#Hec crew

[ovo-frenchstyle]

Sanae Rel Komo Nesta -Hec crew- hip-hop 50 years

[blackjackkent]

Prompt fill for @thedarkstrategist from this ask meme: [ 🛁 ] - running them a bath, Shadowzel.

-----

“She is in pain,” Lae’zel says, pacing back and forth before the bar on the Elfsong’s bottom floor. The ale Karlach purchased for her sits undrunk on the wood bartop; she seems to have forgotten its existence. “And it is a pain I do not know how to soothe,” she growls. “It is maddening.”

“Yeah,” Karlach says, watching Lae’zel’s quick, restless movements with an air of sympathy. “Fucking sucks, when someone you care about is hurting. And this kind of hurt… whoof.” She breathes out, rattling her lips heavily. “I lost my parents, back before the Hells, but at least they went… normally, y’know? Bad fever, overturned cart. Things like that happen to people. This, what she had to do… that’s a whole different ball game…”

“This is not helping,” Lae’zel says curtly.

“I’m commiserating,” Karlach says with a slight shrug. “I don’t really have an answer for you. ‘s not the sort of thing you fix.”

Lae’zel comes to an abrupt halt and turns to face Karlach directly. “There must be something,” she says. “I--” She breaks off abruptly and scowls down at the battered slats of the floor. “You know of these things,” she mutters. “I do not. I must have your help.”

“These things?” Karlach cocks her head slowly to one side.

A pause. Lae’zel flushes, her jaw working with frustration at the struggle to articulate her own feelings. “Romance,” she finally says carefully. Another pause, then suddenly rapid, “No. Not romance. Something more. The gentleness that comes with it. I feel the need for it, but do not know…” She falters, her ears flushing a deep olive. “I do not know what to do.”

“Oh.” Karlach would be tempted to smile, were it not for the fact that Lae’zel looks so terribly agitated. “Well, I’ll let you in on the first secret I know,” she says, “which is that we’re all making this the fuck up as we go along. I certainly am.” She nudges the barstool next to her with her boot toe. “C'mon, sit down."

Lae'zel sits abruptly, a soldier obeying orders. Karlach studies her for a moment thoughtfully. "Y'know," she says slowly after a little while, "sometimes when my engine's real bad, Hec'll just... do things for me. Just so I don't have to. Get my dinner served up, or clean out my armor, that sort of thing. And it helps." She rubs at her jaw. "I think, with this sort of shit... it's not about fixing. Not really. It's about... just being there, and holding some of the weight. Helping her keep living, while she sorts it all out."

Lae'zel considers this with narrowed eyes. "Yes," she says slowly.

Karlach's teeth flash in a cautious grin. "We've got a proper bathroom in our rooms upstairs now. You could draw her a bath, bring her dinner after... give her a night not having to think about anything."

Lae'zel nods. "Yes," she repeats. Her whole body is stock-still except for her fingertips which fidget almost imperceptibly against the floral-carved edge of the bar. 

Karlach's smile softens. "The way Hec tells it - it'll make you feel better too," she says gently. "Maybe feel a little less like your head's eating itself alive." She claps Lae'zel on the shoulder. "Look. We're gonna make this happen," she says. "And I'll help. She likes night orchids, right? I'm gonna go right now over to Bonecloaks and shake that woman down for every blossom she's got, and then Jaheira and me'll take the boys off on an adventure for a while. Leave the rooms upstairs all yours till, say, ten o'clock?"

She doesn't expect thanks - the whole crew, by now, is well aware that Lae'zel doesn't tend to say it out loud. What she does get, though, is a sudden tight grip on her forearm from the gith's long-fingered hand; a gesture of camaraderie - or perhaps the clinging of a drowning woman to a driftwood life raft. "That is... generous," Lae'zel mutters.

"Just doing my part to make love bloom," Karlach says airily.

Lae’zel flinches, her color deepening again. “We have not spoken of love,” she says stiffly.

Karlach lifts her eyebrows innocently. “Oh, are we not saying that part out loud yet?” she asks.

“Kainyank…” Lae’zel grumbles, rolling her eyes - but Karlach notices she doesn’t argue the point.

-----

Shadowheart sits on the bed, leaning against the window, her knees drawn to her chest. She’s dimly aware that the others haven’t come back from dinner yet, but it’s hard to muster the energy to care. Ever since the House of Grief, she’s felt drained, empty, surrounded by the shattered pieces of a world she doesn’t know how to reconstruct yet. She feels broken.

There’s the soft sound of a footstep up the stairs. Rustling movement in the center of the shared floor of their lodgings. The sound of running water from the magical taps in the bathroom. Shadowheart ignores it all, focusing her eyes on the progress of a fly climbing up the outside of the window glass. 

Then-- “Shadowheart?”

Something in her heart loosens just a little, hearing Lae’zel’s voice. It’s astonishing, given how they began, the way that Lae’zel has come to mean protection, and understanding, and calm. Lae’zel is safety in a way that none of the others are, because Lae’zel too has had her life taken apart, and the two of them have built a new one out of the ashes. “Yes,” she says softly, forcing herself to stir and lift her head. “I’m here.”

To her surprise, she finds that Lae’zel is standing watching her with a bundle of deep blue flowers in one hand. The gith shifts awkwardly and then sets the plants down on the nearby table. “I--” she says haltingly. A pause, and then she presses on doggedly as if expecting a burst of laughter from some corner at any moment. “All day you have sat here alone. I have drawn you a bath. Will you come?”

“A bath?” Shadowheart tips her head, mildly bemused.

“Yes.” Lae’zel shifts her weight slowly from one foot to the other. Then she adds, almost sheepishly, “Karlach said it would help.” A pause, then so low Shadowheart almost can’t hear it, “Let me help. Please.”

A sudden tight lump settles in Shadowheart’s throat, making it hard to speak. “Lae’zel--”

“I said I would protect you,” Lae’zel mutters. “But there is no enemy to strike. There is only this. These small things. It is not much, but…” 

“No.” Shadowheart slowly uncurls herself from the tight ball in which she has spent the last few hours. The barest hint of a smile pulls at her lips for the first time in days. It’s not about the bath, not really - she didn’t need or even really want one. It’s the reminder that there is more around her than the impenetrable shadow Shar has draped over her world. That Lae’zel is driving it back with both fists, even when she doesn’t think she knows how.

“No,” she repeats softly. “That sounds perfect.”

[1000sunstudios-blog]

Get your tickets and quick, for they will sell faster than Noblestalk in Baldur's Gate! Premiering live at the Rondeau Ceremonial Ampitheatre: Chromatic Panic, featuring songs and ballads from across the realms.

- Lucretious, Ringmaster of the Circus of the Last Days, speaks of a famous, interplanar, all-dragonborn band of performers and their upcoming concert debut.

Cast and Crew: Michael Galladion, the Gentleman (My OC); DUrge (a.k.a.: Jah'Qen Viserys), the Showman (Re-imagining of the BG3 Dark Urge); Eligar, the Pleasureseeker (OC of @predninja); Nadaar, the Professional; Zeri, the Diva. (Last two are OCs of Discord server friends).

-----

A crack art idea I've been piecing together for the past, what, 2 weeks now? Courtesy of @predninja for giving me the showerthought, as well as a few key art techs that helped put the piece together. (Has anyone ever told you that dragonborn kissy-face with the BG3 detailing is heccing HARD AF to get to look right? Like, holy hell the amount of redraws just to get something not derpy was pain.)

I won't lie, getting back into drawing again - especially with good people there to provide support - has been nice. Can't wait to see where the muse takes me next.

Was particularly proud of the pearl nails on Zeri - for some reason (I think it's because the effect carries through extremely well and the color matching was just perfect). Got some minor details I'd want to practice again in future sinc ethey came out a touch jank, but otherwise I'm pretty satisfied with the result.

[mapleesimsss]

Happy Holidays from the HEC Crew here at Wingate Stables! 🎄🤍 @xlostmelodiesx

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

Our list of tasks is looking ever more manageable.

FIND BOOZE AND DRINK IT

The hangover feels really bad. You have to take the edge off. Find a bottle of alcohol, put it in your had, and the magic will happen by its own!

As you can see, the blue text below this task says it was Forfeited on Wednesday. That doesn't mean we can't still drink, though.

THURSDAY

GET THE WHOLE STORY FROM TITUS

Hardie and the boys know the whole story. It'll be difficult to get it out of him. Have you thoroughly inspected the body? Looked around for a witness? Gotten friendly with the Union boss and the company rep? *Really* gotten to Klaasje?

Confront Klaasje with the Hardies' story.

THE MISSING INSECTS CASE

Some locusts have gone missing, and the Insulindian phasmid has yet to be found. Perhaps you can use your detective skills to help out the cryptozoologists?

Ask Cuno about the empty trap, then take a look around the yard.

ADD EVEN MORE BEAUTY TO THE WALL

You have seen an exceptionally beautiful wall in Martinaise, near the pier, and have decided to add to its beauty, artistically. This will take a brush first? Who would have one? Then paint, and then the act itself.

