I find it funny in an unfunny way that they pinned some of the blame on Yellowfang

Like, Yellowfang?

Yellowfang, who suffered from abuse from Raggedstar, was framed for murder and exiled from her clan?

Yellowfang, who takes no bs, saved countless lives as a medcat, helped Cinderpelt and was a major support pillar for her, and died saving people from fire?

The very same Yellowfang who killed her son because of everything he did, all the murders and child soldiers he caused? Who wished Firestar was her son? Then killed Brokenstar AGAIN???

THAT Yellowfang???

And they said Starclan let her let Ashfur into their ranks???

I honestly believe they began writing a completely new character after TPB. She's NEVER felt like the person Fireheart knew in life in subsequent material, not in StarClan, not in her SE, nowhere.

Knowing how hard she is on herself in regards to StarClan and her feeling she deserves "divine punishment," it makes sense to me that she'd *repeat* StarClan's ruling on the matter, or even that she'd be hard on Squilf and Leafp in their trials. But LETTING ASHFUR IN??

ENOUGH THAT WE CITE HER AS A REASON?

Nooo fucking way. She would never make that ruling. She felt WRETCHED for what she had to do to Brokenstar and like it was "teaching her a lesson," you can't tell me that she would let Ashfur get off scot-free for trying to murder 3 people out of romantic spite

And like, I've also gotta stress; it's not JUST three counts of attempted murder.

He was beating the shit out of Lionpaw, in a way reminiscent of the harsh training Brokenstar was putting apprentices through, PLUS the abuse of Stumpypaw

He DID successfully murder his leader, just the one life but he WANTED it to be all 9

Treason in working with Ashfur. That is canon. People forget it's canon and Hawkfrost used his dying breath to tease that he had inside help

Assault of Squilf, he was going to make her watch her children get crispy-fried

Absolutely insane article. Story team should stop even trying to explain themselves they just make everything worse. Their choices are baffling enough, but their thought process is truly like the world's worst Rube Goldeberg machine

One of my favourite things about Young Royals and its characters is how much it romanticizes being utterly ordinary.

Stories often focus on characters who are exceptionally good at something or who are more ambitious than the average person. Even in the teen shows I’ve watched, these young characters always seemed to have their dream career and dream university figured out at a young age and I could never relate to that because I had none of those things figured out as a teen. It always felt like pushing this narrative that teenagers need to have their entire lives figured out before their brains are even fully developed.

None of the characters in YR seem particularly ambitious and in fact, the main character’s journey is a story of anti-ambition. When he is introduced to Simon, it is precisely Simon’s ordinariness that draws Wille to him. Sure, Simon is a very talented singer, but it’s never indicated within the series that he has dreams of being a pop star. It’s just something he likes to do. Simon is motivated by very ordinary things - he wants to do well in school so he can have better opportunities for himself, he wants to take care of his family, he wants to hang out with his friends and play video games. He’s a dedicated student but not necessarily valedictorian. It’s not his ambition that Wille is drawn to but his integrity and kindness and warmth.

Wille had a chance to be extraordinary - to be Sweden’s first gay king - but being extraordinary has never been Wille’s ambition. Wille’s ultimate goal and dream within the series’ narrative is to be free to make his own decisions and live his life as he pleases. He just wants to kiss his boyfriend and get drunk at parties and live his life one day at a time instead of spending every moment of his life preparing for an inevitable future he doesn’t want. In the end Wille is extraordinary not for his ambition, but for his bravery to reject the expectations thrust upon him and throw himself into the unknown and see where it takes him. Wille had a whole future in front of him as crown prince and future king - he’d never have to work a day in his life and would have people advising his every move - and he rejects that. This lack of ambition is not portrayed as a moral failure, but a necessary step in Wille’s journey to personal self-discovery and fulfillment of his own desires. His desire right now is simple - be free with Simon, but that doesn’t mean his dreams end here forever. He deserves peace and tranquility after all the trauma he’s been through without having to worry about where or who he’s gonna be in a few years. He deserves time to just exist.

None of the characters know where they’re going when they drive away at the end. We as the audience don’t know what careers if any these characters will find themselves in, but that’s also not important to this story. The series is saying you don’t have to have everything figured out when you’re 17 and you don’t have to do something just because your parents think they know what’s best for you and even if you don’t know exactly what you want to do, that doesn’t mean you don’t have the agency to know what you don’t want.

It’s not a moral failing to want the simple things in life or to be ordinary, and I love that Young Royals celebrates that. It shows the beauty in simple moments that feel revolutionary to a person - touching the person you love, forgiving someone and making amends after a hardship, whooping with your friends in a car as you drive into the summer and celebrates them. Ultimately these are the moments that make life worth living.

I'm interested in your Fire emblem essay and what you said about the story being a reflection of the SRPG gameplay

Looking over the essay I have saved in my drafts, what I actually talked about was the answer to the question "Why did Fire Emblem get popular?" Fire Emblem has been around since 1990 and has been localized since 2003, but the series never took off to truly mainstream popularity in either Japan or the rest of the world until 2013, when Fire Emblem: Awakening was released, at which point it meteorically rose to become one of the best-selling Nintendo franchises.

In my essay, I posited that there were two "obvious" reasons for Awakening's popularization of the franchise, but a third less-obvious reason that was even more important. The first "obvious" reason was the introduction of Casual Mode, which removed the franchise's signature permadeath feature and made it far easier and more accessible to a broader audience. As someone who was in the trenches of the Fire Emblem fandom from 2004 to 2012, I can tell you that the series heavily attracted difficulty junkies during this time. The demographic heavily skewed male, and the most popular topics of discussion were tier lists and debates on the usefulness of various characters in certain challenge run settings (such as Low Turn Count, or LTC, runs). Casual Mode opened the doors for, well, casuals to join in on the fun.

The second "obvious" reason was that Awakening was anime. While every Fire Emblem game has had anime character designs, past titles were often fairly reserved with these designs, featuring knights in full armor whose only distinctly "anime" characteristic was green- or blue-colored hair. Awakening, however, leaned into the significantly more absurd, flashy, and/or sexualized designs that are what people far more commonly associate with "anime." It wasn't just the designs, though. Awakening also took an "anime" approach to character personalities, often giving each character one or two traits that are amplified to extreme degrees. This change is easy to spot if you compare Awakening characters to similar ones from past titles. In Genealogy of the Holy War, Arden is an armor knight who is teased by his comrades for being dull, boring, and generally stuck on sentry duty. In Awakening, Kellam is an armor knight who is so dull and boring that characters cannot even see him when he stands right in front of them. Recurring jokes involve characters thinking they're being haunted by a ghost when he talks to them, or forgetting he exists entirely, because he is so unassuming and banal. It reminds me of KonoSuba, in which characters have a singular trait that is pushed to its utmost extremities for the sake of humor; this is a style of humor commonplace in anime, especially anime that targets a young teen demographic.

My argument, however, was that these "obvious" reasons fail to adequately explain why Fire Emblem got so popular so quickly. They may have been sufficient in 2013, but the popularity of subsequent titles has called into question how much these reasons matter at all. To be clear, Fire Emblem probably doesn't become popular without Casual Mode; the accessibility is just too important. However, simply being accessible doesn't mean people will access it. There are plenty of SRPGs out there, like Shining Force, that never had permadeath, that were even localized during the 16-bit golden age of JRPGs, yet never gained major popularity. So while Casual Mode was necessary, it wasn't the change that took the franchise from the edge of Underperforming Nintendo Franchise Hell (F-Zero, Star Fox, Metroid, too many others to name) to 17 representatives in Smash Bros.

And frankly, I think the anime argument isn't a factor at all. It was a tempting argument to make in 2013, when the anime elements of Awakening were the most obvious deviation from the franchise's past, but 2019 a little game called Fire Emblem: Three Houses came out that utterly decimated the thesis. Three Houses is, of course, by far the most popular Fire Emblem title, with double Awakening's sales (1.9 million vs 3.82 million worldwide, according to Wikipedia). Notably for this argument, however, is how un-anime Three Houses is both in character designs and tone. In fact, Three Houses narratively hearkens back to much older Fire Emblem titles, with a major focus on politics and serious worldbuilding, significantly less comic relief, and relatively "realistic" character designs that avoid absurdity and fanservice. In its tone and story, it is far closer to Path of Radiance than Awakening. So if we take "more anime" to be the root cause of the revitalization of the franchise, how do we explain Three Houses?

There needs to be another explanation. Something both Awakening and Three Houses did that previous entries did not.

My argument is that what the Fire Emblem franchise did to turn itself around was change from a focus on plot to a focus on character, with innovations to the gameplay that emphasized this change. This sounds a bit more esoteric than the other explanations so let me clarify. Awakening introduced a mechanic called pair-up, which allowed two units to join together to gain large statistical and combat bonuses. On top of that, Awakening emphasized the game's support system, which had been present in older titles but much more difficult to access and inconsequential to gameplay, not only making supports easier to achieve, but central to character building and recruitment in the form of child characters. This gameplay emphasis is mirrored in the story, with Robin's character arc being rooted in the "bonds" he forges with his allies, and the child characters also having a significant role in the plot. On top of that, the more "anime" characters have livelier support conversations, as opposed to past games where many supports often boiled down to very generic "You are my friend. I will have your back on the battlefield" sorts of conversations.

With this character-and-relationship-driven gameplay/story in mind, look again at Three Houses. While lacking the pair-up mechanic or child characters, Three Houses adds a Persona-esque social link system that is extremely extensive and probably takes up about half the total gameplay. Strategic battles are deemphasized in favor of running around the monastery, talking to your allies, going to teatime or doing activities with them, finding them gifts, and so forth. The central narrative gimmick of the game is the three Hogwarts houses, which give certain groups of characters innate bonds that the gameplay then allows you to explore thoroughly. Even the aforementioned political nature of the plot feeds into these relationships; many characters are defined by the political placement of their birth, and their attempts to balance their personal goals with the goals of their station leads to intense interpersonal drama. And the plot itself boils this drama deliciously when it comes time for the three houses to go to war with each other.

This thesis of mine also extends to the less-popular installments of the franchise in the post-Awakening era. Though all these games sold decently well (likely due to install base), they don't match the success of the other two, and are a lot less well-regarded by the fans. Fates nerfed Awakening's pair-up system and lazily tacked on child characters via an absurd "baby dimension" that was poorly implemented in both gameplay and story; Shadows of Valentia was a remake of an NES game that, despite heavily revamping the story and adding some support conversations, did not change the core gameplay of the original; and Engage put in a more shallow monastery-like hub world, with much more simplistic characters, and a core gameplay gimmick that involves making one character a God instead of combining your units together.

Indeed, Fates and Engage are probably far more "anime" than Awakening and Three Houses, which most fans consider to their detriment rather than benefit. Most damning of all, however, is that the story of these games heavily revolves around a singular self-insert protagonist, with other characters having a much less important role. This narrative focus deemphasizes character-bond-based gameplay, rather than emphasizing it like the other games do.

(I'll mention that I personally think Engage is an excellent game, though this is because I am one of those spreadsheet and tier-list loving oldheads and I appreciate the excellent map design, core gameplay, and higher difficulty mode that actually seems like it was playtested. In fact, it was my love of Engage and the relatively lukewarm response from the fandom that led to me asking why Fire Emblem was popular in the first place. I had thought the fans loved all the goofy anime stuff, so why were they pissed about it now? What was Engage missing that Awakening wasn't?)

You can see how this shift from plot-based story and gameplay to character-based story and gameplay has affected not simply the raw number of fans, but the demographic makeup. In 2011, the fandom was nerdy dudes who liked to compare stat growth rates. In 2023, the fandom is far more evenly split between male and female players, and the fandom is a far more robust space for fan fiction, fan art, and other creative endeavors. It's characters who drove that change, not a more anime tone, not even a reduced difficulty. And after the relative reception of Three Houses and Engage, I'm extremely interested to see whether Intelligent Systems realizes this point, and what the next Fire Emblem looks like.

We need to stop acting like people -- women especially -- going through painful procedures is normal.

"Beauty is pain" is such bullshit. I've been told that was something I had to get used to, what with being a little girl and all. As if "beauty" has a single definition. We decide what the definition of "beauty" is, and I've decided that body hair is included in that definition. I say this because today someone, once again, commented on the fact I don't shave at my ripe old age of 21. ("You'd look so much prettier if you did just this one little thing," they say, referring to the act of putting hot wax on one's skin and ripping it off.)

Hurting ourselves over constantly-changing beauty standards is so normalised, and I fucking hate it. It makes me so angry I want to cry, and then tell every teenager who hates themself right now to please stop. To take them in my arms, and shield them from a world hell-bent on skewing their perception of what a human looks like. I want to protect them and never let them see those toxic "how to surprise your boyfriend for Valentine's Day *wink* " or "how to prep for hot girl summer" articles.

When I first found out what a Brazilian wax was, I was horrified. I couldn't believe people voluntarily did this to themselves.

But they -- the media and the magazines and the beauty industry -- do such a good job of conditioning you to believe that your body is dirty, that thick hair is something to be ashamed of, that that horror has been replaced by a new one -- the fear that no one will ever love me, or find me attractive, if I do not conform.

We've been taught our body hair is bad since SUCH a young age. Fuck, as an Indian, I was even taught darker skin is bad. Bleaching skin is SO common in India; the fairness cream ads are utterly shameless and ubiquitous. My mother casually talks about how she went for skin bleaching before her wedding -- part of the "bridal makeup", I suppose. In a country of dark-skinned, hairy people, we look to blonde, fair-skninned Hollywood stars for guidance. And OF COURSE we fall short. Beauty standards like that were never meant for us; in idolising them we set ourselves up to fail.

Does anyone else see how insidious and sinister this plot is? To start conditioning people to hate themselves right when they are babies -- through their mothers who hate their own bodies and pass these insecurities on; through main characters in TV shows and books who are only ever one kind of pretty; via movies where the 'unattractive, unpopular teen' turns sterotypically beautiful, and only then becomes 'cool' or worthy of love; through magazines geared to audiences as young as twelve, telling them to alter their appearance in order to be deemed desirable.

What a masterstroke:

To inextricably connect beauty with lovability, so that our fear of not having good enough hair, skin or makeup turns into a fear of being unlovable.

The former they mock -- "women take so long to get ready!" "Heather cares too much about her makeup" -- while the existence of the latter is normalised or ignored: "Everyone has insecurities. Everyone hates their body." Yeah, WHY? It doesn't need to be that way.

They make people believe the pain is worth it. They give the illusion that you have a choice, that you've made this decision -- to get that brazilian wax or boob lift or nose job -- but you've been led here all your life. They make us believe that the pain is a worth it, a stepping stone to get something far more valuable -- others' love and approval. You've been influenced to believe certain things are desirable. You've been taught your natural existence, isn't. Does this count as acting under your own volition if you've been born into a world that's been pressuring you, in direct and subliminal ways, since the day you were born?

The pain is not worth it, and I will not let them make me torture myself. I do not exist for their aesthetic pleasure. I exist to experience the earth and what it is like to be a human, to eat food and watch sunsets and frolic in the grass and hug friends.

