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mango-dolphin · 2 years

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what are your headcanons about the heroes :0? Ive asked this question to the other shield hero blogs and now its Your turn ):) normally i would ask for each separately but why do that when i can ask for all at once XD!!

ADMITTEDLY this is a broad enough question as to where i could be making headcanons about Any Such Thing !! i don't have too many headcanons yet but i can make shit up as i go honestly. i like questions that ask me somethin a lil more specific bUT ALSO I LOVE HAVING FREE RANGE AND PERMISSION TO GO APESHIT SO LIKE. IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER

hm. hmm. hmmmmmmmmmm. i'll just write whatever comes to my head right now!

General Headcanons

i'd like to think that each cardinal hero had a piece of media in their original world that resembled at least one of the other cardinal hero's lives:

Naofumi had this sleeper hit visual novel he introduced to his little brother as a way to get him into the medium: it presented itself as this dating simulator game about this university student and his complicated love life. As the game progresses and depending on the routes, it's slowly revealed that there is something amiss regarding the protagonist's life and how he interacts with the company he keeps. The game progresses into a psychological horror/thriller in some aspects—not really like Doki Doki Literature Club but y'know there was something going on there. Naofumi offhandedly mentioned that the game had a secret true ending that was overwhelmingly gay and his little brother called his bluff. The secret gay ending is real.

Itsuki seems like the type to strongly prefer escapist media, but I'd like to think an acquaintance at his private school happened to suggest a short and sweet manga to him that she thought he might find interesting. He decided to read it on a whim one day and was disgruntled to learn it was a Normie-verse (media where no one has powers) slice-of-life thing, but he had nothing better to do (had to wait for something) so he tried to finish it anyways. It was about this middle school prep student breaking down under the pressure that his parents were placing on him to succeed, trying desperately to find an outlet. In the midst of it all, his "slacker" older brother, who wasn't doing so hot in college at the time, took it upon himself to try and reconnect with his little brother and the two eventually start bonding over otaku culture. It was an incredibly heart-warming read but also it made Itsuki cry a little bit because he was very jealous of the main character. He wants an older brother like that so bad. he refuses to admit he liked the manga no matter what the girl who lent it says

Ren... I don't really have an elaborate one for him, unfortunately. The Cardinal Hero whose media he got would be Itsuki's by process of elimination, however! It'd probably be (by his world's standards) an older video game or anime of some kind, probably kind of BNHA-esque with those strong Golden Age comics inspirations. Maaaaybe it could've been something ongoing but got canceled? So Ren never learned how it was supposed to end.

Motoyasu seems like the type who doesn't always keep up with most popular media, or at the very least would hear about it from osmosis. If not that, he's probably right on top of popular things. Probably a mix of both? Incredibly on the pulse for some things, incredibly clueless on others, and it's random what he'll know and what he won't. He'd probably mostly get onto some stuff through his friends—probably was binging anime w/one of his best guy friends one night and what was on was this movie about a futuristic Japan. In particular, it was a split story between a criminal down on their luck but sank deeper into the underworld, as well as a reclusive high school student trying to get by. It wasn't that extreme of a movie, but for whatever reason the bloodier parts with the high schooler saving his friend perturbed Motoyasu a lot, to the point of walking out for a bit. His female friends at the time made fun of him for getting so squicked out at the movie.

i kiiiinda like the idea of the younger two of the cardinal heroes paralleling/being foils to the older two. Ren and Naofumi seem to have kinda similar outlooks (at least, the roots of them) as well as appearances; same with Itsuki and Motoyasu. they both even have the same age gap by year (naofumi & motoyasu are 4 years older than ren & itsuki respectively). There are lessons Ren & Itsuki can take from their older counterparts—both things they should avoid (naofumi's wrath and unwillingness to speak up, motoyasu's naivete and ignorance to the point of delusion) as well as things they can take with them (naofumi's proactive nature, tendency towards learning skills & self-improvement, and keeping and listening to good people around him; motoyasu's warm & friendly nature as well as his loyalty + mindedness towards the people immediately around him, rather than focusing on how he himself looks—listen he's being manipulated that doesn't excuse his idiocy and terrible judgement. but he does care about people and their PERSONAL LIVES in his own way, rather than itsuki doing good things because they're "morally just")

the cardinal heroes probably met up a lot outside of Naofumi (because, y'know, he was made a pariah), so they probably talked a bit more about stuff and got to know each other a teensy bit better. I'd like to think—and these would be conversations that happen much later, like brink of or after the Spirit Tortoise arc—the three of them all realized they all died, though they probably would question if Naofumi had died at all (as he seemed the most insistent on getting home). Ren also toyed with the idea that perhaps Naofumi didn't remember his death, so he perhaps still believed he had somewhere to go back to.

Itsuki mentioned his death first and regretted it immediately (ren and motoyasu lost it at the idea that itsuki got isekai'd the old-fashioned way). In comparison, Ren was very reluctant to mention the details of his own death, so he more or less set the stage and left it to interpretation. (Itsuki got frustrated that Ren appeared to have gone out like a hero and Ren didn't want to say anything.) Motoyasu likely lied about the exact details of his death and talked about the last few days he remembered, leading the other two to extrapolate that he got killed because of his womanizing. He'd later go on to admit that he didn't actually remember how exactly he died, but what he does remember is something he'd rather not think about.

(i also headcanon that they have scars from their deaths lol. ren's got that big stab/slice scar; motoyasu has several cuts and perforations throughout his stomach and abdomen, as well as stray stab marks on his chest; itsuki likely has some faint but permanent bruising on his backside & head)

Naofumi hears that the other three died and he'd be like What? I was kidnapped by a book. What???

Ren

gay, open about it; i'd like to think his Japan had progressed just as much in societal matters as it has technological. Japan doesn't have transphobia & homophobia the same way America (my country) does, so I'm not entirely sure how things over there would change, but nowadays from what I understand Japan is a lot more casual about people being gay than Americans are. SO there'd hopefully be far less judgement and expectation on a gay high schooler in Ren's Japan, for instance? so he can just be open and it wouldn't be a big deal.

(i also sincerely hope that Ren's Japan would have figured SOMETHING out for its atrocious bullying problem, but sadly i do think that it's wholly possible that it's still an issue. maybe not as bad as it is right now, but frankly almost anything would be an improvement considering how fucked up bullying can get over there. i can see ren's behavior stemming from even mild bullying but it's possible that he's Just Like That™.)

his best friend, the one that he saved and the one i'm assuming he played video games with? i think it'd be interesting if they were actually dating :3 but also my hc of "ren being openly gay" and "ren dating his best friend" might not necessarily line up. being open isn't a one-and-done thing, however, so it could more be a thing that ren was open back in his world (because he didn't have to hide), but ren probably knew enough about the rest of the world/medieval media to be like "maybe i should wait and see how people react to this kind of stuff <:|"

so ren probably has just never brought up his sexuality to anyone in this world. if he got the signal that it was safe to talk about it, he probably forgot that being temporarily closeted was a problem and would probably go around assuming that people knew he was gay, because that's his default—

i'd like to think that ren & his [boy]friend always wanted to move somewhere more natural and grassy—just somewhere with a lot of natural beauty. i know i said in my last post or so that he'd have the least amount of knowledge of the natural world, but i don't think that'd mean he wouldn't be interested in knowing more about it. maybe he and his friend would stay up some nights after some grinding sessions and just. talk about the future. moving to somewhere in the japanese countryside, or maybe somewhere untouched in europe.

he probably thinks about that sometimes while traveling melromarc.

i think this guy likes white chocolate. iunno.

listen. i try not to focus too hard on sexuality/romanticism headcanons because i think it's important to like. characterize folks outside of their romantic/sexual relationships. ships are really fun but also i wanna know about the Character Themself.

but sometimes it's very much a case of "i think their sexuality would inform their behavior and vice versa," even if the character themself sees their sexuality as a footnote. imo, ren just happens to be gay, sees himself as someone that happens to be gay, but his relationships and the people he knows/loves very much inform who he is. especially because he doesn't seem like the type of person to go out of his way to establish relationships of any kind.

so like. if he has a boyfriend, that's a big thing. and having a boyfriend in practice isn't interchangeable with having a girlfriend—especially if you're the same gender as your partner(s). so me headcanoning him being gay is like. he cares about someone deeply, and that someone is a guy, and he would not love him as much if he were a girl. the relationship would fundamentally be different then. Gayboy.

Naofumi

i'd like to think he was still a chill older brother sort of guy before getting summoned. after breaking down his little brother's walls their relationship probably got real close again. i could see naofumi teasing him a lot and him being teased by his brother a lot

i've mentioned it before but i think naofumi would read a lot of doujinshi. i don't mean like the Explicit Stuff but like. i think he'd be our equivalent of scrolling through AO3 and reading literally whatever caught his eye, or even whatever popped up (because he's bored). he'd be the sort of person who'd read fanfic/doujinshi of media he hasn't even read before. i think he'd just be a voracious reader in general

this is ALSO scattered about my posts & tags but i think Naofumi is some flavor of asexual and some flavor of biromantic / greyromantic. i'm going to make this even funnier and say that he still reads explicit shit anyways. he's like "ok nice." doesn't even blink. it's a story what does he have to say except they're fucking.

FORGOT TO MENTION i don't think he'd use labels either. if someone asked his orientation i think he'd be like "eh. i don't really care"

i don't think he's really dated anyone, at least for very long. he does experience some aesthetic attraction but that's about it. and even then it's like "oh, they look nice. aight" and he forgets about it. apparently he describes how good motoyasu looks in the LN a lot though so maybe he's more into aesthetics than i thought. i can definitely see it

i'd like to think Naofumi started a little garden in Luroluna alongside all the fields that exist. there's probably a little section where he does some funky plant experiments (mostly trying to make more resilient and/or delicious food) and tries to branch (ha) his skill tree out, and there could be a larger part where he puts some of his more successful plants out and lets the public do what they wish with them. There's probably a tinier section where he made some fucked up little guys but since they weren't malignant plants and/or not difficult to manage, he kept them around. People are allowed to experiment with those fuck-ups as well as long as they're responsible.

i'd like to think he fell asleep in chicken coops several times. mostly as a kid but also probably once or twice in luroluna as well. filo probably tries to snuggle up with him in there also and it suffocates him--

(i think about him being an animal friend so often you guys)

admittedly i think Naofumi's always been kind of an introvert, even before getting summoned. he seems like the type of person who prefers to do his own thing, but very much appreciates company anyways. he does have some pretty good leadership skills (apparently he ran a guild in a video game back home) so i don't think he exceptionally dislikes people on average, and in fact can get along VERY very well with folks—he just values his personal space is all

Motoyasu (discussion of abuse below)

my friend. my dear friend motoyasu. i like him a lot (this is not a headcanon i just wanted to say that i like him)

i think this man has trauma. i think this man has illnesses. i think there's a lot going on with him and i'm kind of obsessed. i'm reluctant to go in depth with what i think is going on w/him because i fear how my headcanons/readings might be taken on this character, especially as he's the least popular of the cardinal heroes. (at least, from what i could observe on tumblr FJKNSEFJKENS maybe he's more well-liked elsewhere!) anywho, i tried explaining a teensy bit of what i felt anyways, so hopefully what i intended to explain came across properly?

however i don't think his naivete (particularly his gullibility towards women) is... natural? as in, i don't think it's just something he was born with or anything. i think it had to have come from somewhere, and it's likely that it's a behavior he learned from previous relationships. he doesn't have a hero complex to the extent itsuki does, but it's clear that he views himself as someone who has to take on the burden of saving the women around him. which is like, any dude can have that sort of savior complex i guess, and it can be Incredibly Annoying™ if not other things.

but i'm combining this w/the fact that he'll believe the closest woman to him no questions asked is like... that is dangerously self-destructive behavior. this dude can have a spine so the fact that he'd let someone take advantage of him that easily, to the point where he essentially slots into that role (he believed Myne's false testimony first word no questions no doubts and just let her pull him around every which way)... you can't convince me that motoyasu hasn't been abused by a partner (specifically a girlfriend) before, if not several. i'm sorry you just can't

combine that with what we apparently learn from his backstory in the spin-off series and it's like. Dear god. Dear god if he's had to deal with female friends like that (ones who'd rather him die than be with another girl, even if it's a "i want us to die together" kind of deal), entitled to his own emotions in that way? people don't just randomly decide to stab their crush, the girls crushing on him probably treated him in other ways of entitlement (even if they were incredibly subtle), though ofc we don't know the situation for sure. like yeah motoyasu should've been more assertive and tried to talk things out, but girls. shouldn't be pulling knives on people and murdering them idk what to say. even if motoyasu might have been dating several people at once (the wiki doesn't elaborate so idk the context), he shouldn't be like. murdered over it

i do think the savior schtick as well as the flirting in general may have at some point been a front he put on (the skirt-chasing & flirtiness before the heroic schtick anyways) that he kind of just subsumed into his identity. i can see his fondness for angels (and later his tangential obsession over filolials) coming from wanting to embody the heroism angels are meant to have. angels are meant to Save, and idk. maybe he wanted someone to save him. maybe he felt like he had to be a savior to the women in his life. shrugs. he doesn't seem like the type to think he'd be able to get trauma i think he'd ignore it like the rest of his problems

anyways your early 20s is a great time for more overt symptoms of schizoaffective disorders to pop up so like. i think after getting hit w/that Big Traumatic Betrayal by Myne (as well as anime logic) i can see the personality/reality shift he experiences post-Curse Shift to have finally rattled that sort of thing out of hiding from him. him starting to see most women as Literal Pigs is what put the nail in the coffin for this hc of mine. like. uhhh

the Curse Series may be a defense mechanism for psychological trauma, but a lot of mental illness is more or less the brain trying to comprehend the world around it in specific ways. so honestly the Curse Series (and working your way through it) could very much be seen as an allegory for coming face to face with your trauma—learning how to embrace it, but also learning how to accept it and to not let it overtake you. depression can rob a lot of sensation from you (i personally stopped feeling many emotions at all), so Naofumi losing his sense of taste after Myne's betrayal didn't surprise me one bit.