Use fuel oil to paint the wall.

GET TWO SIGNATURES FOR EVRART

Get Isobel and Lilienne in the nameless fishing village down the coast to sign Evrart's document. Once the signatures are secured, mail the document to Evrart's accountant using the mail box on the plaza in front of the Whirling.

Find someone to sign the documents instead of the intended recipients.

Forge the signatures, but somewhere private, where you feel safe enough to sleep.

Remember, this is also going to point us further towards our gun.

GET ACELE TO TALK ABOUT HER ASSOCIATES

Acele refused to talk about her friends. Maybe she'll open up later -- after you've helped them set up the nightclub.

MAKE VAN EYCK'S JAM HARDER CORE

You can feel it—this music could hit so much harder. It just needs a few tweaks... Walk back to the canal and see if you can find any tapes that could work as a melody, then bring them back to Egg Head for remixing.

Find a tape with a melody for Egg Head.

SYNC THE SINES WITH NOID

Noid doesn't want to talk to you, the sines are not in sync. Guess you need to help him and his friends out somehow, prove that you're one of the crew. Who knows what he'll tell you?

HELP RAVERS START A NIGHTCLUB

The ravers asked you to help turn the church into a dance club, but there are already some people inside. Find out who those people are and what they want.

Look into the spookers in the church.

Almost all of our Thursday quests are to do with the ravers.

WEDNESDAY

SPIRIT IS ETERNAL

The Horrific Necktie is getting ready for the end game. For the love of god do not remove it until 'the magic' happens.

Hold onto the spirits and wait for the signal.

FIND IDIOT DOOM SPIRAL'S JACKET

Idiot Doom Spiral stole a cool jacket at one point... and then lost it again. The story of his life. According to the man, the jacket was last seen somewhere around the boardwalk, maybe the abandoned fish market.

We have *a* jacket, but it's not in great condition.

ASK KLAASJE ABOUT SUNDAY NIGHT

When Kim's not around to stop you, ask Klaasje about what she heard from her room the night before you emerged into Reality. She must know something.

We missed our opportunity to do this last night. If we want to do this, we'll have to wait until 22:00, then pretend to go to sleep to get Kim out of the way. Also, if we go to confront her about Titus's story, it may be the last time we speak to her, so we'll want to put that off.

TUESDAY

FIND THE MURDER WEAPON

You need to find the firearm that killed the hanged man. Something tells you it will take *some* time. You could start by identifying the bullet, so you'd know the weapon that shot it. After that, keep your eyes open. And be patient.

Perform an advanced analysis, using H/E Coordination.

Can't do this with HEC maxed out. Although there are *other* ways to level it up...

MONDAY

REPLACE LOST BOULE

Due to some confusion over the game René and Gaston are playing, you threw one of their pétanque *boules* far in the sea. The shot was excellent, but now you owe them a *boule*... or at least similar-looking metal sphere.

FIND ALL ARMOUR PIECES

You want all of the armour pieces. Deck yourself out in full metal battle-hardened glory. NOTE! This might take a while. Like, a *long* while.

In addition, let me go over a few other things we can do:

Get into the area behind the bookstore.

[Volition - Legendary] Look Klaasje in the eyes.

[Rhetoric - Legendary] Get Gaston's sandwich.

[Rhetoric - Impossible] Open the cargo container door.

[Reaction Speed - Medium] Find a Dick Mullen novel.

[Pain Threshold - Medium] Find a Man from Hjellmdall novel.

[Suggestion - Medium] Why is Annette familiar?

[Suggestion - Heroic] Ask Lilienne on a date.

Hear more stories from Doom Spiral.

[Interfacing - Medium] Fix broken faucet, find a figurine.

[Encyclopedia - Formidable] Find the source of the Expression.

[Drama - Impossible] Convince Rene we're also a war hero.

Now that we have money, we could also look into buying a board game from the bookstore.

[rosemaidenvixen]

Douxie, Zoe and the Hec Tech crew are gonna be either highly stressed or "Yeah it's Arcadia this somehow tracks" as they discover the sheer chaos this lot are gonna get up to.

Oh Douxie, Zoe, and Hex tech are all going to be high key stressed in the sunshine au. Trolls and goblins they can deal with; but having the Trollhunter be a half human half troll teenager who brings all his human friends and their teenage shenanigans along for the ride. Just Douxie and Zoe alone are going to keep every coffee shop in Arcadia in business.

[geminicollisionworks]

Greeeetings~~!!

I just finished listening to episode 26 of Life with Althaar and I just wanted to say - thank you. I don't have any other words for you but thank you so much. I never thought this is the route this show would take when I started listening to it but this single episode made me so glad to have put upwards of 50 hours listening to this show. On to season 3!

Also I absolutely love the characters' cadences, especially Althaar's. I too often find myself emulating his speech patterns. It's also impressive how natural the HEC lingo sounds and I've already subconsciously incorporated some of it into my daily lexicon. Is there an official list of Fairgrounds vocab available anywhere?

I eagerly look forward to seeing (or listening to I suppose) what comes next. All the best for future episodes and for the entire crew's other ventures!

Hello there and thank you so much! We here at Collisionwork Central are seriously carried forward by audience reaction, and it means the world to us.

First off, I apologize if you catch up in Season Three to where we unexpectedly left off before new episodes drop. We ARE working on the last 7 or 8 episodes (one may be so long it becomes a two-parter, which, given the length of some previous episodes, is saying something), and my (Ian's) goal was to still finish by the end of the year. More things have come up with cast schedules to make that less likely, but we WILL be back ASAP. Berit, the writers, the cast, and I are all devoted to this story, and finishing it. Stuff just got in the way for a while, and the Althaar path is still being cleared.

And let me see if Berit is good with putting out the Althaariverse Slang Glossary! We do have one in-house, as part of the constantly-updated Show Bible, so it would be easy to format and post, but B is the ultimate decision-maker on everything Althaar. While we'll save sharing the Bible and Updates for our eventual self-published print volumes of scripts, I think sharing the slang would be a nice thing for the time being - SOMETHING for the listeners as they wait so patiently.

Thanks for the kind words on Episode 26. We knew we'd be getting there for two years before we did, and we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get it right. We knew the whole 40-episode story of Althaar before we wrote any of it, but we never had any idea how it would actually feel when the characters had voices and were put in these situations. It became a bit more distressing to write (as much as we remind ourselves, "It's STILL a wacky comedy!").

Sorry for such a lengthy response (can you tell from the show how long-winded we can be?), but I'm mostly bedridden and bored these days, without the mental focus to write the show as fast as I was, so social media eats up a lot of time, and I do love hearing from fans of Althaar. Again, it really keeps B&I going. Thanks.

IWH/GCW

[unless-otherwise-stated]

TSCOSI Mini-Bang Fic 3

A Perfectly Normal, Totally Typical Cafe

The Rumor Cafe is opening on Milky Way and the crew was not prepared. As they struggle with maintaining and running the cafe due to their unexpected influx of customers, they look to hire. Enter Violet Liu, she needs a job so she goes in for an interview with her extensive resume. Violet gets hired and starts working at The Rumor, but she soon finds that The Rumor and its staff may be hiding more than meets the eye.

Art sneak-peek:

Quotes:

“Okay, okay. Maybe the bowling alley was a stretch, but you at least have a giant python that grew legs giving out tango lessons.”

Sana was prepared to commit many crimes.

In Good Running (IGR for short), which also owned I Give Rup, I Gave Ryouallmymoneywhatelsedoyouwant, and I Got Radishes

Coming May 12th 2021

Written by:

Rayan - @unless-otherwise-stated

Art by:

Olya - @self_substantialfuel

Hec - @drumkonwords (check out their TSCOSI art)

Beta read by:

Vi - @starshipviolet

Hec

@tscosi-minibang

[revasnaslan]

I'll be honest about Annilis, I love him and his sympathetic background AS well as his awful approach to keeping Hec-tor safe, because he's probably in some legitimate danger but he took it too far. I love HP, but I also wanna beat his ass too. Just grab him by the ears and yell, "What are you doing you idiot sandwich?!" I just wanna ask him "Are you even happy? And no getting pegged by a Shade isn't happiness." Don't want him to die though, only because it's a cop-out for actual punishment.1/2

2/2 That's what kinda bummed me on HP in-show, he did so much horrible shit, was an arrogant living "God", and he was just killed? That easy? HP's hubris was grotesque and he deserved a worse punishment than just a lightshow to the face. HP was also a non character in the end and whatever characterization he did have was lost quickly, gonna admit. But, an arrogant jerk dying that quickly is too easy a punishment, he has to suffer the consequences of his actions and experience his loss in detail.

sorry I'm sending you so many asks about HP. But dear God did the show drop the ball on Horde "supposedly endgame villain who was woefully underutilized until the last minute and even then was handed the villain ball to make sure what credibility he did have was lost" Prime. Could have been great, his story was there, but Crew-ra wasted time on frivolous characters(star siblings might have been cool but s5 needed to work on its existing characters, not introduce new ones)and wasted plot points.

