#he has no existence in my plot other than a future silly

[ghosthoodie]

sillay sicily and kait kid doodle dump

[opbackgrounds]

With all respect, you sound weirdly over the top with this one Nami side-plot and demand way more coherency of it than anything else in the manga. You treat Sanji's love-heart gags way more seriously than Nami's abuse gags (or Luffy's eating ones or Chopper's infoptency ones), too. It sounds like a really bad-faith reading tbh. [For example, the dress line fits with Nami's fashion obsession which has legit reasons and her being used to being taken advantage of is literally her origin story, but you pretend like those readings don't exists?]

Well, firstly, this is my reading of the manga. I'm not going to go out of my way to think of how other people might interpret a scene, because that's not what I'm doing here.

Secondly, I've been very vocal about other storylines I don't like, including Chopper being incompetent, but the subplot with Absalom has been the most sustained bit of bad writing in the manga. It's going to get more attention, because there's more of it. There will be more negativity in the future when I get to other things I don't like. Fans of Punk Hazard, you have been warned.

Thirdly, if I've given the Absalom-Sanji-Nami story a bad-faith reading, you've given a bad faith reading of my analysis. My issue isn't and never has been Sanji's love-sick chivalry--I wouldn't have defended his fight against Kalifa during Enies Lobby otherwise--it is the tonal dissonance between the subject matter being displayed and the character's reaction to it. I even praised the parts of his fight with Absalom that highlight his self-sacrificial nature, even if it makes him act ridiculous such as taking a stab wound to avoid getting blood on Nami's wedding dress. That's silly, but it's the sort of exaggeration that suits the series, and fits in the same category as Nami hitting the boys when she's annoyed with them.

Like Hogback, Absalom's actions are coded with the language of male obsession and objectification, sexual assault, and rape. Both characters only only care for the objects of their obsessions because of their victim's physical attractiveness. The implication is Hogback gave Cindry a post-mortem boob job. Nami literally gets attacked while she's bathing. They're very similar characters, so I think it's fair to ask why they're treated so differently by the narrative.

I also said that I believe the marriage subplot could have been written in a way that's more innocent and lighthearted, but Oda merrily skipped over the line once he included the imagery of sexual assault. That is my line in the sand, and it is absolutely a black mark on both Sanji and the series as the whole that Oda decided to highlight the similarities between he and Absalom instead of their differences. It moves the character from chivalrous dweeb to sex pest, and it's a decision he's doubled down on many times as the series progresses.

Nami being okay with being forcibly changed into a wedding dress after being drugged into unconsciousness by someone who tried to attack her because she "is fashion obsessed" is patently absurd, as is her being "used to it" because of her past. What I was trying to express is that it would have been nice if Nami had gotten as angry at what Absalom did to her as she did when Lola was attacked. Perhaps I didn't express myself well in that regard, but all in all I stand by my criticisms.

[eurydice-pens]

can i have forgotten vaugarde au info of some sort. i went through your tag and im obsessed with the concept

hi!! yes yes of course >:3c thank you for being interested! i am in the process of plotting out a big fic for the au so i will hold some cards close to my chest, but here’s a bit of info just for you 💗💗 /pos /silly

~

Forgotten Vaugarde AU

Concept / Story

Toward the end of the ISAT canon, the King makes a wish that “everyone would understand how he feels.” This results in a rewriting of the Universe such that Vaugarde, rather than the Island Country, was forgotten, and the individuals to whom this wish was most directly addressed (Mirabelle, Isabeau, Odile, Bonnie, and Nille by virtue of association with Bonnie) become Travelers with no identity and home or, in the case of Odile, becomes someone for whom half of her identity is even less accessible than before.

The King and Loop are thrown into this new reality with their memories intact. The King’s body, however, is not preserved, as he finds himself Loopified into a tear-headed creature. They end up sharing a decidedly unamicable life inside the home of the version of the King who has never lost his memories or home, Aesop, as the King (who eventually names himself Luke) contends with the fact that he has become the very force he had feared so gravely: the one that erased Vaugarde, the land that had welcomed and loved him, from existence.

Mirabelle, Isabeau, Bonnie, and Nille (who had a chance encounter with Luke when reality was first rewritten, at which time, out of guilt and painful empathy, he told each of the, their names) wander the Island Country until they are discovered by Siffrin, whose family essentially adopts and raises them into adulthood / preteenhood. Odile eventually joins the group when she is visiting the Island Country essentially as a tourist and becomes attached to the group through her friendship with Siffrin’s parents and with Loop.

Mirabelle knows that she is very lucky, to have a home, to have some semblance of family and belonging. Nonetheless she is the one out of the group who most feels the pang of something real, and integral, and important missing from her, who is the most loathe to accept the belief common among the people around her that things happen as they should, and Fate is immutable, and every change (…Change?) merely the slow erosion of bodies, minds, and souls against the winds of Time. So when the mysterious Queen emerges and begins to wreak havoc across the Island, when she agrees to journey to the tyrant and to protect the country from the Queen’s Remaking with her friends, she has some inkling that there is something wrong, something missing, some reason why every glimpse they’ve gotten of the white-haired Queen has felt so achingly familiar.

It all feels so strange, and so important, long before Time stops for the first time.

Interactions with Other AUs / Headcanons and Contributors (so far)!

This AU borrows and expands upon @the-bitter-ocean ‘s Islander Euphrasie theory and shares a heart with @felikatze ‘s Divorce AU.

@princemonarchempress , @floating-far-from-earth , and @the-bitter-ocean have all contributed ideas to and inspired parts of the story!

And a special thank you to @snickerpuffs-art for drawing Luke 💙💙

~

thank you so much for reading and for your interest in the au!! i hope to make a lot more things for it in the future <333

[yall-hate-kids-tourney]

Loser Round 7: Ken Amada (Persona) vs. Mabel Pines (Gravity Falls)

Propaganda below the cut

Ken Amada (11):

y'all are all for "murder and revenge plots" until is a 10 y/o boy who watched his mother die and started to become conflicted after realizing his moms killer is a secretly kind traumatized teenager to the point where the 10 y/o boy attempts to kill himself by giving himself up to assassins.

bro he's 10.

----

ken amada is such an interesting character with the unfortunate circumstances of having little screentime and atlus deciding to ruin his reputation forever by giving him a romance choice in the fem protag route. ken is a child who lost his mother at NINE. nobody ever believed him when he said that she was murdered, and that he saw who killed her. hes miserable, and all everyone around him does is give him sympathy while hes suffering and was forced to grow up before even going into middle school. hes angry and determined to get revenge on the person who killed his mother, and he doesnt even see the own value in living anymore beyond getting that revenge. hes more mature than most of his peers, and is desperate to be seen as an adult.but at the same time, he is still a child who likes superhero shows.

----

OH GOD WHERE DO I START

First there's the normal "The fandom hates kids" complaints of "He's so whiny" "he's so annoying" "oh my god kid just SHUT UP" y'know, the typical fandom stuff that makes you wonder if these people have ever talked to a child in their life

Second, there's (spoilers)...

October 4th, and the ENTIRE FANDOM is calling this kid a murderer.

For context, the moment in question doesn't necessarily paint him in the best light but its still understandable. Your team is going on a mission while Ken and another character named Shinjiro are away. In an alleyway, they have a talk where it is revealed that on that night a year priar to the game, Kens mom was killed in that allleyway by Shinjiro's Persona (Which, by the Rules of the Game Lore, basically means By Shinjiro). Ken tried to tell the authorities, the authorities didn't believe him because Magic Reasons and the death was ruled an accident.

