#it's very nice of them to include us for recognition and stuff

[seekingthestars]

so this funny thing happened at work where they asked me to design programs and award certificates for this Volunteer Appreciation lunch

and i started designing things and i, of course, had a full list of the recipients of the awards bc i had to make the things and i happened to notice that uhhh i was getting an award? wait, my entire creative team was getting awards? but none of us knew about this luncheon that was a week away, so what–

turns out that they had forgotten to invite all six of us, despite the fact that ALL SIX OF US were getting awards and we discovered this bc I WAS MAKING OUR AWARDS i cackled

anyway that's what i'll be doing for like 3+ hrs tomorrow, volunteer luncheon wooo

[nothorses]

May I ask why you think Biden stepping down and Kamala being the candidate to be 'good news'? I'm still voting for whoever the Democratic candidate is ofc, but I worry this move threw away the average swingvoter who may have been swayed towards voting blue. I don't see how anyone who may have been okay voting for Biden by virtue of him being an old white dude is gonna be as nice towards a brown woman. I mean, people were too sexist for Hillary, the most milquetoast white woman imaginable. I'd really like to hear your perspective.

Biden has been polling like shit for months, and basically fucking everyone has been calling for him to step out of the race for a while now. It's been the opinion of political experts that he doesn't have much of a shot in this election for a variety of reasons. The vast majority of his own base is incredibly dissatisfied with his stance on Palestine (an understatement), and numbers have been reflecting that he was going to be running against some truly miserable odds because of that.

It is genuinely the best option for him to step out of the race. Literally just about anyone else has a much better shot at winning than Biden did. Kamala included! There was a press conference a while back where someone actually asked him if he'd step down if Kamala polled better, and he said he wouldn't. Which is extremely worrying, because it demonstrates that he may have been prioritizing his own personal ego over the importance of keeping Republicans out of office this election.

I don't like Biden, and I really didn't like his odds in this race. Nobody else did, either. The fact that Obama came out and said Biden needs to step down is indication enough that this happened because the situation is really that dire; you have to remember that Democrats are all about Doing Things By The Book, especially in the last 8-ish years when it's been useful for them to be Rule Followers in contrast to the tantrum-throwing chaos machines that Republicans have been. If there was even a sliver of hope for Biden to stay in the race after being chosen in the sad sham that the primaries were this election cycle, they would have kept pushing just to stay within the bounds of convention.

I was ready to push for Biden regardless, because keeping Republicans out of office is priority #1. But I've been saying for a while now that he needs to drop out (just... not on Tumblr, where the dominant conversation is "does voting for a flawed political pawn make you personally responsible for everything they ever do, or should we abstain and let the fascists hijack our government and kickstart several new genocides for the sake of personal moral purity" and I don't think that kind of nuance would be well-received).

I use my grandparents as a litmus test in a lot of this stuff, because they are very much the Typical Liberal Democrats, and their opinions on these things tend to fall in line with the majority of voting Democrats. They absolutely loved Biden in 2020, long before he was chosen as the candidate. They don't anymore. Seeing them lose any and all enthusiasm for voting for this corpse of a man was evidence enough to me that we needed someone else. Ideally someone people can get excited about, because I think folks have mostly lost the perspective we had in 2020 when Trump's nightmarish presidency was fresh in everyone's minds, and served as motivation enough to get to the fucking polls- regardless of who the Dem pick actually was.

From what I understand, Kamala is actually polling better than anyone else right now. I have my fears about voters' racism and misogyny too, but if she's doing well in the polls, I wonder if maybe there's some other factors counteracting that. She's also got name recognition, and the general impression of Being Qualified (because she's been VP already, like Biden was), and Being Likeable (because she comes with the general positive associations of the largely successful Biden presidency, without any baggage of perceived responsibility that Biden himself carries- like Biden did with Obama). She's been flying under the radar while still reaping the benefits of positive associations, and people know who she is. That feels like a good combination, but I don't know enough, and I haven't read enough into it to make any decently educated guesses.

That said, I don't really know as much about who the other potential candidates might be, either. I've heard Pete Buttigieg's name tossed around, but nobody liked his ass back in 2020 and idk if that's actually changed at all. I just know that every politically-knowledgeable/politically-active leftist whose opinion I've heard on the topic has been citing Biden dropping out as the literal only hope for a non-Republican to win this election, and I'm really fucking excited to see that come to fruition. I just hope the Dems pick someone who really does have a good shot.

As a sidenote, I also really hope this marks a shift in how they make decisions, too. It's become increasingly obvious how out-of-touch Democrats are with their voters, and Biden 2024 was just the latest and greatest indicator of exactly how bad that's gotten. The fact that the party has been able to make such an unconventional decision in response to what their voters actually want gives me a little bit of hope that we might be able to influence more change with them going forward than we have been.

[boxheadpaint]

juice induced hill depression. Back on meds again and hopefully going to get in touch with a new psych who can prescribe me something else. Have been very tired and unjoyful the past week but better now and playing modded Skyrim, initially just to make my oc in it but then just kept slamming more thangs in there. Mod that puts bunny rabbits everywhere. Also is there a mod that adds cute animal ears/suits as wearables or one that even makes the girl armor less sucks. Like im either fully leaning into the immersion breaking for self indulgence sake or im getting rid of the annoying shit.

visiting mom in Vegas earlier this month was nice except for the part where I hate Vegas. I know im not great with travel and settling into places can be a tough one for my brain but also my god it’s just evil there. Brilliantly so but still evil. I would have loved to enjoy the scenery surrounding the place more as deserts are just very beautiful and fascinating places but at no point during the day was the temperature less than a full hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It barely dropped during the night either. Between that and varying physical ailments (Oof Ouch My Digestive Sensitivities Lol) (Oof Ouch My Tendons Lol) (Oof Ouch The Agony Caused By Using Stairs Lol) it was the perfect conditions to be a miserable pile when I wanted to be with my family. As sad I was to part ways again I was not sorry to leave that place. Gained a new appreciation for changing up what I eat randomly to keep my body on its toes. At one point mom brought us to a pub and her husband asked for Diet Pepsi while I asked for regular Pepsi. Visually there’s no difference so we got handed the others pepsi and swapped. And then later after he refilled his Diet Pepsi another waiter came up and wordlessly refilled mine as well. With Diet Pepsi. Wasn’t even asked. Fucking stunned. Also went to a near dead mall that was nice anyway

stuck on brain zaps as a symptom of Specifically antidepressants withdrawal. There’s some things describing them as “mini seizures” in function. To me it’s like the body noticing the usual isn’t happening for some reason so it tries to jumpstart the brain into working good like before. universities I can go to with my theories. Back in and at it this week, hopefully to remain consistent for longer than before which will also likely help with the depression and anxiety. More people should just put stuff in their blood if they can

it can be embarrassing to express your misery more clearly to someone, specifying the fact fact thoughts running through your head. But then again it’s only embarrassing because your mind convinced you so, and will convince you that holding it in is also cruel and selfish. Finding it funny that animals probably don’t have as complex spirals and bouts of depression because they dont have a language to articulate to themselves in their own heads that something is awful in a very specific and contradicting way. Or actually no because there is still pattern recognition but that’s more a paranoia learned thing. Is there an animal that can randomly, for seemingly no reason evident to anyone including itself, experience crushing dread and self doubt. Is there an animal that feels shame besides man

had a tilt table test that was embarrassing too but for much more clear concrete reasons. Somehow didn’t know about that second part, and did complain through most of the first part because Oof Ouch Everything Hurts Lol. REALLY did not know the iv thing and had to once again sadly state that no, It has to go in the hand . I will say the experience was funny in the second part from the other ways because my first reaction was literally just “Uh Oh.” The moment I realized it was going to get worse. all I know is my blood pressure stayed consistent throughout, I don’t know what else im gonna hear about it. Hopefully something helpful.

is setting up an ABLE account difficult? Can anybody do it? It’s an issue dealt with by a lot of people but I should at least try to find a way to save money from benefits for the future or in case some stupid medical shit happens that the health won’t cover. I just looked up and saw Vinny sleeping while propping lubics head up with his foot. Hoping I can enjoy things normally again shortly,

8/26/2024, Still better than july

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 7

very notable that this was within the context of being about "love" specifically. (at least) one-sided trevek canon? (i'm not even a huge trevek shipper i just think this whole plotline is funny)

okay, so Yul's foot injury IS real. or at least, he's using it as an excuse to complain. still, the fact that it was brought up again an episode later makes me think that it's going to have SOME relevance to the plot.

any time that Yul has to parrot something in Emily's "you go girlfriend ;D" manner of speaking i cackle. he didn't choose the home decor saying any time is wine time lifestyle, the home decor saying any time is wine time lifestyle chose him.

Grett i am... genuinely confused. how can you possibly think that Yul is actually in love with you? did you really receive THAT little love in your home life? you have no ability to distinguish catty and fake praise for your accomplishments from real ones because your family gave you THAT little recognition? man. now i made myself sad :( ily Grett

okay, confirming that 1) it was Tom's trap, 2) they are willing to eat squirrels, 3) Tom is serving as the provider for the Cyan tribe. all things to take into account for any upcoming Cyan eliminations.

why

and how does said boyfriend feel about you kissing another man on television, Tom? this is a stupid lie.

again, why? it's probably already apparent from my earlier comments, but i changed my mind; i'm fully with Jake in this argument now. sure, Jake is really insecure and overly emotional, but what the HELL is Tom doing? making up a boyfriend is a really shitty thing to do, whether Tom had a legit reason for not calling Jake these past two years or if he didn't contact Jake due to his own mixed feelings/indifference. in either case, he should have told Jake the truth. at least when Jake was acting immature in S1, he was 24. Tom is a nearly 30 year old man. ACT LIKE IT.

Fiore slay

this is a really interesting response due to how vague it is, including in the vocal performance. was he taken off guard by his boss being nice to him? does he believe that she's telling the truth? does he feel bad for Trevor, or will he come to believe that he IS way better than Trevor? i'm glad that they're continuing on with the concept of the hosts having a plotline, because imo that was one of the highlights of S2, but they aren't doing it in a way that eats up as much of the screentime as it did in S2.

if Will was out of the picture i would be shipping these two so hard. who am I kidding, i kind of still am anyways.

Ally's other gf is here :,) glad that they got to reconnect (and neither of them were eliminated for it)

Fiore slay

the confirmation that Aiden thinks that the idea of him having any attraction to Tom is laughable and disgusting is HILARIOUS to me. bro really said, "why the hell would i be into YOU when i have JAMES lmao" straight to Tom's face. tbf, James and Tom are like... opposites in terms of personality and appearance (beyond being generally handsome and athletic young men).

