#edit edit edit yknow what they have been combined. whatever

[bonetrousledbones]

legitimately the only explanation i have for the process of this is that i listened to lights out by mindless self indulgence once and blacked out for an hour

[scalproie]

whatever. tekken hadesgame AU

or as I like to call it: "what if Kaz raised Jin: God Edition lmao"

so. to lay the groundwork:

They're all gods/powerful immortal beings of an unspecified pantheon (but still loosely inspired by a pretty famous one I'm sure you'll recognize)

Big Bad Thundergod King Heihachi (whom I am now realizing shares quite a lot of similarities with good ol' Zeus), after getting bored and worried he's raising a weakling unfit to be his heir, still threw his little son down a cliff, except this one was from the highest heavens to the deepest hells, to make sure that if the little godling died, well, the death would actually stick. Which it did.

UNTIL another deity who's the personification of the devil gene (and who kinda look like Kazumi-but-it's-unsure-wether-or-not-it's-actually-Kazumi) took pity on him and revived him by giving him part of itself/hell aka the devil gene. So now Kazuya is "alive" and immortal again, but he's now bound to hell, aka he can't live away from it for very long. And yknow what they say, if you're stuck somewhere, might as well become it's ruler. Especially if you've gained the favors of the entity that embodies the place and that you've found a new life goal in making daddy dearest's life unbearable.

Anyway eons passed and Kaz's brothers (his adopted one Lee whom ascended to godhood on one of Heihachi's whims as a way to counter his annoying firstborn's meddling, and his heroic half-brother Lars) reached out to him one day to propose an alliance to take their tyrannical father down. Kaz only agreed on the condition that he get to expand his domain once Heihachi is out: if he cant leave hell, no worries, he'll just make hell bigger. Anyway Heihachi's children rebelled against him and with their might combined they managed to take him down, with Kaz even having the honor and pleasure to deliver the killing blow.

For the aftermath tho, when it was time for Kaz to begin his conquest, his brothers came back on their word to let him, bc Lars Actually Gives A Damn About Mortals and he knew full well that Kazuya wouldve had exactly the same rule as Heihachi if they let him, so they didnt (and Lee is more neutral on his views toward mortals but he gets along with Lars FAR better than he ever got along with Kaz so the choice on who to back up was easy). And even though Kaz 100% wouldve been as bad as Heihachi is he was allowed to rule over mortals as Lars thought he would be, and Kaz KNOWS it, that doesnt mean hes not gonna be mad that his brothers didnt keep their words to let him be evil in peace.

Well if he cant have what he wants the fair way, might as well try to take it by force. And thus Kaz resumes his battles against his brothers with his attempts at invasion of the mortal realm.

This goes on for awhile with things going great for Kaz as he is the stronger sibling out of all of them, until his aggression puts him on the path of one Jun, who counters him in a most efficient, masterful and complete manner. Basically he was doing too well at bringing evil onto the world and she had come to balance him out.

In a most unforeseen turn of events, as they get acquainted over the course of their different confrontations, they discover that they respect and admire each other's strength and actually get along pretty well, even enjoy each other's company.

Anyway being around Jun makes Kaz chill out MASSIVELY and soon enough you'll notice the amount of invasions from hell have greatly diminished.

Eventually they get in an actual relationship, with Kazuya even wanting her to become the queen of his domain. And Jun is not opposed to this proposal, quite the opposite in fact. But complications start to arise when Jun began moving in hell: she is everything it's not and vice-versa, and the environment itself even seems harmful for her the longer she stays. Even the devil-Kazumi-entity, for all that it's/she's fond of Jun as a person, cannot meet her physically for she would eradicate it/her should they come into contact.

Jun bears it as long as she can bc Kazuya Literally Cannot Leave Hell and she wants to be with him as much as he wants to be with her, and Kaz promises her that he's working on finding a solution (and by "working on it" I mean Kaz is threatening the dead soul of a demi-god known as Gepetto Bosconovitch, reknown for giving life to things that didnt have any, into fixing this).

Eventually Jun reaches her breaking point when their son dies a stillborn because he bears her blood and he is much weaker than she is, bc he's a baby. This is the last rejection of this place that Jun can take before it potentially kills her, esp since that last event took such a toll on her, and even tho she loves Kaz as much as he loves her, she has to leave and WANTS to leave. Kaz, in a rare moment of compassion, let her go and spares telling her the news that, ironically, Bosconovitch JUST finished his work and managed to make a garden, indentical to the ones she would have on the surface, grow in the deepest level of hell where she could thrive.

So Jun is gone and Kaz is miserable, so much so that he doesnt even have the mind nor heart for conquest anymore. The only thing left of her being the corpse of his child that he decides to bury in the unused garden.

But just as the tiny body touches the soil, he begin to scream as he takes his first breath and the initial shock then WAVE OF RELIEF Kazuya feels as his son is alive surprises even himself bc he didnt even want the damn baby in the first place. This is probably the most outwardly loving Kaz will be with his son as he's holding his tiny body while being hit with a fucking storm of emotions but hey we take those.

"This is great! Their son is alive and the garden works! Now Kazuya only need to reach Jun and they can-" Except Kaz Will Not bc he does NOT want to reach Jun. Not bc he doesnt love her anymore but 1) bc he now knows the pain of losing her and bringing her back into his life means getting the risk of getting hurt again and he neither wants to feel that pain ever again nor even knowing he has that "weakness" in the first place so he'd rather cut her off from his life, he'd rather deal with loneliness than heartache, and 2) even he realized that what his domain is, what he is, brought Jun pain, and some part of him does NOT like to see Jun in pain.

"Well if he doesnt want Jun back into his life, why doesnt he send her their son?" This is objectively the best course of action. But Kaz is Not A Good Person. He's selfish. And again. Their son is the last thing he has left of her, and goddammit if he doesnt have her eyes, her nose, her face.

So Kaz is now stuck with this lame baby and only partially vibe with it. Problem is, that baby cannot live in this tiny garden for the entirety of his immortal life. Thankfully the devil-Kazumi-entity offers Kaz a solution: the baby not only carries Jun's blood but also Kazuya's, and that makes him able to be a receptacle for the devil gene, binding him to hell as well, yes, but keeping him alive in there.

So now Kazuya is raising his son whom he named Jin based on one (1) short conversation he once had with Jun but didnt forget. He is also personally training him in the art of combat, bc sadly Kaz does take a bit after his father, and he would not have the prince of hell be a weakling.

OKAY BACKSTORY ESTABLISHED FINALLY now onto the main course:

So Jin grew up and similarly as in the game, he eventually learn that his family is not just him and his dad but he also have a mom somewhere, and he wants to find her. Bc one day he steps into the famous garden that Kaz had closed off after That Day and Jin figured that his asshole dad would NOT have such a pretty garden made without reasons so after a few researchs behind Kaz's back he eventually found out the truth.

Long story short, Jin wants to leave hell, Kaz doesnt want him to, and they antagonize each other constantly.

Jin eventually comes into contact with both his extanded family and multiple allies who wants to help him leave (without anyone knowing yet that just like Kaz, Jin cannot live outside of hell for long. tho Jin can survive longer than Kaz thanks for his mom's blood)

The people from outside helping him are:

Lars: his heroic half-uncle, OF COURSE Lars was going to help him.

Lee: his adopted uncle, he does like Jin but mostly he helps him out so Jin can run a few crash tests for him on Kaz's minions, AND he gets to piss off Kaz in the same move? Excellent.

Alisa: an ascended goddess who relate to Jin due to their origin, she as well was "dead at birth" until her father found a way to bring her back (in a way) tho he was cast to hell for it.

Leroy: the grandfather-figure Jin wishes he always had.

Asuka: she insists to him they're related and that once he makes it outta hell, she'll teach him about their side of the family.

there'll be more down the line but I need to workshop this...

Anyway Jin has two goal: 1) escape dad's hell, and 2) find mom. whom he will discover has straight up disappeared from everyone ever since she left hell herself.

So Jin starts from the bottom of hell and has to climb to the top where the entrance lies, in the mouth of a volcano. Wink wink fucking nudge nudge

When he falls he ends up back in his father's home where he can meet a bunch of friendly dead souls:

Lucky Chloe: usually the first person he sees after falling down, she's kind of the court jester, she was spared damnation bc Kaz thinks her annoying people is really funny as long as its not him, thats where the "Lucky" come from.

Azucena: she provides delicacies from the surface to hell (for a price), Jin can find her as he's running up to the surface and she'll happily sell him things to help.

Jane: she provides Jin with some sort of "bestiary" and she actually does not mind that he keeps beating Kaz's minions (the JACKs among others, tho they are her favorites) bc she get to improve them thanks to the data gathered afterward.

Bruce: Kaz's chief of security. When Jin didnt trained with Kaz, he often sparred with Bruce. Bruce will let Jin try his different styles against him before climbing back up hell again. He's fond of the kid :)

"Kazumi": Jin can never get quite a good read on her/it, but she's/it's always kind to him.

and others that I will also figure out...

But that's not all the people Jin meets, as he's ascending, he also encounters a bunch of people, tho not all are friendly.

Nina and Anna: contracted by Kazuya to stop Jin. Tho they spend more time fighting each other...

A reptilian monstrocity by the name of Alex.

Some strange crystals take him to a bizarre location where he can meet Azazel, who present himself as the progenitor of the devil-Kazumi-entity, making him technically Jin's great-grandpa. Via him, Jin can fight Devil Jin and gain more access to his style (more on that later)

Xiaoyu: a phoenix Jin befriended, the only reason she's in hell is only bc she can cheat death. She is not bound to hell, so she technically can come back to life if she manages to escape, until she dies again on the surface. They often run into each other and have a friendly competition to see who can defeat the most of Kaz's minions, if she loses, Xiaoyu will leave Jin with one of her feathers, that increases his health. Jin can also meet her sometimes back at the house. It's rumored that she spend more time in hell recently to hang out with the hellish prince🧡

Hwoarang: another dead soul of a great warrior contracted to stop Jin, but he couldnt care less about what Kaz wants. He wants to defeat Jin, so he will hunt him down everytime he hears that Jin is trying to escape again. Over time he and Jin have come to enjoy their rivalry. Jin can also meet him sometimes at the house🧡

And more yknow the drill...

And of course, once Jin finally manages to come to hell's entrance, who waits for him there but Kazuya. The two have a nice little father and son fight to the death between immortals where they can work out their problems in an healthy manner: with extreme violence, and the winner get to throw the other down the volcano cliff aaall the way to the bottom (bc sometimes the best way to work out trauma is thru exposure therapy. wink)

Jin starts by only knowing his father's style, but after finally finding his mother, and after the initial story-related reunion (and the tragic realization that just like his dad, Jin cannot stay out of hell for long), they bond with Jun teaching him her style. And Jin can work his way to the top again using her style to learn more about it. When dueling Kaz with it, he's preeetty conflicted like: My traitorous son is using another style than ours👿 -> omg that's Jun's moves... 🥺 -> HE'S NOT EVEN USING THEM RIGHT👿👿👿

And basically, Jin has multiple styles: his dad's, his own, eventually his mom's, and devil style. He gets to pick the one he's going to stick with at the start of every ascend.

Anyway this is the story of a child of divorce trying to reunite his parents who are both extremely stubborn and extremely still in love with each other, bc if Jin has to live another day with just his father he's going to LOSE IT.

[justyoursicanon]

I'm Just A Call Away

Summary: Scout decides to catch up with one of his older brothers, talking about home and work. And maybe even one of Scout's coworkers getting to know him more.

(No warnings besides a few swears here and there, just Scout talkin to his family)

(Edit! Want a continuation of what Scout and Sniper do next? Check out No need to call, when your already home! +includes sniperscout!)

You may start reading! ^^

Scout let out dragged breaths as he leaned on his locker, another successful battle, beating the BLUE's ass and all that. Just the usual as Scout would say. He quickly removes his cap and headphones, letting his fingers brush through his messy dirty blond hair, and throwing them in his locker before grabbing a spare shirt and running out, letting the doors swing and close. The other men glance at each other in confusion. "Why is little Scout in hurry?" Heavy asked as he kept his dear Sasha, everyone shrugged while Spy just rolled his eyes, changing his cigarette before cloaking away from everyone.

~~

Messily and quickly putting on his shirt, Scout ran to the empty phone booth while digging into his pocket for something, finally his fingers brushed against a piece of paper. Pulling it out, he again quickly as ever unfolds it an reads the numbers. A few more moments and he grabs the phone and pushes in the number combination. Tapping his foot impatiently as he lays his arm on the box and lets his forehead rest on his arm. Finally, someone picked up.

Scout very much expected his Ma to pick up but he'd say the voice on the other side was way better.

"Hello?"

Scout was taken back by this, the voice was a man, rough with tiredness like he hadn't slept for days. He caught the Boston accent and he finally recognized him. "Jack?" Scout asked. The other voice didn't reply for a beat, rustles of papers and maybe even pens can be heard on the other line. "Holy shit Jer? Jeremy is that you?" The tired voice suddenly turned a bit higher and maybe even brighter. Scout smiled recognizing his 2nd eldest brother. "Jackson dude! How ya been bro? How's the writing and all that?" Scout asked. He could hear his brother chuckle slightly while another something can be placed on a rough surface, probably his glasses.

