#but now everything he does just kinda sucks or feels meh

[mattynmarns]

anyways. I'm really glad I didn't bring my tommy merch with me to school bc I think seeing it rn would make me so much more sad

[lonesplashy]

Ok I see ppl on Tumblr talking Abt how much they liked the final episodes but honestly I was severely underwhelmed by the fionna and cake ending. If you don't want to see me just list out everything I like and dislike and why according to my arbitrary personal preferences scroll now.

The second half of the fight with scabby was meh and repetitive. At least the gumlee was cute. Fionna is still the bestest even if her final fight kinda sucked. I love her dearly and I hope she is living her best life.

The lack of Ooo Marceline in the end was literally so disappointing too I wish we could've seen her again at SOME point.

And just in general the ending felt really rushed, I feel like if they had some more episodes to work with it would've been a lot smoother.

Simons pov was just so severely underwhelming, it just felt like filler to me.

I literally didn't care if it was going to be happy or sad ending for Simon as long as it made me feel things like the last couple of episodes did but it just felt totally flat. It didn't really feel like an ending at all. I wouldn't even mind the breakup angle they took under normal circumstances if it wasn't for the fact he like. Literally spent 12 years basically being in a constant mental breakdown, and a thousand years before that subconsciously searching for her, and her literally driving herself to insanity and becoming golb to keep him safe, but wow suddenly everything's chill cuz he played a video game. Ok. Simon just realized that whoops he didn't always take Betty's feelings into account and they parted ways.

And I will repeat: I DO NOT MIND THE BREAK UP ANGLE. IT MAKES SENSE OBJECTIVELY. HOWEVER. IT FEELS LIKE THERE WAS LIKE. TWO MINUTES OF THOUGHT PUT INTO IT. DEFINITELY NOT SUPER HEARTSTRINGS PULLING TO ME. DO NOT GET IN MY COMMENTS BEING WELL ACTKULLY THIS IS JUST ME COMPLAINING ABOUT CARTOONS.

I liked the golbetty in the bus and the golbetty statue. I could bs something about them going their separate ways on a journey the other can't go on and insert trigun quote here about how the ticket to the future is always blank but I just really like golbetty. She's great shes monsterous she's perfect.

Just in general Simon and Betty felt off to me during the final episodes, I can't really put my finger on it but they just felt weird. I'm sure Betty's been doing a lot of thinking in the void and all but it still fell to the left of them I think. The whole time I was watching I was just like. Hm.

Edit: got it. Betty has always been wanting to keep Simon thinking about her. Always. With AI Betty head she flat out said "I knew it would drive you crazy but at least you'd always be thinking about me" and it's like a core thing she does stuff for the Dramatics. While you can argue she's been doing a lot of thinking in the void and matured because of it she's also been a goddess of CHAOS. If anything she's gonna go more loony rather than more mature.

Not to sound like a doomed crazy yuri enthusiast but there are literally no normal or healthy actions you can take after literally becoming a god for someone.

Maybe I'm just too committed to the bit but I'm a solid believer that if you start a weird fucked up path you gotta end on a weird fucked up note. Although the severe disappointment of nothing happening is probably the most fucked up thing they could do to me.

Ik it's supposed to be some sometimes life doesn't give you a tidy ending stuff but also this is fiction I get enough fuck yous like this from reality and ignored job applications I want my fuck yous from fiction to be not sadly vague. Or at least better written.

At least Simon's in therapy. About time.

And the little emoticons he's using in his phone. :)

Do feel free to put your own opinions in on whether you liked or disliked the ending just play nice 🤙

[skrrtscree]

Viva Las Vengeance is out so I decided to waste 43 minutes of my life and here's my thoughts.

Note: any song after Local God is my first time listening to it, so all these reactions were written as the song was playing.

Also I'm using the tumblr app so idk how to cut text sorry.

Viva Las Vengeance:

This song has already been shat on to death for good reason

The verse and the chorus don't fit at all with each other

And the slow part near the end is not it😬

Middle of A Breakup:

Just saying this now the lyrics on these songs are VERY on the nose AND unoriginal

'Keep your disco, give me T-Rex' tf is that suppose to mean???

It's meh. Not as painful as the first one for sure.

Don't Let the Light Go Out:

Said it before and I'll say it again: Ed Sheeran knock-off.

Shows that Brendon doesn't need uplifting beats and screehing to make a good song

Well 'good' is subjective but this is one fo the better ones.

Local God:

This song should be in JAIL.

I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT IHATE IT-

Doesn't flow together AT ALL

It's 2022 Brendon why did you make an ENTIRE 3 MINUTE SONG about a guy you haven't talked to in YEARS???

Star Spangled Banger:

the title is a obvious lie, this shit ain't banging at ALL

Why is brendon sing-talking some parts in the verse?? Could he not fit all the lyrics in??

Good to know that the verse and the chorus not fitting together is gonna be a running theme throughout this album

God Killed Rock and Roll:

I swear the beginning of with the piano this sounds like a cheap knockoff of bohemian rhapsody

The musical flow of this song SUCKS so much its kinda funny. It starts with piano with an accompany of a chorus which is the only decent part of the entire song, then the pre-chorus has a quicker beat and the switch feels so abrupt.

I don't like that it sounds like brendon is trying to chase the lyrics in the chorus

Say it Louder:

Ngl the beat actually sounds good???

'For the people in the back(back,back,back) bros trying to create his own echo💀

None of it sounds out of place so far.. his voice does kind of sound a bit werid though its kind of expected of him at this point

OK nvm, it got slow again around the middle

Sugar Soaker:

The come on come ons do not fit the beat of the chorus. They fit the verses just fine though.

He's definitely making the choruses sound 'fulfilling' when it's just the verse but upped an octave. It just comes off as lifeless..

Wtf were those come ons at the end, its like hes creating dramatic tension through audio

Something About Maggie:

HELP NOT THAT HIGH NOTE FOLLOWED BY ALL THE LOW ONES, yeah that made me actually laugh

'Let him GOOO🤩' 'people say people say run away run away😈'

Sorry but the only ones who wrote a good line about slitting wrists were MCR and that was in 2004 🙄

Also Panic hasn't really been 'emo' since Fever (maybe Vices but that's pushing it) so not only is this line just yeesh it doesnt fit at all.😬

So glad Brendon decided to embrace his snake persona with how he's saying his s' at the end of sentences

'oh yeah'😚

Brendon PLEASE stop messing up the track by switching beats halfway through it

a a a a a a a a

Friendship ended with Sarah, now Maggie is my bestie

Sad Clown:

Title is kinda self-aware, ain't it?

Alright Brendon we know you were on Broadway but that doesn't mean you have to force yourself to sing like that on your songs

Only dogs can hear it I stg

Great he got slow AGAIN out of no where, cause that went so well the last time he did it (viva las vengeance)

All By Yourself:

Another self-aware title damn, he's on a kick with these.

He likes mentioning those posters on my wall. Ironically I have two IDKHOW and FØB posters and none of him lol.

Even with a slow song like this, it still feels like he's forcing himself to sing higher than he has to.

He was right about changing everything all by himself though.

This actually sounds pretty nice, I will admit.

Do it To Death:

What else is there left to say? It sounds the exact same as the other songs..

It keeps teasing me thinking he's gonna say something else-OH SCREW OFF NOW THIS 'shut up and go to bed' SHIT AGAIN

I sat through 40 minutes of your mediocre music just to get jumpscared with a viva las vengeance callback END ME

In short: im disappointed but not surprised. This doesn't even feel like Panic anymore. The lyrics are bland and repetitive, Brendons vocals are truely fighting on their last legs and the songs can't commit to a single beat. It's like he had too many ideas and thought he could execute them all but he couldn't. I can't believe this album is actually real, I refuse to listen to this ever again.

If the studio versions of these songs sound so dogshit, I canNOT wait to hear about the tour versions.

Bonus note: the song spotify decided to auto play right after finishing the album was Famous Last Words which idk whether to laugh or cry.

[i-restuff]

a personal Mario movie review from yours truly.

ok, so, I'm very natural over Mario franchise. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. so this review is mainly from someone who is there only for the animation (also for Jack Black ofc). cool? cool. alright.

spoilers below

I'm going to be super upfront with the "good stuff", and sorta detailed with the "meh stuff". mostly because the good stuff is very self-explanatory while for the negative ones I feel like at least I should give a little bit of reason why I feel that way.

good stuff

I love the world-building, everything is very well-detailed and the environment is insanely rich

character designs? love it. they look absolutely alive and expressive

the casting. I think they're all really good???? I personally think Chris Pratt is alright too ig? I mean I kinda don't care, I was distracted with everything else in the movie. but he's fine.

Jack Black. nuff said.

I love Toad. I love Peach. DK. BROWSER??? everyone's very likable damn.

I'm obsessed with the 3d models ngl. there are times when I was focused more on the models than I was on the story. It's really distracting in a good way.

Storywise, I think it's decent but also fun!

love love love the dynamic between Mario and Luigi. Peak dynamic, really.

Such a nostalgia trip. I for one who doesn't know much about Mario had such a blast listening to all the soundtracks and looking at the itsy bitsy references and such.

obsessed with Lumalee. let em die :(

/////////////

the credit animation is super colorful I wish I could eat it.

^ I was watching this with a friend who is obsessed with Mario. there are times when he went absolutely insane and explained some stuff that I didn't know. which I think it's cool! it's crazy how there are literally easter eggs and fan service everywhere, it doesn't feel forced too. I really could see why people love it so much.

meh stuff

ok, imma be honest. I'm just gonna complained about the plot holes here,, It didn't really effect the story, but it did confuse me a bunch of times. again, this is coming from someone who doesn't know much about Mario. I might miss some stuff.

the transition when Mario/Luigi got teleported from Brooklyn to the Mushroom Kingdom. like, why? what's so special about that specific pipe?

also before that. why's Brooklyn drowning all of a sudden lmaoo. that part kinda felt forced just so Mario and Luigi had a reason to go below the sewer. it sorta makes sense I guess? but the pacing is pretty dang weird.

how does Peach know her own kind? "you're a human!". she was a literal baby when she first got to the Mushroom Kingdom

I love love love Toad character. I just don't understand his presence? I mean sure, he's bringing the comedy, but you could find the "comedy" elsewhere too. so his character is a bit useless despite him being the protector. long story short, the movie would be fine with or without him < this is how much his character matters imo.

the pacing after Mario agreed to fight with DK and then suddenly he's on the stage. tbf this isn't really a big deal? but the transition kinda bugged me.

