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heckpup · 3 years

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Hmmmmmm Time for the Part 2 of the Immortal Tommy AU I cooked up with my raw materials in the middle of the night

:DDDDDDDDD What fun. I have also now decided that Tommy's new wings are now phoenix style (cause he's immortal now, innit?), in flames, but only at the tips (so far, this will change the older he gets) and only if he wants them to be. Had he still been mortal, they probably would've been just a regular red, and so that is what they look like when they're not on fire.

Also, I'd like to imagine that the old worlds from when we were kids (with borders and that didn't go on forever and just stopped and dropped off into the void, right? I know me and my friends loved to find the corners and try to go through. Good times.) are what the god's personal realms are like. Not enough room for rebellion, since there's not enough room to run from an angry god/goddess. If you go to the edge, you can look at/travel to other worlds as well. Most gods don't bring other people into their worlds anyway, but *shrugs*

Edit: (I can't believe I forgot this I'm so sorry ;-;) TW:Mentions of bl00d, Mention of de@th, mentions of m@n!pulat!0n and g@sl!ght!ng, mentions of t0rture.

Just thought I should mention + explain.

"Hey Clara?" Tommy asks from a small tree, letting his feathers move gently in the wind.

"Yes, Tommy?" Clara calls from below, looking up at the young immortal. Tommy glides down to meet her on the ground, and he looks up at her a little sheepishly.

"Do you think that since, well, you know, I'm recovered and shit, I could visit those bitches from the SMP? I kinda just want to, uh, blow up at them, sorta. I just- its a lot of untapped rage and I really just wanna scream at 'em, you know? It's totally ok if you think I shouldn't I mean, you are the biggest man- er, woman- here, just wanted to ask, but uh-"

"Tommy." Clara cuts him off with a small smile, and a bit of mischief and malice (And anger, as well) twinkling in her dark eyes. "I think that's a wonderful idea. Besides," She begins to walk over to the edge of their small world, "they need to understand what they did, and its never good for us immortals to hold grudges over mortals. Could cause some unplanned problems in the far future."

Tommy beams, and Clara begins mentally preparing for the showdown with glee. "Tommy, how do you want to do it?" She asks, inner drama queen squealing.

"Well-" Tommy tells her- "-I really want it to be big and dramtic, you know? Like lightning and thunder, and like things bursting into flame and shit. I could probably do the flames myself, but do you think-" He looks up at her expectantly.

"Of course!" She says, patting his shoulder. "A storm fit for a god. It would be only fitting, of course. I am going to come along, of course. Just in case there are any unexpected developments, like more dramatic effect."

Tommy nods. "Yeah! Those bitches aren't gonna know what hit them! But, do you think you could stay invisible 'n shit for it? I still wanna do this by myself. I don't-" He cuts himself off, feathers ruffling. "I wanna yell and bitch about it, and I want to do this on my own. Like an important milestone on my recovery." Clara nods in agreement.

"Right, right. For the lightning though, is there any houses you want to keep out of harms way? I plan on hitting a lot of houses, just to get people up and moving."

Tommy thinks for a minute. "Uh, maybe hit close to Ranboo's house- he's the black and white hybrid, he's always been pretty nice to me- and Sam and Puffy and BadBoyHalo. Sam put Dream in prison a while ago, and Puffy and BBH gave me some gifts the night before you picked me up. So, they're clear from property damage, but I still want to see them. Defintely break Dream out, I want to yell at him though. Wait, maybe I can break him out, like teleport him away from the prison and show off my new powers and shit- anyway, maybe save Niki as well, she was always nice."

Clara nods and begins to locate the small world that she pulled Tommy from so many years ago. "Goodness!" She laughs. "It's been a while since you looked down at this one, isn't it?"

"Yeah, haven't had much time to think shit about those old bitches." Tommy begins to search with her, quickly locating the small SMP, being recently cleared of the red bloodvines that had plagued it for a while.

While they plan, they laugh, and Clara is reminded of how far the young godling had been when she whisked him away. His old SMP hadn't deserved him, not even for a second.

Tommy and Clara were watching from the clouds as the little people in the SMP ran around panicked about the storm that was destroying a lot of their houses. Tommy watched with glee and satisfaction as the majority of the SMP (save for Dream, of course) gathered in the newly rebuilt community house to discuss the looming problem.

"Dream has to be behind this, Sam!" Fundy growled out. "He's the only one that has this kind of power!"

"You ready?" Clara asked Tommy, after waiting for him to be perfectly positioned under one of the next lightning bolts, aimed at one of the doorways to the community house. Tommy nodded and lit the tips of his wings, prepared for the force of the bolt to push him back down to the earth.

The lightning hit, and Tommy found himself being thrown down and pushed to the ground.

The first thing he noticed was that the bolt left little sparks over his body and his wings were a little more lit up than usual.

The second thing he noticed was that everyone in the community house was looking at him.

He stood up and, with a great amount of false confidence, strode into the room. Tubbo was staring slack-jawed, as were most people in the building. Phil's face was incredibly pale, to the point that Tommy actually began to worry about the man's health. Ranboo looked at him wide-eyed, but then Tommy saw recognition flash and a smile began to creep onto his face.

But the person that Tommy had his eyes on the most was the no-longer transparent form of his elder brother, well and alive again.

"What's up, bitches?" Tommy grinned, and suddenly the room was alive with shouts and yelling and holy Prime, Tommy probably should have prepared more for this reaction but he hadn't even known Wilbur was alive but oh, Phil's yelling about how Tommy left him and-

"Tommy, how could you? You've been off to who knows where? Where the fuck have you been? How could you leave us?" Phil's void-black wings ruffled, and Tommy didn't even think before responding,

"I've been off healing, bitch! You know, from all the trauma you adults forced on me? And the gaslighting from Dream? The manipulation? It took me years to get over that shit, and the god's world-time runs slow! I spent a whole fucking year trying to understand that what you bitches put me through was fucking wrong, and I was not alright! I left you all here because you left me when I was at my fucking WORST! YOU LET A SIXTEEN YEAR-OLD FIGHT IN FUCKING WARS AND GET EXILED! YOU EXPECTED ME TO TAKE THAT SHIT LIKE A FUCKING ADULT? FUCK NO!" Tommy's wings flared out and he could feel the heat radiating off of it, his flames responding to his anger.

"Thomas Minecraft-Innit, I am your father, how dare you-"

"Oh, you're my father now? Now, after you abandoned me, neglected me, left me in the dust? You cared more about your fucking war buddy than your own two sons! Wilbur was more of a father than you were, and then you fucking killed him!"

"Tommy-" Tubbo tried to interject.

"AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON YOU TUBBO! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID? YOU LEFT ME AS WELL, YOU LEFT ME WITH FUCKING DREAM! YOU EXILED ME, AND FOR FUCKING WHAT? A SAD POSITION IN A COUNTRY THAT YOU LET DREAM PUPPETEER ANYWAY! WE FOUGHT THAT WAR TO GET AWAY FROM DREAM, AND THEN YOU FUCKING LET HIM RIGHT BACK IN!" Tommy raged, turing on his ex-best friend. "Oh, speaking of-" He snapped his fingers and then Dream was in the room with them, wearing an orange jumpsuit and looking around wildly.

The room let out a great outburst, which, to be fair, was expected.

But then Dream took one look at Tommy and decided that it was a-fucking-okay to try and re-manipulate Tommy again. As if he didn't notice that Tommy was much older, much more healed and much more powerful than before. (Or that could just be him. Clara did tell him that gods- and even godlings- could change their age and appearance, and sometimes it was involuntary and depended on emotions and metal stability. Tommy did actually feel much younger. Maybe it was from being in this place, this world, and being in front of the person that hurt him most. That would make sense.)

"Tommy!" Dream cried with unusual glee. "You're here to help me, aren't you? You finally came to your senses about your best friend, right?" Tommy only raised an eyebrow in response, not giving him an answer. "What, not going to give an answer to your only friend? Tommy, I stayed with you, I kept you company when no one else did, remember?" Prime, how long did Dream think he had been in that prison for?

Tommy only shrugged and then pulled out a sword and dashed up to Dream, keeping the blade on Dream's throat. "You mother fucker. You are the biggest bitch boy I've ever, and I mean ever, had the pleasure of knowing, bitch boy. You are the absolute worst thing to ever happen to me, you know that? You killed me twice, and for what? Gratification of knowing you killed a teenager? And then you tried to gaslight me, manipulate me into doing your sick shit for you? That's the most fucked up thing I've ever known, Dream. I'm going to enjoy taking this life from you." And then he swung, embedding the blade into the wall behind where Dream's body had once been.

TommyInnit killed Dream with [A Final Blow]

Dream made the achievement [Banned?]

"Tommy what-" Tommy turned to look at Technoblade, who was looking blankly at his chatlog.

"Oh, don't worry too much about him. He'll just be stuck for a few days in the ban-void, and then he'll come back on his own." A great number of people paled, knowing the ban void, when you were still on a world, meant that you were subjected to great amounts of agony as your body tore itself apart and tried to pull its code back together. And Tommy had just taken one of Dream's lives, too!

"Tommy, what happened to you?" Phil asked, horrified.

"I grew up," Tommy said with a smile. "And now I have the rest of time to spend continuing to grow and live. Becuase now, Tommy Innit never dies."

Techno rushed at him suddenly, axe swinging. It caught the edge of Tomm'y neck, and Tommy took the chance to grab Techno by the scruff on his, and lift him up, also while feeling his body grow older. Several gasps were heard around the room at the sudden change. "What were you trying to do there, Technoblade? You can't kill a god." And then he let Techno drop to the ground, before touching the part of his neck Techno had sliced.

His hand drew away with golden ichor.

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aceofspadegrass · 3 years

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Dori is in the mood for cosplaying.

So instead of cosplaying ng as pretty princess like last time,

He decided to just cosplay as a normal girl,as he walks through the hallways of the beach,doing his job(spraying Niragi)

Lady in White? Nah, just Fancy in White

Characters: Niragi Suguru, Sakurada Sori

Genre: Fluff. Just some casual crossdressing. And a grumpy lizard.

1.6k words

Sakurada would probably rock a beach dress. He has like.... a picture of him wearing a wig for reasons I have no idea of, but it's there. I find it interesting.

Anyways, I hope you like this! I.... tried to make it fit.

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

Niragi liked having a full rest after a day and evening full of exhilarating excitement and a little chaos sprinkled into each day however he pleased.

What he didn’t like is waking up to the sound of his unintentional roommate tripping over his own pillow, hitting the floor quite loudly, then apologizing to said pillow like he tripped over his baby.

Which, Niragi had found out from having to share a room with him, was pretty much his baby. Just cylindrical. He’s never seen a man that excited over a body pillow that was simply a black air tube, yet here he was.

“ Can you keep it down, asshat? I’m trying to sleep.” Niragi grumbles, Sakurada quickly bowing and apologizing to him. It was still dark, and Niragi didn’t feel like turning on a light, pulling the blanket back over himself and huffing in annoyance.

There was quiet shuffling around the room, and the other male at least kept the lights off to let him sleep, although whatever he was doing in the dark was suspicious at best. Niragi rolls over, squinting into the darkness as he tried to figure out what the heck Sakurada was even up to. All he saw was his figure, which held a weirdly uncanny similarity to his own, although darkened. “ It’s early, go to sleep.” Niragi mumbles, glaring into the darkness. “ I apologize for waking you, Niragi, but I am merely choosing my outfit for the day!” “ It’s the Beach, your only choice is swimwear. You know you’re pushing it with all this fancy getup, right?” “ You don’t adhere to the rules either, you know.” Sakurada says, Niragi rolling his eyes.

“ Because the rules are so nobody hides a weapon.” He gestures to his gun, which he lovingly tucked into bed with him. “ And spoilers, I have a gun.”

“ I am very aware of that, but your leader of this place was very kind and let me wear whatever I want because, and I quote, ‘ You look absolutely stunning you french baked potato, and who am I to deny a man of being this nice to look at’.” “ Why the fuck did Hatter call you a baked potato.” Niragi mutters. “ You’re more of a chocolate waffle cake with truffles if anything else.”

“ I’m going to take both as a compliment, even though it is amusing how you both jump to calling me after a food item.” Niragi just rolls back over. “ Whatever. Just be quiet, it’s too early for this shit.” He yawns, and the shuffling began anew, Niragi mentally blocking out the sound as sleep reclaimed his body and mind.

—————————————————————————————————

Morning soon came, Niragi drifting out of his silent unconsciousness and into the chaotic real world. He sits up, stretching his bones and groaning as he did.

“ Good morning!” An all too familiar voice chirps out, and Niragi barely mutters one back, eyelids still firmly draped over his eyes and blocking most of his sight. “ Morning.” He finally opens his eyes, but pauses as he spots a figure that definitely didn’t look like Sakurada. Said figure was just idly standing there, fixing rather long and wavy dirty blond hair, a simple and loose white beach dress draped over her body…. A bit tall, but nothing that could deter the bastard that is Niragi. He blinks in confusion, but doesn’t falter as he gets up, grinning and approaching the mysterious person from behind.

“ What’s a sexy lady like you doing in my ro-“ Niragi gets cut off again as the figure whips around and spritzes water straight into Niragi’s face, Niragi hissing and backing up. He furiously rubs the water away and glares at the figure, face heating up in embarrassment as he recognizes the facial structure, Sakurada raising an eyebrow at him, donned in a dress and wig.

“ Bad Niragi.” Sakurada lightly scolds, crossing his arms. A pair of sunglasses rested atop his head, only completing the look. “ I know I look good, but don’t think you’re gonna get away with trying to come onto me again.” He sighs, Niragi grumbling under his breath.

Stupid weird clone, looking decent in a dress. Niragi leaves him there to do whatever Sakurada was doing with himself to get ready for the day, which just equated to a quick brushing of his teeth, brushing his hair, and washing his face. He knew he looked pretty enough, so he didn’t need much else.

When he leaves the bathroom, Sakurada was still there, sunglasses now over his eyes as he smiles at Niragi. “ Ready to go?” He asks, and Niragi barely even offers a grunt as he grabs his rifle and leaves the room before Sakurada. As he usually did, Sakurada follows after him, water sprayer at his side. Niragi much rather prefer no more sprays today, as his pride kept getting damaged every time it happened, especially in front of the other Beach members. He wanted to just shoot Sakurada and get it over with, but something in him kept him from going through with it. Maybe the idea of shooting what looked just like him turned on some weird survival instinct that kept him from killing ‘himself’, even if he attempted to just treat Sakurada as the weird twin that won’t leave him alone.

The trip to the dining area was… weird. Niragi could spot other members looking towards his direction, some whispering or plainly talking to each other. Most of them were about the ‘pretty lady’ right behind him, wondering who ‘she’ was, and why ‘she’ was even following a guy like Niragi.

Niragi couldn’t help but approach every single one and sneer at them, telling them off and watching them flee with their tails between their legs, only to have to deal with Sakurada lightly scolding him on manners.

“ Yada yada yada, still don’t care!” Niragi comments after the seventh time, Sakurada lightly spraying the back of Niragi’s neck with water. Niragi hisses at the cold temperature, whipping around and glaring at Sakurada, who just gives him a disappointed look.

“ You should. I know you like doing whatever you please, but it doesn’t hurt to be a little more polite.” “ Politeness can get fucked.” Niragi grumbles, and that only earns him a second spray, right on the ear. He angrily swipes the water droplets away, and picks up his pace, Sakurada quickly matching his pace.

