#I LITERALLY FEEL INSANE ABOUT HER??? I NEED MORE OF HER LORE SO BADLY

[artheresy]

OH I’M GOING TO BE SO ANNOYING ONCE 1.4 COMES OUT, I HOPE ALL OF YOU ARE PREPARED AND I HOPE ALL OF YOU ARE READY FOR ME TO RANT ABOUT WVERY SINGLE THOUGHT HCQ RELATED THAT COMES TO MY HEAD

Thinking about,, Blade v Jingliu,,, the shot of them sparring together back when he was Yingxing *sobs*

[gooselycharm]

hi there! i'd just like to say that your kris and noelle "something else" comic has been driving me insane /pos and i'd love to hear more of your thoughts on those two!! their relationship is one of my favorite things in deltarune and your comic just got everything about them so right 🙏

thank you for reading "something else"! oh man, [more of] my thoughts on kris+noelle.... i sure got some of those.

this was one of the first tweets i made after finishing chapter 2 nearly... freaking 2 years ago. and basically i've just been saying that over and over again in different ways because i'm still not tired of the concept yet and probably wont ever be LOL. i'm obsessed with how badly the narrative wants to force them into an easily categorizable dynamic, especially the romantic one in snowgrave. the literal THORN RING, the more possessive dialogue options, spamton calling noelle a side chick LOL... it all creates this unnerving visual novel bad end atmosphere that feels manufactured by someone who's only ever learned about romance through secondhand sources. they're two queer teens trying to navigate their changing relationship with the only role models they know being their parents' own failed heterosexual marriages. they're so divorced² (divorced children of divorce).

i also like that for being so tragically doomed coded they can be funny! both in a dark humor way and also like, genuinely funny, like the stories of them as kids with kris covering themselves in ketchup and hiding under noelle's bed lmao. i mean there's even something funny about the romantic trappings of the snowgrave route, like trying to put wedding cake embellishments on a crime scene... you know, funny like kids trying on their parents clothes but they're too big and for some reason they're also crying and covered in blood? um.

i'm also SOOOO interested to see how snowgrave will continue in chapter 3! i really liked the hopeful note chapter 2 ended on (well. i took it as hopeful anyway). there's that bit where noelle is talking to herself and she says something like "recently kris has been acting so strange and no one else has noticed... i have to figure out why" and then kris jumpscares her LOL but i think i took that one line and really ran with it. noelle really is the one who knows kris best and despite how scared she is, she's still determined to help them... i like the little subversion of victim/hero going on, the implication that kris might be the one who needs rescuing.

the additional story/lore that came with the spamton sweepstakes made me CRAAAZYYYYY like my GOD... it's cute that noelle likes glitches/creepypasta when kris is kinda a walking creepypasta <3 also, god, noelle falling asleep listening to kris playing piano in the other room... there's so much like. wistfulness and nostalgia and this like... distant/detached intimacy packed into how noelle narrates that scene. it's kind of funny how much there is to dig into when like on a surface level they're just fairly regular childhood friends who grew apart LMAO they're extremely deep to me okay...

on another note i guess i do ship them? i like their dynamic whether it's platonic or romantic (the best is a weird mix of both 👍). it just can't be boring LOL like... this is one ship where trying to apply cookie cutter tropes to them really falls flat and the game is ahead of you on that anyway. in terms of romantically shipping them, i honestly don't think they're doomed to repeat patterns forever... i think they could actually be good for each other! but that's not really the aspect of their relationship that interests me akldjf;alk;sdg maybe i will make 60 page comic of kriselle going to couples counseling some other time

ANYWAY i'm going to cut myself off here, because i really could go on forever lol. i'll give you some links for further reading though

hellspawnmotel's deltarune art

lula pillowbug99's deltarune art

this art by raspbearis which features prominently in my internal kriselle bible

my own unfinished kriselle playlist

my own essay on gender & allegory in deltarune if for some reason u are not tired of hearing me talk yet

okay bye now & thanks again for reading my comic!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[hawkgirlz]

Hi,

I'm a fan of DC comics and I got into it by watching justice league unlimited as a kid and always liked the character of shayera though I was always a wonder woman fan first so I don't know the lore of hawkgirl as much. I was just wondering why you dislike the shayera version of hawkgirl? or if you don't dislike that version do you just prefer kendra saunders version?

oooh we might be here for a while so prepare for a long post.

dcau shayera is to me, a fantasy that men clearly wrote because they didn't want to actually interact with her political side. i alreadyade a big post about why i hate the john/shayera pairing but when you compare her writing in the dcau to her comics, it's just really bad.

her appearing as hawkgirl even though comic shayera hated the hawkgirl name and never went by it post crisis was the real thing that agitated me. it purposely confused people who wanted to read the hawks comics and it spoiled kendra's chances of being her own character in a way that didn't mean being a dcau shayera replacement. pushing a white redhead as hawkgirl when kendra already existed and was confirmed to be latina + was clearly somewhat brown just caused insane damage. even the actresses who play kendra get racist hate for not being a white redhead when she's not even playing shayera.

another stupid thing is that shayera's last name is hol but her husband's name is hro talak. but the thing is, post crisis shayera went by shayera thal because it was a reboot and she was no longer married to katar. WHY did they keep shayera's last name hol when she's not married to katar hol???? it's like these writers were high when reading her comics. i've genuinely never seen a comic character get this badly adapted that they mess up BOTH of her names.

let's start with her beef with wonder woman pre-starcrossed. her beef with wonder woman was originally because of an arc that addressed feminism. shayera's purpose was to basically be the man obsessed woman who says the thanagarians are sexist and her reasoning for all of this is. sex. literally just sex.

now in comics, shayera was a human trafficking victim, a victim of sexual abuse, etc. and when she interacted with diana in comics, they would make fun of men together. so to portray her lime THAT, on top of her main trait being cheater is just. really not a good look at all. i mean all of her storylines revolved around men. she never even defeated the villain in starcrossed and needed a john stewart who didn't evem have a ring to save her. it's also funny to me how the male writers claimed she was masculine or not like other women because she growled or whatever and it's like. comic shayera was wearing a suit and tie to galas. dcau shayera wears crop tops when comic shayera said they made her feel naked. like what masculinity are we talking about here lol.

another thing i remembered is that during this arc, shayera was shocked when she found out arisia was an orphan and was like "oh the pain she went through must have been unimaginable" and it's treated like a joke for batman cause he's sitting right there. but the thing is..... shayera was literally an ORPHAN in comics. comics literally never make you forget she's an orphan, she's always talking about being raised in the slums. on top of never getting her actual origin in the dcau minus that super orientalist bad take on ancient egypt, we NEVER get her origin.

and on top of her writing just being so bad. comic shayera was indoctrinated into the thanagarian government and agreed to spy on katar for said facist government, yes. but like. comic shayera literally KNOWS these people aren't good. and that's what made her so complex and she later realizes she's in the wrong and gets exiled from thanagar abd becomes more progressive.

the dcau version on other hand is just so insanely watered down. even though she's ordered to find out the jl's weaknesses, she somehow didn't know they were planning on destroying earth and wanted to build some FORCEFIELD. like what???? genuinely how can you be that stupid???? especially when dcau shayera literally says her planet is about war which would obviously mean her friends would get hurt. i just can't fathom this plot, there's no way she was that dumb. it just made her look bad like atp i don't blame diana for hating her.

also in comics, it was shayera's thanagarian father behind the original thanagarian invasion, he was a military general. not an evil hawkman rip off. so once again, another interesting plot removed for cracskhip romance drama.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Omg megumi and Yuta are my favs after Inumaki LMAO (I’m Lowk salty that we did not get ANY lore exploration of Inumaki but maybe it’s better that way so he stays alive atp)

No the hating mainstream things to be “unique” is so eugh honestly like just because somethings mainstream doesn’t mean it’s basic…but exactly I’ve definitely lost the spark with jjk I think it just got too confusing? And I was losing the essence of the story and idk I know geges said before that that they’ve wanted to end jjk earlier but something about the editor saying no…? I feel like sometimes the lack of motivation kinda peeks through with how the story was done….which I get because writers block/art block and just burn out in general is so real I just wish circumstances were different lmao…

Also yeah the “jjk has the best female characters” ideation…hmm..it’s def better than the blatantly sexualized ones but at this point it kinda feels like a bare minimum/low standard thing that they ARENT sexualized like in most shounen content that makes people say this (i agree like wtf happened with yuki we barely saw her honestly?? Don’t get me started on tsumiki i was expecting them to take a route where maybe she’d actually wake up and play a more conscious role but what the hell was that)

NO LITERALLY im all for analysis and leaving some things open ended but idk in jjk it was just excessive that it turned into confusion like…the constant guessing and insane analysis that needed to be done to clarify things or try to parse things together is not my favorite…agreed that the story should not have to rely on deep level analysis to be understood!

