#you will rise again you motherfucking legend

[smooth-crimminal]

Izzy in season 3:

[princecharmingwinks]

Sterek Fic Rec - February 2023. Goodness, this month has been busy. But it is still Feb here so I’m taking it! Please enjoy the below :)

I Can Give You the Constellations by skoosiepants (1/1 | 9K | Teen)

“I’m just going to pretend this isn’t happening. I’m going to close my eyes, and when I open them again, I’ll be back on Atlantis, sleeping in my tiny bunk, eating reconstituted potatoes and putting googly eyes on rocks to freak out Jared.”

Or—

How Captain Derek Hale and Dr. Stiles Stilinski keep managing to save each other’s lives…in space!

5 Times Stiles Said I Love You and 1 Time He Meant It by literaryoblivion (1/1 | 3K | Teen)

Five times Stiles told Derek he loved him, and one time he meant it. (I mean title's pretty self-explanatory right?)

My Friend Thinks You're Cute by fairytalesandfolklore (1/1 | 2K | Teen)

A Sterek College AU And that's when Stiles sees him, standing in the middle of the crowd, swathed in a black leather jacket, eyes alight as he flashes Stiles the most dazzlingly perfect smile. Derek The Music Major. The guy Stiles has had a massive crush on ever since they shared a class together in Stiles's freshman year. The guy who went on to graduate later that spring and leave town to go on tour with his band. The guy who composed such beautiful music that it made Stiles fall even more stupidly in love with him when he happened upon one of his live performances on YouTube the following summer. The guy who wrote the lyrics to the song he’s currently up on stage singing motherfucking karaoke to. Derek Hale, Beacon Hills sweetheart, local legend, and international rising star.

you can wear my sweater (if i can have your heart) by elisela (1/1 | 12K | Teen)

“It’s fine,” Stiles says, but he stops at the bottom of the porch when Derek closes a hand around his elbow. His scent is evening out, mellowing from humiliation to embarrassment, and his heart skips a few beats when Derek touches him. “Really, I misread everything. Jordan said—” he stops, again, and Derek has to stop himself from asking because what Jordan said isn’t the most pressing issue.

“I thought you were joking,” he says, keeping Stiles’ arm still even as he starts to pull away. “Whatever Jordan said, he didn’t tell me. You’ve been teasing me for weeks, I didn’t think this was any different.”

Stiles turns to face him, and this time when he pulls his arm back, Derek lets go. “I’ve been asking you out for weeks,” he says, a thin trace of amusement through the resignation in his voice. “It’s fine, dude, just a misunderstanding. I’ll stop.”

We belong to the light (we belong to the thunder) by GreyHaven (1/1 | 3K | Explicit)

Stiles doesn't want to hurt Derek. Except when he really really does. And who better to hurt than a werewolf who will heal from anything he dishes out?

Not all treasure is silver and gold by princecharmingwinks (10/10 | 26K | Mature | Yes, this is mine!)

Captain Derek Hale is on a mission and he needs a fearless crew. His betrothed has been kidnapped, his family lives in exile and he harbours a dangerous secret. Enter Lady Erica Reyes, the perfect Quartermaster to join the crew. Erica has her own reasons for needing to escape her seaside town. An abusive father with a suggested 'arrangement' has forced her to create her own future.

A Derek and Erica friendship on the high seas, all in the name of love and family. Because not all treasure is silver and gold.

how to court a werewolf by graveltotempo (1/1 | 6K | General)

Stiles accidentally begins a courtship with Derek. Wary at first, the werewolf accepts, and Stiles ticks off all the boxes of a traditional Hale werewolf courting - oblivious to the whole thing.

Because of course he is.

Peter thinks the entire thing is hilarious.

Cora thinks that they deserve each other.

(spoiler alert: they do)

you could be the one that i love by whenwordsmakesense (1/1 | 2K | Teen)

It’s a good time in Beacon Hills.

Stiles thinks so, right until the moment he’s on his fifth bite of burger and his dad’s staring down his own.

“You know, son, one day you are gonna have to make your boyfriend meet me.”

Stiles chokes on his burger.

Dessert's on Me by halcyon1993 (1/1 | 4K | Explicit)

Derek comes home to find Stiles baking in nothing but an apron.

Re-edited 2nd February 2022.

Soulsick by theroguesgambit (1/1 | 3K | Teen)

Derek loathes this idiot of a soulmate, whoever they are. For not coming to Stiles’ call, for being too useless do just to this one simple thing, for failing Stiles, proving how utterly unworthy they are before they’ve ever met him. -- Stiles is cursed with a disease that will eventually destroy his soul unless his soulmate helps strengthen it. The pack performs a ritual to call his soulmate to his side. But days pass and no one appears...

Maybe they're already here?

princecharmingwinks special mention (Derek has some extremely hot lines in this! hot damn! And I love him so protective and Stiles is so smitten)

so now you've got the best of me (come on and take the rest of me) by mangotangos (1/1 | 18K | Explicit)

"It doesn't matter how hot Derek is, how Stiles barely comes up to his shoulders or how Derek's hands could probably fit really snugly around his waist. None of it matters, because he's basically a glorified babysitter for the foreseeable future and Stiles wants him out. Operation annoy Deputy Derek Hale into leaving begins now."

~or, the one where Stiles' dad hires Deputy Derek to be Stiles' bodyguard, Stiles hates him on principle and then 2 seconds later falls in lust (and love) and tries to seduce him into bed with his sexual prowess.

It was my birthday this month and it feels appropriate that I slipped in my big big pirate fic ;) See you all next week!

[fluffypichu876]

Wolf from Sekiro for the character ask?)

my boi wolf, the only traditional protagonist in the soulsbourne games :DDDDDD i love him so much and honestly people don't talk enough about him

* favorite thing about him: i absolutely love how wolf can either represent the end or the perpetuation of the cycles of suffering (depending on your actions and the ending you get). to start off, he is an undying shinobi who can rise back from death no matter how bad his injuries get. thats is an obvious play on the cycle of life and death, but its just the surface of it. the endings tell us way more about this tragedy that is immortality.

get the shura ending and this cycle perpetuates on the worst way possible: wolf becomes a blood-lusted immortal demon who possesses the only two blades capable of severing immortality a.k.a japan may just as well be gone forever.

immortal severance ends in a lighter note but its still very tragic in a subtle way. with his lord dead, wolf no longer has a purpose and now follows the steps of the late sculptor, which implies that one day wolf will still end up consumed by shura (and pass on the prothestic to another shinobi, just like the sculptor did, repeating this cycle once again). his master's death was meaningless, since immortality was severed but not returned to where it belonged to, and someday eventually another divine heir will be born (you get it by now: the cycle continues...).

purification is good but still not the best ending, in my opinion though it sure is the most beautiful and poetic one. you see, wolf is also part of a cycle of abuse and trauma. he was an orphan in the battlefield, adopted by an abusive foster father (the great shinobi owl) who saw him as a mere tool to help him achieve his grand schemes. wolf was raised to strictly and blindly follow the iron code, which stated that the father's will was absolute, above even the will of one's master (i won't explain more because that'd be the entire story really xD)

and so there's kuro, the young divine heir, a mere child. mostly importantly, he is wolf's master. by the code, wolf is obligated to follow every order that his master imposes, no matter what, without question. and so wolf does that. but kuro sees wolf as much more than just a guardian and tool. he sees him as his loyal shinobi, his friend, and quite possibly the only person he can absolutely trust after the death of his parents.

and at first this only rings true because wolf is too afraid of breaking the code, his only purpose and belief (owl you motherfucker). but as you progress through the game, especially if you take the path of the two better endings, wolf himself starts to realize that he sees kuro as much more than his lord. he genuinely cares about the boy and his safety, and the moment that kuro approaches him with the proposal of severing immortality (which will eventually end with the heir's death), wolf begins to branch away from his lord's wishes and even breaks some of them, all so that he can find an alternative way of ending immortality without prematurely endings his beloved lord's life.

hell, he even dares to break the code in front of his father, who he feared his whole life, choosing to stay loyal to kuro instead of following owl's will, which ends in a duel to the death between father-son where wolf comes out victorious :D

fuck, you, the player, ends up sacrificing something for kuro, since picking any ending other than shura (a.k.a forsaking owl) means you have to go through and beat the much harder final third of the game, even though you had the option to finish the playthrough much earlier by obeying the code. and to get the purification/return ending you have to go even further and beat father owl, who is to many the hardest boss in the game, a legend in his prime, as one final fuck you to that absolute asshole who calls himself a father.

all of that simply because kuro treated wolf with all the care and compassion that owl could only ever hope to show. (fromsoft's choice of having a traditional protagonist really pays off here. the story in this game just feels so, personal y'know?)

and that's why purification is so beautiful, because here wolf goes through all of that shit and eventually decides to take his own life to sever immortality, allowing kuro to live on with the happy and carefree childhood that neither ever got to experience. just, oh god... a cycle of abuse broken by the pure sympathy and love of someone that truly cares about you...

sadly, like in the IS ending, another divine heir will eventually be born again, but this time, there's the hope that it will finally end for good.

then there's finally the return ending, which is the happiest and most hopeful ending fromsoft will ever give to us in a souls game xDDD. i'm not sure how the whole returning the dragon's blood to its origin and kuro being like carried by the divine child (apparently in her womb in the og japanese text?) works, but it is the ultimate end of all the terrible cycles mentioned above (and a great opportunity for a sequel huh fromsoft wink wink nudge nudge)

umm, this came out more as a explanation of the endings honestly but it also essentially explains my favorite thing about wolf as well so yeah xD sorry for all the text lol

* least favorite thing about him: hmm, i will admit, as great as all the subtle storytelling is, wolf is quite honestly an absolute brick of a character xD he barely expresses emotion in his dialogue.

* favorite line: "i hereby condemn the last immortal. may you live on, and embrace what it means to be human." the last thing he says to kuro in the purification ending. excuse me i will go cry.

"a code must be determined by the individual... this is what i've decided. just as my master did." is gold too. spat right in owl's face too hehe.

* brOTP: focusing more on the platonic part than the bro part, definitely 100% his whole relationship with kuro. the way these two care for each other is simply too sweet.

like how kuro decides to prepare a rice ball for wolf, after seeing him eat it raw (because owl abused him by starving him out of food, giving it as a sparse "reward" for obeying his will GOD I HATE THAT GUY)

and also how in that one scene kuro kneels to wolf's eye level to speak to him, instead of standing in the imposing and dominant manner expected of a master....

now, if i where to focus more on the bro part, i really appreciate the camaraderie that both the sculptor and hanbei show towards wolf. sharing a drink with the old hermit and having him share a story of his time, or just practicing your parries with hanbei, it all felt very nice :))

* OTP: i will admit i'm not really into shipping xD i usually only care about canonical or highly implied (to the point of obvious) pairings. that being said, in my eyes wolf has zero romantical chemistry with pretty much every character in the game honestly xD

* nOTP: aside from the obviously problematic ships, none really.

* random headcanon: i have read a fic where wolf has a severe case of sweet-tooth and now i kinda carry that with me xD completely justified in-game too, where you consume stat-boosting sugars.

* unpopular opinion: hmm none? i mean, people barely talk about sekiro nowadays (much to my dismay)...

* favorite picture of them: this is my personal favorite promotional render:

[ridiasfangirlings]

NagaShiro with this prompt:

There’s something haunting about how silent and still the lake is of a morning, the sun barely beginning to tint the sky and not yet managing to peek over the towering mountains that cradled it. Even though your footsteps were careful as you walked up the length of the board walk, it almost felt as though the sound of your boots on the aged wood were echoing far too loudly for such a peaceful place.

With the chill of the morning air gently nipping at your face, and your breath leaving you in soft heated puffs of steam, you felt almost as if you were floating even without the aid of water, your soul feeling light as air, even as your body remained firmly on the ground.

It was this very peace that had brought you here that first day all those years ago, and the reason you had ever met Them. 

….It was also the reason that you hadn’t aged a day, even though thirty years had long since passed since that fateful encounter.

Strangely, it seemed as though nothing here had aged either….They certainly hadn’t.

Reference: https://www.tumblr.com/write-it-motherfuckers/189258071222?source=share

The ‘haven’t aged a day’ bit with Shiro immediately made me think ‘oh, it’s a Slate/Shiro ship’ XD Imagine when he’s a young researcher Shiro travels to this mysterious small town by a fog-covered lake. The people of the town have a story about monsters that live in the lake, that kidnap beautiful maidens and then return them weeks later and the maidens stop aging after that point, until the day they finally run back to the lake and are never seen again. Shiro is like a researcher of fairytales and cryptic stories, trying to probe the existence of the supernatural, and this small town tale intrigued him from the moment he read about it in a dusty book in an old library. He tries to ask the people about it but no one wants to talk, other than to say that no one goes near the lake anymore. 

Shiro figures he’s safe, not being a beautiful maiden or anything (that’s what he thinks anyway). He goes down to the boardwalk and as he gets closer to the lake he notices that the town becomes strange at this point — the buildings all look in a much older style than the rest of the town, and even though there appear to be shops there are no people around. He starts walking closer to the lake when a bird flies by his face. The bird is bright and tropical even though this place wouldn’t have that kind of bird and Shiro finds himself following it. He’s led to the edge of the lake and this bridge of stones rises from the water. Shiro remembers the legend but decides to follow anyway, to an island in the center of the lake that wasn’t visible before. Lying against a tree is a mysterious man with green eyes, eyes that glow as he reaches out a hand to Shiro. He wonders why Shiro came, knowing the legends, and Shiro laughs sheepishly as he says he couldn’t resist. The man’s eyes glow again and he introduces himself as Hisui. He asks Shiro to sit and talk with him a while, and even knowing the consequences Shiro agrees.

Suddenly he finds himself back in town, nowhere near the lake. He feels like he’s been somewhere for a very long time but he can’t remember where. Shiro thinks that’s odd, and there’s this longing in him that he can’t explain, and he can’t recall why he came to this town in the first place. He leaves to continue his research and of course at some point he starts to notice that he isn’t aging. It’s strange but Shiro’s always been interested in strange things so it surprisingly doesn’t bother him as much as he expected it would. As time passes he finds himself thinking more and more about that one small town though  and finally thirty years later he returns. He heads towards the lake, past the strange old shops that look like they’ve been frozen in time. When he reaches the island in the center of the lake though he smiles and reaches for Hisui’s hand, saying ‘Well, I’m back.’

