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Bro I'm losing my god damn mind and I haven't even messed around with the new gameplay shit like at all. Ive spent the past like 5 hours just reading and looking at shit I haven't even played the damn video game
#rat rambles#oni posting#and unfortunately playing the damn video game will have to wait til tomorrow because its late bug holy shitttttt#this isnt even all of the new content that will be in the full dlc like holy shit#now one bit of sad news for the gamers is that the mysterious machine does not appear to be the temporal bow but it still seems neat#its currently locked tho so I cant comment too much on its full deal#based on in game disriptions tho it appears to be a geothermal generator of sorts#which is actually super cool considering the environmental storytelling surrounding it#well what I assume to be I have only generated one world so it could be some wild coincidence#but Im pretty sure the magma biome is mostly obsidian with only bits and pieces of magma which combined with the geothermal generator#situations and said building being on the cold planet paints a cool pocture#also I wasnt able to 100% comfirm this but uh. erm. I think we Might be getting one extra new dupe once the dlc comes out proper#lets just say I have reason to believe that harold might not be the only moreson to have gotten his dna stolen#its so jover guys how the hell am I supposed to sleep tonight#and worst of all Ive seen like 2 ppl talk abt the beta and it's been minor stuff hello is anyone there can anyone hear me#Im losing my god damn mind someone at least make a video where they just talk abt the new plants and critters and such#like we might Finally have a new oxygen method even if its low key just a cold oxyfern#I forgive it tho because of the context of it using ice as fertilizer#like that doesnt mean a whole lot on this planet but on most other planetoids that provides a rly interested challenge#ultimately it's not That hard to make ice if you have access to any level of cooling but its still cool to imagine how one would go abt#automating the whole process and making it more applicable to late game oxygen demands#also this is a massive update for nosh bean enjoyers as we finally have a second way to get ethanol lol#also the deep fryer is a fun concept even if Im not sure how worth it it'll be to go for it
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I. Hate it here why is my fucking canvas not working
#ONLY ONE OF MY COURSES IS WORKING#AUGH. HJOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET MY FUCKING MATH WORK DONE#WHEN ALL I HAVE IS MY BIO MED??????????#live turtle thoughts#actually wait shit it might not even be my biomed#YEAH ITS NOT EVEN MY BIOMED COURSE ITS MY ONLINE HEALTH SCIENCE COURSE#Killing.
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Unloyal Royalty
Pairing: Tubbo x Reader
"Y/n, please don't leave," Eret pleaded, but you knew he didn't mean it.
"I am not as blind as you think, you don't want me to stay because you care, you want me to stay because you know Dream would be upset with you because I left," you stated, your tone going from angry to soft and saddened.
You and your older brother were arguing under the gates to the castle you shared because you wanted to leave.
Eret opened his mouth to speak but you cut him off, "Don't come at me with 'I do care', because you don't! It's such bullshit! No one cares about me! When Mexican L'manberg framed us for killing Karl, they didn't try to frame both of us, only me!" You laughed sadly.
"That's not true-"
"Yes, it is! You always do this, every time I want to leave, you just saying shit like 'everyone cares, don't lie to yourself' and I come running back to the castle. Not anymore, I'm gone, for good this time!"
You ran away before his words could get to your head again. You didn't stop running until you reached the hub portal. You debated going to see Tubbo, but he probably didn't want to see you, not after what happened yesterday. Tommy understood what it was like between Eret and you, he was one of your best friends before he was exiled. You haven't visited him yet, Dream barred you from going to visit him because "The queen shouldn't concern herself with dumbasses who can't shut their mouths." Such a stupid excuse.
Now that Dream held nothing against you, you could see him. Eret went to see him a couple of days ago, and luckily for you, he saved the coordinates (coords are now a system of measurement don't question it djjwnw-) of the portal in a book. You entered the numbers into the compass you had in your bag and as soon as you entered the Nether, the compass started working.
The journey towards the portal was long and boring and dangerous, but eventually you made it. You didn't expect it to be so high up. You cautiously stuck a hand through the portal, before going through completely.
You ended up in what seemed to be a plains biome. There was a village surrounded by dark oak trees. You seemed to have come out of a fixed ruined-portal. You studied your surroundings for a bit longer, before hearing a soft, echoing voice.
"Oh, hello Y/n!" You smiled and turned around, recognizing the voice as Ghostbur's. You were hit with a wave of sadness. You'd always think of Wilbur as a substitute older brother. You would always run away to L'manberg or Pogtopia when you got into fights with Eret, and he never failed to make you feel special, even when he was lying. "Are you okay? Do you want some blue?"
Ghostbur wouldn't lie to you. "Sure," he placed the currently clear blob in your hands, you could already see it shifting colours, "thank you."
"No problem! If you don't mind me asking, why are you here?" He was like a brother to you all the same.
"I haven't visited Tommy yet, I really missed him."
"Oh, follow me to Logstedshire then!," you did exactly that, "In all the memories I have, Tommy and you were inseparable, I remember, years before L'manberg even existed, you and Tommy thought you were biological siblings." You didn't want to talk about siblings anymore.
"Y/n?" You looked up from the ground to see Tommy. But he was different. His clothes were dirtier than usual, a few rips in the hem of his shirt. You didn't care, immediately running towards him, somehow confining the much taller man in a hug, "Why are you here? Didn't Dream tell you not to visit me, will I get you in trouble?"
"No, I'm not the queen anymore, he has no leverage over me," you answered simply, but Tommy seemed much more bothered by it than you.
"You aren't the queen anymore? What happened? Are you okay? I swear if Eret did anything to make you leave, I'm gonna start stabbin shit!"
"Tommy no! Calm down. Eret didn't do anything specifically it was more everything getting to my head."
"Whatever happened, you're here with us now, right?" Ghostbur is too kind.
"Right. I might go to L'manberg sometimes though. I... I still need to apologize to Tubbo," you admitted, mentally preparing for Tommy and his many questions and concerns.
"Apologize to Tubbo? For what? What happened with Tubbo?" You would never be entirely ready for Tommy.
"Tubbo and I got in a big fight yesterday because I was stupid, the reality that you were exiled didn't settle in until then," you wanted to scream at your own idiocy, you regretted snapping at Tubbo more than anything.
"Well then what the hell are you here for, go apologize to Tubbo!" he quickly shoved you in the direction of the portal.
"But Tommy I just got here-"
"No, you aren't allowed to come back until you apologize to Tubbo," he huffed and walked the other way. What he didn't know was how bad the fight actually was. There was no way you could even see Tubbo without crying.
The trip back to the hub portal wasn't different at all, except this time you were more on edge, your mind racing with hundreds of ways this could go wrong. You saw Ranboo and Fundy yelling at each other, but you quickly realized it was just their usual banter.
You had no idea where Tubbo would be. "Hey, do you guys know where Tubbo is?"
"Oh, hey Y/n. I think he's at the docks actually."
"Thanks, Ranboo!" You sprinted past them towards the docks smiling as they resumed their arguing, but your smile apparated along with your speed when you saw Tubbo. He looked sad. He wasn't wearing his blazer, only a shirt and tie. The bee that was resting on his hand flew towards you. Stupid adorable bee.
Tubbo looked behind him to see where the bee went, and his eyes widened. He instantly looked away again. "Why're you here, Y/n?" he tried to sound like he didn't want you there, but really he wanted you there more than anything.
"T-Tubbo, I... I'm sorry, about yesterday, it was out of line, I shouldn't have-"
"Damn right you shouldn't have, that hurt Y/n! You acted like I don't miss him too!" Tubbo being upset really hurt you, especially because you're the reason he's angry.
"I'm trying to apologize-"
"Right! I'm sorry! Get on with your 'apology' then," the way that sentence was dripping with sarcasm pushed you over the edge.
"Tubbo I'm trying to apologize genuinely so if you think that this is fake or forced it isn't I just want to be on good terms with someone I love again!" You were too unsettled to realize what you had said until Tubbo pointed it out.
"You... you love me?" He no longer sounded upset, more relieved, and happy.
"Ah, fuck, shit. No," he looked sad again, and you instantly took it back, "I mean yeah, I do, but I didn't want you to know that, for like, at least the rest of my life-"
Tubbo placed a hand on your shoulder and laughed, "Y/n calm down, it's okay. I love you too."
Your face turned a deep shade of red, "Jesus I didn't expect you to be so forward about it."
"Do you want to stay here and talk for a while?"
"Yeah! Wait, I have to tell Tommy and Ghostbur I won't be back for a while."
"Tommy and Ghostbur? Nevermind. Don't tell them, you'll take like half an hour, I'll die of boredom!"
"Fineeeee. Tommy was right, you are clingy."
"That was just uncalled for Y/n."
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the library.
Pairing: Loki (MCU) x Fem!Reader
Genre: Angst (??)
Warnings: Implied Character Death , Mentions of Loki’s faked death, Descriptions of falling?, Cannon Divergence, Making a bunch of shit up about Asgardian relationships and Asgardians in general? Angst, Bad writing TvT
Summary: In your final moments you reflect on your relationship with Loki and wish that you could be back at the library with him.
Word Count: 1.9k (It’s kinda short TvT)
a/n: I was rewatching Thor and the first avengers movie and this idea popped into my head and I kinda hate myself for writing it :D Also I’m working on Secret Identities Are Hard To Keep, I promise TvT
Falling. You had always wondered what it would feel like going from a height like this. It was almost euphoric, the wind pushing against your back as you fell, carrying your tears up with it. These were your final moments, you knew that, there was no surviving a fall from this height, not even with the strength provided by the asgardian blood that ran through your veins. So you did what most people did in their final moments, reflected on how you got here.
It all started centuries ago, in the golden palace on Asgard, the place where you were raised as a noble, your father being one of the Allfather’s most trusted advisers. Your memory of those years were riddled with the overwhelming feelings of loneliness, your only company being the vast array books in the palace library. You were lonely until the day you met him.
It was a day like any other, your father was tied up in various meetings with the Allfather and other important asgardians and like always you were camped out in the library. Through the years that you had spent here it had become your safe space and in the very back in a small corner was your place of happiness there was a small emerald chaise lounge with just the right amount of light and all of the books you had ever enjoyed stacked up around it. What you didn’t expect was for someone to already be occupying your oh so sacred spot.
He was stretched out on the lounge, his thin form but tall form draping over the edge a book in hand. You knew who he was of course, you were a noble after all, the dark prince, the forgotten prince, the boy that spent his years in his brother's shadow. In all of your 400+ years you don’t think you had ever seen him so peaceful, so you did what you usually did around people, you turned to leave. What you weren’t expecting was to feel the feather light touch of a hand on your wrist.
You looked up your eyes meeting his soft green ones. You wondered how he knew about this corner, about you and your time here, but pushed the thought aside as your gazes locked. There was something there, an unspoken understanding from one outsider to the other. He smiled softly, pulling a book out of seemingly nowhere and handing it to you wordlessly. You smiled in thanks and watched as he left, his green cape swaying behind him. And that was how it started.
You would have expected falling to be something that was over quickly yet it somehow seemed like the longest moment of your life. You knew you were getting closer though, you could see the tops of other buildings now, so as you waited you went back to thinking.
After that fateful meeting your relationship with the raven haired prince slowly started to change, for nearly fifty years the two of you would simply give each other books you thought the other would like, starting off wordlessly and eventually progressing into bigger and bigger conversations until the two of you would spend hours in the library together, animatedly talking about whatever book you were interested in that day, no doubt blowing off countless responsibilities your fathers had begun to place on you now that you were growing older.
It was around a hundred years after your first meeting that your relationship crossed from friendly conversations to stolen kisses and secret meetings. The two of you were around 500 and 600 now, both preparing for your futures. Loki trained to become both a warrior and a king, despite the limited possibility of him ascending to the throne, and you training alongside Her Majesty the Queen and other female nobles, preparing to become the perfect wife and partner for the next generation of Asgardian nobles. Yet you still found time for each other, spending as much time as you could together, only finding comfort in one another.
It was when the two of you hit 900 and 800 that Loki became consumed by his anger. It was in secret of course, as most of his emotions often were, but his emotions were always something you and you alone had the privilege of seeing. By now you and the pale prince were an official couple, Odin and Frigga having blessed the relationship, allowing Loki to court you and eventually allowing the two of you to biome some form of official, not married, but official enough to be allowed to share a bedchamber without getting odd looks.
In the past Loki had always confessed his anger to you, never allowing it to influence his actions, reveling in the catharsis he achieved by ranting to you as you played with his hair, but now, as he watched his arrogant brother become more and more loved by the people, as he watched his brother be promised the throne despite his hotheadedness and obsession with being a warrior, something within him snapped. Now he would yell for hours on end, often trashing your chambers, rather than his usual soft kisses that were full of love, his kisses were messy, needy and full of all the rage he could never show. It was in everything he did every emotion tainted by the anger that masked the true emotion. But you accepted him, every bit of him and so you did what you could. You matched his energy but also reminded him that you were still there, still there to give him new books, still there to play with his hair and still there for him to lean on.
As you fell your thoughts wandered back to the present, you were nearly there, you could hear the screams below, and you could see the chitauri army and the chaos that they brought with them. You could see the faint outline of Iron Man landing on the tower and your thoughts once again returned to Loki and everything that brought you here.
After the exile of Thor and the era of Loki as King you thought maybe everything would stop, the looks and the whispers that everyone would finally stop treating Loki like he was just a liar and a danger, you yearned for and prayed for the return of the Loki you fell in love with. You were distraught when Thor returned, telling you that Loki’s ascension to the throne was all based on lies, that he had been responsible for the frost giants that had gotten in the palace, that he had tried to kill his friends, that he had tried to kill his brother. And that he was now plotting something far worse. Somehow, as much as you didn’t want to, you knew it was true, but despite everything you knew that your feelings wouldn’t change. So you fought Thor, or at least tried, not being able to actually bring yourself to deal any damage to the god, too overwhelmed with the truth of it all, so you ran. You ran back to the place where it all started, back to the library, back to your corner of safety.
You found out he was dead the next day, Thor sought you out to tell you himself, yet somehow there was the nagging feeling in the back of your brain that Thor was wrong, and boy were you right.
It was 2012 when he finally resurfaced, you had spent most of your days hiding from the asgardian population, from the prying eyes of everyone who figured you had something to do with the events of the previous year. You were once again faced with the fact that your feelings remained unchanged for him, that despite the reality of what he was doing, trying to enslave a whole population you would still do anything for him. It was Heimdall who alerted you of his return, but it was the Queen who convinced you to go to him, to try and bring back the love that you had spent nearly 600 of your years devoted to. So you did.
You landed on the rooftop of Stark Tower, admiring the pretty pattern the bifrost has burned into the gravel. It wasn’t long before Loki found you, after all the Bifrost was kinda hard to miss. It was emotional for you, seeing the man you loved after spending so long thinking he might be dead. You approached him slowly, he rushed to you in return, overjoyed at the sight of you, telling you of his grand plan, inviting you to join him, to be his queen, to rule over Midgard with him. It was tempting and for a moment, just a single moment you considered it. But you refused, nearly begging him to stop the madness, to return to you, attempting to reassure him that no matter what you would still be there, that you would still love him despite the things he’d done in the past few years. You told him how that while you didn’t quite understand everything that you could listen and love him, that you would give him everything the world never did. Yet, it was when you looked up into his eyes that you realised that something was truly wrong, that your prince might truly be gone, rather than the normal green that usually stared down at you a piercing blue met your gaze.
