#similar vibes in a way? not exactly. its too much to get into rn but ohoho i have a lot of thoughts considering his relationships w/ others

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

Hi I know it's been a hot minute since I've done this but woe au be upon ye because I've been listening to a slowed version of the disappearance of Hatsune Miku and yeah.

The vocas finding a fucked up very corrupted Piko because as a result of the discontinuation a lot of them were deleted, and they just decide to adopt him because they feel bad.

Slice of life anime except your roommate is a glitchy shell of a person who is very stressed and just wants a hug but can't communicate that because their voicebank is shitfucked and they're barely legible.

Here's the he

OHH there is so many things that could be done w/ this idea. poor poor piko 😭😭

ik u said slice of life anime which implies some more wholesome moments & comedy, and sure there is potential for that as well but. ofc the first thing my mind jumps to is angst 😭 pikoooooooo

[shaunashipman]

what gets me is that date scene was a literally under a minute long which isn’t a whole loft of time exactly of dissect the inner workings of their daddy issues. the minute they had, they used it to its full potential because we had:

- buck and tommy being casually domestic together on their date night in, which while nice, wasn’t like a super fancy thing and shows that this is probably a common occurrence for them. (especially when you see episode 9 and Bobby’s mention of buck going to visit tommy after the shift)

- buck telling tommy about his day, tommy making a joke about the dedicated hospital wing but recognizes that buck is not okay so he ASKS him pointedly how HE is

- buck shares the close relationship he has with bobby and this seems to be the first time they’re delving into that and so of course tommy wants to understand better, hence why he says “your dads alive”, buck replies exactly and tommy gets an understanding buck doesn’t have a great relationship with his father (also I have to add buck sharing how he sees bobby as a father with tommy is a big deal esp considering the buck bobby scene last episode where bobby tells buck tommys good for him soooo)

- tommy then shares his OWN experience after that, bounces off of what buck says to add to the conversation and open up to his boyfriend about his own past so he can get to know him better too. it was a moment where they were both vulnerable (the Gerard mention in particular i 100% believe is to set up an arc with tommy in season 8)

Now at this point there isn’t a whole lot of time left in the scene like maybe 20-25 seconds? they can exactly like I said sit there and examine and analyze their childhoods and their fathers so the tone switches to a more light hearted vibe because it would be weird to end it on a heavy note AND simultaneously it gives us more insight into their relationship

- buck suggestively says the daddy issues line which again, how anyone interpreted that as him wanting to continue a serious discussion is beyond me when again, the scene has hardly any time remaining

- tommy picks up the vibe he’s putting down and tells him he doesn’t have them (he clearly does have daddy issues so again, we know this isn’t about the actual trauma but about sex and what they both like/dislike )

- buck once again responds suggestively with the “you think I do”

- and then tommy with his infamous “God I hope so” - leaving buck giddy and smiling because he got exactly what he wanted

tdlr; We got domestic bucktommy, tommy backstory, both of them being vulnerable with each other, Tommy recognising he was not a good person in the past under Gerard, a set up for a tommy storyline with Gerard in some way for seaosn 8, bucktommy flirting, bucktommy matching each others freak and both very much enjoying it, bucktommy showing they can read each others moods like??? all for his in a scene that was under a minute

that scene was such a masterclass of Show Don't Tell. they had 55 seconds to get across how they're doing and where they are in the relationship and they did it. we can see that they're comfortable with each other; that they're okay with opening up about vulnerable topics but haven't had in-depth conversations on some, like buck and his parents; we can even see some of how they communicate, with tommy relating to buck's admission with similar thoughts of his own father and father-figure (something we've seen tommy do before, and is a lovely subtle showing of his personality); and then we get confirmation that yes, these two have fucked already, and are clearly compatible in that department too.

plus another sprinkle of foreshadowing with gerrard.

in 55 seconds.

that is called economy of time/space/whatever the rule is i can't remember rn. the show doesn't always get it, but when they do it is golden

[mothsgotghosts]

This is for such a niche audience I'm sure but GUYS. D20 and MK1 Fans. Please. I hope you all find this. NEVER STOP BLOWING UP AU. okay. Okay hear me out. I'm gonna yap about this idea bc I have no friends who like mortal kombat. Probably nobody will find this but OH WELL. Nsbu spoilers for sure btw

Ok so this is like a. No outworld au I guess. Idk how else to describe it tbh. So like, Raiden, Kung Lao, Johnny, Kenshi, Tomas, and Syzoth all work at a video rental store that is going out of business. Its owned by like. Shang Tsung I guess. I haven't fully thought that part through tbh-

Anyway they have their little going out of business party after calling some guy to come like pay his late fees for this video tape. The guy shows up and it's Liu Kang yayyy. Then he like yk. Rewinds the tape and they all get sucked in‼️

Raiden ends up as the Kingskin character

Kung Lao is the Vic Ethenol

Johnny is the Jennifer Drips

Tomas is the Jack Manhattan

Syzoth is the G13

And Kenshi is actually. Not a Greg Stocks character, but instead an FBI agent. Also he's a girl too j cuz

Shang Tsung is unfortunately the president j like Dave

And Lui Kang is like. Kinda similar to Damien Bane but not really

I should warn you all I am. A johnshi shipper and that's gonna be obvious in this so if u don't like them u should go 😔. I also ship railao and symas but as of rn those aren't nearly as prevalent to the plot.

ANYWAY. The storylines of the nsbu chatacters they reflect are different from the actual show bc I'm not copying the characters exactly, but the movie plot is relatively the same

I don't have much in the way of an actual plot but here's some silly little ideas I have yayyy:

Syzoth does get hacked by his character similar to Usha, they DO bring him back thankfully but it's WILD

Syzoth is also the G13 character bc he's the only one of the six who in canon is not from Earthrealm and I thought it'd be funny if this guy is just Bad at technology for literally no reason

I chose the six people that I did bc four of them are the champions of Earthrealm and the other two are just silly billies. That's my main reasoning tbh

Liu Kang is not as. Unhinged? As Barsimion for the record, he's a lot chiller and acts like himself if he was just like. A tiny bit crazy and full of whimsy

Johnny and Kenshi's characters plots are intertwined I think. A spy and an FBI agent constantly at each other throats, it's also Super Gay (just like them 😁)

Raiden is the Kingskin character because I truly feel like someone should tell this man he's allowed to be selfish sometimes. Someone please let him know that occasionally he can be a bit selfish.

Tomas is the Jack Manhattan because I feel like he would act a lot like Paula does at times. Just like freaking out and saying insane shit. That's the main reason. ALSO BC HIM BEING A GRIZZLED LOOSE CANON DETECTIVE WOULD BE FUNNY

Johnny was definitely a little jealous of Tomas bc he got to be the detective guy, he learns to like his character tho I swear

Kung Lao is the Vic Ethenol bc like. Honestly Vibes.

Shang Tsung is literally gonna explode the world and start so many wars just like Dave bro cannot be chill

And that's all I got yayyy. I love you if you read this whole thing and if u have more ideas PLEASE lmk. Okay byeee

[crossedsabers10s]

what’s the latest wip in saberland??

uhhhhhh a bunch of bouncing back and forth between things rn. There's one fic i've been poking at that is ACoTaR and is more world building than anything, but the vague timeline is making me want to rip out my computer keys so rn it's mostly just vibes. Haven't quite decided on a title for that one but it's under fierce spear-bearer (loyal hearth-guard) for now. I'm tryingggg to get some more rumor has it stuff done, mostly pre-canon background, but it's in pieces that are slowly being put together. And I really need to rewatch S3 of TVD bc im tired of opening my wip doc for Apathy and just... being like I have IDEAS but no idea how to get em down. or connect them to the stuff I do have written. Then there's the. Half dozen mini fics I have half-written and cluttering up my drive. Plus like. I really want to get some Missed Me stuff done but everytime I sit down to do it the words flee from me.

Excerpts, if anyone wants 'em:

A Court of Thorns and Roses:

fierce spear-bearer (loyal hearth-guard)

“Argos,” Eris says seriously, dragging a finger across the pages of the thick tome he has open. He’s sitting at a desk, feet dangling from the tall backed chair. 

They are ensconced in a reading nook in the library, that place of oaken bookshelves that tower like the trees they’d once been, filled with tomes older than they. It is no Day Court’s Great Library, to be sure, but Autumn is old, and its lord is no slouch at gathering knowledge. 

“Pumpkin,” Erin suggests. She’s sitting on the plush carpet of the library floor, right at the edge where carpet meets the flagstone in front of the fireplace. Nestled amongst the ashes of the fireplace, nearly blending in, is a small gray pup curled into a crescent shape on its back, paws in the air and snoring with little puppy breaths. 

Eris doesn’t spare her so much a look. “Demios.”

“Applesauce.”

“Cú.”

Erin pauses from where she’d been flicking stray ashes. The pup’s paw twitches. “You’re going to get in trouble with Priestess Mara if you use that one.” 

Legendary names from the Continent are one thing. Legends closer to home another entirely. 

Eris waves a hand in a passable imitation of their father’s gesture of dismissal. It has a range of meanings from more ale all the way to to the dungeons with you. “Priestess Mara should be reminded that the temple doesn’t rule, Vanserras do. The old stories are not banned.”

“Yet,” Erin supplies knowingly, having overheard gossip suggesting that the lord of Rocky Shore is throwing his vote behind the latest attempt to ban every mention of the gods and heroes that don’t quite align with worshiping the Mother. Or, rather, the ones that don’t worship her in her aspect of the Mother. 

It’s not a popular stance, not in Autumn, but it has been gaining momentum in the past half century. Especially as tensions between the humans and fae rise. 

“Yet isn’t now.” But Eris obviously reconsiders using a name that may indicate taking one side over the other. Heir to Autumn that he is, even too young to sit on Council, either side would love to have his ear. 

Erin, who loves the old stories and has spent at least a few years worth of time in this very library reading them, frowns before running a finger through the ashes on the flagstone. “Cider.”