[nochi-quinn]

legend of vox machina season 2 episode 1: rise of the chroma conclave OR [makes sparkly eyes @ dragons]

as per usual I have already watched this twice in the past 24 hours

be cool if the quality wouldn't bounce back and forth on desktop tho

like I am set to Best give me your Best

GOD the dragons just look so COOL

just grab the gnome by the head it's fine

FUCK YEAH ALLURA

given what we know about allura what kind of panic attack is she having right now

uriel's little smile kills me, his last thought was that his family was safe

umbrasyl and his awesome disgusting acid throat sack

oh I didn't get the heartbeat effects w/the raven queen before

also: foreshadowing~

fuck yeah gilmore

gilmore you have to tell me if you're a dragon otherwise it's entrapment

oh shit it's That Guy

goodbye That Guy

raishan enjoys speaking in the third person to establish herself as a named character

19….misses

percy D:

fucking THORDAK he looks so fucking cool I can't

the way vex grabbed keyleth

the subtitles said "militia, fire" which is absolutely not what he said

thordak's FIRE VENTS

remembering matt going "I just destroyed something I created"

gilmore's dramatic ass

this acid-burnt motherfucker making dick jokes and googly eyes at vax

vex's literal thousand arrows she bought pre-stream so matt stopped making her keep track

this is how we get the broom without having to deal with chris hardwick

grog: the pointy end goes in the other man

I know we don't get "do you think this is what mother saw before she died" but I'm thinking if they keep it they'll move it to the thordak fight

truesight!

the kid riding on trinket

"aren't you a tough little tyke" LARKIN WATCH

The Events Of Episode 85 are a lot more foreshadowed here than they were in the campaign

that's sam's kids again isn't it

(update after watching the credits: of course it is)

scanlan: can't do my world tour without the rest of the band mala: I mean you can. and will.

vorugal's russian accent

he's clearly from aeor

unreasonably excited for westruun, it's easily my favorite arc in this whole section

[popculturebuffet]

Tal'Dorei Travelogue: Dragonic Nightmares, Beyond Any Measure, Will Friedle Daydreams To Treasure Forever (Rise of the Chroma Conclave, Trials of Vasslehiem, The Sunken Tomb)

Hello all you happy critters and welcome to a new feature on this blog: Tal'Dorei Travelogue, where I take a look at each batch of Vox Machina episodes as it comes out. For those new here, I review comics and animation and i'm a MASSIVE fan of this show, to the point that despite having tons of other work i've decide to give a try to covering it every week simply because I love talking about it that much and didn't want to miss out again like I did last year. While I haven't seen much of critical roll...

I know, I know, I've bought the book, and deeply loved season one of this show, an epic fantasy about vengance, accepting who you are.. .and pulling on scanlans motherfucking beads. It nicely blended the kind of bullshit i'm told is normal for a DnD campagin with the epic fantasy that's just as normal, gorgeous animation and made it's main cast personal faviorite va's of mine.. except Ashley and Sam. They were already there since childhood. So my anticipation was through the roof for season 2 and after a VERY rough year for animation and a rough start to go along with that... I really needed this and the show not only didn't disapoint but somehow topped itself from the high it left off on. So join me under the cut but be warned.. there be dragons.. and also full spoilers for this weeks episodes.

Rise of the Chroma Conclave: So kicking my 2023 in animation (As I haven't yet watched the one Great North i've gotten yet and i'm not getting near Velma till me and my friend @jess-the-vampire (Who I also swept into this very show), are good and ready) with one hell of a bang, The Scouring of Emon, as i'm calling it as a big nightmarish fantasy event needs a cool name and I need something to call this to my therapist after this whole thing gives me nightmares for month, is easily one of the most tense events i've seen in animation. The first ten minutes of this episode is a mixture of the Chroma Conclave killing everything in their path in the most brutal way possible, and our heroes running for their lives and BARELY surviving. It sells just how BIG an event this is and just what a full power DnD dragon can do, something I really wasn't aware of not playing the game no matter how badly i've wanted to: it only takes what seems like MINUTES in story and seconds in real time for them to utterly destroy emon, kill most of it's people, and for Thordak to grandly delcare they scan serve them.. or they can die. There is no other option. The dragons are also played well, with Lance Reddick, who I previously saw play a villian masterfully on Ducktales with Lunaris utterly top himself with a deep terrifying growl, and continuing a trend of using a voice acting legend for one of their main villians instead of a guest star, Cree Summer nicely follows up Grey with her turn as Raishan, something they set up last season and i'm glad they followed through with. I haven't seen her play a villian in a while but god does she do as amazing as you'd expect, and with just a few lines she sells our heroes are fucked and why they barely escape her alive. Matthew Mercer and in a surpise as the voice was so diffrent from Vax, LIam O'Brian, do wonderful as Umbrasyl and Vorugal, completing the quartet. The CGI is also leagues better than last time: While Brimscythe was intimidating and all, the crew outright said that Titmouse worked overtime to make sure the dragons felt like the full characters they are instead of just beasts and it works, and thus the CGI instead helps sell that these beasts are BEYOND our heroes, beyond strength, and beyond hope.. and all they can do is run and HOPE to survive for now a Thordak hyper beams emon to cinders.

Our heroes are thus less terrfied as the king dies (Tragically, and with dignity, simply smiling that his family lives on as he bleeds out his eyes) and their left simply running, seperated and scared. And we get some close calls to show just how outclassed our heroes are: Percy nearly DIES. While obviously given both the trailers and how early it is this wasn't going to happen, the show doe swhat good fiction does and still sells you on the danger and it still utterly jarred me to see my faviorite of the group's skin melt off and Pike BARELY save him in time. Meanwhile the other half of the team.. faces Raishan... and in nice final boss preview fashion... their best efforts do NOTHING. Grog's move that served him so well last time, raging then splitting a dragon open... looses him his faviorite head chopper, simply breaking off on Raishan, and the most Scanlan can do is literally put a foot in her mouth, which only delays her for a moment. We also see Gilmores, one of the best locations of the last season... as burnt out husk. Gimore himself barely lives and it's telling that he's so shaken he offers them anything they need at a discount.... then just says fuck it and lets them loot whatever he has left. Scalan gets stuck with a broom, but everyone stocks up well for the rough road ahead. I also like how the lance of epic dragonslaying from last season isn't forgotten.. but also isn't allowed to make our heroes quest easy, being smashed quickly with Percy just sighing "of course".

This leaves our heroes retreating and welcoming in refuges, with some wanting to fight.. but Percy suggesting fleeing to whitestone instead.. and being you know.. right. And not just because he's my boy: they BARELY escaped with their lives, the dragons will be on them soon, and it's the only safe haven they have. These dragons just took the captial of the land hostage in a second. The rest eventually agree... though Keyleth wonders if this was their fault after Brinscythe, though while that's a neat question i'm glad they don't dwell on it as Percy ultimately points out it isn't: Emon had the best army in the world before him, so it was clear this was in motion a long time and while it goes unsaid, them stopping him likely meant as many survivied as they did rather than have Brinscythe destroy the entire army outright and possibly start the invasion sooner.

What I like is that the castle bit gets you a few seconds of breather.. before VORUGAL comes dowon on them, kills most of the refuges, and once again proves our heroes have no chance as they are as Scanlans gambit from last time.. is dispeled in seconds as Vorgual can see through illusions. It's another nice bit of storytelilng: As keyleth said earlier "Do they have magic?" And it proves they do. Brimscythe was not only have the size.. but also a brute in combat, simply using his sheer strength as a dragon. His allies are stronger, smarter, and our heroes can only hope to run and get stronger , get help and get out alive, barely escaping with maybe 20 people tops. So with some help from Cassandra and the Keeper our heroes keep them safe. And it's also telling for her leadership that Cassandra wholeheartdly agrees to keep the refuges safe here as Whitestone's isolation, which helped the briarwoods keep their iron fist on the place, is now working for the city as it's not a major target. It dosen't mean they have forever though: our heroes need a plan and having seen the pilot again recently... it's a really nice subtle show of character growth: in the pilot when just facing ONE dragon sacking emon eventually... our heroes response was...

Only turning around because they saw the people they'd just seen moments ago dead, all dead at Brimscythe's hands. Here there once again backs to the wall, now by FOUR dragons who are all smarter, stronger and deadlier than the dragon they BARELY defeated a few months ago, just likely weeks at best days at worst after they again barely (if not by as close a margin) beat a powerful necromancer, a god and rid their friend of a smoke monster. It's not only more understandable to run completely this time but almost expected.. and yet it takes little convicing for most of the party to agree. Vax and Vex are mildly reluctant but agree quickly, with Vax being skeptical.. but also likely understanding this is their duty. It's heartwarming to see these guy go in just a few month from scoffing at the idea of doing something heroic... to all but two fully agreeing to leap into this and find some way to defat the dragons. Their the defenders of the realm and while the guy who gave them that title just melted, it still means something. The only holdouts make sense: Grog is unsure of his strength after the axe thing, and Scalan being the most cyncial .. is the one just outright saying...

The speech that follows is also inspriing as the team join scalan.. and have also gotten closer as instead of laughing, or anything they just simply find him and Vex and Percy point out what they've acomplished and what whitestone has: in just a few days to a week they already have their surrounding wall almost repaired, and it shows what our protaganist have become: true heroes. Because a hero... inspires people. There someone to look up to and to whitestone they see not fuckups.. but people who risked their lives to save them, freed them from a nightmare, and did more than they ever could've dreamed of. Their heroes wether they like it or not and in this dark time SOMEONE needs to act like it. And if they die.. at least they die gloriously. Scalan caves with the instant classic line of "Can't do my world tour without the band" and it's off to the holy city of Vasslehiem for help. This episode is a tightly packed thrill ride I love to death: it only lets the audeince catch their breath twice to really sell just how fucked Emon is, how much our heroes have lost, and how dire everything is. There's still some great jokes, but the humor is kept either to the quiter moments or simply kept brief as it should: The show knows when to be hilarious as fuck... and when to really sink in how dark things have gotten and how far away the dawn is.. granted in this case the dawn is another year away as they seem to be splitting this arc over two seasons, but it sets up an epic world tour for our heroes, and that they need to take some serious levels in badass , and as we've see their already pretty high up, if their going to survive, much less win.

The Trials of Vassleheim Our heroes manage to enter a tree with Yennins vauge directions and after a hilarious bit that was released to promote the season with Kiki saving the twins and pike by flying like the wind and Scalan saves the rest of the party with a giant ass.... percy... takes it suprisingly well

Vasselheim itself.. ends up being no better. Percy suffers some humilation with his wheeling and dealing failing (Vex assures him it happens to all the nobles), and Pike trying to appeal to their council... fails because Highbearer Vord and co.. are your standard council of assholes who won't do anything if ti dosen't effect them. Insert your own politics joke here but i'ts one of the most common jokes in fiction and despite the fact that you know, their going to come for them eventually, they decide not to help.. the despite the fact that they don't even need to send an army or something, they could you know have given our heroes weapons, knowledge you know... on the sly. Anything besides "Gee that's rough buddy". Thankfully one of the guys working for them actually has a working soul and directs them to the Slayers Take, some bounty hunters who are rough tumble.. but their patron deity can help. Also all the while Vax is seeing creepy visions of death and is thus more protective of Vex than usual. Well not exactly death but for those who haven't read campaign spoilers a book or what have you, I shan't tell you what he's seeing, though you can likely guess after the next one.

The story then splits in half as Craven Edge, Silas' creepy sword starts talking to Grog who mistakes it for his stomach and thus wonders off for a fun grog solo adventure. And after eating and suprisingly without visting a whorehouse , Grog wonders his way into an arena where he finds Earthbreaker Groon, a badass monk played by Ike Amadi, a va I hadn't heard of but whose had tons of rolls from Martian Manhunter in the Tommorowverse to Aaron fucking Davis Prowler in the insomniac spider-man games. He's awesome here and the traning sequence... as it is here is one that will stick in my head for a while. Groon simply breaks down Grog asking where his strength comes form.. and suprisingly to me and Grog it isn't the typical "heart" answer I thought he was going for. It also nicely shows how utterly outmatched grog is in a way I always love seeing: Grog gives everything he has from craven edge, to raging.. and never even gets CLOSE to landing a blow, often never even drawing a punch. Groon meanwhile simply uses a few strikes. It's one of those things I just love when I see, to signal the begining of a heroes climb up to that level: that someone can outclass them that easily. Being used a lot in manga, it's likely not a suprise a bunch of nerdy va's who love anime used this trope and bless em for it. Grog finally stops getting made into hamburger when he admits he dosen't know, and that's the first step. The next ones are his. While an old man beats up Grog, the rest of our heroes head to the slayers take, which Vax says is a bad idea and refuses to explain why... until they get in there and we find out the take is pissed at the twins for stealing a bounty on a hydra from them, a nice nod to the origianl stream where VM first met the take fighting a hydra they had marked and had to join them to avoid arrest. It was a whole thing I have not scene. Point is our heroes are mostly marked for death by voice acting legend Will Fredle!

Yeah it's been a while since I heard him though he DID play Star Lord in that guardians of the galaxy show I forgot existed, so he hasn't stopped working, he just hasn't had any high profile gigs for a while is all. If you don't know him

And second I don't qutie mean that but it's still weird as he's played Terry Mcgunnies,Doyle Saturday Jamie Reyes, and of course the one the only best boy of all boys Ron Stoppable. He's been in this buisness a while with many more under his belt. He's not here because of that though but because Will Fredle actually guest starred on Critical Roll along with Mary Elziabeth MCgleenn as Zahara, a warlock and fellow take member whose just as eager for said revenge. It was part of that arc I mentioned, which was heavy on guest stars, including Felica Day who I hope gets more of a roll down the line, either as her character or just as someone period. To explain to people like me who only watch the cartoon, Critical Roll will occasionally have someone else sit at the table, bring in a character for the session that sort of thing. It's the tabletop equilvent of when someone TECHNICALLY joins your party in an rpg but you either have no control over them or their only there for the dungeon. Zahara and Kash were some of the most popular, so it's no suprise they made it over eventually, simply compressing thing: most of the party meets the take here instead of in the past, and one part of Kash's story, his flirting with Keleyth, was moved here. I won't say what I know backstory wise, as it may be revealed here later.