I actually have done a ton of analysis on why prime just doesn’t work as a villain for pretty much six months now. Like I started doing this pretty much the day that the finale dropped cause I never liked S5 at all. There’s just much wrong with it, strictly from a narrative prospective than I cannot get over it, which I why I’ve kind of retreated into doing Fuck Canon aus. And I don’t think the major problems plaguing prime is that he’s a bad person or a cult leader or whatever, that would be fine. This is a matter of set up and pay off. This is a matter of narrative structure. Those are my major problems with everything about this.

Anyway, I guess we’ll try a flaccid attempt at positivity, just to make it clear that I am not coming strictly from a point of view of hate… the one thing I remember liking about prime is that creepy dinner scene. Loved that scene, I was so giddy when they dropped it as a teaser clip, and I got to enjoy it in peace for like a day and a half before my love for the show went crumbling. Prime is absolutely on his game in that scene, I can very clearly see his mind working, because my interpretation of the scene is that he’s trying to bait glimmer into giving him information. Did he actually intend to harm adora? Who knows! Does it matter? Not really, considering he got the information he wanted, which was what was needed to work the heart. I can feel the tension in that scene, that is how he should have been for the rest of the season.

So what the fuck happened? *cracks knuckles* well let’s see shall we.

Foreshadowing It’s Fun Cause It’s A Thing I’ve Heard Of

So I think we all remember just how shocking it was when prime actually showed up, and he wasn’t anything like we’d all come to assume he’d be based on what had been said about him up until that point. What we had been fed was essentially that he was cold, calculating, and didn’t look upon “defects” well. He saw the clones as disposable. And they set up that aspect of his character just fine, and I don’t have a problem with how that was set up.

What they utterly failed to properly set up (and even contradicted themselves on) was the cult thing, and how prime is essentially this messiah figure to the clones. I highly suspect this occurred because they were writing the show as they went along, and hadn’t fully fleshed out prime’s whole deal until he actually appeared at the end of S4, but that’s just my own speculation given some of the things that had been said in interviews regarding other aspects of the writing (namely that micah was apparently not supposed to be alive in the first place and that happened because of a miscommunication between noelle and one of the other writers).

Regardless, there are a number of things that should probably have been done differently in order to properly foreshadow prime’s cult leader status, that actually would have heightened hordak’s characterization as well. For one thing, there’s a reason we all assumed that the galactic horde was merely a military program and it’s because of how hordak acts throughout the first four seasons. We can talk in circles about headcanons until we’re blue in the face (i.e., he might have memory problems), but the fact of the matter is that those are headcanons and that hordak’s entire narrative changes from one of an ableist family to one of a religious trauma seemingly on a dime come the very end of S4 when prime shows up.

imagine how satisfying the foreshadowing would have been if hordak had actually been spouting dogma the entire show (i.e., “cast out the shadows” and “all beings must suffer to become pure”) only for it peter off once he’s befriended entrapta, if he had been calling those who he respected brother/sister instead of force captains (which is a far more militarized word to use, and judging by the galactic horde isn’t even a term they use), if he had still been dressed in his uniform and only actually started dressing differently after entrapta had helped him? Hell, he never even so much as implies that entrapta is leading him astray before he’s back with prime, he doesn’t even seem particularly distressed about being around her most of the time, and the only reason he even gets persnickety with her is because of his medical condition.

One point I’m going to expand on for a moment is the whole “brother” thing, because that is actually a very good way of explaining what I mean. Now, hordak doesn’t actually mention any other clones at all from what I remember. This is contrary to all of the clones in S5 referring to each other as “brother” pretty openly and it being seen as a term of respect. However, the only person that hordak actually calls “brother” up until S5 is prime, and this inadvertently ended up making the word seem far more neutral than it should have been considering the context of S5. The word “brother” is actually a control tool, and if they had wanted to establish that sooner, hordak should have been calling anybody he respected that.

So, either the writers hadn’t actually thought of that part of the narrative yet, or they’re just that bad at foreshadowing.

There are also three instances of the narrative contradicting itself with regards to prime, one in S3, one in S4, and one in S5. The first is that hordak wanted to make a new body for himself. While one could argue that this was meant to be foreshadowing that prime takes new bodies whenever his old one failed (which is fine, that works as foreshadowing), the act of hordak admitting that he was intending to do that is what actually creates the snag. With the context of S5, we learn that becoming a vessel is meant to be a place of honor, but this comes with the caveat that it seems like only prime is allowed to take new bodies. So why the ever living fuck would someone as “pious” and “unworthy” as hordak think that was something he could ever be allowed to do, much less that prime would welcome him back with open arms if he did it. But there’s zero hesitation on hordak’s part, he doesn’t even mention that this is something usually only reserved for prime.

The second is that prime literally looked at the heart of etheria and said it was “unlike anything [he had] ever seen” despite canonically fighting the first ones, so he’d presumably have recognized the energy signature that first one’s tech gives off and be like Oh Shit. This one in particular drives me absolutely nuts because if I was writing a villain who had lived long enough to fight the people this mystical weapon was created by I would never write them saying that what the actual fuck. My gripe here is not that prime is ancient, that’s fine, I could’ve vibed with that. But the fact that he not only fought the first ones but also recognized mara is really egregious in a way that borders on parody for me. Like what a flimsy excuse for him to be connected to adora (and we’ll get to that!)

The third and final one is that hordak was allegedly thrown out for his defects. That’s what we were told, that’s what a major facet of hordak’s trauma is centered around. However, at the same times, prime seems like… oddly fixated on hordak in a way that usually implies something deeper is going on here. That was why I was so convinced that hordak wasn’t remembering something clearly, because why would prime spare him instead of killing him immediately after returning if he was defective enough to warrant being thrown out? Come S5, prime seems to have forgotten about the pesky little plot detail that is hordak’s defects, since they never come up again! Nope! Hordak is not only completely healed of his ailments (which Can I Get A Yikes?) but he’s also been welcomed back to his original position as prime’s right hand by the mid-point of the season, and he stays there until the finale unless the plot demands he be elsewhere to interact with entrapta cause hordak was added in post. You can’t even argue that he was keeping hordak alive because eThErIaN kNoWlEdGe because he has those fucking mind chips. Literally every single person he’s chipped is connected to the hivemind because of that. He’d have every single bit of knowledge that he could possibly want right there at his fingertips. He doesn’t need hordak alive at all.

Which brings us to…

It’s Almost Like He Wasn’t A Villain To The Proper People

The thing about villains is that, in order for them to not feel out of place, in order for their defeat to actually give a true feeling of satisfaction, you kind of have to put them up against the right people. The reason that prime ultimately fails in this respect is that he is not adora and catra’s villain, despite the narrative pushing him as that…

I actually once joked on twitter that if the rise of skywalker had come out when S5 was being written, then prime would have likely ended up being revealed as adora’s long lost grandfather in some attempt to make his fixation on her seem warranted. That’s the level we’re at in terms of how connected the two of them appear to be for the villain and hero thing. They just are not connected, and prime has absolutely no reason to be this fixated on her. They tried to explain it with she ra and prime being old enemies, but that’s equally as confusing because a) mara hadn’t mentioned him up until that point, b) this inclusion actually makes the first ones creating a superweapon look justified since prime is such a huge threat, and c) she ra is explicitly stated to have been on etheria long before the first ones even colonized it, so why the fuck is she just gallivanting around the cosmos fighting cult leaders?

And to be clear, if this whole prime versus she ra had actually been hinted at, I would not be taking so much issue with this. But as there was absolutely zero mention of him, it just comes off as egregious and very, very sloppy on their parts.

Prime also should not be as fixated on catra as he is, that doesn’t make sense at all. I know why this happened in particular, though, and it’s because the writing team was so in love with her that they just had to give her this arc. That just makes its inclusion all the worse to be honest. Why does he go to such great lengths to use catra to torture adora, why does he go into a total breakdown after catra escapes? He isn’t connected to either of them…

… because he is hordak and entrapta’s villain.

that prime didn’t immediately want entrapta dead continues to confuse me to this day, nearly seven months after the fact. Like you mean to tell me that this cult leader, who is presumably used to complete obedience from his followers, finds one of the wayward members of his proverbial flock lost on some backwater, who didn’t want to be found, and he knows exactly who is responsible for sewing those seeds of discord in this poor lamb’s head. And he doesn’t immediately want entrapta dead?

Not only does prime never mention her, despite it being very easy to push a plotline about how it’s necessary because she’s perceived as a danger to the rest, and especially to the poor lost soul who was ultimately returned to him. Instead, prime just doesn’t seem to realize entrapta exists. He doesn’t know who she is despite literally reading hordak’s mind. He doesn’t even seem to interpret her as threat considering he wasn’t worried about putting her and hordak right next to each other in the finale. He should have been using hordak to torture entrapta, and he should have had his break because hordak escaped him. That whole scene where catra is under mind control and adora was trying to snap her out of it was textbook entrapdak. Hordak should have been the one to delve into the hivemind to help adora. It was his story and it was taken from him when he was sacrificed on catra’s narrative arc altar.

