#maybe the show wil have more background characters though i don’t know

[victorfrankiestein]

for as pretty and high quality as the new monster high series is, it is a shame that the animation clearly being more expensive leaves the school as a whole looking kind of empty. like the webisodes cost 3 dollars to produce, but because of that they could at least pump out a bunch of generic monster designs to put in the halls. so far in the new series it feels like only the main characters attend monster high, you never seem to see a crowded cafeteria or a bunch of monsters walking between classes, which does make the school feel more lifeless :(

[hopeshoodie]

Ok so in light of the Independent article (see my tag #fusebox layoffs for more info), I’ve been trying to piece together the sequence of events that lead to FB Going to Shit™. 

All of the below is based on articles, tweets from the staff, and dates from screenshots. Especially with the Matchmaker stuff, I’m using the dates I personally accessed the stories- that might not be accurate to when they were actually released to an international audience, just when my phone updated the app. In hindsight, I’m not a great person to do this because I have a shit memory and don’t keep receipts, so if you have any corrections PLEASE lmk either in the dms or replies. 

In sum, the timeline appears to be:

1. Key players left Fusebox in early 2020. 

The one that people are probably most familiar with is David Gallopim, one of the artists who helped define the S2’s distinct style, leaving sometime before March 2020. He seemed to indicate that there was conflict over the new art style of S3, and released assets he’d designed of Harry in his own style (notably way prettier than Harry looks in-game). 

But probably more important to the direction of the company, Michael Othen, one of the co-founders and former CEO, left in July of 2020 (I had thought it was earlier in the year but according to LinkedIn it was July). It’s much more unclear why he left, but it’s notable because he was a huge force in making the game inclusive of LGBTQ characters. 

So all in all, not a great sign when employees who had a huge hand in creating the content and direction of a game that defined its success jump ship. Especially after the game was seemingly hitting its stride, with the host of Love Island (the TV show) doing a sponsored Let’s Play of S3 and projects in the works like Boat Party and CMM.

2. It seems like Fusebox‘s CEO/executives hired new management, either in 2020 or early 2021. Employees complain that the executives don’t understand what it takes to make a game and are pulling the studio in the wrong direction. It’s unclear if the newly hired execs had experience. 

Wil Stephens, the CEO/founder, has been with FB since its inception but also appears to have only founded game distribution ventures and not worked in any development or employment capacity. If that’s the case, maybe the complaints about lack of experience/knowledge about the mechanics of making games work are about him. If not, then some of the newly hired execs would likely be to blame. 

Paul Virapen, COO, was brought on in November of 2020. He’s worked with Disney’s gaming division, Big Pixel studios, Wooga. The quality of that experience is dubious since he headed up the ‘let’s make apps for Apple watches, it’ll be the next big thing’ department… Lol. Notably also, all of his roles had been in the executive/managerial realm, not the development teams, so the complains might have been about him. THIS IS SPECULATION, but I’m willing to bet that Virapen was a if not THE driving force in switching Fusebox’s focus entirely to matchmaker. All the studios he’s worked with have primarily produced and promoted Match 3 games, and he has a background working with big studios that produce games for large international audiences, not small studios making narrative games for limited audiences.

A new Manager of Finances, Ruth Erskine, was brought on in December of 2020

Rob Goddard, a new producer, was brought in January of 2021

Several key operations positions were filled by existing employees being promoted to management- 2 as far as I can tell. But as a whole it seems like December 2020 was a huge shift in leadership for the upper management while a lot of the other teams expanded but kept their old players as well.

3. At some point in late 2020- mid 2021, the executive team made the decision to switch LITG’s focus from a narrative pass-based game to a Match 3 incorporating romance narrative cut scenes. In early 2021, Fusebox teased more content to come while releasing S3 (seemingly referring to Matchmaker and not S4). In the interim between S3 endings and Boat Party’s release they put out an interview confirming the new game will be Match 3 but did seem to indicate that the plan at that time was for Matchmaker to be a side project with a different development team and not replace the main game. Notably, the LITG writers and artists were reassured that their roles will continue to exist (according to the independent article) as they’re working on S4.

3. In September of 2020, Matchmaker became briefly available in the US. That’s when I first downloaded it, at least. It would be added/removed from the google play store multiple times before having a unilateral release in July of 2021. 

Throughout 2020, Matchmaker is available to Asian audiences solely with LITG S1 getting rolled out in incremental updates. 

Eventually, Beanie Quinn is released (March 2021)

LA Noir is released (May 2021)

Seduction Games is released (late May or June 2021- I got the update and played it June 3rd, but hadn’t opened the app for a month or so. It might have come out before then, which is unfortunate for this timeline since it’s so inextricably linked to the open letter and layoff dates)

LITG S2 is released (only like 20 levels of it) the same month- June 19th for me. Notably, all of these stories are only released to an international audience, with the UK and USA still not having access to the app.

4. At the same time, Fusebox’s internal affairs are pretty quiet from 2020-2021, at least on social media. 

S3 comes out in 2020, Boat Party comes out later in the year and finishes in 2021. Post S3 in October of 2021, a survey goes out gauging player interest in new art styles and representation, which was pretty in keeping with past actions and seemed promising for S4. 

Boat Party features a promising cross promotion implementing irl brands into the game. It’s unclear if enough money was made from this on FB or the sponsor’s end to make that strategy viable, but that might’ve impacted management’s outlook for the profitability of LITG.  

Fusebox teases more content for the summer on Instagram, and then follows up and confirms it’ll be a proper season.

5. More key players leave in early 2021

Ed Sibley is still listed as Narrative Direction on LinkedIn, but he’s not credited as a writer on Season 4 (he was on 3,2,and 1) and started work with NetSpeak games in May of 2021, so we can assume he left around then or at least transitioned away from Fusebox then.

Fred Francis, another writer who had been on the team since S1, turns in his resignation ‘weeks’ before the layoffs were announced in late June. So we can assume he made his exit sometime early June or late May.

6. Prior to the release of Seduction games in May/June, staff expressed concern about the biphobia in Seduction Games. No sources have given a specific time when this took place. They were reassured that the problem would be corrected prior to release, but then the story was released as is to an international audience in June. The article released by the Independent is unclear- there might have been discussion prior to the open letter where staff expressed concerns and then were reassured before the game going live. OR the open letter might have been the first expression of concern by the staff. I tend to think the former, and the open letter was a response to Matchmaker going live with Seduction Games anyways, but I have no proof for that. On May 24th, 31 employees sent an open letter of concern regarding the problematic content in Matchmaker. This letter isn’t public, so we don’t know the scope of the employees' concerns or who the employees were.

7. To resolve the situation, a meeting between the staff and at least the COO (likely more than just him though) was held sometime after May 24th. Allegedly, Virapen was disrespectful to the employees who had questions, refused to answer, and ended the meeting early before any resolution was had by closing his laptop and leaving the room. At least 4 HR complaints were made in the wake of that meeting, we do not know the nature of those complaints. 

8. Some time mid-July (maybe July 26th? A writer tweeted about their job ending soon on that date), employees were made aware that the LITG app would move into ‘sunset mode’. It’s unclear what was communicated, but it seems as though S4 will be heavily delayed or cancelled altogether and no future seasons would be made. Writers begin to post about looking for work on Twitter

9. June 30th- The majority of Fusebox writing staff announce on twitter they’re out of work. In addition to the entire writing staff, unity engineers and producers are also let go.

10. July 5th - Fusebox executives respond to an article by MCVUK with a statement asserting they were “consulting with [their] employees on a proposed change to its business model” that would focus on producing Matchmaker content. They also expounded that the move was to secure “cash injections and and continued support from respected investors across the media and gaming industry”

11. July 6th- Fusebox announces that S4 will be delayed from the summer release date and that there is no fixed release date. 

12. August 2nd- three jobs are posted to Fusebox’s careers page on their website, one being Head of Narrative Content. In the job listing, it specifies that they’ll be maintaining existing properties as well as new ones, and that because of the co-development model (re:fusebox outsourcing Matchmaker to another studio) the new Narrative Lead must collaborate with external content creators.

Hopefully posting this timeline gives players a better understanding of how radically Fusebox has changed in the course of 2021 (and how royally they screwed over the people who made LITG what it is). Again, please let me know if you have receipts showing dates are different or things to add. 

[readerinsertfanfiction]

Appeal

Fandom: Ikemen Sengoku

Character: Masamune Date

A/N: Something different! Not a reader-insert this time, but an introduction to a Cyberpunk world that I built once upon a time, long, long ago. Inspired by @/Yennang’s art.  

I enjoyed doing this, so maybe I will write some more short stories involving this setting with other characters, or maybe Masamune again, for this one is far from done. 

The hum of the motor announced his arrival before he reached the destination. Basking under the sharp light of the neon sign the grave expressions could barely be made out as the driver came to a halt. With a confident smile splattered across he pulled off his helmet, a hand running through wild brown hair.

“Looking rather blue, or is it the light?” Masamune jested, a single eye gliding over the group. He didn’t bother stepping off his vehicle, leaning over his dashboard as he propped up his chin on top of his hand.

“Late, as usual, this will cost you,” another brunette spoke, his tones softer in hue, but his expression graver. It was Hideyoshi and as per usual there was much that displeased him. “We’ve been waiting for an hour,” the male growls to which the other only shrugs his shoulders at.

“I came, didn’t I?” Masamune responds casually, earning a sound from Hideyoshi as he shrugs again, “I expected to be later, got held up for a race at the Central Passage.”

A wild smirk crosses Masamune’s expression as he informs the group, his eye twinkling in delight. It was a good race, from the way the glee beamed off the man it could have been nothing else.

“Besides, what points will be affected? We don’t get rated on punctuality.”

To this Hideyoshi could only sigh, a hand going over his face, revealing four digits at the back of it. A dim light shined through his skin, revealing: 9897.

“What’s that Hideyoshi, did you get into another fight?” Masamune laughs, his chin jutting up in amusement. The other merely rolls his eyes as he huffs, about to say something before he is interrupted.

“Did you win?” a man dressed in black speaks up, his red eyes contrasting starkly against the shadows in which he bathed. Stepping to the side Hideyoshi allowed for the light to fall upon his lord, revealing Nobunaga. “If you didn’t, I demand you return and beat them proper,” he smirks, more interested in the race than the actual meeting and Masamune returns the mirth.

“Nothing beats my buddy here,” the male boasts, a hand tapping the dashboard lightly, causing its lights to flicker awake, sensitive as its design was to the touch of its master, “I send them back to the Scrap.”

It was a satisfactory answer as Nobunaga rose up from his own seat as he stepped further into the center. A tension went through those present, some intimidated, others like Masamune excited.

“We will need your ability to race, the Red Flash has been signalled in our districts.”

The command was clear, the background even more so, and Masamune beamed another smile, a tongue flicking out as he licked his lips, purring satisfactorily.

“He finally dares to reappear, huh?” Revving up his engine the motor roars once more, the distinct growl glowing a dark blue as it floats up, “and what about the Green Light?” he questions, his smile growing wider as Nobunaga only nods, equally as amused.

“Good, I was starting to feel bored,” Masamune smiles and speeds off into the Dome, leaving the group behind.

“I wish he would make the same haste to your summons,” Hideyoshi grumbles, eyes squinting at the characteristic blue light mixing in with the rest. To this the right-hand man only receives a scoff, Nobunaga turning away as he waves the rest off in a dismissive move.

“You forgot to tell him, but there will be new meat arriving,” the leader speaks, carnelian eyes squinting in confidence, his smile sharper than the neon lights hanging above him. “Be sure that the Tiger doesn’t get them.”

To this Hideyoshi can only heave a sigh, knowing the job ahead of him.

The silvery hue that the water had taken on signalled the end of the day, but none of that influenced the flow of time when Masamune entered the Dome. Rows of lights, some being signs, others part of the buildings foundation, or of the basic city plan; angry red, stark blue, poison green, everything came to the mix. Harsh to the eyes, too bright to normally stand, but it was the luminous reality in which they found themselves in. The city Atlantis made no distinction between the hours, and thus there was no rest to be found at the bottom of the sea.

“Masamune,” a voice sounded through the earpiece of his helmet. In the dashboard a fluffy pile of yellow came into view, equally as displeased and unamused as Hideyoshi had been before.

“Masamune,” Ieyasu’s voice sounded again, sharper, as if warning the man, which he probably was.

He was forced to come to a halt in front of a sudden rising blockade, the brakes of his motor screeching loudly as he turned sideways to prevent the vehicle from toppling over.

“You know it is dangerous to suddenly brake at my speed,” Masamune responded, though his voice was far from annoyed.

“Like you ever go slower,” came the snippy response, “besides, knowing you I would have to worry about any sudden altitude adjustments,” Ieyasu continued to complain, a sigh escaping him as the display showed him to roll his eyes.

“Of course I was prepared for that as well,” came the lame admission and Masamune laughed at that, amused at the antics of his friend.

“What was it you needed to stop me for so urgently?” he immediately cut to the chase. Steering the motor off the road Masamune headed for the emergency lane, the front facing towards the glass border that marked the end of the Dome, his eyes heading to the surface of the water, through which the sky above was obstructed, though he knew tonight to be a full moon.

“Hideyoshi wanted to make sure you knew of the new arrival tonight,” the blond spoke, the fuzzy image on the dashboard slightly disturbed from the jammers usually installed at the border.

Observing how the fish sought their resting place in the coral and how the shellfish burrowed themselves in the sand, Masamune let go of a hum in agreement, “I just have to grab hold of our target, right?” he responded half-heartedly.

“It is not a target, but whatever, yes.” Ieyasu’s clipped response was accompanied with another heavy sigh as the dashboard blinked a few times. Immediately after Masamune’s helmet switched on, replacing the seafloor view with that of files.

“How boring,” the male couldn’t help but respond, but straightened up nonetheless, eyeing the information that had been sent over.

“Don’t care, this is the only way to make you read them. Anyway, I’m logging off, Hideyoshi is asking that person to appeal for him.”

Laughing at the clear disgruntlement of the younger male Masamune forced his helmet off, a warning signal immediately lightening up from his dashboard.

“Oh, live a little,” was his only response as he turned the motor over, ignoring the alarm that went off and the buzz at the base of his wrist, warning him of the offense made.

Offense registered: Wilful endangerment of traffic; removal of protective gear - Disciplinary action taken.

Scoffing at the warning on his display Masamune sped up, watching more warnings pop up, an impish smile on his lips as he leaned forward.

“Kojuro!”

Immediately after the summoning a voice sounded through with a sound ‘yes’ from the same speaker as Ieyasu had spoken from earlier. The angry lights on his dashboard disappeared, leaving him alone with the roar of his engine and the buzz of the city.

“Thanks, prepare that appeal for me as well and keep it a secret from Hideyoshi,” Masamune instructed, his smile growing more wicked as he churned up the speed, enjoying the way the air blew through his hair. How he missed the wind blowing through his very being, the fickleness of the weather above. However, there was nothing that could beat speeding through the dome.

“I will do my best, sir,” came Kojuro’s answer, but Masamune knew to trust his underling despite the uncertain words. Kojuro was, after all, the best at what he did and for that Masamune appreciated the man all the more.

Skidding to a halt Masamune put his helmet back on again, switching on the function that would hide his eyes before eyeing the water lift doing its job, the water pushing itself out of the double secured entrance before the last door opened. Leaning over Masamune waited for the signal, eyes trained upon the security guards that stepped into Atlantis first.

