#man. man this season is actually peak life series i think

[crabbunch]

BITES BITES BITES IM GOING. IM GOING TO BE SICK

[llannasvsp]

Dragons Rising Season 2, Episode 2: Shattered Dreams

Before I start I just want to say that I don't know how long my little recap will take to finish because of my life schedule, but hopefully I'll get it done within a week. I share a TV with two other people so that puts a hold on my ability to rewatch.

Now lets begin!

Heyyy Cloud Kingdom!

Is the Master Writer destined to be a douche??

I also want bagels. ("Selecting a bagel." -Peter Parker; Into the Spider Verse, 2018).

I'm still so confused on how writing destiny works. Do they decide destiny? Do they not? I don't get it. Someone please help me.

EUPHRASIA YAAAAAAAS

Hey Imperium!

Percivallll I love youuuu yes you fix Imperium!

Euphrasia freaking dies.

"Then I wake up screaming." DO YOU WANT MY HEART TO FALL OUT??!

Lloyd is a braver man than I. I could never consume that tea.

Not Lloyd making a joke about his panic attack. Me too buddy.

I LOVE LLOYD. SO MUCH. YOU ALL WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND.

Still don't know what the deal with Fedulian is.

Awh, Arin. I love him so much.

PLATONIC "I LOVE YOU"'S.

Why are the so mean about Sora's cat? Poor Sora.

Lloyd getting floored by a cart. Nice.

NADAKHAN'S TEAPOT!! (/j)

Do we think that anyone in our team is going to get their soul shattered?

ARIN AND PERCIVAL RAAGGHHHHH

Oh ehm gee Cinder heyyy. (Guys I kind of get it).

OKAAYYYY EUPHRASIA SLAYYYY

I love Lloyd thinking Arin's grapple is cool.

Lloyd is just SO kind to Arin he's so gentle with him and is always reassuring him it AGHHHh I love.

So was it because of Ras that the ninja were attacked in season 1?

Isn't there a comic about the Forbidden Five? I want to read it.

AGHHHHAH LLOYD HAVING ANXIETY.

Not Sora still not remembering Jordana.

I want to know who is under the wolf masks GRRRR.

NYA GRABBING LLOYD'S HAND TO STEADY HIM AGHH.

More Arin getting tossed by the foot.

"You know I thrashed the last one, right?" Served.

First Shatterspin fight is pretty cool. I love how Wildbrain has really solidified that they have the superior action sequences.

Lloyd's sword toss move during the fight has me giggling he is so cool.

RIP Wyldfyre's leg.

LET CINDER MURDER.

Arin and Lloyd's jump looked a lil goofy tbh.

Lloyd havinnnnnng more doubt.

Oooohhhh yes the gong clashing + Cinder's snarky lil smirk. Peak television. I love.

GUYS I LOVE DRAGONS RISING SO MUCH. I don't think words can actually express the depth of my love for this series. This is it. After 13 years, I think Ninjago has finally hit it's own true potential. I have so many things I want to say but I think it will be at the end of my recap series.

Shatterspin is so cool and I love how Cinder owns them all. We see firstly that Cinder is a good fighter, but not good enough to defeat Kai without Shatterspin. Then, when he actually uses Shatterspin, the ninja don't stand a chance. It proves how powerful the technique really is.

I think I mentioned this in the last episodes post, but Lloyd having canon anxiety and panic attacks is just. Everything. Representation is fantastic. As someone who has had anxiety my whole life... if I had seen that as a child, maybe I would've learned about my anxiety way earlier. I'm so glad that this show is not afraid to talk about mental health.

I just. I love.

(this is the sword toss i was talking about)

[fountainpenguin]

"I was climbing, now I'm falling- I've been pushed off by a man who has made it to the top and now defends it 'cuz he can…" (x)

---

New Dog's Life chapter today! ~ 3rd Life series fan-season

Chapter 38 - “Tuesday: Tango's Long Night”

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

---

Tango layers more anti-viruses in Scott's player file. This goes against everything he knows about corrupted code... Should he keep going? ... Or, without consent, do what he knows will actually save this man?

Meanwhile, Pearl balances Rhetoric, Scott, and Grian visiting her unit at the same time. Yeah, this is gonna go well.

# 1 of 7 of our monthly intermission chapters

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

---

Tango

🌕

Location: His studio, West Bailey Wall, Bottom Floor

🖤  🖤  🖤

Tango does not often regret choosing a path of codework. He loves modding. He loves adding pretty details; he loves giving people what they want and polishing the rough edges off blocky faces and backs and butts. His species is classed as avian, though he last respawned under a waxing crescent and lacks the wings and feathers to show for it. He's got tiny talons, blaze rods, and hair that shifts into flames, and that's it. Coding the fluff-tipped tail he wears now was a challenge that captivated his brain since the start. How do add twitchy muscles to lower back? Apply tail to butt, haha. Meld it in. Let the mind control it. Do it beautifully so it's elegant and won't drop frames.

His tail isn't dexterous, but he wears it like a trophy- Adding a mammal tail to a species that’s meant to have feathers there, and not only making it twitch and curl instead of hang, but look natural, is one of the most difficult things you can ever do with aesthetic mods. He's thinking of forcing out the wings he would have under a stronger moon, but never really got around to it. The conversion time takes a kabillion years. You gotta be careful with wings anyway- they release a lot of body heat. Between's a lot cooler than the Nether, so you might fall over and croak. You ever seen strider wings? Yeah, guess how much heat they put out, even if they are tough and resilient around lava. Anyway.

Let's just say it's a good thing his office doesn't have a window. He works with a lot of film in here, so darkness is peak necessity. He's got two copper bulb lights up tonight. The glow's hazy, but at least it keeps his attention on his work, eyes all goggled up and tongue pinned beneath his teeth. Working with player files isn't like working with redstone wiring, with all its tangled tubes of dust and tiny caps that easily get lost and spill all over the stupid floor. Nah.

Code work uses the coding table, and it's a whole lot less messy. You don't need to be super accurate. It's a lot easier to tap a delete key and remove a string of words than it is to rip out a chunk of wires and get all huffy when your machine stops working. They should sell more partly assembled redstone machines in the market- more than, like, comparators. Except all the serious redstoners still won't buy 'em in case corners were cut in the process and because they have to take 'em apart anyway to modify 'em, so there you go. Fiddling and tweaking can really suck you in. It's kind of like making banners you're printing on your soul.

Tango does not often regret choosing a path of codework. But it's a good thing he doesn't have a window. He glances up only on occasion, staring at the chipped, gunpowder-streaked blocks that separate him from the rest of the world.

I should be with the pack right now.

Hey. Little recap for you: Most people aren't going to bed tonight. The hub flower got skadoodley-yoinked. Without its roots hooked in, everyone's comm is black; they're all off the system. There's no way on a server right now. There's no way out of one either. The phantoms are under contract; they can't just log people out right now. Hope they got fed, then.

Eh, they'll be fine. They've got souls in storage. Tango keeps working, checking details on his screen and typing on the table keyboard. What time is it? The sun's officially gone-zo at 14k. That was a while ago.

Do you remember our biology fritter-fratter from before Dog's Life began? 'course not- That was a long time ago. Well, no worries! we'll cover it again. See, the Nether doesn't have a day-night cycle. The heat waves shift. Sometimes the dimension cools. There's never a schedule to it, but when the heat's down, it's down (whether it's been hours, days, or weeks since the last lull). Nether creatures group together for sleepy times. If Tango played on some of those raw servers where traits are turned up to max, he wouldn't even survive the Overworld- Not without a lot of prep from his friends on the other side. Thank goodness for vanilla servers that even out the playing field.

Blaze don't really hang out alone in Between. When they do, they have to keep their internal fires up, and that can really drain the metabolism. The pack is warm. The pack is safety. And Tango's fingers tremble as he blinks his lashes, pushing through the dimension's fading warmth. Nightfall is here. Capture the Flag will be winding down. It's time to go to sleep.

He does his work. He chose this path. Scott's crystal floats on the crying obsidian block beside him, casting a white glow over his workspace. The goggles tune it out a bit. Tango yawns wide (like one of those lions in the emerald savanna biome), then realizes what he did and shakes his head back and forth. "Brrrr! Whatchu doing?" He smacks himself in the cheek. Hard. "Come on, man- He needs you."

He keeps typing. Scott's code is layered in anti-virus protections. Lots of stuff to dig through. Tango's got a book on the edge of his desk, open to a page about data conflicts, and he's still checking and closing loops. Scott didn't want to amputate. He didn't want a graft. "More anti-virus protections," he said, and he was serious.

"Are you sure? That- That probably won't work. If you wait too long, there's no chance a graft will take. That kinda sets you up for like, either being an allay with a prosthetic or just a vex."

"No grafts, please. Just tell me where to sign."

"Okay, buddy… but that's against medical advice. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"He prob'ly would've listened to Etho," he mutters, typing more. "I swear, everybody thinks I just do visuals: slap a little colored fire on this guy, slap some wings on her… Hey, just because I work in the aesthetics department, it doesn't make my license any less legit. I've been doing this almost as long as he has." Who scrubbed in to save Impy? Who helped him and Skizz with the soul-sharing? Who once patched BigB up when he got shot in the neck? That was a Tango original. Just me. Why is he even doing this? All evidence in book and mind is screaming that this isn't going to work.

Fingertips stall. Blank stare. Soft breathing.

Scott would've listened to my medical advice if I was Etho. Should he have tried harder? Should he have done more? He got the signature, Scott confirming exactly what he wanted. He really shouldn't go against that. It'd be medical malpractice at this point.

… Even though the anti-viruses aren't going to stop him from becoming a vex.

Which he's trying to avoid by using stupid anti-viruses.

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[jodjuya]

Finished "Malcolm In The Middle".

I have so much love for this show, and so many thoughts and feelings about it.

I can't decide on a single favourite character. It's a tie between Dewey and Piama.

Pushing through the last two seasons really felt like a slog. Probably why it took me so many months, and this hospital stay, to finally get through it all.

The show's highlights were absolutely the episodes that showed Francis at his peak:

- at Marlin Academy, where he won zero achievement awards because he was too busy being in trouble for standing up for the other students

- when the family visited him at Otto's Grotto, and he got that Ranch Foreman Montage exemplifying him as the Pinnacle Of Masculine Competence, and the episode wrapped up with him EMBEDDED in dysfunctional chaos, unconsciously setting off fireworks like a hypnotized sleeper-agent. I think that's my favourite episode of television period.

But I feel bad for Francis. In, like, a meta way. His character got the worst treatment out of everyone in the ensemble.

They kept giving him amazing redemption arcs, which kept accidentally disconnecting him from the family's chaos and taking him out of the show, so then they'd have to reset him back to square one every other season. Very unsatisfying. The man had nearly as many careers as Homer Simpson!

And THEN! late in the sixth season it's suddenly his 21st birthday and that completely threw me for a loop!

Because when you're looking at Francis Nolastname, you really feel, deep in your soul, that you're looking at the most 26 year-old man to have ever been 26.

And that episode gives you such a record-scratch-doubletake. It's discombobulating AF.