The two of them continue to walk, and Niragi finally decides to ask about his weird getup, looking towards Sakurada. “ So what’s with the dress? Decide you’re a girl now or something?” “ This dress was very free flowing, and I felt like dressing up like this for the day! It doesn’t have to mean anything! Don’t I look nice?” “ I mean……” Niragi just shrugs. He has no idea what to really make of it. Sakurada in a dress and looking decent was…. not something Niragi thought he’d see. Or ever want to admit. He never understood. “ Sure. But it’s weird as shit. You’re fucking weird.” “ Language. But thank you for the compliment.” Sakurada chirps with a soft smile. He still was wearing the sunglasses, so Niragi couldn’t tell what his eyes said, but the smile said enough. Niragi rolls his eyes.

They make it to the dining area, and people immediately are looking at the both of them. Some were faces of concern because of Niragi being there now, others in a curious light as who his companion was, as Sakurada didn’t bother to separate from his side yet. Niragi smiles at a few members in a prideful air, and heads to grab breakfast, Sakurada keeping in step. From the corner of his eye, Sakurada had been waving at a few, nodding his head in greeting at others, people settling easily with the sight of him instead of focusing on Niragi minding his business.

He sits down by himself at a spare table, Sakurada sitting besides him and pulling back the blond locks so he didn’t stain them in the food, simply eggs and fruits with yoghurt on the side. “ How long are you gonna stay like that?” Niragi asks, chewing on the end of a honeydew slice. “ All day!” “ You do realize you look like a girl right? Everyone’s gonna think you’re like….. my girlfriend. Which is gross. I don’t want you as a girlfriend.” Sakurada lightly laughs, smiling. “ I wouldn’t want to be, no offense to you of course. I suppose it’ll just have to look like that for today! I’ll clear up the misunderstanding if anyone asks. There’s a lot of people here that come in and out, there’s no harm in one day of looking like this, is there?” Niragi rolls his eyes again. “ You’re weird." “ But I’m good company, am I not?” “ You do nothing but look pretty and spray me.” “ It’s simply for your own good! You can’t go around all mean all the time you know! You can be tough without being creepy!” Sakurada cheerfully reprimands, pulling his sunglasses up to rest on his head, Niragi rolling his eyes even harder.

“ Shut up.” “ I think you’re very tough! Look at you go, with your cool piercings and gun! And you hold yourself very proudly! That’s enough for now! The creepy part can chill-“ “ Sakurada, if you don’t shut up right now I am going to blow your head off.” Niragi grumbles, Sakurada smiling and eating a spoonful of yoghurt. He sighs, then smirks, nodding a little. “ I am pretty cool, huh?” Niragi mutters to himself, then barks a short laugh. “ Hell yeah.” Sakurada chuckles, and gives him a thumbs up, Niragi glancing at his dress-wearing doppelgänger. Even if he was a weird, dress-wearing pretty face, at least he had a point.

Still wasn’t gonna stop him from doing fuck-all though. Water hits his face, and he sputters, head whipping over to glare at Sakurada, who blinks too innocently at him.

“ The fuck-“ “ You have very loud thoughts. Please restrain yourself today, and I’ll get you a really cool pair of leather pants on a supply run next time!” “…. Make them black and you got yourself a deal, you spring roll-looking grass stick.”

Sakurada nods. “ Of course! “

#aib #alice in borderland #aib fanfic #alice in borderland fanfic #niragi suguru #sakurada dori #sichys really likes his body pillow #niragi made him sleep on the floor by the way #the bed's reserved for him and his precious gun #yes he tucked the gun into bed #Sakurada would spray anyone who tried to come onto him in the dress #ask

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brightbeautifulthings · 3 years

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The Between by Ryan Leslie

"'I've wanted to control everything about my life, and I've ended up binding myself into a smaller and smaller box.'"

Year Read: 2021

Rating: 3/5

About: When Paul finds a door in the ground in his backyard, he has no intention of going through it until his best friend, Jay, shows up and convinces him otherwise. Soon, the men are lost in a maze of identical rooms and impossible monsters in a world called The Between, where different artifacts force players into gamelike roles that play out over and over. The Between is eerily similar to a command-line computer game from the 80s with the same name, and at its heart is a horrifying being called the Koŝmaro, which hunts the dead and traps them in The Between for eternity. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at The Parliament House. Trigger warnings: death (on-page), body horror, some graphic violence, some sexist/homophobic asides.

Thoughts: Roberta at Offbeat YA put this book on my radar with her awesome cover reveal, so when I snagged a copy from NG, we thought it was time for a buddy read. The Between is a cool, offbeat, and genre-bending adult fiction novel, and I'd recommend that anyone intrigued by its premise give it a try regardless of the rest of my review. It's almost guaranteed you've never read anything else quite like it, and it's sure to work for its audience (adult male gamers, I’m assuming) and anyone looking for something off the beaten path. I'll also go ahead and add that fans of Ready Player One will probably like it for its gamelike aspects and nerd culture, although I wouldn't say the reverse was true, since RPO is much heavier on the fandom trivia. Not liking RPO isn't necessarily going to rule this one out for you.

I really enjoyed the world-building of this book, which is as good as its premise indicates. The Between is flat-out creepy, from its maze of mostly identical rooms to the unsettling character roles (10/10 would want to be the gardistaro, by the way). I was less fond of the steampunk masinisto and robot junklings, but I think one of the cool things about this video game-style world is that it will have something for everyone in it. I also wasn't as crazy about the shift from horror to sci-fi/fantasy that happens when characters start exploring deeper levels of the worlds, but again I think it's a credit to the novel that it blends genres like that. There's so much of this world to explore.

Paul is an easy main character to get behind. He's steadfast and careful, if a little too much in his head (which most readers can probably relate to). If it were down to him alone, there might not be a novel because he isn't reckless enough to go through a mysterious doorway in the ground on his own. He needs Jay for that and, unfortunately, Jay feels like the driving force behind most of the stupid decisions made in the book. I disliked him from his introductory penis jokes, and my opinion didn't improve from there. Even putting aside his sexist/homophobic comments, if you can, I'd always rather read about smart, interesting characters than unrelenting idiots. (That moment Jay tries to echolocate his way through a dark cave was when I was done with him. Your knife glows in the dark, moron.) He kind of killed half the novel for me.

In contrast, though, I really enjoyed Supriya's character and Julie's, although Julie gets much less page-time. (The first chapter establishes Julie as much smarter than Paul, and I kind of wished the novel had been told from her perspective.) Supriya is a disabled woman of color and a badass even before she takes up a role in the game, and Leslie makes the representation look casual and effortless. Though I got a little lost in all the running around of the end chapters, there's a fun boss battle and enough closure on these characters' stories to be satisfying, while still leaving plenty of room to expand on the world. I'm not sure I'm committed enough to continue with the series, but I'll be avidly reading Roberta's reviews to see how things turn out.

#book review #the between #ryan leslie #the parliament house #underrated books #netgalley #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #2021

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agent-cupcake · 4 years

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Dimitri and mental illness

**Warnings for Blue Lions spoilers and armchair psychology

Depending on who you ask, Dimitri is an innocent sweetheart whose actions are entirely excusable and justified or an unforgivable war criminal and overall terrible character. Arguments for both sides have been exhausted, usually in the form of the popular Edelgard versus Dimitri debate, but I feel that both statements are heavily flawed and, truthfully, I think I take more issue with the former. Does it strike anyone else as rather patronizing that the audience (and the game, to an extent) treats Dimitri like an innocent, broken uwu soft boy both before the time skip and once he begins his recovery arc? Of course, a lot of this can be blamed on the awful pacing and poor writing of said recovery (which is the most valid structural critique of his character imo), but there’s a lot to be said about the fan depiction of Dimitri and the way people treat his mental illness. I think the reason this gets me is because I see it as an extension of the problems I have with the romanticization of male-specific mental illness. In this case, “all depressed boys are emasculated, soft, sad bois” and “anger is an accessory that is vanished once the cute boy takes it off” with the related sentiment of “the only two real mental illnesses are depression and anxiety, with a splash of PTSD for argument's sake”. And, speaking of arguments, while many people bring up mental illness in regards to the discussion around Three Houses characters, it is often supplementary to support their points rather than the main point unto itself. Dimitri’s mental illness (aka, the thing his entire arc is predicated upon) is mostly given only a passing recognition in the discussion of his actions. Even then, it’s often used as a justification to defend or lambaste him.

TL;DR Dimitri is a flawed person with a debilitating and incredibly well written mental illness that, while not excusing his actions, allows for further exploration of his character and a well-deserved shot at a recovery arc that is not usually awarded to people with the “non-traditional” mental illnesses. Furthermore, the game offers a wealth of insight as to what they intended his mental illness to be, the symptoms that manifested, and a plausible background to match up with it all and I have the receipts to prove it. Let’s go~

“Me? Oh. Um. Please forgive me... It's difficult to open up on the spot, don't you think? I'm afraid my story has not been a pleasant one... I do hope that doesn't color your view of me, but I understand if that can't be helped.”

I know that mental illness can be singularly caused by a traumatic event or events. That is, generally, how I see people framing Dimitri’s mental illness. My argument, however, is that the Tragedy of Duscur was not the genesis, but the trigger for issues that would exist otherwise. Perhaps it’s due to my own personal experience with mental illness, but I’m almost always more inclined to believe that issues stem from an unlucky combination of many things.

Regardless, my evidence to entertain the idea that he would be naturally predisposed to mental illness is slim. Aside from arguing that it wouldn’t be out of the question for his mother to have been unwell while she was pregnant with him considering she would later die of plague (a cause that in and of itself is subject to skepticism), I would bring up his Crest. In-game there is clear proof that Crests have wide-reaching effects on the person, there are actually a few analysis posts that hypothesize that Crests could be the reason for certain character motivations. In ng+, the Crest of Blaiddyd is called the Grim Dragon Sign. There’s no definitive proof to point to here, but if his Crest was one of the reasons for his mental deterioration it would follow other rules set in-game. Rather than inherited human genetics creating the blueprint for mental issues and the writers having to face that issue on its own terms, it was the Crest’s influence. This goes along with the fact that the game never overtly references Dimitri’s illness, essentially using “the dead” as a blanket symptom of his problems. Both these things are cool ways to imply a possible way to read more deeply without having to use anachronistic medical terms.

Side note: There’s something uncomfortable about the idea of a Crest that gives the individual inhuman strength and mental issues. Grim Dragon indeed.

My next point is one that I don’t see being brought up too often in regards to how it might have affected Dimitri, likely because the events that came later in his life far overshadow it, but Dimitri lost his mom when he was young. The date is not given, but I think it’d be when he was about six-ish. Admittedly, the timeline is strange and non-specific around here but if that were true, it would mean that the plague, Dimitri’s mother’s death, and Lambert and Rodrigue’s war campaign to subjugate the southern half of Sreng would all have happened around the same time. Dimitri says he doesn’t remember it, but that doesn’t necessarily matter. At six years old he had lost one parent and the other one left him to go on a battle march, leaving this child without any sort of parent figure to console him in a country that is culturally opposed to expressing emotion. Lambert will probably always remain a mystery, but I think it could be fair to say he was a poor father. Or at the very least a distant one. Dimitri was undoubtedly a sensitive child (if we’re to judge by the sensitive person he grew up to be) and during the years where he was actually becoming old enough to remember, he had nobody to teach him how to properly navigate and manage his emotions. Emotional neglect in a child who is predisposed to being emotional and empathetic can leave them suffering from a sense of isolation, an inability to ask for help, and a predisposition to having break downs as they get older.

But three-ish years later, possibly one of the best things that ever would happen to Dimitri came to pass and Lambert married Patricia. Dimitri adored her.

“I share no blood with my stepmother, but to hear you say that... It pleases me greatly. She was the one who raised me. I suppose it makes sense that we would share certain mannerisms.” (Dimitri’s B support with Hapi)

I don’t think Dimitri’s feelings about Patricia can be overstated, as I feel it’s one of the most defining aspects of his reactions to things that happen later on. Dimitri talks about Patricia more lovingly than he talks about Lambert. She was in his life for around four to five years but had such an impact on him that even his mannerisms are similar.

Soon after, a ten-year-old Dimitri made his first friend that wasn’t knightly, who didn’t embody those Faerghus ideals of stifling emotions and swinging swords.

People point out the Faerghus crew as Dimitri’s best friends, and yet Edelgard is the one associated with his best memories. It’s just my own assumptions, but I think that it’s because both Edelgard and Patricia gave Dimitri space to be an emotional child, to not have to be the knightly prince who had no emotions and engaged only in the most masculine of activities. And, I mean, look at them. He’s learning to dance and she’s bossing him around, absolutely no regard for propriety.

It’s pretty clear that Dimitri doesn’t feel romantic feelings towards Edelgard in the academy phase, but I think it would be fair to say she was his first love when they were young. He essentially says this was the best year of his life and establishes Edelgard as someone very precious to him (as well as the daughter of one of the most precious people to him). Strong feelings beget strong feelings, do they not?

Google says that eleven to fourteen is the general age of male puberty. It’s the time that kids begin to more fully define how they’re going to emotionally interact with people and the world at large. Meeting Edelgard was at the cusp of this period of Dimitri’s life, and the Tragedy of Duscur was right in the midst of it.

And we all know what that turned out.

Dimitri’s accounts of what happened during the Tragedy are... conflicting. This CG of an unharmed Dimitri in a field of corpses is... conflicting.

“My father...was the strongest man I knew. Someone I loved and admired deeply. That said, he was killed before my eyes. His head severed clean off. My stepmother, the kindest person I had ever known, left me behind and disappeared into the infernal flames.”

I’ve seen people create a plausible scenario in which Dimitri’s recollection is entirely accurate, where he saw Lambert call for revenge and get beheaded, saw Glenn’s ruined body and face twisted in pain, saw his step-mother disappear into the flames, and all despite the raging chaos of the battle and how people would undoubtedly be targeting the prince, but I think it makes more sense that his memories are unreliable. Dimitri suffered a severe head injury (very important to keep in mind) at Duscur. Maybe that happened early on, after seeing who attacked Lambert but before he was an actual target himself, which merely made him look dead. Maybe he saw a version of the events he described, but through the filter of confused head trauma, smoke inhalation, and intense terror. To think that his recollection isn’t exactly entirely reliable sets a precedent for his later skewed take on reality.

Regardless of opinion, though, the facts are that Dimitri left Duscur with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

After that, from thirteen to seventeen, Dimitri was pretty isolated. Most of the people he cared about were dead. His entire emotional support system (Patricia) was gone. He saved Dedue (although they were definitely not on even terms, that relationship is unbalanced to the extreme) and occasionally saw Rodrigue (who I have no reason to believe was emotionally accommodating in any way considering the way he sees Dimitri as an extension of Lambert to his dying breath). Again, it’s strange. People act like Dimitri was super close friends with the Faerghus crew, that he was surrounded by people who loved him (although it is clear there is a lot of love there), but he never presents things in a way to imply that’s the case. In fact, he highlights his isolation:

“In Duscur, I lost my father, stepmother, and closest friends. I didn't have many allies at the castle after that. In truth, I had only Dedue for companionship.”... “I once had people I could confide in. Family, friends, instructors, even the royal soldiers. But they were all taken away from me four years ago.” (Dimitri’s C support with Byleth.)

