#i mean it is pirated so i expected some weird stuff

[dimeadozencows]

I think there's something wrong with my rhythm heaven fever copy

[nina-ya]

Hello !! Hope you’ve been well 🫶 if you’re taking requests (if not you can skip!!) may I ask a scenario with law and a shy creative reader?

The kind of creative who’s super sweet and open to the heart pirates (how can you not be?! 💘) but law finds that within their messy, fun filled pages of their sketchbook there’s smaller notes, writings and things that show the opposite hidden emotions?

Sorry if that’s super niche and weird and super specific aashdhfjfk you can take any direction you’d like !!

Take care of yourself and have a wonderful day 💞 thank you!!!

A/N: Hihihi!!! I hope your holidays have been treating you well!! I finally got back home last night so I got to work on this!! This was such an adorable idea and I thank you for the request I hope you enjoy!! Pairing: Law x Reader CW: None! WC: 1k You always brought creativity to the Heart Pirates, your artistic touch was always being sprinkled throughout most of the crew's life. Whether it was doodling sketches, making clothing for the crew, or even attempting to crochet a scarf for Bepo, even if the extra layer threatened to give him heat stroke. Your creative spirit along with your kind demeanor never failed to brighten the ship.

Law found himself drawn to you from the very beginning. Your sweetness and openness to the Heart Pirates had endeared you to the entire crew, and he couldn't deny the joy that emanated from you. The troublesome life of a pirate was an odd setting for someone like you, yet you embraced it with a smile.

You had your own little place in the ship for all of your creative endeavors. It was bursting with the marks of your imagination. Floor to ceiling the walls were filled with art or sketches. Trinkets and half finished crafts were sprawled across various shelves and desks. You had certainly left your mark on this area of the ship and it had become your artistic haven.

One day, you were working on something for Law– an embroidered shirt for him. Your fingers worked to shape the crew's jolly roger onto various parts of the fabric. Satisfied with the outcome, you left the finished shirt on your desk and decided to take some of your empty plates into the kitchen to clean up. 

You got caught in a conversation with Ikkaku in the kitchen, and Law ventured into your haven to check on the progress of the shirt . Spotting the shirt neatly placed on the desk, he picked it up and admired the details. Law's eyes drifted to the desk, where an open sketchbook lay. The sketches on the first few pages immediately caught his attention.

Law couldn't resist the temptation to flip through the sketchbook, expecting to see more of your work. As he flipped through the pages, he took in every doodle, every sketch, every drawing, with awe. As Law ventured deeper into the sketchbook, he started to notice some things. Smaller notes and writings scribbled in the margins, hidden within the art. These weren't just annotations or comments on the drawings; they were snippets of self-doubt, worries, and fears—emotions that largely contrasted the sweetness and openness you expressed on a daily basis.

You returned from the kitchen, expecting to deliver the shirt to Law. However, as you entered, you caught sight of Law flipping through your open sketchbook. Embarrassment flooded you as you registered the intimate nature of the contents.

In a panic, you rushed over to Law, snatching the sketchbook from his hands with a speed that surprised even you. The book closed with a soft thud. As you held the sketchbook tight against your chest, your face burned with your newfound embarrassment.

Law looked up at you with a raised eyebrow. "Did I stumble upon something I wasn't supposed to see?" he asked, his tone neutral but his eyes filled with curiosity.

You stammered, trying to find the right words, "I-I didn't mean for you to see that... it's just, you know, personal stuff." Your gaze flickered between Law and the closed sketchbook, a silent plea hoping that he would understand.

Law observed your flustered reaction with amusement, his eyes lingering on your embarrassed expression. As you clutched the closed sketchbook to your chest, he could sense the vulnerability of the contents of the sketchbook. 

Without missing a beat, Law decided to play it cool, feigning casual interest. "Well, as the Captain, I am responsible for the well-being of the crew," he began, as if searching for any excuse to ask about what he saw. "Knowing more about my crew members helps me understand and support them better, right?"

Your eyes widened at his poor attempt at justification, and a nervous chuckle escaped your lips. It was evident that Law's curiosity was winning, and he wasn't fooling anyone with his thinly veiled excuse.

You decided to play along, a hesitant smile spreading across your lips. "Captain's orders, huh?" you mumbled in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Well, I guess you're right. Understanding your crew is important for a captain."

Law smirked, sensing your shyness and appreciating your effort to engage in the conversation. "So, anything you'd like to share, or are you planning to keep it all under wraps?" he asked, his gaze flickering between you and the sketchbook.

Your face heats up more, realizing that Law is not even bothering to hide his curiosity anymore. "Um, well, maybe some things are best kept as a mystery," you replied softly. To change the subject, you walk over to your desk and pick up the shirt, handing it to him, hoping he would take it and leave.

Law took the shirt out of your grasp, his fingers running over the threads and a subtle realization dawned on him. In the sketchbook, he had caught a glimpse of your insecurities, particularly about impressing others. "This shirt is impressive," he commented, in a sincere tone you don't usually hear. "The attention to detail and the dedication you put into it—it's clear you have a talent for this."

Your eyes widened in surprise, not expecting such a straightforward acknowledgment from Law. A warm feeling spread through you as you took in his words, appreciating the recognition of your efforts. "Th-thank you," you stammered, a genuine smile replacing the initial fluster on your face.

Law nodded in understanding and left the room with the shirt in hand. You would never know just know much he saw until you would hear subtle comments falling from his lips that served the purpose of contrasting those negative feelings in hopes that those notes and scribbles turn into more positive ones. You also would never know, but more often than not he would find himself sneaking glances at your sketchbooks more often to see just what he can do or say to make your day better. That one moment may just have served to spark a deep interest in you and a desire to make you happy.

[lewiscarrolatemybrain]

Y’know what I REALLY want

Time-travel Luffy-Raises-ASL-Fic where Ace still joins the Whitebeard Pirates. He isn’t motivated by wanting to surpass Roger anymore, but being a great pirate is still his dream, so their interactions start the same as in canon, with Ace attacking Whitebeard and Whitebeard offering to adopt him.

However, this time, the reason Ace freaks out and refuses isn’t because of his daddy issues or because he thinks Whitebeard will never accept the son of his enemy. It’s because Ace already has a dad. The best dad! Fuck you, old man, Ace doesn’t need another dad!

I imagine a better-adjusted Ace would end up charming the Whitebeards even faster than he did in-canon, with them doing stuff like patching him up post-failed-assassination-attempt and giving him meals like in canon, but with him thawing much faster and forgetting he’s supposed to be an enemy to these people because this time his childhood was full of friends and little brothers and adventure and joy, so he’s cracking jokes and having conversations and then remembering he’s Here On A Mission and shutting down again. And this means that they probably wear him down faster too, cause Ace was raised to see the value of family and these guys have it in spades (ha!).

Which all means that eventually, one day, instead of making the expected attempt on Whitebeard’s life, Ace instead asks if they’ve got a Den Den he could borrow.

Ace calls his dad, of course, and is already listing his million and one excuses for why he can’t join this crew and how this is so dumb and he just wanted to check in cause he hasn’t done that in a while and he knows his dad worries—

And I imagine a more mature, grown-up Luffy who remembers his brother being so very starved for love would have a lot to say about how lots of people have two fathers and he could never be upset or offended by the idea that more people might want to love and protect and support Ace, but what I really want is for him to say all that and then go “actually, put Whitebeard on the phone. Yes, really. Right now.”

So Ace has to shuffle awkwardly out on deck to hand over the Den Den like “my dad………. Wants to talk to you.”

And of course this is too funny to make private, so Whitebeard is right there on deck on speaker while all of his nosy children drop what they’re doing to crowd around and listen to this while Ace’s dad is like “Hi! I hear we’re splitting custody.”

I imagine this would be kinda weird for Whitebeard too honestly. Most of his children are orphans or come from troubled backgrounds. He’s never adopted someone who already had loving parents waiting for them back home, but here he is, chatting with this man who does not seem the least bit intimidated by speaking to Captain Whitebeard Himself.

Newgate immediately decides he likes this guy, of course, and they strike up an immediate friendship, of course. And then months later on some island when someone overhears Whitebeard affectionately mention his “co-parent” and jumps to conclusions and spreads the news about Whitebeard’s Secret Lover, the two team to do their solemn fatherly duty of antagonizing the shit out of their poor kids by Not Correcting The Rumor.

[raspberrydraws]

pls pls tell me about your hcs for the first members of the crew fitting the elements of harmony, i very much wanna hear 👀👀👀

Thanks for asking I love u very much allow me to bring a chair so you can sit down and read all my rambling 🪑

some notes about this absolute madness:

I feel like they fit the element but also some traits of the mlp characters too so I will add that when it's necessary

When I talk about the mugiwara's dreams I assume they've already reached them bc the story is not finished yet like mlp and I KNOW THEY WILL ACHIEVE THEIR DREAMS anyways

Please don't have high expectations ahhh I don't wanna end up feeling like I thought something cool and it ended up being lame, I'm not used to writing or explaining stuff this way (and in english tho oof double brain work)

I'll put a everything under a read more bc it ended up being long and also uhh CW: spoilers for both series yeah

✦ Magic: First of all and obvious reason, main character lol.

Character who gathered the group in the first place

Royalty !!! King of the Pirates!!! Princess of Friendship!!! besides the fact that Luffy's dream is becoming the king and Twilight just had to do it etc etc

Very powerful mentor who's far away but encouraged them to start their journey and find their friends

They're not similar in personality at all I get it lmao

✦ Kindness: oof do I need to say anything

Sanji is kind, that's like one of the traits that made him one of my fav characters (more than his totally badass habilities).

and of course that's one of his most important traits

His mother sacrificed everything and celebrated everytime he showed his kindness, he was a sweet child, he's soft with children and helps anyone who's in need.

