#I can and probably will go into detail about certain aspects here

[museenkuss]

It’s come to a point where I’m just sick of online consumerism. I want to read physical magazines instead of cheap, churned out click bait articles or dramatised YouTube “essays” by people who may or may not know what they’re talking about. I want to go to a store and get inspired by the displays, check the quality and fit of the garments and chat with the salesperson, instead of click-drop ordering stuff that’ll arrive at a point where I’m already half bored by it and still have to check fit/quality. I want to go to the cinema to watch films on big screens and enjoy the velvet, popcorn-scented atmosphere, instead of watching films on streaming services, one eye on my phone the entire time. I want to go to grocery stores and walk around the aisles or take a stroll on the market instead of ordering boxes that’ll deliver floppy salad leaves and individually packet portions of rice of questionable quality.

This internet-mandated “comfort” is sucking the soul out of everything, it’s turning every aspect of life into a grey sludge of sitting in front of a screen.

[naturally I’m well aware of the fact that this comfort is making life easier for a lot of people and I’m not shaming them for using services that help them in their daily life. Apart from sharing my personal perspective, I’m also worried about the fact that online consumerism is slowly killing every real life service and that is sad.]

[fading-event-608]

Recently the syndicate of chemists in Lebanon has issued a statement warning people to not go near the blast sites due to alleged use of depleted uranium by Israel. (link - you need to scroll till the statement in Arabic). The screenshot of their statement on twitter was shared here on Tumblr and I’ve seen multiple people expressing scepticism regarding the source. Some people linked an article (link) from anti-Hezbollah 'democratic' newspaper 'L’Orient Today' to ‘fact-check’ - because of course they can’t read Arabic and are discontent with a twitter link.

This is my short summary of the article: they confirm that Israel has used Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons, not only in Lebanon but also in Gaza in June of this year and between October and December of last year. They establish a history of the use of Depleted Uranium, and include examples of its use in Iran in 2003. Israel doesn't directly talk about their use of DU, but neither are they hiding it - because there is no law that forbids the use of these bombs by Israel, there is no treaty regulating the use of DU weapons. There were several resolutions calling for a moratorium on the use of DU weapons in the UN and EU Parliament, the latest of which was in 2022, but these have failed to stop their use (those who have used them also includes both Russia and Ukraine). The article ends with an ominous addition that the Israeli army has been found guilty multiple times of using white phosphorus, which IS prohibited against civilians or civilian property under international law. (You probably can already tell that their defense is that they do not use it against civilians)

There is another article that was published in early September this year - LINK - I highly encourage you to read this one yourself, as it is quite short, especially when considering the amount of information it contains. As this one is more easily accessible, I won’t summarize it - please take it in yourself. I will say, however, that this article’s author, one Dr. Busby, worked with colleagues to conduct several investigations into the use of uranium-based weapons in both Lebanon and Gaza. In 2006, Dr. Busby asked his colleague to collect multiple samples from a crater left by what was suspected to be Depleted Uranium weapons. Samples from an ambulance air filter were also taken. Dr. Busby and company found not only the  presence of depleted uranium but also of Enriched Uranium. Here’s the paper: link.

Enriched Uranium. In 2006.

By 2024, all of the laboratories that Dr. Busby had used to Conduct the investigation have closed their doors either to him or in general. Busby’s letters to the UN, as well as papers detailing evidence of the use of enriched and depleted uranium are either dismissed or ignored, rendering it unlikely that there will ever be the “official” source for these claims that certain people now see fit to demand. And even if the UN did accept those letters and did push for ban of those weapons - would Israel comply? Genocide is ‘illegal’ under international law, and Israel still faces the case in ICJ, but what will that ICJ do if they rule that Israel is guilty? What would UN do if they accept evidence of Israel using uranium-based weapons? Scold them and write a fine?

The aspect of the deployment of nuclear weapons considered the most horrific is - and has always been - the fallout. The idea that all nuclear weapons would leave evidence - again, fallout - behind was born into the cultural consciousness through various cold war era PSAs, as well as other media inspired by these horrors, potential and otherwise. The weapons Israel is using here do not create fallout, however. But do not mistake them as harmless - they are still highly carcinogenic. They cause birth defects, as well as various other illnesses - mysterious illnesses, or at least mysterious until doctors attempting to treat them register that their patients have been exposed to enriched uranium, after which point the mystery goes away. 

In a sense, the horrors advertised by cold war PSAs and films like Doctor Strangelove, the promise of some explosive end brought about by some fool in the US pushing the wrong button - these serve to draw a veil over the continued use of nuclear weapons that have been ongoing since this technology was first harnessed for violence. This is a severe danger to the people of Gaza, and we can’t ignore it simply because we have developed in our minds too much faith in the loosest understandings of nuclear warfare.

I think many of you are familiar with a boiling frog story. The story goes that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will try to climb out. But if you put it in warm water and very slowly heat it, it will be so accustomed to the temperature it will eventually be boiled alive. It’s not very authentic, of course - in reality the frog will try to jump out as soon as it deems the water temperature uncomfortable. Just like you would try to get out of the bathtub as soon as it gets too hot for you or try to warm yourself up when you spend too much time outside in winter. 

But some of it still rings true. At what point will the UN, or ICJ, or some other white savior wannabe decide that Israel has done too much? What is that ‘too-much’ point that makes them try to protest, and what would that protest be?

As in case with Tumblr, it seems that the boiling point, in fact, has already passed and people grew accustomed to deaths of Palestinians. There are thousands of posts about the situation in Gaza, and the whole Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria… They get a lot of attention by both zionists and Palestine supporters. There are also hundreds of Gazans that came to Tumblr in hopes to escape the genocide by asking people to cover evacuation and survival costs. Do they get the same attention? Barely. Arguably zionists are more invested in interacting with those posts - they mass report them and harass Palestinians. And even if the fundraiser post gets a lot of attention, it does not necessarily translate into a lot of donations - people just assume that someone else will donate instead of them.

You can’t stop Israel all by yourself. You can’t convince the UN or try to progress the ICJ case by yourself. You can, however, do small acts that will contribute to Palestinian resistance. Go protest, go boycott, and please, please, please, go donate to Palestinian fundraisers.

Falastin’s family are under constant threat in Gaza. She’s been fundraising to save them since late June, and yet they’ve only recently gotten to just over 5% of their total goal - a little short of $10,000 USD. They’re still in Gaza, and still in need of funds for survival. The longer they are trapped there, the more they need - not just for food and water, but also for medicine, shelter, and clothes. Each time they’re displaced, due to inadequate time to pack, they lose more supplies, and their needs increase. Give what you can so that they can survive this, and please share their fundraiser as much as you’re able regardless of whether you can donate, just in case someone you know might be able to help. Not just here on Tumblr, on other social media, talk to your friends, coworkers, family, in group chats and in discord servers.

Please keep in mind conversion rates before donating:

10$ = 103 SEK

25$ = 260 SEK

50$ = 519 SEK

100$ = 1,038 SEK

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[stagkingswife]

The Returning: Who Are the Forgotten Ones?

The Returning revolves around a pantheon of 11 unrecorded entities that I collectively call the Forgotten Ones.  I believe that some, if not all of them, were once known to our Paleolithic era early hominid ancestors, as several of the Forgotten Ones have responded with recognition and familiarity to samples of art and artifacts from that era.  They also feel older than any other entity I’ve ever encountered - older than gods from other pantheons, older than the Fair Folk and dragons I work with, older than any entity I've encountered in the Otherworlds.  There’s something primordial about them for lack of a better word.  But old age and deep roots doesn’t necessarily equate to power, or more importantly for the purposes of this post immutability. 

Long time readers and friends of this blog are probably familiar with my “silly hat” theory of godhood.  That “god” is just a label that people put on the spirits that we worship. It doesn’t mean anything in terms of power, or importance, in my cosmology.  God is just a silly hat we put on the particular spirits who are special to us.  But there is a corollary to the “silly hat theory” that I don’t think I’ve talked about in a while - I think of it as the "aspect creation theory”. We all know that spirits can have different aspects, like facets of gem, and I believe that people can be responsible for creating those aspects. If enough people believe strongly enough that a spirit has a certain personality or behaves a certain way the spirit will start to be affected by that - an aspect of that entity will form that conforms with that belief. 

It was this human driven change that the Forgotten Ones sought to avoid by fragmenting themselves and going dormant.  They wanted to stay as they were, and in complete control of themselves.   The details of how they came up with this plan were shared to me in the form of a myth that maybe one day I’ll share here. But suffice to say, they knew there was a chance that someone would come along one day to fulfill the role I find myself in - a person who would want to worship them on their own terms, whether that meant preserving them as they are or letting the Forgotten Ones lead any growth or change that might happen.  And if no one ever came along to take up that mantle, they believed it was a better fate to die as themselves than to live to become someone unrecognizable.  So the Forgotten Ones broke themselves in tiny pieces and all but ceased to be, until I passed my initiation was tasked with putting them back together.  

This is my ultimate responsibility as their priestess - I’m the caretaker of their essences.  It is my responsibility to ensure that these entities remain in control of their own aspects, staying the same as they were millions of years ago if that’s what they want, or nurturing, but not forcing or dictating, their growth if that’s what they want. It’s an honor to have been trusted with this role, and I have dedicated my life to it.

It is in the interests of this role that I am sharing carefully curated details of The Returning. The deity profiles that I will be posting will not have all of the details about each of the Forgotten Ones, the posts about the Holy Days will not include step by step guides for how to perform the associated rituals for that day. I feel it is time to share more about The Returning than I have before, in the hopes of helping others who are building their practices around their own unrecorded entities. I'm not looking to recruit people practice my religion or worship the Forgotten Ones, in fact I'm actively asking people not to.

[deanbrainrotwritings]

— BUTTERFLIES AND HURRICANES

SUMMARY : Colt takes you out for a ride…

PAIRING : colt seavers x fem!reader

CHARACTERS : none

WARNINGS/TAGS : explicit(18+), fluff, jokes and fun times, unprotected piv, fingering, handjob, maybe a kissing kink (idk if that's a thing)

WORD COUNT : 6.7k

A/N : title is a muse song. this is part of the @alphabetquest challenge — car sex! (heheh, I have a type) <333 the car has to be a 2022 ford shelby gt500 since it's the first image that popped up when I searched up Mustang in Canva, lmao. ALSO IM NOT DEAD YET AND THIS ISNT DEAN... I WAS SCARED TO WRITE ABOUT A NEW CHARACTER BUT I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT RYAN GOSLING SO IDK WHY THIS IS LONG SORRY xx

All you could think of was Colt Seavers.

You felt embarrassed with the way he occupied your mind, but it was impossible for you not to fall fast and hard for him. He was funny and sweet and romantic and caring and genuine. He made you feel young and careless, but not in a way that would bite you in the ass once you returned to Earth. 

You knew you could dive headfirst into him and his gorgeous blue eyes, and never be afraid that you've wasted your time.

To clear things up, you only felt embarrassed because you needed to get work done. Here you were, staring at the empty script that was waiting to be written, and all you could think of was Colt Seavers. You were embarrassed because, suddenly, all your stories, all your words, and all your characters contained an aspect of him. 

Your relationship with Colt wasn't a secret, but the director was expecting certain specific details and plots from you. And he'd know Colt was the reason for the change in your writing, and everyone would know, and Colt would know. 

And you weren't sure you were ready for that. Even if you were going steady with him, already shared intimate moments, and it was becoming the norm to wake up beside him. Even if he was effortlessly sweet, and perfect for creating a happily-ever-after with.

He was magical. Refreshing. Good. 

He was like a crisp sunshine in the early morning, never scalding, never freezing. Perfect for catching some vitamin… D… No… don't do that, body. 

You reached out for the cup of coffee beside your keyboard and lifted it up to your lips. You knew the caffeine wouldn't ease your overactive mind, but it would probably help you focus that energy on a specific task. You hoped very hard that it would be the case, and that you'd write something that make the director, and everyone else on set happy.

"Uh, you, whatever your name is, that's mine."

You stopped drinking and looked behind you, at Colt. He was trying to look serious. You resisted a smile as you licked some coffee from you lips. You looked back at the cup and rotated it to find his name written in black ink.

"I was just making sure it wasn't poisoned," you lied, allowing yourself to smile briefly. You turned around in your chair and held the cup out for him—your smile gone. "It's safe to drink."

"Oh, great," Colt beamed, and crossed the space to take the cup from you. "Wow, someone's boss thinks I'm special enough to save from poisoning." 

You stared up at him as he took a few sips, and you admire him, his glowing skin and… beard… remniscing about what it felt like all over your body when he'd kiss you. He stared at you as he swallowed his final sip of the warm caffeine, and you knew he was waiting for you to say something, but you kind of have nothing to say now. 

He's so adorable. And beautiful. And you should focus on writing, but the way he's staring down at you is making your heart race, and he bit his lip to hide his grin, and all you can think of… is how much you want him. 

"Maybe I should learn the name of the beautiful, brave, and selfless woman who almost died for me, possibly," he started up again, dramatic and very much flirty now. He held out his hand, you took it, and shook it once. You were about to say your name, but he set the cup back down on the table. 

You followed the movement, barley began looking back at him, wondering what he was up to, when he tugged you up out of your chair. You squealed as you crashed against his hard body and the smooth leather of his F1 suit. He released your hand to wrap his arms tightly around your waist, and hold you close to his chest. 

You looked up and found him smiling already. Colt kicked your chair out of the way and walked you back into the desk, but he didn't lift you up on it. He just kept you trapped between his warm body and the edge of the table, which dug into the bottom of your ass. 

"So… I can kiss you, right?" He wondered, staring down at your lips. He licked his own. "We're at that… you know, stage…? Where we do that?" The more he talked, the bigger you smiled, especially since you knew he was trying to actcasual. 

"We've fucked before, like… twenty times, I'm not counting, but I'm pretty sure it's around that much," you rambled. You definitely wanted a kiss from him, but he always managed to make your face hot and your heart beat at an insane rhythm. You didn't even know what the point of your sentence was anymore, but it caught him off guard and distracted him. 

"Fucked? That's a bit aggressive," he commented quietly, leaning closer. His hands squeezed your hips and you flattened your palms on his chest. Your breaths became heavy, as did his—quick and warm against your tingling lips. "I'd say it was more like making-"

"No, don't. I don't wanna hear it said that way." 

"But it was…" he bit his lip and looked into your eyes. "…like… that…" He lifted his hand and brushed your hair away, his hand rested against your jawline and your cheeks heated up. 

"Sometimes," you replied quietly, trying to maintain the playfulness. You shrugged. "There were those time where you bit me really hard and-"

He snorted. 

"I'm gonna kiss you now," he warned and began to dip down. You held your breath, suddenly, almost virginally, the anticipation of his kiss made you shamefully needy. He stopped, almost touching your lips, teasing you, so you felt his breath tickle your lips. 

Then, when you were at the apotheosis of hot, horny, and embarrassed, his lips pressed against yours. Your nerves and neurons exploded at his touch. The coarse hair of his beard and mustache tickled you, but that was what reminded you who you were kissing. 

Colt's hand clenched in your hair and his arm tightened around your waist to pull you impossibly close. Your knees weakened when he traced your lips with his warm tongue. You clung to the leather covering his body, breathed shakily against his mouth, and he tilted his face to deepen the kiss. 

His mouth met yours again, and his tongue was in your mouth this time. You tasted the sweetness of coffee in him and he tasted that sweetness in you. You felt lightheaded and your arousal skyrocketed, and you worsened it by sitting up on the desk and pulling his hips against yours. You moaned softly against his mouth at the contact, he groaned in response, and nibbled on your lip. 

Colt gently pulled your hair and dragged his mouth down your neck, his teeth and tongue followed, all the way down to your clavicle. Your hands moved upwards into his hair, threading through to tug at as you panted for air. Your body felt sensitive and fiery against his mouth, and his body, and his hands. 

He rolled his hips against yours, slid his hand down the back of your thigh to press precisely against your covered clit, all with his hand still tight in your hair. 

"Colt!" 

His name being shouted through the two-way radio ripped the veil of lust and contentment that kept you blind to reality. Colt grunted in irritation against your neck and brought his mouth back up to yours, ignoring the stunt coordinator. 

"Where are you? We're starting in five minutes!" You gently pushed Colt's chest and smiled against his greedy mouth. 

"We have five minutes," he mumbled against your lips. You laughed softly and kissed him firmly as a goodbye, but his warm and calloused hands sneaked beneath your pink blouse. You drew your mouth away from his, despite his complaints, and he licked his lips as he gazed down at you playfully. 

His hand untangled from your hair, he cupped your cheek instead, and slowly began leaning forward, waiting for you to stop him. 

"Colt," you whispered, placing your finger on his lips to stop him from diving back in. "You should go," you tried not to laugh. He wrapped his fingers around your wrist and leaned forward to kiss you deeply, then placed two soft kisses against your lips. "I'll see you later," you promised breathlessly.

His thumb brushed against your bottom lip, he his teeth sank into his own as if contemplating kissing you again. But he ended up conceding, "yeah, okay."

Colt udjusted his suit at the crotch area, then ran his fingers through his tousled hair. His natural hair was growing out so only the tips remained bleached from… being Tom Ryder's stuntman... You had a hard time believing his life story was anything but fiction, except there was plenty of evidence proving otherwise. 

"Wait, where will I see you?" He stopped and leaned against the door. 

"Here. I'll take you to- well, it's a surprise," you grinned playfully. "But it's a gift for me, mostly." You batted your lashes innocently at him. Colt shook his head and laughed, finally heading out. 

"Wait, your coffee!"

You were touching up the script, deleting and rewriting lines of dialogue and adding a few important moments that needed to be acted out, all while smiling to yourself as you recalled the way Colt subtly flirted with you any chance he got while standing behind the director. 

It was nice to steal a few moments with him when the opportunity presented itself. With Colt being who he is, he pretty much managed to make nearly every moment with you romantic to some extent. Sometimes it was seductive smiles with a hint of playfulness, long and innocent touches with undertones of sensuality. But maybe what you loved most was that he always managed to say something cute, romantic, sweet, funny, sexy, or dorky in a way that most definitely made you blush, somehow. 

You weren't going to lie, you were a little excited for tonight. So excited, in fact, that you quickly stopped by the hotel you were staying at to shower and put on a burgundy sundress rather than the jeans and blouse you'd been wearing earlier. 

There was a soft knock on your trailer and the door quietly opened, but Colt had already given himself away with a quiet hiss and an, "ouch." 

You shut your laptop while you grinned, ready to laugh at him for whatever he'd clumsily done—since he didn't often do anything clumsy on purpose. 

He must have gotten the same ideas as you, and gone back to his room to get cleaned up and put something clean on. And he had a small orange moon cactus in his hand; the other hand, he was inspecting carefully. He'd pricked himself. 

When he looked up at you, he was as stunned as you were. He dropped his hand after blindly kicking the door shut behind him, and slowly dragged his eyes down your body before returning to your face. 

"Wow, you look very pretty." Had the air not blown the scent of his cologne rushing to you, you would have been able to repsond with something as sweet and earnest as his compliment.

"So do you," you murmured, sounding dazed, unfortunately. Still, his cheeks turned bright and he laughed while holding the plant out for you to take. You took it from him carefully. 

"I know you said you hated flowers because they reminded you of funerals and hospitalisation, so I got you a plant instead," Colt explained. You couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled out of you hearing that out loud, and coming from him, it was more funny. 

He joined in and chuckled softly, seeming a little unsure. 

"That's a pretty decent loophole," you sighed, and lifted the cactus so it was at eye-level. "It's cute." He shoved his hands into his jeans, stepped closer and looked down at it with you. 