It was a good series of twists to have him eager to be turning 21 because he's "been waiting for this day for YEARS" and you're like "alcohol?" But then it turns out he's Sober and big into Alcoholics Anonymous, and THEN it turns out he doesn't actually ever drink because half a glass of beer gets him tipsy, and so he's not even remotely close to alcoholism but that's just a narrative he latched onto to make himself feel better about his terrible life. It's very very funny.

Same narrative arc as when Reese got himself emancipated and got himself a kickass apartment and seemed to be superbly functional and mature, and then it was revealed that, no, he actually doesn't know shit from fuck and was just funding his whole lifestyle on credit cards like they were an unlimited free money hose.

Always very very funny to portray the boundless hubris of ignorant jackass teenagers. One of my top #1 all time favourite best television tropes.

Anyway, yeah, very weird to have that sudden reminder that Francis ran away to Alaska when he was only like 16 or something. That's fucking wild.

His wife was the best late addition to the show. I never didn't enjoy seeing Piama onscreen.

Pairing Francis up with Ida so often was a good writing decision. Kept him tethered to the rest of the family in a way that didn't feel too forced, and gave many opportunities for him to express Big Feelings with some hammy wallpaper-gnawing. Kept his character from getting too stale.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch "Breaking Bad". I really really really struggle with being able to watch "Bob's Burgers" for the same reason.

[aftgficrec]

ARRANGED MARRIAGE AU?????

We have quite a lot for you, including some renison. -A

***NB: Some of these fics include human trafficking, extreme cruelty, and other dark themes. We’ve added an extra caution notice above the darkest ones, but please note all of the trigger warnings provided here and by the authors.***

also see

arranged marriage aus here

arranged marriage aus 2 here

arranged marriage aus 3 here

some a/b/o fics with promised/forced mates

‘as though nothing could fall’ here

‘Eyes Half Closed’ and ‘Ghosts That We Knew’ (completed) here

‘Still Human’ here

you may also like

Pride & Prejudice aus here

Legally Yours series by makememakesense [Rated M, Collection, 2 incomplete works, Updated April 2023]

Part 1: make me a believer [31708 Words, Updated Sept 2023] Andrew is a man of his word. And it’s come to bite him in the ass. Or Mobster matchmaking with fortunate outcomes: The Arrange Marriage AU

tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon, tw: implied/referenced murder, tw: violence, tw: vomit  

Part 2: hymn for the faithless [1510 Words, Updated Sept 2023] I peak inside the head of this little gremlin. Neil POV from 'make me a believer'

tw: implied/referenced abuse 

A Royal Engagement by JostenlovesMinyard, TeoMoy [AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2022]

Andrew and Neil are Princes from enemy kingdoms on the brink of war. In order to keep the peace they decide to form an alliance in the form of marriage even though they aren’t exactly each other’s biggest fan. Neil's uncle, King Stuart is skeptical of their relationship and declares that he will visit them one year after their marriage to make sure they are indeed in love. Andrew and Neil will have to convince him they’re happily married, but they might actually fall in love in the process.

tw: implied/referenced child abuse, tw: implied/referenced self harm, tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon, tw: implied/referenced csa

NB: art by @teomoy can be found here and here

A Breath of Fresh Air by eechoox [Rated T, ​​9985 Words, Complete, AFTG Big Bang 2023]

“You didn’t seem very enthusiastic about my presence last night." Neil held the cigarette in front of his face, breathing deeply and exhaling slowly; wanting to savour the smoke for as long as possible. "What changed?” Joseph’s eyes slid up to his. “Nothing changed; you’re just less boring than nothing.” “You think I’m interesting?” Neil couldn’t contain his smile. “I think you’re not uninteresting.” - It’s Neil’s first Courting Season and, by his father’s orders, he must be engaged to Riko Moriyama by the end of it but after an unexpected encounter with a man named Joseph, Neil can’t stop thinking of what other possibilities his future might hold.

tw: body horror, tw: blood/gore, tw: implied/referenced torture, tw: implied/referenced murder, tw: implied/referenced abuse

NB: accompanying art by @apollosglare here

Of Beauty and Balls by Lin_1903 [Not Rated, 4519 Words, Incomplete, Updated Feb 2023]

Nathaniel Wesninski, freshly 18, is the talk of the town as he heads into his first season as an eligible bachelor. People want his status, his money, his name but at the end of the day it doesn't matter who wants what because his father will be picking his partner for him. He just hopes whatever life is chosen for him is marginally better than the one he was born into.

tw: implied/referenced abuse

Hope is a Dangerous Disquieting Thing by maqicien [Rated E, 12644 Words, Complete, 2022]

Neil is used to the perpetual feeling of dread like a bruise in his gut, the impending feeling of doom at the slow glide of a door creaking open, or the heavy fall of footsteps on the stairs. From a very young age, Neil has taught himself to disappear. At the flip of a switch, he can be whoever he needs to be to survive. For his father, he falls into the role of obedient son, cruel and quiet and bloodthirsty. For his mother, he is a perfect soldier, docile and moveable and easy to control. As much as he has grown to morph and manifest into something he needs to be, Neil has been finding it hard to be anyone but himself around Andrew. ___ In which Andrew marries Nathaniel to save his life and they fall in love anyway.

tw: suicide ideation, tw: implied/referenced murder, tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: implied/referenced torture, tw: panic attacks, tw: blood/gore, tw: body horror

Would You Rescue Me by shadowdreams [Rated G, 37691 Words, Complete, 2020]

His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Nathaniel of Baltimore has been tasked with rescuing the shy Princess of Palmetto from a dragon as part of a marriage ritual as old as time. The only problem? That’s definitely not a princess waiting for him in a dingy cave in the mountainside.

tw: violence, tw: implied/referenced child abuse

just one thing series by Lyndis [Rated M/T, Collection, Updated July 2022]

Part 1: Just one thing [M, 3021 Words, Complete] Neil is married off to Andrew Minyard. He tries to be a good husband. When he searches something in their shared bedroom he finds something unexpected, something very much not good. Andrew likes Neil but he also knows his father and he knows what that man is capable of. He doesn't think for one minute that Neil is unharmed, even though his experience is strikingly beautiful. But while he is fully prepared to take care of his new husband, he had no clue what he was signing up for. -- “These are for self-defense.” “Of course they are.” Neil was quick to respond, looking up for the first time and giving his husband an empty, lifeless smile. He couldn’t do better at the moment.

tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: negative body image,  tw: panic attacks

Part 2: The Butcher's Son [T, 3670 Words, Incomplete, Updated July 2022]

Neil kills their Chef. Andrew tries to find out what happened.

tw: blood/gore, tw: murder, tw: minor character death, tw: disordered eating & discussion of food withholding, tw: panic attacks

The Unchosen Ones Of The Southern Seas series by TheQueenofAngst [Rated T, Collection, Updated Sept 2023]

Part 1: The Unchosen Ones Of The Southern Seas [44540 Words, Complete, AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2022] Nathaniel Wesninski is a prince made out of scars and secrets. In a kingdom that is built on bloodshed and salted ashes there is one secret that will lead to his death if it were ever revealed. Nathaniel Wesninski has magic. When his father arranged a marriage to the Moriyama's second son Nathaniel runs away. He doesn't get far. There is a group of pirates waiting for him—the Foxes. A new name—Neil Josten, and a deal with the captain of the most feared ship of the Southern seas. Andrew Minyard is a man of truth who keeps his family close with deals he won't break whatever the cost.

tw: violence, tw: child abuse, tw: implied/referenced murder, tw: scars, tw: implied/referenced self harm, tw: implied/referenced torture, tw: major character injury

NB: art by @safinisaway here

Part 2: The Chosen Ones Of The Lost Kingdom [8431 Words, Incomplete, Updated Sept 2023] Aaron's decisions has led him to many places, one of them was Knox. But the battle of Wesninski still haunts him, and with that new horrors will follow. Kingdoms have fallen and risen. Cursed and broken. And Kevin feels like he's the one responsible, it started with his mother and he has to be the one to end it for once and for all. With Riko growing stronger the Foxes need to stand together, to gather allies for their cause. Someone is already on their way, someone none of them would have counted on, didn't know he existed. Back in Palmetto the Foxes are all fighting on their own ways to regain their strength, to be ready for one more battle. Will they be able to win this time?

tw: graphic depictions of violence, tw: kidnapping, tw: involuntary binding, tw: child abuse, tw: torture including of children, tw: blood, tw: body horror

Where the Sun Meets the Sea by Mystrana, TeoMoy [Rated M, 32786 Words, Complete, AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2022]

In a desperate bid to avoid war between their kingdoms, Prince Neil of the Sea Kingdom reaches out to Crown Prince Andrew of the Sun Kingdom with a marriage proposal. The idea is simple: get married and force peace between the kingdoms. The execution is a little trickier: Neil’s uncle (who happens to be the King of the Sea Kingdom) believes that Neil isn’t being treated well, and he’s still ready to declare war if Andrew and Neil can’t convince him otherwise. And Prince Riko from the Raven Kingdom seems to think that this is the perfect time to try to expand his territory. Neil and Andrew have to pull together to convince Uncle Stuart that everything is fine, figure out how to thwart Riko’s plans, uncover ancient magic, and maybe, just maybe, fall in love for real.

NB: art by @teomoy can be found here and here

The Sea Kingdom by Random_Fandom09 [Rated T, 976 Words, Complete, 2022]

Royalty AU Neil has a twin The Hatford twins realize tensions are rising against their kingdom and decide who to propose to

tw: scars, tw: implied/referenced torture

Birthright by TheHattedEightOfSpades [Not Rated, 11216 Words, Incomplete, Updated Nov 2022]

The Moriyama family is the top of a major crime syndicate but after worries we’re voiced that the Wesninski family is not loyal the the Moriyama’s and would try over throw them, it was decided that the first born of Nathen Wesninski would be promised to the second son of the Moriyama’s to intertwine the two families. Riko is a cruel bastard but Nathaniel has known much cruller. It feels good to only live with a monster who can not weld a knife better then him. Nathaniel is a butcher after all, compared to him, Riko is but a child. When a girl goes missing detective Andrew agrees to get her back. He finds a lot more then he set out for.

tw: human trafficking, tw: rape/noncon, tw: graphic depictions of violence

AJMICKEY56's Fanfiction Palooza! by AJMICKEY56 [Rated G, Multifandom Collection, Complete, 2023]

Chapter 16: jerejean forced marriage trope? 

tw: human trafficking, tw: major character injury, tw: abuse, tw: blood

Tumblr Bits by gluupor [Rated T, Collection, Complete, 2019] 

Chapter 7: Swan Princess AU

Where The Wild Things Are by justadreamfox [Rated T, 27051 Words, Complete, 2022]

Andrew’s life is just fine. He’s got a brother he mostly doesn’t hate, a job he actually loves, his platonic soulmate Kevin, and a tiny mountain town he calls home. So what if some people get two soulmates? Andrew already has everything he never thought he could have….and yet, he’s about to get so much more than he bargained for.