Eris’ sigh sounds exactly like their mother’s. The way he carefully closes the tome is similar as well. “Is this you trying to tell me you’re ready for lunch?”

She sprawls to the side, eyes still on the snoozing pup. “Syrup.” 

Finally deigning to weigh in, the pup snorts itself awake, blinking blearily at its surroundings. When it spots the faerie sitting on the rug, it scrambles to its oversized paws and launches itself into her lap. Skirts covered in ashy paw prints and the sounds of delighted giggling mixed with equally delighted yipping fill the otherwise quiet space. Erin begins to enthusiastically pet the little pup. Eris abandons his book to join them on the floor, doing his best to restore some order to the situation, even as he starts giggling just like his twin. 

“I think Syrup and I will be good friends,” Erin decides, face smudged with ash. 

Done with its self-imposed job of licking the two fae youth’s faces, the pup shakes, form briefly flickering around the edges, pearly gray fur blurring and shifting into wisps before settling back into solid shape.  

“That is a smoke hound, fearsome companions and ruthless hunters, they are not friends—!“ Eris tries to rub a smear of ash off his face with a sleeve, but only succeeds in further dirtying both. “We are not calling him Syrup!”

“Syrup!” Erin croons. “Sweet boy, you’ll be the fiercest hound in the kennel!”

fierce spear-bearer (loyal hearth-guard)

Her brother, light where she is dark, dark where she is light, they are less mirror images and more complimentary ones. She has their father’s coloring, he their mother’s. As a child, she’d desperately wanted her mother’s auburn instead of the brown she’d inherited. She’d grown out of that eventually, though there are still days she’d wish the reflection in her mirror was less stern-faced familiar. 

She’s her father’s eyes, she’s been told time and time again. She hates it more with every telling. 

“Was it impressive as they say?”

“Tamlin ripped her to shreds,” Eris says, satisfaction in the curl of his lips. 

“Good,” Erin says, just as much savagery underneath her own polite mask. Unlike their appearance, they match there, always. She sends her twin a sideways look. “But no. The girl. Spring’s human champion. She faced a Midgard Wyrm. So I heard.” She’d heard more than that, but that is one event that stands out. Less so, perhaps, than their littlest brother nearly dying twice over, and less so than Amarantha’s death, but it had been no small feat. 

Wyrms had been native to Hybern, but had been brought over from the smaller island more than once. There’s a few that pop up throughout Prythian’s history, some more famed than others; Coward’s Bane comes to mind, a legendarily giant Wyrm that had carved tunnels three body lengths wide into a rocky area of the Middle. They called it Coward’s Bane because if you’d walked over top of its rocky home, you lived. If you broke and ran, it sensed you and burst from the ground to swallow you whole. 

Amarantha, forever coming up with ways to make people’s lives worse, had bred them, set them loose into unprepared, unprotected Courts. 

The juveniles were less dangerous than the adults, but worse in different ways. Small as the young offspring could be—no bigger than any mundane earthworm—they were difficult to track. Easier to kill, but hard to find. Easier, but not easy. They’d lost a patrol or two to a nest. Once. Or twice. Maybe twice, because one had disappeared in the same area a month prior, but there had been no remains of the first when they’d excavated the nest. 

“She was covered in mud and shit. Broken, bleeding, and full of human-weakness.” His sneer drops. Very quietly, lips scarcely moving, “Yes.”

She nods, then drops the subject. 

But Eris keeps at it. “Prythian’s Savior is held in high esteem across the lands, higher still in two Courts. How interesting she’s remained cloistered in Spring. Not a Court would dare turn her away.” He snorts softly. “Or not. Tamlin no doubt wishes his new-Made lover protected instead of leveraging that debt.”

“Two?” Spring is obvious….

“Night.”

Erin takes a sip of her drink. The wine is a good one, unearthed from some lord or another’s stores. A deep red, it is too thin to be blood. For all that it suddenly tastes of it. Copper overpowers its previous floral notes. “Night? I have heard….” 

She lets the sentence trail off, letting her lips twist just slightly to display the displeasure at what she’d weaseled out of those who’d returned from Under the Mountain.

“He dressed her in war-paint.” Eris lifts his glass to his lips, but doesn’t drink. “Night after night, the kinds of scraps you’d expect from noble patronized whore houses and Illyrian war-paint.”

She does not ask him if he is sure. They once had cause to research Night’s admittedly shrouded culture and customs—even the scant-written, bloody history of Illyria. Eris had never gotten his star-hewn bride, but those days are not so distant that the hastily inked figures depicted have been forgotten. The drawings had been rushed, for certain. Detail and accuracy abandoned for speed and feeling, as though the artist was recreating a scene from terror-tinged memory. But the black ink stretched into wide, strong wings—the sprawling swirls and runes across bare skin, the sketched sword point as sharp and hungry on page as it must have been in truth…. 

It had evoked the same beauty a forest fire does. Destructive. Terrible. Awe-inspiring. Erin has never seen an Illyrian war band on wing—during the last war with Hybern, she’d remained in Autumn’s borders instead of following her High Lord into battle as Eris did, as a last line of defense—but they are compared to storms more than once, in the older manuscripts. Sudden and fierce, striking quick and devastating before disappearing just as swiftly as they came. 

Summer storm, silent death,

the battle-born, the blood-drinkers. 

Carrion crows follow wing-ed kin. 

He gave her the only armor he could, she does not suggest. Instead, she snorts softly. “Heh. Whore paint.”

Eris is too court trained to groan. Just as she is too court trained to grin. “The lowest form of humor.”

“Just high enough for you to grasp, then, brother.”

TVD:

rumor has it 'verse

“—starts going left, which was the exact opposite way the man had needed to turn. He always did have a knack for doing exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. Bloody good at poker, though, honestly, I think he’d the devil’s own luck. Better than mine, for sure. Better than your’s too, eh? Maggie says I’d been cursed at birth, or that I must’ve played dominos in a mirror shop as a child—worst luck she’s ever seen, she says. Which is why she picks the lottery numbers and I get stuck driving down snow covered roads at three in the bloody morning searching for daft fuckers who can’t tell left from—”

“Do you ever shut up?”

Enzo shuts up. 

The voice had been raspy. Words slurred, as though the mouth that formed them was unused to it. There had been a pause between shut and up, as if the sentence was nearly too long to complete. 

Silence takes the cell for a single moment, before—

“No,” he says, unable to iron out all the amusement. First time his cellmate’s made a noise other than groans or snarls and it’s to tell him to shut up? Maggie’d laugh her ass off. Hell, she still might, when he sees her again and tells her. 

After he gets out of here. 

It’s been nearly a week already and he hasn’t seen so much a ray of sunlight for just as long. 

If he’s taken to trying to distract himself from the walls closing in, then, well. Until now, no one had made a complaint. 

Apathy is Wound to the Soul

Yes, Finn is covered in mud and pine straw and a more general kind of forest floor litter. 

No, they will not be taking questions. 

Especially not about them having lost a fight with a tree. 

“Have you two been burying each other again?” Rebekah asks, somehow flippant and genuinely curious all out once, overlaid with some annoyed patina of exasperation. 

Finn will be taking one question. Finn will be asking questions. “No?”

Why is this a conclusion she’s come to. Why is Kol smirking? Did she say again?

til morning comes

Handsome, one part notices, even as instinct whispers: a problem. 

His eyes are too sharp, even if he’s trying to appear casual, taking in them and the room in a way that she recognizes. How far from the door? From the window? Who in this room is an enemy? Who isn’t? Who will be able to be pushed one way or another with the right words?

Katherine says nothing to give away what she sees. Just arranges her face into surprise, muddling it with caution. If he’s a stranger, then it’s justified. Even if not, Stefan is tense beside her.  And she’d just been caught kissing Elena’s ex. Shock and dismay are appropriate reactions. She doesn’t know this man. But Elena might’ve. In this moment, she needs context clues, some kind of lead to follow. 

“Oh, good,” the man says, smiling closed-mouthed. British accent. “This is the right room.”

“Enzo?” Stefan says, sounding stunned. 

Enzo? Damon’s ex-cell mate Enzo? Finally able to put a face to the name in Elena’s diary, Katherine keeps the surprised expression on her face as she studies the ex-science project. 

“Do you know another?” Enzo asks him, seemingly interested. 

There’s a noise from down and hall. Nearly too quickly for Katherine to track in Elena’s pathetic baby-vampire body, Enzo’s head snaps to the side. Without looking back at them, he raises a finger and says, “Hold that thought,” before blurring out of the doorway. 

The door gapes open, frame now empty. 

She meets Stefan’s eyes for half a second, catalogs worry and shock and an unwelcome tinge of shame. 

Annoyance floods through her, even as she is sure to project nothing but a mirror of his emotions, just with a touch of defiance because it’s not her fault that Enzo has the worst timing known to man. 

And what an interruption. Stefan’s not going to kiss her anytime soon now, not with him here. Not when it’s likely Damon isn’t far behind. 

Ugh, and here she thought she’d managed to get rid of him. Guess the clinginess overcame the rejection. 