He's so full of emotion and can go from the softest to the meanest in a second if he needs to (flashbacks to fluttershy literally confronting a bigass dragon, making him cry and leave bc he was mean to her friends)

Also both characters are certified Friends of the Little Critters ™ and can't fly very well

Special mention to Pinkie Pie here, since she shares the "Third child who stands out like a sore thumb from his other siblings because she's weird to her family standards" backstory with Sanji

✦ Loyalty: That's like one of Zoro's main character traits right? He's in the air before Luffy says jump

Cool, they're just cool and probably the most liked characters + the ones who sell more merch for sure lol

Both have a childhood dream, becoming the best swordsman/wonderbolt, but that doesn't push them to leave their friends to achieve it alone + having friends actually helps them reach their goals

hot headed kids + dumbass sometimes

✦ Honesty: The group's voice of reason

Character that pretends to be okay but hell naw she's not ok (AJ harvesting sweet apple acres and almost dying / Nami Pretending to be Arlong's little trustworthy human so she can save her village) until their friends help them to be honest and ask for help

Also they have similar lifes cultivating apples/tangerines with their families and I thought that was cute hehe

✦ Generosity: SCREAMS Chopper my little chop chop I love u my sweet child

The way that Rarity shows her element is usually by giving away something important to her (her time, her talent with fashion, HER FRIGGIN' TAIL) so she can help other people (creatures?) feel better, and there's no signs of repentance after that, she does it with her heart (and sometimes to show that she can make things fabulous)

This brings me to Chopper looking for the mushroom to cure Dr. Hiriluk's illness and showing up at his door all hurt but he's like heyy I got the thing. I understand that's another kind of "sacrifice" The way he showed his thankfulness to his mentor by risking his life looking for the mushroom and trying to prove that he's a good doctor too (even tho uhh we know how that ended)

This was a little bit more difficult to connect with his element and that's why I was in between choosing kindness and generosity for him, but

kindness had to be sanji's element for suree

Dr Kureha specifically told him that "kindness wasn't enough to save lives" and I won't contradict her she scares me so much

AND I feel like Chopper's generosity it's shown all along the show just by treating all those injured pirates over and over again for free lmao

My overall feeling when giving him the element was "He's a little doctor, of course he's generous, doctors are generous enough to learn how to save lives! so we don't like.. die! next question"

✦ Laughter:

This one was pretty simple too, I love Usopp bc he makes me laugh a lot, he's such a comedic relief for the story and also: my best friend in the whole wide world, yes *gives him a lil kiss*

Of course he's not just a comedic relief, he tries to make things easier trying to solve conflicts (sometimes) or joining the sillyness (most of times)

Also they like to tell stories! I feel like that's a cute trait that makes both characters more interesting, even when someone's stories are lies *eyes emoji* I like storyteller characters a lot !!

they're good with kids + tell them stories too !!

also the whole.. alter ego thing, yeah

AND THE PUFFY HAIR ♥

AIGHT

Hope you enjoyed my TED talk, thaks for giving me the strenght to be a little unhinged, I don't talk too much here but this whole mlp au has people coming and encouraging me to talk/write and I have a problem, once I start talking about something I like I can't shut up

And I like MLP since I was 12 years old, i started drawing because of it and I'm currently rewatching the whole series with my bf so if I see anything else I'll come back and add stuff for sure ♥

[chososhoeso2]

One piece theory + spoilers:

Okay so I saw this TikTok earlier. Shout out to @jinbejay for making this:

Whether the op meant it as a joke or a genuine theory, it really got me thinking. This theory doesn't sound too bad, so I wanted to research it a bit. Now I did type up a whole long thing with a lot of little bits of research I did.. and then I found a CBR article that basically said all the same things. If you'd rather just read the article, here's the link: https://www.cbr.com/one-piece-who-is-dragons-father-theory/

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

Everything below this point is stuff that I found on my own before I came across the article:

So there are three possible ways I think this theory could go:

There are a few things that we know with certainty:

1. Garp fucking loves taking in strays

2. The identity of Luffy's mom (*cough* Crocodile *cough*) hasn't been revealed yet

3. Garp and Rocks fought each other in the God Valley incident

4. Garp has good relationships with criminals (i.e., Dadan, Roger)

Right now, Dragon is 55 years old. The God Valley incident happened 38 years ago. So at the time of the incident, Dragon would have been 17. Rocks supposedly died during that incident which, supposing Rocks is Dragon's father, could have left Dragon as an orphan. Now 17 isn't young in the one piece world, by any means. Both Ace and Luffy set out to become pirates at the age of 17 and Luffy was only 17 when the strawhats took down Enies Lobby and two Warlords (plus impel down and marineford), so 17 really is not all that young here. We also don't know if Dragon was even at God Valley, but let's say he was (it's a theory and what's a theory without some good speculation). My main three possible routes for this theory are:

1. Garp took in Dragon at God Valley after Rocks was defeated. Dragon meets Garp's daughter and they get busy (and potentially married)

2. Garp arrested Dragon at God Valley. While imprisoned, Dragon met Garp's daughter and maybe she helped him escape? Or maybe since he wasn't a revolutionary yet, he wasn't imprisoned for long, but he still got to know Garp's daughter during that time.

3. Dragon escaped - or was never actually at - God Valley and just somehow managed to meet Garp's daughter someday.

There could obviously be other things like maybe Garp's daughter was also a criminal and her and Dragon were imprisoned together. Idk. But here's some support for option 1:

I want to note that Dadan is also 55 years old, like Dragon. Which is weird to me, bc I expected her to be closer in age to Garp. But Garp trusted her with his grandkids and blackmailed her into compliance. She was a wanted criminal, a mountain bandit. You know who else would be wanted? The son of the most notorious pirate of the age. Garp has had multiple different relationships with various different criminals, including Dadan and Roger. So it wouldn't be totally wild for him to have another criminal relation.

We know that Shanks was found as a baby by Roger and Rayleigh at God Valley, so why couldn't another random kid end up getting adopted during that incident? Also, we have seen on a couple occasions where kids are taken in by the marines. Namely Corazon and X Drake. Granted those two worked in pirate crews as undercover Marines, but still. Let's say that that was going to happen with Dragon, as well. Garp decided to take him under his wing with the grand hopes that he would become a military genius - like his wishes for Ace and Luffy. And maybe, regardless of his daughter, he even had Dragon's last name changed from Rocks to Monkey, so that he wouldn't suffer from government or pirate persecution - like how Ace ended up with the last name of Portgas instead of Gol.

However, just like with Luffy and Ace, Dragon didn't want to become a Marine. He already knew about what the government was really like. We know that Rocks was very much so against the government - whether for strictly selfish reasons (ya know, wanting to rule the world) or for the purpose of freedom, I can't say for sure. Even the main purpose for the God Valley incident was to mess up some celestial dragons and nobles. He also was interested in finding out the government's secrets. Here are some excerpts from the wiki:

Now, if Rocks were to have a 17 year old son at that time, I'm sure he would have taught the son all about the truths of the world/world government that he had been uncovering. All of that knowledge could easily lead someone to want to become a revolutionary. I mean the world government and the celestial dragons and the slavery and the hush hush of it all... It's real fucked up. However, you could probably learn even more about it if you were to get taken in by a military hero. After all, the best weapon is knowledge.

Now, there are 16 years between the God Valley incident and the Buster Call on Ohara. That's a long time where we don't know what Dragon was up to. We know that at least a few years before he met up with Vegapunk on Ohara, he was working with the freedom fighters - of which Dragon had invited Vegapunk to join but was rejected due to lack of funding. The only other thing we know for sure from that time is that Dragon saw the execution of Roger just 2 years before the buster call (at age 31 btw). That's a decent amount of missing time.

As for options 2 and 3, we don't really have information for or against either of them. That I can think of, at least.

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

Also, if you don't see how Dragon and Rocks could be related, they just look so much alike. Luffy definitely looks like Garp but Dragon doesn't, which would support the Dragon marrying Garp's daughter theory. You can't tell me that Dragon and Rocks don't look similar. They have similar long black hair, the same exact hairline, similar forehead lines, and a strong nose.

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

If you've already heard of this theory, then that's pretty cool. I only just found out about it but I'm all in. I'm curious if anybody agrees or disagrees with the 3 potential routes that I mentioned. Also I apologize if there are a lot of typos or if things seem jumbled or out of place, I'm really tired and wanted to post this before I fell asleep lol

[starlitangels]

Good Boy Audios Incorrect Quotes (Part 4)

Yargwynn: *carrying all the groceries*

Paradise: *holds out hand to help*

Yargwynn: *shifts all the groceries to one arm to hold Paradise's hand*

•••

Albus: People say I have a unique way of lighting up a room!

Devlin: It's called arson and those people are witnesses

•••

Odin: What do you call a dictionary on drugs?

Pandora: If you say "addiction-ary" I will f*^&ing kick you back through the portal to Esselheim

Odin: I was going to say "high definition" but yours is better

•••

*air horn sound*

*air horn sound*

Yargwynn: ??? This isn't deodorant

•••

Tyr: Remember, the only difference between science and screwing around is writing things down.

•••

Makkaro: I could be wrong

Frank: Have you ever said that and actually meant it?

Makkaro: No

•••

Yargwynn: There are no bad ideas, only good ideas that go horribly wrong.

•••

Devlin: Let me see what I can do. Can you stay out of trouble for five minutes?

Albus: Let's find out!

•••

Yargwynn: I'm going on this mission alone. I ask that you rescue me or avenge me, as appropriate

•••

Faithful: Lord, give me patience

Albus: Isn't the phrase "give me strength"?

Faithful: If the Lord gave me strength, you'd be dead

•••

*Literally Anything Happens in the Space Pirate Saga*

Yargwynn: I was not expecting that

Yargwynn: But I was expecting not to expect something so it doesn't count

•••

Makkaro: In a game with no consequences, why are you still playing on the 'good' side?

