#We dont have enough robot romance in if games

[bubblegumrabbitwriting]

I need someone to turn Portal 2 into an IF game with 200% more toxic yuri; that is all. Thank you.

[magic-is-something-we-create]

This or that: Writer's edition tag!

Thank you for the tag, @pens-swords-stuff!! i love these kinds of games so much :D

this post is long, so apologies in advance! that said, i'll tag @writeblrfantasy, @ettawritesnstudies, @ren-c-leyn, and @enchanted-lightning-aes, as well as anyone else who wants to play!! as always, absolutely 0 pressure to participate if you dont want <3

(explanations for choices are optional, i am just a wordy bitch and want to Speak At Length about many things)

- historical or futuristic

as much as i write fantasy, i LOVE a speculative tech-based setting way more than i love a historical or pseudo-historical setting - which is uh. why my main fantasy world does in fact have a cyberpunk corner and Heavily Implied To Be Aliens pantheon.

- opening or closing chapter

the closing chapter is ALWAYS one that ive been champing at the bit to write for the whole book, and its always so satisfying to finally get out on the page

- light+fluffy or dark+gritty

case in point: whispers and the copious amounts of various horror, gore, and downright gut-punch scenes in millennium saga

- animal companion or found family

bonus points for the found family if theres an animal companion of course, but as much as i love wrench, she is a) not the most important member of the party and b) also a robot so i dont think she counts as an animal anyway outside of andy's dubious claims to fitting under the "dragon" definition

- horror or romance

i will write 1000 instances of "what the FUCK" for every page i struggle through writing romance as someone who does not experience attraction

- hard or soft magic system

I LOVE MAKING PUZZLES OUT OF WORLDS AND MAGIC AND STORIES. THATS IT THATS THE POST

- standalone or series

surprise! TMS may be a series and my long-running main WIP, but uh. 90% of my concepts are standalones. and tbh i like writing standalones more because i dont have to struggle with multiple books of plot and characters fitting together

- one project at a time or always juggling multiple

while i have a bajillion ideas, i struggle to get any work done if im not 100% invested in the story at hand, so i work on one at a time (while allowing myself to switch if i need to of course; but if i do switch, it's never just a few days. its months, and often seeing something to completion)

- one award winner or one best seller

honestly? id rather be recognized for my hard work in creating the characters/story via an award than via a bajillion people reading it,,, though theoretically if its winning an award at least enough people have read it to a) nominate it and b) vote for it, so? best of both worlds kinda?

- fantasy or scifi

YOU THINK I, GENRE BLENDER GEORG, COULD CHOOSE--

- character or setting description

please god. my beta readers didnt know what color embers hair was until chapter 13 because i couldnt fuckin figure out how to put a description of it in naturally. ill take describing massive trees and open ocean and vast plains of ice and cluttered rooms and stained glass windows any day but dont make me describe the narrator or i swear to fuck

- first or final draft

its the puzzle box gremlin in me like "NYEHEHEHE THE PIECES. THEY ARE THERE. PEOPLE CAN SOLVE THEM. NEYHE" and that simply cannot happen in the first draft

- love triangle in everything or no romantic arcs

we write polyamory, one (1) enemies-to-lovers, or no romance at all in this house (it feels so alienating to write no matter what but if its for the story ill do just about anything)

- constant sandstorm or rainstorm

can i say blizzard? i want to say blizzard. same "dont go outside or you'll die" as sandstorm but less worrying about water and also more excuses for the characters to light a fire and Talk About The Horrors or just commit arson

[justalokifanaccount]

Episode 4-Play by Play Reactions (Spoilers)

(I accidentally spoiled a major part for myself by browsing tumblr after the episode aired but before I watched it because I’m dumb)

I’m watching this on my TV and not my phone this time so I’m excited

Previously on… the show I’ve been obsessed with months before it released. As if I need reminding lol.

Friggin marvel opening gotta remind me of Tony snapping every episode

Interesting watching this on my flatscreen cuz the show is wide screen

Oh asgard!

Little Sylvie!

Oh my gosh that would be horrifying as a kid… she just got kidnapped pretty much

“Crimes against the sacred timeline” oh for cripes sake she’s just a kid!

Oh my gosh this would be terrifying

Oh is this when Renslayer was still a hunter

Clever girl!!! She escaped before even being sentencing

There’s a lot more to Renslayer I bet

TIME KEEPERS BABY

Space lizards finna meet the business end of a pruner

Mobius yay!!!!! I’ve missed him!

And what’s so bad with different branches?

Oh is that hunter locked up?

Oh nvm

That “how?” from Mobius is the closest thing we will get to hearing him say “wow” in this show and that makes me sad.

Dawn of the Final Day

Aha iconic promo scene!

Serious Loki moment?

“The universe wants to break free so it manifests chaos like me being born the goddess of mischief.”

I don’t believe C-20 is actually dead

Soooo does Loki not still have the tesseract? Or are we gonna get a silly clown Loki moment of “OHHHH I FORGOT I HAD THIS.”

“Do you think what makes a Loki a Loki is the fact that we’re destined to lose?”

“No. We may lose. Sometimes painfully. But we don’t die. We survive.”

Please don’t romance them

This is sweet and sad

Don’t kiss please don’t

What set them off? How did they find him?

He really should have an equal amount of security

Mobius shut up.

Bad friend? Oops

Uh oh

TELL HIM THE TRUTH LOKI DO IT

Oh? Asgard?

Uh oh

Lmao

Bully Sif

Ouch

Poor Loki

Ohhhhhh lmao time loop of being beaten up by Sif… ouchie

Cmon Loki fight back.

Or break her mind lol

Loki don’t fall for it— ahhhh ok

Ouchie

Controlling woman huh

Easiest to break huh? Shut up Ravonna

Titans? (Lmao please tell me they arrested a variant Thanos)

Vampires??? Hinting at a Blade reboot????

Hunter B-15 knows something is up

Oh my gosh Loki real moment confessing to Sif “because I’m scared of being alone.”

Genuine or??? Is she gonna throw him? Poor Loki…. “You are alone. And you always will be.”

Mobius you scumbag. That’s literally torture.

Mobius shut up

Mobius shut up. You don’t know the real Loki.

Oh so even they don’t know what caused it

Now Loki is lying just to avoid being hit by Sif

Oh no. He thinks she’s gone. Loki can’t lie very well when he’s sad.

No not swooning… please don’t ship them I beg you.

Not romance please stop no.

MOBIUS SHUT THE HELL UP

Please don’t make it romantic please please please please

SHES NOT HIS GIRLFRIEND PLEASE SHUT UP

YEA LOKI TELL HIM THE TRUTH

Maybe he had a family, a life… maybe… maybe a jetskii?

Mobius shut up.

Shut up about “girlfriend”

Yea Mobius. Let it stew. You’re a liar.

That Hunter B-15 is onto something.. OH YEA SHE WAS ENCHANTED FOR A BRIEF MOMENT TOO

SHE MUST BE REMEMBERING SOMETHING

Theremin. Nice.

Odd music choice for a date I gotta say.

How much older is Owen Wilson than Gugu Mbatha Raw? (Googling) Owen Wilson is 52… Gugu is 38

Mobius is onto something. But I’m still mad at him.

“What we do here matters.” Doubt

Friendzoned

What trophy?

Oh the sword

SNEAKY MOBIUS SWITCHING THE REMOTES NYAHAHAHA

He’s not the best liar tho

For all time. Always. Doubt

She knows he’s lying.

Hunter B-15 interrogating Sylvie at Roxxcart

Yea Sylvie tell her!

FRIENDS? Please?

Oh my gosh poor Hunter B-15…

Hug?

Team up?

Yay???

Damn C-20 really is dead?

Funny with all that technology but that video looks like my old handheld game from like 2010 that I bought from Walmart.

Mobius having an existential crisis. Good.

Please stop hinting at a romance between them…

Friends yay!

Renslayer you scum…

Uh oh

Maybe he had a Jet Skii!

NO

NO

LOKI JUST LOST ANOTHER FRIEND

Renslayer I will revel in your demise

“But she’s just doing her job.” Shut up. She saw what Hunter C-20 said…

Loki is crying again… he just made another friend and he’s gun… HE NEEDS TO COME BACK. If Mobius is gone forever I will never forgive the TVA.

Awww she asked if he’s okay… I’m still praying only friends. Please nothing more.

What was the event? Come on Renslayer. You remember you crap hole.

Oh my. Time keepers??? Aha this IS where the stairs on the wall and a fight breaks out.

Lmao that one time keeper sounds like a dopey dog from a cartoon.

YEA HUNTER B-15 I LOVE YOU

Oh that’s how Loki gets that cut

Now he has a sword babyyyy

Renslayer I hate you

Loki help her!

Oh nvm she’s good

Child of the time keepers?

I KNEW IT

JUST ROBOT PUPPETS!!! ITS ALL A TRICK

So… who’s really in control???

Seeing Loki in this blue light… cmon give me Jötunn Loki.

Where’s hunter b-15?

Don’t confess love pease I beg you

Please please please don’t romance them. For all that is good in this world.

Oh gosh

Hug?

Please just hug

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

WHAT????

PRUNE HER DO IT

Loki?????

What???? NOOOOO

HE CANT BE GONE!!! We still haven’t gotten that scene where he has the flaming sword!!!!!!!! Pruning HAS to not kill them please!!!!!!!!!

Dammit I KNEW something would happen. They had their backs turned to them and it was too quiet.

LOKI BETTER NOT BE GONE I SWEAR TO GOD MY HEART CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH AGGHHHHHHHHH

I’ve seen him die too many damn times agahahshehhdheiebdusienenridiehehejd

And now the credit song has love in it

I really really hope they don’t have some sort of self-cest between Loki and Sylvie…

POST CREDIT SCENE WHAT????

LOKI YES

OH MY GOSH THANK GOD HES ALIVE

Oh

My

Gosh

MY JAW JUST DROPPED

ALL THE OTHER LOKIS

SO WHAT THE HELL DOES PRUNING DO?????

WE GOT KID LOKI, BLACK LOKI, OLD COMIC LOKI, AND EVEN A FRIGGIN CROCODILE LOKI LIKE WHAT???????

And what is black loki (I feel bad for calling him just that but I don’t know his name DX) holding? And what is old comic Loki holding?

What is this place that looks apocalyptic??? Why are they all here?

WHAT IS HAPPENING

THIS IS MY FAVORITE EPISODE YET AGGHHHHHHHHH

SO IS MOBIUS STILL ALIVE THEN????

IS EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN PRUNED STILL ALIVE?

Is each pruned person sent to a place with all the other variants of themselves???

I HAVE TOO MANY QUESTIONS

NO WONDER TOM HIDDLESTON SAID POOR LOKI IN THESE EPISODES

My biggest concerns now are: how on earth are they going to wrap this up in only two more episodes? And PLEASE DONT ROMANCE SYLVIE AND LOKI!!! I mean, I get it… if Loki should fall in love who better than his parallel. She’s different enough from him to have it not be too weird I guess, but it’s still a variant version of him. And it seems a little too forced. Like sure a crush maybe, but don’t you dare say love when they’ve only known each other for like a couple days.

My mind is melting. I’m so glad I waited to watch this in the morning instead of at night so I could appreciate it in all its glory.

BUT NOW I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER WEEK AGGHHHHHHH

Oh and is Hunter B-15 okay? We saw her get knocked down but that was it. She didn’t appear in the rest of the fight.

AND WHO MADE THE TIME KEEPERS????

IS IT KANG? IS IT…… MEPHISTO??? WHOOOOOOOOOOOO?????

Gonna go browse tumblr to cry and reblog gifs from the episode to help me cope until next week.

