#Like he was just comedically bad. You can’t make that shit up like fuck was up with him

[angel-of-the-moons]

Ballet dancer reader x khonshu who tries to be his mysterious scary self and the reader just WHIPS her leg up to uppercut his head and crack his skull. Khonshu grabs her leg at the last second and he’s VERY surprised as she looks him DEAD in the eye, “I will FUCK you up. My ballet teacher has been a Russian matriarch since I was 5. You can’t scare me, bitch”. And khonshu’s just “Well mark me down as nervous AND horny!!”

I fucking cackled at this it's so fucking gorgeous

I changed it up a bit for comedic effect but asfghhkkll

Old Birds and New Tricks

Khonshu x Fem!Dancer!Reader

TW/CW: Attempted mugging, reader is a badass, Khonshu pops a boner for the first time in like ever, but nothing explicit happens :)

A/N: I figured you'd get a kick outta this one @drinkingwithkhonshu @juneknight because I'm on the floor with it lmao

🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑

You were walking home after a long practice session, your toes and legs ached from straining to stay on your tippy toes for so long, your arms cried for relief from the strain of holding the bar, performing so many sweeps and graceful flares alongside your troupe and mentor.

Your mentor, Katja Ivanov was a good teacher and a harsh mentor. She was a hulk of a woman, roped with muscles built over her long period of performing dance (you yourself thought she must have been in prison at some point, too but when you shot the question as a joke she merely laughed; but didn't deny it).

Katja was a woman who took no shit from rude people, and she instilled that in all of you, her dancers, her "baby birds" she called you. She made sure that all of you knew that just because you were dancers, people couldn't take you for granted.

So, after "official" dance practice had ended... Katja taught all of you how to use your strength and flexibility to defend yourselves as well as perform graceful maneuvers.

And it came in handy. Really, really handy.

London was dangerous after dark, the empty streets crawling with bad things in the shadows, like an infection beneath the skin.

That was how you found yourself in an alley, a large drunk man between you and freedom.

You were no quitter, no coward, and instantly, like a computer scanning a file, your brain recollected each one of Katja's lessons and put them into action.

Your body flushed with fresh adrenaline, your heart hammering within the confines of your chest as you whipped around on one foot, your other flying out to kick your assailant in his gut, knocking him back and making him dry heave with the strain.

"I told you, asshole." You hissed, bringing your fists up to guard your face.

"All I got in my bag is my gear. Now piss off before I break your jaw."

"Fuckin'... bitch." The man wheezed as he stumbled out of the alleyway, leaving you behind and feeling the high of victory.

You pick up your bag where you dropped it and slipped the strap back over your chest, the band squishing a bit between your breasts as you tightened it.

"Amusing." A deep, raspy voice mused.

You whipped around, trying in vain to locate the source of the voice. It came from nowhere, but at the same time... it came from everywhere.

"I was merely passing through when I thought to aid you, human." It spoke again, your very bones trembling as the voice bored into your very brain.

"But you seem to have been able to handle that threat on your own."

You pressed your ears hard beneath your hands, gritting your teeth at the invasive feeling the voice left as it crawled in and out of you.

"God! Just--get out of my head!" You say through your gnashed teeth.

You hear an exasperated sigh, and you feel the air shift around you as you lift your gaze, your eyes trailing the body of someone who just appeared in front of you.

He looked like a cliché monster from one of The Mummy movies, draped in linen and flowy robes and everything. The freakin' bird skull completed the freaky visage.

"The hell--" You sputter, dropping your hands from around your ears, taking a step back from the... the thing in front of you.

"Seeing you handle an opponent so large was amusing." He--and you were most certain that he was a he--chuckled grimly. "A tiny little waif like you."

Okay, you didn't care how big and imposing this otherworldly bastard was, the fact he was jabbing at your stature and visual "weaknesses" irked you. You could swear you heard Katja's voice from over your shoulder.

"Kick his ass, да, маленький?" She would jeer.

"You... think I'm... small?" You say slowly, your eyes narrowing to a dangerous glint as he leans in, the smell of the spices clinging to his body wafting into your nose, heat radiating from his lithe body as he bent to your level.

You were giving him a chance to walk it back, maybe apologize for being a judgmental prick, so you wouldn't have to prove once again that you were just the opposite.

He did not.

"You are not as weak as you appear... Little one." He huffed, his head moving in a slight jerking motion, indicating his amusement.

Yeah, no. You had enough of big assholes thinking you were easy pickin's tonight.

You smiled sweetly up at him, your expression completely devoid of any innocence behind the mask of charm. You could see his shoulders drop and head tilt in confusion, but he was given not another moment longer to ponder why you would be smiling.

He expected you to retort, to snap, to--his thoughts were immediately cut off, as you moved in a blur.

Because you effortlessly raised your leg with lightning speed brought on by years of practice, and curled your foot in the classic ballerina's stance and kicked him in his stupid ass beak.

When your shoe made contact, you swore you heard the dry bones crunch as he stumbled back, almost falling flat on his ass before he caught himself with his staff, a grunt coming away from him.

Your hands gripped your bag strap as you looked down at him indignantly, a sense of smug superiority washing over you.

"Not as weak as you thought, now, huh?" You huffed victoriously, before turning on your heels and storming out of the alley.

Khonshu, the god of the Moon, dispenser of Justice and protector of those in the night...

...was just kicked in the face by a tiny woman.

And she actually did manage to crack his bones. They healed almost instantly, of course, thanks to his divinity.

But what didn't heal was his pride as he kneeled in the dirty alley, leaning on his staff for support as he watched you leave.

The look in your eyes, the power behind your legs... It was like the sun came up early and rose with your kick, to wash out the cool light of his moon with the harsh burning rays of daylight.

And it left him stunned. Stunned in a way no mortal has ever been able to.

And, frankly, he found his body responding in... other ways, too. Ways he hadn't indulged in what felt like... eons.

He was a god, yes, but divinity doesn't automatically grant piousness; and he found himself imagining you using your legs in a different way.

Had Khonshu a human mouth, he would be smiling.

He needed to see you again.

🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑

да (pronounced da) = Yes

маленький (pronounced malen'kiy) = Little One

(Forgive me if it's butchered, I used Google translate for it asdfghjkl)

[goldfish-afterhours]

Genshin Characters During Finals Season (College AU)

Characters: Zhongli, Thoma, Venti, Xiao, Albedo, Bennett, Childe, Kaeya

Type/Genre: Bulleted headcanons, comedy

Warnings: Foul language, slightly suggestive humour/for comedic purposes

Zhongli

Calm and collected at first

As the days go by, Zhongli would start looking more and more like a tired dad

Walks around slightly frowning, bags under his eyes from all nighters, and clutching a mug of coffee so hard that people are afraid it’s gonna break, but even more afraid to tell him to be careful

Has heat compresses on the back of his neck and forehead to ease the headaches from the lack of sleep

Probably told Childe to shut the fuck up and mind your own business when he warned him about his cup

“Childe, if I do not kill this final I will kill you in its stead. Leave me be.”

Thoma

Probably part of one of those student care organizations that makes care packages for other students

His smile when he hands out the packages is so bright and healing it could bring back the dead

Always motivating his peers and tries to keep everyone’s spirits up

Offers to get everyone in the study group coffee

He’s not the best at school but he has a lot of friends that are willing to tutor him and do his assignments help him with his work

Likes to snack while he’s studying

“No giving up yet! Let’s take a snack break, you’ll think better with something in your belly.”

Venti

Chills at a coffee shop with a big friend group to “study”

They do jack shit

Probably spends more time staring at the drink menu than his exam notes

Grade A procrastinator, does all his homework the night before it’s due and studies for exams the morning of

Due tomorrow do tomorrow amiright

Always seems to do okay tho?? People wanna scold him for his bad study habits but he actually does okay in school so they can’t really say anything

Doesn’t study hard but parties 100x harder

“Come on, live a little! If your exam is at 2pm, you can just start studying at 9 tomorrow morning and you’ll be fine.”

Xiao

Pulls all nighter after all nighter after all nighter after all nighter after-

No one can ever find him during the day on campus or in his dorm—it’s like he despawned and just does not exist

Only time he is spotted by others is always at 3am in the morning like a cryptid and he looks like a zombie

He’s actually working a part time job along with going to classes and helping others with their work. An angry looking good boy.

Studies in the lecture halls by himself, blasting music as loud as he can on his headphones to keep himself awake

Mf going to go deaf is2g lower ur volume boi

“…hey. I’m getting a coffee, do you want one?”

Albedo

Plans his time meticulously. Has an extremely organized planner where he writes out exactly what he’s going to do at every hour of the day so he can maximize his week

Includes mealtimes, breaks, and poop times relaxation periods

Usually studies in his room, but for some reason people keep barging in on him to ask for study help so he has to find different hiding places to work in peace

So far, the best place has been the graduate students lounge. No he does not belong there, but no one questions him because it looks like he does

“If you really need my help, I have twenty seven and a half minutes between lunch and my bathroom break this Thursday. Come find me then.”

(Rejected quote: “What’s my masters in? No no, the only thing I’m a master of is your mom.”)

Bennett

The type of person to have the “please don’t talk to me I have work to do and if you talk to me I won’t stop” sign on his back while working in the library

Fell asleep while completing an assignment

Missed the midnight deadline for said assignment

Slept through the exam the next morning

At this point just let him sleep at least he won’t have to deal with it then

“That was a good nap…now I got the energy for my assignment and the exam!”

Childe

Would be a good student if he wasn’t bothering other people so often

Probably bakes when he’s stressed. His roommates are always awoken at 4 in the morning to the sound of the oven beeping and the heavenly smell of freshly baked cookies

Has a friendly rivalry with Zhongli. He always asks when Zhongli will be turning in an assignment, and what mark he’s aiming for for the final exam

Turns in the final paper at least a week before it’s due and aims for ten percent higher than Zhongli on the exam

If he needs bonus marks to reach that then so be it

Otherwise slacks off a bit

He’d be a really good student if he wasn’t so competitive with Zhongli all the time

“You good, Zhongles? You trying to squeeze a better grade out of that mug?”

Kaeya

This man probably used red bull as the liquid for his instant coffee

An absolute menace and loves messing with people

Tells them that the exam is on a whole other different thing than what they were studying for, or that the due date of a big assignment was changed

Nobody goes to him for help

If you do genuinely need help with a concept, though, he’s more than willing to help

Just make sure to provide adequate compensation for him ;)

By compensation I mean more red bull this man has drank 3 cans in ten minutes please stop him

“What? If they do shit, that only helps with our bellcurve, right? Their fault for trusting me anyways~”

[alovesongshewrote]

Too Weird to Die | The Lost Boys x Reader HCs

Plot:  a monster hunter half adopts the Frog brothers and then avoids being murdered by vampires by being too weird to die. more at 8. [The Lost Boys x GN!Reader]

Word count:  2,873

Warnings:  murder, comedic violence, so much swearing that i'm putting it in the warnings

A/N: holy fuck i can't believe i wrote this lmaoooo. i might re-visit the concept, but for now, this is good

So all this shit starts a few years before the Emersons move to Santa Carla

You stop by the town on a visit because 

Y’know 

It’s a murder capital, who doesn’t stop at murder capitals for tourist reasons?