I don't know what exactly they wanted to do with Mario and Peach relationship. do they like each other romantically? it doesn't feel like it despite being teased a few times.

my dude Luigi has to sit in the cage for how long now? kinda suck. I wanna know more about him, I wanna see him more in action.

that being said. I wish they did more with Luigi, give him something to develop on. because seeing him fighting Browser doesn't feel as rewarding as how we see Mario. all he did most of the time was get caught and sit in a cage while Mario had to go through all those bullshit. but I get it though. storytelling wise, Luigi is supposedly Mario's goal. to get him back and all that. I get that.

I can't feel sad for Mario for some reason??? (this has nothing to do with Cris Pratt btw). his supposedly "emotional" scenes didn't impact me at all. in fact, I felt awkward. I honestly don't know why though.

the final fight scene is also awkward? I mean it's cool, don't get me wrong. I think it has to do with where they're fighting? I guess imma blame Brooklyn for this.

the 80's pop songs felt out of place, but maybe that's just me.

personal rating? 7.

but I genuinely get why people love this movie.

[ystrike1]

BORDER LINE ~My Fiendish Chinese Classmate's Psychotic Infatuation~ - By Horita ahan (7.5/10)

The first chapter of this is better than the second. This author seems to really struggle with endings. They have a huge fanbase because of their beautiful art, but I am wary now. Some of the endings suck enough to ruin the art, and look at it. It's gorgeous. The ending this time is ok, but there's alot of abuse in this that will definitely divide fans.

Kaho is a beautiful and insecure young girl. She's class president now, and she doesn't know that nobody likes her. She's just "that girl" you know? The one that annoys everyone. The one that gets bullied.

This is Wang Wei. He's the most popular boy is school. Kaho thinks he's kind but he's not. One day she sees him bullying somebody, and things get fucked up fast.

Wang Wei controls everything. He is the most popular guy, even though he's a horrible bully. He's clearly a young gangster with money. He says that Kaho's good behaviour is just an act to get attention, and he's kinda right.

He rapes her. He starts to bully her, and something extra awful happens. Everybody joins in. They never liked Kaho. They were just putting up with her. As soon as Wang Wei says she's the new target they are happy. Nobody actually likes Kaho anyway, so they want her to be the victim forever. They do not give a shit about her. It's also implied that they know she's being raped.

Things somehow get worse. Wang Wei has been following her. She applied to her high school to basically stalk her. He met her when she protected some kids from some random bullies. He likes her smile. He made her class president, and he made her classmates into victim toys for her. He created situations where Kaho could be a hero, so she would get praise, but now he wants to be paid for his work.

Kaho's entire world shatters. She thought she was admired. She thought she was a hard worker, but Wang Wei was secretly giving her everything. In reality she's the most unpopular girl. She's not the class president. She is just a toy that belongs to Wang Wei. He claims that he set up the hero stage for her, but he just loves to control her.

Their relationship gets more toxic, and Wang Wei leaves her after graduation.

Great. Weird ending but ok.

Timeskip.

Oh shit.

We're in China now.

Kaho is up for auction. She's there willingly and she wants Wang Wei to buy her. Gangster confirmed. He's an insanely rich man who stabs without a second thought.

He buys her and he immediately asserts his dominance. He doesn't treat her well, but she seems to love him. The best part of this story is only implied because this author...ugh their writing seriously needs work. Anyway during high school Wang Wei made Kaho love his attention. He made her love power. He made her believe that only he can make her feel special. When he left she became obsessed with him.

So Kaho puts up with his awful treatment, because she knows he loves her. He tests her. He brings home another woman, and he says he doesn't need Kaho.

I didn't see this coming. I admit it.

Kaho kills the other women Wang Wei slept with while she was away. All of them.

He approves, and they become a gangster power couple. Weird ending. Kaho goes through so much abuse, and Wang Wei feels no pain at all. He never suffers. Not once. He left Kaho. He had like four mistresses. He isn't a very good yandere, even though his character design is great. In chapter one the yandere level is there, but seriously. Kaho slept with underworld men in order to find Wang Wei. She sold herself. She wasted years of her life following him, because he made her dependent on him....but he still treats her like shit. There's no reward. He doesn't smile and tell her he's been waiting for her.

He does make her his only partner. He does give her a ton of power, but he's just not loving. By the end Kaho loves him more than he loves her. Maybe that's what he wanted, but big meh. After all of his yandere promises in chapter one I was disappointed.

[anyways-wonderwall]

Eurovision Special!

I would just like to start this by saying woah. I have been keeping up with Eurovision for the past 7 years and have written about the last four, and this is easily the biggest shitshow I have ever seen. Never before has my Twitter been solely about Eurovision, and never have I seen Americans actually kinda care.

Just to make it clear from the beginning, Israel should not have been in this competition and should never be invited back after all they did this year, although we all know that since they own Moroccan Oil they will never face any consequences. Not only that but their song this year sucked! It got the lowest rating from me this year, even putting controversial stuff aside.

Anyways, it is time for the annual tradition of me telling you what my five favorite songs were and what I thought of the entries this year. If you've read any of my other Eurovision posts (I've reviewed 2021, 2022, and 2023), you'll know that I go through and grade all of these songs on a spreadsheet through a very objective rigorous process. I grade on five categories (which are eerily similar to what the jury does): Singer, Song, Catchiness, Performance, and the bonus points category Diversity. The max score is technically a 40, but that last category can and has put some songs over the edge. Oh and this ranking is based on how much I like the song, so the order may not fully match the scores.

All the drama aside, this was one of the best years song-wise for Eurovision (this was definitely the hardest its been to rank the songs ever). I think countries are starting to understand that being quirky pays off, so now we're getting real song diversity and really amazing performances. Also, Eastern Europe really gave it their all this year and I cannot thank them enough. (Oh and all of these songs, minus Croatia, are NOT IN ENGLISH!! Truly an incredible year)

5. Netherlands - Europapa by Joost Klein

Score: 35/40

Notes: good energy song itself is meh

Final Ranking: uhhhhhh, that's a long story

Look I get it, this song truly embodies Eurovision in every way. It's in Dutch, one of the silliest languages out there, he's out there wearing crazy outfits and has a silly haircut, its a euro-techno hit, he has the emotional angle since it was dedicated to his parents; this is one of the most perfect Eurovision songs to enter. All that aside though, its not that interesting or awesome as a song. The main riff is incredibly catchy and the production choices with the piano are pretty cool, but it just feels like a rip off of the silliness of last year's "Cha Cha Cha," down to ending in a boring techno breakdown. I think this song is a clear response to that (down to the shoulder pads) but it still is pretty good and did a great job making this year even crazier than anyone thought possible.

4. Greece - ZARI by Marina Satti

Score: 33/40

Notes: I've never been more flummoxed

Final Ranking: 11th

This song on the other hand, is one of the most interesting things I have ever heard. Marina Satti as an artist and this song has been occupying my thoughts nonstop, because what the hell is happening here. It's like Rosalina-style cumbia got lost in the East Mediterranean and the music video leaves me even more confused. The crazy jumps from Arab traditional flute sounds to strings to a cumbia baseline to a men's choir, to a melodramatic echoey bridge? I took a whole class on writing about music and I can't find the words to describe this one. And all of her media around it uses 2005 word art fonts and clip art? And she is serious about everything the entire time. Everything she does is hilarious and off the wall, yet she continues the persona of a pop diva. I seriously cannot get enough of her.

just want to point out that this is one of her real album covers. The word icon doesn't cover it.

3. Armenia - Jako by LADAVINA

Score: 41/40

Notes: Trumpet player hot or not

Final Ranking: 8th

Speaking of icons, look at these two! I really think this year was countries really embracing their native genres, whether that be Eurodance, Mediterranean Cumbia, Eastern European Emo, or Armenian folk music. This song just truly embodies fun. The lively beat, the screaming and yipping, a crowd cheering, the wailing trumpet, the random instruments whispering in the background. Listening to this makes you feel like you are a part of the coolest party ever, with flute and ukulele solos, and freedom to yell as loud as you want. I cannot get enough of this song and the energy these two bring to it, and I am so glad Armenia picked an absolute banger to represent them this year.

2. Estonia - (nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi by 5MIINUST x Puuluup

Score: 44/40

Notes: EASTERN EUROPE IS BACK BABEY

Final Ranking: 20th

This song is just awesome, in every way. You have this weird Estonian string thing, voices so low that it sounds like throat singing, all mixed with that kind of techno that feels so intrinsically Eastern European. The music video has them driving around a Soviet-style building complex just messing around in abandoned warehouses and parking lots. This is what I'm talking about when I say that countries are going back to their roots and not just trying to send what they think is the most marketable. I see this as a sequel to Moldova's entry last year, which involved a Eurovision veteran with some new faces, mixing old and new to make a masterpiece that has so much personality.

Croatia - Rim Tim Tagi Dim by Baby Lasagna

Score: 43/40

Notes: Meow cat, please meow back

Final ranking: 2nd!

Look at this guy, he looks like someone who you would love to bring home to your parents and would like cats. He wasn't supposed to compete for Croatia this year and was put in last minute and I'm so glad because my life would have been so much darker without this banger in it. It's a classic emo anthem about leaving your farm-filled hometown to go to the big scary city, but he doesn't take himself too seriously with a name like "Baby Lasagna" and a chorus of nonsense words. The music videos as sped up farmers dancing and a cat that looks exactly like mine (both one-eyed and orange), and is a perfect mix of vulnerable and silly. This really seems like someone who was genuinely making something fun and expressing himself, and just happened to almost win Eurovision in the process.

Here's to hoping Eurovision actually happens next year after everything that went down, and if you're curious my least favorite songs were the offensively boring entries from Israel and Albania.

[parlerenfleurs]

Well, I watched Good Omens season 2, and not gonna lie, I think it kinda sucks.

Perhaps season 3 will be more interesting, but this season is... meh. It's cheesy, ill-directed, people's (side-characters) reactions don't make much sense or at least aren't presented well, and thus they're not believable. I felt like watching children play together, deciding as they go "And you're this and you'll do this and then..." without much care for consistency or well-rounded characters or narrative.

And furthermore (SPOILER AHEAD I'M SPOILING A LOT BEWARE YOU CAN STOP READING NOW OKAY? COOL TAKE CARE BYE), furthermore, then, that kiss made no sense to me. I'm happy to follow their feelings/character arc unfold, but come on. How heavily must they hammer it on?

Yeah we get it, Beelzebub and Gabriel are a parallel, they fall in love then fade to their happily ever-after in the most contrived way ever (why aren't they threatened with being removed from the Book of life? Does the dominion of Heaven and Hell, having created the whole damn universe at the behest of their so-called omnipotent god, not extend to one solar system over? Come on now. I thought the whole plan was to go somewhere Heaven and Hell wouldn't look for eloped deserters, but here they announce it! If anyone just needed to leave Earth to desert their respective armies with no consequences, everyone would do it).