Repeat after me:

I do not exist for other people's aesthetic pleasure.

Fuck everyone. I'm so done.

No more shame.

No more hiding my legs with jeans and long skirts.

I have body hair. Not only on my hands and legs, but on my fingers and toes as well. I have an almost-unibrow. And you know what? I have decided it is beautiful. One day I will find people who agree, and goddammit, I will be loved by them.

And if I can't, fine.

I will yearn for love, and maybe I will be desperate and lonely, but I WILL NOT change myself for someone to love me. Because that wouldn't be real love in the first place. They wouldn't be loving me, not really. They would be loving the actor who is playing me. And I would still feel lonely, only this time in their company.

A boyfriend whose love I'd constantly be afraid of losing; afraid he would find out what a monster I really am. I'd hold on to my shame and keep it buried in the darkest recesses of my mind: the natural habitat of insecurity.

But the thing is: any relationship that requires you to hide parts of yourself is not real love at all.

So, I reiterate: I. Am. Done.

With the beauty standards about hair, skin colour, makeup, eyebrows, glasses, weight, boob or butt or dick size (?? Why are these even a thing? I genuinely don't get it), height, teeth, everything.

I don't fit them. It's okay.

(It's not always okay. My self-esteem swings from finding myself absolutely repulsive some days, to remembering I've been conditioned to be this way, then feeling years-old rage (how dare they brainwash me to hate myself so?) and grief (how much more confident a person could I have been if I hadn't been made to feel trapped in my own skin).

It goes from sunny skies of heartfelt gratitude (my body is healthy, it does so much for me, keeps me alive and helps me experience the world) to the dark pits of self-loathing (no one could ever love me; I shouldn't subject people to my hideous existence) -- to wishful thinking (all my problems would be solved if only I were as pretty as them; how do people look like that??)

But through it all, I will be my natural, hairy, big brown self -- and anyone who has a problem with it can go to Hell and suck Satan's dick.

Sorry I'm being very spammy to miraculous salt blogs cause I saw this one ML sugar post that made me start think: do you think miraculous is overall a well written show or a badly written show?

oh it's definitely the latter (in my opinion). like, I feel like ML is trying too hard to be too many things and failing at it, and then all its other problems come from there.

is it an episodic kids/pre-teen show with no overarching plot but recurring themes of friendship?

yes but it's also got an overarching plot and covers themes of abuse and death and sickness which is more suited to older kids/young-mid teens.

AND it's also high art with deep themes aimed at older teens but if you think about those themes you're *wrong* actually because it's just a kid's show! it's not that deep! stupid SJW!! >:(

it's like the creators couldn't just pick *one thing* and work with it. they couldn't pick *one* age bracket to aim it at, they couldn't pick whether they wanted a long-running episodic serial or if they wanted a story with a bigger plot. they can't just pick one, and that's given us our issues with the status quo, our issues with a dull and repetitive plot, the juvenile, slapstick humour, tackling Adrien's abuse with all the delicacy and precision of a jack-hammer, professing deep themes of Importance For Adults/Older Teens and in the next breath treating the audience like toddlers.

And I'm not saying you can't create a kids show that handles hard themes but still resonates with a wide audience, I think Avatar has shown us that that is well and truly possible, but the success of Avatar is largely because it picked an audience and a theme and a story-telling method, and. Stuck. With. It.

Of course there's also a number of other things that go into a well-written story, and with a cast as large as ML, characters, interesting characterisation, relationships and character arcs are VITAL.

ML has a huge cast of recurring characters. In Season 1 alone we get: Marinette, Tikki, Adrien, Plagg, Hawkmoth/Gabriel, the whole Miracuclass (like 8? kids), Ms Bustier, Sabrina's Dad, Nathalie, Sabine, Tom, Mayor Bourgeois, Jagged, Master Fu, Manon, and Nadja Chamack.

That's not even including one-off characters who never show up again OR the likes of Mr Ramier/Pigeon who come back later on more and more often.

That is a huge cast. And when you have a cast that big you need a way to make your main cast stand out other than giving them tonnes of screen time *cough* adrien *cough*. ML utterly fails at this. S1 Adrien feels like a puppet and later on like a wet cardboard cut out. Felix has more arc and personality and bite than one of our main characters for cripe's sake.

S1 Marinette was, by far, probably the most explored of all her iterations. She was doing stuff, going places, having personality beyond just awooga adrien!!

But that is where they peaked. In S1. Like 6 or 8 years ago. A messy plot and world can be...overlooked if the characters are compelling enough. But ML hasn't got either. It doesn't give us Plot or Characters, or nice animation or a fun world or much of anything really.

Its only real value is to put something brightly coloured on TV to distract a small child. And like? It is so, so clear that the crew work hard on the show, but it's really not paid off. Like, at all. Other than, of course, the profits from the cheap merch being bought to please and pacify little kids, but I think we all know no one in anything less than an executive position will see any of that money.

So TL;DR: the story has no clear goal, no clear audience, the characters are forgettable and dull, the themes have no teeth. Overall, a badly written show. The time, energy and money could've easily gone to something better.

my grievances with BNHA

(Spoilers below) I’m long-winded today cos I had some Thoughts to get off my chest in regards of how I feel about the storytelling of BNHA.

TL;DR: I don’t think Horikoshi understands the value of ma. Maybe he believes that his target audience would grow impatient, and I have to remind myself that BNHA is a shonen and is made for young people and my storytelling tastes probably aren’t what he’s marketing towards- but I still think there is a lot that could be improved about BNHA if Horikoshi spent a little bit more time in the slow moments, and valuing the emotions and relationships of the characters instead of rushing to the next plot point. He also made way too many characters, which is typical of shonen, but the more characters he has to cover, the harder it is for him to provide content for all the people who have picked a favorite character out of the sprawling cast. Everyone is forced to find satisfaction in table scraps, but if he stuck to a strong core cast, there would be plenty to go around. Long version:

"Ma” is an extremely important storytelling concept. Ma is the Japanese word for 'negative space.' In visual art, negative space is the empty places on the canvas where there's nothing important to look at. After all, if every single square inch of your canvas was filled with something exciting to look at, like character faces or action scenes, your illustration would be very hard to take in at a glance, there'd be no distinction of character silhouettes and nothing would be readable. The same concept applies to storytelling. You need ma to achieve a greater emotional impact when the heavy, loud moments occur.  Let's take a look at how Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli writes ma. In My Neighbor Totoro, 80% of the film is slow-paced slice of life moments where two sisters explore their new house, and discover supernatural creatures living peacefully beside them. Then, at the end of the movie, something distressing and horrible happens to the two sisters' mother, who has been hospitalized since the beginning of the film. The film's final 20 minutes or so are about them discovering this distressing event, and the emotional climax of the film feels extremely powerful because we were given time to live with these sisters, observe their peaceful daily life, and grow attached to them. Suddenly, something important to them became jeopardized, and we care. 

Miyazaki often uses ma with food. Characters cook for each other, or eat together. The detail of the food in the animation is often exquisite. Miyazaki and the Ghibli animators want us to notice the way light refracts through the glossy surface of an egg on toast, or the lines of fat on bacon sizzling in a pan. He wants us to exist in these quiet moments of daily life.

I can't tell you the last time My Hero Academia actually had an extended scene of ma. Maybe it was the bench scene, where Eraserhead and All Might share a moment. It was a powerful scene in the manga, and it was powerful because it wasn’t about the plot at all. It was about the intimacy between two characters who have grown close over shared adversity, and All Might struggling to find purpose in his hard life. After this scene, however, the story has been one distressing event after another without any breaks to breathe. And, since it has so many characters, it has failed to prioritize the emotions of significant characters. How did Eri feel when Aizawa was maimed? Who is watching her? How did Inko feel when she saw her son mangled, even after All Might promised to protect and raise him? How much raising has All Might actually done in Midoriya’s life? It seems every time the two of them have a conversation, it’s about One for All, not about Midoriya’s growth into manhood or his emotional development as a suffering teen who’s picked the world’s worst profession. Will we get assurance on the safety and wellbeing of favorite heroes like Fatgum and the Big 3?  Will Mic and Aizawa properly grieve Midnight? What about the rest of the UA staff? How does Nezu feel when UA was turned into a safe haven for civilians? How have the parents of all these students processed all this grief? How has Class 1-A handled their painful struggle? The story has been, instead: >heavy, distressing, lengthy action sequences where everyone is hurt >immediately following that, a prison breakout >immediately following that, scattered moments of characters in a hospital with dramatic flashbacks of their lives and burdens, yet none of them fleshed out to their fullest potential because there’s too many injured characters >immediately following that, heavy and intense emotions all focused on the plot of One for All, yet All Might is a mute ghost and has no actual bonding with Midoriya since they don’t even speak to each other >immediately following that, more heavy and intense emotions as Horikoshi rushes to show that Izuku is gone and has slapped together letters about his departure >immediately following that, more villains attacking heroes and civilians because of the prison break. There has been no ma. We haven't had a single quiet moment that isn’t focused on bulldozing into the next plot point or action sequence. What about a scene like Eraserhead sharing a meal with Eri, or talking to her calmly about life? How about the neglected characters like Fatgum and the Big 3 recovering in their own way? How about the moms of all these hurt children actually coming in and getting involved in their lives? How about the students of class 1-A trying to do something fun to diffuse the tension and show how they have grown close as friends or a found family? Sometimes Horikoshi tries to show ma in tiny snapshots rather than entire scenes; for example, there's a snapshot in one of the earlier chapters of Aizawa putting Eri's hair in a hair tie. This is a single panel. It's not enough to have a single panel. What we needed was an entire scene or chapter dedicated to Aizawa and Eri and Friends. Show her with her found family, show her going out in town or playing with a cat or talking to Mirio or Aizawa for an extended period of time. Show us scenes about nothing particularly important. 

When your story is plot, plot, plot, you're deciding that human moments and human interactions aren't important. And at the end of the day, no one watches a show for the plot. They come to be validated as a person, and relate to the characters. I came to MHA because I relate to All Might, his disability, and his desire to be strong and fight through his suffering so he can selflessly help other people. That character resonated with me. I saw myself on the screen. Unfortunately MHA stopped being what I came to see a long time ago. I’m here because I like drawing my favorite characters, and the fandom has introduced me to a lot of wonderful friends, I’m not ready to give it up. But I wish it had more of what I was hoping to get out of it.  I understand that making a manga is extremely difficult. And I understand tons of people enjoy it and have no issues with it whatsoever- all power to you! I just haven’t gotten what I was personally hoping to get, and this is why. :( ANNNND SEASON 5 JUST STARTED AND IT’S AN ENTIRE SEASON OF CHARACTERS I DOOOOON’T CARE ABOUT AT ALLLLL! HEY WE REALLY NEEDED AN ENTIRE SEASON DEDICATED TO CLASS 1-B CHARACTERS THAT ARE COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY IRRELEVANT AFTERWARDS, THEREFORE WASTING SCREEN TIME ON FORGETTABLE UNIMPORTANT SIDE CHARACTERS INSTEAD OF THE CORE CAST THAT WE DESPERATELY NEED CONTENT ABOUT ALSO THANKS FOR FORGETTING ABOUT DADMIGHT HORIKOSHI  

Fashion Editorial Special: Audrey Bourgeois

Inspired by this post link by @purrincess-chat 

Lila put herself out there in the public domain, and just because Marinette’s class and teachers might be stupid enough to fall for her lies, doesn’t mean that there aren’t adults out there who are...

The question was who? Who is critical and vicious enough to do so and has a HUGE audience to say things to, and who works closely with the modeling and fashion worlds and actually knows what they’re talking about...? 

Why! Madame Audrey Bourgeois! The Queen of Fashion herself. So please put on your best Devil Wears Prada reading hats on and enjoy as Audrey takes no prisoners. 

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

“Gabriel Agreste Losing His Mind and Sense of Taste”

By Audrey Bourgeois

Published: 9/15/20XX

It is no secret in the fashion world that since the mysterious disappearance of Emilie Agreste, famous Parisian actress, model, and wife of Gabriel Agreste—the man who had single handedly built the Gabriel brand from the ground up—the once envied designer had shut himself away from the world. Living the life of a recluse and refusing nearly any physical human interaction.

That is not to say that the man had lost his ability to design and to run his business, he just now does it all from the Agreste Manor in Paris, France. According to sources he now mostly conducts business meetings via videoconference calls and oversees the employees of this fashion empire via his ever-present and faithful assistant, Nathalie Sancoeur.  It was not until a little over a year after the disappearance of his beloved wife that Gabriel Agreste, at last, decided to grace the world with his presence. Appearing, for the first time in public, at the Gabriel Spring Fashion Show, where his own teenage son and Paris heartthrob, Adrien Agreste (age 15), was walking the catwalk modeling one of the newest spring suits and featuring a stylish bowler hat, designed by a talented and young up-in-coming designer, Marinette Dupain-Cheng (age 14).

Despite certain incidents that occurred on that day. Part of which was caused by the gross oversight Gabriel Agreste (a first sign to be sure). The show could still be considered a success and did showcase to the rest of the fashion world that Gabriel Agreste’s talent and designing abilities still reigned supreme and are still a force to be reckoned with, regardless of any personal issues he may be facing in private.

It seemed as if Gabriel was making small steps towards the acceptance in his single life.

Turns out this one moment of public interaction may have been the first cry for help.

His latest decisions in regards to just WHO represents his brand have been nothing but questionable and completely and ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

This past season Gabriel had introduced a new face to its teen fashion line. One Lila Rossi (age 15).

At first it seemed as if this was simply a pity shoot for one of Adrien Agreste’s little schoolmates, as they both attend the same school and are in the same class.

But, alas, this was tragically not the case.

Despite her clear lack of ascetic taste, especially when it came to her own hair. Really, someone should tell that poor child that hanging two sausages on both sides of her face not onlyfails to come across as ‘trendy’ but it sends an ENTIRELY different message.

I’m both surprised and appalled her mother would leave the house with that style.

I certainly would never allow my own child to been seen like that in public.

Unfortunately, that first shoot was only the beginning as Ms. Rossi has appeared alongside fellow model, Adrien, in three more shoots and a commercial that pathetically tries, and monumentally fails, in portraying them as a young couple in love.

I have worked in fashion long enough to be able to spot what works and what does NOT a merely a glance. But one does not even need to be an INTERN to recognize that the dynamics between Adrien Agreste and Lila Rossi is so utterly ridiculous to the point a shutter of nausea courses through one’s body.

While Adrien continues to hold his own in the modeling world, despite the large shadows that both his parents cast, he is able to shine on his own merit and truly does have the looks and talent to model and act (no doubt traits he inherited from his mother). The same cannot be said for Lila Rossi.

Lila Rossi’s whole look (if you can call it that) is simply not genuine. I have worked in this industry long enough to be able to tell the diamonds apart from the rhinestones. Lila Rossi may want for people to believe that she is a diamond, but she is, without a doubt a rhinestone. Cheap, easy to produce, and a one in a billion find. Oh, sure she may have charm and charisma to carry some solo stock picture photo shoots but in order to make it in the Fashion World one requires to have a certain light and spark that stands on its own.

