#I DON’T KNOW GUYS I JUST THINK HE’S ONLY GETTING COOLER AS EPISODES GO BY. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH 😭

[kelin-is-writing]

Can I love him any more than I already do? 😍

[atopvisenyashill]

imo rhaenyra’s “madness” being that of a cult leader capable of convincing her followers to do ostensibly insane things cuz she’s just that charismatic & self-assured in the correctness of her beliefs is way cooler and less sexist than the typical ‘she went crazy’ targ nonsense, "ohhh ‘mad queen’ daenerys she’s so crazy it’s that classic targ madness just like her ‘mad’ ancestor ‘mad’ king aerys you never know with those ‘mad’ targaryens" that’s so boring lol, give me something believable

YES i honestly don’t understand and have been increasingly annoyed by these really disingenuous “oh so when rhaenyra slaughters innocents it’s totally fine bc she has the divine right 😒” criticism when it couldn’t be more clear that’s not what’s happening. i mentioned this with the white stag before, how people are taking the most bad faith reading of it imaginable and saying that’s objectively what the writers intended when….it’s very clear the writers are intending for a more nuanced exploration of the entire concept of the white stag, YOU (general you, not you anon) are purposefully taking it in a negative way because you like being pissed off. what an obnoxious way of engaging with the story!

and i feel the same here! the main criticism i see of rhaenyra is that a) she’s not allowed to get her hands bloody/she’s always in the right and b) they’re making it seem as if she has the divine right to commit violence due to the prophecy. there is absolutely no narrative basis for these readings though, it’s COMPLETELY people projecting.

the reason she doesn’t do anything earlier in the season is because she also isn’t doing anything in the BOOK during this section because of her grief. i think criticism of HOW they wrote that is valid - the fact that she doesn’t speak at all in the first episode was a heinous choice, i get what they were going for, but it fell so flat that as Professional Writers they should have realized they were missing the mark there - but this constant “rhaenyra doesn’t get her hands dirty” “rhaenyra is too perfect” is so fucjing obnoxious. they’re ✨building up to it✨ guys, it’s why they did the stuff with Aemond not meaning to kill Luke and then actively attempting to kill/harm Aegon, it’s why the Green Council goes from squabbling to actively suppressing Alicent’s voice, it’s why Rhaenyra's convos with Jacaerys have gotten increasingly more angry, on and on. Sorry you all wanted Rhaenyra to be a Born Evil Queen, but if they’re not doing that with Alicent, why would they do that with Rhaenyra? "Oh they only had Jacaerys call the dragonseeds mongrels because-" my comrade in christ they took Alicent making the decision to lock the smallfolk into the city and gave it to Aemond to make her look better and make Aemond look worse it's the exact same thing and they're doing it because they're trying to have a conversation about the cyclical rot of feudalism and the way these people are completely trapped by their own design in this cycle of violence!!!!

and YES very much, this gets into point b which is like....THIS is Mad Queen Rhaenyra, THIS is Rhaenyra the Cruel! It's Rhaenyra holding onto this prophecy that gives her the divine right to be violent, that represents her father choosing her over everyone else, that represents her own worthiness as a ruler, that every single fucked up thing she's suffered is worth it because the fabled hero will come from her line, because Jacaerys will follow her onto the throne and there will be unending peace, because Viserys chose HER he loved HER he only ever loved HER, and she HAS THE RIGHT but what does "have the right" even mean. "oh they always portray her as morally in the right" NO THEY DO NOT YOU ARE MAKING THAT UP. Rhaenyra thinks she's morally in the right and the show is constantly making her face the consequences of her own actions, and showing that (again, and I cannot overemphasize this enough, just like Alicent, just like Viserys, just like Aegon, and while they do it sloppily with them, just like Aemond and Daemon!) Rhaenyra will close her eyes to the glaring faults of the people around her and the violence she is helping to perpetuate because to her in the end, all of this suffering has to be worth it and she has this fancy little prophecy that is showing her it is worth it. That's so interesting! It's fascinating! "Well I think she-" Well that's just your opinion man! I'm having a fucking ball watching her step closer and closer to the edge and insisting that she's staying still, she's playing safe, it's everyone else that is taking the leap. That's fun, that's engaging, that's a good way of depicting that dichotomy of how greatness can so easily turn to madness.

[hannicorpse]

ʚ♡ɞ hopelessly devoted to you : episode seven - fboys

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pairing : frat members yang jungwon x female reader

warnings : smoking, drinking, karina says the word fuck a lot

wc : 2k

preview : jungwon was always known as one of the more persistent members of the epsilon nu frat. so when he ran into you for the first time, he just knew he couldn’t get enough of you. even if you couldn’t be together because of your warring friend groups. but that doesn’t mean they had to know. right?

taglist ! @firstclassjaylee @13tter @yjwxfxr @nctislifue @yizhoutv @jwonistic @seunghancore @sol3chu @qettalos @unhakki @i03jae @gyuvision

from niya ; the song referenced is fck boys by blxst

just as promised, you were getting ready to go to the party hosted at epsilon nu’s frat house. or as they called it, the ‘traphouse’. you and karina always found that corny. nonetheless, you’ll still attend.

as soon as you walked out your dorm with ning, you saw the rest of your friends already waiting outside.

“i’ll drive?” you said, grabbing your keys before closing the door.

“i mean, you’re the only one who knows where it is.” aeri grimaced.

the final destination was not far from the girls dorms, but it was still far enough off campus that you wouldn’t be able to walk.

as soon as you parallel parked the car off the sidewalk, you led your friends towards the front door of the house.

“it’s so weird being here after so long.” karina mumbled, as minjeong, ning, and aeri admired the scenery in awe. “sometimes i forget that you guys have never seen the house.”

“i mean, we weren’t necessarily invited. like, you were heeseung’s girlfriend. and i swear sunghoon has been trying to get with y/n for ages.” minjeong pointed out as aeri agrees.

“seriously? i pretty much grew up with sunghoon. i can’t say he’s ever seen me like that.” you scoffed, before going up to the ‘bouncer’ who stood by the front doors.

“name?” he asked.

“y/n lee?” you questioned, assuming your name should’ve already been on the list. you ignored the complaints from your friends in the background as two random girls shoved past you, immediately being let in.

“there’s no y/n on the list.”

“you’re kidding. can’t you just let us in? i know sunghoon. mark lee is literally my brother.”

“nice try. you don’t know how many times i’ve heard that tonight. can you just tell me what sorority you’re in?” the bouncer says as he looks you up and down.

“alpha epsilon.” you groaned, growing annoyed as he turns around to make a call.

“i’m being told that no one from alpha epsilon is allowed into the epsilon nu frat house as of last year.”

“this is ridiculous..” you mutter, pulling out your phone to text jungwon.

barely a minute went by before your knights in shining armor came out from the house. “yo, what are you doing? they’re with us. did you even bother to check that exclusive guest list?” jungwon scolded the bouncer, as he tapped on the top of the clipboard, which clearly read your names on it.

sunghoon peaked his head out from behind the door, motioning for you all to follow him into the house while jungwon dealt with the bouncer.

“sorry about that. he’s a transfer student. normally we don’t hire freshmen but, duty calls.” he shrugged. “there’s a cooler out back, non alcoholic drinks in the fridge, and food on the island. welcome to the traphouse. didn’t think you guys would make it.”

“wouldn’t miss it for the world.” karina rolled her eyes with sarcasm, before waving her hand for you and your friends to follow her to the kitchen.

before you could follow, sunghoon grabbed your arm. “i got you a little something.” he winked, pulling you to a more secluded area.

you walked with him as he pulled you, but you turned around to look for your friends so you’d know where to find them later. at a party like this? they wouldn’t leave their spot. but you didn’t miss the way they all looked at you suspiciously, whispering amongst themselves. “they’re definitely fucking.” minjeong muttered.

sunghoon sat down on the couch, gesturing for you to sit next to him.

you put your head on his shoulder as he rolled a blunt for you, leaning into his warmth. “why aren’t you looking for jungwon?” he whispered teasingly.

your face fell. “who told you?” you asked, almost immediately dropping the lit joint he held out to you when you jumped up from your seat.

“riki.” he shrugged, taking a hit since you didn’t seem to do so yourself.

“he told riki??” you exclaimed in fear, running a hand through your hair. “this is bad. who else knows?” “just us. but i pretty much found out myself. you guys are really obvious.” he murmured, blowing the smoke past his lips before holding the blunt up to yours.

you took a long drag, blowing the smoke up towards the ceiling. “nothing even happened. all we did was talk. do you know what would happen to me if they found out? my friends already hate me for talking to you. what am i supposed to do?” you ran on, visibly stressed.

sunghoon grounded you. he was always good at that since you were younger.

“can you relax?.. this,” he emphasized the joint he held between his two fingers as he let you use it, “was supposed to calm you down, not rile you up. i’ll help you with jungwon. it’s clear you have a fat crush on each other. so don’t stress. and your friends? they need to learn the world doesn’t revolve around them and their feelings. you knew me before you met them anyway.”

“you.. you’re actually right. but, still. i’m just scared. i really have no idea what would happen if they knew. like, karina literally loses her appetite if you mention anyone in epsilon nu.” you sigh, allowing yourself to sink into the leather couch.

“your usual goods doesn’t seem to be working for you.” he teased.

“i’ve grown a higher tolerance for this.” you scoffed, playfully flicking his shoulder.

“i’ll swing by at lunch to drop off a new strain next week. we got some of that strawberry cough stuff.” sunghoon laughed. “stay here, i’ll be back.” he informs you, putting out the forgotten joint.

as soon as he left, karina and ning came up to you. “don’t tell me you’re fucking park sunghoon.” karina sighed in frustration, speaking through her teeth.

“i’ve said this before and i’ll say it again. he’s practically a brother! i’m not even interested in anyone right now.” you frowned.

“you can fuck whoever you want. but it can’t be someone in epsilon nu.”

“i’m not trying to?” you exclaimed in genuine confusion, almost anger. karina was ready to talk again, but immediately stopping herself, closing her mouth as sunghoon came back.

“we’ll talk later. come on ning.” karina scoffed. you watched as ning gave you an apologetic look, gesturing how bad she felt.

“karina seems to be on one.” sunghoon joked, attempting to lighten the mood. “how would you know?” “she doesn’t really talk when she’s mad.”

you stared blankly at him. “how would you know?” “seriously? she was here almost every day because of heeseung.”

sunghoon sat down on the couch with two red solo cups in his hands. he held one out to you, letting you smell it before you took it.

“gosh, that’s strong. the hell is this?” you grimaced at the alcohol stench.

“vodka. grey goose, specifically.” he smiled. “no kidding.. this is crazy. that’s like, 6 shots in one cup.” “it’ll definitely get you there. that’s what this is for.” sunghoon emphasized the other cup, raising it to show that it is half full with strawberry fanta.

you hesitate at first, but pound the vodka before immediately taking the chaser.

“that was terrible.” you coughed out.

“one more?” “..”

by the time the party was already over, you were crazy drunk. your friends were already waiting in your car. good thing you gave ning the keys.

sunghoon offered to walk you out, but jungwon came racing towards you to beat him too it. “nooo, i’ll do it!” he slurred, probably more drunk than you were.

“where were you the whole night?” you whined, as he held your waist to help you get up from the couch.

“sorry babyyy i was dealing with the guy that was giving you a hard time.” he chuckled, pressing his nose into your neck as you walked towards the door.

“thank you wonnie.” you smiled, before reaching up to cup his cheek.

you stared into his big and round eyes. jungwons pupils dilated as you looked at him, his cheeks flushing a rosy color.

his breath hitched as he felt you coming closer, before you eventually sealed your lips together into a soft kiss.

you could taste whatever he was drinking at tip of his tongue. you were practically leaning into jungwon now, so his hands held your waist to prevent you from falling over.

jungwon pulled away, licking his lips before letting you go, holding the door open for you.

“such a gentleman.” you laughed as you were stumbling over yourself.

ningning was waiting outside for you, ready to catch you and walk to the car.

“come on, you’re drunk.” she smiled, helping you settle into the car next to aeri, who gave you a neutral look.

“we’re never coming back here again.” karina sighed, putting the car in ignition before turning out into the road.

[sapphiretanto]

(CW: Ranting/Venting; the fic I am talking about will not be named, nor will I give the author’s name away. Please send me a message if you want to know)

Did we even watch the same show? He’s not a caring, big brother? He’s a stick in the mud?

The only thing I’ll give you is that he’s full of himself… because he’s an idiot teenager with badass fighting skills and weapons. Of course he’s gonna be a cocky little shit. Most people with Leo’s skill would be.

I’m going to assume that you mean part of the time he’s full of himself. But if you mean all the time, then I’ll correct you there. More often than not, he is actually very insecure— a very common trait among the Leonardo’s.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be leading the team?”

“It’s all my fault. I let the guys down!”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again”

“I’d just hold you back. You guys train, I’ll watch. It’s all I’m good for anyway…”

“I’m a liability to the whole team”

“I won’t be much help out there anyway”

Leo is a perfectionist and this shows in the way he leads— coming across as bossy or arrogant— and how he treats himself. The guy just got out of a three-month coma after he had the shit kicked out of him and what does he say when he’s by himself after everyone else went to look for Raph in the woods?

He holds himself to impossibly high standards— both placed by himself and some of the misguided lessons he was taught.

Alright, now for the stick in the mud part. Leo is a fucking dork (I mean this in the most affectionate sense). He loves Space Heroes to the point where he quotes it during missions. He likes puns, is fascinated by Japan culture, martial arts, meditation, etc. He trains very hard to excel at ninjutsu/martial arts— both so he can help his brothers in combat and because it’s a passion of his. That doesn’t make him boring in the slightest. He has some of the most ridiculous dialogue throughout the series:

“Alright guys. Let’s put Old Mother Hubbard back in her cupboard!”

“Hello!? Space Heroes!? Captain Ryan! Didn’t you see the episode where they fought the Cortexecons?!”

“Awesome! Oh, this is so rad! I feel like Van Helsing, but way cooler than him, actually. Way more rad than Van Helsing”

“Alright guys, prepare to dish out the mighty wrath of justice!”

“We don’t know he’s gonna do anything bad. He could be on his way… to… church!”

“I… don’t really have a pinky?”

He can’t lie for shit which leads to him saying silly things:

“Be cool. Be cool.” *answers phone* “uh.. hey man! What’s… what’s going down? *Raph says they better have not watched the Crognard finale without him and Leo laughs nervously* W-who, us?! Of course not! But I bet if we did watch it, we would have found it anti-climate… climactic!”

*gets asked by Chloe if there’s other turtles like him* “Nope! Uh-uh! Just me! Mr. Imaginary Talking Turtle!”

“He’s just kidding, Mrs. O’Neil. Kirby’s…uh.. on a.. safari! In Puerto Rico! And he won’t be back for a while.”

And he’s not the goody-two shoes and suck up people think of him as. He has gone behind Splinter’s back on several occasions, snuck out both willingly and unwillingly. The guy dressed in black and caused petty crime with his sister and her girlfriend Shinigami because he was pissed off at Shredder.

As for not being a caring brother. You mean this guy?! This Leo?! ⬇️

Couldn’t be this Leo, right? There’s no way he’s a mother hen— being both doting and getting after his brothers.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

“Mikey, you never cease to amaze me”

“Leo never left your side” — April when Raph was reduced to a mere plant by The Creep

“I’m sorry about Spike, Raphael.”

“Donnie, don’t lose sight of who you are!”

“Nice job, D”

“Donnie, the go karts worked great. Nice job!”