Two years passed before the next time Dimitri saw his friends and it was a war campaign, putting down the rebellion in western Faerghus. Dimitri speaks about those battles from a place of deeply affected emotion, expressing empathy, pain, and disgust with his actions and the killing.

“I recall coming across a dead soldier's body. He was clutching a locket. Inside was a lock of golden hair. I don't know to whom it belonged. His wife, his daughter...mother, lover... I'll never know.... in that moment, I realized he was also a real person, just like the rest of us… Killing is part of the job, but even so... There are times when I'm chilled to the bone by the depravity of my own actions.” (Dimitri’s B Support with Byleth)

I love this support, honestly. It’s so very telling about the destructive quality of empathy. Although caring can be a good thing, it’s also arguably one of the most destructive of Dimitri’s qualities. His empathy is what presents him with situations he cannot accept, the thing that pushes him to disassociate from reality so he can be rid of it and fight without remorse like he was taught to do by his father and other soldiers. Dimitri is a man of extremes. Either total control or none, without any room for error. This dialogue is also the first time Dimitri brings up reconciling himself with reality and hints to the fact that he has been unable to do so. This is contrasted perfectly in this line from Felix,

“The way you suppressed that rebellion... It was ruthless slaughter and you loved every second. I remember the way you killed your victims. How you watched them suffer. And your face...that expression. All the world's evil packed into it...” (Dimitri’s C Support with Felix)

Dimitri doesn’t deny this. Just like all of the other terrible things Felix says, he takes it without protesting in an act of what I think is stilted contrition. Although, it’s not just in supports that Dimitri’s contrasting behavior is brought up. The Remire incident probably works as a good reference for what Felix saw all those years back.

This is the first time we see Dimitri’s darker side in full. The similarities in the situation to what is shown to have happened in the Tragedy of Duscur are interesting. The fire, the utter chaos, strange figures watching it all from above. This is another case of a perfect disaster. I wonder if his ultimate snap would have been so destructive if not for Remire.

Anyway, this draws parallels to his and Felix’s separate recall of the rebellion because later Dimitri apologizes.

“Professor... I...I'm sorry you saw that side of me in the village… When I saw the chaos and violence there...my mind just went completely dark.”

Dimitri is unreliable. A lack of control, a separation of self, and becoming consumed by a dark rage only to come to his senses later, full of shame and a sense of confusion about why. From my own experience, it’s not unnatural to come out of an episode like this without being able to explain what was happening and being baffled by your behavior. This firmly establishes Dimitri’s uncomfortably fast mood shifts in relation to his trauma from the Tragedy and confirms all of the warnings Felix had given. When Dimitri was faced with a reality he could not accept, he lost control of his emotions and his mental state shifted to adapt accordingly.

This is when I’d also like to note something interesting about how Dimitri discusses his trauma. He is very honest and open about his experiences, explaining exactly what happened to him to Byleth. However, he uses the truth to hide. In recounting the events of the Tragedy of Duscur, in talking about how his family died and saying how badly it hurt him, he does not make himself vulnerable. When he admits weakness, he does so in the past tense or apologetically, vowing to be stronger. “Stronger”, aka, he’ll be better in suppressing his emotions.

“I always strive to keep my emotions at bay, but... Sometimes the darkness takes hold and...it's impossible to suppress. It just shows you how lacking I am... I have much to learn.”

Dimitri lies by using the truth, shoving down his feelings, and blaming himself rather than attempting to figure out how to handle his emotions. In his own words:

“Everyone has something that is unacceptable within them. I certainly do, and I'd wager you do as well. I wonder which is best, Professor... To cut away that which is unacceptable, or to find a way to accept it anyway...”

Good advice Dimitri. Might want to keep that in mind.

It is at this point is when I’m going to get into my personal thoughts and armchair psychiatry nonsense.

First off, when I mentioned earlier about “non-traditional” mental illness, I did not mean abnormal or rare. Although people mostly just point to Dimitri having PTSD (and depression) as the source of his issues, I’m going to use all of my above information to make the (decently common) argument that Dimitri is schizophrenic, which is, contrary to popular belief, not too unusual. I state that with the caveat that I understand that there’s a lot to be said about schizophrenia and the tumultuous relationship between mental health and fiction. However, now is not really the time to go into mental health politics and representation or the many lies spread about the illness so instead, I recommend that you read into the topic if you’re personally interested (This has some good information).

At the very least be aware that this IS sensationalized.

That said, Dimitri does not, to my understanding using grossly simplified terms, meet the qualifications generally (very generally) used to diagnose schizophrenia through the majority of the White Clouds chapters. These qualifying symptoms include, but are not limited to, the duration of the psychotic episode, the concurrent presence of hallucinations and delusions, and a greatly lowered ability to keep up with basic quality-of-life tasks. You only see these symptoms in the final chapter of White Clouds and the first few of Azure Moon. This isn’t unusual, however, because schizophrenia manifesting fully in younger individuals is extremely uncommon, sometimes taking years to trigger during a person’s late teens. And since the diagnosis generally relies on the occurrence of a psychotic episode, it can be mistaken as other mood disorders. Actually, the idea of him having a mood disorder was one of the things that caught my eye originally. Prodromal symptoms such as depression, irritability, headaches, sleep disruption, and mood swings are common in bipolar disorder (and, of course, schizophrenia).

Still, I don't deny that Dimitri has PTSD and depression, only that I don’t think PTSD is his main (or only) issue. In reality, PTSD and schizophrenia are closely tied. They share many symptoms, even the symptom of psychosis. There’s also evidence that those with genetic precedent to develop PTSD overlap with those at risk for schizophrenia, and that the nature of PTSD triggers can act as a severe stressor to aggravate a schizophrenic episode.

(From here)

This falls into the realm of being uncertain where one ends the other begins, highlighting the lack of concrete understanding about schizophrenia and the dependency of diagnosis and treatment to rely entirely on the individual experience, but that’s not a conversation I’m actually qualified to have.

The study that truly caught my eye and while researching for this was one called “Psychiatric disorders and traumatic brain injury”. As I mentioned, at some point during the Tragedy, Dimitri sustained severe head trauma. We know this because of his development of the rare inability to taste called ageusia. I was originally interested in following this narrative thread because, as you might know if you follow true crime cases, there are many murderers who recall having sustained a head injury as children. Not that Dimitri shares similar psychology to people that kill and eat their victim's feet... Although his body count is higher. Besides that, head trauma, in general, is known to be linked to mental illness and altering a person’s behavior. There is even a correlation between TBI (traumatic brain injury) and schizophrenia.

From the study I linked above:

To put it more simply, patients in the study who had suffered TBI and developed schizophrenia reported that their most common symptoms were delusions of persecution, auditory hallucinations, and aggressive behaviors. The auditory hallucinations were often voices. Many of the subjects experienced psychotic episodes two or more years after the initial incident (although, as I mentioned, Dimitri’s age could also have something to do with the timing as children rarely have fully developed schizophrenic episodes). Furthermore, the behaviors classified as an absence of normal behaviors called “negative symptoms” (which include apathy and disordered speech) were rare in this testing group.

Dimitri exclusively displays “positive” symptoms of schizophrenia (“positive” meaning the presence of symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions). He also clearly suffers from delusions of persecution in his belief that Edelgard is the sole instigator of Duscur and the war and that he immediately accuses Byleth of being an Imperial spy upon meeting them post time skip. I think it’s pretty fascinating how closely Dimitri’s symptoms follow the outline of the study, especially with the aggressive behaviors, as those aren’t actually very common in schizophrenics.

In very, very simplistic terms, if I’m right and Dimitri was born with the genetic blueprint for schizophrenia/PTSD (through Crests, inheritance, or environmental causes) and later suffered severe head trauma in an event that also gave him PTSD in combination with his pre-existing parental issues and stilted emotional development, then this could definitely create the type of person who loses all sense of reality, can’t control his emotions, and is prone to episodes of murderous rage when being reminded of the trigger (however tangentially) of losing everything he loved.

However, I’ll add real quick that the study I mentioned should be taken with a grain of salt.

I use it mainly because I thought the similarities were interesting and it shows that there was more thought put into Dimitri than maybe people appreciate.

This brings us to my final point; Some kind of twisted joke.

A major point I saw being made as proof of how terrible Dimitri is as a character was that he blamed Edelgard for the Tragedy of Duscur (a time where she would have been twelve). More accurately, he blamed her for everything that had happened and the thing is, I don’t disagree with that critique entirely. However, this is a case of him being a bad person, not a bad character. This might seem like an odd distinction, but I think it changes the scope of deserved criticism.

As I’ve been trying so desperately to illustrate, Dimitri snapping wasn’t just because of Edelgard being revealed as the Flame Emperor. Rather, it was an unlucky combination of many things. His grasp and interpretation of reality were already hazy at best by the time she was unmasked, slowly falling apart as his prodromal symptoms worsened. Going into the fight, he believed the Flame Emperor to be responsible in whole or in part for the worst thing that had ever happened to him, guessed at Arundel’s involvement, had found (and lied about) the dagger, and was rapidly mentally deteriorating. While Dimitri suspected Edelgard’s involvement to some degree, he did his best to act like it wasn’t true.

Dimitri didn’t want it to be true. To the extent that he was willing to lie to Byleth (and to himself) to avoid reality. He cared deeply about Edelgard. The best year of his life was spent with her, she was his first love, and she was the daughter of the step-mother he adored. Strong feelings beget strong feelings, do they not? This reveal confronted Dimitri with something that he could not accept, so his mind sidestepped the issue altogether. Delusion convinced him that all of the fears and worries he had beforehand were related, all into one larger delusion that Edelgard had sole responsibility. It’s not right and maybe not even excusable, but it falls in line with everything else.

Edelgard and Dimitri. Bound by some twisted fate but forever doomed to be separated, unable to understand the other’s chosen path.

I do recognize the flaws of Dimitri’s character and arc. There are some pretty major flaws. I have parts of a post typed out about his shoddy recovery and how I’d fix it that, hopefully, one day will see the light of day as well as many complaints about the way the story is hindered by the need for flexibility to accommodate gameplay and a happy ending.

But, despite that, this has all been a very long-winded way of praising Dimitri’s writing. His mental illness has a surprising amount of depth and I loved studying it as intently as I did. I learned a lot about his character as well as about mental illness in general.

Ultimately, Dimitri is neither an innocent sweetheart whose actions are entirely excusable and justified or an unforgivable war criminal and overall terrible character. You can feel bad for his pain and his struggle with his illness and understand that as a reason for his actions, but you shouldn’t use it as justification. He had the opportunity to seek help before things got too bad. He was selfish with the mismanagement of his emotions and goals. However, he also was a victim. Dimitri worked to recover and mend the mistakes he made while he was unwell, which is a side of this mental illness that is rarely shown in media.

I wholeheartedly believe that, love him or hate him, Dimitri is the most well-written of the Three Houses characters,

#dimitri #fe dimitri #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #fire emblem 16 #fire emblem #FE3H #fire emblem three houses #i spent an ungodly amount of time on this feel free to share your thoughts

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hey-hamlet · 4 years

Text

BNHA AU Ideas : Darker Stains

Also on AO3

TL;DR:

Being a villain might run in Izuku's family, but that doesn't mean he needs to be the same type of villain as his dad. After all, the world doesn't need another All for One.

But I could do with another Stain.

AKA: Izuku, stubbornly follows Stain around until the guy warms up to him, all while he slowly poisons his gen ed class against the concept of heroes. Iida is stuck in the middle of all of this and finding himself begrudgingly agreeing with the kid who seems too sweet to be a villain.

Basically, deku is stain's apprentice

Ok less apprentice, more like "kid he cant get rid of"

izuku has afo and is sensei's kid and its kinda been his mission to get stain onside, but he just kinda started staning stain

so he said "love u dad but can i just like, follow this guy" and his dad said "you know what, its good to broaden your villainous horizons" So he makes a deal w stain: the heroes don't have to die, but izuku will take their quirks from them

in this AU izuku can "borrow" a quirk pretty quickly but needs a solid minute of contact to fully take it

izuku goes to ua, hes a gen. ed. student! he's there to get connections/blackmail but he only shows up around 3 days a week because of "family matters" but he’s holding great grades so they haven’t pushed too hard about his attendance. the only quirk izuku is listed as having is minor telekinesis, its all he uses in school but he gets pretty far in the sports festival, all the way to the tournament but has to forfeit his match because he needs to do something

(it was against bakugo. he honestly could have fought it but bakugo would be way angrier not being allowed to fight him so he left a little early)

so bakugo has always been kinda,,, scared of izuku. he lives w his dad, his mum lives in europe or something, bakugo isn't sure (afo told her it'd be safer for her to leave the country because all might vs him would be dangerous. She agreed but asked that he A, look after izuku and B, she be allowed to give her quirk to him as a gift to keep him safe. its izukus favorite quirk) and izuku has always let off a creepy aura. he had a "weak" quirk but did a lot of unexplained things, was too smart etc and his dad was creepy as all hell

bakugo would never admit it, but he was kinda glad he didnt have to fight izuku

Iida doesn’t get the call from his mum until later so he gets his medal and everything.

turns out? tensei was stopped by the hero killers, they don't "kill" people but they do kill heroes, tensei fought, lost and lost his quirk

so everything happens as in canon up till hosu (mirio has ofa) so izuku knows iida a little, was on his team with todoroki (replaced kami, his quirk was great for grabbing headbands). He actually picked iida's team because he wanted to know more about him before they took on ingenium

he wasnt 100% onboard with the removal of ingenium because he wasn't all that bad but he wasn't perfect for stains ideology because he was pretty profit-focused, had no other heroes on team but loads of sidekicks who make lower rates than heroes and give his agency a funding boost and was from a Hero Family so it wasn't super likely he wanted to be a hero just to save people

but he was a nice guy and put his life on the line for people so izuku thought he was pretty ok but stain was sticking to his guns and izuku didn't want the guy dead,,, so he said sure. so, izuku kinda,,, knows iida is going to come after stain. he saw all the people who put in internship forms, he saw where iida put down and put 2 and 2 together. but, thing is? he really likes iida! every time he's met iida the guy has been super nice to him, if a little uptight. during the cavalry battle he even took a hit for izuku he didn’t need to and izuku liked that so he’s trying to steer stain away from where he knows iida is probably going to end up because fuck endeavour and he's in Hosu

(plus izuku wants that sweet sweet fire quirk because he's not allowed to take dabi's)

also: relevant but only just, izuku has a really cutesy villain costume and isn't linked to the hero killer (like, think bunny poncho)

so izuku is wandering around, trying to work out how to lure endeavour into a dark alley and not having much luck because the nomu are L o u d and he ends up getting pushed to the ground and trampled in a person stampede

which he's a little salty about! but, iida, a knight in shining armour, stops his search for the hero killer to help izuku up and ask if hes ok and izuku blushes despite himself because even tho hes trying to steal the number 2 heroes quirk hes a big fan of heroes and iida? pushing all the heroic buttons

so yada yada, stain ends up taking native because endeavour wasnt leaving the crowds and izuku goes over to take the quirk for him and iida shows up

