#Fuck me man THIS CHAPTER!!!

[saints-who-never-existed]

Rereading The Terror

Chapter Fifty-One: Crozier

A reckoning approaches! My most frequent annotation in that chapter has been simply 'nOoOooOOoooOoO' and you'll see why soon enough.

They've arrived at Rescue Camp - about as far south as they can go on KWI before the coast turns north again - and the halt can't come soon enough. There are so many sick now that even the healthiest men are rapidly running out of strength to haul them along, and Goodsir has advised the Captain that no fewer than five men need their feet amputated, including Mr Diggle.

Crozier and Goodsir have also discussed, only among themselves so far, where to go from here and have proposed a gut-wrenching split. Goodsir will remain at Rescue Camp with the ill, while Crozier and the healthiest men carry on in hopes that they'll make it to rescue if they no longer have to haul their fellows behind them. "Crozier knew that the surgeon had voluntarily signed his own death warrant by volunteering to stay behind with the doomed men and Goodsir knew his captain knew it. Neither man spoke of it."

Out in the strait, the ice is in complete turmoil - "agitated and torturing itself" into mountainous peaks and troughs that Crozier believes even the indefatigable Manson to be incapable of hauling through or over.

And speaking of Manson, Crozier's thoughts soon turn again to the mutiny that's continued to foment. He hasn't trusted anyone nor been without the company of his most loyal men since the first mutinous stirrings a month earlier. But with tensions rising once more, Crozier has decided that when the time comes, it will be better to let Hickey et al go their own way and wash his hands of them - "The fewer men left at Rescue Camp the better, especially if it meant getting rid of the rotten apples."

Crozier calls a muster of all the remaining men (poor Mr Diggle dies just moments before this, bleeding out after Goodsir - with wee Tom Hartnell as his new assistant - amputates his foot). :((( Crozier has the bosuns draw in the gravel the outline of their long-lost ships' deck. "This allowed the men to know where to stand during the muster and gave them a sense of familiarity." They've apparently done this every time they've stopped in camp and been called to meet.

With the men assembled, Crozier once more reflects on who is now absent. He goes ship by ship and rank by rank from officers right on down to ship's boys. David Young is still alive in the book, as is George Chambers although he never recovered from the head injury he received at Carnivale and has been unable to care for himself or do anything but the most menial physical tasks ever since. Robert Golding is also still present - he's almost 23 now but is still "gullible in a boy's way" which is an interesting little detail.

On a lighter note, we learn that Mr Honey the carpenter is still clinging onto life in an oddly heartening, Blanky-esque way despite being riddled with scurvy and having just had both his feet amputated - "Incredibly, as of this assembly, the carpenter was still alive and even managed to shout "Present!" from his tent when his name was called at muster."

After a grim prayer, Crozier announces that from this point forward, each man may go his own way. Goodsir will stay with the sick, Crozier and the healthiest men will forge on for Back's River and if anyone else has an alternate plan, they're welcome to pursue it. It is then that Lt. Hodgson steps forward: "The captain just looked at the young officer for a long moment. He knew that Hodgson was a stalking horse [a fun phrase that I can't say I've ever come across before] for Hickey, Aylmore, and a few of the more rebellious sea lawyers who had been stirring up the men with resentment for so many months, but he wondered if young Hodgson knew it."

Hickey, Hodgson et al express once again their intention to return to the ship, and around sixteen men are counted in total when Crozier asks how big this doomed return part is set to be. As with David Young, we see some interesting differences from the show here - Morfin, Charles Best, and Billy Orren are among those sixteen men, and Gibson's mentioned too.

Three other men - Reuben Male, Robert Sinclair, and Samuel Honey step forward also but stress emphatically that they're not associated in any way with Hickey's band. They want to return to the ships also but will try to make it cross-country with only what they can carry on their backs.

Hickey announces - "folding his arms and standing legs-apart in front of his men like a Cockney Napoleon" - their intention to take poor brain-damaged George Chambers along with them, as well as the still-comatose Davey Leys (insisting that they've been taking care of him and want to continue to do so). "The hell you say," said Crozier. "Why would you want to bring two men who can't take care of themselves?"

