#I was gonna watch critical role but I got distracted

[hilariousrabbit]

Critic of Stage in Playful Land - The Worst Event in Twisted Wonderland

I'm not gonna lie, I had high hopes for this event. The cards were gorgeous, I loved the new outfits, and we even got new characters! I'm quite a huge fan of the gothic circus aesthetic, so I was even more hyped for what's to come. Of course the stakes would be high for something like this, but unfortunately...the execution of this event has completely brought it down.

This is gonna be a very long and angry critic, so beware! I might be mean too!

The translation screenshots provided are from Ekala on YouTube. TW: Insensitive portrayal of human trafficking

The first part of the event felt SUPER stretched out. I understand, the main cast may have been overwhelmed with homework and losing the basketball match against NRC. But I also feel like they could have summarized this quicker? Plus, Fellow Honest also talks A LOT. I know it was supposed to be extended flattery to the point where it became suspicious, but it was taking so long to get to the main point that I quickly became bored.

The character's reasons for going were also very strange...but let's focus on the Octavinelle twins for a second. Floyd and Jade wanted to visit the amusement park specifically because it seemed suspicious. The twins are seen as a very shady duo, and having conflict with an even shadier duo (Fellow Honest and Gidel) is bound to be something that would be super interesting to watch.

Similarly as to how Idia played a crucial part in the Masquerade event, I thought they would have a larger role in this story, and I was disappointed when they just frolicked around the amusement park. They're not the type to just walk right into a dangerous territory without a plan/strategy, and it felt really weird seeing that happen. With them doing no preparations for this situation whatsoever, it feels like a waste to even state that detail in the first place. Speaking of that...I had heard some other fan theories on the role Ortho would play in this event. Some speculated that he would be representing the puppet in this event, as he isn't human. But then again, none of that ends up happening in the event because there was no thought as to how these characters would be used. My friend made an interesting point about the character choice in this event. They speculated it was just the company gathering up characters that haven't been in many events before book 7 ended, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.

When the main cast was exploring the park, it was just filler content. Nothing interesting happened, at all. They explored the park that was filled with references from the Pinocchio movie. Now if this was any other Disney film, I would be like "Yeah alright, that's from the movie. That's cool". But if you know what happens in the movie, then it might be a different story. I was deadass filled with dread when they put the references in, and I was so uncomfortable. Especially during this scene:

Also this was uncomfortable to see. Like okay...I didn't need to know that.

Anyone who watched the Pinocchio movie must have known that something bad was bound to happen (most likely some form of human trafficking). So when Fellow Honest's intentions for selling guests as wooden dolls was finally revealed, the entire story went from 0 to 100 real quick. And not in a good way. I know the previous filler was supposed to put us in their shoes, and how we as the viewer could also get distracted from the carnival's attractions. However, there should have been a better way to transition these two contrasting moods of the story. Plus, I can't help but feel like this is an unnecessarily cruel twist compared to the original movie. When it comes to more darker/sensitive topics such as human trafficking, there should be some sort of caution as to how they portray these kinds of things. I felt like this was solely added for shock value to make up for the slow pacing in the first parts of the event, and I can't help but feel really uncomfortable about this. I also REALLY don't like the possible implications of this line:

The insensitivity of the topic of human trafficking is further fueled by how the chase is played out. They needed a reason for characters to be kidnapped one by one, and I know that's usually how these types of events play out. But considering the severity of their situation, I feel very weird about it. Also, the characters are unusually calm about being sold as a literal slave? And the topic is just not dealt with seriously at all.

Important Detail: The Playful Land theme park functions as a ship, which sails away from land as soon enough guests are lured into the park. This is literally a human trafficking ship, there's no sugarcoating this.

Another part I'm upset about is how Kalim dealt with the entire situation. I'm unfortunately used to Twisted Wonderland dumbing down his character for cheap laughs but this has really gone off the rails. Ace gave him a clear reality check. They were at risk of being sold as dolls to whatever rich freak paid money for them. It was clear that Fellow Honest wouldn't converse on the subject over a fancy dinner. Honestly...I need you guys to read this for yourself.

So when Ortho came back, why in the world did Ace apologize to Kalim? Sure, what he said was harsh but it was completely true! There was a real threat to these characters and it wasn't being taken seriously.

For some reason, every time there's a chance for Kalim to develop, all of that is just completely reversed. Even if this was an issue before the event was released, I also feel like the writers forgot one very important thing...

Kalim has literally been kidnapped before! SEVERAL TIMES TOO!

He was targeted several times because he's from a rich family, they were planning to do malicious things to him for the sake of MONEY. Literally, just like Fellow Honest! He should know better than anyone else how horrifying it is to be taken away from the ones you love, and having no idea what will happen to you. But noooo instead he went full on Steven Universe on Fellow Honest! I'm not even taking the excuse that he's desensitized to it because he was putting the lives of his classmates at risk by giving this human trafficker a fucking chance. While he's not the smartest in the group, his character IS compassionate. How did he give more compassion towards this stranger he met a day ago instead of his own classmates?! How did they botch his character this badly?!

Lastly, when Fellow Honest's reasoning is stated in the story...I really have no words. He engaged in human trafficking, because his former teachers told him that he wasn't a good mage? ...I'm sorry? What the fuck kinda reasoning is that?!

He's literally committing a random act of malice because of his own personal issues. I can't even say that he was merely projecting his hatred onto students alone, as there were other guests attending the park too! I don't know how old they are, or if they're even in school anymore, so these are literally just random victims to me! It looks like the writers attempted to add a tragic backstory for this character in order to get the audience to have some sort of sympathy for him, but this just makes him look fucking stupid.

During this event, he talks about school being worthless and about how he and Gidel had a hard time surviving because they didn't get an education. Like...he chose to drop out of school. Of course that would happen! What was he expecting?

This event made an attempt to go into class dynamics and it's just...oh my god. Let's do a character comparison for a second. Ruggie grew up in a poor area, but because of that he was always on that grindset. Instead of bitching about how educated people are entitled and snobby, he takes advantage of every opportunity around him. And this includes the education at Night Raven College! He even takes financial advantage of others if necessary! He doesn't mind working for others as long as he can get something out of it.

Now let's talk about Fellow Honest's unique magic. I'm not gonna lie, I do think that concept is pretty cool! However, let's take a look at how it's implemented in the event. Now this is where I get critical of this. Having an increased amount of optimism doesn't mean being dumbed down. I'm still confused on how none of the characters were at least a little bit skeptical when walking through the park. There were red flags all across the park, free food, surprise gifts, a whole ass outfit for free, and a freaking 10 minute roller coaster! It was clearly too good to be true, so I can't understand how nobody among the main cast doubted it even for a second?

Also the reasoning why a magic-sensitive creature like Lilia didn't sense his magic before is so bullshit. I'm sorry, they just needed a reason for him to not notice this in order to make this event work.

And then when the cast started talking about how great school was for them, and even offering him admission to Night Raven College... Sorry just a moment, I just need to...

He is a literal human trafficker, and they decided to sympathize with him because of his bad school past?! WHAT???

I'm not even taking the excuse that the main cast are based off villains. HOW CAN YOU JUSTIFY THAT AT ALL?!?!?! HOW???

We don't know how many people he has done this to. It's clear that this isn't the first time this amusement park has hosted customers. If this was merely his first attempt by means of survival then it might have been a different story, but he's experienced at this. There's a good chance that he has turned people into dolls before.

And then after a super prolonged chase scene and even more battles, we get to Kalim going full-on Steven Universe on Fellow Honest. Then his employer deducts his pay because of the damages in the park...and he finally had enough. He frees everyone, asks them to destroy the park, and now he's a good guy and he's gonna open a school!

...

Now I'm confused about this for a couple of reasons. So first of all, how did his opinion of schools completely do a complete 180 after talking with them for a few moments??? Change in a character doesn't occur this quickly, and we've seen this be the case with multiple characters in this game. Even if this was meant to be rushed for the sake of this being an event story, not even Rollo had a change in opinions after his event! So what was up with this?

The second reason is that Jack specifically stated in this event that his brother can't use magic but is still attending school. Magicless people DO get educated, and there's many pathways for them to choose from.

They aren't barren from society like Fellow Honest thinks they are. Take a look at the people in Epel's hometown and in Fleur city, they're pretty happy! I don't think the concept of schools for lower magic users/non-magic users is as revolutionary as they're making it out to be, and I feel like this is a super last-minute decision on the writers behalf.

Another thing is that...

Fellow Honest has NO REMORSE AT ALL for what he did.

He wanted to quit because he just didn't wanna work for the higher-ups anymore, not because he actually realized what he was doing was fucked up! Yeah sure, he might be focused on his new goal to open up a school. But is he just gonna ignore the fact that he fucking SOLD PEOPLE AS DOLLS? HUH? How am I supposed to wish him well on his newfound journey when this entire thing is just left unaddressed!

I'm also confused about another thing. Fellow Honest asked the cast to destroy the amusement park after he freed them, promising to turn the park boat around to Sage Island if they did so. This caused the boat to sink, and Ortho had to push the entire park back to shore.

They were able to get back to shore before any serious damage was done, so can anyone tell me why Fellow Honest and Gidel decided to ride off into the sunset WITH the park? It's literally sinking as they speak! So...huh? Where will they even sail to? It's pretty hard to not notice a huge ass amusement park sinking like this in the middle of the Sage Island, especially when it's right beside the port! What is going on?!

Who the hell even wrote this? I can't with this event man...

I know the lesson of this event is to realize the importance of going to school and being a good kid like in the movie. However...let's step back for a bit. The target audience for Twisted Wonderland is young adults and teenagers, and the fanbase DOES consist of these people. I don't think they need reminding of why education is a privilege...? Pinocchio was specifically made to scare little kids, so it just does not translate well to their target audience AT ALL. While I do love Twisted Wonderland, I really do feel like this is their worst event yet. I hate how almost all the characters were dumbed down to make this story work, and I don't care if it was because of Fellow Honest's unique magic. When it comes to sensitive topics, Twisted Wonderland is usually good at portraying them appropriately. So I really have no idea what happened with this event.

I think the company saw the positive reception with Rollo Flamme, and decided that this type of new character was something to be implemented yearly. Surprisingly, Fellow Honest and Gideon seem to have a large fanbase in Japan...so they probably took the popularity of these characters as their next material to work with. This could have worked out wonderfully if they were to treat this like its own story rather than a remake of the movie, but unfortunately that's not the path they decided to go with.

I have never felt this way about any other event, and the urge to write this critic was STRONG. I have no idea whether Yana wrote this, or if another employee just decided to pull some last-minute shit with this entire event. Regardless, I'm praying to god that this is merely a one-time occurrence and that the next event will be better. I think for the sake of my sanity, I need to pretend this event doesn't exist.

Thank you for reading my thoughts on this.

[noelwho]

Ultimate Chronological Order Imodna Playlist!!!

Hello! I feel like I have to introduce myself ‘cause I’m barely on Tumblr. I’m still learning how to use it, I posted a couple of fanarts and they went really well, so I want to try and make myself a spot in here. My name is Noel (they/them) and I’m a big fan of Critical Role. I started watching a few months ago, with Exandria Unlimited. Once I was done I went ahead and started Campaign 3. I’m currently on episode 49 (I know, I have a lot ahead yet). I also watched the first season of Candela Obscura and a couple of One-Shots.

Today I’m here to talk about the Lesbian Southern Gothic Witches. Earlier this week I started to obsess over a playlist. An Imodna playlist, to be more specific. It started with me listening to one I found on spotify (I will credit below because it’s been a huge inspiration for this project) and I got the urge to make my own. At the beginning it was something chill, something normal…until it was not. Over the course of the last 3 days I haven’t thought about or listened to anything else. I got the idea of making the playlist in chronological order and I started to take it very seriously. I divided their history in 10 different chapters and assigned each song to the correct time period. At first it was just gonna be into chapters, but then I started to put them in order inside the chapters too, and it became very personal. For real, this playlist has been the one and only thing I wanted to talk about for days. Last night I finally finished it. I’ve played it for run tests several times and I think it’s finally ready to see the light (kinda feels like the project of my life even though I only spent a few days working on it).

After all this brainrot it didn’t feel right to just tweet a link to the playlist, I wanted the world to know everything that went through my head in the process of making this. I also don’t have many people around who care about Critical Role, and I thought it was a good opportunity to connect with the fandom. So all of this took me here, to tumblr. All of a sudden it became very clear that this was the perfect place to set my baby free.

There’s some things I wanna make clear before you start reading, the first being the classic: english is not my first language. Sounds like a joke at this point but for real, it’s very likely that this thing is full of grammatical mistakes and I want to apologize in advance (specially about the in/on/at situation, I’ve been having lots of trouble with those for some reason) This is also the first time I do something like this so it may not be perfect. The second thing is that this will obviously be filled with spoilers. In fact I actually haven’t even got to The Scene, I saw it around on Tumblr and Twitter (impossible to avoid that spoiler, but I don’t really care). I’m aware that there’s a lot of Imodna moments that I haven’t seen yet, but I couldn't wait to start this playlist. I don’t know if the episodes I have left to watch will translate into new chapters or into new songs for the chapters I already have but either way, I will keep this post and the playlist updated.

With that being said, welcome to this ride through an unhinged mind. Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy!

The tether scene is one of my favorite ones. I love that metaphor with a passion. That’s why I chose this name for the playlist. With the photo I wanted to make an allusion to the red thread myth given that Laudna herself carries around a spool of red string. I even edited the picture so the hands on the right are slightly gray like Laudna’s.

There’s not just one specific vibe to this playlist, but I find it to be a very calming one, with the exception of some specific moments that we will talk about later. I tried to avoid strong and distracting beats so I could keep it a little ethereal. Lots of acoustic guitar (which I love). I’m not going to talk about every single song because some of them have pretty obvious meanings. Usually the songs aren't a 100% match, but they do have a part to it that speaks to me and to the story on a certain level.

× Imogen and Laudna’s separate lifes ×

At the beginning of the journey that is this playlist, I wanted to introduce the characters. Intertwining their songs, we get to know Imogen and Laudna’s pasts, before they have each other to face the terrors of being witches in a world that doesn’t quite understand them.

Delilah - Florence + The Machine (Laudna)

I sometimes wonder if Marisha has ever listened to this song, because oh my fucking god. I wanted to start the playlist with Abbey, I didn’t because with the intertwining I couldn’t make it fit, but this one is a very good start as well. This song shows perfectly how it must have been being brought back by Delilah and having that power all of a sudden.

Abbey - Mitski (Imogen)

Matilda - Harry Styles (Laudna)

Imogen - Nick Mulvey (Imogen)

Laudna's lullaby - Ginny Di (Laudna)

Time comes in roses - Bess Atwell (Imogen)

The Tradition - Halsey (Laudna)

Burn it down - Daughter (Imogen)

There’s several songs from this album on this playlist. It couldn’t fit better. It reflects perfectly the moment Imogen started to develop her powers. It even refers directly to the way she parts ways with her town (which doesn’t happen for a few chapters but still I felt this one belonged here). Her fear of being a disappointment, her father becoming absent, the feeling of being cursed. It’s all here.

The hanging tree - The hunger games (Laudna)

Still I wait - Anna Leone (Both)

Even with everything they had to go through, they both still wait and cling to hope.

× Imogen and Laudna meet ×

Finally, their paths cross. They experience the feeling of warmth for the first time in a long time. They both feel the need to keep the other one close and begin to appreciate the little things in life, learning how to be taken care of. Goodbye loneliness.

Season of the Witch - Lana Del Rey

I'd like to walk around in your mind - Vashti Bunyan

How important is this song knowing what Imogen can do…

Comfortable Silence - Bella Porter

Without you without them - Boygenius

A hole in the earth - Daughter

That Moon Song - Gregory Alan Isakov

Love brought weight - Old Sea Brigade

That distant shore - Steven Universe

Sick of losing soulmates - Natalie Dawn

I Hear a Symphony - Cody Fry

Sidelines - Phoebe Bridgers

The bug collector - Haley Heyderickx

Sometimes I feel that it’s always Laudna taking care of Imogen, as if she didn't have anything on her own plate. It can't be easy to live with a voice in your head and paranoia. This song shows how Imogen is there to hold Laudna too when it becomes too much.

Look up - Joy Oladokun

If the last one was an Imogen’s POV, this one is totally a Laudna’s POV. Her and her silly little pep talks. “You’re so capable”.

Daylight - Taylor Swift

I love the idea of them learning that life can be good if you find someone to share it with. This song encapsulates that perfectly.

Spell - Dora Jar

I wanted this one to be the last one of the chapter because it introduces the idea of leaving together.

× Imogen and Laudna run away together ×

“Would you run away with me?” They learn what it’s like to have a home that’s not a place, but something entirely new. The past still follows but they’re no longer crushed by it, because they don’t have to sustain it on their own.

Departure - Daughter

Second child, restless child - The Oh Hellos

Just the two of us - Grover Washington, Jr.

I really like to imagine Imodna slice of life scenes when I listen to this song.

Dandelion Wine - Gregory Alan Isakov

Homesick - Dwara, Khotton Palm

Graceland Too - Phoebe Bridgers

When I realized how much of a Laudna's POV this song is, I almost cried.

Telepath - Manchester Orchestra

I really really like Manchester Orchestra, it's one of my favorite bands. I never let go of the chance of spreading them around, and this one is the best song they have. Laudna's POV for sure.

everything i wanted - Billie Eilish

With songs like this one and Intertwined, I wanted to introduce the idea that even though they're definitely better off now that they left the town, that doesn't instantly solve all of their problems. As I said before, the past follows, but they're no longer alone with it.

Savior Complex - Phoebe Bridgers

Intertwined - Dodie

Nothing else matters - Phoebe Bridgers

As long as they're together, nothing else matters.

× You lied ×

Even though I only have a few songs for this precise moment of the story, I thought that it was very important to include their first fight. The gem is broken and Imogen feels betrayed. Laudna is left abandoned and thinks she deserves to be punished for Delilah’s wrongs. We explore jealousy for the first time.

Witches - Daughter

The silence at the end of this instrumental song represents the loneliness that Laudna felt when Imogen left her alone after her incident with Delilah

Landfill - Daughter

There are two possible ways of reading into this one. This is in my opinion a Laudna's POV. She could either be talking to Imogen, expressing her deep rooted desire for a punishment for what she’s done; or to Delilah, alluding to the attachment she has to her own powers (that at least as far as she knows are there because of Briarwood) opposed to the hatred she feels for her and for herself for wanting those powers (this is a theme that they explore later on future chapters)

Are you okay? - Winnetka Bowling League

Afterglow - Taylor Swift

The archer - Taylor Swift

× Laudna’s death ×

Otohan Thull relentlessly kills three members of Bells Hells. A coin is flipped and Laudna is gone, again. What awaits beyond the afterlife? Perhaps a little girl, a monster and a tree.

DVD menu - Phoebe Bridgers

If death’s not exactly DVD menu by Phoebe Bridgers, then someone tell me what’s like because I can’t imagine otherwise. I freaking love how this song connects with Daffodil.

Daffodil - Florence + The Machine

Death with dignity - Sufjan Stevens

Bells in Santa Fe - Halsey

I like to imagine that Laudna didn't appear in Nightmarish Whitestone immediately. Up until this point, she's in a limbo, accepting her own death. Bells in Santa Fe marks the moment she sets foot in that Upside-down kind of world. The constant repetition of “All of this is temporary” is like a mantra for her, the only hope she has of getting through it with her sanity intact is believing that this will also end and she will finally find peace.

Willow Tree March - The paper kiss

Hard times - Ethel Cain

Tether me - Galleaux

With this song and the next one, I wanted to express desperation. We don't get to know in the series how she feels throughout all of this, but I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been. There's a point where anyone would have started begging for help.

Matilda - alt-J

× Imogen’s grief ×

“Is she your favorite?”. Imogen feels deeply guilty for what happened. The possibility of bringing Laudna back is the only thing that’s keeping her from losing it completely. All the regrets, all the words she wishes she said before, all the times she didn’t approached her when she wanted to, come afloat. Grief, disassociation and sorrow.

Words - Storefront Church, Phoebe Bridgers

This song is meant to represent the exact moment of Imogen floating and losing control, with Otohan in her head pushing her to let go.

Goner - Twenty One Pilots

No other song in existence can express better the moment Imogen realize Laudna's gone for good.

Lanterns lit - Son Lux

True Faith - Ashley Johnson

Hurt for me - SYML

Carry you - Novo Amor

My love - Florence + The Machine

Lucky for you - Novo Amor, Gia Margaret

Killer + the sound - Phoebe Bridgers, Noah Gundersen

Should have known better - Sufjan Stevens

Ya'aburnee - Halsey

Show you a body - Haley Heyderickx

Imogen (even Laura) loses hope for a moment during the ritual they do for bringing Laudna back. The end of this song summarize this repeating a lyric over and over (you can clearly see through this playlist how much I love repetition).

× Back together ×

After Bells Hells confront Delilah at the Upside-down-Whitestone of Laudna’s nightmares, Pike manages to bring her back to life. Imogen and her are back hand by hand, and nothing can ever tear them apart again. Here’s where I think something awakes inside them, but they are far from realizing it.

I am the Antichrist to you - Kishi Bashi

Like an angel “fallen from the sky with grace”, Laudna’s back on Imogen’s arms.

Darling - Halsey

This love (Taylor's Version) - Taylor Swift

Now that you're home - Manchester Orchestra

Lose you again - Manchester Orchestra

Halloween - Phoebe Bridgers

But not kiss - Fayer Webster

Like I said, something changes after this. What they’ve been through is not nothing. This song is here to show that something is born deep inside them, on their subconscious far from their reach yet

× Back to Gelvaan ×

Same as with the “You lied” chapter, I felt that this one was important even though I just have one song for it. It just matches perfectly. Imogen and Laudna visit Imogen’s hometown and the place where they met, searching for answers. Old wounds, some closure and an emotionally absent father.

