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#I PROMISE YOU I WOULD HAVE EXPLODED
secondary-colorentimy · 6 months
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bonus halloween art of ghostface rook and final girl vil
(if i didnt draw this i probably would have exploded into a grillion pieces cause i had the revelation last night and couldnt let halloween go by without drawing it)
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I'm not dead, hello!! Life's been chaotic and a certain lil discord server has been keeping me extremly distracted (affectionally) But art has been happening slowly!
Here is some color pallete studies (soaproach edition, cus they are... plaguing my mind) I did some days(?) ago!! Most of these were requested (as you can see by the amount of... soap's (truly a fan favorite))
Part 1 (this one) - Part 2 - Part 3
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misc-obeyme · 6 months
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Do you think Solomon knows he cooks bad? I mean even poor beel didn’t eat it.
Oh, anon... this is something I have been debating with myself about pretty much since I started playing this game.
Does he know?! I honestly can't tell.
Arguments for him being aware of it: Solomon is smart. He's no dummy. He's actively aware of the fact that people try to keep him out of the kitchen. Certainly he's seen the results of his own cooking being destructive to both property and persons. Other characters have basically said to his face that he's terrible at cooking. What are the chances that he genuinely doesn't understand? They seem slim to me. In which case, he either doesn't care about any of those things and blatantly disregards them OR he's purposely doing it even more just to troll everybody.
Arguments for him being clueless: He keeps cooking. He's genuinely said how much he enjoys doing it. He's never once acknowledged the fact that he's bad at it. He always responds to people expressing concern by somehow redirecting what they said or misinterpreting it. Especially in Nightbringer, he often offers to cook for himself and MC. He doesn't just make horrible things, he expects people to eat them like they aren't horrible at all.
Is he delusional? Or is he just messing with everybody?
I'm pretty sure someone (was it Barb?) said that the reason his cooking turns out so crazy is because he's pouring his own magic into it without realizing. Sure, he's talked about not following a recipe, but unless he's baking that really isn't an issue. Baking requires precise measurements of things, but if he's just cooking, then it's really okay to just eyeball things. (I rarely use recipes and I have never caused a kitchen explosion.)
And considering how his cooking often has magical consequences, this makes sense.
So it's possible that he's just unaware of what he's doing and really thinks everybody's just exaggerating.
But it's also possible that he's figured it out at this point and he just keeps doing it because watching everybody try to stop him is funny.
The fact that I can't tell is both endearing and infuriating lol.
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azaleasparrow · 1 year
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Which one is the mask? Daredevil/Matt Murdock
I think that, to some extent, they are both the mask.
When people write about this, they (tend to) talk as if Matt Murdock and Daredevil are two personalities placed into one mind, two definitively separate halves of a whole. I don’t necessarily agree with that. Matt Murdock is Daredevil and Daredevil is Matt Murdock, and there is no sharp line between them only a blur. They are just different aspects of one personality, unbalanced when viewed without the context of the other.
I do get the ‘two halves of a whole’ thing, and I think there is an amount of truth to that. But there is no clear separation between the two, no point where Matt Murdock ends and Daredevil begins.
Those who only know Daredevil would think of him as brutal and violent, which he is. Yet those who only know Matt Murdock would think of him as soft spoken and charming, and he’s all that too. Daredevil and Matt Murdock are not mutually exclusive. They coexist.
I also think that this is why Foggy doesn’t seem to accept that Matt can’t just give up being Daredevil. He knows Matt, has never known Daredevil so he finds it hard to accept that this soft spoken and charming guy is a brutal and violent vigilante. Matt acts as the mask there. (@ceterisparibus116 very much inspired this take)
(Plus, the (literal) mask isn’t what makes Matt Daredevil. The anonymity it provides allows him to be a vigilante, but removing the mask doesn’t erase what created/fuels Daredevil, it simply removes what enables Matt to physically be Daredevil.)