Of course Ken is Fucking Pissed and wants revenge

However, because of Talk, he ACTIVELY CALMS DOWN, and realises "Hey, I probably shouldn't kill someone. Despite them, y'know, killing my mom"

HOWEVER REVOLVER JESUS COMES IN AND RUINS EVERYTHING BY SHOOTING SHINJIRO. AND LIKE, IF YOU PLAY P3P YOU CAN /AVOID THE DEATH THING/

AND EVERYONE BLAMES /KEN/. AND ONLY KEN.

And third (yes, there's a THIRD) IS THE FUCKING FEMC ROMANCE THING. WHICH JUST...SHOULDN'T HAVE EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. BUT NOW HE'S "SHOTA BAIT" BECAUSE WE HAVE TO BLAME THE CHILD FOR THE AUTHORITY FIGURE COMING ONTO THEM 😒

Mabel Pines (12):

I literally saw a tiktok today about how Mabel is a bad person. She’s 12! Like yes, she has made some mistakes and bad choices, but so has everyone else. And I never see any of the other characters in the show criticized the way she is. Everyone in the show has made mistakes (Grunkle Stan commits crimes practically every episode ffs) but because Mabel is a 12 year old girl and acts like it, she gets the most hate. Mabel deserves to be loved 🩷

----

girl gets so much flack for being... immature and kind of selfish at age 12? like she had whole video essays made on why she is a horrible person who deserves punishment. god forbid girls be silly

----

!!! Spoilers for Gravity Falls last 5 episodes !!!

This has gone down a lot but when the Weirdmaggedon arc was happening, the finale of the series, a big part of the fandom started hating Mabel because she accidentally caused the Weirdmaggedon (basically an apocalypse + bizarre shit like the water tower becoming an eight-legged monster with a giant mouth).

For context, in the episode that starts this arc, "Dipper and Mabel vs The Future", Mabel is really excited to the end of their summer vacation at Grunkle Stan's house, since it will be her and Dipper's 13th birthday and they will enter high school (her idea of high school of course coming from teen movies). But then this whole idea starts to shatter when Wendy tells her that high school isn't like a Disney musical, but it's okay, she will get through this since she will be with Dipper, her twin brother...

Except, that Dipper receives an invitation by Grunkle Stan's scientist brother Ford to become his apprentice after summer ends, staying in Gravity Falls, without Mabel. When she discovers it, she gets really mad at him and in a fit of rage, she accidentally picks Dipper's bag instead of hers and runs off to the woods.

When she gets there, Blendin, a time-travelling friend of theirs finds her and tells her that he has a way of making her brother stay with her, and make the summer take a little more to end, and that he just needed a little thing that Dipper has in his bag. That thing is a dimensional rift that Dipper and Ford contained to not cause the Weirdmaggedon, but Mabel didn't knew about that and gives it to Blendin. Blendin then breaks it and it's revealed that Bill Cipher was controlling Blendin to get the rift and release the Weirdmaggedon. He then traps Mabel in a bubble, starting the final arc of the series.

So, a few episodes later, that bubble she's in is revealed to be a world of fantasy that she controls, and that she didn't want to leave that world, as she was scared of growing up etc.

Context given, A LOT OF PEOPLE HATED HER FOR THIS. Suddenly people started seeing Mabel as just a selfish girl who wanted things only her way, when she was only a 12-year-old scared of growing up without her twin brother (they do end up going back together at the end but still).

The worst part is that apparently the people behind it took note of this, and on the comics that where released after the finale, she is a selfish spoiled brat. I haven't read the comics though so I'm going off what some people said about it.

[wr0ngwarp]

some refs for my jet set radio explorers of death joke au (that sure is a sentence) because i wanted to put them on art fight (..mostly for warehouse leapusverse lore reasons)

beat and yoyo seemed like they needed refs most urgently cuz beat has a bunch of designs on account of being squirtle and yoyo's design was just hard to parse in the pics he appeared in. yeagh

art fight bio under the cut for ppl who don't have an art fight account

based on PMD: Explorers of Death by sparklingdemon, HIGHLY recommended reading to get a grasp on what in the goddamn is going on here oh this is incredibly silly. so basically a while ago there was an in-joke about jsr and eod in a pokepasta discord i'm in, and i have a bad habit of taking jokes too far. so, of course, i took the joke WAY WAY WAY too far! the entire joke is the idea that Corn in Future retconned og JSR Beat as leader/founder of the GGs, so Corn and Beat are the Myras. no it’s not a joke funny enough to justify how many hours i sunk into drawing these. no attempt was made to change the setting, assign most of the other cast, or otherwise make this au hold up to ANY amount of scrutiny.

---- the base concept (aka reskinned eod plot) is that the og JSR timeline was getting, like, temporally retconned into the Future timeline, but Beat (in the role of Squirtle) refused to accept the changeover so he tried to hold onto his own fading timeline, trapping it (and himself) in a state of perpetual decay until he can take back the timeline. basically everybodys a grayscale rotting zombie it's miserable. also if you think "hey, isn't EOD!Beat less justified than Squirtle because the situation WASN'T life or death until he MADE IT that way" you would be right lmao JSRF Corn (as Myra), being the leader of the GGs in Future, shows up (overwriting the preexisting version of Tab ig) to try to put the dying timeline out of its misery so it can actually be reborn into the Future timeline. for some reason his spraypaint can make the zombies pass on. don't question it. he and Beat are kind of trying to take each other down so one timeline can take precedent here. Gum (as Shadow) is kind of torn between the two of them, with two overlapping contradicting sets of memories and also the most disastrous way to possibly combine her JSR and JSRF designs LMAO. her loyalties are kind of torn as a result and also she understandably isnt a big fan of all the murder going on here ... ...also, because this is a joke au that i did not bother to try to make sense, they're in the goddamn Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers for no real reason. i also tend to call Beat and Corn "Meat and Mourn" though i dont have a nickname for Gum :(. and they have some level of meta awareness that they're in a poorly crafted joke AU based on an existing creepypasta, and yet this knowledge of how inane it all is doesn't stop them from riding it out to its horrific conclusion. ...ha ha? also Yoyo is Bidoof he's just here to be the first to die dont worry about him

---- also because there's something profoundly wrong with me i have the main trio + Yoyo in me and my sibling's joke multi-crossover RP. Corn is MIA right now, Gum is in the Garage with the setting's regular version of the GGs (they are confused and concerned. esp normal!Gum)... ...and, uh... Beat and Yoyo are in the Warehouse. (Pauein 9696 is just kind of there too.) they're... friends? i think......???? they are trapped in there and dont know Warehouse Yoyo is actually the goddamn building theyre trapped in

in the warehouse, eod!yoyo is kind of... barely coherent, only aware a fraction of the time, and not really able to do a whole lot since he's in such bad condition. he's just kind of taking anything as it happens at this point bc he can't do anything about it, but internally he's very pessimistic both about the idea that Beat can fix anything OR that there's any chance they'll escape the warehouse. eod!beat is... sort of kind of friends with the Warehouse but it's a very fragile friendship prone to arguments since he is trying VERY hard to leave (esp cuz he has UNFINISHED BUSINESS with killing corn and MAKING THINGS RIGHT) but Warehouse Yoyo is manipulatively trying to keep him without letting on that's what he's doing. both of these guys are fucked in the head tbh. at least nobody's judging each other for being walking corpses with weird metafiction elements.

[anxiousdreamcore]

YOU PLAY COOKIE RUN KINGDOM !? omfg you just got like, 10x cooler. Fav cookie ?

I haven’t played the game for one hundred years (couple months) but with the new, upcoming plot line? I really wanna come back and catch up 🤭 I mean, Dark Cacao’s kingdom waging war against a nihilist deity that can Thanos snap people out of existence, with the possibility of Dark Choco joining the fight??? Helping his dad??? And he doesn’t seem to have that damned cursed sword anymore?! Count me in!