Date Masamune

Political Integrity: 7/9 Economic Credibility: 7/9 Social Integration: 9/9 Judicial Credibility: 5/9 Total: 7795

Wild card of the Azuchi group

Fervent racer, usually acts within the capacity of a runner

Owner of Date Conglomerate

Fourth generation Atlantis resident

Kojuro is his second hand and also his corporate lawyer, rip

Usually manages to pass everything by with his brusque charm

He doesn’t mean to break the rules, but the rules break with him

Hideyoshi Toyotomi

Political Integrity: 9/9 Economic Credibility: 8/9 Social Integration: 9/9 Judicial Credibility: 7/9 Total:9897

Right hand man of the Azuchi groupFirst generation Atlantis residentWas picked up on by Nobunaga after which he cleaned up his actThough he still has some anger issuesThe brawler of the group, though usually a nice dudeThey have codenamed him ‘Mother’ much to his dismayWrites most of Nobunaga’s appeals

Nobunaga Oda

Political Integrity: 9/9 Economic Credibility: 9/9 Social Integration: 5/9 Judicial Credibility: 8/9 Total:9958

Boss of the largest conglomerate in Atlantis: Oda corps.

Fourth generation resident in Atlantis

Azuchi is a side project, to keep him entertained

Is privileged and knows it, abuses it at every turn

Ever since the entry of Hideyoshi, Nobunaga’s CCS score skyrocketed

Though despite the efforts he still can’t be arsed about a lot

Main goal is to bring down Atlantis’ current system

Ieyasu Tokugawa

Political Integrity: 7/9 Economic Credibility: 9/9 Social Integration: 5/9 Judicial Credibility: 8/9 Total: 7958

Third generation Atlantis resident, heir to the Tokugawa hospitals

Has faced much of the discrimination that is plaguing Atlantis

Only sided with the Oda out of pure spite towards the CSS system

Specialises in cybernetics and is also an accomplished hacker

Writes his own appeals because he can’t trust anyone

Is everyone’s little brother, much to his dismay

Frequently hacks into the CCS to change their scores within ‘credibility’

[surprisebitch]

Game of Thrones endgame survivors? GO!

AIGHT!! *cracks knuckles* 

oh before this… SPOILERS AHEAD!!! GO SCROLL DOWN PAST THIS POST if you’re still catching up! I dont wanna spoil this awesome series for you. Also if you were not aware, i tag every GoT post as #got and this includes spoilers!!!! 

anyway… this has a Read More link too but i’m not sure if this will be hidden on mobile but yeaah lets gooo

>>>

>>>

Survivors

Tyrion (100%) - i am really confident Tyrion will survive. he has been portrayed as a good character. he’s the black sheep of the Lannisters, so i feel his history and background will give him a good chance of surviving

Samwell (100%) - a healer must survive. he will be the one to write about this Great Winter battle. i also theorise he will be narrating this story in the end!

Bran (100%) - he’s the 3 eyed raven. it’s kinda argued that Bran is actually already dead and he’s just been possessed by a different entity. so yeah, i dont see why he will die when he’s already the omniscient being

Arya (100%) - i am very confident Arya will survive because she is arguably the strongest in combat at this rate. i do hope there will be a showdown between her and the Mountain! I wanna see her kill him but i think it will be a battle between The Hound and The Mountain.. it will be poetic for sure

Sansa (80%) - i have a good feeling Sansa will survive because she is the most passive character. In all survival games and stories, THERE IS ALWAYS A PASSIVE CHARACTER WHO SURVIVES. Also, she is arguably the smartest person in Westeros already. Margaery and Olenna died and they are smart too. Sansa in this way has already embodied the smart people who died including Catelyn, her mother. I don’t see why in a narrative standpoint, this does not make her a logical survivor. That being said D&D are unpredictable too.. So I won’t put 100% survive but her chances are good imo

Jon (80%) - a jock-type of character must survive and Jon fits the bill lol also he has been named a Bastard for too long. He also got resurrected last time so at this rate he probably immortal already. A Targaryen must survive and I dont see any reason why Jon won’t make it. Unless his purpose is fulfilled in season 8 and he dies

Gendry (90%) - i know he will be a key character somehow. He is the last Baratheon right? Maybe he could get married to Arya too in the end

Davos (60%) - he is good-hearted and kind. I would love to see him survive but I am not sure if that will qualify him as a survivor

Missandei (50%) - we need an interpreter to survive!!!!

Dies

Cersei (100%) - it will be Poetic that’s for sure

Jamie (90%) - i have a theory he will kill Cersei then kill himself.. But maybe he gets killed by a Walker from saving Tyrion then there will be bromantic last words from him to his brother

The Mountain (100%) - i want Arya to kill him!!!! David and Goliath style please! but maybe it’s The Hound who will maim him then Arya will deal the finishing blow

Daenerys (90%) - the series has been built as if it was Dany’s story to begin with and she is gonna be the ruler of the Iron Throne. I am not gonna say her journey was easy but Dany had a rather breezy journey. Also, by the looks of it, she could be undergoing a dynamic development where she seems to be the protagonist in the beginning then gets blinded by power. We already saw that she has burned innocent people for refusing to bow down. My theory honestly is she will be the Night Queen or something will trigger her into going mad.

her visions show a throne made of ice and snow.. I really cant see any other explanation to what she saw in Season 2.

Emilia Clarke also described the ending as bittersweet. in this context, it seems that this will concern Dany. at the same time though, i actually liked Dany but we wil see how her story evolves. I do know she will make it until the last episode but she will most probably die.

Beric (90%) - he has been resurrected many times. it’s only fair that he dies eventually. he will die after he fulfills his purpose that’s for sure.

Jorah (80%) - he will die due to his loyalty to Dany. the man is practically IN LOVE

Varys (80%) - “we will die in this foreign place” i believe he said that to the Red Priestess last time. he will surely die. probably from a Walker

Theon (80%) - he also suffered a lot and i believe his suffering will end if he dies tbh and i think it will be an atonement type of death

Yara (80%) - as much as i want her to survive.. she’s gay LOL GoT hates gay people RIP unless they are aware about it and want a token gay survivor.. well that’d be great

Greyworm (90%) - he will die saving Missandei!!!

Brienne (60%) - she has a chance to survive because she is strong but she could die trying to sacrifice her life for somebody

Tormund (60%) - same chance as Brienne. i have a guess theyre gonna kiss later this season lol

Melisandre (100%) - surprise bitch! she will make a return and will die to fulfill her purpose

hmmm i guess that covers everyone??? i had fun answering this!!!

[mannatea]

Kent/Lyn, 12 & 35. Hector/Farina, 50!

Thanks for indulging me, but sorry it took me 90 years to get to it. ;P I made it extra long to remind you of the good ol’ days!!!

Kent/Lyn:

12. who do they confide in when shit hits the fan (besides each other)?

I feel like Lyn is the kind of person to have multiple go-to people, depending on the situation at hand.

She strikes me as an understanding and accommodating friend: there are some things that she just wouldn’t burden Florina with/that Florina might not be comfortable with discussing. Rank probably matters a little bit, here, because some issues don’t leave the room (or at least they stay only with the people in the room), like state secrets or the equivalent, but Florina’s perfect for regular friendship things (especially softer emotional discussions), reminiscing about the good old days, and some good old-fashioned harmless venting.

For angry venting, there’s always Sain and Wil. Sain is the right choice if she wants someone to get angry with her—you know, the supportive angry rant-with-you kind of friend who echoes your sentiment and allows you to have a dialogue with emotion! Wil is best if she wants a more neutral opinion/listener who will offer to help/give advice after the rant is over.

Depending on the setting, Wallace is a good choice for some ranting, too, but I love the thought of him being kind of like an uncle figure to her; he fills in some of the gaps about her mother she never really knew were missing, and had a real love for both of her parents that shows in the way he speaks of them; something she kind of holds onto because nobody else gets it.

Hector’s better for a sparring match than dialogue, but sometimes that’s what Lyn needs to get her mind off of things. I like to imagine he kind of ‘gets it’ when she needs to get out some frustration or something; it’s not anything she needs to talk about, but in absence of that, Lyn is the kind of person who still has to do something. If she’s looking for a word-fight she’ll go to him, too. He’s good for that, and he doesn’t (usually) take it personally.

Eliwood is a hard one to pin down, because it’s hard for me to imagine they’re really that close; I don’t think he ‘gets’ her the way most of the other characters do? He tries, though, and that counts for a lot. Also, he’s a lot like Florina in that he’s trustworthy: a good confidante. If Lyn ever needs personal advice (relationship or otherwise), I think Eliwood would be the right guy to go to for her. He wouldn’t tease or poke fun at her, and that information would NEVER reach anyone else’s ears. Ever. He’d offer diplomatic/polite advice with a smile and with an attempt to understand the situation and any important details first. He’s good at asking the right questions most of the time.

It’s been a long time since I deeply considered Lyn’s relationship to Hausen, but I think right now I’m sort of high-key imagining that they’re almost, like…fake-close? It’s not that they don’t love each other, because I think they do in their own ways, but being related or being interested in getting to know someone isn’t just a ticket to a close relationship. Not only do you have to want that, but you have to be compatible AND willing to take the time to cultivate what’s there. Lyn and Hausen both have tons of the latter, but I’m not so sure they’re compatible.

Her friendship with Kent still matters of course, so his place in this mix is probably a bit of everything, but he’s a high(er)-ranking individual she can confide in about information the others aren’t privy to…and he’s also a very good confidante (he’d rather die than betray her trust). She wouldn’t angry-vent at him too much because rather than just get emotionally hyped with her (Sain) or listen to her and offer calm, friendly advice (Wil), he strikes me as the type who wants to Fix It Right Now—even when that’s not necessarily the appropriate response. He may also kind of freeze up and Not Respond At All (when he doesn’t know how exactly he’s expected to respond), almost as a defense mechanism to avoid Responding Poorly.

–

Then you have Kent. Besides Lyn, he uh…really only has Sain. 

But hey, that’s actually pretty much perfect for Kent. He’s never struck me as the kind of person who enjoys societal pleasure of any kind overmuch. It’s not that he finds it painful so much as maybe awkward? Most of his life has been in service and when he was younger and more impressionable—at the age where you learn to make friends and all that—he was more interested in impressing the adults in his life. Thus, he has only ever had one or two people to talk to about more important personal matters. 

Again, it’s probably for the best. A couple of very serious and important relationships is about his maximum capacity. I don’t think he could maintain a slew of decent casual friendships (the way Lyn can), but also his bar for friendship and what constitutes a friend is very high.

Fiora is a good option for some general commiseration re: failure if he would bother to open up about it, but I don’t think either of them would do so easily. Still, they’ve both been commanding officers and I think that alone gives them something to talk about and discuss. I also feel their general morals line up, so if either of them need a rant about something other people would judge them for, they can go to each other.

Fiora and Sain are both great in that they would have Kent’s back if he needed it, so depending on how shit hit the fan, he could lean on either of them (but more easily on Sain just because that friendship has been years in the making; boon companions and all that).

He has decent relationships with some other people, though. I like to think he still looks up to Wallace, thinks well of Wil, and is on friendly terms with Florina, but I imagine his general acquaintances either stagnate or suffer because he’s not good at multitasking emotionally.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though.

(I didn’t really mention Farina because...eh. I enjoy their interaction and I love writing it, but without a lot of very meaningful buildup, I wouldn’t even consider them friends.)

35. do they have any regrets (regarding the other, or just in general)?

This is a delicious question and a perfect one for Kent and Lyn. Let’s assume their paired ending:

I always take the endings (paired or otherwise) with about a grain of salt. You know: more like suggestions! 

Kent and Lyn’s ending makes a reasonable amount of sense (you may have noticed that some endings just don’t ring true to characterization), but it also manages to be ridiculously open-ended. I guess at least it’s “happy.” (Unlike Canas’s. Damn blizzards.)

Anyway, Lyn abdicates and/or never assumes the throne (I guess there’s wiggle room there), Caelin’s totally fine with being absolved into Ostia (you know this is gonna happen), and they’re so chill about this that they don’t even mind Lyn running off with a former vassal. Maybe they didn’t want her ruling in the first place?

Eh, who knows.

The wording leaves room for questions/interpretative differences and all that, but the basics of it boil down to: they both go to Sacae.

This means they both give up things to go there, but we can’t pretend Kent isn’t the one making the bigger/more obvious sacrifice. He literally gives up everything except Lyn. Which, okay, the scope of it isn’t easy for a lot of people to grasp, but like, imagine leaving everything you’ve ever known and moving somewhere else with what you can feasibly carry with you on horseback.

That might not be too hard. Lots of us have moved across a country or even overseas.

Now imagine doing this, but doing it knowing full well that you may very well NEVER AGAIN hear from the people you’re leaving behind.

And not just that, but you’re leaving everything familiar to you. You don’t know the roads, the trees, the shape of the land, the colors, the smells.

Let’s talk Best Case Scenario! Even if, in good ol’ Fire Emblem-land, where farmers can be knights and all that, Kent comes from a farming background, he’d have left that behind before age 10. Again, on the BCS track, let’s say he retained a bit of that knowledge! Great! He knows a little about living off the land!

But he doesn’t know how to do it the way Lyn might know how to do it. So we have to go back to Lyn. She’s still pretty young herself, and her culture was big on group work; it’s not like anyone did the big chores alone. So Lyn almost surely has at least basic knowledge of what to do/what needs done, but 1) never would have done all of it, because roles were outlined, and 2) after a couple/few years away from it, and without the chance to grow into her role as a woman within her society, how much of the really important survival stuff does she actually remember? (Some of this depends on how old you think Lyn is and if her society felt she was an adult; either way she wouldn’t have been an adult for very long IMO, not enough to function in her society as such.)

There’s tons of stuff to explore here!!!! 

Lyn in Caelin has the same problem Lyn on the plains has: she still doesn’t get to become an adult the way she always would have imagined she would. Her culture isn’t dead, but with less than ten surviving people, the chance of it fully dying out within a generation is huge. She can pass some stuff on to a child, but not everything. It’s not the same. She’s going to have to mourn this, and it may not hit her until she’s out there again and the reality of what’s missing hits her.

She could join another tribe, maybe—in theory, it might be more complicated than that—but their customs aren’t going to be the same. Heck, they might not even speak the same (exact or similar) language. (Would they even accept Kent with her? This could be something Lyn is sacrificing to bring Kent with her.)

Anyway, Lyn gets a little of what she wants going back to Sacae (at least freedom), but she doesn’t get her culture back and she doesn’t get that lifestyle back that she misses.

Kent’s making the bigger sacrifice, though, because nothing about Sacae is familiar to him.

Depending on what they try to do and where they go, it’s really easy to imagine regret existing in little bits and pieces.

Kent strikes me as the sort to very rarely have *deep* regrets. He may oftentimes ‘regret’ doing or saying something, but the bigger decisions he makes are done with conviction and never with haste, so he usually stands by them and his heart allows him peace.

That said, there’s no doubt he has regrets. I like the idea of him having a few regrets about situations where OVERALL he feels he made the best choice, but the regret stems from the negative things that happened because of that choice (having to fight his former peers/allies/teachers, for example, or fleeing and leaving his men to possibly die when Laus attacked). You know, he wanted to have his cake and eat it, too, but he couldn’t have both.

And then we have his relationship with Lyn.

I bet he low-key would have regrets about going to Sacae after-the-fact. Not the *actual* going, and certainly not in loving Lyn, but in not spending more time with his family beforehand, in not being more prepared, not asking enough questions, not bringing more supplies, not learning more of the language(s), et cetera. So much can go wrong out there without a support system. Kent’s not stupid and he’s not helpless, but he only has control over so much, and accidents happen. If they ended up in dire straights and there was little he could do to help...or was even actively hindering progress, he’d blame himself and it’d be a whole mess where he feels like he can’t contribute and he’s worthless, and then he’s depressed and miserable.

Lyn surely has regrets in general (re: her culture and her parents and all that), but I don’t think she regrets anything deeply easily (something she kind of has in common with Kent). It usually takes a lot for her to get that lingering gut-wrenching regret feeling. But you’d better believe if Kent ended up miserable she’d feel it. She’d hate being the cause of anyone she cares about’s personal pain, but it’d be a little extra awful if she’s fairly content out there and Kent isn’t.

I rambled too much and my head hurts so I’m not sure if any of this makes good sense, but I think there’s a lot of room for regret within their lives and even their relationship—especially if things go poorly for them. Not the loving part, of course, but the part where they pursued something and because of that their partner isn’t happy anymore (or accepted anymore, or whatever).

