#wAS SO OBESSED WITH THE IDEA LIKE ITS SO PERFECT

[moldspicy]

a little something for @fluffs-n-stuffs 🤲🌸✨

[interlunium-opus]

“Tempestuous Desires” is a masterpiece and I know that’s a bold statement considering that it was just recently released but I have to say that the way you illustrate Jake’s obsession with y/n is just nothing but perfection. I love the way you implemented some elements of New Jeans “Cool with you” in this fic, with Jake being the messenger and y/n being the messenger’s love interest (him essentially playing the role of Cupid). I am so proud of you for releasing such a masterpiece of a fic WHILE still being occupied with school work and a job itself. Kudos to you for pushing through

Much love,

-🩵

hello 🩵 anon! It's good to see you again 🤗

Aaaa thank you so much for your kind words and comments, you have no idea how much it lifts my spirits 🥹🥹🥹 indeed that was the goal, to illustrate Jake's gradual spiral down the obession hellhole hehe

ughhh that song and that music video is such a masterpiece, I just have to write something about it ((even if its like 10 months late 💀)) and there is just no one else more perfect to be the messenger than Dark Blood era Jake.

Thank you again for dropping by and for staying with me. With me constantly disappearing now and then, I thought many wouldve already forgotten about me 🥺

[booksarelife-stuff]

Writer Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @annabtg

Tagging @queen-isabelle-writes

Do you write in order?

For the most part, yes! But typically, I’ll think of one scene in particular in my head and I’ll build around it, but when I actually go to write, I start in order. 

Do you start with something particular?

Typically, just an idea and how I want my characters to be. And normally what Taylor Swift song I’m assigning them and the story!

How fully formed does your writing come out the first try?

Pretty formed I think! 

How many drafts do you go through?

I don’t write something completely, check over it, and do rewrites of the entire fic or scene. Typically, I write over the span of day (weeks, months) and everytime I open the word document, I read through what’s already there and make changes before continuing. I don’t know if that 

Tell me about your process.

I’m just going to tell you guys about the process of DWOHT because that story is my baby right now and its a fic that I feel has actually had a process from me. Most of time, I just write silly little oneshots. This will be below the cut because it’s long :)

So Red, White, and Royal Blue is one my favorite books. In fact, one of my favorite troupes of contemporary romance is royality. (Maybe my love of the Princess Diaries and The Prince and Me played a factor in that.). I had also been to England in October 2021 and I fucking loved it. I found myself after that trip being obessed with British history because my tiny pea size american brain was so excited to see old things in the UK. 

So I got home and started watching The Crown on Netflix and got addicted to the British Kardashian family. I’m not for the monarchy in any way, they are just like reality tv show that has is the face of a country and it entertains me. I feel really bad for the UK citizens whose taxes pay for the clownery. 

This was all going on and then I entered the Feburary 2022 Jily challenge and was given the prompt: “You have nice lips?” “Thanks?” and I was stumped.

Then I got on tiktok and I saw the story of why Taylor Swift wrote Dancing With Our Hands Tied, which was already my favorite song by her. Basically, she had made her first public appearence in a year and the press just shouted mean and horrible things to her and made her feel like shit, especially when it came to her relationship. Dancing With Our Hands Tied is about a relationship that feels doomed to end because of outside forces but they are trying to make the most of it. 

And then with Prince Harry and Meghan all the news, talking the press. How the press treated Diana. Princess Margret’s struggles, and her relationship with Peter Townsend. A plot appeared in my brain. 

I chose Lily to be the princess with much debate because if you think about them in canon, James is the rich priveledged one. But I thought Lily’s characteristics just fit better as the royal in the story. James has the real privledge in the story (beside money and power) because he has warmth and love, something that doesn’t seem to be a big part of the royal family. Also the sibling rivalary is real! Petunia and Lily were perfect. 

And that’s it! I started plotting and writing. I’m still working on Chapter 7 but I had to make some major changes because of watching Harry and Meghan, and now I’m almost done with Harry’s book. 

Sooo yeah! 

[popculturebuffet]

Go Team Venture! A Venture Bros Retrospective: Season 4A

Hello all you happy venturoos! I”m jake and I review comics and animation, and today we return to the world of guys in costumes, stuffed dead cats, batman obessed blond mop heads, super science shenanigans and naked men, as my Venture Bros retrospective makes it’s triumphant return!

For those of you who missed the looks at the first three seasons, which is fair the season 3 review was two months ago, here's some links

Season 1!

Season 2!

Season 3!

The short version: Since high school i’ve been a huge fan of the Venture Bros, but due to my watch queue being as bit as the posts linked above and this one your reading, I simply never got around to it. So late last year when I decided to continue the trend i’d started of starting a review of something I love dearly to the point it’s a part of my very soul, the choice was obvious and thus this look back at the series had began. Like with Scott Pilgrim I noticed tons of deeper things about the series I hadn’t before, re-evaluated episodes I once hated, got to enjoy ones I loved again and found some.. were just as crappy as always. Hello Fallen Arches, Love Bheits, Guess Whose Coming to State Dinner, and an episode we’ll get to shortly. I got to bask in the titular bros shenanigans, recoil in horror at just how low Doc could sink, and see the badassery and jerkassery of brock sampson and many many more in this stuffed to perfection cast. 

So with how well this was going you might wonder why I stopped. 

Okay I do have some but I coudln’t resist that gag. The first delay was because I got sick unexpedetly and had to push it back as it was the only review I could afford to. As for the second it’s ironically for the same reason this season got cut in half: Much like Jackson I was burnt out after stupidly overtaxing myself and thus delayed some things rather than half ass them. These reviews mean a lot and just like Jackson i’d rather things take longer than come out half assed and exausted. Thankfully a few days off last week, even with ANOTHER cold because I have Rusty’s luck without actually deserving any of it, did the trick and i’m primed and ready to jump into what is easily my favorite season, and I feel comfortable saying that both having only rewatched one half and having had to sit through Perchance to Dean again. By episode 4 the season is on full blast, taking everything that made the show work thus far from oddly specific references, to the gorgeous art direction, to the fatnastically lived in and well constructed world to the titular boys themselves, and took it to it’s peak. The first three seasons are good, especially seasons 2 and 3.. but season 4 is damn near perfect.

As usual before we get into the season itself we have to see how the sausage gets made. And the key part of this one’s development was burnout. Season 3 was the first season they had made that had the promise of another one. It’s WHY they upended the show: As Doc pulled it its’ no fun to do something like say, killing 24 or having brock quit, something that changes the shows dna.. and then just walking away. You don’t end on a cliffhanger unless your sure you’ll get to resolve it. It’s why Doc and Jackson were so determined to find some way to end things after season 7: having Hank leave possibly forever is not the note you end a series on, it’s the kind of note you play knowing it’s leading into another song. It also meant having to shelve an episode idea till next time was less frustrating: for all the ones the big status quo shifts would make unwritable, there were dozens more that would be just fine next time. 

The problem was, much like myself, Jackson overestimated just how much he could do and how long it would take. As such he expected to be ahead of schedule and fell horribly behind instead, something I again know all too well and something that according to Doc he does every year. It’s just this year he didn’t have the gap between seasons to recharge his creative batteries so they burst into flame on him. All but one of the episodes aren’t bad and the one that is isn’t because of burnout, so he didn’t let the work suffer but having put so much into it he was about ready to collapse and utterly behind when he got to what would become the season 6b premire “The Diving Bell Vs The Butter Glider” he had the ideas.. but he just coudln’t bring himself to make the script. 

Doc was fully supportive as like any sane person when he hears a person screaming I need a break his first inscint isn’t to crack the whip and increase the crunch like too many assholes out there in creative fields.. but to let Jackson slow the fuck down. Jackson went to the network and convinced them to let him split the season in half and add a few extra episodes: Adult Swim gets basically two seasons of it’s most popular show and Jackson gets a LITTLE rest. They didn’t really STOP or anything, they just didn’t have to go as hard and despite being exausted to hell in the second half we’ll get to next month, Jackson still was utterly proud of what he produced and never made the mistake to not have a decent gap between seasons again. And look most shows do come out at a once a year clip, but I can’t blame the guys for working at their own pace, epsecially having to do dvd stuff, promotion, all sorts of other things going on around each season. 

As for why keep the split it’s two reasons: the first is that i’ts simply less exausting to do two batches of 8 episodes versus one motherfucker big 16 episode giant, 17 really as Prom is double length. I have my limits and while these reviews are some of my faviorite work i’ve ever done they still take a LOT out of me. And that’s knowing one of the next shows i’m going to going to do full season reviews like this of has 24 eps a season. But said eps are 11 minutes, so it’s a bit easier to swallow compared to trying to cram down 15 half hours and one full our in the span of a month. How Totally Not Mark does WAY more than that every month, even without two other reviews in the week to consider, I have NO idea.  More than that it also just.. feels right to split the season. While on a nostalgic level it’s how I watched it both halves , while making a whole together, still FEEL like their own seasons with their own dedicated premires. More than that thanks to Brock’s absence 4a just has it’s own feel and even it’s own status quos for Gary and Hank that get shifted a bit next season. While hank is still a tad more rebellious and mature and gary still entirely badass while still very much gary, both shift in priortities with Hank having his absent surrogate dad back in his life, thus having no need to rebel against his other authority figures anymore, and Gary questioning the life he’s chosen. We’ll obviously get to those more next month, but you get my point: each part while making a whole together is it’s own thing, kinda like how the two halves of amphibia seasons 2 and 3 each feel very diffrent from each other while still flowing into one another. So it just makes the most sense to do each part on it’s own. So with that let’s begin this journey with the first part as Hatred moves in, brock moves out and 24 dosen’t really move on so much as talk to his halluciation of his best friends ghost.  

                                                Content Warning: 

This Review Contains mentions of Pedophilia as one of the main cast members at this point is a former pedophile, as it will sexual assault. Discretion is advised

                                        The Season(Piece) and Me

When making the intro I forgot to get into how I experienced the season way back when, or at least this part. And despite this review being a meaty boy that took several days, I still felt I needed to go back and add it. The whole reason i’m doing this project, and frankly do most of my projects, is it means something to me. Sure I take comissions and patreons and gladly, i’m getting paid to do what I love. I’d never walk that back and I do have to sign off on the thing i’m reviewing before I actually agree to take money. But one of the best joys of this job is just getting to jaw on about works I truly love, the good and the bad of them. And on rare occasions tearing apart things I truly hate, see you next month Quagmire’s Dad!, but my point is I do this retrospective out of love and the deep history I have with the show so not sharing it now we’re in the thick of me watching it one on one is just silly.

So by now I was hooked, having written my own utterly terrible fourth season during sophmore year of High School.. it’s thankfully lost to time. I loved this show so while I checked season 3 out casually this was the first season I went into hyped as hell and obviously it did not disapoint. This really was the golden era of my being a venture bros fan: the mantis eye experiment, a fansite that not only still exists but is where I get most of the screencaps for the episode guide, allowed me to talk about the episodes as my struggle to find people who share some of my werid intrests is eternal apparently, and it was just pure fun. I got to see things progress and change, the characters truly evolve and ooo and ahh as the show really hit it’s peak. It was a great time to be alive and to be a venture fan. 

                                   Seasonal Stylings

Starting us off is something I don’t feel i’ve gushed enough about in general but hits it’s stride here: the animation. The show has always had a gorgeous art direction, essentially being a filmation superhero show or a hannah barbera action show if it had the actual budget it deserved, and every season it’s improved from being slightly chonky but still lovely in season 1 to improving on that and helping it become more cinematic in season 2 to the HD upscale last season that reworked the character models to fit the shows art evolution. 

Now with Season 4 and most of the characters getting a redesign the art direction truly has hit it’s stride and it’ll keep, and sometimes up, this level of quality from here on out. Last season was the show upgrading to HD, wisely knowing that’s where things were headed. This year was the show taking that to it’s ultimate form. 

Said redesigns are also all cherry: Brock and co’s sphinx unfiorms should absolutley not work, being poo brown with some gold accents. But they look damn cool and the muted brown fits their off the books gone rogue approach to tackling super villany. LIkewise hank gets my faviorite look for him here, only rivaled by his seasons 6 and 7 rainbow jacket and hella good hair: the grown out hair and brock’s jacket, draped over the team uniform or his pjs depending on what time of day it is. We also get 21′s upgrade to buff as hell wolverine style badass. I also do love Team Venture’s new look, something I didn’t notice as a teen. Ala the fantastic four they now all have the same uniform, with Hank naturally adding his own touch with the jacket. We’ll get more into what that means story wise in a moment but It’s clear jackson and doc took the big changes as an excuse to really have some fun. In the past the characters generally stuck to their classic looks, with only Shelia getting a big change with the dr. mrs the monarch suit  but here everyone in the main cast gets changes great and small with only monarch keeping his classic outfit and SHielia sticking with her change up from last season which fits: both are in the most stable place they’ve been since season 1 so unlike everyone else, who is going thorugh a lot of upheavel, why WOULD they change. 

Change is the theme of the season. The first three seasons had a strong continuity and a mini arc here or there: Richard Impossible’s degrading marriage and sally leaving him, JJ slowly getting disllusioned with his big brother, the order of the triad trying to function as a team, dean’s crush on triana slowly progressing. Just some things on the outskirts. But as far as the main cast was concerned only the monarch had any lasting changes to his life: he had a messy entirely his fault breakup with his girlfriend, got framed by her ex, went to prison, adjusted poorly without her, won her back thanks to a combo of Dr. Henry Killinger (and his magical murder bag) and Shielia realizing why she left limb in the first place, succesfully wedding her despite Phantom Limbs attempted guild mutiny and bride abduction, and having to TRY to not arch venture before eventually finding his way back within the rules. While Malcom didn’t change a LOT as a character he still went through a lot and it effect his arching every time. 

In contrast team venture remained mostly the same. Hank and Dean did evolve as characters, with Hank going from a jock bully moron to an intensely weird, immensely loveable, and entirely specific weirdo who thinks he’s batman instead of barely qualifying for robin and is the only one in his group who enjoys this superhero crap like anyone else caught in this vortex, whlie Dean went from a put upon nerd to a proudly geeky in the 60′s style nerd who is unabashidely optimstic, naive and sweet, while Brock slowly grew to accept his roll as nanny before the stress of it lead to him noping out. Rusty remained pretty much the same asshole just marginally better every season

But their core deal was the same: Doc was a failing super scietnest resulting to increasingly shady side hustles to get by, Brock was his best friend, loyal body guard and constantly failing at his job because Doc won’t listen concisence who kills anything that dares threaten his found family, Hank batusi’s into danger despite having no buisness doing so and dean has a panic attack. together they get arched by a jackass in a butterfly suit (and for one season a recovering pedophile with a military gimmick) when their not on globetrotting adventures or dealing with the remains of rusty’s latest bad decision. The show never rested on it’s formula or anything but there was an inherent saftey in the core status quo. A combination of Brock Mothefucking Sampson and having survived far worse meant that while we knew rusty COULD die in the shit he kept getting thrown into, he probably woudln’t, while the boys not only had the brock saftey net but also the clone one. As long as they were arround, they were imortal. 

Season 3′ sending cleverly cut both safety nets to ribbons: Brock is not only gone but he’s replaced by Hatred. As Jackson put it Brock occasionally did badass herculean feats of strength, stuff no normal man could do and even some paranormal men would say “fuck that” to trying. Hatred is just a middle aged guy who wouldn’t be out of place at possum lodge who only has guns, army/osi/guild training, and inside baseball knowhow of the guild. He can protect his unit sure, but he’s just not the guaranteed instant win button. Meanwhile the clones are gone: they grow in real time and even if Doc COULD make more, The OSI is making sure he DOESN’T. The Boys are the last one he has. 