“Mikey, come on! It’s not that bad! And Raph promises not to make fun of you anymore.”

Not the Leo that uses all his strength and stays behind in the Technodrome holding Kraang Prime so his brothers and April can escape. Not that Leo who while just barely awake after a coma goes after a mutated monster in the woods to get his family back. Not that Leo who forced himself to stay calm so the others can be calm while they go through the most insane shit, or cannot grieve in the moment because he has to ensure the rest of their safety, so his focus during missions and battle is scattered in different places. Because he couldn’t possibly help bandage their wounds, worry when they’re hurt and not give up on a family member. Not Leo preventing Donnie from straight up unaliving Don Vizioso because Leo doesn’t want his younger brother to do what he did and change him like it changed him. He doesn’t sacrifice himself over and over because he loves his brothers, right? Right??

[attractive-nuisance-esq]

Ed’s journey this season is going to perfectly mirror addiction and recovery, and I am so fucking here for it. Watching these first three episodes of S2 was like watching a highly dramatized AU of my own descent into rock bottom (except everyone was dressed wayyyyyy cooler than I ever was), so I have a lot of thoughts, reactions, and insights that I want to share with other fans. I’m sure many of us who have struggled with our mental health connected with Ed in these episodes, but I think addiction is the most appropriate lens through which to view him because addicts (more often than people who struggle with other mental illnesses) so wholly destroy their own lives and utterly devastate those of their loved ones. I want to share - from the perspective of someone who has steered her own ship straight into a storm and woke up alone to face some very hard choices - what is going on with Ed at the start of this season and what I think is coming.

Let me start by saying that Ed isn’t literally addicted to any one thing, despite his heavy use of drugs and alcohol, but his goal is the same as that of all addicts: escape. He does not want to sit with the pain of Stede leaving him on an immediate, surface level; on a deeper, more habitual level, he doesn’t want to sit with the pain of his own self-loathing. Of course the two are related: the former brings the latter to a head. Stede abandoning him dredges up and brightly illuminates all of his insecurities, and now Ed has to run. Get out. Escape. Don’t think about it. So he is fighting, stealing, drinking, snorting, shooting, killing - whatever it takes to not think about it.

“Demon? I’m the fuckin’ devil.” People in recovery often talk about addiction as if it were a separate, sentient monster living within them. Ed taking on the mantle of demon - a creature known specifically for possession, for removing the host’s free will - is intentional. So is his insistence that he’s not just any demon but the demon. The worst there is. (More on that when we get to The Innkeeper.)

Izzy’s confrontation of Ed in the captain’s cabin and then on deck is a form of intervention. Izzy is trying to help Ed, but of course this goes terribly for him and for Ed because interventions (I cannot stress this enough) are maybe the worst thing you could do to an addict. All addicts know things are bad, but they cannot be pushed to change one single second before they’re ready. Ed knows things are bad. He’s well-aware of how he’s spending his time, how his crew feels about him, how disappointed Izzy is. Being confronted with all of those truths by Izzy was always only going to make him do two things: 1) dig further into his unhealthy coping mechanisms, never mind that they don’t have nearly the effect that they used to; and 2) lash out at the person who forced him to think about it. Izzy lost his leg the moment he stepped into Ed’s cabin.

The impossible bird. You guys remember the song Chandelier by Sia? The one about her addiction to alcohol? The whole thing may as well come right out of Ed’s mouth at the end of that first episode, because that experience is exactly what he’s trying to convey to Frenchie. Nevermind that Frenchie has the temerity to tell him the bird can’t exist, that it has to come down sometime, that flying forever isn’t sustainable. The bird can come down on its own terms, or crash… but Frenchie’s definitely not going to say that much. Still, “that sounds like something that can’t exist” hits Ed, and leads us to the next episode.

Now we’ve got Ed forlorn, heartbroken, almost catatonic while playing with his cake toppers. We don’t actually see him crying in the opening of the episode, which is the point. He’s done crying now. The impossible bird can’t exist, and Ed has already resigned himself to this. He’s decided to die. The only sure-fire permanent way to not think about it.

When next we see Ed, he seems to be doing better, but this is a huge red flag for anyone who knows to look. He’s giving away his responsibility to Frenchie; he’s cleaning the cabin for the closure. He knows the end is coming fast, and the relief that knowledge brings him leaves him weirdly at peace. It is he eeriest part of these episodes, IMO.

Then he goes to find his first mate, the person who knows him better than anyone else in the world, the man he just fucking shot and ordered killed. Ed needs his low opinion of himself validated, and of course he thinks he’ll get it from Izzy after everything he’s done to him. He wants the one person who has stuck with him through everything to confirm that he’s now irretrievably broken and no longer worthy of his love. Ed wants someone to tell him that he’s right: he should die.

He doesn’t get that from Izzy. Interestingly, Izzy doesn’t tell him he should die. He says “Clean up your own mess.” Izzy has learned the lesson now that Ed isn’t ready to get better and that he can’t make him be ready. (This post isn’t about Izzy, but hoo boy - I have big feels about that man.)

Ed has been indulging in various forms of self-destruction in order to not feel his feelings, and steering the ship into the storm is his worst indulgence yet. This is the worst of his crimes - not beheading or arson or a red wedding. It’s when he tries to bring down everyone who has ever loved him into his misery, into believing what he believes. The audience generally (and Ed’s audience of Stede specifically) can forgive him for hurting strangers and for the non-specific mayhem whose victims we’ve never met; but it is much less certain that anyone will forgive him for hurting the only family he’s ever known.

The storm itself is the perfect metaphor for Ed’s attempt on his and, incidentally, everyone else’s lives. One of the most common metaphors used by friends and family members of addicts is that of a hurricane: that their addicted loved-ones tend to destroy everything they touch, anyone who was foolish or brave enough to stick around. And, like hurricanes, addicts aren’t malicious. Ed’s primary goal here is to get himself killed, not to kill everyone else. He wants the ship to go down so his death is certain. His firing a cannonball into the mast and asking Jim and Archie to fight to the death isn’t malice: it’s utter and complete nihilism. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing and no one. The end is near, and he’s so fucking drunk and high off these distractions that he couldn’t think about it if he tried. He’s manic with relief. (See also: “Finally.”)

And now for the finale: Purgatory. Buckle up, because this is where the addiction analogy gets real *chef’s kiss.* Purgatory is the equivalent of the morning after the worst, most rock bottom binge night of your life. You wake up with no one for company but the ghosts of your former selves. Now what?

Well, first - who is Hornigold to Ed? Why is he the guy Ed sees? It’s because Hornigold is another addict, if you will, but one who is (in this Purgatory hallucination) farther along in his recovery. He can impart some wisdom from that place, but he can also stand in as someone Ed can loathe because they’re not as different as Ed once thought, even if Hornigold can say he’s grown.

Hornigold tries to give him soup. He tells Ed, “Gotta get these nutrients into you,” and then literally shoves soup down his throat. That’s what it’s like in rock bottom. You don’t want to take care of yourself, but some lizard brain survival instinct takes over and makes you drink water, eat a piece of fruit, take yourself to the hospital. These things don’t really happen voluntarily that morning after, but you can still count on that instinct to kick in with some damage control.

Ed telling Hornigold how he “got here.” Hornigold says “Mutiny. It’s always mutiny.” Ed insists his mutiny was special, worse somehow. This whole scene is exactly what happens in your first recovery support group meeting. You go in thinking no one has ever been as fucked and fucked up as you are, which makes you feel isolated and alone. But then you get there and everyone else in the circle has done the same shit, been through the same shit. Ed’s not actually the devil; he’s just another demon, like many demons before him.

Ed worries he’s insane when he reflects on everything he’s done. Hornigold’s reply that “Feeling bad isn’t going to rebuild an abdominal wall” is a concept that people usually learn a little bit later in recovery, so I expect we’ll see more on this theme from Ed. Guilt is a useless emotion that only serves to conversely make the addict feel better but doesn’t help the harmed party: the addict feels like their suffering is cleansing, but it’s not - feeling guilt is just more self-indulgence, more self-destruction. Hornigold - a fellow addict in this moment - is trying to get this lesson to him early. It’ll return.

“You’ve got to move on or blow your brains out.” We’re getting back to Purgatory as the metaphor for the morning-after rock bottom, because this is the exact calculation that every person in recovery has done. They all had to answer that one big question. Your whole life is a mess, and you made the mess. Do you want to clean it up? Or quit? (Or make some soup? Yeah. That big question can’t be answered without basic needs having been met. So let’s eat. Let’s start there. It’s easier.)

Now we have Ed’s fantasy about opening an inn: This is also a common part of the morning-after rock bottom. You start thinking about the wrong turns you took, the mistakes you made, the way your life was supposed to go and all the reasons you’re not where you wanted to be. (And all the people you can blame for the fact that your life didn’t go as planned.) And when that honest part of yourself starts telling you that actually it’s all your fault… well, a) you don’t wanna hear it, and b) you can’t silence (kill) that monster, no matter how hard you try. You’ve got to face it. Face all those truths you’ve been running from for years. Now you have to think about it.

So now the big question, the inevitable math. Hornigold suggests looking at the pros and the cons. That’s the easiest way to break the calculation into manageable variables. This is probably my favorite moment of the episode, because when you’re sitting there, morning after the worst night of your life, everything is fucked - these are the exact variables that go into your equation. Do I really want to live? You ask yourself that, and because your life is in fucking shambles, you come up with the stupidest goddamn reasons to keep going. You wanna see the next seasons of Good Omens and Loki. You wanna eat your mom’s spaghetti again. Sometimes it’s nice when someone hugs you. It’s never the big things that save your life; it’s a bunch of the littlest things. The smallest comforts. The big things… they’re too unattainable. They’re too much to hope for, and they’re more than you could possibly deserve. What are the pros of living for Ed? Warmth, good food, orgasms. This is a stunningly accurate representation of the things that will keep you alive once you’ve hit rock bottom.

And then the cons: “I don’t think anyone is waiting for me.” This is why addiction is the better metaphor. There is no human experience more isolating than addiction. You are alone in more ways than you’ve ever been before. You have pushed away or pissed off everyone who ever cared about you. And even the ones who will maybe still be there for you - they can’t help you clean up the mess you’ve made. You have to do the work alone, even if they’re still willing to stand next to you. And this con… it’s the scariest one. Your list of little pros looks so pathetic next to the horror of being utterly fucking alone. Who is going to brave that for some stupid shit like Tom Hiddleston sexily flipping his hair back in that Loki way he does? Why should Ed carry on just because blankets are cozy and marmalade is pleasant?

This is where we get to the moment on the mountain, and what Stede represents. Hornigold tells Ed “You’re unlovable, and you’re afraid to do anything about it.” Ed could do two things about being unlovable: He could try to fix it, or he could end it all. Hornigold represents the worst part of Ed: his weaknesses and cowardice. And if Hornigold is in the driver’s seat, he’s going to end it all. He throws the rock off the cliff, and Ed gets dragged down into the water to drown. (Let’s also talk later about how often addiction is compared to drowning, and how nothing else in the show actually threatened Ed’s life - not Izzy with a gun, not all the rhino horn, not Jim’s cannonball - like drowning in his own mind.)

But then there’s Stede. Stede is how the pros win over that one big, horrifying con. Stede is hope. Stede is just a glimmer of hope. Hope is the most important thing you need in the morning-after rock bottom. As much as I enjoy the idea that it was love that saved Ed, I don’t think that’s a wholly faithful interpretation. Because Stede’s love for Ed doesn’t solve anything, doesn’t fix anything - it certainly doesn’t fix Ed. It cannot fix Ed. Hornigold just told Ed that he’s the one who has to “do something about it,” because Ed is the only one who can save himself. But even if Stede’s love for him in itself isn’t what saves Ed, Ed’s trust in Stede combined with that love gives him hope. Stede loves Ed, truly loves him, came back to him even though he knows Ed’s nature, knows his list of crimes, knows what he’s done to Stede’s friends and family. And maybe Ed can find in himself what he trusts Stede truly sees. It’s a “maybe,” not a certainty. But it’s hope. Someone loves him. Maybe he can love himself, too.

This Woman’s Work: I read this song as referring more appropriately to Ed’s relationship with himself, in no small part because Ed literally made himself the woman in the cake topper couple. All the things that should have been done, should have been said - they’re things Ed needs to do and say to himself. He’s got a little life and a lot of strength left. The journey has just begun.

I want to pop back quickly to a few other moments in The Innkeeper that resonated, starting with Stede and Izzy’s discussion about what happened to Ed: “He went mad. He was a wild dog.” Izzy describes Ed’s breakdown as if he was no longer the same person he once was; this is exactly what addiction does to a person. Ed hasn’t been himself; he’s been held hostage by his need for escape, and he’s become something else. Possessed, if you will.

Izzy: “You and me did this to him, and we can’t let the crew suffer any more for our mistakes.” I’m not writing an essay on Izzy (yet), but this is a very interesting perspective that says a lot about Izzy. Stede and Izzy both owe apologies to Ed, but they are not responsible for his actions. I predict we’re going to see this theme explored in later episodes as a part of Ed’s healing process and recovery. And also hopefully in Izzy’s growth.

Frenchie’s line that “We’ve been living second-to-second for a while now” is a callback to the impossible bird idea. Which, again, is just Chandelier x Sia. “I’m holding on for dear life, won’t look down, won’t open my eyes, keep my glass full until morning light ‘cause I’m just holding on for tonight.”

So what’s next? For me, it was learning to sit alone in a quiet room with my thoughts. It was apologizing to the ones I hurt, because even if I didn’t mean to hurt them - even if I was suffering also and worse - they still got hurt, and in the end it didn’t matter why. It was developing the habit of liking myself, and acting on whatever self-love and affection I could conjure up. And yes… it was new seasons of Good Omens and Loki, my mom’s spaghetti, and hugs.

So I think Ed has a lot of accountability, reflection, and breaking of old habits in his future… but also warmth, good food, and orgasms. And good for him. That’s the beauty of recovery: we get to come back.

[rewordthis]

So I just watched the last episode of Wind Breaker and I’ll say one thing only; if you haven’t watched it yet, GO!

It got green-lighted for 2nd season for 2025, too!

I’ve been seeing activity about it around tumblr, and to be honest didn’t think much of it, but it’s good. It really is good. I’m already looking forward to 2nd season~ 😋

But right now I want to talk about something I didn’t like. Minor complain but, hey! My post, my rules!

You see…

Sometimes I have beef with the translations for niche things and sometimes it’s because they’re plain stupid…

Like, I hate how Umemiya says “do you like or hate him” here (specifically referring to Togame, あいつ, and actually stressing on the ‘like’ part in the next scene because Sakura tried to stand up for him) and Sakura just full out blushes like his crush has been found out (and he’s doing that a LOT! Trust me~ He’s a tsun, fun little guy <3), but the translation is just this generic line that sounds creepy af on top of detached from the person it refers to (すき is a word that is generally used as ‘like’ as in I like pasta, but for humans it heavily implies liking someone like that, because when mentioned it refers to the love side of the meaning) and it’s so… hmpf~ 😤

Sakura-chan seen through and through~ And he’s not even trying to deny IIIIIIIT (for once)!!! (//∇//)

And this has struck a chord, you know? Because Sakura is a tsun, he’s not accepting that people have seen through him but that’s the only case he does not say anything to deny it. He does not try to deflect. He merely blushes furiously but quietly accepts Umemiya’s statement before he asks what’s so important about being able to ‘converse’ with his fists like… _(:3 」∠)_

‘Yeah, I like him. Let’s change the subject… Why do you care?’