"I named it Shirley," he informed you. 

"That's more adorable." Him, the fact that he named it, the name? All of it?

You stopped at the winding road that your friend had told you about. Had she not taken you and your two other friends to see the place, for a picnic date, you'd have never wanted to see Colt in your car, driving the way you've always dreamt of doing.

But here he was, well, he was in the passenger seat, but still. You were going to ask him to drive your car down to… nowhere in particular, just to live vicariously through him. 

"What's here? A serial killer cabin?" He looked over at you, a smile playing on his lips. Your eyes skimmed over his gorgeous face, his beauty somehow enhanced with the glow of the vibrant sunset pouring over his face. 

"I have a request," you started, watching him lean in close to you, listening intently for your words. He smelled so clean and soft and good—no, that's not the point. "Drive my car, you can stop whenever you want."

"That's… you want me to drive for any particular reason?" Colt looked down the empty road and then over at you, his blue eyes sparkled flirtatiously. 

Your heart began to beat swiftly again and your face heated up. "You know… When I was a kid, I wanted to be a NASCAR driver, and writing about an F1 driver is just… you know, do this for me?" 

"Really? You wanted to be a NASCAR driver?" He was on the verge of bursting out into laughter, but he also looked genuinely surprised at your confession, so you looked away and shrugged. 

"To be fair, I wanted to be a palaeontologist, elementary teacher, and fashion designer, too. Those option would've been… more awesome than… this," you mumbled, looking at the road as the sun hid behind seemingly endless hills and trees. 

"I think you're awesome right now," he whispered. You turned to him again, and became flustered by the softness on his gaze and his words. Your stomach somersaulted, he chewed on his lip, and you could've kisses him hard if your heart would've allowed you to relax.

"Shut up," you muttered bashfully. "I mean, thank you. What? Stop it," you looked away from him and he snickered. 

"I'll do it," he told you, giving you and your warm face a small break. He started to get out, and you fumbled with the seatbelt to meet him at the front of your car, where it was warmer compared to the cool breeze surrounding you and Colt. "If you wanna stop just tell me. Also, I'm gonna need a kiss," he teased and shrugged casually. 

You rolled your eyes, but how could you deny him? The air had been sexually charged the whole ride here, and now that you were stepping closer, you felt like you were being fused to him. Like a massive chemical reaction would occur as soon as you touched him. 

You closed the distance between you and him, on your tip-toes. Your hands gripped the colourful green and blue plaid shirt he was wearing, and his hands held your hips, clenching slightly. He waited for you, this time, as your breath mingled with his. 

The touch of your lips to his made you breathless instantly, and what was meant to have been an innocent and quick kiss became another make out session. With you on the hot hood of your car, with his fingers tangled in your hair, with yours buried in his hair, and his other sneaky hand lifting your dress higher and higher. 

"Colt," you breathed his name out softly. 

He released you instantly and licked the taste of your mouth from his lips. "Right, be professional. Totally."

"Not too professional," you smiled and slid down the hood with his help. "Anyway," you looked ahead and the darkening sky, "It's no Nürburgring, but we're not here to check my car's features. What I did check was the traction, it's all good… so…" You clicked your tongue and gave him a thumbs up, which he returned with a grin. 

You quickly entered your car and sat in the passenger seat, but when he entered the driver's side, his head hit the top of the roof and his thick thighs squeezed beneath the steering wheel. 

"My God… you are tiny," he murmured playfully, adjusting the seat and the mirrors. You snorted, slightly embarrassed. But as you watched him, your wondered if this was a good idea. You wanted to jump him and—no, please. "Alright, how attached are you to this car?" He joked, putting his seatbelt on while looking over at you. 

Colt was hot enough as it was, but being there in the car with him as he smoothly sped down the road, making sharp turns smoother than you could've done—you couldn't tell if your heart was racing because of the speed or because of how hot he looked beside you. 

You liked the way he handled your car, the way his hands moved adeptly over the steering wheel, the way his thighs became taut with every press on the brake and gas pedal. There was surely nothing more sexy than the sight of him concentrated and cautious, all at once, as he drove at speeds higher than you were brave enough for. 

He turned into an empty field and drove straight a fair distance into the tall-ish grass, at first. He was testing the ground, feeling it beneath the wheels as he turned and braked before moving the car in a circle, once and twice, then stopped. 

His chest was heaving and he looked alluringy flushed—you imagined that you probably looked similar to him. He relaxed against the seat, rested his hands on his thighs, and looked over at you with an exhilarated smile. He looked beautiful and unexpectedly relaxed. 

You smiled back, dazed and… aroused.

"Wow, that was…. you're… amazing," you sighed, looking out at the night sky, a slim orange line of light remained on the horizon. You were too embarrassed by your desire for him, but the darkening sky was distraction enough. For a few moments, the bright star that shined near the moon on the darkest side of the sky captured your attention.

"Not as amazing as you," he exhaled. His hand wrapped around yours and you turned back to him with a blush you wanted to hide extremely bad. 

What you really wanted most was for the warm throb between your legs to stop, so the moment could remain sweet and funny, but the way he looked at you, and the way his hand felt in yours was making you feel like you were on the verge of combusting. 

You pressed your thighs together and squeezed his hand subconsciously. Before you could attempt to brush it off as nothing, Colt leaned forward to capture your lips with his. The kiss was fueled by adrenaline and by the suffocating lust that had been engulfing you both since the morning. 

Typically, you would have pulled away to crack a joke and ease the sexual tension, but you were done with trying to stay away from him. There was no reason to continue being professional now that you were off set. 

So instead, you unbuckled your belt and then removed his own—more carefully, so it wouldn't slap painfully against his body. His mouth chased yours anyway and it made your stomach flip. You cupped his face to guide his mouth back to yours, ignoring the course tickle of his beard against your soft palms, and kissed him roughly. 

He moaned softly into your mouth, surprised, but kissed you back just as desperately. 

You felt him blindly turn the car off, and once he did, he turned to you fully, and quickly started to lift your dress up your legs. Your heart pounded in your ears while he squeezed your thighs. His teeth nipped at your lips, your soft gasp gave his tongue access to slip into your mouth, and slide against yours. 

Heat pooled between your legs, dampening your underwear. His warm hand was gripping your hip beneath your dress, so tight it made you moan as he expertly licked into your mouth. It was maddening and you only pulled away to regain your wits, to catch your breath, to see what he was currently feeling or thinking about the whole… You and him thing. In the car. 

"Do you wanna…?" He asked before you could, with his cheeks burnt red with a blush. You felt as hot and coloured as he looked, despite the chill of the night. You pressed your thighs together, feeling the wetness between your legs soaking your underwear, which only worsened by staring at the flushed and wrecked state of him. "We don't have to, it's up to you." 

Instead of responding, you shoved your dress upwards, and Colt leered at you as you lifted your hips to pull your underwear down your legs. He made you feel, possibly, hotter than you ever felt before, and made you act far more daring than you thought yourself capable of. You would never have had car sex in the middle of an empty field with anyone. 

But everything always felt right with Colt. 

"Are you sure?" He murmured, lips parting as he watched you climb over the middle and into his lap. He swallowed and carefully placed his hands on your thighs, grateful that you'd kept your dress lifted as you slid over to him. 

"Very sure," you reassured him, pecking his parted lips once. 

"Okay, cool, cool," he said, voice slightly shaky. You leaned close to him, holding the seat with one hand and trying to find the handle beneath the seat to recline it with the other.

Colt's mouth was on your neck instantly, beard scratching your sensitive skin, his playful and passionate mouth worked like heat conduction with your body. You'd held the handle, distracted by his lips and tongue against your pulse, it was when he pulled away that you mischievously pulled the lever. 

"Oh, fuck!" He exclaimed, attempting to sit up straight against the sudden movement. You tried to balance in his lap despite his shock and then he laughed, melting against the seat with his hands in his hair.

"Sorry, I thought it'd be funny," you laughed apologetically, playing with the button of his jeans. You leaned over him and brushed his wavy hair away from his blue eyes. 

"That was really mean," he chuckled. You apologised again, but he was laughing with you, and shifting beneath you until he was comfortable. His hands were back on your thighs and moving up higher, reigniting a heat between your legs. "Are you comfortable?" He whispered, watching your face as your eyes danced over his contently. 

"Mm-hmm," you nodded, caressing his cheek, just above his beard. "Are you comfortable?" Colt leaned into your touch and you tried, with one hand, to unbottom his shirt, only slightly exasperated by the sight of a white t-shirt underneath. 

You turned the light on above you have clearer sight of the buttons. He looked way prettier, even under the yellow light, like honey or gold. 

"It's kinda hot," was all he said. You smiled, felt his thighs become tense beneath you, and so you started to undo the buttons with both hands to get him out of the warm layers faster. "Can I… touch you?" He asked quietly, brushing his thumbs along your hipbones. 

"You are touching me," you teased, trying to focus on popping each button of his shirt out, and doing the same to his jeans. He shifted beneath you and flexed his hands impatiently on your thighs. 

"Can I touch you… everywhere else?" He was being playful, too, now, but if only he knew that the way he was touching you now was somehow turning you on. 

"If you get all this clothes off, then yeah," you replied, shoving the warm flannel over his broad shoulders. He chuckled and lifted himself up to shrug the warmest layer off his shoulders, and took the opportunity to kiss you. Your hands clenched the hem of his white t-shirt. You could feel his muscles tightening as he attempted to smoothly remove and throw his shirt in the back seat. 

You laughed against his mouth when he yanked it off his wrist impatiently, and eagerly began to pull his t-shirt up his muscled torso yourself. Your hands moved flat against his warm skin, feeling every hard and defined plane of his body with curious intensity. Colt smiled and hummed softly at the cool touch of your hands, his hips wiggled beneath you, urging you to go faster. When his shirt was high enough, he barley allowed your lips to separate, and instantly returned to kissing you. 

You threw the shirt in the back, brought one of your hands back down to his jeans, and carefully pressed your hand against his dick. He groaned against your mouth and his hips bucked upwards into your palm. A pulse shot through your clit at the sound and you gently kept rubbing your palm against him to draw more sounds from him and buried your fingers in his soft hair. 

"Please," he mumbled against your lips, pulling at your clothes, demanding that you be bare above him. Your stomach clenched and you let him drag your dress up your body, so you were sitting on his lap only in your bra. 

You breathed heavily, your skin flushed and prickled as he stared longingly at you. He pulled you closer with his hands on your hips, blunt nails pressing into your flesh. 

You leaned into him as he settled back into the reclined seat with your body as close to his as possible. 

"Kiss me again," he whispered, his baby blue eyes glued to your mouth, begging for it to be on his again while your hands wandered between your bodies to get rid of his pants. 

You dipped down to meet his greedy mouth with a singular firm kiss. 

"Colt," you murmured over his kiss-swollen lips, having half the mind to beg him to finally touch you. Except your breath hitched when he fervently leaned forward to capture your mouth with his, licked gently along your lip as an indication of his intentions, and carefully slipped his tongue into the rift made by your surprise. 

You could feel how slick you were, your neediness thrummed through your cunt and tingled across your skin wherever his body touched yours. 

You mindfully began unzipping his jeans as he devoured your mouth with so much passion your head felt light and your hearing was muffled by your heartbeat. 

His lips moved over yours hotly and his warm hands pressed tightly against the skin of your back. He adeptly undid your bra, threw it in the backseat as well, and ghosted his lips down your throat and sternum to kiss your breasts. 

You brought your hand inside his jeans, feeling the warm, thick hardness of his dick against your teasing hand over his briefs. He groaned and bit gently at your breast, and his hands trailed down your sides roughly. 

You couldn't take it, the feeling of his hot mouth, and the aching need between your legs, and the tingling sensation on your sensitive body following the touch of his skin. 

You thread your fingers through his hair, urging his mouth away from your spit-slick nipples. He grunted at the sharp tug of his waves when he ignored you, released your breast with a pop, and gazed up at you endearingly dazed. 

"What?" He asked with a playful smile, trying to hide the fact that he was more than enjoying teasing you. You tugged at his hair again, with enough force to draw a deep groan from him, and your cheeks flared up.

He bit his lip when you shoved your hand inside his underwear, your fingertips traced the length of him, feeling him throb and twitch. Colt whined quietly, his brows drawn together, teeth buried impossibly deep into his already kiss-swollen lip. You clenched around nothing and circled your thumb around the leaking tip of his cock. He shakily exhaled your name and lifted his hips into your hand. 

"I need you, Colt."

"Fuck… yeah, me too," he panted and started shoving his briefs and jeans down before you even got your hand out. You laughed softly at his enthusiasm and lifted your knee up to the padded console next to the seat to give him more space. 

You kissed him again, felt his smug smile against your lips when you tenderly cupped his face in your hands. He followed your mouth when you pulled away to drag your mouth down his neck and collar bone. Your hands moved down his warm skin, exploring what you could of his fit body. You licked at his skin, the dips of his throat, and grazed his collarbone with your teeth. 

Your hearing was entirely focused on his heavy breathing and breathy words. You felt his fingers move along the inside of your thigh and you sucked gently at his chest, then bit down on the hard muscle. 

"Shit," he grunted, and pressed his hand between your legs. His palm rested against your clit and his fingers circled your entranced. You gasped as your stomach summersaulted and heat spread through your body instantaneously. "You're so wet," he murmured, dragging his glistening fingers up to your clit. 

You lifted yourself up shakily, hands flat on his chest, and watched him. His blue eyes first swept over your face as he circled your clit, your thighs shook as you kept yourself up. He bit his lip before allowing his gaze to fall to your breasts and finally, between your legs where his fingers were busy. He looked so attractive beneath you, chest heaving and face flushed pink. 

You shuddered when he pressed two fingers into you, slowly and shallowly pulling them out and back into you, and never going as deep as you wanted him to be. Still, he curled his fingers inside you and your breath hitched. 

He kept the same rhythm and you flushed as the slowness somehow amplified the lubric sound of his fingers entering you. Your lips parted, shaky breaths slipped from between them, and your eyes fell shut for a few moments before opening again to criticise him. "You're driving me crazy, Colt."

"You look hot when I do that," he admitted unapologetically, and gave you a smirk. You squirmed and clenched around his fingers, embarrassed by his earnestness. And then he continued to tease you, watching your hips move and your body tremble when his thumb brushed against your clit just perfectly. 

"Stop that," you scolded, holding his wrist shortly despite the new layer of slick that dripped around his hand. He hummed softly and buried his fingers deeper into you. 

"What?" He asked with a grin, moving his fingers faster and pressing his thumb harder against your clit. The sound of your wetness nearly mortified you. "Is that better?" He asked softly, but still teasingly. Your stomach felt like it was free-falling and your thighs twitched, wanting to shut around his hand as your pleasure increased exponentially. 

"Please, just…" You leaned back slightly and dragged your nails gently along his abs. Through your hazey eyes you wrapped your fingers around his cock and gently slid your loose fist over him. 

"I heard you," Colt mumbled jokingly, jerking his hips into your hand. He gasped when you slid your palm over his wet tip and squeezed your hand downwards to spread his precum over the smooth and hot skin of his cock. He laughed and pulled his fingers from inside you. "Right, I was just- ah, fuck," he grunted, slightly thrown by the unexpected sensation of your thumb rubbing beneath the head of his cock repeatedly when your slid your hand upwards. 

"You're such a fucking dork," you mumbled, stopping your own tormenting touch to guide his cock between your legs. 

"Uh, yeah, and you're into that." He bit his lip and stared into your eyes, which glittered with amusement at his words. You watched him suspiciously and smiled a little. "I mean, there's also my six pack and when you see me naked, you start-" You interrupted him by sinking down on him, he choked on his words, and moaned with you as you slowly dropped yourself on him. You stretched around him, feeling deliciously full and hot with him throbbing inside you.

Colt gripped your hips tightly once you were fully seated on him. You smirked at the facial expression he made when you clenched around him in your own smug excitement and languidly lifted yourself up with your hands on his chest. 

"Let's keep kissing," he proposed breathlessly, bringing one of his hands up your shoulder, behind your neck, and into your hair to pull you forward. You couldn't help laughing at him, but allowed him to bring you down. His soft mouth parted slightly, ready for yours, making your stomach tingle.

His beard tickled your chin and lips when your lips collided, his tongue swiped over your teeth, then slid into your mouth to move against yours.

You lifted yourself up cautiously, nose brushing against his when you pulled away to find a comfortable position and rhythm. But Colt was serious about kissing you and lifted his head to reattach his lips to yours, and thrusted upwards into you.

You moaned into the kiss, forced to hover above him with his steel grip on your hip, and his hand clenched in your hair to keep your mouth firmly against his. He inched you up his body, hips angled slightly, and rolled his upwards experimentally, pushing his cock against your gspot and making it so you clit rubbed against him.

His name tumbling from your lips was muffled by his hungry mouth against yours, his tongue tasting as deep and thoroughly as he could despite the clash of teeth. He fucked you harder, panting and breathing against your lips to catch his breath before kissing you with so much passion you knew your lips would be sensitive in either a few hours or by tomorrow. 

"You feel so good, fuck," he grunted against your mouth and sank his teeth into your lip. You whined at the sting, but your stomach fluttered at his words. He licked your lip soothingly and let his calloused hands desperately wander over your body, occasionally flexing his hands over your skin. You could feel yourself getting wetter and wetter around him.

"Colt, I-" you whimpered, moving your mouth away from his to bury your face in his neck, feeling the unabated force of your orgasm approaching. His hips stuttered when you sucked softly at his throat and he breathed out your name. You inhaled the scent of him, the shampoo, and body wash, and shaving cream nearly masked by the thin sheen of sweat on his skin. 

"Please… wanna see you," he exhaled the words unevenly, nuzzling against the side of your face. His breaths and grunts against your ear made you shiver and tighten around him. 

You were too stupefied and saturated with pleasure to lift yourself up, but when his fingers drove into the flesh of your hips and his thrusts became sloppy, all you wanted was to watch him fall apart beneath you. 

You lifted your flushed face and steadied your forearms on his broad shoulders, meeting his glossy blue eyes, his rosy cheeks above his beard. His warm breath fanned over your face and you stopped seeing sense in continuing to edge yourself on him. 

Pleasure washed over you, his name and praises dropped from your lips in desperate sobs. You clamped down and pulsed around him as you came, trying to fuck yourself slower on him to drag your orgasm out. He cursed against your open mouth and pleasure contorted his handsome face. 

His hips snapped upwards and he held your hips down as he twitched and spilled inside you. He grunted your name and helped you ride out your orgasm with him. You were out of breath and your thighs were burning from the position you were in, but your body was tingling with so much numbing pleasure, that you didn't care.

You watched him become more gentle again as he came down from his high with you, that sweet smile returned and his adoring blue eyes turned softer. It made your head spin, the way he looked at you. And right now, you could see all the jokes and loving words taking shape in his mind as he caught his breath.

You took his face in your hands, pressing tender kisses over his cheeks, forehead, nose, and anywhere you could reach. He was smiling the entire time, almost triumphantly, but he looked more shy than ever.

"Was it that good?" He teased anyway, smirking playfully. 

"I don't like you," you lied, dropping your hands to his chest.

"Liar," he accused, pressing your hips closer to him. Your sensitive core jolted and he stifled a groan, sensitive and soft inside you.

Colt sat up, breathing slowly against your lips, but he didn't kiss you this time. His fingers ghosted gently down your back and rested on your waist. "Wanna eat some burritos?"

You stared down at him, his blue eyes shining from his orgasm, his face flushed and alive from the afterglow, his wavy hair a sexy mess, and his lips red and plush. 

