#it dragged on too much and we started getting character and previous plot development only when it ended.

[sovamurka]

Hehe, we have three covers for Plague Doctor vol. 8. The main one comes with Lera/Mark postcard if you pre-ordered it. The second one is an alt with only 300 printed copies. The third one is an exclusive cover for «Комиксы оптом», also 300 printed copies.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I don’t think this is a hot-take, but I really wish Book 7 didn’t explore the other dorm’s dreams. Or at least they should have limited it to the other overblotters and maybe Ace and Deuce because of HeartShackle trio. Not only did it drag out Book 7 horrendously long, but I think it was detrimental to the book in general. Not only did most of the dreams have no impact on the overall narrative, it shafted the actual Diasomnia member’s screentime (Namely Lilia and Malleus) to only being there at the very beginning and the end. Sebek and Silver were there the whole time, but they kind of were pushed to the background as the other dorms were explored (School bus Silver). Maybe if some of the dreams were shorter then maybe it would have been ok, but I also think that throwing in what was essentially very in your face examples of the students’ character development just wasn’t necessary—at least not for each character.

If Book 8 has the same pacing as Book 7 I’m actually going to lose it. Following previous patterns, Diasomnia will play a role since the past dorm always ties in with the plot of the next book, but I fear the game is going to drag out the plot again. I would have less of an issue if the plot was longer with actual meaningful substance to move the plot along, but twst isn’t known for having decent pacing so I have little hope.

To quote Vil:

Book 7’s took a nosedive as soon as we hit the party recruitment section 💀 I’ve made no secret that I have numerous issues with the execution of every character’s dream, so I won’t repeat them here. (You can see me airing out my frustrations with the dreams here and here if you're interested!)

adibaiofaefas The ironic thing is that I remember being asked if I think we'll see everyone's dreams a few years ago and I had basically said "No way, it'd be so distracting and drag the story out for so long!" ... Well, guess what? That's exactly what happened...

While I do agree that Lilia and Malleus were only relevant at the beginning and end of the book, I'd actually say Silver gets similar treatment. Sure, he's technically present to be our Magic School Bus, but he does not actively contribute to most dreams. His character development starts in the start and ends at the end; there's nothing happening in the middle portion where they're going around waking up their peers. The ONLY Diasomnia character that consistently gets development in book 7 is Sebek, due to him getting unique interactions with the first years and consistently having his internalized racism challenged beginning all the way back in LILIA'S dream. (I speak more at length about Sebek's consistent growth here!)

And??? Despite how often the characters urge us to HURRY UP, we never do. We keep taking unnecessary breaks to share stories or eat fake food. (Seriously, there is SO much eating fake food in the dreams.) So that makes it ultra infuriating whenever Leona complains we should move on or Sebek shouts at us to not waste time. I WISH I COULD, but you literally are not allowing me to.

Another huge issue I have with the dreams is that we don’t learn anything new about the characters. We’re just being told or reminded more directly about how these characters have developed since our first introduction to them. It lacks subtlety and it is especially the worst with the OB boys, who stare down their darkest selves and announce (literally announce) to them how they see their inner-evil, how they’re above them, how they resolve to be better from now on, etc. etc. etc. Other characters get shafted or made into total jokes. It’s a shame too, because Twst has proven to us they can have nuanced interactions that demonstrate character development back in book 6. They were not able to replicate that magic for book 7 😔

GOD. I don’t even want to think about book 8 and how bad the pacing might be for it… Is book 8 going to be even LONGER than 7??? Are we going to have every character with a needlessly long, time wasting segment where they recap their growth to the audience? Is Diasomnia going to get shafted again even though we REALLY need more time in the kitchen to cook with Malleus in the aftermath of his OB??? 😭

[marronje]

Now having gotten somewhat used to the void in my chest I can finally drag all my thoughts about the epilogue into one pile

I know it may be getting old for some of you guys already, but I haven't seen some things being discussed anywhere

My problem with the ending is actually with the audience, I literally have almost no issues with how the epilogue is written, all the minor ones I have don't come from the epilogue but the previous plot building which wasn't perfect by all means.

1. People forget that this chapter isn't the Epilogue but the Epilogue pt. 2

TWO PARTS YOU KNOW

Please reread 430. You did? Now let's compare.

a) Can you see what the chapter is focused on? 430 is a lot more shallow, it focuses on facts and tries to contain all the changes at once and looks VERY rushed. Hori didn't have much time with his schedule, so of course he tried to fit all at once and nothing at all. This chapter is more about the system and facts, trying to answer the more crucial questions fans may have.

Chapter 430 has ~20 pages

431 has almost 40 (!)

b) 431 finally has time to look at the characters up close. Why there is so much about Uraraka? Well, because in the pt. 1 she's got one panel and a couple of words. That's why half the chapter is about her now, because she and Izuku are the male and female leads of the manga.

c) Why didn't we have more of Katsuki? Well, this character isn't very known for huge inner monologues and all this sappy stuff. We can get enough from character interaction and subtle cues, as always. Despite being a big asshole and a major loudmouth (I say this with all my love and adoration guys), Katsuki is a really stoic character. And this kind of character doesn't need a whole 5 pages writing down their motivation and inner thought process. I like this. This man remains the most conscious person here and has the greatest development in the series (and Shoto, sure, these two are on the whole other level compared to others in terms of writing)

Izuku and Ochako are more open to us, and it shows in the chapter's way of storytelling

And Shoto is still the most relatable dude here, me too, Shoto, me too...

2. Izuku is NOT shutting Katsuki out of his life. He basically invited him to TEACH TOGETHER just like Katsuki invited him to BE HEROES TOGETHER.

To me it shows clearly that these two just found their two paths that don't align fully. Izuku has been teaching for years after his quirk was gone. Sure, he still adores hero job, but he already has stability and purpose and it's IMPORTANT to him. He's only been back to heroics for a month after all. Izuku has matured significantly, and I respect that about his character even if it's not perfectly written.

"Izuku wouldn't ever decline the offer". Do I need to remind you that it's whole 8 years after their school days?

Imagine yourself 16, dreaming to start a rock band with your best friend. You're both so passionate about it, you think music is the most beautiful thing in your life and you'll never be over it.

But you get your fingers injured severely, and you can't play your guitar anymore. You're devastated, but your knowledge is valuable and you get a whole teaching degree and go to work in a musical college. It feels very fulfilling to you. But your friend is very talented, he continues and pushes forward and actually becomes a worldwide known rock star! You're so glad for him!

But the time passes, and your friend, now famous and loaded, states – you're getting most expensive treatment and surgery, and we – I and our old band bros – pay for this.

And your fingers, they work properly again. You had a whole life of 8 years, and now there are so many possibilities open. You know your friend wants you to join his band and travel and rock the stage together, he offers it to you without expecting much, because he knows you have your life settled already, you can't change that with a flick of a wrist. He's an understanding friend, even if his passion for your old shared dream burns brighter still. You can join his band for a concert or two once in a while, it's a good reprieve from your everyday life. But as much as you love music, your priorities shifted significantly since your youth – and now teaching is as important and precious to you.

You even invite your friend to give a lesson of two in the college where you work. It's a way for you two still remain in each other's lives even if your paths are a bit different now. Your connection is built on compromise and genuine support from both sides, and it's fantastic!

I know the analogy isn't perfect, but it works I suppose.

3. About Himiko and Ochako. It's a painful one, but

No, Himiko wasn't haunting Ochako for the whole 8 years, it's probably a time to time occasion. It's not because Ochako is tired, it's because she can't let go of her guilt and at particularly taxing times it manifests in these visions.

Dreams are still a big mystery for science, but what we know is that they're almost always NOT about what you see, but about the hidden layers of meaning.

And of course we know this is not REAL Himiko, it's just Ochako's mind.

So I don't understand all the weeping around Himiko now being DEAD FOR REAL OH. This is Ochako's mind, not a literal Toga's spirit no matter how much Horikoshi wants his symbolisms to be literal in this story. It's still open to interpretation if Toga is dead or notnot (she's coping).

Tsuyu is so Tsuyu 😭😭😭

Right, my girl, this dummy really thought there's something wrong with her health while she just needed to see a psychologist...

I remind you that psychotherapy is severely underdeveloped in Japan. There's still a lot of stigma around mental health there, so please keep this mentality in your mind while reading manga. "They could just go and see a therapist." No, they couldn't. Their culture doesn't work like this, and societal norms aren't a joke in Japan, they're literally overwhelming.

And about how this chapter "ruined" Himiko. To me, it didn't.

"Himiko was written for Ochako". Exactly. Ochako's main negative character trait was inability to open up about her true feelings, putting up a cheerful front and all that.

Himiko was created to get her to understand what suppressing emotions does to people. Unfortunately, it seems she didn't catch this message fully until Himiko told her with plain words and freaking pushed her forward.

And isn't it a torture for Himiko seeing Ochako beating herself over her death, putting up a brave front to avoid her inner struggle which is COMPLETELY OPPOSITE to what Himiko tried to convey?

And Himiko loved both Izuku and Ochako, so of course she wants them to be special for each other and open up to each other too.

Because Himiko LOVES love in any form (pun intended), and wishes happiness for her special people, and sees how they have been holding back from living how they wanted.

Do you really think Himiko would prefer a depressed Ochako having hallucinations of her over an Ochako who's opening up and rebuilding connections with the man she yearned to reach out to for so long?

And of course I'm not about the ship. This manga was never about the ships. We've got a clue that Izuku barely had any contact with his former classmates since graduation in 430. This chapter is created to gives us hope that it'll change, starting with Uraraka because Uraraka was the one to reach out to him first in the beginning, and now it's his turn.

I imagine that it's just a start of the reconnection arc. Izuku can do this with the rest of his classmates too later, and knowing his tendency to butt into others' business he certainly will.

(Yeah, it's an actually good idea for a new tome for you Hori, not Boruto 2.0, never Boruto 2.0 please...)

4(?). This one has gotten me confused...

They studied 3 years... so they must have become class 2-A, then 3-A.... I hope it's a bad translation.

Do you trust Jirou? She certainly did put a whole ton of wasabi in his food, look at her face

Katsuki not toasting because he's the sober friend for his whole bunch of idiots>>>>

(he really has come here for the food)

Katsuki, when did you undergo your Syndrome arc?

[measuringbliss]

So, now that you're done with Season 2, how do you feel about it?

Are you looking forward to watching Season 3?

...So let's talk about Gossip Girl (GG), Pretty Little Liars (PLL) and Bridgerton. There aren't going to be spoilers in this post, don't be afraid.

What do these shows have in common? A lot, actually.

Someone has a secret identity. Gossip Girl, A and Lady Whistledown. The shows imply it's someone we know, and incite us to try and solve the mystery.

The shows are critically contentious. They're noticed for their cultural impact, but reviews aren't raving.

The actual mystery touted as the premise takes a backseat to the characters' relationships.

The mystery is what immediately attracted me to these shows, and I dropped two of them for years because it just wasn't up to my hopes, and the soap was repetitive. That was Gossip Girl and Bridgerton. If you're wondering, I kept going with PLL both because it was still airing (I started it during the airing of 6A, and it finished with 7B) and because I have bad taste. One of my favorite movies is Madame Web, for Goodness's sake!

I resumed my watch of Gossip Girl by switching to my local dub (much less boring voices), and Bridgerton after months of @spaceorphan18 campaigning for the show around here. Godspeed, by the way.

In each case though, I also knew the answer to the key mystery. PLL is a complicated case and makes no sense (let's say I knew a reveal, but I was still trying to figure out the mystery), but Gossip Girl is pretty straightforward (still makes no sense), and Bridgerton is probably the best realized version of the mystery, notably because it gives you the answer after only one short season and it makes perfect sense.

The thing is, these shows put the soap at the forefront, and the search for clues is unsatisfying. At least, with Bridgerton, you get to see the mysterious Lady Whistledown try to stay inconspicuous, and then the threat of seeing their identity revealed to the rest of the cast becomes an interesting plot thread in its own right (possibly the most interesting one).

So if you know where it leads, you can ignore the mystery side of these shows and focus on the rest. That is, appreciating the romance and betrayals.

So I think that Bridgerton S2 is more compelling by its premise alone: you know who Lady Whistledown is. Nobody else knows (for now).

And I think it starts really well, too. Jonathan Bailey has chemistry with anyone, and Simone Ashley is just as much of a powerhouse. And really, the entire cast is gold. Good for them! The romance is different from the previous season, perhaps a bit more classical in its development, but for, I'd say, 4 or 5 episodes of this 8 episode long season, it's really fun.

But then it drags. It really drags. The actors try their very best, but the characters keep going through the same beats every other scene, and you can feel the writers overplay their hand. It's not just the main relationship either (how many times can you watch Kate suppress her feelings before it becomes boring?).

The Eloise vs. Lady Whistledown storyline is so, so obviously brought to a halt to postpone her discovering the truth, but even her interactions with everyone are identical from one episode to the next. Eloise doesn't come with her family to this event, to that event and to this one too. Penelope keeps begging her again and again to not see Theo. There's characterization, dynamics setup, and then there's this padding. Ironically, Eloise's relationship with Theo is her best scenes in the season (and then the last episode, but we shan't talk about that).

