#this was a fun yet cheap parallel to do

[ac-liveblogs]

I haven't even started fontaine so I unfortunately can't opine on who would make better party members (sorry!) but now that you've mentioned it, I'm curious as to how kinich ends up dead permanently and what convinces the Almighty Dragonlord to join the party 👀

Heheh. Well. Ajaw is such a big personality. Citlali is both very useful and easy to use in this project, but Ajaw would be soooo much fun to actually work with.

Natlan is the last region and I've moved Khaenr'iah underneath it, so the conflict with the Order has escalated quite a bit and the Abyss-aligned Harbingers have already joined Aether's ranks, so the situation has escalated quite a bit. Kinich would die fighting the Abyss Order, and Ajaw would avenge his death.

The main thing that stuck out to me about Kinich when I was flipping through the Natlan cast's profiles was the Vision Story - when Kinich was fighting for his life, about to die, and Ajaw solemnly swore to avenge him once Kinich died and Ajaw took his body per their contract. That got me thinking - man, why DID he say that? Trying to be comforting? Thought it was the right thing to do?

Their on-screen relationship is so one-note it gets increasingly frustrating the game has yet to expand on their dynamic at all and given Natlan's themes of death and rebirth, they could've really easily capitalised on it! They had a get out of jail free card with the Ode of Resurrection! What a waste! (The moral of the story is, as ever - never read the character bios :I )

Anyway, HYV might not have the guts to kill Kinich, but there's nothing stopping me.

The fun part would be when Ajaw has to come to terms with it all. He's ecstatic, he's ripping apart the Abyss Order and picking fights with Celestia for their gall, loving the freedom... but I'd really like it to be bittersweet. It'd take him awhile to realise he was in mourning, but given what a loud and prideful character he is that quiet realisation could be extremely impactful.

I think he'd always have some excuse as to why he's joined the Travelers. It's convenient, you're my servants, I'm not following YOU you're following ME... it would take some time for him to realise he's in mourning. He's such a loud and bombastic character, that realisation would be quite devastating for him.

It's the classic monkey's paw, right? Ajaw got exactly what he asked for. Death was cheap until it wasn't. I like the bonus of Venti and Ajaw, as the first and last party members, having an obvious twisted up parallel too. Coming to terms with loss is kind of a recurring theme in this, Ajaw learning to empathise would be nice.

Also, I like the image of Escoffier hitting him with a ladle.

Additional thoughts:

I think he might be tempted to join the Abyss Order in exchange for his freedom the same way the Harbingers were, I could twist up the Enjou thing quite a bit.

Ajaw might be antagonistic to the party in Natlan for awhile. That could be fun.

I'd probably shuffle Ajaw's deal to being sealed away around the Archon War (maybe riff some notes from Varesa's Mushroom Quest, haha) so I can have him know who Aether and Lumine (or even Phanes and Nox) are in some capacity. He's old old. I can't use him living through the Cataclysm the way I can with Citlali, but I can in other ways. I can imagine him throwing out lore about the Heavenly Principles and Phanes like everyone should know this and the entire party just "?!?!"

(On Citlali: I wanted to replace the Hexenzirkel's vague role with Citlali contacting Lumine via dreams in some way, and ascribe a lot of the star-reading/fortune-telling to her. She would have known and even travelled with Aether way back in the day, but her visions of Celestia's plans for the future would have been part of what tipped Aether into working with the Abyss Order.

Her guilt from that would've resulted in her behaviour in the modern day… (and I can assign her feelings for the Traveler to being for Aether way back when). Then, use Ororon (or maybe she takes in Scaramouche post-Sumeru, idk) teaming up with Capitano to sacrifice himself to save the world (here shifted to Capitano trying to foil the Abyss Order's plan) to motivate her to get out and keep fighting personally, eventually joining the party to fight Aether.

All works extremely neatly... and ties up a lot more loose ends than Ajaw does. She's really convenient. Doesn't compel me though.)

Good luck with Fontaine for when you get there!!

[datamodel-of-disaster]

Life update!

So, my birthday passed (the new front door is installed -my 20s are truly over), and the anniversary of the disastrous friend breakup from last year has passed (somehow, I ended up going to the nude spa and having sushi after, *exactly* as I did the year before, and only when I was already halfway my sashimi I realised the bizarre parallel), and…

Let’s just say, if I had a dollar for every weird friendship that came to a confrontation/confession/breakup near the end of November and resulted in me adding a new piece of art to my dining room, I’d have 2 dollars. Which isn’t a lot, yadda yadda, BUT IT IS WEIRD THAT IT HAPPENED TWICE.

(If this becomes an annual thing I’m gonna run out of wall space.)

Cryptobro gifted me a Damien Hirst lithography for my birthday. The “Pharmacy” wallpaper print on metallic silver backing. (I’d post a picture of the actual piece but it is still at the framer’s.)

(It’s a panel just like this one)

I’m not gonna lie, king move. I had mentioned just once that I bid on it at auction but didn’t win it, and he went and tracked a version of it down for me. This is the kind of gift giving swag I thought only I myself possessed.

It is gorgeous (Hirst is problematic AF but I love stuff with pills on it sue me) and it wasn’t cheap, and… Yeah.

I thought I had sidestepped the whole math-themed confession from Cryptobro (see this post) but… no. There was a letter, and later on, after I cautiously addressed that letter over dinner and “reinforced the friendzone” so to say, a voice note.

Oh man.

Cryptobro is a man who doesn’t know how to have intimate friends. And more importantly, he is a man who fits the archetype, “wants a woman who is free because he wants to cage her”.

You see, I am who I am around him. Even tho I kept certain things private (my mental health conditions, my nonbinary identity) I’ve never hidden that I am married, I don’t want children, I love my husband who takes care of the household for me (and I find capacity to do laundry very important in a potential partner -learning that Cryptobro for the longest time DID NOT WASH HIS SHIRTS and instead just BOUGHT NEW ONES when he ran out of clothes would have been a monumental turnoff even if I *was* interested in him, which I’m not.) And yet… Cryptobro has this idea of a future me as a good little housewife with a nest of children and it is horrifying to me.

I just…

Aside from the fact that I’m still convinced he’s gay and repressing it like his life depends on it, I just… don’t know how to get through to him that he’s in love with an illusion and not the real me.

He’s starved for affection and has never had a friend who is understanding and kind rather than a posturing bro-type who’d pounce on him if he showed vulnerability, and his only model for intimacy is romance, and I’m just… BRO. BRO I AM BASICALLY YOUR THERAPIST. WAKE THE FUCK UP.

He could have everything he wants of me as a friend. Companionship, advice, fun dinner dates, hanging out, emotional vulnerability, therapy sessions, long philosophical debates, the lot! HE IS NOT EVEN SEXUALLY INTO WOMEN FFS. But no.

Sigh.

Anyway, I think whatever this bizarre relationship was may just be properly over now. Which…

I don’t know.

My emotional investment was decidedly tempered by how incredibly unhinged a man he is. (I wish I was kidding about the not washing his shirts thing, but that’s not even half of it. I didn’t make a post about it at the time because it felt cruel to put him on blast when I’m hardly Martha Stewart myself, but… ���🏻‍♀️ IT BAD.)

But I still mourn it. I mourn that this man cannot see how much fun we were having as a thing with value in itself, without any romantic label. I mourn that so much of the good thing we had going was him angling for something else. I don’t know. I got girlfriend-zoned and it feels shit.

I feel like life is making me catch up on all the flavours of weirdbad relationships I didn’t experience before I got into my current relationships with my husband and my QPP.

It kinda sucks.

[seriousbrat]

previous anon is so correct. I've always thought sirius and snape were parallels, two sides of the same coin-ish, they even have the same hair. and both carry the guilt of indirectly causing jily's death

also yes yes to james <and lily> being "fill in the blanks" characters & ofc I want more but I get why rowling wrote them that way and why she thought that it'd be sufficient, for the most part it is. but I like how they make people creative, to extrapolate andcome up with analysis that can fit into what is known and make it make sense and it's such a cool way to interact with the books/fandom, hp as a series is easy to digest and has a rich world and memorable characters and came out in the perfect time so it'll always be popular but the fact that fans are able to explore canon this way & it's not even absurd is so so cool and facinating to me, it's what kept the online community alive.

