#this is a quote in my 4 years in this fandom I’ve never seen appreciated and maybe it’s because of her talking of being starved for human

[katnissmellarkkk]

favorite book quotes :

“It feels like such a luxury, sleeping with Peeta again. I didn’t realize until now how starved I’ve been for human closeness. For the feel of him beside me in the darkness. I wish I hadn’t wasted the last couple of nights shutting him out. I sink down into sleep, enveloped in his warmth, and when I open my eyes again, daylight’s streaming through the windows.”

- catching fire (2009) by suzanne collins

[suchacomet]

Spring Awakening Fandom Tag

(By @winter-asleepening, tagged (kinda) by @feelssogoodinmyarms )

sorry for this being long and for jumping in on this out of nowhere, i got excited and i missed talking about this show now that i’m once again in my yearly spring awakening phase thanks to seeing a local production yesterday :)

1. How were you introduced to the show?

i was an emo kid trying to find musicals i liked bc i started doing theater in high school, i saw american idiot was made into a musical, and followed the john gallagher jr rabbit hole to a b00tl3g of obc spring awakening. this happened to be in 2014 and when i heard about dwsa on broadway i conned my mom into taking me to nyc to see it (i didnt tell her how sexual it was i just said “it’s about teens coming of age in germany set to rock music” and she had Words for me during that intermission lol)

2. Seen a production live?

yes, four: dwsa, a local college production, and two productions at local theater companies in the areas i’ve lived

3. Dream role/character you relate to most

y’all already know it’s moritz…. i imprinted on him when i was 14 and have never stopped being obsessed with him as a character. but i think it’s more likely i’d get the chance to play ilse before moritz and i would love to play ilse as well

4. Favorite male character

mort steeple :) i have never gotten enough of this dude, ever

5. Favorite female character

wendla <3 she’s such a good character when she’s played with the right amount of joy, stubbornness, and curiosity

6. Deaf West Revival or Original Broadway Cast?

dwsa all the way. i appreciate obc for what it is but dwsa is my definitive best revival/adaptation ever ever ever

7. Favorite song

comet on its way :) christ such a whole, like, deal 🙄😏

but if you force me to pick “a real song” that “is actually in the show” then… i think a production that has a really good “and then there were none” is killer bc it means 1. they’re focusing on my favorite boy moritz and 2. they have an adult woman who plays fanny gabor compassionately but flawed in a way that underscores the show’s themes around adults not trusting kids with their own minds and bodies. which i greatly enjoy

8. Least favorite song

this is unfair of me bc it never fails to make me cry and it has one of my favorite lyrics ever in it (window by window you try and look into this brave new you that you are) but it’s “the guilty ones” bc i think “there once was a pirate” is better. my hot take is that dwsa is only version of spring awakening i’ve ever seen where i actually prefer their use of guilty ones instead of pirate

9. Favorite quote/line

musical: so maybe i should be some kind of laundry line / hang their things on me / and i will swing ‘em dry / you just wave in the sun through the afternoon / and then see / they come to set you free / beneath the rising moon - don’t do sadness it’s just such an evocative description of feeling hopeless against all the pressures of life and perfectly encapsulates being 15 and desperate and just wanting a little bit of relief. plus the way daniel durant and alex boniello performed this is so killer. moritz stiefel i love you

play: “don’t let’s be sad […] if we recall this in thirty years, perhaps we shall make fun of it.——and yet everything is so beautiful. the mountains glow; the grapes hang before our mouths and the evening breeze caresses the rocks like a playful flatterer.” from hans in the vineyard scene. augh it’s just so tender and lovely in a way that the musical doesn’t have the time/ability to address, with the acknowledgement that yes this moment is temporary and who knows if ernst and hanschen will “make it”. and yet. everything is so beautiful. also PROOF THAT HANSCHEN ISNT A CREEP OR MANIPULATIVE HE IS ALSO A TEEN BOY IN LOVE FUCK YOU STEVEN SATER

10. Favorite TV performance

always and forever dwsa touch me on seth meyer i have seen it at least two hundred times and i’m not exaggerating

11. Favorite cast member(s)

daniel durant always always always. he is such a talent i’m so glad his career seems to be taking off, he’s genuinely one of the best actors i’ve ever seen in my whole life.

12. Favorite cast member moment

can i say 1st national tour cabaret where the boys performed comet on its way in order to bring up comet on its way again. if not it’s when i gave daniel durant a painting of him as moritz at stage door and i was a shy anxious teen who learned just enough asl to say “hi” and “thank you” and “will you sign my playbill please” and he was SO sweet to me and lovely and he hugged me and i know actors do that kind of shit all the time and i’m sure he doesn’t remember it but it really made my whole life when it happened :’)

13. Do you write fan fiction?

not outside of personal catharsis pieces that have never seen the light of day. i made an aloto/vineyard scene web weaving post though that i do think goes hard

14. Do you make fan art?

i still love the moritz and then there were none piece i did a few years ago but i haven’t done a whole lot past that… that may change though i want to get back into drawing

15. Do you cosplay?

no, but spring awakening costumes have 10000% influenced my real life fashion and hair decisions. lol

16. Don’t do Sadness or Blue Wind?

i just saw this GORGEOUS performance of dds/bw where ilse sobbed through her verse of blue wind and the rest of the cast like gathered around her and slowly peeled away to represent her memory/longing for real connection and the reality of her never really having that at all, and really underscoring that her spoken lines about her new life in the artist’s colony and wanting to take moritz home are just posturing to hide how lonely she is… so right now i think blue wind

17. Word of Your Body or the Reprise?

reprise when it’s done earnestly, but i do really love the lyrics in woyb

18. Touch Me or My Junk?

my junk! i love seeing the different ways it’s staged between georg and hanschen and the girls, plus it’s the only time the girls get to be horny

19. Explain the Song of Purple Summer

it’s a metatextual message from the story of spring awakening to the audience that underscores the themes of open and honest communication being the key to healthy people and relationships, it’s asking the adults in the audience to believe children (when they say they’re gay, when they ask for information and want to be given all of it, when they ask for help and say they want to die), it’s a message of hope to the kids in the seats who relate too much to the kids on stage, telling us that it will get better

20. Explain the Song of Purple Summer (wrong answers only)

horses fuck and have foal babies idk <3

that was very fun thank you for indulging me. if any of mine olde spring awakening/dwsa mutuals are still around please consider this me tagging you <3

[princeescaluswords]

I’ve read your content for years & always appreciated your POV & interrogation of TW fandom’s relationship w/Scott. Your recent post about compiling your work & the 3 points you listed as hypotheses intrigued me. Know that it’s with respect that I write to you (and full understanding if you decide to ignore this, if you’re not looking for this kind of feedback). 1/4

I am absolutely looking for all sorts of feedback. Indeed, I'll address each of your posts individually. But as I thought about how to answer them, I came across this author's note on an untagged story. I don't have any problem reproducing this here any more than I would have a problem quoting from the preface of a published book. (I'll supply the link if requested in DMs.)

I have never watched Teen Wolf. However, I have seen a compilation of Derek and Stiles scenes from the show (which is what sparked my interest in this pairing in the first place). My knowledge of canon is based on the thousands of fics I have read; and honestly, the majority of what I learned about canon was traumatic for me.

Which leads me to my next point. Whilst there are Argents in this fic, Kate is not one of them. Even saying her name makes my stomach churn. I like a villain as much as the next guy, but this character is just too dark (and this is coming from someone who likes DC Comics). I also don’t like any of the other canon relationships from the show concerning Stiles or Derek, so they’ve all been omitted.

I was scared to use either John or Noah as the Sheriff’s name as there seems to be a particularly big divide over that within the fandom. I decided to use John, headcanoning it as the Sheriff’s nickname, derived from Stiles’ frequent quip of the expression ‘Go get em’ Johnny Law’; and Noah being the Sheriff’s birth name.

This is depressing, to be quite honest, especially considering the fact that the writer can label this story Teen Wolf fanfiction and apparently know nothing of the show. How can the writer claim they find Kate's character 'gut-wrenching' if they've never actually watched her? How can they claim they don't like any of the other canon relationships for Derek or Stiles for the same reason? And even if you think that's acceptable, how do you feel about the fact that they made up their minds about a completely fabricated conflict over the Sheriff's name -- it's NOAH -- because of a line supposedly uttered by Stiles that he never actually said.

Of course, the weirdest part of this is that for the Teen Wolf fandom, this is not actually that weird! But that leads me to think -- has any other fandom created this sort of twisted parallel dimension and then passed it off as the real thing? This author has created headcanons for other people's headcanons, and I'm pretty sure that they bizarrely can't tell the difference between the television show and the fandom at all.

So, I'm asking for examples of this level of bizarreness. Has any other fandom succeeded at completely duping others into a deceptive paranarrative to this degree?

[pale-silver-comb]

So I know absolutely nothing about Leverage except what I've been seeing you post lately and I have to admit you're making it look tempting to watch! Can I ask what are some of your favorite things about the show/reasons you would suggest people watch it? And is there really a poly relationship that is canon?

Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I am going to do my best not to just “asdfghkjl” at you and answer coherently.

In a nutshell, Leverage is about 5 people. 4 are criminals (Parker, Hardison, Eliot and Sophie) with different and unique skill-sets and 1 is an ex-insurance investigator (Nate) who, at one point or another in his career, has tracked down (or at least attempted to) the other 4. The whole show is essentially: man reluctantly reforms 4 criminals to use their criminal powers for good and 4 criminals move into man’s life and stubbornly refuse to leave because, goddammit, now they have morals. 

I’ve got a lot of favourite things about the show but the main ones are as follows:

1. Found family. And I’m not talking about loners who come together to fight crime and happen to co-exist to the point where they realise they happen to have found themselves a family. I mean, Nate and Sophie are the Drunk Uncle and Wine Aunt who somehow become Mom and Dad to 3 beautiful criminal children. Mom and Dad love their criminal babies and the kids love them (as well as each other, but we’ll come to that in a moment). You get amazing family moments such as: Mom and Dad packing the kids lunch before sending them out to kick corporate greed’s ass; Mom and Dad giving the kids ridiculously expensive and personal Christmas presents causing their most Grumpy Kid to go very very quiet and soft as he runs off to gleefully play with his new murder toy; the kids interrupting Mom and Dad’s big Movie Style Kiss to ask if they can please keep their new underground layer and huffing and puffing when Dad tells them no.

2. Found family: the OT3 edition. To answer your question, the OT3 is indeed canon, confirmed by the creator. Now, usually, “confirmed by the creator” infuriates me because most of the time it’s a way for a creator to be seen as “progressive” without doing anything to actually be progressive. That isn’t the case here. The OT3 are built up carefully and while it is obvious the creators didn’t originally intend for all 3 of them to become a relationship in the romantic sense, by mid-season 5 we are given a very clear picture of where Parker, Hardison and Eliot are heading in their relationship. There aren’t any kisses at the end to signal this but there are solid marriage vows in not only one but two episodes. (And by marriage vows I mean literal equivalents of marriage vows: “for better or worse” and “’til death do us part”. I’m not even exaggerating). The OT3 also doesn’t need explicit romantic narratives to convey how much they love each other. Their love is laced through the whole show, from the way they teach each other things to the way they respond to each other and work as a unit. The way they fiercely protect and admire each other. Like someone once said, if you need characters to kiss or say I love you to let the audience know they love each other, you are writing them wrong. 

Aside from that, each of the parings in the OT3 are just. Gah. They are so well done, with friendship being the solid basis for them all. The creators never expect the audience to assume anything about them or fill in the gaps. They give us their relationships on screen and reference many things off-screen to show us how these relationships continue to build in between episodes.

Hardison and Parker are a canon couple and date in the show: it’s approached slowly and they are so goddamned sweet. They are basically every fluffy slow-burn trope with a healthy dash of mutual pining in the mix. They are basically that quote “love is patient, love is kind”. (I would like to add their romance never becomes the focus of the show or overrides the importance of any other relationship they have with the other characters, especially Eliot.)

Hardison and Eliot are the Old Married Couple and from day one are already bickering and looking at each other/making comments that are found in every UST fic ever (not to mention Hardison has a very good knack for making Eliot grin like a little kid, when usually he’s basically an Angry Little Chef Man). They argue, they play, and love each other plain as day. 

Parker and Eliot are more subtle but every bit as wonderful. They have an unspoken connection and understand each other on a level no-one else can. Parker and Eliot are not good with giving themselves over to affection for different reasons (and Hardison plays a central role in helping them realise it’s okay to want it and have it- that boy has endless patience) but there is something so beautiful in the way the two of them come together on their own and develop their own special bond that works for them. Parker and Eliot are that trope where the characters don’t need to speak to understand each other perfectly. They just do. Their love language is a lot of the time non-verbal but speaks volumes. (Parker also likes to annoy the hell out of Eliot and Eliot....just.....lets...her. Because he’s soft. The softest, grumpiest boy.) 

I could go into so much depth for each pairing and their dynamics as a 3 but that's for another post.

3. Subverting stereotypes. There is the occasional hiccup in the show regarding stereotypes but ultimately, Leverage gets an A+ when it comes to writing characters and making them 3 dimensional people who are not defined by certain characteristics or events. Nate could so easily fall into the White Man Pain trope where he uses the trauma of losing his kid as a reason as to why he is entitled to act like a dick. Nate is a dick but he doesn’t use his pain to excuse it and I appreciate that. Hardison is a black man who is soft and nurturing. Easily the most empathetic and patient of the group. He’s nerdy, an actual genius, and has the biggest heart of all the characters. Nate is maybe the glue but Hardison is definitely the heart. Media’s usual aggressive, amongst other, racist stereotypes can fuck right off. Parker is canonically autistic (I am sure this was confirmed by one of the creators) and she is not defined by it. It’s not written as some kind of singular personality trait. It’s part of what makes up Parker but it’s only one facet of who she is and not once is her actions, thoughts or feelings treated like a joke. Sometimes people don’t understand why she does and says the things she does but it’s met with patience and fondness over the course of the show. Equally, it’s not met with over-caution. Parker is just Parker. No-one tries to change her. The other nice thing is Hardison, who always makes sure Parker knows she’s amazing because of who she is and not in spite of it. Finally, Sophie is in her 40s. She’s not treated like she’s past her prime. Ever. She’s sexy, smart and never is she pitted against or compared to Parker (who is younger) for anything. Sophie is amazing and there’s never even a conversation of “I may be older but I am still *insert adjective typically associated with younger women here*”. Sophie is possibly the first female character I’ve ever seen who isn’t just unapologetic about her age but has never had to apologise for her age. It’s a non-issue and that’s that. The women on the show are written so well, right down to secondary characters and it’s beyond refreshing.  

4.) It’s just fun. The show has a “monster of the week” type format. Except instead of a ghoul or a ghost, the monster is some corrupt wealthy and powerful individual or organisation. The show draws on real-life individuals to do this and therefore closely parallels real-life people and events. It addresses important political, economical, social and environmental issues while at the same time remaining fun and light-hearted. The characters constantly get the chance to play dress up and by GOD do they have fun with it. You get to watch Eliot beat up bad guys in the most delightful of ways, usually after a witty non-sequitur and with a weapon you’d never think could be a weapon. The dialogue and back and forth between the characters is everything. And finally - my favourite thing- the team can never resist striking a dramatic pose after they’ve taken down the bad guy, making sure the bad guy sees them. I mean, they COULD just walk away, satisfied they’ve taken the person down, but nope. They gotta be dramatic bitches 24/7 and pose like they are models for every single month of this year’s Criminal Calendar.  

5.) Competence Porn. So. Much. Competence Porn.  

Honestly, I could list a thousand reasons for why Leverage is amazing but to list them would to be spoiling so many amazing moments you’d get to discover for the first time on your own if you do choose to watch it. It’s the kind of show you can watch with an eagle-eye and sink your teeth into. But it’s also the kind of show if, you would prefer, put on in the background for something entertaining while you do something else. Each episode is about the job at hand but it’s made up of so many moments between the characters that show how much the creators and writers care about them. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll do whatever it is you do when something Soft and Wonderful happens that makes your heart melt. I am so beyond grateful for Leverage. It’s everything I always wanted in a show. Nearly every show I’ve watched in the past 10 years has disappointed me in some way, usually either because the writers run out of steam or characters who I love are treated poorly or given some kind of unnecessary “shock value” arc. Leverage doesn’t do that. Leverage is what it says on the bottle. Fandom isn’t something I joined because I needed canon fix-its. Fandom only enhances and celebrates an already excellent canon. 

[maggiecheungs]

2020 ~everything~ wrap

i finally have time to do all of the tag games that people have tagged me in over the past month or so! i cannot for the life of me remember who tagged me in which one, so i’m just putting ~everything~ in one huge post. if i tag you anywhere then consider it a standing invitation to do whichever of these you haven’t done :) in fact, this is me issuing a standing invite to any of my followers who wants to do it :) also, thank you all!

