#How to Make an Intro using Powerpoint

[midnightbears]

✿ duskbound, afterlight.

#STARRING: cybertronian fem reader & other characters.

#TAGS: trauma. talks of character death. hopelessness? mentions of prostitution. no appearance of canon characters because this is an intro. hunger games reference!

#NOTES: hi! still alive, just not writing for kny atm because my head is like a powerpoint presentation with all my hyperfixations and i can't write for requests when it is on another slide. hope that makes sense. this is the first chapter of my megatron x reader, a strangers to lovers to enemies featuring pre-war cybertron, a magnanimous amount of lore, a lot of non-cannon stuff like sparklings and stuff because i can do whatever i want, and my flickering motivation to finish it. i don't have a specific transformers i'm basing the timeline off, so we will see. i thought of publishing it on ao3 or smth but i have better judgement so i just figured i would upload the first chapter on tumblr. the new transformers movie was soooo good and it inadvertently rekindled my transformers obsession. enjoy? let me know if you like it, i would appreciate it if you have questions or anything :) THIS BITCH IS LONG SO BEWARE

part two | part three | part four | part five | part six

"Y/N, my optics hurt."

"I know, sweetspark, I know."

This place reeked. Pure flowing smoke and vapor, stinking energon, and the smell of the gray coal and ash that powdered the laborers' and miners' bodies like scintillating glitter filled the pavements of that day—such fragrant poetry. 

The barely perceivable light that shone down could not even be called proper illumination in the first place. Every once in a while, the wells of your optics danced up to gaze toward where the sweltering sunlight was supposed to be.

Still, your spark did nothing but wail at you when, each time, all that you caught were mountains upon mountains of pitch-dark vapor, dull particles of dust from the mines, and the visualization of the austere whispers of despair and anguish among the workers of one of the mining towns from one of Cybertron's Primus-forsaken satellites, Nuna 5PY.

Even if you turned to look towards the downtown streets, the particles infiltrated your vents and blistered your optics.

Some workers used gas masks, while others retreated to the mines, where the synthetic stench wasn't as foul, but most were forced to return to work. They snatched up energon everywhere they could, recharged in fits and starts among their screaming. You seriously needed to leave.

As Vaportrail coughed onto the city street, you held her small servo. Even with the torrential acid pouring last night, the smog got to her well before the rush hour. 

You realized things would not improve today, so you hurried in fear of the younger developing tear-streaked optics and a headache to match. It saddened you that Vaportrail would never know what a normal life would be like. It was as though they had collectively given up years before she was born, which was unjust to her and all the future sparklings. 

You grabbed her and pulled her into the cart. Traveling was enjoyable, but not at the price of introducing additional hazardous particles into the environment. 

Mining Outpost R–02 was one of the towns from Nuna 5PY, where unnamed members of the lower classes labored interminably, tediously. The gloomy, smoky shambles of a metropolis required the Communication Grid to communicate with other areas and locations simply. It was no place for a sparkling. 

The infant cybertronian lay quietly on the sulfurous mine carriage attached to the railway, more vulnerable than the glass that was painstakingly constructed for the masses of the High-caste buildings and just as giddily colored.

You wondered if her peds are dirty; how would you know? You pondered what she ate back when Starlight was still living in this downtown slum; where did her mother get energon to nourish her? 

Your servos were callous from several scars and defects, and a part of you ached to sweep her up in her arms and shelter her eternally. But. How could you ever live with yourself if you didn't allow such an innocent being to live a tranquil life?

"I'm sorry about your carrier," You told the sparkling wistfully, making sure she was comfortable for the long ride from here to where your late best friend wanted her youngling to go if something ever happened to her. You gave her a small pad which contained personal information like her name and situation, along with a plead for somebot to take her to safety, "Cybertropolis is a nice place, just make sure you reach the police station safely, they'll know where to take you." 

"Thank you," Vaportrail squeaked out, her knees pulled up to her chest plate. 

The train inevitably started, and you walked in tandem with the slow speed of the carriage just to get a good, final look at the sparkling's dainty, cheerless face. Vaportrail would surely be a problem when she got older because all of the mechs would swoon over her—deservingly so.

With those optics and a grin as charming and gauzy as that, she was the very picture of the youthful beauty who had once bored the name of Starlight. You believed she was the sweetest femmeling on the planet.

"I love you, okay? And I'm sure your carrier is so proud of you. Good luck!"

Eventually, you had to withdraw from the train, which only allowed you to stare at the vanishing small frame of a waving Vaportrail, whose response had been forever lost in the sad, sepulchral winds of the town. 

Despite that, you could still stare at the sparkling's naive, callow features and find colossal gratitude and admiration in its place, which made a lump form in your voicebox and squeezing palpation beat inside your spark chamber.

With Vaportrail gone, the smell of blazing smoke burned your olfactory sensors and induced you to cover them with your suitable servo. You had never before realized that the shrilling blare of the injectors, the drills, the massive excavators, and the wheels of the trucks could be so overwhelmingly loud, either. From the corner of your optics, the flashes and instants of the sparks that aimlessly flew around whenever metal met metal brought you out of your bewildered daydream. 

But then you turned and saw the portrait of shattered ambition, lost hope, undetermined origins, opaque bitterness, damaged honor, futile dreams, and wavering will that assembled the cybertronians of Nuna 5PY.

It was a blow to the back of your head.

Starlight was dead.

If you closed your optics, you could still see the glow on her metallurgical protoform, the spark that no longer burned, and the sound of her laughter that still reverberated in your audio receptors and processor.

Oh, you missed her desperately. 

She'd spent her days as a young and daring cybertronian who didn't let the vacillating shame of her prostitution career ridicule her or anything she was. A good, pleasant, and kind femme that thrived and existed, only for some mech to tear her from her home and forever close her laughing optics. She was a femme, a friend, a sister, and a carrier.

She was someone.

"Oi, femme!"

You knew that whoever was calling that word in such a degrading manner was referring to you and you only. You were aware that you were one of the few femmes working on that hellhole.

Sourly, you turned your helm to the source of the voicebox and found your boss—if he could even be called that—staring at you rigorously from across the street. Other mechs were beside him, and in their hungry optics, you could see hunger, amusement, a blatant lack of respect, and other things—all of it for you.

"You said five minutes. Start moving your aft before I tell someone to move it for you."

The group of despicable mechs started laughing at the humorous, unique, spectacular, utterly not-ever-done-before knee-slapper comment. You wondered what comedians told to get a chuckle or two out of their audience nowadays. 

You detested yourself when you started walking back to the mines with crystal-clear coolant forming in your optics and with the words caught inside your voicebox.

Even the clicking of your battered timer had a languid touch in the fading light of their (your) chamber as if it were a spark-beat at rest. The perpetual rhythm of it became more of a white noise inside the transparent yet spurious safety surrounding your beguiling, chimerical space bubble. 

The memory of the lingering perfume of Starlight's aromatic utensils saturated you far more intensely than it did only days before, making you want to pound and bang your head against the wall until you ran out of energon inside your body.

Your spark chamber was wrenched apart in the core by a hollow cavity. It had been there for forty-eight groons. Faithless and cynical, the pit that took form inside of you pulled you to the very depths of your revolted mind.

You were immobile, your bare servos lying at your sides and your digits tinkering with the berth. Everything within the room drove you crazy and made you want to tear out your optics under the scrutinizing, deep-rooted omnipresence of both the carrier and the sparkling.

Vaportrail was not napping on her carrier's bed; her small chest plating was not rising and falling according to her mellow, smooth breathing. You remembered how she would spring from Starlight's berth just to greet you after every single burdensome solar cycle of nothing but suffering under the cruel comments and sometimes spiteful actions of mechs and their superiors. 

You knew and understood that she left for a better life in Cybertropolis, yet you just can't comprehend why you are not hearing her dulcet giggles and her voice as soft as a feather.

"Y/N, look at me!"

You turned your helm lightly toward the soft-spoken sparkling from your spot on your berth. 

One of your stabilizers was crossed over the other, your servos snuggly behind your helm. Due to your horizontal position, you were seeing Vaportrail in a somewhat awkward manner, whispering something to her carrier excitedly, which made you turn your whole frame so you were resting against your side, lifting your helm with your right servo.

"What is it, V?"

Vaportrail, who had her mother's laughing optics, stood proudly atop Starlight's berth beside her laying figure, servos on her hips and grin on her dermas, meekly waiting for you to look at her so she could show her spectacular stunt.

She was no bigger than a mining pickaxe, which is why she was never let out of Starlight's and your’s shared chamber. She was still tiny, even for a youngling her age, but that was not unusual, as the impoverished environment and the mediocre energon didn't do much to help anyway. Primus knows what could happen to someone so small and so weak.

Her confident, puffed-up stand made you laugh casually, as while typically Vaportrail was a modest sparkling, never one to demand attention or directly ask for what she wanted, whenever she got like this and let out her inner childishness for the silliest of things, both you and Starlight would get tons of laughter out of it.

"Go on! Show Y/N what you've been practicing," Starlight encouraged.

When you nodded at Vaportrail, signaling that your attention was entirely on her, her optics lit up. She walked towards the end of her carrier's berth, planting her peds at the very ends before turning around. 

Vaportrail crouched, and with a slight push from her servos and an impulse from her peds, she successfully rolled forward in the berth, landing on her bottom before scrambling to get up and putting her servos up in the air, muttering a small 'Ta-da!'

You had smiled warmly, watching Vaportrail giggle to herself giddily. Starlight clapped for her and swarmed her in a big hug, proud of her sparkling and happy that she had gotten her little trick right. Honestly, you were a bit jealous. You wished you could be this happy by doing something as simple as a gymnastic maneuver.

Vaportrail cheered along with her carrier, excitedly thumping her peds against the surface of the berth. Then she turned to look at you, her optics gleaming with happiness. "I did it! I did a forward roll!"

"Oh, did you?" After your rhetorical question, you languidly returned to your original position, lying with your back plates on the berth and your servos behind your helm. You cheekily turned to Vaportrail and Starlight, a sly, good-natured smile pulling at your dermas; you closed your optics. "I wasn't looking."

"Y/N!"

Both femmes happily laughed at the moping undertones of Vaportrail's voice.

"Just kidding!"

That day was a long time ago, at least it seemed to be; it felt like it. Those words were spoken in the same chamber you slept and resided in. That comical stunt was performed in the berth across from yours. They were not here anymore. Even if you wished they were back together, that deceitful dream would only be achieved by death.

No one can pursue their dreams or be free enough without it. Freedom is for the rich because dreaming costs money.

Starlight wasn't there to hold her youngling and hug you when you needed it. You weren't hearing her voice either, singing lullabies to help you both fall into a much-needed recharge. Her presence was so needed, so sought; in places like this, femmes like her were what one needed to forget about the harsh burden that was the act of being alive. To think that only forty-eight groons before she was still living, she was still here. 

Her memory made you miserable because best friends comprehend you like no other. Starlight was overly protective and brutally honest—as if she ever needed that. You felt so enraged and resentful at not being there to protect her that you feared you might break. 

Although you dug Starlight's grave, blatantly refusing to let the body of your best friend turn into waste parts or scrap metal, a part of you still suppressed the image. One day, you would properly weep for her, but first, you had to accept that she was truly gone. A part of you would never be able to accept that Starlight would never appear, skipping around a corner to tease you for falling for her clever joke.

‘How can she be dead?’

Harsh knocks against your metal door made you jerk from your position on the berth.

"08, are you in there?!" 

The boisterous tone of the mech standing behind your door made you remember that you were still real and breathing inside your crude, undeserving, unworthy existence. Your bubble-turned crystal cocoon inevitably started collapsing at the reminder that life could still go on without Starlight because, after all, no cybertronian knew who Starlight is—was. No cybertronian knew who Starlight was. The world moved on without her.

Without thinking much, you got up from the cold berth, chills flourishing in your metallurgic skin before walking the small distance towards the oxidized door and swinging it open. You would not have considered the thought of opening (being too engrossed in your self-pity and wallowing in grief, you know?) in the first place was it not for the genuine undertones of chipper motivation that were painted over H–01's usually harsh, asperous voice. 

Wait, why was he at your door anyway?

His hulking, rusted frame was as corroded as ever, and it was honestly a little sickening to look at. Despite the awful veil of dust and ash that littered him, the grayish, crimson, and dull turquoise glares of his deteriorated paint job could still be peeked at; his wheels were decaying, and his melancholic optics had lost their love for life— as had everybot else's.

Ancient as a cosmic star and twice as intelligent, with his towering structure and terse personality, H–01 was by far one of the town's most elderly seniors—and, may you add, one of the most cordial. 

You remembered the day you first arrived here, back when you were still an inexperienced femme in life, gullible, back when you dreamed dreams. 

After an accident in your old work establishment,—one of the mech coworkers had stepped over the line with you, resulting in a mining pickaxe protruding from his knee plate and a lot of energon spilled around— you had been sent to Mining Outpost R–02, and H–01 quickly took it upon himself to become a mentor of some sort as you shared letter unit. 

You recalled that he laughed as he had never before when you told him the story of why they had banned you from your previous workplace. Later, you met Starli—

"08?"

You blinked owlishly, and realizing that he was calling out to you, you grounded yourself and met his preoccupied gaze.

"What did you need?"

He frowned at your mediocre attempt at lying. H–01 was by no means stupid, and sadly, you didn’t give enough credit and didn't acknowledge how easily he could pick apart your facade, layer by layer, until your shell was utterly ripped apart.

"Kid, I may be rusty, but I'm shrewd enough to know that you're not well." You became conscious of how absurd you must have seemed in his words. He continued. "I'm sorry about your friend and her sparkling."

There it was again, that funny feeling, that blow to the back of your head. You felt your spark wail painfully, and your limbs tensed up, your optics frantically searching into H–01's face plates for any sign of mockery. You found none. You almost crumbled at his sincere words until your response was unwillingly driven back to your tanks when the piercing siren started blasting across the halls of the chambers.

Instinctively, you covered your audio receptors at the discomfort. At the same time, H–01 merely stared into the speaker device right up against the wall, a bit far away from them. From the corner of his optics, he saw many of the workers exiting their chambers, each of them confused, some of them covering their audial receptors as well, and others staring, irritated and visibly vexed at the gadget that was currently stripping them of their much-needed recharging hours.