Anyways the take is overulled by their patron, who has them drop the party into her sarlac pit. It's there we get my faviorite sequnece of the episode: the fact it dosent have boy meets world's brother sucks but instead we get Allana Ubach, aka Manny Rivera herself, as Osysa, an ancient sphinx who quickly sets out to test our heroes.. and how is simple: break their spirit and see if they get back up: being a sphinx she apparently knows everything and thus needles our casts weakensses: Pike is afraid she wont' be good enoguh to save her friend smuch less the world, Percy is still wondering if he can ever earn back his friends trust after what he's done or evne forgive himself, the twins have seperation anxiety with Vax being afraid of loosing his sister and Vex having tried desperatley to please a father who will never love her back, Kelyeth faces the fact she's been avoiding doing her armante, and Scalan gets the biggest put down of all "No one cares about you and i'm no exception". She offers to let the heroes leave.. but PIke is steadfast standing up and refusing to leave , even willing to die to prove a point, and everyone is behind her.. and that, in classic fantasy fashion.. was the point. It was a test of resolve. To see if they were worthy and if they can do what's necessary: to fight even in impossible odds and be ready to sacrifice anything to succeed.

Their tools.. are something awesome that was ironically, thank you book for this knowledge, cooked up to solve a common dnd problem, and one that plauges video game rpgs too: you often get cool weapons, rely on them, come to value them as part of you.. ,but due to it's nature as a game you have to give them up eventually. Matt's solution? The Vestiges of Divergence. While there's KIND OF an explination in the show, here's the short version of teh long version: Long ago there war between the good gods and the evil betrayer gods. To help save humanity the gods gave their various patrons the vestiges, weapons embued with the power of gods from weapons to armor to cloaks. The weapons were either lost or hidden after the war, and thus wait for new bearers. When the bearer undergoes an emotoinal turning point, the vestige becomes awawkened and thus stronger. So in short a characters development... makes the item stronger and thus keeps it around, and nicely translates to tv storytelling. They can give our heroes the leg up to fight the dragons

The first is in a tomb in the lake to the west, The Deathwalkers Ward. We'll learn more about it in a moment but for now our heroes have ana ctual plan: get the vestiges, kill the dragons and then profit.. that's.. literally how vex puts it suprising no one. Our heroes decide to spend a night getting good and hammered first, before preapring to set out Edit: Crap on a crap cracker! While i'm not going to kick myself too much fo rmissing something most of the time I nearly didn't mention victor. He was a recurring charcter in the stream apparently tha tnaturlaly matt not only reprised here but they found a way to include.. and he's every bit delightful as he was built up to be, casually exploding his place by the end of his apperance, talking jolliy,.. and still being nicely integrated as a random shop keep is easy to put in a stream but here not only does Percy getting some black powder before he heads off make sense.. but it reveals Ana ripley is not only around.. but got some herself. percy decides to keep this to himself but there's no way this can possibly end well.

The Sunken Tomb

Or as I call it

Yeah even knowing what's ahead.. didn't help. This episode hurt. And for the first third or so it's just okay: Pike is a bit wory about the pitch black sword made of pure evil wielded by a spooky vampire Grog is using, Scalan indulges in his foot fetish, Percy's only suggestion when some creatures from the black lagoon attack him is "KELEYTH TURN INTO A BIRD OR SOMETHIGN" i'ts normal. The only diffrences are Zahra and Kashaw, who are commencing with operation "steal the vestige out from under them" an d"Get into kiki's tunic dress whatever" respectively.

This does lead to one of the shows funniest moments so far and one I had to replay at least twice before I could move on: the tomb as it turns out is the temple of Purvan... which for some reason Matt insisted be prounounced pur-von.

Yeah as you can probably imagine the original livestream, which I luckily found a clip of this moment on youtube so I didn't have to dig for it, went off the rails for a second after this as the entire cast laughed at it for some time while Matt vainly tried to both restore order and defend the purv. So i'm delighted the gang's knee jerk and entirley justified reaction of chorttling like middle schoolers was kept, with the entreity of vox machina bursting out into laughter, and with the best two jokes given to their actors respective characters with Scalan wondering if his last name is Pedo Bear and Vax admitting we all need to get our perv on sometime. IT's somehow made better with Kash's deadpan "You guys are the worst", which is clearly echoing what Matt was thinking in the moment. The rest is a prettty standard dungeon crawl, though spiced up with the sense of impending dread: the mysterious figure of the raven queen keeps stalking vax, his paranoia at his sisters death is hightned.. and then they get seperated. It's also telling he's hung up on this as he only reacts maybe once to Kiki moving on to someone else... whic is refreshing as you can only see so much scooby doo before your sick of "Daphne gets mad at fred despite them not being together" #87, so good on him. Worry about his sister now. Admitely i'm not on team Vax because it's the clear endgame. Being the clear endgame.. does not necessarily make a ship good. For instance i'm mostly supporting the main ship of miraculous ladybug out of fatigue at this point. Just because the writers want a relatoinship dosen't mean the audience is rooting for it. But the two have genuine chemstiry, to the point it just happened organically in the game, while Kash.. just seems to be hitting on her because he thinks she's pretty. Which.. she is. I mean this entire team is a smokeshow. Even grog who I kinda put to the side last season has gone up a notch thanks to him getting a breard. Also him getting his beard was comedy gold, from him putting on the belt of dwarvenkind to Kash sarcastically brushing it off.. only for Grog to get in his face. As for why this is a big thing apparently Goliath's, Grog's race, are naturally smooth let's say.

At any rate, we get two parties, and a nicely tense fight scene with the fish man, as well as Vex's exasperation that one of them is a wizard. It's a fun fight, and we even get trinket eating some guys then letting pike ride on his back.

And more disturbing and plot relevant.. grog gets a bit too into murdering which starts funny (it's because his beard was half shaved off, a nod to a prank from the stream i'd heard of), and .. then gets creepy as he gets very slasher villian into his bloodshed to Pike's horror. No time to talk though as the slayers booked it and went down a hallway to possible doom.. as it turns out when Vox machina enters and finds out the secret entrance they found is not the one they need. Instead Vax goes investigating instead of vex.. which proves to be a fatal mistake. Not for him, he's fine and finds out where their informant is. But Percy flirtly egging Vex on with "your brother wouldn't like it", which is also what he calls oral, finds them the grave and the vestige. Which normally would be great: magic item found, flirting between my faviorite pairing on the show, a good time for all.. but well... this show likes to hurt us and matthew mercer like sto hurt his players so .... Vex .. is well....

An arcane bolt hits her, and she disturbingly just.. htis the floor.. her eyes dead. Probably not the best time to see this given my cat died two weeks ago and had the same look. It's well done and makes you think for a second it might not be undone. All the party can do is scramble to her while Scalan, despite being often at odds with both twins, screams for him to get up here. And just to twist the knife further, the episode spent a good chunk of it's runtime somehow making us feel worse as we get some backstory for vax and vex. It's one of the nice thigns about the medium: instead of just saying the backstory, which is a necity in tabletop and still can be done hauntingly well as, having seen the first episode of the whitestone arc, Talisen Jaffe did a soulcrushing performance of percy telling everyone his. But here you can flesh it out an dhave the players actually act out their tragic pasts.

So going back a bit, we focus on the day Vax and Vex left their abuse father. IT's been mentioned their mom was killed by a dragon but what hasn't come up till now.. is their father. See their dad Sygorn is..

He's a racist asshole who basiclaly abucted the twins from their mom.. then proceded to emotoinally abuse them, being cold distant and feleing like they were an embarssment for being half human. He is a giant back of fuck you good sir and his first scene has him getting overly pissed at Vex for trying on and accidently breaking a diadim, then calling them out on their "Muddled" blood. Vax has enough and says their getting the fuck out of there and while Vex hestiaties, badly wanting her dad's love... the fact her dad dose n't put up a fight crushes her enough to go along with it. The two end up fighting with Vex, feeling vax needs her too much, leaves. She succesfully hunts and is fine on her own... but finds a sobbing Vax. As it turns out his clingyness wasn't because he felt she needed him.. but because he felt worthless and needed HER. They reconclile and promise to mever be apart. It puts a LOT of Vex's clingy behavior in season one in a more sympathetic light: she's utterly horrible to Kiki, true, and it's still not okay.. but given her brother is easily hurt, she just wants to, if entirely misguidedly protect him. It also explains why despite Vex being openly flurtatious with percy so far Vax hasn't returned the same: While Vex likely worries her brother can't handle himself (he can), Vax knows she can and only got scared and overportective when he kept getting portents of death.. and given said portent caused her death, I can't blame him. TH eending is just.. liam doing som heartbreaking sobbing. And true to form that's where we leave the week.... Mercer you bastard. I'll hopefully be here next week but if not catch me on twitter @lanternmogo and thanks for reading.

[nightcoremoon]

it is hilarious that people will insult belittle demean and tear into the avengers movies or the legend of korra or halestorm or whatever is popular and claim they’re the worst of the worst bottom of the barrel sub F tier trash available on the market. true they’re not perfect and true they’re not everyone’s cup of tea and true they’re semi poppy and commercialized but this is a capitalist hell hole and you have to commercialize yourself or starve and taste is subjective and nothing is perfect. except maybe lord of the rings. but whatever it’s unimportant.

that is still in the barrel. that is still drinkable. still tasty.

I have seen what is under the barrel. I have seen the moldy rot-infested barnacles infesting the bowels of the industry. I have seen horrors that you lesser minded folks incapable of viewing the big picture couldn’t even begin to fathom. I am the protagonist of an eldritch horror novel and you are just a bystander NPC programmed to repeat what you hear and are told to believe from social media. you are a slave to tiktok and instagram and twitter thinking that whatever is the most popular thing at the time is the worst that you can get, but I am here to tell you that you don’t even know the first thing about objectively bad media.

morbius is the single worst marvel property ever made and yes that absolutely includes daredevil, ghost rider, Xmen 3, fantastic four: rise of the silver surfer. because at least they’re all still good stupid fun popcorn movies (except for silver surfer holy shit that was bad but even then I’d still rather watch that one twice than ever lay my eyes on morbius ever again). and please note that this is five atrocious marvel movies that are not part of your most hated cinematography universe. THERE ARE FIVE MARVEL MOVIES THAT ARE WORSE THAN THE “MARVEL MOVIES” THAT YOU ALL CLAIM TO HATE. and don’t even get me started on the dc movies (suicide squad & catwoman) and dark horse (spawn). and superhero movies in general. I haven’t even touched Netflix originals or other similar garbage.

Sierra Burgess. Tall Girl. The Kissing Booth. Secret Obsession. Swiped. Food Boy. MUSIC. CYBERBU//Y. ARTEMIS FUCKING FOWL. DON’T FORGET THE LAST GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING M NIGHT SHYAMALAN TRAINWRECK AIRBENDER (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ and how about Disney’s remakes? Shyamalan’s rest of the garbage pile? Every single shitty offensive terrible movie Paris Hilton paid for with daddy’s money??? Master of Disguise. Zoom. Cat in the Hat. N O R B I T. Loqueesha.

LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND TELL ME THAT LOQUEESHA IS A BETTER MOVIE THAN IRON MAN OR CAP 2.

“I don’t know what loqueesha is let me look it up.

oh.

oh no.”

Oldboy remake. Cats and Les Mis remakes. Half of Adam Sandler’s filmography. I could go on for hours here.

tell me korra is bad when PPG2016 exists. tell me halestorm is bad when brokencyde exists. tell me any film you’ve heard of is bad when video brinquiedo has a shittier ripped off lower budget & RACIST version of it.

you don’t know what you’re talking about. you only adopted the garbage. I was born in it. raised by it. molded by it. the first time I saw a genuinely good movie I was already grown, by then it was nothing but fun to me! yes I quoted the worst nolan batman movie but blatant copaganda it may be it’s still better than a significant portion of other films on the market especially now that streaming is the way of the future, a way to enable mediocre directors to churn out dozens and hundreds of hours of bad content than you decide to ignore and instead throw rocks at some of the only worthwhile viewing experiences available without cash. although occasionally you do get gems like EEAAO.

it’s the same old bandwagon as always. the haters will just move on to whatever the spotlight shines upon next.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 291: The Endeavor Pamphlet

Previously on BnHA: Dabi showed up atop Gigantomachia’s back and was all “you’ll never guess who I really am!” and the readers humored him and were all “who?” and he was all “TODOROKI TOUYA” and we were all “WOW └(・。・)┘ OH MY GOSH I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED”, except for Shouto and Enji who were GENUINELY SHOCKED. Anyway so Touya was all “and guess what I’m doing right now!” and before anyone could even try, he was all, “STREAMING MY EMMY-NOMINATED MINISERIES ‘HELLO, I’M EVIL BUT ALSO TRAGIC AND SEXY, NOW LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT MY DAD WHO SUCKS’’, THAT’S WHAT.” And everyone was all “oh my god” and Touya was all “ヽ(⌐■_■)ノ♪” for basically the rest of the chapter, and that’s pretty much it! Oh, wait, except for the part where he also doused himself in bleach in a fit of pure theatrics, which is actually pretty much the main takeaway from the entire chapter really because it was just wild af. ANYWAYS.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi introduces Baby Touya, the world’s most enchantingly sweet character, and is immediately all, “I sure can’t wait to tell you guys all about how his fucking jaw burnt off.” Thankfully he doesn’t (YET), and we cut back to the present pretty quickly, where Dabi explains how he took all of his brain cells that should have been used to stop him from pouring bleach over his head, and instead put them all toward his big brain plot of releasing an elaborate video detailing Endeavor’s various abuses and crimes, and even throwing Hawks under the bus as well because WHY NOT. He then leaps off of Gigantomachia’s back (like I said, no brain cells) all set to blast them with a Prominence Burn, only to be stopped by none other than THE LEGEND HIMSELF, MOTHERFUCKING BEST, PRETTIEST, NICEST, MOST OUTSTANDING MOTHERFUCKING JEANIST. Who’s no doubt outraged by the crime against hair he witnessed only moments earlier. GO GETTIM JEANY BOI.

so I haven’t had time to answer any of them because this has been the stupidest week, but I just wanted to tell you guys that I received no fewer than nine asks about Dabi’s hair. which, in a week filled with election memes and tumblr’s most cursed fandom briefly rising back up from the dead, is a pretty impressive feat for him if you ask me. like, I know I was making fun of it basically nonstop, but it sure did generate a lot of discussion so maybe I should rethink my opinions on Dabi’s PR strategies now, idk

anyway. it’s Saturday. time to catch up on this shit. let’s see how fucked the Todorokis are

OH NO HE’S CUTE

HOLY SHIT THIS IS TOO MUCH TO FUCKING PROCESS. I’M JUST TRYING TO ENJOY MY DAY HORIKOSHI, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO TRAUMATIZE THIS POOR CHILD RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD

“thanks for being all right” the fuck

who allowed this child to be so cute. I’m serious. who signed off on this

how could a child this adorable possibly want to murder his equally adorable baby brother. please, your honor. there must be some mistake here

guess how prepared I am to read all about Touya’s tragic past. mm. that’s right. zero ready. none ready

anyway. TWO THOUSAND DEGREES LOLOLOL. NO TRACE OF A CORPSE HOW CONVENIENT. A PIECE OF HIS LOWER JAW BONE FFFFMSGHKLSh. LOVELY. LOVELY

LMAOOOOO

listen you guys. I just want to take a moment to appreciate that Horikoshi Kouhei did one of two things here. either (1) he planned it out FROM THE VERY START that Touya would be born with red hair Because Fire Powers, but would then have his hair turn white due to trauma, thus making the Dabi/Touya connection very slightly less obvious, although Let’s Be Real Who Are We Kidding. OR, (2) the anime got it wrong and gave him red hair, and rather than allowing this plot hole to continue to exist, Horikoshi took it upon himself to concoct this elaborate storyline and pretend it was never a plot hole at all! in which case I sure hope someone at Bones is sending him a VERY nice Christmas card this year. got this man sweeping up all your messes for you. you’re just lucky he has some sort of wild compulsion to address these things

anyways!!

