#unlike low and alone who are apparently fucking vibing

[wu-does-art]

it's very funny to imagine them fighting over stupid and meaningless things, after all they are children.

CRYING WHY ARENT U POSTING THIS ON YOUR BLOG THIS IS THE CUTEST THING EVER <3333

they were arguing over who is taller </3

[kariachi]

Some quick very au? Human au, we got a Kwarrel, we got an Aggregor, we got a small Kevin, some shit parenting in the background.

It's a stressful time for everybody.

~~

Aggy was supposed to be out of town for a week, was the thing. He would fly out east, see his niece for the first time since his brother’s death, head into the city for that work conference of his, and then come back. So being woken in the middle of the night on day two to the front door slamming open and shut had been more than a bit disconcerting. Really, Aggy was lucky Su’d learned patience over the years, or he might have lost his head in a tragic accident.

It would have been an awful way to lose a friend of nearly three decades.

And then he would have been left alone with the child.

Because apparently Aggy’s niece was a nephew, and said nephew’s parents were awful. Enough so for the man to call off citing a family emergency, grab the kid, and come straight back home. Enough that the next morning saw him as the phone with a lawyer as soon as their office opened, while Su was left to awkwardly try to settle the kid into their home. One that had never felt large, but with a young child suddenly felt cramped instead of cozy.

Fucking, they only had two bedrooms. The boy’d spent the night on the pull-out couch- which hadn’t even been used since Devin’d died. Neither of them was the type for guests, they’d literally owned it for Devin’s visits. And it sure as shit wasn’t something he wanted a kid sleeping on if he stayed with them longterm.

The way Aggy was talking to the lawyer, tone low and dangerous, the kid wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Not unless somebody wanted to come and take him by force.

Su had his friend’s back, always, but also he had a lot less experience with children. He hadn’t been close enough with his sisters to deal with their kids while he was still at home, and unlike Aggy had been one of the younger children in his family. In fact, the most steady interaction he’d had with children since, well since Devin had stopped being one, had been young Kevin himself, years ago. And much like with Devin it had been occasionally and with Aggy doing most of the heavy lifting, with Kevin it had been rarely and with Devin running the show.

So yes, awkward was the word. Awkward and concerned about and for this kid who seemed like he was waiting for them to sacrifice him to a cult. Defiantly waiting, because this truly was Aggy’s nephew, but waiting nonetheless.

Fuck, the kid was probably messed up if the basic vibes Su was picking up from the Levins rang true.

And here he was, having to undertake the work of trying to make the kid feel welcome while his uncle handled the messy legal work that came with deciding you were your nephew’s guardian now. Watching him pretend to watch cartoons and make his way through a plate of pancakes, wracking his brain for some starting point to work from. What did Levins like? Besides Aggy? What did kids in general like?

“Hey, you still into animals?”

[goose-books]

& while i am posting things today. some more maxwriting, specifically two mini-fanfictions for yves. @yvesdot​ ’s WIP the one and only universe of kay rainier (would recommend! arguments to lovers! he/him wlw! interdimensional (?) shenanigans!) one of which also features an OC i've mentioned a few times on this blog but done historically very little with.

it’s occurred to me in my moment of posting that neither of these pieces have titles. oh well.

THE FIRST ONE

you ought to send yves. some bingo prompts. anyway, i sent them kay + daemons, and then immediately realized i had ideas and thoughts about that, too. so i wrote my own version. unlike theirs, this is vaguely set in the HDM universe, which is funny because i haven’t read HDM and learned everything i know from waya vivji, a single war and peace fanfiction, and also wikipedia just before i wrote it. the notable context here is that daemons are usually the “opposite sex” of their humans, and if i got that wrong do not tell me because i am embarrassed.

Kay is a precocious child; she is twelve years old when her daemon settles. Chesire is a sleek dark mahogany, a ferruginous hawk with a wickedly curved beak and eyes that glitter like beads. He is also male. This, for the Rainiers, is not done; even the absent Ariel, despite his eccentricities, had a properly gendered daemon. It unsettles Kay in a way she will not place for many years; still, as soon as she registers her disappointment (for it must be disappointment, surely; nothing more), she’s awash in guilt.

“How lovely,” she tells him, stroking his glossy new feathers, keeping her voice low less to keep out her father and more because it is only polite. Cheshire bobs his head and flutters his wings and seems, very slightly, to preen. He must be able to sense her uncertainty, the subdued flatness to her voice, but he is a Rainier as well; the polite thing is to ignore it, and he does.

“How curious,” Father says, stroking Fauntleroy’s velvet ears.

“Not unheard of,” the dormouse says from her seat in his breast pocket. Constantine inclines his head slightly; he does not deign to offer more.

/

When the Neighborly enters the house the jackal stalks at his heel, ears pricked at attention, wet black nose gleaming, mouth crooked open in a canine grin. With it comes a distinct smell — not unpleasant so much as it is unbalancing, an earthy scent, filling the foyer as its claws click on the floor. Like his clothes, it is black, head to toe. They aren’t usually. Kay wonders if it’s coincidence, if perhaps he dyes its fur so it will match.

She thinks of it as such — it — because to be frank she is not sure what to make of Atlas, and what to assume about his daemon. During the customary introductions, Cheshire perches atop Kay’s shoulder, and Fauntleroy emerges from her pocket to whisk up to Father’s collar and cling to the fabric to study the Neighborly. He can’t stay quite still. His hands twitch at his sides. He shifts his weight. The jackal paces maddening circles around the room, eyeing the dark walls and the fine wooden furniture, too dignified to lower its head and sniff but not too good to cast judgment without speaking. Every time it passes Kay in its slow inexorable orbit, Cheshire’s claws tighten on her coat.

“It’s a pleasure, Atlas,” Constantine says stiffly, extending a hand to shake with an expression that suggests he’d rather have it removed.

Atlas shakes, grinning easily, a looseness to his motions, and then he tilts his head and says, “Anubis.” In a moment the jackal’s at his side, curling around the backs of his legs to turn its wet smile on Kay’s father. It’s too large; that’s what she decides. How does he take it anywhere? Why hasn’t it learned to behave? Unless this is his goal: to part rooms, to announce his presence as soon as he steps through the threshold.

“Anubis,” she says, the first time she and Atlas are alone. “Like the god?” Atlas and Anubis; it is the sort of half-joke she can appreciate.

Anubis looks up at its name. Atlas looks at it. “I don’t know,” he says. “It was my sister’s idea.” He looks to Cheshire, who has settled near Kay’s inkwell to reorganize her pens. “And this is…”

“Cheshire.”

“Cheshire,” Atlas repeats, piercing glinting as his eyebrow quirks.

“When I was younger, I thought he would be a cat.”

“I thought she’d be a crow. Probably better this way. Crows are poser birds.” Anubis snorts at that, a sound both doggish and human.

“She is… she, then,” Kay says carefully.

“Oh, yeah. Apparently that’s weird.” Atlas leans back in Kay’s chair until the front legs leave the ground.

“Is it,” Kay says.

Atlas’s eyes flit around her face, like he knows what she’s asking; his smirk doesn’t lessen. “Well, women have male daemons, right? Ask Cheshire.”

Kay and Cheshire look at each other. Cheshire fluffs his feathers and says, “This is dull.”

Kay is less certain. She does not smile at Atlas, but some of the edge has smoothed from her voice. “I should like to watch you explain it to my father.”

“If he could take it,” Atlas says. “What’s the mouse’s fucking name again?”

Cheshire steps back and forth, feathers ruffling, until Kay sets a hand out to still him, gentle, comforting. “Fauntleroy.”

“Christ,” Atlas says. “Bless you.” When he catches Kay stiffening, he relents a little, letting the chair clatter back to the floor. “Fits the vibe, I guess.”

“As yours fits you,” says Kay, making it as uncomplimentary as she can.

“Guess my soul’s black,” Atlas says cheerily. He balls up a piece of paper and tosses it to Anubis, who, flopped across the floor, doesn’t move. “Not the weirdest thing about us.”