You bit your lip and looked back up into his eyes. He looked wrecked and… happy. It was endearing. It caused a fiery heat to blaze up your chest to your cheeks. "Y-yeah, sounds, uh, that sounds nice."

He stared at you and you stared back, wondering if you'd given yourself away; the fact that you really liked him. 

"What?" He smiled, looking at you curiously. 

"What?" You shrugged, flustered and pretending that you didn't just realise that you really really liked him. Okay, you loved him. "I said yes."

"Hmm," he tilted his head, eyes moving slowly over your face. You tensed in his grasp and blazed with embarrassment. Run away. You lifted yourself off him, ignoring the dribble of cum slipping down your thighs and over his cock. 

You laughed shyly to yourself, slipping away into the passenger seat, where you started to feel the ache in your body as you relaxed. You tried to ignore him, and listened only to him readjusting his jeans and briefs. 

"What were you thinking just then?" He wondered, leaning over to take your chin in his hand and force you to gaze into his stupidly pretty face. 

"Absolutely not!" 

"What? Please, tell me," he begged. You shrugged and kissed his palm before turning away to retrieve your dress and underwear. "I'll kiss you," he offered. 

"You'll kiss me either way," you smiled, pulling your underwear up your legs. 

"That's true. You're lips are very soft and they taste like roses and they feel like roses, too, and your mouth is always minty. Do you eat?" He rambled, his gaze focused on your mouth. "I mean, of course you eat, I was just wondering-"

"Okay, I'll tell you," you cut him off, your heart began racing at just the prospect. He perked up, but you just couldn't fold. "As soon as we get those burritos! Buckle up, cowboy, I'm hungry." 

He deflated slightly, but then he smirked, watching you put your seatbelt on. "Can I at least put my shirt back on first?"

"No, I think I can see a little better in the dark when you're shirtless," you jested, dreamily trailing your hand down his bare chest. His muscles became taut under your touch and he released a breathy laugh. 

"I'm driving," he reminded you quietly. 

You brought your hand up to his jaw and smiled, scratching gently at his beard. "Whatever," you shrugged, "my car, my rules."

You were about to move your hand away, but he took your hand in his, pressed your small palm into his cheek, and looked at you through his lashes. "I think we should kiss."

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[magenta-embers]

Fetus Jimin's Blatant Crush on Jungkook

Today I wanted to travel back in time and put a spotlight on a period of utmost importance when it comes to understanding the full picture of Jikook and part of what makes it such a legitimate possibility.

Believing that they could truly be a couple now is made as easy as breathing when you observe their history. You need the whole context to take Jikook from just another ship to something potentially very real. It's a context that the other pairings in the group just don't have.

The Jimin and Jungkook we know now are settled and comfortable with themselves and with each other. You could call them domestic. But back in the day, say 2013-2015, it was a different story.

To put it simply: Jimin and Jungkook had a massive mutual crush on each other and it wasn't even remotely subtle.

Most Jikookers know what I'm talking about, but if you haven't had a chance to look deeper into the context of these two together, here's a teensy intro.

I'm gonna share a select few of my personal highlight moments exhibiting Jimin's crush + his confusion/acceptance regarding it. There are hours of moments to choose from and an image/gif limit, so we'll keep it to a minimum.

We're going to focus on the Jimin side of things today. Jungkook will probably get his own post as these two expressed their feelings quite differently.

Present-day Jimin is very good at compartmentalizing what thoughts or parts of thoughts he shares with us. He's vague in all the right areas, chooses his words carefully, omits certain details, and is overall pretty masterful at the parasocial aspect of being an idol. Back then though?

Holy sweet mother of pearl, he just said and did anything.

He was honest (embarrassingly so) and he wore his heart on his sleeve. Because of this fumbling period with no brain-to-mouth filter, there exists some incredible retrospective insight into how Jimin feels about Jungkook at his core, without all the masking and nonchalance we get nowadays.

(Let's be real though, he still slips up)

"JK is coming."

Boy 💀

Let's get into it.

~

Exhibit A

This first section is going to look at a very young Jimin's struggle with these new, unfamiliar feelings he's been having lately (not necessarily in exact chronological order but some highlights within the "budding crush" stage).

A.1

While affectionately petting the maknae's hair and nape, Jimin wonders aloud why he likes Jungkook so much, as if he likes him an abnormal amount or differently than the five other friends he has in the group. If anything, Jimin should have liked Tae the most at this point since they were friends from school. Yet, Jimin openly questions what makes Jungkook different.

It's an introspective question disguised as a rhetorical one. Obviously, Jimin doesn't want JK to answer and JK, shy as he is, doesn't know how to answer a loaded question like that so he tries to redirect Jimin's attention to actual matters. It doesn't quite work.

Jimin then says, "These days, Jungkook..." and trails off while scratching his head with lighthearted frustration as if to say, "These days, Jungkook... plagues my mind," or something to that sentiment. JK's on his mind a lot and it confuses him. He doesn't finish the sentence but instead brushes it off with a laugh.

He holds back because it'll look weird to people if he gets into how much he thinks about JK or unpacks why. Still, he can't help but start to talk about it, because it's something that's actively bothering him.

A.2

Like I said, not only does Jimin think about JK too much, but he's also thinking about how people will judge him for how he perceives Jungkook. People might think he's strange.

Why?

JK's the timid maknae with big, curious eyes. Of course, he's cute. Everyone will agree. Everyone does agree. So why is Jimin concerned with what he can say about Jungkook that's okay to others? He even pouts sadly for a moment at the end. The maknae's cute and he's kind of glum over it? He's definitely been overthinking it.

Also, the way Jimin cartoonishly moves his head and eyes while talking about how bewildered JK always is and how adorable he is for it is a hilarious attempt at being nonchalant, but to me, it just looks like a schoolboy trying not to seem gushy about his secret crush.

A.3

Jungkook's so cute and so charming that Jimin can't function like he wants to. Can't live properly because Jungkook's on his mind constantly. He's super distracting. Is this a normal friendship thing? No. You don't see Hobi or Joon saying this about him. It's a problem exclusive to Jimin. And exclusive for Jungkook.

Jimin knows it's weird too. He's acting lighthearted about it, but to randomly say, "I can't live because of you" and keep bumping into JK is his frustration bleeding through. All the while he can't take his eyes off him as if he's trying to solve his dilemma right then and there.

Overall, It seems like Jimin doesn't understand what it is he's feeling, just that it's a lot, which makes me think that up until the Jungkook point, he hadn't really considered his sexuality on a meaningful level. We know that Jimin was the least experienced romantically, so it wouldn't surprise me if that's the case.

It's okay, Jiminie. You'll figure out a lot of things about yourself sooner rather than later.

Exhibit B

This section is about a period of time when Jimin accepted his crush and became unbelievably annoying vocal about it. You could also do an essay on why he was so in everyone's face about it.

B.1

Man, he just outright said it, huh?

Jimin wants to be with Jungkook and go on a date with him and hold hands.

Okay, pack it up everyone, we're done here. He like likes him, oooooooh!

Look at him clinging to JK's clothes and merrily skipping forward holding his wrist. Bless his heart. As Jimin once mentioned, "My heart that thinks of Jungkook is quite big."

Peep everyone else's reactions. JK has no objections and is just basically making his "Yeeeeeaaaah" face. Namjoon and Yoongi are a mix of confused and exasperated, both going, "What?" at the inappropriate(?) answer. Hobi attempts a poker face.

They shove Jimin away and attempt to move on...

And Jimin comes right back, practically leaps on Jungkook to plead with him to "live happily together." Okay.

When I tell you he's embarrassing.

Now Namjoon is straight-up irritated because Jimin didn't get the hint and is ruining the interview. He rolls his eyes and shoves them both back this time like he knows he's gotta get rid of the whole equation.

Hobi's glare poker face fails and he attempts to redirect focus to the topic with his own answer, complete with a pointed hand gesture.

Yoongi has a genuine scrunch of judgy confusion as if he just doesn't get wtf Jimin is trying to do because he should know better or why he's acting so clingy right now.

Jungkook quietly preens under Jimin's attention, but it's also awkward because he can read the room, so he doesn't quite know how to react other than remain pliable. He does reach for Jimin's hand subconsciously though.

I don't think it's even necessary to keep going, but oh ho ho, we're gonna keep going.

B.2

Tae: "I think he kind of likes men."

Now, I don't love the way Tae blurts this out, putting Jimin on the spot and nearly outing him. But also, it's meant to be a joke and he likely doesn't know yet just how on the nose he really is. Tae has grown and matured a lot over the years, so forgive him for this blip.

I imagine Tae has had to sit through a lot of sus rants from Jimin about Jungkook at this point. Because it's interesting that the statement came out of him so readily as if he's considered this about Jimin more than once. He's one of the closest people to Jimin, so if he's been pondering this about his friend then it's a pretty significant observation.

Now how does Jimin react to this out-of-pocket accusation? Is it:

a) "Haha, noooo!"

b) "What are you saying?"

c) "Not like that!"

d) "Come on now."

e) He doesn't deny it whatsoever.

If you answered e, you get a sun and moon sticker. It would've been so easy and expected for Jimin to deny this claim, but he doesn't. Because he can't. Because he'd be lying. Because he does kind of like men. Especially one in particular. And Jimin is just too honest.

He does very gracefully tiptoe around a confirmation (and a shutdown of the topic) by telling Tae he doesn't like him specifically. His reflex was to be defensive of himself and how much he likes Jungkook. It also further confirms that how Jimin likes Tae (his best friend) is different from how he likes Jungkook. It's all truly very telling.

(JK's reactions are very cute, but we won't get into that here.)

B.3

Host: "You're free to go anywhere in the world with anyone you want to do anything you wish. Where are you, what are you doing, and who are you with?"

Jimin:

Really? He had this romantic-ass answer ready to go. The other members gave normal answers about family and such. Jimin could've easily. But no. He then smiles sweetly over at Jungkook. The host is actually flustered by his answer and translates what he says, but conveniently leaves out the holding hands part.

But this is a fluke, right? He just said Jungkook as a silly answer, right?

Oh, look! Another instance when he can answer with anything and still ends up being honest.

"I think Jungkook is very cute." It's his go-to answer when people ask him why he likes JK so much. People keep mentioning it because his liking for Jungkook is noticeably and abnormally loud. Yet, Jimin's usual answer isn't really a complete answer, is it? "Cute" can be part of a reason, but not the whole reason. Cute is the safe detail he can share.

Lmao at Tae's side-eye at Jimin fawning over Jungkook shamelessly. You can tell he's thinking, "...this mf likes men" again. He hasn't perfected that Tae poker face just yet.

So Jimin really wants that private trip with Jungkook, hey? Why not with Tae, his bestie? His soulmate? Tae's also very cute, no?

Because he doesn't mean a friend trip.

(Don't fret, Jiminie. You'll get your private trip with Jungkook and it'll be beyond your expectations.)

B.4

A couple of examples of Jungkook being aggressively on Jimin's mind even when he's just answering basic questions.

No one: So, what do-

Jimin: Jungkookie <3

Literally, who asked? No one's twisting his arm here to make him answer "Jungkook" with romantic implications under these totally general questions. He could've answered with literally anything else.

Some thoughts:

If he was being speedy and just writing/saying the first things that popped into his head, it still means Jungkook is at the forefront of his mind. Plagues his mind, if you will.

If he was carefully considering the questions and answering honestly, it still means Jungkook is heavily weighing in his mind at a vulnerable level.

Jungkook still came before performing and receiving attention. The first thing. Not the last thing as a joke because Jimin couldn't think of anything else.

He makes sure to stake his claim over Jungkook in his description of him. "Mine." How fanfic.

His weakness is Jungkook. He can't resist him. Point blank. Why would he say that? How else am I supposed to interpret that?

Jungkook reaches every corner of Jimin's mind. Even if Jimin manages to convince himself he's just being playful and jokey, it's the repetitive nature and exclusivity of Jungkook being involved in his answers that are eyebrow-raising and give him away. He might as well doodle hearts around "JK" all over the page. It's a textbook crush. He's infatuated with this person he thinks is unattainable.

B.5

"Happy Birthday Jeon Jungkook! Please accept my love!" followed by blowing a kiss, an awkward giggle, and a glance at Jungkook.

What love? He's already accepted your platonic love; you guys are good friends, attached at the hip, and Jungkook's made it explicitly clear he likes you a lot and appreciates how well you treat him/take care of him. What more do you want him to accept, exactly, Jimin?

Again, unnecessary. No one's making him say this. No one's expecting him to say this. No one wants him to say this. And yet.

B.6

Manifest your dreams, Jiminie.

I don't even have to explain to you how common the "We look like a couple! Haha, just kidding... Unless?" thing is. We've all been there. You want to plant the seed in your crush's head. You want them to think about it, to consider the image of you two together. Jimin's planted a whole grove in JK's head with the way he's been all over him these couple of years.

Exhibit C

The kisses.

The amount of times Jimin either asks to kiss Jungkook, asks Jungkook to kiss him, or tries to kiss Jungkook is quite frankly absurd. These are just some examples. Some!

Imagine this was your friend who keeps trying to kiss you. For years. Jokes get really old really fast. You'd laugh and play along the first time. Laugh it off the second time. Force a laugh the third time.

At what point would you start wondering if your friend has legitimate feelings for you?

At what point do you think Jungkook did?

Especially considering Jimin's general behavior toward him.

(The other members don't laugh when it happens in front of them. It's always either wtf are you saying or they change the subject with visible discomfort.)

What Jimin is doing here (via "jokes") is testing Jungkook's boundaries, gauging his reactions, because he's interested in him beyond platonic limits. He really, really wants to kiss Jungkook and fantasizes about it, but he will not make a serious first move out of fear of being rejected.

Food for thought: Post-2015, Jimin doesn't ask Jungkook for kisses anymore or beg him to love him back, while coincidentally also becoming intimately touchier than ever with each other.

Perhaps Jimin finally got what he wanted? Hmm...

~

We can stop here. I think you get the point.

Everyone, say it with me now: Jimin wants Jungkook romantically.

He wants to go on dates with Jungkook.

He wants to hold hands with Jungkook.

He wants to kiss Jungkook.

He's expressed these things in every way he can:

He's acted them out.

He's said them aloud.

He's written them down.

Over and over and over again. What more do you want? I am not assuming anything. To say that he doesn't is just blatantly ignoring poor Jimin screaming it from the rooftops to fit whatever agenda you have. It's a you problem.

If you want to see more examples of everything (because there are still plenty), just watch this. In fact, watch every video on this channel. Treat yourself.

Also thanks to this heaven-sent channel for the captions on almost everything in this post (all gifs by me).

If I see a single one of you say with your whole chest that Jimin thinks of Jungkook in a brotherly way after this, I will hunt you down and beat your ass and your brother's ass.

Open your damn eyes.

I hope you enjoyed my spiel. Till next time!

E.

[justxtalking]

the shooting star

I'm sure this observation was pointed out before, but I can't find it anywhere to quote it. Original post, you take all the credit. I just needed to express my thoughts because I can't stop thinking about it.

I feel like it's been a hot minute since the last time I've made one of these, but here I go.

the scenes

In chapter 64, Gon and Killua promise to stay together under the stars and they have a heart-to-heart. When the scene ends, we see a shooting star in the sky.

English Translation: VIZ Media

In chapter 286, Killua talks about commiting "shinjū" with Gon (translated as "I'll go down with flames with him") to Meleoron, tries to make it seem like a joke and Meleoron's inner monologue makes us understand there's more to the story than what Killua is saying out loud. When the scene ends, we again see a shooting star in the sky (and move to Gon and Pitou's scene.)

English Translation: VIZ Media

side-note

Do I really think that this detail has a bigger meaning than it has? No, Togashi most probably just likes shooting stars and thought this was a good transition between scenes. However, I think it would make a nice analysis if I connect the concept of the shooting star with certain aspects that are present in both scenes and the story in general. I just couldn't help myself, I find it so interesting and beautiful.

my brief and informal analysis

To begin with, what does it mean to see a shooting star? There's three popular and mostly global beliefs I would like to point out.

1) Wishes: Shooting stars have always been associated with dreams, wishes and promises. Many believe that if you make a wish on the shooting star, it will come true.

2) Positive Change: They are typically considered to be signs or messages from the Universe. They tend to symbolize new beginnings, transformations, and spiritual development.

In relation to these two, I believe it would be also connected to the meaning of encouragement. It can serve as encouragement to take risks or make important life decisions.

3) A Sign of Love: Seeing a shooting star can represent the love and connection between two people.

Then, which of these meanings are actually related to these scenes? The three of them, but let me explain a bit more.

In the first scene, Gon and Killua promise to stay together and continue their journey. As shooting stars are often associated with wishes or promises, in this context, it could symbolize the sincerity and earnestness of their promise to each other. By including the shooting star at the end of the scene, it seals their promise and it also marks a new beginning for them. At that moment, they are making an important decision in their lives, it's a new and positive change for them.

For the next meaning, I would like to point out first what scenes with two people under the stars at night usually mean. As we probably know, those type of scenes are ideal for characters to share their feelings and even secrets. The darkness and the soft lighting of the stars allow this space of intimacy to just talk to someone, which is what Gon and Killua do. They are already friends, but it's at that moment that they talk about what they are going to do and speak about topics such as Mito. The shooting star marks a significant bond between Gon and Killua. It represents their connection and love (platonic or not) for each other, as shooting stars can also symbolize a new love. This is related to the hope we have when seeing a shooting star, which is connected to that hope (and excitement) we feel when we start a new relationship. Using the shooting star could work as a narrative device to highlight the importance of this moment and the bond between Gon and Killua.

In the second scene, Killua discusses the possibility of a double suicide if something were to happen. Again, the shooting star appears at the end before transitioning to the next scene.

As I said before, shooting stars commonly symbolize wishes and promises. In this context, it could symbolize Killua's inner turmoil and/or even his determination to protect Gon (and be with him), possibly hinting at a resolution or decision he has made internally. Because of his words, we can guess he made the decision to die with Gon if that's what is needed. What he says can even foreshadow significant events or intense emotions, such as the ones that follow in the story. For example, Killua running to reach Gon and save him. It could even be related to other characters, such as Meruem and Komugi committing double suicide.

Killua's statement about a double suicide is a serious and intense moment, and the shooting star might emphasize the gravity of the situation. In this case, I wouldn't say this is a "positive change," though we could argue that for Killua maybe it would have been because Gon would have included him.

However, it is a moment in which Killua makes a big decision, one that would take to risk practically his life just to stay with Gon or protect him.

In addition to this, it could also bring us back to the first scene, in which they promise to stay together, symbolizing their strong bond. This is emphasized by the fact that the next scene is about Gon and Pitou. However, in this case, both Gon and Killua seem to be in different head-spaces. On one hand, Killua is worried he could lose Gon to the darkness, as he feels their bond is wavering and he can't reach him no matter how much he tries. On the other hand, Gon is too focused on his goal to save Kite. He is in too much pain and despair while trying to control the situation on his own terms.

In both instances, the shooting stars seem to add a layer of emotional depth and narrative emphasis to the scenes. They highlight the sincerity of promises, the intensity of emotions, and the transient nature of crucial moments in Gon and Killua's lives.

side-note

Something that adds to my delusional mind to all of these and I think it's really interesting is the following:

The fourth ending Nagareboshi Kirari seems to mean "sparkling shooting star". The song is an exploration of longing and hope, entrusting wishes to the stars, unanswered thoughts and unspoken feelings. It delves into the theme of connection, particularly the emotional bond between the narrator and a distant loved one. There's a lot to say about this song and its lyrics, but that should be a whole new post.