With the safety net gone and someone whose not even remotely like brock taking up his old duties... it cleverly changes things. The ventures are now bolted to the compound and doc has switched from get rich quick schemes aborad to simply renting out to whoever will take it. The old offsceen adventures are gone and what’s left is a family struggling to hold it together when their heart ripped himself out and walked away. And as a result the family is BARELY holdling it together in this part:  While Doc TRIES to be a parent it only works with dean, who he affectionately mentors. With Hank he’s just somehow even more of an ass to him than anyone he’s ever been an ass to (which given he reached one hundred on the “Rusty Sucks Suprising No One Count” last season is saying something), and Hatred just isn’t good like brock was at ballancing that out, with hank rejecting him most of the time and for understandable reasons (he replaced his dad and also tried to molest him. I can’t blame the kid) Meanwhile hank acts out more as a result of both loosing brock and his dad being a dick. Dean is really the only one whose got it together this season and that’s only by a hair. The family was always dysfunctional but now they’ve hit their lowest point and it will only get marginally better from here. 

It changes up the show.. and for the better. It shakes things up at just the right time: three seasons isn’t a bad amount ot keep a set status quo, getting fans used to the show.. and then shaking it to hell and back like Rusty probably did with the boys as babies. By changing everything the show was allowed to truly grow, having already slowly done so and hit it’s true peak. Anything could happen with Brock gone and it did: 21 became a badass, a new member joined the family, a longtime mainstay in triana exited, and things would only keep c-c-changing from here. And the show would only be better for it.  

                                                  Roll Call

As usual we start with Doc who is trying to be a parent for once, staying at home to try and keep the kids safe.. not that this makes a ton of sense given most of the boys deaths HAPPENED in the home but hey, rusty’s life never makes a ton of sense and the boys have become marginally less death prone, and it is a place where he can keep a better eye on them before they do something suicidally stupid. He’ll NEVER be able to control costumed jackasses attacking him but he can at least try. 

The problem is his efforts are so titled to one side i’m suprised Hank didn’t shoot off into the stratosphere. Doc IS geninely trying with dean, to guide him into doing actual science via giving him a lab (instead of growing experiments in the kitchen) and most heartwarmingly introducing him to his love of pro rock to inspire him. While he’ll be more of a pushy dickhead in later seasons toward dean following in his footsteps, here he’s gentle and when the guild invades his compound and you know, dosen’t realize how utterly horrible any of that would look to everyone inside, especially one fo their ex employees, Rusty not only gently helps his son with his panic vomiting , assuring him that’s half the reason to wear a speedsuit, he actually goes along with dean’s plans to confront them. It dosen’t go anywhere, but it’s heartwarming to see Doc REALLY trying for once, realizing that this is the last son he gets and now Dean CAN grow past being a teenager, it’s time to prepare him

The problem is while he’s being a good parent for once to Dean it’s ONLY Dean. While Hank IS acting out, refusing to accept Hatred as his new bodyguard and calling Doc insults , including my personal faviorite “A Honky”, both for the delivery on that line from Doc and the Monarch understandably snickering.. Doc predictably is being extra obnoxious about one of his sons finally defying his abusive ass. Over the course of the season he geneinly seem to consider not rescuing hank from the monarch (He actually does put in the effort to get him back but still), tries to bar him from using the bathroom, physically abuses him for the first time while blaming him for something he didn’t do and doesn’t really trace back to him, and snarks about Hank working in UPS as an adult. He is just awful to my boy all season and even putting me spiritually adopting hank aside, this is easily the worst i’ve seen rusty. We’ll get WHY he does this next time but it dosen’t make him any less awful for treating hank like this simply for acting out, especially since Rusty himself acted out plenty with his own dad in college. He’s also not great to Hatred.. to a point. His comparing him to brock constantly is just sad as it’s clear by the finale DOC is the reason Brock left the compound. Brock genuienly laments not being able to “tell the boys their safe” and misses them.. but while Doc will always be his close friend it’s clear he’s fed up with his crap and relishes getting to call him an ass. Doc had a good bodyguard by pure luck. Hatred is exactly what he deserves for his threat level and he just can’t accept he has to actually try now. That being said Hatred is also an ex pedophile who begged for the job, shows up naked in Doc’s room during an emergency, and unashamedly talks about how he was masturbating piror to being tranked. And look masturbation shouldn’t be stigmatized.. but Rusty is right Hatred dosen’t need to TELL him about it especially in an emergency. Just because you can and should be able to talk about masterbation dosen’t mean you HAVE to bring it up when you don’t have to. 

We also have Doc finally get some therapy.. only to chuck it deciding he’s better than everyone else in the group. Which.. he is to a point. He makes a good point how unlike the hardy boys by way of the mendez brothers, patton oswalt’s robin and action johnny he is better off.. but being better off than the REST of his group dosen’t mean he’s better. It’s honestly.. sad. Doc DOES need help, he does need to grow but because the Monarch can’t grow up for five minutes and accept Rusty can have one night a week he dosen’t get arched, he looses that and convinces himself he dosen’t need it back. Once again the adventure life has cost him peace of mind, but this time he just accepts it. He probably would be more pissed the Monarch was interfering with his life than that he actually caused his therapy to end. Rusty NEED help: he has decades of trauma, abuses his kids, and is a former addict. He NEEDS someone to help him through his issues so he can be better... but the thing about mental health is you NEED to want help or it’s not going to take. You need to WANT help. 

We’re also given the heartbreaking reason WHY he hasn’t gotten help: SHOCKINGLY Jonas gaslit his own son, playign therapist while really just bullying rusty for not wanting to have a grown man put an empty gun to his head and whisper “not today rusty”. Yeah even if Jonas isn’t playing the HUGE roll he did last season he still gets worse this season. So it’s easy to see why Rusty turned out this way and sad to see he can’t see the way to dig himself out of the hole his own poor decisions and his father's abuse buried him in. 

Now onto Hank who out of the two boys gets the most development this season and part of that is his dope outfit change. I’m not one to take the side door, i’ll go up front and knock: i’m not a fan of Hank’s classic outift. It’s not terrible and provides a nice color contrast to Deans and as Hank points out this season he can rock a kerchief but it never worked for me. So it’s probably not a coincidence teen me finally noticed just how awesome hank was the same time he got a sweet new outfit, getting his own team uniform while adding Brock’s Jacket to it and growing out his hair. It’s not supposed to be neat looking, it’s what a teenager is supposed to think is cool and past me can confirm but evne as an adult it just flows better and fits hanks insane personality better. It’s also part of why I feel the season splits into halves so well: Hank in part 1 is a different hank than hank in part 2 down to sadly shedding the hair cut and eventually the jacket.. though he keeps the speedsuit and gets some other fun outfits next season, so it still works out and he thankfully grows his hair back to an even better style during the new york era. I don’t hate shaved hank but I prefer him with some hair as it just looks better. 

Anyways, Hank has taken his only positive role model leaving him poorly and thus is changing the most. Dean loved him and misses him too.. but to Hank brock was everything: he was the one he tried to be a kid sidekick to, the mulleted ladies man badass who let him hang out in his room and quite honestly... his dad. Doc can barely be assed to be a parent so while Hank treats him like a dad.. Brock actually ACTED like one. He was tough but fair with him and actually bothered to spend time with hank and teach him stuff. And now he’s simply stuck with the bitter resentful jackass who clearly prefers his brother not going on adventures anymore. 

When you look at his changes... he’s TRYING to be brock since he can’t have brock: he’s wearing his jacket , growing out his hair and taking up Brock’s place of busting Doc’s balls. Granted part of that is also that hank needs someone to blame so he lashes out at the guy who replaced him and the guy who clearly drove him away in hanks eyes... which is part of it but not the ENTIRE reason Brock left, so fair enough. He just wants Brock back and is in denial that he’s gone. Well okay he’s on the same yard, but he’s not present. It makes two parts of the premire in paticular heartbreaking: The first is Brock’s full exit: while he did quit at the end of the season it’s clear no one on Team Venture bought he was really leaving.... until he does, running out to escape the OSI and leaving his watch behind. While both boys are devistated.. it’s Hanks face that’s the most hurt. Brock not only REALLY is leaving.. but he didn’t say goodbye. It’s why Hank retreats into blaming everyone else but Brock for leaving: because he can’t take the idea his mentor, his dad, REALLY thought so little of him as to leave and really didn’t care about him. He does of course and Brock really just left because he had no time to say goodbye and it hurt him to know he was close to his kids but coudln’t see them, but to Hank it’s just his favorite person in the world leaving. 

The hardest one though is the end of the same episode when we catch up with real time.. and see Brock with Sphinx. Jackson’s performance is utterly heartbreaking. He hugs his missing father figure.. before asking some pretty soul crushing questions, sounding not like the fearless, reckless, endlessly confident doofus we love.. but a scared child wondering why his father left him. His “why did you leave me” just.. breaks me every time i’ve heard it, and the “Why didn’t you say goodbye right before” .. it’s just utterly heartsmashing to see hank break like this and you can tell Brock just wants to tell him but knows Sphinx needs to remain in the shadows both for it’s good and Hanks and asks to share him a while. He dosen’t even properly comfort the kid he has to go before that. It’s not one of brock’s better acts, basically asking hank to hide he was there, and thus any chance of finding him and to just accept he’s gone.. but the fact it’s not so simple, that Brock knows what he’s doing is hurting them both... it’s masterful writing. 

It’s just a half a season of a sad child wondering when his dad will come home while having a LOT of shit piled on him. And i’m not exagerating: in the span of 8 episodes he only gets to see brock for five seconds and gets no good reason why he left, gets kidnapped by a man trying to make him into his new sidekick instead of you know, get therapy while his dad only tries to rescue him because he has to, thinks he killed his brother, gets blamed for said brother’s deranged clone’s actions, gets kidnapped AGAIN this time by one of his only friends, has said friend block his view at the movies, then has to use himself as bait to help prevent his new bodyguard from having a spiral back into pedophilia. it was dressed up as his ex wife, to be clear, but it’s still no less fucked up. I didn’t even realize it till I rewatched this batch: hank goes through a lot and the fact he got through all of this his usual dopey self speaks to his resielnce. The kid has been through so much shit before and after this season and he just keeps going, happy as ever and as determined to be batman as ever. 

The season does compensate though by showing some real growth in hank:  While he’s still far more skilled in his head than in reality, he does show some flashes of actual skill: he has a robin style battle as wonder boy with 21 and the monarch and while both are going easy on him (21 ONLY punching him because he was being a little dick), and the monarch as he needs his hostage, he still dodges both fairly well and dosen’t get recaptured and for someone who used to get kidnapped every other week, that’s a win. He later manages to stall the bulk of the guild of the calamtous intent’s military simply by stonewalling them with the intercom. Granted again the opponent didn’t have killing intent, but not only did hank NOT know they didn’t and was willing to put his life on the line if they did, but their still highly trained, deadly strangers who still got outwitted by a 16-17 year old weirdo who did it by treating them like telemarketers. Hank is starting to go from someone who thinks he’s badass to the true badass he was destined to be.

He’s also grown emotionally. I mean he’s still hank.. we still get the whole conversation with hank where he asks if he has a “weird dingus” becauase he assumes gay people are transgender and somehow manages to be unwittingly trans and homophobic all at once.. but in the same sentence his response to being asked if he’s ashamed of his ignorance, even just a little?” “Constantly” it’s both hilarious but shows hank is’nt a malicious idiot, just one raised by Rusty who isn’t the most socially concious guy on a good day and he hasn’t had a good day in 20 years.

Hank first shows it in said captain sunshine episode. While he’s more than happy to basically be robin after a Kevin Conroy voiced combo of superman and batman kidnaps him without realizing he’s not an orphan (or that dean exists), to be his new ward, especially since for all his awkwardness, Sunshine isn’t a dick like his actual dad. It’s everything hank could possibly want, especially since we later learn that cap took over from his butler/dad desmond, meaning Hank would be a shoe in to basically become a rainbow combo of batman  and superman. But it just.. isn’t right and hank can see that. The Good Captain hasn’t moved on from loosing wonder boy, breaks down frequently, nearly beats a guy to death and in general just ISN’T ready to take on a surrogate son and is trying to make hank into someone he isn’t. Hank isn’t wonder boy and he sees Captain sunshine needs help not a young ward.. and givne he clearly gets one later it sadly didn’ take. But hank tried and it says a lot when the hank of a few seasons ago probably would’ve been a lot harder to convince to come home. but this hank, even if his home sucks.. it’s where he needs to be. 

His next big moment comes in “The Revenge Society”. IT’s not one of his finest hours to start as he preys on Hatred’s fear to try and steal his dad’s playboys and other shenanigans.. but Hatred is able to get through to his moral center by guilt tripping him without hank even realizing it. It shows that while Hank is willing to get into shenanigans when he realizes there is real stakes he’ll try and as we saw he didn’t do bad. And he eventually did find those playboys thanks to karma. So good for him

Finally we have The Better Man, which I didn’t expect to have choice Hank as I remembered everything else going on in that one more, but here we are. While Hank being the one to finally break it to dean he’s not in a relationship with Triana and it’s not headed that way, the fact he does so rather well and with minimum hank is what stuck out to me. I do say minimum as he opens his questions to dean with “Have you seen her naked”

But the rest are honest ways to get Dean to realize their relationship hasn’t gone anywhere past platonic: “Have you kissed her?” “have you held her hand?” “Have you gone shopping with her?” And is the last one a tad accidentally sexist... yes. It’s hank... but the fact they really HAVEN’T hung out in a coupley way is a fair point. And frankly given the fact Hank was raised by every woman’s nightmare and a serial womanizer i’m shocked his advice is not only entirely on the nose but functional. Granted his next move is to take Dean to the mall and literally throw him at girls after making him look like Rufio but he’s trying. He even gives Dean a well deserved “touche” when he tries to razz his brother for “falling in love with the first girl to live in your backyard”.. only to be reminded of his longstanding crush on the mail lady (”In my defense she had very attractive shorts”). Hank is just sweet here.. entirely out of his depth, he woudln’t be any good at this till season 6, and it’s nice to see the two really gelling as brothers despite the divide between them growing by the day. After half a season of Doc being said wedge, it’s nice to just see Hank try and help dean and the two really hang out again. Pity it won’t last but we still got a few moments with them to savor before we get to .. that one. But I got a few months before I have to dissect that trainwreck of a creative decision. Hank’s at his best. 

Dean also changes a bit this season piece, just not as dramatically as hank. He’ll get his turn in Season 5. For now he’s still the same loveable little goody two shoes whose anxious as hell about this life yet geninely seems to still want it on some level.. he just has the kind of pencil mustache most boys get as a teenager.

His progress though is neat: He tries super science for the first time and while Doc’s treatment of hank absolutely sucks, him mentoring dean is adorable and a this stage, while as we'll see next season half open to other careers he genuinely WANTS to try  science, and relishes getting his own lab for a bit. He also takes to prog rock which is a sweet bit of father and son sharing a hobby. It’s also neat to see the parallel with his own dad: both of them WANT to continue science like their father before them and seem to really enjoy it.... it’s just the costumed crap that comes with it really bothers them. Doc is numb to it but for Dean.. he just wants it to stop on some level. Dean actually having some enthuastic for science here is important as he tries to drive away from it: he can do it.. it’s a question of SHOULD he do it that will span the rest of the series and probably the movie. Still no word in the last 5 months dammit. 