“Well,” Kay says, “I think it would be rather unfair for me to talk about oddities,” and she takes a small victory in the look they share: not friendship, not fondness, but something like an understanding, reached in the quiet moment before Cheshire hands her another pen and she resumes her work.

THE SECOND ONE

this one’s a bit older but i never posted it until now, at yves.’s urging! i think i was doing... camp nano last year? or something. and couldn’t think of what to write. or maybe i couldn’t focus on my project because i was thinking about my other project, the butch4butch hamlet retelling i still haven’t written. to which yves. said, “write kay x your lesbian hamlet character,” to which i said, “you don’t think i will, but i will,” and i did. so really this is yvesmax crossover fic.

It is annoying, Holden’s habit of dropping by whenever she likes. This can probably be attributed to the fact that Holden, herself, is annoying. Kay can only adjust the items on her desk (pens, mainly) so many times; she is caught up in an aggravating state of waiting but also not waiting, and she does not care for that.

Just as she thinks so, there’s a knock at the front door.

Holden doesn’t ring the doorbell anymore. She did that the first time and Kay came down the stairs a few seconds too late to find Father staring at the creature in his front hall, looking like he didn’t know whether he should be put out or concerned. “I think the earrings got him,” Holden said later, on Kay’s bed, tapping the crosses hanging inverted from her ears. Kay’s opinion was that it was all of her, from the messy post-buzz hair to the propensity for suits to the Doc Martens to the way Holden leans on any available surface.

She opens the door and Holden is leaning against the doorframe. Which looks a little more awkward coupled with whatever she’s carrying under her arm.

“Hi,” she says.

Kay blinks slowly.

“It is late,” she says, spinning on her heel and heading for the stairs. Behind her, she hears the quiet click of Holden closing the door. The grandfather clock in the front hall is ticking toward eleven.

“I never get over how weird this place is.” When she glances back, Holden is peering into the nearest glass cabinet. “Like a little dollhouse.”

“Thank you,” Kay says stiffly. She cannot decide whether she is irritable.

“And this is coming from someone whose parents were devoted to taxidermy.” Holden follows her up the stairs, hands shoved into the pockets of her suit jacket, looking entirely too comfortable here, and Kay decides that she is irritable after all.

“I do not know what you suppose your business is here,” she says. “Especially as it is almost an hour past ten.”

Holden shrugs.

“Do not shrug at me.”

Holden opens her mouth as if to speak, then casts a glance behind her. There’s no one in the darkened hallway; Father is in his office. Still, Holden waits for Kay to shut her bedroom door.

“I know I’m late,” she says, slouching back against it. “Sorry. I lost track of time in the bookstore.”

Kay blinks. “You are late to see me because you went to the bookstore,” she intones.

She says nothing as Holden withdraws the books from under her arm and extends them. “I really wanted to find Carmilla for you,” she says. “Like, the oldest print version I could find.”

It certainly looks old. Kay purses her lips. “I own Carmilla.”

“I know. But, like… it’s vintage.” Holden attempts one-handed jazz hands. “I have a sentence in my notes app from six months ago that just says carmilla but like the old edition.” She shuffles the stack of books. “And then I sat down for — look, I swear I was trying to be timely about it. Trying to be punctual.” She pops the P. “But time isn’t real and I read two chapters of Pride and Prejudice and I don’t know if you own that but it feels like the kind of thing you’d find sexy.” Her smile glitters. “And then — I know The Catcher in the Rye isn’t your thing. But I wrote in this one, so.”

Kay reaches out, very carefully, to take the books. She does own Pride and Prejudice, actually, but she still feels a pang. She flips through The Catcher in the Rye and is met with scrawls of black-ink handwriting, filling up the margins and underlining passages.

“Thank you,” she says, very softly, and moves to set the books on her desk. “You didn’t have to… get me anything.”

“I like knowing that my parents’ money is fueling homosexual agendas,” Holden says pleasantly. When Kay turns around, Holden catches her hand and steps in closer, showing her teeth in a smile. “But I’ll try to be on time from now on.”

“As you should,” Kay says, pulling Holden a few inches closer.

Holden raises a hand to caress Kay’s cheek. “That said,” she says in a low voice, “now that I’ve — what did you say. Now that I’ve fulfilled my business here, I can think of a few things we could do. Unless it’s too late.”

Against her will, Kay smiles.

“I suppose we can extend your stay a little longer,” she says, and their lips meet.

[rllymilerlly]

Okay so this is for my (And essentially @toph-beifcng too because omg they have helped develop this a ton) Avatar Band AU.

Now these are the Songs I think would be on The GAangs Album “Water Earth Fire Air” (I know very little about music terminology and such so please excuse my lack of knowledge)

This Album is one of their only albums that tell a story from start to finish. It’s a story about love, loss, found families and growing up.

-The Avatar: This Song is almost purely instrumental and uses a lot of motifs from the actual show. There is only a little Narration throughout it and is done by Katara (and it kind of is similar to the shows in a way)

-The Boy in the Iceberg: This Song starts off with a very dramatic chord but then Aang enters in and is very bubbly and light. It focuses mainly on Aang with vocal accompaniments by Kat and Sokka. But as the song progresses it gets a little more desperate and you realize it’s about this kid in denial about the horrors that have happened to him. And Zuko is playing these underlying tones that just make it feel like there is this impending doom. And it ends with Aang solemnly saying “I never wanted to be-“

-Kyoshi Warrior: This follows along with the tone Zuko started in the previous song and focuses on Suki. This is about the obstacles she has had to overcome especially being a woman. And it’s a very empowering almost angry song. Sokka has lil harmonies with her too in this song which is pretty cute. Katara has a keytar solo in this too dont @ me

-Imprisoned/Jet: I’m debating putting this song in but I want an early Katara feature so I just might. This one would be about her dealing with her not so great relationships in the past. And kind of a not so subtle fuck you to Jet

-The Blue Spirit: This would follow up with Katara’s slower vibes and start out kind of eerie. It’s a Zuko and Aang duet (Mainly Zuko though). It’s about Zuko’s internal struggles and moral dilemmas. Aang in the song represents the goodness he knows he has in him. But Zuko keeps pushing that away for the time being. And it gets more and more harsh. And it practically ends with Zuko scream/sobbing

-The Siege of the North: This features practically everyone vocally. This one is dedicated to their passed friend (Girlfriend in Sokka’s case) Yue. And it starts off angry and sad and it just hits everyone. Then it does end on a solo from Sokka that’s wow so emotional.

-The Avatar State: A 15 minute masterpiece that puts all their styles of music together. And cannot decide if I want this as just an instrumental or not. But fun fact for the fans: Aang actually originally composed and recorded the whole thing by himself as sort of a dedication to all of his pals. But in performance and the soundtrack it’s all of the Gaang playing

-The Cave of Two Lovers: Essentially it’s mostly Katara and Aang singing a funny little tune as they try to just laugh off the insanity of their life. They’d even include a nod to “Secret Tunnel”. It’s a simple tune that contrasts great with the complexity of the Avatar State before. It’s a sign of hope of a brighter future. (Also during the performances of this everyone is on stage and sings a little part of the song. Except Toph who’d be getting ready backstage)

-The Swamp: This is just a Ethereal experience. It stars Sokka Katara and Aang. And is about strange ‘visions’ in a swamp. It Starts off with Sokka accepting Yue’s gone and Katara accepting her mother’s death. And finally it ends with Aang, he feels hopeless and alone but he keeps hearing this voice calling to him. And at live performances this is where Toph comes up from below stage as the fog machines pour out everywhere making it this insane mystic vibe. And the two of them are harmonizing together as the song builds up. (I imagine it sounding kind of similar to this song). And when they finally come together Toph saying something totally just Toph Like and that ends the song. (Also towards the end of the song they are singing this fun harmony and at the end take it up an octave (kind of like in the end of ‘show yourself’ from Frozen 2) and fans think while listening to the soundtrack that it’s Toph who hits this super high note but low and behold at the live performance it’s revealed it’s Aang in his wild falsetto)

-The Blind Bandit: It’s a 4 minute Drum Solo that’s just Toph center stage fucking killing it (LIKE PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO FOR REFERENCE OF HOW ACTUALLY INSANELY HARD SHE GOES. THEY TURN HER UPSIDE DOWN) Toph doesn’t need words to express her emotions. Okay enough said.