It is then that Goodsir steps in to the fray (though it's a wonder he's able to do so given the absolute BAMF balls of steel he's got on him in the conversation that follows). "No" said Dr. Goodsir, stepping forward into the tense space between Crozier and Hickey's men, "you haven't been taking care of Mr Leys and you don't want George Chambers and him as fellow travellers. You want them as food."

Hickey is taken aback at that. He urges Manson into violent action but thinks better of it when the last few Marines, scurvy-ridden and barely able to stand, nevertheless raise their weapons. He settles for entreating Goodsir to come with them, insists that it's the only option for survival but Goodsir, preternaturally calm and collected, is having none of it and insists in turn that they don't need him for what they're planning... "Even an amateur can learn dissective anatomy quite quickly" interrupted Goodsir, his voice strong enough to override the caulker's mate's. "When one of these other gentlemen you're bringing along as your private food stock dies - or when you help him die - all you have to do is sharpen a ship's knife to a scalpel's edge and begin cutting." This alone is so SO interesting to me and I might have to write a separate post about it. It reminds me of his confession in the show - "if ever I was a doctor, I am one no longer" - for one thing. And it really does just speak volumes about how he views himself and the situation at hand. He's been self-conscious throughout the story in his skills as a lowly anatomist and his comparative lack of a "true" doctor's knowledge. But now he sees how little any of that matters. He's just chopped the feet right off five different men FFS - how could he not see himself as only a butcher now? How could he not see that butchery is all that's left?

He continues to describe the grisly processes of carving up a body for consumption, completely in control, his voice soft and never rising. Let's end on his gruesome, nightmarish climax, shall we? "...I recommend you put each other's bone marrow into a pot for cooking straightaway and let yourselves simmer before trying to digest your friends." "Fuck you." snarled Cornelius Hickey. Dr Goodsir nodded. "Oh" the surgeon added softly, "when you get around to eating one another's brains, it will be simplicity itself. Simply saw off the lower jaw, throw it away with the lower teeth, and use a knife or spoon to gouge and hack your way up through the soft palate into the cranial vault. If you wish, you may invert the skull and sit around it, scooping out each other's brains like so much Christmas pudding."

[etrevil]

these motherfuckers are just one-upping each other every chance they get, even striking the same pose 😭

[thecmaly]

the eyes of a man in love

-

more windbreaker comics

[lbhslefttiddie]

honestly i don't think sqq (jiu) would have minded the accusations of preferential treatment from yqy if they'd felt true. like as children he guarded the title of being yue qi's Favorite with teeth and claws. why shouldn't he be given preferential treatment? everyone ought to know just who qi-ge likes and trusts over everyone else. and for good fucking reason--who else here is watching out for qi-ge? as peak lords he's literally 2nd in command and chief tactician, if yqy values his word over yours, then its both what makes most sense and also what he deserves.

the thing is that to sqq, being accused of being favoured by yqy over others now just feels like a sick joke, because obviously (to him) that's not the fucking case. if he actually gave him preferential treatment you'd think he'd listen to what he has to fucking say, instead of believing what anyone else tells him about sqq. you'd think, if he was yqy's favorite, he wouldn't have left him to rot.

so i think, in a setting where they reconcile after becoming peak lords, that sqq would very much slap yqy's love for him in everyones faces as a kind of power move. a kind of, "oh, you thought that was favouritism? you havent seen yet what it looks like when qi-ge lets himself favour someone."

[ariaste]

swear to god if I read another motherfucking fic where these vampires pause to get the lube I am going to have a fucking mental breakdown and chew holes in the walls. i have had it up to here. this is an intervention. this is a come-to-jesus moment. what are you doing. are you thinking about your choices. why are you making them have sex like they're humans instead of weird fucked-up vampire sex. look into my eyes. can you please consider your worldbuilding choices and make ones that are less excruciatingly boring. look at me. you're being the softest beigest pillow if you make them use human lube. i'm serious. i will die on this hill.

fight me in the comments if you disagree or you feel huffy about this, i don't care. come at me, bro, i own the night.

