#i have absolutely no idea what’s happening in this show or fandom hello

[queengiuliettafirstlady]

Love Booth Challenge

Love Booth for underrated characters.

Ikemen version

Hello and welcome to my first challenge. I am proud to present to you the Love Booth challenge, a month long exploration of love for the underrated characters of the Ikemen games.

General Rules

Works and art of all forms are welcome! Fanarts, fanfics, headcanons, moodboards, playlists and everything you can manage to think of is included. 

Limited to Ikemen fandoms and to certain suitors, due to popularity of some characters more than others I have decided to host a challenge exclusively for the less appreciated.

I had this idea since forever what took me so long to post it was the creations of the prompts I created in association with my lovely friend MO @xxsycamore.

I did my best to include most of the less loved characters from the Ikemen games exclusively with an English version.

That said if you think about other less popular characters, belonging to one of these games or to other Ikemen games that are not out in English yet, You are allowed to use these prompts as inspiration.

The main focus is to show love to characters not so loved by the fandom/game all year around without limit for this reason I won't make a masterlist.

When posting your works, use the tag #love booth challenge - you can as well tag me @queengiuliettafirstlady in your posts! It will help find other creations for those interested to check them out.

Posting to other sites is allowed - as long as you mention the challenge and its creators.

Reblogs are appreciated!

Content Rules

This challenge features a list of prompts, and dialogue prompts which you can match to your liking, if you want to. You can create more than one work for the same prompt, too!

Under the cut, you will find the prompts linked to the characters included in the challenge, that can be mixed up with prompts from other challenges happening around the fandom in the same month.

Any additional rules are up to the artists. You are free to choose the rating (make sure to mark your NSFW works accordingly, and if you’re minor, make sure not to interact with such!), and also the genre (the challenge’s main focus is romantic love, but it is not obligatory for your work to be of such genre), all characters and ships included are up to you (OCs, character x MC, character x character, etc.)

You’re free to take requests from your audience using these prompt lists, again please make sure to mention the challenge and its creator.

You’re absolutely free to post your works for this challenge whenever you feel like.

The final and most important rule is to have fun and not pressure yourself about full completion of the challenge. Do only as many works as you wish! :)

Here is a free-to-use banner/header for the challenge!

If you have any additional questions, I’ll be happy to help. There is no such thing as a stupid question, so don’t hesitate to get in contact with us! I wish you happy creating!

THE LISTS

Ikemen Vampire

Dazai - Storyteller - A walk under the cherry trees.

Jean - Monster - "I am not worthy of love."

Mozart - Music - "You are my muse."

Sebastian - Secrets - "My composure is an act."

Shakespeare - Bard - A poem for my lover

Faust - Alchemy - "Behave for me."

Charles - Obsession - "I wish we could stay like this forever."

Isaac - Scholar - "I don't understand people at all ... yet I found myself quite curious to know everything about you."

Ikemen Prince

Keith - Duality - "Trust me."

Luke - Bear - "I will protect you."

Jin - Sweets - "All I need is our love."

Rio - Pet - "I will love you always and forever."

Sariel - Discipline - "It will do good to remember I am quite a strict tutor."

Nokto - Facade - "Were the truth lies ?"

Licht - Scar - "No matter what I do this scars will not heal, but your presence made me forget about them."

Yves - Fashion - "Would you like to get ready together ?"

Ikemen Revolution

Zero - Identity - "I am human because of you."

Harr - Magic - "I only want to keep you safe."

Loki - Abandonment - Seeking comfort on a rainy night.

Blanc - Gentleman - "Do you remember what I warned you about when you came in Cradle?"

Mousse - Dreams - "You are the subject of my dreams. I want to know even more about you."

Dean - Strict - Stern gaze softening upon an endearing sight.

Dalim - Flirt - "You shouldn't have trusted me."

Oliver - Creativity - "The best part about my creations is seeing you smile."

Ikemen Sengoku

Kennyo - Revenge - "You make me feel complete with your love."

Ranmaru - Loyalty - "I will always be there for you."

Sasuke - Companion - Fanning over the fanboy.

Mitsunari - Knowledge - "Let me take care of you."

Yoshimoto - Beauty - Admiring art together.

Kanetsugu - Strategy - "I found quite difficult to keep my composure when you are around."

Hideyoshi - Devotion - "You're my number one priority."

Ieyasu - Teacher - Collecting herbs together.

Once again Have fun and Happy Creating! I can't wait to see all your creations. 🧡💟💌🤗

#love booth challenge #ikemen vampire #ikevamp #ikemen prince #ikepri #ikemen revolution #ikerev #ikemen sengoku #ikesen

[alittlefanatic]

hello! would it be alright to request something for a reader who really looks up to howdt as a sort of father figure?

idk man, i collect fictional parental figures like pokemon, welcome home happens to be my latest obsession, and YOU happen to be my favorite fan writer for said obsession, so i figured id ask- no pressure though! college is rough, and i want you to take care of yourself!

I'm going to cry qwq THANK YOU SO MUCH! That means the world to me that I'm your favorite! I never thought that I'd be someone's favorite writer awawawaw.

🐛 Howdy Father Figure Headcanons! 🐛

Child Version

🐛 Howdy LOVES to hold you and pick you up! You are just so tiny and small!

🐛 He would love to give you head pats and even ruffle your hair! (If you are ok with it of course)

🐛 Got a boo boo? He will be right there by your side like a frantic parent! "Are you hurt? I have cute little butterfly bandages! Let's get you cleaned up!"

🐛 He will hang all of your crayon drawings throughout his Bugdega! He wants to show off how creative and how proud he is of you!

🐛 If you knock over a stand at his Bugdega: "It's alright bug! Are you hurt? No? Ok good.. mistakes happen, don't be upset! What do we do when we make a mistake? We clean it up! See? It's better! Mistakes make us feel bad but they don't define us!"

Teenage Version

🐛 He would have you work in his store! "It helps build character and understand responsibility better!"

🐛 With that being said though, he also helps you define your boundaries!

🐛 "You don't want to work on Saturdays and Sundays? Do you need the day off to rest and work on things? That's ok! Thank you for telling me! Let's work things out if we need to~"

🐛 If you are wanting to sell anything, he will help you put up a little stand in his store! He's your biggest supporter and will personally send out your work to other neighbors to get them interested to buy!

🐛 This man has absolutely no idea how to drive a car (mainly because he cannot fit in many, nonetheless drive) but he will try and guide you nonetheless! That is until he gets one of the other neighbors to help. He would get you a little 'beetle' car purely for the name.

Adult Version

🐛 He would absolutely cry at the thought of you moving out but he would help you 'spread your wings' if you did want to move, or at least have a place of your own nearby!

🐛 "My little bug is all grown up! I can't believe how fast it flew by...I'm so proud of you! Know you can always come back to your ol' pops ok? I may be getting older but I still have all these arms to hug you!"

🐛 He would let you take over the Bugdega if you wanted it! He would feel like you would do a phenomenal job.

🐛 If you don't though, he will be your number one supporter and will send you baked goods in the morning for your work as a courtesy gift!

🐛 If you move away, he would send you letters every week updating you about what's going on in the neighborhood and how he misses you and loves you, and that he's proud of you every day!

🐛 He is a very sentimental man, keeping every letter you write to him, or anything you've ever given him. Don't you ever think it wasn't appreciated, because he has a little area in his room dedicated to things from you.

I felt so bad that I haven't been able to write, I got a few more personal things to do then I'm completely free so expect more soon I promise! I'm so happy to finally be able to write more content for this fandom soon it brings me joy Be sure to get some water and a snack neighbor! Howdy would like you to take care of yourself 🐛

#welcome home #welcome home requests #welcome home x reader #howdy pillar #howdy pillar welcome home #headcanon #welcome home howdy #howdy #howdy x yn #howdy pillar x reader

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Hypermobility

Okay wait I have a prompt!!! If you wanna So I've been reading a lot of fics recently that are in space aus, with the whole humans are deathworlders concept (idk how this is common across my fandoms but it is so I'm binging them lol). And I had an idea based on recent irl events. – anon (long ask, cut for brevity)

inspired by my lovely @ghostofasecretary who has trained all of our friend group to look for hypermobility on account of our schlorpy joints :)

Read on Ao3

Warnings: none

Pairings: loosely implied analogical i guess, but as with most of my shit can be platonic or romantic you decide

Word Count; 1809

Remus glances up to see Virgil staring at Logan like his abdomen has spontaneously ruptured. He sees Roman out of the corner of his eye do the same. Virgil swallows heavily. "L," he says slowly, "what the fuck is wrong with your arms?" "Nothing is wrong with my arms, what are you talking about?" "Elbows don't bend like that!" Ah. So there was something wrong. Remus was right. Take that, human etiquette manual. Wait, shit, something's wrong with Logan.

Roman clicks at Remus as he comes onto the lab floor. Remus clicks back as he logs onto his station, sighing as he looks at the absolute mess someone's fucking made of the logs—seriously, it's only been one quarter cycle, how are they this fucked up already?—and Roman immediately leans over to see what he's sighing at.

"Wait, what's that?"

"Some xetron made an absolute fucking disaster out of the hadron logs."

Roman winces in sympathy and his carapace shifts. "Are you gonna do yours before you clean that up, or—?"

The last part of his question gest interrupted when Logan comes onto the floor, waving a brief hello with his fingers instead of his antenna—because humans don't have antennae, which was a pretty sharp learning curve for both of them when they'd been so confused as to why this human was refusing to talk to them or even show his feelings, they'd had a few apologetic shifts before Logan realized what was going on and explained everything—and raising an eyebrow when he noticed them clustered around Remus's station.

"Is there something wrong?"

"The shift before us messed up their hadron logs."

Logan rolls his eyes. "You'd think that for life forms insistent that their gravitational curves made them more naturally prepared for graviton scans, they'd have a better sense of how to record them properly."

"You're spellcasting on the acolytes, Logan."

Logan frowns, glancing at his tablet, before the equivalent phrase pings on the screen and he hums. "Ah, I see. Yes, well, if you'd like my help at any point, I only have the routine gamma sweeps to do this shift, so I should be amenable."

"Oh, I can do it, it's just a pain in my thorax."

Roman chuckles and heads back to his own station, probably to sneakily-not-so-sneakily ask some of the others on the shift who are fucking competent what the fuck happened. Remus gets himself ready to dive into the long and tedious work of redoing the spin increments and calculating the proper uncertainties for the right variables—honestly, do they even look at the readouts? It has the layout right there! And it's not like the other logs are invisible! Just look at the rows two microns above the empty one you're supposed to be filling out!—and manages to sink into a rhythm for the first half of the shift. Granted, he's absolutely muttering about how stupid it is that they aren't even calculating the basic momentum, let alone the angular velocity to account for the other celestial bodies in the middle of the waveforms, but it's fine, and Roman keeps up his running commentary of the molecular analysis machine that takes its sweet-ass time to do even the most basic of scans, and every so often he'll hear a small huff from Logan as he corrects their probe's trajectory, but for the most part, the lab is a quiet and serene place to be.

God, he can't wait until he gets rotated back to the engineering department full-time.

Like, yeah, he likes spending time with his brother, and the human's cool—he's really funny when he lets himself be, like his wit is drying than the mountain deserts on Cre-Ativa, and his facial expressions are fucking plat when their superiors are being xetrons, but there's only so much he can take of this quiet where not much happens. And he has to deal with the idiots who don't know how to format hadron logs correctly. This is the third time he's had to correct a typo that's rendered the rest of the calculations useless.

"I'm honestly about to recommend them for a review of the training course, that's how fucking serious this is."

"Maybe there's something wrong with how the keyboard is adapted for their limbs?"

"That would explain some of the typos, not all of them. And it definitely wouldn't explain why there's a massive formatting change about halfway through."

"Perhaps there's a shorthand they're using for some of the notes that we don't know about, and they're forgetting to correct them at the end of their shift."

"Yeah, but then they should tell us that, instead of—" Roman trails off and Remus looks up.

Logan is…stretching, yes, that's the right word. His limbs are extended over his head and his back is arched, but his upper limbs are…bending. Not like the way they normally bend, they're bending…too much? Not enough? The wrong way? Yeah, that's it. The wrong way.

Logan notices they've gone quiet and looks over. "Is there something wrong?"

"You're, uh," Remus stammers, "are you—okay?"

"Yes, I'm perfectly fine, what is it?"

"Nothing, nothing."

He and Roman exchange a look—the first rule in the human etiquette training manual was if they get weird, just roll with it for a reason—and get back to minding their own business. Admittedly, some of the errors do make more sense now that he's looking at it like it's some kind of shorthand he doesn't know yet, but that wouldn't explain why some of these variables are straight-up wrong and why they wouldn't bother to tell him what the shorthand is so that he's not trying to do the work of two shifts in the time of one.

Something he does appreciate is that the way the shifts in the lab are set up, opposed to engineering, is that sometimes there will be people whose shifts halfway overlap with theirs. So there's always at least one set of people that are staying in the lab while a changeover is happening and then there's not that risk that the equipment will be left unattended. Apparently they learned that lesson the hard way when the molecular exhibitor decided to go into overload in the five minutes where there wasn't anyone logged in, and nearly destroyed the matter wave projector on the station next to it. The justification was in the name of safety, but really everyone knows it's just so the higher-ups know exactly who to blame when shit goes awry.