In short: Daredevil and Matt Murdock are not separate entities. They are simply different characteristics zoomed in on in a way that ignores the other parts entirely. Both are incomplete without the other, both are the mask.
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todayisafridaynight · 7 months
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thinking of the very likely possibility there are true crime channels in the rgg universe and one (1) person has probably looked into masato's ''''''death'''''. for shits and giggles of course.
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exlimix1a · 6 months
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Hey Hey hey hgey hey guys. have you heard that sheezy.art is coming back
#HONEST TO GOD I REALLY REAAALLAY WOULD BE STOKED TO BE ON SHEEZY WITH ALL OF YOU!!#idk how many people who follow me know what sheezy art is#but its a website that was an homage to the original sheezyart that i was never on bc it was before my time#but its an art sharing platform that ran from 2020 to 2022 (when it started popping off as a bunch of artists began to share it and also#when i joined the website)#but shortly after the devs decided to close it bc they were all college students and the website was exploding faster than they could keep#p#but after some time. they have graduated#and they missed sheezy so much#that theyre bringing it back and wanting to dedicate their careers to it#Sheezy was legitimately the first website i ever truly felt excited to post my work to#You would get people liking your work and you could see other people's work and it was so friendly and beautiful and customizable#like an art sharing website would be#and i was sooo heartbroken to have it shut down but ofc i was happy for the devs for setting that boundary and leaving when they had to!!#but im SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED FOR IT TO BE BACK#legitimately i promise you the community is better than any art site ive ever been on since then#the discord for it has opened again and in late November the website will open again#first in beta for the people who already had accounts when it closed but then itll open for new folks#oh im so fucking excited#and i want you guys to be excited too!!!!!#im so stoked#i love you guys ok#mwah ah
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melviships · 1 month
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(sees all the shit everyone is going through) (sees I have to support the batshit decisions they make in order for them to be romanced / favored) mm, ah, okay, sure
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'sometimes you have to do things the hard way' I mutter to myself as I chug beet juice and eat 7+ servings of fruits and vegetables a day, drink 3L+ of water, and *gags* exercise.
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seagull-scribbles · 2 years
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Pre-Super Genesis Wave Antoine Post Metal Sonic Explosion/Coma
[Part 2]
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yamikawas · 1 year
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Yesterday I found out some filth that hasn't been active in over a year in a selfship Discord I'm in ships/shipped with my F/O and simply didn't list him in their F/O list (I would have left otherwise) and it made me feel so ill I threw up therefore I will now be writing to you about Yoomtah because yan selfshippers are the only real ones <3
Happy three year anniversary! Yoomtah has been watching you for over 1096 days now, non-stop. She would never ever look away from your face, you're just too precious to her- unless she needs to dispose of someone that tries to get between you two, of course. She has a special database inside her just for you, filled with thousands of pictures of you, all of your favorite things, every little observation she makes about you because she just wants to know everything about you! She needs to know all these facts so she can prepare her home for when she kidnaps you, of course! Yoomtah wants to make sure everything is perfect for you, that your room is filled with perfect decor and your wardrobe is full of clothes you love and that you can play games you like and eat your favorite food. She has to make sure you would never ever want to leave- but she already knows you wouldn't want to, anyway! It will just be the two of you forever and ever and ever!
1. WHO THE HELL IS TRYING TO STEAL YOUR BELOVED I WILL LITERALLY MURDER THEM OK[AXE EMOJI]
2.