You backed up slowly, this was the man you loved yes but there was something else in him too, something that was evil and corrupting, something you were sure would infect you too if you joined him. And it was backing up that had been your mistake, the platform on top of Stark Tower was by no means small but you had simply landed too close to the edge, and as you stepped back you felt nothing and you began to fall.
Loki lunged, moving faster than he ever had, just barely grasping your left hand in time. And you watched as his eyes flickered in between his green and the unnatural blue and that's when you realised, he was scared. But you were slipping and his grip simply wasn’t enough. You smiled softly, knowing what was going to happen next, tears beginning to stream down your face, and with your last words you simply whispered “I love you.”.
You fell, leaving Loki only clutching air, but then he felt something else as his fist closed around the air where your hand had just been. He knew what it was almost immediately and looked down to find the gold band with a single emerald in it sat in his hand. The ring that had adorned your ring finger for the past three years, the proof that despite it all you loved him. And you smiled.
You knew it was the end now, the sound of cars and people louder than before, and you wondered what would have happened if you hadn’t been in the library that day. With your very last moments you imagined yourself on the emerald chaise, surrounded by books with Loki on your lap, playing with his hair as he read to you and you smiled for the last time
#loki#loki x reader#loki x reader angst#loki laufeyson#loki laufeyson x reader#loki x you#loki x y/n#loki laufeyson x you#loki laufeyson x y/n#marvel imagine#marvel x reader#marvel x y/n#marvel x you#marvel#loki fanfic#loki imagine#loki laufeyson imagine
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So Eret wanted to make a difference as a ruler. He wanted to help people, get shit done. But then he realizes that he’s just a figurehead, a puppet for people to blame for all the decisions Dream was actually the one making.
So he says he’s leaving. He throws his crown at Dream and finally tells him where he can shove it.
But Dream just smiles at him, “Did you really think that I would just let you go?”
Then Eret is surrounded by guards and they drag him off to his room and lock him in there. A pretty bird in a golden page.
So he sets out on destroying his cage. He takes a decorative sword to the curtains, the bedposts, desk, walls; anything he can do damage to. He uses a chunk of flint at the bottom of a chest to spark a fire on the sword’s blade and burns all the capes and finery he can get his hands on.
Until all he has left it a couple white shirts and black pants. He only hesitated a little when he throws the red fur trimmed cape into the flames.
By the time the guards see the smoke seeping from under the door, Eret has climbed down from the balcony and is sprinting through the courtyard.
He doesn’t get far. Eret gets tackled before he makes it halfway to the castle gates.
He wakes up in a room with bare walls and all the furniture nailed to the floor.
Back in the golden cage.
-
He makes speeches and smiles at the people with a knife pressed to his side . Every attempt to escape or even think about alerting anyone to the true nature of his position is met with bruises that can be hidden under clothes and threats to his life. The more he cooperates the more often he gets fed so he learns to be the puppet that he is.
As a reward for his good behavior, Dream gifts Eret new crowns and clothes and the privilege of talking to someone who isn’t a guard.
-
Everything changes when L’Manberg explodes and withers are set loose upon the land. Eret wished the same would happen to the rest of the SMP. He wanted to watch this stupid fucking castle burn to the ground with Dream inside it and stand in the ashes
That’s when Technoblade starts hanging around. He’s apparently one of Dream’s allies since he helped with the destruction of one of the greatest thorns in his side.
But Dream never let him get anywhere near Eret. Probably because of his propensity for slaughtering heads of state. Eret almost wished he would so he could be put out of his misery.
Every once in a while he and his entourage of guards would pass Technoblade and Dream arguing, sometimes goodnaturedly, sometimes on the verge of violence.
He didn’t think he imagined the way the self proclaimed Blood God’s eyes lingered on him, gaze unreadable.
It’s been almost a month since Technoblade started hanging around the castle when he’s finally left alone with him.
Dream runs off during a dinner with the three of them. Eret, as usual, hadn’t said a word throughout the whole thing. He never talked around anyone but Dream.
If he ever told them the truth, then the green bastard would just kill them. So what was the point of talking?
“Soooooo” Technoblade drawled, “How’s being the buddy of a tyrant going?”
Eret jolted when the guy addressed him directly, no one talked to him anymore. But he stayed silent. He’d heard it all. The people he met at the lavish balls and events he was forced to attend usually didn’t mince words.
They told him exactly what they thought about him and his supposed servitude to Dream.
“No comeback? No pretty speech? Aren’t you supposed to be a valiant leader?”
Eret snorted and looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time.
“What? Is something funny?”
“We both know how powerless I am. I’m sure Dream’s told you all about my escape attempts.”
Dream had no doubt bragged to his newfound friend and ally about how he had a lovely little king all locked up and compliant.
“Escape attempts? What, does he have you locked up in here?”
Eret just stared at him, blank faced. He had thought that Dream had told him everything but now he wasn’t so sure.
The joking grin fell off the warrior’s face.
“I’ve said too much.” Eret stood abruptly, “He might kill you if he finds out that you know. And I don’t want anymore blood on my hands.
“Guards! I want to go back to my room.”
“Wait-“
Eret leaves escorted by the ever present guards before Technoblade can get out more than a word.
Technoblade tries to talk to him after that, cornering him in hallways and rooms, but Eret refuses to talk to him. Dream didn’t like it when Eret talked to other people too much. Even those he saw as allies.
Eventually, Technoblade leaves the castle; off to do whatever he does when he’s not breathing down Eret’s neck. Things go back to normal.
Sort of.
It’s like talking about his imprisonment renewed a fire in him that hadn’t been lit in over a year. Slowly, Eret starts gathering things, a needle here, a decorative dagger there, until he has enough supplies to get him to the border of the kingdom. All of it safely tucked away in a whole he had cut in the bottom of his mattress.
He even snatches a shirt and some pants from an unfortunate servant who he felt a little guilty listening to searching frantically for their stuff.
-
Eret’s smarter this time. He doesn’t break a window or cause a ruckus. He dons the servant’s clothes and wears a brown cloak with a hood when he calls his only guard into his room and strangles him with a scarf.
Sucking up to Dream over the past couple weeks had paid off so there was only the one.
He’s just walked out the gates when the alarms are sounded and the guards shit them behind him. No one give him a second look. After all, what kind of king wears a commoners clothes?
-
Eret creeps out of the city in the cover of night and sets out on getting as far away as he can from the SMP. He gives L’Manberg a wide berth, they would probably turn him right back over to Dream.
By the third night of traveling, Eret is exhausted and in a snow biome. He hasn’t slept in days and he only has the threadbare cloak that he stole for warmth.
He can just barely see lights of a cabin of sorts ahead of him when he finally collapses from the cold and exhaustion.
-
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I finally got around to finishing the first part of my little three part fic about Steve and Alex meeting for the first time! I haven’t made a name for this part/the overall name for the story yet so I’ll probably edit this later! I genuinely hope y’all like this first part, the other two halves I’ll try to make it as equally long!!!
The quiet still of a nighttime forest is abruptly cut by the ragged breaths of a miner, hurriedly shambling across patches of grass, as they gingerly hold onto their day’s work. They have been mining for hours, as they were in dire need of iron ore to smelt into ingots, after realizing their new rail system was a bit short on tracks. Their short grey boots squelched into the wet earth, as it was pouring earlier in the day before they entered the cave system they have uncovered some time before. The sound of their mining completely droned out the pouring rain as it echoed through the cave system, so they were quite surprised to see that a light mist has settled across the Overworld.
However, they are fearful of staying out late at nighttime, and they mistakenly stayed in the cave too long, as the mineral vein they discovered was quite large and they didn’t want to pass up on the rare opportunity. As they walked without a torch, the miner’s eyes seems to be rapidly scanning the environment that surrounds them. Walking in the nighttime without a torch was dangerous and is quite the taboo, but spending years in near pitch-black conditions has actually made the miner gain a bit of rudimentary night vision, but also in reality, they genuinely believe that using torches will actually attract hostile mobs towards them. Along with the lack of a torch, they actually didn’t have much on hand, only the fresh iron ore they recently mined, their fully enchanted netherite pickaxe, and the worn-out clothes on their back. Even though they’re clearly capable of entering and traversing such a dangerous location like the Nether to the point that they’ve managed to make netherite items, they still have to resort to getting basic ores from the Overworld to craft relatively simpler items. They actually own a fully enchanted set of netherite armor back at their house, but they rarely put it on, fearful that Pillagers might catch wind of their armor and would strike against them for it. They’re fully capable of slaughtering them in return if one of them even glanced in their direction, but violence is something the miner seems to be fully avoiding. The numerous scars that litter across their entire body seems to suggest otherwise.
As they make their way across the seemingly lifeless and still landscape, they suddenly pause to hear the rustling of a tree. Immediately, the miner looks incredibly on-edge, their indigo eyes rapidly darting from side to side, but not faltering. The gears in their mind start to grind at the thought of what sort of mob would be lurking around in such a situation. As they tense their body, they suddenly drop the iron ores to the ground as they swiftly grab the pickaxe from their waistband. The sounds of the iron ore hitting the wet ground cause them to ring across the barren land, while they lie alone in the darkness, waiting to strike against what suddenly provoked them.
Silence.
Expecting a creeper to hiss at them or a phantom to screech, the miner eventually realizes there’s no mob stalking them, as it was the just erratic cold breeze of the night, making its way through the sparse woods. However this did not fully ease their mind, as they discordantly picked up from the still wet ground the iron ingots, as the bits of metal embedded within the stone blocks now gleamed in the dim moonlight. They begin again, shambling across the patchy land, although at a much faster pace, but not enough to be considered running. Soon, off in the distance they can see their home, a building they have spent the last few years of their life constructing and expanding upon. The house’s facade appears quite quaint and small, as if a child drew it, but surrounding it is a plethora of small shacks and storage units, along with a farm that jutted from one of the sides of the house. The miner picks up speed again, as a small smile starts to form across their typically sullen face. The smile is quickly ripped apart, as the deafening silence of the forest is disrupted once more.
“S-SHIT AAAHH-AAAAAAHHHH!!!!!.......”
The miner stops dead in their tracks, softly trembling as the iron ores once again tumble out of their shaky grasp.
“...a...AH!?........ err..er.....eahh ah? ah?.....”
The miner seems to quietly babble to themselves nonsensically, as they whip their head around frantically, trying to look for the source of the scream. They knew of swears, but only of ones spoken in the English language, a typically human language. The chances of a villager knowing, and also being capable of speaking such a term would almost be impossible. Some wandering traders, clerics, and librarians have spoken English words to them before, but usually said them incorrectly or with a odd vocal inflection. The miner trembles once more, as they raise one of their hands to place upon the top of their head, as they try to make sense of what occurred.
“n...nnH....nnnHhn...........aH.....ah! ah!! whh..whIIi.....w-WINNdd!...... w-wuh-wind.. ehhgg..... err.............. y-yeaa..............” as a timid smile forms on their face again, seemingly at ease at believing it was the wind playing tricks on their mind again.
“AAAAGGH!!! WILL YOU DIE ALREADY!!??!”
The shout is cut off by the sharp clang of the sound of metal clashing against metal, as the miner looks completely aghast, frozen in place as their frantic breaths causes mist to form around them. They look across the horizon, knowing exactly where the screaming originated from. They seem to immediately break out of the dazed stupor they were in, hurling themselves into the new direction. Their frenzied loud steps now contributes to the sounds that broke the still of the night, as more metal clashes rang out in the darkness. Mud splatters across their boots and jeans as they run across the land, before suddenly ducking behind a sweet berry bush nearby the source of the sounds, not caring about the thorns now tearing into their hands and arms. They gingerly pull aside some of the branches to peek through the bush, looking downwards on a lower piece of terrain. It seems to be only a few blocks down, meaning that they could jump without the risk of injuring their already previously battered legs. As for why they realized they have to probably make such a jump, they were witnessing a red-headed human going against a pack of skeletons and spiders, who looked as if their luck was running out. The miner seems entranced, but also absolutely petrified at what they’re seeing, as the other human has been clearly shot at with arrows, as one protrudes out of one of their shoulders, as another seems to have broken off in their back.
“IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?! ZOMBIES GIVE ME A BETTER FIGHT THAT YOU LOSERS! HA!!”
The shout and guffaw is followed by the swift strike of their gold sword, slicing and crunching through the exoskeleton of one of the large spiders that lunged at them. As pale blue blood and chunks of spider setae fly away from the large hit, the miner is still fully transfixed behind their dimly lit sweet berry bush, as a discarded torch, presumably from that red-headed person, sits aside it.
They haven’t seen another human being since......... since their earliest known memory. They have spent years of their life along in solitude, fully accepting their fate of being truly alone and never being able to socialize properly with another alive human being. They have stumbled across in their mining endeavors the decaying and crushed remains of other humans, but their bones seemed to be quite ancient or even fully shattered into small shards, further proving their point of them possibly being the last living human in this biome, and all adjacent biomes as well. So to see what was essentially deemed impossible, right upon their own eyes was absolutely stunning, yet horrifying. The miner begins to tremble again, but more intensely as their eyes worriedly dart between what they’re watching and down at themselves, as they try to think of what to do next.
......Should I hop in and help, or would that be too brazen? They seem to be pretty capable of defending themselves and they also have good form, but they’re also pretty injured and the blood that is spreading from their wounds seemed quite big!!! What if another wave of mobs notices them, and they pile on as well? Would they soon bleed out?! Would they get hostile against me, even if I try to help?!? Would they think I was stalking them this whole time!?!?!........
The miner frenetically whimpers guttural sounds to themselves while burying their head into their lap, becoming fully overwhelmed by their own paranoid thoughts. They don’t want their first interaction with another alive human to be stemmed in violence, even if they weren’t the ones who started the fight. Their time to dwell on what to do next was cut short, as the sharp crack of the person’s gold sword breaking in half indicated that they were now essentially dead meat.
“O-oh AH kn-kNULLA!.. AH UH UH...” the redhead says as they begin to panic, as their gold sword was the only usable weapon they had on-hand, as they now attempted to punch a skeleton that was busy reloading their bow. They whiff the punch, stumbling over as the skeleton now hits them over the head with the bow’s lower limb, now disorienting them even more. They soon try to crawl away, still bleeding quite profusely from their wounds, but still not going down without a fight. The rustling of nearby bushes occurs again, with them now wincing, bracing for another hostile mob to come into the fray.
It was not a hostile mob.
The miner bursts forward from the bush, pickaxe firmly gripped in one of their hands, as they effortlessly swipe at the skeleton, absolutely obliterating it’s fragile skull as the pickaxe plunged through it as if it was butter. As bone shards fly away from the hit, the miner shifts their footing to carry the momentum from the hit, to directly pin and gash open the nearby spider that was attempting to lunge at them. As the spider squeals in absolute agony, their cries were silenced by a quick stomp to the head, crushing it as more pale blue blood splatters across the grassy ground. The carnage did not stop as the miner seemed to effortlessly pick off the rest of the mobs, with some of them now attempting to flee the fight, but they were not spared. As the miner now barreling towards the cowardly mobs, the redhead finally laid facing up, looking onwards on what just happened. Now absolutely dumbstruck, they just sat there with their mouth agape, as this being disposes of what was initially fighting them. The way they killed, with such efficiency and violence was...... chilling.