Zed: Because being mean makes me feel bad

•••

Pandora: You really shouldn't be using a straw

Odin: I know. Bad for the environment and all that, but this one is metal and reusable—

Pandora: No, it's just a really weird way to eat spaghetti

Odin: *drawn out slurp*

•••

Paradise: *walks into crew meeting late* Sorry I’m late. I was doing stuff.

Yargwynn: *walks in, noticeably disheveled* *smirking* I’m stuff

•••

Paradise: Sorry I’m late. I was doing stuff.

Mortallous: *walks in, noticeably disheveled* They pushed me down the F^&*ING stairs!

•••

Odin: Hey! What are you doing tomorrow?

Pandora: Having my day ruined by whatever you're about to ask me to do

•••

Albus: Apparently, ending every conversation with my brother with, "Yes, my liege," and a deep bow followed by respectful backwards shuffling while avoiding eye contact is considered sarcastic

•••

Yargwynn: Marry someone you want to annoy for the rest of your life!

Paradise: -_-

•••

Albus: I asked Faithful to share her queen-sized blanket, to which she replied that she was a queen and therefore the blanket was already at max capacity

•••

Ulysses: You're mad

Odin: Thank goodness for that because if I wasn't this would probably never work

•••

Makkaro: I assume you realize I won't tolerate this kind of idiocy

Frank: Is there another kind of idiocy you would be more comfortable with?

•••

Lyr: We need to have a talk about your professionalism.

Yargwynn, standing on a table: Those are some mighty brave words coming from a guy standing in lava.

•••

Pandora: We need to talk about—

Odin: The building was already on fire when I got there

Pandora: What?

Odin: What?

•••

Kalamos: We need to get help from adults!

Paradise: We are—

Kalamos: Real adults!

Paradise: Understood.

•••

Tyr: You're smiling, did something good happen?

Odin: Can't I just smile because I feel like it?

Pandora: Ulysses fell down the stairs

[stygianheart]

its a shame your fics dont have more art theyre so good like if I could draw well id probably turn them into picture books. do you wish you had art?

but besides the point I actually have questions and I wanna ask em.

first up, who’s the back up? luffys mentioned the backup a few times and I cant help but wonder who it is. if thats a major spoiler than you dont have to answer but considering your love for this one guy i kinda think its sabo or the rev army. either that or like traffy. it would be funny if it was sabo though because of koby’s brief jealousy of how luffy was talking about him.

this might be just me as an aot fan overanalyzing everything but I feel like that devil fruit in the beginning was something important and so was the auction in broad daylight.

also ive seen a lot of fics where kobys favorite food is buttered potatoes but i think yours is the first where his favorite food is downright plain butter. the guys a psychopath for that. like why would you do that. where did you even get the idea.

I also have some other questions! unfortunately uh revolving around the second favorite ship brymeppo…

does helhippo realize he likes bryan or no? also i really came into the fic thinking I wasnt gonna give a crap about him but somehow you made me like him a lot so kudos to you. his relationship with bryan is so rivals to lovers coded and thats one of my favorite tropes. I really do hope helhippo lives up to his promise and takes bryan to the symphony. I know that wont happen in tsats but if you could make a one shot of helhippo and bryan going out on small dates that would be amazing 🙏 for us rymeppo shippers #rymeppo shippers unite oh and as much as i wanna see bryan take revenge on elijah for all the things the guys done to him i also wanna see helmeppo smash the guys face in. please. kill elijah. I hate him.

omg sorry that this is so long but I still have some more questions!

kobylu wise, who do you think fell first? koby or luffy? its obvious that luffy likes Koby but why hasn’t he said anything? does he understand how he feels? and after this is all said and done how are they going to stay in contact? it’s not like koby can just talk to luffy whenever he wants since hes a marine and luffys the pirate king.

anyway thats all! I hope i was able to help your creativity in some way :)

I mean, yeah, art would be cool. But when it comes to engagement with my fics, the most I hope for is for someone to simply read it. Besides, it’s self indulgent! I’m just writing the stuff for me and sharing it along the way.

Anyway, questions. *pulls out glasses*

The back up? Well, it’s not Traffy, that much I can say. Considering we (last I checked) don’t know if Trafalgar is alive or not, I just decided to…y’know, leave him out.

Greetings, fellow AoT fan, you are NOT mistaken! I kinda like hiding little things in the fic—not EVERYTHING has a purpose like AoT, but a lot of things are put there for a reason. I like being sneaky like that.

And yes. Koby’s a psycho. He eats straight up butter—and said it tastes better when dipped in sugar. I got this weird headcanon from my bestie who also happens to eat butter sticks. I once saw him dip it in sugar and was so disgusted by it, and he was just like “it’s good for you. Besides, it’s ✨tasty✨” like sir no. What on earth. That’s weird. You do you, but please, not in front of me. Besides the point—for some reason I decided to implement that onto Koby. I have a habit of weirdifying characters.

As for the RyMeppo question… I seriously never expected people to love this ship so much wtf. In Chapter 5, Helmeppo is completely unaware of his very obvious crush on (B)Ryan. He thinks he hates Ryan, when it’s obvious it’s more than that. As of Chapter 10, however, the moron is 10000% aware of how he feels. He and Ryan’s relationship is really fun to write with the constant bickering/flirting. I never intended them to be a romantic relationship, but alas, that’s where it headed.

And the KobyLu questions! Yay! Koby definitely fell first and he fell hard—don’t think anyone could fall harder if they tried. As for Luff: he knows how he feels about Koby. Buddy went to Sanji’s school of flirting and failed the classes spectacularly yet tried showing off his grades to Koby. He’s made it very clear how he feels—Koby, unfortunately, is just too damn dense. Luffy could yell “I LOVE YOU” to Koby and he would probably think Luffy meant platonically. He gets his density from me, of course, I’m the exact same way.

I hope I answered your questions well! Thanks for the ask, it actually did help a bit.)))

[focsle]

hello! i have a question: what draws you to whaling and that specific era of time in history? how long has it been an interest of yours?

Oh a much too big question for me to answer adequately in one ask. I’ve written tens of thousands of words on this history and the specific points of it that draw me. I’m pouring years of my life into a 400+ page comic about it. Catch me at 3am talking about reincarnation and how much I feel this all caught up in my soul-stuff. This will not be an answer that fully does my feelings justice. But I’ll link to some of my writings in this response that maybe do that better.

I’ve been deeply researching this history for over a decade, but I’ve always had a nautical bent to my childhood that probably sparked it. My grandfather was a Navy man. His house was covered in weird pirate sculptures and little creatures and art pieces he made out of shells and I think I inherited my sense of aesthetics from him. My mum was drawn to sea stories and things of that nature that was probably passed on to me in some way. Like most kids that sea bent manifested in an early interest in pirates, (tho the brief moby dick section of The Pagemaster was formative…it’s funny, I didn’t read Moby Dick until several years into my deeper dive into this history and then I was like ‘ohhhh….melville gets it). Learning about the Globe mutiny many years ago was a big spark to diving more specifically into said history. I first read a book about it where the writer’s (what I now consider, wobbly) thesis was that it was something about the industry itself that generated something within the perpetrator to choose a whaleship for premeditated slaughter, and the story was so rattling to me that I wanted to know what it was about that world that drove someone to something like that.

But instead I found a world that had so much humanity in it. It was one with a unique and isolated society that was unlike any other social sphere. Years on a ship that was a floating home, a floating factory, that had a relationship to the sea in a way that even other maritime trades did not. Fishing had/has some similarities, but not for the same isolating length or uniquely horrific and gruesome labor that whaling voyages held. The merchant trade had briefer voyages on more expected and well-trod routes. Even piracy followed the shipping lines of humanity more than anything else. With whaling your only destination was the sea, in a longer reach as the whaling grounds depleted and the industry stretched on to bring people to further and lonelier places. Where men would briefly touch land maybe every six months, and have liberty in port maybe even fewer times than that. That they were to go out there, and they weren’t to come back until they got enough oil to make the voyage worth it. It was an industry that drew men of so many different backgrounds and motivations, but the common thread tended to be that they were all very young, and that many of them were trying to find something in themselves or for themselves. An industry full of contradictions that I feel is most poetically expressed in scrimshaw, and one of the few places to see a preserved piece of art from an ordinary man. To see a small window into his emotional world and where his heart was in those long stretches of boredom. It was a space of brutal work, demoralizing work, and repulsive work, one where death was a constant shadow for both men and whales in a way that their lives were always inseparably on the same uncertain coin. But within that world, maybe despite that world, there was also a great deal of humanity, be it their music and sense of play, their whaler-specific social functions, their vulnerability. 

That whaling history luxuriously is a field where the words of hundreds of ordinary working class men have been preserved in diaries and logbooks means I get to know so many of them beyond statistics or names in a database. I get to learn about them on a personal level. I know what they worry about, what their favorite foods are, who they care about, when they have fun, when they’re miserable, sometimes what they find sexy, what makes them cry, and what makes them laugh, and what sort of man they hoped to be. In some of them I was reminded so much of myself, but in all of them I saw their unique and individual humanity, for better or for worse. So many of them carried a societal self consciousness within them that made me understand and feel for them. They often weren’t sure where they fit in a world that wasn’t a whaleship, even if that whaleship was a point of great hardship for them. So many of them wanted to be remembered in ways that they necessarily weren’t—few of them became historically important men, many of them died young or didn’t live to see home again, many of them may not have felt like they had anyone who cared about them, but they all had an existence they still clung to, that I feel compelled to try to honor and remember because I feel so much of them within me through that common thread of humanity.

This is a long answer, but as I said I still can’t express this in any way that isn’t shallow in this small space I have. It’s an interest that is both a personal, academic, and daresay spiritual one. I think to fully understand what draws me to it, you just gotta continually lurk in my awhalin tag and that ongoing comic of mine @goingtoweather. But hopefully this is a satisfying enough summary.