To put it simply, this girl has no discernable personality. Her expressions are stagnant, as if she had to practice being human, her posing leads me to believe she is merely trying to look good for the camera instead of working to display the clothing and products in their best light, and she has close to no versatility in any of the photo-shoots she has done as all of her pictures can be simply described as her in different outfits but using the exact same four expressions over and over again.

When I say the same expressions, I mean—THE EXACT SAME.

The Sophia robot emotes more human emotion than Rossi.

It is Adrien who carries the shoots and is doing the lion shares of the work while Lila Rossi does her best to APPEAR like a model. To put it simply—she is NOT.

Her hair is just one issue, but it her overall presence that just scream ‘Fake’.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and unfortunately, there are many pictures to choose from.

In the very first photo-shoot that was done with Adrien as her co-model you can easily see the disparity between the two. While Ms. Rossi seems more than happy to be in a loving embrace by one of Paris’ most eligible young bachelors, the same cannot be said for the young Agreste heir. There is an obvious tension in his body language that does not show in any of his other photo-shoots, including ones where he and another model were portraying romantic feelings for those ads. The untrained eye can see the slight curve of his spine, as if he wishes to get away but can’t, the small tension in his smile that screams, “I don’t want to be here but I have a job to do”.

My final verdict to the latest photo-shoot from the Gabriel name, that once more featured Adrien Agreste and Liar Rossi, was that is was ridiculous, completely and utterly ridiculous!

Inside sources on location where the two teens have modeled have also confirmed that there does not seem to be any natural chemistry between them and that Adrien had picked up a habit of making himself scarce until he is needed. Other sources verify that Lila Rossi seems to cling to him as much as possible. Perhaps, in the hopes that someone will confirm her own pathetic delusions of the possibly budding relationship between the two of them?

And my does this girl have a number of delusions.

Not counting the one where she THINKS she can model.

According to several interviews that this girl has given to the sub-par tabloid blog, TheLadyblog, she claims to be the best friend of the Parisian super-heroine, Ladybug. Claims to have connections to multiple high-profile celebrities such as Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale. Going as far as to claim that Jagged Stone even wrote a song about her. Lets ignore the legal implications of a man in his early thirties writing a song about a child for a second and continue examining more of said child’s claims.

According to another interview she gave on the same trashy blog, she claimed to be involved in multiple charitable organizations and causes, citing different projects that she has ‘supposedly’ helped with and oh so humbly placed most of the successes of those projects on her shoulders.

An official statement from Gabriel has stated that the girl has multiple health issues as well and is an inspiration on her abilities to overcome those obstacles in order to model and her other so-called various charitable actions. Very, well we won’t pry into a minor’s personal health.

Her public life, however, now that she is in the public domain is fair game.

It did not take even twenty minutes of searching to find absolutely NO validity to any of her claims.

Her claims of being a close personal friend of Ladybug: FALSE

-      The timeline does not match her arrival to Paris with her family. Nor does allow for ample time to establish any sort of close friendship.

-      Ladybug herself has the sense to never reveal anything about her personal life, but a little nobody is more than happy to broadcast their ‘supposed’ friendship on a blog that could once claim to be the best source for information on Paris’ two heroes? I think not.

-      Eyewitnesses from when the girl was Akumatized into Chameleon and subsequently defeated on the Eiffel Tower stated that Lila Rossi seemed to hold animosity towards the red clad heroine.

-      Ladybug has made no statements in knowing Lila Rossi and there has been no photo documentation of the two seen together, even though Ladybug can be seen almost daily swinging around and running along Paris’ rooftops with Chat Noir.

Her claims about Jagged Stone writing a song about her because she saved his kitten on airport runway: FALSE

-      Jagged Stone has never owned a kitten according to his personal assistant, Penny Rolling, and his exclusive interview with La Mode three years ago that revealed that the only pet he ever had other than his current pet crocodile, Fang, was a dog as a child in the States.

-      A quick Internet search also reveals that Jagged Stone and Lila Rossi have never even been in the same country together until four months ago. The rock star was still on tour in America while Ms. Rossi was in Paris, France.  The date of the Ladybloginterview is time stamped long before then.

Her claims to helping inspire and help co-write Clara Nightingale’s last album: FALSE

-      Countless interviews with the pop singer, and official statements upon the release of her album, Heart of Gold, will reveal that the inspiration for said album was her grandmother in her native home country of Brazil.

-      This was also the first album that Clara had written completely on her own in order to establish her own unique flair.  

-      I personally reached out to Clara herself and confirmed that she has never, met or even HEARD of a Lila Rossi. Strange? One would think that such collaboration would ensure that one of the parties involved would at least remember the other’s name?

Her claims to travel with Prince Ali of the Kingdom of Achu for environmental charitable work: FALSE

-      Again, a quick Internet search of the Prince’s official website and bio lists all of the organizations he is involved with. All of which focus primarily on children such as the International Coalition for Equal Opportunities, the World Health Organizations vaccinations drive, and the Refugee Children’s Fund to name a few.

-      A quick call to the royal family’s publicity affairs office confirmed that Prince Ali had never been in contact with Lila Rossi and are now looking into the matter for themselves. After all, an unknown person cozying themselves up to the second in line to the throne is matter of GREAT interest to the Royal Head of Security.

Her other claims of travel to international destinations in the middle of the school year: FALSE

-      According to the Italian Embassy’s official website Mademoiselle Maria Rossi had been stationed in Paris since her arrival almost a year ago and has not left the country, other than for a few short trips back to Italy to visit family members.

Her claims in having trained in gymnastics, ballet, and figure skating and even going so far as medal in gold in all three at major competitions in Italy: FALSE

-      Again, a quick Internet search reveals all winners of the top twenty major competitions in Italy for the past fifteen years. Names, age, date, and location of the competitions are easily and readily available to the public. NOTHING about Lila Rossi winning gold in any sort of athletic competition.

Her claims of being invited to have tea with her Royal Majesty, the Queen of England: FALSE

-      Any and all of the Queen o England’s engagements are public records as well as very well documented. Surprise, surprise there is NOTHING about a Lila Rossi mentioned in any credible new source, or even a single tabloid blurb. The only thing to sustain such a claim is the word a child who actually believes that her jacket looks good in light of day.

Honestly, I could go on and on and even be able to write a whole book. This girl has told so many tall tales she makes elected officials seem honest.

So let this be clear to the world of Fashion.

Lila Rossi is nothing more than a liar.

A liar who had only as gotten as far as she did because she was lucky enough to find someone with a decent online following that was both gullible and stupid enough to post those interviews online without ever once providing additional sources to verify them or double checking those claims. It was not that difficult disclaim every single one of those interviews.

I timed myself and it did not even take me my lunch break to do so.

The very fact that this girl is supposed to be the lead female teen face of Gabriel makes me question Gabriel Agreste’s sanity. Does he honestly think that having Rossi represent his brand is the smartest thing to do?

There clearly must be something in the water in Paris if Gabriel Agreste had not even bother to run a simple background check on the girl in order to ensure that there were no skeletons in the closet that would haunt his brand. Turns out she did not have any, but she sure did purposely create them.

I have to congratulate Monsieur Agreste on this achievement though.

Never have I seen the credibility of a designer go from as set in stone, to as questionable as a ‘designer gown’ bought in a Sale-Mart so quickly. What other decisions is he making behind the scenes that will further clue us in to his mental decline. Will the next Gabriel Show feature plaid parachute pants with matching toucan bird print dress shirts?

Yes, it seems as though grief has finally come to claim another once brilliant designer if he is unable to see past the paper-thin façade that Lila Rossi believes will be able to get her through this world. All the signs are there in same hideous orange Rossi insists on wearing.

Clue number one should have been her clear lack of any substance, versatility, and talent after the first photo-shoot she appeared in. The transparent aversion his own son has shown towards a fellow classmate should have been clue number two. And finally, clue number three should have been that this girls climb to fame was all due to a tabloid blog, TheLadyblog, run by the amateur journalist of all amateurs journalists that could not even be bothered to check their sources.

Or Google for that matter…

Gabriel has been known to take certain risks in the past, but the decision to hire Lila Rossi is nothing more than a mistake.

For the sake of all of our ocular senses, both Gabriel Agreste and Lila Rossi are clearly in need of psychiatric help.

The sooner, the better.

-----

Yay, nay? What did you guys think of this little Fashion Editorial by the Queen of Fashion of the Miraculous universe. Any thoughts. This was just so much fun to write I am so doing a follow-up to this. 

Word Count: 1781 words

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Fandoms: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth

Characters: Elrond Peredhel, Elros Tar-Minyatur, Maglor | Makalaure, Maedhros | Maitimo

Additional Tags: One-Shot Collection, Non-Linear Narrative, Elrond-centric, Maglor-centric, Character Study, Family Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone Needs a Hug, let Elrond not lose anyone 2k20

Summary: Scenes of the kidnap family through Elrond and Elros' childhood, featuring difficult questions, buried feelings, and the fragile hope of a happy ending.

Can also be read below the cut

“Is it true what they say?”

Maglor raises an eyebrow at the twin crouched in the corner of his tent- twin, singular, he notes. Whatever little Elrond is going to ask, his brother either does not approve of the question, or does not know he is here.

That is interesting; Elros was always Maedhros’ mirror, so careful with his words and protective of his family. It has been two weeks since they took the twins, and for all that time they had been inseparable, clutching each other’s hands and dressing in identical, oversized tunics that they’d somehow stolen off Maedhros’ guards (the twins having long established him as the less frightening one, the one who didn’t make mistakes.)

You don’t go anywhere without me, they had overheard Elros telling his brother. You don’t say anything to them. They are dangerous, every single one.

But this time, Elrond had deemed it safe to come to him alone…

Maglor bites down a smile as he sets his book aside. “What do they say, little one?”

He leans forward unconsciously in his chair, and the child fails miserably in hiding his flinch.

Maglor could hit himself if it wouldn’t scare him more. Two weeks in and he has already forgotten what they are, his young captives, to the point that he has seriously contemplated trying to teach Elrond about the Music. Certainly there is none of that happening on the twins’ side, no fondness in Elrond’s eyes as he shuffles awkwardly to his feet.

Instead, Maglor hears on him the familiar tune of curiosity overlaid with fear, each pulling him in opposite directions. It is a few moments before the child finally approaches the desk, only to freeze at the sight of the two swords leaning against its side.

This was a mistake.

In the night, the world is quiet, and such thoughts can be discerned through the empty wind as a real voice. There is rarely anything so specific as dates or faces, but he has so far tolerated the rumors that he can read minds; if anything, it is useful for frightening away Orcs. Tonight, he is quite sure he would throw it all away in a heartbeat if it meant he never had to listen to Elrond wonder which of the blades he’d use on him first again.

He has fantasized about it for centuries- of being brought to Mandos and demanding that they take his curse away, of ridding himself of both of them, of taking the Silmarils in hand and throwing them into the ocean, and never looking back once, finally free-

Stop wandering around in your head, he remembers Celegorm snapping at him, and takes a deep breath, leans back again.

“You can ask me anything, you know.” He gives Elrond a tired grin. “What reason would I have to hurt you now? You are valuable hostages, you and your brother.”

It’s cold, unfeeling logic, and the child seems to trust it more than he does any living thing. He is cleverer than you by far, Maglor scolds himself. Outside there is the sound of his soldiers and the wildlife alike drifting off to sleep, and the calls of the night-birds in the forest overlap with the quiet, high notes of panic coming from Maedhros’ quarters; Elros has noticed his brother’s absence. They must be quick, then.

As if sensing this, Elrond takes a few more dragging steps until, finally, there is triumph: the child even looks him in the eye as he asks in a trembling voice, “Do you mean that?”

“Anything,” he promises. Then, in a last-ditch attempt to lessen the guilt in those two pale, thin faces reflected in the glass of his lamp, “It’s the least I owe you, after all this.”

All this. It is the closest they have ever come to discussing what happened at the Havens of Sirion. Maedhros has so far been unusually tight-lipped about the occasion, and Maglor is reluctant to speak of the Ambarussa aloud. Two weeks have been spent dancing around the subject, not least because they had no idea how the twins would react.

Maglor briefly wonders what Maedhros would think if he ever heard that they have spoken of it, and how it could have come up so easily; true, he has never been able to restrain his words in the late hours, but that was before the Nirnaeth. That was Makalaurë.

He waits on Elrond’s reaction, his chest already tightening in regret- regret that increases tenfold when the child only looks at him blankly, and he can hear nothing from him.

“Elrond,” he says softly and, he thinks to himself, more than a little desperately.

The little one has shrunk into himself, shoulders curling. He shivers and clenches his teeth, as if the question is fighting him on its way out.

“It’s alright,” Elrond says thickly. “I was about to bring it up anyways…”

Wind whistles in through the entrance of the tent, and between that and the shivering Maglor finds it impossible to stay still. He takes care to stand up as quietly as possible, recalling that the loudest sound in the caverns in Sirion had been his own footsteps. Elrond seems to relax slightly at that, more so when the heavy red cloth comes down between him and the night. He swallows hard, licks his lips carefully.

“It is about the Oath, Maglor.”

Maglor pauses. Well. He wants to call it a pause, but what he does is more akin to a flinch, as if their positions have been reversed- as if he still has a right to be wounded by the words of his hostage. He stares down at him, belatedly notices that his expression may be frightening, tries to adjust his face, and then decides it shouldn't matter; shouldn't matter, because Elrond is crying and there are more important things to worry about than vanity, and why is it that he looks so much like Amras when he cries?

“Did you choose to listen to it? Did you try to fight it?” Elrond bites his cheek, sudden tears shining in the lamplight. “Could you have broken it, if you chose?”

Could you have chosen not to attack our home?

And there it is, out there in the open. Maglor fights the urge to go and put his arms around the child, comfort him the way he did his brothers. Elrond is not Amras or Amrod or Curufin- Elrond wants nothing from him besides answers.

"I do not wish to lie to you..." he says haltingly, then stops at the panic building up inside the room; panic, then anger, then an utterly morose kind of resignation. Elrond had not wanted to believe it was his choice to pursue them.

He wanted to believe the best of him and Maedhros, he realizes, and he must be very careful not to let this affect his next words.

Maglor takes a deep breath and begins again.

"The answer to your question is yes, Elrond, and yet no; and there is no way to know for certain. There has been very little research done on this matter, and all I have to go on is my... personal experience."

He purposely mimics the tone of a lecturing tutor, a familiar voice, assuming Elwing had time and people enough to educate her children as they did in Tirion. This indeed appears to calm Elrond, and Maglor makes a mental note to start on a list of what alarms and does not alarm the twins. If Maedhros objects, he will make the point on valuable hostages and hope for the best.