tw: self harm, tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon, tw: implied/referenced csa, tw: homophobia, tw: alcohol

darker fics forced marriage/forced mates

The Butcher's Son by joarch [Rated E, 45917 Words, Incomplete, Updated May 2023]

Neil's father is a cruel lord known as The Butcher. When his father forces him to marry, Neil's expectations are low and his understanding of sex and what it means to be in a relationship is even lower. But slowly, as he gets to know his new husband, he begins to see that there is a future worth fighting for. Andrew has only ever been able to rely on himself. When he's sold to The Butcher and forced to marry his son, he's more alone than ever. But as he begins to trust and find safety in his new husband, he learns that being alone is more dangerous than relying on someone, and freedom isn't what he thought it would be.

tw: dark, tw: human trafficking, tw: rape, tw: dubcon, tw: graphic depictions of violence, tw: graphic torture, tw: blood/gore, tw: explicit sexual content, tw: implied/referenced murder, tw: vomit, tw: nightmares, tw: forced prostitution

there is more by stevie_stardust [Rated M, 35897 Words, Incomplete, Updated Jan 2023]

Euphoria is a daughter of the criminal underworld, and on her eleventh birthday she learns that one day she be forced to marry into the Moriyama family. Kevin is the son of the co founder of Exy. He was adopted by Tetsuji Moriyama after his mother's tragic death, and forced to become the sports next star. Both Euphoria and Kevin are owned by the Moriyama family and suffer horrors at their hands. However, only Kevin is able to find his way out.

tw: dark, tw: human trafficking, tw: implied/referenced child abuse, tw: implied/referenced murder, tw: violence, tw: drug addiction, tw: implied/referenced rape, tw: dubcon, tw: panic attacks, tw: assault, tw: blood, tw: eating disorders, tw: self harm

As I Waited for You by Rinnayyyreadfanfics555888 [Rated M, 25356 Words, Incomplete, Updated Sept 2023]

Omega Neil Josten was offered by his father Nathan Wesninski to the Moriyama family in order to gain their favor and get rid of his useless son. Neil becomes the bride of the alpha Riko Moriyama, giving birth to a girl named Lina. Despite the constant abuse, Neil is obliged to survive in order to ensure his daughter a better future. In order to rescue his nephew from his pitiful fate, Stuart Hatford sends his protégé and trustworthy right-hand Andrew Minyard and his team of foxes to Riko's den.

tw: dark, tw: forced mates, tw: suicidal thoughts, tw: rape, tw: forced prostitution, tw: abuse, tw: child abuse and neglect, tw: forced pregnancy, tw: mpreg, tw: miscarriage, tw: abortion discussion, tw: major character injury, tw: blood/gore, tw: implied/referenced self harm, tw: nonconsensual drug use, tw: nonconsensual kissing, tw: attempted sexual assault, tw: gun violence

Renison

Shoulder to Shoulder by Midlifecrisis, Punchsomeoneforme [Rated T, 20336 Words, Complete, AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2022, Locked]

Already in her mid 20s, Allison Reynolds is too old to be unmarried. This is London in 1910. But Allison wants more. Will the events of one fateful encounter at a Votes For Women march, change her life forever? She hopes so.

tw: violence, tw: classism, tw: sexism

NB: art prompt by @punchsomeoneforme-willyou here

Vanilla Twilight by Flowerparrish [Rated M, 8449 Words, Complete, AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2022, Locked]

Renee’s hand against Allison’s is warm and soft as always, but this time, it’s more. The touch sends electric jolts through Allison, fissions of awareness that feel like when magic settles into her bones. And yet she is aware, is certain, that Renee is casting no magic now to produce this effect. Why would she need to, when Renee’s simple presence, her existence alone, is all the magic Allison could ever desire? // a medieval fantasy au

NB: art prompt by @adverbialstarlight here

Art

Royal AU sketches, the king and queen, and the royal wedding by @emry-stars-art

Renison medieval au art by @kitshunette

riko and nathaniel art by @requiemofkings

[burningexeter]

Not much is known about her but in one of the few, if not the only interview that she ever did, here's all the interesting information and trivia on Meagan Smith, the voice of Gwen Tennyson in the original Ben 10 series. Let's see how this goes:

• The reason why she isn't as prolific as other actresses is because she prefers to not be out in the open and instead have a private life to herself but would love it if there was somehow a Ben 10 con where fans could gather and she'd be there in a heartbeat.

• She admits that she isn't a fan of Omniverse, just flat-out saying that "as far as I'm concerned, Ben 10: Omniverse isn't canon in my book. It should've ended at Ultimate".

• She also voiced her dissatisfaction with how Destroy All Aliens and its short Road Trip Rumble turned out, saying that the only reason she came back was because she loved voicing Gwen and jumped at the chance to reprise the role but thought that the scripts were "poor" and took issue with the mean-spirited tones, handling of characters and adding nothing to the series overall. Smith did however give praise to the animation.

• On a much more positive note, she did praise both Alien Force AND Ultimate Alien for how they handled and developed Gwen and said that Ashley Johnson did an "awesome job" in the role. The only issue she has is the Anodite retcon, thinking Gwen should've been a sorceress since her learning magic is made less special now but overall, was more than satisfied with the portrayal of Gwen.

• Her favorite movies in no particular order are The Nightmare Before Christmas, Crimson Peak, Ghostbusters, ParaNorman and The Wild Bunch.

• Her favorite TV shows however in no particular order as well are Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Spectacular Spider-Man, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, Family Matters and Seinfeld.

• On how she viewed Gwen prior to the events of the Original Series, she said that her character was "the exact opposite of Ben in every way but not in a good way at all. She was a mean, obnoxious and just plain snobbish brat who didn't have many friends and never helped people. In fact, Gwen WAS a bully who picked on others because they weren't as smart as her. The summer road trip is what changed her into a better, stronger and definitely more caring person with a stronger relationship to her cousin and that eventually evolved into her full maturity into a good person all around who used her powers for good and to help others in Alien Force and even Ultimate Alien".

• She actually pitched to Man Of Action an idea she had for a potential What If episode for the show for its fourth and final season that was "if Gwen never went on the summer trip, went up against Charmcaster and learned the hard way her behavior and actions have consequences". But it didn't go nowhere to her disappointment.

• She has expressed interest and a want for screenwriting and revealed she has written a screenplay for a horror comedy about vampires dealing with voodoo priests in New Orleans.

• She revealed as well that she actually has an idea for an entire Gwen Tennyson spin-off series that she says acts as a true reboot to the show:

"It's three seasons with about 25 episodes each that tell a complete story with a clear beginning, middle and end is how I picture exactly beat-for-beat. The first season would be a new take on the original show with Gwen having to stay the whole summer with a close family friend, Sandra (Ben's mom), and her actions end up leading Charmcaster to them. The second season would be another new take this time on Alien Force and it would follow a now teenage Gwen, a more mature Sandra and Charmcaster having to team up against a new threat that would affect them in different ways. The third season would be a take on Ultimate Alien with the three of them coming full-circle while they deal with with newfound fame in their lives.

Here, Gwen isn't a Tennyson and instead her last name would be either another pun-type or something slightly irregular like 'Avery', 'Sommers' or 'Goldenthal', Sandra is a witch who put her magic to rest so she could have a normal life and Charmcaster starts off as a deadly and dangerous witch who tracks down other witches like her and girls who have magical auras to collect their powers and eventually turns into a morally grey anti-hero who leans towards the villainous side but has a code.

I don't want to give anything else away as I think I could actually do it depending on what happens in the future. But what I will say is I'm hoping that I can cross-over other media potentially with the show in its third and final season since it would make sense since just like Ben in Ultimate Alien, they're outed now and are celebrities".

[dysfunctional-doodle]

now i WOULD go rest after the whole ypi business HOWEVER. is there any way to convince you to watch it because OH MY GODDDDDDDD THIS IS MY FAVOURITE SERIES EVER!!!!!!!!!!! it’s certainly not the best written tmnt series out there (ESPECIALLY with the romance…. shudders)

HOWEVERRRRRRR there are a lot of awesome things about it i really like….. i think one thing i like the most about this iteration (besides the very obvious obsession about sunset duo) is THE VOICEACTING. in a tmnt voiceacting teirlist i would put almost every rise character in s tier and yet STILL, despite the fact i put donnie in b, 2012 IS MY FAVOURITE VOICE ACTED SERIES. the original ask includes the giant navy battleship line and. yeah. sean astin’s delivery makes it a kajillion times funnier to me. IDK MAN THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT SPLINTER’S VOICE THAT IS SO SATISFYING TO ME. AND THE WAY SHINIGAMI LAUGHS???????????????? HRGHHHHH

also a big fan of the dynamics between the turtles…… the absolute brothers of all time. sobs (again it’s very obvious which duo is my favourite hfhdbsjbsdj)

also this might be a slightlyyyy controversial take but mikey’s adhd is written really really REALLY well in my opinion. like ok donnie said he hasn’t matured since age six and infantilisation is a big problem with neurodivergent people HOWEVER. a big part of mikey’s character is that he doesn’t like being underestimated and wants to prove he is capable but also. as a person with adhd. YEAH I TOO FEEL LIKE THE PERSON IN MY BRAIN IS A SMALL CHILD. the reason i peaked in primary school is because, back then, i was only slightly less mature than my peers. now as i’m in secondary school i realise i am like a TWO YEAR OLD compared to these people. when i was in s1 i would call myself the twelve year old toddler because that was essentially how mature i felt i was. SO THE STRUGGLE IS REAL. maybe there are times he feels slightly stereotypical but hey, everyone has their stereotype moments, right??? (as cliche as it is i feel like everyone has had a “hey, look, squirrel!” moment in their life). yeah i just relate to 2012 mikey on a spiritual level. like every time he’s on screen he does something and i think WOW. that is LITERALLY me (which is why i’m surprised that one poll i have more people think i’m like sonic than mikey?? but i’m not complaining, sonic is super cool)

the 3d animation is cool (the increase in skill is very obvious as you progress further through the series) and the fight scenes are just. MWAH. SO satisfying.

also SOME of the romance is pretty ok! raph and mona lisa are great. also arguably raph and casey (but we’re not ready for that conversation i think).

i have a full disc set of all five seasons that included a list of all the episodes and whenever i finished an episode i REALLYYYY REALLY enjoyed i would highlight the name in pink sharpie… here are all the episodes i marked :3 (i might need to rewatch some of these)

the pulveriser

cockroach terminator

parasitica

the good, the bad, and casey jones

plan 10

a foot too big (i’m actually not too sure about this one right now, might need to rewatch it)

journey to the center of mikey’s mind

revenge of the triceratons (this one is only half highlighted for some reason)

bat in the belfry

tokka vs the world

requiem (sobs. sobs so so hard.)

end times

when worlds collide: part 2 (i think this one is where the giant navy battleship line comes from)

it’s ok if you don’t want to watch it or you’re not able to watch it but if you can and you don’t end up liking it THAT’S OK I TOTALLY GET IT THERE ARE A LOT OF PARTS THAT SUCK

erm anyways that was my strange ramble. sorry for invading your ask box 👍🏼

(oh yeah, the comics are pretty cool too)

(guess who michalina’s favourite character + duo is challenge (impossible))

Ok I will say oddly enough I’ve read the comics for 2012. Weird, but I pirated found them and enjoyed reading them, they were fun.