In all seriousness, you’re there because of all the suspicious murders

As a full time professional monster hunter, you know something is up, and you want to see if you can do anything about it

And you both can and can’t

At the time, you don’t find much evidence of actual monster activity 

Either because the titular lost boys are taking a break from murder for the month, or because they Know Something’s Up and they want to be Careful

BUT

YOU DO FIND SOMETHING

And that something is two dipshit (affectionate) amateur vampire hunters who are just raring to get themselves murdered horribly 

They followed you into an alley and threatened to stake you

It sounds bad, but keep in mind, they were like

Eleven

At the time

They were little

And they were so full of rage that you literally laughed at them for five minutes

AND YOU FELT BAD, BUT ALSO

IT WAS LIKE BEING HELD AT GUNPOINT BY PUPPIES 

You just couldn’t take them seriously 

However, the world you live in is a dangerous one, and those two dumbass kids were lucky that they threatened you, and not someone or something that wouldn’t have any objections to beating up literal children

So what you do is you take those little shits

And you train them up a little bit

Not enough to be actively dangerous

But enough so that they don’t get murdered

And that’s how you become the adopted older sibling to the Frog brothers

You didn’t have a choice in that, they hit you with the metaphorical adoption papers and you couldn’t do anything but go, “ok”

But you don’t mind too much

They’re you’re little bros

They’re so irritating, and if anything happened to them you’d kill everyone in santa carla and then yourself

Anyway

You leave santa carla for a bit, because, y’know, the murders stopped as soon as you got there

You’re away for a few months

And then bada bing bada boom, shit starts up again and you make your return

This time, you find the source of the problem, but you don’t realize they’re vampires for like, a solid minute

For the first few months, you genuinely think david and his gang are just

Annoying 

The first time you met them, david monologued for so long that you zoned out and started focusing on their jackets

You came to the conclusion that they all had dope jackets

And then you got bored and tried to leave

Which david wasn’t crazy about

So he told the boys to grab you and, well

Long story short, Marko got punched in the face

Rip marko

After that, the boys decided they were going to eat you

Because you don’t mess with them and get away with it!

So, they follow you around santa carla for A While

And at first it’s scary, because y’know

You’re being followed

But after some time you figure they aren’t actually going to do anything

So you’re more irritated than afraid

Aaaand they don’t try anything in all of that time because for one thing, they can never seem to find you when you’re on your own

And for another, every time they approach you as a group you let out a Very Loud Groan that informs everyone nearby of your location

So killing you would be too sus

Also, you don’t tell the frogs you’re being followed

Because they would probably try to murder your stalkers?

And like

You don’t need these fuckin kids going down on attempted murder charges, they’re too young for that shit

So

The cat and mouse game is just between you and the boys

And it’s at a stalemate 

For a While

Until they get the idea to approach you individually 

David is technically the first one to try it, though that’s more of an accident than anything else

The rest of the boys are off doing their own thing when David catches sight of you

He makes his approach 

All suave and cool 

Annnnnnd to make another long story short, he gets pushed into the ocean.

Oops.

Paul is the next one to try it

He heard about you pushing david into the ocean and he went :0

Like, that legitimately kind of sounds like a good time to him

Also, he kind of wants you dead!

But they all do, so

Anyway

He makes his approach

And you see him coming

And you just so happen to be drinking out of a glass bottle, so you chug the rest of your drink and shatter the bottom of the bottle in the minute it takes him to get to you

In retaliation, and also because breaking glass bottles is now a dick measuring contest

He picks up a bottle and tries to shatter it

It Does Not Go Well

Poor thing gets glass everywhere and like

You can’t help but laugh at him

AND AGAIN, YOU FEEL BAD

ESPECIALLY WHEN HE POUTS A LITTLE BIT, LIKE A KICKED PUPPY

AND YOU FEEL LIKE YOU KICKED A PUPPY

So you walk over and you go

“Ok, if you promise not to stab me, I’ll show you how to break a glass bottle properly.”

And like

He already knows how to break a glass bottle

He just fucked it up that time

But he lets you teach him anyway

And it’s totally to earn your trust so he can eat you

It absolutely doesn’t have anything to do with the way he really likes the sound of your laugh

Nope

Not at all

He gets back to the cave later, and he successfully spoke to you, but he didn’t successfully kill you, so everyone’s kinda pissed at him except for star and laddie

And david’s pissed that paul didn’t get thrown into the ocean, but oh well

The next boy to approach you is dwayne

And honestly, he doesn’t really approach you with intent

It just kind of happens

But when it does, he also doesn’t get thrown into the ocean

He encounters you in a bookstore on the boardwalk

And at first you don’t notice him

You’re too busy reading something that looks like a bodice ripper, but it has tentacles on the cover????

And even if he had thought of picking you up and carrying you off somewhere to kill you, he gets way too fucking distracted by that thing

Eventually you notice him standing there and you just

Throw the book

You yeet it off behind you and you go

“OH, HI, HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?  IT’S DWAYNE, RIGHT?  NICE JACKET, YOU AREN’T WEARING A SHIRT, OKAY, BYE.”

And then you go to fucking run out of the store

Because jesus christ, your one night without the frogs for you to partake in your Adult Life and one of the fucking BIKE BOYS shows up 

FUCK

Anyway, dwayne manages to grab you before you can leave

And he doesn’t get punched unlike poor marko

No, you’re too embarrassed for that

And it only gets worse for you when dwayne starts asking questions

You answer

Because you have no idea what else you can do

And this motherfucker seems to be getting a kick out of your discomfort 

He’s got this SMIRK on his face

Like he likes watching you squirm

Like he thinks it’s cute (he does)

You hate it

You like it

After what feels like an eternity of questioning, he does take pity on you

He buys you a drink and, instead of murdering you, he answers your questions

And you get close to figuring out that he’s a vampire 

But not quite :/

Oh well

Dwayne goes back to the cave, and everyone is like, “jfc, why is this little shit so unkillable?”

No one has answers, but dwayne does have a weird lump in his jacket pocket, and when he checks to see what it is, he sees the very tip of a tentacle before he SHOVES THAT THING BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM WITH 0 MERCY

He has no fucking clue how you got that book onto his person without him noticing

But he respects it

Anyway, they send marko after you next

Because you punched him, and he hates you

Don’t worry about it too much though, because his opinion changes in like

Ten minutes

He follows you into like

A thrift store 

And once you realize you’re being followed you go, “oh hey, it’s you, with the cool jacket, sorry i punched you that one time, but to be fair, you did grab me, so”

And then you hand him a little bag of cool buttons that you found on a shelf 

And you say, with a very sweet and genuine smile

“These match your jacket!”

And all he can think is,

“Oh, so that’s why you’re still alive, okay”

Needless to say, he returns home having not murdered you, and david is Unamused 

You wounded his pride and punched his friend, he Does Not Like you

And then one night you run into him outside of the video store

And he already looks grumpy 

But then he sees you, and it just gets worse

Ironically

He tells you to buzz off that time

Which you don’t fucking do, because this bitch and his friends stalked you for A Time

And even though you’ve made friends with most of your stalkers, you’re still not gonna let this one go

And that’s like

Literally what you tell him

It makes him roll his eyes and fantasize about pushing you into the ocean

But then you go quiet 

And for a few minutes, the two of you just

Stand outside of the video store, leaning against the wall together

In the middle of the noise and excitement of the boardwalk, the two of you are calm and quiet 

And then you go

“Hey, do you ever realize that you have free will, and if you wanted to, you could just throw eggs at your fridge?”

And he goes

“Why the fuck would anyone want to do that”

To which you respond

“To test out their free will.”

You bounce off the wall and hold a hand out to him

“Come on.”

He asks where you’re going and you just 

Look at him

With the most devilish smile that vampire has ever seen

And you go

“To get some eggs.”

And while you’re doing that, you learn that david is so grumpy because his father (he does air quotes when he says the word father) is being very very unreasonable and also possibly indulging in mild child endangerment 

And like

David isn’t a kid, but it’s still endangering family

And that pisses you off

So as you’re leaving the boardwalk’s convenience store

You basically say

“Do you want me to kill that guy for you?  Because it sounds like he sucks, and I’ll totally kill that guy for you”

And to his own surprise, David finds himself saying no

Because if you tried to murder max, you would die- or at least he thinks you would

And oddly enough, he doesn’t want that for you

And he, too, realizes why no one’s killed you yet

And then you just cement it by grabbing the eggs and going, “Come on, let’s test our free will”

Is it immature to throw eggs at the video store?

Absolutely

But fuck it, you have free will

Or maybe you’ve just been hanging around the frogs too much

SPEAKING OF WHICH 

IT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT TO MENTION

THAT THIS WHOLE TIME

You’ve been going back to the frog brothers’ comic book store every night

Just to check on them, make sure they aren’t dead

Bc, y’know, santa carla, murder capital

And every time you come into the store after an encounter with one of the Boys, you have this weird smile on your face

Of course, they think it might be vampires.

And after you come back from the video store, they bring this up with you

One of them has a stake in his hand, and they go

“You’ve been weird lately, and we think it’s vampires.  Do you want us to kill the vampires for you?  Because it sounds like they suck, and we’ll totally kill those vampires for you”

So clearly, threatening violence is how all frogs, adopted or otherwise, express their love

Anyway, you just go

“Jesus christ, you know there’s more out there than just vampires, right?  Also, no, I’m not being weird because of vampires, I’m being weird because I found charming people in santa carla of all places.  Imagine that.”

And then the next week you find out the boys are vampires

You stop by the cave, and at this point they’ve given up on eating you, but it’s just so clear, and you are

Filled With Regret

In part because Holy Shit Your Brothers Were Right

But also because you’re probably going to have to kill the boys??

And oddly enough

You Don’t Want To Kill The Boys???

They went from stalkers to sweethearts and you’re mad about it

So of course, upon figuring it out

(they don’t tell you, by the way, you figure it out thanks to the smell of death, the sharp teeth, the Single Bed for four men, a little boy, and poor fucking star, and the poorly hidden dead body in their cave)

Anyway, upon figuring it out

You take the most rational route:

You get marko in a chokehold and hold a stake to his chest

Poor marko, he always gets the short end of the stick

Anyway

The boys all lose their shit

Which is

Fair

To them it looks like you pulled of their plan- you charmed them, and now you’re going to kill them, or at least try to

But before they can, y’know, rip your head off of your shoulders

You go

“WAIT!  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, here’s the thing.  I!  Don’t want to kill Marko!  And hey, I’ve lived this long, so I assume you don’t want to kill me.  So, let’s make a deal.  We don’t kill each other, and everyone lives.  Sound good?”

Once they agree, you let marko go

And y’know what, because i think he deserves it

He punches you

And you can’t even be mad at that, you just threatened his life

But alas, that’s not where it ends

Because you’ve got a clause to add to your little agreement 

“Wait,” you say, mildly out of breath from the punching, “You can’t kill me, and I’ve got two little brothers you can’t kill either.  Their parents run that comic book store, the one on the boardwalk?  And they’re off limits.”

The boys sigh and nod, but jesus christ do you have more to say

“They also might try to kill you?  You don’t have to worry about it or anything, they’re like, twelve.”

The boys are not twelve at this point, but that’s how old they’re going to be to you forever

You’re never going to be able to see them as anything other than actual babies because that’s how siblings work

Anyway, you continue

“I’m working on getting them to be less murder-y, but they are very blood thirsty for their age.  I’m sure you can relate.”

Yeahhhh, no one laughs at that joke but you

But it’s okay

The agreement is made

You and the frog brothers are off limits in terms of murder

And you Don’t to tell the frogs about this because they would Attempt To Murder Your Vampires, and that’s not what you want

And in the same vein 

The boys don’t breathe a word of this to max

Because he would order them to turn you and your brothers

Or worse!

He would order them to kill you and your brothers

And they Do Not Want that

AND IN A SIMILAR YET DIFFERENT VEIN

THEY CANNOT LEAVE YOU ALONE AROUND MAX

IN FACT, I DON’T THINK THEY EVER TELL YOU THAT HE’S THEIR SIRE

You just think he’s david’s dad, and you don’t ask questions, because they don’t answer your questions, because if you knew what kind of power max had over them, and how easy it would be to abuse that power, you would try to kill max

Because murder is the love language of the frogs.