Yeah I’ve definitely lost my emotional ties with jjk its just like well I got this far i might as well see how it ends

LMAO WIGGLY that made me think of a worm on a string but I see what you mean! One track soccer mind doesn’t give much room to explore lolll but it was executed very well hehe

LMAOO it’s the pipeline of shitting on side characters to loving them but I can’t with his hair cut…also don’t think he’s ugly like I guess he’s objectively relatively good looking? But yeah I never fully saw the appeal (it’s funny because I know a good amount of people who prefer him to Rin when I’m the opposite lol) and the Gojo aura LOL

THE ACCURACY IS INSANE the way I would have never known if you didn’t mention it (I don’t think I would’ve even noticed if I wrote it) the fact checking goes crazy LMAO but I love it honestly the research def gives the story more depth and feel to it rather than just a one shot/story that kinda just floats in the void of the universe or something…gives it ties to reality and an actual grounding in the world! (This was worded so badly lmao)

It’s always Karasu….I think it’s partially also because some manga scenes of him are a little goofy because they give him that smile that almost cuts across his entire face to give him that kinda evil looking smirk….and the anime style kinda striking that awkward balance of maintaining those features but not putting enough detail to go full asshole def makes it a little goofy LOL (but in art they put more effort into like the S2 trailer/teaser visual he looks great with all the shading)

And LMAOO IKR!!! I always think back to that I’m like KURONA WAS 4??? Bro wasn’t even on the field in the u20 match so I was Lowk a bit shocked haha, iirc Kiyora was also 5?? Like the discrepancy makes me laugh ik people probably developed during the second selection but the drastic change always gets me

Your tag with the arrow has me feeling idk why I found that so funny LOL

Also SHSHS drowsy allergy medicine is the worst…I hope you weren’t having a severe reaction or anything and also that you feel better soon!!!

-Karasu anon

there’s def a lot of areas where there could be more lore (rika’s character page is so odd??) just because of how many characters there are i think!! but i do feel like the story is wrapping up so some things might just be left as questions. or not, who knows!!

yeah there’s def a cycle of like thing gets popular -> everyone loves it -> it becomes so over saturated that people start hating on it to be different -> it becomes overhated -> in a few years everyone realizes it wasn’t that bad. the biggest problem w the “hating as a trend” is that it takes away from legitimate criticisms of the work, as fans will lump it into general hating for no reason.

besides just analyses being so important for even basic comprehension of the plot, i’ve noticed a lot of the storyline is dependent on random interviews gege has done. like nobara’s death only being confirmed because of an interview years after it was written is RIDICULOUS to me (even though i already thought she was dead tbh but there was enough speculation in the fandom that it obviously wasn’t clear enough in-story). things like interviews and character pages should give you fun additional information that can help you expand on a character (oh rin likes horror games!! karasu is scared of the water!! etc etc) but it shouldn’t be the MAIN source of KEY info on a character. idk i think a lot of people love what jjk could be at this point and not necessarily what it is.

YESS i honestly was not super pleased by the female characters in jjk!! they are cool, and they COULD be well written, but they aren’t. i think in terms of its contemporaries, demon slayer does female characters better than jjk (again, not saying they’re perfect because they aren’t, but, say, shinobu is a stronger character to me than even maki).

jjk is a sunk cost fallacy for me HAHA i’ve been into it for over 2.5 years now so i have to see how it ends but i don’t really care atp what happens 😭 i’m like an unbiased outsider…idk it’s sad i wish i could’ve stayed invested but i only even know leaks are dropping because my social media blows up whenever they do.

OMG i also think rin is better looking than sae but i find sae easier to write for some reason?? idk why 😫 like sae is canonically only interested in soccer at least rin likes horror stuff but honestly between the two of them it feels easier to separate sae from soccer than rin?? if only marginally so hahaha. sae occasionally expresses regret at only knowing abt soccer so i feel like he’d be more willing to open himself to new experiences if sufficiently prodded whereas rin is SO invested in soccer (because soccer = his relationship w his brother) that he doesn’t even seem like he could have a proper friendship w someone let alone an actual relationship 😔

it really is always karasu…i do think manga can get away w exaggerating certain features (ex karasu’s smirk) that anime can’t so they have to figure out a way to balance it — maybe it’s the static nature of manga vs the motion of anime?? although karasu hasn’t been smirking much in pxg vs bm 😕 give my boy his swag otoya back!! HAHA but i also think he was such a background character in that one scene of season one that they just didn’t gaf abt him. he’s looked really good in all of the s2 promotional material so i have faith he will be done well!!

KURONA AND KIYORA MY RANDOM AHH KINGS 🙏🏻 they came outta nowhere but they’re slaying atm…ig the hundred goal thing only tested a very specific aspect of playing soccer?? like shooting without anyone on you which doesn’t really translate to an actual game 🤔 like in bllk vs u20 they needed defenders and midfielders who wouldn’t necessarily score but were integral to the game 👆🏻 plus they didn’t all go in at the same time so better players like tabieitaken and shidou were ranked lower than randoms like tokimitsu probably just because they entered later 🤷🏻‍♀️

it wasn’t that bad!! i just got like overwhelmingly sleepy because i haven’t taken any in forever so i just crashed instead of staying up longer like i usually so haha. but i’m hoping to get the one shot out soon!! it’s pretty dumb but more karasu content is more karasu content 🤩

[ingo-ingoing-ingone]

Submas Song Sunday

on TrainGuy Tuesday kinda vibe

Yup lmao I’m Back At It, this time @fourphoenixfeathers Fusion AU edition! :D

Submas Song Sunday, aka where I take a  song from my playlist and kinda just talk about how I think it fits the  subway bros (or just one of em!)

I might include references to fanfic, or explain an animatic I can think up to the song, or just talk about it!

DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this  playlist is intended to portray anything aside from familial  relationships. I am NOT looking at backstories of songs, who they were  written for, or songwriter’s intent. I go STRICTLY off lyrics and how I  interpret them!

You may find a link to the playlist in my pinned post! If you have a song you want me to talk about, send it in :)

Song: Home by Cavetown

So it’s no great secret that I’ve been writing a lot about Ei, the fusion of Ingo and Emmet. In that AU he gets pretty badly hurt, go read both my fic Two-Headed and Phoenix’s series Cobwebs if you want more Ei lore!

Mainly writing this out for her bc I can’t get ideas out my brain right now.

Often, I am upset that I cannot fall in love, but I guess This avoids the stress of falling out of it

We begin after Ei gets injured, when he sees that his four armed, four eyed form that he’s stuck in due to distortion nonsense is seeding some distrust among certain elders in the Pearl Clan. They had never even liked him to begin with; he finds this somewhat distressing, especially now when he’s so vulnerable.

But he can’t help but wonder if perhaps their reaction would’ve been worse if they had liked him. Would it be seen as a betrayal?

Are you tired of me yet? I'm a little sick right now, but I swear When I'm ready, I will fly us out of here

And then he is alone. E is alone and he’s worried about I... Is he getting sick of E controlling everything but unable to do anything about it because I is so injured...?

I also see this a bit as injured Ei with Akari; he tried to downplay how serious things are at first, but he still needs to get her home.

I'll cut my hair to make you stare I'll hide my chest And I'll figure out a way to get us out of here

I don’t take these lines too literally, but Ei tried to hide his extra eyes and arms for as long as he could to remain safe. There are definitely some who would attack him on sight for looking like that.

He meets the banished Akari in that form as well, and swears he’ll get them both home and keep her safe.

But then, post stab, now he hides his scar.

Turn off your porcelain face I can't really think right now and this place Has too many colors, enough to drive all of us insane

The lack of his second heart makes Ei pale, much paler than normal, and things overwhelm him easier. At some moments, more often than before, it’s all just too much and the brain fog closes in. Remembering is hard. Existing is hard.

Are you dead?

E often tries to speak to I. As time passes, the responses get less and less frequent until they stop. E wonders, then, if I is well and truly gone from within him.

Sometimes I think I'm dead 'Cause I can feel ghosts and ghouls wrapping my head

And Ei slowly begins to realize that he... Is more or less a dead man walking. It’s only a matter of time.

But I don't wanna fall asleep just yet

He doesn’t want to die, but especially not yet. Not when he’s not home. Not when Akari needs him.

My eyes went dark I don't know where My pupils are

Ei’s eyes glow, whether that is two or four. But then... The eyes that belong to I no longer glow after a while. They just remain, half open, unresponsive. He can’t really see out of them any more.

But I'll figure out a way to get us out of here.

E promises I they will BOTH make it home.

Get a load of this monster He doesn't know how to communicate His mind is in a different place

When Ei first showed up, he still was remarkably different from everyone around him. The man is 8 feet tall. He came from nowhere, speaks a strange language, and did not immediately find friends in the Pearl Clan or Hisui in general.

Will everybody please give him a little bit of space?

Irida vouched for him, though.

Get a load of this train wreck His hair's a mess and he doesn't know who he is yet

He’s got amnesia. He doesn’t know who he was, or who he will be.