The other bit is the beginning of the end for a series mainstay: Triana Orpheus leaves the cast this part and while she’ll return for Operation PROM, she’s gone from then on. And surprisingly her departure WASN’T doc’s breakup with her va or simply just not caring: She was intended to come back... it’s just they never found an opportunity and probably won’t with the movie. The reason was simple: She was growing up and at the age she’d leave the nest and the boys just wren’t there yet. This super science world just wasn’t her. She was fairly normal and thus had to move on. Granted she did so by going to train to be a sorcerer supreme like her dad because it pays more than art school would, but still it was her version of going on to college, something Dean himself would need a season and a half more to get to. 

And honestly while I do feel the character could have an awesome return down the line, I seriously doubt Jackson and Doc will stop entirely and now they don’t have the show they could continue in comics if they wanted, I do feel she just lost her place in the show: Dermott was working better as a link to the outside world, especially as he and dean slowly grew to tolerate each other, the rest of the order served as better non-doc foils to orpheus, and Dean really didn’t need a love interest especially if they had no intention of going anywhere with it. At the end of the day she was a very normal person in a very abnormal world who just had no place being there other than her dad happened to be part of it. IT made sense to ship her off so she’d become more part of it and she simply hasn’t drifted back yet because her dad, her primary link to the show, slowly drifted out of focus.. and while she could easily exist independent of him if she and dean patched it up as friends, which is plausible he did end things dickishly but she seems forgiving enough and Dean seems like he’d offer a hell of an apology for being a butt (We’ll get to that incident last time), but she needs that link to her dad to hook her back in to have anything to do with our cast of loveable assholes. 

So having Dean move on was what the show needed and how they do it is good: Hank gets him to see his relationship with triana while POSSIBLE hasn’t gone anywhere, and after again his brother lovingly shoved him into some teen girls, just talking to one and seeing where it goes (Nowhere as it turns out), taking Dermott’s advice allow shim to TRY to move on. Granted his trying to quickly backtrack when he “breaks up with triana’ shows he’s not over her and sadly.. as good as an ending as him “breaking it off” and her humoring him with both parting as friends WOULD’VE been.. this is the venture bros. Things often don’t end well fo rour heroes.. and it’s often their fault. And sadly it’ll be dean’s fault when we pick this thread up again next time. 

Next up we have our new and for better or worse pemenant addition to the family: Sgt. Hatred. His replacing Brock was far from a popular move, something Jackson and Doc knew would happen so the question is.. was adding him to the main cast a good idea?

I do think hatred isn’t a TERRIBLE character: replacing brock with a far less compitent, emotoinally open and loud replacement works comedically and it’s fun to see Doc be the sane one in a bodyguard super scientest relationship for a change, and as I said he can be competent in the right context. He also does have some genuinely great moments: his letting hank shoot him to gain his trust, while utterly insane, is also bizzarely touching: he just wants the kid to trust him and can’t get through to him. And the entire scene with him and doc in return to malice is pure magic: from him showing up basically naked to just.. casually admitting he was masturbating, it shoudln’t work but it does. 

The problem is the elephant in the room, something Jackson and Doc obviously shoudl’ve seen as a problem in promoting this character beyond supporting and of having him around long term but clearly didn’t: Sgt. Hatred was a pedophile. He is a reformed one: he takes medication (If an injection in the neck because of the show we’re in and whose giving him the drugs), geninely regrets what he did seeing it as being in a dark place, and it’s revealed part of why he kept it up for so long is the Guild saw this.. as an asset

So it’s not like they aren’t writing him as a guy TRYING to reform from being this monster in the past terribly. When he runs out of his drugs while at the last film in a fantasy trilogy with the boys, he well.. runs out and locks himself in the panic room, not wanting to harm any innocent children. He’s TRYING not to be a pedophile.

The issue is they just don’t handle the topic well. At all. Venture Bros deals with many issues with great nuance. Doc is a great example, being both utterly loathsome but also on some level pitable. You don’t forgive how he treats the boys.. but you get WHY he’s like this and thus can sympathize with him on occasoin without forgettnig what an ass he is. But with Hatred it just dosen’t work

As for why for starters they mostly use his pedophila as a punchline and wanting to sleep with children.. isn’t funny. It just isn’t. I never really found that shit funny and I find it even less funny now I have neices, nephews and niblings to worry about. Kids getting horribly scarred for life by being raped is not funny and it never will be. So having jokes about Hatred still having child porn on his computer aren’t funny. Him wanting to go to thailand to buy a child isn’t funny.  And worst of all him RAPING BILLY because he looks like a chlild isn’t funny. Yes they made one of the main cast a rapist. I only vaugley remember it happening and while they don’t outright say he did it, the implication is VERY clear. He’s naked, he’’s happya nd billy is horrified to find out he was clearly raped. It is easily the worst joke in the entire series thus far, and as good as the series is that is not an easy title. But just casually having one of your main cast rape a person for a joke is just.. holy shit. I didn’t think the show sunk this low. 

I could stop at “he raped billy” as reasons I no longer like the character, but the fact he tried to rape the boys, if offscreen, in season 2 DOES NOT HELP. He did and part of hank’s reluctance is that exact incident and they just kinda.. brush past it. And whlie brushing past horrible shit is usually the show’s bread and butter and usually works you just.. can’t casually walk off the fact the guy now in charge of the boys care once tried to rape them. You can’t. Having someone more pathetic as the new bodyguard was a good idea.. but adding hatred to the main cast was a VERY bad one and only made the character worse. And yes i’m focusing mostly on raping billy but it says to me that even WITH the drugs Sgt. Hatred would gladly resume raping if he could get away with it. He suffers ZERO consequences from this and it’s treated as a gag because “DUR IT’S A MAN”. And look on the whole the “men getting raped is acceptable trope” is fucking disgusting and needs to be burned, thrown off a cliff and into a pool of acid.  This one gag destroys any chance of me ever carring about this character again and i’m willing to double down on that. There’s nothing I remember in the rest of this season that really adds to him as a character enough, he never apologizes and next season thinks “giving him boobs” is funny which

But we’ll get to that. I get the sense Jackson really likes working with the character but he also says shit like “We don’t relaly go into that side of him” on his pedophilia.. and that it’s just a “sword of damocles hanging over his head”

And I do love Jackson and Doc but man oh man when they fuck up it tends to be dramatic and noticeable, like the moppets last season. Adding hatred to the main cast was one of the series biggest mistakes, something I realized more and more as I wrote this section. It’s a miracle this season is as good as it is despite ole hatred. 

Okay that was a lot of hatred in both senses of the word. Thankfully we’re on to the last of the clan venture, Brock. Brock left the family and while some shows would resolve this cliffhanger fast, Jackson and Doc wisely decided to keep brock away, and using his story as bookends for this part of the season was genius. Blood Of the Father, Heart of Steel, wisely dosen’t keep us waiting a whole season to see where Brock is now, which was also to prevent fans from hunting them down and burning them in a brock themed wicker man, but still it did it’s job of keeping us informed while still keeping the mystery up to the finale. We see brock escape (and the heartbreaking scene of the boys realizing he’s REALLY gone), go on a wilderness sabatical with steve summers and sasquatch, two characters I honestly DIDN’T think ever returned properly, and finally going after the people who screwed him over. It dosen’t qutie work out with mol, but he does find out what Hunter was up to.. and joins him.. likely as hunter planned. We then see him and shore leave at the top of the season and while on the surface the scene, him trying to get hank to calm down despite having every reason to you know.. apologize or anything, dosen’t paint him in the best light i’ts clear later why.

And that later is the finale. It was a MASSIVE gamble to get rid of Brock for so long, especially since we fans watching.. had no idea if he was coming back or not. I wrote embarrassing fan fiction between seasons, that I thankfully didn’t post online and I can tell you I just.. didn’t think he was coming back. didn’t replace him with anybody but I just wrote him off and went on with shipping dean and triana because I was a naive little idiot like dean so I glommed onto that relationship. 

But of course the guys always planned to bring him back as they knew the fans might accept brock being gone a few episodes, or half a season, but wouldn’t accept him leaving the main cast for too long. It’s why this season feels like two seasons really: brock is gone for this part, and next part his coming back and SPHINX! now being open with their presence on the compound changes things.

Speaking of which we have the shakeup with finding out just WHY Hunter went Rogue. As it turns out it wasn’t for no reason but simply because he had grown tired of how the OSI runs things. Easy to see why too: as we’ve seen now we know the orginzation better the most they do against the guild is try to do covert stuff with guys like doe and cardholder, they never vindicated brock and hunter for going after them despite not only learning one of their own was compromised, but that Phantom Limb was indeed working with the guild, and the entire operation with brock, while setup by hunter himself, was utterly bungled: they tried talking to him sure... but with a giant army on his doorstep. Of a guy who takes out giant armies on a regular basis. They didn’t try talking or doing any investigative work, they just went in guns a blazing and assumed he’d gone crazy or flipped to the guild despited neither making sense. So wanting to not only break from that but take out the guys the other orginzation are missing, i.e. super science nuts who plan world domination or dirty bombs, makes sense.. and it makes sense why Brock would join them despite hutner’s betrayal. He was probably still mad at him at first but after so long having to take it on the chin getting to go after the costumed set and co who step out of line.. it had to be cathartic. It was a chance ot do real good for the world instead of babysitting a garbage fire or doing the work of an orignzation who clearly hadn’t cared about him. Hutner did use him true... he could’ve just.. given brock a job offer and he woudl’ve considered it. Then again he woudln’t be hutner if he did. But I get why Brock took it: this is a chance for a fresh start away from the OSI

It’s not away from the family as it turns out he was on compound for months, and the pain of not being able to tell the boys they were safe was a lot. Noticably though he dosen’t seem to have missed doc much.. can’t say I blame him. And the second he gets a chacne as seen in the stinger, he reconnects and as we’ll see next time, makes it so the boys aren’t being mindwipped anymore. Partly for their good.. but it’s clear he misses them. They’ll never not be his family.. but you can’t blame him for hitting burnout and wanting to go back to doing cool superspy crap that for once feels like it has a real purpose. The guy he and Shore Leave take out on a mission had a geninely dangerous weapon and was a genine asshole. It also is clear from said mission Brock is HAPPY where he is. Hunter still isn’t the most ethical boss, trying to keep what’s going on with monstroso from brock, but frankly to be a spy master while you have to have SOME ethics, you can’t have a ton so fair on him. But he and Shore Leave go from two guys who hardly knew each other to best friends, and Brock seems far happier doing this than killing the monarch’s men. Before he was just slaughtering for a job. Now he has a purpose and he’s happy. And now he has the boys back he truly has everything.. or almost.. but we’ll get to her next time.  Also yeah lotta next times this review but that’s what happens when you review half a season and given i’ve put out THIS much for just half a season. .you can see why I cut it

Onto the Monarch and the Mrs who.. honestly haven’t changed much. And it makes sense to not really rock the boat with them: the two have had two seasons straight of upheavel from their breakup to adjusting to their marriage and a venture free life. It’s fine to let 21 be the one to really change and evolve this season and just let them do what they do: come up with elaborate schemes for a guy who coudln’t care less and try and talk their husband out of the dumber parts while supporting him best she can respecitvely. It’s just nice after their relationship was dead for almost all of season 2 and struggling a bit in season 3 to let them just be happy. 

The only real change is the Monarch does up his game. Clearly being away from Venture only made him think of new ways to torment him, starting with the geninely clever scheme of ransoming the boys, knowing Doc’s main weakness is his checkbook. He only even gets the money because Billy and White got startup money. His other schemes are more classic monarch from the scarionette canon, to preventing venture’s therapy because he’s a selfish prick, to his half assed plan with monstroso that nearly destroy shim. HE hasn’t really changed as a person but he is trying more than just the old game of cat and also cat with Venture and it’s fun to see. Shielia is also largely the same and I don’t really have anything to say about her. 

Now we have our main event, as 24′s death has utterly changed Gary, transforming him from an out of shape geek with no competence to a ripped geek whose vowed to not loose another henchman. He’s got cool wrist glove claws, is respected and feared by his fellow henchman, and even ignoring the brock factor is actually getting mortality rates down. It’s like Jackson and Doc outlined when talking about the finale in the art book: what happens to half a comedy duo when the other half dies? What was two friends throwing out a really dumb suggestion became one of the series most intresting arcs. No one , myself included, saw Gary turning into this but it was the right call, taking a stale double act and instead building it’s better half into one of the shows best characters.

And part of that is he’s still gary. He still has a chest of nerdy stuff, still pines for dr. girlfriend, botches water tourture and goes to a fantasy movie on an unexpected night off after dropping off a viper for his boss. What makes him so intresting is he’s STILL gary.. he’s just the best version of himself. or almost. I mean he still talks to his best friends ghost.. or what he thinks it is. And given his harsh reaction to the idea that he isn’t really a ghost it’s clear he may not even be that.. but that hard truth comes next time. For now it’s clear that while Gary has bettered himself and is close to his best self he’s also still torutured by 24′s death via said “ghost” chats and  hunting his killers, kidnaping the boys and later scraping with brock. This part of the arc isn’t over.

That said before we move on from him and to the last part of the cocoon his fight with brock is easily one of the best shows of character development i’ve seen: mimicking his earlier lightsaber debacle, Gary instead punches brock at the boo and when left bloody his response is “bring it”. He’s gone from a geek super running away to a geek who get sto be the fucking wolverine. While Gary of course looses, it is brock freaking sampson he got said brock freaking sampson’s respect. Gary. Of all characters GARY geninely earned one of the biggest badass’ respect and got to team up with him to finish the score, showing no fear as he faced the physical equal of the kingpin... or blockbuster. either way motherfucker big , strong and ready to beat his ass. Gary ends this half a hero.. and may just like the sound of that. 

Finally we have the Moppets and thank fucking god, Jackson and Doc listened to fans. Given how stubborn they can be on that, we’ll get to the kim thing again next time, it’s nice they relaized they didn’t work and their only apperances are getting dragged by their bosses: the monarch gets an UTTERLY awesome scene when they try to keep him from leaving his house. His response?

“I'm only gonna say this once. I don't like you two. And if you ever, ever try to give me an order again I will kill you both and feed your tiny, rotting bodies to the neighborhood dogs!! Now what were you saying?“

It shows that clearly the ONLY reaosn he put up with them for so long.. is that he wasn’t at the top of his game, still effed up from not getting to arch Venture. Once he can.. we finally get cathariss after a season of their shit. While it wasn’t say 21 getting one on them, that’s next season and it is also glorious, it was so damn good. Likewise is Dr. Mrs not only calling them out for tattling on 21 in the finale, but admitting she finds them creepy. It’s just nice to finally not have to seriously deal with them as characters.

Okay onto the supporting cast. The big one is Dr. Orpheous, who goes thorugh what’s sadly his last bout of character development. He does get two more episodes where he gets a lot of focus: “Assisted Suicide” and “A Very Venture Halloween”.. but this is the last time the show really feels like it cares about progressing him as a person, with him being absent from season 6 since they coudln’t squeeze him in and only returning for the morphic trilogy after, and only one of those eps focuses on him. It’s sad to see the era of his relevance end.. but easy to see why. While the magic stuff is fun, it just dosen’t mesh entirely with this weird world of costumes and super science. It fits in enough that Dr. O isn’t out of place or ever fully removed, but it’s not enough he can easily be brought into plots. He’s a magic guy in a super science and b-list costumed villian type show. He has a great cast, a great personality and is truly one of the shows greatest characters.. but ultimately he’s a relic from a time when the show threw everything at the wall to see what stuck and now the guild and super spy stuff is sticking in additoin to the usual venture hyjinks.. he just dosen’t work as a mainstay anymore. Supporting cast yes, it was a crime he was left out of season 6 as understandable as said crime was, but his time in the sun is over and i’ll miss it. 

