#btw i know i know 20 isn’t old but like. turning 20? dude i still don’t even know what i’m actually going to school for 😭

[thatone-churro]

wait what the fuck do you mean i turn 20 in 2024. hang on. wait. i never saw myself with that number. i don’t like it. 20 is NOT a me number. what happened to being 17. what the fuck.

[the-acid-pear]

Scarface was too fucking boring, didn't make it past chapter 3, but that's good, because that means Baki-Dou time 😍

Time to read the fourth book in this series! Excited to see Musashi <3

Chapter 1

COLORS

Baki please stop flexing

A FELLA SAYING THE SAME I SAID WHEN YUJIRO PULLED HIS SOB STORY, FR GO TRY SOMETHING ELSE! What happened with that whole "i don't care about fighting" eh Baki?!

Chapter 2

HOHO ALI JR???

ah no :/

HOLY FUCK is this quality bad!

He wants to taste defeat i see

TOKUGAWA PLEASE STOP SMOKING

Oh they removed the... Egg in the back of the neck, nice

God this guy's tits so fat 🥵

FINALLYYY HOW LONG SINCE WE SAW A FIGHT IN THE ARENA? A PROPER FIGHT I MEAN

Chapter 3

He doesn't even know 🐍

DON'T BRING THAT FELLA HERE RETSU KICKED HIS ASS IN TIME. RECORD

Oh i saw fanart of this scene

Baki, it's your fault that you are bored, you fucking teen

This shit boring ME

Chapter 4

Oh, goroukou is a title

I like how the prime minister is becoming a recurrent character

I thought he said babe for a sec-

That little "oh~" is a bit sus, are the old men... No, it can't be 😳😳😳

I'm fucking choking fuck

GOD ALMOST READ THAT AS JOHN CENA 😭

"yes <3"

These ppl never learn

Chapter 5

What a way to go, a la gamzee /j

This dude so weird lmao

FAHDGAHDH king

Dude he has huge round eyes tf you talking bout?

IGDUFSUEASEUURSS he's such a freakkk 😭😭😭

This is the most wtf thing Baki has pulled, remember when this was about fighters fighting? I don't know enough about science for this shit either man

Okay so their hug wasn't Tokugawa being touchy like he is, this guy is even worse, se juntaron el hambre y las ganas de comer HSHAFSFG

Chapter 6

Baki's dead

Katsumi about to kill get killed by my grandpa i see

ALSO KATSUMI OG HAIR WOOO

Katsumi bro don't be so happy over nearly killing him-

I love seeing him get better tho

Uwaadgsgsjdga 😍😳🤤 twisting my hair irl,,, 🥴

Finally Motobe remembered he was a character here 😐

FSGSHDAHDA KOSHO PLS

I LOVE that they got dark lips again

IM SORRY GOUKI HOW DO YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT EVERYONE?! LTDKFsjyrd 😭

Jack's scar looks cool ngl

Retsu living the good life lmao

AND HOW DO YOU KNOW, GRANDPA?

Hana just doesn't care, smartest Baki character lmao

Idk what they talking bout but good for em <3

Cum basement

Chapter 7

SHOW US MUSASHI'S COCK

Obsessed he thought his heart was failing 😭

Dude you can just hear the heart beat of your friends/opponents just like that? 🤨

Notice Gaia in the top left 🥴

WHY CAN HE RECOGNIZE EACH OF THEIR HEARTBEATS AAHSGA

Thick 🥵

Unironically built different

Chronic back pain if you ask me, that's how I stand to relieve my agony

Did. Did you just call him a femb-

STOP SHOWING ME PANELS FROM VAGAMOND

I love John sm lmao

Mr Musashi has 2 (3?) dads

Chapter 8

HAIRY LEGS 🥴

Those things look like boobs

Bet you would know eh SHAFADB

They jerked off the mummy?

Reminds me of eye surgery

AFjshAFDGAJAHAF

Mf came out the tube ripped af 😭

Chapter 9

Everyone is so feminine lately good ol Kureha fell behind 😭

I like his bandana tho it's cute

OH HE TOO? AND HE'S NOT EVEN THAT STRONG

Fat tits 🥴

Eheojeudkshs 😖😳👉👈

JACK STOP YOU ARE BIG ENOUGH ALREADY

HOLY FUCK

You know like i understand Baki, he is at the highest he can be rn, NO ONE can defeat him, but the rest? Like c'mon y'all just beat each other up or something

Ah, the miracle of birth 😍

Chapter 10

I love how all these two do is hang out together in bars, boybosses

TF IS UP WITH THAT ICE? AHDHS

I love what they have

Hana thinking of getting his 4 limbs broken again i see

WOOO!! Nice cock Mr Musashi 😳

HANAYAMA PLEASE 😐

Chapter 11

I love those freaks

I just now I'm seeing the little scars on his cheeks from the fight with Spec ☺️

I love the fact that Musashi has hair in his legs BUT not his arms like ??? Okay king

Heated scientist moment

HOHO POGGERS 👀

Chapter 12

UTSURAARSDFAFA sibling goals

GIRLBOSS 😍

URAURUSYRSAESGA IN LOVE???

Holy shit she's amazing

Chapter 13

And his ass is very thick too 😳

Those fucking sunglasses, obsessed

Debatable, he got struck by lightning :/

HE WAXES HIS HAIR? OMFG OBSESSED

WHY IS HE WEARING THAT LMAO 😭

Nooo they censored the cock again 😔😔😔

DO IT QWEEN 💅

STOP SAYING SHE'S GONNA FUCK THE CLONE

"I'm exciteddddd" "ok."

Chapter 14

You just hate seeing a girlboss win

She truly is amaizing

Also i just realized spirits have been showing up since the first book so this isn't so crazy lol

MF HOW IS THAT GONNA HELP 😭😭😭

THE LITTLE BUBBLES AND SPARKLES... I BET HE DID 🥺

Chapter 15

WHY ARE HIS TITS SO ROUND AND FAT GODDAMN IT,,, 😳😖

Glad seeing some things never change

He looks so much like Jun

IGSITSURAURZES EPICCC

Someone question if Yujiro knew how too write obsessed,,,

Chapter 16

Goddamn it you got even older in the past 3 or so chapters bro

Mouth to mouth soul transference

OHHH

HIS EYEBROWS FELL HOW IGDUTSITDIYDIGD

Some mf got turned on by this HELP 😭

Chapter 17

I love how Yujiro and Hana are still getting ready to throw hands while this happens lol

Okay yeah that was super disrespectful honestly, guy is having a chat :/

HAHAGSJAHA obsessed

God i thought it was Hana the one grabbing some random lady for a second AFDJSJSSJS

He cute af ngl

POOR GUY MUST BE SO CONFUSED OMFG,,,

Fsr I'm surprised he can talk, like it should be obvious but in all the fanart i saw he never said a word, also, he's so damn respectful 😍

Chapter 18

Idk he was never that clever /hj

Hehehe blood

I love how John can only sit that way

The size of his balls lmao

Coward won't even fight with his dick out smh :/

God he mad cute-

Chapter 19

I MISS THE DEATH ROW FELLAS FUCKKK

Hm i think this random tiny bald man is not Tokugawa but someone that looks awfully similar to him

YEAH NO SHIT I FEEL SO BAD FOR HIM, HE MUST BE SO DAMN OVERWHELMED

Apparently there was a cameo, i don't know enough about anime to know or care

Chapter 20

He's tripping balls

Tokugawa should have gone a bit slower with this poor guy, this is like a lot to process at once <:/

Nvm he's doing better than me

Oydirsusefs look at himmm

WAIT A FUCKING SECOND OMFG DIDN'T DOPPO FIGHT THIS GUY?!

SOMEONE ELSE RECOGNIZED HIM HE ISSS

Chapter 21

OHDIRAYEASURRSUURS HE DOESN'T KNOWWW FFS

Musashi be like °_°

LOOK AT THAT SMILE LMAO

He's just chilling, mentally killing this dude

Murder baby

Chapter 21

The way his eyes are drawn is so cool

YRAURSUFSIDTGA

And he jokes too! Wow I'm in love 😍

(nsfw) CAN YOU HANDLE DICK LIKE THAT TOO? 😍

WOW

I TAKE BACK THAT QUESTION

I remember a show where you would bring your own knives and swords and go thru a bunch of test, Musashi should have been one of them

Mf truly is like :]

I love how he didn't buy it

I can't wait for him to fight Yujiro 😍

Chapter 23

He truly is 😌

ATFJAIDQYSF OBSESSED

He was happy this time at least, 5 times he lost already btw

Tokugawa truly in unhateable lmao

Chapter 24

IM SORRY, HIS LEG???

Oh I forgot Musashi does that

JAGSKSGSKSGS HIS FUCKING FACE I CAN'T 😭

I miss when translators would add notes i don't want to google shit myself :/

"I'm hard as rock" /j

Chapter 25

Look how happy he issss

MUSASHI POG MUSASHI POG-

I love how Tokugawa can't believe he got it first try and it's trying to lie now sjdakdyv

This mf is actually making me insane what the actual fuck i don't know what he has but he's gonna make me act up 😳

Mf be shadow boxing too dammit /j

Baki please

Chapter 26

OLD MAN JUST WANTS A PUBLIC TO SEE THIS LMAO

Look at the size of Baki's eyes holy fuck lmao

He's gonna yeet him!

OH NOOOO

FIRST HIS DAD NOW MUSASHI, THIS GUY CANT CATCH A BREAK LMAO

Chapter 27

How little time passed? They have barely moved

Yeah you did it last book too Baki

King shit

Chapter 28

AKSGSKGSJSGS KING

I love how he only now realized

Okay no he has a point

I love how he just calls him boy

Look at that smug face

I trust Musashi but at the same time he, really should be walking around this new world alone. Now, if i were to accompany him... 🥴/j

Baki please

Chapter 29

I love how soft the artstyle suddenly got, like if done big a big brush

Yujiro you just insulted every single anime character in history

Baby Baki's just like "Ok."

I like how Yujiro looks here

AUGHHJF HE'S SO BABY 🥺

HOHO badass

Chapter 30

He died 😔

Idiot hasn't even beat he 0.5 reaction seconds lmao 🤣

HOHOOOOO?!? 👁️👁️

"my curiosity exceed my fear!!" I RESPECT THIS MAN SO MUCH??

Chapter 31

AMAIZING HONESTLY

Fighter to fighter communication

SHIT LOOK AT THE STATE OF THAT HAND

He's just gone now LMAO

I honestly don't mind Baki being weak against this, he never fought against a two handed swordman, this is new territory

Chapter 32

Oh his really tripping balls now this is why he shouldn't be alone

NVM HE'S STILL DOING BETTER THAN ME ON A DAILY BASIS, I HAVE A LOT TO LEARN FROM THIS MAN

I just now realized he's barefoot

Nice ass king

The policemen are quite nice

He's very cooperative but i can't blame the cops either

Chapter 33

Yeah no shit that must be so insane

IF YOU HADN'T DROPPED OFF SCHOOL THEN...

That's kinda funny but idk man he's right i think

He's just like :3

I love how he isn't picking up a fight out of malice but rather just instinct like, he can't understand shit that is going on

YOU ARE SO RIGHT BAKI IT ISN'T BORING FOR ME EITHER

Chapter 34

Don't you fucking dare shave him Itagaki

It's funny how it took 2 books and a half for Baki to start being a protagonist

Holy fuck did Baki add height or is Miyamoto that big?

Wow how perfect i ran out of space just now!! Having fun with this book ngl :]

[redxblueihateloveyou]

I'm curious what you think the worst shipping dynamic is? And the reasoning behind it if you have any.

Thank you so much!!!

haha I do have several of those actually. I’ll include both what I think are the worst dynamics and the kind of ships that “I just don’t get why would you ship smth like that”.

1. What I actually call “a mom and a manchild”.

examples: Hatori/Chiaki from “Sekaichi Hatsukoi”, Ikuya/Hiyori.

I guess, technically there’s nothing wrong with this, if they both enjoy being this way, but firstly I just hate adults behaving like infants and I don’t think encouraging such behavior can lead to anything good, and secondly watching this just makes me uncomfortable for many reasons. And moments like when Hyori came up to Ikuya when he talked to Haru and was like “it’s too late and you can’t talk to this man, time to go home” and Ikuya went I just cracked up at this. Also when one part is basically changes the other’s part diapers, but in return gets tantrums or basically nothing or “but I wanna play with someone else tho”, it’s just a kink I do not get, like why would you want to be treated like this is beyond me.

But then I also generally dislike infantile characters, and I can’t ship smth if I don’t like both parties, so maybe bc of this. I always like the mature characters. Like even when I do know in theory that a 13 year old in reality can’t behave like Todoroki, I’m still like, I don’t fucking care, that’s the one I like xD But when 20 years old Ikuya behaves like this, I just do not appreciate it, I guess.

2. “I don’t have an identity, my identity is you or what you want me to be” category, including “my dignity flew out of the window” ones and “I just do what you do”. (I CANNOT HANDLE THIS DYNAMIC, YOU KNOW I CAN’T!!!!!!! I DO NOT WHY, BUT IT’S JUST PISSING ME OFF THE MOST OF ALL PROBABLY)

examples: Eren/Mikasa, Haru/Makoto, Natsusa/Sei from “Number24″.

Sports animes do that a lot. “The only reason I played rugby is because you played it” is a major cringe. And no, it’s not romantic. Romantic is like when you’re both passionate about this and doing this sports together makes it even better/more meaningful, that I get. Not, “I only went there bc you like it” and I’ll have what you have, I’ll do what you do. Like.. huh? You firstly a person, as in fully formed one pls, you can’t exist as someone’s trail. 

Those ships always contain this one person (like Mikasa, Makoto), who are just the accessory of the other character. Mikasa’s problem is not the ackerbond, it’s her life position, she herself chosen to be Eren’s doormat. And some also find this romantic, I think, but I just hate such things. Also the truth of life: if you don’t respect yourself, your crush won’t respect you either. Just saying.

Makoto, I sincerely think, if Kisumi would be his neighbour instead of Haru, he’d be playing basketball at school lmao. Like SD has so many of absolutely terrible scenes, where Makoto just for real turns to Haru and goes “do you think I should go to the basketball club if we’re not swimming?” like dude, I’m... he’s like a walking definition of “meh” if there ever existed one. How can you do not care what you do? Like at all. This is beyond me. That’s sad. Watching him makes me sad.

I just need both characters in a ship be you know THEM, fantastic on their own, then when they’re together they become an absolutely explosive magic. It’s just a true fact.

Also there is one ship who is not quite this category, but kinda touches this theme. Ciel and Lizzy from “Kuroshitsuji”, ike the original Ciel, for whom she wanted to pretend to be a dumb damsel in distress for the rest of her life. Like fucking seriously????? You’d live like this????!!!! Fucking hell, you must really don’t love yourself like at all.

3. Humiliation isn’t my kink.

examples: Dazai/Akutagawa, Midoriya/Bakugou.

Akutagawa and Midoriya are badass motherfuckers and also wonderful human beings on their own. When they encounter Dazai and Bakugou they become sheeps. I hate seeing them like that, that’s basically it. Also humiliation is really not my kink. The whole “treat him like crap” thing. Like some things they did to them is just.. my god, I don’t like it.

Like when Dazai asked Atsushi to throw the phone moment, I literally flinched so hard watching it, I can’t even explain this feeling between the dejection and utter disgust at the fact that Dazai did it, that I felt watching it, but I fucking hated it.

4. Those who bring out the worst in each other or don’t bring out anything in each other.

All my ships literally all with no exceptions make each other the best versions of themselves, push/challenge each other to become better/brighter/happier, etc., or add to each other that piece the other was missing. 

If someone makes someone feel depressed, miserable or even just simply stuck in a rut, that’s probably not it. There are some ships who just simply can’t make each other happy or even make each other unhappy and that’s a fact.

5. Ships with no development or development so tiny that you need 120 episodes and an magnifying glass to see it.

examples: I’d say, but I just don’t want those 10 year olds in my ask box again.

Hate this for obvious reasons. Because as wise ppl say “only fools don’t grow” or "if we don't change, we don't grow. if we don't grow, we aren't really living."

6. Those who are like brothers to each other and said so and don’t emmit any and I mean ANY sexual vibes or attraction in that kind of way towards each other. 

examples: Harry Potter/Ron Weasley (like THE FUCK seriously), Stiles/Scott from “Teen Wolf”, Keith/Shiro.

I just cannot imagine them being romantically involved, I literally can’t. And I don’t get it. It’s like they even say “you’re my brother” thing, but also they just do not give off any couply feels and imagining this kinda make me cringe a bit, cause I have two sisters I’m very close with and their relationship remind me of our relationships so just.. no.

7. They are not each others priority. Meaning both putting someone else or something else before them.

If they don’t put each other first, I most likely probably don’t want it. 

My jam is like Stucky and when they say to Steve “you do this, captain, and the whole world would think of you as a criminal” and Steve being like “fuck you, take your shield, take your idiotic hero rules, I don’t care, he matters to me more than your whole dumbass world”.

My jam is Lan Zhan who went against the whole world and a horde of stupid donkeys and fought for his baby till the end. He really didn’t care if he’d lose everything and what would other ppl think, if it meant that Wei Wuxian will be with him.

On the other hand, we have Jin Guangyao, who had Lan Xichen, but he wanted power and idiots’ love more, so he chose what he chose. Do not get this ship, like no, thanks.

As for putting specific someone else first. Rin/Sousuke, for example. I in general do not get it, but also like there are like 10 moments in the anime like in Yakusoku when Rin forgot about him, when he saw Haru during the tournament and an actual quote “Sousuke looked at Rin, who will always put Haru first”. So like... I do not get it. If you see them as a couple this is technically no good no for Sousuke, no for Rin.

8. Obviously straight ones, but “hey, I need them gay”.

I in fact just do not believe in a “straight ppl do not exist” thing. As I’ve said before there are exceptions where some characters give off the clear bi vibe, but those are pretty rare tbh. And even more rare canonically proven ones like Kanda from D.Gray-man, for example. 

The moment they show some character in anime drool over some girls he doesn’t even know, but he don’t react to any of the guys like this, this just means he’s most likely heterosexual. Cause only straight guys drool only specifically after seeing random boobs. So this thing always throws me off in some ships.

99% of my ships are either canonically gay or most likely gay, but author doesn’t want to label it. 

There are just lots of animes where main character/s have shown no interest in an opposite gender whatsoever like “Natsume Yuujinchou”, “Kuroko No Basuke”, “AOT”, “Number24″, “Fukigen na Mononokean”, “Tower Of God”, “Owari no Seraph” etc., but did in fact show interest in the same gender one. That I get, yes. 

And btw even if you want somebody to be as I call it a “wishful bi”, I think it should be only in situations like if these characters have some absolutely wonderful/undeniable connection, not just the ship for the sake of gay ship.

_____

That’s probably it. Otherwise I’m fine, I think :D  

[padme-parker]

Collide / Chapter 1

[a Star Wars x Avengers crossover]

Summary: With the fate of the universe lying in your hands, you are sent on a mission to a galaxy far, far away.

Warnings: none (I think)

Word Count: ~3k

A/N: The readers ‘superhero’ name is Star btw, so I hope that clears up any possible confusion (there will be a backstory/flashback later as to how she got that name). This is the first series I’ve ever written, so there's gonna be some major plot holes and shit that doesn’t make sense!! I’ve been trying to work through the kinks and make it seems as logical as possible. Sorry and Thanks for reading :) xx 

also I didn’t really proof reader so sorry if there like,,, a lot of mistakes

image is from the 100! (but this isn’t strictly about the 100 !)

“and I scream from the top of my lungs, what’s going on?” -4 Non Blondes

You sat down on the couch with a huff, Tony had taken the remote away from you after you decided to replay Revenge of the Sith for the 100th time. It was the team bonding movie night, occurring every friday. Peter and you were more than eager to rewatch it, however the team was not so ecstatic about it.

As soon as Tony saw your eyes light up, he immediately knew what you were thinking of, “And don’t even think of asking FRIDAY to play it for you.” You let out another huff, deciding to leave so you could have some time to yourself.

“Star, where are you going!?” He paused the show, as he and the others turned to you.

“Well, since you took away my joy, Mr. Stank, I’ve decided to ogle Anakin Skywalker in the comfort of my own room.” You could hear the snickers let out by the team as Tony muttered under his breath, unpausing the show as the theme for Sense8 started to play.

