#I just really like her main theme that I've been using until now

[rawliverandgoronspice]

my problem with Impa in Thralls, musically, is that I can't seem to decide if I want to Japanese-code her (koto time), Irish-code her (fiddle and irish flute time), or Technobabble-code her (weird little beep-boop time)

There's arguments for all of the above, and I tried to combine all of them too, but so far it's mostly been a mess so!!! I don't know. :(

[randomly--accessed--memories]

@storm-ismyusername

Okay, so, the "Vox's kids die as children AU." I came up with the image of Vox keeping his kids in a fish tank first, but upon further reflection, I've realized that it doesn't really line up with the timeline I've established.

Vox's children were 7 and 10 when he died (1957)

Vox worked under an overlord for 3 years after his death until he broke free, started his own business, and met Alastor (1960)

He and Alastor were friends for 6 years until they fell out (1966)

Vox gained official overlord status 2 years later (1968). By the time Vox had the resources for the fish tank plan, his kids would've been 18 and 21.

The only window of time where Thomas and Sarah can die and still be children is 1957-1961, so it would have to happen when Vox was still in the employ of his overlord. I actually think the idea of struggling single dad Vox is really charming, so let's go with that.

With that background, I'm not sure if Vox would feel the need to do the fish tank thing since they went a decade without anything going wrong. Maybe it exists, but Sarah and Thomas aren't confined to it 24/7. Everyone already knows they exist, so they're allowed to move around the tower as they please (they are absolutely not allowed to go outside, though).

Okay, with that out of the way, onto the responses. Gonna answer this in parts: this one is the pre-canon stuff, the next will be the canon stuff, and the third will be RAM stuff.

Ondine & Fineas where they die as kids: How does child Sarah and Thomas react to: 1-Dying 2-Going to Hell 3-Reuniting with your dead Dad (who now has a TV for a head) Would any of their Sinner features be different? Is it weird I can see Vox being more fatherly to Sarah and Thomas than he was in his human life? So when Sarah & Thomas die as kids does Vox find them before or after his big fight with Alastor? If before, what would Alastor make of the situation?  How long does Sarah and Thomas fend for themselves in Hell? A few days, a few weeks, a month, a year?  Did someone find the first? Did Vox only learn his kids were in Hell when someone was using them as blackmail against him? Did Sarah and Thomas watch as their father brutally murder their kidnapper in front of them?  Maybe another Overlord (like Carmilla, Zestial, or Rosie) found them and gave them to Vox because they felt threatening children was beneath them and drew the line at hurting kids. Wait what if Alastor found them first? What would he do with them if he did?

Okay, so Sarah and Thomas die somewhere between 1958 and 1959. They still drowned, maintaining their aquatic theming, but I'm not sure how exactly– could've been from their mother driving under the influence and crashing the car through a bridge's guardrails, could've been just regular drowning at the beach or something. Their mother survives, so they land in Hell alone (I have no idea what an 8~9 and 11~12-year-old could've done to get sent to Hell, but let's just move on).

Not sure how Vox finds them. In the main AU, they found him by recognizing his voice in an advertisement and seeking him out, but at this point, Vox is just some random nobody. Let's just assume he got extremely lucky and happened to come across them 1-30 days after they first arrived but before anyone else thought to scoop them up. Vox is horrified that they're dead and in Hell and privately swears to permakill his wife for letting this happen if he ever sees her again. He brings them back to his shitty little apartment and starts trying to figure out how the fuck he's supposed to care for children in Hell.

Despite the circumstances, Vox is actually a better father in Hell than he was on Earth. He has nothing to his name other than a shitty errand boy job, a tiny apartment, and his two small children who he thought he'd never see again. While the stress of having to provide for them is a beast, losing everything sort of forced him to get his priorities in order in regards to them. They become far more tight-knit than when they were alive as Vox is forced to spend more time with them and get creative when it comes to meeting their needs.

It's all quite the adjustment for Thomas and Sarah. Dying and trying to survive on the streets was as traumatizing as you'd expect. Reuniting with your dead dad and having to adjust to living in poverty is also a lot to take in. Every day, they're stuck in a one-room apartment with gunshots constantly going off outside and explicit instructions from their father to be as quiet as possible and not open the door for anyone– very different from the upper-middle-class suburbanite life they were used to. Eventually, their dad will come home with cheap food, they'll spend some time together, and then all curl up in their one bed and try to sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's not a comfortable life, but it's definitely more intimate than how things used to be. Thomas starts letting go of some of his resentment of Vox since he can tell he's actually trying now, and Sarah's view of him as A Good Dad, Actually solidifies.

Eventually, Vox secretly kills his overlord, starts his first business, and is taken under Alastor's wing. Things become more comfortable for the three of them, and Alastor becomes something akin to a weird but fun uncle to the kids. Things are looking up for the family as Vox starts to build power and wealth. It's horrifying for the kids when Vox comes home one night without a head and swears vengeance on Alastor, but that incident only adds to Vox's upward momentum. After ten years of struggling in Hell, Thomas and Sarah (or rather, Fineas and Ondine) find themselves back in the lap of luxury as their father claims the title of the Overlord of Television.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Peaceful property is a bl even if it's not. It's also about so many other things although not really delivering on a consistent message.

I thought about adding my thoughts to this thread but it was getting long and I started to get sidetracked so I decided to just make my own post about it and share my thoughts on it. @lurkingshan @bengiyo and @twig-tea all made good point about why this show is faltering with its own themes, and @respectthepetty made a compelling argument that the show knows what its doing.

I think no one is wrong and I land somewhere in the middle with it. As in, depending on what I choose to care about. Much like @respectthepetty, I am bias about this show. For different reasons tho. I like Tay and New a lot so I lead with that instead of my critical thinking. just as a personal aside, I tend to do this when my brain and heart don't align. I ignore when my brain tells me that the show is doing something wrong so that I can enjoy the rest. This works particularly well with QL for some reason. I am after all a person who liked Dangerous Romance even when my brain kept trying to damper my enjoyment with logic. And also sometimes I'm a hypocrite and there's no reason for why I like a show and not another. Ok, there's usually a reason but it's most often not a good one, or a rational one at least. That's just how it is.

Anyway. Because of all the excellent points made by that post I decided to fully engage my brain and I've been thinking about what this show is trying to say and I agree that unfinished business is the main thing in the ghost stories but I would have to shut off my brain completely to not see how class factors into all of it as well.

The ghosts up until now, except the chef, were all lower class and one can argue that it played a part in how they died or what happened after. I'm not including episode 7 for reasons that I will explain in a bit. Even if Ride's unfinished business was about love, the fact that he was the only rider doing deliveries in the rain, at least to me, read as he was driven by the need to make money in the first place. Even in the chef's case, the customer that Peach basically poisoned was rich and it was a part of the headlines about it and the reason for the restaurant getting shut down. Also most of the individual stories didn't get deep into these issues, case of the week usual issues, but it was always an underlying theme. Also as @twig-tea said all the parallels work even better because this disparity also exists between Home and Peach.

All this gets me to how I started this post. This is a bl even if it isn't. The choice to include the tragic bl storyline in the middle of this, in my own brain, can only be explained if I believe this is a bl. (The tragic bit was thematically consistent with this show.) Specifically a gmmtv bl. Cause ultimately they have a tendency to forsake narrative consistency if it stops serving the main romance. It's also the only way I can explain having a bl pair mirroring the other bl pair on screen. So in that way it's consistent with gmmtv. Just brush aside anything that can get in the way of the couple not having a happy ending. This is also how I explain my biggest issue with it. Pangpang. She's the shipper. She's been the shipper from basically the start.

