at some point: “hey y’all did realize the chancellor is a sith, right? yeah just making sure”

Everyone else: “wHAT”)

Micaiah is incredibly strong in the Force but untrained

Lehran keeps trying to recruit Soren as his Apprentice but Soren is like “not five minutes ago you said you’re planning to blow up Mandalore with my boyfriend on it so I really don’t see why I would join you”

Ashnard decided his son “wasn’t strong enough in the Force” (Ashnard isn’t Force sensitive so idk how he thinks he knows that but it’s Ashnard so...) and left him to die. Then shit happens like in FE canon but when Soren comes looking for Ike, Greil recognizes the child’s incredible Force presence and recruits/adopts him. He becomes like Titania (and Greil)’s padawan; Titania handles all the Force education because Greil is Not A Jedi

Soren’s ‘saber is eventually silver, because cool shit

Oscar was a Nubian soldier before leaving, and Kieran is still one of Elincia’s knights

Rolf is probably Force-sensitive because the image of Shinon’s sniper protegee being Force sensitive is the funniest thing ever

The Jedi are basically the Begnion pegasus knights, but plus a lot of other people. But like all the Councilors and shit are from the pegasus knights

Ashnard is the crazy guy who fulfills a role similar to the Separatists but with less negotiation and more just straight up murdering people who don’t join him. His Riders/Generals are all Force users: Tauroneo is an ex Jedi Councilor, Petrine was never a Jedi, and I forget the fourth Rider of Daein so...

Petrine’s ‘saber is a long staff with one blade. Her and Titania have multiple badass fights: one in the air, like the ace pilots they are, and then when they crash, they have a staffsaber fight too. Petrine is a togruta

Sothe is basically Ezra but not Force sensitive. He’s a street rat from Lothal probably

Nailah is a chief of a Tusken Raider tribe because she’s badass like that. Rafiel was a Jedi presumed dead after a mission to Tatooine went wrong, but Nailah found him and then just told her tribe that he’s her husband now and they don’t care. Rafiel was severely injured so he can barely move without assistance and also struggles to access the Force because reasons idk

After everything is settled, Soren takes Priam as his padawan and begins a New Jedi Order. how does Priam exist? he’s related to Ike and Soren, because the Force. I love the SW universe, you can just say ‘the Force’ as an answer to why any impossible shit can happen

Sephiran truly believes he’s a servant of the Force and that to have order you must have chaos and death first and Ike is just like buddy,,, I do not have anything to do with the Force and that’s. not what it wants

I really, really, really, really want art of Ike in beskar’gam with a lightsaber though

#in an AU of this AU Soren is found by Zelgius instead and taken on as Zelgius's secret Sith Apprentice #other AUs have the characters as the same roles but with different plot that varies from POR's plot way more than this AU #most of those are like..... Soren is an actual Jedi or w/e #fire emblem #star wars #fe: por #fe aus #other AUs are: Ranulf is an actual Jedi but like Quinlan where he's just like lmaooooo no #Ike has Jedi boyfriends regardless #this takes place back in ye olden days when Jedi were actually allowed attachments tho #so like Gawain wasn't kicked out or anything he just eventually.... left #maybe in a more divergent-from-FE au there are other Sith Lords who are more typical just murder shit #and Sephiran is just Exhausted

[laventelimorso]

Artemis, Centaur, Nymph, Hippolytus, Trident, Lightning Bolt, Sun Chariot, Harpe, Tartarus, Underworld, Sparta, Troja, The Labyrinth for the greek myth asks ;^)

Alright holy shit anon (except that i have an idea who sent this bc of that smiley) thank you and bless your sweet little soul i’ve been dying for some asks sooo okay here we go!Artemis - What do you first notice about people?

i guess usually their voice and also eyes, since i try to look at people in the eye when they’re talking to me

Centaur - Last book you read?

the last book i read was harry potter and the halfblooded prince!