The Featheringtons storyline is alright, I have no complaints.

The Madame Delacroix dynamic with You-Know-Who is similarly repetitive. She keeps saying "ooh I didn't plan for this to get this far, I should stop".

The show is brilliant when it shows new and fun dynamics: the Bridgertons welcoming the Sharmas to their home is a fun moment! You see more of the ensemble cast together, with some dynamics you don't necessarily expect, and their acting can shine. But most of the time, I think the acting and pacing are disappointing. Padding is definitely an issue. For every great scene there is (the flashbacks), you get another scene where Kate or Anthony lie to themselves.

You can blame this on the 1 hour long episodes, on the 8 episodes long seasons, on Netflix forcing them to release the seasons in multiple parts and account for this, or anything else, but the fact remains that for all its nice production value and quality acting, Bridgerton as a show is extremely repetitive. Individually, the episodes are well done, but I was suffering a burnout by episode 7 and pushed through them.

I'll watch season 3 in due time. Not now, though! I'm interested in the storylines, be it Lady Whistledown's saga or Penelope and Colin's relationship. Also, more of Newton!

Baby.

(About the failures of those shows regarding their core mystery: A is a threatening presence in PLL, but Gossip Girl rarely actually says interesting things and is mostly inconsequential. As for Lady Whistledown, imo it's a failed concept. She's interesting at first glance, but her lines we hear never say anything that saucy. Her interventions are few, fast, and overall disappointing. She's much more interesting once we get to see who she is and how she behaves.

The A mystery was drenched in inconsistencies and too complex plots, and there were far too many red herrings. Gossip Girl was simple, to its credit. But she also was just a cute framing. I think she works as framing. It's cute to hear her lines. But she's not compelling most of the time. A real shame, considering that the concept, in the right hands, is absolutely fascinating, but making The Secret Peddler a backdrop and not a driving force of your show is, imo, a mistake.

Those shows are not mystery shows, and it's a shame they're sold as such. They're soap operas supported by their mysteries. The quality of the mystery can be excused with this context, but the soap needs to be really solid then, and I think none of these shows really measure up to this.)

[notasapleasure]

WIP ask meme

@stripedroseandsketchpads tagged me in this. And oh my god. If you think there are Too Many Words in the fic I publish, you should see my poor notes app. Here is a sneak peek of its contents. I haven't edited for brevity/those I'm actively working on, these are just all the unfinished files I could find. Some I don't intend to do any more with, others I'd really like to pick up again. The only ones being actively worked on right now are the Andor Saga AU and the first one on the list for Andor.

I put ALL the Lymond I could find in mainly for @oughtaagh who has been leaving the most lovely comments on my Lymond fics that I have totally failed to respond to. I'm sorry! I will cycle back round to Lymond one day, it's inevitable <3

Tagging uh.... @distressednoise, @r0b0tb0y, @faceofpoe, @donnaimmaculata, @batri-jopa, @elwenyere, @notabuddhist and anyone else who wants to say I tagged them! Also sorry if you'd already been tagged, I'm not keeping up with the dash very well at the moment!

Anyway please send me asks/comments/cease and desist orders about these. xxx

ANDOR

C: We decided we were thirsty, and you wanted to go to Cavo's. As yet untitled Brassian alternative scene - what if instead of a great collaborative cover story this was a great collaborative fuck? Almost(?) finished?

Saga AU pt 2. This actually does have a working title of 'The Bear and the Berserk' but this doc is just a short bullet point list of plot things for a specific part of the fic.

Cassian pov. It's a Cassian pov chapter! For...drumroll...the first chapter of the Saga AU pt 2! The rest is going to be back to Brasso FPN. The file actually includes a rough first draft of chapter 2, as well.

"You're up early this morning," Bix says lightly. A follow-up chapter to Only Ever Just One Night started back when I had epic plans for continuing this, bringing in Cinta and Vel and Luthen, whumping the hell out of Brasso, and having Cassian rescue him. This is just one scene of awkward conversation with tea though.

Oh god it developed Plot. Related to the previous chapter - a bullet-pointed list of things that might have happened in this fic I Wil Not Write (not least as I'd rather just see what happens in S2 first anyway).

AND THEN WE DANCED

It was a sunny day in Batumi... Patchy few paragraphs of the next chapter of Inchoate.

Plannnnns (again). Plans for how Inchoate would/will continue.

THE LYMOND CHRONICLES

Canon-verse/other AUs

Multiple pieces of follow-up to The next man with a ladder, Danny/Jerott post-canon: It was dark when they rode into the port town... [Chapter 3, basically done, plus most of Chapter 4 but it devolves into broken paragraphs at the end]. "I'm going to the other bed," Danny said in a voice like someone was standing on his throat... [??? there's loads of this written! This is the file where they Get Down To It] Stitch the scenes together [a few paragraphs in which I hoped to make a logical leap from Chapter 4 to fucking, but seemingly never quite got there].

Lymondar saga draft. Actually two files of the abortive first effort at writing a saga AU. I was trying much harder to write in saga style and playing with lacunae in a way that was fun for me but exceedingly nerdy. I think I found the idea more fun than the execution, too.

St Seb. Remember ages ago when I was writing a post-canon 'Jerott gets shot full of arrows and has to admit his feelings because he thinks he's gonna die' fic? This is the file! Some bullet points and some text, some of which I even posted as Sunday sixes way back when iirc.

Fait prosperer qui n'est à croire vain. Fuck me, there's LOADS of this. Pawn in Frankincense/Ringed Castle AU where Marthe steals Lymond's ride with Kiaya Khatun and persuades her they should take over Russia together. Meanwhile Francis is left with Jerott. Hahaha. It kept getting longer because Francis kept trying to escape and I kept finding ways to drag him back, but the 'and now kiss!!' with the two of them behaving in character was just not coming easily.

Francis Crawford's Holistic Inquisition Agency. I wrote this??? One chapter of a Lymond/Dirk Gently AU, where Francis is obviously Dirk and Jerott is a furious/bemused Todd.

She tried every instrument, she redrew every chart. A few short chapters, never finished, of Marthe wrestling with her role in canon and her fate as assigned by La Dame. A couple more paragraphs of a similar sort of thing in Volos.

Malta. Half-arsed few paragraphs of wondering how Jerott would cope with meeting a fellow Knight being imprisoned for sodomy.

Band AU (my 1980s rock band AU for the series, see also @theartistknownaslymond)

Au of an Au. What if, after the Battle of the Bands at Solway, Jerott went to stay at the Edinburgh townhouse for a while and he and Francis got to collaborating in the shed? There's quite a lot of this and it's quite fluffy.

Out out out! The band celebrate Thatcher's downfall. Happy epilogues for everyone! However it's an epic task trying to do all the characters justice, so I was trying to write it as vignettes to match each song on the playlist. Six-ish are written. And earlier draft with plan for characters intercting is in Ding dong the witch is dead.

Jerott/Marthe - four times it just about worked, one time it really didn't. What it says on the tin? aka you just know Jerott has said 'Francis' instead of Marthe at least once when he comes. Only the beginning of the first time exists in this chapter, but I think I explored the idea elsewhere, whenever I dig up that file...

DWTH missing scene. Jerott/OC missing scene from Don't wake the house. Not finished, probably not going to be finished. I think I have enough Jerott smut on the go.

Workshop. Patchy draft of pre-canon Jerott and GRM 'therapy' session in which GRM learns about Francis Crawford and what a hold he has on the boy he thought of as his own plaything. GRM doesn't like sharing.

F/P. Draft of a fluffy kiss prompt someone (@erinaceina? @notfromcold?) sent for Francis/Philippa. Post-canon pregnant Philippa and worried Francis written when it was too hot in summer. It's probably complete enough to post tbh! hmu if you want it posting.

Jerott behaving badly (again). Somehow this ended up in the 'comfortember' section of the notepad, which...no? Maybe it was intended to be originally, but it grew a life of its own. Post-canon, post split-up with the OC, pre-getting together with Danny. Joining the mile high club and regretting it, then ending up crashing at Joleta's (who he meets coincidentally at the airport, NOT who he's screwing in the airplane loo!!). It's meant to end up cathartic, but didn't get finished :') I'm actually really pleased with what I have - post-canon Joleta is so much fun to write!

Somewhere (Google Drive?? an actual Word doc??) there is also loads and loads and LOADS of Pawn in Frankincense band AU around Baron Morgan's place (the Aga Morat), featuring fucked-up Francis/Morgan, fucked up Marthe/Kiaya, fucked up Francis/Kiaya, and bewildered cold turkey Jerott. There's also some Jerott/Marthe from later on.

Other

Crossover. A sequel to my ATWD fic I will shake mountains, where Merab and Irakli encounter celebrity diners in the restaurant they work in: respected musician Francis Crawford and friends take the boys for a drink and share queer/artistic inspiration/history with them. There's quite a lot written but I couldn't quite manage to finish it off.

St Mary's. Another ATWD/Lymond crossover, placing Merab and Irakli among the mercenaries of St Mary's. Mostly bullet points.

3m. Furious that there was no fic for the film Three Months I decided to jot down a scene I wanted to see afterwards. I wrote four lines and cannot remember what my plan was at all.

[aerithium]

Ace Attorney Investigations Review

Spoilers Ahead!

I keep writing these for myself and forget to share them here! I'll try to remember more often. ★ Score: 7/10 ★ Date Finished: July 26th, 2024 ★ Final Thoughts: This game isn't fantastic when thrown in together with the previous trilogy but it is by no means bad. The first case is pretty interesting for a tutorial case and does a good job of introducing the new gameplay features in the game, it also still remains relevant till the last case which is something I like to see in Ace Attorney games. The 2nd case was also rather interesting, it for sure plays into the absurdity of the world of this franchise and builds really well on to the story to come! Sadly, this game does not break free of the disappointing case 3 curse that these games seem to have. It was great at the start of the case with Edgeworth also being kidnapped, the introduction of Kay, and the two of them escaping. But after that part it seemed to fall flat, I felt that some things were accepted too quickly and a lot of conclusions were jumped too. The culprit of the case also felt extremely predictable which just kind of sucked, it also only adds so much to the overarching story. The 4th case was really nice, I am a sucker for flashback cases so it was right up my alley. It takes a bit to really ramp up and can be trivial at times such as when you're proving if Gumshoe was in the hallway the entire time, but its all still necessary. I actually love Calisto Yew, her character just really does something for me. The final case is good in the beginning, its a classic double murder with just a lot more shit added to the equation making bits and pieces fun to figure out. Not only are you trying to solve two murders but you are also looking for the leader of the smuggling ring that is the focus of the plot for whole game. It was really fun up until a certain point, I would say the second to last section/chapter/episode, whatever you wanna call it. From there it just drags and drags, they rinse and repeat Edgeworth making progress, then losing all hope, then you guessed it someone different each time yells "HOLD IT!" Don't get me wrong its very Ace Attorney but did they need to do it like 10 times? Regardless the ending was satisfying and enjoyable, and still a surprise! But the real reason I truly enjoyed this game was because of the music and characters. I mean I was seriously jamming the entire time and I love the reoccurring characters here, especially the new ones. I mean Lang, Kay, and Shih-na all really are stellar characters with good writing, very fleshed out characters. Edgeworth also gets some amazing development during the events of this game and we get to see him find more of a foothold from himself after giving up the Von Karma ways.

[avatarskywalker78]

How did your Cobra Kai/Karate Kid OCs come to be?

So, the first was Nicky Connors and she came about the same way most of my OCs came about - to give one of my favourite characters a friend, with the added layer of 'what if Johnny had a friend outside of karate who tried to help him but wasn't able to' and I was drawn to this concept as it developed into 'what if Johnny had a friend outside of Cobra Kai who still wanted to learn karate but wasn't allowed in Cobra Kai itself because John Kreese is an asshole' and I really loved this idea, and the OC herself as she grew, of how she sees Johnny and the rest of the Cobras as friends, as people who are just being led down a very bad path and yet being unable to really stop that because she's only one person, and sometimes one person isn't enough to help...only for it to turn out that she does have some influences (and later, her friendships with all of them get repaired after they make amends.)

As for her adopted son James in the CK era, I'd already decided that Nicky couldn't have biological kids, but wasn't bothered by this in the slightest and was happy to adopt - she was going to have a whole bunch of kids to start with, but honestly I think just the one is fine.

Now, the Barnes family started out as side characters in my first Mike fic, trying to settle (the ghosts of my past). I wrote this around three months before S5 came out and by this point I'd given up on watching past S4's mid-point because the whole thing was so bad, but I'd heard rumours that Mike would be returning in S5 and would likely join Cobra Kai and that pissed me off because of all the antagonists he has the least stakes in the situation - like he didn't know and probably wouldn't care about the history, he was literally paid to be there and sure, he lost out on the big payday but like. That was ultimately down to Kreese and Silver for making it complicated instead of just reopening CK anyway.