-City of Walls and Secrets: The Whole Gaang features in this one vocally at some point. And it’s about society keeping things away from the people. Because the Gaang really says fuck Authority.

-The Crossroads of Destiny: A Zuko and Katara duet. Their styles blend perfectly and create this somber piece about hope of redemption. And how they both lost their mother in a way.

-The Painted Lady: A mystical Katara Solo. That has everyone shaking. I’m not sure quite what it’s about but this is the song that made fans gay for Katara that’s all imma say.

-The Runaway: Look this is about to be the 3rd Katara feature in a row but I’m not mad. This would be a duet with Toph. And it’s a head banger and is about unlikely friendships okaY

-Nightmares and Day Dreams: An Aang solo. This one is just straight up wild. It’s a similar vibe to Boy in the Iceberg. Where a lot of it is Aang in denial of his problems and wanting to avoid responsibilities but it’s causing him insomnia. He wrote this when he didn’t sleep for over 72 hours and the weirdness it has definitely shows that.

-The Swords Masters: THE SOKKA SOLO WE DESERVE. In this album Sokka takes a way more serious vibe to his music, But this one does have a little more fun. It’s very energetic and shows off Sokka’s guitar skills.

-The Boiling Rock: The Zukki Song we have all been waiting for. It’s just straight up a good time. And is about finding love and accepting ones flaws. And it’a just iconic. This is where Suki hits a Whistle note in the album. They also each get an instrumental solo. This is one of the best headbangers in the album.

-Agni Kai (Lightning Strikes): @toph-beifcng is APPARENTLY WRITING THIS SO I DONT WANT TO SAY ANYTHING BC I DUNNONWHAT THEY WRITING BUT I KNOW ITLL BE STRAIGHT FIRE. I’m ASSUMING IT’S A ZUKO FEATURE THO.

-Sozins Comet: The final song in the album. It’s theme consist of a brighter future with their new found family and acceptance of the past. Overall it’s a straight jam. But in the end of the song it ends with the ‘Avatars Love’ Motif at the end.

BONUS TRACKS:

-Tales of Ba Sing Se:

Features fun little melodies from the Gaang that didn’t make full fledge songs. This also includes ��Leaves from the Vine’ sung by Iroh still that Zuko plays with him. In memory of Lu Ten.

Please feel free to add on or suggest anything! Or send me an ask if you would rather do that :^)

[vampirequeenoffan]

yes hello im feeling your trollhunters opinion!! do u also feel like Merlin is super shady? I don't think he did a single thing since he showed up that can be considered 'good', he doesn't seem to care about anyone but himself, and after what he did to get Jim to turn into a troll (cutting him off from his entire support network, playing on his insecurities) I thought he'd turn out to be the Ultimate Villain of the show right up until the end, when he wasn't.

HOOOBOY do I ever have FEELINGS about this (which will once again be under the cut because SCREAMING)

First off, holy fuck, THANK you. Your message means a lot to me (as do the other nice messages and comments I got on my post! It feels great to know I’m not the only one who felt like there was something wrong with this ending).

Second.

Yeah, what in the fuck is up with Merlin? I liked him for a good thirty seconds after he was introduced– I’m a bit of a sucker for the ‘ancient and powerful being of legend is actually Not At All What Anyone Thought trope’ tbh. But the novelty quickly wore off and you’re absolutely right– I totally thought he was going to be the show’s Ultimate Villain. I usually love asshole characters, so the fact that Merlin is so much of an asshole that I hated him is… impressive, in a weird way. And the list of characters I’m crazy about contains several serial killers, so the bar is real low.

Let’s break this down.

Merlin, upon reentering the picture, does the following:

–Gets passive-aggressively mad at the Trollhunters for not getting him his staff

Which, y’know, could’ve been avoided if he’d just asked to have the staff in the same room with him when he’d been buried. He also had no reason to be mad, considering his plan was to release Morgana all along, and had the Trollhunters actually taken back the staff they then would’ve had to fight their way into Trollmarket in order to free Morgana, which… would have been difficult. That, or they’d have had to turn the staff over to Gunmar anyway, so again, no reason for Merlin to be mad.

Personally I totally agree that they should’ve left Morgana in there, or at least had some semi-automatic weapons ready when they did release her (because if the USA is going to have shitty gun control laws we might as well use them to destroy evil witches, amiright?), but this is about Merlin’s reaction, not mine.

Also, if this was his plan all along, he could’ve left instructions about that. So that, y’know, Drall didn’t die trying to stop Gunmar from taking the staff. You know. That little detail.

–Repairs Jim’s amulet

On the surface this is good, except that, again, he wouldn’t have had to do this if he’d written the directions to his tomb on anything else. He could’ve even had the instructions in like, the spirit room that the dead trollhunters live in, if he was really that determined to make sure it was trollhunter-specific. 

–Threatens to eat Toby

????????¿¿¿¿¿¿¿???????

What even happened here. What. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, it really added to the ‘what the fuck even is going on with him’ vibe that Merlin has, but why? Did he just… hang out with trolls too much? But only the evil trolls did that. What even was happening here. And why Toby? Was it process of elimination because he though Claire was hot (which, uh, creepy) and he needed Jim, or was this a… fat joke? I honestly have no idea.

–Gives them a laundry list of complicated as fuck items to collect

Merlin is an asshole who should’ve gotten his groceries himself. Nuff said. Oh wait, not enough said, because one of those things was literally lightning in a goddamn bottle, which they needed the help of actual goddamn aliens to get, so Merlin, with no knowledge of modern technology, really should have known he needed to at least get that one by himself.

What a guy.

–Destroys Jim’s vespa

Okay, this probably seems petty. ‘Merlin literally kickstarted the apocalypse, why do you care about the vespa?’ Well, because it wasn’t just any piece of machinery. Jim had been wanting a vespa for a very, very long time– for him, it was a dream, then a symbol of normalcy, and then it became even more than that when he finally got one– by building it with Blinky. It was a project he undertook alongside his father figure, likely took weeks of work, and was a physical reminder of how much Blinky cared about him.

Merlin destroys it and uses it to make armor.

Now, there’s some symbolism here. Merlin is destroying the vespa– symbol of Jim’s old life– and using it to forge armor– transforming his old life into something that protects his friends. It’s not unlike what his amulet has done to him, or what Merlin later tries to do by making Jim into a troll. Which, yeah, I’ve covered being a shitty tactical decision and I’m going to go over even more reasons why it’s terrible in a minute.

Point is, dick move. He could’ve used literally any other kind of metal, so the only upside here is symbolism and, let’s be real, it’s a metaphor is not a good reason to do dumb shit.

–Champions releasing Morgana

I was really happy that everyone yelled at him about this one. I was less happy that that was all that happened. Merlin did, clearly, just want his magic back. If he didn’t, he would have just left Morgana in her goddamn crystal like a sensible person, or at the very least agreed to help take out Gunmar before handling Morgana. It’s just common sense to divide and conquer– yes writing a paper is very hard, but it’s a lot easier to do that when your house isn’t on fire. Dealing with problems separately makes them all a lot less taxing, or in this case, a lot less deadly! There are so many people that would still be alive if Merlin, after being asleep for hundreds of years, had just been able to wait a few more goddamn weeks to have his fingersparkles back.

–Emotionally manipulates Jim into becoming a troll

This fucker. This assclown. You’re absolutely right– he cuts him off from everyone he knows and refuses to let him go rescue his mom, does that shitty parent thing where you guilt someone by saying “It’s your choice whether or not to do the right thing…” and spews some shit about destiny and just generally uses his title of Old Guy Who Knows Stuff to tell Jim that he Has To Do This, but it’s Totally Your Choice.

I thought, when Jim’s mom rescued herself (go Barb go!!!) and came running up to the bathroom door, that he would stop. Because that was the whole reason Jim was going to go through with the transformation– it was the only way Merlin would let him go save his mom. The fact that he just kinda… ignored the fact that they were out there yelling for him? Yeah, that was dumb. Even if he wanted to go through with it, he should have talked to his friends and family first. That was, uh, the whole lesson he learned from going into the Darklands alone. We’ve been down this road, Jim, it’s depressing.