[aquilacalvitium]

Hey, I really liked learning about Nate from you. I also would like to hear about FNAF if you're up for it? I like the art I see around for it, especially the Sun and Moon boy, but have never really engaged passed that. I know it's based on a horror game which is Not something I've got the guts to play 😅 but I'd love to hear about the story of it and about the characters if you'd like to talk about them?

OH HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

Gif from FNAF The Musical

Now I'm letting you know right off the bat that this post is very long. Much longer than my infodump about Nate. If it's too much I don't expect you to go out of your way to read it all.

I've explained the first three games and will explain the rest in a reblog :)

That means if you wanna know about the Sun and Moon boy, that'll be in a reblog too since they're very recent characters.

So if you rely know nothing about FNAF then I'm going to start with the fact that it does involve child murder. We never see anything on screen, but it's pretty obvious that it's happening/has happened. And of the very few gruesome events they actually show, they're all in 8-bit so it's just like a few red pixels.

I hope you're buckled in because I'm about to walk you through ALL OF THE GAMES FROM BEGINNING TO END. Also I'm not the best with lore, I'm not very smart, but I'm going to explain it to the best of my knowledge which considering how complex this franchise is, that's all anyone can really do.

FNAF 1

A small indie game called Five Nights at Freddy's drops suddenly on the 8th of August in 2014 and immediately blows up. This game was a last-ditch attempt by developer Scott Cawthon to create a successful game after several previous failed attempts. His previous game had recieved some negative feedback with reviewers saying his characters moved like "creepy aniamtronics", so he ran with the idea and made a game centred around creepy animatronics.

You play as a night guard keeping an eye on the four animatronics in this Chuck E. Cheese style pizzeria: Foxy the pirate fox, Chica the chicken, Bonnie the bunny and Freddy Fazbear. You're informed that the characters wander at night to stop their servos from locking up and that if they see you, they'll think you're an animatronic endoskeleton with no suit and will try to stuff you inside one. Now considering those suits are full of metal and electronics that would crush you to death, that's not really something you want to happen. So you must ration your limited battery power to keep an eye on where the animatronics are in the building and closing the doors to your office to keep them out. As the week goes on, the animatronics get more and more aggressive with only Bonny and Chica active at first, then Foxy joining in and eventually Freddy himself.

Now on it's surface this is already pretty scary, but then you realise weird newspaper clippings starting to appear on the walls in the cameras. A close-up look at these clippings tell the news story of five children going missing at Freddy Fazbear's. A suspect was caught but discharged due to no evidence being found. Papers dated a little later talk about complaints from restaurant patrons that the animatronics are starting to stink and weird fluids are oozing out of them.

While it's never officially stated, it's made pretty obvious to the player that the five children who went missing were killed and stuffed inside the animatronics. But wait, there are only four animatronics, right? Wrong! While Foxy, Bonnie, Chica and Freddy are indeed the only four on show, there is a secret fifth animatronic referred to as Golden Freddy.

Golden Freddy appears on rare occasions in the camera. Upon doing so, he will then force the camera to close, revealing that he's somehow appeared inside your office. Staring at him for too long will cause the game to crash and shut down, and the only way to survive him is to flip the camera back up as quickly as possible.

And for a few months, that was where the story stayed. Five murdered children and five murderous animstronics. Up until November of the same year.

FNAF 2

(Got sick of looking through the gif gallery, it's like 98% stim boards ugh)

FNAF 2 was like FNAF 1 but bigger! Instead of just five animatronics, FNAF 2 upgraded to eleven! You had the brand new "toy" animatronics with brighter colours, smoother textures and an overall much cuter appearance, and the old "withered" animatronics rotting away in the back room. On top of them, you also had two brand new animatronics referred to as Balloon Boy (BB) and The Puppet/Marionette.

This game's mechanics were pretty different where instead of having an office with two doors, you had two air vents either side of you, one massive hallway right in front of you and zero doors. Different animatronics would approach you from the vents or hallway and you and to remember which ones could be stopped with the torch and which ones would leave if you had a Freddy Fazbear mask on. The Puppet and BB were unique in their own mechanics. BB wouldn't kill you if he got in, but he would steal the batteries to your torch making you defenseless against certain characters and constantly laughing his extremely annoying laugh. And the Puppet remained inside his gift box in Prize Corner as long as you kept his music box wound up. Let the music box run out and you'll start to hear Pop Goes the Weasel which unfortunately means that you're now dead. 100%. The Puppet is on his way and once he's out of the box there's nothing you can do to stop him. At all.

Now the immediate impression everyone had was that this game was a sequel, until you looked closer at the evidence. For one, the withered animatronics - aside from being withered and broken - look very different to their FNAF 1 counterparts. The guy on the phone who talks to you every night (dubbed Phone Guy) is still alive even though he died on night four of FNAF 1. And the Phone Guy also states that once you've completed your week, you're free to move to a day position and Phone Guy himself will probably take up the role of night guard - the position we replace in FNAF 1 after his death.

FNAF 2 takes place before FNAF 1! But why do the animatronics want to kill you if the FNAF 1 killings haven't happened yet?

Now it has been a while so my knowledge about the earlier games is a tad rusty, but between every night there is an 8-bit mini game such as Foxy Go! Go! Go!, and Give Gifts/Give Life. In Foxy Go! Go! Go! You play as Foxy leaving his stage to entertain children. You do this once, then twice, and then three times. But on the third time, there's a strange purple man standing to the side of your stage. Once you leave the stage, you find not five children but five ghosts. The children are dead, and the purple man is to blame. We can prove this in the mini game Take Cake to the Children in which you control Freddy doing as the name suggests and taking cake to children who get progressively more upset the longer you take. But you notice that at the top of the screen, outside the pizzeria, is a single, lonely crying child. That child stays where they are until finally, a purple car pulls up and the purple man from earlier gets out. The player can do nothing but watch as the child's tears grow and grow until they become a ghost. Then the purple guy gets in his car and drives away. That child is dead.

Finally, in Give Gifts/Give Life, you play as the Puppet. There's no beating around the Bush here, you're in a room with four dead children. The Pupept goes to each four and gives them each a present, but that doesn't work. They're still dead. He then goes around again, doing as the title says and giving life. He places an animatronic head on each child. Once the fourth head is on, you get jumpscared by Golden Freddy and the nights continue. But if you're incredibly perceptive, you may notice that there is a single frame right before the jumpscare in which a fifth ghost child appears in the middle of the room.

These are previous murders, ones that all took place before the FNAF 1 location opened and ghosts that possessed the original now withered animatronics. But what about the toy animatronics? Well they're easy to explain.

Phone Guy explains how these new high-tech robots are built with face recognition software and have been programmed with a list of criminals in order to keep the children attending the restaurant safe. Whoever you are, whoever you're playing as, you are one of those people. Or at least you look like one. More on that later.

So then there came FNAF 3

This game is set thirty years after the closure of the last Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria - the FNAF 1 location and it doesn't actually take place in a pizzeria, but rather a low-budget horror attraction based on the rumours and myths surrounding the pizzeria franchise.

You work as a security guard keeping an eye on the attraction the week before it opens. You're accompanied by Phone Dude, similar to Phone Guy in that he speaks to you over the phone and gives you information, but a different person altogether.

Night one is entirely uneventful as you listen to Phone Dude drop a whole bunch of information on you and when he finally hangs up you realise it's 5am and nothing has happened. Yup, night one is actually completely harmless. But then night two starts and Phone Dude tells you that "we found one. A real one." He quickly has to go and leaves you with bunch of recordings that he mentioned in night one which all turn out to be training tapes from old Fazbear locations voiced by none other than our friend the Phone Guy! Quickly, you'll notice something moving in the cameras and sometimes even hallucinations. These are the Phantom animatronics and they're not actually there. They appear suddenly in various places and unless you manage to flip up/down the camera in time, they will jumpscare you. The good news is, they can't kill you since they're not real. Instead, they cause all of your systems to crash which you then need to reboot. Yeah, this game has various systems that break down randomly throughout the night that you need to keep active in order to survive.

But there is one animatronics that's both real and a real threat. Springtrap.

Springtrap is... disturbing. He's worse than all the other animstronics we've met so far. I mean, his jumpscare is a little tame compared to them, but when you realise just what he is? Yikes.

Focusing on his mechanics first, you need to keep him away from you by blocking air vents and luring him with voice recordings. He's actually not that difficult as long as you keep a close eye on him.

Now, just like FNAF 2, this game has mini games between each night. You can play them all normally and complete them all as intended, but that will lead you to receiving the bad ending. Getting the good ending requires finding clues within those minigames, performing certain actions in the real game and then playing bonus mini games which are now accessible. BUT, you then need to glitch out those mini games in order to find crying children and give them cake. It's weird.

Doing all of these will eventually lead you to the minigame Happiest Day. Technically you can access and beat this mini game on any night, but you must complete all the hidden mini games and then this one to get the good ending. In it, you control a child in a puppet mask walking through a Fazbear restaurant. You walk past the four children you met on previous nights now wearing character masks and give them one a big cake. A fifth child standing on the other side of the table and crying will then put on a Golden Freddy mask. Finally, all six children will disappear, leaving their masks behind.

Beating the game after this will give you to the good ending. The children's spirits have been set free and are no longer possessing the animatronics.

So, what is Springtrap, anyway? Well... gore warning.

The normal minigames throughout the week have you playing as animatronics following a mysterious "Shadow Freddy" through an abandoned and broken Fazbear Restaurant until Purple Guy from FNAF 2 shows up and dismantles you. On the final night, you then play as a ghost child. Going to the room where Purple Guy dismantled the aniamtronics will trigger an interesting situation. Four other ghosts will block the exit while you chase Purple Guy. He will be thoroughly freaking out and will keep running away until finally he runs inside a limp golden rabbit costume in the corner to hide. He seems victorious, laughing at you. Until you hear a sudden crunch and he starts shivering. Slowly, he collapses to the ground as red pixels spray out of the suit. So what happened?