Anyway, they’re pretty sure that you would get yourself killed if you tried to fight max

And you’re 100% sure that the frogs would get themselves killed if they tried to fight the boys

That or they might actually hurt one of the boys

You did train them a bit, so they aren’t totally incompetent 

And the whole thing is just a messy web 

It’s an endless game where the only goal is to try and keep the people you care about from killing each other while the people you care about try to keep you from killing the people they hate

It’s

Complicated 

But hey, when you practice delinquency with your boys

Any of your boys

That shit’s fuckin worth it

[thestobingirlie]

One of the things that I really really like about stancy is that Steve really makes Nancy relax. People claim that it’s bad and not what she wants (season two bullshit thing), however:

1) in season 4 she is shown to be a Very Serious School Reporter, taking herself too seriously (at least that’s my impression with the way she handled Wayne and Robin). Like I thought it was for comedic reasons a bit. I was like “girl who do you think you are you are a child, a baby even, a fucking toddler”

2) her fashion sense derailed like big time. why is she dressed like a 60 year old woman? she dressed like a five year old before Steve, then as a person her age, and then again,,,, whatever the whole thing with the perm is

3) she was really happy when Steve was around in s4. she reminded me her season 1 self: driven and smart, but gentle too, even if that gentleness was barely there

Like I think Jonathan gives Nancy whatever she wants and follows her everywhere, while dissolving his own self in the relationship (his very own trauma response to the parentification), and as a result Nancy just. Doesn’t stop. She has the tunnel vision, she is in the tunnel, she is going god knows where because Nancy sure doesn’t.

I feel like Steve is a kind of person who (when he is confident in himself, his intellect and his abilities) can appear and pretend that he is Nancy’s teddy bear or twirl her around. Like she literally wasn’t shown as happy as she was with Steve in the show after they break up. I feel like she and Jonathan make each other worse.

Steve however becomes so much better without her. I actually respect his character so much, he is an incredibly mature and level headed person who deals with his shit and his pain with so much resilience and humor. And he just becomes better every season!

this is sweet. and i agree that we saw a nancy that was… maybe happier than previous seasons? just the way we see her relax instantly when she spots steve’s car, and her reaction to steve’s dream. even when he brings it up later, she just grins at him! and it is so cute.

(this is kinda… irrelevant lmao. but i think one of the worst things about stancy (and just most romance in st) is their use of the matchmaker trope. it would’ve been so much better if they just let stancy flirt a little. stancy has chemistry on their own, i don’t need to be told)

and yeah, with the clothing… i admittedly do not like it lmao. but i think the reason we see it as outdated it just because… it is! nancy would be in her fifties now, so obviously what she saw as fashion in her teens is what we see as old people clothes lmao.

j/ncy, to me, is just not a very healthy relationship, and i do agree that we see jonathan get kinda trampled on? he just kinda goes along with nancy, until he can’t anymore and then we get arguments like s3. jonathan doesn’t know how to prioritise himself, and that badly affects all his relationships.

i also relogged this post the other day that was essentially talking about the different ways steve and jonathan see the world, and how that affects nancy. and jonathan is very shut off. he’s wary, and though nancy needed that after barb’s death, i think she also needs someone that sees the good in the world. someone that has hopes and dreams and aspirations outside of the horrors they’re caught up in.

and yeah, steve’s grown so much since s1, and i love him for it!! and i think it’s actually something nancy really needs. her trauma has stopped, or at least not benefitted, a lot of her development. and i think she really needs someone that’s changed for the better to help her to open up, etc.

[riverwithoutbanks]

Since we’re doing s16 wish lists, here’s what I wanna see (in no particular order except for the first one):

Reunion episode(s). Can take up to three episodes because I’m okay with suffering. There are several ways this could go and I have a couple fics on the back burner about it so I won’t elaborate.

Beach episode: they planned to spend a few days near the sea, but a case falls on their laps. Dean is in denial and just wants to chill. The universe seems to be on his side as every time something supernatural happens, he barely misses it (think Linda from Phineas and Ferb). Cas, Sam, and Eileen are slowly losing it, being bullied by a giant squid. Dean is in a long chair, reading Vogue, and sipping Piña Coladas. Jack pops by and goes ‘wow, you guys look like shit!!’ (Dean fell asleep and got a massive sunburn).

Weekend at Bobby’s but Cas, and more comedic. I want this one to expose the shit out of the brothers. Have them be in a middle of a tiff and make it everyone’s problem. Point of the episode being, Cas loves them (especially Dean) a lot. But sometimes he wants to throttle them.

Bittersweet episode about aging. I’m thinking parallels with a monster/human relationship and hunters who got out. Saileen talking about having/adopting children question mark. Potentially dismissed after hearing Dean and Claire having a row whilst Cas tries to defuse the situation (he makes it worse).

Theee Destiel episode (they’re all more or less destiel but this is the big one. Can take place during the reunion arc). They talk about it ™️. It can last the whole season as long as they end up in a relationship by the end. I’m not particularly into domestic portrayals (nothing against them, just not my cuppa tea) so you can make the drama last. Especially if it’s getting on everyone’s nerves.

Oblivious Sam. ‘He meant as a friend, right? 😀🌸’. Would be especially funny if Dean is trying to talk about it but Sam is just not computing. Especially especially funny if he tries to defend their friendship being all like ‘yeah they’re weird but you’re an arsehole for assuming that there’s something more!!’. Dean and Cas look like they were dragged through a hedge backward and mugged by a pack of clowns. Turns out Sam’s right in the end, they weren’t doing anything YET. But now that he has contemplated the possibility, he can’t unsee it. To be continued

Continuation of the previous episode. Sam is looking for a memory erasing spell because he just CANNOT with those star crossed losers. He find Naomi’s… what the fuck was her lobotomy stuck, anyway? Some kind of sonic screwdriver? Moving on, he realises it’s been used recently (traces of grace or whatever, pick your poison. The magic system doesn’t make any sense anyway). Oops :) looks like someone has been messing with them. Wait. Wasn’t there someone else? Where’s Eileen?

The Big Bad. I love me some Chuck won and possessed Jack so it would go in that direction. The sonic screwdriver was in the bunker because Eileen caught Chuck!Jack’s new creation fucking with their brains. I wish it could be a cool uncanny monster, but let’s be real it will probably be just some dude ™️. She walked in on it lobotomising Cas (because it’s iconic<3) and tries to fight the thing off. Epic and terrifying chase scene through the bunker, especially since Eileen can’t hear the creature. She hides in a room where they keep spell ingredients and finds Sam’s conveniently placed recipe for calling Rowena. You can figure out the rest.

[end of part 1]

[rui-drawsbox]

Hi, it’s me again *blows up several buildings and kills eighty seven bystanders with my sheer aura*

I figured out more stuff for my gay little episode outlines, so anyways, here’s the outline for episode two of my horrifying little plot idea for your Magical Knight Arashi au:

K, so after the bullshit Arashi dealt with she deserves a break, too bad, anyways the sword turned into an aesthetic looking makeup brush when she detransformed. Me thinks, she deserves a transformation item.

Anyways she a student so it’s education time, and by that I mean school + drama

she and Mika talk again, it’s fairly normal, he’s still a weird little man pretending to be a tsundere but he does ask if she liked the bear charm he gave her, she fucking loves it btw cuz it’s adorable. (Little standoffish man ain’t used to interacting with normal people, living with Shu does that to you ig 😔)

Mika, being the self sabotaging king that he is, asks if she has anyone better to talk to. Arashi is of course like “no” but with a tone that clearly means to indicate “are you ok?” But Mika doesn’t get that. So Arashi talk about her friends to him. Izumi, Leo, and Ritsu <3 and then she invites him to eat lunch with them.

Mika declines :( (for good reason but we’ll get to that eventually, he does kind of want to go but he knows he can’t, and it’s a Shu thing btw, Shu wants him to blend in and making friends is kind of part of that, it’s just, another thing)

anyways we cut to the class where Leo is, Shu is introduced via a goofy yah funny way, like he’s the comedically stuck up classmate.

he and Izumi are fighting

Leo is trying to break up the verbal smack down but like, it ain’t really working, eventually once these bitches tire each other out or a teacher intervenes they’ll stop.

Leo tries to calm down and comfort Izumi with a hand on his shoulder but Izumi brushes him off

Leo also tries to invite him to lunch again and he tells Izumi that he, Arashi, and Ritsu all miss him at lunch

Izumi declines and says that he has to go before storming out of that classroom as soon as the bell rings

Leo complains to Arashi and Ritsu about Izumi at lunch.

After Leo is done venting his frustrations Arashi brings up the weird shit from the night before

She tries to show the photo she got of the mannequins? No, weird living dolls. On her phone, but all the photos are blurred out.

Ritsu is like “So, what are we supposed to see here?”

Arashi explains and shows them the gem mark + the makeup brush + the 87 photos she got of her new cat.

Leo and Ritsu believe her cuz like, they’re besties, and also, it’s Leo and Ritsu, they’ve dealt with weirder, Aliens + Rei Sakuma

anyways the besties decide that A. Arashi needs to do something fun to get her mind off things + B. They want to do something for Izumi cuz he’s been super stressed recently

So they go out together to look for something to buy him. Girlboss mall trip <<33

After browsing through a few shops they pick out a couple things for him, a nice shirt and some ink for that pretty glass pen he likes to use. (Leo picked out the second one)

They go to a little cafe with those cute colorful drinks in the mall for a snack. This is the usual hang out spot for a lot of the younger students, like the first years, especially if they like sweets.

Ritsu notices something is up.

there are gold strings creeping along the floor, and they seem to be going toward Arashi’s bag

Ritsu grabs her bag and stand from his chair.

Arashi and Leo are of course like “??????”

but they go along with what he’s doing, the strings start to follow him so he gets up and goes lmao, the three of them leave the table and their drinks behind. (At this establishment you pay at the counter so they’ve already paid for the drinks)

These bitches actually get chased by the strings until they end up in a deserted place (the fucking back alley outside the mall where people usually load stuff from trucks)

Arashi grabs the makeup brush out of her bag so she can transform to do something about the strings, maybe cut them?? She doesn’t really know

So the strings form these circles on the ground right? Cool. They open up little portals and the dolls materialize out of the strings (it kind of looks like they’ve been woven together like a tapestry)

Arashi is trying to transform but she cant figure out how to do it. So Leo starts beating the fuck out of the dolls like the feral street cat that he is.

he starts getting his ass kicked and when he’s about to get slammed into a wall Arashi figures it out and transforms

she deals with the dolls pretty easily and they unravel back into little piles of string

anyways things go on, these three besties go back to the house to play with the cat and also patch up Leo’s scratches.

also Tsukasa saw the whole fight, oops.

yeah he saw them leave the cafe in a panic and decided to follow just incase the kids from his school were in trouble and he legit saw the entire thing. Have fun dealing with this Arashi.

