#an eternity to finish posting this episode

[deoidesign]

Thinking about vampires, death, life, and the space they occupy in between

[sanssheriff13]

No you don’t get it they’re ALL stories about growing up

[99liners]

omg lisssten,,,, at the end of the Busan concert when the members had asked ARMYs to trust them and that a big announcement is coming,,, i KNEW THEY WERE GOING TO ENLIST. I JUST KNEWWWWWW

[formulawolff]

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪. setting it straight ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪.

pairing: female driver!reader x toto wolff

word count: idek tbh

warnings: age gap relationship, oral (f! receiving… toto is a munch confirmed) cursing, allusions to sex in public, toto being sexy, slight dom vibes (from toto), poorly translated german, probably some poor grammar, yadayadayada

a/n: i’m absolutely fried rn & it was missing toto and golden girl hours. i don’t apologize for this and will not be apologizing for how absolutely filthy it is!

his tongue drags.

it’s flattened against your soaked folds, carefully taking in the way your juices seep on to his tongue.

“t-toto,” the way his name falls from your lips is utterly sinful.

it’s a pant, a mere mewl brimmed with nothing but pleasure.

“what is it?” he’s nearly out of breath, intoxicated off your taste, “what is it, my love?”

“w-we shouldn’t,” your hips writhe, squirming as his hands envelop your thighs, tightening as the last few words tumble out, “we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“oh?” he cocks his head, “should i stop then?”

you’re teetering on the edge of cumming, just on the brink.

though, you don’t have to tell him that.

he’s well aware.

he can sense your ragged breathing, the way your chest heaves. how your battered clit throbs, swollen and engorged from his teasing tongue. your skin is nearly burning as the pads of his thumbs caress your inner thighs.

“please don’t stop.”

“are you sure?”

his mocha depths are almost a shade darker than usual, nearly an obsidian hue. they’re fiery with lust as he takes you in once again, absolutely soaked and aching.

aching for release.

he hums, prompting you to answer, “can i continue or are we done here?”

“you can’t just leave me like this,” you protest, shaking your head furiously, “please, toto. i need it.”

“and what do you need?” your jaw tightens as you notice the smug smirk, “tell me, baby. what do you need?”

“i need you to make me cum.”

“that’s all i needed to hear,” he clicks his tongue, obviously please with your answer.

there was really no explaining how you got to be in this position.

well, maybe there was.

it was a rough race weekend in spa.

with the disqualification, daniel’s little stunt, and your fourth place finish, it wasn’t really quite the weekend you had in mind.

you were over the moon for george of course. well, until the disqualification. that put toto in a pretty sour mood. not to mention the plethora of reporters and media following him around after that news broke. that really almost sent him over the edge.

and you didn’t want to him started on daniel’s little stunt either.

just before qualifying, you were in the garage with alex, recording a bit for your upcoming podcast episode. before you knew it, daniel was strolling in, wrapping an arm around your shoulders, proclaiming how much he missed you and how he wanted to rekindle your friendship.

the entire thing caught you completely off guard, your mind reeling as daniel shot you a wink, waving goodbye as he exited the paddock. it only lasted about three minutes, yet felt like an eternity.

and the worst part about it?

a fan recorded daniel as he left the garage, promptly posting it to their tik tok page. that tik tok was then plastered all over instagram and x, sparking all sorts of rumors.

rumors that you were possibly cheating on the team principal with daniel.

the incident left you speechless, unable to string together an incoherent thought, let alone focus on qualifying. you ended up placing eighth, one of the lower finishes you have had in quite some time. it left james questioning your ability to make a podium, not to mention the thousands of posts bashing you, undermining your skills and credibility as a driver.

although toto could see right through daniel, you could tell it had pissed him off.

more than he would have liked to admit.

so the moment you were alone, you found him in your driver’s room, locking the door, practically pouncing on you.

he wouldn’t say it, but you knew what he was doing.

he was setting the record straight.

reminding you that you were his.

and only his.

the only way he knew how.

“you’re mine, you know that?”

you blink, registering that he’s still positioned between your thighs, on his knees, hovering at the edge of the couch.

“is this about daniel?”

“natürlich ist es das,” his tongue darts out, circling around your clit, “ich musste dich daran erinnern, wem du gehörst.”

“hör auf damit,” you tsk, rolling your eyes, “you have nothing to worry about.”

“i know,” his lashes flutter as he murmurs, his gaze fixated on your drenched core. he lifts a finger, the digit tracing along your folds, “it’s not you i’m worried about. it’s him.”

“aber du bist der mann, den ich liebe.”

his heart skips a beat, the team principal’s lust dissipating for just a moment. he couldn’t help but melt at the softness in your voice, at the sureness in those words.

fuck, did he love you.

oh so much.

propelling himself upward, a hand connects with your cheek, thumb trailing along your cheekbone, “i love you, my sweet girl.”

“i love you more, toto.”

shaking his head, the team principal can’t help but grin, dimples forming as he notices your beautiful smile take shape.

“and i love you most.”

[thankskenpenders]

Sonic Prime Season 3: Final episodes, final thoughts

Well, here we are. The final seven episodes of Sonic Prime are out on Netflix, concluding the story of Sonic's adventures in the Shatterverse. I've previously shared my thoughts on the first and second seasons, which I was pretty mixed on, but there were still glimmers of hope. The fluid animation, Shadow being fun in all his appearances, Nine being fairly interesting as a jaded alternate version of Tails, etc. There was enough to make me believe that after some highs and lows there was still the possibility that this show could end on a high note - or at least a decent note.

This did not happen.

Sonic Prime's final season sucks. The ending sucks, and the road to get there sucks. It's left me wondering what the point of all this even was. There are still moments I like that I'll try to highlight, and the animators and voice cast are still clearly giving it their all, but these efforts sadly don't outweigh the overwhelming mediocrity of the story. I would barely even recommend other Sonic fans who are on the fence go out of their way to finish it. I won't begrudge people who got more out of this show than I did, but I think overall I just really, really dislike Sonic Prime.

...The problem, of course, is that all other discussion of the show has been overshadowed by needlessly hostile arguments over its place in Sonic's canon. So we've gotta talk about that, too.

(This post will contain full spoilers for Sonic Prime.)

The show's out of ideas but they've gotta stretch that shit out to hit the 23 episode mark somehow

Season 2 ended with the big twist that Nine decided to betray Sonic and Shadow, taking the Paradox Prism for himself so that he could go turn the empty world of the Grim into his own little paradise, since he doesn't believe he'll fit anywhere else. Nine has made himself the true big bad of the show.

The main impact this has is that now, instead of fighting endless identical Eggforcer bots and members of the Chaos Council over and over, the good guys and the Chaos Council have to fight endless Chaos Sonic-style robots sent by Nine while he goes "grrrrr I need Sonic's energy to stabilize the Paradox Prism." This continues for six whole episodes until the series finale, when the show decides it's time for Sonic and Nine to quickly make amends, fix everything, and send Sonic and Shadow home.

That's pretty much the whole season.

I cannot emphasize enough just how much of this final season is just fight after fight after fight against Nine's bots, and how fucking boring that gets. The season feels like one long, drawn out final battle that did not need to be nearly this long, but Nine had his big heel turn 2/3 of the way through the show and we've gotta fill up the rest of the time somehow. The novelty of the bots being based off of Sonic's friends (including the Chocobo-sized Birdie from the jungle world) really wears off quickly when they're just used as generic, silent mooks that the good guys have to fight by the dozen like it's the climax of an MCU movie. The first episode of the season with Sonic and Shadow fighting the new bots is pretty good, especially because Sonic and Shadow's dynamic is one of the few redeeming aspects of this show's writing, but after that it just gets boring. Three full episodes in a row are spent showing all the characters fighting robots in an empty wasteland while Nine scowls next to a big beam of energy. I found myself missing the in-your-face attitude of Chaos Sonic so much. He truly was one of the best parts of this show.

While the cast is busy fighting all these robots for what feels like an eternity, various things of varying levels of interest happen. There's a halfhearted attempt to have some kind of rivalry between Shadow and the main Grim Sonic throughout the final battle, but it completely falls flat because Grim Sonic has no personality whatsoever. It's like Shadow beefing with an above-average Egg Pawn. (Actually, no, that would be funny.) There's also a death fakeout with the two other versions of Tails, where they make a makeshift bomb and throw it a little too close to themselves on the battlefield and seem to get vaporized. If they had actually died there they would have had the funniest, most pointless deaths in the entire franchise.