So then I thought 'what if Mike went and had a normal life with a family and had no interest in being dragged into another insane revenge plot', so that's what happened, and what I wrote of Leah and Elaine and Alex I liked (especially Elaine and her plan to set fire to the CK merchandise that was sent, like the chaotic streak was there already). Elaine herself became more established after S5 came out - I didn't watch it, but I was delighted to find out my prediction about Mike was correct, like he did go on to have a normal life! And he was still in the Valley so his family would be too, and I was always annoyed by the Sam-Tory fight so I thought 'what if someone stopped it' followed by 'what if that someone was Elaine' and hey presto, a fic was born! And I also gave more details about her older sister Sarah because I hadn't mentioned her yet. Leah became more developed after I took what canon gave us - co-owner of the furniture store, which she'd inherited from her father who had also been Mike's boss back in the day.

Gemma is an interesting one - because she initially started out as Johnny's daughter from a previous relationship, Robby's older sister, though the jury was out on whether Johnny knew about her or not. This version of her I had for at least a few months, but it didn't go ahead because:

When it comes to creating legacy OCs, especially children, I have to have some kind of connection to the canon character in question, some element of 'they'd be a good dad' and I just wasn't getting that with Johnny

I also didn't see how I could make this story fresh - Johnny's already abandoned one kid, do we really need to see that rehashed?

Then when I was writing my Cobra Kai Mini Rewrites I realised I was much more invested in having him repair his relationship with his actual, canon kid - but I wasn't going to give up on the OC after how much work I'd put into it, so I thought ' what if she was his cousin', which soon sparked off a whole thing about Laura's family because we know very little, but my headcanon was always that she was kicked out at 18 after falling pregnant with Johnny and I thought 'what if she had a much younger sister who came looking for her decades later and had a kid' because I love tragic family dynamics, but also I just found the idea of Johnny having an aunt who could be his sister and a cousin who could be his niece, because the age thing makes it a bit strange for him.

Also I liked the idea of having the running joke of 'I know she looks like my kid but she's not my kid' with most people Gemma runs into assuming this because they look very similar - and sometimes she'll play up to this solely to troll Johnny because it's very funny to do so.

talk shop tuesday

[thelibrarian25]

Kingdom of Ash: A Review

Overall Review: ☆☆☆☆

I started Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas three hundred and forty days ago, so you’ll have to forgive me if some of the points seem a bit blurred — I only managed to pick up the book to finally finish it recently. You’ll also have to forgive me for the fact that I’m writing a review on the last book in the series, but I’ll try to cover the other books as much as I can.

Kingdom of Ash is a high fantasy romance novel following primarily Aelin Galathynius, an assassin turned Queen. It is the grand finale of the Throne of Glass series — an eight-book collection that overall covers themes of adventure, war, and character growth.

Kingdom of Ash picks up after the gruelling conclusion of Tower of Dawn and continues as Maas’ characters battle with the previous events and their fight against Erawan and Maeve. The plot develops through the eyes of several different characters during both small and pivotal moments.

For me, I absolutely adored the worldbuilding seen throughout the series as a whole; if you’ve read the other books, then you probably know what I am talking about. However, if you haven’t, let me paint a picture for you. Every place that Maas has dutifully created somehow manages to tie in perfectly, creating a clear image of a continent at odds. Throughout the series, she calls on each one of these places slowly until the image she has created unites to make it clear. However, in my opinion the pace of the book as a whole was a bit slow at times, having several chapters capture just one event, it does appear sometimes that it would have been better to split the book in two as it can drag on. Despite this, I loved how ‘Kingdom of Ash’ and the other books there is a large focus on how our actions no matter how small can impact our lives and the lives of the others, particularly seen in the dynamic between Aelin and Yerene. 

Overall when looking at the entire series, I loved how everything in the end tied together and the dynamic between characters like Aelin, Chaol and Dorian and the Thirteen. However, I do wish that we saw moments between the Cadre- also what happened to Vaughan? Everyone just casually forgot him until practically the last page, for me that’s where it fell apart for me, is it kind of funny that Maas forgot him? Yes, but at that point its probably best to leave him out of it, it's kind of like when your mom asked you take the chicken out of the freezer to defrost while she was gone and you forgot. Why would you bring it up? 

Overall, the ending of the series at the end of the day was satisfying, usually at the end of series like ‘Throne of Glass’ there isn’t much hope or even where there is it’s noted with bitterness but with this series the hope for a better future overcame the sorrow and bitterness. I would definitely recommend it but be wary of the fact that at times it can get a bit dark and emotionally heavy, so if you are triggered by certain topic it may be wise to search up any triggers that can be found in the series (I’ll insert links for the trigger warning database for each of the books). 

~ The Librarian 

Thank you for reading! If you notice any errors please let me know. I’ll try to finish ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by the end of this week, I’m halfway through chapter eight so I don’t think it’ll take too long hopefully. I’m also slowly going through my TBR so I’ll update you on that (currently 2/61 so that’s something). 

Trigger Warning Links for the ‘Throne of Glass’ Series: 

Assassin's Blade: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/2021/05/13/the-assassins-blade-by-sarah-j-maas/

Throne of Glass: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/2021/05/13/throne-of-glass-by-sarah-j-maas/

Crown of Midnight: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/2021/05/13/crown-of-midnight-by-sarah-j-maas/

Heir of Fire: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/2021/05/13/heir-of-fire-by-sarah-j-maas/

Queen of Shadows: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/2021/05/12/queen-of-shadows-by-sarah-j-maas/

Empire of Storms: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/2021/05/13/empire-of-storms-by-sarah-j-maas/

Tower of Dawn: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/2021/05/13/tower-of-dawn-by-sarah-j-maas/

Kingdom of Ash: https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/2021/05/12/kingdom-of-ash-by-sarah-j-maas/

I think the listing kind of falls off for the last few books, but there are other websites and TheStoryGraph is quite good mentioning any trigger warnings, it’s like an alternative for GoodReads.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Bonjour Tristesse

Like it’s leading lady, Otto Preminger’s BONJOUR TRISTESSE (1958, Criterion Channel) is maddeningly inconsistent. Both have moments of great depth and moments of inexcusable emptiness. Jean Seberg comes off better in hindsight because of a beautifully played final scene as she falls apart while applying cold cream to her face after a night of partying. Yet through most of her performance you can’t see what got her there. She doesn’t take the steps a more experienced actor would take to build that arc. After one major plot development, her voiceover describes her conflicting emotions while her face shows nothing, and not in that brilliant Garbo at the end of QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933) way, either.

At least she’s not responsible for the plotting that seems, like Francoise Sagan’s original novel, the work of a petulant teenager stretching for significance. The film opens in a dazzling black-and-white Paris as shot by Georges Perinal. During a night out with her playboy father (David Niven), Cecile (Seberg) recalls the events of the previous summer on the French Riviera, shown in ravishing Technicolor. Preminger doesn’t do Seberg any favors at the start. He introduces her voiceover as she dances to the title song performed by Juliette Greco. Seberg’s very American line readings seem flat and lacking in any personalization, particularly when juxtaposed with Greco’s throaty, melancholy voice. During their summer vacation, Cecile and her father are visited by Anne (Deborah Kerr), a friend of her late mother. Attracted to her, Niven dumps his flighty French girlfriend (Mylene Demongeot) and proposes to Kerr, who then tries to assert maternal authority over the spoiled Seberg. Big mistake for the character and the film.

There’s a scene in a club on the Riviera in which the patrons are so caught up in the music of a small band they dance out into the streets and onto the yachts in the harbor. It’s enchanting and kinetic, a celebration of the high life Cecile and her father share. And Demongeot is a delight. She’s full of energy, even when Niven dumps her, and screenwriter Arthur Laurents has given her a daffy sense of humor. The film seems to be in love with her and the setting. But after the improbable engagement (Kerr seems much too sensible to fall for Niven’s shallow playboy so quickly), we have to start paying for all that fun. Seberg lights up in the scenes in which she plots against Kerr, but it’s all rather predictable and a bit of a drag. You can see the point coming and just want to get it over with. Yet it also feels rather perfunctory. Preminger is so in love with the high life, even in the black-and-white scenes in which Seberg is supposed to be dying on the inside, he privileges those scenes over what follows. The film also doesn’t spend as much time as it should to develop the denouement. It’s not just that Kerr falls for Niven’s line so quickly. She also jumps into the maternal role without ever testing the waters. And since we’ve been enjoying Seberg and Niven’s feckless ways so much, she comes off as something of a prig. Preminger may be the only director ever to undermine a Deborah Kerr performance.

[swimmingtvshowghostwoman]

I would like to talk about tk. In previous seasons, this last episode, and my wishes for the future (and generally random thoughts).this is just a vent and I don’t actually remember everything that happened in the show so there are probably things not 100% correct and stuff missing (both things that will side with what I’m saying and the other way)…

I believe TK has so much potential to be an incredible character that is well developed and interesting without unnecessary drama and pain.

I think the way they are currently writing him is very superficial and feels like he is a side character. I know many people think he gets too much screen time and will definitely not agree with my side character statement, but I don’t care.

The way I see it all the screen time he gets is always connected to another character usually his dad or Carlos, don’t get me wrong some of those scenes are wonderful but he has so much more to him.

It always seems to me that they are starting to bullied his character and then just drop whatever they were doing (his ex, the drags, the fight and those are just from the first season there are so many more examples), they just keep adding more things to help whatever plot they are doing and then just drop it.

It feels like he is only there to help the plot and not actually be part of the plot.

I love tarlos , and I do agree with what many people say that they at times feel rushed and kind of underdeveloped, and I think that one of the reasons they feel like that is because both TK and Carlos are underdeveloped characters. In the last episode and a few last season we saw Carlos staring which I loved he needs more episode like that because he absolutely deserves it, I also think tk deserves those kind of episodes because so far it felt like he is just kinda there and from time to time he has a few scenes that he is awesome in but nothing that really builds his character or gives him anything that special.

As for all the dropped plots that I think were just missed potential:

The drags: so basically this is one of the first things we learn about his character, after he proposed to his boyfriend and his boyfriend tells him he is seeing someone else he overdosed and Owen saves him and they move to Texas. After that they kinda show that Owen is worried about him and he did tell Carlos he doesn’t drink and talks about his past and then later on he gets his chip . But all of this things happen to move some other plot forward, his relationship with Carlos, his dad cancer, his parents relationship…and sure you can say that any plot is used to move another plot forward but that is not true, some plots need to have their own focus and place in a episode/season. The way they handle Bobby’s addiction on 9-1-1 is much better, it is connected to other plots and people without forgetting to focus on Bobby and him dealing with his addiction. I do want to see in the future more references to his past with drags, I don’t think or want him to relapse I think that is a cope out way to handle it and there are plenty of other ways to leave it in his story and in the plots.it is part of him and should not be ignored for the majority of the time except for when it helps their plot and then it is handled in a superficial way.

His ex: we saw Alex once (I’m 99% that is his name) in the pilot and after that I think he was mentioned once when tk spoke of his past(same conversation about the drags ) if I’m not mistaken. That is just weird to me I mean you want to tell he was this close to this guy that he proposed to him and when they broke up it lead to him overdosing but he wasn’t important enough to be mentioned more then once? Like I get it he is the past and all that but the past is part of him especially when it is so recent, I’m not saying ne needed to be mentioned more then a few times but maybe in more conversations with Carlos about their relationship or with his parents about his life or with his friends about his life, it is a normal thing for him to talk about and yet he never really did. And even if we don’t talk about alex I’m sure there were other exs that they could mention maybe not by name by some random joke or anecdote would be nice. I know it is a thing in tv shows to not mention people as long as they are not part of current / future plot but I generally think that is stupid and especially here it feels to me as if he didn’t have a life before the plot started and what he did have had little effect over his every day life.

That fight: they completely ignored it after the police station  scene with Carlos. We saw tk starting a fight completely sober in order to feel something and get out of his head and then we saw him with Carlos in the police station (which btw one of my fav scenes but that is beside the point) and after that it was never referred to again, not his anger issues or his need to feel something/ replace the feeling drags and alcohol gave him.

As for tarlos and the all brake up thing. I absolutely hate it. It feels like a cheap try to create drama and interest.  I do hope that once they explain the reason for the break up it will make sense and won’t be over nothing and once they get back together at least I hope they will take this opportunity and build tarlos in a better way that won’t feel rushed. I think the best way to handle it will be to just let them talk, not just after tk wakes up in the hospital have them reunited. One thing that I absolutely LOVED about their relationship (other then the obvious things) is the conversation they had after the fight they had after they run into Carlos’s parents in the market, after they calm down a bit they had a real conversation that was open and just so nice to see(I have an entire post about it if you want to read more about that😅).

Another major thing about TK is ofc Owen. Tbh I don’t like Owen I think he is just too much and just annoying but this isn’t about him. In my opinion the relationship tk and Owen have is toxic af, and no I don’t know exactly how to explain it or have specific  examples it is just what I think. They just feel very  codependent and tk for sure have daddy issues (and probably mommy issues if I’m being honest). The best thing to happen to them is when tk stopped working directly under his dad and became a paramedic.I just hope that in this season they won’t focus on Owen that much and that includes his relationship with tk, like I get it he is his dad but it just feels wrong when ever they interact too much.

One more thing is just the way they try and fix things/ move things, it is one thing to add things to his past and a completely different thing to just hurt him. Tk has spent so much time in a hospital bed it is just ridiculous. And every time (if I’m not mistaken) it had something to do with another character, obviously carlos(which honestly didn’t mind it but it just happened so many times it feels overdone and I kinda want to see it the other way around or not at all) and also his parents or just generally the station.I’m just over it and when I saw it in the promo I just ruled my eyes and was done with it.

