Hi can you name your 10 fav blogs?

Yes definitely! A more positive ask than the previous one :D

I may have shown some preference based on my interactions with people behind the blog but in no particular order

1. @coralstudiies (she's no longer active but she's super nice)

2. @septemberstudies (zee's very nice too and she has amazing handwriting and artistic skills!)

3. @learnelle (gabrielle has the most aesthetic pictures taken!)

4. @maeve-studies (maeve has a pretty nice desk setup!)

5. @gloomstudy (hello katrina! I feel like we have been mutuals since forever, thanks for being my long time mutual)

6. @study-van (yasemin has super aesthetic desk set up pictures as well and good study related tips on her instagram!)

7. @mid-afternoon-studies (mid, I'm in love with your posts!)

8. @museeofmoon (zainab has the prettiest cursive handwriting I have ever seen!)

9. @a-students-lifebuoy (a really amazing human being as well!)

10. @myhoneststudyblr (sophie, I love your lettering! And the study related tips!)

11. @wecandoit (sorry I missed dilli out, I had to add, she has amazing annotations in her picture!)

the only thing that could have improved SVSSS is if shen jiu was in the background providing scathing hateful commentary the entire time. i want to see him and shen yuan eat each other alive <3

For how much Machete is described by others as off-putting, he really is a beautiful dog. Does Vasco ever tell him so? That his eyes make him look earnest, his fur the most comforting shade of white like cream, the way his ears catch light like stained glass? If someone doesn't tell him so, he'd forever think he was ugliest duckling

I think Vasco definitely tries, sincerely and often, but Machete is very reluctant to accept compliments and positive feedback. Especially if it's about something as personal and innate as his looks.

thinking about how akio sees his younger self in utena and wondering if there's any fondness there. doesn't change the horror of what he does to her obviously but i do wonder

The fact that no one across all of DC fandom (as far as I can tell) has mined the beautiful comedic potential that is the night and day difference between Tim and Damians current canonical love interests

to me, the question of whether hera would want a body is first and foremost a question of autonomy and ability. she has an internal self-image, i think it's meaningful that the most pivotal moments in her character arc take place in spaces where she can be perceived the way she perceives herself and interact with others in a (relatively) equal and physical capacity, and that's worth considering. but i don't think it's about how she looks, or even who she is - and i think she's the same person either way; she's equally human without a body, and having a body wouldn't make her lived experience as an AI magically disappear - so much as it's about how she would want to live.

like most things with hera, i'm looking at this through a dual lens of disability and transness, both perspectives from which the body - and particularly disconnect from the body - is a concern. the body as the mechanism by which she's able to interact with the world; understanding her physical isolation as a product of her disability, the body as a disability aid. the body as it relates to disability, in constant negotiation. the body as an expression of medical transition, of self-determination, of choice. as a statement of how she wants to be seen, how she wants to navigate the world, and at the same time reckoning with the inevitable gap between an idealized self-image and a lived reality, especially after a long time spent believing that self-image could never be visible to anyone else.

it's critical to me that it should never imply hera's disability is 'fixed' by having a body, only that it enables her to interact with the world in ways she otherwise couldn't. her fears about returning to earth are about safety and ability; the form she exists in dictates the life she's allowed to lead and has allowed people to invade her privacy and make choices for her. dysphoria and disability both contribute to disembodiment - in an increasingly digitized world, the type of alienation that feels like your life can only exist in a virtual space... maybe there's something about the concept of AI embodiment, in particular as it relates to hera, that appeals to me because of what it challenges about what makes a 'real woman.' when it's about perception, about how others see her and how she might observe / be impacted by how she's treated differently, even subconsciously. it's about feeling more present in her life and interfacing with the world. but it's not in itself a becoming; it doesn't change how she's been shaped by her history or who she is as a person.

i think it comes back to the 'big picture' as a central antagonistic force in wolf 359, and how - in that context, in this story - it adds a weight to this hypothetical choice. hera is everywhere, and she's never really anywhere. she's got access to more knowledge than most people could imagine, but it's all theoretical or highly situational; she doesn't have the same life experiences as her peers. she has the capacity to understand that 'big picture' better than most people, but whatever greater portion of the universe she understands is nothing next to infinity and meaningless without connection and context. it's interesting to me that hera is one of the most self-focused and introspective people on the show. her loyalties and decisions are absolute, personal, emotionally driven. she's lonely; she always feels physically away from the others. she misremembers herself sitting at the table with the rest of the crew. she imagines what the ocean is like. there's nothing to say that hera having a body is the only solution for that, but i like what it represents, and i honestly believe it'd make her happier than the alternatives. if there's something to a symbolically narrowed focus that allows for a more solid sense of self... that maybe the way to make something of such a big, big universe is to find a tiny portion of it that's yours and hold onto it tight.