Silence.
The arid still of the night settled in once more, as the miner finished bashing in the brains of the last spider that remained. Their breaths were husky as they straitened out their back, but oddly at the same time, they also looked somewhat composed. Their back and arm muscles flexed tightly against their worn-out clothes, as they begin to look down towards their right hand, still gripping firmly on the pickaxe. It was drenched in gore and pieces of bone, before wiping it off on their pant leg. Their breathing stilled however when they turned around, to see the other human still on the ground, staring back at them in total shock.
“...... y-you...............th-thANK YOU!!!!” the person yelled, as a large smile spreads across their once panic-stricken face. They push themselves off the bloodied ground, now happily walking towards their sudden deus ex machina. They reach out their hands, attempting to give them a handshake before speaking once more.
“T-THAT WAS AMAZING!! YOU! YOU! TOOK THEM ALL DOWN WITH JUST A PICKAXE!!! I WOULD’VE DIED!! THANK YOU!! WHAT’S YOUR NAME!!!!!”
They soon grip the miner’s free hand, jostling their entire arm as they continue to smile gleefully, even with two arrows still lodged in their flesh.
“I’M!! Wait I’m a bit l-loud so-sorry!! I’m just!! AHH I’m Alex!!! My name is Alex!! What’s yours?!”
Their gleeful smile falters a bit however when fully looking at the miner’s face, seeing that they’re absolutely aghast. Also, if they weren’t sweating bullets before during the fight, they certainly were now.
“A-are you okay? Is? Is there something else around us?!.....” they say, as they soon start to survey the dark terrain that surrounds them. Their grip loosens on the miner’s hand, and it is quickly removed before the redhead notices.
“...eRRr............ A-AHh!!............. ssss..........sttt.... stTEEEEVVV.......... HHGHK!!!” was the last thing the miner manages to stutter out, before a large dry coughing fit ensues. The miner backs a few steps away, their hands now flying up towards their throat as their own grip on the pickaxe loosens, it’s metallic ring ensuing at it hits the ground, making a uncomfortable cacophony alongside their pained gasps. Alex looks on in worried confusion, as the miner continues to roughly cough before tears begin to well up in their eyes.
“mmmMhhh!!!........!!!”, they whimper as their face winces from the force of the coughing fit.
“A-are you okay?.... Were you bit?! I’ve heard p-people can have reactions to spider bites, are you o-one of them?”
Their tone was now soft and mellow, not the boisterous and loud tone it initially was, as they attempt to get closer to the miner. They back off, as the miner now realizes their concern and rapidly waves them off. They soon quickly plunge their hands into their jean’s pockets, trying to fish something up.
“Did you drop something? I can look around!!”
“mmhHH!!”
“Wait is that paper? Oh, okay you’re writing in it now?.............. ooooo! I haven’t seen charcoal in so long!!” they say, seemingly amused by such a rudimentary item. The miner begins to regain their proper breathing, as they scribble away on the paper, quickly glancing up from it every few words, looking at Alex in front of them, who is still bleeding this whole time. They soon hand the paper towards them, although their arm is now fully trembling.
“Oh? Okay okay give me a second, let me clear out my throat!..... Okay let me start! ‘Hello, my name is Steve. It is very nice to meet you. I live around here, and my house is just a few blocks down from this spot. I’m very sorry that I cannot speak to you, I am mute. I can kind of speak through my hands, but I’m not sure if you can understand it. Please let me invite you to my home, you are hurt and I have potions of healing and I can construct you a new bed. I’m terribly sorry I had to meet you like this, I hope I didn’t accidentally scare you when I jumped out. I sincerely apologize if I did.’ ...... oh. You’re mute?........ I’m... I’m sorry I tried to make you talk......”
Alex’s voice wavers, as a guilty look spreads across their face, their eyebrows tiling up as they too begin to tremble slightly. Steve notices as they try to say that it’s fine, but all that comes out is more faint guttural sounds. They begin to gesture at the direction their house is in, trying to get Alex’s mind off of their accidental mistake.
“Oh? Well...... I mean like I am in pretty bad shape huh?” A weak laugh comes out of Alex, as they finally seem to be aware of their wounds.
“Go right ahead, I’ll be right next to you!”
“EHH!! Er!!!!” Steve says as their eyebrows fly up, seemingly shocked at the thought of Alex walking in the condition they are in. They begin to gesture towards them the idea of carrying them over there, but Alex shakes their head, showing that they’re still capable of walking on their own.
The two of them stare at each other for a little bit, as a bit of awkward tension forms between the duo. Steve is the first to start leaning towards the path home however, and Alex begins to follow as well, although their small grunts of pain while walking started to deeply perturb Steve.....
#I’m still pretty damn new to writing stuff like this so apologies if I wasn’t that descriptive enough or if the dialogue isn’t that tight!!!#steve#alex#minecraft#mineblr#⬜️
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mtmte liveblog issue 36
time travel arccccccccccccc yessssssssss
I have been waiting SO LONG to reread this arc hhhhh yessss
starting off strong with the sexy roller cover. nice
I love the disconnect of ‘orion pax: outlaw’ compared to the last time we saw him in shadowplay where he was orion pax: supercop
he’s still punching people for JUSTICE or whatever so I guess not much has changed
oh my god this is the issue with the many many two-page spreads...the first time I read this issue I didn't realize that was a thing and GOD I was SO fucking confused. there's already a lot going on in this issue/arc but this made things so much worse hvbhjkdfbsk. I powered thru and still managed to understand most of the arc despite reading half this issue out of order (essentially) bc the website I read it on split the pages up and I couldn't tell they were supposed to be doubled (and also I'm dumb so I didn't figure it out)
anyways, the actual issue...windcharger is out here using his powers to rip a dudes arms clean off. wow!
and there's skids getting punched in the face. Ls
and glitch! a totally minor character of course...
MANNNNN I SO adore the panel of all the lost lighters appearing in a cloud of purple smoke, all posing epically....SO fucking good, peak sci-fi coolness vibes, A++
as usual jro killing it w/the titles, ‘elegant chaos’ is such a great name for a time travel arc
also reading the tfwiki has shown me that many of jros titles are song or album titles, to which I say - that's epic and I love it. with jro doing it, I feel like it straddles the line between referencing music and the very fanfic-esque ‘title things after music’ vibe. I love it
oh god I forgot they use bs cybertronian time units in this sometimes lmao...I mean of course they do but still like, what the fuck is a cycle. is that a day. I feel like these words all have no meaning/the meanings change drastically depending on continuity. I cant keep up and also I'm lazy and don't care enough to try
I love rodimus did u know
poor riptide looks so confused lmao
IS....IS REWIND PIGGYBACKING TAILGATE...THATS SO FUCKING CUTE....I cant fully tell bc of the page layout but ooomg so precious. minibot buddies
whirl saying ‘chuff’ just reminded me how british jro is hvbhakjhdsfbs sometimes it just Jumps Out in mtmte and I'm like Oh God Britain Is Real
I really like the mtmte approach to time travel and paradoxes and whatnot. its just complex enough to be interesting but not too convoluted that it bogs down the story. perfect sci-fi fun!
mannnn chromedome talking abt brainstorm :( I'm sad abt those two hhhhh
and I love how at this point, nobody in the cast ACTUALLY knows brainstorm well enough to know what he’s really doing - including chromedome, who’s ostensibly his closest friend, somebody he’s known for a while - and even the readers don't really know what he’s up to...I like the mystery tbh
cant believe rewind wrote orion pax’s biography, omg. completely forgot abt that detail
cd saying ‘I love it when he talks history’ about rewind....hhhh I love cdrw so muuuuch
godddd the line rodimus says abt whirl - how they need people like whirl around who are ‘happy to get in the way’ of danger and death - that shit haunts me man like...rodimus is basically saying that he’s bringing whirl along to potentially die in place of someone like orion pax (nevermind the fact that whirl dying would ALSO fuck up the timeline)...like, how deep does it go?? is he saying that bc he knows whirl has been trying to get himself killed for a while now, or just bc whirl likes violence? mannn I cant...the character intricacies...man
anyways...I love rodimus he’s such an interesting character. you have that fucked up moment and then in the next panel he’s saying ‘if you want to call it a time phone, I wont stop you’ about the quantum walkie-talkie. he has the RANGE
oh and then rodimus casually volunteering chromedome to do mnemosurgery on anyone who might accidentally find out about them time traveling, which is again fucked up on multiple levels. the raaaaange
vjaksbhdhfusajbfdjk that panel of the lost light squad just standing there like idiots reminds me of that post where someone said abt that panel ‘these characters have a collective 3 brain cells’ or something hvbjadkfnksfdl
rodimus IMMEDIATELY breaking his own rules by trying to reassure pax that they're good guys by pointing at his autobot badge, even tho the autobots DONT EVEN EXIST YET at this point...my boy PLEASE go purchase some brain cells from the store
and the fact that rodimus introduced himself to pax w/his real name...shouldn't he go by an alias or st??? that seems like a good time travel rule since optimus and rodimus definitely know each other later
and like, did they not anticipate that some of the people in the past would recognize some of the lost lighters hgbajkhdjfnjksf like cd and whirl get Instantly recognized...great job guys
they are all SO bad at this hvbahskjdhfbasjkf I cantttt luckily for them the orion crew is handing them easy alibis
‘the dugout’ is that a baseball reference????
also I love the scenery here, the bg looks like rock but there's metal piping and stuff running thru it, its so cool...really adds to the whole ‘cybertron biomes are made of metal’ thing
‘ancient history’ rodimus are you KIDDING ME-
cyclonus time travels to the past and IMMEDIATELY finds a window to stare broodingly out of. icon
tailgate thinking orion pax is SUPER COOL continues here from shadowplay and I love it...tailgate is so cute
and the tg saying ‘don't you think that's awesome, cyclonus?’ hhhhh so cute
one reason I love this arc so much is that this is the arc where the gay Really amps up
TRAILBREAKER.... oh man ;_;
are you telling me that this outlaw base they're in has ONE bed for all of these people. what the hell vhbaksjhfnsal
cant believe rung sampled roller’s steroid juice box
also cant believe robot steroids exist. except yes I can and I love it
oooh roller’s a 0/1%er? I forgot abt that
cant believe orion pax just grabs some random phone that belongs to these weird new people and answers it. WHO does that
goddddd megatron and orion’s conversation....destroy me
HHHHHH like...the HISTORY....the regret...the missed opportunities...its all so palpable....goddddddd
and of COURSE, the whole thing is steeped in tragedy...the ideological differences that will become the foundation for a 4 million year long war...megatron, who believes that you need to burn things down and start again to really make change stick, and then orion, who says ‘reform is the answer, not revolution’....AUGHHH the intricacies. mannnn
‘you sound lost’ 😭😭😭
‘its tragic.’ yeah, that about sums up their relationship, especially at this stage and in this continuity
anyways. [cries about old man megatron talking to young naïve orion pax] goodbye
AUGHHH and then we jump to rodimus ONCE AGAIN breaking his own rules and trying to save trailbreaker...IT HURTS MAN...god I love rodimus, I feel like him being broken up about crewmembers like trailbreaker dying is one part regular sadness over people he knows dying for tragic reasons, and one part personal guilt at someone under his command dying, even if he’s not involved/at fault. I love the dichotomy of this emotional reaction that comes only partially from empathy/emotion, but also comes from a kinda self-centered need for success as measured by people under your command staying alive. and taking into account rodimus’s life it totally makes sense that he’d act like that...GAH I love it. the complexity of it all!
orion pax saying ‘you should read [megatron]. it’s powerful stuff’ I'm screaming, so many LAYERSSSSS
I fucking love time travel AHHHHHHHHH like the opportunity for interactions like these....chefs kiss
‘hey, best friend! miss you!’ rodimus is such a shit hvbdajkfksjhfd
‘very sus’ rodimus ahead of his time w/the among us lingo
oooh and then they realize that the senate is trying to kill the sparks...gotta save the babies!
tailgate scolding cyclonus for bluntly stating that you'd wanna be subtle when killing newborns...hhhvbhsdfhhhhhh I love them sm
ooooh and rewind has an interesting suggestion - that the senate is actually trying to irradiate the sparks into being outliers...rewind is so smart I love him
and the fact that he’s using history from his database...love it
rodimus sending cyclonus and whirl out like pokemon
ROLLER NOOOO DONT GO OUT THERE
also wow this is literally the 5th (I think) double page spread in this issue...the confusion I felt the first time I read this...lmao
and now this is literally one of my favorite issues so I'm glad I know what's going on lmao
oh man rodimus telling cd not to erase trailbreakers memory even tho that could jeopardize the entire timeline... :(
oh man I didn't even notice but roller getting debris blasted into his face like that makes the whole ‘roller is tarn’ theory even more legit considering tarn’s face scars....
‘tighter the better’ hhh don't say that orion. but also, that’s the companion phrase to megatron saying ‘the deeper the better’ hvbhasjkhdfbaksjlf
I do love the semi-campy action hero antics that orion pax gets up to. its just so fun, even when the stakes are high and things are serious
‘this is the greatest thing I have ever seen’ tg ily
THE REVEAL THAT THE SPARKS WENT TO NYON...so rodimus just saved himself, basically...time travel is so trippy
GODDDD ND THEN TRAILBREAKER...HVHHHHHh 😭😭😭 THATS SO CRUEL MAN
oh man that last panel of trailbreaker holding up roller’s juice box...iirc the first time I read this I thought that was roller (cause of the juice box I guess? idk I'm an idiot) so I was like oh ok he must've come back or something. very much related but I didn't really think about tarn being a particular pre-established character and totally didn't read the whole ‘roller is tarn’ thing that was going on
which in my defense ruth also didn't pick up on any of that while reading this and eventually like 2 issues before the reveal I had to prompt her like ‘you should maybe be wondering WHO tarn is’ vhbahjksdfbaksjdf
so! issue 37! this issue is a solid favorite of mine, id say definitely top 5 or even 3. I'm super biased bc I fucking LOVE time travel, it’s seriously one of my favorite tropes ever, and this issue hits all the time travel beats I love. characters traveling to the past and interacting with people they know! conversations that have multiple meanings bc of TIME TRAVEL! trying to save someone who meets a terrible fate in your future! fun time travel action! the time traveling characters being generally terrible at hiding the fact that they're time travelers! ITS SO GOOD.
and I love the clever way everything is tied together here - where we get a nice continuation of shadowplay, with this taking place shortly after that with a lot of the same cast, and time travel classics like the good ole ‘if we hadn't travelled back in time and done what we did, the future we came from wouldn't have existed at all,’ in the flavor of ‘rodimus saving his baby self’ and ‘rodimus NOT saving trailbreaker’ and ‘everyone forgot about roller :(’
ok but like, did the lost lighters just go ‘oh well, guess rollers gone now.’ like they DID realize that the outlaw crew would have no idea what happened to him if they got their memories erased, right?? did the lost lighters figure that since roller never reappeared after this time period, that was how history was ‘supposed’ to go and they shouldn't mess with it? am I overthinking it? as usual: yes, probably. I love overthinking about comics, in case that wasn't obvious
basically...I love this issue soooo much. so so good and a bunch of fun tropes that I love. I mean the whole arc is like that for me since I love time travel so much. so I cant wait to (re)read more!!