Well in the tapes left by Phone Guy, you will learn about suits called Springlock Suits. These function as normal animatronics but include springlock mechanisms. These mechanisms hold back all the animatronic parts, allowing a person to get inside and wear it as a costume. But there's a huge problem here. That's a lot of animatronic parts being held back by tiny springs. So... what would happen if a spring failed while a person was inside?

You also learn from the tapes that after a certain sprinlock failure, the safe rooms in the pizzerias where the suits are kept are being bricked up permanently.

Springtrap is the Purple Guy. He's the child murderer. And he was crushed to death inside a golden rabbit springlock suit. He was then bricked up in a wall for around thirty years, rotting and decaying, until the room was finally reopened and the suit collected for Fabear Frights, the horror attraction.

That's pretty messed up, huh?

WHEW! Okay this post is getting pretty long and I don't want to overwhelm you. I'm going to leave it here, but I will reblog and it and explain the next three games when I can.

[ask-artsy-oncie]

What’s Jules’ and Kit’s relationship from them first meeting onwards? Do they move in together at some point? How do they keep in contact? Stuff like that.

They exchange contact info after Jules is given a tour of the Sea Duck. I think it takes a little while for them to meet up, again, but they do. They're too fascinated by one another not to.

I think, though, if I want to explain how their relationship goes from one stage to the next, I ought to examine their social lives and how it impacts the development of their romance.

Kit's doing very good, now! In that, he has his family, he has Della (fuck canon, Kit and Della are childhood friends TO ME!!!), he has now former pirates he works with and can bond with, he goes out drinking every so often, like. I still consider him an introvert but he's got a pretty healthy social life and doesn't really struggle to have positive friendly interactions on the regular. He's just a generally good-natured guy like that.

HOWEVER, god, his romantic experience is weird. It's not like he never "noticed" girls or boys, but the vast majority of his focus growing up was on learning how to fly, getting into flight school, getting his pilot's license, etc. He just didn't have time for romance because he had other things at the forefront of his mind, and it took up a lot of his mind, too. I think it was something that gave Baloo great joy (in the sense that it meant that at least Kit "wasn't growing up too fast") and Rebecca a lot of anguish (in the sense that she had certain expectations for certain milestones at certain ages).

Into adulthood, maybe perhaps a little stunted from ignoring those kinds of feelings throughout his teen years, I don't think Kit really winds up in a serious relationship at any point prior to Jules. And I'm not even certain it's something he even cares to look for. He's very fulfilled by flying and cloudsurfing, among other things, yknow? I do think he ended up in short flings and even one-night-stands (he's still an adult with needs, and that's just how he went about dealing with it) throughout his 20's and early 30's, so he's not totally inexperienced in romantic endeavors, just not committed.

And he's also just fucking horrible at being self-aware about his attraction, as well. I've said this in a previous post but Kit develops crushes on pilots very easily. They don't last terribly long, but he's never aware of how obvious it is, or that much has even changed within him. Maybe after the fact, but rarely ever in the moment. His family absolutely teases him over it. Della is more exasperated by it.

Meanwhile, Jules has very little experience socializing outside their family. They'd always been the shy one among their siblings, and as they grew up they'd made one or two school friends (basically, they socialized just enough that their reclusive nature was never noticed, by their family or themself), but rarely ever got close enough to anyone like they were with their family.

They do, however, technically have a leg-up on Kit in that they did briefly date someone in a superficial high school sort of way. Lol.

Jules was just also pretty damn absorbed into their fixation on learning magic and magical history to really focus on maintaining friendships and other relationships after high school. Their siblings all grew up alongside them and got busy with their own lives. Jules gradually, without meaning to, became more and more reclusive. Stuck in their own head. Very painfully aware that they would like to form friendships and even romantic bonds at this point in their life, but totally intimidated by the process of doing so.

It's by chance that Kit makes the first move on that fateful day. And does so in a way that opens Jules up to him in a way they'd definitely struggle to without prompting. And they click pretty easily, it turns out.

Jules's proficiency is in magic, of course, but engineering and machinery really fascinates them. They genuinely were hanging off Kit's every word as he explained the mechanisms of the Sea Duck and compared them to those of other planes, what each part did and if and how it did it well. Meanwhile, Kit has had a pretty limited encounter with magic. In Talespin he's shown to be at least a little superstitious, and I, of course, have a very self-indulgent headcanon that he reads tarot, but he doesn't know the fine details, how or why things work the way they do. Actually seeing someone flying on an honest-to-god broomstick made his brain go "!!!!" and he absorbed Jule's long-winded, tangent-filled explanations with no complaints. Beyond just vibing with having related special interests, they're also both invested in the other's respected special interest.

It makes for a pretty great feedback loop, so when they do meet up, they tend to hit it off really well. Before Jules knows it, they've made their first friend in a long time. It happens without either of them really even noticing. It's suddenly just so normal to have one another in their lives. Suddenly, Jules is wedged into Kit's life, seamlessly, and Kit is wedged into Jules's. Kit is swinging by Jules's shop in his free time, just to see them, and hopefully goad them into having a conversation with him and giving him their attention, despite them being on the clock. Jules is starting to show up to Kit's shows when they can, and, with Molly's permission, ends up waiting backstage for him on the regular, hoping that they'll get to steal a moment or two of his time.

But Jules absolutely is having a very new experience after spending so long, alone. Whether they consciously realize it or not, they're pretty overwhelmed by this foreign feeling of having such a close companionship with someone, now. Not to mention that Kit is, physically, very attractive to Jules. What I'm saying is that Jules develops a crush on Kit pretty quickly. And once they notice they can't even bring themself to deny it when pried by one of their sisters.

They like Kit. A lot. But he's also the first friend they've had in so long, and the last thing they want to do is ruin that by letting romantic feelings get in the way. So they don't act on their feelings, which they feel is the smart, mature thing to do. They just want to be able to enjoy having a friend, right now (though it doesn't stop them from becoming a blushing, stuttering mess when Kit gets too close or grabs their hand and holds it, or, god forbid, some adventure perils cause Kit to pick them up. They have had to refrain from asking Kit to crush them SO MANY TIMES NOW--).

And Kit? Honestly was pretty smitten with them from the get-go, but again, he really isn't aware of it. He of course gets teased, he's so obvious about it, but he brushes it off with the same lighthearted comebacks as he always does with their teasing. Like he just does not make the connection. He just really, really, really enjoys being around Jules so he acts on those feelings and doesn't really put deeper thought into them...

... Until his crush ends up lasting so long that he inevitably comes to the realization that he has one, while he's still having one. Uh oh. Kit ends up entering a sort of crisis mode where he's suddenly hyper aware of his feelings for Jules and can't behave normally (or rather, calmly) around them anymore. He gets too jittery, too blushy, too dumb around them, now, and it's making him frustrated with himself. Meanwhile, Jules repressing their own attraction to Kit is starting to get kind of painful for them. There's romantic tension between the two of them that is just begging to pop at any given moment. Their loved ones are way too invested in this repressive disaster unfolding before them, btw. Things are super awkward between them now, despite their best efforts, but they're also attached enough to each other that it doesn't stop them from spending time with one another.

And, see, Jules has a pretty bad habit of talking aloud to themself. It's a holdover from only really having themself to talk to when there wasn't a customer to be helped. They're not loud about it, but they're definitely audible. And they're in turmoil at this moment, so they're definitely talking to themself every chance they get.

Despite their own self-awareness, Jules does not actually recognize that Kit reciprocates their feelings. They believe that things are getting more and more awkward because, in bottling up their feelings, they believe said feelings have gotten "worse" and are putting the strain on their friendship they feared it would. So their next step is just to convince themself to get over their feelings. To cross the peak of this awful mountain they've been climbing, already. That this isn't going to last much longer, that it's just their physical attraction to Kit messing with the rest of their feelings and it'll go away. That, sure, maybe right now they're in love with Kit and extremely attracted to Kit, and--

The door to their shop is open.

Kit is standing in their doorway.

As Kit still does, in order to suffer through incomprehensible sentences and blush so uncomfortably hot, just so he can hear Jules's voice and see their smile and be with them, with their attention on him.

He's probably heard to much.

He has heard to much.

The tension pops like a bubble.

And it really is such a drastic relief to the both of them that, all this time, they were just being idiots and there really wasn't much of anything to worry about. They're adults, dammit, they shouldn't have to dance around one another, if they both like each other romantically they should just give this dating thing a shot, right? The two of them think so.

And so they end up in a sort of honeymoon phase, where they're still extremely reactive towards one another. Blushing, stuttering, babbling, awkward messes. But it isn't painful for either of them, anymore. It just makes them feel warm and happy and giggly, until everything calms down properly and they settle back into their familiar familiarity. They're just both friends AND lovers, now.

I'm gonna stop it there because it's past 1AM and I am extremely tired, but this is them going from acquaintances to friends to a couple, at least. If I was more coherent I'd probably have a better narrative structure to this? But maybe I'm just being too harsh on myself. If this satisfies you, anon, then I'm very happy :)

[thebluestbluewords]

Jay/Lonnie, mentions of child abuse and technically-underage sex, wildly unfinished.

+

“You’ve got wicked scars on your back,” Lonnie says softly, tracing her fingers over the raised white lines that stand out even now, years later, on Jay’s back. “I don’t want to be rude, but can I ask about them?” 

It’s probably a lie. Lonnie has never once worried about being rude, and that’s one of the things Jay likes about her. He pushes up into her touch.