But little do we know, the stars Welcome him with open–

But, despite the hardships, Ei is living in the moment. To the delight of E, the stars are brighter and the sky more beautiful than he had ever seen before.

Get a load of this monster He doesn't know how to communicate

But now. Ei is hurt. Ei looks monstrous, wanting nothing more than to hide and not show or acknowledge his extra parts. He is not good with words any more; that was I’s specialty. Explanations do not come easy.

His mind is in a different place

Well, half of it is.

Will everybody please give him a little bit of space?

Even now, Irida sticks up for him when suspicious and curious clan members make him uncomfortable.

Get a load of this train wreck His hair's a mess and he doesn't know who he is yet

He now knows he’s probably two people. Will he remain two people if one fades away? Will he still be Ei?

But little do we know, the stars Welcome him with open arms

While stargazing was more E’s thing than I’s, Ei still does it. He hopes that his wonder will filter its way down to his subdued half and bring him some comfort.

Time is Slowly Tracing his face

As the days and weeks go on, he gets weaker. His existence cannot be sustained like this.

But strangely he feels at home in this place.

But with everyone he has caring about him and rooting for him and on his side, at the very least. E and I are not alone.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Also Nekrotefeyo was criminally underused for the legendary Eridian homeworld like I was expecting like a big abandoned city or a completely decimated apocalyptic place, not a dried up ocean bed (Are they maybe more crustaceans instead (?) of bugs???) with like 2 Eridian buildings on it and also Maliwan for... Some... Reason. Seriously. Dark Maliwan was so clearly cut content and I wanna know wtf that was all about. Also we got Promethea so it isn't like they weren't capable of making a big city area, like the restrictions of the engine wouldn't allow it, they just didn't... Feel like it? Maybe didn't have time to flesh it out given how late nekro is in the game? Seriously it feels empty as fuck, I love exploring the planets, but even as a certified lore lover I just can't bring myself to explore that place more than I have to for quests. It's really empty and boring

Also, I am bet that the big glowing thing we see coming out of the planet as it fragments is related either to the Machine and the souls sacrificed to make it work, or the Guardian soul main storage thingie. Mainly because ghosts and such are real in the bl universe and they're all that same glowing green sort of deal. It also reminds me of Krieg's mind planet projection thing which does add credence to that. That is potentially why Minos Prime 'hatched', it could have been a storage place for other, maybe reject(?) Guardian souls and that's where all the Eridian and Guardian stuff randomly came from that Tannis keeps goddamn repeating every time u play the takedown. FE Minos Prime was a testing site for prototype Guardians and the souls (I don't want to call them mind cores because the mind core we got from the Vault of the Destroyer was solid and not green and don't even get me STARTED on that whole situation because there was cut Overseer dialogue from when you take that thing out of the Vault and why WAS it even in the VAULT OF THE DESTROYER and Hhhhh) were stored in Minos Prime until whoops they got out. And I'm guessing they sacrificed the people of Minos Prime to the Machine (we literally left nobody guarding it sooo) bc Tannis says they just vanished without a trace. Which ALSO adds bonus points to my theory that the Eridians aren't dead and are just chilling elsewhere laughing at us right now.

I still think Lilith brought Elpis to the Eridian Rift on the map Typhon and Leda wrote all over and she's vibing there, too. Maybe it's a sort of stasis place where time doesn't pass so the people of Elpis don't die. Idk how Lilith would know about that but then again given the chest in her room I would honestly not bet against my whole 'Lilith had help from the Watcher and/or the Eridians during/before Bl3 and refused to tell us' which is why she just vanishes at the end of the game and takes Elpis with her.

And also why Sanctuary-III randomly exists when we have never heard of the company that made it before (seriously what is supamax mfg), it's somehow in good enough condition that Moxxi and Ellie could fix it up with their scarce resources, and they found it before any other people did (can probably chalk this one up to Tannis if there were cameras or it was hooked up to the ECHOnet of Pandora, but the other two points stand). I would've been okay with it if it were an Atlas ship Rhys sent over or smth, if it were an old Hyperion ship, if the branding of supamax mfg was Moxxi and Ellie's team effort of making a spaceship company in honor of Scooter- literally if any of these things were explained in-game, but they're NOT. So I am left to go 'what the hell where did this come from what is Supamax MFG' and like, a random company we've never heard of existing is totally fine, we're introduced to the Obsidian Black Block and Hephestus United as well, but it just feels weird that this random supply (?) ship just happened to go to Pandora for some reason and then also crash or was abandoned for some reason. If we could just get a scrap of info on Supamax MFG and why this ship was on Pandora I'd be happy. Their branding is Ships Made Quick so clearly they build ships which is fine.

Did Lilith contact them? If so, cool, could we get an ECHO log of that? Where did she get the money after Sanctuary-II blew tf up? Did she or Moxxi or Ellie have connections that allowed them to get the ship made for cheap or free? Why did they decide to make the ship out in the open when they knew about the rising CoV threat?? Was the ship stolen? Did the Crimson Raiders just kill a bunch of people to get their hands on it? I doubt it, but this shit isn't explained! So yeah when I write theories like 'Hm well maybe this ship was planted here by the Watcher' its not because I'm driven insane by the Eridians it is because we literally have no other reason to go 'maybe not' and with what little information we do get during the game, it could be fuckin possible!!!

Lilith apparently knew more than she was letting on, she was contacted personally by the Watcher during the end of TPS (brick specially had to ASK what the Watcher said to Lilith), so yeah fuck it the ship and everything that wasn't explicitly explained was given to Lilith by the Watcher to help her in her quest for whatever the Big One is in bl4. Bc you KNOW that Bl3 was just the lead up to get the Destroyer to slip out of its chains thru Tyreen's meddling (literally in nyriads log right before the final boss and its not like ty absorbed an entire planet sized monster and was the size of, like, a shortish tree so you know the Destroyer is still in there as it's further confirmed by Scourge when he says shit like you don't even know what you just did blah blah shut up loser- the only thing pointing to the Destroyer ACTUALLY being dead is that the Vault (????) of the Destroyer (???????????????) opened after Tyreen died but then we can make the Vault of the Architects argument that maybe it considered her part of the Destroyer and her dying confused the Vault into opened, iunno. I don't even know why that Vault was there in the first place wtf was its purpose I thought the Vault of the Destroyer was either the other Pandora one (emergency human feeding port to a monster that doesn't need sustenance) or literally Pandora itself in which case killing Tyreen should have destroyed the whole planet by opening it soooooo I guess that Vault exists to circumvent that extremely specific problem only the Eridians would have guessed could happen idk) and to set the Guardians up as villains cuz fuck them that's why (>:( please gearbox don't, make the Eridians the bad guys if someone has to be evil pretty please the Guardians aren't the bad guys they are literally gaining sentience right now give them a chance they gotta figure themselves out and the Eridians fit the whole 'corporations exploiting their workers' vibe with the Guardians being forced to work even after the Eridians are gone so don't let those parallels slip away with shortsighted storytelling) but then it hurts even worse cuz the story could've been so much simpler and just... Sweeter and better than what we got if that's all they had to do was set those two things up. Bro I hate how every time I go to ask questions abt the game it leads me back here. Because it's true!! And it hurts I just wanna sit down with the lore manager of the game and ask them all these questions because I'm genuinely curious, but I'm afraid of the answers or non-answers I'll get. Again, I get the whole 'things have to happen for plot, not everything should be questioned, give the writers some slack to write a story' argument but when EVERYTHING falls under that category and the story didn't even end up being that great, it gets really frustrating because HONESTLY? if we had gotten good lore and explanations to things and actual world building and details and all that? I wouldn't have minded the main story so much. But unfortunately we got neither good lore (I wanna tell Nyriad she was lied to very badly because it's either the Eridians are evil and liars about a lot, or nobody thought twice the implications of giving the Destroyer a feeding port that explicitly calls humans to it) nor good main story (you know.) and it just. Is annoying. That's all.

[milf-shizun]

Allowing me more opportunity to be hungry for character lore? Excellent! Vorna: ☀️ 💐 🌼 👀 ❓; Luca: 🌙 💎 👀 ; Althea 🦋📚 👀

Allowing me more opportunity to talk about my dumbass children??? DOUBLE excellent! No seriously, ty, ilysm.

Vorna:

☀️ What makes your OC genuinely happy? A person, an item, their hobby? Where is the place they’re happiest, or most at home? What is the happiest they’ve ever been?

Her family makes her genuinely happy. All she wants is to see Moroven again. As far as hobbies/activities go, she's really into cooking. She knows how to handle rations and she's not opposed to simple foods, but if you give her the opportunity to make a real meal, she's almost too eager.

As of right now, she's the most at home whenever the group stops to make camp. When she was a soldier, they had to do that a lot. And the people she's with right now, while most of them clearly aren't soldiers, they remind her of people she used to know.