Creator Wrap: Favourite Works

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

this collection of philosophy quotes paired with thai bl series, (and its sequel) which is possibly my favourite thing i’ve ever made. for, uh, nerd reasons.

these gifted text post memes i made still make me laugh sometimes

this fic about green from 2gether, which i wrote in the notes app on my phone and published the same day. not my absolute best writing but i am very fond of it <3

i have a bunch fof friend zone dangerous area edits/shitposts which i like, but i’m particularly fond of my fzda as satire headlines (which now has a sequel!)

i also love my crisgood-walmart-lesbian post. i might send it in to gmmtv to try and convince them to do a crisgood-bffs spin-off

+ bonus: since i wrote this list i made this gifset (my first ever!) of jennie panhan in the shipper and i love her too much not to include her on here

+ extra nerdy bonus: this niche meme about Chinese philosophy, which still makes me crack up whenever I think about it

Favourite Creators/Follow Forever

i’ve completely lost track of who’s following who from which blog, so this is just going to be a haphazard, non-exhaustive list of people who i adore/admire/am vaguely intimidated by, mutuality be damned. maybe we talk all the time! maybe we’ve never interacted! maybe i am constantly there in ur tags... lurking... 👀... but if you’re on this list you have made me smile at least once this year and i love you for that alone <3

@wjmild kylie!! you make gifs of arm & tay & lee (separately or in various combinations) & the shipper & and kapook & random fluke pusit cameos & school rangers so i don’t have to <3 ilysm

@janeramida vianey, you have such impeccable taste in general, but your sizzy gifset in particular is so gorgeous it lives in my mind rent free

@applelapis bri, this post was a callout and i want you to know that it haunts me at night as i lie awake staring at the ceiling :((((( i hope you are happy

@gigiesarocha cata, i love it when you show up on my dash bc you have!! such taste!! also, every time you gif gigie i gain five years of life <3 pls continue doing the Good Work

@pvrrish​ eleni, i remeber legit thinking that this was an official poster when i first saw it, it’s so beautiful

@ahysopae​ juliette your khaithird fic is so good and it literally changed the way i think about khai (not an easy feat)

@kurosawadachi angel, whenever i think about grace’s speech i remember your gifset and get literal chills

@doctorbahnjit alexa, you have no right to be as funny as you are. your friend zone edits give me life

@khaotungthanawat sam, you’re probably sick of getting tagged in these lists by random strangers, but i just had to bc your gifsets are Pure Art

@tanwirapong roa, all your gifsets are so ✨iconic✨

faiza @asianmelodrama and rahul @petekaos! yours were the first two thai drama blogs i followed and for ages i lowkey thought of you as my fandom parents.

and some more blogs that make me happy: @curlykytta / @lee-thanat  / @fck-inspector-m / @pangwave / @tichawongtipkanon / @tawanv @kimmonv (violet istg i have spent more time this year trying to figure out how many blogs you have than i have spent admiring your gifsets. & i spend a lot of time admiring your gifsets) / @taytawan / @1akorn and @yihwas (and your radiant lovechild @lakornladies ofc) / @teh-ohaew / @vihokratanas (mel your gifsets are just so gorgeous) / @tootiredtoosadtooangry / @headcompletelyempty / @demiromanticmickey​ / and there are definitely more but my brain is a sieve so apologies if i’ve forgotten anyone!! i love you all!! 

2020 HIGHLIGHTS ✨

rules: list your top 10 shows (bl or not) you watched in 2020 (doesn’t necessarily have to be shows that came out in 2020 though!)

1. 2GETHER & STILL2GETHER

my first thai drama, and even after all the amazing shows i’ve watched this year, it still has a special place in my heart. watching 2gether was the first time i’d ever seen a queer romcom that just... was. for me, by the simple fact of its being, 2gether was revolutionary. and then still2gether came along and took all the best things about the first season and gave us something beautiful and quiet and lovely and just proved to me, once and for all, that queer happiness doesn’t need to justify its own existence. there can be gay cuddles on the beach for no other reason than that we want them. 

2. UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

i don’t really have the words for this one but. it makes my heart so very soft.

3. FRIEND ZONE 2: DANGEROUS AREA

season one was mindless fun because everyone was an absolute trashfire and it was hella cathartic to watch, but season 2... wow. i love it for so many reasons: it has messy and authentic queer rep; the characterisation is excellent and i somehow care about all of the characters; amazing women taking centre stage(!); a wlw relationship with lesbian, ace and bipolar rep; multiple interesting plotlines; actual character development; arm weerayut as a chaos gremlin... absolutely one of my favourites of 2020.

4. CHERRY MAGIC

i don’t think i need to explain this one, which is fortunate, because i have no idea how exactly i’d describe the happy-warm-fuzzy-queer-seen-loving-affirmed-profound feeling that rises in my chest whenever i think about it. 

5. THE GIFTED: GRADUATION

confession: i liked season 2 more than season 1 (with the exception of the ending, which we don’t talk about). season 1 was enjoyable and interesting, but for me it was season 2 which made me love this series. it did some incredibly interesting and complicated things (even if it didn’t quite nail the landing): it pushed characters to the breaking point and wove so many layers into the story and questioned its own underlying themes. plus, watching it alongside everyone in the fandom made it 200% better. i love all of you and i love this show. egg girl 5eva.

6. THE SHIPPER

i 100% understand why so many people didn’t like this show, or found it problematic, but through some fluke it absolutely worked for me (even the ending). one day i will write an essay explaining my rationale, but for now i’ll just say that it’s one of my favourite shows about adolescence and queerness and identity and compassion and friendship and love that i’ve ever watched. 

7. YYY

this series is absolutely off its rocker, and it somehow managed to be one of the most affirming shows i’ve watched. it shouldn’t have worked by it did, and i love it so much.

8. 3 WILL BE FREE

absolutely iconic. amazing plot, stunning visuals, great characters, canon polyamory, jennie being incredible... what a series.

9. MANNER OF DEATH

i love the fact that this show exists; i love the mix of crime and romance; i love maxtul’s acting; i love the central relationship; i love bun. i know we’re not even halfway through yet, but this show is doing something special and i’m so grateful that i get to watch it unfold in real time. 

10. CHIHAYAFURU (SEASON 3)

odd one out on my list, but I had to include it. chihayafuru is my all-time favourite anime and it finally got a third season, which is somehow even better than the first two. mashima taichi is one of my favourite characters of all time and his storyline hits me on such a profound level. plus, in the years since i first say this show i’ve fallen in love with classical japanese literature (particularly heian poetry) so i had newfound appreciation for the karuta matches (aka i cried every time someone recited one of my favourite poems)

other favourites: together with me, he’s coming to me, sotus and sotus s, my dear loser: edge of 17, why r u, theory of love, wake up chanee!, gameboys, pearl next door, uta koi (anime), three kingdoms (2010), blood and water (netflix). (itsay would almost certainly be on my list if i’d had time to watch it. same with dark blue kiss, which i had to pause so i could do my assignments)

Final Thoughts

well, it’s been... a year (i don’t think anyone needs a reminder of the details) but writing this post has reminded me of all the amazing shows and people I discovered over the course of it.

thank you to everyone for being so lovely and creative and funny and quirky and kind and passionate. you’re all incredibly awesome people and i wish all of you the very best xx

[thou-crusty-batch-of-nature]

The rise and fall of our love

part one | part two

playlist: gold by nick murphy and chet faker

too young to burn by sonny and the sunsets

cold cold cold by cage the elephant

pairing: reader x james, lily x james

warnings: language, fluff, a bit of angst

A/N: hope you like my first proper series! i've been working on this for a while and i'm so excited to finally post it! feedback is very much appreciated so lmk what you think

also, credits to @approved-by-dentists for the iconic line "I'll drop kick your firstborn", you can check her frog memes here

and credits to the harry potter wiki fandom, I took those amortentia info from there

p.s. the cover is made by me

word count: roughly 2.4K

MASTERLIST

"You can't expect me to believe this!" James was looking at you with his mouth agape and exaggerated wide eyes which made the conversation slightly more embarrassing than it already was. 

"5 minutes till midnight!" Sirius announced from a table with several bottles of champagne by his side. 

"Well, you should. I'm telling the truth!" 

"Y/N!" he shouted in a serious note, as if he was trying to decide whether you were lying or not. Your ears were burning. Someone hex me right now. 

"James!" you answered - this was like a bad version of the Marco Polo game.

Something in your eyes convinced him of your honesty. "You have never been kissed on New Year's Eve!" he gasped with such amazement that you didn't have the heart to reveal that, in fact, you have never been kissed by anyone on any other occasion - you still needed that remaining bit of dignity. Well, not a real kiss, that is. The only time you have ever kissed someone was on a game of spin the bottle in 3rd year, when you and Remus shared a very awkward one-second kiss, that James never forgot to bring up every other day. 

"Why is it such a big deal - I don't need a kiss to have a lucky year! I can manage fairly well on my own, thank you very much!" 

The whole Gryffindor Common Room was buzzing with chatter, clinking glasses and loud music. New Year's Eve meant a great deal to gryffindors, whether it was for the booze, the games or the chance to kiss your crush at midnight. 

You could proudly say that your presence was owed to none of the above, but rather to the persistent demands of your best friend, Marlene. Not that you didn't love a good party - it's the opposite, really. The only problem was your low intolerance to alcohol; three big gulps of beer were enough to make you the talk of the school for at least two weeks. And with Marlene and the marauders by your side, the chances of that to happen were outstandingly high.

"It's a matter of principle, it's about the neediness of human nature, about their need for closure and contact in order to feel full and satisfied! It's about the idea of knowing that you have emotional support!" he declared passionately with a hand over his chest. 

"So, people are horny and they need to kiss other people for them to feel valid and worthy?" You scrunched up your nose in disgust. "That's messed up!" 

"It's love, Y/N! It's not supposed to make sense, it's like magic!"

"You sound like a cringy girl from a romantic muggle movie!" You snorted.

"You're incredible!" James sighed, disappointed. "Alright, I'll show you, you'll see!" Soon enough, a gigantic clock appeared over the fireplace starting the New Year's countdown. 

"9…" People were chanting joyfully. 

"8…" You could feel James' stare, but you kept your eyes glued to the clock. 

"7...6…5…" You sensed him inch closer. 

"4…" He spun you around and cupped your cheek. 

"3…" You were lost in his eyes. They were an infusion of spring and autumn, a melt of fiery leaves and honey. 

"2… 1!" His soft lips met yours, and you could hear fireworks erupting outside the castle. You felt your soul implode. The kiss was shy, yet passionate. His hands were slowly grazing your back while yours found their way to his dark curls. It felt right - perfect, even. 

Even though it was your first kiss, you knew it was the best you'd ever have. Everything was easier when you were with James, everything felt at peace. You pulled apart when you ran out of breath, still longing for more. Your whole face was on fire, and you let your forehead rest on his. 

"Here you go. Wasn't that bad, was it?" 

"Eh- t'was alright." you joked, trying to sound cool. You laughed nervously, though you were pretty sure it sounded more like a squeal. Great. 

"Do you think Lily saw it?" Something in his voice made you realise that he wished she did. You were just a puppet in his cruel play. Your heart wrenched a little, but you managed to hide your pain. 

"Don't know. I haven't seen her tonight." You were his friend. That's all. The kiss meant nothing for him, and that was okay. 

Just great. 

"I think imma go check on Marls." you said, trying to hold your tears back. "Thank you, for the kiss." you exclaimed sarcastically, though James didn't seem to notice. He nodded absentmindedly, his eyes already on a certain red-head. 

Oh, you were so stupid! How could you let this happen? A wave of nausea washed over you while the knot in your stomach kept pulling at your insides. 

You made your way through the sea of people, right where you knew Marlene would be. There she was: lounging on the couch next to Sirius, drinks in hands, talking about Merlin knows what. You suddenly felt very bad to disturb your best friends who were both clearly having a great time, so you quickly turned the other way. 

"Y/N!" Marlene shouted. Shit. You quickened your pace, only to hear her shouts over the music. "Y/N Y/L/N stay where you are or I swear I'll knock you down!" 

You continued to walk but stopped when you saw James and Lily a few steps ahead. She was laughing while he was whispering something in her ear. Lily spotted you and smiled teasingly. You took a deep breath. Defeated, you turned and saw Marlene's tall figure facing you. "What happened? Why are you crying?" 

You haven't realised that until she asked you. Good thing that James was too busy fawning over Lily to notice. 

Marlene didn't wait for an answer to take your hand in hers and lead you back to your dorm. She pulled you in her arms while you finally let your tears fall. You felt pathetic; how could you believe he would actually like you the way you did? 

You told her everything apart from that unbecoming smile Lily gave you. They were also friends, not as good as you two were, but you didn't want to stir up any arguments. 

You and Marlene have been best friends for over six years. You used to be quite an introvert, whereas Marlene was cocky enough for the two of you, so she made it her goal to get you out of your shell. And she succeeded - even too well, some would say. 

And as for you and Lily, things were - you guessed you could call them decent. Neither of you made any effort to be besties, as Lily made it quite clear she didn't like you. However, you managed to become acquaintances for the sake of your friends'. 

"Y/N! What is our number one rule?" she asked when you finished. 

You sighed. "Bros over hoes." 

"I will never put a boy over our friendship, Y/N. You come first. Especially when you have a problem."

"Okay, mother." you rolled your eyes. "I should've drank the damned firewhisky. It would have been a far better alternative to get shitface drunk than deal with all this." 

"You're right." You glared at her. "What? You really are. That just proves my theory further: technically, alcohol is a solution."

×××

Naturally, the odds haven't been in your favour, and Lily and James were closer than ever. You would be lying if you said you were happy for them. 

"Now, Y/N/N, that's just cruel!" Marlene said with her mouth full, spitting half of her breakfast on you. Then, she silently handed you a napkin. You gave her a nod of thanks. "I mean, I get it, you are a tad bit jealous, but that's understandable!" 

"Am not!" you defended. "I'm happy for my friend for finding his love." You choked that word out. "Okay, I might be a tiny tiny bit jealous but that's not the case right now! I just don't understand his choice!" 

"Ah… here goes that 'he could've had all this but he chose that' speech..." Marlene sighed. 

"Yes- I mean no! That's not what I mean! I just don't like Lily!"

"I know…" she said regretfully. "She is a good friend to me, really - she's not that bad. I know you two had your problems, but… Wait, what are your problems exactly?" she squinted her eyes in confusion. "You've never told me the real reason you two don't get along." 

"Well…" 

"Good morning darlings!" Sirius interrupted, plopping down next to Marlene. 

"Good morning to you too!" James chirped with a sheepish smile plastered on his face. He sat next to you, hugged you and you could swear you heard him squeal. 

"Well, someone seems to be in an awfully good mood this early in the morning. Waddup?" you ask, popping the 'p'. 

"Someone got back to the dorm very late last night after having spent the entire day with -" 

"LILY-FLOWER! HERE!" James got up and waved frantically towards her. She furrowed her brows when she spotted him next to you and you quickly averted your gaze.

"Hello there!" she smiled, sitting down on the other empty spot next to James. She took his hand in hers and glanced at you. You rolled your eyes. 

"Is there something wrong?" Lily asked innocently. 

"Nah, everything's alright." Just my back hurts a little... from all the stabs. The intensities of your stares could burn holes through each other's bodies. 

"Y/N, have you finished your DADA essay? I think it was due Wednesday and I haven't written a word!" Remus cuts in, sensing the tension. You made a mental note to thank him later.

×××

"So what was all that about?" You were in the library "helping" Remus write his essay - in reality, you were munching on his chocolate while he was reading.

"What?" You decided to play dumb, hoping he would drop the subject. Remus leaned in his chair and rubbed his eyes. It was too early for any of this. 

"Your 'friendship' with Lily." he air quoted. 

"There's nothing wrong with us…" 

"Oh, then let me call her here and make friendship bracelets together!" he mocked. "You almost hugged to death out there!" 

"Quiet!" you heard madam Pince's high screech.

You let your head fall in your hands. "Is it so obvious?" you whispered. He gave you the are-you-kidding-me face and you groaned. 

"Fine! The truth is that I don't know why she hates me! I've tried to be her friend for so many years, ever since she became Marl's friend - and she rejected me every single time. Not to mention that she has never been the nicest to me. And now she acts like I drop-kicked her firstborn and I'm sick of it."

"So nothing happened?" 

"Nothing that I know of…" 

"Huh…" It was clear he expected somewhat of a greek tragedy. You glanced at the clock and cursed, you were running late to class. "Remus, we gotta leave."

You both got up in a hurry, stuffing parchments and quills in your bags. "Potions?"

You checked the time again. "In five minutes." 

"Shit." 

You sprinted down the halls of Hogwarts, going on every shortcut you knew. You reached the classroom faster than ever - seriously, you must’ve broken a record.

"What time is it?" Remus asked, a bit out of breath. 

"10:04" you managed to say. 

Remus knocked on the door while you struggled to keep an upright position - you had to admit that you were a bit out of shape. 

"Ah, Remus and Y/N, I was beginning to worry! Everybody is late today! Do you happen to know about Potter and Lily's whereabouts?" 

"No, sir." 

"Probably in a broom closet." Sirius said between coughs. Slughorn decided not to hear this remark. 

"Very well, then find your seats and get your books out." You hurried towards the empty desk behind Sirius and a now-seated Remus. Where was he? 

"Now, as I was saying. I prepared some concoctions this morning which you can find on your desks. Any ideas what these might be?" 

"It's Armortentia!" someone from the front exclaimed. 

"Excellent! Now, this is the most powerful love potion in existence. It causes a powerful infatuation or obsession from the drinker. Despite its power, Amortentia doesn't create actual love; it's impossible to manufacture or imitate love."

 You were already growing tired. "Miss Y/L/N, you seem awfully relaxed. Care to reveal what scent do you smell?" 

Your head shot up from the desk, trying to remember the question. You were ready to ask the professor to repeat it when you saw Sirius pointing to his nose and then to the potion. 

Thanks, you mouthed and Sirius winked. 

"I smell…" you started, closing your eyes and sniffing the liquid. 

"I smell gingerbread, old books and…"...James. You quickly opened your eyes as the realisation dawned onto you. "... musky cologne." 

"Wonderful, miss Y/L/N! Now, in the hour that remains you and your desk mates will have to brew an acceptable vial of Amortentia, helped by the example before you and of course, your books. So, open the books at -"

A loud knock interrupted Professor Slughorn. He turned his head just as James and Lily barged into the room all giggly and blushy. 

"Excuse us, professor! We had some urgent Prefect duties!" Yeah, right. 

"You are a tad late, I'm afraid. Oh well, you may come in, I've just finished the instructions for today's lesson. Potter, there's an empty seat next to Y/N; Lily, you can take a seat next to Miss Macdonald."

"Hello, roomie!" James whispered when he sat down, wiggling his eyebrows. "What are we brewing today?" he asked. Why did he always have that stupid smirk on his face? 

"That!" you pointed towards the tiny cauldron in front of you. 

"Hmm - let me see." he leaned forward to look at it, then scrunched up his nose when he tried to smell it. 

"Bloody hell, Y/N! Do you bathe in your perfume? And what is with this smell - lilies? Are lilies here? Well, besides the most beautiful one over there?" he nodded towards Evans. 

You couldn't help but blush and look away. You were sure you didn't put any perfume on this morning, so that meant…? 

"We are brewing Amortentia, you barmy wanker!" you heard Sirius' wheezy voice, who was trying and failing to hold his laughter. 

"Oh" James said, rubbing his neck. "Shit." 

Shitty indeed. 

You were in deep. 