I’m having a lot of fun with this Lmao. I hope you enjoyed this <<33

thank you for the wonderful ideas Rui. I have so much more that I want to write about this Lmao. I’ll be back when I have time and another outline that I want to share <<33

*gets out of a timetravel machine* hello, misano from almost a week ago :)

i would drawn all of this before but 1. i had no idea how and 2. last week i was in my house only to sleep haha /sobs

now going to the central theme!

early series Mika got the same social skills as a 11 years old introverted otaku obsessed with yuno gasai frfr

Shu being unbearable for Izumi is so fking funny to me for no reason. I've always felt like when these two meet they would pull each other's hair idkwhy JDFAS

Izumi is so done with that school that he can't not-be an asshole :)

also i've been acting like i know how tf Arashi's cat looks like but i can't denie it anymorE i think is this cat from that card cuz is the only one i can find

I like to think that some moment out screen she went to the closest pet store and just bought half of the store for her new kitty

thanks to Ritsu for noticing those strings or our series would end up a lot earlier than planned 👏👏

also while they run away from the strings you can't tell they didn't hit at least ONE kid like

Ritsu: *hits a kid with the bag*

Leo: holy shi-

Arashi: SORRY CHILD SORRY MA'AM

also i fully want to think that Tsukasa followed them expecting something surreal, but like drugs or them just doing a joke video surreal, not *now i suppose that i live in a magic world where people can transform and bring out a sword out of nowhere in seconds, and also there's fucking living dolls* surreal

anywys, amazing work as always my dude c:! I can't wait for the next chapter!! <-already read it 5 days ag

ME DESAPAREZCO *throws a smoke bomb**trips and falls*

[pieshopbarber]

so, I rewatched the 2007 movie and…

my god, it’s so bad. like I genuinely love it for the pure fact that it’s what introduced me to the story in the first place, but holy shit it sucks… like Jesus. and I’m not even talking about how bad the singing is, like it’s not great, but it’s not the worst, but there is so much to dislike about this film. (for reference I’m comparing it to the 1982 pro shoot and the 1979 original)

first off, i understand the gritty and dark aesthetic the film was going for, it’s burton obviously, but they decided the only reason to go about this was to sap all the fun out of it? Like what? One of the best things about the original musical is how darkly comedic it is at times, but the film just saps it all away and it’s no fun. Like one of the funniest scenes of the musical is the whole Pirelli scene, it’s absolutely hilarious, yet somehow, it’s just so bland in the movie. Pirelli is somehow too much and not enough and it sucks. Cutting out the whole back and forth between Todd and Lovett and the crowd during that scene just makes it feel lifeless. The same thing with removing the chair sequence and the ‘GOD THATS GOOD!’s from god that’s good, just makes everything so bland. this grittiness also makes some really awful costume choices, like why the hell is Sweeney wearing a leather jacket in the beginning, where the hell did that come from?? What the hell is Turpin and the Beadle’s costumes? They’re supposed to be rich, fancy snobs, why do they look like their outfits are from a thrift store? Why is everything so poor looking?

also the acting… uggh. First off, Depp and carter are far too young to be Todd and Lovett, and I feel like they’re too conveniently attractive, but also they are just lifeless. For instance, Hearn’s visceral, terrified or Cariou’s heartbroken reaction to discovering that he killed Lucy gets me every freaking time. Compare that to depp just whispering ‘no’ …. Like what the fuck? Excuse me?

also I am still deeply upset by many of the cut stuff, mainly Lucy’s introduction, because her popping out of nowhere during the Johanna intro feels too sudden, and we also miss out on the whole “don’t I know you mister” in the beginning, making when she repeats it before she dies feel less impactful. We also loose the whole her trying to solicit sex, which because her last sane memory was her getting raped, making it that much sadder, which makes her feel less fleshed out. also the amount of shit they cut around Johanna… Jesus Christ. They could have cut the whole Johanna and Anthony plot and it could have been the same. In the original musical, johanna is super capable, she knows what she wants and does stuff to get it. In the film she’s reduced to no more than a mute damsel in destress. Also the movie making it so todd just spares her instead of her running away, infuriates me to no extent. Also we don’t get a resolution for the Antony and Johanna saga. also why did they change the ending so that Toby wasn’t insane? Like you can’t tell me he ain’t a little fucked up from that.

I think the only good thing in my opinion is Allan Rickman as judge Turpin, he slays everything he does (Also the whole ‘you gandered!!!’ Thing is funny as hell.)

I’m exhausted right now, and this movie makes me so angry.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Okay, quick Taskmaster liveblogging this week. I’m fucking exhausted after a long and shitty week at work, I got home from work just after 7 PM, made myself some food, and I am now very pleased to get to sit down with a meal and the new Taskmaster episode. I do not have the energy to do what I sometimes do with these, which is take notes constantly through the whole episode. But I know I’ll want to say some things about it. So I will use this document as a thing to write down quick little things when they occur to me occasionally, rather than trying to cover the whole episode. It’s nice to have this back in my life for nine more weeks (well, eight more now, I guess).

Thoughts on Taskmaster s16e02, written as I watch it:

- I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the funniest introductions are the ones where Greg pretends that Alex is right-wing for no reason.

- “Best sign” – I’m amazed that wasn’t taken already. You’d think Taskmaster would be out of the one-word ones, which is why they have to use “most < adjective > < noun >”, instead of just “most < adjective >” thing or “best < noun >”. But there’s still more stuff to do. I like that one, open-ended enough to leave room for interpretation, but still some solid boundaries they’ll have to stay within.

- It feels a bit like cheating for Sue Perkins to use her celebrity stories to garner points against people who just can’t compete with a story of the time Claudia Winkleman helped her steal a sign from the BBC. But I did enjoy that one.

- God, do I ever want to go to the British Library with Sam Campbell and steal shit. I think he wins in terms of aspirational stories, I’d rather rob the British Library with Sam Campbell than rob the BBC studios with Claudia Winkleman.

- I have seen the first three seasons of Meet the Richardsons (did not watch season 4 this year and I think I’ll probably leave it there, but I’m not sorry I watched it), and it’s definitely not the best show in the world, but one of my favourite parts was how cool that pub looked. That’s aspirational, it’s exactly the sort of thing I’d do if I had the money that they have. Make a full pub in your backyard where you can get the nice feeling of a pub but without the drawbacks, such as people you don’t know being in it and having to commute there and back (particularly bad, after drinking). Fucking lovely. The Jon Richardson I got attached to from radio 8 Out of 10 Cats/early Catsdown hasn’t existed for a long time, and that’s probably for the best and I’m glad he’s gone off to be happy even if I don’t find him as entertaining anymore, but I did enjoy seeing that pub in Meet the Richardsons like an example of success. Good for him. Nice prize, Lucy. You’re right, there is a warm feeling to it.

- Sammy C bringing his own equipment to the tasks. Following on from a couple of things he did last week, establishing a pattern of him doing things as a bit, because they are comedic, but also they happen to possibly give him an advantage in points. As someone who is backing him like he’s a sports team to win this season, I approve of this pattern.

- Listen, strange women standing around in Chiswick pulling on facsimile swords is no basis for a system of government. But I don’t know, maybe we should let Lucy Beaumont try running the UK for a year and see where they end up.

- I thought I wasn't going to do screenshots in this episodes, because these posts take so much longer when I stop to copy screenshots. But I have to say, the first proper laugh came from Sue throwing away the comment "I mean I want to go Widdicombe", then stopping, realizing what she'd just said, and you can watch the answer hit her:

Aw, I've just remembered the existence of that panel show hosted by Sue Perkins with Josh Widdicombe and Richard Osman as team captains, Insert Name Here. Slightly flimsy premise, uneven guests and execution, but three people who are so good at being on panel shows that it entertained me all the way through anyway.

I watched that show about 2 years ago when I was mainly into panel shows and thought Josh Widdicombe was a brilliant TV comedian who just happened to make not-great stand-up - now that I'm more into stand-up than panel shows, that flaw seems more significant than it used to. Also, I've given up on The Last Leg because they've gone all pro-monarchy but also if I'm honest they've been leaning toward the bland centre for a while (though I maintain that it had some years of being much better than that). But there was a time when Josh Widdicombe was one of my favourites of all these comedians, I still think he's very good on panel shows, so I'm enjoying his little cameo here (I did guess that Widdicombe was the answer as soon as Sue said "Devon", because what the hell else is from Devon?). Nice to honour both the first Taskmaster champion, and the first two-time champion.

On the subject of Sue Perkins and Josh Widdicombe existing in the same universe, aside from their endearing panel show Insert Name Here, remember that time when Sue Perkins went on The Last Leg wearing a Patti Smith shirt and one time she messed up her hair for no reason and I had to save that as a gif because I think it might be the cure for female heterosexuality?

- Watching this task for the second time, now that I know the answer. Obviously the foot that says “Greg” is a reference to Josh getting Greg’s name tattooed on his foot during season 1. “Devon” is where he’s from, as he talks about every time he’s on TV. But how does he make his hair smart? Is it just a reference to the fact that for a long time he was known for a particular haircut? Am I forgetting about something in the Josh Widdicombe canon (I say “forgetting” rather than “not knowing” because I have seen a hell of a lot of the things he’s done, including hundreds of hours of The Last Leg, arguably too many hours of The Last Leg…)? You’d think it would just be a reference to something he did on Taskmaster, like the tattoo. The main things Josh Widdicombe did on Taskmaster besides get a tattoo, I think, was count beans and fail to guess the rules of Alex Squash.

With Diamonds Come Bears was such an opaque club that they had to put it on the screen for us to understand it even once we did know the answer, but apparently the letters kind of line up. Then there’s that family tree showing how he’s descended from royalty, which he worked out from Who Do You Think You Are, and now talks about it every time he’s on TV.

- Interrupting my list of Widdicombe clues to say, why did Sam Campbell say Katherine Ryan has nothing to do with hair but “Bob Mortimer, that’s hair!” One of those people has objectively more hair than the other, and it’s not the one he described as “that’s hair!”.

- Did no one think before setting this task to check that Julian Clary has heard of Josh Widdicombe? That was pretty funny, watching Julian Clary walk around being unable to finish a task because he doesn't know Josh Widdicombe's name. Come on, Taskmaster, the small and nasally man with the short hair got a tattoo for this show. He does not deserve to have an entire task set up to emphasize the fact that Julian Clary doesn't know his name (he does, it was quite funny).

- Alex Horne, before this season started (paraphrased because I cannot be bothered to look up the actual quote): One contestant in particular put me in my place.

Julian Clary: "What sorts of people enjoy this show? Is it students?" "You're interesting, aren't you? Would you call yourself a charismatic man?"

- Susan Wokoma declaring that sexy dog subverts stereotypes made me laugh, Julian Clary referencing his dead art teacher very much added to that. I've watched most of the second task by now without stopping to write much because it's getting late and I'm tired, but that was fun.

- Lovely titled drop from Susan Wokoma. Very well delivered "Hell is here." She was kind of the quiet one last episode, is definitely making more of a mark this time.

-

- Look, if I wanted to be pedantic, I could make the argument that Sam Campbell's picture was much better than everyone else's and showed off artistic skill that clearly the others do not have, even though Sue Perkins' drawing was quite amusing, and therefore Sam deserved the five points alone. I mean, technically it was the best cheeky picture, not the cheekiest picture, and no matter how cheeky Sue's picture was, it wasn't as good a picture as Sam's. And if Sam Campbell loses this whole season to Sue Perkins by one point, I will absolutely be repeatedly making that argument that he was robbed in this task. But okay, fine, the idea of Sue Perkins making a dick joke is amusing. And yes, I'm aware that I'm watching Taskmaster wrong.

- Secret task gets mentioned again. I think the funniest option would be if it does exist, but it's useless. Like if there's a secret task somewhere telling them to do something huge and difficult and time-consuming and they have several months to do it and they have to bring it to the studio to complete it, and someone does do that, and then it's worth like half a point. Yeah it's a joke they've done before, but not for a while. They've used the idea sparingly enough in recent seasons so I think they could bring it back.

- Lucy Beaumont doing mischief by being an unethical fake psychic pretending to communicate with the dead to swindle people is a bit of a weird light given that I now know she does genuinely, literally believe in ghosts.

- Hang on. Hang on. Are they allowed to do that? They can set tasks for each other? A genuine first in a Taskmaster history, I'm almost sure. Susan Wokoma is out here re-inventing the game. I kind of want to know if anyone else in Taskmaster history has tried to affect one of their competitors' games and been told they're not allowed to, because if so, that's not fair to them that Susan could. But if she was the first person to think of it, then fair play to her.

To stop watching Taskmaster wrong (like a sports fan) for a moment and start watching it right (like a comedy fan), God that was funny. Watching Sam Campbell stand up and sit down and be so earnest about it and genuinely engaged and find a workaround to draw extra mice for extra points, while knowing it was all for nothing, was very funny. It's Widdicombe counting beans again. It's the thing I think they should do with the secret task. It's really funny to watch someone try hard when we know something they don't.

- After pretending to smash up Alex Horne's phone, I waited for what Sam Campbell would say, as he's had great lines throughout this show so far. But actually, I think leaving the room after saying nothing was the funniest thing he could have done. Solid instincts there.

- Sam Campbell threatens to make a prank phone call. Julian Clary writes prank longhand letters. The generational divide, everyone.

- Well, normally in my posts, I start out writing relatively little about things, and write more and more as the post goes along, so the things I write about later in the post get expanded on way more than the earlier things. This one is the opposite, because as I said, it's late and I've gotten more tired as it's gone along.