[deafeninggardenerpanda]

if we’ve covered some red flags, what are some of your green flag ships? like of those “fuck yesssssss” ones that you really enjoy

AYO SELF CARE HOURSSSSSS. i do genuinely like talking about the controversial ships but thank you for the positive vibes anon! love that

under the cut, just because the post is a little long:

actually im not super into shipping i think? i definitely value being able to imagine a dynamic for even the nichest pairings and have a lot of fun stretching or emphasizing certain parts of each characters' personalities to get them to work the best while opening up the potential for some development on each characters' side (thats exactly why im doing the ship bingo! its a ton of fun!), but theres very few things i actually like. Ship beyond surface level thoughts tbh. and recently the things i actually do ship have gotten increasingly niche. so enjoy this ramble that mostly pertains to specifically me and only me LMAO /lh

metadede ofc is the big one. not niche obviously. extremely beloved by me hiiiiiiiiii. they just have so much to work with in canon it makes so many varied interpretations which are a blast to see honestly. in general i love seeing how people portray their friendship too. an idiot whos smart to smart guy whos an idiot communication. enemies to friends to lovers..... their personalities bounce off of each other really well and the content the community makes is always a+. actually im going to take the opportunity to share my favorite mtdd fic ever. this is like pretty much peak metadede to me if anyone wants to know what i hope my personal interpretation will live up to [link!]

people might be able to tell ive been getting very into dametaberge. oh my god im so insane. no one look at me. dmk+jambacult found family Real. i have like three comics in my drafts for them. its mostly dametaberge thoughts rn but i like to think susie joins them later to make a poly ship. dmk and susie are a little tense at first but susie is, "like so over her knight phase," as she says, which dmk is extremely conflicted about whether to be offended or relieved at. and then they learn how to relax around each other and are always the two in the relationship to have awful destructive ideas, which flamberge vetos or approves of on a case by case basis. they get very happy and excited when flamberge approves of their awful plans

and of course my beloved gsa ships.............. theres falsgato which i am incredibly insane about thanks to my friend dragging me into it and now its a thing in my animeverse. enemies to friends to lovers I KEEP SAYING IM SO WEAK FOR THAT. dragato was a huge asshole to falspar for Various reasons regarding the nature of the gsa and perhaps dragatos own personal insecurity, but once they lost the war they got to bond since dragato like, realized how little the shit he antagonized falspar for actually mattered in the first place. and falspars a guy who really sees the best in people and ahahahghdjk its a whole thing its a whole thing i wont go into it rn LOL

theres also metarthur which is my very very beloved longtime rarepair. which i um. uh. ahahahah............. i get very slightly nervous talking about on main because a lot of people hc arthur as meta knights dad or parental figure but i shouldnt be nervous about hc differences really....... anyways theyre supposed to be like parallels of each other. people who are opposites thematically (arthur being leader of the gsa; mk being a former deeply infamous demon beast) who find themselves in similar positions in that they both kinda struggle with their sense of purpose vs their sense of self. meta knight sees his past struggles in arthur and so he finds himself drawn to him. he cant really Solve his situation, but (during their war-time relationship specifically) he hopes to offer some solace to him which functions as a form of catharsis to mk himself too. the two get to connect and understand each other in a unique way. i wont get too into this one right now either lol since the dynamic changes a lot depending on if its their during-war relationship or post-war relationship but theres the basics. i have a comic expanding on their general relationship in my drafts too but its at the bottom of my to-do list tbh. maybe someday though

im only into this one casually nowadays but morphogala... you really cant go wrong with "knight of death saves the greatest warrior in the galaxy from their torturous fate". something something the themes of wishing for the release of death being subverted into yes, death itself releasing you but in a way that actually Saves and rescues you instead. the hope and love in spite of all of the hopelessness AHHHHGH the themes of this one make me so weak. theres so much potential...... i really love this one on an aesthetic level too

you know i take my comment on "not super into shipping" back i think my multishipper ass has disillusioned myself into thinking being insane about like 4-5 ships isnt enough or isnt the norm. maybe i am insane about shipping......... oops

ships that make my thumbs up list in that i like them in concept but dont ship myself would be: marxolor; any of wave 3 x each other tbh. i have them as just besties in my hcs but paired up in any way is very fun; i kinda like shadow metadede but im really particular about the dynamic of that one; fransoos gets a very big thumbs up from me for themes and concept+enemies/rivals to lovers; metagala is. i dont super get it myself but the aesthetics alone are absolutely on-point enough to put this one in the thumbs up category. yayyyyyyy. im sure theres more that im missing but i think that covers any that arent too niche

[allthefoolishdreams]

hiii, this is jeonghoneyss (on my main blog haha), hope you're doing well! some emojis for the ask game, i hope you haven't been asked these already! <3

💫, 💞, 💝, 💌

hi!!! ty i am doing well, hope you are as well!! and ty for the ask 😊

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

my favorite are ones that get specific on what exactly the person enjoyed or whatever details they picked up on, i just love detailed comments basically

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

oh this ones actually tough bc i dont know, i think all of it is important to varying degrees. but personally a lot of my writing is focused on the characters and getting down a specfic vibe or feeling. or in the case of fics that i base on existing stories the plot is important in the sense that i want to make the story my own while not straying too far from the source if that makes sense

💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

definitely you are strange, my love! honestly i didnt think it would get as much attention as its gotten bc it seemed niche, also i expected more people to comment on the casting of felix as black cat, either way its my baby and im glad its gotten a good response!! also my chuck au partly for similar reason since its a niche au but mostly it was my first fic so i was fully expecting it to not get much of a response at all. another one is my minsunglix fic not neccessarily bc the respone since theres only a few comments but the number of kudos it has surprised me ngl

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

i have so many wips in my folder rn and im excited about all of them, idk which to talk about so im going to give one for each chaptered wip i have posted and currently work on:

1. im excited to finish writing my spidey minlix au, i actually have the ending written already i just need to go from a to b. more specifically im excited to write out the two of them having team up moment and of course the Identity Reveals TM.

2. im planning a spinoff for the superchan fic with felix as kara which im excited about getting to

[kirby-the-gorb]

reply roundup :)

I am so sleepy. also photo of my fancy phone case I was so excited about under the cut.

on [flap] @macro-microcosm​ said: HAPPY KIRBY FLAP HAPPY KIRBY FLAP HAPPY KIRBY FLAP- so glad I'm not the only one who thinks he does this. and I relate, things aren't great but at least there are cute things to be a comfort

he is my little projection orb, therefore he must flail his little nubs around in excitement as I do. (also I hope things have improved for you, I’ve still got another 2 1/2 weeks to wait but hopefully the news will be good -n- )

this is how the phone case turned out btw! it’s by CandyDulceDeco on [etsy] or at candydulcedeco.com, they were very patient with working out all the little details and everything :> (that little post in the top corner is for a little loop to put phone charms on, I repurposed a bracelet with rainbow gummy bears as a little phone strap sometime after taking this photo)

on [meds] @plushslug​ said: I have MCAS too. Sucks hard. Keep fighting the good fight out there and may your symptoms be manageable 🫡

same to you *salute emoji I can’t find rn* (love your icon btw)

on [milk] @graycoin​ said: Ah shit, that sounds rough. You can Get Through It, but I am sorry you gotta. :/

thanks, I appreciate both the vote of confidence and the sympathy -n- (and in your other comment as well. thank you in general to the folks leaving supportive comments even though I don’t post them all, I really do appreciate it.)

I also appreciate everyone who rushed to give baby his choccy milk or demanded he get it, with special mention to @justawanderingfan​ who went so far as to [add] the glass (and the resulting smile) themself :)

on [keyblade] @angeryspeedo​ said: look at him. he is just a little guy...

every time someone tags my kirb as “just a little guy” or “a bean” or something like this I become more powerful :) (I even made a post on my personal blog when I first saw this tag that it means I Win At Art. there are many ways to win at art and I win often. drawing something that makes me laugh, drawing something my wife thinks is pretty, drawing something, drawing something that makes a stranger add a funny tag, etc. these are all Art Victories of equal value. I think this is a good way to think of creative hobbies.)

also on [keyblade] @joekingv1 said: *wonders who was baby's favorite character*

I think of the playable characters in birth by sleep, ventus would be their favorite. (both because kirby probably relates to him most and because his combat is most amenable to just mashing regular attack and dodge the whole time (which is mostly what I did lol)) out of all of kingdom hearts I do think they’d vibe with sora. my dirtboys.

on [crochet] @duerme07​ said: this -feels- crochet in a way that few other images have conveyed

thanks! it’s because I hate making small gauge amigurumi and have bad eyesight so this is exactly what I looked like for approximately 3 hours immediately following this drawing :)

on [blanket] @ceylonsilvergirl​ said: life has its ups and downs, is never just one or the other. stick it out through the difficult times And I will find comfy blanket time again

comfy blanket time can be anytime. even or especially during the hard times. (I hope you’ve got a break coming down the line too.)

on [valentimes] @wishiwould​ said: I sent this to all my family and sent the creator money on ko-fi bc delightful

extremely sweet of you, thank you so much! I always love finding valentines like this to send to my wife so I’m so glad I could make something similar for someone else lol (yes I did send this drawing to my wife and my partner for valentines day :v )

on [vacant] @sagessmoke​ said: he's a static image right, when i scrolled onto him he blinked and i need to know if im okay

yep, he’s a static image. when you’re seeing stuff directly from me, I always tag any moving image with “gif” even if it’s a small amount of animation. (my eyes play tricks on me sometimes too.)

anonymous asked: Do you like META KNIGHTTTT METAKNIGHHHHHYYYTTT

yeah he’s pretty neat! significantly more Shapes required to draw him than a kirborb tho lol

[bonesandthebees]

okay first of all i love the title anyways lets go!

i should potentially reread the prequel bjt yolo

title sic infit means so it begins thats neat i like it

im never going to shut up about the way you describe things like this is a dude resding a book but every word is written with such care that its so much more

ooh a ferronnière fancy i am googling so hard rn

the announcement from the snippets! i am very excited about this bit

i think that if wilbur isnt told about it that means it probably has something to do with him in some way. but i do think that even though he thinks phil would be told that he might mot have been its probably a pretty big thing i would think. if it was nothing wilbur would know i think so yeah i would assume that even if it doesnt directly pertain to wilbur that it will be something that will impact him

ah his choice on the heir? yes

i like the break you chose it fits

tnt duo!

i feel like its gonna be some curveball idk im like so skeptical that it would be that easy i also didnt read the summary oops anyways but ywah i feel like a secret third option gets named heir or something like tommy because you said we dont meet him this chapter but will next and yeah idk i dont ever expect things to go how people think they will

phil wasnt told

its definitely going to be a curveball

i dont think its the announcement they think it will be i truly think if it is related to the heir hes going to bring in a third option or just announce that a third option is the heir

something is happening tonight lets see it

how gay are ponk and sam on a scale of 7-10?