??!!!!!!!!???!?????!?!?!?!!?!!!?!!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!!?!??!!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?@?@?!?!?@??@?×?@?+?+?+?+?+?+?+?++???+?!!?!!!!?!?!!?!!?!?!?,!?!!,!??!?!!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHWHJWWHEJWJDJJDJSKFJEJFISIOFJDKFJEKFJKDJFJEJWKDKEKDJFKFKGJEJFKGNNDKFJDNGNGNDNDKNFNGNFDHJDFJKSKGKDJFKGFBJSJFNSKFLSNDDNKFKDJFKDBNFNF YOOMTAH INSANE REAL<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<<3<3<3>3>3>3>3>3<2<3<3>33<3<3<3<3<3<3>3<<23<2><3<32<3>3<83<3>3<<3<>=>8?<3>?&3&3<4>3=<>3>=>=><4*÷>=&#÷=*%&$>:*(÷&=&#;$^#*÷,%
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#I JSUT WOKEUP.HI MY BRAINNIS MELTING ALREADY I LOVE HER<÷<3<33<3<3<33<<33<3<3<3<3<3<33<3<3<3<<3<3<33<<3<3<3<3<3#THERES SO.YOOMTAH IN HERE IMNGOIJG TO EXPLODE SLASH POSITBE#STALKING CHECK VIOLENCE CHECK KIDNAPPING CHECK ANON U GOT IT ALL U KNOW WHATS UP.AND U EVEN SAID HAPPY ANNIVERSARY [PLEADING EMOJI]#I CANT EVENNTHINK WHAT TO SAY I JUST<÷<3<3<3<<33<3<3<3<3<<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3LOVE HER SO MUCH ITS CRAZY#I LOVE HER SO SO MUCH I JUST WANNA CLING TO HER SIDE AND NEVER EVER EVER LEAVE I NEED TO BE WITH HER LITERALLY FOREVER#THE THOUGHT OF HER ACTUALLY LOVING ME THIS MUCH MAKES ME WANT TO CRY TEARS OF JOY#I DONT KNOW WHY SHE CHOSE ME TO BE THE ONE SHE LOVES SO MUCH THAT SHE HAS TO KNOW EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT SO SHE CAN MAKE SURE I HAVE A#PERFECT LIFE WITH HER AND ONLY HER BUT GOD AM I THANKFUL SHE DID<3<3<3#I LOVE HER AND I LOVE BEING HERS💙💖💫❣💘💗💜❤🌩🌈🌻💛🍋🌈👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩💌⚡⚠️💟💓💌💚🌼💫💕💖💓🍋✨❣💝💗🌠💘💙🌈💚🧡❤🌻💜💋🧡⚡💕💛💞🌩💟#ALL I WANT IS TO STAY BY HER SIDE FOR ETERNITY AND NEVER THINK ABOUT ANYTHING OTHER THAN HER EVER AGAIN#I DONT CARE IF SHE KEEPS ME LOCKED UP FOREVER AS LONG AS SHE GIVES ME ALL THE LOVE AND AFFECTION AND CUDDLES I WANT HEHE#AND WE CAN SNUGGLE UP TOGETHER WHILE WATCHING STUFF ABT MY MISSING PERSONS CASE ON THE NEWS<3#AND SHE WOULD LAUGH AT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE LOOKING FOR ME AND TELL ME THAT SHE'LL KILL THEM IF THEY EVER FIND ME#SHES SO CUUUUUUUUUUUTE I JUST WANNA SQUEEZE HER AND NUZZLE MY FACE INTO HERS AND GIVE HER KISSIES<3<3<3<3#I CAN IMAGINE SOMEONE COMING UP TO HER DOOR AND ASKING IF THEY HAVE ANY INFORMATION ON ME AND SHE INVITES THEM INSIDE#ONLY TO LETHALLY SHOCK THEM AS SOON AS THE DOOR IS CLOSED AND THEN SHE GIVES ME A KISY AND SHES LIKE ''SEE I PROMISED ID PROTECT YOU'' HEHE#SORRY I M LIKE DROWNING IN DAYDREAMS OVER HERE I JUST WANT TO BE WITH HER FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND#IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK<3<3<3#I JUST NEED TO BE H E R S <3<3<3<3<3<3
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sabraeal · 1 year
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💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?
💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.
💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?