My tears ricochet - Taylor Swift

× Tethered ×

In this chapter the platonic bond is peaking. It takes place right before The Unraveling, giving in to the “Can I kiss you?” phase and becoming romantic. They’ve been through hell and back just to stay together. This is my personal favorite bit of the playlist, everything is extremely intense but not yet explicit.

Tethered - Sleeping at last

I Will - Mitski

Anchor - Alli X

Don't let them see you cry - Manchester Orchestra

Crosses - José González

Quietly - Manchester Orchestra

Francesca - Hozier

Moon song - Phoebe Bridgers

Capital Karma - Manchester Orchestra

Everywhere, everything - Noah Kahan

In a week - Hozier

Monster - King Princess

j's lullaby (darlin' i'd wait for you) - Delaney Bailey

I will follow you into the dark - Miya Folick

I wouldn't ask you - Clairo

× Can I kiss you? ×

Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The beggining of something new, the next and most logical step of this journey. The platonic becomes romantic and they get to truly explore the feelings they always had, and some novel ones. This is the moment I know less about, but I’ve used my imagination and my own headcanons.

Can I - Genevieve Stokes

I debated a lot whether to put this one at the end of the last chapter or the beginning of this one because I don't know how relevant Laudna's death is up to this point, and there's a huge reference to this in this song. I know for a fact that the Delilah’s plot is not over and things will change, but I couldn't resist the urge to put it in here, given the name of the song and its obvious connection to the chapter.

We'll never have sex - Leith Ross

Wading in Waist-high Water - Fleet Foxes

This is the last time - The National

All my ghosts - Lizzy McAlpine

Prière pour la nuit - Barbara Pravi, November Ultra

Chewing Cotton Wool - The Japanese House

Bandages - Rachel Bobbitt

This is it, this is The Ultimate Chronological Order Imodna Playlist. I don't know if I'm the first one doing this, probably not, I don't know if this has any value to anyone beyond myself, but I had a hell of a lot of fun. If only one person were to read this till the end I would be more than satisfied.

I’ll link here the playlist that started all of this. Massive respect for this person whoever it is, I took lots of the songs from here

Infinite thanks to anyone who gets here or saves my playlist, feel free to respond with any song that you think adds to the story!! Something tells me this isn't the end of my Imodna brainrot so,,,, more things could be on their way (a fanfic, perhaps?).

No idea how to end this so… long live Lesbian Southern Gothic Witches!!!

[gingerbreton]

Top 9 People You Want to Get to Know Better

Tagged by @rangerdoubt and @idlenight , thank you!

I’m late to the party, I think most people have been tagged already but I’m gonna jab @astarien @persephotea @askweisswolf @the-rebel-archivist @danielsullivan @punkranger @mihqorio @griever-receiver @lazyvoyager no pressure of course 💖

Favourite colour: probably like a dusky muted pink since I keep using it on backgrounds for stuff XD

Currently reading: I’ve got Night Watch by Terry Pratchett on the go, and I got distracted midway through catching up on the latest Exile update

Last song: I’ve had “She’s casual” by The Hunna on repeat recently. Because Lila vibes

Last series: I’m not watching much tv at the moment but I did just finish the first arc of Candela Obscura from critical role. Very good eldritch/body horror, especially the 2nd episode!

Sweet, savoury or spicy?: Sweet, I am easily bribed with sweet things

Currently working on: so many art wips. I’ve got a bunch of figure sketches that turned into Lila and a separate of Danny, plus flystep training sketchdumps that I need to line and decide whether I have the spoons to colour them. I got distracted by dnd au art though, so I’m currently picking away at eladrin Lila sketches, gonna have fun colouring those

[alloutofgoddesses]

C3 E50 - It’s the middle of the semester so I have no free time ever and I’m reconsidering all of my life choices leading to this moment

Gale!

Fun fact I tried watching this last night and only got about an hour and half in when I realised I was way too tired and distracted so I turned it off

Jester I miss you

NOPE vibes

Why is Liam so little

Off topic but anybody else have a grey cat? I have a nearly 11 month old grey feline and I would love to know if they’re all Like This or if mines a special (basket) case

Aahhhhhhhh oh my god I’m so happy for Imogen

Planning is an essential part of DND but guess what. I am not paying attention to a whole lot of it unless I myself am planning

RIP Silver Sun? I don’t understand why this is necessary oops

Travis bud when was the last time you got your eyes checked

Fly in studio AGAIN (why are there so many flies in the Critical Role studio)

Miss your merk

…and I guess I’m done with my tea now thanks Hermes

Gnome sinkholes

Also there’s no way they’re coming back with a better ship lol

Laura please don’t do math problems

Keyleth I love you

Nothing bad is going to happen, this plan will go as expected

Awww Fearne gave Ashton a forehead kiss

Shout out to Travis for continuing to wear the sweat bands

Oh boy oh boy

I love seeing Travis “Aabria was only scared of me” Willingham in his element

My tummy feels weird lol… idk why this isn’t very high stakes at all

Hello who are you

Scary Laura scary Laura

Okay but how “high up” is Lilliana for that to work

Oof buddies

Oh hey I own those sweatpants

Just filibuster, that’ll stop the apocalypse from happening

Don’t look at your wife like that Matt

Oh no - I feel like it’s a bad idea to run

Does Travis need the sweatbands because I think I do

WEREWOLF TIMEEEW

OH THAT’S VERY BIG

Get em Laudna

How much attention do we think this combat is drawing. Also who’s hiding in the tent

Casual Lizzo ref

Bye Ashton

The warder is gonna die via electrocution!

Is it Otohan or her mom

AH SHIT I WAS RIGHT ABOUT SOMEONE BEING IN THE TENT

Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute

Fingers crossed fingers crossed this is a blorbo from our shows

This has to be someone very dexterous

That’s monk shit right that has to be monk shit

THATS EXPOSITOR BEAUREGARD LIONETT

Me too Liam

Ashley I love you - try your absolute damndest please

That’s my second favourite Critical Role lesbian!!!!!!

ASHLEY SHE IS SO HOT

That’s Beau!!

THAT’S MY BABYGIRL

ME TOO LIAM!!!!!!

Multi-campaign crossover!!!!!!!!!

ME TOO DANI

In the words of Liam AND Aabria, what’s sexier than wizards? NOTHING

Oh Caleb is so respectful I love hims

Yeah you have baby

Probably Beau 😬

I would love to see Beau and Caleb in Vasselheim

Hey it’s her!

Very excited for the people who woke up Devexian to meet FCG honestly

Awww where’s the rest of the Mighty Nein

- Who didn’t make it out? I would like to know Caleb

When is Chet gonna become small again. I feel like it’s gonna make Beau laugh

Ashton has been silent the entire time 🧐

Ashton bby speak up ask questionssss

Which of his romantic partners is he referring to

Oh shit third wizard?

Yeah Travis the meta levels are out of this world

There’s Ashton hi buddy

Ajshshsjaj BEAU

I want Ashton and Beau to be passive aggressive together PLEASE

Be careful with that fourth wall it doesn’t look super stable right now

Okay but I would prefer if we move forward with the full team here

Desperately want Beau and Caleb to meet FCG

[THEY] XANDIS IS THEY REMEMBER PRONOUNS MARISHA

Ah goddammit. See y’all next week

[platinummice]

So no one was gonna tell me about Brennan Lee Mulligan huh I was just supposed to find him myself? I looked up his name with controversy after it just to make sure and the only thing that came up was that he answered the 100,000 dollar question wrong in who wants to be a millionaire

[iambilliejeanok]

Omg can I plz plz plzzzz get a Dom!Kisame x Sub!Fem!reader? Where the reader and Kisame are constantly bickering back and forth and don’t like each other but one day an argument they have leads into some rough sex? I hope this makes sense. I really enjoy your writing by the way!!

I like this one. I like it alot. 😏thank you anon💜

Warnings: 18+. Unedited. NSFW. Language, slight overstimulation and violence.

“Not today Kisame! I’ve had enough stinky!”, you yelled, irritated beyond belief at the mere sight of the shark boy, let alone the mean words coming out of his fowl mouth. You huffed, crossing your arms and cocking your hip in a way that Kisame admired. He didn’t like that he thought you were very attractive and sought to squash any and every thought he had about you by being mean. “Get yourself together y/n”, he spoke in a very demeaning way, despite the fact that he was clearly aggravating you with his patronizing taunts. “I thought you could handle a little criticism. You’re weak and you ought to train a little more to at least compensate for your failures y/n”. That was it. He reached the boiling point. Why would he say that considering the fact that you were alone, on a mission to capture the four tails. Unlike like you, everyone else had a partner to help them succeed. The four tails was strong, forcing you to back out of the fight before you’d needlessly hurt yourself. Your taijutsu was neat, but you lacked the physical strength to inflict any serious harm, your strength being the ability to absorb chakra and return it to the user in five fold. Also that you were abnormally intelligent, making you a crucial member of the akatsuki as you played a role in managing the group, sometimes helping pick out the right teams for the right tasks. And your main focus was to collect information about the jinchuriki to share with Pein, who would use that information to select an actual team to hunt down the host. Kisame was happy you failed. There was just something about seeing you so miserable that he couldn’t help but take pleasure in. “Are you gonna let him talk to you like that y/n?”, Hidan deviously questioned, successfully riling you up. You literally pounced on him, not caring that you were in the midst of all the other members, taking him down by complete surprise. You both fell to the ground with a loud thud, Kisame completely taking the hit as you landed on top of him. He was rather stunned that you were able to easily take him down. “Yes y/n, get him!” Hidan cheered, enjoying the view of your ass as you hovered above your new opponent, earning himself a glare from Kakuzu. You certainly weren’t tiny. You were packing in all the right places, standing at 5’8, your curvy body showing in all its glory because your clothes burnt off in certain areas after escaping the four tails brutal lava release, making you look all the more fucking sexy to the swordsman, as well as every other member in the room. But even then, he was way too big and bulky for you to manage bringing him down to the ground in a spilt second all by yourself. You brought your fist up, ready to wipe away that smug look on his face with a nice and hard blow, infuriated at how he calmly waited for you to hit. Your fist connected with his cheek, Kisame quickly flipping you over so he was now on top of you, blood dripping out his nose and falling on your cheek as he easily pinned your wrists on either side of your head, his solid, muscly frame dominantly hovering above you. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”, he growled, angered by how you took him down in front of everyone, but also more than happy to fight you, to see what you’re really capable of. You brought your knee up between his legs, a loud grunt leaving his mouth as you landed a hard blow on his crotch. You used the opportunity to head butt him hard before flipping him over so you were right back on top of him. He was obviously holding back, but today you were in the mood to really fight. “Enough!”. You both snapped your heads in the direction of the familiar voice. Pein looked down at both of you, his purple eyes piercing your own, his expression stoic as always. You quickly got off of Kisame, dusting yourself off as you walked off to your room. He really underestimated you, but next time Pein wasn’t around, you would certainly give him a big taste of the strength he didn’t know you had.

The next morning you felt somewhat better, dragging yourself out of bed to start your day with the rest of the miserable human beings in the hideout. You finished up your breakfast, washing only your dishes, drying them and packing them away, growling at anyone who dared to near you with their dirty dishes. You would die before you washed somebody else’s dishes in this hideout. No one was worthy. Except maybe Itachi. You dried your hands off, walking back to your room to meditate, shower and change before you’d go out and train a little. Not because Kisame said so, you reminded yourself, now debating whether or not you should train, so Kisame wouldn’t think you were training because of his rude remark last night. You walked with your eyes glued to the floor, not watching where you were going as you sped walked the rest of the way in deep thought. You bumped into something hard, the impact throwing you off balance, causing you to stumble backwards and land hard on your bottom. “Ow!” , you whined, looking up to see Kisame. He didn’t have his cloak on, just a skin tight black turtle neck shirt with a pair of black pants. Barefoot. The shirt he wore hugged his muscular chest in such a sinful way. His beefy arms flexing as he gazed at you. This might of been the first time you’d seen him without a cloak. He wasn’t just a big shark. He was a tall, muscular, sexy shark. He reached down to grab your arm, pulling you up a little too fast, causing you to stumble once again, but this time, he held you until you were able to stand on your own. You were pretty much gawking at this point, gulping away your arousal as you immediately looked at the ground, embarrassed that he caught you. “Watch where you’re going little girl”, he said, ignoring how cute you looked still dressed in your pijamas. The pink, spaghetti strap shirt hugging your ample bosom, your nipples confidently introducing themselves through the thin cotton material. The shirt ended just beneath your natural waist, revealing your pierced belly button and a whole lot of smooth skin before your navy blue with white polka dots pants took over, a drawstring keeping them around your hips as they draped all the way down to your ankles, folded twice so you wouldn’t step on them. You both stood in the middle of the long passage, awkward silence surrounding the two of you as you shyly checked each other out. “If you were watching where you were going you wouldn’t of let me walk right into you”, you started, trying to distract yourself from the 6’4 hunk of sexiness standing in front of you. Quickly overcoming your shame you looked up at him, clearing your throat as his eyes were glued to your chest for a good few seconds before he lift them up to look at your face. Unlike you he wasn’t embarrassed at all, his eyes continuing their journey down your body as he nonchalantly replied, “Yeah whatever little girl, I don’t have time for this today”. Your eye twitched. “I’m not a little girl”, you spoke, trying to stay as nonchalant as he was. “Is that so?”, he challenged. “Yes. I’m much more than you could ever handle Kisame. But anyways, I’m not going to to stand here and argue with an angry fish, so bye”, you retorted, starting to walk past him and to your room. His large hand found your neck, causing you to stumble as he dragged you back in front of him, pushing you against the wall all in one swift movement. You gasped out as your back hit the wall, knocking a little air out of your restricted windpipe. Kisame eyes met yours, his teeth showing in his devious smile. He didn’t know whether to laugh at your confidence or respond to your smart remarks. Whatever it was he was feeling made his dick twitch. If only you weren’t so damn cute gasping for air in his hold he would’ve ignored you and continued on about his day. But today he reached his limit. He was going to teach you a very good lesson.

He leaned forward to whisper in your ear, “Much more than I could ever handle?”, he questioned. “Are you sure about that little girl?”. At that he let go of you, watching you greedily suck in air before easily picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder. You blushed at how strong he was. “I’m guessing you don’t know how to be gentle”, you remarked, only further triggering his irritation. “For once you’re actually right about me. I do not know how to be gentle and I hope you learn from this”, he responded. You could hear the seriousness in his tone, hoping he meant to do what you thought he was going to do and not actually kill you this morning. Uncertainty travelled through your veins, making you nervous as you tightened your grip on his shirt, trying to keep your balance. His arm sat between your thighs, the grip on your upper thigh just below your ass the only support you had on his shoulder. You were genuinely concerned. Trying to think of a plan to escape or fight back if you needed to. He entered a room, shutting the door behind him. A few steps later he threw you onto his unmade bed. You could smell his musky scent all around you, spiking up your arousal as you sat up on your elbows, looking around you before concluding you were in fact, in his room. You looked up at him, gulping away your nerves as he lifted his shirt over his head. Holy fuck. At this point his sexiness would surely kill you before he got the chance to. You could only watch him in silence, as he crawled onto the bed, slowly making his way to you, like an animal sneaking up on it’s prey, forcing you to lie on your back. He spread your legs open to settle between them. You felt so little beneath him, actually nervous about what was currently taking place. Kisame stopped just above you, sensing your nerves building up. “Where did the cocky girl run off to?”, he chuckled. You felt rather embarrassed that he was right, all your confidence left your body when he threw you onto his bed, suggesting that he was going to fuck you. As aware as you were you couldn’t find any words to retort. A smile appearing on his face, showing his sharp white teeth as he waited for a reaction. “Did you forget how to talk?”, he asked, before planting a small kiss on your soft lips. He pulled away, looking at your face before coming back down to plant another kiss in the crook of your neck. You lifted your chin up to give him more access. His hand rubbed your thigh, slowly coming up to your hips, then your waist, your abdomen and finally your breasts, not ceasing the kisses that slowly turned into sucks and bites, his sharp teeth piercing your skin, making you moan out before his tongue lapped at the blood, soothing the pain he caused you. His big hand squeezed your boob, causing him to groan at the feel of the soft mound. His fingers pinched your nipple hard enough that you squealed. “Answer me y/n”, his tone serious as he continued his attack on your neck. You complied, “Yes I can talk, I’m just a little surprised”. You figured you should be honest about how you felt right now. He ceased his marking, coming up to look at your face. “I hate to admit it but I find myself very attracted to you, annoying as you are. Right now though, I want nothing more than to fuck you, hard and fast”, he confessed, emphasizing his last words with a buck of his hips, grinding into you, smiling at the way you bit your lip, trying to stifle a moan. “I’m sure I can handle you just right”, he continued, deciding to slowly roll his hips into yours, roughly dry humping you. “I’m just not sure if you could keep up”. At that you snapped your eyes open, a small moan escaping your lips as his erection rubbed your lady parts just the right way. “I can keep up Kisame. You’re not all that”, you quickly retorted. Kisame chuckled, watching you slightly squirm beneath him, enjoying the way he rubbed against you.

His lips smashed into yours in a bruising kiss, his tongue forcing its way into your mouth, making you squeal in delight. His hands immediately worked on undressing you, quickly pulling your shirt over your head and dragging your pants off along with your underwear. In less than a minute you were bare beneath him, your legs spread out as he pressed kisses onto your inner thighs, slowly nearing your wet and aching heat. You brought a finger to your mouth, bracing yourself for what was to come. Kisame looked up at you, waiting for a thumbs up. You looked back into his eyes, whining as you bucked your hips up. Without further ado he drove right in, greedily lapping up your juices, spreading your lips apart before sucking on your throbbing nub, forcing you into a fit of long, breathy moans. You buried your hand into his hair, the other tugging on one of your nipples as you neared an intense orgasm. His large hands kept your thighs spread apart for him, purple nails digging into them as he ferociously ate you out. His mouth found your clit once again, sucking hard on it, the pleasure almost painful as you screamed out in ecstasy. You legs shook in his hold, juices spilling everywhere as he kept at it, making sure you let it all out before he pulled away from you. He got off of the bed, watching you squirm around in pleasure as he pulled his pants off, his boxers following, revealing his thick, long, glorious member. He crawled right back on the bed, flipping you over so you were on your tummy. “I’m sure you feel just as good as you taste sweet girl”, he teased, watching your fat ass jiggle as he slapped it, hard enough to pull out rough moans from you. He snaked his arm under your chest, wrapping his hand around your neck, your breasts snuggling his forearm. “Kisame!”, you moaned out, desperate to feel him inside of you. “What is it?”, he asked, biting his lip as he rubbed his dick along your slick folds, lubricating it and stimulating you at the same time. “Oooh please!”, you moaned, pushing your ass back against him. “You’re going to be begging me to stop soon little girl. Be patient”, he reprimanded, focusing on lubricating his dick in your juices, making you whine out in sweet frustration. Your legs were tucked underneath his own, your thighs pressed together, waiting for him to fuck you.

After what felt like forever he finally pushed the tip into you, slowly stretching you out. He watched you barely manage to take him, squirming beneath him as he sunk into your tight cunt. He couldn’t hold back a moan of his own, sinking his sharp teeth into the back of your neck as he pushed himself all the way into you, your tight pussy snugly swallowing him in. “Kisame! Fuck!”, you moaned out in pain and pleasure as he lapped up the blood dripping from your new wound. He didn’t give you anytime to adjust to the overwhelming stretch. “Mmm fuck! Here we go baby”. He immediately set to a fast and hard pace, his strong hips pushing you up the bed with every thrust, his hand on your neck keeping you in place as he pounded you into the sheets. You couldn’t speak, struggling to catch your breath as your screams took over. His dick was so big, hitting a spot inside of you that made you wonder if he was actually trying to kill you with pleasure. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, drool falling down your chin as he roughly fucked you. Your whole body was now violently convulsing beneath him and you hadn’t even reached your climax yet. Heavy pants fell from Kisame’s mouth as he brutally fucked you, enjoying the way your tight pussy threatened to milk him dry. “You feel way too fucking good baby. Come now”, he spoke through gritted teeth, the demand in your ear sending you over the edge as you came hard. All you could do was scream as the pleasure brutally consumed you, leaving you a complete mess as your grip on the sheets failed to anchor you through this one. Your walls clenched hard around him and he couldn’t hold back, grunting your name out in your ear as he came after you. It took everything in him to not bite you again as his orgasm ripped right through him. Sparing your skin from any more nasty marks.

His weight on top of you crushed you but also anchored you as you both rode your orgasms out. He calming himself before did, pulling you into him as he rolled onto his back. “That was quite intense. Are you okay?”, he asked, holding you tight against him as he kissed your face. His hands ran along your back, to help sooth you down, your whimpers muffled into his chest as you gradually caught your breath. “Y/n, are you okay? Answer me”, he asked again, slightly worried that he might of been a little too rough. He was sure it wasn’t your first time, considering how well you took him when he sunk into you. Maybe he was way too rough. He panicked, slightly tugging your head back to see your face. “Y/n. Answer me”. “K-Kisame. I’m f-fine”, you tiredly whimpered, snuggling into him to find sleep. He finally breathed out, kissing your forehead in relief. So this was all it took to get you to behave? He was hoping you’d be open to doing this again sometime soon, letting sleep take over as he relaxed onto the bed, feeling very satisfied with how things turned out.

[dandylorian]

Stay. (2.1K dorym fic, RATED EXPLICIT, no E14 spoilers)

AO3 Link Here Fandom: Critical Role, Campaign 3 Relationships: Orym/Dorian Storm Tags: EXPLICIT RATING! Sometime in the future (outside or after canon), Afternoon Delight, D/s, First Time Kink Exploration, New Relationship, Blowjobs, Size Difference Summary: "Orym?" That smile grew amused. Dorian raised his eyebrows and leaned his weight – resting mostly on Orym's wrists where he held each in his big hands – more forcefully into the bed, making Orym gasp.

---

"Can you stay still for me?"