****

part two

taglist: @futurewriter2000, @puppycat714, @booksbeforebois, @slytherinquill, @screennamealreadyused, @fific7, @with1love1anu

[isidar-mithrim]

Tag game

Thank you for the tag @fightfortherightsofhouseelves and @clarensjoy!! 

Also, I’ll take this opportunity to apologize for all the tag-chain/game I ignored lately! I’m quite busy this period and while I do still check tumblr almost daily – especially now that I can’t wait for new @giblimort‘s amazing portraits *_* – it’s more like a few-minute scroll in the homepage and maybe read the occasional ficlet so I might miss the tags or more probably I might be lazy about answering them ^^’ But it always makes me smile that someone thought of me, so be aware that it’s appreciated and it makes my day lighter <3 @narukoibito @sybill-the-seer @ballerinaroy and I’m surely forgetting someone ^^’

Fandoms: Harry Potter, the one and only ;)

Where you post: Tumblr and Ao3, but I also have an account on the italian fan fiction page EFP (but my last stories are missing and most of the old ones that I’ve translated needs to be changed/edited, so I would kinda beg any passing italians to read them in English or ask me what version I would suggest XD). And one on Wattpad that I haven’t updated in a long while...

Most popular one-shot: Well I’m not sure what defines “popular” here, so I’ll kinda cheat and check the Ao3 stats I think for the first time ever and give you:

one for “most hits”: Fantasies [NSFW and basically Hinny PWP, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised it’s the one with most hits XD]

one for “most kudos”: Standing on tiptoe [whoa, hadn’t seen it coming!]

one for “most bookmarks”: Letters for beyond (featuring the Potters)

one for “most comment threads”: so there are 4 with the same number, two of them are the two above, and between the remaining two I’ll pick A new beginning, a post-war chat between Harry and Neville ^^

Most popular multi-chapter: among my only two proper multi chapters, of which one is incomplete so far and with just 2 chapter and the other is complete with just 3 short chapter (what an achievement XD), Better than fireworks  is the one among all of my stories, including one shots, with “most bookmark”, “most subscriptions” (by far) and also “most comments threads”: [all this support is absolutely amazing, but I admit also kinda make me feel guilty because it’s almost been a year since I posted it and promised to finish it, ups ^^’ And the ironic thing is that I still plan too. One day. Maybe XD]

But I’ll also cheat a little bit again, naming a4 one-shots series, “Have a biscuit”. If you like Neville and McGonagall, I’ll be honored if you’d give it a try ^^

Favourite story written so far: Ahhh that’s a tough one, I tend to be quite fond of my stories (yay for the modesty, lol – I swear that when I’m not that thrilled I always admit it, though XD)... Let’s say “As though by a mother” but I might give a different answer in a week XD

Fic you were nervous to post: I’m not sure I’m never actually “nervous” before posting (more like, afraid that the story won’t appreciated as a I hope/that it won’t interest people), but I guess I must have been a bit nervous before posting my first ever pic translated in English, which also happens to have a not-so-usual writing style: And yet it tastes good

How you choose your titles: Ahhhh, good question. I guess it depends. Tbh I’m not that good at titles, or sometime I have a (supposedly) great one in Italian that doesn’t really translate (or isn’t that good) in English or viceversa. [Example: the “Have a biscuit” serie has English titles that I like way better than the italians, but a story like “Souls of Ink”, while having a good ring in English, to me it’s way more powerful and poetic in Italian, “Anime d’inchiostro”].

Sometimes I don’t have a title until the end and I kinda throw something there, sometimes I have the title from the very beginning and it could be a big part in inspiring the story. I tend to use title that are neither too short nor too long, and I don’t usually use songs quotes or the like. Plus, I’m very happy if the words/phrasing of the title recur literally or metaphorically in the story! I also try to match the “feeling” of the title (and the summary) with the “feeling” of the story. Like, I’d go for a more poetic/dramatic one for an angst story, and for a more comedic-like one for something more fluffy or silly.

Complete: Well, that’s easy, since I mostly stay away from multi-chapters XD (and for good reasons – see above XD) All my one shots, and most of my “closed” series, as in, series that I imagined with a beginning and an end or something like that (so, series like “Next Generation” don’t really have a complete/incomplete status) 

In progress: Again “Better than Fireworks”, and I’ve also just realised that I’ve yet to finish translating (despite being at a decent point) the second and last chapter of “Of Matilda, war and Peace” [speaking about being bad a title, lol XD] Ups ^^’

Coming soon/Not yet started: ahhh coming soon probably nothing, ehm, but I’ve at least 4 one shots in the making and that I want to finish one day (most of them started months if not a years ago... I’ll list them below), plus the draft for the rest of Better than Fireworks, plus several random missing-moments or AUs ideas and a long Hinny post-war story started few years ago in Italian (roughly 100.000 written) that needs to be heavily rewritten, translated and possibly finished ^^ Same for a shorter bit of a Jily seventh-year story, if we have to say it all...

“Ghost of the past”, a Hinny one shot from Ginny’s pov with a difficult conversation – I’m very fond of this one, but I have to work on the second part/end. The first/main part is finished and even betaed by the amazing @narukoibito! <3

“Of those who stayed”, a silver trio one shot – again from Ginny’s pov – during DH, when they try to steal the sword. I’ve the first (long) chapter done and again, even betaed by the wonderful @floreatcastellumposts but knowing myself I want to finish it first. I might decide that it’s okay like this (in Italian I’ve already posted it a one shot), but since I had a sort of sequel in mind for now it’ll stay in my drafts ;)

“The man who lived” – This one is all in just Italian so far (I’m rewriting an old piece – I’d probably restart it directly in English now); again Ginny’s pov (wow, hadn’t realised it!), again DH, this time since she (in my head canon) realise Harry might have gone to Voldemort during the battle, until the end of the battle

A one shot that’s it’s a series of Hinny snippets about James Sirius Potter coming to life (from the very start). Old one written in Italian and never posted, that a again needs to be finished. Same for a collection of snippets around Hinny’s wedding (but this is “draftier”)

A one shot of Harry and the Potters waling Teddy at King Cross; I’ve just a very little bit of it written + most of the draft, and it would be the sequel of the one shot “What parents would want”

The random Missing Moments that I’ve have in mind are: a conversation between Bill and Ginny in the hospital wing in HBP, plus maybe a bit more from Ginny’s pov in that period (like going back home from Hogwarts); a conversation between Bill and Ron in DH, not sure if during Ron’s first or second stay and Shell Cottage; Hermione finding out about Arthur’s attack; Dumbledore taking Slughorn’s memory (when it happened, how he found out... I’ve several head canon about it!)

The random AUs moments (and I say moments just because I wouldn’t really be interested in writing a whole story, I only imagine few moments of it): Hermione brining Harry at the Burrow at Christmas after Godric’s Hollow, with is locket attached to his chest (I think I stole the idea from Flo’s!); the trio finding Ginny in the cell in Malfoy Manor as well; and some dumb “Lily and James are resurrected post DH” trash XD Oh, also a real muggle AU with Harry as a self-defence coach and Ginny as trainee!

Do you accept prompts? As you can imagine especially in this period I’m not very good at commitment ^^’, but if you have a specific idea and want to give it a try (maybe during the winter holidays?) I’d be honored, if not able to make any promises!

Upcoming works you’re most excited about: definitely “Ghost of the past”!

I’m tagging @ballerinaroy again, @remedial-potions, @thedistantdusk, @thebiwholived and whoever wants to join ^^

EDIT: Ehm I got caught up with the stats when I wrote this and without realizing it I put a multi chapter in the “Most popular one shot” section, lol XD Problem fixed ;)

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 4, Part 1: Blight of the Paradox Clones

BRIGHT: Act 4 opens on a loading sequence titled ‘GATE 1’, and then there’s a short pan down through firefly-dotted clouds to a dim blue landscape called the Land of Wind and Shade. John manifests at ground-level and it’s time for another walk-around game!

The icon in the upper right corner opens a conversation with Nannasprite, who’s still back in the house. Apparently she can’t accompany John around the Land, but she can certainly give him puzzling half-answers to any questions he might have. John asks her point-blank if she was always cryptic and evasive or if that’s a sprite thing, but she predictably avoids answering.

John wanders around the Land, getting into fights with (oddly non-aggressive) imps for grist. The Land is very atmospheric, with glowing blue mushrooms and odd pipes everywhere. It’s also inhabited by large, excitable, bipedal orange salamanders who blow bubbles and dispense information about the Land. One of them has acquired John’s bedsheets and is now calling itself a wizard.

A salamander standing by one of the pipes explains that it’s called a Parcel Pyxis. If you need something, you can chisel a picture of whatever it is into a stone tablet and drop it into a Parcel Pyxis. If you find a tablet, and you have what’s carved into it, it’s polite to drop it into the Pyxis and the Breeze will take it where it needs to go. (Just what the Breeze is isn’t explained yet, but given the name of the Land, it’s fair to assume an explanation will be forthcoming in due time, and it’s thematically consistent.)

While wandering, John finds a telescope. Looking through it, he sees his house, perched waaaaaay at the top of a very tall, very narrow rocky crag. He also finds a very large pipe sunk into the ground. He can hear something very, very big breathing at the bottom.

There are definite pros and cons to these games, but on the whole I like them. They’re more immersive than the usual comic panels, and it’s nice to do some self-directed wandering. On the other hand, it’s easy to miss something in a walk-around game, which hardly ever happens with comic panels…

FAILURE ARTIST: The Salamanders crack me up. Good parody of NPC chatter.

CHEL: Comic panels of the walkaround are included later on, so if you really hate the games you can read it straightforwardly.

John is confused by now being below his house when he went through a portal above it; Nanna cryptically claims that “To ascend, you must first descend!”

BRIGHT: With the game out of the way (it doesn’t really have a defined end point), we return to normal comic panels — and also to the future. AR is embroiled in a shootout with the snakes from PM’s ship, which are now firing laser beams. A stray blast decapitates the frog temple. AR returns fire with a rocket launcher. His first shot takes out the snake. The second knocks WV flying. WV lands behind a rock, and the carved pumpkin lands on his head. AR lines up his next shot...and pauses.

The carved image of Bec’s head seems to mean something to AR, because he immediately ceases fire and comes down to start yelling at WV. This turns out to be a poor move on his part: PM still has her sword, and she is not pleased.

I really, really like PM as a character. She has no dialogue whatsoever and still projects massive amounts of integrity.

The comic returns to Jade. She’s retrieved Dave’s Sburb discs from the time capsule, which is clearly going to move the plot along...

Looks like the TIME CAPSULE has reset itself. It is sprouting a new bud. Presumably something else will come out when it blooms again in about 400 years. Too bad you won't be around to find out what it is!

...aaaaaaand we go into sylladex shenanigans again.

I will say this for sylladex tomfoolery: It absolutely can break up tension and provide some lighter stretches in the plot. The problem is that these don’t always feel natural. I find them less annoying now and can appreciate the humour, but they really bugged me the first time around.

Still, Jade’s use of her sylladex does at least speak to her character.

Jade eventually settles on Pictionary modus, which means she has to draw a picture of whatever she wants to captchalogue. If she doesn’t have the drawn item to hand, her modus instead captures a “ghost image” of the item on a card, complete with alchemiter code. Handy! Unfortunately the modus has some trouble understanding Jade’s drawings, interpreting her picture of her eclectic bass as a regular electric bass.

Bec then catches up and teleports Jade back to her room. In a demonstration of unusual good sense, Jade promptly gets on with installing the Sburb Beta.

Back in the Land of Wind and Shade, John pesters Rose to ask if she’s here on the other side of the gate, in the “spooky glowy place with oily rivers and stuff”. She doesn’t respond. He does however get pestered by Jade, who is now awake and therefore fully aware of what Sburb is (much to John’s confusion). She tells him to go get his copy of the game so he can be her server player. John is convinced Jade is psychic, but she tells him that he has access to all the information she does, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Meanwhile, Dave is also trying to get in touch with Rose, also to no effect. Jade pesters him and they have a cute conversation in which Jade forgets how a reference goes, but Dave assures her she got it anyway. She tells him she’s setting up as his server player and shows him a picture of the meteor aimed at his house. There are no size comparison points available but Jade assures him that it’s really, really big.

TG: well as if like one the size of a bus wouldnt kill me anyway

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave describes his beating from his Guardian as “i got served like a dude on butler island” and Jade says it’s “(DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA)”. It’s hard to take the abuse seriously when none of the characters do.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 14

BRIGHT: In the Medium, John is getting pestered by carcinoGeneticist again. We now have a picture icon for CG. Look familiar? Yup, it’s the guy from the end of the Intermission.

So I guess this is the first time in the main comic that we get confirmed, visual proof that the trolls are aliens? It’s hard to point to, since the trolls get introduced gradually.

I’ve no idea how this was received in fandom when it first happened, but by the time I got to Homestuck, the fact that the trolls were grey folks with horns was probably the most famous feature of the canon, so...not so much of an impact. Still pretty cool though.

FAILURE ARTIST: I wish I could remember how the fandom took it.

The trolls in these early acts make a big deal all the time about how they are alien and the kids are human. It’s an amusing parody of the way aliens act in fiction but it is weird when the trolls become actual characters and we find out their psychology is surprisingly human most of the time.

CHEL: Hence the WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM count. That’ll spike later.

BRIGHT: CG is unexpectedly friendly this time. Apparently he’s been trolling John backwards through time, which is frustrating as each earlier John knows less and less, so CG keeps having to repeat himself. (Which...doesn’t make much sense? He’d have to explain more obvious stuff, sure, but John would remember things he was told in later-from-CG’s-perspective conversations, so...ugh, time travel!) Despite this frustration, however, John’s relentless friendliness apparently wore the trolls down and now they’re friends. Or at least CG thinks they are. John is less than convinced.

CHEL:

John asks if the trolls are in his land, but CG berates him for self-centredness:

CG: WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR DUMB LITTLE WINDY PLANET OR YOUR PETTY LITTLE QUESTS. CG: OR FOR THAT MATTER YOUR ENTIRE GAME SESSION. CG: YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONES PLAYING THE GAME. CG: EVERY GROUP OF PLAYERS GETS THEIR OWN DISTINCT, BLANK SLATE SESSION. CG: AS WILL BE EXPLAINED TO YOU MANY TIMES.

He instructs John to relay an apology for the trolling to Jade and to tell her to GET HER GROSS AND TOTALLY UNATTRACTIVE HUMAN BUTT OFF HER UGLY HUMAN HIGH HORSE AND ANSWER MY MESSAGES. John says he’s a bit focused on his own quest right now, and sets off to find his father’s car.

TIER: While that's happening, we cut back to the gaggle of aliens having a grand old time around a campfire with some good food. A familiar pair of squiddles, now old, is visible as well.

FAILURE ARTIST: AR/PM/WV was a popular OT3 back in the day but you never see it anymore.

CHEL: Pity. It’s adorable.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to Dave’s place, where Jade is setting things up for the game. The air conditioning unit helps with the process, but the birds everywhere don’t. Dave drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 16

Rose also talks with Dave as this is going on. She says this to him.

TT: I've done nothing but wait for boys to play this game with me all day. TT: First John lollygagging with the client, and then you with the server, downright filibustering my existence with unending fraternal melee. TT: And yet a girl, one who didn't even own the game, was able to connect with you minutes after you connected with me.

I’ve seen this quoted as Rose/Jade Lesbian Power but I wish we had more scenes where the two actually talked to each other.

CHEL: Being happy that one of your friends is competent means you’re in love with them now? And yet if someone used that as evidence for a het ship they’d be run out of the fandom. Anyway, Jade removes Dave’s bed to make room.

TT: And there she goes. TT: She HAS the karma.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose has been talking to a troll, but she doesn’t know the gender so uses “he/she/it”. Funny to think there was a time when we didn’t know the trolls’ gender. Particularly the gender of Rose’s favorite troll...

Jade tries to tidy up the apartment using “a woman’s touch” a.k.a. a towel drenched in toilet water. Which begs the question of how her home is spotless.

CHEL: Because Hussie is again not thinking through the implications of the living situations as presented, and/or trying to present things as simultaneously a joke and serious. To be fair, considering the dreambot, she could have a super hi-tech cleaning system, or Bec could teleport the dirt away, but if so, we ought to see that.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 10 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15

FAILURE ARTIST: In doing so, she accidentally rips the toilet out and drops an F-bomb.

CHEL: We now get a video of Rose’s location, the LAND OF LIGHT AND RAIN. Her house is now perched on a tiny island surrounded by glimmering pastel oil-slick-looking water, a waterfall pouring down out of nowhere beside it, with golden clouds scattered around pouring rain. It’s very pretty!

We again see the carapaces finding things in the ruins, and WV brings PM to see inside the bunker. The blast earlier formed an entry into the third room which had been locked, which contains further devices, this one with more spirographs and a frog picture on it; WV doesn’t know what this one does and the power’s too low to use it anyway. Back in the room with the monitors, PM is impressed by WV’s drawings and he offers her the pack of chalk. AR, meanwhile, cooks food.

PM recognises the monitor as similar to the one in her own station, though hers was watching a girl. Here, we get the static panels of the runaround game, from PM’s point of view.

Back in LoLaR, a mysterious textbox in cursive addresses Rose as Seer, suggesting she explore. Recall that the book mentioned the Heir of Breath, the Seer of Light, the Witch of Space, and the Knight of Time. Since Jade is the one who’s been doing the Seer-ing so far, I’ve seen readers assume she was the Seer and Rose the Witch, but it seems not; further explanations of what those titles really mean are forthcoming.

Sudden cut back to John’s land, where the village is under attack! Huts are aflame, and much bigger and more powerful monsters have arrived.

In Dave’s apartment, Jade opens the cruxtruder by dropping the displaced toilet on it, splashing water everywhere, much to Dave’s aggravation since all that juice was going to come back to haunt me. He’s relieved to see the countdown gives him four hours, but Jade doesn’t know till what, and he realises she’s sleep-messaging him again. He orders her not to watch him pee, and dont put anything weird in the seizure kernel.