Whatever the case may be, the door slides open to reveal the other human down here, Virgil, yawning as he makes his way over to his station.

"Hello, hello, everyone."

"Hi, Virgil!"

Virgil winces. "You are way too chipper this early in the morning."

"It's past the circadian half cycle, Virgil."

"Yeah, and?"

"I'm afraid you're going to have to acclimate to your schedule on your own time," Logan says, stretching again, "even though I'm sure your caffeine tolerance has—what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Remus glances up to see Virgil staring at Logan like his abdomen has spontaneously ruptured. He sees Roman out of the corner of his eye do the same. Virgil swallows heavily.

"L," he says slowly, "what the fuck is wrong with your arms?"

"Nothing is wrong with my arms, what are you talking about?"

"Elbows don't bend like that!"

Ah. So there was something wrong. Remus was right. Take that, human etiquette manual.

Wait, shit, something's wrong with Logan.

"Logan? Do we need to take you to medbay?" Roman's already rushing out from behind his station. "There's a pack in the corner, I can—"

"Oh, for—relax, all of you, I'm fine."

"Uh-huh, yeah, fine, that's what I'd describe elbows that bend all schlorpy as, yeah," Virgil says, "what the—does that not hurt?"

"What? No, it doesn't hurt, look, your joints—"

"My joints suck ass but at least they're fucking bending the amount they're supposed to!"

Remus isn't quite sure how human joints are capable of such a surprising and invasive act, but never let it be said he's not curious. "Your joints are capable of performing anal suction?"

"What the fuck? No! It's a turn of phrase!"

"Oh. Disappointing."

"Ignore him," Roman says, "Logan, are you sure you're—"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine, I'm just—oh," he mumbles, prodding at his tablet, "what's the word for this in Common?"

"There's no word for schlorpy elbows, Logan—"

"Yes, there is!" He pokes around for a few more seconds before he lets out a noise of triumph and says something that the translators don't translate.

"It's what?" Virgil just shakes his head when Logan tries again. "I don't know what that means, bud."

Logan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay, let me try it this way. What's it called when you are in a state of heightened energy and it leads to outbursts of things like running around, or talking too loudly, or being high-strung?"

"Remus," Roman offers helpfully.

"No, Roman."

"Are you talking about being excitable?"

"No, there's a specific word for it. It also serves as a prefix for being too much of something, or an overabundance of something."

"Too much—do you mean the word hyper?"

"Yes! Yes, that's it. And then what's the name of the thing that some people hang over cribs that have little stars or animals?"

Virgil stares at Logan for another moment. "You mean a baby mobile?"

"Yes, but only the second word."

"Mobile?"

"Yes, that's it. Then put the two words together—"

"There were probably so many other ways you could've said you were hypermobile, L, I'm just gonna put that out there—"

"Well, it got you to guess it, didn't it?"

"It's too fucking early for this shit."

"Again, it is afternoon—"

"Shut up."

Roman looks back and forth between the two humans, still twitching as though he's going to be asked to sprint for the medbay at a moment's notice. "So…is Logan…are you alright?"

"Yes, for the fourth time, I'm fine. Virgil's just a little excitable, that's all."

"You try being normal when joints are doing unexpected things," Virgil mumbles, more to his caf than anything else, but he reaches behind himself to pat Roman's carapace. "He's fine, his body just does that."

"But you said it bends the wrong way, how is that fine?"

"There is a thing known as hypermobility," Logan says, "it…oh, dear, it basically means that certain joints will bend…more."

"He's not hurt, that's pretty much all I know."

Roman looks like he's about to protest but Remus just clicks at him. They exchange another look as the humans settle back to work.

Humans are weird, just gotta roll with it.

These hadron logs, on the other hand—

"I'm gonna punt these flimflobbers into the next star we see."

"Can I help? They fucked up the carbon dating program as well."

"How do you fuck that up?"

"Ask them, not me!"

General Taglist: @frxgprince@potereregina@gattonero17@iamhereforthegayshit@thefingergunsgirl@awkwardandanxiousfander@creative-lampd-liberties@djpurple3@winterswrandomness@sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes@iminyourfandom@bullet-tothefeels@full-of-roman-angst-trash  @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind@demoniccheese83@pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious@firefinch-ember@fandomssaremysoul@im-an-anxious-wreck@crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch@enby-ralsei@unicornssunflowersandstuff@wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv  @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams@averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb @cricketanne @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws@cecil-but-gayer@i-am-overly-complicated@annytheseal@alias290@tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance@whyiask@crows-ace @emilythezeldafan@frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires@cyanide-violence@oonagh2@xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx@rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734@triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo@cerulean-watermelon@puffed-up-bees@meltheromanstan@joyrose-fandomer@insanitori@mavenmush@justablah65@10paradox10@uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous@cutebisexualmess@bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti@ultrageekygirl

#dragonbabbles #fic #sanders sides #roman sanders #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #logan sanders #virgil sanders #humans are weird #humans are space orcs

[inkblackorchid]

What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 3)

Trying my absolute damnedest to finish this one and part four sooner now that I've finally covered the Pearson backstory. *Ehem* Hello again! I hope you're ready for more yelling about a certain spiky-haired Blackbird aficionado, because I sure am.

To get some things out of the way first, though, here come the usual disclaimers:

This is part three of a series of posts about hpw Crow's character was handled during 5Ds' whole run. You can find part one here and part two here. Reading them technically isn't required, but things sure will make a whole lot more sense if you do. (Bring snacks, they're long.)

This post isn't meant as a Crow hate post, nor is it meant to convince people who didn't vibe with his character to change their mind. This is my very long winded-attempt to analyse the writing decisions surrounding his character as best I can, without too much bias. That said, full disclosure, I do personally like Crow, so there's a good chance that will shine through whether I want it to or not. But also, I'm trying to have fun here, so please cut me some slack.

In case you haven't read my previous Crow posts (no shade there) and/or still believe the many, many production rumours that have been haunting the 5Ds fandom since the show's original run, please let me burst your bubble(s) with some insanely comprehensive research by someone over on Reddit (thanks again to @mbg159, who's also here on tumblr): No, Crow was not meant to be a dark signer, or the final boss of season 1, and his spike in screentime has nothing to do with his cards. And also, No, Aki didn't get less presence in the narrative because her VA got pregnant. What if you don't have the time to read either of those long posts? In that case, please take away this simple, very easy rebuttal of why the above theories are bullshit: Their would-be "key points" don't line up with the 5Ds production timeline. At all. Not even vaguely. So please, ditch them, let them die, seeing them still talked about makes me feel like I'm gonna break out in hives. And for the love of god, don't use this post or in fact anything else I post to pit Aki and Crow against each other. Both characters have their strengths and their reasons to love them. I am not the least bit interested in starting any character discourse. So please, spare my sanity. Ok? Thank you.

And now, we can get to the good part at last. In my previous post in this series, I stopped my analysis at episode 95, a.k.a. part two of the Pearson backstory. In this post, I will thus be picking up right after, at the very start of the WRGP—with the Team Unicorn match. The goal for this post is to analyse Crow's part in this particular arc, then provide some food for thought/ideas on how things that rubbed some people the wrong way could have been improved.

More below the readmore, and I give you not just my usual warning, but an extra warning, too: The universe will not let me write short things, so tread with caution, stay hydrated, and expect a veritable dissertation below, because this post feels long even to me, who has long since lost her sense of length when it comes to text. (But I'm well aware this is the result of me refusing to split the WRGP part into two separate posts, so I take full responsibility for that.)

Since we left off right after I chewed through all the issues with Crow's rather belated backstory and especially Black-Winged Dragon last time, we jump right into the thick of things now, with episodes 96 and 97, which serve as the preamble to Team 5Ds' first WRGP duel against Team Unicorn. Crow only gets two major things to do during this short stretch of episodes, the first being that he's Team Unicorn's gateway into roping Yusei into a duel during practice, which helps them set up a ruse that baits the 5Ds gang into sending Jack as their first wheeler because they think Jack's deck is best suited to countering Andre's—which, as it later turns out, it is not.

(Arguably the screenshot where Crow gives off the strongest Youngest Sibling Vibes during the entire show. Look at him, all chastised.)

Crow's second role is an odd one that I argue only he out of the main three guys could fulfill at this point: He's the one to get injured right before the Team Unicorn match, rendering him unable to compete, which leads to Aki offering to take his place for that particular match.

(Pictured: Bird Boy regretting all his life choices up until that point simultaneously.)

Here's the first moment I have to talk about in greater detail. See, the thing is, I don't know what the fandom consensus on Crow getting injured here is, but I argue that this moment was a (rare) strategic decision made by the writers at this point. Crow's injury accomplished several things: 1. It sets up the mystery of why his back wheel locked up out of nowhere, which is later paid off through Team Catastrophe's shenanigans. 2. It organically allows Aki to take his spot without introducing any argument about which of them is "worthier" of having that third spot. 3. Through this, it also allows him to actually bounce off Aki for once (a point I will come back to below, during the Team Catastrophe section). And 4. It allows the show to (TECHNICALLY) pay off the setup they did in letting Aki get her turbo duelling license and train with the boys. (Generally, Crow's and Aki's character writing intersects a bit during the pre-Diablo incident WRGP section, something I'll touch on below.)

Moreover, I think this is also the only match where they could have done something like this, and the reason for it is very simple: Team Unicorn are one-off opponents whose presence in the narrative is only relevant as far as it concerns the WRGP, and they are also one of the first teams the 5Ds gang faces. If we think about the opponents Team 5Ds has after this, it becomes very obvious why Crow could only be injured during this duel: If they had tried pulling this stunt later, it would have forced the writers to pull Aki centre stage during a much more plot-relevant duel than this one (which they were apparently allergic to, but let's not go there), not to speak of the fact that it would have forced them to sideline someone they were definitely trying to sell as the third portion of their protagonist trifecta, which would have probably been awkward. (If not for the fact that they literally did this to Crow later in the show, but I'll get there. Yes, I know there's a lot already that I'll still be "getting to".)

The thing is, whether or not it feels like an awkward writing choice to make so early in the big tournament of this arc (you be the judge of that), Crow's injury finally allows him to have a few interesting character moments for once. For one, there is his immediate disappointment about being forced to stay on the sidelines. Aside from the fact that this is a human and relatable reaction to his injury, it stings even more for the character than it does for us as the audience, because Crow got a moment where the Satellite orphans he previously took care of cheer him on for the tournament literally within the same two Team Unicorn preamble episodes.

(Say what you will, this is just stupid cute.)

So when Aki eventually offers to take his place during the match, he's understandably apprehensive—and again, this is human. It may seem mean in the moment, but from a character writing standpoint, it's a natural response. Plus, it's certainly more interesting to watch the group have a bit of conflict among themselves, rather than everyone immediately jumping straight to acceptance. It introduces tension, and, for however brief a moment, raises the question of whether Crow might refuse to let Aki take his spot. This is also the point where Aki and Crow's character writing officially intertwines, at least for the stretch of episodes between the Team Unicorn duel and the Team Catastrophe duel. And you know what? Say what you will, but I think it does a world of good for both of them. The 5Ds cast, as lovely as it is, doesn't get a lot of room to bounce off one another where it concerns personal matters anymore, once the WRGP starts. Arguably, they get little time to bounce off one another outside of plot-related discussions at all once this portion of the show comes around. The characters are treated as "fully developed", and thus, the writing largely doesn't take the time to show us how the group naturally interacts with one another anymore, especially not with how many side characters (chiefly Bruno and Sherry), antagonists, and duels the show now has to juggle. So Aki and Crow getting even a smidgen of personal conflict here is honestly a breath of fresh air. The interaction kicked off by Crow's injury isn't completely plot-irrelevant, like most character interactions during the pre-WRGP were, but it's not something that feels like it's only there to explain the machinations of the antagonists to the audience, either.

Let me go through this in a little more detail to illustrate my point.

So, episode 97. Crow storms off after Aki offers to take his spot, while Aki heads out to prepare her runner, intent on helping her team. The personal motivations here are already very nice and reflective of these characters as we've gotten to know them up until this point: Crow's angry and disappointed (mostly at himself, which is noteworthy!) because he can't compete. And specifically, he's angry because not being able to compete in the first match means he can't show the kids his duelling like he wanted to. Then there's Aki, whose offer to take Crow's place is every bit as much of a strategic suggestion as it is a bid for acceptance from her. Acceptance, which is the thing she's been all about ever since she was introduced, basically. So she pleads with her friends to accept her, see her as an equal, and allow her to duel for the team, which they do. And Crow initially throws a fit, but then...

(Listen. You have no idea how much Crow and Aki getting to actually be friends means to me.)

He comes around to the idea and not only gives Aki his express permission to take his spot, he even coaches her a bit right before the match. Moreover, as his text states above, he literally entrusts her with the kids' hopes, as well as his own. This quickly brings both of them full circle: Crow, who already has a theme of legacy attached to him, passes the torch to Aki for this match, and in so doing, offers her the acceptance she asked her teammates for. (Frankly, stuff like this makes me wonder why on earth people were so eager to pit these two against each other, when their shared moments are actually some of the best-written during the often rocky WRGP arc.) So, though this injury pulls Crow out of the duel, it, funnily enough, ties him better into the story and to the other characters.

From there, we then dive into the Team Unicorn match proper. And well, being injured as he is, Crow doesn't exactly get a whole lot to do there. However, since we're in the portion where his and Aki's writing overlaps a bit, I do need to go on a quick tangent about what Aki's portion of this duel means for Crow.