[macklives]

session 95 end

i like that we ended 612 with karkat pretty sweet if you ask me (well an hour past it at least) 

ill try and sum this up as much as i can, considering it was a LONG one (but i felt long was good for the occasion since it was a homestuck holiday)

alright

lets clear the elephant in the room (not plot related)........ i really like karkat vantas. he may be a jerk sometimes with the slurs but apparently he gets better?? so i DO wanna see some development but god hes such a great character and i know i hated him before but hes grown so much on me that i think hes even in the top 5 favorites. which are kanaya, terezi, aradia and nepeta THEN karkat. so yeah.... god tell me that back in act 3 and i would have LAUGHED

alright, now for the fuckups

equius and vriska

vriska lost her arm bc terezi sold her out to doc scratch, who then blew up the orb she stole which is the reason she now needs a robotic arm. terezi was quite sad about it actually, she wanted to talk with vriska one last time before she told doc, to see whether or not she changed. because vriska DID kill her friend......... but vriska meant smth to terezi, so if she wanted to be the better person and apologize or try, terezi wouldnt have done anything, but since vriska didnt seem to care that much, terezi had to show her that enough was enough. which obviously she didnt really enjoy doing. but damn... im curious to see how their friendship plays out in the future

okay now a quick recap of plot point:

vriska lusus died, but not completely so she had to kill her herself with a guillotine, by using her dice which foretold how she would do it, equius then hopped into the session and literally JUMPED to the next fucking gate to greet aradia, who he had prepared her a robot, aradia entered the robot and equius fucking PROGRAMMED IT TO LOVE HIM

which GOD OKAY

so she found out, hated the fact it was programmed and she didnt ACTUALLY have any romantic feelings for equius, so while pissed, she then smashed the living HEART INSIDE OF HER ON THE TABLE MULTIPLE TIMES, BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EQUIUS THEN FUCKING KISSED HIM WHAT THE FUCK

THATS SO FUCKED UP???? the whole forcing this onto her thing when she clearly didnt like him 

however, it seemed while in the sprite, she didnt care much about equius’ peasantry remarks anymore, while she didnt reciprocate, she just went along with the commands he gave which made equius very very sweaty

honestly the most shocking thing of this session was the heart pounding, beating and kissing. 

and omg there was.. a LOT of blood. we had vriskas arm being exploded, lusus being guillotined, aradia smashing out her heart and karkat being stabbed

ALL IN ONE

without break 

LMAO what is happening to these kids

and on that note, nepeta saw the whole ordeal happen and updated her shipping wall with it??? which has all the trolls in relationships and shes judging whether or not theyre fit for one another which good for her ig and can probably keep me updated on who has a crush on who even tho its not all accurate

THEN we have karkat who explained romance. how theres both hate and love in troll culture, which both can be seen as a relationship. one is called uhh kiss something, the other is called moiral something, and then theres one he didnt explain which is matesprite???? kiss is hate, moiral is love and the other is unknown. from what i get. tho most of the time i was being soft over how he had said nobody listens to him and hes just so invested he forgot vriska was even there or what his original point was. anyways, so basically you can have a crush on someone depending on what you feel for them, whether it be love or hate. and hate i see it as kinda like dating your enemy i guess???? yeah.. interesting. i kinda wanna see what dynamics in homestuck lead to that

OR what the kids think about it

oh god dont tell me aradia kissed equius because of the hate love thing.... and then they’ll actually have a romance because of the kiss-smth black romance whatever its called....... bc i swear to god..... im not going to enjoy that in the slightest.. i dont want to see that.. nuh uh...... smth about them that irks me

i genuinely also thought sollux and aradia were still together but i guess since the incident theyre not??? bc then id be REALLY fucking concerned for the aradia x equius thing bc thats blatant cheating..... but nothing has been really confirmed so... for my sanity, ill say theyre taking a break, EVEN if id rather much have them together because they were cute :(( but equius FUCKED IT UP

ANYWAYS, last point but not least, while karkat explained this whole romance schtick, he got stabbed.. yes, STABBED, by their session’s jack noir agskagdjhd WHICH APPARENTLY DIDNT BOTHER KARKAT BECAUSE HE HAD HIS PRIORITIES LMAOOO HE JUST TYPED AWAY WITH BLOOD GUSHING ON HIS SIDE LIKE NOTHING, n e ways, he told jack not to tell anybody his blood color, and was being a dramatic bitch about it, because apparently karkat has red blood (not aradias, a mutant like color) which is oppressed by troll culture, so he hides it to not get shat on... jack cut himself to show karkat he wasnt alone. which i then remembered karkats session got fucked up when he was explaining his own game to john, and apparently jack fucked theirs up so i cant wait to see what happens there

and thats basically it

and with that, happy birthday karkat and happy 612 to you all

[popculturebuffet]

Jake Reviews Stuff: Star Vs: Friendenemies

Happy pride all. I’m getting ahead of this one for a number of reasons:  1) It’s pride month and this episode is one of the most shiptastic things i’ve seen with two male characters since Robochris from bravest warriors. I mean it dosen’t quite reach “Creating a skull robot of your best friend because he won’t touch you a lot to make him jealous enough to do that” levels of romantic tension but it tries. 

2) My good friend @jess-the-vampire​ is a tomco shipper, and with things being rough for her I figure she could use this sooner rather than later. 3) Shows are actually coming back with Amphibia emerging from it’s year long odinsleep the same week Close Enough finally escapes from it’s dumpster after 10,000 years to conquer earth before it gets put back in there then escapes again and marries lord zedd.. I lost the metaphor the point is I want to keep Tom train, and other star arcs I have planned, moving at a steady clip. 

So with all of that yeah, i’m ready to go. No real exposition to dump again, come on let’s go after the cut!

We open with Marco at his laptop nervous about something and Star coming into his room tangled in christmas lights... so normal day at Casa Diaz.  Anyways Marco can’t help star out of her latest self made prison because he’s preording tickets to a Mackie Hand Film Festival. Mackie Hand is Marco’s faviorite martial artist and movie star, who died performing a stunt on himself.. accidentally.. did he give himself a death punch? Is this the same universe as regular show.. please say yes.  Anyway as is natural for Marco in the first two seasons as god apparently hates him, the tickets sell out instantly and he dosen’t get them, banging his head against his laptop as Star TRIES to comfort him , saying he might still be able to get them. Marco also says “Good things don’t happen to me”

I mean just look at Season 3. Anyways tom comes in licking a rainbow snowcone for no explained reason other than they wanted to make it obvious this was the Tomco episode. Tom asks to hang out and after Star, understandably at this point given you know, the horrible date where he tried to murder her best friend and the gaslighting a few weeks back, tells him a million times no, Tom explains he’s not here for her.. he’s here for Marco. Marco, given tom’s threatned to kill him twice now and tried to at least once, isn’t biting. Tom naturally has tickets to the festival as a trump card, and assumes that time he kidnapped marco and played him in ping pong for his freedom counts as a friend hang out, and geuinely apologizes for his behavior promising not to get angry. Really while as you probalby know we DO get the reveal later he was partly doing this whole thing to finish his anger managment... I do get the sense this apology, and a lot of this is GENUINE. We’ll get more into the why in a bit, but he does seem to genuinely want to bury the hatchet.  Marco pulls star aside and, given the last two times he saw Tom, the boy had some horrible scheme up his ripped sleeves, he understandably, and as it turns out correctly, thinks Tom is once again up to some sort of scheme, star is fully on board. I have. mixed feelings about this. On the one hand STar did forgive tom for the previous episodes mess and Ponyhead for much worse and it does set up the tiny plot curnel of corn that would grow into an entire corn field of her still having some friendly feelings toward tom. But it just feels weird, even with how cahotic star can be to have her flip flop from “Stop calling me” To “You should totlaly go on a date with the guy who harassed me and tried to kill you twice now. “. Especially since next time she has an episode with Tom, She’s fully resentful of him and a bit snarky and spends and episode, in part thanks to aformentioned magical severed ponyhead, suspicious of him playing games with her head again. We’ll get there soon obviously, i’m just saying it feels mildly off. 

So Marco decides, much like bart simpson that getting where he’s going’s worth it even if he has to ride with the devil himself and reluctantly agrees. We see the inside of Tom’s carriage for the first time, and see my good personal friend dead horse again on the outside, and it’s really nice.. lit by torches because mood lighting, but similar to his room it’s plushly decorated and even has two serious speakers and according to Tom 6 flatscreens. Damn I wish I had one of those.. that and I wouldn’t have to drive since I can’t due to my anxiety. Plus who wouldn’t want a firey horse skelton sidekick? Anyways Tom offers Marco cold cereal and Marco is frank with tom, pointing out he’s suddenly being nice to Marco after never being nice to him before and understandably isn’t sure he’s even a mackie hand fan but a bit of banter and trivia shows Marco that no, Tom really seems to be telling the truth.  Tom then confides in marco that he gets why Marco didn’t belivie him: Most people dont’ get past their preconcived perceptions of him. And here the series does flesh tom out a bit: Tom admits to not having many friends.. which frames the previous two episodes in a diffrent light. Sure his actions to Star are still very much not okay... but you at least see WHY he was so obessive about her: She was probably the first real friend he had that wasn’t a casual aquantince, his own family member, or a pet. Most Mewman kids his age probably weren’t too keen to hang out with what to them was a monster, rich or not, little raicst shits. And in the underworld most people probably just did whatever he asked because they were afraid of his temper or his parents fury, even if his parents are the nicest people in the underworld. So when he lost her, Tom didn’t know how to properly react and while his first attempt to win star back was genuine, it was marred by his refusal to adress his anger or control issues that likely lead to Star dumping him in the first place. While Star’s forgivness HERE is a bit werid, her willingness to give him another shot wasn’t: Tom was SEEMINGLY genuinely trying. He was in therapy, he’d been anger free for several days and most glowingly, when a stranger karate chopped his hand off in a misguided attempt to protect star.. he got upset but instnatlly went into his coping mechanisms.  The problem was as I covered in that review.. Tom didn’t WANT to change. That’s the thing about changing: you need to both know there is a problem and WANT to fix it. And even then, as we’ll see sometimes i’ts hard. I know, i’ve had my own personal issues i’ve had to change up as years went on. It’s a slippery slope you have to constnatly climb up. And BMB era tom.. just didn’t WANT to change he just wanted to do what he thought star wanted that would get her to take him back, and couldn’t understnad why she wouldn’t just listen to him and obey, two things not in star’s vocabulary for anyone much less her ex. 

So , much like I did, rather than blame himself for screwing things up, he just saw it as Marco being in the way and tried to fix that. And so he sunk to rock bottom.. but it didn’t fix their relationship and it took Marco having an honest conversation, as someone who was also very close to her and knew her well, to get him to see that Star wasn’t going to take him back unless she wanted it.. what he was doing was selfish and self destructive.. and Tom probably realized in that moment he had to stop. He let her go, and thus as I put al ot of emphasis on last time, made his first step to being better.  And to me that’s why this makes sense as his next step: While it’s partly to fufill a checklist... you get the sense he really DOES like marco on some level. They hung out, which I do feel tom did genuinely feel was like friends hanging out instead of you know the second highest stakes game of ping pong i’ve ever seen. 

The first if your curious. So while part of this is Tom just wanting to get through anger managment for likely his parent’s sake, part of it is also him genuinely wanting to be somebody’s buddy, anybody but a bumbling butler. It’s just being Tom, he dosen’t know HOW to make friends or get them to see past who he is surface wise; a spoiled angry boy and see the inside, a nice kid who just has no idea how to talk to people beyond a surface level or understand them and we’ll see that more both in this episode and as we go. Speaking of going back in the episode proper, two bros drive up and insult Tom’s carriage also wondering if he’s going to his grandpa’s funeral. Fuck you both.. both on general principal and becaause his grandpapapapapapaaaaaaaaaaaa is alive and magnificent. 

Satan bless you Relicor. Anyways, Tom is naturally pissed at this and Marco challenges them to a race.. but eases tom off actually following them as, since this isn’t a fast and the furious movie, the police immidelty arest them and we get the blessed image above. Let’s see that again.

NOGODWHY

Not right but it’ll have to do I fear what may happen if I try again.  ONE BALLON DICK GIRAFFE LATER, our boys are on a high, as Tom finds there are things more fun than obletarating people. #tomhaskilledmultiplepeopleandisstillthebestboy. Marco is reminded of a song from his faviorite band Love Sentence, and Tom, suprisingy given his My Chemical Romance with a splash of metal astetic, is not only a huge fan but has a giant Helga Patiaki esque shrine to them complete with a cd player with shuffle. Fancy. 

We then get a wonderful, shiptastic montage of the two just hanging out, hanging out with a white tiger. Having themselves a party. And given the song itself, sung by 98 Degrees and horrible realtiy show Newleywed’s alumnus Nick Lachey, even says “we used to be enimies but now we have chemistry” yeah I think this is intentional and they are a good ship. Are they my prefered ships for the characters? No tha’ts kelly and flame princess... the last one was recent and I love a good crossover ship sue me. But I do headcanon both as still Bi and still find the ship great, it’s just not my main one. 