I have watched a few episodes - I did like the speed demon episode (I love the dynamic of 2012 donnie and Casey mirroring the 90s movies even down the name insulting scene where they are going through the alphabet) and I like parasitica a lot. I have watched others like journey to centre of Mikey’s mind, Buried Secrets, and the usagi episodes, and also the final episodes of the Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (? I cannot remember the name, but the one with the insect guy as the villain who’s name I can’t spell and can’t be bothered to Google lol), that one where Donnie becomes dumb, the vampire ones, but that’s it.

What puts me off is the romance and the (in my opinion) partial butchered character Donnie has due to it. He’s genuinely creepy and it makes watching it uncomfortable and wildly out of character compared to what I’m used to. I’ve never been a fan of romance, and I expect ally despise the whole “main character has a crush on someone else but is so nerdy they don’t know how to approach them” trope. The whole love triangle and the poorly written “love at first sight” which most the romances in the show are just put me off completely. I genuinely have tried other episodes but I cringe every time the Donnie/April romance happens. It’s a shame because when they let Donnie move on from April or not be simping after her I really like his slightly sarcastic, blunt yet sensitive nature.

I’ve heard they kind of throw away the romance at season 3 but it’s having to watch this until then tbh. Maybe one day I will give it a go if people really say it’s worth the suffering of my least favourite trope. You seem to like it a lot so maybe :)

[nottoofondofgaypeople]

You should make a long post about Laurance

You are so lucky I got that Vylad ask before this... Ohhh boy

Full stop, this post is probably going to be one of the longest things I post on this Nether forsaken website. Laurance has been a comfort character since I first watched this series years ago in spite of all the bull shit Jesson put him through. I have many many many thoughts on him, and none of them will be organized.

I'm fairly confident that this post will get into some very unhinged territories, I cannot be normal about this man

I feel like this should go without saying, but all of the headcanons I have dumped onto Laurance on my main blog apply to this rewrite. Including this one which you have definitely all seen, and all Shadow Knight headcanons are also canon here.

But let's talk about this rewrite specifically. Because when Laurance comes back from the Nether, and he confesses his love, the mother fucker does it! He actually gets Irena to say she at least feels something towards him! It isn't much, but she doesn't get all awkward when he says that he loves her, and she's supremely gentle with him while helping him with his recovery. This really quickly turns into romance and the two are effectively dating shortly after.

Yeah Laurance's eyes aren't magically fucking cured to perfection, that's stupid an abelist.

Actually, because I want peak recovery arc material out of this rewrite Laurance is going to get to spend a lot of time learning how to fight with this new form. His body has been pretty significantly altered from the process of undeath and also the torture. I'm so for real when I say Laurance has so many scars, just so many of them, 18 million scars all over his everything. He already had some from being a stupid fucking child, but these ones are a lot uhm... bigger.

Laurance has to adjust to the new symptoms of his body. A lot of them are slow, appearing over time. The first major thing Laurance notices is that when he stops thinking of breathing for long enough, he just stops breathing. Shadow Knights don't need to breathe, so their body doesn't naturally do it. But Laurance never fully died, so he kind of does need to breathe?? And this is just where it starts.

I think the doll symptoms start kicking in a lot slower than I initially thought of. There's still the first time that it happens, but then it doesn't happen as often. Maybe once or twice, but the next time Laurance really deals with that is during the Season 1 finale (but it isn't Garroth that knocks him out (but that's a whole post unto itself)). Going into Season 2 though, it gets worse and worse. As the Shadow King has more influence over the Overworld, the calling gets stronger and stronger.

More often than not the calling manifests as a whisper in the back of Laurance's mind, something that sends a tingle down his spine and not in a good way. His blood runs hot, and he can feel his body pulled to Irena. Like his blood is tied to her life force and constantly trying to bring her to it. And any time he's around her, that voice gets louder, starts multiplying as he fights it, all of them demanding him to kill, to do it, to free himself of the burden, to gain eternal life.

Laurance doesn't want eternal life though!! He never has!! He wants to fall in love and start a family and grow old with his partners!!

Okay so going into Laurance's childhood a bit, I've said it before and I'll say it again, Laurance is the mcd equivalent of a theater kid and yet somehow fumbled in choosing his class and ended up as a fighter instead of a bard, the goof. He picked up the Lyre when he was a teenager, mostly because his father bought one and expressed an interest in teaching Laurance how to play, and he was all over that.

He stops playing it when he goes to the guard academy cause they just don't have instruments there (which is a crime), but he does still spend a lot of time remembering songs and finger placements, mans is doing whatever he can to make sure he doesn't fall out of practice. When Laurance comes back to Meteli as an official guard he celebrates by having a party in the town and finally getting to play his beloved lyre again.

He doesn't play it as much when he's a guard, but he always tries to stay in practice. And he won't let any blindness get in the way either, his muscle memory is so on point he barely needs his eyes unless he's reading sheet music, which is usually right in front of him.

I could seriously go into a whole character analysis of comparing Laurance to Orpheus, specifically from Hadestown, like I really want to, but I'll restrain myself to just the general myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Laurance really thought he could walk into hell and defy the gods. He really thought he could just do that. And even when he was faced with punishment, when Orpheus was forced to stay in the Underworld in her place, he endured it all for her. And actually this is so funky the roles are kind of reversed. Because Irena is the one who can't turn around to look at Laurance when they're running out of hell. If she does, she will die. That is guaranteed. Eurydice has always acted in the assurance of her survival. Unlike Orpheus in the same position, she can manage to not turn her head.

Hhhhhhg Laarmau as Orpheus and Eurydice is literally everything to me you don't understand.

And yes Laurance being Orpheus coded is why I gave him a Lyre, I won't even deny that. Like, c'mon, Laurance very earnestly trying to earn Irena's affection and saying "I also play the lyre" and Irena snarking back "A liar and a player too? I've met too many men like you." I'm--

Stay focused!! This is not the Hadestown post!!

What if Laurance was like obscenely physically affectionate? Like he's so so so physical, he loves having a point of contact with someone at all times. It doesn't have to be anything big either. He just likes wrapping his arm around Garroth's shoulder, or having Irena play with his hair. It was something important before the Shadow Knight transformation, and he only needed it more as time went on. The feeling of his lovers heartbeat reminds him he's alive.

And other people touching him reminds Laurance he still has this body. In spite of all the Shadow Kings control, he has control of his own body in this moment and he is using that control to show love and care and that matters to him more than anything. He likes holding hands, putting his hands on people, having other people do the same, even the smallest amount of affection is enough for him to selfishly crave more.

Laury likes singing a lot. His voice got a little deeper after the Shadow Knight thing because his vocal chords got just a little shredded in the Nether, but he still loves singing and singing with his friends and lovers. Laurance singing some sappy love song to Garroth who is just completely smitten, or singing some silly little campfire song to boost Cadenza's mood when she's having a bad day.

THE TABLE BIT!! I simply adore the table bit!! All of it! And it's even better in my rewrite cause even if the dialogue and the scene plays out almost exactly the same, they're in love while doing this silly bit!! Such fucking dorks I want to throw them against concrete.

Thinking about Laurance and Ungrith. Laurance finding this wyvern in the forest while exploring one day and befriending it almost instantly because Laurance is just a very kind person. Even if Ungrith isn't allowed to be with his brethren, it's okay because this weird fuckin kid is really entertaining and a genuinely great friend. I know it isn't possible but a scene where Laurance, Garroth, and their wyvern childhood friends get to hang out and talk would probably fix all my problems.

Raven doesn't literally anyone but Garroth touch him, but when Irena tells him about Ungrith, he's willing to let Laurance pet his scales or whatever you do to show affection to a flying lizard. It's not the same, but it's better than nothing.

Laurance's favorite place to kiss other people is on the cheeks, but his favorite spot to be kissed is the forehead. I think that he doesn't admit this to people, rather lets them figure it out. Both Garroth and Irena figure out Laurance likes kissing their cheeks a lot, like he does it constantly, especially because Garroth has freckles and Laurance is determined to kiss every single one of them.

Garroth is the one who learns about Laurance's affinity for forehead kisses cause he's only like two inches taller than Laurance, but that difference matters a lot to both of them. And Garroth can tell very easily from the way Laurance always loves looking up at him with those big doe eyes. Once he tells Irena this, she starts asking Laurance to bend over or kneel in front of her so she can kiss his forehead very tenderly.

Because I made Garrancemau polycule real in my rewrite, Laurance's calling latched onto Irena, but man oh man, it tempts him with Garroth sometimes. He fights so hard to protect Irena partially because if she dies by someone else's hands, he knows it'll latch onto Garroth. And sometimes the calling urges him towards it anyway, considering it'll work. A calling is best answered by the death of a lord, but the death of another guard isn't always a bad thing.

Every time Laurance runs from his lovers to fight the calling he feels so cold without them. Like if he bothers to try sleeping while on his own it just feels so cold. So empty. It doesn't feel right to try to sleep without Irena in his arms and Garroth snuggled up behind him and a blanket over the three of them.

I think Laurance cries a lot. He doesn't really have hang ups about showing his emotional side until he's a shadow knight, and even after, he only tries to hide his anger. He never hides his anguish, his sadness, his absolute misery as a result of the nightmare he was forced to live through. Laurance's crying is so loud, so wretched, almost agonizing for him. It forces his entire body to shake and tremble, sobs being wrung out of him almost forcefully.

I want. him. to be okay. and happy. and I know he won't be. Aughfhhg.

[artbyblastweave]

I’ve expressed, at least twice, the idea that Steven Universe is as effective as it is because it shifts from an unironic children’s adventure show to, late in the game, an examination of the destructive psychological and interpersonal effects of being the protagonist of a children’s show, and this gives it a punch that it wouldn’t have if it was about those destructive effects from the word go. This was notable to me for being basically the only series I could think of that does this.

Recently, though, I thought of another one- it’s very possible to view Batman’s arc in the DCAU through this lens.

You have the four seasons of his own show- foundational to the animated canon- in which he’s unironically superheroing, having adventures, gradually expanding the size of the Batfamily, the Rogues gallery and the supporting cast. Crucially, one of the structural things I liked about BTAS was that it leaned in hard to the idea of a comic-book status quo; the idea that these weirdos are doing things and having adventures offscreen, Lots of adventures that springboard from other adventures, a lot of episodes predicated on the weirdness intersecting with the lives of everyday people, a lot of episodes predicated on the idea that the supervillains are sufficiently around and organized to have developed a nascent little subculture. This was a very earnest show!

Then you get the Justice League animated series, set later in the timeline; you see Batman as part of a team dynamic with equitable cape peers; you see how his mannerisms bounce off the others, you see his tendency to buck what the other capes are doing and go his own way, with good and bad effects; you see his martyrdom complex emerge at certain points, like when he attempts a suicide run on the Thanagarian force field generator; but you also see how is insane stubbornness and willingness to roll with any situation, no matter how ridiculous, is an asset, like in the episode with Dr. Destiny where he just starts chugging Coffee by the gallon to stay awake when he’s the last man standing, or his willingness to break into the pentagon and start walloping generals when everyone else stands down to keep the peace. You see his charming emotional constipation, the stoic mask that occasionally drops. This is the peak of his career.