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college boyfriend!markhyuk au series: III (donghyuk's pathway)
a universe in which roommates!markhyuk meet each other's s/o in class
markhyuk are roommates, my/n and dy/n are roommates, mark and dy/n take classes together and so do donghyuk and my/n — how will their fates intertwine?
genre: fluff pairings: mark+my/n (fem), donghyuk+dy/n (fem), platonic!mark+dy/n, platonic!donghyuk+my/n format: dotpoint AU universe: non idol, college bf warning: some swearing
masterlist
or click here to meet your soulmate, eng lit!mark!
II ⇤ | III | ⇥ IV
III: 별빛이 내린다 샤라랄라랄라라 (2+2=4)
the meeting of two souls: donghyuk & dy/n
welcome! back and to the next part
in which things actually happen! yay
so. up until this point
it’s been quite obvious i hope
that this is the one where The Soulmates Meet™
and this one right here is the one where donghyuk meets his future wifenew best (not) friend
dammit this is a set plot with SET relationships
yeah
major spoilers for future parts but hey :) y’all know it i know it let’s just.
let’s get to it!!
that day you accidentally sleep in after a late night and walk into your lecture looking pretty trashier than you would normally a few weeks into the first sem and you’re already tired it’s okay bby aww
and mark suggests skipping the next lecture and going for coffee instead
you’re like ok lmfao free coffee for me yay thanks marcus i owe you one
and to make up for the lecture he suggests he join you and your roommate with his own roommate in the library later that day to study the material you’d missed out on
so you’re like sweet study group hell yeah and apparently his roommate is also in biomed like your roommate? hey they might get along pretty well it’d be nice to have roommates in the same faculty hey
little do you know you little cutie you uwu
mark takes you to a cafe to buy you your favourite drink and a croissant bc you skipped breakfast again and he cares about his friends ok plus he was eyeing that donut next to the savoury menu in the glass cabinet and he would have felt bad if he got something to eat and you didn’t
you sit down, sipping your drink at the window seats and wishing your fatigue away
laughing with mark about what you slept so late for
my/n had been ranting about her love life again or perhaps lack thereof,,
don’t worry tho
after you’d gotten her to sleep, you’d gotten major feels for an essay question that you’d been tasked with due in a week but you hadn’t touched it until last night
staring at the prompt for at least half an hour trying to get your head around it and wondering what the hell you’d write about
but like they say
starting is half of it
so when you start spinning your words and getting into the writing mood
you accidentally wrote an entire draft without realising
albeit being full of loose ends and points you need to refine, etc., it was a decent body of work that you’d tackle for a few more nights before turning in
a skeleton, you’d called it
“a skeleton?”
“yeah. next thing i need to do is.. flesh it out”
“.. literally”
cue mark’s small pause
/inhale/
/MANIACAL LAUGHTER/
you know how mark’s laugh is very how do i put this into words hm dictated
you can HEAR each HA and they’re separate syllables yet sometimes they can vary in tone and length right it’s usually the more consistent HAs before he kinda loses it and starts throwing himself around
it was that laugh
honestly man finds everything funny his laughing threshold seems so low
and no matter how unfunny you are he WILL laugh at anything you say
and you’ve been doing it a lot lately
you could say literally any random thing and he’d already be ready to laugh (see Figure 1.1)
Figure 1.1
you: /snort/
mark, already giggling: “what”
you, still sniggering: /touches his elbow/ “arm knee”
mark: /inhale/ gotta live and breathe that oxygen
mark: HAHAHAHAhahAhaHAHAhahAhHa (decrescendo.. cRESCENDO)
^ that but looped, with intermittent slaps to your arm
anyways you never fail to make him fall out of his chair in laughter
but enough of that. dy/n is donghyuk’s y/n for a REASON ahEM
so after you finish up your breakfast at the cafe you go back to your dorm to take a power nap and recharge before your library session you were going to stay awake but mark forces you to take a nap and you’re like bro you just fed me caffeine now you want me to sleep??
then he tells you he ordered your drink decaf
you turn to him real slow
“.. you sick traitor. how dare you besmirch my name so. you scorn my forefathers and our dependence on the holy bean’s juices. betrayal runs rampant in your soul and mine stands at the mercy of your choices, them informed by the devil himself”
mark: /shrug/ “placebo effect yeet. hey, it worked for a bit. now you should really go home and get your sleep”
and he drags you back to your dorm and waves you off before going to his next class
you’re lowkey grateful for it tho when you take a shower and collapse onto your bed, falling asleep in what you think could be half the time you usually take
dreaming about losing your airpods and mark yelling at you to be more careful and then you two fighting bc you’d just lost your $300 bean sprouts but you could have sworn he took them
then police sirens went off out of nowhere and both of you were being arrested for assault and thievery
why you were the one being arrested, you had no idea but it’s a dream nothing follows the guidelines of hard reality anyway
just as you’re about to be handcuffed, you think to yourself, nope. i have a library session to attend. ain’t nobody got time for this shit
and you just
wake up
but the sirens are still continuing?? so you’re like ? is my building surrounded
they’ve come for me
even though you haven’t exactly broken any laws or have you
and you realise it was the alarm you’d set in time to get ready for your library session
so you grab your stuff and leave for the library, double checking with your roommate over text to make sure she was on her way
her lab class was taking longer than usual so she tells you she’ll be 10 or so minutes late
so you tell her you’ll be saving a seat for her and call mark to let him know you’re on your way to the library
“oh i’m already here lol. alright, i’m waiting for you outside”
and sure enough, you see him leaning on the wall of the entrance, eyes on his phone
you consider calling out to him but before you actually do, he glances up and spots you walking over tf do you have psychic spatial awareness mark
smiles and takes his corded earphones out
“you seriously need to upgrade those”
“they work fine”
“nop i’m getting you airpods for your birthday”
“dUdE thEy���RE tOo ExPEnSiVe. nO dUDE NoO”
“nOP. i’m GOING to buy you EXPENSIVE BEAN SPROUTS for your LIFE DEBUT ANNIVERSARY and you CAN’T STOP ME”
at this point i should just put /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/ and you should know what laugh i’m referring to
/MARK LEE’S MANIACAL LAUGHTER/
/MLML/ for short
nvm it’s fine it’s kinda fun to type /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/
literally mark laughs in bolded italics i’m just sad i can’t underline it on tumblr unless it’s a link lmfao
n e ways
i digress
you shush him because you’re about to walk into the library
“qUIET DOWN marcus” turn that sh down for quiet new dawn
the library is almost full for the day but after a minute or two scouring the building you find an empty four seater in the middle of nowhere it’s CRAZY you can NEVER find a MIRACLE like this life couldn’t get better
i’m sorry
you speed walk to claim it even though there was no one else in your vicinity to threaten your territory
mark laughs at you trying to get to the table as fast as you could without all out running
getting out your things, you send a photo of your seat to your roommate and tell mark to send it to his roommate as well so they know where to find you
you start watching the lecture online while taking notes and since you’re not in the lecture theatre you can talk more audibly with mark not that you don’t talk in the actual lecture too,,
maybe you do text a lot,,, during class
mark usually says things like “.. implications of what now?? interpretation of huh?” to which you reply “i want cheese when i get home”
and he has to stifle his laughter while you keep your straight face and continue writing your notes he admires this ability ngl
and so while you’re watching it on your computer
you can say things like “fuck. i want pickles”
and mark will /throw himself back/ and cackle and probably say some shit like “DIDN’T YOU HATE PICKLES??” between his giggles
and you’re like “yeah. fuck pickles but like. fuck. pickles”
he almost falls off his chair at this point
but when he balances himself again he spots someone down the corridor and wave them over
“oii! over here dude”
you turn to glance at them to expect his roommate, but you see your own roommate talking to someone and wave her over as well
“heYY my/n”
you see the other person turn to your roommate and tell her something, , then she says something back
which is apparently shocking to them, because he glances over at mark and then at you
and then he looks again when your roommate points straight at you
to which you’re like ?? hi? y u look me
and then they both start laughing
you wonder if they were laughing at you or smth until mark’s like “tf is that idiot doing”
and u look at him like ? what idiot
“that idiot. the idiot roommate i told u about. the one who called u a homewrecker”
and you’re like
wait
[info clog]
wait
[error]
“wait”
“what”
“that’s your roommate?” u point at the boy next to my/n, who r both still laughing at something going all “wOW r u KIDDING” he has a loud voice
and mark’s like “? yeah”
and you go
“.. the girl next to him is my roommate”
mark: “wait what”
that’s what she said
at that point they’ve made their way over to the table, still trying to hold in their laughter
you start to introduce your roommate to mark, who’s still confused by the situation
you: “mark, this is my/n, my/n this is mark”
my/n: “nice to see you again mark”
you: “wait. again?”
mark: “yeah we’ve met. hi my/n”
you: “what”
mark: “yeah”
my/n: “yeah”
his roommate: “yeah”
you:
you: “i feeling like i’m missing something here”
turns out
surprise surprise
that one friend that my/n had made in her biology class was mark’s roommate oh my god they were roommates
whose name, you are told, is lee donghyuk
magical moment
us watching: heh 🤤
u can’t help but do a lil body scan from head to toe bc he a fine piece of cake we all know that
honey skin, oversized white t shirt, black pants, sneakers and lighter brown hair that looks fluffy the type of fluffy that makes u wanna touch it
yes he’s good looking. yes
yaaaaas
then mark tells him your name
“she’s the one i said reminded me of you”
“r u talking abt me behind my back marcus??”
donghyuk laughs and holds out a hand for you to shake
“what kinda coincidence is this?? i adopt your roommate, you’re dealing with mine”
“oh you’re gonna have to get in line to adopt her, i’m her legal guardian, sorry donghyuk”
to which he goes
“lmfao then we’ll both be her parents”
“k but i’ll keep her on the weekends. you see her on the weekdays”
then he wipes his smile off his face and he’s like “who said we’re split”
mark and my/n are doing the /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/ at this point
mark: “so ,, seriously what are the chances”
you: “this quartet,, it’s fate guys it’s fate there’s no way about it”
yes it is. yes. it is
even that four seater table was free because of fate
donghyuk: “this calls for drinks later. we all free? no 9am classes tmr?”
my/n: “we have a physics prac at 8:30 dingus”
donghyuk: “ah shit”
you barely got any notes for that lecture for at least an hour because you end up talking altogether throughout the session but once you remember you’re in a library to study you request a ceasefire and agree to study for a bit which,, you gotta admit ,, isn’t really productive because you’re so excited to meet someone new
but the best part about the day was when you notice how many times mark is glancing at your roommate while she’s reviewing her notes, completely oblivious
donghyuk complains that he’s hungry after another hour or two and you suggest you all have dinner together
donghyuk leans back in his chair in a stretch, his jumper lifting up a little over his jeans and showing a bit of his belly “ah i’m craving chinese”
you perk up, “mE TOO”
so you all go to your favourite chinese place just outside campus where you find out that mark and my/n have the same taste and so do you and donghyuk
he points and u and goes “oH?”
“jjAMPPONG? U TOO?”
“the ONLY DISH EVER”
mark and my/n: jjajang is fine : )
you and donghyuk: “JJAMPPONG IS SUPERIOR”
give him a bro five with the shoulder bump and everything
the boys walk you and my/n back to your dorm afterwards
donghyuk and my/n end up walking in a pair and mark walks alongside you
mark mentions how it’d be fun if you made a group chat together
you: “do it”
“i don’t have your roommate’s number tho”
you’re smiling wickedly at his reaction “?? ASK HER FOR IT”
“dude what?? no u make one and i’ll add donghyuk to it”
“bRO JUST ASK”
“wHAT NO U DO IT THEN”
so u go
bet
and you call out the two biomed kids walking in front of you
“hey donghyuk! give me your number i’ll make a group chat”
“sure lol” and you open up a new contact to let him type his number into your phone
he saves his name as hot boi hyuk ✌🏻
which you just leave bc you’re busy making the group chat
mark is still astounded that you asked donghyuk for his number so easily
you: hi hello good day
my/n 🌸: yeetus meetus
hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: bow before me
you: here before me lie the beginnings of a new era
you: one born from blood and stone
my/n 🌸: tf is she saying
hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: idk but lets go with it
you: together we rise from the rubble and sort through the debris
hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: yas queen
my/n 🌸: i hate this gc already
you: and we WILL REBUILD THIS EMPIRE
read by marcus the fool 🤡 at 8:21 pm
safe to say you stay up for a good while talking on that group chat while mark just sits idle,,
you honestly don’t know if he’s consciously reading or not maybe he just left his phone on the chat
and thus our quartet is complete,,
and they all lived
happily ever after
but this isn’t the ending tho is it
wink wonk /waggles eyebrows/
this is but the epilogue to the prologue
that doesn’t make sense but n e ways
our quartet has not yet become two pairings
y’all just don’t know what the future has in store for you :)
click here to meet your soulmate, eng lit!mark!
II ⇤ | III | ⇥ IV
taglist: @lavellanfriendliness
shoot me an ask if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!
#dreamwritersnet#kwritersworldnet#neowriters#nct au#nct 127 au#nct dream au#markhyuck#markhyuck au#markhyuck x reader#mark x reader#haechan x reader#donghyuck x reader#mark au#haechan au#donghyuck au#nct college#nct college au#eng lit mark#paediatrics haechan
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Any new “Doctor John” type stories, O Great One?
Hi Nonny!
I certainly do! :D Here you are!
DOCTOR / CARETAKER JOHN Pt. 3
See Also:
Doctor / Caretaker John
Doctor / Caretaker John Pt. 2
New World, Old Words by thedeafwriter (G, 641 w., 1 Ch. || Deaf Sherlock, Sherlock Whump, Pining Sherlock, Marriage Proposal, Fluff, Always John) – It was disconcerting to experience. One second, he was laying on the table, breathing in the gas that would make him sleep, the next, he was dragging his eyes open to look around the bright room, trying to wake up.
Promise of Sussex by LittleLongHairedOutlaw (T, 705 w., 1 Ch. || First Person POV Sherlock, Sherlock Whump, Angst, Pining, Ambiguous Ending) – John tries to keep Sherlock conscious after he’s been shot on a case.
Idiot by Anesthesiologist (T, 1,229 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Alternate TGG / Explosion, BAMF John, Sherlock Whump, Inner Monologue, John Saves Sherlock, POV Sherlock) – What the heck happened? He remembered the pool and Moriarty, but then what? Had he been dying?
Angel by MrsNoggin (T, 1,513 w., 1 Ch. || Winglock, Friendship, Chromoesthesia, Drugging) – John is an angel. That can be the only explanation. A response to the challenging request for a realistic wingfic one-shot.
They’re Taking My Wisdom by whitchry9 (K+, 1,939 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Drugging, Dentists, Friendship, Anxious Sherlock, Humour) – Sherlock goes to the dentist. Of course, being Sherlock, things have to be complicated. Oh and drugs. They’re always fun.