Home basically killed her brother, why would she be the driving force in getting him forgiven? Because of my previously admitted bias, I forgave Home almost immediately. It's New and he didn't mean it, it was an accident and he wanted to call for help and do the right thing but his family interfered and.... I could come up with a lot of reasons because I want to forgive him. So everything else can be ignored. But all this obviously doesn't apply to Pang. So it can only be the bl in the not a bl show.

Now, on full brainy mode, this last episode makes no sense with everything else this show has been saying until now. They used a branded pair to ignore any class disparity between our mains, since the last ghost story didn't really parallel that, and over the forgiveness part, and jump straight into Peach has forgiven Home and will probably now become his saviour. Don't even get me started on the fact that Peach is still broke but saving the rich dude that turned his life to crap will be the most important thing right now. I wonder if gmmtv has ever ignored class disparity between a main couple and instead focused on the richer dude's drama while ignoring the struggle of the other one, all in favour of the main romance and lovey dovey moments 🤔. But I guess I'll reserve full judgement on that until the next episode.

yeah, so basically this is where I am at with this show. My two sides are fighting but come next wednesday my brain will take the back seat for 45 minutes so I can enjoy Tay and New and after that maybe I'll think about it some more.

[redladydeath]

Gonna pull a Proto Vox post and put all my "Vox's kids die as children and reunite with him in Hell" stuff here so the reblog chain doesn't get too long. All the prompts included are from @storm-ismyusername.

Okay, so, the "Vox's kids die as children AU." I came up with the image of Vox keeping his kids in a fish tank first, but upon further reflection, I've realized that it doesn't really line up with the timeline I've established.

Vox's children were 7 and 10 when he died (1957)

Vox worked under an overlord for 3 years after his death until he broke free, started his own business, and met Alastor (1960)

He and Alastor were friends for 6 years until they fell out (1966)

Vox gained official overlord status 2 years later (1968). By the time Vox had the resources for the fish tank plan, his kids would've been 18 and 21.

The only window of time where Thomas and Sarah can die and still be children is 1957-1961, so it would have to happen when Vox was still in the employ of his overlord. I actually think the idea of struggling single dad Vox is really charming, so let's go with that.

With that background, I'm not sure if Vox would feel the need to do the fish tank thing since they went a decade without anything going wrong. Maybe it exists, but Sarah and Thomas aren't confined to it 24/7. Everyone already knows they exist, so they're allowed to move around the tower as they please (they are absolutely not allowed to go outside, though).

Ondine & Fineas where they die as kids: How does child Sarah and Thomas react to: 1-Dying 2-Going to Hell 3-Reuniting with your dead Dad (who now has a TV for a head) Would any of their Sinner features be different? Is it weird I can see Vox being more fatherly to Sarah and Thomas than he was in his human life? So when Sarah & Thomas die as kids does Vox find them before or after his big fight with Alastor? If before, what would Alastor make of the situation?  How long does Sarah and Thomas fend for themselves in Hell? A few days, a few weeks, a month, a year?  Did someone find the first? Did Vox only learn his kids were in Hell when someone was using them as blackmail against him? Did Sarah and Thomas watch as their father brutally murder their kidnapper in front of them?  Maybe another Overlord (like Carmilla, Zestial, or Rosie) found them and gave them to Vox because they felt threatening children was beneath them and drew the line at hurting kids. Wait what if Alastor found them first? What would he do with them if he did?

Okay, so Sarah and Thomas die somewhere between 1958 and 1959. They still drowned, maintaining their aquatic theming, but I'm not sure how exactly– could've been from their mother driving under the influence and crashing the car through a bridge's guardrails, could've been just regular drowning at the beach or something. Their mother survives, so they land in Hell alone (I have no idea what an 8~9 and 11~12-year-old could've done to get sent to Hell, but let's just move on).

Not sure how Vox finds them. In the main AU, they found him by recognizing his voice in an advertisement and seeking him out, but at this point, Vox is just some random nobody. Let's just assume he got extremely lucky and happened to come across them 1-30 days after they first arrived, but before anyone else thought to scoop them up. Vox is horrified that they're dead and in Hell and privately swears to permakill his wife for letting this happen if he ever sees her again. He brings them back to his shitty little apartment and starts trying to figure out how the fuck he's supposed to take care of children in Hell.

Despite the circumstances, Vox is actually a better father in Hell than he was on Earth. He has nothing to his name other than a shitty errand boy job, a tiny apartment, and his two small children who he thought he'd never see again. While the stress of having to provide for them is a beast, losing everything sort of forced him to get his priorities in order regarding them. They become far more tight-knit than when they were alive as Vox is forced to spend more time with them and get creative when it comes to meeting their needs.

It's all quite the adjustment for Thomas and Sarah. Dying and trying to survive on the streets was as traumatizing as you'd expect. Reuniting with your dead dad and having to adjust to living in poverty is also a lot to take in. Every day, they're stuck in a one-room apartment with gunshots constantly going off outside and explicit instructions from their father to be as quiet as possible and not open the door for anyone– very different from the upper-middle-class suburbanite lifestyle they were used to. Eventually, their dad will come home with cheap food, they'll spend some time together, and then all curl up in their shared bed and try to sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's not a comfortable life, but it's definitely more intimate than how things used to be. Thomas starts letting go of some of his resentment of Vox since he can tell he's actually trying now, and Sarah's view of him as A Good Dad, Actually solidifies.

Eventually, Vox secretly kills his overlord, starts his first business, and is taken under Alastor's wing. Things become more comfortable for the three of them, with Alastor being something akin to a weird but fun uncle to the kids. Things are looking up for the family as Vox starts to build power and wealth. It's horrifying for the kids when Vox comes home one night without a head and swears vengeance on Alastor, but that incident only adds to Vox's upward momentum. After ten years of struggling in Hell, Thomas and Sarah (or rather, Fineas and Ondine) find themselves back in the lap of luxury as their father claims his title as the Overlord of Television.

—

Lowkey enamored with the idea of struggling single dad Vox. Have some miscellaneous ideas:

Vox doesn't have a functional mouth yet, so the kids are the only ones who have to eat. He tries to figure out if he can use his electricity to cook/heat up food.

He's at work all day, so Thomas and Sarah are stuck alone in the apartment with very little to do. Thomas teaches Sarah to read up to a 5th-grade level. They might have a radio to keep them entertained. Whenever Alastor's doing his "screams of dying overlords" broadcasts, they're supposed to shut it off.

Vox has to rediscover some long-forgotten sewing knowledge since the kids need clothes that aren't falling apart.

When he's around, he'll play things on his screen for them as a form of entertainment. It's sort of like making up a story on the spot since Hell doesn't have any television broadcasts for him to tap into yet.

It's always a treat when they're able to go out as a family, usually for dinner. Vox feels bad that he can't provide them with anything nicer than fast food, but the kids are just thrilled to be out of the apartment, eating something "good," and spending time with him.

Due to cabin fever, the kids are much more rambunctious than they were when they were alive.

Vox is trying to decide whether he should let them acclimatize to Hell or continue treating them like human children.