Motoyasu was already straight up accepting/leaning into delusions the longer he spent in this world, being fed lies and such by Myne and the king & likely other royals, so having to come to grips with all of that ALONGSIDE later being humiliated (being forced to see how shit of a job he did as a Hero) and betrayed AGAIN by Myne... yeah. i'm not surprised he broke, and broke that hard. i personally don't even think the Pig Thing was caused by the Curse Series; again, i think it was an underlying mental illness finally rearing its head, and the Curse Series fed into it.

from what i heard motoyasu likes to make his own clothes or something? idr the exact tidbit. but if it's not canon that's certainly my headcanon. Art Student Moment.

mentioned before in some tags that i think motoyasu could be hypersexual? at the very least after unlocking his Curse Series he might have started experiencing its symptoms more and more. tfw the trauma

also mentioned in those same tags that i think motoyasu could probably be pansexual or omnisexual. i still don't really know. both could fit him. but i could also see him just never deciding on a label, nor using one.

i think, in spite of how melromarc royals/the church might have felt about it, motoyasu would probably think demihumans were really cool. i think he'd really want to befriend some and even put a few on his party, but i could see Myne/other teammates refusing or even bullying them out of the party behind his back altogether. i genuinely don't see why motoyasu would want to discriminate against them (he'd see them as people who happen to have animal features, which is SO COOL!), even if others tried to manipulate him. they could tell him that therianthropes are disgusting and greedy and evil and he'd be like "aight!" and then he meets one and is like "yo this is my homie actually. i like her" and myne would have to remind him that she's a therianthrope and motoyasu would be like "But she's epic"

I THINK THIS IS MY FUNNIEST HEADCANON ACTUALLY. "i think motoyasu wouldn't be racist." THIS IS LIKE. SUCH AN UNNECESSARY HEADCANON TO HAVE.

i'm sorry i was just thinking about it. it's so funny that motoyasu has a really low tolerance for alcohol. he probably can't handle spicy food either, but would be the kind of person who'd try repeatedly to show off and eat incredibly spicy food anyways. he'd cry so much

(abuse mentions done btw)

Itsuki

he probably feels so cool about being the only Hero with natural powers i'm ngl. he's probably tried to show off to ren & motoyasu before and he felt SO COOL. ren thought it was impressive and very fitting as a bow hero. motoyasu was also impressed and asked itsuki a few technical questions (something that caught the both of them off guard), and as Itsuki answered more and more he started to get self-conscious again. eventually Motoyasu was like "wow, that's really cool, but it sounds like you don't use it for very many applications. That kind of sucks." it made itsuki really mad, especially after motoyasu (in his dense-headed glory) suggested a few ways to use his powers (and then ren started adding on and refining those suggestions). however after he stormed off he thought about it and was like "y'know what. that would be an interesting way to use my power. alright"

(in retrospect he's still kind of upset that Motoyasu was the one to start suggesting stuff, especially out of the blue, especially after how idiotic he began to act when the church stuff started to ramp up, but he's also... incredibly thankful. Ren offered more advice as well but he wasn't always easy to reach)

perhaps has always had an interest in art and artistic endeavors, but may have felt pressured by Hero Stuff™ and honing his powers to really pursue that kind of thing. may just be because of the trinket he used to get rishia off his team, but i think he'd be a huge fan of jewelrymaking, naofumi should give him some pointers

i'd like to think that even though he faced a lot of bullying in his prestigious school, there might have been a handful of people who cared about him and wanted to get to know him + see him succeed. in particular, crossing a bit into OC territory, but i think it would be neat if there was a girl in the top class who resembled Rishia somewhat (at least, physically at first). so like, this girl would be great at most everything, would be incredibly humble about it, would be the best damn hero Itsuki's ever met. and he'd be green with envy. but this girl would also think itsuki was pretty cool and try to reach out to him, a lot. (she'd be the girl who gave itsuki that manga i rambled about in the General Headcanons thing).

getting to know this girl would (he assumed) be a bit of an in to the strongest people in the school, but turns out that she tries to surround herself w/decent people, so a lot of the people she hangs out with would be people itsuki might consider losers? anyways, this is about itsuki so we're talking about him—i think he would've admired her a lot, but his anger at himself and his own inadequacy might have caused him to lash out at her. (maybe after she saved him from something.) itsuki didn't run out into the street and die Right There, but he definitely died a few days later. that girl probably would've been kinda fucked up hearing about his death, idk if she'd crush on him or anything but. yo. that was a classmate. they were getting so close, too

following that, rishia didn't remind itsuki of Her at first until he took a closer glance and realized they looked a bit similar. so he probably felt really proud to be able to save her for once... then when rishia started doing more heroic things, it ripped out all of itsuki's insecurities and complexes full-force. sorry king about your cringe

i think itsuki is an only child. fuck i didn't talk about this w/the other characters too did i? i think they're all only children except for naofumi, they all exhibit Only Child behavior. except maybe ren. i could see ren being a middle child as well actually

itsuki probably knew a lot about archery before getting summoned, as it'd be a straightforward way to exhibiting his powers. i wouldn't be surprised if he was a bit of a gunsman too—japan has incredibly strict gun laws, but his japan could be different (especially as people have powers there).

probably a cat person. i can see it with my own eyes.

EDIT i did it for the other heroes and i forgot to do it for itsuki & kizuna. mentioned it before, but I think Itsuki would think he's straight and would try not to put too much thought/stock into it. He'd probably actually be bi, but prefer women. he's young tho and wouldn't seem very decided about it so he probably thinks it's something that he shouldn't mess around with too much. he might think liking boys would be another thing he could be bullied about so it's an idea he'd prefer to avoid. Sorry about diagnosing him with internalized homophobia. (i don't think i even gave motoyasu internalized homophobia i think i just made him clueless)

Kizuna

i don't have very many headcanons for her but honorary mention!

queerplatonic partners with Glass. i think they're about the same age, Glass is probably 19 or something. Age aside, prove me wrong

i can see kizuna having pet birds. maybe a couple finches. when Kris popped out she probably got REAL excited (PENGY!!! PENGY!!!!!!!!!)

i bet this bitch loves boba too actually. has probably tried to recreate it a few times with mixed results

as i mentioned w/itsuki, i forgot to talk about a sexuality headcanon when i did it for everyone else. I see her as aroace, or at least on the asexual spectrum!

haha speaking of spectrum. (hits her with the autism ray) why not. special interest is fishing why the hell not. we can give her the autisms. she certainly gives me the vibes. tism to tism communication

#mango japery #small-spark-of-light #shield hero #headcanon #my writing #mango's writing #naofumi iwatani #ren amaki #motoyasu kitamura #itsuki kawasumi #kizuna kazayama #writing #theory #I HOPE YOU ENJOYED these were longer than i thought they'd be but they still aren't very many headcanons to me #yeah i get. kinda crazed about this stuff #i could write novels about characters i have more thoughts on #these guys are just new to me. but i liek them :]#abuse mention #ask to tag #spinning motoyasu around in my brain i'm so worried about that guy. i'm so worried about that freak #but also i am very scared about how that might be received #i feel conflicted (if not uncomfortable) with how the wikia talks about motoyasu's delusions so #i don't know how respectful shield hero itself is about mental health issues #i think i saw the r slur in one page screenshot though (said by naofumi) but there wasn't any context so i was like #<:|............... i don't know how they're gonna handle this homies........#i'll have to read the manga/light novel to make up my mind #but motoyasu clearly needs help and i'm worried that the series might be treating his problems as a joke #if there are no motoyasu fans i am no longer alive on this earth etc etc #keep him away from filo tho.

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goddamnwebcomics · 10 months

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Ranked from Best to Worst: Webcomics of Goddamn Webcomics (2023 Edition)

I made this ranking three years ago originally, but now that I've come back, before I start the next set of riffs, I should probably update my rankings. Thanks to @tjimmy1999 for giving me the idea.

0. Gene Catlow

Gene Catlow is completely uncomparable to any other webcomic I've riffed. It's probably the most unique piece of media I've ever seen. It has so many aspects in it that are fucking awful and horrible and terrible, but it also has just as many redeeming aspects. I am glad I came back to riff it to the end because what I riffed before the previous ranking was just the tip of the iceberg. Until another comic like it drops into my view, it will be uncomparable to anything else, completely outside the ranking as this fascinating piece of work that everybody needs to read for themselves.

Alien Dice

Alien Dice is my number one pick for the best comic I've riffed, but it's not really the best because of its content but because it does the bare minimum to be decent. It has likable protagonists, decent world building and it has an engaging story that can pace between dark and lighthearted moments. Unfortunately, it also has a ton of problems, with bullshit plot twists, Riley, unnecessary moments of sexual tension between animals, Riley, wildly inconsistent artstyle that never seems to stick to one style, Riley, very bland antagonists with no motivation, Riley and certain aspects of the main gimmick of the comic aren't explained well, and also Riley. I wouldn't recommend Alien Dice to anyone like I would recommend Gene Catlow, as I feel it needs to work out its issues.

2. Daisy Falls Apart

Daisy Falls Apart is a parody comic that doesn't exactly break new ground. It's harmless but I wouldn't read it a second time. It's held down by its horribly unlikable protagonist and how the whole conflict of the comic is very quickly resolved, and also too many sexual jokes in something that is based on a children's game. Out of all the comics I've riffed, this one is the most mediocre, and number 2 meaning mediocre should worry you.

3. Carnivores

This comic was originally a painful experience, but so many painful experiences came after it, it feels like one of the less worse ones despite having the worst art. Also i can tell Austin did this comic for fun, and not to convey a deep message. Also it’s probably the only fetish webcomic in history where fetish itself starts taking a backseat halfway through. Yeah, some of the entries will be the exact same as in the previous ranking, if I haven't given them any major revisits. Also the only reason it's under Daisy Falls Apart is because it has a much worse artstyle.

4. Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary satisfies your specific hunger for Johnny Test characters commiting several crimes in rapid succession. Reading the comic both entertains me immensely but it also makes me feel dirty. The crossover stuff is there to please the author and not really provide any point. It is unique in that the comic doesn't feature a full cast ensemble but it's rather just focusing on Mary ruining people's lives and interacting some random character from a North American animated thing. The only reason it's below Carnivores is the suspicious amount of unintentional racism???

5. Warmage

Warmage is enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. None of Dumok’s other comics have gone to the same level of bizarreness Warmage offers with each page. However it is also the host to the worst character to ever appear in this blog, Tsuki. Other than that, Warmage seemed to have semi-intriguing lore and also ended on a rather decent arc, so i think i could’ve been interested to see it continue, just because i wanna see how much worse it can get. But then again, spanking scene.

6. Kit n Kay Boodle

It's amazing that year by year, Kit and Kay Boodle gets more and more tame. More than anything it helped to expose me to Albert's usual writing bullshit, but somehow it manages to be tame compared to craziness of Gene Catlow. When you know that EVERYONE is fictional in the real life bits, it just loses the nightmare quality it once had. That being said I am bitter half of the riff is locked behind Tumblr's stupid filter system.

7. Dominic Deegan

Ah, Deegan, Deegan, Deegan... during my riff of Gene Catlow I apologised to you so many times I almost wanted to bump up your rating, but I feel like you're in a comfortable place. In a lot of ways Dominic Deegan is the quiessential mid-2000's webcomic, what started off as a gag-a-day comic soon became an edgy fantasy full of author screaming his political views and projecting his desires into the main characters. I think even Mookie is not too proud of the decisions he made, and Legacy of Dominic Deegan feels like an apology to correct the problems of the series. But there will always be the original Dominic Deegan, with its orcs and their fucked up culture, screaming manchild protagonists, exaggerated gay characters, magic that is random and nonsensical but also has schools based on teaching it, aggressive sports players and Siggy burial. However, who knows how it ranks after I finally finish it.

8. Roommates and 9. Chugworth Academy

The reason I made Gene Catlow 0 was also because I didn't want to rank it lower than these two, because I have no heart to say "Roommates/Chugworth Academy is better than Gene Catlow". If your comic ranks lower than these two, it's done and there is no coming back. I can safely say that I will NEVER EVER revisit these two comics, even if there are worse comics in this ranking.

10. Spinnerette

I said last time that Spinnerette was the worst comic I've riffed, and quite frankly I can't put it into words why that isn't the case anymore. After revisiting Spinny so many times since my last ranking, it has...improved. Remember that my last exposure to the comic was the Fat Spinny Arc and the first half of Hostess arc, and it seemed like Spinny was just embracing being a parade of Kraw's fetishes. However now that I've seen more of it, it's trying. But the comic is still like a fish flopping on dry ground in the middle of the desert. It doesn't want to pick a narrative, it just does random one-off stories forever. As much as I hated Colonel Glass I wish he came back just so this comic would have some semblance of seriousness again. Of course the comic has recently started fucking up the last decent characters, and I wouldn't be surprised if this comic bumped down again after few more revisits, BUT, it's still not the worst thing Kraw has made.

11. Las Lindas

Las Lindas is even more hopeless than Spinnerette, because this comic will introduce the decent thing, and before you know it decent thing is ruined. At least Spinnerette has decent variety of different stories. Las Lindas will never leave that fucking farm, if we don't count the spinoff comics half of which are non-canon and are about the same level of quality as main comic anyway. My brief revisit showed me the post-Alejandra era wasn't as hideous as I thought but it's pretty damn close, and with the ever-worsening artstyle and an apparent INTRODUCTION OF SUPERHEROES, Las Lindas's level of quality could best be described with that panel where Tootsie drives into a river.

12. Console Girl

Console Girl is the first comic in this ranking I just completely despise. It makes Ctrl-Alt-Delete look like Penny Arcade, it's a comic about an ecchi console that comes to life but midway through we get a plot twist and it turns out to be a cyberpunk comic that tries to treat humanoid consoles fighting seriously...or not really, as the comic has a problem taking itself seriously, outside of some questionable moments where the author seems to project their hidden anger towards video games into the comic??? We also have in-comic non-canon filler arcs, console girls eventually becoming random fetishes instead of things actually relevant to their real counterparts and TOO MANY LITTLE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH ADULT MEN. I'm glad this comic was never finished.

13. Monster Girl Academy

Monster Girl Academy is just...the worst. It was solely created to make Kraw even more rich, but I would forgive that if the comic didn't just...fail as a webcomic, fail as a porn comic and fail as a narrative period. This comic was designed for lowest common denominator with fetishes that are too weird to be vanilla and too vanilla to be weird. Its existence pisses me off. While other comics I've riffed had potential, this never had any semblance of it. The main protagonist is a piece of shit and all his girls are also pieces of shit, the only likable character is a little girl who cries and prays in Spanish, because every character reading this comic can relate to her. Fuck this comic, and I mean it with every letter of that sentence.