As you entered your room, you took no notice towards the figure in the corner. You were just about to flop down onto your heavenly bed before you were interrupted.

“Miss L/N.” You let out a scream as you turned to the figure. Quickly unholstering your weapon, you pointed it at the figure, finger guns ready to shoot if needed. “Cut the crap L/N, and put the ‘gun’ away.”

“Damn Fury, I could’ve been changing! What the hell.” You gave him an incredulous look

“Oh you’re funny, but we all know that you don’t give a damn if someone sees you half or fully naked. Not that I’d want to, cause frankly I don’t.” Your eyes widened with shock, mouth falling open, “Nevermind that, I’m not here for chitchat. I have a mission for you that requires your focus to be….elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere..? EYe- sir it’s the 21st century, not the 18th century.”

“Yes, well regarding the place you’re going to, our timelines won’t be explicitly the same.” You gave him a questioning look, he continued, “Tell me young L/N, have you ever heard of the force?” Oh at this point he must’ve been tickling your pickle, I mean what kind of joke is he playing at?

“Yes, of course I have! It’s a fictional power from a fictional movie!” Opting out on the ‘DUH!’ at the end just in case Fury decided he wasn’t in the mood to play games anymore.

“Wrong, agent L/N. You’re absolutely wrong.” At this point you were seated on your bed, hands clasped together and placed on your lap. “In fact, where do you think you got your powers from?” Oh shit, maybe you should’ve thought about the fact that you could move things with your mind before saying that the force was fake.

“I don’t understand, even if what you’re implying is remotely correct, it would be impossible! There’s also no way I could even go back to the past to change it” Before you could utter another word, Director Fury motion for you to stand up.

“Come with me agent L/N, you have much to learn.” He said as he directed both of you out of your room. Soon you found yourself in front of the doors to the meeting room. Walking in, you noticed there had already been files laid out across the table. “Take a seat, L/N. I’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

“First things first,” I’m the realest, HA! I’m funny, good one y/n.  “The force is real, it’s essentially what gives you your telekinetic powers. Second, because of Doctor Strange, it has come to my attention that the fate of the universe lies in your hands.”

“Wait, what? Why me? Is it because I’m a huge Star Wars fan..? I mean come on! What about Peter, he likes Star Wars too!!”

“Cause I said so, and no, Peter is too young.” Yeah, but apparently old enough to be watching a show with the team that contains nudity, but then again he is 18. Poor kid would just blush at the thought of sex.

“Okay, but even if I did agree to doing this, wouldn’t it be too late for me to at least try to solve anything?” There were a million thoughts and questions running through your mind.

“Time runs at a slower pace in our universe than it does in theirs. If our calculations are correct, we are currently in the Revenge of the Sith timeline.”

“But I thought it was, ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…’ not the present..” you rebutled

“Ah, yes. We contacted Mr. Lucas himself. Turns out he too is force sensitive, and gifted with foresight. That’s why he wrote the books and comics, along with creating the movies. He did it so he would never forget about where he’d come from, but it also served as a warning. When he first had visions of the downfall of the Jedi Order, he fled. Using a bridge that connected Coruscant to our Earth. That’s how he, and many other force sensitive beings like you, can inhabit the earth.” He explained.

“That still doesn’t answer my question, how-”

Fury interrupted you before continuing, “Right, like I said, time runs slower here than it does in their universe. While time in his universe runs faster. Before he left, Qui Gon Jinn hadn’t been born yet. He’d left their universe when he was merely 22, about the same age as you. At the age of 32, he’d already released A New Hope. On Earth, he ages slower. Had he stayed within his universe, he would’ve been dead way before you were born.”

All this new information was giving you a headache. “Hold on, you mentioned a bridge.. What exactly is it?”

“Well agent L/N, the bridge is located in the middle of Antarctica, precisely the south pole in an underground ice cave. The bridge can either be used to summon other beings or to travel to different planets. It just so happens that we have one here on Earth. How? We have no idea, but we’re working on it.”

At this point, you were confused and wouldn’t be able to comprehend any new information if he gave any. Noticing the distant look on your face, Fury dismissed you.

“I’ll give you the night to think about it, but remember, the fate of the universe lies in your hands, Y/N. We don’t have much time to waste.”

-

You sat on your bed, hands raking through your hair. Hours ago you were so excited to rewatch your favorite movie, and now you were about to be thrown into that universe. You didn’t know whether to be elated or terrified. Fury said that there were other force sensitive beings on Earth, so why would they choose you? Surely there was someone stronger than you that they could send. But then again this meant that you would be seeing THE Anakin Skywalker.

You looked at the files again to get a better grasp of the mission. Join the Jedi Order. Befriend Anakin Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Senator Amidala. Eradicate the Titan race. Hold on, they wanted you to kill a whole race of creatures. If you couldn’t kill a fly, then there was no way you’d be able to off a whole race.

You decided to shoot Peter a text, asking him to come to your room. It didn’t take long before you heard a knock on your door. You responded with its open and Peter came into your room, flopping down onto your bed right next to you.

“What’s up buttercup?” You scrunched up your face. Ew, save it for MJ. Speaking of MJ, you wondered how the two of them were doing. However, you chose not to say anything and instead focus on the situation.

“Okay Pete, I’m going to tell you something and you absolutely CANNOT repeat it to anyone else. Not even Ned.” You paused, waiting for him to nod before continuing, “So like after Mr. Stark so rudely interrupted our rewatch of Star Wars, I went to my room to watch it myself. And then one thing led to another and nowi’mgonnabetravelingacrosstheuniverseandplayingjediwithTHEANAKINSKYWALKERandofcoursedaddywankenobibutFurywantsmetokillawholeraceofbeingsbecausethefateoftheuniverseliesinmyhandsnow.” You turned to Peter hoping his advanced hearing allowed him to understand what you just said, but instead you just received a flabbergasted look from him. “ ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵐᵉ ʳᵉᵖᵉᵃᵗ ʷʰᵃᵗ ᶦ ʲᵘˢᵗ ˢᵃᶦᵈ…” You waited a few seconds expecting that he would catch on eventually, alas he didn’t. You began to repeat yourself, only this time slower.

“...so you're telling me that the force exists and i got stuck with a FREAKING radioactive spider bite??” Dear god, this boy was going to be the death of you.

“Peter, that’s not the point!” You said, trying to get back to the subject, “The point is that by tomorrow I’ll be in a whole other universe, that up until today, didn’t exist to us. This is supposed to be fictional dude, and now it’s becoming my reality! OUR reality! What if I get impaled by a lightsaber? I’m only 20, I can’t die!! Or worse, what if Anakin doesn’t like me?” The severity of the situation was just now hitting you, so many things could go wrong on this mission, but the whole universe was counting on you. The weight of the world began to crush you and breathing became hard. Falling to the floor, you laid in a fetal position, arms clutching your knees.

From the corner of your eye you could see Peter's arm reaching out to touch your shoulder, “Hey, star, you're okay. You’re gonna be okay. C’mon sit up and take a deep breath with me.” Carefully, Peter hoisted you up. You sat criss cross applesauce on the floor, parallel to Peter. Following the breathing exercise, you felt yourself calming down.

“Thank you, y’know you didn’t have to do that. But I appreciate it, a lot.” You knew you weren’t getting a wink of sleep tonight, so you asked Peter if he could stay for the night, which he agreed to. The two of you spent the night talking about the most random things, and before you knew it, the sun had already risen.

Noticing that it was morning, you offered to make some breakfast for the both of you. However as you got up to move, FRIDAY interrupted you, “Miss Y/N, Director Fury requests your presence in the meeting room.” Letting out a loud groan, you told FRIDAY that you would be down soon.

“Well Peter, it looks like I’ll have to make you breakfast once I get back.” You gave him a quick nod before making your way to the meeting room.

“I trust that you spent the night thinking about the mission, agent L/N. So, what have you decided?”

You cleared your throat before responding, “One last question, then you’ll have my answer.” Fury briefly nodded, signaling for you to continue, “Of all places within our universe, why there? Titan is within our solar system, wouldn’t it make sense for the avengers to travel there and just..” holding up a two finger gun to your head, you pretend to shoot yourself and die, “y’know? I mean it would save us a lot more time.”

“Well to put it simply, they have technology far more advanced than ours, we need a special weapon in order to carry out the mission.” You hoped that Fury wasn’t referring to THE weapon. If you went, that would mean you’d be forever changing the timeline, and there’d be no way to fix it. But if you didn’t go, Anakin would fulfill his prophecy, he would live the life of a liar, traitor, and puppet. You wouldn’t be able to forgive yourself for letting Anakin suffer.

“Fine, I’m in. When do I leave.”

-

The flight to Antarctica was long and boring, you would’ve slept but your nerves kept you up. But as you felt the jet land, you couldn’t have been more relieved. You were finally back on land. You could kiss the ice if you wanted to, but chose not to. Who knows what kind of ancient bacteria is lurking.

The entrance to the cave was surrounded by many agents. Although it was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, security was still a top priority. Entering the cave, you clutched the fluffy jacket that was wrapped around your body. You walked in silence, admiring the cave until the agents stopped in front of a hatch.

“This is as far as we can go. Climb down the ladder and follow the path, Fury will be waiting for you.” One of the agents informed you, as the other bent down to open the hatch. Well, here goes nothing.

The first thing you noticed was the change of temperature. Above the hatch, it was freezing, but below it was warmer. Warm enough that you broke out in a slight sweat, but not warm enough to melt the ice. The second thing you noticed was how well lit the passage was, which surprised you. There were lights hanging onto the wall. Hmm, there’s no way they could be solar powered, it's too far underground. They must be powered by the bridge.

You followed the passage, noticing a slight hum that grew louder with every turn you took. Soon, you found yourself in front of a door, a faint green hue escaping from under it. You slowly pushed the door open. The sight in front of your very eyes had you mesmerized. The bridge itself was made of a stone like matter, hovering above the ground. Walking closer to it, you took note of it’s spiral pattern and engravings.

“Welcome agent L/N.” Fury’s loud voice startled you out of your trance.

“The symbols, what do they mean?” You asked

“Well, we're not entirely quite sure what they mean. But we do know that it’s a language of sorts. You see, if you tap the symbols in a specific order, you can travel to a different world or summon a person.” Fury turned to you, handing you a necklace. “It’s a communication, tracking, and code device, all in one. Use it when you need to communicate vital information to us. All the codes you need are in the device, but be weary of using them, any only summon one of us if absolutely needed. It also includes mission details, like the time on Earth and a countdown. If you're not back the day the countdown is done, we will come find you.” He demonstrated how to use the device, pressing a button to bring up Coruscant’s code.

“Now, exactly how does this work ?” You pondered

“It relies on the energy being emitted from the bridge. For it to work, it’s essential that you stay on a planet with a bridge. If not, we won’t be able to track or help you if needed.”

Not another word was uttered as you went to remove your jacket. The black long sleeve shirt along with the black jeans and combat boots you were wearing was going to make you stick out like a sore thumb in the Jedi Temple. Reaching for the device around your throat, you pressed the button. You took a deep breath before touching the first symbol. A warmth began in you, starting from your core, expanding to the tips of your fingers. With each symbol you touched, the vibration of the hum increased. You continued to touch the symbols needed, pausing slightly before touching the last one.

“What now? Do I jus-” There was now a chill in the room, your hair lightly swayed. A small swirl of green mist appeared from behind the bridge, expanding until it filled nearly half of the room. “Do i just walk in..?” Fury nodded. You took hesitant steps towards it, your heart beating louder with each step. Before you fully engulfed yourself into the mist, you turned towards Fury, “If I don’t come back, tell-”

“You’re going to come back. You have to. The avengers, human race, and every inhabitant of the universe is counting on it.” Letting out a shaky breath, you nodded before stepping into the mist.

The further you went in, the less you could feel Fury’s burning stare on the back of your head. As it became weaker, you began to see a concrete wall. You reached out to stabilize yourself, it felt as though you were being kicked out of the bridge. The mist dissipated the second you stepped out of it. Hugging the wall, you look around the concrete room, noticing a heavy look door in front of you. With all your might, you pushed the door open. You began to sluggishly walk down a corridor, tripping over your own feet every couple of seconds. Damn, I really should’ve slept. All of your energy had left your body, and now it felt like you were going crazy as you began to hear a voice in your head.

Who are you? That voice, it sounded so familiar. Too focused on trying to figure out who the voice belonged to, you failed to notice the Jedi running up behind you. It was the ignition of a saber that made you freeze, followed by, “Stop right there! Turn around and face us sith!” Oh, so apparently you were a sith now. You raised your arms up slowly, showing that you weren’t a danger to them. Fully turning around, you were mesmerized to find who was in front of you. Or more like, the crowd in front of you. Your eyes scanned through the familiar faces until you locked eyes with him. His eyes followed your every move, his gaze strong and hard.

“Anakin…” You whispered, your knees buckled, sending you to the ground. Your eyes fluttered close, the exhaustion taking a toll on you. Before you could fully fall asleep, you heard the voice softly respond,

It’s you.

~~

read ch 2 here

omg yall I feel like this sucked ass, I rushed the last couple of paragraphs cause I just really wanted to publish this. I’ll probably come back in the future to edit/rewrite it once I get some stuff sorted out. as of rn I'm thinking of doing a love triangle but idk. Also please tell me how you feel about the title,,, I’m stuck between ‘Borrowed Time’ and ‘Clash’, I only went with the former cause it seemed fitting but I also really like the name ‘Clash’. lmk what you think !!!

[jecrite]

so I just watched the ‘Inside the Mind of Hilary Hahn’ video and noticed something in that fire alarm story, so I wrote a little breddy excerpt about it - enjoy!

—————————————————

[starts from 35:54 in the vid btw]

If anyone was gonna watch that video, you could tell that Brett was nervous. I mean, meeting your violin idol, sitting next to her in front of Thai food, talking about anything and everything? What could go wrong?

Well, he could stop stuttering.

“I-I don’t know, I like to dabble in things,” he trails off, picking at his food. “But I need to...”

He sees Eddy in the corner of his eye, who was leaning back in his chair, his thoughts unreadable.

Eddy.

The scrawny kid with the mullet who sat to his right in maths tutoring. The vulnerable musician who he pushed around in a wheelchair when they were at the con. The messy, chaotic whirlwind who lives with him, who he chose over a soloist career.

The only thing who stayed constant in his many pursuits of something different.

For the first time that night, Brett lets the words come out of his mouth, pointed and assured.

“I feel like I need to be obsessed with it.”

He finally says, his eyes fixed on Eddy. Eddy’s face remains calm, pensive.

Has he said too much?

“Creating something, or... something.” Brett trails off to a halt, relying on Eddy to finish his sentence for him. Like he always does.

But he knew exactly how he wanted to finish it.

...or just being with him.

It feels weird to almost confess in front of Hilary (and, possibly, hundreds of thousands of people on the internet) that he’s obsessed with Eddy, but it also felt right in a way.

There’s really no other way to explain it.

He did not remember a day when he did not think of Eddy, what Eddy was wearing, how Eddy’s feeling, if Eddy’s eaten, if Eddy’s safe—

—if Eddy‘s just as obsessed with Brett as he is with him.

He should probably brush it off and stay present. It’s not like they’d notice.

Little did he know that Hilary was following his line of sight as he said it.

And he certainly did not expect when she smiled and asked,

“Are you obsessed with this?”

The urgency of the question snapped Brett out of his reverie, his eyes suddenly growing wide. The nonchalant tone in her voice sent a jolt through his body, causing him to flail his right arm between him and Eddy. “This?”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck—

“Yeah.”

You know what, fuck it.

“Ye-ah,” his voice rises, almost defensively. Eddy erupts with laughter, light and breathy and perfect. Hilary joins in shortly after, pleased with herself.

“Of course!”

In a quick glance Brett turned to his right, seeing Eddy’s head pulled back in laughter with a huge grin plastered across his face.

Brett has yet to grow tired of that face.

He was obsessed with Eddy, and he always has been.

“That was a long pause,” Eddy chides, obviously amused.

Brett’s smiling now, Eddy’s voice putting him at ease. At this point, anything goes.

“Yeah, I was like, was that a trick question? Like, hmm,” he laughs, pressing his fingers to his chin. He steals another look at Eddy. His Eddy.

“Yeah of course, I love it.”

Oh, but Hilary Hahn knew better.

“Because you create a lot with...” she trails off expectantly, wanting him to fill in the blanks.

It was never about it, isn’t it? It’s always been about him.

Brett nods, almost too enthusiastically, filling the silence with anything but Eddy’s name.

“It’s fun.”

That’s when Hilary asked about working, where the moment passes, and he’s safe.

For now, at least.

*

“We should probably start cleaning up. We only have fifteen minutes left in here,” Hilary huffs, leaving her seat as she picked up the plastic cutlery from the food containers.

“Yeah...” Eddy trails off, before he quickly stands in surprise. “Wait!”

Hilary froze, a stack of paper plates in hand, and Brett almost jumped from his seat. “Dude, What is it?”

“Practice review! We were meant to show them a clip of Hilary practicing!”

Shit.

“Oh, right,” Brett looks up at Hilary. “Maybe we can film it outside?” He offers apologetically.

Eddy clucks his tongue. “With those a Capella people? No way—“

Brett thought aloud. “Maybe if we clean up in like 5 minutes, we could film it quickly—“

“Or maybe just film it in the corridor—“ Hilary offers.

“Or, I could go to security and ask for 20 more minutes!” Eddy says, snapping his fingers. He looks over to see Brett and Hilary’s raised eyebrows, shrugging them off as he made a break towards the door.

“You two clean up, I’ll run to reception!” He shouts behind him, running at full speed.

Brett can only smile fondly as he left. What else was he gonna do?

His eyes meet Hilary’s and they can’t help but laugh at the younger man.

“He really is a whirlwind, isn’t he?” Hilary asks in a hearty chuckle.

“Yeah, he really is,” Brett grins as he placed the food containers back in the plastic bags.

Hilary hums.

“Is that what got you falling for him?”

He didn’t even have to say it.

The sound of the fallen plastic bags answered the question for him. The containers followed suit, bouncing off of the bags and onto the floor.

*

What a mess.

Hilary chuckles. “Sorry, too far?”

“No, no,” Brett chuckles nervously, hurriedly kneeling down to retrieve the plastic containers and putting them back in the bags. “Not at all, it’s just,”

Unexpected.

“Is it that obvious?”

An amused sigh. “Well, to a trained eye, maybe,” Brett swears she was smirking as she said this. “It’s the age old equation: you love him, he loves you, nothing else matters, might as well put the rings on now.”

She says it as if it was nothing, which prompted him to turn to the violin prodigy, furrowing his eyebrows.

“What gave it away?”

“Well,” Hilary starts, putting the plates in another plastic bag. “Maybe it’s because of the way he looks at you, or, the way your face just lights up when literally anything comes out of his mouth,”

Brett was standing now, having returned the containers in the bag.

“Or maybe that part when you said ‘our bed’ in that fire alarm story.” [which is from 14:12 in the video btw, you’re welcome]

The plastic bags almost escape his grasp again, but he caught it just in time.

“Oh my god,” he breathes out, horrified.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fu—

Hilary’s laughing now, high-pitched and bright. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she says as he she pats his shoulder. “I’m sure no one will notice.”

He can already feel his face getting hot.

“But... but... but you did!” He exclaims, pointing an accusing finger at her.

Hilary’s laugh grew louder. “I did say I was trained, didn’t I?”

Suddenly Brett took an interest in the empty milk tea cups, only to look up again when the laughter stopped, and his eyes were met by expectant ones.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

Hilary rolled her eyes and raised her eyebrows. “Do you really want me to say it again? We can’t have you picking containers up all night.”

Brett sighs, defeated. Eddy wasn’t here, why not just say it aloud now? While he can?

“Yes, Eddy’s a whirlwind,” he says, setting the plastic bags down on the table before making a start at tidying up the chairs. “But it wasn’t that that got me there.”

Hilary hummed again, urging him to continue.

“Eddy always tells me how brave I am, and how he wishes he was as brave as I was,

But I don’t think moving from place to place isn’t bravery. It’s cowardice.

Yeah, I like to dabble in things, sure, but that’s only because I’m so scared of staying in the same place. Being stagnant and... complacent.