[bigfatbreak]

Wanted to ask for confirmation here

So I was checking the dates in-between comic updates and when you uploaded them on your patreon and made an OOC post as a reminder? Notice?

So based on what I gathered so far.

When you have backlogs of parts, you upload one every two weeks, and your patreons get early access to all the backlogs a week before one part of those backlogs was even uploaded?

Hopefully my wording isn't confusing, i'm sick, like victorian boy felix from changeling au sick, but worse, so I couldn't formulate words well

hm, basically!

the thing is, I would PREFER to upload about 50-70 frames per update, but since Tumblr now has a 30 image limit on posts, I have to cut my updates in half or into thirds. on Patreon, my patrons get the full update, all frames at once, while tumblr will get them usually in the form of two to three posts, because I have to split them up to upload them.

so Generally, patrons will get the Full Update all at once, while tumblr, a week later, will get Half the update.

Updates are every other week for the time being, if I manage to make enough of a backlog they'll be weekly again!

[shirozora-draws]

So, uh.... how about that Kendrick vs. Drake Rap Beef 2024?!?!?!??!!?

In all seriousness, I had a mentally ugly April and so I want to thank the early May nuke that was Meet The Grahams blowing up my Twitter feed for getting me back on track. Sometimes you gotta pop out and hyperfixate on something really fucking different to get your brain back on track, which it did. The final draft of the next chapter is ready and waiting, and now I just need to get rid of all the goddamn rust and dust clogging up my arting gears.

I've done and posted multiple iterations of these designs through the years and they're buried in the archives but at some point I have to commit. That point is right now. I have to commit because these are going to be my visual guides for the next act of the story. Man, I hope I can pull this off. I want Din's look to be red for Aq Vetina and made up of scraps while he continues on his quest to rebuild himself. And I want Luke to have SOME color of some fucking kind and also I got tired of capes and thought the contrast to Din would be fun.

Grogu has some tweaks too but I need to stop dawdling and start thumbnailing for the chapter that is waitingwaitingwaiting for launch day so his little "design sheet" will come later. And once the chapter goes live, I'll spend the rest of the summer getting the pop-up shop up and running for pre-orders. Hopefully. Definitely. For sure.

[ruporas]

i’ll find you again in every universe. let us be a little more honest, let us have a little more time.

[allastoredeer]

Alastor in a nutshell during chapter 2 of "Chaggies Totally Legitimate 101 Dating Crash Course"

[wurm-food]

fujimoto stays cooking (the existential dread but also. the existential love)

[starry-bi-sky]

mmmmmm read a disciple shen yuan/shizun luo binghe fanfic about two days ago where the first chapter was the Immortal Conference arc, and SQQ was the one who had to be pushed into the abyss (he was still the villain) except Luo Binghe was refusing and was like, lowkey losing his mind about SQQ being so close to the edge. SQQ ended up having to be the one to fall in himself because of the system's punishment system. The rest of the fic is leading up to that moment. But like, MMM i've been obsessively thinking about that first chapter for DAYS ever since.

now i've been in svsss for a grand total of *checks watch* a week. but god obsessed with that. I want to write/read a fic where disciple SQQ goes a little nuts down there. Like keep all of the things that make SQQ, SQQ, but just. Throw in a little bit more trauma in there. A little bit of a mental break. Let him go a little nuts as a treat. Just a tad unhinged. I wanna see him go, just a little, "god fuck it, i've tried so hard to change this shitty story's outcome and it feels like everything i've done has been for nothing. I'm going to die in this world no matter what I do, I've been doomed from the start, so might as well die the way I want to." and he just, breaks a little! Under all the stress.

He still retains the traits that makes shen yuan, shen yuan, like his overwhelming kindness. But he's just! yk. A little less patient. Paranoid. Jumpy. Colder. A little more aloof and closed off. A little more Shen Jiu. He's no asshole child abuser, but he was a Number One Hater in his past life and he's leaning into that old habit a little more now.

(On a totally coincidental not-at-all related note, there's not enough SJ-and-SY-are-the-same-people fics out there that i've found. This is totally unrelated...)