The workers of the 8th unit, otherwise known as the H unit, approached the oldest mech from their division, questioning themselves about what was going on. Their optics wilted, and there was a slight lolling to their helms, drunk with weariness after a session of an endless cycle of mining.

"01, what's going on?" One of them asked rather loudly, trying to shout over the siren, coming up to them just as you got used to the loud siren and pulled your servos away from your audial receptors. 

You moved out of the entrance of your chamber to shut the door behind you, joining H–01 by standing beside him. They shared a brief glance, one filled with puzzlement, the other brimming with uncertainty. But before anyone could share their answer or even make a single move, the horrendous blaring of the alarm stopped. 

The speaker against the wall went completely silent, and a single red light started beeping. The Cybertronians looked at each other, baffled.

Someone talked via the speaker.

:: Attention, all workers. You are summoned to the patio at this instant. Once you reach the area, stand in your respective branch line and don't question your current predicament; ignoring this order will result in immediate offlining. I repeat: ignoring this order will result in immediate offlining ::

I need to leave. I need to leave. I need to leave. I need to leave.

That was what you were thinking when you, H–01, and the others walked among the congregation of cybertronians—you would have said mechs were it not for the few femme 'nurses' among the outer lines of the crowds, who as far as you were concerned, were the ones who took care of the workers who suffered minor accidents like infected optics, fractured limbs or something along those lines. 

It was not like they counted anyway. Primus knew what they were actually in this town for and what they did to survive.

The patio, used for Cybertronians during their spare time, was circular, wide of range, and littered with damaged devices and compartment containers, a whole mess of passed-down gear and materials. 

Whenever they got their energon rations and stopped here to rest, H–01 would remark that only the fuel granted to them wasn't recycled—well, that and the smoke. The patio boulders formed a patchwork, with stones obtained as useless scraps and waste from renovations resting together as lovely as crystalline statues from the High-caste buildings. It had artistry to it, as well as smoothness. You and H–01 used to sit there together.

You saw the executives of Mining Outpost R–02, violently shove some of the workers towards their specific department, yelling something at them that you couldn't quite catch. Considering the calm and easy-going attitude of the mistreated miners, you could just tell that they were the prissy, fastidious mechs of the upper divisions, maybe the 1st or the 2nd, where they didn't get punished for slacking off or harassing other workers along with the bosses just for the fun of it.

Your unit quickly got on its respective branches and neatly stood in line. You all exchanged terse nods, mentally preparing yourselves for whatever was about to happen. 

In front of you and the rest of your division were the mechs of the 7th unit, and behind them were the workers of the 9th, and so on. Judging by the others' facial expressions, they, too had no idea of why they'd been called here nor could muster up a word, which only fueled your desire to learn what was going on. The patio got tighter, more claustrophobic as cybertronians arrived.

You were the last number in your unit, meaning that you were placed in the furthest spot from your old friend. You lightly reclined your helm backward to attempt and catch a glimpse of H–01, but to no success, as you saw him and all the other mechs, for that matter, focused on the temporary stage ahead of them. 

It held a podium, a small staircase, and fifteen glass balls with electronic chips on them. One for each unit of the Mining Outpost. A chill went down your spinal plate at the thought.

An overwhelming, ominous silence suddenly governed the patio when a mech no one working here had ever seen before climbed up the staircase. The way he moved caused cybertronians to stare at him in fear. 

The mech was brawny and towering, and the way his helm fell over his lifeless, devoid optics and left shadows smeared on his cheek plates made others shudder. He was directly in front of the plain, pitiful microphone stand. However, an almost charming smile crossed his dermas.

"I suppose you're asking yourselves why were you brought in here."

Because of the microphone, his voice, profound and with a baritone tone, boomed across the patio, making you wince lightly at its loudness. You, of course, were desensitized from loud noises due to the continuous straining sounds of the mining machines around you day after day, as everyone else was. However, his statement caused many cybertronians to look among themselves, clearly disturbed.

"Gentlemechs, my name is Bullway, and I've come all the way here from Kaon to offer you a choice. I intend to give fifteen of you the chance of coming to Kaon with me and becoming gladiators."

Hushed whispers and inaudible sentences started falling from everyone's dermas at Bullway's words and what they implied. From the corner of your optics, you saw most of the mechs look at each other in mute amazement at what they had just been offered.

Their superiors, who were at the base of the set-up podium, quickly took it upon themselves to silence everyone with a loud yell, the absence of sound appearing once again.

"Think about it! Money, power, glory, fame, all laid at your digitprints!" Bullway threw his arms out to emphasize his words. "Join me, and all you have ever dreamed of will come true. A life of nothing but recognition! Isn't that what you deserve?! Isn't that what you dream of as you stare at the ceilings of your measly stations?!"

Dreaming cost money. Dreaming cost money. Dreaming cost money.

Almost as if he had read your mind, H–01 subtly leaned his helm forward to take a peek at the workers of the section he conducted. Most of them remained stoic, and he was very glad to see that, but what worried him the most right now was H–08.

His facial plates morphed into that of slight disturbance because as he peered into your face, he clearly saw what could only be described as contemplation, doubt, and consideration, which both bothered and worried him.

Bullway smiled at how he had you under a forged delusion and continued his speech, "See the crystal globes here? There's one for each unit of your Mining Outpost. They all contain chips with your respective electronic signatures. Each vorn you have worked here, your signature will be entered an additional time. You can figure out the rest, so let us begin!"

Each vorn?

You suddenly realized that the globes were not in order because, in the same minute that you let the circumstances sink in, Bullway had already slipped a servo inside one of the spheres and grabbed one chip from it, reading it aloud so everyone could hear the letter and number clearly.

"G–10!"

All of the divisions started looking among each other, searching for the (not) lucky mech, a pregnant silence following suit as the group in front of them all glared sympathetically at the chosen one, who stood frozen in place, optics blinking several times, wishing to Primus that Bullway had read the designation incorrectly and it wasn't him who was just chosen.

You felt a shiver run down your spinal plate when one of the guards roughly seized his shoulder and made him start walking toward the platform, ignoring the mech's begging and lightly dragging him across the patio as everyone stared in horror. Your intake suddenly went dry when Bullway moved to the next globe, grabbed an electronic chip, moved to the microphone again, and read it aloud.

This time it was from the upper divisions, A–07, you heard.

Just like that, another mech was whisked away from his branch line and thrown across the patio. He then ascended the flight of stairs to stand beside G–10, who apparently was still encapsulated in deep denial, continuously shaking his helm in disbelief. It was tenaciously obvious that Bullway did not concern himself with their worries and imminent fear as he once again moved toward a globe and grabbed another.

You wished cybertronians would step outside their own frames and oversee from the outside what was actually happening at that very instant in Nuna 5PY. Plucked from their workstations like flowers in a garden, sent off to Kaon for the purpose of entertainment for the Upper class with the bombastic excuse of 'MONEY POWER GLORY' behind it.

Prisoners inside their own bodies, trapped to fend off for themselves on a planet where no one cared about them.

Electronic signatures continued rolling off the mech's glossa like energon from a wishing well. The mechs that were chosen always did the exact same thing. They stood completely aghast for a few nanokliks, staring at the soot-stained ground in front of them in absolute shock, their frames deflating like rubber balloons, dermas parting in awe at themselves because they just couldn’t believe it.

F–03.

I–11.

D–04.

E–07.

K–15.

O–02.

When they got prodded by one of the guards, they stared at them, silently begging for compassion, but they found none. Eventually, they were pulled out of their place and shoved towards the staircase on the stage, where Bullway gleefully welcomed all the newcomer 'gladiators' just to grab another electronic chip and call out yet another designation, and so repeating the cycle.

C–01.

M–06.

B–09.

L–01.

J–02.

N–14.

Oh, there was still a globe left. The H unit.

The crowd drew in a collective breath, and then you could hear a pin drop. You were feeling nauseous, your servos clammy, your whole frame tense, your processor hurt, and your spark ached. You longed to see Starlight, you wanted to chase after the train where you sent Vaportrail off to Cyberpolis, and you didn’t know how much H–01 was desperately hoping that it wasn’t you, that it wasn’t you, that it wasn’t you.

"And the last one! H–08!"

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I an asshole because I told someone to shut the hell up about his autism?

Now, please read this before making your vote.

I (21 F) started going back to school recently, I signed up for classes late because it took so long for the paperwork and processes to be finalized. I was taking a speech class in the morning and we had to do a group project in class. Now, I spoke with the professor and told her I did not do well in group projects because I either get treated like literal crap or I do all the work. She said she didn't care, either I join a group or get a 0. Someone (20 M) was watching, we'll call him Ed for clarity. I asked if I could join Ed's group and he said yes. I tried being really nice to Ed and waited for our group members to meet with us after class. He showed me which music he liked and I said it was nice. So, during the entire time period of this project I would meet a lot with my group mates and we'd do the project. It was very difficult because professor wanted over 10 resources and a certain length for the report, then to top it off a PowerPoint we'd be presenting too. Ed did a lot of things to make me feel very uncomfortable, but my group mates ignored it and didn't say anything. He'd talk about how he visited the dark web and looked into hitmen. Then he showed us an intro to a porno. I felt very uncomfortable and mentioned it to the other girl in our group, she said she would talk with the other boys in our group about it (they all had been friends since highschool except Ed) , she said the assignment did require us to find an intro that was terrible, but maybe a porno intro was too much. The assignment in question was basically a research project about why introductions are very important. They ended up choosing some 90's tv show intro, I don't remember which one it was, just that the show got 2 seasons and the intro was too stereotypical for the time. During the time Ed would send me random "hi"s and he added/followed me on all my social media. He would comment on everything and would try to make conversations on them when I wouldn't text back. I kept the texts as bland as possible. Ed just gave me a bad vibe and kept doing shit to make me uncomfortable. Now here's where the autism part comes in. I was talking to a guy I had a crush on instagram and I guess Ed noticed. So Ed basically calls me and asks if I'm not attracted to him because he has autism. I said what the hell and hung up. It made me feel so uncomfortable then he started bringing up his autism on all my photos, posts, tweets, you name it. I didn't know what to do anymore. Ed kept blowing up my phone too. He'd message me every 5 mins and would get mad when I wouldn't answer right away. So back to my crush, Ed messaged him I wasn't interested in dating him! Like dude! So my crush says he doesn't have time for immaturity and blocks me despite me trying to defuse and apologize hundreds of times for that. So I asked for some advice and basically I got that his autism was making him act like that. I don't want to sound ableist, I'm sorry if I give off that impression, but enough was enough. I told him to fuck off or else I'd get the authorities and school involved since what he was doing was harassment. He said he can't harass since he has autism so I told him to shut the hell up about his autism since it wasn't a "get out of jail" card so i finally blocked him everywhere. I don't know if I'm being an asshole or maybe I'm just not patient or equip to handle Ed? Even then, I am in no shape or form attracted to Ed nor was I ever. Now I just never want him bothering me again.

[major-comet]

The Music in RvB: Restoration Kinda Sucks. Here's how I'd fix it.

I gave this as a presentation the other night after my first re-watch of the finale, and it was a major hit so I thought I would share it with other people who think too hard about Halo fanfiction.

Red VS Blue has some truly fantastic music in it's 21 year history, and I think that the music here was pretty weak. Obviously this post has major spoilers for RvB19 / Restoration, so be warned.

So, under the Read More is a typed up and fleshed out version of my powerpoint presentation where I will dive in and not just bitch about the musical choices, but explain how I would fix things. This is...really long, but I hope you all enjoy my thoughts :)

This will be best enjoyed if you listen to the songs I'm talking about as a refresher. For your convenience, I have input links to the songs on Youtube when necessary

So what's the problem?

Since the development of the finale overlapped with Rooster Teeth getting shut down, it's very likely that they had minimal funds. (EDIT: Yes, the finale itself was done by the time the announcement rolled around. However, the decision was almost certainly already in the works at WB. RT was shut down in part for financial reasons. It’s all connected.) I personally think this was part of why Burnie/RT was/were [reportedly] so insistent on using stock music for part of the season rather than a whole soundtrack done by Trocadero - I'm not sure they had the money to properly compensate for a full soundtrack. And maybe it was just a stupid / dick move, and had nothing to do with money at all, but that's what I choose to believe if only because it makes me feel slightly better about it.

This means that besides the stock music, the new score by Carl Thiel, the Zero song for that cameo, and Waning Moon (the Barenaked Ladies song), all we have are four re-used songs from earlier RvB - these songs being the Trocadero Grifball theme, I Say Ooh and Round One by Jeff Williams, and Vale Deah by Trocadero. There's also a David Levy composition in there somewhere according to the credits, R U Ready, but I have no idea what it is or where it plays. It's bothering the hell out of me because it does not appear to be a reused piece as far as I can tell - at least not reused from RvB. If anyone has any leads on this please reach out, because it seems crazy that there's one random possibly original David composition mixed in there. I've checked Apple Music and Soundcloud, nothing by that name.

In this very Meta focused film, neither of The Meta's themes play in any shape or form - [When] Your Middle Name is Danger by Trocadero or Plagam Extremam Infligere by Jeff Williams.

Nor do any of the character themes, really. Most of the series' iconic recurring tracks are completely absent. Tex's various themes, Carolina's theme - hell not even Blood Gulch Blues or the iconic intro music.

Were there any highlights?

Of course there were!

Considering I was going into the finale having only been spoiled on Vale Deah, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the Jeff tracks! That was totally unexpected, and really lovely.

Speaking of, I thought the use of Vale Deah was a really lovely touch. Fun fact: that song was used for the end credits of the Season 1 DVD, so it really felt like a sweet full circle moment.

I think that using a Barenaked Ladies song for that very sweet scene of Caboose, Grif, and Simmons reminiscing about Blood Gulch by the fire was a very lovely choice, and quite honestly it was my favorite scene in the whole thing. The BNL have been close to RvB and RT since damn near the beginning, and it was very nice to hear them attached to the finale in that small way.