I also realized at one point that they were trying to do the Avengers girl power fight thing with the three versions of Amy fighting a bunch of Rouge bots. This was very funny to me. Actually, so much of this is just following the tired MCU formula to the letter. Fighting over a macguffin, two armies just kind of running at each other and clashing in a big empty field, constant one-liner quips instead of actual jokes, the need to take out key targets to make the whole enemy army disappear, a villain who has a point but has to randomly hurt people so that there's an excuse for the heroes to fight him. When combined with how shit the multiverse stuff is, this whole show really is just Man of Action tackling some of the most played out storytelling tropes in modern pop culture in the most bland way possible. What a bunch of hacks.

By far, the one truly fun thing that happens in this protracted final battle is when a giant robot based on Big appears. It doesn't have arms or legs, but it can swing itself around to use its tail like a giant mace, and it can also shoot Froggy-shaped missiles out of its mouth. I wish the rest of the show was even half as fun as this. Again, Sonic Prime has just enough good moments to make you mad that the rest of the show isn't better.

The thing is, all this repetitive (but well-animated) action and the thin excuse plot would be totally serviceable if I just gave a shit about the characters involved. But I don't. I don't care what happens to the pirate version of Amy who goes "arrr." I don't care about what happens to Hipster Eggman. And unfortunately, by the end, I didn't really care about Nine, either.

Nine as a villain

It's hard to criticize the story here without it coming off as a broad condemnation of the tropes at play. The thing is, I like many stories that try to do similar things. I love clashes between heroes and villains that are really just fantastical exaggerations of more personal conflicts. I love stories where a tragic, sympathetic villain lashes out at the world as an expression of the pain they feel, and a compassionate hero just has to get through to them. I eat that shit right up. Undertale is my favorite game ever made. Shit, I love other Sonic stories that do these exact things. And Sonic having to fight an alternate timeline version of Tails also has so much potential for drama!

So I can very easily imagine a version of the show where all this works for me. That just isn't the version we got.

Like I said last time, Nine's motivation is just too sympathetic and understandable for his sudden turn to supervillainy to make any sense. He just wanted to start over somewhere where he can be happy after a childhood filled with bullying and loneliness. Nine betraying Sonic and stealing the Paradox Prism to go make his own world? That tracks! Especially since we don't even know if Nine will still exist if Sonic goes through with his plan to restore his original world! But trying to kill everyone in New Yolk City by tilting the world 90 degrees, intentionally targeting the civilian population because it'll get to Sonic? Nope! Sorry, that's a bridge too far. I don't buy it. He's jaded and antisocial, but he doesn't strike me as cruel. Writing in an excuse about him needing Sonic's energy to fix the Prism does not make this make more sense.

This was really just one of those conflicts where it felt like everyone should stop and talk it out. Instead we got six episodes of fighting before one of Sonic's many, MANY attempts at reasoning with Nine throughout the season finally works. This isn't me pulling some Cinema Sins bullshit where I complain about characters in a work of fiction not always behaving rationally - the real problem is that it's just so damn repetitive waiting for this conflict to resolve. This could have been wrapped up in two or three episodes and instead it takes seven.

A brief aside about that weird Dorkly-ass Sonic Advance 3 flashback scene hacked together with mismatched sprites where Gemerl happens to be present, presumably just because he's a part of the sprite for the Sunset Hill boss, and seeing him briefly makes me remember the extended cast from the games and how much I wish they had just made a cartoon about them instead of a bunch of stock characters wearing the skin of Sonic's friends, but then Gemerl just explodes with the boss machine at the end while Eggman is shown to get away so I guess Gemerl just dies in this flashback

Yeah that sure happened huh

The ending

Despite having a final battle that felt like an eternity, Sonic Prime is a show that just kind of... ends. And that ending is weird and haphazard.

The understanding I had was that Sonic's normal world had "shattered" when the Paradox Prism was destroyed, and from those remnants these new worlds were created. This is why they use terms like "Shatterverse" and "Shatterspaces" and why there's shattered glass/crystal/whatever imagery everywhere. This is a broken, fragmented version of the real universe. Right? Right?? Isn't that the entire premise of the show? And therefore, if the universe has been shattered, then fixing it means putting all the shattered pieces back together. Which I would assume means that the Shatterspaces cease to exist.

So, in the ending... Sonic's world seems to just exist as another Shatterspace. Restoring the Paradox Prism doesn't seem to combine the worlds or anything, it just fixes the broken portal to Sonic's world that exists alongside all the others. So... what exactly was the point of all the shattered glass symbolism?

Things only get more confusing as the ending progresses. Shadow brings Sonic through the portal before the draining of Sonic's whatever energy makes him disappear, and they're transported back in time to right before Sonic broke the Paradox Prism. Only Sonic seems to remember what happened (Shadow might remember, but he doesn't say anything), and with the Paradox Prism never shattered, it's unclear if the Shatterspaces exist now.

I'm not particularly hung up on the time loop ending. It's very much in line with all sorts of classic morality tales like A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life, where the flawed protagonist goes through some kind of magical experience and then returns home with a new appreciation for the people in their life. It's always been pretty obvious that was the type of story they were telling. I'm more bothered by the fact that there's no time whatsoever spent on whether or not the other worlds and the characters in them continue to exist. Sonic seems to act like the worlds will go on without him before he leaves, but it's not like we get an ending scene that shows how the other worlds are doing, so they really truly might as well not exist anymore. Sonic just wraps up the adventure from the first episode when he gets home, and before he can explain what happened from his perspective he's interrupted by a mysterious energy wave from off-screen and it's off to the next adventure.

(Despite this odd cliffhanger ending, the show is extremely over and not coming back. I have to imagine this is just a "the adventures never end" type ending and not a hint that more shit is going on with the Paradox Prism.)

This ending is also a terrible resolution to Nine's whole arc, despite him being the driving force of so much of the show. The way I see it, there are are three possible fates for him:

The Shatterspaces continue existing, and things go as Sonic expects them to go. Nine is allowed to make the Grim into his own little utopia, and everyone else leaves him alone instead of punishing him for all the trouble he caused. Instead of finding love and acceptance so he can heal from a lifetime of bullying and loneliness, Nine is allowed to run away, isolating himself from every other living being in the multiverse, and live alone as the god of an empty world with only his own creations as company. Sonic was his only friend, and he's gone forever now.

The Shatterspaces continue existing, but because of the time travel ending, most of the events of the show never happened. Sonic never helped defeat the Chaos Council, so they still control New Yolk City. Nine is back to living in this dystopian city with no friends. He never met Sonic.

The Shatterspaces have been erased. After fighting so hard for his right to exist as his own person and not just a "wrong" version of Tails, when the timeline is altered, he just... stops existing. Along with almost every other character in the show.

Do I even need to explain why these are all unsatisfying?

Misc. thoughts

I skimmed over this, but a lot of the final season is just spent seeing Sonic's friends bicker with the Chaos Council and then Sonic has to beg them to get along to save the universe. It gets old.

We also never really got an explanation for why the Chaos Council exists. They can't have come from other Shatterspaces because there ARE no other Shatterspaces. If the original Eggman was just split into five guys or time travel was involved or whatever, it never comes up. I can live with this, but it seems like an odd omission for a children's show that's constantly bogged down in technobabble explaining the mechanics of its extremely small and finite multiverse.

I have no idea where Shadow was for the first part of the final battle. I figured Nine must have captured him off-screen after Sonic first left the Grim, but Shadow was just... hanging around until his cue in the script, I guess?