Umemiya’s explanation that this has to meet two conditions in order to happen is… making things even more personal… hhhn~ a) you need to face your opponent and b) to want to know them (and Sakura did thought that during their fight; anyone else getting flashbacks from all those shojo/bl manga this has been used as the catalyst for the mc to acknowledge their feelings, like I did here??? huh???). Ahem. Yeah…

Then the whole thing about how Sakura is still capable of accepting others, even though he says he doesn’t… (Nirei pointing out that he’s been accepted by Sakura even though he’s not strong enough to hold a fight on his own, is a proof of it.)

Not to mention how the only thing he could come up for punishment was “get cooler so I’ll want to fight you again”, coming from a guy who’s literally considering fighting his entire damn personality and reason to exist! ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ You like Togame, you accept him (even though you absolutely thought the worst of him at the start), and I dare say he’s even the first person you ever really came to like and your feelings were actually reciprocated — he had an impact in you the way he called your name and invited you to resume your fight — that you were thinking back to it, you also like how he’s stronger than you (you reflected back on how you’d actually lose to him if he hadn’t given up… come on, tell me I’m wrong if you can, I’ll wait~)… Joke’s on you, Sakura-chan~ (☝︎ ՞ਊ ՞)☝︎

Btw, I know Sakura-chan! What’s there not to love about Togame~ 🤗

Man made me emotional completely out of the blue, kudos to the studio and everyone that worked on this anime and especially these couple episodes. 🩶👍

Right, anyway… if you know me I’m here for the plot first and foremost but a port has many gates so… hehe 🤭

Also, I don’t know how I was under the impression that Sakura was a libra but the wiki had his birthday on April 1st, along with a couple more characters being Aries and I’m like… bro, that’s why the brawls… THEM BRAWLS!!! 😅

[poppitron360]

Wait. I wanna hear you Will Solace headcanons

Okay so be prepared for these to be wildly inaccurate because all I know about this guy is from fannon. Most of this is also me projecting.

1. Bass player. Yes that is 100% biased, as I am also a bass player (and I hc myself as a legacy of Apollo). No I have no basis on this claim other than Basses Are Just Cooler Than Guitars.

2. OR he’s the guitarist, Nico is the Bassist.

3. If there is a piano in the house, he WILL play it. For hours. Gods forbid you take him anywhere with a public piano.

4. Hates learning Music Theory, learns by ear and by feel. As an Apollo kid, he can instantly read both tab and sheet music, but uses neither.

5. Also has perfect pitch (can name any chord just by hearing it).

6. He’s a Star Wars fan, right? Can talk for hours about John William’s use of Lydian Mode in the score to convey a sense of majesty, and don’t get him started on the expert use of Vagnarian methods of leitmotif-

7. Okay, so maybe he knows a little music theory.

8. Writes terrible poetry that’s low-key kinda good.

9. Founder of the chb LGBTQ+ club.

10. Bisexual flags everywhere. He always at least one pink, purple, and blue pen on hand, doodles exclusively in those colours. His doctors notes are colour-coded pink, purple, blue.

11. BIG supporter of Trans rights- is qualified to help with Gender Affirming Healthcare for anyone at Camp.

12. Apollo is also god of prophecies. Will has the power of foresight ONLY for TV show/Film/Book endings. He is able to predict how a character would die with incredible accuracy after one episode. Morbid as fuck, so naturally Nico thinks it’s the hottest thing ever.

13. SWIFTIE!!!!!

14. Friendship bracelets. VERY swiftie-coded, he has a million of them on both arms, cutting off his circulation.

15. Paints Nico’s nails. Nico insists on all black, but gave in and let Will paint ONE nail fun colours, bedazzled with charms and shit. As long as it’s the middle finger.

Now, specifically my Will x Leo (Platonic) headcannons:

16. Will and Leo become very close at camp simply because Leo has absolutely zero sense of self-preservation. Like that kid does not value his life in any way at all, and so always ends up doing the most reckless shit ever, and, naturally, ends up spending a lot of time in the infirmary, usually only after being dragged there by Jason (“What’s the big deal? It’s just a broken arm. I’m ambidextrous! Besides, I’ve survived worse.”)

17. Will loves him because he’s never there longer than he has to be.

18. Except sometimes he does have to force Leo back into bed while Leo’s yelling loudly about how he needs to get back to his work, the Argo II won’t build itself, and to let go of him or he’ll burn you.

19. Will makes him wear enchanted plasters (band aids) that he can’t take off without doctor’s permission, to stop him absent-mindedly picking at old scabs and bits of skin. He also keeps fidget toys and stress balls to give to his patients. Leo has stolen ALL of them.

20. Like seriously, it is a problem. Leo has had to make them a whole bunch more fidgets because he’s taken and then overworked them until they all broke.

21. Both their southern accents come out more when they talk to each other. If a conversation goes on too long, they evolve into using so much fast-paced Texan slang that no-one else can understand them- it’s practically its own language.

22. BOTH SWIFTIES!!!!!

23. Leo helps out in the infirmary a lot- he’s useful if you need to sterilise equipment or cauterise any wounds.

24. It works sort of like an exchange of favours, where Leo also calls on Will anytime he needs a human flashlight to work on a project.

25. Leo has a lot of scars from his rough childhood. Will is one of the few people (aside from Jason) who’s actually seen them all. They never talk about it, and, as his doctor, he’s sworn to secrecy, but some of them are really disturbing. It will never not shock him that demigods can get hurt by things in the mortal world.

26. Leo makes sure Will uses accurate engineering jargon when writing Star Wars fanfiction.

27. Aside from Leo, Nico is the only one who reads his fanfiction

[nanuk-dain]

Generation Kill Research Results

We all know that there's really specific stuff in GK that only those who were there would know, much of which we get in the books Generation Kill (Evan Wright) and One Bullet Away (Nate Fick).

I needed some more intel for my fics, so I went hunting for all the things RL Ray said about GK relevant topics on reddit. The result is a list of all his comments, from radio frequencies to how exactly he got burnt by Rudy's stove to the MRE components and the truth about the Zeus attack and what colour the PT shorts of Recon guys were.

The list has been vetted by @bookishdea to make sure that there's no personal info about the RL guys in there.

It's sorted by topic: weapons/equipment, radios/comms, beanies/uniforms, officers in Recon, Humvees, MREs, Humvee arrangement/Reporter, Zeus attack, explosion of Rudy's stove, Captain America's name, invasion, Recon training/conditions of OIF, Ripped Fuel, First Recon, Afghanistan/Ray's Marine Corps career, characters/people career background, paddles, GK production, float tapes.

I hope you find interesting stuff in there. I originally made it for myself, but since the effort went in already anyway, I figured I could share it with those who don't want to risk coming across RL Marines infos, but who might still profit from the GK-specific infos.

- all intel are responses of RL Ray (plasmata) on reddit in various subreddits, collected 23. Nov. 2023

- Q = question asked on reddit, A = Ray's answer. There's not always a question supplied, just where it's necessary to understand his answer

weapons/equipment

- At the time most of the Marine Corps was still using the M16s and M249 (SAW). Recon units were one of the first ones to get M4's and Para-SAWs (carbine versions of the M249). So, folks like officers and regular support folks were still carrying their standard M16, while 0321 Recon Marines were carrying M4s.

- Q: I was rewatching GK (again) and I think it was episode 2 when Rudy and Pappy took out the RPG team. I don’t know what the sniper rifle caliber is called I would think it’s a .338 laupa because that was standard sniper rifle of the Marine Corps.

A: No. It was an M40 A3 which shoots a 7.62x51mm NATO round. It is essentially the same thing as a .308 They are based on a Remington 700 and modified by USMC armorers. Anyone that went to sniper school would shoot that rifle. Recon marines go to sniper school. Those who didnt would still crosstrain on range so they werent totally ignorant to the weapon.

- Q: Why do some of the men in the 1st Recon Battalion have no attachments on their M4 ie Q-Tip, Christenson, and Ray, while others like Brad, Fick, Fruity Rudy had optics and grips?

A: Because some people think that having that shit on your weapon makes you look cooler. It is all personal preference.

- Q: I've always wondered if the real Brad rocked that PVS-17 the whole time like his character did.

A: He sure did. It is an easy way to always have NV handy without having to have something strapped to your fucking head all the time (PVS-7's).

radios/comms

-Q: In ep 2, right after the ambush scene when there is a radio check, whatdo the "up" numbers mean? (up 120 and up, up 700 and up, up 200 and up..etc)

A: It is a short way to indicate status. "Up" means we are all good and no one is injured or dead. IIRC the number indicates rounds of ammo left.

- Q: In the ep 2 episode intro somebody says: "All Hitman Victors, be advised, we are rolling freaks to TAC 1-1-9 at 1400 Zulu. How copy?" I understand everything expect "rolling freaks". Any ideas?

A: It does mean "rolling freqs" which is shorthand for "Changing radio Frequencies."

As you have seen in the series, the military communicates using radio's. As a security measure, everyone changes to a different radio frequency at the same time at set intervals. Lets say that the enemy was able to steal/capture a US radio. Then they would be able to listen in on all our radio conversations...this is bad. So, just in case that happens we all change frequencies (along with crypto fills and other things) so that radio only has value for a very limited time.

This is definitely also combined with crystallographic signature changes as well as something known as frequency hopping (SINGARS) for additional security.

- Q: So how would the teams be able to keep up with the new radio frequencies? Are they passed by runner or is a CYZ used?

A: They are typically pre-planned in a "comm plan" (communications plan). If a radio were to come up missing then they would change the comm plan and distribute however they could.

If you look at the HMMWV windshield next to Brad Colbert in the series you will see a clear acetate with something printed on it. That is a cheat sheet of the comm plan.

- Different types of radios are capable of different radio bands. Most of what you hear in GK is all VHF (ground plane) band radio traffic. The vehicle radios and the handheld ones do VHF. Different groups have different "freqs" (pronounced like freaks) or frequencies that they use. Just like the FM radio in your car, you can tune into different radio stations by changing the frequency. Bravo 1 is on 95.7 Hot Country....and Bravo 2 is on 103.3 Smooth Jazz. You are always switching between the different freqs to talk to who you are supposed to be talking to. So, my personal radio may be set to be on Bravo 1's channel, but the vehicle may be set to Bravo 3 and then another guy may have his set to the Alpha channel. Just like setting the presets in your car, you can do that on these radios as well...so you can quickly switch between them.

The reason you also hear pilots in some of them is that some radios are UHF (line of sight) band to talk to pilots. The small handheld radios were both VHF and UHF radios so we could do things like call for fire missions and give the pilots our 9 lines.

Com plans utilize multiple channels across different spectrums (HF, VHF, UHF, Satellite) and many types of radios that have different spectrum capabilities.

Dude, have you never played with walkie-talkies as a kid...hahaha. You know someone is talking on your freq because you hear them. Only one person can talk at a time on any radio channel. You can only be "tuned" to a single frequency at a time. There is a very rigid etiquette when using radios to keep things clear and efficient.

We switched from the 77's to the AN/PRC-135 in 2002 (1st Recon Bn).

The 135's would do HF freq hopping, auto antenna tuning, and directly take crypto fills. But, the best part was they had a detachable face with an extension cord; so you could seal up the radio in your ruck (waterproofing and all). Then you would have the radio face in your front deuce gear to control the radio if you needed to switch freqs or something.

Edit: I just realized that I was talking about the 104's not the 77's. Yeah, late 90's the 77's were replaced by 119's.

beanies/uniforms

- Part of it is real (the black beanie's) and the rest is done by David Simon. The real part is that we all wore black beanies. It wasn't breaking any rules as they were allowed, but most other units frowned on wearing them unless in private. We did all wear them everywhere and it kind of became a “thing” that the recon guys are the ones in beanies.

The David Simon/ Ed Burns part is the rest of the scene. I think they were trying to explain to the audience who Recon Marines were and used Trombley/Espera to do that. It was a wise choice as neither Trombley nor Espera were Recon Marines at that point…which he mentions in that scene.

It followed the PT uniforms we wore also. The Marine Corps wears “green on green” shirt/shorts. Recon’s official PT uniform is “black on black”…so if you see guys PTing in black you know they are Recon Bubbas.

officers in Recon

- A little late to the party, but there is no such thing as a recon officer. The "Reconnaissance Man" MOS is 0321 and is only for enlisted marines. Godfather was not a recon marine...no officers are.

1st Recon is comprised of many that are not recon marines; support personnel like motor T, communications, navy corpsmen, intel, etc. Officers that are platoon/ company/ battalion commanders are typically Intelligence or Infantry officers.

- Q: Not trying to correct you as you were there, I definitely wasn't... but Fick mentioned he went through BRC in his book. I guess maybe some officers go thru BRC but retain their MOS whether infantry/intel/whatever?

A: Rarely, some officers do go through BRC/ARS; but even if they do they still never are recon marines and are never in a recon team.

- Platoon commanders for Recon are kind of in the rear with the gear...they don't go out with teams. They typically command a ROC (Recon Operation Center) and provide support and are a liaison between the team and higher-ups. They feed the teams direction (via radio comms) and take intel and generate reports (again via radio comms)...but they aren't with the teams.

Humvees

- Q: If I may ask...were you guys ever told why you weren't given closed-top humvees (except of course the lead vehicle).

A: Because we didnt' have them. The HMMWV's we got were Army surplus ones we scavenged.

- You don't go to war with what you want, you go with what you have. Everything has to be adapted on the fly...which is what happened. Everything in war is a calculated risk with a margin for "acceptable losses". Were we lucky? Sure.

MREs

- Q: In ep 5, when Ray is making MRE cookies, would that actually work? If so, how good could those actually be?

A: Yes it actually works. The sugar will melt and crystalize in the creamer which makes it solid and like a cookie. When you haven't eaten anything other than MREs for months straight they are good.

PS2: Ray seems like a good guy to have drinks with in a bar.

I agree...but I am a little biased.

- Point of clarification: These aren't really MRE's, they are just components of an MRE that can come in different MREs.

Personally my favorite MRE was the Beef Stew. It came with a pouch of Beef Stew, Jalapeno Cheese, pack of two crackers, and something like Skittles. It also came with a little packet with things like Folgers Crystals Coffee packets, creamer, salt/pepper, wet wipe, etc.

There were 24 different MREs in a 12 pack "A" or "B" case. Each had a different main meal and then accessory packets that included things like Peanut Butter, Regular Cheese, Jalapeno Cheese, Crackers, "Bread Slice", Charms, Skittles, Lorna Doone Cookies, M&M Cookies ("Cookies with Pan Coated Chocolate Disks"), Nature Valley Granola Bar, Strawberry Milkshake, Pound cake, Hot Cocoa Mix, etc, etc, etc.

The GK time generation of MREs were fairly new at the time and included new meals like "Bean Burrito", "Cheese Burger", etc. There were quite a few that were in the previous generation like "Beef Stew" and "Minestrone Soup". Probably the absolute worst one was "Pork Slice in Jamaican Style Sauce".

- It was a common tradition in Brad and my old platoon to stash fun things to share amongst the team at fun times. Like when your team is all wet and cold and hasnt really slept for weeks then you bust something fun out to share…it is a great pick-me-up. My favorite thing to do were king size snickers bars.

Humvee arrangement / Reporter

- Q: Who sat in the passenger side rear seat before the reporter came along?

A: No one. We determined who was in what vehicle right before the invasion..so we knew we had to fit Evan in somewhere. He really wanted to be with Brad and me...so there he went.