However the good times can’t last as it is film time... but Tom refuses to let marco leave befor eblowing his top off... dude that’s not how you build a suppportive relationship, you know this by now. Turns out the white tiger I haven’t mentioned to now is actually Brian, vocied my boy Stephen Root who apparently just.. lives at DIsney’s animation studios now as he has a tendency to show up in every other animated disney show. You may know him from Gravity Falls as Bud Gleeful, THe Mayor from Amphibia, or , in non disney voice work, Bill Dautrive. Turns out as I haven’t even tried to hide, Tom was in the final stage of his anger managment class and to get out of it had had to spend 3 hours with the person he hated most. As I said I do think part of it was GENUINE on tom’s part, that he was trying to be what he thought friends were... it’s just he didn’t get that Marco, if grumblinignly, probably STILL would’ve agreed if he were honest.  However.. it’s still a step up. While i’ts still a scheme, and his LAST on the show.. it’s more benign after the last two; Instead of being harmful his scheme this time is just “Bribe my worst enemy into hanging out with me and get out of anger managment” it’s still not quite right, but compared to the things he’s done with star, it’s an improvment and a sign he is changing despite himself. He could’ve just kidnapped marco again and forced him to spend the three hours.. granted this might’ve just been Brian saying, obviously no tha tdosen’t count, but still, instead he tried being nice and giving an apology. Even if it was for personal gain on some level, Marco’s words clearly got to him and he’s now trying genuinely unselfish tactics. It’s also notable since he spent the three hours with marco, and at least half an hour of awkarndess before it got all fun, WITHOUT getting angry or falling back on old stratgies and only beefing it at the end because, as i’ve established, he dosen’t get people.  So naturally tom gets mad.. while it is a sign he’s getting better he dosen’t do his trademark horrifying demonic EXPLOSION of rage... he’s still being petulant and sore over his failure is mad at marco for pritoritzing the tickets nad destroys them. Marco naturally calls him out, angry over him manipulating him to get some badge , as he puts it, calls him a jerk and a liar, accurate and the worst part to marco? “I WAS DUMB ENOUGH TO FALL FOR IT”

Credit where it’s due while I may not LIKE adam mcarthur as a person...as a voice actor he is excellent and his delivery here is perfect as you do get the pain in Marco’s voice as he genuinely ahd grown to care for tom. Wethere it was friendship or wanting to make out... probably wanting to make out, you get the pain in his voice. Tom admits the love sentence hting wasn’t a lie.. but too little too late.. whcih is marco’s second faviorite love sentence song and leads to another moment of shippy goodness. Seriously I see why this ship exploded in popularity after this. Also I will say both Adam and Rider have damn pretty voices.  So Tom does what any romantic lead faced with a third act breakup would do.. say a demonic chant and bring Mackie Hand back from the dead. This is also the first time we see just how fucking powerful tom is. Before we’ve seen him summon his carriage and immolate some stuff and easily reattach a hand.. but this is the first time that we see he’s every pit as powerful as star, who probably could raise the dead she just dosen’t want to. Granted I don’t know why this sort of undead stuff hasn’t been used on say, Moons assitnated mother, but presumibly anti-monster stigma combined with the fact that we don’t know HOW she died or how much was left, and are probably better off that way solve that. It goes a long way to explain why Tom’s family are allies instead of the conquered like most monsters: They have equal , if far diffrent and spookier, magic power and are the only kingdom with this trump card besides the butterfly kingdom. 

So as we close Marco tries to use Mackie to get in, the usher dosen’t buy it and a fight insues, but Marco and Tom patch things up, Tom becoming a fan of Mackie now he’s seen what the guy can do and Marco forgiving tom since, evne if his actions were still a bit greasy, he immidetly did his best to try and fix what he broke. The two are friends again despite them both saying they hate each other... but they clearly mean it playfully. The End.  Final Thoughts: After the Slog that was last episode this one is a fan faviorite for a reason... well okay 2 reasons. One...

And two.. it’s excellent. I feel bad it took me years to see this one, but it’s one of season 2′s finest. It’s funny, has great character stuff for both boys, introduces a new ship that’s fantastic and a great new dynamic between Tom and Marco that would carry for the rest of the show. It also beliviebly advances Tom’s character arc: He’s TRYING a bit but he’s still got a bit of the scheming and selfishness that defined his earlier outings, but it’s telling that after this episode, and hurting marco, he stops. This episode REALLY gets him to change that and for the better.  Sadly Tom would only make one more apperance this season in Naysaya, an episode I will cover when I cover Jackie and Marco at some point, but has him show up for a cameo when it turns out the episodes antagonist, a curse that takes the form of a sentient head that spills the target’s worst secrets and insecurities when they try to ask someone they like out, is Tom’s fault from back when he was a baddie, and Tom genuinely apologizes and tells him how to vanquish it, if ribs marco a bit since he cast that curse presumibly sometime between BMB and MCC and is delighed and suprised that Marco seriously hadn’t asked anyone out in that time. But it’s a nice bit that shows their not only still friends but Tom is genuinely sorry for some of his earlier behavior. We’ll see more of that as we go and more of tom trying to be better.. he’s made up with Marco, next time we come back to tomtrospective, we’ll see how it goes with Star. 

Coming up besides the obvious, as Pride Winds down I’ll have my first steven unvierse coverage, one of the first openly gay couples in western animation, and some asexula pride as we take our first look at Bojack Horseman..’s loveable rommate todd. Until we meet again, stay safe, black lives matter and later days. 

[scalproie]

I hope this isn’t too many 😅 but for the character asks, your fav pmd character, your fav transformers character, and your fav mp100 character?? I’m sorry if that’s too many! 😅

ooh thank you!!! lets goo!!!

For pmd mmmmh could be any of the future trio but yknow what imma do Dialga

Sexuality Headcanon: IRRELEVANT

Gender Headcanon: Time Has No Gender lol

A ship I have with said character: I don't really ship Dialga with anyone honestly. Yknow that post on tumblr about a vampire that'd "nephew-zoned" anyone that try to make a move on them because they've been around for so long that they don't even think about dating someone about centuries younger than them? That's Dialga, they're as old as time itself and romance never crossed their mind, they see a regular pokemon they go "aww" and thats it.

A BROTP I have with said character: WITH PALKIA they never interacted in the game but I'd love them to have a complicated long distance best friends sibling-like relationship. Dialga is relatively chill compared to Jock God Palkia and I like that dynamic. You can even spice it up with angst when Dialga go/is about to go/went for a long time Primal and Palkia can feel it.

A NOTP I have with said character: mmmmh like I said I dont really vibe with Dialga being shipped in general but I GUESS I especially dont with any of the future trio

A random headcanon: The Future that shouldve disappeared is now Dialga's very own personal emotional support timeline (we may never know why Arceus did it but hey. A gift's a gift even if it doubles the work). They do feel responsible for everything that's happened and everyone there and while guilt isnt exactly something Gods experience, they are suuuuper indulgent and in touch with the first few handful of pokemon there. They tolerate that the first new town is at the feet of Temporal Tower in the now-not-so-Hidden Highlands and actually go there pretty frequently. Once society in that timeline is well on it's way to be rebuilt and when they want a metaphorical break from their neverending duty they go there to chill for a while.

General Opinion over said character: Funny how much your opinion of someone can change with one (1) replay. I honestly was neutral on Dialga before  but just thinking of the potential of 20ft tall divinity interacting with the world around them and just getting a smoothie down the street thanks to in-game mechanic while still having reality-altering powers, especially in the context of pokemon mystery dungeon with a pantheon as large as canon legendary pokemon, is so good to me. Plus they have a immense impact on the plot so there's still material to work with. Also side-note Dialga used to be my fav legendary when I was a lil kid so. FULL CIRCLE BABEYYY

For transformers I have multiple favs but its gonna be Rodimus

Sexuality Headcanon: I mean. Its a homonormative society. (Its a way for me to say I dont really have one)

Gender Headcanon: he uses he/him but theyre giant robots from outer space. Gender's an afterthought.

A ship I have with said character: OKAY so in the mtmte continuity I dont?? actually ship Roddy with anyone? I think he's fine on his own romantically speaking. Call me out on my bad tastes but I don't want him to be in a relationship. In cyberverse on the other hand I do like him and Soundwave (who funnily enough I ALSO dont generally ship with anyone in any other continuities)

A BROTP I have with said character: oh god theres so many characters for both continuities yknow what in both Im gonna go with Whirl. In mtmte they have great dialogues and in cyberverse they have that apocalypse found family vibe

A NOTP I have with said character: MMMMMMMMMMMegatron 😔

A random headcanon: Primus/The matrix likes him best and he May Or May Not be the true Prime. He deserves nice things. Rising sign is capricorn

General Opinion over said character: yknow someone called him once "lover of losers and misfits, patron saint of the lost and lonely" and ive been thinking about that sentence ever since. I love Roddy a lot and I wish there was. more of him in general. A star is born babey 💖.

for mp100 imma pick Koyama

Sexuality Headcanon: G to the A to the Y

Gender Headcanon: ehhhh dont really have one honestly

A ship I have with said character: with Sakurai lol

A BROTP I have with said character: with Tsuchiya!! They have a brother/sister relationship. But imma be real theres one for almost all of the 7th division.

A NOTP I have with said character: Dont Ship Adults With Kids Please. But also i guess im not a big fan of shipping him with anyone thats not Sakurai

A random headcanon: guy is a MEAN cook. He got it from his mama who loved him very much, shes the one who literally named him "Kindness". But unfortunately he ran from home in his late teens 😔

General Opinion over said character: BASTARD THAT GOT BETTER my favorite kind. Love him dearly and I had the best conversations talking about him and met incredible people. Love the underrated found family including him and the rest of the 7th division. BIG comfort character I swear Im gonna be invested immensely in him again when season 3 drops.

[extreme-technicality]

does talking to an anon help about ninjago help? cuz I'm down

DHDKCKGSC YES IT DOES THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR OFFERING YOUR SERVICES

Okay now that I know I won’t be clogging people’s dashes buckle the fuck in my dude and I should stress that I literally would not be talking about this as much as I will be if I didn’t genuinely enjoy the show. I’m gonna go season by season and just Rant

S1 has the serpentine as the bbeg and like, as far as villains go they’re p lit. They’re early enough that they haven’t been done to hell, things are fresh, the characters and dynamics are being fleshed out, and all in all s1 is a pretty solid season. There’s some fuckery that gets brought up re: how the FUCK aging works and what the actual timeline of Ninjago is and how Wu and Garmadon fit into that timeline, fuckery that LITERALLY NEVER GETS RESOLVED IN A SATISFYING WAY BC ITS REVEALED IN A LATER SEASON (s8, dw we’ll get there lmao) THAT THE ONLY REASON THE FIRST SPINJITSU MASTER, WU, AND GARMADON LIVED AS LONG AS THEY DID IS CUZ THEYRE BASICALLY DEMIGODS AND ITS IMPLIED THAT LLOYD WILL ALSO LIVE FOR A LONG ASS TIME WHICH MEANS ONE DAY HES GONNA OUTLIVE ALL HIS FRIENDS AND EVERYONE HE EVER LOVED WHICH IS A FUN THING TO THINK ABOUT AT NIGHT But anyway I digress, s1 also coincidentally introduces Lloyd (he wasn’t in the pilot episodes that set up the rest of the series) and the existence of Evil Dad Garmadon.

S2 is where Garmadon starts acting a lot more Evil and a lot less Dad. He’s the main antagonist for that season, and I actually read somewhere that the show was originally slated to end after s2 which high key explains the fuckery of literally every single season after this lmaooooo. Much like s1, I really can’t find much to complain about, the first two seasons are pretty decent as far as I can remember

Season. Fucking. Three. Where the fuck do I start??? I hate season three for entirely personal reasons revolving around the STUPID GODDAMN ROMANCE WRITING. okay lemme back up and explain a thing first so, Jay is dating Nya and they’re fine, they’re going steady, aND THEN????? THE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON INTRODUCES BULLSHIT LOVE TRIANGLE FUCKERY FOR ZERO GODDAMN REASON, BITCH I HATE LOVE TRIANGLES AND I HATE THEM EVEN MORE WHEN THEYRE DONE FOR NO GODDAMN REASON!!! AND THEN. AS IF THAT WERENT ENOUGH. THEY SHOEHORNED A ROBOT ROMANCE BETWEEN ZANE AND PIXAL AND I KNOW I RANTED ABOUT THIS A LITTLE BIT WHEN I WAS ACTUALLY WATCHING BUT I DIDNT GO INTO ENOUGH DETAIL!!!! THEY MADE THE OTHER NINJA OOC IN ORDER TO PROP UP THEIR SHIP!!!!!! AND AT ONE POINT ZANE GOES “its like we were…made for each other” AND I HAD TO FUCUCJDHVE I HAD TO SCREAM INTO A PILLOW BRO, IM SO TIRED!!!! NO THE FUCK YOU WERENT!!!!!! YOU WERE MADE FOR YOU AND PIXAL WAS MADE FOR PIXAL AND IF YALLS WANNA BANG BOLTS THATS FINE BUT DONT IMPLY THAT EITHER OF YOU WERE MADE INCOMPLETE!!!! THATS AN INSULT TO YOUR MAKERS AND YOURSELVES, MOVE ON, PLEASE AND THANK YOU. anyway that season also killed Zane (for the first time, but not the last) (spoiler alert lmao) and like, not to be an emotional little shit but I did cry a bit at his funeral.