I should also point out that the composer for the season is Carl Thiel - known for his work on Hot Fuzz and the second and third Spy Kids movies. I think he did a totally fine job. I liked the bugles that were under Sarge's death, but the rest doesn't really stand out much. Perfectly serviceable.

So, now that that's out of the way, let's break down those four returning songs a bit more - shall we?

Grifball Official Theme - Trocadero

This was a really funny choice. It's such a quick bit, but I respect Burnie's dedication to get in one last Grifball joke. Obviously, I would have preferred to hear a different song for something else, but this was totally harmless.

Vale Deah - Trocadero

Lo-fi Hip-hop beats to get divorced to.

God that scene was heartbreaking. I love this song a lot - I think a lot of Trocadero's strongest stuff is the stuff that just feels kind of melancholy. It's something Nico does really well, and I think Vale Deah is one of my favorite examples of that. Like I said above, I think this song was used really well - if I had to pick a different track for that same scene I would probably choose Half Life. While it was written during the Blood Gulch era, it wasn't really used in the show until Seasons 12 and 13 - notably, a version of it plays under Kimball's rally speech to the troops after Doyle's death. I just really like it, tbh. There's absolutely other songs that could work, but I think having it be a BGC-era track served the scene really well.

I Say Ooh - Jeff Williams

My feelings about this are pretty similar to Grifball. It was cute, it was nice to hear, but I wish they had used a different Jeff track somewhere else. Ultimately, it's pretty harmless. It is kind of an odd choice though - I'm pretty sure Jeff didn't write it for RvB. This was a song that he composed that was used in two RT Shorts (live action sketches that RT used to do). I think it would have been nicer to use one of his RvB tracks for the introduction of Niner - could have been a cute spot to use a track like I Am The Best or Forge World or hell, Come on Carolina would have been cute.

Round One - Jeff Williams

...Actually, I have a lot to say about Round One, so let's get everything else out of the way first.

Other Scenes that *should* have had returning tracks before I talk about Round One for a billion years

Sarge's death should have been scored with a version of Rally (Sarge's Speech). My vision is a version of it that's just the string section - familiar, but not enough to be distracting, and absolutely soul crushing if you do recognize it.

The scene with Wash and Dr. Grey in the hospital needed a hint of what Nico so lovingly calls the "Wash Trauma Theme" - which is closely related to the Trocadero Meta theme, fun fact. I think Limited Duty from the scene in Season 16 where Carolina tells Wash about the brain damage could have worked pretty well there.

The scene at the end with Wash and Carolina talking about Doc and the Freelancers really needed something. I think one of the variations of the Shisno trilogy Carwash theme could have worked very well.

Obviously the big scene with Tucker and Sigma on the ship would have really benefited from [When] Your Middle Name is Danger or one of the many themes that incorporates it, but I'd also throw Soul Clef XI into the ring! I think it's so interesting that the work around they came up with for not being able to get Elijah Wood back was to have epsilon!Sigma take on a more Felix-y type of voice. Partly because Felix was an incredibly ambitious villain so he fits it pretty well, but more importantly that was a very smart voice to pick to fuck with Tucker in particular! I think that was really smart, and I think having some version of Felix's theme playing during that scene would have been really cool.

Bolt by Trocadero was never used in the series proper. However it was used in this ten year retrospective that they released alongside Season 10. I highly recommend giving it a watch, because watching it now that it's Over - RvB, RT, all of it - it's honestly kind of heart breaking. They're all filled with this deep optimism about the future of the company, and hindsight is a bitch on this one. They use it in a really sweet sequence at the end where they're showing a bunch of old photos. Anyways I think this should have played in the credits after Vale Deah finished. "We only want to have a good time."

Miscellaneous Trocadero Songs I would have liked to see them find a place for that I haven't already / will not mention elsewhere

Steady Ride (Gunmetal Green) - this is THE Grimmons song ever to me. I love it so much. Also fun fact: as of the interview Burnie did with Nico on the season 10 (I think?) dvd/bluray, this was Burnie's favorite Trocadero track. And you can tell when you watch the DVD cuts of the first 6-ish seasons - it plays all the time.

I like Good Fight a lot, not sure there was a great spot for it? but still would have been nice - It's used a few times as a Wash theme, I believe.

No One is my favorite Trocadero song and I wish it could've been there Somewhere. It was the elevator-music type song that played behind Vic in BG once or twice, I think was in the season 4 credits, and also played during the weapons demonstrations in the Meta VS Carolina Death Battle. I just like it a lot, lol.

Okay let's get back to Round One.

Why they shouldn't have used Round One for the big fight in RvB Restoration

AKA: The actual bulk of the presentation

Okay so we've got some pros and cons to this track. Starting with the Pros;

It's a song from an iconic scene - the 3v1 training room fight from Season 9

Tex and Maine are both in the fight

Was a great "Oh FUCK yeah" moment for the fans

Great track

Cons;

Not really a song for Carolina or the Meta (or y'know. Tucker. He's there too), and only kind of a song for Tex

Honestly the fight makes me think about York more than anyone else, since that's the fight where he gets hurt

Not a cool thematic moment besides just Tex being a badass

Started too late into the fight - it's sad that Carolina got a cool track when she (finally!) showed up, but Tex just got generic music. Show my girl some respect :(

So what would be better?

It has to be something that makes you think of at least one of the fighters. A track that's good for multiple would be better, but not required.

I think it should start when Tex first shows up, not when her armor changes. that’s a cool moment, but it still means most of the fight is working with Thiel’s score.

It should be something with a note of thematic relevance - for example, the big moment right at the end of the fight is Tex reminding epsilon!Sigma that she's not based on the Director's memories of her failure this time; she's based on the memories of Grif, Caboose, and Simmons. And she Always kicked their asses.

Still needs to be a big "Oh FUCK yeah" moment.

While incorporating Carolina's theme would be nice, I think it's more important to get at least one of the others - but we'll do our best here. I think this is moreso a Tex v meta!Tucker fight in my heart than it is a Carolina fight.

So let's look over a few options, shall we? These are in no particular order.

Spiral - Jeff Williams

This is the song that plays during the Season 9 car chase when Maine gets shot. It incorporates Carolina's theme, because in PFL her theme is never too far behind whenever a Maine/Meta song is playing, which has always been interesting to me. It has all that freaky choral stuff that Jeff loved to use, and generally is just a great track.

Fragments - Jeff Williams

This plays during the Freelancer break-in in Season 10, and it just rocks so hard. Anything from the break-in would be cool because that was the last time Tex, Carolina, and Maine/The Meta were all in the same place, and of course was when The Meta was properly created. I think it was so sad that they used the instrumental of Round One, because the vocals are part of what makes the Jeff era of RvB soundtracks so iconic, and god this song delivers! Also this song has a kickass trumpet solo at the end.

Slingshot (from the Death Battle) - Trocadero

Man this song rules. This of course plays in the Meta VS Carolina Death Battle from Season 14. It's a very different energy from the Jeff picks, but it rocks so fucking much. This is a fight between Carolina and The Meta, and would of course be a callback to a (marginally) more recent - and extremely popular - episode of the show. If you haven't watched the Death Battle in a while you really should, it still kicks just as much ass now as it did back when I was in high school.

Literally any other song from the 3v1 Training Room Fight - Jeff Williams

This includes;

Round One (feat Lamar Hall)

Just the Bullfight part

On Your Knees

I just think the instrumental to Round One is the weakest choice from this fight tbh! Bullfight is my favorite out of the three, because it sounds the most Tex-y. The guitars are very her, and it incorporates part of her Agent Tex motif. And On Your Knees would have had the biggest "Oh FUCK yeah" factor. But honestly even just using the version of Round One with the vocals would have been way better.

EDIT TO ADD: a quick note - while it’s listed in the credits as Round One/Bullfight, that’s just how the instrumental is packaged on the OST. As far as I could tell in my two watches of it, they never actually make it to the Bullfight part of the track.

A Girl Named Tex - Trocadero

hold on, walk with me on this one.

I had a vision of Tex fighting meta!Tucker set to the "Yellow rose of Texas clad in black, lonely star tattooed upon her back. Double Tex she'll hit you like a truck. Double Tex and she'll mess you up." bit right after I watched 19 the first time and it's been haunting me ever since. (That bit starts at about 02:19)

This is her theme for the first chunk of the show - which just so happens to be the time period Grif, Simmons, and Caboose were primarily reminiscing about. It would have been cool as hell, and I can See the beginning of the fight in my head - the opening strums (what my brother so lovingly calls the Out of Mind music) when caboose is saying his line about how he brought back someone even worse than church, and then the fight starts! I can see it in my mind, it would have been so cool!

I just think there should have been more Blood Gulch era music in here.

100 Tex Battle - Jeff Williams

This doesn't get you any Meta points, but obviously it incorporates little bits of Tex's, and a lot of Carolina's theme. Twisting a Tex vs Carolina fight - obviously, Carolina vs all the Tex bots in Season 10 - into one where they're fighting alongside each other would have been really lovely and a cool full circle moment.

This song is really cool, it's such a good fight. I do think it maybe sounds a bit goofy at points for this fight, but still a cool option.

Okay so now let's go over my top three-ish picks

Ice Fight (or maybe the revelations suite?) - Jeff Williams

Jumping to the end of Season 8, we have a fight that involves Tex vs The Meta! And Wash, Doc, and all the Reds and Blues (barring Donut and Lopez. Hmm. Doesn't that sound familiar.) are there! Ice Fight rules so hard, it's so good.

And it has some of that narrative theming I was looking for! While yes, Tex does technically lose this fight - so does The Meta. And how does she lose it?

By going into the recovery unit.

The main reason I suggest the Suite instead of just Ice Fight is because I think having a touch of Red Vs Blue would have been really nice.

Mental Meta Metal - Jeff Williams

Genuinely my favorite track from season 10. If you let the song play the whole way through, it has Jeff's themes for The Meta, Carolina, and Tex in it. This plays the first time we see Maine in a fight in Season 10, and is also Sigma's first time in the field after we see him pondering Meta-stability in the classroom.

It incorporates elements from both Spiral and Plagam Extremam Infligere, which is kind of Jeff's theme for the Meta that he established back in Season 8. It also plays during the Freelancer Break-in when he's tossing Carolina off the cliff. The Latin on that translates to “to inflict an extreme blow”.

It also has a very strong statement of Carolina's theme, which could have been a great opportunity to bring her in with her theme!

Now, before I go over my final pick, let's go over what we need again;

We need a song with thematic relevance to the fight, that’s from an iconic scene, has a good energy to it, and would give fans a big “OH FUCK YEAH” moment.

Well, isn’t it obvious?

Agent Tex (/ Tex vs Tank / Hell's Angel) - Jeff Williams

The first instance of Jeff Williams’ Tex motif, later used in Hell’s Angel and Tex vs Tank, etc. I would add the opening strum commonly heard in the later iterations, but keep it generally the Agent Tex version which was used in the S8 Warehouse fight, as seen above.

This is like. The RvB scene ever. So many people saw this before they watched the show, and many more never even watched RvB - just this fight, since RT uploaded it separately from the episode because they knew it kicked so much ass. It also helped draw in folks who may have been fans of Monty Oum's other work. Fun fact: This was RT’s outro music for a really long time, too. So it really has history with the company.

Part of why I think this pick would work so well, beyond it just being Tex's theme for the Jeff Williams era, is that it would be so interesting in terms of narrative theming. The Season 8 warehouse fight was Tucker, Grif, Simmons, Sarge, and Caboose against Tex.

This whole sequence was Grif, Simmons, Caboose, Carolina, and Tex against Tucker.

This was one of the other scenes being reminisced about around the fire - you can see it as one of the clips shown during the scene. I think it would have been a really powerful moment, and a fantastic "FUCK YEAH" moment for everyone whose stuck around this long. This track is so good, and I really do think it would have been the perfect choice for this fight.

It's not even my favorite, if I was just choosing favorites I'd have picked Mental Meta Metal or A Girl Named Tex.

What have we learned? Why Were We Here?

Red vs Blue is a show with a lot of really fantastic music in it's book, and a really strong history of musical callbacks - particularly with the Meta's theme and how it's so closely tied to the motif Trocadero liked to use as "Wash Trauma" music. Making a clever callback to a song you've used before can help strengthen the thing you're trying to get across to your audience. I think it's somehing that Restoration really struggles with, which is pretty sad. But I hope you found my deep dive / analysis of what could have been interesting.

I'd really like to dive in and do a long reflection about the series as a whole, but as it stands this is around 3,000 words and if I get started on that, this post will never end. I'll probably work on that once i've actually Finished this rewatch.

Thank you for reading all of that!

[firthbetterorfirthworse]

Colin Firth (Part 2 - THE DATA)

You can read my intro here.

When I ran the data, Colin Firth had 90 acting credits on IMDB (in 40 years! The man's been busy!)

I wanted to set some parameters, so I excluded anything where the overall project was under an hour of runtime.

(DVD bonus content, short films, one off TV episodes. You'll notice Crown Court is over an hour, but as a one off TV episode, I excluded it as well. PS it was his first onscreen appearance, as a baby face cop)

I also excluded anything where he has <5 minutes of screentime.

(The record might be the 1987 Secret Garden, where he's got about 90 seconds. Honestly forgot I was watching a Colin Firth film until he showed up right before the credits)

I also excluded this

because dear god, no thank you I didn't want to watch that shit (I'm only partially kidding. I'd watched literally everything else so I watched this one too, it wasn't that bad)

This left us with a very respectable 76 films that I tracked data for!

SMOKING

The highest percentage of what I tracked was whether he smoked.

(sidenote, check out that 10 year period where he had TWENTY FOUR PROJECTS)

I assume this is common for anyone who made films in the 80s or 90s, when smoking onscreen was more prevalent. Out of curiosity I broke it up by when the film was set, because he does a lot of period pieces, and found that yes! Things do taper off as the public perception of smoking changed.

(I was very broad with what I considered a "period piece", mostly because I didn't start making this powerpoint until 10pm the night before I presented, because that's who I am as a person) The numbers didn't show for actual movies, but in the 2000s there were only 2 movies where he smoked, out of the 19 that he filmed. Probably because it shifted to instead of everyone or cool kids, only villains and bad guys smoke.