And then Merlin’s just… useless. He can’t beat Morgana, his tactics suck ass, and the only thing he does from that point on is try to get other people to die for him– looking at you, Aargh. I’m so glad you’re still alive.

So, to reiterate, Merlin shows up, fucks shit up, and then doesn’t fix any of the fucked up shit. On top of that, he’s an asshole the entire time– the “real battle of Killahead” line was just the tip of the douchebag iceberg (though ‘all you folks who died during this battle didn’t matter’ was a hell of a way to kick that off, I agree). But… why?

You’re right, we don’t know why he and Morgana started this pissing contest. We don’t even know why he took her on as an apprentice in the first place, or what connection the two of them had to trolls at all– presumably a strong one, considering how much they both tried to fuck with the future of the species. Before we met Merlin, none of these things had to be defined– Morgana and Merlin were vague enough as figures that we could imagine any number of things that had led to the current state of being. I, personally, imagined Merlin as being more invested in humans than trolls, which made sense to me because he was on the side of the trolls that didn’t hurt humans and his amulet placed a huge amount of value on Jim’s humanity. But then it’s revealed that Merlin actually doesn’t give a shit about humans at all, as he apparently eats them, doesn’t mind putting the entire town of Arcadia in danger, and tells Jim that his humanity doesn’t matter and he’s better off being a troll.

Same for Morgana. I thought her whole deal was that she wanted trolls to be the dominant species, but then she says Gunmar is disposable and doesn’t seem to give a shit about his conquest of the surface? If she didn’t actually care about trolls conquering humans, why in the hell did she want to bring about the eternal night?

So, again, what was happening and why were they so invested in the future of trollkind? If it wasn’t, like I thought, about whether humanity or trolls should be dominant, what possible reason could they have for interfering? Presumably at one point they got along, because Morgana was Merlin’s apprentice, but the only reason we get for her hating him is that he took her hand to make the amulet. . . except, wait, he did that after she started trying to bring about the eternal night. Forget why she cared about that, if he didn’t care about humans then why did he?

TLDR, Merlin’s an asshole, his decisions make no sense, and when you poke at things he creates plotholes in the entire series that weren’t there prior to his introduction. Also he’s the worst.

[ncfan-1]

Gotham 04X16, ‘One of My Three Soups’

So, this is Ben McKenzie's second episode as a director. He didn't write this episode as well, so I don't anticipate it being as good as the episode he did write, but I'm interested to see what kind of visual style he has. This is Gotham.

And the dashboard is doing that thing where it doesn’t know what apostrophes are. What the hell.

- Okay, I am going to make three predictions for this episode. Here they are.

1) Jim Gordon is not going to express any meaningful remorse. By that, I mean he isn’t going to express any sort of remorse that I believe could actually lead somewhere.

2) Having been recast, Jonathan Crane will have a completely different personality and set of motivations, and there will be no continuity between Tahan!Jonathan and Thompson!Jonathan’s characters.

3) Selina will join Jerome because ‘Long Halloween’ reasons.

4) There will be horrible depictions of ableism in Arkham Asylum.

Now, I am going into this hoping that all of these predictions will be proven wrong. To be fair, #1 is low-hanging fruit and I’m not likely to be proven wrong there, but I always hope this show will be better than it has been, even though I know that’s unlikely.

- We open with one of the guards in Arkham reading a wrestling magazine.

- And I think we’ve found out what the protocol for going to deal with Jervis is. Listen to loud music so he can’t hypnotize you, and keep the man in solitary so he has less access to victims. And… I’m right. I know Jervis is a horrible person, but the effects of solitary confinement on inmates, especially when they aren’t allowed human contact, are well-documented.

- So it turns out Jervis and Jonathan are buddies. I know he’s been recast, but I’ll remind you that Jonathan is a teenage boy, no matter who’s playing him. Jervis… is the last person I want to be alone with a child.

- Seems Jerome and Jonathan don’t particularly get along.

- And, as with List!Ivy, in Thompson!Jonathan’s characterization it appears that the writers seem to believe that creepiness is a suitable substitute for character. It’s not. He sounds like a caricature of himself, but Thompson does seem like he’s trying his damnedest.

I will note one more thing. Since Jonathan is, at the oldest, eighteen years old, and he never finished high school, I don’t think he’s a good candidate to be making lock-melting acid in his cell’s toilet. Also, why do they let him wear that burlap sack over his head? The first time he rolls onto his stomach while he sleeps he’s in danger of suffocating. Though, it could be the staff is hoping for that to happen. They treated him like absolute shit, it sounds like, but if none of them acknowledge their own culpability in what Jonathan’s become, it’s likely none of them like him too much after the first time he raised hell in there.

- And apparently this is Jim’s first night out of the hospital.

- Oh, Jervis, I’ve missed you. You’re a horrible person and I’ve missed you. Benedict Samuel is a gift from God.

- We seem to have some interpersonal tension between Jim and Bullock.

- The two of them pull up to where Jervis is waiting. We have a hypnotized couple in wedding garb… standing beneath a wrecking ball. I know most of my readers have seen the promo. You know where this is going.

- Seriously, why doesn’t Jervis have a massive scar on his neck?

- And the mind of Jervis Tetch is as miserable and disturbing a place as ever, his memory as self-serving as ever.

- I don’t remember Jervis rhyming this much in Season 3.

- And when Jervis lifts his hold over the thugs, they start crowing like roosters.

- Bruce and Selina head to the GCPD so they can read Jerome’s file.

- Barbara, sweetheart, alcohol isn’t going to do anything for your migraine.

- Poor Barbara. She’s in a horrible position right now.

- “It hurts too much.” Barbara…

- Of course, Tabitha… I think she means well this time (I think). But Tabitha is not one of my favorites at the best of times, and she’s not endearing herself to me right now.

- Flashback time!

- I hate that this makes me ship Ra’s/Barbara a little more. But even if it’s only to manipulate her, he sounds like he’s the only person who’s ever bothered to really listen to her.

- Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is just manipulation. But I like ships with messed-up dynamics sometimes.

- So we’ve got Jerome, Jervis, Jonathan, Ivy, and the League of Shadows set to all be raising hell in Gotham at once. This show is about to get a bit narratively crowded.

- And we have rows upon rows of hypnotized people standing on rooftops, waiting to jump at the stroke of midnight. No, Jim, a net is not going to work. What you need is a lot of nets. And soon.

- Jerome’s uncle lives in Gotham. What? I suppose that’s where the twin might come into things. And apparently Bruce feels responsible for what Jerome does.

- As ever, I like Bruce and Selina’s interactions. It’s one of the emotional touchstones of the show, so it’s good that their dynamic is so… good.

- Jerome is, as ever, a bit boring. Here’s another character where the writers think creepiness is a suitable substitute for character.

- His uncle’s vile.

- A ton of extras snuck into the Sirens’ club.

- Harvey’s found the radio station Jervis was broadcasting from. And Jervis had a special signal for him.

- So, we’ve seen Jervis and Jerome. Where’s Jonathan, anyways? He doesn’t exactly come across as an equal partner in this little coalition the three of them have formed. I wonder if Jervis isn’t keeping him close at hand.

- Jim’s at the radio station.

- And we come back to Jerome, Jerome’s vile uncle, the strong man, and the “soup.” The literally boiling soup. Bruce walks in and is suitably horrified.

- Jerome came to his uncle for a reason. I wonder what it is he wants to know.

- And apparently no woman has ever led the League of Shadows. The sexist man who wanted to depose her promptly gets stabbed. And it turns out the rest of them want the top spot, too.

- Jervis needs to learn to lock doors so people can’t put guns to his head.

- Jim basically tells Jervis that he’ll torture him ‘till he does what he wants. And then he follows through. Our hero, everybody.

- What is it with this show and hand trauma?! It really is somebody’s fetish, isn’t it!

- Jim, why didn’t you get the nets? You could have avoided this, you asshole.