FATHER AND SON. how sweet. :| still zero percent ready for any of this btw

STOP BEING CUTE

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I’M SO MAD RIGHT NOW. HE IS THE SINGLE CUTEST CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE SERIES, and do you even know how many other baby characters I’m betraying in order to say that?! baby Kacchan, baby Deku, baby Ochako, baby Shouto, Eri, baby Hawks. I’M LOOKING YOU DEAD IN THE EYE RIGHT NOW AND TELLING YOU THAT BABY TOUYA IS CUTER THAN ALL OF THOSE PLEBS. AND YOU’RE LOOKING BACK AT ME RIGHT NOW ALL “YEAH IT SURE IS A PITY ABOUT HIS JAW MELTING OFF THOUGH.” THAT’S IT, I QUIT THE SERIES

and Enji’s smiling at him. he’s so proud of him. but then Touya won’t be able to do it, and Enji’s gonna stop training him, and Touya’s gonna feel like a failure and keep pushing himself in order to try and win his dad’s affections back, because that’s all kids fucking want, all they want is just love, that’s fucking it, you couldn’t just give him that?? and then he’s gonna immolate himself fflkdlskfh THERE YOU SEE HORIKOSHI, I KNOW THE WHOLE STORY ALREADY, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THE WHOLE “SHOW THEM THE DEAD DOG” THING YET AGAIN YOU PIECE OF SHIT

OH SNAP THERE GOES THE TWIN THEORY. R.I.P.

BABY FUYUMI. PRETTY CUTE. NOT AS CUTE AS TOUYA THOUGH. HEY LOOK, NO REASON TO GET MAD AT ME I’M JUST STATING A FACT HERE

YEAH THIS IS GONNA GO REAL WELL OH BOY

I keep pressing the emergency stop button but this industrial tragedy machine just keeps on chugging along anyway, I’m pretty sure this thing is not up to code

:| I am so sorry sweet boy, Horikoshi is only getting started with you

FUCKING HELL WITH THIS NARRATION

but he wasn’t actually a child to you, he was just a little puppet child for you to live vicariously through!! and then you went and did the same fucking thing with Shouto afterwards and never learned your lesson until just six months ago!! fucking hell, Enji

so now he’s all “Touya is dead, that’s an unforgivable lie” fflkdhflk motherfucker does he look dead to you. if you really think that, tumblr and twitter have got a little over five years’ worth of archived theory posts to show you

oh shit Touya’s countering with “it’s an unforgivable truth”, which, damn. I actually think Horikoshi’s dialogue is one of his weaker points as a writer a lot of the time, but that comeback was snappy as fuck

actually guys, now that I’ve seen how ridiculously fucking cute baby!Touya was, I can almost understand why Shouto and Enji never put the pieces together before lol. any passing similarities would have easily been dismissed on account of he’d need to be at least 10x more adorable in order to get the full resemblance

OH MY GOD

NOW YOU SLEEP??? SO YOU POINT BLANK REFUSED TO PASS OUT WHILE YOU WERE BUSY MAIMING ALL OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS, BUT NOW THAT THERE’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEE YOUR REACTION TO THE “YOUR LIEUTENANT WAS SECRETLY RELATED TO ONE OF YOUR WORST ENEMIES THE WHOLE TIME” BOMBSHELL, YOU FINALLY DECIDE TO GET YOUR FORTY WINKS. I SEE

WOW DABI

I’M SURPRISED YOU DIDN’T ALREADY HAVE YOUR ANCESTRY.COM RESULTS PRINTOUT READY TO FOLD INTO A PAPER AIRPLANE AND ZOOM ON DOWN TO HIM

LOL NEVERMIND

gotta say, so far The Endeavor Pamphlet is just about as spicy as I could have hoped

(ETA: Natsuo’s face as he watches his beloved dead brother come back to life only to literally and metaphorically set everything on fire in one fell swoop is :/. why must you do this to me Natsu. can’t you see I’m trying to throw a Welcome Back Jeanist party here.)

HAVE YOU READ THIS?! TODOROKI ENJI ABUSED HIS OWN HEIR, AND DABI WROTE IT DOWN RIGHT THERE

WELL HE’S NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT

btw I neglected to mention this last week, but yes I do recognize and appreciate that this is Can’t Ya See-kun himself whom Horikoshi has chosen to be the face of this existential crisis which the general public is about to experience. rip CYS-kun

OOF

excuse me. putting aside the implications of Dabi sharing this context-less murder video of Hawks with the entire world for a moment, I just have to pause for a sec here, because when exactly did he get a chance to edit this all in?? complete with voiceover that seamlessly ties in with the prerecorded footage of him with DNA test results sans shirt?? you’re telling me this motherfucker, with all the smoke that was in the room thanks to his own quirk, somehow got a PERFECT SHOT of the PRECISE MOMENT when Hawks drove his feather knife into Jin’s back, using his MAGIC CAMERA THAT HE I GUESS HAD THE ENTIRE TIME IN THE POUCH RIGHT NEXT TO HIS BLEACH BOTTLE, and then immediately somehow got this very next shot as well FROM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ANGLE

ALL THE WHILE IMMEDIATELY RUNNING THROUGH SCRIPT REVISIONS IN HIS HEAD, WHICH HE THEN PROCEEDED TO RECORD... WHERE, EXACTLY?? WITH SKEPTIC, WHILST RIDING ON MACHIA’S BACK??

AND THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF???

and this after I just wrote that whole long paragraph positively GLOWING about this man’s ability to plug up a plot hole. jfc. just scratch out every damn word I said lol. just forget all of it

are you fucking kidding me, the footage was from the cameras Skeptic planted on Hawks??

that’s... actually... okay you know what, it still doesn’t make any sense in the slightest, but the determination to address it nonetheless... just, dammit... I feel like I’m constantly at war with myself over whether or not I want to shake this man’s hand or slap him lmao. whatever, then!!

anyway, since Shouto and Enji can’t actually see the damage that Touya is dealing to the hero industry even as they speak, Touya is taking it upon himself to give them the highlights

I think it’s a testament to how much Endeavor cares about Hawks that he managed to zero in on that comment even amidst all the craziness of his eldest son returning from the dead to announce how he’s been carefully plotting their destruction for years and years. like, he heard “Hawks” and his face immediately went like that. you think he’s worried that Dabi did something to him? because he’d be right to worry lol

so the Endeavor Pamphlet narration is now explaining all about how Hawks totally killed the Number 3 Hero Best Jeanist as well! yep... he sure did... totally...

OH MY GOD WE’RE CUTTING TO HIM AHHHHH

Hawks, that is. lol. not Jeanist. NO, JUST MY POOR HALF-DEAD WINGLESS BABY SON

NOOOOO HIS LITTLE WING STUMPS. BUT SOMEHOW HIS FACIAL HAIR IS STILL INTACT. OH TO BE AN ANIME PRETTY BOY BEING SET ON FIRE. “HEY, TAKE IT EASY, WATCH THE FACE”

EXCUSE ME WHAT

interesting! we suspected as much, I think, with the clues that Ending dropped, and the little flashback right after the name reveal. still not clear how Dabi found out about it though!

looooool okay here we go, breaking out the heavy-handed holier-than-thou shit now

you know, I do find it interesting how trying to model themselves after All Might’s noble Symbol of Peace image has kind of ended up being the heroes’ undoing here. like, I could write a whole essay on this, but what it basically boils down to is that they were all trying too hard to be perfect. All Might went out there and did his thing and was amazing, and so the powers-that-be built an entire system centered around this seemingly-infallible person, and they acted like the system was infallible as well. and so most of the population ended up becoming complacent over the years, and meanwhile the people who were unfortunate enough to fall through the cracks understandably wound up disillusioned and perceiving the heroes as these false idols

anyway, but I think one positive takeaway from this is that the new up-and-coming generation of heroes represent a breakaway from that system. like, imo what we’re witnessing is the downfall of the Perfect Hero, and the rise of the imperfect hero. and this new generation doesn’t shy away from their failures or pretend like they never happened. they pretty much can’t pretend, because their failures are all right out there in the open for everyone to see. Bakugou Katsuki, just to name one example off the top of my very biased head, has had his own personal character journey basically play out right in front of the media’s eyes. his humiliation at the sports festival, his kidnapping by the League, and all of the fallout afterward. this isn’t someone who can ever go out there and convince the world that he’s perfect. but what he can do, instead, is show the world that he’s trying. that he’s trying with everything he has to do his best, to be the best. rather than this untouchable godlike image, it’s instead the image of someone painfully human who is nonetheless striving with everything he’s got to keep moving forward, flaws and all, and work his way to the top

and ultimately I think that’s going to be a much more positive image to send out to the world when all’s said and done. because rather than merely inspiring awe, heroes like that inspire people to take action themselves. or at least that’s what I hope! and not just Bakugou, but the others as well. we’ve got Shouto, whose own personal trauma is being aired in front of the whole nation even as I sit here ranting. we’ve got Deku, who cries at the drop of a hat, and who fought to become a hero despite being quirkless (and I think it’s only a matter of time before that eventually becomes public knowledge as well). tl;dr because I’m getting way too long-winded here, but these kids have effectively been humanized in a way that the old generation never was, and I think that’ll go a long way towards building trust between them and the people they’ll someday be protecting, and inspiring the next generation in hopefully a much healthier way

anyway so where were we. ...oh yes, Dabi was explaining that heroes only protect themselves, and is presumably building up to his grand conclusion of “therefore you should all just let the villains take over and burn down the world”

omfg. YOU GUYS

DOES CAN’T YA SEE-KUN’S SHARK FRIEND ACTUALLY CALL HIM “CAN’T YA SEE-KUN.” HE HAS A NAME YOU KNOW!! UNLESS HE LEGALLY GOT HIS NAME CHANGED TO CAN’T YA SEE-KUN. OH MY GOD

ALSO, IS THAT CAN’T YA SEE-KUN CRYING IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT THERE OMG. GIVE THIS CHILD A HUG. EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND HUG HIM

BAKUGOU IS BARELY HANGING ON THERE LOL. GOTTA STAY CONSCIOUS... SO MUCH TEA BEING SPILLED... FOCUS... CONCENTRATE

IIDA’S ANGLING HIS HEAD IN A WEIRD WAY, LIKE DUDE. LOOKING SUSPICIOUSLY SNUGGLY THERE. MMM THESE IIDABAKU CRUMBS

HADOU IS ALL “WHAT EVEN IS ACTUALLY GOING ON” LMAO

LASTLY, POOR SHOUTO OMFG. WHEN YOU’RE ALL FINISHED HUGGING CYS-KUN THIS CHILD NEEDS YOUR ATTENTION!!

so now Dabi’s leaping off of this ninety-foot-tall gargoyle man like that’s a normal, smart thing to do. unless he can fly too now? saw his dad doing it back at Fukuoka and was all “hmm”

OH MY GOD SOMEONE TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHAT WORD SHOUTO IS USING TO ADDRESS ENJI, THESE TRANSLATIONS LOVE TO MESS WITH MY HEAD

ENJI GET MOVING DO YOU NOT SEE THOSE TEARS!!! SNAP OUT OF IT YOU BIG TREE

AHHHHH

OH KACCHAN YOU WOKE UP A LITTLE MORE THERE, HUH

lol he and Deku both look so determined but they’re basically sitting ducks. their “oh shit” faces do look remarkably like their “TIME TO SWING INTO ACTION” faces but don’t be fooled, they have one good arm and about six pints of blood left between the two of them. looks like this one’s all on you Shouto

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH --

BAH GOD... WHAT’S GOING ON HERE... THAT’S BEST JEANIST’S MUSIC

y’all. can’t even talk right now, my brain has completely shut down lol. just. ...

  °˖✧◝(￣▿￣)◜✧˖°

[ive-garden]

Tag Game! 😍

I was tagged by @the-prince-of-tides thank you Alek, I love tag games (and for some reason Tumblr decided not to inform me of this tag, so if anyone already tagged me on this and I didn't reply, I'm sorry, blame Tumblr!)

I also have no idea if I did this one already so, fuck it, I'm doing it again 😉

Let's go!

What color are your eyes? Brown.

What little thing instantly tells you that a person is good? Absolutely nothing. I don't trust people at all! 😂 And no one is all good and all bad so. Also, so many people have been good to me and suddenly they go and do things that disappoint me that my distrust is my protection, I guess. But I do like a lot of people, don't get me wrong, I just don't fully trust them or think instantly that they are all bad or all good.

Do you have a recurring dream? I used to have one that I was a Power Ranger, don't remember which color, and I was flying (I know they don't fly) in pursuit of the villain and suddenly I had to stop to pee???? So I woke up almost peeing in my bed! 😂 It's been a few years since that one, but I used to have this dream at least once a month!

How often do you find yourself daydreaming? Every single day! Mostly when I'm doing repetitive work and before I fall asleep.

Name/nickname? Ive! My name is short enough. I do have a family nickname that maybe can be translated to English to something like blondie? I don't know (I was blond when I was a kid so my family call me that)

Zodiac? Virgo!