TG: the last thing i need is for your weird brain webcam to be snapping shots of my dong TG: your grandpa was a sick fuck why would he build a voyeurbot for a little girl CALL CPA PLEASE: 8

Well, he is kinda right. Anyway, Dave spends a couple of pages elaborately planning misuse of the apple juice bottle and tricking John into drinking from the alchemised bottle, but he dismisses it as too much trouble and goes in the shower, kicking out the puppet. Good thing it was only his bladder that was the problem, if you get my drift. Some fans have speculated that this puppet also had a camera in it, but I can’t see evidence of that; I guess if you squint the eyes might look like a camera lens? I feel if that was the case it would have been shown. Hussie didn’t shy away from the weird shit with Dave’s living situation earlier.

Jade is upset to find the bisected bird from earlier, and decides to help the bird by putting it in the Kernelsprite, angering Dave again. He figures she’ll be more helpful when she’s awake, so he instructs her to slap the air to her side; the dreambot mimics her movements and whacks the real Jade in the face, waking her up.

BRIGHT: I burst out laughing the first time I saw that panel. It’s pretty clever of Dave. (Though obviously not kind, but of a variety that’s in keeping with the story.)

CHEL: Cut to the carapace camp, where they’re burning empty crates for a campfire. AR decides to use the Squiddles to Win over that fine carapace in grey, which seems to distress WV and Serenity. PM takes a Squiddle, but rather than being won over is vaguely reminded of something.

TIER: We then jump back into the past, where we find a totalled car and what looks like AR?

CHEL: Yep, though here he’s going by Authority Regulator instead of Aimless Renegade.

TIER: Whatever the case, this dude is not happy with this traffic violation. Another thing he's not happy with? Unauthorized parcels. Which brings us to the Parcel Mistress, who's been looking for this particular package for a while apparently. Now how to get it?

With that we jump back to John! Who's doing decent enough in his clobbering of game enemies. Just when things ain't looking too hot though, a mysterious stranger shoots and kills them with extreme prejudice. He looks familiar ain't he?

And even if he's not, that gigantic book under his arm can only be the work of the ol’ Colonel Sassacre, which John helpfully points out.

CHEL: Meanwhile in some other time period, PM suddenly remembers she must deliver a message to John. Back in the present, Parcel Mistress, for it is she, finds a tablet carved (badly) by John, depicting the SBurb envelope. The prompt suggests PM ready her sword, but she has none, and claims she would never resort to violence. Instead, she tries asking politely. Despite their lands’ enmity, AR finds her attractive and doffs his hat so furiously you are in danger of starting a HAT FIRE. His civility does not extend to handing over contraband, though. The tablet is sufficient evidence for him to give her the envelope, but to get the green parcel she must ask his bosses. PM puts the envelope in a pyxis, trusting the Breeze to move it, and follows AR.

John plans to follow the man, who he does not yet recognise as Jade’s Grandpa, to get his book back, but first he must help put out the fire in the salamander village. He flings the BARBASOL BOMB he made earlier into the volcano.

The cooling lather should work its magic in no time…

OH GOD HOW CAN SHAVING CREAM BE SO FLAMMABLE

Yeah, that doesn’t work so well. Fortunately, just as all seems lost, A big gust of wind conveniently comes along and blows out all the fire. The salamanders declare John a hero, though he’s just confused.

FAILURE ARTIST: A prompt (PM) asks John if he still has the tablet and if he wants to carve something on it. So, in another time loop, he does that.

Back at LOLAR, a very elegant and mysterious prompt ask Rose to find Jaspersprite. Rose cannot find him, but she does find footprints leading to the mausoleum. The mausoleum isn’t there anymore, but the underground passage is still there. Rose takes it down to a pier where someone has recently taken a boat and left a martini. The mysterious prompt says “A mother will do whatever is best for her children.” Nobody ever said “a brother will do whatever is best for his siblings”.

In the future, WV becomes the Mayor of Exile Town. The peace is disturbed when a “huge eggy looking thing” appears in the sky.

Cut to Jade giving the punch card of an “eggy loking thign (sic)”. Guess someone on the forum had bad spelling?

CHEL: It’s a callback to Rose describing the other unfinished GameFAQs entries, which were typed in haste. One described their entry item that way.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave creates a huge red bird with a huge red egg. When he tries to use the egg, the crow sprite takes it and puts it in a nest made of smuppets, swords, and Lil Cal.

Dave doesn’t have enough grist to do anything. He fusses around building what he can. That done, he goes inside and installs gristTorrent to steal grist from John. Who exactly made that software?

Meanwhile, in LOLAR, Rose has set up shop on the pier. The mysterious prompter tells her to consult with the Heir and in the pesterlog we see she’s chatting with John. They catch up on the trolls and various things. Unfortunately, Rose is harassed by a gallowsCalibrator who tells her in 133t speak that her mother hates her and left her forever. Amazing that GC eventually becomes a beloved character since they are such a little shit right now. GC has synesthesia and jokes about their species communicating through “CLOUDS OF FR4GR4NT G4S3S”. They want to be helpful, but they deny wanting to be friends, though later they say they are becoming something called “H4T3FR13NDS”.

CHEL: Rose asks if I'm being courted or trolled here, which with further reveals about the trolls will become somewhat ironic. Other trolls are jumping around in time but GC is ST4Y1NG L1N34R [...] C4US3 W31RD T1M3 STUFF G1V3S ME A H34D4CHE, though will jump forward in the timeline so they don’t have to wait too long between conversations.

BRIGHT: GC isn’t the only one...

FAILURE ARTIST: GC explains the voices in the players’ heads are from the Exiles on Earth. The ultimate goal is to create a new civilization with them. With that important information, GC bids adieu for now.

TT: So the exiles are on Earth? Does that mean our goal is to get back there too? To resurrect it somehow? GC: NO NO NO GC: S33 1RON1C4LLY TH3Y G3T TO DO TH4T GC: 4FT3R TH3YR3 DON3 H3LP1NG YOU TH4T 1S GC: YOUR JOB 1S OF GR34T3R CONS3QU3NC3 TO S4Y TH3 L34ST GC: BUT P4RT OF TH31R JOB 1S TO R3BU1LD L1F3 4ND C1V1L1Z4T1ON TH3R3 GC: 4ND 1F TH3YR3 SUCC3SSFUL 1N THOUS4NDS OR M1LL1ONS OF Y34RS TH3 T3CHNOLOGY 1S UN34RTH3D 4ND TH3 PL4N3T 1S R1P3 FOR S33D1NG 4LL OV3R 4G41N TT: You never answered the question. Where were they exiled from? GC: FROM TH3 TWO K1NGDOMS 1N TH3 1NC1P1SPH3R3 GC: 3XP4TR14T3D DUR1NG TH3 R3CKON1NG

CHEL: We now know who and what the Exiles are, so let’s lop off a point for that:

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 8

FAILURE ARTIST: Back in the past, when John went by ghostyTrickster, he tries to have a conversation with Jade but it’s interrupted by CG warning her that her robot will explode. After CG leaves, Jade and John talk about the trolls. Seems blocking does no good. John drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17

We cut to CG being gray and angry in some mysterious grey room.

Then, back to Jade. Her package from her pen-pal appears again.

Cut to ghostyTrickster John. GC trolls him, outs herself as female and blind, and threatens to cut his throat “4ND L1ST3N TO YOU BL33D WH1L3 1 SM3LL YOU D13”. John is naturally unnerved by this, but he also takes inspiration from her taunt that he’s bad at ectobiology.

CHEL: He takes for his new username a term that the trolls introduced him to, and is surprised when they immediately find him? Maybe we DID need a Too Dumb To Live count.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to a troll like CG, but with red glasses and a Libra sign on her shirt. This is our first look at gallowsCallibrator.

CHEL: Okay, does the death threat qualify for SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER? It’s a bit extreme considering at this point in his timeline John has done nothing to offend her. Then again, maybe not; the narrative doesn’t present this as being the right and proper thing to do.

Back in the present, PM arrives in enemy territory, with the parking citation as a ready excuse for her presence. Imps and agents she passes now have features from Jaspersprite; cat faces, princess hats, and we see a DD-like figure wearing a cat-ear headband. PM follows a red carpet, only to be confronted at the end by this eldritch-looking majesty:

PM is naturally trembling, but is merely instructed to speak to the Archagent, who we’ve met before; Jack Noir. We see a ring with four pearl-like orbs on the monarch’s hand; this will become important later.

Rose’s Exile voice bids her farewell, telling her to Find your sprite. Realise your purpose. No longer guided, Rose decides to start making her own decisions, beginning with a sip of martini.

In the desert, A WINDSWEPT QUESTANT suddenly appears, this being a tall white carapace with a feminine figure and narrow eyes, from the eggy lokin thign, with the unsound effect EGG! WV and AR appear disconcerted, while PM is busy telling John to put the carved tablet in the pyxis.

Back in Jack Noir’s office, PM attempts to grab the green box and leave, but Jack appears suddenly behind her, making her jump, and tells her she’d better have the ticket payment or you are wasting valuable time he could otherwise spend shirking his clerical duties. PM nervously explains she’s actually here for the package, and Jack points out she doesn’t have the right courier forms.

In spite of how he's supposed to be dressed now but isn't, he ain't nobody's fool.

However, instead, she could always do an errand for him. Specifically, following his HIT LIST, which is two pictures of white crowns recognisable as the tops of the king and queen chess pieces. He also gives her the enormous black sword we saw her future self use. PM, terrified, departs, and Jack wonders if she’s actually stupid enough to try it.

You make a policy of handing out a REGISWORD and a HITLIST to just about everyone who enters your office.

Curious, he opens the package, and stares into it in surprise.

At Dave’s apartment, Jade has put the Punch Designix in the hallway, making it rather hard to navigate, but regardless Dave’s busy alchemising. He plays with a few add-ons which temporarily render the machines unusable, but eventually manages to use a jumper shunty thing to consolidate all the machines into one. Jade draws some components, gets the captcha codes of their ghost images, and sends the codes to Dave, who plugs them into the machine. Useful, but could probably be compressed into fewer pages, especially when he follows it up by playing with the new machinery. This is adding to my conviction that the machines should have been simplified severely in the first place.

GET ON WITH IT!: 15

John finds the wrecked car with no dad, package, or game, and gets trolled by GC again. She offers to help him, claiming she wants to H3LP YOU 4DV4NC3 MOR3 QU1CKLY because she’s bored watching his long adventure and wants to help him skip ahead. John points out she could just skip forward on the timeline as she has before, and she admits that she just wants to see if she can change the timeline, as her friends don’t believe they can. She offers him a map, which he accepts.

John complains, naturally, and she relents and offers to guide him directly to the pipe which will help him skip to the next Gate. Honestly, he has reason to complain; her smellovision allows her to read text on a screen, yet not to draw?

Rose, back in LOLAR, battles monsters, doing surprisingly well considering she only has knitting needles for a weapon, culminating in an epic sequence in which she stabs both needles into an ogre’s eyes, flips onto its back, and uses her knitting as reins to ride it down the waterfall. Dave informs her he’s out of grist, but she finds the idea of killing the ogre for supplies when it’s unconscious to be distasteful. He’s interrupted by grimAuxiliatrix, The Troll Who Talks Like This, asking about Rose. The conversation is awkward as GA seems unable to read Dave’s sarcasm.

GA: She Perhaps Even Regards You With Uh GA: Endearment TG: you have no idea dude she is so in my grill TG: like a stray hotdog that rolled down there TG: and now its too much trouble to fish out with the tongs TG: so you just watch it like crack and turn black GA: Um Is This GA: A Common Sort Of Practice In Human Courtship GA: Watching Oblong Meat Products Tumble Into Places They Dont Belong

adiosToreador, meanwhile, does the same to Rose about Dave, with a similar lack of comprehension of Rose’s loquaciousness. GA contacts Rose again, and a confusing conversation about temporal mechanics ensues. Afterwards, we see GA, who proves to be a short-haired troll girl with pronged horns, a Virgo shirt symbol (my troll!), and cute little vampire teeth.

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s been too long for me to remember the fandom reaction, but I feel like the reveal that GA is a girl was framed like a surprise. Surprise! This troll is a lesbian! But I might be mistaken. Still, this isn’t like Dave’s (mock?) offended reaction to AT. Hussie, like many straight men, is more comfortable with lesbians than gay men.

We’ll see more of Rose’s and GA’s relationship as the comic goes on. Some non-Homestucks here might already be spoiled due to the numerous fanart of the two.

CHEL: I wasn’t surprised by her being a girl; maybe I’m stereotyping, but the prissy nature of her dialogue and quirk sounded feminine to me from the start, not to mention the “trix” ending of her username is a feminine one - if she was male, it would be “auxiliator”. Not sure how many people paid attention to that though. I was surprised by the later information that (SPOILER) she actually was interested in Rose, because facetious declarations of romantic intention are kind of a thing for the human kids at this point and her flustered reaction could be taken either way here.

Dave, meanwhile, is trolled by AT, with the most cringe-inducing text-rap I’ve ever seen (and text-rapping is pretty cringy to begin with). I gotta praise Hussie, it takes skill to make something this awful.

AT: oK, lET ME, AT: oRGANIZE MY NOTES HERE, AT: oKAYYY, AT: (tURN ON SOME STRICT BEATS MAYBE, iT WILL HELP TO LISTEN TO THEM WHILE i DESTROY YOU,) AT: wHEN THE POLICE MAN BUSTS ME, aND POPS THE TRUNK, AT: hE'S ALL SUPRISED TO FIND I'M TOTING SICK BILLY, AT: wHOSE, AT: gOAT IS THAT, hE ASKS, wHILE HE STOPS TO THUNK AT: aBOUT IT, aND i'S JUST SAY IT'S DAVE'S, yOU SILLY AT: gOOSE,

Since we’ll later find out trolls don’t have the concept of police in the same way humans do, and nor do they call animals by the same names we do, I think this is worth some WSP points. Did he watch Dave’s life closely enough to pick up those concepts?

BRIGHT: I get the distinct impression none of the trolls watched anything like enough of the kids’ lives to pick up the concept of the police, particularly since as we’ll see later they missed a few things that are rather more obvious -- such as, say, parents.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 11

CHEL: He also namedrops Prospit and Derse, which I’m not really spoiling anything by saying are the names of the two warring chess kingdoms, though I don’t think those names have been applied to them yet. I don’t know why, it’s not like keeping them secret makes a big difference - did Hussie only just think of them? The quality of his rhymes aside, AT appears very proud of himself; he’s a troll with enormous bull-like horns, a mohawk, and a Taurus symbol. I thought he was really creepy-looking the first time I saw him, but he rather grew on me.

Back on LOWAS, John is squirted out of a pipe with a gush of oil. Ew. The Con Air bunny goes flying and lands in an oil river, and he catches it with the Ghost Gauntlets. An adult and child pair of salamanders happen to be standing nearby, prompting a movie re-enactment, much to the salamanders’ confusion.

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CG is unimpressed, though he agrees with John that Con Air sounds entertaining. CG claims to have been watching the whole of John’s life and Con Air is supposed to be one of John’s favourite movies; how come CG hasn’t seen any of it before, especially since he says he has seen a movie John hates?

CG: OK I DON'T SEE HOW WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BECOMING FRIENDS IF YOU RECOIL FROM MY OLIVE BRANCH LIKE I'M WIGGLING A GNARLED TREE MONSTER'S DICK IN YOUR DIRECTION.

Lovely. Though I gotta say the dialogue and ridiculous extended metaphors are one of the best parts of Homestuck. Wish I could pull those off. However, one point here; if they’re aliens, it seems odd that they would use human idioms such as “olive branch” with the same meaning we do. There is a possible explanation later on, but since they only ever use American/Western phrases like this and it’s clear from other things they say that they didn’t pick up anything much about human culture from watching the kids, I’m upping the count anyway.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 12

BRIGHT: We also discover that troll movies are titled very differently to human movies, such as the classic

CG: WHEREIN NUMEROUS VIGILANTES CONFRONT PERIL; ONE OF THEM BETRAYS THE OTHERS;(BUT IT TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG); CG: SEVERAL ATTRACTIVE FEMALE LEADS PROVOKE ROMANTIC TENSION; FOUR MAJOR CHARACTERS WEAR UNUSUAL HATS; ONE HOLDS PLOT-CRITICAL SECRET; CG: 47 ON-SCREEN EXPLOSIONS, ONE RESULTING IN DEMISE OF KEY-ADVERSARY;6 TO 20 LINES THAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS HUMOROUS; EB: wait... EB: this is the title? CG: IT GOES ON.

Apparently after thousands of years of film history, you start running out of movie titles.

Also, note that despite their being aliens, quite possibly with different gender roles, the romantic tension is explicitly provided by attractive female leads.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13

CG thinks that Earth civilisation’s lack of maturity might explain why the players are (apparently) doing so badly. John retorts that GC is helping him, so they can’t be doing THAT badly. Apparently this wasn’t in the plan; CG goes to talk to GC about it, and she punches him. Seems she’s talking to a future John at the moment, and he asked her to. CG gives John a message to pass on to GC in reply.

CG: TELL HER TO POLISH MY HEAVING BONE BULGE AND SET A TABLE FOR FUCKING TWO ON IT. CG: IT’S FOR OUR CANDLELIT HATE DATE.

John comments that it’s like they’re trolling each other through him now, and asks if CG has talked to Jade. CG is surprised that he’d want to talk to her. John offers to paste the chatlog; CG refuses, and John heads off to talk to GC.

CHEL: Precisely what a bone bulge is is never explained. Context makes it clear it’s an unsavoury body part, and it sounds like a term for one’s dick, even though the boner does not in fact contain bones in humans. The assumption early in the fandom was that the trolls had primarily human anatomy, which seems odd to me considering Kanaya’s complete obliviousness to her Oblong Meat Products comment - most teenagers familiar with human penises would be on that instantly. Anyway, there soon came a phase of experimentation, and by now we seem to have settled on the “functional-hermaphrodites with tentacle dicks” theory. Which is weird, because a tentacle doesn’t sound like something which would be referred to with the word “bone”, does it?

GC’s laughing mouth is reflected in John’s glasses as they speak in what I desperately hope is a shoutout to the Corinthian. She calls John STUP1DLY 4DOR4BLE (minor typo on the comic’s part as the E in her quirk should be a 3) and laughs at CG’s frustration. John relays an approximation of CG’s message:

EB: he wants you to touch his bone lump or something. GC: WH4T!!! EB: and that he's pretty much basically in love with you.