He steps between izuku and stain (assuming stain ment to hurt izuku) and says hes going to get revenge for his brother

and stain just fucking,,, sighs because he can see izuku's blush from here and the kid is all starry eyed over baby ingenium but like, the kid is vengeance-y and that’s not great for a hero, so he thinks the least he can do is rough him up a bit to teach him what a hero should be doing, because he’s trying to make a point more than anything he doesn’t use his quirk yet and tries to explain his point to iida

izuku is sitting off to the side with native and just watching this go down (he,,, may also be stealing native's quirk,, because fuck that guy but thats not the point)

anyway, iida is losing, and pretty badly too because the kid is angry and alone. izuku has finished taking native's quirk, who still hasn’t realized because hes stupid so he hauls iida over his shoulder from where hes a little concussed on the ground and runs off with him, leaving stain to sigh because what has his life come to

izuku talks to iida about stains ideas while patching him up, admitting that he thinks iida's brother was actually a pretty good hero and that stains a little strict. iida cant help but understand stains way of thinking, even though hes mad at himself about it. he tries to ask izuku what he was doing but he just gets shushed

izuku kinda dumps iida on todoroki and runs

(todoroki swears there was something familiar about the rabbit costumed kid)

so, izuku like comes up to iida during school, says he heard ab. stain and that it was really impressive that he did all that yadda yadda, and then leaves, 20 minutes later todoroki sees iida trying to flex his arms and grimacing. iida admits his arms are a little sore but its nbd

during hero training iida collapses a little and ochako runs over, hes trying not to scream because his arms hurt so bad.

he heads to recovery girl and hes? ok? but now also got engines where his brother did? and todoroki and ochako are so lost. todoroki turns to iida and says "i know this is off topic, but didnt your involvement with stain get suppressed from the media?" and iida freezes

iida trying to find this gen ed student but he doesnt really remember izukus name. hes just "green boy w minor telekinesis who knew too much"

i want izuku ducking behind his bestie shinso to hide from the big bad hero student. shinso is ready to throw down for izuku honestly. izuku confided in shinso ab. his villainous quirk and shinso is honestly shaping up to be his righthand man. together they'll show the world what heroes should really be, by tearing the system to shreds

iida is trying to find "green boy". short skinny green boy who hides behind his tall angry friend and is only on campus like, half the week.

needless to say iida is having some trouble

so iida, honestly losing faith in heroics (in this au, todoroki told iida about the quirk marriage) goes looking for stain

iida: “where is izuku”

everyone in gen ed: 💪🏽👁👄👁👊🏽

iida, now in tears: “what are you say i ng”

basically in this au izuku has managed to poison the gen ed. kids against heroics. some of them cant stand their teachers anymore, none of them want to transfer, they fake gag when they see the heroics students and some of them have even dropped out but no one suspects izuku because the kid loves heroes!!!

mic is his homeroom teacher

ooooOOOH TRAITOR MIC TOO

so mic is also the traitor

but hes like,, stupidly in love with aizawa and izuku kinda loves eraserhead so izuku makes his dad promise to not hurt 1a/aizawa so in this au? aizawa doesn't get smashed by the nomu. aizawa was trapped by stains quirk so the guy has tr a u m a but he's not in pain. afo is honestly trying to kill allmight but izuku likes all might so they fight about it but like, a soft fight? and it's disturbing even shigiraki because you should not be lightly bickering over the life of a man

shigaraki s in the corner tears in his eyes because izuku just gave afo permission to “lightly maim him” like goddamn kid what’s wrong with u

stain runs into iida and he's like "god please i dont wanna fight you again the boss' kid will cry" and iida is like ",,, so tell me about izuku" and stain fucking glares at him w such intensity iida is both 1, sure he's correct 2, scared for his life

so stain calls kurogiri and throws iida into the bar and izuku jumps like, 6 feet in the air like a cat and is clinging to the roof but he calms the fuck down and iida is so shook that the only thing he can think to say is ",,, we are too young to be in a bar"

and izuku busts a gut and hes like, crying laughing "you're right we are way too young, why don't we go to another room?" dabi wolf whistles, then has to dodge izuku's now flying milkshake iida n izuku just chat! n iida is a little creeped? because izuku is charismatic and charming and iida agrees with him 100% but he shouldn’t be? he should be nervous or angry or at least a little confused but hes just so charming and bubbly its a little odd. honestly, all the stuff izuku pointed out? iida starts to see how bakugo can get away with acting like an ass but shinso can’t even look at someone wrong without getting set upon

iida is making massive leaps in his training because his quirk has doubled in strength! but, it feels like hes stolen something from his brother

but thats not possible, right? you cant give and take quirks.

of course not

...

right?

iida starts wondering what midoriya's quirk really is, exactly. he never named it. just said "i can use telekinesis on light stuff" but, he hung around villains and seemed to be respected by them, without any visible training, weapons or strength

and shinso, when prompted, said he empathised with midoriya, which iida thought was an odd word choice?

anyway, iida doesnt feel great during hero training. all might's villain costume feels almost offensive? and the profiling aizawa has them do feels wrong, like making assumptions based off the quirk, not the person. it just feels gross and wrong and he's starting to feel really conflicted. because stain hurt people. izuku hurt people.

but he agrees with them

#bnha au #darker stains au #Iida Tenya #tenya #midoriya izuku #izuku #stain #midoriya #iida #villain deku

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moviegroovies · 4 years

Text

so i know i’m breaking like, this unspoken vow of silence re: the movie by making this post but this IS a movie blog and i did watch the last airbender. and can i just say. holy fucking shit.

y’all know i like a lot of bad movies. knowing that, take me seriously when i say: this is a BAD movie. and not in a good way. i went into it with no expectations except morbid curiosity and i was STILL let down. i wanted to hate watch it, and yeah, i hated watching it, but it wasn’t even fun to hate. i just hated it.

don’t watch the last airbender.

if you’re like me and you just wanted to know exactly how bad it was, please benefit from my mistakes. read my fun funky rant and then never think of that movie again. put it out of your mind. rewatch boiling rock. love yourself.

anyway.

pretty much the one and only thing i knew about why it was bad going in was that it was whitewashed; that’s like the only thing anyone ever mentions in conjecture with this movie, when they mention it at all. knowing this, going in knowing full well that the casting department did crimes against humanity, i was still shocked and disturbed at the sight of white katara and white sokka. literally... that casting choice was a hate crime. look them up (or check out my last post) if you need to see it for yourself... it’s bad y’all. somehow i had braced myself for white aang, but before i saw it with my own two eyes i couldn’t believe that they would actually whitewash katara and sokka, And Yet. the really stupid thing is that it’s not even “””justified””” IN UNIVERSE; most of the members of the southern water tribe are played by asian actors, meaning that they didn’t even pull a pan and make the WHOLE southern water tribe white, they just made sokka and katara mysteriously “special” in a spectacularly poor judgement call.

actually, that’s another thing. outside the northern water tribe (which is also mostly white... i’m wondering if sokka and katara are white because gran gran--a white woman in the movie--is from the north? anyway it’s a moot point either way because none of them should be white, there are NO WHITE CHARACTERS IN THE SHOW AVATAR, jesus FUCKING christ), most of the extras and background characters are played by actors of color, particularly asian actors, which would be accurate to the show’s canon. maybe m night shyamalan or someone else involved in the making of this shitshow of a movie thought that this would somehow absolve the whitewashing of the main characters, but in reality i’d argue that it makes it even worse; by having characters mostly played by people of color continuously being saved by three little white bitches, the movie goes HARD on the white savior trope, and also just generally uses these actual, living people as exploitative, orientalist set dressing for this 1 hour and 43 minutes of special hell.

with one notable exception: prince zuko is played by an actor of color--specifially, dev patel. (who is himself miscast, considering how zuko and the fire nation are japanese-coded, but the second they opened on that veruca salt looking ass bitch calling herself katara any hope that the makers of this movie gave any consideration to the racial coding avatar introduced went right out the window.) which adds Another layer of racism to this already inconceivably bad fuckup of a movie; how strange, that the movie’s racebending made all three heroes white, but the primary antagonist (as well as the secondary antagonist, zhao, and the mostly-off-screen-but-still-present ozai) is a man of color. what an odd coincidence. hmmmm.

i hate this movie. i do want to note, though, that dev patel’s inclusion was the only thing that actually got me through the whole thing; i have no idea why he was in this film (he’s FAR too talented for the content he was given and no one else in the entire cast went even one sixteenth as hard as he did) but he was its one saving grace. still, though, even he couldn’t save it. he was so cute and he did his damn best with probably the worst script in the history of film... but he was still in THIS film. since the release of this movie, patel has spoken out against his role in it and the world of hollywood blockbusters in general, and to that i say... good for him.

i was going for zuko though. this time it was like YES baby CAPTURE that avatar. full stop.

so yes, it was horribly miscast, whitewashed to hell and back, and went with a racist white hero/villains of color cast as a backdrop. all of these things, in themselves, are enough to completely condemn the movie, and my work here might as well be done... except to end it there would be to leave one million other glaring flaws unexamined. and i refuse to let any rock be unturned.

because, like, it’s NOT just bad because of the whitewashing. the whitewashing and the other racist elements are huge PARTS of why this is a bad movie, but even if this movie was made with an accurate and un-whitewashed cast, it would STILL be a bad movie, and i need you all to know this.

starting from the top: they ruined katara and sokka.

well, they ruined them the second they cast them the way they did. but again, let’s say they cast someone else. let’s say they cast appropriate actors for the rolls, but the level of acting skill and the script they used was the same. even in this case, they would have RUINED katara and sokka. none of the characters in this movie are 100% recognizable (and i’ll keep repeating it: the casting DID NOT HELP), but katara and sokka got hit the hardest and the worst. the things that sokka should have brought to the table (his goofy attitude, his intelligence) were erased, and the “sokka” we were given instead was a jerkass buzzkill who might have occasionally been the butt of a joke, but was never actually intended to be funny in his own right. reflecting on the series, it’s kind of as if we got his characterization from the first episode (before sokka got any development and was, i guess, kind of a jerkass buzzkill) and never strayed from that, which would be bad enough, but i think even episode ONE sokka was more fun and dynamic than White Sokka™. mistakes were made.

but it was even WORSE for katara. katara’s righteous anger was all but erased. SOKKA was the one who broke the avatar out of the ice, and only because they accidentally happened upon him--katara didn’t get to be angry at sokka’s jerkass sexism and unconsciously fuck up an entire iceberg. katara NEVER got to be angry. in fact, most of katara’s moments were taken and distributed between aang and sokka; aang, for instance is the one who inspires the earthbenders to break out of prison. we don’t even see katara train with master pakku, and SHE was the one who actually became a waterbending master when they went to the north pole. in this movie, katara mostly existed to talk about ~hope~ (very ember island players, lmfao) and hug aang when he went into the avatar state.

by the way, that prison? it’s not the metal platform in the middle of the ocean we got in the show. it’s just... an enclosed village. surrounded by dirt and earth. and the earthbenders never tried to break out until aang came along and told them to? hmmmm....

Unfortunate Implications™, but what did you expect.

other than that, idk. the writing was so fucking bad, y’all. a significant chunk of the plot relies on the “as you know” trope, in which characters have an expository discussion about something everyone present should already be aware of and wouldn’t need to get into. this normally wouldn’t bother me THAT much, if i noticed it at all (exposition is essential, after all, and you only have so much time in a movie, so i guess it makes sense when you’re trying to compress an entire season of a show into one), except like... it’s ridiculous. i couldn’t ignore it, they just hit the hammer so hard. “as you know, this is what the avatar is. as you know, zuko was exiled after fighting an agni kai with his father. as you know...”

bleh.

after that, i guess all my complaints are a little more pedantic. some smaller things that made the movie unwatchable: the bending motions were super weird and i think sped up? there were perfectly good martial arts moves right there waiting for them, and shyamalan fucked even THAT up in an effort to... what? make it look more “mystical?” bitch i’ll kill you. also, for reasons completely unfathomable to me, some of the names were pronounced oddly despite being said one million times in the show. “aah-ng” “ee-roh” “soh-ka” “ahvatar.” literally... why.

i’ve been thinking “soh-ka” in my head for like two weeks. hideous.

and one last thing, which really DOESN’T matter in comparison to what they did to the human characters, but like... what fucking happened to appa?? why did they do that to him?

don’t watch the last airbender.

#the last airbender #text post #katara #sokka #zuko #aang #hideous bad movie time

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poetlcs · 4 years

Text

books I’ve read in 2020 (so far) + their ratings

non-fiction

crossing the line: australia’s secret history in the timor sea by kim mcgrath: important research into australia’s theft of oil in timor leste. didn’t rate

hood feminism: notes from the women that a movement forgot by mikki kendall: essay collection dissecting modern feminism, pointing out the exclusionary practices of mainstream feminism and offering new frameworks through which feminism should operate. really recommend. didn’t rate

the uninhabitable earth: life after warming by david wallace-wells: good introduction to environmentalism and the climate disaster. a little too introductory for me but good for those new to the topic. ★★★

homo deus: a brief history of tomorrow by yuval noah harari: it is simply not Sapiens nor as good as Sapiens. Looks at potentials for our future but, thought it was a little poorly researched. Some parts were still interesting though. ★★★

SPQR: a history of ancient rome by mary beard: a little dense at times, but super interesting and detailed look at ancient rome. enjoyed it a lot. ★★★★

sister outsider by audre lorde: collection of audre lorde’s essays and speeches, about feminism, lesbianism, the queer community, being Black and a lesbian ect ect. outstanding, important collection anyone interested in intersectional feminism must read. ★★★★★

all boys aren’t blue by george m. johnson: memoir about johnson’s experiences growing up as a Black gay boy in a poor neighbourhood. Very poignant memoir, written in such accessible language which I liked. guarenteed to get you emotional, another one everyone should read. didn’t rate because it’s so highly personal that felt wrong but highly recommend.

under a biliari tree i born by alice biari smith: memoir by an Aboriginal Australian detailing her life growing up learning traditional Aboriginal ways and how the lives of Indigenous Australian’s have been impacted through the years, specifically in Western Australia. Probably more aimed at school age people but still a 101 I think many Australian’s (and non Australian’s) can benefit from. didn’t rate

classics

maurice by e.m forster: gay man coming of age story in college + themes around class and sexuality. forster’s end note saying he thought it imperative to write a happy ending because we need that in fiction, i love him. ★★★★★

emma by jane austen: read before seeing the movie. loved emma as a character but thought this was okay compared to other Austen I’ve read. ★★★½

perfume by patrick suskind: a man with an incredible sense of smell starts murdering young women to try and bottle their scent for a perfume. weirdest shit I ever read still don’t know how to feel about it. ★★★

the color purple by alice walker: follows the life of Celie, an Black woman living in rural Georgia. deals with her relationship with her sister Nettie, her lover Shug Avery, and with God. this tore my heart to shreds absolutely everyone must read it, like even just for the beautiful writing ALONE. ★★★★

a study in scarlet by arthur conan doyle: its sherlock holmes #1 no further explanation required. not my fave sherlock story, was the weird morman subplot needed? ★★½

dracula by bram stoker: yeah vampires!! this was way easier to read and also way funnier than I expected. we STAN gothic aesthetics and Miss Mina Harker here. ★★★★

fantasy

the diviners by libba bray: teens with magical powers/abilities solving mysteries in 1920′s new york. reread. ★★★★★

lair of dreams by libba bray: the diviners #2. reread. ★★★★½

before the devil breaks you by libba bray: the diviners #3. reread. best one in the series hands down. ★★★★★

the king of crows by libba bray: waited so long for this series ender and it let me down lol. ★★★

clockwork princess by cassandra clare: the infernal devices #3. dont @ me this is my comfort reread series and I was travelling. ★★★★★

we unleash the merciless storm by tehlor kay mejia: we set the dark on fire #2. latinx inspired fantasy about overthrowing a corrupt government with an f/f romance. didn’t like as much as book one but still good, BEST girlfriends ever. ★★★½

wolfsong by t.j klune: basically feral gay werewolves and witches living in a town together. feels like a teen wolf episode but way more gayer. despite that hated the writing style and I don’t like age gap romances so yay the concept no the execution. ★★

the fate of the tearling by erika johansan: the tearling #3. finally finished this series, dunno why everyone loathes the ending so much I thought it was cool. underrated fantasy because it’s very unique. ★★★★

girl, serpent, thorn by melissa bashardoust: persian inspired fantasy about a girl who is cursed by a div to kill anyone she touches. has an f/f romance. bashardoust writes the most aesthetically rich settings I love her. ★★★★

crier’s war by nina varela: reread. f/f enemies to lovers where the main character poses as a handmaiden in order to try and murder the princess whose father killed her family. PEAK gay content literally a modern classic. ★★★★★

we hunt the flame by hafsah faizal: I was so disinterested in this book I barely can describe the plot but basically it’s a prince and a hunter who are enemies but are forced to go looking for this magical artifact together anyway it was boring. ★

ghosts of the shadow market by cassandra clare + others: short story collection set in the shadowhunter world. probably the strongest of her collections but they just don’t hit the same as her full length books. didn’t rate.