#article thingy

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darkwingsnark · 1 year

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I was tagged by @eeveelotions for this challenge. Decided to make it its own post so as to not spam others.

Rules are to share the first lines of ten [though I’ll be doing 5 because this was getting long] of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. As usual, tagging whoever thinks this looks fun and wants to do it.

.:Come Be Lonely With Me:. [Mario Franchise]

Soft dirt squished between nimble digits, spreading the topsoil evenly around the base of the newest addition to the Mario household. Vibrant red thistles stood out proudly amongst a sea of black-eyed susans and lamb’s ear– the prickly flower swaying gently in the breeze. Luigi couldn’t help but smile fondly at them from under his sun hat, firmly patting the earth as if tucking his children into bed. He supposed in a way he was, with it being a flower bed and all .

The man huffed softly in his own amusement, gently wiping his hands onto his overalls, before surveying his handiwork.

Luigi’s yard was separated accordingly: closer towards their home housed a small closed off plot of land for vegetables– specifically set aside for cooking. While Luigi was perfectly fine with going to the market to pick up most of their needs, he had insisted on a spot for tomatoes and squash– a common ingredient in most of the meals he and his brother prepared. It was a meager selection of crops, but Luigi couldn’t help but smile when remembering the last time Mario complimented how flavorful and ripe the tomatoes were. How he loved how their aroma filled their whole home when he stewed them.

An overall important and fruitful investment.

.:Same Man I Was Before:. [Mario Franchise]

Luigi liked living a quiet life. He wasn’t as gung-ho as his brother, who constantly found himself on the call of adventure– saving other kingdoms from their own tyranny. There was a reason Mario was the hero with Luigi being okey dokey playing his part as sidekick: Mario fit the role. He was outgoing, a real people person in every sense of the word; rooms filled with excitement and cheer the moment he’d enter. Big Bro was also fearless, taking charge and tackling all obstacles in his way. There weren’t problems in his world, only tasks that would be conquered.

Luigi admired his brother, sometimes even wanting to be him. Luigi couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be able to stare down his fears with nothing but gusto. To live for adrenaline thrills was such a foreign concept– heck, Luigi couldn’t even schedule appointments with Doctor Toad without fighting off a bout of the nerves! A guy he had known for years and still worried about bothering the doctor with his troubles.

No, Luigi simply wasn’t built with courage in mind and that was that.

The Rise and Fall of the King's Court

[DC Comics/Superman; co-written with @bardockarts ]

Decided to use the first line I wrote for the first chapter, since I didn’t want to take credit away from Bardock for their amazing Toyman.

Luthor had always been a man that could see an opportunity when it presented itself, no matter how ridiculous it might seem to most. He saw himself as someone constantly on the move, finding pieces and pawns to place about in his nationwide game of chess. So when Graves handed him a particular file, brow arched in that way that told Lex there was something very peculiar afoot, his curiosity piqued in a way that told him he was holding onto something special. A mere peek at the childish scrawl was enough to break his silence.

“And what do we have here, exactly?” Luthor asked the woman next to him, still reading over the application. Graves slid in closer, pulling up her tablet as she explained.

“Jack Nimball, 26. High school diploma on record, though nothing beyond that. No name or startups that would indicate anything of note for the company.”

Lex lets out a huff of amusement, side-eyeing his assistant.

“But you wouldn’t have brought this to my attention if that was all there was to it.”

Rumor Has It

[My Hero Academia; cowritten with @swampy-tiefling ]

Shota Aizawa considered himself a very levelheaded man. No matter the aspect of his life, he chose to live it through logic alone. Eri moving in with him once she was released from the hospital had followed this pattern-- Eraser was, after all, the only one who could help manage her quirk. It would have been irresponsible to send the child off to an orphanage, just waiting for her powers to emerge again and cause problems.

Then of course, there was the concern of being a guardian. Which consisted of encouraging a healthy mental development. Eri had already been emotionally stunted from abuse, so it had only made sense to work on setting up a safe environment. Which was exactly why Aizawa’s dorm apartment had slowly, but surely, transformed from a minimalist’s dream, to becoming filled with furniture and trinkets to bring the girl comfort. This too had been logical to him, it was about helping create a sense of want. Children should want things. Toys, affection, to be the one to pick what bedtime story is read-- even if it was one she had chosen every night for weeks on end . Learning one mattered was the first step in the foundation of survival. To want is to not give up, to strive for self preservation. And in turn, to protect oneself.

These behaviors made sense, so the hero never questioned it.

What didn’t make sense was the fact Aizawa was staring down at a black fish that happened to share his name.

Did You Hear...?

[My Hero Academia; cowritten with @swampy-tiefling ]

A sigh of amusement escaped Toshinori Yagi-- better known to the public as All Might--as he allowed himself the opportunity to read over the message again. Sunken eyes fixed to the screen, the skeletal man’s nimble fingers went to grab the cup of tea resting next to the monitor. The warmth, while pleasant, didn’t seem to hold a candle to the feeling he had over reading Mrs. Modoriya’s words. Though Toshinori only had the opportunity to meet the woman in person a couple of times, the hero could still hear her voice. The squeaky pitch it gave when she was floundering for words, the bouncy hum of pleasure that she shared with her son. It was enough to make him smile into the lip of the mug.

“Hmph. I should think it’s you comforting me this time around, “ the hero whispered to himself, thankful that his mutterings couldn’t be heard by anyone else within the empty teachers’ lounge. “I believe I’m starting to see where Young Midoriya gets it from.”

It, of course, being their… well, being. He was alone, he need not explain his thoughts to himself.

#fanfiction #bowuigi #dc comics #erasermic #toshinko #snark life #bardockarts #swampy-tiefling #eeveelotions #tag meme #long post

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vampiremilfs · 1 year

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hiiii <3 big ask big answer is what i'm expecting would LOVE to know your top 5/faves across various media that are new(in release or just new to you) this year! so: shows, movies, games, books, songs/albums, new artists you've discovered etc

OMG AAAAA I LOVE THIS ASK

brief comment i wanted to make, but this was the year i finally took control of my mental health and went to go see someone about it so congratulations to me for finally breaking down the wall of "im fine" and allowing myself to admit that i could use some help. that aside, lets get into it! beware, possible spoilers

MOVIES

1. Nope (dir. Jordan Peele) - this movie surprised me so much and reflects a LOT of my views on performative/spectacle-like behavior in front of the Camera and the effects things like hollywood or social media could potentially have on people...not going to get into that but i just liked the movie alot okay

2. X (dir. Ti West) - love me some camp. love mia goth. i also really liked Pearl and cannot WAIT for MaXXXine, i am so ready

3. Cruel Intentions (dir. Roger Kumble) - i dont think 2022 was the first year i watched Cruel Intentions but everytime i watch it, it feels like something brand new...i am so compelled to read the book that its based on like seriously

4. Turning Red (dir. Domee Shi) - this is the only Disney movie that exists to me...the mother-daughter relationship portrayed here is just so personal

5. Kiki’s Delivery Service (dir. Hayao Miyazaki) - yeah im extremely late to watching this lol. i watched literally every other ghibli film growing up but somehow, in some way, skipped over Kiki. so i watched it over the summer as an adult and needless to say...yeah i missed out as a kid asjashd

6. American Psycho (dir. Mary Harron) - this is the funniest film ive seen this whole year. im not even kidding

TV SHOWS

1. Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul - never thought id enjoy a show about a middle-aged white male turning to meth production to make ends meet and becoming the most annoying character ever created, but here we are. loved it, and literally EVERYONE around walt deserved so much better (jesse, gus, johnny/saul, mike, skylar, marie, hank)

2. Ranma 1/2 - ive taken a break from watching new anime this year and started diving into older ones. i love ranma simply bc its a bit ahead of its time and is just so easy to digest. just a fun little show!!! a great way to take my mind off of shit

3. The Sandman - just found out recently that this was a DC comic so congrats to DC for successfully infiltrating my anti-superhero visual barrier LOL. anyways i am in dire NEED of the next season

4. You - PENN BADGLEY. thats all im going to say. im a huge fan of Gossip Girl (2007) and as soon as i saw him playing the lead character i RAN to watch the first season when it dropped. was not disappointed

5. The Witcher - ive never played the game lol but the show is so good...im not a fan of GoT (and therefore will never watch HotD) so this show p much fills the dark fantasy void for me

6. Bridgerton - im so glad i got over my weird distaste and finally gave this show a try...i see the hype, i see it!! and the show itself is so beautiful to look at, despite being historically innacurate or whatever

7. Gossip Girl (2007) - ive watched and rewatched this show a grand total of maybe like....20 times in my life total. rewatched it again this year. all six seasons. it never gets old despite being the most ridiculous insipid shit ever. im also currently watching the new version, and while i love the cast and maybe the soundtrack, it doesnt match up to the campy and fun vibe that the first one had. it takes itself way too seriously and the plot is almost nonexistent lol

but anyway, lets move on to music!! im skipping over books bc i have currently finished NONE from the book haul i had back in october.

MUSIC

just gonna list out a bunch of songs that have carried me thru the last half of this year :]

ass like that victoria monet / bang (my body) chase icon / meta angel fka twigs / wish i never kehlani / king for a day pierce the veil, kellin quinn / pass the nirvana pierce the veil / antagonist nova twins / gibson girl ethel cain / like a tattoo sade / the perfect pair beabadoobee / so it goes tamino / daybreak’s bell l’arc-en-ciel / colors flow / distant tevomxntana, cayo / grapefruit tove lo

sorry if this is extremely long. thanks for asking!!!!!! ❤️

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nonbinarv · 5 months

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3 linked universe characters of your choosing + 2, 12, 21, 22, 24? (for the ask game) :3c

under the cut bc these got kinda long!!!

wind

2: i love his dynamic with the others in general tbh!!! he goes from being the older of two siblings to the youngest in a large group of them and there is somewhat of a struggle with the transition especially with the others' protectiveness but it's so obvious how much they care for each other- special shoutout to his dynamics with time (timeline talk 1) and wild (kings of hyrule)

12: i don't personally adopt the hc that he's four's descendant but all the fanwork i've read/seen incorporating it has been adorable so i do want to give it a nod here!!! otherwise i think he and wild would have a good cathartic conversation about their sisters if wild ever remembers his own

21: i haven't tried writing any of these three actually oops. if i were to write wind i think it'd be interesting getting into his perspective :o he's a very optimistic character but it's also important to consider all the trauma he's gone through both before and during lu and i think that'd be interesting to explore, though it may be difficult getting his age down in my writing

22: age swaps or de-aging aren't usually my thing in fics but lu is a fandom i make an exception for because of how different characterization is during their adventures vs the one shared with the others in the comic. ones where wind ends up not being the youngest anymore are interesting bc he can tap back into his older brother role and it can be fun to explore the what-if. i do think people overdo it on his swearing sometimes though; i do think he would (he's a pirate come on) but i don't think anyone would get onto him for it and i don't think it'd be every other sentence

24: bonnie!!! bonbon is a little younger than him but they share in being the kiddos of the group who hate being infantilized and are more capable than they may seem at first glance and have sisters they love dearly and would go through hell and back for

hyrule

2: his fairy form is so cool!!! the design is so pretty :o but regarding his actual character can i just say his sheer determination. there are so many little moments this is expressed in but probably the most prominent is his words to twilight, on the verge of death, encouraging him to not give up… it breaks my heart in all the right ways

12: i haven't actually played either of his games yet!!! except for the first the tiniest bit as a kid- so i'm not really sure… maybe. actually. just bc i think it'd be funny he's a really good cook it's just that he can't make stew which is the complete opposite of most of the cast where there's some sort of soup or stew they've made in their adventures. imagine it

21: i think it'd be harder getting a grasp on his personality without the exposure to his games; i wouldn't feel very confident and would be referring to the comic itself constantly- but i'd be interested in exploring his era more through writing centered around him :o the events that happen between legend's time and his own, his relationship with legend as his successor, how his era shapes him and his behavior with its inherent roughness yet his deep and inherent love for it

22: i love his dynamics with legend especially in fics!!! but i don't like how he's reduced to just the healer of the group sometimes. the fandom isn't always bad about it (thunder is pretty common with occasional fire from the ones i've read- outside of his fairy form of course) but he has other spells and a sword too!!!

24: hmm maybe emma (mikhaylov not woods). idk how to put it into words but there's the same drive there, the same passion, a shared dedication to the land and the people around them

legend

2: his little subtle moments of vulnerability… his reaction to twilight being alright ;w; but also when he's turned into a bunny and he's thanking twilight and sky (only to be interrupted by sky's "nice hair" comment sgfdkhlj); there's so much depth to his character and so much he hides. there's a reason he turns into a bunny

12: ough i have so many palace of the four sword thoughts. not sure how in-depth timeline talk is gonna get (life spoilers and all) but he would struggle so much with the realization that he killed four since all records would most likely have vanished or be extremely obscured by his era (after all there's like. no more mentions of the minish or vaati or the four sword or anything about four save for a couple of references on wild's map). he already deals with nightmares but they would get so much worse starting the adventure with the chain after meeting four

21: there are so many good potfs fics out there already and i want to add to that. but also i want to give him a fucking break bc please this man deserves it. hurt/comfort perhaps for a nice even mix of both. i think it might be difficult keeping track of his inventory though in anything i write; between all his adventures he has so much gear and so many items

22: i love when people acknowledge his own special relationship with the master sword!!! especially when he gets to know fi; i always find those so sweet- it's clear he holds the sword in high regard and people mostly focus on sky's relationship with fi instead (not that that's bad, it's completely understandable, but legend deserves some too imo). but i feel people do go a bit overboard with his behavior sometimes compared to canon y'know; he teases but there's no real malice behind his words and he loves his family

24: okay this is gonna be mean of me and maybe a bit hypocritical since i just talked about him not being as mean as some people make him out to be in fanwork but. jax gave me legend vibes. like jax is significantly meaner towards the people around him but two bunnies coping unhealthily with their respective traumatic experiences…

#answered #tysm!!! <3

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thebookbin · 2 years

Text

The YA Publishing Market, Ponzi Schemes and Why You Should be Wary of the “Young Adult Industry”

The year is 2021, it’s October and you are trying to figure out the way of this new COVID world, trying to enjoy spooky season, and in general just feeling a little lonely. You’ve been getting back into reading and log into Twitter to see what your favorite YA authors are up to and you are immediately bombarded by something called “Realms of Ruin,” everybody’s mad, and you have no idea what’s going on.