INFIDELITY

I also tracked infidelity, separating out whether his partner was unfaithful to him, or whether he was the one to be unfaithful or help a committed person be unfaithful.

These percentages are of all his movies. He gets cheated on 15.8% of the time, poor guy.

GRIEF

Did you know that in a quarter of his projects, he explores grief?

I determined that there were two main types of grief - the death of an intimate (mostly a partner, occasionally a family member), and wartime PTSD.

But that's not what you're here for. I know you. You wanna see how often he got

WET

THIRTY PERCENT. That is almost every third project!

I separated it out where the water goes on him (rain, shower, fountain, fire hose) or where he goes in the water (ocean, pond, lake, bath). A Single Man is special, because there's a scene where he's in the rain, and a scene where he's in the ocean (and in the credits, he's floating nude underwater, just saying).

That seems like a lot! I don't have any comparison data (yet, waiting for my brain to embark on another unhinged project) but that seems like more than other people.

I have one more point to share with y'all

[matiixoxo]

How to study - a guide for ♡ good grades ♡

intro

for most of my school years, I never studied. I have naturally good memory and was quick to understand things... up until maybe year 8. Then things got a bit harder, my grades started falling. I only started to truly study during year 10, and that's how I developed my various ways of studying.

i will be listing the methods i use below. these have helped me a lot and hopefully they can help you too! That said, here are my methods:

method 1 - two notebooks

this is my preferred method for sciences, aka, biology, chemistry, etc.

what i do is have two separate notebooks for each subject.

one is to use during class. its messy, disorganised, an info dump of everything the teacher says.

the second one stays at home. there, everyday after school, i rewrite my notes, this time more aesthetic, more complex, prettier. i also research online and check the powerpoints used by the teacher to make sure I'm not missing anything. I take my time with this notebook, because rewriting my notes helps consolidate them in my mind, and is a great tool for revising for tests. it also means that during class, i can pay more attention to what the teacher is saying instead of trying to do pretty titles and such.

method 2 - flashcards

i also mostly use this for sciences, it helps a lot.

flashcards are the best. You can use ones ready made on your computer, or handwrite your own. I prefer to handwrite because, even though it takes time, as I said before rewriting helps consolidate the material in your brain. After every class, I write down questions and answers on white rectangles I bought from the nearby stationary store, punch a hole in them, and add them to the ring where I have all the other flashcards.

when I'm close to a test, I keep my flashcards close to me at all times. when I am bored, or have nothing to do, I take them out and flip through them until I feel I know everything. I try to go through them at least twice a day.

this method has saved me in so many ways.

method 3 - close by

this is the method I use for history, languages, and english.

I rewrite all my notes on my computer (but you can do handwritten, i just prefer computer so i can print many copies) and then print them out. a week before a test, I start leaving the notes in places i pass by often, eg, my desk, my bathroom mirror, taped to the inside of my wardrobe. every time I see my notes, I force myself to read them all. because I pass by the places so many times, I'll be constantly rereading the same thing, helping consolidate it in my brain.

ofc, this might not be enough, so I also suggest reading your notes like this - read the first sentence. then read the first again, and then the second, and read the first again, followed by the second and then read the third, and then reread the first, second, and third sentences. then read the fourth. and reread the first, second, third, and fourth, and then the fifth, etc. this method is amazing and helps memorize stuff so easily. sorry if its confusing ♡

method 4 - exercises

this method, in my opinion, is better for subjects like maths, physics, etc.

it's pretty obvious what it is. just do and redo exercises, correct them, grade yourself, Google past papers and test yourself again. do this until you are confident that you understand everything. and even then, keep doing exercises.

method 5 - essays

this one is for English, and you might hate it. I mean, who doesn't hate essays?

what i do is, I go to chatgpt, and ask it to suggest possible essay questions on possible things that might be on my test (eg., shakespeare).

then, I write an essay (using the PEAEAL structure) and ask chatgpt to evaluate it and rate it out of ten, tell me where I should improve without giving me the exact answer to what I should improve. then I rewrite the parts that were wrong, and send it to chatgpt again. I do this until I get a 10/10. I keep doing this with multiple questions until I'm confident I know the topic well

important:

how i truly, truly, managed to get good grades was making studying enjoyable. I started romanticizing it - lighting candles, installing an aesthetic clock on my computer, spending hours on pretty diagrams, going to cafes with my notes and studying there.

get a friend to study with you too sometimes. Trust me when I say, romanticizing studying is the best study method.

[supernaturallyginger]

One Piece Live Action Review

Now that I've had time to watch and digest all the episodes it's time to discuss how I feel about the adaptation. This break down will be full of spoilers, so read at your own risk.

One Piece Live Action is good, actually.

Live action anime adaptations have a tendency to be soulless cash grabs that either don't give a shit about the source material or bank too much on just showing things the fans recognizes in place of an actual story.

OPLA loves the source material. It is clear that this production is a celebration of the manga series. The easter eggs and small nods to the series are not just there to make you point at the screen and say "There's the Thing!" They are apart of the world. Taking a note from Oda's writing to make the world of OPLA fill just as rich as the manga.

However, it is not a one for one recreation of the East Blue saga. How could it be? It would be impossible to take ~100 chapters of story and cram it into an 8 hour tv show season without it being a powerpoint of Luffy's Greatest Hits.

The story had to be changed to fit the medium and the pacing. Overall, I think the pacing is good and the changes made are for the better. But it's not perfect.

Episode 1 (aka mostly Zoro's intro):

Of the entire season, this was the weakest episode in my opinion. It had the most to introduce which is quite a challenge and it does so fairly well, but there are changes made here that I'm just not a fan of and I believe make the story weaker.

Zoro's introduction being changed to his face off with Mr. 7 is fine. It shows us him praying for Kuina, him being sassy to a bad guy, and ultimately him killing Mr. 7. Awesome start!

Unfortunately, we suffer when we cut to Zoro at Shells Town. He's only tied and imprisoned for a day, if that. And that's not even where Luffy first sees him. Instead, Luffy first sees Zoro at a bar starting a fight. Taking away the impact of him seeing Zoro's strong will after being tied up for days.

And it gets worse... Luffy just let's Zoro out, no strings attached and Zoro fetches his own swords. It takes away from the charm of the original scene where Luffy (a little bastard) blackmails Zoro into joining his crew to get his swords back. This change takes away two things: a showcase that Luffy is willing to be a stubborn shit to get what he wants and Zoro's willingness to give up his resolve because Luffy kept his word and brought him his swords.

While we're here, time for a Zoro tangent;

I'm really not a fan of how the character was adapted. This is not Zoro, this is some smug, emotionless samurai. All the beats were there. There were references to him being lost and a few jokey moments, but they are all delivered in the same monotone. Rarely is this Zoro shown to emote. Nor does he ever get to be goofy because YES! Roronoa Zoro can goofy. He's just a teenager in the East Blue saga, and yet OPLA plays him like he's alcoholic Batman.

Episode 2:

Oooh boy, give it up for episode 2! And Buggy, my little meow meow Buggy! I love him <3

As for the episode, the change from having Buggy being some shitty pirate just camped nearby and annoying the village to being a pirate who enslaved the village into being his audience was excellent! It's so fucked up and campy and even more fucked up.

Buggy's desires are for attention and fame. He wants what Shanks has and yet he's still stuck in the East Blue, desperate for a map that he can't get his own greedy hands on.

Buggy was such a stand out character in OPLA. I love Buggy in general and this version is a bit different than the pathetic Buggy we love from the manga, but he is like a evil cartoon villain chewing the scenery! I'm so glad they roped him into the plot to keep him throughout the season.

Episodes 3 & 4:

These are fine. Some people aren't fans of the changes and yeah, I agree taking away a lot of Usopp's agency sucks. It really doesn't feel like this is Usopp's arc, more like that he's just some guy who happens to be there.

But I was never a huge fan of the Syrup Village arc. I felt like it was poorly paced in the anime and the changes made at least kept the story condensed and Kuro's plan seemed more well thought out.

Biggest highlight of these episodes was Usopp! Jacob Romero does an amazing job at bringing the character to screen. He has so much charisma that it's hard not to smile when he's in a scene.

Episodes 5 & 6:

Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE the Baratie arc! And this adaptation... is fine. Much like how Usopp is an after thought in his arc, Sanji is sidelined here to make room for PLOT.

Changing the Big Bad who threatens Baratie from Don Krieg to Arlong is a great choice. Don Krieg was always a lame, forgettable villain, so having Arlong show up to help push the plot towards the next arc is smart.

Much like Zoro's introduction, I'm not happy with Sanji's either. Specifically with how he meet Luffy. The scene where Sanji is the crew's waiter and has to fight some rowdy pirates is charming. But then Luffy say, "He's a great fighter." and UGGGHHHHHH

Luffy does NOT recruit Sanji for his strength. Nor does he recruit him for his cooking abilities. He recruits him because he is KIND. This is the same gripe I have with the Zoro intro. Luffy sees Zoro fight before recruiting him. When really he's supposed to want Zoro after seeing him tied up and learning that Zoro was captured because he saved a little girl from Helmeppo's dog. While Zoro and Sanji are the two strongest fighters on Luffy's crew, he never recruited them because they could fight.

ANYWAY

Luffy does see Sanji's kindness, only after seeing him fight and trying his food, and the two actors have great chemistry on screen. It's easy to believe that they are becoming fast friends and you can see in Taz Skylar's acting how much Sanji admires Luffy right off the bat. It's cute!

Unfortunately while Sanji is sidelined in his own arc, so two are the reveal of his backstory and the famous All Blue dream talk. His backstory is revealed in a random trauma dump to the crew which is only used to further the Zoro losing to Mihawk story. And the All Blue talk is just dropped randomly and has nothing to do with Sanji learning to pursue his own dreams. That's just done with a short shouting match between him and Zeff. Whatever.

Episodes 7 & 8:

Arlong Park was a good place to end the season. And the adaption of the arc is once again fine. Nami's backstory is rushed and the change to having no one in the town knowing her true intentions is a weird one.

BUT! Something I hadn't mentioned before, the sets are really fun! Arlong Park is a good example of this because it takes the design from the manga/anime and adds its own twist. The twist? Making Arlong Park look like a fairway at an amusement park. Which is a fun (horribly depressing) nod to something fans of the series can pick up on.

Other notable sets are Buggy's circus tent, Kaya's Tim Burton themed mansion, and the Baratie. God the Baratie is an amazing set! The detail of the lighthouse on top is *chefs kiss*

Something else I didn't mention before, is that there is a B plot throughout all 8 episodes following Garp in pursuit of Luffy while training Koby and Helmeppo. It's loosely based on a cover story the manga ran early on and it's fine.

The characterization of Garp is a little odd, as he seems more strict and book smart than his manga counterpart. (I cheered when we saw him finally throw some canon balls!!) But it all lead up to a moment of him meeting Zeff. Two men of the older generation. A former pirate and a marine sitting down over a glass of wine and steaks. And they discuss having to accept the changing world when really the conversation is about accepting their boys moving on follow their dreams. It's a simple scene, but it's one of my favorites.

NOW the Arlong Park battle is good, if not a little short because they have to make time for the Garp stuff. There is one line in particular that really bothers me. There is a moment where Luffy agrees with Arlong and says something like, "Maybe I can't defeat you." and... that's not Luffy.

Arlong Park has one of Luffy's most iconic moments. A moment that defines his character and the entire series.

And I think that's how I feel about the OPLA as a whole.

It's good, but it's not One Piece. Well- it's not the One Piece we already know.

This Luffy is different. OPLA Luffy has a moral compass. He has snappy lines and has maybe even read a book in his life time. He's not the same Luffy from the manga, and that's okay. Inaki Godoy is a joy to watch on screen and his version of Luffy is just as wonderful in his own way.

One Piece Live Action is witty and very charming. Filled with great action scenes, lively sets & costumes, and actors who are giving it their all in every scene.

Despite some changes I disagree with, this was an amazing adaption that is a celebration of the fans and an introduction to the wacky world of One Piece to new viewers.

[just-avocado]

So I stayed up until like four last night writing down the lyrics for the Circe Saga because it’s incredible and Spotify didn’t have lyrics yet but since tumblr doesn’t want me to post pics rn for some reason I’ll just try again later and instead talk about the songs!!! :D

Puppeteer- The intro instrumental lives in my head to rent and so does Eurylochus’s rap part, I need to know what he was going to tell Odysseus he sounded so vulnerable- I swear this guy is climbing up my favorite characters list, I do find it interesting how he wanted to leave the crew behind with Circe when later in Mutiny he confronted Odysseus for “trading the lives of his crew” in order to get home so hopefully that means he had a change and heart and wasn’t just being a hypocrite, I also love how the Circe Saga as a whole but especially Puppeteer and There Are Other Ways really highlight how terrible Odysseus feels about everything he’s done, everyone he’s failed or killed since leaving home, I need to know how he goes from hating himself to embracing all he’s done

Uhh favorite lines!

“Look at all we’ve lost and all we’ve learned, Every single cost is so much more than what we’ve earned” SING IT Eurylochus

Wouldn’t You Like- HEHEHEH I absolutely adore the synthwave-y aspects of the song I’m a huge lover of synthwave vibes as of recent, I would genuinely vibe to the instrumental all day long, Mr. Jalapeño release the instrumental versions pLplzplz 🙏, I’m sure we all know by know that Troy is the real Hermes there’s no other way he can bring THAT much charisma to the role, I’ve seen charisma before but never like that oh my god, I also love his unhinged laugh so much idk how he does it but I want to learn, also when I was writing the lyrics I had to stop for a sec and be like “is this song just Hermes giving his great grandson drugs ooor-“ because that’s 100% something he would do

Favorite lines…

Just the entire “Here in the root of this flower, There lies such a power, To take her on” segment of the song it’s just 👌

Also the part where he’s going OOOhoOhohAhahdph while the ensemble sings his verses his voice is so BEAUTIFUL and POWERFUL oh my GOD

“Don’t thank me friend! You very well may die” I chuckled so loud lmao

And his little “Good luck 😉” he’s so silly he knows shit is going to go down

Done For- okay was the lyric for this song always “I just ate a flower, one that claims your power” cuz I could have sworn it was drains your power but I might just be crazy, also chimera supremacy I love that Jorge was able to find a way to implement it, Jorge and Talya’s voices sound so great together I need more 😭, I also love that this song starts to hint at more depth behind Circe’s actions idk who out here thinks she’s a meh one-note/one-off villain but she’s not!! I’ll make a 50 page PowerPoint on this don’t test me!!