"Yes, I suppose we could have tried to resist it. Maedhros could have held out a little longer, this I know. But it would have ended in utter failure for the rest of us, and in time for Maedhros as well. An oath gone unfulfilled, Elrond," he explains, "near as I can tell, manifests in the mind of the oath-taker as a permanent pain, sight or sound or thought, whatever it would take to drive them to keep their word. Eventually it was inevitable that we would have to seek the Silmarilli once more. For me the effect was doubled because of my music, and the fact that the Oath was first brought into the world by the sound of Fëanáro's voice; it was all that I could hear."

(And, he adds in his mind, the worst part was that I can no longer be sure Atya would not have said those things to me.)

Elrond nods mutely, and Maglor is suddenly glad that he never used his more practical songs at the Havens.

"And there was the matter of..." He pauses, feeling a headache coming, the sound of dying stars echoing in his mind. Speaking of the Oath, it seems, has brought it down on him again.

This is nothing compared to what the twins have gone through, he reminds himself, and continues on. "To be truthful, little one, the Ambarussa wished to avenge their" -a catch in his breath, remember the way Maedhros does it, how he distances himself from his words- "fallen brothers. They were very close to the three."

Elrond's mouth opens slightly, his lips in the shape of a silent oh.

"I will not say that it had to be the Havens, for we are not blameless; far from it. We are the only ones to blame. But nor can I say that we had the full choice." Maglor moves his weary gaze to the lamp, and speaks to empty air. "Does that answer your question, Elrond?"

Elrond blinks up at him, and for a long while the silence thickens, like snow piling up outside the windows in Himring. Maglor absently wonders if this child has ever heard of Himring- was he born after its fall? Did he ever hear of the Gap, the grand tales they made of the flight of the Bragollach's survivors? What does he think of him now, this son of Elwing's? It does not matter; at least, it should not, but Maglor has never been good at doing what he should.

Both of them startle when Elros' voice and panicked feet pierce the silence: "Elrond! Elrond!"

Elros, Elrond starts to say, then glances quickly up at Maglor, as if asking permission to leave.

"Go," he says with a wave of his hand, and collapses as much as he can in his hard wooden seat as he watches the two small figures make their hasty way from the kinslayer's tent, one of whom now knows everything that matters.

Ai, Káno, what have you brought upon yourself now?

Illusions

Having gotten absurdly obsessed with Julie and the Phantoms over the weekend, writing this seemed like the only option. 

This is a Caleb Covington POV fanfiction, and I’m writing it from the viewpoint that he isn’t quite the villain he appears to be. I have many theories about Caleb that I will be working into the story if I choose to continue it. This chapter covers the night that band plays the Orpheum, starting from around the time Julie returns home.    Weighing Options

L.A. 2020

Caleb stared into his dressing room mirror, barely noticing his own impossibly handsome reflection. They weren't coming. They really weren't coming. He glanced at the wall clock telling him it was ten minutes to midnight. Ten minutes before Luke, Reggie, and Alex would vanish into oblivion, or more accurately vanish into him.

The energy he'd been collecting from them for the past few days had had quite the effect. He wasn't sure he'd ever given such an electrified performance as the one he'd given this evening. The surges were coming rapidly now. Wherever the boys were, they were not enjoying themselves.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the link he'd forged so long ago. It had been an invaluable source of information thus far, alerting Caleb to all manner of fascinating tidbits. Perhaps even now the boys were regretting their decision and calling out for rescue. Naturally he'd provide one...though at this point he might demand some penance on their parts. A little groveling never hurt anyone. It was a bit demeaning the way he'd bent over backwards for a trio of children. Special children, he freely acknowledged, but still children all the same.

"-now! Go join Caleb's club! Please! It's better than not existing at all! Just go! Poof out! Do something! Please! Do it for me!" He knew that voice. Julie. Caleb grimaced. His...rival. How the mighty had fallen that he, Caleb Covington, found himself in competition with a teenage girl. At least she seemed to be conceding their little tug of war.

"We're not going back there." That was Reggie. Reggie, who'd been so enchanted with his club and all its delights. He'd chosen nothingness over Caleb. That was more than a little insulting.

"No music is worth making, Julie, if we're not making it with you. No regrets." Luke, who craved applause and an audience with a fervor matched only by Caleb's, had willingly surrendered both rather than join him. An unpleasant surprise to be sure. What of Alex? Was his silence implied solidarity or had he lost the ability to speak, choked with pain? Surely one of them had been moved by his performance?

Caleb shook his head. Pathetic, that's what it was. Of course Alex was in agreement. The boys were a package deal. He'd always know that. Convince two and the third would follow. Too bad he'd failed with all three. A swell of something unpleasant which he refused to name rose within him. Caleb pushed the feeling back down. Locked it tight in a box with all the rest the emotions he'd rather not confront.

"I love you guys." Julie's saccharine words were immediately followed by a curious sensation within his chest. Almost as if a rubber band were being pulled outward with the other end anchored inside his ribcage.

"How can I feel you?" Caleb paused in the middle of rubbing his chest. Feel him? Luke? Julie felt Luke? Luke was corporeal?

"I don't know." There was awe in the boy's voice. This was too much. Caleb needed to see what was happening. He focused on the doors outside of the garage the band called home. In a moment he was there, just out of sight. A voice drifted through the door.

"Alex, Reggie, come." He risked a peak through the window. All four figures within were far too distracted to glimpse him, immersed as they were in their group hug. A hug. It had taken Caleb decades and an enormous amount of soul links to achieve that feat. How had the boys managed in a few weeks? And...were they glowing? Not just in the "I'm a healthy teenager" way. In the "slap a halo on me, I'm an angel" kind of way. Caleb stepped back from the window. What was going on here?

"I don't feel as weak anymore." How marvelous for Reggie. Caleb, on the hand, was really starting to become uncomfortable. The sensation in his chest was only getting tighter.

"Me either. Not that I was ever that weak." Caleb felt a snap and three puffs of purple air rose from his shirt. His marks. Somehow Julie had overrode his marks. Yes, he'd been planning on removing them himself, but that wasn't the point. It was supposed to be Caleb's decision. The boys were supposed to know that it had been Caleb who'd shown them mercy despite their willfulness and general ingratitude. Julie had bested him, again. Would his humiliation know no bounds?

Caleb took a deep and calming breath. Yes, the urge to unleash some of his magic on the teens was great, but his self control was greater. He would need to regroup. He forced a smile and pictured the basement of his club. He came through in front of William's cell exactly as he'd intended.

"Hello William. Enjoying your timeout?" The skater immediately leapt up and ran over to the magically enforced bars.

"Is Alex alright? Did he cross over?" Caleb rolled his eyes, refusing to be moved by William's puppy dog like devotion. Sweet as the boy may seem, he had a short memory when it came to whom he owed allegiance.

"You do know that if the latter were true, I wouldn't be able to tell you the former." He examined his cuticles waiting for William's slow mind to process his words.

"Huh?" Precisely the response he'd anticipated. At least he'd been able to predict something accurately this evening.

"My dear William, it is fortunate you are so handsome. If the boys crossed over then no one would have any way of knowing if they were 'alright.' Something perhaps you should have considered before leading them down that ill-advised path." At this he fixed the boy with his most baleful glare. The teenager winced slightly, proving Caleb hadn't completely lost his touch.

"So...did they cross over?" Caleb pursued his lip, slightly irked he failed to totally intimidate the boy into silence. He supposed it was true what people said about love making young men bold.

He contemplated ignoring the question. What right did William have to an answer, after all the withholding he'd done in the past few days? Still Caleb had always been fond of the skater, perhaps been too indulgent with him. In a way the boy's unruliness was Caleb's own fault. He'd given the boy far too long a leash.

"I'll tell you, but only because I am the soul of generosity. No, the boys did not cross over. They are well for the moment. Though goodness knows how long that will last." Perhaps he shouldn't have tossed that last bit, but he was feeling frustrated.

"If you do anything to them I'll-" Caleb apparated to close the ten feet between William and himself. The boy tripped backward in surprise and lay sprawled on the floor gazing up at him.

"You'll what, William? Run over me with your skateboard? Oh that's right, it's not in there with you is it?" The look on the boy's face turned from scared to mulish in less than three seconds.

"I'm not sorry." Caleb raised his eyebrow. William may be developing a bit of a backbone after all. What inconvenient timing.

"Why would you be? It's not as though you completely and utterly betrayed the man who took you in and gave you a home. Who taught you all manner of tricks and even let you grind down the rails of his club." William crossed his arms, but the hunch in his shoulders demonstrated the boy wasn't entirely without remorse. Perhaps there was hope for him yet.

"It wasn't like I was damaging them." Then again perhaps not. Lord spare him the antics of petulant teens.

"The point is after everything I've done for you, I deserved a little more loyalty than what you've shown me." William sprung to his feet as quickly as he'd fallen, something in Caleb's accusation striking a nerve.

"You cursed my new friends and my...Alex. And why? Because they didn't want to join your house band? Why couldn't you have just left them alone?!" Caleb felt his lips thin. He HAD already deigned to explain to William why he couldn't simply let the boys waste their talents as they saw fit.

"I already told you, they are too powerful." It may not have been the WHOLE truth, but it was part of the truth, which frankly was more than most people got from him.

"So because you're threatened by them-" Caleb cut William midstream with a snort.

"I am not threatened by them." It was simply too much to let stand. The idea that with all of Caleb's many abilities, he was intimidated by three teenagers was laughable. Yes, the boys could, if they worked at developing their talents, one day learn many of the tricks he'd mastered. However, they'd need to survive the next few decades first, and their stubbornness and recklessness all but ensured they would not. At least not without his help.

"Then why?" A more complicated question than the boy realized, touching on secrets Caleb did not care to reveal.

"You'll be in the cell for the rest of the week. After that you're confined to the club until further notice. No skateboard." A fairly lenient sentence as far as Caleb was concerned. He'd certainly been harsher to other spirits for less. William opened his mouth, either to protest or to restate his question, but Caleb quelled him with a single raised eyebrow. The boy's jaw snapped shut. That was more like it.

Caleb vanished and re-materialized his suite. He paused a moment before heading to his end table and decanting himself some brandy. Ordinarily wine was his preference, but tonight he needed something stronger.

When he finished pouring, Caleb lowered himself into his velvet armchair. He regarded the liquor in his glass a moment before taking a sip. Of all the many skills he'd acquired over the years, the ability to manifest food and drink that could be consumed by ghosts was one of his favorites.

With a sigh he turned his thoughts to more pressing matters. What to do about the children? They needed to be saved from themselves. That much was clear. First Youtube and now the Orpheum. In this day and age, with every lifer carrying a camera in their pocket, discretion was more necessary than ever.

Did it really not occur to the boys there were reasons ghosts, which had been around since the dawn of humanity, still were considered myths? Did it not dawn on them that someone kept things that way? Yes, they'd been passing themselves off as holograms, but how long until someone saw through that charade? He was frankly shocked it hadn't happened already. They were calling themselves "Julie and the Phantoms" for goodness sake!

Julie. Even thinking her name brought a sneer to his lips. How had she gotten the boys to choose her over him? He supposed Luke wasn't so surprising. The boy was besotted after all. Reggie, though, who found the scores young women and meatball subs so appealing? And Alex, whose infatuation with a certain young skater was so great? It was quite frankly unfathomable.

Still, Caleb had never been one to surrender without a fight. Short term he had but one goal: Break-up their band. Separate Julie from the Phantoms, preferably in a way that didn't implicate him. He settled in to consider his options. It was going to be a long night.

Taken from @werebearbearbar

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in  2020. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love! <3

I started writing fic years and years ago. And have done so in other fandoms before taking a long hiatus from the writing world in general. I stuck with written roleplay only. For  what I assume to be around four or five years, I did not write a single fic. (I also wrote short stories in childhood, teen years and young adult years)

(I want to point out though that this absolutely does not negate roleplay writing, and that writing with another person, or in a group is a lesser form) My break from fanfic came with one of the worst periods of my mental and physical health, and everything I had written was purged from my Ao3 account in a single night.

I started writing for The Old Guard in August, and below, are the things I like a lot that I’ve written for it. To do this, I decided to use the criteria of ‘fics I like the most’ instead of what seems to be the most popular to read. For me, if I really love a piece of work, I recall the creative process fondly, and have lines and bits of dialogue I truly adore within it.

1. Precision Mission Fic. Gala. Post-Movie. Current Group (Nile, Andy, Joe, NIcky)

Rated  M (Mature) 4846 words

My second fic for the fandom that I published, but the first I actually conceptualized. This one is just..so special to me. I have phone notes typed at five am. I can recall the excitement as I was so eager to share this story and get it off the ground. I wanted to see this complete so bad. I loved nearly every second of writing it, and it’s always going to hold a special place in my heart as a result. There’s so much overdone clothing talk and I can only think of it with fondness. 

Excerpt:

None of them are comfortable. Except Joe, it seems.

Joe makes it look easy. Simplistic, even, judging by the way he effortlessly glides and charms his way through the expansive ball/congregating/entertaining room. Something that never failed to fascinate Nicky was the way Joe could integrate himself almost seamlessly into any scenario, situation, or environment. Neither Andy nor himself had that ability. Not when it came to cavorting, anyway. Nicky more quietly reserved, Andy lacking in the ability to care enough to fake it.

Nile seemed to be more in the middle. She did not appear overly comfortable with the mingling, but she had enough personal grace and adaptability to make it seem somewhat effortless to have a decent time.

All their eyes remained sharp on the surrounding area, awaiting the arrival of their target. And for all his schmoozing, Nicky knew Joe’s surveillance was tack-sharp, multitasking to a degree no one he was currently conversing with could have possibly noticed.

“You going to move at some point, or have you taken up permanent resident status here?” Nile asks, appearing at his side where Nicky has spent the last half-hour molded to the furthest left corner of the solid black bar. “I know you have an excellent view, but.”

Nicky snorted, though only Nile could actually tell, “Why waste a good opportunity?”, momentarily ceasing his Joe watching to stare back into the depths of his glass, which currently contained some horrifically shocking pink abomination, Nicky’s second drink, since he was letting the bar tender dictate them, too utterly distracted to care what was touching his lips, and curious with the way the bar tender had delighted in being given free reign to make whatever he desired.

To be fair, it didn’t taste that bad-something frighteningly sugary and weirdly noxious smelling, but it’s not exactly ‘crime against humanity’ levels of alcoholic nightmares.

--

2. Old

Post-movie. Current Group. (Andy, Nile, Joe, Nicky) Mortal Andy. Character study.

Rated T (Teen and Up Audiences), 2903 words.

My first attempt at Andy-centric writing. Andy is a character I consider a challenge to write, and that makes me want to write her more. This fic centers mostly around her and the others trying to come to terms with how much has happened, within day to day life and taking the comfort that they can in one another.

I really like this fic. A lot. Sure it’s short. Sure maybe not much happens, but Andy’s character fascinates me, as does her relationship with her family.

Excerpt:

Old.

Old

Old

So motherfucking old.

Someone is calling out to her, her hearing and senses long fine-tuned to knowing. It’s Nicky- she can easily pretend she can’t hear him, he knows when she doesn’t want to talk to anyone, after all.