"silly me, i keep forgetting that not everyone met their super cool and attractive boyfriend on reality TV. my bad!" (/pos)

(i tried to type "hubby" instead of boyfriend but i spared you all. it was too cringe even as the one subjecting others to the cringe.)

okay this was very fitting for her. iconic.

honestly, Alec and Riya's villainous alliance/friendship is really fun. leave it to Alec to always find himself in the least likely but most entertaining duos. Riya really benefits from being paired with a legitimate strategist, and someone who won't just let her totally get away with stuff.

we had to get in one last Fiore taking unnecessary damage for the road :,(

feeling like Jaiden is going to be winning the starting couples' survival roulette. and Wishley, to the extent they count.

now i'm no physicist, but how did this work? shouldn't the ball be a fast and heavy enough object at this point that it would jump over the log, not ricochet off of it? i suppose if the ball is made of something more like wicker than yarn, it could be a bit more likely to do that. but then why is it going to the side? it hit the log straight on!

... are you not allowed to help him anymore? what?

ellie is going full villain mode fr. if her and gabby's relationship gets messed up, that would definitely be karma. but, i suppose she survives this episode...

this is funny because nobody strikes me as the pizza and soda loving type. Alec, Grett, Yul, and Riya all seem like people who would want to eat something that's both fancier and healthier.

communication W (for both of them)

Fiore is such a best girl that she's not even a salty juror. she's not mad at them for so long that she can't use her final moments to throw a wrench in the works for everyone else. the grind never sleeps, clowns <3

and she even conquered her greatest nemesis, the bus, this time. fly high, queen. i'll miss you.

well, as a Fiore stan, this episode was a bit sad for me. but, i do totally understand why Magenta would both vote for Fiore and lose the challenge. (damn you, Ellie...) Fiore already did super well in both S1 and the original Adventure Camp, so i understand why they wouldn't have her go super far again in this season, especially when everyone knows she's such a threat.

i just hope that we can still get a little more closure for her and Alec than we got already in this season. all it has to be is, like, him being sad at her elimination for reasons other than pure strategy and maybe a nice conversation at the finale. it doesn't have to be Alec finally adopting her... even if i did want that to happen... i'd just prefer to know that they leave things on good terms.

anyways, another really solid episode! i look forward to the next one. thanks for reading!

[alln64games]

Hey You, Pikachu!

JP release: 12th December 1998

NA release: 6th November 2000

PAL release: N/A

Developer: Ambrella

Publisher: Nintendo

N64 Magazine Score: 56%

Hey You, Pikachu! took almost two years to make it from Japan to the USA, and never came out in Europe. This was mainly due to the Voice Recognition Unit that came with the game – which is essentially a microphone were you could say words for Pikachu to understand.

This may sound like something trivial now, but it was very advanced with the times. That said, many people (especially adults, as the recognition was centred around a higher pitch) had issues with it. Using a modern microphone in an emulated version of the game seems to be a bit better, although I still had an issue with some words.

With Hey You, Pikachu getting fairly negative reviews, I was surprised as to how much I enjoyed it. For how much it cost when new, I can definitely see why, but the game reminds me a lot of more recent downloadable titles which are little stories with some gameplay.

Professor Oak gives you a device that helps you speak to a wild Pikachu, who you quickly befriend. You hold the Z button to speak, then your words will travel in a bubble to Pikachu. You have to grab his attention before you give him commands, and he’ll only understand certain words (which are highlighted in red).

At the start, the controls are quite basic. The camera is locked on Pikachu and you can move about relative to him. In the starting section, you can look after some Caterpies, explore a field, help Bulbasaur prepare a meal and do some fishing. You’ll wake up, meet Pikachu outside, go on an adventure and say buy to him.

On these adventures, Pikachu will ask about items, ask for advice on what to do with them and be very curious. After a while, you’ll be able to ask Pikachu to stay at home with you.

From this point on, you get to choose what to do, you can replay the stuff from the first chapter, or do a bunch of new activities, such as guiding a blindfolded Pikachu towards a pinata, finding lost Poliwags and watering some Oddish. If you do well enough at the pinata game then you’ll also gain access to an island for treasure hunting.

You also have a bit more freedom of movement and gain access to an inventory to store items, some are permanent items while others are sold at the end of the day. You can also play some little minigames, like tag or a name that Pokémon game on the N64 in your room.

Once you’ve done everything you need to here, the third chapter will start. You’ll be introduced to some new view modes: one which locks the camera onto Pikachu and another that lets you look up and down. Now Pikachu will understand what you’re pointing a as well, so you can give more specific instructions. The increase in control complexity was definitely a way to not introduce too much to kids at once, although, annoyingly, returning to older missions will remove these abilities.

The third chapter is mainly more difficult versions of what we’ve seen so far. A diglett will try to trip Pikachu up, a Haunter is roaming the lake and the Caterpies are much hungrier than before. The Caterpie mission was very difficult to begin with (you have to get Pikachu to thunderbolt trees), but I realised that I could get the food myself and help that way.

To progress you need to have performed certain tasks in the various missions, including fully completing the Caterpie ones. Professor Oak will ask you to send Pikachu on his own mission, and you’ll follow him in a cardboard box as you see him remember what you’ve taught him.

After this is done, there’s a surprisingly emotional ending (that also kind of makes Pokémon Trainers look bad).

Hey You, Pikachu is a cute little adventure. While the graphics are fairly low quality, Pikachu himself is extremely well animated and the Pokémon having their show voices is nice to hear in a game. The voice control was a novel idea at the time, but isn’t something people like using that much, due to how few games support voice control when it’s much easer to do now.

I really enjoyed my time with Pikachu, and it was a fun, short experience.

Trying to get Pika to drop the vegetable or keep it for the stew is a nightmare. On more than one occasion he eventually grabbed the right object, but, instead of obeying our ‘Okay, sure’ command, the little swing proceeded to munch on the veggie, swoon and keel over. The result – Pika no like you.

- Geraint Evans, N64 Magazine #50

Remake or Remaster?

A remaster would be really nice for this. Voice commands are much better now and this would suit being an eShop title. Perhaps they could give you full control form the start (at least in terms of movement), as it is more of a second nature now.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Hey You, Pikachu.

[sorenphelps]

12 years of Tumblr - stats are fun?

I used this website to get some nice stats for my blog which turned 12 years old this month.

I have 94,009 notes on the 1,155 original posts combined.

Average notes per original post: 81.39 notes

My top 5 most popular posts:

this post with 17,472 notes from Sep 22 2013

this post with 3,784 notes from Jan 9 2016

this post with 3,466 notes from May 4 2014

this post with 2,851 notes from Nov 30 2014

this post with 2,376 notes from Apr 19 2015

My peak was definitely about 10 years ago😂🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, to further commemorate this anniversary, I wanted to share some additional thoughts.

I am not good at social media, I just lack the skills and conscious determination of content creators, I mostly post randomly and I put little to no effort into growing my follower base. I've never really tried to become "famous" here (ngl, when I was younger I envied the popular blogs a little), but generally speaking, I just really like to draw and I want to share it with people, maybe getting to know some new people, making new friends even. For me, Tumblr's main purpose is being a platform for fandom interactions. I love how Tumblr operates with a different logic than other social media sites, how you have actual control over your own experience as it is not run by algorithms.

That's why it makes me a little sad how "Tumblr Etiquette" is not respected nowdays. I've been here for 12 years, and I am very extroverted, I have no problem with new people using this website, really, the more the merrier. As I said above, I don't really care about notes and follower counts, and I am not easily discouraged by having only a few notes on the stuff that I post. If I would be, then I will definitely put more effort into what I draw and create only what received more notes. (E.g. the Lily red carpet look pic has 14 notes as of today, while the domestic wolfstar pic is over 300, yet I am sure that I will not exclusively draw wolfstar from now on.)

Case in point, what I wanted to actually talk about is the poor reblog-like ratio. It makes me sad because I desperately crave the interaction and a like goes completely unseen here. (I know that you can make your likes visible, but most people, me included, check their dashboards only, and will check likes of certain people only if they are specifically looking for something.) My main driver is not the exposure or recognition or whatever in itself I get on my drawings (it is certainly a nice bonus tho). I want to interact with people, and I can only do that if the stuff I post is seen by them, aka reblogged. On my main blog I almost only post my artwork (I've reblogged 158 posts only in the past 12 years), but I have a sideblog especially for reblogging purposes (which comes with the nice bonus of making my "likes" searchable, because the tagging system is truly a wonder).

Let me further explain what I mean by presenting the reblog-like ratio of 3 of my latest most popular posts:

Reblogs > Likes! Please! I want interactions! Share your thoughts! That's what this site is for!

[mangoisms]

ok here are my current thoughts on ck and tim’s silly goose-ness and steph’s very low tolerance to it

aka an excuse to introspect on their past relationship and also my first ever attempt to write a canon character’s pov which might or might not be good so! You Have Been Warned

(also excuse any typos LOL)

“What do you think you’re doing?”

A slow blink. “Updating Redbird’s security protocols?”

The garage of Tim’s townhouse smells sharply of oil and rubber. But he isn’t elbow-deep in the engine today, just seated off to the side, laptop perched on his lap and hooked up to its system. ‘Updating’ it. God knows why. The Redbird’s security protocols are just as stringent as the Batmobile’s.

Jason once regaled them with his plan, way back when, to blow it up. Bruce included. And how he went about it.

“It’s got safeguards like crazy, right? Even when it’s idle or shut down. Come up to it, fire a gun, launch a missile—doesn’t matter. Not gonna touch it before the security protocols kick in. It can sense you on thermal, air currents, video recognition, all of it.”

“So, how’d you get past it?”

“SEAL-grade wetsuit. Invisible to thermal with reflection fibers that play hell with video. But the biggest thing? Going slow. And I mean slow. Like five seconds per inch slow.”

The insane attention to detail and paranoia runs in the family, obviously.

Tim had sat in for that. Stephanie remembers the look on his face. Begrudging respect, combined with a familiar twitchiness that told her he was absolutely dying to run out and start updating his stuff.

Question everything. That’s what Bruce says.

Tim tries to separate himself from it. He really does. It gets tiring, exhausting, to live like that. But old habits die hard and his big brain precedes him sometimes. Wondering at the possibilities, at the million-in-one scenarios.

Ordinarily, Stephanie has more sympathy for him. Really. But right now, after your phone call about his little visit to Circle K…

She’s pissed.