- Selina intervenes at the diner. She tries to kill Jerome, only for Bruce to stop her. What Selina wants, basically, is for Bruce to actually live his life and not be burdened with guilt.

- Barbara steps up as a brand-new evil overlord. This… is a good look for her. I hope you have a good story arc, Barbara!

- And Jim has a moment where he eats humble pie. Not sure he learned anything for the long-term, but he looks appropriately tired.

- So Jim and Harvey are calling it a day. Jim doesn’t think he belongs here; he thinks he belongs in jail. Harvey agrees, but he tries to give him some feel-good thing about saving the people on the ledge. It rings hollow.

- Jim… actually apologizes to Harvey for judging him. I’m shocked. In a good way, but I’m still shocked.

- Bruce calls up Jim to tell him he’s going to the school Jerome was looking for.

- We end with Jervis in a fucking muzzle (I have no words—it is equal parts amusing and appalling), when Jerome and Jonathan come to rescue him. Jervis looks genuinely happy to see them. I’m almost touched. They all seem to be genuinely fond of each other—well, Jerome and Jonathan don’t, but apparently they cooperated long enough to rescue Jervis without getting into a brawl, so that’s something.

Okay, so predictions.

1) Jim Gordon is not going to express any meaningful remorse. By that, I mean he isn’t going to express any sort of remorse that I believe could actually lead somewhere.

Not sure with this one. Yes, he did express some guilt, but I’m not sure that it’s going to go anywhere. Every time Jim says something about feeling guilty, Harvey says something to him trying to convince him not to follow through on his guilt and come clean about… everything, really.

2) Having been recast, Jonathan Crane will have a completely different personality and set of motivations, and there will be no continuity between Tahan!Jonathan and Thompson!Jonathan’s characters.

Looks like this one was true. I’ll save the rant about internal consistency for another episode, because honestly, it was hard to get a good read on him. Jonathan felt a lot less like a character this episode than he did a plot device. He was basically in it just to produce a lock-melting acid that it seems frankly implausible he would have known how to produce or had the materials to produce it with, given his education stopped at ninth grade, and that’s it. Much like Tahan!Jonathan, it felt like he only existed when the show needed him to exist, and when it didn’t, he got shoved back in the box of non-existence and everyone forgot he existed. Watsonianly, it adds to that sense I got, that Jonathan is not an equal partner with Jerome and Jervis. I’ll be interested to see if that actually goes somewhere.

As an aside, the idea that Jervis and Jonathan have interacted enough to know each other and be friendly is just… It makes my skin crawl, okay. Because I love Jervis, but he really does give off “I have candy in my van” vibes, and aside from Jim Gordon, every adult we’ve ever seen Jonathan Crane interact with has abused and exploited him in some way. And it’s not like Jervis isn’t an abuser. I’m looking to see where their apparent relationship goes, with much less eagerness.

And my personal suspicion about the “personality face lift” for Jonathan Crane here is that Tahan was perhaps just a bit too good at making him vulnerable and sympathetic for the higher-up’s liking. Like I said earlier, Thompson is clearly trying his damnedest—I rarely come across an actor in this show who seems to be sleepwalking through the part—but “sympathetic” and “vulnerable” is clearly not what the writing’s going for here. “Cartoonish, two-dimensional supervillain” is more like what the writing’s going for here. (Prove me wrong, Gotham. Prove me wrong, please.)

3) Selina will join Jerome because ‘Long Halloween’ reasons.

Didn’t happen. THANK GOD. This was the one I was the most afraid about. I suppose there’s still time for it to happen, but it makes even less sense now than before.

4) There will be horrible depictions of ableism in Arkham Asylum.

Happened. Ugh. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. Oh, wait, I am mad.

Well, at least the dynamic between the villain triple-act was interesting.

[skateurgency]

Netflix Death Note 2/10

I watched this POS. I watched all of it. I forced a friend to watch it with me because I couldn’t go through it alone.

I couldn’t go more than 5 minutes without pausing it to sCREAm at how poorly it captured the original. I dented my wall guys. I became so enraged seeing one of my favorite series brought this low. It destroyed its source material and left behind the worst adaptation yet of Death Note and just an all around poor quality film. If you haven’t seen Death Note and are afraid of spoiling the source material with this film, don’t worry! Maybe 7% is the same. Maybe. However, there will be spoilers below.

Oh Boy. It was hard to get through. There as just so much wrong with it. Light’s a little bitch. Ryuk is barely there. Misa, aka Mia, is one of the most unlikable charterers I have seen in a long time. Granted, I didn’t care much for Misa Misa in the manga, but Mia took it from indifference to strong dislike. Mr. Turner (Light’s dad in this version. I can’t recall a first name) is such an unlikable man. Also, a plot point is that Light’s mom is dead and he doesn’t have a sister so you know right there that the whole Mellow arc is basically scrapped.

Now I know that this was an “adaptation” of the manga, and an Americanized version. There may have been a few too many creative liberties used because almost nothing followed the source material. It seemed more like a bad high school drama than Death Note. Hell, an important scene takes place at a homecoming dance. Light Yagami (Turner) at a homecoming dance. Talking about the Death Note in BROAD FUCKING DAYLIGHT.

After watching the film I made a comment to my friend that you could have taken out Ryuk from the film and it wouldn’t have changed the plot one bit. Except we would have been spared the scene of Light shrieking in fear and cowering under a desk. If you’ve made a Death Note adaptation that could easily remove the shinigami and nothing would be different, you know that you messed up right there.

Speaking of Ryuk, he is an odd presence in the film. He is no longer bound to the owner of the death note, instead it seems like he comes and goes while he pleases. Also, now he can only be seen by the owner of the death note, not just anyone who touches it. Thus Misa (Mia) can never see or talk to him throughout the film, which leads to some odd exchanges. Unlike the manga Ryuk, this one never goes in to the boredom speech. Remember when Light asks what he did to receive such a great power and Ryuk tells him it was just dumb luck that he picked it up, Ryuk just dropped it because he was bored? Yeah, there was none of that. There isn’t the scene of Ryuk telling Light that if he uses the death note that he won’t go to heaven or hell, and that Ryuk will be the one to kill him in the end. I always liked that scene in the manga, it gave Light’s choices more weight.  Ryuk honestly... doesn’t do much at all. He eats some apples, that’s pretty neat. Ummm... he has a nice line at the very end of the film... I think that’s it, asides from Light screaming or threatening him a few times.

Which really bothered me. Like, REALLY bothered me. This movie screws up shinigami death, along with a lot of the rules of the death note. Light tells Ryuk he’ll write his name down in the death note, and Ryuk just tells him “the most anyone ever got was two letters.” You can’t kill a shinigami by just writing their name down. There’s only a handful of beings that know how to kill one, two of them being Ryuk and Rem, who isn’t in the film at all. Yes, a shinigami can die if thery forget to put names down, but a way to kill one is by having a shinigami extend the life of a human they care for when that human’s life was supposed to be up. Rem’s friend does this for Misa Misa and then brings her his death note per his request. Not like any of that comes up in this film. Misa (Mia) never gets a death note, never becomes the second kira, and never gets there eyes. Because oh yeah, something key like the shinigami eyes and this girl being so in love she quarters her life span for a guy doesn’t make it in to this film.

A few other rules are off though, such as the way ownership works. The film makes it no longer Ryuk’s death note and has a scene about how it will pass from human to human (I don’t remember the specifics and I’m not about to watch it again) after a certain amount of days. I also do not think the owner loses their memory. There’s also this odd clause that if you write a name down but later destroy the page before it happens the death will be cancelled. But you can only do this once. This becomes a major plot point for the film when it isn’t at all in the manga (that I recall. Feel free to correct me on this.) Also, you apparently don’t need the right names because Light fucking writes down Watari as fucking Watari AND IT WORKS. WHAT. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY?

This is getting very long winded because I have a lot of rage, so I’m going to break this down by issues I had with each character and how off they were from their manga counterparts.