Stay by sussexbound (M, 2,067 w., 1 Ch. || Post TAB, Suicidal Ideation Mention, Implied / Referenced Drug Use, Kissing, Love Confessions, Frottage, Coming in Pants) – “Why? Why did you do it? Hmm…?” He takes a deep breath, waits, lets it out again. “Look at me.” There’s no denying him when he takes this tone. “Why did you kill him? Hmm…? For her? After…” A muscle twitches in the corner of John’s eye, and he clamps his jaw down tightly, swallows and sniffs a little before continuing. “For her? After everything she’s done?” “For you.” Before he can even stop himself. Just like that.
The Rational Machine by Solstice Zero (K, 2,924 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt / Comfort, Malnourishment / Fainting, Doctor / Minder John) – Sherlock passes out. John muses on the reasons why. Containing an absorbing case, two bags of shopping, and a few apples.
Better Late Than Never by sussexbound (NR (T), 3,021 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4 / TFP Doesn’t Exist, Sherlock POV, Love Confessions, Drunk Sherlock / Sober John, John Takes Care of Sherlock, First Kiss, Jealous Sherlock, Emotional Turmoil) – He suddenly wants John Watson out of his bedroom, out of his flat, out of his life, because he has been lying to himself these last few months, he realises. He doesn’t want John here, not with the way things are. He doesn’t want 221b Baker Street to be nothing more than rest stop John returns to on his journeys between women. He doesn’t want to play co-parent if Rosie is going to be snatched away from him and placed in the arms of whatever nameless woman du jour John lands on next. He doesn’t want to keep being so careful, so generous, so, so…
The Oolong Disaster by unicornpoe (T, 4,151 w., 1 Ch. || John’s Beard, Fluff, Humour, Frustrated Sherlock, John Takes Care of Sherlock, Case Fic-ish, Pining Sherlock, First Kiss, Possessive Sherlock) – John has a beard. Sherlock has a panic attack.
Experiment by Gwen’s Blue Box (K+, 4,222 w., 3 Ch. || Non-Con Drugging, Hurt Comfort, Friendship) – Of course John has always known about his flatmate’s irregular sleeping habits, especially when they’re on a case. This time, however, the case is taking longer and longer, and soon John starts to worry. But there’s not much he can do, is there? Because drugging Sherlock isn’t an option. Not yet, maybe, but will it be soon? {{CW: John drugs Sherlock without his consent}}
Welcome Home, John by slashscribe (G, 5,504 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S3, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Awkwardness, Stabbed Sherlock, Protective Sherlock, Panic Attack (Sherlock), Self Esteem Issues, Love Confessions, First Kiss) – When John moves back to 221B, he thinks he’s the broken one, but after a while, it becomes clear that he might not be correct.
He’s Not Paid Enough to Deal with This Shit by janonny (T, 9,828 w., 1 Ch. || Personal Assistant AU || Humour, First Meetings, Snarky John) – One of the first things John did was to write up step-by-step instructions on how to conduct a proper job interview before handing it over to Mycroft for his perusal. There were no kidnapping, deserted car parks or stolen therapy notes anywhere on that list. (Or the one where John returned from the war and ended up working for Mycroft as his personal assistant slash doctor on retainer. Everything was fine, until he was sent to post bail for one Sherlock Holmes.)
And Here We Are by J_Baillier (T, 12,416 w., 2 Ch. || ASiP Fic, Alternating First Person POV, Drama, Friendship, Mild Case Fic, Autism Spectrum Sherlock, Insecure Sherlock, Protective John, Pining, Homophobia, Loneliness, Angst, Humour, Domestics, Morbid Fluff, Kidnapping) – All the little things we never got to see when an army doctor and a consulting detective were adjusting to sharing a flat. And a life.
Shuteye Shenanigans by Ayakae (K+, 13,263 w., 8 Ch. || Post-TRF, Friendship / Epic Bromance, John’s Nightmares, Angsty Fluff, Bed Sharing, Humour, Cuddles, Taking Care of Each Other, Domestics) – John Watson has never slept with Sherlock Holmes. Never ever ever. And never will, thank you very much. Well, there was that one time, but John didn’t count that. It was completely different, just like the second time it happened. And the third. And the fourth. Epic bromance, but it can be read as pre-slash if you wish.
First Response by Arwen Jade Kenobi (T, 13,516 w., 8 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Whump / Injury) – Five times John had to perform first aid on Sherlock and one time Sherlock had to perform it on John.
Pattern Behaviour by SilentAuror (E, 14,835 w., 1 Ch. || POV First Person Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Introspection, Stroppy Sherlock, Light Humour, Friendship, John Takes Care of Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Wall Kisses, Fluffy Angst, Happy Ending) – Sherlock doesn’t even know why he resents John’s dates so much. Until the day he does know. Slight angst, unrequited feelings (but don’t let that scare you off!)
Software Malfunction by tiger_in_the_flightdeck (E, 16,679 w., 1 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Android Sherlock, Love Story, Unhappy Ending, Angst, Suicide, Jealousy) – “You think I can’t love you? Just because you’re made with metal, and detailed programming?” The doctor propped himself on his elbow, and looked down at it. “I am nothing but blood and bone, and tissue. Things just managed get mashed together in a manner that made me like this. Just like you were put together to make you how you are. When I kiss you-” he did so, briefly, to prove his point. Then more deeply, and lingering, because he could. “When I touch you, or smile at you, does it make you feel different from when others have done it in the past?”
Turn Left at the Park by Glenmore (NR (E), 37,409 w., 28 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting / ASiP Divergence, Case Fic, Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Loneliness, No Mary, Possessive Sherlock, Fluff & Angst, Nightmares/PTSD, Sherlock Saves John, Sherlock Whump-ish, Doctor John) – So what would have happened if John hadn’t walked through the park and met Stamford?What if, instead, he walked around the park and just went home?
A Hundred Crimson Sols by elldotsee (E, 55,536 w., 16 Ch. || Astronauts AU || Mars Exploration / Space Travel, Slow Burn, Shy Sherlock, Scientist Sherlock / Biomed Engineer John, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, UST, Angst with Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injuries, Suicidal Ideation, Zero-G Sex) – Will Holmes is a chemical researcher recognized widely for his contributions to the new Mars exploration program. Thanks to his ground-breaking developments, the IMMC (International Mars Mission Corporation) is one step closer to Martian colonization. Will and his team of scientists are headed out on the first of three manned missions before the first group of settlers arrive. Three days before launch, one of the crew has to be replaced. Will panics because…new people. The replacement is of course one John Watson, biomedical engineer and space hottie who was pretty sure he had retired from actual space exploration and was now content to work in the nice, quiet research lab. Can the crew survive this TOTALLY ROUTINE trip? Will they be able to endure each other for the looooooong trip in close quarters? Gonna be a wild ride… prepare for blast off. Part 1 of the SpaceBois go to Space series
The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (CanadaHolm) (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.
Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he’s a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover’s trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world’s highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?
The Wedding Garments by cwb (E, 105,390 w., 36 Ch. || Alternate Future AU || Alternate First Meeting, Dating / Arranged Marriages, Romance, First Kiss/Time, Heavy Petting, Cuddles, POV Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn / Falling in Love / Dev. Rel., Nervous/Anxious Sherlock, Jealous/Cranky, Hiking, Vacation Homes / Honeymoon, Sherlock’s Family, Horny John/Sherlock, Patient John, Massages, Hand Jobs, Assassination Plots, Hand Jobs / Oral Sex, Case Fic, Emotional Love Making, Bath Time Fun) – This is the story of a young consulting detective who wants nothing to do with marriage and an army doctor who wants to find true love. It’s 2020 post-Brexit England and the British government is encouraging arranged marriages. Candidates meet through state-run agencies and date in hopes of finding love (and tax benefits). Sherlock doesn’t need or want a spouse, at least not until John Watson shows up. Hesitant to give in to his more carnal urges because of the way they derail his mind, how will Sherlock progress toward the more intimate aspects of a relationship? The answer lies in a very special wedding gift.
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ok wait I have one more rant abt American Dragon and I swear I’m done, but the whole concept of a ‘leader’ dragon for every country is very.... strange to me
like ok, suspension of disbelief for vague hand-wavey magic, or the existence of magical creatures, etc. fine fine. but the whole PREMISE of the show is built around the concept of an American Dragon-- yet that concept is so incredibly, frustratingly vague. like I said in my original review, I’m willing to excuse a lot for a simple kid’s show that isn’t looking to worldbuild super deeply, but the main premise at the VERY least should have SOME planning behind it
for one, the physical size and population distribution of each country varies WILDLY across the globe, it’s honestly stupid to assign the same number of ‘leader’ dragons (one) to each, and expect each dragon to serve their respective country to the same degree of competence. the US is a fuckin MASSIVE country w/ two states disconnected from the mainland, and SEVERAL different biomes that have contributed to diverse sets of populations (which would likely be reflected among magical creatures as well, culturally and biologically-speaking). it’s ridiculous to expect ONE dragon to serve, represent, and protect ALL those populations
and the thing is, Jake DOESN’T do that! he’s a New York Dragon at best. the only times I remember him helping out w/ magical emergencies out-of-state are when he’s traveling for personal reasons (like visiting family) or when he’s tending to dragon council business, in which case most dragons across the world are gathering there too (not to mention these instances are generally out-of-country)
having a ‘leader’ dragon assigned to a bio/cultural region without even bothering with human borders would make FAR more sense (esp since the dragons don’t even wanna bother w/ the human world anyways, so why are they assigning things based on human constructs??). hell, there could even still be dragons representing larger areas too, so long as it was established that they’re the more broad-scope representatives that must regularly convene with the dragon representatives of the smaller regions under their jurisdiction. this would assure that each dragon is truly an intimate member of the communities they’re assigned to, rather than some outsider intruding on important matters that they simply can’t understand w/o cultural context. this especially makes sense if we assume that dragon forms are magical/psychological projections of the cultural society that a given dragon is raised in, rather than a *strictly* biological body whose traits are genetically inherited (tho like I said in my main review, I’m rly doubtful of that actually being canon to the show...)
now, it would admittedly be p cool if the show took the time to pull Jake across the nation to explore different cultural/ecological regions and the magical creatures within. but that’s expecting a lot from a show that only establishes that Jake is part-Chinese on the most shallow of levels, and fails to explore Chinese culture in any intimate manner beyond ONE(1) episode about the Chinese new year. like, the bar is on the ground, here
and even if some attention had been paid to America’s diverse cultural settings, I’d still be skeptical of Jake being able to handle the whole nation on his own. hell, I’m skeptical of an ADULT dragon being able to handle a nation as huge as the US, much less a tween handling the whole thing. I already take huge issue w/ kid’s shows framing dangerous, mature situations as “normal” responsibilities for children to encounter and just “get over”, as if they’re as commonplace and simple as like, studying for class. so every time Jake is reprimanded for not managing his time properly when he’s running on 10 min of sleep after facing off against angry trolls, or trying to take some free time for himself when he’s missed out on every other chance at a normal middle school milestone, I genuinely seethe w/ rage
at least w/ most other kid’s shows there’s some explanation I can accept for the main character having to go through that kinda stress. like w/ Danny Phantom, Danny unfortunately goes thru a freak accident, and he can’t tell his ghost-hunting parents abt it for fear that they might tear him apart for science or misguided protection, and he decides on his own that he has some responsibility to use his powers for active good (tho DP still pulls the “ghost-fighting is just like balancing school and a social life!” bullshit that I HATE..). or w/ Steven Universe, all this responsibility was thrust on Steven by adults who didn’t understand the consequences of their actions or had no other choice, and Steven’s currently dealing w/ the massive emotional fallout of having his childhood stolen from him
but with American Dragon, like... this shit is PLANNED. the council carefully CHOOSES the dragon for each nation-- these adults have a RESPONSIBILITY to both a whole WORLD of magical creatures AND their dragon subordinates to choose capable, mature dragons to lead the magical world. and for some reason they decide that this responsibility should fall on the shoulders of LITERAL CHILDREN?? who was the previous American Dragon? where the hell are they now? (Neopuff pointed out to me that Jake is in fact the first AD, which is even even more suspect than before! what!!) even if Jake is chosen to be a potential future AD, why does he have to take on that full responsibility now?? why isn’t a seasoned adult taking care of the bulk of responsibilities until Jake grows up??? like I get that children’s power fantasies hit different when ur an adult b/c u can recognize what responsibilities a child shouldn’t have to deal with-- I GET that it’s good to let children explore mature responsibilities in fiction, I’m not arguing that. but these responsibilities should at LEAST make sense in-context, and NO adult should have knowingly thrust these duties on literal children w/o some DAMN good explanation for why they literally CAN’T assign dragon duties to adults. not to mention that the whole, “you’re selfish and need to learn better time management skills,” thing is such an insidious message to direct at kids who should literally only be expected to... be kids? I’m SO fucking mad abt this!!!
and don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that Jake is being trained by the Chinese Dragon, and Haley by the Korean Dragon. like, again, the show establishes that there’s only one ‘leader’ dragon for every nation, and that Lao Shi and Sun are the current dragons of their respective countries-- they haven’t resigned, as far as we know. so like, what happened to China and Korea (and now that I think abt it, which Korea??)? they just don’t have dragon protectors? fuck them, I guess, they’re on their own now? b/c training American dragons is so much more important than protecting their own countries? b/c a Chinese and Korean dragon somehow have better knowledge of American magical communities than the dragons that have actually been living there and presumably been serving those communities for decades (and b/c every Asian country is apparently interchangeable, so a Korean dragon is obviously perfectly fit to understand the cultural background of part-Chinese dragons)? hello???
now I AM at least willing to consider that perhaps the dragon council runs on enough shallow bureaucracy that their predecessors just arbitrarily decided to assign a single, young dragon to each country, and the current council is too stubborn to change that tradition even in the face of its clear problems. like, actual real-life political systems are absolutely fucked, so it tracks that a fantasy political system could be similarly broken. this doesn’t explain all the fuckshit, but it might at least explain some of the fuckshit. BUT none of these problems are ever brought up in the show, so we have to assume that they are somehow, canonically......... not actually problems..... ugh.............
and none of this even BEGINS to tackle the weird dragon monarchy over all magical-kind. like this obviously isn’t exclusive to AD, u see this sorta bloodline-bound authority thing in a LOT of western fantasy media. but the fact that the dragon council seems so utterly incompetent when u pick apart all the above issues, I’m just sitting here like... how have the trolls/elves/merfolk/etc. not guillotined y’all yet? lmfao
-Mod Spiral
#don't get me wrong I still rly love this show. nostalgia's a helluva drug#but this RLY fucked me up while I was rewatching it#like please sir? an ounce of logic for me sir? my family is starving#american dragon#American Dragon: Jake Long#mod spiral#reviews#long post
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STAR WARS EPISODE 3: REVENGE OF THE SITH LIVE-BLOGGING
DEAR GOD IT’S 2 AND A HALF HOURS HERE WE GO. Also just realized I’m drinking from.
- "War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku.” Just once I’d like the opening crawl to be read out by an old timey paper boy shouting on a street corner.
- General Grievous has been mentioned multiple times at this point, have we even seen him??? I don’t think so. Would be nice to get a face with a name at some point.
- Wow, two hotshot pilots faffing about and doing way too risky maneuvers while everyone else around is trying to win a battle I wOnDeR wHo ThEy CoUlD bE
- Obi-Wan hating flying is another thing I continue to enjoy about him. Damn you Ewan McGregor why must you be so likable?!?!