“Don’t play dumb,” she says, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

“What is it that I’m playing dumb about?” he asks, averting his attention back to his laptop, keys clacking quickly, pausing momentarily as he takes a swig of Red Bull.

She tells him.

At the sound of your name, he stops.

But now that she’s started, she can’t stop. “Visiting her? As Red Robin? What are you thinking, Tim?”

The clack of keys resumes. The set of his gaze on the laptop screen is very intentional now. Avoiding her.

“It’s nothing, Steph,” he says and she almost believes it. But she knows him, so she doesn’t. “It’s harmless.”

“So, why won’t you hang out with us? Her? Because I assume you’re also avoiding her individually.”

A little sigh. Impatient. “I’m not avoiding her. I really was busy. Have been busy. You know how the heat messes with the city.”

It’s the excuse that bothers Stephanie.

Tim is making some kind of choice here. Choosing to favor Red Robin over himself, over Tim Drake, and it makes no sense. Red Robin isn’t your best friend. He isn’t even your favorite vigilante. (Black Canary is. She agrees, though it would be nice for Spoiler to get some spotlight but that is neither here nor there.)

You know who is your best friend? (One of them, anyway.)

Tim freakin’ Drake.

Stephanie knows why he’s avoiding you all of a sudden. The connection will be too easy to make. It’s why she—as Spoiler—keeps her distance. Tucks away her hair, hides her face even more, when she and Cass visit Circle K.

Even though! They had talked about telling you. Stephanie wanted to tell you so badly. You know who her father is. Was. You know how her mom used to be like. You know everything and you never once judged. You were, to be sure, a bit wary of them—the vigilantes—but most were. You wouldn’t turn them away if you knew.

If there is anything Stephanie knows, it is that.

But then she went away to Metropolis for a week and a half and suddenly, he’s visiting you as Red Robin. And he’s not trying to ease you into it, not trying to help you latch onto some clues, to make it easier—because they’d discussed that, too!—he’s doing it because… Well, she doesn’t really know. But there is a reason. She knows that much. A big reason.

It makes no sense to her, considering his feelings. Complicates things unnecessarily. Especially with how he’s avoiding you because of it, because he apparently got cold feet on telling you the truth.

And it’s the excuse… it’s the excuse that pisses her off.

Their relationship, back when they were kids, had some questionable origins. It did. Stephanie did things she wasn’t proud of. He did things he wasn’t proud of. It was messy. She tries not to kick herself about it—about being a silly girl in love, awed at the attention of a boy like Robin, knowing he was dating a girl (Ariana Dzerchenko, her name was, she would later find on) and making moves on him despite that, moves that he always, always went along with. Like two magnets that couldn’t help but fall together.

Don’t get her wrong! The blame is not solely on her. It’s on him, too. She shouldn’t have pushed. He shouldn’t have went along with it, knowing he had a girlfriend, too. He shouldn’t have held his knowledge of her identity over her head the way he did. He isn’t mean-spirited at heart but he had an advantage over her. He knew she was Stephanie Brown. She knew him only as Robin and nothing else. Not until later on that would change and that… that was another mess entirely.

But they were dumb and young. Stephanie tries not to hold it against herself. They know better now. She knows better now. Knows what she deserves.

But this feels too close to him crossing that line.

No, he has crossed that line.

Given one persona up for another.

Approaching you as Red Robin, while you know nothing of him, and doing god knows what…

Someone is going to get hurt.

Last time, it was him. The circumstances, Bruce’s unceremonious reveal of his identity to her—a mistake, an egregious overstep—it all culminated in Tim feeling betrayed. Betrayed that Bruce would reveal that to her without Tim’s say so, without even asking him if he was okay with her knowing. Betrayed that Stephanie went along with it.

This time?

Stephanie feels it in her bones.

The person who is going to get hurt is you.

You, clueless about these lives they lead, clueless as Tim monopolizes your time as Red Robin, all the while you have no idea it’s him. You, her best friend. Stephanie loves you to the end of the universe.

She doesn’t want to see you hurt.

The mere thought of it, of the potential fallout, leaves a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Steph. Steph, it’s fine.”

She blinks, coming back to herself. Tim is standing in front of her now, dark brows knitted together, blue eyes intent on her face. Concerned.

“You’re lying to her.”

“We’ve been lying to her.”

“Not like this,” she says quietly. “Not this way. You’re… This is too much, Tim. I don’t understand why you’re doing this. What happened?”

“Nothing,” he says. For what it’s worth, to anyone else, it sounds believable. But like she said. Stephanie knows him. For better or for worse.

And on that end, she also knows he is not going to budge. No matter how much Stephanie wants to drill this into him, grab him by the shoulders and make her point. Once he’s made a decision, he commits.

Or more like he’s dug himself into this grave and he doesn’t (can’t?) want to get out.

“This is a mistake,” she says. “And you know it. I just hope you actually try to fix it sooner rather than later. Because if you break her heart, I’m going to break something of yours.”

Stephanie loves Tim. He’s a great friend. They’ve had their ups and downs—even discounting their relationship—but they’re solid. They are.

But she loves you, too. So much so it sometimes feels like she’s going to burst with it. She’s never had something like that, like this, and in the end, she doesn’t want to choose, but Tim knows better. And because he knows better, you are her first priority.

Even worse, he doesn’t seem bothered by the threat. Relieved, if anything.

“I’m counting on it, Steph.”

Which is so unfair in so many ways (fix it, she wants to yell, don’t rely on me to come clean up when shit hits the fan—do it yourself!) but she’s had enough of this conversation and all the ways this can go wrong.

Maybe he will turn around. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But she doesn’t think so. He won’t. Not until the consequences of this, of his lies, of his excuses, come hit him in the face.

She wishes it weren’t like that—knowing what it will result in.

But some things you just can’t change.

She knows better with Tim.

She really, really does.

[elviriel]

What do you think Aleksander's rule would have entailed?

That's a great question, and one I was actually thinking about while answering the previous ask. I think it's a worthwhile exercise to wonder what would Ravka have looked like if The Darkling had gotten his way - and I admit, my knowledge of the Grishaverse political details has gotten too fuzzy for a very detailed answer, but I'll give it a shot!

Honestly, I think step 1 of a Darkling rule would be war with Fjerda. And it probably wouldn't be the only war he's willing to wage, but the Drüskelle threat to Grisha would, I think, be his priority. So while I do believe the Darkling cares about Grisha, and genuinely (or at least, as genuinely as he can feel anything) wants them to be free and respected, I don't think it would be an immediate paradise for them the moment he seizes power. The Grisha would still be militarized, and I don't think their conscription into his army would cease. I see the Darkling as a guy who can't stop. Eliminate one threat, then you move onto the other. The trolley problem in turbo mode I quoted in the other post - I don't think it would ever stop, and he would likely do some pretty fucked-up stuff for the sake of securing what he perceives as a better outcome. I also think people would be terrified of him**. The Darkling taking power wouldn't necessarily change people's views on Grisha - it might actually worsen matters. But I don't just mean the Ravkan people. I think his ministers, advisors, etc - would be scared of him, and with good reason, and a lot of them would probably dream of the day they can mount a successful coup against him. That being said, I don't necessarily think he would be bad for Ravka. The books imply that the royal family (pre-Nikolai, at least) live lavishly, with little regard for the people, and the Darkling... well, wouldn't? It's hard not to chide myself for being too generous toward the Darkling whenever I have the instinct to praise him xD but I remember it being implied in the books that he doesn't lead a particularly luxurious life. Now, that could be optics, but I think the Darkling is a "get down and dirty" kind of guy. He wouldn't be the type to sit on a throne while people fight for him or starve. He'd be right there in the trenches. **A Darkling rule with Alina by his side - which, you know, would be his ideal, as the trilogy implies, and also the premise of many a-fanfic, including my favorite, might... not make him "softer", but I think it might mitigate the public's opinion of him. I hated Season 2 of Shadow and Bone with a burning passion, but I did like the "Let me be your monster" line, and I do very much perceive Ruling Couple Darklina in this way- which isn't necessarily everyone's cup of tea. A lot of people enjoy Dark Alina, which I get, but I have trouble imagining her EVER being on board with the Darkling's ruthless proclivities. She's a compassionate little bean! But yeah, I imagine Aleksander as the King who will do what he must, and is generally feared/perhaps reviled by his people, while Alina is far better-liked. I could see people going through Alina when they're too afraid of going to Aleksander directly - and I could see him letting it happen, too. I don't think he's necessarily opposed to mercy, but he can't be seen as merciful, so if his wife's doing the Nice Things, then he gets to keep his public persona of "don't fuck with me." I also think that while this arrangement would work for him on an intellectual and strategic level, he'd also resent it. The books imply this, too: that while the Darkling has accepted the way he's seen, and uses it to his advantage, he also craves recognition, and very much resents that people hate him when in his mind, HE'S the one doing what's necessary for Ravka- meanwhile Alina hesitates and flounders (his perception, again!) and gets all the love. It's this funny contradiction where this perception works for him, but also likely makes him so, so bitter xD

I'm not sure I fully answered the question, but at the risk of always referring to the same person, I'd recommend Out of Time by Destiniesfic. It also gives a picture of what a "winning" Darkling is like as a ruler, and while it takes place in a future Ravka, it's a very insightful read, and I consider it canon in terms of characterization. (The fic is Darklina though, so if that's not your thing, I take back my rec.)

Thank you SO MUCH for asking, it makes me feel all special that someone wants my opinion on Darkling stuff xD I hope that was a fun read if you read this far! ❤️❤️

[pixelgrotto]

Abominable Vaults

Last week I finished running a three year Pathfinder 2e game, which is the longest continuous tabletop campaign I've GMed thus far. We started in June 2021 with Menace Under Otari, the short quest included in the PF 2e Beginner's Box. Then we continued onto the adventure anthology Troubles in Otari, which lasted us about six months, and finally hopped into the three-part Adventure Path Abomination Vaults, which commenced in January 2022. Now here we are in June 2024, done and dusted!

Running this game was the very definition of a learning experience. When we began, it was my first time dealing with the PF 2e ruleset, which was pretty new at the time. (Technically, I started this campaign before my March of the Dead games that I wrote about last year, though those wrapped up first.) Only one other person in my group had played 2e, so everyone was learning. Paizo tends to make solid quickstart boxes, but I really do need to give them a handclap for designing a decent beginner's experience that helped teach mechanics bit-by-bit in an easy-to-follow dungeon crawl. I'd say that Menace Under Otari contains precisely zero surprises - it's almost the same thing as the PF 1e box, except instead of bashing goblins you fight giant rats in a cellar, then kobolds, then a dragon - but it teaches mechanics nicely without overwhelming a GM or players. Aside from the Fabula Ultima Press Start (I started playing Fabula recently and am obsessed with it), it might be one of the best Beginner's Boxes I've run.