I always wanted to do everything I wanted to do back then, moving to Sydney and all that, and I wanted that part of my life to be over and done with as quickly as I could.

Because, at the end of the day, I wanted to close that chapter and just... come back to him as soon as I can.

I realised that a couple of years into working with SSO, and once I did I knew what I had to do.”

“Come back to him,” Hilary echoes, smiling fondly at Brett.

“Exactly,” he resigns. He walked toward one of the chairs to grab his sweater before putting it on. “I never told Eddy this, but, when I saw him playing with Queensland I knew I didn’t want to go anywhere else. If I was going to travel the world like I’ve always dreamed of, I want him right there next to me.”

“And he still is,” Hilary nods.

“Yeah,” Brett’s head pops out of the sweater, grinning at his senior. “I guess that makes me the luckiest bastard in the universe.”

“What this about being a lucky bastard?” Eddy’s voice echoes the room, making Brett and Hilary jump, again. “Talked to the security guy in reception, he says he can only give us 15. I guess that’s enough for a little segment?”

Brett and Hilary looked at each other, eyes wide.

“Sounds good! I’ll grab my violin.”

Thank God for Hilary Hahn.

“Great! Lemme turn the camera on again,” Brett says, finally regaining his voice. He starts to walk towards the tripod until Eddy stops him, peering at the green light that blinked from behind it.

“What do you mean? We never turned it off,” Eddy says as he lifted the tripod and set it to Hilary’s direction. “Go, stand next to Hilary and we’ll just have editor-san cut the extra bits!”

[this bit is from 1:22:21 in the video btw!!]

Hilary, with her violin already resting on her shoulder, let out a breathy, nervous laugh as Eddy positioned the camera and ran towards them. Brett can’t even look at her in the eyes.

Nevertheless, he laughs alongside her, clasping his hands together.

“Practice review!”

“Practice, c’mon!”

Brett exhales deeply.

Oh my god, editor-san’s gonna have to cut that whole bit out.

“Okay!”

Shit.

[its-chelisey-stuff]

“Love and Redemption”, eps 11-20 (thoughts so far)

“Oh for fuck's sake!” I kept screaming at the screen every five minutes whenever someone from the good guys got hit, poisoned or ambushed, someone spitted blood, when there was a kidnapping or whenever Sifeng got hurt (emotionally or phisically). But hey, that's basically the whole show.😅

So, let’s recap: OTP reunited after four freaking years (and zero bell contact), Sifeng was cold to her for like an ep and then dude got melted away as expected, Xuanji got back two more of her six senses, the annoying girl turned out to be Sifeng’s pet (and Sifeng’s friend from his sect has a crush on her hehe), Xuanji’s sister has quickly become one of my fave characters and her boyfriend (who I’m kinda indifferent towards) finally stepped up his game and decided to declare his feelings (fucking finally, my poor Sifeng was in so much pain) and Xuanji cleared up the misunderstanding and finally learned that there are many kinds of like and love. But there's only one kind that Sifeng is interested in and can save him!

I was more into what came after their first official kiss (shy and nervous Xuanji experiencing feelings hahaha) but the scene was pretty sweet.

*sigh* I love my girl Xuanji and this really is not her fault, so I can’t be mad at her. The thing that bothers me is people manipulating her and yes, I’m so done with her master/friend from heaven/ guy with unrequited feelings for her. I don’t hate him with murderous intent but the sight of him makes me tired, so can someone please punch him in the face? Is it too much to ask that if that someone isn’t Sifeng, then can it be me? The only reason I sit through his scenes is because he has revealed a bit of backstory about Xuanji. And btw, I’d love to see more about that, cause there was very little and no, I don’t mean more of the guy who likes to write fanfiction about the heaven’s affairs.

I hate you soooooo much! Go away! Nobody loves you!

Back to the story: the whole thing where the boys and Xuanji pretended to be grooms for some horny 1000 year old demon fox was hilarious but after that arc, things went to shit, however, we learned a bit about the spiritual keys, a part of the plot that still confuses me but not as much as before. Oh and yeah, the lover’s curse was triggered despite the fact that Xuanji removed the mask from Sifeng’s face. I don’t understand why that wasn’t enough but I guess is because she still doesn’t get that she loves him. Which reminds me that the whole thing in the cave was lovely, Sifeng was so happy, can we have more smiling Sifeng? Please? I’m just so tired of seeing him sad and brokenhearted.

And then the sister got freaking kidnapped by that dude that has been watching her like a piece of meat since ep 1. I hated those scenes, I was so scared for her and I mean, I had reason to be, because she was not completely rescued since that bastard removed her primordial spirit and now she’s in a coma and could die. Everything is wrong here!

She really was second to Sifeng in “Who gets to suffer the most this time” during these eps. I hope they save her soon!

I need Xuanji to get her shit together, without listening to anyone but herself and think. She loves Sifeng, she just needs to realize it and then she can save him from that stupid curse ugh. But I know more pain is coming my way, so what’s even the point? lmao

I have questions, so many questions! But most are about the backstory. Where does Sifeng fit into this? Is he really the star of mosha or whatever who many elders seem to believe it’s a children’s tale? Or do they say that to get people to think it's not real? Why? If the Star of Mosha was the Demon Realm General from the intro in ep 1, how did he ended up as a mortal? Was it really Xuanji/God of war’s fault? Why are they undergoing the mortal tribulation together? What’s their story?? I wanna know!!

I barely survived eps 19&20 (I’m such a dramatic lol) so I have no clue how on earth am I gonna be able to survive the whole drama.

You know what’s the thing I hate the most to come out of Sifeng's mouth? “I’m fine.” No, the hell, dude? You're on the floor spitting blood! You're definitely not.

Someone save me, I'm not okay, I hate it here, but I love it, I can't look away now.😭😭😭

He just loves her so much *cries in fetal position*

[jq37]

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 11 In the Mountains of Sweetness

Requiem 

The Rocks family is on the run but they’re also in mourning. As they sail up the Cola River, they stop to do repairs to the ship and pay their respects to Jet at a bright pink hill under a tree--her final resting place.

The remaining kids are in opposite worlds emotionally speaking--Liam is fully sobbing (which we find out later is largely him still being messed up over Preston) while Ruby is hollow and bitter. Amethar (after almost murdering a Jellybean farmer with poor timing who wanders onto the scene) eulogizes about how much Jet taught all of them (including that “to defeat monsters you must become one” which mmm don’t love where his head is at; also, Brennan says he seems to almost have this new sobriety which I think, mechanically, is him having taken a level of Battlemaster Fighter). 

Cara, also a wreck as you’d expect, wonders if Jet died thinking she didn’t love her and wishes Jet would have just listened to her--something that Ruby takes as blaming Jet for her own death, causing her to stalk off. Cara is too in her grief to really react but Theo goes after her. As he does, Cumulous notices that, for a split second, Ruby’s shadow seemed to be out of sync with her actions. But only for a second. 

When Theo catches up to her, Ruby gets really upset and says that she blames her parents, Lazuli, and herself for Jet’s death. Theo says that Jet wouldn’t have blamed her and that she died in battle, like she wanted. Even still, Ruby doesn’t know how she’s going to go on without her. Theo says that he takes comfort in Lazuli’s research and the thought that Jet might not be truly gone. She could be around and protecting them right now. “She was always protecting us,” Ruby says before mind-hopping into Yak and flying above the ship so she doesn’t have to deal with her emotions for the moment.

Once she’s gone, Theo breaks down for a second and then summons Sprinkle...to dismiss him. He tells Sprinkle he’s done a great job but he needs to go back where he came from and have Jet send a new familiar as a sign. Sprinkle tearfully leaves and, almost immediately (which is not how the spell traditionally works btw) a Black Licorice viper shows up which Theo names Princess and which bites him for no reason. Feels right.

Back at the grave-site, Cara starts to walk away but Amethar catches her and leads her back to the ship. They run into Theo and when she sees him with his new familiar, she goes off on him: Oh Jet is watching over us? Who was watching over her? And don’t think I don’t know about your crush on Lazuli. I have one daughter left. You think you can do a better job at protecting her? That kind of thing. She goes to board the ship but Amethar stays behind saying he’ll be with her in a minute, something that made *me* feel like I was about to get chewed out by Amethar’s wife.

Liam remembers that Cal--the traitor--saved Jack and Brie and decides to (as he is wont to do) ask about it in the clumsiest way possible. Jack says that they didn’t meet up with Cal on purpose or anything--they just happened to stumble across him and, now that he thinks about it, it was weirdly easy the way Cal got them through enemy lines and stuff. He seems pretty on the level so Liam does his Ranger thing to check for danger while they’re docked.

Back with Theo and Amethar, Theo says he’s fine so Amethar catches up with Cara and says that she can’t turn on Theo like that. They don’t have a lot of allies left. On a dirty 20 Persuasion check, we are spared the marital spat of a lifetime and instead she just presses herself against him and he brings her into a hug.

Sweet Life on Deck*

*I knew I’d get to use it eventually!

The next day, as they set sail, Cara apologizes to Theo for taking her grief out on him and he’s very gracious about it--also assuring her that he doesn’t hate her for winning Lazuli’s affections as she suggested nor does he have a crush on her--he just strongly believes in her ideals.

Cumulous finds Ruby to have a chat with her about his favorite topic (well second fave after magical items)--death. Ruby says that, with Jet dead, all she cares about is revenge and that she’s dead inside. Cumulous, who clearly doesn’t have Inspiring Speech on his character sheet (or, if he does, learned from Kristen), rambles about death for a bit before saying that though they’ll all die eventually, she doesn’t have to die yet and gives Ruby his necklace from Lazuli. She pockets it and walks away.   

Liam, with his Ranger senses, knows they’re being followed but also knows that they have the jump on them so they shouldn’t have a problem staying ahead. Jack and Amethar have a heart to heart wherein Jack blames himself for spilling the beans about Ghee and Amethar says it’s not his fault. They reaffirm that they’re in it together for the long haul. 

In the night, Liam has an intense dream involving familiar snarling, heat, smoke, chocolate, and cinnamon. Ruby wakes up in the middle of the night with Lazuli’s necklace glowing a little bit. The glow fades and then she notices, like Cumulous did, that her shadow is a little off--but it quickly corrects itself. All messed up, she goes onto the deck and finds that she can suddenly see perfectly in the dark. And, on a Nat 20 Perception check, she sees that the eye of the Lazuli necklace is a little creased, like it has smile lines. It glows brightly and casts her shadow on the wall--except it’s not the shadow she should have. It looks like her except the hair--the hair is in a long braid. Ruby presses her forehead against the forehead of the shadow and finds that it’s warm. And, as she does so, she fully breaks down for the first time since Jet’s death and the shadow does so alongside her. (Mechanically speaking, Ruby took a level of Shadow Sorcerer).

In the morning they dock, having gotten as far up the river as the ship can take them. It’s a long trip to the mountains and Muffinfield--Cal’s territory--is in their path. They have the option to go through the town fully, take the more off the beaten path route, or a little of both but either way it’s gonna take at least a full week (and up to three if they fully avoid the town). They decide to take the hybrid route which takes them into Muffinfield to begin with. It’s a rich province and very Bulbian. Tons of Imperial guards, tons of churches, and, in fact, they see a church putting on one of those puppet show/morality plays. Amethar makes the, mmm, unwise decision to check it out and sees that it’s a play about the Rocks family, depicting him as a horny lout, Cara as an airheaded bimbo, and the twins as feral bastards. Ruby sets the puppets on fire and Amethar hustles her away before she can do something more rash.

After that, they get to the woods--staying for a night with a lady so old and out of touch that she doesn’t even know that Amethar’s dad isn’t king anymore. Theo thanks Liam for saving Jet’s body and they bond over how much rage they have over, like, everything that's happened.

The Gang Gets Scooped

When they get back on the road (with some not so hot stealth checks), they see a little gingerbread guy in a Peter Pan cap who’s trying to pull his friend out from under a rock. Theo, knight to his core, rushes to help but Liam, who’s on the warpath, decides to shoot him. An insane course of action but he’s not wrong because a net captures both Theo and the gingerbread man and this turns out to be an ambush. The “friend” was a doll and the Gingerbread man (Swifty is his name) pulls a lollipop shiv on Theo because of course. When Theo says he’s not pro-Bulb, Swifty calls for Gooey--the chief marauder who is this buff warrior woman with half her face melted (like melted chocolate) like she was badly burned. She and this chocolate viking dude (Jon Bon) discuss whether they should take the group to the queen, which they decide to do, shackling everyone (though Liam and Ruby successfully conceal their thieves' tools in their hands for a later escape). At the mention of the queen, the assembled marauders start chanting “Long live the queen”--harkening back to the mountain gratifi from two episodes ago. They take them to their secret hideout in the mountains while Swifty runs ahead to let them know they’re coming. 

All their captors are Candian but they’re all deformed in some way and/or have old Sucrosi tattoos and Sweetening Path stuff, ears of Ceresians/Vegetanians on necklaces (EARS BRENNAN?), and defiled Bulbian relics. They’re from all over but they seem like they’ve been living this life for years.

The hideout is kinda built into the cliff side and it has this big rock outside like the standing stones the SPF has (menhir is the technical term).  It’s also covered in a layer of snow and very cold. Magical light is glowing as they pass through the entrance. Cumulous can feel very powerful magic at work. There’s a ton of ceremony and fanfare and chanting in advance of the queen’s arrival--these people seem to really love their queen, and so do we because out comes Queen Saccharina Frostwhip aka, Emily’s new character (aka Rina because I’m not typing that every time)! 

She is this extremely cool (in both senses of the word) ice-cream sorcerer with a magic staff (Winterscoop) and two swords and is majorly serving sweet but frosty-cool energy. Liam and Ruby spring everyone from their chains and Rina aggressively sweetly says that she would have freed them soon enough. She calls herself the legal ruler of Candia and when Cara questions that she says that she has another last name: Ghee. Amethar, is like, “Oh shit,” but she says that she’s not here to force a relationship on him, she just thinks they can all be useful to each other, especially since she’s the legal heir as the child of his legal marriage and someone not in open rebellion with the Concord. Theo is like, “That all checks out.” He asks Amethar if this is actually his kid and he sees in Rina Ghee’s eyes and his own swagger. Yeah, that’s his kid. In turn, she recognizes Cumulous as a monk of the Order of the Spinning Star. She, like half the party it feels--is a huge Lazuli stan, can feel her magic on him, and believes in her mission. She says she’s seen Lazuli in her dreams when she was little and Cumulous in her sees someone who can, in a lot of ways, take up Lazuli’s mantle and start rebuilding Candian magic rather than just doing triage like the monks have been. He bows to her. Ruby is not having any of this though and says that Rina isn’t her sister or her queen.

Theo asks Princess if they should trust her--she’s saying all the right things but he’s wary--and gets a bite which tells him nothing.

Ice Feast

Rina, upon being told special guests were coming, had a feast prepared which is described as Robin Hood-y. Amethar is like, “This is cool but the Bulbian church is literally trying to kill us so maybe we focus on that?” Rina says that that works for her. All Amethar has to do is recognize her as his daughter and heir and everything will be square--if the church wants to go after them at that point, they’ll have to break their own rules. Ruby, who’s still being obstinate says that it won’t work because she’s clearly a heretic with an allegiance to the Sweetening Path but Rina says and Jack confirms that as long as you kiss the ring in public, no one really cares what you do on your home turf. 

Ruby accuses her of not knowing what she’s talking about because she’s been hidden away her whole life and Rina shoots back (still smiling) that she’s actually been traveling the world, building her followers from scratch which she had to do because she came from nothing. Amethar (who’s in the, I would have to imagine, pretty novel position of watching his daughters fight) breaks it up. Cara--who fully hates that not only is this happening, it’s also their best shot--takes Ruby with her to have their meal somewhere else and Ruby, who has found someone to hate more than her mom, willingly goes. 

Rina has a sidebar with Amethar where she apologizes for popping up randomly and upsetting his entire family. She always wanted to meet them and she’s sorry that these are the circumstances. Amethar says that it’s not her fault--they’ve just been through a hell of a lot lately and they’re kind of emotionally spent but she’s actually a huge asset to them politically right now and he’s sure that once things are calm, things will be different on the relationship front. 

Ruby can’t believe Cara is taking all of this lying down and Cara (who is full John Mulaney, “This might as well happen,”) says she can’t remember the last time she had a handle on her life which is news to Ruby who thought she *was* the handle. Cara hits her with the unfortunate truth that no one--least of all kings and queens--knows what they’re doing or can really control it. All she can control is what she’s doing next which is having a bath. Ruby decides to, instead, cast Invisibility and look around for anything suspicious. 

After seeing a bunch of stolen loot, weapons, and Candian artifacts it seems like Rina’s trying to preserve, she eventually finds Rina in her quarters. On a 25 Perception to Ruby’s 24 Stealth, Rina clocks her and whispers, “I’m not here to take your family, little sister. I look forward to the day that we are friends.” Ruby, channeling Adaine in a big way, flips invisible double middle fingers. 

Cumulous is in another room, just fanboy happy-crying over all of Rina’s magic stuff in some of the funniest scenes Zac has ever done which is saying a lot. I cannot overstate how funny Zac crying over an imaginary ring pop is.  

Theo also finds Rina and asks about her visions of Lazuli. She says it happened when she was very young and her powers were just manifesting. She was in a place where magic wasn’t supported and the connection was all but beaten out of her. But she can also sense Lazuli’s presence in Theo. Ruby, still invisible, pipes up that she sees Lazuli too so she’s not special and Rina shoots back that she can also see Ruby while invisible, which is pretty special. This dissolves into a little sibling spat which Rina says she enjoys because she’s never had a sister to fight with before. The comment sets off Ruby again who says she already had a sister and she’s dead and she can’t replace her. She runs off.

Theo and Rina speak a little more and she reveals that she doesn’t really care about the throne. She just cares about bringing back magic and destroying the church (which means she’ll fit right in with the rest of the fam--not really wanting the throne and plotting against the church. The family business). 

After the feast, Gooey brings out the war maps (moving the Jawbreaker flag away from Castle Manylicks and deeper into the mountain and putting an ice cream cone flag deep into the mountains) and a bunch of magic tomes which Rina starts reading. Ruby notices that a lot of the tomes are written in Lazuli’s hand, she had a way to tap into the SPF’s runes, and that she wrote some kind of warning about the SPF--Lazuli did not trust or revere the SPF. Liam sees a book with the same ice cream symbol as the flag on the map and it’s a book of lost beast lore--including an ancient spirit described on pages scented like cinnamon and seemingly bound in some way (and also amongst a lot of SPF talk): Dracoria Azucar (or, Sugar Dragon). 

Anyway, Rina says that the SPF has done a lot to suppress Lazuli’s research (she’s not sure if she thinks it’s too dangerous or if she’s hoarding it or what) including taking all of her coolest relics and findings and hiding them in a frozen temple--the Ice Cream Temple. She wants to loot that temple. (Note: She also mentions that Kerradin visited her orphanage when she was little which...Bad). She’s sent raid parties who haven’t come back but they weren’t super powerful--she has a lot of angry, rescued orphans in her service. The gang more or less agrees to her plan--even Ruby reluctantly, but Ruby hears the SPF on the wind, “Things that are wrong may yet be made right. There is more than one true magician in Candia, Princess and I await your coming and will be delighted for your wish to come true.” 

A Change of Plans  

In the morning, they decide Cara will stay with Jack and the marauders while they (and some of Jack’s men) go on their mission. When Jack offhandedly says that Ghee was lovely, Rina says they had very different experiences with her. Ominous!  

Theo asks what’s going on with the Jawbreaker situation and she says that they’re in kind of a pissing contest--he won’t recognize her claim to the throne. Gooey pulls Rina aside and informs her (for the first time it seems) that Jawbreaker has left the Castle because people in the area were being tortured by Ceresian soldiers (wasn’t specified but I’m guessing Imperials) to draw him out and now he’s pinned down in the mountains. Rina (along w/ Gooey and Swifty) consider that if they help Jawbreaker, he’ll be more likely to acknowledge her claim to the throne. But, if they don’t and they let him die, Liam will be heir and he’s already on Team Rina. In the end, she decides to tell the group and they are keen on rescuing Jawbreaker--even though Liam is concerned because he knows his dad will never give up the throne. 