(Pic by me)

Ok so my number one def has to be Unicorn cream cookie. I love their design, the concept of a magical wonderland for cookies, the drama fulfilment cotton candy aesthetic and loved the plot line as well. It gave me big Peter Pan vibes.

My second place is definitely shared between Dark Choco and his dad. I like their drama, their plot line and massive misunderstanding. It hurts and I want them to be happy. I still remember when Dark Choco’s plot-line came out and his backstory was revealed in what was essentially a suppressed traumatic memory. Deep down, behind the curse, he loves his father, wants his approval and feels deeply regretful of ever picking up the sword that now shackles him to violence.

On the other hand, I have a little bit of a love/dislike relationship with Dark Cacao. He is a king with a big K. He’s not the most outwardly loving individual, and that is to be expected of the harsh environment he grew up in. The snowy tundra is tough, so you gotta be tougher, and the kingdom he rules is one of warriors. A literal "warrior nation" as he called it, so Cacao did everything he could to raise a powerful, just warrior out of his son. A future king to rule his land with an iron fist, but one that shields its people from harm rather than squandering them.

HOWEVER.

Cacao himself admitted it in his speech, quote, “My life’s greatest regret, is that I never gave you (Choco) enough love.”

What we get from his whole speech, as well as the persona Dark Choco used to have before the sword incident, was that as much as Cacao loved his child, that love didn’t translate well into his actions. Most likely he was very present physically and as a mentor, but not present emotionally, and now sees it as the reason for why Dark Choco went against him (though we as players know that the problem lies in the sword).

People say that actions matter more than words but words hold immense power, especially on kids, and Dark Choco may have become the pompous up-and-coming hero we knew him as before the curse precisely as result of lack of emotional attention. It was Dark Choco’s way of making his dad proud, as well as getting attention from other cookies. Not to say that he didn’t genuinely want to help; Cacao made it clear that he invested a lot of time into raising Choco into a man with a strong moral compass, and we definitely see that in the way he fights against the sword’s control.

Anyway, yes, I love the silly whimsy cookie game 🥰🥰🥰

[wannab-urs]

Pedro Pascal Character Fanfiction Recs | Vol 31

AO3 | Kofi | Main Masterlist | The Spreadsheet Masterlist

Howdy folks!

New blog theme, new TSD format. Do we like it? Welcome to volume 31 of The Spreadsheet Digest, my weekly(ish) fic rec post. From now on I'll link my personal stuff plus the masterlist where you can find the actual spreadsheet, my fic rec masterlist, and info about how to appear on this list in the future.

All info provided by the author unless it was blank, in which case I filled it in.

Fic Recs Below!

Freeze-thaw

Joel one shot by @covetyou

Summary: With your holiday plans ruined when a freak snow storm blows through town, you spend the fesitve period holed up with your partner, Joel Miller, learning exactly how warm you can keep each other in the snow.

Tags: no outbreak, fluff, smut, fingering, playing in the snow, temperature play, Joel probs has super bad circulation, established relationship but it's their first Christmas together and reader has some relationship insecurities

This Barbie Likes Objectification

Joel one shot by @walkintotheriveranddisappear

Summary: after a fun date seeing Barbie with joel, he realizes a certain scene involving brainwashed barbie dolls has inspired some nasty desires in you. he's more than willing to help you explore them.

Tags: explicit sexual content (18+), no specified ages (but obviously both adults), objectification, degradation, humiliation kink, dirty talk, creampie, unprotected sex, dom!joel, sub!reader, slight spoiler for the Barbie movie

Patience

Javi P one shot by @foli-vora

Summary: Javier teaches you to be patient

Tags: smut: fingering, oral sex (f receiving), praise kink, p in v sex, unprotected sex (wrap that willy before getting silly), creampie, restraints/use of handcuffs, orgasm denial, smoking, swearing

Stay Close to Me

Jack one shot by @alwaysbethewest

Summary: You're a rookie agent sent to work undercover with Jack as a married couple!

Tags: Fake/undercover marriage! Statesman casefic! A little romance, kissing, coarse language, very mild peril and hurt/comfort, and a splash of alcohol. Reader is a junior agent and has some muscle but otherwise no physical/age descriptions. As with any good Kingsman fic, my first step was to disregard half of canon, so this is either pre-movie or an AU.

No Me Suletes

Frankie one shot by @fhatbhabie

Summary: Even though he's bad for you, you still can't let him go.

Tags: Marcus Pike cameo, smut, unprotected p in v, talks of oral, angst angst angst!!, being left at a chapel, cheating, death of a spouse, drug use (buggar sugar) , smoking cigarettes, asshole!Frankie, spanish dialect w/ translations, no use of Y/N, cute pet names, splash of fluff for 2 seconds, someone having a stroke with a small description, no happy ending

Poolside

Javi G one shot by @joelscruff

Summary: just some fun by the pool with sugar daddy!javi

Tags: blowjobs, deepthroating, brief ball worship, daddy kink, unprotected p in v sex, creampie, bad google translate spanish, sweat

"Din"scord Kitten

Din one shot by @beskarandblasters

Summary: When bounty hunting doesn’t work out anymore Din has to turn to alternative methods to support himself.

Tags: this is a crack fic lmao, Discord/Venmo/Dr. Pepper existing in Star Wars, bad sexting, dick pics, masturbating, bad Star Wars puns, sex work, cummies needs its own warning 😭, pet names (cyar’ika), oral sex (M receiving), cum eating, no use of y/n

Another Time, Baby

Joel one shot by @swiftispunk

Summary: joel makes good on a promise.

Tags: established relationship, porn no plot, smut, age gap (28/50), unprotected anal sex, vaginal fingering, use of a butt plug, joel miller eats ass and pussy and also has a big dick, some affectionate spanking, creampie, cum play (eating and sharing), a little bit of spit, just a lot of bodily fluids all around, one (1) poetic description of a queef, joel miller's filthy mouth, pet names, ysd!joel at his most soft dom, joel's also kind of feral in this, multiple orgasms, sweet sweet aftercare, pov swap. no use of y/n.

Suburbia (I gave it a lil name, sorry).

Lucien drabble by @julesonrecord

Summary: You can't stay away from him, nor do you really try

Tags: Explicit; angst; oral (m receiving); implied infidelity; past relationship. Suburbia (shudder).

Misunderstood

Marcus P one shot by @magpiepills

Summary: Marcus has a bad day at work and needs you to help him feel better.

Tags: SMUT, established relationship, PIV, oral (f and m receiving) fingering, big dick Marcus, multiple orgasms, thumb sucking, cum eating, cum swapping, Marcus eats it from behind, dirty talk, roughish sex, some degradation, tiny little splash of daddy, porn with no plot, no regard for canon, use of a tie as a leash sort of?, alcohol consumption, pancakes, cardigans, NPR, idk what else man, this is not fluffy Marcus.

Wrest Pin

Din series by BalletOrchard (AO3)

Summary: “I can help you escape the planet,” Mando said sharply, “But I want information in return.” She looked up at him through the small hairs on her face and she whispered, sounding almost lost…As if she didn’t know what else to say… “I have no information.” Something Mando did not believe.

Tags: panic attacks, force sensitive!reader, unprotected PinV sex, smut, mando is a dick, angst, slow burn (romantically), touch starved!din, bickering, arguing, post season 1, fluff, ofc!evangeline, she like doesn’t get off the first time they fuck which i feel like is worth noting, feelings of regret, minor character death (evangeline’s whole fam), follows canon, mando lowkey keeping evangeline against her will but like she’s hiding from the empire so, near death experience(s), the helmet comes off, oral f receiving, blindfolding, shower sex

A Weight Off Your Shoulders

Joel series by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Summary: a series of oneshots in chronological order that follow the story of Joel and his new neighbor who returns to Texas following a devastating breakup and called off engagement. With her life completely uprooted and her self-confidence shot, she works through moving on to bigger and better things. Enter DILF neighbor Joel Miller.