Sonic saying "help a brother up" to Shadow was funny

Hipster Eggman pointing to one of the few nameless extras who tagged along for the final battle and going "Who are you? Seriously, does anyone know who this is?" was the only funny thing he did in the entire show

Mangy Tails randomly pressing buttons on the Chaos Council's generator like a curious animal and managing to improve its output was cute

Rusty Rose randomly realizes that the Birdie in her chest actually isn't being used as a power source, and that the Chaos Council was just... using that to manipulate her, somehow? I don't really know how that works but whatever

The Sonic Advance 3 flashback uses the actual boss music from the game, but they can't use the real Sunset Hill theme because they didn't wanna pay Masato Nakamura for using the Green Hill motif, I guess

To my fellow fans of bad games: did you know that Man of Action wrote the story for the bizarre Square Enix game The Quiet Man? The one where the lengthy FMV cutscenes play out with muffled audio and no subtitles because the protagonist is deaf, so you can't tell what's going on? And you had to do a New Game+ playthrough to actually hear the audio and understand what's going on? The worst-reviewed game of 2018? That one? I only learned that recently and it blew me away

So yeah, that's the end of the show. I didn't like it, and I don't think I liked the show much as a whole. I am far from alone in this sentiment, but the reasons why people dislike the show... those vary a bit.

The canon conundrum

More than anything else, it seems like most other discourse surrounding this show has been consumed by one talking point:

How can this be canon? Why is it canon?

I want to state very clearly up front that I, too, am a person who's noticed and complained about the inconsistencies with the games in Sonic Prime. Some of the characters are a bit off - or, you know, completely unrecognizable when discussing the writing of some of the AU counterparts. I think it's lame to say Sonic and friends all live in Green Hill and act like that's the entirety of their world. That sort of thing. But if Sega says it's canon to everything else? Sure. Fine. There's weirder shit in the canon.

Really, most of this can be explained away pretty easily. The show was written at a time when Sega was still figuring shit out and there were looser restrictions. Why does Sonic act a little more immature? Probably just because Prime is aiming for a slightly younger audience than the games or the IDW comics. (And also it's, y'know, written by Man of Action, who people have accused of only knowing how to write one kind of protagonist for years.) Why do Sonic and friends live in Green Hill? Because that's the most recognizable location from the games, and the game world doesn't get enough screentime to justify modeling multiple different environments, so they just focus on Green Hill. Why is this considered canon to the games? Because this is the first Sonic cartoon that outright references events from the games as things that have happened to Sonic in the past.

But announcing early on that Prime would be canon certainly let fans' imaginations wander. It was one of the few things we knew about the show before it premiered. People wondered if characters from the games and comics who had never made any appearances in Sonic cartoons might get their time in the spotlight. We wondered if it would tie into the lore or any existing storylines in interesting ways, like the IDW comics do. But above all else, we hoped that its canon status would mean that Sonic Prime would finally be the Sonic cartoon that was faithful to the source material with no catches. We've literally never seen the actual world of the games brought to life in a TV show. Sonic X came the closest, but that still took its liberties. And so hype built for this Canon Sonic Cartoon.

And then it actually came out, and after a brief intro in Green Hill based loosely on the games, it spent most of its running time focusing on things like "what if there was a version of Eggman who was a bratty teen who just wanted to play video games?" The disappointment among fans is understandable. I am disappointed. Look at how much I've bitched about this aggressively mid cartoon.

Some fans, however, came up with an elaborate theory about the series. You see, when asked about the show's place in the game timeline during a live Q&A, Ian Flynn (who only served as a consultant on Sonic Prime and did not write any of it) said this:

"I cannot answer because I know the answer, and you haven't finished watching the show yet."

A couple days later, when answering another question about Prime's place in the timeline and also about a writing discrepancy, he said this:

"As to where it fits on the timeline, I can't speak to it because that would spoil the show to a degree. So you're just gonna have to wait 'til it's done. Towards the other point, I don't know how much I can say, so it's probably better that I not comment. That's a really dissatisfying answer, I know, I'm sorry, but my hands are kinda tied on that one."

I feel the need to quote Ian directly here, because these very basic statements about how he can't talk about behind the scenes shit or anything from unreleased episodes was GREATLY misinterpreted by the fandom. People clung onto Ian's claim that we had to keep watching like a life preserver. Some took it as Ian saying that the ending would explain everything. Finally, we'd have a definitive answer for every little discrepancy and the apparent differences in worldbuilding. An explanation for why Sega and the producers repeatedly insist this show HAS to be canon.

And to these fans, the only explanation that made any sense... would be if the ending of Sonic Prime pulled a Flashpoint.

As this theory explained, the Sonic we were following in Sonic Prime wasn't the Sonic we know from the games and the IDW comics, and likewise the world he comes from isn't really the game world. This is a different Sonic who fights a different Eggman in a world that's literally just Green Hill. It was a hint that something was off all along! But in the end of the series, this Sonic would sacrifice himself to merge all of the Shatter Spaces together and form a brand new world, and that would be the more visually diverse world of the games and comics. According to this theory, Sonic Prime was canon because it was a new origin story for the entire franchise.

I want you to really stop and think about how asinine of an origin story this would be. Really drink this in. The idea that there was another, slightly different version of Sonic who went on a kinda shitty multiverse adventure and then sacrificed himself to create the real Sonic that we've known since 1991. People convinced themselves this made more sense than the simple explanation that a different team of writers got some stuff wrong and Sega didn't make them change it. Interviews where producers talked about drawing on Sonic's "mythology" (ie: they reference the games in the show) were taken very literally - they must be saying that Prime's story is mythological in nature, and that this show would be integral to the games' mythology. Why bother making a show that's canon if it's not going to be crucial to that canon, after all?

The final episodes dropped, and none of this happened. Because of course it didn't. It was all Sherlock fandom-level copium. But fans were left confused by the lack of a grand reveal of where Sonic Prime fits in the timeline, believing they had been promised this, and they turned to Ian for an explanation. Ian's answer:

It doesn't matter, b/c Prime wipes itself out. It's sometime after Advance 3*, but otherwise, it's moot. I didn't want to sour anyone's expectations or investment by spoiling how Prime resolves, that's all. If you enjoyed it, awesome. Savor it. If you didn't, then you can safely ignore it. Simple as that.

* About a trillion people have um, actually'd Ian to point out Orbot and Cubot briefly appear in the show, but if we're really being pedantic here we don't actually know how long before Colors Eggman built Orbot and Cubot, so it wouldn't be fully accurate to say a story featuring Orbot and Cubot couldn't be set before Colors. Either way, a story set anywhere around Colors, or at any point later than that, could still be described as "sometime after Advance 3." Advance 3 is just the most recent game that has specific in-game events referenced in the show. Yes I can feel myself morphing into the nerd emoji before your very eyes

Anyway, this is the latest reason Ian is getting death threats on Twitter. This time it's over a show he barely even had any input on!

I'll cut to the chase. It is truly wild to me that people are getting this heated over canonical inconsistencies in a series as historically inconsistent as Sonic, to the point that they think threatening Ian is justified. The aesthetics of the entire world Sonic inhabits change every other game. Sonic Chronicles may no longer be canon due to the Penders lawsuits, but it was canon at one point, and it took huge liberties with Sonic's world, moving Green Hill off of South Island and reinterpreting Station Square as a tiny outpost in a snowy alpine forest region. Characters' personalities change from writer to writer and based on what Sega wants at the time, with some being WILDLY different across different games. One game Sonic will be stoic and cool, the next he thinks "Baldy McNosehair" is the funniest thing ever. Sega's STILL trying to figure out what Amy's personality is supposed to be. We still don't have the explanation for how the two seemingly contradictory backstories for Blaze can fit together. There have been multiple huge, sweeping retcons, and retcons to those retcons. Sonic Forces claims that Classic Sonic is from an entirely different universe than Modern Sonic, and the plot only makes any sense if that's true - otherwise, Modern Sonic would have already known Eggman was going to beat him and take over the world when he did, because his younger self had already lived through that war. All of that makes no sense in the newly reunified timeline, but Forces is very much still canon.

For fuck's sake, we're talking about the series where Eggman blew up half the moon and then it looked completely normal in every other game after, explained away as "the moon just rotated so we can't see the destroyed side from Earth." This has never, ever, ever been a franchise where everything lines up perfectly with no issues. It's not that serious.