So I've finished the episode. I enjoyed the live task. I do always like the "do something while keeping eye contact with Greg" tasks. The main thing I have to say about that live task is... I don't know if this is quite the hardest I've laughed at season 16 so far. But it's definitely the longest. As in, I'm exhausted right now, I worked long hours today and long hours yesterday and it a few really stressful days and a long week and it's fairly late and I feel like my brain is fried, and for reasons I definitely cannot fully explain (if pressed, I could explain maybe about 20% of why this happened, at the most), this exact frame made me laugh uncontrollably for several minutes:

I just paused the video, stared at the screen, and could not stop laughing. There's a cat my lap the looked annoyed about it. Every time I tried to play the video again and move on with my life, I'd look at some new part of it and keep laughing. I took a screenshot so I can have it forever. The 20% that I can explain about why that happened does, again, involve using the word "earnest" to describe Sam Campbell's expression.

I also enjoyed Sue and Julian drawing the same thing (people who are older than the other contestants and also more famous than the other contestants and also gay are on the same wavelength as each other, apparently). And I liked Lucy Beaumont's peas.

I also enjoyed them bringing in another NZ task as the tiebreaker. Well done to Sue. I always like watching the rote memorization tasks, mainly because that's a skill I enjoy practising myself and I like to see if I can beat the contestants at it. I used to know pi to lots of places, back in high school, but I couldn't do that now. Could I memorize more digits than Sue did in the same number of seconds? Don't know, and am not awake enough to try it right now. Some other time.

I'm now going to sleep for a number of hours with two digits in it. Maybe three.

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 167 Rundown

Spy X Family: The Cruise Ship arc is finally over and the first half of the episode is just the family reuniting and getting into hijinks together which is something I have missed a bit in the more story-heavy past few episodes. It’s also kinda funny when Yor suddenly realizes she hasn’t slept in four days and just fucking passes out in the street. When they get back Anya’s of course ready to brag about her trip but she goes to an illuminati kid school so everyone else like got to the moon with SpaceX or something during their vacation so she just starts half giving out details she shouldn’t and half just straight making shit up which just makes her look like a huge dork while Becky tries to console her despite having a way better vacation because Becky is indeed a good girl. Yuri comes to the house after a few more shots around the cast of giving out souvenirs and shit and Anya has to tell everyone she made a fool of herself by lying at school and we get the definition of irony by having three adults living various secret lives telling her lying is bad and they just kinda let the episode end on that awkward silence and it’s probably one of the best comedic moments of the show.

Inuyasha The Final Act: It’s weird going straight from OG Inuyasha to The Final Act because originally there was five years between them but they really do pick up right where the original left off and has more plot development in one episode than the whole past season had. The plot’s basically at the point where all loose jewel shards have been accounted for so now it’s that period in the video game where you have to go back and do all the side quests you’ve been putting off. Hakudoshi’s infused Goryomaru’s soul into Moryomaru and is in full Betray Naraku mode, sending himself, Kagura and Moryomaru after the three remaining sources of non-Naraku jewel shards. It’s funny because Naraku knows this is coming and is watching it on Kanna’s Mirrorvision and is just holding Kagura’s heart the whole time ready to fucking kill her when her betrayal stops being funny. Hakudoshi goes after Kagome’s shard since she and Inuyasha are fresh off Kagome returning with the well and he… just kinda grabs it? Like damn it was that easy? Remember when half the original series was the gang owning half the jewel and Naraku trying to take it, like these guys can’t hang on to shit now, also this is the second time Hakudoshi has had the chance to stab one of Inuyasha’s allies and instead just steals their shit they were protecting right near their heart like I guess being part Naraku means you keep people alive for future manipulating. Meanwhile Moryomaru goes after Koga’s shards but he’s stopped by Kikyo, and Kagura tries to hunt down Kohaku who’s in the middle of his determination arc and Kagura catches the feels before she can kill him and ends up defending him from Hakudoshi. This kinda comes a little out of nowhere but Kagura has slowly grown more empathetic over the series and she can probably relate to someone wanting revenge on Naraku even though they realistically have no chance, like I think Kagura knows even with four jewel shards, Hakudoshi beating Naraku is kind of a pipe dream like the dude’s bricked up in his Final Form and has like 98% of the jewel I don’t think four shards will be the difference maker. Inuyasha’s group save Kagura and after a whole arc of her basically sorta helping them they essentially see her as an ally now and when Hakudoshi abducts her she tells them the Baby is inside Moryomaru and like… wouldn’t the only way to kill Naraku be killing the baby and they just made a superpowered demon armor for it? Like if I remember right the idea was to absorbed Naraku and become a hive mind with the Baby in control of the Moryomaru part being the main body since they see Naraku’s heart as his true essence but like if you really wanna kill him just stab that baby, I guess it’s basically Hakudoshi’s twin so he doesn’t want to do that but still this is a lot of complicated trickery for a simple task but then again that is kind of Naraku’s MO. Hakudoshi’s there gloating like ‘Naraku has Kagura’s heart in his hand and I’m basically invincible since my heart’s also The Baby so sucks to be you and I’m immortal’ and Naraku does the funniest thing ever and just fucking disperses the Saimyosho around Hakudoshi and lets him get sucked up by Miroku’s Wind Tunnel, proving when he has to be nerfed in 90% of situations because this show would be so short otherwise, it’s really fucking funny and like the only time the Wind Tunnel is allowed to be plot relevant so it’s one of my favorite scenes in the series.

Moryomaru attacks Kohaku but the group come and save him and both Kagura and Kohaku basically decide that they don’t want to become party members, Kagura because she’s basically a dead girl walking and the only reason she’s not dead already is because Naraku likes making her squirm, and Kohaku because even though Sango knows he remembers her now, until he feels redeemed for killing their family he can’t bear to look at her and be reminded of all the pain he’s caused. The Final Act really ramps up all these character arcs that have basically been stalling in the background and it’s kinda cool like the story progress was so slow in the original I sometimes didn’t notice when it was happening like Kohaku’s arc kinda came out of nowhere for me because I wasn’t paying attention the first time and his story bits were so far apart but it’s legit one of the most important elements of The Final Act and the convergence of all those disparate story threads is something I really appreciate about Inuyasha as a series even if getting there is a bit of a chore sometimes.  

Castlevania: Lisa is a girl that wants to learn medicine and as anyone who’s been to medical school can attest you have to get through your stint of climbing into Dracula’s castle to learn the forbidden arts, that’s just how medicine works. Now since Lisa is a charming not like other girls ballbuster of mythical creatures, Dracula likes her and takes her up on her ‘try liking humans’ offer like sure, what does he have to lose from a tiny bit of vulnerability. Now unfortunately because this is at the beginning of the series and not at the end, that goes about as well as you’d expect. The Church find damning evidence on Lisa, BEAKERS AND SCIENCE FLUIDS, that’s definitely fucking Witchcraft and Judge Frollo ain’t having it (I don’t remember this guy’s name and I’m hoping he dies soon so he’s Frollo for the moment). They burn her as a witch and the one lady that mourns her death tells Dracula and he’s just like ‘okay I have one fuck in me left to give and that is you seem like a nice lady so get as far the fuck away from this city as you can’ and just becomes a superinferno of rage and goes to tell Frollo and the gang in his best Wizard of Oz impression that they have one year to either get the fuck out of town or kiss their ass goodbye because it’ll take him a year to summon a video game style horde of the damned and make this like the intro to DOOM. Alucard is not happy about this and is like ‘not all humans bro’ and Dracula is having none of it so they fight, almost like Alucard is doing the opposite of everything Dracula does, like he’s the… inverse somehow, like he’s… Dracula backwards. So a year passes and the town’s having their big ‘fuck Dracula we’re still here’ party and it’s like maybe Alucard won and there won’t be damnation… then it starts raining blood and Dracula’s just like “MOTHERFUCKERS WHAT DID I SAY YOU HAD ONE JOB!” and proceeds to unleash a demonic storm of torment and rage upon a world that deserves it in the name of someone who would’ve wanted no part of it. Meanwhile we cut over to Goatfuck Nowhere and a bunch of drunks are like ‘Man fuck the Belmonts, they’re no lineage of video game protagonists I tellyawhat” right in front of Trevor Belmont.

Jujutsu Kaisen: So it turns out Cursed Energy does really just work like Nen and the more drawbacks you give the stronger the technique. The barrier keeping everyone out is actually being held up by two old fucks and a punk from outside because that makes the barrier stronger if they’re outside and even stronger if they’re more likely to be seen. That makes sense and all but I feel like they’ve never been able to really get through Veils unless Gojo shatterpoints one from the top so like was all of that necessary? Feel like you could’ve still been inside and used it as a stall tactic or maybe been outside but in a less conspicuous spot and it’d be strong enough but we’ve got plot to do I guess. But yeah turns out the old fucks are just bad because ‘wah Gojo’s All Might and now we can’t do heinous crimes anymore’ like it’s really dumb and I hope they die horribly, though I do find it funny the entire curse ecosystem literally revolves around Gojo like he’s a Mary Sue but like for canonical reasons that deliberately fuck the entire world over. So yeah Ino’s fighting the punk and the old lady and his power is doing that thing where you put your head in your jacket except his lets him summon demons, I don’t remember being able to do that, anyway the granny turns the punk into Megudad and he beats the shit out of Ino and rips off his demon face hood, I’m guessing her transfiguration doesn’t copy techniques so turning someone into this world’s Rock Lee is probably the best you can do. Meanwhile Megumi and Yuji are fighting the old man and I think they did this power in Medaka Box at some point because it turns out he blocks strong attacks and amplifies weak ones so ideally you send a mid-tier fighter after him and he’s a goner but Megumi and Yuji are able to basically just turn off their energy and beat the shit out of him which is satisfying but for as gruesome as I know this arc will get I was kind of hoping for more for such a piece of shit.

Zom 100: It’s finale time and Akira figures out a cool loophole to Higurashi’s ultimatum that I didn’t think of right away but figured out like a minute before the reveal which is kind of what you want in a reveal. They use the makeup artist who was working on the zombie movie to make Akira up like a zombie and fake Higurashi out so they can get his dad back, pretty good solution all things considered, like I said last time the moral is the best way to make your parents proud is by living well but I also didn’t think they were just gonna sit there and let Akira’s dad die. We get a quick rundown of Higurashi’s backstory and it’s appropriately sad before he gets turned into a zombie and gets some semblance of peace. The gang manages to break out of the village with the help of the treehouse guy from like five episodes/six months ago and they turn out to be great at helping rebuild the village. Akira’s dad’s gonna be fine he just needs some Preparation H but everyone gets to write down their own endgoal items for the bucket list as well as a bunch of random shit they wanna do along the way, like the barrel scene in One Piece but if it was told by a rambling person with ADHD. Akira’s planned to find a cure for the zombie virus… sort of, it’s basically just doing the shit he was already doing but with the vague idea of maybe finding a cure in the background. So yeah, the finale’s as dumb and silly as we’ve come to expect from this show and it made me cry a little and smile a lot so good stuff.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: This one’s a little hard to describe because I think anyone who knows anything about this series already knows the premise because that’s its main selling point so I don’t want to spell it out and be repetitive. Frieren is the mage of your standard dot jpg RPG/D&D group and after they kill the demon king or whatever Frieren’s just like ‘alright I’m out, I’ll check in every few decades to make sure you’re not choking on water or however humans die’ and by the time she comes back her pseudo-love interest Himmel is like a week from death and all they can do is give him a last hurrah before he goes and Frieren realizes she’s wasted the entirety of a human lifetime not connecting with someone she really cared about. The strange thing is it’s implied they have a way to contact her because like she came back for Himmel’s funeral (either that or he died like RIGHT after the meteor shower idk) and they just… didn’t? Like they seem to be coordinated enough to all gather together when they need to but no one thought about calling her up in the last 50 years or maybe it’s just coincidence. I also quite like that they establish their journey itself took ten years, that’s a reasonable amount of time for an epic D&D campaign and it also means that they’re not just teenagers by the end like Himmel’s at least 20-30 something so him dying when he’s like 70-80 isn’t terribly outlandish even though he looks like the youngest of the group. Frieren takes a short sabbatical of like another ten years until their priest friend is almost dead, (she seems to have a habit of showing up right before someone’s ready to die) and he’s just like ‘okay I know I said I wasn’t a pussy scared of dying last time but being old really sucks so can you translate this tome of immortality and also look after my adoptive daughter, kthxbye’ and I’m just waiting for this tome to be an ancient jokebook or some shit or some horrendous fate worse than death, it’s definitely one of the two. We also get introduced to Fern who’s a little Kirito in training because she’s like eight and already overpowered as fuck. Frieren doesn’t wanna just yeet her into the world with her and get a tiny purple-haired Rika Furude lookin girl killed so she’s just gonna stay and train her while she’s around.

