#does this make any sense. is this even remotely coherent

[antisocialxconstruct]

oooughfhfg in my head about Maksim tonight folks

[aletheialed]

oh god i'm in weirdfic mode again-

why are my wishlist concepts for threads so bizarre sometimes. lol. anyway verse where rayfa lives a secret double life as a... not quite magical girl, but think something along those lines??? that she keeps secret from everyone believing it to be a part of her religion. a sacred duty, as it were. after the events of 6-5 when she finds out everything that's been kept from her all her life, among other things she has a crisis of faith, starting to doubt the religion she'd believed in so strongly until now.

like obviously the spirit channeling and seances are all real, but that doesn't mean the beliefs about their origin and their mythology are necessarily the same! but if that's the case, who has she been fighting for (and fighting against) the whole time?? suddenly she realizes the reasons she was told for what she's been doing might be lies, and she can't tell anyone about it.

instead of staying to rule like i THINK i remember happening in canon, she asks her mother to take over for now and flees to japanifornia, hoping to get away from it all. but of course things aren't that easy. idk also if i felt like being really self-indulgent (i always do) i'd include horror vibes and also involve edgeworth somehow because fuck it, why not

[hatsukeii]

"WE ARE THE BLOOD IN OUR...WAS IT VEINS OR ARTERIES AGAIN?" / T. KUROO

#2. A BIOLOGIST'S GUIDE TO TUTORING | M.LIST | PREV. | NEXT. |

warning(s): nothing except bio again! no ochem this time so that's an improvement (update there is still ochem sorry!)

wc: ~1.4k

Turns out the seagull on the cover of the biology textbook that splays open on Kuroo's desk is really a pelican, and Kuroo only realises that through quick skim of a random case study as he flips for the chapter you prescribed him during your last session, mumbling beneath his breath words that he definitely does not understand as he searches for the right topic.

Ground rule #1: Always have your materials ready by the next session.

He stops at Polypeptide Sequences, taking a glance at the array of chemical diagrams that seem...surprisingly familiar. Great! Nice! He might have a shot at pretending he understands something by tomorrow! He reads on, watching the organic chains that he has become so accustomed to morph into helixes and rings that burn out whatever polypeptides are responsible for information processing. Transcription of RNA... the RNA that makes up the DNA...? Could that work as a pep talk? Kuroo shakes his head, damp hair from his shower flicking dark spots into the paper of his textbook as he huffs out, highlighters smearing yellows and greens into anything that even remotely make sense.

At 12:46pm, as he has for the past two weeks, Kuroo slips through crowds of screaming children and whizzing basketballs into the eerily still library once again, his previously pristine textbook now creased around the spine as he pushes open the door to the study room. There you sit, squares of orange and yellow and green prodding at him as he plops his book on the desk and pulls out a chair. Polypeptides...RNA... right, his pep talk. Could RNA lead into something more?

"Hey, uh... tutor?"

"Y/n." Well, isn't that such a nice name for somebody so terrifying?

"Right, y/n, got a favour to ask for."

"Does it have to do with polypeptide sequences?"

"Well, not really, but-"

"Ground rule #2, Kuroo."

He groans, throwing his palms into the air dejectedly as you flip open his textbook to the prescribed chapter, the five pages of content clean and untouched spare of six highlighted lines.

Ground rule #2: Tutoring sessions are reserved for prescribed topics and subjects only.

You make a sound, a hum that ticks downwards, so doubtful that it stabs through Kuroo's throat and almost forces a wheeze from him. Raising your brow, he chuckles pathetically, a hand shooting to his neck as he scratches the hairs on his nape. Finding himself and his utter failure to feign any knowledge in the wake of your expectant glare, he sighs when you drop your pen beside the book, leaning down and tilting your head to examine the pages, the tie of your school uniform draping over one of the not so many highlighted lines.

"So, I take it that you had a hard time with this?" Yes, so hard that he actually gave up within five minutes of reading.

"Yeah, really hard time." Not hard enough for him to give up on his pep talk yet, though.

The fading ink of your pen draws numbers and arrows between highlighted and blank sentences, scribbles two word notes between each linked arrow, slings effortless circles around bold keywords. Kuroo’s eyes trace the map of ink that has emerged from the dizzying page of letters, letters that now seem to come together into sentences, and into paragraphs, and into semi-coherent explanations. You tap at the first highlighted sentence. A polypeptide is a continuous, unbranched chain of amino acids. The carbons and hydrogens come to life in his head, linking and bonding the way puzzle pieces fit into each other, and he grins at something finally within the grasp of his spiralling mind.

“Yeah, you’re a chemist alright.” Kuroo rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, pushing his elbows into his chest.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Look at you. You read like one."

Kuroo shifts in his chair, and when you sigh in exasperation, he slumps into the plush backrest, legs crossing beneath the desk.

"Well, let’s start here. We’ll get coffee afterwards if you can sit through this without giving up.”

At your proposal, Kuroo successfully makes it through half an hour of lunch time pep(tide) talk. Half an hour of the one hour session.

Ground rule #3: Coffee breaks in the free sessions if and ONLY if the entire lesson is done to completion. (Good for the soul!)

The barista across the counter slides a steaming mug of black coffee on a coaster beneath Kuroo's nose, and sets down another mug of swirling hot chocolate on your side. You stare him in the eye when you switch the drinks around, before smiling at the barista, who chuckles sheepishly as he apologises for his misconception. The chocolate scalds Kuroo's tongue at first taste, and he rubs it against the roof of his mouth, his taste buds now raw and tingly. You sip at your coffee, the bitter sting of dark roast trickling down your throat as you swallow in satisfaction, the warmth of a freshly brewed cup like a fix of hot honey running through your body. Perhaps the temptation of coffee makes you forget about the half an hour of your session with Kuroo left undone. He watches your throat bob, eyes squinting when the liquid pours through your mouth and into your body. You look... happy. Relaxed. A different person from the piercing edge that slashes his ego and rips gashes into his knowledge during the biology sessions.

"So, what are you having the most trouble with so far? We can have a quick chat about it."

A droning hum erupts from Kuroo's mouth as he tilts his head. To be frank, he isn't sure. He was barely able to string together the basics of polypeptides twenty minutes ago, even with your help. The rest of the book has been a jumble of case studies and bodily diagrams that look more like hieroglyphs than anything that exists within the human body. He searches his brain for something, anything, but half-stuttered words get stuck in his throat when he realises he can barely pronounce half the specifics of the textbook. He makes a note to himself, use none of those words in the pep talk.

"Stupid pelicans, that case study was a mess."

"You are kidding me right now."

He freezes at your response. Is that not a valid topic to bring up? What's so wrong with having trouble with pelicans? They look too much like seagulls anyways? The edge has returned, pointy at his throat as he feels the familiar lump form again. For a second, he wishes he could force feed you another sip of coffee, soften the blade around yourself for even just a moment.

"That is, quite literally, the first topic from last year. Evolution? Really? That's what you're having trouble with?"

You shake your head, taking another sip of your coffee as you side eye him from your seat, slurping judgmentally when his irises visibly twitch in panic. Does he want this pep talk badly enough to swallow his pride? Surely not, right? In fact, he should just come clean now, right?

Kuroo glances at you, and his hooked fingers tighten around the handle of his barely touched hot chocolate at the sight of the one-sided curl in your lips, a curl that bares your right canines and has your brows furrowed above one eye.

You're smirking at his confusion.

The same smirk that slithered onto your lips as you slapped the perfect LDPE diagram onto his textbook. The same, sadistic smirk that you must've had plastered across your face when you beat him out by one placement in chemistry.

And that's when Kuroo decides that he's going to ruin you. Pelicans and polypeptides and circulatory system and all. He doesn't care if it has to be biology, or chemistry, or any other fucked up, needlessly complicated subject. If that is what it takes to soften your edge, so be it. He decides that he is willing to do anything to rid you of your blade, the razor sharp mockery that slashes his pulse and rips through his... arteries? Veins?

"Yeah. Sorry, I'm a little rusty." He swears that will be the last sorry he gives you.

Ground rule #4: Don't ask stupid questions.

author's note:

I'M BACK FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER BABY!!! this is not my favourite chapter BUT THE NEXT ONE IS!! im so excited to write it and share it w you guys <3 i've been super busy lately with erm life in general smh but i promise i will keep feeding you my loves frl

also lowkey writer's block is hitting again... i'm afraid but i will power through it!! we're SO back!!!!

tags: @chuuya-brainrot @staraxiaa @hiraethwa @iiwaijime @akaakeis @she-lovesmyheartshapedsunglasses @fiannee @bailey-reeds @wyrcan @catsoupki @cupidsblonde

[coldgoldlazarus]

One of the arguments about any sort of long-running media franchises/series, that almost always instantly raises my guard and calls into suspicion anything else the person making that argument has to say, is "the older stuff was better and everything after X point has been worthless dogshit with no redeeming value."

It's not like this is an alien perspective to me, either. I've been there, I get it. Where My Little Pony is concerned, I think I will always be at least a little bit of a seasonwunner, despite my best efforts. But this is a mindset that must be actively fought back against, and even if I can't really bring myself to watch the last few seasons, I recognize it's not that the show got worse, it just had different priorities there than what appealed to me about it originally.

And sure, sometimes stuff does just objectively shit the bed after a certain point. But honestly, I think that happens most when a series stops trying to explore new ideas, and falls back on shallow pandering fanservice about the earlier beloved entries. Looking at you, Rise Of Skywalker.

So point is, I do get where the mindset comes from, but it's still an extremely toxic impulse that I think needs to be confronted and dismantled with maturity and perspective. And talking with people who have failed to do that, and don't seem remotely interested in trying, is my personal hell.

But probably the most baffling instances of this mindset are when someone is like "everything before this point was good and everything after this point is bad!!!" but the actual argument makes no sense. Everything you say you hate didn't start after this arbitrary point, it started with the ones you uphold as the best in the series. If instance Y and Z are apparently utterly dogshit writing, why are you giving it a pass with instances W and X? It isn't even the repetition or differences in execution that seems to be the problem, it's just that it was good because it was before this arbitrary cutoff point, but bad because it was after it! (One especially galling example of this hypocricy was where the cutoff point between the 'last good' entry and 'first bad' one was between two releases... that came out simultaneously. Make it make sense.) Or else just pretending that this thing you dislike started later than it did and outright ignoring its presence in those earlier entries.

Like yeah, you are entitled to your feelings, at the end of the day; like I said, I get it to some extent at least. But if you're going to try to argue your feelings as some sort of objective fact about the quality of the series, at least put together a coherent and internally consistent argument. Or else, really reexamine if the reasons you're giving are the actual reasons, and it's not just nostalgia talking. Maybe the older entries don't hold up to your particular sensibilities as much as you think. Or maybe, you're refusing to give the newer ones a fair shake and reading them in bad faith.