Orym flushed with sweat. Every single tall, arched window was open to the city air, but not even the cross breeze billowing in the sheer curtains could breach the heat radiating off of them, tussling against the sheets.

His back was already sticking to the bed from their feverish kissing, with the shaking tension of being unable to find any relief while Dorian and his gorgeous, near-naked body loomed over him on his hands and knees in the baking afternoon of some blazing city along their journey. Orym could do nothing but squirm under Dorian’s regard, hips juddering in a slow twitch, because it was all for naught when Dorian was so close but so far away.

Orym's moan got caught in his throat as he looked up at Dorian, tinged golden in the sunlight that dyed all the walls orange. And Dorian looked down at him, his hair falling in a chaotic waterfall from its hastily-tied bun, and his eyes were hooded but happy, indulgent. Or teasing. He was one and both, always. Wildly, Orym noted his lips glistening with wetness, very probably from Orym's tongue, his spit.

"Orym?" That smile grew amused. Dorian raised his eyebrows and leaned his weight – resting mostly on Orym's wrists where he held each in his big hands – more forcefully into the bed, making Orym gasp.

"Dorian," he answered. Eventually.

He could see how affected Dorian was, his cock tenting his soft breeches considerably, even if he was playing at a certain indifference.

"Think you can stay still?" Dorian repeated, leaning back in to press a kiss to Orym's temple, his sharp cheekbone. His soft lips caught on Orym's skin when he added, "Just for me?"

"Mnnnngh, but — what if I touched you?" Orym argued. He lifted his foot to rub the top of his arch over Dorian's erection. But the effect of his humor was a little lost when Dorian grunted and caught his mouth in a hungry kiss, and Orym moaned embarrassingly loud, pressing his ankle over the length of him.

Dorian huffed an incredulous laugh when they parted, arranging his shins to press into Orym's legs so he'd stop... coming up with ingenious ways to thwart him. For a breathless moment, Orym ended up humping the air – or trying to, as Dorian watched him struggle, with all his weight holding him down. They kissed for another long moment, both breathless and – at least for Orym – beatific, until Dorian lifted away again to look him in the eyes, his expression a little shy.

"I get distracted, you know," Dorian confessed, "when you get handsy while I'm trying to please you. I want to just... give something to you."

A gust of clarity blew through Orym's lust-fogged mind, at that. He smiled, shy right back. Wanted to declare every stupid, besotted fact he'd ever catalogued about Dorian. Wanted to tell him everything, about his past and his childhood and all the choices he'd made, good or bad. But that was for another time.

"That okay?"

Closing his eyes, Orym took a long breath, centering himself until the urgency to keep Dorian grounded in the moment, to let him know he was wanted with his own touch, receded to the background.

He could let him know a different way, this time.

"Yeah," Orym answered, quiet. "Of course."

"Gonna behave yourself?" Dorian teased, letting his stance widen again, and then leaning back on his haunches. His long fingers rubbed at Orym's wrists before he retreated fully.

Orym nodded, struck a little silent.

"You can talk," Dorian said, a little hushed, as his hand drifted between his own legs and squeezed around the base of his cock. Orym admired the purple flush to his cheeks and the strained veins in his forearm, and nodded. "But — mn — keep your hands where they are."

Orym squeezed his hands into fists where they were crossed loosely over his head. He took another deep, shuddering breath.

"Keeping," Orym reported, equally hushed.

"Fuck, you're so gorgeous," Dorian said, and he dropped his hand from the strained fabric over his cock and swept with his palm up Orym's splayed thigh, over his bunched breeches to his taut belly, to his chest where he traced the faint bumps of his rib cage before palming Orym's whole, tattooed pec with his spread hand. Then, when Orym swallowed loudly, he moved upward. His eyes softened into something contemplative as he ghosted his fingers over the knot of Orym's throat up to his jaw, where he began to trace carefully over the contours of Orym's face.

Something big and heavy gathered behind Orym's sternum, but he stayed still, eyes scanning hungrily over Dorian's face. When Dorian's fingers dragged over Orym's lips, he let his mouth fall open, let Dorian's index and middle finger slip over his tongue. Instinctively he sucked on them, eliciting a deep moan from Dorian, until he realized what he was doing.

Dorian was slow to retreat regardless, but Orym apologized when he did.

Dorian's chuckle sent a shiver through him. "You're not doing anything I don't want," Dorian admitted, rubbing over his own torso, teasing close to his own erection again, before he took Orym's chin in his wet fingers. "Can't help taking care of me," he added, soft.

Orym moaned a little pathetically, closing his eyes when Dorian cupped his face, but his hand then moved away, leaving him without any anchor to Dorian for a desperate moment. It was deeply intense, holding himself still under Dorian's attentions – in a way he couldn't have expected.

"Dorian, gods," Orym whined at the feeling of Dorian's fingers hooking in his breeches, panting against the urge to writhe when his cock slapped his own belly, when Dorian swiftly stripped him naked.

"I know, I'm — me too," Dorian agreed, voice caught. Orym didn't catch much else as he was staring at the sun rays dancing across the ceiling, feeling out of his body and so deep inside it that his mind went blank save for the need to stay right where he was, for Dorian.

The mattress jostled a little, bringing Orym back soon enough to watch Dorian lean forward with intent. He was starkly naked now, gorgeous and sky blue and perfect, absolutely, unbelievably perfect, with his streaming hair and his broad shoulders and his body and his long, thick cock jutting out from silky curls between massive thighs. His face was determined, and his eyes were intent on Orym's.

Orym nearly wailed when Dorian finally lowered himself over his body. It was searing, the heat of Dorian's skin, and when he leaned on his elbows and pressed Orym's thighs wide with his hips, Orym did gasp, did cry out. Dorian didn't lean down to kiss him yet, just watched Orym go tense beneath him with a sharp focus that scraped Orym absolutely raw. They both felt Orym twitch trapped between their bodies, and Dorian hummed appreciatively when Orym's cock blurted out a dribble of pre-come against his abs.

"Love touching you," Dorian whispered. The words rumbled through Orym's body, echoed by a brush of his thumb over Orym's ear.

"Dorian," pleaded Orym.

"Mm, you're doing fantastic, but I don't think I'm done yet."

Orym struggled to take in a breath, and he wasn't sure if it was Dorian's weight or him just falling apart.

"Dorian," Orym crooned again when lips pressed into his neck right where he'd caressed earlier. Then his collarbone, tongue and lips. Then his nipples, briefly, until Orym's gasps went thin and pained with need, then onward. "Dorian — Dorian..."

"Orym," Dorian hummed against his belly, laughing a little giddily when a bite over his hip made Orym writhe unconsciously.

"Sorry, gods — oh, fuck — !"

Dorian's mouth closed slickly around Orym's red-hard cock, throat easily opening to the increasingly familiar length, and Orym tensed so completely his body bowed to keep from shooting immediately and devastatingly against the back of Dorian's incandescently hot throat.

His hands flew to his sides, reaching for Dorian, who caught them in his own and threaded their fingers together as he sucked him down to the root.

"Ah – " Orym cried, voice ragged. "I'm — please, please Dorian, I can't!"

Dorian just hummed around him, making him shake. His knees spread, heels scrabbling over the sheets because he couldn't stop thrashing, but the happy noise Dorian made, the press of his elbows against Orym's thighs to spread his legs as far as they'd go as he bobbed his head over Orym's straining shaft, the curl of his tongue against the underside of his head when he retreated to the top, the splay of his hair tickling his skin, was the only punishment he received.

Orym lifted his head to look, pulling at Dorian's hands for leverage, but it proved to be a horrible idea, because Dorian's eyes fluttered open when he moved. He was soft-violet with a happy flush, and he looked absolutely at peace – absolutely powerful – when he dragged his mouth off of Orym's dripping-angry cock with a wet pop, letting it throb against his lips as he looked up at Orym.

"Sweetheart," he murmured, throat raw. "You want to come in my mouth, sweetheart?"

Orym groaned, barely holding himself back from bursting over Dorian's beautiful face, right then and there.

"Yes," Dorian huffed at the sound of Orym's distress, breath gusting over him so delicately it made him full-body twitch, and demanded, "Let go for me, love," before he let his mouth fall open once more, and dipped down to take him.

Orym held on in the torturous, blood-rushing limbo of peaking pleasure for only a few more moments before his breath caught in his throat and his body broke. He sobbed as he came and came inside the hot velvet of Dorian's throat, and he didn't think or move for a long few moments.

"So beautiful for me," he heard a second or an age later. Orym breathed in slowly, and writhed a little with lingering tingles of pleasure, sparked by Dorian's big hands rubbing into his exhausted legs and hands and hips – wherever he could reach, which was admittedly a generous expanse of Orym's smaller body. His caresses grew in urgency as Orym stretched his fingers out absently, reaching for him.

And Dorian moved like a thunderstep spell into his arms, settling at his side and gathering him up to lick ravenously into Orym's clumsy mouth.

"Mm," Orym said eloquently against the salt on Dorian's tongue, "Gonna come? Wan' me to — ?"

Dorian laughed into Orym's cheek and squeezed him to his chest with a forearm around his ribs, hand spread across his spine and settling to squeeze his ass like he was kneading dough. His other arm was trapped between them, flexing as he tugged at his cock with steadily rougher gasps.

"Orym," he sighed, and kissed him, let him lift a hand into his long hair to scratch his scalp, to tug in that way that always made him gasp. Orym felt Dorian's cock brush his ankle again, and he snuck a teasing caress with his foot as they made out.

Dorian groaned into his mouth as he tensed up, splashing them both with his come.

When Orym opened his eyes, Dorian was watching him, breathing deeply and glowing with satisfaction.

"I didn't stay still," Orym said, still dumb from his orgasm.

Dorian grinned, pearly teeth glinting, and propped his head in a hand before stroking over Orym's bare body, knuckles bumping over his abs. "You were perfect," he said, watching Orym preen a little bashfully. "You're so controlled — everywhere except when I have you naked."

"It's impossible not to want to touch you," grumbled Orym, "when I have you naked."

"I think we can both agree I definitely had you that time."

Orym flushed, remembering the heat of his orgasm, and the mindless minutes before. "Yeah, I was..."

"Perfect," Dorian finished for him, then added a warning: "I'll keep saying it, Orym."

Orym felt that all-encompassing fullness build behind under his sternum again. He tucked some of Dorian's mussed hair behind a pierced ear and fought a flush as he confessed with a grin, "I liked it."

Dorian's smile was as blinding as the sun streaming through the window. "I loved it," he agreed.

"I liked the pet names, too," Orym added on a mumble, instead of saying something too raw and revealing. Yet.

"I'll gladly invent more," Dorian returned with a soft laugh.

"Well. Not too many, or you may incapacitate me."

"Who's to say that's not my goal?" Dorian returned, with a waggle of his eyebrows.

"You're halfway there, already," Orym sighed, and when he leaned up for another kiss, maybe another round in this sticky, sultry heat, this time he didn't keep his hands to himself.

[preciouslandmermaid]

55, 64? Oh and 77...I'm greedy.

55. do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

RIP TO MY MIDNIGHT MASS HASSAN X READER FIC 👻! There's a few, sadly, but that's the first that came to mind. I might return to it if I ever do a re-watch of MM or when House of Usher comes out. I just simply lost inspiration for that fic/got distracted by other projects.

I also have a critical role/widojest fic. I stopped watching Critical Role and again, inspiration just went into the garbage, I felt 0% motivation to continue it.

64. what is your favourite title for a fic you’ve read?

"Catching bullets in our teeth" (it was a clintasha marvel fic. I loved the vibe.)

77. how do you write kissing scenes?

Not gonna lie, I've googled "how to write kissing scenes" and then referred to various articles while typing out the scene, seeing where it needs changes/adjustments. Sometimes I get caught inside my head about what everyone's body parts are doing and it gets clunky.

Overall, kissing is simple. It's more about the feelings, the thoughts, the attitudes and desires of the characters. I think more about the ~vibe~ of the kiss -- is it a desperate kiss? a slow one? tender? What were the characters thinking or doing before they smooched? Has this kiss been something that's been building for eons or is it a fleeting, comforting kiss?

Then, you just lay on the metaphors or similes. Notice the difference between this two scenes off the top of my head:

She kissed him. Their lips met in joyous union with a soft exclamation of surprise. (This isn't from a fic, I just typed this quickly).

versus:

“Is this okay?” Her words and her breath tremble against his lips. There is time to pull away, to step back, to rearrange the molecules of their friendship and turn away from this natural, albeit powerful chemistry. The sting of rejection would burn, but it would be nothing compared to losing him completely.

His warm, calloused palm cups the nape of her neck. “Yes…”

His eyes widen slightly, and she hears his brief, surprised gasp before - without a modicum of hesitation -  she slants her mouth over his. His kiss wasn’t a firework. It was soft, it was gentle, it was heartbreakingly tender. It was like sand running through your fingertips, like a brush of sunlight warming your cheek with gentle heat, like stepping into your lush, vibrant home after running through a snowstorm. (source) ~ yes, it's one of my fics.

The second example shows the anticipation (trembling), desires versus expectations, sensory input (eyes, hands, breath), there's a sense of surprise and urgency, a build up and release also there's some sexy consent and we love that.

SO YEAH. That's how I write kissing scenes. I think about the characters history (personal and their history with each other) and then I sprinkle in some poetic language to convey the romance or whatever emotion I'm going for in the scene.

[lloydskywalkers]

any port in a storm

Pixal and Lloyd and the evolving nature of friendship, as highlighted by the regular burning down of your city. 

(desperately trying to break through writer’s block and classes again, this was supposed to be under 2k and it is...very much not hdfjkgh but! i’ve been meaning to write for Pixal and Lloyd for a while so here are a whole bunch of feelings about the two of them and s8)

Pixal meets — truly meets — Lloyd Garmadon shortly after his brother’s been blown to pieces.

She says truly, because if you ask her, Pixal will tell you she met Lloyd Garmadon at exactly 8:48 in the evening outside his father’s monastery, moments before a horde of nindroids led there by Pixal herself descended upon them.

But Lloyd argues that since they said about two words total to each other, it doesn’t really count as meeting, and by the time Pixal’s spending the better part of her day with him running high and low around Ninjago City, she’s learned that it’s easier not to press the point.

Lloyd can be stubborn, like that.

She’d first learned that when she’d met him, just after they’d lost Zane. That loss hadn’t lasted long, especially for Pixal, but the immediate aftermath of it had been devastating. She’d watched with blank eyes as the team had fractured, splitting at the seams as they all fled their separate ways, too heartsore and dizzy with grief to do much otherwise.

All of them had fled, save Lloyd. She hadn’t paid him much attention before that point, the surprisingly small bearer of the Golden Power. Of course, he wasn’t the bearer of that power anymore, but his eyes alone had shown the experience of it. There’d been a brief, lost look that had crossed his face as the others had mentioned leaving, before it had been swept under a mask of stubborn, determined blankness. He wouldn’t be leaving. Someone had to stay behind and watch out for things, he’d claimed, even as the loss had bled through his voice.

Pixal hadn’t quite grasped the concept of empathy at that point, but she’d felt something dangerously close to it.

At any rate, the only interaction they’d had alone was brief. In fact, the only one Pixal can truly remember — and her memory never fails — is the quick exchange they’d had in the hospital lobby directly after the battle. The hospital was for Mr. Borg, and for the ninja’s minor injuries.

There was nothing any hospital on earth could do for Zane.

Pixal had found herself next to Lloyd in the waiting room, trying to distract herself from those thoughts while Lloyd stared at the stark white tiling with dull eyes.

“They never mentioned what your power was,” she’d asked him, almost absently. Collecting data, processing information — anything she could do to distract from the crushing grief.

“Oh.” Lloyd had blinked, startling back into awareness. He’d suddenly looked painfully young. “It’s, ah, I guess it’s just green, now.”

It had been Pixal’s turn to blink. “Green.”

“Yeah.” Lloyd had bit his lip, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly, two habits he’ll never quite lose. “I mean — it’s more than that, but it’s like — energy, I guess, is the best way to put it?”

“Interesting,” Pixal had remarked.

“Yeah.”

They’d stared at each other in silence after that, before they’d both been called off to other errands — and then they were having Zane’s funeral and then Pixal was making realizations she never got to tell anyone, and that had been that in her early introductions to Lloyd Garmadon. Quiet, awkward, and possessing an incredible power he hardly even knew the name of.

Looking back, Pixal figures her introduction hadn’t gone much better.

They’d continued as passing acquaintances as time went on, separated by danger and the confines of Zane’s head, and Pixal had figured that’s all they’d ever be. But then their Sensei goes missing and, despite Pixal’s increasing disappearances on Zane as she rebuilds her own body, she’s been given the role of watching out for Ninjago city along with Lloyd.

She quickly learns that quiet is not a term fit for Lloyd Garmadon when you’re trapped alone with him.

************

“How is there not a single station playing actual music?” Lloyd seethes, flicking through the channels almost manically. “It’s two am, who’s gonna be listening to your stupid commercial for toothpaste now, are you kidding me?”

“Statistically speaking, this is the prime time for long-distance driving near Ninjago City,” Pixal supplies, her voice a hint scratchy where it comes through the his car’s radio speakers. “Or, if you factor in the construction in the east district, there could still be traffic from late-night bars.”

Lloyd groans, thunking his head against the steering wheel as another ad screeches through the small space. “Wonderful.”

“Your vocal tones suggest you find it otherwise.”

“Dont trust ‘em, my vocal tones are traitors.” As if to solidify his point, Lloyd’s voice cracks in the middle of his sentence, shooting up an octave higher. Lloyd goes bright red, and thunks his head against the steering wheel again.

Taking pity on him, Pixal aims for reassurance. “It is normal for your voice to break, Lloyd. It shouldn’t last too long.” She pauses, momentarily scanning through another article. “On second thought, this one suggests it could also take two to three years for your voice to stabilize.”

Lloyd gives a strangled moan. “End me.”

“Unfortunately, that would defeat the purpose of why I’m here in the first place.”

Lloyd tilts his head, cracking an eye open as he glances at the camera feed he knows she’s watching him from. “Unfortunately, huh,” he muses. “So you’re saying if Zane hadn’t made you promise to look out for me, you would end me?”

“That — no, that is not — of course I wouldn’t end you,” Pixal backtracks. An odd feeling flickers through her, almost as if she’s lost her place, floundering.

Or embarrassed might be more accurate, she thinks wryly. She briefly considers projecting a a glaring face at Lloyd from the monitor. This is his fault. She rarely stuttered before Lloyd started teasing her at all hours of the morning.

“I mean, you wouldn’t be the first,” Lloyd continues, conversationally. “And if we’re being honest, I’d definitely rather you be the one to off me, instead of like, random bad guy number eighty-five—”

“I know you think you are funny,” Pixal cuts over him. “But casually planning for your death is something Kai listed I was not to let you do. Also, it is not nearly as funny as you think it is.”

“Ouch,” Lloyd mutters, though he looks chastised. “Never mind, you just took me out in one sentence.”

Chastised might be the wrong term.

Pixal studies him through the monitor, then sighs. “I am, however, honored you think highly enough of me to offer the right to murder you,” she gives in.

She’s rewarded as Lloyd breaks into a bright grin.

He still looks painfully young these days, but it’s less obvious. His voice is pitching lower and he wears his hair different, and he’s gained a whip-like tendency to quip at people, as Pixal’s experienced firsthand. Kai calls it sass in grumbling but fond tones, and Nya calls it snark somewhere between the fourth book series she’s sent for Pixal to try.

The ninja have been kind like that, sharing the interests they have in an attempt to make her feel…well, more human, she supposes. Less confined to a voice in a computer. Of course, Pixal isn’t confined to a voice in a computer anymore, but they don’t know that yet. She’ll tell them someday soon, she promises herself. Any day now.

In the meantime, it’s easy enough to keep up with Lloyd by lurking in his car radio, as he spends half his time in there anyways.

************

“You’d think we’d have found their hideout by now,” Lloyd notes, as they wait in a darkened alleyway again. It gives them an excellent view of the major highways, so if the rumored biker gang does show up, they won’t miss it.

If they show up being the key point.

“Whoever their leader is, they certainly know how to keep a low profile,” Pixal answers, closing out another dead end police report in frustration.

“It’s weird,” Lloyd says, propping the notebook he’s sketching in on his knee as he squints at the paper. “Normally the boss types aren’t this quiet. They like to show off, y’know? Make a big scene, dramatic speeches and all.”

“Are you referring to the villains, or yourselves?”

“Touché,” Lloyd snorts. “But still, you gotta admit it’s weird they haven’t even made any demands. What’s their end game here, elaborate advertising for motorcycle design?”

“I would hope not,” Pixal says. “Their color coordination is lacking.”

Lloyd fights back a smile, his pencil scratching as he shifts his notebook again. “I don’t know, I kinda like the punk look.”

“I noticed that, when you tried to redecorate the car.”

“Hey, skulls are cool.”

“They are also conspicuous, especially when they come in acid green colors.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Lloyd sighs, making a face as he scrubs the eraser across the paper. Pixal tries to tilt the camera further, to see what he’s drawing tonight, but the angle he’s holding it at remains just out of sight.

She could probably guess what he’s drawing, if she tried. The notebook is one they’ve been steadily working their way through on these late-night patrols, the pages filled with little hangman games and Lloyd’s sketches of animals and his teammates. He’s drawn her a few times from memory, and she’s been tempted to ask him to draw her in the new Samurai X armor more than once.

Soon, she tells herself.

“What are you drawing?” she finally asks, curiosity getting the better of her.

Lloyd’s cheeks tinge pink, and he quickly plasters the notebook to his chest, hiding it entirely from view. “Nothing.”

Pixal waits, letting the silence fill with her judgement. “Lloyd, I have seen your drawings before.”

He doesn’t reply, and Pixal tries again. “It gets boring, being stuck with the car monitors for eyes.”