So i kinda went on a tangent there but also to simply put about the snape vs james thing it's also just kinda like tribalism or being a fan of a sports team or our society's tendency to be engage in "love" triangles. team peeta and team gale still exists to this day lol there has to be a bad/good or it's just not worth it for some ppl djdjd

when i try to explain this discourse to my friends <harry's dead dad vs harry's mean teacher> they look at me like im crazy

Agreed with all of this! I think ship wars have long been a feature of fandom spaces haha and it is quite a lot like sports rivalries akehgkj. Truly the opium of the masses. Tbh I might complain but I truly think it was much worse in the livejournal days with Hinny vs Harmonie and all that. Like those were the trenches and it was life or death.

Tbh I think the fact that a love triangle elicits such strong emotional reactions from an audience is the reason they're so often included in fiction. Buffy ended in 2003 and yet the Angel vs Spike war rages on. (which I also don't fully understand. those are both my freaks and I love them.) Team Edward vs Team Jacob was so huge that I remember girls in my high school running around in tshirts that declared them as one or the other-- which is basically the same as wearing a real madrid or barça shirt in the end. Like to be honest you WANT people to be talking and debating your story and characters, you want emotional investment, and a love triangle is a pretty easy-- if arguably cheap-- way of achieving that.

So it's pretty unsurprising that after DH once Snape's story and the Lily love triangle was revealed (and Hinny vs Harmonie conclusively resolved) people naturally flocked to one corner or the other. Despite liking Snape initially when I read DH, I myself eventually settled on Team James because it really did feel like you couldn't be a fan of both. There are several anti-snape posts of mine from that time that occasionally still get notes (although it was fun to argue against myself here) anyway obviously nowadays I don't see it the same way.

but I like how they make people creative, to extrapolate andcome up with analysis that can fit into what is known and make it make sense

I love this too! Honestly I legitimately really enjoy gathering scraps of information and analysing it and building something from it, it's what's fun for me haha. Kind of like a puzzle. Not just for James and Lily but I also had a lot of fun developing the minor Death Eater characters in this post. But I can totally understand why people prefer to focus on more established characters-- and to a lesser extent I can also kind of understand why people prefer to just ignore canon and invent their own characters lmao.

It does irritate me a bit when people try to claim there's no information at all, since if there's no information then what am I doing on this blog haha. But that's beside the point. Like you I think that James and Lily are developed enough for their purposes as dead people in the narrative lol, and that there's enough there to go on anyway. I will say I think it's likely that they are very much developed in jkr's head, since she strikes me as a writer who has a very clear idea of even her most minor characters-- this is reflected in her writing when even someone like Nott sr with his single line of dialogue feels quite real, you know?

And I completely think the fact that so much about the Marauders era is left up in the air is what's made the fandom so popular for so long. It's a mystery to resolve in a way haha

[bleachbleachbleach]

"This fight isn't over yet, Captain No-Hair."

I've gone on record about enjoying when the Viz translation goes off-book, and I maintain that "WHAT IN THE WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS" is one of the best lines in the whole series. I think it's a fun way of bringing in the roughness of the speech in Japanese that doesn't necessarily have a direct translation in English. But I actually wish that liberty hadn't been taken in Ichigo's line here:

[Bleach 087]

In the Viz, Ichigo's line is, "This fight isn't over yet, Captain No-Hair." I'm not really sure why Ichigo decided to be Colorful right at that moment? Especially since the reference to "captain" is a bit confusing, given that 1) this series really does have captains, and 2) Ichigo doesn't really give a damn that this series has captains. Anyway, in the JP, I would translate the line, "Don't talk like this is already over."

And I really love that line, because "talk" is a repeated motif across their whole fight, and I feel like that line is a big part of why Ikkaku ends up liking Ichigo. The point of the line is that it's not a cheap taunt. Let me back up:

Ikkaku does his Lucky Dance and sings his Lucky Song, which he says was supposed to give Ichigo and Ganju time to run away. But Ichigo doesn't run, even though Ikkaku notes reiatsu-wise he outranks Ichigo. But Ichigo figures, if Ikkaku's really that much more powerful, he'd just run Ichigo down, anyway. If they fight, then they'll see.

Ikkaku asks for Ichigo's name, just in case. And says that "Ichigo" is a good name because names that start with "I" are good--like his, Ikkaku. (So begins them calling each other by their given names.) This is no longer some anonymous street brawl with a ryoka--it's Ikkaku vs. Ichigo.

Ikkaku quickly figures out that despite the fact that Ichigo is most definitely not a soldier he moves well, and he's been trained by someone. Once Ikkaku learns that Urahara was the one who trained Ichigo, he releases Houzukimaru's shikai, so he can kill Ichigo the right way.

That's when Ichigo says, [1] "Don't talk like this is already over." And I feel like Ikkaku really responded do that, because Ichigo kind of calls him on the grandstanding. Like, hey! Don't act like the fight's over when there's still fighting left to do. Stay in the moment! Take this seriously. Respect what we're doing here! Which seems like something Ikkaku probably lacks for in most rights, and would find really refreshing and invigorating in Ichigo.

It also jibes with Ikkaku ultimately not wanting to end the battle unless it ends in death--that is, not acting like that fight is over until it's over over (even if Ichigo ultimately backs off that particular idea).

When Ikkaku says [2] "Aren't you a big talker," he parallels Ichigo's own grammatical construction; they both use an adjective/adjectival phrase to describe a 口--mouth/way of talking. And Ikkaku keeps it up later, when he cajoles Ichigo, [3] asking if it's just his mouth that was skilled:

もう終わったみたいな口きくなよ (Don't talk like this is already over.)

上等な口をきくじゃねえか (Aren't you a big talker.)

威勢のいいのは口だけか？ (Are you all talk?) [even more liberal translation than usual; I couldn't get this to not sound dumb]

I feel like this whole extended "talking" motif is important because it's playing in parallel to the Soul Society Yumichika is simultaneously describing to Ganju, with the gladiator pits (like Ganju needed more convincing that shinigami were bananas). I have received the message loud and clear that I am in the minority when it comes to my interest in the gladiator pits, but too bad!! we're going to talk about them more!! The Pits are so important! They serve as foil to this Ikkaku-Ichigo sequence. They present one characterization of the Seireitei and Ikkaku another, with his styptics and his personality and his name and his intelligence in sizing Ichigo up, and his willingness to tease out what Ichigo's about.

And Ichigo gives Ikkaku just as much--it's immediately clear to Ikkaku that Ichigo is no criminal mastermind (though he is in kahoots with one, re: Urahara), nor is he some bloodthirsty hoodlum. And, importantly, he's no soldier.

In contrast to the lurid spectacle of the Pits, Ikkaku and Ichigo recognize each other's personhood--their training, their wisdom, their names, their senses of battle honor/procedure. And even if Yoruichi thinks Ichigo is bull-in-china-shopping this (and he is! a little! they got here via CANNON), he's a pretty smart bull. And so is Ikkaku--he knows what Ichigo is and isn't.

(I don't think Ikkaku ends up sharing any of this intel--or at least, any of the juicy bits--even though it's info I feel like at least half the people in this arc would have really appreciated. Especially since what flys around instead is "the ryoka beat IKKAKU" which surely did not lend itself to an atmosphere of measured calm lololol. But hey, Ikkaku's here for the smiles per gallon, not the Sake of the Seireitei.)

[wolfofcelestia]

Reactions to Homecoming Wings - 1-10 to 2-10

Not tagging it this time because I have a lot of Thoughts. And I'm probably close to making up my mind about him tbh

I am 100% sure that whatever the fleet is capable of, Sylus would be prepared to swoop in and grab her at any moment. Mephisto aside, he probably has eyes in Skyhaven too, especially since he'll know that she's going to be there

Gotta say though, the way Caleb is acting, just like Zayne and Sylus... it doesn't match his age lmaoooo

This isn't a 25 year old. He's at least 30. Especially with being a whole-ass colonel??

lmao the battle defaulted to Zayne, bless

The way Caleb just handed her pills and she took them without even thinking about it though. Girl... you just got a cold. You don't need to start popping pills the moment you get a sniffle. With her health conditions too, Zayne would have probably told her to always ask him about meds she takes too

See look, baby's here worried about you asnflasdkfjd

This does not like him though?? Didn't she say shew as gonna meet him with the kid?? Wouldn't Zayne ask what happened??