S4 is honestly one of my favorites, even though the romance crimes continue (the love triangle bullshit is continuing and honestly I maintain that Cole, Nya, and Jay should all have gotten together and in my personal canon they DID, and also Kai has a forced romance) the VILLAIN makes up for it imo. He’s campy!! He’s funny!! He’s a clown!! He’s serious enough that if he says “I’m gonna kill you” HE MEANS IT and that’s so fucking refreshing!!!! S4 is honestly 8/10 just for the villain alone, don’t like that it retconned the SHIT out of the elemental masters and how many different elements there are TO master but eh, it’s ninjago, shit is stupid.

S5 was…interesting? OH WAIT I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT S3 INTRODUCED A GARMADON WHO WAS A LOT LESS EVIL AND A LOT MORE DAD, HONESTLY I THOUGHT IT TOOK A LOT OF THE FLAVOR OUT BUT THATS JUST ME LMAOOO. anyway s5 killed Garmadon, and I was a little sad cuz I like him okay??? I just think he’s NEAT, he’s got big dad energy, he was teaching Lloyd some shit that just got DROPPED and literally was never brought up again which is honestly a theme in Ninjago. Ninjago drinking game: take a shot every time they introduce a plot point or ability and drop it at or before the end of the season. WHICH THEY ALSO DID IN S5 WITH A DIFFERENT POWER ACTUALLY, so all the ninja are masters of Spinjitsu right, well s5 introduced the concept of Airjitsu which only Spinjitsu masters can learn and it lets them FLY and they used that for seasons 5 and 6 and then they nEVER BROUGHT IT UP AGAIN EVEN THOUGH IT WOULDVE COME IN HANDY FOR S E V E R A L DIFFERENT SITUATIONS ACROSS THE SEASONS, ONE OF THEM WOULD BE FALLING TO THEIR DOOM AND MY ASS WOULD BE YELLING “YOU CAN FLY, DUMBASS” - anyway, they do that again later lmao it’s fine. But what’s low key NOT fine is they made Nya the WATER NINJA!!! Like I’m not mad she has powers, except I kinda am, she was doing just fine as Samurai X and honestly the only reason she has super special ninja powers is for plot reasons. Also Cole got turned into a ghost, but by s7 he’s????? No longer a ghost????????? And that’s NEVER addressed or reasoned away, so like. Cool lmao

S6 didn’t happen. Like, canonically, s6 ends with wish fuckery that undoes the entire season and none of the characters remember anything that happened except Jay and Nya because S6 is the season where they get back together so they remember all those events for???? Feelings reasons?????? Unclear, moving on. The actual bbeg for S6 was a djinn with a vaguely Spanish accent, and to this DAY I don’t know why they made him have a SPANISH accent. Djinn are Arabic, not Spanish!! They’re not central or South American, either!!!! Your villain design makes no sense, do better

S7 had MORE time fuckery, and retconned what happened to Kai and Nya’s parents and hmmmhmhmhmhmhm that makes me Upsetti Spaghetti :3 not just the retconning, but the fact that they LITERALLY brought them back oNLY TO NEVER MENTION THEM AGAIN!!!!!! LITERALLY!!!!!!!! Okay so at the VERY very beginning, like pilot episodes beginning, Kai talks about their dad like he died/left fairly recently, BUT s7 contradicts that and claims that both of their parents were essentially abducted when Kai and Nya were little kids, which makes me question what in the fresh fuck two little kids were doing for all those years alone. SETTING THAT ASIDE FOR A HOT SECOND, their parents were also apparently good friends of Wu’s and old war buddies (from the Serpentine wars, which is YET ANOTHER bit of the timeline that doesn’t quite add up but honestly I could make a whole other post about that shit). But if they were such good fucking friends, why didn’t Wu check in every now and again??? What the fuck was Wu doing that was so fucking important that he couldn’t have been assed to visit his friends ONCE in like TEN MOTHERFUCKING YEARS and realize “oh shit, they’re not here and there are two tiny children running around unsupervised…My Kids Now : )” LIKE????? WU YOU LOW KEY SHOULDA LOOKED OUT FOR YOUR FRIENDS’ KIDS BETTER, THEY COULDA DIED BRO!!! Uhhhh the time fuckery also results in Wu getting yeeted ahead in time a bit and the ninja gotta find him

Season. Eight. I have…mixed feelings about this one. The beginning absolutely SLAUGHTERED me, and not in a “this is so fucking funny” way. No, the beginning made me feel like I was being flayed alive with just about every episode because Ninjago was back on its forced romance bullshit and this time it was Lloyd’s turn on the chopping block. That hurt my soul cuz like, look at that mans color scheme, he’s CLEARLY alloaro, why are you forcing romance on my aro man, why would you hurt me like that, BUT ALSO BECAUSE HE AND THE GIRL HE WAS BEING SET UP WITH HAD A LITTLE HEART TO HEART REALLY EARLY ON AND IT WAS THE MOST QUEER CODED SHIT!!!! IT DEADASS READ AS A CONVERSATION BETWEEN AN OUT AND PROUD QUEER AND A CLOSETED QUEER AND THEY MADE!!! IT!!!!! STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!! The only thing that kept me watching at first was wanting to find Wu, and then I started enjoying myself once Cole found a plot-relevant baby and had fatherhood thrust upon him. Everything went from “ehhhhh” to “holy shit this FUCKS” once it was revealed that Rumi (Lloyd’s love interest) wAS PLAYING HIM THE WHOLE TIME AND WAS EVIL AND HAD AN EVIL GIRLFRIEND!!!!!! LITERALLY IMPROVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SEASON FOR ME, I COULD EVEN FORGIVE THE WHOLE “let’s resurrect Garmadon, but as evil as possible” BULLSHIT!!!!!!

S9 is a continuation of s8, Garmadon is back and 1000% Evil, 10% Dad, but none of the Dad energies is directed at Lloyd - it’s all directed at Rumi, and honestly I could write a whole ass post on just RUMI cuz that’s honestly my DAUGHTER and I LOVE HER and I’m MAD SHE DIES AT THE END OF THIS SEASON!!!! SHE DESERVED THERAPY AND TO LIVE WITH HER GF AND MAYBE SOME CRIME. AS A TREAT. RUMI DESERVED BETTER AND LOW KEY IM GONNA WRITE A FIC ABOUT IT, BUT ANYWAY WHERE WAS I

Ah right, so s9 has the four major Ninja stuck in the original dimension with no way home, while Lloyd has no powers (cuz he almost died last season) and has to somehow lead a resistance against Garmadon (who has taken control of Ninjago City and is working on the rest of Ninjago). Actually, s9 is pretty cool. Like, the end of s8 and into s9 are low key my favorite episodes, and I kinda wanna rewatch them now -

S10 is a FUN one. Garmadon got got last season, but he didn’t DIE, so he’s in cold storage and now there’s Another Threat and he’s the only one who knows wtf they’re up against so they let him out and he works with them. The funny part is, he is still Very Much Evil and doesn’t quite Get emotions like he did when he was, uh, human lmao, sO HE WOKE UP EVERY DAY DURING THAT SEASON AND DECIDED TO CAUSE PROBLEMS ON PURPOSE. IT WAS THE FUNNIEST FUCKING SHIT. 1000000/10 MY FAVORITE GARMADON, he ended that season by literally fucking off into Ninjago and they never decided to track him down 😭😭😭😭😭and I’m so SAD about it dude

S11 has another Serpentine as the bbeg, though in the setup to that they retconned how the fucking Serpentine tribes and history work??? I think???? Also Wu was a good 150% angrier and generally Done with the ninja’s shit, which was honestly refreshing tho I’m not quite sure I liked what the refreshed view was, but whatever lmao. S11 also had the ninja get yeeted to the dimension farthest from Ninjago, and honestly - okay, so they didn’t all go at the same TIME, Zane left about a week or two before the others did but there was time dilation fuckery afoot which I’m not too mad about cuz low key it makes sense. What I AM mad about is that they didn’t play the angst up to its full POTENTIAL!!!!!! Zane was EVIL in the other dimension!!!! Okay so I’m Ninjago he was only gone for maybe a week or two, but DECADES had passed in the other one, and all that time Zane was alone and disconnected from everyone he knew and loved, with a staff that boosted his power while slowly corrupting him and Turning Him Evil to help him, and like???? The thought of Zane trying to find a way home, trying to get SOME sort of message back, while he has to use the staff more and more to help him survive the long, lonely decades, so that by the time his family DOES show up its too late??? BRO. B R O. THAT JUST HITS DIFFERENT, BUT NINJAGO DIDNT DO THAT!!! THEY MADE HIM EVIL DUE TO MEMORY WIPE!!!!!! MEMORY WIPE IS BABY SHIT COMPARED TO A LONG, SLOW CORRUPTION!!!!!!

S12 was alright. It went into Cole’s mom, touched on some of the adventures she had had, threatened another forced romance (this time on poor Cole, just leave my mans ALONE) but thankfully didn’t follow through this time, introduced cool new powers that honestly hasn’t been elaborated on since that’s the most recent season I think lmao

Anyway thanks for reading and letting me rant!!!! I have,,So Much More I could talk about, PLEASE ask me about Rumi, some of my headcanons re: Garmadon and Wu’s dynamic, the Serpentine, my top five times they butchered Kai’s character for Plot Reasons, or anything else I brought up here that you want me to elaborate on!!!

[comicteaparty]

December 18th-December 24th, 2019 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from December 18th, 2019 to December 24th, 2019.  The chat focused on the following question:

What tropes and/or clichés are you perfectly fine with seeing in the webcomics you read?

Deo101

Like all of the cutesy cheesy relationship tropes. I love them all and I always will! Plenty more, but I find myself getting caught up in the relationship tropes the most. Specifically friends to lovers, but I also really like the found family trope. I know there are more tropes that I love but I can't think of them off the top of my head, so I'll probably just agree with others as the week goes on

indogswetrust

pass me the slow burn romance please thaaaanks

Deo101

that one too. Also hurt/comfort. Pump those into my VEINS they are my lifeblood... I shamelessly put every trope I want into my work so I can't judge other people for doing the same

indogswetrust

i’m trash

I’ve become more sssssophisticated as I’ve gotten older but I know what I like in a webcomic.

And it’s Adorable Behavior (tm)

Deo101

I've gotten less sophosticated. I thought I got more sophisticated but turns out I just got less shameful about the things i like

indogswetrust

Haha

I mean I used to really be fixated on comedy and now I’m more okay with things being ambiguous and complex? Ingress is a good example. I might have put it down two years ago but now I wanna see where Spicer and Toivo’s journey takes them

Fixated isn’t the exact word. whatever

Deo101

No I get you! Realizing you like more than just one thing and expanding your horizons is really important!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I love the enemies-to-lovers trope. Any time a pair of characters goes from ‘I hate your guts’ to ‘take me now’ I’m loving it. That is, so long as one of them wasn’t being outright abusive during their ‘hate’ phase.

indogswetrust

Man that’s a delicate balance but also

Deo101

^ Fully agree. I just get a little too anxious about the "enemies" side of thing and worry they wont fully grow into lovers I guess! But if it's done well, Its an especially good one

carcarchu

i second the enemies-to-lovers thing i will never get enough of that trope

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

thirded

if I even smell a hint of it in a story, provided it's not overtly violent or abusive or otherwise horrible... I am hooked

kayotics

Fourthed... it’s a good trope

keii4ii

Now I feel like the odd one out for being neutral toward that trope. I definitely enjoy good examples of it, but otherwise completely neutral?