And then you get to Batman Beyond, which is... predicated, actually, on the logical endpoint of traits he showed in Justice League that were quirky and charming in an ensemble dynamic, but in the long run kinda ruined his life.  He’s got strained-to-destroyed relationships with the rest of the Batfamily. He’s outlived huge swaths of his peers. He never got past his (genuinely entertaining to watch!) emotional hang-ups; he never resolved things with Diana, or Selina, or anyone else; He kept going, alone, as long as he possibly could, until he was too physically destroyed to keep to his own standards of conduct, and by then he didn’t have much left besides a mopey hermitage. His villains aren’t doing much better; the where-are-they-now episodes revisiting old foes find all of them in bleak, bleak circumstances. Superheroism as a whole isn’t doing too well; the BB-era justice league has like six people in it, all of whom are legacies of serious die-hard capes plus Superman; heroism sort of implictly....fizzled out, and given the state we find Batman and his rogues in it’s really not hard to guess what happened to the 100+ other superheroes. They got old. They got killed. They never struck the balance, and things just kinda wound down.

Terry comes on the scene, and he’s a great hero, but his mentor presents this great challenge- how do I not wind up like the last group of people who tried this? How can I do this and be happy? Because none of what I’ve described above is really an attack on superheroes in general; it’s not even an attack on Bruce Wayne; it’s just an extrapolation of Bruce Wayne as he’s been shown earlier in this continuity. In the same way that Steven Universe Future’s “deconstructive” elements are really just an extrapolation of his traits as shown in the first five seasons. (Remember how this started out being about Steven Universe?)

So to round this out, this does feed into this idea I have, that Batman, more than any other hero, has a fun and compelling and necessary relationship with continuity; you need to show the guy, the same iteration of the guy, at many, many different points in his life in order to wrangle the full emotional mileage out of him. You gotta see him in year one, you gotta see him when he’s picked up a couple Robins, you gotta see him when he’s down a couple Robins cause they’re sick of his shit or dead, You gotta see him with some more Robins when he’s worked on himself, you gotta see him as a father, as an older guy, as an old guy. All the most interesting things about him are informed or enhanced or highlighted by the passage of time, the growth and atrophy of his network. You gotta show and establish enough of his status quo that you notice the development. The comics try for this, and are the source for this, with all those far-future Elseworlds and limited series like Year One and The Long Halloween highlighting pivotal events in his past. They’re like. A primordial soup of status quo from which meaningful character insights and developments are hauled out and momentarily examined, to the delight of all. And I think that we all have a sort of gesalt mostly-functional Batman-career timeline in our heads as a result of this. But I think the DCAU represents the longest-term, largest-by-runtime and most-involved depiction of a single iteration of Batman, flawed in my estimation only because it leaves out a lot of Batfamily characters like Jason, Cassandra, Steph, Duke, and others who have kind of become lynchpins in that gesalt interpretation of his timeline. I haven’t seen most of Young Justice, which was produced over a similarly long real-life timeframe to the DCAU and covers a long stretch of time; did that get close? 

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch: season 3 recap

Season 3 overall was really strong, I think it's actually Voyager's peak, for me. We'd left behind the Kazon and the Vidians, and hadn't encountered the Borg yet, so without the recurring villians, there was a greater variety of stories being explored than any other season, which made it more fun and interesting. There's some real classics among this season's eps, and I feel like all the characters got some great moments, and showed nice growth over the course of the season.

Things I liked:

Voyager's first foray into two part episodes, which gave us an opportunity for more epic stories, which were very cool.

They finally let Tom just be a nice person, no more jerky dudebro nonsense! Just a sweet sunshine boy! I love him, your honor!!

They started to give Kes some more substantial things to do, let her grow up a little, and break up with Neelix, finally. I wish we'd have been able to see her do more and grow beyond this season.

They actually gave us the beginnings of a canon romance between Tom and B'Elanna, which was acknowleged, and developed over the rest of the series. Such a relief to not have to endure endless implying, and pining, only to have it be brushed aside whenever a romance of the week plot came along, like every other pairing in Star Trek up till that point.

Things I didn't like:

So many of Kes's plots still revolving around romances with men. I guess all the writers must have been into waif girls, because she was getting romantic stuff way too often, way more than the rest of the crew, and it was bordering on fetishizing her, tbh.

Forever disappointed that B'Elanna and Kes never actually had a scene together that wasn't with or about the Doctor. Sure, as an engineer and a nurse, the most frequent way for their paths to cross would be when the EMH needed repairs, but it would have been nice if they could have gone on an away mission together, or had a conversation in the mess hall, and talked about something besides him at least once in three whole damn years. They've given every other combination of characters at least one solo interaction, except the two of them, and they're 2 of only 3 women in the main crew. Would it really have been so hard to come up with even one scene of two women talking to eachother about something other than a man?

Neelix is still not respecting Tuvok's boundaries, despite treating Kes better, finally, and being less of a jerk in general.

Season 3 stats:

Crew compliment at start of season: 148 (it's still stated to be 148 at the end of the season, which is clearly incorrect after 5 crew died. Unless whoever came up with the first number was excluding non- crew crew, and hadn't been counting the Doctor, since he's a hologram, Naomi Wildman, since she's a baby, or Neelix and Kes, since they're not uniformed, ranked crew. But even then, 147 is the most it could be total on board at end of season.)

Crew members killed off: 5

Crewman Hogan, Crewman Lon Suder, unnamed Crewman (Basics pt. 2)

Ensign Martin (Warlord)

Ensign Kaplan (Unity)

Romantic subplots:

Kes and Harry win the romance derby with a grand total of 5 romantic subplots each this season, though Kes's were all main plots (let that poor girl rest, dudes!!), while Harry's were all minor subplots. The Doctor comes in second with 4.

Harry: 3 without kiss (Remember, Alter Ego, Before and After) 2 with kiss (Favorite Son)

B'Elanna: 1 without kiss (Vorik in Blood Fever), 2 with kiss (Tom in Blood Fever [ongoing from then on], Remember [sort of- she was reliving scenes from someone's else's life in Remember, so it wasn't really her, even though it was- Star Trek just be weird like that!])

Tom: 2 with kiss (Future's End, Blood Fever [ongoing from then on]), 1 without kiss (Before and After)

Kes: 1 with kiss (the hot alien guy in Darkling), 2 without (the Doctor being obsessed with her in Darkling, Tom in the alternate timeline in Before and After), sorta 1 with and 1 without?? (Warlord) [there were lots of attempts at seduction going on in this ep, but she's possessed at the time, so it's not really her when she kisses Tuvok, but it is her when the warlord guy tries to seduce her, but it's in her mind- it was weird, idk!]

Tuvok: sort of(?) 1 with kiss [when the Warlord guy tries to seduce him] (Warlord), 1 without kiss (Alter Ego)

The Doctor: sort of 2 with kiss [he kisses two holographic women at the luau] (Alter Ego) 2 without kiss (his holographic wife in Real Life, and Kes in Darkling [if you can call being obsessed with someone romantic...])

Chakotay: 1 without (Unity) [but we presume they kissed, since they obviously had sex. You knew her for three days dude, what about Kathryn, huh??]

Shuttles destroyed: 1 for sure, possibly 3 total?

1 (Unity) [dismantled by the ex-borg on the planet Chakotay crashes on]

1? (Future's End) [presumably destroyed, since it crashed in Arizona and they didn't mention it being recovered]

1? (Real Life) [tbh i don't remember if Tom's shuttle got destroyed by the subspace eddy, or if they beamed the whole shuttle out?? I'm too busy to go back and find out lol.]

Number of episodes I liked/disliked/mixed reaction:

Liked: 15

Disliked: 7

Mixed: 4

[bellmo15-blog]

Dante outfits based of how much I'd wear them.

Been a while since I've done one of them silly little things hasn't it? Well I'm back with a new one of these that's a lot simpler than the Batsuit or Spider-Man suit ones. Mostly because there aren't that many of these costumes in game lol!

As I'm sure a lot of you have seen already, last month I got a pic of my self insert sona dressed in Dante's outfit from the original Devil May Cry. And there were very good reasons for that. Aside from Devil May Cry just being one of my favourite franchises of all time Dante's outfit in the original game just really, really appealed to me a lot that I had to get my sona dressed in it one day. I mean most of Dante's main outfits are great anyway. And while I likely won't be getting another pic of my sona dressed in his drip for a while given the amount of other ideas I want to get drawn for me I thought I might as well resurrect this kind of tier list I made a few years ago but for Dante's drip! I was also considering every other character as well, or at the very least every playable character, but decided to limit it to Dante just cause. I feel like I've wasted enough time so let's get into...

Good luck trying to convince me to take these off: It literally speaks for itself! My favourites of the funny demon mans outfits. From his original design from the first game plus the coatless version from 3 and his outfit from 2. Then again, who doesn't love his outfit from 2? It's commonly referred to as one of the only good parts of Devil May Cry 2 for a reason!

Would still love to wear: Then we get to the ones that I would pretty much still love wearing as a backup if his 1 and 2 costumes were not available to me. And yes, you are seeing that right, the Desile branded costume from DMC 2 is on this tier for me. Yeah, I know it's pretty much just one big product placement for a real life fashion brand but I also don't really care because I kind of really like it. And beyond that is pretty much every other main Dante costume in this series from 3 to 5 because they still look just as good to me. And also this one funny beach themed costume from Peak of Combat. Enjoy seeing it in this tier because pretty much every other outfit from PoC beyond this is downhill for me. Oh and also Dante's look from the upcoming Netflix anime. (PLEASE don't be cancelled 2 seasons in!)

Ehh, maybe: The ones I pretty much have very conflicted thoughts on to be honest. First there's the Sparda costume which I've never really known how to feel in general and it looks like it'd be WAY to expensive and hard to maintain for me. And then you got the EX colours for Dante's 4 and 5 outfits. I don't know, these colour swaps for the outfits just look fine. And then there's some of the other Peak of Combat costumes which I have no idea how to feel about them. They feel, how do I put this, over designed? I don't know, they feel like they got two much going on in them to me.

The amount of beer I'd have to consume to even consider wearing these would also kill me: Yeah, don't act like you didn't see the placement of these costumes coming. Even as someone who actually does like the 2013 reboot because I really don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be I would not pick these outfits to wear casually in any capacity. They don't have the same "cool factor" I'd argue the other Dante costumes do. Which really sucks when you look into the development history of the reboot and see that they did originally try to make it look somewhat more like classic Dante. And spoiler alert, the remaining 2 Peak of Combat costumes aren't any better either. The former has the same issue as the reboot costumes and the later... yeah I'm not a fan.

Oh and then you got the coatless version of his DMC 3 outfit with is literally just him in pants. I have no real strong feelings towards this costume one way or the other.