"Yea the writing process has been good actually- Just checking a few copies here and there, doing autographs and all that shit." Scout chuckled. "Damn you doing autographs now? Didn't know ya got that famous while I was gone!" He heard his brother chuckle at the other end, then hearing a quiet sigh. "Honestly never thought it would be a success, first it was just.. Writing silly little comics with you and the other shits and now am here.." Scout shrugged, "Pretty unbelievable if ya ask me, but hey! Least it worked out right?" Another chuckle from his brother and Scout could tell Jack was grinning. "Course it worked out, am over here working my ass off!" "Alright alright no need to yell over there Jackass!" They both yelled, and ended up laughing.

"Awh anyways how's the family there? Ma doing okay? The other dumbasses doing alright too?" "Yea everyone's doing alright, Ma's having the time of her life relaxing after 6 months of working her ass off after ya gave us a shit load of money- Actually hey how did you get that much cash? What are you even working for anyways?"

Scout froze at that question, he always hoped no one would ask the obvious but of course it wouldn't always go that way. Scout swallowed hard and brushed his hair through his fingers. "U-uh yknow just some serious construction work and all that bullcrap. Nothing special." "Uh huh. Nothing special that you ended up giving us 10, 000 bucks?" Jack's voice slipped with sarcasm and disbelief, While Scout just scoffed and tried to keep his facade on. "Oh come on Jack, is it really hard to believe am just that good at ma job?" "Yes." Jack replied quickly and let a giggle slip. "Well whatever you say Jer, just make sure to come home once the holidays comes alright?" "Yea yea I get it dad." Scout could tell Jack rolled his eyes. He glanced at the sun, watching it slowly come down, dinner was gonna start soon so might as well wrap this up. "How's your latest novel doing Jack? Good enough for da public?" Jack only let out an 'eh' while Scout heard a bit of writing in the background. "I'd say it's great, kinda proud of it. But the problem is the cover." Scout raised an eyebrow. "Whaddya mean?" "Wasn't able to get a cover artist and am kinda on a dead end. And since you called I was gonna.. Well ask if you could do it." Scout felt the hair on the back of his neck stand.

"You.. You want me to do your cover art?" "If it's not too much of a problem then yea, I've seen ya artwork Jer and it's pretty damn good if I say so myself." Scout paused for a moment, letting his fingers drum on the phone box. "Ya sure dude?" "Oh my God- Yes Jeremy am sure! Your one of the best artist in this damn family of course I am sure!" Jack almost yelled and Scout chuckled. "Alright alright shut it Jackass I'll do it! When ya sending ya first copies?" "Possibly next year on March so ya better have ya ass here on the holidays so we can work on it!" Scout paused again, before sighing and letting a smile crawl on his lips. "Yea.. I'll do ya damn cover art for ya." "Thank God, thought I had to drive all the way there to ya job and make ya." Jack joked. Scout laughed again and his eyes caught the sun fully down. He fidgets a bit with his grip tape before he hears Jack sigh as well. "Looks like it's dinner time, go get your ass back to your work and eat. Call again tomorrow alright Jer?" Scout's smile got brighter. "Yea yea you got it Jackass." Scout could hear Jack snort. "Night Jer." "Night Jack." And the line dropped. Scout put the phone back and leaned on the phone box, his smile not ever leaving his lips. God he missed home-

"So, who's Jack?" "GAH!" Scout jumped up and turned to his 'karate pose' ready to punch whoever was there. To his relief, it was just Sniper. A cigarette between his lips as he stood a few feet away from Scout. "Jeez man warn a guy next time." Scout grumbled while Sniper quietly chuckled. "Sorry roo, didn't mean to scare ya." Grabbing the cig between his fingers, he drops it on the sand and crushing it with his boot. "So, who's Jack?" "Huh?- O-oh right yea uh Jack's one of my brothers back at Boston, really good writer if ya ask me." Sniper silently nodded as he looked away and to the distance. "You doing his cover art?" Scout froze. "How much did ya hear dude?" Sniper shrugged. "From ya talking about you 'construction work' till now." Scout flushed a bit. "Y-yea just doing my bro a favor yknow?" "So ya do art?" Scout paused again, feeling panic rise slightly. "U-uh... Yea.." He muttered. They both fell silent, the cold air touching their hair and skin.

"That's nice, never thought of you for the drawing type." "O-oh yknow me Snipes! Am just full of surprises." Scout grinned as he put his hands on his hips. Sniper seemed to smile a bit at Scout's usual ego showing again. "Oh right, dinner's almost ready. Engineer told me to pick ya bloody ass up." Scout brightened at the mention of dinner. "Well what are we waiting for Legs? Let's get going!" Scout jumped slightly and ran ahead from the marksman. Sniper smiled again, and followed the runner.

The End ^^

[princeanxious]

basically, i think that the team is incredibly overcommitted and there just... literally is not enough time in the day (or week, month, year, whatever) to do everything. because thomas is trying to make full, 45-minute films, with himself as the only actor, playing seven different parts, and then edit that (pretty much all on his own, if im interpreting things correctly). (1/5)

(Sorry for the weird way ive combined this I'm on mobile lol)

But yeah, I agree?? Its just like. If you want to make bigger and better productions, be transparent about whats going on.

It feels like theyre holding tight onto Sanders Sides bc it was a success, and branching to other things hasnt nearly been as much, perhaps?? And so maybe they feel like this is the only thing worth spending that excess ambition on when its the most successful, but in the process its sticking the team between a rock and a hard place

There really Isn't enough time either. Have yall like, noticed Thomas?? When its out of character and not part of any bit, when hes not wearing makeup and just talking to the audience?

He looks. Exhausted. He's had noticeable bags under his eyes and he doesn't look well rested, he looks like he's been stressed for weeks, if not months.

Like. He looks like hes driving himself into the ground because he wants to do bigger and better with these constraints and its just like.

Idk. I'm not trying to paint him in any biased light bc this is something that the fandom has been experiencing but it just. Feels like everyones suffering on all ends for a grand production season finale that only Thomas seems to ask for.

If Thomas started a whole new series to focus on and just kept Sanders Sides to short silly interaction bits that taught little things about how parts of yourself interact instead of grand arc after grand dramatic arc with a build up that seems full of frayed semi-disjointed plot points, I feel like everyone would be happier maybe??

Idk tho, I'm not part of the process and i havent partaken in the patreon addition due to my own medical bills and what not, so i obviously dont have the full scoop??

I'm just. Idk. It feels like every actual episode update is 40-50 minutes of emotional whiplash after a 6 months to a years wait and rarely leaves the loose ends from the last update tied up, yknow??

Kinda makes me scared for what this grand finale has in store, what with Logan being ignored, Roman losing respect in everyone but Virgil, Janus and Patton working together yet seemingly distanced from the others, Virgil's confession of 'because i was one of them' only to be met with a serious lack of Virgil after?? and that final character reveal? Like. Is the season finale gonna be a two parter? I kinda hope so.. Idk tho.

[bigskydreaming]

So there’s a story in the 1999 Titans run where Dick and Kory argue after Kory kills a woman who was comatose, near death, and being ‘harvested’ of her blood for usage in some immortality ritual by Vandal Savage. Big yikes on that particular supervillain plot, but point is, that story is pointed to a lot to show that Dick and Kory have very different values and this is part of why they don’t work ultimately. With Dick judging Kory for having killed her even though Kory did it to end her suffering and because she couldn’t help but relate to when she’d been in a similar position in her youth and just wanted her suffering to end.

I’ve never been totally satisfied with that take because as I’ve pointed out in other posts about Dick and Jason, as well as the many times across continuities that Dick has worked with everyone from Tiger to Midnighter to New 52 Helena (oh he absolutely judged the hell out of pre-flashpoint Helena but I wanna say that was Simone and she tended to write a fairly judgy Dick in general, not my fave writer for him, could be wrong on this one though) to Deathstroke at times to Rose to yknow, DAMIAN - with him being judgment free in some cases and varying degrees of judgment in others, but many of the latter having their own context aside from just Dick being judgy - well IMO, Dick doesn’t really have a habit overall of judging the many many shades-of-gray people he comes into contact with or allies with, for disagreeing with their choices or values. Like, he’s not shy about expressing that he doesn’t agree with them, but he’s never really been shown as unable to understand where they’re coming from, y’know?

All of which leads me to have a fairly different read on that particular story and what else could have been at the root of that conflict between them. But first! A massive edited in detour that I do consider fairly relevant:

(Edited to add: this view of Dick as not particularly judgmental even when he disagrees is of course an oversimplification of decades worth of canon, much of it written during times there were very different standards of ‘acceptable/expected’ behavior from various character types and protagonists. I do have a tendency to over-romanticize the original NTT run in some respects, due to nostalgia and relative to other depictions of Dick, so it has to be noted that more recent rereads of NTT have me more keenly aware of Dick’s condescension and patronizing responses to Kory in a lot of her early adjustments to Earth. One of these elements being her aggressiveness in battle and more hardline view of what to do with their enemies, compared to what Dick considered the more expected or acceptable societal standard.

So it’s not like this conflict between them in this story arises out of nowhere and doesn’t have canon precedent in earlier interactions. I tend to ‘excuse’ or at least explain Dick’s early NTT dynamic with Kory in a way that doesn’t overly paint my view of his character by a combination of factors: first, there’s the existence of a long term brainwashing plot that was specifically about driving a wedge between Dick and his teammates and into the Church of Blood’s clutches. And this sort of thing absolutely makes sense as the sort of tendencies mind control would amplify in him. While a lot of people don’t like using the brainwashing to let him off the hook for this behavior or whatever, I get that but also I’m like…well it is there, it exists, so whatever their reasons for including it it’s not like it doesn’t explain a lot of Dick’s behavior in ways I’m a lot more okay with. Like, if you’ve got it, might as well use it, y’know?

Plus the recurring theme of Dick’s lack of agency and trouble figuring out where he begins and the influences others have had on him end…these are keys parts of what draw me to his character, so leaning into the brainwashing as much as I do isn’t so much about apologism as it is fundamental to my interest in his character in the first place. Or I mean okay admittedly it can be both, lmao.

Finally, then there’s the fact that Dick can only embody the attitudes and behaviors his writers instill in him and quite frankly I don’t think Wolfman saw anything wrong with the attitudes he gave Dick. I think he honestly thought he WAS characterizing him in good ways. Though I absolutely disagree with his assessment of what constitutes good characterization or dynamics, especially on a reread, I do at the same time believe that the degree of patronizing behavior and what it says about a character was indicative of how writers like him MEANT Dick to be seen but rather just indicative of what they themselves considered to be acceptable behavior and dynamics. 

So while it’s not ALWAYS possible to reconcile how past writers wrote a character with behavior that conflicts with how we’re ‘meant’ to view a character, when that behavior is scrutinized more critically….in this case I think the brainwashing plot makes it very possible to…course correct for Dick’s characterization from that era without changing events, just being particular in how we ascribe certain depictions to his ‘usual’ characterization versus a product of the brainwashing’s intent to sow chaos in his relationships.

Again, I think it all comes back to what I’m always saying about how fanfic and such is MEANT to be transformative and as such making changes to the canon and characters isn’t inherently a problem, it’s just a matter of…do you even KNOW where you’re making changes and why, and are you willing to stand by those changes and your reasons for them when they conflict with other fans’ interpretation and reception of the canon and what you make from it. In this case, I’m comfortable with the changes and interpretation I have because I don’t really even view it as trying to make excuses for a character I like but just as much about how I just think an exploration of agency and identity and how the influence long term brainwashing has on a characters actions and how people and characters perceive him because of those things is far more interesting and worthwhile than just….leaning into the character’s worse behavior from that time on a surface level and upholding it as indicative of him rather than just the values of those writing him at the time.

It’s like with Bruce and his more abusive actions, for another example. Obviously I tend to take how Bruce acts in things like NTT #55 as really him and explore the impact of those actions as is and how they inform his relationship with Dick moving forward….but that’s because this is another area I project onto Dick and so I absolutely see value in taking those stories at face value and delving into them for a number of different reasons. And also too, I’m strongly of the opinion that the ease with which so many people insist abusers fall into obvious camps of people that can be identified on sight and thus insist ‘so and so could NEVER do something like that’ is extremely counterproductive and a deterrent to so many necessary conversations about abuse.

Most people guilty of abuse have had that said about them at one point and it’s not a stretch even to see WHY before the instances of abuse many would never have believed them capable of it….because crossing the threshold into abusive behavior isn’t solely the province of irredeemable monsters unfortunately. It would almost be easier if that were true, particularly for survivors of abuse who often have to reconcile their abuse and the fact that they do believe that their abusers have at various points loved them and wanted what was best for them too.

I don’t lean into the stories about Bruce’s instances of abusive behavior because I think he’s inherently a monster or that there’s no version of events where he never turns down those roads, but simply because while it’s not to others’ tastes, accepting that Jason’s death and other similar instances could have pushed him past the threshold of behaviors he’d normally exhibit and do things he’d normally never do in a sound state of being…that this is NOT inherently the status quo of this character at those points and forever after….that’s the point of those stories for me, the value they hold as things worth exploring.

But just like me and some of Dick’s earlier dynamic with Kory, I can see where there’s valid arguments to be made that those actions by Bruce weren’t indicative of his character so much as indicative of the drama being deliberately amplified by writers who don’t even view those actions as abusive in the first place and thus weren’t writing them or Bruce through a lens that took ‘him being abusive’ into consideration at all. That’s not the scenarios they were writing, not because those scenarios weren’t abusive, but because their own perceptions of behavior didn’t categorize them as such when writing them, this an interpretation of them as abusive was NEVER something they intended readers to take away from those stories.