GC asks him to copy-paste the convo for proof but John refuses, saying it was a private conversation, and informs GC that she’s going to punch CG soon. In other news, referring to these characters with only their handle initials when I know their actual names is hard.

On GC’s instructions, John turns around, to discover this hard-to-miss landmark:

This, according to GC, is the D3N1Z3NS P4L4C3, in which the Denizen sleeps on a grist hoard so big their alchemising could never make a dent in it.

GC: USU4LLY HOW 1TS SUPPOS3D TO GO 1S GC: OV3R TH3 COURS3 OF YOUR QU3ST GC: YOU W1LL W4K3 TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND TH3N F1N4LLY YOU GO THROUGH TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: WH1CH 1S TH3 ONLY W4Y 1NTO TH3 P4L4C3 GC: TH3N YOU GO DOWN 4ND F1GHT TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND K1LL 1T GC: R3L3AS1NG TH3 HO4RD EB: so what's my advantage? GC: YOU WONT BOTH3R W4K1NG 1T GC: W3 W1LL SK1P R1GHT TO TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: F1ND 1TS L41R GC: 4ND K1LL 1T 1N 1TS SL33P

The grist hoard, GC claims, is for the ULT1M4T3 4LCH3MY, but she won’t explain what this is yet, and she leads John to a R3TURN NOD3 which takes him back to his home to prepare.

In the desert, AR and WV hammer some metal to make a gift for the Windswept Questant, which proves to be a crown. PM is shocked to see this, and emerges from the bunker, sword in hand.

Meanwhile, in a long-discarded memory… A PARCEL MISTRESS seeks audience with royalty.

It seems Windswept Questant is in fact, of course, the White Queen.

PM explains recent events and seeks her queen’s advice, showing her the hit list requesting the white monarchs’ crowns. WQ is wearing a ring similar to that of the monarch we met earlier, the Black Queen. Four orbs are attached to it, two light and two dark. On removing it, WQ loses all her elaborate prototyping accoutrements and becomes the normal-looking carapace we saw in her Windswept Questant identity. WQ seems to have a plan; instead of requiring PM to kill her to finish her fetch quest, she simply hands over her crown and ring, and instructs PM to find the White King on the battlefield. Flashing forward to the desert, WQ places her new crown on PM’s head, much to the astonishment of their companions.

On LOLAR, beneath waterfalls pouring from hovering pink turtle shells, Rose frustratedly consults with Jaspersprite, who will apparently only meow. However, when asked a direct question, Jaspersprite is able to respond. He is attempting to fish with his tentacles, but there are no fish, because her Denizen ate everything in the ocean and got so full that it took a long nap. Being as cryptic as Nannasprite, he won’t, however, explain what the message he gave to young Rose meant, saying she’ll understand when she wakes up.

JASPERSPRITE: Rose im just a cat and i dont know much but i know that youre important and also you are what some people around here call the Seer of Light. JASPERSPRITE: And you dont know what that means but you will see its all tied together! JASPERSPRITE: All the life in the ocean and all the shiny rain and the songs in your head and the letters they make. JASPERSPRITE: A beam of light i think is like a drop of rain or a long piece of yarn that dances around when you play with it and make it look enticing! JASPERSPRITE: And the way that it shakes is the same as what makes notes in a song! JASPERSPRITE: And a song i think can be written down as letters. JASPERSPRITE: So if you play the right song and it makes all the right letters then those letters could be all the letters that make life possible. JASPERSPRITE: So all you have to do is wake up and learn to play the rain!

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie is very good at writing the dialogue of a kitten turned into a game NPC, you’ve got to hand it to him.

CHEL: It’s also worth noting that his colours have stopped flashing pink and purple, and he’s settled on pink.

Rose asks Jade for further information, and learns that all four of the kids have a dream self which must awaken; Rose deduces Jade’s has been awake as long as they’ve known each other. Jade is in fact asleep now, and can only message at the moment because of her robot. Rose’s dream self is dreaming troubled dreams, causing the real Rose to suffer nightmares all her life, and to stop this she must discover how to wake her dream self.

GG: maybe the stuff you wrote on your walls can give you a clue? TT: What stuff? GG: the.... GG: er GG: didnt dave tell you?

Utterly heartwarming moment; we see in John’s dream tower, and Jade has drawn over the LAME KID messages and creepy clown faces on John’s walls with a big bright yellow heart and the message wake up john!!! you can do it!!!

Rose wants to know what’s going on, but Dave is unavailable. The meteor is about to land and he’s scrambling his way up the tower to his kernelsprite’s nest to retrieve the entry egg.

Back at John’s house, he finds the useless rocket-pack-combined-with-junk he experimentally alchemised earlier; GC tells him that the trolls’ resident hacker, who we haven’t met yet, can use its code to create a usable jetpack. Said hacker doesn’t want to talk to them but WONT B3 4BL3 TO R3S1ST TH3 CH4LL3NG3.

John sends the mishmash code…

GC: OK B3 B4CK IN L3SS TH4N ON3 S3COND GC: PCHOOOOO EB: hello? GC: WH4T EB: it thought you said you'd be back in less than a second? GC: 1 W4S GC: 1 G4V3 YOU TH3 COD3 GC: 1TS PCHOOOOO

Hee. The misunderstanding leads into a brief argument, GC claiming that 3V3N YOU 4ND YOUR UND3RD3V3LOP3D BON3 NOOK W1LL B3 4BL3 TO F1GUR3 OUT WH4T TO DO. Once again, we don’t know what a bone nook is. Context could imply either an obscene body part or a brain-related one. Common fanon holds that it’s the vagina, others have objected and said it surely must mean anus; neither of those sound like a “bone” anything to me, and in fact bone would be horribly counterproductive for organs which have to perform peristalsis. Someone did point out to me that it could mean a place to put the metaphorical bone, but that wasn’t what I immediately thought.

FAILURE ARTIST: I don’t think the phrase “bone nook” ever comes up again, though the word “nook” by itself does and it can be replaced with the word “ass” in those cases. Basically, trolls aren’t a fictional species crafted with any care. Hussie wanted some annoying alien characters with a visual callback to “Little Monsters” and it somehow got out of control.

CHEL: Actually, I believe it does come up in Hiveswap Act 1! But we’ll get to that.

John answers a message from Dave, who now claims to be in the Medium, saying it took him four hours. He asks for advice, saying his sprite wants him to prototype it again, and Rose is randomly asleep.

TG: ok fine but TG: it seems to be suggesting something here TG: and TG: i guess im kinda weirded out by its suggestion EB: i don't know, just do what it says! EB: it knows stuff about the game, so it probably knows better than i do...

Not a good sign. John decides to Take dear, sweet Casey (the baby salamander) into protective custody by captchaloguing her, and blasts off for the gate.

Cut to an animated sequence in The Land of Heat and Clockwork, a nightmarish lava-scape covered in machinery (convection schmonvection), where Dave is being extremely badass and surprisingly successful for someone with only half a sword. In fact, multiple Daves appear to be present. We also see, unfortunately, exactly what he prototyped:

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Calsprite is even less helpful than the other two, providing a constant soundtrack of creepy laughter while Dave begs him to shut up. According to Dave’s ensuing convo with Rose, this has been going on for four months. That’s… pretty terrifying even before we hear everything that went wrong. John was unsurprisingly instantly slain by his Denizen, and thus couldn’t save Jade from her meteor. Dave, however, has now mastered the art of time travel via the magical turntables he’s created, and intends to go back and prevent all that from happening, now that they’ve spent four months gathering information their past selves can use. Rose is afraid of ceasing to exist; Dave assures her that their dream selves exist outside the standard passage of time, and this will help her dream self wake sooner.

FAILURE ARTIST: The trolls also stopped “trolling” Dave and Rose after John died. This isn’t the end of the trolls, of course.

Dave uses his turntables to go to the past. We cut to a conversation we just saw, where Dave has just entered the Medium and John is about to go pchooooo, except this time from Dave’s roof.

GET ON WITH IT!: 16

Except at the end, Dave tells John not to go. See, Dave from the future just arrived on Dave from the present’s roof. John refuses to believe that this is happening, thinking it’s just a prank. Not even putting future!Dave on the line convinces John. So, future!Dave unloads everything he has in a stack and flips back into the Crowsprite to become a new characters: Davesprite.

CHEL: Note that, instead of Dave’s theme colour of red, Davesprite is orange. I did wonder if this was potentially supposed to show that Bro (whose theme colour is orange) is overwriting/overshadowing Dave’s real self, but since the sprites of the others aren’t the theme colours of their respective kids (Nannasprite is teal to John’s dark blue and Jaspersprite pink to Rose’s purple) I don’t think this is really a reliable sign. Pin in the colours, though, that’ll come up later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Meanwhile, John blasts off with the words “THIS IS STUPID”.

Present!Rose tries to pester Dave, and we get another repeated conversation.

GET ON WITH IT!: 17

Present!Rose decides to nap, and at that moment, Future Dream Rose ceases to exist and becomes absorbed by Present!Rose. I think.

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9

Davesprite pesters GC to tell her not to talk to John anymore. GC first reacts by saying “YOU SM3LL L1K3 OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S” but then finds out she killed John. She had assumed since she could talk to John in the future, he hadn’t died, but she guessed there was a chance he could die. She’s a little put-out and wants to apologize, but she’s not as sad as you’d expect someone who accidentally killed someone to be. Davesprite asks who is in charge of timeline management.

GC: SH3 DO3SNT W4NT TO T4LK TO 4NY OF YOU GC: 4ND H4S M1SG1V1NGS 4BOUT TH1S WHOL3 TH1NG GC: NOT 4LL OF US 4R3 TH4T 3NTHUS1AST1C 4BOUT TROLL1NG YOU GUYS GC: 4ND TH3 ON3S WHO 4R3 SORT OF SUCK 4T 1T >:|

We do get to meet her, but not until the next act when we meet all the trolls.

Davesprite gives GC permission to talk to John if she cuts out her “coy bullshit antics”. GC mocks his threatening tone and points out she’s higher on the echeladder, from the future, and blind. Davesprite says his self-prototyping gave him great powers and GC says that was a bad idea. They then engage in some banter over GC posting screencaps of Wheeler from Captain Planet (which she calls a “soap opera”). Davesprite and GC end the conversation with mutual respect. Which is honestly really weird after all future!Dave had to go through because of GC.

CHEL: Does this count for SLAMMER points? I think it does. Here’s the first of our new count, then!

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1

This will go up whenever a character does something awful and neither the narrative nor the other characters seem to care.

This also brings us into another point. We’ve seen only hints of it, but alternate timelines are a big theme of this comic. Davesprite in particular is a major focus of said theme, specifically the nature of his personhood separately from the focal or “alpha” Dave. However, as we see here, not even the Dave from the dead John’s timeline particularly seems to mind that John just died in an alternate timeline. At the moment, they appear to feel that because there is an alive John, everything is okay. Let’s see how that progresses.

FAILURE ARTIST: Davesprite and present!Dave (who I guess we can just call Dave at this point) talk. Davespite says as a sprite he has lots of knowledge but is obligated to put it in riddles. However, he says he doesn’t feel like it so he’ll answer Dave straight.

DAVE: alright DAVE: here goes DAVE: why are we so fucking awesome DAVESPRITE: thats the best fucking question anybody ever asked

After that best fucking question, Dave asks if John will be alright. Davesprite says that’s up to John, and if John doesn’t listen they’ll just bail him out again. Davesprite says the gear he piled up will help Dave get to the next gate. The two versions of Dave decide to collaborate on a SBaHJ comic and fist “bunp”.

Meanwhile, “hundreds of pages ago”, John gets his bunny from Dave. We see Dave’s note and it’s cool how each of the kids have their own style of handwriting. There’s a very prophetic sentence in this sweet note:

one day your gooberish ways are gonna land you in a jam and i know im going to have to get you off the hook but its cool i got your back bro.

We cut to the present, where John is blasting off. The human emotion of friendship causes him to reconsider his action. John pesters Dave and tells him he’s just flying around and not going to the gate. Crisis averted.

This might seem like a cul de sac, but it created a new character (Davesprite) and introduced many concepts, so it really isn’t.

CHEL: Primarily, it introduced the theme of jumping around in time in the literal sense as well as just hopping between apparently-disconnected scenes. The latter’s not a generally well-advised style of writing, but considering the time travel motif of the comic, I think it actually works fine here. Also, as a webcomic, if one spends too long on one group of characters then by the time you get back to the other ones the readers will probably not remember what happened, so shorter scenes for each group are probably more acceptable than in a novel or movie.

CG trolls John again, and after a discussion of their becoming reverse anti-mutual friends, John complains that CG hasn’t really answered his questions.

CG: SO GO AHEAD, ASK ME ANYTHING. EB: ok... EB: what's the point of the game. CG: ASK SOMETHING ELSE. CG: ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT.

John asks where they are now in their Medium, and CG explains they’re HIDING IN THE VEIL, a meteor belt between the two planets. To clarify the layout for our readers, Skaia the big ball of sky is in the centre, with Prospit the golden planet orbiting it closely enough for its moon to enter Skaia during the “eclipse” where Jade gets her visions. Then there are the players’ Lands, their little adventure planets where the consorts live, the consorts being the little NPC creatures (in John’s case, the salamanders). Every player has a Land of Something and Something. Beyond the Lands is the Veil, and beyond that is the Furthest Ring, the orbit of Derse, the dark planet.

CG: OK, THERE COMES A TIME WHEN BLACK INEVITABLY BEATS WHITE CG: ON THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE CENTER OF SKAIA CG: THE WHITE KING IS CAPTURED OR KILLED OR SOMETHING CG: THAT'S WHEN THE RECKONING STARTS. EB: ok... CG: THE RULERS OF DERSE CG: THE BLACK KING AND QUEEN CG: GET THE POWER TO SEND THE VEIL TOWARD SKAIA CG: TO DESTROY IT CG: THAT KIND OF STARTS YOUR BIG "COUNTDOWN" CG: WHEN SHIT GETS SERIOUS. EB: so then it's up to us to save it? CG: YEAH, YOU HAVE THAT LONG TO KILL THE BLACK QUEEN AND KING CG: AND SKAIA ITSELF SORT OF BUYS YOU SOME TIME CG: BY ACTIVATING ITS DEFENSE PORTALS CG: TO CATCH SOME OF THE METEORS

Ordinarily, the players would have plenty of time before this happens, but something done by the human players has caused things to go wrong, and now they’ve not only ruined their own chance of winning, but somehow affected the trolls’ game too. CG refuses to explain how, because he’s already told him again.

John asks if they’re hiding in a crater or something, but no, CG explains there are buildings in the Veil. It’s considered neutral ground, and both sides have laboratories there where they genetically engineer new soldiers and agents. John asks CG to tell GC “nice try”, but he refuses.

Now comes the mid-point animation of the act, “[S] Jack: Ascend”. I thought it was an ending animation, but no, there’s still more. If you don’t want to or can’t watch video I’ll explain the content, but I do recommend it.

Watch on YouTube

Pan over the Skaian system, from LOWAS to the Veil to the purple towers of Derse. Four towers are close together, topped by orbs. On three of them, we see the silhouettes of the sprites, while the fourth is dark. Jack Noir sits at his desk, doing paperwork, a pink princess dress on a stand next to it. He doodles on a parking ticket, declaring the Black Queen to be a HUGE BITCH. Closeup on BQ’s hips as she approaches, because we totally needed gratuitous sex appeal. She’s remarkably curvy for a probably-non-mammal. Still, we’ll forgive the standard scifi tropes. Jack watches on the Fenestrated Wall, until BQ appears and hacks it in half. She waves the dress and a pink pointed hat at him; apparently, now that the princess doll has been prototyped, the carapaces must represent it in their clothing as well as the jester. Jack is understandably displeased, and after a quick-fire montage of various outfits representing the sprites’ themes, he tears the final colourful tunic up.

Meanwhile, Rose’s dreamself has awoken, and discovers what she wrote on her walls; the word MEOW and other arrangements of the letters M, E, O, and W, over and over again, over every inch of the walls except the part covered by her bed. She finally remembers what Jaspers said to her, which was, of course, MEOW. This seems like nonsense, but as she looks, the letters switch to G, C, A, and T, the letters used to denote DNA nucleotides. It’s a genetic code.

The guardians, meanwhile, are battling enormous monsters; Mom and Dad respectively punch out a three-eyed spider-like giant and a rock cyclops, Dad pausing afterwards to carve a hat on a pyxis tablet, and Bro swordfights against a lava-dwelling tentacle beast.

Back to Jack, matters have got worse; not only are the carapaces required to dress like the sprites, but Davesprite still has the sword sticking through his torso, so now so must Jack. Considering what else we’ve seen carapaces survive, he’d probably be fine, but he’s still understandably hesitant. BQ offers him a sword, but he slices off her ring-bearing finger, which… causes her to explode? Jack puts on the ring, which causes Derse to glow white and him to sprout the features of the sprites; a sword grows from him without him having to fall on it, and wings and tentacles emerge. End scene.

So, approximately, human children have possibly caused the destruction of an alien civilisation’s last hope by putting a cat in a princess dress. Whatever else you think of Homestuck, you can’t say it’s not inventive.

BRIGHT: It is that, among other things.

COUNTS ALL THE LUCK: 0 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15 CALL CPA PLEASE: 8 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17 GET ON WITH IT!: 17 GORE GALORE: 9 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 15 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 6 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 0 RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 1 SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1 SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: 0 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13 TOTAL: 111

[bartonclinton]

My gifs are a mess lol but ✨ + my edits: gifs; I apologize if it takes 80 years to wade through my super basic gifs, lol

Hey 😊 no worries, I love all your gifs! idk how you manage to gif so much lol I admire your dedication!

1. this sansa one I LOVE the quote; it fits her so well. and you did an amazing job w choosing scenes to match the words! also love the use of a different font for the word “bloom.”

2. this glee one I’ve never watched glee but this is so pretty!! The coloring is beautiful and I love the blues & the black backgrounds! also, nice job choosing a good variety of scenes from the show!

3. this sanrion one!!! I just love & miss them so much. I loved the beginning of this scene. Her turning around to look at him was the softest thing ever -I love that they trust each other & can let their guards down around each other.