(Sigh. Okay, buckle up for a quick and rough detour.)

First, something I need to get out of the way and off my chest: I have made no secret out of the fact that I hate Aki's portion of this duel, save for the moment where she summons Stardust. Hell, this duel segment is pretty much universally hated by anone who has even a smidgen of sympathy for Aki. It's regarded by many as the very moment the writers axed Aki's character, and for good reason: After all the buildup surrounding her getting her turbo duelling license, the supposed "payoff" of it all is that she gets to duel against Andre for a depressing four turns before being defeated immediately, which leads into Yusei's frustrating portion of this duel, which, to my knowledge, isn't regarded any more kindly by fans than Aki's segment. It's a massive let-down, simply put. But the thing is, it's not just a let-down for Aki. After all, the brief character conflict she had with Crow about taking his spot here can and should be regarded as part of the setup for this moment, and as such, it can also be considered to be wasted the second Aki leaves the track after barely making an impact whatsoever.

However, I do need to mention that I have a theory on why this segment was handled the way it was, mostly because I feel like Crow's later interaction with Aki, shortly after she's out of the duel, underlines it (mind that this is just my personal theory, though, after having watched the show perhaps more times than can be considered sane): I think there is a cultural aspect to this duel. See, the word ganbaru, which anime subtitles often like to translate with "do your best" or something along the lines, has a greater significance than the translation implies. Though it's not inaccurate per se, there's more than just the idea of doing your best behind ganbaru, because it's something like an umbrella term not just for doing your best and succeeding, it's also the idea that you have to keep trying, even if you don't succeed. It's related to tenacity, to persistence, even in the face of terrible odds. And make no mistake, I don't mean the Japanese equivalent of "if at first you don't succeed, try again" here. I genuinely do mean "you have to keep trying, even if you fail". There is no guarantee of success here. And for that reason, the idea behind ganbaru is also that it's not simply the success that has value, but the effort made in the attempt to attain it, regardless of the result. (Side note: I tried to scrounge up a resource I could link to that nicely explains this concept, but unfortunately, all the promising articles were paywalled and the ones I learned it from require institutional access to lecture materials.) And this is where I will posit the tentative theory that this is exactly what the 5Ds writers were going for with Aki's segment of the duel—it was very much meant to be the payoff for her turbo duelling license setup and her plea to take Crow's place, but it wasn't so much her success that was meant to be valued, as the effort she (and by extension, Crow) made for and during this duel. And this is where Crow's little pep-talk with Aki after she's out of the duel comes in, because it feels like it supports exactly this interpretation:

(This is essentially the whole sequence. Note how Crow, despite so fervently entrusting Aki with his and his kids' hopes prior, doesn't admonish her for making a bad showing in the slightest.)

I don't think it gets any clearer than it is here. During this sequence, Aki is painfully aware of how poor her performance was against Andre, especially after she was so insistent on duelling at first, and despite having been entrusted with Stardust by Yusei, to boot. Yet, Crow doesn't have a single word of criticism to offer her. Instead, he even tells her she did well and that nobody's perfect. It very much reads as valuing Aki's effort over the result she achieved to me, and thus seems perfectly in line with the idea behind ganbaru.

However, if we assume I'm correct about the intentions behind this writing choice, we come back to why Aki's segment of the duel is so hotly debated and why it may have arguably been a disservice not just to her, but to Crow, too, character-wise. Because the majority of non-Japanese watchers of the show culturally don't have a 1:1 applicable concept like ganbaru, this writing choice was more likely to fall flat for them, because to someone who wasn't raised to understand the idea behind it, Aki's portion of the duel doesn't register as a payoff; it registers as a massive disappointment, because it feels like the writers, who had so much setup already done for her, let her fail on purpose, just to later let Yusei attain his arguably dumbest victory of the entire show. Thus, they also essentially waste the conflict she had with Crow about whether she would be allowed to take his spot in the first place, because with how little she achieved during the duel, she may as well not have gotten on the track. (Figuratively speaking. Please Do Not take this to mean I would prefer a version where Aki hadn't duelled at all. That would be worse. It would be infinitely worse.)

(Also, side note: If this post reaches anyone who's actually Japanese and still remembers this duel, I would genuinely love your input on whether my interpretation is feasible or just wishful thinking. Did you interpret Aki's part of the duel the way I did here? Or did it fall flat for you, too? If what I'm saying here feels like an absolute reach, please tell me. I'm honestly just trying my best to make things make sense here and remembered this concept from some classes I took in Japanese studies at uni.)

With all that in mind, it doesn't come as a surprise that some people were just as frustrated with the way Crow was barred from duelling here as they were with Aki's segment or Yusei's later victory. But it is what it is—the Unicorn duel concludes the way we all know it to, and with that, the show begins setting up the following duel with Team Catastrophe.

The only other, non duel-related, noteworthy thing that happens between the Unicorn and the Catastrophe match is a brief appearance at the Poppo Time by Sherry, who admonishes the signers for celebrating their victory early and warns them about Iliaster. Why do I bring this up? Because it's one of less than five times that Crow is in the same room with Sherry. Remember, Sherry. The girl he later, during the finale, talks out of working for the big bad evil guy because he suddenly seems to have such a deep understanding of her motivations and character that he can accurately deduce what argument will make her understand that working with Z-ONE won't give her what she's looking for. So, does Crow get a meaningful interaction with her during this scene, then? Nope. Not even in the slightest. Crow says exactly one sentence that is aimed at Sherry during her appearance, and that sentence is this:

(What a meaningful conversation!)

And yes, I will come back to Crow and Sherry's dynamic in particular. But we'll save that for the Ark Cradle arc post. For now, just keep it in mind as we move along to the other WRGP duels.

So. Team Catasrophe.

During the duel against this team, which was previously only hinted at ominously, the writing for Crow and Aki overlaps again, and this starts with the writers essentially doing a complete switcheroo of what came before: Instead of Crow getting injured and being unable to compete, it's Aki who crashes, ends up in the hospital, and is thus forced to give up her spot during the duel. (This also goes hand in hand with her suddenly losing her powers, which we are given absolutely zero explanation for, but let's not talk about that clusterfuck here. If you're interested in my opinions about that particular trainwreck, I have a rant for you.) Additionally, it's during this stretch of episodes (103-105, which is a whopping four episodes less than Team Unicorn got) that we find out that not only Aki's crash, but Crow's previous one, too, were both sabotage, caused by the rather unscrupulous Team Catastrophe by way of a special card that can cause real damage even when there is no psychic duellist present. (A card we also find out was given to them by Placido/Primo, but this is irrelevant for both Aki and Crow.) Crow's reaction to this piece of information, particularly once Aki gets injured due to the same thing, is where things get interesting for him again, because he gets pissed, to say the least.

(A moment I imagine firebirdshippers must have been positively delighted about.)

Here, I have to reiterate an earlier point: Think what you will of Team Catastrophe, of Aki's crash, and of the sequence where her powers suddenly don't work, but this moment here, where Crow gets angry on her behalf and swears to duel Team Catastrophe into submission—not because he wants his kids to cheer for him, or because he wants to prove himself, but as revenge for his friend—is one of sadly only a handful of moments the writers use to show the strengthened relationships between the individual members of Team 5Ds after the dark signers arc. It's one of the precious few scenes that actually shows, rather than tells us or lets us search for scraps in the subtext, that the signers, and the members of Team 5Ds as a whole, care for each other outside of revolving around Yusei like planets around the sun. Even if it's laughably small, it's at least a hint that there are individual friendships between the other signers, too, that they all stick around one another for reasons beyond gravitating towards Yusei for one reason or another. And for that alone, I'm grateful that they put this here, even if Team Catastrophe was otherwise so ridiculous and made such a bad showing at their actual match that they could barely be taken seriously as antagonists at all.

Speaking of which. The actual meat of the matter. The Team Catastrophe match. What does Crow do here? Well, he duels! Even though he wasn't supposed to, for injury-related reasons. What both his participation as well as the actual duel accomplish, though, are that they not only showcase previously established character traits of Crow's again, but they also make a (possibly unintended) callback to a previous, major duel Crow took part in: His dark signer duel against Bommer/Greiger. Where and how? Let's see.

Firstly, Crow's participation. The reactions of the other characters to this make it very evident that Team 5Ds did not plan for this, with Yusei and Jack even going as far as to say they "had no choice" but to let Crow duel, because he insisted. This is perfectly in line with the stubbornness we already know from him at this point—a stubbornness that was also a major reason for why he took Bommer on and later continued his duel with said man, despite Yusei showing up and telling him he shouldn't be duelling a dark signer.

Secondly, there's the manoeuvring thing, and here's where I can call attention to a fun tidbit: The WRGP isn't what introduces the concept of manual mode during turbo duels to the audience. It's Crow. During his duel with Bommer. Being crafty and a bit shrewd as he is, Crow, during said duel in the DS arc, purposefully switches to manual mode when he duels Bommer, because he figures that attacks that can deal real damage can probably be evaded if you actually have control over your runner and aren't stuck in autopilot.

(Don't believe me? Here it is. And frankly, it is somewhat hilarious, yet also very fitting that Crow is the only one who thinks to do this during a duel with a dark signer.)

The reason this particular bit is relevant during the Team Catastrophe duel is because Crow essentially repeats this trick here. Of course, it's a bit less impactful now, given that manual mode is standard for WRGP duels, but still: Due to Hook, the Hidden Knight, Crow is forced to pay attention to the track and manually evade the monster's attempts to make his back wheel lock up during the duel, mirroring how he thought to manually evade Bommer's attacks during the DS arc.

Thirdly, there's the revenge angle, and this one is a particularly juicy callback. Remember, Crow's major reason for taking on Team Catastrophe, despite being injured, is that he wants to get revenge for Aki. This directly parallels how his major reason for duelling Bommer during the DS arc was that he wanted revenge for his kids, whom he believed to be dead at that point in time. (It also, interestingly, establishes a bit of a connection to his deck, which boasts a fair amount of revenge effects, but I'll not get into that here, seeing as I've talked about Crow's cards a bit before.)

Keep in mind, despite all the things listed above that this duel accomplishes, it's also by far the shortest WRGP duel. It lasts a whole six turns, total, which is ludicrous compared to the likes of 27-turn Team Unicorn, 26-turn Team Taiyou, or 25-turn Team Ragnarok. And I don't think it's controversial to say that the Catastrophe guys are probably the most forgettable WRGP Team, too. Yet, somehow, despite all its shortcomings in terms of memorable antagonists and plot relevance, this is one of the best duels of the WRGP where Crow's character writing is concerned. Now, I'll be perfectly candid: Coming into this post, I did not expect the Team Catastrophe duel, of all things, to end up being as good at actually showcasing Crow's character and his ties to other characters (who aren't Yusei) as it was, but here we are. And we had better hold on to the good the Team Unicorn - Catastrophe segment did for Crow, because the next thing that's coming up is a harsh break from the WRGP, starting with the sudden appearance of Placido's home-engineered army of killer duel robots. And what does Crow get to do during this part?

Uh. Well.

(Pictured: Bird Boy being demoted to benchwarmer while the city's being ransacked by murder duel robots.)

Nothing. A whole lot of nothing, is what.

During the duel robot invasion, we only ever flash back to Crow to ascertain that he is, in fact, useless during this part of the show, something he shares in common with Ruka, Rua, and Aki here, because all of them get pretty much nothing to do while Yusei finally gets the hang of accel synchro. Granted, Aki gets to save a little girl at the hospital, but in comparison to Yusei's lengthy, plot-heavy duel with Placido, this feels like a consolation prize. And for once, Jack is only marginally better off, too, because sure, he gets to beat up a couple of robots, but that's it, really.

Where Crow is concerned, his plot relevance doesn't actually resume once the Placido duel finishes, though. (And neither does Rua's, Ruka's, or Aki's, while we're at it.) Because wouldn't you know it, the next big thing directly after the duel robot invasion are the Red Nova episodes, where three out of five signers (Crow, Aki, and Ruka, unsurprisingly) are removed from the screen almost in their entirety again while Jack gets his much-needed dragon upgrade so he can keep up with Yusei, in order to uphold his status as a classic, almost-evenly-matched yugioh rival.

Speaking of upgrades and dragons, let's make a quick detour while our protag and rival duo take their express vacation to the Nazca plains. It is, of course, no secret that no signer outside of Yusei and Jack ever got a dragon upgrade within the anime. (No, I'm not forgetting about Life Stream Dragon. But that one, unlike Shooting Star Dragon and Red Nova Dragon, was a.) teased all the way back in the DS arc and b.) didn't have a unique summoning method or some other gimmick that made it an "elevated" synchro. So I'm discounting Life Stream as a "proper" dragon upgrade on purpose.) Is this the point where I start arguing that Crow should have gotten one, then? Well, not quite. Not with the writing the show canonically gave us, at least—after all, with how late Black-Winged Dragon was introduced, it would have been bonkers to upgrade him here already, if even at all. However, I do argue that the way the show hands only Yusei and Jack upgrades seems a bit... off. Now, I know why only those two get upgrades, or at least I think I do. After all, they're the central protag/rival duo, and within the framework of the character archetypes the larger yugioh canon has created for itself, this would have always made them the first, if not the only candidates for dragon upgrades. What feels a bit off to me, though, is that specifically the 5Ds cast feels like it... chafes a bit against those character archetypes, for lack of a better word. The problem is this: The signers, as far as the first two arcs are concerned, are sold to us as equals who all have very powerful ace monsters. Yes, Jack and Yusei are still undoubtedly the best duellists among them, but not on account of having uber-powerful extra special monsters that were acquired through supernatural means that are categorically inaccessible to the other signers. However, with the appearance of Shooting Star and Red Nova, this changes. While Yusei and Jack were previously and would have always been the two guys who had a Special dynamic with a capital "S" on account of their character archetypes, their acquisition of the dragon upgrades—and even more so, the lack of upgrades their fellow signers receive—now decidedly puts them in a different power bracket and skews the balance between previous, supposedly "equal" characters. (Which, unfortunately, is yet another thing that makes everyone else easier to sideline.)