That being said he does leave being in the main cast with one hell of an episode: The Better Man is truly excellent and works simply by bringing in Orpheus real nemisis: The Outrider aka his former apprentice or as Dr. O puts it “THE MAN WHO STOLE MY WIFFEEEE!” or in laymans terms the guy who made him a 

So he naturally does what Dr. O does: mad that the outrider also reached the second world he’s desperate to find out why... while even Triana can see he just desperatley wants to prove he’s better in the vain hope of getting back with his ex which naturally the master mocks him with by transforming into her. and so he can jumprope naked but hey he’s likely alone in that room for hours. He’s gotta find SOMETHING to do. But he makes a valid point: none of this is going to make him better than the outrider and he’s only pissed because the outrider once again beat him. Granted Dr. O, as usual with the master, didn’t take it right away and tries to find a portal... but despite his issues his true character does show when the outrider emerges from the portal. He sees that while this is still the bastard his wife cheated on him with, and is within his rights to resent the man.. at the end of the day... he’s not a terrible person. He did a bad thing.. but he also went ot hell and back to hlep torid. It backfired but he still did. So when given a chance to lie about his death and just leave him there comotase and truly win.. he dosen’t even consider it. He takes the man back to help him, finding out the Outrider cheated to get ahead dangerously putting a magical artifact in his brain via trepanning

And it isn ‘t as removing the thing he used for it with special brother of the order of the triad billy, they get stuck between worlds and only get out because Jefferson’s magic. That is a nice bit of character stuff itself (Don’t worry Al fans, he gets his next time). After once again feeling useless for being the team normal in a team of magic guys, Jefferson finds out he’s between worlds. It’s not exactly useful for every day but for one moment he’s their only way out and gets to enjoy it. 

Importantly for orpheous though.. he makes peace with the outrider. Even allowing him to take triana with him to her mothers. He realizes ultimately that while the Outrider did sleep with his wife, still never going to not downplay he slept with his masters wife, the marriage falling apart was due to his work.. he wasn’t a great husband or father... and he accepts it and treis to be better.

And that leads to Triana’s exit. While I covered most of it above, and it’s a great turn for her character, what’s most telling is that this is the tenth time the master has done this. Granted he does so by dickishly resembling dean’s worst possible future because he fucking sucks nad dosen’t get triana isn’t THAT intrested, I love the guy but he is the worst sometimes, but still he, and likely the audience expects orpheus will just mind wiper her again.. but instead he dose’nt. He clearly listens to her and let’s his daughter go. And while it truly hurts.. it’s also him accepting that just because his life has been rough because of his job.. dosen’t mean hers will. She can be better than him and it’s up to him to let her. As for why her mom and stepdad that’s easy: Orpheus likely knows he coudln’t teach her properly himself as he’d be holding himself back or trying to keep her safe, something her mother won’t do as much. She’ll keep her safe.. but she’ll also let her go. And so Dr. O let’s his daughter go and we let him go... he’ll still be around but... this is the end of his true relivance and it will be missed. 

We then have Billy and White. Their arc won’t come full circle till next time, but they have money now. So that’s a thing. The real notable thing about billy is that they up the abuse the poor guy takes: he has his money stolen, gets kidnapped twice for surgery, gets raped and gets mindwiped by an abusive asshole. The show just makes the poor guy into a punchline and it’s not funny.. especially the rape thing which yes I still haven’t let go. How the fuck have I not thought about how messed up this is more? Did I just block it out? 

Finally out of the notable side cast we have Shoreleave. HE dosen’t do much this half, just be awesome, but it is the start of his evolution from minor shipwreck from bibleman parody into proudly gay badass, expert marksman and all around great character. He’s only prominent in the last episode but boy does god damn does he make an entrance and he’ll only get better from here. 

                                                Episode Guide:

40. Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel

Summary: In parallel stories showing where are heroes are post season 3-finale, Brock Of Ages goes on the run from the OSI, paints some terrible paintings, gets a gut, looses a gut and joins his old bosses rogue spy agency. Meanwhile Hank grows his hair out, Hatred moves in, Gary’s life savings are destroyed and Dean gets a dog that turns out to be hitler. So average tuesday for Team venture.  My Thoughts: I didn’t remember this episode all that well before rewatching it. It’s fair enough as a LOT’s going on and thus my brain gravitated to the bullet points: Brock starting up with SPHINX, nazis, dean having a boy and his dog plot but the dog has the reincarnated soul of hitler. You knkow the stuff you remember. That said rewatching it it’s a decent episode. I earlier had the take Jackson and Doc aren’t great at premires when really they have hit it out of the park at times with Shadowman 9, Hostile Makeover and Curse of the Haunted Problem... it’s just often these episodes aren’t AS good as what to come and this is the purest example of that. It’s not bad, and the stuff with hitler is some of the series funniest stuff from the casual (for him) way orpheus tells dean his dog is the “spawn of hell”, to dr. venture being fed up with nazi’s for being cliche rather than nazis, to his “Wait.. you guys are nazis” and of course the iconic line “I love hitler and hitler loves me!”. The brock stuf fis fine, including his shitty photo, but this ep is really just that. Fine. It has a neat gimmick but isn’t the best or the worst and if I ranked every episode which...

So yeah a solid middle tier episode that helps set everything up right and has some all time classic jokes, and the fact a mid range episode in this season has so much iconic stuff says something about the season as a whole.  Best Moment: “I”ll pay you ten bucks not to shoot your dad” ALMOST won, it was very close.. but I gotta give it to Doc’s “Wait.. you guys are Nazi’s! James deilveriy is just perfect.. just the right sorta “this again” baffled tone like they were a sitcom neighbor whose dog crapped in his yard again and not you know, The Fourth Reich.  Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 102. Refusing to you know.. actually look up the Marvel Comic and then letting it get beat up by the kids. Though I will give him credit for not working with actual nazis.  Hanktastic:Hank’s confidence he can shoot a bullet off his dad’s belt buckle and have it ricochet. Again “I’ll pay you ten bucks not to shoot your dad” is an all time classic line. The wolf mask is also neat.  Deanarific: “I love hitler, and hitler loves me! He’s not all bad, Hitler just needs someone to belivie in him. can’t you just give hilter a chance?” part of it is for how delebertly out of context the episode stages it but it’s mainly just Mike’s through commitment to the bit.  Questions For Later: Gary being with a larp group and disappearing for some time will come up in a few episodes, while the Brock SPHINX mystery gets solved end of season.  First Appearance: Hitler Reincarnated as a Dog. I mean normally I save this only for characters who I know show up again, as to not clog it but some things only happen once in your career and you gotta take your shot. 

                                         41. Handsome Ransom

Summary: The Monarch what kidnaps the boys again but this time plans to ransom them to bankrupt his arch foe.. only for one of his utter arch foes to swoop in and take hank. So while Hank hangs out with a literal sunshine superman voiced by THE batman and gets creeped out a little, Doc scrambles to get the money and keep it and the monarch scrambles to get hank back before his scheme unravels.  My Thoughts: This episode.. wasn’t as good on rewatch. As Jackson himself admits the jokes, having batman come off as a pedophile (Though not actually be one in this case), comparisoins to micheal jackson and just general stuff. It drags the episode down slightly. That said.. it’s still not BAD. It’s just the main “He comes off like a pedophile joke” isn’t funny the first time they say it aand isn’t that funny by the time Monarch comes out and says that’s what it is. But the stuff around it is filled with great jokes: Hank having called Doc a honkey (and The Monarch naturally loving this fact), the constant treating of dean as half a person, something he takes in stride, tiny money hatred, “It’s chuck scarsdale, hide or we’ll be on the news!”, the sheer dumbassery of the monarch’s plan and the truly awesome freedom fighters pastiche. This episode is full of too much gold to be TOO bad. 

Though while the sunshine has a bit too many pedophile jokes, especialy in a season where they have an actual pedophile living with hank, it ends up not tanking entirley thanks to one man: Kevin Fucking Conroy. THE batman playing a parody of batman with a lot of superman in him. It’s Kevin’s being fully game to play this sad, desperate and untetionalyl creepy version of him that works. From the calling a sleepover to the PTSD laden shouts of WONDERBOYYYYY to his breakdown, kevin both gives the character perfect silver age comedic timing (doubled thanks to said things being said by THE post silver age batman. Love you keaton but... he’s the chosen one), and pathos: i’ts clear he’s a man who hasn’t moved on and needs help and sadly never gets it as we see later. He’s a tragic character, not reailizing how broken his cycle is or how he threw out his second wonder boy. I wish the character had come back to get developed more, but hey Kevin’s a busy man and sunshine dosen’t easily fit into the show, so I undrestand. Overall again not a top tier episode like I used to think but still a hell of a good time, as well as one i’d use to intro people to the show.  Best Moment: Hank having called Rusty a Honky, mostly for again James delivery. THe Monarch and Hank sniggering over it just completes it.  Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 104. Insulting Dean for no reason, as funny as it is and outright threatning not to rescue hank.  Hanktastic: Again, calling his dad a Honky Deanarific: Just how he takes his dad treating him as just.. a casual object of little intrest is hilarious. He just dosen’t care. He’s just happy to be included.  Questions For Later: Desmond will be important next time.  First Appearance: Captain Sunshine and Desmond

42. Perchance to Dean (Pissed in God’s Eye Award Winner) 

Summary: Doc introduces Dean to the power of Prog rock, a cloned dean does this

Hank thinks he killed dean and Doc gets arrested and blames it on hank due to some wacky circumstances.  My Thoughts: Yeah not even a close race. Every other episode this halfa season is either a true classic or at least watchable. This one, while still loaded with some good jokes.. is neither of those. It’s not as bad as past season’s bombs but it still dosen’t work, something Jackson acknoledges. I feel Clone Dean is just too sad and horrific to really fit with the show’s tone well which does have unedning horror but threaded with laughs. But a sad teenager hunchback whose haunted by a hallucination of his dad urging him to kill.. I just want to give the poor kid a hug that dosen’t end in an explosion. It just dosen’t work. It also ups the hank abuse with hank getting grounded for.. some idiots thinking the compound is a cult.. whic his a fair assumption but isn’t fair to hank. The episode is dark and mean spirited in a way this show just usually isn’t.. dark yes, while the show isn’t over the top dark it’s pretty fucked up when you think about it. But it’s usually used for black comedy, like having a scooby doo group resembling famous serial killers or an orphan heart powered fantasy machine. The show can get dark.. but it usually either uses it for drama effectively or for a laugh.  An the show will do horror later iwth the morphic trilogy and worse stuff than this, but they just aren’t there yet.  Best Moment: “He’s in a floyd hole!” Just the way James delivers that line man three in a row so far. I swear this is the best season (or part of one but semantics) for James deliveries.  Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: Hanktastic: Hank’s response to dermott being suprised he didn’t know they weren’t using acid “What am I bill  nye the science guy? I don’t know what any of this stuff does. “  Rusty Sucks Suprising No One:... better strap in. Trying to BAN HANK FROM THE BATHROOM, insuiating both that he’ll work in package delivery and doing so as a classist as hell dig (Ironically he DOES end up as a delivery  boy but i’m not giving rusty any points for that. Most teens work food service), HITTING his son, and grounding him based on flimsy evidence when he has no reason to think hank did that especiallya fter he saw the clone explode. So that’s 5 for the supremely fucked up first one, 1 for the second, 10 for the hit (while verbal violence dosen’t > phsyical violence he still hit him repeadtely), and 5 for the last one. so 21 for a grand total of 125 Deanarific: Hard choice given, for all the episodes weaknesses we have a lot of good dean this episode, including the beautiful as hell prog rock sequences.. but I gotta give it to his weird belieif there’s a hair fairy.  Hatred Paedo Jokes: We start tracking these with Hatred telling the police not to check his computer. Yes he still keeps chlid porn around 1. Also yes I had to add another running thing and i’m sure given my track record, this won’t be the last. I already have one in mind for season 6.  Dermott is Spare Parts Bud: Claming he’s moved a lot, trying to burn off hank’s finger prints and in general thinking fleeing an accidental hit and run was in any way a good idea. 

                                           43. Return to Malice

Summary: 21 begins his hunt for 24′s killer, starting with the boys, leading the rest of the cast to try and to undo ths fiasco whlie the Monarch.. deals with a bad shelfish allergy. Would you belivie this is one of the best episodes of the series so far? My Thoughts: Yeah never thought i’d be typing that. I remembered not really liking this one but on rewatch? This is where the season goes from pretty good , even the tire fire, to truly excellent. As the season has been so far i’ts packed full of great jokes but what REALLY elevates it is the character stuff, something the other eps had but this one really digs in  with and what makes the show special. We see who 21 is now, how he got that way and that he talks to a skull a lot. It also dosen’t bother the monarch because he does the same thing with the greatest new character of all series; Mister Mostly Mittens. RIP. We also get some great character interactions: Dean gets to interact with 21 at length for the first time as he was geninely paired with 24 before his untimely demise, Rusty and SHelia have a genine conversation for the first time with Doc only hitting on her a little (Which for him is imporvement) and as I mentioned earlier the Monarch telling off the moppets was so damn cathartic. This is a hidden gem of an ep that’s worth a revisit.  Best Moment: Mister Mostly Mittens. Not only the full shot of the horrifying taxidermy cat, but how the Monarch seems to think this is remotely normal “He could catch a rubberband and bring it back to you. Just classic venture bros going off on some weird aside that has nothing to do with the plot but is still soaked in character.  Hanktastic: When 21 realizes in a way he killed 24, dean tries to comfort him with an “We all did” Hank.. dosen’t take it “Not me I didn’t!” Deanarific: Dean geneinly comforting gary and getting through to him. Best boy.  Hatred Paedo Jokes: Just outright mentioning it casually.. though it’s one of theo nlyt imes it works as it has Doc rightfully questioning hiring him. 2. ALso forgot to add 4 from previous seasons so 6. (The refrence to him trying to rape hank ins eason 2, his needing them awayin season 3 and his later mentionnig giving up the little boys and calling the chlidren sexy at the daycamp0 Questions For Later: First Appearance:

                                      44. The Revenge Society

Summary:

Phantom Limb makes his grand return, kidnapping Billy  and two of the council.. and making them into a two headed man because Jackson and Doc loved the idea of a two headed man, with intent of getting the ORB, so it’s up to david bowie, dean and doc to stop them while Hank and Hatred try to super runaway from hatred’s past. 

My Thoughts: Look i’ve talked quite at length about the hatred bit, and that was forgetting the book has a bit where Doc tries to say “nah nah see they just cuddled” which I geinely can’t tell if he’s in denail or trying to cover his ass as they did cut back on the pedophile jokes, but yeah it was utterly awful and drags this episode down slightly. Also that explination dosen’t help as billy “thinking” he got raped as a joke still isn’t funny and isn’t at all what you were going for.  The rest of the ep still shines as Phantom Limb returns half crazed and having an army of inanimate objects as his “Revenge Soceity” and Urabanik completely sells crazy limb while Jackson and Doc play off him great as mantle and dragoon. The two are easily one of the best additions the cast got over it’s long run. They were right on the money that making a double act that can’t phsycially get away from each other worked and the fact the two didn’t choose this but just have to deal with it makes for that much more comedy. The mileage they got out of a character simply being two bickering old men with one attached to the others shoulder is amazing. Bag Billy is also amazing aside from that stinger.  We also get great character stuff: Hank and Hatred’s bonding with Hank realizing he has to do the right thing and Dean and Doc’s even better bonding as Doc is geninely helpful.. it’s all great pieces. Add in some premium david bowie and you got it. I’m also fine the ORB thing ended with an anticlimax.. it’s a good swerve and i’m baffled so many people thought it should go somewhere. Even as a teen I thought it was a great swerve and as an adult it fits the show: something big super mcguffin turning out to just be a pile of broken parts no one checked because they were too busy killing anyone that did. It’s classic venture bros. 