Evolving relationships is a good thing in general though, and enemies to lovers does fall in that category.

keii4ii

I have a soft spot for long lost superadvanced civilizations being unearthed. While it doesn't guarantee I'll fall in love with the story, it WILL grab my attention and at least get me to check it out.

renieplayerone

I dont really have any strong opinions on any tropes, but theres a really good channel on youtube that goes through and critiques tropes. I find it really useful for writing. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDb22nlVXGgcljcdyDk80bBDXGyeZjZ5e

keii4ii

(Please don't let my weirdness ruin anyone's enjoyment of the trope though, lol. I'm all for celebrating what you like! was just genuinely wondering if I'm the only one who's neutral about it!)

keii4ii

Also not an overarching story trope, but more like a type of a scene... I really like this thing (if this is a trope please tell me what it's called XD) A, B, C are friends. A and B are bffs. C is not as close. B talks to C about this while A is away. This is an honest conversation, not a malicious one. B learns to see A in a way they hadn't before, and it strengthens the B-A friendship. I'm not likely to start reading a story just because I know it contains this scene. But if a story I already like has this scene, it is likely to be my favorite scene!(edited)

I guess part of the reason why I like it so much is, it shows that the relationship (the B-A one in this case) is not insular. It's a real relationship between real people, who also have relationships outside of it, and the relationships have an influence on each other.

(And that's a lot of "relationship"s in a paragraph...)

eli [a winged tale]

Positive relationships and healthy navigations between relationship and life problems are my jam The enemies to lovers trope can be gripping because you get an additional conflict on top of tension. I thought the novel Red White & Royal Blue did a good job at that. Grant Snyder did a trope bingo for murakami and I thought it was fun to do the same for my works in progress. For reference: the murakami one https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.avclub.com/here-s-how-to-play-haruki-murakami-bingo-as-you-read-hi-1798271345/amp

keii4ii

omg

I NEED TO MAKE THIS for me/ comics I read

I mean I don't have a whole lot of stories, but it would be interesting to see what kind of common items get checked off across mine + my favorite comics combined

Capitania do Azar

wow I've been thinking about it a lot and I'm having a very hard time selecting the tropes I like best... I'm more of a "I know what I don't like and taking that aside I like being surprised"

Cronaj

All I can say is... Red Oni, Blue Oni (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedOniBlueOni). This trope is seriously so good. My favorite thing about this trope is that the "Red Oni," or the hot-headed one, and the "Blue Oni," the cold or level-headed one, can be either friends or enemies. So it makes for a beautiful dynamic no matter what type of story it is. Buddy cops, competitors in the workplace, brothers, enemies, the straight man and the fool, you name it. Typically these characters are foils of each other, and their differencesbalways make for exceedingly fun interactions. Another favorite trope of mine, which I don't really know the name of, is where the seemingly hot/handsome guy is actually a dork who has no idea what he's doing. Everyone in the story thinks he's done everything, but really he's just a dopey, niave possibly shy and definitely clumsy virgin. But the social awkwardness only makes him inexplicably more appealing to the other lead. Cute

Ah! Another trope I have to add because it's basically my crack: Androids Are People, Too (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndroidsArePeopleToo). I have loved this trope since before Detroit: Become Human, but the game certainly rekindled my love for it. Very genre-specific, but AI fascinate me to no end, whether it's in the real world, or in Sci-Fi.

eli [a winged tale]

Haha Cronaj are you me? Contrasting characters and robots who have feelings can get me hooked straight away

indogswetrust

lemme tell y’all about a trope I’ve noticed: the crazy lesbian. Like, The Favorite and Killing Eve and that Netflix movie about the violinists. Whoof. I am so tired of that

Cronaj

Hahahaha! I dunno maybe. I also have a protagonist in one of my novels named Eli.

eli [a winged tale]

The cute nerd who is fumbling but appeared to have it all together may lean towards the Mary Sue for me but if there is a true flaw (Tm) then I’m down

indogswetrust

I feel like gay men characters have been getting humanized and happy endings and that’s awesome! But lesbians have not been getting the same treatment.

bumbling and romantically inept nerds fuel me

eli [a winged tale]

What do you mean about the lesbian part, indogswetrust? I’m curious to know of the differences as I’m currently writing both

Cronaj

@eli [a winged tale] YES. I'm not gonna lie, I have definitely used more than one of these tropes XD And one of them may or may not be the fumbling hottie...

eli [a winged tale]

I wanted to link my trope bingo but thought it went against the pinned rules I can DM it to you if you’re interested and I’d love to play everyone else’s bingos

Cronaj

Oh hell yes. Lesgooooooo!

I have never made a trope bingo, but I really should

indogswetrust

Like, Love, Simon or Call Me By Your Name show gay men as people slowly falling in love and it’s tender and kind. But The Favorite literally has animal abuse in it and women sleeping with each other for power. I walked out of the theater. Same for Killing Eve, it’s about a spy and a murderer. High intrigue and drama but it’s obviously a toxic relationship from the premise

eli [a winged tale]

Oh no! You should check out Their Story by Tan Jiu)

It’s formatted like a webcomic as well though formally called manhua. It does the slow burn romance, humanizing aspect very well. I’m not well versed in the mainstream portrayal but certainly on the indie side, people are stepping up and writing very positive and healthy lesbian stories

indogswetrust

The indie side is great. Even “The Sea In You” (a webcomic) is frickin adorable

It just grinds my beans about mainstream portrayal

eli [a winged tale]

Loving the sea in you!

RebelVampire

A trope I will never get sick of is https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses , especially if https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReallyRoyaltyReveal this is what happens in the story. I just...I really love royalty. I can't help it. I love the pointless traditions, the fancy dresses, the palaces, etc.. And even if that's not part of it, I still like it when some rando girl realizes that she's a princess and now has to deal with that idea that she has subjects she has to protect or something. Bonus points if she's a magical girl. I even like it when it's a reverse situation where it's an evil princess. I will never tire of princesses ever because the concept is always fascinating to me no matter which way its spun.

eli [a winged tale]

I love the fanciness of it all. All those lovely eye candy designs

Cronaj

Same... I have also used the Really Royalty Reveal, like..... Several times

eli [a winged tale]

The royal reveal when done well can be so powerful and validating

Kelsey (Kurio)

I have a queen ant character but no princesses yet

Eightfish

ooh are we talking about tropes we like? I really like mind reading/ mind control. But consensual. It's feels like the theme of trust taken to the extreme, where a character has such belief in someone they'd trust their mind / body to them. But I've only really seen it in some kid's books I liked (Young Wizards, Animorphs), and the only webcomic I've seen with this idea is my own, and I haven't even gotten to that part yet. Anyone have any recommendations? Ooh or a tvtropes link?

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

It comes up in the Murderbot Diaries -- the main character is a construct, basically a really-advanced android, and there are times when it lets a more-powerful AI pilot its body to handle an emergency that's unfolding too fast for it to keep up with on its own.

Eightfish

I looked it up and I do like the themes of androids' humanity. And it's a series of novellae, which, wow, that's very rare. Not sure I've ever seen that before. Do you recommend the book as a whole?(edited)

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

I recommend the whole series, yes!

[jungnoir]

Hey i wanted to request Jeno + "friends can kiss each other from time to time" :) i dont really care if its a drabble or headcanons or what ever.

for real love;

lee jeno | “Friends can kiss each other a little from time to time right?” robot!au. | 3.1k words. | angst, romance (or is it?).

a/n: I got this prompt quite a few times, so I’m attempting to keep each one as unique as possible 😅. mood music.

Your creation was going to save mankind. JN 0423 was flawless, a marvel to humans in the day and age where all the dreams of the past were finally coming true. Flying cars, technology breathing in the very ground you walked on, and robots who passed as humans. In a dog-eat-dog world where humans were dropping like flies, artificial intelligence could do the jobs humans could not. Artificial intelligence could become the newest necessity, and yours was the very first of its kind.

His name was JN 0423, but you called him Jeno.

You weren’t the only one who had a hand in creating Jeno, but you were definitely the one calling the shots. Straight out of high school, your impeccable mind had gotten you into the best school in the country and on the path to your life goal, one you had claimed ever since you were in elementary school: you were going to create one of the very first fully functioning artificial intelligence robots in the world. Your robot would be able to function completely on its own, from forming a personality to becoming incredibly self-aware. The biggest part you’d play in taking care of Jeno would be fixing up his parts every now and then, and even then, he could probably do it faster (and better, though you would never admit it for your pride) than you.

Sure enough, before you had even hit 20, you had done it. You had created him.

His design was incredibly ambiguous at first; You had no plans to gender him, simply hoping that he would figure out what he wanted to be on his own. At one point, he was literally just a face of metal, no artificial skin or hair or eyes or anything. He was as robotic as could be.

Over time however, he had formed preferences, ideas, and dreams. He had decided he would use masculine pronouns, had decided he would have jet black hair that he wanted cut relatively short, and had decided that he would stand at 179 cm. You made the physical adjustments and accommodations as they came to him, always prepared to do as he wished for his physical form just to see how far his preferences would go. It was a marvel that he had both negative and positive feelings toward things that you didn’t even have to input into his brain. He came up with opinions all on his own, all through his own knowledge of the world. By the time he was a month old, Jeno now had his own artificial skin, hair, eyes, and rounded out voice. He was as human as any human you would see on the street.

“Jeno,” you call from your desk, dragging a cup of coffee to your lips in the process, “how are preparations for the rest of D.R.E.A.M.?”

Jeno perks up from his spot near the window, turning to examine you before looking at the wall behind you. There are six other robots who looked just like him in the beginning stages of his creation. Each had been created, but none of them had downloaded their A.I. yet, which meant they were as good as mannequins at this point. Jeno accessed the files he had and repeated back the results to you, “A.I. JS 0205 is advancing faster than the others. I think it’s time we give it its body now.”

You hum, looking over the paperwork you’d been diligently working on for the past few hours. The rest of your team had headed home at the first sign of sleepiness, leaving you behind to take care of the lab in their stead. You hadn’t minded much because even if there was work to do, there was also Jeno, and he was the best company you could ask for.

Having been the first person Jeno had seen when he first achieved consciousness, he was terribly attached to you. He often took your word over any of the other members of NEO and it usually drove them quite mad, but you were always endeared by his preference of you. You had assumed that maybe he had known you were the one who worked on him the most during his creation, and therefore had taken a liking to you on the basis of that. After all, most of his parts were created by you. Every screw, wire, and bolt was placed there by your hands.

Often times, you would forget that Jeno was just a robot. He had feelings that resembled your own, and it wasn’t unusual for them to have his “moods” (or as Taeyong liked to call it: puberty) and get fussy or upset for seemingly no reason at times. If anything, it just made him all the more realistic. It was something you were still on the fence about; After all, his realism could make him vulnerable to being hurt in the end.

While the others would get fed up with his realism, you had always encouraged it. The others had told you it might be your downfall one day, whatever that meant.

“What do you think we should name JS, Jeno?” You ask, grabbing one of your snacks from the desk and shooting him a curious look. You grin when his eyes practically light up with ideas.

“I was thinking about naming it Jisung! What do you think?” “I like that name, Jeno. I wonder what it’ll be like.” “I have a feeling it’ll cause a bit of trouble,” Jeno chuckles, “if its A.I.’s antics are anything to go by.”

The reminder makes you groan; nearly the minute you’d finished setting up JS’s A.I., it had somehow hacked your entire system and made every other file you clicked on a rick roll. You had been so close to setting the entire lab on fire if it hadn’t been for Jeno’s ability to shut down the A.I.’s access before it could get any farther. “Why can’t they all just be as mannerly as you, Jeno?”

The robot hums, looking away thoughtfully, “Isn’t our freedom of choice what makes us so likeable? No matter how troublesome they might be… I think it’ll be cool that they will all be their own unique creation.”

He had a point, as infuriating as that was to think about in connection with the rick roll incident. You had to remember not to let Yukhei, Johnny, and Yuta work on any of the other A.I.’s by themselves again. Seriously.

You stare at Jeno for a while, simply out of appreciation and wonder. Over your years working at SM, you had never known you would grow quite as attached as you had to your robot. The task your team was given was to create something that the world could use and change the game. You knew what you and your team were creating was going to be extraordinary, but you had never fathomed it growing this successful. Jeno was the first of his kind, yes, and soon he would contribute to more just like him. One day, the robots walking the earth will all be there thanks to Jeno.

It felt strange to look at this boy- robot, who looked so much like someone you would catch reading on the subway or who would you sit next to in class and think that they could do all of that. That they would change the world.

Suddenly, you remember something.

“Jeno! You didn’t remind me to do your maintenance check!” You spring from your desk chair, forcing it to slide several feet back in response. You swear you see him shrink, the skin of his face tinting pink as his processors overheated under pressure.