The happiest she's ever been, I can't quite share yet. But it was before she left her clan. She had everything she thought she could ever want.

💐 Does your OC like flowers? What are their favourites? Do they keep a garden of some sort? What flowers would they use in a flower crown? (and if you like, research the meanings behind those flowers!)

Ooh, good question. I don't think I've thought of that before. I think that while Vorna is definitely a pretty hardened individual, and she's come to appreciate some of the little things. She's no flower aficionado, but I think she would be really touched by the gesture of someone giving her flowers.

She doesn't keep a garden, but her favorite flower would be a snowdrop. If I were to make a flower crown for her, it would consist of snowdrops, pansies, anemones, gladiolus, and white heather. We love flower symbolism, folks.

🌼 Write a short drabble from your OCs POV meeting their LI (or if they don’t have a love interest, their best friend. If you don’t want to do a drabble, describe their first meeting instead!)

Okay, so I started writing for this, but I quickly realized that it was getting WAY too long. But I loved what was going on, and I didn't want to cut it, so I'm gonna keep it and finish it at a later date. But for this ask, I'm gonna try and explain how Dekran and Vorna came to know each other.

Dekran and Vorna actually knew each other as children. They played together with the other children in the village. They even both went to begin training to become soldiers in the same class, but Dekran dropped out after a month. He was really mouthy and sarcastic, and it got him in trouble with authority a lot. It drove Vorna insane, as someone who took her future as a soldier very seriously. So she wasn't too heartbroken to see him leave.

It wasn't until Vorna finished her training and became a member of her troop, the War Pigs, that Dekran popped back up again. He'd become a hunter/trapper and a bard (not like a battle bard, but a bard, he sings really badly). He'd begun trying to get Vorna's attention so he could start courting her, but she just.... REFUSED to give him the time of day because she thought he was a disobedient, immature little twit. But then also he was really funny and sweet to HER. But Vorna is Vorna and so she crushed those feelings under her iron boot. And Dekran didn't push her.

One day, Vorna was training with her friend Bushki, and Bushki was teasing her about Dekran so they could throw Vorna off balance. And it worked. But Dekran was there watching, and Bushki quickly pushed a sword into his hands and was like "oh hey you, you have a go" and he was just like "uH".

And Vorna was like "FINE just to prove that he's a weak lil bitch and I do NOT have ANY positive feelings towards him, I Will Fight Him." And Dekran, bless him, is no soldier. And Vorna laid him out on his ass.

But you see Dekran, having one brain cell when literally under the boot of a punk lady with a greataxe, just smiles dumbly and calls her amazing. That just makes Vorna *windows dial-up sound*.

He kept showing up for sparring practice after that, and Vorna didn't stop him. And the rest is history. Though, fun fact, it was much later during one of these sparring sessions alone, when Vorna pinned him by the chest under her foot, that he once again only had one brain cell and asked her to marry him.

👀 Describe your OC through the eyes of another person! (bonus + specify who)

Oh BOY. I don't even begin to know where to start with this one, aside from just copy-pasting her character description, and that seems very uncreative of me. YOU tell ME how your character sees her, how about THAT? Gotem.

❓ A random fact or short drabble! Or make up your own question to ask the OC!

Random fact? She loves snow. She would die in snow, if she could. I mean, she wants to die in battle, but preferably a snowy battle. She's also EXCELLENT at making snowmen.

Luca:

🌙 If your OC could have one wish come true what would it be and why? Would there be consequences to this wish or would they regret it once they get what they want? What would they give in return for this wish to come true?

Luca would give almost anything to know who his parents were. I have NO IDEA what my DM has planned, so the consequences of this wish are currently unknowable to me. But he does wish he knew who his parents were, and had gotten to stay with them instead of being raised by an Orc warband. The only good thing that came from the Orcs was that he met Mafareth.

💎 Does your OC collect anything? Is there a reason? When did they start and is it beginning to turn into a little bit of a hoarding issue? What do they do with their collection?

Does "things i've eaten that i probably shouldn't have" count as a collection? Because so far, he's eaten iron bars, giant spider webs, and an unknown number of mysterious mushrooms (one of which made his teeth into a lantern light). He's been eating random shit for most of his life, and he's only planning on eating more random shit in the future.

👀 Describe your OC through the eyes of another person! (bonus + specify who)

I CAN actually give you "Luca the Feral through the eyes of Gnerkle" considering Luca is 6'3" and Gnerkle is like 3" or something, ahsjdkd.

Luca is just a towering hunk of tatted-up, red-skinned muscle with a handlebar mustache and two big ol' bull horns on his head. And he swings a really, really big sword, and stands over Gnerkle like a safety barn whenever demons are about. Which is a lot.

Althea:

🦋 If your OC could change everything (or just something) about their life would they? What would they change? What do they think would happen if they did? What would their loved ones think?

Before going on her adventure, she would've changed everything. She wanted a sign from Oghma so, so badly.

But now, with the campaign over, I think she's happy. She's felt what it was like to have a purpose, to have people need her, to love two people more than herself. And now that she's saved the world, they can do anything they want.

The only thing she wants now, I think, is maybe to start her own library in Oghma's name. She'd be really competitive about it and make it big and full of MORE BOOKS than ANY OTHER temple to Oghma. Aolis would think she's pretentious and probably threaten to burn it down whenever Althea got on his nerves (though I don't think he ever would). Terri wouldn't understand who COULD or WOULD read that much, but if Althea needs her to swing her axe at some monsters in order to get an ancient tome, hell yeah she will.

📚 If your OC was given some kind of forbiddon knowledge, what would they do with it? Would they tell anyone? Use it for evil or good? How would it change their outlook on life, if at all?

Oh, boy, that's all Althea is AFTER is forbidden knowledge. She would curate it for her future library. Probably put it in the restricted section. She wouldn't use it for evil or let it be used for evil in any way, though. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is Althea's creed, but not at the expense of others.

👀 Describe your OC through the eyes of another person! (bonus + specify who)

She just LOOKS like a nerd, especially to Aolis. Terri sees Althea as tall, bony moon elf with almost no meat on her bones, but to quote Terri's player Rae when Althea cast a level 3 Guiding Bolt with a nat 20 and killed a giant worm, "I just remembered that Althea could seriously fuck someone up if she wanted to".

[mentallydatingahotcelebrity]

My Friend Saw Ragnarok

Here’s her opinion on it. Warning: she’s a writer. She only has a “casual” interest in Marvel; ie she’s not a fan of Loki, is mildly interested in the MCU as a whole, and only talks about it cause it’s all I talk about outside of our writing. (We’re both writers.) Here you have it, an outside opinion of Ragnarok: 

(second warning: this is unedited except for some things I think would be hard for people to understand, which I revised to be understandable.)

LOL YES ugh. It was just bad. Okay, to compare, GotG was like that. I almost didn't like those movies the first time around because they're one of those movies where nothing is really explained, you just sort of have to go into it blindly accepting all of these random alien life forms we've never seen before and their powers and planets and scientific laws and such. It was hard for me as someone who likes a lot of reasons and lore for things, to just jump in and be swept into the current. But then they started to grow on me because once you watch them again, the nonsense of it makes sense. That's the point, that you're just suddenly joining this world that you've never seen before and just have to jump in feet first and go with it. Sakaar was like that in a bad way. The aesthetics were terrible, like I said. Literally Star Wars meets Teletubbies meets the Exodar (from World of Warcraft).

(there’s Exodar so you have a visual)

Oh and throw in some... I dunno, 70s space themes or something??? It was just BAD.

And the Exodar was BEAUTIFUL and I looove the Star Wars themes, Teletubbies, not so much LOL But mash all 3 of those together and it's terrible. Just terrible. None of those things belong together. It's like trying to put two magnets together, end to end. It's just a freakin mess and you just sit there, your muscles all locked up, trying to get it to work but it's just not happening.

And WHAT was that wretched prison/holding cell thing where the fighters were kept? That was just weird, and why did you only ever see TWO freakin gladiators?? And the rock guy was kind of cool, like you really wanted to like him but the rock appearance with his weird high pitched voice just wasn't doing it for me, and then that other alien guy who I couldn't even describe to you visually because we never saw him long enough to know what his features were. And obviously Hulk was living in the champion's bedroom, so that was that; but whyyyy did they put Thor in there with him?? It was such a bad plot point because it was just way too convenient. Like "This guy lost because we zapped him at the last second because [who knows why]. Let's throw him in the same room as our champion instead of tossing him back in the pen with the other 2 low-lifes."

There were so many other fighters outside the colosseum getting ready to fight; where WERE those guys?? We never saw them. This whole movie was like convenience to convenience. It was like reading an indie novel. Nothing extra is ever shown,only exactly what you'd expect and exactly what was needed for each scene. You might, if you're lucky, see a rare moment where a really neat plot point or worldbuilding things was implemented, but those moments were more like flukes than anything else.

The plot overall was "okay". I wasn't floored, but it had good substance underneath all that crap.