And... that's pretty much it!

[megaboy335]

WSJ Serialization Round - September 2023

It's Jump serialization season so I decided to write short reviews of each new title and give final thoughts on the series ending. I'll update the post with my thoughts on the other two new series and whatever ends next week. Discussion about Fabricant 100, Tenmaku Cinema, and the new series MamaYuyu below Edit: Added thoughts for Do Retry and Kagurabachi Edit 2: Added thoughts for Two on Ice and Ayakashi Triangle

Ending Series 1. Fabricant 100 - 37 chapters (Score 4/10) The Golden Future Cup winner curse strikes again. Fabricant 100 was the 2021 winner and it comes from an assistant of Yusei Matsui. I saw red flags right away with the concept. Why is the most powerful fabricant paired with the most valuable human? They're basically invincible when combined together. Sure enough the early opponents didn't put up much of a challenge (the later opponents weren't much better either). The main character Ashibi and #100 join an organization and the series is forever locked into the battle manga angle. Shortly afterwards, Fabricant 100 pivots into exploring the meaning of life and questioning how to become the ideal human. These can be deep questions that perhaps could have been explored if the series wasn't so dead set on being a battle manga. These two sides of the series were always at odds with itself. Some of the Fabricants showed they could coexist with humans... until they couldn't due to internal instincts to steal body parts. The powers steadily had to become edgier to make the life commentary look smart. The art was rarely anything worth mentioning. I would say it peaked early and the story meandered around for a majority of its run. Instead of having 100 Fabricants, there should have been 10-20 who each lived with humans under unique circumstances. That could have shaken Ashibi's morale resolve at every turn. In the end, the series gave reasons for how Fabricants came into existence and #100 made a selfish yet selfless choice for the first time ever. I hope the author has a more straightforward vision for their work next time. If only we lived in a timeline where Red Hood survived 36 weeks. 2. Tenmaku Cinema - 21 chapters (Score 7/10) At the end of last year, the duo behind Shokugeki no Souma returned with a new series about film making. It focused on the process, tools, and management of creating an amateur film. The story begins with the main character Shinichi finding himself possessed by the ghost of a screenwriter named Tenmaku. The ghost character sees the talented young actress Hinaki and immediately becomes inspired to draft a film based on his perception of her life titled "The Shore". Hinaki reads the script and wants to help as much as possible. Her decision comes from 1) the relatability of the story to her own life (without ever knowing its technically based on her) and 2) the desire to have fun with her school peers for once. From this point the series remains squarely focused on bringing this film to life. We see the ups and downs to film production such as sound, prop setting, music, and location scouting. I wished the series devoted a chapter to simply showing The Shore, but I also think it ultimately didn't matter because Hinaki is the film's protagonist in the literally sense. Between walking home, going to the beach, school, or accepting her mom, those are all moments she can bring out organically from her own experiences and desires. The art was amazing and well detailed as you would expect from Tosh. I thought giving Shinichi a spirit partner was kind of an old school throwback since that's a common troupe of the late 90s/2000s era. Its shame Tenmaku and Shinichi got very little time to interact outside of film making. The biggest weakness is while the manga comes off fairly complete, its also shallow. They only made a single movie, so not a lot actually happened over the 21 chapter run. I think the reason it failed is simple: Oshi no Ko, Chainsaw Man, and Sakamoto Days easily fill the void of movie inspired series. Unfortunately there was no place for a series like Tenmaku Cinama to explore the creation process at a ground level in the current manga climate. At least Tosh and Tsukada will be back with a one shot next spring. We haven't seen the last of them. 3. Do Retry - 19 Chapters (Score 4/10)

I've had my eye on Jun Kirarazaka since Bone Collection. That was a bad series with the art in particular being its weakest point, but I thought the characters had some charm. It was like a modern day Urusei Yatsura with an exorcist series skin. Afterwards they did assistant work under the famous Yusei Matsui and here they are again with an historical boxing series.

Right away its obvious his artwork had improved substantially. There is more detail, better composition, and it had a good handle on portraying the setting. I was very impressed with the first chapter. However, problems quickly began to crop up. As the popularity tanked and art deteriorated, it looked more and more like a Yusei series. Kirarazaka doesn't have the imagination to make it compliment what he's drawing to convey. This could be seen most in the opponents our main character faced. There was a guy with a big arm and another with super slates eyes. Its exactly like the exaggerated features you would expect in a Matsui series, who is able to normalize those features with unique panel compositions. The designs in Do Retry came off ugly and out of place for this setting.

The story itself was fine with enough runtime to have 3 main opponents. As a cancelled title, Kirarazaka had to rush through the final arc scenario. Its not hard to imagine how a long term plot of slowly piecing together a mystery about the missing father would have unfolded. I liked the overarching theme of pushing forward despite adversity. The final chapter time skipped to present and we got to see the main character through the pov of his grandson. That is one of the more clever cancelled final chapters I've seen in awhile.

Honestly, the final chapter saved the series somewhat for me. Kirarazaka dropped the Matsui-ness and got to be himself again. It was like the return to form that I wanted since the beginning. I still think this mangaka can land a hit someday. He needs to figure out how to balance his character writing with his newly developed art skills. Do Retry is a respectable attempt, but this wasn't it. I hope he can keep improving and find a style that works for him. 4. Ayakashi Triangle (AyaTri) - 144 Chapters (Score 8/10) Kentaro Yabuki is a prolific manga artist whose career dates back to the late 90s with his debut series Yamato Gensouki at age 19. Since then he's become known for pushing the boundaries of shonen ecchi series to their upper extreme limited. In 2020, Yabuki returned to the weekly magazine with a new ecchi battle series titled Ayakashi Triangle. The most apparent thing right away was that it had a heavier emphasis on the characters and less on making ecchi scenes. It eventually became even clearer how this series was a soft reboot/continuation of Yamato Gensouki which was cancelled in 2 volumes. While the original has very little lore impact on Ayatri, the biggest connection is original Ayakashi Medium is the previous protagonist Iyo. In retrospect, when Male Matsuri split off I should have considered that it might kick off the end game scenario. At the time I thought it was just another subplot to mess with Suzu. The series was more daily life centric in the WSJ days, and more plot focused after it transferred to Jump+. The publication didn't come with any substantial change in content. Though Ayatri was already too spicy for Viz. It was a miracle they kept it as long as they did. I think the series landed in a good place. In fact Shirogane and Suzu acknowledged my long held idea that she might be able to control Matsuri's gender at will. The daily lives of the characters will continue onwards with hijinks always happening. Yet, I also feel unsatisfied because the final boss battle was against a remote controlled puppet. It makes sense within the series for the Goyosen to be the manifestation grudges from Iyo's time, but its underwhelming as an action climax sequence. However for completing a few ideas from Yamato Gensouki, I think it worked in that area. Yabuki has always been a creative artist. He specializes in minimal panel layouts with dynamic action that is easy to follow. It's a style he perfected over the years and still be seen all over Ayatri. As a weekly series, I would say his art and color pages weren't as good compared to the monthly Darkness years. The weekly color pages on Jump+ weren't particularly memorable for the most part, but his compositions are still way ahead of his peers. Regardless, its been a treat to experience a Yabuki series on a weekly schedule. I think Ayatri will be remembered as the series that didn't introduce anything ground breaking, and yet connects Yabuki's carrer from the start to present. He's an artist you read because the content is sweet comfort food. Yabuki often doesn't often stay gone for long, so I'm sure he'll back before we know it. I look forward to whatever he cooks up next.

New Series #1 - MamaYuyu Weekly Shonen Jump has been a save heaven from the plague of fantasy isekai that has consumed the industry, so I was worried when the preview material talked about heroes and the demon lord. Thankfully that doesn't appear to be the case. We're introduced to a hero from a different world where the demon lord is far from defeated. The main character Corleo gets to learn what it means to be a hero through watching his actions. However, the hero sacrifices his life to save this town from the demon lord of his world. Chapter 1 was a long winded prologue to our hero's origin story. I think it could have been streamlined to get the point without beating readers over the head with the conflicted thoughts of Corleo. It also went overboard on defining a Hero. The paneling was unusual, but not necessarily off putting. I hope the author can handle it better with shorter chapters. I would say this is a middle of the road chapter 1. It's hard to pinpoint the exact direction of the story at this stage. My guess is what it will become a battle manga and the mom demon and hero will have to travel together. We already know there are other worlds so the framework is there for a long journey. Time will tell how receptive readers are to this concept.

New Series #2 - Kagurabachi I feel like I don't have much to say about this new series. Its a sword themed with sorcery like you would see in Demon Slayer/Jujutsu Kaisen. The first chapter played out a little differently than the usual Ch.1 template. It was a prologue in the first half and then the real chapter in the back half. You can feel the dad's passion for his craft and the child's desire to match that someday. The dialogue was a little dry, but I thought it worked well with the art style. In the back half, the art got shaper to convey the change in tone. Usually a chapter 1 would show a character like the dad getting killed and then the incident would create a lifelong motivation for the protagonist. Choosing to pause that story and leave it a mystery is an interesting approach. Overall, I think the minimal exposition gives it a stronger than usual first chapter. It gives room for the characters to be the center of attention. The time skip leaves you wondering what exactly happened and how far the main character will go in enacting revenge. The strongest point of the debut is easily the art. I'll be going forward to seeing how the story unfolds in the coming weeks. New Series #3 - Two on Ice Two on Ice isn't a bad series, in fact I would say it has some solid potential. The first chapter is a prologue story about how the protagonist meet the main heroine and became inspired to take figure skating seriously. Several years later, they meet up once again and he's given the chance to be her partner on the ice rink. It's a solid start for character writing with clear motivations and paths for the story to take. The weaker aspect is the art work. There are places were I thought its not good enough to convey what the manga artist hopes. I think these are pretty minor nitpicks in the grand scheme because the love for Figure Skating can clearly be felt. I'm not sure if this kind of topic can succeed in Jump, but I wish them the best of luck.

[dk-wren]

Week 4ish - 30 Days of Buddy Daddies

Welcome to the final round of my responses to the 30 Day's of Buddy Daddies tag! Thank you for all your support on these posts and @yuraamar for creating all these fun prompts. Let's do this one more time!

Day 22: Favorite Drawing from Miri's Diary

I love how this diary entry either suggests Miri woke up later in the night and got to properly celebrate Papa Rei's birthday or this is what she had planned (before she got too tired to wait for Rei).

While it might be more an expression of surprise, I also kinda love how Miri drew Rei with a big smile.

Day 23: Which Actor/Actress Would You Have Liked to Voice the Characters

In all honesty, I don't know.

Yes, I really enjoyed all the voice actors' performances and couldn't imagine anyone else voicing these characters. But also, Buddy Daddies was I think my 5th or 6th anime, so I have yet to really identify and/or follow any particular VAs to say I would have liked them to voice this character.

Just for a further Yuri on Ice reunion, maybe Junichi Suwabe as Kyuutaro(?), but again idk.

Day 24: Crossover

Not so much a crossover, but rather, something I hope exists in the Buddy Daddies universe is Animal Crossing. (There's Mario Kart/Morio Kart in the Buddy Daddies world, so I think it's possible) This just feels like a game the whole family would love and could somewhat play together.