Everyone seems pretty gung ho about this except for Ruby who is like, “Hello we’re super outnumbered.” Cara has a solution to that however. She’s been up all night reading Lazuli’s books and she thinks she can bamf them past enemy lines if they can get to the nearby Spinning Star monastery. She can get them back too but because there’s not a teleportation circle where they’re going, she has to basically do the magical equivalent of holding her breath or remembering a really long series of numbers while they get in and get out. They won’t have much time.

They go to the monastery (where Rina’s anti-monarchical sentiments wins her another new fan in another monk named Snicker-Snack because sure) and Cumulous kills a chicken for that sweet temp HP. Cara says, “Lazuli, please help me get this right,” before performing her magic and sending them all to a dark, locked, musty building. They can hear Ceresian soldiers shouting outside--and that’s where we end our episode! 

Note: You can find the art for the new characters this episode on the D20 tumblr here! Once again, Samir is coming for some of y’all specifically with some of these designs.

Things I’m Concerned About

I’m gonna separate my thoughts on Rina across these two sections because my thoughts are hard in separate directions. I *love* Rina but I have to be honest with myself and say that if she was an NPC, I fully wouldn’t trust her. She comes in at the exact right time saying all the right things and coming with a major plot solution. She says she doesn’t care about the throne and she only wants to destroy the church (something that would make sense considering the backstory hints the dropped) and we haven’t had PvP before but like...if there was a season to do it...listen, I want her to just be this cool orphan who sincerely wants justice and a relationship with her dad and sister if that’s on the table but I’m just keeping my eye on her. (Also, when Gooey pulled her aside to have that troop movement convo I feared it was going to go in a much more suspicious direction.)

There’s a part that I kinda glossed over where Brennan says Manta Ray Jack looked at Rina “bashfully” and Rina took it as, “He’s gonna ask me out,” and rebuffed his advances. I feel like that’s not what that was about. That doesn’t mean it’s anything actively bad--maybe him remembering her mom?--but idk, I don’t like feeling like I’m missing something.

Oh, and speaking of her mom? Rina saying he had a different experience of her mom than she did combined with Rina saying her connection to Lazuli was “all but beaten out of her” plus the out of game knowledge that something related to child neglect happens in a few eps that’s so bad that Brennan hurt himself...It paints a Bad picture.

Once again, I am Concerned about everything going on with the SPF. What did she mean there’s more than one magician? Was she referring to Ruby? Does she want Ruby to PvP Rina? She better not. 

Little concerned about Annabelle’s side mission to find Ghee. I was before but now I am even more. 

Five A Few More Things

I want to believe that Jet is both partially inhabiting Princess and doing the Shadow Sorc thing with Ruby. The Pontifex works hard but Jet Rocks works harder. 

OK, let’s talk about what I call The Inherent Tragedy of Saccharina Frostwhip (*such* a good name, btw). If Ruby and Jet had met Rina *together* (either during peace times or having rolled a high enough Insight check to clock her as an ally during the present events) they would have loved her completely immediately. She’s got Cool Big Sister written all over her: cool design, martial prowess and magic, anti-monarchy and anti-Bulbian Church BUT willing to take the throne in their stead. They would have LOVED her. BUT, Rina wasn’t an NPC. She was Emily’s backup character. Which means that, because of the way our world bisects the world of Candia, there is never a world where Jet is alive while Rina comes into play. That’s tragic, man. That’s the worst. And when I say that’s the worst, I mean the best. This makes for such delicious story. You guys know I’m a full sucker for sister stuff. Which we were already getting but this is *complicated* sister stuff which we all know is better. Like, if this is where we’re starting emotionally, do you know good it’s gonna hit if Ruby eventually comes around on her? Siobhan and Emily are catering to me specifically this season.

Also, that reveal? Within like five minutes, my theory that “the Queen” in question was Amethar’s first kid was confirmed, my circa episode 3 prediction that a twin would die and come back as Amethar’s first kid was confirmed, AND my prediction from last episode that the SPF was telling a technical truth about Ruby finding her sister was confirmed. (Literal) sweet vindication! Can I do lotto numbers? No. But plot points for a Candy/GoT mashup? I’m your gal. 

Lol at someone mentioning Ghee as Amethar’s wife with Cara standing right there and Amethar fully WWE bodyslaming that dude with tag-teams for the entire family.

People are saying it seems like Rina is a Storm Sorcerer which would be cool seeing as Amethar is a Storm Herald Barbarian. Family parallels even without really knowing each other.  

Cara--who better survive this or I will Riot--needs like a 6 month spa trip after this is over. What she is dealing with right now is untenable and she is handling it much better than I would be honestly. (But also her, “lol, my life is in shambles,” to Liam’s inappropriate question that didn’t even really register to her at that point was another comedy highlight of the ep. Icon, even in mourning.) 

Lazuli might as well be a PC for how important she is to this campaign. 

Ooooh, Sugar Dragon for Liam? Brennan has outdone himself. (Unless Liam is gonna have to fight the Sugar Dragon which I am also super down for. As I was just discussing, there are never enough dragons in D&D for a game that’s half named after them).

Shout out to this post for making me short circuit for a full second. Ow. 

It’s a little funny that Brennan laid the groundwork for Emily’s background character in the middle of the episode he knew was gonna end with him trying to kill them. Like, OK, your future is secure, now time to destroy your present!

[littleeyesofpallas]

So a "fun" problem with misuse of the mythic Hero's Journey structure is that in its proper context, the myths the Hero's Journey draws from are all ancient and pretty seminal to their respective cultures. If we take Campbell's assertions as to the psychological significance of the Hero's Journey at face value (which, btw, more broadly we probably shouldn't but in this specific context just humor me, here) then an extremely relevant contextual detail is that this format of telling stories about heroic "men" to adolescents boys as a means of offering a kind of road map to maturity. And consequently we can not overlook that that threshold in these at the time of these myth's creation and primary function was around the age of 13-15. So when they talk about these epic heroes, they're talking about kids between maybe 15 and 20, because that was the age a child would be when they stopped having to be instructed by adults on everything they do, started contributing to the small local systems of survival and social interaction, and in general be given the autonomy to function as an adult, or at least on most levels as equal there to. And that practical context has not carried through into the modern day. So one of two major problems occur...

1 - Characters start embarking on their Hero's Journey as teenagers, seemingly "just" like their ancient predecessors, but.... society at large does not afford them the autonomy of an adult, regardless of other magical plot devices in play.

Its cool that you learned how to throw fireballs at age 15, but you have no work skills and can't own property. Even if circumstances do allow you to "save the world" the process of the Hero's Journey aren't really maturing you in a way that matters, because the world of the mundane you're escaping from and ultimately returning to, doesn't actually acknowledge your journey as maturation or growth.

The point of becoming mythic The Hero is that it's a projection of the process of becoming a functional member of you community/society. But a 15 year old who learned how to cast fireball, and maybe murdered a wizard, has not learned how to integrate into society as an adult in any way that matters. That's not a completion of the Hero's Journey.

2 - Alternatively, if you age your hero up to meet the criteria for a more modern profile of Save The World capable badass, but otherwose play the Hero' Journey out unaltered, then by setting them down the path of the Hero's Journey, you've basically illustrated that they're a mentally and emotionally stunted man-child.

Because a "badass" top of his game, 20-something pro fighter who is only just learning to venture into the unknown for the first time, to accept their own limitations, to respect women, and that becoming "just like daddy" isn't a sufficient life goal is not a cool dude with an interesting and compelling character arc ahead of him... That's a dude who peaked in high school.... and by "peaked" I just mean "stopped maturing."

And this, combined with some of Campbell's (and by proxy Jung's) more dated and generally less applicable concepts inherent to the Hero's Journey, are why it's important to have enough of an understanding of the Hero's Journey to know when to ditch the step-by-step structure of it, and focus instead on replicating the overall function of it, even if that means working outside of Campbell's neatly outlined formula.

And granted, in a lot of fantasy settings, or even very specifically structured fictional settings, the Hero's Journey can still be applied more or less exactly as written if you really want to. But the point is knowing when that's really an option or not.

As an obvious go-to example: Tolkien's works of Middle Earth are written in a specifically meta fictional style, as if they have been translated into English from some old Middle Earth texts, and as if those original stories were written down by some ancient people telling the mythic history of their own culture. Even if it's a fictional culture, the pretense of a writer telling stories reflecting human nature to an audience of contemporaries allows for the stories of Middle Earth to be read and even analyzed on a functional level, as if they were genuine myth. And then they also have the added treat of being able to be read and analyzed on that additional elevated meta textual level of Tolkien himself having constructed these false histories.

Another viable, but sometimes tricky situation the Hero's Journey can be used as-is is in a setting that specifically accounts for children coming of age sooner than in the real world, present day. Fantasy achieves this by using older states of civilization as a template, but you can create strange new speculative or expressly futuristic social structures that excuse this.

But of course the third option beyond just taking the Hero's Journey as offered, or pursuing your own customized/updated version of it, is to seek out a different psychological model of development entirely to use as the backbone of your story... Because although Campbell's work does incorporate much of Jung's essential concepts, it was never really reincorporated into psychology as a fully functional model. (although it can be super fun to use it as a loose one and map onto some people where they failed their Hero's Journey, just for funsies) But there is, you know, all of actual developmental psychology as a field that you can turn to if you want to find something that feels pertinent and meaningful for you and your characters and story...

[onisiondrama]

He’s still uploading. He’s at 21 videos right now. I’m gunna stop with the full pics and just upload a pic of the videos I’m summarizing. 

BTW, you can find mirrors of the videos here.

PART 6 - Videos #11 & #12

one more

- He’s going to talk fast because he has to be somewhere. He needs to tell us things about Sarah so we could understand her more. This was protected by the NDA, but she broke it. She admitted to selling her own prescriptions. He told her if she continued he couldn’t have a relationship with her anymore. She said she tried cocaine. He thought that was crazy but looked past it. - They were in a weird zone where they were all together when she was an adult, then they weren’t because Kai didn’t want to. Sarah would get around it by having Greg lay next to her when they were in a room together and she would ask him to choke her. He says she would seem to get off on that. He keeps mentioning she was 18 1/2. - One time he and Sarah moved furniture together because she’s a strong woman. She got out of the passenger seat and sat in the middle where there was no seat. She put her head in his lap and faced his crotch. He says he didn’t know what to do and it was really weird. He has no idea why she did that. - He says she was acting like Greg was a bad person for not making out with her in the theater. He just wanted to watch Aladdin. That made him feel crappy and didn’t want to do things with her. - After they broke up, Greg slept in the garage because he was afraid she’d kill him because of her hostility. If you like her she’s you best buddy, but if you reject her she wants you dead. He says she told him she had BPD. She called her pills speed. She would be on and off the pills. He was scared for her condition. He was dead to her. Kai was happy they were on the same page. - He felt bad for rejecting Sarah so he offered to take her out to eat food. On the way home, Sarah accused Kai of smoking marijuana. He called Kai and Kai said he hotboxed, he was in the same room. Sarah unsuccessfully tried to ruin their relationship.  - When he took Sarah to the airport she cried and they hugged. She got his shirt all moist. He said sorry it didn’t work out but I do love you. I’m sorry this can’t be a thing. She said she just wanted to know what it was like to have a boyfriend. That triggered him because she wasn’t supposed to be there for him.  - He didn’t believe the person that told him Sarah said she would kill herself because she was in love with him, but things mashed up later on and it became a reality that she was only for Greg and only used Kai to get to him. - He says if Kai does go forward with leaving, he’s just going to be with a love doll. He plans on never dating or marrying again. Everyone who is mad at him right now, he broke up with them for lying, committing crimes and cheating. If they really had a problem with him they should have talked to him or dumped him. Nobody’s perfect. - People keep talking about kids, but there are no kids. There’s no crazy ring. All the events are encompassing and there are many witnesses. His family, their nanny, people he worked with. This because a crazy circus because he didn’t talk because Kai threatened to leave. The truth will set you free. - It’s not a crime to reject someone until they turn 18 1/2 and then not reject them anymore when they’re perusing you. He’s not legally related to this person in any way. - He’s been unfair to Kai and Kai is paying for his bad decision and he’s sorry.

just questions

- He has questions for Mr. Hansen. He tells Chris Hansen to answer these questions live. - “Where do you get your numbers?” He dated Billie when she was 19. He dated Sarah when she was 18 1/2. He dated Shiloh when she was 17 1/2 to 18 1/2. These were all legal. These are the only real relationships Chris covered on his show. Chris used to be someone who go after people who hurt children, like 12 year olds. With Greg, you’re talking about him dating a 17 1/2 year old when he was 24 (he was 25) and he broke up with her for cheating and having someone else’s baby. She was well within the legal range since she was Canadian and Greg was from Washington. She never crossed borders. When she was 18 they went to Washington.  - “What crack are you smoking?” This is the most bizarre and dumb thing he’s ever seen in his life. A 60 year old man obsessing over someone online who did nothing wrong. - Chris Hansen thought it was appropriate to show up at Greg’s house. One of the most psychotic things Greg’s ever seen in his life. Chris and six grown men, one of which went to court last year for sexual assault. You can see this if you look up that man. Why is Chris working with that man? - “What are you doing with all this money?” Chris can’t be paying the victims because that’s a conflict of interest. Greg says according to the news Chris Hansen is over $60,000 in dept to American Express and he was evicted from his home last year from a million dollar house. Chris is dating a woman 30 or 20 years younger than him. Chris likes to pretend he’s against an older men taking advantage of younger women, yet according to the news that’s what he is.  - “What is with your cameo?” Chris will tell anyone they’re a predator for $50. Where’s your integrity? You’re making a joke of your whole career. - Didn’t Chris lose his career because he showed up to someone’s house and they ended their life? Then he shows up at Greg’s house with his family inside “you disgusting freak.” According to the news, Chris’ show was sued and lost $100 million. What kind of nut job goes from one man ending his life and thinking he should still goes to people houses? Some people think Chris is a murderer. Who knows what that guy was going to do with what he was doing online. He didn’t show up at the house and he didn’t try to sleep with a minor of a young age, then he ended his life because of Chris. Instead of changing his career field to doing something where he doesn’t end people’s lives, he show up at Greg’s house and ignore three no trespassing signs. When you’re within 50 feet of those you’re trespassing. It’s a crime that could put you in jail for 90 days. “Didn’t think about that, did you?” Chris was in Greg’s driveway and the no trespassing signs were in the background. “What kind of moron ignored no trespassing signs?” - Says Chris is 60 years old and who knows why his wife left him. Chris isn’t an open book when he like to point fingers at everyone else. Chris got put in jail and there is a mugshot of him online. Chris told someone he’d pay them back and never did so they called the police. - Greg’s wondering all the money Chris Hansen is making off of victims is going. The victims are total frauds and clout chasers, he’s only ever dated three of them. Most of these people he’s never met. Chris is so stupid he never ran a background check to see if these people are clout chasers. What’s insane about Hansen is someone who is on his show who never met Greg is added to the list of accusers. - “What are people accusing me of? Sexual assault you said? When?” It makes no sense. Chris and his career are a joke. Chris is in dept up to his eyeballs and he’s using these people to make money to save whatever his career was. “Getting people to kill themselves job?” - Remember when Chris went to a state where entrapment wasn’t legal and he entrapped a bunch of people and they got to go free? Chris helped those people go free. Now they’re going to be super paranoid about being caught. Chris screwed up. Chris is the best friend of these guys perusing 12 year olds. You helped 20 people who are interested in children to get away with their crimes and he made someone end their own life. Greg can’t imagine what it’s like to be such a failure. - Greg is 34 so he has a good chance to get his life together. Chris is twice his age and this is his life? Chris is one of the biggest jokes Greg has ever seen in his life. - Greg didn’t answer the door for Chris because he has a family and when a creepy old man shows up to the house with a bunch of other creepy dudes dressed in dark colors, he doesn’t answer the door. He calls the police like a normal human being. - Chris would rather hang out with people who were taken to court for sex crimes. Chris fired Vince and Vince used Chris’ facebook and website to out him for allegedly paying someone to dox Greg. Chris seems like one of the most corrupt hypocritical people Greg has ever encountered. It’s amazing Chris is so old, you’d think he would have learned by now. - Greg offered Chris an opportunity to pay him $350,000 to go on his show. That fee is now $600,000 because Chris is the most pathetic disgrace of a journalist Greg has ever seen in his life. - The problem with Chris is he doesn’t know what journalistic integrity is. There is a thing called bias and leading questions. Greg was told that since Sarah was watching Greg since she was 12, that means she was somehow groomed since she was 12 when she was never groomed at all. - Chris doesn’t care about facts. Chris doesn’t care that Sarah tried to marry someone so they could get that green card, which isn’t legal, or that she admitted to doing cocaine or selling drugs. Chris doesn’t care Sarah repeatedly made statements about a laptop that make no sense because the laptop never belonged to Greg. The last person who it was used by doesn’t even live in this house. Additionally, the chain of command was the worst thing ever. It was allegedly sent to the police, then back to Sarah, then sent to Chris, then sent back to Sarah, and now it’s with the police again. That’s not even evidence. Wasn’t his laptop, last person who used it wasn’t Kai or himself, then it was sold to Sarah, then they passed it around. It’s bizarre Chris thinks something like that would hold up anywhere. Kai doesn’t even like porn. Greg never once caught Kai looking at anything. They base your whole case on a laptop that is dirtier and less credible than your career. - He doesn’t see where Chris is going with this. Chris can keep talking to people with no evidence, it’s a free country. He’s sitting here watching an old joke pretending to be a journalist and he’s watching people take him seriously and he’s wondering when the normal face will ware away and people will see the clown paint underneath. - If Chris could answer all those questions Greg would appreciate it. Greg thinks Chris should talk about how Chris’ whole life is in shambles and the only thing he has going for him is a bullshit case against a Youtuber and the worst thing Greg did was fuck an 18 year old. “Yikes bro.” - More videos coming. Wanted to give a shout out to the creepiest mother fucker to show up on his doorstep. How creepy is that for someone to fly across the country for someone to call the cops on you and the cops wait for you to leave?  - We’ll see what happens with the no trespassing thing because Chris and his whole crew did and that’s illegal. All y'all might be going to jail. That a real crime. You get arrested for REAL crimes. Greg doesn’t get arrested because he’s a former US Air Force cop.  - Greg doesn’t know what Chris is, but now you know who Greg is. He isn’t willing to lie down and take Chris’ horseshit so he could get more ad revenue and donations from people who have no clue what’s actually going on.  - “Just a little heads up.” Billie: dumped her because she lied and did illegal drugs. Shiloh: dumped her because she cheated on him and got pregnant with someone else’s baby. Sarah: Kicked her out of his life because she went crazy on him and he was uncomfortable with the illegal activities she was taking part in. Asks if there’s anyone else. Says Chris said there was 12. Greg says that’s a shitty case. Three people he broke up with over 8 years. “The fuck?”