Once Alastor enters their life, Sarah adores him (that is, after she gets over his initial creepiness).

Sometimes the kids will ask Vox why he pours all his time and money into building a television from scratch (and why it has to take up so much of their precious floor space). He tells them florid stories about how, once it's finished, it'll make them the richest sinners in Hell. Thomas helps him with it sometimes.

The kids' chosen sinner names change every other day.

Vox has a whole system worked out to make sure the kids have the building's communal bathroom all to themselves in the mornings (i.e., just play lookout and hypnotize anyone who tries to enter into walking away).

Tom and Sarah have devised some sort of cockroach/bug-killing game during their days stuck in the apartment.

Vox struggles to come to terms with the fact that his kids are never going to grow up. They're going to be 11 and 8 forever, the same way he'll eternally be just a week away from his 38th birthday. 

He's pissed at God/Lucifer/whoever for letting this happen. What could children possibly have done to deserve Hell?

Exterminations are difficult. Vox used to be able to just hide in the electrical grid and wait it out, but now he's got two small children who can't dematerialize like he can.

Sarah has nightmares about losing her dad again, for good this time. The trauma of losing a parent isn't undone by getting said parent back.

Both kids actually feel like they know their father now. He's no longer this distant figure in their lives who only emerges to give them expensive gifts, show them off at parties, tell Tommy he's not doing [whatever] right, and get in screaming matches with their mom. Vox isn't a great dad, but at least he's trying now, and that goes a long way in Thomas and Sarah's eyes.

—

Made Vox's apartment in the Sims

—

Nice touch that the toys are made of paper, something Sarah & Thomas probably made themselves (with a little help from Vox) since I can't imagine there's a huge (children's) toy industry in Hell. A bat on the wall in case of break ins. Various stains. AC. The TV Vox is working on. The bed looks bigger than I imagined, but I guess Sims did have too many options. A bucket of toiletries in the corner to take with them on their trips to the communal restroom. A box full of (all of their) clothes. Two pairs of shoes (presumably Sarah & Thomas'). Oh it looks like Vox managed to find a stuffed rabbit plus for Sarah! Where did he find that? Did he make it himself? An ironing board (makes sense). A small closet with a mirror. A calendar. And a power box (considering Vox's abilities it makes sense to have one near)!

They either got the bunny from a store catering to Hellborn children or made it themselves (Vox is rapidly relearning how to sew, and Sarah has a bit of sewing knowledge from her home ec classes). Vox's income usually goes towards only two things– keeping the three of them alive and building the TV– but occasionally, the shame of barely being able to provide his kids with anything gets the better of him and he'll "splurge" on small gifts. Sarah was delighted with it; she'll take any comfort she can get in this place.

Regarding the bed, yeah, the Sims only has double, single, and toddler beds. It would need to be a decent size in order to fit all of them though. Sarah and Tom are child-sized, but Vox is seven feet tall and has a CRT for a head. If he didn't already have one, he would've needed to get his hands on a bigger bed unless he wanted to sleep on the floor.

It's funny, the Sims only has two options for calendars: a dog one that's a bit too cutesy to really fit the vibes of this place, and a "Sims in uniform" one. Before the kids showed up, Vox's calendar having a bunch of succubi in sexy costumes wasn't an issue, but now that they are here, that thing's going in the trash... until Vox realizes how hard it is to find non-risque calendars in Hell.

—

I can totally see Sarah (& maybe Thomas) calling Alastor “Uncle Alastor”. Would they call Rosie “Auntie Rosie”?

Vox has them call him "Mister Alastor." Regardless of how emotionally invested Vox is in their relationship, he's very afraid of coming across as overly attached and scaring Al off. Having his kids refer to Alastor as family feels wrong, so having them keep things respectful, yet formal seems like the better option. Rosie would definitely tell them to call her "Auntie" if she ever met them, though.

I wonder what nice things Alastor would do for the kids? Do you think they sometimes appear on Alastor’s radio show? Oh now I’m picturing Alastor and Sarah singing “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile”! Soooo Cute!!! Maybe that’s how they find out about Sarah’s Siren abilities?

Depends on if Alastor does shows that aren't just live audio of overlords being murdered. If he does, then I can see Vox offering to lend him a hand with it and Alastor, in return, telling him he can bring his kids along. From there, yeah, it'd be absolutely adorable if Alastor put Sarah on a stool to reach the mic and sang a song with her ("Never Fully Dressed" wasn't written until 1976 but shhhh).

Would Vox ever give the details of his and Alastor’s falling out? (Though I think Sarah & Thomas would eventually connect the dots.) It would be funny if Alastor was still super nice to the kids even though he and Vox are rivals.

No, I don't think Vox would ever elaborate. Explaining it to the kids would require him to reflect on why it went wrong to begin with, so he just... never does. Alastor remains respectful and friendly if he ever runs into the kids again, but those occasions would be few and VERY far between, given how possessive/protective Vox is of them.

Vox being a good dad to his kids is so sweet!! Nothing brings people together like shared misery!! I can see a cute bonding moment where Vox teaches Sarah how to tap dance (since his leg is fine now).

Oh, no, Vox is never teaching either of his kids how to dance. Singing, piano, stage presence, maybe, but never tap dance.

—

Ondine & Fineas where they die as kids: How does child Sarah and Thomas react to: 4-Your Dad scooping you up and locking you into a fish tank for decades. 5-Valentino

It's... weird when Valentino enters Vox's life. They hit it off immediately, and as time goes on, Vox wants to incorporate Val into more aspects of his life. The kids throw a spanner in the works, though. Messing with children is the one line Valentino won't cross, but he's still not exactly the type of person you want around your kids. Vox can only listen to his better angels for so long, though. The two of them make a deal where Val agrees never to do anything to harm Vox's kids in exchange for [something], and Vox introduces them (he's lowkey planning on moving in with Val eventually, so they might as well get it out of the way instead of springing it on them).

Val's charming and fun when he first meets Fineas and Ondine, but it doesn't take long for them to realize that he's not a good guy. Those misgivings solidify once the tower is built and they all move in together. Vox works hard to keep his kids as sheltered as possible, but it's hard to keep certain things on the down low once you're all living together. It's a lot to come to terms with– realizing that not only is your dad in a relationship with another man, but said man is a violent, sexually exploitative monster who's constantly breaking up and then getting back together with him. Val's generally decent with the kids, but he's still this uncomfortable, looming presence in their afterlives. They wish Vox could've just stayed friends with Alastor instead; he was kinda scary, too, but they'd definitely prefer him as a "step-dad" over Valentino.

Would they stay mentally children or be mentally adults in children’s bodies? I honestly don’t know which is worse. (I do think the former’s more interesting though.)

Sort of an in between. They're eternally stuck as children maturity-wise, but they have decades of new experiences continuously being layered over that stunted baseline. Sinner children generally come across as kind of unsettling in a vague, undefinable way. They're clearly still kids, but there's something about them that's just... off.

What do they think of Vark? The metal image of child Sarah and Thomas riding Vark like a horse will not leave me.

Ondine loves Vark (and all of Vox's other sharks). Fineas is scared of him but tries to act tough about it. This is why Ondine is the favorite /j

If Sarah still discovers her Siren powers would Vox still try to find a way to capitalize it?  Now I’m thinking of Vox forcing Thomas, Velvette, Valentino, and maybe his employees to watch Sarah sing and to clap every time. 