The Endless Abyss turns the mind into an over-sharpened blade, and SQQ is both fascinated and perhaps a little excited to explore a place that doesn't have a lot of info on it in the mortal realm, but still terrified out of his mind. And he's no Luo Binghe, he doesn't have the sheer brute strength and power to just bulldoze his way through, so he has to be a lot more sneaky and cunning if he wants to survive.

The fic itself role-swapped LBH and SQQ so that SQQ was the half-demon (which lowkey fucks) and LBH the human, but I'm equally-if-not-more obsessed with the idea that LBH remains the half-heavenly demon and SQQ the human. If only because I keep thinking about SQQ befriending some demons (particularly and specifically a group of succubi) and they grow very attached to this Human Cultivator so through magic plot stuff they create some kind of seal/illusion/talisman that makes SQQ appear as a demon because a human cultivator in the endless abyss may as well be the equivalent of putting a giant neon target on your back.

And iirc Shen Jiu was taught demonic cultivation by that one guy(?? i've only been here a week so im not caught up in ALL of the lore yet) so that could totally happen here.

(On the other end of the realms, poor Shizun Luo Binghe is just. losing his fucking mind over losing his most precious and beloved disciple. About .5 seconds from burning down the peaks himself. somebody sedate him.)

The Endless Abyss sucks and SQQ is having a really terrible time and can feel himself going lowkey mad, but also holy shit look at all this WORLD-BUILDING. look at all this flora and fauna, and oh if he had the equipment for it he'd be writing all of this down. ALL OF IT. He was kinda-sorta-already planning on never leaving the Abyss as some sort of fucked up self-exile and self-preservation thing, but now he might? actually just?? never leave if he can help it, like he lowkey likes it down here.

anyways the next time anyone ever sees SQQ again he's got hair so long its almost touching the ground and he's either in rags and half-feral or he's been completely dolled up by his adoptive succubi sisters and still about three seconds from biting anyone who tries to touch him. (he's also lowkey trying to book it back down to the abyss even if he has desperately missed all of his friends and shizun)

[thundergrace]

I will just watch this on a loop and call it microdosing serotonin.

[elalalune]

Demon King transformation

[dekusleftsock]

I think that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is…happening with Izuku’s character. Specifically in regards to chapter 425.

I’m glad that a lot more people generally recognize that Izuku is not a character that can be read at a surface level, given that he’s both a repressed person with built up emotion of basically everything and also a very glaringly HUGELY unreliable narrator, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the ways I’ve seen this most recent chapter spoken about.

I see posts, comments, etc with ideas like “Izuku don’t suppress your emotions! Open up with people! It’ll be okay I promise!” When that’s fundamentally not what is happening here.

There’s always always ALWAYS been a distinct difference in character throughout horikoshi’s writing when he is showing that a character is:

A—Avoiding emotions, thoughts, ideas less than ideal for them. Not opening up when they probably should about their problems given that they’ve been handed the space to do so. Just genuinely not acknowledging, feeling, or expressing emotions that they don’t want.

B—Reflecting on the ways they feel about the world, themselves, or other people given their new perspective on a situation. Not outright reaching out to others to talk about these problems/feelings, but instead waiting until the moment they feel they have the most confidence to do so with their new outlook on their own life.

And genuinely, guys, to grab your BkDk attention rn, this is the exact reason why Ochako’s reflection on her feelings for Izuku and thereafter decision to pull away from them WAS NEVER GOING TO END IN OCHAKO EXPLODING WITH HER LOVE FOR HIM.

This was another common interpretation I saw of Ochako and Izuocha for a long time. That because she pushed these feelings away, they were somehow going to explode in this unbelievable way and she would “get the boy” because of it. That her arc would surround accepting her romantic feelings and that she can’t just push away how she feels for a career.

But yk. That didn’t happen. At all. Nowhere close even.