Hector/Farina: 

50. if one of them were to come back after a long time, who would come to who? would it go well? would the other person take them back?

The only one who would probably ‘come back after a long time’ is Farina, because Hector’s pretty much tied to his canton after the end-game, so I gotta go with that.

As to if it would go well or not, well, I’m pretty sure I’ve RP’d like 30 variations on this theme (LMFAO), but the biggest factors are: their relationship with each other, and time.

If Hector was kinda into her and she acted like she was fine with that and then flew off for 10 years and came back trying to act like nothing was wrong... Well, it wouldn’t go well. I mean, not at first anything. (Nothing a good RP couldn’t fix, though. :B)

At that point in time, though, for an example to work with, it’s hard to say if Hector would ‘take her back.’ He may be unable to do so officially (married, busy running a country that’s falling apart at the seams, he has a daughter to worry about) and/or emotionally unwilling to let her back in. (Though this depends a lot on their former relationship and how she left/if she ever wrote to him or visited, if feelings were confessed, a lot of what-ifs, tbh.)

It also depends on how lonely he is. It gets clear that Hector and Eliwood get super busy and don’t even get to see each other regularly after the end of the game, so it’s possible that Hector would desire contact with someone who Gets Him (or at least Gets What He’s Been Through). The FE7 endgame is pretty much the opposite of FE8′s: it’s like nobody even knew it was happening and they gotta go back to their cantons like they didn’t just fight a whole ass dragon; he might be happy to have someone he can talk to about that again (in the event that his former vassals may no longer be in his direct employ and/or Farina fought by his side that day).

[suggestionsofthecaribbean]

Chat: Tia Dalma and Elizabeth (June 9th)

Feat.: Tia Dalma (@tiadalmasuggestions ) and Elizabeth Swann-Turner (@lizzyswann-turnersuggestions)

TL;DR:  girls night at the bog booty bungalow

tiadalmasuggestions  i see you are curious about my jars - i do have an extra liar's tongue, if you'd like some decor for your cabin

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions uhhhhhhh . no but thank you, i'm not really the... home-ec type. [she looks around, realizes that seemed rude] i just don't have the eye for it!

tiadalmasuggestions ahhhh, i see [she rummages around and pulls out another jar] eye of a beloved servant

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions hmm where do you.... get... [thinks better of it] i appreciate your having me; it's been a rough weekand........ boys [gestures at crew members who accompanied her to the shack, generally doing POTC background character things such as poking jars, picking their noses and otherwise being awful]

tiadalmasuggestions [tsks gently] young william and the commodore have been stressful i can imagine - if you wish to keep you fingers you will stay out of those drawers! [crew member jumps back - the chest of drawers shakes and growls???]

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [....not gonna ask]actually he's an admiral now. not a navy admiral though.

tiadalmasuggestions oh? i do not keep up with such things. now, how can i help you ease your mind? mud packs? read the cards?

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions uh... sure!to tell you the truth, i haven't had a friend since i was 18; she got married and moved back to england. i don't really know what i'm doing.i suppose will is my friend, but.... that's different.

tiadalmasuggestions come with me [she walks to a door in the back of the shack] i, too, have not had a friend in many years. i had sisters back in my homeland, and we would ride the surf of the sea together - but i followed my heart to foreign shores have you had letters from her?

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [out loud] big mood oh, a few, here and there... they grew further and further apart as her household grew in happiness. and family members i cannot imagine writing to her now. elizabeth swann, pirate lord now - what have you been up to? remember how we used to take our tea at the salon together? [patented keira knightley Pout]

tiadalmasuggestions it is difficult, when life leads you down different paths, to re-entwine them. my sisters would hardly know me now [she touches her mortal body as though it is still unfamiliar] now, you may strip down to your undergarments if you like [casts off dress and steps into the muddy grove behind the shack]

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions hmm. [thinks, shrugs, doffs clothes, plunks into mud]

tiadalmasuggestions [splashes mud on her face] as you cover yourself, you will find yourself joined into the land and water - your worries become minuscule in the vastness of the world

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions funny, the vastness of the world tends to make mE feel smaller and my worries much larger

tiadalmasuggestions [throws mud on lizzy] you're doing it wrong

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [pout #2] how am i meant to be doing it?

tiadalmasuggestions [spreads her arms wide, coated in mud] open yourself to the forest. hear the spirits communing. feel the moon cast her on you, and know that she adores you [mutters to self] especially since you're her type

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [sinks deeper into the mud] pffft fine. [spiritual understanding doesn't come but hey hot mud baths... nice]

tiadalmasuggestions excellent. now, we wash ourselves in the river - do not mind the cold, or the alligators - they are quite gentle

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions .... are you quite SURE about that??

tiadalmasuggestions [thinks for a moment] ………yes

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [after everything, elizabeth is still more trusting than she perhaps out to be, and decides that after all, tia dalma knows this swamp and river better than she does][wading after her] so, tia dalma.... about this card reading from the other day....

tiadalmasuggestions hmmmm? yes? what about it? [absent-mindedly pets some animal under the surface]

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [jumps slightly away from that side of the water] um. yes. what exactly did you mean by it

tiadalmasuggestions in the past, the seven of cups: many choices and fanciful ideals held before you, and you chose the most fanciful of them all

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions i didn't CHOOSE to become a pirate lord, it sort of got - pushed on me

tiadalmasuggestions in the present, the two of cups: a strong and loving relationship, one that encompasses your soul

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions :/ [guilt intensifies]

tiadalmasuggestions and in the future, the tower: a great calamity, the destruction of your world as you know it but also, a chance to rebuild

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions did you like memorize this

tiadalmasuggestions what use is this modern phone contraption if i don't use it to take photos of the readings??

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions haha right Is this choice before me like... about the fate of the world? or going to take place during a big battle or something, or. is it more of a life or death situation. like about my marriage. do you know?

tiadalmasuggestions who can say? you and william have the touch of destiny about you - what affects you affects the world, and what affects the world affects you

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions well, the second bit, that's true for everyone.

tiadalmasuggestions that is true [she stares up at the clear sky] maybe it will just be a hurricane

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions that's encouraging. :/

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions apart from the cards. do - *you* - have any advice, then? you seem to know a lot about men.

tiadalmasuggestions weather the storm for bright horizons, and be wary of the land. you were not meant for a softer life

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions hmmm. there you go, being cryptic again...

tiadalmasuggestions [a mildly terrifying grin crosses her face] yes, i have known many men, and the ways of men do fascinate me. did you know that they claim the lump in the throat is from an ancestor choking on an apples? [cackles]

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [quietly] i do now. [clearing her throat] and what do you think of... MY men?

tiadalmasuggestions if i thought you could hire a better crew, i would tell you do so. but that's not who you meant, is it? young william loves you with all his dashing heart, but seeks to protect you - but he is the one who truly needs protection and were you a different woman, you could do no better than the admiral - but your paths are parallel, not entwined

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions It's not that I don't love will - or- want to protect him, as it were. I do! I always have! It's just... realizing I didn't know James as well as I thought I did... it changes things...

tiadalmasuggestions [mutters to self] at least it isn't sparrow have you tried talking to both of them about this? sit down in your cabin and work this out? have you considered a menage a trois?

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions oh, absolutely NOT. no french anything. can you even imagine suggesting it to - [remembers who she's talking to] - i can't imagine suggesting it to either of them.

tiadalmasuggestions if you want, i could talk to them

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions i...... actually. you *could* talk to them

tiadalmasuggestions you brought me an ear and some girl talk - the payment is enough [rises out of the river] would you like a hot mudslide? i have some in my house

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [brightening as she considers having tia dalma on her side in this] yes actually [beat]are they actually made of mud?

tiadalmasuggestions no,of course not (not this time)

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions gr8

tiadalmasuggestions would you like any other readings? the crab claws? the cards? your tea leaves?[this how girl time works, right? soak in the water then read each others' fortunes? it's been at least four centuries since she last did this]

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions i'm not trying to be greedy! maybe we could just..... [gallic shrug] talk about boys??

tiadalmasuggestions oh, yes! [thinks deeply] well, davy and i have been texting again it is nice to see his messages, even if i never respond

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions davy-? davy JONES?

tiadalmasuggestions yes, the bae

so sweet i have missed him so

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions you- YOU'RE calypso?

tiadalmasuggestions ……… did you not notice the picture of my mother?

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions .... People say a lot of weird things around me. I've just stopped questioning it.

tiadalmasuggestions that is understandable. yes, i am calypso, bound in mortal bones - and davy jones was my lover

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions Uh...... Wow.....Did he, did he look like that, when you- ?

tiadalmasuggestions no, no, he was more human then. long, flowing hair, lips that tasted of the sea [sighs dreamily] i didn't want to lose him, so i granted him immortality and gave him a job

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [rapt] And?

tiadalmasuggestions because of my gift, he could only set foot on land once every ten years - but i thought i would tease him a bit and not show up standing men up was my thing back then

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions Oh my g- But how could you do that to him, if you loved him?

tiadalmasuggestions he loved me that way, as changing as the tide i gave the man what he wanted

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions But I've seen James' blog!  Obviously he didn't want it that much if he's miserable and moping all of the time!

tiadalmasuggestions but then he got all upset and quit his job and now he looks like [pulls dreads in front of her face and wiggles them like tentacles]he was always that way

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [covers her mouth with her hand] I understand a lot less about love than I thought I did.

tiadalmasuggestions if he is playing the organ dramatically about you, you're doing something right

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions But are you. Either of you... happy?

tiadalmasuggestions you don't have an epic love the likes of which will be told for centuries by being happy [she is an immortal - what is happiness for them but a passing fancy?]

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions Surely that's not entirely true. There have to be... historically.... some love stories with a happy ending....

lizzyswann-turnersuggestions [attempts to think of anything, but Elizabeth was never a big romance reader in the first place]

tiadalmasuggestions [also thinks on romances she once knew, but calypso is a nymph from greek and hera and zeus are NOT a good example] 

[shakingthestars]

To the Antis who “hate Reylo”: Disney/LF will teach us that love (of all kind) is the answer to hate

I. Why “Reylo hate” is non sense in the context of a Disney fairytale

I must admit that until very recently I hadn't realized how much some part of the fandom is so strongly against Reylo and against Kylo's redemption in general. I never really got interested in knowing how other people than openly Reylos see Kylo Ren and his relationship with Rey. But since the release of the trailer, I became interested in people's opinion and I find it incredible to see on tumblr so many people stating "I hate Reylo"  as if hate was the proper answer to their frustration regarding where the story is headed. If I could do one thing to prove you  that hating Reylo ain't a proper answer, I would recommend you to read this wonderful post by @acekyloren:

Anakin, Luke, Rey, Kylo Ren & Balancing the Force: Why Love is the Answer, Not Hate http://acekyloren.tumblr.com/post/166633462695/anakin-luke-rey-kylo-ren-balancing-the-force Seriously, I consider this is the best post I have ever read in the fandom until now because this is exactly the lesson that we - Reylo, Antis, GA - wil be teached by Disney/LF with the ST. Until now, the idea was that the LS and the DS were incompatible and thus balancing the Force for the Jedi meant any trace of the DS. War was always the answer to that mutual "hate" between the LS and the DS.Visceral Antis fail to see that for the time in the main SW franchise, we have two people caught in the middle of this eternal war beteen the DSand the LS like Romeo and Juliet caught in the middle of the war between their families or Tony and Maria from WSS caught in the middle of the war between their clans.

What do visceral Antis want by hating Reylo: that Kylo and Rey kill each other and this eternal war keep going? That Kylo and Rey end up as star-crossed lovers victims of this eternal war?

No way that things end up like this because the ST is a Disney fairytale. And what do Disney fairytale teach the GA?

That love of all kind is always the answer to war:

1) Pocahontas

Pocahontas: "Look around you! This is where the path of hatred have brought us! [Love] is the path I choose"

Pohatam"My daughter speaks with the wisdom of hundred years. We've all come here with anger in our heart! She comes with courage and understanding"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dNqclpMBwQ

2) Lion King 2

Kiara: "A wise king once told me "we are one". I didn't understand? Now, I do!"

Simba: "But they..."

Kiara: "Them? Us! Look at them! They are us! What difference do you see?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRJdmSsXvT

3) TLJ teaser

Luke: "What do you see?" Rey: "Light [Rey’s theme in the background]...Darkness [Kylo’sthemein the background]...A balance..." Luke: "It's so much bigger!"

In a Disney fairytale, love, compassion and understanding  is always  the answer to the eternal war between the Dark side and the Light side. And Disney/LF will teach us this lesson with the ST.

II. Not convinced that Star Wars is a Disney fairytale?  

J.J. Abrams: “You’re going to have a castle, a Prince and a Princess if you look at a fairytale “

There are always three key characters in a Disney fairytale:

- A villain

- A Princess

- A Prince

In a Disney fairytale, the villain is generally a old manipulative mother/father figure who targets a Princess from birth with an evil purpose and achieves her evil plan no matter how the royal family tries to protect her. The villain uses manipulation/trick to make the Princess fall in a trap or keep her under his grip.

Guess who is the Prince(ss)  targeted from birth by a  manipulative villain?

Not convinced?

From the TFA novelization:

He met her eyes steadily. “We’ve lost our son, forever.”

Leia bit her lower lip, refusing to concede. “No. It was Snoke.”

Han drew back slightly. “Snoke ?”

She nodded. “He knew our child would be strong with the Force. That he was born with equal potential for good or evil.”

[...]

He had trouble believing what he was hearing. “So Snoke was watching our son.”

“Always,” she told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.

Doesn’t that remind you of a Disney fairytale ? 

A Princess cursed from birth by an evil witch, sent away by her family to protect her and falling into her trap despite all attempts to protect her ?

Merryweather: “ Sweet princess, if through this wicked witch's trick, a spindle should your finger prick... a ray of hope there still may be in this, the gift I give to thee. Not in death, but just in sleep, the fateful prophecy you'll keep. And from this slumber you shall wake, when true love's kiss, the spell shall break. 

Once you understand that in that story Snoke is  actually  the real vilain, Kylo is actually the Princess who nees to be saved from the “spell” and Rey the Prince who represents the ray of hope , things become more clearer. Then, you understand that Kylo may not be the villain you though he is. He is actually some dark version of Princess Aurora. 

Not convinced? 

Han to Ben: “Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you!”

Earlier in the movie...

Admiral Ackbar: How is it possible to power a weapon of this size (= Snoke)?

Finn: It uses the power of the sun (= Ben). As the weapon is charged, the sun is drained until it disappears.

In which fairytale did we see that?

Rapunzel to Gothel: “I’ve spent my entire life hiding from people who would use me for my power when I should have been hiding from you”

In Tangled: a story of a Princess targeted by a witch named Mother Gothel because her hair have healing power coming from the Sun. For which purpose? To maintain herself young forever!

The relationship between Gothel and Rapunzel is based is  an intimate and exclusive mother/daughter relationship based on manipulation.

In TFA novelization:

When next Snoke spoke, there was an intimacy in his voice, a familiary that stood in sharp contrast with the commanding  tone he hadused with Hux:

“I have never had a student with such promise - before you. The finest sculptor cannot fashion a masterpiece from poor materials. He must have something pure, something strong, something unbreakable, with which to work. I have - you.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeoVFSCzlSY

Call me crazy folks! But I think that the real love triangle isn’t between Kylo/Rey/Finn but between Snoke/Kylo/Rey because Rey is the ray of hope who represents a threat for whatever evil plan Snoke intends to achieve with Ben.You don’t spend 30 years fashioning a masterpiece just for a random reason. Whatever Snoke’s reasons are, he certainly has creepy intentions

And by the way, alot of people consider the interrogation scene as the proof that Reylo is an abusive ship. May I point these parallels:

Friendly reminder that this is how the relationship between the two characters evolved:

Still not convinced that Ben is the Prince(ss) targeted by the evil villain in that story ?