Fav lines…

“You’ve lost.” Okay Odysseus 🤡

“My nymphs are like my daughters, I protect them at all costs, The last time we let strangers live, We faced a heavy loss.” This!! This is what I’m saying she feels like she has no choice other than to hurt people so that the people she loves will stay safe, she’s literally Odysseus further down the line! it’s so fascinating to see a character like this facing off against the main protagonist bc at this point in the story we don’t know what kind of person he will become yet and yet Jorge shows us with Circe Ahdldhnsbdk

There Are Other Ways- Okay I’ll be honest, this song was the last one on my radar not bc I didn’t like it but because I was just looking forward to others so much more and it was also the one I intentionally heard less clips of because I wanted at least one song that I didn’t already know half of the lyrics to 💀 ANYWAY THIS ONE IS THE BEST SONG IN THE CIRCE SAGA CHANGE MY MIND (I’m so sorry Troy I love your voice but this song is simply better) Dude the lyrics go soso hard in this one, I’m such a sucker for one character having like a big emotional moment while another is like singing/backing them up in the background and there’s so much of that here, and the call backs? Both to earlier songs in the saga AND Just A Man, my favorite song Just A Man? Every call back to that song is just so RAW I LOVE IT, I don’t know a ton about Greek mythology outside of Epic so I dont know if Circe and Posideon have this past beef or something but I do find it interesting that it’s only after he is mentioned that Circe decides to help Odysseus but I also think it’s larger due to how he reminds her of herself with how he misses Penelope, UM THE BEAT DROP after the underworld is mentioned for the first time??? CHILLS SHIVERS EVERYTHING dude I love how the entire atmosphere changes so much because yes this could be Odysseus’ only change to make it home safely but it’s also so much more dangerous than the shitty situation they’re already in so there’s not even time for relief or a breath of air like he’s IN it now there’s no going back

Best lyrics omfg…

“There are other roads to the soul~” Talya, Tayla. This is why some of us can’t sing, the universe needs balance and you are the only explanation for that

“Want to save your men from the fire? Show me that you’re willing to burn” 😐 AAAAAH

“But there’s no puppet here” get it puppeteer? Puppet here? I thought it was clever lol

“Back at home, my wife awaits for me, She’s my everything, My Penelope” The yearning in his voice made me feel things

“So I beg you Circe, Grant us mercy, And let us puppets leeeeave~” We have literally never seen Odysseus use this sort of tactic before to get his way but I genuinely think he’s being genuine here, no play, he only wants to see his wife and son again, he’s so close to giving up hope, he’s losing his spirit, he’s searching for any sliver of help even from a women who wants him dead

“I know of a brilliant prophet… Problem is that prophets dead.” Again the cord or piano key I think it was was so AH SO GOOD AH I am foaming at the mouth for when we start getting teasers for the Underworld Saga

“Maybe showing one act of kindness, Leads to kinder souls down the road” someone make an au where Polities and Circe become besties she needs a friend like him but don’t we all, but seriously THIS is what I’m saying!! She is future Odysseus! Only difference being is that she’s so tired of hurting people at this point she decides to take a chance and give help rather than pain in the hopes that it will somehow contribute to a kinder world

“Maybe one day the world, Will need a puppeteer no more” this is her plea for help, she yearns for the day where she won’t need to be a monster in order to protect her nymphs, for Odysseus his plea was for him and his men to leave, they both showed such vulnerability in this song in different ways its ART ITS ART *gun shot*

“I have been in love once before” She even had her own Penelope guys, this is the true reason why she decided to help Odysseus methinks

Okay uhhh I think that’s it ^_^ Circe Saga rules, it might be my fav saga I’ll decide soon

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Personality through quote

Thanks to @theprissythumbelina here and @mysticstarlightduck here!

Rules: give a quote from your OCs based on the prompt, then tag people with a new prompt!

[A quote about pets/animals]

Lexi: "Animals are so cute! I would love to get a pet one day! Not sure what I'd get though...or how much is too many... I think I can keep up with at least one dog and a cat!"

Maddie: "I can literally turn into animals. Yeah, of course they're cool. Big cats are my favorite. Did you know that cheetahs can't retract their claws? And also, the smallest tiger is the Sumatran. And also snow leopard's paws act like snowshoes? And--"

Ash: "Our house is a little crowded for an animal right now. I'm not sure how responsible I'd be with them, anyway, haha."

Gwen: "Oh, um. A few months ago our cat got really sick and...well there wasn't really a humane option. Um, anyways, we're not quite ready for another pet right now."

Robbie: "With my parents' schedule and me and Sammy losing track of time and everything around us, please don't get us a pet. Akash would have to take care of it, and I don't wanna do that to him."

Akash: "I would love to have a dog one day. Never had one growing up due to, well, everything going on. But I'd really like a pet one day."

Jedi: "I have always wanted a pet ferretsnake, actually. My sister wanted a kitsune. Having both would have been wonderful."

Carmen: "Atsila had Custos, and that's the closest I'll have to a pet." (She loves Custos and Custos loves her)

[A quote about their relationship with money (in the past and nowadays)]

Lexi: "I mean, I'm not suuuper familiar with how money works, but I definitely will be one day. Knowing myself, I'd probably be very organized. Whenever my mom gives me money to like buy something at school or the mall or whenever I go out with friends in general, I always budget beforehand and plan accordingly. But if I'm secure enough, I'd love to buy some clothes or supplies but also gifts for my friends!"

Maddie: "Similar to Lexi, I guess. I mean, I think I'd save up money so I can use it on big things later! A Lego set or something like that. But the patience for that sounds literally impossible."

Ash: "I am also fond of the idea of saving to splurge later. Splurging sounds fun, but you can't do it without saving unfortunately."

Gwen: "My parents have saved money for me to go to college since I was born. I think that's a noble cause. I think using money on schooling or pursuing what you care about, what your purpose is...that's good."

Robbie: "My mom has given me so many lectures about having a secured footing is important, and I get it, but man, it's hard to focus on that. I'd love to go on exciting experiences and all that. Me, Akash, Sammy, Lexi, Gwen--like all of us traveling around the world together. That sounds dope. Awesome. But Mutti says I have to save for that. I really need to focus more on her lectures. Maybe if she made a PowerPoint...."

Akash: "I am probably going to have to do Robbie's taxes and also give him financial advice. I have it in my four year plan for high school to take a semester long financial course in junior year. I plan to use that information wisely."

Jedi: "Saving money for a good cause is something I have always done. My education, Inutilia rights, the Aequales, charities. I believe money can do as much good in the world as anything else."

Carmen: "Pfft, I'm responsible with my money. I'd be an accountant if I had to [she would be miserable]. Make sure everything is paid off, then maybe spend some money on making life a little more comfortable. Like home organizers. Because some people can't seem to pick up after themselves."

Tagging @sparrow-orion-writes @talesofsorrowandofruin @writernopal @awritingcaitlin @winterandwords @drchenquill @keysandopenmind @pluppsauthor @pluto-murphy-writes @writingamongther0ses @willtheweaver @calicohyde + anyone who'd like to

Your prompt: [A quote about a hot summer day.]

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

[trifecta-trifight]

Loading... Loading.... *beep*

Coming over the waves it is your number 1 Trifecta bringing you all of the most important news of Splatsville today! I'm one of your three hosts- the overall better inkfish in the room, the amazing Ayano! And I'm join by my a little bit worse- co-hosts, Katsumi and Harumi! wow... you really gave yourself a grand intro- Just let her have this- we were not even meant to record today. Which reminds me, why are we doing this out of the blue..? usually we take the time to plan before just hopping on recording. SHHH SHUT- Its breaking news!!! reporting on this could make us rich!!! here- put this on- How the did you even get these photos...? Im more concerned on what language this is- Just put it on-!!!

Is this even real? it looks like one of those 'bait and click' videos you told me about...

You mean clickbait? no! its real! Deep Cut is gone for now! so we have no clue what's going to happen with splatfests and the news!

Realistically would they just- use Off the Hook or the Squid Sisters? they used to do Inkopolis news... I even hear whispers of the Squid Sisters appearing in Splatsville more, so they must be close by just in case. (how did she even get these photos anyway...? they are oddly high quality... despite this looking like it was made in Powerpoint) Yea- but imagine if we did the Splatsville reports?! We could be discount Deep Cut!

(is that even a good thing-?) That is why I so graciously decided to open funny asks and stuff so we can up our production!!! We could do news too! It will be amazing! You two will love it-! Thanks for volunteering us... You are welcome-! I think that's all the time we have... I have to mentally prepare for more uploads... so... Oh I got this- ahm- 'come turf or zone we are Trifecta Trifight, keeping everything under control!' (we are not using that-) (I'll workshop it!) just stop recording!

*Beep*

[starlostlix]

Finally adding my Intro post:

Hi, I'm Alyssa!

- Age - 18

- Lesbian, She/They

- AuDHD

- Main focus of my page will probably be MTP and BSD with some other things I like on occasion. Sometimes dip into sociology and psychology analysis, i do general analysis of themes/ideas in the show I mentioned and sometimes i just do funny posts or highlights of trips in the future or even casual reviews im not sure yet.

- Not spoiler free for BSD/MTP manga!!!

- DNI - z!0nist, hom0phobe, r4cist etc.

- Anime/manga I like - Bungo Stray Dogs (both), Moriarty the Patriot (both), Yuri On Ice (anime), Case Study of Vanitas (anime), SK8 the Infinity, (will update as I watch more)

- Other shows - Arcane, TGCF (donghua only currently), Derry Girls, Heartbreak High (Netflix version), Renegade Nell, Stranger Things, Glee, Heartstopper, Geek Girl, Squid Game etc. (some of these i like more intensely than other lmao, will update as I find any others)

- Kpop fan, Stray Kids are my favourites, also love ATEEZ, TXT, Purple Kiss, Xdinary Heroes, Twice, Loona, BTS, P1Harmony. Listen to a lot of other kpop artists on the regular like Kiss of Life, and many many kpop artists overall.

- Other artists I enjoy - Boygenius + their solo music, Taylor Swift, Conan Gray, Babymetal, Laufey, Maneskin, Fiona Apple, Chappell Roan etc.

- Other things I like/have - I love collecting stuff especially Kpop albums and manga, I ADORE ROLLERCOASTERS (special interest of mine), love me some lego (flowers sets especially), Boba tea enjoyer (specifically chocolate flavour), have a crystal collection I do not know how to use (they're just pretty), I have a collection of signed books if that's something you find cool, i'm starting to gain a sizeable amount of plushies for the first time since I was young, etc.

- Things I want to do/like to do - write powerpoints about my interests, infodump about things i like (majority of my posts), would like to try cosplay (either Chuuya or Sherlock), have tried scrapbooking before idk if i'm any good at it?, make somewhat mediocre edits on tiktok using basic capcut, occasional lyric analysis, i enjoy organising things too. and sometimes the occasional silly post as a treat.

- Kins - Quinni Gallagher-Jones (HBH), Robin Buckley (Stranger Things), Reki Kyan (SK8), (add more in the future when I understand kins a bit better)

[timeagainreviews]

From Page to Screen: The Star Beast

Growing up can feel like a lifelong process. I’m an adult, but I’m obsessed with a time-travelling alien show. Part of you will always feel like a kid, but another part knows the past is the past. While I may fantasise about revisiting my past like the Doctor, I admit it wouldn’t feel the same. I’ve changed. The ‘80s could never feel like the present. Every hairdo dated. Every new record in the shop window is a relic. Childhood always stays with you, but as an ever further memory. Understand then the implication that when my household of 30-40-somethings finished watching “The Star Beast,” we were like children.

In my “The Eve of the 60th,” article, I talked about how I don’t have a childhood nostalgia for Doctor Who. But sometimes, the things we love inspire a childlike enthusiasm within us. Somehow, Russell T Davies managed to retcon my past. In this timestream, Natalie has childhood nostalgia for Doctor Who. Using the TARDIS, RTD has managed to time travel back to our hearts. There’s something warm and fuzzy (and I don’t just mean the Meep) in my chest and I’d like to talk about it.

There are some Doctor Who reviewers who seem to think it’s impossible to talk about the Doctor Who episodes they enjoyed. But if we learned anything from the Jedi, it’s that walking the path of the light side is harder. Snarky shittiness is fun to partake in because it’s easy and immediately gratifying. But I’m not here for shittiness. I’m here for the love. It feels so good to say “I loved The Star Beast,” but it doesn’t mean I don’t have notes. I started out writing about the Chibnall era from a place of enthusiasm. I can’t help what happened after the fact.

My enthusiasm at the beginning of the Chibnall era isn’t a bad place to start this review. Because after “The Woman Who Fell to Earth,” I still possessed said enthusiasm. Seeing Jodie Whittaker as the first woman Doctor was a joyous experience. And seeing David Tennant in the TARDIS again was just as joyful. It’s a fabulous feeling, but I was burned the last time I felt this way. I further temper my expectations because, as I said, I do have notes.

When you spend a large portion of your time either watching, listening, reading, writing, or thinking about Doctor Who, you forget that to some, it’s just a TV show. It’s one of the many they try and watch but miss the odd episode. So while I may roll my eyes at the goofy PowerPoint presentation at the beginning of Saturday’s episode, I have to remind myself that not everyone has been obsessed with Donna Noble for years. Some people might need a little reminder. Fine. While the casuals and newbies are getting caught up on the Nobles, I’ll be over in the corner frothing.