“I-I was going to do it myself-!” He stands from his spot as you bound over with narrowed eyes. You had always been the one to make sure he was constantly functioning well, a task you took up every other week or so as he could usually give updates about his well being on his own. However, after you had started teaching him how to handle minor fixes of his body by himself, he had started to think he could do it all.

You felt like a scolding mother as you poked his chest, watching Jeno plop back down onto the window seat he had been sitting on before. Sighing in defeat, he begins to pull his hoodie off, revealing the skin of his chest to you. You place your hand in the center and watch as it begins to open, revealing the machinery underneath, “I show you how to climb a hill one day and you want to hike Mt. Everest the next.” Your tutting makes Jeno lower his head some in apology, but you feel you can tease him a little more before you should really lay off.

You prepare to make another joke, this one about bicycles and Ferraris, when Jeno suddenly speaks over you, “I’m sorry, you looked really tired.”

You blink, “…what?”

He raises his head as you tear your eyes away from the inner workings of his body and focus instead on his coffee-tinted eyes. They shoot around your face, never settling on one thing for too long, “I know how hard SM is pushing NEO to finish the D.R.E.A.M. project, but you haven’t slept a good night’s sleep in days. And… please don’t lie and say I’m miscalculating. I’ve analyzed your face enough to know when you’ve pulled another all-nighter. This is your second one.”

“J-Jeno,” you stutter, dropping your hands from his chest. It closes up when your touch and attention have left it, “don’t… you don’t need to worry about that. I’m fine, okay? I’m just trying to get you guys ready in time-” “So that the company won’t drop the project altogether? I’m not stupid, (Y/N),” Jeno frowns, “I’m your friend, remember? Friends don’t lie to each other.”

You open your mouth to protest but find it difficult to start a convincing argument. You had always told him that he was like your friend, that if he had concerns or fears or anxieties, he should bring it up to you. What you had forgotten to remember was that in friendships, it went both ways. How could you ask him to be honest with you if you weren’t willing to do the same?

The shame takes over your face just as your eyes well up with frustrated tears, “I’m… I’m sorry, Jeno. You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have been honest with you about that. I’m really sorry.”

His hand reaches for yours and it feels warm; one of his capabilities was to heat up and cool down as needed, and if that meant signifying the feeling of a comforting hand of a friend, then he could do that. He’d done it several times before, yet each time it always shocked you a bit.

You startle for a moment before reciprocating his touch, feeling the tears that wanted to leave your eyes drying up. You wouldn’t cry now, not in front of Jeno. You didn’t want him to input that in his memory.

“It’s okay,” Jeno smiles, “I’ll let you check me and then you have to promise to rest. Deal?”

“Let?” You laugh softly, tilting your head to the side, “Since when were you capable of allowing or not allowing me to do things, mister?”

He doesn’t reply, just continues smiling and opens his chest again to you. You take this as your cue to start working, hands poking inside to see what was working well and what might need to be looked after. You could recall a time when Jeno was shy letting you do this despite the fact that you had put him together and there was nothing to be shameful about. Now, he trusted you wholeheartedly, enough that he would tear out his wires if you asked him to (not that you ever would, but you got the gist).

The whole time you work on Jeno, tightening things here and rearranging things there, he watches you. You had grown used to his innocent, unwavering gaze on you over the time that you had started caring for him. Often, he would simply observe people. It was one of his hobbies to sit by the window and watch the people down below or watch you and the rest of NEO work on D.R.E.A.M. throughout the day. Taeil had informed a spooked Doyoung once that it was just his A.I. trying to collect as much information as possible. This meant he processed expressions, connected emotions and words, and observed movements. All of this information was constantly filtering into his storage until the moment that he would need to apply it.

That’s how he knew that you hadn’t gotten enough sleep. He observed you so much when you were around that the signs were there. Lots of coffee, slower cognition, droopy eyes, sluggish movements. He knew you best.

When you feel you’ve finished, you move away from his chest and look him over from the bottom up, ending with his face. He still has that tiny, content smile on his face and when he does that, his eyes turn into smiles of their own. Out of habit, you reach your hand forward and scratch at his scalp, the soft hair there feeling gentle against your fingertips. “There. All good.” You say softly, the promise you’d made Jeno only minutes ago causing you to feel a bit sleepy. You would have to drive home like this? Ugh.

You reach your hands up to your eyes and rub when suddenly, Jeno is pulling you forward and into his lap. You gasp in surprise and just barely grab at his shoulders to steady yourself before he’s speaking, “(Y/N), I have a question.”

You blink, surprised, and nod for him to continue.

“I was watching TV with Yuta the other day,” he starts, your mind instantly swimming with what filth Yuta might have implanted in his mind, “on the show we watched, there were two characters who were friends. I thought they were very friendly at first, but then… something happened between them and they… kissed. I asked Yuta about it, because I was confused. He said that sometimes that’s okay between friends, so long as they’re both okay with it. I thought it was interesting.”

You mentally note that you’ll have to seriously enforce some rules over what Jeno can and cannot watch from now on. “Oh, yeah… um, sometimes that can happen. Friends will… they’ll feel something toward each other, something that friends usually don’t feel. And that causes them to be intimate- ah, that’s not the right word…” “Friends can kiss each other a little from time to time right?”

You don’t know how else to explain it to him as the matter is already a bit of a mind-boggle to you. So, you nod.

“Can I kiss you? Since we’re friends?” Jeno sounds a little eager, arms tightening around your waist in anticipation.

“Jeno,” you start, thinking long and hard about what to ask him exactly, “do you feel… something toward me right now that you usually wouldn’t?” Your mouth dries when he nods as if you’re asking him if the sky is blue.

You feel incredibly conflicted. You made him, crafted him with your own hands and tools. You put hours and hours of information and intelligence into him and when it came down to it, he probably wouldn’t be here without you and NEO. And here he was, with all the independence of a truly artificially intelligent being… asking if he can kiss you.

You don’t know what to feel, but you lean forward just a little, his eyes growing in excitement, “Just one kiss, Jeno… then delete it from your memory, okay?”

After all, he couldn’t refuse a command like that.

From that day forward, you work as usual with the rest of the team as D.R.E.A.M. starts to come to fruition. Jeno doesn’t act any different around you than usual, acting as responsive and cheerful as ever. The kiss you two had shared that night almost felt like a hazy dream, something your sleep-deprived mind had come up with in the midst of working on Jeno’s hardware. Regardless, you were the only one that would remember in the first place. As far as Jeno was concerned, his memory had a blip between your acceptance of a kiss and you heading home for the night.

“Jeno! Maintenance time.” You call to the robot. It had been a while since you had checked his software, and you had to make sure there were no bugs you didn’t know about before carrying on with the rest of your tasks for the day.

The robot shuffles over, settling into a stray desk chair and rolling over to sit next to you. He holds out his hand and you screw off his pointer finger where a USB port waits to be plugged into. Attaching one end of your USB cord to him and the other to your laptop, you begin to skim over the highly organized files, “You’ve got quite the information storage here, Jeno. You’re learning more and more everyday.” you turn your head and smile at him, the robot smiling back just as bright.

You focus your attention back on the files, the sounds of the others tinkering in the background working as the background music. You find that everything seems to be in its place and begin to let Jeno go back to his people-watching when you notice a recorded memory that looked extremely unfamiliar. You check the date under the thumbnail. Your heart stops.

You can’t quite believe it when you double click on the video, being greeted with the footage of your own face inches away from the cameras in Jeno’s eyes. Your volume is thankfully low enough and the boys are loud enough to drown out the sound to their own ears, but the words you speak next are absolutely ones that Jeno wasn’t supposed to remember.

“Just one kiss, Jeno… then delete it from your memory, okay?”

You shut the laptop immediately, swinging in your chair to face Jeno. His face says nothing, remaining wholly expressionless. He wasn’t supposed to remember. He was supposed to delete that from his memory.

After all, he couldn’t refuse a command like that.

Could he…?

[tumblunni]

wtf is up with creepy anime game things using robots and metaphors as a way to sneak comparatively extreme sexual content past the ratings board? Like I mean there was a relatively Not Bad version where Aigis gets a metaphorical sex/makeout/something scene when you romance her in persona 3. Fixing one of her robot parts is apparantly erotic to her or something?? It was really cringey but like it wasnt OVER THE TOP, and it was alright in context cos like it meant she was the only gay option in the updated rerelease. (Since she still gets the scene if you pick the female character.) But like still it was really weird and dumb. But I just saw an EVEN WORSE version of that same damn scene in this thing called Ar Tonelico! Like friggin EVERYTHING in the game is a robot sex metaphor, and there’s really problematic fanservicey bullshit about it. Everyone has weirdass pervy outfits and you unlock more weirdass pervy outfits by ‘diving’ into their ‘cosmosphere’, aka magic dungeons that represent their soul. But like you don’t even get an explorable place or cool boss battles, its just a bunch of really cringey dialogues full of pervy nonsense and like.. 5% actually semi-emotional proper character development stuff. But its really hard to feel anything about those when you had to get past all this weird ‘oh its my first time’ and ‘i’m mad at you cos the man should ask the woman to Dive’ and ‘plz come insid me protagonist sama uwu’ and one of these sexualized characters being a ten year old who’s really an eighteen year old and just GAHHHH And like apparantly the series gets even worse in the sequels and you get ‘battl damage’ making the robot girls naked when they take damage and like BUT THEYRE ROBOTS WHY DO THEY EVEN HAVE BOOBS AND STUFF?? i mean they look exactly like humans and apparantly they can interbreed with humans but also they have to stick microchips in their ass and stuff?????? OH AND THATS THE WORST PART like somehow EVEN WORSE than the ‘dive’ system is the ‘life extending agent’ scene cos apparantly half human magic robot people need to consume some sort of magic robotic.. thing, or they die. Its very poorly explained. like its called an agent so you’d think it was a liquid but then its apparantly a circuit but then that circuit comes in a giant crystal rock that you have to shove inside them.. YEAH YEAH YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING cos they have an ‘expansion slot’ that all their robot stuff goes into, and its like a magic tattoo somewhere on their body. and like this is what i mean about EVERYTHING being pervy! its already creepy enough with them being all female magic robots that physically require being partnered to a man in order to fight, cos they can only do support and need to be protected and like lets have a forty hour plot about the true definition of protecting your love and blablabla. And also all the bad people have robot girls too, and they’re like.. metaphorical sex slaves. Cos you can still ‘dive’ and use ‘expansion slots’ if the robot isnt consenting, and just... ugh. Thats even creepier than literal rape! What if the rapist could actually walk inside your soul and change stuff around to make you more obedient! Game, why are you not thinking about what you wrote??? And like all the upgrades are this ‘expansion slot’ where you shove pointy metal things inside a girl’s boob hole and she yells out in pain but ~uwu i have to do it to help save the world~ gahhhhhhh And the LIFE EXTENDING AGENT which isnt an agent and is instead a big ol dildo rock the girl who has to do that has her expansion port on her back so the animation is just extra sexual and its all ‘BUT ITS SO BIG’ and ‘PUT IT IN HARDER’ and just fuckin STOP, GAME, STOP and then she falls into his arms all exhausted and like apparantly she has to do this once monthly to not die and the game is just all ~wow she is so brave please love this poor suffering anime waifu~ and like.. patronizingly plays out as if this was a normal legit plot point and the audience isnt meant to notice its a giant crappy inuuendo. Like if you wanted me to take it seriously then JUST DO THE PLOT ABOUT HER LIFESPAN BEING LIMITED. I can’t cry for her when she’s dying because of DONG DISEASE and the cure is MORE PEGGING also like neither of the two girls has any chemistry with the protagonist yet they’re all falling over him and being jealous girlfriends after like two days of.. vaguely existing in the same room as him and being female and loli girl says she was his childhood friend but he doesnt remember her. And he just... believes it?? nobody questions it?? we still dont know who the fuck she even is?? and she’s allowed to act jealous and mad at him for talking to other girls even though he doesnt know who she is and seriously you’re not fucking dating him?? and also you’re like twelve?? but really eighteen?? as represented by a giant naked portrait of yourself within your own headscape?? god this game is a plothole wrapped in a trashy bikini also it sucks that i keep losing respect for Gust as a company when i find out that like.. i just got lucky playing the few games they have that ARENT super fanservicey, and now its a fuckin roulette every time i hear about another game. i just want your cool alchemy minigames i dont want robo rape plots T_T

[kingofthewilderwest]

ok one more ask if you dont mind but i just remember we were talking about her: Alphys! (she needs more love)

No problem at all! I’m happy to answer all the prompts you throw at me. XD Alphys does need more love indeed.