Spearheaded by acclaimed YA author Marie Lu, this project aimed to be a revolutionary new way to engage in fiction, but the reality was something much more sinister: a ponzi scheme aimed at teens that also was flirting with the environmentally disastrous and illegal-for-teens world of crypto currency. Sound absolutely bonkers? That’s because it is.

If those names are shocking, then I’m right there with you. The authors in heading this project are huge names in the industry. In case you can’t see: Marie Lu, Tahereh Mafi, Ransom Riggs, Adam Silvera, David & Nicola Yoon were all involved with this project. Those are some A-List names.

I’m going to do my best to give you the best faith version of the project before I break down why it is such a mind-bogglingly bad idea that is much more sinister than it seems on the surface, and why it’s still relevant even though the project was killed 5 hours after it’s announcement.

What was Realms of Ruin?

The Realms of Ruin marketed itself as a community of writers. A giant sandbox, if you will, where everyone can come to play and engage in its content. A world of 5 realms, 42 characters, and 12 initial stories. The six authors would be the arbiters of this world, working together, but they were inviting you to join in the fun too! Write your own stories, and if they like them enough, these author-gods will make them canon!

It sounds like teen-me’s absolute dream.

It was framed as a way to center marginalized voices, a way to offer an alternative to the publishing industry and all its ingrained problems, and a way to revolutionize storytelling in a way that had the potential to change the market forever. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?

So what’s the problem?

Like so many things in this soul-crushing late-stage capitalism world we inhibit: money is the problem. Money and corruption. But let’s just start with the money. The leader of this project was renowned author Marie Lu. The only way she could convince the five other authors to join this venture was to make it profitable. How would they do that?

By inventing a ponzi scheme, of course! This world wasn’t free to enter, oh no. You have to buy-in to play. The more people you could convince to join, the more “currency” you’d get (more on this later). You would pay to write your fanfiction, and the more “kudos” (it’s the Ao3 writer in me) you’d get, the more likely you’d be to catch the notice of one of the Big 6. And if they read it and liked it enough, they’d give you the golden star and make your work canon.

Have you sensed a problem?

If these six authors are making money on this project, what I just described is akin to a Dickens-esque style factory that’s so evil its almost comical, where these six authors have teens writing, giving away their ideas—no, paying these authors to deliver their ingenuity and ideas and their labor, while these authors profit on it. Remember, all these authors are Young Adult authors, their target audience is teens. It’s cartoonishly grotesque. Compensation aside, this also raises complicated, and if you’re me, interesting legal questions around copyright.

This project, as it was presented to the public, is almost embarrassing in just how many holes there are in the foundations. The website mentioned nothing about copyright just a vague “you’d own your stuff” but Realms of Ruin was itself copyrighted. Which means if you wrote any fanfiction for their website, they’d technically own it, as it relates to Realms of Ruin, which is... everything.

There are ways to co-own things, or own a specific character in a world of somebody else’s creation, legally speaking. It’s just... complicated. And if you’re going to attempt to do it, you really need to explain how you’re gonna do it on your fancy new website to the teen market you’re supposedly courting.

But wait! It gets worse!

How can it possibly be worse?

My dear, sweet, summer children, it can always get worse. This whole system was going to run on NFT’s—a type of cryptocurrency. This sucks for a lot of reasons.

1. Cryptocurrency is untested

There is no insurance for cryptocurrency, it’s completely unregulated, and there’s a reason mysterious Nigerian princes use it as their method of choice when scamming people out of money. It’s untraceable. If someone steals your credit card information, your bank will help you and restore your money. If you lose the hardware your cryptocurrency is stored on—it’s gone forever. There’s a story of a guy who has millions of dollars in bitcoin, but can’t access any of it because he forgot his password. That’s actually a common problem for crypto users, and there’s no recourse. There’s a lot of people who definitely think crypto is part of the future (I am clearly not one of them), but it’s a fact that this is, in its current form, volatile. It’s similar to the stock market, values changing by the hour, it’s not backed by any framework, and is not accepted as a form of payment by most retailers, stores, or utilities.

2. Cryptocurrency is illegal for a lot of teens to purchase

You have to be 18 or older to use any Cryptocurrency exchange. There are ways to get around this, of course, but that is illegal. Having an industry targeted towards teens revolve around cryptocurrency is basically inviting them to do illegal activities. They would probably try to claim that its the parent’s job to monitor that, and to buy into the crypto on the teens’ behalf—but it’s just a horrible idea to market anything crypto-related to the underage.

3. NFT’s are stupid.

NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. This is a recently made-up concept that is particularly stupid, and if we’re being perfectly honest is really just a way for the ultra wealthy to launder their money. It’s basically a receipt. A digital receipt that is proof of purchase. You may have heard that the meme that was recently sold for half a million dollars.

The girl in this photo, Zoë Roth, sold an NFT of this image for half a million dollars ($500,000). What does that mean? It means that someone has a little digital token that says “This is yours.” But it’s not copyright, so anyone can still use it. And because the image is digital, it exists in the non-physical realm of cyberspace (hence the “non fungible” part of NFT). So this guy has a really expensive digital text that says “the digital image that this guy has is the “real” one. But that doesn’t.... do anything per se. He has no rights to the image, anyone can still use it, and he has no physical proof of purchase. An NFT only exists in cyberspace, so it’s not like he has the memory card that the photo was originally taken on. Sounds stupid, right? That’s because it is. It’s also something that is a new concept, and trying to bring that into the world of publishing is a terrible idea, and trying to bring that to children is an even worse idea.

and finally, and most significantly

Cryptocurrency and NFT’s in particular are horrible for the environment.

Not, you drive your car daily instead of biking to work bad, or you forgot to shut off your lights while you went on a week long vacation bad, but Jeffrey Bezos, Chevron oil spill, potentially apocalyptically bad. You can read more about that here. Basically because NFT’s are digital data, and they use something called a blockchain to trace who owns what and the layers of ownership have been. All of this data needs a significant amount of server space that has to be constantly running, and as we know these warehouses eat up a huge portion of energy.

...but wait there’s more.

How can there be more? Isn’t this bad enough? Oh no, my friend. Much like the dystopian novels these authors write, it always gets worse. And in this case it’s particularly grievous.

Marie Lu was the spearhead of this project, she and Julie Zhuo, former Facebook Design VP, current crypto trader and tech start-up millionaire... there’s something so sinister of trying to lure teens into a financial system they are unfamiliar and ill-equipped to deal with, that stands to make a lot of money for people who already have a lot of it. Make no mistake, most authors are not what twitter likes to call “powerful.” In this day and age, surviving on authorship alone is so incredibly rare, and most books published sell less than 100 copies. I firmly believe that most criticism towards authors is ill-conceived, and it’s almost always directed at marginalized debut authors, and not the people who really deserve it. I think these people really deserve it.

The Merits of the Idea

Personally, I think collaborative storytelling is the next frontier to explore. Things like D&D, video games, and fanfiction are things that have had immeasurable impacts on how we tell stories. That’s why this was so egregious, in my opinion. It’s such a cool idea... but the insatiable greed of capitalism ruined it. If it was just a collaborative storytelling experience, leave the money out of it, I think it would be fantastic. The canon printed by a legacy publisher, and e-versions available on the website, then just let everybody play and create together. It would have been so cool, akin to what Disney *shudder* is doing with the Star Wars: High Republic series, which has just been a blast to delve into.

Conclusion

From a business perspective, the Young Adult publishing industry has been in shambles for a while. They appear to have abandoned the idea that “Young Adult” is marketed toward teens in favor of greater profits, there’s mounting pressure by YA publishing houses to pressure authors of color into making their novels YA instead of publishing in general fiction, and the fact that the industry side has not diversified itself at all despite their claims that they’re the most diverse genre has me more than a little skeptical. It’s enough that it has gone from an industry with a cult-like fan base to a predatory scheme that is willing to do anything to make a buck.

There’s so many new books coming, with shiny new covers and exciting sequels and TV shows and distractions, but the YA reading community should be wary. This industry has successfully co-opted progressive language and morphed it into a grotesque portmanteau that is solely aimed at greedily taking the money of its compassionate consumers, while failing to meet any of the promises they so overzealously dole out. Combine that with a toxic online community that is willing to cannibalize itself when rumors spread about unpublished debut novels, but allow the racism of S.J. Maas and Leigh Bardugo slide by... it’s giving white women feminism to me.

I had already mostly grown out of reading Young Adult, but this just solidified the decision that choosing to pick up one of these books will be the exception and not the rule.

And as always, please remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And it definitely is when capitalism is involved.

That and I am very liberal with my own personal blacklist.

#YA Books #nft #ya fiction #young adult #realms of ruin #marie lu #featured #essay #someone will remember us even in another time

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thewertsearch · 2 years

Text

The Mistake

First, let’s compile the evidence.

It’s extremely serious.

It defies the rules of Sburb.

Its scope is broad enough to affect another session.

The kids haven’t made it yet.

That last one means it’s not what’s currently happening with Jack. The mistake is nothing we’ve seen the kids do so far, and will happen later in the comic.

It also probably forced the trolls into hiding. This one I’m less sure about, because they could be hiding for other reasons - like, maybe they’re fighting the final boss of Sburb while all this is going down.

Anyway, now we can talk about the possibilities, starting with:

Gamebreaks

In an ask a couple weeks ago, I listed thirteen ways to break Sburb, and now we know for sure that the Mistake does just that. Could one of these be our culprit? Well...

Several options are now impossible in the kids’ session. We can’t swap entry items around, for example, because there’s only one entry item left. Neither can we broker peace between the Kingdoms - Jack would never accede.

A lot of them just don’t seem that dangerous. Messing with Dreamselves or doing each other’s Quests might be fun to experiment with, but I don’t see how they could lead to large-scale disaster.

The options that are both still possible and potentially dangerous enough are:

Modding Sburb. This one is unlikely, for the simple fact that the kids don’t have a programmer on their team. John’s probably not going to have time to read Data Structures for Assholes cover-to-cover.

Breaking Sburb’s timeloops. I’d love to see this work, but GC already tried it, and she just enabled a timeline that went right back and enabled the original. My intuition is that it’d take a lot more than that to break time, and four newbies wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

Prototyping something weird. This one could be trouble. Prototyping is such a small-scale event, with such enormous ramifications. I’ll talk about it in its own section below.

Starting a nested Sburb session. The trolls think the kids triggered their Reckoning early - but what if they didn’t? What if the early meteors the trolls saw come from a new session? I can even think of a motive. If the kids’ session really is unsalvageable, what’s their next move? Leaving the session, of course! Starting a second-order session gives them a full do-over, letting them avoid the same mistakes as last time. The one hole in this theory is that I don’t see how it affects the trolls. But we’ve already seen from Problem Sleuth that recursion is a very dangerous game - there might not be an infinite amount of room in Sessionspace.

Destroying something huge, like Skaia: Only matters if the kids can break all iterations of it. No way to do that has presented itself, but we have a lot more comic left to get through. This is one to watch.

Unfortunate Prototyping

I’m still a Typheus Theory truther. This would be a catastrophe, creating an entire Medium filled with hostile versions of these mysterious 'browser gods'. Even Jack would get the power boost, which would really suck.

Another thing to note is that if the kids weren’t on the ball, and Grandpa somehow ended up in the Kernel before Jade entered, then the Underlings (plus Jack) would get the traits of a Sburb expert, too. That might be as bad as Typheus, if not even worse. I mean, we don’t know what Typheus can do, but we’ve seen what Grandpa can do.

The Noble Circle of Horrorterrors

This is going to be one of my ‘shot in the dark’ theories, but...

The Veil fits snugly into established understanding of Sburb, but the Horrorterrors don’t. Why does Sburb even have dark gods? Are they some sort of uber-Underling?

Sburb, as a rule, is a whimsical game, much to its players’ frustration. It has a design philosophy, and the Horrorterrors don’t match it at all. It’s possible that Rose’s Grimoire is embellishing their feats a little - I’m assuming they’re not actually omnipotent - but they seem absurdly threatening. Do they factor into the war on Skaia at all? Can they even fit on Skaia?

Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that they seem out of scope. We first heard about then outside Sburb, in a book written (I assume) on Earth. Are they even instantiated by Sburb, or are they just drawn to its sessions, to the little circles of firelight in their void of a home?

Because if it’s the latter, then there’s only one incarnation of the Horrorterrors, and if the kids make a mistake involving them, its consequences could reverberate to all Sburb sessions, everywhere.

Mislead

We should at least raise the possibility that the kids aren’t responsible for the Mistake at all.

The kids’ session is clearly where the mistake happens, but the trolls have been interfering in that session since before it began. GC has already acted independently, getting John killed as a result. Are we sure the kids are the ones at fault here?

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 4 #theories

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cellydawn · 3 years

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undertale meta deepdive: sans is not a good person (OR the sans theory masterpost pt. 1)

❤️ || Part 2 || Part 3

Sans is far from this valiant epitome of good that the fandom so often paints him as. He’s not a hero—hell, he might even be a bad, terrible person. At least in the past. My intention in this post isn’t to crush popular fandom interpretations of Sans in a bad faith argument, rather, it is to challenge preconceptions that have existed for years and to open up discussion on the dubious morality of this popular and loved character; I certainly love him a little more after doing this analysis.

Section I - A Bad Person (The “What”)

Sans is certainly not opposed to leaving us little breadcrumbs for us in regards to his mysterious past. We get the idea that Sans is separated from his home, likely due to something he did. Something he had thought was important. Something that led him to take his home for granted.

So based off of the previous dialogue, this “type” that he intimately knows... he’s talking about himself. He was very “determined” to do whatever he did, which cost him his home, likely nearly everything he cared about given his angst.

So let’s say Sans used to be “determined”.

Sans is also aware of the SAVE function, meta knowledge that only the player and Flowey should know about because they have or have had this ability in the past.

“Take it from me”: accept that what I say is true, because I know or have experienced it. Sans should have quit when he had the chance. Never satisfied, too determined to bow out. But is he talking about the same thing we’ve been doing?

When Sans threatens us with the infamous “bad time”, he is NOT referring to the fight... but what comes after, because only after he is struck down, he gives us one final piece of advice:

But HOW does he know that the world is going to be thrown into the “abyss”? Unless he has experienced this first-hand.

This is Papyrus confronting us in the genocide run antecedent to his fight…

…and this is him on Sans. An eerily mirrored piece of dialogue from Papyrus describing us and his brother. What do we know so far? Both Sans and the player need to be kept on “the straight and narrow”, both are “determined”, and both do irreparable damage to the world, possibly sending it to “the abyss”.