[amandabe11man]

a VERY LONG post about Hell on Wheels

YEAH i forgot about this post in my drafts... it’s been like a year since i finished the show now and i feel i’ve barfed everything out into this post (that i can think of), so here it goes (you’ll have to shield your eyes after the spoiler warning if you don’t wanna be spoiled btw. i can’t seem to be able to add a read more-link...) :

SO... i finished watching “hell on wheels” at last, pm half a year since i started. it’s funny because i was under the impression that i’d sOMEHOW be able to binge all five seasons within just one month (reason: i wanted to watch it before my free trial on HBO’s website went out). honestly, that wouldn’t have been possible because it was a LOT more emotionally draining than you’d think at first glance... after being gutpunched three times in a row in season 4, any reasonable human would need a little break.

anyway, it feels-- weird. i’ve never been big on following tv-shows so i haven’t been able to relate to that feeling ppl describe once they’ve finished a show they’ve become so attached to, except NOW i can relate. the show’s not groundbreaking, it’s not perfect, but i’ve had a lot of fun. what a ride it’s been...

looking back, i’d say HOW’s biggest weakness is its tendency to forget or ignore certain plot points. i guess that’s not too weird, with such an arsenal of characters, but still, i find that’s what bugged me the most, if anything bugged me at all. for example--

[SPOILERS for those who might wanna watch it after seeing me go on abt it, idk]:

first off, what REALLY grinds my gears is how ezra dutson’s plotline was handled. it was set up perfectly in the beginning; having him escape from the swede (who promised him that, and i quote: “i’ll find you, ezra! i always do”), the original plan was obviously for ezra and the swede to “reunite” some time in the future so that ezra could tell everyone that the swede killed his parents, thus tying up loose ends and giving some closure to that whole arc. some might say this would’ve been too predictable, but i would rather have that predictable storyline than having it just end unceremoniously like it did, with ezra dying ACCIDENTALLY and off-screen by sidney snow’s hand, simply as a way to further bohannon’s pain and set the stage for ruth’s final arc. this might’ve been fine, if the writers had made it so that ezra actually, y’know, TOLD SOMEONE WHY HE’S AN ORPHAN TO BEGIN WITH. but they didn’t even give the viewer that form of closure, instead just deciding to use him as a plot device for the other characters’ increased angst... bohannon and the others were never even made aware of ezra’s last name, and this is all what bugs the everliving SHIT outta me: the only ones who know, or will EVER know, ezra’s full story is the swede and the viewer, tho after season 4′s end, ezra is never mentioned or acknowledged again-- not by bohannon, and not even by the swede. ezra went from convenient character with a PURPOSE to “nameless” orphan forgotten by history. thanks, writers...

then there’s the whole deal with campbell coming to town to reinforce The Law™, which wasn’t a bad arc, mind you-- campbell and his goons were the most infuriating little shits for a while there-- but the thing is; didn’t campbell LIE to his men about the president giving him the position as governor? i might’ve misunderstood it, but i’m PRETTY sure the president didn’t give him THAT much of an upstanding role, but that campbell just went ahead and took that position anyway? if that was indeed the case, then that’s another plot hole, cause nobody finds out about campbell’s possible trickery to become the governor. nobody rats him out, despite literally no one in “his” town liking him all that much, so they’d have no reason to protect his “secret”. (correct me if i’m wrong on this one though. i might be misremembering things)

then there’s the other pretty infuriating issue of bad guys never getting called out for doing bad shit (unless it’s the swede, who gets all the blame, all the time), for example:

major dick bongbendix(???idk he had a silly name like that) is presented VERY MUCH as a bad guy in the beginning. y’know, just casually beheading natives on all his missions and collecting those heads and taking them to the bar like a fucking nutcase-- those little details. he also seemed to believe in racial biology, so yeah, definitely not a good guy. but by the end, he’s been watered down into some quirky guy who’s ALMOST on friendly terms with the main characters. yeah, uh-- seems everyone (writers included) collectively forgot the whole public display of cut-off heads he had going on...

aaron hatch: started off as a guy too proud for his- or his family’s own good when he shot the police officer, BLAMED IT ON HIS FUCKING SON and then just kinda let bohannon hang the kid even though it was pretty obvious hatch was just shifting the blame away from himself. THEN he reappears with some other mormons and causes a full-on shootout in the town (probably getting some people killed, i don’t remember), TAKES EZRA (also a mormon) HOSTAGE SO THAT BOHANNON WILL COME WITH THEM WILLINGLY and passive aggressively forces bohannon to marry his daughter who bohannon knocked up. somewhere along the line, hatch’s bad side is just thrown to the wind, and bohannon at one point describes him as “a good man”. yeah, ABOUT THAT--

sean and mickey mcginnes: unlike the ones mentioned above, these two started out as seemingly decent dudes, but ended up pm as secondary villains in the end. however, like the ones mentioned above, they hardly face any consequences for whatever crap it was they did in boston, OR the fact that they killed and fucking mutilated/dismembered a man in cold blood (a man who WAS gonna kill them, yes, but HE did it because he thought they had killed his friend, which wasn’t a farfetched idea since mickey DID brag about killing the dude even though he didn’t actually do it). sure, they face their OWN demons as time goes on, they get ostracized, and they start losing faith in each other as well, which ends up with mickey killing sean before the latter can confess(?) his/their crimes. so, while sean was spineless and a creep, at least he thought about finally owning up to what he’d done in the end, whereas mickey lives on to keep doing shady shit, killing people, and getting increasingly more corrupt. he does end up pursuing new goals in the end, but it’s obvious he’s not happy about it anymore. that’s-- really all the comeuppance he ever gets, and the only one who knows about his shady businesses are pm just bohannon, durant and eva (also, personal gripe here-- they seemed to not settle for “just” tarring and feathering the swede and publicly humiliating him, but i’m pretty sure i recall mickey telling bohannon they were thinking about having the swede killed too. keep in mind, this was BEFORE the swede truly lost it and started killing people left and right. apparently, being kind of a douche about taxes is bad enough to warrant being tortured and cast out by the entire community... i’m obviously biased here, but still-- the mcginnes bros’ double standards are amazing to behold)

now that i’ve aired some of that out-- here are some highlights, according to me:

unexpected friendships, like that between eva and durant. i’d say the swede finding that stray dog and fawning all over him qualifies into this category too

durant and campbell fighting in the mud before finally coming to an agreement -- just- durant and his competitors being petty as fuck, honestly. it’s hilarious

bohannon trying to get through to elam by reminiscing about their friendship, especially since bohannon isn’t one to show his feelings often OR get sappy -- in fact, EVERY time bohannon loses his stoic facade is a good moment. when he was gonna bury elam and he just broke down completely for the first time since we were introduced to him... that shit had me in tears as well, but man was it a great scene

jimmy two-squaws

every time the swede opens his mouth (yes, even when he’s spouting some lies and bullshit like that)

ruth’s character development. i admit i didn’t like her at all in the beginning, idk something just felt off about her, but man did she ever grow on me. just-- how everyone kinda relied on her eventually, even though she’s only like in her 20′s or something... she still became a pillar of the community. bless ya, ruth :’ı -- also, her essentially adopting ezra was Pure as heck. I Lov it

the fact that this was the 1800′s and the only backlash the (openly) LGBT characters faced for it was pm just “yeah they’re a bit confused maybe but they’re not hurting anyone”. maybe that’s not very realistic but WHO GIVES A SHIT AMIRITE

mr tao just being a sweet old man

chang’s sunglasses, straight out of Django Unchained

mr toole’s complete heel-turn from racist POS to someone who sticks by his word to turn himself around. that shit was impressive coming from him, tbh

bohannon just calmly running into a buffalo by the train tracks

mei posing as a grown man instead of a boy (which is what she looks and sounds like, oml)

another thing i realized is that bohannon is a classic gary stu. there’s just no getting around that fact after seeing him being revered by most everyone he meets, how he’s somehow the only person able to build the railroad(s) fast and efficiently, and even wooing the literal PRESIDENT and becoming close friends with him-- all this despite his Bold and Brash personality. of course, there’s more to bohannon than these gary stu-symptoms, but i felt someone should bring it up, for the lulz

[darklingichor]

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell *Major Spoilers*

I wrote a little about this book last month, but I want to write more. This is one of those books that has been lingering in my brain so what follows will be long and rambling.

Now, I haven't read Fangirl I've been pulled more toward action adventure and humor in my fiction, for a while now. Hmm, I wonder what could have happened a few years back  that would cause a Pacific Northwest liberal to feel the need for escape? Just one of those things, I suppose.

I need to read it, if only because I wrote Harry Potter fanfic for years and sort of lost myself in it right after high school.

Anyway.

I've heard people calling Carry On an HP knock off. I don't get this. Simon Snow is obviously Fangirl's Harry Potter. That makes Carry On more of a tongue in cheek homage to HP and stories like it as well as something of a love letter to fanfic writers.

A lot of the main characters start out as your standard for this type of story. "The Hero", "The Mentor", "The Damsel", "The Enemy", "The Unspeakable Evil."

Through the book it becomes clear that our hero is well meaning but ill-suited for the role that his mentor thinks he place him in. The mentor is shown to be unhinged. The damsel is sick of screaming and doesn't want to be in the story at all. The enemy is love sick for the hero and dealing with the puberty from hell. The unspeakable evil, isn't. Its just an unforeseen byproduct of the mentor's plan, in which, the hero, is a pawn.

The book plays with archetypes and I read some of them as being fairly meta about their expected place in the story.

Agetha, especially, seems to know her role and resent it. She's who is saved by the hero, whether she likes it or not.

Baz is so certain of his role as "The Enemy" that until his role flips, he's sure his destiny is to be killed by the person he's in love with.

Simon knows his role so well, he's on auto pilot as a defence mechanism. He's either going to die, or he'll get a stock Happily Ever After. He doesn't even allow himself to think too much about what really matters to him, because he knows his life isn't really his.

I would have loved this book because of everything I wrote above, but add to it the nods to fan contribution? It was enough to make me remember my old ff.n login!

I don't know if Rainbow Rowell researched fan fiction but I figure she must have.

I mean, the things I saw played with and reshaped in Carry On, are fanfic tropes. Rowell took things that grew out of fans having fun with their favorite characters and made them canon.

Main character going out with an exchange student, pop culture references, evil good guy, and:

Four words: Draco is a vampire.

Sure, not every fic that used these were the best, but so what? Many were sincere.

What better way to go to Hogwarts as a person raised outside the UK than to live though an OC in an exchange program?

It was weird that no one in the wizard world listened to muggle music, watched movies or TV. Even the muggleborns? I'm sorry, but I was in the same age range as the characters. In fact, if Harry were real, he would be three years older than me. You can't convince me that there were not at least a couple of muggleborns who were  sending an owl a week to remind their parents to tape Friends or My So-Called Life.

There were a fair few stories where Dumbledore or even Harry turned out to be evil. Even before we found out Dumbledore wasn't a saint. It can be fun to play with expectations and Dumbledore was too perfect for too long.

The vampire thing? I mean, why not? Either Draco or Snape. It fits enough for a fic, and you can get some fun stuff out of it. Besides Hogwarts allowed a warewolf, why not a vampire?

The point is, this book reminds me of some goofy fics I read but also reminds me of some that I sometimes have to remind myself aren't canon, because fan fiction can be amazing.

Example: It has been years but I still remember a great fic that someone wrote about Uric The Oddball's years at Hogwarts. I don't remember much about it off hand but I do know that if I re-read HP, when Uric is mentioned, I think of this story like it is something that is actually in the history of the series. (Dude, I googled "Uric the Oddball fan fiction" on a whim. Popped right up: Uric the Oddball and the Wild Hunt by Ariana Deralte. Guess I shouldn't be surprised! Maybe I should read it again to see if it's still as good as I remember).

So yeah, Carry On is so not an HP knock off and has a number of things that I think make me like it more.

The first one is diversity. It is very nice to have it explicitly said in the text that characters are of different ethnicities, sexualities, and abilities. Watford is a far better representation of a population than Hogwarts is, outside of fanfic (It wasn't there, people wrote it in).

Then there is magic itself, it comes from somewhere it's in the environment, it has to do with celestial alignment, people give words power to channel that energy.

That brings me to something that made me adore the world building here.

The actuality of Simon Snow's universe is that Mages cannot exist independently without the Normals. Without the Normals giving weight and meaning to turns of phrase, rhyme and songs, the Mages couldn't do what they do. Add to that, this means that magic is ever evolving and the Mages must learn about and be a part of, to some extent, the Normal world. This makes Mages who look down on Normals seem even more ridiculous.

I also think this book handled romance better than Harry Potter. I don't know what it was but the relationships seemed awkward and strained in HP. Maybe it was because most of it was shoved into one book, like Hogwarts's water supply was spiked with hormones? I don't know.

What I do know is that even though Simon and Agetha are going through the motions of being together in this book, they still feel like two people who have been dating for a long time.

We don't get a lot about Penny and her boyfriend, but the way she is described talking about him reminds me of how my best friend would talk about her boyfriends when she was visiting me. The way she would go on, you'd think that he was on the moon instead of 90 miles away. I bought that Penny and her boyfriend enjoy each other's company.

And the biggie. Simon and Baz

I almost didn't read this book for two reasons. First: Vampire main character. I love vampires, but I lived through the deluge of Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries, not to mention that every other book seemed to be about vampires. Even though I didn't watch or read all of them, I just got vampired out.

Second: I have never been one for the whole "enemies to love interest" thing. The Harry/Draco pairing never spoke to me.  Not that I never read fics that managed that ship well, it was just not my favorite, probably because I just never liked Draco.  I tend to prefer romances that are built on friendship (Remus and Sirius dated each other at some point, and nothing can convince me otherwise).

All that being said, I like the Simon/Baz pairing.

I like that Baz freely admits to the reader that a lot of his tormenting of Simon is pigtail pulling.

I like that Simon is more or less: "I like a guy? A guy who was my nemisis? That's new, let's go for it."

There's none of that "Hate turns to love" shit that I personally can't stand.  None of the "I am evil, yet his light draws me" or "His darkness is so seductive"

Baz isn't a villain needing to rethink his position. He's a slightly snobby guy with a lot of family pressure, who is in love with a dude who has been set up as opposition, by the adults in his life.

Simon isn't a good guy wanting to be bad. He's a guy who is following the path set out for him without giving context to his feelings with thought, because he doesn't think. So, when Baz doesn't show up at the first of the year, Simon knows 3 things for sure:

Baz is his enemy

His enemy is not there

He feels very uneasy about it.

Why?

See numbers 1 & 2

This equals out to "plotting" in Simon's mind because that's what enemies do.

It doesn't dawn on him that he was actually missing Baz and that he has romantic feelings for him until later

I also like the interaction between them. Again, I buy that they like each other. The simpler moments, like sharing food, or being flirty. It also makes sense that Baz is so nervous and guarded about the relationship. It fits that they would bicker and argue while trying to figure every thing out.

The relationships feel authentic.

In fact all of the relationships between  the characters feel authentic.  The sibling relationships between Ebb and Nicky, I know siblings that close. The interaction between Baz and his little sister, I know people like them too. The Friendships; in my opinion, too few friends in fiction are depicted messing with each other or being lovingly annoyed by each other.

I've known my two best friends most of my life. Not a day goes by where one of us doesn't say something that if it was said by anyone else, it would lead to a fight. Said by us, it's funny, or at least something we can't argue with.

So I related when Baz's friend complained that he had wasted his childhood hating Simon now that Simon and Baz were no longer enemies and Baz said: "What else were you going to do with your childhood?"

I spent my 20's with my friends seemingly taking turns crashing at my apartment. I spent most of my time ossulating between wishing they would go home and being glad they were there.

So at the beginning of the book, when Penny won't leave Simon's room? I saw myself in the way Simon felt about it.

That authentic and relatable quality was what I really liked about the quiet - if not Happily Ever After - then the Attempting Normal For Now ending each character got.

Well, as normal as you can get with a story involving  mages, vampires and powerful Elton John songs.

I am a dodecahedron of geekdom, btw and the classic rock side jumped up and down clapping hands at all of the music references (and giggled when Carry On was fallowed by Wayward Son which will be followed by Anyway The Wind Blows). 

And now we come to the reason I have not read the sequel even though it is sitting in a bag with the rest of this year's Powell's haul.

From what I have read, Wayward Son is, at least in part, about what happens after Happily Ever After and ends on a cliffhanger. 

After Happily Ever After with a cliffhanger and no release date... Yeah, that will drive me crazy. I haven't even read the second book and I'm already thinking about the third. Aw man! Who dies? Who breaks up? Who becomes evil?

So, even though road trip stories are right up there with time travel stories as one of my favorites, even though I love the idea of showing a character battling depression, even though I love these characters, period; Wayward Son will stay unread until I run out of new books to read, or the next book's release date is close. Whichever comes first, because I want to think of the characters in their quiet ending ending for a little while.

[josieandthepussycatsofficial]

i have done my classic thing: i have started pride and prejudice 2005, i am 7 minutes in, and i am disgusting with this bastardization of the text

my liveblogs below the cut

elizabeth is a man-hating love-hater? not according to any book jane austen wrote!

elizabeth is too silly and improper, mrs bennet, kitty, and lydia are not at all silly enough

this sucks

lizzy is upset that mr darcy didnt find her attractive? that is a devastating mischaracterization and sets the whole plot and their relationship off on terrible and incorrect footing.

also wtf are they sitting under some benches at a dance?

hate that darcy immediately looks at elizabeth (in a way we’re meant to assume means he finds her attractive) as if his attraction to her comes from her initially from her appearance. he really was not interested in her until he began observing her behavior and interacting with he

when mrs bennet says, “it’s a shame [charlotte lucas] isn’t more handsome,” a terribly improper and humiliating thing to say, mr bingley snorts a laugh. mr bingley is not supposed to be improper at all. he has good breeding, he’s rich, he’s just also very nice and friendly. he would never laugh at that

i do not know enough about the regency era to comment, but it seems to me that there are certain liberties with historical accuracy wrt clothing and such in this film that you don’t see in the bbc miniseries. for instance, elizabeth coming to netherfield with her hair down? i don’t believe women ever wore their hair down at this time (*edit* the bbc series and this movie take place in different periods. bbc series: 1813, movie: 1797)

why is mr bingley so awkward? i mean i know why, it’s to make him seem charming and unthreatening and cute and relatable or whatever, but it’s just inconsistent. his character is extremely warm, friendly, polite, not terribly intellectual, but not a bumbling mess who can’t execute a thought without backtracking because he’s so nervous around his lady love

the book has comedy to spare, you don’t have to cheaply manufacture it in this way just because the director’s scared that his audience won’t understand the original humor/scared that he won’t have the ability to make the original humor understood/doesn’t understand the original humor himself because he doesn’t understand the source material!!

i also hate the sharpness and vitriol that this darcy puts in his language. he’s supposed to be uber-polite but cold and haughty. propriety doesn’t permit active hostility (such as when he’s bemoaning the liberal use of the word “accomplished” when applied to women) in regular conversation. that’s intense and insane 

why does he speak so quickly? also they really should not have cut the whole netherfield drawing room scene, at least not the conversation between darcy and elizabeth about teasing and pride. they actually now that i think about it cut his whole thing on how a great man can never be too prideful. that’s really fuckin important character stuff! for both of them!

the comedy in this mr collins scene is not landing. they’re like laughing at him before he’s gotten too outrageous. and the actor is such a quiet, mild-mannered dude that he’s not really grating as he should be. this is supposed to be an extraordinarily annoying character, so annoying that the bennets can’t stand him for literally one meal.

ugh they have mrs bennet suggest to mr collins that he should pursue lizzy instead of jane. that’s not out of character for her at all but it misses the opportunity to show how scuzzy mr collins is, and also how fucking little he cares about who his wife is, assuming she meets the criteria of lady catherine de bourgh

ew mr wickham is so skeevy! lizzy’s into him because he’s hot and picked up her handkerchief? that’s it? is she an idiot? he’s not charming or good-natured or fun or funny at all. lydia: he’s a lieutenant! wickham: an enchanted lieutenant (referring to being enchanted to meet lizzy). like scream! what a gross pick up line!!!!)

and their flirtation is based on banter (no!) and him being self-deprecating (maybe, but not in such an obvious way “ignore me i’m next to nothing” what a fucking weird thing to say)

he literally charms her by pulling a quarter out of her sister’s ear. are you kidding? is she 8?

this dance scene btw elizabeth and darcy is all wrong. she immediately jumps on him with “it’s your turn to say something” after it’s been .1 seconds since he last spoke, and he spoke way more amiably (”indeed, most invigorating”) than would be his wont.

oh my god they’ve stopped dancing to angrily talk to each other in the middle of the dance floor? this is so incoherent with the characters (so improper!) and the time period. just cultivating more drama. this scene’s already juicy, they don’t have to be spitting angrily into each other’s mouths for it to come across

so silly and melodramatic that twice in this movie the entirety of a loud crowded drunken ballroom has screeched to a halting silence immediately for some minor drama. the first being the bingleys and mr darcy simply entering the room. the second being mr collins introducing himself to mr darcy (that one is especially ridiculous)

oh god why are they portraying mr collins as so sympathetic and sweet? he’s a fucking asshole! he’s not just annoying he’s a dick! that’s important, otherwise elizabeth is really unjustly mean to him, especially while she’s rejecting his proposal

oh i disagree with the way they play charlotte’s reasons for marrying mr collins. instead of her just not being romantic and marrying for practical reasons because that’s her nature, they make it a biiig thing like she has to marry because she’s old and ugly and otherwise she’ll go to the poorhouse

it’s not surprising that a lot of my critiques have to do with them pumping drama that doesn’t make sense into the story. making characters shout or spit words etc, because of course that’s what a hollywood film was going to do with a 19th century novel of manners

i guess i should say some good things about this movie. the cinematography is very lovely, obviously. i think it’s well cast, especially judi dench, with the exception of kiera knightley and the actor who plays mr collins. i think matthew mcfayden could’ve been a great darcy had he actually known anything about the character beyond the script

actually i take it back, judi dench isn’t quite amping up the ridiculous nature of this character like she should. they keep a lot of her silly lines but she doesn’t hit them to emphasize just how silly they are. she’s almost too stately to play this woman who, despite her great rank, enjoys spending her time being condescending to lower rank people

here comes my agreement with the grand critique of this movie: they make darcy out to be socially awkward rather than a haughty ass. he’s leaning in and whispering that he has trouble conversing with people, as if he means he has social anxiety and doesn’t mean, “small talk with simpletons bores me”

oh no they cut the delicious piano practice scene! they rewrote it and lizzy just says, “you should practice,” and we don’t get to have this famous, witty misunderstanding that elucidates darcy’s character so well!!!