NEW VISITORS. TOMMY!

willum hehe

I WAS RIGHT (potentially)

i am so excited for this fic oh my god its going to be so good i can just tell

this pendant means so much its his family and his power and his status and its interesting

YOU HAVE PINTEREST BOARDS I WANT TO SEE THEM

OMG AND THE PLAYLIST FOR THIS FIC oooooooh i like the vibes

anyways im sooooo excited for this fic i think its going to be a fun one!

- 🪿

thank you!! the original title was just 'under the rose' but it felt off to me (partly bc I have a fic already titled under the brine and I thought it would be too similar) so I wanted to make it slightly different but still hold the same meaning. eli helped me brainstorm different words to add to it and then they suggested hanging and I was like ooo ok yeah we're gonna go with that, and I'm very happy with it now

the prequel is very fun if you want some more context + rainduo being cute kids

lol yeah figured sic infit was fitting as a first chapter title

tyyy I always struggle with finding my 'voice' in the first chapter of a new long form fic, because I need to figure out how I'm going to describe things and what word choice I'll lean towards so this chapter had a lot of me experimenting with different descriptions. i'm so glad you like them though!

ty ty I always have fun (read: struggle) with choosing the line breaks for my fics because I want them to hold at least some kind of meaning/connection to the story but also look nice. I experimented with a few unicode flowers and the order to put them in before I decided on the break I have now and I think it looks exactly how I wanted it

curveball :)))

sam and ponk are like a 9 because ponk isn't the king and even though sam keeps saying it's fine they know they gotta show some decorum in public

the pendant gets talked about more in the prequel, but yes it shows wilbur's status as being the son of the consil. it's representative of the role that has defined his entire life at the palace so it holds a lot of meaning to him

usually I have no problem sharing my pinterest boards for fics, but I actually don't have a public board for this one I just realized. the only board I have for it is a private one so it can be as messy and disorganized as I want and mostly just be used to hold references. I might make a public one though and if I do I'll share it with you all! for now though all you get is this one screenshot of part of it (yes there are so many screenshots from game of thrones on it because the costume design for that show is literally amazing)

the playlist is also a lot of fun I am trying so hard to find exactly the right vibes for it

thank you so much I'm so glad you're excited for this!! i'm so excited to share it with you all after so long :D

[narwhalandchill]

random 1.2 story ramble on dan heng incoming, not rly going anywhere w it

also like. its late rn but one of these days i rly wanna read a bit more into and try to form a more coherent view on like. what exactly jing yuans revelation about dan hengs secretly and purposefully botched reincarnation by the elders seems to imply

bc its clear that despite dan heng not wanting to identify as and not being dan feng in the exact sense theres definitely setup that seems to suggest a lot more muddled of a situation than what an usual vidyadhara hatching rebirth would conclude

and like this kind of. what is the line between a self and a past self? what really differentiates you from someone with your body but a different memory and life story? how much of a past life can you remember before you can no longer deny that they too have partially come back to life through you? anyway the psychology and philosophy of that is literally my shit. im obsessed with it. im cracking my knuckles thinking about it. ive written actual dissertation length rants on this about other characters in similar predicaments its such good stuff Man.

imo how id put it off the top of my head without the research done yet or anything just my own vibes is just. i dont think dan heng is dan feng but i also dont think hes not dan feng. i think his desire to separate himself from dan feng to a very black and white degree is something that is more out of his own emotional needs at the moment after feeling trapped by his past sins for so long as opposed to like. a rational assessment of where his situation truly lies. i get why dan heng feels the way he does but i kinda have a feeling theres still a lot he will have to come to terms with as his/dan fengs memories continue to return to him

[trenchcoatsbi]

heya! back again, this time to request a playlist! i’d love for it to have a really comfortable vibe, maybe with some songs similar to jack johnson’s work or, hell, stuff like the kingdom dance from tangled? indie folk music is good, too! anything you feel fits, go for it. take care! -🌾🪶

I went ahead and did this a bit ago tho I held off on posting cause i didn’t know if Tommy was working on one too or not. But uh I’ve thoroughly driven my friends mad with my ramblings while I was putting this together and I think they’d legit kill me if I didn’t post this at all. I didn’t want to put too much stuff on these cause after a bit it was just starting to really look like i copied and pasted MY phil playlist but yeah comfy music is my jam especially indie folk type stuff or like fantasy-ish instrumentals :D! I probably could've leaned more folksy but uh I mainly listen to folk punk and I have a feeling you wouldn't want that on your playlist haha. most of it isn't exactly comforting in the way I was going for with this one anyway

Art used on the cover can be found here! And uh I have rambling under the cut its some more music recommendations and me going bonkers

Hope you enjoy phil! -za

OKAY okay so home from the undertale soundtrack was added mostly on accident but it kinda worked and my friends bullied me into keeping it. pay back for me going bonkers in their dms and forcing them to vc with me so i could play music at them probably lol

I was gonna add Bruno Major his stuff felt too modern [if that makes sense] for the playlist so i didn’t add him but his music just is a vibe! Nothing and Home are some of my favorites from him.

The Head and The Heart got cut (along with a bunch of other stuff) because my friend said wow uh I think almost fifty songs is a bit much for a request playlist so uhm yeah. Honeybee or People Need A Melody are my personal faves from them, so uh give those a listen if you want.

Hollowcoves probably would've fit but uh I'll be honest I just forgot until like 3 seconds ago that it existed. uhm uhm uhm These Memories is good! Give that a listen if you want.

Roland Faunte’s stuff is good but it’s sadder and idk didn’t know if you’d like that stuff on your playlist. I recommend listening to Brick by Brick (I linked to my favorite recording of it the acoustic extended version :D)

Danny Schmidt's music is pretty neat! This to Shall Pass is what I'll recommend, but his music is pretty varied and all of it is good in my opinion

I haven't listened enough to Defiance Ohio to properly give them a full hearted recommendation but I really like You are Loved! You might like it too

Amigo the Devil is dark folk not the vibe for this playlist but one you might enjoy if you don’t mind talk of stuff like murder and that darker type of subject material. Different Anymore is my favorite that's my recommendation

Also uh warning for darker material and its like barely even related to your playlist at this point but American Murder Song is a folk band! They write murder ballads (i think thats what its called) and all their stuff is related to american history! Lullaby is the song stuck in my head rn, they definitely have catchier songs though. damn im really out here like yeah there's catchier songs about murder out there. uhm augh sorry I just wanted to talk about them I can't get my friends to listen to them with me :/

[tiptapricot]

you've probs answered this before but what's your favourite mk comic run?

Idk if I’ve mentioned it before bc I just sort of yell about it in tags but also bc idk if I have one HSHDHD I haven’t honestly read too much MK to say for sure what the best are so def do nOt come to me for suggestions, but I can talk endlessly about the three I have read which are Ellis, Lemire, and Mackay, so here’s what I love ab each.

The Ellis run I love because I’m obsessed with that version of Mr. Knight, as well as the one shot focus each issue has on different strange and supernatural cases. Shalvey’s art is also fucking fantastic and it has some of the best panel n page layouts I’ve seen to date, as well as utilizing the color white and negative space to blend MK w the surrounding gutters. I read a bit past the issues the original creative team worked on because my dad had a chunk of issues physically that went past that point, and those are good too! But I’m not exactly driven to continue at the moment, though it’s always a treat to see Smallwood MK stuff. My favorite stories were Sniper and the mushroom dreams one I’m forgetting the name of rn, as well as the ghost punks n… actually I have to stop they’re all really good they’re all so fun.

Lemire has already been praised to high heaven because it truly n honestly deserves it. This was the first MK thing I read and while def not the best place to jump in blind if you have like zero background, you still get such a good sense of the world and characters. Again, I’m in love with the art and the creative use of the genre, the way they made the need for different artists work well with and actually enhance the reading experience as tone shifts between each universe each alter is stuck in. Also again… Smallwood’s stuff alone makes my brain yell and scream and bite wood. Also ofc has my buddy my bestie Commander!! I’m still so so upset Marvel hasn’t brought him back bc I think he presents a super interesting added dynamic as well as opening things up for exploration of more distant or disconnected alters, as well as the impacts of isolated inner world lives. Lemire also handles talk of mental health n DID pretty dang well. Not perfectly, but as people have talked about before the ending of accepting where the system stands and that they need each other and that they will be alright working together is just… it’s so good. I love it so much.

And MACKAY god ok… I’ve yelled ab this, I’ve yelled ab this plenty, but this run is so fucking good and I can’t believe we get even more like we get MORE and it’s already so GOOD. It delves into Marc’s self loathing and self destructive tendencies amazingly, as well as focusing back on the strange and supernatural things that make me love comics MK so fucking much. It has some similar vibes here and there to Ellis w the occasional self-contained plots, even if many of them end up tying into the overall story, like the janitor plot, the stained glass scarlet baby god (I never see ppl talking ab this but that issue makes me UNWELL ITS SO GORGEOUS AND COOL), and the house of shadows. It also introduces some super fun new characters and dynamics and once again touches on mental health n DID in a fucking fantastic way that in a metatextual context helps to explore and undo a lot of the ableism and bad writing that’s permeated MK’s run under different writers for so long. I’ll have more to say about this one as it progresses but just… yeah. YEAH.

So… those are my favorites because those are the ones I’ve read. I’ve been keeping up with Black White and Blood as well but those end up being very hit or miss usually, often having one story I love, one that’s meh, n one I straight up hate. I want to read more MK in the future so this list may shift, but I haven’t had the brain to pick up anything solid and new and struggle my way through continuity quite yet. But… yeah… some thoughts :-) I love when comics comic hard.

[dapper-nahrwhale]

Thanks so much! All those ideas sound super interesting, both the character-focused Ninjago au (I love the idea of a “canon divergence” in which Wu is never a part of the ninja’s lives, but they still get roped together in a different occupation with a different influential figure) and the plot-focused RvB au (because heist aus SLAP and I am always a sucker for Simmons getting more of a spotlight with a subplot bout his family). Happy to hear more about it!