The real core problem with Prime isn't that things don't line up 100% with our current understanding of canon, or that Sonic's characterization means this can't be the real Sonic, or anything like that. The problem, as I've been saying this whole time, is that the story is bad. None of these discrepancies would truly matter if the story was better. They'd just be nitpicks. The fact that Sonic and friends live in Green Hill would be the farthest thing from my mind if the drama was more engaging, if the villains were better, if the jokes were actually funny, if more of the alternate universe counterparts of Sonic's friends had more than one generic character trait each, if the multiverse was more creative and varied, if the final seven episodes of this show didn't devolve into the third act of an MCU movie and then just arbitrarily end, if Nine's character arc actually had a satisfying conclusion instead of ending with either isolation or nonexistence. Maybe we'd be seeing people talk about more than just whether or not it should be considered canon if the writing was any good.

"Canon" is not real, and it sure as hell isn't worth sending people death threats over. It's a storytelling tool. Real human beings decide what does and doesn't go into that canon, or how much they do or don't want to draw on past stories, when creating a new story. Serving that canon is secondary to creating a story where the emotional truth resonates with the audience. And Sonic Prime failed to do that. That is its true failing.

And finally, to close out...

Since people will ask, here are my current ranking of the Sonic TV shows, now that Prime is finished.

Sonic Boom

Sonic SatAM

Sonic X

The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic Prime

Sonic Underground

Yes, I'd say Boom is my favorite. It's far from my ideal Sonic cartoon, but it gets a lot of points for being as funny as it is. But the top four are all shows I'd say I like, more or less. They all have their pros and cons.

So now, uh... I guess let's hope the live action Knuckles show coming to Paramount+ is better than the underwhelming synopsis of "Knuckles helps deputy sheriff Wade train in the ways of the echidna warrior" would imply? Maybe we'll get lucky?

[b4ddprincess]

ELLIA I DID IT, I FUCKING DID IT, I CANT BELIEVE IT OMG. I FUCKING BECWME PURE CONSCIOUS, una rebut I still did it OMG 😭😭😭

I'm the 🪷 anon. These days I tried doing breathworks but I always ended up being anxious because I don't want my sister to know even if it's something normal lmao (few years ago mh sister discovered that I used subliminals, I was embarrassed af 💀 so I try to be cautious now) + I always became a bit lazy, like following the breathing patterns. I also always ended up focusing a lot in my body.

So I left that method and I kept going through other pure consciousness posts and kept reading @eternal-forever and @catherineaboutlife posts. I read their success stories do I decided to do it the same way as them, specially since i realized it was easier for me to focus on something Im hearing, as I'm really good on focusing on music while I imagine myself dancing and ignoring the 3d completely.

Today I put on brown noise, took my headphones and I laid down. I tried to focus only on the noise, and every single time I thought came to me I just let it pass. Sometimes it was difficult but then I would say to myself "just let it go", if I kept saying "focus" aggressively to myself, I would say "its okay, don't force it just listen to the noise". It reached a point where I stopped listening to the noise, then I suddenly kind of woke up. I saw the time on my phone, and I saw that I listened to the noise for 30 minutes. I thought "I fell asleep" and I continued with my day.

But now, when I was finished watching an episode of a serie I'm watching I realized that I became pure consciousness, that I did not sleep!! Now let me epxlain myself. I'm someone who CANNOT sleep with headphones on,i tried every single way to do so. With a ff tapes, relaxing music, breathworks, even brown noise when I'm in a sleepy STATE, NOTHING. I'm someone who need to adjust itself before sleeping + I never sleep on my back since it's uncomfortable, and if I was sleeping I wouldn't have woke up I the same position that I fell asleep because ei soneonewho moves a LOT.

I just realized like 5 mins before writing this, I FUCKING DID IT ELLIA, I CANT BELIEVE IT, I WAS UNAWARE BUT I DID IT 😭😭😭

Also these days whenever I woke up I would affirm "inducing pure consciousness is easy for me", but like few times only. I'm so fucking surprised...

YASSSS!! tht's MY anonie 🤭💞 congratss booo!!

[pestorik]

I got an ask from someone saying they are interested in watching adventure time but I accidentally deleted it :( anon if you are reading this here are some great reasons to watch it!

the later seasons are really awesome bc they start going really heavy on the lore and start to develop more of an overall plot. it's like watching the climax building in a movie but spread out over multiple seasons. it is 100% the best lore ive seen in a cartoon.

the show is really convenient to watch bc each episode is only 11 minutes but there are so many of them you dont get sad about finishing it too soon. this was back in the days of cable so theres anywhere from 20-50 episodes per season (yes, 50).

it's one of the only shows ive known that keeps the same voice actor for the entire series. the actor started around the age of 12 so you can literally hear him getting older throughout the show and the character gets older with him, voice cracking a lot and slowly deepening. i find it cool that they chose to do that instead of keeping the character eternally young.

you get attached to characters in ways you dont expect. as more things are revealed about them you begin to feel their loneliness, their insecurities, their desires. since the show lasted so long they had really amazing opportunities to develop the characters over a prolonged period and didnt need to rush it.

easter eggs! concept art! backgrounds! if you are an artist it's hard not to become obsessed with this show. and all these things are very well recorded online. even at the age of 26 i can think of ways that adventure time has influenced my art.

the idea of a post-apocalyptic setting being fantasy instead of sci-fi is so creative and unique. im personally not a fan of sci-fi but love fantasy and they did so many amazing things with this universe and it worked so well.

it is genuinely so funny. I think i actually laughed more rewatching it as an adult than i did as a kid.

you will gain a new appreciation for tom kenny if you've only ever heard him in spongebob. (also the VA who plays princess bubblegum played starfire, and jake's VA played bender)

if you do end up finishing the show (that will take a while) you have even more to look forward to! Distant Lands and then Fionna and Cake! the wiki also reveals some amazing stuff about each episode and you learn a lot of things you didn't know before (i dont recommend reading it while watching the main series bc it wont hide spoilers)

[choicesficwriterscreations]

July Creator of the Month: Eadanga

Please welcome this month’s Creator of the Month: @eadanga

Each month, CFWC highlights one of our talented fanfic writers or artists. The writer or artist is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page. Past COTM's can be found here.

Tumblr Blog Name: Eadanga How do you want to be known on Tumblr? Esang

Quick Links:

Tumblr Blog Masterlist

1- When did you start playing Choices? What was the first book you played?

I don't remember the year, but I started playing when it was only The Crown & The Flame, The Freshman, and Most Wanted. I thought it was a rip-off of Episode because many apps like that exist. The first book I started playing was The Crown & The Flame, and then I got bored of it, so I tried The Freshman, and I was hooked. Been playing ever since 😃

2- When and why did you join Choices fandom?

I joined about four years ago. I was in a Choices group on Facebook and saw people sharing fanfics. I first thought it was an ad, but when I looked, it was a fanfic, and it was amazing. That's when I joined so I could read more, and then I posted one of my own that I wrote.

3- How did you pick your blog name? 

Literally, it's just my name. I didn't think I'd be here long, not to mention posting. It's the first letter of my name, Esang, and my last name, Adanga. Maybe one day I'll change it 🤣😂

4- Pull up the first post in your archive, and tell us about it!  

This was my first post. I saw people making stories in the Choices group and decided to make one of my own. I didn't think it would get much attention, but it did 😁

5- Do you write fanfiction, create fan art, or are you one of those really gifted people who do both? 

I write fanfiction, but I’m not really good at making art, lol

6- How long have you been creating for Choices and for any other fandoms?

Let's see, I think I started in 2020. Choices is the only fandom I write for.

7- What is your favorite Choices book, and what is your favorite Choices book to create for?

The Freshman and The Royal Romance will always be my number one favorite books to read and write for 😁

8- Share your first Choices fanfic or fan art that you posted with us. Do you still like it, or would you change it if you were creating it today?

This was my favorite, and I'll never change anything about it. It is so romantic, hehe 😍

9- What is your favorite piece of fiction or art that you created? 

This one wrote it for @flowerpowell, and even though she doesn't post anymore, it was so much fun to write something for her. 

10- Do you have a fic/art that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to do well but found it could use a little more love?

It's definitely my Deepest Desire series. I didn't expect people to enjoy it, especially @littlegreenmoo, who was having a field day with that series 🤣. Chris's Journal could have been better; a little bit more detail would have made it pop.

11- (WRITERS) If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why? 