She’s being petty, and she knows it’s unfair. That the nearly untouched plate and nights spent not sleeping gives them reason to be at her. But facing them with that fact feels about as ideal as jumping into a flaming volcano right about now. They’re just worried. It makes her stomach turn, sour and vicious. Venom in the gut, acid in the heart.

Said volcano would be kinder.

--

3. Spice it Up (Or Not)

Joe and Nicky. Pre-Movie. Fluffy Lovings

Rated: E (Explicit) 3030 words

This one was just fun. I am such a sucker for banting, and the most established of established relationships that Nicky and Joe have going on. This one is indeed not safe for work, and honestly, the opening paragraphs are what came first, and I actually had to build the story around it.

Something that I think makes this fic fun to me as well is that, just because something that sounded like a good idea fails, it doesn’t make it an ending. Healthy communication, knowing each other..it’s so blissful to think about.

Things aren’t always perfect, but that’s okay. And it’s not always a threat. Oh and because this is me, what was supposed to be fairly light hearted gets all sappy and reflective mid-way.

Excerpt:

He knows Nicky in every way. He knows his scent from battle, from sex, from showers and from sleep. He knows his eyes in darkness, in light, in dread, excitement and worry. He knows his grief, his love, his sadness, and adoration. Excitement, passion, fear, and pain.

He could count each tear that Nicky has shed, could recall each tone of his voice in every language they know. From the first he heard to the current. The sweet harmony of song and the rough gasp of drunk intoxication. He’s heard him yell, heard him scream. Heard his shouts and his cries.

He knows how Nicky tends to favour his left shoulder even though there’s no reason beyond psychological to do so. A spot Joe stabbed so long ago. So far back in another life. He knows how he likes to pause and do surveillance before they enter any new location. Knows he likes vehicles that move fast and has a fondness for roller coasters.

He’s seen those hands, so large and skilled break bone, wield a sword and cut vegetables and fruit. Seen them card through his hair, felt them map out each knot and ridge in his spine and ribs, felt them so deep inside himself he can taste it. Rolling into it. Demanding, needing.

“Yusuf.” Nicky’s not calling him back, Nicky’s just as far gone. So often they seem to share thoughts.

Nicky knows Joe in all ways and more. Knows that Joe still sometimes seems to speak ancient by-gone languages in his sleep. Knows that he tends to carry the strongest personal scent in the dead of night. That no shower, no soap, no life experience or battle has truly ever masked the delightful musk he has to himself. There could be a cologne out there that would modify it, and Nicky would bite and lick it away. Demanding and asking, why take this from me? How dare you try to alter what I know and love so furiously?

--

4. Touch Before Heart

Historical Kaysanova. Early Years. Pre-Movie. Getting to Know Eachother.

Rated E (Explicit) 5030 words

As is pretty obvious by now, I write a LOT of early years Kaysanova. A lot. I am addicted to it.

This one..I love it. This might be one of my favourite pieces of writing of all time. If I was doing these numbers strictly in order preference, then I’d put it as number one I bet.

I think the summary I made for it sums up well just how much I love it. And maybe why.

The first moment they’re able to have a bath, they resolutely do not look at each other. Picking opposite ends of the small stream bed, backs turned to one another. A strange show of both trust and distrust; their backs were exposed, but it was up to their tentative mutual agreement to not partake in the opportunity to stab each other for it.

The..idea that they had so much to learn, so much to understand. So much confusion, anger mistrust..I just really really adore this fic and I think I did a good  job with it.

Excerpt:

He curses in unison with Nicolò, both holding fast and steady as the thing finally rights itself, Nicolò letting out a slow, shaken breath of relief.

“Are you alright?” Yusuf asks, both to break the silence and mend the irritating gap they’ve created for themselves.

“Better. Thank you.”

Yusuf wants to scream.

He wants to grab Nicolò, shake him until he can do nothing but give him answers.

Why do you drive me to the brink of madness?

Why do I know your touch, but not your heart?

Why do you tempt me, consume me?

What does it mean?

Why are we here?

Why!?

It is an unfair desire; he’s hardly given the man any more clarity.

--

5. Curated

Post-Movie. Current Group (Nile, Andy, Joe, Nicky)

Rated G (General Audiences) 1807 words

Alright, I admit it, I had trouble picking number five. I picked Curated because it’s just..so fluffy. But it’s so sweet I always feel so sugary when I think of it. The softness that I tried to convey, and I think I succeeded.

Nile is another character that fascinates me, that  I just do not explore enough, and this is all the comforting goodness I could ever hope to create.

Excerpt: 

She’s grown used to the easy intimacy they all share, but the sight before her, Nicky’s eyes half-lidded, face a perfect serenity she rarely see’s on it, Joe lost, far-away in reciting but still wholly present, creates an odd, near-throbbing ache in her chest. Something powerful and raw. It’s hard to imagine that people who have been alive this long can be this content.

Everything they’ve seen, experienced and done. All the stories they’ve regaled her with. All the prep, the anxieties, the concerns, and curiosities. None of it seems to exist in these moments. Joe speaking in a language the world might think dead, the true master of softness within the room.

--

And there we have it! I have so much more I want to write, I have so much more I want to explore, and I thank you all for sharing in these journey’s with me. May there be more writing in our future!

The Theme of Free Will in Yandere Simulator

So in the past, I’ve speculated at length about what some broad story points might be for Yandere Simulator and while I’ve revised my opinion on the significance of a character like Fun Girl (her statement of “YOU BELIEVE EVERYTHING I SAY. I WONDER WHAT ELSE I CAN TRICK YOU INTO BELIEVING?” feels a bit embarrassing in hindsight) I do think there are broad strokes that can be taken from what I wrote and applied to newer story points that’ve been shared with us since. You can consider everything below a refinement of those original ideas, I suppose. Let’s start by going back and revisiting Saikou Corp. Note: some of this information doesn’t have a specific source other than vague recollections aside from what YandereDev has said on Twitter, Reddit, etc. so apologies in advance.

What, exactly, do we know about Saisho Saikou? If we’re taking Fun Girl less as an actual plot point herself and more as a vehicle to deliver exposition to the audience then we can summarize a fair few things:

He was drafted into the service of the Imperial Japanese Army at age 17 in the closing days of the war. This retroactively confirms his date of birth was some time in 1928, meaning Saisho is 91 in 2019.

Saisho was confined to kitchen duty after being transferred to Okinawa at first. This changed after a bomb tore his dorm apart and he was trapped with the corpses of his friends for hours until he was rescued by other troops. During the attempted retreat after their rescue operation he called them cowards for wanting to fall back in the face of American forces. The memories of being stuck there with his dead friends still haunts him.

After being moved to a bunker, he was under constant stress from air raids and a chronic lack of sleep as well as malnourishment. When the U.S. finally found their hiding spot he tried to pull a pin on a grenade but it failed to detonate; he was promptly captured afterwards.

- From the June 1, 2018 Fun Girl text files We know little of his life after the war at the moment other than in 1946 he was reduced to running the company that would become Saikou Corporation out of his family’s garage (much like the company it parodies, Sony, was forced to do at first in our world by its creators). Given his later characterization I suspect that he probably ruthlessly took advantage of the breaking of up so many of the zaibatsu (large financial or industrial conglomerates owned by specific families; Mitsubishi is an example) by the American occupying forces following the war. In the decades following his country’s defeat Saisho created an enormous megacorporation that makes most of the consumer products seen in Yandere Simulator’s universe. As Headmaster Shuyona later relates to us, once he puts his mind to something he never takes no for an answer. Aside from the obvious wealth aspect that it grants him, though, what else is at work in his mind?

Like so many others, the defeat of Japan in the war simply unimaginable to him and, as far as he’s concerned, even if everyone else surrendered he never did.

The brainwashing and propaganda of the early Showa period never left him; as more and more Western influence began to creep into Japan, the more he began to freak out about it. Progressive politics and democracy are things he utterly despises.

Unsurprisingly, his reactionary politics have a racial component to them. For Saisho, the only people fit to rule the world are the Japanese and that if only everyone else realized it, there’d be a worldwide utopia. Though not outright confirmed, this also goes some way to explaining the almost eugenics-like obsession with ‘purity’ in the modern Saikou clan.

Even so, probably through careful PR stunts and knowing when to keep his mouth shut, Saisho’s worst beliefs aren’t known to the public.

- From the December 1, 2018 build’s Fun Girl files

It’s with some surprise then we know for a fact that Saisho wanted his firstborn daughter to inherit the company after he was ready to retire and only kept his son, Megami’s dad, as a backup. Despite the grueling and inhuman training that each Saikou generation seems to be put through, it seems that Saisho did genuinely love his daughter based on what Headmaster Shuyona confirms in Headmaster��s Tape #1. While this seems incongruous at first with his far right politics I think it’s helpful to see it less as a belief in equality between men and women, but instead that since she was a Saikou, she was inherently a cut above others because of that. Not many fathers would have schools built for their children in their honor if something wasn’t genuine, I think.

Megami’s aunt is a very interesting character at the moment. We know nothing about her other than the fact that she was first in line for the proverbial throne and hasn’t spoken to Saisho in 30 years because of him disowning her after they got into an argument. Fun Girl seems to hint that the conversation revolved around her trying to remember a supposed sister of hers (i.e., her) but this might just be her trolling us all. I think there’s something else very important given that time frame we also need to keep in mind: the date. What’s 30 minus 2019? 1989.

If we assume for a moment that Akademi opening its doors in 1985 was her first year, then following traditional Japanese high school length, it stands to reason her graduation occurred in 1988. The following year, Ryoba’s murder of the girl who was almost certainly Headmaster Shuyona’s daughter must’ve sent serious shock waves through Buraza Town. Megami’s aunt would’ve probably followed the proceedings with a lot of interest and I think a reason she parted ways with Saisho is because Saikou almost certainly tipped the scales in favor of Ryoba during her trial against the journalist. Why? Because of the country’s insanely high conviction rate. It’s greater than 99%. You’d practically need a miracle to get through it all and make the person who tried to take you to court look like a monster for doing so - something we know she pulled off. It’s not something that she could’ve done on her own without money changing hands or judges being properly blackmailed and flipping the media circus around. Headmaster’s Tape #6 also confirms that by 1999 Ryoba had seemingly regular contact with Saisho and Megami’s dad but it’s easy to extrapolate that they must’ve been speaking with one another prior to then; after all, just because Shuyona didn’t know about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen (it doesn’t help him either that Saisho almost certainly sees him as a useful idiot). Learning a dark secret like this about your own family, coupled with the hell they put you through growing up, would break anyone and I think it’s a good explanation of why she left. If we accept that Saikou Corporation are Ryoba’s and Mr. Aishi’s employers then several things fall into place - why they haven’t ever had to move, why they live in a well off neighborhood, how they can simply up and leave for 10 weeks at a time to a foreign country - and the picture comes into focus. One of the things that Fun Girl seems to confirm is that Saisho’s love for Japan is equally as strong as what Ayano feels for Senpai. Knowing what we know about how the Aishi family curse seems to work, that’s pretty bone chilling. Coupled with every other horrible thing he thinks, combined with his vast wealth and influence, and it’s a recipe for disaster. The question becomes, however, what the point of all of this is. What could a murderous young woman possibly offer one of the most powerful companies in the world? Her body and mind. Stick with me here. Pretend you’re a scientist working for Saikou Corporation and you’re tasked with finding out what makes Ryoba tick; we’ll ignore for the moment any possible supernatural angle that the story might develop to explain their condition. The Aishi ‘curse’ seems to be a psychological condition, effecting the maternal line, that results in its carriers possessing severely stunted emotional growth, antisocial personality traits, flat affects, monotone voices, etc. This begins to alter in the host, however, an intermittent time after puberty in their late teens when, through various circumstances, meeting an individual causes an unknown psychological trigger to occur, acting as a kind of drug that for a time rewires the brain to enter a euphoria-like state wherein they begin to function on a neurotypical level, but only in contact with the source of this change (19 being the median age when an Aishi woman typically marries their victim). What if you could isolate the factors that cause such a thing to occur? 30 years is a long time to study something, after all, and decades’ worth of research must’ve meant some kind of breakthrough. Assuming that Saikou Corporation is like any other megacorporation in fiction then they’re sure to have their hands in medical technology. Imagine taking the research you’ve done on a so-called ‘yandere’ and began to try recreating it. After all, the idea of being able to use certain external symbols or things as stimuli is practically dystopian in its usefulness. Like, say, introducing a corporate symbol and ensuring its customers only felt a sense of satisfaction when buying a certain product.

Let’s go further than that. What if you could engender the same feelings of emptiness, followed by unbridled joy, when looking at something as simple as a flag? Not only could you brainwash an entire nation, but any other place on earth that allows the services you provide as a global company...

From this perspective, the “why?” of Saikou Corporation involving themselves with Ryoba becomes evident. After coming to this piece of speculation, if it is the case, something else also really clicked for me. Two things, actually. The first is that it’d give new meaning to the speech Megami tells you on the Skype chat you can have with her at school:

Is someone there?...Ah! It's you...Why have you come here? Have you come here to taunt me? Do you even know who I am? I know who you are. I know WHAT you are. My father won't allow me to attend school while you are..."active". He has a reason for tolerating your presence at this school. I don't. You are a vulgar creature that is only allowed to exist because you serve a purpose. If it was my decision, then every last one of you would be exterminated. Have fun while you can. If you and I ever cross paths...you're going to have a bad time.

The purpose is to further Saikou Corporation’s knowledge of the yandere condition and to find further ways to exploit it. Megami’s dad is in on this scheme and has purposefully kept Megami off campus while Ayano is on her murder spree as a way to keep her safe. What’s more, Ayano isn’t the only yandere that’s active either. Such a statement is more revealing than you might imagine it to be too. I think it’s pretty accepted at this point that the journalist’s wife was a yandere herself. He tells us as much in Mysterious Tape #6

But as soon as we met, she wanted to spend every waking moment with me. She wouldn't let me out of her sight, and got possessive if another woman so much as looked at me.

I quickly began to depend on her for everything. It wasn't long before I couldn't live without her. I certainly wasn't in any state to take care of myself... I was like an adult-sized baby. Helpless and vulnerable. Who knows...maybe that's what she was attracted to. Maybe she just wanted to experience the sensation of owning a person. Maybe she wanted to keep a human pet.

Isn’t it odd how she showed up in his life only a year after his ordeal with Ryoba in court? How his marriage to her didn’t involve them leaving the town at all? If I were him, I would’ve probably left it behind a long time ago, especially if it brought up memories as traumatic as what he’d experienced (and the fact he was directly threatened by Ryoba too). But instead his marriage and alcoholism caused him to never get out until it was too late. The timing seems... convenient, doesn’t it? Almost as if it were planned.

It wouldn’t be hard, I think, to sic some girl afflicted with the condition on someone either in hopes they’d ‘imprint’ on them or alternatively try to induce that very same response in them somehow. It’s a safe bet, again, considering how long Saikou Corp. would’ve had to pour over the data they’d collected. There surely would’ve been theories on how it happened and they’d be unethical enough to try it on human test subjects. So if they could do that, who might it happen to?