Yeah, we get it, Aziraphale is still not ready to accept that Heaven is not what he thinks it is, and to be with Crowley's side, their side, unconditionally while Crowley is fully ready and wants nothing more, and has for a long time now. (And actually this is to me the only worthwhile theme that makes sense, because of course Crowley, having been cast away, doesn't have anything to lose anymore. Aziraphale, who can still be taken back as a good prodigal son, can't see how that's something Crowley doesn't want anymore, because the scales have fallen from his eyes already, because he has lost everything for real and can now see that both sides are just as bad.)

But?? Why kiss??? I liked that they are indeed not human and love in a different, non-physical way. And I suppose it's a luxury to feel that way, because now if I do want human love and queer kissing, well, I've got it portrayed beautifully elsewhere. But for Neil Gaiman to insist they're not humans, don't love like humans, and then do this? Doesn't feel very consistent to me. I ship them, of course I do, but words and gestures would have sufficed. Would have been not just enough but more in-character to me.

But well. I don't have the full author vision, perhaps the next page of the story makes this make more sense. I'm not convinced but I can be patient and give it a chance.

But this season's flaws are here to stay. Nina and Maggie's "romance" was... weird. First, Nina was kinda mean to Maggie. She didn't owe it to her to be all smiles and all that, but as a spectator I can't understand why Maggie is so hung up on someone who treats her that way, who is so utterly uninterested and dismissive. Second... Maggie was being creepy. I presume that was not the intention, but that's what the acting/directing, and the way the scenes/dialogues were set up that made me feel that way. She was transparently interested, and continued to bring it up even when it was clear Nina didn't care for it. She had to tell her in no uncertain terms and then Maggie still wanted to talk about it and know if it was her fault Lindsay was being an abusive jerk... WHY was everyone so invested in everyone else's love life? And why did everyone talk about it so readily? Doesn't anyone value their privacy? Why would Nina tell Crowley that Lindsay just broke up with her and why would she give her opinion on his love life so freely? When I have a broken heart and want to go home and cry I don't really feel the urge to refuse social engagements with acquaintances by telling them the naked truth about it, but maybe that's just me. I also don't feel like telling said acquaintances that they should really get their shit together because they look so much like a couple from a few meters away and a handful of moments witnessed. But maybe that's just me.

The only sane moment in this whole mess was when Nina and Maggie come to tell Crowley that they shouldn't have stuck their noses in their business and that it's nuts to expect someone who just broke up to get into another relationship, but then right on the heel of that they once again confidently declare this and that about Crowley's feelings and what he should do about it. Like, excuse me??? You have barely seen them both together or hell, apart, and suddenly you're a stage 5 close friend and are an expert on how things stand between them??

Also just generally the comedy was often heavy-handed, the in-jokes unsubtle, the romances formulaic, the pace torpid... I was frankly bored from the introduction of the first episode (I did hope it would get better, and it was at times, but not much), displeased with the retcon of their first meeting, and wondering where Gaiman's excellent writing had gone.

Also I do wonder what Crowley was even doing lugging piles of books around only to throw them carelessly in corners. Aziraphale should have been very upset about that. He took good care of the Bentley, there was no reason to trash his beloved bookshop.

I feel like I've mostly lost my time, and that's too bad. I imagine a lot of people are ecstatic about the "representation", but I would have loved more substance and less... I don't know... I don't even know what they were trying to do here.

[aforrestofstuff]

Chapter 170 Expert Review

Garou said he liked a woman. People died.

Not me though lmao y'all take it easy!! I wanted to die earlier this week though because I got a haircut and they fucked my shit up severely but I'll get through it ok. I won't get any bitches but it'll be okay, I just gotta stay strong. (<- typed with tears in my eyes)

My schedule in doing these reviews has gone to shit because a lot of the time I just have absolutely zero opinions on new chapters... or entirely negative ones. And I don't wanna make a post that's just 100% negativity, y'know? Gotta balance it out. Gotta have the vanilla and the chocolate.

With that being said,

fuck the MA arc lmfao so glad that shit is over god bless amen i love you jesus!!!!!!

Nice cover. The perspective bothers me a bit, especially since Genos' feet are exactly the same size when one is below the other but it's FINE, okay. (<- also typed with tears in my eyes) (for legal reasons this is a joke i genuinely like this cover and i think it's swag)

But I'm being dramatic. The MA (Monster Association) arc wasn't all bad. There were little pockets of joy in between the seemingly pointless fighting chapters and that kinda solidified my opinion as this being the most "meh" arc in this manga thus far, and I'll elaborate on that. If you don't wanna read my neckbeard rant on the MA arc, you can go ahead and scroll down to my next bullet point. It's nothing I haven't said already. Just wanna preface it with the fact that these are my opinions and you're entitled to your own feelings. Hell, if you love the MA arc, I'll suck you dry right here right now! Just don't suibait me for disliking it hehe thnx &lt;3

I think the manga is at its best when it's character-centric, as I'm sure that's why so many people love it to begin with. Those little chapters with Badd and King slingshotting themselves to the fight and the tanktoppers and other heroes running out of the hospital were honestly some of my favorites!! Everything else was just... kinda muddled together. A giant fight filled with smaller fights in an arc that takes up over half of the manga's current 170-chapter run yet takes place all in one night. So much happened, but it also feels like nothing happened. And in a way--nothing did, because ONE is allergic to committing to whatever hole he's dug himself into.

ONE purposefully backtracks on character-defining moments like the two fake-out deaths: Tanktop Master and Genos. Aside from it just being cheap, he treats death like a corner to write himself out of instead of an opportunity to shift the narrative and add a major risk factor, to which there was none. It was boring. Borderline infuriating, actually. Why even have so many fights just to show the good guy winning in a slightly different way every time?

It was especially jarring when Saitama time-traveled back and forgot all the shit that happened in the fight with Garou (which took 8 giant chapters, by the way). So why even do all that just for Genos' core and the Ominous Future to MAYBE crop up as a plot device later? Why elongate an already stupidly long arc with something that could've been achieved in a much shorter, simpler way?

There were over 20 redraws. Some of them were just Murata fixing some things he wanted to, which is fine, but then you have things like bringing back the mercenaries, bringing back Do-S, and retconning the Saitama sit-down arc, and it's just... confusing. It's confusing as a reader and I'm sure it was also confusing as a writer because it definitely gives the impression that ONE was in the office throwing darts at a board to see what happens next. It's like... does he even know what's going on? Why are we planting so many seeds for future plot points now, when the current plot is already plenty convoluted (yet, simultaneously lacking substance in favor of pretty pages)? CANT THIS FUCKING WAIT TILL LATER--

Whatever. It's over now. I hope it gets more ironed out in print. I'm just frustrated with this because OPM is supposed to be a satire of the shonen/seinen/whateverthefuck genre, yet ONE keeps allowing it to have the same narrative pitfalls as most others. (Also the same homophobic and racist tropes--can't just do like 80% of the same things as the genre you're claiming to satirize and say you're any different, ATP.)

Murata said he'd be taking a month-long break and good for him. Hope he parties hella hard.

TLDR: I think the MA arc is too long, the pacing sucks, too many fights, not enough substance. also drive knight is still a punk ass. also I think the time travel was stupid and I'm afraid ONE is gonna use it to weasel his way out of more consequences for his characters in the future but anyway,

In my rant about the MA arc, I completely forgot about the actual chapter I'm making this review about. I had to go back and re-read it. Anyways, fuck yeah character interactions! I love when people be talking to each other n shit! fuck yeah! woo! characters! love em! love guys!

this makes 0 sense but this is the most Garou that Garou has looked in years. I mean, over time Murata's art style has changed and that's just groovy, man! But I kinda missed his stupid little evil face. I wanna hit him with my car.

I was waiting and praying and creaming my pants to see him with short hair but that just... never happened. I'm not mad. We got to see him and Silverfang be the most dysfunctional pussy-eating uncle/bitchless nephew combo ever and that's just priceless, but it makes me curious how his whole redemption thing is gonna turn out, if it even happens. Because if this is it then... it's a bit underwhelming. I thought there'd be more introspection and humbling other than Garou just saying "Fuck y'all, I'm suicidal!" in front of everyone before leaping fifty feet into the air, meditating under a waterfall for an undetermined amount of time, and getting bonked over the head with a closed fist (which is illegal everywhere, btw. Silverfang prison arc when? /j)

What I mean is, Garou did a lot! A lot of bad stuff! Lots of bad things! And for that to be mended offscreen is... a weird choice. But I guess this is where Genos' core is gonna crop up later, my man's gonna make the callout post of the century: Garou Whooped My Ass In The Multiverse: Part 1 of 97, which is gonna send Garou spiraling and then he's gonna get humbled the only way he can be humbled! Working minimum wage. Because beating his ass to the point of him wanting to get laid out like carpet in the ruins of City Z just wasn't enough.

I like Garou. He's a cool character. I wanna kiss him on the lips.

I give ONE a lot of shit for his dubious writing decisions but he did well with Garou. That's it. That's all the praise I'm giving him.

This dude really tried to give Bang the ol' "you're not my dad!" Nice try, fuckhead. He's still got legal custody of you until you're 35 because you can't go 10 minutes unsupervised.

lmfao this dude's parents dont love him lmfaoooo what a loser lmfaooooooooooooo

I was right when I said Garou had mommy issues in that one fanfic I wrote over a year ago that I forgot the name of but I was right and everyone needs to know that for some reason or else I'll die

Anyways, it's nice to see Bang be a nice parental figure. I would call him a father figure but that ship sailed 50 years ago. My man is a grandfather figure. My man's an ancient figure. My man's an archaeological-find figure. My man's a 2-years-from-the-urn figure.

This dude beat so many of his own disciples' asses I was worried his first instinct upon finding Garou again would be to whoop him into silly putty, but I'm glad he's approaching it with kindness. This kinda goes in line with why Garou likes the girl he likes (whether it be as a crush or as a role model-esque kinda admiration, I don't fucking know nor do I care) because she's kind. I guess deep down, he knows it must take true strength to be kind in a world full of cruelty.

Also, I love how absolutely emotionally constipated he is to where he doesn't even know how to reply to Silverfang waxing poetic about being a parent. Motherfucker just yanked that shit right out before it sunk in and went "Ha! This is gay." I love you Garou. Never change-- actually, please change. On GOD we gonna get you therapy bro on my MOMMA you are gonna grow as a person !!!