Tags: age gap (Joel mid 40s, neighbor late 20s), cheating, negative body image, negative self-talk, discussions of body image struggles

The Peg That Middle Aged Man Campaign 2024 Masterlist

Call for Pegging Fics!

PMAMC on AO3

Trussed Up - I pegged Jack Daniels

Happy Reading!

[remarcely]

I didn't like Sylvie in S1, mostly because of the whole sylki thing, but S2 has made me her number 1 defender.

It blows my mind that people watched the show and went away with 'wow, Sylvie's a bitch' because it just reeks of misogyny and not having the capacity to understand a complex character.

Sylvie, since the age of 10-ish, has been fleeing a constant threat to her existence and grew up in apocalypses. She couldn't have anything permanent other than herself because she has to keep moving and anything she leaves behind is destroyed. No friends, no family, and no universe of her own.

Then she gets put in a room with the one guy who ruined her entire life and countless others, of course she's going to be determined to kill him. She started as a scared child, it makes sense that she became and angry adult. Nothing, not even Loki begging her, could stop He Who Remain(ed)s death.

And lets be honest he deserved it.

Then in the finale, she watches a variant of herself and a friend she faced hell along side sentence himself to an eternity of sitting on a throne, holding the multiverse in place. Loki gave everyone a chance to live and, most importantly, a choice. To stay at the TVA or go home. Verity (Hunter B-15) and Frank (Casey) chose to stay, Mobius found it too difficult without Loki and left, and Sylvie's choice was obvious.

It's unfair to be angry at her for showing happiness in the finale. Time has clearly passed since Loki left, though we're not shown how much, of course she's managed to move on. I don't see anyone pissed off at B-15 for continuing with their life? What about Casey or Ouroboros?

Also, we saw Sylvie's face as Loki made his sacrifice.

Does she look happy to you?

That is a face of horror and distress as she watches yet another person in her life essentially give up his freedom while she survives.

Do you ever think about the survivors guilt Sylvie has? That in all of the apocalypses she hid in, she saw men, women, and children be killed knowing she technically could save them but it would make them a variant and doom them further. That she is the only one from her own universe that wasn't reset, making her the lone survivor of her world?

Even with the infinite possibility for the future multiverse, those worlds will have their own Sylvie. There's no place for her there, so she has to make her own somewhere else.

From the end of Season 1 to most of Season 2, Sylvie has been fighting for the chance to live a normal life. When she gets it, through such suffering and loss, is she really supposed to be miserable forever because one person is gone? She quite literally got the only thing she's ever wanted, that's got to give her a lot of relief.

Don't be the person to think 'this silly woman gets between my gay ship, brrrr rage what a bitch' or take her as one dimensional.

She's selfish because she's sacrificed everything she had, I think by now she's allowed to be. Sophia Di Martino did a wonderful job and deserves to have her character be enjoyed and understood, not labelled as annoying and 'the real villain'.

Some people only paid mind to the shipping when watching the show, ignoring the plot, and it really shows.

[mauesartetc]

Thoughts on Helluva Boss Episode 203 (”Exes and Oohs”)

Pros:

- Crimson’s facial animation is great, especially when Moxxie and Millie first walk through his door, and when he finds out Chaz isn’t rich. His expressions convey a lot of menace through the timing and eye movements alone. It’s subtle, but I hope whoever animated those scenes knows their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed.

- I like the concept of Crimson’s trophy wall, which shows he actually keeps mementos of those he’s killed, seeing them as no better than animals for him to hunt. Now if there are actually cops in this version of Hell (which the existence of jail implies), this would look very suspicious if they ever stopped by, like a serial killer displaying the hands, eyeballs, etc of his victims. But I guess he could always press a button and flip them all to the dildo side if he didn’t mind the weird looks he’d inevitably get.

- I actually liked Moxxie’s introduction to Blitzo in the flashback. It showcases his fast-talking, big-thinking personality well. Shame he’d go on to treat Moxxie like shit after this.

- I wasn’t expecting the dildo scene to get a laugh out of me, but goddammit it did. It’s such an absurd overcompensation from an old straight dude who thinks he knows what the gays like that it caught me off guard. It’d be kinda tasteless if Moxxie were the butt of the joke, but clearly he’s the straight man (no pun intended) here. The real source of humor is Crimson’s misguided, ridiculously silly attempt to accommodate his son, which just shows how little he really knows (or cares to learn) about him.

- Fuck YES, Moxxie standing up to his dad. Great, satisfying scene. Now do it to Blitzo, Mox. It’s been a looong time comin’.

- Millie’s climactic fight scene is pretty good. The choreography is fluid, the kills are creative and fun to watch, and the music fits perfectly. There’s just one aspect holding the sequence back from being great, which we’ll get into later.

- Good ending. Shows what became of Chaz and hints that Crimson might try to get revenge on Moxxie in the future. More Crimson is a win in my book.

Cons after the cut.

Cons:

- Dammit, the “Moxxie is fat” jokes were never funny, show. Let ‘em die.

- So Crimson lives in the Greed ring, yeah? Why is everything green? The color traditionally associated with greed as a sin is yellow, while green is reserved for envy. For that matter, you’d think all the sharks here would fit in better in the Envy ring, since it’s ruled by Leviathan, a sea creature. Did they seriously just slap the wrong name on the Envy ring? They used the traditional deep blue for the Lust ring back in “Ozzie’s”, so this is a glaring inconsistency.

- I’ve mentioned before that Viv Medrano likes using the same design elements a bit too much in her characters (bow ties, gold teeth, differently-colored fingertips, etc), and it looks like we can add concentric eye rings to the list. Notice how both Striker and Chaz have these.

The other sharks in the mob have them too, but Striker’s an imp, not a shark (despite looking like he was ripped off from a shark), so it’s not species-related. Does it represent the characters’ personalities or serve any sort of plot function? Fuck if I know.

- Bit of a nitpick, but the black “cross” shape at the tip of Chaz’s nose is wildly inconsistent from scene to scene. Sometimes it’s thin, sometimes it’s thick, sometimes it has pointed tips, sometimes it has rounded ones. More thorough model sheets for the cleanup department would help mitigate this in the future.

- So prison is a thing that exists in Hell, huh? And so are banks, I guess. And they look exactly the same as they do in the human world. See, this isn’t the kind of episode that’d necessarily benefit from worldbuilding, since it’s not relevant to the plot (or not yet, anyway, but we’ll get there). But seeing all these ordinary settings just reminds me of how pointless the entire “Hell” thing is, and how no one could be bothered to invent a new world for the characters to live in. (Seriously, demon characters disguised as humans in the human world. I’m tellin’ ya. Barely anything in the story would change.)

- Guys, ya didn’t have to explain the Titanic reference. Most viewers probably would have caught it even if Blitzo hadn’t pointed it out. I’m sure even the zoomers who hadn’t been born when it came out would at least recognize the meme. Give your audience more credit.

- I’ll level with y’all: The dildo pixellation is distracting as hell. If a show made for network TV had it, fine, I understand. But Helluva Boss is made for the internet, which has much more lenient censorship standards. Hell, BoJack Horseman, a Netflix show, features a sex robot with a couple attached dildos, neither of which are censored. Is this just a Youtube monetization thing I’m not aware of? Because I checked their community guidelines, and while they mention “using sex toys to give viewers sexual gratification”, there’s nothing remotely sexy about their use in this episode. They function only as comedic props, not tools of titillation. All about that context, baby. Not that I’m super gung-ho to see a bunch of multicolored dicks in their full glory; the censorship’s just a little annoying.