I think that an overarching narrative theme in-game is going to be that of free will. Let’s consider for a moment both Megami and Ayano as parallels to one another. Both are incredibly driven women who will stop at nothing to get what they desire - order for Megami, Senpai for Ayano - with familial histories of treachery and abuse. If Megami’s life has been lain down before her without her having much say in the matter, how does this similar struggle reflect in Ayano? Arguably, Megami could have everything she ever materially wanted in life just as Ayano has in the form of the feelings Senpai gives her but the issue goes deeper. If the price for Megami was having every moment planned out for her, is it not possible that the feelings Ayano has are just as manufactured? I don’t mean that in the ‘love at first sight’ kind of way; I’m questioning if the meeting with Senpai was something that was set up for her to go through, a test to see if this poor schmuck could be the thing that would let them begin to move onto a new test subject to put them through their glorified obstacle course (Akademi). Not to mention the fact that it essentially occurs right after Ryoba and Mr. Aishi leave for America is an immediate red flag. If Megami is trying to stop Ayano, though, then it must mean that she’s rebelling against the wishes of Saikou Corporation itself. After all, they don’t want something that they’ve put years of investment into slipping through the fingers if they can help it. The end game she has in mind is anyone’s guess at this point but I suspect it will be the purge of anything related to the above secret project. As such, there’s going to have to be someone to offer us an alternative to bringing down the current iteration of Saikou - and I think we also have an inkling of who’s going to aid us in bringing her down.

Kencho is emblematic of the status quo. He desperately desires his father’s approval (the one who’s likely continuing his father’s wishes and pursuing this whole endeavor to begin with) and will do anything to gain it. If Megami steps out of line too much, he’s certain to know that means she’ll fall from grace. He’s only been prevented from doing anything about his current situation because he’s only second best and hurting Megami would upset his dad. However, if she were to have an unfortunate accident... well, it isn’t as if he could be ignored anymore. In exchange, I imagine he’ll give Ayano exactly what her mother had: a nice house, a life untouched by anyone who’d take Taro or Taeko away from her, and a way for the two of them to have children if you go the latter route. All Ayano has to do is just give in to being a pawn like her mother did, like Kencho did, and like his father did. Or she can, at last, have the first real choice she’s ever had in her life by siding with Megami and tearing it all down (with Senpai still the promised reward in exchange for her help, certainly...).

Call out my name (a Tsurune songfic)

On ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23737015

Summary: A Tsurune songfic for the song "Call out my name" by the Weeknd. The lyrics, obviously, belong to the Weeknd.

This is a very heavily Seiya-centered fic about the progress of his and Minato's relationship through the years.

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences (because of two brief scenes)

Pairing: Takehaya Seiya x Narumya Minato

AN: Heya, dead fandoms, it me, ya enby, bringing you this songfic born out of me procrastinating on my other project, too much video games and anime (and anime video games) and my recent obsession with the Weeknd's music.

Huge disclaimer: this is my first songfic, so I hope it turned out fine. I did my best to time it correctly to the song (except for the last part). If you are listening to the song whilst reading, you should probably skip the lyrics to the outro and read the last part since it is quite lengthy and it will last even after the song has finished. I left the outro lyrics there mostly for the better visual arrangement.

Slightly less important disclaimer: I have watched both the anime and the OVA and only recently have begun to read the light novels. So this is canon-compliant only to the anime.

🏹💚🍃💙🏹

‘We are going to Kirisaki to do archery together! No matter what!’

Seiya didn’t mean to shout, especially not in a hospital and at his childhood friend. Nonetheless, Minato was going to give up the thing he loved most in the world. His resignation had gotten onto Seiya’s nerves – how could he throw his dreams away with such ease? How could Seiya allow him to throw out their dreams like they meant nothing…

The answer was he couldn’t. And he was determined to help Minato realize that.

We found each other

I helped you out of a broken place

You gave me comfort

But falling for you was my mistake

‘It’s okay, Minato.’

That was all Seiya could think of to say while Minato was mere seconds from breaking down in tears at the back of the hikae of the kyudojo. In all fairness, was there any way he could bear his pain fully as his own? Were there any words that could soothe Minato’s anxiety that weren’t absolute lies?

He missed. There was no getting around that. No matter how much he wanted to do it, Seiya could not rewrite this reality.

If there was a God somewhere, anywhere, they were Seiya’s witness to how much he wanted to help. But he couldn’t.

His heart ached with the realization that he was utterly helpless to do anything for his friend who, as of recently, Seiya loved more that the whole world.

So call out my name (call out my name)

Call out my name when I kiss you so gently

I want you to stay (I want you to stay)

I want you to stay, even though you don't want me

The blue-haired boy tossed and turned in his sleep.

‘Minato…’ he whispered in the darkness of his bedroom, sweat dripping down his forehead, his hand gripping the bedsheets tightly.

It wasn’t the first time he was having a wet dream about his green-eyed crush, nor it would be the last. He couldn’t really help it – keeping calm and quiet about his attraction to Minato all the time was bound to have its consequences. Those usually came at night, the time reserved to allow himself to be at his most vulnerable. Seiya’s pent up frustration took the form of his best friend in his subconscious, leaning over him, or maybe laying under him, kissing him or touching him, calling out his name or moaning in delight – honestly, it didn’t matter since it didn’t take much for the young archer to shoot his shot inbetween his cognizant and sleepy state.

Something for which his guilty consciousness would punish him the next morning.

I said I didn't feel nothing baby, but I lied

I almost cut a piece of myself for your life

Guess I was just another pit stop

'Til you made up your mind

You just wasted my time

‘I hate you, Takigawa-san.’

Seiya poured all his vitriol towards their kyudo coach in the sentence, hoping he would feel at least part of the pain that was currently busy mangling the young boy’s heart. And it seemed that his words had the desired effect on the older archer who, perhaps in shame, perhaps in regret, turned away and covered his face. Normally Seiya would think twice, or even thrice before committing such a cruel act upon anybody’s psyche and self-esteem. However, today he couldn’t care less; ever since practise had started his hands had been shaking, not from fear, but from anger – he was furious with Shuu, who didn’t give two shits about Minato as a person, only as an archer; at Takigawa-san for accidently doing something Seiya had failed at despite his continuous efforts; at himself, for ever thinking Minato would even consider him as something more than a friend.

So call out my name (call out my name, baby)

So call out my name when I kiss you so gently

So gently, I want you to stay (I want you to stay)

I want you to stay even though you don't want me

‘Seiya?’

‘Let me just rest for a minute.’

‘Sure.’

Even though his head felt like it was in a clamp, resting it on Minato’s shoulder seemed to alleviate some of the pain. The scene of the incident was replaying nonstop in the blue-eyed boy’s head; he wasn’t fully present in the moment. Everything felt surreal – he could still see the car crashing, Minato’s mother being flung over the windshield, broken glass flying everywhere, his best friend lying unconscious on the ground with a gaping, bleeding wound across his middle. The only anchor Seiya had to keep him in the present was this scarce physical contact, Minato’s natural scent and the calming rhythm of his breathing.

The lingering thought of whether Minato could ever understand the full extent of his feelings didn’t want to leave him alone.

I'll be on my

On my way, all the way

On my way, all the way, ooh

On my way, on my way, on my way

On my way, on my way, on my way

‘When you fall in love, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. All you have is a sense of having fallen.’

Takigawa-san’s words had left a permanent mark on Seiya’s soul, the individual syllables ringing in his ears as the boys were on their way home. Their team had won and Minato had managed to produce the tsurune in the most glorious way possible. But what had Seiya achieved?

Nothing. In fact, he was always so careful not to do something.

‘Seiya?’

Before he could notice, they had already arrived at their street. Minato had most likely attempted to say goodbye as they parted their way and went home. His friend had, of course, spaced out and completely ignored him.

‘Minato?’

‘Mm?’

‘I think Takigawa-san was very right to say that… that kyudo has a lot in common with love.’ He adjusted his glasses. Reflecting the light from the setting sun, the lenses managed to hide how he dropped his gaze to the ground. ‘I understood what he was trying to say because… because I know what it’s like.’

‘You… do? Are you in love?’ Minato’s expression was one of grave seriousness.

‘Mhm.’ The blue-haired boy muttered. Pinkish colour, reminiscent of sakura petals, had spread across his cheeks and nose, from one ear to the other.

‘I get why the others tease us about whether we are real best friends.’ His friend and fellow archer sighed. As Minato once again closed the distance between them, Seiya felt his heart drop to his stomach. ‘How come you had never told me?’

‘I… couldn’t find the right words…’

‘Who is it?’ the dreaded question arrived. Seiya opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. The only thing he was able to do was give Minato an allusive look, afterwards he again stared at his feet.

It took Minato a fair few seconds to get the meaning of Seiya’s previous actions.

‘You like… me?! Like that?!’

The other boy just nodded. Upon witnessing Seiya’s confirmation, the brunette’s whole face flushed bright red.

‘Really? For how…’

‘For a long time.’

Minato came even closer. The other boy was about to take a step back – even though he was technically taller, he got the feeling that his green-eyed crush was towering over him. Either that, or the thing leering over was the immediate rejection and judgement.

Or so he thought, until a slightly calloused hand found its way to his. He looked up and locked his sky blue eyes with Minato’s emerald ones, and he didn’t need to hear an audible confirmation of his friend’s feelings; the affection and excitement could very easily be read by his expression. That, and the fact Minato was now just few inches from his face, waiting for him to fully close the gap between their lips. And Seiya couldn’t imagine disappointing his best friend.

The One With The Blond Hair

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Pairing: Kuroo Tetsurou/Oikawa Tooru

Tags: Shenanigans

Word Count: 1.7k

Summary: 

Oikawa, stuck in the library with an unfinished assignment, is visited by Kuroo, who has nothing better to do.

Read on ao3 or below

For @kuroushi <3

There was no one at the library—that is, except for Oikawa, who had his books pinched under one arm. They were heavy, no doubt, but no more than the bag that he had slung over his shoulder. The combination of his laptop and his texts bent his back, and he swore that he nearly threw it out while walking up the stairs.

Having no other living being around him—not counting the withering librarian, who slept on the verge of death anyway—was a double-edged sword. For one, he could search up whatever he liked whenever he liked. He could also do without all the murmuring or other students who flipped their pages at an obnoxious volume. Or maybe, he could try—key word: try—to get ahead in his class work.

On the other hand, if he accidentally choked on spit, no one would hear and he would die in the most mortifying fashion known to mankind. Then his pathetic death would foster rumors around campus, and his name would be synonymous with "choking on air."

He shuddered.

At this time of day, it was common to see at least five faces occupying the space, so his surprise was warranted at the lack of people. But then he remembered that oh yeah, the school festival is today. Everyone would be on the main road—there would be games, pungent aromas of food, and inevitable shouting from all the clubs around campus.

Truthfully, he wanted to go. He was supposed to be the face of the volleyball team; in fact, he was voted the best representative due to his good looks and charming wit. But no, one bad grade, a good half hour of begging to his professor, and his lack of management skills led to him working on his make-up assignment last minute.

In true Shittykawa fashion. Great, his subconscious had even taken on Iwa-chan's voice to reprimand him. In turn, he fired off a text with a slew of emojis he knew would set his best friend off.

Working at the library meant no distractions. But that didn't mean he should limit himself, right? So again, in true 'Shittykawa' fashion, he took a seat near the window, where he had the perfect vantage point of all the festivities. He fished out his laptop and pulled it open, where it immediately displayed last night's Youtube adventures.

But he didn't notice. His attention was completely and utterly focused on everything that was happening outside. He could see everything.

Yet he missed the head of messy black hair that disappeared underneath the treetop and pulled open the library door.

Oikawa sighed wistfully and pouted. He wanted to join—he wanted to mess around, brag about his team, or even flirt around for fun. But that was all just a daydream now...a reality that would never happen.

"Oya? What's this?"

Oikawa internally flinched because he knew that voice. That sleezy, dragged out voice that never failed to hold some sort of mischievous intent. When he slowly looked up, one of the first things he noticed was that infuriating crooked smile that only Kuroo Tetsurou could pull off.

"Work, remember?" He slapped open a book, the hardcover slamming the table with a resounding bang that was much louder than he'd intended. The librarian up front snorted loudly before falling back asleep while slumped over her desk.

That's when he noticed that Kuroo wasn't staring at his books or at him. He was staring at his laptop screen. At the hundreds of tabs that were open at the top of his browser. The bright red Youtube logo that sat in the top left corner. And the colorful music video that overtook a good half of the screen.

"And honestly, nothing much except work. How's it going down there?"

Kuroo snorted. "It's going fine. Bo loves the attention since he's the 'face' of the team right now." Oikawa pouted; he was supposed to be the face. But he had to reap what he sowed, so here he was. "But really. What are you watching? It's not Japanese but...Korean?"

Kuroo pulled out the seat next to him and plopped down, leaning back to cross his arms behind his head.

"It's K-pop. Korean pop," Oikawa said, grabbing his laptop and sliding it closer to himself. He knew he was acting somewhat defensively, but he didn't know how else to react. He knew the stigma against the genre—that it was mainly teenage girls who liked the pretty young men and women who sang catchy songs and danced difficult choreographies.

Kuroo held up his hands and arched his brows at him. "Whoa, whoa. I was just curious. I've heard of the band before. Aren't they worldwide at this point? They performed in America, right? What was it—" He snapped his fingers. "—Billboard? Or was it some other award show?"

"You know them?" Oikawa leaned back, somewhat stunned. Internally, he knew he shouldn't have been so surprised.

Kuroo shrugged, "Well, they're on Japanese media as well. It's hard not to figure out who they are." Then he dug around his sweatpants, paused, and yanked out a tangled bundle of earbuds. With some effort and swearing, he managed to detangle them and plugged the jack into his laptop. "If you're all right with it."

Oikawa nodded, still somewhat dumbfounded, and took the offered bud. He stuck it into his ear, just as Kuroo slapped the space bar. The music video resumed to feature playful dance moves, which changed to colorful explosions, and then back to the group, which now donned traditional Korean outfits.

Kuroo whistled, "Look at those suits. And is his hair half blond, half pink?" He paused. "And is that a giant shark?" Oikawa snorted, more occupied with Kuroo's reaction. He didn't seem to have any other comments other than how he'd like to try wearing one of their colorful printed suits. He bobbed his head in time to the music, and when it ended, the next video in Oikawa's playlist popped up, depicting the same group with different fashions.

"Ooh, this one is darker," Kuroo mused. He leaned back but kept his eyes on the screen. Oikawa rolled his eyes and flipped through his book to find his dog-eared page. He paused as Kuroo whistled. "And it's more instrumental. I like it."

"That's cause it's the rocking version. The original is good too, but I like this one more."

The melody was more than familiar at this point, and Oikawa mouthed along the lyrics. Even with his limited exposure to Korean, he'd listened to the song enough to know what verses came next. The table rocked and his scribbling flew off his page. Oikawa turned to glare at Kuroo, who at this point was drumming his index fingers along the edge of the table.