Previously I mentioned that I was withholding judgement for Murry Gold’s new intro music until I heard the full mix. Now that I’ve heard it I can say I liked it much better. It’s far more bombastic with proper engineering. The intro sequence itself was colourful but safe. I enjoyed watching the TARDIS skim the perimeters of the time vortex like a surfer catching a wave. It’s ironic that Dan Slott admitted to writing The Silver Surfer to be like Doctor Who, as it was the Silver Surfer I thought of during this sequence. People have been musing that the Disney influence may have Doctor Who going down the path of the MCU, but this one is pure coincidence. The intro is stunning and fits this exciting new era perfectly.

It’s not as though “The Star Beast,” were an adaptation of a Marvel comic published in 1980. Oh it was? Oh right. Well they got us on this one! Surely they wouldn’t copy the MCU further by hiring the directors of Loki. Oh they have? Oh right. Well at least they didn’t do a Marvel Studios type of production logo that shows different characters across the franchise to play before every new show. Oh they did? Well damn, I guess they are going Marvel. It makes sense when you consider that many people said Loki was doing Doctor Who better than Doctor Who was doing Doctor Who. And on top of that, “The Star Beast,” is a fantastic comic in its own right. I would say Russell T Davies is a mad genius for mining gems from the extended Whoniverse, but he’s done it before with “Human Nature.” My only regret is that this somewhat undoes the continuity of the comics. The nerd in me can’t help but acknowledge the fact that the same comic recently canonically destroyed the Thirteenth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, and put the Fourteenth Doctor on course to Skaro where we saw him briefly in the Children in Need special. Timestreams.

“The Time Beast,” has now gone the way of “Shada.” Both stories take place across multiple Doctors and multiple forms of media. Not only is there an audio adaptation of Shada featuring Paul McGann, there’s also an audio adaptation of The Star Beast starring Tom Baker. Add the upcoming Target novelisation and you’ll soon have both stories in book form. It’s the fandom’s new “The Doctor’s Daughter was played by the Doctor’s daughter who then went on to marry the Doctor who played her father in the episode ‘The Doctor’s Daughter.’” Get ready to hear that ad nausea. All of this is to say I love when Doctor Who acknowledges its other media and this one was well played.

This adaptation of the Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons comic is a loose one. While the Meep and Wrarth Warriors look fantastic, some minor liberties have been taken with the story. Yet it’s hard not to admire how Russell T Davies has woven the Noble family and a narrative about gender identity in such a way that it feels seamless. Themes of duality and stereotyping are heavy throughout this episode. Speaking of gender identity, I totally called it with Rose’s choice of name. I said I hoped they would use the trans experience of choosing ones own name to tell a wibbly wobbly timey wimey story, and they did. But this also brings me to my biggest sticking point in the entire episode. I’ve seen a lot of people online using the word “clunky,” and that’s exactly what I would call it. Having Rose choose her name from a latent human/Time Lord meta-crisis going on inside her was great. However, having it be a factor in her gender identity left me a bit cold. It may have worked better if it had been implied that Rose was non-binary at some point before.

Ultimately, it feels like a cis male trying to write an empowering trans narrative and missing the mark a bit. It’s like your uncle using the wrong language to awkwardly say “I support you.” It’s in no way problematic, but it could have done with being passed through a few different trans people’s hands before going into production. Donna’s line "Anyone has a go, I will be there and I will descend,” is the Doctor Who equivalent of David Lynch telling transphobes to “fix their hearts of die,” and I want it on a pin. As a trans woman, I do appreciate the trans representation, but it didn’t quite stick the landing. Moving forward, my personal preference would be to just let trans characters exist. We don’t need you to constantly point out our differences. On the other hand, we did get what seems like very positive disability representation. My disabled Whovian friends all seem to agree that having Shirley Anne Bingham with her rocket chair and a wheelchair-accessible TARDIS made them feel seen. One out of two ain’t so bad, Russell. 

It’s funny to me that it took the Doctor becoming a man again to even start asking questions about gender. Chris Chibnall felt as though he was afraid of bringing up the Doctor’s new gender. It felt very “I don’t see colour, I just see people,” like mentioning the Doctor’s gender would have been the real sexism. I can think of three moments where the Doctor’s gender comes up in the Chibnall era- when the Doctor called herself daddy, when Captain Jack thought Graham was the Doctor, and when the Sontarans thought the Doctor was a companion. It wasn’t until Juno Dawson, a trans woman, wrote “The Good Doctor,” did we get a great conversation about the Doctor’s non-binary nature. I guess “The Star Beast,” was right, trans people are fucking magic.

Seeing David Tennant in his new threads with a sonic screwdriver that draws shields in the air was very cool. He and Catherine Tate haven’t missed a step, and of course, they haven’t, they’ve been playing the same characters on Big Finish for years. But people still felt the need to point it out, so here’s me doing it too. That’s quality. Their meeting again played out almost exactly as I predicted it would in my article “The Future of Doctor Who.” The Doctor is going to see Donna behind some packages, freak out when he realises it’s her, but come running like a puppy dog at the name “Rose.” Only in this instance, the Doctor is torn away from this intriguing discovery by what appears to be an alien craft crashlanding in London. Donna, of course, remained oblivious, as per the terms and conditions of the the Doctor’s neural block he placed on her 14 years ago.

This “new” Doctor prefers to play things close to his chest at first. He avoids Donna and UNIT alike. He still doesn’t know why he has this face again, or why out of all the people in time and space, the TARDIS decided to put that face in front of Donna Noble. If there is a reason, he’s not going to assume what it is, or who might be responsible. I loved watching the Doctor question Shaun about Donna. The fact that the Doctor still remembers the name Nerys after hundreds of years made me laugh out loud. It’s nice to see the Doctor being Doctory. He’s skulking around. He’s getting clues. He’s not making assumptions. Already he’s learned that the rocket hadn’t crashed. Something is not as it seems, and the Doctor intends to find out what.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town we meet Fudge who tells Rose about the alien space pod that landed near their houses. Fudge is one of the few characters who kept his name from the comic. They don’t even call the Meep "Beep" anymore (sort of.) As in the comics, Fudge is an excitable boy interested in science and space. He also plays a major part in helping the episode feel like classic Davies era stuff. One thing we often missed from both the Moffat and Chibnall era was the human cost of alien invasion. Watching Fudge’s reaction to the streets of London turning molten was a nice reminder that the danger was real. Seeing the BBC news correspondant being thrown into the back of a UNIT van made me happier than you might expect. I was reminded of Trinity Wells giving us news briefs. I missed the clever ways in which Davies made the world feel involved in his stories while also getting a bit of exposition out of it. It was at that moment that I realised RTD and Doctor Who were officially back. 

While going back to the house to grab her phone, Rose meets the Meep hiding amongst her bins. Right away she feels kinship to the Meep who she sees as a misanthrope hiding from oppressors. Of course, she gives the Meep sanctuary. Even though the E.T. moment of Donna discovering the Meep among Rose’s “gonks,” had been played over and over throughout the trailer, it still made me laugh. Catherine Tate has great comedic timing, and watching Rose attempt to draw her attention away was charming. Everyone but Shaun seems hellbent on hiding aliens from Donna, especially Sylvia. I found Sylvia’s transition into a sort of June Whitfield à la Ab Fab entertaining. She’s just let herself in making enormous sausage rolls and tuna curry.

The Doctor says things like “I absolutely love her,” now. Even Sylvia feels warmer toward Donna. Her insistence that the Meep doesn’t exist, even as its holding onto Donna’s leg doesn’t come from her old streak of meanness, but rather from a place of protection. She’s horrified by the prospect of Donna seeing an alien and it burning up her mind. She’s carried the facade this long. This falls into line with the character growth she began experiencing toward the end of the original RTD run and I am happy she didn’t regress.

Most of the Donna Noble story remains in tact and accounted for. Shaun? Still her husband. The lottery winnings? Gave it away. Nerys? Still a snake in the grass, despite the accident. The only one missing is Wilf who the Doctor fears is dead. Honestly, who can blame him though? The only times people say “He’s no longer with us,” are usually when someone has either left their job or died. I guess it’s a nice fakeout for people who didn’t see behind-the-scenes photos from some guy on Twitter. We are given hints that we’ll see him at some point, probably in “The Giggle.” I liked the implication that UNIT has put him up in some comfortable digs. It’s nice to imagine that Wilf and Benton are probably playing chess in a posh retirement home somewhere.

UNIT is back in a major way, and it appears to have some new players. I feel like we’ll see more of Major Singh and Colonel Chan. It would be nice to get some recurring UNIT soldiers again. I feel like they missed a chance with Ross Jenkins in “The Poison Sky.” Kate Stewart is set to return, but replacing Osgood is Shirley Anne Bingham. I loved Osgood, but after seeing Shirley take those soldiers out with darts hidden in her chair I thought “Oh no, I think I fancy her.” She’s got a mischievous air about her that makes her feel a bit cheeky. It will be a lot of fun to see what Ruth Madeley brings to the table. I hope they don’t shunt her off as quickly as the rest of them. 

After a daring escape through the lofts of several people’s homes, the Doctor and the Noble-Temples escort the Meep to safety. But after witnessing the Wrarth Warriors’ tendency toward non-lethal force, the Doctor begins to piece together who might have taken over the minds of Colonel Chan and his men. The Doctor decides it’s time for the Meep to plead its case in the court of a parking garage. After gathering two Wrarth Warriors as witnesses, the Doctor dons a barrister’s wig and invokes Shadow Proclamation Protocols 15, P and 6. And dammit wasn’t it good to hear David Tennant invoke the Shadow Proclamation again? Blissful, even.

One thing I particularly liked about the barrister’s wig is that it calls back to the Fourth Doctor in one of my favourite stories- “The Stones of Blood.” Not only was it good to see the Fourth Doctor referenced in what was originally a Fourth Doctor story, but it also mirrors the circumstances of the original trial quite well. In both cases, an evil villain is posing as a harmless innocent and it’s on the Doctor to prove it. Like the black sun of the comics, a Psychedelic sun turned Meepkind into hideously evil monsters. Their once gentle natures now give way to sadism and conquest. The last remaining Meep, the worst of them all, stands before us today. If you had read the comic book like I did, you would have known this to be true, but up until the reveal, my wife would have died for the Meep. She was mostly alone in this as everyone else saw the Meep’s “I will either die or turn evil,” t-shirt quite early on. Interestingly, some people were actually drawn in by the Meep’s lies.

Casting off its ruse, the Meep’s face contorts as it produces a laser gun from its marsupial pouch. I absolutely love the transition from Puss In Boots to Dr Evil’s cat. The marriage of CGI and practical effects had me wondering how they managed the change. I imagine they had two separate sculpts for the head. One cutesy floof and one twisted grin. I know it’s difficult work, but I love an old fashioned person in a costume. It was cool to get a glimpse into the performance with the Cicely Fay interview on Doctor Who Unleashed. As a person interested in practical effects, this was right up my alley. It’s nice to see that no matter how big Doctor Who gets, they’ll still use a performer in a suit.

The Meep takes the Doctor and company back to its ship to keep them as an in-flight meal. But before the Meep can get them all on the ship, UNIT intercepts leaving only the Doctor and Donna onboard. It’s up to them to stop the Meep before the ship’s dagger drive takes out 9 million Londoners upon lift-off. Evoking the MCU once again, the Doctor deprograms Donna like she’s the Winter Soldier or Black Widow calming the Hulk. The code awakens the Doctor Donna which causes her to exhaust artron energy. We get another classic David Tennant yells at God moment as yet another member of the Noble family is separated by glass. But just as things begin to feel hopeless we learn that not only is Donna not dead, but Rose is also part human and part Time Lord. Using her brief taste of Time Lord consciousness, Rose fully disables the Meep’s ship and the molten cracks from the dagger drive powering up disappear. This was so cheesy and I adored it. Classic RTD right there.

A recurring argument I see in favour of Chris Chibnall is to point out how people often complain about things the Thirteenth Doctor does that other Doctors also did. According to this theory, every Doctor has their own “giving a brown man up to the Nazis,” moment. You know, kind of like when the Eleventh Doctor murdered Solomon by teleporting a bomb onto his ship as he was escaping. He could have teleported the bomb anywhere but chose murder. Who was it that wrote “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” again? Chris Chibnall? Oh. We do get a bit of that here with the Fourteenth Doctor ejecting the Meep from its ship. But the Meep was refusing to know when it was beaten. It’s the Sycorax all over again- no second chances. It’s dumb to call the Doctor a pacifist, but is it better that the Twelfth Doctor pushed the Half-Faced Man in “Deep Breath,” or that he talked him into jumping? These are some pretty heavy concepts, but no, the Nazi thing was still worse.

I was glad to see the human/Time Lord meta-crisis taken care of in this first story. It’s nice that Donna is out of the woods and able to have some final adventures with the Doctor before she bows out again. It would have been kind of distracting for them to have to keep worrying about her mind burning every time someone said the word Doctor. It also allows us to fully enjoy the TARDIS reveal. Watching David Tennant run through the slick new interior like a little boy was euphoric. It was cute to get confirmation that even the Doctor has a moment of discovery whenever there is a new console. You always assume the Doctor just knows how to pilot any configuration of TARDIS controls, but even he sometimes has to ask “What’s that?” The TARDIS redesign was well worth the wait. Such a gorgeous set. It’s easily my second favourite TARDIS interior after the Eighth Doctor’s. The changing colour of the round things will offer so many different moods. White for normal function, red for the cloister bell, and purple for the disco party. The Doctor should get some roller skates now. Maybe if they visit the ‘70s at some point. I pray there’s a mirror ball.

Along with a possible mirror ball, the new TARDIS console comes decked with a coffee machine. If you’ll recall “The Doctor’s Wife,” the TARDIS doesn’t always take the Doctor where he wants to go, but always takes him where he needs to be. This means that the TARDIS dropped the Doctor off next to Donna, redecorated knowing about Donna’s tendency toward spilling coffee on computers, and offers her a cup of coffee. That’s some 3-D chess there, old girl. But wherever it is she was so keen to take them in “The Wild Blue Yonder,” she seems as equally keen to escape. From some of the stills I've seen, I wonder if it isn't some sort of evil TARDIS they've found themselves inside.