Purgatory: a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven. Not to mention the suspicious usage of the word “abyss” by Papyrus.

From the evidence gathered, it seems that the reason why Sans isn’t able to return to his world is because he destroyed it in the same manner we destroyed Undertale in the genocide run. Why else would he say “take it from me”; he empirically knows what happens when the world is pushed to its very limits.

But which world could he have destroyed? What world did Sans come from?

(Continues under the cut because this gets really long.)

Section II - The Deltarune Connection (The “Where”)

If you’ve read some Deltarune theory posts, you know that Gaster is prominently featured in Deltarune. He addresses us at the beginning of the game and there are blatant references to him (the phone call in the Dark World, the strange bunker, etc). I’m going to try to prove that Sans will also play a large role in its story. Let’s take a look at the lyrics of the end credits, Don’t Forget.

When the light is running low And the shadows start to grow And the places that you know Seem like fantasy There's a light inside your soul That's still shining in the cold With the truth The promise in our hearts Don't forget I'm with you in the dark

The truth: Sans says this to us before giving us access to his room, the entrance to which is suspiciously identical to the fast-travel doors that Darkners use. We also get access to his basement.

Promise: Sans has a history of promises. He is regretful of a promise he made in the past.

Don’t forget: Appears on a poorly drawn picture of three smiling people, in Sans’s basement. This phrase is also used in a description for "Memory” in the sheet music booklet from the Collector’s Edition. What do you know, it’s written in Comic Sans too. Go figure.

Now, let me introduce a character that is featured prominently in Deltarune, someone that is somehow related to Sans, someone who isn’t Gaster.

Ice-E is everywhere in Deltarune’s Hometown, but the only inkling we get of his existence is from Sans. The Ice-E word search that Sans gives us is interesting because the title itself is written in comic sans.

In one of the hospital rooms, there’s a “1-to-10 pain scale using Ice-E as a model”. It’s an uncanny description of Sans.

Ice-E is also characterized for its missuses of apostrophes. One might call it an “apostrophe-dog”.

Moving on.

Section III - Gaster (The “Who”)

Oh boy, this section is going to be absolutely massive. I’ll try my best to make the logical flow easy to understand. So we know that Sans did (will do) some pretty shady things in the world of Deltarune. To understand why, we have to examine how exactly Sans and Gaster are related. Let’s start with Ice-E since we know that he’s somehow associated with Sans.

The “Nightmare” variant of the Ice-E word search appears in fun values between 56 and 57. There is only one other snowman that appears in Undertale.

We are asked to take “a piece” of it. Let’s investigate where else this specific phrase is used. Following this trail of breadcrumbs reveals other phrases that Sans and Gaster-related things share.

Exhibit A: Gaster follower #2, “time and space”

The prophecy has something to do with Sans and Gaster. I’ll let the evidence speak for itself.

Exhibit B: Memoryheads, “be seeing you”

Memoryheads are the first amalgamate we encounter in the True Lab. Before their spare conditions are met, they are known as " " (six blank spaces). Gaster is frequently associated with the number six.

If we attack the Memoryheads, these statements flash by quickly in red text:

FAILURE

But it didn't work.

nope

Absorbed

Don't worry about it.

I'm lovin' it.

Occurs when the player tries to name themselves Sans.

We see the phrase “be seeing you” in only these instances. Below is the Sound Test Room that has a chance to appear if the fun value is set to 65. This is the only place that “Gaster’s theme” can be accessed in-game.

Exhibit C: The dump

“The abyss” makes an appearance again. It’s something to pay close attention to--it’s always somehow related to Gaster. So what does a piece of trash falling into the abyss mean? Well, we know that Gaster “fell” into his creation...

We know that Flowey refers to Sans as “Smiley Trashbag”. Papyrus states that Sans frequents Grillby’s, a “purgatory” and “hamburger abyss”.

(note: Papyrus is referring to a literal trash can here, but the implication that Sans is “trash-like” is here)

If it’s not clear what I’m getting to, then let me spell it out: Sans is a piece of Gaster, they are one and the same. Sans/Gaster took his “experiment” with Deltarune too far, possibly destroying the world and displacing him in Undertale.

I’ll continue this in another post because it seems that tumblr is breaking.

❤️ || Part 2 || Part 3

#undertale #deltarune #undertale theory #deltarune theory #sans #gaster #cellytheory

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citrina-posts · 4 years

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Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

#this deleted idk why #so here is me reposting it #atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #cultural appropriation #meta #atla meta #racism

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marimopeace · 3 years

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there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

#isekai #mother's basement #inuyasha #digimon #fushigi yugi #.hack//legend of the twilight #log horizon #overlord #the saint's magic power is omnipotent #the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap #a returner's magic should be special #adonis #the lady and the beast #light and shadow #kumo desu ga nani ka #her majesty's swarm #fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess #death is the only ending for a villainess #the villainess wants to marry a commoner #save me princess #the beginning after the end #the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion #trash of the count's family #this time i will definitely be happy!#silver diamond #see i normally put the raw titles for everything but the tiny korean/japanese part of my brain is so tired bc my english brain went off #the princess imprints a traitor #manga #manhwa #donghua

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levihan-drabbles · 3 years

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Hey guys !!! I hope everyone in this wonderful fandom is doing amazing <3 Recently, my friend and I have come up with a very interesting and fun event that we're hoping you all would like to participate in. We haven't really seen surprise prompts and drabble weeks for Levihan before, so we decided to make one! Also a very fun contest with cool awards too.

Getting straight to the point, the reason why this event is different from an usual prompt week is because we are only going to be focusing on drabbles here. (And also because the prompts won't be predetermined and given to you beforehand)

(Note: this is also open to artists and other content creators. We will be making another post tomorrow explaining how the event works for them. Till then, the writers can continue)

✒ A drabble is a short work of fiction of precisely one hundred words in length. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in a confined space. (YeS I stole it from google)

As a writer myself, due to the limited word limit, drabbles can be a bit of a struggle sometimes, and that is primarily the reason why this whole event is also somewhat more of a writing practice (other than the fact that we need to get those numbers on AO3 up haha)

Without wasting much time, let's get straight into the details, and how this is really going to work, what are surprise prompts and the contest and its awards of course.

▶ How long are your entries really supposed to be? Well Google says 100 words but that's way too unfair so your fic should be = to or under 1000 words. The maximum you can go up to is 1500.

▶ Are there any certain prompts/themes these drabbles should be on? Yes, and that's what we are going to talk about next.

▶ And what are surprise prompts? Okay so remember back when in school, your annoying math teacher would take a surprise quiz out of nowhere without informing you? Yeah something like that but its not that bad. Also, its a lot more fun than math.

Basically your prompts will be given to you a day before you need to post them. so its really just a writing practice and there is no pressure, so don't think about the quality or something. This is about scribbling down something quick without a lot of planning.

The prompts are also going to be chosen from an OTP prompt generator, so they are going to be uhm interesting and fun to work.

We have a theme for each day (like angst, fluff etc) and the mods will choose 4 random prompts beforehand for each of these days. At the time of giving the prompts to the participants, we will run a machine to choose one randomly out of the 4. So even the mods don't know what the actual prompt is going to be for the day.

The themes for each day (except Wednesdays and Thursdays, we will get to them later)

Angst Mondays

Trope Tuesdays

Fluff Fridays

Comic Saturdays (this is for the artists, so you can ignore it)

Smut Sundays

Now, here's the challenge (and probably my favorite part about the event) -- The prompts you get are not exclusively going to be in accordance with the themes for each day.

For example, you can definitely get this for Angst Mondays :

Prompt : "Levi having to rescue Hange from a pack of kittens/puppies."

Now its up to you, with the power of levihan on your side, to write an angsty drabble based on this prompt, (okay fine, the prompts probably won't be this off bat but still)

**Exception, : for trope Tuesdays, you won't be getting a prompt but a particular trope like (enemies to lovers, protective levi, caring hange etc)

▶ What time will you exactly get the prompt then? So basically, if Levihan drabble week begins on Tuesday, 25th May, you will getting your trope (prompt for the other days) around Monday afternoon-ish. And you are allowed to post until Tuesday midnight, before Wednesday begins. (Wednesday and Thursday are contest days which we will talk about later, so you don't have to worry about getting another prompt on Tuesday and finishing it on Wednesday itself)

▶How will you get your prompt? And any other details? We'll be making another post later where we will dive deep into the timezone specifics and how you will get the prompt, and what you will tag your posts with so we can see your stuff and reblog it.

You will get the prompt for fluff Friday around Thursday afternoon, and then the writers will have a break as Saturday is for artists. Friday night, you will get the prompt for smut Sunday you will have Saturday as a break in between before posting your smut on Sunday.

The same formula applies to angst Mondays.

1st June, Tuesday, last day of the week will be the prize day. We are gonna talk about the prize day in the next section.

Wednesday and Thursdays (The contest days)

So, first of all, this is optional. If you are participating in the rest of the drabble week, its okay if you leave to opt out of the contest. Similarly, you can also just participate in the contest and not do the other days. It's up to you.

The people participating in the contest would be divided into two groups. There are going to be two winners.

Suppose we have group 1 and group 2, a random participant from each group will be chosen. This chosen participant is called the selector. Its purely luck and a machine that chooses the selector. The selector gets to choose a prompt (from a list the mods will give them) Suppose the said selector is from group 1, then the prompt they chose will be given to group two, and everyone in group two have to write on that. The selector from group two will do the same thing for group 1 members.

All of the preparation for the contest will be done beforehand, and the selectors will be informed before the week begins. The selected prompts will be given to both groups Tuesday night. By Thursday evening their works should be posted.

The word limit for Contest Drabbles can be extended to 3000 words. This is ONLY for the contest.

After all works are submitted by Thursday evening, there will be a voting period which will stretch till 1st June, Tuesday. During this period, group 1 will read group 2's stuff, and group 2 will do the same for group 1. Then they will vote for their favorite fics accordingly, the fic with the maximum votes from both groups wins. The mods will be supervising this, and reading the stuff too.

▶How do we vote? All the details related to voting will also be explained in a different post.

▶What are the awards? Okay, so one thing unique about drabble week is that there are going to be no permanent mods. We will probably have these events rather frequently, and the mods will change for each event. The mods will decide the awards so different awards for different months.

This month, the gifts are :

Well detailed and long comments on 2 chapters of a fic of your choice. These can also be two different one shots if you want.

Beta reading for a few (3-4 chapters) for any fic the winner wants (the other details can be discussed in dms)

The winners will have the opportunity/chance to become mods for the next week, next month. This is also a great way to make new friends and work with them while holding an event!

To participate, PLEASE FILL OUT THIS FORM. The last date to fill in is 20th May, so do it before that. We'll be making another post for the artists soon, posting it tomorrow most likely. You will be constantly updated, so don't worry!

if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Thank you so much, we will be looking forward for your participation! Much love.

#levihan #aot #snk #levi x hange #levi x hanji #levi ackerman #hanji zoe #hange zoe #drabbleweekMAY'21

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cakesunflower · 3 years

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Outer Banks Series Rewrite/JJ Maybank Fic Series [5. Midsummers]

Disclaimer: None of the characters (except for Stella) or their dialogues (for the most part) are my own, and belong to the writers & creators of Outer Banks!

Previous Parts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Read on AO3!

Here’s episode 5 “Midsummers”!

“Dude—Mom catches you out here, and you’re dead.” Stella peeked one eye open, catching sight of her sister standing over her, arms crossed over her chest and eyebrows raised. “You’re literally out in the open.”

Kie’s concern came from the pen Stella was currently twirling between her fingers as she lay on the ground in their backyard. Stella didn’t say anything, instead took another pull from the pen, letting the familiar smoke invade her lungs before blowing it out slowly. The act did its job in calming her down, and Kiara let out a sigh before shifting to sit down next to Stella, before going down on her back, too.

Stella could feel her sister’s gaze on her as Kie turned her head to look at her, but Stella kept her gaze up at the sky. It was sort of cloudy, but there wasn’t a threat for rain. If there had been, the celebration later tonight would’ve been rescheduled ages ago.

“Look, I know you’re worried about JJ—” Kie began, but Stella cut her off.

“He willingly let himself get arrested for something he didn’t do, and he has a drug-addict, abusive dad to go back home to. We haven’t heard from him yet.” Stella looked at Kie, then, jaw hard. “Of course I’m worried.”

Kie’s gaze was soft with sympathy, but Stella could see her own concern swimming, too. After all, Kie cared about JJ as well. Maybe not in the way Stella did, but just as good. “He’ll turn up,” Kie assured. “He always does.”

Despite Kie’s efforts, Stella wasn’t all that comforted. And maybe Kie saw the deep worry that had etched itself into Stella’s features, because Kie’s face softened even more, looking at her sister gently as she asked, “What’s going on?”

Stella’s throat worked as her heart drummed in her chest, forcing herself into a sitting position while Kie kept on her back, looking up at her. For a moment, Stella hesitantly chewed on her lower lip, wondering if now was the right time to indulge, but it was Kie. It was her sister, and if Stella couldn’t tell her, she couldn’t tell anyone.

“JJ and I kissed.” There. She said it. Now it was out in the open.

Kie blinked once before her eyes widened almost comically, shooting up in a sitting position opposite of Stella as she demanded, “What? When?”

“Yesterday,” Stella admitted, stomach flipping as memories of her and JJ’s actions played through her mind like her favorite movie. She couldn’t stop the small smile from playing on her lips. “We were at John B’s, before coming to the summer series.” She fiddled with the pen between her fingers. “It just—it kind of just happened.”

Kie scoffed with a shake of her head. “It didn’t kind of just happen,” she mocked. “This has been waiting to happen for so Goddamn long.” Stella tried not to laugh at the happiness shining in Kie’s eyes, which did a lot to relax Stella. She’d been worried Kie would ram on her for breaking one of their friend group rules, but Kie seemed anything but disappointed. Her eyes widened then, shoulders lifting. “Oh, shit, John B and Pope owe me twenty bucks!”

Stella blinked. “I’m sorry—what?”

Kie snickered, looking all too delighted. “We kind of had a bet going on over how long it’d take for you and JJ to get together.” Stella’s eyes widened, jaw dropping in disbelief. “I bet it’d happen before Midsummers and would you look at that! You just made me forty bucks richer, sis.”