Why do I bring all this up in a post dedicated to Crow? Because this new power imbalance arguably impacts him more than the other signers—because he's Team 5Ds' second wheeler and doesn't miss another WRGP match from here on out. Thus, that power imbalance is felt in the upcoming duels, where Yusei and Jack bust out Shooting Star and Red Nova like it's nothing, while Crow is left manoeuvring with the somewhat underpowered Black-Winged Dragon and whatever else he can come up with. This is also why I claimed that the show did sideline Crow in some aspects further above. Because while some parts of his writing go to great pains to establish him as part of a protagonist trifecta that is now supposed to take centre stage before the other characters, he also permanently lives in Jack and Yusei's shadow, ultimately barred not just from reaching equal status as a signer (due to his late and rocky introduction and dragon acquisition), but also barred from becoming the equal of his foster brothers as a duellist. Frankly, I'm surprised the show didn't make this a plot point, because the first thing my mind jumps to when I think about this is whether Crow felt left behind after his brothers acquired such immensely powerful, special cards. But more on my personal writing ideas later. For now, let's just put a pin in the power-imbalance thing.

So, when is Crow back on screen in any meaningful role, then? (Note that I mean this as literally as possible. As per my discussion about "screentime" and my gripes about it in part two, I gloss over the parts where Crow is on screen, but could be traded for any other signer or even a lamppost without affecting the scene at all.)

Well, the next thing Crow gets to do isn't exactly glorious, but it sure is funny.

(I want you all to remember that he has to wear this costume and play this part in Team 5Ds' absurd plan to capture Yaeger/Lazar because he lost at rock-paper-scissors. This will never not be funny to me.)

Ignoring the hilarious outfit and Crow playing the bait at a fabricated cup ramen promo event meant to lure Yaeger in, bird boy does actually get something that's not just for funsies to do during the two episodes where Team 5Ds is trying to get more information about Iliaster: He gets to have a duel revanche against Yaeger, who, if we remember the DS arc, ditched him the last time they squared off. Much like the Team Catastrophe duel, this one, too, calls back to previous duels Crow has had: For one, it's the obvious conclusion to his unfinished, first duel with Yaeger. And for two, Crow repeats a "trick" (for lack of a better term) here that is also unique to him: losing on purpose, which we remember from his duel with Lyndon.

(Identical-looking clown family jumpscare be upon ye.)

And again, much like getting injured for the Team Unicorn duel, I argue that this story beat here is something that could also only have been accomplished with Crow. Because he's the only one who has previously duelled Yaeger, firstly, because not wanting to make a child cry by beating their dad in a duel makes sense for him as a character due to him being a family-oriented person who loves children, secondly, and because losing on purpose in this scenario is a tactic that would seem out of character from anyone else, thirdly. (We recall, the only times Jack and Yusei, respectively, ever consider/offer to lose on purpose is when the lives of people close to them are on the line, in the shape of Carly/Rally. As for the others, aside from not being present, Aki, Rua, and Ruka are so heavily sidelined at this point that they would have never been an option for this. And if his writing is anything to go by, Bruno is mostly purposefully forbidden from accomplishing Plot Things, especially through duels, while he's Bruno.) But hey, due to the way this episode is set up, losing on purpose works out for Crow, because it convinces Yaeger to stop hiding and actually share his knowledge about Iliaster. This, by the way, is the second scene where Crow gets to be in a room with Sherry for a longer stretch of time. And look, him joking that Sherry might kill Yaeger if he doesn't spill the beans about Iliaster soon is fun and all, but in light of the Ark Cradle duel later, I have to point out that he, again, doesn't get to have so much as a shred of a meaningful conversation with Sherry here. Again. But moving on. The scene with Yaeger at the Poppo Time then leads us first to the small sequence in the arcade where the gang has to win a simulated duel to get Yaeger's encoded intel, then to episode 116—the Moment Express episode, where, due to this being a Yusei, Sherry, and Bruno-focussed episode, Crow gets nothing to do again. (And also doesn't get to interact with Sherry again.)

Congrats! We've survived the WRGP break. This leaves us with three more WRGP duels before shit hits the fan and the Ark Cradle arc commences. And full disclosure, I'll be doing a bit of a quick-fire round of those three duels. Why? Because despite them all having their merits in their own rights (they're the better liked duels of the WRGP for a reason), there honestly isn't that much focus on Crow during them. He duels, yes, and I've seen people point this out over and over again as the supposed smoking gun that shows how Crow had so much more relevance and screentime than Aki and yadda, yadda. We've been there. And it's not that I can't see where this argument is coming from—I'll be the first to tell you that it's a travesty that Aki never got to duel in the WRGP again outside of the Unicorn match. But I want to use the final three matches to dig into how the way these matches—and especially the opponents to go with them—were set up made it nearly impossible for Aki to replace Crow again during any point of the WRGP finals.

First, episode 118. This is the only preamble episode we get for the first two WRGP finals teams, and here, our group is split in two: Yusei, Bruno, and Rua introduce us to Team Taiyou, while Jack, Aki, and Crow introduce us to Team Ragnarok. There isn't much to say here, because the only thing this episode does for Crow is a shallow repeat of what the Team Catastrophe duel did: By putting him in a group with Aki and Jack, and letting them decide among themselves, independently, to check out the exhibition match, it implies that he voluntarily spends time with signers who aren't Yusei. Thumbs up. Gold star. You made an effort (I guess). Then, the real fun starts.

Round one. Team Taiyou.

(Pictured: The sweetest country bumpkins to ever grace this earth. Yes, I'm biased.)

So here's the deal with Team Taiyou, from a narrative standpoint, as best as I can grasp it: They are a callback to Team 5Ds' roots. Specifically, to the boys' Satellite roots. The Taiyou boys come from humble origins, have only one, mostly home-engineered duel runner, and play using old cards that are widely considered shitty, as 5Ds canon tells us. They are essentially the non-signer, countryside version of what Jack, Crow, and Yusei once were, which is why this is the first duel where the duellist constellation on Team 5Ds' end couldn't possibly have been altered. Team Taiyou is there to remind us where our boys started, so it has to be our boys duelling them. This also goes for Crow, even though this duel otherwise doesn't accomplish much for him, character-wise. Instead, it's more of a narrative wink at the audience, as well as providing a breather between otherwise extremely tense, plot-focussed duels. But yeah, Crow's part in this match isn't much to write home about; he doesn't get any verbal interactions that are very meaningful to his character, can't get so much as a scratch in on Zushin, even with Black-Winged Dragon, and is defeated so Yusei can take out the legendary giant.

Round two. Team Ragnarok.

(Behold the pizzazz of at least two contenders for Haircuts With The Most Spikes in the show.)

Though this duel is framed as being even more so aimed towards bolstering Jack's character writing than Crow's, given the inclusion of Dragan's personal history with Jack, Team Ragnarok gets significantly more interesting for Crow again than Team Taiyou did. This is, of course, mainly because of Brave/Broder. Where Team Taiyou were a callback to the 5Ds boys' roots, Team Ragnarok are their narrative foils. Dragan is the duellist who lost his pride to contrast Jack, who's brimming with pride at all times, and Harald/Halldor is essentially the rich, "destiny isn't bullshit, actually" version of Yusei. Meanwhile, unlike the first two, who highlight our 5Ds boys' characteristics by contrasting them, Brave acts as Crow's mirror. Through Team Ragnarok's flashbacks, we see that he gets almost exactly the same, lovable-rogue-type backstory that Crow did during the DS arc, just in a different setting. The only, major difference between them is that while Crow is more down-to-earth, Brave likes to be pretty flashy.

(Keep in mind that he's doing this on a runner. Is there such a thing as courses on how to do acrobatics on your runner? Like there are courses for vaulting on horseback irl? I'm overthinking this again.)

Unsurprisingly, the duel thus ends up addressing the similarities between Crow and Brave, mostly through two things: One, the duel essentially becomes a contest of who can out-trickster who, culminating in the famous, ridiculous-in-the-good-way sequence where Crow activates a trap from his graveyard, to the shock of pretty much everyone present. And two, despite being on opposite sides, the two bond over their concern for the children they took care of and their concern for children in general, which is expressed most clearly in the scene where Crow's kids, in an attempt to hold the poster they made for him higher, very nearly fall over the barricade in the WRGP stands. Despite the hefty length of the full duel, these are pretty much the only things actually related to Crow's character that come up, though. They're good, don't get me wrong, but in a duel that is otherwise this dense with plot, Aesir shenanigans, and Iliaster foreshadowing, it's no surprise that the duel doesn't add that much to Crow's character, outside of giving him someone he can bounce off very well and relate to. Again, though, we are faced with the same situation as with Team Taiyou: Due to the way the members of Team Ragnarok are written, meant to contrast/parallel one male duellist each from Team 5Ds, nobody other than Crow could have taken the third spot here, either. It would have felt awkward from a narrative standpoint (as much as I would have loved to see Aki duel more).

Now, finally. Round three. Team New World.

(Welp. Here come the robots.)

I had to check to make sure I wasn't misremembering this, but due to the way this duel was set up so José/Jakob could bust out Meklord Emperor Granel with a ridiculous amount of attack points, Crow gets a resounding four turns total in this duel. (Gee, I wonder which other character got this treatment during a WRGP duel.) During those four turns, there are only two things he accomplishes: One, leaving behind two combo pieces Yusei later uses, and two, showcasing the shrewd tactics that earned him the label of "trickster" during the Ragnarok duel by bringing out a non-synchro monster that can take advantage of a synchro monster's attack points and effects—Aurora the Northern Lights. And arguably, this is a very smart play, moreover, it's the only time anyone in the show has the bright idea to not use synchro monsters against the known and feared synchro-killer Meklords. Unfortunately, as smart as it is, the narrative doesn't reward Crow for this play—José all but shrugs what could have been a turning point in the duel off, then proceeds to steamroll Crow the next turn, leaving Yusei to score the win, as usual. To get back to the "Crow got so much more screentime than Aki during the WRGP" thing for a second, of all the duels in the WRGP finals, this is arguably the one where Aki could still most easily have taken Crow's spot again, because here, it doesn't matter whether it's him or someone else, as this duel isn't tied to his character in any way. Unfortunately, due to the Granel-steamroller-strategy, this is also the duel where letting Aki take his spot again would have been the biggest shot in the foot, because unless they had changed Team New World's strategy, Aki would have gotten brutally guillotined here, same as Crow—something I can't imagine anyone, not even people who hate Crow, being happy about.

With that, though, we've finally made it through the WRGP. So, what's the bottom line here? Frankly, speaking from my own interpretation, Crow occupies an... odd spot during this tournament, to say the least. Though he does get to duel the majority of the time, few of the duels actually cater to his character in any way. Moreover, he only gets to be the star of the show in a WRGP duel once, during the by far most forgettable match against Team Catastrophe. And mind that I use the term "star of the show" very loosely here, because the problem the WRGP arc as a whole has, in my opinion, is that the rather lame Team Catastrophe duel is the only one in the whole tournament that isn't won by Yusei, which categorically means that any of the other character's big moments are usually undermined by the fact that they ultimately still need him to save the day. Thus, moments like Aki summoning Stardust Dragon and Crow using an anti-synchro-killer strategy that for once actually forgoes synchros are somewhat cheapened by the fact that they're not actually the turning-point moments they're initially painted as, because ultimately, Yusei always has to be the one to save the day. What's worse is that this almost feels like a bit of a non-issue that could have easily been fixed—given that the show tells us that teams can shuffle around their line-up for a match any time. But unfortunately, the writing never interacts with this as a possible strategic element, nor does it ever seem to consider letting Yusei lose, or forcing him to give up his spot for a match. I feel the need to say that I don't put the blame at Yusei's feet here, though: This strongly feels like an oversight by the writers, and perhaps a disproportionate need to have a nigh-infallible protagonist (on the duelling side of things) that their audience would never run the risk of calling "lame". For Crow, though, this chiefly means one thing: In any duel other than the Catastrophe one, it was always clear that even if he partook, he would never finish the match. And yes, this is technically an issue Jack has, too. But this is where the character writing outside of the duels comes into play, too.