I don't believe that he'd just be like "oh you're safe? bye then"

This story really feels like just another otome game now tbh. It used to feel distinctly LADS, but with the plot going the way it is, it reminds me of just another otome game, especially now with all the suspicions flying around

Characters like Viper definitely make it feel... more cheap? And less realistic too

My theory that the second trio of LIs will act as villains is coming true

There are a lot of parallels between Caleb and Zayne, but also Caleb and Sylus

Sylus values freedom and never denies MC. Caleb locks her down.

Sylus puts a tracker on himself so that MC knows where he is. He wants her to know where he is

MC has to sneak a tracker onto Caleb. Caleb is a closed book whereas Sylus painfully wants her to know more about him

Their outward appearances and first impressions are completely opposite to each other

You mean like Dragon Sylus's crystal?? 🤔

I assumed it was his heart but does that mean dragons are wanderers? The song that Sylus was introduced with is playing here too

She's an Ever experiment though. Maybe they were trying to recreate dragons?

Cool image tho

This is kinda how MC acted with Sylus though right? She wanted Sylus's strength

Hm...

🫵🫵🫵 N109 ZONE MENTION!!

Wanderers are drawn to the aether core in order to strengthen themselves. So if MC gathers all the aether core pieces like dragon balls, then what?

"He takes a step forward and seizes my wrist with a lot of strength"

This is at least the second time he's hurt her without a good reason

One of his battle lines is "I won't let you get hurt again"

And yet, Caleb keeps hurting her in the main story

Honestly, all the standard yandere otome fare, I'm fine with. I'm expecting it. Hell, I'm even a fan of it. This is why I'm here on Caleb's ass in the first place

But him just hurting her for no reason or because he's upset with her doesn't sit right with me and it's probably gonna be the dealbreaker for me

With all of his secrets and doing things behind her back, if I were MC, I wouldn't be able to forgive him, much less date him. He was supposed to be someone she could trust, but he keeps betraying her trust again and again

And then there's Zayne who's actively helping her and has been a reliable person to lean on throughout Caleb's entire route

The thing that kinda annoys me the most though is that

This is an otome game

Yanderes are supposed to be fun, but Caleb's just kinda like... there. He's not hot. He's not doing anything that's exciting me

With Sylus, he comes right out of the gate with his hand fetish and that's very clear fanservice. But with Caleb? What fanservice have we gotten from him?

It feels like the writers aren't bothering with fanservice because they're relying on people to already be attached to him because of how long they've made us wait. I'm not one of those people but I'm attached to him because of his seiyuu, so I feel like I'm just floating in this in between zone where I like him because of his voice and I WANT to like him more, but his character does nothing for me

The only reaction he's gotten out of me was negative whenever he hurt her

The fact that I get so excited whenever there's a mention of Zayne or anything to do with Sylus on Caleb's route really says a lot

I do find it such a strange move for infold though. They've gotten this far with making sure to drop fanservice in whatever they write, but where is it for Caleb? Is the fanservice only for those who like the childhood friend aspect of him and him treating her like a little girl? Because even that is in short supply here

From a business standpoint, it doesn't make sense. They'd want to appeal to as many people as possible, but even people like me who actually want to like him... it's just not clicking

And I'm kinda pissed about it

Because I want to like him. And he's just not doing anything to get me to like him

I'm glad MC is starting to push back against him, but honestly? I'm bored at this point

These are all classic yandere lines, but I'm still waiting to be excited here lmao

Is this supposed to be it? Yeah I'm sorry, I'm not biting

This is where MC says he's important to her because he's family and he wants to be seen as someone different

Like, there's so much here that was expected for Caleb to go through in his character development, but I'm just not feeling it. If this happened before he hurt her and drugged her, maybe this would've been more impactful, but I'm not feeling it

This scene was incredibly short and I feel like this should've had more of a focus, than trying to portray him as someone who has all these mysteries surrounding him and never giving us any answers. Him making her see him as someone who's not her "big brother" should've been his entire arc. But we got a half-hearted scene that's marred by an entire background of him betraying her trust

God, MC is wearing that fugly outfit again too asdfnsasldfkj

Oh that's it? So his attempt at making her see him as not her "big brother" didn't even resolve? He just brought it up and then they just acted like nothing happened? The fuck?

I know I've said infold sucked at endings but this isn't even supposed to be an ending

Even Sylus's route had a resolution

This just sorta felt like infold tossed us a half-cooked dish to placate us

[ooops-i-arted]

Filoni has a tendency to create all these parallels between Luke and his special OCs (nowadays "like poetry it rhymes" is basically Filoni regurgitating his favorite moments from the original trilogy). Yet, cowboy hat man makes it so obvious how he's ensuring Luke and Leia don't participate in galactic events that 100% makes sense with their involvement, substituting them with Ahsoka when he decides to reference Thrawn trilogy.

I see people falling for this lack of creativity over and over "isn't it cool how Sabine is literally saying the same line as Luke in New Hope?" "Omg Din said that ship was a 'pile of junk' just like Luke did!" "Teehee Anakin reached out to Ahsoka just like Anakin did to Luke in Empire Strikes Back!" Filoni relies so much on easter eggs and references to bait people and I'm just not impressed with so much of the material he churns out nowadays. Shit is stale.

Omg I just saw the goddamn "it's like poetry it rhymes" caption on Insta on a picture of Blond Apprentice getting MacGuffin StarBall Whatever next to a picture of Darth Maul from TPM getting his spy droid and I'm like NO! NO IT IS NOT POETRY, THERE IS NO SIGNIFICANCE THERE, IT'S JUST A CHEAP COPY OF ONE SHOT WITH NO EMOTIONAL MEANING BEHIND IT. "It's like poetry it rhymes" is like for, how we see Padme unite with the native Gungans in TPM after we saw Leia unite with the native Ewoks in ROTJ, both to defeat a huge threat to both of them. It shows that Leia may not have known Padme but Padme's spirit still lives on in Leia, and signals to the audience that yes, this is Leia's future mother. It actually means something.

I s2g Filoni has made the entire Star Wars fandom just braindead about Easter eggs. Easter eggs are supposed to be a fun addition that enhances something for a viewer in the know, not be a blaring red flag saying LOOK THIS WAS IN ANOTHER STAR WARS FEATURE. A proper Easter egg - and one I loved - was the brief cameo of Threepio in Kenobi. A viewer who has never seen any other Star Wars media will just see a droid adding to the Space Futuristic Worldbuilding, but my sister and I squealed in delight and had a moment of enjoyment. If Filoni had written that, he'd have the camera linger on Threepio, he'd say one of his signature lines, and then say "Oh dear I do believe I've forgotten something" as a har har har wink wink nudge nudge about how he had his memory wiped. I'm so over it, and I say this as someone who LOVES a good Easter egg, or even things like saying "I have a bad feeling about this" in every piece of Star Wars media!

I suppose at least we don't have to see Luke butchered and Leia wasted anymore like in the sequel trilogy.... but it's a sour victory when this is all we get instead. (Also, if I can be a Bad Rude Elitist Fan for a moment.... so many people are gonna think this is all just Filoni's idea, and not realize that Timothy Zahn crafted an amazing book trilogy they can read instead, and just settle for Filoni's box mix cookies instead of a carefully crafted Zahn masterpiece.)

[seventeenlovesthree]

I know you like to spread positivity about all kinds of ships but I still wanted to ask if there are any digimon ships you really hate? Not meaning to be negative about it just curious.

Oh, that reminds me of that post I reblogged about how people can't openly "dislike" things on the internet anymore... And I would also maintain that I don't actually "hate" any ship, but that there are some dynamics that are simply not for me, whether it's the canon depiction or the fandom portrayal. I still enjoy playing my ship dynamics game, because it allows me to dive deeper into certain (potential) relationships. And I still think everyone should be able to ship whatever they like and lighthearted banter is also completely fine, as long as they don't harass others, vandalize art, write hatefic, start ship wars and so on. Believe me, I have seen people lose interest in fandom and pull back completely because of petty ship wars and it's just sad.

That being said, there might be a few dynamics I tend to avoid romantically, even if I enjoy most of these platonically (or at least in very specific contexts):

Taichi/Yamato: I recently wrote a huge analysis on how I perceive them and why I think they're rather tragic. I guess my inner child has always been kinda annoyed by their trope-y over-exposure ever since I had access to the internet and I simply am not enjoying "rival" ships (even though they still aren't even classic rivals in my book). Doujin portrayals are filled with angst or mainly physicality too and I don't like how those artists usually ignore that these two have OTHER PEOPLE in their lives too, which, again, makes it really tragic and sad and I really want them to HEAL for once, so... No, they're not for me.