I find it kind of silly that so many of those "time based life rule" sayings are like ~deep serious guidelines~ of some sort, but then there's that one other Well Known Rule that's just like "hrmm can I eat something off of the ground or not"

The thing about blood is that once you've seen it you can never really get it out. It has a tendancy to linger, to drip into those places impossible to reach, a slow unnoticeable movement breaking its stagnation. Even if you think you've got all of it, chances are you haven't. The smell lingers, a sickly sweet fuzzy smell tinged with iron that somehow sticks in the back of your throat.

Imagine how much blood there was when Jared Hopworth attacked the institute. We know the boneturner is capable of removing bones with no blood at all but why would he when what he wants to cause is fear? He says that they undid the institute staff for parts, so I'd say they took a hell of a lot more than bones.

That's not to mention Melanie's attack with the knife, God knows how much blood Jared and his "perfect" friends had in their eldritch bodies, but if that knife hurt I'm willing to bet that blood was spilled. A lot of blood.

There's something uncanny about a place where something that awful's happened. Something in the foundations of the place. In a place with a history as messy as the institute I'm sure there was always something on the air, but that amount of bloodshed never really fades.

Even if you can't see or smell it I think there's something in the soul that knows it. Growing up there was a small park near where I lived, I always knew of it, walked past it, but never once had any desire to go near it. I don't know if I avoided it, but I never wanted to go into it. I found out a few years back that a girl died there. I won't go into detail but it was the kind of death that leaves that mark, and when I did eventually end up in that park the weight in the air was palpable.

I wonder if Jon could feel that sense of something when he came back to the institute after his coma. Does otherworldly sight stretch into the realms of the metaphysical? Could he see the residual fear of an entity so different to his own lingering in dark corners and clinging to his coworkers? Or could he simply sense it, that slight wrongness that would be so easy to attribute to being away for so long.

Jon didn't get a warm welcome, and perhaps he returned to a place that didn't even feel like the prison it'd been before. There's a comfort in the horrors we face daily, and even positive changes can make it feel even worse than it did before. The behaviour of his friends changed so much, and somehow so did the behaviour of his workplace.

It begs the question, is it better to know or to be oblivious? To be blind or to seek knowledge relentlessly? That feeling, that slight instinct that something happened here, there's something to know; how could one bear that after six months of knowing nothing real at all? Jon didn't know about the attack, and him knowing didn't help, but did he feel it? Was it there in that sea of knowledge the whole time but he couldn't bring himself to reach out and grasp it?

Because the thing with blood is that it lingers, and once you smell it, it never really goes away.

okay. i need to rewatch the episode probably but i think my current feeling is that i like most of it a lot (rome, ken, the siblings not getting ceo, etc), think the tom ceo makes sense from a logical/character perspective but not sure how i feel about it from a broader more thematic lens (altho i'm leaning towards fine with it), and am very mixed on shiv's ending because i think it's well-conceived and meaningful from a broader thematic lens (shiv becomes her mother, the cycle always repeats, etc) but doesn't quite make sense to me from a logical/character one -- it could've worked, it could've worked brilliantly, but it was far too rushed and forced. it makes sense as an ending for shiv, but not her next step. i'm largely talking about her decision to return to tom, not her decision to vote against kendall (which i think should've been executed better and given more space but can understand given her character, mostly). i'm fine with it as an ending for shiv, but what i'm struggling to stomach is the way it played out -- it didn't feel like a choice the shiv we know would've made. it's an ending that makes sense thematically and for her character arc, but not a decision that makes sense for her character at present. that's kinda where i'm at right now

A couple Random Genji and some kiriko + other headcanons/short story things? Not a full fic or anything but headcannons that kinda flow into a story of some kind. I don't even have a clue how many I've done at this point XD

Second half of this gets a little sadder, and mentions stuff from his Playboy days including drinking and drugs and stuff not much but it's there so still head up.

BUT then I wrote a short cute thing of how I imagine kiriko reunited with genji so it's not all angst and depresso.

Also random Gency here and there! (There's alot not going to lie lol)

And lastly as per always, this is very very rambly as I'm just getting my thoughts written out and there's not much actual order and there might be some jumping back and forth but I tried to keep it as steady flow as my brain would allow. This one is rather long though.