And this is ultimately completely fixable. Because they had a villain they could have been using for adora and catra the whole time. Shadow Weaver. Y’know, their mutual abuser who was the main cause of strife between the two of them, and the person who kind of set the plot in motion since she’s the reason catra is the way that she is?

He Blew It. Super Hard. Complete Buffoonery.

Ultimately one of the biggest writing fumbles with prime is that he is just really fucking dumb as the plot demands, and it doesn’t make any kind of narrative sense for him to be that way, it is literally just him being at the mercy of the writers who need him to do something stupid so they can push the plot forward since they made him too overpowered for it to happen any other way.

There’s numerous instances of this across the season, including him bringing entrapta aboard the velvet glove when the very person he would have had very good reason to not let her near is standing right there, and him deciding to give catra pretty much free reign of the velvet glove and seeming to decide to trust her despite him knowing damn well that she’s likely to betray him the second he does something she doesn’t like, and the time he literally left adora to be beaten by catra instead of just killing her outright when she couldn’t even activate she ra. And in all these cases he had the fucking nerve to seem surprised when it happened?

However, there is one plot point that I feel illustrates how goddamn stupid he is to move the plot forward, and it’s the mind chips.

I mean one of the reasons I dislike it is going back to how little foreshadowing the writers actually seem capable of committing to. There is nothing to indicate in the narrative that prime actually employs mind control on anybody besides the clones, and this becomes especially egregious when we later meet the star siblings, and we find out that there are large swathes of the universe that are seemingly not chipped? It just screams like they needed some type of angst plot point for catra, so they had to find a way to make it work.

But the very inclusion of the mind chips as a plot point makes prime look so ridiculously dumb, because we are told those chips connect people to the hivemind, we are explicitly shown this for catra angst. So a) why does he need hordak around at all, because the excuse he needs to know about etheria doesn’t work since he literally chips like half of the etherian population later on anyway, b) if he needed information on the heart of etheria, why didn’t he just chip glimmer outright, it would have saved him a lot of time and hassle, and c) if he knew damn well that catra had betrayed hordak numerous times and was likely to do the same to him, why didn’t he just immediately chip her so he could mitigate two problems. If he had chipped catra immediately, he wouldn’t have lost glimmer, and it would have been next to impossible for adora and bow to storm the velvet glove through the means that they did.

When your main villain is that fucking stupid, the tension is completely sapped out of your narrative, and prime doesn’t have enough character unto himself to continue holding up his own arc. He is a sexy lamp cardboard cutout that just happens to be brought onto the scene when they were in need of someone to throw the idiot ball at. Prime is supposed to be this thousand year old body hopper who has the wisdom of the ages, and yet he was defeat by a group of teenagers driving a clown card held together by nothing but duct tape and prayers.

Anyway!

Guess Who Just Got Murdered!

Anon, I completely agree that the way prime got taken out was just… hm. Well, it was a choice, given how they had written the rest of the season.

I’ve said this before, but I really wish I could actually enjoy hordak yeeting him, but I just don’t feel anything. That scene is a culmination of an arc that never happened because hordak was barely on screen for S5. It feels like we’re missing this whole season-long arc about how hordak managed to break free of prime and was actively working against him, and that scene is the lowest point, right before the greater scope villain is ultimately defeated by the protagonist. Which just furthers my point that prime is really hordak’s villain, because hordak reads more like a protagonist than I think the writers actually intended for him to.

Since you mentioned anillis, I feel the need to comment on him as well, because I do know exactly what happens to him at the end of my au, because I actually planned for his ending from the beginning and built his arc towards that point. The very bare bones spoilers is that he isn’t going to die, because a) he needs to live with the consequences of his actions and b) him dying would affect hec-tor horribly, especially since if anybody had to deal the killing blow it would be hec-tor. And hec-tor doesn’t deserve to be forced to do that. He wants freedom, he doesn’t want his brother dead by his own hand.

So, I completely agree that just killing prime off feels a little… like a cop out? I’m not going to get into a discussion of how he was defeated by the power of (romantic) love because my issue there is not with the trope itself, but ultimately how it was handled, and that also has to do more with my grievances with how catradora was ultimately handled than my grievances with prime. However, him being like… exorcised…

Well it sure does clean up some loose ends that we don’t want to discuss huh?

[popculturebuffet]

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: The Master of the Mississippi! or “How Much Satisfaction Can There Be?”

Hello everybody. I’m back to the life of scrooge mcduck.. it’s been an eternity hasn’t it and that’s for a simple reason: I had other reviews to do, especially comissions, I kept pushing this back further and further as while I love this series i put my paid work ahead of any other projects, until Kev, i.e. the guy paying for most comissions out and out asked that this be done before I got to the rest of The Ride of the Three Caballeros. It’s also why I finally put a loose schedule in place, to keep projects from slipping so the MANY retrosectives and what not I have going can move along at a steady pace and I can slot in comissions easier, 5 bucks an issue or episode if your curious. So now things are a bit tider, i’ll try to have an installment of scrooge’s storied past up a week from now on, so keep an eye out for that, minus christmas week as I have something else planned Duck Comics wise. So with all that out of the way and any exposition able to be baked into the plot proper, we can FINALLY get back to the life and times of scrooge mcduck

PREVIOUSLY ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK:

A Young Scrooge got his inspiration, his start and also scared the crap out of some asshole scooby do style. Also his sister Hortense was adorable. SO there’s that. But eventually with some inspriation from what he didn’t realize was a ghost, Scrooge decided to head to america to find his Uncle Pothole. So that’s where we left off, with Scrooge heading to

Since then as the scrapbook page explains, Scrooge has worked his way up the Missippi to Louieville, Kentucky... which is where Rosa lives, and it is not a concidence it’s set here as a result. But much like how the Marvel staff being in new york in the 60′s lead to that universe having it’s unique and vibrant New York setting that’s lasted to this day, sometimes a creator using where they live as the basis can lead to really great and intresting stuff and here he had a valid reason as Louieville was one of the main hubs on the Mississippi river and thus a massive boomtown. 

Not the kind of boom town I meant but I can never say no to boomtown. But yeah it’s not only a bustling hub usually anyway, but things are extra amped up given it’s Derby time. I mean the Kentucky Derby’s no steel ball run but what could be? So naturally the crowds are booming and scroogie is impressed. I mean he’s a 13 year old boy from a poor community in Scotland. This is huge to him. But he has no time to dawdle and asks the closest random gentleman where he could find his Uncle Angus, who was mentioned last time and is the one needed for this. The guy is genuinely helpful and points him to his uncle... but as I only noticed on this read through also uses a knife to swipe his bag by cutting the handle off. It’s part of why I admire this series so much: rosa snuck so many small background gags into the margins you can always find something new reading it or always get something fresh out of it.  We also meet Gyro’s grandpa Ratchet. 

I mean there’s no might about it. David Byrne is rich and he’s the delightful weirdo we all deserve and the autistic icon I needed. 

I have no context for this, I just figured searching David Byrne in Tumblr’s Gif Search would find something delightfully batshit in that way only hec an do and I was right. 

So as the tweenager enters the gambling establishment, we find Uncle Pothole, whose playing poker with local asshole and tophat enthusiast Porker Hogg...whose name keeps tripping me up as I write this as he’s not the only pig named porker I know of but is far less memorable than this one

He and Pothole are playing cards, and while Porker can go on for days he can’t go on for eight weeks.. or even two days really and prepares to finish it. He puts up his boat the Dilly Dollar, which Angus takes offence to since Porker sank his. Angus offers up the location of the Dreenan White, a legendary, and real legend at that, riverboat that sank. Since Angus was a Cabin Boy on the boat, he knows where it is. So the final hand is dealt and Angus wins with five aces, mostly because Porker’s ace ejector jammed. When Scrooge questions if this is dishonest, Angus explains their under riverboat captain rules which basically means you can cheat your ass off and it’s not only expected it’s an insult NOT to. So Angus takes Scrooge with him, seeing the boy as a good luck charm and finding out to his shock Scrooge is his nephew, but gladly takes his newly found relation under his wing as he relates to his coming to america to find his fortune, having done the same. 

Angus is the first of Scrooge’s many mentors and easily the best part of this chapter. He’s lively, intresting but a contrast to scrooge, someone whose not AFRAID to work but wouldn’t mind an easy victory or giving up the adventure game, as he ends up doing. He’s a lively, clever guy and very charming. I”ll get back to the mentor part of it in a bit, but needless to say in a chapter that i’ll admit, and get more into the why as we go, is not one of life and time’s better chapters, he’s a highlight.  So the two get to the Dilly Dollar while Hogg decides to follow to find where the Dreeynan Whyte is. As for why he hasn’t drudged it up Angus simply can’t as the Mighty Missisippi’ s too muddy for that, making another mark twain quoted joke about it. But Scrooge mentions the clarity pills from Ratchet, meaning he has a way to do so, and Angus is now elated and decides to head there to get his fortune, specifically near Monkey’s Elbow kentucky, which while relocated slightly to fit the story, is a very real town and an objectively great name for a town, much like Forty Fort, which is also a very real town name. Hogg overhears and after being literally booted out of the boat, as we’ll see literal asskicking is a McDuck family staple, goes to recruit some hired goons. 