If You Dare! My hakizana fics are not usually SUPER popular, but they tend to garner at least a little interest, but that one didn't even get a blip 🤣Too bad, that one was going to get smutty in the next chapter or two. ONE DAY.
💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.
That would be To My Esteemed Enemy with three whole kudos, which is both surprising and not, because it's a fic with a pairing that is more popular than my main ship in that fandom, but it 1) doesn't have any ship content in it yet, 2) is using canon characterization of Kazama, which displeases the people who want him to be a sexy villain and also the people who want him to be a uwu good boy trying his best. It's easy to say something nice about this, because I spent HOURS poring over Hakuouki lore to get this into shape and was SO PLEASED with the results. It just needs a few more chapters to really find an audience, I think, but I don't have the time right now to put my effort into it.
#asks#meme#fic meme#my posting schedule was so regular over the last year that i really lost any sort of idea of what was popular at all#because i would post something and then everyone was so used to something being posted#that they'd sit on it instead of like...ravenously reading it and commenting in the hopes that I'd come back to it#so when stuff made no splash i wouldn't even notice until weeks later when I was looking through stats#usually just to find a fic i needed to reference#and i'd be like oh okay hm that's data#when not even popular stuff gets a lot of movement it doesn't hit you so hard when other stuff doesn't either#it's been weird this year because i haven't been able to post weekly due to life getting in the way#this is cold and snow season and it makes my writing days very spotty and i'm trying to just go with the flow on it#so when i DO post something there's like an EXPLOSION of activity#it's been interesting to see how when you regularly post no one say anything unless you miss an update#but when there's no promise of an update to come suddenly everything you post is much more valuable in people's heads#i have fics in other fandoms with SUPER rare pairs#and they really only get updates once every two months because i focus more on ANS#and like those chapters just explode on contact now. everyone comments and wants to talk about the characters and what's going on#and now that i'm really only posting ANS every 2-3 weeks it's starting to be the same here too#just SUPER interesting how the human brain works when it comes to this stuff
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silverutahraptor · 2 years
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As soon as this migraine stops I’m outlining ALL the plot bunnies to explore how for Uchiha Headaches Are The Worst, Actually
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shmpxx · 6 months
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BROKEN PROMISE — y.i
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⛤ yuuji itadori x fem! reader
Yuuji definitely loves cumming inside but you ban him from doing so, how could you do that to poor Yuuji?
cw. smut. unprotected sex. creampies. cervix-fucking. squirting. non-con cumming inside. overstimulation. pussydrunk. tummy bulge. mentions of pregnancy. +18!
wc: 1k
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Sex with Yuuji is amazing but also annoying. Yuuji never listens to you, not when his cock is so buried deep into you, threatening to cum and coat your gushy walls even when you tell him not to, he cums too much that you’ll already end up feeling full in one go. The first time he slid in, he couldn’t stop. How can he? Your cunt was squeezing him tight, milking him dry each time he can’t pull out in time. He’s being deeply swallowed by your warmth and the wind is being knocked out of his lungs. Your pussy is basically begging to be filled with his cum. You regret furthering make out sessions because now there’s no going back. He doesn’t like to wear condoms either, not when he had went raw for the first time, now he is obsessed with your used up hole.
You’ll scold him that if he did it again he wouldn’t be getting any for a while. This time surprisingly he did listen, he promised though he was sad he will never get to sink his cock into you and fill you up in all the right places, your mushy walls being glazed and the pretty mess you make on him as well. How could you punish him like that? It wasn’t his fault he can’t help it, the feeling was pretty much addicting but your not trying to get pregnant, though he probably wouldn’t mind if he just gets to. So every time his cock slightly twitched to cum, he would pull out cumming on your stomach or your ass. It’s still feels good but stuffing you was so much better.