Best Moment: Hard to choose.. which I know I keep saying some form of but these episodes are absolutely stuffed... but in the end i’ll go with what I picked for the picture: The reveal that Phantomas kidnapped richie valens and the big bopper.. just to have them play crappy music. And that this somehow is the secret origin of them becoming super villians. This show is fucking stupid and I love it. 

Hanktastic: As said in his section hank holding off the full brunt of the fucking guild.. with the hank equilvent of “dave’s not here man”. Good god I love this boy. 

Deanarific: Dean bravely deciding to take the fight to the guild and do reconcizne. 

Hatred Paedo Jokes: GUESS

Questions For Later: Just where Phantom Limb goes from here. While unsuprisingly it involves a jail cell , suprisingly it dosen’t end there. 

First Appearance:Red Mantle and Crimson Dragoon

                                           45. Self-Medication

Summary: Doc gets out of arching for therapy but when his therapist is killed by a snake themed coffee deathtrap, his therapy group takes on the mystery to find his killer... in theory. IN practice they get beat up at a strip club and get talked out of beating up an old man before he calls them all loosers. Meanwhile Hatred takes the boys to the movies and slowly breaks down over being out of meds. 

My Thoughts: Another spectacular episode this time with both a great premise for both plots and a throughly stacked guest cast. Huge fan of the show Patton Oswalt, VA and screen legend Seth Green and John Hodgeman all do a wonderful job. Jackson had wanted to do this one for a long time and it shows as the idea of getting all these washed up boy adventueres together works great from the menendez hardy boys, to robin if he never became nightwing to an unsettling version of astro boy, all anchored by our old friends rusty and captain johnny. It’s just comedy gold , especaily Johnny which is brendan small at his best in the roll as just about everything he says is hilaroius as it is messed up. It also shows just what Rusty might’ve been in diffrent cirucmstances, from strung out to killing his abusive dad to .. well probably not wonder boy. Add in some great stuff with dr. z and this plot works. 

THe Hatred plot is one of the few of his that work as the pedophile thing is treated as a horrible addiction he needs to face and he’s shown doing everything not to surrender to it and once he is in that state, he’s already locked himself away where he can’t hurt anyone or act on gary glitter’s tip. It has no real resolution, he apparently got diffrent drugs? I dunno, but it’s at least trying. Overall a classic, if not one of my favoirites. 

Best Moment:”You got a little herpe on your lip. You get it from your wife... after I put herpe in her?” This joke wouldnt’ work at all without Brendon’s delivery. 

Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 126. Deciding he’s “Too good for therapy. 

Jonas Sucks Suprising No One: 36. Yes a whopping 20 points for pretending to be his own son’s therapist just to gaslight him. He may not be a point leader but he makes up for it. 

Hanktastic: HIs weird logic that somehow Gary and co’s wing sblocking him counts as an arching. Look I love hank but he hasn’t been as full tilt nuts this season. 

Deanarific: Dean showing his full strength and heart, encouraging hatred to fight his urges and refusing to let him out knowing he’ll do something unforgivable he’ll regret. Granted not letting a man buy an underaged sex slave off a tip from Gary Glitter is something any person should do, but the fact Dean figures Hatred can fight it and does his best is fantastic, as is , after realizing Hatred’s will isn’t strong enough, finding a way to take out his uncle so he’ll get help. Dean’s come a long way from being afraid of the coming of jesus last season. 

Hatred Paedo Jokes: The Subplot

This Didn’t Age Well: Mrs. Z’s voice. Good god no. 

                    46. The Better Man (Super Good Award Winner) 

Summary: It’s a three fer as Doctor Orpheus tries to one up the man who his wife left him for and ends up in hell, Triana discovers her destiny in her closet, and Dean tries to move on from her with the less than helpful advice of his twin and the suprisingly helpful advice of his half brother. 

My Thoughts: It was HARD picking the best ep this time, as most of this batch could qualify.. but in the end I gave it to this one for it’s character depth. I’ve gone into most of that above but each bit is brilliant and joke wise it’s stacked as this season has been, from Hank’s disasterous attempts to wingman for dean, his crush on the mail lady (”She had very attractive shorts”), to dean’s all time great roast on dermott, to all the drags on orpheus desperation at the start.. this ep is just stuffed with some of the best the series can offer. It’s why i’m being so breif: this episode is a fucking good, soulful, and hilarious ride and I’ve said most of what I need to say about it above. 

Best Moment: LOT of contenders, as usual, but this one especailly. I’m giving it to one of my faviorite scenes in the whole show: dermott advising dean on the girl he just met. It takes dermott from hank’s idiot sidekick to a fuller human being, a kid who may be VERY stupid and very egotistical, but isn’t all bad nor always an unhelpful pile of acne who thinks he’s steven segall and has the ego to match. The boys response is also fucking great with Hank geninely confused Dermott was helpful, clearly starting to see his friend for what he is and Dean having one of the best digs of the whole series “Better check the temprature in hell” 

Hanktastic: LOT to pick from, but I have to go with his crush on the mail lady “She had very attractive shorts”, as well as the fact he dosen’t back away or try to justify his crush, simply giving dean credit for poitning out he dosen’t have MUCh ground to stand on. 

Deanarific: Again a lot of choices , with “I look like rufio” coming very close. But in the end his smug as hell face when triana says she can’t keep him from all the ladies wins it. 

Questions For Later: Triana’s training and the outrider both come back in the season finale, Orpheus having a room free will be just as important as it brings a certain well loved paunchy gay man into the fold, and Dermott’s part time job will be a fixture from here on out. 

First Appearance: The Outrider 

                                        47. Pinstripes and Poltergeists

Summary: Brock returns and just in time as the Monarch’s latest ill thought out scheme puts both him and the venture compound in the clutches of Monstroso and it’s up to the unlikely dynamic duo of 21 and brock to take him out while Doc finds out about SPHINX

My Thoughts: One of the series best finales and as Jackson put it a good note to end on, giving us plenty of brock to make up for his absence and explain where he’ sbeen with the brilliant sphinx sequence, the asendency of shoreleave and some all time classic gags like Doc revealing shit to the boys pre mindwipe, “Cigar?” and that fight scene, a show of how far 21 has come. Add in a great ending, a great big bad for the season in monstroso, and you get an all time classic. If this dosen’t make my adjusted top 12 list I’ll be a little suprised and given teh quality of this season it just might not. This is the season rising even higher and i’ts only going to go up next time. 

Best Moment: The 21 and brock fight. It ALMOST lost to the rusty sucks suprising no one moment bellow, but in the end it’s just too iconic to the series to not give it and too damn awesome too. It’s breif but it’s so damn beautifully shot, well acted and cathartic, showing just how far 21′s come to the point he earned brock’s respect

Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 132. A double pointer for the “Have I ever told you boys about your mother, or that your both clones?” and a single one for not keeping billy from being mindwiped, 2 for being put out at having to do something ood with the space with an additional one for not seeming to care brock was gone. And while 32 points in 8 episodes is a lot, most of that was from one episode. He’s been suprisingly less horrible this batch. 

Hanktastic: Hank’s reunion with brock. 

Questions For Later: Monstroso and what he and his investors mean for our heroes. The fight with 21 and brock will also lead to consequences for the big man down the line. 

First Appearance:

Monstroso

So that about wraps it up. This was one of the funnest times I had and it was great to get back to it after so long. Next time we get some of the best the series has ever done, again and finally get to my all time faviorite episode, something I don’t think my rewatches of seasons 5-7 is going to change. If you enjoyed this review consider joining my patreon to help me keep these thick boys going and for bonus content

You can find it here

And as an added bonus in a few days i’m doing a summer fun poll to pick a movie for me to review that’s summery this month. Me and my patreons have picked some true classics: UHF, Hot Fuzz, Batman 1989, Transformers the Movie and The Simpsons Movie are all on the ballet and it’s up to you to pick which one. So you lucky folks who read ALL this way get to vote early. 

Poll link is here, vote wisely

And i’ll see you all in a month though your free to stick around for more fun stuff. 

[transskywardsword]

i saw your tags about disliking flirty sleazy hw link, but what's your opinion on a more nuanced take on it? taking the flirtiness and 'prettyboy' characterisation and putting some depth to it. This is admittedly more about Warriors lu than hw Link (i'm very slow at getting through games unfortunately and thus have little info on the game itself), but i think that is where a lot of that characterisation started outside of him simply being pretty in the game? i've seen a lot of writing of him where people have really delved into WHY he's flirty and such, and i do have my own thoughts.

this might get uhh rambly hes my blorbo so i apologise if any of it is hard to understand lol

one aspect of it i think is the recognition and idea that beauty and attraction is something that can be weaponised and used to your advantage. obviously this is seen with: all of Cia and her obession with link (i do think his pretty looks is partly why she goes for him over others in these characterisations). so in turn Warriors knows it's a powerful tool and uses it to his advantage - presenting himself in a very specific way that makes him look the best, both for his men and as a barrier of sorts. if he's put together on the outside he's put together on the inside. it's also probably one of the few things he can control in war, making sure his scarf is perfectly positioned and his hair is neat and his sword is clean: the perfect image of the hero. I also think its a coping mechanism, this control.

another aspect i've seen is that his flirtiness and womanizer reputation is less sleeping around, and more not being able to handle romantic commitment, which is very interesting to look into, especially considering again, Cia's business. It makes sense that someone who has been told they're great and powerful (and had the rise and fall of that ego boost) has confidence, yet someone who has had that weaponised against them is wary of letting people in, especially in the context of relationships. that is often a vulnerable position, having someone know you, and with Cia's 'personal space issues' it makes sense he'd want to be in control of a sexual/flirty situation (by flirting and making the moves) yet not actually commit to any of it when the opportunity arises (touch averse, ptsd, etc).

a lot of it seems to be about a sense of control, and how quickly it feels you lose that once you feel you cannot control the surface level presentation you put forwad. he has a reputation of being a womanizer - a war started bec a girl liked him! - and thus he keeps it up to keep in control of the situation.

i also dislike the one dimentional playboy warriors/hw link characterisation, but this is what i usually do with it when writing and just rotating him in my head. if you have any info about hw link in particular that reinforces/contradicts any of this i'd be happy to hear it! and your general thoughts (dw too much about spoilers, my autism craves blorbo info over potential story spoilers and it'll be a while before i get to most of it anyway). i do also see Warriors lu and hw Link as two seperate characters, and am interested on where the deviation in characters they are, its always super intruiging to see where the differences are.

also, i hope you are having a good day/night! you got a cool blog :3

matching blorbo!! i am always down to talk abt hw link, i would die for that man.

now im gonna start w this disclaimer: im not the biggest fan of wars characterization in LU, mostly bc he's not that developed and the fandom took what little they had and ran with it in a direction i dont like. that's no hate to any fans or ppl who do like him, he just isnt my cuppa tea! i 100% see him and hw link as diffrent characters bc to me too much doesnt line up

so my dislike of the 'cocky overconfident sleazy flirty pretty boy' characterization comes to the oversimplification of the few traits we have (bc you're right, there isn't much to go on haha. hw is not known for its characterization), a lack of interest people seem to have in his and cia (and by extension lana)'s relationship and the trauma it causes, and people just relying on stereotypes instead of building character. we know a few things for sure from the game & out of game material: link has a strong sense of justice, he acts before he thinks to an extent, he is a tad overconfident (which bites him in the ass and he has to learn to grow from), he's kind, and can talk to fairies. it's not a lot to go off of, so i understand when people tend to grab onto a few stereotypes and not go anywhere from there but i think that does his character a disservice.

1)on the pretty boy thing: is link gorgeous? absolutely. he's the Prettiest Link by sure, just look at him. he's wearing fuckin eyeliner. but i think people look at that character design and turn it into meaning he obviously must be vain or self-centered. i'm fine with someone characterizing him as caring about his looks; i agree that he probably does to an extent-- no one runs around with something as much of a hazard as that scarf is (it's a wonder he wasn't strangled with it) in a warzone without being somewhat connected to your appearance-- but i feel like if you're going to write him as the 'pretty boy' it should be done like you idea was, with actual characterization in mind, and not like, okay his game model is hot so he must be obsessed with himself. i actually really, really like the ideas you gave abt stability and coping through self-expression btw, i think that's a great idea and i can completely see it. my problem with the 'vain pretty boy' characterization mostly comes from that i think of link as dealing with a lot of discomforts with his body over knowing that his looks are part of the reason why cia attacked; i figure that knowing that being attractive is part of the reason why people are dying (even tho it is 100% no his fault) would totally fuck up your relationship with yourself. i think that his appearance is something he takes care in as a coping mechanism while also being something he completely dissociates himself from. nothings gotta hurt like someone seeing you as purely the 'self-absorbed pretty soldier' when, in your opinion, you being the 'pretty boy' is costing people lives. i think his view of himself and his body is wrapped up in trauma so when people jump to 'oh he has eyeliner he must be completely obsessed with his appearance' instead of examining it further it makes me twitch.

(also, unimportant, but the reason i think cia chose him was because he resembles the first hero the most, and since the first hero is the ultimate form of the hero's spirit, link is the next best thing. she obv can't go after the first link, he's hylia's boyfriend, but this link is right there for the taking)

2) okay next point: playboy link. i also agree with your characterization! i just think that unfortunately, it isn't a very common one. so im like 97% sure that the flirty characterization came for LU, as there is like. no basis for it in game, and i think that a majority of people write it totally wrong. racist implications of a toxic dark-skinned woman chasing after a white man aside, link was stalked. he was sexually harassed and objectified. he had to go fight in a castle with his face fuckin plastered on it-- a war was started bc cia was obsessed and wouldn't respect consent, that's a big fucking deal, and i feel like people don't acknowledge that it is? that must mess with your sense of self, control, consent, agency, trust, etc so, so badly. i feel like sooo much of the flirty characterization 1) turns sleazy, which i see as wildly ooc, esp given his history with consent 2) glosses over the effects of trauma completely. any kind of relationship he's going to have for a long, long time during and post-war, friendship, sexual, or romantic, is going to be affected by cia. cia is likely something he's going to struggle to cope with his entire life. i see it as deeply warping his ideas of consent and causing a significant amount of self-worth problems. and so many people go 'okay he sleeps around' and stop there. it does a disservice to him. if you want him to be a flirt, you have to acknowledge his trauma, ya know?

3) completely cocky link. okay so we know that link is headstrong and acts before he thinks. we know this for a fact. as a private, he abandons his post at the castle to go and fight, and then in the same battle rushes off on his own to protect impa and takedown volga, an extremely stupid idea that would have gotten him killed if he didn't have the spirit of the hero. the fact that volga didn't roast him alive is a fucking miracle. @ link pls use your brain. we also know that he got overzealous when he drew the master sword. he saw his troops as invincible serving under the blade of evil's bane, which has slight validity tbh, it is the master sword after all, but then two things happen that i think really led to him changing himself as a person: dark link & the turn coats. so dark link is flat out a reflection of his negativities and having to fight it was a fuckin slap in the face that what he was doing was foolish and wrong. the turn coats also served to show him that he was very much not invincible. so between the two of those, i think he had a lot of growth. making him a cocky ass ignores that growth completely unless you acknowlage the world around him

also, on the fairies: fairies are good judges of character. i don't think he'd a bestie to the fairies who can talk to them in their own language and chills with the great fairy if he was a total ass

okay i think im finally done word dumping but uhhh i love this man so much. so so much. i adore him and i just want people to put thought into him when they write him bc there is SO much to explore if you just look

[aliceinreverselondon]

You Really Got Me – part 3: Losing Control (Kakashi Hatake x reader)

(note: part 1 and part 2)

This was probably the first time Kakashi realized how little he knew about your friends. Now that you were heading to a stranger’s place, he began to question his own judgment. If it was only the two of you, it would have been fine, but at the end of the day, his students were still kids. What kind of person this Kisuke was? Could he be trusted?