I can totally see Miri loving to talk with the villagers, decorating her house, and catching bugs/fishes. Rei enjoys doing these things too, but I can also see him grind for hours just to make sure Miri has all the bells/supplies she needs when she plays to buy whatever she wants (perhaps this is how Rei spoils Miri?) or make any furniture she wants. I could even see Kazuki casually playing Animal Crossing. He may not be a gamer, but I think even he could learn the basics and not be too overwhelmed.

Just something about Miri, Rei, and Kazuki playing Animal Crossing together seems like a really cute idea.

Day 25: Things You Would Like to See in Future Projects

Something I would like to see in future projects is Kazuki, Rei, and Miri actually finding the place that became the Dining Nest. Did Kyu or someone else find the place for them, did they hunt for this place on their own, and when/why exactly did they choose to open a diner rather than like a shop or some other business? I'd also love to know if the first time they entered the space, if there was an immediate feeling of "this is our home" or did it take some time for them to adjust to the place and make it feel like truly their own space.

As many people have said before, I fully want a beach day story too. The art Lily recently posted of Rei and Miri finally bringing home a cat also makes me want to see this storyline further fleshed out. Gosh, there's probably a bunch of other things I would like to see, but honestly, I just want to see more peaks into Kazuki, Rei, and Miri's daily life as Miri grows up and as Kazuki and Rei fully(?) leave the organization behind them

Day 26: Playlist

I would like to start by apologizing for my music taste because it unfortunately (for you probably) means that this playlist is basically show tunes. Either way, hope you enjoy the songs and my very brief explanations.

Kazurei Vibes:

Rei Vibes: (Trust me on this one, pls)

Final confrontation vibe (Rei singing, but replace "man" with like "dad"):

Day 27: What Made You Watch the Anime

The first anime I really got into was Spy x Family. Because there were a lot of initial comparisons between the two series, that grabbed my attention. I thought to myself, well I quickly fell in love with Spy x Family, so why not give Buddy Daddies a try since it seems similar.

The two animes I had previously gotten into and watched in the fall (SxF and Chainsaw Man) finished their seasons right before Buddy Daddies began airing. This was another reason I watched since I no longer had a weekly anime/show to watch and to help me keep my sanity because of school.

Funnily enough, I really do think it was because Buddy Daddies kept coming up in the SxF tag here that I watched this anime. Like I legitimately do not remember watching the trailer for Buddy Daddies until way after I got into the series.

Day 28: What Would You Change About the Story

Maybe not change, but I really wished more of Kazuki's past with Yuzuko could have been explored or touched on.

For reasons made clear throughout the series, her death, as well as the death of their unborn child, clearly left an impact on Kazuki for a long time. The circumstances alone are tragic, but to have even a little more information about Yuzuko I feel could have made her death even more emotional and tough for the audience. We really only know Yuzuko as Kazuki's ex-wife, so I kinda have to agree with those who have discussed her death really just being a plot device.

Given Kazuki's sorta self-deprecating humor/behavior and past, he definitely seems like someone who does not view himself as highly as he should. And this behavior is likely not a new development after Yuzuko's death, but a habit he’s had for most of his life. So, to see him be open with Yuzuko would be really sweet because she seems to love him as he is and not what he could be. Also, just to see Kazuki be open/vulnerable for the first time in his life, which we see happen again with Rei and Miri, would add to the parallels and give the audience more information about what make Kazuki feel safe.

Day 29: What Message Would You Leave to the Creators and All the Anime Staff?

Thank you thank you thank you!

This series was such a fun watch. I fully went into this show thinking it was a comedy, but loved the emotional and serious moments. The blending of the two tones was really well done and almost felt complementary. Like it's talked about in the show, light and dark walk together and coexist with each other.

Maybe it's just my nature, but I fully and easily fell in love with Rei, Kazuki, and Miri. The development each character went through, especially Rei, in 12 episodes was really incredible. With Rei and Kazuki, their growth felt earned and natural. I also appreciate how their growth is not linear. They learn and make mistakes and keep trying to figure out what it means to be their individual self and a papa.

And going off of that, the central idea of change and if people can change was just so well done. I feel that "can people change?" is a question many ask and you all did such a great job of illustrating yes, you can change, but again, it's not going to be over-night or easily earned.

If it's not been made clear yet, my love for this show is just so big and it’s really got a firm grip on my mind/thoughts. Like literally, this show was life altering since it caused me to develop another interest that I have just so much love for and am deeply obsessed with.

I hope you all return to this story in the future and add on to it. But if not, I appreciate all the work and love you put into these 12 episodes. Truly incredible stuff.

Thank you again for bringing this series and these characters into my life! - Dakota Wren

Day 30: Incorrect Quotes (Free Day)

I've been collecting a bunch of random "incorrect quotes" for a dnd campaign I'm currently in and had a bunch of fun pairing them with those characters. So, now just gonna bring a few of them over here to further create some Buddy Daddies madness.

Kyu, knocking on the door: Kazuki, open up. Kazuki: It all started when I was a kid. Kyu: That’s not what I- Rei: Let him finish!

Rei: Surgeons just stab people to life Kazuki: Please never become a surgeon...

Kazuki: Bold of me to constantly use the phrase 'no worries!' when I am, in fact, constantly full of many worries.

Kazuki: How did none of you hear what I just said?! Rei: I've been zoned out for the past two and a half hours. Miri: I got distracted halfway through. Kyu: Ignoring you was a conscious decision.

Kazuki: Why is Miri crying? Rei: She saw a leaf on the sidewalk and- Miri: IT LOOKED SO CRUNCHY! Kazuki: Please don’t say what I think you’re going say- Miri: AND WHEN I STEPPED ON IT THERE WAS NO CRUNCH! Kazuki: NO, NOT THAT!

Day 31: Episode I Wish I Could Rewatch Again for the First Time (2nd Free Day)

If I could rewatch any Buddy Daddies episode again for the first time, it would be the finale.

The first time I watched the episode was while I was working (yes, I was that impatient I couldn’t wait until after my shift ended), so I had to split my attention between doing my actual job and watching the episode. I would love to just sit and watch the episode again for the first time with my undivided attention. Not being at work would’ve also meant I could’ve fully lost my cool throughout the episode because there were several moments throughout that I was fully screaming in my head.

Not only that, but to just relive so many of the moments again. Rei and Kazuki driving up to the Suwa Manor like maniacs, bursting through the front door together, the kitchen scene?! And also seeing Miri be so indescribably happy to see her Papas wall into her concert. I’m not sure if I ever talked about it, but during my first watch through, I fully thought the episode was going to end with Miss Anna taking the family’s picture, which is followed by the title card. So my shock to see a grown up Miri was through the roof. I didn’t ever want to see how much of the episode was left because I just wanted to enjoy it. It made me so unbelievably happy that the epilogue kept going to show more glimpses into the lives of Miri, Rei, and Kazuki several years into the future. To watch the epilogue again, with that same feeling of oh my gosh there’s more?! would be amazing.

And that’s a wrap for me on the 30 31 Days of Buddy Daddies tag! I had so much fun and loved that this allowed me to continue to show my love for this anime. Can’t wait to see what’s hopefully next for this family, but like I said above, if we’ve already seen the end of their story, then I’m happy with that being so too.

Thank you again for coming along with me on this tag! It truly means a lot to me!

-Dakota Wren

[presidential--suite]

✨ Top Five Treys ✨  

#1: South Park: 25th Anniversary Concert (2022)

(Series with @a-magical-evening 💖)

First, I loved this concert so damn much I had too many GIFS to include in one set so here’s the bonus: 💖💖

The concert is too long to rewatch completely, and I do have a lot of emotion connected to it, so this might get pretty rambling/stream of consciousness. I’ll preface that this is gonna be personal lol like an actual blog post

(Preface #2: I’m mostly going to comment on Trey (as with all the others in this series), since I’m a Trey bitch through and through, but Matt was a fucking superstar, and I was blown away by his performances!! He looked amazing and I was so fucking impressed by him 😊 I’m not purposefully leaving him out in my comments, I love him too 💖)

So, I was watching the last SP episode of the season with my boyfriend and saw that they were doing a South Park concert and remember my stomach like exploding in excitement. I knew I wasn’t going; I’ve never been to a real concert or anything, plus it was states away, but I entered the raffle anyway for fun. The more I waited that week, the more excited I got thinking about it. My rationale was: there was probably never going to be anything again that I could guarantee actually witnessing Trey Parker in real life, so it would be my only chance. Plus, I hadn’t gone on a vacation since I was like 14, so maybe I could go. But the raffle came and went, and I didn’t get in. I didn’t realize how truly hyped I was until I was walking down the street to my boyfriend’s house and holding that rejection email. When I told him he was like “what South Park concert” and I was super pissed lmao. (Side note, he has no fucking clue how gone I am for Trey XD at least not to the extent that I am. I feel like it’s rude to talk about my infatuation with another man to my significant other. So he didn’t understand my disappointment haha)

Then tickets went on sale, at the time only having one night, and I didn’t get in. Then those fucking premium, expensive tickets went on sale, my whole fucking salary for the summer honestly, and I was just staring at them as the clock ticked. I’ll never forget buying those in my bedroom and the reality setting in that I was actually going to go see Trey fucking Parker with my own damn eyes lol. I’ve been a fan of things before, had phases, had celebrity crushes, but never have I acted on one this way. So for months there was just this shining light of “I’m going to see Trey” or “it’s okay that this sucks, I’m going to Colorado in August.” XD

It was surreal being there, driving around actual mountains; it was like that SpongeBob joke “I’m washing dishes at night” but “I’m getting Starbucks in Morrison”. Seeing so many people that were more in my demographic there was so fucking cool. I was scared it was going to be these bro-y middle aged men, a lot of lame republicans lol, but it was a good mix! I met a lot of cool people! Then I was sitting in the second row, and I’d looked at spoilers from the first night, so when I saw my seats were in front of Trey’s piano I was just :O :O Ecstatic.

So it starts, and it’s cool, but then he fucking walks out and I don’t even have words :”). Like he was only a couple yards away. It was so amazing. I was yelling and singing and like holding my hands out to him the whole time. It was hard to even take my eyes away from him. Rewatching the concert on TV I was asking my boyfriend “were these visuals part of the live show? Did they add them in post?”, but it turns out I just never looked at the damn screen lol! Trey performed so wonderfully. Just...It was phenomenal. It was probably my peak XD Afterward I didn’t want to leave but security was like GTFO, and I just walked back down the hill in a daze. (The next day I had some pretty bad PCD (post concert depression haha) and I kept crying at random moments D:)

Anyway, my favorite moments from this had to be when he first came out, hat over his heart. I kept saying before I went that I better see his beautiful bald head, and he delivered immediately lmao XD 💖

💖My favorite performance was Yelper Special because I loved watching him do his little dance. I probably had my hands clasped over my chest embarrassingly, like ‘aww :’)’

I was worried about the voices, but tbh they pulled them off so well in my opinion. I think the mics really worked and they both did an amazing job being the boys. Robot Friend and the Theme Song where he and Matt are side by side doing their boys was so cute

I’m now officially a Primus fan too, they’ve actually become one of my top artists on Spotify, because damn, Les ate that shit up!!! Everyone was perfect!!