Nymph - Last dream you remember?

honestly i can’t answer that, i fucking never remember my dreams >>

Hippolytus - Tell an experience you will never forget

sdgh ok there are few of these but this is easily the funniest one and one of my faves:so i was at a convention with friends, and u know we each had one of those ‘free hugs’ signs and stuff. so then this one dude, in some combat game cosplay, walks over to me and instead of asking for a hug, he asks me if he could pick me up. so, being a fool that i am, i agree to it since i had no idea how he was going to do that. so then he proceeds to put some of his things down, grabs me, and lifts me on his shoulders sideways, and starts walking off carrying me like it was normal. my friends and i were extremely wtf but yeah naturally he just came back and put me back down and we all go nice laughs out of it, he thanked me for letting him do that and said i had so far been the only one to do soit was a fun experience honestly, despite being unexpected :D

Trident - Who are your favourite people

oh this one’s easy, my favourite people are my girlfriend @teepurkki​, my absolute best friend @kowaiilo-ren​ (i see u sending this u lil nerd), my also very important friend @mangomunkki​ and my brother miska, who has few tumblr blogs so, idk which one to tag? but ya here are my fav people in the world~

Lightning Bolt - What are your top three favorite movies?

oh god yikes, uuuhhh definitely fantastic beasts and where to find them, treasure planet, and both how to train your dragon movies, i can’t pick either one of themmm i love them too much

Sun Chariot - What is your favorite mythological creature?

D R A G O N 

Harpe - What are your top 3 favorite places

christ save me, uuhhh well my home is obviously one, the waffle cafe here where i live, aaannndddd, god, i don’t know? i don’t exactly have favorite places? i guess this one park i used to visit lots as a kids, i have a lot of memories from there

Tartarus - What’s a short term goal you hope to achieve?

dunno how short term these are but i have two: getting a stable income that is enough for rent, food and some nice things, and getting to meet my best friend

Underworld - Describe your dream vacation

hhhhhh well i guess my dream vacation would be going back to germany, more precisely to bernkastel-kües, and getting to take my brother, my girlfriend and my best friend along and getting to have fun with them there because i’ve been there once and it was great

Sparta - Do you have a bucket list? If so, what’s on it?

ok i should have a bucket list but i don’t so i have no idea what i’d put there lmaobesides meeting @kowaiilo-ren of course but that one’s obvious anyway

Troja - What is the craziest thing you want to do before you die?

dfghj it’s nothing “crazy” honestly, i just wanna travel, maybe go to conventions aboard (and visit haunted locations lmao ok that one is an okay answer)

The Labyrinth - Have you ever died and came back to life as a vampire?

how do you know that’s not the case for me right now? ;^) 

#ask #ask meme #anonymous #jfc i should just do these on my computer so i can fucking t a g s h i t #anyway thank you so much! #bab you're such a nerd ilu the fuck #kowaiilo-ren #teepurkki #mangomunkki #miska

[gabbalot]

Another ask meme 👀

So I was tagged by the one and only @merriemelodie who has a knack for making me feel valid on the worst of days, and also who I NEED TO COME UP WITH A SWEET NICKNAME FOR???❤️

The rules are: Post the rules, answer 11 questions, make up 11 new questions, and tag 11 people.

(Or just break the rules like I do. I tag the same people every time I do these so I’ll give everyone a break. If you want to, but don’t feel obligated: @plsetski, @zestyfiretruck, @stregina, @dednout, @vityanikiforova. For everyone else, I’m just being shy but if you see this and want to do it, CONSIDER YOURSELF TAGGED BY ME! And @ me in your response.)

My questions for people are:

If you could, would you choose to download your consciousness into an artificial simulation of life, where nothing really bad ever happens, and all the good things that you want from life happen in a believable way? Or would you rather live your life as it is now? Why?

If you could pick anything to do for your career, without having to worry about money, what would you do?

If you had to describe yourself with a Wikipedia article, or an article from The Onion, what would it be? 

What is your favorite gif/meme??

If you could say anything to your younger self, what would you say? Would you say anything at all?

If humanoid androids became normalized and easily-accessible in the future, would you choose one as a companion? If no, why not? If yes, who would you like them to be based on?

What is the weirdest thing someone has every told you they like about you?

Which would you choose, and why: Bring your favorite character(s) to life? Or transport yourself into their world?