- Q: Why?

A: Because we're awesome. Honestly it was because he was told we would be the go-to team (because of Brad and me) for any special fun missions and he didn't want to miss out on those. That and I think he liked our dynamic as "characters".

- Short answer is because that is where he chose to be. For this war the US did something interesting in allowing for journalists to be embedded with the military units for the invasion. There were a ton of journalists that came and got a briefing on different unit types so the journalists could pick where they wanted to be. There were three journalists that after hearing what Recon was and that we would be a combat unit (so you may get shot at if you go with them) picked to be embedded with 1st Recon.

The three journalists then came to where we were staged in Kuwait and met with the BN Commander (Godfather) and were then briefed more specifically on who we were and what our role would be during the invasion. After that briefing two of the three journalists decided they didn't want to kick it with us...pussies. I do remember one of them was some guy with Men's Journal.

Evan then started hanging around us and learned that our team would likely see the most action and be at the front the most...so that is where he wanted to be. After a few nights in the tents hanging out with us he decided that he wanted to be in our vehicle as he liked our "characters" for his story.

Evan, in retrospect, would frequently say he's not sure whether he was more brave or stupid/naive to embed with us for the invasion. After each firefight/ambush he would say that he was going to leave...then we would tell him to stop being a huge pussy...so he kept going.

Zeus attack

- Q: Was Trombley actually just sitting there observing like he did in the film? [note: about Zeus attack]

A: Yes and no. Lots of people were kind of looking. I was the one that jumped up and observed the gun firing to find its location. I then called Walt up to the MK-19 to walk him in on target while calling in CAS via rotary wing at the same time. I got a Navy Achievement Metal with Combat V for that action. Interesting the series got it wrong on that.

explosion of Rudy's stove

- I didn't set my face on fire, Rudy set my face on fire…hahaha. That was all healed in just a few weeks like it never happened…I heal fast. It is a common joke amongst my friends that i am Wolverine because of my rapid healing.

- Rudy was heating water for coffee. It didn't explode. To use diesel fuel in those stoves we would preheat the fuel tube with a hexamite tab. Hexamite tabs turn to gel when they burn. Rudy was carrying the stove outside and some diesel on the outside of the stove caught fire in his hands. He then dropped it and the hexamite splattered off it all over my face. Burning gel all over my face

Captain America's name

- Yeah. A little into the invasion he went running into these mud huts with a fixed bayonet. I was sitting in my HMMWV with my team watching him run in and made the comment “This guy thinks he is Captain America!” We all started calling him that afterwards. To not embarrass the guy publicly they used it in the book and film instead of his real name.

invasion

- Q: Given the might of US military and Nato forces, could the invasion have been planned better? Maybe take more time to get there instead of the confusion and rush?

A: There was a plan and it worked pretty well. Our unit was only one small part of a much larger machine so you don't get to see the overarching thinking behind the entire invasion, you just see a tiny tiny part of it. Two quips that sum it up nicely are "Speed is far more effective than a plan" and "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face"

- Q: Why weren't tanks and armor part of your group specially when entering hostile town?

A: Because they were needed elsewhere and we were essentially probing the battlefield so the commanders would know where best to direct the invading force...including armored units.

Recon training/conditions of OIF

-Q: How do you cope with the constant dangers and lack of sleep, food and hygiene. Most people would operate at lower levels under these circumstances and make mistakes. Was there something you guys did that made things better?

A: You fight how you train. We were used to little sleep, food, and hygiene because that is how we always trained. So, when it came to war we were already very comfortable and used to operating in that condition. Same shit, different day.

- All Recon Marines have the same MOS...0321. There are team roles such as Pointman, Navigator, Slackman, RTO, Assistant RTO, Assistant Team Leader, and Team Leader. Every Recon Marine is expected to have held each role to be well rounded. You may be the RTO in one team and then a Navigator in another.

All Marines (not just Recon Marines) are marksman and have to qualify just the same. This is independent of their MOS. Every Marine is a Rifleman.

Nearly all Recon Marines have gone through Sniper School...this is nothing super special.

- Q: Though I did do underwater football with a few of the Recon guys for PT a few times. That was a pretty brutal game. Put a plastic chair in either side of the deep end of the pool (12'+ at Flores) and put an underwater weight between the chairs in the middle of the pool. Line up 5 guys on either side. Dive in on the mark and try to get the weight into the seat of the chair opposite of your side. Tap if you need air, usually you get released pretty quickly... After a second or two. And that was about the only rule. Underwater everything was game. Grabbing, choking, ripping off masks...and it was a brutal workout. You'd be sucking wind after a few goals.

A: When I was in we played a lot of "Underwater Soccer" which is basically the same thing just without the chairs. Two team on either side of the pool and a weight (either a 25lb bar weight or dumbbell) in the middle on the bottom. Your team gets a point when you touch the opposing teams wall with the weight in hand.

The other game I used to love was the "Whistle Game." In this game a metal whistle was thrown into the middle of the pool. It was every man for himself. You had to grab the whistle from the bottom of the pool and rise to the surface and successfully blow it. If you did then you got to get out of the pool. Everyone else keeps going. It was one of the "Pays to be a winner" games.

- Another fun side note: We used to play a game called "Tap-Out Pass-Out" in which we would ground fight (think Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) and the only rules were no eye gouging. The game was only over when someone would pass out or tap out. While Rudy is/was an amazing standing fighter, he wasn't great on the ground. I am very good on the ground and would always beat him, much to Rudy's chagrin. Because of that Rudy began to diligently practice and improve his ground fighting, so I don't know if you should mess with him on the ground now.

Ripped Fuel

- Q: Ray, how much Ripped Fuel have you had?

A: Believe it or not I only had 2 the entire time. Two were issued to each marine as part of a med kit. The rest was just swallowing Folgers Coffee Crystals that came in the MREs.

First Recon

- Former B Co, 1st Recon Bn 0321 (1999-2003) checking in. 1st Recon was a Battalion in 1990? It was a Company when I first got there (I was in 2nd Platoon - 1st Recon Co)...then it changed into a Battalion a year or two later.

Afghanistan / Ray's Marine Corps career

- Question: Were you on this float? What did you do before joining 1st recon? Did you go to Afghanistan?

Answer: Yes. I was a pipeliner, so I was always always at 1st. I did go to Afghanistan. I was in 1st Recon Company, 2nd platoon on this float. It is the same platoon as Brad Colbert but I was in a different team.

- You can petition to "try out" for recon. If you pass a screening (run by Recon Marines) then you typically go to a "RIP" platoon (Recon Indoctrination Platoon or something like that) to be weeded out if you aren't able to hang. From there you go to a Recon MOS producing school (ARS or BRC) and if you pass that course then you become a "Roper" until you pass the unit Indoc. It isn't just jump right in.

- Q: I guess that means you went fleet grunt first then tested into recon yeah?

I enlisted 03XX then got 0311 out of SOI, then was picked up by recon at the graduation of SOI.

A: I am a fellow pipeliner. When i went in, 0321 was a secondary MOS (circa 2000)…so I was an 0311 with the secondary of 0321.

- Q: What year did you graduate boot camp? Company? Platoon?

A: January 2000, San Diego, Mike Co., Plt 3014

- Q: The 9/11 attacks solidified my choice in enlisting. At the time, I was a Sophomore in HS. 3rd period Geometry. Where were you?

A: Sitting in a pub in Darwin Australia (it was night time there) on libo. Shore Patrol comes running into the pub screaming for everyone to get back to ship (15th MEU on the USS Dubuque). Get back to ship just in time to see the second tower fall on tv. Go to drunken sleep as we set sail for Pakistan (Bravo Platoon, 1st Recon Company).

- He [note: Ray talking about himself] picked up Sgt. before he got out through. Fellow B Co 1st Recon alum. Yut Yut.

characters/people career background

- First Recon Bn is not just Recon Marines...it includes all the support personnel that are needed for a unit as well; like Armorers, Motor T, Intel, Supply, Communications, Admin, etc.

Jeff wasn't a Recon Marine; his MOS was Motor T. He was a Motor T Marine assigned to First Recon. We loved Jeff because he was super pessimistic and hateful. When Darnold was shot and medevac'd out, Jeff filled the vacancy in Kocher's team.

- Capt. Eric Dill was our Recon Platoon Commander during Afghanistan and can be seen in Part-8 @ 11:42. His/my platoon is the one that he handed over to Fick after we got back stateside.

- One thing to note is that Fick wasn't with Recon during Afghanistan...he was an Infantry Platoon commander. Afghanistan is where Fick became buddies with our current Recon Platoon commander, Eric Dill. Dill convinced Fick to come over to 1st Recon after getting back from Afghanistan. This is also where we "found" Garza, Leon, etc and convinced them to come over from the infantry to become Recon Marines.

- The first casualty was Darnold in Eric Kocher's team. He was shot in the forearm when we drove through an ambush. This is the scene where Walt was possibly tangled in the electrical wires and I believe it shows a HMMWV monster-trucking a car. Dirty Earl (Jeff Carizalez) then took over for Darnold in Eric's team.

paddles

- Paddles aren't just a Recon thing...they are generally a boat team thing...which Recon guys are amongst. Honestly, it varies as to who would get one. Some think that only other Recon Marines should get them...others think that support guys should too.

Typically the size of the paddle matters. The bigger the paddle the more senior/experience/loved the guy was. When I was in the small novelty paddles were for thank-you's to folks. Regular 4 foot paddles were for solid Recon Marines that were liked. Large 6 foot paddles were reserved for guys that had been there a while and were exceptional.

GK production

- David Simon (the guy that did Gen Kill) was really the instrumental piece to making it what it was. Early on HBO was going to have someone else do it...and it was straight up fucking Michael Bay style. David wanted real Marines to be able to watch the series and see not a single thing wrong with it; from the dialog, equipment/uniforms, actor body types, mannerisms, etc. He gave us a hell of a ton of leeway to just "be ourselves" so he could have that in the series.

I got involved early on when they were working on the scripts to make sure the slang and jargon added was Marine Corps specific and current. Even the radio chatter in all scenes was written by real Marines...all the pilot sides of radio chatter (like when calling CAS) was recorded by a real FAC.

All the actors were put through a two week "How to be a Marine" course. From how to wear their uniforms, how to carry their weapons, hazing motivational physical exercises, etc. One of the biggest problems was all the actors wanting to do exactly what Rudy Reyes did on set; and Rudy lives in a comic book so it wasn't all exactly accurate.

In one of the episodes, the Oscar Award winning Director (different episodes had different directors) was going to have guys flying when shot like you see in the typical movies. After the Marines on set (Eric Kocher and Jeff Carizalez) told her that was not real and she did it anyways; Eric and Jeff started just making comments like "This episode is going to fail fucking miserably", "Wow, this episode is going to suck balls", "This is the worst fucking thing I have ever seen"...as you already noticed, those scenes were redone.

float tapes

- About the Float Tapes: OMG!...these videos are gold. Watching through them now. I have already seen Gabe Garza (Part-3 @ 1:04 far right) Tony Espera (Part-3 @ 7:50) as they were both with that infantry unit at the time.

- I had never seen these so it is fun to relive this float. In Part 4 when they are doing the "Steel Beach Party" he has a part where he films guys playing hacky-sack with "Black Shirts = Cool AF" on screen. The black shirts are Recon guys (everyone else has to wear green). In that shot are Eric Kocher (in the green flight suit) and Larry Shawn Patrick (tall guy with sunglasses on) along with some other brothers. There were 22 Recon guys total on that float in 4 teams. I haven't seen me or anyone from my team in the videos yet.

- Part 36 @ 3:17 is Rudy Reyes, a guy i forgot his name right now in the SERE shirt, the blond guy to his right (James Klepel /was on my team), and the guy that walks in behind Espera (Luke Meister / also on my team).

Real Evan Wright intel (twitter) about GK

camera

- Reporter's camera was a Leica m6 50mm, analogue (film, not digital)

Manimal

- Anthony "Manimal" Jacks usually wore his teeth and was a serious person who spoke to me a lot about his family & his concerns about doing right, if we crossed the border. Being "Manimal" was sort of a character he played to amuse people

MRE crates

- As is clear in this photo, Holsey, too, could scarcely contain his joy that I was taking his picture. Note: he's seated on an MRE crate. Those are like general propose chairs and tables in the field, like "apple boxes" in the film industry.

[multifandomfanficss]

More Than I’m Willing To Lose Part 1

Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Featuring platonic!11th Street Kids

Adrian Chase Masterlist

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Prompt: After Project Butterfly, ARGUS decided to make some new additions to the team. You and Adrian have been secretly, hopelessly in love with each other for a year now, but are unaware of the other person’s feelings. Tired of waiting for Adrian, you decide to go on a date with someone else that doesn’t end very well. This is Adrian x GN!Reader.

Warnings: Reader injury, mentions of vomit, gun violence, panic, hospitals, cannon typical Peacemaker violence and language

A/N: So funny story…I’ve actually had the first two chapters of this in my drafts since last August because I was afraid if I posted them I would never finish the fic. A year later I actually wrote two more chapters, even though this was originally only supposed to be three parts. The chapters are done, but are still going through some proofreading and light changes. I’m gonna post a chapter once a week. The original concept for this story was to write what I called at the time “the ultimate hurt/comfort”. The concept I started with was based on an episode of Criminal Minds, but it expanded overtime. I hope you guys enjoy!! ❤️🧜‍♂️❤️

You were happily kicking your feet back and fourth at the table waiting to be let go from the debriefing. After everything went down with the butterflies, ARGUS decided it would be best to expand their small Evergreen team. You were the first addition. They had planned on adding more, but after a year you were still waiting on a big enough mission to present itself for you to be assigned more muscle. Truth be told Harcourt, Adebayo, Vigilante, and Peacemaker could handle themselves. You were great help in the van when Economos needed it. An extra hand was always needed on computers and medical needs. You weren’t a fighter, but you still found your place on the team.

“What are you so happy about?” Adebayo asked in a chipper tone.

“I have a date tonight.” You say blushing. You hadn’t been on a date in a long time. Truth be told, you were holding out for a certain team member of yours, but you feared Adrian would never get the hint and ask you out, let alone even have feelings for you, so you were doing your best to move on. He sat up a little straighter in his chair and stayed uncharacteristically quite, but you didn’t really notice. You were preoccupied by thoughts about your date and questions from your teammates.

“You got a date? Who would wanna date you?” Chris laughs. You roll your eyes.

“A really hot guy! Who’s much cooler and better look than you!” You laugh back at him. You know he’s just teasing, but you can’t help, but feel just a little hurt. You push down the feeling.

“Where did you two meet?” Leota asks.

“At a bar. He walked up to me and we started talking. It was mostly about work, but I didn’t mind listening to him. His job sounded super interesting.” You tell them.

“What do you mean you talked about work? Your job is a secret.” Adrian finally spoke up.

“Well he actually did most of the talking. He doesn’t actually know anything about computers so I just rambled on about coding. He thinks I work as a computer specialist at Best Buy.” You laugh. Adrian’s face stays deadpan.

“What does he do for work?” He asks.

“He’s a lawyer, I think. I don’t know. I can’t really remember what kind of law he specializes in.” You say, hoping to end the conversation. His eyes bore into you.

“Well that’s very exciting and I hope you have fun, but not too much fun. We have to all have to be here at 9am tomorrow.” Harcourt reminds the team. Everybody groans. The meeting ends and you start walking to your car, but Adrian stops you.

“I don’t think you should go on that date.” Adrian starts.

“And why not?” You ask.