Lor San Tekka (about Princess Leia): “Oh! The General! To me, she is royalty!“

Poe Dameron: “Yes! She certainly is!”

“Once upon a time, in deep winter, a queen was admiring the falling snow, when she saw a rose blooming in defiance of the cold. Reaching for it she pricked her finger and three drops of blood fell.

And because the red seemed so alive against the white she thought, "If only I had a child as white as snow, lips as red as blood, hair as black as a raven's wings, and all with the strength of that rose."

Soon after a daughter was born to the queen and was named Snow White”

Wasn’t Snow White also  targeted by Evil Queen who gave her a poisoned apple?

Another parallel to prove that Snoke is the evil villain manipulating/hypnotizing the cursed Prince(ss):

One last thing for those who think that Kylo won’t be redeemed because of  the patricide:

Which Disney fairytale was based on Hamlet?

Bonus:

Scar: “Tell them who is responsible for Mufasa’s death?”

Simba: “I am...”

Scar : “You see! He admits it! Murderer!“

Simba: “No! It was an accident [...] I am no murderer!”

Later...

Scar: “Here is  my little secret! I killed Mufasa!”

In Disney fairytales, the villain and his evil purpose are  always introduced to the GA at the beginning so that there can’t be any mistake. Had J.J.Abrams kept these lines from the TFA novel in the movie and showed more evidences that Snoke is a SW version of Maleficient, Gothel, Evil Queen, Scar or Frollo, the GA would have certainly interpreted both  the interrogation scene and the patricide scene differently

Until now, Snoke’s purpose remain unclear and it is clear that he hasn’t achieved yet what he intends to do with Ben . To me, it is absolutely clear that he wants something specific from Ben. He has been working with this “pure, strong unbreakable, material “ for 30 years in order to achieve a masterpiece. And we know that he is interested in  Ben’s power made from both the DS and the LS.

You really want the last and only Skywalker heir to pay for his crime and die unredeemed ? Fine! May your wish come true, maybe sooner than you expect because nothing can prevent a Disney villain from achieving his evil plan. If Snoke really wants something from Ben related to his raw power, nothing will prevent him from achieving his evil purpose despite all attempts. Since TLJ is the middle film of the trilogy, the lowest point shall logically happen there. And if you want my opinion, I think that Han’s line may be a foreshadowing for what could potentially happen to Ben by the end of TLJ.

Han : Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you!

What does it means if this happens ?

That Leia who begun her life losing her mother would end her life losing her only son, who by the way share some parallels with his Grandma, not only with his Grandpa

III. Not convinced that Rey represents a “ray of hope” for the Skywalker family?

J.J. Abrams: “In this scene, [Rey] is drawn to this place like Cinderella”

So Rey is set up as a Disney Princess. A lot of people think that her heroin’s consist in finding her family and that her family are the Skywalker. Since she is the heroine, she should  be either Luke’s or Leia’s daughter, right?

If there is one single dialogue to pay attention in regard to Rey’s origins, it is the dialogue she has with Maz Kanata after she found the Skywalker lightsaber.

The whole dialogue hands on a plate her storyarc:

Maz: “Dear child! I see your eyes! You already know the truth! Whomever (her family) you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back”

Who is Rey is waiting for on Jakku? Her birth family! And they never ever coming back for Force’s sake, which mean that she will never ever see them again because they’re most probably dead. If not, why does Maz seems so sorry for her and Rey end up crying like this?

And what did J.J. said about this?

J.J. Abrams: “Rey’s parents are not in TFA!“

Maz: The belonging (family) you seek is not behind (past) you! It is ahead (future)!

 What is the belonging Rey seeks? Her family!

And here comes my point : why do people keep believing that family refers automatically to birth family and not future family ?

If Rey’s birth family is dead, how the fuck is she supposed to find the belonging she seeks?

Because the point of the most important part of her character’s journey isn’t to be reunited with her belonging behind  but to find her belonging ahead

In other words, she may not  have the opportunity to reunite with her birth family but she can still  find a future family.

Who is the main family in the SW franchise?

Some people have problem with the heroin not being a Skywalker:  Who told us that the heroine should be a Skywalker by birth ? In real life, your family is where you come from (birth family) but also where you go (future family). And indeed, you become part of your stepfamily by finding a belonging in your partner.So if the Skywalkers aren’t Rey’s birth family, they can still become her step family.

Maz: “Whomever  you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back but there is someone who still could. The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead”

So if I follow the reasoning that whomever is referring to  Rey’s birth family, then the someone Maz is referring isn’t part of her birth family. And that someone is the belonging she that will allow her to find a family but not the way she expected

Make what you want from this dear Antis but I doubt that such a young  girl like Rey would find in Luke the belonging that will allow her to become part of the  Skywalker family.

Maz: “Dear child [...]I am no Jedi but I know the Force! It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes! Feel it! The light! It’s always been there! It will guide you! The saber, take it! 

This piece of dialogue reminds of this dialogue in a Disney fairytale:

Pocahontas: But Grandmother Willow, what is my path ? How am I gonna find it?

Grandmother Willow: All around you are spirits, child! They live in the earth, in the water, in the stones! If you listen, they will guide you! [...]

Later...

Pocahontas: “[The wind] says something is coming! Strange clouds?

Grandmother Willow: What do you see?

Pocahontas: Clouds! Strange clouds...

You will tell me. Rey is a Skywalker since the Skywalker lightsaber calls to her in Maz’s castle and in the forest

Allright! Then I am coming with this answer!

Maz: “That lightsaber was Luke’s..and his father before him! “

And once again, here an interesting parallel with the Disney fairytale Pocahontas:

Pocahontas: “I have been having a dream [...] I am running into the woods! In front of me there is a arrow! It starts to spin! It spin faster, faster and faster until it stops

Grandmother Willow: “Seems to me that this spinning arrow is pointing down to your path! “

Later...

Pocahontas: “Spinning arrow...

Grandmother Willow: “It is the arrow from your dream!”

Pocahontas: “I was right! It was pointing to him! “

Friendly reminder that the compass belongs to John Smith. You will tell me: but in Pocahontas 2, Pocahontas fall in love with another man!

It dooesn’t matter.  J.J. also refers to Rey as Cinderella and  the same scheme applies very well.

Cinderella running away from the castle without her shoe vs. Rey running away from the castle without the Skywalker lightsaber

One last thing from the canon serie Clone Wars:

Anakin to Padme: “To me, there is nothing more important than the way I feel about you [...] You don’t believe me? I’ll prove it [...]  When I finished constructing my lightsaber, Obi-Wan said to me “Anakin! This weapon is your life!”This weapon is my life! [...] It is yours! Believe me now?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJX7T1BAV7M

IV. Still a doubt about the identity of the Prince?

J.J. Abrams about the unmasking :

“You see Adam Driver and he looks like a Prince”

J.J. Abrams about Kylo and Rey’s meeting:

“ And this moment where she is about to, for the first time, be confronted by Kylo Ren, a character who she’s going to have a very interesting relationship with moving forward. […] 

Both J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson refer to Kylo and Rey as “two disparate pieces coming together” and “two halves of the Dark and the Light”.

Rey: “I need someone to show me my place in all of this”

Kylo: I can show you the ways of the Force!

J. J Abrams: “So there was a very powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging (=family) , which she’ll get, but just not how she expects.”

Make what you want from this but I have never seen a Disney fairytale in which the Prince and the Princess are siblings or cousins for Force’s sake! Once you understand that Snoke has the role of the villain, Kylo of the “Princess” and Rey of the “Prince”, things become clearer.

So to all of us - especially the Anti who "hate Reylo" - I hope LF/Disney will teach us the lesson with the ST that love of all kinds not hate  are the answer. And obviously, this lesson  is needed given how the war and hate between the different Star Wars ships has been going for two years. Ship whatever you want and respect the others

[mandabear72]

Okay, so, I finally managed to go back and re-watch all of Who killed Markiplier. And honestly…..I’m still just as confused, but not angry about it any more. This is just my personal stance on it. You can take it or leave for what it is.

I feel like I picked up on a few things that I didn’t the 1st time around (even a couple of things that they might’ve intended to edit out in post or didn’t catch), but overall, still very confused. It leaves you with more questions than it answers and while no, it doesn’t need to answer all of them, it could’ve answered all of the main ones. Perhaps I’m a bit biased in wanting answers. I just really don’t do theories and having actual facts or concrete evidence mean more to me. Some might consider it boring or a buzzkill, but I’d rather know something’s legit than to grasp aimlessly for straws on a topic and then wind up being completely wrong about it.

Tbh, if I look at everything before the final chapter, it’s actually pretty good. I liked the filming and transitions, the effects and music placement were good, and I can even take some of the offbeat humor for what it is (i.e. The Jims, The Detective at times, etc). Even the bits where Mark dives head first into self-deprecating meta through The Colonel took me aback, as cringey as those moments were to watch. It’s just the ending itself that’s just so…..I dunno. I think Mark and his crew had something with the concept, but there’s something about it that left me feeling like it wasn’t all together.

Maybe one of the reasons why the ending was so bluh and angering for me is because I feel like I got cheated through false advertisement. I was actually expecting a Who-dunit when the 1st video came out and was excited about that since those are fun. A couple of friends I talked to even likened it to Clue at first. But then when I find out that the “mystery” was a red herring, the murder never even mattered, and was supposedly a guise for an origin story to Wilford and who I personally dub Darkiplier 2.0 (because this Dark we’re seeing is of Mark’s creation, not ours), it just feels a little ungratifying. I can accept that it’s not a Who-dunit now, but at the moment, it was a huge let down. I still question whether this was canon or not, but if it was, I’m rejecting it.

Like, shit’s already hit the fan with the murder of Mark goin’ down, but then there’s additional shit joining alongside the still drying shit that’s previously hit with the introduction of the Seer. I’d comment on the romantic connection with Mark, The Colonel, and Mayor Damien (theorized by others in the fandom); but honestly if that’s also true, the whole affair is soap opera levels of ridiculous and it’d be too easy to take pot-shots at it. If anything, she didn’t help at all and her character’s shady as fuck. Affiliations aside, this thing has a lot of questions it never answers and that can’t really be answered properly through theorizing: 

What the fuck happened to Mark’s body and Selene’s (dunno if that’s how her name’s spelled)? 

We don’t know what she did that landed Damien in the Spirit world in the first place when the others went to talk to the Groundskeeper. 

What the fuck was up with the crib in Mark’s room and do we really have time to throw a kid into the mix of this already complicated backstory?

If everyone was supposedly at Mark’s place dubbed “Markiplier Manor”, then why did The Colonel make the comment “I will NOT be called a murderer in my own home!” toward the end of the 2nd video? 

How the hell did Selene know when to show up? If she sensed or “foresaw” that something was wrong, wouldn’t she have also sensed that Mark died?

That shit with the newspaper saying “Safari gone wrong”….I’m gonna put aside theories I’ve heard some people say about a potential kid killed during that and focus on the headline above it. It says “City Mayor is secretly a demon in disguise?”. Is that supposed to be foreshadowing or something to lead us on another theorizing goose-chase for answers? 

The series suggests between The Colonel, Mark, and Damien, one of them “stole” their wife. If it was Mark, I can buy that as a motive for revenge for the Colonel. However, it still fails to mention exactly what else Mark did to fuck over everyone else. 

At the end, Damien suggests while in the spirit world that Mark is somehow in Damien’s body. Damien and Selene seem to be in the character’s body. But who the hell is the character? Because they have the same jacket and shirt as Damien, sans the white flower, tie, handkerchief, and mayoral pin. 

When the image changes in the mirror, is it like a portal of sorts? Does the other person get trapped inside and it’s just Damien and Selene walking around in the character’s body? 

But also, if we’re humoring this and saying Mayor Damien is Darkiplier 2.0 and The Colonel is Wilford Warfstache, how’d Wilford get the warbly accent of his? Because that’s not present in this at all as The Colonel.

And lastly if say it IS canon…..what the fuck’s up with “Markiplier TV” then? If Darkiplier 2.0 truly is the manifestation of Damien’s rage and Selene’s powers (which are also NEVER explained), why the fuck would he be working with Wilford in any manner other than to lull him into a false sense of security and exact revenge on him? He wouldn’t even still have any respect for him after everything that happened despite being friends once and yet in that same video you hear him saying “Look, Wil. I respect you. I always have….” soooo…what’s real here? What’s fake? 

Regardless, it definitely brings the focus back to Wilford and Dark 2.0. Putting this under consideration…..where exactly do they stand with each other? Because it’s kind of a cop-out to say that Dark 2.0 pities Wilford and keeps him alive out of said pity. Once again, if this really is canon, it feels like it takes a lot of the bite out of them as to what was previously established about these two; leaving you in a position to feel sorry for them. But I believe the main reason why the ending felt crappy was that this origin story was completely unnecessary. I felt like it robbed both Wilford Warfstache and Darkiplier 2.0 of an opportunity to be bad guys just for the sake of being bad guys. While villains should have something that makes them relatable to some degree, not EVERY villain or bad guy needs this. People have done evil or shady shit all the time and they don’t always have a sound reason let alone a reason as to why other than they wanted to. 

To me, we didn’t need to know how or why Wilford became who he was. I was perfectly fine with him just existing and willing to take him at face value since he’s such an interesting character to watch…….I know he’s a psychotic, trigger-happy, morally-ambiguous bastard who honestly should come with a warning and leave with a referral to his nearest therapist/psychiatrist ASAP. I also know he’s fucked up despite meaning well MOST of the time, but….that’s what I love about him. I love the pepped-up, cotton candy psycho and his zany charm. 

I can also take Dark 2.0 at face value as being evil and manipulative, too. Somehow, I wish I could say the last part about him, but even with this new info of an origin story, it still makes it hard to like him or have full sympathy for him (though I already have issues with his existence to begin with that I mentioned in my initial reaction about the series). Does it make it understandable? Sure, I can understand his background and why he is the way he is, but it doesn’t justify his actions (or Wilford’s). I suppose I could sum it up as….I see Wilford as more of a redeemable character than Darkiplier 2.0 should there ever BE a chance for redemption later on. But as weird as that is….a part of me kinda thinks that’s the point??? 

Darkiplier 2.0’s never MEANT to be a redeemable person, let alone a LIKEABLE one. If I’m ripping a quote from Mark from a past livestream, he said of Dark: “He’s a social manipulator. He is literally, 100% manipulative. He leads you into this false sense of security, and he wants you to trust him because he wants to take advantage of you.” And while this shit with Who killed Markiplier left me confused as fuck and made me wonder if Mark intended for us to gain further understanding of these characters or garner our sympathy for them through a “tragic backstory”, maybe he just wanted to tell a story….granted, it was one that could’ve been executed better in plot and that I wish wasn’t so convoluted or such a headache to make sense of, but a story nonetheless. 

I WILL say this though: Despite my criticisms about Who Killed Markiplier?, I am surprised about some of the approaches taken to make it when they’re done right and I can genuinely appreciate the effort to do something different. Maybe this might lead to something else in the future, or maybe it won’t. But if it means we’ll see something LESS heartbreaking for one of the characters, then, we’ll see what happens.

[scriptflorist]

Guest Post: Low-Effort/Depression Gardening

Originally written as a reply to this post, which featured an anonymous asker with an unmotivated character that likes to daydream… and has a garden. Mod Jana wasn’t sure if that combination would work, but I have experience in that area and I’m 100% sure that it can! (Terminology won’t be too accurate, sorry. I’m an amateur, and this kind of gardening is a lot less professional than florist-level stuff and mostly by feel.)

Hey everyone! Mod Jana here. This is our very first guest post that @acosmic���  was so kind to write and plenty helpful for anyone who wants to add a low maintenance to their story. Now don’t sell yourself short dear, you did really well. It’s an excellent post!

The key to low-effort gardening is having the right plants for your area (which I can’t cover) or having “generic” plants that grow well in most areas (which I’ll recommend to the best of my ability).

Your character will want perennials instead of annuals (differences explained here). If they’re starting a garden from scratch, they’re going to want to buy established plants from a greenhouse or garden centre, or get plants from people they know. It’s instantly gratifying and lower-maintenance than planting seeds.