Koushirou/Mimi: The fun part about them is that I actually liked them as a ship when I was a kid. And once again, I pointed out a lot of their good qualities before - but Tri really summarized everything I don't enjoy about their portrayal (and that doesn't even include certain fandom corners yet that go way too hard with their kinks on them, which make me just... Uncomfortable. The same/related corners also can make me have issues with very specific Taichi/Mimi fandom portrayals, but I will not go into further detail here, because it's just cruel). I absolutely adore them as friends, but there are just way too many things that make me believe they'd struggle to be compatible romantically with each other long-term.

Yamato/Mimi: I get that they are very popular in various fandom corners and I maintain, ship and let ship! As for me personally, I simply do not see them being compatible, mainly due to their lack of (positive) interactions, even though I did try to outline their potential before.

Yamato/Sora: Disclaimer, I do NOT hate them - in fact, I will probably always be one of those who will defend their parallels to one another AND them being mirrors to Taishirou (and in a lot of my AUs, you will find them as complementary ship to them after all). However... I mainly like their potential. What I don't like is their canon portrayal, because it simply doesn't give me enough to see them in a romantic context, especially long-term. Short term? Heck yeah, why not? But everything beyond that... We all know what I am referring to here, ahem. There was art out there that said they were each other's "comphet phase" and I will never get that out of my head. I also maintain that they both may just want Taichi. Which makes it even more tragic.

Daisuke/Hikari: Again, disclaimer, I think fandom tends to portray them rather nicely and I do believe they have a lot of potential. And I don't hate them, I am just annoyed with how they tend to be depicted in canon, because it feels like an unnecessarily cruel running gag that doesn't let either of them shine in their best light.

Edit: Small shout-out to Ken/Miyako and I know it's cheap to dump on the canon ships like that, but I still feel like it's very one-sided in its portrayal (even if The Beginning made a bit progress in that regard, but I still feel like they should go poly with Daisuke, period). Again, don't hate it, just wish it was more visible.

[jabberwockprince]

unfiltered re1999 oc rambles and train of thought under the cut because i need to sort out my brain for a second!

inhales

venison's theme is cannibalism (bones, flesh) and deer/stag, the shocking effect of having a herbivore eat meat -> prey becomes predator -> cute thing is scary now, simplified

i made them specifically to parallel pavia in many aspects, so they do share themes certain themes while also being on entirely opposite ends, especially when it comes to freedom/individuality - what with pavia being a lone wolf and an individual who rejects society and lives outside of it, while venison is a very codependent and social individual who will gladly allow others to use them in exchange of that feeling of "belonging". and the two are still hypocrites, because wolves live in close tight knit packs, theres no real lone wolves. and venison ultimately lives for their own selfish whims, because being codependent is just a means to an end, and arent as subservient and submissive as they paint themself

then theres the subject of venison's historical themes

their undimo is a white, glowing and magical stag made out of bones which is based on the lampong - a creature from filipino myths and folklore, a dwarf shepherd that is said to protect other deer by turning into one

the psychube assigned specifically to them is called "the stag hunt" which alludes to that one painting - the stag hunt of frederick iii, elector of saxony by lucas cranach. which is just a fun connection to venison's backstory, but has no fucking ties whatsoever with frederick iii nor lucas cranach. so hm. hmmmm. tying themes of religious imagery and blind devotion through frederick iii's might be a reach. unsure. UNCLEAR. gotta look into it later

the psychube is also just called "Stag Hunt" which instead alludes to the trust dilemma by the same name, two hunters must choose between hunting down a hare or a stag, independently and without knowing the other's choice. but to hunt down a stag they must do it together. so its like the prisoners dilemma but in the stag hunt someone always ends up winning regardless of the combination of choices. something something, venison's opportunistic (and parasitic) behaviour and that same vibe that junko enoshima and jobu tupaki had going on of always, always coming out on top no matter what even if they're the ones suffering bc the end goal was always suffering

venison is also a mineral arcanist bc mineral arcanists seem to be aligned with. themes of death? cristallo, obvious deteriorating health. bette, metaphorical death of the self since she's treated as a cheap replacement within the industry. eternity, she just. doesnt die, doomed to be eternal. horrorpedia, death and horror, obviously. mondlicht, her whole village is in constant danger of dying bc of wolves, kids are raised as hunters. ms moissan's life being affected by war ("but what about click then? click is a spirit arcanist by virtue of being a DEAD GHOST GUY, bc supernatural themes and stuff being the ticket to spirit arcanists). necrologist. yeah pretty obvious.

but thats also just a superficial observation bc i havent dissected afflatus influence yet. mineral arcanum could be something related to being stagnant, stuck, an inmovable object. things that are assured, sure as death. it would align better with some characters like sonetto too

still, venison's connection to being a mineral arcanists, within this context and with this current explanation, is easy bc they're - at heart - a scavenger animal, they thrive in death and are surrounded by it. the association of cannibalism = love and protection and care in their brain means that they're constantly trying to prove or show their love thru violence, they eat those they love bc nothing will bring people closer than death and digestion, basically

but venison is also a goddamn awful person with a very unstable and volatile mind, so this association has just become an excuse to justify their cannibalism. this is why they "fall in love" with all of their targets, why they write love letters and why theyre so delusional, creating one-sided relationships that they fully believe in

OK OK OK BRAIN IS WORKING AGAIN I CAN WORK PROPERLY

[beevean]

For the ask game: ❤ 💖 💔 💀 for Castlevania

Answered the last one here!

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

ISAAC

MY DARLING BABYGIRL ISAAC

He is not just a cock-thirsty shallow Joker 😭 there is depth to him! He's passionate, driven, so terribly embittered by being shunned and cast aside, yet he respected Hector and still cares for Julia, he refused to hurt her even when Cursed! He tainted his body in a show of loyalty to a Lord who only saw him as a tool, and let the clothes rot off his body to show himself in his truest self! And so he too saw himself as a weapon and took pride in that role! And yet he's a hypocrite who falls prey to his own emotions and desires, because if he truly was a weapon he wouldn't have been jealous of Hector getting everything he wanted! He wouldn't have been consumed by his own (admittedly understandable, Hector really was cruel to him) hatred to the point of dying! He did all he could to cast away a humanity he felt had no need for yet he was so terribly human, much like his master! And he died as a tool, and a defective one too!

fhsdkjghjksdhgkjh my boy i love him so much he's complex and fascinating and even relatable in some aspects but no one except my enlightened besties, mwah understands him and they reduce him to a crazy bdsm joke 😭😭😭

oh and on the same note if people can stop reducing hector to a shallow edgelord without weaknesses and softness that would be great thanks

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

obligatory show bad both as an adaptation and its own thing

Circle of the Moon is a bad game. I genuinely cannot understand what people like in it, because if you want a hard Igavania, OoE is right there and is less pointlessly cheap. CoTM clearly tried to fix SoTN's absolutely non-existant difficulty, but it went about it the worst way possible, to the point that even moving around is painful, let alone orienting yourself in this dim, boring castle full of dead ends that forces you to go through the Abyss Stairway over and over again. I ain't forgiving it for the shit it pulls after you defeat Hugh and you have to dodge those dark knights without healing up :^)

By contrast, I find Harmony of Dissonance very fun, I love the psychedelic colors, I love the chiptune eerie music, the game is so fun to break and speedrun, Juste most OP Belmont come at me.

I think my overall biggest take is... the games have a solid lore and story. It's a shame that they get put aside (not here on Tumblr, but definitely in places like Reddit) for the sake of propping up the show. Dracula's Curse has some crazy intricate lore when you put everything together. Games parallel each other, like HoD being written to be a prelude to Richter's fall from grace. You can get everything you need to know about Simon's personality, who otherwise never speaks in a main game, simply by that scene in Simon's Quest where he makes a grave for Dracula. The games are so fun to read between the lines, they hit that perfect balance between giving you enough information to get you interested and leave enough room for thought and interpretation.

... I also don't hate DoS' anime style. I think it's cute. PoR is the one that really got hit by the ugly stick, I think.