Vinland Saga: We continue the Saga of the Madness of Daddy Canute and turns out the country’s fucking broke because Canute needs a thousand dudes watching his back every second from a combination of general paranoia and being the dick that invaded England and let his own brother die. So Canute’s plan is to requisition farmland and basically just be like ‘this belongs to the king now, thanks’ and by sheer coincidence, Ketil’s farm is the first on his chopping block. Also by sheer coincidence, Ketil’s arrived to visit King Harald only he’s already fucking dead (second show in a row where the person shows up right around when the person they wanted to see dies) and unsurprisingly Olmar gets into a fucking fight with this guy named Thorfinn but we’re just gonna call him Bug-Eyes to not confuse him with regular Thorfinn. Turns out Bug-Eyes is Leif’s adopted son since he’s been traveling around adopting Thorfinns hoping that he finds the regular Thorfinn and just so happened to trip over the guy that currently owns him… man shit before long-range communication was wild you just had to globehop and hope you find the one guy out of millions you were looking for, I can’t even find my friends in a crowded convention hall without a phone. Anyway Leif may or may not be going to Ketil’s farm but in the meantime Ketil’s meeting with Canute and doesn’t know they’re about to jack his farm. Olmar gets up during the meeting and begs to go to war with Canute and does things with a sword that are so wildly wrong that even though I’ve never held a sword in my life it made me cringe. Still he’s lucky Canute’s currently in need of an idiot to hold hostage to make the transition to requisitioning Ketil’s farm go smoothly so yeah looks like Canute’s going straight to Evil King territory and we’re likely gonna see his and Thorfinn’s storylines converging real soon.

[liloinkoink]

hi, loved the ficlet! if you don't mind elaborating a little, what's going on with this fantasy au, where's the story start?

(@galaxyofender also sent me an ask abt the beginning after this sent so i’m @‘ing them as well)

yeah sure! the au is basically just… three scenes i have pretty clear visuals for, that short piece being one of them. j made the entire thing up yesterday so it’s not Extremely fleshed out beyond ren and martyn. au takes inspiration from three main sources: 1) third life renchanting dynamic. 2) martyn’s watcher lore. 3) ren’s affinity for fire in last life

i’ll. read more this cuz it’s gonna be a bit long

so. martyn starts with the watchers. they’re, y’know, standard dnd spooky eldritch cult fare for the most part. i don’t rlly know what they want with him, but i know that he's stuck with them and has been stuck for a while. he’s trying to leave but they've got the whole town/area locked down, and so it’s just not feasible to do on his own

the watchers have settled in a city that was abandoned some time ago when it came under siege. they’ve done what they could to stamp out any trace of the city’s original occupants so they could insert themselves and their own patron, but martyn’s not got anywhere else to go, so while he’s looking for something to help him escape he stumbles upon stories of the original city’s patron god

bc of an active attempt to destroy what remained, there’s a lot of holes in what martyn finds. martyn can’t figure out the god’s name, for example, or where he came from or what happened to the city. but martyn finds that he was powerful. he could walk the world like a mortal, and was known to enhance and bless tools or armor, supporting the city’s occupants with gear that never broke and axes that never dulled. he was there when the city fell, too—he defeated their enemies by freezing them, but in the process turned himself to stone. martyn can’t find what happened to the god after that, but the story sticks in his mind

at some point, martyn finds a locked door deep below the city. when he opens it he finds a mostly empty room, minus a fire and… something, just out of the reach of the firelight. it’s weird enough there’s a fire there—who is even tending to it, all the way down here? but weirder still is the fact he can’t see anything else. he grabs a stick and dips it in the fire, and when he holds it up he sees a statue.

he doesn’t know what the god looks like, but he doesn’t need to know to realize just what exactly he’s found

so he looks up into stone eyes and he says listen, we're in a pretty similar spot here, you know. if you can help me get out of here, ill start following you. I'm not really a paladin, but i'll see what i can do. neither of us have better options.

and for a second… absolutely nothing happens. martyn stands in the dark and feels a bit like an idiot. before he can make some self-deprecating comment about talking to ghosts, the fire in the basin goes out entirely. the only glow left is his torch, and then it isn’t. the remaining fire in the basin goes out. the torch in his hand glows brighter, and then one by one, martyn's tools start to glow. his armor, his axe, his sword, each a shimmering purple, alight with the blessing of a god

that boost is enough to help martyn escape the city, flame in hand, though i’m… not totally sure when martyn makes the connection between the torch in his hand and the god he prayed to. i think it’s more likely some watcher says it instead—someone sees him running around with a torch that doesn’t dim and a glowing axe and goes oh shit, he’s freed the red king! and martyn is like i’ve huh. that, and/or ren, attempting to help martyn escape with his life, sets someone spontaneously on fire. maybe a mix of both

once they’ve escaped this becomes martyn and ren traveling montage playing far too much 20 questions which ren is comedically bad at and martyn getting odd looks every time he casually enters a building with a fuck-off huge lantern. after that it becomes a quest to get ren a body of his own!

[liennalei]

What ruins the RTC revival

So i’ve been brainrotting over RTC these last weeks and. watched both bootlegs. while the original holds a dear place in my heart, the revival simply isnt as good. So Im going to rewatch it and write down the reasons why. 

DISCLAIMER: LONG POST

AN: please watch the show before reading this. it wont make sense otherwise.

Also. R! is used to talk about the revival character. Likewise, O! is used to talk about the original character. Cause holy shit they are completely different characters.

1. Humanoid Karnak. i refuse to elaborate. 

2. “Virgil shall play— the bass”. I loved that delivery, and now it’s gone

3. When explaining the rules about the armrest, Karnak goes a bit too fast, which ruins the comedy for me

4. “I assure you, none of the calls you are about to receive will have life altering consequences (pause. looks down) except for one of you”. THE PAUSE IS GONE. THE PAUSE WAS WHAT MADE IT FUNNY.

5. THE CHOIR FACES THE PUBLIC. 

I will elaborate. In the original version, the choir is on the other side of the stage, facing backwards, and only face the public when dead. This helps establish that the stage is the afterlife. THIS VERSION DOESNT DO THAT. 

6. R!Mischa looks old. The entire cast looks old, but R!Mischa looks like a 40 year old. Thats a grown ass man sir.

7. No Penny foreshadowing in the newspaper.

8. The segment of "something doesnt feel quite right–" is gone. I loved that segment. I feel its fundamental to introducing us to the characters.

9. No friendly banter between Ocean and Noel during the song :(

10. RICKY ISNT SUPPOSED TO SING YET. Even if hes already dead, the others arent supposed to know he can already talk.

11. On the subject of R!Ricky. The crutches are gone. What the fuck. I know why but i hate why.

12. R!Ocean is the one asking "where are we?". And its not scared, its not confused, its just... a question. O!Constance's delivery is far better.

13.

DEMOCRACY ROCKS!

I hate this delivery. R!Ocean's "Democracy rocks!" was perfect: preppy, upbeat... this singy-songy democracy rocks sucks. O!Ocean wouldve never.

14. I hate R!Ocean. I refuse to elaborate.

Sike! I will. She's doesnt look the "overachiever golden girl" part. I dont mean her looks, i mean her attitude– she seems normal. She seems like a normal girl, shes not even half as annoying! Thats what made O!Ocean great– her being annoying yet lovable!

15. Mischa doesnt grab his crotch :(

Okay i must elaborate. The crotch grabbing may seem weird but its part of the gangsta persona. The psoture this Mischa adopts is simply... not it.

16. That was emasculating...

After the "i am naked child in the wilderness" introduction, O!Mischa says "that was whack". Not emasculating. Hes surprised that hes said that, but he doesnt say that it doesnt represent him. He knows he is vulnerable, and he embraces it. R!Mischa seems embarrassed of this side of him. WHICH IS NOT MY DEAR MISCHA.

17. Instead of giving the discourse, Ricky simply says "Level up". There is no character.

18. On the topic. The choir realises he can speak only now. There is no "The twilight zone" moment, no "It certainly appears that way. Badass" moment. Fuck this.

Sidenote: we're at the 13 min mark

19. R!Jane Doe is less autistic coded. Shes just creepy. Inherently bad.

20. "Playing games where people"s lives are on the table is

Super illegal"

This delivery makes no sense. Why would she say it like that. Why would she move her hips alongside that line.

21. This monologue's delivery is shit. It reads like a comedic monologue, and not a "debate team" monologue.

22. The improv thing. Why would you add that. I mean i know why but why.

23. "IT TAKES TWO WINGS TO FLY–" R!Ocean is a theatre kid in the bad way. O!Ocean was a debate team kid. O!Ocean was better and more in line with the character

24. Instead of singing the "Oh nooOOOooO" she says "Nope. Nope." Why. Oh, I know why!

25. This Ocean can't sing. Im sorry. No offence, but this actress isn't fit for this role. Her voice doesnt adjust to Ocean's registry.

26. Instead of the euphoric "WHAT A RUSH" we get a full of soberbia "What a rush~". R!Ocean is meaner.

I have to note R!Constance is one of the few good things in here. Her delivery is great and her dialogue is good.

27. "And then i got to get on that ride. Thanks" got replaced with a line that makes Ricky seem like an incel

Okay i know that ricky IS horny but hes NOT an incel. "No one wants to make out with the tambourine guy". O!Ricky wouldnt complain about that. He complained about riding the cyclone and DYING.

28. Instead of trying to get a hug, Jane tries to offer up her doll. I just loved that part :( it gives her character.

R!Noel is also good. Not as good as O!Noel, but good. The nativity scene is awkward, but it fits. So im not counting that.

And the transition from Noel to Monique is amazing.

29. But, as much as I like this Noel's acting... the singing is mediocre. It sounds like a karaoke performance. It looks like a karaoke performance. It feels like a karaoke performance.

Its been half an hour. I need help.

31. The dance during "THAT FUCKED UP GIIIIIIIIIIRL" changes and its worse.

32. Again, I hate R!Ocean

33. Every Story's Got a Lesson. Again, she cant sing.

34. The porno bit is gone. It gave Ricky some depth.

35. The Saw V bit is gone too. It was so funny :(

36. The improv thing..... sucks. Constance lets to, and she is supposed to be the restrained girl until her song. It breaks the character. It ruins the surprise.

37. The transition to Mischa's turn is rough as fuck

38. Mischa's backstory here makes him seem like an asshole. The original was this sad story, this one is just angry. Its reductive.

39. He says "Mostly positive feedback" as a bad thing, says it /neg. Doubting. O!Mischa was amazed, loving, said it /pos.

40. It was HILARIOUS when he said "Good for hot dog (raises index, as in "1"), but not so good for Ukraine (raises middle finger too, as in "2") so THANK YOU FOR KILLING MY MOTHER (leaves middle finger up)". GUESS WHAT. THATS GONE AS WELL.