oh no no no in this scene where colonel fitzwilliam tells lizzy that darcy split up bingleys attachment he tells her that the problem wasn’t the lack of fortune but the family! why?????? that’s half of the big reveal of darcy’s letter????? it’s when she realizes that oh his intentions weren’t so bad

i know i already said it but fuck darcy speaks fast. it sounds like shit. why doesn’t he just shut the fuck up and slow down? it’s weirdly inconsistent with his character. though i guess if they’re trying to rewrite him as socially awkward this could be part of that. but they shouldnt be! because it invalidates the whole premise of the story, their romance, and his character arc!

whoa whoa whoa and in the proposal scene when she says “why did you propose by telling me you’re doing this against your better judgement” he interrupted apologetically, trying to explain. what!!! no!!! he is an asshole! he’s insulted that this low rank woman would dare reject him. he didn’t suspect for one instant that she would. he’s fucking fuming from her first word

wow they’re chopping up this iconic proposal scene huh. i guess to make darcy still seem like a Nice Guy. he didn’t get to accuse her of only rejecting him because she was insulted by his proposal, she had to say that line. this movie is like, let’s make lizzy seem as insane as possible, and darcy as sweet as can be.

you’re not supposed to realize how wrong lizzy is, it’s supposed to creep up on you very slowly. youre supposed to feel like she’s been very reasonable up to this point, and you’re as shocked as she is when she reads the letter.

even his face! so shocked and sad like a kicked puppy standing there in the rain (we won’t even touch why the fuck they’re standing outside in the pouring rain). he’s angry right now! he’s so mad! he’s supposed to be fucking mad, because he’s a proud, arrogant, asshole!

oh my god and look he’s saying the lack of fortune of the bennets had nothing to do with it, and lizzy wow she’s sooo crazy for suggesting it, even though 20 seconds ago he just said it sucks that i’m in love with you ‘cause you’re so low class. god this scene sucks

there’s a reason this is all written in a letter in the book, it works much better that way. this is not a back and forth, lizzy doesn’t get to ask questions and poke holes. he offers his defenses and is still kind of a dick, and lizzy has to read it all without responding or rejecting it, really has to sit with it, the way you can’t do in a fight

oh and he just apologized for accurately noting that elizabeth’s family is often really disgustingly improper! how fucking out of character! both in general and in the scene because, and i can’t stress this enough, HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE ANGRY

oh ok i have to redact some of my former criticism. he finally gets mad at the very end here, and makes the comment about “did you expect me to rejoice in your low birth?” though he still didnt say the crucial “perhaps you would have accepted had not the manner of proposal offended you”

wait what the fuck??? did they just lean in for a kiss and lean away?? like a whole, i’m angry at you i’m hot for you let’s fuck thing? what the fuck? not only is that cheap romance melodrama but also lizzy HATES this man. not like oops i love-i mean hate you but really hates him

why do they choose to have elizabeth not tell jane about the proposal? i can’t imagine there being any reason? except of course that’s she’s secretly already in love with him and doesn’t want to admit it! gag

this scene between elizabeth and mr bennet about lydia going off with the forsters is well done imo

ugh god but they’ve given lizzy’s “what are young men to rocks and mountains?” line to mary, making it seem stupid and platitudinal, because that’s mary’s character

oh good, elizabeth is going on another “all men are trash” rant that is a thinly veiled reference to darcy. they’re just fucking taking a wrecking ball to this character’s credibility and intelligence huh?

this is really devastating actually because at this point the movie is telling us that lizzy is fighting through the anger and hate and realizing she loves darcy, after their sexy confrontation and his letter. in reality, she’s realized she was wrong and is doing some deep self-reflection.

she feels a little sheepish about how she boldly she accused darcy of things she was so wrong about but she still isn’t in love with him because he’s still a fucking proud ass! he just happened to be right about some shit that she was too prejudiced to realize

it doesn’t make sense if she falls in love with him before he grows and becomes a good person. it shows a weakness of character on her part and makes his eventual character growth just a cherry on top. oh that’s nice, they’re in love *and* he’s not gonna treat her like shit. totally invalidates the whole point of the story, overcoming personal defaults and finding healthy love that way

wow they make lizzy so stupid! she objects so stupidly to visiting pemberly! oh let’s not. he’s so…. he’s so… he’s so rich! wtf are you talking about? in the book she’s just kind of like eh idk…. do you really want to go? i guess if you think we should go… oh he won’t be there? oh cool let’s do it

ok so i’m 1:21:54 into the movie. i have 45 minutes left. i’m stopping. i’m angry and getting no joy from this so. this was a humiliating project for me, thinking i could enjoy this movie. never again

[sailor-cresselia]

HEISEI GENERATIONS FOREVER

I’M GOING TO CRY

OKAY?

I’M GOING TO FUCKING CRY.

Spoilers for Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever below the cut.

also this got really long. Like. 3.8k words long. I am SO SORRY, Mobile Users, I know read mores don’t always work. Just. SCROLL.

20 MINUTES IN AND MY HEART HAS ALREADY BEEN BROKEN MULTIPLE TIMES.

Memories coming and going for everyone - just - just!

Sougo as a smart, smug, asshole.

Tsukuyomi as a ditz.

Then! Then!

Sento and Ryuuga saving a kid from Another Double – who’s design I LOVE, btw.

But Grease and Rogue leap out over the crowd. They remember, when they shouldn’t. When no one should remember them.

When Kazumi Sawatari and Gentoku Himuro shouldn’t remember each other. Shouldn’t be able to become Riders at all, because here they never were exposed to the Nebula Gas that the Rider System requires.

Gentoku forgetting, returning to the stiff, formal, son-of and assistant-to the Prime Minister.

Misora remembering – the cafe’s a bar, and then she forgets. Again.

YA SURE KNOW HOW TO KILL MY HEART, TOEI.

The kid – Shingo – being found by Sento… who doesn’t get the chance to transform. Who looks… he looks like he’s been brainwashed.

A boy who ‘draws Riders to him’. Him and Sougo go to Fuumen – FUUMEN!

TOEI YOU ARE ACTIVELY HURTING ME. Because Another Double shows up… and it turns out. It turns out Shotaro gave the owner of the Fuumen ramen cart the Double Ridewatch to hold onto for him.

And now we’ve lost Geiz, too.

Nobody remembers Sougo – and smartphones don’t exist. Not enough that a small child would know about them.

The first episode of Kuuga airs tomorrow.

Just- hng. Some part of the brainwashed Sento holds out enough to send the Machien Builder to find Ryuuga. To find his partner.

But when he and Sougo get to where he and Tid are.

Tank and Tank.

Just one word.

“Transform.”

And he attacks.

AHAHAHA YESSSS! Ataru points out the “Same Actor Issue” with regards to Kouhei Takeda having played both Otoya and Kazumin THANK YOU I was hoping that would happen. I didn’t think it would but THANK YOU.

IMAJIN NO. No ominous comments about how ‘it might not end well’!

...Shingo. Shingo… Tid brought you here from the past, didn’t he? From the day before Kuuga aired. That’s why you don’t know what a smartphone is. He brought you forward from your little brothers birthday. And you met him here – where he’s 18, and contracted with an Imajin, in order to meet Riders.

I don’t even know these two and my heart’s breaking for them.

...was. Was that Ataru in Another Den-O?!

Okay, yeah, Sento was faking being brainwashed. No surprise there.

BIG surprise that Ataru contracted in order to meet Riders… because he wanted to escape from reality. He’s not worried, because it’s all just a delusion.

Because his older brother disappeared the day he was born. His brother Shingo.

Whoops.

Ataru latched onto Den-O SO HARD that he summoned an Imajin into his world – his world, where Riders are fiction. And that Imajin is trying, but he’s reached his limit. And Tid cares not for what world he’s in, as long as it’s correct.

...it makes sense that sento isn’t torn up about being fictional like sougo is. he’s already been there – twice, even. sento kiryuu was made up in his own world, and no one from the new one remembers he exists. this is nothing new to him.

…

OKAY FOR THE RECORD. I wrote that BEFORE the scene in the rain.

But…

It doesn’t matter if it’s reality or fantasy. They’re Kamen Riders. They do what must be done.

Don’t worry, Sougo. You’ll understand.

Riders always do, in the end.

Also, the bugster virus grunts stand out so badly against all the other mooks. Waste Yummies, Dustards, Ghouls, Inves, numberless Roidmudes, Ganma, Bugsters… It’s. Actually really nice seeing all of these old suits in action. I can’t even say why, but. I really enjoy that.

… Kazumin’s out.

… … Ataru’s had enough of a world with Riders. He’s done. There’s no such thing, after all.

The contract is complete.

The Riders are gone now. But the mooks might not be.

Be careful what you wish for.

Hey there, Woz! Been a while!

Hey there, Sento. Glad you found your kouhai… and that you didn’t blank out when you two left Ataru’s house.

Because I was right. Shingo’s been pulled out of time.

That’s what Imajin are all about, aren’t they? Changing time. (I have not watched past the first two episodes of den-o but that’s the impression I’ve gotten from hearing about it. Shush.)

And Ataru can’t have a brother that went missing if the brother never went missing in the first place. Which is where Tid, the Imajin, and Another Den-O come into play.

Sure, The World of Ataru is ‘reality’ from one perspective, but The World of Riders is reality from it’s own perspective, just like The World of Build. Sento, you’ve done this, don’t dismiss the world you live in now as fiction quite so easily.

(Tsukasa will be disappointed in you. … if everyone else doesn’t beat him up first, for some of the stunts he’s pulled.)

So… since the Double watch came from Ataru’s world, it can act as a link to there from the Rider’s world.

Actually, I really like how much of W they’re working into here. I know it means we most likely don’t get a W arc, but still. Fuumen, and the watch being handed over by proxy – namedropping ‘Sho’. Another W has three faces – Cyclone, Joker, and CycloneJoker. Cyclone’s eyes light up when he uses the tornado attacks, which is a great nod to both how he’s using one side, and to how Philip’s half lights up when he speaks. I mean, the green tornados alone are neat!

(I didn’t think I’d missed the lens-eyes, because they’re creepy, but come to find out, I had! Huh!)

THING IS. I’m a LITTLE pissed about THIS. I get you haven’t been given much to do today, Woz. And I ADORE all of the W references. But the Library is PHILIPS domain. It’s his to explore – his, and Wakana’s, and those who he allows in. Sokichi Narumi, when he was just a tool for Museum, when he got a chance at freedom. When he got to be Philip. And Shotaro. His Partner. Who saved him from himself in there – When the library was BURNING because he was losing himself to Fang, when he was terrified and lost and this is where he is supposed to be.

… Sorry, I have a LOT of W feels, and this movie is hitting a LOT of them right now.

… Basically, Woz, I tolerate you now, but this is December 2018 you, who I tolerate a lot less. Get out of there.

OH, THIS IS INTERESTING THOUGH.

The book is labeled Masked Rider Den-O. Not Kamen Rider. The series has been writing it as ‘Kamen’ when using the roman alphabet since W.

Before that, it was translated into English whenever it was written like that. So it would be accurate to have Masked Rider Den-O, but not, say, Masked Rider Fourze.

Huh. Nice touch.

~Archival footage from Den-o!~

... Woz how did you get that rail pass out from the library?

(Philip would LOVE to know, that seems like it would be a REALLY handy trick, if he could bring even just. Like. Segments of a book, or pictures, or some such. It’d be SO MUCH EASIER to show Shotaro stuff that way, instead of having to copy it out onto a whiteboard.)

… A lot of the time, Another Double sounds like two people speaking in unison.

… can two people be one Another Rider? Could Tid have. Like. Fused some dudes? This is. A valid question right now.

I mean, we never did find out Who Another Double is.

! !! !!!

LUNA!

THIS IS FINE.

(It’s not fine, but only because I hate the Luna memory)

!!! !! !

AH. So. That’s. ONE way to have things happen out of order. Have a watch shoved into your chest after seeing yourself as that Another Rider.

Ataru latched onto Den-O SO DAMNED HARD that he summoned an Imajin, warped time, and became Another Den-O.

Kid… That’s brutal.

Purple Imajin’s lost hope… but Sougo says that they’re not alone.

Tid shows up at the site where the Arcle was found. At the tomb of the first Kuuga. That… if this is the world of Ataru, that shouldn’t exist here.

But he uses the Arcle – still worn by the first Kuuga – to make the Another Kuuga watch.

That’s terrifying, but makes sense. The watches only need the power of the rider, after all. Doesn’t matter which version of the Rider, as we’ll see in Hibiki months down the road and two weeks ago.

TID OW WOAH DUDE

I MEAN

You’re a bad guy but! I’m sorry for you right now! That looks OBSCENELY PAINFUL.

And VERY Time Mazine sized.

Enough to knock Sougo’s Time Mazine into the Another Denliner… which crashes upon arrival in December 2018, scaring ‘Everyday Schoolboy Sougo’ spitless, while carrying Tid as we have known him to this point. Also of note: Another Den-O is posing like Momotaros. That’s a nice touch.

Oh! Hey! I just realized! I like the Purple Imajin’s speech and all, and the exposition’s great, VERY in line with Den-O, but I just realized.

Sougo’s at a point in time where he hasn’t been born yet.

I doubt this’ll do jack all to history, but still. It’s kind of funny.

(Also, hey, Toei, you couldn’t have remembered that Rider used to start in January back during the Fourze and Faiz arc? You had Faiz disappear during an episode that took place in February, thanks to an event in, like, November. I’m still salty about that.)

Cut to 2018.

Sento and Ryuuga step into Tid’s vault.

(brb, snorting with laughter at the bugster stuck in an idle animation on the floor)

Sento’s already altered the world once, and nobody should have remembered him. But one idiot was stubborn enough to remember him. So… who’s to say that can’t happen again? The world has never made sense. Science and physics, chronology and sequence, reality and fiction… all of that went out the window ages ago, as far as he’s concerned. So why not mess around a little more?

Rabbit and Rabbit!

Cross-Z Magma!

““TRANSFORM!””

(cue Build fight music)

I love my boys.

I also love the two busted time mazines basically piggybacking off of each other.

A train whistle sounds.

Oh, Tid. Of course they keep coming back.

You’ve got someone who knows them pretty well right by your side.

AHAHA YESSSSS

YOU’RE FACING THE WRONG WAY BUT YESSSS

‘Sup, Momotaros?

Oh, hold on-

‘Sup, Team Den-O?

Like beats Like. It takes a Rider’s power to defeat an Another Rider.

And the base of ‘imajin’ is imagine. To think up, to dream.

Or, in some cases.

To remember.

Urataros, if you and Ryotaro are going to use the line “Ai to Seigi to” I expect SOMEONE to do a Sailor Moon pose! SOMEONE NEEDS TO!

She is the senpai for EVERYONE HERE. She’s from 1992, after all, Mr. 2007.

Okay, sorry, Moon Fan comments aside.

Sougo gets it now. It doesn’t matter anymore if they’re real or not.

Because here? In this moment? They’re real enough.

I’m willing to bet that under that mask, Sento’s grinning, because he can tell that his junior’s caught on.

Misora – kind, sweet, Misora – guiding civilians to safety, even though she’s a civilian herself… wondering where Sento and Ryuuga are.

They’re a bit busy elsewhere… but Kazumin and Gentoku? They’re available.

Welcome back, Kamen Rider Grease and Kamen Rider Rogue.

Cries for help from two young boys – the right age bracket for right now.

Level Up!

Kaigan!

Welcome back, Kamen Rider Ex-aid and Kamen Rider Ghost.

Two men in their late teens, early twenties.

Cyclone! Joker!

Welcome back, Kamen Rider Double.

A man in his mid-to-late twenties… possibly with his sons, who are wearing the two latest belts. His inner child calls out.

The startup sound of the Arcle

Welcome back, Kamen Rider Kuuga.

A crowd.

Hanamichi! On STAGE!

Welcome back, Kamen Rider Gaim and Kamen Rider Kiva.

A crowd – larger, with more varied ages.

Hii, hii, hihihiii~

Welcome back, Kamen Rider Agito, Kamen Rider Ryuki, and Kamen Rider Wizard.

Three adults.

Turn Up.

Welcome back, Kamen Rider Blade, Kamen Rider Faiz, and Kamen Rider Hibiki.

Change Beetle

Welcome back, Kamen Rider Kabuto, Kamen Rider Decade, and Kamen Rider Fourze.

UCHUU KITA indeed.

Ta To Ba! Ta-to-ba TaToBa!

Welcome back, Kamen Rider OOO and Kamen Rider Drive.

“Ankh…”

Toei don’t break my heart like this. He caresses the hawk medal. Don’t do this to us.

“Let’s go, Mr. Belt.”

“Okay! Start your engine!”

Hi, Krim. Nice to see you again, too. Ah, man, Shinnosuke’s voice is so subdued.

They didn’t have the same type of partnership, but both Eiji and Shinnosuke lost their partners. This is. Right. This is right, for now. It’s something.

Now. Time to fight.

Momotaros doing his own theme song.

Emu bouncing into the air.

Takeru floating – they’re letting him have powers, letting him have the forcefields that he’s going to prove he has when he shows up in the episode that aired the day before this takes place. To the point of TAKERU CAN MAKE TELEKINETIC TORNADOES THAT IS SO FUCKING COOL! (Further vindication! Takeru gets to be spooky!)

One on one my rear end, Gentaro. Rocket on.

Drumsticks and kicks laced with fire from Hibiki and Haruto, before they and Shinji all set a crowd of mooks alight in a wave of fire.

Shinnosuke getting to use the tires on Type Speed’s boots for once… before… Start up. Clock up! The three speed demons – him, Takumi, and Souji – knock the crowd of mooks aside.

Swords and claws slice through one group, thanks to Kouta, Eiji, and Kenzaki – wait, hang on, his given name is Kazuma? I thought that was his surname?! UGH it’s the Banjou and Ryuuga thing all over again, but before it happened, you know what WHATEVER.

Shouichi and Wataru blasting apart mooks with inherited powers.

Tsukasa on his own… because of course he is.

Likewise for Yusuke.

Sento and Ryuuga struggling against Another Double… but Sougo got that watch earlier today. >:)

Like beats Like.

Er, Woz, this is not the time to IWAE. We’re. We’re in a movie. This. Isn’t in the show, save it for- oh, wait, you weren’t there the first time he used Double in show, were you? Haaaa… fine. I’ll allow it.

...I’d really missed Sougo flubbing the catchphrases. “Tell me about your crimes.” It’s. Close. You’re. You’re almost there. You got the pose better than you did the phrase, anyway.  

Another Double is a bit closer, though, since he thinks you’re half-boiled. And did Shotaro’s stressed out forehead pinch – even though Sho’s usually in civilian form for that, and wearing his hat, it still scans. (HNG MY W FANGIRL HEART.)

Maximum Time Break!

Hahaha! Another Double explodes three times. Once to separate in two, once each for a cloud of green and black smoke for each respective half, and then two massive fireballs. That’s glorious.

Tid, I get that you’re a movie villain, but why are you this dead set on getting rid of the Heisei Riders?

“Where’s Tsukuyomi?!”

“Still fixing the Time Mazines!”

And she’s so FRUSTRATED about it!

Good thing Sento built all of his equipment. Oh man, he’s going to have a field day with this thing. Be careful, you might not get both of them back.

CASE IN POINT. SENTO’S JACKED A TIME MAZINE TO FIGHT ANOTHER KUUGA.