“I just have a bad feeling. I don’t think this guy is who he says he is. You barely know anything about him! What if he’s some sort of criminal?!” Adrian begs you to not go on the date. You can’t help, but begin to bubble with anger. This is the first date you’ve gone on in over a year thanks to Adrian and he doesn’t want you to go on this one and the only reason he can pull out of his ass is his stupid intuition? No. You’re going on that fucking date.

“I’m not who I say either. Does that make me dangerous? I appreciate your concern, but I’m going on the date, Adrian.” You say, before leaving him in the parking lot.

Maybe you should have listened to him. The date was nice, but if you were being honest you did feel like he was hiding something. You pushed down the feeling though because you knew you were hiding something too.

Your date Jack was nice enough. He paid for the date and walked you home. It wasn’t until you got home that you felt not just uneasy, but scared. You were walking up the stairs to your door when you heard a clicking noise. You worked around guns enough to know exactly what that sound was. You slowly turned around to confirm your suspicions.

“What are you doing?” You ask.

“Shut up. I’m the one asking the questions.” Jack says. You nod, feeling your breath catch in your throat. It isn’t often you’ve found yourself in trouble like this, but on the rare occasion this did happen your team was always there to keep you safe. Adrian was always there to keep you safe. A tear slipped down your cheek at the thought of Adrian. He told you not to go on this date and you didn’t listen to him. Now you were never going to see him again. “Where is the Task Force X headquarters?” He asks.

“What?” You ask.

“Come on, dumbass! I know you’re on their team. You’re going to tell me everything you know, including who Vigilante is and what you’re currently working on and you’re going to tell me quickly or else you’ll never see your team again.” He rambled, stepping closer, gun pointed at you.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” You cry and play dumb.

“You should really get better security on your home computers. Your computers at work are fine, but the second you got home and pulled out your little laptop, you were mine.” That’s when you stop dead in your tracks. You always do your work from headquarters. Always. Except for the day you worked from home sick.

“I don’t really need you. I could just take your laptop. I just thought this would be more fun. After all, the thrill came entirely from stringing you along. Burglary isn’t really my style and I didn’t really feel like taking the time to hack into your laptop. You were so eager to go out with me too. I barley had to ask.” He laughs before pulling the trigger. You feel a sharp pain in your shoulder and you fall to the ground with a scream, at least you think you screamed. You can’t hear anything over the ringing in your ears. You can’t move. All you can do is cry. You feel hands all over you, searching your pockets. Your keys are taken from you as you watch Jack break into your house. As quickly as he’s in, he’s out, laptop in hand. He’s got what he needs and now he’s going to leave you to die. The ringing starts to go down and you start to feel hands on your body again. You try to move, but cry out in pain. You clench your eyes shut in both fear and pain.

“Please don’t touch me. Please. Please get away from me. Please don’t hurt me anymore” You beg. You don’t know who is above you, but you just hope it isn’t Jack or whoever he may be working with.

“Shhh it’s gonna be okay. I’m here. It’s me. It’s Adrian.” You hear his calming voice and you open your tear stained eyes to see him above you in his Vigilante suit. Your steady stream of tears turns into sobs. You hear footsteps approaching quickly and you start to hyperventilate.

“Peacemaker!” Adrian calls over his shoulder. When you realize it’s just Chris you calm down a little. “We need to get them help.” Adrian says, voice quivering.

“What happened?” Chris asks in shock.

“You were right.” You cry out, taking a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have gone on the date. You were both right. Who would want to go on a date with me? I should have known.” You hiccup through your cries. Chris stiffens.

“Hey, don’t talk like that! We need to go get them help.” Adrian says. You let go of any tears you were previously holding back.

“Please don’t leave me!” You cry. Adrian weaves one hand through your hair and the other holds your cheek as he lightly brushes his thumb across your skin.

“I promise I’ll never leave you. Peacemaker’s gonna go get my car.” Adrian promises.

“I am?” Chris asks.

“Yes, you are dude.” Adrian says, tossing him his keys. Chris runs a couple blocks to the car.

“I’m sorry.” You whine after your sobs subside a little.

“Why are you sorry?” Adrian asks.

“I didn’t listen to you. I should have listened to-“

“No, it’s okay. It’s not your fault.” Adrian cuts you off. Your eyes start to feel heavy.

“Hey, stay with me. Stay awake.” He shakes you lightly.

“I’m so tired. Adrian, I’m so scared. Am I going to die?” You ask him. You think you might faintly hear the car pulling up.

“No, I’m not going to let that happen. Peacemaker’s here. We’re going to take you to the hospital. This is going to hurt, okay?” Adrian asks. You nod and brace yourself, but when he picks you up you don’t think you could have prepared yourself for that kind of pain. You scream and grip his arms, chest, neck- anything you can hold onto.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Adrian rambles out a spew of apologies. Chris hits the gas pedal as soon as you are in the back seat with Adrian.

“I feel like I’m gonna be sick.” You whine.

“It’s okay. You can get sick if you need to. I won’t be upset with you.” Adrian secretly cringes at the thought of you throwing up in his car, but he knows you can’t help it.

“Actually can you try to hold it in because if you get sick, I’ll get sick and I can’t drive and throw up.” Chris requests. Adrian gives him a death glare from the rear view mirror. The two speed to the only hospital they know they can go to, the hospital they all went to after the final fight with the butterflies. The staff is less than happy to see Vigilante and Peacemaker walk back in, but they already know what the two men look like under the mask and the helmet, so it was the safest place to go. When you arrive you’re immediately placed on a bed and rolled away.

“No, I need him! Please!” You scream as you’re hauled away from Adrian. You don’t know wether to call him Adrian or Vigilante because your consciousness is slipping and you can’t remember what he’s dressed as, you just know you need him by your side. The nurses hold you down.

“Don’t move. You’re going to make things worse. He’ll be in the waiting room until you’re out of surgery.” The nurse promised. It broke Adrian’s heart to hear you cry for him and not be able to run to you, but he knew if he interfered that it would only take them longer to help you. The truth was he was scared too. He had never been this scared before. He had never felt like this in his life. He realized he was now also on the verge of throwing up.

“They’re gonna be fine.” Chris promised, placing a had on Adrian’s shoulder. He wasn’t 100% confident, but Adrian didn’t need to know that.

By the time you woke up, the whole team was there and Adrian was in his street clothes again. You saw everyone standing outside the waiting room talking while Adrian slept in a chair with his head against your mattress. You couldn’t really understand what they were saying so you just tuned them out. Instead you focused on Adrian’s breathing and his soft messy curls. You traced each curl with your eyes to calm yourself.

Outside your room the team was talking about you and, little did you know, Adrian.

“I’ve never seen him like this before. I’ve never seen him care so much about someone.” Chris starts.

“I thought he didn’t have emotions.” Economos questions.

“Everyone has emotions, even Adrian.” Adebayo added.

“It’s true. I’ve seen him cry before.” Harcourt added her two cents. They all give her a look.

“But can we at least agree he’s being MORE emotional than usual?” Economos asks. They all nod.

Back in the room you decide to start playing with Adrian’s hair. He jolts awake, only to realize it’s just you and he relaxes into your fingers. He then fully realizes it’s you again and practically jumps out of his seat.

“You’re awake! I’m so thankful that Peacemaker and I were patrolling that area and heard the gun shot. Never do anything like that to me ever again!” Adrian exclaims.

“I’m sorry.” You apologize.

“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t do it again.” Adrian sighs, taking your hand in his. The rest of the team must have heard your conversation because they start to shuffle in.

“Hey, kid.” Chris says softly. You always hated that nickname when you started to work with the team, but you had grown to love it. It was given to you because you were the youngest on the team. You were a few years younger than Adrian making you over 10 years younger than Chris.

“How are you feeling?” Adebayo asks.

“Not so hot.” You make an effort at a laugh. You grip Adrian’s hand a little tighter unintentionally and he gives your hand back a squeeze to remind you he’s there. It’s hard to feel all of the spotlight on you. You can’t help, but feel like you’ve fucked up badly. John shifts uncomfortably where he stands.

“I’m gonna head back the van. I’ll be on coms when you get what you need.” Economos starts to head out.

“What do you need?” You ask.

“Could you give us some privacy?” Harcourt asks for the room. Chris and Adebayo leave to stand outside the door. Adrian reluctantly stands up, but you don’t let go of his hand. It’s embarrassing how you hear your heart monitor increase at the thought of him leaving you again. Harcourt must sense or literally hear your panic, despite trying to keep it down.

“Chase can stay if you want.” She says. You nod and he sits back down. Your heartbeat falls into a steady pace when he starts to rub his thumb against your hand.

“I need to ask you a few questions. They might be kind of hard to answer, but it‘s very important you answer them to keep yourself and the rest of us safe. You can take a break at any time.” She tells you and you nod. The first questions she asked were about Jack’s appearance. It was easy to describe hair color, but when you had to go more into detail it almost felt like you were back there with him. Your heart monitor increased again. You felt a tear slip down your cheek. You avoided looking at Adrian. You should have listened to him when he told you not to go on the date. You then went into detail on what he was looking for and what he asked you. By the end you were crying so hard you could barely get out the words.

“I think they should take a break.” Adrian told Harcourt.

“No, I have to keep going.” You told him.

“No, you don’t (Y/N). You can take a break.” She tells you.

“I have to keep going. It was my fault. First I didn’t check to make sure my connection was secure on my laptop and then I went on a date with him even though you said I shouldn’t. I should have believed you and Chris. Why would a guy like me? It’s my fault. He said I made it easy.” You cry.

“It’s not your fault. Chris was just being an asshole. You are worthy of attention from guys. It’s not your fault you try to see the best in people. Hell, I wonder what you see in me and why you’re my friend everyday.” Adrian says. Truth be told you see much more in Adrian than you’ve ever told him. You think you might love him, but you know you can’t say that. You can’t handle the rejection right now.

“I’m going to go out to the van. I think John’s got something.” She informs you. You forgot they were wearing coms and you weren’t. It was odd to not have their voices in your ear.

After everyone is gone you look back to Adrian.

“Hey Adrian, can I ask you a favor?” You ask.

“I’ll do literally anything for you.” You smile at him.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to…” You trail off, embarrassed by your request.

“What is it? Whatever it is, I’ll do it.” Adrian says, very adamant on helping you.

“Can you lay in bed with me and hold me?” You ask quietly. He smiles.

“Move over.” He instructs you as he helps you settle into the other side of the bed. He takes off his shoes and slowly climbs in, sliding his arms around you. You place your head on his chest so you can hear his heartbeat. You start to drift off to sleep to the sound of his heartbeat and the feeling of his chest rising and falling with his breath.

“I promise I’m never going to let anything like this happen again. I’m going to keep you safe. I’ll make this right. I love you.” He says as you fade away. He must have thought you were already sleeping. You would respond if you didn’t feel so heavy. You’re not even sure if you heard him right. You could just be high on pain meds. You probably just imagined it.

[identitycrysys]

OH BTW SINCE THE OTHERS ACTUALLY NEED AN EXCUSE TO GO

Mage and Ziffer i mean ziffer i mean zipper i mean ziffer i mean Zypher went back to game. Neptune was dragged along sorry he comes back every once in a while BECAUSE HE STILL HAS A JOB. sorry chronically online guy. also sorry vamp and cerb ur husband and wife are gone. Lantern gets a break

(,,,,,,,Yes he brought the flowers)

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Avian is. Probably in the hospital. If that exists (im so sorry avy you’re going to have to befriend Pyx instead)

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Alchemist went back to the cave since Dialtone finally moved back to his cabin and it doesn’t take such a long walk to get there and back. Cloud is htere too. Sorry dialtone. Atleast there’s a lower chance of a fire AHAHA haha hahaa. ha. (looks left, looks right)

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Anger is just. Locking herself in her room for some reason. Sorry sunshine your gf is . Not happy

,,,,,Not for any reason in particular! Not for any reason in parti

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Bow’s(the cooler one) bothering his wife. No need to go deeper on this

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Skeleton’s going through the Horrors. None of you will get any context. Other than he remembered something. lol (GLARES AT SOUP)

Oh yeah and thanks to SOMEONE IN MY DMS YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE he now has the snas head !! Feiar is going to love this when he comes back i justf know it

,,,,for the room thingy, (hi soup) you get to choose whatever room you want them to stay in if you want to skip that interaction because i’m pretty sure by the time i come back zombie has FUCKING LOST IT so!!

room from 100 bc or something. the two or ATLEAST SKELETON dusted everything off. good as new !!!!!! (ignore the rats) (the breadbox is still there)

. empty room. Atleast one of them tried to bring furniture. ther es is only one bed. sorry zombie. skeleton is kinda restless when eep. that or skel won’t sleep at all

The. Other one. You don’t get to pick this. Skeleton visits it sometimes A LOT

you dont have to skip it if you don’t want to

@zombie-an0n just in case you DON’T see this

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Drama is. Having a depressive episode probably. Sorrh mimic

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Moon’s sleeping her ass off . Sorry sun your platonic gf is taking another unnecessary break

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Surfer and his brother i mean brother i mean totally uncool guy he is not related to are just. Chilling

,,,,,,Surfer is being forced to do farm work. Do with that what you will

(someone else is going to be in control of the two now)

(also hi to you know who. you may give others the username if you want to. ill probably have the surfer design by then if my lazy ass don’t catch me)

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characters that DON’T have accounts that I can remember off the top of my head i think

Therapist is. Just fucking around in Sarah’s palace. So is crowneater

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Laine (worst name i think i’ve ever given a character ever sorry lai)fell into the lake. He lives there now. Waterboy

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Robber & Rational (no, not reason. hitting you with a rolled up newspaper lily) are. Also chilling. ,,,,,,,,,Someone’s being forced to take their meds sorry robber,,,, Least Pam gets a break

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Affie (used to have account) is busy. Making gifts for no one ever. She just makes them and has them stay there. Whoever visits her is welcome

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Durian(IM SO SORRY I NAMED YOU AFTER A STINKY CANCER FRUIT) is worrying about why he can’t leave. No need to look into this. No need t

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Jinx. Already said this. Stuck in his room again LOL LOL L BOZO

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CHARACTERS MENTIONED THAT AREN’T MINE

sorry for the tags lol

@sh4tt3rg1rl vamp, cerb, sun somewhere, dialtone

@theautumnaldemon or @/mod-autumn (forgot pyx tag)- Pyxel , Pam and Stranger (if I mentioned them anywhere)

@courtjesterrr sunshine, mimic, some other irrelevant guy

tagging you for another reason but don’t tell anyone that wink wink wink smirk wink

@crazy-into-you sarah, arrows

@zombie-anon zombie. i can’t remember if i named someone else sorry

im like 100% sure i missed someone else sorrh for not tagging you

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I LOVE YOU ALL !!!