💔: If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

^ Konami when they decided to quietly erase Grant from existence

Can't think of anyone. All major characters contribute to something. Maybe Hammer? I never cared for him, sorry, and his personality in DoS is hard to like. But I'm not sure he counts as major.

[anumberofhobbies]

Creative writing fun today

Just for fun, here's what I got for our timed writing to prompts exercise at our weekly creative writers group meeting today. Character sounds like they might have a paranoia issue or two. And I swear the only things I was on when writing it were caffeine and sugar from the bakery and coffee shop we meet at! ---------------------------------------------------------------

June 22, 2024 prompts (via Reedsy) Select one or more.

start story with character being followed

character overhears something at a black tie event that puts the night in jeopardy

story about someone participating in a seemingly innocent game that suddenly takes a turn

story about character who sees a photo they shouldn't have seen

story from point of view of a non-human character -------

Okay, yeah, maybe sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake. But you can't deny you know how it is, you get focused on a task, a mission, a goal, and that focus narrows and your peripheral vision becomes a mere incidental.

But then your gut talks, and it reminds you, “Look around, be vigilant, note the recent increase in incidents of coincidence, things be happenin, mate, things be happenin.”

I'm not the smartest guy on the planet but I'm not the dumbest either, it only took me a few days to see the coincidences, to see the patterns. Recurring people on parallel paths. Unseen neighbors now seen. Bus stop waiters who do not take a bus.

Who knew, or who at least suspected, was a thing I could not say, had no evidence for. But the pattern indicated someone somewhere did suspect, if not outright know. Somewhere up their food chain someone had discerned that I had seen the image, that I had discerned the pattern. And they likely did not like that I had.

What to do, what to do.

Of course the first thing to was disrupt or even better dissolve my own patterns with a deliberate introduction of apparently random entropy.

What was I unlikely to do? Ah, this corner has the tram to the zoo. I need to experience the butterfly house today.

Now, what otherwise apparently aimless ambler crosses the street to this tram stop?

I glance this way and that. Seemingly scanning the boulevard for approaching trams, returning my gaze to the schedule board between scans. I am just a passenger passing time on my day off. The zoo is cheap, I am not rich. The zoo is popular either with family or alone. Who parallels me in that population percentage patronizing the place. Someone must, that is the pattern.

And yet I am aware that they can break pattern too. That's the thing when you know things someone with power rathers you did not.

I must be, must do, the random amblings of near madman driven to the edge by the daily grind of mediocrity, not the purposeful pursuits of the whistle blower seeking greater good. I must show no path, no pattern, no predictability. They must always be scrambling to catch up to me, not me thrashing to get free from them.

Everybody buys a soda. I do not stand out while standing in line for a soda. Who notices me then immediately comes to likewise buy refreshment? It is that timing which decides the following, not the general similarity of endeavor. --------------------------------------------- But, hey, remember, a conspiracy theory is only just a theory until it actually happens. ;D

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 176

Man’s Best Friend with Benefits/The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe

“Man’s Best Friend with Benefits”

Plot Description: a police officer, who turned to witchcraft after working a case with Sam and Dean, is plagued by nightmares in which he murders innocent people

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: doesn’t seem like it’s simply nightmares, ya know?? Anyway, not saying that staying at home pretty much every night protects me 100% but…I do pretty much stay at home every night. These first five minutes? I’m pretty safe

You know…you never really think about the normal car ride conversations Sam and Dean have. It’s always the arguing, the mission focused ones, the ones with other people there…not the bickering about the Three Stooges

I don’t trust this dog…

Sam. Maybe MENTION that your visitor is a dog. I think Dean might be a little less weirded out……..oh. She’s no longer a dog. Um. Ohhhhhhh, she’s a familiar

It’s frankly amazing with how many crimes the boys commit and how many spells they do that they keep the attitude of “witches bad. cops good.” Come on!! Then again, this show never did understand its largest fanbase and kept trying to appeal to its intended audience

It’s gross that they cast a young, beautiful black woman to play the dog familiar to a white male cop/witch AND had her refer to him as her master. LIKE….

This is just a really bad episode. Holy fuck

“It’s not that you don’t trust me, it’s that you can only trust yourself” that hit Dean and ricocheted to hit me too. I don’t like that, Sammy…

You’re surprised you’re sneezing around Phillipe Le Chat when you’re allergic to cats??

This show is so cheap omg won’t show the transformation of the familiars. It’s actually funny

So let me get this straight, they fucked, and he let down his guard long enough to psychically show her the murders he believes he committed. Cool show

Call me and Dean prudes but it IS a little surprising to get the confirmation that they’re fucking.

Look how happy Dean is that Sam’s proud of him for not even making one beastiality joke for 15 hours since finding out James and Portia’s…arrangement

They…astral projected into the police department?? Just feels a little like cheating

So did Spencer set him up because being a witch and a cop was just…nope…it’s part jealousy part familiar fucking…

I’m so glad to hear Dean say he trusts Sam…….oh, cool. This is already taking a toll on Sam…..coughing up blood is not usually a sign that you’re good, my dude

“The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe”

Plot Description: Evacuated to a house in Dorset from war-torn London, Madge Arwell and her two children, Lily and Cyril, are greeted by a madcap caretaker whose mysterious Christmas gift leads them into a magical wintry world

(I don’t know why it keeps going back to the last few seconds of the previous episode when i definitely waited for the flip over to the next one. It’s not horribly annoying but it COULD be better)

Oh I do like the kind of awful action sequence at the beginning. Like…there IS room in my heart for bad cgi

Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of kid you could tell ALL OF THAT to and he’d not only understand all the words you just said but also comprehend and believe it

Nah because he actually does get to go home for Christmas…just…not yet

The parallel of Madge and the Doctor both breaking the doors of where the other stays. I don’t know if it MEANS anything but I do like it

One of the best things in the show is when the Doctor is amazed by what he’s done. He’s done some fun remodeling I’m this whole house and I’m in love with it

I loathe to admit it but Moffat does have some good lines. “Because every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they’re going to be, and it breaks your heart because what’s the point in them being happy now when they’re going to be sad later? The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later” Just. So touching. So heart wrenching.

Omgggggggggg her kids begging her to say what she always says at Christmas, that it’s going to be the best one ever. And she (and now the Doctor) is the only one who knows the truth about her husband having died in battle

He…he IS going to make sure the dad gets home safely for Christmas, right? It’s not going to JUST be part of the Narnia-esque world they’re about to go to

I never opened my presents early. I never wanted to. I never even looked for them growing up…

Something’s afoot in the forest

Sure, let’s just get the WHOLE family through the dimensional portal

Great Value Narnia doesn’t even have a Mr Tumnus…

I guess when you don’t have anyone to freak out TO, you’re gonna freak out less?? Yeah, see? Now that there are other people, she can break down about her children going missing on a far off planet in the future and how she nearly got stomped on and…had futuristic guns pointed at her and yelled at

They better explain these people made of wood soon

So, they’re some sort of protectors of this forest. I forgot this was a deforestation tale as well

Mmmm of course she’s going to be strong enough to wear the crown thingy. She’s…unenthusiastically impressed somehow

That is NOT a romantic story. He followed her til she agreed to marry him? She didn’t want to make a scene?? She’s lucky that worked out, that he was a decent guy otherwise, but why is that such a common trope?

So…I mean. Sure. The light from the ship Madge flew the forest spirits in led her husband home. I GUESS

The Ponds always setting a place at their table fit the Doctor IS making me tear up though. I was not expecting that. He finds it so unbelievable and he’s so touched by that

[troxlerfx]

ha haaa!! hsdfshjkl you're too kind 💛 i promise i am ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴀ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ!! i've gotten a reaction like this a few times recently & it's bewildering (like in the nice way of finding a dollar in my pocket) & is also encouraging me to clamber out of my foul grotto more often for cheap jump scares... 👁️ i really enjoy your work... the COLORS!! & i very much appreciate the kindness re: my own, hopefully soon i will have more things!!

it's always so fun to meet people who appreciate TEW!! lightning in a bottle... i could ramble about it... it was subject to a lot of industry nonsense, yet they still managed to put together something that stole many hearts for several years (Leslie was my little dude... protect that guy...) & then do it again 3 years later. the first things i drew 6 years after the mishap that wrecked my eyesight were those characters, & Stefano was a lot of that momentum. ended up meeting my wife through him, even!! & after that the unhinged singularly reverent hyperfocus was simply my jam. it's also funny to find parallels between him and Wally... the neckwear, the eccentric hair, weird eyes & eye motifs, apparently overpowered to some degree with a highly specific caveat, visual artist, connection to some old tech, very particular shoes, heavy blue & red color scheme, steward & victim of a Fucked Up Little World... doesn't seem to wear socks(or people think he doesn't)... ha!! i probably have more stuff about Stefano somewhere. drew him a whole bunch!!

hello!! just dropping by to say... Dandy is so cute 🍏

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 /pos

Hello augh it's still so crazy that you followed me back! Your traditional work is so captivating like I don't even know how to describe the mood you manage to capture.