If you had to become immortal, what age would you choose to “die” and remain forever, and why?

What are your thoughts on Pluto? Is it a planet? or just a rock?

What is one thing you wouldn’t trade for $1,000,000 (or equivalent in your currency)?

And here are my long-ass answers for Melodieee:

Q1. Have any unpopular opinions? Now’s the time to say them. It doesn’t matter what they’re about; whether or not you think people will care about them, or if it’ll change people’s perceptions of you. Just let ‘em fly.

a:- Okay so…I don’t…really like Autumn…and it might…MAYBE..be my least favorite season…?? ? (I’m sorry, I know). I feel like this is particularly offensive coming from me, since I’m currently living in New England, which is well-known for having the most beautiful foliage during Autumn. But there’s only so much pumpkin spice and scarves I can indulge in before I have to face the reality that The Darkness™ is coming. Funny enough, I don’t have much of an aversion to Winter. (That’s a lie.) (I can’t manage during late February - March). (I barely make it to the end of Winter every year). All in all, this article pretty much summarizes my exacts feelings towards Autumn. Beware though, ~* 🚫 Autumn-lovers DON’T Interact! 🚫 *~, you will be enraged. ☕️🐸

Q2. Do you cling to summer, or are you typically more than excited for autumn? (Or do you not have a strong opinion either way?)

a:- Wellll I guess I sorta addressed this in the first answer? Hahaha. Aha. H a. (I still feel bad about it). But I suppose I don’t really cling to summer, because I have this icky tendency to…spoil good things before they are ready to be ruined??? Like “Ahhh, well am I going to feel bad eventually? Might as well get started on that right now!!”. Feeling Bad is the only thing I don’t procrastinate, lmao. But yeah, I don’t cling to summer (I mourn its death prematurely), and I don’t get excited for Autumn, I just do my best not to feel Too bad overall. I definitely don’t cry, because I Am A Big Kid Now.

Q3. What’s something that you’ve been wanting to tell somebody, but haven’t been able/felt ready to? (Of course, if you’re still not comfortable saying it in a public post, then you definitely shouldn’t feel obligated to do it. This is just for fun. ♥)

a:- The funniest thing is that a lot of the things that leave my mouth nowadays are things that I haven’t been ready to say. But I’ve been lucky enough not to word-vomit anything that’s been truly detrimental to my mental well-being. I’m also lucky to have a few amazing people in my life that I’m able to be quite vulnerable with. 

Q4. What would the soundtrack for the film of your life look like? (FOR THOSE WILLING TO TAKE IT UP A NOTCH: if you were to write a Broadway musical about your life, what would some of the songs be titled/be about?)

a:- Let’s see if I can be as dramatic as possible. In terms of a movie soundtrack, I definitely think that the opening scene would be to Tame Impala’s Let It Happen. Once things calm down and fall back into the natural rhythym of grey, expect to enjoy tunes from Radiohead, in particular their track Daydreaming, which plays on repeat in my dissociative head on a regular. When things get desolate, we enjoy The Postal Service’s This Place Is a Prison. When they’re comedic (see: manic), we’re jamming to some Manfred Mann’s Earth Band!! If I could be selfish, I would find my Big Love and/or purpose, and the soundtrack would lighten up with sounds from Coldplay and Active Child. Also, because I am quietly just as dramatic as our favorite witch Georgi Popovich, a few of my Broadway musical song titles include “Sometimes Fireworks Are Silent”, “I’m Sorry For A LOT Of Things, But This Isn’t One Of Them”, “Some Of Us Taste Colors”, “Tequila (TEQUILA)”, and of course “2D Drawings Are As Strong A Medicine As Any”, which has a b-track “Music Is Morphine (Which is Also a Poison)”.