Depends on how skittish Vox is about putting his kids in the public eye in this scenario. He wants his family to become sinner aristocracy, but literally broadcasting your weak point to all your rivals isn't exactly a good idea. If he decides to throw caution to the winds (and can compartmentalize his own childhood trauma), I can see him putting them in his shows. Sinner children are fairly rare, so if a piece of media needs kid characters, their only options are Hellborn kids or sinners who look like children for one reason or another. If Vox decides to keep them cloistered, then yeah, mandatory "watch the CEO's daughter sing" meeting at 3:00. Everyone's docile and spaced out afterwards, but that's a bonus! (at least, Vox says it is)

I can see a scenario where Valentino is screaming at the kids and Vox attacking Val to protect his kids, or in general calling out Val & Vel anytime he sees them treat his kids poorly.

Val and Vel know better than to do anything to threaten Vox's kids, although, yeah, there are probably some times when they snap at them and then get into arguments with Vox. Not a good time for Ondine, give how conflict adverse she is. Hearing her dad raise his voice at all always evokes a fear response in her. Bad memories.

How often would Sarah and Thomas be allowed to be kids? To be silly and goofy and have fun? (I’m assuming not often.)

They're not really able to do anything but be kids once Vox has the means for them to live comfortably. They're never going to grow up, both physically and mentally, and Vox doesn't really push them to act like adults. It's not quite a "Claudia from IWTV" situation, since any frustration would stem from being stuck doing the same thing for decades rather than not being able to age, but there's elements of that.

How much would Vox try to hide the more inappropriate stuff from his kids? How long until you think he gives up?

Vox tried to keep them pretty thoroughly sheltered during the first decade or two, but yeah, eventually he resigns himself to the fact that this is just how Hell is. He doesn't let Val flaunt his sex stuff in front of them, but if someone swears in their presence, he's not going to reprimand them (unless they're an employee and he's feeling petty).

Do you think Vox would import cartoons, books, and toys from Earth for them?

He can't import physical objects from Earth, but he can replicate them as best he can based on the Earthly broadcasts and descriptions from newly arrived sinners. There's probably at least one VoxTek employee locked up in a sweatshop somewhere who's stuck building toys for their contract-holder's children.

Would Vox bother with giving them a proper education?

To the best of his ability. Vox was actually "homeschooled" back when he was touring with his parents, although in reality, his education was put on the back burner, and once he finally started attending real school at age ten, he was reading at about a first grade level. During that first decade in Hell, he'd try to teach Sarah and Thomas things here and there, but he didn't really have the time to commit to it. Thomas ended up teaching Sarah a lot of stuff during those days stuck in the apartment, but given how he died at age 11, they only got so far. Once Vox hit it big though, yeah, he was definitely hiring tutors to finish their education. In 2024, Ondine and Fineas are better educated than most adults, despite being eternally stuck at ages 8 and 11. Sort of adds to their uncanny vibes, despite how cute they appear.

Once Vox becomes an Overlord do you think he buys/customizes a robofizz to act as the kids nanny/bodyguard? What would the kids name them?

Oh yeah, totally. The kids have non-synthetic tutors/nannies/bodyguards, but it gives Vox some peace of mind to have one who he knows he can "trust"/control completely. The kids might name it "Sparky," after their dog, but "Claudia" would also be fun, just for the reference. 

...or fucking renesmee. ondine would be behind that.

Possible reasons Sarah & Thomas are in Hell: 1-They’re mother (& father) told them to keep silent to certain illegal things she(/he) does, so they’re technically accomplices. 2-Partially responsible for the death of someone, which could count as manslaughter. 3-Accidentally ate human flesh, cannibalism. 4-Killed a puppy by accident, puppy killing’s pretty evil.

Sdfghgfdfg. I can see Thomas accidentally shooting an animal with a BB gun (or doing it on a dare from his friends). Right now, I'm leaning towards Hell working on The Good Place rules, where your destiny depends on the net impact you had on the world. Poor Tommy and Sarah got sent to Hell just for being rich, privileged, White children from the 1950s with bad parents.

Man, Exterminations must have been terrifying. I can imagine them huddled in the corner together, hearing the screams of Sinners and hoping they aren’t next. Does Vox try to explain the Exterminations to them? How would Sarah & Thomas react to finding out Angels come down to murder everyone each year? Such a contrast to what they were taught Angels were like.

Definitely. It was so much worse back before Vox had the resources to build an Extermination bunker. Vox can go incorporeal, but the kids can't, so he had to find hiding places for the three of them that weren't already taken up by other sinners. Thomas and Sarah probably watched their dad get at least one person permakilled by hypnotizing them into giving up their spot and walking out into the onslaught. Once Vox becomes an overlord, it's less stressful, but it never stops being scary. Sarah especially struggled with the idea that angels can be cruel; the Oxrights were your typical church-going 1950s family, and Sarah used to draw a lot of comfort from religion, particularly after Vox died.

—

Now I need an in depth view on Sarah’s newly broken view on Angels. If she had a chance to talk to an Angel, what would she say to them? I want to see Sarah interact with all the Angels in the now (Sera, Emily, Lucifer, Vaggie, Lute, Adam, etc.). I need to lock Ondine & Sera in a room together so Ondine can ask Sera how she can slaughter thousands yearly? What would Sera’s reaction be? How would Sarah react to Adam, the first man, is the leader of the Exorcists and is all around a terrible piece of garbage? How would Sarah react to realizing Lucifer, The Devil, is actually kinda nice (or at least a more pleasant person to be around than Adam)?

By the time Ondine and Fineas would have an opportunity to meet most of those characters, they've been in Hell for 65 years, so the idea that demons can be kind and angels can be cruel has had plenty of time to settle. Sera probably wouldn't handle having a sinner child questioning her morals very well. She'd most likely react in a similar way as she did when Emily discovered the truth, insisting that she was only doing what she had to. The fact that Sera and Sarah have nearly the same name is making things even more uncomfortable.

For some reason child Sarah and Thomas meeting Lucifer sound hilarious, how do you think that would go down? Would they even believe he’s The Devil? It would be extra funny if Lucifer’s great with kids and they get along swimmingly. “He's pissed at God/Lucifer/whoever for letting this happen. What could children have possibly done to deserve Hell?” When Lucifer visits the Hotel would Vox scream at him why his 9 & 12 year old kids were sent to Hell? (If he recognizes him as Lucifer) How would Lucifer react? (Or would Vox do that to Charlie when he realizes she’s The Princess of Hell? Charlie would probably be in tears afterwards)

If Lucifer and Charlie were ever confronted with the "Why are children able to be sent to Hell?" question, they wouldn't take it well. Lucifer tries to defer responsibility, saying that it's not within his control: he doesn't decide who does and doesn't get into Hell... but it is still his kingdom, and he's chosen to stick his head in the sand instead of doing anything to help his most vulnerable "subjects." Charlie, yeah, she'd be devastated realizing kids can be sent to Hell for no clear reason and no one has tried to do anything about it.

–

Mental image that refuses to leave me: Vox walking in on Fineas about to shoot an apple off his terrified assistant’s head as Ondine watches apprehensively. He takes the bow and arrow from Fineas, scolding him… and then hands him a crossbow instead. Way more fun that way.