I saw you even did art of Stefano Valentini!!!! I LOVE the evil within! The second game being my favorite only because I have a soft spot for the ridiculous villian Stefano! Seeing an artistically driven villian drawn in SUCH a way was such a delight to see!!!!!!!!!

[bluewinnerangel]

have you been asked about the line "something about the way the light catches the mirror in my brain, it gives me shade" yet? because i'd love to know what you think of it (in reality i'm just too oblivious to lyric meanings lol)

I absolutely love the feeling it gives me. And currently that's all it's doing and for this one it's enough for me? Just. I fucking love it. But on the other what I've found with doing and reading others' analyses and seeking lyrical parallels I've only found it amplifies the feeling. So.. I can try to ramble and see where it takes me. This is just gonna be scattered thoughts sorry bout that:

Here are the verses of Saturdays to place it in the context given, although I don't necessarily think we need to do that for lyrics, like lines can stand beautifully on their own but:

[Verse 1]: I'm not supposed to be feeling dirty cheap on silver street at quarter to three. Hidden across my face in the crowd I'm counting up the days in a haze. I'm gazing at the floor, somebody's got your trainers on, The ones that you wore when you walked out the door.

[Verse 2]: Through my cigarette, a shadow of you sticks me to the carpet, try to ignore it. Something about the way the light catches the mirror in my brain, it gives me shade. I'm staring at the door, somebody's got your trainers on, the ones that you wore but you're not here anymore.

There's a running theme here of things not directly being visible. Hidden - haze - someone who looks like someone else but isn't - through the cigarette aka a cloud of smoke - a shadow - mirror - shade - staring at a door like there can be something behind it. Something you can't quite catch (the light catches as well), a memory of someone is over every single little thing and isn't here (literally "you walked out the door and you're not here anymore").

Cigarette - shadow - shade - mirror - hidden: she's giving me smoke and mirrors.

It's also somehow simultaneously giving me vibes of him being in the club and everything all senses are suppressed because his head is somewhere else (mainly the 1st verse; obviously he's feeling dirty cheap on silver street - aka going out in Doncaster - where the gazing at the floor and seeing someone in familiar trainers implying dancefloor, like he's on the balcony looking at the people having fun yk) as well as home alone in silence (mainly second verse, now there's a carpet, I mean the club might as well have a carpet but it's not the imagery it's giving me at least, and he's still stuck on the person with the trainers on he saw), it's probably to do with the softness of the verses like it just feels so alone, it feels so I'm alone in my bed after a night out and you're not here.

I think mirror in my brain is also to amplify that feeling that he's in his head, rather that a mirror at some corner of the club that could've rhymed somehow, also a mirror in your brain is a trick right, things mirroring and reflecting and being flipped upside down (i mean light going into your eye and your brain processing it doin the flipflop) creating deception, illusion, seeing a shadow of someone not there, ignoring it.

There's also something about "a shadow of you" and "sticks me to the carpet" where before there was someone on the floor in your style, then the "mirror" that "gives me shade" like it gets flipped around it gets mirrored and they're both the shadows the ghosts that are both dancing in the dark.

The use of the word "shade" is intriguing. As a synonym for shadow, perhaps also obscuring (thoughts), but also darkness? Not just the opposite of the "light surrounding him", just.. thinking of the pile of parallels within FITF, with darkness and light all over the place, with both "fading into darkness" and "fade into light" amongst many.

It's reminiscent of Two Of Us where he sings "with memories playing through my head", "you're written in my DNA, looking back in every mirror", "you're living through everything I'll ever do".

It also reminds me of Miss You: he's off his face going out, but "I should be laughing but there's something wrong, ant it hits me when the lights go on, shit maybe I miss you". But rather than it hitting him, he's very much aware of it.

So I think you can interpret "something about the way the light catches the mirror in my brain, it gives me shade" as the party lights shielding him from the thoughts in a way, "trying to ignore it", ignore all the thoughts he's having reminiscing this person, but also the from the outside as these lights are hiding his face in the crowd and it's just in his brain, but also they're reminding him, they're giving him memories of this person, when they were going out together, "and I've been thinking about the things we used to do, we always used to say saturdays take the pain away", so he was already repressing other pains with that person, but now he's there again, but without that person, with the added pain of not having that person with him either.

Annoyingly I keep thinking about Elton John's Something About The Way You Look Tonight, "There was a time I was everything and nothin' all in one, when you found me, I was feelin' like a cloud across the sun, well, I need to tell ya how you light up every second of the day, but in the moonlight, you just shine like a beacon on the bay and I can't explain but it's somethin' about the way you look tonight" And also another song with "something in the way you move" that I just couldn't place but I just found it: The Beatles - Something. And then suddenly I was like oh shit that's in Cinema too lol ("something in the way you move I like it when you dance for me"). Or rather the cover by Phyllis Dillon with changed pronouns because I've been listening to that through of one of Harry's playlists: "Something in the way he moves attracts me like no other lover, something in the way he woos me, I don't want to leave him now, You know I believe and how, Somewhere in his smile he knows that I don't need no other lover, something in his style that shows me", I'm not saying these things are purposefully connected by him, I'm trying to say they are now in the mirror in my brain, as they are what make me think of how "something about the way" in all these 3 songs (Elton, Harry, Beatles) are about how a person moves and how a person dresses, which then going back to Saturdays, someone in the clothes that the person wore on the dancefloor, the light catching [the memory], something about the ways all of it reminding him of the person that was once in the club and once on the dancefloor with him, someone who he in the past saw dancing, admired dancing, admired their style, and perhaps it gives him some consolation "something about the way [its catching these memories of you dancing in these clothes in these lights] it gives me shade [from the harsh reality of you not being here]", somehow, there's something about it in a way.

[vldkeith]

keithtober🔪🎃💢 week four: conspiracy theory or halloween🎃

team voltron takes a trip to notoriously high-quality halloween superstore, spirit halloween. keith is emotional about it.

ko-fi | read on ao3 (leave a kudos there if you enjoyed, please!)

a/n: HAPPY HALLOWEEN & KEITHTOBER!! had lots of fun. hope y'all enjoyed <3

--

When Shiro finally manages to pull into a parking spot after having spent ten minutes driving around just to find one that wouldn’t force him to attempt parallel parking, everyone spills out with cheers of excitement and relief. Keith gets swept along, hurrying out after Lance (who turns around and smoothly offers him a hand to help, which Keith takes with a roll of his eyes) with Pidge pointedly nudging closer and closer to him every second he waits. Hunk is already catching up to Allura, enthusiastically explaining once more the function of a Spirit Halloween—a one-stop spot for Halloween costumes and decorations. 

“And it’s cheap,” he overhears Hunk warn for perhaps the twentieth time, “so, you know, don’t expect too much.” 

Allura’s response to that is to, again, ask what Halloween is, and that’s when Keith tunes out, because they’ve all tried to varying degrees of success to answer that question for the past 45 minutes of traffic and he’s kind of over it. 

“Everybody stick together,” Shiro calls out, and then pauses, confused. It probably has something to do with the fact that he just implied some kind of danger in the Spirit Halloween parking lot. He shakes his head and turns to Keith, exasperated. “I can’t turn it off sometimes.” 

Keith gives Shiro a consoling pat on the arm and then promptly strides ahead of him, tapping lightly on Lance’s shoulder and then shirking to the side when Lance turns to look, avoiding him. 

“Hey,” he says, grinning when Lance starts a little, clearly not expecting Keith to be on his left instead of right side. 

“Weirdo,” Lance says fondly once his gaze has caught on Keith’s face, twirling around and enveloping Keith in his arms to give him a quick, squeezing hug and small kiss on the cheek. “You’re cute, though.” 