Judging by Davies' past penchant for planting the seeds of future stories across multiple seasons, it may be a while before we meet the Meep's cryptic boss. Will this boss have anything to do with the woman in Dubai who is gaga over Rose's gonks? Was that just a red herring? Perhaps this boss is actually the Toymaker and I'm overthinking it. But why would he be interested in two-hearted creatures? Is he searching for two-hearted species to track down the Doctor for some revenge? I have so many questions! As wonderful as it is to be curious about Doctor Who again, we'll still have to wait until next week. But the longer wait is over. Doctor Who is back, and isn’t that exciting?

[vacantgodling]

climbs into your askbox

hi i'm responding a little late to your request for wip questions but that's okay

anyway. head empty rn, but i'd love to hear a bit more about a wip of yours i've been curious about!!! vampires don't take road trips. i would like to learn more. i realize that's not a specific question so: looking at the main cast, what's something each of them would hate to be *seen* as and why? (i.e. if someone would hate to be seen as stupid, or would hate to be seen as unreliable, something like that)

or alternatively. silly question. rate the main cast in order from "will show up exactly on time on the dot to the function" to "will like clockwork show up at least an hour later than they were told to." feel free to elaborate on your rankings if you want!

this took me forever to answer im so sorry 💀💀💀

eee you are always welcome in my inbox :3c

i did make a powerpoint intro for this wip too so i link just so you can stare at it later lmaoo -> here

but these are both EXCELLENT questions, and for once i may have answers bc ive had these ocs for like a decade 💀

so, ig if we stick to the main main cast (which ngl is hard to determine for me but i suppose that’d be darren, dave, liz, olice, and veronica… at least for the first half of the book lmaooo) — for the easy question of who’s showing up on time versus who is showing up late in that order:

dave, veronica, olice, darren, liz

as for why:

dave is a lawyer and a generally punctual person and is somewhat anxious. he prefers to be 5 minutes early.

veronica is a wannabe socialite and so her image is contingent on if she shows up on time and so she’ll be there on the dot.

olice is used to her mothers antics and she feels like it’s rude to be ridiculously late so she tries to be there between on time or 5-10 minutes late at the most.

darren is more lax and tends to get distracted so if he shows up like 30 minutes late to the function it’s chill. the only time he’s on time is when dave is with him LOL

liz is an Actual socialite but she doesn’t care about that or social events in general so she tends to be “fashionably late” and people “forgive” her bc of her status 🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️

for the harder question:

DARREN: the way this is actually a hard question for my actually emotionally intelligent son LMAOOO. i think in general he hates being seen as dramatic, or someone who makes a big deal out of things. he’s a chill guy, and for his own sanity he prefers to stay chill if and when possible. the times that he’s had outbursts or had people accuse him of being overly dramatic are the few things that haunt him in life. i think the reason as to why… it’s a bit hard to say. but i think it comes down to the fact that in not wanting to be bothered with things himself, he tries not to bother other people. he’s more likely to assume that he’s getting on someone’s nerves or pissing them off and would just ghost them to avoid drama instead of fully confronting the situation. he Will if he needs to, but he’d just rather not because … idk? he just doesn’t think it’s worth the trouble. he’d rather keep his peace and be wrong than rock the boat and be right. it’s definitely something he’s kinda picked up from his dad, but darren manages to be waaaay more chill that even dave is because he just keeps people at arms length unless it’s his dad or olice. he learns how to do that less but the idea of letting people in enough to ruffle his inner peace is also. hm. not something he’s fond of. so basically, he’s not conflict avoidant he’s more conflict neutral and likes to take the path of least resistance if any of that makes sense.

DAVE: he hates being seen as weak. he recognizes that this is very irrational but it’s a fear and discomfort that developed from his own father, who was extremely harsh on him growing up, and even harsher if dave got upset or cried or wasn’t “manly.” so for him, being “weak” comes with a host of trauma around it that he’s still working through many years later. it doesn’t trigger him as bad as it used to, but it definitely still can.

LIZ: liz is a bit weird because she doesn’t really care how other people perceive her—she just doesn’t like being responsible for those assumptions people have of her character? so i wouldn’t say she hates being seen as competent but she hates being seen as something she’s “not” or something that she doesn’t take credit for. she’s not responsible for your preception of her yknow. if i had to say why it’s because she’s fiercely independent. she’s going to do what she wants to do and what she thinks is best no matter what and she’s usually not interested in hearing other people’s opinions; she’s quite stubborn. bending to other people’s whims is a bruise to her ego and she has done it before and hates herself for falling to that sort of weakness instead of doing what she wanted to do. so in a manner of speaking she hates being seen as controllable and hates being seen as weak in a somewhat similar way to dave, but more because of her personal pride than trauma. she’s an extremely proud woman lol.

OLICE: ngl, she hates being seen as her mother’s daughter. veronica hasn’t been the Best mother to olice. after she decided to return to the us and break up with her father in india (without even saying a word mind you so olice has never met the man. and before anyone says “maybe he was abusive” as the author i’m telling you, he wasn’t. veronica just got in over her head and then bailed, only thinking of herself but then didn’t take the proper steps to make sure her daughter felt loved or to be a good single parent 🤷🏽‍♂️), olice has only been treated by her mom and her mom’s extended family as a doll or an extension of her mother. better to be seen, not heard; the only interests that were fostered in a meaningful way were the ones that she shared with her mother. veronica often speaks over her and isn’t cognizant of her needs, more content to chase her aspirations than care about her daughter unless her daughter can be sort of “used” for something. she hates being reminded that they’re related. she refuses to go by the american (and technically legal) name that her mother gave her which is clara. her mother did at least tell her the name that her father wanted to name her/the name she and him agreed on in india which was olichudar and that’s why she goes by that. clara and olichudar have similar meanings which is how her mother came around to the name (clara meaning bright/famous, and olichudar meaning brilliant) but olice doesn’t think it suits her and she hates being called it. she also has her mothers sister’s name as an “honor name” so her cousins and extended family call her “cc” a lot and she hates it to Death. she became grateful when her mom started dating dave because it was through him that olice started getting some of the freedom to express herself and to try and reconnect with her indian heritage; with dave keeping veronica distracted or off her back about it. even though many say that her mother loves her in her own way (even dave sometimes and that’s the only thing she and he disagree on), olice has never felt real, unconditional love from her mother. especially when she compares it to dave and darren’s relationship. they’re close, dave takes an active interest in the things darren likes, he’s supportive and cares about darren’s comfortability and cares about loving him more than anything else, even veronica. and olice can look back on her life before dave and darren and think how she was content with crumbs from her mother; veronica only wanted olice around when she could brag about her or show her off, then toss her to the side when she didn’t want to deal with her. no interest in olice outside of how she looked being a “strong woman raising a kid on her own” when as far as olice knows from her mother’s own words, her bio dad wanted to be there for her. meeting dave and seeing his relationship with darren has made olice much more bitter and resentful of her mother but the only reason she hasn’t tried to push her and dave breaking up is because she doesn’t want to lose what she considers her real family and father figure. olice is sure that one day she’s either gonna have to cut contact with her mother, or her mother’s going to abandon her. and i won’t tell you which one, but this roadtrip proves one of those theories right. :)

also to be said, veronica isn’t a traditionally abusive person towards olice—not physically or even verbally. what olice goes through is more akin to my own relationship with my mother growing up, where it’s more neglectful and about not being seen or not being emotionally valued versus being physically taken care of. i don’t call it “abuse” in the book specifically just because i have a hard time thinking of what i went through as abuse myself but it definitely Hurts and is unhealthy and that’s what i want to get at irregardless. all of this to say, as an aside, this is something i always knew but never talked about but veronica and olice’s relationship vs darren and dave’s has always been olice is who i am and veronica is who my mother was (in an exaggerated, less religious way) and darren is who i wished i was and dave was who i wished my mother was 🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️

VERONICA: this is sort of a roundabout, 2-part answer, but she hates being seen as both “the other woman” and as “poor” — and basically both of those answers circle around into an inferority complex. with the first, it stems off of her insecurities when it comes to being with dave, and as much as i love dave to death and am somewhat uncharitable to veronica (because of darren really ����🏽‍♂️) i do *understand* where she’s coming from. you should never be made to feel “not good enough” in a relationship; and it’s hard to tell where the divide is for dave Specifically makes her feel that way (though not necessarily intentionally; hurt people hurt people etc etc) or if this is a particular Complex that she projects onto him. but the fact of the matter is, all of the things about their relationship, she has pretty much had to pursue herself. she met dave at an event, and she took a liking to him. she approached him, flirted, got his number, text incessantly until he agreed to a date, then two, and constantly made their plans, and was even the one to ask him to be exclusive. dave was very very passive in a lot of this, and when she was under the assumption that his former partner/baby mama (liz) was dead, it became easy for her to justify her actions. dave was grieving and clearly had been for too long, and she just wanted to get him out of his shell—he was too handsome and too kind to be alone for the rest of his life, in her opinion (not that it’s really her call to make, but i digress). she was only giving him permission to be himself again! and in some ways she is correct, wallowing over liz for the rest of his life certainly isn’t healthy, and dave on some level is aware of that, which is why he sort of… went along with everything regarding veronica. and they had a healthy relationship Before she found out that liz was actually still alive, and dave was just still in love with her. now, ngl, im not 100% sure how she finds this out; bc dave certainly doesn’t talk about liz that often if he can avoid it, not even with his own son, so like hell is he going to talk about it to the new woman he’s seeing (he’s just that kind of guy). all i Do know is that it was several years into their relationship, and around the time that she and her daughter olice moved in with darren and dave. and when she found this out, she was fucking livid honestly. what does this woman who Left You when you needed her most have that EYE, a present, loving, caring partner, don’t? so anytime she and dave had a spat, anytime she clashed with darren or anything went wrong, she became more and more bitter. convinced that she would always be a second fiddle to this woman she’d never met. and the worst part is, she is Partially proven right when liz finally does enter the picture and suddenly dave and liz have more sparks and chemistry than she (in her mind) feels like she and dave have. and this could potentially be because liz is darren’s mother and veronica has never taken an interest in dave’s son the way that he has wholly embraced being a father to olice, but in her micro-defense, darren has never wanted a mom in general, let alone a new one 🤷🏽‍♂️ ANYWAY though, all of this sort of stems from her childhood (as many traumas do) especially in comparing herself unfairly to her sister, cynthia—unfortunate because cynthia adores her and they’re thick as thieves but to veronica cynthia was always the sister who got what she wanted. she was beautiful, the belle of their hometown, grauated with honors, went to college and found a man who was head over heels for her and who spoils her like crazy, has a big happy family, is Rich…. and what does veronica have to show for her life? she got pregnant on a missions trip and abandoned the father, she never finished college, failed relationship after failed relationship where on more than one occasion she’s been “the other woman” … it’s too much! and no matter how much dave assures her that he has no plans of getting back with liz, the man can’t look at her and say he loves her even after ten years together. SO!!!!

[dojae-huh]

Mark's new song's so good. Even though Doyoung's my bias, I think Mark's the most accomplished soloist of all Nct members. Where did he find the time to have his own visions of his solos?!! The execution and variety in his singles so far are just amazing. The emotion he had for each song is fresh every time and yet feels cohesive. I can't wait to see what he will give in the solo album.

The flights are long, there is room to think. Mark used to carry notebooks with him. He probably still does. There were times he wrote long phylosophical posts on IG in the middle of the night. untill he was booed for them.

Not sure I agree that Mark is the most accomplished, considering Taeyong, who also songwrites, had OSTs, collabs, features, solo-stages, was in SuperM, produced for another artist, has two solo albums, and a concert-movie, however, Mark is indeed the one to stand out in k-pop, who looks like he can say something new and fresh, who is more ready to experiment, chase the cool sound.

Mark works with SM-producers, who help him shape the final vision and sound. It's Doyoung who makes a powerpoint with all stages, Mark is accepting of ideas of others. I doubt the classical instruments intro was his idea, for example.

It seems it's exactly Mark being super busy that motivates him to do solo work. Last time he said that the year was so hard physically and emotionally exhausting, he wanted something for himself. For example, the concerts are a repeat of the same routine. Magazine and album photoshoots - done hundreds of times. It's tiresome, sometimes fulfilling, but seazes to be a creative outlet. A lot of great fanartists you see online work professionally as artists (at a cartoon studio, for example, or as illustrators), yet they come home and draw the characters they like till midnight, something they choose and not what their job requires.

Honestly, I'm more amazed not by how much some neos work (I've seen workaholics, I know how they tick), but that they have emotional capacity for everything. Energetically they are on another level from the rest of us for sure. And Mark is the Energiser bunny even among idols.

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Tale of the Nine-Tailed Meta: Roleplay Therapy in Episode 11, or, What Am I To You?

Intro:

Okay sure it’s an elaborate act to trick Evil Baddie #2 but in episode 11, when Rang and Yeon switch places, pretending to be each other to lure the Imoogi in and get Rang out of his deal with the Evil Baddie #2?? They need to sell the family drama, right? They could have done it a lot of ways but they chose this way. Why? Maybe because it's easier to sell a lie that contains truth in it?

So I rewatched. And rewatched. And have come to the conclusion (again) that the writers are geniuses. Because this is fucking family therapy disguised as baiting psychopaths. Please note that I have not done family therapy, this is just my take.

I shall explain *starts powerpoint* So:

The latter half of this season has been about these two siblings coming back to each other, and while key actions have taken place that show they care (the forest rescue, the underworld guy confirming that Yeon is Rang's most important person), they are still lacking on communication.

This comes up twice with Yeon--first, when he's numbly enraged that Rang has shown Ji Ah her past life, and is preparing to give him a verbal (and boardgames) beatdown. He asks what Rang would want to be in another life, making the kind of idle conversation that makes Rang uncomfy because wait, what's the catch? And Yeon admits that he's realized they haven't talked, actually talked about something other than schemes or hostile banter in so long.

Later, after Rang's near death experience, Yeon takes him out to his ice cream spot and lets him steal some ice cream--again, Rang is jarred by this surprising indulgence. We don't see any of their interactions in the 600 years or so interim between The Execution That Wasn't and the present day, but we have to assume that things have been, uh, tense.