The feeling of her hands (bare) on his back (also bare, and so exposed) sends weird sparks through his skin, into his bones, and it’s not unpleasant, but it’s definitely weird. An adjustment, physically and mentally, to accept touch that isn’t meant to hurt. 

“Yeah?” he says carefully, forcing his voice to stay light, casual. “I mean, you can ask. No promises that I’ll answer.” 

Lonnie takes her cue to press harder, stroking her fingers up and down the ridges, scratching gently with her nails at the most raised and pitted areas. “What happened? I can guess at some of them, but this one’s not like anything I’ve seen before.” 

Jay shivers. “Electrical cord.” he says. It’s not worth the effort to make himself sound bothered by it. “It’s deep in places ‘cause the plug cut through.” 

Lonnie makes a sharp noise. “Through your skin?” 

“Yeah. Can you keep touching it?” 

Her hands start moving again. Yeah. That’s the stuff. Being touched by a friend is fucking incredible.

Lonnie’s fingers catch on one of the deep, twisted scars right at Jay’s hip. “This one can’t be from a plug,” she says, emphasizing the can’t with that particular auradonian inflection that Jay can’t quite manage to copy. “It’s crazy deep, and unless they plugged it into your skin, I don’t see how that could happen.” 

Jay rolls his hip up into the touch. He’s got a lot of scars, and the memories of the ones on his back that he can’t see every day the memories sort of fade together.

“Mm.” he hums, thinking. Weird and deep probably means something different here. All the other isle kids have scars like his, or worse. “Dunno which one you mean.”

Lonnie scratches her nails over the spot. “It’s right here. Sort of like a twisted hole, like a chunk of skin went missing, maybe? They didn’t shove an electrical plug into your back, did they?” she asks, voice lilting up on ele-trical and back with that  accent again. Jay shouldn’t be annoyed, but it’s a hit to his professional pride that he still can’t imitate it right. He’s supposed to be this charming guy, the one who can get anywhere and find anything, but he can’t get a handle on the stupid auradonian upper-class inflections, and every time Lonnie emphasized a word differently than he expects, it sticks out in his brain like a fresh, shiny nail on an old building. He’s the people guy, able to blend in anywhere, to steal anything, but he can’t steal his way into fitting in, and it’s a growing irritation every time he can’t get it right. 

Right. Scars. Hip. Deep. 

“No,” Jay says thoughtfully, wracking his brain for what the scar actually is. “Who d’you think “they” is anyway?” 

Lonnie shrugs audibly. She makes a soft little humming sound in her throat when she does it, one she might not even be aware of. “Somebody. I don’t know. Your dad?” 

“Nope.” Jay says. He’s pretty sure of that, at least.  His dad’s scars are the main ones on his back, but he never hit below the belt, and her fingers are pressing lower on his hip than where the waistband of his pants usually sit.  

“Some other kid?” Lonnie prompts, running her other hand up and over the curve of Jay’s spine. “It seems crazy that someone would just do something like that to you. Did you have like, a cool fight with someone over a weapon, or something?” 

Oh. 

Right. 

“Technically,” Jay says slowly, the memory burning with unexpected clarity now that he’s found it. “Yeah. It was a fight. When I burn bridges I burn them hard. We were fighting the pirates over— something stupid, now that I’m thinking about it. One of them sunk a hook in my hip. Left it there when he pushed me overboard. My body tried to heal around it, so it left the crazy scar.” 

Lonnie tips her head, considering this information. “The pirates?” she says softly, pressing her fingers deep-deep-deep, into the sharp divot in Jay’s skin, like she’s not even thinking about it anymore, just following the feeling. “I didn’t think they were the sadistic sort. But I guess I didn’t think you were the sort of person who’d eat a girl out for an hour, so I guess that’s on me for judging people by their appearances.” 

[tau1tvec]

I’ve always been kinda aware it exists, but seeing it happening in something so seemingly anti-capitalist as The Sims cc and modding community, or any modding community is sooo… weird ??? Could be my age showing, I’ve been around since The Sims 2 LJ and Forum scene, where I very vividly remember everyone chastising a creator into exile for using ad-fly links, despite all they’d contributed to the community, which is wild considering how common they are now.

I remember ad-fly resurfacing some probably two or three years into The Sims 3, and although a lot of people were quite vocally against it, many of them being former The Sims 2 players, it didn’t quite have the same effect this time around. Some people would include non-ad-fly links and alternatives, and luckily ad-fly killers mostly worked, but it’d become pretty norm as the years went on, while in the background the way The Sims 3 itself was also rewriting how The Sims can be monetized, by introducing The Sims 3 Store.

Now I think The Sims 2 had one as well, but it was kinda meh… and so was The Sims 3 Store at the start, like the sets were cute, but people weren’t exactly rushing to buy cash cards to get them, esp since as, tale as old as time style, there were plenty of forums and pirate sites out there offering them for free. However as EA began, idk possibly seeing a decline in sales, they started pushing two expansions and one or two stuff packs out a year I think, and even more store sets. Big store sets, and it helped pick up steam, but it also began pushing The Sims further and further into this very, “content, content all the time, so much content, open you wallet now or you’ll miss out” mindset that I think we’ve only seen exacerbated with The Sims 4.

Yes we’re getting less big releases, with only one EP a year, but we’re getting plenty of others between gamepacks, kits, and constant updates, at least 2-3 of which are quite huge changes, that make them a bit difficult to ignore.

I think my point is, that gaming has obviously changed a lot over the years, the products we pay for aren’t quite as fulfilling as they used to be, but we get more of it more often ??? So yay, I guess ??? Still this doesn’t change the fact that we’re still paying for, if not paying more at times for less content ???

Either way I guess we shouldn’t be surprised it’s also affecting the cc/modding community, I think in the bigger picture as well, is we just live in truly different times economically than we did when The Sims 2 dropped, a lot of people trying to find other means or extra means to get money and pay for bills, rising food prices, and constantly bouncing gas prices has changed a lot of how monetization works as well, but at some point the bubble will burst. We can’t keep scamming each other like this, esp since all we’re doing is basically passing off our struggles to someone else when we do, and only for a little bit of relief… which will also likely be as brief and heavily monetized as the games we play to get that relief.

I’ve seen a lotta people become more and more comfortable sharing pirate links openly, even Twitter YouTube, and Instagram, former bastions of typically willing players and participants of paid content are openly sharing that paid content with others, and that behavioral change isn’t unfounded, we’re exhausted, exhausted with having too much and yet too little and still being expected to pay to get ahead of the line, exhausted with the cc community and the game itself, but we’re also exhausted with the world and society and it’s obvious decline in recent years, and so we’re just picking the slightly less exhausting route, lol.

tldr; The Sims cc/modding community will always be anti-capitalist, and complacency doesn’t equal willingness, pirate servers don’t exist without reason, and no, believe it or not, not everything should be monetized, if you’re wondering if everyone is judging you for posting a slightly longer version of an EA hair under early access, it’s bc we are… while we’re also looking to see if it’s on DHM.

[chungledown-bimothy]

Hey, Dad.

inspired by @screamingbingusthecromulentone, i wrote a short little fantasy high ficlet ^_^

After an intense first week of school, Riz visits his dad, and maybe he's not as alone as he thinks he is.

593 words, no warnings

-

“Hey, dad. It’s, uh, it’s been a while, and I’m sorry about that.” Riz rubbed the back of his neck and shivered a bit; it was colder than he’d expected.

“Uh, where should I start. I mean, first, of course, I miss you. So much. Mom does too, even though she tries to hide it for my sake, I think. 

This past week was my first week of high school! I go to Aguefort, and it’s been crazy already. A lot of it is stuff I can’t talk about yet, but I will come and tell you all about it as soon as I can.

I made some friends! At least, I think they’re my friends. Definitely the closest to friends I’ve ever had. We met in detention, believe it or not. I got caught breaking into the principal’s office, but it was to get clues about Penny and the other girls’ disappearances. 

Where was I? Right, my friends.

There’s Gorgug- he’s the nicest person you’ll ever meet. Too nice, probably. He brought a metal flower to school the first day, and he tried to give it to Fabian after Fabian just walked up and punched him out of nowhere. You’d think a barbarian would be all tough and angry and all that, but actually he’s really quiet and awkward.

Fabian’s another one of my friends, actually, and he’s really cool. He and Gorgug seem to have moved past that first incident no problem. He calls me The Ball, which is cool I guess. Won’t stop talking about his dad, though, which is, like, great and all, but it makes me miss you even more. You’re way more badass than some old pirate, though, I’m sure of it.

Then there’s Fig, who’s really angry all the time, which is kinda funny, since she’s a bard and, like, way angrier than Gorgug. Fabian’s a fighter, by the way. Really cool sword. Anyway. Fig. Angry a lot, especially at authority figures, but she’s cool. Totally shreds on bass guitar.

There’s also Adaine, she’s a wizard. Shepanics a lot and has some major family issues, but she’s really smart, and the only wizard I’ve seen who doesn’t just rely on her magic all the time. 

The last of our little detention group is Kristen. She’s a cleric, super into Helio, although some stuff happened and she seems kinda messed up about it? I dunno. She’s kinda weird, like, even more than most of the Helio people, but has a really good heart. 

We’re all a bunch of misfits and weirdos, and I like them all a lot.

Together, we can find all of the missing girls and save them. I know we will.

I think it’s gonna be a really good year. I know I keep saying it, but I miss you so much. It would all be even better if you were here. For me and for mom. I’m gonna go now and let mom come talk to you alone. I love you, and I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

As Riz touched his father’s headstone in parting, a warm breeze came out of nowhere and wrapped around him. He smiled and didn’t turn to leave until it had entirely passed.

From behind a tree just barely within earshot, Sklonda sniffled and wiped a tear from her eye. That’s a good kid we made, Pok. He reminds me of you more and more every day, and he’s gonna be the death of me, but you’d be so damn proud of him. Just like I am.