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This one actually starts with Dva! (This is partially inspired of a few other head cannons I've seen from people) After she joined OverWatch in between missions whenever she's doing more normal streams that aren't streaming the fights, where she's in her room gaming or doing other streams around the base, she would bring some of the other members onto the streams either they would pop in to say hi or would stay for whole streams. At first it would primarily be the new blood crew, as they had been around either for longer and her Chat had gotten to know them too.

But then after a while chat started to notice these same two people popping in for quite a lot of streams not really ever acknowledging chat but just talking to Dva. They would be giving her food and bringing her drinks and stuff ,making sure that she's staying hydrated ,making sure she's okay, and just all around taking care of her. One of the two was immediately recognized to be mercy which the chat started lovingly referring to as "mom" because in any stream she appeared in even for a couple seconds she was always just taking care of everyone and looking after everyone and reminding her not to stream too long. The second person wasn't immediately recognized, at least by name anyways. Genji wasn't known to the public what his name was, they just knew he was the ninja guy from OverWatch, that they had seen on the news a couple times in some fights like when they took down doomfist or in Paris. And they had especially never heard him talk before this, so all anyone publicly knew about him was there was this omnic looking guy who was a ninja with green lights on him. And after the first few times he popped in to check on Diva bringing her stuff, and way more specific stuff that he knows would be better for her to have during stream or gaming sessions because he himself being quite experienced in the gaming department he knows what kind of snacks or beverages are better to have while still being healthy at least a little. And after these many appearances by this unnamed member they had no idea who he was, Diva eventually explained to her chat that that was Genji and he was a cyborg ninja who looks intimidating (and can be very intimidating) but who's actually a really big sweetheart is very caring and stuff. So considering how Chat had started referring to mercy as mom, they started referring to Genji as dad, which then eventually snowballed into people shipping them on Diva's stream even going as far as drawing fanart of them. Which at this point no one on the base actually knew Genji mercy had a thing going on outside of tracer ,sojourn and Cassidy and kind of Winston but he was mostly oblivious. They mostly knew from before overwatch shut down, from the random dates they went on or the late night conversations and the all-around flirting between the two of them, but none of them knew that they were even more of a thing than before and were even closer.

Moving on to the next head cannon which ties into that one. We know Genji and Hanzo reunited on the 10-year anniversary of Genji's death when he was around 35, and he's 37 now, and the last letter we know of really between the two is when he told her about reuniting with his brother. And we also know from the recent logs from PVE that Genji hasn't actually been at the monastery in a while and hasn't seen zenyatta in a long time and has just been writing him letters. So I personally like to believe in that in that two-year span Genji was wandering around again with ,a new purpose in life this time ,specifically on the mission to track down Angela. Where he eventually found her after about a year or so, because he had no idea where she was, since he left the monastery he didn't have any of the letters that she could have sent in the meantime, specifically one where she mentioned that she was leaving Cairo and going somewhere else. So for about a year he was on kind of a wild goose chase just kind of running around trying to find her eventually he did find her. At this point she was in between her trips to places to help people and was just in her home in Switzerland, which I like to imagine she lives in an apartment.

Which is where Genji tracks her down to, end of instead knocking on the door like a normal person he knocked on her window, because he couldn't be bothered taking the stairs inside and just wall climbed up to her balcony because it was "easier". He brought with him a few gifts including Swiss chocolate which he was able to get much easier now being in Switzerland, and a couple other assorted gifts.

So as Angela was sitting at her desk filling out paperwork at midnight, she heard a knocking on her window which at first she brushed off as the wind but then realized how distinct of a knocking it was. So cautiously she grabbed her blaster from the table she'd been working on all her Valkyrie suit stuff on, quietly tiptoed over to the window peaked through her blinds and didn't see anything except for a faint green Glow. Which definitely confused her at first so against your better judgment she opened the window, poked your head out and was looking side to side couldn't see anything or anyone, balcony completely empty. Until a little ribbon thing fell in front of her face was she immediately recognized and looked up to see Genji dangling from the upstairs balcony Spider-Man style because of course he is. And before she can say anything Genji says a sweet little "hello doctor", and plopped down in front of her perching himself on the balcony wall. Then after 2 seconds of fully registering what's going on she happily yells out Genji's name as she wraps her arms around him. Where he quickly has to grab onto the window / door so they both don't fall off the balcony with the force she have charged at him with. She apologizes, genji says it's fine, they both giggle, Genji then reaches up and completely takes off his mask/helmet, reaches out brushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear and leans in and says "I missed you <3" in a loveing hushed voice. Which mixed with the cheeky smirk on his scarred face makes Angela's face go completely red. Flustered she looks him in the eyes and smiles before saying "I missed you too<3" as she leans in and kisses genji on the cheek making him go so red in the face that even his ears are blushing and steam releases through his shoulder vents. And for Genji can even get any words out Angela pulls him inside like grabbing on to the front of his new hoodie, what she then cheekily but honestly compliments saying how it suits him, and he does the same with her new hair cut.