Additional observations:

-Garou is so dorito-shaped here smh where's my slim-thicc king at, huh. Where's my wide hip representation?

-Adding on to what I said about Murata's art style evolving over time, one thing I'm kinda iffy on is how he's been drawing Garou a lot buffer on the top half lately. I also don't really like his shoulder muscles looking like padding lmfao. I mean, that could also be attributed to the extra training he got (and maybe Silverfang is actually feeding him 3 square dog kibble meals a day now since he wanna act a furry) so idk, take me back and shoot me between the eyes if I'm wrong.

-I know Silverfang is hunching over (probably from playing too much League of Legends, smh) but Garou is still so tall!!!

I know this fuckhead's immune system has gotta be benching 480 just from the monster arm he ate that one time, but how he is not worried about some kinda infection crawling up his bare asshole underneath that nasty ass river water just amazes me. Maybe that's why he's always clenching.

Garou: hey, fuck off you old shit! I'll kill you!

Garou: let me in ur house though? and train me? and feed me? pls? pls pls pls?

GUYYSSS HE INTENTIONALLY WENT TO THE WATERFALL BANG SHOWED HIM BECAUSE HE WANTED TO BE FOUND EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! He wants to be loved so bad ouuuugghhh he just wants affection ouuugughhhghhghuuhuh

And then he's emotionally constipated about it again because he tells SIlverfang he just wanted to perfect his "fist" which like, sure okay buddy you definitely didn't wanna freeload off air conditioning and dog kibble and perhaps even receive the parental affection you were starved of. okay yeah sure whatever.

"I'm gonna do the same" yeah until your ass gets EXPOSED in a 5-hour youtube documentary Genos is gonna upload to his 3 billion subscribers, you little scrub.

All the kids are friends! They're friends and they're besties and they're so nice to each other and I'm gonna dunk em all in my coffee.

I read "sentai" as hentai at first and almost went into cardiac arrest.

This page is so funny. "So, Garou, you've been normal for two days. you got a bitch yet?"

This whole thing reads as him pulling out some random name just to make Silverfang shut up. I've said this already but someone on Twitter said he brought it up so he can infodump about his favorite show, and that seems really plausible because he soon goes "Lemme tell you some shit about sentai, old man."

Also, the way he says "...or something?" to make it seem like he doesn't know literally everything about his favorite actress in his favorite show like, okay. We know you've got her horoscope and birthday bouncing around in that tiny ass head, you fucker. We know you read all the nerd-equivalents to those Cosmo mags about what kinda people she admires.

I love that he's a nerd, but we already knew that. He absorbed his entire worldview from cartoons and got relentlessly bullied at school--what's nerdier than that? And it's certainly no secret that he's pretty juvenile. Garou's just a lonely little kid in a body too big for his brain.

And the people saying Garou "liking" a girl (which again, it isn't even made clear which way Garou likes her) makes him straight are 1. incorrect (bi, ace, aro, etc people exist) and 2. unaware of the fact that I will draw him kissin boys until that little fucker turns to dust okay. I do not give a shit. Every time someone complains about it, I imagine him kissin a boy 5 more times. Suck my ass.

In conclusion: Kiiro ("...or something?") is actually pretty cute haha mrow. trust me girl, whatever you got lined up aint nothing to me haha i can treat you RIGHT (after my hair grows out)

In conclusion 2.0: Rover is definitely showing up again soon also, which is cool. Good chapter. Love characters! woo! love it! Finally, the evil is defeated (MA arc) woo! yay! yeah! fuck!

Thanks for reading! Tomorrow's my birthday (august 21st)! I'll be 21! You all have to wish me happy birthday or i swear to god ill start crying

[lovecatsys]

okay since everything except for Uncanny Spider-Man is out now I'm gonna go ahead and give my reviews of Fall of X so far

First off, Immortal and Red continue to be masterpieces, no surprises there, both books however are clearly taking a turn in a different direction and I'm loving it for both of them.

Jean Grey is not what I expected it to be at all, but still an amazing character study of Jean, I expected nothing less from Simonson of course.

Invincible Iron Man and X Men are decent, not a fan of exactly whats going on with Kate, the Emma stuff is great though. Kamala should not be in this book. I hate the avengers by default but I don't exactly hate whats going on between Emma and Tony, though that might change. The "wedding" is going to be exactly what I expected it would be of course. Overall not Duggan's worst writing but I don't love it.

Uncanny Avengers is... meh, so far, Pietro is super OOC which is :/ but maybe he'll get some more focus later on, god I hope he does. But it's frustrating how little effort is going into portraying him as a visible person of color when a much greater effort is going into his sister. Monet used her telepathy which gives me hope for her! I'm down for more of her teaming up with Kwannon tbh, they make a good team.

Astonishing Iceman is a bit of an anomoly to me. It's very good writing so far, I'm loving how Orlando writes Bobby, but I'm really pissed that they've chosen to stick with Romeo as his love interest after he got aged up just to come back and fuck Bobby and for them to throw Christian to the side. No mention of Christian at all at the hellfire gala, Emma is not concerned with where he is like she is with the Cuckoos which :/. I'm honestly afraid he's being dropped as a character which fucking sucks. The thing I hate the most about how Romeo is there is that Christian could literally be in his place and it would be perfect to me. He has a power set that could absolutely work for this situation just how Romeo's is working! Who knows, maybe this relationship will grow on me. We'll see.

Alpha Flight is really good, I haven't delved into the world of AF comics yet but from everything I know it seems perfect. My man was only there for two seconds in the first issue but we'll see if he gets any panel time as it goes on. Even if he doesn't though, yeah I'll be a little pissed but it'll still probably be a good read, and at least he'll have made any appearance at all since Marauders. Oh and Puck making fun of his new codename was funny. Fang really is a dumb name.

X-Force is still garbage, but this weird plot twist with Quentin (whatever it is??) has me gritting my teeth. fucking get your hands off my boy Percy he does not deserve this. Curious to see whats going on with the Colossus plotline, just wish it was happening in a better book.

Children of the Vault is amazing, never cared for Bishop and haven't read much Cable yet but I'm still all in on it. One of those books where you don't have to care much for the characters to recognize its quality. also fun fact: its written by the comic writing mentor of my comic writing mentor. lol

Dark X-Men wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be, but its still good. Though it kinda feels like it has too many characters in it so far, I'm loving the Maddie content and it had some great dark humor in it. LOVED the children of the atom bits, im so curious whats going to go down with Carmen and I'm just glad her friends and her relationship with Buddy got some panel time tbh.

last and the actual best: Realm of X was SO FUCKING GOOD. I've had a little soft spot in my heart for Curse since her story started in X-Men Green, and it seems like she's going to be a huge part of this arc rather than just tagging along as a little kid which is great. Sooraya fucking stole the show, this new take on her power signature is amazing. In general love all these women (Typhoid Mary is growing on me, I'm going to call the awful things she's done that made me want to hate her poor writing choices, especially since shes a survivor of such acts in the first place.) SO curious with what's going on with Yana, and I love how devoted she is to keeping Curse safe. DID NOT expect Saturnyne to be the main villain but im down for it tbh. This book is my favorite already and i just cant wait for hte next issue!

[itsohh]

I'm going to chop of Ubisoft's dick I swear to god.

You know what? This isn't a terrible change. With the addition of Thorn, Lesion did feel a little meh. So it's nice to have another mechanical trap operator. These changes does kinda bring him back to more OG style but at the same time: lol echo treatment invisible get fucked.

I do love the super shorty as a secondary.

I mean this will make my friend really happy, she's always complaining about the inconsistencies of shotguns. Idk how I feel about the ads improvement. I feel like this is something I'm gonna have to experience in game to decide as it could make or break shotguns. (Ubisoft if you ever even THINK about touching the BOSG I will hurt you.)

Now for the shit I hate. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIIISSS CUNNNTTT??? Like bro if I'm the only one setting up then there's no way imma have time to do it??? Also revealing to the attackers??? Talk about a fucking nerf to mute and Solis. Like your better off leaving your drone at spawn now and picking it up to drone later on when u get close. Unlike your rushing there's no point. Being on to it and killing all drones in prep phase then having the object hidden used to be a strategic reward. I've had matches win because attacks didn't actually know where the objective was and vice versa.

Like I get this is a solution to a problem that they have created but FUCK OFF literally quick match was completely FINE. It's quick because it didn't go a maximum of NINE ROUNDS. This is such some BS babying level stuff. Like sure spawn peaks and run outs can be annoying but that's part of the game. You can counter them, like YES you should be checking every window! Your in fucking training for combat! If your invun for the beginning of the round what if your Kali and just long range snipe??? Like I can see this going wrong for plane.

I mean... Now that comp rank doesn't mean anything I can understand the changes with unranked cause no one plays it but also??? I want to play like quickplay the way it is now, if 'standard' is still the same length as comp then idk man that's gonna suck.

If standards legit just current quickplay then they really should have just been like 'unranks removed we now have baby mode'

Idk what maps have been removed but I swear to god if they touch my boys Tower and Plane I'm gonna cry. I know it's a controversial take by I love both of those two map as is. (And plane got a rework not too long ago) They can take stadium tho. Take it out back and put it down because it's the worst map in the game.

I'm just confused by those 'base changes' what does this apply to? Everything? Are they removing bans from the game???? Same with the overtime thing is this for all game modes, like comp and unranked or????

Idk what clearance level is?

I feel like Ubisoft is reworking the game so much like at this point.... Just make another game lmao. I guess then there's always the fear of the ow2 syndom so I understand but then r6s is a really old game. This sucks cause like I love the game I do (I know it's a bad game) but a the same time this doesn't make me excited to play the game. It feel like it's audience is being reduced, like I love hehe funny skin pizza mozzie gaming but those premap set up cookie cutter shit? I fucking hate that. I bet the roations aren't gonna be where I like it either.

Ive been playing a little bit of comp recently but I've always been a quick play player. I could forgive the recent operators being so...eh.

Like don't get me strong Solis is really strong pick but I hated the addition of her and Brava SO much. Solis isn't to bad but Brava? I hate her addition. On both attack and defence, like why would you ever pick twitch anymore? Twitch doesn't even have any like really good guns either. She has the marksman I guess but all her guns are meh.

Fenrir I feel like is just a glorified proximity mine 80% of the time. He's just kinda eh and meh. His ability doesn't activate fast enough to normally be a big threat and then the fact you don't get his codes back is lame.

Grim is a niche, he's not bad. I just feel like he isn't that fun to play? I think him getting stickies is cool but I still feel like people won't play him.