And like I said….I get that! And I get why other fans might lean into that awareness to avoid seeing and interpreting Bruce as abusive at all. This isn’t something I inherently have a problem with even if I don’t apply the same reasoning to this example myself….so long as the way other fans interpret or transform these bits of canon don’t make excuses for the actual behavior on the page in their quest to interpret Bruce as non abusive. Like, just don’t call a father hitting a son no big deal because the writer didn’t think it was, and we’re fine! It is a big deal regardless of what the writers thought, just like a lot of Dick’s behavior to Kory early on WAS patronizing regardless of whether they saw it that way when writing it.

And as such, I take no issue with fans who transform the canon of those stories with Bruce to something that keeps the conflict between him and Dick, AND the causality of the dynamic of the time…but changes the particulars of the actual behavior so Bruce might yell at Dick or even kick him out, but he never actually hits him. Stuff like that.

Personally, I think it goes too far if Bruce fans extend this to treating Bruce as the victim of Dick’s ungrateful refusal to come back and mend fences after Jason dies because he’s too selfish to care about how much Bruce is hurting, and thus reframes that whole period of estrangement as something Dick instigated instead of Bruce….nah. That gets pushback from me. If you transform canon to find a depiction or interpretation that keeps the things you value about a fave character and doesn’t ignore or erase the rest, but at least finds a context in which they don’t become indicative of that character or the specifics of these worse elements are wholly substituted with something softer….I get it.

If you transform canon just to completely flip flop conflicts your fave is involved with and always absolve them of responsibility or scrubbing their worse behavior WHILE making the characters they’re in conflict with somehow MORE culpable than for just their original share to compensate….that’s when you’ve lost me.

In that vein, and bringing it back to Dick and Kory….I can justify my interpretation of canon up until the point where I start pretending that Dick’s brainwashed behavior should have no impact on Kory due to his lack of full agency and thus I’m not down for stories with her engaging in conflict with him after the brainwashing plot but based solely on actions he wasn’t in full control, just to make her look bad and unreasonable and woobify Dick and victimize him at her expense. Nope.

However, stories where Dick’s behavior during the brainwashing era and how it impacted and yes, even shaped their early dynamic, like we see how those things did still impact Kory and she’s hurt or affected by them with total validity even while knowing the extenuating circumstances….and how this intertwines with Dick’s well-established guilt complex and hypersensitivity to thinking he’s to blame for stuff or people see it as his fault because the buck should always stop with him….forcing them both to contend with the fallout of circumstances that affected and left their mark on them both in different ways and relearn how to view and interact with each other all over again, at least in certain respects….

With Kory understandably cautious because she’s not sure yet and for awhile still, just how much of the things that negatively affected their dynamic WERE due to the brainwashing exacerbating conflicts or divergent opinions to distance him from his team versus which were natural to Dick and instilled by his own beliefs or childhood or echoes of Bruce’s that he’d picked up from him and failed to adequately challenge or reassess yet….and Dick literally unsure of the exact same things, trying to retroactively evaluate the actions he took and figure out where the line was between his choices and the ones he was influenced into making, how much of what he believes is him and his thoughts and his perspectives is REALLY him versus some leftover programming they failed to get out….well. Now you have my attention.

Basically, it’s the difference between looking for excuses to constantly cast Kory as giving Dick crap for specific things he said to her during that era even knowing the full context of it, versus using the same opportunities as space to explore Kory bringing those things up as stuff that bothers her or left a mark and so it’s important to know where the un-brainwashed version of him, in full control of his agency and opinions, stands on those topics and what he WOULD say with no doubt of external influence.

Similarly, people know my pet peeve with the fight between Dick and Donna during that era, and an example here would be stories or takes that hold Donna accountable for her side of the fight and how she ignored Dick’s repeated attempts to disengage BEFORE things ever escalated to the point where he lashed out at her, or just….literally not treating it as though those things he said were the whole fight and existed in a vacuum while she was out there throwing him through walls in the actual pages lol (as I said, I’m fine with not wanting to validate writers’ seeming perception that certain acts aren’t really a big deal by rewriting a scene like that fight so it DOESNT involve Donna getting physical with him even as he’s just actively trying to leave….where you lose me is keeping the events the same but just trying to spin them as no big deal yourself or paying lip service to how they were wrong but not in any way changing how acceptable or not characters in story viewed them as being).

Anyway, all of the above, again, I’m fine with, but not just reframing Donna as a bully who was doing all that devoid of context rather than just saying the context does not justify these specific parts of her behavior there. Or if you’re going to bring that up after the brainwashing plot is resolved, like I said at the beginning…the WHY of your canon transformation matters. If you write fix that air drops in another conversation or callback to this fight where canon never brought it up again, and do so in order to give Donna a chance to apologize and Dick a chance to ensure she knows where he doesn’t agree with what the brainwashed version of him said to her then or would never have ever said it that way and it’s not a true representation of what he feels or believes…yes. Good. I’m on board.

But if you just bring it back up again to further victimize Dick at Donna’s expense and have her obstinately double down or alternatively just have Dick give her crap and hype up how wrong it was while paying no deference to the extreme events and their impact on her usual mental or emotional state during that time…I’m gonna be like okay but literally did we need this. Did this make anything better. Is a ridiculously imbalanced dynamic all good as long as it tilts in our fave’s favor? No? Well okay then. Let’s just not do that.

Aaaand to bring this edited in essay to a close and get back to the original post….I don’t treat or view a lot of Dick’s early dynamic with Kory as central or even in accordance with his character as I interpret him. I do think he was MORE likely to be that judgmental about those things when he was that age because he’d yet to define his own moral flexibility to the degrees he later exhibits, but honestly I’m happy to just blame as much of that on the brainwashing as possible and explore the way things change if he’d after the fact used all that as a jumping off point to interrogate himself on his true feelings on much of that, and have this be in part what INFORMS that moral flexibility and willingness to work side by side with all kinds of people without judging them every step of the way in later stories.

And personally, I don’t think that it fits him to ever be as hardline as Bruce is about stuff like that, even when younger, because as much as Bruce influenced him, Dick was not a sponge who uncritically absorbed and regurgitated every belief Bruce voices to him, he already had a POV and a willingness to stand his ground on it by the time he even met Bruce. Frankly, I don’t think a Dick who was that derivative of Bruce’s mindset towards things would have ever become as close or vulnerable with the Titans - many of them superpowered and already holding multiple advantages over him without the advantage of holding his cards close to his chest the way Bruce would in similar company, at least for a good while before unclenching. No, IMO the same differences that account for their vastly different approaches to their teams and openness towards other ways of doing things is far more defining for Dick’s character in my eyes than the times he defaults to Batman soundbites based on what reads as the writer just hand waving oh of course that’s what a son and partner of Batman would think here.

So that’s why I jump off from that early point and don’t factor it into my interpretation of them overly much…it doesn’t IMO. I see plenty of room for them to revisit those subjects post brainwashing and for Dick to offer up a vastly more empathetic and openness to understanding Kory’s POV and different background.

But at the same time, I don’t delude myself that a basis for writers seeing that conflict between them doesn’t exist, and that this isn’t exactly why this later story happened. It didn’t come out of nowhere and treating it as if it does would be equally disingenuous when I KNOW that’s not the context of it, even if I don’t personally subscribe to the same interpretation of that leads to its actual context.

And I definitely try not to make a habit of going around and telling people that conflict just never existed, there’s zero basis for it, and thus this story and Dick’s behavior in it is wildly OOC and shouldn’t be acknowledged as ‘the real him.’

Nope. That’s be fake as fuck and destined to just create conflict or division with people who know better and have every right to their own interpretation, which is still more than valid.

But if I can’t just ignore or discredit the reasoning behind this story and specific Dick characterization just because it’s not the one I prefer….then this story and characterization have to be treated and addressed on their own merits. And unfortunately, there’s no canon brainwashing in this time period TO blame it on.

Worst case scenario, I can just consider this story’s characterization fruit of the poisoned tree, born directly from an interpretation that I disagree with and thus beyond my ability to reconcile WITH my own interpretation. In that case, I acknowledge the story exists, I respect that people factor it into their own view and interpretation of Dick’s character even if thanks, I hate it…and I just….don’t have anything to say about that story myself. It exists, I wish it didn’t, but beyond that there’s nothing more I can or want to do with that story as it just doesn’t fit into the interpretation of the characters that I’m a fan of personally and work off of when crafting my own meta, headcanons or fic.

But before I get to that point, I do take another look at the story as is to see if there’s another angle or interpretation by which I CAN fit it in with the overall perspective I have of Dick’s character. Brainwashing might not fit here like with the stories that inspired this one, and would be a cop out to introduce just because I need it in order to justify Dick’s stance here…but something completely or largely unrelated could still exist separately.

And in the case of this particular story…that’s true. And that’s the lens through which the rest of this original post is envisioned. So voila now you have the context for how where I make distinctions between characterizations I disagree with personally and how I go about reconciling them, for the most part.)

I was rereading that Titans story recently, and something hit me. All of Dick’s protests hinge around him saying that they COULD have saved her, that they don’t KNOW that there was nothing they could do to help her recover. Almost nothing he said was focused on Kory or what she did and why, it was really more focused on the woman who died and the possibilities she could have been saved or recovered from what was done to her.

And see, I think a case could be made that none of that was really about Kory or Dick’s views on killing at all.

I think it was about Joey.

Its always been my opinion that Joey’s death is waaaaaay underrated in terms of “things that haunt Dick.” It impacted him in a huge way. And IMO its not just because Joey was one of his best friends, or that his death was compounded by how many other Titans died during Titans Hunt, or the fact that all of this happened less than a year after Jason died.

Because Joey’s death happened because Joey was possessed by spirits of Azeroth for a long time without anyone knowing, and when he briefly broke free of their control when Slade and the Titans came to rescue Dick and the other Titans from where Joey was holding them captive in this other dimension, he begged his father to kill him before he could hurt anyone else, and Slade did.

There’s no way this didn’t bring back memories of what happened with Brother Blood for Dick. On some level, he has to have resented his friends and teammates for not realizing he wasn’t himself all that time, even if just a little bit......but then how could this not make him feel like a hypocrite for that? Because here he’d done the same thing in failing to realize Joey wasn’t himself and getting him help before it was too late. There was bound to be some measure of identification/projection happening for Dick there, where he correlated what happened to him and what happened to Joey, imagined what if things had gone for him the way they ended up going for Joey and he begged to be killed to escape the Church of Blood’s control.....but with the reverse also holding true: with Dick imagining that if he could be freed from the Church’s control, they could find a way to break Joey free of the spirits’ too.

And the whole time Joey held Dick captive, he was trying to do just that. Dick was his prisoner for awhile, with the beings controlling Joey mocking Dick and gloating over their plans for the rest of the Titans, with the superpowered members of the Titans who were also held captive being kept in comas, preparing them to be turned into vessels for the spirits. So it was basically just Dick and the spirits puppetmastering Joey, alone together there for that whole time until Slade and the others got there. And the whole time, Dick was trying to get through to Joey and figure out a way to break their control of him.

Thing was.....he DID, even if just slightly. It wasn’t for long, but it was enough for Joey to surface during the rescue attempt, and for him to beg Slade to kill him.

And this IMO, is the ultimate root of what Dick hates Slade for, on top of the events of Judas Contract and everything with Tara. He blames Slade for killing Joey rather than try and save him, break him free of external control. Whether Slade was right to abide by Joey’s wishes and end his suffering and forestall the possibility that he might be used to hurt more people or not, Dick hates him for being the reason he never got to TRY to save Joey.....with this all being compounded by:

a) Dick likely blaming himself too for letting it come to that and not having figured out a way to save Joey before Slade got there, b) Dick being unable to not project on this to a degree and with conflicting thoughts about being able to relate to wanting to be killed rather than be used to hurt people vs being glad that he wasn’t killed and a way was found to save him and break him free instead, and c) the actual trauma of watching Slade kill his son, Dick’s friend, right in front of Dick while he was powerless to do anything to stop him, after being tortured and taunted with his powerlessness by beings with the face of his friend and his friend’s intimate knowledge of all Dick’s failings and insecurities and fears as confided in Joey by him over the years.

In short, Joey’s death was a complicated, very fucked up mess of events, feelings and fallout, and it left definite scars on Dick which have no doubt contributed to his choices and behavior ever since.....including, IMO, that later story with the fight between Dick and Kory about whether she was right to end that woman’s suffering out of sympathy or whether Dick was right that she still could have been saved and might have wanted to be. With both of them actually able to relate to wanting to end it all rather than be used by others and able to relate to being glad that things didn’t end for them there and they went on to be freed and recover later. That argument never actually got any resolution or was referenced again, but to be honest I don’t think there really was any resolution to be had there because it was never about STANCES there really, but rather was impossible to fully separate from both Kory and Dick’s personal experiences and feelings on a matter they both were projecting onto just from different angles and perspectives.

And of course, the other reason I think this, for Dick, was about Joey and the feelings about his death that this parallel situation brought up for him?

The woman who Kory killed to end her suffering and that Dick was distraught they couldn’t save?

Was Adeline Kane.

Joey’s mother.