41. The pause before "Autotune will never die" is gone too

42. To put it simply, R!Mischa didnt slay. O!Mischa slayed.

43. Why does Ricky have a box in his head. What the fuck. I know why but why.

44. It takes too fucking long for Mischa to get his. Uh. Thingy around the waist (fajín in spanish).

45. The Talia projection on the sheet/skirts is bad. Im sorry. Its just bad. Not as creative, not as perfectly-timed...

46. I miss the bit where Talia appears in Mischa's chest. As if it were his heart. It was so emotional yo

47. The dubstep part is not as good. I loved the circle with the fortnite dance.

48. Mischa is off tune by the end of the song

49. THE PART WHERE OCEAN IS SPED UP IS GONE.

50. The transition to Ricky is shit. Its just "yo why dont you go next"

51. R!Ricky not smooth. Ocean is weak to her knees for no reason.

52. The backstory changes for no reason???? Hes not disabled he just wont speak????? There truly was no need.

I'll admit it: this man Can Dance

53. UNDERWEAR JUMPSCARE. WHAT THE FUCK.

54. R!Ricky is less autistic coded. Hes just WEIRD. Inherently bad.

55. The space jesus line is delivered badly

56. R!Jane Doe doesnt fly.

Thats my only complaint, and its justifiable. R!Jane Doe is one of the few things done right here.

57. The New Birthday Song is less awkward in the beginning. Less like theyre making it up on the spot and more like they all knew it already.

58. I just realised the bit of LOVE CONQUERS ALL IS GONE.

59. Retroactively, NO PART OF "DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT WOULDVE HAPPENED IF TALIA AND MISCHA HAD MET?" . That was so poetic,,,,,, and now its gone,,,,,,

60. Ocean's breakdown isnt much of a breakdown.

R!Constance. Wow. I love her. She is the only other good thing in here.

61. I HATE R!Ocean

62. R!Ocean doesnt elaborate on why it shouldnt be her. She isnt self aware as the original.

63. The final montage doesnt show us her entire life. Sure, it shows her POV, but theres no old Penny.

64. Karnak breaks and talks normally afterwards.

65. They dont smile profoundly as they disappear. Thats the saddest change.

My final thoughts

It is a great show. This is not a decent show. Most of the songs sound off, except for Sugar Cloud and The Ballad of Jane Doe, and the acting is mediocre at best. 

Maybe it’s not as bad. Maybe the original is so good that it simply can’t measure up to it. 

Heck, maybe i’m conditioned after having watched it thousands of times.  Hate and love are two sides of the same coin: perhaps, had i not loved the original so much, i wouldn’t have hated this rendition as profusely. 

Regardless, I did not like the Blue Bridge version. 

Your lucky number is 7. Be sure to Ride the Cyclone. 

[hellshandbasket]

You just have to elaborate on the “I mean like even the apple seeds” tag on your Dennis’ pain and how Mac takes care of it post because I am very intrigued and can’t infer on that myself!

haha you guys should stop enabling me. anyway. yes i will humanize even the apple seeds joke and make it about macdennis + pain. (tw for light/vague discussions of disordered eating)

my favorite thing about this particular unhinged take is that it focuses on how dysfunctional the macdennis dynamic is instead of just the sweeping romanticism of mac being able to see dennis’ pain and attend to it, because it highlights how mac sometimes does that to an unhealthy/incorrect degree.

but i digress. sorry to keep you waiting. the apple seeds: it’s about the way mac takes dennis’ distress over the thing seriously, and offers dennis genuine and caring counsel.

in fact, if i use the tidy little “mac is the only one able to attend to dennis’ pain and dennis can’t let go of that” theory it explains why dennis would allow himself to believe something so fucking dumb as “cigarette smoke smothers the poisonous apple seeds in your stomach.” we all know dennis has issues with food. both mac and dennis have body image issues, and mac has fluctuating issues with food himself. but about dennis—mr undiagnosed eating disorder himself. i don’t think he has just a restrictive/body image based eating disorder, but something like arfid or ocd, where he has innumerable neuroses and anxieties around his food intake.

this is where it gets toxic because mac is aware of this and takes it upon himself to be like, dennis’ food bodyguard. he’s actually trying to love and care for dennis, but he doesn’t know any better and ends up enabling dennis’ instead (macdennis i’m obsessed with you). gang chokes is like, about this. but md break up talks about it and the apple seeds thing are the greatest example for me, and a huge manifestation of the macdennis + pain thing imo.

there’s the apple skin thing to start, which is a great instance of how this would work. it also gives us a nice glimpse into how macdennis + pain is reciprocal because (and i haven’t even gotten to do a whole thesis on this but i could) mac struggles with wanting to feel needed, wanted, of value, etc and as much as he can get bitchy and mean, overall dennis makes mac feel all of those things. especially in peak macdennis years (3/4-9). but i’m digressing again—just pointing out how and why this works so well for mac too, because it’s more than just being stupid in love with dennis (it fulfills something personal in him too, it soothes a hurt in him too).

but for me, the apple seeds? another instance of dennis showing negative, painful emotion, and mac being the only one to respond in a way that matters to dennis. i mean yes a moment to thank glenn for his comedic genius in the sound of that fake retching, but also dennis was so distressed over the thought of potentially eating something bad. that was panic! that was repulsion! that was fear! food is just such a fundamental thing for dennis.

the rest of the gang kind of brush him off when he scurries over, totally distraught over these stupid apple seeds. charlie validates his alarm over the toxicity of the dumb seeds (<3), but no one has time for dennis and his hysteria. and it is hours after the whole ordeal has passed, and they are still kind of fighting, but the minute dennis sees him he tells this to mac because he knows mac will take him seriously and fix the hurt. he looks so relieved when mac doesn’t brush it off or question him or roll his eyes, he just takes it in stride and asks dennis if he tried x to solve the problem.

i know this kind of thing happens regularly and i know it rewires things in dennis’ brain! he must be so scared and yet so comforted! he must be so confused and in love and embarrassed and mac is mine and mac cares and oh god what if mac leaves who will give a shit if i cry over apple seeds then no one can know apple seeds scare me like this ahhh!!!

[jade-kyo]

Red vs. Blue seasons 15-17 retcon pros and cons:

Season 17

I actually like s17 a fair bit so perhaps the pros and cons of the retcon will be a bit more balanced than they were with 16!

Pros:

Alright we know the drill. No time travel bullshit.

Honestly the biggest fault of this season is being a continuation of s16. The character writing is good but even the best writing can’t fix a bad story.

I’ll be honest I’m struggling to find pros to the retcon that isn’t just restating stuff I said about s16 but yeah god like beings under guise of being AI just ain’t the vibe

No Genkins. He’s just not a very good villain to me.

Don’t care for the whole thing with Huggins parents

Again Tucker has to redo his character development. The scene with Felix is good but was completely unnecessary if s16 hadn’t fucked up Tucker so badly

I feel like Genkins and Krovos are the weak points of this season

Seriously if they were actually treated like AI and not gods this would be way better

Time travel bullshit

I know it’s actually Genkins but seeing Church impaled by a gulf club was disturbing

red team labyrinth visions could have been so much better.

Simmons vision being just another bad penis joke

Lopez Vision. I get he’s a robot and comes back but come on. Just seems in bad taste to me.

Not necessarily a pro of the retcon but still a gripe I have with the season but I think it’s a crime we didn’t get to see Caboose’s vision like come on you already waisted Simmons on comedic relief you could’ve at least given us Caboose’s

Also wish we would’ve seen more of Tucker’s vision

None of that “and the found family goes their separate ways” nonsense. I don’t care how mean they were to Donut I do not vibe with that shit.

Tho again the implications of this being Church’s simulation- Church did always like Donut best. Maybe he was trying to give the man some justice. That’s actually a really sweet thought.

Cons:

Donut. Just Donut.

Donut realizing all the unintentional dirty jokes he makes

Just Donut

Genkins telling Locus that Felix is afraid of knives and Locus just going with it

Dr. Grey

WASH AND DONUT. THAT IS ALL.

Just how much Carolina cares about Wash and that it’s Donut that helps Wash realize it!

SEEING THE FREELANCERS AGAIN

Wash being able to relate to Donut because he remembers what it was like with the freelancers

WASH SCREAMING IN HIS HELMET

Caboose understanding time travel. My bois so smart

Carolinas apology

Caboose beating the Genkins out of Church

DONUT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

PINK!!!!!

Wash and Carolina

Doc said fuck

Kai’s vision and Grif

Carolinas vision because HOLY SHIT IS THAT WHOLE SCENE SO GOOD

The emotional gut punch that is Wash

Wash’s disability

Verdict:

Okay straight up I actually really like this season. To the point that I was actually struggling to find any pros to the retcon. Honestly the biggest flaw is just that it’s dealing with s16 shitty story. If you took this character writing and applied it to a good story I would absolutely love this. So I guess you could say that in theory I’m sad to see it go? Like I’ll miss the character moments it gave us but not the overall story.

But yeah that’s my personal list of the pros and cons to this retcon. If that’s even what’s actually happening. After all these simulations are all potential futures right? So who knows they may not be completely retconned. Only time will tell at this point, we’ll know for sure once the season comes out.

Either way I’m just glad to see this series end at last and hopefully it will end in a way that we can be at peace with.

[notsamsfanaccount]

it’s been hours and im still losing my mind over ed’s purgatory scenes and revival

he ABSOLUTELY deserved to get his fuckin skull bashed in btw

before this, i didn’t like izzy at all. he was the guy i only liked because i hated his guts and wanted to see more shenanigans involving no one else take him seriously. he was a mean little punching bag bastard who ruined his own fuckin life over and over. he made me unbelievably annoyed, but everything he did was also hilarious to me.

now?? i almost like him. driving me batshit. jim and archie are about to kill each other and suddenly i said OUT LOUD “get him izzy” because someone needed to rock blackbeard’s shit. unimaginable before this moment.

ANYWAY. my point is the purgatory shit. it breaks down ed to his absolute fundamentals. his captain was a piece of shit and somehow he’s managed to be worse than him by now. he still remembers felix and what happened to him, and he’s inflicted similar pain on his own crew.

said captain talks down to him and he can’t be stopped with brute force like everyone else in ed’s life. he’s renounced his big scary pirate name, going by ben, and is living on his own as a normal guy. he makes shoes and has a pet pig. it’s what ed wants for himself. safe vulnerability, domestic life, hobbies, and no name or reputation to follow him.

ed presenting himself as jeff is (from my perspective) the version of himself in his mind that hasn’t done anything bad. someone who stede would’ve associated with even if he hadn’t run off to be a pirate. jeff is invited to events and is adored by everyone in attendance. jeff owns an inn for weary travelers who are grateful for his help. it’s presented as comedic, and it is to some extent, but he’s not feared, he’s not loathed, and he hasn’t killed anyone.

the one con for ed living being “no one would be waiting for him” was fucking shattering. he did it to himself, and it’s what would’ve doomed him. if he hadn’t pushed izzy too far, he would’ve still had his loyalty to return to. he said it himself that he loved izzy. his own selfish self destructive nature has taken down everyone around him, and that’s what would’ve kept him dead. and he would’ve deserved it. his greatest fear is being unlovable, and now he’s gone and made it certain that no one loves him.

ben being a projection of himself hit me like a fuckin train. (i’m insulted as a viewer that apparently calico jack would’ve beaten me to the revelation, but whatever.) ben is who he feared, who he’s become, and who he wants to be in retirement. the thing causing ed to be so destructive is his own self loathing. i mean, that’s obvious, but when he figured it out along with all the other purgatory shit, it felt like a gut punch.

i thought the whole thinking spot thing was gonna be “HA gotcha!! if you didn’t wanna live you wouldn’t have followed me here to the top of a mountain! now go on and have a pulse again you violent bastard” but NO. he gets chucked into the ocean of death. cool. and then???? stede?????? fucking shows up?????? to talk to his corpse??????????? oh my god. i’m sobbing at this point because now, everything might just be okay. the second he hears stede’s voice, the rock around his waist comes untied. jesus christ. INSANE.

there is someone waiting for him. he isn’t unlovable. he can still have the life that we wanted with the person he wanted. mermaid stede was SO fucking stupid but i was crying too hard to care. as someone who has attempted before, someone who was left by someone i thought loved me, and someone who just really likes this stupid pirate show, i’m never gonna be the same.