Sens is powerful AF in a 5 stack with good coms. But without coms? I feel like their good for like a couple of strats but they aren't very versatile and are a very situation operator.

Like these operators aren't bad but I feel like they don't really add to the game in a positive way. Perhaps it's just a personal preference but idk I don't find any of them fun. I'm not running to try play them. I don't feel like the game has gotten better with their additions. Just worse.

(I hate Brava (gameplay wise) so much. On both attacking and defending)

First thoughts on Ram was 'oh an operator that focus's on playing vertical that's good we don't have- wait yes we do, there's sledge'

After this shocking revelation she's a weird automated version of sledge idk how to feel about it. I don't think she's gonna be picked much after initial release. I think she's going on the bench with Senz.

I'm still gonna play the game but like R6S vs CoD on a fight to see who can kill their game the fastest.

I hate being that guy but I do miss the way the game used to be when I started, I miss the UI. I miss being able to pick your fire mode, I miss old house I miss old consulate. I miss not having to worry if my own claymores gonna kill me, I miss the sense of accomplishment in the game.

Like I started playing just before Oyrx was released (hate Oryx players btw because they always break above hatch and then attackers get the advantage when they take it) and the games lost so much charm? Im glad they are tying to get out that entire 'stadium eSports incorporated into lore' phase but I feel like Ubisoft has an idea for the games future and it's just not a place I like.

I mean sure the games dying and I think addressing the RNG with shotguns is a nice step (that being said I like the risk vs rewards with them tbh) but at the same time if they addressed the true biggest problem things could change

That right

TICK RATE BABY

UBISOFT INCREASE YOUR TICK RATE FOR THE GAME. FIX YOUR DOG SERVERS TOO.

If they just went and fixed all their shitty bugs, if they didn't make the game feel like it was on early access it would be sooo much nicer. Like ngl? CoD? Feels like it registers properly, it's poorly optimised and horribly unbalanced ptw ect ect but the fact it feels like I registers my shit? Breath of fresh air sometimes. R6S could have been soooo good if they just hardcore fixed all their bugs glitches, server issues and tick rate. Like I shouldn't be able to look do and slightly to the left and then melee through a shield.

Old man yells at a cloud but come on man, don't fuck with my quick play.

[martianbugsbunny]

OUAT Thoughts Pt.52--Episodes 17-18

I have watched through S5E18; spoilers DNI. Also, spoiler warning for anyone further behind than I am.

—Belle basically told Rumple he wasn’t worth saving. What the heck, lady. And I’m pretty sure if my husband was about to be shot and killed, I wouldn’t hesitate to knock his attempted murderer to his death. Yeah, Belle sent Gaston into the River of Souls. Big whoop, he fricking sucks. And Belle knows how nasty he is! How could she possibly act like letting him kill Rumple was a better option?

—And exqueEEeze me, but this is not like when Snow or Emma acquired some darkness. Belle fell in love with the Dark One, for gosh sakes, she’s the princess most likely to do some dubious things!

—And it’s now confirmed that she doesn’t love Rumple. If she did, she wouldn’t need her father to break the sleeping curse. It’s obvious that Rumple loves her.

—Mulan was watching Dorothy and Red with the world’s most knowing look on her face and I am all here for it. But what about Mulan? She needs to get her happy ending! —Now that I’ve complained….Wolfie and Kansas, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

—I will not get over them together. They have everything: falling in love ridiculously fast; a meet-cute involving the dog; similarly tragic backstories; adorable nicknames—it’s everything I want! And you know, Toto’s gonna love having a bigger dog in his life. Red is the the best possible second dog mom for him.

—It’s cool that Dorothy taught Toto to bark at witches. Very smart.

—I adore David for sending Snow back to Storybrooke. That’s some quality husbanding right there. But all of their promises to be reunited eventually? That means for sure at least one of them dies. And since they share a heart, they’ll probably both die. Leaving Emma (and Hook?) to raise Neal. So sad.

—I also adore Hook for helping David with that. I like that Hook and David are getting along better now. Their personalities don’t put them at natural opposition to each other, so now that David is used to Hook and Emma being together, them being friendly is the right move.

—Hades is an exceedingly strange man. Every now and then he makes a comment that catches me off guard and makes me laugh. His sense of humor is peculiar, and kinda shady, but I like it. Which annoys me to no end.

—He’s not particularly handsome imo, but he is attractive. He’s completely riveting. Regardless of whether or not he’s being an ass to my faves (which he is), I can’t deny that he has presence.

—Still hate Zelena. I will not stop hating her. I will not feel sorry for her ever. And I’m still disgruntled about her and Hades being together. They have little to no chemistry.

—They shouldn’t have put Hades in the same room as Gaston. Once again, the hextreme vibes appeared. How can they expect me to believe him with Zelena when he’s *meh* with her and acts the way he does around all these dudes? (The count, by now, is three. Three men he’s had way more chemistry with than Zelena. And I do predict more such occurrences in the future.)

—MMMkay, I hate Gaston, big surprise, but he was right about one thing. The way to a bookworm’s heart is to tell them that ‘because it’s your favorite book, Imma read every word.’ That is just peak.

—I’m so tired of hearing guys saying how they’ve been looking for a woman of substance. It implies that a woman who is not shallow is a rare find, which I think is quite insulting. Also, not to go too deep, but we all know what kind of girls Gaston-types are thinking of when they say shallow, and I love those girls. Pink and makeup and girly-girl things? Bring em on, honey! If I had a girlfriend like that, whether or not she was the type of girl who wanted to have existential conversations (which is fr not for everybody, regardless of gender), I would adore her and love her so much she wouldn’t know what to do with me. And tbh, Gaston is more vain than he believes those girls to be, so….But, it’s very much in character for him to say something piggish like that, so I can live with it. Context is everything, friends.

[witch-hazels-musings]

Hey there! I wasn't sure if this was something you're comfortable writing, so if not, feel free to skip! I couldn't find anything in your faq but I just wanted to make sure!

Can I request a reader who never really drinks getting a little tipsy after a particularly stressful day? Just acting kind of giggly and clingy to their s/o? Nothing dubious ofc just some fluff 🥰 for Diluc, Xiao and Kaeya?

^ This made me laugh. I am a LIGHTWEIGHT, so I tend to get drunk after like ... one beer - haha! Anyway - enjoy ;) 

Tipsy, Touchy

Warning -> flirty, touching, fluff, mentions of alcohol, and getting drunk

Includes: Diluc, Xiao, Kaeya

Character x GN Reader  |  Anthology

Diluc

He’s a bit shocked when you go beyond your normal one drink, in fact, he’s a little surprised at your demeanor in general - normally you only had a drink if the event warranted it, but today, you seemed to be throwing them back all on your own 

“Did something happen?” he asks you, his attention on the third glass you’ve begged him to pour. 

“Today,” you groan, your words already slurring a little, “was … not. good.” He can see the alcohol already making an impression on your skin. Your cheeks were flushed and you kept fussing with your hair, little strands making their own decisions as if in defiance of your touch. 

“Hmm, well don’t go overboard.” 

Once you reach your fourth drink, we gotta cut you off, too drunky. And worse, you were starting to get a little handsy with the people around you. You’d already given a few of the female patrons a hug goodbye, telling them you were the designated “send-off committee”

In fact, you were having a hard time keeping your hands to yourself especially when it came to Diluc. When he forcibly switched you from wine to water you grabbed onto his arm, or tried to convince him to lean in close so you could share with him a secret - he wouldn’t 

You thought everything was funny, and he often caught you giggling to yourself or chuckling after the small conversation you and he shared 

He wasn’t really on board with your ostentatious behavior, but he did enjoy seeing you smile in the grandiose way you were - unreserved and relentless 

As the evening beings to slow and patrons leave the bar, you were trying to work out a thought in your head. It had been floating around for a while and you weren’t doing a good job keeping it off your face. 

“Hey,” you finally speak up. You wait to finish your thought until Diluc looks at you. He’s been gathering the final glasses from the tables so he takes a bit to react to you. “Come here.” You beckon, uneasily, with your finger for him to walk closer to you. 

When he does, you wave him down so his face is close to yours. 

“You.” You point your finger at him, “are my favorite person.” There is a smirk on your face and playful energy in your eyes. 

He scoffs at you and tries to retreat but you grab his face in your hands, “Wait. Wait. Diluc Ragnvindr ... “ he’s so close to you, his face, his eyelashes, his lips … it’s too much and in defeat you let him go, dropping your head in your hands. “Ugh, you are much too attractive for me right now.” 

“You are a lot of things right now.” You peek your eyes out from over your arms and see him rubbing the back of his neck, his head turned to the side. There is no doubt in your mind he is blushing. 

“You’re blushing!” you shout. The excitement of his reaction is too much to handle. 

“Shut up.” He tosses a towel your way and disappears into the back office. 

Diluc makes a mental note to not let you drink that much in public again, not only is he worried you might do something dumb, but he worries how he will keep his composure

Xiao

Xiao would have no idea what to do with alcohol. He doesn’t touch the stuff, so he wouldn’t really know the common behaviors of inebriated people 

He’d probably take whatever you were drinking and dump it out in front of you the drunker you became - he could barely handle normal humans, let alone a drunk one 

“What are you drinking anyway?” He looks at the bottle, turning it over in his hands. 

“I don’t know, I picked it up on the way out here.” You rub your hands over your face, the wine hasn’t fully hit you but you know with the amount you drank it’s only a matter of time. 

“Is it normal for humans to drink so much, all at once?” 

“Meh, maybe? Today was the worst though, so I’m giving myself permission.” 

It’s hard to tell if he would have any reaction to your tipsy behavior other than being exhausted by it

The way you laugh at things, that to him, aren’t funny or how you try to ask him really silly questions about things he wouldn’t know anything about 

Xiao is prickly, so you’d have to push through a lot of spikes to get to the gentle core he’s given you flashes of, so don’t get offended if he reacts to your clingy-ness in an irritating way 

He just doesn’t let people in very easily, and even though you two are together, and you’ve been physical before, this level of touch might be overstimulating for him 

You look at him from the floor of the inn. He is sitting on a pillow with his eyes closed. There were many nights you spent with him where you just fit yourselves into each other's space, like pieces of a puzzle nestled tightly together. He looked so regal, and you wondered how he would act if you poked at him. 

Carefully, you crawled your way over to him with wobbly limbs. When you got close enough you whispered his name. 

“Xiao…” He opened his eyes and is startled by how close your face is to him. His arms launched to his sides to steady himself as he leaned back away from your proximity. The reaction made you laugh.

“What?” 