Once Menace Under Otari was done, we moved onto Troubles in Otari, which is a hodgepodge of missions designed to help anyone who'd run through the Beginner's Box level up. They're a decent selection of tidbits that flesh out the town of Otari, turning it into something like the equivalent of Sandpoint from PF 1e, which radiated that special feel of "howdy, this is the homebase for you, newbie adventurer." Troubles in Otari was where my players' characters really started to come into their own. I tasked them with converting a fishery that they'd cleared of monsters into a Pathfinder Society outpost, they beat a bunch of dwarf doofuses called the Leadbuster Lads (who really should serve as the endbosses of the anthology), and the Fighter accidentally wooed a female troll and ogre, setting him down the path of acquiring a monster girl harem, which quickly became a running joke.

Then it was time for Abomination Vaults, which has won recognition for being a high-quality dungeon crawl module, and one of the few straight up megadungeons that Paizo has put out. It's been so popular that it's gotten a 5e conversion and will soon be the subject of a video game, and yeah, I can confirm that it's pretty good. Certainly better than the last dungeon crawl-esque adventure I found myself partaking in, 5e's Out of the Abyss, which struck me as slog city.

I will say, however, that despite its strengths, Abomination Vaults still felt reaaallly long to me, even though as a three-volume Adventure Path, it's shorter than most others in Pathfinder's catalogue. I imagine if you're running weekly sessions instead of biweekly ones you can speed through it faster than I did, but even then, you've still got ten levels of dungeon to conquer. I also probably made things more complicated by letting all of my players roll new characters at the start of Abomination Vaults, since it starts at level 1 instead of picking up at level 5, where Troubles in Otari ends. The whole reason behind this was that my players' old characters would be trapped somewhere in the titular Abomination Vaults, tortured at the hands of the undead witch Belcorra Haruvex, and their new heroes would have to rescue the OGs. I love stuff like this (basically, reasons to make my life as a GM more complicated), and it meant that my players were each able to choose between two sets of characters throughout the end of the campaign.

Aside from this flair to enable more player choice, I did try to stick close to the books, at least at first. This is tough for me, as my natural tendency while running campaigns is to homebrew twists and turns up the wazoo, but since I was still learning the intricacies of PF 2e's rules, I wanted to walk before I ran. Partially because of this conservative ethos, it took a looong time to get through everything - Volume 1 of Abomination Vaults took us about 10 months to finish; Volume 2 took 7 months (but only because my group stopped exploring every nook and cranny of the dungeon and "sequence broke" a few bits); and Volume 3 lasted about a year.

Volume 3 also coincided with some dramatic life events. Only a few months after I started running this stretch of the campaign, my wife and I decided to move from the US to the UK. This was the right decision for us, but not exactly the right decision for the game. I was now five hours ahead of my players, who are all New York City guys. Five hours is a weird time difference to surmount when it comes to running tabletop RPGs, because it basically means that weekends are the only sensible time that'll work for everyone. Alas, the fellas in my group couldn't make weekends consistently work.

Thus, I undertook the somewhat mad decision to continue running the game while living in the UK...on NYC hours. This meant that every other Tuesday I needed to run a game that started at 11:30 PM and went until 2:30 AM. If that sounds like torture, realize that sometimes the game stretched a bit late, until 3 or so. Things became even more complicated when I returned to fulltime work and needed to clock in at 9 AM on the following morning (not in an office, thankfully). Needless to say, I don't recommend that any GM out there does this - 11:30 at night is simply a terrible time to do anything as socially and mentally taxing as running a roleplaying game, and I only managed to survive about ten months of doing this by gritting my teeth and brute forcing it. Was it worth it? Well, I'm always sad when longterm campaigns peter out into nothingness, and I made it a point to say that I wasn't going to do that. Call it my own weird GM sense of responsibility, or simply me trying to prove to myself that yes, I could run an entire Adventure Path without fumbling the finale, but it was worth it in my eyes.

At the end of it all, I cut some stuff in Volume 3 to ensure that I could finish running Abomination Vaults without my mind falling apart from lack of sleep. But I also stopped sticking too close to the book in general, mostly because by this time, I was extraordinarly familiar with PF 2e's ruleset. Hence the introduction of my standard twists and turns. For instance, I fully fleshed out the nebulous fate of an important NPC whose soul gets sold to a devil over the course of the game, and my players somehow managed to take an impromptu trip to the Dreamlands to battle denizens of Leng and capture a starspawn of Cthulhu in a jar, which they then used in our very last session to trick said devil into returning that NPC's soul. Oh yeah, and the monster girl harem expanded to truly incredible size, and one of my players somehow managed to relate his character's final fate to Starfinder, thousands of years in the far-flung future.

Abomination Vaults, and the Otari saga that preceded it, was a wild ride, to say the least. Sometime over the course of running this monsterous three year behemoth, I also started writing for Pathfinder books myself, and in many ways this campaign was the one that familarized the system in my mind enough to pen stuff for books like the Tian Xia World Guide and Howl of the Wild. I'm not sure if I'll run another full-length Adventure Path anytime soon, though I do want to take my own crack at Kingmaker one day, so we'll see. I'll also most assuredly say "NEVER AGAIN" if you ask me to run another game for US folk on UK hours. Nevertheless, as I look back on the end of three long years, I truly do see a learning experience - one that expanded all aspects of this crunchy d20 game, from learning how to play and run it to eventually writing for it myself. So thank you for the memories, Otari - you were quite a lot to get through at times, but we made it in the end!

[srmuniversitysonepat]

Exploring the Best Law Colleges in Delhi: Spotlight on SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sone

Delhi, the capital city of India, is renowned for its educational institutions, particularly in the field of law. With plenty of options, selecting the right law college can be daunting.

Here, we are hunting for the best law colleges in Delhi, shedding light on what makes them stand out. Among these esteemed institutions, I find SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, which has designed a niche for itself in the realm of legal education, to be prominent.

SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat: A Great Place for Legal Education

1. Good Teaching:

At SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, students get excellent teaching in law. The teachers there are very knowledgeable and experienced. They use innovative pedagogy to teach that makes learning fun and interesting. You'll learn a lot from them!

2. Modern Campus:

The campus at SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, is super modern. One of the distinguishing features of SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, is its state-of-the-art infrastructure. It has everything you need for studying law – great libraries, mock courtrooms to practice, computer labs, and places for research. It's a nice place to study and learn.

3. Programs that Matter:

The law programs at SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, are designed to help you become a good lawyer. They teach you everything you need to know to succeed. The programs are updated regularly to make sure you learn the latest stuff. This way, you're ready for the real world when you graduate.

4. Learning by Doing:

At SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, you don't just read books. You also get to do real stuff. You can do internships, take part in mock court competitions, attend seminars, and join workshops. These things help you become better at law and prepare you for your future job. SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, places great emphasis on providing students with practical exposure to the legal field. 

5. All-Round Development:

At SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, they care about more than just your grades. They want you to grow as a person too. That's why they offer lots of activities outside of class. The institution offers various co-curricular and extracurricular activities, You can take part in debates, sports, cultural events, and more. It's a fun way to learn and make friends.

Comparing the Best Law Colleges in Delhi

While SRM University, Delhi NCR Sonepat stands out as a premier university for legal studies for law-enthusiast students several other best law colleges in Delhi also deserve recognition for their contributions to the field. SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, is not the only best law college in Delhi. Others include the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, and National Law University, Delhi. These colleges are also good and have smart teachers, nice and vibrant campuses, and cool activities.

Conclusion:

Choosing a law college is a big decision. SRM University Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, is a top choice for many because of its excellent teaching, modern campus, and practical approach to learning that prepares students for the challenges of the legal profession. But don't forget about the other best law colleges in Delhi too. Look at things and consider factors like the teachers, campus, and activities to find the best fit and choice for you.

[superman86to99]

Click above to read my take on the recent Zero Hour revival special, which has a very Green Lantern-centric plot and only features Superman as a statue, hence it being posted to my @greenlantern94to04 side blog. The art, on the other hand, has a LOT to do with our fav'rit Superman era, given the legendary artists involved -- including Jon Bogdanove, who contributes this dramatic "World's Finest Post-Doomsday/Bane" pinup:

So, naturally, our own Don Sparrow wasn't gonna miss the opportunity to talk about this issue. Take it away, Don!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, reuniting two of four members of the Mount Rushmore of great Superman artists, Dan Jurgens on pencils and Jerry Ordway on inks, and it looks terrific. In the first place, I love seeing the original Kyle Rayner costume, one that in my opinion they never really improved upon, despite all the different attempts to update it.  Featuring Kyle and the Parallax-influenced Hal Jordan is a great callback to the events of Zero Hour, and the strangeness of the unfamiliar costumes of Supergirl and Wonder Girl are enough to grab the attention of the reader and let them know this isn’t just a rehash of the 1994 story.  Ordway’s inks look appropriately thick and varied here—of late, it has seemed to me like he’s favouring more of a technical pen look (more Micron pen than dip pen, for you art gearheads reading) but there are some thick lines here that indicate a brush was used as well, and it’s a nice touch.

In general these anniversary issues can be revealing, from an art standpoint.  Sometimes, they’re a welcome homecoming to artists no longer featured regularly on the monthly shelf, which can be a real treat.  But other times, it’s a reminder, perhaps, of why these artists are no longer on a book regularly, having lost some of the polish once associated with their work.  This book is largely the former, with a couple examples of the latter.

(Before diving in, let me be absolutely clear: every artist featured in the ZERO HOUR 30TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL is operating on a level I deeply admire. Even on their worst day, they are creating work that surpasses anything I could accomplish on my best. That said, I’m taking off my artist hat and putting on my critic hat for this review. The critiques that follow are offered with full recognition that these are seasoned professionals, and any observations come from a place of respect for their craft and contributions to the medium.)

The first story, a very 90s team up between the legacy heroes Wally West Flash and Kyle Rayner Green Lantern showcases that Darryl Banks hasn’t lost his fastball.  His composition and surface textures look just as good as they did in the mid-90s, when he designed Kyle in the first place. It’s all good stuff, but particular highlights are when Kyle scans Gotham looking for Wally, and then later a reaction shot of Kyle witnessing this Wally West get zapped by Validus.  I had almost forgotten how varied and creative Kyle’s ring constructs were, so it’s a fun reminder to see Gatling guns and funhouse mirrors get dreamed up with a thought.