“I know you can hack other cameras,” Lloyd mutters, but he sighs, relenting as he turns the notebook over. Pixal’s eyes rake over the detailed sketch — it’s a comical little thing of her and Lloyd, jammed together on a tiny lifeboat in the middle of a darkening ocean. She can spot the smudges where he’s redrawn her head several times, and the numerous attempts he’s made at his own hair. Pixal studies Lloyd’s portrayal of himself, which is noticeably lacking in facial features. While Lloyd draws the others plenty, it’s a rare occasion that he draws himself, and she can’t help but be curious.

“I thought you were drawing the others again,” she admits.

“They’re on the ship,” Lloyd says, absently. “I’ll draw them when they remember to pull us back in.”

There’s nothing bitter in his tone to suggest it has any bearing on their actual lives, but the lost expressions Lloyd ends up giving their tiny caricatures feel familiar nonetheless.

“Zane has assured me they will be back as soon as they can,” Pixal speaks ups quietly.

Lloyd finally looks up fully, and flashes the monitor a smile. “I know,” he says. “So we better have this thing busted by the time they do, or they’ll never let us run a city on our own again.”

“If only we were truly running the city,” Pixal grumbles. “I could do a better job in two days than the current leaders could do in a year.”

“I’d vote for you,” Lloyd says, sincerely.

It’s a sweet gesture, but Pixal is unable to resist. “You don’t know how to vote.”

“Yes I do, it’s not hard!”

“Really? Then why are you not currently registered in the Ninjago voting system?”

Lloyd makes a strangled noise. “That’s a thing?”

She’s unable to keep the smugness from her voice. “I make my point.” Lloyd scowls, and scribbles a mustache on his drawing of her in revenge.

Pixal thinks it looks nice nonetheless.

************

She can’t really hold it against Lloyd for talking as much as he does, considering she does the same. It gets dull, sitting on patrol for hours on end, and there are only so many hours of light reading they can do before the silence begins to drive them both insane.

Pixal finds herself talking about more useless things with Lloyd than she has in her existence, pointless conversations in circles with each other. She also finds she doesn’t entirely mind. She’s become quite good at quipping back and forth with him, at least. It’s different than the kind of talk she has with Zane, lacking in the depth of feeling with the love they share. Her exchanges with Lloyd are lighter, though that’s not to say they’re less sincere.

For example, Zane hasn’t tried to teach her how to redesign a gi in poor lighting in the early hours of the morning because he’s bored out of his mind, that’s for sure.

“I’m teaching you how to sew,” Lloyd corrects, wincing as he accidentally stabs himself with the needle. “And I’m not redesigning the whole thing, I’m just adding some designs to spice it up.”

“I did not know you were allowed to wear colors other than green,” Pixal comments.

Lloyd pauses, squinting at the monitor. “You’re teasing me,” he finally says. “You’re making fun of how much green this gi has in it.”

“I would never,” Pixal replies, her tone flat and even. “The intricacies of your human humor evade me—”

“Human humor, nice—”

“—unlike the unusually bright shade of green you’ve chosen will fail to evade any eyes of your enemies.”

“I knew you were making fun of me!” Lloyd accuses, then flinches as he stabs his finger again trying to point at her. “And bright colors are our thing. Being subtle is, uh…not. Usually.”

Pixal is losing the battle to laugh at his expression by the minute. “I am shocked.”

Lloyd glares at the monitor, shifting his sewing to rest on his knees as he slouches in the car seat. “How’d you even get so good at sarcasm, anyways,” he mutters. “Zane still doesn’t get it half the time.”

“Perhaps it is part of my glowing personality,” Pixal says. Lloyd gives a huff of laughter, relenting.

“Fair enough,” he says, shifting in his seat again. “Fine, you win. The green is probably too bright, but that’s not the point. I’m gonna show you how to do a backstitch."

Pixal falls quiet, letting Lloyd gesture with the needle as he explains. There are a hundred, a thousand tutorials she could pull up online, digitized knowledge instantly learned on all the countless types of stitches she could use, sorted and categorized in neat columns of use and effectiveness. All of them more detailed, more easily understood than Lloyd’s absent rambling and unsteady hands as he struggles with the end of a knot.

Not one of them will care whether or not Pixal learns the odd way Zane likes to loop his stitches, or will quietly add which stitches knit skin back together quickest.

So Pixal ignores her programming, and does her best to follow Lloyd’s rambling instructions, watching as his scarred fingers tug another thread of dull gold through the green mess of fabric, the city quiet around them.

“You never did tell me where you learned how to sew,” Pixal says, as Lloyd starts up a new thread of black on the other side of the gi. “Was that something the others taught you in training?”

“They’d have to know how to be able to teach it,” Lloyd snickers. “And, uh, no. I taught myself to back at Darkley’s.”

“Oh,” Pixal falters. She’s heard about Darkley’s, both from Zane and the legal reports she’s read online. Neither gave a positive impression of the place. Her mind is suddenly filled with images of a younger Lloyd trying to give himself stitches, and her heart twists.

Lloyd starts, seemingly having picked up on her train of thought. “I mean, I did it for fun, mostly. I like sewing,” he explains. “It’s useful. You can pull things back together, and fix ‘em.”

Pixal is quiet, but she hopes Lloyd takes her silence as agreement with his motive. She likes to think he knows her well enough for that, by now.

************

Pixal finds, somewhere during their fourth month alone, that she’s glad the team elected to stick her and Lloyd together. Not because she doesn’t want to be with Zane — there’s never a moment she doesn’t miss him, and with every day that passes her resolve to keep her secret from him grows weaker, as the longing for actual connection grows stronger.

But there are conversations she can have with Lloyd that she can never have with Zane, and the dangerous thing about spending time with Lloyd, Pixal finds, is that they’re more similar than she’s realized.

“Sometimes I think I’m jealous,” Lloyd whispers to her one night. It’s one of the bad ones, the ones where their enemies struck too sudden to stop, and the mission ends in the hospital. “I think I’m jealous of Zane, and I hate myself for it.”

Pixal is quiet, trying to pick apart the tone of his voice in the words he’s just spoken, and factors in the victims they’ve just left behind at the hospital. She finds herself no closer to an answer.

“Is it the metal skin part?” she finally asks, though she knows that’s wrong. “The, what was it, technical immortality?”

“No,” Lloyd shakes his head. “I’m not afraid of dying,” he says emphatically, his fingers fluttering at over the steering wheel, tapping incessantly with unspent energy. “I don’t want to, but that’s — it’s not what I’m scared of. I’m more scared of how I go out.”

He swallows, and his fingers move to dance over the woven bracelet on his wrist instead, twisting at the tiny beads and tracing senseless designs in constant, steady movement. It’s a motion he does often, and it had puzzled Pixal at first. She’d decided to write it off as an odd tick, a way to spend excess energy.

Now, she recognizes the desperate kind of reassurance that movement gives. She understands too well the need to remind yourself that you can move — that your body will obey you and you alone.

Pixal thinks back to the other factors in tonight’s accident, of the way the drugged man’s eyes had cleared when they’d finally turned him over to the police, the way he’d sworn he’d never do such a thing in his right mind. She thinks of the way the first victim had thrown themselves over their companion.

That victim hadn’t made it to the hospital.

“Ah,” Pixal says, quietly.

She’s silent again, and she thinks back to when she’d met him, the very first time. She recalls the way her programming had rebelled against her in favor of the Overlord, corrupting her body and forcing it against her, twisting everything she was and wanted to be into something different.

She thinks back again, to the searing-hot anger, the terror, the despair as she was torn apart, piece by piece like a machine, burning out at the whims of another. Her end purposeless, her demise belonging to someone else, just like every other part of her.

She thinks of the last glimpse she’d caught of Zane, bright and beautiful as a supernova. Burning with the terrible brilliance of his own, determined choice. Terrible, because the death of something always is. Beautiful, because it was his own. Zane died, not a machine, not a weapon, not a tool of anyone or anything, but as himself. Zane died to save the ones he loves. Pixal could’ve died for spare parts.

Never again, she promises herself. If she goes out, she goes out on her own terms. This time, they choose the end of their own destiny themselves.

In hindsight, it’s the kind of promise they’re both too young to make, but neither of them have ever seen themselves as such, and promises like that are easy.

“Love can be terrible, sometimes,” Lloyd murmurs. Pixal watches him scrub at the blood on his uniform, and thinks how ironically well-timed it is that he finished the stitching on his new gi this morning. “Sometimes I forget how ugly it can be.”

************

The end of their nighttime stakeouts begins with a break-in at Mr. Borg’s tower. Lloyd argues that she should get to call it her father’s tower, if she wants, but the ninja aren’t the only ones Pixal’s hiding herself from.

And then Lloyd gets very tense at the thought of fathers very fast, and they never finish the conversation.

They stay at the edge of the bridge long after the parachute, emblazoned with the unmistakable visage of Lloyd’s father, disappears from sight. Pixal wonders if it’s burned into Lloyd’s eyes, like the way she’s read black spots linger in humans’ vision after they’ve looked at something too bright. The way Lloyd stares at the river, his shoulders tense and his teeth worrying at his lip, she thinks she might be right.

They’re waiting on the report from the commissioner —they’re waiting for anything, anyone who can offer them any explanation of what’s going on. Pixal’s reminded of how much she loathes this kind of waiting.

“It could be—” Lloyd begins, then breaks off, his voice wavering. He swallows, and Pixal can see the way his fists clench tightly from the cameras they’ve put in his car. There’s a fierce part of her that longs to reveal herself, to meet his eyes herself and offer some semblance of comfort. But there’s a time and place for things, and Pixal isn’t ready.

“It could be anything,” Lloyd finally continues, his voice small. “It could — it doesn’t mean anything. It could mean nothing, right?”

Pixal is silent, her mind racing. She’s run the calculations over and over in her head already, scouring the internet for anything related to the bikers. She’s been foolish, she realizes — they both have. Letting the gang go unnamed for so long, thinking nothing of it. Now, with the name flashing vibrant across Pixal’s vision, a part of her wants to let them go nameless just a bit longer.

Before she can answer, Lloyds phone goes off with a sharp ping, just as Pixal’s sensors alert her to the message from the commissioner. Lloyd snatches for his phone like it’s on fire, and Pixal’s already scanning the message frantically, as if she can salvage this if she’s fast enough, save Lloyd from this one pain.

Lloyd’s gotten much better at reading quickly though, these days.

She can pinpoint the moment he reaches the last paragraph, because his breath hitches. There’s a long, pressing pause of silence, Lloyd’s hands trembling as they clutch weakly at his phone. Then it’s punctured by a reedy, wheezing gasp, and Pixal’s suddenly wishing she’d revealed herself after all.

Instead, all she has is her voice as Lloyd crumples, crouching over in visible distress. Pixal’s mind races, recalling everything Zane’s ever told her about his team, the way their panic manifests in different shades. Lloyd’s is quiet but desperate, rapid breathes that stutter as his eyes slide more and more into a frightening kind of blankness.

“Lloyd, please, listen to my voice,” she begs, trying to reach him in the only way she can. “Please, you have to breathe—”

“He’s gone,” Lloyd rasps, unhearing of her words. “He’s s’posed to be gone, it’s supposed to be over, I’m supposed to be done—”

Pixal fights back the sense of overwhelming helplessness. She knows loss. She knows how to finish his sentence. He’s supposed to be done grieving, done mourning, done clinging to false scraps of hope that his father isn’t lost forever only to be met with heartbreak.

And now, to be met with the possibility of something so much worse.

“We’ll stop them,” she tells him, unflinching. “We won’t let it happen.”

Lloyd’s eyes are a vivid green where they stare at her through the monitor, almost ghostly in the misting light reflecting from the river.

He’s silent, but Pixal is, too.

Pixal remembers the way her head had spun when she’d first picked up the traces of Zane in the system, how the world had rushed then steadied, flooding with color as she’d realized he might not be lost after all. She remembers the surging, overwhelming flood of joy, that someone she’d thought she lost might live after all. She remembers being so happy, at even the smallest chance to get him back, because the voice was Zane’s, without a doubt.

She watches the color seep from Lloyd’s expression as his shoulders shudder, the words from the commissioner’s message almost echoing through the air. Watches the terror as the both of them fill the silence.

Will we?  

The radio scratches, as if echoing Pixal’s anxiety. Love can be terrible, sometimes. She’s underestimated how it also be so cruel.

************

She’s also, apparently, underestimated how the universe on the whole could be so cruel.

She should’ve revealed herself to them from day one. That way, when Harumi’s corrupted programming suddenly ravages through her like an electric shock, she could be reassured they’d at least be familiar with the person they were fighting.

Instead, she doesn’t even get to scream. Pixal’s only able to force out a desperate, broken warning before she’s lost again, drowning in her own body as she’s forced under. Furious panic grips her as she screams without lungs, bashing herself against the overwhelming helplessness that’s taken over her.

Not again, not again, not again—

Her limbs creak and jolt against her will, lashing out at the people she cares most about, and Pixal can’t even rage back in her own voice. She’s sworn, she’s promised herself she’d never let anyone do this to her again — she’s sworn she’d die before she let someone reach into her head and snatch control away, and yet here she is, frozen as her body’s used to target her friends.

If she could cry, she might.

There’s not much more to say than that. She breaks free, her body her own once again, but by then it’s too late.

************

If Pixal had the same gift of foresight that Zane did, maybe she would have seen it coming. Maybe she’d have remembered how similar her and Lloyd are, and that this kind of pained desperation always yields impulsiveness and mistakes.

She doesn’t, though. She barely even manages to do what she’s trying to, which is convincing Lloyd to join the others while they celebrate their victory. Their off-key singing is something he normally wouldn’t hesitate to join in on, she thinks, and she hates Harumi a little more.

Maybe she’ll try his mother next. The expression on Lloyd’s face screams unapproachable, and remains fixedly sullen.

Almost to her surprise, he meets her eyes as she draws near— it’s odd, being able to meet his back — and his own eyes are dark, from despair over Harumi or despair over his father, Pixal isn’t sure. She’s thinking it might be both, when his eyebrows crease, and a flicker of concern cuts through them instead.

“You good?”

It takes her a moment to realize why he’s asking, but the answer is obvious. Her head tilts downward, and she watches as her fingers curl and uncurl. Her movements, her choices. She lets out an even breath.

“As I can be,” she replies. Lloyd nods, and his eyes are understanding. His lips twist in a scowl.

“She shouldn’t have done that to you. That was a low blow.”

Pixal’s mouth curves into a humorless smile. “That it was. She’s rather good at those, isn’t she.”

Lloyd’s eyes shadow again, and he looks away, crossing his arms. “This isn’t supposed to be about me,” he mutters.

“Yes, it is,” Pixal counters. “It is why I came over here, in the first place. She hurt—”

“All of us, and who’s fault is that,” Lloyd snaps, his arms crossing tighter.

“I would hope you know it’s hers,” she says, holding firm.

Lloyd looks away again, biting his lip, and Pixal shifts anxiously, rolling her wrists. The sensation of control sliding away still haunts her, worse than it had the first time. She should be better than this, she tells herself hotly. She’s lived without a body long enough that losing it so briefly shouldn’t effect her this much.

Curse her programming, she thinks, tapping agitatedly at the banister. She knew she should have reinforce it sooner.

“Hey, um.” Lloyd is looking at her again, hesitant. He twists at his bracelet, and his eyes lose a fraction of that darkness. “Kai made this for me, after Morro,” he says. “I kept shredding the sleeves of my uniform, so he told me to mess with this instead, when I needed to remember that…that I was in control.”

He shrugs, hesitant. “We could make you one too, if you wanted. It helps, having something.”

Pixal lets out a steady breath, despite not actually needing to. The action is grounding, she’s found. “I would like that.”

Lloyd gives her a ghost of a smile in return. “Soon as this is over, then.”

There’s a heavy weight to his words, and Pixal’s eyes narrow.

“Lloyd,” she says. He looks at her, his eyes dark. “Don’t do anything foolish.”

He’s quiet, not meeting her eyes, and this is where Pixal should stop him. This is when she should see the end of the road they’ve been on since they started this, and force him to turn before it’s too late.

“I know what I’m doing.”

She doesn’t.

************

Lloyd is battered and bleeding by the time they drag him onto the ship, a gruesome portrait of cruelty. Pixal is frozen as she watches him writhe in Kai’s hold, his screams cracked and wet as he thrashes erratically like a broken thing.

Nya is already barking orders before they’ve even gotten Lloyd fully on the ship, and Zane is running scans with a horrified, wavering focus. Pixal follows Cole as he carries Lloyd to the medbay with a blank numbness, the rush of wind streaming past the Bounty sails thunderously loud in her ears.

This isn’t Lloyd, she thinks, staring at his crumpled form. Lloyd isn’t this battered, broken shell of a person. Lloyd isn’t hazy eyes that fail to recognize them and frantic murmuring through bloody lips. Lloyd is bright-eyed and gentle and would rather die before he screams the way he does when Cole moves him to the table.

Lloyd is her friend, and this is where that promise they made has led them. She knows why Lloyd set out for the prison, hot on the collapse of his own star. She also knows he wouldn’t have chosen to burn out like this.

Cole calls out for Zane, his voice ringing in panic as Lloyd screeches in pain again. Pixal thinks of quiet words in the safety of his car, and she feels sick. This is the ugliness of love, the terrible, hideous side of it.

And Lloyd would hate it, if he could see himself, if he were any semblance of lucid. He’d hate to know just how much better he was at breaking himself than Morro ever was.

Zane is gentle as he pushes past her, but Pixal can feel the tremble in his hands. He’s every bit as rattled as she is, if not more so — Zane’s heart is larger and softer than hers has ever been, and he cares about each and every one of them with a painful intensity. It’s a cruel thing, to have to pull those same people back together with your own hands.

Kai’s eyes are streaming as he clutches at Lloyd’s wrists, pinning him in place. Zane’s hands waver again over one of the jagged wounds near Lloyd’s ribcage, the green of his uniform already dyed dark in blood, soaking over the careful stitches Pixal watched him put in himself.

Pixal finally finds her footing, reminding herself of the solid wood beneath her feet. She recalls the steady, smooth stitch Lloyd’s scarred fingers traced out for her.

“Here.” She takes the needle from Zane’s hands, squeezing his briefly before letting go. “I can do it.”

She sets the needle against Lloyd’s skin and wonders what kind of stitch it’d take to pull your heart back together.  

************

Pixal cannot cry. It’s one of the features Mr. Borg spent hours debating, weighing the pros and cons of giving her the ability before he was truly sure how rust-proof she was. He’d never gotten the chance to, as the Overlord had interrupted him, then Pixal had lost any body to give the ability to cry to, which had eliminated the need entirely.

She cannot cry, but she can hurt, and the rain that streams through her hair, dripping down her forehead spotting raindrops on her cheeks, could be tears if she pretended.

She doesn’t, though, because tears are a waste of water and overall useless in the grand scheme of things. She doubts they’d have helped her fare any better in the battle with Colossi, either.

Tears won’t bring anyone back.

Lloyd cries anyways. She can’t see him, but she can hear it in his voice, the way it wavers and breaks over the radio, nasally tones pronounced.

He’s barely able to gasp a few coordinates to her before he cuts the radio off abruptly. Pixal’s spent enough time with him to envision his scarred fingers snapping it off with a particular desperation, green sparking from his hands in distress.

She reminds herself those sparks are gone, now, bled away into nothing like the vivid green of Lloyd’s eyes had. The thought makes her sadder than she’d expected. She had a joke, about his eyes, she had wanted to make. Now that she has a body, and her own set of glowing green eyes, she’d — there was something he would’ve laughed at, she thought —

It doesn’t matter, now. Neither of them are likely to laugh anytime soon.

The coordinates blink brightly in her vision, and she’s almost surprised she managed to key them in. She’s running on autopilot, she supposes. It could be ironic — she’s been so desperate for control, it’s been so important that she’s the one feeling. Now, she’d give anything not to feel at all.

She lets out a shaky breath, dispelling the mist in her vision left from the rain. She leans forward, just over the edge of the building she’s crouched on, and her loose hair falls forward, silvery and synthetic and horribly tangled. Irritated, she reaches for another hair tie, and her hands falter around her wrist.

Lloyd had promised her a bracelet there. But he’d promised Kai would make the bracelet, hadn’t he, and Kai couldn’t make the bracelet if he was dead, could he.

Pixal blinks, her breath hitching. She’s been so numb to the pain of Zane’s loss, it hasn’t yet occurred to her that she’s losing Kai, too. And Jay, and Cole, and—

She sucks in the same shuddery kind of breath she’s seen Lloyd do, and carefully fists her hand in the area of her uniform above her chest. Her fingers dig in tightly, clutching in a hopeless attempt to feel some sort of comfort she knows she’ll never find.

But perhaps, for these few seconds, she can pretend the action is holding her together.

************

“It was inevitable,” Pixal tells Lloyd blankly, as he rasps out his third apology in the dark cover of their small hideout. “That one of us would fall, eventually. It had nothing to do with you.”

Lloyd swallows thickly. “It could’ve — it should’ve been—”

He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t need to. Pixal’s hand shoots out, clamping tightly around his wrist, and there’s a beat of gratitude that she doesn’t need to rely on her voice alone anymore.

“Don’t.” Her voice is strung tighter than the tension in their shoulders. “You cannot change anything. You can’t, Lloyd, and you should not wish to — to change it that way.”

Lloyd jerks his hand free, wiping miserably at his eyes. He sets it back down within her reach, though, and if Pixal were any different, she’d take it.

But Pixal isn’t that different from Lloyd at all in the end, and neither of them reach for the other’s hand, no matter how desperately they crave the contact. Fear is more familiar, and it’s easier to give into it than it is the clawing need for comfort in your chest, after all.

“Still,” Lloyd finally whispers. “Still.”

Pixal swallows. She doesn’t disagree. If one of them had to fall, she knows she gladly would have taken it upon herself. She knows the others care for her, certainly, but she also knows her place in the grand scheme of things. They were six before she came along, and even now she’s kept far too many secrets to be fully counted among them.

She listens to Lloyd’s quiet, cracked voice, and she wonders if he’s thinking that they were five before he came along, younger than Pixal got to know him as.