And Yeon admits it again--the thing we are all thinking, why didn't you just reach out to him? I mean this for both of them, but especially Yeon because hello, you STABBED YOUR TEENAGE BROTHER and waited 600 years to clarify that you weren't trying to kill him. All this time, you could have reached out, and so much pain and time and miscommunication could have been prevented?? How awful, on top of your existing guilt, to recognize that that was all it would have taken, and that you almost lost the chance to fix it. And yes, it's more complicated than that, but still--these two struggle a lot with communication.

The scene in question:

Which brings us to the scene where they are pretending to be each other, and act the way they believe the other one would act. It's a good cover, and yet. And yet. It’s also actually the only way they can be honest about their insecurities in their relationship.

It's not really an accurate representation of "this is how you think," because they don't know how the other really thinks about so many important things. “This is how you would act” becomes “This is what I believe you think of me, or what I think you SHOULD think of me” 

I don't think it's a coincidence that this whole arc removes the final barrier between them as siblings: after this, they speak about their feelings a lot more openly and honestly, Rang gets onboard with the squad planning to fight the Imoogi, and all it took was Yeon reaching out, Rang deciding not to betray his brother, and the two of them sitting at a table revealing what they believe the other thinks of them after 600 years of poor communication.

It's fitting that the Evil Baddie #2 is there for it--Yeon hates the guy for what he did to Ji Ah and his involvement with the Imoogi but in this context, this guy also represents Yeon's failure to protect Rang. If he hadn't stabbed his brother...if he hadn't stabbed him and then walked away...this guy wouldn't have had the chance to coerce Rang into a fox debt...

The brothers have to face each other and themselves at the same time. And if they want to sell it, they have to show the discord that is real between them, they have to use real material.

Essentially, it's an almost therapeutic exercise: here’s what you look like through my eyes.

For Rang:

Rang thinks his brother is disgusted and uncaring about the trauma he’s been through. He (acting as Yeon) brings up Ji Ah as an example of someone who "doesn't complain even though her history is as tragic as yours."

This honestly hits home--Yeon has a bad tendency, I think, to compare them as some guilty sort of avoidance, a claim that Rang should just get over it all; while Rang and Ji Ah both lost parent figures, their life experiences have been dramatically different, suffering and resilience are not competitions, and I like that Rang calls out how unfair this is (to both him and Ji Ah).

Similar to Ji Ah, Rang has likely spent the evening wondering whether to sacrifice Yeon. His life is at stake here.

(I’m still not sure how Yeon figured that part out?? Please someone explain how Yeon figured out Rang was on a deadline???)

But like Ji Ah, we will never really know what decision Rang would have made on his own. My headcanon is that one of the reasons Rang and Ji Ah are so antagonistic toward each other are because they are incredibly similar in how they love--almost feral, and ruthless if they’re desperate.

For Yeon:

Yeon (pretending to be Rang) complains about things he thinks Rang is angry about, which really reveals more about things Yeon is upset about.

It's clear during his act as "Rang" that Yeon knows he has let down Rang’s trust in him, and feels guilt for not openly acknowledging that Rang was in as much danger as Ji Ah: “If you worried about me half as much as her, I wouldn’t have done this. I couldn’t have.”

I think this also goes back to Yeon's guilt for leaving Rang and the mountains burning in his single minded focus to rescue Ji Ah. Like he’s saying he blames himself for Rang’s actions all these years.  There are so many subtle moments highlighting Yeon’s guilt. Mainly in his efforts to pretend Rang is fine or downplay Rang’s feelings. But here, Yeon expresses it the only way he can, removed from himself.

And I think Rang (as Yeon) finally releases him from the weight of that guilt by just responding, “You idiot,” you are an idiot for carrying this weight and thinking you are totally responsible.

Because Rang was influenced horribly by the things that happened to him, but he also made his choices.

“I wouldn’t say we made up, I just let him off,” he tells Yu-Ri later. Obviously they made up, but I think that’s more accurate wording. He lets go of his anger because he finally sees himself as Yeon sees him, and finally hears Yeon’s most honest expression of guilt.

Yeon still doesn’t think he "abandoned" Rang (Yeon and I still need to discuss that) but he more tellingly admits that he knows his brother looked up to him and totally trusted his brother would protect him--his heroic love sacrifice for Ji Ah was also, ultimately, a betrayal of trust for his brother.

UGH this script. UGH these characters.

I love that the writers finally got them into some therapy for five minutes. They didn't have to do the whole song and dance, because sure the Evil Baddie #2 is watching remotely but they could have had a quick "well it's shitty to see you, drink your coffee you dumb bitch" chat or sit in tense silence like the rest of us do with estranged family members and it might have been convincing enough, but they took the opportunity to talk, really talk, through a safe medium of the other.

Love this show.

[pbandjesse]

My allergies just hit me in the face and I am feeling a little bit terrible. But it is mostly worth it because I got to cuddle with sweetp for hours. Which was honestly just so nice. Even if I'm coughing and snotty now.

Today was a pretty good day. I barely felt sick at all and actually just got to enjoy the beautiful weather and have a fun field trip. It was a good day.

I slept fine. I hate waking up before the sun is up. It feels kind of horrible. Like I know it's 7 but it feels like 4am.

I got dressed. Did not like my hair. But it was fine. It was chilly out but it would become beautiful later on. I was mostly just bundled up this morning.

James helped me bring some stuff to the car. And then I headed in. And it was a good day. I got to camp at 8 and tried to hit each space in the most logical order so I wasn't running around camp like a crazy person. But I would still be driving back and forth because I forgot things. I started with the lodge. Get my table all set. Headed to the office. The art building. Woodlands village. There was some backtracking I had to do. But I got each area set up and ready and it was good to go.

Parents started arriving at 845. I parked over at the lodge so I could use my car as an example of where to park. All of the parents were absolutely lovely but I was very frustrated when I found out that the teacher, who is lovely and comes every year, gave the parents the old lesson names. And so no one was prepared at all. Stress. So much stress. But thankfully my lessons are written as scripts so they all would do just fine and I was so proud of them.

Once they were all there I would take them on a walk around camp so they would have plenty of time to go over the lessons and feel comfortable. And it would take me a while to get everyone set but it was all good. They had great questions and were all very competent and would do a great job.

When the school came at 10 I learned that the teacher didn't get chaperones to walk the groups. I would normally panic but I decided to not bother. It was a group of less then 30. I moved the games to the amphitheater. It wouldn't be hard to just monitor to make sure everyone gets to where they need to be. And it would work out just fine.

We started with an intro. And I was surprised how many kids I recognized from camp. Including two children from the preschool I used to sub at?? That was a weird feeling. Because when I worked with them they were 3 or 4. And now they are in second grade??! Time is a thief.

I had planned on sewing during the waiting periods but it wasnt in the cards. Instead I enjoyed sitting on a log and watching the birds. Wandering around to check on the groups. Going to find extra supplies. It was a busy day but it was fun.

At lunch I had to go find tweezers for a child who got a splinter but we weren't able to get it out. I felt so bad. I got him some ice for his hand and the teacher bandaged it.

I was very nice interested in any of the food I brought. So I had a chocolate bar from the freezer. I sat outside and enjoyed the nice day.

The last hour was fine. We did have some asthma issues with the smoke from the fire. But everyone was okay. The parents would do a wonderful job and packed everything up so I barely had to do anything once they left.

We did finish with a closing question thing. I forgot I took the quizo off the PowerPoint so I was just spit balling which was not ideal. I will have to fix that. But the kids were great and we thanked all of the parents and then it was time to go.

I would sweep and start putting chairs away while the kids got on the bus. And once the cars were all gone I would drive around to the different sites to make sure everything was put away. I chatted with Elizabeth on the phone about getting the lodge out away. And after I put the walkie away in the office I drove over there.

Joe would help me get everything away. We chatted about social media and how a wedding put all the chairs in the basement and he would need help bringing it up. But Sarah would help with that.

So once the lodge was out back I headed out. It was a little after 3. The weather felt so nice. I was starving and decided to go to Chipotle to get nachos. And that is exactly what I did.

They person checking me out was confused about someone ordering just chips and cheese? Which feels like a normal thing so I don't know why he was confused. But it's fine. I had half and brought the rest home. I was all of a sudden really tired and wanted to be back here.

It didn't take to long for me to get home. The traffic wasn't so bad. I brought my blanket project inside and after getting changed I would jump right into working on that.

James would be home soon after that. I was texting with my brother and sewing and chilling. James would give me a smooch and went to jump on a call. They had a guest on the podcast this week which was cool. I'm always proud of James for their projects.

I would get a row done on my blanket before I was tired and didn't want to do it anymore. I would paint my toes and clean up my fingernails. Answered some emails. And once James was done recording they made me dumplings. I honestly ate to many but it was fine. James made themselves peanut noodles. And we would hang out in bed watching TikToks.

James took a shower first to get the water warmed up for me. So romantic. The shower was nice but my allergies absolutely went off and I was choking and coughing for a bit. But it's calming down. Now I'm just itchy all over. Hopefully that subsides soon.

Tomorrow I'm just home. I hope to keep working on my blanket. Maybe start some painting prep in the baby room. We'll see where the day takes me.

I hope you all have a great night. Sleep well. Be safe. Until tomorrow.

[void-botanist]

WIP Intro: Another Ocean's Moon

tag // wip: aom

genre // sci-fantasy, queer, romance

super quick synopsis // Two humans return to their home planet, one hoping to escape his overbearing parents, the other planning her long-overdue divorce, but somehow nothing is that simple.

Setting

Locality space: a galaxy liberally sprinkled with earthlike planets populated by humanoids. A small fraction of those humanoids are witches, those born with magical gifts that neither scientists nor magicians—those who learn to use magic through study—have been able to replicate. Travel between star systems is accomplished with warp magic, sometimes through the direct intervention of a warp witch on a starship, but more often through permanent stabilized warp tunnels. Some systems are completely warp-isolated, for any number of reasons. Even in connected systems, many people never leave their home planet or system.

setting tag // #set: locality space

AOM is split between the isolated system Ensaum, particularly the seaside village of Nicha Cove, and city of Tobarsha on the island of Aephar on Rade, part of Argoh locality.

Proper Synopsis

At thirteen, Sidney Reid moved from Tobarsha, Rade, to Ensaum, an isolated system, where his parents and some three dozen other people intended to escape capitalism and become self-sufficient. Now, at almost thirty, the thing he wants most is to go back to Tobarsha, maybe forever. The first step is to convince his parents to set him up with a warp transit in their ship, and his best friend Horatio’s thirtieth birthday party in Tobarsha seems like a good excuse. But he can’t even bring himself to ask when his parents only seem to be interested in getting him to marry his friend Colin and “finally settle down”. When they figure out that his attachment to Tobarsha is standing in the way, they attempt to break that attachment, and end up destroying Sid’s most prized possession: seventeen years of handwritten letters from Horatio. Knowing staying is not an option anymore, Sid turns to his friend Avis, a middle-aged not-quite-divorcee with no love for his parents. Together they manage to steal an escape pod from his parents’ warp ship and make it back to Tobarsha in one piece.

Unfortunately, the aura of capitalism isn’t enough to keep Sid’s parents at bay, and they’re not mincing their meanings anymore. They always know exactly what will hurt him the most, and he’s beginning to suspect it’s because they gave him his weak points. As much as Horatio and his family want to protect him, Sid can’t let them get caught in the wake of his force-of-nature parents, even though he doesn’t know how he’s going to get rid of them on his own.

Avis, meanwhile, has become an equally frightening force in the face of her estranged husband, Sorian, who she kicked off Ensaum after she found out he had cheated on her and had a son—Horatio—back on Rade. He’s spent fifteen years waiting to find out if she’s going to divorce him, and now he’s bending over backwards to be nice to her. It should be easy to get rid of such a wet noodle of a man, and yet she can’t quite seem to let go—but she’s not going to hold on without a fight.

Main Characters (in order of family)

(More detailed profiles are coming very soon in the powerpoint intro. In the meantime try #wip: aom, #aom 15 questions, and #soravis.)

Sid Reid

he/him, 29, human, revital (healing) witch

Rade island of origin // Aephar

job // there aren’t really jobs in Nicha Cove, but he does a lot of cooking

least normal about // making jam

fun fact // is completely unable to use his powers on anyone but himself

Donovan Reid

he/him, 61, human, Sid’s dad

Rade island of origin // Aephar

job // Nicha Cove port manager

least normal about // snow (derogatory), Sid (affectionate)

fun fact // has a favorite ranger-style hat that he always wears outside

Emma Reid

she/her, 63, human, Sid’s mom

Rade island of origin // Aephar

job // busybody

least normal about // village drama

fun fact // actually not a conspiracy theorist

Avis Peynon

she/her, 52, human, dupe witch (landscape specialty) and Sorian's wife

Rade island of origin // Imni

job // no thanks

least normal about // spicy food (and Sorian)

fun fact // has lived in a houseboat for 16 years and isn't stopping now

Sorian Shank

he/him, 52, human, carpentry magician, Avis's husband and Horatio's bio dad

Rade island of origin // Imni

job // set builder with the University of Aephar drama department

least normal about // shipbuilding (and Avis)

fun fact // builds wooden puzzle boxes for fun

Horatio Standing

he/him, 30, human

Rade island of origin // Imni, but he only knows Aephar

job // self-employed live florist

least normal about // aquatic plants

fun fact // aside from being born on Imni, has never left Aephar except to go to the space dock

Celia Standing

she/her, 28, ferasca (dragon person), Horatio's adoptive sister

Rade island of origin // Aephar

job // hairdresser, despite having no hair of her own

least normal about // beach volleyball

fun fact // is friends with Spinder and by extension the rest of the crew of the Nicea

Leon Standing

he/him, 73, human, Horatio & Celia's adoptive dad/Edith's husband

Rade island of origin // he’s from a different locality

job // lecturer in literature at Tobarsha Community College

least normal about // poetry

fun fact // his mantelpiece sword, Milward Fonk, is not for swordfighting

Edith Standing

she/her, 77, bovan (human with cow elements), Horatio & Celia's adoptive mom/Leon's wife

Rade island of origin // Aephar

job // retired elementary school teacher

least normal about // smoothies

fun fact // also not normal about celery, the world's greatest vegetable