- I understand the need to give Moxxie a reason to fear Crimson, but the physical violence is a tad gratuitous. Crimson didn’t really need to hit Moxxie’s mom in the past, or Moxxie in the present, to be intimidating. Abusers don’t have to lay a finger on their victims in order to frighten them.

I’m starting to see a pattern: Stella tried to hit Stolas, too. It’s like these writers think abuse needs to employ some physical element, or else it’s not really abuse. Which... no, that’s not at all how it works. And considering how Moxxie escaped an abuser only to find himself working for another one (oh, but he’s hard on him because he CaREs, guys! Yeah, bullshit), it only makes this sequence harder to watch. Mox deserves so much better.

- Helping his dad drown that guy seems like a traumatic memory for Moxxie, so why is he in a business where all he does is kill people? Hasn’t he ever wanted or tried to be anything else? A musician, maybe? We know he can sing and play guitar, so...

- Holy shit, did we really need that shot of Crimson with the dildos just after the exceedingly dark flashback? Talk about tone whiplash!

- I mentioned earlier that worldbuilding wouldn’t affect this episode’s plot... for the most part. The wedding scene is a case in which it would.

So, really think about this for a second: We’re in Hell. And there’s a wedding that looks like a typical one would in the human world. We’ve got flowers, an aisle, a block of chairs on either side, and...

A priest?!

Seriously, the dude officiating is dressed up like a Christian priest. White robes, hat, the works. Sure, his outfit and book have inverted crosses, but that doesn’t explain why everything else looks so similar to what you might see in a Christian ceremony. It’s like the demons of Hell saw a Christian wedding and were like, “Oh cool let’s do it exactly like that”. Don’t you think Lucifer, the king of Hell in this universe, might have a tiny problem with this??

And for that matter, why is marriage even a thing in Hell? Why do demons feel the need to justify their long-term relationships with human customs? Why can’t they form their own traditions to celebrate their love?

I get that this is all visual shorthand the audience will be familiar with. I get that they’ll take it all in and recognize this event as a wedding in seconds. But in earlier scenes, Crimson already established that a wedding would take place the next day. So with that label in mind, the audience should be able to tell that this ceremony was a wedding, no matter how it looks.

Would a more unorthodox version feel out of place in the very “humanized” culture and surroundings the show has established? Yeah, kinda. But there could be a throwaway line from the priest explaining that he insists on doing things the old way, with the traditions demons once embraced before Hell was overrun with human souls and human practices (”This is how we did it back in my day, before the sinners came.” Then Chaz is like, “Ha! You said came!” or something). This could be a glimpse into a demonic subculture fighting to preserve their heritage, which future episodes could explore further. Think of all the subtext and story potential packed into a single sentence. But, y’know, creating a by-the-numbers world is just easier. So.

-  Remember how I said there was one thing holding Millie’s fight scene back from being great? It’s the camera. It zooms in too far and moves around way too much, to the point where it’s hard to see what’s going on at times. Ideally, the animation and frame composition should work in tandem, hitting all the snapshots of action they need to hit for visual clarity, and doing little else. A bit of camera shake here and there is fine, but there’s no need for all this wobbling back and forth. I shouldn’t need Dramamine just to watch a damn web series.

- At one point, Crimson says to his minions, “What the fuck! She’s a dame! She’s a broad! Kill her!”, implying that women should be easy to kill. I don’t know if Horvitz improvised those lines or what, but considering that Crimson’s gang has two female members (one of whom we even saw moving a body earlier), it feels like there’s a disconnect between the dialogue and the art department.

I dunno, man. If women aren’t that tough, maybe don’t use them as soldiers in your crime syndicate?? Inconsistencies aplenty in this episode, sheesh.

In conclusion, running the script by another set of eyes during the writing stage would benefit this show immensely. I know it seems like I had a lot of gripes with this one (what else is new, amirite), but honestly, this is one of the better Helluva Boss episodes. When the series ends (or when the writing gets so bad I can’t watch anymore), I might post my personal ranking of all the installments I’ve seen. For the first time in a long time, I’m actually curious to see what kind of story the next episode will tell. It’s almost like a series with an episodic plot structure can be interesting without the creator’s favorite ship hogging the focus. Funny how that works.

Later!

[variousqueerthings]

SO WE'VE SEEN EPISODE ONE THE ELEVENTH HOUR (gosh I love the doctor-related silly puns -- Eighth Wonder, Northern Star, You're A Ten, etcetc, good stuff...)

and I remember when I was watching this. I remember being quite excited. I remember being really into the season trailer (which is pretty good, still), and I remember being like "oh what the doctor is holding a gun!!!??!!!" (which is still a pay-off I remember thinking worked overall)

It's a good introduction episode. Murray Gold kills it with the music especially, Matt Smith is not bad, Olivia Coleman is there (pls can she be in DW again as a bigger role??? it's Olivia Coleman and she has nearly nothing to do in this??????) and we get what feels like the central ongoing conceit between the doctor and the new companion: that the doctor left her and so her entire self was formed around her child-self's belief of him -- it's pretty fucked up stuff, great for future work

new Tardis is beautiful. more like a laboratory now, more clean lines than Nine's and Ten's which was put together by scraps (scrap!Tardis my bby). It's shiny now, like a toy

notes the Doctor calling the Tardis "dear" is charming! and "I am definitely a mad man with a box."

Now obviously I know where a lot of things are going, but I will try to be reeelatively episode-minded, as if this were the first time. so on The Measurement of m*ffat's era, here's the rating, and then below some more in-depth explanation as to why. I added two to the initial lot I drew up and clarified a couple of the others

EDIT: retroactively added "politics" to the scoreboard

a criteria will be rated 0-10, with 10 being best score:

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 3/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored): 7/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 7/10

(if tying into wider narrative) furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 6/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 5/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 6/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 7/10

isn't trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 6/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 7/10

politics (how conservative is it): 7/10

FULL RATING: 61/100 (if I can count....)

OBJECTIFICATION: so I had this on 4 and put it down to a 3. Upon rewatch it's pretty egregious, the kissogram joke extends for a fair amount of runtime, from the initial long-shot up her legs to the doctor having kind of a patronising line later on:

little old lady: "I thought you were a nurse... or maybe a nun?"

the doctor: "what sort of a job is a kissogram?" amy: "I go to parties and I kiss people. It's a laugh." the doctor: "you were a little girl five minutes ago." yikes. also worth mentioning that this hinders her ability to. do things. like run. you see her stepping gingerly over a little chain fence and puling her skirt back into place, while the doctor is running to do stuff

PLOT-POINT: she does much better here, with little-girl Amelia clearly being very lonely and adult-Amy never having gotten over the Doctor seemingly abandoning her. I took points off, because for a lot of the episode after Amy is an adult, she's no longer the POV character. The Doctor is. she does get to be re-centred nearer the end again though, with her warring feelings of the thrill of the adventure vs the abandonment coming to the fore several times

she doesn't do much to solve the mystery overall, but we'll get to that in a bit

the bit where the tardis leaves amy again and she has an emotional trigger to waiting up all night for him! and then the doctor leaves again! for another two years! that's interesting stuff! And while she treats Rory poorly, that kind of makes sense, she's not super well-adjusted

COMPLEXITY: the plot is nice and actually relatively restrained, with the exception of the whole "and now we coordinate with the world to make every number a Zero," but that's more like DW silliness than trying to be too big for its britches on narrative level. I knocked off a few points, because it occasionally did some annoying visual m*ffatisms, like the bit where the Doctor is remembering Rory taking pictures of Prisoner Zero, and when Amy was remembering seeing Prisoner Zero. I see you Sherlock...