 Odin dying, Loki and Thor having to work together to defeat Hela, Asgard being taken over while Thor is stuck in some other planet as a lowly gladiator. It had good potential, but I dunno. It was one of those movies where you felt like you were always waiting for something that never came. And in the end you're not even sure what that one thing was that you were waiting for, but you finish the movie just feeling like you never got to see "it", whatever it was.

It's hard for me to judge or compare specifically because I never did see The Dark World and it's been yearrrs since I saw the original Thor.

I really liked that Hulk/Banner had a ton of screen time. I feel like he's sort of in the background of a lot of the Avengers movies, and he never did get his own movie, so it was neat to really see a lot of him. On the other side of that though, his arc was totally flat. There was nothing to it, there was nothing that made him grow or change. He was just Hulk, and then he wasn't, and then he went Hulk again in a little sacrificial moment and just stayed that way. His arc was like a really flat line with a tiny little blip in the middle where he saw Black Widow on the screen and changed back and was all confused and had that emotional moment. Then maybe another blip where he decided to go Hulk to save the Asgardians on the bridge.

Valkyrie (idr her real name) was okay. She had the potential to have a really cool arc too, getting defeated by Hela forever ago and just sinking into that abyss of being a random collector for the GM and drinking her memories away. But I felt like she stayed flat for a long time too, until finally her arc shot upwards at a 90 degree angle when she decided to help Thor after all. And after what? After Loki showed her her memories? That was it? Like she already KNEW all that, that shouldn't have been her major changing point. Also the fact that Thor just HAPPENED to find her armor on the orgy ship just FRIED me to pieces. It's those little things, guys, those little things. You can't just pull that stuff out of thin air. It's bad planning and makes the plot cheap.

Hela was another one that was just "okay." I kind of kept waiting for some real substance from her, but she just didn't have any. Once again, it was just sheer convenience that they find Odin, spend like 36 seconds with him, he tells them he's dying, Hela is coming, there's nothign they can do, he dies, she appears instantaneously and BAM. Everything is wrecked in one moment. And I felt like there was no arc for her either. I never really remember hearing about her previous to this movie, so suddenly Odin just comes out with the fact that he has a daughter that he locked away, etc etc. And we never got to see any backstory or anything on her. She just "was" and then at the end, she just "wasn't" anymore. Like she just blinked in and out. I know her story is part of the real mythology, but it felt like they were just like "Okay we have no threads left to play with from the previous movies, what else can we do?" and just pulled her out of the lore and plopped her in there. The only thing we saw of her story was when she went in the hall and broke the tiles off the ceiling and we saw the "ONE" picture of her and Odin side by side, and are basically left to imagine the rest in our heads. FLAT.

And the Odin thing felt weird to me too. It felt rushed and strange and so disappointing. I never saw TDW like I said, so I dunno what led up to that, but why was he in that "rest home" apparently? Sent there by Loki or something? And then they get there and the building is torn down? That made no sense to me. Maybe it would have if I had seen TDW. But then they find him out in Norway or whatever (I did really love the Dr Strange part) and there he sits in his terrible fashion, almost on the verge of going insane because he's so near death, but he didn't really look sick or weak, just hella old. And he's all "My time has come" and with no more warning or reason than that, he just disintegrates into nothing. Like I always expected that when Odin died, it would be this HUGE thing. Like I would expect some great moment with good music where everyone around him is all tearfully saying goodbye and then all of Asgard is mourning him. Not him going broken-glowstick on a cliff in Norway wearing horrible clothes with only Thor and Loki to see. And they didn't even seem that broken. Thor was more broken by Loki's death in IW (who he only likes about 50% of the time) than he was over his father's death who he loved dearly from what I remember.

And last but not least, Thor's arc itself was.... I dunno even. His was a weird one. His was kind of up and down. Like he lost him hammer, and I would expect some HUGE moment from him after that. Like tearing up or being angry or defeated or something but then they just shot him off to that trash planet and he was so caught up in all that weirdness there, that we never got a good moment from him. It just went like 70s hookah party so fast, that we never got any real emotion from him. And then he never had a moment of weakness. Never that "this is too hard, I'm giving this all up" like all characters have to have. He literally never lost his drive to fight, which would have been cool if there was some epic force behind that, driving him to keep pushing forward, but they really lacked on showing us why he wanted to rescue Asgard so badly. I mean he's Thor, he shouldn't need a reason, but they never let us see the emotion behind that, or let us see some tender moment where he's sitting there telling some story of Asgard and his father or Loki or his mother or anything, and talking about why it means so much to him. The only time he wanted to give up was when he went to fight Hela, and all she did was barely knock him around (less than what Banner did to him, might I add) and then suddenly it was "Poor me, I can't do this. This is too hard." They had it so backwards. He was all amped up and driven to fight her, and all cocky about it, and she smacks him around for a few minutes and suddenly he's like "I can't do this." It was just really weird placement for me.

Literally the ONLY person in the entire movie who had a good arc, was the Executioner. (idr his real name either lol) He shows up, sort of this irresponsible guy , just using his position to get girls and get "things", and then Hela comes and he has no real morales and is kind of a coward who doesn't want to stand up to her so he becomes her second hand guy. First you see him following her around like a puppy, and then he goes from that to actually carrying out her orders. (GROWTH. Even though it was in a negative direction.) Then there's that moment when Hela pulls that girl out of the crowd and tells him to kill her, and he actually hesitates for half a moment, which was SO GOOD because it made him deep. It made you realize he had regrets about it, deep inside. But then he pushes those thoughts away and goes to kill her anyway. So now you know he's totally sold out to the villain's side of things. Then towards the end, when Hela starts to lose, he goes coward, and hides away on the ship with the other Asgardians. (More change and growth, even though again, it was for the negative.) Then at the last minute, when their ship is being overrun, he makes that final decision to forget what Hela wants him to do, to forget his fears, and do what he knows in his heart is right, which was to save his people. And he does, and he dies for it. It was really brilliant. It was such a beautiful, full circle of a character.

Also he was the only one that had GOOD armor. I loved his costume and armor. Everyone else's was crap, but his was good.

I still didn't really like him that much, cause he was kind of cliche, but he was literally the best arc out of all of them, if that tells you anything.

Last but not least, they just tried waaay too hard to be funny. It was like watching some kids’ show, like Frozen or something, where all the sudden things get really meaningful or deep, and you start to feel that moving feeling in your chest like "Okay, I like where this is going." and then some random character pops their head in with some stupid comic relief and ruins the whole thing. The whole movie felt like comic relief to me. There were moments that felt natural and funny, like a few of the moments between Loki and THor, or Banner and Thor, that felt so original to the Avengers movies and I loved that. Avengers is supposed to be funny, because that's how they've always written it, but it's never just PURE humor like Ragnarok. Even Iron Man is more serious than that, and he's like the most humorous out of all of them. So I hated that they kept ruining these good moments with stupid quips or weird things.

You know what it felt like? It felt like if they let the Grandmaster actually write and direct the plot himself. "Hmm you know, I woke up this morning feeling like a public execution." And then he just does it, and what we're left with is Ragnarok.

Overall, it had such good potential but it just fell so flat.

[seengularity]

Autumn Leaves

Pairing: Sam x reader

Gender: not specified

Warnings: FLUFF; implied smut

Word Count: 2.0k

A/N: I literally couldn't figure out what I was going to write with this gif. It seemed harder when I thought about it but when I got to writing, everything just came to me. I didn't want to make it specifically for one gender, so for you males that crave some Sam loving, here it is! Hope you all enjoy it. I also want to thank @impalaimagining for giving me the beautiful gif. This is written for her challenge #Taylor's Favorite Seasons Gif Challenge

FEEDBACK IS GREATLY APPRECIATED AND HELPS ME IMPROVE ON MY WRITING. WHETHER YOU REBLOG OR LIKE IT, LEAVE A COMMENT ABOUT THINGS YOU LIKED OR DID NOT LIKE.

The three of you finally had a break off of hunting. Nothing strange came up in the papers nationwide and for once, the world seemed quiet. That normally strikes you guys as suspicious, but you, Sam and Dean were taking advantage of that.

The bunker was slightly cold. The heater within worked but it wasn't strong enough to keep it warm. You were wearing your soft pajamas which consisted of a long sleeve shirt, fuzzy pajama pants, and fuzzy socks. Sam and Dean copied your attire, as they were cold as well.

"Can it get any colder in here!?" Dean yelled from the hallway. You were sitting in the library reading Pride and Prejudice, a book you have read for the 20th time now. Dean walked into the library and stopped in his tracks, glaring at you as you read the book.

"What are you staring at?" You asked Dean, but never looked away from your book.

"That's why you're a hopeless romantic. That imaginary stuff gets to your head and gives you nothing but fantasies that no guy is going to be able to ever fulfill," he walked out of the library and into the kitchen. You heard him get the coffee that you made, and you just rolled your eyes.