a storm of swords: part two by george r.r martin: a song of ice and fire #3. I WILL finish reading these books eventually i swear !! probably the best one yet though. ★★★★

amarah by l.l mcneil: world of linaria #3. high fantasy with politics, dragons, warring races. tolkein/asoiaf vibes if they had more women with agency. didn’t rate because I haven’t decided my feelings on the end yet.

science fiction

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: f/f enemies to lovers between spies on rival sides of a time war. good book but writing style wasn’t for me (others love this so eh take my opinion with a grain os salt: ★★★

not your sidekick by c.b lee: main character is from a superhero family but has no powers herself, so she takes an internship working with a superhero corp. has an f/f romance with a villain character. so much fun and super cute

speculative fiction:

the deep by rivers solomon: speculative fiction wherein pregnant African women thrown overboard by slave ships gave birth to babies that became mermaids. main character holds all the memories of her people’s past but runs away after being unable to deal with the burden. about self discovery, intergenerational trauma and the burden of remembering. a little short imo but still all round excellent book ★★★★

how long ‘til black future month? by n.k jemisin: short story collection, many with an afro-futurism focus. hard to explain because there is such a wide variety of stories but this is an AMAZING collection. didn’t rate because I don’t like rating short story collections but wish more people would read it.

mystery

the family upstairs by lisa jewell: woman inherits an english house and starts to unravel the secrets of a mass cult suicide that happened there years ago. loved it because it was wild. ★★★★★

the hand on the wall by maureen johnson: truly devious #3. boarding school mystery where the main character has to solve a murder that happened in the 1920s at her school while another mystery is happening in present time. my least favourite of the series but satisfying conclusion nonetheless. ★★★½

contemporary fiction

maybe in another life by taylor jenkins reid: dual timeline book showing the two outcomes of a decision the main character makes. cool concept but ultimately boring book because I didn’t care about the main character at all. didn’t rate because I didn’t finish it.

girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo: vignette stories of various women whose lives are vaguely interconnected. incredibly well written with such vivid characters. deserves the hype. ★★★★

tin heart by shivan plozza: australian YA, the recipient of a heart transplant wishes to connect with the family of her donor, after she discovers the identity of her donor. good story but didn’t like the writing style. ★★★

a little life by hanya yanigahara: follows the life of a group of friends living in life, especially that of jude, a closed off and damaged man with a troubling past. a little too torture-porny/Tragic Gays but I cannot deny the author has a beautiful writing style and I went through all the emotions. didn’t rate

a girl like that by tanaz bhathena: explores the events leading up to the main character dying in a car crash. set in Jeddah, saudi arabia and explores expectations on women, feminism and expressions of sexuality and relationships between women during teenage years. kinda no good characters but I loved it for it’s messy depiction of teen girls (whilst not condemning them for this). underrated. ★★★★

little fires everywhere by celeste ng: drama in white american suburbs when a new family moves in and the neighbours start investigating their past. eh, I heard a lot about this and thought it was just okay. ★★★

stay gold by tobly mcsmith: trans boy decides to go stealth at his new school and falls for a cheerleader, georgia. about navigating being trans and definitely felt like it was written to educate cis people. it was okay but ultimately not my thing and not really the story I was looking for, even though I respect it being written by a trans author and still would recommend to certain people. ★★½

everything leads to you by nina lacour: main character and her best friend have to unravel a hollywood mystery, all while the main character is trying to get over her ex-girlfriend and find work as a set designer. f/f romance and loved the focus on movie making and the power of stories. ★★★½

the falling in love montage by ciara smyth: a girl meets another girl at a party, but she’s not looking to date due to the amount of family issues she has going on. so her and the girl decide to spend the summer having fun, renacting scenes from rom-coms, but never dating. awesome family dynamics and the relationship between the two girls was sweet also set in ireland which is fun.

normal people by sally rooney: explores the relationship between connell and marianne, who meet in school, date secretly, and then are inexplicably drawn to each other for the rest of their lives. explores power dynamics, relationships, love and trust, and what we owe to eachother. great book, great mini-series, love it to bits. ★★★★★

the glass hotel by emily st john mandel: impossible to explain this book, but there’s a mystery about grafitti, a ponzi scheme and a character falling to their death on a boat under suspicious circumstances. honestly idk what happened in this book but I liked it. ★★★½

historical fiction

half of a yellow sun by chimamanda ngozi adichie: historical fiction about the biafran war loosely based on adichie’s family experiences. incredibly well written with an ending that punches you in the gut. ★★★★

hamnet by maggie o’farrell: explores the shakespeare family after the death of their child, Hamnet, from the plague, and how this leads to Shakespeare writing Hamlet. cool as fuck concept and boring as fuck book with such tropey female characters. ★★

all the light we cannot see by anthony doerr: WW2 fiction, dual perspective between a blind girl living in france and a german boy forced into nazi youth. I cannot believe this book is award winning it’s so boring and predictable and i reget the time i wasted on it. ★

poetry:

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong: poetry memoir. vuong writes a letter to his illiterate mother, knowing she’ll never read it, exploring their relationship, his experiences growing up as second generation Vietnamese-American, and hers during the Vietnam War. My favorite book I’ve read so far this year, just too good to explain, genuinely just feel like everyone is better off for having read this. ★★★★★

currrently reading:

girls of storm and shadow by natasha ngan

meet me at the intersection: edited by rebecca lim & ambelin kwaymullina

stamped from the beginning: the definitive history of racist ideas in america by ibram x. kendi

get a life, chloe brown by talia hibbert

#books #reading #booklr #book #book recommendation #mine #reading update #did anyone ask for this #no #did i do it anyway yes #its my continuing agenda to get book tumblr to read books that aren't soc and aftg aaldkskska #ok bye #after making this its become apparent to me I need to balance out how much fantasy I let myself read akdksks #i lov fantasy but im TRYING to read more uhh non fiction and lit fic

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some-creep · 4 years

Text

Creep Ranks: The Dark Souls Trilogy

Because I finally beat all three of them.

Dark Souls 1: I got Prepare to Die like. When it first came out. I was terrible at it so I stopped playing. I beat the Taurus Demon and that was it. I didn’t start playing them again until quarantine when I decided to give it another shot as genuinely as I could. And I was terrible at them again. But instead of giving up I kept trying. Anyway, DS1 was a game I was always hesitant to play because I’m very bad at navigating large, sprawling, interconnected worlds. I am TERRIBLE at games like Castlevania and Metroid because of this so I don’t play them. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the navigational stuff especially because you don’t get fast travel until midgame. But it wasn’t as hard as I thought. In fact, most of the game wasn’t as hard as I thought. Most of the difficulty of these games is in your head. Like sure, they’re difficult, but you get better and they’re not so scary. Anyway. I used NPC summons a lot because I wasn’t very good at handling bosses on my own (O&S anyone?). Sen’s Fortress and whatever the area before Seath is called with the invisible platforms were horrible and I hated them. I DID them, but I hated them. Those bits in Anor Londo too. You know the ones probably. The amount of thin platforms you have to navigate in this game was more than it needed to be. The HUD is also very ugly. I really liked the game though and decided I wanted to play the others. I initially skipped 2 and went straight to 3, beat 3, then went back to 2. As you do. Anyway DS1 is a great game and if you’re interested try it. I hear the remaster sucks but its the only one you can buy now. Weirdly the switch version of the remaster uses the old graphics, which are better because the lighting is better. Do with that what you will.

Dark Souls 2: I got Scholar of the First Sin, again, around the time it launched. Again. Horrible at it. Got no where. Gave up. At the time of writing this I have not yet done the DLC. I should mention I didn’t do the DLC in 1 either, but started NG+ before doing it so I’d probably have to restart… whatever. DS2 is… I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been said before. Mechanically this game just is not very good. I played this AFTER 3, so it felt shockingly easy by comparison. You are showered in souls, levels are insanely cheap, bosses are incredibly slow. Most of the bosses I beat w/o summons, (and none of them took me more than 3 tries...and I SUCK at these games) although I used them for Watcher and Defender because that boss was kinda lame. The final boss was… Yeah. Maybe the DLC has better bosses and I’ll see later. The lock on in this game is broken. Even if you lock on in a 1v1, once you kill them, chances are it’ll zip to an enemy above you that hasn’t seen you yet. This happened more than once. It also tends to favor enemies behind you over ones in front of you regardless of how close they are. If not for all of the weird mechanical hang ups, this game would be the easiest in the franchise. It still is if you can get over them. I installed a mod to make the weapons not degrade twice as fast but I don’t think it worked because they still seemed to degrade incredibly fast. Can’t say for sure. Also there are so many dudes in any given area which I think was done to encourage you to kill them over and over until they stop spawning but that’s also kinda dumb. I don’t know. If you didn’t play 1 or 3 you might not notice some of this. Or maybe you’ll find it even worse. ADP controlling your i-frames while dodging and how fast you drink estus was a bad choice. I probably didn’t hate this game, but I found it to be the weakest. This game got rid of leveling up at any bonfire which also sucks. Wish DS3 hadn’t kept that but oh well. Losing part of your max HP when you die was bad and feels like it only exists to punish new players. But going hollow doesn’t prevent invasions? This game felt like it had a LOT of NPC invasions too. Maybe 1 and 3 do too but I didn’t spend a lot of time human. Hm.

Dark Souls 3: Not long after beating 1, I got this game. It’s the Dark Souls of Dark Souls games. Okay maybe it’s not that bad, but the jump (for me) to 60fps made everything much, much faster. And smoother. Going from PtDE to DS3 is like. Wow. Anyway everyone in this game is incredibly fast and hates you and wants you to die. It also had to wean me off of using NPC summons. Because I didn’t do one of the quest lines, I missed out on summons. So I was forced to just git gud. Lorian and Lothric were very difficult. I found Soul of Cinder to be hard too but I think people disagree with that (I couldn’t summon for either of those bosses so it was just me improving til I won). At the time of writing this I beat the first DLC (streamed beating Sister Freide, that was fun :) ), and started going through the other. Beat Dancer on my first try which I am still very proud of, and the consumed king in two. Did not yet beat Nameless King but I probably will. I think I had the most fun with this one because I was used to the souls formula by now and understood what to expect from things. However, in terms of exploration, this game is the weakest. It’s incredibly linear compared to 1 and even 2. That didn’t bother me because my favorite part is the combat, but I know a lot of people think this game was too boss focused. I dunno. 3 might be my favorite of them all. It certainly has the best looking HUD of the trilogy.

TL;DR: DS1 - Most exploration, some difficult navigational things caused by the environment and not just enemies. Bosses hit hard but GENERALLY weren’t overly fast (but I havent played the remaster) 8/10 DS2: Less exploration, but fast travel from the start. Fewer instances of dangerous walking but a few miserable sections overloaded with dudes. And poison statues. Bosses are slow and it’s easy to upgrade your weapons and yourself. Could be a good place to start if not for all the mechanical jank. 6/10 DS3: The least amount of exploration probably. Fast travel from the start. I can’t remember any sections with pits and dangerous walking. Enemies are incredibly fast and dangerous. Most bosses are incredibly fast too. 9/10

#dark souls #they're all fun #probably just play 1 if you dont know where to start #i hear the remaster is fine if its all you've played #its just more that it doesn't have a reason to exist since it changes so little?#or just play code vein as that was the first souls-like i actually dedicated any time to #didnt beat it though #got very close

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twilightknight17 · 4 years

Text

Forgetting to buy more SP patches before taking on the final boss was probably a mistake.

Forgetting to sell the items I can’t take into NG+ for cash that I can take into NG+ was probably a mistake.

Forgetting to get Arsene out of Lockdown so that I can record his awesome new stats for NG+ was probably a mistake.

In my defense, I was really excited. I wonder if the game will let me make a side trip while I’m out...buying flowers. Because that is what it has come to.

Buying flowers.

Shinya is a terrible brat and wasn’t in Akihabara at ALL until the day before the deadline. Thanks, Shinya. There goes my max confidants. Blugh. At least I got some other things done. Got the award for the maid cafe, so I don’t have to go back except once to open the Twins field trip. I still suck at batting even with third eye. But I am a champ at fishing, it only took me like five trips to the fishing pond to catch the Guardian! I could have done it in less if I’d figured out how to manage my bait properly sooner.

Smile, Akira, we’re awesome! ...still not even halfway to enough fish points for the award, though. :/

I am also awesome at the crane game in Akihabara, and by that I mean I am persistent and have enough yen that it doesn’t matter how many tries it takes.

Ryuji truly knows the way to my heart. <3 I missed two episodes of Featherman; one I forgot to check the TV, and the other I was laughing so hard at the title that I forgot to write it down. But I know where they are, so it’s something else for NG+. ^_^

So I romanced Sumire, and I’m...slightly off-put. Only slightly. Not because of her, but once again, because of the writing. Sumire is cute, but the game is singling her out as “special” again.

She is the only one who confesses to you, and you explicitly have the option to turn her down, rather than the implications of a confession that you can shoot down indirectly (Haru’s, Makoto’s, Futaba’s), or the absolute fucking galaxy-brain leap of logic that is Ann’s dialogue choices. X’D

If you ignore that, though, they’re stupidly cute. Akira’s a little shit, as usual. Sumire asks you to “look at her”, based on her whole confidant thing of realizing that having someone you care about watching you makes you want to do better.

And so Akira looks.

And looks closer.

Dorks. XDDD

They’re sweet. Not my favorite romance route; that still goes to Haru. I think in the end I still prefer Akira adding another member to his army of younger siblings. He’s gotta be better than Yu. XDDD

So I got Kasumi’s rank 10 and literally the next day was February 2nd, and I spent the afternoon getting her third-tier persona. So I didn’t even get to see...Vanadis? in battle. Vanadis matches a little too well to Arsene for my tastes, and Ella is pretty, but I’m not sure how I feel about it looking kind of bride-ish when Maruki’s running around in a wedding tux.