“Let me guess: I went too far again, didn’t I?” you suddenly asked as you looked over at him.

Oh, look at that, you noticed it without help! That was new. “Yeah, you did,” he confirmed with a nod. “But there’s no turning back now, I guess. The least I can do is help when we get there. If they want to see a fight, we’ll give them a good one,” Kakashi added with a smile under the mask.

“I really missed you. Sometimes I forget that we make a pretty awesome team,” you told him before reaching out to take his hand.

There was no question about it now, you had changed a lot since the last time you met. He wondered why, though. Was it all an act? Were you trying to prepare him for something bad? Could it be related to this friend of yours? No, he shouldn’t be paranoid. You probably didn’t have any ulterior motives. As he tried to get rid of his ridiculous thoughts, he laced his fingers with yours.

“Aaaaargh, can you two just stop? I’ll end up throwing up,” Naruto complained in the back.

“I hate to agree with Naruto, but–”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Kakashi interrupted Sakura with a sigh. Damn, how could he forget they were sitting back there? Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact they had been unusually quiet. “Alright, here are some rules: be respectful with our host, don’t be too loud or rude and… just… behave. This isn’t too much to ask for, right?” he asked casually.

He looked back and waited until all three nodded. And then out of the blue, you began to laugh and quickly glanced at the rearview mirror. “But don’t worry, Kisuke is kinda a weirdo as well. Just don’t get on his bad side because even I’m scared of him sometimes,” you added after you cleared your throat.

No, he definitely shouldn’t begin to ask you about why you have such people as friends. But it was an interesting question nonetheless. While he spent most of his time among fellow ninjas, you lived in a completely different world with a wide variety of different creatures. Sometimes he wished he could be a part of it, although that would only be possible if he agreed to become one of your Betas. But he still didn’t want that.

Soon the car parked in front of a perfectly normal looking shop and Kakashi couldn’t help but scratch the back of his neck once he got out of the car and took a good look at the building. This place had an underground training facility? In this case, the shop’s real purpose was to hide their real operation. Clever.

“Sakura, did you order the food?”

Kakashi turned around with a questioning look. When the hell did the two of you have time to talk about that? “Yes, it will be here in about half an hour.” Sakura gave you back your phone and you flashed a surprisingly kind smile at her. “Don’t you think it will be too much? This amount of food would be enough for over ten people.”

“Well, I’m sure Naruto is really hungry,” you began as you winked at the boy, “and I’ll also need food to recharge so… yeah, it will be just enough.”

“Y/N, it’s been a long time since we last met!”

Turning to the source of the cheerful sound, Kakashi noticed a blond man waving at you from the door. Was he that friend you’d talked to? Was he only a friend? Or was there a time there was more between the two of you? No, he had to stop acting like some jealous idiot every time you even looked at another man. You loved him, that was obvious. But by the time he managed to push these thoughts to the back of his mind, everybody was already inside the shop so he quickly caught up with you.

When he stopped, you immediately wrapped an arm around him and said, “And this is Kakashi Hatake, my better half as of now.”

Wait, your what?

“He’s gonna help me with this little… demonstration. And we should do it before the food arrives.”

“Alright, let’s go then,” Kisuke said with a wide grin then signaled the group to follow him. “Once the fight begins, stay where we tell you otherwise you might get hurt,” he explained to the kids along the way.

“So what’s the plan?” Kakashi asked as the two of you stayed behind a bit.

“I don’t have a plan,” you admitted. “But you should go all out against me. Hell, you should also use your Chidori. I’d like to see their faces when I come back after that.”

Okay, so she was really hell-bent on scaring the kids. This could end really, really bad if you lost control, and right now he had a feeling this could easily happen. He knew that look in your eyes and it made him uneasy. Behind that carefree smile was a monster waiting to come out to play.

The training ground was impressive to say the least, he had never seen anything like this before. No wonder you chose this as a location, it was perfect for this purpose. Maybe they should build something like this back home. But these thoughts were soon replaced by new ones because he was still worried about the fight, even when the two of you were facing each other at a safe distance from the rest of the group. How could he stop you if you lost control?

First, it was hand-to-hand combat, using basic weapons for now. Unlike him, though, you never carried weapons with you since you could create them by manipulating a type of dark matter within seconds. It was a handy trick of phantoms, something he envied every now and then. After this, it was time to move on and he began to use different kinds of jutsu against you. There were some you could copy with your own ability, some you dodged by quickly teleporting out of the way, but mostly you created shields to protect yourself.

At one point you stopped and remained completely still, signaling him to use his original move against you. He wasn’t really fond of the idea of attacking you with the intention to kill you because it kept reminding him of what had happened with Rin back in the day. I shouldn’t compare the two, you can easily come back to life in a matter of minutes, he thought. After taking a deep breath, he did it. He pierced his hand through your heart and the only thing that made him feel a little better was the wicked little smile on your lips before you slowly disappeared in the form of black smoke.

As he waited, he thought about the way you had fought him. Something was wrong. Even that smile at the end… it wasn’t a playful one. And even your eyes turned black. You were slowly losing control and this was something he had feared from the beginning. If you came back who kne–

Pain. He felt pain in the back of his head as it hit the ground. When his vision cleared, he noticed you sitting on top of him, one hand tight around his throat, and the other covered in dark matter with an end shaped like a spear. This was bad. This was really, really bad. Soon this spear would be pierced through his head, only to have large spikes forming on its side seconds later. You wanted to kill him. If he didn’t find a way out of this situation this will be the end for him. “Y/N, come one, don’t do this,” he tried.

“Shibari, Benihime,” he heard a faint voice in the background and almost right away a crimson net appeared around your body, completely immobilizing you. When he pushed you off himself and sat up, he noticed Kisuke standing not far from you with a katana in his hand. “Are you okay?” When he nodded in response, the man walked over to you and let out a sigh. “When was the last time you visited him?” he asked quietly.

You looked up at him and your eyes slowly turned back to normal. “Tonight. But it was a quick visit.”

Who the hell were you two talking about? And had it happened right before you met at the restaurant? So if his guess was right, you didn’t disappear because of an assassination.

“Yet it was enough to rile you up,” Kisuke noted as he looked back at the kids. “No wonder they managed to make you this mad. Anyway, did you calm down? We should go and eat, I’m sure the food is already here.”

You nodded, but Kakashi couldn’t look at you now, instead he turned his attention to his students. They were terrified and he couldn’t blame them for this. That was close. Too close.

If you find any mistakes or typos, I’m sorry, I didn’t really read it again before posting.

taglist: @spn-obession​​​ @marajillana​​ @sarahschance​

[lord-king-saint]

the genius of the diamond authority is that each diamond represents a tier in the capitalist structure pyramid– and the diamonds are a genius way to teach these tiers. pink diamond is probably my favorite representation of this, because she literally represents privilege: we eat for you. pink diamond exists to uphold the system of class itself. she lives lavishly, throws massive balls, she can “accept” or “reject” the gems of their court, and she entertains the diamonds because she receives the spoils of their conquests. her privilege makes her bratty and prone to rage, fragile, and it renders her incapable of seeing the people in her life as more than playthings. if we deconstruct it, all of our gripes with PD come down to her privilege, and how it rendered her incapable of empathy– even when she sincerely tried. her eventual transformation actually mirrors the story of the buddha, a privileged prince who wanted for nothing, but went on a spiritual quest after leaving his castle and seeing the "suffering" among the lower class for the first time. i also find it interesting that destabilizing PD's tier and replacing it with steven created a “class-less” system ideology. yellow diamond represents the next tier of capitalist power: military power. “we shoot at you.” yellow is a colonizer and expands the diamond authority through military might. she also exists as a “lap dog” to white (who we will get to later) and blindly does whatever it takes to please her without question. i also find it interesting how YD manufactures weapons like the gem destabilizers and possibly other arms. this tier of the pyramid is pretty self explanatory, but her relationship to blue, who represents religion, fascinates me. blue diamond is the religious tier: “we fool you”. what an ominous figure! a cloaked sad spectre who can make people cry on command. sounds like religion to me! the weaponized use of guilt has been invaluable to capitalist conquest. the myth of “sin” has created hatred, self-hatred, and ultimately obedience-- and it has pulled apart more “fusions” than we can possibly imagine. BD has a court of “diplomats” as well, which is even more frightening. continents like africa have been Ravaged by religious missionaries who infiltrate and undermine pre-existing cultures and use scapegoats like the lgbt community to galvanize hate and acheive obedience. the history of the death penalty for homosexuality in african countries can be tracked to the interference of foreign missionaries; “diplomats”. the following militarization of those areas and political violence is illustrated by yellow and blue’s close relationship. its no wonder that BD has a reputation of a shatterer. religion has always decided who lives or dies. white diamond is the top tier of the pyramid: “we rule you”. white lives in a purely selfish and intellectual ivory tower of perfection. she thinks she is perfect because she is a ruler, but ultimately she has no identity. she is simply unquestioned, so she cannot take an honest inventory of herself and her flaws because shes incapable of any introspective inquiry. even her power is basically to “rule” others! she makes others mimic her and she makes it impossible to question her. she refuses to see flaws in herself so she projects flaws onto others, using psuedo-intellect to tear her “underlings” down, when really she has an obession with flaws because she rejects them in herself. this is illustrated in the history of white colonialism and its treatment of indigenous folks and servant classes. the concept of “superiority” itself breeds projected hatred, and those on the margins are the receptacles of that violence. “superiority” is a fragile idea. its a delusion. but its a dangerous delusion that, when mixed with power, supercedes military might, class, or religion. if theres anything else i missed, feel free to add. im not a scholar or anything, but i am amazed by the brilliance of the creation of these villains. rebecca sugar has said on the record that she received international pressure to not showcase garnet’s wedding or the show would be canceled– but she chose to tell the truth rather than have the show run longer. if you notice, the episodes after “reunited” are incredibly rushed, and i think we can understand why. im really proud of how the crewniverse has wrapped things up, but i see the potential and i would have loved a deeper exploration of these villains and their planet.

[at-the-exd-of-everythixg]

Baby Boom

@blind-mutant here we go!! For anyone else who reads this, this is uhhh an au??? Based off a fic I wrote for Devin's birthday in which Rhys lives a happy life with Wulf, Sal, Pascal, Lace, Mahogany and Dae! They also have a ton of babies (the carrier for all of these is Mahogany, they're still trying to get Sal to have a baby for them to coddle during all this) and here are some headcanons (tho core details like appearance, names, powers aren't decided since I want it to be a duo thing to share).

Malf (Wulf x Mahogany)

Oldest baby since Wulf is incredibly fertile

Big baby. Mahogany had quite a few worried boys around them when they got close to their due date and Baby themself got Mahogany exhausted.

So for the first few weeks it was the boys mostly taking care of Baby while Mahogany rested.

Spent the past six months being carried by Wulf before the last month was spent with only Dae being allowed to go near because he doesn't smell of much. Mahogany could only stand him and it made Dae cry every time.

Ate a LOT of meat since they were already the size of a one year old despite Mahogany being carrying for six months.

Screamed any time they were left alone and thus someone had to be in the room with them or holding them.

Even without powers,,,,ridiculously strong,,,dragged a chair with Sal still sitting on it and they were only a year and a half.

Angwy lil bab when the twins were born. Father crew had to keep an eye on them because Pascal launched out of bed one morning (throwing Rhys across the bed by accident) and caught Baby dragging the twins out to the woods,,,and then spent another hour holding a wailing Baby over it.

Wild Child. The kid who screams "FA!" and comes running in with a snake they found before announcing that they were bitten excitedly.

Wants stories all the time and everything they get told depends with "That's not what Auntie Edith/Uncle Mordecai says!"

Had very weird body proportions where they're skinny look but has big ass hands and feet,,,,like Michael from tma.

Stomps everywhere.

Ridiculously tall when grown. Gets yelled at by Rhys or Sal and they have to squat to be at eye level.

Kinda neurotic about keeping packs together and self obessed idea of being the next Alpha. Starts a few fights with Mahogany that leaves them both scarred, much to the worry of everyone else.

Rhogal (Rhys x Mahogany/x Pascal?)

Mahogany got pregnant when Wulf Baby was two.

No one knew who's this one was and automatically assumed Rhys because pale and one was blind.

But then Lace openly wondered if they worked like a cat and could have multiple fathers and then doubts settled in.

Did not help that Baby Two would start giggling ominously before something bad happned.

Anyway, easier birth! Less stress and less muching if you don't include Wulf Baby's attempts at getting rid of them.

Smol, got carried around by Rhys a lot and could fit into Wulf's palms which made some knees weak.

Generally didn't seem much trouble at first but then it Began.

Pls Baby One, let go of the spoon, I swear you'll get more meat mush in a second- oh my god where did Baby Two go????

Lots of rushing around looking for Satan before Baby Two would just calmly pad in with a dead dove or napping in Alpha's hair.

Twins need to hold AT LEAST a body part of someone. Sal's hands?? Wulf's hair??? Rhys's feet when asleep??? It'll do. Especially if it makes Papa Rhys scream funny.

Sal shows them the shining twins and still getting punished for it to this day I hear.

Asks a lot of questions that seem emotional and gut punching. Baby One asks Wulf if they're monsters when being tucked into bed, Baby Two cheerfully asks Dae what's gonna happen if he dies at the family breakfast.

Absolutely ride or die and everyone and no one knows if they can change sizes because no one sees them as adults together strangely enough.

Rarely fights but when they do??? Oh its BIG. To the point where Mahogany has to pull a big scary move that makes everyone step back.

One twin is so gross like, Lilo licking Nani level, but no one knows until it's too late.

Scared of fires but urge to arson is terribly strong in these babies.

Wulf Baby hated them and then it got worse because you had two tiny terrors annoying and bullying Wulf Baby lowkey for months.

Lagni (Lace x Mahogany)

Wulf Baby is 4, the twins are 2 and Lace Baby is a wee bab!

Dad Squad is getting to be experienced, knows to set up a den in the bedroom, only Dae and babies can go near them in the last month and Wulf Baby is VERY proud of being able to play at Alpha and look after their carrier.

Lace Baby was....surprisingly normal at first and ok no one expected that but no one was going to argue since they all knew how powerful Lace was when off his meds.

Things were fine! But then a few weeks and,,,,Mahogany was sweating and Sal wouldn't stop bleeding and being sick and Rhys got surrounded by his shadows and isolated. Lace cried later that night.

Still! They got around it and Carter helped out by telling the government that he had a second child and they got some medication for Lace Baby to have in order to calm them down, at least until they could be taught some control.

Quiet but....weirdly attentive?? A month old and yet nodded when asked questions. Prodigy baby, Wulf says proudly.

Likes sitting near their fathers and getting hobbies. Lace was strict in telling Rhys he wasn't allowed to scare people and luckily Lace Baby just picked up music from him.

Likes brawling with Wulf Baby and is seemingly durable so more than once Pascal has yelled because Wulf Baby tossed a giggling Lace Baby across the room with one hand.

Addicted to hanging out with cousin Logan to the point where they have been a bit rude and blown off their own siblings. Got a big fight about it that ended up with Baby One sulking with their head in Rhys's lap and sniffling.

Wants to move out but not in a bad way just....wants to study and learn about what they are, what their PACK is. Begs Uncle Abara to teach them demon stuff.

Accent changes with who they speak to. Has a stutter with Dae before switching to rough Irish when begging to go hunting.

Likes to stray from family but the slightest thing that upsets them?? Comes home sobbing to their parents, half of which only teach their shoulders now.