Dean was always hassling you about reading Pride and Prejudice. You couldn't help but love the relationship Darcy and Elizabeth have.

"Ignore him," Sam said approaching you and taking a chair beside you. "He doesn't read anything other than lore books and the newspaper, so he lacks imagination. I read that book twice and like it myself."

You smiled at Sam, happy to know you both shared an interest in the same thing, other than just hunting. Dean walked back into the library with his coffee and sat across from you and Sam, reading a newspaper that didn't look very interesting by reading the headline. Sam took out his laptop and began typing and searching things, and that's how the three of you were for half an hour.

You were getting to, yet again, a good part in the book when you began to hear slight pitter patter from outside. The sound was very distant and light, and you thought maybe it was just the old bunker. You began to divert your attention to whatever it was that was making that noise and the closer you got to the large iron door, the louder and faster the sound became.

You opened the heavy door and were met with rain fall and orange leaves flying around in the cold air.

"Guys! It's raining!" You excitedly shouted to Sam and Dean.

They both gave you no response and you were confused as to why they weren't as excited as you. But then it dawned on you that they are from Kansas and you were from California. It hardly rained in California and was always dry and hot there. They're used to the rain, you're not.

You closed the door and locked it, rubbing your hands together from the cold breeze that hit you when you opened the door. You walked back into the library and seen Sam and Dean completely ignoring you.

"Whatever guys," you said and began walking out of the library.

"Did you say something?" Sam asked, but you ignored him and walked to your room.

You went and grabbed your largest and softest, not to mention the most warm, blanket in your room and wrapped it around your body. You walked out of your room and into the kitchen, quickly making yourself some instant hot chocolate and grabbed a napkin for any sudden messes. The heat radiated from your glass mug and you wrapped your cold fingers around it to keep them warm.

You walked back up the stairs and to the door, placing down your blanket and your mug, and reopened the door, allowing the cold breeze to fly into the bunker.

"Close that thing, will ya?" Dean shouted. He sounded mad but you didn't care. It's not like you see rain fall in autumn everyday.

You got your blanket and wrapped it around yourself and grabbed your hot chocolate and sat down on the floor in front of the opened door. You always loved and appreciated the cold. The icy cold air hit your face and you breathed it in, smelling fresh but also smelling like rain.

"Hey! Close the door! It's freezing in here!" Dean shouted from downstairs. You ignored him and you heard him walking up the stairs angrily.

"Are you insane? It's like 20 degrees outside and you're letting the coldness come in. It's bad enough our heater is barely working," he said wrapping his arms around his body.

"I don't care, Dean. I hardly get to see the rain, let me enjoy it this one time," you told him. Dean rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed, but you knew he was going to give in. He walked away and back down the stairs and you smiled to yourself.

You stared at the rain, thinking how weird it was that there were times when the rain would come down harder and then softer. You wondered, is the rain cloud heavy when it rains harder? Is the rain cloud more grey when it holds more rain?

This was something you could've easily looked up, but not knowing made your time seem more peaceful.

You heard someone coming up the steps but didn't bother looking to see who it was.

"Need one?" Sam asked you. You looked to him confused with his question, but he had two throw pillows in his hand.

Your butt was hurting from the concrete floor, and you didn't realize it until Sam offered you the pillow to sit on. You smiled and nodded, taking the pillow from his hand and placing it underneath you.

"Mind if we share?" He asked, slightly tugging on your blanket.

You smiled and happily shared your blanket with him, and you both snuggled close to each other under the blanket. Sam reached his arm behind you, pulling your body close to his. He was shivering and you could feel the coldness of his large hand seeping into your shirt.

"You feel so warm," Sam said smiling at you.

"Even though your hands are cold, your body feels pretty warm to me. Want some hot chocolate? It might make you warmer." You offered the mug to him and he held it with his free hand and downed it in one go.

"That was really good," he said laughing.

He had a chocolate milk mustache and you laughed at him because he was clearly oblivious to the way he looked.

"Why are you laughing?" He asked, looking lost.

"You have a little something right here," you said, pointing to your own mouth.

"Where?" He asked, wiping his face but completely missing where the mess actually was.

"Here," you said and wiped the chocolate with the napkin that you got earlier. You cleaned his mouth and you were both smiling.

You hadn't noticed, but your faces were quite close to one another, making the situation feel rather intimate. Sam's smile died down and he had a face of adornment, and you quickly pulled away and placed the napkin to the side.

You didn't see, but Sam's face dropped, sadness washing over him. He thought maybe he was the only one that felt his heart beating quicker as you cleaned his face or when he wrapped his arm around you. He thought maybe he was the only one that felt something between the two of you as you would work on cases together when Dean would leave you two alone. Little did he know, that you did feel all those things that he felt. You knew deep down inside that if you made your relationship with Sam even remotely romantic, your friendship would go down the drain.

Sam turned towards the door, his gaze fixing onto a leaf that was hanging onto a branch by its limb, mentally rooting for the leaf to hang on. When it fell, he heard you sigh, and he was confused about what that meant.

You, on the other hand, wanted Sam to make a move. You wanted him to so badly. You were scared to make the first move because if it all went down hill, Sam would blame you for ruining everything. Not to mention, you would blame yourself for ruining everything. Whereas, if it were Sam, you didn't have to blame yourself. It was a very selfish thing to think, but it's what kept you from making a move.

You sighed, wishing you had the guts to just tell him how you feel.

"Sam, I think I love you." It was all you had to say, yet, those six words seemed so hard to muster up.

The rain was now slowly falling, looking more like mist than rain. It hit the red-orange leaves softly and they dripped with rain. It felt no longer windy, as the cold air was hardly hitting your face. You decided it was time to close the door and go do something else to keep you entertained.

You grabbed your mug and began shifting off of the pillow that was beneath you when you were suddenly stopped and was grabbed by Sam, who brought you closer to him and smashed his lips against yours.

You couldn't breathe and the kiss was sloppy and unromantic, and you couldn't help but push Sam away for some air.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry," Sam said, sliding far away from you. He slipped out from under the blanket and kept his distance. "I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I should've asked you. I wanted to do that so badly. I don't know-"

You brought your hand up to stop Sam from talking and he shut up real quick. "It's okay, Sam. I just couldn't breathe. But if we're going to kiss, let's at least make it a good kiss."

He eyes were wide and held confusion. He realized he was wrong. You did feel all those things that he felt towards you. He seen you sliding closer to him, very slowly, and his heart began to race because he knew he was going to kiss you. He desired to have your lips on his, even though they were cold.

You reached your hand up to his face, his face feeling warm as you caressed his cheek. You were completely nervous and your heart was drumming against your ribs. You moved close to him until your bodies were touching and you reached your other hand to the other side of his face. His long hair fell down, so you move his hair and pushed it back.

Sam made his move and grabbed your legs and placed them over his, so your bodies could no longer become any closer than they were. Love filled his eyes, as did yours, and the both of you closed the distance that was between your lips.

His lips were cold and soft and they fit so perfectly with yours. Your heart continued to race and your stomach formed butterflies as Sam placed his hands around your waist. The kiss continued and the both of you kept it a clean kiss, no tongue.

The kiss began to die down and as you began to pull away, Sam nipped on your lip and gently tugged on it. It was such a turn on and you couldn't help but feel and look flustered. Sam smirked and lightly laughed.

"Should we continue this in my room?" He asked you.

You smiled and nodded your head. "We should."

[bluerose5]

Tomb Raider Thoughts

I just need to rant about the new Tomb Raider movie. As someone who loved the reboot of the games, I found the movie to be decent enough, but I wish that more of the game could have been incorporated, considering that the 2013 game is what it’s based off of. Just know that I'm not a critic by any means, and all that is stated are my personal opinions.

For my tastes, I’ll rate it a 6-7/10. 

Major Spoilers Ahead:

Personally, I found that bringing Lara’s father back didn’t do much for me. Bringing him back, only to have him die in the end, is not my cup of tea. It's a trope that is used countless of times to make the audience feel sympathetic to the character's suffering, and -while I admire them for exploring her emotionally- him being there (as The Expert) to help her took away from the "sole survivor" aspect that the game aimed towards. She certainly had people to help her along the way in-game, but most of what Richard does feels more like babying than assisting. Not that I can blame him. After all, she is his daughter, but the relationship Lara had with Conrad in-game always felt like him pushing her to take the lead and to unravel her full potential.

For example, when Lara is impaled by the shard of wood (or whatever it was), she has to yank it out herself. In both the game and the movie, she is capable of doing this. Here, we see Lara struggle under distress, just as she does with her first kill (which is portrayed wonderfully both in the movie and in the game). Where it differs is in how the injury is treated. In the game, she has to eventually cauterize the wound herself. She realizes that taking out an impaled object only leaves her open to further injury. In the movie, her father is there to stitch her up and save the day. Again, while touching, I didn't feel her growth in the movie as much as I did in the game.