L - I’ll start of positive. For the most part, I liked L. The actor was much better than his rival, and made L seem human. His performance was a highlight. My main issue with L was the weird limo scene with some odd neon shades and asking Watari to sing him to sleep. It also upset me that he showed his actual face in a press junket. They focused more on his candy than how brilliant L actually is. Both he and Light don’t seem to be anywhere near as intelligent as they should be. In the film there is scenes of L coping with the loss of a friend that wasn’t in the manga since L and Watari die at about the same time. It was actually nice to see and made L seem a little more warm and human.

Watari - Good actor, gave a good performance. Odd casting choice in my opinion? Watari was one of the few Japanese actors in the cast when he’s playing the only non Japanese character. Watari was an old English gentleman. His name is Quillish Whammy for fuck’s sake. The actor gave the roll a good go, unfortunately it was just written poorly and most of his scenes take place at what looks like an old horror movie set.

Ryuk - I already touched on Ryuk previously. The VA did a fine job, he actually looked pretty decent. Sadly, his lines are all pretty worthless and for the most part he just makes Light nearly piss himself when he shows up.

Mr. Yagami (Mr. Turner) - This man is such a fuck. I disliked him so much. I really respected Yagami in the manga. He made tough decisions and was ready to do what he must to catch Kira. In fact, he quits the police force in near disgrace to fight Kira. That scene where he asks L to confine him as well because his son is confined in suspicion of being Kira? That scene where he is prepared to shoot his son and then himself? His father trading for the eyes but never using the death note on Mellow because he still wants to redeem him? Yagami being a good, developed character? Yeah, none of that. Instead we got tense conversations between him and Light because they don’t like each other. We get him choking L out at a family dinner because L says Light is Kira and Yagami abandoning L to protect his son at all costs. He even finds out his son is for a fact Kira and does nothing. 

Misa Misa Amane (Mia) - Boy did I dislike Misa in this film. The first scene is her being a cheerleader but being too “over life” to do the cheers? God, she is such an unlikeable, uncharasmatic bitch in this film. That’s such a big change from bratty but cute and bubbly superstar model Misa Misa. The actress had very little charm in her delivery. A lot of her scenes were of her trying to convince Light to kill more. A lot of them. Most of her scenes in the later half of the movie. She seemed to be going for a Harley Quinn vibe, complete with a “normal people scare me” hung up in her locker. Misa steals pages from the death note (since she doesn’t have her own) and sneaks behind Light’s back to kill the FBI agents trailing them. She also writes Light’s name down in the death note, to try and gain ownership of it. It honestly seemed like Light and Misa’s personalities were switched from what they were in the manga. Maybe it was to try and make her a strong female character, but it fell flat. What I found was one of the major characteristics of manga Mia was that she loved Light. She would do anything for Light, such as trading for the eyes twice or giving up her death note and memories when Light asks her to. This Misa seems to care much less for Light and more about the death note and killing. It doesn’t make her endearing to the audience, I don’t know what they were trying to do with her.

Light Yagami (Light Turner) - Where to begin. The acting was quite weak. The boy can scream and cry and beg, that’s for sure. However, he’s playing Light. There should have been no need for any of that. If only. I think what upset me most was that this film didn’t make Light seem smart. He does people’s tests for them at school and... that’s it. That’s where you’re supposed to infer that he’s a brilliant top of his class, getting primed for great things. Film version Light isn’t liked at school where as manga Light isn’t super popular, but he has friends. He has girls ask him out a few times. There’s some dialogue between Ryuk and Light about how popular he is with the ladies. Whereas Film Light is pretty much alone except for deranged Misa. There’s also no secrecy about the death note. He fucking has it in his lap during gym class, just chilling there. Misa asks what it is and he shows her how to use it. Just like that. They talk about it and killing people constantly out in public or in classes. It’s so unrealistic. Light doesn’t try to hide anything. On his first time meeting L he confesses to being Kira, just like that. He confesses it to his dad later on as well. He has a few exchanges with Misa about how much he wants to give up the death note and run way together because he loves her. After all, there was a montage of them making out while writing down names, it’s true love. The climax of the movie has Light writing down “if Misa takes the note book from me she will die” and Light telling her “it’s the notebook or me.” She chooses the notebook and you see him sob “I never thought you would take it!! I thought you loved me!!” and it’s so very manga Misa Misa. Light acts like the worst parts of manga Misa. He’s always ready to just give up and cry under a desk. The only good thing he does in this film is kill Misa.

One of the brilliant things Death Notes does is it challenged the reader about what is truly good and evil. Reading it for the first time I remember siding with Light up until he makes the jump to killing anyone after him. Then I was with L and the SPK. But then L dies. The leader of the “good side” dies and Light has his iconic “I win” panel. The whole world turns to Kira in support, and the reader does once again. He won out, he must be the good force after all. Then Near and Mellow show up and once again the reader is unsure of who to support. Mellow uses such underhanded tactics and causes Mr. Yagami’s death so he can’t be good. Near was a little kid so by virtue he had to be good, although personally I dislike Near. L and Mellow grew on me, Near didn’t. At this point Kira can’t be attributed solely to Light as he has Mikami and Misa working for him, but Kira is the bad guy again to the reader. The reader is thrown back and forth with who they support as things develop, but the characters themselves still fully believe that they all are what is good. The side of justice. The SPK thinks that they are in the right by bringing Kira down. Kira thinks that he is right by serving out justice and acting as god. It makes the reader really, really question what they think about right and wrong.

This movie version stripped that away. I never got the feeling that Light believes he is actually doing the right thing. He constantly is questioning their actions and wanting to stop. The viewer never thinks Light is in the right for a second, the viewer never wants him to win. You never have to question is Kira’s justice right or wrong.

I think what sums it up better than I could is the difference between these two scenes (Please note I do not have my copy of the book on hand and I’m not rewatching the film so this is from memory. Words may not be exact but the overall sentence is). In the manga Light comments “They have chosen to call him Kira. I don’t particularly like it as it sounds similar to the American word for killer, which is not what Kira does, he is justice.” In the film, Light states “I chose the name Kira because it’s close to the Japanese word for killer.” There ya go. Light chooses (CHOOSES) the name Kira because it sounds like a nice edgy name that is a word for murderer, which Light views himself as.

Bottom line, don’t watch it unless you too want to be upset. L, Watari, sometimes Ryuk, and the plethora of awful snapchat stickers my friend and I got were the highlights.

 2/10 - just not no chip scene, barely any scenes from the manga.

[diviinedogs]

I know this is weird but is it cool to ask what s/t/even//qun//iv did? I used to follow them but idk what happened and lots of my mutuals don't want to interact with them either but no one will tell me why and I'm scared I'm just being annoying and stupid :c

yeah totally fine to ask!

it’s okay it’s not like there’s a callout or anything, I never went public with everything in it and any proof I have I have deleted/don’t have access too cuz I blocked

and oh do other people not like them? cuz as far as I know just me and my girlfriend have them mentioned on a byf

I’m gonna leave out some things cuz like privacy and whatever and I’m going to try to make this as short as I can but I just know that this is going to be long, but if you want more details feel free to message me off anon

I used to be friends with them/they used to be in my friend group back in GF days, I broke off contact with them because they were making me as;ldkjf and super fucking anxious (towards when I was creating distance/trying to cut off they literally messaged me everywhere possible tumblr, skype, twitter, even snapchat…. I never opened the snaps because I was too anxious seeing it but we’ll get to that later) and they were possessive of me/jealous of other people who talked to me

I specifically noticed this with Ferrah, who would eventually become my girlfriend, we got together when I was still talking to this person, and another friend. In rabbitrooms, they would like stay there for hours and never talk unless it was just me and them,if specifically Ferrah or another friend was present thy would not talk. They even acted like this with my irl friend too. Like we even tried, once they were talking in a rabbitroom where I was marathoning Voltron and then when Ferrah showed up, they immediately stopped talking. Like, we went through the whole show and me and Ferrah were saying that the room was done because we were saying we were done but we were gonna like watch movies and other shows together alone, and I was like damn what if they’re not gonna leave because they didn’t talk this whole time, but they did. So they sat there quiet for HOURS without saying something at all and just reading the whole chat.

and like I found out I was their FP and like totally fine I had no problem with that at all! I thought things would be fine but I still noticed how awkward it was whenever they were together in a rabbitroom or stream with me and another friend. Most of the time when I streamed back then it would just be us too.