[butchyblues]

right so i started good omens last week and since then i’ve seen it at least four times and i have some THOUGHTS about season 1 episode 6

forgive me if they’ve been said in better ways before (spoilers obviously)

so

the ineffable body swap is, i believe, the moment that is most revealing of aziraphale and crowley’s relationship dynamic, and, more importantly, their true thoughts about one another.

zira-as-crowley is self assured, suave, and cheeky as anything. he never falters and takes every opportunity to be a smug bastard without actually being mean-spirited. (he also looks fairly pleased with himself, as I imagine it’s the most directly aziraphale has been able to rebel in front of people that aren’t crowley - living vicariously through the freedom he perceives crowley to have… but i’ll get to that later). It’s obvious how many of the little details about Crowley he has memorised: the slight pout, his pensive eyebrows, the way his eyes go full yellow when he’s stressed or excited… he even attempts the walk for a bit, though I think Crowley may have been practicing that for millennia. This in itself shows how much love he has for crowley, the hours he’s dedicated to being with, seeing, absorbing this person he’s found kinship with. The thing that’s most devastating about this, though, is that he is clearly imitating what crowley is like around HIM. when they’re THEM. Crowley interacting with the other demons is snarky and a little smug, yes, but there’s a tension that hangs on him whenever he’s near hell or his coworkers that clearly is never present when he’s with Aziraphale. Zira gets to see him at his most relaxed, his most assured, because Aziraphale makes Crowley relax, and this is the version of Crowley he’s actually spent time with. Of course, there’s also a hazy layer of heart eyes in making Crowley a little cooler, a little softer around the edges, because that’s how Aziraphale sees him.

And, of course, as I said earlier, he sees Crowley as free. Damned, sure, but to Zira, Crowley gets to do what he likes when he likes, without the constant fear of heaven’s wrath on his back. This is a flattening of Crowley’s actual experiences and trauma with heaven AND hell - fallen doesn’t mean you don’t mind that you fell, of course, and we as the audience know this - but we have to remember that Aziraphale is currently in the grips of religious conditioning stronger than any, and he still has the threat of potentially falling. I don’t believe he registered that threat further than his subconscious until Agnes’s prophecy, but regardless, he is a little afraid, always. He sees crowley as fearless, and doesn’t understand the constant stress his dearest demon is under. So, for him, he’s using Crowley’s freedom as a shield for himself - calling michael dude, making them miracle him a towel, splashing holy water at the demons - all things he wouldn’t do as Aziraphale because he is terrified of not fulfilling his duties as “the good guys”. As crowley, the weight of his obligations seem no object.

Now, Crowley-As-Aziraphale…

David Tennant’s performance throughout the entire season and PARTICULARLY in the above described scene has been phenomenal, but this is where I truly realised the talent oozing from Michael Sheen, because this performance’s nuances gave me chills. Crowley-as-aziraphale has a face set like granite. Zira’s usual softness has left his cheeks almost entirely, and while Crowley does have his mannerisms down, as we see just before he steps into the fire, his own protectiveness over his angel makes it near impossible for him to mask his disdain and keep up the constant nervous beaming that Aziraphale tends to adopt around the angels. A tension has entered his brow, and while he flashes those cherubic smiles intermittently, it’s clear that the way Zira is treated in heaven utterly incenses crowley. He is also likely reliving the trauma of his own trial-without-a-trial, and so it’s Very likely that the only thing keeping him from expressing his true feelings is the thought of protecting Aziraphale from the fate that Gabriel was all too eager to send him to. We see how angry he is about this interaction in season 2, but it is also communicated in the micro expressions that Michael Sheen knocked out of the fucking park. Every time one of them says something unkind, his face takes on a new shade of quiet rage hidden beneath his attempts to maintain the optimistic serenity and unrelenting kindness of the person he knows and loves the most. The angels morally outrage Crowley, and if he’d had a word with them as Crowley he’d likely have tried something stupid. But the soft veneer of his friend, his love, keeps him grounded enough to limit his chastisements to things Aziraphale had already shared with him, in private.

The scene just underscores how well they know each other, how much they love each other, and how much they’re willing to risk for one another. It also reveals personal wounds; ways their experiences and traumas and fears fragment the image of the one in front of them. This is where we lead in to season 2, the season of the WORLD’S WORST COMMUNICATORS. But for season 1, they have each other, and they laugh, and the comfort that can only come with the trust they have for each other settles over them from the minute they’re reunited.

two angels dining at the ritz.

[duhragonball]

Super Dragon Ball Heroes 33-36

I don’t think I’ve ever related to Goku more than I do right now.

We’re now in the “New Space-Time War” arc of Super Dragon Ball Heroes.  The previous arc saw Fu become the King of the Demon Realm and create his own universe, and nobody really stopped him, so I assume this arc will just keep following that plotline.  My main question is this:  What was the Old Space-Time War?  Or does “New Space-Time” refer to the new universe Fu created?

This arc is only eight episodes, and I’m only four episode in and it’s a complete trainwreck.  Every few seconds someone else shows up and it’s either a mystery man in disguise, or a surprise cameo, or some other damn thing that doesn’t make any sense.  We open with this dude looking out over the uninhabited Earth in the New Universe, but he doesn’t actually do anything.

Not far away, Goku is being chased through the empty West City by two spaceships. As he runs, he gets a message from Tokitoki City, where Trunks explains to him that Goku is currently inside the new universe Fu created, but it’s just a bad copy of Universe 7, which is why it has the same Earth and the same West City, but no people.

And somehow, the new universe and U7 are connected somehow.  When Goku’s pursuers shoot at a nearby building, the same building in the real West City experiences the same damage. 

As Trunks mulls this over, Xeno Pan tends to Xeno Goten and Xeno Gohan.  So these four characters must have escaped the Universe Tree somehow.  Since Goku was fused with Vegeta before he arrived in the new universe, it stands to reason that Vegeta is also in the new universe.  That just leaves Xeno Goku and Xeno Vegeta unaccounted for.

This is dumb as hell.  These two haven’t done jack shit in this whole series, so I don’t know why we’re wasting screen-time on them.

It turns out Cooler and Frieza were in those ships that were chasing Goku.  When Goku flees the city to find a place to regroup, they ditch the ships and chase after him with their own power.  But then some mysterious force stops them in their tracks and it’s...

... Hearts, who died in Episode 19.  He explains that he was freed from Hell by Demigra, although he doesn’t seem to know who Demigra is.  Hearts wants to team up with Goku to oppose Fu, since Hearts disapproves of the way Fu has been using the Universe Seed.  Goku isn’t convinced, but he doesn’t have much choice, since Frieza and Cooler are still after him. 

Goku manages to overwhelm Golden Frieza with Ultra Instinct, while Hearts seems to fight evenly with Golden Metal Cooler.  I was going to point out that Hearts used to be a lot stronger than this, but he was using the Universe Seed to amplify his powers, so I guess it makes sense for him to be weaker now.

Then someone throws red Dragon Balls at Frieza and Cooler, and they get turned into rampaging maniacs.  When Demigra released Hearts, he told him about this.  They’re called “Dark Dragon Balls” and they can be used to turn warriors into berserkers.  But before Goku and Hearts can deal with that...

... Broly shows up and attacks everyone, because of course he does.   

This doesn’t bother the guy who threw the Dark Dragon Balls, though, since he only seems to want the fight to continue.  If Broly wants to jump in uninvited, that’s fine with him. 

Then the other mystery man that we saw before shows up and removes the Dark Dragon Balls from Frieza and Cooler, then he challenges Broly, and leads him away from Goku and Hearts.  Goku asks Hearts who that guy is, and Hearts says that he tried to read his mind, but he couldn’t.

The Crimson Masked Saiyan withdraws as well, and Hearts gives Goku a senzu bean.  He found it on this Earth, but since it restores Goku’s strength and stamina, he concludes that the copies of objects work the same way they do in the real world.  So Hearts believes that the Dragon Balls of this Earth will work as well.  He already has one of them, and Goku knows how to find the rest.

He finds the Dragon Radar in the Capsule Corp. building, but when he turns it on, he gets a reading from a second Dragon Ball directly overhead.  I guess this is a different planet, but up here we find the Crimson Masked Saiyan forcing Vegeta, Cumber, and Turles to fight each other.

Vegeta’s been getting his ass kicked, because Cumber was always a handful, and Turles has eaten so much Tree of Might fruit that he’s got Radditz hair now. 

Goku and Hearts show up to save Vegeta, and the Crimson Masked Saiyan turns Super Saiyan Pink, which immediately gives away that he’s just Goku Black.  Why the mask, then?

While the Gokus fight, Turles infuses Vegeta with evil power and tries to convince him to be evil.  I guess he and Cumber are in cahoots now?  I don’t understand this.

Vegeta struggles against this energy, and he has a flashback montage of various key moments like when he killed Nappa and massacred that Namekian villiage, and when he died to Frieza and watched Goku fight Kid Buu.   At last he goes into action, and Turles realises that Vegeta has somehow taken control of this “evil” power. 

He whoops Turles’ ass and explains that evil is not the true nature of the Saiyans.  Rather, the true nature of their people is to keep fighting, and to strive for greater strength.  Cumber sees Vegeta riding high and he wants to take him on...

So Vegeta whoops Cumber’s ass too.  Hell yeah!  It’s about time they gave Vegeta a hero moment in this series. 

Vegeta Galick Guns Cumber and his mask falls off.  Cumber salutes Vegeta for turning the evil aura into his own power without succumbing to its corruption, and then he passes out.  Fuck yeah!

Vegeta tells Turles to get stronger and challenge him again sometime if he’s got the stones.  I think that challenge is open to Cumber too, but he’s too busy sleeping off the last beating he took.

But Black has defeated Goku, and when Vegeta turns his attention to him, he learns Black’s backstory.  Of course, the Goku Black we know fused with the other Zamasu and their merged form was erased by Grand Zeno, then they somehow came back to life and got killed by Hearts.  This Goku Black is different.  He’s from some other timeline or dimension or whatever, and Fu found him before he could go on to be defeated and warned him of his fate. 

To avoid that impending defeat, this Goku Black traveled through different timelines, defeating one Goku after another.  The Goku he’s beaten just now is his 100th victory, and he declares that he now has achieved complete mastery of his body.

Vegeta tries to stop him, but his new power-up quits on him, and Black observes that he hasn’t fully mastered it yet.  But before Black can take advantage of this...

“Bitch, you thought--”

Yeah, Goku’s back in Ultra Instinct, and he just demolishes Black.  This web anime has a lot of flaws, but I’ll give it credit for doing what Dragon Ball Super was too cowardly to do.  SDBH actually lets good guys clobber the shit out of Zamasu and Black.  And it’s incredibly satisfying to watch, because one of the things that made the Zamasu Saga so shitty was that Goku and the others would attack and attack and Black and Zamasu would just no-sell all of it and keep smirking like assholes.  Not in Super Dragon Ball Heroes, though.  Jiren beats up Zamasu, Hearts kills Zamasu, and not Goku eats Black’s lunch with Ultra Instinct.

So Black withdraws, realizing that if this Goku can improve, then he must still have some work to do before he’s ready to carry on with his agenda.  But to dispense with the others, he fires a blast at the planet to destroy it... wait, is that the Vengeance Cannon?  Fuck you, Goku Black, that’s a Luffa move!  I’ll sue!  I’ll sue every Kai in Universe 10, you plagiarizing piece of shit!

Hearts picks up Cumber because he still wants to work with the guy, so all four them can escaper together, except Goku can’t teleport because there’s no ki signatures for him to lock on to.  Remember, this universe is uninhabited, so there’s almost no one around.  But then--!

Awwww yeah!

Awwwwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeeeeeeah!  It’s Cell, everybody!  This is automatically the best arc in the series!

Black tries to kill them before Cell can do anything, but Turles blindsides him first, and it looks like Black kills Turles, but while he’s busy doing that, Cell gets everyone out of there.

So back on... Earth, I guess?  The uninhabited Earth in this New Universe, I mean.  Cell explains that the same guy who freed Hearts from Hell also freed Cell.  I guess Demigra arranged all of this to get Goku some reinforcements for the battle against Fu.  All I know for certain about Demigra’s role in this is that he’s opposed to Mechikabura’s Dark Empire, and so he would be equally opposed to Towa’s plot to revive the Dark Empire with Fu as Mechikabura’s successor.  As to why he would turn to Cell for help, well... Demigra’s got excellent taste, what else can I say?

Look at how pissed these two idiots are.  “Tell us why you saved us, Cell!” When Hearts offered to team up with Goku, he was confused, but accepted his help.  When he recruited Frieza for the Tournament of Power, Goku was at least cordial with the guy.  But Cell?  Fuck all that.  They hate Cell, and they should.  Cell kicked both their asses, and he killed Goku and then he killed Vegeta’s son.  He’s not some guy you can work with like Frieza.  Cell’s a weapon, and all he does is pick targets to attack.  All he cares about is how much fun he’ll have in the process.   Goku and Vegeta see this guy and they know he can’t be trusted.

Goku’s like “You want to throw down, is that it?” and Cell doesn’t reject that possibility.  Oh, he’ll get to that, but first he needs to explain some stuff, I guess, but before he can do that...

... Well, I guess some other asshole shows up, but we don’t even get to see this one, so I guess we’ll have to wait until next time to find out what’s going on.  That’s okay, because Cell’s back, everyone.  

[theboywithburninghands]

The Mood of Humanz

And here’s the other Gorillaz album I’ve listened to the most. Same deal as the last one, just sort of felt like… talking about how each song makes me feel. Uh I didn’t include the interludes, since they’re just interludes. I also didn’t include any of the Super Deluxe tracks since I’ve only heard most of those once (except Garage Palace which is awesome) and wouldn’t have a ton to say. Read it or don’t, it’s fine with me.

1: Ascension: The beginning of a climactic party or protest concert. Here to hype you the hell up and make you excited and angry and happy.

2: Strobelite: You walked into a party that’s somehow chill and absolutely bumping at the same time. People are friendly and non-judgmental and the dance floor is open and there’s plenty to eat and drink.

3: Saturnz Barz: Feels like a cool, space themed retro video game that was made by someone from a different country that had an incredibly hard life. You don’t know what they’ve gone through from your place of privilege but you respect the hell out of them and what they’ve managed to do.

4: Momentz: Feels like you met a guy who’s way cooler than you to dance and hang around with at a party. He tells you about a one night stand with a girl, but by the end of the night you feel like he’s actually pretty sad and lonely.

5: Submission: This is a weird one, bear with me. This one feels like you’re in a poly relationship with a girl and a guy. You’re constantly depressed out of nowhere. Your girlfriend is sweet and patient and constantly there to support you, and she’s getting worried about your mental health. The guy doesn’t input much, maybe because he’s busy or he has his own demons, until one night when he just snaps and rants at you about how he can’t come to your pity party every day and you need to do something to help yourself. They’re both helpful and unhelpful in their own way.

6: Charger: This one is another tricky one. I think a YouTube comment I found about it sounding like a scene where a supervillain gets their powers describes it better than I ever could. It definitely sounds dark and menacing, but in, like, an awesome way.

7: Andromeda: Not a whole lot to say about this one. Feels like a big dance around a huge neon planet, maybe with some stars on the ceiling. Definitely a sort of “big finale” feeling to a party, or like the biggest budget dance event.

8: Busted and Blue: This one is easy. A bad depressive episode. Like, lay on your floor and stare at the ceiling while wishing you weren’t born, depressed. Feeling like a waste of skin, an irredeemable piece of scum depressed. Your loved ones secretly hate you and have hated you for years, depressed.

9: Carnival: Feels like a scary and kind of intentionally grotesque theme park. There’s stuff to do and games to play, but the guests around you seem nervous and the entertainers are way too into their job, or keep mumbling about how the system is manipulating you.

10: Let Me Out: Things are bad and they’ve gotten worse. They need to change or there won’t be a future for anyone. Some people are screwed just because they’re not part of the ruling race. It ain’t getting better, but you shouldn’t give up.

11: Sex Murder Party: Feels like the middle of a party (duh) but you spot a really ugly argument going on between a couple. One of them is sky high and acting reckless and the other is sitting in the corner, seething. They might do something crazy. You should probably go somewhere else.