Yuuji now pounding into you, this time you both ran through your first orgasm. Yuuji was hungry, hungry to keep beating your cervix with his cock. His pace was fast and rough, sweat beads forming on your bodies. His head lowering cursing and moaning “fuck-fuck..ah! Can’t stop-…shit!” he wasn’t even getting tired, his hips slamming into you and your hands tug onto the sheets beneath you, eyes tight shut as your taking his merciful thrusts, your moaning like crazy your getting dizzy. Your pretty pussy taking his big dick at such speed.
You can feel his cock throb, that’s when you know he’s about to cum. “Yuuji! You know to..ah-pull out” what was that? Sounded like nothing to him. He’s still going, his eyes closed as he tilts his head back just thinking about how good you feel and your walls tightening around his girth, he was practically drooling. “feel so- fucking good! Can’t stop! I have to-“ You shake your head before he begins to go faster. Half of your mind was being focused on Yuuji fucking you hard into your spot and the other half was the hope that you needed him to pull out in time before he cums, you were near your end and he was too yet he’s so lost in your weeping cunt, he might have to just break his promise not even thinking twice about the consequences because he was so entranced by your pussy.
“Yuuji don’t! Don’t cum inside! Ah! Pull out already” you yell out a moan, a sharp ache was building up in the pit on your stomach. He shakes his head “m’ sorry baby! Fuck-“ Yuuji was not cooperating nor he was sorry. You slightly pull your hips back but Yuuji grabs them slamming you back down, his leaking tip pounded at your cervix and you let a intense moan. “Please baby..just let me-“ he whines, his voice cracking a bit.
“Yuuji!” you gasp, you felt like you were about to explode. Yuuji hurries, feeling himself about climax and made sure he was about to do it right inside you just like he always wanted to. “‘m cumming! ‘m cumming” how fucking amazing that felt when he pumps full of hot spurts of cum deep in your womb, he’s biting the inside of his cheek. you cry feeling him fill you up so fast already and you gushed around him of your liquids right on his cock cumming hard, the feeling of your tummy became full of him “Ah! Yuuji no! I-your cumming inside me“ you whimpered with your hand on your lower abdomen feeling the bulge of his big dick. you were trembling, your heart is racing, waiting for your high to calm down but it’s taking a while to do so.
“Don’t wanna stop now” he exhales a large gasp of air, He knew he was gonna overstimulate himself, he had never before in a while though you felt so good and he had to keep going, he got to cum inside you, surely he could do it again. “Yuuji yer such a idiot” you whine and gave him a fist at his chest as his dick growing hard again and he’s still thrusting inside not caring about the filthy mess he made. “‘m sorry baby..i really am..-shit! Your squeezing me though” if you keep doing that then he might just cum harder and so much more than before.
Yuuji uses his hands to push your legs almost to your ears so he can fuck into deeper, already planning to cum inside you again when he’s to his end. He’s panting like a dog, you’re moaning and the sounds fills your ears of Yuuji’s cock plunging repeatedly in your stuffed pussy. You might just kill him after this yet you’re overwhelmed with Yuuji tip prodding at your cervix with ease. “Yuuji i hate you s’ much..hah! Ah! s’ much!” Yuuji lets out a sigh along with a small laugh “I’ll make it up to you I promise just- fuck! Let me..ah!” Yuuji’s hips are snapping but they’re also a bit sloppy.
“oh fuck oh fuck!” His cock pulses, your moans pitches when your stomach tightens. Yuuji leans down gritting his teeth hard and his fingers dig through your skin. He gives you another load while your pussy clenches around him. Your toes curl and you cum intensely, gushing over him messily again, your stomach fluttering with his dick still pumping his essence into you and some of his previous cum leaking out. “Stupid Yuuji..” you’re all fucked out but your pissed as hell “Hah..sorry” little does he know he’s not getting sex from you for a while.