I think the song speaks perfectly about Gon and Killua's situation in general (not only about what I mention here, of course) and I think it's a good way to finish this post.

Thank you so much for reading! Have a good day or night, whichever the time is when you're seeing this.

[heybank]

DENY PART FOUR

omg here is part four!! this chapter is a little longer (i think)

smut is literally so hard to write bc i'm like wait where is everyone's hands. who's body part is where??? anyway i hope you like it :)

cw: oral (m rec) cumplay, mention of virginity

masterlist here

pogues (nsfw 18+)

they hadn't exactly told the others about their new relationship. they've been lucky so far with john b caught up in sarah and kie is busy with working at the wreck and the new girl she's been seeing and doesn't think we know about.

we've all been so stuck in the honeymoon phase of a new relationship, learning each others bodies and navigating dating as a polyamorous throuple.

grace wishes she could stay in this bliss, cocooned in her boyfriends heat and scents. right now they're in popes bedroom, the three of them squished together on his small twin sized mattress, trying to touch every inch of each other.

you've all discussed about what or how to tell your friends but right now you want to keep it a secret. you're not ashamed but you're a little afraid of possible repercussions you all will face when the truth comes out.

you think john b will be confused at first, he's always been a little thick in the skull but you know he'll come around. sarah will not care at all and probably want to corner you and hear all your juicy details.

kie might be tricky, she's been adamant about the no pogue on pogue macking and now here you are, macking on two of them.

you and jj are kind of lucky in the aspect of your parents literally do not care if you live or die so there's no worry about telling them. pope on the other hand, you're a little worried mr and mrs heyward won't understand or be not so accepting. you know they love pope but ignorance sometimes sticks to your bones and makes people feel certain ways about certain things. pope jokes they'll be happy he's dating you, they love you. they just might not be enthusiastic about trouble maker white boy extraordinaire.

jj says no matter what you'll all have each other and that thought makes you pull your boys in even tighter.

"pope..." you softly ask your brown eyed boy, "can i suck your dick?"

the question and the innocence of how you asked it makes both boys choke on their spit. despite the steaminess of your dream and some heavy petting here and there, none of you have actually gone all the way with each other. you and pope are virgins, jj is the only one with experience. you cringe thinking about your man with other people.

"yeah? you wanna suck my dick pretty?" pope asks, trying to be cool but he's really fucking hyped.

"yeah." you answer shyly. "wanna make you feel good and then i wanna make j feel good too."

none of you have to say anymore words, pope jumps off his bed and walks over to where you were sitting on his computer chair, you pull him in for a hug and give him a soft slow kiss.

"jj, will you teach me?" you inquire.

"yeah baby girl, i'll help you make pope feel really good." he responds.

you kneel down in front of pope, eagerly going to his belt buckle and undoing his shorts. you pull them down his legs and see his prominent bulge in his boxer briefs, precum staining the grey material.

"tease him through his boxers, baby." jj prompts you.

you lean in and nuzzle popes covered dick with your nose and mouth. softly suckling him through the fabric. you moan at his scent. he smells clean mixed with salt water and musk that is inherently pope.

out of the corner of your eye you see jj pulling out his dick and giving it a soft tug. he's getting so turned on watching you give pope his first blow job.

"don't tease anymore grace, please" pope whines.

you nod and slowly pull the boys underwear down to his ankles so pope can step out of them. you see his dick sprig up and hit his tummy with a soft smack and you gasp at the size. he's bigger than jj in length, even tho jjs cock is thicker. you squeeze your thighs together to release some pressure that's been building up in your core.

you gently grab popes dick and give the tip a kitten lick, moaning out loud at the taste.

"go on and lick him, princess. from his balls and back to his tip." jj directs. he's still softly tugging at his own dick.

"will you help me jj? suck his dick with me?" you ask coyly. you know your innocent act turns them on beyond belief.

"yeah? you want me to suck his dick baby? you want that pope?"

the poor heyward boy just looks blissed out, eyes downcast. he just moans and nods in consent. the thought of both his partners sucking his dick together makes him want to nut right then and there.

you move to the side to make room for jj to also sit in front of popes cock. jj pulls you in for a passionate kiss, sticking his tongue in your mouth, moaning a little when he tastes pope on your tongue.

when you end your kiss you and jj both lean in to suckle on popes cock, at this point he's dripping with precum and is so close to busting.

you open your mouth and try to suck his dick down your throat, moving your head up and down causing pope to grab the hair at the back of your head. he doesn't push you further onto his cock tho, ever the gentleman.

while you're sucking his dick jj leans forward and takes one of popes balls into his mouth causing both boys to moan for different reasonings.

you pull off popes cock with a gasp, spit and precum all over your mouth and chin, leaving his cock wet and shiny.

this encourages jj to lean in and continue on what you were just doing. he's never sucked a dick before but he has one of his own so he knows what would potentially feel good.

you raise your hand to jjs hair and begin massaging his head, casual intimacy that you've always had with the boy regardless of sex. you also take note you're still holding popes hand with your other one, essentially connecting all three of you together.

"i'm gonna cum- jj please" pope moans.

"can he cum on my face jj please i want it in my mouth and on my face!"

jj released popes cock with a sly grin and lifts his hand so he can jack the other boy off.

"yeah, you wanna cum on her face pope? make our girl all dirty?"

a few more pumps and pope is shooting out warm streams of his cum, loud moans and cries coming from the heyward boys mouth.

you moan at the feeling of his warm cum landing on your cheek and mouth, causing you to open it and suck down the remaining of popes load.

"fuck that was the best orgasm i've ever had." pope breathlessly says, knees buckling so he can join the two of you on the floor.

jj leans in to kiss you, licking at your face and lips to help clean off popes cum, with a mouthful still in mouth, he leans in and kisses pope, tongues collided and popes release being shared back and forth between the two boys. they are so fucking hot.

once the boys pull away from each other, you give out a giggle and excitedly start pawing at jjs still hard leaking cock.

"your turn!!" you say with eyes full of lust.

you're all at the chateau, sitting around the fire when it's actually pope who slips up. you're all calm and slightly tipsy from beers. pope gets up telling everyone he needs to leave for the night cause his dad needs help in the morning. he plants a kiss on jj without even thinking, moving onto you with ease. he doesn't clock the silence from the rest of the pogues or their wide eyes and shocked faces.

"surprise!" you cheer, blush scorching your face as you grab jjs hand for reassurance. jj reaching out to grab popes and pull him closer in case this goes sideways.

"i fucking knew it!" sarah cheers jumping out of her seat in triumph! "you owe me $5 john b!" she gloats.

uh oh.

taglist: (lmk if you wanna be added)

@theoraekenslover

@redhead1180

@motherfing-stargirl

[captainfantasticalright]

“The Ineffable Wheel of Misfortune”.

Some time ago, I wrote a small meta about this. I truly never go much into that terrain here, but I did write a study on the Goddess Fortuna and thought it most appropriate to share some of the facts about her wheel of Fortune here.

I will not go into much detail about who exactly Fortuna was. Her depictions vary from culture to culture and from age to age (Tyche being the name in Greek, which came before the Roman Fortuna, but many debates have been had about these origins and even comparing the two). But if there is something that remains; one essential aspect: her wheel.

One very important quote from the Prime extra videos revealing some easter eggs:

"There isn't a single prop or a single bit of costume that hasn't been thought through". And that begs the question, why show this prop so openly in the easter eggs section, but not in the show itself?

As Dylan Thomas wisely said: to begin at the beginning- although just to emphasize something:

Fortuna’s wheel is commonly known as the wheel of Fortune- yet what we have here is a wheel of misfortune. But there are two contradicting factors here, namely “misfortune” and “ineffable” fitting in the same description.

Now fate and ineffability could shake hands sometimes, depending on the belief of the doer. But ineffable and misfortune throws us unto different territory.

Now before focusing on the words of the wheel, let’s take a look at the picture keeping the wheel together.

Not only is the bench uniting the two figures (obviously you can see who they are), but the color scheme derives from here too. Cloud and flame, combine into each panel with the flaming sword and the fluffy, goat opposite. Horns and halo are on clear display, but this wheel has no pointer to indicate which fate is chosen. An outside force spins the wheel (Fortuna herself), but where does it land? The only pointer- indicator- is the flaming sword. It comes out of the circle, it is the guidance. It is quite literally cutting through the fabric of Fortune because even though Fortuna spins the fate, the sword guards against any circumstance.

Is this a prediction of Aziraphale taking the center place in guiding and protecting against all odds? Most definitely.

Now, you’ve probably seen the Zodiac signs on the wheel. Those are there because:

Although this states that the wheel of fortune moves from east to west (counterclockwise), let’s keep in mind that this wheel defies fortune and is actually ineffable misfortune.

For that reason, one takes the liberty to assume that this wheel spins in a clockwise direction (west to east).

One reason I am reading this "clockwise" is because I want to correlate it to Crowley's "it's always too late" and to "metaphorically started ticking", as if the options on the wheel follow time strictly in a way. But the wheel has a mind of it’s own:

A wheel can rotate indefinitely. So even if there is a stop at a certain spot, it most definitely will change again. It is in this case, an eternal repetition of ups and downs.

One can fall from the wheel and rise again. Interestingly when reading what’s on the wheel, one starts with the upper left hand side- the best moment at the moment. Coincidentally, ineffably, Aziraphale’s flaming sword is pointing exactly to that point - “blessing for you”.

Spin the wheel and you’ll land on the next part- good news.

Notice how you’ll go through some seemingly good events until you reach those that can be read as their opposites. Even putting it like that, a blessing for you can come back again and not be a blessing at all.

On the image above, the qualities are also opposite their negatives. For example peace-war, patience-impatience, and so on.

On the ineffable wheel of misfortune you could choose to read it as color opposites. So take the yellow "pleasure ahead" and match it with the opposite yellow "going on a journey" and it still makes sense, it could be the good and the bad- or it could be nothing at all.

There are many wheels of fortune out there, eternally rotating by the hands of a force outside our control.

Hopefully you’ll have realized by now that even though the wheel belongs to Fortuna in mythology and literature and art and everywhere else, this wheel belongs to God.

Because God plays an ineffable game of their own devising- much like Fortuna does with the fate of mankind.

Yet, there is room to escape the wheel. To defy ineffability, to build another wheel turned by your own hands and to finally say “it’s not too late”.

[xhikatsu]

Topaz's Dynamic with Aventurine

I’ve spoken a lot about how I believe Topaz navigates with Jade’s way, agreeing and disagreeing with certain aspects. But I’ve only slightly touched on her and Aventurine’s dynamic.

To start, I’ve mentioned how Topaz is very calculating and cautious with the way she does her work, taking into consideration many factors and planning accordingly. Aventurine is quite literally the opposite, creating a plan with an end goal, making details in the middle then adjusting.

His style is very much fitting his gamble mantra of “all or nothing” with high risk. Even if he has to make changes since not everything go accordingly, he seems to be very flexible and good at reading the situation to understand where to go next.

Topaz is similar with the idea she is good at analyzing. Though, it feels less adapting and more like she thought about it ahead of time. Sort of like a possibility tree, she plans for different end results. So, if her plan starts heading to one end, she already has a backup plan.

Having a sudden change that she didn’t expect at all does seem to leave her stump a bit, which is shown in Jarilo VI when Bronya first brings up the machine or in Penacony when Old Oti brings up his plan to be transparent. She is left rather quiet and seeming to assess the situation.

Not that she can’t adjust, but more like she just didn’t think it would happen since the likelihood was low, so she didn’t feel the need to have to plan for it fully. When it does occur, she does take it into consideration and analyze factors around them to see how to approach it

This is also probably due to her taking into consideration other factors she values such as benefits to all parties and being kind/considerate. She has to plan accordingly to try and appeal to majority in the party.

This leaves Aventurine and Topaz budding heads often in their work style, considering their approach is quite different. Topaz seems to find Aventurine’s style too inconsistent and risky, whereas Aventurine probably finds Topaz a bit inflexible and restrictive (added: or too safe which counters how he needs that flexibility to change plans if things go wrong considering his daring nature to do whatever it takes to finish his task).

However, despite the lack of agreement in method, they both seem to respect the other’s method since they always achieve positive results. Aventurine mentions her kind heart often and stating how she is somehow able to achieve results while keeping a balance of everyone being satisfied.

For Topaz, she also mentions how Aventurine’s luck seems to always push through and he succeeds even when it seemed like the odds were against him. Both do not believe they should be relying on such trait of themselves (Aventurine’s luck/success, Topaz’s kindness), yet it somehow works in their favor.

If anything, that very trait that seems to leave each other skeptical and curious is the very thing that makes them excel in their method. Because they both excel in what they do, they have earned each other’s trust and respect to know they will get the job done.

It’s even more interesting how they trust each other’s ability so much that they don’t fully question the other either… This can be shown in their banter after 2.3 where it was mentioned that both of them lost a lot of money in a bad investment.

Topaz points the fault to Aventurine, saying it was the lowest record in history. Aventurine simply rebuttals this by saying he hoped that everyone can make a little bit of money together by all investing in the market, claiming the source was Topaz’s “old friend”.

It’s interesting here with the little info we got about the situation, they both did not seem to question the other very much. Topaz didn’t question Aventurine’s “note” regarding the market, and Aventurine didn’t question Topaz’s connection.

In some sense, it’s almost as if they both have just come to learn to trust the other to not question much about the other’s decision or words. Which… Led them both to losing in that investment.

Ultimately, their different methods can be quite complementary, covering both sides for them. It makes me curious for future/past assignments to see how else the dynamic goes considering it’s quite hidden and vague.

For now, I think they work quite closely to each other to know the other so well, working around the other accordingly. Even to the point they banter more casually with each other even in public and poke at the trait they are puzzled with the most.

Original Date of Posting on Twt/X: Jul 11, 2024

[kaiser-s-bitch]

how would the genshin men react to their s/o taking off their engagement or wedding ring after an argument? I would especially love to see Zhongli, Diluc, kaeya, cyno and ayato, but if anyone else comes to mind you can write about them too!

ouhhh thank you for requesting, this was an interesting ask, I like it~

————————————————————————

reacting to you taking off your engagement ring after an argument || sfw

Zhongli

• out of all of them, I think Zhongli would take it the hardest

• Zhongli is from a different time, and can’t help but ask himself: has the meaning of the promise of marriage changed that much throughout the past centuries??

• especially for him, it is definitely not a thing to throw away like this, so even if you apologize later, it will take a lot for him to trust you again

• he understands that you are mad if he has actually fucked up, but in his eyes, even that doesn’t justify for you to react like this

• he never would’ve proposed to you in the first place if he hadn’t fully counted on the two of you staying together till death do you part, so for you to react like this, even in the heat of the moment, will make him doubt the fundamentals of your relationship

———

Diluc

• Diluc is not the type to argue loudly in general, but the moment you take off that ring he goes completely silent

• he just looks at you with a blank expression and slowly nods "I see how it is" before turning around and walking out on you

• he has nothing more to say than that, so don’t expect for him to try and convince you otherwise, not even later when both of you have had time to calm down

• if he and your relationship with him is truly important to you, you’ll have to show it through your actions, mere apologies and promises won’t cut it when it comes to this man

———

Kaeya

• Kaeya is probably the most lax about it

• don’t get me wrong, he’ll still be mad and probably hurt, but it’d be more like "The audacity of this bitch🤨"

• will probably piss you off even more by just sitting there with his arms crossed and a mocking expression plastered on his face, curious to see what you’ll do next

• after a while he might cock a brow at you and sneer "Are you done?"

• he’s the type to come up to you after an argument, no matter how serious, only to hug you from behind, pepper your face in kisses and not let you go until he’s at least made you smile once

———

Cyno

• Cyno is not the type to yell, but he will definitely not shy away from an argument and will discuss every detail

• he’s trying his best to stay level-headed despite the hurt and disappointment, if only for the sake of understanding your actions and being able to judge the situation better, but you can tell that you’ve fucked up

• you will be granted the chance to explain yourself, but you’ll have to be very careful what you say and do next, for it will undoubtedly determine whether your relationship is worth working on or being terminated here

———

Ayato

• Ayato might not be as old as Zhongli, but he’s just as old-fashioned as him in certain aspects

• due to his upbringing in a noble and reputable household, you quite literally throwing away your promise of sharing your life with him did not only hurt himself, but also his and his family‘s pride

• he cannot afford breaking off an engagement, he is the Yashiro commissioner after all, and it would be a fatal blow to his reputation, which would reflect on the Kamisato clan as a whole

• he will calmly attempt to pursue you otherwise, but only under the condition that something like this can never happen again

• if you cannot promise that, he will ask you to leave right now

[zahri-melitor]

so i'm reading certain nightwing volumes from '96 - 02 for my current reading run following NML (shout out to @havendance, cannot thank you enough 🫶🏾) and while some aspects of how he's written is very compelling and interesting to chew on, for the most part it's been pretty....boring?? like i'm gonna keep reading it so i can have as much context as possible, but it feels more like a chore 😩

anyways, i read your response on that “who’d you choose to write nightwing” poll and i’d love to get your opinion on what nightwing runs/writers to read outside of those 8 volumes. i really wanna get into dick grayson’s character and personality! also, if it’s cool with you, anyone else please feel free to add to this!

-dominomasc

Hey, dominomasc. Unknowingly you've just raised one of the fundamental incongruities of how comics work.

Comics are about layers of stories providing depth to a character and about dozens of different interpretations more than they are about a single amazing run. (Some characters have That Run! But on average, most don't). Dick Grayson, a character that has existed for 84 years, has some very fun stories from all sorts of writers. His title, Nightwing, is also an excellent example of how a lot of long running titles often don't really have a stand out section that's head and shoulders above the rest.

I promise, you are never going to run out of stories to read about Dick Grayson (Comicsvine has him at 9,593 appearances as I write this). So yes, this is going to be about two things: advice on finding stories about Dick that vibe for you; and advice on understanding Dick alongside other storylines.

Taking into account what's listed above and the fact I'm moderately obsessive, I have compiled a discussion of most of the major writers who have written Nightwing runs, or who have written major titles that Dick also prominently appears in.

I am at heart a 'Dick belongs to the Bat Office' person and my expertise in most characters starts with COIE. On that basis I'm not going to dip into pre-Crisis here.

Marv Wolfman & George Pérez: New Teen Titans (1980-1993ish). I am not going to explain all the title names here; you're going to have to go get more detail from someone who treats NTT period as their special interest. Wolfman and Pérez are the architects of Nightwing as a character, separate to Robin, that Dick grew into. Read this period if you're interested in Dick as a young adult among the other Titans going through the transition into adulthood and independence, and his relationship with Kory. Basically it's a superhero young adult soap opera. It can be quite uneven in places, particularly towards the back end, and there are approximately a thousand discussions over which storylines are good and which should be fired into the sun. I am not a subject expert for this period.

Because of the state of the Titans titles in the early 1990s, the Bat office demanded Dick Grayson back under their control. Exactly when they got him back is slightly debated, but it would be fair to say Batman #500 (October 1993) marks his transition back to being a Bat character (around the start of Knightquest); by KnightsEnd and Prodigal (July 1994-January 1995) Dick is once again firmly a member of the Batman set of characters, and has remained so to date.

Prodigal, by Chuck Dixon, Alan Grant, Doug Moench: (Batman #512 to Robin #13). Use a reading list here as the stories are spread across multiple titles. Prodigal is 12 issues about Dick's first time being Batman, with Tim as his Robin, and his feelings about returning home to Gotham as an adult. Robin #13 in particular is possibly the most important issue of the story, as it's the foundation of a reset in Bruce and Dick's relationship with each other and how it is going to be characterised for the next decade or so.