[thehuntyhunties]

I tried throwing out a few ghost hunter webseries au thoughts before movie night with my friends got started and then like usual it turned into a saga ayyyyyyyy so basically:

i’ve decided not to think too hard about the logistics of this au because i MUST preserve the chaotic tomfoolery energy of it at all costs. no reason no logic only Leorio daring ghosts to steal his teeth.

this dumb webseries Leorio and Kurapika create/run/host still doesn’t have a name but the vibe i’m going for is a combination of BFU and Ghost Adventures, except that they’re doing it entirely themselves, with no network backing of any kind, just two friends they found and a garage/storage unit full of arguing about the supernatural dreams

it’s very much a passion project

Gon and Killua are “paid” in pizza and tacos for the better part of 3 years

this whole saga started bc after arguing about ghosts on a date, Kurapika decided that CLEARLY the only logical course of action was to drag Leorio to an abandoned hospital in the middle of the night with camcorders and an EMF meter he bought on eBay and they would get UNDENIABLE proof that ghosts are real and Leorio would HAVE to see that he’s right. 

Leorio, when Kurapika tells him this is happening: “you are SO lucky you’re cute and I like you so much, because this is easily the stupidest thing anyone has ever roped me into.”

they don’t find any ghosts. the only footage they end up with is three hours of shaky-cam and them yelling at each other in the middle of the night

it’s the best date they’ve ever been on

they manage to make time to do this twice more but then life gets busy, however the “are ghosts real” argument lives on

some months later Kurapika is feeling restless and frustrated with the project he’s currently getting paid to work on so he impulsively cuts down their first ghost quest into a 10-minute edit

and it is HYSTERICAL

Kurapika texts Leorio at 4am like “hear me out: i’m gonna find proof that ghosts exist AND debunk all the false evidence out there and you’re gonna eat your fucking words on camera and i’m gonna put it on YouTube for the whole world to see and prove i’m RIGHT”

Leorio: “what will it take for you to sleep like a normal person jfc” Kurapika: “are you in or are you a coward” Leorio: “come up with a list of equipment to give me IN THE MORNING and go the fuck to sleep you bastard” Kurapika: “HELL YES get ready to lose” Leorio: “SLEEP” Kurapika: “ugh FINE” Leorio: “ ❤️”

unfortunately they do have actual jobs – Kurapika works in film production and Leorio fixes electronics/assorted film and A/V equipment (this is how they met btw) so it rapidly becomes apparent that they can’t create the kind of production they’re now thinking of with just the two of them. they’re gonna need EXTRA HANDS

Shortly thereafter, bored freelancer Killua gets a text from one of the editors he was on a production from hell with a little over a year ago that reads: “I need a sound guy for when i drag my boyfriend ghost hunting and prove that ghosts are real. we’ll buy you pizza.”

to which Killua says: “oh this is gonna be fucking hilarious"

Killua mainly got into this film stuff to piss off his parents, of COURSE he’s gonna go carry some A/V equipment around empty buildings in the middle of the night while two adults yell at ghosts

(spoiler alert: 90% of the decisions Killua makes in this AU are based on whatever will be funniest)

Kurapika shows up to their first “production meeting” with Gon in tow. Kurapika found him by advertising on Craigslist. Miraculously Gon is not a serial killer. However he does possess an incredible constellation of random skills and knowledge, including how to work a camera and a little A/V set-up, after years working all sorts of random jobs. 

He doesn’t think to mention that he might be a ghost magnet and yknow, oddly enough, no one thinks to ask? go figure.

it takes 7 location shoots for the gang to realize Gon is probably definitely haunted by actual ghosts

but it takes only 2 location shoots for the gang to realize that Gon has an uncanny familiarity with furry creatures that nest in walls and attics.

you may be surprised to learn that Kurapika appreciates Gon’s ability to confirm which “hauntings” are actually just nature things, but he does, because it’ll make whatever real evidence he finds that much stronger. Meanwhile, the fact that he can never quite manage to record the ghostly happenings around Gon is driving him BANANAS.

the gang: [hears a screaming noise in the distance in the middle of a shoot] Gon: “I can tell you with 100% certainty that that’s a fox. trust me i raised one.”

what would become their first “season” only ends because Kurapika is working himself to death between his real paid job and this ever-growing personal project, and the others (mainly Leorio) force him to take a break and try to become marginally less of a chronic insomniac.

At which point Killua says “yknow.... if we want to keep producing content, but we don’t want to take the ghosts and demons away from Kurapika... I know a LOT about unsolved murders.”

Leorio: “....I’m gonna regret agreeing to this, aren’t I.” Killua: “oh, 100%” Leorio: “great.

Leorio taunts the ghosts and demons often, because he doesn’t believe in them. Kurapika taunts the ghosts and demons on occasion, because if he gets murdered or maimed by them then it’s PROOF that they’re real and he wins. Kurapika is not overly worried about Leorio getting murdered by ghosts and demons for the same reason. (I mean, he’d prefer if Leorio didn’t get killed by a ghoul, but still)

Killua’s first on-camera appearance is in their 4th “official” episode, when he says “Gon hold this for a sec this is gonna be so fucking funny” and lies down in a supposed pentagram and demands that a demon rip out his kidney as Kurapika calls him a dumbass

I said this before but the subject of aliens is a role reversal: Leorio absolutely believes in them and Kurapika thinks they’ve never visited Earth. They both agree the “ancient aliens” stuff is pretty much bullshit. (Killua doesn’t think aliens exist and Gon thinks that the statistical likelihood of there being no other intelligent life in the whole universe is pretty slim, so there’s probably somebody out there somewhere)

Kurapika and Leorio are pretty much on the same page about most cryptids, so episodes where they try to find Mothman or the Jersey Devil or whatever deviate from their usual structure, in the sense that Leorio and Kurapika actually agree on something for once

Gon meanwhile knows too much about animals to think the majority of cryptids are possible. He’s gotta draw the line somewhere!

The main reason the series starts to get any traction is because Killua makes memes about it

They eventually start doing Q&A episodes where they dig deeper into things or talk about the process behind the show, once the episodes start getting enough attention (and questions/comments) that they feel like it’s warranted.

Gon ends up with this very mysterious reputation (cryptid-like, even) among the viewers because as the camera operator, he’s basically never on camera-- but apparently he’s totally haunted! he doesn’t make a proper on-camera appearance until a Q&A special kicking off their fifth “season,” where Kurapika and Leorio ask him all the Gon questions that have been piling up. nearly all of the comments on the video amount to “oh no he’s HOT”

Q: If Gon is probably haunted, how come he isn’t hosting the show? A: “If you pay too much attention to them too closely they’ll get scared and stop, so really it would defeat the purpose!”

Kurapika: “......Gon please elaborate” Gon: “I will not elaborate.” Kurapika: “Gon please I am begging you.” Gon: 🙂 

Leorio manages to continue to insist that ghosts aren’t fucking real despite the fact that Gon is apparently haunted right in front of him. the whole thing is kinda just an ongoing meme to him.

Also Gon and Killua spend years falling in love behind the scenes, but since they’re practically never on camera together no one except Leorio and Kurapika notice (which is good actually, their viewers shipping them would be weird). Being good friends, Leorio and Kurapika have made bets on how long it will take for them to finally get together, and they’re not gonna say a word about it.

Leorio and Kurapika have stated on the record that should they ever decide to end the series, the finale episode is gonna be the two of them sailing into the Bermuda Triangle, HOPEFULLY disappearing forever, never to be seen or heard from again.

Basically this AU is just a bunch of friends having fun and shenanigans ensue and honestly! i love it! i think this is my only AU with zero pain for anyone and i’m gonna keep it that way!

I want merch for this chaotic webshow i made up in my head and I’m sad it’s not real now :( weh

[tartagliaxx]

okay off topic, but like,,, twisted wonderland have rlly pretty boys. it's a shame the game doesn't have an english version but ig that's what youtube is for

also, i've been watching a lot of tro, primink and j aubrey and now i've just sort of lost faith in humanity as a whole since apparently it's hard to be a decent human being

oh yeah, have you played any text based interactive fiction games lately? it's always amazing to see other authors come up with such unique ideas and get to expand on it. i've been playing so many demos and some of them are just,,, insanely good

and have you seen this video? imagine being able to edit this well lmao

— r. anon

i have no idea what you're talking about ajsdjaajkasdahj if you have time, can you elaborate? the title sounds great and interesting tho... is it a japanese game? it sounds like it.

again, i have no clue who the fuck those people are but they must be pretty shitty people to have you thinking like that. honestly it's just bewildering how hard it is for some people to be just... good? average? at the very least, not bad? idk like why do they even bother being shitty when they get zero benefits—

ummm like... otome games? the last i played was the arcana but i didn't finish it for some reason that i no longer remember. on another note, i've indulged more recently in some choose-your-own adventure stories and they're like,, so good bc that shit takes up so much effort and brain power seeing as you're not only writing one plot but many of them. that aside, i agree and in a way, all writers are amazing bc writing is just,, hard and even if some people don't 'like' their output, some would and that's just.. heartwarming? ig.

i know about all of these from the insane amounts of procrastinating i did + the combined efforts of my friends to see me bawling in pain. we all knew that the genshin characters are all pretty sad/dark but most don't quite know the extent of it.

abt lisa, my friend told me that THAT is why her constellation and trademark thing is an hourglass and that the reason she's 'lazy' is because she's trying to 'slow down' time. idk if that's canon or a headcanon but it's still highly plausible and it hasn't stopped making me sad ever since. idk but i saw lisa in a new light after that.

yknow,, i once had a phase (probs still on-going) where i just got invested in nursery rhymes and literally,, every single thing targeted for children bc there's so much hidden meaning and dark themes? personally, we have a nursery rhyme in our country that goes smth about cutting someone else's head off but like yknow buttered up nice and silky. i don't know the exact words bc i don't speak the dialect but i once read smth about it in a blog.

ah well, whatever. point is. mhy better give our boys and girls some happiness or at the very least, square the fuck up bc i'm about this close to losing it altogether.

ps. the reason i replied so late? was i late? i think so? was bc i was focused in not letting my underbuilt starter team die in dragonspine. tbh i would've procrastinated a lot longer if kazuha's not knocking by the door. ugh i really should've played w my alt regularly. anw,, sorry 😞 and i probs should go to sleep soon asdhjkafkja

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-10-15

More Homestuck, continuing directly from last time.  Gonna Bang Out A Liveblog Quick (GbOALq)…

No chapter title this time, just straight continuation.  (By the way, I didn’t reblog it so spoilers don’t headline my blog but this post regarding last upd8 is delightful)

> (==>)

Okay, this makes more sense as to why they both disappeared -- Vrissy is either trying to get her back or is going along and just being grousy about it, or one under the pretense of the other or the like.

By the way, if Rose specifically planned in a way that involved telling Vriska to sit on the sidelines and not doing anything, shouldn’t she ABSOLUTELY KNOW, one-hundred percent with a combination of her Seer of Light powers and common sense, that Vriska will Not Do That?  --so whatever Vriska is about to do I’m going to assume Rose has accounted for it, unless she’s like...

...sworn off using her powers much, or something.  That would super suck and I would hate for that to be in this story regardless of themes.

Vriska Maryam-Lalonde, recently "Vrissy," and potentially "You Are So Grounded You Are Never Leaving The House Again," isn’t what’s commonly referred to as an "outside girl".

She likes grass. It’s fine! To look at. And so are trees, as long as they’re somewhere off in the distance, swaying gently in the breeze. Trampling through them is not on the list of acceptable tree activities. Vrissy is already sweaty and dirt-streaked, and there’s probably like fifty gnats trying to drink her eye fluids. At this rate she almost envies Tavros his role as Batterwitch Bait. Sure, he has to pretend to be threatened by Vrissy’s mom, which is lame as hell and also very embarrassing, but at least his eye fluids are safe.

So she’s fine with this in principle, just not with the work involved? Or--

VRISSY: Hey, can you slow Down a Little? VRISSY: I have to run over Shru8s and shit, I can’t Fly! VRISKA: Hah! And who’s fault is that???????? VRISSY: My shitty 8iology I guess! VRISSY: Sorry, not all of Us had SGRU8 Sessions to make ourselves Immortal. VRISKA: Well, we’ll take care of that, don’t even worry a8out it. VRISSY: Lol I wish.

Oh Christ, we really should have seen it coming.  OF COURSE VRISKA is going to get her hands on a copy of the Game and try and have these kids play it, regardless of whatever meteor-based consequences to this happy society.  FUCK.  She doesn’t even see any reason to hide it!

--reading on, some discussion of how people on Earth C view the ability to fly unaided as a sort of religious thing so shot down Roxy’s idea of letting everyone fly.  Why does society always keep trying to shut down Roxy all the time

VRISKA: Really, we have to get you a god tier. That’s pretty much the only solution at this point. VRISKA: Ideally we’d go back to when you were a wiggler and start your training right away, 8ut that’s not exactly an option. So god tier it is. VRISSY: Is that even Possi8le? outside of the Game? VRISKA: Nope. 8ut we don’t have to worry a8out that, once we get back into SGRU8. VRISSY: What???

This is what you get for letting Vriska back into your story:  She starts another meteor apocalypse and destroys your Happily Ever After.  Fuck.

VRISKA: We have to start this shit over again, you have all let it get so out of hand there’s really nothing to do besides a hard reset.

NO.  Fuck you.  You just don’t like hard work.