Cried easily? Medication made them have swings and some time Rhys said something and they cried and he still feels bad about it years later. Wulf is confused because all Rhys said was that they can't take a sword to school.

Likes making charts and playing games that Dae.

Burns themself out a lot and that causes worry for the family when they're eight and suddenly passing out after chasing after Mahogany.

Secretly keeps and cuddles a sweater from one of the parents and sleeps with it. Mortified if anyone found out about their blankie.

Mahl (Sal x Mahogany)

Wulf Baby is 5, the twins are 3 and Lace Baby is 1!

No one actually knew this time Mahogany was pregnant because the bump was so small and they weren't eating as much. Really, Mahogany started craving sweeter stuff and ate sap and honey for 6 months instead of meat.

Therefore, this is the one baby Mahogany finally got to have in the middle of nowhere and came back with late afternoon. Sal passed out immediately.

S m o l. Literally kitten sized. But had a perfect affinity for sound and therefore had the horrifying gift for copying voices. More than once they were woken up to Sal Baby screaming like an adult man and one time they woke up to Pascal's own voice screaming back at him.

Suckles a lot and this was cute until they grew teeth Mahogany has sharp teeth, Sal has blocky teeth. Baby has jagged teeth. Also the only baby who didn't eat meat but rather drank honey for months on end before finally eating meat.

Everyone thought Sal hated them because he never spoke to them until he finally sighed after a crying session and ruffled their hair and called Baby "Snuffle-Truffles". Wulf cried.

Didn't move for ages until Rhys didn't hold them one day after everyone ELSE did and Sal Baby finally got up and passed after him for their daily shadow dad cuddles.

Smol but f a s t. Scaled a wall in less than a minute and the wall was high enough that it takes about three minutes to hurry if you aren't a giant noodle who can litreally climb up.

Baby can touch Dae safely and that's because he woke up scremaing when Baby Sal was found suckling on his fingers and was....perfectly fine. There was a lot of crying.

Wants to Dance(Tm) but,,,,clumsy dancer. Has the legs of a chunky chicken wing to baby deer.

Baby of the family and they know it. Has some health issues later and VERY wild physical changes later on in life.

Mahogany is still bothering Sal about carrying a baby or two because they wanna coddle but haha what are the chances of that happening,,,,,:3 :3 >:3

Lace Baby is the teen that dumps their parents and Sal Baby is the teen that is mortified by the amount of baby pictures.

[omenthenarrator]

The Clock-Faced Children

Hi, y'all! Welcome to Sunny Side Blogs, where we get down with the spooky things! A Doomed Reader told me he wasn't feeling too good and asked if I could take over his blogging for a bit, and of course I simply had to oblige!

Anyways, this is a story I found particularly interesting and I heard about it from my best friend. Her older sister is the one this happened to, so she gave me the journal entry her sister wrote. Due to the incident, her sister has to go through extreme mental therapy, and reading this journal entry describing the events, I do not blame this poor girl a bit for becoming so traumatized.

Question is... Did it really happen?

As most of my older followers know, I like having the facts to back up the fears, but I do love me a good old conspiracy debate, so y'all leave some ideas in the comment section or your reblogs and I'll be sure to make sure you're featured! I definitely wanna go in depth and see what theories everyone else comes up with!

Anyways, here's the content y'all have been waiting for!

Brick wall. Eggshell white clashing against posters of garish colors. Cracks lining from floor to ceiling, weaving together and apart, locking into a wild unchoreographed dance.

A white board, mounted like the head of a decapitated beast. Ghosts of words lingering despite the chemical smell of cleaner. Hidden behind a funeral procession made up of four solemn syllables:

Today's Date Is...

Dressed in black ink, now faded to grey with time and lack of attention. No chaste fingers will free the felt tip of the marker that lay desolate on the floor. The chill of the tiles seeps into the cylindrical prison that held the ink hostage within its plastic casings.

Tile, dull white and grey patterning the floor, streaked with scuff marks, remnants of childrens scurrying feet. They are a chilling reminder of Their existence.

Shadows crawl along the floors, the only ones brave enough to walk alongside the destructive creatures. The dim room gave them the perfect playground, a space for them to enjoy their dark entertainments.

Silence is broken.

A loud ringing fills flinching ears, deafening the listener before falling to an abrupt silence. The echo remains, however, dulling the mind and leaving thoughts blurry and unfocused.

Then the ticking starts up.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Eyes turn away from the white board, name neatly written across the ghosts. Lips form words of welcome that die in the darkness of the throat as students enter, single file and silent.

Moving in sync, perfecting the steady rhythm of the tick tick ticking. Placing down bookbags dyed colors not meant to be seen by the naked eye.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Sitting down, fancifully wrapped packages lined up in neat little rows. Their faces turned towards the board.

Faces.

Tick.

Turned.

Tock.

Towards.

Tick.

Me.

Tock.

A raised hand.

'Exactly four minutes and three seconds late, teacher,' says one child.

'No one likes people who dilly dally, teacher,' says another.

Stumbling back. Legs going weak. Filling with unease.

Heart racing.

Palms sweating.

Body trembling.

Stomach heaving.

Lungs contracting.

Thoughts racing.

And faces ticking. Ticking ticking ticking ticking, the sound grows deafening as they all arise from their seats.

'Mrs. Harrington didn't like her children being late,' says the first student.

'But we don't like our teacher being late, either,' they say in unison.

Legs give out. They crowd around. The world goes black. But still that sound.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

So WOO okay this one is a big doosy! Like, where would I even start!?

Apparently, according to my friends journal entries, Mrs. Harrington emailed her to substitute the class. Mrs. Harrington was supposedly feeling ill, according to the email.

However, accorsing to this police file I found, Mrs. Harrington had been dead a week before that email was ever sent.

Don't forget to like and subscribe and if you comment below you may be featured in our next update! Until next time my spooky little sunshines!

See y'all later,

Sunny Side Blogger

Tag List

@ravenpuffwriter @galexy-eevee @rosewinterborn @aj-the-satyr @littleredwritinghat @emmaghost181 @hyba @toffee-obession @inspiring-prompts @azhrhere @candy687 @darlingjas98 @pied-piper-of-hamlet @with-a-little-bit-of-light @lazydreamlandblaze @clocksandchaos @edgy-english-egg @ravenpuffwriter @cookiecutterwrites @just-george-here @lukada @gaara-sandman @dash2018

[georgialouisea]

Meant To Be - Part 9

Pairing - Jared x Reader, Jensen x Sister Reader. Word count -1079 Warnings - Fluff, swearing.

Part 8 - Masterlist

Life in Vancouver was amazing, life with Jared was beyond amazing.

Ever since you were little you’d hated being the one singled out, you hated being the new girl, moving school or getting a new job was your idea of hell. The girls at supernatural made you feel at home, they were honestly the nicest girls you’d ever met, they didn’t seem to care that your brother was one of the stars of the show.

“Did you manage to get that email out?” Jo asked shutting off her computer.

“Shit no, completely forgot.”

“Want me to stay and help?” She paused at your desk on the way out.

“No, it’s fine, I have the details written down somewhere, get home to your boyfriend.”

“Don’t you have to get home to yours?” She perched on the corner of your desk smirking down at you. You’d only ever given her and Lizzie small details and they were more than intrigued.

“He’s working late today, so I’m fine, go home and enjoy your date night.”

“You sure?”

“Positive Jo, go enjoy your weekend I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Enjoy your weekend Y/N.”

“You too JO.” Watching her leave the room your attention turned back to your screen.

“Y/N/N?” Jared whispered from the doorway behind you. “You ready to go home?”

Turning to face him your eyes adjusted to the lighting change. “What?”

“You done?”

“Give me like five minutes.” Turning back to the screen you finished up the email you should’ve sent 6 hours ago, trying to ignore Jared spinning himself around in a chair behind you. “Okay done.” Shutting down your computer you could finally head home with Jared.

--

“Baby?” Jared mumbled as he shifted on the couch.

“Yeah?” Looking up at him he paled slightly.

He sat up straighter. “Okay, I haven’t told you this yet but on Thursday I’m gonna be on Ellen.”

“Jare that’s amazing.”

“You might not think that in a few minutes.”

“Why?”

“You love me right?” He paused, nodding in response he smiled at you. “I want to tell everyone I am in love with the most beautiful, amazing, smartest, funniest woman I know, that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I love you.”

Nodding you smiled up at him. “Okay, yeah, we’ll go official.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m one million percent sure Padalecki.”

“Oh thank God.” His head dropped. “I thought you’d say no.”

“Why? When I love you.”

“I didn’t think you’d want people to know yet.”

“Jare, I’m tired of sneaking around trying to hide our relationship, let’s just tell everyone.”

“You’re sure?”

“So sure.” His arms wrapped around you.

“You’re happy with me announcing it on the Ellen show?”

“Yeah, I am, you have an interview and if you really want to talk about me it’s up to you.”

“I would talk about you every second of every day if I could.”

-

Jared’s flight back to LA was delayed due to bad weather, he’d planned to be home hours before his interview was aired. A knock at the door pulled your attention from the cereal advert, praying by some miracle it was Jared, opening the door Jensen stood in front of you.

“Why’re you here?”

“Because.” He took a step into your apartment closing the door behind himself. “I know what you’re like and as soon as people know you’re going to panic and Jared’s still in the air, so I’m here and we’re gonna watch it together.” He grabbed your hand and pulled you towards the couch.

“Mr Jared Padalecki!” Ellen introduced as the audience clapped and cheered.

Biting your lip you tried to suppress the smile as he waved at the audience.

“How are you?” Ellen asked as she sat opposite him.

“I’m great, how are you?”

Ellen nodded with a smile. “I’m good, you’re living up in Vancouver now aren’t you?”

“Yeah I am, it’s a lot colder up there than it is here in LA.”

“You’re up there filming for the new show Supernatural right?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I am.”

“So tell us what the show’s about.”

You watched Jared explain the premise of the show adding in little stories of his time on set with Jensen.

“Do you two get on well?”

“Yeah, we do, we’re both from Texas, we watch the same shows, listen to the same music, it’s been easy to get to know him.

“So it’s not uncomfortable playing his brother?”

“Nope, he already is like a brother to me.”

“That’s good to hear, now I have to ask, you’re a very attractive young man.” The audience whooped. “Alright.” She waved a hand trying to calm the women down as Jared chuckled. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Jared blushed, his head dropped trying to hide it. “I am actually, we’ve been together for nearly a year now, she’s amazing.”

“Will we know who she is? A fellow actor?”

“No actually she’s not an actress, she works on set behind the scene in the admin department, she’s so smart half the stuff she does I’d have no idea how to do.”

“Is she watching?”

“Yeah, she’ll be watching with Jensen.”

“Oh have they become close too?” She asked with a furrowed brow.

“No, well they’ve always been close, Y/N is Jensen’s sister.”

“Oh wow, is he okay with you dating his sister?”

“Yeah, I mean he’s said if I hurt her he’ll rip my lungs out.”

Ellen chuckled moving on with the interview.

“That wasn’t painful was it?” Jensen smiled down at you. “You okay?”

“Yeah everyone knows, everyone loves you on set this isn’t going to change anyone's opinion of you trust me.”

“I know.”

The front door opened behind you. “Hey.” Jared walked in dropping his bag by the door. “Have you seen it yet?”

“Yeah, we have.”

He walked around the couch to face you. “And are we still together?”

“Of course we are, why wouldn’t we be?” Looking up at him you punched Jensen’s thigh making him move up the couch so Jared could sit next to you.

“I haven’t seen it yet, I can’t remember what I said, I could’ve said something stupid.”

“Everything you said was perfect.”

Jared’s arm wrapped around you. “Good.” He took a shaky breath. “Good.”

“Were you actually worried that I’d leave you?”

“No.” He scoffed.

“There’s only one issue now.” Jensen sighed.

“Which is?”

“When Jared’s found with his lungs ripped out they’ll know I’ve done it.”

Part 10

Forever Taglist - 

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Meant to be -

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[lokidrabbles]

Tea Time (Loki x Reader)

The reader and Loki drink tea and grow closer together. Reader begins to fall for him.

From within your kitchen, the piercing shriek of your dented teapot alerted you that the water had reached its boiling point. You jumped and jogged over your stove, taking it off from the flame it rested on top of. Steam emitted from the spout; just hot enough for some oolong tea laves to simmer in. You prepared two small tea cups on a tray and carried them towards the small balcony of your apartment. Two lounging chairs seperated by a small round table filled up your small balcony, and within one of those chairs sat your very unusual and mischievous acquaintance. Friend was something he was still fairly uncomfortable with.

“Well for today we have some oolong tea to try out. I believe it won’t be as bitter as the one from last time, however I feel you’ll be able to appreciate the flavor,” you say gingerly as you set the tray onto the table.

“I didn’t think the one from last time was bitter. You humans must have a different taste palate clearly.” Loki said as he inspected one of the tea cups. “Now what is this concoction that you’re going to make me drink?”

You sighed as you took a seat next to the empty chair. “Oolong, it’s chinese, aaand its supposed to be good for your brain and thinking.”

“Ah, well you must not be drinking quite enough then.” Loki retorted with a glint in his eye.

“Just taste it.”

“Alright, alright.” Loki took a quick sip of the warm liquid, gulping in a mildly sweet flavor. You did the same, taking a swig while monitoring Loki’s reaction to it.

“Bit bland.” He said to your dismay. “But not horrible either.”

“Well you still better drink the whole cup. It’s good for you.”

“How would you know what is good for me?” He asked you as if you had scolded him.

“Because I just know.” You responded with a devilish smile. “And this tea isn’t cheap either.”

Loki took another sip of the tea, and set the half empty cup on the tray. “It’s still a mystery to me how you manage to sound both irritating and absurd at the same time.”

Normally you would have taken this as an insult, but you had become familiar with Loki for quite a while now. His snarky banter was literally one of the few ways he was able to communicate, and you were well aware of the difference between his teasing and purposeful insults. Sure, he had managed to irk you and hurt your feelings in the past, but he was much more tolerable now.

“You know, you don’t need to come over here then if you’re going to be rude to me.” You say with your nose up in the air. “I’ve offered you my company and hot water, but you are simply not appreciative.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to waste my time humoring that attempt to be assertive. Nor to explain why I bother coming here for second-rate tea. I don’t like repeating myself (y/n).”

True, the first time he had appeared at your front door he had been straight forward with his intentions.

“I need to get away from my brother and his acquaintances for a while. This seemed like the best place.”

And you certainly weren’t expecting that. Loki was a complicated individual. The first time you met him, you came face to face with another worldly force you could not fathom. The man was a walking contradiction. He had charm, class, and elegance, but was also snarky, vindictive, and arrogant. Needless to say, it was very hard to find a liking to him.

A year must a passed when you and him started to become friendly with one another. It started with small chats about each other; Loki’s homeworld, your place of origin, why he had such an affinity for daggers, and why you had a strange obession with tea tasting. It never really reached the point of intimacy, but it had seemed as if Loki was only comfortable talking with you (the Earth’s mightiest heroes still appeared to have some dislike towards him, within reason).

You dared not question why he felt the need to get away from Thor and the Avengers and come seeking for your company, but you had a notion as to why. Nevertheless, you had invited him in and from there on you had him over every weekend, bugging him to try out your imported tea with you.

You didn’t plan to start fancying him however. While Loki wasn’t a very approachable person, you weren’t blind and were well aware of how attractive he was. His locks were dark and curled ever so slightly around his face. His eyes always appeared to gleam green and then bluish under a certain light. His skin was always radiant and perfect (you were quite jealous of it), and he always had this alluring scent of sage and mint (and you never really knew how or why).

“I’m sorry to hear you think my tea is second-rate. I think it’s rather delicious. Perhaps your taste buds are out of order.” You say as you gulp down the remaining of your tea.