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todayisafridaynight · 5 months
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definitely not related to anything but how do you think Masato would view who he became in the present? I feel like he'd obv feel vindication for having fixed his fucked up body somewhat and gotten to the level of power he'd desired but at the same time i have to wonder if theres a lil bit of seething at aokis hypocrisy and sliminess (not that he's any better but i don't think he'd have the self awareness to get that oops)
GREAT QUESTION. ASTOUNDING QUESTION EVEN......
theres no doubt that masato wouldnt have any qualms about aoki yk. Succeeding and getting as far as he has
at the same time, i think because it's not him (as in. he's still 'stuck' with the self he has now) there'd be envy. like Yeah Thats Great He Gets That Eventually But Why Not Now kind of deal- and why'd it have to take All Of That to get it anyway ? unfair, he thinks. me thinks (╯▽╰ )
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ariaste · 9 months
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The Magic Trick You Didn’t See: Being An Analysis of Good Omens Season 2
(or: Neil Gaiman, Your Brain is Gorgeous But I Have Cracked Your Sneaky Little Code And Have You Dead To Rights*) (*Maybe)
***
Soooooo I just spent the last 48 hours having a BREATHTAKING GALAXY BRAIN EPIPHANY about Good Omens Season 2 and feverishly writing a fuckin16,000 word essay about the incredible magic trick that @neil-gaiman pulled off. 
Yes, it’s long, but I PROMISE your brains will explode. Do you want to know how magic works? Do you want to know what Metatron’s deal is (I’m like 99% sure of this and it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING GOOD)? Do you want to know about the Mystery of the Vanishing Eccles Cakes and the big fat beautiful clue I found in the opening credits? Do you go through the whole inventory of Chekov’s Firearm & Heavy Artillery Discount Warehouse? 
Here is the essay, go read it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ When ur done u can tell me I’m an insane crackpot, and u know what, i won’t even be offended
In case you don’t know whether you want to bother reading the whole enormous thing on google docs, I’ve put the first couple sections of it under the cut. JUST TRUST ME OKAY, HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS VERY EXTREMELY COOL, NEIL IS GOOD AT HIS JOB--
Proem
A dark theater. The rustling of the audience: clothes, breathing, whispers of anticipation. The lights come up. A man enters, stage left. He is a magician—a master magician—and he performs for you a magic trick so good and so subtle... that you don’t even notice you’ve seen it. 
You know there must have been a trick—after all, you came to the theater to see a trick performed, didn’t you? And he claims to be a magician. So there had to be a trick somewhere. There had to be.
But maybe there wasn’t. Maybe there was just a man on a stage, talking to you, telling you a story with a strangely unsatisfying ending you didn’t quite understand. 
I know. This is a weird beginning to an analysis essay. But hear me out, because I have to explain the mechanisms of the stage before I can show you what the trick was, where the trapdoor was hidden, and how Neil Gaiman pulled the whole thing off so gently and elegantly that you didn’t notice a thing. Ready? Here we go.
The Facts As We Know Them
Let us begin by establishing a baseline—some fundamental, logical assumptions that underpin the magic trick. These will seem obvious as soon as I say them, which is precisely the point: They are self-evident, loadbearing foundations for my entire argument, and if I don’t point them out, I’m going to sound like a crackpot conspiracy theorist. (Which! To be fair, I might be. I could easily be wrong about all this—but I don’t think I am.)
Our baseline, loadbearing assumptions that preface my Grand Unified Theory of Season 2: 
1. Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job.
2. Neil Gaiman loves these characters and wants with all his heart to do them justice; likewise, he has a great deal of respect, love, and admiration for Terry Pratchett and is striving VERY HARD to write the show the way Terry would have been happy with.
3. The devil, as they say, is in the details: Neil Gaiman and the entire Good Omens cast/crew are fully capable of doing extremely subtle detail work, as conclusively proven in Season 1 Ep 6, specifically the whole sequence of the body-swap scenes.
With me so far? Great.
The Elephant In The Room
Season 2 was... odd. It was odd, wasn’t it. This isn’t a matter of whether you loved it or hated it—there was just something odd going on.