Now they’re three, hollow and heartbroken. Though counting herself as one whole feels like cheating, right now.

Pixal squeezes her eyes shut, and wonders what it’s like to cry. Perhaps it helps, though Lloyd doesn’t look any less miserable.

************

“I was thinking,” Lloyd tells her, during one of the precious few quiet moments they have while trying to overthrow Garmadon and Harumi. Pixal’s turning the tiny tea flower he’d given her over in her hands, a part of her mind already marking articles about flower-pressing, another part wondering if it’s already too late to save the blossom. “About that promise we made, before all this.”

Pixal finally tucks the flower into the pocket of her uniform, pressed close to her chest. If anything, it can be a reminder of the lives that are safe — the life that’s coming back to her, if she has to drag him back from another realm herself. “And?”

Lloyd’s hands twist together. “Maybe we should focus more on staying alive.”

Pixal coughs out a laugh, breathless and startled. Lloyd wrinkles his nose at her, but his eyes are amused, even with their light lost. “I mean, the emphasis would be on keeping everyone else alive, but it’s kinda hard to do that if we’re dead, so…yeah. Priorities.”

“Staying alive should always be a priority,” Pixal corrects him, but she tugs the edge of his armor out of place with a smile.

“Why didn’t you teach me how to graffiti?” she nods at the designs on the green leather. “Or was this another Darkley’s tradition.”

“This is a refined art, called whatever I had on me that showed up on dark green,” Lloyd grumbles, fixing his armor. “I’ll teach it to you when we get out of this.”

“Another reason why staying alive would be a more productive focus,” Pixal points out. “I’ve heard teaching is easier when you’re alive.”

“And I’ve heard you’re a real riot,” Lloyd mutters. “It’s a promise, okay? I promise to teach you how to do cool armor design if you promise not to disappear into another realm on me.”

Pixal nods, adjusting her own armor tighter as screams ring out from a street nearby. “A promise, then.”

She keeps both the promise and the flower, the tiny blossom dried and faded by the time she’s escaped from the prison, heart racing with leftover adrenaline as Zane sweeps her into his arms. She clutches back every bit as tight, listening to his breathless laughter as cheers rise from the streets behind them, the smoke drifting across the early morning sky above them pale against the lightening blue. Pixal buries her face in his shoulder and breathes, tucking the moment away in her heart where it won’t fade. There’s a future stretching out before her, and she’s got the limbs to walk her path on her own, but all she wants right now is the steady ground beneath her feet and the bright laughter of what she’s managed to keep.  

Lloyd meets them shortly after, his own promise kept as he tears his gaze from his father, handing him off to the authorities before sprinting for the others. Pixal barely snags a moment alone with him, and even then no one’s particularly keen on letting him out of their sights.

He meets her eyes as they pick their way through the wrecked streets, the city more alive around them than it’s been in weeks. In the dark of the early morning, Pixal’s eyes glow a bright green, reflecting oddly in the windows they pass. It’s always been her preferred color, in contrast to Zane’s bright blue. Lloyd glances at her, his own eerily green eyes glowing back. He bites his lip, but it’s to hold back real laughter this time.

“My eyes were green first,” she tells him.

“Sue me,” he shoots back, before Kai’s throwing an arm over his shoulders again, tucking Lloyd neatly in between him and Nya. Pixal smothers a laugh at the look on his face, and tightens her own arm further where it’s linked firmly in Zane’s.  

It’s going to be an easy promise to keep, she thinks.  

[aro-screams-into-the-void]

Yo, should I add The Owl House to the list of shows I should watch? I was gonna watch it a while ago, but then I got distracted with Critical Role

[wonda-cat]

Some Thoughts on Tommy’s most recent stream (4/29)

(For the record, this isn’t going to be like my other formal analyses. I’m genuinely just ranting here, possibly unedited too. I’m only referring to the characters, unless stated otherwise.

Also obvious warning, this will be fairly negative/critical of the DSMP’s writing, so scroll past if that might bother you. I tend to criticize the media I love, so this is just par for the course in my case.)

Let’s start off with—

The Things I Liked

All of the comedy at the beginning of the stream was wonderful. Ghostbur was incredibly endearing and entertaining as usual, as well as the moments between bench trio. Tommy’s change of plans made sense and the entire journey through the prison was tense and fun to watch. As well as the moment Tommy got caught (it was inevitable.) 

It goes without stating, but cc!Wilbur and cc!Tommy’s acting was wonderful—they knocked it out of the park. I liked the little moments of Tommy calming Ghostbur down as Sam screamed at him. I also loved Wilbur's speech about his time in the afterlife when bench trio found him. 

As well as the moment with Wilbur admiring the sky and calling it ‘his sunrise.’ I’m also glad that the afterlife was explained to be caused by the Revival Book’s existence and not some general eternal torture every character will be sentenced to regardless of anything they did in life. 

But, sadly, that’s about where I stop and have to go into what I didn’t like as much, which is—

Everything Else

I’ll be talking about my major gripes with this particular stream in later bullet points down the line, but for now I’ll bring up the little things that annoyed me. This is all basically nit-picking and isn’t as awful or badly written as some of the others I’ll be discussing later. 

First off, Why is Ranboo There? In the stream before this one, Tommy had Tubbo promise to not tell anyone else about their plan. Did he just decide to tell Ranboo anyway? Why? What was the point of asking him to keep it secret if it didn’t matter? 

Adding to this, Tubbo and Ranboo were rather unnecessary for any of the other scenes that took place. They didn’t have any meaningful conversations with Tommy besides Ranboo asking why he was dreading Wilbur’s revival so much, as well as Wilbur’s comments to Tubbo about him being president. But other than that they have little to no notable speaking lines. 

They don’t Do Anything? Sure, they’re nice to have present so Tommy can vent to someone else and find comfort but, in the end, Ranboo was oddly angry and accusatory with Tommy and Tubbo was practically absent from the scene. The impression I got from Tommy and Tubbo’s conversation in the previous stream implied that Tubbo would be serving a larger role as a distraction, but I guess they changed gears or something? 

Then we have Ghostbur’s involvement, which, yeah, makes sense. Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo are not allowed inside the prison, so it’s best to find someone else who can get in without suspicion. But my first assumption, upon seeing Ghostbur with the group was, “Oh, he’s gonna go in there and Dream’s gonna use him to revive Wilbur. That’s the only reason why Ghostbur is here and not anyone else, who would also be willing to kill Dream. It’s not like they’re in short supply right now.”

And I ended up being right, which only frustrated me more. I wanted something unexpected. Something new. Something interesting. Yet, I got the most predictable outcome instead—Tommy fails, Wilbur is revived. 

Next, we have another big serving of ‘Tommy gets blamed for things he has no control over’ part 241. I am so, so sick of characters getting unreasonably mad at and blaming Tommy for anything and everything. It’s not new, it’s not interesting, it’s not fun. It’s just miserable. 

It is,, awful. And it’s highkey frustrating. I refuse to sit through another arc of Tommy being endlessly hurt and blamed for stuff he didn’t do or cannot control. Pick a new event in the plot. 

Try something out of left field. Do something, anything different to this. I’m begging you. 

Now, we get into the major writing pitfalls and shortcomings. Starting with—

We Need to Talk About Sam

I have no idea what is going on with Sam’s character right now. It is so genuinely confusing. I have no clue why Sam reacted the way he did to Tommy because it just doesn’t make any sense. Sam’s entire inner conflict is about him trying to cultivate and protect his humanity and morality while upkeeping a strict, closed-off demeanor.

He follows the rules, even if it hurts the people he loves. Even if these codes force him into a position to be unethical. He feels it is his responsibility should anything go wrong or if Dream escapes, because it puts others in danger.

His strict approach got Tommy killed, and it also took a life and an arm from Ponk. Both of these people are precious to him. So why on earth would he threaten to kill Tommy when, in their last interaction, he was glad he was alive—after he promised to never let something like that happen again?

He respected Tommy’s wishes to stay away from him, and rather politely too. Why would he then threaten to kill him just after weeks of saying Tommy’s death was his biggest regret? That’s not even touching on Sam saying, “This is why I let you die,” as well as blaming Tommy for something that was directly a result of his own refusal to act.

Why didn’t he have Ghostbur also hitch a ride on the same platform with Tommy? Why did he even let Ghostbur into the prison in the first place if he:

A.) Told Ranboo he wasn’t going to let anyone in there after what happened to Tommy.

B.) Also wouldn’t let people in lest they find out about Quackity’s plan.

C.) Couldn’t even kill Ghostbur because he’s incorporeal and thus cannot fully upkeep the contracts he is signing.

There’s also the issue of Sam breaking the rules he abides by when he decided to not kill Tommy after he snuck into the prison, despite it being in the contract. Why is it different now? He went against his own protocol but was also following it by refusing to let Ghostbur come back to the other platform?

Why does Sam refuse to listen to Tommy? Their argument is mind-numbingly ridiculous. Sam refuses to hurt Dream, despite him only being alive because Sam claimed Tommy wanted him alive.

But now Tommy is there, begging Sam to let him kill Dream, and Sam just goes, “No. We’re not killing Dream.” Fucking why??? Sam! You said you wanted to kill Dream at least four times by now! Maybe more!

You were on your way to do it with Quackity and the only thing that stopped you was your promise to Tommy. But now Tommy’s here, telling you to kill Dream and you fucking won’t???? I am absolutely baffled.

No matter how you spin it, it makes no fucking sense. However, if I tried,,, I could possibly come up with a reason or two. Maybe Dream is blackmailing him. Maybe Quackity is forcing him to keep Dream alive until he can get the info he needs (even though,,, why would he trust Quackity over Tommy, who he’s outwardly stated he trusts just as much, if not more?)

It feels like these plots are dancing around each other, trying to keep up this faux sense of conflict that doesn’t exist. But, here’s the thing, contrived conflict is never compelling. I can’t overstate it enough.

Dream’s Plan is Complete Nonsense

The method to revive Wilbur makes Dream seem even more short-sighted than I remember commenting on, during the stream where Tommy was brought back to life. He told Tommy that his plan was to test the book to see if it worked (which, okay fine, I can buy this.) But then he says all along he was planning to revive Wilbur in order to break out of prison, which is ???? This is baffling if he needed Ghostbur in order to pull this off. 

Which,,, I can’t even begin to explain how ridiculous it is that Dream’s entire plan hitched on not only the book working on people to begin with (which he tested on Tommy,,, for some reason, even though he would’ve lost his ‘favorite toy’ if he fucked it up. Which,, why even take that chance in the first place? there are other visitors he could’ve tried this with, surely. Like Sapnap and Bad,,) and it also relied on Ghostbur voluntarily going into the prison just to visit Dream?? And if he didn’t need Ghostbur after all, then why didn’t he bring Wilbur back weeks ago? 

That’s not even getting into the issue of Dream assuming that Wilbur, once brought back, would: 

A.) Want to be alive in the first place.

B.) Actually be willing to help Dream, instead of telling him to fuck off.

C.) Be even slightly capable of helping him at all when he has no allies, no PVP skill, no weapons, no armor, and no knowledge of the prison or its innerworkings. 

Why are the current DSMP writers so committed to making me think Dream is a fucking idiot? I don’t enjoy this. I used to like his character and think he was smart. Stop. 

ALSO, why did Tommy or Tubbo or Ranboo not think of the possibility that Ghostbur could very well be necessary to revive Wilbur? Why did that not cross any of their minds? It was the first thing I thought of when I saw him.

Another big thing that irks me is Tommy and Sam saying they saw Dream physically holding the Revival Book, which,,, how? Why? Dream said in previous streams that he burned the book and that was entirely the thing that kept him from being killed outright. If there was a book still in existence, did he hide it somehow? 

How did Quackity not find it? Why did Sam not take it from him when he was first arrested?? What? 

Also how the fuck did Dream kill a ghost?? They’re incorporeal? How does he not need the body to perform necromancy? That seems almost redundant. 

Also it took a matter of seconds to perform? It took,,, ?? nothing but words and sheer willpower to bring someone back to life? Why does it seem so easy? My mans just,, uses his vibes to bring people back from the dead??? 

Unless the book has instructions regarding that or has a proportional price in order to use, then I’d be more forgiving. But I’m guessing it doesn’t have too steep a cost if Dream could offer Tommy immortality despite that. But I’m sure we’ll get more information on this once Quackity (inevitably) gets his hands on the book. Hopefully… 

Which brings me to my last point—

Wilbur’s Revival (Derogatory)

Since the Revival Book was introduced, I have been actively dreading Wilbur being revived. It is the most predictable, low-hanging fruit of a plotline I could possibly conceive of. I understand that he’s a fan-favorite with a large audience (I love Wilbur more than you’d expect. cc!Wilbur is actually the reason I got into the DSMP in the first place), but there are other characters who could be developed more—utilized more. 

Unpopular opinion, I know, but I am just so incredibly unenthused about this plot development. In fact, I’d almost go so far as to say hate it. 

The Revival Book in and of itself is my least favorite thing the DSMP has ever introduced. It is a lack of consequences simplified. It’s also a lack of commitment to those mortal consequences. 

It is a ‘get out of jail free’ card for when they kill off a character and don’t want to deal with the hole that character will leave behind. Or a way to work around the reason they shouldn’t kill Dream on the spot. 

With Wilbur back again, I no longer feel compelled by his arc the way I used to. There is nothing to really leave a lasting impact anymore. Of course, there was a cater where L’Manburg once stood, but that was dug even deeper later on. You can’t make the death of a friend, of a loved one, worse than it is. It is death. 

The thing I found extremely interesting about Wilbur’s death is the way the other characters portrayed loss. It has consistently been the thing that was most comforting to me, oddly enough. When people die, there will always be loose ends. 

There will be holes left behind and things left unsaid. An unfulfilled promise. A forgotten relationship. A hollow memory.

What I always found compelling was the way Tommy and Fundy and Niki took this mutual loss and had to live with it. How they had to come to terms with the fact that Wilbur was gone and he wasn’t coming back. That they had to make peace with his memory, his legacy, and their connection to him. 

That they’d miss him and love him or hate him and try to forget him. It is a tragedy that someone like Wilbur wanted to die for so long, and in the end, he did. Because in reality, the people you love will die. 

There may be someone in your life that leaves you behind and all you’re left with is the broken pieces. And it is how these characters move on that brings me bittersweet company as someone who’s lost a lot of people. There is nothing more irritating than a story going back on its establishments—to have their cake and eat it too. 

All I want is the bare minimum—a story with narrative stakes and consequences.

The only way I could ever see myself enjoying this plot development is if Wilbur has a redemption arc and attempts to make amends with Tommy, Fundy, Niki, and Eret. OR if he aids in Dream’s downfall in some way and enjoys the simple realities of life and wants to live for the sake of living. I’d find that at least new and somewhat interesting. 

But if he’s just here to be a moustache toiling villain (or somehow worse than after his previous downward spiral), when the market is already so deeply oversaturated with antagonists, then I will probably drop the series altogether. 

Hopefully it doesn’t come to that because I love the Dream SMP and I want to keep loving it for as long as I can. 

I will hold onto more reasons to stay, so long as they keep giving them to me.

[knightartorius]

wwdits 4x1 countdown!

the long post where i document every day until wwdits returns on july 12! all 60 days of misery, pain, hardship, love, joy, and innocence all in one place. why did i do this you ask? ………………..

60:

WWDITS ANNOUNCED NANDERMO REAL WE WON YES. YES. JULY 12 SAVE THE DATE. YES. YES. YES wwdits is upon us soon. i feel nothing but joy. WWDITS WWDITS YEAHHH

59:

The excruciatingly long wait until July 12 has hit. It’s starting to look dim. I am unsure if I will even live to see it.

58:

i started this on day 59 because i needed a way to get the absolute amount of soot off my heart from the 60 day wait and it is STILL day 59 as im writing this and i just cant wait til day 58 to say that im fucking dying. i cant. and theres going to be another wait for ofmd eventually and oh my goddd. im such an impatient person and i cant. its currently day 58 and i am watching flight of the conchords to cope

57:

i have decided to watch one critical role episode every day which will occupy about 25 days worth of my time. this may vary with school and summer break but i need a distraction. i am rewatching ofmd for the first time in a little while. this is terrible… i have school today as well which is stunting my coping abilities. not good. havent once been able to focus on anything because my head is just critrole ofmd wwdits on repeat i am dying… my critrole pacing is also already so off, im on like episode 4 and i shouldve only finished 2 or something like that. but i cant help but have the cliffhangers resolved

56:

day 56 has begun, and im starting to realize how fucking long this post is gonna be. and how long the wait really is.. obviously when you think of 60 days as 2 months it feels like not all that long, but when you break it down into days, and hours of days, thinking each time you update this post and whatnot, it makes it feel much longer. in better news, only 3 more days of school left!

55:

this being the last week of school might be slowing down time. it feels like the longest week on the fucking planet… after days 57-53 this should be smooth sailing. anyway speaking of school nobody is taking this shit seriously anymore, nobody is here and ive just been playing minecraft in class

54:

unsure if im now behind on critrole because i had to spend hours working on a “group” project from complete scratch due at *checks watch* 11:59 because my partner ghosted me… i also have another project due at *checks watch* 11:59 today and i wont be getting home to work on it until 8. this is pretty great idk. why did all this stuff fall on the last week of school im more stressed than ive ever been on a “chill week.” maybe if wwdits was back itd be better

53:

IVE BEEN SO BUSY ALL DAY RHAT I TOTALLY FORGOT TO UPDATE HII.. SCHOOL ENDED TODAY!! i finished me projects and all…very proud of myself for getting through this week kinda ok? forgot to add yesterday that in class we wrote letters to ourselves as graduates in english and i mentioned both ofmd and wwdits… more than once like they were plot points..loved writing it too. but yes summer is officially upon me!!!!!!! yeah baby

52:

first day of summer has sucked. woke up far too early (who wakes up at 7 in the summertime like the sun hadnt even risen) and now im sick..life is pain quote the nun

51:

so i absolutely underestimated how sick i was gonna get towards the end of the day, to the point where i only have a very hazy memory of the entire evening.. but its 1 am and i woke up from a nap i presume and i feel a lot better now. definitely a few days behind on critical role too, havent had any time to watch in between being sick as FUCK and school. we are almost through the first ten days of the wwdits wajt though!!!! im so excited im also getting a new phone today, ive had the same one for 4/5 years now and shes starting to be a little shit so. GOT THE NEW PHONE! (iphone 13) it is so smooth and the camera BUMPIN… it fits in me hand nice too. lord how i needed this baby. i also watched 25 minutes of morbius too, and its..absolutely unwatchable so i turned it off. i cant even watch it as a joke

50:

TEN DAYS DOWN!!!!!!!!!! the impossible task is starting to look…possible! in fifty days ill have the pleasure of saying…nandermo is real. but for now, all i can say is nandermo will be real in 50 days. im also starting to feel a little better? my throat is still killing me though. the one issue i have with this phone is that “autistics for otori emu” use to fit perfectly in one line of text but now its like

AUTISTICS FOR OTORI

EMU

and its kinda ugly. ill never change it though

49:

LOVE AND THUNDER JULY 8…july is gonna be a big month for taika god damn anyway I CANT WAIT!!!!! i wanna see this movie so bad….AHH.. also lowkey been inactive at the moment. not sure why

48:

watched the lighthouse last night, it was lowkey gay porn but i loved it. certified really good movie. anyway, im in a movie watching era of this countdown. except i watch like 1 movie a day every night. tonights is everything everywhere all at once! im very excited i hope i cry. didnt cry but still really enjoyed the movie! i wish they took a more “you dont have to forgive your parents” approach, cause they kinda just ignored the fact that evelynn was the one who broke joy, and her breaking joy fractured her in every universe… and like yeah joy was able to heal and forgive but she shouldnt have to forgive her mother just because she saved her. a lot of people with trauma have it in our brains (especially those of us with parental trauma) that we have to forgive our abusers and media rarely ever empowers those of us who are unable to simply forgive and forget, and this movie had the perfect opportunity to do that, but in a sense im glad they didnt also

47:

its morbin time. not really anything to say today, but its been cloudy for the past week and im wondering when im gonna get to see the sun again. the countdown is smooth sailing otherwise! OH WAIT ive been playing life is strange true colors and its been..fun?? idk ive also been playing the sims for fun again too which .. it has been ages since… i have a “legacy” going kinda but the first gens story is pretty fucked up so im just having fun with mods really

46:

kissed ryan and its the only choice ive been 100% confident about in this game. i love ryan. hes my one true love. they dont make men like this in the real. im also gonna retry watching morbius im obsessed with this movie + my bff is graduating today im so happy for him

OKAY MAYDAY THE WWDITS EPISODE TITLES JUST RELEASED AND. WE ARE 95 DAYS AWAY FROMA “The Wedding” it could be nandermo. it could and im scared (KITE FROM THE FUTURE: its not nandermo nandor is marrying a woman??)