Their disgusting couple behavior is met with various groans and sounds of retching from the surrounding group, to which Keith flips them all off and Lance sticks out his tongue, tugging Keith closer to him and resting his hand on his hip, only slightly possessive. Keith fits himself snugly under Lance’s arm, ignoring the plethora of rolling eyes around him. 

“Have I mention that I’m never letting you make fun of Adam and I ever again?” Shiro comments pointedly. 

The group makes their way across the dismal, cracked parking lot toward the looming yet unassuming square concrete building, with its hung orange sign sporting the words “Spirit Halloween” the only indication that the whole place isn’t abandoned. As they draw closer, Keith can see the rows of costumes vaguely through the windows, and feels his excitement mounting despite himself. It’s his first year back on Earth, the first time he’s been able to even entertain the notion of doing silly recreational activities like this, let alone actually engage in them. It feels special, somehow, even if all they’re doing is going to a cheap Halloween superstore. 

One look at the faces of his teammates—well, nowadays friends might actually be a better word—tells Keith that he’s not the only one feeling this way. There’s an air of buzzing excitement, like they’re kids again, experiencing the simple joy of going out for some Halloween tricks and treats and atmosphere. No defending of the universe necessary. 

Keith and his dad used to visit these stores every Halloween season, searching up each that popped up near them and going there to check out the decorations and animatronics. The memory is nostalgic and only a little painful, now; as they step through the threshold and are met with a cave-like tunnel built out of shoddy construction material, Keith thinks maybe this experience will act as a balm to soothe the associations he otherwise has with this store. 

“This isn’t scary at all,” Pidge sniffs, poking at the wall clearly made out of cardboard and paper. “You’d think a multi-million-dollar corporation could spring for some better structures, but—” 

She cuts himself off with a scream as, seemingly out of nowhere, a black and red spider leaps toward her, shrieking wildly. Pidge jumps back squarely into Shiro, who catches him and reflexively swoops him out of harm’s way in a single, severe motion. The rest of the group, frozen solid from the suddenness of it all, takes a moment to locate the soft, flat switch on the ground with a cord trailing behind it, connecting it to the spider. Pidge, emerging from hiding behind Shiro, must notice it too, because her eyes widen and she groans, slapping his forehead against Shiro’s back. 

Everyone else bursts into laughter. 

“Nice job, Pidge,” Lance chortles, shaking his head and stuffing his hands into his pockets before striding confidently further into the store, leaving Keith behind him. He walks straight onto the switch for a second spider, and screams louder than Pidge did as he jumps away. 

“Nice job, Lance!” Pidge intones mockingly. He ducks past Lance, sticking out his tongue, and wanders over to a different animatronic, walking carefully this time. 

“Yeah, that was a loss for me,” Lance admits, his tone still breathy from fear. He shrugs at the rest of the group, smiling sheepishly. 

“Oh, my!” Allura’s voice sounds excitedly from somewhere to Keith’s left, and he turns to see her standing in front of a large figure of a woman in a nurse’s outfit, her eyes wide with wonder. “Who is she? Is she real?”

Keith nearly chokes on his own laughter. Shiro replies kindly, “Um, no, she’s not. She’s just a…well, something like a puppet.” 

“How did we come into a Spirit Halloween and not explain animatronics to her?” Hunk whisper-groans, shaking his head.

Allura frowns. “Is she based on anyone real?”

Lance and Hunk exchange looks. “I sure hope not,” Hunk says. 

“Don’t be rude!” Allura rounds on them, her face so open and genuine that Keith immediately knows she isn’t playing a joke. “She is lovely! Just look at the wonderful accessory she has around her eyes, it’s so innovative!” 

Keith cranes his neck around her to examine the animatronic who, indeed, has a “bloodied” bandage wrapped around the top of her face, two sunken circles of red outlined where the eyes should be. Aside from that, she has orange, veiny skin, sunken cheeks, gnarled fingers stretched out toward the nearest bystander, and a snarling open mouth. 

It seems Allura is very taken with her. Keith doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the animatronic is meant to be horrifying, not attractive. 

“She does have shiny skin,” he volunteers, and hears Lance snort beside him. Allura gives him the biggest grin, though, and Keith feels the Sims relationship increase icon pop above both of their heads. 

“She does, doesn’t she?” Allura responds, turning happily back to the animatronic. 

“We’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” Hunk says, voice only betraying a hint of amused sarcasm. 

Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Shiro plunge forward into the tunnel, gawking at the three or four other animatronics present. There’s a Cerberus animatronic Keith is particularly fond of, and he purposefully sets it off snarling and barking three times until Shiro pulls him away, complaining of a headache from the loud noise. The moment they emerge from the tunnel, Lance grabs Keith’s hand and drags him over to the comparatively empty costume section—Keith’s least favorite part of the store. 

“This area is boring,” Keith complains even as he lets Lance tug him further in. “Is there a reason we’re going this way?” 

Lance hums a little bit. “Not really. Mostly wanted to go somewhere less crowded so I could do this.” He comes to a halt in a corner, sandwiched between ghostly masks and gore-covered saw and sword props, and leans forward to give Keith a slow, lengthy kiss, right there in the store. Keith lets out a muffled noise of surprise at first, but almost embarrassingly quickly allows his eyes to slide shut and reciprocates the kiss. 

It lasts probably longer than it should’ve, considering they are in a not-empty store, but it’s still over quickly enough. When Lance releases him, Keith feels slightly dizzy, and wants more. 

“You’re cute when you’re interested in things,” Lance says quietly by way of explanation, giving Keith another quick kiss on the cheek. “You make it so hard to not kiss you.” 

“When I’m interested in things? You’re embarrassing,” Keith says, though he’s very obviously pleased. “We can’t just make out in this Spirit Halloween. Come on.” 

“Aw, can’t we?” 

Keith ignores Lance’s cheeky question and busies himself with examining the swords and knives, most of which are entirely impractical for actual murdering, but still cool enough to look at. He picks one up and swings it experimentally—yeah, definitely just light, boring plastic. It fills Keith with joy to not be holding a real weapon for once. 

“Keith!” Hunk shouts excitedly from a few aisles away from him, and he and Lance both start guiltily, hoping he hadn’t seen anything. Apparently oblivious, Hunk’s next words are, “I found a perfect costume for you.” 

“Oh, really.” Keith’s tone is already unimpressed. “Let me guess, it’s…” 

Keith approaches where Hunk is standing, examining the rectangular package he’s clutching in his hands. 

Yep. “...an alien.” And a stereotypical green-skinned, bug-eyed one at that. Keith shakes his head. “You ever gonna find a new joke, big guy?” 

Hunk shrugs, Keith’s criticism rolling off of him glamorously. “There’s never gonna be a funnier joke than Galra Keith. Sorry, Galra Keith.” 

On cue, Pidge pops up from behind Hunk, startling Keith, who hadn’t even realized she was anywhere near them in the store. She waggles her eyebrows and, brandishing a costume package of her own, quips, “How about Cowboy Keith?”

“Yeehaw,” Keith drones tonelessly, taking the teasing in stride. Suddenly, Hunk’s expression brightens, and he waves someone over.

“Shiro! Thoughts on cowboy alien Keith?”

Shiro wanders over, hands tucked casually into his pockets, and gives the costumes a once over. He huffs out a laugh. “Either of you ever watched Cowboy Bebop?”

“Oh, booo, Spike’s too cool for Keith,” Pidge answers immediately, shaking his head in an almost offensively resolute way, at least to Keith. “We mean, like, literally a green alien with a cowboy hat on. That’s the image Keith gives off.”

“I’ve literally dressed up as Spike before, but okay,” Keith says, rolling his eyes. Shiro nods sagely.

“It’s true. I was the corgi.”

Keith escapes the mocking quickly after that, heading back to the animatronics he was rudely ushered away from earlier. There’s a giant figure just slightly to the side of the tunnel-cave he’d passed through to enter the store, with a long black cloak and a beak made of bone. Keith presses the square switch on the ground with his foot, and the figure’s eyes light up red, his head craning forward and backward unnaturally as he says in a gravelly, booming voice, “I knew you would be here soon; you could say I have eyes all over! Remember, wherever you run, my crows and I will find you!"

“Nice,” Keith says out loud, noting the title of the animatronic is “Lord Raven.” Pretty fucking metal if you ask him. Especially the bone face.