You then spend roughly the next year living together slowly getting closer and closer and more and more comfortable with each other than they already were (like they were basically dating at this point but just hadn't admitted it) snuggling, doing daily tasks together, when Angela came home from her long shifts at the hospital genji had done all the household chores and had cooked dinner for them both. And where all-around enjoying life to the best of their abilities, considering all the stuff going on in the news, and eventually the recall. Which they desired to answer together, and made their way to Paris arriving just in time to save Winston, tracer and mei along side Reinhardt, Brigitte, and echo.

Back to the Dva streaming thing, once genji and mercy found out dvas chat called them mom and dad they both laughed at it, but also kinda agreed. Genji first said he didn't see it for himself, which almost everyone else chimed in with all the times he has looked after someone, helped them out, made sure they are staying hydrated, looking out for their health (mental and physical) and has overall became someone any of them can talk to for reassurance or guidance. That combined with all the terrible dad jokes. They both eventually accept their roles as the mom and dad friends of the group.

Genji 100% makw some of the worst but the best dad jokes

Some examples of this, like in PVE when Genji checks in on mei to see if she's doing okay, comforts tracer about mondattas death, even him talking about Cassidy about how he hasn't been sleeping and helping him deal with the emotions and memories causing that. I'm definitely also see him befriending Zarya pretty quickly, after not getting off on the right foot with her not trusting him seeing him as part omnic and not knowing if she can trust him because of it, once they step foot into the gym together they instantly become workout buddies, especially considering both of them are frantically trying to help the others not injure themselves while doing what they think are basic workouts. Primarily with mei, Lucio, dva, even Baptiste and then a couple of the others. Lucio on multiple occasions would go into the gym not wearing proper footwear and immediately get sent back out by either Zarya or Genji. And with the people they don't have to help out as much in that way, they both spar or train with the others and help push them when they need it and help them to go easy when they need it (like brig, tracer or rein)

Genji also gives the best massages in OverWatch, primarily to mercy but he does them for everyone else as well. And when someone injures themselves in a non bloody we should probably take you to the medics kind of way he can help bandage up rolled ankles or other pulled muscles and other more athletics based injuries from both personal experience and stuff he's picked up from being around mercy for so long.

And for the third time back to Dva stream thing, there was one time she was doing a cooking stream with Lucio, and Genji happen to walk into the room to see them trying and shopping things and immediately having to dash over there and take the knives out their hands because Jesus Christ they were going to hurt themselves the way they were trying to do it. And after he confiscated the knives he showed them how to properly use them so they wouldn't hurt themselves horribly, and then physically got them to try cutting again this time with his supervision so they could hands on learn how to do it while also having genji there as a safety net to make sure they don't cut their fingers off.

And eventually after a while of convincing Genji eventually came on to one of Diva's dreams for the whole thing and ended up playing games with her which is where she found out Genji used to play video games a lot (and it turns out Genji is better than her, he kicked her butt a few times and then went easier on her but acted like he was still trying so she could feel like she had beaten him and to not humiliate her in front of her stream) and he was better than her at fighting/shooters games but Dva was better in racing/flying/absurd nonsense games(think like gang beasts and fall guys) except for things like Mario kart (or whatever the OverWatch equivalent would be) where they were pretty evenly matched.

And there was one time they tried to play VR only to very quickly realize that Genji could not because he couldn't get the headset over his mask, and even when they finally did get it to stay in place(kinda) he couldn't hear anything through it and it looked ridiculous over his mask, and everything was tinted very green. So dva changed the set up so the camera wasn't facing him so he could take his mask off and properly play, because she still wanted to play with him but didn't want to make him uncomfortable because she knew he wasn't very big on showing his face especially to the hundreds of thousands of people watching.

Dva also introduced him to games like beat saber which he loved, and was very good at, mainly because of all the sword training (even though it wasn't accurate it was definitely helpful)

Now switching gears to some different head cannons, this is where the sad stuff happens!!!! ANGST TIME!!!!