4. another sanrion one this is one of my fave scenes of theirs! You did a great job w the coloring. I SO appreciate you giffing so much sanrion content for the fandom :’)

5. the great gifset I haven’t seen this but this coloring is super pretty! I love those blues so much and the vibrance of it all. 

[surflove808]

On Destiel and endgame hysteria

Sometimes I get fired up about some of the BS I see in this fandom and this is one of those moments.  This post will be a layercake of sentimentality, disappointment, anger and maybe a wee bit (a lot) of profanity.  So, you know. Back on my bullshit.

The show that we love, love to hate or hate to love, for better or worse, will see it's final curtain call at the S15 finale.  You don't need me to tell you how impactful it's been and how much it means to so many people for a variety of reasons that extend well beyond it's entertainment value.  All it takes is one scroll through social media to get a sampling of the reach of this little-show-that-could and by extension (and because of) it's cast, to see that it's beloved by so many.  And it deserves the praise, and the end deserves to be lamented - but like TFW has said over and over, and to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, they're doing it their way.  For that?  I'm happy.

The show has been described as a "juggernaut" and an "institution", and it is.  We all know the themes:  Finding *your* family, struggle, perseverance, dedication, making mistakes and not always learning from them (but trying), acceptance, the beauty in humanity even when all hope seems lost, redemption, and love... to name the big ones. Now about Love.  "Love" is not threatening to burn down houses if your ship isn't made canon.  "Acceptance" isn't threatening the cast, crew, producers and network with lawsuits if your ship isn't made endgame.  I saw a few posts like that today that had a very disappointing number of likes and reblogs and I'm kinda furious, to be honest.  You fucking twits.

As someone who enjoys the show, and respects the determination, sacrifice, hard work, creativity, and yes - Love -  that has been poured into this endeavor, I don't think I'm alone when I say -  JUST. STOP.  You whining, tantrum throwing, self-important, "wouldn't catch a social cue if it had a $100 bill attached to it and was tossed to you from 3 feet away", obnoxious, divisive children.  

Accept what the cast, the writers and Eric Freaking Kripke have told you?  No... can't do that.  Must hop from one lily pad of delusion to the next and have the gall to be self righteous about it.  And then pat yourselves on the back for being alternately clever, threatening and obtuse.  You're like the Donald Trumps of the SPN fandom.  You're not disliked because of your ship.  You're disliked because of your personalities.  Let that sink in.  No one is marginalizing you.  You chose to do this to yourselves AND your beloved ship via your words and actions.  You sunk your own battleship and now you’re pissed.  

I don't affiliate myself with any ship or the other factions of this fandom.... I don't get it.  I'm just a fan.  A fan of the story, the acting, the tragedy, the comedy, the characters and the character of the actors involved.  I don't know what a good "fan" is... don't care.  But I know what a bad one is.  A bad one thinks that they can take ownership of someone else's art just because they've "invested" in it. 

And I apply it to my own life in this way - Here I am doing my thing, putting my creativity out into the world... and what I create matters to me.  Every little bit.  I throw myself into the things I'm passionate about.  And not everyone is going to be thrilled with what I produce.  Some people will never see what I put out there, but word travels fast when you genuinely care about your craft.  I do what I do because it drives me, and always has.  And I do my best to stay true to MY story.  And the thought of someone trying to insert themselves into my story because they think they know my creations better than I do, makes me want to punch throats.  

And the thought of a group of people actually threatening me and the people I collaborate with because I'm not making their fantasy a reality??  Hey - get fucked sideways without lube, and throw some sand in there for extra discomfort.

I want you (and you know who you are) to have some accountability.  Please tell me in what scenario is your behavior warranted or appropriate.  Feel free to DM me.  I won't "out" you, and I'll never be abusive - I just need to know why.  (bullet pointing this because... reading comprehension)

1.  WHY is Destiel is the only representation you'll accept.  

2.  WHY do you think it's funny or "OK" to harass the creatives on this show constantly when you have absolutely no right to their story?  

3.  WHY do you think that pushing something so hard will get you what you want? 

4,   And lastly.... WHY is this so important to you? 

Can you possibly survive if Destiel isn't made canon?  Do you have other hobbies and interests that can fill your time?  Because some of ya'll are acting like this is the Be All End All of your existence and I'm here to tell you - it's really not.  If it DOES happen, it will be at the discretion of the showrunner and creatives, and I promise you it won’t be because they caved to the small, yet omnipresent faction of Destiehellers that have annoyed the ever-living fuck out of everyone attached to this show.  It’ll be on their terms.

The tantrum strategy stops working after age 4, usually....it just seems some of you are late getting the memo.  Thanks to your folks.  Well done.

Try to appreciate the show for what it is and always has been.  If your expectations are unreasonable and are buoyed by years of manips, misquotes and over-analyzation of brief "moments" between ANY characters, and you feel emotional enough about it to behave badly - it's time for a factory reset.  This show has never mislead you - you’ve bought into delusion and over-analysis and straight-up fiction pimped to you by fellow “fans” probably before you even watched your first episode.  It’s the weirdest thing I’ve seen.  And I’ve seen some shit. 

If you’re going to be angry... be angry at your friendly neighborhood Destiel dealer.  They chumped you to get more *buy* for their *supply*.  Them’s the facts.

That being said.... Can We Just Appreciate The Final Moments That This Amazing Cast And Crew Are Going To Give Us (and you know they will), And Let It The Fuck GO?  

You're welcome to block me (you probably should).  But before you do that, could you let this sink in a bit?  And if you see a fellow shipper being an entitled  douche - maybe hold yourself to a higher standard than they do themselves and don't perpetuate it/like/reblog it?  Because this behavior is well and truly a shitty way to treat the legacy of this groundbreaking show, and all those that are responsible for bringing it to life. 

In other words....Behave.  And have some goddamn dignity.

I’m not sure if I’m doing this right, but my response was so long.  Eh...whatever.  @jessiegail   I understand, and please allow me to elaborate. When I was scrolling through the Jensen tags (because the Dean and SPN tags have been overrun by a lot of people with zero respect for the character/show canon, so I stay away anymore.  That in and of itself should tell you something)... I was also sharing in the moment, and the news and wanted to see some SPN love and positivity. What I ran into almost immediately was, and I quote: "If they don't make destiel cannon (sic) for the series finale, I'll set their houses on fire. You've been warned." 87 people agreed with @moosewncstr on this sentiment.  Now... if it was one shitty person and people steered clear of any affiliation with them for threatening arson because they're completely off their fucking rocker.... that would be easy to ignore.  But 87 people??  That’s really, really bad. What I'm seeing and have been seeing, is a hive-mind mentality that doesn't care for acceptance. Doesn't care if it’s abusive. Doesn't care if someone gets their “feelings” hurt. And they absolutely Do Not Care if what they say incites the potential reality of violence, as long as they can force their ship down the throats of as many people as possible and Make It Canon.  

And by hive-mind, I mean - NO ONE in the Destiel camp seems to have the degree of autonomy (AKA:  Balls) required to rein in the bad apples in their bunch.  They either agree or stay silent.  So, because you can’t self-regulate, people like me with no concern or desire for your approval have to come in and tell you to knock your shit off.  You won’t.  But I feel better.  And maybe others will feel more comfortable to express their disapproval when shit like this rears its ugly head. Anyone who would think threats (just a joke...hahaha), are acceptable, and those who are in agreement can suck it. And i will not roll over and sing kumbaya with anyone who thinks this is ok. I'm generally careful with the headers and lead-in paragraphs to posts that are potentially inflammatory. A courtesy that is not extended by your brethren. You had ample warning that this post would not be kind to asshole shippers. I don’t think you are one of those people - but, if you’re defending this behavior, I can’t really empathize with you.  I also don’t want you to feel targeted.  This isn’t about YOU.  This is about endemic behavior that has become so toxic, it pretty much can’t be undone. As for paying anything forward, I do not owe people who act like this the time of day, much less a kind word. I have 2 choices:  I can stand by and pretend I don't see these things and block, block, block so that I can stay in my bubble. Or, I can take my own little stand on my own little blog and address genuinely disturbing behavior using language of my choice. What I will never do is threaten or abuse any individuals who question my logic. Downside is... you'll get a very long winded explanation. Go, be happy. Enjoy your ship. No one is telling you not to. I'm telling you right now, though - I can't and won't tolerate the bad apples. Best to block me if you're sensitive to the way I word my posts, but understand - I'm not promoting hate or abusive behavior - I'm fighting it. And I will continue to do so as long as I'm on this dumpster fire of a website, because I love this show and I believe all of the creative's, crew and fans deserve some fucking respect.

[joannalannister]

I'm feeling really frustrated with the fandom these days. The final season of the show, which I loathe with the ferocity of a thousand suns, is coming and is everywhere and is going to reveal the ending of the books, which frustrates me. There are shipping wars, which I loathe. The theories have dried up. People seem to be extra entitled about TWOW than usual and the people who make fun of it in a good natured are also frustrating me. I just feel disenchanted. What do I do?

I can only tell you what works for me. Idk if my methods would work for anybody else, and just to clarify, this is not me dictating what anyone else should do, this is just what I do. 

1) Block early and block often. I used to just mute people but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  As they say in ADWD, winter’s here babe and not all of us are makin’ it to spring. 

2) Blacklist like it’s 1947. I have three blacklists running simultaneously. Tumblr’s blacklist as a first line of defense, xKit’s blacklist for a “soft” hide because I also have xkit’s whitelist running, and Tumblr Savior for a hardcore blacklist without a whitelist. Blacklist everything. Politely (politely!!) ask people to tag a Thing for blacklisting if necessary. If that does not work, unfollow. Mute and/or block if necessary. I do not recommend using mobile. 

3) Focus on what you love. I’m here to enjoy ASOIAF content. I don’t talk about the characters I don’t like. I don’t hate-read. I don’t write hate meta. Some people define “fandom” as “hating things” and I avoid those people. The people who predominantly hate on things are currently drowning out the people who just want to enjoy things and we gotta turn the tide, we gotta be the change we want to see in the world. (By ASOIAF content, I mean Lannisters.) 

So ask yourself what you love about the books. What parts do you love? What’s your favorite passage? Favorite line? Go reread it. Go blog about it. Do it now, as if this were one of those writer memes. Talk about it or just quote it, but you need a reminder of what you love. Go. I’ll wait. We have time. 

4) Pace yourself. As you well know, this is a marathon, not a sprint. You gotta take breaks, or you’ll burn yourself out. Read other books and watch other tv shows. (I have recs if you need them!) And for the love of r’hllor, make sure you pick up a tactile hobby that doesn’t involve a screen. When I do other things and I enjoy other media, I come back to ASOIAF refreshed. I have new ideas. I look at certain passages with new eyes. So pace yourself. 

5) Brace yourself. This toxic storm is going to get worse before it gets better. I don’t just mean the trashfire that’s coming down the pipe over the next two months. I mean the years between TWOW and ADOS. TWOW is going to be a very dark book, where the Heroes make a lot of morally grey choices and do some terrible things that @ntis will hold up and scream, “see, they were the villain all along!!1!” Expect this with every pov character; batten down the hatches now (see #1 and #2).

6) Sow the seeds of kindness. I cannot change how toxic this fandom has become, but I can tend my small corner of it. I try to say at least one nice thing to someone every time I log on. Send a nice ask, comment on someone’s post, let people know how much you appreciate their hard work. Maybe if enough people did this, everyone together could turn the fandom tide. (Probably unlikely, but it never hurts to hope, or to dream.) 

7) Know your exits. Define precisely what will make you hit the eject button. This can be something(s) the fandom does, something GRRM does, something the show does, whatever, but I have my lines drawn in the sand and I know what will make me say, “I’m done.” I have my exit strategy planned, if necessary. 

8) Find a long term ASOIAF project. Write that looong fanfiction, draw that complicated thing, do that big analysis, whatever. I have more long term ASOIAF projects than I know what to do with, R’hllor help me, I need help with them. 

9) Be steadfast. Listen to me: the books are going to end with the Others defeated. No, I have not read ADOS, but I know this in my heart to be true. GRRM is a dreamer, not a nihilist. 

The show is also going to end with the Others defeated. (Permanently? I don’t know. But defeated? Yes.) The Others defeated - that is what I believe the “same ending” means in the books and the show. 

Everything else is up for grabs. I have sat in an auditorium with GRRM in 2018 and listened to him say – very forcefully – that characters who die on the show will live in the books, and vice versa. 

So when you say, the show “is going to reveal the ending of the books,” I have to disagree with you. I do not think that the endings are going to be entirely the same, aside from the fact that the Others are going to be defeated. I think the showrunners who tout the “same ending” are speaking very broadly, and they don’t care about anything except cool visuals and cold hard cash. 

That show could end with Jon and Dany sharing the Iron Throne with their ten children, and until GRRM says otherwise, I will maintain that the Iron Throne is gonna get melted, and that Jon and Dany will die in the books while saving the world. 

None of my ASOIAF predictions are changing until I have the books in my hands, or GRRM says something that disproves my theories. 

So my advice to you is: Be steadfast. The show is not the books.

The books are an emotional journey. It’s the journey that matters – it’s the range of emotions those words on every page inspire in you – it’s the journey, not the destination. 

I don’t know about you, but that tv show inspires no emotion in me. The books, on the other hand, inspire some of my highest highs and lowest lows. 

Even if everything else turns out to be the same, without that emotion, that is not the same ending. 

10) Theories. I can’t help you with theories, sorry, I hate 90% of ASOIAF theories, but can I interest you in some analysis? I want to talk about bath houses in ASOIAF, Jaime’s loss of faith, Roose and Fahrenheit 451, Jason Lannister, Tywin and remarriage… There’s still lots of things to talk about in ASOIAF. I’m just getting started. Maybe this is just me, but I can entertain myself on the current ASOIAF content for years, I’m mostly self-sufficient here. 

11) The show. It’s coming. We all know it’s coming. 

But that means it’s almost over. We’re almost there. It’s the final push. Our time of testing is almost over. We’re so close. This isn’t a time for despair; this is a time for rejoicing. 

[The peach] was so small she could almost hide it in her palm, and overripe too, but when she took the first bite, the flesh was so sweet she almost cried. She ate it slowly, savoring every mouthful, while Ser Jorah told her of the tree it had been plucked from, in a garden near the western wall.

“Fruit and water and shade,” Dany said, her cheeks sticky with peach juice. “The gods were good to bring us to this place.”

You wanna know what I love about ASOIAF? 

Vaes Tolorro. These past few weeks, I’ve seen it on the horizon, drawing nearer every day. 

So have faith. Be strong. Be steadfast. 

We’re gonna make it through. 

The Winds of Winter is waiting for us on the other side.

[mimymomo]

Starkid Shows Ranked

So I’ve seen others do it and I want to jump on the bandwagon. Plus my list so SO different than others I’ve seen so I’m either gonna interest, delight or piss people off. I love every Starkid show, I just love some more than others lol. This is just my opinion so please dont take it too seriously:

11) Me And My Dick - oh shit not Ani! My list is already starting off controversial. Yeah I’m sorry I’m just not not the biggest fan of this show. I love a few songs and every scene with Joeys Heart or the Old Snatch is genius and Sally is the sweetest bean alive. But besides that, there’s nothing else that really keeps me coming back. I usually just watch the listen to your heart, the choir room scenes and the finale and I’m good. Plus Joey (the character not the person) pisses me off half the time. Sorry...

10) Ani - originally Ani was the only Starkid show I nearly stopped watching cause I couldn’t get into it. But by the end of the first act I was starting to enjoy it more (I really liked the act 1 finale). And I actually really like Ani’s second act. The songs in this show are really good and Nick Lang as Obi Wan is everything it’s just the first act that holds this show back for me.

9) A Very Potter Sequel - yeah controversial opinion again but AVPS is my least favorite of the AVPM trilogy...please don’t kill me!! It has my least favorite of the AVPM songs (I don’t like Guys Like Potter or Harry Freaking Potter...I’m so sorry I’ll go crawl back in my hole now). But I still fucking adore it though!! Brian as Lupin and Joe as Umbridge saved my life and Days of Summer makes me weep while No Way and Stutter fill me with chaotic energy.

8) A Very Potter Musical - the show that started it all! It was my first Starkid show that I’d watched back in like 2011/12 before I’d actually finished Harry Potter (I just watched all the movies last year...don’t judge me). This show is a classic: great songs, jokes, quotes.

7) Holy Musical B@man - Im not a huge DC fan but love this show. Joe and Nick are great as Batman and Robin respectively and Brian and Jeff are stand outs as Superman and Sweet Tooth. The costumes and songs are great and casting is spot on (I saw comment online saying that the show was gray but the casting of Lauren as Comissioner Gordon was weird and someone pointed out that was the joke it made me crack up). Plus Two-Face, TGI Friday’s girl, the line about Spider-Man being agile as hell and Meredith’s chess line in American Way still crack me up every time.

6) The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals - this was the show that officially brought me into the Starkid fandom. The story, characters and atmosphere of the show is something so distinct from every other Starkid show. The whole cats is freaking fantastic especially the newbies Jon and Mariah and I look forward to seeing them and everyone else in future shows. To me the weakest part of the show was the music (sorry I know everyone loves the songs in this show). Some songs are fine but others I just skip and at this point I can’t listen to Show Stoppin Number anymore. I have this thing where if shows/songs/characters get super popular I immediately start to like it less which I think is what happened for this show and the one next on my list.

5) Twisted - okay this is probably where I lost/pissed off most of you but let me explain: when I first watched this show I actually didn’t really like it. Aladdin was never a movie I really liked so a Aladdin/ Wicked style parody was not my thing. Now however I really enjoy Twisted. It’s still not my favorite show but the music is really good and Dylan and Meredith confirmed in this show that they have amazing stage chemistry - Ja’far and Scheherazade are the second best Starkid relationship solely because how integral the relationship is to the story without being grating plus they’re super cute. This show is hilarious and heart warming and wrenching at the same time. I may not like it as much as everyone else but I will fully preach how amazing it is.