I have many things I want from this season but the main thing is really tk becoming the character I see in my head.

I also really don’t want them to ignore his mother and the fact that he has a half brother, that entire plot felt massy and didn’t make much sense to me but they did do it so at least don’t ignore it(but if we go by history they most likely will).

So yea basically I think he has so much potential and I have so much more to say about him but this is already so much longer than I intended…and I’m lazy… hopefully tonight’s episode will do him justice as will this all season 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Also I just really think TK should go to therapy he has so much things to process and therapy just makes sense for him and so many more characters in the show.( it is definitely a headcanon of mine then he goes to therapy)

P.S:

As much as I love tk I also think there are many more characters who deserves more.but I guess he is my top character (The fact that I absolutely love Ronen probably has a small part in that😅😂)

* and yes I am aware of when he made his decision to become paramedic he did mention his history of making bad decisions and all that but that was a teeny tiny thing but still something…

Edit: after seeing episode 2 of season 3(the rest of the post was written before that) I really hope they won’t disregard tk saying a prayer thing and will address it in one way or another or even do something with it and develop it.

[icequeenbae]

Desert Flower (m) Ch. 3 | BBH

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader x Baëkhyun

Characters: EXO and X-EXO (not all of them mentioned)

EXO vs X-EXO dynamics, complicated relationships, angsty, action, smut (as usual)

Warnings: sorta mingling with your ex’s ‘evil twin’, mentions of blood/ violence (nothing too graphic… I suppose), Y/N gets teary a lot(?), explicit content, rough sex, unprotected sex

Word Count: ~13.5k (full), ~4.5k (Chapter 3)

Summary: Baekhyun, your beloved boyfriend of three years, suddenly breaks up with you and disappears from the city in an attempt to protect you. But leaving you alone and clueless means trouble will surely find you. For it is easy to spot a flower in the desert.

Masterlist   >> One >> Two (m) >> Three (m) >> Four (fin)

Author’s Note: Heyy! How’re you guys doing so far?^^ Sooo, this chapter is the longest of all since the story begins to unfold here! The next one is the finale already, and it’s going to be pretty epic, dare I say;) Let me know what kind of plot twists you’re anticipating! 💥

Tags: @blahblahblah-boo @baeklightsx @wooya1224 @baekklove​

Chapter 3. The little birdie told me

For an entire week after you first had sex, you’d stayed away. You felt guilty and foolish for letting that happen. Was he a rebound? Was it even acceptable that you did it with your ex-boyfriend’s twin? Could you live with yourself, knowing what he tasted like, or how his voice became gruff as he really got into it? And, worst of all, you wanted to experience that again. You were virtually ashamed to recall the night you’d spent with him, his roughness that left bruises (not entirely unpleasant), his bossiness that made you come out of your own shell to take what you wanted, what you needed, from him. Thinking back to the way you slammed yourself onto his thighs, or how he then folded you in half and made you come, or the name-calling… It was unbearable because despite believing that you’d made a shameless mistake, you wanted to make it all over again. You wanted to feel his prickly touch on your skin, and his prurient eyes not missing a single curve of your body. You wanted to be pushed by him, and you couldn’t understand the nature of any of those desires. Was it because you’d developed feelings for him? Or because he offered you such a pleasant way of self-destruction?

In his hands, you fell apart and reassembled. Not entirely the same, but then how could you be? The person who broke you had left for good, taking pieces of your puzzle with him. It seemed like a better option than to stay depressed and waiting to be fixed, ending up never achieving completeness.

Baëkhyun wasn’t a perfect fit for you, nor was he someone to heal your pain with the tenderness of his own heart. But only with him, you felt these strong emotions again. Only with him your heart was not aching but fluttering again, excited by the dangerous smirk he was wearing, and the predatory eyes that promised to devour you in the most delectable ways possible.

You stayed away, contemplating your decision and the rationale for it. The questions in your head seemed never-ending. Were you subconsciously trying to get back at Baekhyun? Were you replacing him? Or maybe you were just this quick in finding someone else to hand your still-broken heart over to? Baëkhyun did not seem like the guy who’d want it. He was kind of a bad guy, if you could even be the judge of that. Yet he had never actually hurt you, and he did not like to see you upset, even when it was over someone else.

Or because it was over someone else.

And although you didn’t consider him to be boyfriend material, you decided to give it a try. Not at all expecting it to be a relationship – you weren’t ready for a new one anyway. Still, you wanted to continue this unusual arrangement. Or so you’d been telling yourself when you texted him to come over after a week of radio silence.

As easy as it was for you to grow attached to him as your strange relationship quickly progressed, it should have been a warning sign. Baëkhyun kept asking you about the boys, the time you spent with Baekhyun at their base, and the stuff they’d told you about. And it wasn’t like you just spilled all the secrets – he usually asked about completely random stuff that seemed quite harmless to reveal.

But he was also a strategist. And you had no idea how powerful his mind was.

***

You laid your head on Baëkhyun’s chest, still hot and sweaty after the hours spent roughing up the bed. He stayed with you this time, arm wrapped around your waist intimately.

‘I didn’t expect you to be a natural,’ he hummed out of nowhere.

‘Hm?’ You turned slightly in his hold.

‘You’re getting pretty good at going after what you want. Will suit you well, being a little bad, birdie.’

‘Birdie?’ He met your curious eyes and chuckled, pressing you closer into his side.

‘Ain’t it accurate? You’re like a baby bird that I’m teaching how to fly.’ He stared for a moment. ‘You shouldn’t be down because of anyone anymore. I’d take personal offense if you are,’ he accentuated.

The uninvited warmth seeped into you, and you nuzzled his neck in a fit of affection.

‘Maybe you have to teach me more,’ you teased. ‘Scratch that. Teach me more.’

‘Now you’re just greedy,’ he sneered. ‘But I don’t mind.’

He allowed you to place a few kisses onto the side of his neck, before catching your hand, tracing his V-line down.

‘As much as I enjoy wrecking you, I don’t think you can take any more today.’

‘Aw, worried about me?’ You mocked, biting onto his collarbone playfully.

He squeezed your ass cheek in response.

‘Don’t test me. If you like a little more pain, it can be arranged. But not like this. It’s not what you truly want.’

‘How do you know that it’s not,’ you whined, as he patted your ass.

‘I know you, birdie. And I have a feeling that you’ve learned more about yourself in the last month than in the years prior. Care to give me some credit?’ His icy blue eyes gleamed in the dim lighting.

‘I really wanna blow you right now,’ you deadpanned. Baëkhyun was so, so alluring with that sexy hoarse laugh of his.

‘Wake me up with it tomorrow. If you want it that much.’

But the morning of slow lustful awakening didn’t come – instead, you awoke in an empty bed, alone. Brushing your teeth and washing up quickly, you headed to the kitchen to find your lover... And froze on the spot as soon as you caught bits of the hushed conversation.

‘I’m aware it’s been weeks but building trust takes time, you know? She’s already told me so much-’ Baëkhyun stopped mid-sentence, supposedly interrupted, and sighed. ‘Don’t. I’ll bring her in myself. Yes, I got it, Suhø. I’ll drag her in if I have to.’

You felt anxiety rise at his words, cold sweat breaking. Was he- talking about you? Or was he ‘building trust’ with some other girl? No, that was bound to be you. And who was he conversing with?

Everything was unclear, but your intuition had you tiptoeing back and walking from the bathroom to the kitchen a little louder this time. He finished his call as soon as you entered the kitchen.

‘Hey,’ he beamed at you as if the previous conversation did not take place.

‘Morning,’ you forced a little smile. ‘Were you talking to someone?’

‘Just now? Yeah,’ you feigned curiosity and wrapped your arms around his waist to avoid raising suspicion with your weird behavior or the slight nervous tremor in your hands. ‘Actually, I wanted to take you out today. You can meet some of my friends.’

‘Today?’ He nodded and you blinked, trying to come up with an excuse and fast. ‘Where?’

‘You’ll see. It’s not exactly in the city, so don’t dress all fancy,’ his hand settled on the small of your back.

It was clear now that earlier he had been talking to someone about bringing you in. And having your trust, which, obviously, was his goal from the very beginning. You realized that you needed to slip out carefully.

‘Um, about that… My friend from uni just called. She woke me up, actually. Asked to meet up today, and I already said yes, so…’ You trailed off.

‘Can’t you reschedule? We really should go tonight, while everyone’s in the neighborhood.’

‘Oh,’ you chewed on your lip. ‘She’s going through a rough time, so I have to meet her today. Sorry,’ you added, acting guilty.

He frowned, deep in thought.

‘Can we go after?’ He suggested. ‘I can pick you up in the evening.’

Biting your tongue, you weighed your options carefully. You did not want to alert him as to your attempt to shake him off your tail.

‘Yeah. Sure,’ you forced a smile on your face. ‘I’ll text you when I head back home for a change of clothes, and then we can go.’

‘Perfect,’ he smiled again, before pecking your lips. ‘I’ll head out for a few hours then,’ you nodded, walking him to the door.

Before Baëkhyun opened it, he turned around, catching you by surprise, and kissed you properly. The way he rarely kissed you outside your sex marathons. Deeply, full of… some kind of emotion? You couldn’t really grasp it, but your mind blanked out for a few seconds and you responded. Whimpering into his demanding mouth as his arms hugged you tightly to his body, you felt so tiny and defenseless, almost needy for his protection. But that was a deceiving sentiment.

‘Stay safe, little birdie,’ he whispered into your lips. ‘I’ll be waiting for your message. Don’t make me wait too long.’

‘Okay,’ you promised, and he finally walked out.

Closing the door, you let out a shaky sigh.

You were fucked.

At first, you almost had a panic attack, breath growing shallow and erratic. Having no idea what to do or how to get yourself out of this, you grabbed your phone and dialed the only number you could think of in this situation.

‘Please, Baekhyun,’ you whispered. ‘I’m so scared-’

But he was unavailable again.

Almost sobbing at the automatic answer, you dropped the phone and looked around. There was no one to help you, so you had to save yourself now. Wiping the tears, you grabbed your backpack and started shoving the most important items in it. Your documents, phone, wallet. A change of clothes. A pepper spray you found on your roommate’s shelf, which, you supposed, would be useless against someone like Baëkhyun. But did you have any other option? You had no powers and you would definitely not stand a chance against him in combat. Baekhyun used to train you a little, but you couldn’t even touch him in sparring unless he let you.

It was apparent that your only option was to run. So you did.

You jumped into the first cab you could get and asked the driver to head to the railway station. Making a mistake of not looking at him, you got onto your phone to try and figure out where to go from there. You didn’t notice that the car wasn’t even going in the right direction – not until it was taking a sharp turn right, off the main road, and onto the vacant plot of land, shielded from the road by a line of trees.

‘Excuse me, where are we going?’ You asked, looking around in confusion, finally paying attention.

‘I think we should take the quicker means of transportation, don’t you, Y/N?’ You saw a pair of oddly colored eyes in the mirror, and then the driver turned to face you.

‘J- Jongin?’ You gasped. ‘What’s wrong with your-’

‘It’s Kāi, darling,’ he chuckled, reaching for your arm.

Operating on instinct, you dodged his hand and attempted to open the door. It was locked.

‘Tsk. I thought we’d do it the nice way. Hyung asked me, after all,’ he tutted. ‘But I don’t think you’re willing to work with me here,’ he gritted that last part, suddenly pouncing at you through the space between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

You screamed and struggled, and then…

It was a blur.

Like movie scenes, your surroundings were changing around you rapidly, too fast for you to catch anything. It may have lasted a split second, but made you so dizzy that you shut your eyes to battle it. When you finally opened them again, your vision was still foggy – the entire surroundings spinning. Kāi let go of your arm, allowing you to stumble forward and barely get a hold of a vertical surface before releasing the contents of your stomach onto the ground.

‘I told you to be gentle with her. She’s not used to teleporting.’ Unmistakably, it was Baëkhyun’s voice.

‘I brought her here in one piece. See arms or legs missing? No? That’s about as gentle as I get.’ The taller one rolled his eyes.

Baëkhyun approached you, a frown on his face, and helped get your hair out of your face despite your weak protests.

‘Let’s get you inside,’ he said, holding you up by the shoulders when your insides were finally done doing flips.

‘Don’t touch me,’ you coughed, pressing your side into the wall to get away from the physical contact.

‘Y/N, please. Just do as you’re told if you don’t want to be hurt.’ You looked up at him, angry at yourself for being this dumb, but also upset because your trust was again broken.

And even though you kept telling yourself that you and Baëkhyun only had ‘a casual thing’ going on, it did hurt. It hurt like a motherfucker, because you were used by a person you... fell in love with. You didn’t understand much of their plan yet, but something told you that it was all meant to hurt another person you loved.

Your feelings had always clouded your judgment. And now you’d gotten yourself into a completely lose-lose situation.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Baëkhyun pursed his lips. ‘You shouldn’t have tried to run away.’

‘Right. Bad little birdie for thinking of self-preservation and for once seeing someone for what he is,’ you mocked frustratedly.