In the next story, I have to say, using Kelley Jones for a 90s throwback story really works, as an idea—his covers were so iconically linked to the Knightfall era of the Batman books, so seeing his name among the credits got me interested.  But, putting it gently as I can, this issue is not his best work.  Granted, Kelly’s moody, cartoonier Bernie Wrightson looking figures were always better suited for covers than interiors but there’s so many odd shapes here that are pretty distracting.  Jones seems to particularly struggle with the usually beautiful Barbara Gordon Batgirl, whose face looks downright strange in pretty much every panel in which she appears.  Jones also seems to push the envelope with her physicality, defining what appears to be her nipples straining against the material of her costumes, which definitely would have been a no-no 30 years ago.  Not to say that there aren’t highlights, the Chief-from-Doom-Patrol looking Bat-wheelchair Bruce Wayne cruises around stately Wayne Manor is a great design.

Unfortunately that quickly gives way to the nadir of the story, a sequence of panels where aging Bruce looks for all the world like Saddam Hussein.  Not the '90s callback I was expecting!

The next chapter is a real highlight, as the great Tom Grummett’s pencils are so consistent and tight, this could very easily be an unpublished story directly from the actual Zero Hour era.  Norm Rapmund is usually seen with super-teamster Dan Jurgens, but seems a good match for Grummett as well, lending line weight and shadow appropriately, without looking too hatchy as he sometimes can.  The floating citadel above Coast City is a nice piece of design, and I love the design on the all-black Supergirl suit. Tom also includes a fun callback to the Fleischer cartoons through Kyle’s ring, where the wayward Robot 5 is generated by Kyle to defend him against Supergirl.  Great stuff.  Then, just as I thought it couldn’t get 90s enough, we get a cameo from the Joe Quesada designed Azrael, and the Joe Quesada designed Ray, making my '90s heart happy.

Also making my heart happy: Jerry Ordway’s art appearing in a book of consequence like this one!  No one does dynamic realism quite like Ordway, but there are hints that this issue had a short deadline, like the unfinished background trees in the interrogation scene.  A highlight of the story though, is Machlan/Ordway creation Obsidian materializing from shadow, and then giving us the treat of a history of the DC universe section (even if it’s a bummer that they’re all being destroyed by the entropy rift).  I would guess the inks here, unlike the cover, are mostly marker based rather than dip pen, but I could be wrong—there’s just a slightly scribbly mark-making here that I’ve noticed in Ordway’s work of late (look at the shine on Hal Jordan’s legs, for instance).

Paul Pelletier’s chapter is a slick one, and a great showcase for his smooth pencils.  To my shame, I had forgotten how great he was on the criminally underrated “Emerald Knights” storyline in the post-issue-100 Green Lantern comics (can’t wait for Max’s reviews to reach that time!) but he’s a perfect choice for a Hal/Kyle showdown.  It’s great seeing '90s staples like Starman, Vuldarian Guy Gardner, Connor Hawke GA, etc. 

The Howard Porter chapter is a disappointment—his work alongside Grant Morrison on JLA in the late 90s was what brought be back to comics after leaving for years, so I’m certainly an admirer, usually.  I don’t know if it’s related to his severe thumb injury from the early oughts, but there’s definitely a stylistic shift at play here, with the little texture lines having him look a little like Kenneth Rocafort’s surfaces.  Certain panels look rushed, leading to downright weird versions of identifiable logos (like Supergirl’s shield) or distorted faces (sure, the Parallax version of Hal is corrupted, but he shouldn’t be ugly!).

Finally, we get the classic Waverider team of Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding, and they’ve hardly lost a step either, Waverider’s metallic shimmer looking great.  It was great seeing the telltale timestream rainbow as he’s freed by Invisible Kid to take on Parallax.

Then there’s the pinups, which are a nice assortment of either '90s callback characters by modern artists, or '90s famous artists rendering the alternate timeline of this book. Bog’s pinup looks good, and is a return to form after the bald Superman issue a few years back. Tony Harris’ Starman looks like it could have been a cover back then.  It was nice seeing Legionnaires’ Chris Sprouse’ clean lines on Legion characters again, and Nicola Scott is making me wish that the alt-timeline all-girls JLA was a thing.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

Could we get a more appropriate epitaph for Batman than “Gone, Not Forgotten”?

Could the line “Batgirl has a lot of numbers” be a pleasing reminder of her 90s role as Oracle, researcher and superhero dispatcher extraordinaire?

Missed an issue? Looking for an old storyline? Check out our new chronological issue index!

Zero Hour 30th Anniversary Special #1 (October 2024)

OH NO! A residual time vortex left over from Zero Hour has transported us from October 1994 to October 2024! Before a Linear Man comes to take us back to our proper time and/or shoot us with a giant gun, let's look at the Zero Hour 30th Anniversary special that came out this month, and absolutely nothing else. (Not because I don't wanna learn too much about the future to protect the integrity of the timestream, but just because it looks kinda depressing...)

The issue starts with the Kyle Rayner of 2024, who looks exactly like the '94 model, right down to being drawn by Darryl Banks. I'm gonna take this to mean that no dramatic events have happened in Green Lantern comics during the past 30 years and the status quo is pretty much the same.

The one difference seems to be that Kyle can't access Sector 2814 or Earth, for some reason, so he's stuck Green Lanterning in alien planets. He's in one of those planets when a portal opens in front of him and Wally "Flash" West (or a version of him, anyway) comes out, begging for Kyle's help with some sort of universe-destroying threat.

Wally pulls Kyle into the portal, which leads them to a reality where there's a big statue of Batman in front of Wayne Manor. Apparently, they've landed in Earth "Bruce Wayne Doesn't Give a Shit If Anyone Figures It Out." Wally says something about a "Crisis-level event" coming -- which is confirmed when two members of the Fatal Five (the 31st century supervillain team) show up, kill him, and peace out.

Yep, that's a Crisis alright.

In the next section (drawn by Kelley Jones), Kyle has a run-in with Gotham City's protector: Batgirl, who's kind of a gritty badass in this reality and gives Kyle a beatdown because she thinks he killed Wally. However, no amount of prep time can make Batgirl more powerful than a ring that can create anything you want, so Kyle easily traps her in a green bubble and flies her back to Wayne Manor to figure out what the hell's going on. There, they meet a version of Bruce Wayne who never recovered from that little "Bane" incident in 1993, meaning he's still crippled and depressed. But hey, on the upside, he now owns a cool sci-fi wheelchair and sports an even cooler beard.

Kyle ditches the belligerent Bat-people and heads to Metropolis to look for Superman. And sure enough, he finds Superman... 's grave, because, in this world, he never came back after Doomsday killed him. You might notice a pattern emerging here. (This section is drawn by Tom Grummett, who has some experience drawing dead Supes.)

Instead, Kyle meets Supergirl, who's wearing a very "Reign of the Supermen" black costume and immediately starts punching him. We learn that Batgirl called every hero she knows and told them that this green weirdo killed Flash and is probably to blame for the fact that reality seems to be collapsing around them. Supergirl is joined by Azrael, The Ray, and Wonder Woman -- a.k.a. Donna Troy, who, we're told, is someone Kyle once dated (uh, spoilers for post-1994 GL comics!). Donna has no idea who Kyle is, but at least her Lasso of Truth establishes that he's not some Flash-killing reality destroyer.

Obsidian, son of the Golden Age Green Lantern, joins the party. He tells everyone that he (somehow) used his shadow powers to peek across time and found out that other eras have been erased, from Viking times to the Middle Ages to the 1940s. This provides a convenient excuse for this section's artist, the legendary Jerry Ordway, to draw the Justice Society of America for the 1940th time.

The far-future has also been destroyed completely, except for exactly five baddies who escaped in a time bubble (the previously seen Fatal Five). At this point, Kyle should have said "Hey, that's just like in Zero Hour!" but he still doesn't understand what's going on. Thankfully, he gets a little nudge in the form of... oh shit, it's Hal Jordan as Parallax!!! (Please pretend you didn't see him on the cover.)

After seeing Parallax, Kyle finally starts putting things together: looks like this is the "perfect world" Hal wanted to create in Zero Hour, where Coast City was never destroyed... but all the other '90s calamities still happened to the other heroes, because screw those guys. Now this universe is decaying, but Hal thinks he can keep it going if Kyle hands over his GL ring. Kyle doesn't wanna, so it's Lantern vs. Lantern time (as drawn by Paul Pelletier, who'd be great on a storyline featuring GLs fighting GLs, hypothetically speaking).

Hal sics his new lackeys, the Fatal Five, on Kyle. More '90s heroes show up to help: Connor "Green Arrow" Hawke, Jack "Starman" Knight (who I really hope is being used with James Robinson's blessing; presumably Tony Harris is okay with it, since he has a pinup in this issue), and Guy "Guy Gardner" Gardner (in his red armor, which probably hasn't been seen in non-flashback form since the '90s).

Meanwhile, Supergirl reluctantly visits her asshole ex, Lex, to ask him how to stop their universe from decaying (I wish they'd used his long-haired Lex Luthor Jr. look, but I guess that was ruled out because it ended right before Zero Hour). Lex confirms what Parallax is saying: they have to give him Kyle's ring.

So, Supergirl joins Hal's side, while Donna sticks by Kyle and other heroes stand around wondering what to do. Soon enough, Hal manages to get his hands on Kyle's ring, something he claims would be "next to impossible for most." Yeah, Kyle losing his ring to a villain? When has that ever happened?

Now that he has double the power, Hal saves this universe by... screwing Kyle's. As in, he takes all that entropy that's eating this reality and channels it to the regular DCU via the portal that brought Kyle here. The heroes aren't sure how they feel about that, but Kyle argues that their universe is less important than his multiverse because it's smaller. Also, that unimportant universe has a name now: Splinterverse! Not to be confused with the Earth where everyone is a martial artist rat.

(Also also, Howard Porter is the artist now!)

You might wonder where Linear Men, the time police, are during this whole mess. The answer is "trapped in a cube." Turns out Waverider found out about this Splinterverse at some point and traveled here to deal with it, but Hal imprisoned him in said cube. Luckily, Wavey's found by the Legion of Super-Heroes' Invisible Kid, who stowed away in the Fatal Five's time bubble by... being invisible. Before he's freed by Invisible Kid, Waverider delivers some (Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding-drawn!) exposition that reveals the precise moment when the Splinterverse was created: the part at the end of Zero Hour #0 when he slipped the heroes back into the timestream, at which point Hal sneakily dispatched "a splinter aspect of himself" to create a smaller-scale version of his "perfect world."