Unlike Jack, who actually gets to do something during the Diablo invasion (albeit very little), who gets his very own dragon upgrade and who gets a very personal, pre-duel plot with Dragan, the show's writing doesn't bother giving Crow a lot of plot- or character-relevant things to do, once the WRGP starts. This is also why I was so surprised at how much the Unicorn and Catastrophe duels embrace his interactions with Aki—compared to the later duels in the finals, this portion still makes Crow feel genuinely relevant and interwoven with the other characters. Meanwhile, out of the three final duels, only the Ragnarok one actually tries to establish a connection to his characterisation, through Brave. The Taiyou duel only sets itself up in such a way that Aki partaking instead of him would have been awkward. Meanwhile, the New World duel just has him being treated like a floormat in a sad parallel to Aki during the Unicorn duel, seeing as they both get a nice moment where it looks like they might turn the duel around (Aki summoning Stardust Dragon and Black Rose Dragon onto the field at the same time; Crow summoning Aurora the Northern Lights, which couldn't be absorbed by the Meklords), only to have their hopes dashed as they're mercilessly cleared off the track. Outside of the duels, many scenes sadly give the impression that they may as well not have included Crow, though—he often gets so little to contribute to a moment or even to say at all that substituting him with a cardboard box seems like it would not have impacted the scene in any way. And that's without addressing his non-existent connection to Sherry, which feels extra glaring, given his later interactions with her on the Ark Cradle.

All in all, the WRGP feels like a very mixed bag, where Crow's character writing is concerned. His belated backstory, which I talked about in part two, is front-loaded and asks as many questions as it answers. Then the tournament commences, gives him some actually decent character interplay with Aki for once (at the cost of letting her succeed in the tournament, it seems), only for him to be basically irrelevant during the WRGP pause again. And once the whole thing resumes, it becomes this hot-and-cold thing where some duel aspects seem tailored to him, while others treat him as completely expendable. The end result is an arc where I'm left wondering why exactly the writers felt the need to make it seem like Crow made up one portion of a protagonist trifecta, if they never actually bothered treating him as equal to the other two. (The answer, I believe, lies somewhere between the fumbled setup they did for him during the Fortune Cup and DS arc, and the way yugioh in general treats its character archetypes. But that's just speculation on my part.) The one, saving grace the WRGP (outside of the Pearson backstory) has for Crow is that it at least doesn't introduce any new character- and/or timeline inconsistencies. In fact, his character stays remarkably true to form once the tournament begins.

Okay, onto the final bit, then. As I've done in both previous posts, let me delve into completely subjective territory and offer some ideas on how this arc could have been handled to make it seem a little less all over the place with Crow. And since his writing here canonically intersects with Aki's several times, let me try to do it while offering the best of both worlds to both characters, if I can.

As far as Crow's backstory is concerned, I've already offered my solutions to that in part two. Now, to stay consistent with my own suggestions, I'll try to branch off what I wrote in the last post. This means that, as per my previous two analyses, we're dealing with two scenarios again: One, Crow stays a signer and we try to touch canon as little as possible. Two, Crow isn't a signer and we adjust canon in whatever way we need to to make him feel interesting and necessary despite/because of that.

First, though, let's get two adjustments I personally would have made in both versions out of the way:

The way the WRGP is structured puts every character that isn't Yusei at a massive disadvantage, where character moments in duels are concerned. Thus, I propose an overhaul. Among the changes I think could have benefitted the characters (yes, all of them) are: One - Aki actually getting to accomplish something during the Unicorn duel (she can and should still have her moments with Crow, but maybe let her portion of the duel end in her thanking him for coaching her, creating a more upbeat scene that strengthens their friendship, which could double as good setup for their later double-duel against Sherry). Two - letting the Team Catastrophe duel actually play out properly (as in, they become more meaningful as opponents by having a better strategy, for example, and Crow could stick it out longer against them, in order to make this more so his win than Jack's. Also, why not let Aki actually see him get back at Team Catastrophe for her?). Three - giving Crow an actual character moment during the Taiyou duel (what if one of the country boys had played a card or two of the ones he learned to read from? It could have helped drive the parallel between the two teams home.) Four - letting Crow's anti-Meklord strategy get at least a little payoff, if only for two turns (show us at least proof of concept, damn it!). Yes, the Ragnarok duel is the only one I wouldn't rewrite (unless special circumstances are introduced, see below). Additionally, let Team 5Ds alter their line-up more than once, damn it. Let them actually strategise about the duels, let them take into consideration who should go first when and whose deck might be better suited to which scenario. Also, remove Yusei from at least one duel. Doesn't matter how, just let him not partake once. Perfect setup to let Aki duel again, and would also allow for spicy character interactions. (Arguably the best duels where this could have been done would have been any of the final duels, though it would have also required rewriting the antagonists somewhat in any case.)

For the love of god, give Sherry and Crow some setup. Let them actually interact, let them introduce their philosophies to one another, just do something, anything to make Crow understanding and talking sense into her during the finale seem earned. A few chance meetings, or maybe even a tiny side-plot could have done so much here. And if you can't let them interact outright, at least let Aki and Crow talk about Sherry! Double whammy! The two characters who end up duelling against her are made to seem even more like a team, and Crow actually gets to find out what Sherry's deal is on-screen. Just. Set. it. up. I beg you.

There we go. Now, onto the two branches.

Option A: Crow stays a signer and obtained Black-Winged Dragon.

Seeing as Crow's signer status, funnily enough, isn't all that relevant during the tournament itself (save for two notable exceptions), there aren't that many fixes to be made here. Crow can still get injured, miss out on the Unicorn duel and be the star of the Catastrophe duel. But giving him something to do during the duel robot invasion that isn't standing around and hoping Yusei will fix everything would also be nice. It's fine if he can't drive out there and duel, but why not let him do something else? He's a crafty guy, why not let him find, say, a way to fry the Diablos' runners, taking a few of them out even from a semi-stationary position without duelling them? He could at least get as much of a consolation prize scene as Aki got with her saving that child. Then there's Team Taiyou, which, save for what I proposed above, is a duel that doesn't feel like it needs changes. Crow does his thing here. That's it. The same goes for Team Ragnarok, especially given that they're specifically written to oppose an all-signers Team 5Ds. Finally, there's Team New World, which, if I'm being completely candid, I would personally overhaul to change the cyborgs' strategy entirely in order to actually let all three members of Team 5Ds shine. But this is the version where I touch canon as little as possible, so... Aside from what I wrote above, no changes needed. Just make Crow seem a little more relevant, make his strategy have at least a little payoff, even if Granel's back out and menacing literally two turns later.

Option B: Crow, as per my previous posts, isn't a signer and doesn't have Black-Winged Dragon.

This is the version that would categorically require heavier changes, though they honestly don't arrive until the break in the tournament. Unicorn and Catastrophe stay the same, I would still propose that Crow gets to be a little more useful during the Diablo invasion. But! In this version, seeing as he never acquired BWD, the break in the WRGP would be an excellent spot to let Crow acquire an upgrade for his beefy Blackwing ace monster of choice. Give him a little side-plot, too, something to do, something where he proves himself. Maybe let him run into Iliaster here, or maybe call back to Pearson again and introduce the new Blackwing upgrade as a treasure Pearson stashed away before he died (maybe this could have even been the card Bolger was actually after; the world is our oyster here). Then he's beefed up, too, and actually feels a little more on the same level as Jack and Yusei. The tournament recommences and again, the Taiyou duel could stay mostly the same, I think. Ragnarok and New World are where it gets really interesting, though. The way I see it, Ragnarok could go two ways with Crow not being a signer: Either he partakes as he did in canon and his non-signer status is called out as a peculiarity by our Swedish boys who happen to be obsessed with fate (which would make his performance against Brave seem all the more impressive), or, due to this being a duel all about destiny and celestial pissing contests, Crow's spot is given to Aki again for this duel due to her signer status (this would, obviously, require rewriting Brave, perhaps even switching him out for a Ragnarok lady instead). As for Team New World, this duel would honestly be a lot more juicy with a non-signer Crow, because much like he was for the dark signers, a non-signer Crow would essentially be an unknown in their plan for the cyborgs. He would be the guy who's Not Supposed To Be Here. Granted, he would still be beaten, but he could still get an excellent moment where his out-of-left-field anti-Meklord strategy genuinely seems to turn the tables for a bit, angering José and providing even stronger setup for Yusei to win later.

Aaaaand that's that. Somehow, I get the feeling the WRGP had the least things that needed fixing because it also had the least actual character writing. But that might just be me. It's late and I have been writing for A While. But hey, I got out part three faster than part two! I consider that an achievement.

Now, while I get my talking points in order for part four, I hope you'll have fun chewing on this one. See you in the grand finale to my Bird Boy dissertation.

#yugioh 5ds #crow hogan #ygo 5ds #5ds #yugioh meta #team unicorn #team catastrophe #team taiyou #team ragnarok #team new world #holy shit my brain is smoking #so. much. stuff to talk about. #the irony that I'm posting an analysis of this length about crow #on a blog with an aki theme is not lost on me #listen I love them both. they are so good. #and tbh I think I made it abundantly clear that I do here #they are friends. they don't need to fight. #also again if anyone wants to use my fix suggestions as fic premises #please do and tag me if you publish it #anyway *yeets this out into the wild* take it

[allastoredeer]

Hello, I just read the new chapter of "Damage Control" and it was a really fun read! I usually don't comment on the fics I read because my English isn't good, but as someone who's just starting to explore what the radioapple dynamic has to offer, I found this fic to be a god-send and it feels wrong to just not congratulate you.

Your characterization of all the characters in Hazbin Hotel and the world building for your radioapple series is so heckin' amazing I have no words for it. You show so much understanding of the hellaverse that even the smallest details, like that news segment with Katie Killjoy in the first episode, feel so on point. To me, it doesn't feel much different between reading your fics and watching any episode of the show.

I also wanted to ask if you were planning on involving the Sins at some point in the story. It can be fun to see the Sins gathered together to discuss why the short king, the same one who has been crying for his wife for seven long years, is suddenly involved with one of the Pride Ring's most dangerous Overlords. I can clearly hear Asmodeus say something like: “If I had a nickel for every time a royal gets involved with a sinner/hellborn (cofcofstolascofcof), I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.”

I really hope you never stop writing. You have become my favorite writer in this fandom. I hope you have a great day :D

HELLO!!! AHHH thank you so much (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) Reading this sdjfnslfnljfn I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart. It watered my crops. Cleared my skin. Paid off my debts.

Seriously, when I got this is it just - it means a lot to hear. I'm so happy you're enjoying my fics! I'm overjoyed you like the characterization, and I'm so, so happy to have received this. It really does mean the whole world to me (to a lot of writers) to get feedback like this, so thank you <3

I don't know if I'll include any of the Sin's in my radioapple series, but I do have a handful of ideas and scenarios I want to draw/write out involving the Sin's, Lucifer, and them meeting Lucifer's new boyfriend/partner, Alastor ^.^ I love thinking about them all coming together--maybe Lucifer hosts some big, grand, once-in-a-millennia event in the Pride ring, and all the Sin's and Royal Hell families are invited to attend--and they all meet Alastor there. Ozzie and Queen Bee can introduce their partners too, and it'd just be so much fun.

I also need Ozzie to visit the porn studios, because of course, and absolutely murdering Valentino for how he treats/abuses his sex-workers.

This whole ask just...made everything better. Thank you very much. I definitely intend to keep writing, it's such a fun hobby and I derive a lot of enjoyment from it (hopefully one day I'll publish a book 🤞) .

Also, you're English is very good! Very clear and easy to read!

#seriously #these asks just #they mean the world to me #of course writing is fun in and of itself #and I do get a lot of enjoyment and pleasure out of it #but hearing peoples thoughts about it just #gosh it really helps #makes me feel all the good feelings #gives me motivation to write out my other ideas and post those too #thank you very much for this #asks #hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin alastor #the radio demon #appleradio #lucifer magne #lucifer morningstar #meownnies

[queseraone]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by the fabulous @cfr749. Please go read her fics and join me in screeching over them!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 28

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 103,520

3. What fandoms do you write for? The Rookie (Chenford), and previously for Chicago PD (Linstead)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? - stay - i want you to be happier - i don't wanna think of anything else (now that i thought of you) - all at once this is enough - now everything is easy (cause of you)

5. Do you respond to comments? I didn't when I first started posting fics (though I often think about going back and replying to them now, but that would probably be weird lol). But yes, now I definitely respond to comments. I am absolutely giddy over every single one I receive, and so I love to express that appreciation!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hmmmm I don't think any of them? I tend to leave even the angstiest fics on a hopeful note. But I suppose either just close your eyes (you'll be alright) or you know the greatest films of all time were never made just because of where they land in relation to the events of the show?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Probably in paper rings, in picture frames, and all my dreams, because, hello, 💍

8. Do you get hate on fics? Thankfully I have only seen positive feedback, which is so so lovely. This fandom is wonderful 💖

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I do not, because I'm too chicken. Maybe one day? (iykyk)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? No. I can't stand crossover fics. 😬

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?  Not by me!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! My babe @timandlucy and I have a collab that we started a while ago and have recently talked about picking up again! And we have an idea for another one brewing too! And @makeitastrength and I have on that's sitting on the backburner, but hopefully we will make happen!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Chenford!

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I want to say none because I'm way too fucking stubborn to give up on anything. But *sigh* Home... 😬😬😬😬😬 (it's been 5½ years, so it's not looking particularly hopeful)

16. What are your writing strengths? Oh man, I don't know? I hope I do a decent enough job of getting their voices right? Dialogue is often a battle, but that's probably because of how insane particular I am. I will say things out loud, play around with words, etc. to make sure it really feels like something they would say.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Being too indecisive and my lack of confidence (which, frankly, go hand in hand).

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I haven't done it, but I would definitely be looking to lean on a native speaker to ensure I do it correctly!