Very good link. Easy to read and understand. A side note since tulips are mentioned: don’t water bulb plants till they’re almost in full bloom. The purpose of a bulb which is to store water, so for the first bloom the plant’s all good and then once a week should be fine. Take care to keep the bulb dry if it shows and water around it or from below if it’s potted. Also a lot of shrubs count as perennials.

The most strenuous part of gardening for your low-effort (or spoonie!) gardener will be planting things, which they can spread out over a few days. (A tip: growing plants around the edge of the yard is visually pleasing and means you don’t need to pull much grass up in order to put the plants in.) Get vegetable seeds put in early in the season, and the other things can go in whenever. Plant flowers/shrubs from back to front - tall plants one day, medium the next, and small the day after. Weed as you go.

The downside of a low-maintenance garden is that your character won’t be able to grow florist-quality blooms or special varieties. (Think large, fragrant roses - those are often picky and need lots of fertilizer, and you have to cut them off and re-bury them deeper in the winter. Fuck, no. Too much effort. We’ll leave that to florists’ suppliers!) Their garden is probably going to be a bit messy because they won’t put in the effort to have it be meticulous.

After everything is planted, your character will need to water once every couple of days with a sprinkler for 10-20 minutes, remove dead foliage, and weed in and around the plants. That’s all! No re-planting the next year if they’re perennials, either. Just water, weeding and waiting for things to come up.

I have to cut in here, because watering is at the end of the day very much dependable on the climate, weather, planting location and whether or not a plant is properly rooted. Generally your plan should work for most climates I think, this is just in case. There are a lot of factors your character wil sometimes have no influence on which can influence how much water it’ll need. As a rule of thumb: sun and wind dry the ground and shadowy places keep it wet.

Here are some fairly standard plants, all of which I’ve grown myself in a hot/dry climate. (Brief growing details past the basics are included.)

Indicator plants:

These are the ones that your gardener character will use to remember to water the other ones. They’ll wilt when they need water, and bounce right back after. Nice! (But they’re annuals.)

Basil. Grows nicely in pots. Smaller leaves taste better, and you need to pinch off the flowers or they’ll stop producing leaves. Good in pretty much everything savoury.

Strawberries. Pick when fully grown and just eat them off the fucking plant because you’re not going to have enough to bake anything, and they’re way smaller than commercially grown strawberries. (They can be bought in hanging baskets, so you don’t need to plant them OR weed them.)

Large flowers:

Lilies. Lily plants become larger by growing new bulbs that are connected to the previous bulbs in an underground system of tubers. Your demotivated character probably won’t want to split them (“splitting” refers to cutting the plants apart, usually to move them), and will end up with lilies in clumps like this after a couple of years of growth. Upright/tiger lilies, on the other hand, grow in single stalks, don’t make clumps, and don’t spread as much or as fast. Mod Jana says: Lilies are highly poisonous to cats. If your character has one I would recommend asking google which other plants are toxic for their favourite feline. It is not something we learn as florists and my understanding is that not every vet knows either.

Irises. Like lilies in terms of growth and care (they all clump without splitting). They’re all easy to grow, even the fancy-looking ones.

Hardy roses. Emphasis on “hardy”! They’ll have smaller blooms than the roses you’d buy from a florist, and won’t be as fragrant and symmetrical. Your character will probably want a bush-type rose rather than a climbing one because climbing roses need to be tied onto the thing they’re going to climb, which is a pain. Mod Jana says: This might be because I come from a very rose friendly climate, but to my understanding all roses are hardy. At least they should be in most of the warmer and temperate climates. Hardiness is a wanted quality, and there’s no reason to breed it out, so my guess is this is more of a climate situation here in most cases than someone breeding out their hardiness.

Peonies. Deceptively frilly, but very low-maintenance after they’re established. Without much water, they won’t take planting/transplanting well - they’ll wilt and won’t produce blooms. It’ll take a couple years for them to get comfortable. (Or, have your character use fertilizer and water them well. Learn from my mistakes.) Plunk a tomato cage around them early in the season, because otherwise, they’ll flop like this. Mod Jana says: Peonies are awfully pretty but take some maintenance as cut flowers. So your character should keep them on the shrub, just in case. But maybe the neighbour knows how to keep them alive?

Smaller flowers:

Clematis. They climb. Your character can literally just leave them on the ground if they’re not up to tying them to a trellis, and they’ll grow on the ground. They’ll have lighter, smaller blooms and only get a couple feet tall if they aren’t watered often, but they’re still cute. They flower all summer, even though they’re perennials!

Pansies/Johnny-jump-ups. They’re like cute little weeds, and often pop up literally wherever. Great for filler, and pansies are edible (if grown organically!).

Brown-eyed Susans/Shasta daisies. Tall, with strong stalks - and they expand massively and you’ll end up with a ton of them after a couple of years. Great for background - put them behind your irises/daisies and let them grow along the fence line.

Bluebells (Scottish). Tiny, but hardy. In a couple years one tiny clump can grow to fill the edge of a ~6-foot berm. Good for edges and growing in rocks.

Lilacs. Fancy bushes, with fragrant flowers in spring. It takes them a couple of years to get past fence-height, so they don’t need much pruning. Good in/along fences, to add privacy.

Other fruits/veg:

Raspberries/blackberries. Blackberries are seen as weeds in the PNW. Both are prickly, get gigantic off of rainwater and sun alone, and spread like crazy unless they’re controlled (easiest done with concrete pads to block their path). Raspberries will stop producing fruit if it’s not picked, so make sure your character eats them!

Rhubarb: Needs a year to get established, and then gets giant. Very edible - try pies or crisps.

Summer squash/zucchini: Plunk the seeds in the ground and let them go. They’ll get giant (think ~12-inch squash) if you let them grow for a couple of months, but they taste better if picked small. 

Mint: I’ve grown everything on this list except this one, but it’s like a weed and needs to be held back. It’s a small-sized bush.

Re: anon’s character, the brown-eyed Susans are nice to stare at while daydreaming, and putting in the effort to grow some fancy roses would be a pretty bomb way for her to confess to her neighbour! (wink). This is all realistic information, so you could totally skew it for your character’s flower power.

I hope this is an okay response. Sorry, it got so long!

- post by acosmic

Thank you very much, dear!

[oathkeeperoxas]

everywoman letter

Hey there, thanks for checking out my letter! Everywoman only accepted & nominations for pairings between characters, so I’ve listed down below which pairings I ship and which I only see as gen. Gen for all nominated characters would be fine though!

General likes: Worldbuilding, queer characters and queer characters being normalised aka them being queer is not the focus of the fic, fight scenes and fighting banter, established relationships!!!!!!, daemon AUs, soulmate AUs, pining, outside POV, social media fic, post canon fic, femslash, violence and blood as long as comfort follows the hurt. I really love some plot - doesn’t have to be deep or anything, just a solid storyline is great. Including original characters is also great!

General dislikes: fake dating, marriage of convenience, miscommunication (pining ect okay but I hate it when fics make me wanna rip my hair out due to stupid decisions to not talk to each other), NSFW or really any implied sexual content, character bashing, unhappy endings. If you’re going to write a trans character please don’t misgender them.

Worldbuilding prompts/ideas here!

Other letters for other exchanges

---

Kingdom Hearts

Fandom likes: Riku is FTM trans, Roxas or Xion or Ven or Van lurking in the background/influencing Sora’s actions while they’re still in his heart, Sora crying, drive forms, keyblades!!, Van remembering KHUX events, SORIKAI, Nobodies being treated like the really fucking scary/dead things that they are, Roxas being OP, the Oathkeeper and Oblivion (the keyblades and their symbolism). I love Roxas a lot. If you could include him, I would really be over the moon.

I’ve played KH3, and unless you’re going to be doing some canon fixing, I’d prefer if you stayed away from it. Fixing KH3 would be very, very welcomed though!!

Kairi

Ships: Kairi/Riku or Kairi/Riku/Sora only please!

Fav gen relationships: Kairi & Naminé, Kairi & Riku & Sora, Kairi & Aqua

Kairi deserves so much more screen time then she has, so if you’d help fix that problem I would be very grateful! I love how wilful and stubborn she is, and she’s peak rowdy girl if I’ve ever seen one.

Kairi in between KH1 and KH2? What did she feel like, knowing that there are other worlds out there but not telling anyone else? When she’s the only one who knew Riku didn’t perish on the play island the night of the storm, but she’s not certain about his fate at all? And that vague sense of maybe thinking there’s another boy out there that she’s forgotten? And maybe coming to terms with her feelings for Riku, but somehow feeling like there’s something still missing? (her feelings for Sora)

Post KH2, how did she react to her boys coming home? Or, did she go with them to fight Xemnas in the world that never was? Honestly she should have been in that battle as well

Aqua

Ships: No ships for Aqua please!

Fav gen relationships: Aqua & Terra & Ven, Aqua & Kairi, Aqua & Riku

Angsty time with Aqua in the Realm of Darkness would be very appreciated. If you expanded on some things the games glossed over – does she need to eat/sleep? Does she get tired or is she always tired? How does she feel? I love that 0.2 is basically a game about depression, because seeing those sorts of themes in video games are very rare. How does she feel about the phantom Aqua?  She misses her friends, but how does that show in her bearing? If you’d like to run through other worlds that weren’t in 0.2 or the end of BBS that would be totally cool as well.

Aqua coming home after KH3, she’s still brittle and broken and she can’t really relate to Terra or Ven or anyone anymore (besides maybe Riku and Lea) and it’s hard for her because she wants everything to be okay again. Feel free to just totally ignore the end of KH3 or just write everyone as surviving it with no other details!

Xion

Ships: Xion/Naminé is my only ship for Xion

Fav gen relationships: Xion & Roxas, Xion & Vanitas

Some fix it fic of KH3 where her coming back actually is explained and makes sense would be amazing! Feel free to either not put her on Xehanort’s side at all or have her defect earlier or anything you’d like

I like to think that everyone in Sora’s heart was conscious and got to bond with each other there, so Vanitas is Xion’s big brother and he would protect her from Xehanort with everything he has. Anything about him being protective would be very welcome

Xion has Oblivion for her Keyblade!! And Roxas has Oathkeeper. It really makes no sense in KH3 how Roxas still has 2 Keyblades, because in canon it’s one Keyblade per heart.

Xion & Naminé

Ship fic for this pairing would be great!

Something set during Days when Naminé is explaining everything to her? Instead of some random Nobodies cutting their conversation short, they can talk for as long as they want. How do they connect with each other?

Xion being the one to restore Naminé to her body with a really strong memory! And all the symbolism that comes with, since Xion was made to steal memories and Naminé can change them!

Kairi & Naminé

PLEASE no ship fic for this pairing, I see them as siblings

Sisterly bonding… How does Kairi react to having someone in her heart that she doesn’t actually know? Does she want to get to know her? Can they talk? Can she feel Naminé? Does Kairi start to want to draw post KH2?

Aqua & Kairi & Naminé

No ship fic for this pairing either thanks!

Aqua restoring the Land of Departure was… too easy. Gimme Aqua ascending through the floors of Castle Oblivion, searching desperately for Ven, but all her past being thrown back in her face. Is she more able to cope with it due to the events of 0.2, or does that make it harder? Kairi and Naminé going along (either with Naminé trapped in Kairi’s body or just restoring Naminé earlier, I don’t mind any explanation you give, or none at all!), and Naminé having some hard flashbacks to her time here and Kairi trying to balance everything out but her traumatic memories also getting thrown in her face would be great.

Just all the girls bonding with each other. I actually like to think that Kairi’s Keyblade is Aqua’s, and that Riku found it in the Chamber of Repose to give to Kairi in KH2 (that explains where he got it from, anyway). What happens when Aqua sees it and recognises it, and kinda wants it back actually? How does Kairi summon her own, unique Keyblade? What does it look like? And let’s be real, Naminé should have a Keyblade as well since Aqua gave Kairi the power when she was younger. If that logic applies to Roxas and Xion, it should apply to Naminé as well. Do the sisters call their Keyblades at the same time? How are they different?

---

Fire Emblem Heroes

Fandom likes: Fjorm. I love, adore, and cherish Fjorm. If you write me anything about her, I will love it. Besides that – please only use they/them pronouns for the Summoner. I like Fjorm being OP, soft ice siblings and ice siblings in general and fix it fics where everyone lives. I would prefer the Summoner to be written just like any other character, not as a self-insert – so third person POV please.

Fjorm

Ships: Fjorm/Summoner, Fjorm/Laegjarn, Fjorm/Laevatein

Fav gen relationships: Fjorm & Ylgr & Gunnthra & Hrid, anything between Fjorm and any of her siblings, Fjorm & Laegjarn, Fjorm & Laevatein

How did Fjorm get Leiptr? Hrid is the one who gave it to her, but how did he convince her to take it when she thinks he’s the better one to wield it?

Legendary Hero: what does that mean for Fjorm? How does it separate her from the rest of the Heroes that are summoned by the Summoner?

Ice siblings!! What sibling in jokes do they have, how do they act around each other in private vs in public, who is the most protective of them, who is the most relaxed, who is the one to prank everyone else… just, ice siblings.

Fjorm & Laegjarn

Ship or gen fic is good!

Fix it fic where Laegjarn doesn’t die?? Fjorm uses the powers of Nifl to balance the powers of Múspell? And that binds them together magically, so now they have to learn how to deal with it, but instead fall in love with one another?

I’m making an exception in my ‘marriage of convenience’ dislike for this pairing because the potential for pining when they’re already married because of political reasons is sooo delicious.

Or, what if they manage to set up a peace treaty between the two countries but develop feelings in the middle of it because of how much time they’re spending together, and then don’t want to act on anything because it might upset the balance? The potential for pining would be very good!!

---

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Fandom likes: Vala lives!!!, Aloy interacting with Old World tech, GAIA Prime being rebuilt, TFW characters interacting with base game characters, Aloy being a big lady lover!!!, Vala interacting with other characters (especially those in the cut), Aloy introducing Varl or Vala to old world tech, striders and just machines in general befriending Aloy when she overrides them, normal people’s reactions to Aloy’s actions, Aloy being a living legend

Vala

Ships: Aloy/Vala only please!

Fav gen relationships: Vala & Varl

Vala getting taken from the game so early was a literal crime and one of my only gripes with this game. Fix it fic where she lives, please!

Vala and Varl probably competed for their mother’s attention when they were growing up, what with her role as leader of the braves taking up most of her time. Did they bond over that or was it a point of contention between them? 

As adults, how to Varl and Vala interact with each other? I’m a big sucker for protective sibling relationships!

What does Vala think about Aloy’s involvement with old world tech. Yeah she’s a Nora, but I’d like to think that since she’s close with Aloy, she’s not too uncomfortable with it

Aloy & Vala

I would love ship fic for this pairing!

THE LOVES OF MY LIFE, I adore them both so much, literally anything you write about these two would be so amazing. Like seriously.

Anything from the game from Vala’s POV instead – the Proving (and her living through it) or any of the Nora fight scenes either in the Sacred Lands or at the final battle. If Vala is one of the braves to go to Meridian, does Aloy show her around the city? Or around the surrounding areas, or just on adventures with her in general?

Vala learning to trust Aloy, and Aloy learning to trust her. Both of them got on extremely well as soon as they met, but I’d love to see this build into a deeper understanding and trust that’s based on respect and shared experiences and covering for each other in battle.

Vala in the Cut and her reactions to what happened in TFW – meeting Varga and CYAN, or even just huddling with Aloy for warmth in the cold ;)

Aloy & Nakoa

Either gen or ship fic is fine for this pairing

Do they meet up in Meridian after Aloy frees Nakoa? Does Nakoa offer to treat Aloy to this great food place she found, and do they end up wandering the night away through the streets of Meridian, just talking?

Nakoa and Aloy both come from the Nora, but I think they’d have different views on the tribe – after all, Nakoa can’t go back but probably would like to, and Aloy can go back but might not care all that much if she couldn’t. How do they talk about that?