–

The kids are kind of afraid of Valentino, but they think Velvette is the coolest person in Hell. Ondine likes to follow her around like a shadow whenever she's working on her fashion lines, and Fineas maybe sorta kinda has a tiny little crush on her. Velvette hates children, but she can't tell them to fuck off unless she wants to get into an unnecessary fight with Vox, so she has to tolerate them when they try to interact with her.

–

How much has Sarah and Thomas' morals decayed? How much empathy can they show to a regular Sinner? Do they still see regular Sinners as people and not toys or pets?

It's weird. Vox has been encouraging them to dehumanize those under contract with him+the other Vees for decades; they signed up to work for them, so of course the kids should be allowed to do whatever they want to them. Since they died so young, Fineas and Ondine's morals are malleable, plus they both want their dad's approval, so they just... do as he says.

Ondine doesn't enjoy hurting people, but she can still be a bit of a handful in this verse. If she wants to play dress up with random tower employees that day, well, they have no choice but to drop everything and be her dolls until she moves onto something else. She'll also occasionally use her siren powers to make people do silly things (Vox loves it when she does this; he's been teaching her to hone her hypnotic abilities for years and is always so proud when she manages to successfully bend someone to her will). It comes from a place of genuine playfulness rather than malice, but that's cold comfort to the people she's messing with.

Fineas has much lower empathy than his sister and is far less squeamish. If he wants to play a game that could end in someone getting seriously injured, he does it; if he's in the room when one of the Vees is mauling an employee, it doesn't faze him. The fact that these are people, not toys, doesn't really register to him because, well, his dad said it was okay for him to do this, so what's the big deal?

If Charlie could get them away from Vox, she could probably teach them that just because you can treat people like rag dolls doesn't mean that you should, and that a person's feelings aren't automatically less important just because they sold their soul. They're not bad kids at heart; they're just children who've been taught to be careless with people because their dad gets a kick out of it.

"The kids are kind of afraid of Valentino, but they both think that Velvette is the coolest person in Hell." This is so cute!! Does Sarah get into fashion design?

As much as she can. She's only 8, so she doesn't really have the attention span/ability to fully commit to it, but she thinks it's fun. Velvette might actually end up spending some time with her because Ondine came up to her with a notebook full of drawings and Vel decides that picking apart this third grader's doodles was a good use of her time. She's not nice about it, but eventually it turns into more of a genuine critique than simple roasting since Ondine won't leave until she's looked at all of them.

–

When video games arrive in Hell, Fineas— as you would expect from an eleven-year-old boy— is enamored. If you play online games in Hell, there’s probably been at least one time when you’ve heard a pre-pubescent boy’s voice in VC, spouting the most obscene series of curse words you’ve ever heard in both English and Spanish. He has all the rarest gear in the game and will threaten to have his dad send snipers to your location if you grief him.

-

After a few decades, Vox starts lying to his kids that he somehow checked with Heaven and knows for a fact that's where their mother is. It's easier to let them think that than have them start asking about them finding her in Hell, and it gives him an easy cover story if he ever manages to find her and follow through on his plans to permakill her.

-

Vox uses his status as a “family man” to further bolster his public image. It’s a narrow tightrope to walk, trying to project humanity to the customer base and invulnerability to his colleagues/enemies, but if you ask him, he’d say he does it well. It helps that it’s not entirely a lie: Vox is a vicious, cutthroat overlord, but he also has two small children who he’s ironically much closer with in Hell than he was on Earth.

-

Imagining Vox teaching Ondine how to hypnotize people is just the cutest thing to me. He's trying to explain these abstract mental concepts to an eight-year-old. She doesn't fully understand that what they're doing is wrong; she just likes spending time with her dad. Vox is literally glowing with pride whenever she manages to do it right. They might sing together since that's how Ondine's powers work. Adorable evil daddy-daughter bonding is killing me.

[eponastory]

Ah, Sarcastic Chorus...

Let's break down the 'I'm going to fix you' argument for Katara.

First off, no one can 'fix' anyone. Going into a relationship thinking you're going to change somebody and make them different is going to make that relationship bad. It's not necessarily toxic, but bad. Why? Because it's not your job to 'fix' the other person. The only one who can do that is the other person. You can only 'fix' yourself.

A lot of relationships fail because of these expectations.

I'm going to talk about fanfiction here for a moment since I've been writing a Zutara story. Since Zutara isn't Canon (but we really wish it was) and all, I only have what does happen in Canon and what happens in fanfiction tropes I see a lot.

In the show we get these wonderful little moments where Zuko and Katara are fighting each other (book one), and it sets a nice theme of opposites attract. The motifs are there with all the color symbolism... it's nice. That does immediately set our brains to 'oh they are so going to get together'. There are a lot of nuances to that, and it's lovely.

I'm not going to lie, Katara is in that group dynamic of 'The Heart' role, and yes, it does put a little pressure on her character to care for everyone. It's my least favorite role for a character and it's a bitch to write when you want that character to be independent.

Anyway, back to Katara. She's the mother figure, the caring and nurturing one that has to help everyone else sort out their problems while she has to internalize her own. It sucks. It really does. So when we get to TSR in Book 3 and she is practically berated by everyone for not acting like herself... she gets pissed, rightfully so because she had to help everyone else with their bullshit until Zuko finally joined. This is where Zuko becomes a foil for her.

Just to be clear, a foil is basically a character that encourages change to happen within a dynamic. It can be a group or a pairing. Usually, that character had opposite goals or a different personality. Zuko started out as the antagonist, but when he joined the Gaang, he's now a foil for the entire group.

Back to what I was saying... what was I saying? Oh yes!

So Katara is rightfully pissed because she needs to deal with her trauma when everyone is suddenly 'this isn't who you are'. No, this is exactly who she is. She is very much like her element. Water is fluid, it can be calm and it can be a torrent... which is exactly the way she is written. It's always been her, she just put everyone else's problems above her own. Now that she has to deal with her problems, it's chaotic for everyone else.

And yes, she does have survivors guilt.

That is her main problem, so now she has to deal with it. And Zuko gives her that chance.

This is getting pretty long, so I'll try to wrap everything up here.

Zuko doesn't need to be 'fixed' he's already done that himself by himself. Joining the Gaang was essentially a fresh start for him (I use that term lightly) which is why he is so awkward when he goes to talk to them at the Western Air Temple (or is it Eastern? I don't remember ahhhh. Fibro brain!) And it's so cute and I just want to hug him. I digress, but it's great.

He's got a shitty past, but he is trying to change himself even further by accepting responsibility for what he did to them individually. In Katara's case, he has to work hard for her. It's lovely, and the payoff is great. I know for sure that is what I see in their relationship. He cares so much about her that he works hard to win her trust again. Why? Because she showed him compassion in CoD, and that struck a chord in him. Her strength is her compassion when he was taught by his sociopathic narcissist father that emotions like that are a weakness.

That my dear Kat*angers is why we love this ship.

It's a beautiful dynamic between them that I would have loved to see Bryke explore, but they just gave us the most vanilla bland version of a romance they could find by pulling a D&B (Game of Thrones writers) and subverting expectations. It sucks.

TLDR version.

Katara doesn't have to fix Zuko.