Chuck Dixon: (Nightwing #1-70 1996, Nightwing: Alfred's Return, and a bunch of other one shots) So Dixon is probably DC's most prolific writer of all time, and is the architect of what's been treated as 'default Nightwing'. In this run, Dixon creates Bludhaven and the situation of Dick being its protector, out of a desire to be his own man apart from Bruce. He sets up an extensive Rogue's Gallery for Dick, the most famous of which is making Blockbuster one of Dick's main enemies. He has Dick working at a cop bar and then decide to enter the Bludhaven Police Department in an attempt to investigate it from the inside due to the levels of corruption. This is also the run where Dick and Babs get together as adults. Basically, everything about 'default' Dick that you probably know comes from this run. Dixon's great for character interaction, for world building, and and particularly at making various titles tie together - because he was writing at least 1/3 of DC's entire line for a while there he's the king of crossovers, giving a lot of depth to friendships because characters just pop between titles he's writing. His actual plots however vary between middling to occasional flashes of greatness. I'd consider The Hunt for Oracle (#45-46 and BOP#20-21) and the Shrike story (#55-58) to be the standout storylines in his Nightwing run; for individual issues I'd also point to #6 and #25 for his relationship with Tim, #16 for Dick building his car, and then his crossover issues in events tend to be quality.

Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty: (Robin: Year One 2000, Batgirl: Year One 2003, Nightwing: Year One - Nightwing #101-106 1996) I am separating these three out from the rest of Dixon's work as they're quite important as retcons over Dick's backstory. Robin and Batgirl are well regarded rewrites of events; Nightwing is less so, partly because it's a solid example of the Jason personality retcon, and partly I think because a lot of people reading this were still well across the two 1980s versions of Dick's transition from Robin to Nightwing. I highly recommend Robin Year One, particularly with the Shrike storyline of Nightwing, as they are interlinked.

Devin Grayson: (Nightwing #71-100 & #107-117 1996, Nightwing/Huntress 1998, Gotham Knights #1-11 & #14-32, The Titans #1-20 1999) Oh, Devin. Devin Grayson is a Dick Grayson superfan (she uses Grayson as her surname because of Dick). She is really good at character introspection - Gotham Knights #1-11 contains some amazing character work. She's also not shy about establishing her own headcanons on characters and retconning their backstories. Devin's biggest contributions to the Dick Grayson lore are in establishing him as Romani and actually writing Bruce adopting Dick. Her run on Nightwing is best understood as a whump, break-the-cutie run, where Blockbuster sets out to destroy Dick's life, and in the process gets Dick fired, breaks up Dick and Babs, burns down Haly's Circus (for the first time), blows up his entire supporting cast, chases Dick out of Bludhaven and leads to Dick going under cover in the mob essentially to punish himself (also not the only time). Dick's also sexually assaulted in Nightwing #93 but I really beg people to read this in context of the rest of the run; this should be looked at as PART of the whole flow of whump, rather than as a separate situation. Grayson also had the title taken off her before she got to the 'comfort' part of the extended hurt/comfort storyline she was writing. It reads a lot better if you think of this in a more transformative fandom, ficcish manner of story rather than as a more standard run. If her Nightwing run is too grim for you, I highly recommend Gotham Knights and her Titans run; Devin Grayson is honestly best when she's writing a constellation of characters around Dick more than when she's writing Dick himself. She adores his friends and family. Standout issues to get a sense of Devin include: Nightwing #100, a self-reflective issue on Dick's history; Nightwing #81, where Dick's in hospital and Cass goes after Slade for him; Titans #15 1999, where the Fab 5 go on a camping trip together to get back to their roots and deal with a lot of tensions in the group; and Gotham Knights #8-11, Transference, where Dick and Tim team up to rescue Bruce, who's been brainwashed by Hugo Strange.

Jay Faerber: (The Titans #21-41 1999) Honestly Faerber's run on The Titans is not that Dick Grayson focused. It's entertaining if you want to read some solid Titans dynamics, but the standout characters you read this run for are Roy and Donna. Seriously, if you're into Roy, Cheshire and Lian drama I highly recommend Faerber's work; otherwise it's not an essential run for Dick.

Judd Winick: (Outsiders #1-25, 34-49 2003, Batman & Robin #23-25 2011) Winick tends to write an angrier and darker edged Dick Grayson, and he has a bunch of really common tropes you see pop out in his writing. These are no different, and thus include an awful lot of violence and characters having sex (so much sex). He can be quite funny as a writer, but honestly his Outsiders run does not have much of that humour. The Batman & Robin story is basically Winick finding some space to tie up his Jason Todd plot before Flashpoint obliterated it, more than an actual story about Dick. If you want a good encapsulating issue to get the vibe of Winick about Dick, take a look at Outsiders #21, which has a good chunk of Dick and Roy AND Dick and Bruce in it, though it's helpful to remember that this issue is set very shortly after War Games and so Dick is in a massive guilt spiral.

Bruce Jones: (Nightwing #118-124 1999) It's One Year Later! Bruce Jones moves Dick back to New York City (as Bludhaven went boom due to Chemo in the lead up to Infinite Crisis) and theoretically sets up Dick's status quo out to Reborn. So. The story Jones is most famous for is the first 4 issues of the run, which are generally referred to by fans as the TentaTodd story. Jason Todd turns up to run around annoying Dick by ALSO dressing up as Nightwing and committing crimes. He also turns into a tentacle monster for a bit. It is certainly a story that exists, but it actually is pretty in line with Jason and Dick's relationship up to Flashpoint: Jason turns up to be a brat who wants attention, does violent things, and Dick exhaustedly kicks the shit out of him and gets him locked up while despairingly going 'why is this my life'. Because of Jason running around killing people as Nightwing, the NYPD get mad at Nightwing and start trying to hunt him down. Jones is for the completionist.

Marv Wolfman: (Nightwing #125-137 1999) Lacking any better ideas, Wolfman gets a run on Nightwing. It's not Wolfman's finest work, to put it bluntly, and it's very obvious that Marv hasn't actually read any of Dixon or Grayson's runs. Marv does set Dick up working as a gymnastics and trapeze coach, which is always a decent job for him. If I had to pick one story from Wolfman, read Nightwing #127, where Dick gets buried alive and digs his way out of the grave.

Peter J. Tomasi: (Nightwing #140-157 1999, Batman & Robin #20-22 2011) Tomasi loves Dick Grayson, and particularly loves Dick's connection to his friends and family. Let me put it this way; in the lead up to Final Crisis and Blackest Night every title got an Origins and Omens short story on the back of an issue. Most books used it to write creepy or introspective reflections on awful stuff especially deaths that have happened to the characters. Tomasi used his to have Dick take Barbara skydiving for her birthday, and echo a bunch of themes from his first issue. I think this is one of the most mature and grown up looks at Dick prior to Flashpoint; Tomasi treats Dick as a grown adult with an adult relationship with Bruce. I love Freefall. Read Freefall to see some really interesting meta on Dick's relationship to the concept of falling and to the concept of catching falling people, a theme that's frequently present in his stories.

Grant Morrison: (Batman & Robin #1-16 2011) Astonishingly given how much of Reborn was designed by Morrison, they don't actually seem to care that much about Dick as a character more than as a prop to set Damian against. Dick's extremely focused on Damian in this title but also does not actually appear to like Damian very much. If I were going to recommend one story out of it I'd probably point to Batman & Robin #7-9, because Dick gets to be a giant hypocrite in them and tries to resurrect Bruce. It goes badly, for all involved.

Scott Snyder: (Detective Comics #871-881, Gates of Gotham, and like every Bat event during n52) The Black Mirror is probably my favourite piece of Dick!Batman storytelling set during Reborn. It's just elegant in terms of how hard Snyder pushes Dick and how his reactions are very much not those that Bruce would have. This is helpfully extremely obvious in that The Black Mirror and Gates of Gotham are actually part of a trilogy, the third act of which is Court of the Owls and due to Flashpoint Snyder had to rewrite CotO quite extensively including swapping Dick out of being Batman and having Bruce as the lead. Read The Black Mirror for Dick having a minor breakdown while solving a complex case with links to James Gordon and Babs. Read Gates of Gotham for incredible Dick & Tim & Cass & Damian fourway storytelling that shows the dynamics of every pairing out of the four.

Fabian Nicieza: (Nightwing #138-139 1999, Batman #703 & #713, parts of Battle for the Cowl, Nightwing #51-56 2016) The thing about FabNic is when he's on, he's very much on, and when he's not it can be painful. I actually almost would have skipped him on this list, but he very much deserves recognition for writing the Nightwing issues of Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul, which alongside the Robin issues portray exactly how far Dick will go for Tim; and for Batman #703, which is the only issue prior to Bruce's resurrection that actually puts Dick, Tim and Damian on page together as heroes. He also got saddled with writing the start of the Ric Grayson saga under the script of Scott Lobdell, which, well, is definitely at the 'not well regarded' end of his oeuvre. FabNic is again a writer that is really good at character interaction, and I tend to find whenever I'm reading events where there's heaps of writers involved and he's there, the issues I really enjoy are the ones he's had a hand in.

Tony S. Daniel: (Battle for the Cowl, Batman #692-699 & #704-707 & #710-712) Oh, Tony Daniel. Why. Daniel's stories are probably the most classic-Batman of the Dick!Batman stories. His stories revolve a lot around drama at Arkham Asylum, with Harvey and Gilda Dent, and with the Falcones. On balance I think you could probably actually trade Dick out for Bruce in half these stories and it wouldn't make a huge amount of difference. If I were going to suggest one to try, maybe go with #710-712? It's Harvey focused and it has Kitrina Falcone and doesn't actually depend on the whole Jeremiah Arkham thing.

Kyle Higgins: (Nightwing #1-12, 0, & 15-29 2011) For a reboot of Dick Grayson down to his fundamentals, and working within the requirements of the 5 year time line, I like Higgins' work on Nightwing. Sure, I could have done without him burning down Haly's circus, again, and all the Court of the Owls revelations, but some of that was clearly dictated to him, and they way he gave Dick time as a teenager with relationships with other characters at Haly's before his parents died worked quite well. If I were going to cite a favourite part of this run it's probably the last section, #18-29 when Dick moves to Chicago and tries the 'strike out as my own hero with my own city, screw you dad' thing for the first time in the new timeline. Higgins put in quite a bit of cast building work and it's a shame none of it ever got used again between Forever Evil and then Rebirth just ignoring everything during this period.

Tom King and Tim Seeley: (Nightwing #30 2011, Grayson #1-20) I'm going to treat these two together here as I can't actually easily subdivide the run between them. This is the longest period Dick goes undercover working as a spy because his life has just gone to shit. He is both spying on Spyral (for Bruce) but also his job within Spyral is as a spy and special agent. Think James Bond, except Dick also gets to be the focus of the objectification camera. Some people enjoy it as a change of pace, some people can't stand it because it's just a very weird story for Dick and Dick's generally personally unhappy when he's stuck undercover, and it definitely is a highlight in the 'did you know Tom King worked for an intelligence agency? Tom King is working out his feelings about working for an intelligence agency again' oeuvre. If you want to try an issue, I recommend Grayson #5 as probably the best character and storytelling piece in the entire run.

Tim Seeley: (Nightwing #1-34) Good stuff I can say about Seeley's run includes that he used Rebirth as a impetus to rebuild Dick's status quo. He did quite a lot of world building for a new version of Bludhaven, he got Dick back into Nightwing and back into a blue V costume for the first time in 7 years, he's interested in looking at the Grayson family and not so much in terms of the Court of the Owls stuff. He likes Dick and Damian's time as Batman & Robin. Seeley's also a fan of a lot of character beats in terms of Dick's characterisation that were pioneered by Devin Grayson - particularly in terms of Dick being easily attracted to women, being impetuous and hot headed at times, and in the Romani retcon. I don't necessarily see eye to eye with Seeley on all of his characterisation and story choices, but he does a lot of repair work on getting Dick back to being Nightwing, including things like repeating beats from the Dixon and Grayson runs so that Dick has that backstory again, and what that means for his character. I might suggest Nightwing #8 2016, because it revolves around Bruce and Dick and the concept of falling (I'm a sucker for a good falling metaphor) or #9, which is literally a discussion of the changes between n52 and Rebirth with both of the Clark Kents, and in which Clark points Dick to return to Bludhaven (in a sort of re-encapsulation of Clark originally giving Dick the inspiration for the name Nightwing, but this time pointing him to what people treat as his default 'home'). If you like the shape of Dick as Bludhaven's hero from fic, you probably will find Seeley's run has stuff to enjoy.

Sam Humphries: (Nightwing #35-41 2016) So Humphries' storyline is another good example of what a lot of the current run of Nightwing contains since 2016 - reinterpretations and new versions of old stories. In this case, it's an adaption of the Hanging Judge storyline to have taken place in Bludhaven in Bruce and Dick's past. I don't mind it as a story, but it's definitely there to remind you of old story beats.

I haven't yet read Benjamin Percy's run, or any of Ric Grayson yet (which is a combination of Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza and Dan Jurgens), or Tom Taylor's run, so I don't want to give you too explicit opinions on these.

In general terms from experience on other titles and what other people have said: I really loved Benjamin Percy's Detective Comics #35-36 story in n52 and I suspect his Nightwing writing is a perfectly acceptable fill; nobody particularly likes the plot surrounding Ric Grayson, and the fact Scott Lobdell had a hand in plotting it seems to me to explain a bunch of the aspects of the scenario premise that upset a lot of people; Dan Jurgens is a DC workhorse who can turn his hand to anything; and Tom Taylor's run has been described as many as 'rewrite the arc of Devin Grayson's run but make it light and fluffy and free of consequences'. I honestly think if you haven't read much Nightwing yet, Taylor's run may be a good transition run to try to see if he's your vibe; I keep getting the impression he probably makes a good intro for new readers.

If you have any other writers you would like my impression of, please ask specifically; as I've said, Dick's been written by a LOT of people over the years.

[fruitysewerrat]

Delving into Pearl and Marina’s relationship

After seeing the new trailer for Splatoon 3’s DLC, Side Order, which seems to focus on Off the Hook, I wanted to make a quick recap of their relationship up until now.

The idol duo Off the Hook consists of its two members, Pearl and Marina. Pearl being the more outgoing inkling rapper of the group and Marina being a clever octoling DJ.

Firstly, their base designs make it clear that they are supposed to be opposites. Marina being tall and having big ears and Pearl being shorter than the average inkling and having small ears, would be one example of this. Another would be their clothing. Whereas Pearl wears a white dress with golden accents, Marina mainly wears black clothing with silver details. Unlike the Squid Sisters, Off the Hook’s idol outfits only match in certain aspects, like their boots and zippers, yet they still look like a cohesive duo despite that. The most prominent opposite would be the fact that Pearl is an inkling and Marina is an octoling, however. Also keep in mind that Marina was one of the first octolings coming to the surface after she heard the Calamari Inkantation.

You first encounter Off the Hook in game during their stage announcements*, where you learn small bits about their personality. Here you see how they mock each other in a playful way, but are still supportive of one another as friends. It also highlights how close they are, as they know a lot about each other and seem to spend a lot of time together.

Though Off the Hook doesn’t play a major role in the base game, they really have a chance to shine in the Octo Expansion DLC. Most of their characterization here is done through chat rooms* that add a lot of personality as well as some more information regarding their relationship. While still joking and mocking each other, they also frequently compliment and show admiration for the other. For instance, when Marina calls Pearl “srsly the coolest” (Session 3), as well as Pearl considering Marina “one of the best people [she knows]” (Session 6). On some occasions, their close bond is even displayed through pictures, like when Pearl shares a photo of Marina napping on a Pearl pillow. But even in more serious moments like when Pearl learns of Marina’s past, she still decides to trust her and even goes as far as to threaten Craig Cuttlefish. Marina is also incredibly grateful to Pearl and thanks her when she assures Marina that she will still be accepted in Inkopolis.

Off the Hooks’ admiration for each other is also clearly displayed in their backstory. Though Pearl probably was the first inkling she encountered on the surface, Marina had a “feeling about [her]” (session 8) and asked her to form a band after only meeting a few times prior on Mount Nantai. She even went as far as to go to the Mountain for a whole week in hopes of seeing Pearl again. Later on, Pearl taught Marina “everything [she] needed to know” (Session 8) and is still extremely thankful to her.

By the time the player reaches the final boss of Octo Expansion, they finally meet Off the Hook in person. Though the player’s time with them is cut short due to the looming battle, their characteristics still shine through. Marina clearly idolizes Pearl, as seen in her drawing during the explanation of the fight. After defeating the NILS statue, Marina immediately rushes to hug Pearl, which clearly indicates how important Pearl is to her.

Furthermore, the Final Splatfest really illustrates their bond well. The new special shifty station “MC. Princess Diaries” or also known as “Dear Senpai” in the Japanese version depicts Marina’s admiration for Pearl again. Senpai describes an upperclassman mentoring an underclassman in Japan. As Pearl taught Marina everything about Inkopolis, she can be considered an upperclassman to Marina. Additionally, Marina is the one responsible for building the shifty station, which in this case is in the image of the Octo Expansions final boss, so we can assume the title reflects her standpoint. Marina clearly has a deep affection towards Pearl and cherishes her. I’d also like to add that the title almost sounds like the beginning of a letter, like Marina having learned everything there is to know and now saying farewell, which might have something to do with Side Order (I might be reading too much into this, though). Perhaps it could also reflect a love letter written for Pearl. In addition, Pearl could also consider Marina an upperclassman to her, as she taught Pearl a lot about music, such as meter and rhythm.

During the Final Splatfests announcement, Marina voices her concerns about Off the Hook breaking apart. Lines such as “Off the Hook means everything to me! It's all I have in this world...” show clearly how grateful she is to have met Pearl. Yet, Pearl also reassures her by stating that Marina has “WAAAY more going for [her] than just Off the Hook.”, displaying Pearl’s trust in her.

After the Final Fest reached its conclusion, the results were announced. Pearl begins by describing the time she has spent with Marina as “the best years of [her] life” which worries Marina, as she believes Off the Hook is going to break up. But to everyone’s relieve, Pearl just wants the duo to break into new genres of music as they “take over the world” together. After promising that they are going to stay together, Pearl reassures Marina, that she loves her, really conveying the close bond they have. This part of the dialogue wouldn’t have changed if Team Order had won, highlighting its importance. Besides, we can still see them making music together with the band Damp Socks in Splatoon 3.

Lastly, I want to talk about some media outside the games. In an Octotune interview with Pearl, she states that meeting Marina is the best gift she has ever received, signaling how she cherishes Marina and how much the time they have spent together means to her. Furthermore, the Splatoon manga includes a short shōjo manga (a type of manga targeted towards teen girls) addressed to Pearl called “Dear Pearl” where Pearl is drawn in a very idolized style, similar to shōjo love interests, as well. The last panel of the manga depicts a love letter addressed to Pearl. In the Japanese version, the manga ends with Marina dreaming about shouting out "these feelings [for Pearl]" through a megaphone. Similarly, the relationship between Pearl and Marina is described as ”Marina, let's make the whole world ours!" - "Yes, Pearl-senpai!”  in the official Splatoon 2 character chart. In another official relationship chart, Marina is described as a “maiden in love” with Pearl’s description stating “it is me”, implying Marina has romantic feelings for Pearl.

Whether you ship them or not, you cannot deny that they don’t have a lot of respect and adoration for each other. Their relationship is really sweet, and I can’t wait to see how Side Order will develop it further. Their ink colors really became something special after being mixed together.

Stay fresh and thank you for reading!

“It's you and me against the universe, 'Rina!”