Aloy & Aluki

Either gen or ship fic is fine for this pairing

I love the dynamic between these two, they’re two huntresses who love the hunt. I can imagine them hunting prey, and hunting each other. I think it’d be really interesting to see a relationship play out between the two of them and how that would develop.

I can’t imagine them travelling together (but maybe you can!) so they would have some version of a long distance relationship where they only met up sporadically but passionately. I really like Aluki so any characterisation you do for her would be appreciated.

Aloy & Ikrie

Either gen or ship fic is fine for this pairing

I’d love interactions between Ikrie and other Banuk, and Aloy trying to mediate between them but none of the Banuk having a bar of it because Ikrie doesn’t belong to their, or any, werak. Ikrie being her stubborn but amazing self over the issue, and asking Aloy to show her around Carja/Nora lands instead.

Ikrie being a hopeless lesbian would be great, and Aloy being oblivious to both her own feelings and Ikrie’s feelings and both of them just pining away would be very appreciated.

The two of them being skilled hunters and having the world at their feet!

I’d also love Ikrie thinking of Aloy as her shaman in their werak of two, and I adore nonbinary Ikrie headcanons like to an intense degree.

[rockymountaingothic]

yo o o whats happening

I think a Guy Ritchie Raffles movie would be good ?

I don’t think he’s gonna, because ultimately it’s too similar to sherlock holmes which he’s already doing great with. But if he did, out of necessity it would walk talk and shoot gun differently. Probably more in the vein of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. with the expensive clothes and cars and high stakes sneaking around (napoleon solo even has the thief background so hyeah if you didn’t like his holmes adaptations pls go watch that)

And that would be amazing, right??? Holy fuck the dude makes crime movies /it’s what he does/ i would absolutely kill to see him take on /the gentleman thief/ archetype the way he took on /the secret agent/ in the man from uncle. here are some things raffles has that he has already demonstrated great use of in his other films

Morally ambiguous characters

Characters who are unbelievably good at one thing, usually a crime thing, and are flawed in almost every other way

Assholes who do shitty things but are so charming you can’t help but root for them

Usually because they’re up against someone who’s also on the wrong side of the law but also kills puppies or whatever, y’know. worse than them in some way

Narration

Card game scenes

CRIMES

Say what you will about RDJ as Holmes but that depiction of Victorian England kicks my ASS EVERYtime i watch game of shadows

So with that in mind here are some things I could see him doing and basically my version of a good Raffles adaptation by Guy Ritchie, and me, AJ

The movie starts with Wilful Murder, told as a pretty short introduction sequence. this shows us what their lives are like - as well as sets up the main conflict of the movie; their reputations are constantly in danger because of their activities. Raffles likes to think he isn’t above killing to prevent their exposure, and Bunny would follow him anywhere. But there’s no tension or suspense, because they fuck up climbing over the fence, they fuck up breaking the window, and they both trip over Angus Baird’s body and are extremely relieved like oh thank god.... thank fucking god he’s already dead (we realise yeah... these guys are kinda fuckin it up at the burglar thing...)

from upstairs, somebody shoots at them and BAM! TITLE SEQUENCE! Full of still frames and short slow mo clips of them rushing away from the house pursued by a gang of ruffians who had other beef with angus baird over idk a franz ferdinand song or something like that? what do the kids listen to these days. there are explosions, not sure why

dunno what the plot is but it involves at least three break ins, each zanier than the last, it probably takes some notes structure wise from Mr Justice Raffles but eh

Raffles probably has a threesome with Teddy and Camilla? just sayin

Inspector Mackenzie is there in like, a zenigata capacity and SHE’S BEAUTIFUL

Bunny does some voiceover but get this, it’s in the context of letters he’s writing to Miss Carruthers because that sounds like some movie shit they’d do! right!! she’s in the movie and she has a GUN

They play card games because it’s a guy ritchie movie but maybe we can work in that adorable thing from the show where the stakes are candy-based . huff. hff. charactersizaation.

I think Raffles’s sister helps them get out of a jam mid-movie. I’m just throwing in all the ladies i can

Cursing ( a lot )

Did i mention gun

JUST watch me I’m gonna write this whole thing just to prove a guy ritchie style raffles movie could be good

Bunny doing a voiceover of some burglary shop talk, explaining in detail how something is supposed to work, then as we see them doing it everything goes completely wrong and along with being funny as fuck its very becoming of Bunny as an unreliable narrator

a shot that shows you the inside of a lock as it’s being picked probably

like a slow motion fight scene between two people who don’t really know how to fight would be pretty great lmao

and then it ends with a gift of the emperor/knees of the gods style sacrifice and we realise Raffles was a selfish dick, but in the end he helped Bunny in the only way he could: by removing himself from his life

and Bunny is having a moment by himself like dear god he really did care and Raffles crashes through a window and dusts himself off like “back”

Roll credits

The best thing about what he does when he adapts is that he takes stuff like the characters and setting of the whodunit holmes stories and spy/action man from uncle and gives them a sense of humor about what they are- so yeah, maybe when you think about sherlock holmes your first thought isn’t greasy iron man kicking a guy so hard he flies 20 feet backwards through a boarded window and into a lake (and lives!) but fuck- I like sherlock holmes, I don’t really care for action blockbusters, but for some reason when you combine them it’s entertaining as all get out. And of course it’s not like the books, because that would be boring. And if anyone adapted Raffles in a way that was exactly like the books it would be boring.

Because the books are comprised of two things: One, very technical, concise descriptions of the way things happened, and two, how Bunny, as the narrator, felt about them. One being something movies are very good at showing, and two being something movies are certainly capable of with a very sensitive, emotional director like Lynne Ramsey but like... NOT guy ritchie, for sure. But if you want a Raffles movie, do you WANT something sensitive and nuanced? Do you want a heartfelt exploration of a younger man’s changing vision of the man he met in his youth as he finds himself manipulated into a life of crime or whatever? maybe but ... i dunno that sounds boring to me. maybe as a short film i could handle it

but like the real thing is “I want a fun movie and I want to see these characters I love brought to the cinema as it is in this day and age in a manner which i feel is true to the original nature of the stories and reminds me why I love them” and not turned into something which to me is barely recognizable from the source material

and if you don’t like ritchie’s holmes adaptations that’s probably why. Personally, i think Game of Shadows is a wonderful film and one of the best adaptations of a Professor Moriarty story, defs my favorite. Plus Rocknrolla and Snatch are some of my favorite movies and thinking about a Raffles adaptation with all the fun and charm and excitement of those gets me SO PUMPED UP

But also I know if it’s hollywood imma be disappointed. good thing its never happening?

you know what would definitely suck though? a wes anderson raffles. lmao holy shit

[newgeekcity]

New Geek City is Live Blogging MST3k The Return

Once a upon a time there was a bored kid. He just moved to a new place where he didn’t know anyone. Hair was coming in weird places. His face looked like it came from a rare Garbage Pail Kid card.

Other things were changing for the kid, namely his tastes. To him everything started to be so childlike. His books, Full House, even Saturday morning cartoons. There wasn’t anything that really appealed to him anymore.

Except for Batman the Animated Series, that was still awesome.

So one day while trying to avoid the Smurfs or some shit, the kid flipped on Comedy Central. Gamera was on. Everything sucked, but he wasn’t too big for Toho movie monsters. 

Just look at it...

And see those guys on the bottom? They were cracking jokes, making astute observations. Then they would do silly musical numbers. It was the best, and for years after, no matter what, the kid would tune in to see what crazy schlock the boys of MST3k would do next.

And yeah yeah, the boy was me. Twist ending, M. Night Shyamalan style. Blah blah.

Since MST3k came into my life so early, sometimes I wonder where it started and I begin in the soup of neurons and my memories. Am I sarcastic and love terrible movies because it brings me back to my safe space? Or am I drawn to MST3k because I am sarcastic and I love 1960s Godzilla movies.

I don’t think there’s a real answer to that question. However, after a long long departure. MST3k is back and on Netflix... so lets dive into the first episode which is called... episode 1? Seriously guys? Way to be descriptive.

We got movie sign after the jump

00:00 - Hold on I need more coffee. 

00:00 - Alright, back. Lets see what’s up. I’m really curious about the opening. If I remember right the opening song was sung by Mike Nelson. So lets see how this stacks up. 

I’m not looking for a perfect recreation, but something in the same spirit.

1:39 - People? There’s other people in this universe? I thought there was like 10 tops in the entire world in the original series. Then there’s Wil fucking Wheaton. I don’t mind the people, but I do mind Wil Wheaton, that fucking guy. The DIY effects and models are really great though.

In what looks like the Gizmonic mission control, the staff are puppets. I love that.

Wait I know that lady... She’s Erin Gray. Colonel Deering from Buck Rogers. When I was 5 I wasn’t sure if I was going to marry her or Princess Leia. 

Hey it could have happened, I was a cute kid.

But seriously, Fuck. Wil. Wheaton. 

2:00 - I have to admit, I’m sort of liking Jonah. He has the same affable quality as Joel and Mike. 

4:30 - Gypsy could talk? Like for reals? Weird.

I also did like the opening sequence, a lot. Its different. It feels like that’s what the sequence should have been for the movie. But I really liked it. Great work Joel. 

8:00 - Invention exchange is back. Patton Oswalt is perfect as TV’s son of TV’s Frank. Although I was doubting Felicia Day, I have to admit she is charming here. 

The movie doors are different, you could tell they used a computer for this one. Not sure if I like that, But whatevs its minor. 

The bots voices are actually pretty good too. Crow sounds like Crow. Tom sort of sounds like Tom. I do have to get used to Jonah though.

9:00 - Its not skin, its beef. Just saying.

Delicious ground beef.

10:30 - Tom can fly! He can fly!!

13:15 - We have Super Dragon reference! Also one of the best MST3k songs 

14:00 - “You know an aquarium is just a pet store that doesn’t sell anything.” Made me lol.

14:41 - Gypsy showed up and made a quip. I already forgot what it was. I wonder if it’ll be a thing.

16:35 - I’m hoping the movie picks up. I doubt it because its MST3k. But they did a “commercial break” just now. They repeated the name of the movie and showed I guess would be the Deep 13 House Band. 

I think a skit would have worked better. Its not like they have to fit in actual commercials. But they’re probably trying to keep as close to the original format as possible.

18:30 - Scientist 1: “I envy that young man.”

Scientist 2: “He will be busy now.”

Me: Yeah with your daughters, you Dane weirdo.

20:00 - Who just keeps an electric eel in a tank in a hallway? Nothing is gonna go wrong there. Nothing at all....ARRRRRGHG 

22:00 - I’m having a really hard time picking up who’s speaking. Particularly with Tom / Jonah. 

But Jonah’s Monster Mash / Reptilicus cover was definitely out of the Joel Robinson playbook. 

25:00 - Can someone tell me if that Dane blonde, scientist daughter has a single daughter along the R line? And that wound looks like pudding. Just saying it looks like delicious reptile pudding.

27:00 - Ok the skit break is this kaiju monster rap. The bots, particularly crow are more animated. He’s able to move his arms around now.

The song itself is way different from the original series. Which I’m giving it a thumbs up. It fits well into the original ethos. Its catchy, fun. Its a good update. Nice work modern MST3k writers.

32:00 - One thing I’ve noticed is the actual filmic quality of the movie. In the old MST3k’s you could still see the scratches and dust, and the warping. It looks like that this is a restored film. 

Its not awful or really a distraction. But its just something I noticed as a long time fan.

35:00 - Dickweed. It makes me laugh every time.

36:00 - Of course the goofus stuck his hand in the electric eel tank. You know comedy. It had to happen. Like the sun rising, and the rain falling in the amazon.

38:00 - I wish netflix would have some way that it counts up instead of down. It would make my life easier here.

Another “commercial break” I was wrong, in the new series its Moon 13 and Patton Oswalt gave a fun fact about the doors. The house band is playing at the same time. Its very Svengoolie.

39:00 - Xanadu reference. Not sure how many youngin’s would get it. I barely do because my dad had a bootleg VHS tape. 

It was awful.

41:00 - I was about to say a lot of the jokes are falling flat, but when that scientist “screamed” and one of the guys dubbed it with Opera, that was brilliant. 

43:00 - I get that MST3k was never really about plot when it came to the host and bots. But they seemed to jump into the riffing really quick. I was expecting some sort of intro for Jonah, like he’d ask questions about why he’s there throughout the movie and the bots would fill him in and he’d grow into the host role. 

I think it would have added some sort of dimension to it. But I would get why they would just jump right into it. 

45:00 - Also I’d expect the Mads would show up more by now. Maybe in the next skit sequence?

47:00 - No Mads, but the cloning of Tom Servo in the “genesis tank that’s conveniently off camera” was real classic MST3k. 

So far, Jonah I would say earned his spot. He nailed it. 

Crow, yup classic Crow. 

Tom, well. He’s not awful. He’s funny but I just can’t get past the voice. Kevin Murphy really owned the character. I hope its just matter of getting used to it. Like when Kevin originally took over in Season 2 (I think) of MST3k.

51:00 - Hold on I need a gif of that.. give me a few minutes.

Ok, I couldn’t get a gif. I’ll have to check into that. BUT I did grab a screenshot.

Single handedly this is my most favorite special effect ever.

54:30 - Although another stray observation, when the people are in frame, the film is alright. Like no scratches (for the most part) but when the monster is up it looks like someone went through it with sandpaper. 

Which lazy bastard only did half a restoration?

55:00 - It feels like Tom should have had that ability to fly all along. His bottom always reminded me of a hovercraft.

56:00 - Yup the commercial breaks definitely is reminiscent of Svengoolie, Paton Oswalt should just show up on that set one day as TV’s Son of TV’s Frank. 

It would be some great cross promotion.

BTW, go watch Svengoolie. Its not as funny as MST3k, but it’s really charming and fun.

Occasionally they show a good movie. Which I guess defeats the point, but whatever.

60:00 - We’re about at the halfway point. So far, I will admit the new MST3k is... I don’t want to say a worthy successor but Joel Hodgson really did something special. This definitely feels in place with the originals. Almost like it never went away. 

I do want more Mads for this episode. Where are they?

62:00 - How did they get letters? This is like the first episode in almost 20 years. How many 8 year olds could sit still long enough to watch reruns? Aren’t they making methlabs and sexting? 

63:00 - Just a note, I know nothing about modern children.

71:00 - Have you ever wondered why Kaiju are impervious to tank shells? Think about it, they’re designed to punch through concrete, steel plating, etc. I don’t think they’d have a problem with reptile skin, prehistoric or otherwise.

74:00 - Another thing I noticed is that the guy and the bots are more animated compared to the originals. They’ll move around, fly by, bring in barrels to interact with the screen. 

I know the originals did similar, but it seems to be more frequent here. Its not unwelcome. Its actually nice.

77:00 - Another commercial break. Its a TV seal of quality with the Moon 13 house band. I’m still liking them.

Patton talked about how Kinga established some TV group, probably to make profit. 

Its not so much how the joke was clever, I just liked how they used that to add some background of the world of MST3k. Because we really don’t know much about it, besides the SOL and Deep 13 and such. 

I never thought it was missing, but now that I’ve seen some glimpses into the surrounding world I am interested in learning more. Does the world know about the Forresters? Have they always run in secret? Or they make their intentions known and the government is powerless to stop them. Who is the government there anyway?

Are they considered brilliant or total fuck ups? Are they part of something bigger? Like SMERSH or the illuminati or something?

78:00 - They’re freaking out about getting a gallon of some sort of lizard knock out drug. Do Danes know how much a gallon is? It’s not that much, if it was like an oil drum’s worth then you got problems.

80:00 - The gallon is really just a beaker. So I guess Danes don’t get the imperial system after all.

83:00 - Seriously the guy playing Crow is really good. If I close my eyes I’d have a hard time telling the difference between him and Trace Beaulieu.

Although I noticed the mouth movement on Crow isn’t as pronounced as it was in the originals. Its a little detail, but it went a long way in figuring out who was talking.