FURTHERS CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: technically not fair, as this is an opening episode, but I note that the Doctor spends time readjusting to a new body, there's references to the past (including classic!who), and while there's nothing referencing to what happened in The End Of Time, and how the Doctor got to where they were, well... that's forgiveable, it's meant to start a new audience, don't get too bogged down in right before. this may be highly subjective, but I do think there's emotional throughline between Ten's characterisation and Eleven's (I ascribe to the "the Doctor is born out of how the previous Doctor's arc ended" HC which is partially confirmed in some cases at least!) -- Ten ended things badly and Eleven is reckless, forgetful, childish, kind of impetuous, and even casually mean in a sort of "eleven-year-old just says shit" kind of way. Perfect way to keep people at bay, emotionally.

whether that's intentional or just how M*ffat writes his favourite characters, hard to say ofc, but it works in this episode!

COMPANION MATTERS: Tbh I don't think Amy... does much... in this episode. She's kind of running around after the Doctor and getting abandoned, which is fine for a first episode, because she has no clue what's going on yet! happy for it to be way more about her emotional journey (although I note that Rose, Martha, and Donna all saved the Doctor in their first episodes)

however, I think there were opportunities to give her -- and Rory -- more! Geoff is some random guy I'm fairly certain we never see again, and yet he seems to be coordinating the main line of defense for some reason? give that to Rory, he's dead weight after the camera bit

I think one Moment that really didn't need to happen was her calling the Doctor to figure out how to get into the hospital and he has to tell her to use her sexy policewoman outfit to pretend to be an actual cop, when that is like. the one thing this stupid gag could have offered her

GODLIKE DOCTOR: ok, I've seen stuff about the Doctor's final bit opposite Big Eye, and I'm torn about it. On the one hand, the Doctor as earth's defender is well-established at this point, including for that matter, Ten in the Christmas Invasion. Howeeever, Ten actually... did something there, rather than just said "look me up, I'm so impressive," which made the monster run away, and there was a whole thing related to that in that Torchwood then blew up the aliens!

because the Doctor, pointedly, isn't always there to defend earth (Harriet Jones, beloved 4-episode character arc!)

It's a good way to show some highlight's from Doctor Who, including previous faces, but I think more could have been done + I know that's kind of the plot of M*ffat's run... the whole "Pandorica" being about the Doctor, the "Silence Will Fall" is about the Doctor, "Doctor Who" is the question that will be asked- urghhhh, okok this doesn't count here! it's hard to discount when you know!

also tellingly M*ffat did this back in Forest Of The Dead as well, and it felt kind of like a cop-out then. Sure hope it isn't a recurring theme haha...

beyond that, we have the Doctor doing a very "I am smart everyone shut up" thing here, however I think in this episode it can be relatively forgiven, because this is immediately post-Ten and the Doctor is messed up and the Tardis basically was on fire and they're still in the middle of regenerating, and so there's... yeah, there's precedent for that kind of dismissive behaviour and the Doctor does like people in this + there's the aforementioned post-Ten personality, which is like an inverse of Nine's, which was also prickly, but in a different way

"look at your screens, whoever I am, I'm a genius..." -- does a lot of "why am I doing this, because I'm a genius, you'll find out when you need to know" but is tempered by buoying other characters, especially... Geoff, for some reason. who is there. and never will be again

PREV DOCTOR WHO: Yeah pretty good here. Nothing to report. Loved the first 15mins of trying to figure themself out and enjoyed the acknowledgement of previous Doctors and there's no "I'm the new and improved" type nonsense, or writing out the past

HAMFISTED SEXINESS: I mean. Amy. Of course. And also the bit where The Doctor is changing and Amy watches, it's just kind of unnecessary and clearly just there to be like "we dare go where no one has gone before: thinking the Doctor is hot!"

WORLD: Feels like a world. It's called Leadworth I believe? We have a host of characters from the village + a mention of Amy's aunt + Rory and his co-workers. There's a place, there's people, let's see where that all goes.....

POLITICS: Nothing terribly egregious -- its main issues are the aforementioned sexism. And maybe a bit of this. Doctor-as-central kind of makes earth seem comparatively free of responsibility for choices (although I note this is different later on in Hungry Earth/Cold Blood)

Overall I have no sense of whether this is a high or a low rating for M*ffat, we shall see how others fare!

It's biggest failings were: objectification of its main female character and companions not having much to do, while its strongest points were Amy feeling like a real character with real emotional depth, the world in which she lives (which is where it takes place) feeling like a real place, being fair to the narratives that came before it, and the plot not going all over the place in the name of Complexity

[codylabs]

Just realized that all my favorite franchises are protaganized by characters that either bypass or ignore how crazy messed up their world's lore is.

Gravity Falls - There's man-eating monsters in the woods, noises in the lake, footprints of things that shouldn't exist, there's cults and shadowy government forces trying to cover it all up, trusted family members are keeping secrets from each other, all while a dark and mysterious future is hanging over both the planet and our hero's impending teenagerhood, and a demon is possessing people, but somehow the genre isn't horror. The kids are just kind of all living their best lives, learning and maturing and growing and making friends, they're having a genuinely good time with the supernatural mysteries, and they're quickly becoming surprisingly adept at dealing with them, violently or by making friend of them. The apocalypse starts and ends on their watch and their takeaway is "Wow, what a great summer." How do you not love that?

Metroid - Samus could fly down out of the sky and land on any planet, in any story, and break (then fix) whatever plot is happening in a matter of hours. In fact I'm pretty sure the Chozo appointed her for that exact destiny in the actual lore. Pirates? Mad science? Demons? Government conspiracies? alien bioweapons? Like 3 different flavors of John Carpenter's The Thing? Ancient sealed evil? Literal magic? All in a days work. She's equipped to handle it, and you better believe she's seen it all before. The lore at the start of the series consists of like 4 concurrent cosmic horror scenarios all brewing at once, the lore at the end of the series consists of a peaceful galaxy with Samus a little worse for wear. My favorite passtime is just imagining her inserted into other franchises just to see how she breaks them, and it's usually in a cool way.

Avatar - An entire century of planet-wide war with no clear good guys. Atrocities are committed by child soldiers. Species and peoples are rendered extinct. A refugee is being forced to invent increasingly devastating weapons of war. Subterfuge, corruption, and duplicity reign in the highest levels of every government. Azula exists. A handful of orphaned, homeless children are the last hope for peace, and NOT ONE of these topics is ever brushed aside or made light of in the text. Yet these homeless children more often than not solve their problems via committing what can only be described as scooby doo shenanigans against dimwitted guards, and spend their time learning kung-fu and getting into side-plots involving cute animals and w-wh-what if wehewd handds aand kisseed?? The comic relief guy dresses up in a giant silly mustache the day before he leads an invasion. Toph decided to tag along, and she forgot to pack her character arc.

Anyway, I don't know if all that has any significance or importance, I just think it's a nice thing.

[knights-unwelcommentary]

These are my notes about the movies we've seen so far

Con air

Dad gets taken to jail (Dad Crocker and Dad Egbert?)

Heartfelt letters that are at the same time lacking some emotion and too verbose for a little kids (All the letters between the human players)

The stuffed bunny

Squeal like a pig

Dumb explosions

A murderer that's very murder-happy (Jack?)

Bunny back in the box

Needing to piss at a bad time (Dave?)

Flying car gone wrong

Failure to launch

Mysteriously violent animals

Rogue feathery asshole

Awful friend group sticks together anyway

Way too many meddling people spying on their friends through a computer

Saw

Puppets, among them one controlled by the bad guy

Spirals on the cheeks (the cherubs?)

Want to play a game (Bro Strider?)

Weird traps

Generous amounts of blood

Not very smart law enforcement

Dark room for photos

Two people chained to keep the opposite ends of the room unreachable (the cherubs?)

The story skips back and forth in time every other scene (homestuck's flashbacks, future snapshots and whatnot)

One of the two people trapped is a dick and also cuts off his leg to escape (Caliborn?)

The previous bad guy was a cover for the real bad guy (Doc Scratch?)