Waverider helps convince the conflicted heroes that it's worth it to let their little universe die so that trillions more people can live. Even Guy Gardner, who was initially going "screw you, I'm saving myself" and punched Kyle, begrudgingly stands down. With Starman and Obsidian's assistance, Kyle is able to get his ring back from Hal, causing the entropy to flood back into the Splinterverse. Kyle is convinced that there must be some way to save this place, but Waverider is like "nope" and drags him back to the DCU as the Splinterverse is erased. The only thing that remains of it is a nice necklace that Wonder Donna gave Kyle to remember her by.

Kyle is mighty pissed at Waverider for not even trying to save the Splinterverse, but at least they're back home and it's all over... or is it? The special ends with the revelation that something Kyle did in this issue somehow freed some sort of big, yellow space bug. Wonder what that's about. Looking forward to reading the resolution to that cliffhanger in 30 more years!

As a '90s kid, I am physically incapable of disliking this special, which was aimed squarely at me. The 14-year-old Kyle/Donna shipper in me especially appreciates the focus on those two, with Kyle even mentioning that he doesn't really understand why she was suddenly written out of his life (the answer is "because John Byrne").

However, I think there are several missed opportunities here:

The Splinterverse doesn't look a whole lot like the "perfect world" Hal wanted to create in Zero Hour. Coast City is there, but it only appears for a few panels and doesn't really play any role in the story. Everyone else is kinda angry and miserable, or pretty much the same as in the DCU. It would have been interesting to see if the utopia Hal had promised, where no tragedies happen and one needs to grow old or die, would have been sustainable over time.

I really hoped the female Time Trapper from the end of ZH #0 would be addressed, but nope. Dan Jurgens has said that he intended that to be the alternate timeline Batgirl who died in ZH, which I find a really intriguing idea. On that note, the Batgirl in this issue is clearly not the one who died in ZH, not just because, well, she's alive, but also because she acts like a totally different character and makes no reference to anything in ZH.

I was gonna say that I'd hoped the Hal/Parallax in this issue would be the one that was left as a loose end at the end of Convergence, especially since Jurgens was also involved in that series. However, the DC wiki informs me that this version has actually appeared in other comics since then, as recently as 2023, and his further misadventures sound a bit confusing from the write-up there, so I can't really blame Jurgens and Ron Marz for looking at that and saying "You know, let's just make another one."

One thing I did like is that, on top of reuniting Kyle Rayner creators Ron Marz and Darryl Banks, this special also features so many classic '90s Superman artists -- in fact, my friend and @superman86to99 co-runner Don Sparrow had a lot to say about the art in this issue in that blog, so head there for more!

[wisdomseeker02]

Tarot services

Pick a card (Pick a gif) Tarot reading ft Harry Potter 💫

What do you need to hear right now? 💌

Groups are from top to bottom, 1 to 3 :)

Group 1 ❤

A magnet for you 🤗

Dear group number 1s, what you need to hear right now is that you are worthy and the things that you put out there are worthy, too. You are waiting for recognition of your talents, work, etc. and you haven't got it yet, which has left you feeling discouraged and feeling unworthy, doubting if you're good enough, if what you put out there is good enough. But fear not, the answer is very simple: you are good enough! Your talents, gifts, creations are good enough! And your recognition is coming! Keep planting your seeds, you will eventually reap the rewards, it's all about divine timing, and the right people coming to you to recognize you and your talents. And if you're asking if what you're doing is worth it, even if you're not seeing results yet, it is, keep doing it! Some dreams take time and dedication, but that doesn't mean they are impossible to fulfill. Remember that, babes 😘

Group 2 ❤

A magnet for you 🤗

Dear group number 2s, what you need to hear right now is that you are gifted, you are loved, and don't let anybody or anything, including your negative thoughts tell you otherwise. You have so much to be grateful for, open your eyes and see it! Have fun, follow your passion, and be a child again! It's time to be happy, it's time to be free, it's time to live! Do what you wanna do, do what makes you happy and lights up a spark within you, no matter what anybody else might think. You might have been gifted with a new romantic love recently or are about to, appreciate it, it is good stuff! You might be gifted with some nice new friendships as well, people who love you and appreciate you for who you are, enjoy them to the fullest. You might not be used to having so many good stuff in your life, but it's time to get used to it now, because they are here for you.

Group 3 ❤

A magnet for you 🤗

Dear group number 3s, what you need to hear right now is that even if you're disappointed with the progress you're making or not making, you need to keep going because you're getting there. It's just that there are a few more storms that you need to go through, a few more things that you need to heal before you can align with what you want. Before you are ready to handle what you asked for. In the meantime, keep planting your seeds and working on yourself, they are growing, they just need time. What you want is being born, but giving birth is a long, difficult and painful process, which makes it all the more rewarding. So hang in there, and keep pushing, your manifestation will come to fruition when the time is right, and once you've learned your lessons. Pretty similar to group 1, so if you felt attracted to that, go check it out, too.

If you feel like helping me out, you can tip me here ❤

[angelvyxen]

Do you believe the stuff with the igotnfts girl?

[Long post ahead + this will be a post & delete]

Let me preface this by saying, no hate to this girl. To me, she seems very young. More likely than not she’s some young fan girl that likes the attention.

Now, that girl is playing y’all like spades, and (some of) y’all are eating it this shit up. All of her posts proving that she’s the side chick, don’t prove anything.

1. The text messages are seedy for 2 reasons:

A. Melo types in all lowercase letters, apart from when he’s yelling. Look through his Instagram & Twitter, he has his phone set to disable uppercase because even his ‘i’’s don’t get corrected to capital I’s. So off rip, the texts don’t make sense because why would he specifically go out of his way to use proper capitalization when ‘speaking’ to her? Further than that, why would he send texts, especially informal ones, with proper capitalization when for years he’s only typed in all lowercase across all other platforms?

B. Everything is scratched out, potential dates included. If she wants recognition as the side chick so bad, why cross out things that could help you link yourself to him? If you’re in Charlotte, show that he texted you on dates where he was also in the city.

Also, I have a STRONG feeling those crossed out messages are her asking a friend to fake a text to her so she can screenshot it. It’s not hard to fake a text, hell you can even text YOURSELF and delete what you don’t need. That’s what I do when I need to make a text thread when writing a story. It’s not far fetched to ask someone “hey text me this real quick”

2. The infamous Twitter recognition doesn’t mean that he knows her. He said (I’m paraphrasing here because the tweet is since deleted) “You’re only following 6 people and I’m one of them, I thought we were supposed to be buddies.” He’s not confirming that he knows this girl in any way. If he had said ‘I thought we were supposed to be buddies’ and left it at that, then you can start to question, but the fact that he emphasized that he was one of the 6 people she followed should tell y’all enough to know he meant “You don’t like me but you’re watching my every move?” He just said it in a nice/goofy way. The only reason you all think it was in good faith is because he used laughing emojis.

If something along the lines of “I thought we were cool” was said, then that would confirm at the very least, that they’ve had some kind of conversation.

3. Her posting flowers doesn’t mean they’re from Melo. There was no card with a message that we could interpret to be him. Hell, those might not even be her flowers, for all we know they could be a picture of flowers she took at somebodies funeral and had saved up. Now, if Ana had posted the same flowers, then maybe, maybe you could speculate. But even then that’s not much to grasp onto because again, most flower bouquets aren’t hard to find. Unless it’s one of those extravagant ones.

4. Her posting a picture of the Charlotte, don’t mean she in Charlotte. And before you all say “But the reverse imagine search—” reverse image searches don’t find anything if you take a screenshot from someone else’s Snapchat or Instagram story, it’s not difficult to find Charlotte natives on IG and take a picture from their page or story and pass it off as your own…which is what I’m assuming she did.

I tested it out. I took a screenshot from someone else’s snap, slapped it in reverse image search and surprise, surprise,

Nothing 😱! And I did this with MULTIPLE.

Now even if that’s her picture and she is in Charlotte, from what I’ve gathered, she don’t know this man & she’s certainly not here for him. I believe she said that she was in the city (allegedly) anyways for her family members birthday, so if the pictures she posted are indeed hers, then that’s why she’s here.

Last things last, don’t believe anything until there is concrete proof. I could take a video in Melos garage this weekend, post it, and say some cryptic shit that’s more believable, and would be in the blogs by the next morning. So somebody posting a couple pictures don’t mean anything.

Unless somebody shows a video of them together, a FaceTime screenRECORDING, or a screenRECORDING of texts with a voice note from him, or some kind of solid evidence that it is him, then these folks are lying to y’all. Enjoy your weekend. 🫠

[stormcrow513]

Just wanted to say,

and to reblog where everyone can see it as a sorta testimonial

again how truly talented you are,

and as one of Hekate's Witches it was truly touching reading through all the care you take,

that's the thing really that I love most about your work, it's so lovingly made,

You put such clear and beautiful effort and attention you put into everything you make,

It also so nice to see a clear outline of why you chose each thing,

Like I might get why you chose cow bon since I know her association with cows,

I've gone Snort a Ty beanie baby bull on my Hekate altar 😆

But I didn't know about the Garnett,

Can't know everything after all,

So I prefer to buy this from people who explain the why of it all, sometimes you learn stuff, and even if you don't it's still nice to know,

Also to anyone on the fence about @lailoken ,

So I grew up on various magic shows, all the Disney movies and shows

Gargoyles being one that actually taught me a thing or two I use as a witch,

Sabrina the teenage witch, charmed, Buffy

So the first time I stepped into a magic store, I was sooo excited I thought I'd be leaving with magic in my hands...

It was a beautiful shop the lady's were very kind, it was nice and peaceful,

It was also not what I'd imagined at all,

I'd picked up sticks off the ground with more life to it,

I've always had a spark of recognition for magic believe me or not, it's why I've been chasing it my whole life,

I'd tired again here and there mostly giving up on finding anyone selling actual magic and not just shiny baubles I'd have to infuse with magic,

Which given my low energy at the moment kinda looking for a boost not a drain,

I finally found that with @lailoken,

the first thing I bought from them the second it was in my hands I could have cried it was such a nice feeling, and I got emotional with each package I've received and know it will be so with everything else I get from them,

Also @lailoken is just straight up good people, I'd buy from them over other people anytime,

So

*deep hypnosis voice*

You want to buy stuff from them

*achoo!*

https://wendingwares.com/

Opps I dropped a shop link how clumsy of me 😉

Devotional Garland of Hekate (For Sale)

This set of devotional beads I am currently selling was created and consecrated in the name of the goddess Hekate.