I hate angst, and I haven't written smut since my Deepest Desire series 🤣 so fluff all the way. I love happy endings 😁

12 - Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MCs or in your writing?

I put some of me in my MCs, like when they're cooking, cause I love to cook 😁

13 - What element of writing/art do you struggle with most?

Keeping up with a schedule. I make one, but then real life gets in the way, and I gotta change it.

14 - Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?

Eternal Love, I haven't written for that in a long time. I just got caught up with other fanfics, and then you lose inspiration, but I will get back to it one day.

15 - If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to see your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you show them first? 

Yes, I would love to show them, but I've shown my work without people asking. I've shown my best friend my work; she didn't ask. I just showed it to her, and she enjoyed it. I've shown my mom, too. She constantly told me to send it somewhere and get paid even though I only write for fun, not as a job. I stopped showing her after that because she was tired of hearing that.

16 - Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing or art? Are there any artists that influence you?

@maxattackpowell and @drivenbyfantasy are both no longer here, but their fanfics inspired mine. I’m grateful to both of them for that. 

17- (WRITERS)  Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series? 

The Graduate would make a great movie or Choices book, hehe.

18- Do you write original fiction or create non-fandom art? 

Choices is my first fandom.

19-  What other hobbies do you have?

I love cooking and baking, watching anime (I'm a total anime nerd 🤣), spending time with my baby @choicesgodfanatic, reading Archie comics, watching cartoons, praise dancing, and writing episode stories. 

20- BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to)

Thanks to everyone who enjoys all my stories, and don't ever worry about me leaving cause I'm here to stay. Choices is why I met my amazing love @choicesgodfanatic. It's part of our love story, and I'll never give up on it.

Plus, I've met some wonderful people here and never want to leave them. So glad you all enjoy my fanfics, and look out for many more cause more is coming your way 😁

[space-helen]

Eternity

Words: 1192

Pairing: Nick Stokes x Reader

A/N: I wrote this months ago... possibly at the end of last year? Early this year? idk I have a couple I still need to post.

Request: nick stokes and reader where the killer has taken the reader and is calling the lab and they can hear them hurting the reader or something? like one of the gig harbor killer episodes  - Anon

______________________

The phone lay on the table in front of the CSI’s as they all waited in anticipation.

You’d gone missing from the last crime scene you were at. Morgan, D.B and you had gone together to process the scene but it took mere seconds for you to disappear. One moment D.B had been asking you a question and the next you were gone, only a mobile phone and a note in your place.

The note gave D.B a set of instructions. One of which was to leave the scene immediately, the second was when to answer the phone.

The scene had been linked to a series of cases popping up over Vegas, a clear serial killer on a spree. The team had still been running evidence from previous scenes but leaving the last scene untouched was potentially detrimental to the case.

The team had been frantic trying to gather any evidence to find you, any surveillance footage from the area was being meticulously watched and the phone had been processed in hopes of finding anything to help them find you.

The buzz of the phone had everyone jumping in their seats slightly. Nick was the one to reach for the phone and held it in his hand for a second before accepting the call and placing the phone back down in the centre of the table.

After the call connected fully they were met by screams and whimpers. Everyone’s heart dropped at the sounds. They were coming from you. 

Nick shifted in his chair, he was absolutely torn up inside hearing you in pain. He stood up and began to move for the door, unable to listen any longer as tears formed in his eyes, the team knew about your relationship with him so he knew they’d understand.

Just as Nick reached the door your pleas stopped, all they could hear was your breathing and footsteps.

“CSI’s, I thought you would have said something by now.” the man laughed and it sent chills up their spines. “You’re probably wondering why I still have the line open as well, letting you track the call.”

Nick made his way back to his seat but instead of sitting he stood behind it with his arms crossed.

“Well that’s because I want you to find her. I’m sending a message. If you get here quick enough you can have me too. But I doubt that.” there was a pause. “For now I’ll just finish what I started.” 

As soon as he spoke his last word they could hear you pleading once more before more screams and sounds of his fist coming into contact with you and the falling of furniture and loud thuds.

D.B was quick to reach across the table and mute the lab's end of the line. “You know what to do.”

With that everyone was quick to their feet and straight to action. 

Nick's foot was to the floor as he drove, navigating the roads instinctively as he'd done a million times before but this time something greater was on the line. Pulling up to the destination he'd barely stopped the car before he was flinging himself out of it.

Everyone slightly grouped together before entering the building. A full force of officers with them, going from room to room they cleared the majority of the building swiftly before eventually finding you. 

Nick saw red, the tall man was standing over you with a knife, he didn't even hesitate to rush forward and pin the man to a nearby wall, grabbing his wrist to force him to let go of the weapon. In normal circumstances, Nick would have gone for his gun but the adrenaline had taken over and he was furious. Giving the man one last harsh shove against the wall the officers were soon pulling Nick away and cuffing the suspect.

Taking a breath Nick slightly composed himself before quickly turning on his heels and diverting his attention to you. He instantly spotted the EMT’s surrounding you, rushing forward he tried to push past them.

“Is she ok?” he was panicking “Is she alive?” his voice broke slightly.

Greg grabbed his bicep and tried to pull him away slightly. “Let them work”

He continued to struggle against the man and repeated questions about your condition but no one would respond. He watched as they moved you to a gurney, head lulling and eyes closed.

“Nick!” Greg's voice was harsh and stern, snapping the man out of his worried haze.

He finally resisted and watched silently as they took you away. “Is she ok?” he faced Greg finally, his eyes pleading.

The man was sympathetic, knowing the man had blocked out everything that the EMT’s had been saying “She’s lost a lot of blood. They said something about emergency surgery.”

Nick nodded. “That son of a bitch needs to go down for good.” Greg could see the anger inside of him.

D.B soon was with the men, an awkward silence hung for a second before he broke it. “Go be with her, Nick.”

The man’s shiny eyes looked into the older mans. “Are you sure?”

He nodded “We’re all thinking about Y/N but you’ll be better off with her. We’ll process the scene.”

Nick nodded and thanked the man under his breath, Greg gave the man a quick shoulder squeeze before Nick left to wait for you.

It took what felt like forever for you to finally come out of surgery and after that it took an eternity for you to finally wake up, but Nick stayed with you the entire time.

The man who’d abducted you was arrested and would go down for good, there would be no chance of him seeing the outside of a prison cell in his lifetime

Getting you home was a huge step, after a week of observation the hospital deemed you well enough to go home as long as you had someone with you, Nick was more than happy to be that person.

“Movie or TV show?” the man sat on the bed next to you, picking up the remote as he did.

You adjusted yourself and smiled “How about neither? Cuddles and sleep?”

A huge grin spread out on his face as he placed the remote back down “How could I say no to that?”

He got under the covers with you and the two of you were soon snuggling into each other. You yawned as you relaxed into him.

“Tired huh?” he teased.

“Says the man who had a nap this afternoon.”

“I was resting my eyes,” he teased. He pulled you in close to his side and placed a kiss on your hair.

You sighed in content “I don’t know what I’d do without you Nick.”

“I’m never going anywhere. You’re stuck with me for eternity.”

“Cheesy.” 

“Romantic.” he laughed “It’s what I do best.”

You moved your hand to lay on his torso, your thumb tracing patterns on his shirt as he adjusted the covers properly around you and relaxed into the bed. It didn’t take long for the two of you to fall asleep.

Tag List: (open) Nick Stokes @perasperaadastrawriting

[moldybonessmell]

// TUA season 4 SPOILERS

This season was absolutely horrendous, not gonna lie.

My scientific diagram regarding something that used to be my favorite show:

There's absolutely nothing I like about new season.

Now, more specifically, things I hate:

Klaus being traumatized for no reason and having no character development for 2 seasons straight (see rant).

Ben preaching eternal love and hooking up with a girl he met like a day ago while people around puke venom cum😃.

Right away, adding the "comedic gore" which is a sin for so many recent shows and TUA went the same annoying and overplayed route. Bloody scenes were cool when it was Five killing people with an iconic background music and stuff, but not the gore for the gore's sake.

By the way, music game is so weak this season, they literally took out the best part of the show that has become its trademark, what are creators doing???