Genji when looking back at his old self (playboy days) is very overly harsh on himself and views himself as a way worse person than he actually was at the time. Looking back at those days with the opposite of rose tinted glasses. Overall just viewing himself as a very mean selfish person when, in actuality he was still a very kind-hearted sweet person like he is now. Back then though he wasn't allowed to show it or would be punished when he did for "being weak". And he also looks back at his Playboy partying days not really acknowledging why he was doing all that. Forgetting the mental state he was in at that point, with his mental state during black watch and the initial years of his time in OverWatch overshadowing the negative emotions he felt back then.

he had no interest with being a part of the family business but also just didn't agree with it, he was drifting from his brother who he used to be almost inseparable from and now it was almost like talking to a stranger with how cold and distant Hanzo seem to have become. Or whenever he went out trying to make friends or tried dating people, either they didn't want to interact with him because they were scared of the fact he was a shimada and believed him to be dangerous, or when they did want to interact with him they only wanted to interact with him so they could use him for his money and status ,or only going after him for his looks and not actually him as a person. then an assortment of other small things which built up only topped off by the ever-increasing stress and pressure put on from his family and Clan elders, and eventually the assassination of his father sending him over the edge into full party Playboy this is the only way he knows how to cope mode.

With him constantly getting drunk, high, or even a combination of both, and just overall being a Playboy by "sleeping" around to try and escape from his reality, to feel something, something that wasn't all the bad things he was feeling now.

The only one who actually knew anywhere close to what Genji was going through or how he was feeling at this time was kiriko. (I don't care what her canonical age says it makes no sense so I'm still sticking with she's a couple years younger than them. So like when genji's 37, she's 32-33 or something) they would hang out with all the time, and she very quickly picked up on his rapidly decreasing mental and emotional state, not knowing how to help other then just being there for him.

When he wasn't drunk or out partying, he was going out around hanamura/kanezeka, primarily to the arcade with kirko. Where she witnessed all the good things Genji would do and how nice he was with people. like when he saw kids struggling at an arcade game, trying their hardest and failing, he would go over and help the kids in whatever way they needed so that they would win. And if the kids had given up and we're starting to walk away, he would go over play the game and win big prize, the go over redeem the prize and then give the prize to the kids. Or when someone was being harassed, attacked or in general being put in danger, he would stand up for them and defend them, using his skills as a ninja too take down multiple of these harassers or attackers with ease, as kiriko would tend to the person in need to see if they had any wounds or in general to see if they're okay. And if Genji did need help in fighting, he would fight side by side with kiriko defending the city together, helping wherever they could.

She just remembers all the joy he would bring to people around the city. Primarily just by doing little things and being a nice person, actions that he would dismiss as not being meaningful or actually good deeds, not being able to see past the part of him which made him tied to one of the most feared and most dangerous yakuzas in the whole of Japan ,and in terms of criminal empires at the time, in a lot of the world. Genji instinctively would have put on a mask of the cocky full of himself spoiled rich kid with a carefree attitude, only ever letting it really drop around kiriko or in these random moments of kind-hearted gestures with locals or complete stragers. Where you could actually see the real him, the real him that he had to hide from the clan because he was seen as weak and undesirable, and overall just not being cut out for the family legacy. Which overtime only weight heavier and heavier on his heart and soul, not being able to see that the locals around him loved and appreciated him. Not seeing the sentiments and opinions that they hold even to this day of Genji, not seeing him as a shimada, but as Genji. The green haired goofball who would get himself into trouble but had a kind heart and was just an all-around good kid, that they never found out what happened to and to their knowledge just disappeared one day, the same day Hanzo left and was almost never seen again, with only the occasional sightings once a year on the same day. And not too long after the brothers disappearances, the rest of the clan will go on too, either gone into hiding, arrested or killed.

The Kind-hearted sweeter quiet but Goofy side of Genji is the side that kiriko remembers, even years later. She doesn't mourn for the loss of the cocky rich Playboy persona who would get into fights to prove he was better and didn't care about anyone other them himself.

She missed her best friend. The sweet guy she grew up with, who happened to be into a family who didn't want him for him. And as much as kirko still looks back on the clan with rose tinted glasses, much like how pharrah looks back on OverWatch, she still remembers what the clan did to Genji. Not just ordering him to be killed, not just his own brother who they both trusted who Genji loved wholeheartedly even though they had grown distant and/or it was never really shown anymore, but for how they mentally and emotionally broke him down over the years. Leading him down a path which he never wanted to take a step down in the first place. A path which he thought was his only way of escape, even if it was temporary.