Languages? Well, Portuguese is my mother tongue and I can speak English. I also can try Spanish because I learned it for my job a few years back but I lost practice after the job was done, so not so good with that. I'm planning on learning Korean next year so wish me luck!

Favorite season? I don't have one. I complain about all of them when they are happening 😂

Favorite color? Purple.

Favorite animals? Domestic animal: cat, but I don't have one. Wild animals: Whales, especially Orcas.

Favorite character? It changed a lot over the years but right now is our dear Adam Parrish. I relate to him on so many levels that I can't get him out of my head. And I also finished Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat last week and I am completely in love with Will.

Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate? Tea when my stomach is not well, coffee every morning to wake me up and I never really liked hot chocolate and now I can't even have it anymore due to my gluten intolerance (I can't find chocolate without gluten yet).

Average hours of sleep? 6/8 hours? I think.

Cat or dog? I like both but if I was to choose between them to have it I'd prefer a cat.

Number of blankets slept with? It depends if it's cold or not. But I need one even during summer.

Place ancestors are from? Funny enough I did that DNA thing last month to find out where your ancestors are from and they are mostly from Europe and Africa.

Dream trip? Ugh, so many 😩. Right now, South Korea. (It is too expensive to travel and I'm a cheap motherfucker but I will do it!!!!!!)

Blog established? 2018/2019? I think. I'm a Tumblr baby.

Random fact about yourself? I had only 2 serious relationships in my life and I married both of them (the second one after a divorce, of course) 😅

Three ships? It used to be just Pynch all the way. But I recently started reading a few Declan/Adam and Declan/Gansey and I really like it.

Last song? My Universe by Coldplay and BTS

Last movie? I think it was Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings? Love it!

Currently reading? A Veiled & Hallowed Eve (Soulbound #7) by Hailey Turner

Currently watching? Finished Squid Game this weekend, wild. Really really good in a hurtful way. And I'm watching so many animes that I'm not gonna put them here 😅

Currently craving? Nothing, just trying to go through everyday life at this moment. Not trying to be depressing or anything, just the truth.

I'm not tagging anyone but I'm being serious when I say to feel free to reply to this! Tag me so I can see your answers. One thing I love is to know about people and their likes and dislikes 🥰

[slippery-minghus]

could you imagine, though? being really anyone, anywhere in the Milky Way Galaxy during the Reaper invasion, perhaps in the refugee camp on the Citadel, in the trenches on Palaven, in the maze of slums on Omega, in a high rise on Illium, in the Quarian Flotilla, on Tuchanka, or even in the burned out cities on Earth...

and you're terrified. you don't know how long it'll be until you, your family, your friends, everyone dies. because everyday you lose a little more hope that you'll survive, that this isn't total annhilation.

you've heard stories, urban legends, and myths about the soldiers fighting the war beyond your home. of course you have, everyone has. it's all anyone talks about, really. in particular, you've heard about a woman named Commander Shepard. you remember her name from the vids a few years back, when the Citadel was attacked. And when the human colonies were getting attacked by the Collectors, of all things (talk about urban legends!).

as the war dragged on you started to hear more about her, however. more and more often, the vids talked about her, telling stories about her almost fantastical journey across the stars. Somehow, she cures the motherfucking Genophage, because that was a thing that was possible? all while recruiting a Thresher Maw to kill a fucking Reaper?? and then a few weeks later she leads the charge on the Quarian homeworld--yanno, the one they were exiled from by the geth??--and she takes down a Reaper by hand!!

She's a fucking super hero! and she has a whole team of the galaxy's best soldiers, and such a badass tiny spaceship! and day by day, you start to actually have hope that maybe, if we just get lucky enough, and work together enough, we just might win this.

and you go on, even though the world around you is crumbling.

and then, one day, you hear the news. Commander Shepard, your hero, everybody's hero, was attacked by a near-army while alone on a short, precious break, on the Citadel.

For a few days, the galaxy is silent in terror.

there are rumors she's alive, of course there are (after all, everyone thought she died a few years back, but she just disappeared!) but there were so many men--belonging to a terrorist group nobody recognizes--and she was unarmed. of course she had her omni-blade, and some vids say she even had a pistol, but she fell through the restaurant floor! down a massive drop! no one could survive that, right?

meanwhile, the war against the Reapers is still raging. The memory of Shepard, and the hope that their hero is not gone, strong in their hearts; but their hope is quickly fading. after all, she was one-of-a-kind.

but then! then she's back, alive, and okay! and the vids are speculating on hints and clearly censored secrets about her having some sort of mysterious evil clone! but of course, she's a hero, and she succeeded against an attack on her life by someone just as strong as her! by an army of people as strong as her small, elite team!

you feel like a dawn of hope has risen over this nightmare's dark horizon.

a few days after Commander Shepard returns from the dead once again, you begin to hear rumors that she's going to compete at the Armax Arsenal Arena on the Citadel's famous Sunset Strip. Her first several competitions break galaxy-wide viewing records.

and over the next few weeks, between real missions and battles, Commander Shepard takes the time to be a regular fixture in the Armax Arsenal Arena.

Quickly, you hear about her responding to fan requests, ranging from a sick kid through the Make a Dream foundation to soldiers on the battlefield. you start hearing that vid channels are polling for popular match challenges, and overall a winning idea was a solo battle against Reapers. Shepard agrees, and the date is set. Viewing Records are broken again as the galaxy tunes in to the match that was all but bound to confirm the Commander's super hero status.

It was a well known fact at this point that Shepard did not win every match in the arena, especially against stronger enemies. This grim truth made every real-life battle she did survive all that more terrifying; it only made her seem stronger, in a way. and for many, it gave them hope because it became obvious how much stronger they were in numbers.

So the solo match was the one to truly elevate myth to legend.

Everyone, from the live crowd to those in the trenches watching through staticky feeds, cheers and cries as their Commander is outnumbered and alone on the virtual battlefield.

She doesn't win the first time, or the second. She nearly makes it on the third round, only to be swiftly overwhelmed in the fourth. The galaxy is reminded that super hero or not, she is still just one woman.

It becomes clear after a the first consecutive matches that the Commander is starting to burn through her stamina. She clearly takes a good bit of damage developing her strategy--she takes cover far away, relying on her trademark Mantis sniper rilfe. (many viewers yell warnings any time a husk gets too close to her vantage point, and cheer when she takes them down with an omni-blade attack.)

The following attempted matches are spectacular displays of the Commander's strength and skill. Shepard, known for her infiltrator specialization, relies on her tactical cloak to separate herself from close calls.

On several occasions, she simply blinked out of view, leaving the simulated enemies confused. The crowd would go wild, the cameras and commentators recording the match searching for her desperately. after several seconds, someone would spot her, far on the opposite end of the arena, and once again everyone would cheer as she launched back into action.

when the Comnander won the solo match, the galaxy cheered. truly, this woman could save them.

[ben-the-hyena]

Ok so far

I HATE The Legend of Korra for focusing on a Mary Sue and ruining a lot of things from the original show (OH LOOK NEW AIRBENDERS ! HEEHEE NO MORE AVATAR CONNECTION ! IROH IS IN THE SPIRIT WORLD BECAUSE HES A FAN FAVORITE ! AANG AND KATARA ARE BAD PARENTS ! TOPH IS A FUCKING COP !) and adding a lesbo couple to be Tumblr bait reall was the cherry on top with HOW MUCH IT SEEMS TO WORK

I HATE Star VS the Forces of Evil except the Meteora and Eclipsa (and Toffee let's admit) arcs for all the forced humor and THE MOTHERFUCKING ROMANCE PLOT THAT IS TOXIC AS FUCK AND MAKES THE 2 MAIN CHARACTERS TOXIC PEOPLE ESPECIALLY THE VERY LAST EPISODE WHERE THEY COMBINE 2 UNFITTING WORLDS INTO ONE WHICH WILL LEAD TO WARS AND PROBABLY KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE SINCE ALL MAGICAL BEINGS DIED BUT IT'S OK THAT WAY THEY WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE OUT

I HATE the 2nd and 3rd season of Ducktales while I loved the first one but season 2 with all its "lit coolio cynism whatever hip" jokes, characters and pacing and forced nostalgia baiting crossobers and Frank Angones being a hypocrite holier than thou discord creator disgusted me

I HATE Steven Universe with its stupid morals, rushed developments and episode pacing choices from season 5 and forward while I loved the previous seasons and that made me sad especially with me not knowing if Rebecca Sugar is a holier than thou hypocrite or an actual dumbass when it comes to her view in bullies and that "nOboDY is BorN eVIl aNd eVERyoNe caN reFOrm wItH LOVe" she keeps saying on her social media accounts

I don't HATE She Ra but I HATE its ending for the sake of diversity baiting (CATRA IS TOXIC AND ABUSIVE DAMMIT AND WAS TIL THE VERY END BUT I GUESS "IT DOESN'T EXIST IN LESBIANS" !?!?!)

I don't HATE Rise of the Guardians but it's tasteless with bidimensional characters and a moral that doesn't know where it goes to me and a rushed childish ending with the human kids helping in a ridiculous way like a 1990's kids TV movie

I don't HATE Bojack Horseman but I DISLIKE it for even if indeed it is smart and realistic the humor is forced and it is not because it is smart a d realistic it makes it good IT IS WAAAAY TOO DARK I know life is dark and cruel but we have the real world for this thank you I mean of course dark stories exist buuut they really are not my cup of tea especially when they just keep and keep and keep torturing the characters for the sake of saying "life is shit, you audience will never be happy", I just love the psychology notably Beatrice's arc

I don't HATE but Hazbin Hotel feels very MEH to me

Same, I don't HATE OK KO but it's even more MEH

I HATE Frozen 2 while I loved the first one for making so many retcons, so many tasteless songs to try to insult/redo Let It Go (A FUCKING BOYSBAND PARODY... BIG LIPPED ALLIGATOR MOMENT...), forced and rushed developments and cancelling the ones from the first movie

I HATE the tv show of Tangled for forcing its villains not subtley at all and DARING to force their redemption afterward

I don't HATE Gravity Falls in fact I love it but I HATE how Wendy Ford and Mabel are awful people the show tries to show as good and on the contrary plays dirty in the end against Pacifica while she already had a redemption as if nothing had happened

The first movie aside I HATE the How to Train your Dragons franchise for so many reasons : the tv show for having too many clichés and exagerating Hiccup's alpha role and again the bad humor, the second movie for forgiving so easily his mother while she could have been home anytime "but boohoo I didn't dare" bitch you just were happier far from your family don't dare regretting and also for forcing humor as usual and forcing tiny ass Toothless to become the dragon alpha of all just because he roared the best and LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT ALL THE SHIT THE THIRD MOVIE DID (GIRLFRIENDS MORE IMPORTANT THAN FRIENDS, IT'S GOOD TO RELEASE THE DRAGONS AS IF THEY WERE ENSLAVED WHILE THEY ALL CHOSE TO BE TAMED BEFOREHAND, TOOTHLESS STUPID AS FUCK, VILLAIN DUMB AS FUCK, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENTS ERASED AND NEW USELESS SIDE PLOTS AND THE LIGHT FURRY BEING AN UGLY SNOBBISH BITCH AND ALL THE BOYS THINKING ABOUT THEIR COCKS FIRST BEFORE THEIR FRIENDS TOOTHLESS NOTABLY IT JUST THE WHOLE FRANCHISE'S MESSAGE AND MORAL I HATE IT I HATE IT SO MUCH)

I HATE Miraculous Ladybug for habing bidimensional characters, focusing on a very forced and toxic ship, constantly teasing and disappointing fans' expectations, ruining character arcs out of whims and Thomas Astruc for acting like it is the most wonderful show ever and being rude if you dare to remark something or do fandom things

And now I HATE the end of the Dark Crystal prequel Mayrin comic for being a WHOOOOOLE retcon ruining the hopes of making a bitch sympathetic and actually making her a total irreedeemable bitch when raking account of the show while these retcon comics ignore the show just for the sake of cute OC X Canon ships from the writers (AND LET'S NOT TALK OF SKEKSA'S CHARACTER AND THE CLANS' RELATIO SHIPS)

In short I feel like I less and less share Tumblr's mind and excitement regarding fandoms and quite feel lonely these last years

[grasslandgirl]

okay this is truly too many questions but for the fic asks, #1 + whichever of #2, 9, and/or 10 you want to answer for "and at least in this lifetime, we're sticking together" and "on this winter's night with you"??? (also i hope you're having a great day sav!)

sola there is NO such things as too many questions i am DELIGHTED and HONORED

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

this is. the impossible question lmao!! i've written so many fics and i love a lot (not all) of them for different reasons but uhhhhh one of my top favorites is probably and in my chest, you knew me best (fig/fabian lounge singer au) just because it really was a labor of love and borne out of a very niche idea and endless encouragement from my lovely friends and i really think it came out how i wanted it to and its something I'm really proud of and like to reread <3

[and at least in this lifetime, we're sticking together]

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in [title of fic]?

this fic is so short i don't know if it counts as a scene (and I don't remember writing it well enough to know which was my favorite to write) but this paragraph always hits me in my feels bc of the deep found family of it all.....

Mario was a dick, but she has Pete, who offered her his shoulder to cry on and his room to crash in any time she needs, no questions asked. Her father was a piece of shit, but Kingston promised to help and advise in any way he could, as vox, as a nurse, as a voice of wisdom. Her aunts and uncles and cousins avoided her like the plague, but Iga’s hand is warm on her shoulder, and Sofie saw how she was with Jessica and Nick, knows that Iga can help her though all the pitfalls of young motherhood. She has Rowan, a real life fairy godmother, and future (former? both?) Broadway legend to boot. She has Ricky and Esther and even Cody (who she won’t ask to babysit until the kid is old enough to know better than to break into the mall). She has her mom, who will love this baby until the end of the world. She has herself.

Motherfucking I’m here, she hears, echoed on the wind.