He bobbed his head to the beat, eyes shut as he sang incoherent words under his breath—or his broken form of the language. At some points, there came the guitar riff, and Oikawa could only watch, absolutely exasperated, as Kuroo banged his head like a guitarist would on stage.

"What are you doing?" He flipped his pencil and began to erase away the jagged line that flew off the page.

Without opening his eyes, Kuroo answered, "Appreciating the music, of course. It's good. I like it."

"If you like meaningful lyrics, then I think you'd like the song even more," Oikawa sniffed, then blew away the eraser shavings that littered the page. "We can't speak Korean, but translation websites exists for a reason." Kuroo hummed and continued to bob his head, even when the song ended.

The next video began to play, but this one was much slower, the video opening with an image of the earth. Kuroo leaned in close, interest piqued—the nerd. It zoomed in until the earth disappeared to display an eye. And Oikawa's grip on his pencil loosened. He couldn't help it—he loved the song. It was so gentle, sung with such a tender voice. It also helped that the music video was just so aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

And it had stars. Oikawa loved anything that had to do with space.

"When you see me, when you touch me," he sang under his breath.

He hummed along and had to bite his tongue to keep from singing out loud. The librarian may have looked like death, but she had a temper as hot as the flames of hell. If he were home, though, it'd be a very different story. Even more so, if in the shower.

It was too bad it was only two and a half minutes. Kuroo seemed disappointed that it had to end as well, and he pressed down on the space button before the next song could come on. "I should go back before Bo gets too rowdy, but thanks for letting me loiter around." Oikawa yanked his earbud out and handed it over to him, and Kuroo stuffed the bundle into his pocket.

Pushing himself out of the chair, he groaned and stretched his arms over his head, arching his back. "I like the one that rapped. He was spitting fire, man."

Oikawa closed the tab, partly because he didn't need any more distractions and partly because he didn't want to waste all the battery on his laptop watching more Korean pop videos. "Really? You? Like rap? We all know you're a big softie," Oikawa snorted; he knew his friend inside and out.

Kuroo shrugged and started for the door. But then he paused in his step and backtracked until he stood next to his empty seat. He clapped the top of the back of the chair, and Oikawa sighed. "What?"

Kuroo pointed at his laptop, and a slow grin begin to widen on his face. "They're all good and talented, but you're right. I'm a big softie, which is why I prefer Jimin's singing over Suga's rapping." Before Oikawa could fully process his words, Kuroo walked away.

"But—but I thought you didn't know them?" Oikawa spluttered, gaping at his retreating figure.

Kuroo barked out a laugh and then turned over his shoulder to send him a wink. "Good luck on your stuff. Don't get too distracted watching BTS's videos—I know I do."

Chapters: 31/? Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin

PLEASE NOTE: Wolfstar Theme composed by @professrmoonylupin on tumbr, utterly brilliant of them to volunteer of their time to write this short piece of music, check out their blog on tumblr NOW here is the link to the music:

www.tumblr.com/reblog/182527273136/eVV0eVbZ

Summary

After Christmas, Lily and James attend Petunia's Wedding, Remus tries to work around Reg's Unbreakable Vow, and Lily's life implodes...

Notes:

Incredible thank you to @proffessrmoonylupin on tumblr for writing a beautiful violin solo for this chapter www.tumblr.com/reblog/182527273136/eVV0eVbZ It's divided into three parts, which will make sense when you read this. It was exceptionally kind of them to write it for me and I am so very grateful. Please check out their tumblr and leave some love/kudos!!!!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

                      Love & Many Laments

“Penny, you look gorgeous!” said Lily, trying to sound enthusiastic.

Petunia was wearing a flouncy, white, satin dress with a ruched, off-the-shoulder neckline and a matching choker. She wore extremely high heels which made her unsteady, so she was holding on to Vernon’s arm for dear life. Her hair was stiff from hairspray and coiffed into a complicated high chignon. She looked decidedly unhappy to see James, but she tried to smile back at Lily.

“Thank you, Lily,” said Petunia.

Penny hadn’t asked her to be bridesmaid, she had asked a girl she barely knew more than six months, in one of the agencies where she had been temping* in London in between modelling jobs. Her parents had narrowly avoided a full-blown row with Petunia that morning, and Lily and James had eventually been told to sit near the Irish (aka somewhat embarrassing) relations. Try though she might, Lily couldn’t help feeling angry and upset about how Penny had treated her. And she didn’t like Petunia’s dress. Yes, Lily Evans felt mean and petty today.

“Congratulations Vernon,” continued Lily stiffly, turning to her new brother-in-law.

“Thanks,” replied Vernon curtly.

“You look beautiful, Petunia,” said James, on his best behaviour.

Petunia’s mouth twisted in a failed attempt at a smile, but she nodded in acknowledgement.

“Vernon,” began James.

“Don’t you Vernon me, young man!” said Vernon, his face turning red as he spluttered indignantly. “You’re only invited because my good lady wife relented to my in-laws’ request. But I’m warning you, I’ll be keeping a very close eye on you all night, and so will my aunt Marge! Any sign of any sinister goings-on, and I’ll have the Bouncers escort you off the premises immediately. Is that clear?”

James felt Lily’s hand grip his arm.

“Perfectly clear, old chap,” said James. “And very wise. Never know what I might get up to with a few drinks on me.”

“Aunt Marge, how lovely to see you!” said Petunia loudly.

Lily moved James away from the newly-weds.

“Is that your wayward sister’s n’er-do-well beau?” asked Aunt Marge in her booming voice. “His hair is dreadful! What did you say he does for a living? Dropped out of school early, did he?”

“I’m afraid he never really attended proper school, Aunt Marge, I suspect he was expelled,” said Vernon, his moustache quivering. “I believe he’s now some kind of amateur magician**.”

“Oh dear, that won’t do!” said Aunt Marge, turning around sharply and staring at Lily. “He will have to go!”

“I doubt it’s very serious, they are only seventeen,” said Petunia, looking very embarrassed.

“Well, see to it that it ends, Petunia!” said Aunt Marge, poking the Bride forcefully with her short stubby finger. “I will not have Vernon marrying into riff-raff!”

“Of course not!” said Petunia, in a shrill voice.

“I’m sorry Lily, but I really can’t stand that fellow. And his aunt is such a weapon!” muttered James.

“My sister’s just as bad! How quickly can we get hold of a drink?” Lily groaned into his arm.

………………

“More magic, Mr. James!” Lily’s five-year-old cousin Roisin was looking at James with awe. “Please?”

James was surrounded by about a dozen unruly Irish children, hidden away in a corner of the Grand Superior Excelsior Hotel’s (decidedly mediocre) function room. They were watching him mesmerised, and screaming with excitement, as he performed magic tricks for them.

“What else would you like to see?” James bent down to talk to the quietly adorable girl who looked enchanted.

“A rabbit coming out of the hat!” Roisin giggled shyly, her bright blue eyes sparkling with delight. “A cute, furry one!”

“A rabbit?” said James, looking confused.

“Yes, magicians always have rabbits! You really ought to know that, James,” said Sean, her twelve-year-old older brother, shaking his head at James and trying to look disinterested.

“Do they? We, er, haven’t gotten that far in my training, but I’ll do my best!” said James with a very serious look on his face.

He took the white napkin, folded it in a complicated pattern, tapped it twice with his wand, muttering Lepus Albus, and then carefully hunkered down with the hat.

“Like this?” he asked.

“Ah, it’s gorgeous!” Roisin squealed with delight, as she stared raptly at the fluffy white rabbit poking its head out of the hat. “I’m showing me Ma!”

“I want to hold it!” said Sean, sounding just as giddy as his baby sister, as they ran excitedly towards the grown-ups.

Lily’s smile widened as she caught James’ eye, and he grinned back sheepishly.

“More, more!” shouted a red-haired toddler, clapping his hands vigorously.

“More, more!” screamed his twin sister, her red pigtails bobbing up and down.

“Alright, one more trick!” James laughed, sitting down beside the group. “What would you like to see this time?”

“Lovely fella you got yourself there, Lily,” Lily’s Great Aunt Brid said, coming up behind her and giving her a playful squeeze. “The kids are havin’ a whale of a time! He’s going to make a wonderful Da someday. And he’s a bit of a hunk too, isn’t he? If I was a bit younger, I’d be after him meself, in a flash.”

“He’s very good with the little ones,” said Lily smiling at the sight of James in deep conversation with a seven-year-old boy.

“He’s the best lookin’ fella I’ve seen in donkey’s years, and it’s painfully obvious that you’re mad for him!” said Brid, smugly regarding a very red-faced Lily.  “D’ya think he plans on marrying you?”

“Auntie Brid, will you go way outta that!” said Lily, her face now puce. “I’m only turning eighteen next month! We’re not planning anything!”

“Still and all, I’m never wrong. I was sittin’ next to Paddy O’Farrell at the dinner, and he puts yous firmly together too,” Brid said, raising her wrinkled brows at Lily. “The two of yous look happy out whenever you’re near each other, it’s adorable, love!”

“Brid, you reckon the two of them will be getting engaged soon?” Rose Evans had joined the conversation and was grinning broadly at Lily.

“Mum!” said Lily, folding her arms crossly as her mother looked on with amusement.

Keep reading: Chapter 31:

When Harry Met Buffy

by Dan H

Thursday, 14 June 2007

Dan compares portrayals of childhood in the popular media. Or something.~

(This article contains spoilers for a TV series which everybody has seen, and a set of books which everybody has read. Just so you know.)

At some point during my university career, I had to make a choice between actually getting a decent degree and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Needless to say there was no competition, and I am now the proud owner of a 2.2 in Physics and a lot of information about Sunnydale.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer went off the rails a bit in the later seasons. It went off the rails for a number of reasons - tensions among the cast and crew, Joss Whedon being distracted by other projects, Marti Noxon - but its biggest problem, in my opinion, was that it lost sight of its core metaphor.

The strength of Buffy seasons 1-3 was that it stuck to a very clear, very simple formula. You take a stock Teen Issue (I'm going out with a guy who isn't suitable, my mother is putting me under a lot of pressure, I'm trying to live up to my elder brother) and then give it a supernatural slant (I'm going out with a vampire, my mother is literally possessing my body, I've animated the dead body of my elder brother and am trying to build him a girlfriend out of corpse parts). That was the way it worked. It kept this formula more or less throughout series four and five, but it mixed up the formula a bit: Joyce's illness in series five is wholly mundane, and it's college life that causes Buffy's biggest problems in series four, not the cybernetic killing machine. Series six and seven went even further, making "Buffy never learned to live in the real world because she spent all of her time fighting monsters" a central theme, despite the fact that the "monsters" had always been placeholders for real-world issues.

To put it another way, the great strength of Buffy is that it tackles teenage concerns from a resolutely teenage perspective. When you're sixteen, after all, everything is the end of the world. Buffy's distorted, teenaged view of reality, where a bad breakup is an unimaginable horror and high school is doing its damnedest to kill you becomes literal reality. This works brilliantly for three series, and then they start to run into problems.

The thing is, Buffy grows up. The show covers seven years, and Joss felt that it was very important that she not stay sixteen forever.

The problem is that a big part of growing up is the development of your worldview. Learning that things don't really work the way you thought they did. Or, to put it another way, a big part of being twenty-two is realising what a pillock you were when you were sixteen.

But Buffy can't really do that, because she's a fictional character, and her sixteen-year-old worldview is the literal truth of the earlier series. Angel, her high-school boyfriend, really was the love of her life, and when things went wrong he actually lost his soul and started killing people. You can't get a sense of perspective on something like that. You can't look back on your youth and say "gosh, it seems so silly now to have worried about the Master rising and plunging the world into hell." Its early-season strengths become its late-season flaws. Buffy can never truly grow up, because she is trapped, forever, in a world where her teenage angst is physical reality.

Which brings me to Harry Potter.

Like Buffy, Harry Potter has a seven-year arc, over which his creator takes great pride in telling us that He Will Grow Up. And, like the nutrimatic machine, Harry's problems are Almost But Not Quite Totally Unlike Buffy's.

The Potter books are told exclusively from Harry's point of view: so much so that Harry has to spend half of each book skulking around under his invisibility cloak so he can hear all the plot-dumps Rowling needs to pass on to the reader. However, unlike Buffy, we don't follow Harry from a world inside his own head. We follow him around looking over his shoulder, but we are only observers. Buffy/Angel is convincing because, on some level, we feel what Buffy is feeling, and we are swept away in an overwhelming rush of teenage emotion. Harry/Ginny, on the other hand, feels lacklustre, because we see it from the outside, as two awkward teens fumbling through a parody of romance.

The Potter approach is not without its advantages. It makes the seven-year arc somewhat more consistent: we know from the start that it's Voldemort and the Death Eaters and the War in The Wizarding World which is important, and Harry's journey from two-dimensional eleven-year-old to two-dimensional-eighteen-year-old is essentially one of learning facts about his world. (On a tangent, it's interesting to note that Potter has a detailed, prewritten world with a large mythology, and Buffy doesn't).

In

an earlier article

, I compared the Potter books to the works of Enid Blyton and like Blyton, Rowling writes about children from the outside. She writes about childhood in hindsight, and seems to view it with a mixture of sentimentality and contempt. Your school days, she seems to say, were the most wonderful days of your life, because you were too dumb to realise how crappy the world really was.

All of this would be fair enough, a lot of Children's books do basically work like that: the hero starts out as a picture of youth and innocence, only to have it stripped away by exposure to Real World Issues. It's the To Kill a Mockingbird school of children's fiction: the child gradually learns about the complexities of the real world, progressing from a nave worldview to a sophisticated one over the course of the story. His Dark Materials follows a similar formula. The problem with Potter is that the "real world" of the Potterverse is so utterly childish. Harry is growing up into a world where everybody is still obsessed with school, where the only person that He Who Must Not Be Named is afraid of is his old teacher, where three fifteen year old kids competing in a school sporting event is international news.

So Harry's journey is that of a child growing up and learning about the world, but what he learns is that there is no world outside of Hogwarts. Unlike Buffy, whose later-season problems are the result of legitimate creative decisions, Harry's late-series implausibility is a result of his inhabiting a world which is poorly conceived and badly realised.

Harry Potter is often praised for dealing with difficult real-world themes, like death and racism. It doesn't. It's true that people die in the books, but they do so as a result of magical, fantasy violence, which simply doesn't capture the experience of bereavement in a meaningful way. Quite a lot of children, reading Harry Potter, might well have lost a friend or family member due to illness, old age, or accident. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that none of them have had anybody they care about killed by evil wizards. The deaths in Harry Potter are part of the fantasy, they're no more real than chocolate frogs and Quiddich.