- Hey look at that! They didn’t wait until halfway into the film to introduce a character featured in the opening crawl! And some actually good dialog between Anakin and Obi-Wan? What is this competent filmmaking????
- Wow, this whole rescue sequence isn’t too bad. Good banter, good pacing, good action and comedy. I just wonder what’s going to happen to ruin it.
- Ah, there it is. How is that even quantified? Did his midiclorian count go up? Been taking his vitamin B12 or something?
- Obi-Wan after they get caught in ray shields: “Wait a minute. How did this happen? We’re smarter than this!” Ah, so the memo from episode 2 must have been lighten things up a bit, so Lucas took that to mean make the writing more self-referential. God help us.
- No, if he had then Padme might have made it through the end of the film.
- *Laughter, audience claps. Credits roll*
- See, this banter with Anakin joking with Obi-Wan about saving his skin for the 10th time feels a lot more earned now that we’ve actually seen Anakin and Obi-Wan go through some shit together. We’ve come a long way from that throwaway line in episode 2 when we first see adult Ani and Obi-Wan going to meet Padme. It’s a shame it took Lucas this long to learn how to write this competently.
- Anakin’s reaction to Padme saying she’s pregnant is so genuine and believable. Props to Hayden Christensen, finally given some writing to work with and room to act.
- Yoda: “Death is a natural part of life.” Yeah so are emotions and grief, so why don’t you show your padawans healthy ways of coping with them rather than telling them to avoid attachment and love? God this whole thing is just the dangers of toxic masculinity 101.
- I’m glad we’ve returned to the silly wipe transitions between scenes. I don’t remember seeing any in episodes 1 and 2. It’s a fun flavor to the editing that feels as quintessentially Star Wars as the opening crawl.
- “Why does Senator Palpatine know a Sith legend that is relevant to my fears? That seems awfully suspicious.” -- Apparently not Anakin
- Don’t you hate it when you try a new seed in Minecraft and it’s only got two biomes?
#star wars#live blogging#revenge of the sith#so what are they taking revenge for exactly?#for being on the losing side up to this point?#come on sith get gud#more to come
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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Twenty: A Castle ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina, vulgarity ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]
“So I have something I want to try to build.”
Attention almost entirely focused on a group of mobs he’s found himself surrounded by, Sasuke offers, “Uh...hold that thought...trying not to die.”
“Oh no! You okay?”
“Yeah, just…” Sasuke physically recoils as a creeper goes off. “Went looking for cows, it got dark, and now I’m fleeing for my life across a plain full of monsters.”
Hinata gives a small gasp through her mic. “Um...do you need home cords?”
“Yes, please.”
“Well, I’m at...570, negative 859. I’m...pretty close to my house?”
“That’ll work.”
There’s a solid two minutes of tense silence over Discord as Sasuke works his way back, glancing to his own coordinates every so often. Only once he’s safe at his treehouse does he lean back in his computer chair with a sigh, face in his hands. “...don’t ever let me do that again.”
Hinata laughs softly through her mic. “You all right?”
“Yeah...wore out my iron sword. My armor is…” He checks his inventory. “...not great. Ugh, I’m gonna have to go mining again…”
“I have spare iron, i-if you want it.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I need more resources all around, so…” He busies himself sorting his small pile of spoils into his chests. “So, what were you saying?”
“...oh! I had an idea for what I want my actual base to be.”
“Oh yeah? Tired of your little hut?”
She makes a small sound of disapproval. “It’s a little...crowded.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed. So, what’s the plan?”
“I want to make a castle.”
“Whoa, fancy. And kinda cliche, isn’t it?”
“Shush. I’ve never tried to build one before, so...I thought it might be cool.”
“Gonna be kinda hard to build in the jungle, right?”
“Yeah...I think I’ll move to the plain biome just south of you instead. Cuz yeah, um...otherwise I’ll have a lot of t-tree clearing to do.”
“Gonna take your pandas with you?”
“Of course! I can’t just leave them!”
Sasuke grins. “Just kidding. You got enough stone for this?”
“I’ve been strip mining a lot, yeah...and turning it all back into smooth stone.”
“Oh, wow.”
“It’s been a process,” she admits with a laugh.
“You need any help?”
“I d-definitely wouldn’t say no.”
“Well, I’ll do my strip mining, and whatever stone I get, it’s yours.”
“Thanks!”
“I’d offer to help build but honestly I’m garbage at it. My treehouse looks like a six year old built it.”
“It does not!”
“Uh...yeah, it does.”
“Well...you could look up tutorials online. There’s lots on Youtube!”
“Not sure my pride could stand for that.”
“Oh, boo. Tutorials are fun! And you can always make changes so it’s not an e-exact copy. I watched a few castle ones to get ideas for mine.”
“Well that’s different. A castle’s a lot more complicated than a tree house.”
“Well...I can help you, if you want.”
“You sure?”
“If you’re gonna help me with mine, it’s only fair! Right?”
“...I guess so. Anyway, I’m going mining. Lemme know if anything happens topside.”
She gives a short snort. “Okay. I’m gonna work on the outline.”
“Have fun.”
The pair slip into a companionable silence that stretches nearly half an hour. Sasuke blinks owlishly at his screen as he makes yet another strip mine beneath his base. Once he’s got a solid array of resources (even some diamonds), he rubs at his eyes and asks, “You done up there yet?”
“Almost! Find what you were looking for?”
“And then some. Heading back up now. I’ll have to come check out what you’ve got done.”
“It’s mostly just the outline...and it’s not anything r-real big. I mean, this is survival, not creative…”
“I’m sure it’ll be great. Gimme a minute to get stuff smelting and I’ll head over. Oh, and I’ll bring all the cobblestone I ended up with.” Back up the stairs he goes, throwing ores into furnaces and other valuables into a chest. Once his inventory’s clean save for the stone, he follows Hinata’s directions to what will soon be her new abode.
She’s bustling around, placing her first layer of blocks and...wow. Even just the guide to where she’ll be starting looks impressive. He can already see how the rooms are laid out, the entire shape dynamic and interesting.
He’d probably just make it a box…
“Oh! Hey - what do you think?”
“I think it looks awesome! Oh, and here’s the cobble…” Opening up his inventory, Sasuke dumps out several stacks of the stuff. “You got enough coal?”
“Mhm. Thanks!”
“Sure. So...wanna give me a tour?”
“Well, it...it’s not really tourable right now,” she replies, tone a bit awkward.
“Dunno what room will be what, yet?”
“Well...sort of. But there’s gonna be three stories, and -”
“Holy shit, really?”
“Y-yeah! Well...not the whole thing, but the tallest parts will! So...I’ll give you a tour when I can actually, um...show you all of it…”
“Sounds fair. So you need anything else besides stone?”
“Um...well, I’m still working on sand for the glass...but most of it’s just going to be stone. Oh! I do need some carpet.”
“...carpet?”
“Mhm. You, um...you make it from wool! But I haven’t found any sheep to shear yet.”
“I can do that. Maybe I’ll have more luck with them than the cows.”
That earns a snort. “Yeah, don’t...don’t do that again.”
“...should we make a farm?”
“W...we…?”
“I mean the only animals we have are the pandas, and cute as they are...they don’t do much, right?”
“Yeah, true...um…” There’s a pause. “...I guess so?”
“Okay. I’ll see if I can lure some unsuspecting farm animals back here.”
“Just be sure you do it before it gets too late. No more mob chases, please.”
“Nahhh, I’ll be fine.”
He heads back to his base, crafting new gear with his new stacks of iron. Last thing he needs is to be swordless and have his armor break on him. One handful of wheat later, Sasuke starts scouring the plains for the mobs in question. “How many sheep do you need?”
“Well...I guess we can start with two…? And just breed them up from there. But the more you find, the better! Then I can just use some dye to get the color I want.”
“...okay.” A minute passes in silence, and then, “Heyyy, there we go. Come on, guys...you’re coming with me.”
The pixelated sheep are drawn to the wheat like flies to honey, and Sasuke starts slowly making his way back home. “Why are they so slow?”
“They just...are?”
“Ugh, and why do they get distracted so easily...guys! Over here!”
“You have to stay close!”
“I know, but -”
BOOM!
“...Sasuke?!”
No reply.
Blinking at her own computer screen, Hinata freezes. “...uh -?”
“The creeper...got...the sheep.”
“...oh no…”
“...good news is, I have three pieces of wool for you now.”
In spite of herself, Hinata starts giggling...and then full-on laughing.
“What?”
“I-I’m sorry, I just…!” More laughter. “I...w-was not expecting that...and…”
“Yeah, yeah, ha ha, Sasuke’s always getting his ass kicked by monsters...very funny.”
“Nooo, that’s not what I -!”
“I’ll go find some more stupid sheep.”
“M-maybe you should...wait? It’s about to get dark?”
A long pause blooms. “...I hate this stupid game.”
“No you don’t.”
“Okay...I hate creepers.”
“Everyone hates creepers,” she replies, giving another giggle. “Come on - you can help me p-place more stone in the meantime, okay? Or...we could work on your treehouse if you want.”
Sighing, Sasuke glances to his computer’s clock. “...I should probably work on my pre-calc…”
“Ooh...that sounds rough.”
“It’s not too bad. But I think I need a break after the sheep slaughter…”
Hinata breaks out into more laughter. “I’m sorry…”
“Not your fault.”
“Those p-poor, innocent sheep…”
In spite of himself, Sasuke snickers. “Well...guess we’ll try it again tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I’ll go with you. You herd the sheep, and I-I’ll take care of the creepers.”
“Sounds good. Maybe in a month we’ll get your castle finished.”
“Oh, it won’t take that long.”
“With me helping? It will.”
She laughs. “...goodnight, Sasuke.”
“Night.”
.oOo.
(This is a sequel to days 253 and 283!) More of the very random...Minecraft verse? xD I don't know why this of all things is turning into a series, but...I guess it is. Anyway, I'm TRYING to catch up a bit, hence doing this in the middle of the day compared to my usual late-night writing. Sorry for falling yet another day behind - my typical writing time was interrupted by a major headache and a joint acting up, so I gave in and slept a little early. I try not to whine in the ANs too much, but truth be told most of the time I fall behind is due to pain-related stuff and just conking out for bed early, whoops ^^; But I'm HOPING I'll be able to fully catch up by the end of the year. It just...depends. And if it goes over into January, well...that's just how it is. I'll finish one way or another, it just might take me more than 365 days xD BUT, back on topic, poor Sasuke...he's just not very good at the whole 'avoid the badguys' part of this game, haha! Hinata might come to regret asking him for help... Anywho, I've got some other stuff to tend to, but hopefully I'll get at least one more entry done today, we'll see how things go! Thanks, as always, for reading~
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Cube World’s Release
Okay so, just uh, holy shit. Firstly, I actually made another blog post in the span of a month. And then, Cube World is actually coming out! This is a game that I have been waiting for since I purchased it back in 2013 at the ripe age of 11 years old. I’m now a teenager in college, and the fact that I finally get to play something that I’ve been waiting for since I was a child is pretty mind boggling. However the thing that really stings about this release is the fact that I said I was going to be doing a Hat in Time video after A Short Hike.
Yeah fuck that
I might be doing an entire Cube World video given just how ready I am to play this game. I have pretty strong confidence that it’s going to be good (given how the alpha was already good, just basic). And the fact that I am going to get a steam key for this game means that I will be able to play it from day 1. But I cannot entirely guarantee that I will put out a video on Cube World as that mostly comes down to how much I have to say about the game. I also don’t know what kind of video it’s going to be, it could be a review or a critique, or it could be an entirely different video altogether. We’ll simply have to see, and if it comes down to the worst, I can always write a blog post about my opinions.
Seeing as it’s coming at the end of this month or sometime in October, I still have plenty of time to put my Short Hike video together and push it out to youtube. That is still in the works, I’m currently in the audio cleanup/editing stage (the worst stage in my opinion) and once that is finished I believe the editing process should go by quicker. A problem with these videos is my audio quality and while it’s something that I’ve tried to clean up a bit, it’s not going to be perfect and frankly it would be too strenuous of a task to make it so. The better audio will be coming around Christmas time, which could be before or after my next video.
The biggest problem about talking about this stuff however is that my mind is always bouncing from one place to another, and so something could come up that puts my Short Hike video on hold or possibly pushes me to work on another project. Hell Cube World has entirely pushed me away from the idea of making my Hat in Time video. I could tell you that I have several ideas for blog posts I could put together, but then there’s a certain level of commitment to it that I don’t always have towards my projects. I’ve also been contemplating whether or not to make more relaxed gameplay/highlight videos for my second channel just so that I can feel a little more productive than I actually am. However I don’t really know if these videos would pay off or even be worth making. These are some of the problems I’m currently facing. But things are coming together, and that’s just the compromise that I have to make in order to put this video out in a timely manner.
As for Cube World, I will be playing a lot of that and will make a point to put something together for that. I’m really hoping that Cube World becomes more goal oriented so that players can better direct themselves in the game. In the alpha there was no quests or really even direction for what to do which doesn’t exactly get the brain going for those who want to play the game. In fact, looking back on it, the alpha was really bare bones with only so much to do before you just got bored. You geared up to raid or kill spirit bosses, actually did the raid or spirit boss, then you geared up for the next venture, etc. for infinity. Outside of that there was basic item trading and pet taming, but frankly I found pets outright useless in the alpha due to their rather lackluster AI. It was generally a game you could only play for a couple of hours before just putting down. Alongside that I found it somewhat difficult to leave the starting biome due to the slow leveling process and really just being afraid of straying too far from safety due to the lack of fast travel. Fast traveling appears to have been added in the full release however, and hopefully quests will encourage players to really explore the environment. Ultimately I really hope Cube World is a game that I’ll be putting a significant amount of time into.
I really fear trying to chime in with what the game should and shouldn’t have because having certain expectations can really kill your mood for a game. And while I believe that Wollay is in good faith (since he spent 6 years finishing Cube World) there is always the possibility that Cube World could be complete crap. It happened with Destiny, it happened with Lethal League Blaze, it happened when I realized that I wasn’t getting another update for the alpha. So I’m going to try my absolute hardest to keep my brain clear of any anticipation, hype, or extravagant expectat-AAAAAAAAA. Okay. Okay I’m fine, I think. We’ll get there. Only a couple more weeks, maybe a month… Maybe it’ll get delayed…
Until then I have a video to edit. There is almost no reason why this video shouldn’t be out before Cube World releases, and if it is, I guess I’m not playing it until then. So yeah, over a year after my last video, several projects down the drain, it has come full circle and I will hopefully have more videos to come. I’ll also, uh, try to post more stuff here.
-Count_
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A Little Bit About TF2′s Recent History
In that last TF2 post I reblogged, these were the tags:
I feel like explaining a little because I just took my meds and thus feel like rambling about something
So, the most recent major update to TF2 was the March 28th, 2018 Patch, AKA the Blue Moon Update. The date in the name does indeed reflect the day it was released. It came with a ton of major bug fixes for bugs the community had been complaining about (some of them being new bugs from the previous update, some of them being particularly obnoxious bugs that had been around since the game was first released in 2007), as well as a ton of fairly popular balance changes and updates to the way Competitive Mode works.