All the hat changing, and when Trey would turn to make faces, and when he’d be like “let’s fucking try that again”.

When Matt and Trey had their little asides, and when they would smile at each other, and the surprise, and their I love yous!! When they would reminisce about where they grew up, and when they met, and how far they’ve come?? I love them and their friendship 💖💖💖

((My poor boyfriend, I was really fangirling hard. I won’t repeat the joke he’d made, but it involved ruining some articles of clothing...TMIIII XD XD)) I’ll use this part to make my saucy comments, which is that he looked fucking hot!! Haha I was mesmerized by him. Most of the time I was alternating between gaping at him and taking blurry pics. My lust for this man, for real...He looked so good, I think the outfit was very flattering. Beautiful 💕

Obviously, I loved that appearance. You’ve seen my recreation of his outfit. I have I think 600 pictures from that trip... I made a photo album. I love Trey. I love his singing (that’s actually the first thing I liked about him, before I even watched South Park). He’s so wildly talented and skilled. It was truly a magical evening 😉

This had to be number 1.

[ideahat-universe]

It's still Halloween right?

Lets talk about Twin Peaks inspired stuff. There's this game called "Who's Lila?" that gets it. Twin Peaks inspired quite a lot of people to create very weird and off beat stories about small town America but almost none of them, even the complete ripoffs really get what's going on with it. I mean to be fair, it was only a few years ago that someone made a really huge video breaking down what Twin Peaks was actually about with references and sources galore. Without that you could be like Jay Bauman and just consider the existence of the series of a fun novelty that is barely worth thinking about.

Almost treating a highly influential show as if it were some shlock that you watched for an internet retrospective.

So what do people get wrong? Well, the whole point of Twin Peaks was that the murder is the hook but the town itself is what causes you to stay. It's not that Laura Palmer's death doesn't matter, in fact it's the opposite. Laura Palmer's death is so substantial that you don't want to move onto to the next murder, you want to get to know the world that Laura left behind and who Laura was when she was alive.

David Lynch hated the fast food style murder mysteries were being written and wanted to make the ultimate anti murder mystery.

And, he failed. But not because he's a hack fraud writer. Both fans of the show and the producers wanted a resolution to the murder case. Once they did that Laura could be discarded mentally and the show declined. He made Fire Walk With Me to reignite value in knowing and caring about Laura Palmer but David Lynch is a moon man that doesn't want to spell things out even when it would benefit him greatly to do that maybe like once? Ya know. If it would save his entire franchise?

But no. After many years a season 3 is made but it's just Lynch killing his franchise as a way to curse those who were just too ungrateful and blind to see his vision.

Twin Peaks inspired media make the same mistake but without even knowing what David Lynch really wanted from the show so you get weird quirky middle America stories that either have a weird mystery cult or goes from one murder to many murders (and in the case of Deadly Premonition it's both).

And it's not all bad. In fact most of these things are good. Gravity Falls is probably the best show to ever do the face value aspect of Twin Peaks right.

But only Who's Lila has managed to capture the meta of Twin Peaks and what David Lynch was trying to do with it.

A user named Flawed Peacock has made a 7 hour video breaking down the game (oddly enough about as long as the video breaking down Twin Peaks) but you can play it for yourself if you like ARGs (and you have to if you want to figure out everything for yourself). But if you just want me to tell you now....

Who Lila is, is a meta question. Lila is a character whose motivations and actions and all the stuff that feels like Twin Peaks is in the game, but WHO LILA IS, is just an idea. The game morphs from the story about a murder to it really being about how a memetic idea is created and takes on a life of its own and exists only in our minds.

Lila exists as long as we think of them, they are an idea that feeds off of people's interest in what it is. Once you stop thinking of Lila, Lila exists a little less but idea's never die so Lila not only exists perpetually in the game but in the real world as well because all it takes is reading the word "Lila". Thinking about Twin Peaks inspired media, maybe even seeing the psone graphics or the art design or the sound design. Maybe just seeing this face

Or thinking of a murder mystery, or the demon Lilith makes you think of Lila and just like that Lila is back.

A demon is in your mind absorbing your thoughts and even though you played the game and you watched the 7 hour break down of the game and you are writing an article on Tumblr about Lila, you can't get rid of Lila.

And this is why Who's Lila is the best Twin Peaks inspired story to exist yet because all David Lynch was trying to do was sanctify the art of film media through the death of Laura Palmer, Laura Palmer was his Lila and the audience was supposed to keep asking who Laura Palmer is but they didn't care. They just wanted to find out who the murderer was and move onto the next case, but no one who plays Who's Lila will be moving onto another case. Sure, once you do absolutely everything, you can come to a conclusion you can settle with but by that point Lila is pretty well cemented into you. She's not a jumping off point for throw away content. It's the heart of the world her story takes place in.

Perhaps now that I understand and have seen this stratagem in action, I too can make a true Twin Peaks meta story....

[baekhvuns]

i get you, single life is the peak of peace and oh them drawings 😩🤌i can obsess over whoever I want, I can have 10 husband's without even getting married THE PURE JOY. Im not that big of a manhwa fan but I've read a few and i can assure you, I desire that type of a romance BCZ DONT YOU SOMETIMES WANT SOMEONE TO FALL SO CRAZILY IN LOVE WITH YOU?!?! They'd embrace you, they'd tell you how pretty you are and even when you'd say 'you might get get tired of me' they'll reply "you're like the moon honey, no matter how many times I look at it, it seems to get prettier and enchanting" 😭😭😭😭 BUT I DAMN WELL KNOW MEN ARE NOT FUNCTIONED LIKE THIS AHVAJABAJAB WHYYY?!?!

Yes my happy marriage!! I honestly get the hype arnd it!!

Speaking of manhwas or webtoons, I have a few of my favourites like daytime star Oh God it is such a sweet SUCH A FLUFFY STORY BUT THEN THE ML LOOKS LIKE THIS:-

LIKE EXCUSE ME SIR THIS ISNT ALLOWED IN MY HOUSEHOLD GODDAMN!! and he's the greenest flag ever. I've also read more webtoons like operation love and surprisingly I read see you in my 19th life as a webtoon and I still haven't watched the drama. I'm currently trying to read this manhwa called my in laws are obsessed with me, AND ITS COMPLICATED ALR?? IT IS! BUT! I looovvee the art style so much I'm on my damn knees AND THE BLACK HAIRED DUDE THERDEO!!! AH HE GV MY BUTTERFLIES 😭😭 I feel like this story is presented really good and i actually like the female lead in this.

I have one more and idk why but it reminds me how you write for some reason. It's titled "midnight crying crow" and the FL on this is a detective so strong, so sassy, and in general THAT girl and the ml 😭 he's an actor AND SUCH A DIVA OMG, and that reminds me of your written Seonghwa so much Bcz

I THINK YOU GOT POINT 😭😭

LMFAOO NOT THE SIDE EYE!! Now im def gonna watch it soon! Omg they are so long and bestie I started watching one piece a few weeks ago 😭 AND I MADE IT TILL EP 7!! See I struggle with watching too like idk how peeps watch a whole season in a day, I just can't but somehow i finished a few series.

Ohh honestly I still like comedy animes better so I'm suggesting baby Buddy daddies (i literally wrote baby daddies-) , spy x family (it's so good YOR AND LOID IS MY SHIP OK?), The babysitters club IT IS SO CUTE 😭 , saiki k, the way of a househusband THIS IN PARTICULAR BCZ IMAGINE AN INTIMIDATING MAFIA GUY FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU AND AFTER MARRIAGE HE BECOMES A MANWIFE WHO LIKES CUTE THINGS AND JUST FOR YOU!??!? It's top tier!!

Ikr somehow pictures be motivating to get my life together even 😭 hell even stationary motivates me, i would've never studied or wanted to study if it wasn't for cute stationary!!

YES WE SHALL RISE!! IN THE NAME OF THE THE LORD PARK!

park peace no srs, no situationships just pure delusion <3 UHUH EXACTLY make them scenarios in ur mind and then giggle into ur pillow like 😭😭 pathetic but u KNOW WHAT BETTER THAN EVERYONE AND THEIR MEN,, NO NO I FUCKING GET U SO MUCHF WHKFHWK LIKE SAY THAT TO ME????? TELL ME IM A CUP OF COFFEE??? NEVER GIVE UP NEVER WHAT??? will forever make the men in my fics act like that, my delusion will go on

that man is so fine, the hair, the authority

I !!!! WANT !!!! HE !!!!

see now im trying to read day time star….why is it kinda dry 😭😭😭😭 crying fbwmfjwk iM not a huge fan of it atm 😭😭 SEE U IN MY 19TH LIFE I PREFER THE WEBTOON OVER THE ACTUAL DRAMA ANYDAAAAAY

NO BC I KNOW THAT ONE IVE BEEN RECCING IT AND ASKIMG EVERYONE TO READ THAT FIC BECAUSE OF HIM. THAT ART STYLE IS EVERYTHING AND WHEN HE BLUSHES?????? DROPPED.

WHAT THE FUCK. I NEED THIS MAN IRL ACTUALLY IF YALL SEE THIS, NO U DONT MIND UR BUSINESS 🔫 or read the fic,,, THE FEMALE LEAS IN TUIS IS SO GOD DAMN PRETTY 😭😭 THIS IS MY IT COUPLE IDC IDC THIS ONE WILL FORVER WIN

pls tell u ur reading secretary’s escape…

I WILL READ THAT WEBTOON !!! omg???? written hwa??? this is a must for me,, omg if u like detective type of webtoon a pls pls pls read the purple hyacinth, legendary chemistry almost like miraculous ladybug and chat noir type <3 yes. YES I GOT THE POINT BRWMBDSK

LMFAOOOO no literally i cannot watch it for hours long like i have up sailor moon in first 10 eps 😭😭

STOP I LOVE SPY x FAMILY,,, STOP IT THE WAY OF THE HOUSE HUSBAND I WAS SO OBSESSED W IT THAT I BOUGHT THE MANGA FOR IT 😭😭😭

wait i do not rmr if i rec-ed the remarried empress, yeah. an empress, remarrying, to a younger king? who’s like a golden retriever and the art?? LORD HAVE MERCY. my fav webtoons depend on the art, if i don’t like the art i don’t read it and this one has one of the best arts ive seen. SORRY THE DUDE IS JUST SO FINE FHFWMDJAKJ LET ME JIST SHOW U FBWMDWL hate her ex husband tho so he kinda fine but problematic

trust he looks even better in season 2 the art just keeps getting better!!!

men of harem is pretty good but it’s dragging along,,, PERFECT REVENGE MARRIAGE!!!! A MUST!!!! a good day to be a dog is also vvv ☺️☺️ and u can read lost in translation if u want to be depressed for the rest of ur life.

no literally!!! this reels w that same song and ppl studying got me like???? me too???