(I know everything is accidentally going to end up working out “alright” whatever happens, but even if Vriska’s self-aggrandizing malfeasance HAPPENS to be the cause of it, I really, really don’t want her fucking ideology to be the cause of it.  She shouldn’t be Aesma of Kill Six Billion Demons mythology, she’s had too many flirtations with ACTUALLY learning a lesson and BEING EARNEST ABOUT IT to be the selfish chaos at the heart of victory and living.)

(Yes, I recently caught up with KSBD and it’s awesome.)

> (==>)

VRISKA: This is a perfect spot for a fight. An am8ush point. VRISSY: !! VRISKA: Don’t worry about it, that’s good. That’s what we’re looking for.

Vriska leveraging her luck and assuming they’ll be followed when she wants to be.

> (==>)

That’s a really, really damn good waiting-for-an-ambush image.  Pretty hilarious.

(Still having a background mental fit about how this HS2 crew might REALLY be trying to make Vriska the Aesma of the Homestuck “universe” which is just aaaAAAUGH NOBODY SHOULD WANT THAT.  I’ll be really unhappy with the end product of THIS ENTIRE HS2 PROCESS if they pull that shit, no matter what side benefits there are or how happily it ends.  Hell, ESPECIALLY if it ends happily.  They’re having fun elevating her somewhat more than most people agree she deserves but they shouldn’t elevate her TO THAT LEVEL. EDIT3: More discussion on that here if you don't know what I mean.)

> (==>)

VRISKA: This is actually way more fun than I thought it would 8e. VRISKA: 8ringing around a younger, dum8er me. VRISSY: I think we’re 8asically the Same Age. VRISKA: Whatever!

(Fuck you!)  :)

> (==>)

wait what the fuck--

MANDATED HAIRSTYLES?????

what the fuck!???

EDIT: plausible theory here

> (==>)

Vrissy is that fuzzy dice kind what the hell

> (==>)

Circle, fifteen guys, no special significance that i can detect

> (==>)

Oh is War Shit kinda poppin off alongside the whole church thing?

> (==>)

Colorful ship design, weird zoomout frame transition; something wasn’t smooth with that

Anyway is orbital bombardment gonna happen or?

> (==>)

JOHN: vriska! JOHN: i mean, vriskas!! JOHN: where are JOHN: oh fuck

yeap

> (==>)

Is John flying out under the ship away from the house?  That’s really irresponsible.  (And abruptly transitioned, I didn’t realize it happened at first.  KEYFRAME THINGS BETTER AUGH)

--why is that belly button window still there?  I thought we had a line about Harry fixing his outfit, or at least having the capability to, did they not have time to finish?  Let me check, that’s bugging me:

HARRY: plus i wouldn’t have been able to get your measurements for some clothes that actually fit you if we hadn’t come back here where all my sewing stuff is.

Oh GOT IT.  Harry TOOK his measurements, but hasn’t fixed his outfit yet.

> (==>)

JOHN WHY DID YOU GO ALL THE WAY TO THE CHURCH WHO THE FUCK IS PROTECTING THE KIDS

> (==>)

Okay you’re back at Your House instead of Roxy’s house?

What, going to fight the ship or

I mean you could but you’re kind of forgetting what was the most important damn thing a few panels ago you jackass

> (==>)

Is that a bomb or fucking take out??

Why blow up John’s HOUSE that’s just so petty

> (==>)

ka-house

(pretty)

about time John stopped languishing in his childhood home instead of living life, anyway.

> (==>)

(o no i didnt want john to be sad tho)

it’s fine, he’ll be angry next panel or so

> (==>)

UM THE WHOLE SKY IS GETTING DARK???? HOW LONG ARE YOU SITTING HERE AND LETTING THIS BURN OUT???

HOW MANY HOURS ARE YOU LEAVING THOSE KIDS UNPROTECTED YOU GOLDFISH MEMORY CHUCKLEFUCK

> (==>)

APPARENTLY ALL OF THE HOURS BECAUSE IT’S NIGHT NOW YOU ASS

and that’s the last panel

yknow if we are going to have an arc about john learning to be a slightly more responsible parent it would help if it SHOWED HIM LEARNING ANYTHING

GOODNIGHT

EDIT2: Anonymous asked: "I think the whole "John watches his house burn down" is more him coming to terms with who Jane has become. In the last update they mentioned how Rose(I think it was Rose) baited Jane into believing John and the kids were hiding out at his place, and Jane just destroyed it, so he's coming to terms with the fact that she just tried to kill not only John and Vriska, but the kids too."

Oh shit. I forgot about that from the previous update: "JOHN: but rose sent out some false intel about us heading toward my house, so technically this is the safest place we can be right now, since they cleared the area and everything." He really does have to come to terms with the fact that Jane just tried to murder them all, too, so shit is definitely real.

...Which makes the fact that he didn't rush off to guard the kids in response to THAT NEW FACT still pretty galling, but.

[presumenothing]

#40 for writer asks! also which is your favorite character to write for and favorite trope

(please come distract me)

40. what area of writing do you want to improve in?

not overthinking what i write and post!! this actually is something i’ve been mostly-consciously trying to work on for quite a long time now, and it’s already an improvement over years ago when i would literally spend insane amounts of time editing and re-editing and just nitpicking to a ridiculous extent. that was hell tbh and also So Unnecessary i can’t even

nowadays i pretty much confine myself to minor editing as i go + one reread (or none) before i post, which makes me a much happier and more productive writer overall. and most of the time i don’t have problems sticking to this, but sometimes my brain just… forgets how not to have standards, yknow

which is your favorite character to write for?

this one’s an even tossup between al and riza, because they’re both as scarily competent as they are sarcastic, which in total is always my favourite type of character to write. and yes, “competent AND sarcastic” applies in various combinations to multiple characters in fma, which is why ed comes a close third on this list (but only third because as a fairly chill temperament person myself it is hard to write Angry)

favorite trope

found family????? found family. cats included

otherwise, whatever trope sums up “unnecessary wikipedia-fuelled vaguely-scientific tangent” because those are frankly never really required for the kind of things i write, but do i enjoy doing it anyway? yes. it’s not even worldbuilding i just do this for fun

[stereolovers]

ok i hope this isnt weird bc it was a couple days ago BUT i saw ur tags on the post abt ocs and if u want to talk abt ocs i would absolutely love to hear about them!!!!

hi sorry this has taken so long! i keep coming back to it because i’m not entirely sure on how to describe each of them without like... saying too much!

so obviously i’m still working on editing everything, because i keep learning new information whenever i go down a wikipedia rabbithole, and because i’ve accidentally connected the dots many many times, so even though i’ve done a few drafts and stuff i’m still not 100% certain about everything (if things don’t make sense here it’s because i’m absolutely trying my best to not just dump everything about the character)

arlo is my main main character! i’m actually writing this entirely from his perspective, which is a biiiig change from what i’m used to.. but it’s weirdly fun because he’s very fun to write as he has certain ways of speaking (pats myself on the back for this one). he.. originally was a dishonored oc, which is Weird once i look back on that because he’s basically just shittier jindosh. because he can be. it’s a bit hard to explain his character without giving too much away, but since he’s my main Dude, he goes through a lot of good development throughout the story while also (un)knowingly helping everyone else out that he previously fucked up. i don’t want to say that he gets redeemed, because not everyone should be, but he definitely realizes a lot of shit. yeah he’s cool.

ace is actually an older oc of mine that i brought over because this originally wasn’t supposed to be a Big Thing, but she’s here now and i love her slightly more evil personality... as they’re all Bad in some way. i just like antagonists way more so.. everyone’s shitty. she’s like my main character, a little less than arlo, but she’s still very important and shows up the most. she really just Appears. that’s her thing. and also in this universe there is a (somewhat) logical and scientific (not really) explanation for her blue eye

crystal is... something else. her name is inspired from a lady my mom went to school with (she gave me both crystal’s name and will’s). i’m still working on her character, but i enjoy her as she’s kinda the breath of fresh air in this group of determined evil backstory ocs (she’s an antagonist too, as they all are. she’s carefree evil... chaotically loving. yknow? i love her despite the fact that she needs more development.

malachite is one of the most important characters in this, as she’s basically the most level-headed of the group, and really is the brain of the entire story.... she does A Lot. like a lot. everyone (excluding celia and, technically, montgomery) has like a niche of science that they excel in, along with other things. everyone kinda invents something important during this, that helps another character in the future with their plot progression, if that makes sense. and malachite is very very important! she literally creates wireless communication, gps tracking, and with the help of crystal she crafts ‘phones.’ they’re not called phones of course, but she does, and she’s great! she also creates boats! she’s a ship captain and absolutely loves it. crystal & her & ace (they’re kinda all a Group) hang out on her ship frequently, and they’ll just enjoy each other’s company. crystal & her are girlfriends and they’re just wonderful.

will is great, and even though it’s really arlo’s story, he actually goes through the most change throughout. and it’s good change! even if he’s not described to be there, or talking in a scene, chances are he’s actually in the background...he’s like a walking dictionary definition for irony- he absolutely Hates being known and seen and being in crowds, etc, you get it. but get this. his name is will durness. wilderness. this is another name my mom gave me out of the blue (his development throughout the story isn’t like, oh, this guy now can do public speaking and is comfortable in crowds, because imo that’s not realistic. instead its more like how can he accept that other people enjoy his company, and want to be around him? he allows himself to have friends and to feel safe around them. and i love him)

those ^ five knew each other at aronose (which, without making this even longer, is basically a Huge and Important and Prestigious science trade school type thing. it’s cool and basically what every dark academia fan wants), and after a mysterious four years in which Things happen they all reconvene in interesting ways, and discover how they’ve all kinda been intertwined in this Thing. and then they help each other. it’s cool! i promise.

montgomery is the worst of everyone, which is saying a lot when they’re all antagonists. he’s the main reason everything that happens.... happens, and [spoilers for a big part of my story just in case you don’t want to read it.. don’t know why i’m talking like i’m actually gonna upload it when it’s done but you never know] even after he’s gone, his presence is still like... there. his thing is just... manipulation, but in different ways. he just Knows how to talk to people. and all the rest of the characters have to deal with his lingering Ideals and Things. which is cool. everyone’s gotta work through that! yay for character development. and he’s the duke, so he can do basically whatever he wants (and he WILL remind you many times of that fact.) he’s kinda got his eyes on everything and everyone. i don’t really like to describe my ocs by comparing them to other existing characters, but he’s like if you somehow combined peter lukas and (sorry for this) h*ndsome jack. yeah he’s definitely a very fun character but man is he hard to write which is kinda funny cause like. he’s my oc lol. he only married celia for the status and she definitely knows that (but i promise there was once a time where they actually loved each other)

celia is possibly my most underdeveloped character out of everyone, but she’s still important to the story! she’s the duchess, and yet we don’t really see much of her in person until probably.... halfway through the story. she hates everyone, but mostly montgomery (lol) and arlo, for numerous reasons. they hate her too so it works out ig. i don’t have much to say about her oops

i just realized how dump-y this is... but i have an unfortunate time trying to describe everyone. somehow. yeah hope this somewhat made sense! i think.. honestly their pinterest boards / tags on my oc blog / spotify playlists do a lot for them

[nxixn]

A little announcement.

Hello! I have decided to change the entire theme of this blog to go along better with my current interests at the moment. Not that I have stopped liking Colin Firth, I just feel like this blog is getting less and less active. Plus, I am getting tired of running two blogs at the same time so imma just combine them into one. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I’m turning this blog into a multi-fandom blog. So, what I suggest here is to unfollow me now if you wish to not see these changes on your dashboard, or not, yknow, whatever, I am not your dad. You are also welcome to stay. HMU, let’s chat and be friends :)

tl;dr- This blog will no longer be solely posting about Mr Firth. It’s gonna be a multi-fandom blog. 

Some of the things I’m into right now:

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Parks and Rec

Stephen Colbert

Hasan Minhaj

Trevor Noah

John Mulaney

John Oliver

basically, comedy stuff

Marvel stuff

Medical stuff

Space stuff

and of course, CATS

Thank you to my followers who has been with me since I first created this blog <3

I love y’all so much, I’m not going anywhere, I still will be posting about Colin Firth every now and then. I just also will be posting about other things as well. The fandom has really been very nice to me, and I honestly am so grateful for that. Thank you for everything.

That’s it. 

I hope y’all have a good day :)

p.s- i’m changing my url from firthtastic to nurul-izzah

(edited 4/5/2019 to include p.s)

[grizzlefur]

WWEm - Too Much Shit For One Man to Kick

In which Emma’s heart grows three sizes.