She remembers all the nights of Genji coming back from being at the club, only for him to come home to angry screaming about how disappointed they are in him, the shame he's bringing to their family, and the countless other heated arguments between him and Hanzo, where Genji hardly able to speak for himself because how drunk/high he was, get frustrated and just storm away to his room not even listening to Hanzo yelling after him. And all the times she would go into his room to find him sitting on the floor in the corner quietly crying, far too drunk to even try hiding his emotions at this point. where she would sit with him and just talk to him for hours as he cried until he passed out. And all the nights she wished she could do more to help him, all the times she regrets not protecting him, and all the times she replays the memories in her head, going through all the different outcomes of things she could have done differently that would result in him still being with her today, and the different lives they could have been living. All things that are not her fault, things that she had no control over, but still keep her up at night. All the times Genji took the blame for something she did to protect her from being punished, all the times he stood up for her and was there for her, even being the one to advocate for her to join him and Hanzo in training despite all the protests from the elders and the uncertainty from Hanzo, his father and her mother, he stood up and believed in her that she was ready, eventually winning them over and allowing her to join.

All these memories of the friend she lost and wished every day that he could come back, that one day he would come knocking at her front door with donuts ,cookies or sweets in hand like he used to do when he would sneak them both sweets when they both really shouldn't have been having sugar, or weren't allowed any because they were in trouble.

She even keeps a bunch of mementos around her apartment that remind her of him. including her first kunai, his headband that he used to wear all the time in training that Hanzo would tell him look stupid but he didn't care, just seeing how annoyed it made Hanzo made it worth it. A bunch of his drawings she framed and hung up that he would do in secret ,that he didn't think were that good but kiriko absolutely loved and would try to tell him they were amazing. A bunch of assorted toys and plushies she keeps on her shelves and desk that they won at the arcade together. Or even how she continues to dye her hair the same shade of green years later because it was the color that she would dye it when they would dye their hair together.

And even though she couldn't have done anything differently....she feels like she failed him. which is one of the reasons she tries so hard everyday to fight for her friends and for the people of kanezeka, because hopefully someday, she can feel like she made it up to him. Now constantly paranoid of losing someone she cares about, terrified she loses someone like she lost Genji. And still wanting to continue the small deeds of kindness that he would do, that he didn't think meant anything but to her and everyone around him meant the world.

Of course at this point she had no idea he is actually alive.

Whenever genji had a free moment in OverWatch, he would be trying to find her/find a way to contact her, and thinking of all the ways that he could go about explaining everything to her and apologizing for not finding her sooner and not being there. With a million thoughts running through his head not knowing how to go about it. Telling Hanzo was one thing because as much as his brother didn't like to believe it he was predictable, Genji knew pretty much exactly how Hanzo was going to react and could guess every single thing he would do the entire meeting, and even though he knew kiriko he knew that she wasn't like Hanzo, kiriko most likely changed so much you know those years, unlike Hanzo who stuck in the past. She didn't know how she would react, if she would hate him, if she would be happy, if she would punch him in the face the second she saw him, A million ways he could go about it and not one he was certain on. After talking with zenyatta and Angela he eventually decided todo what felt right.

(when reading this next part, picture it with the calm happy music from the kiriko cinematic! It adds to the feels)

So on random evening, the elevator doors opened and out walked a man who had never been there before. A man wearing a gray hoodie and joggers, with what looked like a cybernetic hand, with his hood pulled up and a black cloth mask covering his lower face, and from under the hood peeked a couple strands of bright green hair, and in hand where two boxes of doughnuts. And on his way walking to one of the doors he stopped and said hello to the old man who appeared to be the janitor/maintenance man for that apartment building, and a little girl wearing a kitsune mask with a fox plushie in hand. She was sitting on the floor coloring with crayons, where upon closer inspection she was trying a very familiar green haired girl then also familiar blue spirit fox. Smiling under his mask, he bent down to get a closer look at the drawing, which caught the girls attention, initially being a little scared he signed to her telling her that it's okay and he just wanted to compliment her drawing. She shyly thanked him, and then Genji asked what her name was, to which she replied with "little fox" while giggling and then asked what his name was, and he replied with "Sparrow" and told her that he was here to see a friend that he hasn't seen for a really long time. Did they then said/signed their goodbyes, has Genji stood back up bringing the donuts with him and proceeded to walk to the end of the hall. Where he paused, took in a deep breath, then knocked on the door, holding up the donuts so that he couldn't be seeing through the peep hole. And when kiriko open the door, confused and who it was especially this time of night, she looked up as Genji lowered his mask and simply said "hey kiriko"

Salty Ask List: 1, 5, 14, 22 ?