“Nothing, I just wanted to get closer to you.” you desperately want to touch him: his cheeks, his forehead, his collarbone, his arms and hands, you wanted to touch them all. The alcohol emboldened you. You scoot closer to him, your sides practically touching, and, in an instant, you wrap your arms around his. The grip you have is possessive. 

He sighs but doesn’t push you away. So you tread onward. You slide behind him and wrap your arms around his chest, each of your legs on either side of him Rubbing your face against his back you breathe him in, he smells like rain after a thunderstorm. 

“I like you.” You place a kiss on his exposed shoulder before resting your cheek against him. 

It’s quiet for a time, all you hear is his beating heart and slow breaths. You don’t expect him to answer you, or say anything, you know he likes you by the way he lets you cling to him like this. That’s all you’ll ever need him to say. 

“Are you always going to be this clingy when you drink?” the question breaks the silence. 

“Mm, possibly, I don’t normally drink this much. Why.” You return his question with your own, slightly tilting his body to the side so you can strain your head to look at his face. 

“No reason.” Even in the dim lighting, you can see the blush on his face. 

Kaeya

Kaeya finds your behavior hilarious. He’d be so enamored with the way you were acting and amazed it happens with only a few drinks of alcohol in you

“You’re putting those away,” he’d muse over his own beverage. 

“Well,” you’d say as you empty yet another glass. “Today sucked! So i’m drowning my stress in sweet, sweet alcohol.” 

“Cheers to that!” 

When you laugh he melts, when you giggle he nearly passes out, and he’s having a hard time not fainting right now. Everything he says to you sends you into a fit of laughter and he just can’t stop himself - he’s obsessed with you and when he can see something new that he’s never noticed before he is filled with pride 

For instance, he didn’t know that when you laugh when drinking that you shield your eyes and nose and let out breathless laughter. He didn’t know that when you had several drinks you started to get louder and louder - which may have annoyed others, but he found it endearing

“... and after finishing the bottle he passed out for three whole days. And that is why our aloof bar owner doesn’t drink.” You can’t help but laugh, you’ve heard this story already but it makes you chuckle every single time. 

“Kaeya, how many times are you going to tell that story…” Diluc warns from behind the counter, his hands dangerously wrapped around the neck of a wine bottle. 

“Oh, come on. Look at how happy it’s made them.” 

“I’m cutting you both off.” 

“Hey!” Even with the cap on your drinking for the night, you couldn’t stifle your laughter. 

Normally, Kaeya is the overly touchy one. His hands cannot keep themselves from your tempting body. So when you cling to him he finds the action rather refreshing 

Wrapping your arms around his, leaning your head on his shoulder or digging it into his arm. Scooting closer to him, practically sitting on his lap, he finds it all a riot - don’t be shocked if he helps you into a comfortable position on or between his legs 

“Kaeya,” you look at him, your head bobbing around, your cheeks the color of pomegranates, and your hair falling out of place. 

“Yes, lovely?” He helps steady you, a possessive hand wrapping around your lower back and his other moving from your shoulder or lower arm, whichever one needs the most support. 

You giggle, and the sound pulls at his heart, “Do you know that you’re handsome? Like, really, really handsome.” 

“I’m glad you think so.” 

“No, listen, it’s kinda ridiculous how attractive you are. LIKE … WhO do you think you are with this face?? hmmM?” You wave your hand in front of him as if to drive home your point. You aren’t sure what answer you wanted from him, but his laughter seems satisfactory enough and you join in shortly after. 

He finds everything you do to be adorable, but multiplied by ten when you start drinking - he will always make sure you have a good time, and as long as you are safe and happy he will be there to join in on the fun

[ddarker-dreams]

FINALLY SOMEONE SAID THE TRUTH.

I admit that i enjoyed act 3 but it feels like really rushed i have so much complain with that.

The build up until act 2 was so good it give us so much premise but the final blow si meh. Sorry that i want to share thing long rant with you

1. Why the final talk is with yae, no offense to her but we need ei to explain not to mention she witness khaenriah downfall so she can give us more information, i feel like they do it for the plot armor so they can just keep dragging this

2. So many things that quite inconsistant, the shogun is show no mercy to anyone that even did a little thing outside what she think its right, how come she can still have a talk with signora, when sara is falling like that, and also there is no clarification about sara right now.

The traveler was so done at first they refuse to help thoma and ayaka at the beginning. But they seem so happy and forget everything how come they are not RAGE ( okay maybe this is to bias and personal) when this nation provide nothing about our siblings information and also why they are not mention anything about their problem in ei stroy quest. Its nonsense! She is right in front of youu, ask about your siblings, ask about khaenriah, ask about ukmown god!!. How come they can just forget like that. Also mihoyo really waste the potential about twin things i thing ei will give us so much help bcs of the sympathy that we both rn lost our twin but noooo.

3. Kokomi seem lost some brain cell, she make a very succesfull grand intro but she become meh in act 3, how come a great strategist like her let the sus sponsorship slip just bcs they are desperate, not to mention her screen time is really small and her role seem so unsignificant and it feels lile she is a plain npc.

4. The awesome world quest that we have done doesnt get any mention at all! Inazuma owe us so much with cleansing sakura, thunder sakura, tatarigami, obarashi quest. It has so much potential that yae or ei or anyone else aknowledge what traveler has been done but nooo.

cracks knuckles... i suppose it's time for my promised dissertation. interestingly enough, you touched on a lot of the main issues i had with chapter III.

i think that if i had to pin the main issue, it's a lack of overall cohesiveness? we were jumping all over the place without the chance to ever flesh things out. inazuma is a smaller cast, but i feel like we didn't get to see any of them shine. since i'm most interested in the genshin characters, i'll break down my problems by going over everyone and their (lack) of impact on the story.

was ayaka not questioned or placed under suspicion for being close to thoma before his escape? i wanted to see her broken up over her duties as they relate to the yashiro commission, paired with having someone she genuinely cares about in danger. it would've been an interesting struggle if she was forced to choose one or the other. instead she just kinda took a back seat.

speaking of thoma, i don't even have anything to say, because he just... was there? for .0001 seconds. said "lol this sucks ig" and that's about it. i know we're going to get a story for him in the future since he's a 5* but i'm not getting my hopes up 😭 then in the raiden shogun's character story, man is peachy keen! be upset with the raiden shogun! have some inner conflict! even if it's just using loaded language because he's under surveillance for going against the raiden shogun, that'd be so cool. saying something like,

"Traveler, what's with that expression? Oh please, there's nothing to worry about. We're under the Statue of the Omnipresent God's protection. Nothing bad has ever happened here." *wink*

i also don't know what to say about gorou. he was... there....... i think. what is he fighting for? what are the stakes for him? what makes him place so much trust into kokomi? i'm out of things to say about him because i don't remember anything he did or said.

kokomi... oh kokomi... i was so hyped. so excited. i thought that maybe we could see a foil to the raiden shogun. that she'd have a moment where she's forced to realize, just like her opponent, sacrifices must be made that will hurt people who will never understand why she made them. or maybe something to show her military prowess. but instead she just accepts a mysterious patron's help (?), sees her people aging like the grateful dead from JJBA, and goes oh well. that sucks. what can ya do. oh bye traveler i guess, good luck with that. ????????????? HUH... similar case to thoma where she's gonna get a character story but like. she won't be the leader of the resistance anymore. that was her whole shtick. they took her shtick away. also she forced me to interact with more NPCs whose names i've already forgotten so i'm tilted about that still.

KUJOU SARA... AN INJUSTICE. A DISGRACE. a slap to my woman loving face. the build up was there. yae miko's comments about sara probably knowing the tenryou commission is involved in shady dealings, but is choosing not to think about it. sara being forced to confront reality and challenge her adopted father with the truth. being able to blaze a new path for herself in the process. when she started running to the raiden shogun i was ultra hyped up. sara, a devotee to the shogun for so long, was about to see her god interacting with the same people who led inazuma to this awful state. how would she react? would she stay ignorant, like yae miko so coyly said, choosing to look away in favor of following her god's footsteps? or would she be forced to recognize the raiden shogun isn't as divine as she once thought, and challenge her belief system?

we open the door to see the raiden shogun. the loading screen ensues. the camera pans to the ominous room, clouded in darkness, hinting at the ominous confrontation that is to come. the music takes a serious timbre. and then...

well fuck that potential character arc i guess. (we still don't know what sara made of any of this since she poofed out of existence from the story at this point)

kazuha also was handed a similar treatment. we've been with him for a while longer now. he is our introduction into inazuma, the one who first gets us emotionally involved by regaling us with the bittersweet tale of friendship that led him to becoming a wanted criminal. a kind soul who loves nature yet was dealt a cruel hand by fate, forced to watch his home nation turn into a hostile place, where his dear friend ultimately perished as a result. we get the scene with his friend's vision lighting back up. he parries a block from the raiden shogun, in the same area where his friend was killed by her. the parallels. the drama. except this time, he wasn't too late. he protected the traveler where he "failed" to protect his friend in the past. did he feel redemption at this? or was it a bittersweet reminder of what could've been?

WELL i guess we'll never know because we didn't get to talk to him again 😭 idk who got a bait and switch worse, him or sara. jesus christ mihoyo.

then we have signora. why is the raiden shogun talking to her? does she know about the gnosis being taken, and if she doesn't, what was her plan to get it from the archon? what does she think about scaramouche? and oh, okay, we're fighting here now. good fight + god tier music. pog pog. okay, now we've beaten her up, and raiden shogun wyd— wait no not signora her lore is still on CUPS not YET raiden shogun and— ah she's dead. okay. non nerds who didn't read artifact lore are going to know nothing about her. signora has such an interesting story, and yet... well. ok.

then we get raiden shogun redemption (?) arc. i was hype for this as well, though at that point, idk why i bothered being hype. i knew they were gonna do a cute power of friendship something or another, and i'm good with that, so long as it's executed well. what i was envisioning was like seven different buffs to correspond with the seven different visions, the dreams of those whose ambitions were stolen serving as the spear to penetrate the raiden shogun's heart of stone. maybe a hydro vision giving us extra healing for a time, with the voice acting over it being like,

"Even if the rest of the world forgets us, let our will carry you through this one final time. Succeed where we couldn't, Traveler."

so on and so forth.

but instead we got— you get the idea at this point. why bother spelling it out anymore.

at that point i was surprised the raiden shogun didn't go "oopsie woopsie!! we made a fucky wucky!!!" because that was the vibe i was getting. i love ei, don't get me wrong, but i wanted to see her challenged with what she had done to inazuma in the past year. maybe meeting NPC #2345259 who lost her sister to the vision decree or something, reminding ei of the love she held for her sister... being forced to come to terms with the extent of what she's done in pursuit of eternity.

anyway. please for the love of god mihoyo hire better writers for the main story. that is all i ask. thank you.