The previous major update before that was the Jungle Inferno update, AKA the Pyro Update. It was released October 20th, 2017. It came with a whole new environment for maps, the Jungle environment (and new environments don’t come out often- when the game was first released, there were only Desert-themed maps, and maps leaving that particular biome didn’t come out for a while), and more importantly, it came out with a ton of balance changes, some basic changes to the way the Pyro class played (combined with the Blue Moon Update, the Pyro was basically “fixed” from its previous broken state), and new weapons for the Pyro (new weapons are probably the rarest kind of addition to TF2 these days, because the existing approximately 160 weapons (not counting reskins) are constantly getting revamped and rebalanced). Oh, and it also completely overhauled the “Contract” system that had been introduced in 2015′s Gun Mettle update and had been the central focus of every TF2 event since (this event was intended to end in March 2018, but it technically never actually did end- you can still do that event’s contracts). This update was so hyped up that the playerbase peaked higher than it had in years once the update actually dropped.
And the previous major update before that was the July 7th, 2016 Patch, AKA the Meet Your Match Update, which officially introduced Competitive Mode (and a ton of balance changes), revamping the way you join games and the way the UI categorizes things.
Now, that’s currently a pattern of one major update a year. And we have gotten other updates, mainly minor bug fixes and localization updates. That might not sound too bad.
But remember, Overwatch- TF2′s main competition- has gotten way more updates than that, and until Meet Your Match, we got more updates than that. The previous update before Meet Your Match was December 2015′s Tough Break update (which featured an event that lasted until March 2016), and before that it was June 2015′s Gun Mettle update (which featured an event that lasted until September 2015), and so on.
And now you’re thinking, “Well, why was the wait for the Pyro update so ‘cute’ when it took a little over a year, and it’s been a little over a year since the Blue Moon update? That’s the same amount of time!”
The thing is, we knew the Pyro update would be coming the moment Meet Your Match was released, because we actually voted on it. The TF2 team asked us whether we’d prefer a Pyro-focused update or a Heavy-focused update first (they heavily implied that the loser would still get an update, just not as soon), and Pyro won the vote. And afterwards, while we didn’t really get many updates, the TF2 team kept us in the loop, releasing proposed balance changes, constantly reassuring us that it was on the way, et cetera.
We’ve had radio silence since the Pyro update came out. Even the Blue Moon update- the reason it’s called the Blue Moon update is because it came out of nowhere. People just logged in on March 28th, 2018, saw that the game had updated, and thought, “Oh, the game updated. Probably just minor bug fixes and localization upda... oh, holy shit, that’s a whole ton of balance chang- COMPETITIVE MODE ACTUALLY WORKS NOW?! FLAMETHROWERS FINALLY MAKE SENSE!?!?”
So, it actually feels like a much longer wait because there are less signs that the next update is actually coming. Not that I blame the TF2 team- while Valve as a whole is pretty soulless, I’ve got faith that the TF2 team specifically does actually care about the game and the community. They’re probably underfunded, too, considering how Valve has kinda made it clear that they don’t really give a shit about working too hard on games. But, it does make things feel pretty bleak.
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Day(s) 5/6 - Iquitos-San Rafael- Iquitos again - In Which I Live Out My Genuine Nightmares
This is going to be a very special (and very long) double entry, because a) the following two days were largely spent doing the same thing b) I am so far behind with this blog that cramming two entries into one seems like perhaps the only way I will ever be able to catch up and c) I didn't really sleep enough to properly separate the two days, anyway, so functionally, they really do count as one for me.
I remember being in no more than primary six or seven, when a man came to speak to our class about the Amazon rainforest. I don't remember who he was or why having a guest speaker tell us about the jungle was particularly necessary, but I do remember in vivid detail the things he told me. More specifically, I remember the things he told me about all the things that could - and most likely would - kill, maim or otherwise damage me, should I ever be fool enough go. Poison tree frogs that can kill you with a single touch, spiders as big as dinner plates that'll snatch your toes right off you, jaguars, scorpions, snakes, wasps, venomous ants, millipedes and even trees; the list went on seemingly forever and I distinctly remember, even at that young age thinking, very firmly to myself “fuuuuuck that.” - except probably a bit higher pitched. More recently, I remember being in Budapest zoo (an excursion featured in this very blog) and there being a very big sign at the entrance to their Amazonia exhibit, describing the area as simply “the green hell”, for much the same reasons. Both of these things have stuck with me for more than twenty and more than five years respectively and, to be honest, did combine mentally to rather put me off ever going to such a horrible, godless locale. It seemed almost unreal, almost like a fever dream, then (Not least of all, because I actually was running a fever, still being fucked into a paste as I was, by my jungle flu.), as I loaded my bags into the back of a tiny little tuktuk motor-taxi, to be whisked away to this nightmarish place, which I swore I would never visit, for actuals and reals.
Before that though, I had a tuktuk to ride. These little things are basically the only way to get around Iquitos, other than a truly abysmal bus service, or just owning a bike; cars are essentially a non-entity here, being very difficult to actually transport over from other citites as they are, as Iquitos is entirely inaccessible by road. They're also quite fun – the tuktuk taxis, that is- I have to be honest, however not-in-keeping with the tone of this blog that statement is. Riding one is sort of like being the terrified non-player-character passenger in a Grand Theft Auto taxi driving side-mission, as your driver weaves carelessly through a sea of other motorcabs, paying no heed whatsoever to the rules of the road or the safety of pedestrians, hoping against hope that they don't lose interest in the task at hand and drive you off the edge of a cliff, or into a deserted field at night, to shoot you in the head with an AR-15 and take all your money.
All too soon though, we were ejected from our mental little death-wagon and ushered into a sort of garage, that appeared to be serving as the headquarters of Maniti Expeditions; the company that was due to take us jungle-side.
We took a seat and waited while the other members of our tour filed in. As it turned out, we were rather a small group. We were joined by a family of Pakistani-Americans from New Jersey, a Portuguese man, who I think was called Pedro, who was nice, though verging dangerously on the pretentious, and, of course – because apparently there is a God, but unfortunately he's just a bastard – the Indian couple from the night before. Of course they were there. Of course they were. Also, it turned out they were actually American, so that made my accidental racism one degree worse than it had even been before. Whizzer.
After a brief interlude wherein a man, whom I did not realise had just wandered in off the street, handed me a torch - which I assumed was just an extra they gave you as part of the tour, but after some time and a lot of him refusing to let me hand it back to him, realised he was trying to sell me, for a frankly ludicrous price, resulting in me having to physically force the thing back into his hands while shouting “no gracias” as politely, yet firmly as I could - we were loaded on to a shitty, rickety old bus and sent towards Bellavista Naney port with our new guide. His name was Alfredo.
Alfredo was, as you might expect a jungle tour guide to be, an interesting chap. He was a short, sturdy, sixty-five year old man, sporting a Peruvian national football shirt, a pair of quite small shorts with sailboats printed on them, a camouflage backpack with a Cannibal Corpse patch poorly sewed onto it and one hell of a coke-nail. He told us, also, not long after we had met that he had been doing Ayahuasca, that traditional Peruvian mind-fuck broth for the last fifty years or so of his life. This was our expert. This was the only barrier between ourselves and definitely dying at the hands of a cruel and dangerous jungle. A junkie death-metal-head. Great. (though, to be totally fair to Alfredo, he was only about 20% as fucking weird and unreliable as this description makes him out to be. In reality, he was very knowledgeable, friendly and really, clearly cared a lot about making sure we were all safe and happy. He was both a top lad and a ruddy good bloke)
We were rushed through Bellavista port by Alfredo, stopping only briefly to marvel at the culinary delights the small port had to offer
Like these buckets full of fucking grubs, for some reason. Apparently they taste just like butter
and before we knew it, we were boarding a small, rickety boat bound for jungletown in the least official looking dock I had ever been to.
Pictured: Not a dock
Just as I was going to take my seat, something pale darted across the corner of my eye. I quickly spun to face the movement and there it was, sitting, bold as brass, right next to where I was about to park my – frankly 10/10 – arse was a massive, white spider, about the size of the palm of my hand, staring up at me, human blood dripping from its fangs, hissing threats in some esoteric spider-language. Fortunately, I was too fucked with the flu to have any energy left to make a fool of myself by panicking and so, instead, quietly just moved down the boat, screaming myself hoarse inside. Alfredo, then noticing the spider himself, then scooped the horrible thing into his hands and very softly deposited it off the side of the boat as if it was nothing, thereby tacitly making a total bitch of me for being so scared of it. Thanks Alfredo. Prick. Fortunately, though that seemed to be the only spider that had snuck on board, as I remained unbothered by any of its kin for the duration of our (very long) boat-ride up the Amazon river.
The boat ride was, despite my malady and my intrinsic fear of ever being submerged in the Amazon river, for any amount of time and for any purpose, fairly incredible. The river is bizarrely fascinating to be on, even when nothing of any interest is happening, and once I had gotten over my terrible, terrible fear of the boat capsizing, or a piranha flying out of the water and biting my face, I settled in to really quite enjoying myself. Alfredo's talk about the river, much like the thing itself, remained interesting, even at points when he was pretty much just babbling a load of shit about nothing, and a conversation with the father of the Pakistani-American family (who was every inch the spitting image of a brown Todd, from The Last Man On Earth) revealed that he, too, was something of an absolute delight. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad, after all.
We eventually pulled in to San Rafael, the little community adjacent to our lodge and, after veeeeery fucking carefully removing myself from the boat, we walked for about ten minutes through very nearly actual proper jungle
Aaaaaah!
seeing some wild tamarins on the way and everything (which are apparently very rare to spot in the wild, so that was neat). By this point though, the heat was almost unbearable and lugging around my heavy backpack with a swirling vortex of fluey malaise sucking me ever deeper into its terrible maw was really starting to wipe me out. Before long, though, we arrived at the lodge, which was really quite nice, though perhaps a little too similar to the Others' village in Lost, for me to be totally comfortable in.
Delightful, yet sinister, like if Ted Bundy could make balloon animals
I quickly scooted off to dump my bag in our... fairly modest room
Hey, cool, I’m definitely going to die here.
before, with little to no chance for me to rest, being dragged straight back out for a short taster walk, into the actual and for reals jungle.
The walk was definitely an interesting, if very tiring excursion, especially for a gross, snotty flu-man, which I very much was. I think, though that it was largely the novelty of being in a new biome that really did the bulk of holding my attention, as, presumably due to the lovely, but very loud and panicky American family's constant hoots of fear, we didn't see a huge amount in the way of wildlife. Especially not anything that might bite, poison or constrict you. Still, though, it was quietly quite comforting to not be the most scared person there. Grow up, Americans. God.
Around half an hour later and fifteen pounds heavier in mud caked to the bottom of my shoe and trousers, we returned to the lodge for a surprisingly nice lunch of mashed potato and beef. I couldn't really enjoy it, however, as my sinuses were full beyond bursting and the room was spinning horribly around me, as I ate. We were given, mercifully, around an hour to relax before the next part of our tour, which I spent soundly asleep, not even caring that spiders could and probably would be crawling over my exhausted, broken body as I did.
The nap turned out to be a good choice. I awoke feeling slightly more human, albeit by the scantiest margin possible. It wouldn't have mattered if I was literally dying though- I'd still have gone on the next bit of the tour; was I fuck missing a trip to Monkey Island, under any circumstances.
We boarded the boat once more; one tour member lighter - in the form of Pedro who had decided to go off with another, different guide to camp in the jungle for a night, though with the new addition of Karl, another American man and weird lookalike of his namesake Karl Pilkington, arriving late - and were away to Monkey Island. Fuck yes we were away to Monkey Island.
Monkey Island, as its name suggests is a rehabilitation centre for monkeys who were rescued from the black market's pet trade, and that's all brilliant and everything, but jesus christ, it was just a little patch of jungle with all friendly woolly monkeys running around and, jumping through trees and tumbling around and playing and coming up to you to hold your hand or climb onto your shoulders and it was everything I have ever wanted and I don't expect I will feel joy like I did while being there, ever again. Or any sort of joy at all, to be honest.
L O O K A T T H E M
It was so good that for around the hour and a half we were there, I basically forgot I had the flu. That's how good it was; it was good enough to override my body slowly shutting down through fatigue and illness, like a lemsip for the soul. It was genuinely fantastic; the only thing that marred the experience, even slightly was the American family being a bit too loud and overbearing, pushing to the front of every experience, and so taking all of the monkeys' precious attentions for themselves, for the vast majority of the time. I suppose it can be forgiven of people for being a little over-excited about a god damned island full of monkeys though, so for once, I will bare no grudge against them. But let it me known, if anyone physically comes between me and a monkey, ever again, I will cut a bitch.
Way, way too fucking soon, though, we were pulled away from Monkey Island, in much the way its inhabitants were pulled away from the still-warm corpses of their mothers by poachers (...too dark?) and loaded back onto the boat.
We returned to San Rafael and, by this point, a combination of the heat, the flu and not being allowed to spend literally forever on Monkey Island in a perpetual state of utter bliss had ruined me. I badly needed a nap, again, for fear that if I did not take one, I might actually die, but alas, I was not to be afforded such a simple pleasure. Alfredo informed us, once we were back on land, that we'd be heading out into the jungle again, for an hour long night-walk to look for spiders and shit. I couldn't think of a more terrifying sentence for him to say, to be honest, but I decided that was probably actually quite unlikely that I was actually going to die and it would be quite an experience to miss out on if I just spent the time asleep in the relative comfort of my room, and so, like the solider I am, I nutted up and just did it.
I've genuinely had nightmares about being stuck in the jungle at night. If you'd have asked me a week ago to describe my top most terrifying real-world scenarios I'd never want to be in, that probably would have ranked in the top three. Actually experiencing it, however, really wasn't all that bad. I don't know if my mind and body were just too mangled to process exactly what was happening to me (I do remember spending a lot of the time, almost asleep on my feet, not fully knowing where I was, but being quite convinced that I was in a forest in Scotland), or if the lovely, but loud American family had just spooked all the dangerous animals in a fifty mile radius away with their unforgivably loud hollers and yelps, but I didn't find myself feeling at all anxious, or frightened, or...anything, really. It was just something that was happening to me before I could sleep.
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Although in retrospect, it looks fucking terrifying
The walk progressed slowly, with little of interest being spotted, other than a couple of (admittedly pretty sick) stick insects and apparently an opossum (although I didn't see it, myself) and seemed to be winding down without incident. Then, ten minutes or so from camp, Sam's left leg stated burning. Panicking, she told Alfredo what was happening, who traipsed back to her, lifted her trouser-leg and saw, to Sam's horror, but his own light amusement that a not insignificant amount of fire-ants were swarming around her calf. Apparently she had stomped her little stompy feet through their nest and was now paying the price for her murderous hubris. Alfredo swatted the ants away as best he could and we continued walking (or in Sam's case, badly limping) back to the camp.
Once back, we ducked back into our bungalow to make sure neither of us had any more of the nasty little fuckers on us, which thankfully, we did not, and everything was great,forever. The End.