9. Which idea came to you first in [title]?

i don't really remember! this was a prompt (day F- Family) for the d20 alphabet prompts back in febuary and i think i liked the idea of leaning into sofia's feelings on being estranged from her biological family, but finding a much better and a much more supportive family in the unsleeping city w the rest of the dream team <3

10. What are some facts readers may not know about [title]?

uhhhhhhhh I don't know? this one was really short and written really fast for the d20 alphabet prompt for the day and so there isn't a lot of secret lore lmao <3 i just love sofie bikes and specifically the scene w her and pete in the bathroom in nod in s2 where she's taking a pregnancy test and he's flushing drugs is just. so dear to my heart

[on this winter's night with you]

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in [title of fic]?

again, not technically a scene but.... ohhhh.... they <3

Sofie twisted around in his arms, pressing her hands against his chest- god he was buff- and smiling up at him, washed in pale white moonlight. “Wake me up,” she interrupted, ever so gently. “Next time, you can’t sleep, you see deer, whatever it is; wake me up. I wanna-” ach, god, the paranoid voice spat, don’t be so vulnerable, that’s how you get hurt- “I wanna see everything with you. That’s what this is, right? We’re all in?”

Dale’s face was impossibly gentle. He slowly raised a hand and traced her cheek with his thumb. “Yeah,” he said, sounding almost breathless, “yeah. I’m all in, Sof.” She leaned up on her toes without a second thought, catching his mouth with her own. It was good; it was always so good, like they were meant to fit together like this. “You know I love you, right?” Dale broke off after a few minutes, definitely sounding breathless this time. Sofia nodded, pursing her lips against the cocky, proud smile she felt rising up in her chest. She loved it when he said it, even a hundred times later. It always sounded like it was the first time, like he meant it with everything he had. “You’re it, Sofia. You’re it for me.”

Oh.

9. Which idea came to you first in [title]?

this was prompted by the ever wonderful jack @gendermybeloved to write sofiedale + "why are we whispering" and i remember immediately knowing I wanted to write something with them quietly watching the deer in their yard in the middle of the night! and the rest of the fic (sofie waking up alone, discovering dale, their quiet conversation) came from that!

10. What are some facts readers may not know about [title]?

this is kind of inspired by my real life! i mean, nothing this sweet or romantic like this has ever happened to me, but I live in a really quiet, heavily wooded neighborhood and there are ALWAYS herds of deer coming through our yard from the woods that surround it- its like a daily occurrence and has become so normalized that it's always kind of funny when friends come over and see the deer and are like "oh my GOD savannah look at the DEER!" and it always feels to me like they're saying something like "oh my god look at the TREE IN YOUR YARD" like. yeah bestie i know.

but! its fawn season and there have been a handful of the TINIEST BABY DEER coming through our yard this year and they're SO sweet and its always kind of lovely when someone in my family sees a really big buck or a little baby fawn and calls the family to the window or to the door to see and we all kind of. awwwwwww. abt it anyway this got wildly out of hand but tldr yes. seeing deer together is something that can be so personal actually <3

send me fic author asks!!

[fletchphoenix]

You And I Have Good Chemistry

Hiya gamers - chapter three has arisen. As always, I love y’all and thank you so much for your supportive messages yesterday, it meant a lot. Anyway, enough of me rambling. Onwards with the chapter.

-------------------------

  “You came back-” Varian said with a tearful smile, cuts littering his face as he sat on the hard oak floor of the library. The very floor Hugo was sprinting across to slide against and pull the younger boy into his arms. He didn’t want to let go of the boy in front of him, not now, not ever. He muttered apologies - for what, he didn’t know - he just knew he’d hurt the raven haired boy he was currently holding in an embrace that was being returned just as passionately.

  “Of course I did, Varian. I’m not..gonna leave you here.” he confessed, his hands fixing Varian’s teal waistcoat, the other gently pushing his hands down to stop him. Loving eyes met his, the crack in his glasses slightly obscuring his vision. That didn’t matter though - at least the younger boy was safe. 

  He wasn’t sure who’d started it, but sure enough they were both leaning in, extremely close. “Hugo…” Varian’s voice was barely a whisper as his hand moved to rest upon the blonde’s cheek. Only a little more-

  “HUGO!” Donella yelled as she opened the door, startling the emerald eyed boy, before he groaned in annoyance and pulled his sheets over his head as Donella opened his curtains, letting in the sunlight which broke him from his VERY riveting dream about an Eternal Library. His brain neglected to remind him of the fact him and Varian were extremely close and how his rude awakening had interrupted a very intimate moment between the two - probably for the best. 

  “Geez, Don. I was getting up.” He muttered as he pulled the covers back to grab his glasses, pushing them up his nose before checking his alarm clock. One glance. Two glances. “It’s 7:15am. I’m not even late. Why are you waking me up?” he moaned and laid back, his head finding comfort in the pillows and his eyes watching the grey haired woman roll her eyes and fold her arms in annoyance, though an exasperated smile on her features said otherwise. 

  “Well, you need to start getting up earlier.” she stated, heading towards the bed. “Besides, your phone alarm has been going off since half six and I’m sick of hearing that hellish ringtone of yours.” Donella used a cold hand to push back his fringe and place a gentle, motherly kiss to his forehead before ruffling his hair gently and heading towards the doorway. The slight click of the heels on her boots created a comforting tempo, syncopated with the ticking of the clock on his wall. “Get ready, okay Hugo?” 

  “Yeah, alright mom. Oh! My study partner is coming over tonight by the way. His name’s Varian. He’s new.” he explained, his voice crescendoing into a shout as his mother descended the stairs. Once he was sure she’d heard him, he began getting dressed, selecting his moss green hoodie, jeans and some random shirt to go with it. Not as if it mattered anyway - he didn’t plan on taking off the hoodie today. After all, the only time he’d take it off was for chemistry, and that was second period. Hugo pulled on his clothes, strolling to the mirror placed on his desk and fixing his hair and glasses.

  The start of the day was a breeze - Donella had dropped him off at the entrance and as he walked down the hall, he could hear the usual gossip. Something about a kid called Leon getting suspended for homophobic slurs against Mr Crick’s kid - oh well, at least it wasn’t him, he noted as he pushed open the door to Room 106, Mrs Crick’s room. “Morning Hugo,” Elora called, not even having to look up from her book to know it was him, “Take your seat, you’re late, as usual.” 

  “Sorry Miss, can’t say it won’t happen again though!” he called as he took his seat before Isla, who was literally bouncing up and down in excitement. His eyes trailed up and down her body in silence, his right eyebrow slowly rising. Wow. She looked happy to say the bare minimum. Hell, she was even wearing her rainbow socks - ones she’d specifically told Hugo she was wearing if she was feeling especially happy. “Uh..hey there, Isla. Are you okay?-”

  “Yes! I asked Nuru out yesterday and she said yes! I honestly can’t believe it!” she giggled in her sing-song voice, each word sounding like a melody to an undiscovered song. A grin moved onto his face. So Nuru and one of his best friend’s were dating, huh? What an interesting revelation, he’d thought as he leaned forward against his desk, propping his head up with his hand. He just knew he could use this for blackmail against Nuru...or some form of teasing. Well, he was gonna have fun. 

  “That's interesting, Isla..tell me more..”

--------------------------------

  “He did what?!” Nuru almost yelled, sitting bolt upright in her seat as Varian leant over to shush her. She couldn’t believe it. Hugo motherfucking Atkinson was simping over Varian Ruddiger? This was..a revelation! A hypothesis she just had to explore! The signs were obvious! Staring as Varian while he was talking, actually cuddling him after sharing their deepest traumas..it was just so unlike Hugo that she almost declared that Varian was faking it!

  “Please don’t yell.” Varian begged, sparing a glance over to Zander. The boy was clearly spooked, flinching away from the odd pair in his chair with a black eye on full display to them. Nodding gratefully, the other shuffled back into his prior position as Varian followed suit and sat back down. “But yeah, he was acting really weird and just..hugged me on my bed. It was..kinda nice if I’m being honest.” A slight flush dusted his cheeks, but it disappeared as soon as it came. No. No no. Hugo was his rival. His enemy. None of that.

  “Alright, but it’s almost unheard of that Hugo of all people would act like that. And I’ve known him for years.” she explained, her gaze fixing on Varian, “Trust me Varian, he’s up to something, I can just tell it. He isn’t the ‘good guy’ he makes himself out to be. I would know, okay?” her hand moved to rest on his shoulder, covering the small sun insignia of Eugene’s old Corona High hoodie that he TOTALLY didn’t steal from him. Silently, he nodded in agreement before the bell rang and the hallways flooded with people. “Well then, shall we?” She asked, her arm outstretched. Varian promptly took it and let her guide him through the sea of people in the corridors. 

---------------------------------------

  First period went way too fast, Varian finding himself standing outside the chemistry labs alone before pushing open the door and entering. Greeting him was Hugo, already standing at their desk and giving him a smug grin and wave as he made his way over. Ah. Back to square one then. “Hey there, hairstripe. It's good to see my favourite nerd after such a long, strenuous day.” Hugo lamented as he threw his arm around the other boy, the steel of his arm feeling like a molten iron poker due to the relentless August heat. 

  “It's only been one lesson.” Varian complained, pushing Hugo’s arm off him (much to the other’s dismay, as evident from the displeased grunt), and pulling on the ivory lab coat along with his own goggles he’d fished out of his bag. They were the last thing he had of his mother’s belongings - apparently she was a legend in the scientific field, making advanced progress for it before her sudden death. He would’ve killed to have been able to meet her. 

  “I know, but one lesson is too much without my beloved hairstripe!” the other whined as Varian’s face took on a frown. Did he always have to be so dramatic? What had happened to the soft, vulnerable man he’d seen yesterday? Still, he sat down and began to listen to Mr Crick as he explained the experiment. It was simple enough - make a compound of your choice - right?

  Well, he was obviously wrong considering who his partner was.

  He thought they’d been fine, Hugo taking the lead and showing Varian what to do. It almost felt like the sweet boy he met yesterday was back, until the compound blew up in his face. His hair scruffed up as Hugo laughed, Varian rapidly moving his hands to fix the absolute rats nest that was his hair as his partner’s cackles sounded in the background. He’d ignored Hugo after that, a frown covering his features as he pushed the boy away and slumped in his chair, pouting and sulking at the embarrassment he’d been put through. 

------------------------------------

  Before he knew it, he was beside the blonde haired boy again and walking through town. He let Hugo ramble about something or the other, the blonde’s nimble fingers threading through his own locks as he ranted about some girl he liked. Varian didn’t pay attention, somehow a feeling of disappointment and something akin to jealousy bubbled in his stomach. He didn’t understand why - he hated the boy with his whole heart, so why was he jealous over some girl Hugo was frustrated about? He should be laughing because he was suffering so much, so why wasn’t he? He pushed that thought out of his head as fast as he could, his eyes fixating on the floor in silence.

  “You had your first kiss yet, hairstripe?” Hugo asked, it was an innocent question, but it caught Varian off guard. He didn’t want to admit to Hugo he’d never been kissed, all that would lead to would be relentless bullying about how he was destined to be ‘alone forever’ or how he just seemed to repel every girl in a two mile radius somehow. He pondered his answer for a minute, not even realising he’d stopped in his tracks. “You okay?” the blonde questioned.

  “Hm? Oh, i’m fine. And uh. Yeah, I’ve totally been kissed. By many, uh, many females.” he stuttered. Curse him for being so awkward. Hugo wasn’t going to believe him at all with a stutter like that. He knew he was a bad liar - but geez, this was REALLY depressing wasn’t it. It seemed Hugo thought the same, a look of suspicion taking over his face. “I swear I have!” he persisted as he jogged to catch up with the taller boy.

  “I never said I didn’t believe you.”

  “Yeah, but your face looked weird so I thought I had to clarify.”   “Your face always looks weird, but I don’t always clarify everything for you.” Hugo quipped, Varian gasping in offence and punching his bicep. Hugo let out a loud laugh before taking Varian’s wrist and guiding him along the street towards a small house. “Here it is. It really isn’t much, me and my ma aren’t exactly the most lucky people in the world.” Hugo added as he unlocked the door and pulled Varian up the stairs and along the hall to his room. “And this is where the magic happens.” He chirped, wiggling his eyebrows in a seductive manner, to which Varian responded with yet another punch to the bicep. 

  The room itself just had such Hugo vibes. Post it notes covered the walls with notes about chemistry along with little reminders on them (ones Varian couldn’t make out due to Hugo’s fancy yet unreadable cursive writing). An unfinished mechanical device looking similar to a mouse laid with his stomach facing upwards on the desk against the right wall with a wardrobe beside it, doors painted green and hiding the true color of the wood underneath. A bed pressed against the back wall sat against the left wall, the also green covers in a bundle on the floor, as though Hugo had fallen out of bed and forgotten to clean it. Slowly, Varian made his way towards the desk, before Hugo abruptly stepped in front of him to block his path. 

  “Ah. No working at the desk. There’s a surgical patient there at the moment called Olivia, so we’re gonna have to work on the bed. Lucky you.” He commented with a grin, taking a seat. Varian hesitated before perching beside him, taking the books out of his bag as Hugo’s eyes followed his every movement. As reassuring as it was to know Hugo was here, the staring was...really putting him off. It was excessive and happening everywhere - his room, the chemistry labs..hell, even the hallway today as they crossed paths while Varian made his way to math with Nuru dragging him along. It was strange and, according to Nuru, out of character for Hugo to be doing. Varian wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what was in character for Hugo, if he was being honest. Carefully he placed the books on the bed and the pair began to work on their presentation. 

  He hadn’t realised it, neither of them had, but by the time they’d decided to finish, Varian’s head rested on Hugo’s shoulder and had subconsciously cuddled against him on the bed. He flushed as Hugo brought this to his attention. “I’m sorry. I’ll just-” Varian apologised, trying to move away before a hand moved to hold him in place. Hugo’s eyes locked with his azure ones in a silent staring match, neither of them wanting to move until Hugo gained the courage. He tilted forward slightly before-

  “Varian! We’re here!” Rapunzel called from downstairs, the noise bringing both the boys back down from whatever alternate universe they’d created where it was just them. Varian moved away, Hugo letting him slide out of his embrace as he packed his books and their work into his backpack, slinging it over his back and rising to his feet. With his voice almost a whisper, he uttered goodbye before rushing out and down the stairs to meet Rapunzel.

  Hugo laid back on his bed, staring at the glow stars on the ceiling set out like constellations as his mind ran over what had just happened. What had gotten into him? What was the other boy doing to him to cause him to just..act like that? He let out a slight gasp at his sudden revelation. Oh no. No way did he have a crush on Varian Ruddiger. Absolutely no way would he have a crush on someone that was far too good for him in every way.

  He thought back to Zander and the rumours of him and his boyfriend. Of course he couldn’t risk that happening to him OR Varian. They had enough going on as it is, so the last thing he needed was for them to deal with that kind of torment at school. However…

  ..he couldn’t stop thinking about the other boy.