Anyway...what do we do the night before the meeting that will decide everything?

We make curry and we pretend everything isn’t about to go to hell.

So, Maruki. Let’s chat.

Does no one die in your world? Or move away? What if someone’s dream is to move abroad, and someone else’s dream is for that person to stay with them forever? If what we saw in your Palace is any indication, both of them would be tortured into accepting new dreams where they wouldn’t hurt each other. Dreams that you deemed acceptable. And that’s why you’re wrong.

So you’re giving up your happiness to make sure everyone else is happy? Why can’t you just use your powers to make her remember you, without the trauma? Are you not all-powerful?

Or are you running away from the person that reminds you how helpless you used to be? You’re not moving on, you’re dwelling, and using it as an excuse to be terrible. For all of your kindness, you know Akira is a threat. And benevolent or not, you’re being manipulative. You’re using Goro against him. You’re hoping that he makes the decision you didn’t, and chooses the person he cares about over the reality he wants.

Every time he says something like this, I feel exactly the way he says he didn’t want me to. Newsflash, asshole, that’s exactly what it seems like. If we break your reality, you’re heavily implying he won’t be here afterwards. And you’re gambling that it will be too much pain for Akira to bear, because you know how important they are to each other.

Goro, meanwhile, is both perfectly determined and perfectly stupid.

“Don’t tell me you think dangling my life before us is going to have any impact on our decision.”

Goro. Honey. Do you really think he cares so little that he wouldn’t hesitate for just a moment?

Akira practically throws the calling card at Maruki before he leaves, which I think sums up his feelings pretty well.

I appreciate that Morgana understands that this is something between them.

Goro doesn’t want to be controlled or manipulated ever again. Which... I get it. He’s never had a chance to have full control of his own life. But that doesn’t mean Akira isn’t going to be upset by the idea of him dying. Again.

Two out of three dialogue options are basically “hang on one fucking second, your life matters to me.”

“Don’t oversimplify this.”

“Oh, but it IS simple. Do you think I’d be happy with this? Being shown mercy now of all times? I don’t want to be pitied-- this isn’t something I’m debating with you! Your indecisiveness is essentially a betrayal of my wishes.”

It’s not pity, you stubborn, idiot boy. ...and I hate that you see it as a betrayal.

Maruki is...very confident. And very kind. And part of the reason he upsets me is because he isn’t wrong, in many cases. But he uses that to justify imposing his will on everyone.

And being kind doesn’t mean that you are free from sin. You can be kind and still be manipulative. And selfish. In the end, that’s what separates him and Akira. Akira, despite all of his hesitation, refuses to be selfish. Even when he has every right to be. He will not hurt someone else to prevent himself from being hurt.

He will not hurt Goro by refusing to fight Maruki, even if it will rip his own heart to pieces.

Oh, I like you. At first glance, the silhouette was very similar to one of Mordred’s original pieces of concept art, though, and I was ready to Yell before I looked closer. XD

And so, at 11:30pm, having completely forgotten the several things I needed to have done before the meeting with Maruki, we head in to steal the Treasure.

This man needs to stop. How dare he know how much I love Cool Stairs?

I find it very concerning that the core of Eden is a writhing mess of tentacles. The metaphorical worm in the apple? X’D We were so close to getting Nyarlathotep, but Azathoth is suitably intimidating. And I appreciate that he’s using the same concepts as the Thieves: his will to rebel against what he sees as an unfair reality, and removing his mask to summon his distorted persona. Thanks for validating all of my headcanon meta about Adachi and Palaces all in one go.

But...

I can’t do this. What the fuck are you wearing?

At least Azathoth is cool.

Somehow I managed to bring exactly the right team to get consistent four-person baton passes for the whole first round. That one was about half an hour.

...the second round was an hour and fifteen minutes because holy shit this thing was a tank and had entirely too many arms and really needed to stop healing.

The torch is very pretty, at least.

And then before we can completely book it out of there, he steals the torch back and literally forces his second awakening so he can keep going. And at that point...what is he even hoping to accomplish? What is he going to do? Are you really willing to kill us to maintain this illusion?

The answer is apparently yes because it was a surprisingly poetic battle as each teammate in turn got a chance to fling themselves in the way and stop it from crushing Joker to death with it’s big giant hand.

And THEN he goes even further and validates some canon meta and me all at once by fusing with his own persona in a continuing last-ditch effort to... I really think he’s trying to kill us. I think he’s that far gone. Or at least his persona is. Because after the fusion, it’s specifically called “Adam Kadmon”, not Maruki. The persona is in control. It’s canon that if you try to summon something stronger than you, it can overtake and possess you. I know Maruki seemed to willingly give up control, but it’s also possible that forcing his second awakening like that left him with a persona that was entirely too strong for him.

(Nevermind that him being that strong in the first place is kind of ridiculous. That’s a discussion for after the final credits. I’m just hyped that someone fusing with their persona was a thing that actually happened!)

He’s so big. Where’s Satanael so I can fuse with him and we can have a megazord fight in Collapsing Ideal Tokyo? XD

The kids up the Holy Shit Quotient by a mile by catching the giant fist all together so that Joker can deal the final blow.

And what a final blow it is.

I really like this, because I don’t know if it was deliberate, but I read it as a callback to Daybreakers. Which came out before the game, iirc, so the first real piece of content. It’s just on a bigger, grander scale.

Everything comes full-circle in the end.

I really like the Mona helicopter. XD I just wish it was a little bigger, because poor Goro squished into the bottom. And poor Akira not managing to make it into the helicopter.

And this asshole WILL NOT STAY DOWN.

What is the point of punching it out on top of the collapsing Palace? Are you trying to kill us both? Do you just want to keep going until neither of us can stand? Dude.

And of course Akira won’t let him die. I think the upsetting thing about this, though, is really that you don’t get the chance to say a proper goodbye to Goro. Or anyone, really, but mostly Goro. The Palace crumbles, Akira wakes up in jail, the Thieves wake up the next morning after fighting all night, and Goro is...gone.

At least the Thieves seem properly sad this time. Even if it’s only for one scene.

Lavenza calls it “ironic” that “your wish for other’s happiness prevailed over your own.” I just call it unfair. Once again, hasn’t he done enough? At least he was only technically in jail for nine days from his perspective, but that must have been a whiplash of an adjustment.

Out of jail, Sojiro acknowledges he was Terrible at the beginning of the year, it’s 2:30am, time to do Valentines and then go to bed before the final walkaround.

And then Valentines passes. I spent it with Sumire. They’re cute.

And then it was February 15th and all the rest of the girls gave me chocolate?? It was just a constant ambush of being given chocolate all day?

And then it was March 3rd, and the Thieves are all splitting up and moving away? Are we sure this isn’t Scramble’s timeline? I get it, narratively, they’re taking the opportunities to move forward that Maruki’s reality would have denied them, but it still hurts.

And then it was March 13th and I still can’t save and now it’s 3am and apparently we get to play out White Day and Sojiro is giving me advice for the perfect date because captain idiot here forgot to plan anything and what heckin’ restaurant is getting this flustered that just mentioning Sojiro’s name is enough to get a table when they’re fully booked and---

Now it’s the 14th and I have to go buy flowers for my dinner date and I have finally been given control and saved and I am free.

Now next time I play I have to see if I can go sell my leftover items, because I’ve got a couple-hundred-thousand yen worth, and also rescue Arsene from prison. X’D

More thoughts on Maruki and everything after I see the ending, most likely.

#Li plays P5R #long post #the Longest Post #2.5 hour boss fight O_o #last time I spent that long on a boss it made me so mad I put the game in question down for six months

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despairingvacation · 4 years

Text

come with me, and you’ll be... {CHAPTER FIVE: MOTIVE}

IN A WORLD OF PURE IMAGINATION.

----

One week of relaxation and freedom- and another week or so of absolute destruction and chaos. It’s become routine at this point, and unfortunately - something that you have grown used to. It had been storming for nearly two weeks straight now, but you were hoping that maybe with the wake of Grimnir’s attempted destruction, maybe you would receive a small break. A little bit of time to yourself to relax, before everything went to chaos again and you once again stood face to face with despair.

...and that’s what it certainly feels like!

Perhaps Oswald, or Willie, decided to play it safe for the time being. It’s starting to get pretty late in the day, and there have been no announcements. Just simple birthday greetings, to both Haruto and Kaname. Surely, the two in charge of this game decided to play it nice and give everyone an extra day of rest…?

...Ah, that doesn’t matter. There was a party to attend to.

The fact that you’re able to attend the party, without Oswald or Willie doing something to interrupt it, seems a bit surprising. That wasn’t like either of them, they always wanted to cause problems.

Nothing feels off- of course. The sound of music playing in the room the party just happens to be taking place in, as well as decorations hung up. It’s clear that those who worked to make this perfect absolutely worked their hardest to make sure it wasn’t anything but perfect, given what they had. However, there is something that catches your attention - something that might not have been there before previously.

A pile of individual small boxes, perfectly wrapped with a little ribbon on top of it. All of them appear to be wrapped in black and white gift wrapping, reminiscent of ink dripping. Just from the look of the gifts, it’s clear to tell that those who had left behind the gifts were none other than the omnipotent beings responsible for your misfortune for the past couple of weeks.

“...WELL?” A voice catches you off guard. But it’s a familiar one - one you’ve come to expect by now. Taking in a deep breath, you turn to look at the large screen in the boarding room, finding none other than Oswald grinning at you in delight. He rests his chin in his hands, and although his legs are hidden beneath his desk - you can tell that he’s kicking his legs, in an almost child-like manner.

“Nice party you all have set up here.” Everyone narrows their eyes towards the screen, and immediately, Oswald grows defensive.

“No, no! Seriously! I mean it! It’s sweet of you to go and host a birthday party for Haruto and Date today. Really, I mean it. I just HAD to join in on the festivities. You see those presents over there? Those are all gifts! From me! Go ahead, open them! I’d love to see your reaction to it!”

Unsurprisingly, nobody budges.

Oswald frowns.

“DID YOU NOT HEAR ME? I SAID OPEN THEM.” Oswald slams his hand on a remote, that seems to just appear from thin air. A shock goes straight to everyone’s bracelet, though, not a shock strong enough to cause serious damage. Just strong enough to cause a quick instance of pain, letting everyone know that he was deadly serious.

One by one, everyone approaches the pile of small boxes. Picking one up from the pile, you tug at the ribbon holding the box, prying the gift wrap away from the box. As you do so, the box opens - almost comically, and reveals to you a medium-sized piece of hard candy. Each one is a different color- your favorite color. Along with the candy, you find a small note resting against it, one that just simply reads:

Eat me!

Much like those little candies in the infamous Alice in Wonderland stories. Upon flipping the note over, you’ll find another little message for you. Contrasting the bright and colorful wording of the eat me message on the other side, this one appears to be covered in ink - and the words are almost covered. But you can make out the words beneath it, without a doubt.

Ǫ̵͛R̷͇͋ ̵̠͌E̴̯̅L̸͓͌S̴͈̆É̴̳.̶̼̃

You turn your attention towards the monitor in the boarding room, finding Oswald’s grinning face staring you down. His finger hovers over the button of his remote, threatening you with another shock. You’re not sure if you want to deal with another shock, so you unwillingly pop the candy into your mouth. The taste is… well - surprisingly delightful. It’s your favorite sweet flavor - from either your childhood, or whatever it is you’d like right now. Even if it was a flavor that couldn’t be replicated, it tastes exactly like it. (and for those who can’t taste anything, well - you don’t taste anything. Obviously.)

Oswald’s grin only grows wider as everyone finishes their piece of candy. It’s obvious that something’s wrong with what you’ve just eaten - but what it is, you can’t entirely tell.

Before you even get the chance to speak up, and ask what it is you just ate, Oswald cuts you off.

“You all look at me as if I poisoned you, or something.” He laughs - and continues on with his thoughts before anyone gets the chance to say anything.

“AND THAT’S BECAUSE I DID! But, not everything. You all probably tasted your favorite flavor, or something. Or something that brought you back to your childhood, who knows. I can’t tell. But here’s a surprise - one of those candies is poisoned! Don’t worry too much about it, though. It ain’t gonna kill ‘ya. Yer just gonna be actin’ a bit off, that’s all.” Oswald shrugs his shoulders, as if he didn’t just say anything wrong.

“It could be fatal, or it won’t be. Who knows? I ain’t tellin’. All I know is if yer gonna want to stop livin’ in paranoia about whether or not you’re goin’ to be poisoned, you know what to do.” Oswald pauses, as if for the dramatic flare.

“KILL SOMEBODY. Simple as that. Now, I’m gonna leave you all to have yer party. I added enough fun to it. But I will say one more thing…” Oswald leans close towards the screen, his grin only growing wider. How is that possible-? Augh.

“KEEP AN EYE OUT ON THOSE CLOSE TO YOU. YOU MAY THINK YOU KNOW THEM, BUT THEY’LL SURELY BE ACTIN’ DIFFERENTLY. KEEP YER HEADS UP AND TRUST NOBODY.”

...and with that, the monitors shut off. The music from Ahn’s playlist continues to play, and everyone is left to stand in the boarding room in almost an eerie silence.

…

19/33 REMAIN.

----

Hello, everybody! Welcome to our fifth motive- while it doesn’t have any “game” mechanics - it takes heavy inspiration from... you guessed it, CANDYLAND.

If you would like to offer yourself up for this motive’s victim or culprit, you’re definitely more than free to message Willie’s discord account letting us know. You will be thrown into the victim and/or culprit pool - however, if nobody offers, everybody will be thrown in.

You will have until 8:30 PM PST to message the mods if you’re interested in offering up your character. We will be giving frequent updates on how much time is left in the server.

If selected for culprit or victim, you are not allowed to discuss it with anyone - unless you absolutely need to. Just be sure to let the mods know and ask if it’s okay ahead of time.

You are allowed to keep previous threads pre-motive.

...Oh, yeah - there’s no food at the party. Just the sweets. :)

and of course, unless you want your character to die via NG code, remember to keep your NG code in mind. ;]

MOTIVE NOTES--;;

While this motive has no shared game mechanics with the game itself, let’s play a little game of CANDYLAND! What does this mean? Simple!

Everyday until a victim shows up, everyone will receive a little gift at their doors. The gift holds a random piece of candy, that will always taste like your favorite character’s sweet - or if you’d like to be dramatic about it, a taste that could not previously be replicated from their childhood. Most of the candy will be perfectly fine - just a delightful little treat for your character. However, someone’s candy will be poisoned. You will be messaged if your character gets the poisoned candy.

Everyone will receive a candy everyday at random times. There is no set schedule for when candies appear.

IF YOU GET A POISONED CANDY: You will receive a DM from Willie that details what your characters symptoms of their poisoned candy will be. The one thing in common with those poisoned is that all poisoned individuals will have something affecting their personality.

IF EVERYONE GETS POISONED BEFORE A VICTIM IS FOUND: There will still be a poisoned candy in the mix. If you get a second poisoned candy, the symptoms you received prior will become more strong. Each stacked poisoned candy you eat will only make it worse.

IF YOU ARE POISONED: You are not allowed to tell anybody you received a poisoned candy. The only ones who should know you’re poisoned are you and the mods. You also have the choice of how much your character’s symptoms will effect them. You can have it be mild, moderate, or severe. Just know that if you get stacked poisoned candies, it will only worsen the symptoms.