[ohmotherwhereartthou-if]

Sorta bringing this back from the past, but I just saw the MC scandalous painting ask and was laughing for like 20 mins, I really do hope it makes it in to the story😂😂

Buuut, I wanna ask, how would the RO react to their family members looking at the painting after they (accidentally) left it out

(For the ROs who live alone, maybe their and MC kid?)

Haha, I remember that one. Still one of my favorites!

I am also going to write this under the impression it's at the dating stage of the relationship so that it makes more sense.

Cassandra: Does her absolute best to hide the portrait from her dad, only issue is that her dad, being the military man he is, occasionally does routine inspections around the house to make sure everything is in order and nothing needs to be taken care of before it becomes a problem. This has her moving the portrait periodically throughout the house to avoid him coming across it during his inspections. She considered putting it in a lock box but he would probably ask her whats inside and she is a TERRIBLE liar.

So, when the day unfortunately comes and General Guerrero finds a wrapped up portrait of MC's half naked ass in a broom closet; he is so unamused it's not even remotely funny. Well, for Cass at least.

Because while this might come to your surprise Alejandro actually does have a sense of humor. And make no mistake, he finds MC's audacity and utter stupidity of sending this to HIS house, to HIS daughter sort of funny. He comforts Cass by casually asking why does she even find MC attractive when they look so scrawny in the portrait she hid in a closet. Girly is is embarrassed she can't even form a coherent sentence, she just gets super red and covers her face. He can't help but laugh, he finds her embarrassment, punishment enough for her keeping this thing in her house without telling him.

Can't say he or MC will be laughing next time they meet though.

Valeria: Well, we already know Mrs. Torres saw it.

Valeria is so embarrassed, for MC. It's not like she asked you to do something so stupid knowing full well that she is the youngest of 6 with 5 older brothers and that she still lives with them and her parents. Mrs. Torres is just like Valeria in the sense she can't keep shit to herself, although Valeria manages to keep her shut for all of 4 days which is a pretty decent record. Good thing Val already managed to hide it someplace secret only to her by the time her brothers found out about it. They pester her day and night to see it so they can roast MC next time they see them. (as if they weren't already, idk if I said this already but if you romance Val; her big brothers become YOUR big brothers). Her parents don't really care, her dad didn't appreciate it but trusts his sons will harass MC enough about it, just expects MC to not do it again.

Tomás: He legit has nobody that he would really give a fuck about in his family if they saw the portrait. He isn't embarrassed, he's proud. He would be SO happy if his mom saw it, would rub in how scandalous and just how much of a scoundrel he is with MC. Would get a real kick out of how much she would 'clutch her pearls' at him, literally and figuratively. Would get mad if his brothers saw it because he'd get jealous, probably would punch them or something.

Now if you guys had a kid and they saw it in the future, he would get bashful but tell them not to go poking around his things. No, they cannot ask why he had it hidden in a box under his side of the his bed.

-

Ludovica: Also has no family or anybody to discover it. In the future if she had kids and they found it, she would be mortified. Begs them to forgive her for not hiding it well enough and to forget they saw it. She is unamused when she overhears her staff gossiping about the portrait and how one maid long ago had mentioned it existing and how literally nobody had believed her. Chokes on her spit when her kids ask MC point blank why they were barely wearing any clothes in the picture and if they were cold.

Aurelio: ALSO has no family to uncover it, (omg look at all of these pathetic little orphans, having parents must be a rarity in this world ig).

So, when his kids one day are being a little too nosy in his private study and see his half naked portrait of a young MC hanging right beside his desk labeled "Motivation - 1890" they obviously do the logical thing of screaming for their dad to come to his study. When he does wondering if they got hurt or something they ask him right away why tf he has such a picture displayed there and why is it labeled.

He had responds with something like, "Well, can you blame me for wanting to be productive? Knowing that is but a humble glimpse at what will be my reward when I finish my work, does wonders for my morale. And be grateful your mom/dad looked so great back then or you might not even be here." (He is saying that to tease them, MC still looks great in their older age and he would love them even if they weren't attractive.)

Also adds, "Oh, and it's labeled because that's that years edition of 'motivation'. I made sure I got one every start of the year to keep me honest. New year, new happy little wine drinker me! What? Did you want to see the rest? Or maybe the ones I gave mom/dad? Fair warning, I was wearing even LESS than they are in this picture."

His children then proceed to run out of his study screaming and gagging, he laughs knowing that this will keep them out of his study from now on.

Elio: Okay sort of funny because I actually said in one specific post somewhere Elio actually personally knows Aurelio and I actually think the only person close enough to discover it would be Aurelio. Elio would surprising be shocked if Aurelio found it because he made sure it was well hidden in the attic to avoid MC ever finding out he did actually have it.

He drinks tea and admires it from time to time when MC is away for too long. If Aurelio ever found it Elio would actually be frantic shooing him out of the house and swearing that he will never let him anywhere near MC ever again. Because he knows Aurelio is a charmer and he deep down would feel a little insecure if after he has fallen in love, MC got close to Aurelio and fears he would take them away from him. Even though Aurelio would never do that to him, he can't shake the insecurity and does everything he can to hide it.

Aurelio would want to tease Elio about it but knows it would be a very touchy subject so he shuts up, instead he tease MC next time they have a moment without Elio there. Which might be in a few months when Elio calms a bit and lets his guard down thinking Aurelio might have forgotten or dropped it completely.

---

Thanks for letting me revisit and continue this funny scenario! 💙

[planckstorytime]

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A World Beyond Anger (Part Six)

VI. … And Why It Doesn’t Matter

You thought I was done complaining? No, never.

Doubtless someone will punch holes in my theory, and I wouldn’t even feign indignation. The truth is that none of the explanations posed by fans have established a coherent story. But the fact that this is where our attention has been directed – away from the emotional moments that give stories relevance in the first place – exposes the shallowness of this trade-off. Even if my desired theory comes to fruition, I don’t think it redeems Rebirth’s rendition of Aerith’s death.

The consistency, or lack thereof, between the obnoxious multiverse stuff and the franchise’s established lore ultimately matters little when you’ve already squandered that critical moment that makes us care. From whatever universe you view it, Rebirth demonstrates a puzzling ambivalence to Aerith’s passing. The impact of loss never lands, because moments later you have Zack stepping in for a tag-team match with Cloud against Sephiroth. It’s framed as some fist-pumping “fuck yeah” moment, complete with embarrassingly out-of-place musical callbacks and quotes from Crisis Core (2007). It doesn’t feel like purposeful whiplash to create a sense of disorientation, but rather completely tone-deaf and disrespectful fanservice, all during a moment that should leave the player feeling hollow. And no sooner has Aerith left the building than she rises again like the goddamn Undertaker, kicking ass and eliminating any modicum of loss. Whether she’s in the lifestream or a parallel timeline or a phantom of Cloud’s addled mind is a distinction without a difference. Her death – and perhaps all death in the series – has lost its significance, because it feels merely inconvenient.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series and story planner for the original FF7, channeled the pain and shock of his mother’s death into the loss of Aerith. Where once there was a source of joy, now there is only a void that will never be filled. In the original game, you’ll always have that empty slot on your party selection screen to remind you of who you’re missing. It’s an aching, uncomfortable treatment of death in fiction that was unconventional for its medium at the time. It cut straight to players’ hearts. With this is mind, does Rebirth capture anything remotely comparable? Should we call Sakaguchi and tell him his mom is still kicking somewhere?

When asked about the scene by Game Informer, Nomura had this to say:

“Prior to Final Fantasy VII, there have been other titles where characters have experienced tragedy, but many of them have come back or been revived in some ways. But I believe that loss is something that happens unexpectedly, and it’s not something so dramatic or drawn out, but is something in which a person that you have just conversed with is suddenly gone and never to come back. I believe that the person who dies should not return in this title, and that is what we did with the original… I do believe that the way we have depicted it brings about a new emotion and a new feeling for both players who have played the original Final Fantasy VII and newcomers.”

I struggle to conceive what this “new emotion” could be. Bewilderment? I can’t imagine another response when the developers diminish the tragedy of a lost friend because they want you to be more invested in keeping track of the stupid cartoon dog! Nothing can rationalize the cluttering of this sequence with a shell game that asks us to follow the Black/White/Clear Materia. This sequence, and the events immediately leading up to it, should not have been reduced to a gimmick of prestidigitation. We’re not wondering what we’ll do without Aerith – we’re wondering which sleeve she’s hiding in, so to speak. All of these unnecessary contrivances dare you to solve them, encourage you to switch off your Lizard Brain. But if you turn off your Lizard Brain and welcome those higher mammal functions, you’re bound to see how stupid all of this truly is. For Christ’s sake, we’re naming these worlds after dog breeds! Is that really worth what we’ve lost?

Mechanically-speaking, too, I feel the 1997 game better executed the subsequent battle. There’s an often overlooked quality of the Jenova LIFE fight: It’s really easy. Equip the Water Ring you picked up five minutes earlier and you’ve essentially won the fight. This works really well because you’re not supposed to be thinking hard about strategy and tactics or rocking out to Jenova’s awesome theme song – the battle just gives you time to chew on what’s happened, all the while Aerith’s theme softly rings in your ears. Rebirth gives you a complicated, high-flying, multi-stage boss fight that drops your dead friend’s musical motif midway through. Now, your party is dropkicking an eldritch monster and shouting quips, while electric guitars and synths blare in the background. You need to be actively paying attention for the hour-long boss gauntlet that follows, and it feels wrong to me. I didn’t party wipe; I’m not bad at this game (I beat Gilgamesh at level 49, prior to the endgame) – but micromanaging a chaotic battle drains what little emotion remained. I just felt numb in between fits of laughter.

That is to say, the ending of Rebirth feels like a trip to the dentist.

New mysteries take priority over an earnest portrayal of events, and I just don’t think they’re compelling enough to warrant that. Our knowledge of them has barely advanced since part one. We knew going in that Zack was in a different world, denoted by a different Stamp. And now we know… that there are different worlds denoted by different Stamps. For all the rigmarole, we learned shockingly little. The mystery didn’t really progress, aside from showcasing such a circus of inconsistencies that we’re basically forced to accept that it operates on dream logic. The true ending remains to be seen, but if the clues only amount to “the clues not adding up”, then I’d say that this plotline hasn’t felt rewarding.

My gut tells me this all leads to a cul-de-sac. I judge these riddles as cynical mystery boxes with little concrete direction. Rebirth backtracks on several of Remake’s more audacious changes, completely dropping plot points in some cases. I suspect the final game will do the same, and we’ll have something approaching the original. After all, this “adds up” to Advent Children, by Kitase’s admission. The man likewise expressed that the story will likely be adjusted based on audiences’ responses to the ending of the second part. Given that the narrative disruptions have had mixed reactions at best this time, I believe it’s fair to guess that we’re just looping back to the OG plot anyway.