“Wha—” Stella cut herself off with a scoff, ripping up some grass before tossing it at Kie. She shrieked through a laugh, jerking back before brushing away the pieces of grass. “Are you kidding me?! You guys bet on us?”

“Of course we did,” Kie responded with a smirk, not at all looking apologetic. At Stella’s gaping expression, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Stel. You two have been dancing around each other for so fucking long. We were getting tired of waiting, so we thought we’d have some fun with it,” she finished with a shrug.

Stella couldn’t believe what she was hearing, cheeks heating up at the information. She wasn’t mad or upset that her sister and friends bet on when she and JJ would get together—she was just surprised, and a little bit amused. She wondered how long the bet had been going on for. But instead of asking that, she instead inquired, “So I’m guessing JJ and I are in the clear for breaking the no Pogue-on-Pogue macking rule?”

Kie waved her off, smile still in place. “You two are the exception to the rule,” she said confidently before crossing her legs and shooting Stella an expectant look. “So? Tell me how it was.” She quickly held a hand up. “But not too many details because it’s JJ and he’s like my brother and, ew, gross. But I still wanna know! How’d it happen?”

At that, the heat in Stella’s cheeks intensified into a fire as she recalled every single detail from yesterday—as if she could ever forget. “I was, uh, persuading him to come to the summer series with us.”

Kie’s eyebrows shot up. “Persuading, huh?” she repeated with an impish grin, prompting Stella to let out a giggle. “Well, looks like it worked. Not that I’m surprised. That boy is stupid for you.”

Stella pressed her lips together to keep her giddy smile from widening. “Stop.”

Kie snickered. “Man, you two are gonna be unbearable now, aren’t you? All over each other all of the time.”

“Dude, I don’t even know what we’re doing,” Stella instantly responded with a shake of her head. “All we did was kiss. We’re not suddenly together, Kie.”

She didn’t look convinced. “Only a matter of time.”

Stella’s heart fluttered in her chest. Of course she wanted to be with JJ—it was all she could think about for so long. After that kiss, it was closer to being a reality than she could ever imagine, but they needed to talk about it, first. “Maybe. But first he needs to let us know he’s okay and that his dad didn’t fucking kill him.”

Her words were tight in her throat as she said them, sending a new jolt of worry through her. JJ never really talked about it, but she knew the kind of man his dad was, knew what he was capable of. JJ getting arrested wasn’t going to go over well; it wouldn’t with any parent, but God only knew how Luke Maybank would react to it. So, yeah, Stella was sick with worry over JJ, and she just fucking wished he’d call or text her back.

Kie sighed. “Listen, maybe—”

Whatever Kie was about to say was interrupted by their mother’s voice shouting at them from the back porch. “Girls! Get in here! You need to start getting ready.” Simultaneously, both Stella and Kie threw their heads back and groaned, loudly—loud enough for Mrs. Carrera to hear them. “I don’t wanna hear it! Get your butts in here now!”

They stood up, and as Stella shoved her pen in the pocket of her shorts, Kie grumbled, “I hate everything.”

While every other soul on Figure Eight either was overjoyed to be attending Midsummers or envious that they couldn’t, Stella and Kiara were probably the only ones who hated the party. For Kie, it was more of a socialist thing that Stella respected her for, but she also knew that her sister’s disgust with Midsummers, ultimately, existed for the same reason as Stella’s: they hated the people they were surrounded by.

All of the Kooks would be gathered tonight for the party—this year a celebration for Ward Cameron, A.K.A the father of Sarah Cameron, Kie’s worst enemy. Stella didn’t care what the party was for—she despised it. The most Stella liked to dress up was in clothes of her choice, and sure that could sometimes include make-up and dresses, but not full on evening gowns with flowers in her hair. It often felt like she was getting dressed up as a lamb for a slaughter, being pushed into a crowd of Kooks who thought they were better than everyone else because of their overflowing pockets. The adults were bad enough—Stella did not want to even see the people her age.

Namely Rafe, Topper, Kelce, and anyone who was associated with them. Especially after what they did to JJ and Pope yesterday. Dicks.

But Midsummers, much to both Stella and Kie’s chagrin, was important to their parents, especially their mother. So as soon as the two girls returned inside the house, Mrs. Carrera was ushering them towards the bathrooms, like they were toddlers who needed supervised bath times.

“Hold on a second—” Mr. Carrera paused, and Stella and Kie exchanged looks when their mom sniffed the air around them. Her eyes then zeroed in on Stella, hands on her hips and eyes blazing as she demanded, “Did you just smoke, Stella?”

Knowing there was no point in lying, Stella huffed. “I needed something to take the edge off if I have to go to this stupid party.”

This wasn’t the first time their mom caught them smoking or smelling of weed, but it pissed her off just the same. While Kie tried to stifle a smile, Mrs. Carrera glared daggers at her Stella. “You’re not getting out of this, Stella. You better drown yourself in body wash and perfume when you get ready.”

Stella rolled her eyes behind her mom’s back, but listened all the same, albeit reluctantly. Kie was the first to hop into the shower in their shared bathroom, so Stella took the time to lay in her bed and unlock her phone, hoping to see a text or missed call from JJ. Her heart jumped when she saw just one text from him, chest tight as she read it quickly.

JJ: Don’t worry about me. I’m good. I’ll see u later.

That was it. Just ten words of reassurance and then nothing. Part of Stella was relieved to have received anything from him at all, but another part still felt worried and a little annoyed. She—all of them—had been worried sick over him after yesterday, and this was all he could say? Stella figured she shouldn’t be too surprised. It was typical JJ behavior. He got in a bind and somehow got himself out of it, and never really let his friends in on if anything was wrong. But the tough guy persona could only get him so far.

Chewing on her lower lip, Stella drafted a text, but not to JJ. Instead, she sent a message to John B.

Stella: You heard from JJ? Do you think he’s okay?

John B responded within moments.

John B: Yeah, it’s all good. I’m with him right now. We’ll see you guys tonight, alright? Keep an eye out.

Stella blinked at the cryptic message, wondering what the hell he was talking about. But if recent circumstances were any indicator, something was probably going down tonight. Stella’s stomach flipped in both apprehension and excitement. These boys might be the death of her.

Soon enough, Kie was out of the bathroom and it was Stella’s turn. She showered and brushed her teeth, stepping back into her room to catch sight of a satin slip dress with a halter neck waiting for her on her bed. It was a pretty golden color with a V-neck trimmed with lace, and a pair of white and gold sandals were waiting by the bed, too. Stella huffed, the towel wrapped tightly around her. She knew for a fact that her mother thought she needed to have everything out for her otherwise Stella would be useless in getting dressed for Midsummers. It was kind of insulting.

Stella expertly dried her hair, letting the natural curls come into place, before doing her makeup. She kept it light, as always, because not even Midsummers was going to make her slap on a face full of makeup, especially in the middle of summer. Some foundation, mascara, highlighter, and lipstick was as far as she went, with her jewelry consisting of a dainty diamond star necklace and the rings on her fingers.

“Oh, good, you’re dressed,” Mrs. Carrera said upon entering her room. “Come on, let me do your hair.”

Stella frowned but listened, sitting down in front of her dresser while her mom stood behind her. She worked quickly and efficiently, braiding back the two front locks of her hair and intertwining small yellow flowers in them that Stella tried not to wrinkle her nose at.

As her mom worked, Kie wandered into Stella’s room. Her slip dress was spaghetti strapped and a lavender color, a couple of layered necklaces around her neck, and her hair down in an updo with a crown of pink and purple flowers and locks of curly hair framing her face. She looked stunning, even with that scowl she wore as she stormed into the room.

“This is disgusting,” she announced without preamble.

Mrs. Carrera wove another flower into Stella’s braid, her voice dry above her as she responded, “I know. It’s just horrible. I’m asking you two to relax and go to a fun party.”

Kie scoffed, towering over their mom. They may be twins, but Kie somehow got the tall gene from their dad, standing at the elegant 5’8”, while Stella hadn’t grown past 5’5”. “We look like bourgeoisie pigs.”

Stella tried to keep the snort from escaping, covering it up with a cough as their mom finally patted down Stella’s hair, letting out a satisfied hum before stepping back. She shot Kie an exasperated look and said, “Will you please not worry about socioeconomic injustice for one night?”

Kie scowled and Stella’s face scrunched up. This was so much more than that. She twisted around in the seat and stood up, crossing her arms and siding with Kie, “Mom, people not three miles from here have no power, no running water—and we’re going to Midsummers.”

Kie nodded vigorously, gesturing to Stella. “That’s so tone deaf.”

Mrs. Carrera huffed, picking up the little pouch she’d dropped on the dressing table and pulling out the diamond earrings. As she put one in, she said, “Do you know how hard we had to work to get into the Island Club?”

Both Stella and Kie rolled their eyes, having heard this a hundred times before. “Yeah, Mom, how could we forget?” Stella sighed. “You had to grovel for, like, ten years—”

“Twelve,” Mrs. Carrera corrected, “and we also had to cough up a huge chunk of dough, and do you know why we did that?”

Kie wasn’t impressed. “To keep up with the Joneses?”

Mrs. Carrera’s hands were on her hips, looking at her daughter pointedly. “No. So you two could have the experiences that I had as a child. Sweethearts, do you know what the Island Club is?”

“A factory farm for debutantes,” Kie flatly said at the same time Stella said, “Where brain cells go to die.”

Kie gave her a subtle fist bump as their mother glared at them before smiling exasperatedly. She placed one hand on each of their cheeks, looking at both of them as she said, “It is a nice place, with nice people, where you can do fun stuff.”

Neither of them bought the company line. “With out of touch rich people,” Stella added.

Kie rightfully finished, “While the island sinks slowly into the ocean.”

Their mom dropped her hands from their cheeks, stepping back and shooting them a look. Clearly, she was done trying with her stubborn daughters. “Okay, I want you two to put on your party faces if you wanna live,” she said before walking out of the room.

Both Stella and Kie sighed, looking at each other in resigned defeat. Stella picked up her pen, offering a half hearted smile. “Wanna take a hit before we go?”

Kie scoffed, taking it from her. “Or maybe ten.”

Less than fifteen minutes later, the girls were at the Island Club with their parents, and instead of doing the polite thing and greeting the other party goers, Stella spotted a familiar face and grabbed Kie’s hand, jerking her chin to where Pope was working out on the lawn at the grill. She’d almost forgotten that he was working the party with his dad. Thank God for small miracles.

As they approached him, his back to the girls, Kie startled Stella by speaking in a terrible British accent, “Excuse me, sir. Do we have to shuck these ourselves?” Pope swiveled around as Kie grinned and Stella shook her head in bemusement. “’Cause it might mess up my costume.”

Pope chuckled. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we?” he asked and Stella stepped forward with a laugh, slapping her hand against his, front and back, before ending with a snap of her fingers. Their handshake. As he repeated the act with Kie, Pope added, “That accent was bad.”

Kie nodded. “It was. I was gonna let it go.”

Stella scoffed. “I wish you had,” she said as they came to stand next to Pope, arms folded across her chest. The three of them observed the scene before them, of all the guests gathered around in their fancy dresses and suits, drinking from flutes of champagne or drinks from the bar. “You ever seen this many Kooks in one place?”

“Yeah. Last year,” Pope answered.

Kie was squinting against the sun, but just like Stella’s, her brown skin glowed a pretty golden color against it. “We’re in the lion’s den.”

“Exactly.”

Pope glanced at the two of them, gaze lingering on Stella longer as he asked, “Have you heard from JJ?”

Kie shook her head. “No.”

“Just a text,” Stella answered, prompting Kie to look towards her, raising an eyebrow. Stella’s lips pursed. “He said he was okay and not to worry about him. But I won’t really believe it until I see him.”

“He’ll be all right,” Kie said, frowning to herself. “He’s got the survival instincts of a cockroach.”

Stella swallowed inaudibly. Kie wasn’t really wrong.

“It’s all my fault,” Pope said, the guilt thick in his tone as he frowned at nothing. He looked like he might be sick over everything that’s happened.

Stella frowned as Kie said, “Uh, you didn’t do this, Pope.”

“Yeah,” Stella chimed in firmly. “Topper almost killed you. Remember?”

He shot her a dry look. “Not something I can forget.”

Stella shot him a small smile. “JJ was just trying to do right by you. He—he knew what he was doing.” She stumbled over her words briefly because, well, she wasn’t entirely sure if she believed them. She believed that JJ thought he was doing the right thing, but getting arrested was no small thing. He was just adding onto his record, and this time for something he didn’t even do. JJ put loyalty above anything else, and it was one of her favorite things about him—until it landed him in trouble he might not be able to get out of.

Midsummers, as expected, was boring as usual. The adults drank and the teens snuck in their own alcohol in hidden flasks, dancing to the music from the live band while almost everyone kissed Ward Cameron’s ass. Stella stuck by Kie’s side, mostly because she didn’t care for anyone else there and because Kie kept glaring at Sarah Cameron, who looked like the perfect Kook princess. She was missing her not-so-Prince Charming, Topper, who seemed to be sticking by Rafe and Kelce’s sides than with Sarah. Hmm. Interesting.

At one point, Stella excused herself to go to the bathroom, walking inside the country club and down the hall. She did her business, ignoring the giggles of the few other girls inside as she washed her hands. Just as she stepped out of the bathroom, however, she let out a gasp and stumbled into the doorframe as a figure rushed off in front of her, her gaze instantly following.

She’d recognize those blonde locks anywhere.

Stella’s heart thundered, gripping the doorframe tightly as she called out, “JJ?”

*****

Despite the severity of needing to find a hiding spot or escape, the sound of Stella’s voice had JJ stopping in his tracks. He turned, catching sight of her down the hall, too far down the hall, looking every bit as breathtaking as he expected her to in a golden dress that hugged her so perfectly. And the way she was looking at him—the surprise and relief and tenderness he was sure she reserved just for him—had JJ’s heart pounding right out of his chest, and not just because he was trying to save himself at the moment.

“Stella—” JJ stopped, looking through the glass of the doors, seeing Rafe, Kelce, and three of their suited up buddies purposefully making their way over. “Shit.” His blue eyes met her concerned brown ones. “Sweetheart, I’ll explain everything later, but I gotta run right now. Just—I’ll see you in a little, okay?”