Ur welcome! And thank you for the interest in them! It honestly really does help with my motivation to finish writing things when I know people do want to hear abt them!

Heres some more lil tidbits abt them lol:

In the rvb one, the whole main heist is all about taking down the simmons family.

But the main plot is a grimmons fake marriage :3

I dont want to spoil it cuz I think it's a hilarious twist, but the reds are not supposed to be on this con. It was an accident.

And theres multiple heists going on at the same time in the same place and its basiclly that one always sunny meme of the two guys recognizing each other across the restaurant and also the leverage two teams competing at the same heist episode vibes going on.

Also did I mention it all started with a fake marriage thing going on with grif and simmons that they have to keep up around his family. Then I made it better by adding heists. For some reason lol.

And also theres ridiculous bets.

And tex >:)

In the ninjago one, it's more of taking place over time and through years ect ect and it's not solely focused one one heist it's more of just we'll sometimes hear references to jobs theyve done. Cuz I dont think I could write that many overcomplicated heists. I mean I could but this au doesnt call for that so I'm not. Yet...

None of them know about their elemental powers yet either. Kai just thinks hes good with fire, jay just thinks hes good with electronics ect ect

Idk how lloyd fits in it all yet but I will. I'm sure. It's come to me.

The timelines and certain events are kinda all over the place since the ninja never stopped garmadon from getting the golden weapons or the devourer or really any of that, I'm envisioning that the world has become very divergent from canon. The lore will still be similar just not exactly the same ig. Still figuring put the worldbuilfing in it

Cuz alot of the villians in ninjago are a direct cause of villains of previous events. So if those events never occur. Then what happens. This I guess.

It all takes place a few years past the pilot, so they're older than when they first met there

I genuinely cannot find the first pilot eps anywheres and I cant remember how it all starts exactly, I just wanted to see it again anyways and to see how different the beginning of the series would be if wu wasnt there.

It's really fun to try and figure out how different the ninja would be as criminals, like what would drive them to that, and what would that change about them, and how different they would be from their canon selves too. Rn they're just. The same but more crime.

I'm imagining ronin finds them all separately and then they go their own ways then meet back later? Idk still figuring out alot of the particulars in it too

I'm also planning on posting some doodles of these aus soon too! :^D

[bogkeep]

hmmmmmmmmmm maybe i’ll write an Introspective Musing Post about my relationship to religion and their depiction in stories because i’ve pondering about this topic lately

so for those who are reading this and DON’T know what’s been going on...  there’s this webcomic i fell in love with some years ago, about six years actually, that depicts a post-apocalyptic fantasy/horror adventure set in the nordic countries. it had, and has still, some very uncomfortable flaws regarding racial representation, and the creator has historically not dealt very well with criticism towards it. it’s a whole Thing. my relationship with this comic has fluctuated a lot, since there are a lot of elements in it i DO love and i still feel very nostalgic about, and like idk i felt like i trust my skills in critical thinking enough to keep reading. aaand then the creator went a teensy bit off the deep end created a whole minicomic which is like... a lukewarm social media dystopia where christians are oppressed (and also everyone is a cute bunny, including our lord and saviour jesus christ). which is already tonedeaf enough considering there are religious people who DO get prosecuted for their faith, like, that’s an actual reality for a lot of people - but as far as i can tell, usually not christians. and then there’s an afterword that’s like, “anyway i got recently converted and realized i’m a disgusting human being full of sin who doesn’t deserve redemption but jesus loves me so i’ll be fine!! remember to repent for your sins xoxo” and a bunch of other stuff and IT’S KIND OF REALLY CONCERNING i have, uh, been habitually looking at the reactions to and discussions around this, maybe it’s not very self care of me but there’s a lot of overwhelming things rn and it’s fantastically distracting, yknow? like, overall this situation is fairly reminiscent of the whole jkr thing. creator of a series that is Fairly Beloved, does something hurtful, handles backlash in a weird way, a lot of people start taking distance from Beloved Series or find ways to enjoy it on their own terms, creator later reveals to have been fully radicalized and releases a whole manifesto, and any and all criticism gets framed as harassment and proving them right. of course, one of them is a super rich person with a LOT of media power and a topic that is a lot more destructive in our current zeitgeist, and the other is an independent webcomic creator, so it’s  not the same situation. just similar vibez ya feel as a result of this, i have been Thinking. and just this feels like some sort of defeat like god dammit she got me i AM thinking about the topic she wrote about!!! i should dismiss the whole thing!!! but thinking about topics is probably a good thing so hey lets go. me, i’m agnostic. i understand that this is a ‘lazy’ position to take, but it’s what works for me. i simply do not vibe with organized religion, personally. (i had the wikipedia page for ‘chaos magic’ open in a tab for several weeks, if that helps.) i was raised by atheists in a majorly atheist culture. christian atheist, i should specify. norway has been mostly and historically lutheran, and religion has usually been a private and personal thing. it turns out the teacher i had in 7th grade was mormon, but i ONLY found out because he showed up in a tv series discussing religious groups in norway later, and he was honestly one of the best teachers i have ever had - he reignited the whole class’ interest in science, math, and dungeons and dragons. it was a real “wait WHAT” moment for my teenage self. i think i was briefly converted to christianity by my friend when i was like 7, who grew up in a christian family (i visited them a couple times and always forgot they do prayers before dinner. oops!), but like, she ALSO made me believe she was the guardian of a secret magic orb that controls the entire world and if i told anybody the world would burn down in 3 seconds. i only suspected something was off when one day the Orb ran on batteries, and another day the Orb had to be plugged in to charge. in my defense i really wanted to be part of a cool fantasy plot. i had no idea how to be a christian beyond “uuuuh believe in god i guess” so it just faded away on its own. when i met this friend several years later, she was no longer christian. i think every childhood friend of mine who grew up in a christian family, was no longer christian when they grew up. most notably my closest internet friend whose family was catholic - she had several siblings, and each of them took a wildly different path, from hippie treehugger to laveyan satanist or something in that area. (i joined them for a sermon in a church when they visited my town. my phone went off during it because i had forgotten to silence it. oops!) ((i also really liked their mother’s interpretation of purgatory. she explained it as a bath, not fire. i like that.)) i have never had any personal negative experiences with christianity, despite being openly queer/gay/trans. the only time someone has directly told me i’m going to hell was some guy who saw me wearing a hoodie on norway’s constitution day. yeah i still remember that you bastard i’ve sworn to be spiteful about it till the day i die!! i’ve actually had much more insufferable interactions with the obnoxious kind of atheists - like yes yes i agree with you on a lot but that doesn’t diminish your ability to be an absolute hypocrite, it turns out? i remember going to see the movie ‘noah’ with a friend who had recently discovered reddit atheism and it was just really exhausting to discuss it with her. one of these Obnoxious Atheists is my Own Mother. which is a little strange, honestly, because she LOVES visiting churches for the Aesthetic and Architecture. we cannot go anywhere without having to stop by a pretty church to Admire and Explore. I’VE BEEN IN SO MANY CHURCHES FOR AN ATHEIST RAISED NON-CHRISTIAN. i’ve been to the vatican TWICE (i genuinely don’t even know how much of my extended family is christian. up north in the tiny village i come from, i believe my uncle is the churchkeeper, and it’s the only building in the area that did not get burnt down by the the nazis during ww2 - mostly because soldiers needed a place to sleep. still don’t know whether or not said uncle believes or not, because hey, it’s Personal) i think my biggest personal relationship to religion, and christianity specifically, has been academic. yeah, we learned a brief synopsis of world religions at school (and i remember the class used to be called ‘christianity, religion, and ethics’ and got changed to ‘religion, beliefs, and ethics’ which is cool. it was probably a big discourse but i was a teen who didnt care), but also my bachelor degree is in art history, specifically western art history because it’s a vast sprawling topic and they had to distill it as best they could SIGHS. western art history is deeply entangled with the history of the church, and i think the most i’ve ever learnt about christianity is through these classes (one of my professors wrote an article about how jesus can be interpreted as queer which i Deeply Appreciate). i also specifically tried to diversify my academic input by picking classes such as ‘depiction of muslims and jewish people in western medieval art’ and ‘art and religion’ when i was an exchange student in canada, along with 101 classes in anthropology and archaeology. because i think human diversity and culture is very cool and i want to absorb that knowledge as best as i can. i think my exchange semester in canada was the most religiously diverse space have ever been in, to be honest. now as an adult i have more christian friends again, but friends who chose it for themselves, and who practice in ways that sound good and healthy, like a place of solace and community for them. the vast majority of my friends are queer too, yknow?? i’ve known too many people who have seen these identities as fated opposites, but they aren’t, they’re just parts of who people are. it’s like... i genuinely love people having their faiths and beliefs so much. i love people finding that space where they belong and feel safe in. i love people having communities and heritages and connections. i deeply respect and admire opening up that space for faith within any other communities, like... if i’m going to listen to a podcast about scepticism and cults, i am not going to listen to it if it’s just an excuse to bash religion. i think the search for truth needs to be compassionate, always. you can acknowledge that crystals are cool and make people happy AND that multi level marketing schemes are deeply harmful and prey on people in vulnerable situaitons. YOU KNOW???? so now’s when i bring up Apocalypse Comic again. one of the things i really did like about it was, ironically, how it handled religion. in its setting, people have returned to old gods, and their magic drew power from their religion. characters from different regions had different beliefs and sources. in the first arc, they meet the spirit of a lutheran pastor, who ends up helping them with her powers. it was treated as, in the creators own words, ‘just another mythology’. and honestly? i love that. it was one of the nicest depictions i’ve seen of christianity in fiction, and as something that could coexist with other faiths. I Vibe With That. and then, uh, then... bunny dystopia comic. it just... it just straight up tells you christianity is literally the only way to..?? be a good person??? i guess?? i’m still kind of struggling to parse what exactly it wanted to say. the evil social media overlord bird tells you the bible makes you a DANGEROUS FREETHINKER, but the comic also treats rewriting the bible or finding your own way to faith as something,, Bad. The Bible Must Remain Unsullied. Never Criticize The Bible. also, doing good things just for social media clout is bad and selfish. you should do good things so you don’t burn in hell instead. is that the message? it reads a lot like the comic creator already had the idea for the comic, but only got the urge to make it after she was converted and needed to spread the good word. you do you i guess!! i understand that she’s new to this and probably Going Through Something, and this is just a step on her journey. but the absolute self-loathing she described in her afterword... it does not sound good. i’m just some agnostic kid so what do i know, but i do not think that kind of self-flagellating is a kind faith to have for yourself. i might not ever have been properly religious, but you know what i AM familiar with? a brain wired for ocd and intrusive thoughts. for a lot of my life i’ve struggled with my own kind of purity complex. i’ve had this really strange sensitivity for things that felt ‘tainted’. i’ve experienced having to remove more and more words from my vocabulary because they were Bad and i did not want to sully my sentences. it stacked, too - if a word turned out to be an euphemism for something, i could never feel comfortable saying it again. i still struggle a bit with these things, but i have confronted these things within myself. i’ve had to make myself comfortable with imperfection and ‘tainted’ things and accept that these are just, arbitrary categories my mind made up. maybe that’s the reason i can’t do organized religion even if i found one that fit for me - just like diets can trigger disordered eating, i think it would carve some bad brainpaths for me. so yeah i’m worried i guess! i’m worried when people think it’s so good that she finally found the correct faith even if it’s causing all this self-hate. is there really not a better way? or are they just trusting she’ll find it? and yeah it’s none of my concern, it’s like, i worry for jkr too but i do not want her within miles of my trans self thANKS. so like, i DO enjoy media that explores faith and what it means for you. my favourite band is the oh hellos, which DOES draw on faith and the songwriter’s experience with it. because of my religious iliteracy most of it has flown over my head for years and i’m like “oh hey this is gay” and then only later realize it was about god all along Probably. i like what they’ve done with the place. also, stormlight archive - i had NO idea sanderson was mormon, the way he writes his characters, many of whom actively discuss religion and their relationship to it. i love that about the books, honestly. Media That Explores Religion In A Complex And Compassionate Way... we like that i’ve been thinking about my own stories too, and how i might want to explore faith in them. most of my settings are based on magic and it’s like, what role does religion have in a world where gods are real and makes u magic. in sparrow spellcaster’s story, xe creates? summons? an old god - brings them to life out of the idea of them. it’s a story about hubris, mostly. then there’s iphimery, the story where i am actively fleshing out a pantheon. there’s no doubt the gods are real in the fantasy version of iphimery, they are the source of magic and sustain themselves on slivers of humanity in exchange. but in the modern version, where they are mostly forgotten? that’s some room for me to explore, i think. especially the character of timian, who comes from a smaller town and moves to a large and diverse city. in the fantasy story, the guardian deity chooses his sister as a vessel. in the modern setting, that does not happen, and i don’t yet know what does, but i really want timian to be someone who struggles with his identity - his faith, his sexuality, the expectations cast upon him by his hometown... i’m sure it’s a cliché story retold through a million gay characters but i want to do it too okay. i want to see him carve out his own way of existing within the world because i care him and want to see him thrive!!! alrighty i THINK that’s all i wanted to write. thanks if you read all of this, and if you didn’t that’s super cool have a nice day !