12: She’s My Collar: A snapshot of a really sexually satisfying but unhealthy relationship. It’s not good for you, but it’s what you need right now, so you keep your mouth shut and enjoy it.

13: Hallelujah Money: A rich person you really don’t like is on tv somewhere in public, so you can’t turn the tv off. They’re bragging about another accomplishment they don’t deserve, and you have to listen to them. This song is kind of like peeling back the mask and showing exactly what kind of greed and arrogance this person is vomiting out without the veneer of kindness.

14: We Got The Power: A pretty simple motivational song. Feels sort of artificial, which may or may not be the point.

15: The Apprentice: Kind of like watching someone you used to like become cruel and incredibly pompous when they’re offered a fat paycheck. Reminds me of trash streamers.

16: Halfway to The Halfway House: Feels like a splitting headache that suddenly hits you in the middle of a party, so you have to lay down somewhere and ride it out while you watch people around you have fun and get wasted.

17: Out of Body: You’re not really fitting in at the party, until you find a girl that persuades you to try something different and kinda crazy. Drugs? A real satanic ritual? She’s nice and talks you through it but why are her eyes glowing? You have an incredible time, but she disappears after everything is over.

18: Ticker Tape: Getting home from a party and relaxing by yourself. You don’t feel amazing, but you’re content at least. It’s getting cold so you can see your breath on the way home. Peaceful.

19: Circle of Friendz: Throwing empty beer bottles at a brick wall while you and your friends sit around and do nothing. You guys have been friends for ages and can spend time together and get nothing interesting done and still be satisfying. It’s a waste of time, but a pleasant one.

[amywarrel]

Loser Ranger is my new obsession

I did not expect to be particularly into Loser Ranger when the first episode aired. Sure, the prospect of an edgy super sentai show by the same author as The Quintessential Quintuplets is very funny to me and every time someone says “this is the X story of X media”, in this case the “The Boys of Anime” I instinctively remember all the dozens of times someone in the internet called anything “the Game of Thrones of whatever” or “the Dark Souls of insert video game genre here” and I roll my eyes. So I watched the first episode and then the second one and I kept going. My take on it at the time was that it was just an okay show. I liked the idea of an anime that harkens back to my childhood days watching Power Rangers on brazilian television, though I was never particularly a fan of super sentai and I entirely left it behind during adolescence, I was still a kid that watched kid’s shows. I liked the corny action and the stupid arguing when it came to deciding who gets to be which ranger when playing with other kids.

Subverting a structure where conventionally the good guys are fighting the monsters to make the monster be the good guys could just as well be nothing more than a gimmick. I mean, it is something, but it is not groundbreaking by any means. The anime also doesn’t look particularly good, though the OP is pretty fun. Was I surprised to see that the studio who created Arknights, the only actually good gacha game, was animating it? Sure. Does that mean jack-shit about the quality? No. Why am I even talking about this? Hey shut up it's my script.

All of this to say that things changed once I reached episode five, in the process thinking that the blonde girl called Hisui looks kinda cool and I wanted to see how the ongoing fight concluded so I read the manga, only to be immediately hit by that pathological girlfure looking cooler by the chapter, then proceeded to find out that after an okay introduction it has a good first arc then there is a HUGE quality spike with the School Life Arc and it doesn’t drop the ball after that (except for one little thing but we don’t talk about that), PLUS, now Hisui lives rent-free in my head.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Thirteen years ago a giant fortress appeared over Milky Way City in Japan. The residents of that fortress started invading the surface and humanity fought back, forming the Rangers and retaliating. Every Sunday they come to the ground and are fought by the Keepers — the five main Rangers — in a stadium, with an audience in a televised event. If it sounds dumb and artificial that’s because it is. The Invaders are shapeshifters who were forced by the Rangers to take on this acting role after their overlords, the Executives, were all defeated in the very first year of the war, thus making them slaves to a bunch of sociopathic celebrities.

Enter Footsoldier D, an invader who is fed up with their situation and decides he is going to take matters into his own hands and get revenge on all the Keepers. Things start spiraling out of control almost immediately though D doesn’t know it yet, as he meets two rangers called Suzukiri and Hibiki. One who offers to help him take down the big five by stealing their weapons and another who wants to change the Ranger association from the inside out as he believes humans and Invaders can coexist. One of the reasons why this manga eventually becomes so entertaining has its beginning here, as this is one of those stories where there are plots within plots, lies within lies and everyone has something in particular they want to protect or achieve even if that means coming into conflict with both sides of the war. After some shenanigans Footsoldier D takes Hibiki’s place to infiltrate the Ranger Association with both of them vying to do their best to achieve their goals first, having just exchanged places.

This is where it starts going from decent to good as the mysteries begin piling on pretty thick. What are the so-called Divine Artifacts — the Keeper’s weapons — and why do they not look like something that was constructed but organic? Why does Suzukuri want to collect them? Why is there another invader living inside Hibiki’s closet? Why do the Rangers have such a lackadaisical approach to their leader being a murderer? How is D ever going to have any shot at killing these monsters when we see so clearly how much more powerful they are and his training is so basic? You might be thinking that I’m dumb and that the answer is powerscaling, but this is actually the action manga with the least amount of powerscaling I have seen yet. Character’s stay at roughly the same power level they are introduced in for several arcs and only manage to get things done by being smart about it and working together. Every conflict going forward is going to be multiple chapters long and feature a dozen different characters that all bounce off of each other. Essentially everyone in this story would be dead by the end of the second arc if they didn’t fight in groups 90% of the time.

What I have been calling the good first arc is basically the chunin exam of this manga. When you join the Rangers you do so as a filthy colorless and have to train until you are eligible for a test. Judging the results of said test you will be assigned a squadron based on each Keeper’s color or remain a lowly colorless fuck.

The circumstances under which this plays out are actually very engaging. D is posing as Hibiki taking the test, which means there is a lot about the Rangers he doesn’t know and he has to be careful about not getting hurt as it would immediately expose him as an Invader. He has to take care of XX despite that not actually being his responsibility, except that he also has a big sister now which is the Pink Keeper herself. Under these circumstances he has to compete against people who have totally genuine reasons for wanting to become Rangers, such as Shion who wants to get revenge on the Invaders for killing his brother who was himself a Ranger, but since both of them want to join the Red Squadron and they are in the same test only one of them can pass despite both having perfectly understandable reasons for wanting it. All of this further escalates as characters who are all easily distinguishable betray each other for their own gain, giving a hint as to why this organization is so fucked to begin with when they advocate for so much competition between their new members, who then get involved in a real battle with one of the Executives who was supposed to be dead and before you know it one of the big bad raidbosses is dead by the end of the first arc — which ends in CHAPTER FIFTY ONE — and even manages to be kind of a badass while doing it?

Every issue the characters have to face feel like a massive undertaking that, if you get into the story like how I did, will really surprise you because you were likely expecting something different when the first few chapters establish a conflict that is entirely artificial and unchanging with a main character that is literally immortal as long as he doesn’t go against a Keeper face to face specifically while they are wielding a Divine Tool. The actual mechanics of the fight might seem underwhelming, with most of the cast only having access to a basic-ass weapon for a good while, but the dynamics of each step along the way not only keeps it entertaining in a moment-to-moment basis, but also quickly builds so much of it there is enough foreshadowing, unresolved beefs and characters to cycle through for a story of near epic proportions. There is some sort of twist happening every other chapter, there are always characters making unexpected decisions, convincing one another to form truces or just committing mistakes, sometimes doing nothing more than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

As the story goes forward it does a honestly very above average job of building on what came before. Though D is too dense to notice half of it and too prideful to admit the other half, he already gets everything he needs to start questioning his own goals and worldviews from this first arc, this is then brought to the forefront as the story pulls another twist, placing D not in the Red Battalion but in the Green one, bringing Kanon Hisui, the coolest motherfucker alive to the forefront. She is also my daughter. Look it up. It’s real.

I am infatuated by this character, everything she does for the story, her design and her personality. Through her, D is presented the harsh reality of a Battalion that is dedicated to dealing with the powerful Executives, which means that they are often being killed and replaced and the heroism necessary to walk through that to the other side, as well as the emotional damage and ruthlessness such an environment will instill. First we as the audience — but later D through his interactions with Hisui — get to understand that there is nothing inherently good or bad about any of these groups. That they are both made up of tyrants and their victims, people who were met with untimely tragedy, lost loved ones and parts of them along the way.

This arc takes place inside a school as an analogy to the lost youth and opportunities of everyone involved. Of the lives they were denied and will never get to live. Hisui is always wearing a middle-schooler uniform despite having no need for one as a way to maintain in the audience’s mind the fact that she doesn’t fit, that she is unwilling to let go of the concept of living the life she deserved despite that not being the material reality in front of her. D was quite literally bred for war and like the people who hate Invaders for the damage they caused them and their people, also hates the Rangers because of what the Keepers did to his peers which although fair, doesn’t take into account that he doesn’t know them. The Keepers aren’t the Rangers and the Rangers aren't humanity. They are both fighting in a makeshift war they were thrusted upon without their consent, are thematically brought closer by sharing in what was taken from them under the guise of a school life which is literally an in-universe dream; to then having to come to terms with the realization that they are one and the same; victims of a game played by rulers who are equally as vile, both of which should be dealt with. Geez, I wonder if the giant fucking chain casting its shadow over the city is meant to symbolize something.

Of course, they still hold slightly different allegiances, as D doesn’t let go of his plans to kill the Keepers but instead achieves a fuller understanding of his situation, and a lot of this is only going to get its payoff by the end of the next big arc, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Building upon the reaction of “Hey this guy wasn’t so bad after all” of the Blue Keeper’s conclusion, the manga now first gets you used to a character before revealing their identity as a Keeper, instilling in you the question of whether or not we should even be rooting for D to kill this guy. Sure, he still played a part in the oppressing of the Footsoldiers, but we don’t even know exactly what led to that to begin with. Also, we did actually kill Blue Keeper, but they just went ahead and substituted him. Gotta kill the fucker again.

Remember what I said about the constant escalating of circumstances? This is what I’m talking about. This structure makes it so that the next question the characters have to deal with both feel like the natural next thing to happen while also being just unpredictable enough to have all the twists it wants, and the answer to that question is laid upon so many conflicts with potential ramification that it manages to be, I kid you not, morally gray. Yes, the edgy manga from the author of the quintuplets harem is genuinely morally gray to an impressive extent—for what it is, not in the grand scheme of literature. Fucking bananas am I right? This is going to sound absurd, but I don’t think I have seen a more organically built-up shounen since Hunter x Hunter.

Something else that the School Life arc has over the previous one is that this time the actual mechanics of the conflict are a lot more interesting, likely as a result of having the benefit of working with previously established powers and characters. The premise of a job that constantly kills its workers and the existence of an alternate reality inside a building that breaks physical laws also feels very Chainsaw Man, which I appreciate as that is one of my favorites.

Just like the Footsoldiers back in the fortress, these characters now have a set of rules they have to obey, this time in order to keep the school world from constantly resetting. A premise that is particularly interesting once you consider that these are all people who didn’t get to lead a normal life and that their reaction isn’t to simply accept them but to find ways to work around those rules, their obedience being just a facade. In a literalization of the metaphor, fully giving in to the dream world signifies a character’s loss, which appeals to them precisely because it promises to right the wrongdoings of their past.

The story recognizes this with the students that criticize them after being released from the illusion because that was their way to cope with their own injustices. It is sensible enough to not treat these people as simply stupid, after all we spent a whole arc seeing the reasons that a dream like that could be appealing through Hisui’s perspective, but the arc concludes with the recognition that while the path they are choosing is the harder one, it is also the only one that gives them a chance of standing up for themselves, as the illusion was always a seductive lie. The antagonist is also an Executive with the body of a Ranger to approximate the two and remind you that they can be one and the same. As Hisui put’s it, “I’m sorry that your perfect world couldn’t exist”; as I’ve said before, there are tyrants on both sides; and as Steven Erikson once said, “The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes.”

Narrative arcs that deal with the lost youth and what-could-have-been scenarios tend to get me because I relate to that shit hard. I didn’t get a chance to live my adolescence the way I wanted because I hadn’t even come into my own identity as a woman, and that disconnect kept me from acting the way I wanted while also making me feel that the things I actually did were fake because I was simply going along with the preconceived notion that we are we and that they are they. Just like the students in this arc, I have had to accept that while there is solace to be found in basking in the idealized youth I could have had, I can’t refuse the material reality that that simply isn’t going to happen and any amount of time I spend longing for it is stopping me from actually getting shit done in the life I do have. The blending of themes and technicality of this arc is simply marvelous.

I am particularly fond of Hisui’s message that there are no requirements for heroism, you simply have to take that first step. Not because I believe in the idea of a hero we were taught about when we were kids, but because no matter what happens, nothing will ever change if you don’t take that first step to begin with.

I have briefly talked about how a lot of anime and manga focus their themes in an attitude the story is advocating for in my Sonny Boy analysis and it is actually kind of funny how many similar things I got from these two wildly different stories. If you don’t remember or haven’t watched it, the first episode of that show also takes place in a school that defies physics, has laws that can be enforced by the people living in it, ends with a character taking that first step and the rest of the story is, in a gross oversimplification of it, about everyone else trying to catch up to her.

Also, the fuck do you mean this arc is only 18 chapters long? Each of them is so dense I was under the impression it lasted for about 30.

Everything I just talked about proceeds to permeate the next big arc, that of the Invaders Rights Association, or IRA for short. A long arc that simultaneously feels like a bunch of shounen bullshit and a natural development going forward. We spent the whole series with a wronged Footsoldier, having met Hibiki all the way in the beginning who thinks they can coexist, so it stands to reason that that could eventually take a front seat in one of the story’s arcs. This arc is going to complete the change in worldview D has been going through all along, because as it expectedly turns out, the IRA is a villainous association born out of a genuine desire that was then bastardized.

D’s World Domination plot isn’t exactly a world domination, he’s thinking about it more in the lines of freedom. World domination is simply the ideal that was instilled into him from the moment he was born. Prideful though he may be, this man spent the first section of the story having to learn that he can’t get shit done alone, then using other people to achieve those things, and now he is going to learn that there are people willing to help him even if they find out who he really is. We know for a fact he didn’t fight just for his own sake back in the school.

There has always been a meta element to Loser Ranger as it deals with the existence of heroes from super sentai, has a super sentai show in-universe and the Keepers are just celebrities. In the IRA arc that then becomes part of the core conflict, building to some revelations that evidently will be properly explored in the next big arc as it has been doing so far. It isn’t as if the meta aspects are mindblowingly awesome, but they serve as an interesting way to frame this section of the story that keeps it fresh. I am particularly fond of the “This has been foreshadowed” gag.

I find that all of the big arcs so far are memorable because of this combination of framing and setting: starting with a classic exam arc in an underground base where the protagonist has to survive to reach the surface of the human world, to a more intimate character exploration in a school environment and now arriving at a meta narrative in a big castle, filled with cameras, TV broadcasts, YouTube livestreams and a VHS tape or two. Every arc has a distinct look and feel to it while still being brought together by the same narrative conflicts.