[cutepastelstarsalior]

Clone high season 2 live blogging

Episode 6

:( the dinner is going to be sold

Yeah I can see why some people don’t like the dinner because of the racial segregation….

Did some guy just buy to eat the dead wife????

👀 disabled Joan!??? Let’s goooooo!!!!! Detective Joan!!!! Awe cute Joan had a cat <3

“Psylly legs is build up nostalgia the legs get psylly”

….So Joan is just stimming???? (I thought she’d had restless leg syndrome)

If people bullied Joan because of her medical stuff, why didn’t Joan help Ghandi when people hated on him for his adhd? Also man does this town have an ableist history…..

Blood pack!!!!! Same big mood with the doctor not handling blood 😩

Yay Joan’s weird French films!!!! DAVID FUCKING TENNANT???!!!!!! <3 ohmgggg I love him as 10

Heyyy trash Mandy Moore lady is back!! :0

Did I meant I love the colors in this show? I do…

Noooooo jfk cheating on Joan? Wait…or not? Hmmm I feel like kissing another girl is bad…..FUCK is this is Total Drama and the Bridgette and Geoff scene >:( damn it!!! (Yes I know that they are 2 different shows but listen……hyperfixation™️ also my mom thought CH was TD lol)

Yay jfk and Harriet told Joan the truth….oh no Joan is going through so many emotions and drinking :0 hmmm 👀 (idk why but the little montage of Joan going rapid through different emotions feels like something bpd???)

Episode 7

Confucius parents took his sister to Bali but not him :( awwww his family didn’t care if he got lost in the dessert. Man Confucius family sucks, no wonder he tried to hard to be popular online, he just wanted attention :(

:( Abe and Joan army friends anymore noooo. Damn. Abe lost Joan and Ghandi, this dude is going through it….

My favorite background clone is Cathrine the Great, I think her design is so cute <3

The bus crash and now JFK brain is bigger….i think you have internal bleeding there bud…

“As a woke straight male ally let me put my lips on this unconscious black women to show how woke and straight I am” ……..topher bud….

Why is George Washtion Clever peanut man getting bigger??

Mr b using a short to cover his head <3

Ew why is jfk vice like that….

“Lo-fi haunted ghost screams” 👀

Smart jfk…Joan taking the lead. I feel like something bad will happen OR this is a dream.

:0 DJ Mr b!!!!!!

Cannibal dessert zombies….. scary!!

JFK calling people darling is cute :) <3

If jfk brain is smarter while in hot weather/if he’s overheating why didn’t this happen when he’s in the gym or doing sports? 👀

Smart jfk face : ☺️🫤

The husbands trying to snort each other 😏👀

Arroyo are gully in southwestern us….meaning the clone home is somewhere between Texas and California….

Joan wants someone who is emotionally intelligent and emotionally available….she and Abe become friends again……I’m guess they’ll end up together?

Episode 8

Oh snap they actually broke up! Also they co-own a tortoise? Cute

..,,,making the whole school sexual……😬 interesting…

“Where do you want the seaman to drop their load”

“For starters in my mouth” HA….🫵🤨 I know what you are doc

Frida having a crush on Cleo! Was not expecting that…Cleo doing her weird flirting again…was DEFINITELY not expecting that….

Harriet x Confucius is a cute ship….their such nerds <3

😬😬😬 the teacher flirting with Abe…:ma’am that not ok

“Virginity is a social construct” asexual Abe real!!!!!!!

I was going to say seaman I love you but I realize that sounds absolutely horrible out of context….

Singing pirates I love you and you talking about lgbt identity..

Topher the pirates thing you’re into Abe….. 👀

JOAN DONT PUT THE TOURTISE IN THE WATER JOAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!! Oh thank goodness Abe rescued the pet

“It’s ok if a minor and a teacher are together” not the fuck it’s not lady!!! Topher why are you filming this???? Call the police????? Topher please 😬😬

Oh thank god she dead. But ahhhhhhhh still hella uncomfortable!!!!!!!!!

The “statutory-rape-death-by-orgasm situation is very troubling” MR B WITH THE FACTS!!!!!!

“So we’re not telling the police?” You can Mr b! Please call the police. Mr b I love you so much for looking out for the students.

Topjer blackmailing Abe because he (topher) is into Joan…..🤨🤨 are you topher?? Are you really??

One one hand, I’m like this is a stupid subplot, Abe just tell Joan how you feel who care about topher and his blackmail. But on the other hand, this situation kind of feels realistic? Like a weird way to talk about victim blaming?

Oh thank god something positive in this shit show….yippie Cleo and Frida got together!!!

Joan underwater with the emotional music…her screaming underwater…..cinema™️ :) Joan and jfk having a nice talk :)…:noooo rip Shelly the tortoise

Background gay couple yay :)

Episode 9

Noooo the husbands are fighting AGAIN….oh yay Joan and Mr b time!!!

Omg Mr b lore!!!!

He has a human twin brother??? HES RELIGIOUS????? Oh snap biracial Mr b 👀

Wait nevermind…. Awww Mr b didn’t know he was a robot :( and nether did his twin

:( noooooooo!!!!!!!! He left his brother 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

OH MY FUCKING GOD Mr b was a sex worker

Noooo Mr b please contact your brother!!!!!

Awew yay Mr b life getting better!!! :0 he got married!!!

Noooo his wife cheated on his and his son wasn’t biological his!!! :(

YES!!!! The twins reunited!!! :0 awew he’s an uncle now!!! Wow 2 nices and 2 nephews!!

NOOOOOOOOOOO HES BROTHER DIED!!!!!!

👀 Mr b was an actor!!!!

🥺 awww he thinks of Joan as his daughter!!!!!!

NO MR B DONT DO IT!!!!!!!!

Oh thank god doc saved him!!!!!!! 🥺

Oh my goddd…..the cliff!!! The choices!!!!!!!

THETE FAMILY AND HE CRIED!!!!

Favorite episode!!!!!!!!

Episode 10

Oh thank god, it’s the last one!!!!

Ponce’s dad is back!!! :)

It’s the last day of the school year…the teens are 16, so there sophomores???

Clone high college :0 oh!!! I was wonder what would happen to the senior class!!

West Dakota?????

Since the sisters didn’t make it into the death maze, do they life? Get immediate killed? I forgot that the government is trying to groom the most successful clones. So I guess this is a survival of the fittest….and since the OG clones were from the first project, this is a very new things. (Trying to make a mental timeline thing.)

The four amgias….

NOOOOO VINCENT DIED (maybe not?)

4 boys who are friends-ish

4 girls who are friends

Battle of the sexist 👀

Also both groups are the main cast….ok not topher he’s more of a side character…but still..

Yay Abe and jfk friendship :)

Ok so this is my 2 favorite episode.

This gives me minor hunger games vibes. The whole government watching kids fight to the death part; not the trying to stop the government and corrupt dystopia part…

Oh hey! That weird one type flute thing, forgot about that! :)

Frida has 2 different shoelaces :)

Joan leaving the group because Frida chose her girlfriend over Joan. I mean, that understanding to be angry, but I don’t think she should leave the group….

Yessss jfk breaking topher phone!! :) now Abe won’t be blackmail anymore!!!

Gay energy jfk x Abe

Lone wolf Joan….hmm maybe she is the most powerful/sussefual clone they made? 👀

Joan setting traps to capture her friends!!!! She IS the most dangerous clone!!!

Ok Joan keeps putting people into holes, either she doing that so she the only one to hit the button and go to college OR she doing that to save everyone from the death maze?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHJHH Joan foster mom standing by Joan, using her daughter and grooming her to be the next leader!!! AHHHHHH I love it!!!!!!! Sidhaisn

!!!!!!!!! Them using the clones as backups!!!! Me think how it was weird that the government would let a clone die so easily!!! They won’t!!!!! The government controlling them to be successful puppets!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! The angst, and tension!!! The betrayal!!!!! Love it!!!!!

👀🥺 doc think of the clones as his children!!!!!!

They lost their memories!!! But Joan giving it back!! Her caring about her friends!!!!

Oh my god the stupid little hands gesture!!!!!! <3

….

That’s it??? THATS the ending? The mother showing everyone what Joan did during the death maze? And everyone being anger at her?

Ok, I feel like the twist to that, if there a season 3 is that her friends will forgive her.

Ok! Thought time!!!!

Ok, the fist half of this so is ROUGH! Like it has an idea (government wanting to groom the kids to be a successful leader) but the comedy and drama got a bit out of hand for the plot. I think want to say around 7-8 is when the show gets more, lore like? Or as close to plot as possible.

This season is VERY Joan centric. It gave her SO much character development. At first I thought it wouldn’t work, it made Joan feel like one of those not like other girls, and loser girl gets popular troupe. The whole love triangle with jfk and Abe was a bit rough. It was weird that Joan decided to be with jfk, after sleeping with him on prom night. But I guess since Abe was with Cleo and Abe only paying attention to Joan after she change herself, it make a TINY bit of scene.

The writing try to make it seems like Joan still loves Abe with that sexual dream she had, but I feel like after that episode, it wasn’t brought up again until episode 7. When Joan wanted jfk to be more emotionally invested in her. Also the whole Abe being in love with Joan? Also the random Abe getting mistreated it felt…..odd?

As for the other characters; out of the OG cast (Abe, ghandi, Joan, Cleo, jfk) only jfk had some character development. At first he was sexual with some emotional intelligence (when he comforts Joan at prom, him and Abe talking in the thinking dock, the whole ponce situation)….in season 2 he was more sexual with some minor emotional scene. I feel like episode 7-10 is were jfk is the most emotionally here.

Cleo….she basically only has 2 episodes for her character development. Episode 4, and Episode 7-8. In episode 4, she gets the crown and gets power hungry, after Joan apologizes to Cleo, she and Joan become friends-ish. In season 1 Cleo and Joan spend a lot of time together, because their parents were dating. They mostly argue but were friends-enemy? So Season 2 feel both a continuation of their season 1 relationship AND just a way to re-write Joan and Cleo relationship.