Next, I turn to support roles. In the game, Lara had a minor crew there to back her up. She had people there that she loved and cared for, who she argued and struggled with, and the movie's complete omission of Conrad deprived her of the father figure that helped her cope with Richard's loss, along with many other unique relationships that were explored (Jonah, Angus, Joslin, Whitman, etc.). I guess they substituted Conrad's death with Richard's, and it could be argued that his death served the same purpose that I stated for Richard's above. Nevertheless, I turn to my next target: Sam.

Sam was a major character in the game. She was arguably Lara's best friend in-game, almost like a sister to her, and she had a major role in relation to the Himiko storyline. They completely trashed that plotline and portrayed Himiko as this self-sacrificing sorceress, when in fact she remained an antagonist until the end of the game. Himiko was going to use Sam as a vessel to continue her reign as a death goddess, so it's a great leap to go from one extreme to another.

Same could be said about "Father" Mathias. In-game (correct me if I'm wrong), Mathias was as big of a believer as any. The storms were keeping them from leaving, and he completely blamed it on Himiko's wrath. He basically ran a cult of believers, but the movie tries to portray him as this (semi-)rational man with some random daughters thrown in there in an attempt to justify his actions. He doesn't seem to believe in myths as Richard does, and I guess this is trying to portray him as more realistic(?). Honestly, I found the character more interesting as the cult leader. I know that that itself is an overused trope, but I felt that it enhanced the character's sense of insanity and desperation from remaining on the island for so long. He wanted a way off, so he turned his blame towards the only thing that made sense out of an irrational situation.

This also circles back around to Lara. In-game, Lara gradually comes around to the idea that something supernatural might be occurring. She has research and knowledge backing her up the whole way through. Same could be said about the movie, but I felt that they executed it badly. Again, they try for the more "realistic" response by saying how insane Richard is, but in-game Lara was the one being judged when she tried to explain the curse to Joslin and the others. Movie-wise, it isn't until Himiko physically infects them that Lara seems to be like, "Oh, magic." At that point, I was kind of wondering if these two were even the same people.

Now, I conclude by saying that I understand that (like with books) it's literally impossible to fit every single detail of a game into a movie adaptation. Additionally, I haven't played the game in a while (and I've only played the first of the reboots), so be free to make any corrections lore-wise. Nevertheless, I feel as if a lot that was thrown out from the game could have benefited the movie greatly. Of course these are my opinions, but I wouldn't mind hearing others.

[takaraphoenix]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Fuck. This is going to be really very long. And I am saying that knowing how long my previous rants were. Those were short compared to what’s about to come.

I absolutely, completely and unconditionally love Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is the singular most perfect TV show in existence. Nothing I have ever seen has lived up to it and I doubt anything I will ever see will live up to this show in its whole. This is my second favorite show on my top five list and it’s held that spot for the past fifteen years (which mind sound strange that I put the “most perfect TV show in existence” on spot two, but… I’m fully aware of all the flaws in my most favorite show and that I love that one with my nostalgia goggles on, but it will still always be my number one and not even Buffy’s perfection can kick it off the throne).

Now, just because I love something doesn’t mean I perceive it as flawless. I am fully aware of its flaws. But nothing is a hundred percent perfect.

I don’t even know where to start, but I think the beginning is the best.

What I hate about most supernatural shows is how “They are now thrown into this strange, new world with monsters… and immediately forget all about their non-supernatural friends” that literally every other show with supernatural elements does.

Not Buffy. When she first meets Willow and Xander, the two kind of only had each other and their buffy who gets killed off right at the start. And even then, Willow and Xander were the non-supernatural normal friends. And they became so important.

The fact that Buffy has this group of ordinary people behind her and really just human characters and that they back her up, that alone is awesome.

The Scooby Gang in general is awesome.

That is my favorite thing about the show. The relationships between the characters and how important they are. That the friendship never takes second place to the romance, like how many other shows like to write it. Because regardless of who was added to the plot and who left again, in the very end, it always came down to Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles and I will always cry at the show’s finale when it is just the four of them, parting ways to go into their very last battle, I mean fuck I’m crying right now just writing this because it was just so heavy with the emotions and the importance of their friendship.

They are the heart and backbone of this show and the show never forgot it.

Many shows forget themselves, they forget the values and beauty they once represented, the longer the show goes on. And Buffy never did. Sure, it lost itself in the middle - but we’ll get to that when we get to that - but it caught itself and never declined fully.

Buffy Summers is an amazing character. She’s a girly-girl who loves lollipops and talking about boys and whining. She’s the most badass female character ever written in TV who saves the world repeatedly and comes back from the dead just to do it again, who has been beaten down by life in the cruelest ways possible and still kept on surviving but never without the scars. Her struggles were never just shrugged off. They became themes that were being dealt with realistically. For fuck’s sake, we had a plotline about her working at a burger shop because yes, this is a show taking place in reality and bills are something that needs to be paid even if you save the world. She is not a perfect character, she made a lot of bad decisions along the way, but that is what makes her human. She is not some character created for an agenda to show that “girls can do anything boys can” and is thus forbidden from doing anything overly girls, as many writers mistakenly do when trying to write strong female characters, because a female is not powerful and strong just because she belittles women who like wearing pink and dressing prettily and who see “girl” as an insult. That is not how strong women work.

Women are complex characters, just like every character should be. They don’t have to solemnly be one way so they aren’t the other way. And Buffy is a beautiful example of the complexity of it all.

Willow Rosenberg is an amazing character. She’s one of the characters in TV that had the biggest character development. This shy, demure girl that became the most badass bitch around who could kick your ass into a parallel dimension with the blink of an eye. The fact that she was literally the first lesbian I ever saw only made her more amazing for me. You see, I started watching Buffy with season 4, which first premiered in Germany in 2001, because, well, I was 10 when I started watching that show since earlier was kind of a little too young in my mom’s eyes, but she’s been watching it for years at that point and I kept lingering in the doorway with pleading eyes because vampires and witches and werewolves, mom, please, until I got to watch it. Right in the season where Willow and Tara fell in love. And I was legitimately in awe, because the concept of two women falling in love was new to me. I never met a real life lesbian before and on TV, the highest of their feelings were Will & Grace with the gays, but lesbians? Never seen that before. It was amazing for me.

And I will forever be grateful that Willow and Tara were my first representation of lesbians that I met.

Xander Harris is an amazing characer. I mean, seriously, I could do this for nearly every character but I’ll only be doing it for the Big Three for the sake of time, okay? He was this fearful, dorky, kinda useless normal dude in the beginning, but he had such a strong backbone, he always knew he’d be there for his friends. And he always was. What made him so special was that he wasn’t special. He was just A Guy. Where Buffy was the Slayer and Willow became the most powerful witch in existence, he was just a normal guy. The original Matt Donovan and Stiles Stilinski and Simon Lewis (despite him turning into a vampire later on, I will still count him for this category). The quippy human best friend to the supernatural. But he adapted. He found his own place among the supernatural and his own way of prodicing for them, helping them.

It amuses me that actually, I kind of started watching this show with its weakest season. Season 4. But let’s start with the other seasons first (I mean, I warned you guys that this is gonna be long).

Buffy was my first high school TV show. All shows I had watched up to that point were family comedies like Married with Children and Full House. But this was the first real look into how American high schools work and I loved it. The first three seasons in itself are the best of Buffy. I’m not even able to pick one season as the best because I like the whole stretch of it.

The dynamics, the characters, the villains, the plots.

Cordelia Chase is - argh, I didn’t want to do this for every character, so I’ll keep it short - another amazing example at character development. From the shallow, air-headed Barbie to a strong ally and friend who fought with her head held high and I will never forget Angel for ruining her.

And okay, if I take a sentence for Cordelia, I can really, truly not skip Giles. Giles, who will forever be The Mentor. When I hear “mentor figure” or “father figure”, I will always first and foremost think of Giles. He was the father and guide to them all, but he was not the one strong pillar, he too had his struggles. It’s one of the things that made me love the second Percy Jackson movie because Anthony Stewart Head is who I pictured as Chiron when reading the books and it is the most perfect casting they could have made.

The first three seasons arched beautifully together, tying the struggles of the high school students turned demon hunters, the funny elements and self-awareness, the serious undertones.

The scene at graduation when the class gave Buffy an award for being Class Protector is one of my favorite TV moments, because this… this acknowledgment of “Yeah, we weren’t always there for you and we didn’t bother getting to know you, but we know you’re there and we know what you did for us” and honestly, I’m crying again, this is ridiculous.

They graduate from high school and then… life continues. Like. Life continues in a realistic way. They go to college, or not in Xander’s case. They struggle with what to do with their lives, they try to find their own paths in what I consider the most realistic portrait in TV. In others, it’s not just “Yup, they college. We’ll mention college every now and again, but it never interferes with the demon hunting” like with most others. Buffy struggles with college work and demon killing, Willow soaks it all up because it’s exactly her world, Xander doesn’t know what to do with it, Giles struggles with what to do with his life in general.