  The way that he couldn’t get enough of him. How he explained things so perfectly and not condescending in the slightest. The way he took care of everything around him and was gentle and careful when talking about potentially hurtful things. The way his blue eyes lit up the slightest bit when he smiled. The small snorts when he laughed. He really was falling hard for the other, huh. He was pretty sure his mom could tell too by the way she’d grinned at him from across the table at dinner in a way that told him that she knew whatever he was hiding, even though HE hadn’t known he was hiding anything at that point. 

  Huh. He really was in love. And this time, he didn’t hate it.

[popculturebuffet]

Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “ 

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III.                                                        Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe. 

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big  companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers. 

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point. 

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while  in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing.  This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome. 

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast. 

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list. 

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend. 

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome. 

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows. 

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again. 

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up. 

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4. 

So with our major players out of the way,  let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming  story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands.  Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off.  Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain. 

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a  kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more.  The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself  this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have.  This show is just great  at costume design. 

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback. 

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious. 

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working.  Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant.  Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time. 

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up.  F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly. 

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly.  At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in. 

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do. 

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense. 

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room. 

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda. 

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian. 

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go. 

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it. 

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior. 

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances. 

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included. 

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her.  It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag. 

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you. 

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him.  Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t.  It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to.  So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight. 

However at home Virgil points out it was  Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow. 

[ranger-report]

Opinion: Disney Changing the Sequels to Non-Canon is a Bad Idea

Once upon a time, George Lucas decided to go back to the well and present unto a hungry audience what is known now as The Prequel Trilogy. Episodes I through III of Star Wars, the biggest sci-fi franchise ever created, a look at what came before the iconic story many moviegoers grew up with, and it was received with....lukewarm results. While they’ve certainly attracted favorable responses over time, the backlash to many decisions made in Lucas’s vision (midichlorians, whiny Anakan, fucking Jar-Jar Binks), they’ve objectively held up over time, and even have defenders. But it was enough for Lucas to make haste and step away from his beloved creation, selling the rights to make future movies to the Walt Disney Company, who wasted no time in getting a new trilogy up and running. Fans around the world were salivating, chomping at the bit for new Star Wars, and they were met with....lukewarm results. Despite high praise for Rogue One, the lowest marks for The Last Jedi (which is a brilliant film, don’t @ me), led to such a surefire hit as Solo was given so-so marks, which recently has led Disney to contemplate making The Sequel Trilogy non-canon to the universe; aka, they exist in their own separate Alternate Reality, giving Disney a fresh start to making the True Sequel Trilogy.

That’s a monumentally bad idea.

Okay, first off, Star Wars is not a franchise like Marvel or DC who can simply decided which flicks to toss aside and deem non-canon, or shunt off to an alternate universe. Yes, there’s something called Legends within Star Wars that holds down the duty of Adventures Which Don’t Fit In The Grand Scheme of things, but to place three NUMBERED entries in the Star Wars Saga into Legends?  That’s just madness.

Let’s review. Disney purchased Star Wars, then at some point before the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens they announced that everything in the expanded universe of the novels and video games was entirely non-canon. To say that there was a bit of an uproar over this is an understatement. Beloved characters like Mara Jade and her relationship with Luke Skywalker were now lost to oblivion; stories like Knights of the Old Republic, Dark Empire, and Shadows of the Empire, which many grew up with as supplemental material post-Return of the Jedi, now suddenly didn’t matter. In one fell swoop, Disney came in and said “Your stories don’t matter. Our stories do.” Now, they must have had some sort of softening in the face of the fallout, as little by little more and more of the expanded universe snuck back into the proper canon, including Dash Rendar, Leia training to be a Jedi, and the motherfucking darksaber. Disney clearly made a slight attempt to listen to the fans, but for the fans -- including many toxic, vitriolic fans -- this wasn’t enough. Divided over the state of The Last Jedi, fans went apeshit on Disney,harassing actors over social media, calling for Kathleen Kennedy to be fired, claiming that their childhoods had been “raped,” etc etc etc. Many fans stayed home instead of watching Solo (my personal favorite Star Wars flick, don’t @ me), which was the lowest-grossing film in the franchise. Disney woke up, went on damage control, and we got....The Rise of Skywalker. Some how an apology and a middle finger at the same time, the film met with confusion and derision, and now Disney wants a mulligan. Well, Disney, you’ve already tried that once. Let’s learn from that mistake.

Sometimes, like in real life, history is messy. It isn’t perfect, nor is it consistent. Often times when we look back through the annals of civilizations past, we have to wonder what the fuck was going through people’s heads. And that’s Star Wars. They’re also not meant to be serious cinema; born of inspiration from early pulp sci-fi and WWII imagery with a hefty dose of samurai flicks, Star Wars is just meant to be escapism and thrills. Nothing more. In fact, no matter how silly Rise of Skywalker is, it still succeeds in big-screen thrills and set pieces as well as a few intimate character moments. It’s entertaining, if not the movie we wanted as the conclusion to this saga. And the Sequels brought much needed diversity to the character roster, including two men of color and a female protagonist. Granted, Finn and Poe were done dirty when no one allowed them to fall in love with each other (Disney, if you want to undo that decision, I’ll allow that), but they’re two of the best goddamn bits of this whole undertaking to come out of it. And Rey is interesting, a mystery -- possibly an unsatisfying mystery depending on how you view the reveal in Rise -- and her story carries weight, all the way up to the end. While full of plot holes and empty MacGuffins, the Sequel Trilogy is big and bold and at least tries to do something interesting. Especially The Last Jedi, whether you like that movie or not.

For decades, fans were able to build their own world off the ashes of Return of the Jedi. And make no mistake, this is a world where almost every single background character has a name, a backstory, and oftentimes an action figure as well. There is a deep, deep sense of entitlement when it comes to the relationship between fans and franchise here. Which is beautiful in some regards, and toxic in others. But while the Sequel Trilogy isn’t perfect, I’d argue that neither the Original Trilogy or the Prequel Trilogy were perfect either. They’re not Important Cinema in the sense of Serious Art, but they are groundbreaking in the sense of special effects, blockbuster history, and franchising. Star Wars changed the game when first released in 1977, and every film in the saga since has carried that weight of living up to expectations -- and in the last 20 years, unhealthy expectations. Stop trying to make Star Wars anything other than entertainment. Let it be. Let it live. Let’s move forward and see what we can do with everything new. Their children out there who have seen the Sequels and seen themselves in Rey, Finn, and Poe, and it would be a disservice to them to say, “Sorry, but your stories don’t matter anymore.” Disney already did that once and it didn’t work for the fans. They shouldn’t do it again.

[apriki]

RISE OF SKYWALKER

IT HAS BEEN SEEN MY FRIENDS... LET’S GO

IT WAS A LOVE STORY ALL ALONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU. GUYS. I AM SO... ALIVE RIGHT NOW I 

okay that opening scrawl i laughed so hard... THE DEAD SPEAK!!

‘supreme leader kylo ren’ will never not be funny

OKAY OPENING WITH KYLO I SCREAMED.... HIS BEAUTIFUL FACE

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN TO YOU.... HOW MUCH

okay and his ruthless hell bent search for this silly macguffin.... we love a demonic legend

and ALSO his determination to kill the past!!!!!! HE HAS LITERALLY BEEN CIRCLING THIS THE WHOLE SERIES

look, i am biased because kylo is my favourite and he has been the one thing that’s been consistently written and done across this trilogy and i’m very spoiled because i got everything i wanted here

but KYLO REN. KYLO REN!!!!!!!!!!!

laughed my ASS off at the snoke in the tube and palpatine being like ‘surprise bitch.... bet you thought you’d seen the last of me’

laughed decidedly LESS at ‘i’ve been every voice you’ve ever heard in your head’

look this isn’t going to be a review.... just my thoughts really and this decidedly isn’t a comparison with the last jedi which it seems like everyone wants to do in a weird victorious kind of way

but kylo killing snoke/his abuser in tlj was a terrifying powerful moment to watch and i loved it fiercely and still do, and for kylo to see that he hadn’t done that at all.... and that evil still abides.... fucking nightmare, honestly

and that’s when i started getting a feeling in the back of my head because look he is so determined to kill the past

(let the past die)

that he will kill himself as well to do it. that has always been kylo’s character since the very beginning. SO!!!!!

also the structural integrity of palp’s hideaway.... not great

palps: kill rey heh heh

kylo: i am absolutely not gonna do that but okay

omfg when kylo was like ME AND MY KNIGHTS OF REN ARE GOING HUNTING

i cannot explain to you how HILARIOUS the knights of ren are to me

they do nothing! they say nothing! they just stand around and look stupid in their stupid helmets..... i laughed every single time they were on screen

it’s like kylo’s uselessness manifests into what 6? 7 more useless things. the Knights of Ren

‘we’re going hunting’ are you TWELVE YEARS OLD

this film felt like it was going a million miles an hour, all the time, and that started for me in that first scene in the falcon which was going all over the place? for some reason?

anyway THERE’S A MOLE IN THE FIRST ORDER and i know it is hux but i kind of wanted it to be kylo on the side.... though i know he is not capable of any such subterfuge. about as subtle as a wrecking ball... and my SON

loved the comraderie with poe and finn. i liked the lived-in feeling of the relationships between the rebellion characters this time around

felt like they had that new alien dude in the falcon for no reason and for two seconds like... why

(to sell toys, of course. the same reason why they have a new tiny droid)

but that of course is just the first in a long line of new and underdeveloped characters in this movie. but you know what? i can accept this because the core emotional story was strong and also, it’s star wars? a big sprawling mess is what it has always, always been. ANYWHOMST

REY IN THE FOREST LEVITATING!!!!

the white outfit!!! how at one she is with nature??? SORRY IT WAS BEAUTIFUL

and okay the specific framing of rey and rey’s power in this movie as not only a part of the force but so specifically as a woman using the force... like the power of empathy! the power of healing!!! IT WAS BEAUTIFUL WHATEVER

when she called leia her MASTER? MY HEART

THE POWER OF WOMEN!!!

on the flip side, doesn’t it kind of feel like poe has a problem with women?

like as soon as he started riffing with rey i was like GET A JOB STAY AWAY FROM HER

but in hindsight i feel kind of better about them and their interactions... more on that later

FINN! finn in this movie was WONDERFUL

(except it annoyed me how they had the whole ‘there’s something i want to say to you’ and never had him say it... like even if he was going to say he loved rey okay just don’t leave it hanging like that?)

FORCE FUCKING SENSITIVE!!!!!!

look i really think they did they best they could with a really difficult job in incorporating leia and previous footage into this movie. it wouldn’t have felt right without her and the scenes were a bit clunky but again, a very very difficult thing to do

LEIA AND REY’S RELATIONSHIP..... MY HEART HURTS

i love that rey’s storyline has depth and motivation and kylo’s storyline is literally revolving around rey like she’s the sun

like i literally love this. MORE OF THIS!!!

FORCE BOND STILL EXISTSSSSSSSS

KNEW IT CALLED IT CLAIMED IT LOVE IT

the soft gasp rey does whenever kylo is about to show up for forceskype i love this song

the knights of ren standing around while kylo’s helmet got fixed omfg they are the stupidesttttt

kylo: maybe i don’t want to wear the helmet

the knights of ren: maybe shut the fuck up 

Let’s Go To Burning Man

i actually kind of liked seeing these people doing their own cool cultural thing. like again this movie went at lightspeed but i did enjoy that. what’s better than this? just aliens being dudes

when rey talked to that little girl and she asked her last name i was like LOLLLL HERE WE GOOOOOOOO

as soon as lando showed up it was like ‘oh it’s lando’

‘i offered you my hand’

‘I’LL OFFER YOU MY HAND AGAIN’ 

WHY DID HE SAY THIS... LIKE IT WAS A PROPOSAL

I WAS SCREECHING SORRY... WOW.

i have never really found C3PO funny but um he was going off in this movie... when they all looked at him and then he looked away I CACKLED

and the mind wipe like whew man... one day we’re gonna have a conversation about Droids And The Uncomfortable Conclusions About Droids in these movies

but also, i wish they’d had the guts to stick with it and not restore his memory because, what a symbol for the past dying and the end of a saga? like 3PO has been there since the start!! the star wars live in his memory banks ???? and R2 as well i suppose

don’t think too long about this cause then you realise that for some reason they’re still using like 80 year old iphones and R2 and 3PO should be decommissioned for scraps

WHEN HE TOOK THE NECKLACE OFF HER I FOUND IT HOT I FOUND IT SEXY I FOUND IT UMMMM

the sand was a cool visual thing but then THE SNAKE

it felt so GREEK HERO MYTH but then rey stops the script!!

AND DOESN’T FIGHT IT

AND SHE HEALS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as soon as rey healed that snake i was like

‘kylo ren is that snake’

blah blah dagger blah

the sith language and being forbidden actually interests me. i want more proper sith lore

basically i want a revan and bastila movie. make it so

keri russell was WASTED in this movie

but that one scene with her and rey where they had Mutual Respect was so much better and more important than anything she did with poe

poe is like... sure i guess. i mean i liked him better in this movie than tlj and i liked him more as the movie when on but hmmst 

but hey if i get to have a kylo then the poe people can have i poe. i begrudge no one

except, uh.... hux people. y’all really got done this movie huh. ouch

double as bad cause there was literally no point to the new general character. should have just been hux and then had him die in the final battle?

but i laughed when he was like ‘i don’t want you to WIN. i want kylo to LOSE’

THAT’S KING PETTY 

omfg when kylo was like ‘where are you’ and then saw the vader mask and was like ‘oh you’re in my room’

SCREECHED

KYLO’S EVIL BOARD MEETING

LAUGHED MY ASS OFF

WHEN HE SMACKED THAT DUDE TO THE ROOF

sorry the first order is a startup. not even an ‘evil’ one especially because they’re all just a bit evil 

when kylo reacted to that guy saying ‘we should take more children’ and the small thread winding through this movie about children being indoctrinated and rey and ben stopping THAT cycle.. important to me and i wish it had been bigger but i was glad it was there 

all kylo did in the first half of this movie was chase after his girlfriend and tell her how they were meant to be together and that he wasn’t going to kill her even though he should. i love one stupid man

kylo flying his ship at rey deliberately wanting to ‘push her’ and her jumping over it and crashing the whole damn thing

and then him just getting up and walking out of the wreck not a scratch on him

like some kind of hero in a romance novel in his stupid cape lmfaoaoooo... you love to see it

THE PUSH/PULL WITH THE TRANSPORT?