Yes hired goons, as every good villian needs some hired goons. And these specific goons.. are a bit.. familiar. And you’ll find out who they are under the cut!

Yup it’s the Secret Origin of the Beagle Boys. And if your wondering “Wait are they immortal too?” well. their not these are their grandpas. Also Hogg’s whole complaint about “wearing them if there yellow” just.. bugs me. They .. they aren’t cowards.. Grandpappy’s just being smart and knows his sons are excessively dumb, as is family tradition. They have no issue with committing crimes, they just don’t want to be arrested by the first Navy boat that finds them. That’s just.. common logic. This is one of Life and Time’s weaker atrributes: Due to being built around barks stories, that means most of his foes here are the random greedy asshats of the week Scrooge faced who had some loophole to his fortune or the grandparents of said assholes. With the exception of hte Beagles, who show up a few times, Glomgold and Soapy Slick who wihle a minor vilian is at the center of one of the best chapters of the story, most of these guys are just forgettable hooligans. Not terrible, and the stories around them are good enough to make it enjoyable but nothing really distinct from what Scrooge normally faced outside of his origin story. Really Barks was simply stronger at STORIES than he was at creating villians: As Magica, The Beagle Boys, Gladstone, Rockerduck and Glomgold all show he wasn’t untalented at it, it’s just more often than not he fell back on some random asshole.

Instead of using a dedicated Rogue’s Gallery of intresting baddies, most writers of most comics just used villians of the week and maybe ONE OR TWO designated hitters. Batman’s Rogue’s gallery wasn’t big enough to form their own country at this point is what i’m saying, it just meant Rosa had to build more vilians of teh week. It dosen’t drag the story down entirely, as the story is about SCROOGE and his growth: sometimes the villians are just a secondary ingrident in a good story. But it’s still something very noticable and one of the weaker parts of the story, it’s just like I said, with the story being more on Scrooge and where a lot of his personality came from, it’s something I really didn’t notice before and really dosen’t bother me now I have. The villians are weak btu the hero is so intresting and grows so much it just dosen’t matter. Their there to provide Scrooge with opportunites to evolve, and the really good ones are saved for the best moments of that and for when a villian IS needed to change scooge as a person. So it all evens out. 

So naturally the next day when the McDucks head to get the pills, Hogg’s beat them to it, and when Ratchet refused to cut cards for his stock had them beat Ratchet while they were at it. Though oddly Angus assumes he’s just passed out while Scrooge is the one to recognize someone knocked him out. You’d think a well experienced guy like Angus would know that eh whatever. Point is Hogg is ahead and Angus dosen’t have a crew... though Scrooge and Ratchet naturally volunteer since both have skin in the game: Scrooge wanted a job with Pothole anyway and Ratchet is out a job and out his pills. Angus gladly takes them on.. but accidently sets the Dominos in place for one of Comics!Scrooge’s worst behaviors down the line. 

Yeahhh.... Pothole is partially responsible for Scrooge criminally underpaying his staff and family. That gag.. is easily one of , if not my least faviorite part about Rosa’s work. It’s a holdover from Carl Barks work naturally, and one that makes some sense: Rosa set his work shortly after barks, so some time in the 1950s, having barks works take place around when they were written. There isn’t a strict timeline of what happened which year outside of life and times, but Rosa’s works are delieberate period pieces. That’s not a bad thing and if he’s going to base most of his stuff around stuff Barks did, then it’s a good call to make.  The issue is the execution: While with Barks it was in part because there was less income inequality, it was also clearly a bit of satire, as Donald was the every man and companies could be unfair, cheap douchebags then as they are now. IT feels more like a joke on Scrooge. Donald still puts up with a lot of stuff, but he’s more liable to complain. In the Rosa stories.. it feels more like he just makes Donald the butt monkey and it dosen’t play well as.. Donald dosen’t want to be there. He has every RIGHT not to want to be there as he’s not being paid a decent wage, not being compensated in any other ways, and could be searching for a boss who actually pays him a living wage. Donald is more the victim in Rosa’s stories but he simply doesn’t realize this, or the fact it’s even worse since Donald is you know RAISING THREE CHILDREN AND SCROOGE KNOWS THIS BUT DOES NOT PITCH IN ONE EXTRA CENT.  So already without even adding the decades on, it hasn’t aged well.. but add in the modern day business where it’s a STRUGGLE to get states to raise minimum wages, the job market was hit horribly even BEFORE Corona came and made things worse, and companies horribly abuse their employees to ludcirous extremes such as time crunch in the video game industry, black friday in retail and of course the house of nightmares that is the amazon warehouse, and I say that being a frequent use of amazon.. just because I rely on a company dosen’t mean I have to LIKE doing so in any way shape or form. 

What i’m saying is Scrooge’s actions were already bad, making this joke fall flat, but it comes off as downright unfunny after all of that. Even given the times Scrooge was raised in it’s just not a funny gag that “oh ha ha a 70+ year old man ever learned right from wrong when it came to paying his family or workers”. It just paints scrooge in the worst light possible as man who never grew, in at least one aspect, from being a goddamn tweenager and is easily one of the weaker moments of an otherwise epic and well crafted saga, and as i’ve said of Rosa’s exemplary work as a whole. 

Anyways the race is on and with the DIlly Dollar gaining on Hogg’s Cotton reiver witch, Hogg has them ram into the boat and flip it over. And no i’m not descrbing a sex act. In a show of competence while Blackheart Beagle’s actions send them close to the falls too he just uses the dilly dollar as a ramp. We also get a really cool flipped over panel as our heroes are waterlogged. A snag boat shows up, I assume it removes snags and dangerous objects and complains about rescuing them. .even though CLEARLY they had some kind of accident. It’s.. never a good look to complain about having to save someone’s life or livelyhood unless that someone is Tucker Carlson. Then it’s ABSOLUTLEY okay to grumble a bit about having to do the right thing. 

So after a quick gag we’re introduced to a chekovs gun as a massive tree sprouts out of the river and spooks Scroogey.. and Angus who explains it’s a “sawyer”, something that happens when a dead tree falls in a river.. sinks in.. and then can rise right back up suddenly, violently and boat destroyingly. 

So our heroes head on and find the location and Angus dumbly assumes that Hogg, who had a clear start is just lost.. and not you know lurking in the bushes watiting to strike. And strike he does as he once again rams hard and long into the Dilly Dollar, leaving it on a sandy shore. Schwing. Our heroes are landlocked but Hogg, just to earn himself a dare to be stupid award, gives the Beagles their deed, and tells them theirs diving equipment. You can take a wild guess what happenes next. 

Angus understandably laughs at his misfortune because it’s funny.. and Hogg responds by dropping him down a well. Before Scrooge can raise a benefit concert to send his love down a well, Angus asks Scrooge to join him instead.. and soon we find out why as the Beagles only find a wrecked town. Turns out thats where Monkey’s Elbow WAS, and they build the new town near it.. with the farm Angus ended up at being where the wreck is now. 

Our heroes explore the wreck which honestly, looks really damn impressive, a muddy destroyed riverboat hauntingly beautifully lit by candle light, which Scrooge is holding naturally. I may of had my criticisms for Rosa this chapter, and I will again, but it’s moments like this that reinforce that the man is still one of the best comic book artists i’ve ever seen and knows how to beautifully meld his art with storytelling. 

Speaking of which our heroes find the safe with the money. Angus is ritch but Scrooge.. dosen’t get how he can be happy. Scroogie questions “How much satisfaction can there be in having your life’s fortune handed to you? “ It’s easily the best moment of the chapter.. while it’s only two panels before we get to Angus moving things right along... it really speaks to Scrooge’s character. Even as still a naive boy from Glasgow... his whole life has been hard work, effort working your way up. To just.. LUCK into fortune like this baffles him. To be satisfied with that and not seem to have any amibation to use it to go further, to make more of yourself. To be more. While he hasn’t quite got his love for adventure yet, we’ll get there next time, even now there’s a hunger inside him, a desire to not just get rich, that’s all fine and good.. btu to have EARNED IT. To truly feel like he made his way. 

And it perfeclty makes sense with his background: Scrooge was raised with nothing, and found out at the start of the story his family had lost everything, a once glorious clan reduced to a poor starving family on the edge of Glasgow. To him it can’t just be about getting Money.. he wants to bring his clan back. To make his family happy and proud. To make sure his father’s faith as the last of their line wasn’t misplaced. He has a lot of expectation on him and that’s bred his character. Angus.. just sorta left at a young age and has been incommuincado. He dosen’t really care about family or legacy.. not that I don’t think he would’ve sent some money back to buy the castle, I just think he was never that concerned with his family’s legacy like Scrooge despite coming from a similar cloth. He wanted the money, but Scrooge cares about the money.. and his family. It’s what anchors him. What keeps him from his worst impulses and keeps him grounded.. for now anyways but that’s a ways off. Point is it really speaks to Scrooge’s character. 