[likeadevils]

I've been thinking about loml since i saw the swiftologist analysis on it and something he said stucked with me: according to his interpretation, she chose joe because he was a safe place and matty was her real love. Based on ttpd it seems like she felt a glow with him that she never experienced before and this made me question her relationship with joe quite a bit. Do you think joe was the temporary move on drug until matty was ready?. And based on ttpd did you feel he was ''the one''?

i think ttpd, while being shockingly truthful in many ways, is also story told by a deeply unreliable narrator-- or, rather, it's taylor intentionally embracing her status as an unreliable narrator. she called ttpd "An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time." she also said about fortnight:

"Fortnight is a song that I think really exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album. One of which being – fatalism. Longing, pining away, lost dreams. You know, I think that it’s a very fatalistic album in that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death and “I love you, it’s ruining my life” like these are very hyperbolic, dramatic things to say. But, it’s that kind of album."

while i do think taylor's feelings for matty were real, to a certain degree, i think they were spurned on by a lot of other issues that were coming to a head towards the end of her and joe's relationship.

isolation: throughout the album, taylor ties her love of matty to escaping isolation or boredom, two feelings caused by the way her relationship with joe was ending. like, she just says this, multiple times ("I felt more when we played pretend/ Than with all the Kens/ 'Cause he took me out of my box", "I dream of cracking locks/ Throwing my life to the wolves, or the ocean rocks/ Crashing into him tonight, he's a paradox", "Locked me up in towers/ But I'd visit in your dreams", "I look in people's windows/ Transfixed by rose golden glows/ They have their friends over to drink nice wine/ I look in people's windows/ In case you're at their table"). throughout the album matty also feeds into the isolation, not by physically locking her up, but by playing into her insecurities and then telling her he's the only one who can fix them. most notably: "You said normal girls were boring" (with the implication taylor is more difficult to love), and "You said I needed a bravе man/ Then proceeded to play him/ Until I believed it too" (again saying loving taylor takes a lot of effort and painting his ability to love her as unique).

a complicated relationship with aging: taylor also ties her love of matty to youth. there's the obvious refrences to them dating when they were younger ("At the park where we used to sit on children's swings", "Stitching, 'We were just kids, babe'", "Preserved from when we were just kids") but there's also plenty of times throughout the album that she combines yearning for matty with yearning for a previous version of herself (As the decade would play us for fools/ And you saw my bones out with somebody new [...] I changed into goddesses, villains, and fools/ Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules/ All to outrun my desertion of you", ("Does it feel alright to not know me?/ I'm addicted to the "if only"). outside of either relationship, being afraid of aging is all over the album ("My friends all smell like weed or little babies", "You see I was a debutante in another life, but/ Now I seem to be scared to go outside"), but i think the most notable line is from So Long, London: "I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free"

longing for a soulmate: tied to the fear of aging, taylor was clearly afraid of being alone for the rest of her life. we see how it comes from joe ("I died on the altar waitin' for the proof", "I'm so afraid I sealed my fate/ No sign of soulmates), and then matty wanting to marry her is just. the main redeeming quality in every song about him. a really convenient narrative when you're trying to paint someone as your soulmate is that you've actually been in love with them the whole time you've known them. your brain also likes to trick you into thinking the way you're feeling now is the way you've always felt and will always feel. but that narrative is also undercut all over ttpd. there's references to her feelings being something that she'd lost over time (“I’m running back home to you”, “Falling back into the hedge maze”, “We embroidered the memories of the time I was away”), and other references to him actively winning her back (“You blew in with the winds of fate and told me I reformed you”, "A conman sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme", “Something old, someone hallowed, who told me he could be brand new”).

conflating lingering guilt with pining: chloe or sam and peter both talk about yearning for matty, but it's deeply intwined with worrying about his wellbeing. in chloe or sam, she says "You needed me, but you needed drugs more/ And I couldn't watch it happen" and then beats herself up for deserting him (which, to be clear, not wanting to be complicit in someone else's addiction is not deserting a person). she specifically laments that she was "too impaired by my youth to know what to do". again, we don't here anything about matty as a person that's drawing her back to him, just her guilt over abandoning him in the first place. in peter, she says "I hoped you'd return/ With your feet on the ground, tell me all that you'd learned/ 'Cause love's never lost when perspective is earned" which is explicitly saying that she wanted to know he was doing okay more than she wanted to get back together with him. the bolter comes towards the end of the tracklist for a reason-- part of moving on from him means not only forgiving, but celebrating the part of her that knows when to get the fuck out of a bad situation.

we don’t hear a lot of independently good qualities about matty, just ways he’s an escape from joe— her life with matty is chaotic in comparison to her life with joe being isolated and boring, he’s willing to marry her in comparison to joe dragging his feet, he's tied to an earlier version of herself that she liked more instead of a dull, predictable future that joe represents.

so, no. i think matty was a perfect representation of all her festering insecurities. she fell for him hard because when he forgave them she felt forgiven, but when he left, she lost a big chunk of her self worth along with him.

[anemicjellyfish]

So I've been going over the likely possibilities of why Blitzø's gun heated up suddenly in Mission: Chupacabra.

My first thoughts were torn between it being interference from either Stolas or Asmodeus.

Stolas has used his magic to assist Blitzø's missions on Earth before.

Eagle-eyed viewers noticed a red glow of magic surrounding Stolas' hand in the bathtub, matched by a red glow around Martha's bullet in Murder Family. So he can use his magic to effect objects on Earth while being in Hell.

Stolas also interfered much more heavily in Truth Seekers, showing up in person when Blitzø & IMP were cornered and locked down by Agents 1 & 2. He had no issue with his possession of Agent 2 or controlling the unnamed agents to paint a summoning circle for him.

Personally, I think that despite the... "breakup," Stolas is the most likely culprit for the Hot Gun thing. But I'd like to give consideration to Asmodeus, because I think it's only fair to consider all possibilities.

I will tend to use the nickname Ozzie, because my phone's autocorrect hates when I type Asmodeus. Sorry.

While we don't know the rules and regulations of Ozzie and his Crystals, we do have to remember Stolas' line to Blitzø in The Full Moon: "You'll be under his [Asmodeus'] jurisdiction..."

I don't think they'd specify that to us without it being important later. Ozzie has also been a prominent figure since his introduction, and his relationship with Fizzarolli only deepens his importance to the story.

I could reasonably guess that either Ozzie himself has the ability to monitor the crystals & their location and use, or that he has people/a person to do that for him.

While I still prefer Stolas here, I could understand an interference from Ozzie. For whatever reason the show has, the existence of Hell needs to be kept away from humans until after they die. If one of Ozzie's Crystals is being used by someone as irresponsible as our beloved Blitzø, who gets caught by humans sometimes, it could put Ozzie at risk. It was ultimately his choice to give the Crystal to Blitzø (through Stolas), so the responsibility for any mistakes could fall onto Ozzie.

The main reason I don't think the Hot Gun is Ozzie? There didn't seem to be any interference in Unhappy Campers. Not only was Blitzø not in a disguise from the start, but Barbie also ditched her disguise in front of that human guy. Blitzø didn't have a Crystal of his own yet, and the one he used to get to Earth wasn't his.

I doubt the firework that killed the camp counselor was from Ozzie, but like I said, I'm open to the possibility that he keeps tabs on his Crystals & their use. Or, at the bare minimum, he knows when a user is in danger/fucking up, and interferes minimally to get them to safety.

Finally, I'm aware of the theories that Blitzø has had a previous relationship with a currently unknown Sin. I believe the fan theories mainly go with Leviathan? I'm not fully into this theory myself, but I've really only ever heard about it from Tiktok.