He wanders, then, around the rest of the animatronics, noticing that Allura has finally left her star-crossed love and is enthusiastically browsing shirts with Lance at her side, who is trying to explain the jokes on them and apparently not doing very well at it. It’s strange to keep running into his friends wherever he goes; Keith isn’t used to even having enough friends to see multiple of them at different parts of a store. The thought that he isn’t as isolated and alone as he used to be warms him, and he approaches Lance and Allura quietly, hoping not to interrupt or disturb their conversation.

“—Easy Bake Oven, which is, like, a toy from the…’90s? 2000s? Sometime around there, that was meant for children, and—”

“Children?” Allura’s tone is scandalized. She looks back at the shirt in question, which features three little girls dancing in a graveyard around a floating pink oven. “They’ve made the children’s toy…evil?”

Lance rubs the back of his neck. “Well, yeah, it’s…Halloween.”

“They could also use their powers from it for good,” Keith cuts in, making them both turn, surprised, to look at him. “Kind of like you did.” Something about today is making Keith want to win points in Allura’s book, it seems.

Allura nods thoughtfully. “I see, I see…So the oven’s power comes with great responsibility of choice.” When she looks straight at Keith, her eyes are shining. “Thank you, Keith! I feel like I understand this article of clothing much better now. I’m going to buy it.”

The thought of Allura sporting the “Easy-Bake Coven” tshirt feels akin to spotting a frog on a lily pad, so he voices emphatic support for her decision. Lance just shakes his head, amused.

“Romelle’ll like it,” Keith says, making Allura smile even wider.

He and Lance split up from Allura again, promising that they’ll meet up with her later at the cash register to help her figure out how to purchase something. “Though mullet here has a record of purposefully not purchasing things, so who knows if he actually even knows how,” Lance had said to this, earning himself an elbow in the gut from Keith.

They find themselves idling in the décor section near the middle of the store, holding hands and pointing out fun/funny trinkets intermittently. Lance says that he’ll buy Keith a small skeleton-cat figure at one point after he catches Keith patting its head, and Keith responds with a hug so tight and enthusiastic that Lance gets thrown off a bit.

“Woah, hey, it’s not that expensive…” He still wraps his arms around Keith, though, hugging just as tightly as Keith is. Keith falls in love a little bit more.

“It’s not just that,” he says truthfully. “I’m just—Like, I’ve never had this before. Well, not since my dad died, anyway. And having you, and the team, here with me is just…” Keith trails off, unable to find the right words to express how much this means to him, how Lance’s simple, seemingly thoughtless act of kindness had tipped him over the edge, but he doesn’t have to.

Lance squeezes him once more. “I get it,” he murmurs, and then dips his head down to place a feather-light kiss on Keith’s neck. Goosebumps erupt from the spot all the way down his spine—a lovely sensation.

When Lance finally leans away, his dimples are showing with his smile. “Well, hopefully this is just the first of many good things that’ll happen this Halloween!” he declares. “I’m going to make this, like, the best holiday of your life, because you’re too cute when you’re happy.” He tugs Keith closer by his hips again and adds, “And I love you. Or something.”

Keith laughs, light and airy. “Or something,” he agrees, and meets Lance’s lips with his.

It’s great to have family again.

☆ ☆ ☆

[inthiswhisper]

i decided to write out some of my prequel pilot thoughts to put them somewhere. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

just rewatched the pilot and i think it’s safe to say i liked it a lot more the second go around, which… honestly, i was scared i wouldn’t? everything went by so fast during the premiere that it was hard to hold onto details and moments. the nostalgia was also clouding my rational thinking. but watching it again now, the story and the characters felt much more fleshed out than i realized last night. even dean and spn aside, this feels like a show i might give a chance if i didn’t know of any of its origins. hopefully this feeling sticks beyond just the pilot.

i also rewatched it with my brother, who hadn’t seen it yet, and when we got to this part—

john: so, is breaking and entering a big part of hunting?

mary: who’s breaking?

—my brother immediately went “that’s so dean.” he also saw the sam in john and bobby in latika. we were doing this all throughout the episode. as characters, they do stand on their own — they are well defined — but they’re also their children in a lot of ways and pointing that out was half the fun.

i actually adore meg as mary and drake as john. drake helps make john a sympathetic character, which he should be while at this stage in his life, but i saw a seed or two planted of the kind of guy he’ll become, who has an obsession with finding an answer and letting himself get thrown into the deep end, no matter the cost. a kind of contrast to mary wanting out of hunting. mary was always an interesting character to me, so it’s nice to dig into the grief and guilt constantly plaguing her. it’s compelling, like the pilot and early seasons of spn. the brothers had similar traits / tendencies.

and then carlos and latika — all self-explanatory. i will never say no to more of them and i can’t wait to see the roles they play in the group. also where lata comes from, how sam saved her life. where carlos comes from, how he’s dealing with losing his family. how hunting will affect them. for now, i do appreciate the tiny gems of character insight.

and, of course, dean. don’t quite know what’s up with him yet, but i’m happy to see him again. :)

so, as a starter, it’s good. it’s fairly solid and i do feel invested in the mystery. the scooby gang vibe is prominent, it’s grounded in heart, i laughed out loud a few times, and the call to adventure was abundant. the monster wasn’t as thrilling, but i can live with that. other horror elements made up for it. the 70s vibes are exciting too! the tone, the visuals, the setting in new orleans. i wanna see way more. it was also filled with easter eggs and parallels without feeling like cheap nostalgia bait, a difficult balance for prequels / reboots to find.

all to say i have to agree with many of the reviews i’ve read — it felt like coming home. that remains to be seen for the rest of the season, but i’m glad even my lowest of expectations were exceeded.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I rewatched The Wicker Man, as you expected if you noticed the poll.

In case you don’t know the movie: Christian nut job cop Prude McJudgie (not actual name) arrives on an island to investigate a missing child. Unfortunately for him, the nice little villagers are all neo-pagan nut jobs. The devout vs the devout! Not to worry, by the time it’s over the locals will give him a very warm farewell. The warmest!

I should say upfront, my brain simply isn’t wired for religion. All religions are equally bizarre and incomprehensible for me. Even in the real world I struggle to tell the difference between why some religion is “main stream” and another is “a cult” baffle me. Don’t ask me to explain the various flavors of christianity. I expect I view the movie differently than those have some religious norms that can be shocked.

So for me the religious clash amuses. You obviously have “sex is sin” colliding with “sex is sacred”, which I expect plenty of people find fun. I also find it fascinating you have the cop coming from a religion that worships people that were sacrificed encountering a society that believes in being hands on with sacrificing, sort of victimization vs being pro active. You have a religion cooked up over a couple thousand years ago by a mish mash of people meeting one that was created less than 200 yrs before by a specific person on fell swoop.

And yet in the end the village isn’t that different than any other little village. People do normal jobs, kids attend school, families function like any family. It’s a parallel universe…

With human sacrifice.

Okay…so maybe the religions here aren’t quite equal.

Human sacrifice is bad! Bad! BAD, BAD villagers! Sacrificing someone, even someone that believes in martyrdom as sacred, against their will, is beyond rude!!

Besides “sacrifice” suggests means something you don’t want to get rid of. Killing a goat can be sacrifice you need that goat, you’ve invested in the goat, there will be a cost in killing the goat. But how does killing someone you met three days before cost you anything?

Killings strangers, prisoners, and the like does have a long history, but that’s because humans also have a long history of willfully misusing the word. No one likes to pay a price, so if the price is human blood wouldn’t you rather use a foe than cousin Joe? But if whatever deities are being sacrificed to actually existed, wouldn’t they be a bit annoyed at such a cheap gift?

I have to admit that in the end I do feel sorry for the protagonist. I hate cops, and growing up in the bible belt as a non-believer has made me a wee bit wary of devote christians, so for most of the movie I’m not sympathetic. But in the famous conclusion to the story I’d have to be a monster not to feel the horror.

Of course, one has to wonder what would have happened if the cop hadn’t gone out there by himself. Maybe cops in that part of the world and era would go off to investigate mysterious letters all by their lonesome, with an open ended return schedule… but it does seem odd. It seems highly unlikely a partner wouldn’t have mucked with the islanders’ plans.

I’ve probably wrote about this movie before, back in the days when I blogged about everything I watched. I’ll just stop now and suggest you go see if I posted something more coherent when I wasn’t such worn down wreck!