[garak]

hi. going to talk about a liquid lives scenario and how i would want it to play out. i thought too much about this so i’m putting it under a read more

ok. normally for stuff like this where its like “what would happen if this guy didnt die” its just like well his wounds werent as bad or he dodged an attack or something. unfortunately with liquid we have a genetic hit out on him so we have to get a little more creative with it, but luckily kojima fucked up and made metal gear low fantasy so i’m saying that instead MANTIS barely survived his wounds and was able to do basically what he did with volgin except this time because the two of them have been feeding of each other for so long that now that theyre both fucked up they can essentially pool their energies(?) to make it so they both barely survive although liquid is still draining mantis more than usual. because liquid should be dead and because mantis is basically only alive because he feels motivated to keep liquid up and running, if either of them dies the other dies because the whole “alive because the other is alive” feedback loop breaks. or maybe they just end up with their energy pools permanently fused so theyre like psychically linked forever as a side effect of mantis trying to stop foxdie? i don’t know. either way its not like mantis can cure him it’s the same as volgin where liquid is a dead man walking, so just like volgin he’s stuck at the age where he died as sort of a parallel to snake having his whole foxdie rapid aging thing.

it should be noted that i do think ocelot still cut liquids arm off, since i’m pretty sure he does that on shadow moses as opposed to later because ocelot, for all that he is a fucked up old man, is not someone who would likely stitch rotting body parts onto his open wounds. this provides great comedic opportunity because he did that and liquid literally just was fine. the whole set up of the rest of the series is fucked obviously because after mgs1 so much is orchestrated by liquids ghost, but i think we can still salvage some of it by saying sure whatever big shell still happened but liquid was there physically instead of as a ghost, liquid and mantis laid low for a couple of years after mgs1 with the help of ocelot or eva or solidus or someone, so now mgs2 has a whole new aspect where liquid and mantis are also there. i think this is great because you have the options of them either working with solidus or just also being there both of which are great.

as i see it the scenarios are as such: you can play it the way i love playing it with liquid and ocelot, where ocelot is a haggard father figure to liquid who feels a certain level of obligation to him since he DID promise to train him even if he didn’t end up doing that in time to stop kaz like he said he would. with this kind of set up you have many many excuses at your disposal for liquid knowing things he shouldn’t, being places he shouldn’t be, being protected from the us government, etc., so you can play out a lot of liquid ocelot stuff in later games as it is in canon except this time they aren’t duking it out in ocelot’s head and instead are getting into yelling matches in the middle of battle. this set up also works if you want to say that liquid is blackmailing him or otherwise forcing ocelot to accommodate him and mantis and their whole deal. with how this relates to solidus, it can be any of three ways, either with liquid becoming a member of solidus’ team through his connection to ocelot, him being brought along because he can’t be trusted not to fuck things up when nobody’s keeping an eye on him, or him rifling through ocelot’s shit and listening in on his plans and then showing up to mess it all up without ocelot having any prior knowledge. i don’t have a favourite out of these, but the idea of liquid and mantis being present to remark on solidus’ plans is very funny to me.

of course, you can also say that they specifically avoided being known by ocelot because he DID cut liquids arm off which is not massively conducive to their friendship, and that they gained knowledge of the situation with big shell and the tanker and all that through other means. if you really want to lean into the psychic elements (since i’m just making stuff up about how it works anyways, it can’t do any harm) you can say liquid and mantis with their powers combined has been fucking with ocelot to make him think his arm is possessed. mantis is able to do possession stuff and with it physically being liquid’s arm they kind of have a leg up on the situation.

i havent figured out what to do about the whole big boss’ body thing or most of mgs4 but whatever i’ll figure it out later. for now these are my thoughts on a liquid lives scenario. i really like liquid snake and i miss him every day

[soul-dwelling]

I got a question about Kurono and Nataku in Fire Force that I’ll address in this post, regarding how the manga justifies the abusive relationship. 

…Yeah, I can’t really add to that: Fire Force justified that abuse, either to act like this is a legitimate answer (“abuse children”) or as a warped aesop for comedic effect (“LOL imagine anyone reading a comic for philosophical validation, this is a joke, let it go”). 

But this requires getting into Fire Force spoilers, as well as requiring content warnings (death mention; death penalty discussion; mentions of rape and sexual assault of children as portrayed in Fire Force).

And spoiler warning for the orphanage headmaster in Bungo Stray Dogs.

Content warning as well for discussion about the current (as of 2023) national attack on LGBTQ+ people (fuck homophobes, fuck TERFs, fuck transphobes, fuck the Republican Party, fuck these lying sacks of shit lying and maligning LGBTQ+ people with lies about child abuse, fuck this goddamn Nazi-level genocidal shit).

This discussion also requires that I bring something up that keeps being an argument, about whether the art you read reflects on your ethical standards. 

I get that your life should not be based on the art you engage with. 

Sometimes, art is just entertainment, not a reflection on your values. In those cases, your reading of it does not indicate your ethical alignment: if you pick up the book and read it, that doesn’t suddenly put a scarlet letter onto you--you read it, you got whatever you got out of it, that was an experience--what happens after that experience is what we need to discuss. So, about that post-reading experience: even your enjoyment of whatever you got enjoyment out of doesn’t make you a bad person…unless you’re enjoying the unethical stuff…

…Which, yeah, this is a thorny issue I’m not going to do a great job addressing, but I’m on the side of, if you enjoyed the unethical stuff, that suggests you do some self-reflection on your values. 

In that regard, sometimes, art is indeed reflective of a set of ethical standards, and if you end up agreeing with the message of that story, in that specific context, and you know that is fucked up, yeah, your ethics are fucked up. 

If I heard someone say, “Kurono was right in how he went about handling Nataku,” I would say, “Fuck no, he wasn’t.” I get that ascribing this to Ohkubo personally is difficult, if not impossible, seeing as you can’t know what a creator is thinking, even if you go through their work. If the excuse is, “It was a joke,” sorry, I don’t find that funny, it feels too mean and too much of a lie to work as a joke. 

That leaves me with, “Does Ohkubo agree with Kurono,” and, again, I can’t answer that: I don’t know what he was thinking, I don’t know who he is or what his philosophy is about teaching or child care, and I am not about to make any assumptions beyond, no, Ohkubo does not agree with Kurono. And that’s the side I come down on: I don’t think Ohkubo agrees with Kurono’s treatment of Nataku. 

And one reason I can’t imagine Ohkubo would agree that Kurono’s abuse of Nataku is good is given how Ohkubo wrote what happened with Joker and the religious authority figure who physically abused him and sexually abused him. Joker’s story felt like an indictment against real-world religions that have histories of sexual violence against children, the Catholic Church being one of them. Joker killing his abuser should work for catharsis, again showing why what you enjoy may not indicated anything about your own ethical values: you read a fiction to see an abuser get killed, that may indicate you want to see abusers punished but not necessarily that you want to see abusers killed--it’s fiction, it’s fantasy, that’s all. 

But then you get to Kurono, who physically abuses Nataku. How is that not treated the same way as all the torture Joker went through? Why is the story asking us to cheer on Joker getting vengeance, while telling us that Nataku should not get vengeance on Kurono? Because the abuse is somehow less? Who is to say that the abuse is less? Isn’t it enough that Kurono crossed the line from fair behavior to abuse, and that Kurono should be punished for that abuse, period, regardless whether or not it was worse than other forms of abuse seen within the story? 

Ohkubo tries to glide past these questions by pointing out the kind of emotional abuse Nataku suffered from his parents, how Nataku was putting so much pressure on himself to be better and be perfect--and Kurono arrives, tells him to stop thinking he has to be perfect because he’s just a kid with a new ability that he cannot control so he shouldn’t expect to be perfect because no one else thinks he can be perfect at that age and with such a complex ability. 

Does that mean Kurono is making himself the embodiment of everything Nataku feels--all that self-hate, now externalized to be represented by Kurono himself--so that Nataku can stop self-hating and just hate Kurono? 

Spoiler warning, but that’s pretty much the back story for Atsushi and the orphanage headmaster in Bungo Stray Dogs: we spend two seasons thinking the headmaster is a monster, that all of our hate against him is justified, so that when he dies in the third season we should feel relief--only to see Atsushi is conflicted, because this person was the closest to a parental figure he had, and what is worse, as Atsushi learns after his death and as we the audience learns as well, the headmaster was abusing Atsushi on purpose to make Atsushi not hate himself for his own dangerous ability and to instead take that anger out on the headmaster so that Atsushi would strive to get stronger, get out of the orphanage, and put this miserable past behind him. 

If you have read discourse about Atsushi and the headmaster, you’d see that general consensus ranges from “this doesn’t work” or “I get your point, but I completely disagree with this ethical lesson.” I think it worked for Atsushi’s story--not because it was pulled off well, not because it is an ethical lesson I agree with, but because series writer Kafka Asagiri wanted to go in this direction, to build up the world of this story and where the headmaster factors into the organized crime of this world, and to give Atsushi a new challenge, whether to hold him back given how overpowered he is, or to give him a way to bond with Akutagawa, or to set up future plots. This is a case of, “I get why you did it, but I do not agree with this message at all.” 

But then there is the another argument Bungo fans have made, that the point is not whether what the headmaster did was correct--it wasn’t--but that we are to focus on Atsushi’s response to this trauma, and that is is valid for Atsushi to feel regret and sadness for the headmaster, even if he was an abusive parental figure, because our emotions are not so simple that we just turn off our sadness when someone we know was awful to us died, because that was still someone we knew personally who died. 

But back to the question I received. The question asked whether Kurono’s abuse of Nataku seemed to justify abuse, including sexual abuse, towards minors. 

As I said, Ohkubo’s story seems to settle on that we can justify non-sexual abuse of a minor, whether as an actual lesson (“Kurono was right to abuse Nataku, so that he would externalize his own self-hate and put it against Kurono, so that he can grow up at his own rate and not feel the pressures to grow up faster than a child should”) or as a joke (“LOL you thought Kurono would have some heart-to-heart with Nataku, but instead Kurono promises to keep physically attacking Nataku, and Charon and the White Clads say this is good, so they leave, and Shinra and Company 8 just let this happen, LOL, aren’t they all just the biggest fucking dumbasses you have ever seen?!”--God, I fucking hate Fire Force). 

But as for sexual abuse? Fuck no, the Kurono and Nataku shit is bad, but it never struck me as justifying sexual abuse. 

As I said, look at how the story has Joker murder the person who sexually assaulted him as a child. The story seemed to act like this was fair for Joker to kill his tormentor. Even Burns, who supervised the program that held Joker as a child prisoner and a child assassin, permits Joker to walk away, not just because Benimaru was going to kick his ass, but also because this child molester wasn’t worth Burns’s time to defend and protect. It’s gross, and speaks even worse about Burns (a topic for another time), but the story seemed to make it clear that it was on Team “Let Joker Kill That Rapist, Fuck Him.”

…Granted, Shinra then resurrecting that rapist at the end of the manga complicates this. That seemed like a take by the story to suggest that no one gets to play God and decide who lives and who dies, that it’s not for any one person to decide someone deserves to die…

…which, fair philosophical argument with real-world applications regarding how, especially in the United States, we are so excited at the prospect of executing people, even if later evidence may exonerate those convicted, and at a time where I’m seeing my country getting this close to wrongly associating LGBTQ+ people with child abusers that deserve to die (fuck homophobes, fuck TERFs, fuck transphobes, fuck the death penalty, fuck the lies defaming LGBTQ+ people as corrupting children when that is not fucking happening you fucking fascist sacks of shit). 

So, yes, taking an anti-death penalty stance is something I’m in favor of in real life. 

But also, this is fiction, and that fictional character was a fucking child rapist, so fuck no, let that fucker die in this fictional work.