It was constructed from beads of Jet (a stone powerfully associated with both death and magic), along with counter beads of hand-carved Cow Bone (bovines being among Her sacred animals), which are bracketed with small Garnets (intimately associated with the mysteries of the Underworld.) On one end is secured a silver-plated steel Strophalos charm (an ancient symbol deeply associated with her cult, also called Hekate's Wheel.) On the other end is secured a vintage iron Skeleton Key (keys being one of Her most significant symbols.) Both endpieces were hallowed in a chthonic ritual beneath the Dark Moon (under which propitiatory rites have been undertaken in Her name for thousands of years,) and the entire piece was suffumigated with Storax Smoke (an ancient fumigatory offering that has, likewise, been used in Her offerings for thousands of years.)

I am trying something a bit new, in that, I am putting this piece up as a standardized design that can be commissioned as is by anyone who is interested. Accordingly, each piece (aside from this inaugural garland) will be handmade for clients once ordered, and so I ask for one week following purchase to properly gather and assemble any necessary components. I currently have a collection of vintage Skeleton Keys and Strophaloi charms—all consecrated beneath the Dark Moon—which will be used for these pieces. While every Strophalos is identical, each key is unique, so if you have a particular sort of key you're hoping for, then please reach out to inquire about what's available.

This piece measures approximately 24 inches/61 centimeters long, and all connecting rings and pins are made from silver-plated steel. I am selling it for $69 + shipping, so if interested, either reach out to me through tumblr messenger, or use my webshop to place your order directly.

[lurkingshan]

The End of the World With You

I’ll include my watch notes under a cut since I binged it and it’s long af, but the TL;DR: I really loved the first half of this but it kind of fell apart in the second half for me. On the one hand, I found the initial conflict very compelling, thought the actors had good chemistry, the show was beautiful to look at, and as @bengiyo has highlighted, it was really nice to see a show featuring an explicit queer sexual relationship leave the characters on a happy, hopeful note, if not a straightforward HEA. Ultimately though I came down agreeing with @waitmyturtles that the emotional arc just didn’t ring true. In particular, it felt like Ritsu became a totally different character in the last few episodes and it didn’t work for me despite my appreciation for some of those scenes.

I also just could not get into the whole side story about Madoka, which might be my own discomfort with stan culture and parasocial relationships getting in the way. But it took up a lot of story time and we ended up with some shortcuts in the main narrative as a result. I think a version of this show that focused more narrowly on Ritsu and Masumi repairing their relationship and finding peace with each other in their final days might have worked better.

All that aside, I am very curious what people are making of that weird ending and Yuma’s magic powers. Do we think he stopped the meteor?

Episode 1

* I like how they set this slightly in the future to give us a sense that this could be happening to us any day now, very strong doom vibes.

* Trying to imagine what I would do if I found out the world was about to end. Masumi wastes the day away playing on his phone and then heads to the library to spend his final days in quiet solitude. I think I’d probably gather up my friends and buy a ton of food and drinks and just hunker down to ride it out together.

* I love that the moment of recognition between Masumi and Ritsu was not when they first looked at each other, but when their hands touched. That’s when they both froze, like a sense memory took them over.

* Ritsu is gorgeous and he has read and enjoyed Masumi’s writing. How could anyone resist?

* This may just be me benefiting from hindsight since I already know some stuff about how the show progresses, but Ritsu does seem to sincerely connect with Masumi. He will turn out to be a horrible boyfriend but it’s not because he doesn’t like him.

Episode 2

* I remember reading some commentary toward the end of the show airing about how intensely Ritsu is focused on Masumi during sex, and it’s here too in their earlier scenes. He’s watching him closely and seems to enjoy making him feel good. Whether that’s because of any feelings he has for Masumi or his own ego remains to be seen.

* “I feel like you’re special” and “I really love you” and kissing him publicly at school and when Masumi catches him with a girl Ritsu just says “sorry that was rude”?? Jail for this man.

* Poor Masumi. Trying to get a fuckboy to love you never works (barring an apocalyptic event, apparently). But I get it, it was the first time he felt comfortable with his sexuality and it’s hard to let go of someone you’re that compatible with.

* Masumi is being pathetic but Ritsu threatening to out him is truly so vile. Back to jail!

* Ritsu trying to act like they’re old friends after things ending like that… I want to reach through the screen and slap him.

* I like this song playing at the end of the episodes, it’s pretty. (ETA: I found it - Futatabi by HIROBA feat Ai Otsuka)

* Help him with a what now??

Episode 3

* Okay I had memory-holed the corpse thing, yikes.

* Now why exactly is Ritsu running around with euthanasia drugs?

* If I was Masumi I would simply not follow my cheating ex boyfriend when he says he is going to take me to a corpse.

* The corpse is alive!! And says Ritsu told him they would die together? He truly is a POS, phew.

* This kid wanted to die because his favorite idol died by suicide? That is too unfortunately believable.

* Masumi convincing the kid to go on living only to be immediately reminded that the world is ending is so darkly funny.

* Yuma! He has a name.

* Is Ritsu really trying to get it in in this situation?? The AUDACITY of this man.

* Masumi yelling at Ritsu about how traumatic their relationship was for him is great and also unflinchingly honest. I think most people in that situation would try to keep a little pride and pretend to be unaffected.

* Damn big of you to promise a whole week of fidelity, Ritsu.

* Masumi immediately getting horny when surrounded by Ritsu’s scent. 💀

Episode 4

* Ya know I suppose if we were all about to die and I had convenient access to the best sex of my life I might just go for it, pride be damned.

* Masumi grew up abused and neglected with a hateful mother. Yep, that tracks.

* “My personal philosophy is for people to prioritize themselves.” Yeah we know, Ritsu.

* I like the energy Yuma is bringing to the story. Masumi and Ritsu are so gloomy.

* Oh fuck this. What we’re not going to do at the end of the world is waste time tending to our abusive parents.

* I don’t believe Masumi’s mother regrets what she’s done to him. She only regrets that she’s dying alone. Hoo boy, feeling a bit trigged tbh!

* Masumi, IMO this is a great time to adopt Ritsu’s personal philosophy.

* Ritsu is an asshole but he saved Masumi from himself in this moment.

Episode 5

* Why are we still paying for hotels during the apocalypse?

* Does Yuma know this girl? Looks like yes! And she knows Ritsu? Who is Rikkun?? What is happening!

* The creepy music and weird lighting - what is is trying to tell me about Meguru? Is it just that she’s trans? That doesn’t seem worth the mystery doom treatment.

* So Ritsu actually was suicidal for some reason he is not yet disclosing.

* Kido! Here to play another POS, no doubt. That escalated quickly, what a creep.

* I, too, thought Yuma might be controlling the weather.

Episode 6

* I’m sure all of this talk about the idol sister is supposed to be touching but I’m too distracted by the implausibility of this group of people with all these convenient connections to each other’s traumas just happening to meet up while running around in an apocalypse.

* This whole emotional thread hinging on Yuma’s parasocial fixation on an idol he’s never met… mmm, I don’t know, fam.

* I don’t know that I am buying Ritsu’s tears over Masumi getting hurt and his sudden epiphany that he’s a POS. Seems kind of abrupt? And Masumi immediately responding with a kiss and forgiveness? I think the characters could be convincingly taken to this place with more time and development but this feels unearned.

* The Madoka stuff really isn’t working for me. In a show with such a short run time I’d rather they kept a tighter focus on the main pair’s relationship rather than diverting to this side story. And I really don’t buy Ritsu feeling guilty about not saving her. It just doesn’t track with anything else we know about him.

* Sidebar: Baka here is translated as “you ass” but I know this word from We Best Love when Shu Yi keeps calling Shi De an idiot (affectionate).

* This might be the episode where the show lost me. I think they skipped important beats in the emotional arcs and took some narrative shortcuts that didn’t really work (maybe due to the short run time) so I’m not going to fully buy anything that happens from here.

Episode 7

* Ritsu is a romantic now! Okay.

* Surprised to learn Ritsu was with Masumi for six months. How did they make it that long before Masumi realized he was fucking everything that moved?

* Ritsu’s reaction when Madoka called him an asshole for cheating on Masumi felt more genuine. That kind of rye amusement - yep I’m the worst - felt more like him than the guilty crying and suicidal ideation.

* This scene at the waterfall is really beautiful. I like it despite not fully buying some of the underlying emotions.

* Yuma just now realizing they’re “like that” is sending me. His sexual tension detector is clearly faulty.

* Meguru really didn’t think it through when she decided to appear in front of her parents suddenly looking like her dead sister.

Episode 8

* I really wish Yuma and Meguru’s connection was NOT based around Madoka. I think I’d be more into it if they’d scrapped the idol thing and just had them be two kids who met by chance.

* Okay but for real what is with Yuma’s magic powers? It feels so random.

* So after all that Yuma just leaves?

* The fogged up car windows were a nice touch. Kept waiting for Masumi to slap his hand against the glass like Rose.

* Wait Ritsu’s reason for wanting to die was his business was in debt? That’s it??

* I would have liked some flashbacks to Ritsu’s perspective in college. I think it would have made this “I loved you all along and always wanted you back” thing more believable.

* I like that Masumi wants to live on but I also don’t actually believe Ritsu would be faithful if the world wasn’t ending. 😶

* Was that a bare hip bone I spied in this final sex scene? Goodness.

* Dude what the hell. Is Yuma the meteor? Did Yuma magically stop the meteor? What am I supposed to do with this!