‘I’m truly wondering how you restrain yourself from slapping her.’ You heard Kāi muse from behind Baëkhyun. ‘Maybe you should head in, and I’ll teach her how to cooperate, hyung.’

‘Let’s go,’ the blonde one grabbed your wrist and nodded to his crude green-haired companion. ‘Lead the way.’

You had no choice but to allow him to drag you into the building. Only then you noticed that it was somewhere you’d been before – the base previously utilized by Baekhyun and the boys. Before they abandoned it, of course. It looked different and foreign now, the hallways long and dark as you were taken to the bigger room with a round table, where the others were waiting.

At that point you saw their faces, struck by the similarities all of them bore to the squad you used to know. Your head was spinning again.

‘H- how? Who are you?’ You managed, taking in the unfamiliar variations of familiar faces.

‘So, I take it he didn’t educate her on the clones?’ Chanyeol, or at least someone who looked like him, sneered.

‘What clones? I thought-’

You were interrupted by Baëkhyun, who cleared his throat and announced.

‘She’s here, let’s begin.’

‘Don’t act like we’re not the ones who had to wait while you played with your target,’ someone scoffed from the farther side of the table.

‘Shut up, Chën.’ The silvery-white head shot a glare in his direction, eyes going from grayish blue to a darker shade. ‘Suhø,’ he turned to the red-haired man.

‘Well, well,’ he got up from his chair. ‘If it isn’t the Y/N. To be honest, you should thank Baëkhyun for having so much patience – our first idea was to kidnap and torture you for intel.’

Your eyes flicked back to Baëkhyun’s profile, but he didn’t spare you a glance.

‘Oh, I see you’re still looking for comfort in a familiar face. That’s not part of the plan. Baëkhyun, step out.’

The strategist’s head turned at the leader’s words.

‘What?’

‘Get out of the room. I don’t need her to think she has someone to count on here.’

‘But-’

‘I told you we’re not going to kill her, only use her.’ You swallowed, realizing your heart was beating somewhere in your throat at this announcement.

‘Suhø,’ he pressed again.

‘You shouldn’t be so fond of your little toy, you know,’ Chën piped up, cracking his knuckles theatrically.

‘Just lay a finger on her,’ Baëkhyun growled in response, rays of red light escaping from his now tight fists.

‘Yah, we don’t have time for your bullshit,’ Suhø interrupted their bickering. ‘The sooner you get out, the sooner we’re done with her.’

Baëkhyun pursed his lips and gave him a curt nod. Not meeting your despairing eyes, he left you in the room. Alone. With these monsters.

‘Fucking finally,’ Kāi clapped excitedly. ‘Let’s get this show on the road!’

‘Sit her down in that chair,’ someone said and you were pushed down forcefully.

The men started rearranging the room, moving laptops and phones and other stuff closer to you.

‘Hold her down, Sehūn,’ the leader ordered, then gave a nod to Chën.

You barely managed to sit still as he approached, even your knees shaking with panic.

‘What do you want from me?!’ You blurted.

‘Nothing much. We simply need your voice,’ Suhø shrugged and looked at another one of his accomplices. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Xiümin.’

Swallowing hard, you took in his words. You were the bait. To lure out the EXOs, perhaps? Or simply… Baekhyun?

Your heart faltered.

No, no, no. This was a trap, you should’ve known all along. Nevertheless, you allowed them to fool you, giving these men the leverage they needed. You weren’t going to make a sound! Anything to keep the boys away from trouble. Your mind was made up.

‘I have the line. But you have to catch his attention quickly, he’ll hang up fast if you don’t.’

‘No problem,’ the leader affirmed.

Xiümin nodded and used the keyboard to type something into a weird interface. Then turned the speaker on.

A ring sounded, then another one. You prayed that no answer would come, but after the third ring, the call was taken. For a long second, there was silence.

‘If you hang up, Y/N is going to die,’ Suhø began.

You blinked, feeling the angry tears form again, as you pursed your lips to keep your pitiful sobs in.

‘Talk,’ the speaker responded in what you realized was Minseok’s voice.

‘We have her now. At your old base. Come by sunrise if you want her alive,’ Suhø was concise in his demands. Minseok was silent for a few moments.

‘Why should we believe you? Let her talk if she’s there.’

Everyone turned to you, and you kept chewing on your lip.

‘You heard him.’ The leader referred to you, but you shook your head.

A brutal hand landed a slap across your face and then grabbed you by the hair.

‘Use your voice,’ it was Chën.

You only looked down at the greyish floor, not even blinking when you tasted blood.

‘Y/N, if you are really there, please say something,’ you jolted at the voice.

It was him. It was Baekhyun.

Breathing accelerating and heart racing, you couldn’t help the tears anymore. Wanting to scream and beg for him to come back for you, you kept shaking your head and refusing to make a sound.

‘I guess she’s not willing to make it easy on herself. Chën,’ Suhø tilted his head slightly, and you felt hands on you.

Sehūn had you in a headlock now, and Chën grabbed onto your arm with a cruel chuckle, jerking it so violently that you could not contain a wild yell. They let go of you, and you wailed, grabbing onto your numb lifeless limb in horror. You had never broken any bones, so you had no idea if he dislocated it, or fractured it, or worse. The pain was so immense that you couldn’t even register your name being called from the speaker.

‘By sunrise,’ Suhø reminded before they finished the call.

At that very moment, the door flew open.

‘What the fuck?!’ You heard Baëkhyun roar.

Red sparks fell around you as Chën was blasted away from you by a red ball of light.

His eyes were completely black, with red sparks – like those you witnessed attacking your abuser just now – floating angrily in there.

‘Stop this circus!’ Suhø raised his voice as Chën got up, something resembling little bolts of lightning appearing and disappearing around his forearms. ‘Stand down, the both of you. She was being stubborn, and we had to extract a reaction quickly. Your little human will be fine,’ he huffed, as if this was a normal course of action.

‘I’m taking her now,’ Baëkhyun answered firmly, stepping towards you.

‘Not so fast. She is to stay here until they arrive. As leverage.’ Suhø cleared his throat when their strategist wanted to protest. ‘You can keep watch over her yourself, in your room, or we can throw her in the dungeon downstairs and the boys will.’

‘She’ll stay with me,’ he gritted, helping you up gently not to disturb your hurting arm and walking you out of the room.

As soon as the door behind you slammed shut, he gathered you into his arms to carry you to the next destination. You didn’t try to resist, legs too wobbly to walk anyways, so you just cradled your arm and sniffled, at first not even noticing the room he took you in was quite familiar, as Baekhyun used to stay in it.

Baekhyun.

You sobbed, replaying his voice in your mind. The way he said your name, and how he pushed for you to let him know if you were there, if you were in danger… The stinging in your chest reignited because now he was going to walk right into this ambush because of you. Beginning to cry even harder, you forgot about your damaged arm, and the hurt, and the person who sat you down on the bed and kneeled in front of you.

‘It shouldn’t have been like this, Y/N. They wouldn’t have hurt you-’ He began, touching your hand.

‘Stop it!’ You slapped him in the face angrily. ‘You played with my feelings all this time, and now you’re just using me to hurt people I care about. Do you expect me to believe that you meant no harm? I hate you, Baëkhyun!’

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered before raising his voice too. ‘But you shouldn’t have been stubborn! Why didn’t you just speak up?’

‘You really don’t understand?’ You asked in awe of his question. ‘You would if you ever loved anyone.’

‘So,’ he looked down at your lap, nudging his cheek with his tongue. ‘Is it Baekhyun? It’s because you still… love him?’

‘Why does it matter? I’m sure you guys, whoever you are, didn’t invite them here to have tea. What are you planning to do with them anyway? Is it about the Red?’

His eyes shot up to yours.

‘You know about the Red Force? He’s seriously dumb – telling you about them and leaving the clone part out!’

‘Yeah, and you’re so smart. Fooled a clueless girl with your great strategizing, well-fucking-done!’ Your words had plenty of bite, and Baëkhyun reacted.

‘Damn right! The only thing I didn’t do well to keep you safe is leaving your stubborn ass in the room with my crew, and it’s still so much better than the initial plan the Red had for you! I’ve kept you alive this long, haven’t I?’ He snapped at you, and you scoffed.

‘The only thing you didn’t- My arm was nearly ripped off, and it hurts like a motherfucker!’

‘Oh, does it now?’ He mocked, and you noticed how his fingers pressed onto certain spots of your arm, easing the pain significantly. ‘Chën could’ve done so much worse to you, Y/N. But this time he just used his knowledge of pressure points responsible for acute pain. And some of his power to shock you through them.’

He removed his fingers and you felt the pain subside, becoming almost irrelevant and foggy.

‘What- So it’s fine? My arm is fine?’ You asked, rubbing it in shock.

‘You’re fine,’ he breathed out, looking away.

For a while, you just sat like that, in complete silence.

‘Baëkhyun,’ you called, voice hoarse from all the crying. ‘Are you- going to kill them?’

He sucked his lower lip into his mouth, thinking your question over.

‘I don’t know. The plan is to capture and hand them over to the Red. There’s no telling what they’ll do to them this time.’

‘Shit,’ you swore, hiding your face in your palms. ‘This is all my fault.’

‘It isn’t. We were on their tail for a while, you just became our bargaining chip.’

Huffing, you hit the mattress with an open palm in a fit of annoyance.

‘Had I not trusted you so stupidly, this wouldn’t have happened!’

‘Oh, birdie,’ he tilted his head to the side, as if talking to a capricious child. ‘The way we met… sparked my interest. And when it was discovered that you used to be… his girlfriend,’ he paused. ‘Suhø wasn’t kidding – the Red suggested that we torture you. But I came up with a different plan, because I-,’ he looked away as if he struggled to continue. ‘I didn’t want them to hurt you.’

The way he stuttered drew your attention. But you weren’t willing to let him in again. Not about to make the same mistake twice. Instead, you kept questioning him.

‘Did you find ways to contact them through me, too?’

Baëkhyun nodded, and you gave him an expectant look. He sighed and elaborated.

‘The strawberry necklace. You told me it was from someone important to you, so I assumed it was Baekhyun, especially since he likes the damn thing. Checked it out when you were asleep because I know what I would’ve done.’

You were still confused as to what he meant.

‘He was tracking you live, so we managed to hack into it and trace the line back to a burner phone. We could not access the location without establishing a direct connection, but we got the number.’

‘I just gave you this one,’ you chuckled bitterly, and his blue eyes dropped to your knees again. ‘And now we’re freaking doomed.’

He shook his head to this. ‘I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I promise I’ll keep you safe.’

‘You think that’s what I want?! When the person I love gets murdered or worse, all thanks to-’

‘Stop saying that!’ He raised his voice again, hitting the mattress with a fist, red sparks flying everywhere without hurting you. ‘Why do you love him all that much? Didn’t he leave you?’

‘He’s walking into a trap to save me. And he’s a strategist like you, he clearly knows the odds. Are you really asking me why?’

Baëkhyun stared at you, chest heaving, and nostrils flared. It seemed like he wanted to argue, tell you that you were wrong. But instead, he looked away. His voice sounded hollow when he spoke again, eyes a dim shade of blue.

‘Get some rest. Tomorrow’s gonna be a tough day.’

Lying in bed wide awake most of the night, you prayed for a miracle that would somehow save your EXO boys.

>> Chapter 4 [fin]

A/N: Meet X-EXO ✨ So... What do you think of Baёk at this point? Is he a bad guy or worse? Is Y/N going to make it? Just one chapter left, we’re almost there!! Let’s hope that EXO show up on time yes I'm evil

[eienshi09]

Final FF3 Thoughts

I actually finished the game like, almost two weeks ago so these thoughts aren't as fresh as they normally are. Anyways, the DS remake of Final Fantasy III is alright. The story is a step backwards from Final Fantasy II and the pacing - both narratively and mechanically - is a little off. Additionally, I would warn that the final stretch of the game - especially the last dungeon (which is really 3 different dungeons strung together) - is a huge slog; and being unable to save during it really exacerbated the drag of it. But all that said, the core gameplay loop is solid and engaging. The Job System adds some depth and decision-making to the turn-based battle formula without being too micromanage-y, and it's fun enough playing around with your team composition despite the game's efforts to get in its own way. Although the random encounters rate isn't as bad as the previous two games and running from battle is a lot snappier, I would still only recommend the game with a way to fast-forward as some of the battle animations and transitions take a couple seconds longer than they need to.

While Final Fantasy II's story wasn't terribly deep, it at least opened dramatically with an invasion by the evil empire - immediately putting a name and face to the Bad GuysTM - and the story follows the exploits of our party of heroes as they prepare a resistance effort and mount a counterattack. Final Fantasy III, meanwhile, starts off with one of your party falling down a hole and getting told they have been chosen to fight against some nebulous encroaching darkness. In a vacuum, it's an alright hook to adventure as any, but taken within the series, it feels like it's an iteration of FFI without any of the dramatic or narrative development of FFII.

