#i haven't read the play in its entirety so please give me a break

[rayatii]

Okay so in the play that was the basis of I Puritani, Elvira’s first name is actually Lucy, which means that had Bellini and Pepoli kept her OG name when adapting it into their opera, we would have had TWO bel canto coloratura soprano Lucia’s with mad scenes.

Also Arturo’s last name in the OG play is Clifford. Yes, like the dog.

[lumiidragon]

So now that I've seen the last season of the Nine Realms, I can finally give my own personal review on it, and the last seeing as how this was the last season and TNR is officially over.

So needless to say SPOILERS BELOW! PLEASE STOP READING HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LATEST SEASON AND DON'T WANT SPOILERS!!!

So let me start out on a, sadly poor note with this: this season was super disappointing... The big finale, the end-all, the conclusion to The Nine Realms was...flat. Boring. Pointless. Like, this was actually probably one of the more poorer seasons...

So let's start with The World Serpent (Yeah, I can't spell the other name, so I'll just refer to it as 'The Serpent' for ease. This dragon was honestly a really cool design, but not as a "predator of all dragons and the destroyer of The Hidden World". First off, a top-tier predatory animal that is meant to destroy all dragons and the dragon ecosystem...doesn't make sense. Why would an animal like that exist??? If The Hidden World is supposed to be this perfect dragon paradise, then why is there a dragon that literally goes against this notion. Also, this dragon was literally seen poorly trying to catch a terrible terror in a flock of three that was just casually flying around its face like a cat trying to catch a fly and not doing very good at it. This is the dragon that can supposedly take down any dragon such as a Red Death? A bewilderbeast? Any titan-class dragon? No, I don't think so. The poisonous gas attack it has is powerful, but this dragon just doesn't scream "Destroyer of The Hidden World" to me. Not that a dragon that is destined to destroy the world all the dragons that are damned there forever makes sense anyways, but still. On top of that, this dragon spent most of its time "defeating the Riders" by hitting them with the same amount of power any other dragon enemy has and then just taking off. That was pretty much it. It hit once or twice then ran away. The series literally only made this thing to be "unbeatable" because they made the Riders' dragons have 2 HP per battle and have the bad guy dip afterward, thus drawing this out through the entirety of the season. This dragon wasn't powerful, it was long-winded. Finally, the final battle was so.......boring? The group brought in an "Army Of Dragons" to defeat this thing, which would have been cool if it weren't for the fact that they basically just brought one or two dragons a piece. That's not an army and if a handful of common dragons with two special bosses (the Faultripper and the Sky Torcher) is all that it took to beat this thing, then this dragon was never the ultimate dragon destroyer the legends made it out to be. I could really go more into how The Serpant and the battles with it were pointless, boring, and just anti-climatic, but this section has gotten long enough, so I'll leave it at this.

Next up, Tom and Jun. Their romance drama was so pointless and added literally nothing to the story. This is the last season and it's only 6 episodes long. They don't need teen romance side-drama this late into the series, they need to concentrate on what was supposed to be the issue at hand. That, and Jun breaking it off with Tom over him doing the same thing he's always done since Season 1 really shows their compatibility as a romantic duo. But yeah, their whole romance here was just completely pointless and added nothing to the series. Also, Alex and Eugene was also completely unnecessary with what they were trying to build.

Then we have the villains. So Buzzsaw's goons and Linda are the most pointless characters in the villain side of things. The bumbling side kicks to a villain can be charming, but when every villain's group are just kids in adult bodies that still need to be babysat or else they can't do anything right, then it gets annoying and kind of pointless. Linda was probably the worst of them. As for Buzzsaw, his redemption was too much a play off of Dagur and, in my opinion very unnecessary. It felt like they only redeemed him because they didn't need him anymore, but didn't have the time to properly deal with him. As for Sledkin, she was actually a decent villain for what the series was giving, but ultimately fell into the weak trope of "I'm so desperately obsessed over my final goal that I am just throwing self preservation out the window so I can be pointlessly reckless despite being a very intelligent individual" and ended up getting killed over it (which I'm surprised TNR actually had a human death in this).

So let's finally move to my final complaints with this season:

-Thunder being "alpha" is bullshit. There is no way the night lights (yes, even the Elder Night Light) are the "Kings of Dragons" when most dragons didn't give them two glances. So there is no way Thunder is an alpha. I'm sorry, but no. Also, with the Elder Night Light passing, it's nice to see how literally no one cared since Thunder can glow like a radioactive lightbulb now, I guess. They grieved Sledkin more than this dragon. Thunder hardly even cared. Along with the night light thing, Thunder's family is not only useless in the series, but seeing as how we never get a real reason as to why night lights are breeding with each other, I am not convinced that this family line isn't just a messed up family wreath than a family tree at this point. Nothing was explained, so the fans only have the fact that there were only 3 night lights from Toothless (Toothless who was basically never mentioned in this series) and the Light Fury (who wasn't mentioned at all) and no others exist, but we see night lights having kids with each other....I....ew.

-The Raker episode was literally just not necessary and could have been left out altogether and nothing change. This is the last season, we don't need pointless spoilers.

-Olivia was being built as a true character earlier in the series, shame she was basically forgotten about. Same for the other parents.

-The Gods Realm was boring and really uninteresting to look at. Like...it might as well have been any chamber in any cave around the world, not the "Lungs of the Hidden World", which the dragonite still makes no sense and there's no way they would have run out of oxygen in that massive chamber that quickly with the stone removed. None of that made sense.