19. First fandom you wrote for? Chicago PD (Linstead)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? So hard, but i want you to be happier has a special place in my heart. It was a challenge to write, but the words still came so easily. And when I go back and re-read it, I don't cringe, so that's a win right there!

Thanks Lana! 🥰

Tagging @timandlucy @roguetwelve @makeitastrength @silverskull @goodgirlssayiloveyoutoo @chenfordspiral @sisterofficerlucychen @thisnightissparkling089 💕

#chenford #chenford fanfic #questions for fic writers #tag games #fanfic #writing

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Unexpectedly Yours: Part 11

Fandom: Ted Lasso (Regency AU)

Pairing: Roy Kent x F!Reader

Summary: Lord Roy Kent still has yet to marry. He hates the notion that marriage is a way to ensure your status in society. You have delayed your debut to society for years because of the same idea. So what happens when two people who hate the idea of marriage are constantly drawn to each other?

Series Masterlist

"Lady Y/N is here, your grace," one of Roy's servants announces. The sound of your name makes all three heads of Roy, Clara, and Phoebe shoot up.

"I didn't know Y/N was coming," Clara states with furrowed brows.

"Neither did I," Roy mumbles and stands to face his servant, "Where is she?"

"In the sitting room, sir."

Phoebe is quicker than her uncle, jumping out of her chair and rushing out of the dining room.

"Oi! Don't run!" Roy hollers, rushing after her and Clara following her brother.

_________________

You're caught off guard when you see Phoebe and she throws herself at you.

"Oh!" you chuckle, catching the young girl, "Hello, my darling. How are you?"

"Are you okay, Y/N?"

You sigh, moving a strand of blonde hair out of Phoebe's face, "Yes, lovely, just a little stressed."

"Stressed?" Roy asks as he steps into the sitting room.

You huff, "Can we elope? My mother has been unbearable! She's been berating me about whether the table cloths should be lace or not! I told her I don't care, but she scolds me saying that I should care since I'm marrying a very important lord and I just-" you let out a deep breath, "I needed a break from her."

Clara snickers, "Mamas are absolutely dreadful during weddings. Ours was just as bad, so I understand the stress you're feeling."

"Is it alright if I spend some time here? Unless you all were busy? I really do apologize for showing up like this."

Clara waves off your concern, "Nonsense. You're always welcome here and you'll be family soon. This will be your home too soon enough."

You look up at Roy from your spot on the loveseat. He nods with soft eyes, "You're welcome to stay for as long as you like. However...if your mother comes here, I won't protect you," he says with a smirk.

You pout, "Well if that's the case, then I'll drag you with me since this is your wedding too, love."

He playfully rolls his eyes, "Oh no. More time with my betrothed. Absolute torture."

You giggle and then look back at Phoebe, "Do you want me to read to you in the garden?"

"Will you?!" you nod and Phoebe immediately stands, "I'll be right back!" the three of you all chuckle at Phoebe's retreating figure.

Clara takes Phoebe's previous spot, "Are you truly all right, Y/N?" she grabs your hand and gives it a comforting squeeze.

You nod, "I will be. I just didn't expect my mother to be so...intense with all of this."

"You're her only daughter and child. She wants to make sure this wedding is everything you want it to be."

You roll your eyes, "She moreso wants to live up to all of Richmond's expectations. To be quite Frank, I don't care for all of it. As long as Roy is there, I'm happy," you look back at Roy. Still in awe that just months ago, you despised each other. Now you two are to be married soon.

"I will be. Don't worry," he gives a nod and a small smile.

Phoebe rushes back into the room with one of her fairytale books and a blanket, "Okay, I'm ready!"

"Wonderful!" you exclaim and jump to your feet. You walk towards Roy, "Will the esteemed Lord Kent be joining us?"

"I have some letters I need to finish, but I will join you afterwards."

"Alright. Clara?" you look to your soon to be sister in law.

"I'll join you, but let me request the cook for some cakes and tea."

"Come on, Y/N!" Phoebe takes your hand and drags you out of the room in excitement.

______________________

Your mother eventually does find you at Roy's. She's escorted to the garden where you're resting against a small plum tree reading out loud to Phoebe, Clara, and Roy. Roy's resting his head on your lap, Phoebe's head is on Clara's lap. The sun is beginning to set.

"So this is where you've ran off to?" your mother asks with a stern voice that causes Roy to immediately jolt up.

You groan, closing the book and setting it to the side, "I just needed a break, mother. Besides, you can't scold me for wanting to spend time with my husband and my future sister-in-law and niece."

Your mother purses her lips, "Be that as it may, you can't ignore these responsibilities forever. Your wedding is in a few weeks and we need to make sure it's perfect." She then turns her gaze to Roy, "I apologize, my Lord, but you shouldn't have entertained my daughter's irresponsible behavior."

Roy gets to his feet, standing tall with confidence, "My fiancee arrived at my doorstep in much distress, ma'am. As her future husband, I'd be ignoring my duty to provide her comfort."

You turn your face away to hide your smiling. You felt very proud of Roy's quick wittedness.

Your mother huffed, "Well, I think she's had enough time to de-stress. Now come along, Y/N, I'd spoken with the modiste about some potential wedding dresses. We must make haste before she closes shop for the day."

Roy offers you a hand and helps you stand. You brush off your dress and sigh, "If we weren't looking at wedding dresses, then I would've dragged you with me," you mumble with a frown.

He chuckles, "Lucky me."

You roll your eyes, "Cancel whatever plans you have tomorrow. I'm not dealing with her alone this time."

"Of course, love," he murmurs.

Hearing him call you love made warmth spread throughout your entire body. You could feel your entire being completely soften just by some simple words by the previously assumed heartless man.

You nod, "Roy," then then turned to Clara and Phoebe, "Enjoy the rest of your day, ladies."

"Good luck," Clara says with a smirk.

"Bye, Y/N!" Phoebe smiles and gives you a wave.

You pick up your skirt and walk towards your mother, "Alright, let's get this over with." You follow your mother out to the carriage and you slump into the bench across from her.

She tsks at you and shakes her head, “I hope you’re not giving Lord Kent and his family any trouble.”

You roll your eyes, “I am not. Besides, they said I’m always welcome there since I’ll be part of their family soon.”

“Just make sure once you marry, you won’t cause him too much trouble.”

You sigh and lean back into your seat, “Yes, mother.”

#roy kent x reader #roy kent imagine #regency au #ted lasso imagine #ted lasso au #f!reader #fem!reader #female!reader

[thelaurenshippen]

Hey, I've got a question about Breaker Whiskey, but I firstly also wanted to say that I've been following your work since I somehow stumbled upon Bridgewater and really enjoy your fictional podcasts as well as Dashboard Diaries very much. I don't have as much irl friends who share my fangirl/tumblr side so it's a really nice to have you to listen to. My question is (if you'd be willing to share) wether the storyline of Breaker Whiskey is already entirely mapped out, maybe even written completely, or if it's more a story that develops over time and you don't know yet how many episodes it'll be? I just keep wondering bc of the slow pace of it, which I really enjoy!

hello!! thank you so much for listening to all those shows!! it means the world to me <3 I especially really understand the struggle of not having irl fandom friends - it took me years to find folks who were as unhinged as I am.

GREAT question about Breaker Whiskey - the answer is a little yes, a little no. part of why I wanted to write it in the first place is because I really missed the experience of writing @thebrightsessions - I had a broad idea of where I wanted that story to go, but it morphed as we went along and building the track as the train was barreling forward was really scary but creatively rewarding. so there has definitely been intentional blank spaces left for myself in writing BW.

there are a few things I knew right from the start:

I want to do the show for a year (260 episodes) and in that year, I will be the only voice

the show is ultimately about the relationship between whiskey and harry, even as the larger plot takes place

I've honed in on details since but I knew what whiskey and harry were doing when "The Incident" happened and I knew what the big event was and what it wasn't

there aren't going to be substantial answers for the first six months

very early on, I knew what I wanted the last few episodes of that 260 run to be, and that has largely stayed the same. I know vaguely the "ending" I'm headed toward, even if I'm not positive it will end after 260

some of these things have shifted a little as I've written and received the listener messages (which have been some of the morse messages and have nudged the plot in interesting directions), but the slow pace was really the point, so I'm so glad you're enjoying it! it's hard. it's hard not to rush ahead and hard to feel some listeners' frustrations around the pace (which I get!). but I miss filler episodes. I miss 22 episode seasons. I miss character development happening over 8 seasons. I miss having to wait week to week, year to year, to see stories move forward. @breakerwhiskey is all of that to the extreme.

so, god, classic me, I've barely answered your question--in short, it will be at least 260 episodes, I actually have the rest of those episodes very broadly outlined, and beyond that...I have absolutely NO idea. it is pretty time consuming to do, and it's all free work, so I'm not sure I'd be able to sustain it forever, but I do like the idea of doing it for a while!

I hope this answered your question and thanks for asking!

#answered #breaker whiskey #writing

[motherofplatypus]

I wanna talk about something that i believe it has 50/50 chance that people will agree or absolutely wreck me, but I'm doing it anyway because I've argued about this back then and the amount of people who don't find this problematic is mind boggling. This is about the massive double standard that Adrien has within the fandom. Trigger episode: Multiplication.

I can still remember the oh so infamous scene of Felix from S3. Y'all remember? When he disguised as Adrien, tricking Ladybug, and about to non consensually kiss her? Man, the fandom was on fire that day, calling it sexual harassment and how much people hate him. And don't get me started with the legendary accursed wax statue scene from Puppeteer 2. Man, the writers must be high, drunk, trippy, and wasted when making those episodes. I want what they ate.

So, anyway, Multiplication exist, Mari is done with Adrien, Adrien speedrun his feelings towards Marinette within a day or less, and skipped twenty steps of How To Start A Relationship Like A Normal Person and went on to kiss her without consent, multiple times (is that why it's called Multiplication?). Sounds familiar with what Felix and Marinette did? Although in Marinette's case she doesn't know it was Adrien, but I'm putting her here anyway bcs i can and i want yall to live that moment again with me.

Why are people hating Felix and Marinette for what they did but glorifying Adrien when he did the same thing? I've seen so many people calling it cute or just straight up losing their mind in the sea of shipping and UwU and stuffs. This is a problematic thing in the show that i dont see many people talk about.

"Oh, but kissing is a normal way of greeting in French."

For those of you who gonna use that as an argument (one I've seen multiple times), here's one word you might've skipped when you're reading this post: CONSENT.

Watch that episode once more and tell me if you see anything that shows Marinette is willing to be kissed. If there's any trace of her giving him consent to be kissed.

Find any?

Hugging is also normal, but if you're about to hug someone and they refuse to be hugged, what will you do? Will you come back another day and try to hug them again, or will you not do that again because you respect their boundaries and consent?

Adrien did none of that. He just goes on and on and on for days to come without as much as a little thought that maybe, just maybe, he should stop because Mari is very visibly and obviously not okay getting kissed.

"Oh, but he thought Mari is still into him, because she's been acting all clumsy around him all this time."

Fair enough, but back to the keyword here: consent.

I'll give him a pass for trying to kiss her twice. Once, because like the statement above, and second, because he needs to make sure that Mari indeed refuse to be kissed by him. But he tried like what, four times? We've joked about him being blind, but this is plain idiocy.

And let's talk about Alya too. Girl, your so-called best friend is visibly uncomfortable with the idea of getting kissed, and she also told you why she's done with Adrien. Why on heavens through hell would your action be forcing your best friend to receive the kiss? You're a shameful excuse of a best friend.

"Oh, but Alya has been listening to Mari talking about Adrien non stop, so of course she's gonna make her take the kiss because maybe she wanted something to finally happen between them."

Like i said, she's a shameful excuse of a best friend.

(Lord, i can still remember when Alya holds Mari down, and Adrien just take that chance to kiss her. Good lord, that's blatant harassment.)

Alright, let's just say y'all and the writers are hellbent in having Adrien try to kiss her multiple times, here's an alternative that would've worked: he also kiss Nino and Alya as greetings. That's normal, right? Kiss your homies hello, don't leave others craving for your kiss from those luscious cherry lips. Why isn't he kissing them too if kissing is a normal way of greetings? Just, seriously, the situation would be far, far, far much better if Adrien also kiss the others, because then it won't look like a sexual harassment on Marinette.

Why didn't the writers think of that is beyond me, but these are the same people who make Felix and Marinette scenes in something they always call a "kids show", so it's to be expected.

And so, it has been a piece of my thought. I know some of you will be furious with this, but what's an opinion without some spicy replies. And so, I'd like to hear your opinion. Do you agree, or disagree. Am i being ridiculous with how i perceive this topic. Share your thoughts.

That being said, I'll see you all next time. Byeee.

#why the writers aren't getting sued or reported for how they treated the children in this show is still a mystery #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #miraculous lb #mlb #adrien agreste #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous adrien #miraculous marinette #miraculous salt #mlb salt #ml ladybug #adrien salt

[imagionationstation]

Hi! I read your TMNT 2012 separated au that you made with ellestrade and it really gave me brainworms so I wrote a small one-shot for it! The characters kinda ended up writing themselves haha.

anyways, wanted to share it with you and also make sure that you're okay with it. Not sure how you feel about other people taking inspiration from you ideas, so if you would like me to take it down, just let me know!