Nah, just kidding; we had an entire fucking colony milling around our socks and lower trousers. We very quickly and with very very little dignity, stripped our khakis off in a bit more of a girlish panic than I'd honestly like to admit, shook the ants free from the trousers, outside and just straight up binned the socks like the unwearable garbage they now were. When we were absolutely sure that we now ant-free (which took so much more time and energy than my body could realistically spare), we headed to dinner; another fairly nice affair full of chicken legs and mashed potato, so I'm told, at least. Genuinely, I don't know, I was so far beyond physically okay that the entire thing really was a bit of a blur for me. I do remember being given a pill by the Indian couple, which they claimed was a combination of painkillers and muscle relaxant and which knocked me out almost as soon as I returned to our room. At least I was too sick to care about spending a night in the jungle- the part of the trip I was most worried about, previously – so uh. Every cloud and all that, I guess. Also, the muscle relaxant didn't even one, as I had worried it might, make me piss the bed. So that's two silver linings, which honestly, is pretty good going, as far as silver linings are concerned.
I was up several times in the night. The jungle is (shockingly) pitch black during the evening and, much like the night before, I found myself awaking with a jolt every two hours or so, to empty my bladder and perform a full and thorough inspection of my bed, using the torch on my phone, to make sure no errant tarantulas had decided to become my erstwhile bedfellows. They hadn't, to be fair, but that doesn't make me hate them any less. Furry, spindly little pricks.
Despite this, I did sleep better than I had the previous night (albeit again, only by the slimmest of margins) and actually found myself, for once, being woken up by my alarm, rather than just being awake several hours before it was due to go off, anyway. Take that, alarm.
Our morning plan was to take the boat out once more, to watch the sun rise over the Amazon and then around to go river-dolphin spotting, which, to be fair, did sound appallingly lovely. The sunrise was mostly obscured by clouds, so wasn't perhaps as impressive as it could have been, though still managed to remain fairly bloody impressive
Neat, I guess.
and what the clouds took away from the gravity of the experience, Alfredo more than added back in by uttering the cryptic, slightly frightening and just very, very metal line of “...His eye opens” as the sun just began to peek over the horizon
BEHOLD!
By the time we had begun dolphin spotting, I had once again grown weary and while I was definitely thoroughly enjoying the experience, and managed, at points, to get incredibly close and take some pretty okayish videos of the ugly, pink little jerks
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I have no way of editing videos out here, but if you wait until around the 30 second mark, you should see a big splashy boy
I was definitely not enjoying my nostrils turning into a snot-faucet and my head being slowly crushed into a singularity from the inside, so by the time we packed it all in and returned home, I was super glad to be doing so, despite feeling a little guilty for thinking like this. To be honest though, as amazing as this experience was (and indeed all the experiences the rainforest had to offer thus far – save for fire-ants, which can go fuck themselves), it was hard for me to really, properly enjoy them, as each time I got close to feeling like I was, the realisation that I am a comparatively rich, white tourist who paid for this experience set in, hard, and, in what has to be the most first-world-problemy way possible, did rather make the entire thing seem a bit...plastic. Not the monkeys though; they were legit.
Once home, we took a quick break; not long enough for a recovery nap, but just about long enough to relax in a hammock for a while
So relaxed...
before being ushered out onto the river by Alfredo once more. This time to go and meet some members of a local tribe. I wasn't particularly thrilled about this part of the tour, feeling that it was perhaps a little ...colonial and exploitative; parading us around this relatively primative tribe, oohing and ahhing at their grass skirts and shitty little home-made crafts and rudimentary hunting techniques and all that, but I did pay...quite a lot for this tour and didn't really want miss any part of it; especially a bit so awkward and unwanted that it was almost guaranteed to generate some dynamite blog-content, so I bundled myself back into the boat and headed off to tribesville.
We arrived at the small village and were directed to sit down inside, what I assumed was the main hut. We had been joined by another, different tour-group for what was about to ensue, which I was uncharacteristically thankful for, as it, at the very least, would dilute some of the attention that our group would get. After a brief talk on the tribe from Alfredo, which didn't exactly blow me away with any fascinating insight into their way of life (they're farmers who grow rice and bananas, they hunt for their food and use blowdarts), we then got another small talk in the tribe's native tongue from the chieftain; short, stern and stocky man, wearing a grass skirt and a large ornamental headdress, who was, hilariously, just called Richard, who essentially just went over the same things as Alfredo, but in a language that seemed to only consist of three independent syllables.
The tribe then demonstrated two of their traditional songs, both of which were accompanied by a dance, with which we were invited to join in (an offer which every single member of our group declined)
Not this guy, though. He was fucking loving it.
and both of which, with the best will in the world, were a bit shit. After a gruelling and genuinely awkward few minutes, the music abated and we were led to a different area to try our hand at blow-gunning, which, I'll be honest, I did rather enjoy, despite myself.
P-tew!
with no time to enjoy my definitely 10/10 blowgun prowess, we were directed immediately to the tribe's market stall, in which we were expected to spend our money on various bits of, to be totally honest, absolute garbage, which the tribe had made. Sam had brought very little money with her and I hadn't thought to bring any, at all, so we had a quick look around to see what we could buy with fifteen soles that was something either one of us would actually like and we weren't just buying because it felt awkward not to. It was then that li'l chief Richard approached us, his hand outstretched, rubbing his thumb against his middle and fore-finger – the international symbol for “give me money”
“Para la musica” he told us. For the music.
Great. Now apparently we had to pay for enduring their shit music which wasn't good and which I didn't enjoy listening to. Perfect. We (Sam) handed him five of our soles and he looked disgusted with us. We (Sam) apologised for not giving more and Richard walked away, unspeaking. I don't care if you are in some jungle tribe with all different culture and everything, rudeness is rudeness. Fuck you, Richard. Prick.
Now feeling a little like what little shine the experience had possessed, previously had very much worn out, we continued being made to browse the tribe's wares, until we finally succumbed to pressure and bought ourselves some tat.
Glad I spend money on this sweet little number
With everyone's pockets now entirely emptied and the lines on who was exploiting who blurred beyond all recognition, we loaded ourselves back onto the boat. Also, a little side-note here, but it was at this point that I watched a portly lady who was on the other tour, lean out of the window of her boat to take one final picture of the tribe, though instead managed to let her phone slip out of her hands and straight to the bottom of the river; an act which I singularly enjoyed infinitely more than I had the last hour or so of tribal interaction and having my money guilted off me. They should genuinely employ someone to do that on every tour, because, honestly, I nearly enjoyed it as much as Monkey Island.
Our next stop was one I could be fucked with almost as much as the previous; piranha fishing. I'm not a huge fan of fishing, to be honest, because I don't really like killing things (although, being in the Amazon does generally make you a little kill-happier. There was no way in hell I was going to scoop up each individual fire-ant on a bit of cardboard and pop them outside on the bungalow's windowsill. It was the boot for them), but we were told by Alfredo that the lodge's chefs would cook up what we caught and we could have them for lunch, which did remove some of the grey morality which which I was struggling.
Turns out I needn't have worried about any of that, though, because I was fucking terrible at Piranha fishing and didn't land a single catch. I couldn't get them to stay on the hook, no matter what I tried and more than likely emptied our group's reserves of spare bait, single-handedly in the process, like the saint I am. Sam, however, being a salty Geordie fish woman, was great at it and caught, as she kept boastfully reminding me of, as if ending the lives of innocent little snappy-boys was something to be proud of, no fewer than four fish. Five, actually, but one wasn't a piranha and was therefore too small to bother cooking (it was, however, too badly damaged to go back in the water and so had to be stomped to death, anyway. What a monster she is.)
After a while, even Sam's bloodlust was sated and we unanimously decided to pack in this whole fishing lark and go back for lunch. I got back on board the boat, over the piranha infested waters as carefully as I have ever done anything in my life and we returned to the lodge for what would be the final time.
We were afforded enough time, once back, for me to have another nap, which, at this point were the only things making me feel even vaguely alive or human, in any sense, before being served our last lodge supper. More mashed potatoes, jungle-beans, the piranhas Sam caught and a big chunky fillet of another, different (and anyone with tastebuds would say) better fish called Pacu and which looks like this
...yummy
I am told that this all tasted quite nice, but by this point, the flu had cruelly taken away my senses of both smell and taste, so I had no idea. I could just about make out that it was very salty, though, so that was something. Small victories.
With that, our jungle experience came to a close and after a strangely intimate hug goodbye with Alfredo, we and the Indian couple (who were the only other guests not booked to stay any longer than a single night) were plopped back on our boat and ferried upstream back to Belavista. A trip which I spent nearly the entirety of asleep, which I like to think was because I had grown so comfortable with being in the jungle, at that point, that I could relax fully in it, but more likely was because I had just been crumpled into a ball of misery and fatigue by my flu over the previous three days. Overall though, being in the jungle was a surprisingly good experience and one that I might even consider doing again at some point, should the opportunity arise. A solid 9/10, except for, as I've said, the fire-ants which can go fuck themselves.
Back on terra firma, we were wizzed via tuktuk first back to the company's headquarters, where we finally parted ways with the Indian couple – hopefully actually to never see them again this time, and then to our new AirBnb, in which we would spend out final few days in Iquitos.
Our new AirBnb, as it happens, was actually a collection of luxury riverfront apartments, in which, we had unknowingly booked the nicest room. We were checked in by the receptionist, Diego, who looked the spitting image of a brown Zach Woods and who was incredibly welcoming and helpful to an almost snivelling degree (not entirely unlike every character Zach Woods plays, now I think of it.) Diego explained everything there was to explain about the apartment in frankly laborious detail and, after dropping this info-dump on us and bidding us welcome, asked us point blanc
“what's my name?”
I suppose this was as some kind of test to see if we had retained the information he had just said, rather than a test of politeness, or some weird ego-trip. Regardless, I did not remember what it was. I was hard-humped with flu and generally disregard someone's name the first three times they tell me it, even when it is someone I know I'll actually see again.
“...What's. My. Name?” he repeated.
I laughed and told him I'd just be in the jungle for two days, so I'd forgotten. This seemed to be an acceptable enough answer for him and he immediately flicked back to his friendly, helpful self, creepily seamlessly. The entire interlude was really quite odd, totally out of keeping what the rest of what I'd seen of his personality and I'm almost certain, a preamble to my own murder.
Doing our best to put whatever psychosis we had just witnessed behind us, we settled in to our new digs. This apartment, a penthouse suite overlooking the Naney river, was about as different from living in the jungle as it was possible to get, and let me tell you, the change was one hundred percent welcomed by me.
The view is spectacular
...I mean if you’re into things like that.
The bed was comfy, the fridge loaded with pre-cooled water bottles, the kitchen fully stocked and the entire apartment almost entirely bug-free, due in no small part to its remarkably effective AC system, which really did turn the flat into a little icy paradise of excess, amidst a sea of poverty and sweat.
We couldn't quite settle in fully just yet, though. Sam insisted that we make a quick outing to the supermarket, because apparently she needed shampoo and apparently wasn't willing to go alone, for fear of being “mugged” or “abducted and killed” by a “crime man”, which to be honest, I felt was very selfish of her.
For the final time that day, then, I dragged what was left of my body out through the streets of Iquitos, to the supermarket and back, before finally being able to collapse onto our exceptionally soft airbnb couch, to eat a modest dinner of a single sausage and a couple of minty biscuits, while watching the Peru episode of an Idiot Abroad - because watching someone else suffer through what I just had was really the only thing that had the capability of making me feel any better at that point – and then heading directly to our comfy, comfy bed, which I believe I must have fallen asleep in, before my head had even touched the pillow. I have never been more done.
#travelling#vagrant#travel#photography#rainforest#amazon#boulevard#maldonado#maniti#expedition#san rafael#monkey island#monkey#woolly monkey#pacu#fish#lodge#iquitos#warm#hot#peru#lima#cusco#flu#sick#spiders#fire ants#parrot#etc
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thoughts on she-ra bc i watched the whole thing
spoilers for the entire thing below
tl;dr: CATRA
disclaimer - i’m firmly in the camp of ‘this show just isn’t my thing’ but i wanted to check it out anyway. keep in mind me disliking a thing you like is not a personal attack on you, this is all just like my opinion man
the good:
catra
scorpia
entrapta
hordak even though we barely see him
shadow weaver’s voice
catra
adora not going along with the more overtly cutesy stuff is funny
almost all of swift wind’s lines
adora gets a cool scene where she calls out and rejects her abusive parent figure who’s been gaslighting her all episode in favour of her newly found family*
unambiguous wlw couple in netossa and spinnerella**
the OC potential in the ‘princess of X’ thing given that it’s explicit that they’re not all elemental in nature - if i was planning on interacting with the fandom at all i’d come up with one. perhaps a ‘princess of thorns’. she has shrike familiars and makes a living enshrouding castles in thorns as commissioned by witches who want them extra pointy. she lives in a fortress-like maze of brambles
the (possibly unintended) implication that light hope deliberately drove catra away from adora with those visions of their childhood - like i know that doesn’t SOUND like a good thing but moral ambiguity on the side of the good guys is fucking hard to come by lmao
on that note, catra
the bad:
and on that other note no moral ambiguity whatsoever lmao, the good guys are all soft lines and pretty and live in a pastel fairytale landscape of various biomes with equally pastel sparkly glitter clothes and fight with ~nature~ and the elements and teamwork and FRIENDSHIP, the bad guys live in a dark machine filled wasteland and fire big evil green energy blasts and faceless soldiers ride around in tanks shooting almost exclusively at civilians
animation looks not only cheap but outdated - it maintains a pretty average quality throughout and nothing feels like it has any weight to it
swift wind in particular looks the WORST
the intro theme is awful and reminds me of the mew mew power intro
*show falls into what i like to call the ‘thanks voltron’ trap where the implication is that unless you find good people to help you and ‘show you the real way’, you’ll never be able to escape an abusive situation or worse, might even end up like your abuser. meanwhile recognizing an abusive situation is abusive on your own and working to subvert and manipulate it for your own gain is framed as part of catra’s slide towards villainy
music is forgettable aside from a low bass track that plays during a good scene with, you guessed it, catra
**the unambiguous wlw couple has a cumulative screentime of maybe a minute, two tops. there’s a wordless cameo at the start and maybe seven lines total in the last two episodes, two of which were just jokes about nets. disappointing considering how much they were hyped, but perhaps they’ll be around more in s2. i understand there was some censorship issues about depicting their relationship a la shiro and adam or something but that doesn’t excuse them not going things separate from each other so we actually know what their personalities are beyond ‘likes nets’ and ‘spins things’ and a vague hot-cold implication.
nobody seems to give a shit that a princess who’s supposed to maintain the balance alongside the rest works with hordak as much as they should
i just don’t really care about any of the good guys lmao
the ugly:
sea hawk’s pathetic excuses for shanties
THIS IS A FUCKING SHANTY
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final thoughts:
it’s not bad but it’s not especially good either. it’s just kind of average, which is more disappointing than either honestly. i can appreciate what it’s trying to do, but it’s very... safe, i guess. there’s almost nothing in this show that hasn’t been done before but better.
catra is excellent, as is her squad, but they’re just not enough to save the show for me. i can’t say i’ll be waiting with baited breath for any hints at S2 and i won’t be in any hurry to watch it.
i’ll probably just skip to all of catra’s scenes if i do anyway lmao.
#/#//#///#////#/////#there that should keep it out of the main tag#while still letting me tag it for followers who don't care about she-ra#she-ra#she-ra spoilers
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