And looks like Geiz didn’t just go to fight Tid when he was in 2000. He made the Kuuga watch from the first Kuuga’s body, same as Tid.

Clever. Like I said. Doesn’t matter which version of the Rider. As long as it’s the same power.

Armor Time!

Kuuga!

It didn’t take long to take Another Kuuga down with that much brute power behind the attacks.

Sorry, Ryuuga, but Geiz just isn’t that excitable. No high fives for you. (I’ll give you one!)

Sento must be absolutely beaming under there.

And Sougo does the thumbs up.

HEY REMEMBER HOW I WONDERED IF TID FUSED TWO DUDES TO MAKE ANOTHER DOUBLE?!

THIS IS WORSE.

THIS IS MUCH WORSE.

Step. Away. From. The. Child.

Let him go.

TID HAS ISSUES.

But! Getting everyone out in to one of The Quarries means.

BIIIIIKE FIIIIIGHT!!!!!

Kudos for the Bakusou Bike jingle, and Faiz’s bike pretty much being a drill. Press F to pay respects for Kabuto’s tires. Wonder how many of those he goes through in a month.

Shotaro, Philip, not breaking out the Revolgarry this time? You did back in Taisen Grand Prix!

...Where are Drive and Hibiki?

Oh, wait, nope, there they are, along with Ryuki.

YESSSSS Ryuuga and Geiz in Geiz’s Time Mazine!

AND LIGHTING IT UP WITH BLUE FLAMES TO KNOCK “ANOTHER KUUGA TWO; CREEPER BOOGALOO” DOWN TO EARTH. Literally.

Twenty Rider Kicks. Straight to the face.

(Okay, technically it’s 22 kicks, since Double is, by necessity, both Shotaro and Philip, and Den-O is presumably Momotaros and Ryotaro.)

And the final three to hit? Zi-O, Build, and Kuuga.

Yesssss.

(Also Gentaro looked so awkward standing with the Drill Module still active. Because DRILL. On the LEG.)

We get a montage of two brothers, growing up together, as fans of Kamen Rider. Mirroring a montage of one boy growing up alone at the opening.

And the speech between Senior and Junior – Sento and Sougo.

Yeah. They were Riders. They always were Riders. The laws of time travel aren’t nearly as rigid as you think, Sougo.

As long as someone remembers. They’re still there.

Why should anything have to change that?

Final notes. Whoever made this movie must love W SO MUCH. Because in the end credits, there’s a montage of shots from every season since Kuuga. It shows the riders themselves, as civilians, their base forms, and their final forms.

The slide for W has two variants. The first has CycloneJokerExtreme at the top, CycloneJoker at the bottom, and Shotaro and Philip preparing to transform in the center. The second – the center photo moves to a different expression from the same exact scene – the same SHOT – Shotaro and Philip looking at each other and smiling. It’s from episode 49. When they were reunited.

There’s some nice care for all of the slides, actually, but most noticeable to me…

The Fourze slide has four pictures –  Fourze base mode, Gentaro in front of an explosion, Fourze Cosmic States, and Gentaro and Ryusei. The last three? Are all from the same episode. The one where Gentaro GETS Cosmic States.

Drive has two ‘variants’ as well – in a similar manner to W, actually. The first time, there’s Chase, Shinnosuke, and Gou together, Shinnosuke and Kiriko – from the last episode, no less, as they’re saying goodbye to Krim, and Drive (Type Speed) leaning against the Tridoron. Really puts that “Let’s go, Mr. Belt” line RIGHT BACK IN THE FEELS ZONE, there doesn’t it? Well, the shot of the three riders morphs to the same scene, but all three of them in their armor. THAT is where they show Type Tridoron. I believe that was the first time we heard Spinning Wheel, actually.

Ghost manages to have all three of it’s Riders on a cliff – in civilian form, but still.

Ex-Aid has Emu’s first transformation – both before he activates it, and in his Level One form right after. There’s the first transformation into Hyper Muteki. But his Base Mode shot, for Level Two? Chronos about to get a Gashacon Breaker to the face.

Gaim features both Kouta AND Kaito in all but one shot, which is the one with Gaim on a horse. The others are Kouta and Kaito in Beat Rider attire, Gaim and Baron while the Woman of the Beginning looks on in the background and… Gaim Kiwami Arms versus Overlord Baron… in the final moment of their last fight.

As for OOO? Well, we’re clearly not getting an answer from Toei as to what his official final form is any time soon. Not with Shirtless Episode One Eiji, and TaToBa OOO on a RideVendor as two of the shots. The other two? One is PuToTyra. And the other is TaJaDor… with Ankh right beside him, Greeed arm on display. (Eiji’s final form is Ankh’s Boyfriend and you can’t stop me from believing that.)

I don’t know enough about the other seasons to know how heartbreaking a lot of them are, but. Well.

Over in Kuuga, that’s a transformation in the snow.

Ryuki has a wide shot with thirteen suits.

Blade as a shot with four riders, and one with Blade and Chalice in the water.

I’m not really happy with their choices for Build. Build RabbitTank deciding that he’s going to take Ryuuga with him, Sento and Ryuuga on the bike – at the end of episode one, so they both look awful, Sento in the opening, of all things, and what is quite frankly a terrible shot of Build Genius. They had a lot more to go off of here.

Especially since at least Zi-O has an excuse for poor selection. A close up of Zi-O’s face, a shot of him on his bike on a bridge from the opening, a slightly battered Sougo transforming – not even his FIRST one, mind you, it’s from the wrong angle for that… and OMA ZI-O. I know we weren’t even fifteen episodes in, he didn’t have Decade yet in the timeframe it takes place, but still. STILL.

But I might do a compilation post of all the ending cards, because there was clearly care put into… well, all but the last two, really.

So! In Conclusion!

Not as bad a movie as I was worried about!

There were a lot of nice touches, and I’m pretty sure that at this point, they were working towards un-doing the whole ‘riders were never riders’ situation. Especially given the time placement of this film.

The present day sections take place on December 3, 2018 – literally one day after the first episode of the Ghost arc aired. It was released on December 22, so… about when Sougo was shot into the future by Decade, and the day before he Did The Thing with his belt.

Ghost was allowed to transform. “Oh, right… I’m a Kamen Rider…” And, of course, Decade was there. As Decade.

The next Legend Rider to appear wasn’t until February – with Ryuki, who would never have been a Rider in the first place, regardless of Time Travel interference. He’d already had his adventures undone at the end of his season. After then, every Legend Rider is still a Rider.

As long as someone remembers.

[butterflyinthewell]

My old af crappy art lmao

So my one kaiju oc is Shezilla, a female of Godzilla’s species. She exists to me in the Heisei era, if anyone is curious. She is distinguishable from Godzilla by her lighter granite gray coloring (as opposed to Godzilla being charcoal gray), her longer claws and her smaller dorsal plates.

Shezilla has been around since I was 17 and now I’m almost 39. Godzilla totally loves her. 😇

So anyway...touching noses is how they kiss. So here’s them smooching in front of sunset colors.

Godzilla ‘flirts’ with her by rearing up. They’re on a beach before dawn and Venus, the morning star, is in the sky.

And Shezilla takes a walk. The pink 80s zigzag bg is because Shezilla is a girly girl who would wear pink nail polish and use cute flowers and hearts frames for her Instagram pics if she used that.

Shezilla is supposed to have an agile build, like Final Wars Goji, but I sucked at drawing that properly, lolz. She can run and jump because she is less bulky than Godzilla. Her footsteps are also less concussive because she doesn’t announce her presence by stomping. At night she can get quite far into a city before the alarms sound. There is another reason she can move in ways Godzilla can’t, but I’ll get to that later on in this post. Her long claws allow her to dig and it’s not uncommon to see her save some nuclear reactor cooling rods for later by burying them.

Shezilla’s main personality difference from Godzilla is she can be driven away by the military because the noise and artillery impacts are confusing and scary to her. She will turn around and fight back if she gets hit in the face, though, cuz that pisses her right off and then it becomes total decimation same as it would with Godzilla. But she is a bit of a 'fraidy cat on land, less so in the water. Another thing is she doesn’t like to get dirty, though she will if she has to. You’ll find her grooming herself clean as soon as she’s able to do so. 

She’s not one who likes to charge into fights without a good reason. Trespassing on the island she and Godzilla like to hang around on is one good way to get on her bad side. She will fiercely defend her territory. You’ll get a couple of warning roars, a warning blast of the death breath, and then she charges after the invader looking for a fight. 

Most of her fighting moves are similar to Godzilla’s, but she has a couple that are all her own. Like she will run and pounce her opponents to knock them down. Sometimes, if the terrain allows, she will jump off a higher point and smash her opponent underneath her. Her long claws allow her to dig them into an opponent and cause some serious bloodshed. If she hooks them into you and starts thrashing you into the ground, you’re screwed. XD Her fave water move is to come after her opponent from below, and she will come up with such force that she’ll jump almost totally out of the water with the poor loser caught in her teeth or claws. (And it’s a hell of a wave when gravity takes over.)

But her coolest move is she will pick up something big (like a boulder), hurl it at her foe and nuke it with her death breath, which makes the thrown object explode and shower the other guy with superheated shrapnel. Sometimes she sends another shot through the blast while they’re blinded, or she charges through the blast as it’s hitting and pummels the hell out of whoever made her mad. It can be quite devastating.

Btw, Godzilla gets mean over a lot of things, but if he sees somebody hurt Shezilla he goes into smash mode and nothing is safe. He’ll decimate whoever hurt her, go off to smash whatever city is nearby to calm down and come back to tend to her if she needs it. The same is true in reverse-- even if Shezilla is retreating, if she sees or hears Godzilla scream / fall down, all bets are off and she will destroy whoever knocked him over. The only difference is she won’t go off to smash a city after, she’ll get Godzilla up and tend to him as soon as the threat is gone.

Her temper isn’t quiiiiite as bad as his, though she’s got her rage buttons and I already covered those.

And finally, here’s the other reason Shezilla moves a bit more gracefully than her dudebro counterpart. I incorporated the stiffness of the Heisei era Godzilla suit into Godzilla’s character-- Godzilla was the runt of his pod when he was a Godzillasaur because he has a heart defect that affected how his brain developed. 

He’s got some neurological issues due to chronic hypoxia in early life, and they carried over when he mutated into Godzilla. If he was human he’d be diagnosed with spastic CP and use a cane when he walks. Since he’s a kaiju his tail is his “cane” and acts as a counterweight that stops him from falling forward all the time. He can go short distances with his tail off the ground, but he won’t feel as secure. His muscles resist him a bit when he moves and his range of motion is limited. He doesn’t run because he can’t run without falling forward on his face. That’s why he stomps when he walks and his footfalls are so heavy, he has to stomp to feel stable on his feet. 

He turns his tight muscles into brute force and he’s so dang buff because his muscles get a lot of work holding him upright and beating the hell out of other kaiju. Sometimes he’ll be really, really, really stiff and tight when he wakes up after a long sleep, but he swims into warmer water because it feels good to his sore muscles. He’ll stretch and loosen up to his version of normal, sort of a kaiju version of occupational therapy. It’s a painful process, but for the big G moving is a matter of survival. 

He’s got a few cognitive issues too, mainly a lack of a fear response to things most animals would be terrified of. The only things that really incite fear in him are being thrust into pitch blackness unexpectedly (as opposed to going somewhere dark by choice) and an uncontrollable fall like the time he plunged into Mt. Mihara. That was a scared Goji scream. On the other side of that, he’s got a memory like Kim Peek and can remember all the way back to when he was a hatchling. If he sees a human up close, he will remember their face forever and may recognize them decades later, even when age alters their appearance-- Shindo brought back some very bad memories. 

He still has the hole between the ventricles of his heart, but he’s so massive and his resting heart rate is so slow that he doesn’t feel the effects of it unless his heart rate climbs up past 50 bpm and stays there for long periods of time. Then he gets woozy and loopy / confused, but the rapid regenerative healing caused by his mutation prevents this from doing more damage to his brain and body. He shouldn’t be alive at all, yet he is and he persists. If you magically “turned off” Godzilla’s regenerative healing abilities, he would probably die of heart failure in a few weeks. He’s a big, scary force of nature on the outside and fragile on the inside with organs and cells constantly working to maintain a delicate balance.

(This headcanon is 20+ years old, y’all, just so you know.)

Basically, Godzilla is a big ol’ dorky klutz most of the time, sometimes he’s a bit slow to catch up on a situation, and Shezilla sees those as part of his charm.

Oh, and his silly smile helps, too. That always gets her. ;)

Anybody that’s got a problem with the idea of disabled!Godzilla can go ride a cactus.

Shezilla is a clone in my imaginary Heisei era version of her. She was created by a kaijuologist named Kenpachiro Satsuma...yes, I named a character after the dude who wore the Godzilla suit for the Heisei era. When I was 17 I wrote him to be eccentric, but today I’ll shamelessly say he’s an adult diagnosed autistic whose special interest (and expertise) is Godzilla. He figured Godzilla was lonely and that a companion might keep him out of cities...and it does. Sort of. LOL

[marauders70s]

So I just watched Crimes of Grindelwald and I have a huge rant list.

Spoilers (obviously). 

Also, I did not like hardly any of it, so I’m sorry. Don’t pick a fight with me after reading a post entitled rant list and then be upset that they are all rants.

- wow AMERICA yeah jo we know what you think of us. it’s obvious in our de-tonguing geneva-convention violating (i know it’s not around in 1927 okay) inhumane treatment of not just grindelwald but apparently all the prisoners and animals we keep in cages (i know our prison system is inherently terrible i’m very aware) but to transport him like a paralyzed stroke victim drooling to a thestral carriage on a Dark And Stormy Night really just is lazy writing on why we should dislike aurors without giving anyone a plot, dialogue, or exposition

- this guy who has been posing as Grindelwald....since the beginning? since when? they cut out his tongue?? but then? it’s just forked? there’s magic? like? could they grow the tongue back?? they can regrow bones in harry’s arm but okay

- this thestral carriage chase scene is really CGI explosion heavy turned actioned film and mostly consisted of me being like what. what. WHAT. wait what. wait who is that. what. why wouldn’t he just disapparate. what happens to these thestrals. okay. what. grindelwald can just dissolve wands since when can people do that why didn’t voldemort do that why didn’t harry do that this presents problems

- okay look david yates and co. you had this incredible opportunity to create an entire wardrobe of WIZARD FASHION in THREE COUNTRIES, most notably the fashion capitol of the world and what did you do you put every single person in trench coats and random muggle garb. Also, not even cool wizard hats. No. Just muggle bowlers and mobster hats.

- Does Newt have a job. If so, what is it? How can he pay for this lovely house with magical modifications? Don’t you have to get a contractor to put that in? Did he do it himself? How does he pay Sad Girl In Love With Protagonist tm? Does he pay her? How did they meet? Why do we never see her again?

- For a movie entitled ‘Fantastic Beasts’ we really gloss over looking at any of the in-house beasts, learning anything about them, or doing anything except a CGI palooza.

- Wow Queenie and Jacob are here ‘hope you don’t mind we let ourselves in’ ah yes rude american trope again. who on earth would do that. also this entire time jacob acts like a goon and newt is like let’s take the enchantment off and i’m like hi that’s hella nonconsensual you’re basically raping and kidnapping him and jacob is somehow okay with this. newt is somehow okay with this. 

- ‘please don’t read my mind’ um dude you’re talking AT her??? 

- movie glosses over how jacob got his memories back with a throwaway line of unbelievable dialogue. If obliviate only worked on bad memories, Hermione Granger really needs to go to family counseling with her parents. 

- mysterious postcard is exposition over really dumb journalism error that could have been easily fixed within seconds by sending an owl because owls don’t need addresses, something queenie conveniently forgets by not knowing how to find her sister

- queenie is a Dumb American for cheap laughs by letting a woman say something in french, laughing, and saying she doesn’t understand anything only for the droll French woman to repeat it in the exact monosyllabic voice. Apparently everyone entering/leaving a country needs to register a visa or something, which is conveniently circumvented by going through a muggle port? It’s unclear. Queenie herself does not seem to have registered.

- French Ministry of Magic is gorgeous. Has a cool roots to iron elevator. It is also probably improperly named as they put ‘American Ministry of Magic’ despite America not having ministries or ministers outside of some serious religious stuff. They put all this effort into creating MACUSA but didn’t use it.

- Is it just me or does the MoM change the interior every time I see it.

- Queenie is devastated she can’t find her sister in a city of millions despite having magic, a means of communication that is foolproof, and enough money to find a hotel and wait to meet up. Queenie is overwhelmed that other people think in their native language. Instead of finding this helpful for tuning out a crowded city (like she does on the daily in New York), she somehow finds it overwhelming even looking for Newt/Jacob. 

- Random woman is Silence In Queenie’s Head. I literally never learned who she was except Hard Bitch Kills Toddler. Or why Queenie can’t hear her thoughts. (Plot twist she’s Bella Swan).

- Toddler didn’t get his own little casket in the French mourning cart. Nice of Grindelwald to give a supposedly muggle family a funeral cart when he could have transfigured their bodies into armchairs or something. (Muggle supposed after he makes the remark about a ‘thorough cleaning.’)

- No one in Paris uses French in spellcasting. Spells are still English-based. 

- Dumbledore is a dramatic bitch for gloves and rooftops. It’s a very specific brand of Gay. 

- Don’t kill me but I don’t...hate? Jude Law as Dumbledore. He was still kind. But he wasn’t auburn and that was dumb. 

- Unclear why Jacob and Queenie have to live in shame and secret when they could move to another country especially when Jacob loves bread and would like Paris. This seems to be Queenie’s motivator which is thin as hell and I didn’t follow her ‘logic’ at all. LAZY WRITING.

- Queenie immediately doesn’t disapparate upon seeing Grindelwald. Queenie somehow gets into this rhetoric. Later Queenie does not get disgusted with apropos wizard-Hitler being like ‘they are lesser beings’ and she, who wants to marry one, is like ‘yeah they totally are because I’m basically Jacob’s mom.’ 

- Grindelwald, in addition to being played by Johnny Depp, is albino, has one mutilated eye with a bad color contact clearly visible in multiple scenes, and is British when it is specifically stated he went to Durmstrang and was expelled for Dark Magic (at Durmstrang, which is noted for its Dark Arts program). As an allusion to wizard-Hitler, I always inferred that Grindelwald was German or Austrian. 

- Wow Paris street magic carnival gave me LIFE and WOW and MAGIC feels. I loved the ducking through the barrier. 

- Weird freakshow circus gets blown apart but Newt only manages to catch one creature that is helpfully foreshadowed it can leap Paris in a single bound. It is a Chinese creature when no mention of Chinese magic, Chinese handlers, or any sort of Asian magic is referred to (except in the cringe-worthy case of the ‘South Asian blood curse of Nagini’ which is a whole other can of worms). In all likelihood, as China is one of the oldest civilizations, their magic and dragon worship would be more paramount. China cat’s serious Great Beast’s weakness is a cat toy. 

- Why is Nicholas Flamel....like that. Sure he’s like 600 years old but (a) is Jacob literally breaking his hand what the hell, (b) as much money and life as you could want does that mean he has to be like 100 years old forever that sucks that’s not even worth being immortal. (c) Where’s his wife. (d) When he goes to battle I thought he’d drink some elixir and be young again but...no.

- Nagini has no purpose in this movie other than to be snake slave and love interest and run around in a circus outfit with tits out bra off. She did not do a single useful thing.

- Wait I’m sorry WHAT you can like...fuck house elves now?? There are half-elves? How....you know what no thanks I don’t want to know.

- Credence, despite the last movie setting up an obscurial as like a suicide bomb, can relatively control mega destruction now and get back into his body fairly easily. No one even wonders why this lacemakers roof apartment exploded.

- Are he and Nagini in love? Are they escaped carnival freak bros? Why isn’t Nagini heading for the hills? She literally has no personality of her own at all.

- Paris is suspiciously white in this film. Especially for the 20s art renaissance. 

- I don’t know why Credence falls into Orphan Must Know Parentage Trope because it’s really overused and boring. And frankly the superfluity of ravens was really beating me over the head. Credence can like...do anything. He could get some money and go to a wand shop. He could just...disappear. I don’t know why he has to be so easy to track.