-There's no way Tom would have ever learned how to communicate with dragons with Valka's staff. I don't know where they got this "Hypnotizing" thing from, but Valka lived alone with dragons for 20 years. She communicated and learned their language that she developed replications of in her own way. Tom cannot learn that in a short montage because Valka's power with dragons came from her connection and understanding from more time of experience with dragons alone than Tom has even been alive for. The staff was a tool, not the power itself. That, and Hiccup would never use his mother's staff. That's A. not his approach to dragons anyway, and B. his mother's. Valka most likely would have had her burial with that staff. Oh, and it's nice to see yet another thing just be casually destroyed and not cared about.

-And I think the last thing I've got for this massive post is the ending. Yes, the dragons leave. What a surprise. This time, the dragons choose to leave and more or less say "Sorry kids, you guys...eh, kinda suck.". The Riders were basically pleading with their dragons (mostly Tom) that there had to be another way and the dragons wouldn't even let them touch them anymore. They acted like they had their fun and it's gone stale so it's time to leave. Great...bond??? Of course, it was over "HOOMANS BAD." so why bother to fix the world when you can just hide in a dead-looking cave system forever? Right? Not only that, but the group itself also split up, expect for Tom and Jun of course, because how else can the series end off with the romance that they pointlessly shoved in.

So yeah, this season was......not good. I really had my hopes out for the series ending much more interestingly, but in the end, with the dragons shoving themselves away again, nothing came from this series other than Tom gets a girlfriend and the group learns the true power of video calls. So in all, I give TNR a personal 5-6/10.

[detectivedamian]

Hello, so I was reading "The Robin he could neve catch" for the 160th time and I was really invested in reading the part II (I literally just created a patron, cause u said that it would be there) but I can't find it, or ur page in there and I'm desperate to read it, can u help me??? That's one of my comfort fics and I really need to read the continuation

Love ur work <3

TLDR; If you have signed up with me, please contact me over Patreon for a full refund, as it is not up yet, but it will be up no later than June 8th, 2022, totally publicly to both AO3 and Patreon.

Originally, when I left that notice at the bottom of the fic on AO3, I was planning to have it done as soon as I came back from my break, as I'd just finished writing the entirety of IICBETY (If I Can't Be Everything To You, You'll Be Nothing To Me). But I found that all of the patrons I got, following its launch, were there for Hunter x Hunter instead. Waiting to post the second part was not intentional, and I'm so sorry it's taken months at this point.

All of my effort has gone toward producing content for HxH, which even then has been a struggle. I've been pausing payments because I haven't been producing enough content to warrant payment, as I've been slammed with a lot of real-life roadblocks, changes, and illnesses, so while I've always intended to write the second part, I was concerned it would upset my paying patrons if I sacrificed an update for one fic for them to write for another fandom. As it is, I've been playing catch-up for the better part of two or three months, so Part II is not the only thing that's fallen off my radar as of late, if it's any indication how full my hand have been!

The fact that you created one specifically for this fic and it doesn't exist yet is a failure on my part to communicate effectively, and I sincerely apologize. I am altering the text in the note at the end of its page on AO3 with this answer specifically to better explain the holdup, and hopefully so there's no more confusion surrounding this fic.

If you already paid, I'll give you a full refund! And if you want it, a free commission. Seriously, this was totally my bad. I'll write it as soon as humanly possible and make it publicly accessible immediately, as opposed to the original two-week waiting period between Patreon and AO3, at the latest it will be up by next Wednesday.

Hopefully, this little teaser is enough to prove that I am working on it actively, and make up for the horrible miscommunication on my end. I'm a little out of practice with the characters now, so hopefully it doesn't come across too OOC! I'll be refining it:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Knock knock knock.

“Little D?” No response, not that he’d expected one. Damian was prickly when he got quiet in that way; after all the tantrums and empty threats and harsh words he knew, knew deep in his heart, that he didn’t mean, Damian had the habit of falling into long stretches of silence. Dim, eerie, not the calm before the storm, more like the eye of the hurricane itself; beyond it, the clouds twisted and sparked with lightning, made grays and the alabaster of white over setting suns stand out in its fury and menace. From there, one could be fooled into thinking they’d weathered the worst of it, that the storm and its hazard had passed. You could see sunshine and blue skies beyond the edge of gnarled gray, but if you waited, if you were smart enough to huddle, you could hear the true end of it baring down behind you like the roaring horn of a truck on the highway; no matter how hard you tried to hit the brake, tires slid in the rain.

But they’d been in this quiet eye for a while, much longer than they’d ever been graced with such patience on Damian’s end. Maybe he felt he’d deserved to be benched, this time.

Well, all the more reason to go checking up on him, then.

Bruce had a tendency to be harsh, heavy-handed, and brash, something he knew as well as each of his torches was a trait Damian too possessed. In anger, sometimes, but mostly in fear, the bat had a nasty bite– their youngest, their littlest, was often left with mangled wings when they’d been at it. He’d tried to make it over as often as possible, in the time Damian had been stripped of his belt and mask, but he knew it hadn’t been enough. If it had, they’d have seen the other half of the hurricane by now, the rage they all knew was building tepidly, unerringly. He worried about him; trapped between these sandstone walls, the warmth of fall dimmed in comparison to its chill. Bruce had to have been buried under blankets to miss the way it lingered, but the man was oblivious, sometimes.

Knock knock knock.

No answer. Tim nodded to the door, “He could be asleep.”

“At 7 o’clock at night? That brat?” He could feel Jason’s wet snort over his shoulder, hear the impatient shuffle from one foot to the next, “No way. Probably snuck out…”

“Impossible, we’ve safeguarded all of his favorite little tunnels. Demon Spawn isn’t going anywhere until Bruce allows it.”

And he sighed, “Maybe that’s the problem. He’s just a kid, even he needs to get out of the house.”