Shaking up the narrative structure by taking advantage of the fact D had to work from the shadows and rely on subterfuge all this time, the IRA arc introduces a group that actually has enough power to expose the Keepers as the liars they are and go face to face against them following that. It seems to me that this author is very smart about when to bring things into focus. Usukubo, for instance, was introduced all the way in the beginning, but did pretty much nothing in the second arc while Hisui became a main character. That is then balanced by having their positions switched in the IRA arc as Usukubo’s character is fully unveiled and Hisui spends half the arc bidding her time. Having someone we know serve as a stand-in for the audience inside the IRA eases the friction of suddenly introducing so many new characters. There are plenty of secondary and tertiary characters from past arcs who are weaved into the story again, these not requiring that much page time to have a role to play as we already know them and a flashback here and there is all that is necessary to give us more context into their backgrounds. Pink Ranger’s in particular is the stand-out as it gives us a reason to care, has that one panel in particular of her body falling back in a splash of blood that hits when you turn the page and sets Hibiki in an unexpected path.

Since you have read it this far I am assuming you care about what I have to say, so allow me to go on a brief tangent to give you some writing advice: if you come up with a structure, don’t overuse it, and if you have to, then come up with ways to keep it fresh. There are a lot of flashback sequences in Loser Ranger, but they come in different kinds. Some are interrupted by D saying he doesn’t care, some are kept very short, some are broken up in more than one part and the bigger ones are reserved for moments where they provide much needed specific information and only when they directly relate to what is going on. The immediate outcome isn’t always the same either, these flashbacks don’t always happen right in the last moment of a fight nor are they all preceded by the central character of those scenes dying. In essence, there are reasons why structures used in a bunch of different stories work, but don’t just throw a sad backstory in at the precise moment a character is going to be defeated every single time. It will get boring fast.

Thematically, I don’t have that much to say about the IRA arc, and frankly I don’t think the arc was shooting for that. The most emotionally interesting the series has been to me so far was with the School Life arc and I would argue that is very much by design. That does not mean that the IRA arc is lacking, as it is the most action-filled and violent arc so far and rescues a lot of scenes from previous chapters, making it feel as if we have really come a long way.

Just like it has been the case for the past arcs, a lot is established around this arc that we are yet to see the ramifications of. There is for sure more to be said about the Suzukiri Clan, the Neo-Rangers weren’t created just for the sake of it, the horrifying inventions of the Yellow Battalion haven’t been fully explained yet and the new position the Red Keeper is in is the “storm” the narration said D had unleashed — which unfortunately is something I don’t like, the first big narrative gripe I have with the story so far is this, as I don’t buy it at all that the Ranger Association wouldn’t have checked for his body, but hey, a single big issue in 139 chapters is a great relation.

So as to not end on a low note, let me conclude. Negi Haruba wrote a harem manga about quintuplets, made a ton of money (conjecture), then decided it was about time to cook up a killer action series. I am not nearly as much of a manga reader as I am an anime watcher, so I can’t say much on how it relates to the overall state of shounen manga, but I would bet that Loser Ranger is going to feel like a breath of fresh air to most people, whether or not you like it as much as I did notwithstanding. The very beginning is kinda mid, I know, but if anything of what I said sounds interesting to you, then hang in there, give it a couple more chapters. The artwork is sleek, it’s super bingeable, it’s slowly getting more violent with each arc (I hope it gets way more), the plot can be a case study with how organic it is and I need to get  a Hisui tattoo.

[stagefullofentertainment]

Wishlist for Hazbin Hotel Season 1 (And Later)

With half year left till the series officially start (hopefully!), I would love to share my thoughts and opinions about what could happen in the story regarding characters and plot. They are all just my guesses and some wishes, headcanons if you will. Without further ado, let’s go!

CHARLIE

We have to start with the main character, don’t we?

Charlie being smarter than we all expect. Please, give a moment or situation where she outsmarts Alastor! Maybe another deal or bet?

Seeing more of her demon powers!

Charlie’s attempts to spread the news about the hotel and getting a couple of sinners who are willing to try it out, making them third plan characters.

Charlie and Vaggie being a sun and moon couple.

Flashbacks to Charlie’s teenage/early years living with her parents.

Charlie in the office doing manager/boss/director of this place paperwork. Unless she knows what she’s doing from similar previous experience or she’s been taught management and business, I expect to see her struggling with it. Some angsty moments when legal issues happen (at least, Hell’s equal of legal). I would love to see her parents give her advice or send her a professional to help with this. Speaking of which…

Screentime for Lucifer and Lilith! Perhaps a phone call or something small at first where they would actually interact with Charlie for starters. Oh! How about this? Somewhere near the end, like few episodes left till the season’s finale, we could see a shot where all Hell’s royalty attends an annual gala or some formal and regal event (perfect opportunity to make Paimon, Stolas, Asmodeus or another HB cameo). I’m imagining that someone from those royals could, in a mocking way, mention to Lucifer and Lilith that they probably are so proud of their daughter’s endeavors. (Charlie would not attend that event for it being too preposterous to her). Then we cut to Lucifer saying to Lilith “How about I pay our daughter a visit?”. After that, Lucifer would appear in the season finale, being one of the last shots. For instance, Charlie hears a knock on the hotel door and opens it, seeing her father, who smiles and says “Hello, Charlie” or something cooler that I cannot think in the moment. Then we cut to black and end the first season. That would not only be a great homage to Alastor’s arrival in the pilot but could stir some mystery. Will Lucifer accept Charlie’s intentions? Will he wish to close and demolish the hotel for making him seen pathetic in other demons’ eyes, hence the sin of pride? Did Lilith tell Charlie about Lucifer’s arrival beforehand? That would be answered in the start of season 2.

VAGGIE

Let us add the badass love interest who shines her own light.

Vaggie being in charge of the hotel more so than Charlie.

Seeing her fight and use her weapon capabilities.

Her being a protective gf while Charlie is oblivious, for example, moving a wire so that Charlie wouldn’t trip.

Vaggie constantly bickering with Angel and Alastor. As the season goes on, she finds it to be more fun than annoying.

Flashbacks to her live before death. What was her life, what did she do to be in Hell and how did she die?

Story of how she and Charlie met and fell in love with. Plus, what was she doing before the hotel?

ALASTOR

 My favourite overlord, what I have in store for you.

I want to see him making that Jambalaya!

Alastor being a corny/dad joke kind of guy throughout the whole season.

Seeing snippets of Alastor’s radio show.

Alastor’s development in compassion to Hazbin and it’s residents. Bit by bit, he would start to care about Charlie, Vaggie, Angel, Husk and Niffty (others not so much), catching himself in the middle of the season like “Goodness my! Why do I care if she’s sad?”. Then Alastor would heighten his guard up and become cold hearted, similar to pilot. Perhaps he would make some sort of terrible decision regarding hotel or Charlie which he would regret by the end of the season.

Him and Vox making fun of each other, having little battles here and there, their score being equal.

Seeing more musical numbers from him!

Seeing Alastor struggle with modern media references. Could be a gag about someone mentioning something like “Instagram, Iron Man, Twilight” and so on while Alastor pretends that he understands it/doesn’t care. Imagine explaining Twilight to him…

Flashbacks to his live before death. Why did he become a murderer, what was his family like (importance of mother), how he found his passion for radio?

ANGEL

Well, here we have a comedic yet tragic character to discuss.

His whole season arc could be about chilling in Hazbin while still being under Valentino’s control. With each episode, he would have a harder and harder time between choosing Hazbin (new friends, possible redemption and zero need to be over sexual) and Valentino (job and setting that he’s familiar with, some sort of fame, no need to change himself). By the end of the season, Angel would be at a crossroad of which path to embrace now.

Flashbacks to Angel’s live before death. Was he that involved with sex, did he have a partner, what was his family like?

I would love to see Angel teasing Alastor about all kinds of dirty stuff and surviving. The whole season he would remark on various sexual topics while Alastor can’t kill him because he promised that to Charlie. Seeing Alastor freeze or blush would be a highlight not only to him but to us.

Angel being a fashion icon. “Girl, those earrings with that top? No no no, we need to change those”.

Angel being besties with Cherri.

Seeing Angel’s alone moments when his “funny, dirty, charming” façade drops and he struggles with his life decisions.

Although he died only about 10 years later than Al, he would know all the up-to-date pop culture/media references, usually being the one to make them.

MISCELLANEOUS

Category where I decided to put characters that I don’t have much to say…yet!

Would love to see the reason why Husk and Niffty are in debt to Alastor. (Plus, how many poor souls like those two are there?)

Husk being a grumpy father figure to all. (I think he is supposed to be older than all of them, besides Charlie, in years?)

Niffty being a happy go lucky clean freak.

All of Cherri’s backstory, how did she befriend Angel.

Sir Pentious’s development from cartoony villain to an ally of Hazbin.  

Seeing more of Hell’s TV, Internet and apps.

Seeing Hell’s live from different kinds of livers there (sinners, overlords, royalty).

Learning more about Heaven, the percentage of goodness to be accepted there, how do angels work.

Seeing Vox, Valentino and Velvet in action and their powers.

Overall, exploring new locations.

That’s all, folks! A share of my hopes for the series. If you would like, I could make more parts in the future. Of course, I would love to hear your thoughts! Have a fantastic day, my friend!

[imsosocold]

A very (un)comprehensive review of the TOH Season 2 Finale: 

Me: This episode is our finale to this little series. We’re taking a long break after this, I can’t handle making these, it took like fourish days to do so. I do hope to release an OPM MA arc review eventually. I chose this episode in particular because it at least resembles a finale, unlike the season 1 finale. 

Lomes: The fact you complimented this episode means we’re going to insult it purposefully more.

Me: You foolish fools-

Lomes: Check out this castle, it’s so boring. Where’s my Luang Prabang?

Sunniva: I want it more to be like the Sagrada Familia.

Jorah: I don’t care if it’s not canon accurate or not, Belos should wear outfits in the same style those saint statues do.

Me: I haven’t been this scared since you’ve last taken control of my tumblr account.

Sunniva: What happened to the wild witches and demons like Hooty?  What did the witches think would happen on the Day Of Unity? Taking over the human realm?  

Lomes: If the latter is true, Belos’s hatred makes more sense.

Me: It’s white boy stuff and white boy stuff doesn’t make sense.

Lomes: Dana is a white girl so it’s white girl stuff.

Sunniva: Stop blaming Dana alone, there was a whole team-

Lomes: She’s the big guy, and besides, she did the same to Belos, our favorite mysticist-

Sunniva: Dana is a real person-

Divorce arc no fun </3

*******************************************************************

Jorah: Okay, what is Belos planning do once he goes to the human realm? Is he planning to stay in it or just checking it out before he dies or something? Did he not even know, like the Collector implied?

Sunniva: I like the idea of him going to live in an eco village.  

Lomes: He was going to take down the rich and him being defeated leads to a Trolley sort of problem- 

Me: Belos is letting Jesus take the wheel on that one. But yeah, they should’ve at least elaborated on his plans more.

*******************************************************************

Jorah: Belos does not take well to family abandonment.

Lomes: The series writers killed Kiki long before this. The fact they conveniently made her know all this supposedly secret information just made canon events so much more confusing.

Me: Kikimora is a real figure in Slavic mythology, like how the TOH Titans bears similarities to the Titans in Greek mythology. In universe, did the Boiling Isles influence these myths or, somehow, was it the other way around?

Sunniva: The fact we know these questions won’t ever be answered and yet we ask…

Jorah: It’s All Futile.

Me: It’s All Pointless.

Lomes: William Gold is cooler than Wilbur Soot.

…

*******************************************************************

Me: Stop doing thumb wars, you’re missing the episode. 

Lomes: We need stimulation. 

Me: So do I, and I only get it from people liking my content even though it also makes me disgusted and uncomfortable! At least talk while doing it, silence makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I myself struggle to fill it myself. I am constantly searching for what I need from others.

Lomes: Bro who asked.

Me: I will force you to watch more series with me, like the anime version of Turnabout Big Top.

Jorah: That’s the good one!

Lomes: You’d suffer, since you would have to write our reactions and organize them and deal with your hyperempathy.

Me: I wish I had a whip, I like hitting and breaking things.

Lomes: You would probably hit yourself.

Me: Yeah, I would, but that makes it more fun.

Sunniva: Guys, we are missing the plot! And I just lost…

*******************************************************************

Sunniva:  Belos is still an asshole even when trying to convince people. 

Lomes: You are what you eat.

Me: “ I’m gonna give all these witches lobotomies!”

Sunniva “Stop it… get some help…”

Jorah: The fact even Steve left meant his plan was doomed from the start, Belos should’ve focused on getting him back.

Lomes, while throwing a Swedish Fish at me: I found Steve the Ceasg!!

What happened next stays in Oakland baby.

*******************************************************************

Me: I don't think Belos being cocky is a good enough explanation for his actions, specifically for all the times he loses, in my opinion. His desperation makes sense but it’s not fleshed out enough to feel justified. I like the idea of him knowing Luz is lying and just saying anything she can to avoid turning into stone but taking her hand anyway. Because Luz wasn't much older than he was when he first came to Isles and even he had moments of temptation. She was stranded alone with nowhere to go and was taken in by a wild witch who taught her black magic. Sure, she's "crazy" in his eyes but her "sense of reality" has been warped but if she can go home maybe she still has a chance to be saved. Plus Belos heard her apologize to her mother before in the season 1 finale and he wouldn’t want to break apart a family. Anything to potentially save a human life. Sure, Belos still gets tricked because he didn't expect her to have a sigil, but it then becomes a mistake he made due to being merciful for once in his life.

Jorah: You are so right. *Places something in my hand.*  Have a Sanrio copper penny.

*******************************************************************

Lomes: The Collector returned from the shadow realm!  [ Noelle’s] home.

Sunniva: It’d be cool if they were from the celestial realm.   

Me: Our northern circumpolar star! Play honeysuckle lavender butterscotch!

Jorah: Mad favorite gendervoid. 

Lomes: Mae is the ultimate gendervoid.

Jorah: Imagine if the Collector was so bright he overtook the screen until all the characters’ eyes adjusted to them.

Me: Imagine if there was a moment where Cole and Belos just paused to look at each other, being in the same plane and being able to see each other’s full forms.   

*******************************************************************

Lomes:“ I need you back Cole, how else am I supposed to get the waiter to realize I asked for no pickles.”

Jorah: Awww, look at him and his jelly bean toesies!~

Me, watching Belos get splattered: It’s a better death than he got in the finale, especially if we are viewing the Collector through the lens of them being a representation of wild magic.

Jorah: I thought the Collector wasn’t trying to kill Belos, splattering was a non lethal yet tortuous punishment. They still cared for him, with all the memories of centuries spent with him, in the sense they wanted to understand why he did that. And for Belos to have somebody know how he is and face betrayal similar to what Caleb did to him yet still want to stay, it’d be something irreplaceable. 

Sunniva: I like the idea that Belos will never go away entirely, like the toxic ideologies he’s supposed to represent, methinks.

Lomes: Pog. I don’t think there’s anything to this story. 

*******************************************************************

Lomes: I'd take this for the permanent finale, however dark it is. 

Jorah: You are a fan of the likes of Replica.                         

Sunniva: Even if it’s not well written, TOH needed a happy end.

Lomes: I don’t care if it’s better for society or people or whatever to have a happy end, I care about good writing, morals attached or not. 

Jorah: Yeah, art should exist for its own sake and trying to censor and cut it up to make it palpable to others insults its existence.

Sunniva: Nothing exists in a vacuum-

Me: Guys, guys.

I just  realized… TOH is bad. Not DSMP bad, not Daganronpa 3 bad, not even OPM bad, but… bad.

Sunniva: Acceptance is the first step.

Me: This is the last of the TOH stuff for now, thanks for coming along for the car ride but it’s over now.

Jorah: Back to the void we go. Schrodinger’s existences. 

Sunniva: Check out the Coffin of Andy and Leyley!

Lomes:Unfollow Noelle.

Baiii