“You are mistaken Midgardian. The tea we had on Asgard was of the finest quality. Our tea leaves were much more purer and flavorful than whatever it is you have here on Earth. They were carefully cultivated to create the best blends possible. Rose petals, dried berried, soft mint leaves, lavender, quite the contrary to whatever this is.” He said as he peered down his cup.

“Lucky you then. That does sound quite good.” You respond with a slight smile. You were eager to see Loki be so chatty today. And you genuinely enjoyed hearing him speak so eloquently about Asgard, or anything really.

Loki remained silent for a bit, taking a small sip once more, and setting the cup down gently on the tray. “My...mother, used to make me this blend of tea as a child whenever I had night terrors.”

Your ears perked up. Did you listen to that right? Did Loki really mention something about his mother to you? “Oh, um...what flavors were they?” You asked him, trying to chose your words carefully.

“Hmmm.” He began to remember. “Chamomile, raspberry...but I knew there had to be some kind of vanilla in it too. Whatever was in it, it would always relax me.”

This was a surprise to you. Loki, telling you something seemingly intimate from his past, from his childhood, and about his mother. You realized, that this other worldly man had parents, and this fact made him seem more approachable than ever. Your curiosity grew, and you wanted to ask him a million questions. However, you knew you had to tread very carefully.

“That sounds like a very fond memory,” you began softly. “Were you and your mother close?”

“I’d rather not speak about her.” Loki responded sternly.

Naturally you kept to yourself about it. You didn’t know much about Loki’s family aside from Thor, but you knew you had to respect that privacy. Outside of Thor, no one else had known about the fate of Frigga and the strained relationship Loki had created when he discovered the secret Odin had kept from him. These were things Loki did not want to talk about, for now.

Wanting to break the silence, you began to change the subject slightly. “You mentioned some very simple ingredients, ones we do have on Earth. Maybe I can recreate something similar to that for next time. What do you think?”

Loki raised an eyebrow at you. “Why would you want to do that?”

You shrugged. “I thought it’d be something nice. Or do you still doubt my abilities to make good tea?”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. I am certain that you’ll end up making a disaster.”

You sighed in defeat. “H’okay, nevermind about that idea...”

Loki lifted himself from his seat, beginning to make his way back into your apartment. “I should leave, it’s about that time.” He said as his voice trailed off.

Your gaze remained on him, a bit saddened that he cut things off shortly. You wondered if you had been too bold about something, biting your lip and resisting the urge to ask him to stay.

“Well aren’t you walking me out (y/n)? So rude...”

You bolted out of your seat and sprinted towards him. “Yeah, yeah! I’m going.”

You led him towards your front door, promptly opening it for him. “Thanks for stopping by, even though half the time you made fun of me.” You told him with a smirk.

“Not my fault you chose to be like this.” He told you, stepping outside slowly.

“Well, I’ll be here unfortunately for whenever you want to hang out again.” You say with an small smile.

“Perhaps. I’m getting quite bored of this same location.” Loki said nonchalantly.

You rolled your eyes. “Hope you find something that suits you better. Good bye Loki.” As you began to shut your door, Loki stopped it with his arms, looking at you intensely.

“(Y/n.)”

You blinked. “Huh?”

“Do not mess up my tea for next time.”

—-

[inthewordsofahalfgoddes]

insecurities that i can remeber:

Body: teeth, boobs and ass. i can control all of these except for my boobs. I just want them like a bup bigger than it will be perfect. i finally accepted im part ofthe big titty committee and it made me so sad lao i want at least a 38c or even a  d cup. teeth e their not bad but like i want a perfect smile and sicne im obessed with physical perfection i will get them perect event ho dental costs like thousands of dollars. for eerythig else i just need to retain weight. all my weight gain goes to my thighs and ass anyway so its just being consistent with my eating. somedays i’ll be good then like for 2 days ill eat like once a day and for my body sicne i haea high motabolism and been working out all that goes directly to eating all my muslce gains and fat. 

mental:

i lowkey think im an idiot cause my mind is so hard to navigate sometiems. i always think back to how i used to be and im like where is that girl now??? not challenging myself and being lazy with my mind and reasoning skills has fucked me up. i wa s reading pretty hard for a bit but i need to get back to reading more. i eben had a review blog too but i stoped reading and writing in it. i’ll have to pick it back up.

so its been like a long time sicne ive been badly depressed like beore. i barly have depressive episodes anymore thankk thee lordddddddd. but im always afraid that at any second it will come back and the worry and anxiety surrounding it has been the main reason why i ghost people a lot. i like it when they see me at my best and sicne my scheduele has always been like 2 weeks of great me doing amazing then 2 weeks of shit me being the worst i stop making effort around the second week of getting to know people. 

trust issues

lmao one of my biggest problems. i have such a hard time letting people into me as a person. daddy ahs done a really good job of getting me out of it but there are still things that i dont feel comfortable sharing just cause sometiems i feel they re irrelavant and some hings are just hard to talk about cause i enevr really face them myself. though my memories have been coming back and i actually rememebr better??? my chidhood memeories have been coming back and i actually reember so much these days some of course i dont want to rememebr but im happy that some are coming back.

not feeling good enough/ready

i still hold on to this dumb idea that i need to be on the top of everything and working out everyday, doing work around the house, etc etc to deserve god things and even when ig et them im so concerned that i’ll lsoe them. when something good happens i start hinking about how the mment i start enjoying it the universe will take it away from me because im not a 100% good person. but i already came to the cnclusion that its me who ruins them for myself. ive been extra gaurded with myself about this because right now things are atcual good. i cant let myself get paralyzed with the fear of what may happen and cant self sabatoge myself. i definetly feel like i can do it now.

[arielufret]

Favorite Albums- from START to FINISH

I feel like we all have a handful of go-to albums that we can listen to without skipping a single song.  Not because we are lazy, but because we genuinely enjoy every track.  Albums to me are special because they (should) tell some sort of story.  I am going to list the ones that are on my go-to list.  Would love to hear what yours are!

No particular order! (I am going to try to remember to link to each of the albums via Spotify, too, so feel free to give these a spin for yourselves!) 

Switchfoot - ‘Hello Hurricane’  This one is special to me because even before hearing the first single, I got to hear the band play this album from start to finish live.  Its symbolism is impressive and creative, as its meant to represent an actual HURRICANE. The way the songs build and flow, it sounds like a storm rolling in... you can tell when you have made it to the eye of the hurricane and when the storm starts to subside.  If you haven’t given this one a listen, I suggest it.  Start at 1... no shuffle.  Go all the way to the end.  Then give me a buzz and tell me you don’t love it.  You won’t be able to. :)

Mumford & Sons - ‘Sigh No More’ This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me... even if you just kind of know me.  This band can really do no wrong in my book, but ‘Sigh No More’ is a perfect album from start to finish for me.  The world would not be the same for me, personally, without each and every one of these songs.  I can’t say that for many other albums, if any.  It’s special and exciting when you discover an album that has that kind of impact on you. 

Jessie Baylin - ‘Firesight’ & ‘Little Spark’ I have Matt Nathanson to thank for introducing me to the absolute gem that is Jessie Baylin.  I love women singer songwriters and she is at the top of my list.  ‘Firesight’ is a bit more “pop”, but I use that term quite loosely.  I also do not think there is a single thing wrong with the term.  You will see that later in my list when I go FULL ON BUBBLEGUM.  The follow up (which I waited on with baited breath) was equally special and different, but in a way in which you can still listen to both albums shuffled together and its cohesive. Do yourself a favor.  Listen to these two albums.

Matt Nathanson - ‘Beneath These Fireworks’, ‘Some Mad Hope’, ‘Modern Love’, ‘Last of the Great Pretenders’, ‘Show Me  Your Fangs’ As you can see from the list here, this man can do no wrong in my book.  Not only did he introduce me to Jessie Baylin by bringing her out to open on a tour of his many years ago, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t one of my all time favorite songwriters/story tellers.  A live show from Matt is equal parts music and comedy show, and he does both parts with uncanny ability.  Over the last decade+, Matt Nathanson has provided me with endless hours of listening.  Some songs have pulled me out of myself for long enough that I can see things the way they should be instead of staying inside my own head and self destructing.  If that isn’t talent, then I don’t know what is.  Honorable mention: Live album, ‘At the Point (Live)’.

Tom Petty - ‘Full Moon Fever’ Here we have my first favorite album of all time.  It will always be special to me, as long as I have ears to listen to music or a memory of how special music is to me.  I was a whopping four years old when this album was released.  I stole it-- like legit STOLE it-- from my dad.  I still have it in my possession today.  He never got it back.  From the moment I heard it, it was like something inside me clicked ‘on’ and it never turned ‘off’.  For that, I will forever be indebted to the one and only, Tom Petty (& the Heartbreakers, of course).

Billy Joel - ‘Storm Front’ Again, this one is sentimental to me because it happened when I was just really discovering music and picking out  my own favorites.  My parents were in one of those ridiculous “CD clubs” where they would send you those sheets of stamps that you would go through and pick the 10 albums or whatever the number was that you wanted and they supposedly would charge you a penny or some ridiculous nonsense.  I was 4, so I didn’t understand what a pyramid scheme was, but I am sure there is someone out there searching for my parents to pay off their cd club debts to society.  Now that we have the back story-- there was a day my parents were look through their little CD cover stamps and I begged to have them let me pick a few for myself.  I was a spoiled brat, so of course they obliged.  My first choice was Billy Joel’s ‘Storm Front’.  Because of my obession with “We Didn’t Start the Fire”.  I wore that album OUT.  It also left me with a skill that not many others have (I have asked and literally no one I have met can beat me at this).... I can sing every. single. word to “We Didn’t Start the Fire”.  I am still holding my breath for an update from the 90′s to present.  Get on that, Bill.  I know you’ve got it in you!

Taylor Swift - ‘Red’ and ‘1989′ When you think perfect pop music, if you don’t think Taylor Swift, then I am not sure what you are looking for you in your pop music.  Love her or hate her (I know what I would say to the haters-- ‘Why you gotta be so mean’) you have to admit her songwriting talent is there.  And it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, as she seemingly is getting better and better with age and experiences.  ‘Red’ was still when Taylor was in the country world but toeing into the wavy waters of full fledged POP.  They are both in my ‘driving albums’ rotation.  Perfect singalong at the top of your lungs material, especially if you are in a post break up, girl power mode (who isn’t always in that mode, though?)

One Direction - ‘Midnight Memories’, ‘FOUR’, ‘Made in the A.M.’ While I am on straight up POP, I have to discuss One Direction.  I grew up the the world of the boyband.  I was certain after the early 2000′s this fad would go away to return maybe never but certainly not with a group put together by Simon Cowell on a British competition show.  But... alas... HERE THEY WERE, right in front of my eyes.  Each of the 5 members of the band auditioned as solo artists.  They did not make it, but the genius of Simon Cowell said ‘Wait just a bloody minute!!!’, at least thats how I imagine it going down backstage.  And he pulled the 5 adorable youngsters together and said “SING AND DANCE AND MAKE THE WORLD LOVE YOU” and then they did just that.  They did not win the X Factor but considering they are one of the top earning groups of all time and no one knows who came in first that season, I would say they fucking WON.  In the process, they won my (much to old for this) heart and I have not been the same since.  Luckily, I have friends my age who think the same thing, and they are all of age now, so I don’t have to feel creepy.  Also, one of them knocked up one of the judges on the X Factor and she is older than me.  So, I suppose its all in good fun.  If you are ever in the mood for perfect pop, look up a One Direction album.  NO SHAME!  I promise. 

Taking Back Sunday - ‘Tell All Your Friends’ Now, for the emo section.  This album is high school for me.  Senior year.  It also reminds me of ex boyfriends from hell, which is not usually a welcome thing, but isn’t that what emo music is for?  Open up all of the wounds you thought you’ve licked clean and healed just to remind you what it means to FEEL something. Anything.  These songs aren’t all F YOU anthems to ghosts of girlfriends/boyfriends past, though.  Some are genuinely fun, at least for me.

Brand New - ‘Your Favorite Weapon’ In another emo nod to high school memories, we have Brand New.  Now, this band has beef with Taking Back Sunday and you can actually tell in their lyrics if you pay close attention.  See if you can find it!  Its fun!

Fall Out Boy - ‘Take This to Your Grave’, ‘From Under the Cork Tree’, ‘Infinity on High’, ‘Save Rock and Roll’ Here is another band that I have literally ZERO shame in admitting my love for.  Emo? Whatever. Who cares?  They have badass, long song titles that make nearly no sense with the song’s theme and it makes me love them even more.  Plus, just google for some leaked photos of Pete Wentz and then you can have that visual to go along with the tracks and think happy thoughts.  Dirty.  I know.  I am sorry.  Its late and I am not sleeping until I finish this list. Panic! at the Disco - ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out’, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die’ Another band with a flare for a killer, long, sometimes ridiculous song title.  The first album from this band is ALL sophomore year of college for me.  Just as wonderful and confusing as those days were, this album is all of that and more.  Their 2013 release is just as special to me, and the songs are just so good.  I don’t care what your preconceived ideas are on this band.... give these songs a whirl.  Their other albums are great too, but I do tend to skip a song or two when playing the album from start to finish, so rules being rules... I had to keep them from the list.  But some of those songs will land on a list of of some of my favorite songs.  So keep that in mind and give the full catalog a spin around the block for good measure.  Brendon Urie, while we don’t have access to cell phone photos of what is under his clothes, we do have the video for a song called “Girls/Girls/Boys” which is almost (maybe more?) satisfying in a nod to the D’Angelo video for “Untitled (How Does it Feel?)”.  YOU’RE WELCOME.

Howie Day - ‘Australia’, ‘The Madrigals EP’, ‘Stop All The World Now’, 'Live From.... EP’  As far as singer-songwriters go, Howie Day can basically do no wrong in my book.  I stumbled upon Howie in the beginning of my desire to learn everything I could about John Mayer circa 2001.  Thanks to that, I found one of my favorite artists of all time with Howie (he opened for John on some key dates in the earlier days of his career).  His debut, ‘Australia’ still gets regular play from me, as to his other albums. Howie had some radio success and VH1 love for a couple of singles, so you may recognize the tracks “She Says” and “Ghost”.  Now, my love for Howie isn’t just his boyish charm and great songwriting.  Its also that mother F’ing looping pedal.  The first time I saw him live, so many years ago.... I about had a heart attack.  I had never seen anything like it.  He was a one man music machine and I couldn’t get enough.  Now, if anyone performs with a looping pedal, I automatically compare them to Howie and they rarely stack up to his skills.  But I still fall for a man with looping pedal skills & an acoustic guitar, it never fails.   

John Mayer - ‘Inside Wants Out EP’, ‘Room For Squares’, ‘Any Given Thursday’, ‘Heavier Things’ Oh John Mayer.  Where do I even start?  Discovered just shortly before the blockbuster release of ‘Room For Squares’.  He gave me one of the greatest moments of my teenage life when I won upgraded tickets (front row) and meet & greet to his first big headlining tour. THANKS FAN CLUB!  That was also the beginning of the end for me and live music... spoiled rotten.  There are not many songwriters alive today that I can say I believe have more raw, indisputable talent than that of this human being.  Don’t even get me started on his guitar skills.  If you haven’t already spent some time with his catalog, I suggest starting from the beginning with these 4 suggestions. 

Not ALL of them made the list, but as artists before on this list it doesn’t mean that those unmentioned albums aren’t nearly perfect.  So give those a listen to, if you like what you hear from these suggestions.  They just might be YOUR perfect album.  Who knows!?

okay.... I am not done.  So stay tuned for more.  I will just be editing this post, not making a new one.