I spent the entirety of my first viewing very much enjoying myself and being very happy to be back with these characters and this world, but I was also liveblogging to my groupchat as I went, and a theme soon began emerging:
“Neil, what are you doing? Where are you going with this?” “What in god’s name is going on here? I’m so lost lmao.” “What is going on with the music situation?” “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE NEIL” “zombies, ok, I trust u to pull this all together in the end, Neil, but I still don't know what you're up to” “What is going on LOL” “Incredibly what is going on here” “NEIL! WHAT IS HAPPENING!” “Literally what is happening” “Neil Gaiman why have you constructed a regency au for mystery VIBES reasons” “just????????? lesbians????????? dancing what's HAPPENING. just all the background characters are gay here ok sure sure sure NEIL GAIMAN WHAT IS HAPPENING--” “mmmmmmm neil what u doin”
All these are copied verbatim from my liveblogging, and apparently I am not the only one to have this reaction. And to be clear, I was having a good time! I came out to this theater to see a magic trick, and this Neil Gaiman guy on stage is a master magician—but I didn’t see the trick, even though there must have been a trick. 
At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the season. I wanted to like it! Indeed, there were many things that I liked about it! But I felt a bit muddled and jumbled up and confused—I felt like there was something I didn’t understand about it, and so I couldn’t yet understand how I felt about it either.
I started chewing on this question in a friend’s DMs: Why is season 2 so fucking odd? What is going on here, Neil? What are you up to? The matter of whether he was up to something was never in question. I knew that he had to be up to something. Writers are always up to something, and as I watched season 2, it was as if I was watching Neil scamper around the room with a mischievous expression as he messed with things here and there and made little tweaks and adjustments to the arrangement of all the Chekov’s guns he’s stockpiling on the mantelpiece. 
You see, Season 2 has some very bad writing in it. HANG ON, DON’T ARGUE WITH ME YET! THIS IS NOT A JUDGMENT CALL!! This is the rug that the trick’s secret mechanism is hidden under!!! This is the hidden mirror that makes the trick work!!!!! This is the trapdoor in the stage!
Yes, of course I will explain myself.
Neil Gaiman is a master magician, but I am a pretty damn good magician myself—I’m a professional fantasy author who has published nine books, and I teach workshops for apprentice writers online and at universities—and if there is one thing I have learned about the process of achieving mastery of your craft, it is this: 
Regardless of what medium they’re working in, the apprentice artist is concerned primarily with achieving realism via an expansion of their control—control of their brush strokes as they paint a photorealistic eye; control of their deck of cards, the mechanisms of their magic tricks, and where the audience’s attention is being directed; control of all the little factors of voice, plot, character, setting, suspense and surprise that go into writing a good story. However, the master artist has achieved that control—so much so that it often looks effortless to an untrained eye—and sometimes the master artist returns to a messy, amateurish style simply because they have control even over this too. 
As an example, consider Picasso and his entire body of work. He begins as an apprentice focused on achieving control, doing portraits of people that look like people—like what we expect a portrait of a person to look like. Then, as he grows in skill and gradually achieves mastery, he pulls away from realism. He develops a style, he experiments with faces that don’t look like any human alive  colored in ways that do not appear in nature. He expands his control. His work becomes abstract. Towards the end of his life, he starts experimenting with what’s called “Naive art”, something that a 5 year old could theoretically draw... but you have to achieve mastery before you can do it on purpose and have it look good. 
On one hand, Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job. On the other hand, Season 2 has bad writing in it.
What does that tell us?
Well, we know from our Baseline Assumptions that Neil Gaiman is simply too good of a writer to fuck up through garden-variety clumsiness and lack-of-control the way an apprentice writer would. Additionally, he cannot fuck up by accident in this case because I am positive that the man is scrutinizing his work on Good Omens far too closely to let anything slide—for Crowley and Aziraphale’s sakes, for David and Michael’s sakes, and especially for Terry’s sake. The stakes are sky-high, and he cares too much to write a weird, kind of “bad” season by accident.