45:

these past 5 days have been going so fast im scared. too fast almost. in like 30 minutes were gonna have wwdits 4 like it was nothing. also rewatching morbius second night in a row because my friend wants to watch it with me. hes morbing out oh my god oh shit. okay we ended up not watching morbius but i watched wwdits (2005) and 1) taika hot 2) the montage of people calling them fags is so..timely idk. but for everyone who always says “ah nz is so progressive” and acts like conservatism doesnt exist there and idolizes the countrys politics… reality check please. 3) taika hot like all the letterboxd review are about his hair and shit and yea i agree completely. but i made a post to my instagram story and tldr it was about how the wwdits franchise kinda encapsulates the changes in perception of queerness throughout the 21st century and honestly its one of the most interesting aspects to me while consuming all wwdits content

44:

hunt for the wilderpeople is a movie that i watched that broke me a bit. i didnt cry or anything of the sort but god i loved ever second of it. how will i live. anyway i think im officially over the ofmd grief but rather im shocked that the show still hasnt been renewed..not in like an awww boo hoo but like..what the fuck is hbo doing (KITE 3 DAYS IN THE FUTURE HERE: THIS IS SO FUNNY. THEY WERE WAITING UNTIL PRIDE MONTH)

43:

watching both top gun movies, was inspired by flight of the conchords. will be back. ok i only watched the og top gun but i did thoroughly enjoy it, and damn that movie is beautiful if nothing else + american psycho. and american psycho i loved a lot. also if youre wondering why im watching so many movies its a summer goal of mine to watch a lot of movies because i notoriously dont like movies as an artistic means and have watched like barely any movies proportionate to my lifespan and im trying to change that. i still dont like movies really but…oh well im glad im using this to watch some good films. my letterboxd is kite4444_1 if you were interested in seeing my ratings (they are wonky…and 3 means i liked/enjoyed it btw)

theres also a meteor shower tonight (allegedly) so im sitting outside at 1 am viewing the sky, ive seen 1 so far so dub! rare once in a lifetime experience in the wwdits countdown

42:

i really dont know how to break the meteor shower stuff up but its 1:30 am so its officially day 42. i saw 4 big meteors, a lot of little guys, and 1 orange fella so i consider this a big win.. i also just enjoyed sitting outside and watching the sky, i should do that more often honestly. literally did nothing today! W

41:

its pride month! happy pride month. also one month closer til wwdits..dub OH MY FUCJING GOD I JUST GOT THE NEWS. YES. YES. YES. YES OH MY GOD YES YES YES YES YES IM LITERALLY CRYING IM BESIDE MYSELF WITH JOY AND EVTASY I CANT oh my god i cant wait until i have an ofmd countdown god is so fucking real best day of my life nobody understands my joy rn GOD im crying so hard incant i cant i cant i just cried so hard IM CRYING AGAIN it’s definitely been like an hour or something but i cant think. i cant feel. hello #BestDayEver

season 2 requests:

1) bearded stede. dgaf if rhys says he cant grow a beard hes lying

2) jim and jackie romantic interactions… i read the vico interview and when they said maybe jim will find someone else during their separation to olu…my mind went bonkers

3) mary gets many gfs and they are poly and in love. doug is also in the polycule

4) izzy, jim, lucius, ivan, frenchie, fang need to be BESTIES. BFFs4L. and izzy and lucius you already know i want them together idc

KITE VS RAINBOW CAPITALISM: RAINBOW CAPITALISM WON

40:

ANOTHER TEN DAYS DOWN!!!!!!! YEAHHHH soon there will be no time left.. what the hell! pride month really is off to a great start and im ecstatic.. still not over the sheer high of ofmd 2 announcement but it also makes me fear season 2s existence. BUT GOD I CANT WAIT UNTIL I HAVE ANOTHER COUNTDOWN entiled “Ofmd 2 countdown” its going to be glorious and im going to be fucking FERAL. FERALLL!!!!

39:

watching muppets treasure island and ofmd season 2 looks CRAZY… anyway im watching this because apparently black sails has prior reading and i was not watching some old movie or the novel so muppets treasure island it is. i also need to stop writing these entries early in the morning (it is 1:45 am) because it throws my rhythm off..in better news though its all been good, im going to the beach tomorrow oh fuck it just hit me im going to the beach at peak ofmd fixation..its going to be all i think about NEVERMIND ITS ONLY FRIDAY I THOUGHT IT WAS SATURDAY? not going to the beach tomorrow cause we leave sunday im an idiot

38:

god i cant wait to go to the beach i need it. no pirate bullshit but i need to be one with the sea its been over a year since ive been there gah…my mom keeps being weird about it but you will not ruin my fun beach adventures!! i will walk for miles in one direction listening to music or something or talking to myself without a care in the world because i am one with the oceanside. i will cry for no reason walking my dog and thinking wow. this is what stede wouldve wanted. i cant wait to spend the next 4 days pacing with the sand between my toes as i ponder season 2 and what explorations of heartbreak means for each character. i will cry

also im on episode 3 of black sails and this shit is DRAMA??? like ofmg i was not ready also what is the ofmd/muppets treasure island/black sails pipeline because ive seen multiple fans with muppets treasure island profile pictures and how did i manage to fall down the same fucking hole

37:

BEACH DAYY!!!!!!! i cannot wait til we get there holy fuck [ x ] <- pics here! i also went and updated the layout of this post so ideally its easier to look at i REALLY need to stop writing these at 1/2 am because whyd i wake up and learn we aren’t even going until wednesday and my mom isnt even sure we can get reservations..if i dont go to the beach ill die like actually ill perish

WAIIITTTT WWDITS TEASER DROPPED [ x ] oh my god?????? this is the most unhinged the show has ever been and i cant wait

36:

nobody told me black sails was gay…like super gay this is insane. everyone is bisexual and they were so real for that. anyway im very much enjoying watching because the drama is real

also wwdits poster..wow 2 days in a row theyve been giving us content also renewed for seasons 5 & 6?!?!? idk why i had it in my head that season 4 was going to be the end but YES wwdits is goijg with me to college W…also on that note its crazy to me that ofmd and the like arent going to be finished until im in college…wow…im getting old

35:

we are almost halfway through the wait! god damn the past 25 days have felt almost nonexistent but regardless… beach tmw!!!!! for real this time. and as i said i will be at peace. i always thought if they were real id be a mermaid. and ill probably reincarnate as a lobster or something of the like.. i am one with the sea

also ever since that article about taika being a failure or sellout or whatever (i didnt read the article) made the typo calling jemaine “jermaine” i have carried the torch. he is now jermaine clement to me

34:

beach day beach day beach day… i cant wait for this “getting-to-beach” arc to end because this has went on for far too long… anyway, im gonna finish black sails either today or tomorrow and wow! what an adventure. the worlds longest origin story. i have enjoyed every minute of it!

33:

i finished black sails! also here are those beach pictures i promised [ x ]. other than that this trip has so far been pretty uneventful (not saying it will ever be eventful) but i am enjoying the sea view

also rumor has it ofmd season 2 should be airing around june/july of next year which is so insanely far but also very close. its also going to be insane comfort for me after i graduate i can tell +£~£

32:

going on a bender of listening to old 90s alternative rock songs i havent heard since i was like 10. and i still know 97% of the lyrics to all of these songs… my music taste has come a long way really. hot take though i dont understand why people bend over backwards to defend bjorks racism because her music is not even that good?? what is the appeal here. let her go

31:

havent had much to say recently but today is my last day at the beach… but now we are for real for real close to reaching that halfway point… i am quite geeked if i do say so myself

30:

WE ARE OFFICIALLY HALFWAY THROUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHHYHHHHHH BABY its been a long ass thirty days but im sure that its going to go by fast now? also because we seem to be getting a lot of random content (not just for wwdits but yk).. im quite ecstatic. i cant wait for my silly little tv show

later tonight i have a music listening event with my friend and i have to choose 5 albums for us to listen to and so far i have and otherwise i have zero idea

jyocho - the beautiful cycle of terminal

イツエ (itsue) - いくつもの絵 / many pictures

ABBA - voulez-vous

never mind apparently! it was supposed to start about 2 hours ago and im like 80% sure im getting stood up! oh well. i say oh well because im a bit used to it but also im fairly upset because i was really looking forward to thissss ahhhh

29:

getting stood up aside i think im sick AGAIN???? i think ive been sick like 50 times this entire countdown but also i have like 5 chronic illnesses and so it could be one of them. besides i feel bad but not too bad so ill live

i woke up with a super weird tender rash on the palm of my hand and???? what the hell. god is spiting me now that the countdown is on the downward path

28:

nah not sick but i was not feeling hot yesterday. im very excited though because my broccoli plants are looking very healthy after the trip (i was a bit worried theyd fucking die) but they are taking to the environment quite nicely. on the contrary i planted SIX cucumber plants and they are taking over my entire garden like a goddamn parasite. i dont even need tgat many cucumbers why did i plant six oh my god. also my onions should be harvestable soon… if youre wondering what all plants im growing: cucumbers broccoli red pepper onion spinach & carrots. very nature over here

also i am plugging flight of the conchords as one of my albums..! pay me jemaine

27:

DIDNT UPDATE AT ALL TODAY??? but omg my cucumbers were ready for harvest and theyre HUGE. i also started a worm bin today and i had to collect 2 worms on my own i hope they enjoy having sex and shitting for me but yeah. this is a beautiful thing. overall a great day i very much enjoy getting gritty in the garden

also fun sketchful.io night with my friend and now we have official plans to meet irl come january!!!!!! fat fucking double you

26:

do tumblr posts have a word limit…i feel like i mentioned this before but it comes more of a growing concern every single day. otherwise its a good day except me waking up to my dog having a seizure because i overslept my alarm for giving him his meds. in case you were wondering hes completely fine just a normal hiccup

also bios dont have a word limit either do they.. also layout change! i changed the color yesterday but today i moved the rant bio to be under the cut because i just cant part with it

25:

watched thor ragnarok so im officially up to date for love and thunder. i love korg no im not biased but also everyone who was like thor and bruce have serious couple energy are so right its such a shame he wont be in love and thunder. the “rom com” aspect with jane peter and bruce would be so hectic but also so good?!!? havent been hyped for a marvel movie since endgame im so excited

introducing a new conflict: me trying to watch fotc live in london without paying for hbo max. this has been an uphill battle and i signed up for the apple one free trial which gives me free apple tv and they said they had live in london on there BUT NO IT REDIRECTS YOU TO HULU AND HBOMAX. now you may be thinking “just sign up for hulu free trial” BUT HULU DOESNT HAVE IT EITHER WITHOUT YOU PAYING FOR THE HBO ADDON!!!! also i tried literally every pirating website i know and nothing. i feel like im fighting a goddamn war just to watch live in london idk

ok update: its currently 2:55 am and i found it on the pirate bay but obviously thats a torrenting thingy so tomorrow evening im going to relearn how to torrent so i can watch it. also last time i downloaded utorrent it absolutely wrecked my computer, managed to uninstall it but its still fucked up but oh well! anything for fotc

adding onto an already incredibly hectic log, i ended up not downloading it today because i didnt feel like getting out my laptop charger. it was one of those incredibly lazy days. but man if theres one thing this post is gonna do, its gonna make me realize how much of my summer i am spending RELAXING. its well deserved and this is my last high school summer so i should definitely waste the most i can because ill never get this again, but like.. come august the regret is gonna be reallllll….

24:

another day of completely forgetting to update this! im getting back into terraria and that has kept me mostly entertained all day. im so bad at it but i used to be cracked (kinda. i never got to hardmode cause flesh but)

to add, i have a 4 day streak going of eating toast late at night. the first 2 days it was tuna on this asiago cheese loaf and these past 2 days have been cinnamon butter on sourdough. very real

23:

days are flying by! wow. but my sleep schedule is so off it’s ridiculous. but today was even less eventful than yesterday, except i think im finally in my terraria groove and i even beat the eye of cthulhu + i wanna fight skeletron but like, i have no idea where his temple is and ive went so far in both directions

22:

i have whipped cthulhu’s ass thrice. he doesn’t even stand a chance! but i did attempt skeletron and got whooped so hard it’s ridiculous?? did they buff him since i last played like 5 years ago. also attempted the eater of worlds twice for some scales so i can make demonite equipment and CHRIST i keep having like sensory overload. also sorry for making three consecutive short posts where i exclusively talk about terraria but that is all im doing so we! will! have! to! deal!

also sometimes its so hard to tell if i wrote already. like i have no recollection of writing today but i think i did??? did i????

21:

21 days? THREE WEEKS?? three weeks ???? three weeks!!! i really am so excited. also i might be going to see lightyear soon with some of my friends who i haven’t seen in like 3/4 years! definitely not the most hype movie we couldve went to see but idc chris evans keke palmer and taika are all in there and thats all i care about. mm

I DREAMT ABOUT S2E1 of ofmd that they like released episode 1 early and it was so funny. i don’t remember much about it but stede and ed werent in the episode at all (but blackbeard was in the last like 15 minutes of an hour long episode, but i didnt even watch that part because of dream logic) and i don’t remember much at all but someone was in a white void with john silver. a completely different show. and they had to complete some kind of bullshit puzzle it was great the rest of the dream was mostly on the deserted island with the rest of the revenge and jim was there too but hell i dont know it was such a mess

also i never mentioned it but i watched guns akimbo like 2 days ago and jesus christ i haven’t recovered. the pacing never slows down and its balls like the movie is hot balls but it was so insane that like. i havent recovered

20:

TWENTY!!! FORTY DAYS DOWN WOWZA. that’s literally insane. its doggy bath day for me so im bathing the dog and he hates it but boo hoo stinky dog. maybe dont pee on yourself so often

also the plans are saturday!! i cant wait. and these are actually definitely go through so WWWWW

TRAILER DROP!!! WE GOT IT. POLYAMORY?!?! YES!! excited. thats all i can say

19:

time to get a little sad and vulnerable. got out of the house for the first time in awhile to go to my nana’s, she passed in late february and we’ve been working to sell the house and had a cleaning crew finish everything up before contracts were signed with realtors. and it was hella gutting seeing a home that has so many childhood memories emptied…or gutted i guess you could say, and today is the last day i’ll ever step foot in that house and it’s literally crazy. i dont regret not going up there as often as i could or anything but it is quite a sad conclusion to come to. it was a pretty productive day too, and im proud of myself! especially because ive been conscious about my productivity, motivation, and the like. so yay!

18:

i regret updating the tumblr app so bad..its so ugly now and theres so much to look at for what..i also woke up to some of the worst news imaginable for us americans, and like…idk

17:

yesterday was rough but i cant wait to see my bsfs so good vibes. great vibes even

it was fun!!!!!!!!!!! lightyear was..bad? it was very mid. but taika…so thats better. i gave it a 2/5 on letterboxd and the extra star was for taika so. but i feel so relieved i get to see them again because it really has been so long.. none of us have seen each other since we were 14!!!!!!!!! now we’re basically grown?!?!?

also ive been watching greys anatomy trying to catch up (for japril) and this show is so good but also extremely garbage… what do you mean deluca got stabbed in between episodes?? also these topical covid episodes are so tired and this is only episode 7 of a 20 episode season. if this whole season is covid themed ill kill myself because ive already heard the same spiel about feeling isolated and lonely and whatever. like yeah, everyone watching knows that, we all lived through the worst of it and have to deal with an unfinished aftermath. im so glad i waited to watch this because if at the high of the pandemic i tuned into this shit id be so over the show. but im attached to these characters and the neverending drama. im eating the tom and teddy stuff up!!!! i do want them to be together, i love tom and he deserves teddy. i quite like owen too and i feel bad for screwing him after he put in so much effort to make it work for teddy but thats exactly it. he shouldnt have to put up with her bs anymore (i like teddy too but girl)

16:

bored out of my mind.. so bored. thats all i can say today. bored.. i think im gonna force myself to start drawing again because i havent in months. i was in a bad burnout after art class so yk

15:

GIVE IT UP FOR DAY 15!!!!!!! but KORACICK AND JACKSON LEFTttttt…. you can understand my pain. obviously it was for a good cause but goddammit!!!!!! ill miss you tom.. gone but never forgotten

14:

its day 13 but i completely forgot to update. it skipped my mind completely. i can’t remember anything that happened yesterday but teo weeks!!!!! two weeks left

13:

day 14 was an absolute blunder on my part. i knew missing a day was bound to happen eventually but man. that shows just how uneventful my days have been. i redownloaded genshin and this game is so boring even though i have all the inazuma and chasm stuff to do…but i hit 698?k with childe ult and that. makes me happy! back when i was into the game i was on a road to 1 million and this gets me about 7/10 of the way through…. im not p2w too so

I DISNT EVEN SKIP DAY 14. IM SO CONFUSED RN. YESTERDAY WAS DAY 14. IT IS DAY 13. god im such an idiot but im not going ro backspace any of this… late night phone call watching sing 2 and i got my best friend to watch some ofmd with me!! we are up to episode 6 but he fell asleep and i am so tored. also rsd is so awful like i love this show to death and when he doesnt laugh at something i want to cackle at i feel like im being stabbed brutally in the stomach? pretty sure hes enjoying it though. i feel glee! but the best part comes when i get to talk about every interview ive read, the story of how rhys was casted, because ive already had the honor of sharing tidbits like izzy canonically being the one who put the bows in eds beard in e5, and rhys taking sailing lessons while taika couldnt even read blackbeards wikia page… autism won today.

sing 2 was also an absolute blast, my friend asked if the little koala dude was voiced by the “guy who plays eddie from ofmd.” i was deeply confused, turns out he affectionately named stede ‘eddie,’ and no rhys does not voice buster moon. matthew mcconaughey does and he isnt even kiwi……. also i am like a rhys detector because that man is the voice of my conscious. it was a really great movie tho, like bono was in there and ??????? i love the sing franchise

12:

HAPPY JULY!!!!!!!! we are so close now. 1 week until thor, 12 days until wwdits, 4 months until greys anatomy, and about 1 year until omfd. its like everything is happening soon! also maybe i should stop thinking about time passing in my life relative to media i enjoy… but also it makes me happy. i watched boy (the taika movie) and that was another banger. taikas best talent isnt directing its finding insanely talented kids. boy is tonally similar to hunt for the wilderpeople but personally it lacks something in comparison? if i had to guess its because wilderpeople builds on family dynamics in a positive light while boy explores parental idolization and its wayyy too relatable at some points. its still a great film though 4.5/10 on letterboxd

11:

I think i counted the days wrong…? and now im weirdly confused and scared because it’s currently the 2nd and this is day..11? meaning this will end on the 13th as opposed to the 12th. this is so fucking scuffed and im not gonna edit anything i just have to live with my mistakes. maybe i really did miss day 14 though. im so confused?????? what happened. what went wrong.

anyway WE FINISHED OFMD TOGETHER!!!! he is not an izzy fan and im glad. hes also a jim/olu supremacist which like…yeah so true? now i just need to get him to watch wwdits and everything will be solved in the world probably

10:

TEN DAYS!!!!! (actually 9.) or maybe this is accurate but it goes to like 12:00 am july 13 which doesnt really count

anyway 5 am thoughts: been thinking about boy again and its growing very fond in my mind. i think letting the ending sit with me was for the better and i love this movie a lot more now (and i already loved it lots.) how cute

9:

watched mysterious skin and damn. in life youre either a neil or a brian and i am a brian so hard. nothing really remarkable to say today

8:

I DIDNT EVEN FUCK UP THE TIMING… the issue is that i always update this at like 5 am the next day and it throws everything off for me.. otherwise its the fourth of july i guess? nobody really celebrates this holiday anyway. its an excuse to grill and set off illegal fireworks and nobosy is thinking about the revolutionary war… also a bit of a rough time sociopolitically in the usa rn so. extra bunk holiday… i fixed up these star leds that have just been hanging on my wall for like 2 years and it added so much ambiance i love how my room looks now! its great

7:

forgot to update again except this time 2 days in a row hahahahahahahaha i was writing out the july fourth thing yesterday but got distracted and it never saved. i pulled itto today though!!!!!!’ im so happy but rest in peace to the next banner because im definitely not getting whatever character is on it. genshin is occupying my brain again and i dont like the inazuma lore but the characters have grown on me (mainly people i can associate with ayaka because shes one of my favorite characters all time) but others still have the personality of like a wet rag (cough raiden yae kokomi and gorou) IF YOUR FAV IS ON THAT LIST, FIGHT ME! id like to be proven wrong honestly! i want to like the characters! otherwise ONE WEEK! ONE WEEK! YEAH YEAHHH

6:

thor tmw!!!!! yeahhhhhhhh

that being all i wrote today tells so much. burn out isnt really the word because that seems like a real big overestimate but i am a bit exhausted of updating this, especially when i have to rack my brain for things to write? and i feel like im letting myself and others (despite me talking to a brick wall with this post basically) by not providing any interesting content in here. like that span of me playing terraria. how boring. and recently it’s been similarly dull. but luckily we’re coming to a quick end to this timeline with only a big 6 days left!

5:

its also a real struggle to scroll all the way down. thor today! thor soon. 2 hours until thor! yay. but also woke up to some terrible news that my dog *COULD* have cancer, we wont know really for another 2 weeks and then we wont know for certain until after a biopsy. sucks like shit though, that dog is like a brother to me. but…thor! thor is getting me through this

ITS SO GOOD. and say what you want taika did put gay sex in the marvel movie. korgdwayne forever. i cant even begin to comprehend how much i enjoyed that like tis so real. i am biased i am. but also i dont care what cishet people have to say about this movie. the queer rep was there and frankly its all i ever wanted/ask for

4:

OOPSIE DAISIE FORGOT TO UPDATE AGAIN. yesterday was fun. thor is my whole brain rn. thats all

3:

3 days left is so crazy. like this has been 58 days of sheer insanity and its coming to a close.

late night/early morning thoughts: im in such a prison built by internalized ableism and i know unmasking is possible but i never see myself able to escape this endless fucking nightmare. i want to be unashamed about all my autistic traits but its unbelievably difficult.. and so many people who i love and who love me don’t really know me even if they talk to me every single day because i barely know myself because of how far buried he is. and so thats another thing ill have to deal with

talking about anything is so difficult for me to do. crossing the barrier of mentioning anything im watching or reading is like climbing mount everest especially to people i havent known basically my entire life and its so awful? i wish it wasnt such a struggle to be. even when im not talking and if im just thinking about a hf/si i feel so awful and like im failing and i cant take much more of this. any of it, the shame, the self deprecation, anything

2:

SAW TOP GUN MAVERICK FINALLY!! im so glad i got to see it during the countdown its definitely part of the character arc ive went on throughout this post. what a tonal shift from yesterday also but wow only 2 days left! ive seen so many movies now… all i think of is movies anymore…. but its been a really good span of days recently i feel like summer is finally looking up! and soon wwdits is gonna be back with us like wow!!!! so much to look forward to im very excited. im always fucking excited for anything and everything. woo!!!