Storyline with Diego thinking Lila is cheating and them being drowned in family life would have worked if it was in a different show, but it's TUA and it's boring as hell, sorry. (Maybe dont get like 3 kids if it's so difficult??? idk man)

Luther is stripper? Seriously? Completely unprovoked. Made for comedic sake once again, and I don't respect that. They didn't know what to do with his character and made him into comic relief, how unexpected /sarcasm.

Tension between Lila and Five, really? You took the best platonic dinamic, them actually being sibling-coded, and made it into romance? I have zero respect left. I do not care it was 6 years for them, I truly don't give a fuck. I cringed so hard. I just wanted to turn it off completely. Episode 5 is VILE, especially RIGHT AFTER Diego recognising family is more important than work. These scenes being one after other is diabolical. Also, Five hiding "the way home" for 5 months?? OOC as hell, if you ask me. You know what even more OOC and dumb? Five fighting Diego over Lila when The Cleanse is the bigger problem at the moment. (How did Five even end up on the floor, he's like the best killer in timeline??)

" - Why did I wait to take the shot.. - Maybe because you're a good man after all." No the fuck he's not. Reginald Hargreaves is not a good man. In neither timelines. The way the show tries to make him a gray character and make us like him is cringe as hell, just stop.

When I found out last season is only 6 episodes long I was upset, but at the time I finished episode 4 I just couldn't wait till the season is over.

(I had to finish it tho, for a slight possibility it's gonna get better and my rant posts to be relevant you know).

Honestly, I'm just glad it's over. The less seasons the less possibilities for the show to get even worse.

"I think we're alone now" as a closing song was a good choice tho.

Edit: I haven't checked the tags before posting and can't believe like 20 people have already used the horse meme before me guess we all thought the same bruh

[you-remind-me-of-the-babe]

It’s high time I’ve done another rec post, so here I am, coming in hot with six WIPs you should be reading right now.

Before I get into the fics themselves, a word about reading WIPs. Look, I know it’s tempting to wait until a fic is complete. Not to mention the fact that there is an absolutely staggering amount of amazing fics out there. I’m a slow reader myself, and my TBR list, even after reading fics for nearly three years, is so damn long. I could easily sit back and only read older completed fics and probably never finish them all.

But. I love a good WIP fic almost like nothing else. Yes, binging a completed fic in one sitting can leave you flying high. But following a fic as it’s being written, interacting with said fic and cheering that writer on, gives me so much gratification. Getting that email notification for a new chapter, and feeling so eager to read the new update, is an absolute joy. I highly recommend.

Lastly, this is not an exhaustive list of current Carry On WIPs, but merely a small sampling. And if anyone has any good WIP recs for me, I’d love to hear them!

Only Creatures, WIP, currently 52k, rated E by @emeryhall

In this canon divergent story, Simon breaks up with Baz at the end of WS, leading Baz to become a recluse and a poet, growing a beard and hiding out in Scotland. When he finds out Simon is a camboy for a website called Only Creatures, they tentatively start wanking chatting again. Come for Baz’s Unabomber style, stay for the second chances and explorations of intimacy.

Everything Emery writes is amazing, and this fic is no exception. It’s a little absurd, incredibly witty and heartfelt, with a cast of OCs that quietly shine. This story has cracked my heart open and is slowly putting it back together. You won’t regret reading this one.

Hiding Out in the Open, WIP, currently 48k, rated M by @cutestkilla

Another canon divergence story, this time where Simon and Baz never got together after their truce in 8th year. After the SSR debacle, they meet again and this time start connecting over a shared interest in a psychology podcast.

This fic does an excellent job of having these boys dig into their trauma and issues via the podcast topics, letting them heal and connect, while also letting the reader marvel at the heavy Snowbaz vibes of every podcast episode. It’s so smart, I’m telling you.

I Knew A Boy, I Knew A Man, WIP, currently 83k, rated T by @shrekgogurt

This football AU has Baz and Simon ending up on the same premiere league team, years after playing together at school. The author gives us flashbacks in every chapter of their frought relationship as teens, before progressing the story in the present.

I can’t believe I haven’t done an official rec post for this fic yet. Mary writes the sports bits of this story so vividly, and the flashback bookends of each chapter so perfectly tie into the current narrative, you’ll marvel at the complex way it moves the story forward. Seriously, one of my all time faves.

Basil Pitch’s Diary, WIP, currently 32k, rated T by @bookish-bogwitch

Watford-era Baz starts a diary on January 1st, determined to record his progress on various resolutions, namely, getting over Simon Snow.

This fic has the incredible humor of Bridget Jones’s Diary and will introduce you to your favorite version of acerbic, self-depricating teenage Baz. He will own your soul. There is no other outcome of reading this fic.

The Eternal Life of Baz Pitch, WIP, currently 25k, rated M by @monbons

This story watches a three hundred year old Baz, cursed after desperately trying to find a way to be loved on his own terms, wandering aimlessly in present times until he finds a certain blue eyed barista who has an unusual reaction to meeting him.

This AU is based on The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, but you don’t have to have read the book to become immersed in this achingly sad but thoroughly sweet story of hope and second chances.

Episode 6: Apres la Pluie, le Beau Temps, WIP, currently 10k, rated M by @artsyunderstudy

Another installment in the Star Trek series for the lovely @raenestee, this series is the epitome of following a good WIP story. Several authors have contributed to this sci-fi beast, and the progression of the story through several different writers’ hands is an absolute delight to watch. (And, as one of the authors, to participate in.)

If you aren’t yet reading it, this is a great time to join. We’re right in the middle of the story, leaving the four couples in Ashton’s very capable hands as she expertly guides them through various communication breakdowns. If you know nothing of Star Trek, don’t let that stop you from joining a thoroughly entertaining epic of a story.

[i-am-grell]

I’m Back! Throw Anime at Me!

If you’re new here, I suck at starting and finishing series and making choices, so I let Tumblr pick which anime I’ll watch next.

I’ve just returned from vacation, and have the freedom once again to include longer series - and long long series (description of how that’ll work below with the propaganda) - in these polls!

As always, propaganda* (*rambles about series I haven’t finished and how little I know about series I haven’t started yet, etc) below the poll. You’re welcome to reblog if you wanna bully your followers into voting for your fave. Other people’s followers and assorted Tumblr users: you don’t have to know me, follow me, or like me to throw anime at me. You don’t even have to like anime if you just wanna press a button. Go wild.

Propaganda:

How the long long series will work in my polls:

We all know some anime series are hundreds - even thousands - of episodes long. When it comes to these polls, rather than straight-shotting through these beasts, I’ll break them up by however the series is naturally divided (by season or arc - whatever that series has chosen). If there’s a shorter season/arc, it may be combined into the next one (for instance if one arc has 16 episodes and the one after has 30, I’ll watch 46eps for that poll option, since that’s pretty manageable. We’ll play it by ear, folks). I’ll always be specific in the propaganda about how far I’ll be watching for that particular poll and update my pinned post with my progress for that specific series after. The series may not show up in back-to-back polls for the sake of taking breaks and not burning myself out on the same thing.

Rambles about the options:

Blue Exorcist - I watched everything available circa 2014/15ish, but now there’s more? Apparently? I guess? Cool! I’ll probably rewatch what I have seen since it’s been a while and proceed from there.

Free! - I watched ISC and ES as they were airing. In sub. And y’all know I prefer dubs (of course I went back and watched it when there was finally a dub). But while everything past Eternal Summer was airing, I was in my busy period… 😬 Still have to finish it - but to be clear, I will be marathoning everything, starting yet again with Iwatobi Swim Club. Also I absolutely don’t mean to influence the vote but the longer Free! stays in these polls, the more 50% Off! quotes I get to use. If you ever see “backstroke for days,” assume I’ve run out.

Zombie Land Saga + Revenge - This has been in the polls before and I’m sure many of you have seen my propaganda for it before. TLDR: Love it, wanna finish it, TERFs aren’t welcome here 😌

Bungo Stray Dogs - I think about Dazai at least once a day and I haven’t even watched this show. I have 1) seen pictures of this man 2) listened to anime tiktok simps talk about this man. Do with this what you will.

One Piece - There’s a quote from an episode of Um, Actually… where Mike Trapp says he hasn’t read Wheel of Time because, while he’s always meant to, it “feels like nerd homework.” One Piece is my “feels like nerd homework.” For the purpose of this poll option, if chosen, I will start One Piece by watching the first arc.