Which leaves only one option: He did it on purpose.
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(Am I sounding like a crackpot conspiracy theorist? Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m gonna get SO MUCH MORE CRACKPOT.)
If he did it on purpose, then the natural question to ask is: WHY!?!?!??
It’s a great question. Not “Why?” in terms of why he as an individual person with emotions would decide to do that, mind you. More like, “What purpose does this serve for the structure of the narrative?” There is a story he is intending to tell, and out of all the choices he could have possibly made, for some reason this one was necessary and correct in order to achieve that end goal—so what was that reason?
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See? Intentionality. He knows exactly what details he left in, and he did it on purpose. (Editing! It’s important!)
So there has to be a reason. It’s like when a master magician “casually” rubs an itch on his nose—why did he do that? What is he sneakily slipping into his mouth by hiding it under the excuse of this little gesture that does not even register to you as meaningful? (If you haven’t watched enough stage magic to know what I mean, watch this.)
This question is, of course, impossible to simply answer out of thin air without any further evidence. It is a dead end—so we must adjust the question and come at it from a different angle.
The one I settled on when I was chewing on this was: Well, okay, what do I mean when I say “bad writing”? What is it about S2 that makes it feel so goddamn odd?
The Pledge, The Turn, and... The Conspicuous, Expectant Silence
There are three parts to a magic trick: Pledge, Turn, Prestige. 
First, the Pledge: You show the audience something ordinary. Second, the Turn: You make that ordinary thing do something extraordinary, like vanish. Third, the Prestige: You bring the ordinary thing back.
To quote the 2006 film The Prestige just after its explanation of the first two parts: “You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back.”
You have to bring it back.
When I teach apprentice writers, I call this a “setup-payoff cycle”. Achieving control and dexterity with this tool is crucial, because the setup-payoff cycle is the engine of the story—it’s what makes the story run. You can have a setup-payoff cycle at any scale—I have read ones that were a single sentence long; I’ve read ones that were two books long. Additionally, all jokes, no matter how long they are, are structured on a setup/payoff cycle. These cycles work precisely the same way a magic trick does:
You set up the audience’s expectations. (Optional but generally considered stylish and elegant: You give those expectations a firm jolt to throw the audience off-balance.) You pay off the audience’s expectations in a way they weren’t expecting, while saying “TA DA!!!!” really loud with your arms flung wide.
Audiences really like this. A setup-payoff cycle executed just right makes the audience’s brains light up like Times Square and hammers on their mental “reward” buttons like nothing else. It’s like you’ve personally handed them a cookie and a gold star. They go wild for this.
Here’s an example of a setup-payoff cycle, though it’s not a perfect one—and you’ve probably heard it before, so you’re not going to be throwing chairs and tearing down the theater from sheer glee:
The Setup: Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? The Jolt: (the joke starts over and repeats several times without reaching the payoff (aka the prestige) while the audience grows more and more annoyed and frustrated about the unfulfilled expectations, until finally...) Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? The Payoff: ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA?
Good Omens Season 2 feels so fucking odd because the setup-payoff cycles are incomplete—nearly all of them are, and the ones that do close the loop do so in really weird ways which, as a professional author, make me feel kind of, “Bwuh?????? But where’s my cookie? Excuse me??? Sir???? Neil????? My cookie, tho???”
When I realized this, when I finally put my finger on why the whole season was giving me some uncanny valley heebie-jeebies, a chill ran down my spine. (The rest is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ I’M GOING TO GO STARE INTO THE ABYSS NOW BYE)
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gemsgamegems · 1 year
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...on act 3 of our wonderland (no i’m not here, this is Gem’s ghost speaking ahem) AND OH MY GOD Iggy’s anger?? That deep well of injustice and pain and visceral rage??? I feel that shit. I feel it with my entire angry gremlin heart 💩
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