(Also, I tried to keep this as neutral as possible, but those two are definitely in a relationship)

*Here’s some stage announcements as examples:

Port Mackerel:

   Pearl : Marina! What's the appeal of using a brella on this stage?

   Marina : Protecting my precious Pearlie at all costs!

Wahoo World:

   Pearl : Remember when we rode the roller coaster for six hours straight?

   Marina : That was nothing compared to the eight hours we spent on the Death Drop!

   Pearl : Yo, at night, the Ferris wheel's all... like...sparkly and junk.

   Marina : You're so adorable, Pearl.

The Reef:

   Pearl : Look at me! I'm Marina! BLAH BLAH BLAH!

   Marina : Ahaha! Yeah, that's so me!

   Pearl : My best friend took me to this amazing cake shop in The Reef the other day!

   Marina : But I don't remember going to a cake shop...

Snapper Canal:

   Pearl : I've been here before. A boy from school brought me when I was a kid...

   Marina : REALLY?! Was it a date? A battle? Spill it, Pearlie!

Kelp Dome:

   Pearl : I bet you looooove all the weird machinery here, don't you, Marina?

   Marina : Is it that obvious?!

   Pearl : Yo, I'll splat a dude with attitude, I don't carrot all like rabbit food!

   Marina : OHHHHHHHHHHHH! Best rapper alive.

New Albacore Hotel:

   Pearl : Remember that time you tried to drown me here? Good times.

   Marina : For the last time, I was trying to help you get to the floating stage!

Manta Maria:

   Pearl : Let's sail across the seas and make our debut in the new world!

   Marina : OK, but only if you learn how to at least say hi in another language first.

   Pearl : The ocean is breathtaking, yo... I wonder if there are any little fishies around.

   Marina : Fishies? Aww! Pearl, you're so cute...

Moray Towers:

   Pearl : Hey! How come I always have to talk first when we announce the stages?

   Marina : To set up the punch line, of course! How else am I supposed to poke fun at you?

Arowana Mall:

   Pearl : The shops here sell different stuff than the ones in The Reef. I love it!

   Marina : I know! It's so cool you found a place that carries XXXS-size shirts!

*Some examples from the chat rooms:

Session 3:

MC.Princess > Yo how do I make the chat window full screen? DJ_Hyperfresh > Alt-F4 ■Webmaster■ > MC.Princess has left the chatroom. DJ_Hyperfresh > Can't believe that actually worked...

DJ_Hyperfresh > Don't tell her I said this, but Pearl is srsly the coolest.

Session 6:

MC.Princess > So you probably can't tell but just between you and me, Marina's kind of a weirdo. She's like freakishly tall and way to smart for her own good MC.Princess > just the other day she built an entire battle stage all by herself. It had huge floating rocks and everything. Crazy right?

MC.Princess > WHAT. Nah, Marina would never design something like that CraigCuttlefish > its right there in the file MC.Princess > now that you mention it, Marina IS totally obsessed with machines. And she's definitely the hardest working person i know

MC.Princess > Right?! She might have some skeletons in her closet, but who doesn't am i right? Marina is one of the best people i know. CraigCuttlefish > i guess shes okay for an octo MC.Princess > I swear, cuttlefish. If you try to splat Marina I WILL CUT A FISH. U GOT THAT?

Session 7:

DJ_Hyperfresh > Do you think I'll still be welcome in Inkopolis? Once everyone knows I'm an Octoling? MC.Princess > ARE YOU KIDDING? Of course you will! everyone loves you! DJ_Hyperfresh > Thanks, Pearlie. ;__;

Session 8:

DJ_Hyperfresh > That makes sense. You've got a knack for teaching. ♪

DJ_Hyperfresh > Haha, remember when we first met, Pearl? I had just come to the surface, and I didn't understand Inkopolis at all. You taught me everything I needed to know.

DJ_Hyperfresh > I went to Mount Nantai every day for a week, just hoping you would show up again.

MC.Princess > LOL Marina I just remembered you made that entire demo using that half-busted keyboard you had. But somehow the hook was still dope

DJ_Hyperfresh > I was shocked the first time I heard you rap. I thought for sure you were gonna be wack tbh, but once you started spittin I was like, "dang, this munchkin got bars."

DJ_Hyperfresh > Anyway, I know we talk a lot of smack on the show and all, but I just wanted to say thanks. For everything.

Octotune interview:

Q17: What is the best gift you have ever received? Pearl: The chance to meet Marina.

Sources:

[thebreakfastgenie]

Wheelers and Dealers is one of BJ's least sympathetic breakdowns--not only to me, but to the other characters in-universe--but it's also probably the episode that most effectively explains his whole deal. That's because Wheelers and Dealers reveals a new piece of backstory: BJ had the chance to dodge the draft. Hawkeye jokes about being an unsuccessful draft dodger and Klinger talks about his various attempts, but BJ had what neither of them did: an actual, for real ticket out.

I could've gotten out of the draft, like Ned Gradinger. Big all American hero from Stanford. Medical deferment, signed by that eminent physician Ned Gradinger, Sr., who offered the same to me, but I was a good guy.

Within this episode, this new detail explains why BJ feels so intensely guilty about his family struggling in his absence. It also explains his anger that people like him because of his "good guy" personality. One level to that is the fear that if he does something selfish or less than good no one will like him anymore. But I think that's secondary to something else:

Everybody wants to play when it's lovable Doc Hunnicutt, gentleman loser. But let me win a few, it's like I committed a crime.

If BJ had "won one" by dodging the draft, he would have committed a crime. I think that's what he's speaking to, here, more than a fear of losing people by expressing human failings. After all, he does express human failings all the time, and he's hardly ever blamed for them. Now, the continuity on MASH is loose at best, so I don't for a moment imagine the writers planned this bit of lore from BJ's introduction, or that intended it to apply retroactively. But let's do that anyway.

What sets BJ apart from Hawkeye and Trapper and even to some extent from other characters is a certain respect for the rules and faith in the institutions of American life. It makes sense for someone from a more comfortable, middle class background to have that attitude. It's why Margaret and Frank set their sights on him initially. Of course, this aspect of BJ is deconstructed as he comes face to face with war and with rules that are transparently arbitrary or even morally wrong. But he really digs in his heels. Just look at Preventative Medicine, where he rigidly adheres to a code of medical ethics and a definition of "harm" that feels almost absurd in a war zone. (Can an army surgeon "do no harm?" Ask Hawkeye in Letters or BJ in Bombshells.)

Of course, this makes a lot more sense when you put it in the context of BJ being drafted because he strictly adhered to the rules, to a rigid idea of right and wrong. Of course BJ clings to the rules; he desperately needs to believe they mean something. If the rules don't matter, if right and wrong aren't so simple, he allowed himself to be drafted for nothing. He allowed himself to be taken from his family, to be made into a soldier, to witness some of the worst things a human being can witness, to get used to the horror, to do things he would never otherwise do, because he believed he was doing the right thing. If doing the right thing doesn't mean anything, he let all that happen for no reason at all. That's a hell of a thing to come to terms with.

Now, what's the big moral argument against draft dodging, if you don't believe in serving your country? If you don't go, someone else will have to go in your place. Now look at Period of Adjustment.

Radar's home, Hawk. I should be glad for him. But I'm not! I'm so torn up with envy, I almost hate him! And I feel the same way about Trapper, and I never even met him.

BJ hates them for being home when he's not. Invoking Trapper here is powerful, because on a meta level and to some extent in-universe, BJ is literally there because Trapper is not. If BJ had taken the draft dodge, someone else would be suffering over here. If he'd won one, he'd have condemned someone else to that fate. Is that some kind of crime, not legally, but morally? Here, BJ is on the other side. Trapper and Radar won a hand: they got to go home. BJ is trying to be lovable Doc Hunnicutt, happy for their good fortune, gracefully accepting that he has to stay. But for once he can't quite do it. This is also one of the only times in the series we see someone really, furiously envious about another character going home, which isn't really relevant here but I thought it was interesting enough to highlight. This fits with how I've described Period of Adjustment from BJ's perspective before, as a shattering of the illusion they all use to get through each day.

Essentially, BJ clings desperately to the rules because all the worst things that have happened to him are things he accepted as consequences of doing the right thing. He accepted them naively, the war is worse than he could have imagined, and the possibility that on top of that, his reason for accepting them was meaningless is kind of unbearable.

[heart-of-neptune]

What is your self reputation transforming into? (your reputation with yourself)

We know the vibes here, this is for fun, growth, and self-exploration. It is not meant to be taken seriously unless you want it to. Go into all my readings with an open mind. If you would like one about your reputation with others, please let me know.

Pile 1:

Your reputation with yourself is currently being transformed into someone who is seen as more of a leader. There are so many cards that point to leadership. It seems that you’ve always been a leader but never saw yourself as such. You are embracing this energy now and seeing yourself for who you truly are. You are your own hero. You are finally seeing your power and are feeling more confident in it. You are seeing that you are more confident than you once thought. The way you see yourself is DRASTICALLY changing. This is an extremely deep and powerful reading. I am actually feeling emotional because I feel this deep sense of relief and joy.

All the things that held you back before, weren’t a reflection of you but a reflection of things people have either said or done to you. It feels as if you’ve dropped the weight of what everyone expected of you and embraced your true nature. You finally SEE yourself. Whatever shame, guilt, trauma, or pain that was once blinding you has officially dissipated. You finally feel completely healed after what feels like years or even lifetimes of struggles. It’s this deep feeling of “I can finally see. I finally see myself. I finally see my path. I finally see who I truly am. I was always right about who I am.” You are seeing your greatness in HD quality. It’s crisp and clean. You see every detail of yourself and you are loving all of you right now. Your sense of self respect has increased tremendously. You respect your own ability to walk away from things that are not good for you long term. I see you even finding yourself attractive and seductive. You’re even romancing yourself & flirting with yourself now because you can see your true worth now. A LOT OF SELF LOVE VIBES. You have learned to love how patient you are with yourself and your creations. Something has deeply changed within you for real. I believe this is why this leadership energy is showing up so much. You loved yourself so much to the point where you are leading yourself and that has changed how you view yourself. Since embracing this leadership energy, you trust yourself more than you ever have before. Honestly, this is a beautiful reading. I am so happy for you. Whatever you’ve been doing and taking your time with has definitely been working. You’re going to be seeing more results of this as you continue to focus on yourself. Excellent job! Your entire self reputation has improved massively since you started your self-development journey. I am proud of you and you should definitely feel proud of yourself too!

Pile 2:

Your self reputation is transforming into someone who is seen as independent. You’ve always known you were independent but you’re in a place of embracing your independence more. You’ve either went from being someone who is codependent into someone who is now independent or, you’ve always been independent because you had to or both honestly because there are different aspects of life. So, you went from being codependent in certain aspects of your life to now being fully independent in all aspects of your life. This is a good thing. This makes you feel more confident in yourself. You could be an orphan (either literally or figuratively) meaning you had to do things alone which shaped you into an independent person. Even if you have parents or guardians, they may have not been involved in your development hence this independent energy. You probably have never acknowledged your independence before because you have been like this for so long that it is your natural way of being. Seeing this part of you has made you realize that you are different from most people because of how much you rely on yourself. You’ve had to be strong alone for a very long time. Realizing this has made you gain more respect for yourself and give yourself a pat on the back for how far you’ve come.You understand that you cannot do everything on your own and you’ve learned to ask for help. You are a stoic and assertive person. You have needs and you’ve learned to speak up from a young age to get those needs met. I see that you enjoy silence & that it is in silence you find your power. Silence helps you to properly process whatever is going on in and around you. You’re not someone who is afraid of change anymore. In fact, you embrace it knowing that change is the only way to move forward in life. You see the symbolism in everything that happens in your life thanks to your keen eye and ability to express yourself clearly. You have a BIG personality that not many people get to see. You’re an extremely patient person now. You may have been impatient in the past. That is no longer the case. I see that you thrive with companionship and commitment as long as it is with the right people. This is due to you being able to process things and express yourself clearly. Your independence has made you the ideal friend/partner to yourself which in turn makes you ideal for healthy relationships. I have respect for you as well. You are a force to be reckoned with. Your independence is your power. 

Pile 3:

Your self reputation is transforming into someone who is more active. Before you may have been someone who was lazy or someone who didn’t get much done. Now, you’re becoming someone who takes action and is active when it comes to what it is you want. You may also start to work out more. You’re actively taking all the steps needed in order to manifest what it is that you want to see in your reality. You’re being more grounded in your creation process. I see you becoming someone who embraces the magic within you. You’re becoming someone who is way more elegant and mature than you used to be. You may have been awkward in the past however that is changing or has changed completely. You’re seeing the mature version of you now and that’s making you more attractive to yourself. You’re embracing detachment and change & allowing yourself to let go of all the things that truly do not align with your goals and plans. This is making you more detached from the physical reality in a positive way. There is so much emotional maturity coming through for you. Big on “you’ve really grown up.” You’re really seeing yourself in such a wonderful light right now. You’ve completely released the victim mentality and said “I will not let emotions or the past control me anymore.” Good for you. I am proud of you. You still allow yourself to feel however you never let yourself stay in energy that will stagnate you. You’ve come very far in the way that you process the things happening around you and within you. You’re handling everything in your life with an extreme amount of grace and elegance now. It’s truly a sight to behold. Honestly, it’s really looking as if you’ve completely let go of the past and that’s why you’re in this new energy. Nothing from your past is holding you back anymore. You’re in a completely new life and it’s truly changed the way you see yourself. I see you standing in your power more than ever. Passionate, grounded, detached, and completely in control. You’ve become the person you’ve always wanted to be. You are seeing yourself as a success due to this. You will continue to be learning more about the new you and you are happy about this. Great job!

[lavend-ler]

BORDERLANDS: DEBT OR ALIVE BOOK REVIEW

I have read the new Borderlands book Debt Or Alive. I did not like it. In fact, I hated it so much I needed to pour out my thoughts in this review. It’ll be very long, so bear this in mind while reading through it because it’s been a while since a piece of media has made me this angry.

There will be spoilers to ALL of the book so you’ve been warned. I am going to analyze this book very thoroughly so everything that can be spoiled will be spoiled.

TL;DR – I hated this book. I accept Borderlands 3, I think it’s fine and I really like aspects of it. I wasn’t enthusiastic about New Tales From The Borderlands but in the end, I thought it was fine. But Debt Or Alive? It’s probably the only piece of Borderlands media that I won’t consider canon from this point forward. Half-assed story with shallow characters and ham-fisted message which retroactively ruins the events of the game(s). Don’t buy it, don’t waste your time on this just to see the worst version of characters you love.

A more detailed review will be under the cut. It’s over 10k long.

1. Tales From The Borderlands made even worse

I have a complicated relationship with Tales From The Borderlands. I think my best friend had put it in the best way – Tales From The Borderlands is good when you don’t think about it for too long. For me, it’s a fun game to play once every 4 years, remember the story and move on. The more you think about it, the more apparent the cracks get and the worse it becomes.

Debt Or Alive REALLY makes you think about Tales From The Borderlands in the worst way possible.

I have always thought that Fiona’s part of the story is weaker than Rhys’. It’s told in a way that sort of meanders until it’s reached its conclusion. The first sin Debt Or Alive commits is that the ending of Tales is its beginning. What should be the conclusion, the nice ribbon to tie the story is now the jumping off point. In my opinion, it’s always a terrible narrative decision to make your sequel start where the story left off. It always implies the fact that your conclusion is meaningless and that your characters didn’t learn anything. To write a new story, you need more challenges which also means that characters need new struggles. In Debt Or Alive’s case, it means that everything that happened in Tales isn’t worth a thing.

To me, nothing was more apparent of it here than the Vault scene. The Vault of the Traveler grants a wish to everyone who steps there. The Vault should be the conclusion to what we know of the characters and sort of “off screen” this happens to Rhys. We see Fiona hear that Rhys wishes for Atlas and that’s the end of his story in Tales. Though I will touch upon why I didn’t like this later, it does make narrative sense, he was supposed to be more independent and choose his own path instead of following others. It’s a ribbon that ties to his character in Borderlands 3 and New Tales From The Borderlands.

Then it’s time for Fiona and… Oh, yeah. What would SHE wish for? Throughout Tales, we see Fiona evolve as a character from the ragged con-artist who wishes to just go by, to the independent and certain Vault Hunter. Or do we? Yes, there is a moment in which Sasha dies which would be traumatic for Fiona but she’s from Pandora. She should know the dangers of living and instead, she should be happy that she came back as the hero. In the ending of Tales, we can hear Fiona say “This [Vault hunting] life…suits me” so she already reconciled the danger and in fact, she welcomes it. But to make this half-assed story be a thing, we have to disregard this entirely.

So in the Vault, Fiona is given a chance to wish for anything she wants. What does she wish for? Nothing, actually. Presented with an opportunity of a lifetime, Fiona has no idea what to wish for. I can’t even begin to tell you how bad of either an opener or an ending this is for her character. For an opener, we have a protagonist who doesn’t know what she wants and where she needs to go. Sure, it’s a start for an arc but not for Fiona who already DID have it. It’s an arc she had earned, so why would she have a restart and go through this all over again? And as an ending, it’s a terrible reminder that Fiona probably didn’t learn a thing. The time in the Vault was for nothing, Athena didn’t teach her anything. Burch doesn’t know his character well enough to think of anything for her to wish for.

Hence the whole journey moving forward truly is just a bad rehash. If Fiona didn’t learn a thing about herself and needs to do it again but worse, what’s the point of this story? To see her come to the same conclusion as she did at the end of Tales but worse? The answer is yes. As this story suggests Fiona is a protagonist who doesn’t know what to do with her life and just wants to protect her sister and that’s all. Which is the exact same point her character was at, at the beginning of Tales.

Actually, why did the Vault have to grant wishes, anyway? It doesn’t make sense for neither Fiona nor Rhys and even later, Gaige cements that this didn’t have to be the case. Part of the charm which Tales From The Borderlands brought was the story of everyday people. This wasn’t a story of glorious Vault Hunters with great stamina and luck, who chose the adventure for the guns and glory. This was a story of a middle manager and a con artist, two unremarkable people who were basically forced onto this adventure from outside forces and because of their will became heroes of their own stories. It’s a story of normal people who have made their own self-made destiny.

Debt Or Alive, of course, scoffs at this idea. Rhys’ Vault wish for Atlas makes no sense as he already has Atlas and already probably works under this trademark. It doesn’t mean a thing that he wishes for the whole legal action thing, when his character progression to have Atlas from Jack would be so good. But no, it’s cosmic power that grants him that wish fully. Fiona too, she was supposed to be a self-made Vault Hunter but in the end (or the beginning), she rejects this and doesn’t know what to wish for. Just an absolutely horrible way of planning out her character. No one wants a passive character and this is what this story makes Fiona to be – a bystander, rather than an igniter.

I also want to point out that the events of Tales and characters she meets are truly nothing but cameos. A big part of Fiona’s story was gaining independence when her father figure Felix turned out to be a snake who sold them out. Within Tales, it’s very clear that Felix was abusive towards Fiona and Sasha, forcing them into roles they didn’t want, favoring Fiona and making them live such a strict life, they thought it was the best they could get. Of course, none of this is ever touched upon in Debt Or Alive. It’s never mentioned that Fiona is an abuse survivor and how it would shape her as a person with her protectiveness and willingness to give up greatness for simply “good enough”, and being held to impossible standards. There are also barely any mentions of Athena and their time together. At no point does Fiona use tactics she had learnt from Athena or recounts their time. Those are passive mentions which make Fiona look like she didn’t learn a thing.