[osmpalliumduo]

Dream smp actor au my beloved

First season

Dream is a very famous actor, his movies got recognition very quickly regardless of being a pretty new actor, the most popular out of all of his movies being “Manhunt” an action movie that has a lot of improv and fighting scenes

After his second movie of Manhunt he decided that along side with some of his close friends and co-workers to start a tv-show called the Dream smp

It took a really long while to get all the actors for the first season, a lot of planning and getting people to work on sets and props

Some of the actors Dream got to participate were his close friends Sapnap and George who were in the cast of his last movies “Manhunt”

Tommyinnit was a kid Dream found in a small community of actors called “Hypixel: Sky Block series” he went ahead and literally snatched him from that serie and added him as one of the main leads of the storyline of his serie

Tubbo was kind of a addition out of the blue, Tommy after joining the cast decided to take Tubbo with him, a fellow friend and co-worker in the Hypixel series. Dream didn’t had a problem with it after realizing that both kids were insanely talented

Wilbur was, in Dream’s words, the best addition to the cast he could had ever imagined, Wilbur had been in the past in several other popular shows like “SMP Live” and “SMP Earth”

Wilbur not only did an excellent work as an actor but also added so much into the story, helping Dream several times with the storyline and script, eventually becoming a co-writer of the script over all season one

Making the serie itself was hard, but getting everything together and editing was a whole lot of work

But the most difficult thing was actually acting, the thing was that the whole cast of the serie got along so well, that when it was the time to actually act, getting in character was kinda impossible

Even for Dream was difficult to get in character

The whole war declaration took at least five shots because Dream kept breaking character or Sapnap kept wheezing

Eret’s betrayal was one of the last scenes to be recorded because it was just really really hard for the cast to actually act hurt or not joke between lines

The Tommy vs Dream duel was so funny to the cast, even more when Tommy was done with makeup and he literally had an arrow inserted in his stomach

So many memes, so many

The L’manberg era was one of the most difficult to act and write, the cast being new and not used to the whole atmosphere

But when the election and pogtopia era hit in, it was much more easy for the actors to take everything much more serious

Jschlatt and Technoblade were added to the cast and it was insane for everyone, both actors being really close friends of Wilbur because of their old projects together (SMP Live, SMP Earth, etc)

The election arc was, described by the whole cast, as one of the best parts of the whole season

Quackity would pull this insane improvs moments between shots and everyone would just have to run with it, getting a lot of extra but very cool scenes

Tommy and Tubbo would just pull the strangest faces in shots whenever they knew that the camara focus wasn’t in them just to try to make each other laugh

Niki and Awesamdude would sneak food into the set all the time, bags of chips, coffee, chocolate, sometimes even cake

Wilbur, Schlatt and Quackity had this whole competition between them where they would literally live inside the set and whoever stayed the longest would win 100 dlls

The pogtopia era was more easy to record, but much harder to act

Wilbur had lots of trouble being actually mean to Tommy and overall acting as an antagonist

When recording sometimes he would just stop and ask Tommy if he was okay and make sure to let all of the cast know he didn’t meant what he was saying

Tubbo Schlatt and Quackity had overall a very good time recording, most of the time laughing after hard scenes and joking around

Not Schlatt and Techno collectively suffering cus they got at least three hours of makeup prep because of tusks and horns 😭✋

The pogtopia set was one of the hardest to archive, this one having legit stares and buttons on the walls

Tubbo and Wilbur fell down those stares at least five times, Techno almost convinced Dream to use a harness on set

Technoblade revealing the vault full of weapons and stuff for the revolution was such a difficult scene to make because everyone kept messing around with the cool props

Schlatts death was easy to act, as soon as he died he made a peace sign and screamed “I’m outta here!” And proceed to walk out of the set😐

Moving on, Philza’s addition to the last episode of the season was something most of the cast wasn’t aware of, most of the reactions (besides Philza and Wilbur) being completely genuine

Philza is known for his famous serie called Hardcore and a couple of appearances on others people’s series

The end of the season was something hard to do, people had to use harnesses and when explosions occurred they had to be literally thrown into the air getting a lot of genuine screams

Tommy was supposed to be the president of L’manberg but he decided to pass the power to Tubbo in a moment of improv, Dream and Wilbur liked that scene a whole lots

The cast made Wilbur a funeral party after the last shot, lot of people got drunk while Phil just took care of the minors and made sure they didn’t get in trouble <3

Second season

The second season was something that all the fandom awaited eagerly, wanting to see what had happened with L’manberg and the beloved characters, so Dream and Wilbur made sure to make everything perfect, everything connecting points on the story

Ranboo was one of the new additions, a new actor that worked on his own going from place to place, the well known place like Hypixel, Bedwars (Invited by Purpled) and in his own side of TikTok

Dream found out about him and decided to add him just on a go, he of course wasn’t ready for the big impact the boy would have in the story at all

Now, Ranboo is one in the suffering gang, every morning having to spend hours in makeup along side with Tubbo (horns) Wilbur (ghost) and Tommy (exile appearance)

By the way, Ranboo’s storyline was supposed to be separated from the whole L’manberg and Exile story, but Tommy and Tubbo liked him a lot so decided to add him on their storylines

Tommy was supposed to burn down George’s house alone, but the same day they were recording he asked Dream to add Ranboo. And Tubbo decided to make Ranboo his minutes man out of the blue with simple improv and Ranboo went along with it

Oh, talking about Exile

If the cast thought Pogtopia had been hard to act??? Wait for the Exile arc

Literal pain, for literally everyone involved

Tommy is a lil shit but it was legitimately difficult for Dream to be actually that villain and manipulate and ahg, pain

Tubbo and Tommy had so much trouble recording the whole fight scene at the wall, it took at least three days to get the shot right because Tommy and Tubbo couldn’t stop breaking character or laughing

Oh yeah, it was difficult to this kids to stay away from each other, they were so used to working together that it was legitimately difficult to not be together

Which caused for Tommy and Tubbo to sneak into eachother sets and try to chat and just vibe together which would end up with Ranboo dragging Tommy away from Tubbos set and Quackity doing as well with Tubbo

New L’manberg was nice to record, Tubbo tells when he is asked about it, it was a really nice change for the dynamics, including Ranboo and Fundy more, tho he missed Tommy dearly during the recordings

At the very end of exile, one of the last shots, most exactly when Dream has to blow up Tommys stuff, he accidentally tripped with one of the props and ended up breaking a leg

The recording went straight to Twitter where people lost their shit over the scene, mostly because Dream tried to continue the scene with improv but Tommy lost his shit and they had to take the whole shot again after Dream got checked up

Technos execution was planned to happen really early in the season but Techno kept forgetting that he had to get on set so they had to move it slightly at the end, the end of exile and the execution hitting at the same time

The butcher army cast had the idea of the bloody aprons, Dream had this whole thing were they would have this really cool uniforms but they just went “nah, bloody aprons”

Ranboo was supposed to have one as well but he tried to use his character’s morals to get out of it, he succeeded, no bloody apron for Ranboo :)

The whole execution scene at Technos house was so funny to record, things without effects are extremely hilarious

Quackity kept messing up his lines, Tubbo kept falling and tripping when he had to run, Ranboo just didn’t knew what to do, Fundy kept blocking “hits” that he was supposed to take

Techno just wanted to be finished already, he was so tired 🥲

Moving on, the whole death scene where Techno uses the totem of undying was mostly made with editing, the anvil was a green square made out of foam, and the totem was just a green stick

Really funny without effects, really badass after editing

Moving on! Tommy living in a hole was literally not planned, Tommy was supposed to try and hide inside Technos room but he said fuck that and made the team make another entire set for something that would last tops a week 😐

Techno and Tommy had a blast doing the whole “Welcome Home Theseus”. The scene was taken perfectly the first shot because the both of them were so excited for that scene

Finally Tommy can leave the suffering makeup gang cuz his character is healthier now 😌✌️Techno is now taking his place suffering in makeup prep because of his scars and tusks

The day of the Festival was so important to the storyline so everyone was extremely nervous before recording, but it was okay, the whole episode came out really well

Tommy and Techno had to use green capes between the invisible shots and it was just hilarious for everyone on set

Tubbo accidentally forgot his speech and had to improvise in front of all the crew

Dream fell at least twice when he was “building” the walls around L’manberg again

Tubbo and Tommy kept laughing or apologizing to eachother while in the fighting scene

Tubbo accidentally slipped and the disc Mellohi accidentally broke when he was about to give it to Dream 😬

The whole Doomsday deal was something really really hard

A lot of what happened was made with editing so most of what happened on set was just green screens and sounds out of computers to let the actors know what was happening

Technos dogs were actually from a fan! This fan had this whole adoption establishment and decided to let the cast use em for the recording! They even got a tour :)

Technos and Tommy’s whole exchange during doomsday is supposed to be heartbreaking and sad to watch, but Techno and Tommy have such a good relationship that they just, kept laughing, Tommy kept making faces and Techno’s voice wasn’t genuine while saying his lines

Ghostbur’s exchange with Phil almost didnt happened because Wilbur kept refusing to spend five hours in makeup prep lmfao

The whole cast did sang the L’manberg anthem after it was blown up, even Dream and Techno. The clip of the cast just singing will forever stay in Twitter

The aftermath of doomsday was a good change of things, much more calm recording sessions for at least a few weeks

Snowchester was something that Tubbo came up with as pure improv, he liked the idea of some kind of retirement place so he decided to add it after doomsday

Ranboo moving in with Phil and Techno was complete improv as well from Phil’s and Techno’s part, Ranboo literally had no idea what was happening when Phil invited him to live with em

Ranboo literally got snatched lmao

Endgame or the final disk war was surely something

The prop team had to make bout four new sets in the matter of a week, the most hard one to make being the mountain one

Tommy and Tubbo knew that the whole episode would be hard to record but they were still extremely hyped just because they got to record together again as besties

Makeup time at the end was about eight hours, Tommy suffered a lot while Tubbo was just used to it at this point

THE WHOLE PRISON SCENE WHERE ALL THE SERVER GOES THROUGH THE PORTAL??? PAIN.

Everyone is lost, no one knows when to cross, people are missing armor, no one knows where the fuck George is, Punz keeps breaking his sword accidentally, everything is falling apart

Quackity wanted to play a prank on the cast by appearing shirtless in the super intense scene but everyone was so tired of recording that Quackity was actually shirtless in the final shot

Dream stayed in his obsidian box at least half an hour because Tommy kept messing up his lines

At the end of the season, where Dream is finally taken to prison Wilbur makes his appearance to Tubbos and Tommys surprise

Their reactions were genuine because only Dream and Wilbur knew that part of the script

Overall, the end of the season was amazing and the fandom went insane with it

Extra stuff <3

Nobody knows if Skeppy and Bad are actually dating or not, it is a mystery for everyone

Most of the pets used in set were borrowed from fans :)

The Drista saga are used as comedic relief or filler episodes, Drista being actually Dream’s lil sister who insisted in wanting to appear in the show as a god

Michael is actually Technos little brother who went to the set a couple of times cus Techno was babysitting him. He made his way into some of Ranboos and Tubbos shots, after that they decided to adopt him and make Michael canon just cus they liked the kid a lot

Dream decided to give Karl the chance to have a spin off of the show called Tales of the smp after realizing his talent at storytelling. Karl had the possibility to get new actors for the serie but he decided to use the same cast and just make them act differently, the fandom loved it

Wilbur and Tommy had this cool idea between them and after a while of writing and planning they decided to start their own show called the “Origins SMP” featuring some of their friends from other shows, not only the Dream smp

[thanks for reading lol, I think I got slightly carried away]