Game Over

Hook

Grandma was the heroine of her own story but then decided to retire to start a family (Nanna Egbert?)

Animal Nanny (part of the deal with lusus and trolls and Jade with Bec)

Tinkerbell/fairies

Hey listen (WV?)

Clock room (and vicious clock destruction)

Pirates

Stupid goons (the Felt?)

Kissing as a plot device

Crowd of longevous orphans (all the players and ghosts?)

Rufioh (as Rufioh)

The villain tries to brainwash a little girl, unsuccessfully

Creative insults

We're doing it

Neverending story

Mounted wolf head

Protagonist's kind of a friendless loser with a disconnect with his parental figure (John?)

Fascination for horses, and it being presented as weird (the author, Equius and Dirk?)

A story about a story about stories that blends with reality

Snake and ouroboros symbolism

Something's obiterating existence and killing everything on its path

Giant creature posses an existential quandary to the hero, tempting them to make a selfish choice (denizen)

Werewolf in pursuit of the hero to kill him (Bec Noir)

The one reading the story can give commands to the hero

Giving names to the characters as a rite of passage

Reality breaking down as the unstoppable force spreads

I failed. (Game Over Dirk?)

Ivory tower with a sphere contains a girl's bedroom (Jade and Kanaya)

The reader is a character in the first narrative layer, and is the one the quest was all about

Falcor makes the bullies pay (exact same thing happens in homestuck as a non sequitur bit from the author)

Hitch

Beloved pet kidnapping

The guy's too intense to keep a relationship going for long

He starts coaching others on romance and has better results than with his own love life (Karkat?)

There's a heiress involved and she's dating a "loser" (the narrative presents him as a loser because of his appearance)

Attempting to drag a woman into a committed relationship and going way overboard

Guy gets into slapstick and awkward situations mostly because of poor foresight and a bit of bad luck (yeah Hitch sounds a lot like Karkat)

Making it happen

Silly dance moves

Food allergies as a plot device

50 first dates

Eridan's pants

Check out this dude's muscles (Actually this dude's the story's joke character and has a lot of traits from the troll guys and a lot of bigotry's directed at him)

Memory shenanigans, the girl has to be reminded of her life since an accident a year before every signgle day (dream bubbles?)

Egg head portrait (Doc Scratch?)

Weekend at bernie's

Skulls

Falling down stairs

Necrophilia as a shock value joke???

Dead guy's a puppet

Hog tying the murderer (Gamzee)

Zany rich guy keeps getting into trouble after death (Grandpa Harley and Poppopos Crocker)

Serendipity

Absurd coincidences and predestination

Romance theory of fated partners

Papping

Bromance but with feelings jams (moirallegiance?)

Indiana jones

Complete disregard for preserving ancient artifacts (Grandpa Harley)

unconventional uses for a whip

Baddass archeology

Ancient magical artefacts

Mysterious ruins

Stupid gun deaths

Angels are dangerous light thingies (homestuck angels?)

Good luck chuck

The stoner's morally bankrupt

A guy gets a curse laid on him through ludicrous circumstances

Goths are actual witches

A girl has some supernaturally shitty luck

Vodoo pin doll

Tomb raider

Double pistols and skimpy outfits to the point of being impractical (Jake?)

Fighting some overpowered training robot (brobot?)

Evil corporation's behind the death of the beloved parental figure (Grandma Harley?)

Robotics guy/tech expert (Dirk?)

Complete disregard for preserving ancient artifacts (Jake)

Dumb triangle conspiracy (the illuminate joke with Hal and AR?)

The explorer has a dangerous fall from pretty high (Jake)

Dangerous creepy guy tries to manipulate a young lady and leverages his knowledge for it (Doc Scratch?)

Dangerous giant gears (LOHAC?)

My best friend's girl

One character has a front of emotionally detached douchebag dudebro type

He's roomates with a romance obsessed guy that's very serious about his girlfriend

The girlfriend cuts things off with her boyfriend cause he's too much and has no chill (karezi?)

The other guy offers to wing man for his roomate but ends up taking things too far (reminds me of the Hal, Dirk and Jake situation)

The other guy starts fooling around with the chick and somewhere along the line starts a serious relationship with her (daverezi)

The ex boyfriend's desperate to get back together and starts doing stupid shit

Regular love to hate love (quadrant vacillation?)

Avatar

Conscription in space

High ranking crew can do whatever the hell it wants

Imperialism in space

The disabled character prefers his dream self to his waking self (Tavros?)

Blue lady on a big fucking tree (Aranea?)

Big monsters with a visceral and symbiotic relationship with the aliens (partially what troll and lusii have going on)

Dragons

Bomb cube made of cans (shaving cream bomb that killed Jade?)

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

wip asks: purple and/or x-p?

Purple:

"I'm Tori," she blurted. "You just said," Aleron said. Tori swallowed. Carelessness like that would get her--wait. No. It was already too late for that. It didn't matter what she did. "Can we just... talk?" she asked. "I don't care about what. Just--anything." Aleron looked at her for a very long time. Tori didn't dare to look away, not even to move. Finally, he sat up a little straighter, his wings shifting until he could lean against the wall and they were folded on his back. "What do you want to know?"

This is set within a fantasy/dystopian sci-fi world. Humans used to have wings, Tori grows up as the first generation who never got to see them anymore. Wings used to be closely linked to dreams--creativity, independent thought, that sort of thing. In this dystopian hellscape, true creativity is highly discouraged and actively worked against. Despite all of that, she grows up a very avid dreamer who yearns for the past and wings, and is constantly paranoid because dreamers still exist, they just tend to... disappear.

She isn't an exception. She's just, like, 15, and it's getting increasingly hard to hide who she is. So, one day, she's kidnapped off the street by the government, meets one of the very last dreamers who still remembers the world as it was, and has to figure out how to find some hope despite everything.

X-P:

[no excerpt because it's in a physical notebook i don't have with me rn]

This story's main character is Kain. Kain is having a bad time all the time.

I haven't done much worldbuilding because really I just desperately wanted to use the X-Punk section of my character development book and create a fucked up character, and it worked!

Kain is... hm. It spends its entire time fighting against the oppressive government, with more and more drastic measures. It's the only right thing to do--it's the only way to change anything, permanently, but hardly anyone understands. Regardless, Kain fights for a better future, even though he knows he won't live to be a part of it.

Enter: Kaya. Kaya was having a normal day and then got dropped in a vaguely different place. He's... well. He's a little too calm, considering everything, but maybe that's the shock. Fact is, there's this older guy willing to help him along a little. He's not sure if he can trust Kain, but he doesn't exactly have other options.

Kain, meanwhile, is having an even worse time than usually. The thing is, Kaya is him--from the past. And if Kaya ever figures out what Kain had to do, he's going to hate it. Or, Kain just found even more ethical dilemmas along with the lurking realisation of what he's become.

Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, an old friend decides to kidnap them both. For "Kain's own good". They refuse to accept the path their friend has gone down.

Literally none of them are okay though, and things will get worse, and nobody is even close to safe, either. They're also very silly and I love them and I will torture them relentlessly. (Also if you remember my OC, Clethra, ze's a background character in here too hehe)

Thanks for asking! I love rambling abt my WIPs. Even though both are going very slow (especially purple, there just isn't enough plot/action yet to keep the story going and it's infuriating)

[terminaxshowtime]

R for the ask game!! -willow :P

R- Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in the fandom?

'the fandom' isn't super specific, so i'll just list off a few that i'm a huge fan of off the top of my head:

Sissel & Lynne (Ghost Trick)

they are friends. they may have been in denial at the start but they are absolutely friends. the sillies. idk they're just great. not even sure how to elaborate about all this without saying spoilers and i won't want my poor unsuspecting mutuals (who, one day, will no longer be able to resist not playing the game) to read.