My own ribbon that ties this section will be the funniest thing that for me exposes how much Tales is made worse. Tales From The Borderlands is a game in which choices DO NOT matter. There are no consequences and each choice will yield the same outcome. Again, it’s just meaningless and it’s so funny to me that this book wants to wink at the audience becoming a “choose your own adventure” book in two sections, which both lead to the same result. It truly does not mean a thing.

2. Anthony Burch cannot write women and Fiona’s character assassination

Anthony Burch cannot write women. This is a fact that I wanna point out every single time I can because it was never more apparent to me than in this book. Let’s start with women in Borderlands and the stories which he had written for them. Maya has a good theme but falls flat when she’s only an object for Kreig to lust over. Nisha is Burch’s sexual fantasies coming true in a gross way. Athena in Tales is made only stone cold, no-fun character who is a liar to someone who loves. Janey in Tales is made to be an overbearing girlfriend trope but it’s progressive because she’s a lesbian. Vallory is a collection of tropes. So on and so forth.

Hence right from the beginning, I was very skeptical of a book by Burch which will have the most female-driven cast in all of Borderlands. My skepticism was proved not only to be right but also that it was much worse than I had realized. Because I haven’t even shown you the issues of Fiona and Sasha and trust me, there are some even in Tales. However from Tales I could very easily tell you what character traits Fiona and Sasha have and what differentiated them.

Fiona, as described in Tales promotional material is a con-artist with a heart of gold. She has been raised on streets, she loves money and she has a silver tongue to get out of every situation she’s in. Fiona also cares about those she loves a lot, as an older sister she can get overbearing but her situation in life made her realize that it’s justifiable. She can also be a nerd, she’s curious and fun, likes to joke around. Sasha is a character who loves danger far more than Fiona. She likes guns and has great knowledge of them, she’s more a doer than a talker. Sasha doesn’t want the con life and longs for something tangible, rather than just be a prize in the books. She also has an inferiority complex, due to Felix’ abuse which she masks with her forwardness and action personality. She shines through when she can do things she loves, becoming headstrong, honest and independent.

Do you really think we’ll get any of this in this book?

The answer is no and it’s very easy to tell it right from the start. I know I keep getting back to the Vault scene but trust me, this is the culprit from which I knew this book will be a failure. In this scene, Fiona doesn’t know what to wish for, so she “wishes” that Sasha was there. This wish is granted and it’s now both sisters in the Vault. From this you can see the issue – this book does not treat Fiona and Sasha as separate characters. They ALWAYS have to be together, always mention each other, they’re basically never given a room to breathe because whenever a scene calls for just Fiona or just Sasha, their internal monologue will keep mentioning the other.

I can’t even really make a case for either of the characters individually because this book itself makes such a bad case with them. I’ll give it my best shot because when these moments occur they are, well, bad. I’ll start with Sasha because I have less to say since the book itself had less to say about her too. There is a certain moment in which Sasha, being tired of Fiona’s carefulness, goes Vault hunting with Gaige. I was very happy at this, since I have shipped Sasha and Gaige before and I thought their personalities would mesh well. Yet, in this particular instance, Sasha isn’t enjoying anything regarding Vault hunting and the danger, while constantly thinking of Fiona. Why is that, why wouldn’t she be thrilled for the adventure and getting to know another person like Gaige more? They could bond and start a friendship but in the end, they barely talk and Sasha isn’t into it. Even guns don’t excite her that much. What happened to her?

I think even her reflections towards life after death are very much shallow and omitted. We get a sense of it, we get that Sasha is terrified that there’s nothing when she dies but we’re not given anything of it. I figured this would be her turning point, that Sasha will realize that if there’s nothing afterwards, it’s best to live her life to the fullest, going on adventures, not wasting chances. But nothing like this has happened. Sasha doesn’t enjoy Vault hunting, she shrugs at guns, she can’t have her own fulfillments, her relationship with Rhys is wishy-washy. You’d think that with sudden realization of death, Sasha would have a breaking point and start thinking if it’s all worth it and how her life should now be like. But that would require interesting philosophical questions that Burch doesn’t want to answer. Not when they lose the life-giving crystal, nor when Sasha dies a second time when she chooses to. It’d be such an interesting discussion of the meaning of life, how Sasha approaches life and what it all means to her but no. Not given any thought to this. At the end it’s not even unique to her as Fiona dies and is brought to life too so again, no point.

Another faucet to her character is the on and off relationship with Rhys and just… I was never a fan of shipping Sasha and Rhys together and this book reminded me of it in the worst possible way. Sasha is disinterested with Rhys’ world and they never mesh well together, having such different goals in life. She doesn’t even want to acknowledge their relationship, leaving Rhys to look like a sad wet sock (more on that later). It’s described how she’s used to acting a certain way and that’s fair, that’s a huge roadblock in a relationship. But we never see this roadblock get pushed. Sasha at the end of the book is still terrified of the potential relationship and doesn’t want this. We only learn that one time she calls him her boyfriend off screen, which is just such a cop out I can’t begin to describe it. I’m so sorry, Sasha, you deserve an actual relationship not just Burch’s fantasies.

So I move to the main character of the story, Fiona. And oh god, how badly has Burch treated Fiona, words cannot describe it but they will try. From the beginning, we see one of Fiona’s traits be amped up to 11 – her protectiveness which turns into overbearingness. Constantly, we are reminded that Sasha died and Fiona can’t forgive herself. Which is fair but again… We saw her happy and fulfilled at the end of Tales. But since Tales doesn’t matter and probably it’s better if it didn’t exist, it gets shrugged off. May I remind you, this book starts right as Tales ended. Which is a year later from the start. Which means Fiona is 30 and Sasha is 25. Their actions do not portray two characters of this age, especially Fiona’s towards Sasha’s.

Look, I’m 24 and I have a sister who’s 33, so close-ish range to them. If my sister would do the things that Fiona did to Sasha I would be pissed off as all hell because guess what, my adult sister does consider me an adult woman. Unlike apparently Fiona and Sasha. Because for Sasha’s “safety” Fiona puts her into a fucking jail on a planet they do not know, just towards her “safety”. Yes, it’s regarded as dumb and wrong in the book and that Fiona knows that Sasha would pull through but it’s just mind boggling to me that Fiona would even do that. She should know her sister. But then throughout the book we see Fiona acting like know all be all authority to her, constantly second guessing her actions and opinions and being completely overbearing. I’m sorry but her apology at the end doesn’t make it remotely okay to be so controlling of Sasha.

I guess that’s the point. In my opinion, this book is a character assassination for Fiona. People will whine and moan over how Rhys got ruined in Borderlands 3 and New Tales but no, I had and will always disagree with this. But Fiona in Debt Or Alive? Burch truly showed how he has no clue how to write female characters because she is completely ruined here. None of her actions make sense, neither do her choices, the little character she has is so unlikeable and I just can’t believe he thought it was all good.

The best way to show you how Fiona got ruined is to have a little overview of Fiona as a character before and her background. She is a Pandoran, born and “raised” there, through the life of crime and bribery. Her biological parents died, she only has Sasha with her. Thus she feels responsible for her and their wellbeing. Fiona also had Felix, a man who brought her and Sasha with him and raised them in a very abusive manner. Fiona all her life had lived in poverty, struggling to get by with her cons, constantly having Felix make her think she’s responsible for the failures or successes of the group all on her own. She lived in a caravan, she barely had any money to her name. She’s no stranger to the climate and cruelty of Pandora, having lived there all her life, though she herself prefers the “word” combat.

Got it? Well, now forget it because that’s what Burch did in his book.

I know that wealth can change people, I really do and the sum of money Fiona and Sasha received is enormous. What I don’t understand is that they both did a complete 180 on their perspectives. I do realize that living in poverty all their life, Fiona would start spending money on dumb things but to hammer home this fact, Burch tries really hard to show us how dumb some of the purchases are. But would she really act like this in this setting? First, it’s hard for me to believe that she would willingly move to Eden-5, seeing the corrupted system and life in which it operates. It’s just Pandora but with chrome paint on it. Yet, Fiona doesn’t see red flags and just continues on living, buying dumb shit. We don’t learn anything new about her through this either, it’s just a dumb thing after dumb thing. Why couldn’t it start with things that she really wanted and then move on to unnecessary things? I think it’s because Burch couldn’t even establish what her wishes would be from Pandoran times.

What also made me just want to throw this book away was that it took Fiona around 200 pages to realize that people who work for her are also bound by debt. It’s such a nearsighted thing, I cannot believe that she would do it. Especially since I think we’re led to believe that this book happened in the span of 4-5 years. For Fiona to be this bound by greed and wealth doesn’t fit her character at all. How could she just not see that people who work for her have been tortured by poverty? Up until this point, Fiona lived in poverty herself, she should KNOW that this is a thing people struggle with. Not to mention, in the book there are talks about how people have multiple debt cuffs on them. It’s unacceptable that Fiona wouldn’t care about those who were beneath her. And if she really did, do you think this makes her character any more likable? And do you think that her turn around is a moment of triumph when we’re led to believe she ignored those people for YEARS?

I think the story itself just makes you shrivel at one moment in particular. Fiona purchases a sapphire kitten, which shatters. Classic Borderlands humor, right? This moment truly disturbed me but not in a way that Burch wanted but for the implications. Fiona spends money on bullshit she doesn’t want just to have it. Who else spent money on unneeded bullshit just to show wealth? Handsome Jack. And when you’re comparing your hero to the most vile villain from the series, I don’t think it’s a good sign. Especially since in canon Handsome Jack loved and cared for Butt Stallion. Unlike Fiona.

Even the breaking point moment of Fiona, the destruction of Rustville, felt shallow. Reading this, I couldn’t help but to go back to the moment of Helios’ destruction in Tales. It was such an incredible moment for Rhys, seeing the destruction of a place that was close to him, death of people who he knew and respected. And seeing this “reprise” of sorts with Fiona just felt shallow. At this point, Fiona was in Rustville around 3 times if I can recall? She met people but didn’t form any meaningful relationships (because Burch doesn’t want either of the sisters to have meaningful relationships besides each other) or got to know anyone better. These were all one off interactions with random people. Unlike Rhys, it wasn’t Fiona’s choice to destroy Rustville. It was only an act that she maybe sort of allowed to happen but it was an action of one rich woman. Fiona had no agency in her actions, there was nothing she could’ve done to neither prevent it nor cause it. Thirdly, Fiona is a Pandoran. She should know the carnage, death and destruction, as it is ingrained in Pandora’s system and society. For her to act so devastated and shocked, it simply doesn’t make sense.

Another thing is that this story really dumbs Fiona down, to the points that I couldn’t comprehend how dumb she was. She goes alone to Tetanus Wilds, even if with Sasha she’d have more chances. Especially since she was going to Gaige’s stash and let’s be real – Sasha knows guns, Fiona does not. Fiona goes to destroy Rustville without any weapons and without any protection which of course results in her basically getting killed. Fiona takes a leap of faith thinking she’d die in the ditch but forgets that Deathtrap can fly and catch her. How would she forget if she was tinkering with him before? The same way she’d forget her weapons it seems.

I also wanted to mention how it always made sense to me that Fiona and Sasha would have a falling out in some part of the story, so both of the sisters would become independent and chase their own destinies. It would require Burch to stop thinking of them as a singular character, which does not happen. This part in particular made me especially angry. A skilled writer would make Fiona’s overbearingness and constant promises to be a start of Sasha realizing she needs to live her own life, Fiona as well. Anthony Burch is not a skilled writer so nothing of such happens.

Within Debt Or Alive we don’t learn anything new regarding neither Fiona nor Sasha. We are spoon fed information that we already know, seeing characters we love either devolve to their pre-Tales state or make terrible, nonsensical decisions. There are no moments in which  either of the sisters can breathe on their own. They are thrown into situations where something just has to happen. Thus, we don’t learn anything about them as people.

I also want to point out that the writing of Gaige is fine. I’ll talk more about this later but she truly was fine and I didn’t see issues with how her character was carried. Granted, I think it’s very hard to screw up writing Gaige but it’s Burch, he can do it all. I’m still sad that she’s a lonely outcast like in Borderlands 3 but in general, I didn’t have issues with either her writing or the story.

3. There will never be another Handsome Jack and the death of a good villain

Some of you have already started to roll your eyes at the mention of Handsome Jack but trust me, I have a point here to make. Whenever you hear people talk about Handsome Jack a special kind of sentence emerges – a villain you love to hate. I think this sentence is a great guide to creating your villain so that they’re impactful, fit the story, be likable enough to want to be with them but you’re happy when you get to kill them. And nothing made me feel like it’s a craft long gone than reading Debt Or Alive.

Countess Holloway is a nothing villain. She truly doesn’t represent anything and I can’t tell you anything of what she is as a person. Actually, it can boil down to one sentence – she’s rich and she’s evil. That’s all there is to her character but I guess it goes to show that even then, Burch cannot write women.

Going a little deeper, we gotta discuss the parts that make a good villain. I’m sorry for the comparisons to Handsome Jack but we really need to talk about what makes him great and what makes Holloway shallow.

On the surface level, the points are there. A villain needs to be connected to your heroes in a specific way, having an impact on their lives. Holloway does meet that quota, as she’s not only the motor for this story but also is actually the reason why Fiona and Sasha got rich in the first place. She is a vain person, who loves to live for shallow things and doesn’t care about the rest. From this point of view, we could think that Holloway serves as a reminder to Fiona and Sasha of “be careful who you can become” but neither of them have this revelation. Throughout the story, Fiona and Sasha basically do turn into Holloway, yet nothing of it is neither stated nor explored. It’s not a revelation that characters have, it’s what we think when we connect the dots.

When we start to think more, it all begins to fall apart. The key thing that lacks here is motivation. Looking back at Handsome Jack, it was clear how his goals were stated – he was a nobody who became somebody by his charisma and cunning ways. Now he projects his awful world views on others and it’s your job to stop him. There’s also the fact that his daughter Angel works for him and killing her for Jack is the breaking point. You see him be cruel, vain and abusive but you see his more “human” side that does not excuse his actions (I am looking away from Tales) but makes you understand how much of a terrible person he is and how he deserves to die. It’s effective and fantastic storytelling and his personality makes you want to be around him, even if he’s an awful person who deserves to die.

Let’s go back to Holloway and examine her as I described the traits of a good villain via Jack. Holloway’s motivation is that 7 years ago Gaige murdered her daughter Marcie and now she wants revenge on her. This is already a problem, as this is a passive goal. Holloway is presented as an arrogant woman who doesn’t like to get her hands dirty, hence she can’t kill Gaige on her own. Understandable but also she doesn’t seem very interested in it anyway? She wants to kill Gaige but passively. There’s a bounty on Gaige but Holloway doesn’t have a squad to look after her. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if Holloway had people looking for Gaige and when they die she swiftly replaces them with another one? It would be active but instead we’re presented this information as “well, maybe Gaige dies or maybe she doesn’t, idk, it’s alright either way”.

Another point is that Holloway is a very shallow character. In general, yes but in her actions too. What do we really know about her? She is rich, vain, vengeful, powerful and likes to spend money on frivolous things. Sure but that’s so basic you could tell this about so many other villains it wouldn’t make a difference. There is nothing in her nor in her behavior that would be an indicator of any interesting persona or character. Holloway just exists and we’re told that she’s evil. Wonderful character writing, gotta say.

We’re introduced to Countess Holloway in a way that she is the potential buyer of the Typhon DeLeon Vaultlander figure. Why would she want this? We’re not told nor shown. Thinking of it logically, we could say that it’s supposed to show us that Holloway likes to spend money on whatever bullshit she wants, which is fair. But wouldn’t it make it more sense if after the death of her child, Holloway became obsessed with Vault Hunters, knowing the murderer of her child became one? How did she start researching stories of Vault Hunters and think about how much she hates them, which would lead to her gaining knowledge? This way, Holloway could’ve been prepared for the attacks of Vault Hunters and Vault Hunter wannabes, since she would predict it all. Or even set a lure with a promise of amazing loot. Nothing like this happens.

Even the death of Marcie isn’t exactly a driving point to Holloway. When Angel dies in Borderlands 2, you see the impact it has on Handsome Jack. You know he’s an abusive parent yet even within this, he still acts as sort of father of the year type and constantly manipulates you, saying this is your fault. For Holloway, it seemed that the death of her child just happened and yeah, she’s pissed but you know, things happen. She doesn’t mention who Marcie was, even in her shallow understanding of it. It could’ve made a very interesting character bit where she would tell lies about Marcie, as she was more of a commodity to and of Holloway than anything else. Instead, Marcie’s death isn’t really a drive for Holloway, it’s just a thing that happened and she’s kinda bummed about this.

Is Holloway an imposing force, a ticking clock of sorts? No, she is not. We’re told that during all their stay on Eden-5 (again, around 4 or 5 years), Fiona and Sasha are neighbors with Holloway and nothing is done with it. They’re not anxious that she could strike at any moment or that she could catch Gaige. They don’t care about Gaige actually. That’s why Holloway makes a very poor villain in the imposing sense. There’s no impact of hers and her power felt throughout the book, when Fiona and Sasha can happily live next to her and nothing happens.

The only interesting display of her power is during the gala at Fiona and Sasha’s place, where Holloway shows that she can very easily change the whole Elite’s perspectives regarding the sisters. Yes, it’s a good moment for Holloway but it also truly makes me think how shallow she is as a character. First, the fact that Fiona fell for the Claptrap Vaultlander is another testament of how dumbed down she was. Burch, you made a whole joke about how Claptrap sucks at the beginning and how Fiona hates him, the least you could do was to think that she’d immediately throw this away (especially since you’ve established that Fiona is frivolous with her possessions now).

Second, it’s such a bait and switch moment for Holloway and the whole Elite. I get what it was trying to accomplish, it was for us to see that the Elites are stupid and will follow anyone as it goes. But wouldn’t it be better that out of her hatred for Fiona and Sasha she would work behind the scenes, telling other Elites how they are just stupid Pandorans who can’t achieve anything? It could’ve been a carefully plotted plan with instances that the blackmail was happening hinted at throughout the story but that would require the time when Fiona and Sasha spent on Eden-5 to mean something (it does not) and Holloway to have an ounce of personality and planning skills (she does not).

Another thing that Holloway for me lacks is the backstory. To create a good villain you must make us believe that they had a reason to do all that so we can hate them even more. I think in general, Borderlands does a great job with this, with Knoxx, Handsome Jack, of course, Colonel Zarpedon and the twins. But Holloway? We do not know anything about Holloway’s life. It was probably done so the billionaire character is just a shallow representation of this world but it makes for a very boring and one note character. We don’t know how she got this money, if she lived all her life like this and hates outsiders who she thinks are unworthy of this. Or is it a thing she got later in life thus is so cutthroat about this because she doesn’t wanna go back to poverty. No, you just get a one note shallow villain with no motivation and nothing to play off of.

Even her death is such a nothing death too. Throughout the book we see everyone trying to get at her and eliminate her and not succeed. It’s why Gaige is here, it’s a whole moral dilemma for Fiona and Sasha to grasp upon. As much as Holloway is baiting them to do this but calling them cowards and the sisters just lamenting over how they should’ve done this, you’d think Holloway would get her way. Possibly being quite literally torn to shreds by the sisters, Gaige and the poor people of Eden-5. I mean, it’s Borderlands, deaths like these could happen! But no, she just falls to her death. Even Gaige didn’t deserve to get a shot at her, it seems.

4. The themes of why all billionaires deserve to die or lack therefore of

In a now deleted tweet, Anthony Burch describes Debt Or Alive as a book about how “all billionaires deserve to die”. Why he had deleted this, I have no idea and I’m not here to speculate. However, I did not forget this tweet and throughout reading Debt Or Alive I kept reminding myself of itt. It should be the credo of this book, right? Or at least it once was. That is why, I wanted to simply sit down and speculate, what does this tweet actually mean for the themes of this book.