Mashle - Anime OP make brain go brrr. Also from what I understand, it’s regular guy brute-forcing his way through Legally Distinct Hogwarts.

[themoonstarwarrior]

Well, I haven't seen the episode yet, but since it sounds like BloodMoon is refusing to be saved, imma go ahead and share the idea I mentioned to @twinanimatronics about how Sun could've possibly reached them.

Obviously BloodMoon wont sit still and listen so this scenario has Sun use star power to trap BM just like old moon did to him with Moon on standby to come in once the 5 minutes are up.

Basically, Sun asks them WHY they kill and hurt people and BM brings up the main three reasons: they enjoy it, they dont want to be a tool, and they hunger. Since literally none of the protags have actually asked, Sun would be surprised that theres more than the first reason and interrogate to get to the bottom of it. Cuz what Sun realizes is that BloodMoon doesnt have any deeper motives or desires because of their eternal hunger. Their ENTIRE existence has circled around violence to satisfy their hunger. They get used to satisfy their hunger. They enjoy the rip and tear because it stops the hunger.

They have always been a tool to the hunger.

So Sun offers the one thing that no one has: what if they get rid of the hunger?

BM is confused cuz all they've ever known is the hunger, and Sun has to dig the point home by explaining how they can keep killing but it'll come back, and probably stronger. They could kill everyone and everything but then the hunger will come back. And the only thing thatll be left to kill is each other.

And THAT freaks them out, because that is the only thing BloodMoon stands to lose is the brotherhood. (And while BM1 would probably race about lies and trickery, BM2 cant deny the logic)

So with BM actually realizing how their hunger endangers them, and Moon at this point just WAITING to finish them off, Sun lays down the ultimatum. Since no change of heart can happen if all they've ever known is hunger, Sun/Moon/Solar can try and remove it to and see if the twins can be rehabilitated, otherwise Moon ends them then and there.

And I love this idea so much!!! It addresses the REAL block that BM has that hasnt been brought up since that one episode where they kill the anime girl. We get to keep BloodMoon, since the creators went to the trouble of bringing them back and giving them a new model so it'd be a lil annoying if they just ended up killed again. It acknowledges how much BM has been used and brushed aside while admitting that there hasnt been much else to them. And you could have a whole rehabilitation arc, with everyone healing and BM given a real change and actual honesty, since god knows no one is gonna be mincing words. And I imagine their blood-hunger being removed ends up like the Ruin Virus a bit, where getting rid of it cuts down a LOT of the more sadistic urges. So the boys get a mostly-tamed but still-pretty-fucking-insane BloodMoon Twins that basically is just the feral crazy guy that hangs around Animal from Muppets lol and idk stays with Monty cuz hes more easygoing on the violent habits and they need to NOT be anywhere near the daycare.

And maybe I'll watch the episode and be alright with it, but it just sucks cuz this would work SO GOOD and I know the showrunners wouldn't do it. So now I've had to make this fucking long ass post and y'all hafta deal with it.

And maybe someday I'll write a drabble this and the other SAMS scenes I've imagined...

So yeah, sorry about the rambling and shit. I hate how emotionally involved I get with this show that I love. And I'll go ahead and tag @garbagechocolate out of obligation X)

[evelili]

I just finished your Magnum Opus, and it was super great. I especially loved the Pinkie chapter (which surprised me because she’s my least favorite character!). Anyway, do you have any mlp fic recommendations?

oh boy do i have a list for you, strap in!

if you read my magnum opus writeup, you may have seen i mentioned three authors that dragged me back into mlp. if you're interested in sciset (and what's probably the most popular eqg fic on the entire site), Long Road to Friendship by Albi is a longfic that started after the first eqg movie and is a rlly lighthearted read. i don't normally care for OCs but gosh if i dont accept Albi's version of trixie's parents as canon in my heart haha. if you're interested in pony adventure fic, i also rlly liked Sunset of Time, another rlly well done longfic ive carried in my brain since i first read it xd

the second author, Monochromatic, aka the raritwi authority aka someone who has a GREAT taste in editors, has written three of the most formative longfic ive ever read: The Enchanted Library, its sequel The Enchanted Kingdom, and Crimson Lips which i unfortunately can no longer link since she's taken it down, but i believe you can still buy physically through PFP if you wanted to take a gamble on it (it would be a very good gamble). apart from her longfic though i also adore some of her shorter works, including but not limited to The Choices We Make, a really interesting Pinkie study that's definitely shaped how i view her, Your Own Worst Enemy, which is just. peak rarity content, and Injuring Eternity, which while being one of her older works still has certain passages that wreck me emotionally on sight.

and the third author responsible for my magnum opus is the one and only Aragon, who i can not only recommend for his fics but ALSO for his blog posts and comics (see the comic index on his profile for links to all of them, as well as this amazing blogpost about his neighbour that is just peak comedy). he's also the writer responsible for the banger longfic Crime and Funishment which absolutely defined my writing aspirations for a few years and is the definition of comedy if you looked it up in my heart, as well as In Hindsight, yet another banger rarity fic, and Love Is In Doom which is just bloody, silly, stupid fun (and has sunset shimmer in it)

and then if we want to talk fics i love written by other authors, Sleepless Knights by r5h has my favourite brand of scitwi written right into the margins, Administrative Angel by horizon has one of the most amazing endings to an opening chapter ive ever read AND an amazing celestia, The Best Night Ever by Capn_Chryssalid is a fandom classic with a groundhog day twist on the gala episode from s1, Side by Side by Krickis is a feel-good rarijack oneshot w a focus on lgbt (specifically trans) themes, Wax Earplugs by Reedhoarse has a dysfunctional mess of an adagio dazzle that i adore, Merge Request by FanOfMostEverything has all the scitwi/midnight shenanigans you could ask for wrapped up in the relatable content of github hell, Guppy Love by PaulAsaran is a rarijack longfic with an incredibly realistic setting and an interpretation of mermaids that i love so much, Doused Flame by heartlessons has me handshaking on the "sopping wet pathetic relatable guy" flash sentry interpretation that won me over recently, 80 Days 'Til the World's Farthest Shore by Cynewulf feels like reading a professionally published short story (and i mean that in the best of ways, it's enthralling), and finally if you'll allow me to be self-centred a bit i also am very proud of my two oneshots Heartstrings and Something About Midnights if you wanted to check em out too xd

oops long post!! im not sorry for it, i hope you can find something in here that catches your fancy (or even all of it haha), there's soooo many incredible fics in the fandom it floors me every day that i can read all these incredible works for free!!!

[pastelcheckereddreams]

Four Seasons Manor (四季山庄): Set Layout, Part Three!

This is the third and final post detailing my set sleuthing adventure, looking for the sets that make up Word of Honor's Siji Manor. If you're stumbling over this post in the wild - hi! I draw architectural drafts of cdrama sets, as accurately to the show as I can. A huge amount of research goes into creating my art, and so far no set location has been as elusive as this one.

Split across two sets - one located in Hengdian World Studio's Spring and Autumn Tang Park, and the other in Hengdian's Huaxia film studio - this post is the final part uncovering the layout of Siji Manor. (And nothing will make sense if you read this post first, go back to part one and part two!!)

A reminder, before we dive right back into the breakdown of my completed birdseye view, that this last part will cover the main courtyard of what I have dubbed the "interior" Siji set, highlighted in red below:

Let's dive in!

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The Main Courtyard

The main hall (6), the largest building in this set, is what I and @minnarr, who shares my brainrot 🙏 and has been a great help in this process, have been calling "Everlasting."

This is because sign over the entrance reads, "萬古長青" (wàn gǔ cháng qīng), which to my layman's knowledge translates as "Everlasting and Evergreen," an idiom that can be extrapolated to mean "forever green throughout the ages," which describes a noble spirit or deep friendship that will last forever, like an eternal Springtime:

In the above screenshots, you can see that Chengling's training area (9) is set up in front of this main hall, and over his head in the third picture, you can just about see the moon window that is a feature of WKX's room.