Since Blitzø's gun has that slight Pirate look to it, one of the aquatic-themed rings of Hell could be its origin. It could have an enchantment or powers we don't know of yet.

It could also just be a magic gun. Blitzø may have some mental connection with it that makes it respond to his needs.

Can't say for sure right now. But I like the idea of Stolas helping out. Especially since th assistance came shortly after Blitzø's line about sucking cloaca.

[gwenyundreiko]

I need to scream about Arcane S2 (spoilers for the whole season)

Alright, it's been 2 days since I've watched the end of Arcane, and I'm still in a bad mood over it, so I am going to scream into the void about it, and hopefully it will allow me to move on.

I do not like the second season of Arcane.

Season 1 ? Absolute banger, still love it. I love it even more after recently watching it a second time in preparation for season 2.

Season 2 though ? ... I will not go into the details (because I feel like I would need to rewatch it again to be more accurate, and I don't want to do that), so I am just going to write about how I feel about it now that it is over.

Season 2 has left me deeply unsatisfied, to say the least. I think this feeling comes from the fact that most characters' arcs look like they were either cut short, or didn't really go anywhere. This makes the entire story feel pointless; an undeniable marvel of aesthetics and animation put in service of nothing.

I could talk about a lot of the main cast, but I'll only talk about Vi, her relationship with Caitlyn, and the Zaun vs Pilltover theme.

First off : Vi, the character who fought tooth and nails for those she loved and always tried to do the right thing. Accepting responsibility for everyone who looked up to her... and got nothing for it in the end but pain. From the start of the serie, she is set up to be one of the protagonists, along with her sister and Caitlyn. Yet the story feels pervert in the way it insists to both :make Vi suffer without giving her any sort of confort or moment to express her feelings ; and make all of her actions be pointless.

In episode 8, when she says "I always make the wrong choice and lose everyone", we have to admit that from a narrative point of view, she is absolutely right. For the first time, Vi is self pitying. She's shown as vulnerable, doubtful, almost sounding like she's giving up by saying that all she ever does is useless or worse. This is incredibly out of character for her, and yet the story proves her right. Nothing she does matters in any meaningful way. She doesn't even contribute to the final battle : she gets stranded in the defence of the artillery tower (which turned out not to be a key asset in the battle), then go 1v2 Warwick with Jinx, and Jinx ends up sacrificing herself to kill it, but only AFTER the battle is over and all the narrative tension has calmed down. (Sidenote : yes yes I know it is hinted that Jinx is still alive, but still. Let's agree that it's in bad taste for a suicidal character's triumphant moment to be a reckless act of self sacrifice, independently of the outcome.)

Vi gets mistreated throughout the whole storry and gets nothing in the end despite her bravery and efforts. No matter how hard she fought, she still ends up separated from her sister and she still loses Vander. The only thing she gets in the end is a girlfriend with whom she basically had no tender moment since their breakup, making Vi feel like a rescue dog at Caitlyn's house, but let's talk about her relationship with Caitlyn in more depth.

I'll say this first : I love the sex scene. It's tender and passionate. It's a bit awkward, but in such a relatable way that it only makes the moment sweeter. It does an excellent job at showing us how the characters feel about each other. Taken on its own, it's perfect. Two people that love each other so much they just need to have each other right here, right now... I just wish their relationship around it was more fleshed out.

From what we get to see on screen, they get a really messy break up in episode 3, and then never interact again until crossing paths at the commune. In the meantime, Caitlyn has allied herself with Ambessa, declared martial law on Zaun and is oppressing it with the full extent of her legitimate violence... but upon seeing Vi again, she instantly switches side to go against Ambessa with a rushed plan.

We get absolutely no other insight into their emotions or thoughts at this moment. No scene to show that despite their conflicts and standing on opposite sides, there is still tenderness and affection between the two of them that could hint at them getting back together. Instead, Vi calls her a petname once, and it's done, no further convincing needed. (Sidenote again : this makes Caitlyn look impulsive and irrational, when everything that comes before shows us that she is smart, collected and patient. Here, she instantly abandons everything she was previously fighting for, even at the risk of putting her entire city in danger. This includes abandonning her vandetta against Jinx, which is the reason why they split up in the first place, but this isn't adressed between Vi and Cait ever again either.)

After that, Vi holds her accountable for her actions for the time of 1 dialogue.

Then they barely interact again until the jailcell scene. Hell, once the battle starts, I don't think the two of them interact AT ALL until the epilogue.

The lack of substance in the portrayal of their relationship makes this sweet and tender sex scene feel like a spur of the moment thing. An almost self-destructive action from Vi trying to scrape at any possible source of confort after being cut out by her sister. A good thing happening for the wrong reasons. (Mind you, a hate sex scene would have worked wonders in my opinion, but that's not what we got.)

So yeah, given all of that, I'm struggling to see how Vi ending up with Caitlyn is supposed to be a meaningful and happy resolution to her story, when this relationship is barely shown on screen during season 2.

Finally, let's talk about the Zaun vs Piltover situation : it goes nowhere.

An entire 5 acts showing us that Piltover treats Zaun like shit, turning it into a ghetto and leaving it to rot in its own misery . The promo campaign for season 2 teased us a revolution... and in the end, we barely see any change. The way the story resolves implies that now that Zaun and Pilltover have triumphed over a shared ennemy, they grieve together and make peace because they have learned that war comes at too high a cost, and Zaun gets to be represented by ONE councilor.

I'm sorry but either the show tried something and missed, or the show was just incredibly shallow from the beginning. This conflict was set up from the first second of the show by having the main characters be orphaned by cops in a popular uprising which only looks more and more justified as we learn more about Zaun. That is to say that Topside doesn't care about Zaunites. From what we can tell, Heimerdinger has been leading the city for 300 years, and he discovers just now that Zaun has problems ?? Piltover prides itself for being the city of progress and equality, while exploiting the misery of the people that are LITERRALY BENEATH THEM. It's the final shot of THE FIRST SCENE IN THE SHOW, the topside people are sitting ON TOP of Zaun, reaping the benefits while throwing their wastes at them.

I think there's no better illustration for how Piltover considers Zaun than the scene where Jayce announces to the Council that Silco has demanded independance. All the councilors lose their shit. They are OUTRAGED by the demand. Clearly, Piltover considers Zaun its property. People to exploit, whose need and misery they can ignore, and ultimately, a problem to be solved through the police by having them arrested/beaten up/killed.

So either the show was indeed trying to tell a story about class struggle and oppression, and failed to deliver a satisfying conclusion; or the show was only interested in the appearance and flavor of class struggle only as a vessel for the cliché of "the cycle of violence". Which hmm, yeah it's 2024. I don't think anyone needs me to write an entire section about the necessity of fighting for human rights and resisting oppression.

I could have talked about how pitfighter Vi was 60% of the promo for Season 2, and yet was done and gone in a minute, which was also what we got with the promo, or how a French animation studio decided to call an independant, pacifist and egalitarian community " The Commune" (if you know you know); I could have also talked about Jinx's character, and how the show portrays her self healing from her devouring guilt, but I'll stop rambling here. I hate that I have wrote this, because I don't want to spread negativity. I'd rather spend this kind of energy on things I love.