Q5. What’s a poem, story, or song lyric that you think about often? What about it captivates you?

a:- I’ll give you an entire song full of lyrics: The song Bloodstream, which is so aptly named for how deeply I feel it whenever I listen to it. It epitomizes the concept of soulmates for me, which I don’t believe is always a “happy-go-lucky” scenario, sometimes soulmates are just that - a split of your soul, a piece of you in another body, no sparkles and lovehearts, just another self in another form whose destiny is entwined with your own. As someone who isn’t sure they believe in soulmates irl, here’s why the song strikes me - The vocals are a bit eerie, and ever-so-slightly tired. It must be exhausting searching for a missing half. The recurring piano chords in the verses of the song make it feel a little bit like a memory. I imagine that’s what Deja Vu sounds like, which I find to be fitting when you think about all the subtle instances that have connected your life with someone else’s without you even noticing, but sometimes you just feel it. Then comes the chorus, more profound in its intensity, and all of a sudden it’s the realization hitting you like “Ahh, yes. This is the one I can’t live without. I see it now”. And then there’s the bridge, the melody changing again, acting as a flashlight as you wade through the murkiness of Doubt and Uncertainty, and leading you finally to the door of Acceptance. And once you’ve accepted it, and really digested the fact that you aren’t alone, you just float along - adrift but comfortable, because you realize that you aren’t drowning like you thought you would, or like you’ve been all this time. (That was cryptic AF, what does All That even mean??). Idk. I just feel the song deeply and I’m not really sure how to express why. 🎭

Q6. If you had to epitomize yourself with a Wikipedia article title, what would it be?

a:-I think may be Learned Helplessness.

Q7. What do you daydream about?

a:- I have two persistent daydreams lately. One is to lay in a meadow and just rest in a shady spot with the sun’s warmth peeking through the foliage, probably for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t mind being stuck in a time loop if it meant existing somewhere like this or this. I actually have this one saved as my desktop wallpaper at work. I stare at it throughout the day and it brings me peace. The second daydream is imagining what it would be like to go out and get roaring drunk with Yuuri and Pichit. Like…can you imagine the shenanigans??

Q8. What’s your go-to character/kart/track in Mario Kart? (ANY ITERATION)

a:-Toad…..and raiNBOW ROAD BINCH!!! FIGHT ME. #ChaoticEvil

Q9. What’s something people would be surprised to learn about you?

a:- IRL? People would be shocked that I’m pan/bi. Literally no one knows. Friends and family respect that I consider myself asexual, or at least non-sexual, but no one actually knows that I’m not straight. I have hinted on occasion, but growing up in one of the most homophobic and heteronormative societies means that if people haven’t seen you date anything but cis-gendered men (even if it was only for 6 months when you were 14 years old??) then it means you’re straight. Straight until proven otherwise (and simultaneously shunned by extended family for being The Gay Cousin™ ).

Q10. If you could name a crayon/nail polish color, what would it be, and what would the color be?

a:- Tbh, I’m the least creative when it comes to these things, so most likely it would be some sort of holographic sparkly fluorescent pink color, and the name would be “Trophy Husband” (because it reminds me of Victor).

Q11. What’s a question you wish I would’ve asked? ASK/ANSWER IT HERE.

a:- AHHHH THE PRESSURE idk IDK. Ummmmm how about “What do you like most about following me?”. And the answer would be that your tags and writing in general just hit me right in the feels, every. damn. time. Your sense of humor is also A+, it’s never mean-spirited, and you just generally provide a safe space for me to exist comfortably at the end of each day. You’re also incredibly observant, and I feel like I’m a slightly bigger and more important speck in this universe because of you. Thank you for being here ❤️.

THE END.

#here i go again #LONG post #personal #ask meme #😍❤️ #that answer to question 5 though...sorry for being a literal lunatic??? #what was I rambling about at 4 a.m.?? #w hy

[heliager]

This is a game where you answer the questions I provide at the end, and then create your own questions + tag whoever you want to participate.

Tagged by @getluckywithbucky 

1. What’s your biggest pet peeve when interacting with other people? 

I hate when people talk over me. It happens all the goddamn time and I can’t fucking stand it. Like its one thing if it’s a rapid-fire group conversation, these things happen and not everything gets heard, but even there I’ll try to interject with a relevant comment and someone always has something ‘more important’ to add so they steamroll right over me and when no one notices, if I do it back then I look like an asshole.