Thanks for sharing such fun ideas. Here's the post (I've also tagged you in it but sometimes tags are weird and don't always show. Also its on my fandom specific sideblog, but I am the same person haha)

Gotta love those brain worms! (Ironic statement from a 2012 viewpoint, actually-) HOLY CHALUPA, BRAIN WORMS IN THIS AU UNIVERSE, WAIT WAIT ACTUALLY WAIT-

*background rambles and spazzing*

Okay, I’m back.

I’m always a-okay with whatever fan things anyone wants to create with inspiration from something I made or helped make. As long as it isn’t containing some stamp that says “this I deem canon” when neither me (nor my partner) deemed it canon, no one ever has to worry with me getting upset over some story/comic/art.

I’m going to give some thoughts and I want to disclaimer.

When I discuss my thoughts on your POV of events in the AU, I will never, in any way, intend to diss or attack the story. I think the flow was excellent and Raph’s analysis of the events occurring was intriguing. I loved it! And nothing I say will be a statement otherwise.

But, since I have a distinct inability to keep my mouth shut when it comes to turtles and you asked, I have thoughts 🧐

My brain is now turning and ya’ll have to deal.

Characterization:

Donnie: Much distrust. Much sass. A strong sense of duty to defend his brethren turtles who don’t deserve it but he’s doing it anyway.

Very on point. Much approval 👌

Mikey: Could not be more perfect. I love him. Sweet soul ✨

Leo: He’s a bit less… Forceful. Cold and calculating. Than I envision.

I’d imagine that he had to learn to shut feelings down in order to survive. Fidgeting/smiling/visibly hesitating is out of the question. Staying in Shredder’s graces meant learning to play the game. His silence is what earns Raph the ability to be loud. The only times that he’s himself is when him and Raph are alone, outside of the sight of cameras, or when someone in is danger and fear/fury overwhelms all else. He seems bland to outsiders and it takes the Hamato brothers a while to see that that he’s just a scared little boi at heart that’s just trying his best in a cruel world.

He’s also set in his beliefs, so he’s going to assume that they’re being tormented mentally, if not physically. There’s no place in his mind that wonders if they were actually safer elsewhere.

I do like your POV, though. Plenty for me to play with.

Raph:

He’s ABSOLUTELY the first to question the differences between how Shredder treats them and how Splinter treats their brothers. He doesn’t jump the gun, but as devoted as he is, he’s never really liked Shredder. I love the implications that he’s been filing away concerns subconsciously and his brain keeps poking him like “HELLO?!”

He’s very deep. I can’t decide how I feel about that 🤔

Shredder would have wanted to fan that temper into something unforgiving and vile. Or course, that doesn’t mean he stops being a sensitive soul. It could… Have something to do with Shredder manipulating him into being angry when he wills it (basically all the time) and solemn and still when he doesn’t (such as during lectures, punishments, etc).

His brain registers this situation as one where he’s not meant to be loud and angry, and so he’s kinda… Shut down. Sassy, but mellow. Processing. Adapting. Letting what happens happen because he’s not meant to stop it.

It’s a reason that Leo gets so defensive when punishments come into play. It forces Raph to feel small. It make him vulnerable.

HOLY MOTHER OF MUTATIONS- I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS NEW TAKE ON THE AU @ellestrade TELL ME IF I’M ONTO SOMETHING

Anyway, commentary:

“in one of Takeō's strategy books he couldn't care less about”

It’s like Space Heroes. He claims so and YET he read, recalls, AND clearly has DEBATED the passage so I call sus vibes.

I get giddy when I think of Takeō discovering Space Heroes-

“Junkō and Kōta— or Donnie and Mikey, whatever false name they’d been given—”

My brain made connections. I don’t know if it was intended, but I always believe that they knew them by Shredder’s names through the beginning of season one, end of season one/beginning of season two they were associating them as both, and then by the time that the City is under attack, they’ve adapted to using their real names. (But the Saki brothers still keep their Foot names.)

So, now I assume this is somewhere in that middle plot.

Fun little Easter egg~

“Takeō and Akihitō were the offense, and Donnie and Mikey were the defense” “They held their own. In fact, they dominated.”

I’m in love with Raph’s simple acknowledgment of their roles in battle. It’s a very practical outline of exactly how their dynamic on the field plays out and he's so certain of his place.

On the other hand, I’m a bit uncertain about whether they’d dominate. I do believe that they are trained and can hold their own, but I don’t know about them being as impressive as Raph&Leo, simply because Splinter trained them to defend and Shredder trained them to kill. The Hamato brothers haven’t had much time to practice in the offensive, especially since that’s Leo&Raph’s job. (In non-AU canon, they are all offensive/defensive.)

I think Mikey might learn that kinda strength at the farmhouse after being taught by Leo&Raph, and Donnie will step back from that, finally finding his place not as a fighter/leader, but as a scientist.

Definitely an interesting take, tho 🤔

“Only now does he think that, perhaps, there was a reason their master made their primary weapons blunts and not blades.”

I am chewing on this line so hard. It’s so powerful.

I can’t even tell you why. It just is.

“Akihitō knows that Takeō isn’t lying. He’d already tried to take tonight's blame all on his own shoulders, spare Akihitō of the punishment. But Akihitō knows all his tricks and he won’t let his brother suffer alone. Again.”

100% behind Raph learning to butt in when Leo tries to take the fall as they get older and punishments get worse.

“Seeing the situation, the evidence glaring at him, Akihitō cannot deny that this wasn’t exactly a great sell. Takeō and him are tied to the ground, trying to convince these two strangers that they would be safe with them. That their clan would not hurt them while that same clan was just about ready to beat them to a pulp.”

I was thinking the same thing 🤣

Leo, dude, seriously. Look around. Think for a second. You are not selling your point. You are doing the opposite.

In the end, it doesn’t even matter. Sensei will always find them no matter where they run. It was better to follow than be chased.

SOMEONE NEEDS TO TEACH THESE KIDS THAT THIS IS A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP. YOU SHOULD NOT FEEL MOTIVATED TO STAY WITH DAD BECAUSE HE WILL FORCED YOU TO REMAIN OTHERWISE. BRUH. RED FLAG.

These were Foot Ninja binds made specifically to hold them. Mutant strength and all.

It makes sense that Shredder would make these. But.

But man. He made those. For them.

Takeō tries to take control of the situation again, the bossy oldest sibling coming out in him.

HA. Got him. Leo is Leo in any universe.

“His name is Mikey.” Donnie glares. “The rat is lying and he has—” “Donnie, its fine.”

Absolutely how they view things. Mikey doesn’t care what they think or do as long as no one he cares about is paying the price. Donnie feels it is a manner of principle that they accept logic and truth.

Leo talking over both of them is valid. This kid, I swear.

“Then tell your older brother to shut up about—”

LEO IS IT OFFICIAL YOU HAVE BEEN DISOWNED

“Sounds like a you-problem.” Donnie stands. “Mikey, we saved them. It's time to go.”

Donnie would die for them <3

A hand lands on his shoulder, and he recognizes it. Takeō always knows when to give support. He’s a good brother. He hopes Donnie and Mikey will know that one day too.

OH. OKAY. WELL. 🥺

THOSE FEELS CAME OUT OF NOWHERE-

He loved his big bro sm hjkhkjhkjhjkkjhkjhkjhku

If Akihitō didn’t know any better, he’d say it was longing.

Oh, don’t worry, he is dying to have other people in his life who genuinely care for him, but as long as you guys are with the enemy, you’re a threat to his baby brother and daddy and not to be trusted

And, just maybe, it could be their world too. 

Oh, so that’s what pain feels like. Glad to be reminded.

#IS Asks #tmnt separated au #teenage mutant ninja turtles #splinter hamato #imagionationstation #leo tmnt #raph tmnt #donnie tmnt #mikey tmnt #leonardo tmnt #raphael tmnt #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt donatello #tmnt donnie #tmnt mikey #tmnt raph #tmnt raphael #tmnt leo #tmnt leonardo #2012 tmnt #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2k12 #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2012 #tmnt au #donnie 2012 #leo 2012 #raph 2012 #mikey 2012 #tmnt fandom #tmnt donnie 2012

[cha-melodius]

Which fic are you most proud of and what inspired you to write it?

Hello and thanks so much for this lovely ask! I'm gonna give a slightly more complex answer than just "pick one", because I've talked a lot about the first fic (although that was mostly back when I had less than half the number of tumblr followers I have now, which is kind of crazy to think about), and the others are more recent.

So, the fic I'm most proud of remains Love is a Losing Game (napollya, E, 101k), which I wrote back in 2021! Hard to believe it's been that long. This is a whole-ass novel, and I still think it's my most original and well-developed work. It's a Cold War competitive chess AU, and was inspired by @eavos dropping the idea of a competitve chess AU in the tmfu discord chat one day because he'd watched The Queen's Gambit. Once I finally watched QG too, the concept completely took over my brain. It ultimately shares pretty much nothing with QG other than the competitive chess setting, but it turned out to be the perfect setting for these two. Also includes my favorite ever OC (Zaytsev). It's also a fic that is late in a fandom and is kind of a strange concept—college coffee shop AUs people jump on, but competitve chess? Definitely not going to draw people in as much. So it's certainly not my highest kudosed or most popular fic, but I've gotten some effusive comments that really show how much people who have read it loved it.

But that was also 2021, and I don't want to discount my more recent work. So, among those, I'm probably most proud of Please Don't Let Me Be So Understood (firstprince, E, 20k). This was a work that took it's basic concept from another fic I happened across in a different fandom that I'm not even part of lol. I thought it would make a great firstprince story, but writing it was very daunting because it's almost entirely a bunch of therapy. I've said it before but I'll say it again that this fic never would have gotten written without @celeritas2997, who gave me the confidence to pull it off and helped me make sure the therapy sessions were realistic and sensitive without losing our boys. This was maybe the most challenging fic I've ever written, even though it's not that long, and for that reason I'm very proud of it.

Honorable mentions to my spy novels Nova, Baby (firstprince, E, 66k) and A Good Man is Hard to Find (lokius, M, 81k). I absolutely love both of these stories and am super proud of how I built these stories and how they played out.

I've definitely yammered on long enough about this, but thank you again!

#about my fics #rwrb fic #tmfu fic #napollya #tmfu #rwrb #firstprince #asks and answers

[feroluce]

Hello!! I came here because I was informed you had some Wriowinne headcanons and ramblings to share? Would it be alright for me to ask for some 👉👈 (or as much as you want to share please I'm desperate for food)

OH BOY DO I.

I feel you anon, I've been shipping them like...since the PV. So I've been stuck in utter absolute hell, getting nothing but father&daughter content from the fandom (shoutout to @hydrachea for being able to dual wield and letting me talk ship to her, light of my life fr weh). I'm hoping now that 4.1 has been out for a little bit, we'll get some more of them, though. I've dug through our dms, and found a hc that takes place after 4.1. So spoilers for that archon quest, but no leaks are involved!

Anyway, I love thinking about how close they cut it at the climax of 4.1, and the aftermath of it all.

Sigewinne somehow finding out what happened down there at the bottom of Meropide while she was evacuating the inmates, and like. She knows what the stakes were. The Primordial Seawater could not be allowed to rise. Clorinde made the right decision in shooting the gate lock. Even if it had killed Wriothesley, it still would have been the right decision.

That doesn't mean it's not a bitter pill to swallow.

Sigewinne can usually put it out of mind during the day, especially when she's busy treating patients, but it's harder when she's asleep. She dreams of the evacuation, and the alarm blaring, and waiting and waiting and waiting, and Clorinde walking past, alone, with her head down and her fists shaking, until Neuvilette finally approaches. Wriothesley isn't with him.

And Neuvilette's face doesn't really show much. It never does. But Sigewinne is close enough to the surface that she can hear the absolute downpour raging outside as Neuvilette tells her that he's sorry, he's so so sorry, and he gives her a gray and black and red coat, so soaked through with Primordial Seawater that he'd been afraid to let anyone else touch it, and the fur collar is matted and wet against Sigewinne's face when she clutches it close-

Sigewinne jolts awake, grasping at whatever is in her reach, which just happens to include Wriothesley's arm. His eyes almost immediately fly open, slurring out a mix of what's goin' on and what's wrong, and then a do we need to evacuate and poor Sigewinne, she feels awful. He hasn't been sleeping as well since the almost-flood, every little sound wakes him up now.

(There are nights where she'll wake up alone, and if she goes looking, she'll find Wriothesley, still in his sleep clothes and looking exhausted, down under their secret passage and staring at Neuvilette's seal over the sluice gate. Like he's keeping watch over it, or just daring it to try and do something.

Whenever she finds him like this, Sigewinne tells him to come on, come back to bed, and he'll keep his eye on it until the last possible second, but generally Wriothesley comes when called, and he'll let her lead him away. On his worse nights, he'll tell her to go back without him, he can't sleep anyway, he's going to stay down here for just a little while longer. He'll be back later. And she does occasionally go back to bed, but most of the time she stays, because she doesn't like the idea of him alone down there. Sigewinne will tuck herself into his side, or she'll get him to relax his guard just enough to lay with his head in her lap, and they'll stay there like that until Wriothesley finally decides he can bear to leave it alone and go back to bed with her.)