“Wait, JJ—”

But he didn’t stick around, as much as he wanted to, and instead turned and ran off just as he heard Rafe and his buddies walk in. They’d spotted him talking to Sarah because he’d needed to give her a letter from John B, after he’d spoken to and received a surprising hug from Pope, and now they were hot on his ass looking to throw more punches. JJ’d already received a beating from his dad—he didn’t need anymore, thank you very much.

Except he made his way into the men’s room, and Rafe and his buddies were pretty fast and managed to corner him no problem. Five against one—this was totally fair. Assholes.

Rafe pushed him and JJ grunted, struggling as Kelce came up behind him and locked an arm around the front of his neck, the other keeping his head in place as JJ grabbed at Kelce’s arm to loosen the grip. He struggled, heart pounding, as Rafe looked at his friends. “Hold him still. What—what do you think? A four iron, right?” He mimicked holding a golf club. “Keep his head still. I’m gonna line this up.”

JJ didn’t make it easy for Kelce to keep him still. “Very Rafe of you,” JJ said through gritted teeth. “Five on one?”

Rafe looked pristine in his stupid blue suit and bowtie. JJ hoped he’d choke on it. “If you could please stop talking? It’s very disrespectful. I’m trying to hit a ball.” Oh, fuck no. “Learn your etiquette, my friend.”

JJ kept grunting, struggling against Kelce, using his hands as much as he could to try and get away. JJ’s voice was hoarse against Kelce’s grip as he spat back, “I’m gonna kick your teeth in.” As much fire as there was in his voice, JJ wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to deliver on his promise. Not when the odds were stacked against him.

Rafe smirked sardonically, crouching to look up at JJ with a mocking sort of sympathy. “Your face looks really bad. Starting to look like your dad a lot more.”

The insult was grating, especially given that the bruises and cuts on his face were courtesy of his father. JJ couldn’t do much more than spit in Rafe’s face. He jerked back, wiping the saliva off his face as he grinned. “Oh, shit. Alright. It was—”

The lights began flickering. “Gentlemen!” Kelce roughly let go of JJ and pushed him off, prompting the blonde to struggle before he righted himself. The security guard approached them. “Is there a problem?”

“Oh! Pardon me, officer. No, there’s not an issue. I just—” JJ cut himself off, his breathing labored as he panted to catch his breath. He looked at the others and JJ ran his fingers through his hair before deciding on a different course of action. One he knew would likely get him out of this. “Actually, yes. No, there is an issue. Uh, we got a criminal trespass in progress here. Beep!” He waved a finger around. “Call it in, right?” The others looked at him, trying to appear casual and like they weren’t doing anything wrong. “Blatant disrespect for private property.”

Rafe clicked his tongue, scratching his ear. “Yeah.”

JJ turned to the guard. “I’m in violation of all kinds of shit, sir, but these young gentlemen—” He made a show of righting Kelce’s bowtie before he jerked him away.

“Don’t touch my shit,” Kelce said lowly.

JJ continued, “Uh, caught me, sir, and they’re about to take me away. And that’s what you should do.” He held his fists up like he was ready to be handcuffed. Again. “Escort me out of here. You got me.”

The guard grabbed his arm. JJ was relieved. “Come on.”

“All right.” JJ looked over his shoulder as the guard pulled him out, looking at the Kooks. “Fix that tie, son,” he said to Kelce before looking at Rafe. “You’re lookin’ spiffy, too. You Powerpuff Girls have fun,” he turned back around.

Rafe took a step forward, his voice smug. “Tell Stella she looks pretty hot for a scarred Pogue.”

Fire erupted in JJ’s veins at Rafe’s comment, a newfound anger rushing through him at the blatant insult from the son of a bitch. JJ didn’t care who they were—nobody talked about Stella like that. Not at all, not in front of him. JJ’s body moved at his own accord, a low growl escaping him as he jerked away from the guard and tried to launch himself at Rafe, consequences be damned of a five against one. The asshole insulted Stella. JJ couldn’t just let him get away with that.

He rushed towards Rafe, only for Kelce to jump in and push him away as the guard came to his back and pulled him away. “Hey! Stop it. Come here! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

But JJ struggled, the urge to bury his fist in Rafe’s face overwhelming after his words. “You think I’m afraid of you, bro?”

The guard pulled him back. “Come on.”

JJ turned and was guided out as Rafe’s voice followed him out of the locker room. “Hey, safe travels back to the cut!”

JJ shouted back, “This ain’t over!”

The guard didn’t let his grip on JJ go as he guided him down the halls and towards the doors, his grip tight as they burst through the doors out onto the patio. “Look, man, I can walk myself!” JJ exclaimed, earning gasps and looks from the guests at him being escorted out. “I got legs. Can you see that, brother?”

The guard didn’t seem to care. “Come on.”

“I really appreciate what you did back there. Let me just walk out by myself.” He struggled against the guard’s grip before spotting the older gentleman from earlier who had asked JJ for a drink. At this point, JJ didn’t care for the attention he was drawing on himself, stumbling over to where the man stood. “Mr. Dunleavy, I see you got your drink. Good, that’s really nice of you. I’m actually gonna down that,” he said quickly before grabbing the drink and downing the whiskey in one gulp.

The man gaped at him, the guard apologized before pulling JJ away. Everyone was watching, murmuring, and JJ never had mastered the art of subtlety, so he made a commotion as he was so kindly escorted out. Might as fucking well go out with a bang.

“Let go of him!” JJ turned at the sound of Stella’s voice, standing up on the patio with Kie by her side. Their parents were behind them, quietly telling Stella to stay quiet while her gaze met JJ’s. He stopped, kind of fucking mesmerized by the sight of her. “You can’t just boot him!”

The guard stopped, still holding onto JJ, who was still watching her. “Excuse me, ma’am?” the guard asked.

“I invited him here,” Stella continued, her voice loud and carrying over the newfound silence amongst the crowd. Everyone was looking at her, but she didn’t seem to give a shit, and JJ kind of fell in love with her all over again.

Next to her, JJ could hear her mom say, “Stella, stop it.”

“No, she’s right,” Kie spoke up, glaring at her parents and then at the guard. “We’re members of this club.”

“Girls, stop it,” Mr. Carrera seemed to be saying to them.

JJ took the opportunity of the guard being distracted to jerk out of his grip and push him, wincing as the man went stumbling into a waiter carrying a tray full of glasses that went shattering on the ground. “Sorry about that!” JJ said over the commotion before looking towards the girls. He pointed at them, blonde hair falling over his shoulders. “Hey, mandatory power hour at Rixon’s, ladies.” His gaze found Pope’s amidst the crowd’s. “Pope, you as well, all right? Rixon’s cove. Let’s roll.” He was walking backwards, people making their way for him as they all gaped at him in disbelief and annoyance. JJ looked back at the girls, holding his arm up. “All right, girls, come on.” He gripped his wrist. “Workers of the world unite. Throw off your chains!”

His gaze met Stella’s, who was watching him in, what he realized with relief, was amusement. He saw the looks she and Kie exchanged, a silent communication going on between the twins while their parents most definitely murmured warnings at them. And then, much to JJ’s relief, Stella and Kie broke away before running down the stairs.

JJ grinned widely, finally facing John B, who had been watching the whole thing with a grin. “Colonel.”

John B returned the salute JJ offered him. “Captain.”

JJ grinned. “Mission accomplished, sir.”

John B laughed as JJ shouted for the girls, watching as Pope pulled off his apron and handed it to his dad before running towards John B and JJ, all the while Mr. Heyward yelled, “Don’t do this! Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

But Pope didn’t listen, instead high fived John B and JJ, before John B ran off ahead and the two of them faced the girls running over, as well. Kie and Pope ran side by side, laughing, and JJ opened his arms so Stella could run into his embrace, and he laughed into her neck as he lifted her off the ground with a spin before setting her down, grasping her hand in his, and following the others as they ran.

“Later, losers!” John B shouted over his shoulder towards the partygoers.

Stella was laughing, the sound brilliant and wonderful in JJ’s ears as Kie cheered while they ran. JJ couldn’t help but laugh as well. It may have been a shitty couple of days, but at least he had his friends.

*****

The fire crackled between them as Stella sat on a log next to JJ. The cicadas were chirping against the otherwise quiet of the night, and JJ had changed out of the waiter get up and was back in his signature hat, shirt, and shorts combo. The sight of the shark tooth necklace Stella had gifted him around his neck always made her chest tighten in the best way. She and Kie were still in their Midsummers dresses, but mosquitos and bugs never bothered Stella, so she sat comfortably as the fire warmed them.

She kept looking towards JJ, though—at the cuts and bruises on his face. The sight of him injured tightened her chest uncomfortably, made her stomach twist nauseatingly. No doubt his dad had done this to him, and it enraged her. She wished, with every fiber of her being, that she could get him as far away from his dad as possible. It hurt, so badly, to see JJ injured at the hands of his abusive father. JJ, despite what others may see as faults and flaws, was probably the best person she knew. He had such a big heart, a soul that deserved to be loved and protected instead of stepped on and beaten. She desperately wished she could protect him from the cruelty of others. He deserved someone to do that for him.

“Hey, guys. So, like, my dad’s already gonna kill me,” Pope said as he and John B dropped some sticks to feed the fire before sitting down. “So what’s this mandatory meeting about?”

Stella watched as John B looked at JJ, pointing at him as if he needed permission. JJ nodded. “Might as well tell him, man, before we’re gaffed.”

John B smiled like he held some kind of secret. “You ready for this?” he asked, looking at Kie and Stella.

The two girls nodded impatiently. “Yeah.”

The fire glowed against John B’s skin as he looked at all of them. “So, the gold never went down with the Royal Merchant.”

Stella blinked as Pope groaned. “Oh, my God. Here we go again with this.”

Next to her, JJ sat up, holding out a calming hand to Pope. “No, all right, wait. Hear him out, all right?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at Pope and the girls.

John B had a finger to his lips before continuing, “It’s been here this whole time.” He looked to Kie. “It’s on the island.”

Her expression was one of shocked disbelief. “Are you serious?” She looked at John B before laughing in astonishment. “Oh, my God.”

Pope held up a hand. “I’d like to voice my skepticism.”

Stella was still trying to wrap her head around what John B said as he stood up. “I’m sure you would, Pope, but can I please present you with my evidence, sir?”

Pope rolled his eyes. “Proceed.”

John B held up a piece of paper he pulled out from his bag, proceeding to tell them about a letter he had from Denmark Tanny, a slave who had survived the wreck of the Royal Merchant. He showed it to Pope and the girls, telling them that the slaves weren’t mentioned as crew members on the ship, but that his dad found the complete manifest—his big discovery. Stella listened attentively, mouth agape, looking towards JJ who nodded with a smile on his face. He knew all of this already, it seemed. It was probably why he and John B had been together earlier.

“So Tanny used the gold from the Merchant to buy his freedom,” John B was saying. “After that, he bought his farm. Drumroll, please, because that farm is,” he paused dramatically as the group of them slapped their knees with their hands. “Tannyhill Plantation.”

Kie stopped. “Tannyhill?”

John B nodded, standing like a professor giving a lecture. “Yeah. So, after that, he used his money to free even more slaves, and then he sold a shit-ton of rice, which pisses off all the white planters, and then they decide to lynch him. So on the day they were coming to get him, he writes a letter to his son as a farewell, and in the last line of that letter, he leaves a coded message about where to find the gold.”

John B had Stella’s attention as she hung onto his every word, shaking her head as she asked, “Where?”

John B grinned. “Harvest the wheat in parcel nine, near the water.” He held up a hand. “Except, there is no wheat. You see, wheat is code for gold. Check this out.” He walked over to Pope, pointing at something in the paper Pope was holding. Stella leaned over to look as well. “The gold is in parcel nine, near the water.”

Kie laughed in disbelief as Pope murmured, “Holy shit.”

John B slapped his arm. “All we need is an original survey map of the property and we’ve found the gold.”

He was grinning widely as JJ stood up. Pope slowly started, “Okay, so this might have a small chance of being actually true.”

Kie bounced excitedly where she sat. “Dude, it’s like King Tut!” she exclaimed, earning a laugh from Stella.

“I am a genius,” John B announced, just as JJ tackled him into a hug. “Hey, whoa!” They teetered slightly where they stood before JJ lifted John B up. “Hello! Fire! You’re near the fire. You’re gonna burn.”

JJ pulled away and Stella snickered as he said, “I’m so proud of you right now.”

John B nodded somberly. “Thank you. That’s really sweet of you.”

With a shake of her head, Stella interrupted the moment by asking, “Okay, so, guys.” They all looked towards her. “What’s the plan?”

John B pointed at her as JJ made his way back. “Good question. Sarah Cameron’s coming tonight. She’ll bring the original survey map—”

JJ sat down next to Stella just as her eyes widened, gaping at John B before her gaze instantly shot to Kie, who was frowning. “Hold on,” she interrupted. “Sarah? Wh-why Sarah?”

Stella tensed, looking between a bewildered Kie and a hesitant John B. She and Pope exchanged glances, both of them suddenly aware of the tension building in the open space. “Um—” John B trailed off.

JJ took off his head, muttering, “This is gonna be good.”

Stella looked at him, catching the wince he shot her way. Silently, she frowned at him, but JJ shook his head before nodding towards John B, who stood with his fists on his hips. “Sarah, um, she. . . She got me into the archives in Chapel Hill yesterday, and there’s where I got the letter.”

Kie’s face scrunched up even more, looking a mix of pissed off and confused, while Stella gaped up at John B. “You were in Chapel Hill with Sarah Cameron?”

John B’s throat worked. “Yeah, um. . .”

Next to her, JJ announced, “He was mackin’ on her.”

Stella gasped as she stared at him, wide eyed, and JJ nodded somberly while Pope coughed uncomfortably into his fist. Across the fire, Kie was glaring up at John B, and Stella hated the betrayal she could already see melting into Kie’s eyes. John B shot JJ a glare. “I wasn’t macking.”

JJ lifted his chin, unrelenting. “You were totally macking Sarah Cameron.”

He wasn’t helping the situation, so Stella lightly flicked his arm, prompting JJ to immediately look at her, pressing his cut lips together to keep himself from smirking. She narrowed her eyes in warning, and all JJ did was link their arms together and pull her to his side.

“I wasn’t macking on her, okay?” John B spoke up, exasperated. “I was using her for access.”

JJ scoffed lightly. “There was access, alright.”

Stella pinched his side at that, despite the inappropriate laugh threatening to burst. Kie wouldn’t appreciate it, and Stella could tell her twin was seconds away from pushing John B into the fire. “Did you tell her about the treasure?” Kie demanded.