But soon the beagles find our heroes, and a fight breaks out.. and naturally even without years of experince yet, Scrooge is still a McDuck and while previously his fighting was based on ingunity.. this time the little runt’s just out for blood and suprises the beagles with a clump of mud and then beating the shit out of them. When one of them tries to respond by wacking him with a piece of wood... he instead breaks a collumn and with the dreenan unable to handle the mud without it... the place starts to collapse. However our heroes don’t make it out unschathed as the Beagles capture them and the gold... for some reason. Seriously Scrooge dosen’t fight back or anything nor does angus they just.. let hte beagles overpower them. WHen Scrooge fully fought the grown ass men just a few mintues ago. What the actual hell. 

But we do get another Badass Scrooge Moment, as once hteir on the ship, Scrooge mentions another treasure.. which baffles Angus despite you know.. the boy clearly playing at something. Yeah whlie I do like Angus.. he can be grating in parts and here he just comes off REALLY stupid. But after being tortured by running on a boat, with the beagles mistaking Angus’ genuine confusion for being a bastard man, which naturally their impressed by, Scrooge fessses up.. and you can see exactly’s coming.. the sawyer raises the boat into the air and harpoons it. The beagles try to play off the port authority but scrooge unmaks those “infamous beagle boys”.. and thus names one of his greatest threats. Blackheart vows revenge while our heroes go for a sasparillia..though Scrooge keeps the money.. as he says the memory of that adventure is worth more than anything. As for the Gold, the goverment took it back, but did give them a reward, and Angus only dosen’t give Scrooge a share because he’d have to refloat it, but offers him a job and the dollar in two years at a bargin price. Alls well that ends well. A truly poetic way to end the chapter and prepare scrogoe for the next... TO BE CONTINUED...

FINAL TH...

Yeah.. as you probably know this is NOT the end of the chapter. Instead we go on for a bit more. And a few more pages would’ve been fine, to help bridge the gap.. we see scrooge get the Dollar at a bargin price as his uncle promised, though the deal turns out to be a bit of a lemon as the riverboat industry has dried up. But then.. we get a couple page adventure with the beagle boys, where the beagles try to steal the goverment gold scrooge is transporting, Ratchet helps him escape, and we DO get the utterly badass image of scrooge driving the boat onto land and it exploding and causing a massive flood> While that is awesome.. the pacing just takes a huge hit and it’s easily why this chapter is one of my least faviorite. It probably would’ve been better if they just had a passage of time montage of events at the start of the next chapter and ended on that bit before.. but instead it just goes on a bit and really tries my patience every time as instead of moving on to a bold new adventure.. we just get some filler to help pad things out so Rosa can get it to the right page length. I don’t blame him, sometimes shit happens, but it dosen’t make it any more fun to read.  So the Dollar is scrapped and Scrooge is back at the bottom with barely a cent to his name. But he’s resolute: since the river boating days were winding down anyway he’s going west to become a cowboy, and heads off on the Wabash Cannonball as a fireman, i.e. the guy who stokes the engines, to make his way there. So we end our story for now and again.. this would’ve been much better condensed but whatever. We’re finally done. 

Final Thougts

As you could probably tell but I saved for here, and I outright even said this is one of my least faviorite chapters and one of the weakest if not the weakest. Part of it is the structure issue I mentioned, but the other part is it just.. isn’t as intresting at least to me personally. The rest of life and times have pretty unique stories that while not removed from genres Scrooge stories have covered, use the story of his rise to make them really pop as we slowly see how the iconic Scrooge we know became the legend and what shaped him that way. Here while we get bits of that, it’s mostly just a standard uncle scrooge story but with him as a kid. It’s not a BAD one, it dosen’t drag the whole of life and times down and it’s servicable but it just feels a bit more standard for Rosa’s work. Still enjoyable, but nothing really spectacular like the next two chapters. On it’s own or as one of the side stories it would’ve been fine but as part of this huge sprawling masterpiece, it’s just a bit underwhelming and just makes me eager to get to the next part every time rather than really suck me in as much as the others. Again the pacing dosen’t help with that and only makes it drag further. It just dosen’t have the weight the other ones do character wise and as such just makes me want to get to part 3 already, which naturally that story within a story dosen’t help with. Overall while not a bad comic, I don’t think any part of life and times is truly bad, it’s still not a GREAT comic like what’s to come or what came just before. 

NEXT TIME ON LIFE AND TIMES: Scrooge heads out to the wild wild west.. though instead of a giant mechanical spider he fights some cattle rustlers and meets Teddy Roosevelt HELL. YES. 

Until then, happy holidays and later days!

[stargazerspringles]

Some sketches, so uhhhh a Circus Au? 👀 my apologies that these are so heccing off model I’m in artblock and I’m trying to keep drawing even if it doesn’t look 100% :’D [Majority of the story takes place in ‘reality’ not the ‘world of make believe’ through they will travel there, here and there for a fast travel around the world]

The idea around the Au is the whole crew; RGB, Melody, Dial, Toby, etc. all work on a pack up circus that travels the world. On a one night performance in down town Manchester, a little girl [Hero] decides to check out the circus since she’s never seen one before. Hero has been in foster care for a few months now [I haven’t thought out exactly why yet, just started working on this today :’D] curiosity left her to sneak out and see the big tent after hours, in which Tinker found her and asked hero where her parents are. After a short talk with her and learning the situation the whole crew heard tell of this and was like “Ok we are adopting this kid” But it was kinda up to RGB if it was a yes or no, (he’s kinda like the ring leader? The main director? My apologies I’ve never been to a circus before funny enough as it is) He was on the fence about it but accepted it as long as she promised to help out. And that’s really all I have- another fact is that the train from the desert plays a huge role in getting the crew to different places, it can kinda go in between the two worlds [reality and TwomB] acting almost like a nether portal for fast travel around the real world. 

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

me in 2012/2013 reading the first hunger games book because it was popular bc of the movie: ooh seems cool but super political so that’s not cool bc political stuff is boring and stupid and not something that i’ll ever have to understand. plus all katniss does is fucking whinge. she’s so whiny. it’s annoying. guess i won’t read the rest of the books or watch the other movies.

me now, in my mid 20s having finally watched all the hunger games movies, having read the first two HG books in full and still reading mockingjay, all because suzanne collins was like “oh hey here’s a new book about president snow!” and also thinking about how the world is practically in ruins by 2020: yknow what? suzy has a fucking point! of course katniss is whiny, teenage me, she comes from the poorest district in the whole of Panem; where wealth is basically non existent except for those who live in shops. the capitol loves to watch 24 kids die each year while they live in extreme comfort and fancy, whereas every district from 2 down to 12 are all slaves to the capitol: even if they have some better off people in the districts, that work for the army (district 2) or run the electronics factories in district 3 or whatever else in the other districts. besides the motto of Panem’s capitol being “breads and circuses” which are provided by the districts; which katniss and peeta meet in Catching Fire, at the party for their state media orchestrated wedding (Y I K E S™️ am i right?) where octavia (one of katniss’ stylists) invites both katniss and peeta to use some funny concoction to make themselves throw up in the bathroom to fit more of the overly decadent capitol food dishes into their stomachs. talk about “waste not, want not” somewhere else away from katniss; because she’s literally almost starved to death and seen others starve to death countless times in district 12. and surely you could’ve recognised the reference to “bread and circuses” at least, after fucking studying ancient rome for two whole fucking terms in year 11, teenage me????

in addition to the above, the victors of the hunger games are forever terrorised by the government via various means; and especially so if they’ve defied the capitol like katniss & peeta or even haymitch (though that isn’t partly revealed til halfway through catching fire and wholly revealed through haymitch in mockingjay). they torture peeta to insanity, basically and then seemingly “deliver” him back to katniss in district 13 programmed to kill her!!!! they parade the tributes like beauty pageant contestants and animals for slaughter at a cattle show in district 10; right after training them as killing machines for the arena, where they’ll exhibit their newly honed murdering skills before an entire nation each day. like girl!!!! there’s so much to relate to the real world in this text!!! but you’re just going to brush it off because it’s “too political” and because “katniss is a whiny bitch!!!”??? like of course she’s whiny! she’s 16/17!!! just like you!!! but you’re just an asshole. learn to empathise with other fictional characters that A R E N T harry potter and the cast of characters in that series, for fucks sake. or alternatively, learn to empathise with characters that A R E N T ellie linton and her friends in the tomorrow series doing their guerilla fighting during a war in australia. because by Mockingjay, katniss is as much a guerilla fighter as ellie is a rebel fighter against the enemy country that invades australia in the tomorrow series. like yes, the tomorrow series isn’t set in a futuristic american post-apocalyptic hellscape like Panem. but that doesn’t mean that the state war that’s fully raging in mockingjay and breaking out in catching fire, due to the quarter quell and the former tributes being recruited again to go through the Murder Olympics™️/Hunger Games again as a form of state sanctioned terrorisation on their psyches, and those victors becoming enemies of Panem due to them voicing their feelings of injustice about being forced to compete in the arena again during their interviews...... is not the same as ellie in normal but war-torn 1990s australia; where ellie and her crew of friends basically become state enemies because of their large scale guerilla activities like blowing up enemy ships and airfields. just like how katniss and gale blow up bombing airships from the capitol in district 8 with their bomb loaded arrows or blow up the military base with rebel army fighters in district 2 in mockingjay. but yeah. just learn to empathise and connect with/relate to characters outside of your incredibly limited reading palate.