85:00 - Monster’s dead, yay I guess.

86:00 - “Push the button Max” doesn’t have the same cachet as “Push the button Frank.” But I’m glad they brought that back.

87:00 - The end credit song sounds like it was made with a real orchestra. It gives it some gravitas. Its rather lovely. 

88:00 - They’re repeating the monster rap. Not bad, still cute. 

89:00 - Wait, in the end credits, They gave the proper name for the Moon 13 House Band, they’re called “The Skeleton Crew.”

I like Moon 13 house band better.

90:00 - Nice touch--

And of course--

The end tag. Its nice to see some old standbys come back.

Final Thoughts - 

I suppose if you really wanted to you could say its worse or better than the originals. I guess its like how you wanted to fight over Joel vs Mike. 

They’re different. They had their own styles, and they were very funny in their own way. 

MST3k The Return is a lot like that. There’s enough elements of the originals that it feels familiar, but stylistically its been updated. I personally think its a good thing. 

With the bigger budget, and more modern delivery I feel a lot of the fun, DIY, anarchic, lo-fi qualities that was so mind blowing about the original show is very much here. 

I like the new cast, except for Wil Wheaton (fuck you Wesley Crusher), and I think they’re as charming and clever as the previous casts. Just... different.

So if you loved the originals as much as I did, I definitely think its worth binging with your kids. Personally I plan to make this a Saturday morning thing like I did way back when.

One last last thing. From what I saw of the preview for the next episode it looks like Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy are visiting. Hopefully Mike shows up too.

I. Can’t. Wait.

[blackbatpurplecat]

My Thoughts on Batman #14

By popular demand (which surprised me and now I feel honored <3 ), here’s a little review on the latest issue of the current Batman run, #14: Rooftops Part 1.

What’s the story?

After the arc I Am Suicide, we are finally back in Gotham and follow BatCat through the city. Both are the main characters and apart from three speech bubbles of Clock King, even the only characters that speak and act in a fairly simple narrative.

The mood’s pretty melancholic; Batman reveals that Catwoman’s death penalty has been revoked by the President, thanks to Amanda Waller. Even though we’ve never seen or heard of any evidence against Selina. All we have is her claiming to have killed almost 300 men and that’s apparently enough for a death sentence... Yeah. Sure. Ugh. Now Catwoman needs to go to Blackgate, I assume for theft, and Batman has to take her in that same night. You can feel the tearful goodbye hanging above them and their mutual feelings for each other don’t make it any easier. It’s simply what we’ve seen over and over: Batman is struggling with two sides. He knows what’s right (arrest the criminal) and he knows what he wants to do (let the woman he loves go free), and those two things cancel each other out. We know he will always pick the side of the law but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt less.

Catwoman, also saddened by the turn of events, pretty much accepts her faith though. She knows what’s coming for her and tries to lighten the mood a little bit by making suggestive comments and initiating a lovely make out session beneath the stars. She states that she wants one more night, living and enjoying her freedom. 

They again bring up the mass murder committed by her. Bruce doesn’t believe that Selina killed almost 300 people and wants to prove her innocence, yet he doesn’t know how. Selina repeats that she did kill those guys and promises to give him the truth if he takes her to Blackgate in the morning instead of right then and there. While Bruce states he knows she’ll try to flee, Selina replies she knows he will come after her.

So since they’ve come to some kind of an understanding, Selina very obviously suggests making the monster with two backs to say goodbye. Well OF COURSE! A farewell fuck! Since we still have no idea why or for how long Selina has known Bruce’s identity, we don’t know if it’d be their first (and last) time or if they’ve done it before. If they’ve been having an on-off-relationship like over the last decades or only fucked like in The New52. We can take into account that we’ve seen Bruce talk fondly and intimately to her so it’s not only fucking. But since I don’t care for anything outside of this issue, I’ll go with my own assumption and say “first time.” Bitter-sweet would be an understatement.

But, alas, the Bat signal pops up in the sky and dutiful Batman reacts just like we’d ALL expect him to react - work now, have fun later! But this time, he invites Catwoman to come along.

We jump to a clocktower where Batman faces Clock King who rambles on like a Bond villain and gets knocked out by Catwoman who swings in from behind. Is their work done, can they finally bang? The Bat signal in the sky says NOPE! So they go from villain to villain, Batman kicks the shit out of a various number of Rogues, Catwoman stays in the background and asks if that’s how he spends all of his nights.

Eventually, Catwoman grows tired and frustrated with him constantly postponing their boning and finally wants to do what she wants to do - breaking & entering! And Batsy comes along. Reluctantly.

They break into an apartment where Bruce sees a stolen cat figurine floating in the middle of the room. “It’s hanging by a thread, too thin to see” - God knows why. Selina simply grabs the cat and tells Bruce to run. They jump out of the window before the apartment explodes. Oh, and the apartment also belongs to Selina who had rented it under the name Holly Robinson. Ehm... okay...? Dunno what to do with that info. But another, more important thing: was that her alarm system in case another thief broke in and stole the cat? She would just... blow them up???!!! The thread is too thin, not even she can work around it so in order to take the cat, you HAVE to pull it down and trigger the explosion. This trap was set up with the intension to kill! What the fuck, Selina?!

BatCat watch the burning building from a rooftop far away and we learn that Selina owns the floors above and below the apartment and the sprinklers are awesome and everyone there is safe - again WHAT THE FUCK??? NO! This is fucking dumb! And Selina’s apparently so damn rich that she can rent 3 whole floors high in a skyscraper in the middle of the city?! WHAT?! And after revealing that load of info, she shows us that there are diamonds inside the cat figurine, kind of like a piggy bank for bad times.

She wants Bruce to have the diamonds and tells him to build dozens of orphanages after she’s gone. Sure. Because BRUCE FUCKING WAYNE needs financial support... Okay, let’s say the diamonds are a donation. Okay, I can buy that.

And to conclude this issue, Selina throws the tiny diamonds on the ground, takes her mask off, they start making out and FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY HAVE  S E X!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, what did I think of all this?

I really liked the art. Sure, it’s not the best art I’ve ever seen but it looks good and it’s definitely better than what Guillem March did in the Catwoman run. BatCat look like real people, no extreme poses or overdone, dramatic movements. There are some not so pretty angles here and there and on the first page, Batman’s face looks like covered in dirt but in general, the art is quite decent! Especially in the last panels where it matters the most!

The first two and the last two pages are wonderful. Buy the issue for those four pages, they are SO worth it! Everything inbetween is filler. The BatCat teamwork is way too short and while Batsy roughing up some C-List Rogues looked funny, it wasn’t engaging or anything. If it was meant to prove a point, I didn’t need it. I know that his duty will always come first. But I can try and interpret something into it if you want me to: Bruce kept pushing the expected sex back more and more, the Bat signal was the ultimate cockblock in this issue. But at the very end, the Bat signal shines above them while they’re going at it cowgirl style and Bruce does not shove her away to grab cowl and cape. Maybe it’s supposed to show us that for once, something or someone was more important than the Mission. And it would be incredibly rude to leave in mid-coitus.

The BatCat sex scene is like a kiss to my soul. I’ve been wanting some decent love scenes of my ship for so SO SOOO LOOONG!!! Lois and Clark got so many good ones, there are some of Bruce and the Demon Spawn, hell, there’s even a (granted, awful) sex scene between Batman and Black Canary! Why has it taken decades for DC to release a decent BatCat sex scene??? It’s what we freaking deserve!!! And I want every single BatCat shipper to see it!!! We’ve been denied something magical for too long, not only Batsy and Kitten were frustrated with this lack of sexy times.

And it’s even not creepy or rapey or anything, no! It’s very tastefully drawn, it’s sensual and lovely and just beautiful! They even drew Bruce’s scars all over his body, nice attention to detail. BUT fucking on hundreds of tiny diamonds CAN’T BE COMFORTABLE!!! Imagine rolling around naked on Legos! Not so sexy, heh??? What if you get one up the crack? They are sharp and can cut your ass skin open!

Now, apart from the nonsense I’ve already mentioned, like the booby trap, Selina’s financial situations, the weird laws Gotham operates in, and the mass murder bullcrap, there is one thing that I absolutely detest in this issue: the dialogues! Holy fucking shit! Has King ever in his life talked to another human being? Or heard people have conversations?! The dialogues are awful! This is Nocenti level of awfulness in my opinion. Imagine if Frank “I’m an insane sexist racist asshole” Miller and Nocenti had a hate child and that hate child was writing dialogues. THAT is what King produces in this issue! He even recycles big chunks of those terrible lines! And don’t get me started on the fact that BatCat STILL call each other “Bat” and “Cat”. Ugh, that’s so fucking dumb. My God, honestly, try to skip the dialogues, guys. It’s what I had mentioned before; King tries to sound so deep and clever while he delivers a pile of bullshit.

Will I go back to this issue in the future? HELL YEAH!!! I would print the sex panels out and frame them and put them on my walls!!! The art thankfully saved the issue from becoming another generic DC fart. They could have easily screwed up the emotional scenes between BatCat but artist Mitch Gerads did a great job with the facial expressions, the close-ups, and the angles. You (thankfully) don’t need the bad lines to understand what’s happening between our leads. Just look at their faces and you’ll feel what they feel.

And I am SO thankful that we FUCKING FINALLY got a beautiful BatCat love scene! I hope there are many more to come in the future!

Part 2 got the teaser “The final farewell?” - I hope we will finally find out what the deal is with that stupid as fuck mass murder plot. It annoys the hell out of me that King keeps going back and forth “yes, she did it”, “no, she didn’t”, “but she clearly states she did it”, “but he doesn’t believe it”, “but she says it” etc etc. It doesn’t make the plot more exciting or interesting but frustrating and boring. Just like the “will-they-won’t-they” DC have been doing with BatCat for decades now.

The way they’re handling it at the moment, the next issue will probably reveal the biggest twist *gasp* that she did not kill almost 300 people! She only claimed it and willingly went to Arkham and wanted to be sentenced and put to death because................. ?????????????? And then she will flee and lay low. And we will be without our beloved Kitten again. And that was important to the plot HOW?!?!?! Who needed it??? Ugh, King really isn’t the best writer.

Tl;dr Batman #14 is THE issue for BatCat shippers!!! Just marvel at the panels and don’t read the dialogues.

[meredith-alexandra-jane-blog]

My Immortal: Beauty and the Beast Version Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

I was really scared about Vlodebeast all day. I was even upset went to rehearsals with Beasty's favorite gothic band Bloody Gothic Rose 666. I'm now a background singer (because Beasty liked my voice when he heard me sing the Gaston song to Gaston). People say that we sound like a cross between GC, Caleçon Le Nodule, and MCL (that's Mon Chimique L'amour u preps).

The other people in the band are B'loody Belle, Madame de Goffik Garderobe, Cadenza the Dark Harpsichord of Death, Loomiere, and Belle's papa Maurice (we call him Diabolo now.) And a hat rack named Chapeau. (who might be another Ghey Guy).

Today only Gaston and Beasty were depressed so they weren't coming to listen so we wrote songs instead. I knew Gaston was probably slitting his wrists (he wouldn't die because he's a vampire and the only way you can kill a vampire is with a c-r-o-s-s (there's no way I'm writing that) or a steak. And Beasty was probably watching a depressing movie like 'Le Cadavre de Mariée.' I put on a black leather vest that showed off my currveyy physique, and one of those cravats from the 1700's made of red lace. And on my black coat with red lace on the sleeves and lapels I wore a tiny red ribbon pinned on the lapel that said, 'Le Projet Élémentaire.' (The name of another of Gaston's and my favorite bands!) Everybody says I'm too clingy to him but I don't get it.

We were singing a cover of 'Hélene' and at the end of the song I suddenly bust into tears.

"LeFou! Are you OK?" B'loody Belle asked in a concerted voice.

"With all due respect-what the fck do you think?" I asked angrily.

And then I took deep breaths to calm myself down and I said. "Well, it just so happened that Voldebeast came to me in the forest...(I lost my positivity and became OOC again)...and the fcking bastard told me to fcking kill Beasty! But I don't want to kill him, (my softie heart came back shuddup I'm still goffic ok?) because he's really nice, he's really kind and gentle, even if he did go out with Gaston. But if I don't kill Beasty, then Voldebeast, he'll kill Gaston!" I burst into tears.

Suddenly Gaston jumped out from behind a wall. "Why didn't you fcking tell me!" he shouted. "Why you fcking poser bytch! NOBODY keeps secrets from GASTON!" (c is dat out of character?)

I started to cry and cry. Gaston started to cry all sensitive. He stood close to me and lifted my chin up and let me be hypnotized by his gothic eyes and Vampire power. Then he ran out crying. (so wut if dat ooc? Prepz!)

We practiced for one more hour. Suddenly Beasty walked in angrily and he was in Beast Mode! His eyes were all fiery and I knew this time it wasn't because he had a headache.

"Do you realize what you could have DONE?" He started to cry wisely. (c dats basically not swering and dis time he wuz relly upset n u wil cry)

"LeFou, Gaston has been found in his room. He committed suicide by slitting his wrists."

...

I said stop flaming up prepz! see if dis chaprer is srupid!1111 it dels wit rlly sris issus! sp c 4 urself if itz ztupid brw fangz 2 ma frend raven 4 hleping me!

...

"Noooo!" I screamed. I was horrorfied. B'loody Belle tried to comfort me but I ran to my room crying myself. Beasty chased after me shouting but he had to stop when I went into my room because he would look like a perv that way (he's bi remember)

Anyway, I started crying tears of blood and then I slit both of my wrists. They blood got all over my clothes so I took them off and jumped into the bath angrily while I put on a L'inkin Parc song at full volume. I grabbed a steak (probably one of Beasty's he likes raw meat) and almost stuck it into my heart to commit suicide. I was so fcking depressed!

I got out of the bathtub and put on a black low-cut nightshirt with lace all over it sandly. I put on black high-heel boots with pink metal stuff on the ends, my pink bow tie, and six pairs of skull earrings. (Stanley would never wear this r u kidding he is such a prep!) I couldn't frcking believe it.

Then I looked out the window and screamed... Clock was spying on me and he was taking a video tape of me! And Loomiere was masticating to it! They were sitting on their flying candlesticks.

"EW YOU FCKING PERVS, STOP LOOKING AT ME! ARE YOU PEDOS OR WHAT?" I screamed putting on a towel with a picture of M'Arilyne d'Maison (aka Monsieur D'Arque who is also a great goffik singer) on it.

Suddenly Beasty ran in. He was in Prince Adam form again, the sexay man with eyeliner and his hair in a ponytail with blue ribbon. He wore a light blue jacket with white lace all over it (and only his black eyeliner kept him from looking like a total fcking prep).

"A'bra Que'davre!" he yelled at Clock and Loomiere pointing his womb. I took Gaston's gun and shot Clock and Loomiere a gazillion times and they both started screaming and the camera broke.

(AN: so sorry this does not make sense in the 18th century, not mentioning the fact everyone is basically OOC. But no haterz prepz!11!)

Then Beasty ran into a wardrobe which was the place he transforms (sort of like the old Superman movies with the phone booth).

Suddenly, Beasty came out of the closet (geddit?) and he was THE BEAST again!

"LeFou, it has been revealed that someone has- NOOOOOOO!" he shouted looking at Clock and Loomiere and then he waved his magic wand (Agathe gave it to him) and suddenly...

Monsieur Chapeau ran outside on his flying candle and said everyone we need to talk. (AN: how can he run when riding a flying candle? Not to mention he's a hatrack?)

"What do you know Chapeau? You're just a petit Porc-Verrues student!" (I believe Beasty said this line)

"I MAY BE A PORC-VERRUES STUDENT- BUT I AM ALSO A SETANIST!"

"This cannot be," Clock said in a crisp voice as blood dripped from his hand where Beasty's gun had shot him (AN: wait that doesn't make sense. I thought LeFou shot him with Gaston's gun correct?) "There must be other factors."

"YOU DON'T HAVE ANY!" I yelled in madly.