basically I started feeling iffy about the friendship around like??? last summer???

there was a vent blog and I discovered that they would avoid doing things and hanging out with irl friends just to specifically talk to me all day, and our conversations got a bit tiring to me to be honest because we…. talked about like ship/au stuff and there were A LOT and it went to the point where if you took no breaks between replies it would take two hours to respond to. Not to mention they were all for something I don’t ship anymore and sometimes they would reach unhealthy/possessive topics, it was really bad and it like horrified me to like take a step back and looking at what we talked about.

so like I saw posts on the vent blog that made me really uncomfortable too like……. wanting to fucking kill my parents and it was terrifying because??? we’ve never met in person but they live close to me and I was scared that they would come to my house and kill my dad while he was alone when I was on vacation

that was a huge deal to me, and I didn’t like how they were upset whenever I wasn’t using my laptop or phone not because my parents didn’t like it, but because it kept me from talking to them

when I got off the plane, my phone was on low battery and I had a barrage of messages from them telling me to tell them where I was and stuff, and like? not even my girlfriend sent me anything like that just that I had a safe trip and I messaged her back. Like, I only had an hour or so before my next flight and 13% on my phone and I’m gonna spend that talking girlfriend of course 

I don’t know the details or why they didn’t like my girlfriend, I just got the vibe from that and I knew that they had like a whole future for us planned together and that along with everything else they did made me super uncomfortable. Like, do you know how shitty it is to be upset that your friend has a relationship when nothing’s wrong with it???

and like… on twitter I knew they were stalking me because I would always get notifications of likes from them like instantly, and one time apparently they were reading a conversation I was having with my girlfriend and I know it because of this- they @ ed me saying that they “accidentally liked” a reply and didn’t mean to, but like they unliked it so fast I didn’t even get a notification, so like that right there just told me they were reading everything I was doing.

and generally, if I don’t reply to them in like an hour or by a certain time they don’t like that and that was really anxiety inducing to me too, to like have to reply or else it means something’s wrong

I didn’t stop being comfortable with them because I found out I was their FP, I was fine with that and I wanted to like try being a good one. But I could not handle everything they were doing and I recognized it as an unhealthy friendship on both sides. I did not feel comfortable with it anymore, I started ignoring them in I think August and it took up until September for my friends to convince me to cut it off. It was causing me so much anxiety and towards the end of it I could not even read messages from them without feeling anxious, I had to copy it and get my girlfriend or another friend to read it and tell me what they were basically saying.

I wanted to leave for my own mental health, safety, and my family’s safety because I do not take death threats lightly. It’s different if I’m venting to someone and I know their response isn’t serious.

I can go more into details about things but I’m choosing not to go public about them and any other upsetting/anxiety inducing things I don’t remember cuz I blocked them out 

I like don’t feel bad about cutting them off they made me so uncomfortable and anxiety filled and I didn’t want put myself through feeling like that for the rest of the friendship/my life by the way it was going.

[ta1lulah]

yep. so apparently this is what i’m doing with my quarantine time now.

i am going to rank every travis scott song from his studio albums. there are quite a few instances where i find it impossible to put one song over the other, so the top 1-10 is pretty interchangeable to me. including the deluxe edition songs, there are 47 songs for me to rank in total.

this is in no way me trashing trav’s music (if you don’t know me i literally live so far up his ass that if he sneezed i would come out of his nostrils and have done for many years), it’s just something that i am scarily qualified to write about and should entertain me for a while.

just as a quick pre-cursor to the list: birds is my favourite trav album by far and astroworld had a lot of skips for me, so of course that is reflected. if you don’t agree with that i don’t really care; my mind cannot be changed.

yes i am aware that owl pharaoh and dbr exist.

i’ll explain my choices as best as i can, let’s go

47. wonderful

i fucking HATE this song. ruins the entire vibe of birds and the only song on the entire record that i will ever skip. after having the ends as an intro and apple pie closing off rodeo, i just don’t know what this song is doing. it needs to be deleted

46. nc-17

it’s ok. i just always skip it and it’s very plain to me, i’m not mad at it

45. stop trying to be god

SO overrated. i don’t get it at all. boring fucking song to me

44. rip screw

as above

43. carousel

loved it when i first heard it but it got old super quickly and has little replay value to me. bangs when you haven’t heard it in a while

42. coffee bean

in theory i should like it but i just don’t like the execution. i appreciate it but it’s not for me

41. flying high

i know this song gets trashed on a lot and i dont agree with that completely. it’s a good song but again doesn’t have the heavy replay value that the majority of rodeo has (not to mention it ruins the flow of rodeo, in my opinion)

40. houstonfornication

OVERRATED. when astroworld dropped i saw so so many people putting this in their top 3 off the record and i simply don’t get it at all. it’s a solid song but it’s boring, i never find myself putting this song on voluntarily

39. sicko mode

it was inevitably going to come in low. you may know that i dont trash talk drake, but seriously fuck the second half of this song that drake RUINS. i could happily go about the rest of my life without hearing this song ever again. trav’s first verse is the only reason this is not placed in the 40’s

38. ok alright

from this point on i dont dislike any of these songs and this was pretty painful to place. this song goes, but i am unable to place it any higher. it just feels like a (very good) throwaway track that got slung onto the deluxe edition. also q and trav should sound better than this, i think they could’ve made something better than this track together, i wanted their song to sound like it could’ve been on oxymoron (a wholly flawless record).

37. who? what!

i’m actually really fond of this song and listen to it a lot. to me it just sounds out of place on astroworld and was definitely a huncho jack throwaway

36. stargazing

the beat change aged like old milk. i will admit when i first heard this though, i loved it so much. and the feeling you get when the intro to stargazing starts playing before trav comes out on stage is unmatched, so it has a special place in my heart for that alone. in terms of astroworld as a whole, i think it’s the perfect first song for the album

35. goosebumps

maybe ive heard it way too many times, i’m not sure. but it would feel wrong for me to place this in my top 30, i dont find myself putting it on ever. a classic nevertheless

34. pray 4 love

i used to fuck with this song so much but recently it’s just not doing it for me. something about listening to it now just makes it sound corny to me. “wanna know my dick longer than a pringle box” will live on forever

33. wake up

bangs, but again this song is corny as fuck (maybe it’s just the weeknd as i’m seeing a theme now)

32. 5% tint

solid song, can’t put m y finger on it but it just lacks personality, outro is godly though

31. guidance

i love this song seriously, but i can understand why lots of people don’t. it fits perfectly on birds and it’s placement within the album is stunning, but as a standalone track it’s pretty weak. i would love trav to make more songs in this style

30. wasted

this song is slept on, i love it so much. but if the yung lean version had made it onto rodeo this would be a top 10 track EASY.

29. butterfly effect

we all know this song goes, i listened to this way way way too much when it was first released

28. outside

this was painful. the 21 savage feature is flawless, this song is so interesting to me. beat is gorgeous

27. astrothunder

pretty song, didn’t blow me away but i’m super fond of it. the way tracks 11-15 of astroworld play is perfect and really redeemed the album for me

26. 90210

yep. honestly if this is in your top 3 favourite travis songs i have nothing to say to you. beautiful song, second half is stunning, we all know that, but how is this top 3. LISTEN TO BIRDS IN FULL!!!

25. yosemite

i really like this song but i can’t take it seriously because of nav microphone-gate. (u know)

24. lose

i LOVE this song, but it’s not strong enough to be top 20. it’s a cute song, i dont know

23. piss on your grave

this song has such a special place in my heart. the motherfucking visuals!!!

22. 3500

the future verse. that is all.