Broadcast date: Monday 4/Tuesday 5 September 2017

Now that I've torn myself away from the combination of Destiny 2 and trying to fix my phone, it's time for MONDAY AFTERNOON RAW!: The Nacreous Gem Around The Intrusive Sand Of Roman Reigns Trying To Cut A Promo

trialling a new slogan

daniel's uncle's idea

apparently owning the building means you can give production advice

price of free offices, i guess

anyway, i'm like 70% sure he doesn't read these, so i can say whatever

but yes, the actual show

the bright orange blur in this tumbnail suggests we may be hearing from one mr cena

straight in on a recap video of the contract signing from last week

only presumably without cena kicking a hole in the fourth wall like the fucking shockmaster

also they've edited it to remove roman forgetting how to english

some damn good promos, though

i'm just loving all the shots of kurt in the background gawking like oh god what have i wrought

oh, apparently this is labour day

you'll pardon me for not exactly giving a shit

and we're in omaha

and here's the cena himself

here to cene all over us

oh, apparently we're just kicking straight into a match

and booker's back

i never thought i'd be glad to hear that slurred bullshit

and here comes jason jordan and his dodgy synth music

here to fight cena for unspecified reasons

oh, so we can play the clip of cena debuting against kurt 15 years ago

back when he was ruthlessly aggressive

who doesn't love cross-generational parallels

omaha is super behind cena, possibly for his music containing actual instruments and vocal tracks recorded at the same time

jason goes straight into the amateur mat game, which is not exactly cena's forte

lots of lingering hugs

i think booker just managed to get jason and cena mixed up, but let's be real, i wasn't listening

my mind just levels out everything booker says into a kind of mealy blur

but hey, that's better than the unignorable shittiness of the jerry

(my favourite kundera book)

cena gets a comeback phase, including whipping jason so hard he also faceplanted himself into the mat

that seems poorly thought out

tries to deploy his five moves, jason manages to counter out my backflipping out of a suplex and dropkicking him

fuck you, cruiserweight division

jason takes a five knuckle shuffle, then counters an aa into an indescribably weird rollup

takes an stf for ages, then reverses into a crossface/chinlock thing

cena says fuck you, i'm john cena, stands up out of it and goes for another aa

jj counters out into a beautiful rolling double nothern lights suplex

straps come down, jj unleashes his true power level

and immediately eats an aa for the pin

way to disprove roman's argument that cena buries young talent

oh hye, speaking of

-slips into pre-emptive coma-

and  he's got a mic

fantastic

roman's like why the fuck did that take you 20 minutes that guy's been on the show for like a month

roman really needs to work out what point he's making

so yeah, argument today is that cena's not as great as he thinks he is

and is a lion

fake-ass little bitch

"Roman, I'd say I'm happy to see you, but...I'm disgusted by your whole face."

cena is all out of shits to give

like stop trying to use your brain, it's not your thing

cena immediately addresses roman's inconsistent point

and that his fly is open

which roman turns into lol cos i'm the big dog

ew

men

and cena counters with a balls joke, and roman with a gay joke

fuck's sake, guys

there's a bar, at least make a cursory effort to get over it

cena takes it to roman for having everything handed to him, like damn dude i fucking hate the miz but at least he works for his shots

this is all true

cena's mostly just exasperated

like damn dude, get a clue

so roman's like hey if you want to beat me up let's do that

roman, stop being smug

or just, yknow, go away

cena does not beat him up, so roman's like hey fuck you dude and walks off

that worked, i guess

but later, we apparently have braun/show in a cage

so we can play the gif of those two crushing the ring

also later jeff hardy has an ic title match

but now, enjoy this advert for total bellas

or don't, very much up to you

but now, here come the not-shield

entering to dean's intro

they're gonna be on announce for slater and rhyno vs the kkb

seth and dean should totally rebrand as the sword

god, i love that they've managed to get a dragon ball reference into their entrance

dean's like welp, that's a great entrance,can't take that away from them

confirmation that we've got their title rematch at no mercy

dean goes off on a tangent about jurassic park and getting your face eaten by velociraptors

seth starts giggling

send for the man

corey asks if seth and dean are getting on as a team, dean's like eh, i've had five years to punch this guy in the face, i'm kind of over it by now

back in the ring, heath slater is getting the fuck kicked out of him

but then, that's what he does

inevitable hot tag so rhyno can get some offence in

and then eat a brogue for the pin

dean starts talking smack on the bar, then he's like well we're the bar now hey we should steal their name

dean talks like he fights

cesaro and sheamus do their fusion dance in the ring, and i'm like 90% sure their fusion would be goro from mortal kombat

although more the plasticine fantasticine version from the film, tbh

that's science right there

toasty

cut back to the announce team, where seth and dean have evaporated

and they talk to book about the hurricane

briefly

but now, renee interviews the hardyz

matt breaks in with a semi-broken accent

crowd goes mental

and jeff's like yuuuup gonna win this or get myself killed with the FIRE THAT BURNS WITHIN ME

man can preach

so that's next, i think?

after this ad for randy/shinsuke on smackdown

insert comment about what competition means

and here comes the match

starting with the hardyz

jeff's wearing a connor's cure tabard over all his other clothes, and seriously, i think the man has a problem

it also makes it very hard for him to rock out to their music

cole makes a reference to them wanting to delete paediatric cancer

well played

and enter the miztourage

maryse has a new vest/pvc leggings/sparkly knee boots combo, and as ever, i want it

also perilously close to real human clothes

apparently it's just over 10 years since jeff had the ic belt

bell rings, jeff goes straight for a rollup because fuck wrestling

miz cowers against the ropes like please mr hardy don't beat me

and uses it to throw jeff out to his cronies

a scheme

who would have thought

back in the ring, jeff just punches the hell out of miz's oh-so-punchable face

whisper in the wind for a nearfall

it's taken this long for jeff to jump off something, he must be taking it seriously

sets up for a swanton, bo distracts the ref so curtis can pull jeff off the turnbuckle

sparks a brawl outside the ring, ref is just like fuck this noise all three of you can fuck off

matt is deeply offended like how could you do this to me i was defending my brother's honour

miz counters out of jeff's crotch leg drop, which is good to see, because it is such a trivially easy move to counter

this match is actually p good

it's been like 60% reversals

maryse is still at ringside, which can't possibly be foreshadowing anything

ooh, she's gone with acid-green nails as well

maryse is just my style icon

(as if you didn't know)

miz pulls jeff off the apron, then collapses against the barricade in fornt of a small child in a cena shirt who's like um what

miz gets a figure four one, jeff just goes to counter by punching miz in the face

makes sense when you think about it

eventually gets to the ropes

then hits miz with a stunner, nearfall when miz gets the rope

live by the rope break...

miz crawls out of the ring while the ref shouts at jeff, then immediately eats a baseball slide

and then poetry in motion off the steps

kind of feeling sorry for miz atm

he's bumping like a demon

maryse pulls her husband out fo the way of a swanton, leaving jeff to fuck himself upon the mat

goes for a twist of fate, miz counters into a finale for the pin

damn good match, solid finish

but now, women do things

or so i am assuming by this recap package of banks/bliss

oh yeahb, and nia's inevitable betrayal

announcement: sasha has her rematch at no mercy

and now nia accosts kurt backstage

she's not impressed that she doesn't get a title shot

and emma interrupts to talk about her twitter analytics

she also wants a title shot

nia's just like fuck off or i will actually break you

kurt holds them apart, and hatches a plan

nia/emma v sasha/alexa tonight

if the undercarders win, he'll make the title match a four-way

foreboding shot of the cage, insistent mentions of the ring being reinforced

and have some more recap videos of brig showman fucking the ring

never noticed how hard the ref bumps to the outside when it happens

caught it now, of course, because they've replayed the clip from SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN FUCKING ANGLES

but now it's time for cruiserweights to not get an intro

dar, nese and gulak already in the ring

and cedric and gran metalik get to enter with enzo, because seriously, nobody's getting a fucking intro

except enzo, who's brought a mic as usual

enzo tries to spin cheating to win matches as some kind of god-given right because it gets you wins

babyface?

despreately hypes 205 like please watch my show

he introduces cedric and metalik in the shittiest way possible

i spoke too soon, his smacktalk introductions for the other three are even worse

match kicks off with cedric/tony doing the cruiserweightiest wrestling ever

and enzo tags himself in to ruin everything

drew tags in to kick a non-trivial amount of shit out of enzo

not all of it, of course

the man contains too much shit for one man to kick

the heel team start doing rolling tags to take turns fucking up enzo's shit

and then they all just cruiserweight over everything and i can no longer narrate

stereo topes from cedric and metalik, during which enzo tags himself in because he's a twat

and then sticks a thumb in drew's eye to get his stupidly-named finish for the pin

the alleged faces celebrate as drew's outside with his friends like aaaaaaaaaaa i am blind

end segment

and now alexa collars sasha in the locker room to bitch about their opponents tonight

alexa has a cancer shirt too because she's a face by default tonight

this conversation quickly turns into a huge row

that match'll go well

up next, finn bálor wears a shirt

boo

and an advert for the myc, which continues to be great

and here comes everyone's favourite irish possible serial killer

-does the arms-

goes 'this is bálor club' like he's introducing his new talk show

waxes lyrical on his previous titles and how bray wyatt's a dick

finn has chosen his fate

or possibly faith?

this just in, he has an irish accent

calls bray out, immediate wyatt cut

and now we're in the void with bray

talking about learning to hunt as a kid

and the day he decided to stop using a bow and just kill things with his bare hands

i think we could have all filled in that backstory, tbh

taunts finn for only being able to beat him using the demon as his weapon, rather than doing it with his own power and will

and obliquely challenges him for no mercy

finn starts shouting back at him, which is a rarity for these segments

bray calls finn a rabbit, wyatt cut, end thing

so yeah, bray v human!finn for no mercy, presumably

oh hey, more ads for smackdown and total bellas

and now it's women's tag time

cole claims total bellas stars alexa bliss, corey's like um dude that's just a lie

she is here though

this much is true

oh my god i had forgotten how fucking angry i was about emma's new music

although that said, i think it's changed again

it's still not as good as her proper music, but better than last week

cfo$ are clearly going through a weird phase atm

corey is critiquing emma's hashtag efficiency

someone had to

the basic theme if this match thus far is 'tagging yourself in for giggles'

my inner bitch is loving the reluctant passive-aggressive teamwork in this match

(also my outer bitch)

(aka me)

as the smaller woman in the team, emma is performing her proper function of getting fucked on relentlessly

this rule does not apply to alexa, because her rage gives her virtual height

she's like one of those tiny dogs that will FUCKING HAVE YOU

emma finally gets a tag to nia, alexa gets a chance to vent at her

and get creamed

eats a big-ass samoan drop, sasha breaks up the pin after a moment of internal conflict

gets the tag, shining wizard for a nearfall

emma blind tags, nia leg drops sasha, emma gets the pin

i'll be honest, i was not expecting that

four-way should be good, though

emma celebrates extravagantly in the middle of the ring, nia's like um

and samoan drops her

nia will also fucking have you

back to the ambiguous backstage room, where renee has acquired a braun

asks what he's thinking before his first cage match

he's like really what the fuck was kurt thinking, this match might hurt me before my title match at no mercy but will definitely hurt company property

the man does a surprisingly good promo

but up next, seth and dean are back

their walk backstage is briefly interrupted  by elias thrashing out a new song

long beat as they just kind of stand there like what's up with this guy, then shrug and carry on, dean playing along on the air

but next, they fight the good brothers

after these ads for every show we make

back from ads, sheamus and cesaro are in the ring arguing with gallows and anderson for some reason

who am i kidding, you don't need a reason to bitch on those guys

seth and dean still using dean's intro

like, if you're going to just use one, seth's is way better

BURRRRRN IT DOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN

ref eventually manages to usher the kkb out of the ring, match can commence

sheamus and cesaro seem to have settled on just sarcastically applauding from ringside

someone needs to get them popcorn

this match is a little formulaic, but damn do i love how in sync seth and dean still are as a team

seth/dean v jordan/gable v gargano/ciampa v dawson/wilder

give them a whole show, best tag match possible

as opposed to this particular long-ass superplex setup that didn't even work

dean counters a chokeslam into a dropkick, which is p cool

seth gets the hot tag, commences to jump off every goddamn rope before braun and show fuck them up

dean tries to join in, does a shitty suicide dive

seth hits a lovely top-rope frankensteiner on anderson, the kkb try to interfere, seth gets the pin anyway because they're just that good

and then the good brothers take sheamus and cesaro out while they're distracted

they take a long moment to consider their options, then go back to the ring to fuck up anderson and gallows

and now here's the connor's cure video basically the same as last year, because history and cancer haven't changed much

and they've got the wwe makeup department in to give kids superstar redesigns

that's kind of sweet

and steph giving them all hype ring announcements is cute

dammit, i've fallen for a cute ill kids advert

and they brought alexa, miz, and finn

which seems like a super weird collection

to inspire these kids with cancer, we've brought our resident bitch, a self-important asshole, and a guy who draws power from being possessed by a demon

perfect sense

but up next, main event time

but first, cruiserweight recap vt?

because now we see enzo and his mates in the locker room being annoying

cue sarcastic clapping from neville

and news that those three have all qualified for a five-way elimination match for a title shot at no mercy

neville sows dissesnsion with a few ominous geordie words

closeups of techs reinforcing the ring

and now charly interviews the ref from the ring explosion match, of all people

oh, apparently the ring's double reinforced

not just reinforced

fancy

he's like welp this match is gonna be carnage i'm just going to focus on dodging

and now renee gives big show a hype chat

gah, i'd forgotten his new hairlessness

come on show, give us a YOUUUUU DID THISSSSS TOOO MEEEEEEEEEE

Shockingly, Giant Baby Show says Braun ain’t shit

the dramatic climax of the promo is just show telling us his own nickname

you know how i said braun could promo surprisingly well?

well...not that

seriously guys, how many ads do we need for total bellas?

it's back

we know

ad for 205, in which we learn that the other two slots in the 5-way are kendrick and nese, for no adequately established reason

wait, has anyone seen kurt and show at the same time?