moreover, 7-8 years into the future in 2020, the world is in political turmoil, believe it or not. maybe you’ll relate to katniss as you grow more tired of the aussie government forever penalising the younger generations by taking away penalty rates on weekend and public holiday shifts in an already terrifyingly precarious job market that’s become highly casualised/part-time based, which is pricing them out of the property market also, due to lower wages/earnings bc part-time/casual roles don’t pay very well. then on top of that, having a generation defining pandemic. then thirdly, also having the worst set of bushfires in 2019 and earlier this year, that saw like 55million native animals die and millions upon millions of hectares of bushland be burnt to the ground. finally, they’ve made your dream arts degree basically unobtainable due to raising the fees by 113% to $43,500 instead of the $23,000 that it was when i graduated from that degree in 2018. also if you fail they want you to pay your fees upfront instead of relying on hecs to cover it all. all because it’s apparently for “saving the aussie economy.” are you pissed now, teenage me?

across the seas in america, however, donald trump is leading the country as president and he’s turning the country you bizarrely loved more than your home country (due to all the american docos and teen shows you watched/were watching) into a fascist shitshow which is killing millions of people. like i won’t be surprised if donald trump (or even scott morrison/scommo/scummo) if he/they get/s another term in office, and tries to introduce a hunger games style olympic games or something all so the poorest classes learn their place after rioting for most of this year over BASIC FUCKING HUMAN RIGHTS FOR BLACK LIVES MATTER (even here in australia too); because the police are turning into the brutal peacekeepers of Panem, but on a worldwide scale.

like if they introduced some type of HG style murder olympics, they’d do it just to prove that they may have actually read something other than their own stupid self-aggrandising and country/state-destroying twitter rants before they post them.

[dracula-in-purple-story]

From Enemies to Friends

CHAPTER TWO

Author’s Note : All of this is ENTIRELY NON-CANON. I’m still working on my writing skills. Thank You and Enjoy, hopefully.

It was late at the dark, gloomy night. Most residents are deep into their dream wonderland. Some are doing their shady businesses. Unfortunately for the hidden residents of Inkopolis, there were no rest for them.

Multiple alarms blasted out in the massive fortress located deep in the forest of Mount Nantai. Most of the people emerged from their slumber quickly and get dressed before waking up those who are a deep sleeper. After they geared up, they immediately rushed to the nearest kettle in order.

Nicholas, who had just walked through the gate door of the main entrance, heard the alarm and, with a little bit of hesitation, dropped everything he was holding as he rush straight to the emergency kettle at the corner of the front garden wall, where it was hidden by flower bushes. He changed into his other form and swam right into it.

As soon as he emerged from another kettle, the place around him reveals to be an underground base. Full with equipments, gadgets, computers and weapons. He rarely went here ever since he became a co-guardian for his young master but he knew, for a fact, that this place is now chaotic. 

Half of the night-shift people are typing away in their computers and tried to keep track on their task or rushing around, while another half of them seems to be missing, but it soon replaced by bunch of day-shift people fully suited up and lined up right in front of an old but fitted lady, who aged pretty well for a 130-years-old.

“Nicholas, just in time.” the old lady said in a firm authority, “Before we address the situation here, how’s my grandson?”

Fond murmurs were heard among the people before got silenced by the glare from the old lady. Nicholas sighed in bliss, “He’s fine, Mistress! He is still the pure boy who worried over small things.”

She nodded in acknowledgement, smiling a bit, before broadcast a image onto the huge projector screen in front of them. A crashed unidentified flying object. Half of the crowd gasped. “Isn’t that a failed prototype of Thunderstrike? Why is it here?!” Suzuki, another co-guardian of Erek, speaking her mind out in fear. 

“Minale, come here and report on what the Scout Squad D had discovered, please.” the old lady said with simple directness. A three feet being, equipped with a large propeller helmet, zoomed right behind the crowd. “As you can see from the picture,” she started her report while landed on the table with grace, “a failed prototype military aircraft, Thunderstrike, crashed outside the city, with a corpse of a Mini Zapfish that was used to operated the aircraft. Bless its soul.”

“The Scout Squad D previously assumed that it was just a public test run from the underground Oct-”

“Wait,” Nick rudely interrupted Minale’s report, “what do you mean by ‘previously’?”

“It is where I’m trying to get to the point, Mr Nicholas!” she scoffed, “If I may continue, they thought it was just a test run until a power outage happen. It only last for approximately five minutes before the power came back.”

“Ten minutes before we activate the emergency alarms...” Minale continued along with a stressful sigh, broadcast the picture of Inkopolis Tower, “...the Great Zapfish is gone.”

This statement alerted the uneasy crowd as they scanned the picture. Indeed, the Great Zapfish is missing from its tower. The Mistress clapped lightly to gain their attention back to her. She nodded to the Scout captain who zoomed back to her post, giving out commands as she spoke to the microphone that wirelessly connected to the Scout Squad D.

“So far, the conclusion of the report is that Thunderstrike is merely a distraction tool in order to steal the Great Zapfish. Even though we all know that we got more than enough Zapfishes to supply our power source and they have other resources to generate power,” the old lady halted her talk for a few seconds, “why would they want the Great Zapfish for? Any possible answer? Or someone knows exactly why he would need it?”

The absolute silence is eerie until Suzuki shakily raised her hands. The old lady arched her eyebrows before nodding to let her answer. “Twenty years ago, I... I participated the project before I escaped, Mistress Octivia. He’s building some... sort of heavy spherical aircraft with some built-in turntables and mixers... along with some Wasabi supplies...” she gulped, “...the module were estimated to use large amount of energy... but Alivia and Alivia Jr helped me sabotaged the process before aiding me to escape that hell hole!”

“Calm down, dearest.” a tall figure, wearing a set of laser sight goggles, patted her shoulders sympathetically as she cried uncontrollably.

“Go calm your wife, Hayato. I fill in the rest of the details to you two later.” The lady in charge pardoned them as they walked back to the kettle. “Unfortunately, even with their best efforts in sabotaging, the heavy aircraft was built. If he manage to tame the Great Zapfish to do his bidding, Inkopolis is doom to be destroyed.”

“And as Octarians ourselves, we know how Octavio operated behind his DJ set. If we let that happen, we would be back to the starting point! Are you ready to oppose against the hypnotisation once more, my fellow friends?!” she shouted in a fierce tone.