With all of this in mind, attempting to unravel these unknown elements seems like a massive waste of time. I don’t find this ending quite as intolerable as that of Remake, but it still comes off as tacky and desperate. I think the third part will likely still be fun and contain many of the great moments from the latter half of the original. But I can’t hide my disappointment that, even though my worst nightmares about the project didn’t come to pass, it didn’t fully rehabilitate itself in my eyes either.

I won’t lie – when I started to feel that familiar anger rising again, I got scared. I didn’t get the clean resolution that I wanted, and I worried that destructive obsession would take me over again. I feared I was about to relapse into the world’s stupidest addiction.

All of a sudden, it clicked together. I spent 120 hours staring straight at the answer, oblivious to it. Yet it finally came to me.

FULL ESSAY: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-a-world-beyond-anger/

[bitimdrake]

rereading nightwing (2011) #30 and god i have. so many thoughts about it. And also I still cannot get a coherent hold on it.

This post is really just a mess of me rambling for myself and spewing thoughts out, so I'm putting it under the cut and read at your own discretion and curiosity.

first off, we basically only talk about the middle part, but this comic is actually three sections and it's. bad?

it's just so awkward. This is a transitional issues, but it's not even a well executed one. It's not even a mediocre one. It's very blunt and inconsistent in abruptly shoving the story forward to make way for a Grayson status quo.

The three sections all have different styles and very different tones, but they are also directly related to each other. So it's not like they work as three different vignettes sharing an issue. But they also don't make a particularly cogent whole.

And they definitely do not come even close to the kind of satisfying ending you'd typically want to see at the end of a run.

Like: the first section is Leslie recounting to Bruce how she ran into Spyral. A section which, you will note, does not include our lead and title character in any way, nor is it remotely emotionally relevant or meaningful to him on first read, nor is it remotely related to anything in the run previously. It's a Batman Inc scene that got lost and landed in the wrong issue.

And then the second section (Bruce fights Dick until he agrees to go undercover) and the third (intro to Grayson with Dick doing international crimefighting to lure in Spyral recruitment) are plot-wise directly connect and yet. Could not be more at odds.

sec. 2 Dick has a very bad time being pushed into this by Bruce, and he hates it, and the whole thing is very violent and dark and grim, and Dick ends the section saying things can never be the same between him and Bruce.

and then sec. 3 Dick has a classic inner monologue about who he is and where he's been, that includes how Bruce saved him from being an angry, revenge-obsessed kid, and how he loves his family and is defined by being a legacy. And shows zero concern at what he's doing except a mild mention that after the Crime Syndicate he wanted to go back but he couldn't.

are you seeing what i'm talking about here. are you seeing how this is technically a continuous plot, but on every other level makes no goddamn sense

anyway let's talk about dick and bruce, but first specifically about Bruce because I still do not get him here

"get him" does not mean "agree" (or even "empathize") but literally just get it. Even when I fucking hate him I have at a basic level understood what was going on in his head previously. I do not now.

Bruce was already abusive ofc, but the thing that really threw me off the first time I read this--and that still feel jarring--is how completely different this is from any of his previous violence towards his kids.

He's not suddenly lashing out in a moment of high emotion. He waited for Dick to be ready and laid out the rules (non-rule) of the fight. And it's not even about some deeply personal matter that he's getting emotional over. Yes, Dick's recent brief death is a key part, but mostly Bruce is monologuing about the danger of this one random secret organization.

The whole thing is so planned, which is never something I've thought of his previous physical abuse, and it feels fucking awful.

It also just feels so irrational. And not in a "people who are very emotional make questionable decisions" way, but in a "I'm genuinely struggling to understand how the character got here way"

Bruce is upset that he recently watched Dick die. No question there. And so he....wants to send Dick undercover with Spyral?

??????

Like I can try to explain this as some variation of the classic 'push people away so caring about them won't hurt me again', but that's really not how it feels? It doesn't track. Bruce has pushed Dick away plenty before, and he does it by some combination of explosive anger, complete emotional shutdown, and literally telling Dick to leave. But like. This is not that. He's instead ensnaring Dick in a long fight and longer conversation and telling him not to leave, but to go do something specific. And it's not even really pushing him away!! Because Bruce is still asking Dick to do a thing for him, under his control! No. wrong vibe. Explanation rejected.

Second attempted explanation: section one of this issue ends with Leslie telling Bruce that, because of super Spyral interrogation powers, she might have revealed his identity and can't even remember. So Bruce is deeply troubled by that, and Dick's identity was just revealed to the world which compounds things ("you let them give your secrets to the world"), and now he is deeply concerned with figuring out what Spyral knows/stopping info from spreading and sending Dick to handle that.

I also hate this explanation. It feels dumb. Ridiculous priorities. (also, boy, it does not paint Bruce in a good light. but the bad light it paints him in is an all new one.) Ugh.

I really really just cannot create an explanation for Bruce here that feels coherent with my understanding of him, and I hate that.

And my understanding of him is of him as an abusive father!! So imagine how inexplicable this must feel! But this is the wrong kind of abusive father for what he's been before idk i don't even know if i make sense anymore

new thought time

for the first ~2/3 of the fight, I was thinking that on reread, I could kinda see how some very dumb and oblivious writer would not see how horrific and abusive it would be in the end:

Two characters are disagreeing, and one is going to convince the other by the end. So it's dramatic, and makes the art reflect the story, to have them spar as they're talking! Both script and art are a spar!

Bruce is trying to ~prove Dick will never break~ so it'll be fitting for him to fight Dick, and then call it off when Dick indeed proves he won't give up an gets the upper hand!

Misjudge just how violent the fight will come off. Write panels where Dick is on the ground looking up/being beaten by Bruce/getting injured, because you're going for the classic structure of the hero getting their ass kicked at the start before turning things around later on, but accidentally make those too pained.

blah blah blah, completely overlook the fact that these two are father and son with the power dynamic that implies, and fail to tune the dialogue so that you don't realize it seems less like Bruce is convincing and more like he's coercing

and maybe, theoretically, a writer with real bad instincts could think this would be less horrific than it is

...I thought for the first chunk of the fight, still trying to come up with a rational explanation for this scene, even if only a Doylist one

EXCEPT

Towards the end of the fight, Bruce literally says he knows he's hurting Dick, "my family," and calls Dick "my boy" and then punches Dick in the face so like. I'm sorry you can't do this by accident. If you wrote this by accident you are simply too stupid to be alive and I refuse to believe you can exist.

so anyway I don't have a Doylist explanation for this either :/

they really did just straight up have bruce beat up his son and have said son literally say it could never be the same between them after this, and then were like. yeah :) this is fine :) back to bruce solving crimes as batman :)

FINAL SECTION: random assorted things that make me mad

right before the fight when Alfred can't get into the cave and Bruce, who planned this, lies about it being a malfunction he's fixing

alfred tries to ask if he's alright after "master richard's... the boy's passing". Quote Bruce "Dick was never a boy." (this would make me want to slap him in the best of circumstances but I just want him dead)

the beat early on where Bruce gets a good shot in and Dick is sitting, and he pauses to ask Bruce what's really going on, and Bruce kicks him in the face

genuinely just the number of panels in this that are Dick on the ground, Dick getting punched/kicked/hit, Dick slamming into some solid piece of the environment

Dick keeps questioning this idea and bringing up new points and then just outright asking how Bruce can do this to him. And literally never once does Bruce reply to any of it.

Literally the entire fight Bruce spends monologuing, completely ignoring everything Dick says, as if he's not talking at all.

The only thing that Bruce does respond to is how Dick is doing in the fight. He breaks his monologue to commend Dick on fighting well, but not even once gives the tiniest acknowledgement that Dick is also saying things.

Just the fact that Dick "wins" by dropping down to Bruce's level of violence.

when bruce says the "we fall so we can get back up" and Dick says, no, someone pushes us and we get up to push back, it's fucking sad. I think this is meant to be his victorious moment of turning the tides, but it's upsetting to me! That Dick "it's about catching people when they fall" Grayson has been pushed to reject all of that and is now only talking in terms of fighting!!! I don't like this quote I judge anyone who uses this as a great quote representative of dick grayson, sorry, it's not, it sucks

Dick cracks his head on a railing owie

as soon as Bruce gets properly decked and hits the ground, he calls the fight off :) Because this proves to him that Dick won't break in Spyral, of course, and confirms his stupid plan will work :) and definitely not because Bruce can dish it out but can't take it :)

unreal how much I hate him

And finally! Amidst all of that, amidst all the blood and violence, the single moment that made me most want to shove Bruce through a woodchipper!

"I know I'm hurting you. My family. I'm making that sacrifice. Because I don't give up. I don't give in."

shut the fuck up you fucking martyr hurting your family is not sacrificing shit

man, I really did start this post with story analysis and a genuine curiosity to find sense in chaos. My primary emotion was the fervor of solving a story like a puzzle. But now I am simply going to kill.

[brightbeautifulthings]

Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith

"He made it sound so simple--a girl there one moment, gone the next. But if this trip had taught me anything, it was that people didn't disappear. Things happened to them. Usually bad things."

Year Read: 2023

Rating: 2/5

About: Liv is the only scholarship student aboard the cruise ship, Eos, for an educational program called SeaMester that could be her ticket into a good college. The first night, her best friend, Will, becomes sick enough to be quarantined. The more days pass without hearing from him, the more convinced Liv becomes that something terrible is happening on the ship-- and that Will may no longer be aboard at all. As her paranoia increases, she fears that even the staff and her cohort may be part of a conspiracy of human sacrifices and old gods. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Delacorte Press. Trigger warnings: human sacrifice, abduction, injury, illness, gaslighting, classism, threats, bullying, underage drinking.

Thoughts: Everything about this, from the title and the description to the tentacles on the cover, said this book should have been for me. Watching The Beast (1996) as a kid with my dad instilled an early love in me for water monsters. Unfortunately, Those We Drown promises way more than it delivers. What little ocean horror we have is sadly underutilized, and the plot is much more focused on spiraling into paranoia and conspiracy than it is on diving into its world-building in any depth. By the time anything remotely full of teeth and tentacles appeared, not only did I no longer care, I had no idea what basis it even had for being there. Something something old gods and sacrifices. If you have a giant squid on the page and it doesn't attack anyone, what was even the point?

Instead, most of the page-time is devoted to Liv hating her rich cohort, obsessing about her ill-fated romance with Will, obsessing about yet another love/hate potential romance in Con, and chasing around increasingly ridiculous conspiracy theories. Does she have good reason for that? Yeah, absolutely. There is something nefarious aboard the Eos. But the reader came into the novel with that knowledge, and the whole is she being gaslit or is she genuinely unhinged cycle gets tired quick. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: paranoia is a difficult mood to sustain for any length of time, and it didn't endear me to Liv. Pull it together and have a little dignity, girl.