1.What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Dr/atc/het 100000%... I just don't understand what their chemistry is supposed to be together. It's partially ruined for me by Drift in MTMTE being an absolute mess of a character who got most of his planned plotlines cut or changed, and partially ruined by the fact Drift spends most of MTMTE straight up absent from the story, and then he and Ratchet meet up in Empire of Stone and come back during Dying of the Light and are just...together romantically now? I don't understand how they have any chemistry at all much less romantic lskdjflkds

I know a big one people talk about is "Ratchet saved Drift's life and then told him he believed in him" but... the way their meeting was written didn't come off as particularly romantic to me? Ratchet saved Drift the same way he's saved countless other addicts in the Dead End and then his parting words to Drift were to tell him to go to the Functionists so they could get him a job. Very "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" kind of advice that clearly didn't work since Drift stayed impoverished, his friend got killed by police brutality, he went into the underworld to be a hitman, etc etc. Like yeah in theory it's very romantic for an OTP's first meeting to be one of them saving the other's life and treating the impoverished person kindly for possibly the first time in their life. It's just that that moment in canon doesn't have romantic vibes to me at all, it's just a doctor-patient encounter in which Ratchet is nice to Drift like he's nice to everyone, except it's also kind of condescending/ignorant bc Ratchet basically tells Drift "oh just get a job and get clean and you'll be fine" as if it's that easy to stop being a homeless/jobless drug addict?? If an ER doctor did that shit to me I'd be more likely to see him as an asshole than to admire or like him at all sdklfjsd.

Then Drift was a Decepticon for millions of years, then he joined the Autobots on Earth and like... he and Ratchet sure existed on the same team together dlkfjldsjlkds there were zero interactions of worth b/t them in phase 1, their ship dynamic came entirely from JRO's writing and even then I feel like it's an informed romance more than an organic and believable one.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

I actually used to like O/Pli/ta when I first came here, but as I stayed longer it became evident that the overwhelming majority of the fan content of it reeks of "we are very sorry for having a heterosexual ship, let us compensate for it by making the woman a Girlboss Xtreme and the man a weak simp so that you can be sure the woman isn't being Oppressed and Stereotyped by being in a heterosexual romantic relationship" which is one of my most detested types of fan content, so now I have the ship tag blocked sldkfjlsdkdskl. Literally it's just the same "the woman is a TOTALLY COMPETENT AND COOL ACTION HERO and her man is a TOTAL SIMP FOR HER" that's interchangeable with most het ships in other fandoms, where there's no actual personality or chemistry for them and instead it's just the same Fandom Approved Heterosexual Relationship Dynamic.

That and a significant amount of content I see for it is just like blatantly ripped off from Me/go/p dslkfjsdfsjl or like, taking the main MOP dynamic and just swapping OP and Elita's places so now Elita is the cool action hero who's rival to Megatron and OP just Exists as an emotional support husband I guess. Or like Elita is made into a daring action hero while Optimus is reduced to a meek little wallflower who's no one of any real importance and just follows in her wake. It reeks of insecurity and unoriginality, as if the fanbase is cripplingly aware that Elita was made to be the Token Girlfriend and instead of just making her a better character and making the romance she's a part of more equal and compelling for both characters, they have to violently overcompensate by having Elita steal OP's role and everything interesting about him. 😂Like I'm begging people to just be normal about hetero ships. You can ship a man and a woman together without having to diminish the man and girlbossify the woman to prove you're a Real Feminist.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Continuity soup is boring and for the most parts creates purely fanon plots/ideas/characterizations that have tenuous relationships to actual canon. It's nice that people have the creativity to make their own AUs, but I also want to read about the actual continuity in question and not someone's mishmash of it.

Like UGH when I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to see cop Orion not archivist or dockworker Orion. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to read about the Senate led by Proteus and the reigns of Nova/Nominus/Sentinel/Zeta, not about the Council from TFP. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 MegOP I want Orion being a simp for Megatron after reading his stuff/meeting him one (1) time sdkflsdkf not yet another iteration of the tired "one day an archivist and a gladiator became great friends! then they broke up."