The same kind of goes for Katsuki, allmight, etc. They all had moments in their arc where it was spent genuinely reflecting, and the only reason we as the audience never connected it in the same ways we do ochako or Izuku was ALWAYS BECAUSE the narrative showed their inner thoughts while doing so (mostly because Allmight’s arc after losing OFA and Katsuki’s arc on what it means to be a hero were so intrinsically tied, both starting at the same time and ending at the same time during the final war. And because they were so tied this caused their own reflections, development, and thought process to be broadcasted to us frequently throughout their arcs… to each other. They also somewhat shared aspects with Izuku, but these were cherry picked more often than not, like dvk2 for example).

To us Katsuki never seemed to be.. idk, suppressing his anger in any way because we were always told what he was doing and why (side note: this is why I’ve always thought arguments against Katsuki were so weird, bc unlike characters like endeavor or Ochako he wasn’t like… hiding who he was and how he was changing. Ever. Like the audience knows at all times past basically season 3 what Katsuki is thinking and doing. Like how do you watch this happen, stare me dead in the eye, and tell me how much of a terrible and awful teenage boy he is. Like damn I didn’t think we were this dumb. This is also my theory as to why he’s most popular, his arc is very… in your face if that makes sense). Katsuki’s entire mini arc on reflecting his mistakes and his childhood and his future is spent TELLING YOU that it’s what he’s doing. (I’m referring mostly to the endeavor internship arc, the provisional license exam makeup, and basically everything in the war arc related to him leading up to bakugou Katsuki rising here)

And see, Horikoshi will stare you dead in the eye, tell you “this girl has taken into consideration that she doesn’t want to waste her time training her career focusing on a boy because he kinda caught her fancy”, and y’all will still say that this will explode in her face.

Y’all this is a series about learning how to manage emotions, maturity in relationship to one’s emotions, how to feel an emotion, but in a way that is helpful. Horikoshi isn’t telling you “go buck wild, feel everything all the time and always express it”, in fact he explores why you DONT do that! Through Toga or Shigaraki, they show how grief and anger can genuinely consume you. But he also shows why you shouldn’t just put everything in a box to never look at or acknowledge, or why you shouldn’t just let your grief destroy the world around you, or pretending that some emotions simply don’t exist.

I can’t say this enough, so let me say it now, mha is about the extremes of your psyche. That you should control something, but not too much. Everything can be harmful. Everything can be good.

Izuku is not controlling too much, he’s expressing just enough.

I LOVE shaming this dickhead at all times in all my posts. I love saying he’s an ignorant dipshit with a weird amount of distaste for a girl who just confessed to him. I’ve joked that chapter 348 is basically an entire chapter spent on Izuku calling Himiko a mean dyke. And yet I also believe he’s doing nothing WRONG here.

In fact, I’ll even say that this moment right here?

ISNT EVEN IZUKU DOING THE SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE THING ABOUT IT! But he’s still TRYING to reach out to someone he thinks MIGHT be able to understand. (And frankly, this moment is far deeper than what it’s being made out to be, to me it reads more like an unrequited friendship that Izuku both desires and has thought of them to have, while simultaneously showing the distance Ochako has successfully wedged between them for her own sake. Maybe it was always there though, maybe in weird, miscommunicated Horikoshi fashion, this is a representation of how Ochako always read all those “fun friend hangouts” as a little more than that, and without those feelings the friendship never really held any substance to her in the first place. Where Izuku saw his first real friend at UA, she saw little more than acquaintance)

Simultaneously, Izuku is genuinely reflecting on what it means for the world to change, to be a hero, to live after loss—and trying and failing to gain the connection he desires from individuals who can not and will not afford him that.

Izuku is ready for the world to change, a few select characters are also ready for the world to change (mirio, for example), but not nearly enough are. So maybe I’ll have to take this back if I’m proven wrong and I accidentally looked into this far past what everyone else did for no reason, but I genuinely believe with moments like this

And this

Aand this

That Izuku has come forward with that aspect of his character development. He’s reflecting on his new beliefs, not repressing his emotions for them.

[templegate]

A moment of vulnerability

[cardis-tricycle]

6 freaking years ago, the rat man had his first appearance. Can't believe it. Happy Birthday, Cardinal.