#dv 1.5: motive #dv 1.5: chapter five #dv 1.5

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mitterstorm · 4 years

Text

Dance For Me

Chapter 2

*Thump*

Your heart beats faster.

*Tu-tump*

The footsteps of whatever is coming are getting louder and louder, maybe its the echo messing with your auditory perception. Whatever or whoever is making all that racket isn’t friendly; good thing you didn’t explore any further.

<<The exit it’s not far away, just a few feet more and I’ll be safe>>

You feel as a character of a scary movie: the last survivor or who dies at the end. What startles you the most is that it fits your current predicament.

Abandoned studio, old pal of my dead friend, mysterious letter, unexpected meet up, the idiot travels alone and enters the damn place with nothing more than her phone with no calls at her disposition. The icing of the cake? There’s probably a monster that’ll kill her if it lays eyes on a living being, which in this case just happens to be you.

Yay.

<<Well fuck me, I won’t stay long to let it rip me to shreds>>

You run faster at the sight of the door, raising your knees a little bit higher and putting more pressure in your tiptoes, it’ll hurt you later, however, these burst of adrenaline won’t let you feel it right away.

*Tu-tump*

You sweat drop with the increasing tumult, bust of wood and cracks in the walls, strong force and velocity are being used to create such destruction, you are already picturing the debris that will come out of these place.

*Whomp!*

Shit.

You finally reach the door!

<<Now get out!>>

You never thought opening a door would be such a hard task until now, under pressure and with a beast on your heels it feels like you were tied and the lock is coated with oil, fortunately for you it only took you two seconds and in five you were out of Joey’s Studio.

Or that’s what you thought.

You crash onto something and a sudden pain attacks your head and forehead, the impact knocks you down to the wooden ink-stained floor, with a bit of struggle you look up to see a fake paperboard background.

Wait..what?!

Before you can move something grabs your legs, then you feel another grip on your arms. Looking sideways you catch sight of hands.

“Let go let go! Let go of me!” You struggle trying to free yourself all in vain, when a final pair of hands clutches your hips and your waist you feel a pull, in the process you hit your head again, slipping away of it all.

A bunch of inky hands swallow you down, wrecking the wooden floor into pieces, slowly you are dragged down.

Silent snickers echo around, three little devils watching you descend into your demise.

What did you expect? You are in a toon studio, you shouldn’t have expected less!

It sure it’s cruel how our minds can be tricked so easily, you were fooled by them.

You’ll be their new toy.

Well, that is until he decides what to do with you, but surely you’ll be given. After all, the creatures that lurk around the studio are sure to tear you into shreds.

They all despise humans.

Especially the Ink Demon.

“Alright, Joey. I’m here. Let’s see if we can find what you wanted me to see.”

The male made his way through the old workshop and felt himself going down memory lane, caught in the past with souvenirs from back on those days were the animation studio offered hopes and dreams to dreamers like him who envisioned their own fantasy world inside a blissful abode holding unlimited possibilities.

Echos of the creaking wooden floor with each step he took his wondering gaze taking every detail he could as if it was the first time.

He found another reminder of his prime.

“Hey, here’s my old desk. I’ve wasted so much time in this chair.”

Admiring the piece of carpentry before him slowly running his fingers down the material, then he walked away and gawked at the sight, his past workplace went by some renovations.

“Looks like they knocked out a wall or two after I left. Guess it took a few people to replace me.”

After admiring the view he went inside another room and found an old projector with a film tape still on running smoothly but it was blank, no images nor animations being shown, he turn it off.

Leaving the room he walked off into a new one passing a signboard that had written ‘Art Department’, ‘Ink Machine’, ‘Theater’ and ‘Break Room’. He glared at the wall suspiciously reading out-loud the following:

“’Dreams Come True’.” Not giving much thought into it and following swift along the corridor, he started hearing music coming from a room, curious he opened the door and turned off the radio emitting the catchy tune.

He kept walking and took a turn on the right then another and what he found took his breath away, he let out a whistle amazed by the machinery in front of him because what he sees excites him.

These man had no fear for the unknown and instead of escaping he approaches it, intrigued he went along with it.

“This lift could use a few dry cells.”

Unbeknownst to him, he was going to set free a greater evil.

His little devil darling will arise from the depths of the Ink Machine and he won’t receive the Creator with open arms, instead he’ll place his hands on his neck.

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

Two hours passed until you finally start regaining consciousness, you groan in pain, feeling the throbbing of your head and the ache in other parts of your body. Her back is bruised for sure and her right hand burns horribly.

“Ng......f-fu..ck..”

Talking hurts just like breathing does, it requires a lot of effort from you.

<<How am I alive? These agony justifies it...what happened up there? All I remember is hitting something...something hard..paperboard I think>>

Carefully she tries to move her left arm and hand, touching the floor below her. Wood and old at that. She’s still at the studio, she knew it was stupid to think otherwise, but she kept hoping for it to be differently. Coming here was a bad idea, now she knows that, even thought it makes her feel incredibly stupid, but who cares.

<<I need to get out of here or at least try>>

“You won’t go anywhere injured, you dumb bitch” She said to herself, her voice weak like a whisper. First she has to get up and look for something to patch her up or at least lean on like a cane, she ain’t stupid, she knows she’ll walk limping and that won’t help with her current predicament.

<<Here I go>>

Groaning she tries to get up or at the very least sit up, straining her back and legs by forcing them to lift her, she slips from one side when she tries to use her hands, hissing in pain she takes a look only to realize until now the state of her right hand.

<<How is it that I didn’t notice for fucks sake!>>

It must have occurred when the wooden planks snapped. A huge piece of wood broke through her hand’s skin, exactly in her life line; shock travels rapidly inside of her at the sight of the injury, her breath hitches a little when she unconsciously tries to lean on it again. Dried old blood and a bit of new blood were oozing out of the wound, the wooden stick proved to help retaining as much as it could, however with the pressure she applied trying to stand up, well it was starting to come out a little.

Fuck, she’s fucked if that gets infected and it’ll be one help of a pain when she takes it out.

“These sucks..agh..”

Now she has to get going, doesn’t matter how much it hurts, as long as she doesn’t hurt herself any further she’ll be okay. Probably.

<<I’m grateful for knowing a bit of this stuff, it’ll be useful right now>>

True, she ain’t a doctor, but she’s a nurse and knows a bit by seeing her colleagues (who are doctors) treat injuries and all that jazz, obviously she isn’t capable nor authorized of partaking in a surgery, but you know stuff thanks to being observant and curious.

You cry out in pain when you try getting up again, using one arm and securely folding your right arm on your abdomen, you only get as far as to lift your upper body and one of your knees bending. You unbutton a little bit your shirt to look at yourself.

Some scratches and a bruise near your ribs (fortunately no broken bones, not counting the metacarpals of your hand). You want to see your back, it should be covered in bruises and scratches or maybe something bigger than that, since it stings a lot.

*Huff*

Breathing it’s more difficult in this position, you have to stand up now.

<<Besides who knows if what attacked me is still around here>>

Groaning louder you push yourself until you are up, leaning on a wall, not trusting your strength or balance.

Limping, you start walking through the studio. You hate yourself for coming here, sure your clothes may be all dark, but ink stains aren’t welcome because of it and all the ink makes it difficult for you to move. There’s a lot of ink, but not enough to drown you, it doesn’t reach your knees and there are some clean spaces where the dark liquid doesn’t follow.

“..the electrical system is practically useless, it’s too dark...” You say to no one in particular.

It’s a miracle the building is still standing after all these years, obviously these walls have been neglected after that accident, nonetheless, the place could be of use to someone else who has the money to make all the repairs and maintenance it deserves.

You weren’t avail to explore the first floor ‘cus you know...this happened, besides some pipes broke (probably the whole pipeline system needs fixing) and if the floor was stained then all the files and artwork should be in similar or worse conditions.

<<Did Henry leave with all of his work or he left some behind? I would have loved to see some of he’s old work..maybe he made some progress after all these time...>>

You hiss in pain, your back hurts and you have a headache, there’s no chance you’ll find some aspirins or whatever, maybe some bandages or even an old cloth to cover the wound.

<<That thing is down here and I don’t want an encounter when I’m in these state: injured and sick. I’ll have to keep going, at least until I mend the wound>>

Time to man up then, be a badass bitch and endure the pain.

After a few minutes you take notice of something.

<<This path has been cleared>>

You confirmed it when you walked down the stairs (you nearly fall and you were scared shitless when you saw practically all the room was flooded with ink) and found a valve, you did the following and turned it. Subsequently the room started to clear itself and you were able to pass through it easier.

Now you know that-

Was someone else here?

<<I mean Joey should be here, but I don’t know anymore, maybe I was right and he send that letter years ago>>

Yes, however, there’s something you are missing.

Why is it open?

The entrance wasn’t locked, no key sealing it away and that growl you heard. Who or what exactly lives here?

“I have to leave and quickly, I don’t want to find out.”

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Bendy’s POV

The devil’s smile still intact and genuine now, he couldn’t help but smirk when the human fell into his trap. He wasn’t using his beast form anymore and was avail to stalk them from afar (of course, he used one of his portals so he could get there faster), it was a good idea to summon those three fellows.

Even thought years have passed there are still some things left from the ol’ days, that fake paperboard background was possible because of cartoon logic, it didn’t matter if the Butcher Gang wasn’t the same, corrupted by the ink. It was irrelevant, they were still part of the spectrum.

Piper, Fisher and Striker were trembling once they spotted him, these fear of them only serve to feed his sadistic side.

He’s able to smell their fear, since they are made of ink sweat is not a way for him perceive it, no, the key it’s the ink. Depending on the consistency he’s able to differentiate various emotions. Similar to physical and chemical reactions of a human body, it can’t compare to the real thing, however it comes in handy for him.

Thanks to his ability, he can read those around him even better (thick ink is a sign of nervousness and fear, thin or boiling ink means anger, frustration and aggressiveness, slimy or jelly-like consistency means sickness or sadness, last runny means either normal or strong emotions similar to excitement or sadistic tendencies such as his) and it helps him with his lack of sight. The tar-like liquid that covers his pie-cutted eyes acts like wax, once fluid and with time it hardens. He can’t remove it at will and he tried scratching it with his claws, it hurt him horribly, he fell unconscious that day.

Ugh, just remembering makes him want to end that musicians life immediately, however, he has to wait. Lawrence is still of use to him.

<<No time for that, I have to keep these three at line>>

The demon snarled at the trio, they didn’t need to be said twice, they banished in seconds leaving behind ink splotches.

<<Good, they need to know who’s in charge around here, I don’t need them turning themselves against me>>

Of course, those lackeys helped him just in time to trap them on the lower levels. Him being one of the top dogs inside the studio (he shares part of it with Alice to keep her at bay, as long as she doesn’t interfere the truce stands) has another skill only he possess. He’s capable of controlling the ink to his desire; those hands and arms that pulled you down? It was him, not the Lost One’s.

Approaching smugly towards the hole on the floor he jumped down, landing graciously on the ground and immediately searched around the room, soon he found what he was looking for: the girl. He couldn’t see her, but could feel her. How you may ask, another gift, but he is not the only one able to use it, all ink creatures have it, the answer is ink.

Think of it as a tether, a connection or bond between the source and its off-springs. What separates them from normal ink is their conscious, their minds.

<<Joey said something similar to me once...what differentiates them from animals is their ability to think..even thought they don’t show it>>

Until Henry that is, the Inkarnate knew his creator Joey Drew was a man of science who dreamed walking on the red carpet, ambitious and headstrong, besides him other...individuals never truly showed any brains, so when he met Henry it changed his view on humans (not completely, but a little it’s already too much if you know how Bendy is).

He knows the girl won’t have many problems traversing through his home, Henry cleared the majority of the pathways and left a mess at some levels. Stein proved to be entertaining for him, not an easy prey like other inhabitants that were trapped by the ink, he hunted each and every last of them, their fates worse than death.

If he was bored and in the mood some were tortured, he experimented with them diverse methods to inflict pain and traumatize them.

Boredom it’s Eternity’s enemy, that’s what he believes at least. Not that he’s complaining, he has no desire to end his life, yet.

It would be a lie if he said the idea never popped on his mind, the demon isn’t suicidal, however his domain tends to be rather grim. Hollow would be an accurate description for the living here, insanity plays a big part too, it feeds the flame of vengeance inside him.

That little detail can be seen as a disadvantage too, hysteria brings such brutal ideas as suicide and ways to do so, it should be morbid for him feel excitement by holding those thoughts. But it isn’t.

He’s grateful, after years condemned of humdrum there’s some thrill for him.

Eerily watching how the woman’s chest went up and down, he took a look at the room and absorbed some of the ink, no he wasn’t trying to save her, no, just delaying fate.

"ﾚ乇ｲ'丂丂乇乇んのW ﾚの刀ムｲん乇丂乇の刀乇ﾚﾑ丂ｲ丂."

Giving another glance to the female beneath him he noticed her injury.

<<That dog will find her, it’ll help them, just like Henry>>

There’s no need to worry, he’ll make it last as longs as he needs to, once he appeases his dullness they’ll be gone.

<<Alice has to know, the others too, especially Lawrence. I have to make it clear, those too disobey me, Samuel rarely does it, but when he does...I can’t believe he’s that foolish>>

Normally the devil let’s them do as they please with intruders, that was in the past, he grew bored and those lunatics never left something for him, they were too simple-minded for him. They didn’t enjoy the hunt or torment them until it breaks beyond repair.

He learned to savour his kills.

Although he can’t always relish their distress, those are dark days plagued by migraines, screams brought him suffering instead of pleasure. When the voices got too loud for him, weakening his self and succumbing into the abyss...

He dwells too much.

Time to change that.

Smiling in glee he opened another portal, shuffling at his own pace towards it, every time he set a foot in one it reminded him before his sentience.

Like a never ending cascade.

Too bad he couldn’t enjoy it anymore.

“I thought we had an agreement, name your business and leave.” Said automatically the witch while working on her stupid beauty products.

He’s not oblivious, the madwoman has been sacrificing a big bunch of their lot to fix her ugliness. Because of his abhor and apathy concerning the flunked angel he didn’t interfere, it kept her busy and in line, besides...who was he to judge? Obviously he’s the law, and overseer, the boss. However, he can’t fault them for their tainted nature.

"W乇んﾑ√乇ﾑ √ﾉ丂ﾉｲの尺." Its always like these with the Angel, he knows every inch of her like no one else, despite their hateful relationship it once held passion. The Demon possess so much knowledge about her: what makes her tick, what brings her euphoria, how to bath her in glee and ecstasy, why she’s so selfish, etc.

She’ll never admit it, but she still likes how he shows dominance, like now that he has her trapped, in a matter of seconds he had her pinned to a wall, looking down at her while she looks up to him, she was suppressing down her smile by replacing it with a scowl.

<<You don’t want me to know? Still prideful then>>

He feels a bit of disgust by being so near, but he can’t deny his want, they always felt this attraction to each other, since they were supposed to be a romantic couple in the show.

“Yes, I heard the racquet, what about it?” She crossed her arms faking anger at his interruption, however, the tether told him otherwise.

-Runny and rushed-

“Don’t be too rough with them.” As if he was burning her the Angel pushed him away, good thing he couldn’t see her if he has the ability then he would be aware of the slight trickling from Alice’s left side of her face were hideousness its more apparent, by-product of her imperfection.