On a writing level, it reads like a first novel. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the target YA audience probably won't be put off by it. Adult readers like myself might struggle a bit more. The descriptions are frequent and a bit forced, and there are some grammar and continuity errors. The first I can never help noticing (sentence fragments for days, and not as a style choice), but the second have to be glaringly obvious for me to pick up on them, since my general attitude is that time is more like a soup than a line. It makes Liv's character seem wildly inconsistent at times, though, when she walks into a glittering party going yes, this opulence suits me, to scorning it the next morning.

As I said, there's little coherent explanation of the supernatural elements, and the finale is left hugely open-ended, as if Goldsmith got so deep into her plot conspiracies that she couldn't write her way out of them. Given the complete lack of closure or explanation, I would say it reads more like the first book in a series than a standalone, but it's not billed or listed as such. Regardless, if books don't have plot closure, they should at least have thematic closure, or some general sense of why the readers and characters went through all of this. Those We Drown has none of those.

[izzyspussy]

controversial take but like. i don't like trans eddie headcanons because i feel like.

1: his entire character arc and storyline are so intrinsically wrapped up in the outside expectations of his assigned gender and sexuality as a straight man and how having the specific pressures associated with that hinder him as a developing person. i don't think him being afab makes sense in the context of his story and the character interactions, especially with his mother (and therefore also It, and therefore the entire plot, because that's how that works in this case). i simply don't think you can make him afab and still have even remotely the same fundamental storyline, and if you don't have that then you don't have that character anymore.

characters where their gender is not so inherent to their arc and/or is not quite so dependent on the specific experience of one particular gender and the socially attached sexuality don't have this problem. say izzy hands, whose gender is not that important beyond that the generalized thesis of his canon is "this is what it means to be a man". he could be any type of man and still be the same guy playing the same role in the narrative and having - generally speaking - the same dynamic with the other characters. or dean winchester, whose character does have some dependency on the gender and sexuality expectations others have for him (and that he has for himself), but in a way that is a little more nebulous and not concretely connected to the actual plot. the villains would be the same, the plot points would be the same, and even the primary on-screen character dynamics would be - again generally speaking - basically the same if he were afab. i really do not think this is true for eddie.

i think you could still have eddie if you made him a trans woman. and i even think you could make a close enough mirror of him as a cis woman (if you did it right re: the themes and why his gender is so important in the original and how that would translate, which in the cis-swaps i've seen in this fandom has not been the case - but then again cis-swaps as a general rule are not very good or well thought out lol). but i really think that in order to make him ftm you'd have to change so much about how the story goes, and if you try to keep everything the same it doesn't work narratively/mechanically speaking. things just plain would not have happened that way, and no one seems to even try to make them happen the way they would have in those different circumstances.

and because of this, most trans eddie headcanons really come off as shallow and even though i know in most cases they probably aren't they do feel transphobic to me. like... why him? because he's small? because he's prissy? because he doesn't perform and arguably does not enjoy the specific kind of masculinity expected of him, one of the fundamental conflicts of his character as-is like i mentioned above? why not, say, mike or ben? hell, why not bev?

and 2: i think it's important to acknowledge and be comfortable with and celebrate when cis men and trans men have experiences that can strongly relate to each other. as a trans man, i really identify with eddie and some of the experiences he's had or that i imagine he would have if his story continued.

this is obviously more personal and not so much connected with narrative coherence, but a cis man who knows how i felt the first time i wore gender affirming underwear, or finally had sex with the right gender dynamic, or shed the gender roles assigned to me one by one until i was just left with who i genuinely am, or made the choice to recover from childhood gender-motivated abuse, etc etc etc is really validating and nice. and tbh i think that is its own kind of representation.

it's not just true that trans women and cis women both have Women's ExperiencesTM and that trans men and cis men both have Men's ExperiencesTM, but also that many experiences we might associate with transness are not exclusive to transness and nor are they things that only happen to or are felt by people of the same assigned gender. like. it's not only that trans women have experiences of womanhood that cis women have, it's also that cis women have experiences of womanhood that trans women have (and the same goes for men), you know what i mean?

and it's just really disappointing to me that ftm trans eddie specifically is the most popular trans headcanon in the IT fandom, to the point of any other trans headcanon being fringe. and that it does generally seem to be because of transandrophobia-typical reasons like his size and "feminine" qualities (and frequently he is made to be more "nonthreatening" as well, even when not trans smdh). and that no one seems to want to engage with the particular gendered experiences involved in his character unless they make him trans first (in which case tbh they just erase them Differently, not less).

you don't have to be trans to have a complicated or interesting gender! you don't have to only identify with people who are just like you! sometimes trans men and cis men is the same! i just wish we could do something different one time!!

[suuho]

hiii friend i hope you are doing well! i was wondering if i could ask for meta analysis of this (https://www.tumblr.com/suuho/708647383291002880/vincenzo-2021-sending-my-love-from-the-other) edit you made? like what the lyric meant to you in relation to the gifs/vincenzo and han seo, and like those lyrics mean to vincenzo about han seo; if they are about them?

this is silly and you don’t have to answer ofc heh!! i just adoreee that edit and think about it all the time heh the vincenzo community needed it heh. thank u sm!!!

hi!! i'm hanging in there, i hope you're well too!! sorry that this took a few days to answer but i had work, and also i wanted to take my time and answer this properly because that's what an analysis should be. fair warning, i haven't had that much sleep so i hope any of this makes sense, and it's also been a minute since i've made that set. (read more cause very long)

so, the edit in question. funnily enough, i pretty much knew i wanted to make this set in some capacity since that song by fall out boy was released (great song, btw) and it took a little while to formulate those thoughts into something coherent, and then to actually sit down and make that gifset. most of the stuff i make i have a vague idea of what it's supposed to look like, but this one surprised me with the overlays and the blending; i didn't expect it to look like that in the end, but i love the colors and i love it for what it is. vinzenco is obviously coded in blue and hanseo in orange/yellow, and i purposely did that. i think, hanseo's death was such an impactful moment in the show, even more than the death of vincenzo's mother, because up until then, we had watched hanseo go through heavy, positive character development, and as a viewer, that makes you root for him. actually, we have been made to root for him way earlier in the show, when we find out hanseo is a victim of abuse by his own older brother (who turns out to not be a goofy paralegal, so in that sense, they have turned the tables narratively on what jang brother to sympathize with), and is willing to change.

i think a lot of hanseo's conflict and character boils down the fact that his abuser is his own brother, someone he is conditioned to love by societal pressures and norms, and that he knows he should love in a familial way, and that he finds himself clinging to because it is all he has left of his family. he has nowhere else to go, no way out, until he meets vincenzo. it is hard to escape an abuser, and the fact that hanseo manages to do so by his own will, and with vincenzo's help, only to in the end die by the hands of his brother anyways? god, that is so tragic. that is why his death hurts so much more than the others in the show. anyways, i am digressing somewhat.

but! the edit in question. the first gif is pretty obvious in relation to the second: i wanted to show a moment in hanseo's life in which he was truly happy, a moment he spent with vincenzo. has vincenzo ever allowed himself an affection like that towards anyone? to hanseo, of course, vincenzo fills a role that has been misappropriated his entire life: the part of hyung, a big brother role that hanseok never managed to remotely tend to in the way he should have. hanseo does not have any hyungs in his life, he doesn't have someone he can trust like that, that he can love like that (i won't deny that i am a hanseo/vincenzo enthusiast because i do love them together, and i do not think of them as ~brothers in that sense, but as a mere narrative tool, that is the position vincenzo fills for hanseo in his life and in the show).

i wish we would have seen more of their quiet moments together, because i think they both gave each other something they had been missing until then.

the middle gif, of course. god, when will that scene not hurt like hell. that is more in relation to the caption and the gif after. in vincenzo's life and in the mafia, there is only way to avenge, and that is an eye for an eye. blood for blood. but the fact that vincenzo chose the cruelest punishment for hanseok specifically? that is purely motivated by the loss of hanseo. what would you trade the pain for? vincenzo chose a knife. and what did hanseo trade the pain for? a glimpse of happiness. if you are dead by the end of the story, you are dead at the beginning of it. that's how it works.

if you look at the song in general, i just love how it speaks to the both of them.

especially the pre-chorus but more so this entire first part of the song is so hanseo for me. the city always hangs a little bit lonely on me, loose / like a kid playing pretend in his father's suit. think about the starched-white shirts and high collars he wears, partly to hide the bruising of the abuse, partly like an armor, and how he lets go of it when he is around vincenzo. hanseo is quite literally playing pretend in his own life; he is controlled by his brother who continuously drills into him that he won't amount to anything, that he is stupid, that he is worthless. but hanseo is neither stupid nor worthless; he is smart, can think on his feet, is mechanically gifted. he is funny. he laughs the way someone laughs who's surprised by his own, actual laugh because he hasn't heard it in so long. his real laugh, not some approximation of it.

model house life meltdown still a modern dream letdown, it kills me / you know i'm dying out here / what would you trade the pain for? if you are dead at the end of the story, you are dead at the beginning of it. i think, hanseo is aware that he is slowly dying as a victim of his circumstances, figuratively and literally. which is what makes him reckless enough to even seek out vincenzo. a lot of hanseo's life is lived with the desperation of a dead man walking.

that bridge is such a gut-wrencher, my god. but this is the part that i find speaks more broadly to vincenzo. like i said, the loss of hanseo is what ultimately made him take a deliberately cruel, downright mortifying approach to his vengeance, to his punishment. and you were the sunshine of my lifetime / what would you trade the pain for? is obviously more in relation to vinzenco's relationship with hanseo. at least, in the intent of this set.

that goes hand in hand with i saw you in a bright-clear field, hurricane heat in my head / the kind of pain you feel to get good in the end, good in the end. that is just, exactly the scene when vinzenco confronts hanseok the last time, and remembers hanseo. whew. my god. what a gut punch.

other than that, i mostly just wanted the set to go from light to dark, because i think killing hanseok the way he did was in many ways a breaking point for vincenzo, hence all the shadows he finds himself in, and the fact that hanseo's death is the reason for it? absolutely insane. give up what you love before it does you in. vinzenco couldn't give it up, not even the memory of hanseo, and so he let it kill a part of hinself as well. he chose the knife to trade for the pain. anyways. i hope that was somehow helpful for you! thank you so much for your question!

[faytelumos]

Illusory, finale

This part is double the length of previous parts.

cw: descriptions of depression and grief closely following amputation, presence of alcohol, non-painful manipulation of muscle and bone, some feelings of abandonment

first | previous | directory

---

Brimstone could do a lot of things with her body. Changing the size and density of her bones, thickening and hardening her skin, and re-organizing her muscles were some of the first things she had learned to do. She could also sprout a coat of fur, increase the capabilities of any of her senses, and fix broken bones and cuts nearly as fast as they happened.