21. beibs in the trap

the way this is placed on the album are you kidding me?! perfect. and yes, because it’s nav it missed out on a top 20 spot. it is what it is (the trav verse is absolutely flawless in every way)

20. never catch me

this deserved to actually be on rodeo rather than a deluxe track. the production wooooowwwweeee

19. maria im drunk

i cant even put into words the way i felt hearing thug say “travis scott” on this song for the first time. and the fucking justin bieber verse! godly

18. sweet sweet

such a *sweet* little song, i have an extreme soft spot for it

17. antidote

i dont have to explain this.we all know this song. if you havent seen it live all i can offer you is my deepest condolences

16. through the late night

kid cudi means everything to me and this partnership was always going to create something sensational <3 it is everything i was expecting and more (side note: i am coming back to this a couple of days later after THE SCOTTS has been announced, yes my entire life is made, and when the joint album drops best believe i will be writing a several thousand word post about it)

15. pornography

there couldn’t possibly be a better opening track to rodeo. this shit is like onomatopoeia, i know u know what i mean

14. skeletons

travis and kevin parker working together! of COURSE the song is this beautiful!!! i need an entire joint album plzzzzzzzzz

13. the ends

3 stacks. no more needs to be said (actually i will say that the fact that he was supposed to narrate this album like ti did for rodeo and that it never happened routinely keeps me up at night)

12. apple pie

this was my favourite song off rodeo for a loooooooong time. im a loser and still tear up when i listen to the record in full and hear the last lines

11.  no bystanders

purely for sheck’s “BITCH!”

10. can’t say

it’s true i do transcend every time i hear “gotta take a long drive up the hill”

9. sdp interlude

perfect in every single way. how/where it’s placed on the record is breathtaking. would be in the number 1 spot if it was longer

8. nightcrawler

oh the sosa verse really means everything to me

7. pick up the phone

come on now. all i will say is this: experience this song live, do yourself a favour. i have a fantasic video of trav and thug performing this live at wireless 2019, but unfortunately my manic screaming/crying ruins the whole fucking video. so just take my word for it

6. coordinate

i genuinely cant fathom how perfect this song is. i hate to use the word “vibe” but jeez the *vibe* this song gives off is unlike any other. THIS is my favourite style of trav’s music

5. impossible

legitimately get chills every time i hear “split a pack of the woods down”. yes. the production!

4. way back

everything about this song. the  second half. again, see this song live is a spiritual experience. also, i couldnt love this song any more but then uzi samples this and it just gave me a WHOLE other layer of appreciation for it. what a fucking song (both prices and way back)

3. i can tell

just listen to this again. the “take it up another notcher” part. how is it real?!!!

2. first take

SOOOOO underrated. never in my life would i ever think that the sentence “bryson tiller killed that” would leave my mouth but here we are. the way this transitions into pick up the phone.

1. oh my

we made it!!!! honestly i struggled so fucking much to find a #1 but i think it will have to be this song because it is just so sentimental to me. when i first listened to rodeo this was immediately my favourite song off it and it still remains perfect in every way several years on. quavo in the second half of the song is STUNNING, words just dont do anything about this song justice

if anyone read to the end here we go, if you think my choices were fucked up and idiotic feel free to send me hate via instagram dm (@ta1lulah, plug!)

my actual favourite travis song of all time fucking ever is skyfall, but as i put earlier i was only ranking songs from studio albums.

in conclusion, birds is a criminally misunderstood masterpiece -ta1lulah

[robothobo64]

2D Dragon Ball Z Fighters Retrospetcive

Part 6: The Extreme Butouden Rant

Extreme Butoduen (2015 - 3DS)

Aaaannndd after how much I gushed about the last game, I have many MANY mixed feelings on this one. The first proper Dragon Ball fighting game for the 3DS, once again done by Arc System. They called it Extreme Butoduen even tho I argue this is a good few steps down in regards to the Butoduen series. The characters themselfs are sprite based while the arenas are in 3D, it's got a nice Marvel VS Capcom 2 vibe to it. Similar system to the previous Butoduen, except now you can charge Ki. Specials and Supers are no longer command moves, you just hold down the L button and press any of the four face buttons. You also can't freely move around like in the last game. You're stuck to the ground or sky where your oppoent is, so no shooting Ki blasts from afar on the ground while your enemy is in the air. You can manually knock them into the sky and onto the ground with a strong combo but I'm still annoyed the more free movement is just tossed away. Supers can now only be done by slamming your opponent into the sky or ground, and depending where you are (above or below) you'll shoot out a different move. And if you want to do your Ultimate, you NEED to make sure you're in the right place for your character's one. At least in Supersonic Warriors, it was how close or near you were to the opponent, this just feels kind annoying just to fire off the attack I want to do. Counterattacking tho is simple and easy tho and you actually get notifications to counter unlike in the older Butouden games, but it really doesn't beat Ultimate's way of handling them. You also need to be in "Sparkling" or "Dragon Soul" mode to pull off these certain ones, which only happens when you're on low health....Yeaaaahhh no. This isn't like the Rage Arts in Tekken 7, I just wanna shoot out a basic Kamehameha, Final Flash, or Ghost Kamakazie Attack. Combat itself is okay, but again, it's nothing major in comparison to the last Butoduen game. 25 characters total, standard "best of" selection from Saiyan to Buu Saga. Except for some reason Raditz and Nappa are in here? (I'll get to THEM in a bit...) Another annoyance is how the game puts out FOUR VERSIONS OF GOKU (base Goku, SSJ Goku, SSJGod Goku, SSJ Blue Goku) that all use the same moveset with the special moves changed. I thought we learned from Final Bout's mistakes? The God forms of Goku are secrets that can be unlocked by beating the game's adventure mode (uuuggghh) or by use of code in SSJ Blue's case. Beerus is also unlockable but you need to beat the tournament mode, the game's arcade/survival mode in a sense to get him. Needless to say he was one of my favorites to play as tbh, and I did enjoy SSJ Blue's overpowered nature. But the biggest problem is the feature they touted the most: The Z Assists. Basicly, they decided to add more to the assists they had in Supersonic Warriors 2 and make about 100 of them. Yeah, they tried to make this roster look huge without actually going thru the effort of making half these characters playable. Gogeta and Vegetto? 5 frame assists. Majin Vegeta? Assist. Tien, Chi-Chi and most other earthlings that aren't Krillin. Assists. FUCKING HERCULE IS JUST AN ASSIST. Hell, they even have SSJ Blue Vegeta as an assist where he COULD have just been a palette swap just like Goku's was. Hell, GT Gohan at SSJ4 was added as a simple assist. HE'S the kind alternate character that should have been playable! Oh and SSJ4 Gogeta's assist is both the best and worst in the game since it either pulls out a 300 hit Big Bang Kamehameha or his confetti Bluff Kamehameha he used on Omega Shenron. Last to talk about are the modes, it has a similar mode like Supersonic Warriors where you go thru the sagas or go thru individual character What If sagas. Then there's....adventure mode......ooohh noooo. The main plot of this mode is that Omega Shenron is back apparently, and Goku need to get the "Ultimate Dragon Balls" (They're actually the Black Star Dragon Balls IIRC, but they just changed the name, and it's dumb) What follows is a long, loooonnngg mode of you fighting the same opponents, them being Raditz and Nappa like five FUCKING MILLION TIMES. The reason they do this is to just stick random assists on them to make it seem like you're fighting the characters they're calling out for assists, but it doesn't work. And considering you fight them like fifty times over the course of this 7 chapter adventure mode, it gets tiring....FAST. Even the main threat, Omega Shenron, isn't even the real final boss. He's just an assist to FUCKING BROLY of all people, someone who just shows up near the end of the story. It also didn't help that this game didn't even have a training mode or even online battle when it first came out and it had to be updated before it got them. And those updates took FOREVER to get here to the states....ugg. It's not like this game is bad, it's just.....lacking, especially with how Game Republic blew it out of the water with the last game. Even in comparison to the Supersonic Warriors games it just feels meh. Oh and I should note this game could also be played with those that had the One Piece 3DS fighter Great Pirate Colosseum developed by Arc System as well, meaning you could have Dragon Ball characters fight One Peice characters, but you can only use the characters in your game meaning no teaming them up. Tho my question is why not just have made a straight-up Dragon Ball/One Piece crossover fighter? It's not like it was the first time we'd have seen this kinda thing done, let alone for just Dragon Ball and One Piece But considering how they're not stuck with handheld limitations for the next game, Dragon Ball Fighter Z, I have a feeling we'll be seeing something much MUCH better than this.