“YES, MISTRESS!”

~~~~~~~~~~

Erek woke up early in the morning, the sky was bright and the sunlight shone through the windows. Lazily, he stretch his body as he get up from his bed and walked out from his bedroom. The birds were chirping and enjoying the cool breeze when he opened up the slide door that leads to the balcony. The dew drops were falling from the leaves of various flowers he potted yesterday. The sun was rising up from the clouds as he water his flowers.

Just as he walked back to his bedroom to take some clothes for his fresh debut, there came a huge knocking and loud ringing on the main door. 

“Must be the neighbours... Cod, I forgot about introducing myself to them yesterday!” the boy mentally slapped himself, “Coming!”

He rushed to the door, not before he tied his tentacles to Topknot, and opened it to see three inklings standing there. One of them, the cyan ‘inkling’ girl, looks familiar but he couldn’t pinpoint on where he seen her before. The middle one of the group, a pink inkling girl, decided to talked.

“Hello there, rookie! The name’s Callie Mac N! Callie for short. On my left is one of my Roller buddies, Mike!”

Mike, an orange inkling boy, raise his Octoglasses and rest it in his forehead, “Hello~!”

“On my right is our little floof of our humble crew, Jewel!”

The cyan girl smiled brightly, “Hewwo, I’m Jewel. Your neighbour at the corner over there! My mommy told me about your arrival yesterday. What’s your name?”

The three of them stared at him with excitement. Nervously, he scratched his head before replying, “Oh... uh... My name is Erek! Nice to meet you all! Want to come in? I’m about to change my clothes and start cooking breakfast.”

“Oh, great! Thanks, buddy. Don’t mind us crash-... WOAH!” As soon as they were welcomed into Erek’s home, they were met with the most freshest living room they ever seen. A bookcase full of the latest video games, a clearly expensive LED TV along with its loudspeakers, limited edition of Chirpy Chips poster with the members’ signature and, is that a freaking CoroCoro hoodie hanging on a coat rack that was supposed to be out in like, next year?

“Umm, guys? You have been standing here for a long time. I made some light breakfast so we could... uh... chat?” Erek, now donning the Starting Gears, was quite concerned about his new friends, who gawked at his living room quite a long time. “Is it weird? My living room?”

The trio snapped out of their daze. “What, no!” Callie exclaimed, “It’s just... woah! My daily earnings couldn’t even pay for this kind of luxuries! Let alone that hoodie! How did you managed to get that?! It was supposed to come out next year!”

“Next year? But I got it for my birthday three days ago. My friend, Kevin, who gave me that just said they have extras so... yeah!” Erek recalled a little. 

“Dude, you don’t actually mean Kevin, the famous trendsetter who just opened a company called Cuttlegear? That guy knows his stuff about fashion!” Mike gushed, “This Octoglasses? Automatically became my favourite headgear after he post some cool model pictures with them. And you know him?!”

“Yes? He works for my Grandmama and he take care of my wardrobe since I was young.”

“Wow! That is crazily fresh! Can I check your closet?”

“Mike, that is rud-”

“Sure, go straight and turn left, you should be able to reach my gear wardrobe.”

Mike cheered as he rushed to the location. Jewel facepalmed, “I’m sorry about my boyfriend.”

“It’s fine. I could give some gears away if he loved it so much. I was planning to buy my own clothes with empty slots anyway.”

“Wait, wha-”

“OH MY GOD! CALLIE! JEWEL! LOOK AT THIS! EREK HAVE SUPER FRESH CLOTHES! EVEN THE SLOTS ARE GOD TIER! I’M IN HEAVEN!”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Gramps, come on... pick up the cells already...” Marie is pacing around the studio. After her cell ended with the monotone message and a beep, she heavily huffed before looked helplessly at her cheerful cousin, which now have a frown on her face as she fiddling with her thumbs. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.” she plopped down to a sofa as Callie sat down nervously beside her. 

“It can’t be... he usually would answer us in a few rings. And now this happens!”

“It’s going to be alright, Cal. Once we finished our broadcast, we head straight down to Octo Valley to check up on him. He’s the strongest squid we have ever known.”

“I know, Marie. But, it’s Gramps we are talking about. Possibilities are limitless! What if his SquidCell is broken? What if he was kidnapped? What if-”

“Callie, calm down!” her cousin smacked her head slightly before caressing it gently. Callie pouted before surveying around the studio. The production team is a hectic mess. Bumping against each other frantically, papers are flying everywhere, the cameras are being thrown left and right.

“Squid Sisters? Five more minutes before we start the Inkopolis News!” a female show betta glided gracefully in front of the two cousins, pointing at her blue watch impatiently.

“Ms Betty!” the Squid Sisters immediately stand up and bow to her. “Sorry, me and Marie were-”

“I know,” Ms Betty halted the black inkling, “I’m not blaming you girls. This is probably the first time we have to broadcast this kind of news. If it weren’t for that Great Zapfish to go missing on us...”

“We understand, Ms Betty. We truly do.” Marie grimaced a bit before following behind their director. Once they arrived at the Inkopolis News Studio, they immediately went into position, just like they had been practised for the last few weeks.

“Don’t be nervous and follow the script. Add some colours into it like you are not reading whatever was written here, okay? That was what made this program famous for.” Ms Betty addressed, “We are ready in three, two...”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Man, you are a really good cook!” Callie complimented Erek as they finally arrived at the Plaza. Jewel nodded shyly, agreeing what she had said while Mike is burping loudly, “Yeah, you should totally teach me that recipe! I could cook for my babs and mother-in-law too!”

“Mike!” Jewel slapped his back softly. They laughed loudly at the interaction. Probably loud enough to cause four certain inklings to turn their heads to them. 

“Oh, you guys! Where have you been?!” a dark blue inkling boy with glasses asked. Callie shrugged it off when her new friend have a questioning look, “Those guys are the rest of my crew. From left to right, we got the ever so quiet Kitty,” she gestured excitedly to a lime green inkling girl who just waved before turning her focus back to her SquidPhone.

“Marcus, the ‘cool guy’ wannabe,” a purple inkling boy just flicked her some fingers before finishing his drink.

“Blitz, my roommate and another Roller Buddies,” the boy with the glasses offered to shake hands. Erek accepted it and shake politely.

“And Marlee! Our new member from last week!” a dark green inkling girl grinned at them.

Once introductions are done, Blitz pondered a bit, “I’m going to assumed you haven't watch the news, yes?”

“No. Why?” Mike asked back, “Are the news reporter some blacklisted musicians?”

“No,”

“Racist?” Jewel cautioned.

“No,”

“Famous enough to actually expect them to report Inkopolis News?” Callie guessed before squinting at the big window where the reporters would be sitting. “Well, yes! But it’s not the point right now! The content-”

“HOLY ZAPFISH, IS THAT THE SQUID SISTER?! I’M A BIG FAN! HEY CALLIE, WE HAVE THE SAME NAME!” Callie Mac shouted enthusiastically as she run up the walkway and squeezed her way through the crowd outside.

“Why do we elect her as the captain?” Marcus scoffed at her behaviour. “So crazy, that woman...”

“I’m a big fan as well... but not as hyper as Callie is.” Erek giggled. The crew laughed it off for a while. 

“So, back to the topic, what do we miss?” Mike questioned with a curious tone.

“You see, well,” Blitz looked at his clueless teammates, and a new friend, with a sense of guilt, “I don’t think we could participate this month Splatfest.”

The trio gasped. They were shocked, especially Erek. His first day of debut had clashed with a horrific news. The kind of news he didn’t expect to happen in the first place.

“Are you serious, mate?” Mike fretted, “We never ever have a Splatfest cancelled before! All they need is to postpone, like they did in that Pencil vs Pen Splatfest!”

“News Flash, brother.” the purple inkling roughly tilted his friend’s head up, the rest of them followed suit, “Our humble energy source had disappeared!”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Staaaay fresh!” was all she last heard before turning off the radio. Furrowing her eyebrows, Tres quietly packed her Splattershot Jr. Before she could even tiptoed towards the old, rotten door, she was hugged from the back. Usually, she would roundhouse that person who dared to risk their life to hug her but there are few exceptions, especially this little yellow figure behind her is her baby sister.

“Paula...” she turned around before kneeling down to hug her back, making the little inkling giggled silently. Tres smiled softly, “Go back to big brother, would you? Breakfast’s ready.”

“Annnd you are going to stay this time, Big Sis.” another yellow figure, slightly smaller than Tres, spoke sternly while pointing a pan to threaten her. Tres smirked a bit before running to the door. She was succeeding before her face got stuck. A freaking clear tape prank. 

“Cielo... Zona...” she pulled the tape immediately before screaming in pain, “Again?”

“It’s ya fault that ya makin this easy for us, Big Sis.” two small orange figures appeared outside the door. They laughed heartily at her before shrieked as their eldest sister hugged them off the ground. It’s not long before the rest of the siblings decided to join their group hug.

They settled down after they finally convinced their eldest sibling to stay back and properly eat her breakfast. Although it’s been a while since they have breakfast together, Tres still wolfed down her share of food. Diego couldn’t stand this any longer as he hit her softly but still painful enough with the very same pan.

“Eat it slowly, Big Sis. It’s not like the Inkopolis Tower is going to run anywhere.”

“I know but the faster I earn some cash, the sooner we can get the surgery to be done.”

“Big Sis...” the small twin-tailed inkling mumbled before she quickly snatched back her small bits of bread from her twin brother. The eldest grinned at this sight before excusing herself from the table. She pecked each one of them before heading out.

“Be careful not to overwork yourself, Big Sis!” Diego shouted. Tres halted her movement before glancing back at the eldest brother of the house. “I can’t promise that.”

She sighed before whispering, “Not when our dad have his life on the line.”

[moirathaurissan]

mika more like link-in park: playing / swag: activated / tummy: out / [she is forcibly escorted form the premises]

[wolfswitcheryanimations]

Mashup part 22 is out! Enjoy some good-olde sprinkles of the ever-harrowing fear of being a burden!

[ID: A picture of Nathan Chimes, a bluish-black robot covering his shoulders with a large blue blanket is talking to someone offscreen, text to the bottom right of the picture saying "Mashup pt 21 is out now!" End ID]

[ID: Second picture has some basic info on Mashup, saying "10 years after an event called the "Software Update" gave sufficiently sophisticated robots sapience,a whole crew of aforementioned robots, live life, drink coffee, play god, and fight each other" The webcomic is available on Webtoon Canvas and ComicFury. End ID]

Links to the comics down here!

[highvoltageindustries]

Had a fun week down South with the Bakersfield crew⚡️ @mark_the_lineman @jesstakeitez @jskittles #utilitypilot #bellhelicopter #hec #helicopters #helicopter #b407HP #longline #aviation #helicopterpilot #utilityhelicopter #shorthaul #humanexternalcargo #linemen #pilotlife Posted by @a_aron_hanson https://www.instagram.com/p/CbJE7jzPNAC/?utm_medium=tumblr