THEIR POWERRRRRR

and then rey with her fuckin LIGHTNING

as soon as that happened i was like, oh lol rey palps then....

but also, THE LOOK OF WONDER BUT ALSO VICTORY ON KYLO’S FACE

ADAM DRIVER SIR

okay to be honest the whole soujourn to the like space swiss village is kind of a blur to me

keri russell was wasted, did i say that already?

although okay that bit when poe was like ‘were you a stormtrooper? were you a scavenger?’ maybe give him his rights

when kylo said WE’RE TWO PARTS OF THE SAME BEING

A DYAD

TWO WHO ARE AS ONE 

two? WHO ARE? AS ONEEEEEE

NEITHER WHOLE WITHOUT THE MOTHERFUCKING OTHER I 

‘i never lied to you’ AND HE NEVER HAS AND NEVER FUCKING DIDDD!!!!!

all the stormtroopers getting knocked back and kylo steadying himself with the force lol... it’s these little things ok 

JODIE COMER? 

rEy PaLpAtInE

I LAUGHED MY ASSSS OFFFFFFF

like... sure jj. sure

look, i have always understood and respected the choice to make rey ‘nobody’ (like anakin was! the force just makes who it needs to create the balance!) but if rey was going to be anyone i guess.... this is the best choice?

and i think there IS merit in the story going from ‘person burdened with legacy vs person with no legacy’ to ‘person with a legacy of good turning evil and person with a legacy of evil turning good’

i gotta think longer and more about this but. besides its inherent silliness i do not hate this ‘twist’ 

this movie jumped from planet to planet like a ping pong ball! it felt a bit jarring but my mum pointed out that the galaxy IS big and they’ve never really done this before and i was like hmmm Points Were Made

THE FIGHT ON THE OLD DEATH STAR

KYLO DODGING REY’S SWIPES AND NOT EVEN PULLING HIS SABER UNTIL HE HAD TO

THEN ONLY FIGHTING DEFENSIVELY

and her DESPERATION

ALMOST LIKE SHE’S FIGHTING HERSELF

BECAUSE THEY ARE TWO HALVES! OF ONE WHOLE!

and then oh my god

‘you can’t go back to her (leia). just like i can’t’

and the VICTORY in his eyes and the acknowledgment of the truth in hers

because THEY ARE THE SSSAAAAAAMMMMMMMMEEEE

when rey SCREECHED and force threw finn back.... oh fuck

(sidebar the way finn was so determinedly THERE for rey this whole movie... even when she said about the sith throne... his faith in her didn’t waver im verklempt)

WHEN HE DISAPPEARED AND REY LOOKED BACK HORRIFIED

because he can’t go! because the fight is what they have and what she’s clinging on to!

AND THEN HE WALKED UP OUT THE WATTTTEERRRRRRRRR

absolute romantic nonsense.

AND THEN

SHE KILLED HIM

SHE KILLED HIM!!!!!!

SHE KILLED KYLO REN WITH HIS OWN DAMN CRUCIFIX SWORD

I COULD NOT

BE LEEEEAAAF

THIS HAS BEEN MY DREAM ENDGAME SINCE THE START AND IT’S HERE TWO THIRDS THROUGH THE FUCKING LAST MOVIE?

A GIFT. LICH RALLY A GIFT TO MEEEEE

leia gave her LIFE for her SON I...

this was the only moment in the movie where i started to get some tears cause like... IT WAS JUST SO MUCH

AND REY.... TOOK LEIA’S ENERGY THROUGH THE FORCE... 

AND SHE PUT HER HANDS ON HIM

AND SHE HEALED HIM

SHE’S A SCAVENGER

SHE FIXES BROKEN THINGGGGSSSSS

HE DIED BECAUSE SHE KILLED HIM 

AND HE LIVES BECAUSE SHE HEALED HIM... 

WHEN. WILL. YOUR. FAVES?????????

‘I WANTED TO TAKE YOUR HAND. BEN’S HAND’

take my hand? take my whole life too

IIRENGOWENRGKLJEWNGFKJBKJBKJBKJLB

ALL THE BEAUTIFUL WINDSWEPT CLOSE UP SHOTS OF KYLO’S BEAUTIFUL WINDSWEPT FACE IN THIS MOVIE. I WAS BREATHLESS

KYLO STNADING ON THE EDGE OF THAT SEA WITH THE WIND GOING AND HIS LEG OUT LIKE THE STUPID BYRONIC HERO HE IS

HEATHCLIFF? HEATHCLIFF ON THE MOOR?

HAN’S HAND ON BEN’S FACE

HE CALLED HIM. DAD

‘kylo ren is dead’

OHHHHHH BABBBBYYYYYY

look i loved the crossguard saber but i understood why it had to go

and like ben shedding the persona he had built as a defence mechanism... rey killed that part of him? powerful too powerful

i know i have rose coloured glasses because i care about the core story of kylo/rey enough and i’m passionate enough about it but okay the way they are entwined with one another on the journey to identity is the greatest thing a silly blockbuster series has maybe ever given me 

it’s tam lin. IT’S FAIRY TALE NONSENSE AND I LOVE IT 

i 100% know in my bones they wanted the scene with han to be leia but they obviously couldnt have that so that was fine. when ben turned his head around and heard her and felt her.... DONT LOOK AT ME

the most emotional moment in this movie was when chewie heard about leia and broke down and collapsed and screamed

:(

us too buddy. damn 

rey stealing kylo’s ship and yeeting away lmfao

and when she went back to ach-to and burned it and was like IM STAYING HERE 4EVA >:(

she’s literally the exact same stupid reckless as kylo and i love

rose was wasted in this movie. very annoying

i DID laugh when they said ‘we should pull a holdo manoeuvre’ like of course that’s the one thing jj took from tlj. ohhhh jj

loved finn meeting the ex stormtrooper lady. i always felt like the one weakness of tlj is that it dropped this thread of finn’s indoctrination that i thought was being woven alongside rey and kylo’s issues with their childhoods in force awakens. the look of wonder on his face when she said that the whole battalion defected.... and saying the force lead them to do it like it lead him... and you could see john boyega feeling that with his whole heart!!!

i laughed at palps’ fleet of star destroyers that like all have death star capabilities now? so dumb

and also, a star destroyer is basically an aircraft carrier.... do you think the people who make star wars realise the empire is america? no...??? alright imma head out

missed opportunity for a shot of jar jar or a gungan when the galaxy fleet showed up like those towboats at dunkirk. to be HONEST

where did sheev palps find that stadium of goons? are they on retainer?

yeah so palpatine’s lair is the underworld and rey is eurydice and ben is orpheus. YEAH. YEAHHHHHHHHH

LEIA WAS TRAINED AS A MFING JEDI

THAT FLASHBACK WAS EVERYTHING FUCK

LEIA’S SABER!!!!!!!!!

i have Questions about leia ‘seeing her son dying at the end of her journey’ like ?

BUT HER PUTTING AWAY THE SABER TO PROTECT BEN!!!!

THIS FAMILY

fuck. benjy solo in that jumper.... USING A BLASTER LIKE HIS DAD.....

THE X WING AND THE TIE FIGHTER PARKED NEXT TO EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!

PALPATINE CALLING THEIR BOND ‘AS POWERFUL AS LIFE AND THE FORCE ITSELF’

NOT FOR GENERATIONS HAS THEIR BEEN A DYAD LIKE THEM!!!

FUCKING

DESTINED

BITCH

THEY ARE EACH OTHER’S DESTINY? WOW SORRY.... WOWOWOOWOOWOWOOWOWOW

ben versus his idiot knights of ren.... yeah i love my son

sorry rey had a vision of her AND kylo sitting on the throne but the throne is.... one seat? what are the logistics here? her on his lap? him on her lap? both of them sitting on an armrest like awkward kids taking a photo with santa?

I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES COMPLETELY DISTRACTED

THE LITTLE SHRUG BEN DID WHEN HE GOT THE LIGHTSABER AND WAS LIKE ‘YEAH SORRY NOW YOU’RE GONNA DIE’

I SCREAMED. IM LOVE HIM

rey giving ben the saber through the force bond!!

ACROSS SPACE??? LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS THE WORLD

palpatine taking, SPECIFICALLY, the power of rey and kylo’s BOND to strengthen himself because it is THE STRONGEST THING IN THE FUCKING UNIVERSE???????? CANONICALLY????????

REY AND BEN FIGHTING WITH LUKE AND LEIA’S SABERS

FUCKING... I FUCKING....

when palps like flicked ben away sorry i laughed... i mean i was like REALLY? FOR THE BIG FINALE HE’S GONE? but i understood why and that rey is the hero etc etc

THE JEDI SPEAKING TO REY! OBI WAN! QUI GON FUCKIN JINN

yoda is there too

AND THE POWER OF THE JEDI FLOWING THROUGH HER!!!!!

god her power.... SHE AMAZES MEEEE

(initially i thought ben was gonna kill palps for rey because of the whole The Sith Live in My Killer thing and then she’d have to kill him but HOISTED ON HIS OWN PETARDDD)

palpatine:

and the power was too much and it killed her ooooof

(the power of being a legacy... of channeling all that has some before!!! these movies get so ridiculously meta sometimes. best believe we’ll talk about THIS)

BUT HERE COMES BEN

BENJY BOYYYYY

his hair JUST long enough to be scraggly and devastating

literally dragging a broken leg 

ADAM DRIVERS PHYSICALITY IN THESE MOVIES (WELL ALWAYS) (BUT SPECIFICALLY IN THIS ROLE)

and he knows

WHAT HE HAS TO DOOOO

HE FINALLY FOUND SOMETHING HE LOVED ENOUGH TO DIE FOR

I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE THIS 

when he held her body holy shit... HOLY SHIT, GUYS

FULL CIRCLE????CVMSDFJNVDSLKFJVLDKJFVLKJDBFV

A PIETA.... A FUCKING PIETA

OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE

and his heartbroken face.... stumbling back to her... oh my good goddd

and then

‘I KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO BUT I’M AFRAID TO DO IT’

HE DIED FOR HER

HE GAVE.... HIS LIFE..... FOR HER.....

I CANNOT BE LIEVE THISSSSSS

HE GAVE UP HIS LIFE!!!!! HIS FUCKING LIFE!!!

he fought.... his whole life.... and he gave it up....

THAT’S LOVE? THAT’S FUCKING TRUE LOVE HOLLYL SKDJBVDKBF

REVAN AND BASTILA!!!!! REVAN AND BASTILA!!!1

and then she was alive again!!! ROMEO AND JULIET OKAY WOW

AND 

THEY

KISSED

I’M SORRY I DID FREAK THE FUCK OUT

HIS SOFT EYES

(super spoilery shot coming up here but)

OH MY GOD

FOR FUCK’S

SAKE.

i’m sure people will be mad about how little kylo like... talked in this movie but like sorry this was perfect

she saved his life! and she saved the world! and he quietly gave his life to her, for her?

this humble act of love? PURE LOVE?

WHAT WONDERFUL AND TERRIBLE THINGS THEY ARE CAPABLE OF. 

THAT THEY PUSH EACH OTHER TO

THIS TRILOGY WAS MADE FOR ME AND ONLY ME. THERE’S NO OTHER EXPLANATION

and her look of JOY and she said, ‘BEN’

look. i have been on the record for YEARS as saying my dream endgame would be for rey to kill kylo and for him to be forceghost with her always

AND SOMEHOW UMMMM THIS IS BETTER?

1. SHE DID! KILL HIM! AND THEN BROUGHT HIM BACK

2. AND THEN HE WILLINGLY DIED FOR HER? 

3. AND NOW SHE CARRIES HIM WITH HER ALWAYS??????

when his body faded and leia’s did too..... wo OOOOOOOOOOWWWW

SHE TOOK

HIS FUGGIN

LAST NAMMMEMELRKNWELKJBNLKJBFLKJBFKLRBJKLERJB

I’M SORRY THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR ME. KYLO REN WAS BREWED UP F O R MEEEEEEE

listen. there is a video game where a lady’s boyfriend gets killed and his soul goes into a sword and she carries the sword around with her

THAT IS THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

I CARRY YOUR HEART I CARRY IT IN MY HEART BITCH??????

THE FUCKING ORANGE SABER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and look. ben’s story is allowed to be just about rey and rey’s is allowed to be bigger than just him. that’s EQUALITY. that’s JUSTICE

look i know it’s very douchey of me but i wrote this paragraph about a character of mine in a book i wrote and it is like..... LIKE IT’S JUST KYLO REN OKAY

he was never gonna be someone who could settle down and live like a quiet life of monkhood or whatever luke was doin on ach-to.... 

okay when finn poe and rey hugged at the end okay I DID FEEL SOMETHING IN MY COLD DEAD HEART

FINN JUST LOVES THEM! SO MUCH! THERE IS SO MUCH LOVE IN THAT BOY’S HEART

and probably up until that moment i hadn’t really cared about having a Trio in the new movies like we had han and leia and luke but that hug had me feeling like... okay... Friendship IS Great

okay back to kylo, i tweeted this but i’ll repeat here: my favourite arc in media has always been snape’s, to me it is the perfect ‘redemption’ arc (and yes this will make people scrunchy-nosed angry, so i will point out: redemption to me has always meant redemption in the eyes of the reader/viewer, not in-world, this is true for anakin/vader too, who also has a nearly flawless ‘redemption’ arc) but now it’s kylo solo ren ben

I LOVE HIM. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I CAN’T STAND IT A LITTLE

HE FELL IN LOVE? AND IT SAVED HIM

HE WAS LOST AND HE FOUND HIS OTHER HALF

AND HE DIED BECAUSE SHE WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO CARRY IT ALL

CARRY THE LEGACY WHEN HE COULDN’T!!!

IT’S JUST SOSSOOSOOSOSOOSSO

i want a funko pop of ben in his comfy jumper running to fuck sheev palps the fuck up

i don’t even LIKE funko pops

naboo has a lot to answer for. literally all of these problems come from naboo

sure this movie was a big ole mess and i surely can’t wait for the good old disk horse

but i’m riding this high for as long as i can

because it was always about LOVE! LOVE CAN IGNITE THE STARS

so sure, this movie pandered terribly. but i am one of the people it pandered to and i am HAPPY INDEED

remember when maz kanata was like ‘your parents aren’t coming back but there is someone who still could’ YEAH IT WAS BEN!!!!!

:)