- By the way who is this weirdo tracking him for Grindelwald/the ministry. It’s very unclear. I never got his name. It’s probably one of the many death eater names they throw in to make sure you know these families great-grandparents are also running around being evil instead of, you know, regular people doing it. So he could be Travers. I guess. LAZY WRITING. 

= Now is a special segment on Hogwarts = 

- The layout of Hogwarts changes every time I see it. Why are the classrooms always different. Why would the wood still have carvings. Why is there a bridge over this lake which is different than the covered bridge leading towards the Forest that Harry and Lupin have a Serious Chat on. 

- YOU CANNOT APPARATE IN HOGWARTS GROUNDS. And don’t you try to tell me Dumbledore instituted that because it’s directly stated in Bathilda Bagshot’s Hogwarts, A History as being a longstanding charm with muggle repelling. 

- Everyone apparates onto the bridge and walks through the castle without anyone bothering them into the correct classroom right away?? Like did they get a copy of the teaching schedule? Did Peeves show them?

- Dumbledore did NOT teach DADA. Dumbledore taught transfiguration. He was still teaching Transfiguration when Tom Riddle went to school. So if Dumbledore is teaching Transfiguration, Minerva McGonagall would not be at Hogwarts because she taught transfiguration after Dumbledore. Pretty sure mcgonagall was too young in 1927 to be a professor. LAZY WRITING. 

- Just looked it up. Pottermore (official JK writing, btw) states that Minerva McGonagall was born in 1934. So she’s officially negative 7 years old and a professor. That’s GOT to be a record. Poor Rowan Khanna will never beat preconception tenure.

- Despite me being ecstatic to hear/see a young McGonagall, the camera never held still long enough for me to see a young McGonagall. Any far away shots only demonstrated despite this being 1920s, she was still dressing in the 1890s. McGonagall, despite the obvious laughs it was going for, would never use magic against a student.

- Haha this dumb neanderthal student is Grandpa McClaggen. 

- Dumbledore, being known for wearing really flamboyant robes, dresses in conservative three piece suit. 

- Why would you not go home for the holidays when you have to take care of a baby raven you can just put it in a box or your pocket for christ’s sake you’re carrying like 6 niffler babies at one time but you never even show them again

- Will say that young Newt’s casting is A++

- WHY ARE THE UNIFORMS NAVY BLUE. WHY DO THEY WEAR RED TARTAN SKIRTS. WHY DO THEY HAVE PHD EMBELLISHMENTS ON ACADEMIC REGALIA? Why do they have colored hoods when the original films (and books to boot) say all black robes. Why are these robes not even proper wizarding robes but just like...cambridge robes. 

- To be honest this boggart lesson is like?? insane?? how did it last for 70 years it’s honestly so unethical and cruel. I’ve ALWAYS thought this even reading it for the first time in POA I was like “people’s worst fears are spiders and mummies?” like my greatest fear even at 12 was people I love dying. The fact that Newt is more scared of a desk than Theseus dying is weird.

- “I don’t want to talk about my boggart” Leta LeStrange means there was an Incident where Dumbledore realized that some students don’t have Great Home Lives and yet persists in this lesson for the next 70 years knowing that multiple kids are going to have their parents abusing them as their greatest fear. 

- Corvus, as a name, just means Raven. How stupid. “Is your house crest a raven?” “Yes. Also my brother. Like if you were named Badger McHufflepuff.” “Oh don’t worry my name is just Lizard Lizard.” “Cool."

- No background or even hints at future background (e.g. they haven’t written it yet) on why Leta gets with Theseus even after the first film where he has a picture of Leta in his suitcase. 

- Theseus and Newt have no screen time interaction. They do not behave like brothers. They have no flashbacks. Even young Newt never interacts with his brother. There is no realism here that Newt says they have a complicated relationship or is annoyed by his brother. This exposition is just lazy writing with nothing on screen to back it up. 

- So you’re telling me Dumbledore had the mirror of erised for SEVENTY YEARS and yells at harry for looking in it for three nights. How did Dumbledore not go mad? Where did he get it? I feel like 70 years is a long time to have it. 

- I guess when you think about it yeah being 40 in the 1920s does put you on the mark to be 110 when Harry meets you but fuck the books did NOT explain HOW OLD Dumbledore was to me I always thought he was like hale and sprightly 70s/80s

- Okay so you’re looking in the mirror and going to just BRAZENLY FLOUT CANON and say his deepest desire looking in the mirror is to relive the memory of the blood oath? That’s exposition. That’s a memory. That’s a pensieve not a mirror. Your greatest desire has ALWAYS BEEN saving Ariana. And even if it was loving Grindelwald this is your GREATEST DESIRE like being together not reliving a blood oath just for the sake of audience explanation. LAZY WRITING. 

------ Back to other rants

- Most of this movie was me squinting being like ‘what’s the plot??’ and if there was a whiff of plot (”we all have to find credence’s birth records!”) most of it was me being confused “why does this matter?” “how did they all get there?”

- The confession of Newt trying to talk to Tina in the records room was painful. Not cute. Not even funny. Just so painful. It was like secondhand embarrassment but like...pity embarrassment. 

- I don’t know why Grindelwald has a map of a Parisian cemetery. I don’t know why he had to give it to Credence except as a big reveal. I don’t remember how Queenie got there. I genuinely DO NOT understand how Jacob got there much less passed through to the secret wizard place as a muggle. 

- No idea why the records lady was attacking them when Leta checked in twice (once as Tina). NO CLUE why they were the worst animated cats of all time or why they became multiple cats or even why when taken out of the French records they became even worse animated ‘real’ cats when they could have just used real cats. The entire chase scene was baffling and unnecessary. The records lady was not an agent of Grindelwald so no idea what’s up with her bee in the bonnet sorry for wrecking all your shit bye.

- I saw this movie less than an hour ago. I’m still confused how Leta, Newt, and Tina all teamed up or why they were cool teaming up or what. 

- This mausoleum has a Greek hellenistic statue of a man reclining for no apparent reason and these shelves are supposed to bear ashes right so why are you putting a dumb pop up book there. Why would Grindelwald’s agent remove the record in drag as an old lady? It was weirdly unnecessary. 

- Yosef’s exposition on how a white man literally imperiused and raped his mother was like WOW NO ONE IS GONNA EVEN TOUCH THAT???? and then for her to die in childbirth it’s like...my dudes wizards have cured so many diseases muggles haven’t you know they’re up there inventing the c-section with Julius Caesar and accio’ing babies out of utero like ‘gimme that catcher’s mitt she’s fully dilated.’ This whole “oh it was the 1900s” nonsense does NOT apply to magic. LAZY WRITING. 

- I immediately forgot what happened to Corvus’ mom. but whatever right? she’s just a disposable woman! this movie does NOT care about consent! much less women! haha they’re just flowers!

- ‘I killed my brother’ yeah i mean we saw that coming she was REALLY SURE he was dead. But I was 90% sure it was going to be a child accident like dropping him down the stairs or shaking him too hard to get him to stop crying and then swapping him with a live baby but no? so i don’t know i feel like you didn’t really kill him.

- this steamer going down is confusing. is it a muggle ship? if it’s a muggle ship than is Credence swapped a baby with...a muggle born wizard? Are their other wizarding families on the ship? If so then why did they drown? you can all magic out of there? your lifeboat wouldn’t go down? why even take a steamer ship to america? you can...apparate or portkey or floo or fly like this titanic nonsense makes NO SENSE. And if Papa LeStrange hates muggles so much why put his only children on an all muggle ship with a half elf (again why) who can’t do magic to protect them

- Finding Credence’s identity REALLY doesn’t need to revolve around the LeStrange’s sordid past. Steamer ships keep passenger logs. So. We really should leave the mausoleum now to go find that. 

- Yosef took an unbreakable vow to kill this white baby and it’s dead so is he released? He was released like...20 years ago. Why does he continue to hang out with these people? Your endless vengeance has rested? No need to team up with the sister you never knew? apparently (their family dynamic was also poorly/not explained). 

- Why is this mausoleum an underground amphitheater. Literally why it makes no sense. Is it supposed to bring up the first David Yates film OotP? I don’t know. It also has a lot of blue fire and people rapturing the fuck out of there (literally when did apparating involve staring up at the sky and blasting off in rocket smoke). Also in re this movie how can you be tracked after apparating (Newt/Dumbledore’s tail). 

- So if you touch this curtain do you automatically teleport to this amphitheater. Also what if you touched it by accident and were like OH SHIT HOW DO I GET OUT. Like wow this guy wasn’t kidding when he said there’s no wizard that can match him magically. This is like Charles Xavier Magneto Level 1 Mutant Power kind of shit. Not even Voldemort could do that. Big Power Too Big trope. Again. How did Jacob even GET there. 

- Johnny Depp wears leather pants. Costume department, get your act together.

- Grindelwald, continuing to be British, shows clips of the Great War, approx 1914-1918. While the tanks and biplanes were appropriate, there were also lines (assumingly?) to concentration camps and the nuclear bomb of Hiroshima, which wouldn’t take place until 1945. So is Grindelwald also a prophet? Is he a seer? They kept referencing this book of poems and prophecy but without letting us see it? it went along with my general ‘I’m getting the gist of this but not really the why because it doesn’t make sense.’ And then Grindelwald rumor mongers and uses fear tactics when one of the police aurors straight up KILLS A WOMAN like wow can we cool it with use of force/police brutality is this guy going to get written up or is he fire now? 

- Ethnically ambiguous Grindelwald supporter (only person of color) gets immediately incinerated for not being 100% sure of his side. When Credence feels the same way, he gets a couple of gifts. 

- Look, I didn’t start this way but I stan Leta LeStrange. She was honestly one of the only people and the only woman in this film with a personality. 

- Queenie stands still as weak, silly, expositional, dumb American. For those of you about to be like ‘She’s spying on Grindelwald! She’s the greatest legilimens that ever lived!’ I just want to beg you to reconsider because if you’re right and if the writers get wind of that you know they’re going to have her like teach little Tom Riddle something just BECAUSE everything has to connect. 

- Poor Jacob he seems okay with being stranded in another country. Is his bakery okay? Do his friends know he isn’t dead? He is super super super brave throughout this movie despite his main comedic strength in the other movie being nervous. But this time he’s like meh firefights and large monsters.

- Credence I understand going over. Nagini continues to not be a character and did not go with Newt and Crew. 

- Wasn’t even sad for Theseus because again, Theseus had little to no character development except being a Whipping Boy to authority. Theseus and Leta never interacted in any meaningful way. Their relationship didn’t even seem real. I wasn’t even sad.

- I feel like Leta isn’t dead though because who the fuck else is carrying this LeStrange line to give birth to Rabastan and Rodolphus. 

- At this point everyone apparates AGAIN to Hogwarts. This time I guess a ghost went and alerted Dumbledore because he’s waiting. But yeah like come on in for tea Newt but fuck all those kids they can wait here. 

- What is this plot?? Is there a plot?? What is going on??

- Who gives someone a wand like this hi I hid it up my sleeve touch me my boy I long for your touch.

- This is a phoenix, not a Raven. Newt is a sad ordinary bird but you’re a bright beautiful phoenix. Apparently phoenixes can grow up in ONE DAY. Foreshadowing Dumbledore is foreshadowing. LAZY WRITING this is so stupid. The books would have been EXPLICIT about a fourth child. 

- Maybe he’s a cousin. Close relative, perhaps? *Pleakley voice*

“He hasn’t got a brother?” 

Dobby shook his head. 

Literally where I’m at right now. 

- ABRUPT ENDING IS ABRUPT I didn’t even realize this was the end of the film because the score, cinematography, and writing did NOT cue me that this was winding down. I literally was like ‘how long does this last’ and then it was like DAVID YATES. Okayyyyyyy. 

- Anyway my sum feeling upon the lights going on was: what the fuck. was there a plot. there were so many loopholes. i was confused about many things almost the whole time because nothing was fleshed out and if they threw enough CGI at me I’d be patched up. 

Final rating: It matches up pretty well to the middle film of The Hobbit trilogy. 

[minchase-ingclouds]

𝕒𝕗𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕪𝕠𝕦 ｌｅｆｔ, 𝕚 𝕔𝕒𝕞𝕖 𝕒𝕔𝕣𝕠𝕤𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝒻𝒶𝓃𝓉𝒶𝓈𝓎

╰ ♡ ✧ ˖ chae hyungwon. 25 he/him. have you seen charles “chase” min? they used to be so +confident before their heart got broken. now they just seem to be very -timid. i think it had something to do with (tw: abuse) his sugar mama emotionally/physically abusing him, but who knows how accurate that is. i know, we should get them hair dye to help cheer them up! maybe then they’ll start acting like fairy floss and cherry blossoms blooming.

basics

name: charles min

nicknames: chase, whatever nicknames his sister gives him, rosir (his sTriPPEr NamE)

age: 25

pronouns: he/him

sexuality: heterosexual (he thinks) ((but is actually bisexual)) (((he’s confused ok)))

tldr

traumatic childhood backstory etc in the bio below so if ur here from dee’s intro on ciel then jump down there hey

anyway bc of the traumatic childhood backstory, chase and his little sister ciel moved out when he turned 18 and she was 14/15ish

long story short he became a stripper to support them

when he was about 20, he met tiffany, a rich business woman who frequented his strip club because she thought he was stunning and had seen him on a night out with the girls

she wasn’t that old, maybe 7 or 8 years older than him, and approached him one night asking for a private session where she then asked if she could take him out on a proper date

they dated for a while and she became his sugar mama, asking him for sexual favours but paying for pretty much everything, EVERYTHING he wanted and even offering to pay for things for his little sister too (she was stubborn and refused tho)

only a few months ago, tiffany had an STI scare and insisted it must be chase’s fault bc - you’re a stripper, you’re a whore, i bet you cheated on me - and when he told her that no, he’d been loyal, and if she had cheated on him and had this scare then he thought they could work through it and stay together, she continued to grow more agitated and (tw:abuse) started to throw things and hit him

when his little sister found him in their lavish penthouse (courtesy of tiffany, ofc) he was covered in bruises and cuts

together, they decided to move to palm springs to a shitty little apartment since chase was done with tiffany, wasn’t going to use her credit card ever again or even speak to her again and now we’re here, his arm’s just healed after being broken but his heart still hurts and he kinda misses tiffany - after all, they were together for four years

bio

born in new york, new york, chase was a curse to his father from pretty much the moment he was born; with his mother dying in childbirth, his father had a love/hate relationship with him, since he reminded him so much of the wife he so loved but was also the very reason she was gone

when he was 4 his father remarried a woman named stacy who was pregnant with a little girl ( @cielmins )

speaking of ciel! if you are here because you were redirected by dee (thanks for palming this bit off to me btw sweetheart) then buckle up kiddos, cus we’re about to go for a RIDE

stacy was never all that nice to him, mostly put up with him because she loved his father, gerald or some other basic dude name

of course, stacy absolutely ADORED ciel, since she was her actual daughter, but chase never resented ciel - in fact, quite the opposite, since he adored her even more than their parents did

yes, chase is literally the most doting big brother that could ever exist, would move mountains for his baby sister if she asked (she would never ask because she’d figure out how to move the mountain herself), but that doesn’t stop the pair from being literally The Worst™ to each other and general public nuisances of the meme variety

side note - although nobody ever told ciel that she and chase aren’t related and are just step-siblings, she has a big brain and figured it out eventually (chase couldn’t be prouder of his genius little sister, although the difference in their ethnicities was probably the biggest tip off)

home life was not so great - stacy was constantly feeling undermined by gerald’s first wife, knowing he would always love her just that little bit more, and the more insecure she felt, the more she’d take it out on chase, and the meaner she was to chase, the more distant gerald was towards her and to ciel. it was kind of a cycle.

just before chase’s 18th birthday, ciel pointed out that they could run away, just the two of them, and take care of each other like they always do. her big brain pointed out that as an 18 year old, he could be her legal guardian

so, at 14ish (maybe 15? idk how old ciel is tbh) and 18, the pair moved out

when it became apparent that they weren’t coming back, stacy and gerald said fuck it, got a divorce since they were really only together for the kids at that point anyway, and ciel and chase were pretty much independent from then on

he and ciel even adopted a kitty named mayonnaise britney spears min - but you can call her may for short

as two teenagers they uhhh weren’t so great in the funds department and chase took it upon himself to provide for them so that ciel could focus on her studies - sacrificing his own education, he put himself through odd jobs here and there until one day shortly after his 19th he was approached by someone who told him he’d be great at ‘twilight modelling’

turns out by ‘twilight modelling’ they meant hhhh stripping

well, one look at ciel’s immaculate report card and the pleased twinkle in her eyes when she started talking about scholarships and college and stuff, chase was absolutely fuckin gone and knew he’d do anything to keep that look on his baby sister’s face so - hoo boy, here we go, ya boi turned to stripping

it actually took him a while to let ciel know, he told her he was, well, twilight modelling because he didn’t want her to know, but when she did eventually find out about one and a half years later, she help him come up with his rad stripper name - Rosir, because it’s french for ‘pink sky’ which matches ciel’s name, but also ‘the colour you turn when you’re embarrassed’, which suits him

a year into stripping, he meets tiffanny, and yk, all that stuff in the tldr, she pays for all his loans, buys him all his fancy designer brands, gives him plenty of allowance (which ya boi saves cus he’s not an idiot), even buys him a car and opens up her penthouse for the two of them

of course, when shit hits the fan, he has to give up his fancy car and leave the penthouse with ciel, now the two of them live in a shitty little apartment in palm springs because he doesn’t want to blow al their savings and since his arm was kinda uhhhh broken after the ordeal, he’s only just been able to get back into stripping (since he stil isn’t qualified for anything)

(tw:emotional abuse) before he started dating tiffany, he was pretty sure he was bisexual. tiffany had him confused for years because she told him that liking it up the ass didn’t mean he was gay and he could enjoy bottoming for a woman without being bisexual; he was totally straight, she would insist, and he started to believe that and to this day he struggles with whether or not he’s straight or bisexual because he knows he finds men attractive, but he isn’t sure if he would date one --> this was a form of emotional abuse that went on for literal YEARS

(tw:emotional abuse) should i mention that tiffany was kinda lowkey the worst and also tried to convince him to stop being a stripper several times? things like “you don’t have to strip, you’re basically my personal prostitute baby” and “you don’t need an education, i’ll always be here to provide for you, you’re all mine baby boy” and when she’s mad uhhh “you’re my little whore, got it? no one else’s” so............. yh let’s just say ciel wasn’t a fan but chase, well, he was blinded by those hearts in his eyes

but don’t feel too bad for him! chase actually kinda likes stripping now, thinks it’s made him feel much more confident with himself and his body, having always felt maybe he was too gangly and thin and awkward, and he likes the feeling he gets when people can’t take their eyes off of him

despite the fact that he’s a stripper, he’s actually real sweet and innocent. has only had sex with tiffany, has never even kissed a guy and hasn’t even really kissed many other girls except for a few awkward dates he’s had here and there - most he’s done is private dances for paying customers

anddddddddd now that he’s been saving, and is finally free of tiffany and of his shit ass parents, with encouragement from ciel, ya boi has finally, finally started college

it’s a little scary since he’s older than most of the people in his classes, but he’s studying to become a kindegarten teacher and cannot wait for the day that he can hang up his lacy black garters and pick up a whiteboard marker

so, still stripping and working part-time as a waiter to pay the bills, chase is starting a new chapter of his life (signified by his brand new pink hair, courtesy of ciel), and whilst he doesn’t know what the future has in store for him, he’s ready to face it with a big smile and with his baby sister (aka his favourite person in the whole wide world) by his side

wanted connections

well hello beautiful people! if you’re still here, i must say, i’m rather impressed, so without further ado let’s get into this

ride or die best friend - chase only met this binch after moving to palm springs, but they happened to see him entering the strip club and figured out he worked there and, uhh, with persistence and a promise not to tell anyone, they became great friends and probably visit his shitty apartment to play with may and piss off ciel all the time

classmates - everyone needs a study buddy! if u got an ugli in college, throw em his way

gay awakening - now, chase isn’t necessarily going to date this person or even develop feelings, but as a beautiful man he’s going to turn chase’s sexuality upside down and cement his suspicions that yes, he is bisexual no matter what tiffany said (taken: moon jisoo)

honestly open to anything! hmu if you have any plots you’d like to chuck at him or any you’d like to fulfil <3

signing off for now,

yours faithfully

mich