1:

what can i say that hasnt already been said, what a fuckin journey this has been and its soon gonna come to fruition. and also what a better way to send this off than I AM SICK AGAIN. thats the spirit of the countdown really. today is a chill day and tomorrow im gonna rewatch the 2014 movie for vibe reasons but like. im so happy and proud. wooooooo!!!!!

also i love walking around the house and hearing ra ra rasputin blaring loud on the tv cause the wwdits trailer. it makes me happy but im also remindes like oh shit this show is on cable tv. weird feeling? havent watched a show on cable in so long

0:

ITS OVER. THE WAIT IS OVER! i said most of the “sappy” shit yesterday but now its all official. im not gonna keep this going in between weekly episodes as a cheap way to keep this going. its over today. TODAY! gonna rewatch the movie in a bit probably just to get in a really vampiric mood but also the moon is full tonight iirc? what a coincidence (probably)

Well folks. thats the end there! just watched episode 3 so its exactly a week after this countdown so i think its a better time to write the conclusion, because its weird that it just cuts off. but there isnt a conclusion cause i already wrote it on days 1 & 0. see you next year when ofmd s2 is announced!

[captainsspnanon]

C2E24 - The Hour of Honor - rewatch/liveblog

A little pre-episode commentary-  Here we are!  The Talks for e23 confirms that they’ve just announced their split.  I’m glad that Geek and Sundry got them to where they needed to be, and I’m sorry that G&S turned into the poo pile that it is now. :(  But I feel like Critical Role would not have gotten as far as they have now had they still been with G&S.

LOL Sam brings up people talking about how there’s no French accents.  Cue Avantika. Who so far I think is still the only one with a French accent?

Oh interesting...still in Talks, Sam says he really misses being more support and not so into only being a damage dealer.  That lends a lot into how Nott grows in the campaign, especially with her magic use, and also gives perspective on the way Sam plays overall.

Why do I have so much to talk about from this Talks??? I usually don’t include any of it in my thoughts!  But they talked about the emerging themes in C2, and they brought up “identity”, and it’s really so true!  I feel like the only one of the final nine who DOESN’T have identity be a theme at their core is Caduceus, but even he has a little bit of it.  But Beau, Molly, Caleb, Nott, Fjord, Jester, Yasha, Essek?  They ALL have so much of themselves revolving around discovering their true identity and who they are at the core versus how others view who they should be and UGH SO MANY FEELINGS.  And that’s one aspect where Molly is much stronger than Caduceus, because Molly had SO many aspects of his character tied to identity, who he was before, who he is now, who he WANTS to be versus what would have been who other people wanted him to be, etc. etc.  It’s still all looped in though, because instead of HIS view of his identity, his story becomes the Nein’s view of his identity, ending with that he should be allowed to remain Molly because that was his choice.  (not gonna get into the Kingsley stuff here.  I have thoughts which are way too long to get into now.  Saving that for my Molly wrapup when he kicks it).  Caduceus always seemed to be very comfortable throughout the campaign with who he was and how others viewed him.  I feel like his only real bit with personal identity came with him acknowledging the fact that he wasn’t as ready to return home as he thought he was going to be.  His ties with identity I feel tie in much more with Fjord and helping Fjord forge his new identity with the paladin mulitclass.  …..I am so full of feels now, SO MANY FEELS.  And of course the episode is all Hupperdook stuff which really doesn’t have feels.

INTO THE ACTUAL EPISODE

They just made the Mighty Nein shirt, omg!  I actually bought this shirt.  They are not kidding when they talk about shirts being super soft.

I like that they all think Rissa is going to steal from them, and it’s just foreshadowing that they’re going to get pickpocketed.  It’s one of the things that I wonder if Matt had the idea planned, or if he got inspired by all of them being so nervous.

Aaaaand here starts Beau’s obsession with firecrackers.

Oh yeah, Caleb’s full on crushing on Jester now.  I don’t think I realized it happened so early!  If I recall, I saw it when they were traveling through the tunnels to Xhorhas and I read some comments about Caleb would only ‘sacrifice’ Frumpkin because he was falling for Jester.  LOL I missed a LOT of the crushing, wow.

I LOVE director!Liam being completely distracted by Matt’s bottle opening noise and looking around is disbelief that no one else is as astounded as he is.

Huh.  I wonder if one of my reasons for not liking Molly is just not being invested in drinking/drugs RP when that’s the point of the scene.  I wasn’t really into Keyleth getting wasted in C1, and the drugs sections in C2 kinda bore me for the most part.  As Molly is so hedonistic, he’s typically searching for the strongest drink, the weirdest drug, and since it’s just something I’m not interested in watching I tied it into my opinion of the character.  At least this episode is pretty much the biggest drinking/drugs bit of the entire campaign. IIRC, the only other scenes with are drinking focused are in regards to the Beaurebar at Travelercon.  I think all other drinking in the campaign isn’t the focus of a scene, and the only other ‘drug’ scene is when Caduceus gives Beau truesight, which the scene had a lot more going for it than being JUST THAT.  So it works.  Huh, I didn’t even realize that it’s an RP aspect that I’m not fully into until just now.  But now I can think of all the times in C1 that the scenes didn’t hold my focus, because there were much more drinking focused sections in C1.  C2, there’s a decent bit at the beginning, them trying to introduce Cad to drinking, Molly and Beau seeking out strongest drinks, but I do think it eases up fairly soon.  Just need to get through this drinking contest.  (not gonna lie, alternating between watching at 1.25 and 1.5 speed for this episode.)

Couple of punks named Fitz and Ashton, huh

Good planning having Yasha watch Kiri.  COME BACK SOON ASHLEYEEEEEEE

also lolling forever at Fjord getting super flustered.  I honestly love it so much, as he’s a very charismatic and suave person, but it’s all a very superficial mask (until he starts growing into it more) so having it crumble as he desperately tries to save face is just very wonderful to watch

LIAM.  I know, Caleb and Yasha need to have way more time together and didn’t get nearly enough and I need awkward introvert buddy time all the time.  But not when Ashley’s not here!

Once again, while I didn’t see it first time around, I am also seeing the Widofjord.  I am appreciating when I see it, even though I do love the canon pairings.

I FORGOT WE GOT BEAU BACKSTORY oh my heart my heart BEAU I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU DON’T DESERVE THIS PAIN fuck you Thoreau, fuck you Zeenoth

They’re talking about scones being hard to make, but they’re not!  I just made scones yesterday and they are delicious!  LINK FOR SCONE RECIPE I USE https://www.fifteenspatulas.com/english-style-scones/

Little Tara needs to learn stranger danger

Ah, I was wondering why I was recognizing the introduction of Blemmy.  It’s because Nott uses the name “Otto”, and I’ve watched the compilation of Liam asking during the wrap up intercut with the three scenes of Sam using “Veth”, “Bren”, and “Otto” so many times.

I LOVE during the last roll for Sam they start cheering then cut themselves off because it seems like Matt may have won, then resume cheering when they confirm Sam won

I don’t get it.  I liked Molly this episode!  He was fun!  Him trying to cure Beau of a hangover was kinda sweet (even if I question why he didn’t test on himself instead of her, but still).  And then he goes and deliberately throws up on Fjord.  Like, that’s not funny.  That’s seriously gross and mean spirited.  And then the fact that I was liking Molly this episode is suddenly gone.

Matt really is good! I only barely caught his dice rolls to steal the party’s money, and only because I was deliberately looking for it.  And I almost missed it because I forgot to look for it.

This episode is a big reminder that regardless of everything the Nein do well, they’re just a pack of giant assholes, with this massive bullying of the kids (even though they were nasty themselves).  Not a complaint!  I don’t mind them being assholes to people outside of the party (yes it’s a very protagonist centered morality thing and I don’t care at all)! But oh boy this is a group that jumps straight to intimidation when the people they are intimidating aren’t threats XD

Huh, I forgot Molly was against helping the kids at first.  Yeah, I’ll be honest, I really REALLY just don’t understand his character.  He’ll merrily give advice and funds to people who steal from them, but something like this which would be actual help he immediately doesn’t care? And then in this situation, where Fjord is merely saying that they MIGHT try to help while they’re taking care of another task anyway, and Molly calls him ‘soft’ multiple times.  ‘soft’??  Because he wants to help four kids who are slowly starving and have to pickpocket to live?  Because he wants to even put in any effort?? Just checked critrolestats, they don’t have an alignment for him. I was going to get pissed if they had him as chaotic good.  He’s chaotic neutral at best.  Seems like he’s willing to do ‘good’ as long as it a) benefits him and b) doesn’t require any effort. Giving some people some coins, of which he now has plenty?  No worries!  Asking a jail warden something to a location that they were already going to?  Nope!  Until Fjord makes it about his personal backstory (the orphanage) and then Molly flips and agrees, either because it’s beneficial for him to do so by staying in Fjord’s good graces (I’m being cynical, I don’t actually think this is the reason, but it’s an option), or because now that it matters to Fjord personally Molly cares because he cares about Fjord.

Also what’s interesting to me on a self-analysis level is why Molly’s refusal bothers me way more that Beau or Caleb’s, considering they are also not jumping on it.  And I think the reason for that is that they didn’t disparage Fjord for wanting to help.  They just said that they had another job, and they could stop by again after.  Whereas Molly kinda mocked Fjord for it by calling him soft.  And I guess a part of it is me reacting to the fanbase who seems to feel that Molly did no wrong ever and was this amazing chaotic good lovable scamp who cared for all the lonely people in the world uwu.  

DAMN SAM/NOTT.  Not sure which one is taking the lead there on guilting Beau by using her backstory against her!  Effective, but DAMN.  Possible payback for her lashing out at Caleb with his backstory during bowlgate?  Maybe, or maybe just Sam trolling, or maybe Nott getting emotional because of Luc and the fact that she can’t help him right now.

Alright!  If I remember, this is the last episode before Travis and Laura go out on leave (pretty sure they were supposed to be there for the fight but weren’t) and then Ashley is back to have the nice kidnapping send off.

@suicidallyreckless

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 105-108

“Master Kars has taken a fighting stance!   I... I wasn’t expecting tongue...”

Hey, remember Wammu?   Well, he’s dead now, so the only Pillar Man left to worry about is the leader, Kars.  His army of vampire slaves don’t like this, so they try to bumrush our heroes, but Lisa kills a few of them, then threatens to destroy the Red Stone of Aja unless Kars honors their agreement. 

And Kars is cool with that.   He only took off his headdress and exposed his antennae to prepare for the next one-on-one fight.   He then kills his unruly henchmen to prove that they don’t speak for him.  Moreover, Kars is now willing to fight Lisa Lisa.   Earlier, he said that he didn’t like fighting women, but now that he’s seen her in action, he’s on board with the idea.

But he doesn’t want to fight in Skeleton Heel Stone, where Joseph and Wammu squared off.   Instead, he chooses the Piza Berlina Temple, right next door to the S.H.S.  Apparently, after a hard day of chariot racing, the winners used to come here to worship their gods and drink the blood of the losers. 

It’s weird to me that Kars and Wammu should be so familiar with this place, and carry such an abiding respect for it.   I mean, they’ve viewed ordinary 20th Century humans with utter contempt, dismissing them as backwards primitives.   Santana disassembled a German rifle like it was easy, and he’s supposed to be the big dummy in the Pillar Men.   That’s how little they think of 1938 technology and civilization.   The Hamon users in this story only get a bit of respect because they‘ve become worthy adversaries. 

And yet, the Pillar Men seem to be a lot more respectful towards ancient humanity.   Esidisi knew the writings of Sun Tzu, if not the man himself.   You’d think he’d just ignore or devour Sun Tzu sooner than look at him.   And you’d think Wammu would have wanted to fight in the traditions of his own culture, but instead he’s all into this ancient human racetrack.    It can’t be because it’s old.   Compared to Wammu, it’s positively brand new.  

On the other hand, these guys are the last of their kind, as we’ll learn in a few chapters.   Human culture is the only kind the Pillar Men have gotten to see, and it’s been that way for about a hundred centuries now.   If Esidisi wants to read a book, he’s pretty much going to have to tolerate human authors, because that’s all that’s left.   And if Wammu wants to admire a sporting arena, he’s stuck with places like these, built by those pesky “primitives”.  

Joseph asks Lisa to let him fight Kars instead, since he’s still worried about her being a woman.   Also, he believes Kars is weaker than Wammu, so he should be able to defeat him.   But Lisa insists on handling this, and she strips down to this circus outfit.    That sounds like I’m making fun of it, but I’m not.   It looks pretty badass, but also period-appropriate. 

The fight is very short.  Kars pulls some sort of disappearing act, then emerges from one of the stone surfaces of the temple, trying to slash at Lisa from behind with his blades.    But Lisa has it scouted, and she wraps her silk scarf around Kars’ arm, charges it with Hamon, and kills him, wham, bam, thank you ma’am.  

And then the real Kars emerges from the same stone, and stabs Lisa in the back.   Somehow, Kars disguised one of his vampire minions to look just like him, right down to the blades in his arms, and sent that flunky out as a distraction.    It’s a cheap trick, and a complete 180 from the honor displayed by Wammu in the previous fight.  Kars doesn’t care.   He doesn’t care about dishonoring Wammu’s memory, nor does he care about breaking his word.   The only thing Kars cares about is getting the Red Stone of Aja, and now he has it. 

Unfortunately, this takes Lisa Lisa out of action for the rest of the story.  Kars hasn’t killed her, but she’s too badly hurt to do anything from here.   That kind of sucks, because Lisa’s such a cool character.   A friend of mine once complained that Lisa got a raw deal in Part 2, and we should have gotten to see her get a big fight, on par with Joseph vs. Esidisi, or Caesar vs. Wammu.   I can’t really disagree with the sentiment. 

However, I have a hard time figuring out how such a fight could have been worked into the story.   She couldn’t beat Kars, for Pete’s sake.   He’s the final boss of Part 2, so it sort of falls to Joseph to do the honors.  And she couldn’t beat Wammu or Esidisi, because Joseph was the one who needed the antidote to their poison rings.  Lisa could have lost to either of them--the way Caesar lost to Wammu-- except she’d have to die, which would spoil the big reveal of her origin story.

So maybe there needed to be an extra Pillar Man in the cast?   Not Santana, because he’s too weak, but maybe Kars’ group has a fourth guy named Talqingedz or whatever.  So Lisa Lisa could mop the floor with that dude... and then what?    Would it really carry any dramatic weight for her to defeat a guy like that?  A Pillar Man so ancillary to the story that the plot would flow just as well without him?    When you get down to it, Lisa Lisa’s dream opponent for Part 2 just ends up looking like Wired Beck, a random jobber presented solely to establish her credibility as a fighter.   And we already got Lisa vs. Wired Beck, and clearly that wasn’t satisfying enough.   So Lisa Lisa vs. a Pillar Man probably wouldn’t have been much of an improvement.  

Nonetheless, I think it’s a valid criticism of Battle Tendency.  You come out of this story wishing we could have seen more of Lisa Lisa in action, and we just aren’t going to get it.   But the root of the problem isn’t that she didn’t get to fight more, it’s that she was presented as a fighter when that really wasn’t her role in the story.   She’s a teacher, training Joseph and Caesar in the ways of the Ripple, but more importantly, she’s an enigma.  Who is she?   What’s her connection to the Joestars?  To Straizo?   To Caesar?   Where did she get the Red Stone of Aja?   And so on.  

Her Ripple mastery makes her one of the strongest fighters on the board, but that’s just another piece of the puzzle.   I think there was a profile of Lisa Lisa in the manga that said her Ripple was three times stronger than Joseph’s.   But we never get to see it demonstrated, because that’s not the point.  We’re just supposed to wonder who this lady is and how she got so powerful, and where has she been this whole time.    I think this is also why everyone keeps writing her off as a woman.   It’s not just chauvanism, it’s intended to keep the reader off-balance.  One minute Joseph and the Pillar Men are respecting her power, and the next minute they’re dismissing her.    It keeps you guessing. 

I suspect this is one reason why Araki dealt Lisa Lisa such an inglorious defeat here.   Could Lisa have defeated Kars in a fair fight?   Yeah, I think she could.   But if she cleaned his clock, it would defeat the mystique of the character.   The same is true if Lisa lost to Kars in a fair fight.  We’d say “Oh, okay, she wasn’t quite as strong as Joseph, so that’s that.” 

Now, the other major reason for Kars to defeat Lisa Lisa like this is to demonstrate Kars’ main character trait.   He only cares about achieving his objective.   Wammu had his warrior code, and Esidisi had his devotion to his comrades, but Kars has only himself and his goals.   He had Lisa and Joseph cornered in the abandoned hotel, but they didn’t have the Aja Stone on them.   Lisa made that bluff about a bomb, and then proposed this contest to settle things.   Kars agreed, but not because he had any intention of honoring the agreement.  He just let things play out because he knew Joseph would bring the Stone to the battlefield, and even if Wammu lost, he would still have all of these vampires to back him up.  

That’s how Kars was able to defeat Lisa.   He used Wammu’s own honor to lull Lisa into a false sense of security.   After seeing how noble Wammu was in defeat, and how gracious Kars was in disciplining his vampires, she began to believe that Kars would fight her fairly.     That was Kars’ plan all along.   Once he had her isolated on the temple, with the Red Stone of Aja on her person, he made his play.    It’s dirty pool, but it worked, and that’s all Kars cares about. 

This makes Joseph super-duper pissed, but what’s he gonna do about it?   He’s way down there on the ground, surrounded by vampires, and his Ripple is weak from the fight with Wammu.    So now Kars can just watch from a safe vantage while his henchmen tie up the last loose end.  

But then, the Nazis show up, led by Stroheim, complete with a repaired cyborg body.  And Speedwagon and Smokey are here too, along with a fighting contingent of the Speedwagon Foundation.   And they came prepared too!  Everybody’s armed with UV emitters.   To be sure, ultraviolet lamps haven’t worked so well against the Pillar Men, but against ordinary vampires, they seem to do the job quite nicely.   

So while they clean house, Joseph climbs up to where Kars and Lisa are, and he’s ready to throw down.   Joseph has plenty of harsh words for Kars’ dirty tactics, but Kars doesn’t care.   This has all been a chess game to him.   The Ripple Clan, the vampires, even Wammu and Esidisi, they were all just pieces on a board, maneuvered and arranged until he could secure a path to victory with minimal risk.  

See, that’s the other thing about Lisa Lisa.   It’s very subtly expressed here, but Kars was clearly very worried about her.   He knew Joseph was a threat because he killed Esidisi, but he knew he could use Wammu to wear Joseph down.   But Lisa Lisa is even more powerful and experienced than Joseph, and she’s shrewd enough to destroy the Stone if cornered.    He knew he couldn’t beat her at her own game, so he let her think she was playing her own game in order to set her up for that sneak attack.   If Kars hadn’t done that, he’d be dead by now, or the Stone would be lost or destroyed.  

Likewise, I’m not sure Kars is confident about a fair fight with Joseph, even though he’s tired from fighting Wammu.  I mean, you’d think he’d just charge Joseph and cut his head off if he could, but instead he lures him into another trap.    Before Joseph got up here, Kars tied Lisa’s feet to a rope.    He made sure not to kill her, but only so he could use her as a hostage.   Kars tosses Lisa down, and Joseph has to grab the rope to keep her from falling to her death.

And the whole point of that was to keep Joseph standing still.   He can’t let go of the rope, so he’s in no position to defend himself.   Now Kars can just walk right up to him and kill him at his leisure.   As far as Kars is concerned, this is what fighting is all about.   Not a test of strength and skill like Wammu’s ideal, but the achievement of victory at minimal risk.  

And this is where we see Joseph exceed Lisa Lisa.  They both got suckered into Kars’ traps, but Lisa doesn’t have Joseph’s penchant for trickery and quick thinking.    She’s got more Ripple power, sure, but that doesn’t matter against a guy like Kars.   I’m starting to get the impression that Kars is a lot weaker than Wammu, since he fights so conservatively in this story.   He may not be able to afford to fight Joseph in any other way.   

So how in the hell can Joseph get out of this one?   Well, first he tries to kick Kars to keep him away.   Kars just cuts his leg, along with a section of rope that was in the way.   Joseph’s Ripple is so weak that the kick did nothing. 

Then Joseph sets his own scarf on fire and talks about how he has a plan, and it’s so awesome that he can make this work before the flames reach his body.    Kars thinks this is just desperate posturing, and all Joseph seems to do is swing away.    Kars thinks he’s trying to get some distance so he can recover his Hamon energy.

Then Kars cuts the rope, since Joseph won’t stand still and get murdered.   

And it backfires, because Joseph did more tricky rope tricks!   Hermit Purple, bitch!

Basically, that very first bit, where Joseph tried to kick him, even then, Joseph had a plan.    He got Kars to cut a section of rope, which he then used to tie his own leg to the rope holding Lisa Lisa.   Then he goaded Kars into cutting the rope so Lisa would fall, not realizing that Joseph had her secured with his other rope.   Also, that other rope got caught on Kars’ own foot.   It’s complicated. 

Oh, wait, I forgot to talk about chess.   Okay, so earlier, Kars was gloating about using Lisa as a pawn to achieve checkmate.   It’s a good analogy, but I’m pretty sure chess was invented within the last 2000 years.   In other words, Kars literally slept through the entire history of the game.   So for him to be talking about it now, I have to assume he learned about chess during that month while Joseph was training.   That kind of sucks.   Esidisi and Wammu were running around trying to find the Red Stone of Aja, and Kars was probably chilling out in Switzerland playing chess and drinking hot cocoa all night.   Wotta heel.

Then Joseph pulls himself back up with his scarf and uses Overdrive against Kars’ blade.  Joseph’s Ripple is so strong that he just powers right through, destroying the blade on Kars’ arm like it’s no big deal.  That’s interesting, because when Joseph first saw Kars’ blades, he worried that he wouldn’t be able to block them, and now it’s Kars who wasn’t strong enough to block. 

Maybe “Light Mode” was more of an illusion than a genuine power?  I mean, the blades are super-sharp, but I never understood what difference it made for them to be all sparkly, unless it’s a psychological trick to demoralize the enemy.   It definitely worked on Stroheim, and it worked on Joseph for a while, but I don’t think Joseph’s gotten that much stronger since their last encounter.   