[charmspoint]

Mars Red: Anime vs Manga pt 1

Alright so I promised myself that I would do my best not to compare the anime and the manga too much because the anime isnt the adaptation of the manga but the adaptation of the stage play and since I haven't watched the stage play I don't know which one is staying more loyal to the original and which one is adding stuff in/cutting stuff out. That being said if anyone did watch the stage play and can answer these questions please come talk to me I'm very curious. So that being said I'll do my best not to mention too much manga only scenes like Suwa's backstory, Takeuchi, Yamagami and Suwa doing slice of life lab stuff, or the conflict between Suwa and Kurusu. The anime may get to this stuff later, it might not I wont judge it for not including it rn even if I feel that the conflict between Suwa and Kurusu should be developed more consistently what did we have maybe one scene? That being said while I can't compare it on different scenes I sure as hell can compare it on scenes they share with each other. I may not know which one is more loyal to the source material but I sure as hell can say which one is more effective tl;dr: It's the manga, read the manga its more effective and it only has 9 chapters so far, please join me in hell under the cut

That being said I'll be comparing the execution of two scenes

1. Conversation between Suwa and Akesato

So the conversation between these two is mostly fine honestly, though the reason Suwa even went to see her (that she reminded him of someone he knew as a human and which turned out to be his little sister) is missing, which kinda gives the whole scene a slightly different tone. The manga has a much slower, softer pace to it, Suwa really comes across as more somber instead of coming in here to sleep in some girls lap, in the manga he keeps his distance for the most of the conversation before sitting next to her when he starts opening up about his past.

Like I don't think it's bad for anime Suwa to have sought out some human contact but it does leave quite a different impression about him. Manga Suwa leaves a much more thoughtful, mature impressions, he never once asks to touch Akesato in anyway and mostly refers to her as a child, but doesn't patronize her. It very much comes across as a tone of a dotting older relative because you know, she reminds him of a family member he had forgotten. Idk I just like the image the manga paints of him better, he comes across as this distant person but also a kind and mature one, which isn't the Suwa we often get to see on the field. I just don't think anime brought across the same feeling. To me it just made it feel like his very goal was to come in here and lay in someone's lap whereas Suwa in the manga is v much there to scout and meeting Akesato is a sheer coincidence based on his hazy memories and so a long lost feeling of attachment.

Anyway, lets talk about uh

In the manga Suwa has yet to be unmasked. And for a good reason. The anime doesn't set it up very well I think that 'I'll lose control' line is the only set up we get and far too late considering it's happening now. In the manga we have a whole lil slice of life chapter in which multiple different things are introduced, one of which is the fact that Suwa constantly wears his mask because he spent a long time as a feral vampire and if he smells human blood he will go feral. It's kind of...very disappointing to see this moment that I felt would be rather monumental in the manga (cuz feral vampires are way scarier in the manga I'll talk about that later) just kinda...pass here. Suwa unbuckles his own mask too??? And then at the end of the episode he takes it off willingly??? In a district very much swarming with humans??? Some of which are people he works with??? I think the screen writers forgot that the idea of 'a character takes off his mask to show his true emotions' doesn't really work if said character will go on a murder frenzy if he has his mask off. This is what I mean when I say that the manga takes its characters more seriously and is more impactful. The manga simply thinks more about how its characters would act and react to things. In the manga Akesato doesn't even take off his mask, she just hugs him and that gets her close enough to him that he freaks out, because his mask isn't as thick as usual. Just to that much he reacts somewhat violently in pushing her away and it leaves you wondering what would it be like if it was completely off. It really makes the anime Suwa just plopping on her lap out of his own free will even more meh :/

dw he immediately apologizes after this cuz he seriously didn't mean to hurt her he just lost control.

But that's what I mean, the manga makes this scene feel so much more serious, it puts so much bigger threat behind Suwa taking off his mask. It leaves you with a feeling of 'fuck, he lost a bit of control just by a human being close, if he was to take it completely off he would really lose all reason' While the anime just makes you feel 'oh he can control himself for a few moments after the mask is gone? That's good lol' It just minimizes the threat Suwa could pose when unmasked n seeps out so much tension out of that situation. Double especially when he just fucking takes it off at the end of the episode.

WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT LOSING CONTROL YOU STUPID FUCK (tho I did like him asking Takeuchi to teach him some songs, that was a nice addition.)

Anyway my last and least complaint cuz it was just kinda...funny

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH AKESATO FALLING ASLEEP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CONVERSATION??? THAT WAS SO FUNNY WHAT WAS THAT??? SHE JUST FALLS ASLEEP LIKE THAT SITTING UP, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CONVERSATION, EXACTLY AS HER PATRON IS STARTING TO YELL AT HER JKBBHJ???

Its so weird cuz in the manga we get this soft ass moment

Like jhbhjkbhj that's just a completely different vibe. I think this ending scene actually best shows off the vibe Suwa has in the manga. Gentle, caring, distant but affectionate. Compared to the anime where the similar scene almost ended up looking like a gag jnjkbkj idk man like the anime mostly has the same dialog, aside Suwa dunking on western influences which i enjoy, but the atmosphere is all over the place and it kinda feels too fast, idk. I dunno if I explained this well but here we are.

Part 2: Kurusu vs the vampire mob

[bakujho]

Strap in folks, it’s rant time.

So, let's talk a bit about manipulation and abuse present in fandom. It’s uncomfortable, but fuck it lets go, I’m tired of the “good vibes only” push that sweeps all this shit under the rug. I’m not pretending to be an expert by a longshot here and I’m happy to discuss, but I have dealt with enough abusive and manipulative people personally and professionally to spot em a fucking mile away and generally keep my distance. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a gross trend where there are people being attacked, then are guilted into keeping quiet because the Abusers make it seem like it’s not worth mentioning or that it doesn’t really matter... Unfortunately, the Abusers know exactly what they’re doing, they’re really fucking good at it, and they know exactly the kind of response they’re going to receive (because in some cases, this isn’t the first fandom they’ve pulled this same shit in). 

Right off the bat though, lets get some basic facts about fandom out of the way. No one in fandom owns any character: be it interactions, personality or anything else about said character. No fandom creator owns an idea, or has any right to tell people off for having similar ideas/techniques/styles etc. There’s no such thing as a completely original singular thought, and pretty sure if you think of something ‘original’, there’s inspiration from another source. No one owns a hairstyle, a costume, a backstory, a colour scheme, an item, a scar etc etc. If someone has a similar thing, neat, clearly you’ve got similar tastes. If someone has a carbon copy of your creation on multiple points, ABSOLUTELY question it, but having the same hairstyle isn’t copyright infringement, and having a similar history isn’t ripping someone off, it’s coincidence. 