2. How did you come across your current hobby/passion/job/entertaining activity?

my current whatever is mostly just wandering the internet these days, with an emphasis on youtube. rook and i have been working our way through Critical Role again, and rook’s the one who got me into it so.

3. What’s the weirdest/funniest/etc thing you’ve ever done or encountered at 3 in the morning?

hmm... when i lived with my parents still, they lived in a townhouse complex that had a pool, and once in a while during the summer we’d get teens from all over the area who would sneak in and splash around? I was usually awake when it happened so I’d keep an eye out and make sure no one was like, drowning or anything but I never cared enough to get them in trouble, but sometimes someone else would and so they’d have to haul themselves out of the pool and make a run for whatever they had used to hop the fence, and sometimes they didn’t always manage to grab all their shit so once I got to watch a kid jump the fence and haul ass across the lawn in his underwear

maybe not THE ABSOLUTE weirdest or funniest but probably in the top 10

4. If you drink alcohol, what was your first experience with it like? If you don’t, what allergy are you happy you don’t have? 

my parents would let me have alcohol at like family dinners and whatever once I hit about 15/16? so it was just a thing, but my first time drunk was at like a 4th of july party or something and there were jello shots and also I had one too many cokes with vanilla vodka and no one caught on until I was actually drunk. it’s honestly the only time I’ve ever been really drunk.

also just for the hell of it, i’m happy i’m not allergic to nuts

5. If you could do anything you wanted for one day, what would it be?

tbh i’d probably rob as many banks as possible??? they’re insured fuck it and then i’d give all of my friends as much money as I could

6. What do you think about the concept of soulmates, whether romantic or platonic?

conceptually I love the whole idea, I read soulmate fics like they’re going out of style my dude realistically it’s a little bit more complicated... though I do consider @nerdalay to be my platonic soulmate :) so I mean there’s always the possibility? but I don’t think there’s only one destined person for everyone, I think it depends on who you are at the time, where you are geographically, etc. etc. like there are probably lots of people who could be soulmate-level compatible with you, it all just depends on the time and place and whatever

7. Tell me your favorite ridiculous historical, literary, art, science, or whatever field you find interesting, fact.

okay so I have two that I can think of

one: roman emperor caligula once declared war against the gods and had his army wade into the sea and begin stabbing at it with their swords

two: “also the reason why there is a h in ghost is because when the printing press first came to england the only people trained to operate it were flemmish speaking, and they put a h after g because that’s what you do in flemmish. they put shit like ghirl and ghoose, but the only reason why ghost stuck is because people saw ‘the holy ghost’ in the bible and were like ‘well, that MUST be right’.” from this post

8. If you could be famous, would you? Why?

part of me has the biggest ego and would love to be well known and famous and popular so that everyone could see like, how awesome and important I am

but the rest of me has hella anxiety and wants nothing to do with that at all, so

9. If you have siblings, what’s the dumbest thing they’ve ever done around you? If you don’t, what’s the dumbest thing your closest friend has ever done around you?

oh man my friends do dumb shit all the time but there’s not really any one specific moment that stands out... it’s all little stuff that happens weekly and then we give each other shit for a few days and move onto the next stupid thing

10. What do you think about when it’s 10 pm and there’s a thunderstorm?

that i wish i could be a storm, honestly well.. thunderstorms make me kind of like, wistful and nostalgic sort of, but they also relax me more than just about anything else like I hate loud noises but goddamn do i love me some thunder so i sort of just drift if I can at all also I’m usually really hoping it lasts because I love thunderstorms so so so much, i miss them :/

11. If there is anything or anyone that you don’t want to imagine life without, what do you think would life be like without it/them?

like do i know that something/someone is suddenly missing from my life or did I just never have it/them at all? because if it’s the first I’d probably be miserable as fuck tbh, and also I’d die a lot more on the inside and I’d just be going through the motions of life because I’m an all or nothing kind of person apparently

if the second option... shit a lot would be different that’s a disconcerting thought tbh. i’d still probably be pretty miserable? the comfort and distraction from how shitty high school and parts of my 20′s were wouldn’t have been there and tbh I may not actually have survived this long now that I think about it... hm.