Canon Meme

Canon: Alphys is the one who created Flowey. I think that’s such an interesting and fascinating thing. Because of Alphys’ experiments, she is the one who caused a flower to become conscious from the old memories of a deceased child. Think of how extraordinarily different Frisk’s journey would have been without Flowey! Alphys was hugely impacting the human’s journey even before the human met her.

Headcanon: I headcanon that Alphys has a PhD, but also doesn’t have the best scientific practices she should. It means I suspect that monster education is not up to par for what it should be. 

Here we go:

So. We know that the monster world has at least one college with a graduate school. After all, Temmie gets a degree in business and wants to save up for graduate school. Therefore, the fact that Doctor Gaster and Doctor Alphys are both called doctor is probably because they received doctorates. Being a Royal Scientist doesn’t seem like that would automatically give the title of “doctor.” This means I suspect Alphys is somewhere in her early thirties and that she has a PhD. Congrats on the education, Alphys! She certainly does seem to know a lot of science, so it would make sense.

BUT. Despite Alphys demonstrating notable scientific knowledge and being called “doctor,” she doesn’t have the greatest credentials. Alphys received Asgore’s attention because she “created” a robot with a soul. But if you actually think about it, Alphys didn’t do anything that exemplary. She didn’t do anything new. It’s a sham. Mettaton was a ghost that inhabited the robot. Ghosts have been inhabiting random objects for a long time. Frankly, the robot Alphys made wouldn’t even have to work for Mettaton to use it well… if a ghost inside a dummy can manipulate the dummy and move it around like a body, then the robot doesn’t need to be able to operate on its own. It just needs to be a slightly-okay-shape for the ghost to move around. Maybe Alphys did create a good robot, maybe Alphys didn’t, but there’s no doubt that Alphys’ claim to fame for making a “new” sort of exemplary robot is false advertising.

Then, Alphys uses horrible research practices in the True Lab. Reading her journal entries makes me cringe. She doesn’t appear to be setting up her experiments correctly (controls and variables, careful measurement of substances used, good safety concerns, etc.). Alphys chaotically pumps Determination into fallen monster bodies because she feels she has nothing else to do. It’s shoddy scientific work.

But if Alphys has a PhD, she should have been writing a dissertation that uses her best abilities to get her degree. How could she possibly have such bad scientific practice and yet get a degree? I feel this suggests that maybe the monster underground’s collegiate education is not up-to-par to the contemporary human world. Since the monster world seems to have a small population, that could be part of the problem… not enough people to boost the rigor of the program.

Heartcanon: My heart wants an encounter with Alphys. We got encounters with the other “good friends” in Frisk’s squad - Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Toriel, and Asgore. Fighting Mettaton several times doesn’t satisfy my heart. I’d be really curious to know what an encounter would be like with Alphys - even though I understand why, based upon the character and story, this doesn’t happen.

Soulcanon: This is my personal perspective on what happens after Undertale. We know that Alphys and Undyne are romantically interested in one another and basically start dating by the end of the game. But regardless of this cute romantic start for them, my soul says that they aren’t going to end up together in the long-term. Undyne and Alphys have some fun times together, but they aren’t rock solid enough to keep this going. They demonstrate a lot of signs of not being good at handling the start of a romance… it could be their first romance, and it could turn out to be rocky. They have some things in common, but perhaps not enough to keep a relationship stable. And the fact that they are nervous around one another and the relationship started with some dishonesty (Alphys lying about her work, for example) makes me a little uncertain that the relationship will result in, say, a marriage. I don’t think the two click together that well. Even if Toby Fox said they ended up together, my soul would still be a little skeptical about the quality of their long-term relationship. Don’t get me wrong, Alphyne is cute, I just don’t think it’s going to result in a long-term seal-the-deal end!

[arc-17]

Ultimate Choices Fandom Questionnaire

Tagged by the totally awesome @seirhukastan , thank you so much!!

Ok so... here we go:

1. Which of your MCs would win The Hunger Games?

Hmm... if Kenna counts as a MC, she would hands down, otherwise, Endless Summer MC. They are the toughest, smartest, strongest MC, because they are made from the best of each of their friends.

2. Which MC is your favorite?

Endless Summer MC!

3. If only ONE LI was transported (from any book) into your life and be your real life partner, who would it be and why?

Oh... wow... um... it'd probably be Estela, or Eva. Or Ava, but I'm not sure they'd like me, I'm... not all that like their MCs. But the reason I like them is... they are genuine, there's no hidden agendas, no secret thoughts. (Once you get past their layers of self protection) What they say and do, is what they mean. And they don't hold back on their opinions, and dont care what others think of them. They also will move mountains for the ones they love, and I relate to that.

4. To which character do you relate the most? 

That would be Sean and Liam, their devotion to their family, sense of responsibility, their bad habit of taking too much upon them selves and being their own worst critic. Also the fact that they will throw themselves headlong into helping others with no thought of their own safety.... and getting into trouble for it.

5. What was the first book you ever played?

The Crown and the Flame. I saw the ads before, those humorously terrible ads, but one of them showed scenes from TCATF and... I was interested enough to dowbload it.

And the rest, is history as they say.

6. Which book have you replayed the most times?

Endless Summer, those clues were elusive at times, that and making a choice and whatching your relationship points plummet are a good reason to start over. But also for the story.

7. Would you rather have Most Wanted 2 or Hero 2?

That is a HARD choice... but Hero 2 if just because it had so many tie-ins with Endless Summer that I could hope that they continued that and maybe we'd get more history of Vaanu, or see some of the characters again.

But MW2 would also have a chance of Jake McKenzie in it, I mean, why wouldn't he go visit his little sister now?

8. Did you like LoveHacks?

Do I like LoveHacks? Duuuuuuude I loved it. It was the first pure romance book I played and I loved it!

9. Did you like Rules of Engagement?

Haven't played it yet, so cant say.

10. Which MC (in your opinion) is the most beautiful? You can also post a picture so we can all admire them.

Oh... thats hard, but I lean towards my ES and #LH MCs.

11. Which female character (in your opinion) is the prettiest?

Oh.... wow... Kenna and Michelle are near the top, also Ava, her style just cant be beat! but.... beating them all for #1, is Estela, especially at the Handfasting.

12. Which male character (in your opinion) is the most handsome?

Sean. Sean Gayle. Damn he is sooooo dashing. Also Ben and Liam, any version.

13. Which character is the most intriguing?

That would be Jake McKenzie, no one character has caused so much discussion and polarised opinions as him. And he's got soooo many layers of personality and depth of character.

14. If you could befriend any one character from any book, who would it be and why?

Estela! But if not an LI then Sean again, I wanna be just like him. Also Dom, Criag and Mark. They are like, the perfect best friends.

15. Which MC has the best outfits?

Oh dagnamit... uh... I'd say TRR has got a killer awesome wardrobe. But ES has waaay more variety from armor to historical to sexy to preppy.

16. Into which book would you rather be transported and live the life of that book’s MC?

Part of me wants to say Endless Summer because... Estela. But that also means I ain't gonna live long. Soooo I'd say Perfect Match. Cause Hayden is just.... so perfect. Plus I love anything to do with robots and I hope she wouldn't mind me tinkering with her circuits 😇

17. List five characters that you dislike the most.

Rourke, love him as a villian, hate his guts.

Blaire Hall, you dont treat your angel of a daughter like that.

Azura, because of Leon, that... felt so good to watch Kenna finally beat her.

Lady Madeleine, ooooooh she riles me so much, especially the way she treats Penelope.

Also Hex from TCaTF, I... didn't recruit her, she went too far, I'm glad she eventually saw the errors of her ways but she needs to bear the weight of the lives she destroyed.

Woooot! Wow these were a blast to do! Thank you again for tagging me @seirhukastan !

Tagging:

@bloodravenheart @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @lacksubstance @spacetravels @zahranamazis @valentinagreaves @mrswalkerwrites @theclumsyscribbler @kathleen-kitty @banischoices @avengingalec @rebelrise @aleister-rourke @kennadavenportgayle

[crimsonscarlettsuniverse-blog]

I think Im ready for it

 I’ve watched the video several times and listened to the song dozens more, I think Ive got the song meaning and video figured out. Hear me out on my Swiftspiracy..... So the sound has a much different sound that the rest of Taylors music, this new album is a big separation from the previous Taylor we’ve heard. It starts hard, and its very easy to get caught up in it waiting for “the drop”. But the WORDS, OMG. Heres my breakdown of the lyrics, I left some out that I still havent pieced together. Some may contain snippets from the video, but I break the video down at the end.

“Wonder how many girls he had loved and left haunted But if he's a ghost, then I can be a phantom Holdin' him for ransom”

Here we have the player. But the ghost and phantom. It took me a bit to get it, but shes basically saying that if hes known for being the guy thats never there, two can play at that game and she can be his counterpart. A tete-a-tete. BAM two can play at that game. She can have him holding on to her every word as well.

“Some, some boys are tryin' too hard He don't try at all, though” This guy is used to the girls flocking to him, probably. He doesnt try, he doesnt have to- usually. “I-I-I see how this is gon' go Touch me and you'll never be alone I-Island breeze and lights down low No one has to know”

Here, she knows that she wont get enough of him. This is where it gets a bit befuddled. Listening to it, you dont catch it, but “Touch me and youll never be alone- No one has to know.” IS NOT TAYLOR. This is the mysterious boy-toy. Hes saying he wont leave her and nobody has to know about them. Its their secret love affair. That last lines pretty straight forward. NOW MY FAVORITE PART!!!!!

“In the middle of the night, in my dreams You should see the things we do, baby In the middle of the night, in my dreams I know I'm gonna be with you So I take my time Are you ready for it?” She dreams of this guy. She cant have these feelings for him, she knows it because what they have is supposed to be a casual thing. Hense the hardness in the beginning, its her fascade that shes game for this, and she may actually be cool with it- at first. This part is soft and intimate because not only does it sound fabulous and show her vocals, BUT this is the inner Taylor and you see that in the video. The video showcases her in a glass box “naked” (hello bodysuit), the most vulnerable anyone can be. This is the Taylor nobody sees, the one we can only speculate into our own multifaceted idea of what she may be like. In her dreams shes with him, and in there shes safe to play out any fantasy she wants, like saying she loves him or having a normal romance most likely. She knows she can have him in her literal dreams. Then she goes back to being hard because she knows he would never be ready for it. “Me, I was a robber first time that he saw me Stealing hearts and running off and never saying sorry But if I'm a thief, then he can join the heist And we'll move to an island-and And he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor” They can play this game together of being heart breakers together. She even mentions Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton- one of Elizabeths many husbands. Their relationship was controversial and scandalous. (Fun fact: Elizabeth and Richard were both married when they met on the set of Cleopatra. Eventually the two got married TWO separate times together.) This makes me imagine that both couples have semi parallel love histories with the many ex-lovers and on and off relationships. “Every lover known in comparison is a failure I forget their names now, I'm so very tame now Never be the same now, now” This guy is an enigma and surpasses anyone she had ever been with. So all in all we see shes with someone and putting on a good front while internally struggling with being with someone whos not available emotionally. She thinks she can handle it but inside, girls falling, and hard.

NOW the video.

Shes walking through a corridor and we see she has robotic eyes, this really gives you the feel like since shes a robot she has no emotional capabilities. Perfect for this part of the song. Robo Taylor walks up to a clear box with the humanized Taylor. Human Taylor steps forward and stands in a very dutiful way. The pose looked to me like a “What can I do for you today Ms. Swift”, sort of how Id imagine a brain would maybe stand when confronted with a question. The camera goes behind Robo Taylor, and on the other side Human Taylor is showing that shes an organic organism. After that she proceeds to speak about how shes a heart breaker and this makes her MAD. Human T turns her shell into a weapon. 

I-I-I see how this is gon' go Touch me and you'll never be alone I-Island breeze and lights down low No one has to know

This time Humanized Taylor sits upon a white horse, Some have said its remincesint of Blank Space. It is possible but I disagree. Since this album, particularly the video Look What You Made Me Do features very popular “old” Taylors, I question if this isnt from White Horse the song from Album. If it were, itd fit PERFECTLY. As a white horse she is reminding Robo Taylor that this isnt going to end well. That she will fall for him despite trying to keep her heart at a distance.