John B’s eyes widened. “I was trying to get into the archives.”

Kie’s voice grew loud with disbelief. “Is that a yes?”

“I. . . I left out key details,” John B said, looking to the others for help. Stella pressed her lips together, pressed up against JJ. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything, not with the current situation going on. Poor John B wasn’t going to get help on this.

“Yo, what?” Kie scoffed with a shake of her head. “You let a Kook in on our secret? What about Pogue Lyfe? What about the T-shirt company, bro?”

Suddenly, it was a battle between Kie and John B, and all Stella, JJ, and Pope could do was sit on the sidelines silently and watch. “I was just using her for information,” John B tried.

Kie shot him a wry look. “Why don’t I believe you?”

John B was growing exasperated already, shaking his head at the unhelpfulness of the others before looking back at Kie. “I’m trying to make us filthy rich here, okay, so that we can pay off a boat, or. . . or, uh. . .” He looked towards Pope, “send you to autopsy school to study bed bodies.” Stella’s face scrunched up as JJ suppressed a snort and Pope blinked owlishly. “Look, you guys know me. Do I look like the type of person to fall for Sarah Cameron?”

JJ blinked. “Uh—”

Stella tilted her head at John B. “Do you want us to answer that?” She could guarantee neither he nor Kie would appreciate the answer.

John B held up a hand at Stella. “Just—just stop.”

Kie shook her head, her jaw tight as she frowned deeply. “Look, you don’t know her yet. I do! You can’t trust her.”

Pope chimed in, “Her brother did hit me in the back with a golf club.”

John B looked to Pope. “Rafe and Sara are different human beings.”

JJ’s cheek was resting on top of Stella’s head as he asked Kie, “What did she do to you, exactly?”

Stella sighed. Oh, boy.

Kie held up two fingers and jabbed them forward. “She’s like a. . . a spitting cobra.” Everyone blinked, bewildered. “First she—she blinds you, and then—”

Stella was already shaking her head, sitting up straight as she said to her struggling sister, “This is a bad analogy.”

“Listen to me!” Kie exclaimed, clearly fed up with the situation. “Whatever we get, she’s gonna try to take.”

Her words were met by silence, other than the crackling fire and chirping cicadas. John B stood quietly, throat working, clearly unsure of what to say as JJ and Pope stayed in their own awkward silence, too. Stella suppressed a sigh. It seemed as though it was up to her to smooth things over, even if she did slightly side with Kie in all of this. She didn’t have a begrudging hate towards Sarah like Kie did, but they were sisters, and Stella needed to show solidarity. But she could also, in some way, see John B’s side of things. God, this was gonna be tense.

“Kie,” Stella spoke up carefully, prompting Kie’s gaze to connect with hers. “Whatever John B promised Sarah, that’s his issue. But if she’s the only way we can get the map, then we need to let it happen.”

Kie’s jaw was hard. “I don’t want her involved. I don’t want to deal with her.”

“We won’t,” Stella said, glancing quickly at John B before looking at Kie again. “Let John B deal with her.” When Kie didn’t look entirely convinced, Stella let out a huff. “This is bigger than your beef with Sarah. I know you know that.”

Silence fell upon them for a few moments as they all waited for Kie to respond. She sat quietly, hands gripping the log she sat on, mulling over Stella’s words. Stella, in turn, hoped she got through to her sister. They needed Kie to be on board with this, no matter her issues with Sarah. They’d already gotten this far in their treasure hunt—an old beef shouldn’t hinder them now.

Stella remained quiet, waiting for Kie to make a decision, although she silently enjoyed the sensation of JJ’s fingers ghosting up and down her arm, their arms still linked together. It was calming when others would argue JJ was anything but.

“Fine,” Kie finally gave in and everyone instantly sat up. She glared at John B. “As long as I don’t have to speak to her.” John B pressed his hands together and brought them to his mouth, his grin already forming. “I just hope you know what you’re getting us into.”

After John B profusely thanked Kie for agreeing, they killed the fire and got up before heading back to the van, since they had to drive to meet Sarah. The twigs and leaves crunched under their shoes as they went, but as Pope, Kie, and John B chatted while walking ahead, Stella lingered back and grasped JJ’s hand to slow his pace down.

He looked at her, eyebrows raising. “What’s up?”

Stella looked up at him, her fingers ghosting on his chin. Finally, she let the worry come out in full force as she asked, “Are you okay? Did—” she stopped, throat working to get rid of the lump that formed. “Did your dad do this?”

JJ’s jaw worked, blue eyes glimmering under the moonlight as he looked down at her. “Got a good chunk of money to pay in restitution,” he told her. “The old man’s not too happy about it.”

Despite herself, Stella felt the hot tears sting in her eyes. She preferred the pink in JJ’s cheeks when they were flushed when he was happy or even drunk—not the pink and harsh reds that surrounded the cuts and marked the bruises. Stella wasn’t sure she ever hated anyone as much as she hated JJ’s dad. Her throat was tight, unable to say anything except to croak out his name, “JJ—”

“Hey, hey,” he shushed her, hands coming up to cup Stella’s that had been ghosting along his sharp jaw. He held her hand in both of his before pressing a kiss to it, blue eyes locked in her brown. “I’m okay, Stel. They’ll heal. It’s no big deal.”

Stella scoffed, though her concern remained clear. “You can’t actually expect me to believe that.” The flutters in her stomach returned when JJ kissed her hand, when he looked at her with those baby blue eyes she loved so much. She let out a breath. “You’re sleeping over at John B’s, right?”

JJ offered her a small dimpled grin. “When am I not?”

Stella pinned him with a stare. They’d stopped walking and she knew they had to move soon, but she took a breath. “Whenever you can, either sleep at John’s or you sleep at mine. Okay?”

JJ raised his eyebrows, though she could see his gaze soften at her offer. But he kept the mood light as he teased, “You inviting me to your room, shark bait?”

Her heart jumped. “Wouldn’t be the first time we shared a bed,” Stella pointed out. It was the truth. They shared hammocks, chairs, couches, and beds countless times before.

“Yeah, but it’s different now, isn’t it?” JJ questioned.

She looked at their hands before meeting his gaze again. “Is it?” she returned, throat working in anticipation. This was it. This was Stella asking JJ if whatever was happening between them was real, if something more was going to come out of it than a few kisses shared.

JJ’s gaze was intense, deep in a way she wasn’t used to as it stole her breath. “It is.” Steady, resolute, firm. No room for arguments. Thank fuckinf God.

Stella felt her grin appear before she could help it, relief warming her, and JJ mirrored her smile before ducking his head and pressing his lips to hers. She returned the kiss slowly, gently, not wanting to hurt his cut lips. Her heart jumped excitedly as he kissed her, but it was cut short, unfortunately, when John B’s voice cut through the air.

“Oi! What happened to no macking?”

The two of them pulled apart, but John B was grinning, as were Pope and Kie as they looked at the two of them. Stella’s face flushed as JJ slung his arm around her shoulders before they began walking towards their friends. “I’m sure we can make an exception,” JJ said smoothly, cockily.

John B’s grin was wicked. “If it means you’ll finally stop whining about how much you looooove Stel, then yes we will.”

Stella laughed, cheeks flushing, while JJ spluttered. “I never whined!” he protested as they joined their friends.

Pope rolled his eyes. “That’s true. You just bottled it all up inside because you’re emotionally constipated.”

“Sounds about right. I’m the one who made the first move,” Stella said, grinning widely at JJ’s betrayed expression, laughing as he used his arm around her to push her away. Stella continued laughing, along with the others, as she stumbled away, but didn’t lose her balance because JJ instantly caught her hand and pulled her back to his side.

“Whatever. I like an assertive woman,” JJ said with a charming grin, pressing a kiss to Stella’s temple as they neared the van.

Pointing at Pope and John B as they climbed inside, Kie said, “You two owe me twenty bucks, by the way.”

“No, we don’t!” John B argued as he started the van. “It’s after Midsummers.”

Pope nodded in agreement as Kie grinned wickedly before meeting Stella’s gaze as she sat on the back bench. With a giggle, Stella confessed, “It was actually yesterday. Before the summer movie series.”

John B and Pope’s gazes swung to JJ, who leaned back with his arms propped on top of the back bench casually as he said, “It’s true, boys.” John B shook his head and began driving, and JJ added, “Can’t believe you three bet on us.”

Sitting on the floor opposite of them, Pope scoffed. “Can’t believe it took you two this long to get together.”

“Okay!” Stella spoke up loudly, clapping her hands together once and shooting all of her friends a look. “We’re done talking about this.”

They reached their destination soon after that, a spot off in the middle of the woods where a tower stood, the apparent meeting spot John B had set up at Kildare Hawk’s Nest. As soon as he parked the car, Pope slid open the back van door as JJ slapped his knees. “Hit it, boys! We’re goin’. Recon mission.”

But before any of them could even get up, John B turned to face them. “Yo, uh. . . So, uh, I think I’m gonna do this one by myself. . . Tonight.”

Thunder rumbled overhead as Kie rolled her eyes and Stella and JJ fell back in their seats. She raised her eyebrows as JJ drawled a knowing, “Really?”

John B frowned. “What?”

JJ took off his head. “Nothin’.”

John B sighed, fixing his own hat atop his head. “I don’t want to spook Sarah with the peanut gallery.”

Kie shrugged, voice sharp and annoyed as she looked at John B. “I just don’t understand why we’re involving her at all.”

Stella let out a sigh as she leaned back, JJ now sitting on the ground next to her, his head resting against her leg as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Kie, we’re not involving her, okay?” John B said, exasperated. “It’s—it’s just, uh, like a—a business meeting. . . Thing.” On the ground, JJ made a crude motion with the joint he held and made a gulping sound, prompting Pope to grin in amusement while Stella rolled her eyes at John B. He was not selling this well. “Look, once we get what we need, we cut her loose, all right? Plus, we need the map.”

Yeah, okay. Stella wasn’t quite sure how much she believed that.

Kie pursed her lips, leaning forward as she stared John B dead in the eye. “Promise me nothing’s happening between you two.”

John B widened his eyes, answering breathily, “Nothing is happening, Kie.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Okay!”

Kie was still frowning, as if she was trying to get John B to get the message through her glare. “This isn’t about you. This isn’t about us. This is about her.” Stella pressed her lips together as she watched them. Kie’s beef with Sarah was so damn deep, she wondered if they would be able to do with if she wasn’t on board with Sarah helping out just this once. Personally, Stella didn’t give a shit about Sarah Cameron; she just didn’t like her out of principle for the way the end of that friendship hurt Kie. Everything else was between Kie and Sarah. “Dude, she’s gonna get inside your head. Just promise me nothing’s happening between you guys.”

John B looked at her as lightning flashed outside and thunder rolled. “I promise.”

“That was really believable,” JJ piped up.

Pope nodded. “A hundred percent believable.”

Stella lightly knocked JJ with her knee while glaring at Pope, effectively shutting both of them up. John B didn’t dignify them with a response, instead saying, “Anyways, um, I’m gonna take care of business.”

JJ shook his head, playing with the joint. “You’re gonna take care of it so well.”

Stella waved John B off dismissively. “We’ll just sit here,” she said dryly. “In the hot-ass car.”

Pope added, “While it’s lightning.”

They left the back door of the van open as John B got out, backpack on as he walked off towards the tower. The wind rustled outside, thunder rumbling every now and then to accompany the flashes of lightning that warned of a storm rolling in. “Kiara, holding onto your grudge is like drinking poison and thinking Sarah will die,” Pope said once John B was gone.

“Exactly,” JJ nodded.

Kie shot the two of them a withering stare before looking at Stella. Her twin merely shrugged. “You know I’m on your side,” Stella said. “But you can’t really tell John B what he can or can’t do.”

“I’m not trying to tell him what to do,” Kie shot back. “I’m just warning him against the kind of person I know Sarah is. She’s gonna fuck us over.”

“Look, we just—we just gotta trust that John B knows what he’s doing,” Pope tried to placate, looking between Stella and Kie. “That he’s using his head.”

Kie scoffed, not really convinced. “I know what head he’s using, and it isn’t the one on his shoulders.”

“That’s a good one,” JJ mumbled quietly where he sat.

They were quiet for a few minutes, just listening to the rumble of thunder, before conversation started up again. Pope had asked about what happened at Midsummers, and JJ launched into the story that led up to the Kooks cornering him in the men’s room while they waited for John B to return with the map.

JJ was saying, “Rafe and Kelce followed me—”

Kie cut him off. “Wait, do you guys hear that?” Her eyebrows furrowed together. “Sh.”

Stella frowned. “What?”

And then, in the distance, over the sound of the wind howling and thunder rumbling, came a girl’s voice yelling, “Please, somebody, help!”

All of their eyes widened, instantly on their feet as JJ grunted, “Oh, wait, no, I hear that.”

“Shit,” Pope cursed as they all stumbled out.

“What the fuck?” Stella muttered, gripping the skirt of her dress so it didn’t get tangled in her feet as she ran.

The voice, Stella realized, belonged to Sarah, and her heart started pounding as they ran towards the Hawk’s Nest, throat already drying in worry. The first thought in her head was that something went terribly wrong, that John B was hurt, and when they all cleared a group of trees towards the base of the Nest, Stella’s fear came true as a gasp ripped through her at the sight of John B lying on the ground, Sarah crying as she cradled his head and begged for him to wake up and open his eyes.

“Sarah! What happened?” Pope asked as they came running over, skidding to a stop, their breathing labored.

Sarah was crying, and Stella’s heart clenched at the sight of John B, unconscious, fear drenching her veins in ice as she instantly gripped Kie’s hand. “I don’t know what to do,” Sarah sobbed. “He needs help. Topper shoved him.”

Anger heated Stella’s skin, momentarily taking over the terror trembling her body as JJ demanded, “Where the hell is he?”

But Sarah just cried, “Oh, please, please, please get help. I don’t care who. Just call someone.”

Stella pushed Pope away as she panted, “Go! Call 911! Go!”

Pope took off and Kie shouted after him, “Pope, hurry!”

They all stood, breathing labored and hearts pounding, unsure of what to do as their friend lay unconscious. Worry weighed heavily on them all, to the point where Stella couldn’t even stop to question the way Sarah was holding John B to her, crying for him, kissing him and begging for him to wake up. No, nothing else mattered other than their injured friend, the tears stinging in Stella’s eyes as she prayed to anyone who was listening that he would wake up. Soon. Now. Please.

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