As for the other episodes? It basically her and Frida because friends to lovers. To be honest while the ship is cute, I wish it was more slow burn?

As for the new clones Harriet and Confusious. I’m mixed. Togher they make a cute couple. But separately I like them more as individuals. Harriet is the most developed out of the 3 new clones. She was awkward and a bit anxious (I think?) around episode 1, then as the show progressed she only hang around Frida, then she became closer friends with Joan. In episode 5 it’s really were Harriet feels the most….developing? She gets angry and worried over feeling Joan about how she feeling about the play! But she expresses herself and that cool!! She also has a weird little friendship with Frida, the 2 of them make a weird little group.

Confusions. At first I didn’t like, he was just a random guy who I hate his outfit. By episode 5, he gets some personal! He wants to have people pay attention to him! And by episode 6- 7, that when you know I bit more about him! He has a rich family who ignores him! His family likes his sister more and seem to emotionally neglect him. He’s a bit lazy and like to go with the flow and not have to work.But besides that…..I can’t think of anything else to say?

Frida. She’s…..there. She hangs out with Abe and Joan and Cleo sometimes. She paints, skateboards, and is the most popular girl in school. Besides that? There not a lot of info about her. It seems like this season had a few too many characters so they made Frida fade into the background…

At first I hate the new Joan new mom. (Candid? I can’t remember her name) I felt like she was a random character that didn’t need to be there. I felt like she was just there to replace the doc and just be annoying? But as the show progressed she was more of a background character that was silly. As for the final; I feel that were she shines the most!! Her wanting her foster daughter to rule the world, that idea is so cool!!!!! I love how she talk to Joan, how proud she was, and how she was going to use the clones as backup or to try to make them more perfect!!! She’s a character a feel like could work If she wasn’t stuck in a comedy.

My b my beloved <3

Topher is a dick. Hate how he blackmails Abe and try to push him and the gross teacher thing. Hate hate the show decided to do that. Like man!! If topper was really into Joan and wanted to blackmail Abe he could have done it a different way!!!!

The humor in this show….don’t feel there? I had like, a few chuckles but that was mostly because from the Doc. Or like from physical gags like the slow float or the couch catching on fire. The animation is fluid and I could see it like, a few times. The colors are a bit brights but I love the background!!! As for the voice acting….its a hit or miss.

5/10

Very Rough start but love the final 3 episodes.

[askelectrochromic]

what is the Krikani language like? i like the description of Cheloan glyphs as analogous to Hanzi or Kanji (being able to identify the ``spicy'' character) but id love to know about the Krikani writing system

(im not expecting you to write a whole conlang of course but was curious if you had a general shape or feeling to it in mind) ^^;

SableGear0: You know, I haven't actually given it much thought yet. I probably should, though. My first impulse was to say "they don't have a written language" (for reasons I will discuss in a moment) but that seems impossible; they're a sapient species capable of space-travel and manage huge military systems, they probably have writing since not all communication can be person-to-person. So, organic rambling solution-finding and some links and images under the cut.

Generally I conceptualize Kriken as a (semi-)eusocial hive organism that are passively psionic, to keep in touch with the greater hive. How much direct communication happens psionically I'm still not sure; whether it can be used "conversationally," or if it's merely a "vibe" they share with local Kriken that's strong enough to pick up on the "vibe" from the core colony sometimes. The fact that they have a spoken language probably means its closer to the latter.

If the psionic communication is powerful enough, then maybe they wouldn't need to write? But then how would you do something like label the controls on a starship or make maps? You might have to devote someone to memorizing what all the labels would be and then telepathically ask them what you're looking at. Which isn't totally unreasonable, if we consider them highly specialized hive organisms. Maybe they do have "librarians" that keep this stuff in their minds and can be asked/accessed on a whim. This would be an extremely alien way of keeping track of information. While I kind of like it, it seems maybe a bit too weird for the Metroid series as we know it. Arguably, Metroid has kept its aliens fairly (socially) tame, giving us a lot of written logs throughout the Prime series. Though the ones we've gotten the most lore on are Pirates and Chozo, which aren't great benchmarks since they were respectively "the bad guys" and "the good guys (mostly)."

Being insectoid, Kriken might also communicate via pheromones? But pheromones and what/how Kriken eat have been stumping me because... well, their heads aren't really attached.

Trace has no neck. And while in some renders it looks like that tiny teardrop of a head is resting on the body, the in-game model and wireframe show pretty clearly they do not touch. Hence why I go with psionic; their heads float for spooky psionic reasons. This also means that while their heads may be a sensory center (headshots still work in Hunters), I doubt it's where they stick food when (if?) they eat, so it being a chemosensor feels a little unlikely, but I digress.

Anyway back to written language. I suppose I have to ask myself, what would a written language look like if it was invented by ants? Or bees? Ants is a tough one mainly because I don't actually know much about ant organization. My impression is that they build and tunnel fairly organically, just wherever is easiest to go and/or smells like it has the most food. When I think about bees, though, I think about bee dances, and how that might be adapted into a written language; a system abstracting the orientation and movement of the body into markings that can be re-read at any time so that worker doesn't have to bust down and dance it out every time she wants to relay some information to someone new.

And thinking about that, I think about Phyrexian. This conlang shows up in the Magic the Gathering universe, and knowing what I know about Phyrexians (an all-consuming hivemind-like culture that take creatures and turn them into half-mechanical abominations to serve their own purposes), it seems like a decent fit.

The shape of these is really what I was going for but the cultural implications match up too. I was thinking of the cross-strokes being similar to the directional facing if you were to write down a bee dance, the extra marks indicating other movements like stops or the frequency of a waggle.

It also looks like something a bug might make if you dipped it in ink and let it walk around on a paper, so that's neat. Scratching marks like these out would be fairly quick and easy for a Kriken, since they only appear to have a crab-like manipulator and a single combat claw, and I've stuck with that design choice in describing them because it's more interesting than "oh and they have normal hands too".

So there's your answer, I guess. Written Krikani probably looks kind of like Phyrexian; branching strokes off a central line that stem from an ancestral system of gestural communication (and I like the verticality so I'll probably keep that too). Simple, efficient, and easy to replicate.

Thanks for the ask! This was a bit of a brain-teaser.

[owlbeers]

Shadow and Bone season two thoughts

I tweeted a little as I watched, but I realised I wanted to put together my thoughts more longform, so here we go. In general: I liked it still but not as much as S1, I had Thoughts.

Spoilers for all of the season after the read more.

Idk maybe its the fact that they started referencing events from Crooked Kingdom - a source I care about a lot and um more than some of the other books - that I started to get pickier but I did.

To quickly get the Mal, Alina, Darkling, Nikolai plot of it all. I liked all the new casting (Nikolai took a little to grow on me, but Tolya and Tamar were great the whole way through). Generally I was fairly unmoved by it all, but this plot really isn't why I am watching the show. Genya gave me some feelings. Zoe Wannamaker is great. I preferred Ben Barnes' villain moments more in S1 but the end in the desert did make me feel a little bit.

I'll deal with the !!! end separately.

So, the Crows. I wasn't sure what I expected them to do - knowing that they wouldn't do The Ice Court - but idk I was a little surprised they mined Crooked Kingdom the way they did because in my mind it so clearly needs the events of SOC for emotional reasons for CK events to work, but I think they ... sort of pulled it off. Sort of.

I mean, they rushed the fuck out of it. I know they wanted to reunite the plots but I wanted more out of Kaz's revenge and yes we got a lot of investigation of Kaz's trauma but I wanted a bit more set-up for all the Crows. The cane fight was very good though. Freddy was great in the confrontation scene - so good - but I admit I missed the quiet of the book church scene and that only Inej saw it. Inej not being there, it being surrounded by lots of people ... it felt different.

The Kanej: they hinted at book stuff but it all just felt a little watered down. Yes we got the bandages scene but only nods to it because they're not really there yet emotionally, and yes he tried to get her out and got her freedom but I didn't really see the point in having that weird fight in the middle. Yes, he is pushing her away but it just seemed odd. The hallucination scene was feelings-y but kinda confusing in why they had that for Inej, but the recovery form it was nicely done with the softness in Kaz's eyes before the !!! sets in. However the final ep "I will have you without armour" scene was pretty great. And his looks when he saw her walk back with Alina and the sword! I love them.

Wesper: I liked Jack's Wylan from the get go and I thought him and Kit had good chemistry. Even with the plot changes I found them very cute and charming.

Also the bit where Jesper lists off how Kaz couldn't imagine doing this without him, and Kaz said yes all of that - but not the unlimited tab. I love me some Kaz and Jesper friendship.

Nina with the Crows was great. She doesn't take Kaz's bullshit and I loved the "there is five of us" moment at the end.

Matthias: welp sorry Calahan you had shit all to do. I did assume they were gonna get him out this season but uh guess that is for the Ice Court spinoff.

The end: haha they sure changed a lot there. A lot. Are they setting up something for S&B S3 and also SOC?? Now with Dark Alina in charge of Ravka and King of Scars Nikolai stuff?? Mal going away with Tolya, Tamar and Inej?? I liked that Inej is getting a pirate slave hunter moment (but I still need that Kanej boat scene. I need it). I guess they'll find a way to get her back? Will she get caught?? So many questions. So random.

I don't care about Mal x Alina really but uh if I did and that ending happened and I was expecting the R&R ending. Well.

Are they going to do a Tolya and Inej moment? I have mixed feelings.

Anyway in conclusion: I love the Crows! Some things were good! The actors were all great! But eh some choices I'm not sure about it. I need the Ice Court story though. Please Netflix.

Yes I have read book scenes and I might go hunt down some of my Kanej fic faves ...