It's not hate for other continuities, I'm just tired of the fact that continuity soup is so prevalent that even when I'm specifically filtering for content of the one continuity I want to read about, the fics I find keep having random shit from other continuities interjected into it. I think each continuity has really interesting takes on lore that have potential to be wholly unique for each one, so it's really frustrating when the average fic I can find is just a random mishmash of continuity elements, or more often than not just an IDW knockoff taking place in a separate continuity. Like guys, I'm an IDW stan myself, but wouldn't it be cool if we got more fics that explored ideas that only happen in G1, or only happen in Animated, or Aligned, etc?

Doesn't help that when I AM looking specifically for IDW stuff, most of the content I look at (MOP) does continuity soup for the sake of replacing IDW OP with some sort of aligned/g1 lite OP which makes me salty as hell

22. Popular character you hate?

Drift for sure sdklfsdlk. I mean when I first read about him in the comics (the Drift miniseries) I was like, he's fine I guess he's an action hero whatever. But then literally the more of the comics I read the more his personality and story were just incredibly corny, stereotypical, or boring as hell no matter what writer was controlling him. And he got bounced around between writers a lot, and then even the "main author" people know Drift from (JRO) kept changing his plans for what Drift was supposed to be (and cutting plots related to him) so any hints towards a storyline went nowhere. And then Drift spent basically all of MTMTE gone elsewhere on some exile-adventure, and then during LL he just kind of. Is there, existing.

So like, honestly Drift is a victim of getting bounced back and forth and having his writing changed so often he doesn't reach his full potential, which isn't really "his fault" as a character. It just so happens that I also think the bits of his character that exist are either boring or overhyped or in one case (portrayal of his religion/religious worldbuilding in general) outright offensive. He's basically written like some hippie stereotype with vaguely Asian/Japanese flavoring (the extent of which is basically his name + fighting style) and then he barely like... does anything in the plot? I think he's supposed to be like, ~mysterious and shifty~ but then all of the plotlines that involved him being a secret traitor got cut, so Drift basically just became Weirdly Suspicious For No Reason and his genuine personality/motivations felt indistinguishable from what he was faking and what plots got cut from him. Absolute mess of a character that got almost no payoff for any of the things planned for him, and all that's left is some kooky hippie personality of "hee hoo I believe in auras and mystical vibes and magical colors, also I'm dating an atheist who's openly dismissive of most of my religious beliefs (that I do or don't actually believe in depending on what part of the story I'm in) and this somehow doesn't get in the way of our personal/romantic chemistry

But then the fanbase are basically making him some kind of Gary Stue, obsessed with making headcanons like "Deadlock wrote/edited Megatron's speeches for him too!" and "Drift defected from the Decepticons to try and make a point to Megatron!" and generally trying to make him the Decepticons' Specialest Boy Ever and it's just. Ugh I get that he was under-written in canon, but every bit of fanon I've encountered doesn't make him interesting either. They just kind of make Drift the center of the world where he's actually the coolest, most talented and interesting person ever where other characters owe their accomplishments partially to his influence and I'm just. I don't get it, I don't understand the appeal of fanon and I don't even understand the appeal of canon either. I think part of it is for representation reasons (e.g. Asian, lower class, former drug addict) and it's nice that people can pull something meaningful out of the mess that is canon. It's just for me, canon Drift is so mediocre I don't get why anyone would even WANT him as representation sdlkfjsdlkf. I guess fixing what the writers failed to explore the potential of is an understandable motivation though.

GOD ok so. in last life, the rules state that while you are boogeyman or red life, all prior alliances must be severed. which means that, by the Actual Rules of the game, etho and bdubs technically spent more sessions as "enemies" than they did as true allies: session 1 when bdubs was boogeyman, session 5 when etho was boogeyman and bdubs was red, session 6 when they were both boogeyman, and session 7 when bdubs went red. it genuinely feels like the game itself was taking every opportunity imaginable to force them to betray each other by inflicting them w the boogeyman curse far more than any other duo and they instead used every one of those instances to intentionally defy the rules of the game and further prove their loyalty instead. it still makes me insane to this day

How I sleep understanding my favorite villain's personality and backstory and why they work so well while also throwing key aspects of it away for the benefit of my own indulgences btw ^_^

on the topic of… controversial max ships. 4433 is one of the better max ships idgaf!!!

i keep dismissing societal concepts i think are silly in my head and so i go around being like we made this up it's so pointless... abt like copyright law or whatever but then i kind of lock myself in an echo chamber of my own brain where i go around thinking stuff and then i have a conversation with a friend where i find out they put weight in [concept] i've dismissed like they're talking about how IQ is real and measurable and important for statistics and im like WHAT THE HELL...