feels like we might have a dr angle and mr show thing going on

corey just referred to braun as "the steam-breathing monster"

um

i have no clue what to say to that

is he coal-powered?

bell rings, braun kicks show in the face

ha

and starts bodychecking him into the cage

weirdly, it goes wrong on the fourth one

show counters with a magic fist, doesn't climb the cage for some reason, cut to ads

cut back and nothing at all has happened

ecept show is now taking his turn to throw his opponent into the cage walls

show starts climbing, braun follows

weird scale going on, since they can both stand on the top rope and touch the top of the cage

show gets crotched really hard

guys, stop doing that spot

it is not good for you

show sets up on the top rope, everyone goes wtf

and does an elbow drop for the first time in like two decades

doesn't connect properly, but still a good moment

goes for the pin, braun kicks out at two because fuck you i'm braun strowman

show crawls for the door, braun walks over, grabs it, and hits show in the face with it

then braun tries to walk over show to get the door himself, and show does eexactly the same thing back to him

see, that was just dumb

braun kind of wanders into a chokeslam, then counters into a ddt for a nearfall

few spots later, show manages to land the chokeslam, braun kicks out because see the above re: fuck you

show goes for a magic fist, braun counters into a powerslam, show counters out and throws braun into the wall

show goes for the climb, followed by braun

gets his chest over the top before braun drags him back down because NOT FINISHED WITH YOU

i have never seen big show on the top rope this much before

braun gets a superplex in, the double reinforcement does its job

still a hell of a crash

and running powerslam for the pin

okay, i'm not usually one for large man punch fights, but that was actually really good

braun looms ominously over his fallen foe, then somehow acquires a mic

calls out brock to see big show's corpse as an object lesson

long ominous beat, then tells big show it's time to go to pasture, picks him up, and powerslams him through one wall of the cage

crowd goes wild

next time they should maybe think about also double reinforcing the cage

show lies on the broken cage wall going aaaa i'm dying, braun stalks off and roars, end show

in all senses

right, well, i've got some bad news

the horizontal line's off in Marbella this week, so we're gonna have to roll straight on

-checks the list of test slogans again-

MONDAY AFTERNOON SMACKDOWN!: Takes Hotter Than Your Dad.

i swear, the things i do so we can have somewhere to record this show that's only occasionally filled with vengeful woodland animals

so yes, the raccoon incident aside, let's watch mackdown

or indeed smackdown

mackdown is the wrestling dating sim i am now going to have to make

opening on a weirdly-saturated recap package of the orton/nakamura situation

the worst holmes story

and yes, the best thing about smackdown today

i'd had it spoiled, but still

JBL IS FUCKING GONE

he's off to do charity work, so we get the double whammy of disadvantaged kids getting support and me not having to listen to his voice

and they've replaced him with corey, making pretty much the ideal announce panel

Tom: "Did you miss me, Graves?" Corey: "Yes!" Tom: "I...am surprised!"

i live for these two talking shit

so yes, orton/nakamura tonight for a title shot at hiac

and here's randy, standing in three-quarter profile in a dimly lit corridor

yknow, like people do

and giving a speech about how he' gonna fuck shinsuke up

cut to shinsuke shadow boxing in the locker room

tells us about how he's gonna fuck randy up, i mostly get distracted by his left shoulder, which i hadn't noticed before

it's kind of fucked

i'm guessing that's a dislocation that healed weird

cut to the ring, and ellsworth announces his bae

only to be interrupted by...kevin?

he's decided he's going to be guest referee for carmella's match with nattie

begins trying to intimidate the ref into taking his shirt off

here's shane

who may have opinions on this fuckery

takes a moment for a cheap pop before getting into professional mode

he's just like kevin

dude

sort your shit out

long tense faceoff

shane's like maybe take responsibility for all these failures which are in all ways your fault

kevin's like fuck you i don't even want to be on this show

shane's like well yeah, cos this isn't the bullshit show where we just give people belts

kevin calls shane out on him needlessly inserting himself into eveything on the show

mentions his dad, gets an ooooooh, mentions his kids, shane immediately gets in his face like fuck you

kevin spins the helicopter crash into this, says his family would all be better off if he'd died there

mentions his kids again, shane explodes on him

well, he did warn him

trips getting out of the ring, killing the moment a bit

throws kevin over the announce table and just absolutely goes to town on him

security pull them apart, bryan turns up to be like the fuck are you doing dude that's an employee

and give the most disapproving dad look you've ever seen

and...cut to an ad for total bellas

way to maintain the mood, guys

and recaps of what happened thirty seconds ago

in which they've edited out shane tripping

ha

backstage, kevin staggers through the room supported by three officials

bryan comes out to apologise

kevin promises to sue shane, wwe, and the entire mcmahon family

bryan's like wow, that seems wildly disproportionate

kevin's like fine, i'll go press assault charges insteads

cut back to announce, corey and byron are both like well he totally deserved that

but yes, now we actually have that carmella/nattie match

recap from last week reminds me precisely how fucking awful carmella's singlet was

thankfully, she's back to normal gear today

provided you count bright orange leggings with leopard-print piping as normal

announce team start spinning next week's 'Sin City Smackdown'

carmella gets her face punched off, retreats to her ellsworth

pan out to naomi watching the match with a look of deep concentration as carmella does a long-ass guillotine choke

nattie powerslams her out, gets a comeback

carmella superkicks nattie, gets a nearfall, ellsworth gives the ref the briefcase

carmella's like wtf no i'm not cashing in give my that back, throws it at ellsworth, and gets rolled up for the pin

ellsworth comes back into the ring to apologise profusely

carmella starts being all magnanimous, then opens up on him

including using the same line twice

calls him a 'genetic defect'

and asks how he's still employed at wwe

really, the question we were all asking

"You are a charity case, and your mother should have given you away at birth!"

wow

harsh

and officially dumps him

takes her case, struts off

leaving james in the ring and the depths of despair

backstage, here's shane looking conflicted

up next, dolph ziggler re-debuts

i have no clue how this is going to go

expect everything

after these ads for the myc and no mercy

and tom giving us a talk about paediatric cancer

roll the video again

refer to my comments above

well, that gave me plenty of time to curate my itunes library

fringe benefits

and here's the dolph

looking...exactly the same

he's got a mic

presumably to tell the fans to go fuck themselves

yup

railing at the fans for not appreciating the greatest performer in the company

and they'd prefer some dumb gimmick

lights go back down, and here he is again

doing cena's entrance

all credit to the crowd for the DOLPH ZIGGLER SUUUUUUUCKS singalong

dolph's like hey, did that not work? i'll try another

lights go down again, and now he's...who had land of hope and glory?

-research break-

yeah, thought it was him

dude, if you're gonna do a macho man entrance, you could at least have the shades

gives up on it, shouts at the crows for not doing the usual nostalgia pop

sends his valet away

and now he promises to have exactly what the crowd want and deserve

and...now he's naomi

the fuck is this

does the knee slide, then gives up

all gimmicks are defeated by ennui

and now he's back to railing against the idea of gimmicks, because anyone can do them

says he, after clearly showing that not everyone can dance like naomi

tells the fans they make him sick, stomps off backstage

so that happened?

up next, sami zayn v aiden english

because this is 2014 nxt, apparently

aiden gets about one line into his aria before sami's music interrupts him

oh yeah, this is the rematch from last week when kevin fucked on everything

and aiden gets a rollup out of nowhere

that lasted about 90 seconds

the bookers have some sort of problem with sami

and aiden's got his mic back

so he can give us some more singing

swiftly tailing off as sami chases him out of the room

let's have yet another recap of shane brutalising an employee

pan out to bryan rewatching it

only to get interrupted by the new day

here to lift his spirits

oh, and here are the usos

to do the opposite

announcing the stipulation for next week

street fight

which seems ill-advised when you're fighting a team of three

bryan gets a call, ushers the new day out

someone bryan calls 'sir' (so vince) wants him to do something in the ring

i know what, because i have a dreadful habit of going on twitter and getting spoilers, but i'll maintain the mystery for now

bryan disagrees, is shut down

and he's going to do............IT right now

(couldn't resist)

and here he is in the arena

gets in the ring, calls shane to come too

he doesn't

finally, here he comes

with nary a HERE COME THE MONEYYYYYYY

not sure i've ever seen either of these this sombre

bryan's like remember last year when the miz was pushing me every week and i made the bold choice to NOT FUCKING ATTACK HIM?

bottom line, you can't assault our employees

fair policy

shane's like yeah sorry but when people talk about my family i go crazy

bryan's just i don't give a single shit you've endangered this entire show because we both know kevin's a vindictive bastard who'll take us for everything

shane offers to go and reconcile with kevin

bryan's like no, i talked to your dad, you're suspended indefinitely

and leaves

shane's left in the ring like welp

why would you leave him there if he was suspended?

eh, wrestling logic

many crowd chants later, shane slumps off

gets a lot of thank you chants for a man who's just been suspended for attacking an employee

and now renee is in the blue curtain room to interview jinder

in an ugly-ass houndstooth suit

asks which guy he'd rather fight, he doesn't give a shit

claims he represents asia better than shinsuke ever could, despite shinsuke actually being from fucking asia

does the promo again in punjabi to speak to 3% of the great nation of india

back in the arena, aj's on announce

to talk about paediatric cancer

(i feel like i'll be writing that phrase a lot in the next few weeks)

and here's baron

sidebar fact: "Won the Money In The Bank ladder match earlier this year"

guys, maybe stop reminding people of that

recap vt of styles/dillinger last week

and of baron being a tool

i feel like i might need to specify that more

and here's tye

and they haven't synced his music with his new tron, so the sexy number voice says 10 when the video's on about 6

kind of love the KO'S A BITCH sign in the crowd

works on many levels

baron slides out of the ring to face off with aj, so tye just jumps out and fucks him up against the barricade

solid advice: maybe keep an eye on the other guy in the match

cut to ads, come back to a really slick spot of baron lariating tye's head off

tye tries to set up for the tye breaker, is thwarted by his opponent being large and heavy

and baron continues to stop having the match he's actually having so he can shout at aj

and i love the complete lack of shit aj gives

baron scores a cheap shot to tye's throat, angering aj, and end of days for the pin

actually a pretty good match

you forget that tye's got a lot of skill in the ring

aj is shocked at baron's lack of honour

because he doesn't watch the show, i guess

up next, "a special look at bobby roode"

ok, whoever edited it to go directly from saying that to a total bellas advert needs firing

backstage, aj congratulates tye on his fight and says next week, the us open challenge will only be open to him

dude

that's not an open challenge

that's just a challenge

and now for a bobby roode video package

enhanced by corey being on this show now so he can run hype for him

and now we're backstage with ellsworth pleading for carmella to forgive him

and being like yes i'm subhuman and i don't deserve anything please take me back

this is not healthy

carmella says from now on, they're doing things her way

gives him a huge kiss, then slaps his face off

flounces off, leaving ellsworth to be like the actual fuck is my life

but now we have a main event

here comes the very finest in flailing japanese men

and adverts for all our other shows

and also a fucking snaaaaaaake

loving the contrast of entrances

incredibly theatrical alien dance vs walking slowly down the ramp

cut over to jinder and the singhs in his skybox

tom mispronounces kinshasa even before the bell rings

this is why we got corey on here

whoever you are trying to get your MAGA sign to constantly show up on hardcam, kindly fuck off

randy does a massive hotshot, aided by shinsuke being an extremely floppy man when he wants to be

randy goes for his draping ddt out to the floor, shinsuke reverse out because that would be dangerous as fuck if he hit it

throws shinsuke into the announce desk, corey's like this is the worst first day ever

shinsuke just decides to get a comeback spot like oh hey maybe i should just kick him in the face a bunch

superplex to shinsuke, and the setup only took a small percentage of my life this time

lovely spot as shinsuke's reeling on his knees then just leans back into doing his cmoooooooon

goes for a kinshasa, randy counters into a snap powerslam

into a draping ddt, because you know randy's spots

strikes up the snake, which is still weird when your whole thing is hitting it out of nowhere

goes for an rko, shinsuke counters into an armbar then transitions to a triangle

that was fucking lovely

randy powers out, shinsuke counters an rko into a backstabber

see, this is how you preserve finishers

and kinshasa for the pin

oh, sorry corey

KINSHAAAAAASSSSSSSAAAAAAAAAAA

(totally why corey's here)

well thank fuck for that, i'm not sure i could have taken another orton/mahal rematch without taking up amateur tattooing or something

backstage, bryan tells kevin they're done

kevin's like fuck that, imma run the show next week

and bryan drops the bomb that vince'll be there next week to sort shit out

great

ah well

and brief cut back to shinsuke partying so we have something to end on

and thus we finish the week's shows

by which i do of course mean last week's shows

one day i'll actually get my shit together and be punctuahahahahaaaa sorry i couldn't get through that

[Don’t forget to follow Emma on Twitter, where she’s @Waruce]

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog - spotlights edition

yeah imma be real w/you chief i don't remember these at all so a reread is definitely in order. so: spotlights trailcutter and hoist

so first ill do trailcutter cause i think that one comes first? maybe? 