“Maybe I was naive, Got lost in your eyes And never really had a chance My mistake I didn't know to be in love You had to fight to have the upper hand I had so many dreams About you and me Happy endings Now I know..... I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet, Lead her up the stairwell This ain't Hollywood, this is a small town, I was a dreamer before you went and let me down Now it's too late for you And your white horse, to come around” Even though Taylor has grown she is still a romantic at heart and dreams of the fairy tale. This hard world has shoved her into ditching that idea. Human Taylor gets caught up in the fairy tale and floats around in this glass box. Thats when Robo Taylor goes, nope. And shuts her down. Human T falls to the ground. The two are against each other-naturally. Robo T cant have that heart and mind running away when shes trying to play it cool.  “ Baby, let the games begin Let the games begin Let the games begin Baby, let the games begin Let the games begin Let the games begin “ Both Taylors are at odds and shes singing to each other. Screw the boy, the game is against herself now. Human T cant be running away in love, but Robo T cant expect to keep up this facade forever. Someones going to get hurt. Human Taylor is mad, she wants to be free from this box. She wants to express who she really is. Electricity just takes over and lightning is everywhere. But Robo Taylor is intrigued. Human Taylor calms herself and they meet at the glass. She can play nice ;) Both Taylors meet at the glass and touch hand to hand. Thats when they unify. Human Taylor uses her force and breaks the glass, the shards go flying tearing bits and pieces off of robot Taylors face. She cant hide it anymore. | Human Taylor is free, and is in wonderland with the freedom. Her powers destroy the robots everywhere, but you notice on the stairway it says, “Theyre burning all the witches”. This could mean many things but for this narrative, the robots believe the humans are witches, they hold power with their emotions. She stands triumphant at the top of the escalators. They zoom in on her face, her eyes turn robotic and she sheds a tear. This leads me to believe that human Taylor was in that box for her safety. Remember in the very beginning there was a blip shot of robot spiders moving around in small spaces? Well there was, if you missed it. Those robot spiders were a parasite. Theyve infected the Human Taylor and she will become emotionless. The Old Taylor is DEAD. Or if you want a more cheery idea, the two Taylors live together in harmony (sorta). You cant let emotions get the best of you and you cant be hard and emotionless. Thats my EXTREMELY long breakdown of the Taylor Swift Ready For it song and video. Its all over the place and if you even got halfway through it, thanks. :p @taylorswift

[popculturebuffet]

Close Enough Reviews: First Date and Snailin’ It

We’re in the home stretch thank god! Seriously while I do love this show, doing 13 reviews in one day, even as most are easy to bang out, has been exausting. But the thank god is also because we’ve arrived at my faviorite episode so far and.. er another one but at least it has Noel Fielding! That’s really awesome!  This time around Josh and Emily try to recapture the magic of their first date only to end up in one of the good Blumhouse movies, while Bridgette brings Josh along on an awkward first date. Then Emily gets the help of a snail’s magical hat to juggle work and life. Snail yeah under hte cut. 

First Date: 

A fourtune teller is at the fourplex, another review of the series I recently read revealed that’s what their buildings called and I like the sound of it so i’m using that, predicting a weird romance for bridget, who belivies it’s a guy she’s been texing, and sometimes sexting in her words not mine, who she has a date with tonight while said psychic also reveals to Emily that things with her and josh have gotten bland, something emily realizes via a hilarous flashback of them making out while falling asleep repeadtly before both just conk out. Also randy has thunder pants, aka pants tha tmake thunde rnoises and have a giant lighting bolt cod piece. Your the second best randy. Andt hat’s only because Alex is still a character. 

So we have our two plots and unlike previous episodes and one future one the plots.. don’t dovetail. Which I like and I like a show being able to do two seperate plots in eleven minutes. We frankly need more of that. Bridgette has her date and Josh and Emily end up having theres. As such i’ll cover both seperatley. And since their plots a bit simplier let’s start with Josh and Emily.  Emily tries flirting with Josh before explaning it’s because she wants to bring the spice back. After josh bungles his response trying to say what she wants but just.. you know asking emily what she wants him to say which is never a good move in any conversation, Josh does near instantly rebound, texting emily to come to the close tfor a suprise. Granted since Josh, self admittley right after, admits he has no game, it come across as weird and creepy, but Emily appricates him trying and is touched when he reveals his real bring the sparks back romantic plan: a recreation of their first date, which was at a haunted house. Also for some reason Josh thought mr magoriums wonder emporium was a best picture contender. Never change josh, never change. But I genuinely like this: having a couple that while relaistically having a dry spell still lvoes each other: instead of worrying the relationship is dead as these plots tend to do they simply want to bring back the magic that’s sometimes lost when you work two jobs, raise a kid full time and live with two weirdos with little sense of personal space.  So they go and the reason it’s pretty simple is their subplot is the two having a mind screw being chased by various horrors in the house. As i’ve said I feel the series has more of a horror bent at times with some episodes leaning more into that than just goofy madness like regular show did. Regular Show really saved most of its straight up horror content for terror tales, here horror bits can crop up as much as fucking wacky bits. I mean a logan’s run parody where a man dies is paired up with a low speed train chase with a con arist that ends with her driving into a thermortor factory while choking her fake son. The show can ping pong on tone, but it does work.  But yeah that’s why there’s less to talk about: it’s not bad stuff, it’s super spooky including the end bit where their told they died, it’s just mostly the two of them running around a nightmare, that unsuprisngly turns out not to be real and was just the attraction, before a really touching climax when the two finally find each other run towards each other and realize just how horrifed they were at the thought of loosing one another. it’s really damn touching and romantic, and leads to another climax when the two start kissing before getting it on despite the horror house working telling them they have others coming. I’ts a good plot, I just don’t have a ton to anlyaize about it. it’s just really good and really good horror stuff with a satsifying and sweet ending.  On to our main event, Bridgette heads out to her date and TRIES lying to alex for his own sake.. but Alex not only easily guessed she was on a date in the first place but... isn’t bothered at all. He even offers to wing man while sining the firends theme song and clapping at the wrong time. Because he’s alex even when he’s being sweet and a good friend and ex, he can’t help but be just a BIT off.  Bridget goes to meet Ron.. and finds he’s sewn to his ex Joy... like literally sewn or conjoined as they put it. Bridgette freaks the fuck out but is talked by ron into continuing, partly because their getting it undone and partly because Bridgette herself admits Ron looked past her baggage.. even if his is larger, she can at least try to. Also Ron is voiced by Chris Parnell who, with archer delayed event hough i’m watching it again and having stopped wtching rick and morty, I dearly missed. Glad to have you back dude. I’m also unsuprised he’s in this as the man is in everything. He’s a fucking workhorse. 

Anyways Alex happily agrees, has his own brief freakout because bridget didn’t tell him about the conjoined twins thing despite being a room away, but quickly rebounds and.. actually hits it off with Joy. even better than Bridgette is with ron who she soon realizes won’t shut the hell up about hiking. Soon Bridgette.. is jealous. Both because Alex is moving on way easier and found someone way quicker, Joyce shares his weird taste in viking erotica, and because she may still have some feelings left. We saw a bit of that in “Robot Tutor”: Bridgette got jealous real quick when alex saw someone elsed espite them being there mostly as sex pals, and admitted there was still some unresolved stuff there they hadnt gotten past on both sides.  They hit the club and things continue to degrade, with Bridgette even more jealous because Alex never took her dancing. And being that bridg is a musician and loves clubbing and what not, i’ts pretty understandable to be frustrated with her ex talking about how it took someone else to get him to do the worm.. also Alex doing the worm is a sheeer delight. When the cojoined ex couple leave, with Ron once again bringing up climbing machu pichu because apparently it’s in chris parnells contract he can never play an actually likeable romantic intrest, Bridget tries to bail but Alex wants to stay since it’s not his fault his date is going well and her’s isn’t.  Bridgette makes the mistake of saying “If you like joy so much why don’t you just conjoin with her”.. and Alex being alex says “why dont’ I and we end up at conjoin, the place Ron and Joy got bonded in the first place. Ever since 1994, you won’t regret this. Actual signs up there and they are wonderful. Bridgette, still jealous even ifs he can’t stand ron offers to be conjoined to him both in a desperate attempt not to losoe alex and to one up him.  However Alex finally calls her out, as while he’s perfeclty happy for her to move on, as this episode showed.. she can’t stand to see him with someone else, and Ron wisley tells her he can’t be attached to someone who isn’t unattached from her ex. When bridgette counters with the oppsitie ron is suprisingly pogniant “We can detach from each other physically but you two can’t detach from each other spirtually”. WHile bridgette quips about him finally saying something intresting, he’s right. She’s not ready and this night clearly proved it and even if she was she was only doing this to show up Alex. Joy likewise breaks things off. a bit more abrubtly since Alex has’nt been nearly as obvious as bridgette.. but alex himself shows he too still has some feelings when he accidentlya dmits to having written an entire section of his memoir about her teeth. Would could be creepy or you know, standard alex ends up really sweet as Bridgette is not only touched by the gesture, but Alex explains why “THeir all the parts that make up your smile” The two share a look, Joy wants what they have and Ron wants to masturbate alone. The end. 

Sadly this isn’t followed up on yet, if at all if there isn’t more episodes next week, as the next ep with the two in it, the finale for today, has the two in seperate plots that only dovetail at the end. But this honestly feels like a posisble arc for the show; Will the two get back together and work past the issues that got them to divorce in the first place or stay divorced and move on? And regular show, with one exception i’ve ranted enough about and will again, was really good at romantic storylines eventually and this could be really intresting for a number of reasons. I’m realy hoping this isn’t just a one off ending, could be but we’ll hopefully see. Either way this episode is really damn good with both plots , while not intersecitng connecting thematically: ONe couple relives a horrifying mirorr version of their first date while a former couple goes on their first real date with other people since the split but finds they might not be as done as they thought. IT’s a good juxtopision and the whole conjoining bit is both horrifying and good Beisdes having my ship at the center i’ts just a damn good time and the best of the season so far (or at all atain the 8 episodes thing is really throwing me off). 

Snailed It: This one should go quicker as its a much simpler ep: Emily has been working way too much and neglecting Candace, including a crypt based board game they’ve been playing for her job because she’s being a doormat. however i’ts not unresonable since said job gives them health insurance which given their lives, they REALLY need. She’s being such a doormat because she’s understandably afraid if she stands up for herself it could risk her job and they’d loose important stuff.  Emily TRIES to juggle things by doing a charity garden/publicity stunt to distract thigns at the school btu the comination of extra work from her boss and the children not actually gardening makes it fail and candace more upset. Emily finds help in the most unlikely of places: A giant talking snail that offers to let her use his magic hat to speed up time and complete the garden in exchange for some of the veggies. He’s also voiced by nice dude and mighty boosh alum noel fielding in what hoenstly feels like a boosh character got out of that universe, if their not the same unvierse which is possible, and snuck into this one.  Emily accepts, and is tempted to use the hat to do more of her job, with the snail calling her a shit parent. Fuck you man, sh’e sa good mom she’s just making mistakes. Emily decides to do it anyway and it works but she soon finds out using the hat outside the garden ages her while the snail decides fuck it and kidnaps candace by aborbing her into his stomach and making her be his legs so he can get dumplings because why not. What follows is a horrifc and tense chase between the two as candace’s life is on the line and the snail has a backup hat and emily time blasting him only makes candace age or deage, horrifyingly becoming a fetus at one point and a teenager later. It’s ar eally tense well done seen that combines the show’s usual insanity with it’s horror side to great effect Meanwhile josh feels useless since his job is less important, and he feels less important as he’s on call and skipping rocks with randy because apparently that’s what he does on call. Randy gets a great moment though, explaning to josh that h’es like the stones their skipping: he’s immoible and seemingly useless most of the time but when it matters he’s there . He’s there rock. Their support.. and naturally with emily slowly dying from her hat, a rare sentence, Josh steps upa nd saves the day via stone skipping, emily throws the hat in and the fundraiser, due to the madness, sucesffuly buired the scandal and Emily finally tells mr salt no.. and he’s really cool about it just telling her to come in a little later. Things are back on track and we’re out.  This wasn’t a bad one, but it both feels less after the prevoius episode and somehwhat simple comaprd other emily centreic episodes. WHile the snail is a great villian and noel fielding,  like rich fulcher before him, fits into this kind of world nicely. Not a bad one, just one sandwitched between two far more interesting episodes. Speaking of which, we’re in the endg ame now. Next time it’s dog days and weird fucking al baby, until very soon later days.