So with all that in mind, when she accidentally wakes him up, Sigewinne quickly gets her breathing back under control and pets his hair until he relaxes again. She tells him it's fine, everything is ok. Meropide is safe. Their home and everyone in it is safe. Go back to sleep. He needs his rest if he's going to go up to the overworld for supplies in the morning. She'll go sleep in the infirmary, she just had a nightmare, is all (the truth), it was nothing, she barely even remembers it anymore (a lie).

Sigewinne doesn't even make it out of bed, though, because when she tries to go, she finds her wrist suddenly caught. She turns back and Wriothesley is squinting up at her face, human night vision isn't nearly as good as a Mélusine's. They sit there like that for a moment, until she can see through the expression on his face that he's come to some sort of decision. Wriothesley pulls her back in and Sigewinne lets him, lets him rearrange them into something more comfortable. It's easy to give up when it's him, she didn't truly want to leave anyway. By the time he makes a satisfied little huff into her hair, Sigewinne is tucked under his chin, her face against his chest, one arm wrapped around her to keep her there. She pats his side and tells him ok, ok, she gets it. She won't go anywhere.

Wriothesley buries his face in her hair and sighs at that, something deeper and more content that hilariously reminds Sigewinne of a dog asleep on the floor. "Good." Wriothesley sounds like he's already half-asleep again. His arm still tightens around her waist though, just to make a point. "How could I sleep, when I know you're off somewhere crying alone?"

Sigewinne touches her cheek, and sure enough, it's wet? She has tear tracks. No wonder Wriothesley had been staring at her so hard. She hadn't even realized. And she opens her mouth to protest because she wasn't crying, some tears in her sleep doesn't count, but. Wriothesley is already asleep again, breathing slow and deep and even, and his arm is heavy and warm around her, and his sleep shirt is soft and comfortable against her face, not at all like the fur-collared coat in her dreams.

Sigewinne gives in again, curls into all that warmth and wraps herself up in it, until it lulls her back to sleep.

#sigewrio #wriosig #wriowinne #genshin impact wriothesley #genshin impact sigewinne #THEM..... #augh my heart #I love them so much rolling around kicking making girly noises on my bed #I love thinking about Rosie being protective of Meropide #he put so much work into this place #into these people #I have bigger longer thoughts for that which will maybe go into their own post later #but after his release because I wrote them in a dm one (1) whole day before reading project amber and oh my god #the leaks made it SO much funnier JFKLJASKLDFJ #just realized I called him Rosie in a tag so just for the record that's my nickname I usually use for Wriothesley #it will probably happen again #but anyway yes post-4.1 hurt/comfort #they're so so sweet and they go through it a little bit but they have each other for it <3 #I hope this is enough of a starter anon I have more for later though #thank you so much it made me really happy to get this ask <3 #genshin impact #genshin impact 4.1 #wriothesley #sigewinne #ask #answer #anon

[jasontoddssuper]

The problems with the DC fandom's potrayals of Jason Todd

Hi,hello!!You might recognize me as that one Jason selfshipper who's self-insert is a pink Super that's always making shitposts and drawing parallels because autism go brrrr.If not,then that's a pretty good summary of my blog for newcomers!But today,i'm here to talk about a serious matter involving Jason and the bad depictions of him by fanon.As an autistic person who has the Batfam as one of his biggest spinterest,it's incredibly important and personal to me that Jason be done justice not just by canon but by the fans too.Which as you probably guessed by the title,dosen't happen very often.And i want to get into why and how that is!This ride is gonna be a bit long so buckle in

So to start off,the most blantant one:Making him into a misogynist who treats women badly based off their gender.Jason is an asshole and edgelord but that does not equal hating women and he's proven that many times.Has he been rude to characters who're girls?Yes but not once has he used their gender against them.You don't see him throwing around 'bitch' or the sexual kinds of insults(such as 'whore')towards them and that's because it's not a part of his character and never has been.When he was Robin,he showed such strong respect towards girls of all ages to the point where it was all but outright stated he was willing to push a man off a roof because he SA'd a woman and even as Red Hood,he never looses that as seen by his treatment of Talia and his female love interests.The idea that a guy being 'manly' means he must also be sexist perpetuates toxic masculinity and it's messed up to erase male characters being feminists(for lack of a better term)because you buy in it

To continue off that,the headcanon that he's a horndog who sleeps around is also a direct contradiction of his character.Jason is not actively interested in a relathionship for himself and he has shown this across pretty much all his incarnations in his actions and at least in the case of Rhato,his words too:

And the pervert sense of humor?Straight up made up out of thin air by non-comic readers.I get it,he's very hot,i agree with that very much,but assuming he must also be a sleaze because of it is making extremely weird assumptions.Attractive dosen't mean overly sexual and i don't think i have to explain why it's bad to change him being a total prude to a player because you believe it does,even more so since it's crystal clear that his reluctance towards intimacy is a trauma response.I get that people have different coping mechanisms but they're not interchangable and you're erasing rep by switching Jason's for another one

There's also how he barely drinks alcohol-there's actually a gag of him as Robin where he orders milk at a bar-and hasn't been shown to particularly be into smoking but guess what two of the most popular things he's shown enjoying in fanon are.Ironically enough,he's a huge literature nerd who's unashamed of and shows off his love for books and was implied to be into theater as a kid and guess what again?Those get stolen and given to Tim instead(*Flashbacks to Btas*).It's been shown that in the DC verse,it takes smarts to be a succesful vigilante and/or villain(the former of which Jason is and the latter of which he was for a long ass time)and he's ABSOLUTELY not just getting by on luck.Almost the entierty of Utrh wouldn't have happened if he wasn't a genius.Is he brutal?Yes,so much.Is he a brute?Not in the slightest bit

All this culminates in a particular and very big ick i have when it comes to fanon Jason:How all this combined with the latino hc for him turns him into a walking stereotype of my people.Latino Jason means the world to me,especially if he's also black,and it breaks my heart that gringos have sullied it with their lack of research and fetishization of him but that'll never stop me from reclaiming it and making it into the beautiful rep i know it is!Back on track:This point is something that under no circumstances should be let slide,it's racist fullstop.Reactions to it should only be either 1)attempting to educate or 2)blocking.If you disagree,please just do the blocking towards me

And the last thing i'd like to adress is his relathionship with Bruce:Jason does NOT have 'd*ddy issues',he has TRAUMA.It's one thing to joke about him wanting Bruce to love him so bad he became evil and being petty asf towards him,i actually love that type of humor,and it's a whole nother to be an ableist jackass because Jason wasn't all sunshine and rainbows when he found out his dad didn't avenge his death at FIFTEEN by a guy who does shit like domestic abuse and is a deviant who's not afraid to act on his thoughts.Don't take this as Bruce bashing,as i am aware that this is the fault of the writers bigotry and hating on him squicks me out

What i'm trying to say is:Jason Todd is a much better character than he's given credit for and i hope this helps him get it,even if just a little bit

#cw for dark topics #jason todd #pro jason todd #robin #red hood #batfam #teen titans #ditf #lost days #utrh #rhato #the outlaws #wfa #teen titans:damian edition #dead sidekicks force #team dual #the anomalies #black jason todd #latino jason todd #afrolatino jason supremacy #also trans and bi and aspec + adhd/mdd/autistic!! #anti batcest #antisladejay #antijayroy #antijaykory #antideadonmain #antiangermanagement #jaysumm #real self shipping hours #letters from summer

[celestialcrowley]

Hello, hello, hello!

I got cleared to return to work as long as I limit the dog handling to 50 pounds or less. Fortunately, a lot of our dogs fit that weight range, so I suppose I get some bonus points. I go back in one month for what’s probably going to be a final reevaluation of my shoulder. It’s still wild to me that I was remarkably calm when the dislocation happened, that a couple of my coworkers didn’t believe me and that I was laughing like a savage — okay, it was more like maniacal cackling — in the ER. That was the end result of sitting in urgent care for two hours only for them to do absolutely nothing before sending me to the ER.

Anyway, since I got the all clear, my time here is probably going to be sporadic, but … things are afoot. Ideas for an Aziracrow fic (potentially a longer one) have been slowly becoming more into focus and floating around — like the Metatron’s head — in my mind. Because you’re just an angel who goes along with Heaven for as long as he can lives rent free in my head, that’s primarily what the fic is going to largely bigly center around.

Writing lengthy works and I aren’t exactly friends. If I may, does anyone with more experience in that department have advice?

[drinks six shots of espresso] I need the words to do the thing.

I’m having too much fun with these tidbits from the show.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and kindness and for sharing your own works. I’m enjoying reading all of them! This fandom is so lovely.

I’ll pop back in later when I’ve got a break at work.

Ciao!

#good omens #text #writers on tumblr #ineffable fandom #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale

[bibuddie]

hiiieeee first and foremost…I love your blog! I just recently found/followed it and I can tell how invested and passionate you are about 9-1-1 and the fandom 🫶🏽 I just wanted to ask about something you answered in regard to your last ask— where you said “bucktommy isn't the intended end-goal” and that that’s pretty widely accepted within the fandom. which I can also see! I see that a lot of the fans are CONVINCED that this all leads to buddie in the end…

I guess I just wanna know…how are you SO confident that all of this is leading to buddie? I’ve read a few answers to asks on other blogs that briefly touch on this, and more than anything I want to believe it wholeheartedly (trust me!) but I feel like…idk part of me can’t help feeling they’re gonna pull the rug from under us and have it NOT lead to buddie. what has you so confident about this (and how can I be this confident lmao bc I really hate the doubt i’m feeling)?

hello!

first of all, i'm not sure if you're new to watching the show alltogether or just the tumblr fandom, but welcome! we're quite tight knit here but i'm sure you'll have a great time! <333

as to your question: there's a lot of reasons i'm confident that this is leading to buddie; honestly, there's been a lot of evidence over the years which tells us what's happening, and it could be an essay in and of itself. i'll try and summarise a few of the key points of evidence that, in my opinion, tell us where things are going (this will contain spoilers for any new fans of the show!!):

in eddie's very first episode (2x01), we see him for the first time on-screen through buck's pov. here, as we see eddie on screen, the son whatta man plays as eddie pulls his shirt on in slow-motion. to a lot of us, this is indicative of instant attraction/interest on buck's part, and gives us a major clue that something is happening here

in buck, actually (2x08), one of the main calls we see on the episode involves a gay couple, thomas and mitchell. when mitchell is pronounced dead, thomas and buck are sat on the ambulance and having a conversation, which goes as follows:

thomas: we only ever wanted to...to go together. that's love. buck: i'm sorry. i really am. i guess i can only hope to find something that good. thomas: you don't find it, son. you make it.

the idea that you don't find your love story, you have to put in the effort and make it becomes a recurring theme between buck and eddie. they manage to construct their own family unit consisting of themselves and chris over the years. the idea that they are a family already feeds into several different plot-lines over the years, perhaps most notably eddie's issues with ana and their eventual break up:

in episode 1 of season 5, eddie has a panic attack over a shop assistant thinking that ana was chris' mom. later, when he's talking to buck about it, he mentions how they became a ready made family...i'm not sure if i'm ready for that. when buck and eddie have been making their family for years now

eddie's entire breakup with ana was very queer-coded. honestly, watch the scene here, but ryan acted his absolute ass off and the entire thing reeks of eddie being a queer man at his core

honestly, one of the biggest bits of evidence we got in the first place was buck being confirmed as bisexual canonically. this allows us to thoroughly go back through and recontextualise a lot of interactions between buck and eddie over the years. two key scenes are the will scene (4x14 survivors) and the well scene (3x15 eddie begins). both of these scenes show buck and eddie in moments of vulnerability with one another, and show that their connection surpasses the connection which they have with anyone else

side note - i watched eddie begins yesterday, and the entire time eddie is drowning at the end of the episode, his life flashes before his eyes. all of this is chris, but a good chunk of the scenes also have buck in them.

again, there's a lot more i could point to, but these are the main things which stick out to me right now! i hope this answers your question!

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #i-love-tacoss #asks

[hellcheer-heaven]

Hello, sorry that this is going to sound so preachy and stupid, but I just want to send out a message. Also nothing happened to me, I just want to state something.

I know this blog focuses on all things Hellcheer and so far it’s been a good experience here on tumblr amongst friends and fellow peers. While I do very much love Chrissy x Eddie, I just want to say that even if you don’t ship them, that’s okay. If you want Eddie to be with someone else, that’s okay. If you want Chrissy to be with someone else, that’s okay. If you would rather have them as friends only, that’s okay. If you rather have Chrissy x reader or Eddie x reader, that’s okay. If neither of them are supposed to be together, that’s okay.

It’s a beautiful thing that so many fans can express themselves and their love for their favorite characters and/or ships in this fandom. Regardless of the manner and medium, I truly do find the creativity absolutely fantastic. The love is there and you all do a marvelous job of showing it, however you chose to.

Disagreements will come up, I can’t and won’t pretend that they don’t exist. Just know that I’m happy to see your work and listen to your ideas.

I just wish we could all be a little nicer to each other and to ourselves. Nothing good comes from spreading rumors, fighting (amongst others and within our own groups), or harboring animosity.

Regardless if you’ve been in the fandom since the very beginning, a couple seasons later, or even in the past few months/days, please know that you are welcomed here.

It’s okay if you disagree with some or everything that I’ve written here. I don’t know what anyone else has gone through and I won’t pretend to know. If I could hug you through the screen, I would.

I know it’s easier said than done, but I really do think that we are all capable of growth.

#fandom #thoughts on fandom #stranger things #stranger things thoughts #ramble #mini ramble