But all of those things involved manipulating tissues she already had. Tails, nictitating membranes, hooves, fur, all of them came from structures she already had, organs she altered the shape of. She had learned with no small effort to spawn cartilage throughout her body, wherever she needed additional structures and forms. But she'd never been able to figure out how to make a new bone.

Or how to make a new muscle.

"Brimstone?"

Her eyes focused slowly again on the table. On the plate in front of her. On the fork, held in a hand that wasn't hers. She blinked, not glancing up at Toby.

"I'm done eating," she mumbled. "I'd like to go back to bed."

Toby shifted beside her, then set the fork down on her plate. He crouched down next to the wheelchair, looking up at Brimstone. She pressed what remained of her left arm tighter to her side, aching to rub fingertips together.

"You're not eating enough," Toby said softly. "Your brain needs food just as much as your body does. Just a couple more bites?"

Brimstone didn't look up. She traced the limp hem of her right sleeve with her eyes.

"I'm not hungry."

Toby sighed softly. He was patient, and he usually relented if she asked for something twice. Though he was starting to plant his feet on certain issues. It had been three weeks since Brimstone had woken up. She wasn't as surprised about it anymore. About surviving an embrace with Morning Frost at his lowest recorded temperature. It had been three weeks, and she was losing weight. Her doctor was probably going to snap someone's collar at the next appointment. Hopefully not Toby's. He didn't do anything wrong.

"How about this," Toby said, folding his arms on her right armrest and looking up at her. "We can stop, I'll put this away, and we can sit on the couch until Sam gets home?" Brimstone didn't look up. She shrugged her left shoulder. "Great," he whispered with a smile, standing, giving her right thigh a soft pat.

He got up and moved behind her, pulling the brakes on her wheels as she shifted her bad leg. He wheeled her gently to the couch, then set the brakes again. She held her left arm tight to her side as he dropped that armrest. He bent down, getting a hand under her knees and an arm around her back, and he hefted her more-or-less gracefully onto the couch.

"How am I going to stay in shape if you're so light," he joked. She shrugged her left shoulder as he grabbed one of the pillows.

"We could buy you some weights," she said. He chuckled softly, tucking the pillow between her right side and the arm of the couch.

"For that matter, I could use my gym membership." Brimstone huffed. He smiled at her, grabbing the remote. "What do we want to watch?"

---

Brimstone knew her body. She had to. For her, shapeshifting was architecture. She knew every bone, every muscle, every ligament, nerve cluster, vein, artery, fat deposit, lymph node, and organ she had to work with and around. When she had woken up, she had known before she could even form coherent thought that her body was wrong. It wasn't just the pieces missing. It was the pieces misplaced. The pieces added. The muscles of her left arm and right shin, aborted, grafted to the face of the bone. Pressed and turned in ways they weren't supposed to be, in ways she'd never asked them to be. The stitches in three areas, itching and pulling and aching. She'd ejected them almost immediately upon waking up, apparently to her doctor's horror. She didn't remember it well. Sam had looked nauseous when it was brought up.

"Almost there."

Brimstone looked again to her arm. Building cartilage was normal. Her and Naomi had decided to use it instead of trying to learn how to make new bones. One less tissue to master.

Brimstone focused again on building down to her right elbow. She'd drawn what remained of the humerus down into its original shape, and she'd stretched the muscles that were still present down to where they were meant to be. But it wasn't right. She struggled to resolve the muscles back into ligaments, and entire structures of her tricep were so cut back she couldn't draw any muscle tissue from them. Couldn't pull them down with the rest. And she'd lost her brachioradialis muscle by a wide margin, leaving another gap in the structures.

"May I?" Naomi uttered, reaching slightly. Brimstone lifted her arm, and Naomi held it, her fingers warm. "I'm going to trace over the missing muscles," she announced, examining Brimstone's arm. "Concentrate on how it's supposed to feel."

Brimstone nodded, looking away and letting her eyes unfocus as Naomi turned her arm gently. She touched a finger to Brimstone's under arm with a steady pressure, right where she was missing a muscle. Brimstone shivered in disgust at the sensation, at the layers of muscle flexing over something missing, at the unfamiliar way her bone was touched. Naomi drew her finger down, over the path of the muscle, and it made Brimstone's teeth feel slick and dirty.

"Stop," she breathed, and Naomi pulled away instantly. Brimstone tried to put a hand on her face, then looked back down at her left arm. She shut her eyes again, biting back the frustrated noises in her throat.

---

Brimstone had spent a lot of time with her body. Not just inhabiting it, but experimenting with it. Villains in the lab didn't get toys, and so she'd played with her body — small things and internal things that guards couldn't see from the hallway. She'd learned she could move her organs around, perhaps to keep people from accurately targeting her heart. She'd learned she could protrude certain body parts out through her skin to take a look at them, to see if her anatomy books were truly accurate on colors and shapes. But when Sister Karla had introduced the concept of making new structures, when she had demanded day after day that Brimstone learn to make rigid spikes on her back and shoulders, Brimstone had spent her normal play time trying to figure out how to make new cartilage.

Brimstone was spending most of her idle time trying to remember how she'd done it originally. Now, it was simple. Thoughtless. Just like forgetting the how of walking, her body just did what she wanted, spawning pockets and shapes of the stuff at a thought. But how had that happened the first time? How had she figured it out?

"Holy shit!" Vacuum blurted. Sam paused the movie, and she, Brimstone, and Toby all looked at Vacuum as he sat on the couch, staring at the TV. He looked to Brimstone, eyes wide. "What about tentacles?"

Tentacles? What about tentacles? Were they watching an octopus movie? Brimstone had already forgotten—

"Like, instead of hands?" Toby asked.

"Yeah," Vacuum said excitedly, putting his beer down on the coffee table and turning to face Brimstone. "Like, tentacles are just muscle, right?" Brimstone blinked.

"I don't know," she admitted. She'd never studied fish or other sea creatures. Any experience with the water had a focus on above-ground work, so she'd never seen the point.

Vacuum started digging his phone out of his pocket then. Sam rubbed Brimstone's side softly where she was holding her, and Brimstone leaned into her. All eyes were on Vacuum as he searched up something on his phone, then climbed off of the couch and crouched in front of Brimstone.

"What do you need?" he muttered.

"Just look at images," Brimstone replied.

He scrolled slowly through the image results for her, but they weren't very helpful. Most of them didn't even cut into the internal structures of the tentacles. She had him change the wording of the search, and then he scrolled slowly through more pictures.

"Wait, that one," Brimstone said, pointing with her wrist. She was keeping both arms drawn to the next joint, and it was easy to make a smaller tip to gesture to the exact picture she wanted. He tapped on it and then held the phone up for her to study. The diagram was overly simple, but it at least broke down the organization of the internal structures.

Brimstone held out her right arm, letting her eyes unfocus as she concentrated on her anatomy. She hollowed the end of the bone and pulled most of her nerves through it, making a central bundle as she moved her muscles around. She attached a muscle to the nerves, then adjusted it to surround the bundle and faced the fibers outwards in four main points. Then she slid four other muscles in between those points with the fibers going up and down her limb. Finally, she wrapped more muscles around the outside in a symmetrical sort of half-spiral. Once the shape was set, the nerves were branched effectively, and she had blood and lymph nodes distributed, she decreased the width of it to better match her arm.

"Wow," Toby whispered.

Brimstone looked down at it. It was weird — she had to fight the urge to put a bone in it, and it felt heavy and clumsy, not to mention the fact that it was just skin with no other textures or structures on the outside. She had no idea how suction cups worked, but imagining it, she decided she didn't want any. She tried to move it, but several muscles all moved against each other clumsily. She focused again, feeling the muscles and their orientations, considering how to flex them.

After a moment of thought, she curled it in one direction. Vacuum laughed in delight, putting his phone away and watching intently as Toby stood up, coming over from the chair to watch. Brimstone curled it the other way, getting a feel for its motions.

"That's so cool," Vacuum whispered.

"Can you grab anything with it?" Toby mused.

Brimstone reached over to her other arm and meticulously wrapped the tentacle around it. She was quickly getting a better feel for how it worked, and she reached over Sam's lap and grabbed the remote. It was awkward, but she was able to pick it up and lift it off of the couch. Vacuum laughed again, poking it. It felt weird. Brimstone dropped the remote and poked his arm back.

"This is awesome!" he cried, carefully grabbing it. Brimstone let him play with it, and Toby leaned forward, watching closely. But Sam had yet to say anything.

Brimstone glanced up, nervous she was grossing her out. Sam had a hand over her mouth, and her cheeks were darkly blushed. It took a moment to realize her breathing was a bit faster, and she seemed slightly warmer.

Brimstone looked down again as the boys turned and inspected her shiny new limb. Sam would probably be more eager to engage with it without an audience.

---

Brimstone hadn't truly considered changing the resting shape of her figure before. Everyone's eyes were often drawn to her horns, her ears, her eyes. The things she couldn't change. It had never seemed worth it to try to adjust the shape of her body, especially since she would have to find that altered state again after changing her shape for work. But she probably wasn't going back to work. Soon or ever.

She looked down at herself as Sam washed her shoulder, the warm water trickling off of her and back into the suds. The tub was fairly wide, so Sam always got in with her, wearing her bathing suit. As if there was a dress code to giving Brimstone a bath.

"What are you thinking about?" Sam uttered, wetting the cloth again. Brimstone glanced up, catching sight of the skeleton hand print laid over Sam's breasts. Brimstone flicked some of the suds lazily.

"Wondering if I want to give myself bigger boobs," she answered. She snuck a look at Sam's face. She had an eyebrow raised, and the slightest hint of a smile.

"What brought this on?" Sam asked softly, cleaning her arm. Brimstone shrugged. She picked up some suds and put them on Sam's belly.

"It would be pretty easy to do," she said. She picked up some more suds, but Sam was getting farther down her arm, so she didn't want to move as much. "I didn't know if you'd like it." Sam wetted the cloth.

"I don't need you to get plastic surgery for me." Brimstone raised an eyebrow.

"I could change it later," she uttered. Sam held her arm softly and cleaned her elbow.

"If you want big boobs for yourself, that would be fine." She wiped down Brimstone's arm. "But I think you're hot no matter how big your tits are." Brimstone looked down at herself again. Sam put a hand under her chin and lifted her head gently. Brimstone looked into her eyes, and Sam looked back. She was close, and she was soft, and she was always here. Brimstone hadn't wanted to ask her to move in, but thankfully, Sam was already spending more time at the house than she was at her apartment. "Brim?" Sam whispered. Brimstone hummed. "I'm not leaving, okay?"