And to be clear, I'm not even against a pulpy adventure plot. But the device of having the Actual Big Bad be some unreasoning primordial force controlling the one we thought was the Big Bad was overdone even in 1990; and FFIII unfortunately doesn't even explore the trope all that well. Xande had an understandable, if basic, motivation: he wanted to regain his immortality because he couldn't see that being mortal can be a gift. Unfortunately, the game doesn't really do much else with that theme of living forever as a curse. Even so, Xande's summoning the forces of DarknessTM to achieve his ends could have been done as a deal with the devil that he, in his hubris, thought he could control. But we don't really explore that either. Not that I'm exactly expecting some deep philosophical takes from this character or even series, but a little more than just handwaving away any agency Xande could have had over his fate as The Cloud of Darkness just taking control of Xande and being the ultimate pupper master over everything. A good example of how a little more could have really fleshed out some of the characters actually exists in FFXIV's Crystal Tower raids despite the changes made to many of the characters' backgrounds.

Even if that was all of the character and narrative development we get, it was kind of crammed into the last quarter or so of the game. The first half or so follows the party around as they journey to each of the 4 Crystals to gain the Crystals' powers all the while seeing the state of the world as it is under the thumb of the agents of Darkness. We don't even learn the name Xande until about a third of the way through, just before the going to the second Crystal. But then, once we have the Nautilus and go seek out Doga, the plot just takes off and dumps on us a lot of lore and background that could have been spaced out throughout earlier parts of the game. On top of the exposition, the game's final challenge is a slog of an endurance test. Though you can save after the Labyrinth of the Ancients, there's no place to do so anywhere in The Crystal Tower, Eureka, or World of Darkness. So even if you were to clear out the loot in Eureka and The Crystal Tower individually, you'd still have to run through all of the Tower and World of Darkness in one go, which is A Lot.

Though the acquisition of jobs was not as back-loaded, they could have been better parted out as well. The first six are gained after the tutorial dungeon. Then it's a fairly long stretch before the second and third batch, which are almost back-to-back. You barely have time to get used to the second batch of Jobs before the game hands you the third set. But after the Water Crystal, it's another long stretch until the last six Jobs are gained at the very end of the game. By which point, the only content left to use them in is the final dungeons of the game. The second and last batch of Jobs should have been moved up earlier into the game to give us more time to get familiar with them. Not only that, but spreading them out more evenly would have better filled in the novel content curve of the game.

Awkward pacing aside, however, the Job System is very well implemented here. The only real low point of the system is Job Adjustment Period, which only hindered experimentation without adding anything back to the game. Outside of that though, each Job at least has an interesting mechanic if not its own identity, which makes experimenting with the team composition and discovering some of the synergies between the various class mechanics quite fun in and of itself (refractory period between job changes notwithstanding). And although some Jobs are definitely more useful than others, the balance between each Job is pretty even and - with the sole exception of the Scholar - every Job felt good enough to use.

[jallieae]

Lore/Meta Analysis Time

So, after watching all four of today’s streams, I’m left wondering and theorizing about a few things. Mainly, why make the choice to have c!Dream fake an escape? Why not, a) go through with it, or b) leave off on c!Techno escaping back to the Syndicate HQ?

Personally, I think that the whole point was to get the audience familiarized with the protocols of what would happen if c!Dream escapes -- like what the alarm sounds like for example, as Quackity continuously brought up Sam’s alarm even outside of complaining about the volume -- that way when c!Dream does escape -- whether or not c!Techno breaks him out -- there will be doubt about it, and the audience will have context needed to make the moment more impactful.

I think it was smart to tease the escape, that way the audience knows what an actual escape will look like and that way the prison arc is pushed back into relevancy after three months of no lore. It’s a brilliant segway on the cc’s part to get things heating up again without chucking a huge escape on an audience who has been in a lore drought for so long, and it also opened up a lot of possibilities for future lore for many characters. As of right now, c!Dream’s escape might stay limited to the Las Nevadas crew, or the news might just spread to others if c!Sam keeps his word not to spill about c!Dream’s actual whereabouts, which can pull in other characters like Tommy, Ranboo, Wilbur, and hopefully also people like Niki and Eret and Sapnap who haven’t really dipped into the prison arc at all (and I know cc!Eret wanted back into lore and this could be a good opportunity!)

Bouncing off that, I think it’s super interesting that c!Dream does not want c!Quackity to know he is alive and contained. While he says he is afraid of c!Quackity killing him, I doubt that’s why. I think that c!Dream knows how to play to c!Sam’s weaknesses a lot better than he does c!Quackity. c!Quackity is much more resistant to c!Dream’s tactics, or at least better at recognizing them. He also has less weaknesses that c!Dream can exploit verbally, whereas c!Sam has made it clear that he still harnesses a lot of guilt and anger about c!Tommy and what c!Dream did to him. c!Quackity has also exploited this guilt before to manipulate c!Sam into letting him bring weapons into the prison -- it works well. With c!Sam isolated away from c!Quackity’s influence, he is much easier for c!Dream to manipulate, and he might even start falling back into his previous, more detached Warden persona, which would be even better for c!Dream. With c!Quackity out of the picture, c!Sam has succeeded in isolating himself both to c!Dream and also to the responsibility of keeping c!Dream in check. While his resilience seems strong so far, likely fueled by anger about c!Tommy, only time can tell whether or not that will hold true.

But what does c!Dream want from c!Sam in that scenario? I think it’s literally to go to the courtyard like he asked. He pitched it in a way that made it seem like he was yearning for the sun again, and he exaggerated the isolation by bringing up the other inhumane protocols of the prison like the food of choice. While c!Sam called him on his bullshit, c!Dream admitted that he didn’t think he’d end up in the cell, which I think is true. I think that he predicted he might need to get out of the prison somehow, but not that he’d end up in the maximum security cell, and that that failsafe is planted in the courtyard that c!Sam shut down because of a vague “security issue.” We also know that c!Dream left c!Techno coordinates that lead to a chest containing blueprints and a note. These are likely c!Dream’s original blueprints, as this stream it was stressed about c!Dream’s immense involvement in designing the prison. And it likely contains an escape route linked to the courtyard, or something of the other. I doubt it’d be something like a stasis chamber, as that’d be kind of lazy. Not to mention that that would also eliminate the use of actual blueprints. If c!Techno goes forward with busting c!Dream out, I think it’ll be after c!Dream whittles down c!Sam’s resilience and pleads his way into the courtyard somehow. It’s simply been teased too much both on Twitter, by c!Quackity as he tried to get out of the prison, and c!Dream himself. I’m willing to bet that c!Dream either called in his favor, or exploited c!Techno’s firm belief in absolute reciprocity in order to get c!Techno to break him out, as the favor was mentioned by either c!Sam or c!Quackity (can’t remember.)

And then let’s move onto to c!Quackity, who’s dead set on c!Dream going after Las Nevadas once he’s out. And while I have no doubt that that is one of c!Dream’s priorities -- he is very good at exploiting specific weaknesses, and he knows that c!Quackity has lost basically every home he’s ever had -- I think that c!Quackity’s paranoia was a massive red herring as to what c!Dream actually will make his first priority. cc!Sam mentioned that Logstedshire would become plot-relevant again, and c!Tommy was brought up a lot during the stream, and so I think that while the narrative may paint it in a way that seems like c!Dream and c!Quackity are going to have some sort of war (or battle, if c!Quackity’s “battle log” is any indication), I think that that is just smoke and mirrors for the actual outcome. I have no doubt that c!Tommy is definitely about to be targeted, especially as c!Sam continues to bring up c!Dream’s treatment of c!Tommy, which he can likely spin into c!Tommy’s fault for him being subject to that in the first place. This would likely drag c!Wilbur back into the mix if c!Dream goes after c!Tommy, because the whole “Dream is my hero thing” has been set up to get challenged, and without c!Tommy blantantly dropping the details of exile onto c!Wilbur, I can’t see what would be a better challenge then c!Dream literally being out and c!Wilbur having to deal with that as well. 

But yeah, this is basically my predictions as to where the SMP is going from here, at least involving Las Nevadas and the prison arc. Hopefully we’ll see many other arcs and characters get intertwined with this. It’d be a cool parallel to the end of the Disc War finale, and hopefully the Syndicate won’t erase all of the characters’ development in order to make it some epic Dream & Syndicate vs. Tommy, Las Nevadas, and etc. It would be cool though for c!Phil and c!Techno to go through with breaking c!Dream out and then regretting or seeing why they definitely shouldn’t have done that. Maybe we can even have some Bedrock Bros content since there have been tons of parallels and contrasts with c!Techno being imprisoned with c!Dream and c!Tommy being imprisoned with c!Dream (like the dog, for example. Also the motif of hope being inside of Pandora’s vault/box). Also please give us some exile arc details reveal or Dream’s mega evil plan for server control reveal (to Techno + Syndicate specifically) because I have wanted this for monthssss. c!Techno you want to realize that c!Dream literally wanted to take Carl from you soooooo bad.

TL;DR: This lore stream was epic and I think it’s a huge setup for some other major events and it also gave us so much character insight that I am actually vibrating with theory overload as I write this. 

[sanjuno]

Meta Fic rides again

I'm a little stuck on how to word something in my Nano 2020 project so I decided to take a break by trying to read “Scum Villain’s Self Saving System” again and failed horribly because I got to the part when Binghe comes back and my interest died a quick and messy death for yet a third time. Someone write me a giant pile of gen-fic and LiuShen AUs to heal my heart.

Here, I’ll start us off:

Spite and Fury (or; PEDW is a hive of Scum and Villainy)

So bitter-old-man!Madara dies of old age after he passes his Epic Revenge Plot over into Obito’s keeping, and the Sage’s knockoff-brand cycle-of-transmigration peels Indra’s chakra out of Madara’s soul - which results in dying!Madara having a screaming ragefit that sends his spirit-and-chakra careening through the void between worlds

At which point shattered-and-fragmenting-more!Madara gets into an altercation with the System and since the System is a little bitch it tosses Madara into the worst possible Fate it can think of (see: PEDW)

Transmigration bullshit and Sharingan fuckery smash into each other in a gigantic clusterfuck of asspulls

Madara is missing bits because Indra’s imprint got ripped out

The Shen Jiu base soul is missing bits because torture and previous abuse of his character by the System

The resulting villain amalgamation is Not Pleased

Instead of landing in the divergence point chosen by the System - aka the Qi deviation fever shortly after Binghe arrives at Cang Qiong Sect – we instead have the jigsaw puzzle mashup of Mads-and-Jiu land in baby-slave Jiu’s body

The good news is Madara and Jiu stop fragmenting because they end up woven together - they’re stuck together as an almost-single person only with two different sets of memories

Character exploration is going to be an EVENT

Also the Madara part of them is really happy with the silky smooth hair

Also Yue “lets-Binghe-kill-him-because-he-thinks-Shen-Jiu-is-dead” Qi is cast is a much better light when compared to Senju “stabs-his-sworn-brother-in-the-back” Hashirama

So Mads-Jiu plays it close to canon for the first few years - the only real difference is that he tags his Jiejie with a tracking seal for after he escapes from slavery - he’s not leaving his ability to find her again up to chance or developing a reputation as a whoremonger if he can help it

When he gets bought by the Qiu is when Mads-Jiu starts being a manipulative little shit like we all know he is

Xanatos-pileup-or-bust!Mads-Jiu basically lets Yue Qi escape alone because he NEEDS Yue Qi to become Cang Qiong Sect Leader for his long-term plans to work properly

So Mads-Jiu warns Yue Qi that if he has to be CAREFUL because cultivating is dangerous and if Yue Qi comes back missing any pieces then Jiu will cut the EXACT SAME BITS OFF HIMSELF

And so Yue Qi is EXTREMELY safety conscious and the life eating sword drama is avoided entirely

Of course he’s also taking longer to reach his initial strength levels than in canon because he isn’t rushing

So there’s nothing like Yue Qi showing up early to trigger a plot divergence alert in the System

</mwahahaha>

Mads-Jiu is more pragmatic regarding Qiu Haitang’s so-called innocence this time around - and so he arranges for her to catch the Creeper Qiu bro abusing and assaulting Shen Jiu

Haitang is HORRIFIED AND DISGUSTED to see what her brother is doing to her fiancé and also TERRIFIED by the fact that he talks the entire time about how sweet it’s going to be when it’s HAITANG under him

The Qiu burn on schedule but Haitang kills her fair share - double Qi deviations FTW!

The system does not notice such a minor change in the background events - Jiu kills the Qiu, burns down their house, and Haitang survives the fire with vengeance raging in her heart

Mads-Jiu kills the demonic creeper that was hanging around because ew no and also keep your hands of Haitang

Again, it’s too close to canon for the System to notice - Jiu killed him in defense of a “childhood friend” so hahaha again

Instead of being used as a stalking horse by an evil master Mads-Jiu runs off with Haitang to track down and rescue his Jiejie

Shenanigans ensue

Afterwards Mads-Jiu “has an idea to help find Qi-ge” by asking around for him at the Immortal Alliance Conference

Of course there are more shenanigans and Yue Qi saves all three by claiming that they’re Cang Qiong disciples - so of course he drags all 3 of them back with him and wibbles at the current Sect Leader until he lets them all join

Still (mostly) following canon! Ha! So no “punishment” events get triggered in the System (which is mostly dormant because the Protagonist isn’t born yet XP)

Qiu Haitang was supposed to join a Sect! Jiejie got sold on schedule! Shen Jiu killed the Qiu and his “first master”! Yue pesters his Shizun into letting his sibling(s) join the Sect in an unorthodox fashion!