so this one takes place between 5 and 6....whoops

so here we have: shield man 

the introduction of the rodimus star! very crucial worldbuilding 

hvbhjskhdfjkd rodimus is so self-congratulatory lmaoooooo

also brainstorm looks rlly cute standing up there holding his briefcase aww

‘wear it with pride, chromedome’ hbsjkdhfghskdf rodimus is so funny 

tailgate. did u know ily 

is. is that a headmasters joke 

whirl hvbdusfbjasjdf that's so fucking funny 

im so bad at elaborating on things in these lmaooo I'm sorry I'm lazy af 

of COURSE whirl drew a mustache on his rod star lmaooo

whirl is such a dick hvhfsdjbsdkf i love him

actually, rodimus is kind of a dick too. i love him also

ok I'm sad abt trailbreaker. especially knowing what happens to him later. oof 

whirl is so goddamn entertaining

is that KILLMASTER??? it must be, i see a wand LMAO

i just want to quote half the lines from any given mtmte/mtmte-adjacent issue but alas that's not really how liveblogs are supposed to work

whirl and brainstorm is an underrated dynamic tbh

oh, tb, never make wishes like that before bed

can’t believe there's really a tf named huffer

oh no! everyone's had a blue filter placed over them!

ohhh and there's rodimus laying into rewind for having those snuff films

so this definitely takes place at the same time as spotlight hoist, then

magnawheels is dope af. he should be magnawheels guy instead of forcefield guy

so whatever froze everyone WASNT the cons doing...interesting

brainstorm being frozen cowering in fear is a nice touch. i love all the early-mtmte stuff that subtly paints him as a big coward, especially considering everything we later learn abt him 

ayy its lockdown! i remember him from tfa as a kid

and then tb - tc? - gives whirls Epic Beatdown Speech. love it 

some classic ‘bad guy explains his business’ stuff 

was metroplex the titan in the annual? or is he the one back on cybertron? the name is familiar but my memory for continuity is horrible 

very nice persuasive deception there, tb

‘how come we don't all have [magnawheels]?’ yknow that's a very good question rodimus

HBFSKJDGDSKJF the really big rodimus...medal...plate...thing lmao 

did this come out right before mtmte 16??? why did it come out so late if its set so early lmao

anyways, that was fun! i never have much to say abt spotlights hvbdahkjfbs sorry. i like tb and this was a cool kinda ‘greatest story never told’ tale!! 

next up: spotlight hoist!

is that tarn??? bro i totally forget what happens in this spotlight augh

i do like seeing tarn get trees thrown at him, tho. even tho iirc that isn't actually tarn, or something. ok we’ll see 

oh yeah swerves in this one! and sunstreaker, who is a character that exists and is on the lost light, but is also someone we basically never see. same with hoist, actually, i feel like we don't see him at all after this, unlike TB

no offense but sunstreaker looks mildly horrifying in this art style. why is his mouth Like That?

HGBSHJKFHSHGSUDJKF PERCEPTOR IS HERE TOO AND HES MASHED INTO THE CEILING. OR THE FLOOR BUT UPSIDE DOWN. LMAOOOOO POOR DUDE

so hoist must’ve been hailing them just as shit started going down in spotlight tb

also why does percy not have his microscope scope or his eye thingy. he looks weirdly symmetrical 

bob..................

i love the implications of an offscreen superlatives award ceremony, what with swerve apparently being voted ‘ships coward,’ and whirls profile saying he was voted ‘autobot most likely to defect’

oh, you're scared of overlord, swerve? well you're not gonna be too thrilled to hear about a certain upcoming plot, 

poor hoist, being sidelined then roasted in his own spotlight 

hoist really said ‘I'm just a normie, unlike all you psychologically damaged main characters’ and yknow what? he wasn't wrong 

ok so hoist was rlly like ‘I'm normal, i don't have any trauma unlike you fools. anyways [talks abt the time he was the sole survivor of a plane crash and almost died]’ like oh honey

oof swerve, being hilariously, concerningly flippant about dying, especially for an apparent coward 

so perceptor is still lodged in the ceiling I'm assuming...im sorry that's just really funny hvbhfsjdkufbsjk

and there's all of swerves fears...and they even combine into a giant scary decepticon lmao

‘phobia shield’ is so in line with that particular Brand(tm) of mtmte sci-fi technology, i fuckgin love it

WHERE THE HELL IS PERCEPTORS LOWER BODY. THATS FUCKED UP I THOT HIS LEGS WERE JUST STUCK IN THE CEILING WTF 

oh damn it latched onto bob 

OH GOD WHATS THIS ENDING WTF. that's fucking depressing, jesus. i mean ik they get rescued and everything's fine but what the hell

anyways, i liked this one a lot too! nice episodic feel, with a coolly poetic ending. i do feel bad for hoist bc this felt like half his spotlight, half swerves lmao AND hoist doesn't really show up in the story much after this, from what i remember. either way this was still a fun read!

[tumblunni]

Baron omatsuri and the secret island traumatizes me yet again, hooray!

Ok wow that was a nostalgia blast! Finally goddamn have a physical copy of this thing to own. Its never been dubbed and the only way to get it was this weird manga UK licensed reprint of a bunch of (i think) hong kong english subtitles. The style of the subtitles looks like that, at least. Its all weird and grainy and very very old fashioned early days of subtitling style, which contrasts completely with the modern dvd menus and box and stuff. And its also a weird combination disc of four different movies, it seems they just bought out a licensing package deal or something? And just baked it onto the disc without checking or editing anything. Its not really a funny sort of bad subtitles though, its just awkward phrasings of thibgs that are hard to understand or random typos or whatever, no legendarily hilarious stuff. I kinda dislike it more when subtitles are like this, when theyre like...actually written by a guy who speaks fluent english but he just never watched the actual movie so theres a bunch of rookie mistakes. Also has a strange case of what you usually only see on fansubs- the obsession with leaving everything in japanese to Sound Cool. Nah we cant call them the Tea Party Pirates we have to say the japanese word for that. Nah we cant have this man say mustache when he's doing the mustache pose and talking about his crew of entirely mustache men who all do this mustache pose NO it has to be Chobehige because its somehow deep and edgy to not understand the word for mustache. Like i feel if i was watching this sub first i would have no idea what was happening! At least its not as bad as that older sub i saw where they insisted on translating friends as "crew", even when it was llike..a singular. This one man is my crew and here are all my other crews! Like i feel like that subber probably originally did that dumb old fandom thing of INSISTING that you had to say Nakama in japanese and Capitalized and it was a Very Important japanese word for specifically pirate friends that was Impossible To Translate. And then they just did a ctrl + F replace on the whole thing and made an incomprehensible mess. Also for some reason sanji just yells DOCTOR out of nowhere (chopper wasnt even in the scene) and baron omatsuri's one syllable "oh" is translated as some long string of what seems to be baseball jargon..?

But ANYWAY the movie is still fuckin awesome and i actually noticed EVEN MORE dark shit and subtle storytelling that i missed when i was a kid! The whole 'small child zombie stares blankly at the place where a sword stabbed through his chest and cant understand why he got back up' scene is EVEN MORE emotionally destructuve than i thought! Cos the subtlety of the voiceacting seems to make the poor kid sound so tired and resigned to it? He's desperately asking and his father figure feeds him the same old lies he's done a million times about how he's totally still alive and everything is fine. Like wow i missed that inplication that this has happened before! And then he kinda sounds like he's actually aware that Baron is lying and he's just pretending to believe him to make him feel better. And then he starts turning back into a corpse and he doesnt panic like muchigoro or not realize whats happening like the grandpas do. He just looks straight at his hand falling apart and tries to lie to Baron to make him feel better. *long shot of him from behind before you see whats happened* "I'm just feeling dizzy again. I've got used to it." *him staring blankly at his body falling apart, not even capable of feeling sad about it anymore* "Don't worry...i've got used to it." *thud*

Like FUCKING HELL this film is the best damn existential horror thing ever and why the FUCK did they market it as a fun happy kids film? it probably would have been way more successful if the twist wasnt kept all twisty, honestly.

And also WOW YEAH theres a lot of stuff thats the subtlest goddamn storytelling in the universe and youd never notice unless you watched this film a million times like i did! Like during the intro when everythibg still seems all fun and cute and normal, the advert for the Totally Innocent Not A Trap Super Secret Island Resort is being read over some random shots of waves and stuff. But then right near the end you see those same shots again and it becomes clear that it was literally the view from Baron's eyes as he was falling from the ship and drowning, desperately trying to keep his head above water and strain his eyes to see if anyone else had survived. All the moments that just looked like camera cuts were actually when his head fell beneath the waves. Thats fuckin amaizng you straight up showed the ending in the beginning and we didnt notice????

Oh and also right before THE FUCKIN TERRIFYING MUCHIGORO DEATH SCENE you see him casually mention being 'sleepy' a few scenes earlier. It just passes by without notice and you think that he's just drunk until he suddenly starts going from comedic slurring to fucking asphixiating and the SKIN ON HIS FINGERS PEELING OFF. Oh hey! Another thing i didnt notice before! FUCKING THAT. A fun game for you on your rewatch! Looking out to find the secret finger horror! Ha ha ha...ha...

Also MAN OH WOW all the subtle signs of Baron getting more desparate throughout the movie and how it seems the time limit for the zombies was almost up and he had to kill these specific pirates right now because he couldnt spare even a few more hours. In retrospect it makes sense how he was slipping up and leaving evidence for the heroes to figure him out. And its just so subtly offputting and strange how he goes from making a big fun performance about the festival early on and then starts subtky rushing through the formalities faster. Like you dont eveb conciously notice the tone is changing until suddenly BAM the full change happens and you realise you missed all those signs! And aaaa its so fuckin sad how you see him come running when muchigoro drops dead and he's like fuckin GET OUT OF THE WAY DAMMIT and kneels down next to the body and theb he just..turns emotionless again and goes ITS TIME FOR THE NEXT CHALLENGE. It is time. Its now. Shut the fuck up and do it, i dont have time to deal with this shit, just die so i can bring my friend back. (Tho of course you dont know thats why at the time) And then whats most jarring about the whole scene to me is how he's like "okay fuck it theres no more fun theres no more attractions, if youre not gonna play along then the final game is just i shoot your damn head off" WHILE YKNOW STILL STANDING OVER THE CORPSE OF HIS FRIEND AND STARING DAGGERS INTO THEM LIKE ITS THEIR FAULT FOR DARING TO CLING ONTO LIFE and then a fuckin half finished hapoy fun carnival game sign pops up in the backgroubd and everyone walks past it. Why was that somehow both hilarious and terrifying????? Just fuckin 'whoops we had this thing ready to go but alright its murder time i guess' and everyone IS SUDDENLY PACKING HEAT AND RIDDLING OUR HEROES WITH BULLETS???

And also even more subtly Baron just?? Stays with muchigoro?? Like notice how the entirety of the endgame takes place around where the dude dropped dead. And how when mustache pirate guy saves luffy you see Baron just walking in circles around the same area angrily shooting arrows at nothing in complete desperation even though the dude is gone and itd make more sense to run after him. No he stays standing right there and actually looks really damn relieved when luffy comes back, he's like 'holy shit you really were stupid enough to walk right into my trap jesus christ im so glad but also youre a dumbass'. And he fights entirely using arrows at this point so you might not even notice that he barely walks more than just circling a two meter radius of fuckin DEAD BEST FRIEND CORPSE. Which btw blends intonthe shadows for this entire scene and they only draw attention it again after Baron wibs and muchigoro comes back to life. And UGH MY HEART you see him smile genuinely for the firstvtime and he's like 'im so glad youre okay' and muchigoro is like 'haha im more than okay i can do somersaults!' and generally being a FUCKING TREASURE and this poor fuckin horrible evil man is hugging his buddy and gently leading him away from the battlefield so he doesnt norice he was just fuckin murdering some dudes to ressurect him. God the scariest damn thing about this film is how the zombies dont know theyre zombies and honestky they probably wouldnt even agree with their boss's plan to kill people to keep them alive. They justvthink they live a perfectly normal happy life on hapoy festival island, and he wants them to stay that way and never feel pain again :(

Aaaaand then yeah the infamous scene of revealing this horrifying intestines flower is growing out of the flesh on his back and all the corpses its digesting are pushed against the undulating flesh of its throat like a snake devouring its prey. And its cutesy fake flower face grows infinate eyes as it just keeps laughing and laughing. And then it gets graphically blown apart and the poor goddamn parasite host tries to shove the bloody instestines back into its body, knowing that without this horrifying monster chewing on his goddamn veins all his friends will go back to being dead.

THE END

THE FUCKING END

God it ends so abruptly seriously

I still cry my eyes out every time at the ending monologue of Baron dying and meeting all the souls of his dead friends and theyre crying telling him he shouldnt be here, they wish he'd been able to find another reason to live without him...

And then THE END

JAUNTY MUSIC OVER THE CREDITS

THE FUCKIN END I GUESS

What a great but very oddly executed movie. Seriously i feel it could have worked better if it was given space to breathe and more deeply explore the dark themes rather than the weirdness of trying to fool the audience into thinking it was cheerful and innocent. Like all of this shit happens in the last 30 minutes of the movie! They spend 60 minutes on the fun carnival games! What a strange sense of priorities!!

I WOULD DEVOUR A MILLION HOURS MORE OF DEEP SAD ZOMBIE CONTENT

I am like the Lily of fanfics

Oh yeah btw the horrifying deadly elder god spine parasite thing is named Lily and it looks pretty much exactly like flowey from undertale. This film kinda spoiled me for that game LOL ive never trusted a single talking flower ever since!