Going to put the rest under the cut, CW for manipulation tactics, abuse, and all those sorts of goodies.

So, I’ll start with the Abusers here. Everyone knows who they are, they know who they are, unfortunately the victims of them are worried about speaking out because, for the most part, the ones abusing people are in a position of perceived power and speaking out against them can put the victim in a tricky position. No one wants to be ousted from a fandom they enjoy for speaking out against someone that’s been around fandom since its inception. Which brings me to my first point.

Power: Abusers LOVE the feeling of having power (be it follower count, general clout, perceived hierarchy etc) and get really uncomfortable when they feel someone new comes to threaten their position. So, what do these people do in that situation? Option A is to completely ignore and hope they’re not dethroned, Option B is befriend immediately and subtly manipulate the person to keep a close eye on their actions. Keep your friends close, but enemies closer amirite? 

So how the fuck does a person subtly manipulate another person, shouldn’t it be obvious? Fuck man, I wish. But there’s a lot of different techniques used to keep people reigned in and submissive: guilt tripping, evasion/diversion, attention seeking, lying, intimidation, playing the victim etc etc. So obviously these will all present differently based on the abuser, but the goal of all of them is the same. To stay in power, and keep control over everything they can. 

So how would all of these present online? (of course these examples leave some wiggle room for context lost in text/translation/cultural differences etc, but for the most part it all fits the same pattern that the abuser would use in a face to face situation). 

Guilt- tripping: “Well you wouldn’t be here if not for me” “You owe me for your place in the fandom” “well if we really were friends you’d do this for me…” etc etc. Things that pit your emotional attachment to the Abuser against you, the closer you are, the easier it is. Suddenly the Victim finds themselves indebted to the Abuser for their ‘friendship’ that the Victim didn’t realize was conditional. 

Shaming: Invalidating the victims feelings by saying things like “even a child knows better than this”, “it’s okay you don’t understand, you’re probably young”, “I’ve been around fandom longer so I know how things go” etc etc. It makes the Victim feel like they’ve done something wrong by drawing boundaries for themselves, or sticking up for themselves. Remember, the Abuser doesn’t want to lose their crown so they will talk down to their Victims to make them more unsure of their stance, second guess themselves, and feel bad that they spoke up in the first place. 

Projection: “Others have done X to me, I would NEVER do the same” It’s a simple yet effective tactic. The Abuser takes the things they’ve done to people, say it happened to them, and shift the blame to the now faceless enemy so the Victim feels obligated to side with the abuser because, yea, those things mentioned fucking SUCK and no one wants to experience it. No one wants to be that asshole saying “no you deserved it” (because no one fucking deserves to be doxxed, swatted, hacked, etc etc)

Playing-the-victim: Abusers LOVE playing this game. It’s their bread and butter to set the stage for manipulation. “Having a really hard time rn, sorry im such a fuckup”, “struggling with mental health”, “this is all so hard for me” (legit though, if you are struggling please seek help where/when you can, mental health is important). So any of these statements alone can be harmless, and overlooking someone's mental health can have dangerous outcomes, HOWEVER, when these sort of statements are paired with the other things mentioned, it’s no longer simply a vent or a way to work past personal demons, it’s a way to gain sympathy and support, and it is very intentionally done to garner that emotional response from those that will listen to them. 

Attention-Seeking: can be as simple as “no one interacts with me anymore”, making a dramatic vague post, deleting that same post and making a newer, more dramatic post but this time seeking affirmation from the good responses of the last post, posting cryptic messages that ooze “ask me what happened” (vaguebooking is a plague), basically anything that is asking for a response without asking. How is it manipulative though? Guilt. If you’re aware of the Abuser, these types of posts are meant to abuse the Victim's sense of empathy, the natural response to these sorts of posts is “what happened, I’m sorry that happened to you”. 

Diversion/Evasion: straight up changing the subject or switching the blame to anywhere BUT the Abuser. The Abuser says “change X you’re copying me”, the Victim responds “I feel I didn’t copy you”, and the Abuser presses “well the fandom might not think so” and changes it from a personal issue to a larger, more aggressive problem. In this case, the Abuser is the ONLY one with a problem, but are purposely misleading the victim to take the blame off themselves. It’s not THEIR problem, it’s the FANDOMS problem...now making it the Victims problem. 

Blame: Abusers love to blame everyone BUT themselves for their perceived problems. Fandom isn’t interacting with them as much? It’s the fandom that’s dying. More drama in the fandom? Well there’s too many people here now. Getting called out for bad behavior? That’s the problem of the person who CLEARLY doesn’t understand how fandom must work. It’s the age old tale of “I’m perfect, it’s obviously everyone else who is wrong”. At what point does the Abuser realize that they may be the cause for their own misery? They don’t. 

Intimidation: This is a fun one that’s usually a last resort because if the Abuser is pretending to be a sheep caught in a snowstorm, it doesn’t look good for them to publicly announce they’ve been the wolf the whole time. It looks like “well I have X on you”, “if you only knew what I could say about you”, and “I could ruin you” type shit. Of course, in most cases, the Victim hasn’t done anything to warrant this sort of aggression, but the queen is losing her pawns and is now grasping for anything to fight back with. And who knows what sort of lengths the Abuser has gone to to gain information on the victim. It’s pretty easy to find out a lot about a person online, so the Victims back down due to the threat of the unknown.

Avoidance: refusing to talk about the problem, which is an issue I have with fandom itself, in this case. The “no drama good vibes only” is so fucking detrimental when there are problems that need to be addressed. An Abuser will push the narrative that they’re only here for a good time and don’t want drama, while actively creating drama in the shadows. Its not a problem if we don’t talk about it, right? If no one knows, it’s fine. It’s fine. No, it’s manipulative, and if there are problems they NEED to be talked about, because that’s how you find resolutions. 

Denial: This one ties in with avoidance and blame, in that the Abuser will straight up deny that they’ve ever been, or have ever created a problem. The Victim is making a big deal from nothing, they can’t control how others feel about them, so they’ve done nothing wrong. The Abuser will claim they had the best intentions when approaching someone, so clearly they have done nothing wrong. 

Lying: Including omitting any information from arguments that may paint the Abuser in a bad light. The Abuser absolutely doesn’t want anyone to find out what they’re up to, so they’ll say exactly what they need to to change the narrative surrounding them. It could be minor changes to conversations to complete fabrications. Ex “I only approached X to make sure they were okay after X happened”, but X screenshots tell a completely different story. It’s not always easy to catch an Abuser in a lie, especially when there’s the push for “no drama” so no one talks about their personal experiences and can confirm/deny what was/reported to be said. 

So bringing all of those points together and bringing it back to the Abuser wanting to have the power to control what they like/don’t like in fandom. Once they have that feeling of invincibility, they may coyly ask people to delete posts that could lead back to them looking bad, politely ask another creator to change their creation because the Abuser doesn’t like it, or them asking nicely to stop interacting with another member of fandom the Abuser doesn’t like. It may not seem like much at a first glance...after all they asked nicely. However, once you look a little harder and a little longer, it becomes very clear that the intention is to stay in control. The Abuser will do ANYTHING to stay on top, and will employ every trick they have in their arsenal to sew discord and mistrust amongst other members of the fandom to keep the fingers pointed anywhere but at themselves.

So, sound familiar to anyone? My inbox is open for anyone who wants to chat about the topic. If I’ve now made you uncomfortable and you’re going to unfollow/block, cheers, wish you the best. And if you’re feeling called out and attacked by my post? GOOD, stop being a fucking shitty person. 

A few last reminders before adding some resources:

Setting and enforcing personal boundaries is not abuse.

Choosing not to interact with those who make you uncomfortable is not rude.

It is important to call out abuse when you encounter it, it could save someone from becoming a victim themselves.

Always stand up for yourself, you’re your own best advocate. 

Now for some resources: I used a few of these while researching along with my old textbooks from my psych, abnormal psych, and human relations classes I took back in university.

Manipulation tactics

How to recognize a guilt trip

How to spot an attention seeker

[langernameohnebedeutung]

ok so i'm mid-episode-7 right now and I'll just try to take a little break and wrap my head around all of this a little and collect my thoughts before I move on (spoilers!)

So far, episode 6 and Amenadiel's storyline is my favourite because it had actual emotional impact for me. I actually wish they had started this plot in the very first episode of the season so that we could spend more time on the problem.

Overall, I feel like the show really lacks the established structure it had since the beginning. Which were the murders and solve them. Most episodes were contained by one case with two sides: The actual police work which is where Chloe had her time to shine and then Lucifer dealing with whatever issues he is tackling in that episode, doing his projecting thing and maybe undergoing some personal growth. So we get a fully story per episode while the stakes of the season arc become higher and higher in the background. With Chloe and Lucifer no longer solving cases, this structure is gone. It feels like we're just spending time with some characters going this way or that at random, moving from plot-point to plot-point with very little pay-off. Everything just...blurs.

The stakes aren't really getting higher at all so far, there is no rising action as far as I can tell?

Like, in season 5 everything hit the fan constantly - Lucifer is actually Michael! Chloe gets abducted! Big battle at the precinct and God is there! Mojo switch! God is retiring! Vulnerability is gone! Lucifer is goign to become God! Dan dies! -- it was actually too much for me, towards the end, to the point where everything felt meaningless because the stakes were high beyond the frame of comprehension the show gives us, but this time...it's just seemingly not moving towards a climax.

In fact, they seem to be going down.

Rory is introduced as this big, bad mysterious figure who really, really wants Lucifer dead - and now it feels like she's just been an emo teen hanging out with him and Chloe for weeks? months? doing random stuff - until she remembers that she's pissed at Lucifer again and stomps off and it kinda f eels like it's been going on for ages. Which is okay, I actually like her but it kind of falls flat from her original introduction.