Bendy knows this because she was like that before he lost his sight, yet he didn’t care, what’s on the outside won’t change what she’s on the inside, after all, they are monsters. Susie happens to be one of them, back in the days when she was a beauty her interior carried a decaying putrid soul, many were believed the lies assembled for them, luring those who once possessed such naivety.

The gal showed her discontent towards him by screaming.

“Why?! I thought we were done! There are no creators left and all the employees have been corrupted by the ink, you made that happen! So what’s left?!” Ah yes, screeching, another reason for their ‘break up’, he couldn’t take her moodiness and when she yelled at him? Ugh, he considered several times ending his suffering and tried shutting her up until his patience ran thin and he relied on violence.

Like now.

The hellish creature it’s choking the fallen angel, baring his teeth at her, a guttural sound coming from him. She expected this and already had her hands trying to loosen his grip, spitting venom from her eyes.

“It does not matter. Do as I say, I don’t want you nor any of your pets to kill them! Not yet at least.” He tighten up a little bit more his grasp on her, he feels a clot forming in her throat, their bodies are different from humans, but ink its their whole being. Blood, tissue, muscle, organs, veins, etc. He could get a feel of how her normal ink pressure is centered were his hands are strangling her.

If she was human his sensitive senses would give him the satisfaction of perceiving how her blood runs through her veins, her slowed down pulse and her hitched breath trapped on her longs trying to get in and out seeking more oxygen, until she starts coughing while trembling at the verge of death and he would-

“F-Fi-ne.”

He woke up from his delirium maelstrom, soon he released her and could only hear her desperate gasps for air (not that she needs it), cautious she rubs her neck and then expectantly looks up at him.

“Good.”

The little devil left her alone and carried on with his duty, now he’s missing Lawrence.

He wonders what his little admirer could be doing.

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Sammy’s POV

The maestro was attending his most precious possessions, what kept an ounce of sanity alive in him are his instruments, it’s unfair he’s not well stocked with supplies to restore them back to their glory, four decades ago they still held divine graciousness.

Unlike his soul what he created was pure not carrying any of his sins and embraced all his passion for what he did: music. Innovative melodies no one had heard before that came from the bottom of his heart and mind, his whole life recorded on simple notes he calls reflections.

Ah yes, his darker dreams transformed in golden faded mist were he gives his life a twirl. Dangerous emotions as the likes of anger, frustration, depression and loneliness banish in a second when his fingers travel along those riches.

He was cleaning them when he heard an uproar.

“Oh? What pray my Lord be the problem?” It’s unusual for his master to cause such ruckus, did something happened? Why wasn’t he informed? He’s supposed to know all the whereabouts of these place to keep it’s ruler safe!

Swiftly he set down the banjo and made his way through a satanic circle and went searching for the reason of his Lord’s discontent.

<<Maybe another tender sheep is trapped inside these hellhole>>

Soon he found what he’s been looking for.

You.

He just didn’t expect you to be so...breathtaking.

A limping beauty before him in the open,defenseless. The Prophet never found his master, instead he stumbled into a besom. Is it a gift from his savior? Did the devil accepted his apologies?!

How he envisioned that day! After that black sheep came to Bendy’s kingdom he gave him the cold shoulder, he even tried to murder him when he was only showing how grateful he is for all he has done for him. He didn’t understand..but he would never let past mistakes repeat themselves, he’ll change whatever brought displeasure to the boss.

For the better.

If he has been blessed as he believes then he’ll accept the Inkarnate’s present and treasure it just like his valuable instruments.

But if he’s wrong and the human is not a signal from the Dark One then he must continue with his duty as a guardian.

The old music director knows his ways and stalks you inside the ink, keeping himself hidden from you and in a short time he takes notice of your physical state.

He worries that if you are his then it’s his responsibility to aid your graciousness with how fragile you look Lawrence can’t stop the scenarios that play in his head, he’ll tend to your needs and nurse you back to health while protecting what’s his, teaching them what they’ll require to stay in here adoring their king.

And he won’t lie, fantasizing with a noble charmer like yourself...well, the liquid that keeps him alive runs faster than before, it excites him greatly.

Captivated he follows the Lamb he found without her noticing he’s even there.

Something he takes pride on.

His time will come, eventually he’ll have the pleasure of meeting you.

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It keeps disturbing you looking at the big ass stick inside your hand protruding noticeably, but it helps as a constant reminder of being careful so you don’t bury it more, if you did it would cause serious damage.

That’s why you still have the piece of wood puncturing your hand, it wouldn’t have been a problem if the stick wasn’t that big or that far into you, hypothetically that were the case then you would have already taken it out and clean it with some water, soap or alcohol while covering the wound with a piece of your attire.

Your problem is the infection, whether you can prevent it or not is an issue and you don’t know where to find any alcohol to maintain around the wound clean, even if you somehow manage to do so it wouldn’t change anything because you are still running the risk of dying from gangrene.

<<I have to options get the fuck out of here or look for help>>

And no you can’t call 911, the impact destroyed your cellphone, you couldn’t even pick up the broken pieces of the screen because your back hurt too much and crouching made breathing a harder task. So as you can see your options are limited, besides you can’t even draw out the thing because you don’t have enough strength to do so with one hand.

You grunt in pain and irritation by remembering that little detail, you life is on the line and you don’t know exactly how much time you have left until the injury gets infected.

“I need to hurry.”

<<I can’t believe my luck, really, like this whole place has a serious leaking problem and Mr.Drew should get all the pipeline system checked. I haven’t passed a place without a splotch of ink or where the walls aren’t dripping ink! I don’t want to imagine a worse scenario than this for myself, injured, no communication or way to get help, no medical supplies and I’m risking my life by being out in the open because there’s a possibility a bloodthirsty monster is on the lookout for me!>>

Finally you reach a room with what appears to be a desk with a toolbox and a mug, there’s nothing else or that’s what you think until you notice a perplexing message written on the wall beside the desk.

“’The Creator Lied To Us’..what’s that supposed to mean?” You ask to no one after reading the message out-loud.

<<Is these about that article? Who wrote this?>>

Your theory is that one of Joey’s workers came back to the studio and vandalized the wall, that’s the more logical explanation you can think of.

<<After all they were overworked and abused, I would have done the same if I had the guts to do so>>

You didn’t put much thought into it and carried on with your task, another detail that comes to your awareness are some wooden planks blocking what appears to be an entry to a new part of the studio, however, finally a stroke of luck is given to you and you are still able to pass through them with no complications.

Slowly you walk across the corridor squinting your eyes at the little light that offered the room, scared of tripping over she lift her legs in order to not fall with one of the wooden planks trying to block her way, she feels scared and alone.

<<Never thought I would develop a fear of the dark at my adulthood>>

She reached a door, hesitant she drew her hand closer to the doorknob and with her shaken good hand she opens it a weak, fearful gasp leaves her.

“Wh-What’s...this?” Horrified she takes a step forward. Maybe her mind is playing games with her or her eyes are deceiving her perception of reality “I-it...it can’t......it can’t be!” A silent scream resides her inner walls.

<<Am I really seeing this?>>

What appears to be a satanic circle drawn on the floor with black ink, candles adorning each side of the pentagon and two coffins near it.

You step into the it, just at the edge to look at it closer, but as your foot lands inside it you start feeling dizzy and fall into a deep slumber.

Old jumbled memories have been revealed once again.

A machine.

One wheelchair.

Dark silhouette.

...what does it all mean?

Madness. All went to hell thanks to Mr. Drew’s mindset, egocentric and greedy as many others. He used all the resources that were at his disposition: money, cleverness, social skills, manipulation, machinery and people. He took it all for his own desires, overriding any morals he had, if he even had them to begin with.

He doomed them all, himself counted. Crossing paths with death served him right, he died bearing resentment for never being able to accomplish his dream. Immortality. His decaying for made it evident, he needed a wheelchair because of how weak his body had become.

Too weak to fight back.

His own creations slaughter him. Buried deep in ink.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #bendy #boris the wolf #alice angel #sammy lawrence #bendyxreader #henry stein #reader #Dance For Me Fanfic #fanfic #bendy fanfic #BATIM fanfic #batim fanfic

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incomprehensiblelentils · 4 years

Text

I did not get around to this yesterday but, a short selection of fictional things that meant a lot to me over the last decade! ...it is going under a cut bc it is Too Long sorry lmao.

Books

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: this book came out in September 2017 and I have read it four times already. It’s the kind of book I want to write but I’m not sure I’m clever enough to: every event and every character is so purposeful and you won’t catch everything the first time through. Every time I reread it I find something new to marvel at. I hope the Hulu series is half as good

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: this was the first piece of fiction I ever found with a family with a Chinese father and a white mother. This family is a lot less functional than my family, but I've read this three times because that means the world to me.

Ash by Malinda Lo: I discovered this in 2011 and it was the first f/f novel I ever read, and as I would later learn, one of a handful with a happy ending at the time, particularly in YA fiction. For a long time, I reread it every time I felt hopeless. I just reread it again last month and it is still as beautiful and meaningful to me as in 2011.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: This is an Asian-inspired fantasy (becoming more common now, but still irritatingly rare) written by a queer Asian woman, with f/f. I think it is only the second one of these, after Ash? It is frustratingly rare, anyway. The worldbuilding is incredible also.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan: We are getting more stories about biracial Asians, but they are still pretty rare and I treasure every one. This one felt so real to me.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth: The first half of this book captures so beautifully what it’s like growing up queer in a religious environment when you don’t even have the words or self-awareness to know what you’re feeling. This was another one I read over and over again when I was feeling low.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: this is just a book for horse girls. I don’t know how else to describe this lol. I also feel like the romance is super downplayed until the very end, and honestly barely feels like a romance to me, so that’s refreshing!

Movies:

Pacific Rim (2013): I remember having this weird feeling when asked to give my top 3 movies once in high school, like maybe my favorite movie hadn’t come out yet so I couldn’t answer properly. I was right; this is the movie I was waiting for. This is my favorite movie. The feelings this movie gives me is the standard I hold all movies to.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019): but Megan, didn’t this just come out? Yes, and it’s my other favorite movie now. I love (almost) every second of this movie. This movie made me feel a way that I thought maybe I might never feel again, after a certain other franchise movie this year took a dump on my heart. I don’t care that we’re never getting a sequel, we got this and that’s enough for me.

Thor (2011): Those of you who have been around awhile know that I really love this movie. I loved it before we all jumped on the Thor train after Ragnarok and I will continue to love it probably my whole life. It just makes me happy.

Aquaman (2018): This is Thor but underwater and with a biracial hero. It made me cry in the theater and I do not want to hear any negative opinions about it, I find them personally wounding.

Belle (2013): The fact that Gugu Mbatha-Raw isn’t a superstar is tragic, and this movie is gorgeous and lovely and made me feel a lot of things as a biracial person.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015): I remember seeing the trailer for this in the theater and going “yikes that looks like a thing I would never watch.” Joke’s on you, past me!!!! I find this a deeply stressful but glorious film that I can only watch like, once or twice a year.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): I do not need or want to hear about how this movie is Problematic, I know all of its issues, and yet. It brings me joy and it was one of the first movies I saw when I was just starting to break out of my religious upbringing and I laugh until I cry every time I watch it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): I am starting to realize that I am not and never really was a Star Wars Fan, which is to say that like...I love this movie specifically, I love the characters, I love the interactions, I love the stuff that happens. I do not so much love Star Wars as a whole? I like it fine! But this movie is the only part of the franchise to really make me go “oh, I get it.”

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017): This was a weird little movie that nobody saw and nobody talked about, but I adore it because it’s so gentle and romantic. I don’t know how accurate it is to history and frankly I do not really care.

Big Hero 6 (2014): are you tired of me mentioning I’m biracial yet? This movie has biracial protagonists and a cute squishy robot and no romance and superhero stuff and I love it so much.

F8: The Fate of the Furious (2017): I went to go see this on a whim with my wife and it was one of the most joyous theater experiences of my life. I don’t know, I just love everything about it.

TV shows:

Community: This only kind of counts because it started in 2009 but I started it mid-s2 so eh. Seasons 1-3 of this show are written on my heart, I can quote a ridiculous amount of dialogue from them and these characters will stay with me forever. Warts and all, this is my show.

Dollhouse: Another technicality but like, I met my wife because we both loved Bennett Halverson so I gotta put this on here. It’s pretty significantly affected my life! Also I find that it holds up fairly well, if you’re down for the admittedly iffy premise and an ending that’s a bit of a mess narratively due to sudden cancellation.

Agents of SHIELD: I would never claim that this show is “good” but I do think that it has mostly figured out what the hell it’s doing. And it has been a pretty significant part of my fandom life for the last 6 years, so to leave it off this list would feel wrong. It gave me Daisy Johnson, first canon biracial superhero as played by a biracial actor, and for that i will always be grateful.

Warehouse 13: I could not tell you why I fell so deeply in love with this dumb, badly written show that shit the bed in the final episode more spectacularly than I could have imagined, and yet I did! I think probably it is because I love found family so much, and also I find goofy camp charming more often than not. And of course, there is Bering and Wells, the femslash ship that fandom forgot. I will never be over how no one knows what we have suffered!!!!!

Runaways: wow was this a surprise! The Runaways comic is my favorite comic besides Marjorie Liu’s X-23 run, and this show has basically nothing to do with it, and normally that would piss me off but they got my kids’ personalities down so well and all of the actors are so perfect that I really can’t complain. And also, this show has canon f/f and neither of them die at the end! Which is...better than some other shows I could mention!

Doctor Who series 1 and 5: I had a very intense Doctor Who phase in college, and after all was said and done and I quit the show for a time, I realized that although I love a lot of the characters, and Thirteen’s run is pretty good so far, what I really loved was Nine’s run and Eleven’s first season. That is the show at its best to me. Eccleston is my Doctor and Amy is my favorite companion.

Legends of Tomorrow: Look, I am as shocked as anyone that this, the scrappy underdog of the DCTV lineup, is the one that’s most emotionally competent and has the best character arcs! But here we are. Season 4 was some of my favorite TV I’ve seen, uh, ever.

Albums

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae: I listened to this for basically a year straight after it came out. It’s just ridiculously good.

Something Fierce by Marian Call: This was my on-repeat album in college. i drew a lot of strength from it, and I think that it’s still the best album to recommend to people who ask me about her.

Standing Stones by Marian Call: I heard most of these songs live at concerts before they were quite done yet, so it was really special to get to hear them all collected together like this. I’m going to get a tattoo with a lyric from one of these songs because no one’s quite been able to put my basic philosophy into words quite like Marian.

Heartthrob by Tegan and Sara: Hot Take, I know, because a lot of people hate this album, but it was so affirming to go out and buy A Lesbian Album from A Lesbian Band in 2013.

The Rent movie soundtrack: I know, I KNOW, but in my defense, my parents got me this for my birthday my first year of college and I needed it so desperately. I can definitely still do “La Vie Boheme” from the beginning and probably most of the other songs too.

In the Heights OBCR: I can only listen to this when I want to cry, but it’s my favorite musical. I got to see the show in 2018 and it was incredible. I think it’s better than Hamilton and I can’t wait for the movie to come out.

Trouble by Natalia Kills: this album is really great and also it says fuck a lot, which I used to be very nervous about hearing or saying, and this helped immensely!

#me

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