Brimstone's eyes stung, and there was a lump in her throat. She nodded, looking over Sam's face. Sam gave her a soft smile, full of kindness. She moved closer, putting a gentle hand on Brimstone's bad leg, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Brimstone closed her eyes, cautiously resting her wrist on Sam's side. She couldn't hold onto the tears, and they fell down her face at the same time she whimpered. Sam set the cloth down, moving forward until her body was flush with Brimstone's, and wrapped her tightly in a hug. Brimstone rested her head against Sam's chest, crying quietly, hugging her as best she could.

Morning Frost hadn't come back. He hadn't been there when she'd woken up in the hospital. He hadn't been there when she'd been released and found everything she owned moved to a new home.

He'd fled from the scene, people were saying. They'd broken off her arms to get him away from her before she froze to death, and he'd disappeared into the sky. A black streak into the night.

And no one had seen him since.

She didn't understand. She didn't want to understand. Morning Frost was supposed to be good now. He was supposed to help people, keep them safe, be a hero.

You people are evil!

She didn't want it to make sense. Because she should have known.

And she should have stopped him sooner.

---

"You're being way too gentle with that," Starburst laughed. Toby chuckled, gingerly unwrapping the pink and orange paper anyway, as if ripping it would hurt the little cartoon Starburst faces printed on it.

"C'mon, shred it!" Sam cried, impatient to see what could be in such a "head-shaped" box.

"Rip, rip, rip," Phil started, and Vacuum and Sam joined in almost instantly, and then all four of Brimstone's coworkers from various jobs were chanting around them. Brimstone smiled politely, sinking slightly lower into her chair. Toby gave up and yanked the paper off to reveal a plain, cardboard box beneath. Sam scoffed indignantly, and Starburst laughed mischievously.

"Okay," Toby said, pulling out his keys, "new rule: Starburst can't package her own gifts." Everyone except Starburst and Brimstone laughed.

"I didn't, they came in that box," she defended. Toby nodded along placatingly as he slashed the tape with his keys. He popped the flaps open and showed the contents to Brimstone.

Metal headbands, all with various attachments of flowers, spikes, butterflies, and ribbons were lined up neatly within. Brimstone leaned forward and Sam oo'ed quietly, doing the same.

"There's also some cuffs in there, for your horns," Starburst said with a soft smile in her voice. Sam gingerly pulled out a gold-colored headband with yellow butterflies and black flowers on it. Brimstone watched, admiring the patterns on the wings and their accuracy. They were brimstone butterflies. "You don't have to wear the cuffs if they're uncomfortable," Starburst went on.

"I love them," Brimstone said softly, looking into the box. The cuffs might be difficult to wear, given her aversion to people touching her horns. She couldn't exactly put them on herself. But maybe Sam would be able to help. "Thank you," Brimstone said, looking up to Starburst. She beamed, glowing slightly.

"Yeah."

"You wanna wear this one?" Sam asked softly. Brimstone looked up, then nodded before looking forward again. The headbands were angled oddly, but as Sam organized Brimstone's hair and slipped the headband down over her head, she realized it was actually to get around her horns. They must have all been custom pieces. Brimstone's chest ached.

"Okay, mine next," Vacuum said, nudging the five-foot-long gift that had been dominating the table since he arrived.

"For the last time!" Sam laughed. "Stop asking!"

"Just open it so we can move it!" Vacuum cried.

"Brimmy does not want your super-sized dildo!" Sam replied. Vacuum covered the blush on his face and laughed into his hands. Phil held his sides and laughed and Toby covered his mouth and looked away. Brimstone leaned back just a little.

"Jesus," Starburst huffed, shaking her head. Brimstone's eyes flicked to the only other remaining "gift", an envelope with "from Karla" written in a soft, slanting style. Her throat tightened just a little at the thought of what could be inside. She looked back to Vacuum's huge package.

"Let's open it," Brimstone uttered.

Sam and Toby both got it to sit on the table in front of Brimstone, because the middle was apparently soft and Sam ripped the paper a little when she tried to move it alone. Once it was in front of Brimstone, she leaned forward, and Sam helped her tear apart the yellow and black wrapping paper with her silhouette on it. As soon as they exposed enough of the middle to see it had part of an almost entirely naked woman printed on its soft surface, Sam started ripping faster.

"What the fuck is this?" she mumbled, and then there was enough paper ripped away to see that it was a body pillow with an anime-style rendering of Sam in a Brimstone bikini on it. "What the fuck is this!" Sam cried, yanking off the last of the paper and the cardboard ends.

"Woah," Toby chuckled, looking away as Phil laughed harder now than he had all afternoon. Starburst slapped Vacuum's shoulder as Phil bent forward, and the self-satisfied grin on Vacuum's face could have lit the room on its own.

"Body pillows are super handy!" he declared, getting another smack and not flinching.

"Why am I on it?!" Sam demanded. Brimstone tried to subdue the smile on her face at Sam's reaction. Sam was blushing and smothering a grin as she held up the double-sided pillow accusingly, making it clearly visible to everyone.

"I couldn't think of anyone else!"

"Why is anyone on it?!"

"It's a body pillow, someone has to be on it!"

Brimstone cast a glance over at Toby. He was smiling at her, and he gave her a questioning brow and a subtle thumbs up. She nodded softly. It was loud and chaotic in the room, but she was managing. She'd spent a lot of time with these people. They were familiar. They were safe.

"Okay, alright," Phil said, motioning for everyone to settle down even as he wiped a tear from his eye, "how about some cake?" Brimstone nodded, sitting up a little straighter in her chair, glad for the distraction from the last unopened item on the table.

"I'll clear the table," Toby declared as Starburst squeaked and flitted into the kitchen ahead of Phil. Vacuum helped move the gifts and scrapped wrapping paper aside as Sam set the body pillow in a nearby chair like it was another party guest. Brimstone blushed to have it on display so plainly, and Sam gave her an amused smile.

"She looks nothing like me," Sam joked, turning to the thing. She looked back to Brimstone and imitated the pose and expression of her pillow self. Brimstone blushed harder and buried her face in the crook of her arm as Vacuum laughed delightedly. It looked exactly like her.

---

Brimstone hugged her new pillow a little tighter to her chest, adjusting her right leg on it. It was nice to have the buffer between her legs. She didn't like the feeling she got when she accidentally brushed her right ankle against something. For some reason, it was harder to get used to than her arms. Maybe because she wasn't constantly using it.

Sam came in, letting out a long sigh as she pulled off her shirt for the night, closing the bedroom door behind her with a foot. Brimstone tucked herself slightly further into the blankets. Sam smiled at her, then smirked at the pillow peaking out from under the blanket.

"Did you have a good day?" she asked, flicking off the light. Brimstone watched her slip her pants off in the dark.

"Yeah," Brimstone replied. It had been nicer than she expected to have everyone over. And even though having her normie coworkers and her super coworkers in the same place had been strange at first, seeing everyone having fun together was… really nice.

Sam came around the bottom of the bed, then climbed on and laid down behind Brimstone. She moved and fidgeted as she got under the blankets, and then she hugged up against Brimstone's back. She was so warm through Brimstone's shirt, and she wrapped her arms carefully around Brimstone's waist, tucking her legs in along the back of Brimstone's. She let out a warm sigh, relaxing, as something in Brimstone's chest seemed to unwind.

They really hadn't been dating for very long. About a month and a half, now. For more than half of that time, Brimstone had been injured. Disabled. Missing pieces.

She bit down on the lump in her throat. Sam had spent the night eight times before the accident. They had been seeing each other for over a year, but Brimstone had only gotten to sleep with Sam beside her eight times before…. And Brimstone had realized that she really liked it. She badly wanted it. The first night she'd spent with Sam, they were touching all night. And it had been so nice. And even nicer had been being the "big spoon" of them. It made Brimstone feel… important. Needed.

But now, she couldn't bear the thought of holding Sam.

It was stupid of her to have waited so long. She should have known she liked Sam sooner. She should have realized sooner that she didn't want to be away from Sam. But she'd barely gotten any time with her.

But Sam said she wouldn't leave….

"What's wrong?" Sam whispered. Brimstone sniffed, cleared her throat, then hid her face in her new pillow.

"I'm sorry," Brimstone croaked. Sam hugged her closer, hushing her softly, reaching up and running her fingers through Brimstone's hair.

"Hey, you didn't do anything," Sam whispered.

"That's the problem," Brimstone breathed. Sam didn't seem to hear her, and she sniffed and lifted her head carefully, mindful of her horns. "We should have been together sooner," Brimstone said, her voice watery. "I wasted so much time…."

"Hey," Sam whispered, shifting to sit up on her elbow. Brimstone looked behind her, and Sam pet her damp cheek in the dark. "I love you, baby," she started, and it made Brimstone's heart stutter, "but you gotta remember your brain is really fucked up," she finished. Her tone was kind, and she found Brimstone's ear in the dark and pet it softly. "You were coping. You didn't pull me in because you didn't pull anyone in. That's not a crime, and I'm not mad, okay?"

Brimstone sniffed, tears running faster down her face and into her hair. She nodded, her breaths choppy and loud, and wiped the left side of her face. Sam carefully wiped the tears on her right.

"It's unfortunate," Sam admitted. "But you know what? I'm so happy you brought me in at all." Brimstone sniffed again, and Sam leaned over her, sitting up slightly on her hip and smiling down. "Better late than never, okay?" Brimstone nodded, wiping tears again.

"Okay," she managed. Sam leaned in, planting a kiss on her forehead. Brimstone closed her eyes, and Sam planted another kiss on the teary corner of her eye. And then on her cheek.

"You're okay," Sam whispered, resting some of her weight on Brimstone, her breath brushing her lips. "Okay?" Brimstone sniffed, then nodded.

"Okay."

[captainsspnanon]

C2E70 - Causatum - rewatch

Well, nothing like being unable to get onto tumblr after a CR episode because my ACCOUNT RANDOMLY GETS FUCKING TERMINATED. Here’s hoping that it comes back soon, I will not be pleased if I lose my 2014 account. (it’s back!)

In the meantime, LET’S HAVE YASHA DRAMA.

Oh no, Liam’s remote! OH NO I RECOGNIZE THE PROPS FOR THE SAM AD BIT

OH GOD Sam starting off with the bit, then immediately interrupting himself to say ‘you know what, I didn’t even look at what they sent me to read’

…*looks up causatum* oh hey that’s an actual word! It basically means ‘an effect’. That’s cool! It’s not a word I knew, and until now, I just never considered that it actually meant something versus some fantasy word.

Nope, I had no focus. So now I’m back again, day two of having no tumblr. I wouldn’t say I’m going through withdrawals, but I am NOT happy. Some quick googling it seems like tumblr support is a monday through friday thing, so the fact that I got termed early Saturday morning? *sigh* I am impatient. (shockingly, am back! Which you know. Because you are reading this)

I don’t even know how to verbalize my Fjord thoughts here. There’s a strong reluctance to tell the Bright Queen of their failure, at least with any sort of speed. From Talks, I know that he’s afraid they’d be thrown in jail, but there’s something tickling the back of my brain about not wanting to disappoint authority, not wanting to be seen as a failure even if nothing came of it, Vandran, insecurity, deception. I really wish I had the ability to take these jumbled thoughts and make coherent sense of it, because whether or not it’s accurate, it’s an interesting take.