I’m tagging @12marina21, @nerdalay, @yangsarm, @bespectacledbookworm, @zsmilebomb, @fallendeadtech, @i-eat-dreams and if you like any of the questions I’ve listed here and I haven’t tagged you, go ahead and answer them! Tag me in them, I’d love to read them :)

Questions to be answered:

1. If you could instantly learn any technical/physical skill or multiple related skills for use in your life what would they be and why?

2. Would you prefer to live in space, underground, or under the ocean for a year?

3. Have you ever actually seriously considered what it would be like if you were offered immortality, and if you were, would you take it? Why or why not?

4. What is your favorite natural physical feature of the planet? (can be as specific as a single place or as broad as like, the mountains or something)

5. If you were a wizard in the HP world, what is the happiest memory you could use to cast the patronus charm?

6. Would you ever take anything back, if you could do it without consequence? (words, physical items, time)

7. If you could punch any historical figure in the face who would you pick?

8.  What sort of magic would you have, if you had to pick only one? (i.e. pyromancy, technomancy, etc.)

9. What movie always makes you cry every time without fail?

10. What is the absolute perfect breakfast for you, both food and location?

11. Tell me a story.

#about me #ask thing #ayy #getluckywithbucky

[funface2]

Glee: 10 Sue Sylveter Quotes That Are Still Hilarious Today – Screen Rant

Not only is Sue Sylvester hands-down the funniest character on Glee, but she is also quite arguably the funniest character in television history. Practically every word out of this woman’s mouth causes our abs to hurt from laughing so hard. (Sue would probably appreciate the workout.) From her constant digs at Will Schuester’s hair to that one time when she married herself, every scene with Sue has us in tears due to how hard she makes us crack up.

Here are 10 of Sue Sylvester’s most hilarious lines from Glee that will totally make your day.

RELATED: Glee: 10 Times The Show Broke Our Hearts

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10 I SMELL FAILURE… OH HEY WILL!

One of the funniest and most interesting relationship dynamics on the show is Sue’s love/hate relationship with Will. The two are always bickering and they are constantly at each other’s throats, yet you can clearly tell that the two share an enormous amount of respect for one another.

RELATED: Glee: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved

Throwing hilarious insults at each other is just how they roll and the series wouldn’t nearly be as fun if it wasn’t for their back and forth relationship. In the end, we discover that Sue and Will care for each other deeply, yet in the meantime, they’ll have a blast trying to one-up each other.

9 YOU ARE ABOUT TO BOARD THE SUE SYLVESTER EXPRESS. DESTINATION? HORROR!!

What can we do to board this so-called Sue Sylvester express?

The lines coming from this character are always downright hilarious but what makes them even funnier is Jane Lynch’s flawless delivery each time. It is nearly impossible not to burst into laughter at every word out of her mouth and this is all thanks to Lynch’s perfect comedic timing along with her incredible energy that she puts into every scene.

This woman always manages to steal the spotlight and that is why she is hands down the most iconic character in the entire series.

8 I WILL NO LONGER BE CARRYING AROUND A PHOTO ID. KNOW WHY? PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW WHO I AM.

If you don’t know who Sue Sylvester is by now, you best be ready for a whole world of trouble. Sue Sylvester may just be the cheerleading coach, but she owns Mckinley High more than the people who actually run the school. Sue is a character who is larger than life, and although Rachel Berry is set out to be the fame-obsessed starlet, we all know Coach Sue is the real star here. Step aside, Glee kids. Sue’s destined for the spotlight.

7 IF I WERE OUT TO GET YOU, YOU’D BE PICKLING IN A MASON JAR ON MY SHELF BY NOW

Sue is not just mean. She is a straight-up villain. Cross paths with the coach and smile at her the wrong way? You will probably end up rotting in a mason jar in her garage hours later. All we can say is good luck people of Lima, Ohio. You’re in for some serious trouble if you don’t plan on giving Sue exactly what she wants. Usually, she doesn’t ask for much- just eternal glory, that’s all. It’s not like she’s asking for the world, people…

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6 I’M GOING TO ASK YOU TO SMELL YOUR ARMPITS. THAT’S THE SMELL OF FAILURE, AND IT’S STINKING UP MY OFFICE.