But the devil is in the details

And the devil’s name is Uchiha Madara

Jiejie ends up as Peak Lord for Talisman Peak because magic and seals saved her before

Haitang ends up Peak Lord for Hidden Peak because she refuses to be caught unawares by a dangerous secret ever again... also because she’s a mean sneaky bitch and owns it

Having more than one sibling for the Sect Leader to blatantly favour means less wholesale resentment directed at Mads-Jiu as well

However the Jiu part of them has memories from PIDW and also SVSSS - so he knows that shit is going to get horrible once Su Xiyan gets knocked up

Obviously the answer is to seduce all of his fellow peak lords into a glorious polyamorous clusterfuck so as to promote skinship and pack bonding and harmony among the sect leadership

(It worked for PIDW Binghe with his wives and SVSSS Shen Yuan with getting Bing-mei to chill his tits after all and nobody can trip you into bed quite like a shinobi)

And so Cang Qiong’s family aesthetics get rocked so hard that instead of panting after his Shizun baby disciple Binghe decides to seduce his peers...

... and his rivals

... and other sect’s disciples

... and the occasional demon

Mads-Jiu is really proud of his baby demon lord but makes sure not to single Binghe out - instead every Qing Jing disciple gets rewarded and punished at the same time

It promotes bonding! And teamwork!

And prevents the utter destruction of Mads-Jiu’s chrysanthemum via oversized demonic pillar!

There is totally going to be an extra where Mads-Jiu realizes that the average size of a male cultivators pillar is DANGEROUSLY EXCESSIVE

NOBODY NEEDS THAT MUCH PILLAR

Even HIS pillar hasn’t escaped the curse

BIGGER IS NOT BETTER!

How the fuck is he supposed to fight if he can’t even wear pants comfortably!?!?

(No wait come back Mu-shidi this shixiong is sorry it wasn’t mockery it was a perfectly reasonable tantrum that was a long time coming now stop sulking your dick is very pretty let shixiong make it up to you~)

And at some point there will be a wild Bing-ge who appears to cause trouble with a mirror that’s intended to temporarily transform people into the form of their last life - he aims it at the native Bingbing to get him out of the way so he can steal the “nice” Shizun

It would have been Pom time for Bingbing but Mads-Jiu pushes him out of the way

And cue giant explosion of dark Qi as a bonus expansion pack of Madara’s 10-tail Jinchuriki time with powers-and-memories gets downloaded into Mads-Jiu

Mads-Jiu the “Heavenly Demon Demi God” drops several mountains worth of flaming meteor rock on the invaders and then goes on a giant flaming skeleton rampage against Bing-ge

... Bing-ge has changed his mind he doesn’t want this Shizun take him back and oh gods the shrieking

How does he shriek so loud? Doesn’t he need to breathe?

... ok so Shizun breathes fire that’s good to know

Whelps time to bravely run away

And then the amassed sects need to figure out how to calm down the rampaging hell beast

The youngest Qing Jing disciple is brought out and told to cry for Shizun

Actually-a-broody-hen!Mads-Jiu whips around and starts fussing over his baby student

Because baby why are you crying stop it tell Shizun who hurt you and he will BURN THEM TO ASH

The last bit I have an idea for involves Mads-Jiu getting yanked though dimensions because Edo Tensei where he instantly twigs to what is going on and pushes the “righteous cultivator” skin to maximum strength

He shoves all the baby ninja behind him and keeps barrier spamming the zombie army - because ew no stay away from the children resentful corpses

Zetsu is included in the zombie army shall not pass smack down

Zombie!Tobirama is appalled because wut? Wasn’t this supposed to be Madara’s zombie? What is happening?

And I dunno something where he “notices” the resentful energy surrounding Danzo because stealing the eyes of the people you murdered is bad karma

So Mads-Jiu does a spirit thing and the ghosts of the Uchiha rips Danzo apart while screaming about his guilt in full view of the entire Village

And then Mads-Jiu goes home because filial little Bingbing came to get him and he’s not enjoying upending the shinobi social order nope not at all whom exactly do you take him for?

... Yes he’s done and ready to go back to his spouses now he’s sure the ninja have all learned better than to raise living corpses now anyway

The end

=/=

[skullsandwineglasses]

Lost Romance Final Review (Taiwanese Drama)

I wrote about my first impressions of the drama after watching the first three episodes, and my first impression about it being cringey still stands even after having finished it. But, I admit that I did end up enjoying it despite my qualms. My thoughts about the whole drama are below. 

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

The fictional world

The ML’s fictional persona (Situ Aoran) is hella douchey, and the drama only gives an explanation for why he was like that in the final episode. Essentially, Situ Aoran is the worst version of He Tinxing that he’s tried to hard to suppress and overcome over the years. It’s the version of him that’s childish, immature, arrogant, irresponsible, unreasonable. And yet, the FL, Zheng Xiao’en, still falls for this version of him. It’s a story about unwavering, unconditional love no matter who you are. On the other hand, Xiao’en begins as a “villainous” person in Aoran’s eyes, and yet, he learns to fall in love with her as well.  

But, this meant that for the first 15 episodes of the drama, which is basically three quarters of the drama, I was constantly annoyed by Aoran/the fictional ML. Even when he got together with Xiao’en in the fictional world, I found it hard to ship them. Yes, Marcus Chang and Vivian Sung have chemistry, but I just didn’t enjoy the romance in the fictional world all that much. 

I wasn’t hooked on the drama until episode 8ish when he finally showed some signs of liking Xiao’en, and then it picks up in episode 10 when he finally starts to take more initiative. But for the most part, it was Qingfeng, the second ML was the one who stole the show. 

I’ve never had second male lead syndrome before, but I think that’s because in most dramas I’ve watched, even though the second male lead may unconditionally devoted to the FL, the ML still somehow does more. 

But in Lost Romance, because the ML keep was dismissive, insensitive, and kept inadvertently hurting the FL, you end up finding that Qingfeng is actually someone who is dependable, supportive, a ray of sunshine, and an all-around better person in Xiao’en’s life. Not only that, but he’s hella charming as well. Simon Lian has such as mischievous glint in his eyes, and he carries himself with easy confidence. He flirts with Xiao’en, and she doesn’t even realize it. He’s a fictional character who’s become self-aware, and this sense of awareness and wisdom that no one else in the fictional world has makes him an even more attractive character since he’s able to see through everyone. What’s more, he goes against the script and falls for Xiao’en even when he isn’t supposed to. Him falling for Xiao’en made more sense than Aoran falling for Xiao’en. 

Xiao’en and Aoran’s romance in the fictional world was very predictable. She lives in his house as a housekeeper, and he slowly warms up to her, but denies his feelings. When she leaves, he begins to miss her and gets jealous whenever she hangs out with the SML. He falls for her because she gives him a sense of safety and comfort. He feels at home with her, a feeling that he was deprived of since he was young. But because of this, it felt like the only reason he fell for her was because of what she can provide for him. And Xiao’en fell for him because he at first reminded her of He Tianxing, and then because he’s role as the ML in the story. And then she fell for him for real, flaws and all. But I guess this is a reflection of how love develops irl where both parties are able to offer something to the other in the relationship. 

Qingfeng’s feelings for Xiao’en felt more pure and altruistic, which albeit makes it unrealistic, but I guess it suits his character, since he is an idealized fictional character after all. 

The real world

Because Qingfeng is a fictional character, he has no real-world counterpart, so we don’t see him again after episode 15. He gets his “happy ending” in the last episode when the author finally finishes his story and he’s reunited with his storyworld sweetheart, but I still felt like there was no proper closure for his character. He finally developed real feelings, but then he’s forced back into his scripted role. 

I liked how the ML and FL’s real life personas were different from the fictional world, and the drama takes a more serious tone when they return to the real world. He Tianxing is much more kind, considerate, and thoughtful than Aoran. His costuming also changed to reflect that: he no longer wears an earring, his hair is combed up instead of hanging over his forehead, and he doesn’t wear flashy rings and necklaces. He’s much more down-to-earth and humble, and you start to like him more. 

Xiao’en is also much more mature. She isn’t fawning and lusting over him like in the fictional world, and she doesn’t force herself onto him, or to make him remember her. She knows that she loves Aoran, and tries to keep her attraction for Tianxing separate because she still hasn’t yet figured out whether they’re the same person. When her bestfriend asks her why she doesn’t assert herself more to jog his memory, Xian’en says that this is real life. It isn’t like the fictional world where you can be shameless with no consequence. 

This means that the romantic dynamics become reversed in the real world. It’s now Tianxing’s turn to pursue Xiao’en, and Xiao’en resists. And I admit, it was cute. We get to see Tianxing fall for Xiao’en for herself and who she is as a person, and not because she’s his housemaid and lives with him. He becomes curious about her: he buys and reads all the books he’s edited, he asks her questions about her childhood and upbringing, and asks her about her feelings and opinions on things, he asks her about her memorable experiences. In the real world, he actually cares about her, not just what she can offer him. We also see Xiao’en learn about Tianxing and fall for his real-life traits. It’s an opportunity for them to truly learn about each other and fall for each other again. 

The part when Tianxing reads the novel and regained his memories felt too abrupt and easy. It would have been more fun for the memories to come back in parts over time and him trying to figure out the pieces of the puzzle. It would have also have been nice to see him spend more time trying to convince Xiao’en that he really does remember and isn’t just regurgitating details from the novel. In other words, I’m a masochistic viewer and would have appreciated more drawn-out angst, but they quickly resolved this plotline within through a single gesture in the scene. 

Tianxing’s relentless and determined pursuit to win over Xiao’en was cute, but only the context of this drama. He overtly stalks her using a drone, but as payback because that was how she stalked him at the beginning. A part of me knew that in any other drama, this would be creepy and overstepping boundaries, but I still couldn’t help but smile at these antics in Lost Romance. Maybe because Tianxing was reversing their roles and now he’s doing the heavy lifting to win her back, but in any case, it worked and was charming. 

The family business drama

Honestly, I couldn’t care less. I skipped most scenes whenever the real-world family drama was shown, and I was still able to understand what happened in the end. The evil sister stops being evil and realizes the error of her ways (and actually has a pretty sympathetic backstory to explain her previous actions and motives) and joins forces with the ML, her younger half brother that she had wanted to kill, in order to take down a once-trusted employee who is now trying to take over and destroy the family business. 

These scenes dragged out the story, but I guess they served as a reminder that the real world is still alive and kicking while the ML and FL were in a three-month long coma. 

Questions

Like with most fantasy dramas, you end up accepting the plot holes and rolling with them. But there are still a few questions I still can’t get over:

1. How exactly did He Tianxing and Xiao’en end up in the fictional world of a random novel together? Why was only Xiao’en self-aware but Tianxing wasn’t? Was it because Xiao’en was editing the book so she already knew part of the story? Why did Tianxing fall into Situ Aoran’s character and why didn’t he have agency over his actions and feelings until later, while Xiao’en was a self-insert with full agency?

2. Why were only Tianxing and Xiao’en inhabiting fictional bodies, while the other characters only had the likeliness of people from real life but not the “soul” (since the characters were still conscious in real life)? Were Tianxing and Xiao’en projecting their memories of the appearances of the people they knew onto the characters in the storyworld, thereby creating a jointly shared fictional world? For instance, only Tianxing knew Chuchu irl, but Xiao’en didn’t, so he projected his image of ChuChu onto the character that Xiao’en could also see? But the fictional world was shown to be a parallel universe that had real consequences in the real-world, so the explanation for the appearance of the fictional characters can’t just be due to Tianxing and Xiao’en projecting their memories. These characters truly exist as separate, alternate entities in the storyworld. So, what exactly are these characters? Souless entities?

3. Qingfeng says that he floats from one story to the next. So why are some fictional characters fully fictional like Qingfeng, but other characters have real-life counterparts?

4. Why and how does the novel change irl when the fictional world changes? It’s also a pity that the author is completely uninvolved with all of these shenenigans, and it’s unfortunate that her novel is being using as the ML and FL’s playground. She basically lost control of her own story.

Overall impressions

It’s refreshing for a cdrama/twdrama, and they managed to keep Qingfeng’s identity a mystery for good part of the plot to keep you guessing. But for the most part, it’s another predictable, tropey modern romance drama. Even when they tried to subvert the tropes, their method of subversion was predictable. The chemistry and comedy was good, so I’d recommend it only if you have a high tolerance for cringe, since the cringe never really ends but does get better towards the last act of the drama when they return to the real world and gets more serious. 

I think I’d give this drama a 7.5, mostly because I gave My Girlfriend is an Alien an 8. So if I gave Lost Romance an 8, I would bump MGIAA an 8.5 to keep it relative. 

Both dramas feature a ML who deals with memory loss. The arc in Lost Romance was more serious and emotional since the FL is heartbroken over the loss, but the part where the ML regains his memory was a bit rushed. The arc in MGIAA is more comedic, but the part where he regains his memory had a bigger emotional payoff since memory loss was a major problem that the ML had been trying to overcome throughout the drama. 