Loomiere (back to life apparently) held up the camera triumelephantly. "The lens may be ruined but the tape is still there!"

I felt faint, normally how I do when it feels like when you do not drink enough wolf blood.

"Why are you doing this?" Loomiere said angrily while he rubbed his dirty hands on his clook. (Does that mean Clock? I'll just leave that to your imagination *hon hon hon*)

And then I heard the words that I heard before but not from him. I did not know whether to feel shocked or happy.

"BECAUSE...BECAUSE..." Chapeau said and he paused in the air dramaticlly, waving his brass hat rack arms in the air. Then swooped he in singing to the tune of a gothic version of a song by 50 Livres.

"Because you're goffic?" Clock asked in a little afraid voice because he was afraiind it was connected with Seten.

"BECAUSE I LOVE HIM!"

stop f'aing ok chapeau is a pedo 2 alot of ppl in american skoolz lik dat i wunted 2 adress da ishu! how du u no clock aint kristian plus chapeau isn't relly in luv wif lefou dat was stanley ok!

I was about to slit my wrists again with the silver knife that Gasgon had given me in case anything happened to him. He told me (during the War) to use it valiantly against an enemy but I knew that we must go together.

"NO!" I THOUGHT IT WAS CHAIPeau but it was Beasty. He started to scream. "OMFG! NOOOO! I'M TRANSFORMING AGAIN AND IT HURTS!" and then...his eyes rolled up. You could see his red whites.

I stopped. "How did u know?"

"I saw it! And my scar turned back into The Symbol!"

"NO!" I ran up closer. "I thought you didn't have a scar anymore!"

"I do but Diablo (Maurice) turned it into a rose tattoo for me and I always cover it up with foundation. And with my fur when I'm in Beast Mode. " he said back. "Anyway my scar hurt and transforming hurt and it turned into The Symbol! Save me! then I had a vision of what was happening to Gaston...Volfebeast has him bondage!"

Anyway I was in the castle nurse's office now recovering from my slit wrists. Clock and Loomiere and CHAPUEU were there too. They were going to Sainte-Mangue's after they recovered because they were pedofiles and you can't have those fcking pervs around Beasty's castle with a lot of hot boyz (Chapeau is Ghey and maybe Clock too) and hot girlz. Beasty had constipated the cideo camera they took of me naked. I put up my middle finger at them.

(AN: If you are confused, my apologies. Working with the original text)

Anyway Chapueau came into my hospital bed holding a bouquet of pink roses.

"FeLou, I need to tell you something." he said in a v. serious voice, giving me the roses.

"Frck off," I told him. "And get my fckn name right! You know I fcking hate the color pink anyway, I only wore the bow tie because Gaston used to like girls as much as boys, and pink is a girl color! And...I don't like fcked up preps like YOU!" I snapped.

Chapeau had been mean to me before, for being goffik. He had punched me repeatedly in the face with his hat-rack arms. It didn't hurt though.

"No, FeLou," Chapuau says. "Those are not roses."

"What, are they goffs too you poser prep?" I asked because I was angry that he got me pink roses. And he can't get my name right.

"I saved your life!" he yelled angrily. "No you didn't I replied." "You saved me from getting a Paris L'Hotel de Hilton p-video made from your shower scene and being vued by Clock and Loomiere. Who MASTICATED (c is dat spelled rong) to it." he added silently.

"Whatever!" I yelled angirly.

He pointed one of his hat-rack hands to the pink roses. "These aren't roses." He suddenly looked at them with an evil look in his eye and muttered Well if you wanted Honesty thats all you haD TO SAY!

"That's not a spell, that's an MCL song." I corrected him wisely.

"I know I was just warming up my vocal cordes." Then he screamed. "Petulus merengo mi kremicli romacio (4 all you cool goffic mcr fans out there, that is a tribute! specially for raven I love you girl!) imo noto okayo!"

And then the roses turned into a huge black flame floating in the middle of the air. And it was black. Now I know he wasn't a prep.

"Okay I believe you now wtf is Gaston?"

Chapeau rolled his eyes. (on his top hat head) I looked into the balls of flame but I could c nothing.

"U c, FeLou," Beastly said, watching the two of us watching the flame, "2 c wht iz in da flames (HAHA YOU REVIEWRS FLAMES GEDDIT) u mst find urself 1st, k?"

"I HAVE FOUND MYSELF OK YOU MEAN OL' BEAST!" Chapeau yelled. BEASTly looked shocked. I suppose he didn't have a headache or else he would have said something back.

Chapeau stormed off back into his bed. U r a liar, Beasty!"

Anyway when I got better I went upstairs and put on a black leather frock coat that was all ripped on the ends with lace on it. There was a dark blood red vest, too, with corset stuff (laces) I put on the front. I put on ripped black breeches with black fishnet stockings and black high-heeled boots with tiny pictures of Gaston (the animated cartoon Gaston) on them. I put my hair all out around me so I looked like Samara from the Ring (if u don't no who she iz u a prep so fck off!) and I put on blood-red lipstick, black eyeliner and lip gloss.

(Mon Dieu! if only I could get back to Villaineuve- cuz Stanley would so be jealouz AND turned on- He dat sexy prep wiv hair like Jean Travolta from Grease!)

"You look kawai, boy." B'loody Belle said sadly. Belle was wearing her yellow ballgown except it was all ripped up with blood droplets on it. (Like those posh prep mums, the way they dress up their kids for Halloween? That.)

"Fangs (geddit) you do too." I said sadly too. but I was still upset. I slit my wrists feeling totally depressed and I sucked all the blood. (In memory of my Gaston the Vampire) I cried again in my bathroom (where M'oaning Monsieur Toilette kept me company but don't worry he is not a perv he just moans all depressed and he sucks himself back down the toilet from time to time) I put the shades on so Clock and Loomiere couldn't spy on me this time.

I went to some classes. (Reading classes where B'loody Belle taught me some basic reading in the big Library.) Beastly was in the Hair of Magical Magic Creatures (don't ask me what that means, je ne sais quoi- I sincerely don't get it.) Belle also reads us some Shakespear, because his stories are all dark and Goffic so we like his books.

Beasty (who was human Prince Adam right now) looked all depressed because Gaston had disappeared and he too used to be in love with Gaston. He was sucking some blood from a 'Hufflepuff' (Je ne sais quoi!)

"Hi" he said in a depressed way. "Hi back." I said in a wqually said way.

We looked at each other for some time. Adam had beautiful red gothic eyes so much like Gaston's. Then... we jumped on each other and started screwing with each other.

"STOP IT NOW YOU HORNY SIMPLETONS!" shouted Mrs. Teapot who was watching us and so was everyone else.

"Beasty you fcker!" I said slapping him. "Quit trying to screw me. You know I loved Gaston!" I shouted and then I ran away angrily.

And then he started to scream. "NOOOO! MY TRANSFORMATION HURTS!" And then...his eyes rolled up! You could only see his red whites.

"No!" I ran up closer. "I thought you didn't have a scar anymore!" I shouted.

"I know but Diablo (Maurice) changed it into a rose tattoo for me and I always cover it up with foundation!" he said back. "Anyway my transformation hurt and then I had a vision of what was happening to Gaston...Volfebeast...MY FATHER...has him bondage!"

SPECIAL FANGS RAVEN MY GOFFIX BLOOD SISTA WTF UR SUPPOSED TO RIT DIS!1111!

HEY RAVEN DO YOU KNOW WHERE MY SWEATER IS

[rantsaboutponies]

Season 8 Retrospective

This... Okay, Season 8’s final W-L-T score was 0-11-15, which means that, quantitatively, it should have been the worst season yet. But...I dunno, this season just kind of...came and went. It might partially have to do with the fact that this is the eighth season of a show that should have ended with Season 3, but I think there’s a bigger factor at play here. Yes, it’s that most baffling of poor decisions, the School of Friendship!

I still cannot figure out why they thought this was such a good idea to build the entire season around. Maybe the voice actors for the Mane 6 are trying to move on from the show and are minimizing their future commitments? If it’s just trying to sell toys of the New Mane 6, they wouldn’t need to focus on them so heavily (people will buy figurines of background characters, for god’s sake), but phasing out the original Mane 6′s toyline also seems like a dumb idea. I think it’s just that corporations still haven’t gotten over the collective concept that they all seemed to have in the 1980s that kids love school and will watch anything set at a school. You know which cartoons I watched the least (or just flat out never watched) as a kid? Recess! Teacher’s Pet! Braceface! You know, the ones that spent a large chunk of time at school! School is by far the least interesting part of any child’s life! If the characters were school-age, you maybe showed a scene or two an episode just to establish that, but that’s it! A good example is Kim Possible; sure, she went to school every episode, but the majority of each episode was all the spy shit. Because no duh! (For the record, as a kid, I was also incredibly bored by any show that was just about kids doing normal shit all the time, school-related or otherwise: Doug, Rocket Power, The Weekenders, Hey Arnold!, Pepper Ann, As Told by Ginger, every single live-action laugh-track Disney sitcom...come to think of it, is that all that late-’90s to early-2000s Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows were? Jesus Christ, I miss when Cartoon Network was fun.)

Anyway, I don’t know what kids watch these days. Maybe they don’t even watch this show; I have no idea. I haven’t kept up. Why am I even still talking about this? On with the list!

#1. “Road to Friendship”: Like I said, this one was the closest to “good” we got this season. Starlight and Trixie tend to have good dialogue together, and this was no exception. Did anyone notice that Starlight was barely in this season at all, though? They really need to deal with their constant problem of adding characters to the main cast and then not knowing what to do with them in future episodes.

#2. “Sounds of Silence”: If not for Autumn Blaze being so goddamn annoying (and the moral being fairly lame), this episode might have been better. At least I now know why I’ve been seeing kirin fanart for a few months now.

#3. “What Lies Beneath”: This was probably the only halfway decent episode involving the New Mane 6 because it actually gave us a bit of insight into their characters besides “like the Mane 6, but children”. The Tree of Harmony’s way of thinking is still super fucked-up, though.

#4. “Molt Down”: Puberty episode? Sure, why not. Still better than Big Mouth.

#5. “Father Knows Beast”: This one goes right next to the other Spike one because, like all Spike episodes, it really left little to no impact. The fact that Spike is still being written to be dumb enough to fall for some random dragon showing up and saying that he’s his father is pretty grating, though.

#6. “The Break Up Break Down”: Miscommunication storylines annoy the shit out of me, especially since Modern Family became 90% “I heard a thing and I’m going to assume the worst instead of just confirming it with the person I heard it from” episodes. At least Discord finally got a couple funny lines again.

#7. “Non-Compete Clause”: I don’t know why Applejack and Rainbow Dash thought a rehash of “Fall Weather Friends” would be a good idea if they mixed in a bit of child endangerment. Thank god the kids turned out to be smarter than them.

#8. “A Rockhoof and a Hard Place”: Still hard to believe they couldn’t find Rockhoof any digging or demolition jobs anywhere in Equestria. I do like that the ending basically acknowledged that they still don’t know exactly what the point of making Twilight a princess was or what she even does anymore.

#9 & #10. “School Daze”: I was technically right. Neighsay did return to be a villain in the season finale; he just wasn’t the real villain. The fact that they could have arrived at the solution at any time and just chose not to was really annoying. Remember, kids love storylines about legal loopholes and technicalities!

#11 & #12. “School Raze”: Yet another episode that required everyone involved to be as stupid as possible to get the plot going. Nothing like going with your first assumptions and ignoring all evidence to the contrary, eh, Twilight?

#13: “Marks for Effort”: This was just dumb. Twilight wouldn’t let the CMC into the school because they already knew enough about friendship? Yeah, sure. If anything, the episode proved just the opposite. Cozy Glow intentionally failed the test because she thought it would get them in? Uh-huh. Given her secret ultimate evil goal was to make everyone friends with her, I can only assume that she did in fact think that that plan would work, since getting them kicked out definitely wouldn’t endear her to them.

#14. “The End in Friend”: I don’t think this episode accomplished what it was attempting to. No, Rarity and Rainbow Dash don’t have anything in common. No, they don’t have to hang out together if they don’t have any activities they both enjoy. No, that doesn’t make them enemies, nor does it mean they can’t still hang out with their other friends. Sheesh.

#15. “The Washouts”: More child endangerment! Why a dangerous stunt team was able to hire Scootaloo I still don’t know, but apparently no one in the audience had a problem with that. If the lesson was to teach children not to be so fickle about picking their role models, that’s probably a good idea.

I’m not sure there’s all that much difference between these two parts of the list, but whatever.

#16. “Fake It ‘Til You Make It”: Seriously, though, Fluttershy’s only mistake was not telling those raccoons ahead of time that she was going to be using different personae. It was working!

#17. “Grannies Gone Wild”: This episode beat out Book Club by a whole month for its message of, “Old people are people too!” The Wonderbolts are assholes, Applejack is an asshole, and everypony loses! Hooray!

#18. “The Mean 6”: At least Chrysalis was still kind of intimidating in “To Where and Back Again”. This episode just made her look like a joke who had no clue what she was doing (more than “A Canterlot Wedding” already did, I mean).

#19. “The Parent Map”: Remember “Parental Glideance”? That was last year’s, “God, my parents are so embarrassing!” episode. This is this year’s. Joy.

#20. “Friendship University”: Someone was confused that I complained about Twilight apparently hating competition, even though she was trying to shut down the Friendship University because she clearly knew that Flim and Flam were untrustworthy. This person apparently missed the fact that Twilight was upset that somepony was opening a competing friendship school BEFORE she found out it was Flim and Flam who were running it, and she in fact went to the Friendship University specifically to find something wrong with it. That’s the part I was objecting to: the fact that Twilight is still so neurotic that she can’t handle not being in control of everything. In fact, that raises an interesting point. Has there ever been an episode where Twilight has had to learn the lesson of, “Other people are capable of things, too. Not everything has to be run by you first”? It certainly wasn’t this one.

#21. “Surf and/or Turf”: Hey, another episode where the conflict made no sense! And, as an added bonus, another one where just talking to the other people involved would have resolved it instantly! Huzzah! Old El Paso managed to make “Why not both?” the lesson of a 30-second commercial. I don’t know why this took so much longer.

#22. “Horse Play”: COM-MU-NI-CA-TION. “You’re a bad actress. You can have a surprise cameo at the end of our play to make the crowd happy, but that’s it.” Jesus.

#23. “The Hearth’s Warming Club”: What exactly was the message of this episode? “Don’t lie”? No, because they never told Twilight the truth; she just happened to be standing behind them when Gallus told the other kids. “Don’t wreck shit”? No, because Gallus never faced any consequences for that. Honestly, the lesson should have been directed at teachers, and it should have been, “Don’t try this shit. It never works; it just pisses everyone off, including you.”

#24. “The Maud Couple”: Worst new character of the season. Hands down. I hope we never see him again, especially if the only way we get more Maud is if he comes along for the ride. What a prick.

#25. “A Matter of Principals”: Speaking of episodes that teach the lesson to the wrong person... Remind me again why Discord wasn’t the one who learned the lesson here? Because he’s unteachable? Because he’s “reformed” and therefore has already learned all the lessons he needs to? Also, this is a rare episode where the characters do actually communicate properly (Starlight does tell Discord to knock his shit off), and they try to pretend they didn’t! Twilight gets mad at Starlight for not talking to Discord, even though she did! You can’t do this, writers! You just can’t!

#26. “Yakity-Sax”: Talk about not knowing what fucking lesson they were trying to teach. You know what? I bet this actually happened. I bet Michael P. and/or Wil Fox were practicing their electric guitar or drums or bagpipes or whatever for days on end at all hours of the night, and all their neighbors called the cops on them. This was their way of sticking it to everyone. “No! You should let me do whatever the hell I want! It doesn’t matter if it disturbs you! Fuck the system! It’s my passion! You can’t stop me from living my dream!”

There’s a holiday special next week, and near as I can figure, it hasn’t been aired in another country ahead of time! We’ll actually get to watch this one together! Yay!