Anyway, the Ripple worked, and Kars’ entire arm explodes.   Yeah!  Then he falls off the temple, and Joseph loosens the rope to help him on his way down.    Cool!  Then Kars lands on a bunch of spiky rocks, the same gruesome fate he intended for Lisa Lisa.   Yeah, how’s that taste, Kars?   You loincloth-wearin’ piece of crap?  

So... yeah, we won!  Great job everyone!  Except for the Nazis, they can all go fuck off and die in a fire.   Smokey’s feeling a lot better about everything, so he asks Speedwagon about Lisa Lisa.   See, earlier, Lisa revealed to Joseph that she was the baby that Erina rescued at the end of Phantom Blood.   But Erina told Smokey about the same baby back in New York, and Smokey knows that Lisa Lisa is Joseph’s mother.  

Except, Erina told Joseph that his mother died of a disease when he was a baby, so how can Lisa be alive and a Ripple Master?   Speedwagon agrees to explain, since Smokey took care of Erina while he was away, but he insists that Smokey not reveal any of this to Joseph, because it’s Joestar family business.  

I hadn’t really considered it until now, but this is the first time we’ve seen Smokey and Speedwagon interact so far.   They’ve gotten to know each other off-panel, and they seem to have a bond over their shared respect for the Joestars, so it lulled me into thinking they’ve appeared together before this.    Anyway...

The origin of Lisa Lisa isn’t all that complicated, actually.   She was raised by Straizo and became a Ripple warrior, while Jonathan and Erina’s son, George Joestar II, joined the British Air Force in World War I.   George and Lisa fell in love, married, and had a baby, Joseph.  

The catch is that there was one last zombie from Phantom Blood.   Speedwagon and Straizo thought they got all of Dio’s zombies, but one of them was very clever and managed to stay hidden.    He just made sure to eat his victims’ entire body, so as not to leave any physical evidence.   Also, he faked a disability to excuse himself from any daylight activities.    By the 1910′s, he had successfully infiltrated the RAF as a Major.  

So George learned of this, because he knew all the Phantom Blood lore from his wife and mother.    But George never had any Ripple abilities himself.   He may have had the potential for it, but he was never trained, and I guess he didn’t develop it naturally, the way Joseph did.  

So he tried to gather evidence to expose the zombie Major, but his plan backfired and the zombie killed him instead, then covered up George’s death by reporting it as a plane crash.    Speedwagon and Straizo investigated this, but before they could act...

Lisa got wind of it and took matters into her own hands.  She killed the zombie major, but she did it in front of another officer.   The authorities knew nothing of zombies or Stone Masks, so they just thought she murdered an RAF officer in cold blood.    So she had to leave Britian as a fugitive, and she’s been living in exile in Italy ever since.    The Speedwagon Foundation has been trying to clear her name, but I doubt there’s whole lot they could do about a case like this.

And there you have it.   Erina was so heartbroken over the death of her son and the exile of her daughter-in-law that she asked Speedwagon to never tell Joseph what really happened to his parents, and to keep the Ripple a secret from him.   Of course, none of that really worked, because Joseph developed the Ripple on his own, and Straizo and Stroheim forced Joseph to develop those abilities even further, leading him directly to his long lost mother.   Erina wanted to protect Joseph, but she couldn’t save him from his own fate.    Smokey starts crying, and I’m like “same tbh.”  

This ties back to a point I made early on.   When I watched the anime, it seemed kind of random to introduce Smokey, then drop him for most of the story, then bring him back at the end.   But now, it makes a lot more sense.   He was a viewpoint character, but only so far as the stuff about the Joestar Family.   All the fighting and Ripple stuff could be done without Smokey, since Joseph could function as his own viewpoint character for that part.   And while it’s kind of weird for Smokey to be absent for so long, it helps that he seemed to feel the same way.    He clearly went out of his way to join Speedwagon on this mission to Switzerland.  He simply cares about the Joestar Family that much.    He couldn’t sit in New York and wait for an update.

Anyway, Lisa’s going to be okay, and the vampires are all dead, and Kars is slowly dying from the Ripple wound Joseph gave him, so it looks like we’re all finished here.   Stroheim decides to put Kars out of his misery by shooting him with high-intensity UV rays.   Maybe that’s overkill at this point, but we might as well let Stroheim have his fun.

Oh SHI--

So yeah, Kars had the Red Stone of Aja this whole time, but he only just now decided to use it.   That’s because the Stone will only amplify the power of his special Stone Mask if there’s a powerful light source.    This whole fight has been happening at night, so Kars had to wait until morning to try this little stunt.  But Stroheim has helpfully supplied a bunch of UV lamps, and those work just peachy, thanks.   Fuck Stroheim forever.

And just like Dio and Straizo before, the Stone Mask digs bony protrusions into Kars’ brain, but this time the mask has the Super Aja powering it, so Kars stands to gain even more power, turning him into... what exactly?  

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me

I’m gonna miss writing about Amethyst.

As the most sisterly Crystal Gem, a firebrand in the new role of middle child after spending millennia as the baby of the group, Amethyst’s story is about growing from a wild teen to a responsible adult. Like Steven, she feels the need to prove that she’s a Crystal Gem too, but unlike Steven, she already is a Crystal Gem, so she carries a different kind of resentment as she continues to be treated like a child. It’s made even worse by her warrior instincts clashing with her small frame: she lives with the constant anxiety that she’s a mistake, a Gem who came out wrong and doesn’t belong in her family, so she comforts and distracts herself with hedonism and shapeshifting. Her problem goes beyond not feeling respected: deep down, she fears that she doesn’t deserve respect.

But she changes her mind.

“This isn’t normal.”

The Return and Jailbreak culminated the first act of Steven Universe, giving our characters subtle achievements (Amethyst and Pearl casually fuse into Opal, Greg reveals a deeper understanding of the Gems than we once thought, Beach City comes together as a community when Steven is in danger) and huge changes (Steven summons a massive shield, Garnet’s status as a fusion is confirmed, Lapis goes from prisoner to imprisoner). While not an official finale, Beta and Earthlings culminated the second act, narrowing the focus to five characters as they each reach one milestone or another: Lapis and Amethyst find a level of peace, Peridot defends her new home, Jasper succumbs to corruption, and Steven helps his friends but fails to help his enemy.

In a way, Change Your Mind culminates the third act with an even narrower focus. Sure, it gives big moments to a ton of characters (there’s fanservice galore, and we see the three Diamonds in particular take enormous steps), but we zero in on Steven in the same way the entire act has zeroed in on Steven, because this is a story about identity. It isn’t only about who he is, but who he wants to be moving forward, and fusing all the insights he’s learned from his human family, his Crystal Gem family, and his Diamond family into a song that encapsulates his growth over the course of the series.

We start in the most lifelike of the Diamond dreams, so real that Steven still sees himself as Steven rather than embodying Pink. Once again, this connection emerges from sleeping in a location where Pink once dwelled, but while he wasn’t feeling her impatience and rage in Jungle Moon, nor her hardening resolve in Can’t Go Back, nor her whimsy in Familiar, this time they share the same headspace when they’re both locked in a tower.

Considering how bombastic things get in this episode, I love how low-key this final dream remains until White Diamond interferes. We’re as lost as Steven at first, worrying about Connie and baffled at Blue’s recognizable mood but incongruous accusations, but as the truth becomes clear, he transforms into Pink off-screen without any fanfare, both in body and in mind: Steven isn’t questioning Blue’s warning about Pink Pearl, Pink Diamond is apologizing for her own behavior in Zach Callison’s voice. Still, looking down jolts him out of it, and after seeing the Crystal Gems poofed at the ball for a more definitive Steven memory, we cycle in Rose’s horror at her family launching a final attack on Earth. The rapid-fire identity shifts that follow inspired the most haunting piece of promo art for the episode, drawn by Rebecca Sugar herself, but I didn’t wanna display it without a seizure warning.

It’s excellent exposition, hitting the highlights of the Diamonds’ many wrongs and establishing Steven’s fraying sense of self in a way that’s both artful and brief; it’s important to remind younger viewers about the stakes, but Change Your Mind doesn’t pretend that anyone should be watching this episode without context, so it doesn’t prioritize thorough explanation. And despite how frightening the nightmare becomes, Steven gains a new sense of clarity after seeing the pattern laid out in front of him. The Diamonds are hurting him in the same way they hurt his mother, and if he’s going to help everyone, he needs to help himself.

When Blue Diamond returns to the tower in modern day, Steven isn’t afraid, and he isn’t alone. The first of many puns riddling the finale emerges (“Déjà Blue!”) before Connie proves why she’s the perfect partner for our hero, platonic or otherwise. He’s terrible at confronting the people that hurt him—this would require him to acknowledge he’s hurt in the first place, which he’s also terrible at—but if she was comfortable enough with confrontation to call out her best friend when he wrongs her, Blue Diamond doesn’t stand a chance. Connie comes out swinging, loading the bases with candor and sass despite Blue’s confusion over why a human even gets an opinion about this stuff, which makes Steven’s refusal to apologize hit the Diamond like a grand slam.

I love that Steven’s flat “no” takes Connie by surprise as well as Blue, because yeah, it’s uncharacteristically blunt for someone who’s spent his entire trip to Homeworld bending over backwards like he usually does to accommodate others. When he doubles down by explaining that he isn’t sorry about creating a show that celebrates queer characters whoops sorry I mean fusion, Callison makes it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, and this is what upsets Blue enough to inflict her tears on him. We’ll learn even more about Pink’s temper in Steven Universe Future, but the simple act of not bowing to authority makes Steven “worse than ever” in Blue’s mind: violence is more acceptable than insubordination. (Also, violence in cartoons is more acceptable than queer folks just sorta existing in cartoons, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Change Your Mind is about combating bigotry and cycles of abuse, and Blue is the obvious first test. She’s a bigot who doesn’t think she’s a bigot (compared to Yellow, who doesn’t care that she’s a bigot, and White, who’s quite proud of being a bigot). She passively perpetuates a toxic status quo (compared to Yellow, who actively perpetuates it, and White, who established it in the first place). It makes sense that she’s the first of the remaining Diamonds to change her mind, because all it takes for her to realize that something is wrong is thinking about it a little harder.

This doesn’t let her off the hook, of course: Blue’s sloth—the sin, not the animal—might not look flashy next to Yellow’s wrath or White’s pride or Pink’s envy, but she still chose to do nothing for thousands of years rather than contemplate how her actions and her society might have wronged Pink. If it was this easy for Blue to realize she was hurting Pink, it makes it that much more of an issue that it took her this long to figure it out. Unintentional bigots might be the “best” option by default, but they can be just as harmful as intentional bigots, and there’s a special sort of damage that can come from an oppressor who truly believes themselves an ally.

That said, while it’s important to acknowledge her blame (emphasized here when she only stops attacking Steven when he calls her out rather than the Diamonds in general), Blue is also a victim. She’s one of the most powerful beings on Homeworld, but she’s still trapped by White Diamond, and resorts to putting others down as a means of reclaiming a sense of that power. In the same way oppressed people often turn to sexism and racism and homophobia to make themselves feel bigger, Blue (and Yellow) reinforce White’s sweeping bigotry in the same way they echo her family-specific abuse. It’s not a good coping mechanism, in this show or in the real world, but understanding the problem is key to fixing it.

So it still feels like a victory when Blue turns, even though it should’ve happened ages ago, and even though she’s a tyrant. She isn’t just deciding to help Steven, she’s breaking out of that cycle in a way that allows for growth beyond our hero’s immediate concerns. Lisa Hannigan captures this transformation beautifully, shifting from manipulative whining about Pink’s behavior to a crushing realization that she’s the one who’s wrong. And even as she joins Steven’s side, she remains weighed down by her longstanding prejudice: Hannigan stutters as she refers to the Crystal Gems as his family, and her triumphant defense of Steven’s name to Yellow comes with the caveat that she’s still misgendering him.

But before we get to Yellow, we take a pit stop that grounds us back to Steven and Connie’s hunger. It may seem small, but this is a critical moment in establishing Steven’s humanity in a way the show has quietly done from day one: with food.

The very first scene of Steven Universe establishes our hero’s human half in a donut shop, upset about dessert. From there, the next five episodes drill in that Steven will take a unique approach to his magical Gem heritage, and they all involve food in a major way: Cookie Cats, then his father’s saying about pork chops and hot dogs, then the Cheeseburger Backpack (important enough to be the episode’s name), then the Together Breakfast (ditto), then creating a monster based on fries.

It’s not just Steven, either. The first few Connie episodes involve eating and drinking in ways that show hints of growth (worrying about trans fats, then sneaking food into movie theaters) and mark key moments in her life (sharing a juicebox, taking her parents to dinner). Lars’s development is tied with his love of baking, and on top of him and Sadie working at the Big Donut, the Frymans and the Pizzas are so tied to their food service jobs that it’s in their names. And speaking of names, we’ve got Vidalia calling her sons Sour Cream and Onion. It even extends to the Gems: Amethyst’s connection with Earth means she loves food, and Pearl’s greater distance from humanity means she can’t stomach it.

Food is fundamentally something that humans require and Gems don’t, and just like we saw in Lars’s Head, Steven’s physical body forces him to think about his own needs despite his usual focus on others. Both his humanity and his ability to stand up for himself are key to his eventual victory, and what could’ve been a generic transition between Blue and Yellow’s big scenes instead becomes a quiet Steven scene. Steven changing into his usual clothes (including his mom’s star) and Connie changing into her own outfit (including her dad’s jacket) is the perfect finishing touch before we dive back into the drama.

True to their natures, Yellow Diamond gets a starker introduction than Blue’s dream sequence: as the lights burst on, we get two shots focusing on a horrifying number of mutated Gem Shards floating around in the room, then the Crystal Gems’ thankfully intact gems in one big bubble, before panning down to the villain who caused all this pain. The menace is palpable before she even opens her mouth, but Patti LuPone’s low tone keeps the mood from boiling over just long enough that when she loses her cool, it hits like a freight train.

Blue’s passive bigotry endured because she lacked introspection, but Yellow’s active bigotry requires constantly justifying actions she knows are cruel by presenting it as a matter of superior reasoning. We’ve known from her first appearance that Yellow’s seething fury undermines her reputation for cold logic, and now more than ever the connection between her behavior and that of “sophisticated” bigots is clear. You know the type: openly, smugly hateful, but couching their hate as something derived from some deep knowledge about the subject, whether in religious convictions or whatever “science” they can scrape together to confirm their worldview.

Sure enough, even in her rage, Yellow lays down what she sees as a rational explanation for why it was okay to mistreat Pink, and why it’s okay that they themselves are mistreated: if they make exceptions for anyone, even other Diamonds, they must make exceptions for everyone, and chaos reigns. Besides the slippery slope being a fallacy, her argument is punctured by Connie’s second big retort of the night, pointing out that this extreme conclusion of Homeworld Gems living free actually sounds pretty nice. But you can’t force this type of bigot to change their mind through reason; if such a person was actually interested in logical worldviews, they wouldn’t have become a bigot in the first place. You need to change their heart.

Fortunately, emotions are Blue’s domain, so she’s just the person to help. Unfortunately, in the same way she still can’t get Steven’s pronouns right, Blue lacks experience with healthy communication, and strikes a first blow against Yellow on instinct. The ensuing brawl is brutal, switching between the massive scale of two warring titans and the smaller scale of Steven and Connie scrambling to save the Crystal Gems as Blue and Yellow unload millennia of baggage on each other. It’s so important that Blue is the physical instigator here, as it fuels Yellow’s white-hot self-righteous streak like nothing else, and it keeps the fight from being one-sided all the way through: Yellow pretty much needs to be the one dealing the final blow for the scene to stick, so it gets balanced out by Blue’s opening punch.

Blue uses her powers on Yellow, and Yellow uses her powers on Blue, but Steven’s power is talking. So just like with Blue’s conversion, Connie gets the opening words while Steven gets the finisher. When he finally gets her attention after being ignored throughout the scene, he makes Yellow listen to him by using the same food-based expression I mentioned from all the way back in Laser Light Cannon. It’d pack a bigger punch if Greg said “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs” at literally any other point in the show, but it still does the trick.

Blue was emotionally ready to accept that Pink was suffering, but hadn’t considered the Diamonds’ role in that suffering. Yellow knew that Pink suffered thanks to the Diamonds, but suppressed her emotions to the point where she couldn’t empathize with her sister’s plight. Blue needed to be more thoughtful to change, and Yellow needed to be more in touch with her emotions to change, and thus the stage is set for the Battle of Heart and Mind against White Diamond.

Except that this isn’t the lesson of Change Your Mind. Blue and Yellow show that some bigots can be reached, which is great! But despite their differences, Steven uses the same basic strategy in both: he doesn’t let them belittle his identity, he confidently dispels their wrongheaded assumptions, and he gets help from allies instead of shouldering the burden himself. We spend the beginning of the episode seeing that in the right circumstances this approach can work, but from here we’ll see that with some bigots, it’s a non-starter.

So long as you can engage with bigots while maintaining your self-respect, it can be good work to try and help them see the light. It’s not an obligation, but if you want to change hearts and minds, Steven provides a good template for how to do it. Now the rest of the episode can focus on the bigger lesson: if someone refuses to respect your humanity when you’re steadfast and forthright, it isn’t your job to breathe in their poison, or to hold your breath until you asphyxiate waiting for change.

But more on that after the break!

I Can’t Believe We’ve Come So Far

As we reach the end of the original series, it would be criminal not to acknowledge three long-time storyboarders who are on their way out. This isn’t their final contribution to the series, as only one of Change Your Mind’s twelve credited writer/boarders didn’t go on to work on The Movie in some way (Christine Liu, whose tenure was brief but great), and Hilary Florido stayed on as a supervisor for Future. But I wanted to write the big sendoffs here, as this is the last proper “episode” that these three worked on as regular boarders. So it’s time to say goodbye to Katie Mitroff, Hilary Florido, and Jeff Liu.

First up is Katie Mitroff, who clocked two early knockouts with Alone Together and The Test alongside Florido. Mitroff’n’Florido went on to make other classics like Maximum Capacity and Joy Ride before the former teamed up with Lamar Abrams and the latter teamed up with Jesse Zuke for their next batch of episodes.

With Abrams, Mitroff deepened the lore of the show with We Need to Talk, Steven’s Birthday, Bismuth, Buddy’s Book, Three Gems and a Baby, and especially The Answer. She gave us the harrowing revelation of Back to the Moon, and the most ridiculous episode of the series, Restaurant Wars. Her final partner was Paul Villeco, finishing strong with The Trial, Back to the Kindergarten, Your Mother and Mine, Pool Hopping, What’s Your Problem?, Reunited, and Change Your Mind, 100% of which are either in my Love ‘em ranking or my Top Episodes. (Oh, sorry, spoiler alert I love Change Your Mind.)

It’s strange, because she didn’t work on any of the major episodes of Amethyst’s big arc at the end of Season 3, but Mitroff is one of my favorite Amethyst boarders: she’s the consistent thread between Maximum Capacity, Back to the Moon, and What’s Your Problem?, three cornerstones of the character. She excelled at going outside the show’s usual style, as seen in The Answer and Your Mother and Mine, and it’s no coincidence she helped animate Isn’t It Love? to bring Cotton Candy Garnet back for one last ride.

Katie Mitroff is an absolute rock star, I wish her well and you should too.

[aotopmha]

The feedback I've gotten for my survey about why people have dropped/dislike AoT has been wonderful.

There's been pretty much only one wierd/nasty encounter within the now pretty sizeable portion of feedback.

Writing the post about the criticism directed at the story and going back through all of the AoT discussion in all of the different corners of the internet as far back as 2009 has been a blast.

I'm aiming to publish it by the time of the final chapter release, but I really want to be thorough with it.

Speaking of chapter release...

The final spoiler week is upon us. It's the week of April 1st at that.

Part of me wants to be part of this insanity.

But AoT is one of my favourite series ever and I think this final arc has nailed the core themes of the story outside of a few elements pretty much perfectly and the actual character journeys have been really good.

I think it's been a little loosely plotted, but this is nothing new to me. AoT's plotting ranges from pretty obvious to a fun kind of subtle and kind of genius to pretty minimal in terms of foreshadowing.

It's been all over the place from the start.

But despite this and the slower portions of the story, I never felt it was truly nonsensical, terrible or delibrately mean-spirited.

I've followed this story for a total of 8 years: from about April 2013 to now, making it the longest story I've followed to the end until now.

I even found my very first post about it in a different forum I used to frequent (I completely forgot I was pretty much on board weekly since episode 2):

Watched the first 2 episodes recently. The feeling of despair with this is incredibly well done. I feel like if not these characters, then at least humanity overall deserves a good ending, yet I feel like this is gonna be one of those kill 'em all series with no hope anywhere in sight. Also, love the ed for this, just looks beautiful.

My first impressions of the manga are as follows:

Well, caught up with the manga. Wasn't as depressing as I thought it would be, there's still some hope left after all. The mystery with the titans is obviously the most engaging thing about this manga, but sometimes they just look very silly and that makes it hard to take some scenes seriously. I cracked up a few times because of the way these things are drawn, with such a serious story and the titans showing up fairly often it can be really distracting. Not particularly a fan of any of the side characters, they have their roles which is fine by me. Eren and Armin are hightlights for me, I guess. Mikasa reminds me a lot of Morgiana, but it bothers me that she's so good with so many things. She's one of the strongest fighters, she's almost always reasonable, she saves the day a lot. Sort of iffy about that. I mean she has some tough moments to endure, too, but compared to the stuff Eren or Armin go through it seems so little. I also saw some of the twists coming fairly easily, some of them are very typical of this type of survival story. It was really easy to tell that something was going to happen especially when things got really hopeful. But otherwise very good read.

As such, I'm torn whether I should completely shut out of spoilers this month.

Should I experience the finale of one of my favourite stories blind or should I experience the insanity of final (and let's be honest very often a dumpsterfire) spoiler week?