Might be an unpopular opinion but I think might have enjoyed this more than the Romance of Tiger and Rose. The Romance of Tiger and Rose was good, but it wasn’t very memorable. I watched it last summer, but I barely remember any details about it besides finding Zhao Lusi to be really cute. I think this drama made me feel more emotions: from frustration to embarrassment to relief to having butterflies to angst to sadness to amused. 

Aoran/Tianxing and Qingfeng are also more interesting than Han Shuo. I guess I’ll wait 8 months to see if I still feel anything for this drama, or if it fades with time too. 

Some other interesting notes

I had thought this drama was filmed in 2019 until I saw a sign on a bus that said “No boarding without a mask”. Turns out it was filmed in April 2020 or so, and then released in June. I was surprised that this was filmed during the peak of the pandemic when most western countries were in lockdown, but I understand that Taiwan already had things under control by then. But still, even if there wasn’t a pandemic, they filmed this in only 2-3 months, which is a quick and impressive turnaround time to film and edit a drama (even if it’s only 20 episode long). There was no indication this was filmed during a pandemic, except for the bus sign, and also the people walking in the background at the temple. You could tell many were wearing masks. Meanwhile, it’s been over a year since the pandemic started, and I’m still stuck at home, schools and outdoor activities are still closed where I am, and it just feels like my life is on hold. And yet, they filmed an entire ass drama during a pandemic. I still can’t get over that. 

I haven’t watched a Taiwanese drama in a while, so there are some notable cultural differences I noticed between Taiwanese dramas and cdramas when I watched Lost Romance. 

1. The uncensored intimate scenes 2. Swearing (?). Can’t remember when exactly, but I think Vivian Sung at one point said “wo kao” when she woke up and stumbled to the bathroom 3. The casual (and accurate) integration of English words and phrases. You can tell that Taiwan is much more open and comfortable with sprinkling English into their everyday vernacular. Hong Kong dramas do this as well. You see this less so in cdramas. English and other foreign languages are only used when the character is speaking to a foreign character.  4. No use of heavy filters and diffusers. Cdramas tend to look very glowy and dreamy, and they seem to use wide apertures to get a bokeh effect. Lost Romance had a more down-to-earth look. Granted, at points it did look a little dated, but I still appreciated this more toned-down, natural look.  5. LQBTQ+ references. Not only was there an accidental kiss scene between the FL and SFL, but they also mentioned how one of the male characters might be having an affair with a man. While there are BL idol dramas in China, all of the relationship dynamics are usually only heavily implied. There aren’t many explicit references to LGBTQ+ relationships in cdramas due to censorship.  6. References and homages/parodies of kdramas. Have there been cdramas that pay homage to foreign dramas as much as Lost Romance? 7. Original, non-dubbed voices. Yes, there are plenty of cdramas that use the original voices of actors, but there are also a lot of cdramas that use dubbed voices. Sometimes I’d binge watch 3 cdramas in a row, and the FLs and MLs have the same respective voice actors across all 3 dramas. The reason why I chose to watch Lost Romance was because I wanted to watch The Legends, but the FL uses the same voice actress as the FL in MGIAA, which I had just finished, so I needed a drama in between with different voices to help cleanse my palate.  8. Excessive cuts/commercial breaks. Always right before a character is about to say something pivotal, it cuts to a themesong break, which was really annoying. It really ruins the mood and suspense of the scene. And when it cuts back, it replays the last 20 seconds of the scene, while you’re on the end of your seat, yelling at the screen to tell them to get on with it and get to the point. 

Anyway. Time to watch Cafe. Waiting. Love for Marcus and Vivian. 

[gunterfan1992]

Episode Review: ‘Obsidian’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 2)

Airdate: November 19, 2020

Story by: Jack Pendarvis, and Kate Tsang, Adam Muto, & Hanna K. Nyström

Storyboarded by: Hanna K Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, Iggy Craig, Mickey Quinn, Maya Petersen, James Campbell, & Ashlyn Anstee

Directed by: Miki Brewster (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

Of all the many colorful characters in Adventure Time perhaps none has a more elaborate backstory than Marceline the Vampire Queen. In many ways, Marceline really was the writers’ gold goose, engendering complex story after complex story. By the time the series ended, the vampire’s life had in more ways than one been woven into the very fabric of the show’s mythology.

But because I am a Marceline fanboy—whose zeal for her majesty is rivaled perhaps only by Glassboy himself—I always felt like the show could have done even more with her backstory; I mean, when the series finale aired, there were still plenty of questions that had yet to be answered (What happened to her mom? What is Simon going to do now that he’s “cured”? How did Marcy and Bubblegum meet? Were they romantically involved before the events of the main series? How did it all go south?). Nevertheless, when "Island Song” played for the last time at the end of “Come Along with Me,” I forced myself to push aside this minor, fannish grievance and applaud the show for writing such an excellent character. I didn’t need for every last detail of her life to be explicitly shown on screen. I was happy.

But then, about a year ago, news dropped that one of the Distant Lands specials would really delve into the history of Marceline and Bubblegum’s relationship. In an instant, I tossed my stoic “I-am-satisified-with-what-I-received” mentality right out the window. We were going to get another Marceline episode, and it was going to dive back into her elaborate backstory!?! I could barely contain my excitement as I waited for the episode to drop.

Well, was my excitement worth it? Or was “Obsidian” a big ol’ let down—a tragic victim to grandiose expectations that were never meant to be fulfilled?

I’m quite happy to say that not only was “Obsidian” a remarkable special in its own right, but it is arguably one of the strongest episodes of Adventure Time, period.

The plot of this episode is fairly standard, as far as Adventure Time episodes go: Glassboy (a new character voiced by Michaela Dietz, the voice of Amethyst from Steven Universe) accidentally sets a giant fire monster named Molto Larvo loose on the Glass Kingdom, and Marceline and Bubblegum—who we learn have been living their best cottagecore life together in Marcy’s cavehouse—are forced to save the day. But the series’ writers take this otherwise quotidian adventure idea—a story which, at least on paper, could have easily fit in during any of the show’s many seasons—and employ it as something of a Trojan Horse, using it as a pretense to delve into both Marcy’s traumatic childhood and her and Bubblegum’s romantic history. And, boy, is it a ride!

With regard to the former story thread, the audience learns that sometime after the Mushroom Bomb detonated, Marceline and her mother, Elise (voiced this time not by Rebecca Sugar, but by actress Erica Luttrell, who played Sapphire in Steven Universe), roamed the wastelands in search of shelter; after Marceline’s mother came down with some sort of sickness, she sent Marceline to be on her own. Elise was hoping that this would spare Marcy the trauma of seeing her mother die before her very eyes, but due to some communication issues, Marceline never learned what became of her mother. As such, Marceline began blaming herself for “leaving” her mom to die in the wreckage of the world. This plot thread is perhaps one of the bleakest that Adventure Time has ever explored, and the show does it masterfully, balancing the darkness (e.g., Marceline’s mother coughing up blood) with bright spots of comedy (e.g., the "wazzup” dog) that never feel distasteful.

Likewise, when it comes to the story thread about Marcy and Bubblegum’s romantic history, the special does not hold back. We get to see “Bubbline” at its best and its worst. I have a feeling that the word “fan service” is going to be used by a lot of folks when talking about this episode. As the AV Club writer William Hughes notes, this word is usually hurled around like a pejorative, but it aptly describes the appeal of “Obsidian”. After all, this episode really is “fan service at its finest”—not only does it give the ravenous shippers the story tidbits that they have so long to see (e.g., the moment Marcy gave Bubblegum her rock shirt, Bubbline’s epic break-up), but—and this is very important—it does so in a way that is fundamentally meaningful. “Obsidian” does not feel self-indulgent, unnecessary, or pandering. On the contrary, it is overflowing with deep emotion that allows us to better understand how Bubblegum and Marceline really feel about one another. Sure, over the centuries that the two gals have bummed around Ooo, they have bickered and fought, but deep down, their love is passionate. In many ways, it is like the titular obsidian, which means that nothing short of an enchanted diamond pickax is strong enough to break Bubbline apart for good.

(It’s also quite nice that after seasons and seasons of tip-toeing around the question of Marceline and Bubblegum’s sexuality, “Obsidian” can explicitly focus on their life together, showing the two characters cuddling, kissing, and dancing. In terms of LGBTQ+ representation, it’s a huge leap forward, and I’m so happy that Adventure Time has had a part to play in normalizing queer relationships!)

Marceline episodes almost always featured a catchy diddy, but "Obsidian” really cranks things up to 11 by featuring a whole bevy of catchy songs, several of which are perhaps among the show’s strongest. The first right banger, “It’s Funny,” is the song that plays over the special’s credits. With a grunge-meets-riot grrrl feels, this track really sets the tone for the episode, signaling to the audience that we’re in for, as Lumpy Space Princess once put it, some “drama bombs.” The next standout is “Woke Up,” a brutally honest diss track that Marceline used both to contain Molto Larvo and break up with Princess Bubblegum centuries prior to the start of this episode. This song was written by pop rocker Zuzu, and it—as the kids say—slaps. Layers of fuzzed-out guitar and digitally processed vocals are used expertly to sell Marceline’s emotions and convey how, on the surface, she’s delighted to no longer be under Bubblegum’s romantic spell... even if her heart may not be so sure.

But arguably, the musical jewel of the entire special is “Monster,” a somber ballad that Marceline sings to Bubblegum when they find themselves trapped in the collapsing furnace and are facing what they believe is certain death. Written by indie pop artist Half Shy, this song is, in many ways, something of the inverse of “Woke Up”: soft, happy, and filled to the brim with a sort of love that few are lucky to receive and even fewer can honestly express. Not only does “Monster” finally cement Marceline’s real, visceral love for Bubblegum in song form (remember: almost every prior Bubbline song was either indirect or delivered by an angsty, heartbroken Marceline), but it also “tames” Molto Larvo, allowing him to metamorphose into a strange but harmless cat-butterfly critter. Just like “Come Along with Me,” “Obsidian” proves that the power of love and music will save us in the end—if not physically, then at least emotionally.

Regarding the production-side of things, there’s a lot of praise to doll out. First off, the look and style of “Obsidian” is gorgeous. While “BMO” opted to experiment somewhat with the classic Adventure Time art style, trading cel shading for an almost watercolor feel, “Obsidian” echoes the aesthetic of the original series. That said, there’s an undeniable animation bump—likely courtesy of that sweet, sweet HBO money—that lets Ooo and its denizens shine in all their glory. You can tell that Adam Muto, art director Sandra Lee, supervising director Miki Brewster, and all the members of the production staff really went above and beyond the call of duty. The episode's soundtrack, composed by Amanda Jones, as deserves a shout-out. Jones did an excellent job mixing the chiptune style of the original series with a bass-heavy rock sound that highlights Marceline’s starring role. Bravo!

As another production aside, I should point out that CN/HBO’s decision to make these specials each 44 minutes was the right call. The 11 minute format of the original series often left something to be desired when it came to plot development, as many an important episode was forced to end somewhat prematurely due to time constraints; conversely, the 8-episode miniseries format that the show experimented with during its latter days sometimes felt like too much time (Stakes, Islands, and Elements all had whole episodes that felt like nothing more than the show treading water). The length of “Obsidian”, however, was just right, giving us plenty of time to take in what was happening without ever feeling like it was dragging.

A final aspect of this episode that is worth mention is its many call-backs to previous episodes and characters. “BMO” was mostly a self-contained story that, due to its nature as a prequel in space, really couldn’t reference the Land of Ooo without feeling forced. “Obsidian,” however, throws in everything and the kitchen sink (Adventure Time superfan and all-around cool person Jagm has collected most of them here for those of you who want to see everything laid out nicely). Stand-outs for me include Choose Goose (someone who we really haven’t seen since season five) smuggling sketchy products into the Candy Kingdom, post-Ice King Simon trying his hand at open mic nights, Bronwyn as an adventurous hero, and Finn the (Adult!) Human complete with beard and scars! Of note, Jake does not appear in this episode, except as a tattoo on Finn’s chest. Many in the fandom are now speculating that the events of “Obsidian” take place after our beloved shapeshifting dog’s death. Oh say it ain’t so! Perhaps we’ll learn more in “Together Again.”

Mushroom War Evidence: Unlike “BMO,” which directly referenced the Mushroom War and its fallout (both literally and figuratively), this episode returned to the show’s roots by featuring gobs of explicit hints in throw-away lines or elaborate background pieces. Honestly, there is far too many to list here in a pithy paragraph, but some major references include: the reveal that the Glass Kingdom, like the Fire Kingdom, was created by ‘magic’ blaze from the heavens (almost certainly a nuke); the fact that Marceline and her mother wandered for a time in the debris-filled wastelands following the apocalypse; and the reveal that Marceline spent at least part of her childhood holed up in a bomb shelter surrounded by the bones of myriad dead humans. Honestly, while references to the Mushroom War have always been sad footnotes to an otherwise cheery show; in this episode, however, the references are very graphic, illustrating the sorrow and horror of mutagenic war.

Final Grade: As I said earlier, I’m a Marcy fanboy, so I’m horrible biased, but I don’t care. This episode rocked. Q.E.D.