Then there's the "racism". Wizardry apparently runs in families, and those who don't come from a wizarding line get called "mudbloods". There's some half-baked talk of killing the mudbloods, but nobody ever does anything about it, and it's only ever evil people that even think like that. That isn't confronting the issue of racism, that's using a cheap metaphor for racism as another way to demonstrate how evil your villains are. It is a metaphor, furthermore, which only has any impact if your audience already recognises it - we know that it's wrong for Draco to call Hermione a mudblood, because it's "like racism". It's not using a fantasy world to explore a real world issue, it's using a real world issue to explore a fantasy world.

And this, I think, is why I think Buffy succeeds and Potter - despite sales figures - ultimately fails. Buffy has its metaphors screwed on right. Well, apart from that bit with the crackhouse in series six. Buffy takes issues that its audience will be highly familiar with (academic pressure, romantic disaster, teenage insecurity) and uses the language of the supernatural to explore them in an emotionally believable way. Harry Potter, on the other hand uses real-world issues (racism, slavery, death) as a cheap way to add colour to an otherwise unconvincing fantasy world.

In Sunnydale, Joss Whedon created a world which reflects the mind of a young girl growing up in America, and he succeeded admirably. In Hogwarts, Joanne Rowling attempted to create a dark, believable world for a young boy to grow up in, and she failed dismally.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

,

Books

,

TV & Movies

,

Young Adult / Children

,

Whedonverse

~

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Rami

at 09:00 on 2007-06-15Hmmm... that's interesting. I'm one of the few people who's neither read Harry (though I've seen one of the films) nor watched Buffy (not consistently, at least), but I'm inclined to agree that Whedon's way of presenting his world is deeper and more meaningful though perhaps less immediately obvious. Heck, I didn't appreciate Whedon at all until I saw Firefly...

Killer-Stuffed-Dinosaur In Love

(a 13x16 "Scoobynatural" Coda) - read also on AO3 

Even when yet another apocalypse is just around the corner, the events of their trip to the Scooby-Doo cartoon have a lasting effect on the boys. May it be a fond memory to put a smile on their lips or a piece of fabric that contributes to complete new developments.

Rating:  Teen And Up Audiences No Warnings Category: M/M Fandom: Supernatural Relationship: Castiel / Dean Winchester Characters: Dean Winchester, Castiel, Sam Winchester Additional Tags: Episode s13e16: Scoobynatural; Coda; Fluff; Love Confessions; Making Out; Language: English

Blood of the most holy man – check. Fruit from the tree of life – check. Archangel grace – … still to be found.

Sam, Dean, and Cas don’t even have the slightest clue where to search for Lucifer. It’s like he has fallen off the face of the earth – and yes, they actually considered this option. In fact, the more days pass, the more viable it seems that maybe, somehow, Lucifer found a way open the rift and get back to the other dimension. Or maybe he’s just stuck again in one of Colonel Sander’s cells. Because let’s be honest, if he and that other angel would still be running around freely, they would’ve heard of them by now, right?

Sam sits at the table in the war room, hacking something on his laptop – as always – and Dean downs one beer after another while reading through some lore that probably doesn’t even have one hint – as always – when Cas comes down the stairs of the bunker after yet another shot at finding his absent brother.

“Well, your body language speaks volumes, Cas. Let me guess, nothing?” Dean says, stretching his arms over his head. Really, they need a break.

“Nothing, nada, rien, nichts,” Cas sighs, slumping into a chair “I don’t understand it, I searched every place. I actually consider contacting other angels to see if they can help. Although I can imagine they won’t be too excited.” The angel massages his temples as if he has a headache. A very human habit, considering he doesn’t feel that sort of pain.

“Probably not,” Sam says, rubbing his eyes, “but we need every bit of help we can get.”

The loud thud of Dean closing the books in front of him has Sam and Cas turn to him. “No, what we really need, like right now, is a break.”

“Dean – ” Sam starts, but he doesn’t get as far as a second word, because his brother interrupts immediately, raising his hands in defense.

“I get it, Sam, I do. Believe me, I wanna get mom back as soon as possible, and Jack too. I know I was pretty hard on that kid at first, but he’s family. Damn, he already tried so often to save our asses and help us with mom, how could I not see him as a Winchester? And I also know that we have to be quick to stop this Michael 2.0., but look at us,” he gestures wildly between himself and the other men to prove a point, “Sam, when was the last time you looked at something else than the screen of your damn PC? You can hardly keep your eyes open, they must hurt like a bitch. I start reading the same paragraphs over and over again because I just can’t concentrate anymore, the words are swimming before my eyes. And Cas doesn’t exactly look peachy either.”

“I am an angel, I don’t need – ” Cas starts, but again, Dean doesn’t want to hear a word.

“Yeah, I know man, but come on, the last weeks strained your mojo a lot. Don’t act as if it is nothing, cause I saw you napping at the kitchen table. And if I learned one thing in the ten years that I deal with angels, it’s that sleep never means something good for you guys.”

With his arms crossed, Dean sits and waits for a snarky reply, but his brother and best friend just look at each other for a second before they give up and sigh exhaustedly.

“Okay, maybe you’re right,” Sam says, shifting his weight on the chair he sits on for eight hours straight by now, “maybe we really could use a break.”

“Good. So, I’d say you hit the sack and I go for a food run. I wanna eat something real again and not this microwave crap. I’m gonna make chili for dinner. Hot, rich, and spicy. It will get our circulation going.” Dean stands up and the joints in his legs creak. He really could use some time under the hot spray.

“I can join you, if you want,” Cas says to Dean as the hunter grabs his keys from the table.

“Sure.”

“Could you two maybe grab some stuff for smoothies then?” Sam asks, already yawning.

“Okay, but don’t expect me to mix you this stuff. It’s violation of fruits and you know it. Really, apples belong in a pie!” Dean gruntingly says.

Without another word, Sam disappears in direction of his bedroom, while Cas already makes his way over to the garage. Dean stretches and flexes his arms one more time before he follows the angel. They’ve been cooped up in this place for too long. Not that the bunker isn’t a nice place to live in, but even the nicest place can give you cabin fever after a while. The drive to the store will hopefully help him to blow the cobwebs away.

Behind the steering wheel, Dean feels already better. The sound, the smell, and the vibration of his Baby never fail to soothe him. Out on the road, he cranks down the window to feel a bit of the airstream in his hair, and Cas emulates.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I shouldn’t have let Lucifer get away in the first place, then we wouldn’t be in this situation now.”

“Cas, this is not your fault.”

After a minute of silence, the angel mumbles, “I’m still sorry.”

Dean sighs. “Could you please stop apologizing for it?” God, when did this become so awkward?

They are still in somewhat of a process of getting comfortable and natural around each other again, after yet another death, yet another time of being forcefully separated from each other and not knowing how the other is. They’ve done it plenty of times over the last years, but it’s an ever-continuing process nonetheless, and it doesn’t get easier.

The hunter can see his best friend eyeing the ascot that he knotted around the rearview mirror. “Sam told me it looks weird to wear it, so I put it up there. In memory of our little adventure,” he says, side-eyeing the angel to wait for any sort of reaction.

“It… didn’t look weird,” Castiel answers carefully after a while.

Dean yanks his head in the other man’s direction, surprised by the answer. “Really?”

“Really,” Cas says. He stares at Dean for a second, before his averts his gaze and looks out of the window. “I mean, it was not what one would call your ‘usual style’, but it was very obvious how much fun you had in the cartoon, and how much you care for these little reminders. I like seeing you happy.”

The hunter stares at the road in front, hoping that the warm feeling in his cheeks doesn’t show on his face. He doesn’t even know what to answer. It’s always like that when Castiel, angel of the Lord, lets out a compliment or anything else slightly emotional in his direction. It still gets Dean every time.

“Ehm, thanks Cas,” he answers to not let the awkward silence drag on for any longer.

“I think I understand now what draws you to this cartoon. I already knew how much you like it before we got sucked into the television, but I never really paid attention on why. But I can imagine now, that as a child who got confronted with the supernatural from a very young age on, those stories were a secure place. You saw this group of people on the screen, who also fight monsters, but in the end, it turns out good. No one dies, and there is nothing to be afraid of in the long run.” The angel stays quite for a moment, as if considering something. “It must’ve been very important for you to have this sort of escape, if only for the length of an episode, once in a while.”

Dean feels a lump forming in his throat. He knew this, sure, but no one ever spoke it out loud, no one ever put it together this simple. And of course, Cas did it. His always curious, billions of years old angel, who gets fascinated by things as cereals and foosball, might have problems at times with slang or social interactions, but he never fails to amaze Dean with his train of thoughts.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he answers, although he would like to say more. He would like to say “thank you”, he would like to say something smart, but to be honest, he also just wants to grab this guy and kiss the shit out of him.

It’s not like Dean doesn’t know about his feeling for his best friend, he knows it very well. How can a guy not, if the face of his angel friend is the picture that follows him into his dreams at night, or if the tingly feeling on his skin whenever they touch stays for hours? And even if Dean might be too naïve or suppressing to figure it out with that, the boner he’s sported on several occasions is not exactly a thing to ignore. But he also knows that neither him or Cas are well known for having luck in their lives, especially considering romantic interests, so to make the first step, to actually act on those feelings, is more than he can usually handle.

Their shopping trip is quick and efficient because Dean knows his chili recipe by heart and Cas gratefully undertakes the task of selecting fruits and veggies for Sam. It’s a nice and utterly normal activity, to go grocery shopping together; Dean would even call it domestic and he enjoys this togetherness while walking up and down the aisles and adding things to their cart. They don’t even have to talk much, that was never their thing anyway. It was always more staring than words, but somehow they get along with it quite well. Maybe it’s this ‘more profound bound’ thing that Cas talked about. Dean always wondered what that exactly meant.

The drive back home is comfortable and Dean turns up the volume to sing along the radio. Out of the corner of his eyes, he watches Cas drum with his fingers to the beat. God, how he loves those little gestures of the angel. He grins from ear to ear and lays off the gas pedal a bit, just to have a minute or two more with the other man. But Lebanon is tiny and although the bunker is hidden outside the town, they arrive back in the garage sooner than Dean would’ve liked. Not that he doesn’t feel comfortable around Cas when they’re in the bunker, but in Sam’s presence, he’s far more aware of what he’s doing and how he acts around the angel. Which is stupid because his giant moose brother would be the last person to judge him. On the road, however, he feels a bit more confident – at least in his head. Out on the road, he sometimes has the feeling like he might have the guts to make a move.

The garage door closes, and Dean shuts down the engine. Without the constant background noise of his Baby, it’s dead silent. Before he can get as far as touching the handle of the driver’s door, he can see Cas starting to fumble with the ascot. Dean squints his eyes and watches his best friend untying the knot and carefully straightening the fabric in his lap.

“Cas, what – ” Dean starts but immediately shuts his mouth again when Cas crawls over to his side of the bench and places the ascot around his neck. The hunter shudders at the feeling of Cas’ fingers on his skin, and they are so close, that he has nothing but the angel in his field of vision, nothing but his best friend’s breath that sounds in his ears.

Cas takes his time with tying the fabric and Dean holds his breath the whole time. Every muscle in his body is tensed and the thoughts running through his mind make his head spin. How can the guy smell so amazing?

After what feels like an eternity, the angel straightens the perfect knot one last time and whispers, still close to Dean’s face “It suits you.” Then he is about to lean back, to take his hands away from the hunter’s body, but Dean reacts out of instinct and grabs for Cas’ wrist, holding him in place.

“Dean?”

He hears it, the gravelly voice calling his name, but he’s like in trance. That’s exactly what he was afraid of, acting without thinking and then not having a clue how to proceed. He can’t go further, but he can’t let Cas go and pretend as if nothing happened either. So he just stares. They’re Cas and Dean so staring is their thing, right? In fact, he knows that he’s pleading, that he looks desperate and if this bond between them truly exists, he hopes that Cas gets it and will interpret it right.

And boy, does he interpret it right. The first touch of lips on lips is careful and reserved, their mouths barely brushing against each other. But once this hurdle is cleared, they only separate for Dean to breathe. And they still try to get closer, with Cas fisting the ascot and Dean reciprocating by grabbing for the angel’s tie. His back is pressed against the driver’s door, but although the handle is a bit uncomfortable, Dean can’t stop grinning against the kisses. Turns out, he wasn’t the only one needy to get this on the road. They grasp and touch and kiss, and slowly get from a sitting to a more lying position, with Cas on top; not at all surprising for Dean.

Their breath fogs the inside of the Impala and it’s pretty obvious that they either need to stop soon or lose some clothes and move to the backseat. Dean is torn between both possibilities. On the one hand, he already feels the familiar spark pooling deep inside his body, ready to go further, but on the other hand, it’s also too much at once. This is Cas, not some random girl from a bar. He deserves something special, and although the thought of sex with Cas in his Baby has Dean moaning against the angel’s mouth, their first time should be different. They should be able to fall asleep next to each other… or at least Dean.

He puts one hand flat against Cas’ chest and breaks their kiss. The angel’s grumpy moan makes it obvious that he’s not amused by this, but he reluctantly leans back and stares at Dean. He looks totally debauched, with swollen lips and lust-blown eyes, sweat forming on his forehead. Dean can only assume that he himself looks equally tousled.

“Dean?” There it is again, this one syllable that goes straight to Dean’s groin. He almost regrets his decision and thinks about just leaning in again, but his stomach uses the moment of silence between them to growl. Cas chuckles and Dean shrugs – a very awkward gesture in his position.

“Ehm… maybe I should start making dinner,” he says and the angel nods.

“Can I help you?”

“Sure.” They stay like this for another few moments, share another sweet kiss, and then straighten their clothes to look decent once they crawled out of the car.

In the kitchen, they stay as close as possible while washing, chopping, and cooking. Sometimes it’s their hips touching, sometimes their arms. One might let a finger trail over the other’s shoulder when they walk across the room. When the chili simmers on the stove, Cas crowds Dean against the counter and presses their bodies together. The hunter immediately looks to the door and Cas steps back, knowing his favorite human well enough to not risk him feeling uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” Dean mutters, looking at the ground.

“It’s okay, I understand.”

“No, you don’t,” the hunter adds, “I… I’m not ashamed of this,” he gestures between them, “and I don’t wanna hide it from Sam. I just… I don’t want to… well, tell him like this. I’m gonna talk to him.”

“You want to talk? By choice?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Seems like being in love makes me sappy and talkative”

It takes Dean a moment to realize what he just said, and he’s already getting nervous again until he sees the huge grin on Cas’ face, who leans in and claims the other man’s mouth in a passionate, sweet and loving kiss. “I love you too.”

Their confessions and following making out is cut short when they hear a door opening and closing pretty loudly down the hall. Bless this bunker for the echoing corridors. “To be continued,” Cas whispers into Dean’s ear.

When Sam scuffs into the kitchen, they already set the table. Team Free Will sits down and enjoys the meal that turned out truly delicious. After his second serving, Sam shoves the bowl to the side and leans back in his chair, sighing in contentment.

“Really, Dean? The ascot again?”

Just then the older brother looks down at him and sees that he’s still wearing the piece of fabric. Before he can answer, though, Cas starts to speak and pats his hand under the table.

“Well, I can see why Daphne likes it.”