There is one thing that Sue Sylvester can’t stand, even more than The Glee Club and Will Schuester’s hair. The thing that she will not tolerate the most is failure. This woman can smell failure from a mile away and she refuses to let it reek up her office, let alone any path she comes across.

RELATED:Glee: 10 Hidden Details About The Main Characters Everyone Missed

Coach Sylvester is disgusted by anyone who does not consider themselves to be a “winner” and that is why she hates The Glee Club so much – because they seem to embrace their “loser” status. They even have their own original song called “Loser Like Me”. It makes Sue “literally want to throw up in Will’s mouth”.

5 I DON’T TRUST A MAN WITH CURLY HAIR. I CAN’T HELP BUT PICTURING BIRDS LAYING SULFUROUS EGGS IN THERE, AND I FIND IT DISGUSTING.

It’s honestly amazing how creatively talented Sue Sylvester is when it comes to her quick-witted and imaginative insults thrown at Will Schuester’s luscious locks. We would not be opposed to an entire book dedicated to all of her digs at his hair, which “looks like he just put lard in it”. How does she come up with this stuff so quickly? So effortlessly? She may despise the arts, but even so, she probably has more creative talent while coming up with these insults than all the members of The Glee Club combined.

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4 HOT CHEETOS HAVE BEEN PROVEN TO RAISE ENDORPHINS AND MAKE KIDS HAPPY, AND I CAN’T HAVE THAT.

Sue is extremely strict when it comes to dieting and staying fit for the Cheerios. Her idea of a perfect meal would probably consist of a protein shake mixed with whey powder and Will Schuester’s tears. It wouldn’t consist of anything that raises endorphins because happiness is a waste of feeling in Sue’s eyes.

RELATED: Glee: 10 Times Rachel Berry Was Actually A Jerk

It most likely causes a lack of productivity and anything that keeps people from rising to the top is shameful to the cheerleading coach. Basically, anything that brings children happiness should basically be banned for good. And that’s how Sue “C’s” it!

3 IN THE PAST I’VE FANTASIZED ABOUT WAKING UP WITH WILL’S HEAD ON THE PILLOW NEXT TO ME, EXCEPT NOW I PICTURE IT ATTACHED TO THE REST OF HIS BODY.

Fans were shocked during the episode “Funk” when Sue fell for Will’s attempts to seduce her. The cheerleading coach started to catch feelings for the glee club teacher and it all became a total disaster from that point on. Remember Will’s cringy seduction performance to “Tell Me Something Good?” It took talent on Lynch’s part to keep a straight face throughout that scene. When she writes about her attraction towards Will in her diary, she states ” true love always springs from true hate.” Sounds like a healthy foundation for a relationship.

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2 LOVE YOU LIKE A SISTAH!

(To Will): “I’m reasonably confident that you will be adding revenge to the long list of things you’re no good at, right next to being married, running a high school glee club, and finding a hairstyle that doesn’t make you look like a lesbian… Love you like a sistah.”

Can this woman possibly get any funnier? Seriously, every time this woman shows up on set she delivers. Her charm and perfect delivery helped Glee become the successful series that it still is to this day.

*Sigh*. If only her character could get a spinoff…

1 BY THE POWER INVESTED IN ME BY A WEBSITE, I HEREBY PRONOUNCE YOU SUE AND SUE. YOU MAY KISS YOURSELF.

Remember when nobody in the world was good enough for Sue Sylvester so she married herself in a tracksuit wedding gown? It was easily one of the biggest highlights in the series and hands down the funniest and most unexpected moment. Yet now that we think of it, is there anyone on this planet that’s good enough for Sue? The answer is probably no. Sue is perfect in every way and no one can make her as happy as she makes herself. Now that is true “relationship goals”.

NEXT: Glee: 10 Storylines That Make No Sense (And 10 That Hurt The Show)

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Bài viết Glee: 10 Sue Sylveter Quotes That Are Still Hilarious Today – Screen Rant đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/funny-quotes/glee-10-sue-sylveter-quotes-that-are-still-hilarious-today-screen-rant/