Importantly, the pavilion (10) just about seen behind Chengling's training area, marks a de facto boundary for this set as it appears in WOH, as the camera angles of these episodes never never stray past it. For a long time - until I began to watch Mysterious Lotus Casebook and Heroes, which handed me the final puzzle pieces to rule out this set as part of the film parks - I thought the entire set must finish just to the right of the pavilion.

That is not so. If I pull up some screenshots from MLC and reintroduce the scant few photographs I've found of the "Mansion Scene" Huaxia set itself from part two, you can see this main courtyard in full:

In these photos and screenshots, we can now see the main courtyard almost in full: the main building with its projecting entrance (I'm unsure if the term portico applies to Asian architecture); the pavillion to its left, standing opposite Building 8 which we will come to in a moment; and Building 11 at the end of what, in MLC, is a central pathway - but that I have interpreted in my own drawing to be a path of scattered stepping stones like the rest of the set, considering the smaller courtyard (5) - as discussed in part two - appears to be taking on the role of a more formal courtyard.

'Everlasting' and 'Gentle Winds'

For a moment, though, I need to draw us back to the main building. This building - Everlasting - is very important as, by vehicle of drama magic, this is where the two Siji sets conflate.

In episode 24 we cut from a shot of the main building in the exterior Siji set, whose sign reads "風輕雲淡" (fēng qīng yún dàn), or "Gentle Winds and Light Clouds," to this interior shot of Everlasting:

And to confirm that this interior shot is Everlasting, or building 6, we return to MLC, where we are treated to an outside-to-inside shot of the build, whose inset floor matches that of WOH's Everlasting building, seen clearest in episode 24, above, and episode 28:

(I do have more screenshots that I may add in later, but right now I'm running out of steam, please just take my word for it. 😂)

Cold River Room

Now, unfortunately I've been unable to place the medicine room, in which ZZS grinds herbs, in what photo resources I have of this film studio. Likewise for the room I've taken to calling the "infirmary" (where WKX takes a healing bath after his confrontation with YBY). Equally as unhelpful, there's simply no discernible exterior details seen from inside these two rooms that I can dig my research claws into and try to identify a placement or orientation for them:

The room they spend their first night at Siji Manor in, however, is a different story. That room - dubbed as the "Cold River Room" by Minna - is Building 8.

This was quite easy to place, thanks to this screenshot of a behind the scenes video (that I've since long lost the link to, unfortunately - if you have a link, I'd be very grateful if you share it with me so that I may add the source). Here, we can see the column inscriptions on Everlasting through the window:

So I can confirm this building to be the room they spend their first night as Siji in, seen here behind Chengling as well as in a MLC screenshot - showing its place across from the pavilion clearly:

The Pond

The last part of the main courtyard - and of this set breakdown overall - is the pond and Building 11:

I had suspected their was some kind of water trough or strip of pond between the seating area (4) and the pavilion (10) for a while, but never had the resources to confirm it. I still can't. However, a film studio's entire purpose is to shapeshift from one design brief to another. Sometimes, there is a pond and sometimes there isn't, as these two images show:

The left image is a photograph from the article about Hengdian's film studios linked above, taken from the seating area (4), while the right image is a screenshot from Heroes episode 13, the camera positioned in front of Building 11. I simply decided that I liked the pond there, so I included it in my Siji layout.

As an aside, in this scene in Heroes, with the camera panning just a bit further right, we get a lovely clear shot of the archway from the formal courtyard (5) to this one:

Finally, we come to Building 11. You'll notice that I called the courtyard of the QHZ snow scene in WOH a "formal" courtyard (5), on account of the clearly defined, linear paving.

However, it doesn't have the large gate of a main courtyard:

This courtyard, the one with Everlasting, does. The winding steppingstones used as paving in the Siji set dressing of this location takes away from the formality of this courtyard that, once you see it in its entirety in shows such as MLC or Heroes, it certainly has. To that point, Building 11 - or rather, structure 11, as may be more appropriate to call it now - is actually a large gateway. This is easiest seen in Heroes, episode 13:

Of course, that doesn't mean we have to designate it as a gateway in the Siji layout. I don't think it's meant to have that identity, based on the above - well, it's not meant to have an identity at all. It's never seen in the show. But, given the Siji set dressing and the resemblance it bears to Building 8, the Cold River Room, I might consider giving it the identity of one of the rooms I've been unable to locate - the infirmary, or the medicine room.

Let me hear your thoughts!

I'd like to hear your suggestions and thoughts on that. On all of it! Because despite all of this research, I am still left with the gargantuan task of drafting it all into a finished piece. And as such, I am still faced with the dilemma I began to outline months ago in part one:

How could I merge these two very different sets together? Should I merge them together?

I have rambled ideas at friends about presenting an architecture draft that is simply reportage - showing both sets, and summarizing the information I've given you all here before making suggestions on how they could combine into "one true set".

But on the other hand, do I draft the Siji I see emerging in the crossover of these two sets - the one I can feel starting to take shape in my brain? And then simply offer this research up as the facts.

There's still a long way to go, but thank you for being here! As always, if you'd like to support my research madness and help fuel my many artistic endeavors, please consider donating to my kofi or checking out my print shop:

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And happy new year! I hope 2024 brings you happiness and opportunity in all that you wish ✨

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

[beauty-and-passion]

Tackling The Magnus Archives

I hope you’re satisfied, TMA fandom.

For a lot of time, I’ve seen this fandom everywhere: posts, fanarts, even more fanarts, people mentioning scary stuff and an overall positive reaction about this series.

At first, I didn’t pay it any attention. It seemed just like any other series, with nothing exceptional about it. But the more time passed, the more fanarts I saw, the more they got my interest. I still had no idea what the series was about, but it looked interesting. Maybe there was something I didn’t notice before.

So… why not give it a try?

Cool, what’s the plan?

From the moment I decided to give this series a try, I ran away from all spoilers. That means I am currently facing a series I have no idea what will be about. I know nothing about the plot, nor the characters.

Well, nothing except for a few things I accidentally learned before:

Jonathan Sims is the protagonist. I think?

There is a Michael somewhere

Also, a Martin doing stuff

There are a lot of names

And a library

I’ve also seen a spider lady

Someone explores a dungeon? Is there a dungeon in this story?

There is a homoerotic story too

I also recently found out there is a season 2 - or a related series? No idea what the plot is about, but we will find out along the road.

How?

I had two choices: to analyze every single episode (and die of old age because it would take an eternity) or listen to the whole series first, then write one/several posts analyzing it. But it would still take a lot of time and I will inevitably forget a lot of stuff or don’t cover things as well as they deserve.

So, I chose a third option: to tackle the series ten episodes at a time and write a post with my impressions about all of them. (a bit like I do for Eurovision, only for TMA). This way:

I’ll cover every episode

I will remember more stuff

I will post constantly, so you won’t have to wait forever for me to finish the whole thing first

It will be funnier and more entertaining

Is there something we should/shouldn’t do?

I want my impressions and comments to be as genuine as possible, but in order to do that, I shouldn’t know anything about what I will read.

That means I will actively avoid every little information about the series. It doesn’t matter if it’s about harmless or well-known info: I won’t read it, period.

So please, do not write me anything about this series. I will not read any ask regarding TMA. You can still ask me stuff and write comments, sure. And you can put spoilers if you want, but please: be kind and put a big warning before them. Do not spoil the fun.

What’s the timeline?

Asap: I will write a new post and add it to the main masterlist. This new post will seve as masterlist for TMA and include this introductory post, as well as all other reactions. So If you ever miss one of them, you will read all of them there.

In the next couple days: it will come out the first post with my reactions about chapters 1-10. I’m already working on it, so it should come out very soon.

I will try to keep up a consistent schedule, but can’t promise you anything. I am preparing two exams and my final thesis too, so it might take me some time to post. But I will end this series. By now, you know that when I start something, I finish it.

In conclusion

Thank you in advance to all the people who will follow me in this adventure. If you already know about TMA, you can have fun, by mocking me for my ignorance or wait for the moment I will face the real shit. If you don’t know about TMA, maybe you will find the inspiration to start it - or to do it with me. It’ll be fun! And even if the series ends up being bad, at least we can laugh together at how terrible it is.

See you very soon with the first post about chapters 1-10.

(How about a coffee? ☕)

_______________________________

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