4) A Very Potter Senior Year - yep AVPSY is my favorite in the trilogy. I think it partially has to do with the fact it’s just a stage reading. There’s just something about it not being perfect with all the technical issues and character breaking that makes it feel more personal and intimate to me. AVPSY has some of my favorite scenes (the scene with Meredith and AJ is one of the best scenes in Starkid history), songs (Always Dance is in my top five favorite Starkid songs ever) and character moments. Ron is such a standout in this show and I really care about his a Hermiones relationship in this show. I could never fully be invested in them before I hated how much Ron constantly insulted her but in this show it shows just how good of a boyfriend and best friend he really is. And I know people hate how they made Harry act in this show but to me it was essential to his character that he acted this way (I could write a whole essay about Harry and his character and how his actions in senior year make sense).

3) Starship - Starship is just really good okay!! Bug is precious, Mega-girl and Tootsie are adorable, the songs are amazing and the story while predictable since it’s just the Little Mermaid in Space is still great and it’s funny as heck. What more do I have to say? And Starship Requim nearly made me cry when I heard it for the first time.

2) Firebringer - I’m gay. Okay but seriously while TGWDLM was the show that pulled me into the fandom, this was the show that truly introduced me to Starkid as a more than AVPM. I know this show has a lot of problems. But you know those things that you recognize has a lot of issues and isn’t perfect but despite all the faults you still love it to death? Yeah Firebringer is one of those things to me. I love Jemilla and Zazzalil, I love their relationship, I love that they’re played by my two favorite Starkid members: Lauren Lopez and the love of my life Meredith Stepien!! I love the music since it reminds me of Jim and the Povolos music (since Meredith and Mark wrote so it kinda is JatP music lol) and all harmonies and costumes and I think the show is hilarious (not their funniest but still funny). Again I know this show has its problems especially in the writing but after watching the behind the scenes I’ve come to really appreciate this show and understand why and where the issues came from. To me this show is just plain fun and sometimes that’s just why I need.

1) The Trail to Oregon - this show is just everything to to me. It’s so freaking funny and I love every single song in it (Lost Without You hits too hard as a girl in college who is hours away from her family). At face value it’s a road trip musical that parodies the game abut at heart is a show about a distinctions family reconnecting and dealing with life. The Dikrats family plus McDoon (and really every other role Joey plays in this) and Cletus Jones are some the funniest characters and some of my personal favorites due to how over the top but insanely real they feel. I really became attached to this family and their struggle and I just wanted them to get to Oregate in one piece. Plus this show actually has not one but two songs about dying of pooping and I love both of them!! Trail to Oregap is just so unique and I adore it.

So what did I learn making this list?? I have really weird taste and extremely different opinions on shows than everyone else. Why did I make this list?

Well I hope someone liked it and didn’t get too mad at me lol. And I hope more people who have vastly different rankings make more top list because it’s fun seeing where others place shows especially if it’s really weird placings and not just Ani at 11 and Twisted at 1 (not saying they can’t be! Absolutely no judgment on my part!!).

[douxreviews]

Star Trek: Discovery - ‘The Sound of Thunder’ Review

Saru: "Perhaps in being less like you were, you are becoming more like you are meant to be."

By nature I love brevity: Now that's what I call... a serviceable action story with a few plot holes and a few decent character moments. Some promise, and a twist I didn't see coming.

A while back, in my review for the Short Trek 'The Brightest Star,' I complained that the writers clearly had a lot that they wanted to do with Kaminar, the Kelpiens, and the Ba'ul, and that they'd tried to shove more into the episode than would really fit. As 'The Sound of Thunder' began, I steeled myself for a repeat of that; I wasn't sure that the writers would be able to rein in their excitement at the species and character that they had created enough to write a story that was manageable. It turns out I needn't have worried about that. The hour runtime was plenty to tell the story they wanted to tell and communicate the things they wanted to communicate.

The thing is, this episode made it abundantly clear to me just how little we needed 'The Brightest Star,' and just how unuseful the developments in it were. 'Thunder' contains a good deal of shots that were directly taken from 'Star,' and all of the major reveals about Saru and his people, as well as all of the plot developments, were reiterated here. Of course this is for the benefit of the people who haven't seen the Short Treks, but it rendered even the scant things that 'The Brighest Star' accomplished entirely moot.

'Thunder' is a fairly by-the-numbers action story. Its plot contains a few rather basic twists and reveals, and the suspense is built well. I like that the reigning - and most obvious - theory, that the Ba'ul are the evolved Kelpiens, turned out not to be the case at all. DIS has a pretty bad track record as far as keeping its plot developments secret goes, so a good surprise when the audience expects something else is nice to see.

The Ba'ul were a decently effective enemy; their appearance was pretty scary and their fear of the Kelpiens made for a believable motivation. They reminded me and the viewers I watched this with of Armus from TNG's 'Skin of Evil,'  The major problem was that the Ba'ul voices, especially over subspace on the bridge, were nearly impossible to understand. I'm all for creepy atmosphere, but maybe run their voices through a lighter modulator next time.

I was rather pleased with Saru in this episode. I liked that he became emotionally unable to handle the situation, especially after the loss of his ganglia back in 'An Obol for Charon.' That sort of a change, especially when his ganglia have been shown to have a profound effect on his emotions in the past, would definitely alter his ability to control himself. I liked his interactions with his sister, which were of course well acted by Doug Jones and Hannah Spear. Saru and Siranna had a much deeper and more interesting relationship in this episode than it was in 'Star,' due to the added layer of Saru's departure. That's not a stock relationship, and the fact that Siranna took over for her father in the hopes that it might lead her back to him makes it emotionally deep.

There was a really great scene early on in the episode, with the newly rejuvenated Culber, Saru, and Stamets in sickbay. We got an insight, albeit a small one, into what it's like for Hugh to return after his consciousness spent so much time trapped in the mycelial network. He doesn't feel like the same man that he was when he died. His new body, identical to his old one but still completely different, reflects how he feels inside. Hugh can't reconcile his new self with the old, even though very little is actually different. Though Stamets truly wants to help and to support his partner, he can't do so tangibly because he has no clear idea what Hugh is going through. Saru, on the other hand, has in a way also been recently reborn. This gives them a connection that I didn't expect to see but was glad I did. This scene proves to me that the show is definitely going to explore Culber's return in a way that's meaningful to his character. I'm really happy about that because in the first season his character was only really used in ways that serviced Stamets'. If they give him his own arc here, I'll be very, very pleased. And of course, both he and Stamets are miles ahead of characters on other shows who are 'the gay guy' and nothing more.

I'm not so pleased with the resolution, specifically the use of the Red Angel in this episode. It was quite the deus ex machina - is it angelus ex machina here? - to have the Angel step in at the very end to stop the Ba'ul's plan and save the Kelpiens. Except it isn't even angelus ex machina, since the Angel is nothing even close to a supernatural being. After all this discussion and exploration of faith, the main symbol in this show of something people put their faith in is nothing more than a guy in a suit with some advanced technology? That's about as disappointing as this show has gotten. Despite my misgivings about how this show has handled faith and belief, I really have appreciated the fact that it did so. Besides, the way that it's handled these topics has been better than many shows, and the individual episodes have said some things worth saying even if the show as a whole has yet to settle on a particular approach. But this is a big let-down.

Strange New Worlds:

We've already been to Kaminar, in 'The Brightest Star,' but DIS in its main form hasn't visited it yet.

New Life and New Civilizations:

The Ba'ul are new to this show. I've already talked about most of my thoughts regarding them.

Pensees:

-Okay, enough with the tricky camera movements without purpose already. To direct well, you don't just have to know how to make flashy shots, you also have to understand when to do it and what it does to the scene when you do.

-They mentioned the Prime Directive, but it really didn't factor in as much as might have been appropriate. This show should start being a little more careful with the way it sidesteps the PD to tell its stories.

-Those Ba'ul ships were pretty dang intimidating, like something you'd see from the Borg.

-How did Saru transport himself to the planet when the ship was at Red Alert and the shields were up?

-Okay, so SuperSaru! was kind of cool. But he's quite lucky that the Ba'ul stronghold contained only about eight drones.

-I like Burnham's white t-shirt in this episode. How much you want to bet that shows up for sale on startrek.com within the week?

-Pike's slight peace offering to Tyler in Saru's report didn't feel earned. I haven't been invested in their conflict yet.

-The answer to fear is hope in this episode. I like that.

-Next week: SPOOOOOCK!

Quotes:

Saru: "We all come from somewhere. We bring that place with us wherever we go. That never leaves our hearts. Not entirely."

Pike: "We can stretch General Order One, but let's not break it in the process." Too late.

Saru: "For 18 years, I dreamt of returning to my village. It has not changed at all, but I see it quite differently now."

Siranna: "Return to the stars, Saru. There is no place for you here."

Siranna: "Your face is beautiful to me. Part of me hoped I would never see it again, because it might mean you were free."

Competent but not exceptional. 4 out of 6 heavily modulated voices.

Star Trek fandom runs very deep in CoramDeo's family.

[betweenbeatriceandbaudelaire]

Top 10 underrated ichihime moments - Part 2

Part 1 

5 )The hand reach 

Come on could Kubo be more obvious ? 

This right here refers to the Tanabata legend which is often referenced when it comes to ichihime ( this post will explain it to you ) . I mean here you have two not yet lovers reaching out to each other in the sky ? Come on . 

Kubo is not being subtle at all with his references to Tanabata and that is amazing . That being said this moment is also great because it kinda symbolizes the way ichigo and orihime act around each other . During the course of the manga there were so many moments were ichigo and orihime wanted to reach out to the other but didn’t allow themselves to . I mean basically this moment represents the way they act around each other . Trying to reach out but ultimately not being completely able to do it and in the end not ending together . Next moment on the list perfectly illustrate what I’m trying to say here .

4 )Ichigo tries to apologize to orihime

They both look so miserable here it’s hurting me . 

Anyway as I was saying pictured above is one of the many many many many times ichigo and orihime wanted to reach each other but didn’t allow themselves to . I mean if they both didn’t put barriers between them and the other they would be able to speak freely what they want to say . 

Ichigo probably wants to say something like “ It hurts me to see you hurt orihime and I believe it is my fault you got injured so bad and I will train relentlessly until I’m strong enough to protect you and make it so that you won’t ever be hurt again” Well this dork when rukia pushed him into talking he said all of that by “ Next time I will definitely protect you” which is amazing because this sentence contains all the things left unsaid too . 

And Orihime probably wants to say “ Ichigo I’m sorry I was a liability to you . It tears me apart to see you hurt and I wish so bad I could be strong enough to protect you and take your pain away” . 

Instead ichigo cannot even get the nerve to finish his sentence “ it’s nothing” and orihime tries to fake a smile and minimize her injuries to try to erase ichigo’s guilt over her being hurt “ It doesn’t hurt one bit”. 

I mean it’s killing me because THESE KIDS DON’T TALK TO EACH OTHER FREELY . They want so bad the other to be happy and safe and they would both literally give everything to attain that goal but they’re both so shy and awkward and believe they aren’t good enough for the other to ever return their love that they forbid themselves to let that love show . They always held back when they are together . In every single of their interaction there is this desire to reach out but at the same time this limit they fix themselves . They can help and protect the other , and tease and hang out with the other but they ALWAYS forbid themselves to go too far . To make their feelings known . There is always this willing restraint to their interaction which makes shipping them excruciatingly painful . 

They are both so modest and have such huge self issues they never believed they deserved the other . I’ve seen ichiruki shippers saying ichihime “felt fake” because a lot of big steps in their relationship were provoked with outside help ( ichigo promising orihime he would protect her because Rukia pushed him into doing so , Nell saying to Orihime ichigo needed to hear her cheering for him , urahara making the dress, renji telling ichigo to confess ) . BUT THAT WAS THE POINT . Ichigo and orihime are biased in the way they see the themselves and their relation with the other . If you left them to their own devices they would carry on loving the other from afar because they both believe the other deserve so much more than themselves . They need other people to help them recognize the clues of mutual feelings as such . 

Ichigo and orihime are such a great match because they are both self sacrificing  . That is at the very core of their being . Ichigo basically risk everything he has every single battle he had to do in order to protect other people and orihime does the same ( going to Hueco Mundo to protect her friends ) . I mean they are both extremely different in term of personality because like ichigo is “ a punk” and has a harsh temper and orihime is bubbly and eccentric but they’re the same to their core where it really matters . They both would give everything to protect others , they both are deeply compassionate people , they both lived great tragedies as kids which shaped their adult selves . Ichigo and orihime are very much alike where it matters : values . That’s why ichihime was SUCH a slow burn ship because they both suffered self esteem issue and we saw them get closer and more playful with each other only once those were resolved ( at the end of the fullbring arc ) . 

Sorry I kinda strayed away from the point here but ichihime moments cannot be appreciated in a vaccuum . Ichihime is not a ship made out of very big love declarations and life turning moments . It’s a ship about two people who grew together side by side during their formative years so each ichihime moment has no value in itself it can only be appreciated when it’s linked to other ichihime moments and placed back into the context of the 686 chapters of Bleach . 

3 ) Orihime’s memories being changed by Tsukishima 

Well this moment is not per se “ underrated” because the fandom does like it but I feel like this is such a HUGE moment for ichihime , and while loved, this moment isn’t as talked about as the fandom as it should be . 

I wrote those tags a few years ago before ichihime became canon and honestly while part of it is a headcanon I still stand by it .  This was the first time ichigo realized orihime could be taken away from him for real . Before when she was taken away ichigo knew that by being strong enough he would be able to rescue her . His struggle was wether he was strong enough or not . Here it is different . Ichigo is already strong enough to defeat Tsukishima but even defeating is no guarantee his friends will go back to normal . Let me remind you that ichigo , OUR ICHIGO who showed mercy to all his adversaries including Aizen was ready to kill Tsukishima if it mean it had a tiny chance of bringing his friends back . I mean actually KILL . This tells you how shaken ichigo was by this . 

I believe here is the first time ichigo said to himself that he has lost orihime for good . In a way seeing orihime healing Tsukishima and opposing him had the same effect on him than orihime seeing him with a hole in his chest during the Ulquiorra battle . That’s the moment they’ve said to themselves “ that’s it , they’re gone, I’ve lost them” . Of course ichigo having a hole in his chest seems much more definitive than having orihime’s memories changed that’s why ichigo looks like part of it still can’t fully believe this is happening . He looks like he keeps repeating to himself “ this can’t be happening” but it is his reality now and it is happening . This moment shook ichigo to his core and made him realize orihime being by his side was not granted . 

And we see ichigo’s behavior towards orihime changed after this moment . He allowed himself to be much more closer to her after this . Of course because he regained his powers after this arc and feels he’s strong enough to protect her now but also because he knows what it feels like to have orihime slip away from him so he treasures more the time he spends with her . 

I love this moment and to me it is one of the turning point of the evolution of ichihime as a pairing and I wish the fandom would recognize it as that . 

2) Ichigo reflecting on the compassion shown by orihime 

So for this one I will quote this post because honestly this is exactly what this scene is about and I could never express it better myself : 

“It also helped Ichigo grow as a protagonist to see how she dealt with it. I think Ichigo’s always been so empathetic, but when it came to her he turned very unforgiving. Like “oh they all deserved it I couldn’t care less!” (and they did),when she didn’t feel that way towards them herself. Seeing her compassion made him question his own attitude, and I really think this is often forgotten.”

I mean honestly I could add stuff but this is so succinct and so on point there’s really not much for me to add . Ichigo and orihime grow side by side and they both admire the other so of course they are inspired by the other . 

Also you can notice that in his mind ichigo sees orihime’s back while he is talking about her face so he should be remembering what her face looked like at that moment . But I believe this is a parallel of Orihime often seeing ichigo’s back during battle .Kubo’s been lovely enough to make us a cute little montage of all those times . 

Orihime sees his back because he’s in front of her and she’s trying to catch up . Seeing his back from afar like that shows her admiration for him . Often he is taking up all the space within the panel to further the idea that what he’s like in her mind . Here we have ichigo watching her back . He is the one watching from afar , admiring her . Ichigo always admired her strength and resilience but most of all her compassion . And while Kubo showed up very often orihime admiring ichigo because he is the main character and because Kubo chose to make the reader see through orihime’s point of view A LOT , we do not have a lot of moment where we see that this admiration goes both way because we rarely have ichigo’s insight . Often we see his battles through someone else point of view ( like the Bach fight was seen through orihime’s point of view ) . But sometimes we get to know what ichigo is thinking and what he is feeling and during those times Kubo always takes the time to remind us just how much of a good person ichigo is . Here for example he is reflecting on orihime’s compassion and during the fight against Aizen he was reflecting on Aizen’s loneliness . Ichigo is deeply compassionate and so is orihime . And this is the quality they admire the most in each other . 

1 ) Ichigo and orihime biting their tongues during the Fullbring arc

I already made a post about this moment here but let me put things back into context : 

Ichigo lost his powers during 17 months and was absolutely miserable being powerless because it meant he couldn’t protect his friends anymore . When Ginjo came and give him a chance to get his powers back he took it immediately but he didn’t tell his friends because he wanted them safe and protected because this time if they got involved in supernatural stuff he wasn’t strong enough to protect them . Despite this Chad decides to bring orihime to heal ichigo during his training . 

Chad tells him ( and us by the same occasion ) that he knew he didn’t want orihime to be involved in this because he didn’t want her to be in danger . But ichigo says nothing and just makes this face : 

A few chapters later orihime heals ichigo despite knowing that her healing him just means he will ultimately gets hurt again . She then smiles this sad smile : 

When they make those faces both are biting their tongues and not saying what they want to say . Both want to protect the other SO MUCH and if they had their way they would make it so the other would never be hurt again . But they know what they want is not the most important . They must let the other want what they want ( community reference y’all ) . 

Ichigo knows orihime wants to help so badly . So even though her being here means she might get hurt he says nothing and accept her decision because he respects her and her wishes . 

It’s the exact same with orihime . During those 17 months powerless orihime must have been relieved to see he was safe . But she also saw how miserable he is . She knows him so she knew he would gain back his powers because he is a protector at his core . So even though helping him regain his powers means he will get hurt again she just smiles and say nothing . 

They let the other want what they want . 

Because their whole relationship is based on respect and love . It doesn’t matter what they want . What matters is that the other is happy and fulfilled . And this moment , while not groundbreaking in itself manage to sum up everything that is good about ichihime . Love , respect , tenderness . 