Mob & Reigen (Mob Psycho 100)

okay. this is. i don't even know how to describe their relationship. is it older brotherly? is it fatherly? is it student-teacher? i don't know. but it's great. this relationship was so integral to both their character developments and the plot and it was just so beautiful to watch throughout the series. i love it

Kirby & King Dedede (Kirby)

ANOTHER relationship which just develops throughout the story. it's so beautiful. as i heard someone once say on a youtube comment, "you either die a villain, or you live long enough to see yourself become a hero." this is what happened with dedede and kirby. their relationship is so beautiful, i love their friendship so much, i love them both. hyhyohughgughgughuoouhgughughh. huge fan of character and relationship development. adsjfdkoskgjbngjuikm this is such an underrated friendship too and i'm. i love it

Simon Petrikov & Marceline (Adventure Time)

alright so the other ones had character development which helped them discover themselves and be a better person and great friendships and all. this one is just straight up tragic. it's beautiful how their relationship helped simon hold onto himself before he went insane and just everything between these two is so sweet yet tragic. amazing family relationship. that is her dad, your honor, and literally everyone agrees.

The Pines family (Gravity Falls)

the vibes. the energy. this is just a great family relationship. they all care about each other so much and they have realistic issues and it's just. hyoyughu. and it's so sweet and happy too, and then on the other hand the future Exists, and also i can't formulate words, I give up, it's good. okay? it's good. there are some things i want to say but won't because being in the ghost trick fandom has trained me to never say even a single spoiler but. if you know you know. i love those two. and i love the entire family as well.

Ed & Al (Fullmetal Alchemist)

these guys are. good brothers. ok. i don't have much to say. they are perfect and they love each other so much. they try so hard. i. ahgh. i dislike how this relationship can get somewhat overshadowed by the fans overfocusing on romantic relationships with ed (FROM WHAT I HAVE SEEN), which is crazy considering the literal content of the original series being based on their brotherhood (i read the manga). def not underrated by any means i just love them a lot though and i think it's 1000 times more important than any possible romantic relationship in the series ever could be.

i love. friendship.

[orchidelegance]

review - ghost trick: phantom detective

app store, nintendo store; first chapters free, full game $10 playtime: ~4-5hrs rating: 8/10 replayability: 7/10

crazy characters. insane plot. twistier and turnier than a maze. character design happened while on acid probably. such an excellent game.

ghost trick: phantom detective by capcom is a game of "how many" - how many times you're willing to replay a scene before you go look up a guide, how many times sissel has to help other people in his quest to find himself, how many times you take screenshots of missile saying something only a dog would say. every chapter took me tantalizingly closer to the answer only for the ending to completely blow me away with how incomprehensible and perfectly sensible it was. there's an explanation for everything, and there are so many things that need explaining that at the very end, the explanations come in a barrage of satisfaction that leaves me wanting to replay and see where i missed the clues.

every single character is interesting and lovable, all with their own stories and motivations, from the dancing guard to the simpering henchman to the chicken chef and the waitress on rollerskates. even characters you only see in one scene have an important role to play and a life that you get a glimpse into. each design is so incredibly fun, colorful, and silly, and it echoes the game's message - that everyone is connected, and we are all a part of each other's story.

though i used a guide for most of the game (sue me - there's a great one here by fukuyasu), it's definitely not impossible to do on your own with a little more patience and brainpower. the puzzles were fun, though they can become tedious if you're committed to figuring it out on your own. for me, this game was character driven, and i wanted to complete each stage as fast as i could to see a little more of the story. honestly even with how frustrating i found some of the stages, i would still replay it if i had a few hours on my own and see if i can untangle the threads from the beginning - and to see sissel, kamila, lynne, missile, jowd, cabanela, and the others again.

spoilers below

damn! that ending! sissel-cat is too cute. and the yomiel-creature made up of junk and a cone was hilarious. i didn't like that we went back in time to erase everything, and then suddenly it happened in a way i was surprisingly very satisfied with. sissel being yomiel's cat is an ending only ghost trick could have and could make sense of. i wish we got a little more explanation about the blue people, but i did like the insights in the credits into the other characters' lives in the new future.

that gay little family photo at the end was so funny because jowd's wife is fully alive here but instead he's taking a photo with his daughter (kamila) and his adopted not-daughter (lynne) with his work husband (cabanela) who is also lynne's work dad. and their two pets...

one thing i don't understand is why there's no meetup or anything since yomiel said they would all retain the memory of the past events even if those technically didn't exist in this reality, which i liked as a continuity mechanism to deal with fuzzy time travel mechanics. technically they would all remember what had happened right? or at least jowd, yomiel, sissel, and missile would since they were the ones who went back to yomiel's death. i did like that yomiel was fully prepared to die over and over for baby lynne to atone for his crime of holding her hostage, and that we all thought he died before they revealed he was still alive. it makes him a sympathetic "antagonist" in the perfect way, and opens the road to reconciliation.

what a fun game! i love cat sissel so much.

[canongf-archive]

hi liv! can i ask for advice on something? so ive had a crush on this character for almost two weeks, and its been really great! but i got to a point in his source where he dies and i dont know what to do now. it was really sudden for me, i didnt know it would happen at all, and im really upset. i know i havent known him that long, but it feels really devastating. i dont know what to do. i was looking forward to knowing him more and exploring our relationship but now it feels like its all been cut short. its maybe silly, but i feel like even if i still have a crush on him, i will always be affected by knowing that hes dead, and it just makes me so sad. i know that i could pretend that it never happened, but its a major part of the plot and i dont know if i could just "forget" it. i feel weird cause i rarely have crushes this intense, i just somehow knew that hed be important to me when i saw him for the first time, and the feeling just keeps growing.

anyway, thank you in advance (though no worries if you dont want to answer this), i hope you have a good day <3

💗 hi anon!!! 💗

before i say anything else, i wanna tell you that i'm sorry. i've been exactly where you are, some days i am still there, and i know how hard it is, how absolutely devastating it can be, and i'm so sorry that you're experiencing it.

none of it is silly. the characters may not be real, but the feelings are! the love that you have for this character is very real! which means the grief is too. which is so beautiful but so heartbreaking at the same time, isn't it? and the thing that's helped me the most, and the thing that i recommend to people going through it, is to allow yourself the time to feel that grief.

i know that my initial reaction was to try to pretend that i wasn't feeling what i was feeling. i thought it might be stupid or ridiculous, i was concerned of what people might think... but it didn't stop me from feeling it. it just made me feel bad for feeling it, worse than i was already feeling. it made me feel isolated and trapped. i had to sit with it so that i could heal from it. i had to lay in bed, i had to cry, i had to write it down, i had to talk it out. and now i'm better, i'm happy and i'm in love, and he is with me always. but i had to mourn him first. and that might be what you need to do too.

and i want to tell you that two things can be true at the same time. it can be true that in canon, he died. it can be true that you experienced a loss and it has been heartbreaking, to feel like he's gone and that your relationship was cut short. and it can also be true that he will always be with you. that you have a connection to him unlike any other and as long as you're breathing and as long as you love him, he exists within you and he will never really be dead. you can bring him back to life, you can pretend he was never really gone at all, and you can keep creating a future with him. and you can sit in both of these truths at the same time and honor all of the feelings that come with them. choosing one or the other can be hard. you don't have to do it.

when feelings come up, allow them. sit with them and talk with them and allow yourself to heal from them. i know it feels like you won't ever be able to move on from it, that's how i felt too, but one day it won't hurt so bad. maybe you'll forget his death or maybe you won't, but you can still live a happy life with him as a part of it anyway. just give yourself time to get there, okay?

i am sending you the biggest hug. take it one day at a time and remember that you're not alone! i'm here if you need me! 💗