For all the laughter at Caduceus apologizing for raising his voice, he actually was. He wasn’t shouting or anything, but he did raise his voice and was speaking with more firmness and passion than he typically does. It is also a great moment of him asking if anyone had the experience of NOT automatically assuming that they’re the bad guys, if anyone had the experience of being trusted, and the answer was essentially a resounding ‘no’. That, so much, is the core of the Mighty Nein, and it’s the reason that Caduceus ended up being such a wonderful fit.

(Something I thought of yesterday when of course I couldn’t post it, but another heavy theme of the M9 campaign ended up being cults. Caleb was in a cult, Jester was in/formed a cult, Fjord was tiptoeing around the Uk’otoa cult, Yasha was/is in a cult. Hell, you could make [barely] an argument that Beau was kinda in a cult because she was forced to join the cobalt soul against her will, even though it’s not a cult. [also I accidentally typed fjorced, what the hell me] Perhaps the same thin argument could be made for Nott being forced [I did fjorced again wtf] to join the goblin tribe for the period of time that she did.)

Ugh, Jester crying hits me so much harder than any other of Laura’s PCs, I think because she’s the most outwardly bubbly and high spirits. I also forgot that she had doubts about Yasha! I know for a fact that this is gonna be momentary but I think it’s very powerful that it’s there at all. Especially for those who are reacting more negatively (Fjord and Beau) it adds a level of validity to their feelings. If EVEN Jester thinks this!

Caduceus has been the best rock that this scene needed. Fjord never really goes head to head with Caduceus, but I think this is the most oppositional that he’ll be all campaign, and it is a fantastic interplay. Caduceus with his faith in Yasha versus Fjord with his history of betrayal from Sabien.

I really appreciate that when Matt narrates that the soldiers have been alerted by the Bright Queen to expect something, not just leaving them in the dark as Fjord feared, no one gives Fjord shit over it. There’s no ‘I told you so’s, there’s no ‘see?’, there’s not even subtle nudging. Everyone recognizes that it was a fully valid suspicion, and that there was no shame or harm in having it. PLUS they still work to subtly give more information via the whisper campaign, again validating Fjord (and Beau – just focusing on Fjord because he was more vocal about it).

Huh, it’s weird to hear Baphomet. Well, I guess it’s not a specific dnd thing, but I’d still expected something of an Exandrian equivalent. Then again, the gods and such do still occasionally get referred to by the 5e names in this campaign, so it’s not fully distancing themselves yet. (I’m sorry, Fey Realm may match with TLoVM, but I still replace it in my head with Feywild. Same with Shadow Realm and Shadowfell.)

I LOVE Matt’s “really” when Jester rolls a 21 for deception for Nancy McFancyPants. THAT is the agony of the DM right there, and it is GLORIOUS. Yes Matt, they do believe her. They believe her so well.

Is this the first mention of Eiselcross????? The ballista provide their own ammunition!!! THE FORESHADOWING!!! Ah, not the first mention, the first was a book from the Happy Fun Ball. But it didn’t have the foreshadowing!!

It always is interesting to see Caduceus have his small moments of pure intimidation. Someone comes up to the room when he’s casting Legend Lore? Even though the guy is already apologetic and ready to leave, he gives himself black eyes for a scary appearance, and then magically closes the door. On the one hand, it feels very out of character for Caduceus. On the other hand, I wonder if this is tricks that he would use with his siblings when he was feeling irritated or trying to prank them. In that mindset, the few times he uses these tricks makes a lot more sense, especially as they’re never actually harmful. I admit that I’ve struggled with Caduceus’s relationship with his siblings, specifically the trickster part of him, as we rarely get to see it in campaign. I feel like we only really saw it when he used the bone flute on his sister? But Taliesin has clearly kept it in his mind, as he mentions it a number of times on Talks. Though I suppose I’ll be discussing this more in an episode or two, judging by the episode titles.

Wonderful conversations between Jester and Beau, and then Beau and Caleb. Not much to say, aside from just well done for all, ouch for Liam with the lag, and very good character beats all around. Dives much more into Jester and Beau, very much appreciated, and lovely to see.

“Were you there in the cave?” “I’m never far” HITS SO MUCH DIFFERENT when you know that Sprinkle is the Traveler’s vessel at times. AAAA

I think Matt wanted this to be in a volcano even more than Jester, considering she made an offhand comment and he pushed it further. I wonder how much of Rumblecusp he had fleshed out at this point. Likely the forgetfulness and Vilya already, but was the volcano already there? Or did it get added because of this conversation? If he added it after, maybe that’s where he came up with the idea for what’shisface. Vokodo.

Caleb is 100% the reason why I love wizards as a class. The teleportation circle! Caleb checking the supplies! The beautiful description from Matt! Love it so much!

And I’m very pleased they acknowledge the moorbounders being left where they were. Goodbye kitties, I will love you forever.

Again, something I continuously wonder is how much of an NPC Matt has determined based off of player conversation. My thought process here is that the PCs are very thoroughly discussing how the Laughing Hand situation went, arguing for how they were responsible and how they were not. A lot of good points were brought up on either side, and it was not anything touched on lightly. With Matt listening to all of this, did he have a thought process of how the Bright Queen may think of it, and upon hearing the conversation, add that to how he thought she may react? With the discussions of how they couldn’t actually have been responsible, did that influence how Matt had her behave so supportively? Or did he always know that the Bright Queen would not see it as their fault, as long as they didn’t eff up presenting it to her. After all, he didn’t ask for persuasion when Caduceus was explaining what happened, only when he asked for permissions after. I know why we didn’t get Matt as frequently on Talks (or 4sd for c3), but this is why I itch for it. I’ve LOVE to get inside his brain for these things.

(I also love that the cast clearly forgot that they warned the BQ about Empire shenanigans, as I’d also forgotten it given how long it’s taken me to watch this, so the reminder here was appreciated)

Aaagh, the scene with the prisoner has an added level of tension to it because of the delay and difficulty caused by virtually streaming in. Liam doesn’t have good visual to see when someone is about to speak, and with the lag there’s overlapping talk which may have been a non-issue had he been present (not hearing Caduceus offering to assist, talking over Matt trying to speak at the Scourger). We still get a very powerful scene, but sadly I feel like a little bit of Caleb’s capacity for intimidation gets a little clipped with the disconnect. Too bad we never really get to find out why this woman had knowledge of Bren, as well as why she had the forearm scars but not the maze-like tattoos. Earlier in her training? Perhaps, but to have enough knowledge of Bren? I don’t think we ever find out what Trent may have communicated with his trainees about him, whether he maintained the ruse of being fully in control, or allowed them to know that Bren had escaped but could be lured back in?

I know Taliesin gets credit for being amazing with one-liners, but honestly – they all are. “Enjoy your mouthful of lies when the choke it out of you.” *chefs kiss*

Nott and Yeza’s relationship has just an interesting dynamic. I haven’t read her comic, so I don’t know how it’s portrayed there, but in campaign, Nott describes herself has having been bullied even as a halfling, and so gave a reasonable interpretation that she may have been more meek, with her life since getting killed and transformed causing her to become more outspoken. In her earlier interactions with Yeza, there was a meekness present – but honesty more of just a fear of being rejected. She spoke for him at times, but it was reasonable enough with him being fairly traumatized. However, we come to now. They’ve made the decision to send Yeza to Nicodranas, and Nott firmly and repeatedly shuts down any suggestion of him learning to swim, getting close to a boat, and repeatedly makes decisions on his behalf. Yeza doesn’t bristle at this and instead takes it fully in stride, as if this is the relationship dynamic that he’s already used to. Of course, much of this is the meta sense that Sam needs to make a lot of the decisions with Matt ‘yes and’ing, rather than Matt making any of the large decisions. Yeza is very much an NPC that is also a character prop. Anything Matt does with Yeza is going to be for having Sam make decisions with Nott, and Matt really isn’t going to do things with Yeza that are counter intuitive to the main storyline, or something that would attempt to pull agency away from Sam. I’m trying to remember, but I think all player created NPCs have that level of ‘character prop’, versus the DM created NPCs who can act in ways to spin the story. For this campaign, Marion is very supportive of anything Jester does and displays clear love and affection for her, Beau’s father is cool and distant, her mother is caring but weak, Caduceus’s family are all exactly as he describes, and the same for C1 and C3. Now, the player created NPCs aren’t all good and loving (see Beau’s family and Zeenoth, the twins’ father, Tary’s family, etc) but I don’t recall Matt pulling any big twists with any of them. If the player wrote in the backstory that the person was X, then Matt plays them as X. ….I’ve twisted myself in a circle here XD Going back to my original thought, I do adore the Nott and Yeza relationship as well as fully understand and appreciate criticism it has of being not entirely healthy. There is a strong passivity to Yeza that wouldn’t work for PC to PC relationship, but makes sense for a PC to player-created NPC relationship. The same is not true for a PC to DM-created NPC relationship such as Caleb/Essek, or Vax/Gilmore. Because those NPCs are more established and can grow as characters, whereas the player-created NPCs tend to be more set in their original description.

*reads that entire mess of a paragraph* …… I’m just going to not even touch that or try to make more sense of it, moving on. *reminds myself that this rewatch write up is to improve my writing abilities and improve my sense of critical analysis rather than just passively watching something I enjoy. I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, just make sense of my own thoughts, and maybe find some other words than ‘interesting’ and ‘fascinating’.*

Wait what? Caleb intimated his past to Essek, who I thought KNEW from the first meeting with handing over the beacon, but didn’t? And then Essek asks if Caleb was a Scourger and Caleb says no but Essek clearly doesn’t believe him. I am genuinely surprised by this, because I had remembered it as Essek having known as of day one! I mean, I guess all the parallels and conversation in 97 on do still make sense if Essek only realized now, but it changes my perception of it a bit.

On the other hand, Caleb very clearly throws up some masks (that squinting smile!) while talking with Essek, while at the same time being very truthful about his feelings and request.

(I really do adore the moments where Liam has Caleb speak to himself, when it’s done quickly and effectively. Here is fantastic, back on the boat where he calls himself an asshole and starts copying spells, the bit in the tower where he goes to the memory room alone after showing everything else off. I think the only time that I wasn’t a huge fan of it was early on when Yasha, Jester, and Fjord get kidnapped, because I felt like the scene ran a bit too long. But I think every other instance worked well.)