Still, I consider season 4 the weakest season because the Initiative was… It wasn’t used well enough. It appeared and then it kind of disappeared again and in this show where the lore and world-building are so rich and on-point, the Initiative was the one hit and miss they did. Not to mention, I don’t like zombies and Adam creeped me out and was the weirdest major Big Bad that they ever had in that show.

But it brought back Spike and made him a more complex character than just “Bad guy with bad attitude and insane girlfriend”.

Which is a good cue-in for the ships and love-stories, actually.

Buffy is and perhaps will always be the only franchise where the love-triangle clicks for me. Angel/Buffy? Yes. Oh god, what a beautiful, tragic love-story, please give me more of them, OTP all the way. Spike/Buffy? Oh, the pain but they are so good for them and when he’s good, he’s the best, please give me more of them, OTP all the way.

I literally can not decide on who to ship her with. With most love-triangles, I either do not care about both options, or I want to cross the badly written female out of the equation and want to dive right into the slash fiction, or there’s only one good pairing in the options anyway.

The tragicly ironic thing is that for Willow, I have and always will ship her most with Oz though. Willow and Oz were that perfect soft warm ship for me, when I got to finally watch the first three seasons as the reruns hit Germany.

Willow and Tara, while beautiful at times, were also very tragic. The way Willow lied to Tara and manipulated her was just so unhealthy. I do love them together, I just think that I love Oz and Willow a bit more.

Xander is a mess. Like. Seriously. Him and Cordelia. Him and Anya. I can not decide which one I like more in the end, but think that, at this point, it really does become clear that I can cut this show into two parts. The first three seasons of high school where Angel/Buffy, Xander/Cordelia and Oz/Willow are just all the yes, as well as the post graduation seasons where Spike/Buffy, Xander/Anya and Willow/Tara are just all the yes. Which really, truly fascinates me.

Because it’s really rare for a show to get me on board with its canon couples in general. This show does an amazing job on that too.

So, season 4 was kind of flawed in the way the Initiative wasn’t grounded enough in this world and how weak its endgame villain came off.

Season 5 brought the legit only thing about this show that I hate. Dawn Summers.

Urgh. It makes me shudder to just think about her. She’s such an awful and useless and stupid person. And yes, I’m saying person here, because “character” would blame it on the writing and make it sound like she’s a badly written character, which she is not. She was intended to be the annoying, dumb, useless little sister. Not every character can or has to be flawless or lovable. She’s just that… one that isn’t.

And she just becomes worse in season 6, honestly. She is such a self-centered brat that has no concept of the struggles of others. Like. Yes, I understand that she has problems and that she suffers too, but so does everyone and if someone doesn’t have time for her, she acts out. They just… They do have a lot on their plates, trying to save the world and keep you from being homeless, you know? Which, okay, was a solid portrayal of an angsty, bratty teen, I suppose, because teenagers, as I recall from my own time as one, are fascinatingly blind for the struggles of adults. Doesn’t make her less annoying though.

I take back what I said earlier, about not being able to pick a favorite season. Season 6 is my favorite season, which in itself is baffling. Normally, I pick one of the very early seasons of a show because they keep declining afterward until they crash and burn.

Season 6 did the exact opposite of what other shows do. Where other shows feel the need to top it all off, go wilder and broader and more brutal and bigger enemies until it becomes an unrealistic mess, this one just…

Three human boys.

That’s the enemy of the season. Just three stupid idiots who play pranks on the good guys, for the most part. And it was the perfect choice, because instead of having to deal with those major Big Bads, we get the chance to deal with the characters. The one thing I keep complaining about in other shows, how they’re too overcrowded with plot to even give the characters any time to deal with stuff or interact.

Buffy did it.

They stepped back from the Big Bad in favor of dealing with the bigger issues. Dawn being not a real human and not dealing well with that. Buffy having died and being brought back. Willow becoming addicted to magic. Xander… completely fucking up the best thing in his life.

We have character plots in this season.

Character plots that still end in a big battle of epic proportions when Willow literally becomes a Dark Witch powerful enough to destroy the world. But instead of it being some epic battle, it’s one of the… quietest fights ever and it’s brought home in such a beautiful way because it’s about grief and loss and pain and love.

And those. Those are the moments that make Buffy the most perfect TV show to me. It never loses its humanity. Maybe the most emotional scene in all of this show happened in season 5, when Joyce Summers died and Anya talked about her death, about the concept of death. That will never cease to make me cry.

And season 7 was the perfect ending. The way it rounded things up, it brought every single thing full circle, all the way to that above mentioned scene of Giles, Buffy, Willow and Xander parting ways before the very final battle, among all the loudness of everyone, it is brought to the forefront one last time that it is them.

The way they solved the whole Slayer thing, the Big Bad they chose for their final season, the development. Nathan Fillion as one of the creepiest bad guys ever. The fact that, even after all those seasons already, Buffy still had a struggle, had to prove herself.

I have one or two major bones to pick with it, because I hated when the group decided “Lol, nope, we don’t need you, Buffy”… that broke my heart. It breaks my heart every single time I watch it because even her friends tell her they need a break from her. I mean, I love how she found safety and support in Spike’s arms after that scene, but that it happened at all and that after things of course go wrong without Buffy, they all come crawling back… it makes me angry. It was important to bring them all as a team together, but to me it will always feel OoC coming from those she had fought alongside with for seven years, those who should always have her back who always did have her back.

And, when talking about bones to pick, aside from weak season 4 and Dawn Summers, there’s just one more major thing that I have a problem with.

Hank Summers. For those who forgot because he’s literally only been in two episodes, that’s Buffy’s dad. Because Buffy has a father. The “(half-)orphan”-trope is very overused, but I genuinely think this show would have benefitted from it.

Hank Summers does nothing. Not even when his ex-wife dies and his teenage daughter and barely-above-twenty daughter are left all on their own. He doesn’t pitch in with money, he doesn’t visit, he doesn’t even think about taking Dawn in and taking care of her himself.

I mean. Same as with Dawn, it can just be said that he is a Bad Person and a Seriously Bad Dad, but… Give me a break, Buffy deserved better than that. Having him be dead would really have been better, especially when Joyce dies and he just… “Nope, no interest in those kids”.

And on that note, let me add Faith (who I accidentally forgot about before). She’s... probably the most complex character, because it’s easy to hate her, but it’s also kind of easy to love her. She’s definitely the most flawed character and that’s what makes her good. Because she’s bad. She gets the same powers as Buffy, but unlike other Slayers, she gets morally corrupted. But she also finds her way again. She’s a badass bitch and she definitely brought something new to the table. I loved how flawed she was, because she was not a good person, but when needed, she was one of the good guys. They never pretended to turn her around into a good person though, she always stayed true to herself.

The reason I’m adding her here is because I feel like she messes up the mythology a little. Part of me really loved how they brought in Kendra after Buffy died, because “When the Slayer dies, another Slayer awakens” and that they remembered to keep with that when Kendra died. But after that, this kind of really fell apart and is one of the biggest plot-holes to the show, in my eyes.

Buffy died three times. But only her first death awakened a new Slayer. Now, you can argue that with that, the mantle was passed on, but... When Buffy came back from the dead, she still had her Slayer abilities. She was still the Slayer, she wasn’t suddenly back to being the normal girl she was before she turned sixteen and became the Slayer. So technically, considering she was still the Slayer, her other deaths should have also passed on the mantle and thus awoken two more Slayers.

Not to mention... in the history of Slayers, Buffy was the first one to be brought back to life? I always found that hard to believe. No one ever used CPR or magic on a Slayer before? I doubt it.

So in this very rich and grounded lore and mythology, I have a problem with “We got Kendra and then we got Faith and... we don’t bother explaining why we never got any additional Slayers”.

Now, as we conclude this, let me wrap up what exactly makes Buffy the Vampire Slayer the most perfect TV show to me.

1.) The superb writing.

Not just the plot as I laid it out above, the way they knew when to step back and when to give character plotlines instead of big and loud action plots. Simply the dialogues alone. This show holds up. It’s a time-capsule of the 90s, sure, but its writing and dialogues are still funny, emotional, heavy, with exactly the right words chosen. The writing on this show is in every aspect overwhelmingly brilliant.

2.) The characters.

They’re individual, they’re well-developed, they have their own plots and relationships and they are all important, not just the titular character. It inverted tropes with its characters, it managed to put strong female characters out there without having “being a strong female character” be their only and defining character trades.

3.) The story.

Okay, this is technically part of the writing too, but I think it deserves its special shout-out. Because this show has a consistent lore where not all of a sudden all the time something new is shoehorned in and retconned in and where it comes apart by the seams the more seasons it has because you notice the writers didn’t think ahead so far. No, this world is fleshed out, its lore is established and as it is. It’s consistent.

Yes, it’s not flawless, but damn it’s the closest to flawless that I’ve ever seen.