[atsudesu]

─ BEST & WORST SUBJECTS

includes. atsumu, osamu & suna.

this prolly has done so many times already yeah yeah ik but i wanted to write?? so i did HA. btw this excludes art, music, pe etc. only main subjects.

also this is p half-assed so... sry 💔

✧ | miya atsumu

the best ─ math;

I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW BUT LISTEN!!!

i think we all agree that he's not that into school stuff.

BUT he cares about his academic achievements to not to be exempt from club activities!

math is one of his biggest struggles, that's why he tries to fix that. (he could cheat but he gets caught every single time he tries to do so, that's why he gave up on it 🤧)

if we take into account his hard-working nature and desire to be the number one, i believe he gives his weight to math for the sake of volleyball !! and to show his grades off to osamu lol

i just feel like he's generally better at numeric/quantitative subjects.

i mean yeah, he's not fond of solving problems and puzzles but still he's better at them!

bc the likes of literature kinda bore him. he can't keep his focus on the lesson if teacher just keeps talking and talking and talking.

that's why he prefers math, which lets him think efficiently and use his brain actively!! ahh, my diligent husband, i love him <33

the worst ─ history;

as i've mentioned, the subjects which makes it a necessity for him to just listen to the teachers are BORING.

due to that he doesn't understand a shit.

he knows he has to study history but he didn't even look at the history teacher in the class he was thinkin abt u hehe

and now, even if he grabs the book to read a couple of lines he'll be like 😐

he can't remember the dates and the important details about wars, migrations, rulers...

he doesn't give a damn about why mehmed the conqueror was so important for ottoman history or how the ii. world war started.

he can't pay attention to something he doesn't find interesting.

he'll occasioanlly ask you to come over to help him won't make u tell everything all over again to watch ur pretty face more ofc

if he decides to study properly he'll manage to get the minimum passing score or a lil higher but still meh :/

✧ | miya osamu

the best ─ literature

contrary to common belief

he's not the smarter twin or smth

he's almost same as atsumu

he has neither a best nor a worst subject,

math is too complex, english is too confusing, science is... don't even mention (yeah maybe he does have a worst subject 🙁)

he's a literature guy!

he's not that into it but i feel like he kinda enjoys reading paragraphs about stuff he's interested in.

learning about important literary works and authors may be a little hard for him since his memory is- ....bad (ik he has a bad memory & no criticism pls)

but his scores are pretty good at literature.

the worst ─ physics

okay, as i've said;

DON'T EVEN MENTION

he sucks at it; atsumu's even better at physics

in an exam that's his line of thought;

"ok so i divided 9 to 00,7 then... well this must be the cubage. no it's momentum, are you an idiot? but this test isn't about fundamental forces? what- i-" this is so shitty ik i can't be funny

he can never keep the formuls in mind bad memory

unlike atsumu, he doesn't attempt to fix it, he's a good cheater 🥴

if he ever asks you to study with him i don't think it's just to watch your pretty pretty face like atsumu

he will really put effort into it to impress you hehe

✧ | suna rintarou

the best ─ history

it's not like he likes history or smth

HE HATES IT

he never seems to pay attention;

he leans back against the chair, taps his fingers on the desk loudly and stares at teacher's face CONSTANTLY to make him uncomfortable

sometimes teacher just pauses and stares back and,,,, HE HATES SUNA OMG-

THIS LITTLE BASTARD NEVER TAKES NOTES BUT GETS HIGH GRADES- HOW?!

well, he may not specifically pay attention or listen but he doesn't do something that can occupy himself and take his attention off the class fully.

he still hears and that's enough for him 🤷‍♀️

also mocks atsumu for not getting it

the worst ─ biology

i do not have a valid reason for this,, i'm sorry

he just seems like the type to ask the most stupid questions in the middle of the biology classes and no i don't have any example bc i cannot be funny

he's kinda scared of that teacher bc once he made a joke about gamogenesis and teacher roasted him thus he embarrassed himself in front of his crush

he never makes jokes in biology classes ever since

but please you cannot tell me he's not the type to pull the lamest jokes just to make his crush smile i wanna kith him pls

i don't think he puts effort into lessons even if he's bad at them. he couldn't be care less.

bc another good cheater ;)

also, if he notices that you're having a hard time w any exam, he's willing to let you see his sheet.

he'll ask you to study w him at school's library but you guys will end up kicked out bc you laugh at his lame jokes lol

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

So I watched 10.09 recently, and it has that part where Dean tells a story about him basically being almost roofied as a teen, but somehow it ends up framed as the funny joke and yet another proof that John "did what he could", and I kind of hate this? And it's the same episode in which MoC!Dean killed guys that kidnapped and tried to rape Claire, and you'd think writers would've addressed the parallels and acknowledge that Dean could've been triggered by this situation. 1/2

2/2 But in the end, it's never addressed, and the whole situation is framed as the proof that Dean is evil now. And I'm not even sure what I am trying to say, but with that being the show's approach back in s10, I'm not surprised about the finale anymore. Guess we should've known?

That’s an excellent angle to look at the issue because the Mark of Cain arc is a clear example of how people with different experiences will see the same thing in wildly different ways. There’s this phase of season 10 where everyone is like “oh no Dean is Getting Worse” and when you look at what Dean is doing... you actually go “...good for him”.

Let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. It’s not “the writers” in this case, it’s Dabb. Plenty of other writers don’t fall into this John apologism thing. Just look at how the episode before Lebanon, written by Buckner and Ross Leming, says that sometimes John would temporarily kick Dean out because he was “pissed at him” despite Dean always taking his side to mantain the peace. It almost seems like a statement to sprinkle some salt given what Dabb does in Lebanon, you know? Maybe not, but there is a tension between “John was shitty” writers and “John did his best” writers.

In hindsight, we gave Dabb too much of the benefit of the doubt. We were like, weeell, that’s supposed to be way the characters perceive the truth, which is distorted by the trauma... But now it’s obvious that he truly believed in the John-did-his-best version. He brought him back and got Mary back with him. No matter what happened to the finale, the network didn’t print those pictures of John and Mary to hang on Sam’s wall. He never took Dean’s abuse seriously and it shows.

The “anedocte” of Dean getting drugged and “saved” by John from being raped is obviously there to parallel him with Claire. Which works! It’s so weird because it’s like. You are soooo close to getting the point. Younger Dean was assaulted just like this teenage girl is assaulted and Dean saves her... but apparently John yelling at those people is a good way of dealing with the issue, while murdering child traffickers is an overraction thus bad.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? That Dean’s murder spree is framed as an overreaction. Sam is like “tell me you had to do this! tell me it was you or them!” - the answer to which (by the narrative) is obviously no, it wasn’t self defense, he just killed them because he could. He just murdered those men for no reason except he felt like being murdery. And the audience is supposed to be like “oh no! Dean is murdery for no reason except for murderiness! That’s bad!”.

But it’s a power fantasy, isn’t it? Going on a murder spree on rapists and traffickers. I bet any people who’s been violated like that has fantasized of doing the exact thing Dean does here. Killing them all.

Dean had the physical strength and skill to kill them all, why shouldn’t he kill them? (I mean, in real life I’m against private justice because I’m a fan of the state of law, but the Supernatural universe obviously works on different principles than the state of law. Again, it’s a fictional narrative that plays out as a fantasy for the audience, so.)

So what was Dabb’s intention? I’m afraid it’s the worst one. “John Winchester’s not going to win any Number One Dad awards, you know? But, you know, damn if he wasn’t there when we needed him”. What the fuck, Dabb? It’s been established since season 1 that John WASN’T there when they needed him. Which... I’m afraid... leads us to the Cas-Claire plot in the episode. Cas has fucked off with Jimmy’s body leaving Claire on her own. Parallels how John wasn’t going to win wny Number One Dad awards. But! Cas is there when Claire Really Needs Him i.e. when she’s about to be raped by older men. Parallels how John was there when Dean Really Needed Him i.e. when he was about to be raped by older men.

I think the point is to say, Cas kinda sucked because he took Claire’s dad away but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Claire because he gets there in time to prevent her from being raped. Just like (ew) John kinda sucked as a father because hunting and stuff, but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Dean because he got there in time to prevent him from being raped.

It’s pretty yucky. Literally NOBODY wanted a parallel between Cas and John. But he made one. And he made one to absolve Cas from the guilt he carried for what he did to Claire (Claire’s mother is a mother so who fucking cares about her. She’s basically a Blurry Wife(TM), she’s only a tool for Claire’s arc, Cas apparently only cares about the harm he did the child, not the wife, for some reason.) and to absolve Cas from his guilt it absolves John too. Don’t worry, being a parent is hard. You often screw up. But you can *looks at smudged writing on hand* prevent the kid from being raped by predatory adults and everything’s fine now.

It’s not really important if the child suffered hunger or whatever, the only important thing is that they don’t get raped, because that’s bad, everything else is just a little detail.

All Dabb got with that scene was to paint Sam as extremely unsympathetic because he’s no longer a child, he’s a full adult now and still thinks of that episode at the CBGB as a funny story. That’s not a good look. It almost makes you think that the writer himself saw it as a funny story. Lol teenage boy biting more than he can chew. But then why the Claire parallel? The Claire scene onviously is not supposed to be anything but horrific. I'll give Dabb the benefit of the doubt on this specific thing.

It’s weird, yes, because Dabb wrote Dark Side of the Moon where he establishes that John was a bad husband/father even before tragedy hit the family. But apparently that’s the “not going to win any Number One Dad awards” part, I suppose? I guess he intended to write John as this flawed, ~complex~ figure who was imperfect but still brave and whatever blah blah did his best blah blah. I’m all for flawed complicated characters but a horrible father is a horrible father. A rose by any other name... parental abuse is still parental abuse even if the poor guy was complicated and traumatized and did what he thought he had to do to prepare his sons for a violent world.

Also, the story frames Dean’s escapade as a teenager being stupid. “You know what he got for that? Me whining about how much he embarrassed me. Me telling him that I hated him. But then he stopped and turned around looked at me and said, Son, you don’t like me? That’s fine. It’s not my job to be liked.” “It’s my job to raise you right.” This seems straight from a novel about teenagers doing something stupid that they’re too young to realize that their parents are right to be against them doing. But this isn’t just... a parent walking into a bar to stop their child to drink alcohol. Dean literally describes feeling sick from something that was inside the alcohol.