(This screen isn’t mine, I didn’t get to screenshot it when it was up)

I am a leftist, my politics are very much so on the left. My expertise lies in environmental issues and I know less about socio-economics but it’s fine because it seems that Anthony Burch himself doesn’t know much about this. Hence while reading Debt Or Alive, I asked myself the same question over and over. Let’s say I’m a person who likes Borderlands, likes Fiona and Sasha, isn’t too involved in politics and now I read Debt Or Alive – will this book convince me to learn more of the theory or think that all billionaires should die? In a way yes but in none of the right meaning of such speculations.

On the planet of Eden-5, it seems that life is determined by money and social status. Even the smallest crimes (or rather inconveniences towards the wealthy) will result in you getting a debt cuff. The imagery is already very ham-fisted but let’s go forward with this idea. What are the debt cuffs? I can’t really tell you how they work. While reading I couldn’t have deduced how exactly they operate with that premise. 

First thing is that a person can have multiple debt cuffs but it is never specified if the cuffs ever reach their limit in amount of money on it. As we see Fiona and Sasha get their cuffs and then we learnt you can get multiple, it truly got me thinking – how is that possible? How is it possible to get another, if the screens are digital (and they are described to be digital) how can they reach the limit and be forced to get another? In a highly technological society like Borderlands, nonetheless? How are the body parts chosen for this process? Fiona gets one on her ankle (I think, either this or arm, I forgot) but Sasha gets one on her neck. There are people who have so many cuffs they can’t walk anymore. How can they have so many?

Truth be told, we won’t learn anything about the cuffs or how people operate with them. We simply know they are very common and every citizen of Rustville is described to wear one. Even children, in an incredibly not subtle way, are described to wear “debt cuffs 4 kidz!”. We’re told the cuffs are very heavy but people live with them. We won’t learn who manufactures them, who is in charge of the law to give them away. We’re not even told about the ones who have paid their debt without help from Fiona and Sasha.

The moment when the book takes us to debt prison and the guard says there are some prisoners who can’t even walk because of their cuffs, I realized what these truly were. The cuffs were nothing but the least subtle visualization for us for the statuses of Eden-5 citizens. A literal ball and chain to be exact. For me it just serves as a very ham-fisted metaphor for what could’ve been an interesting concept. We could’ve seen someone pay up their debt but the cuff stays on because the Elites don’t want anyone to be free. We could’ve seen Elites wearing some as a “fashion statement”, mocking the suffering of the lower class. We could’ve seen an Elite who has an actual debt cuff and can’t pay it away, resulting in them hiding it from others. We could’ve had anything but the complete disregard Fiona and Sasha had for their workers and not realizing all of them wear at least one.

For all it’s worth, the book has a very black and white approach towards wealth and money, one that is very unusual for Borderlands. Though we get the usual for Borderlands “everyone is an asshole”, we have such a divide between Rusters and the Elites, it’s hard to mistake it for anything else. Because of this, world building suffers with this incredibly. There are only the poorest people around or the richest people around. There is no nuance or a conversation, there is either this or that. Even Gaige doesn’t offer any insider information towards it, even if she was born and raised there. Nowhere does her very outspoken politics mention the structures and Elites of Eden-5 which she should be completely against. And the fact that she knew Marcie and that she doesn’t wear any debt cuffs that are omnipresent on Eden-5 and the fact that Elites don’t want anything to do with Rusters makes me wonder – is Gaige actually rich? Because everything shows this, and if so, great work, Burch on creating a character whose identity is all over the place.

That was my big issue with showing the problems of wealth and social structures it creates. With no middle class, the conversation lacks another point of view. There are either the wealthiest around or the completely poorest lowest class imaginable. With getting rid of the middle, Burch fails to show us how daily life operates and robs us of the potential conversation. Where are the people who chase wealth and fortune? Where are those who would betray their whole class just to have that taste of top dog life? The only thing we are offered in this conversation are Face and Pick (you don’t have to know anything about them), who want to give Fiona and Sasha away for Holloway, just for the money. But that’s treated as a plot twist, rather than an actual plot point and the siblings already paralleled Fiona and Sasha, so there’s no conversation, just a very shallow shock.

Another point is how the Elites are presented to us. The Elites are the villains, of course and just like billionaires in real life, they aren’t good people. It’s more of how they are presented to us or lack of such presentation. Debt Or Alive doesn’t show us insides to the minds of the Elites because frankly, they don’t have any. I do understand that Burch wanted to show that these are stupid, cruel people, I get it, but even in real life, billionaires are stupid but not necessarily unintelligent.

In the book, we don’t see much of Elites, actually. We see them on the gala Fiona constructed and on Holloway’s gala at the end. At first, they are mindless people who cannot think for themselves. They’re either doing what Fiona wants or what Holloway wants. Secondly, they are quite literally used as meat shields for our heroes to hide behind. So in all senses, they have no personalities, either as a group or individuals. I think the biggest crime is that even in their rich years, Fiona and Sasha don’t interact with the Elites. We could see them be cruel to the lower class citizens, purposefully making them do things that would rank up their debt. We could see them spending money on idiotic things which Fiona and Sasha would point out as dumb. We could even have descriptions of Holloway’s house that are garish and grotesque because she has so much money, she doesn’t know how to spend it anymore.

Truly, the only billionaires whose mind we can read are actually Fiona and Sasha. But for this kind of story, you need a strawman, which is absent. I genuinely thought that Gaige could become their strawman but their relationship is so shallow and so one note I quickly realized it’s impossible. In stories like this, usually when the protagonists become rich and get to make stupid, meaningless purchases, there are already signs that something like this is bad. And though there are plenty of moments in which the girls make stupid choices over their greed, it takes them so damn long to wake up from that dream.

There’s also no critique of overconsumption or consumerism in general. It should be an easy task, regarding how Fiona and Sasha spend their money but though we never see the effects on them, for example throwing away new things or we don’t see the workers (besides that one lady) in such conditions. It’s all a very interesting subject that is brushed away at rich ladies’ boredom. Though we are told that these purchases are stupid, we aren’t given an answer to what they should do instead. And the only point of activism Fiona and Sasha do is to finally free the workers from cuffs. Took them long enough.

I simply can’t understand why this plot even had to involve the sisters, since it truly makes them worse by association. All throughout Tales we hear that Fiona and Sasha hate Hyperion and don’t want anything to do with Rhys. It’s a fair assessment, they’re Pandoran and Hyperion destroyed Pandora as they knew it and is personification of greed. So… Why were they so eager to live a rich and boring life? Was their issue only with Hyperion? Even more so, why were they so hateful regarding Hyperions? For all we know, Rhys is just a simple white collar worker who also gets screwed over by the system, yet they hate him for being part of the system even when it’s to also get by. Reading this story, I had a feeling that Fiona and Sasha simply hated Rhys for being a white collar worker and they had no problems with greed and destruction of lives via riches.

The story also really doesn’t want to take sides in this whole debacle. Fiona and Sasha lose all their money and want to start a revolution, killing all the Elites. This thought isn’t given any time to sink in or develop. At some point, the sisters realize no, we shouldn’t kill the Elites because that is how we’re gonna liberate the people, with their money. But then Gaige tells them they’re wrong? It’s very all over the place and the story really doesn’t want to take sides in this. 

That does make me think, what kind of impact will this story even have on both Fiona and Sasha? All in all, it seemed that they didn’t learn anything. They have to be on the run because the Elites want them dead but also they’re still into the riches and spoils of the Vault. Since Rhys is rich now, wouldn’t they not want to associate with him? Or are we gonna play the “not all rich people” card? I love Rhys and I actually like fictional rich people. But while writing a story like this, you have to stick with your principals and make them call out Rhys’ practices, not side with him because he’s one of the good guys. You can’t lead a revolution and then make puppy eyes towards a rich capitalist.

I have left out the discussion of race, because I am white and I feel like this isn’t my place to be talking about this. Don’t listen to me regarding this, listen to people of color. I want to, however, point out that Burch stayed within the racial ambiguity of Fiona and Sasha and their racial identity is not spoken of, while we learn the ethnic identities of two white characters (Gaige and Felix). Not to mention that I can criticize that having two women of color be painted as rich assholes and drawing parallels between Fiona and Handsome Jack who is in canon called a fascist is incredibly insensitive. And within the revolution literally having them be called out on being “outsiders who want to lead revolution that isn’t theirs and they talk over the native people” is so bad I can’t believe Burch thought of this. 

All in all, would this book convince me that all billionaires should die? With its heavy-handed metaphors and subtlety equal to a trainwreck, I truly don’t think it would. It’s a mess of themes and missed chances on having actually said something regarding the fact that billionaires should not exist and that they are vapid people who can’t look out for others. The story is just complicated when those people you criticize are also your protagonists, like Fiona and Sasha here.

We could’ve had interesting stories of class struggle and differences. The Elites could’ve been destroying the land, long before that laser hit Rustville. Destruction of land and resources for people to live is one of the oppression strategies real life rich people do. And just like the environmental issues won’t be solved with only everyday people making a change, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make things better. Write better stories with better themes. Maybe it’s just a tie-in novel for a game from 10 years ago but it could’ve said something instead of giving us a caricature of a rich person who spends money on little whale serving dishes.

See how I mentioned my passion for environmental issues at the beginning and it came back here? Set up and pay off. Something this book lacks.

5. Writing not just a better story but A Story in general

I am a writer. Sure, I write fanfiction but that doesn’t disqualify what I’m about to say. Not everyone is a showrunner, you need screenwriters too. What is this book if not officially commissioned fanfiction regarding Fiona and Sasha? When I myself am writing a story to explore, I always ask myself what is my theme, what am I building towards. Every story is fundamentally about change, right? That was why, when I stopped asking myself if I think all billionaires should die, I started asking myself – what did I gain from reading this story? What did the characters gain from this story being told? The answer is actually nothing.

Some of you probably had thought “this is just a tie-in novel to the games, it’s not supposed to be high art” and I agree with this but it is supposed to be art, no matter what. You could’ve said the same thing about the original Tales From The Borderlands, it’s nothing but an addendum to the main stories within the Borderlands. Yet, it moved a lot of people, inspired them, wanted them to create and follow the stories of these characters. For years, I’ve seen people longing for a story of Fiona and Sasha post Tales and this is what we get. Maybe in this regard Debt Or Alive is a high art, since it’s been making me nothing but angry these past couple of days. Or maybe it truly is a nothing piece of art, since at the end of the day, the feelings are just of shallowness.

Coming back to the fact that every story needs change to be worthwhile, I mean it even in the smallest of sense. It doesn’t have to be a huge change, but there has to be one no matter what. After I read Debt Or Alive I realized there was completely no change involved in the process. We start this book with Fiona and Sasha not knowing where they are in life and at the end, they decide to be Vault Hunters. You can say it is a substantial change but think about it like this – it’s the same kind of character arc they’ve had in the original Tales From The Borderlands.

Nothing had changed, they’re still at the same point they were almost 10 years ago when we finished episode 5. What Burch does is a classic shitty storytelling technique of the sequel that is just forgetting everything that had happened before and rehashing the character arc from the first one, just worse. Fiona goes from a self-reassured con-artist to a confident Vault Hunter. Sasha goes from a closed off younger sister to someone with agency. Those are the same kinds of stories we’ve already been told but when there’s no one to bounce off of, you realize that the sisters didn’t need this journey to realize it, they just needed to think for 15 minutes.

There’s also no change to the dynamics between Fiona and Sasha, and every attempt at it is shallow and pointless. At the beginning, we see Fiona being anxious that Sasha literally died before her eyes. Fiona is basically patronizing, Sasha goes Vault hunting but dislikes this, goes back and they make up. There’s no sense of change between them or maturity. I’ve already discussed the sense that their “class consciousness” is meaningless when they at the beginning were lower class. But even between each other, it’s the same song and dance. Fiona is a little overprotective, Sasha wants to show that she’s not just the younger sister. I’ve seen this already, Burch, you’ve told me this in Tales.

It doesn’t help that Fiona and Sasha really are treated constantly as the same entity, so their “changes” just don’t appear. They’re bound by the hip, unable to grow because of their limitations of the relationship. It’s too bad that a story about siblings has to treat them like they can’t exist without each other, when it could be an interesting story about independence. What if Sasha decides that Vault hunting is for her and actually goes away with Gaige? What if Fiona realizes that she’s been too caught up in her sister’s life that she forgot how to live her own? Those are all interesting questions that get tossed off the window, when you realize you have to do Tales but worse.

Just like that, the sisters can’t form any meaningful relationship. Not with the cardboard cutouts of the supporting cast, not with Gaige, there really is nothing. Fiona and Sasha don’t interact with their environment in an interesting way, it’s just a ham-fisted need to show that rich people are bad. Yes, I know they’re bad, I just want to see them discover it on their own. But we get nothing.

You can also argue that Sasha’s story regarding Rhys is just a rehash. As I’ve said, I was never a fan of this couple but I can’t imagine being satisfied with a solution that Burch brings to the table. Through the story, we see Sasha denying her feelings, not being ready for a relationship until Fiona steps in and says “actually, you are or you’re not” and off-screen we see that Sasha decided on their relationship. It’s truly insulting to see the “will they, won’t they” scenario with adult people and solved not before us.

What you have to understand is that this period of life that we’re seeing, with Fiona and Sasha is not a brief period of time. Maybe Burch doesn’t want exact numbers but this is clear when you think about a certain fact – Rhys has a mustache. I’m bringing this up because in Borderlands 3, Lor is actually surprised to see him like this, which means that the Maliwan invasion is well on its way. Which Rhys doesn’t bring up, of course. But deducing from this single comment we can calculate that between the beginning of the book and the ending, 4 or 5 years had happened. That is a damn long time and the fact that during this Fiona and Sasha do not resolve anything, do not develop and only go forth with their very surface level resolution is just a slap in the face.

We finished when we had started – it’s just that Burch doesn’t want you to realize that we had started at the ending. And this itself has consequences that he doesn’t ever want to acknowledge.

6. Show me my silver lining

I think at this point it’s very clear to see that I very much so didn’t enjoy this book. It’s just that I can’t bring myself to give a fully negative review, when there is one thing that I have to actually compliment. That thing is the arc of Gaige and what she’s been through in this book.

How we see Gaige is an actual arc and change of the character. We start with her being petty and bitter, returning to her home planet of Eden-5 for revenge. She wants to kill Holloway for destroying her and especially for the fact that she had imprisoned her father. We see Gaige’s smarts play the role against Fiona and we actually see the unbeatable Vault Hunter lose. Her father died at the prison. She has to hide, plotting her revenge. At the opportunity to bring her father back with the life crystal, she takes it immediately. But when it fails, Gaige is avoidant and quiet. Not wanting to see that she had failed yet again.

What was a terrible point in Fiona’s characterization, the destruction of Rustville, is the moment where Gaige shines through. Being presented with a choice by Holloway, she actually altruistically chooses to get caught, so she won’t hurt anyone. Sure, Holloway doesn’t keep her promise but it’s what Gaige is doing what is important. Instead of her usual snarky demeanor, we see her give up, something she had never done on her own. And in prison we see her still fighting for her life, screaming at the top of her lungs, even if at that point both her father and Deathtrap are gone.

The one genuinely great moment was when at the gala, Gaige gets a chance to open up about her feelings to her ECHOtube (I think that was what it was called?) subscribers. She talks about her love for her dad and how much he meant to her. How she misses him but wants to avenge him and wants him to be proud of her. It’s a very powerful moment, in my opinion, the best in all of the book. Gaige, surrounding herself with cheap thrills and adventures, seeks something that is real and opens up. It’s a beautiful moment of humanity for her that is just lovely to see.

Why she decided to take up the job of a party planner, I have no idea. Even with her explanation it still didn’t mean much to me. Thinking of how sad and once more, avoidant and lonely she ends up in Borderlands 3 does make me feel regret but I wanna hold onto that moment. Of Gaige’s sass and positive spirit, the only thing that made me go through that book.

Also there was a moment in which Rhys admits that he had a voice surgery. Made me go “what the fuck” at first but then I kinda laughed. Nobody needed that but whatever. Also fuck Troy Baker, all my homies hate Troy Baker.

7. Lightning round of criticism

Having said all of that and more about this book, this little section is about criticisms I had but didn’t want to dedicate a whole section to them. It’s just a list of things that bothered me as hell there but that will be shorter to sum up:

-        The humor of this book was unbearable. After several of those “jokes” you could very easily predict how the next one would go. It’s one person making a statement, another person contradicting it and then the outcome is a contradiction or first person admitting to the contradiction. Imagine this dry explanation but repeated over and over again and you get at least 40% of the whole dialogue. I don’t think it’s a good thing when you can sum up your entire humor in a descriptions like this

-        The new side characters are so paper thin, I cannot tell you anything about them. I can guarantee that if you ask me who they are in a month or two, I simply won’t know. All of them were characterized by a gimmick and not given anything real to do. The sisters, too, don’t have interesting interactions with them. Side characters here exist for cheap scenes that sorta progress the bad plot. In the words of a streamer Oboeshoesgames “Katagawa Jr. What a crazy character. He’s almost as memorable as Chet Smith.”

-        The way this book handled Rhys is horrendous. Equated to the kicked puppy who desperately wants Sasha’s attention, constantly described as stupid and worthless and then acting like a teenager when he’s pushing 30. I don’t think Borderlands 3 ruined Rhys. I don’t think New Tales ruined Rhys. But this? This is the worst written Rhys I’ve seen in years

-        Speaking of, Burch trying his damn hardest to write as if he’s a gen z person throws out words that make him look like Steve Buscemi “how do you do fellow kids” moment. In one moment, he even calls Rhys a himbo. Burch, do you know what words even mean

-        The narration style suffers from “tell don’t show”. Look at this example, here. Not only is this just flat out bad writing, we don’t need to be told three different times how badly Holloway treats people. A good writer would just show it to us via her actions towards her staff and juxtapose it with how Fiona treats her staff but of course, none of this happens

-        Being a video game writer, Burch doesn’t know how to progress a story. For him, the more important things are side quests and instant gratifications, not real emotional bits. The story rushes to the next point and leaves no room for you to breathe. You can’t spend time with those characters, you can’t learn anything new because you have to do another thing

-        Maybe that’s just me but I hate the non descriptive narration style. The world of Eden-5 feels shallow and pointless because the sisters don’t explore it and we don’t get any descriptions of it. Those are just empty phrases of wealth and dirt and nothing else

-        Last but certainly not least, I gotta ask, what the hell was Burch thinking with making this healing watch be the same thing as the healing crystal from New Tales? I always hated the deus ex machina of the watch but here it just had gotten ridiculous. It makes no sense, it’s a contrived way to bring it together. How does it connect? We never know, it is never explored. Maybe in Borderlands 50 or something

8. Conclusion

I hated this book. I wish I could’ve said something more profound but sometimes being direct is better – I truly hated this book and I won’t consider this canon to the Borderlands storyline. You can take my word that the canon won’t acknowledge it either. It’s a shallow cash grab directed at people who love Fiona and Sasha, engineered to be as meaningless as it could be and not to say anything either about its themes or its characters. It’s not a character study. It’s not a jumping off point for meaningful class structures and struggles discussion. It’s not even a fun popcorn adventure for fans of the series. With huge letters stating that it was written by the writer of Borderlands 2, I think we gotta ask – maybe it’s time to stop relying on the past and have someone write a spectacular story on par and better than Borderlands 2? Just anyone but Anthony Burch.