I could live with that if they gave me something to actually worry about. Show me Rory actually getting used to the world around her, finding out things about the people she thinks she knows - or thinks she knows. Going back in time, that's a gigantic premise! I actually really loved seeing her talk about Trixie and knowing immediately where she would hide her chocolate - I would love more stuff like this. I would love to see more stuff about what it was like for her to grow up knowing her father is/was the devil! About growing up as a half-angel. About Charlie who is also a half-angel but actually has a father. Stuff like that.

Then we have the "becoming God"/"becoming Queen of Hell" thing that the entire last season build up to, the biggest fattest finale they ever had- that was a really huge deal. But now both Maze and Lucifer just kinda decided they'd rather not do that and found reasons to hang around. And when a frog started coming from heaven and Ella says she can't feel god anymore and Lucifer runs to Linda so that she can teach him how to care- I thought things are building up now and we're going to have some WandaVision style reality collapse at our hands, I was hyped for that - buuuut nah, they're just all kind of hanging around.

Actually, pay-off in general seems to be kind of a problem. For example, Rory not calling Maze 'aunt' and not knowing Amenadiel appeare to set off an exciting little mystery - and considering that we're now no longer solving crimes, I would love if they really delved into the celestial side of mysterious. I would have loved to figure out some time-travel sheningans - buuuuut it was a joke.

See, I love Dan but honestly I'm kind of at odds with how to deal with his characterisation rn? Because he's been in hell for a thousand years, hanging out with demons and stuff and it's been a thousand years down there, that is torture even without the torture and I would have expected a bit more anything. The same thing with Chloe and the blade, tbh, I feel like this could have been so much bigger?

Overall, I feel like there are missing so many opportunities that I think the show would not only not have missed in seasons 1 or 2, but would have actively used:

The whole thing was always Lucifer projecting his problems on the cases and (maybe) learning something about himself on a good day. Now, let's take the Jimmy Barnes episode. I loved when Chloe looked at the throne and was like: "It looks so lonely" and Lucifer says "it was" - that was such a great moment. - because so far, Chloe doesn't know hell. She doesn't know the reality of hell or what it meant for Lucifer to rule over this place and it seemed like a great set-up for her to finally see his world and to understand what it meant for him to leave this place - but also to be sent back down there again and again. And also for Lucifer to actually see one of his most painful experiences acknowledged by the woman he loves and to actually...talk to her about that. After all, this is the big reversal: So far, Lucifer was the consultant on Chloe's cases, and now Chloe became the consultant and helping Lucifer tackle his celestial issues. So to see her go to hell and actually learn about the place seemed like a really cool start - and then we learn that Jimmy Barnes' backstory is about a son left behind by a parent! And Chloe even talks about how horrible and alone he must have felt! And let's not forget Chloe's own backstory - her father didn't leave, she lost him because he was killed, but she also once sat at home and realised her Dad wouldn't come home and then she got a phone call and realised he would never come home - but for entirely different reasons than Lucifer who was cast out or Jimmy Barnes who got left behind. It seemed like exactly the kind of threads that this show would bring together and have the character discuss and reflect on at the end of the episode. But they didn't. They...rarely do that, this season and it just feels like something is missing from the format - and its emotional impact.

Sometimes I actually used to feel like the show had a tendency of spelling out too much, being too direct - but this season around it's not like they're less subtle. It's just not really acknowledged and it doesn't feel organic.

Another example is in the episode where Lucifer seeks out his old lovers to find out whether they're Rory's mothers.

This obviously gave me vibes right from Stewardess Interruptus which is one of my all-time favourite episodes.

Stewardess Interruptus is one of my favourite episodes because it told us so much about our characters. Also, our characters learn about each other and themselves here: Along with Chloe, we learn Lucifer isn't just a person who really likes having a lot of sex, but that he actually has a pretty dysfunctional relationship with sexuality. We also learn how much Chloe, while actually trying to date Lucifer, struggles with the sex-life he has because for her its symptomatic of their very different lifestyles and it makes her wonder how compatible they are. We go from Chloe asking Lucifer's ex-partners whether he "basically used you for sex and then moved on" to realising that actually...it's kinda the other way around. Lucifer is the one who's letting himself be used because he doesn't know how else to connect with people. That was a good episode - - - now that we went on a similar journey in the season 6 episode, I was actually very interested! Especially now that Lucifer is in a proper relationship and I would have loved to see that brought up - for example if Chloe had been presented with the "meaningless"-thing again and we actually had a moment where Lucifer and her talk about what it means to have a "meaningful" relationship. Like, Chloe tells him that it's okay if he had a relationship before her or loved one of these women - which yes! of course it is! - actually, it would have been interesting to see them discuss what it means that he didn't have that kind of connection before despite being almost old as time.

I was especially interested in Esther as a character - who says she became a Rabbi because of Lucifer which is...something really, really interesting. For one, because this show has such a long history of acting like Christianity is the only religion in the world or at least as if the Christian take on the devil is universal (Amenadiel even says in the first season that "every religion has its version of the devil" and that he's always a "rebellious son" which...no. That's not true. At all.) when really, it's not. (I actually remember reading a really good fic once about Lucifer meeting a Rabbi and discussing the different ideas of evil but that's a whole different matter.)

In this episode, Lucifer is now confronted with someone who didn't find the encounter she had with him meaningless at all - she literally changed her life because of it. Also, when she says she became a Rabbi because of him and he's like "oh yeah guess I got that from your desires..." - much like in the Jimmy Barnes episode, I prepared myself for the classic twist at the end of the episode that the show would usually have had. The moment where Lucifer's immediate assumptions would be challenged. I was expecting that by the end of the episode, she would say something: "Hey, it was not actually your mojo, but ---" and we would learn something about her and have Lucifer reconsider his assumptions - For example her saying he seemed lost and that it inspired her to take on a role where she could offer people guidance. Or it would have been interesting if, like Father Frank, she actually realised at some point that he's really the devil and that made her think more deeply about her faith. That could have been really interesting. Like...I feel like in the first seasons of the show, this would definitely have lead to some emotional twist and impact, even in one of the weaker episodes. Some revelation or insight. Something memorable. But here...it's not.

In a similar vein, that kind of emotional twist is something I would have loved to see in Lucifer's interactions with Rory.

One of my favourite moments in the show was when Maze gave Linda that blanket for Charlie - and says that she got him something that she wished she had as a child.

That was so simple! So effective! Strong story-telling! We understood and learnt so much about what made Maze into Maze in just a few lines of dialogue! It's heart-wrenching! It was amazing. - and honestly, it would be so simple to give Lucifer and Rory a similar moment. Again and again we hear Lucifer insist that it cannot be true, he would never abandon his child but it's very "tell" and not much "show" - when Lucifer tries so desperately to find something that he can give Rory it would have been a really strong moment between Christmas-es and driving lessons and parties, if we had a scene where Lucifer tries to do something similar to what Maze did for Charlie:

Have him actually talk to Rory about what he felt like being abandoned by his father and try to give her something that he would have wanted or say something the would have wanted to hear. We would have learnt more about Lucifer, we would have more of an emotional impact beyond him just saying over and over again that he wouldn't abandon his child, we would actually see some development in the relationship between Lucifer and Rory, Rory might actually get a similar opportunity to shine when she reacts to that - giving her more depth and illustrating her pain in a new way rather than just the same thing over and over again. Their relationship has been seemingly stagnant for ages now. It would have been good.

Another example: Adam kidnaps Linda, Maze and Eve work together to get their hands on Adam because they have no idea what he did to her - and then get a really, really long scene discussion their wedding and relationship and stuff. And then, right at the end of the scene they're like: "oh uh btw we have to find Linda"- that one was...almost funny, because it was so bad and weirdly paced. This is Maze we're talking about! Maze who throws hands with everyone who even looks at her friends funny! And who just recently learnt what it felt like to lose a friend!

I feel like there is a similar tell vs. show problem with Eve and Maze and her family. I really, really liked the dinner-scene in the first episode of the season where Linda keeps asking Eve about what she was going to do in hell, about what her role would be, how she sees hell - and Eve keeps being really light-hearted and seemingly naive about it.

Because Eve's entire character flaw (by which I don't mean that it's "bad" or "evil" - but that it's actually something that causes Eve a lot of pain and holds her back) is that she always 100% adjusts herself to her current partner. That she wants to back them completely and be perfect for them. That is what made her so great in season 4: She was neither "the mean new woman ruining things between Chloe and Lucifer >:( " nor was she someone dangled over Chloe as "here is how you are a really good girlfriend to Lucifer" - no, the reason why she was seemingly perfect for Lucifer was was because she was making herself be perfect for him - to the point of self-negation where he cannot get her to break up with him, because she keeps and keeps and keeps adjusting to him. That is why their relationship was dysfunctional and eventually toxic. When she says in season 4 that Lucifer and her will simply go to hell and keep the party going there - that was the pinnacle of her self-deceit, that was the shining moment where we could tell just how desperate she is for love and acknowledgement and companionship that she's literally willing to go to HELL if that's what it takes.

When the dinner scene in 6.1 started, I was very excited to see this issue build up and then be resolved between Maze and her. I was looking forward to see Maze realise what Eve's actual issue is and to come to some clever solution over the course of the season, but so far...that's not really happening.

And yes, Eve wants to get to know Maze's siblings while Maze keeps saying that no, demons are evil - which would also be a super interesting conflict but it's again lacking the emotional impact because we know so little about the demons on the show and what the world-building is. It's much like with God and the fam in the last season: Up to that point, they were really, really wrapped in huge mystery but that's really why it falls kind of flat. But whereas God and especially the angels fell flat for me because I had them build up in this big, uncanny celestial mystery and they couldn't live up to that once they appeared in the flesh, here it's the opposite. I know so little about the actual horrors of hell that I struggle to sympathise with Maze's fears. If I knew literally any demons' thoughts on Maze being the new queen or having a human royal consort or anything, there would be real stakes. But this way, they can just shake anything out of their sleeves and that's it.