Oh hey! We get the lore for Caduceus’s backstory! And I know from a highlight reel on youtube that this is the first aspect of Travis just completely missing the ‘Stone’ tie in XD My only singular problem with this lore is that Dust doesn’t feel like a last name. Clay? Yes. Stone? Yes. Dust??? ...don’t feel like it. Looking at a surname website (just a random one, I’m not spending time actually researching this), Dust as a last name in the US – just over 1,300. Clay? Almost 62,000. Stone – just over 203,000. So….that explains it, at least. ….*looks up my own last name* HA it doesn’t even show up, just offers variations.

Jester and Nott panic is the most common, but Jester and Beau panic is the most entertaining. Though I will make my minor Taliesin complaint here, Laura and Marisha specified that they were going up separately AND they were talking in whispers, and then Caduceus was just there for the conversation. Here, it’s played very humorously and works well. But Taliesin does this repeatedly (and I’m pretty sure unintentionally), I remember getting VERY pissed off at one point in C1 where Percy is interrupting a conversation between Vex and Vax when they’re on a completely different floor of a house. Each player has their own little things I nitpick, and unfortunately this is one of Taliesin’s that I’m not particularly fond of.

LOL Caleb/Liam trying to have a little scene with The Boys and everyone giving him shit. XDDD

DAIRON!!!! Cannot wait for 71! Though by the name I thought that was when they went to ……. OH I’m thinking of Family Shatters. That’s not until 96!!! Okay that makes way more sense.

Also, is this the episode where Travis dips his hand into his drink cup instead of his snack cup by mistake? I didn’t see him do it, but I also wasn’t checking heavily. *looks at youtube comments* Yes, it is! *watches it like three times in a row* odd, I remembered Matt seeing it, but it looks like he’s laughing at bottom table, not top table.

[zumpietoo]

I love how bitter this is already making all of you little psychos (well all 3 of you!). And how none of you are able to make any sort of sense or, really, even compose a single, coherent declarative sentence.....I shall consult my English to Sputtering Troll Rage dictionary, now:

First sentence, buzzword that is non-applicable, as a pseudo diagnosis made by a child ignoramous (check!)

Ummm....what am I or myself supposed to be “accountable” for, exactly? That IS an ironic choice, tho, since the entire point of Cole’s subscriber thingie is to hold you cowards accountable, for a change....

What did I (or Cole) deflect or deny?

Where are either of us “gaslighting or manipulating”? If anything, that DOES apply to PP’s “poetry” and OFC, y’all on a daily basis. IDGAF who does or doesn’t agree with me, so why TF would I seek to do any of this? Moar like that’s you guys, with your lies and stated goals....

How have we been “proven otherwise” (i.e. guilty), you’d need to explain what exactly either of us have done that’s remotely wrong, first, dude....

Not that I need explain myself, but the above shit was shared with me in DMs....however, again, I’m free to criticize published opinions I disagree with. It’s known as “free speech”. Plus if I’m “talking to the void”, WTF does it matter then? Why bother to seek to censor something that, per you, nobody pays any attention to, anyway?

As for “cowardess and hiding”.....whelp, behold the hypocrisy, a lot of these are in-app blogs and you’re the one on anon....I’m doing neither. So, cuntwipe, put your $$$ where your mouth is, come out and admit this shit....

Oh right, THAT’S the express reason why Cole’s subscription has you so enraged....

[apex-academy]

Chapter 6: The Decay of Our Lives (#7a)

Ichiriki is much less agreeable now, but at least his emotion-of-the-day special is more fitting. I’m tired enough without having to reconcile childish wonder and joy with only six of us still breathing.

“What do you want NOW, you imbecile?!”

...I’m not sure this is better, actually.

“If I talk to you, are you just going to scream at me the whole time?”

“You call THIS screaming? Like I’m some HACK who enunciates everything EQUALLY with NO sense of emphasis?”

“...What.”

“CLEARLY you don’t understand the finer points of COMMUNICATION.”

Your kind of communication? Not wrong.

I spend some time with Ichiriki so he can discuss these finer points. None of it seems coherent to me, but then again I’m barely present. If I only pick up the words he EMPHASIZES, that’s missing quite a bit of the argument. Good thing I wasn’t remotely invested, anyway.

“Would you consider yourself to be a smart person?”

“CERTAINLY smarter than you JOKERS here.”

“Okay, relatively, you may have a point.” Though I wouldn’t say all of us. “How about absolutely?”

“Oh, you know about ABSOLUTES, do you? INTELLECT and TRUTH and MORALITY and EVERYTHING just has ONE answer, does it?!”

Oh boy. Found a can of worms, did I? “You sure sound like you have opinions on the subject. Subjects?”

“It might as WELL be one subject—it’s ALL THE SAME. And that’s EXACTLY what’s so IRRITATING!”

I’m sure I’ll regret asking, but here we are anyway. “How so?”

“EVERYONE. Even the most idiotic IMBECILES think they have it ALL figured out.”

“But they can’t POSSIBLY!”

“Because you don’t have it all figured out?”

“EXACTLY!”

Oh. “Was not expecting you to admit that.”

“What? That I don’t have an ANSWER for something that HAS no answer?”

“HERE, let me be like EVERYONE ELSE and just decide, COMPLETELY arbitrarily, what’s good and bad and beautiful and ugly and right and left, and make SURE you have to believe it too!”

“Is this a grudge against the world in general, or your parents, or...”

“WHAT do you think ‘EVERYONE’ means?!”

“Fair.”

“Sounds like you get a lot of opinions forced on you, I guess? Does that come with being a famous artist?”

“It comes with EXISTING, as far as I can tell.”

“Everyone on your CASE, because THEIR rules have to be YOUR rules.”

“Do you not like rules in general, or just arbitrary ones?”

“They’re ALL arbitrary, you absolute BUFFOON! Have you even been LISTENING?”

“Be real hard not to.” Unless you actually manage to scream my eardrums out. Aidan still hasn’t, so your odds seem pretty slim.

“I’m SICK of you people acting like things are supposed to have an ANSWER! There ISN’T one! So just live your PATHETIC little rulesy lives and leave me OUT of it!”

“I don’t try to tell YOU all the things you’re supposed to be APPALLED by!”

“And what exactly appalls you?”

“Oh, so now you can’t even REMEMBER? What a NEANDERTHAL!”

“Probably wiped a lot of my interactions with you from my memory out of self-preservation. Sorry I guess.”

“UGH! I’d say it’s things like THAT that are so disgusting, but you don’t even DESERVE such a strong emotion. You know the only thing that’s REALLY appalling?”

“...”

“Death. The end. The only thing that can ensure you will never, never, be able to keep changing.”

“ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“GOOD! Don’t bother!”

Now I want to go ahead just to spite you. Whatever.

Death, huh? Hard to believe someone who feels so strongly about it—to the exclusion of everything else, even—would have any hand in making a killing game. But is he telling the truth? Is there any way to know with him?

I’ll never come close to understanding him. But I may have gotten closer today.

I’d like to hope so, at least.

[BACK]

[elisaenglish]

For All This Dark, Prey Tell

                                   “Many a spear Dawn-cold to the touch will be taken down And waved on high; the swept harp Won’t waken warriors, but the raven winging Darkly over the doomed will have news, Tidings of the eagle of how he hoked and ate, How the wolf and he made short work of the dead.”

-Unknown, Beowulf-

According to legend, there’s a wild elegy that rocks itself to sleep in a remote corner of the archaic world. It sobs, searches, searches, searches for solace in all the wrong places—the clean lines of moral delineation, of tropes and strains and archetypes, the consummate delusion that eats itself for sport. But of course, this loss of perspectival balance is no surprise if we consider the dire consequence of leaning into fictive mindsets in the absence of either awareness of self or the narrative processes that underpin the vast majority of human ideas.

You’ve see one monster, you’ve seen them all? You’ve dabbled a little bit in the meta-literary pool? You think you know what you don’t?

Interesting... and common... and tragic... and all the heartbreaking grief of a backslide untethered from reason. Suspend your disbelief, by all means; but watch your biases before casting the imagined as real. And that’s not to say that most forces of violence aren’t colossal in comparison to us as individuals nor does it dismiss our capacity as a species for genuine evil. It does, however, steer our judgement towards the fraught immediacy of suffering in our intimate lives, in people just like you and I, in scenarios found in mirrors and discomfort, in daily horrors and where we lie in relation to them.

Not romantic. Not heroic, even. Because life’s not a fucking fairytale, or an orgiastic myth to light up those synapses. And I’ll admit that it’s a psychological necessity to catharsis the shit out of the worst of it; story’s a great healer in that sense. But flooding the brain with dopamine and riding a puritan high? Not so meaningful—and absolutely designed to absolve a weak stance of accountability.

Because you know what? We’re in it, we own it. There’s a level of responsibility that extends beyond the tiny air-pockets we inhabit. I accept that, even as I vent this overwhelming rage that emerges nonetheless in coherent steps. As for the violence I do to myself? I grind my teeth and dream of other people’s trauma, of which there is a lot, and I don’t always know whether the love makes a difference anymore.

Maybe the enduring thing is that I just keep going. It doesn’t matter that this is why no one will ever love me—and it doesn’t, I suppose. Solitary girl fulfils her hermitic dreams? It’s not the worst arc, and sometimes I do want to go live in the woods with the animals. And yet...

It’s not like I’m predisposed to giving up. Oh, and what’s that? It’s not a fucking fairytale? No, it fucking isn’t.

And what am I doing really? Talking myself back to the headspace I need. Theoretically, this was going to be a “startling” analysis of old English poetry—don’t worry Beowulf, you’ll have your day. Instead, I think the catharsis is me, a little raw admission, room to exorcise some doubt, all the stuff of nightmares. Not that I sleep very well these days, although that’s another story entirely. And no, it isn’t folklore.

So the real, the concrete bliss of all this vulnerability, what is your sum? My fears? My absolute destruction? And you think I speak in hyperbole. Meanwhile the woman I was is now just a ghost, and I wonder if you know. I mean, really know that I hold all this crisis inside me. Crisis that isn’t even mine but as conduit, I bear.

According to research, it takes four generations of peace for a whole population to recover from war. I think about that, again a lot. Do we call that a hundred years hence? A hundred years back? Do we call it not of our time? Or not of any time in history’s name? What of all these monsters? The insufferable vanity, the insufferable ignorance, the insufferable vapidity.

The pain. The noise. The utter fucking shambles of too many minds.

Then somewhere from that screaming mess, there is love. Love that is mine—and I hope, better than we were.

[assassinationtipsforladies]

Watching the new doctor strange and goddamn but Marvel does not have any respect for its fans. You know the movie makes absolutely zero fucking sense and they don't feel the need to explain the magic system to any degree that would allow you to follow the action or know when and if any character is doing well or badly, and they completely curb stomp Wanda's character arc in the actually good WandaVision, but looky! It's Haley Atwell as Captain America and she said the line! She said I can do this all day! You stupid bitches love that shit! We don't need to have a coherant plot or make the main character even remotely interesting. Look it's Professor X!