Sure, it makes sense that he’d lash out to John because of the shame and shock. But the scene is... off. Are we supposed to see this as a typical teenage mistake? Are we supposed to read it as something as horrific as what happened to Claire, literally sold into rape? Or, worse, are we supposed to see what happened to Claire as a teenage mistake, ah silly teenager, blindly trusting shady people, no wonder you end up in a situation where you’d get raped if a father figure didn’t sweep in and save you. I hope that wasn’t the intent.

To get back to Dean’s Mark-of-Cain violence, the writers clearly didn’t intend it to come from the Darkness up to a certain point. It was supposed to an arc about your own inner darkness (consider the Charlie episode, a couple episodes later). Then they came up with the idea of The(TM) Darkness, the suppressed cosmic feminine. While it caused a bit of dissonance in the subtext, it doesn’t really change Dean’s narrative, because his inner darkness is the trauma, and his trauma is inherebtly tied to the “feminine” i.e. the parts of him that don’t fit seamlessly into the scheme of toxic masculinity values. That the violence that comes from the Mark of Cain comes from Dean himself and that’s it, or is connected to the Darkness, it doesn’t change what it means for Dean. Dean and Amara have parallel histories, the feminine principle locked away, the trauma the anger stems from.

In 10x09 we’re still in the Before The (TM) Darkness era, before the suppressed cosmic feminine. The Mark of Cain arc is still about... well, Cain. But the shift is the signal that someone looked at Dean’s arc and said... you know what? “Lucifer gave me this curse so now I’m demonic and murdery” is meh. “Toxic masculinity suppresses the feminine and it creates trauma which rage and violence comes from” is more interesting. I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was a good idea, and surely the idea came from seeing how Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding.

Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding in a certain way, in fact, because of a pretty simple reason. There’s a fundamental tension in Dean’s MoC arc. We want him to go murdery, but it’s also our main character, so we don’t want him to do really horrible things because he still needs to be relatable. The audience cannot hate him, so he must NOT do something entirely unforgivable. He still needs to be somewhat relatable, even when demonic or demonic-adjacent.

So he goes on a murder spree... but it’s rapists and child traffickers. He’s demon, but he kills a misogynistic dude that wanted his wife dead for cheating on him. He’s a demon, but beats up dudes that harass women. He does a slaughter, but they’re nazi. He’s off the deep end, but works a case of kidnapped and abused young women...

Speaking of which. 10x23, written by Jeremy Carver. Dean works a case where a girl was killed while dressed scantily and Dean makes some slut-shaming remarks, and we’re supposed to think “whoa Dean, that’s bad”. But later he confronts the girl’s father and what does he say?

I’m just doing my job, Mr. McKinley.

By suggesting my daughter was a slut?

I’ll admit that thought crossed my mind. Then I came here, and I smelled the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervade this home.

You shut your face right now.

And you know what? I don’t blame Rose anymore. No wonder she put on that skank outfit and went out there looking for validation, right into the arms of the monster that killed her.

Back then the episode was super controversial and everyone hated the case because of the apparent slut-shaming but I loved it! Because it’s not about the girl. It’s about Dean. Dean doesn’t think that a girl gets killed because she dresses in a miniskirt so it’s her fault. Dean is projecting on himself and he’s not actually victim blaming the girl, he’s victim blaming himself. And when he absolves the girl by putting the blame on the father... well, subtextually he’s absolving himself by putting the blame on his father. On the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervaded his own home. He’s textually not ready to absolve himself, of course, he summons Death to ask him to kill him later, but subtextually he’s on the right path.

Rose McKinley basically did the same mistake Dean did at the CBGB when he trusted some older people who offered him drinks and the same mistake Claire did when she trusted a man who sold her for money because he offered him a place and stability. She trusted the wrong people (in this case, vampires, which adds the whole subtext of vampires and sexuality) who took advantage of her. Except Rose had no one to save her. (Her friend, Crystal, gets rescued by Dean, even if he causes the other hunter Rudy to die in the process.)

Carver’s writing is pretty brutal. The girl made that mistake because was abused at home, so she was desperate for validation and that desperation drove her into the wrong hands. (Rose even has a brother who blames himself for bringing her sister to her future murderers, destructive sibling relationship check.) It doesn’t actually even matter if Dean guessed right about Rose’s family situation, because what matters is what it tells us about Dean. He basically relates to a dead abused girl. Actually all through the season Dean is paralleled to “skanks” “sluts” and sex workers. Obviously this happens kinda all through the show, the whole “the business is based on absent fathers” thing happened much earlier in the story, so it’s not new. But s10 draws a picture of female suffering - abuse, manipulation and death. Season 10 was difficult to go through. In hindsight, it was probably on purpose because it was supposed to be darkest hour of the feminine. Summed with some good old fashioned misogyny, but hey.

The Carver era was wonky but Carver wanted to free the feminine. (I believe that Mary’s comeback, while written by Dabb because of the showrunner shift, was planned before the showrunner shift.) We thought the Dabb era wanted the same, with Mary choosing life and Amara being independent and so on, but it evidently wasn’t the case. Not a single woman arrives at end of the story. It’s hardly ~Bucklemming or ~the network or ~covid because it starts before the very end.

I’m not saying that dead sluts are more feminist than living women, but if the women die or disappear anyway (and they did) I’d rather have an exploration of trauma than nothing. And I definitely prefer a dead slut narrative that calls out parental abuse than a narrative where women live but abuse gets the you-did-your-best treatment.

Whoops! I digressed! But feel free to ask for any clarification or send me any observation or thought.

[sugarmaplewings-fics]

Hey not sure what you are looking for for soft but do you headcanon anyone (of the characters you write for) as having good singing voice? Good for singing, good for karaoke, or good for lullabies

Imma do all of them real speedy bc I have thoughts abt these bois backed by ReAsEaRcH. Also I’m going off of sub voices only since I don’t really care for the dub nor do I know it well enough.

Anyway, here’s the majority of my ReAsEaRcH. Pls watch it, it fuels my simpery (most of the other links in here are to memes on YouTube)

...

Midoriya:

Ok honestly, I don’t think he’s all that good

I’m just not sure if he has the voice for it?? Idk, I could easily be proven wrong for all of these but, idk, I just don’t really see him as having a particularly amazing voice. Maybe in the normal-to bad range, but like, in an endearing way, if that makes sense

That isn’t to say he never sings though! I think he’d totally love to dance around your room with you to your favorite songs (y’all def share a playlist)!

All around wholesome boi, I’d love to sing with/to him regardless

 ______

Bakugou:

Also less than good

Honestly when I hear his seiyuu sing, I just hear Noya n I think Noya would actually be p good at singing if he really tried based off that but this isn’t a multifandom blog just yet so I’ll stop rambling now

His voice is so rough?? Like, maybe in particular genres it would come in handy, being able to get all the way down there, but I’m not so sure? I just kinda feel like he’d struggle to hold a tune

Hshsksjdfhjak I’m not the greatest at judging voices though and I don’t always know what I’m talking about, so again, take all this with a grain of salt

I also kind of find it hard to see him really ever singing at all? I feel like he’d think it’s embarrassing or stupid or beneath him

He might sing for you, though. Maybe

Link

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Todoroki:

Ok, Shouto might actually be pretty decent-to good at singing

I can’t really see him as ever having really sung all that much before, though, so he might still be meh if he can’t do things by ear

I feel like, if he really wanted to and maybe practiced a bit, he could sing  really well, though

Here we have someone who might be good at lullabies, but I feel like he wouldn’t know many himself

He might sing for/with you, but I guess I also don’t really see him really being into it all that much

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Kirishima:

Okok so I’m really torn here

He is one of the few who actually does sing in canon (pls pls don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched that clip *cough cough*)

Buuuttt ummmm

Link

Yeah

Get mmm whatcha say’ed

I still really fuckin love him though, and I’d let him sing for me as much as he wanted

Anyway

Uhh, sounds like he struggles with tune maybe? He’s kinda tone deaf ngl if he thinks that’s good

Hshkhskh this Kirishima slander is killing me

Ok, so maybe he’s not all that good, but he’d still totally sing for you

Pls pls pls don’t tell him he sucks, let him do it for you

I feel like he’d love karaoke

I also feel like he’d try to sing or maybe even write you a love song, just because he thinks it’s romantic. He probably knows it won’t be very good, but it’s still something he wants to experience at least once just because he’s in love with you and it’s a cute cliche

Is also 1000% down to have dance parties in your room and sing really obnoxiously as loud as he can just because it’s fun

As long as you’re okie with that

So yeah, I’ll put him down as: pls no sing but maybe yes sing

Link

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Kaminari:

Ok I think Kaminari would actually be kinda good like tf

Probably best at just kinda casual singing, maybe karaoke

Ok but like, Kirishima and Kaminari being bros and just singing at the karaoke machine just 😞

Idk, just thinking about him on the guitar and kinda half-singing along just ugh yes

I’m not really sure what else to say, but like, I think we missed out on not really hearing him sing in the school event arc

Which maybe he didn’t sing there bc he can’t, therefore proving me wrong, but like, HIS VOICE

I think he can sing, put me on the record for that

Another boy that’s mandatory to have a dance party in your room with. He’s like 100% dork over here, it’d be so fun

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Shinsou:

Ok confession: I don’t really like Shinsou’s Japanese seiyuu’s voice

hshjdjkdc DON’T COME AFTER ME, HE JUST DOESN’T SOUND LIKE A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD, HE SOUNDS OLD AND I FEEL LIKE IT DOESN’T FIT HIM IDK

I can get behind his dub voice. And Cece does him justice

Anyway, I’m not entirely certain what to say? He’s another anomaly who I can’t really picture singing

I feel like he likes music though

This is the kind of thing that I might have to revisit after season five since I don’t actually know him all that well yet

But yeah, I’m not really sure

He does have a really deep voice, so that might be nice in certain songs/genres of music pls whisper in my ear

He’d definitely sing to you if you asked

Whether or not it’d be good? ......Maybe?

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Amajiki:

Ok I think he’s p good actually hhhhh

His voice is so soft and smooth and sweet?

Pls sing me to sleep 🥺

He’d probably get really nervous about it though, so it would be pretty rare that he sings in front of you

It’s a sign of trust

He’s the kind that you might catch singing to himself and then he’d get all flustered once he notices you’re there

*cough cough*

He might actually be the best one here, just saying 😳

Not that any of these boys are vocal prodigies, but like, I can see it

HJBKJDCBSHKC I want to sing a duet with him now

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This was fun, thanks for sending it in! Can you tell I like singing maybe a little too much? Probably not, actually, I still have no idea what I’m talking about half the time I’m trying to explain music mostly bc I do everything by ear. Chorus was hard to get used to when I joined in eighth grade. I hope you liked these!