-------

So here you go people , I hope you enjoyed it ! Don’t hesitate to comment with your own underrated ichihime moments or anything you might want to say ! 

[bangtanata-blog]

Misha’s 100+ followers’ follow forever thing ft. Gudetama, a lazy ass 2 min edit done with shaking hands, suggested by Jenny and actually done after a pep talk with Heena.

I can’t really talk about how happy I’ve become after knowing about BTS and actually becoming their fan, bc some of their songs do... help, in a way. Like, 21st Century Girls, So Far Away, 4 O’Clock, Miss Right, etc--they have.... helped me, in going through some days. I just had a bad week, month, whatever, and I was a bit stupid today bc I researched some stuff that probably shouldn’t be researched... So I thought that maybe doing a positive thing will help today after hours of listening to music proven unsuccessful.

So... here it is, a list of people, both mutuals and non-mutuals. I’m sorry if my mention annoys you or bothers you, especially if we’re not mutuals. But I just want to let you know that by making these mentions, I wanna voice out how your presence in my dash actually help me a whole lot, and that is why I’m still upset that Indonesia has tumblr blocked.

bold - mutuals / normal - non mutuals / the list is not in alphabetical orders. i will mention mutuals first. / all mentioned people have something written for them. i’m sorry if some are too long or too short. jsyk i love you all.

@clairelions​ 💜 chiara 💜 thank you for following me back that day, it made me scream internally and eternally; i was really happy when i found out about it. i really look up to you! not only bc you’re older, but you’re also nice and sweet, not to mention polite, and i really aspire to be as kind as you someday. sometimes i still laugh at my mistake in sending that anon message without clicking the anon button, but it’s really sweet over how you take it so calmly and even still accepts my anonymous messages when you know that it’s me. i love your edits, i love your jikook aus, your hogwarts aus (the hogwarts aus have a special place in my heart... i haven’t forgotten that i want to write a fic for it someday!) and many others. i hope your redbubble stuffs get more purchases, and that you’ll have a great day, don’t forget to stay healthy and hydrated. ilu 💜

@yoonkia​ - So, this is the nice thing I was talking about. I like making people happy, so this is okay, I guess. The gudetama was made in a spur of moment and tbh Gudetama is a Huge Mood but anyway, thank you so much for messaging me. I didn’t think anyone would, and I didn’t even know why I made that post. I only realized I was shaking when I saw your message, thank you. (Also, I’m more eloquent now. This is actually how I talk usually!! dhklslshd i’m sorry you had to see that strange me). I actually really like seeing you on my dash, and I’m??? always happy to know we’re mutuals even tho we barely talked dshjkfjd I hope that we can talk more;; you need to know that i’m usually funny //hEH. again, thank you 💜

@jvnckles - jENNY HAHAHAHAHA I DIDNT END UP USING MY SKETCH OF TAEHYUNG IM SORRY BUT I HOPE YOU LIKE THE GUDETAMA ANYWAY WWWW 💜 Jenny jenny jenny ilu it’s such a happy coincidence when i saw you on Fahreen’s blog and when I found out you’re Indonesian I just have to follow you bc!!!! aaaa!!!! I don’t regret it one bit you’re such an angel and ilu and dont let mean pouty anons get in your way, you’re amazing and lovely and you deserve a lot of good things in this world hun 💜 i wish you the best of luck with the upcoming college days lmao i hope you dont suffer like i do 💜💜 ilu nak stay strong yah wwww

@jungcock - miaAAAAaaaa we don’t talk much but youre!! such!! a blessing!! in my dash your tags are funny your text posts are funny and your fic is great ilu even tho im worried about your health bc you’re high sometimes when i see you on my dash (it’s mostlikely a culture shock-- since we don’t really get high here. it’s basically illegal anyway) but you do you, buddy, just stay healthy and safe ok?? your writing gets me motivated to do some actual writing myself lmao i hope my weakass self can actually update something soon. ilu 💜

@kookieholic - i dont see u a lot in my dash... it’s probably a timezone thing :c but you’re a sweet sweet person and ilu and thank you for existing i hope we can be friends someday 💜

@cyphertaehyungie / @kikiwho - !!!!!! i’m still amazed that you’re... following me, tbh. I love your edits, i love your posts, you sound like such a sweet person and hdsshk yeHA thank you! 💜

@hosehok - 💜💜💜 We havent talked in a few but I always get pleasantly surprised whenever I see you back on my dash. Thank you for existing, I love you.

@kimtaehyungl - You’re a constant presence in my dash; it would seem weird for me if you’re suddenly not there, tbh. I love your posts, I love your contents and your tags and honestly thank you for brightening my day, every day 💜

@taegayhyung - I don’t see you a lot too :c A timezone thing? Mostlikely. I’m sorry we never really talk, but I’m sure you’re a gr8 person 💜

@faenam - I screamed when you followed me back, still scream when I see you on my dash. You’re so... chill sometimes and actually cool but also you’re??/ cute? I don’t know how to say this properly? Am I being creepy??? dhslsgjdks anYWAY thank you for being on my dash, I love you and your contents and I hope we can be friends 💜

@taehyungtrsh - bABY (i dont know why I said that, but oh well?) thank you for following me back and thank you for interacting with me whenever we’re able to! I’m too shy to really send anything else other than asks but you’re honestly very kind and fun and just!!! thank you, you made me feel at home and at ease when I first started this blog and you made me feel like I’ve made friends in this fandom. Thank you 💜

@hobisuki - 💜💜💜 First of all, I wish you the best of luck in your upcoming college years. I’m sure that whatever path you choose you can find something good out of it and that you’ll flourish; it’s okay even if it’s not your first choice, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost your path to a bright future. There are other pathways you can take and it’ll lead you there nevertheless. Tbh wow I can quote something from So Far Away right about now lmao but yeHA goodluck bb i’m sure you can do it!! Thank you for following me and thank you for brightening my dash, ilu 💜

NON-MUTUALS MENTION START HERE

@booptaegi - Hello! First of all, I’m sorry if this mention bothered you or anything; I just want to tell you that I love seeing you on my dash, your contents make me smile and sometimes your tags make me laugh. I love.. the taegi contents..... (I just love all ot7 dynamics but dsjkhd shhhh ilu) I hope that you’ll have an amazing day today; please don’t forget to stay healthy and hydrated, don’t forget to eat! 💜

@jhsmixtape - Hello, I’m sorry if this mention bothered you or anything, but I just want to let you know that sometimes i come in the form of an anon I love seeing you on my dash. You’re funny and your interactions with your mutuals and anons make me laugh everytime! Your tags and your text posts and others are so funny as well, so thank you, thank you, for making me laugh 💜

@yoonseok - hello, I’m sorry if this mention bothered you or anything, but I just want to let you know that I love seeing you on my dash. Your gifs and contents are top notch, and you’re actually nice and p relatable dsjkdfj I’ve seen some mean anons bothering you before, and I want to tell you that whatever they may say about you, please know that I do appreciate you and like seeing you on my dash, and that although you seem awkward and super blunt, you’re actually p sweet :’) Please don’t let the anons drag you down. You’re a kind person and you deserve many good things. Please don’t forget to eat healthy and stay hydrated (as a side note though... make sure never to take too much water again :’D), I hope you’ll have an amazing day!

@jimiyoong - Hello, I’m sorry if this mention bothers you! I want to let you know that you’re a sweet sweet person esp whenever I see your interactions with the anons, how patient and mature you are, etc. I love seeing you on my dash, and as I mentioned above, your presence actually makes me happy sometimes. Thank you 💜 I hope you’ll have a nice day, please don’t forget to stay hydrated!

@vanillalattaes - 💜💜💜💜 Okay you probably already know who I am thanks to my name HJDSGHKSJD aNYWAY yeah I can’t believe this is the Grand Reveal but hey at least it’s not a stray message like how it happened with Chiara dhsklsk Hello, it’s me, Cappuccino, and no pressure over finally knowing who I am (as in you don’t have to follow me back if you don’t want to!!!!). I’m sorry if this mention bothers you, but I just wanna let you know that I’m really really happy to have you as my friend, Fahreen. I can’t stress this enough, I’m so happy to see you on my dash, mostly it’s bc I know then that you’re healthy and safe 💜Thank you for listening to my rants whether that one time on the rabbit site or through the anonymous messages. You’re a genuinely kind person and I’m happy to have you as my friend 💜 You make me happy and feel loved and honestly you’re one of the reasons why I’m so content in staying in this bts blog and in this fandom overall. I love that we both love spicy foods, I love that we can bond over cake. You’re a sweet, sweet person and I hope that you’ll have a nice day. Please don’t forget to eat and stay hydrated! Thank you Fahreen, you’re appreciated!!!

[theonceoverthinker]

My Weekend At Once Con (Part 1)

...All I can say is wow. ...Just WOW. I'm sitting at my desk at work, just trying to figure out how the hell I'm supposed to go back to normal after this weekend. I'm equally parts at peace, freaking out, and so tired that I'm ready to crash and burn. And I'll tell you all why. ()()()()()()()()()()()()() About Me ()()()()()()()()()()()()() Before I start, I feel like to really understand my feelings about this con, you need to know a little bit about me first. That said, I'll make it fast because I know that's not what you're here for. 1. I'm the weirdest mix of introvert and extrovert that you can imagine. I want to talk to everyone, but at the same time, I'm so freaked out by it, but at the same time, I'll actually do it and jump in. 2. I'm what I call an omnishipper. If it's not incestual, I ship it at least a little. That said, I don't love all ships equally. I play favorites, and can even rank them per character. For example, I like Swan Queen, but I like Captain Swan and Dragon Queen a lot more. I like Violet Believer, but I like Henriella more. You get the drift. 3. I'm pretty positive about the show, and unless it's coming from a place of love, I hate saltiness, towards the writers, towards the characters, etc. I have likes, dislikes, and concerns of course, but there’s a line that I just don’t care to cross where it stops being fun, 4. I say I'm sorry way too much. 5. I recorded hours and hours of audio and video footage. It is all pretty flawed, but I promise, it's real. 6. Now, I'm going to reference questions, but I'm going to specifically focus on mine, since this is my con experience I'm reporting about. Look, I'm biased. It's human nature, and I'm literally writing this less than 24 hours after getting back.That said, if another question or comment really spoke to me, I'll do my best to include it here. Also, I'm doing my best to quote my questions from what I actually said, using the questions as I originally wrote them as well as my own memories, but I'm not trudging through my footage to get them. 7. Apart from Once, I've never really seen the special guests in other works. I saw Jen's play, The End of Longing back in May, but that was about it. This convention has convinced me to go forward and watch more of their works!

Okay, no more waiting! Here we go!!!

()()()()()()()()()()()()() Thursday ()()()()()()()()()()()()() I drove to the con on Thursday. I took a half day at work to finish packing and wait for my carpool buddy. We'd met on a Facebook page called "Once Upon a Time NJ Con," a Wall Street of sorts for the convention run by two lovely ladies. If you're looking to go next year, I can't stress enough just how good this page was. We arrived that evening for preregistration, and after my own adventures in the hotel down the road, I was all ready to get going. My roommate for the evening and I were on line, and already, there was so much excitement to be had. I met a beautiful young woman with crimson hair and a beautiful Swan Queen necklace who had Steven Universe buttons (A rare crossover of fandoms), and after we talked, I affectionately called her "Buttons" for the entire weekend. I entered the vendors room and took it all in. I immediately scoped out everything that I wanted, promising myself that I wouldn't spend too much money. ...You'll see how that ended up later. Thinking quickly, I immediately bought a Captain Swan shirt. There was a mug that looked like Henry's book that I promised myself I would buy on Sundays, but that was it. Don't get me wrong: I WANTED other stuff. The artwork table looked so nice, but I was sure I'd be selling my life savings for it (Something I was proven wrong about on the car ride home). Also, there was a big model of Emma's bug also available for purchase, but for like $50. It's funny because I was actually about to give my model of the bug (which was about 1/10 of the size of the one available here) to a Tumblr friend who I had grown really close to over the course of six months. Really, there wasn't much to say after that. Once my roommate and I had our fill of the Vendor's Room, we headed back to our room, chilled out, and then went to sleep, eager for the con to truly begin. ()()()()()()()()()()()()() Friday ()()()()()()()()()()()()() I've always been an early bird. That wasn't going to be an exception here. My first event wasn't until noon, but I was up at seven, and out the door by eight-thirty. My roommate, or at this point, ex-roommate, and I parted ways, but promised to meet up during the con. Thankfully, this is one of those stories where that actually happens. She and I at times were each others greatest forces of support and friendship in what was already a really friendly convention. We get there, and bond with a couple of people. Eventually, I ran into my carpool buddy and her friend. We killed time talking, reading books, and examining cosplays. Michael Coleman (Happy) and Chris Gauthier (Smee) passed by the lobby a few times, and I actually said hi to them, one time each. I was totally freaked out, but still, it was fantastic! Eventually, the theatre did open up, I parted ways from my friends, and went to my seat. I gotta say, knowing no one (for the moment, at least), it felt really lonely to be waiting for seatmates. Thankfully, a young teenager who had a GA ticket came by and provided a fun amount of conversation! Creation's house band Samurai Fish, accompanying Michael Coleman and eventually Gil McKinney (Eric) opened up the show. I never expected to like classic rock versions of my favorite Disney songs, but they were a lot of fun. XD Gil McKinney's panel, which I thought would originally set the stage for the rest of them, ended up, while doing it to some extent, being its own separate beast entirely, but in the best way possible. I compare it more to a stand up comedy routine than a proper panel. Gil walked around the room, commenting on guests, guessing kid's ages, losing a $20 bet that he would remember a guest's name, and even Face Timing with one of the guest's friends. I was blown away by how charming he is. There was a bit of a Q&A, but it only took up about the last five minutes of his panel. Fortunately for us con-goers, Gil would show up to a LOT more events and do a full-on Q&A the next day with Lee, Chris, and Michael. After Gil came Chris Gauthier. Let me tell you, I was hyped. I had been preparing questions for NJ con for six months now, but from the second I saw his name on the guest list, I knew what I wanted to ask. Chris' panel was more of a traditional panel with one big twist: Instead of going up to the mic, Michael, dressed as the Evil Queen (Heels included!), was going around with the mic to bring it to guests for their questions. This added a fun level of quirkiness to Chris' panel that I and the other guests really appreciated. Ready for my question? Well, at first, I wasn't. Believe it or not, I was terrified at first. But, I told myself that I wanted this and that I could do it. Michael eventually took a seat in the row in front of me, extended the mic to me, and I started to speak. "The last time Smee and Killian interacted in the present timeline, it was before Smee got his memory back and remembered that Killian sold the Jolly Roger and left his crew to go save Emma. What do you think that Smee and the rest of the crew think of their former captain now? Are they happy for his redemption or are they bitter at him for their abandonment?" Chris' response (To quote the man himself, "A little of both," and was followed by a more thorough explanation of why he thought so) was detailed, charismatic, and spoke of how much thought he puts into his character. By the end of it, I really wanted to see Smee on screen again! After Chris' panel ended, we next went into a Trivia Game. I actually participated in the last set of 30 contestants and made it to the top 15! Not half bad, especially because the question was from "Tallahassee" and Season 2 has always been my weakest season. I actually talked to two of the three winners after the contest, and both were scrambling to use their $200 winnings! XD The panels resumed at three sharp with Michael! Sadly, he was not wearing a costume, but what he lacked in that regard, he more than made up for with a bright and cheeky personality. I actually asked him, while something I never explicitly wrote out, about how he came up with the idea for the "Happy Little" series that he has been putting on for the past few conventions. He explained his reasoning in three parts, but I'll just tell you my favorite: He likes wearing dresses! The final panel of the day was the one and only Raphael Sbarge (Archie). What I like about Raphael is how he answers his questions. I'll demonstrate what I mean by discussing my own. So, my question was "In the Once Upon a Time fandom, shipping to many is as natural as breathing. However, Archie was never brought into a romantic relationship over the course of the series, or at least hasn’t been up to this point. Do you have and ideas of a character who you would have liked for him to chirp off into the sunset with?" Rapahel's response? "Who do you think he should end up with?" Now, it is definitely flustering to be asked a question in response to your own question, but give the man credit, that is brilliant when it come to responses. It does a couple of things. First, it's kind of like having a conversation with him. Raphael gets to react to what you think. Second, it buys him more time to respond, which, for a celebrity being put on the spot, is pretty clever. Now, that was the end of the panels, but not the end of the day, not by far. First came autographs. I'm going to hold all of my thoughts on autographs until the end of this series of posts, but for now, I'll say this: They were LONG. Second came...Dani. So, I've been chatting with a friend on Tumblr for close to half a year now. I always admired her posts, and we actually bonded over convention preparations. And she was coming to Jersey Con for Friday night and all of Saturday! I swear, I was just as excited to meet her as any of the celebrities appearing here. After the autographs, I messaged her to meet me in the lobby, and she responded immediately that she was on her way. And for the first time ever, we met. Readers, it felt like a scene in a movie. As soon as I saw her, I knew her, she knew me, we rushed to each other,...and we hugged. Fiction itself is seldom as beautiful.  We went up to her room, talked about a million and one things, shared stories and pictures, and then... Part three!!! You may have forgotten in all the excitement, but there was a brand new episode of Once Upon a Time!!!! It is incredible watching a show you love with someone who is as big of a fan as you. The episode in and of itself was pretty great! So, the episode ended, and with a million and one thoughts and theories, Dani and I headed down to the final portion of the day: Karaoke! Karaoke was hosted by Michael, Chris, Karen David (Jasmine), Beverly Elliot (Granny), and Gil McKinney. In it, our talented stars sang and danced alongside the lucky people chosen to sing pop, Disney, and rock songs! I had entered for Shut Up and Dance With Me, but sadly I was not selected. That said, the person chosen was quite talented. Some numbers that stuck out to me were "These Boots Were Made for Walking," "Sweet Caroline," "I Want It That Way" (Which my friend performed in), the aforementioned "Shut Up and Dance with Me," and "How Far I'll Go." The energy of the crowd was really something to see. Us Oncers definitely know how to rock a house! I bid Dani adieu and left during the final number because at that point, I was dead tired, and of course, I knew that I'd have to be at my best for everything that was to happen tomorrow... Nice cliffhanger, right? Stay tuned for Part 2!