The thing is, I really really wish I enjoyed Arcane season 2, because season 1 means a lot to me. Vi's character awakened something in me. It is representation I never knew I needed and it changed me. I know this sounds silly. It's only a fictionnal story after all, but it helped me grow into a better and more hopeful person. In the end, I just feel like season 2 went too far too fast, and left me behind to try and pick up the pieces of my expectations. If you've made it this far, I sincerely thank you, and I hope you have a beautiful rest of the day.

[musings-of-a-rose]

I Don't Want to See Tomorrow (Unless I See It With You) - Chapter 2

Pairing: Benny Miller x f!reader nicknamed "Juni"

Word Count: 3200+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. 

Notes: I've had this idea in my head for well over a year and with the Fallout show being dropped (and absolutely AMAZING), I figured now was the time to post it! So this is a Triple Frontier/Fallout crossover au. Huge shoutout to @mermaidxatxheart for listening to probably hours of audio at this point of me talking myself through this fic. And to @deathbecomesnerds for listening to me prattle on about video game fics and giving me her own advice.

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As my brain starts to wake up, the first thing I notice is that I'm cold. Like, really cold. The aches in my body feel like when you fall asleep and don't move the entire night, your muscles and bones stiff from a few hours of inactivity. How long does decontamination normally take? And why is it so cold?

Slowly, I pry my eyes open, blinking as rapidly as I can, feeling little icicles on my eyelashes. My head had been slumped to the side, the slight crick in my neck making itself known, the ache radiating down into my shoulder. I gasp, my lungs burning like they hadn't had a good breath in a long while. What the fuck was happening?

Slowly, I start to feel my limbs so I give my toes and fingers a little wiggle, managing to make them move. Then I work my way up my body. The more I can move, the more I start to panic. There's nowhere to move in this metal box. I weakly move my hand into a fist, pounding pathetically on the glass window in front of me. Oh God, what if it doesn't open? Isn't there someone who will open it?

Before I can spiral further, the door in front of me hisses and opens up with a loud groan, metal grinding against metal. I fall out, my hands coming up just in time to slow my fall as I slam against the hard floors. I cough, gasping for fresh air as my body starts to warm up. I manage to get up and sit on my knees, chest still heaving as I take in gulps of air. Where are the labcoats? Surely they didn't forget about us?

My eyes start to focus and I stare at a point in front of me until my vision clears. I blink hard a few times before looking around, a nervous tension starting to ball itself up in my stomach. The room is dark, save for some emergency lighting. The paint on the walls is chipped, dust covering some of the machinery that I remember being bright and shiny. I look around, slowly standing to my feet when it hits me.

It's completely silent.

No hissing of the machinery, no beeping, no sounds of people. Nothing. I take a tentative step towards the machine next to mine, catching myself on the little computer panel as I stumble. Glancing up into the pod, I see someone in there, eyes closed, still, and silent. I tap a few buttons on the panel but nothing happens. I reach out and knock on the window but the person inside doesn't move. I repeat this process on every pod in the room and get the same results, my heart thumping, the rate increasing rapidly with every pod. No one is awake and judging by the lack of sound, I'm not sure they're even alive. Not anymore.

I shake my limbs out, working some of the final stiffness out of them. Where is everyone? Why hasn’t anyone come around to check on people? Surely there are systems in place for this? I cautiously approach the door to the room. To my surprise, it's already open. I pop my head out and look in the hallway. Completely empty. I find another 5 rooms like the one I was in, every one exactly like mine. My body is fully awake by the last room, my breaths coming out quick and shallow to match my racing heart, panicked tears falling down my cheeks that I furiously try to wipe away. Am I the only one left alive?

Through my increasing panic, I finally find a computer not attached to a pod and somehow, it's still on. I sit in the chair and wipe at my eyes with my sleeve. I click around and am surprised it wasn't better locked down. The scientist that used it kept a very detailed journal of what happened. I read all of the entries, my heart sinking and blood boiling with every new one.

Apparently, they were not decontamination chambers but cryo ones. As in they froze us. Which would explain why it had been so cold. They were going to keep us under for varying degrees of time, to test the effects of cryo sleep on humans. Test? What the fuck? But they had only planned to be down here about 10 years or so. When it was reaching the end of those 10 years, rations started to dwindle and there was no communication with Vault-Tech outside of the vault they were in. People started to lose it. There was a mutiny and the Overseer was...wait did I read that right? Killed and fed to everyone still here? Eventually, it looks like everyone died and the generators were to continue on running until they couldn’t. The logs all say there was a malfunction in life support. So I was right - everyone except me is dead.

The feeling of being alone, completely alone, closes in on me, and oh my God what if I can’t get out of here? There’s no one here to let me out. I sit back in the chair, absolutely stunned at what I just read, my mind starting to spiral down a dark path. But...wait. If they froze us, and the mutiny had happened within 10 years...what year was it now?

I lean forward, clicking around to find the slot for a new entry and hit automatic date.

June 10th, 2277

That can't be right. I tap the button again.

June 10th, 2277.

I stare at the date. It's not the months that bother me but the year. 200 years have passed? This has to be a malfunction of the computer. There's no way that's the correct date. But something in the back of my mind tingles, a new feeling of dread deep in my gut. Benny. If it really has been 200 years, then even if he got to a vault and survived, there’s no way he’d be alive. Bile threatens to spill from me and I swallow, trying to prevent it. The computer is wrong, though. Benny is alive still. He has to be. 

I stand up and look down at the skeleton with a labcoat on the ground, wondering if that was the same man who had smiled creepily at me as I got into that frozen coffin. The bones are twisted into an inhuman shape, the arm bent at an odd angle. Right before I look away, I see it. The small computer wrapped around the skeleton’s arm. I kneel down, hesitating for a moment before reaching over, trying to pry the Pip Boy computer from around its forearm. It's like it's stuck on the bones and I gag a little as I slam the arm down, the hand bones scattering. But the Pip Boy slides right off.

I pick it up, dust it off a little with my hand and slide it onto my arm, feeling the slight pinch of the sensors embedding themselves into my skin. I turn a few buttons, having used one at the university when I was studying, and the screen lights up, my face washed in the familiar green glow, giving me some small bit of comfort in its familiarity. I navigate to the map section and it shows me the layout of the vault. Using the little light on the side of the Pip Boy, I follow the map towards the front of the vault, slowly making my way past debris and other corpses, some in very violent positions. One of them has their boney fingers wrapped around a large knife. A machete. Holding back another gag, I manage to pry it from the person's death grip, shifting it from hand to hand. I hold it in the opposite hand from the Pip Boy, just in case I need to swing. But surely nothing is down here, right? The vaults are sealed shut. So I should be safe. I think…I hope.

Everything is so fucking quiet it's almost deafening. I feel like the walls are closing in on me, trying to lock me away forever in this tomb, just like my fellow vault occupants. What was Vault Tec thinking?

I make it to the front entrance, the giant, heavy metal vault door securely closed. My eyes scan the room and land on a small control panel, more skeletons in labcoats scattered around it. I walk over to it, staring down at the simple panel. How the fuck does this work? I smash the big button but nothing happens. There's a round slot on the left side and I remember the Pip Boy has a sensor module. I pop out the sensor cord and plug it in, the panel lights immediately light up. A small sigh of relief escapes me. Thank God there's power! My Pip Boy lights up, telling me the remote door access is ready. But I hesitate before hitting the button again. Assuming this door opens, all I have is a machete. And if that computer is anywhere close to being right, I have no idea what the surface will even look like.

I unplug the Pip Boy and look around again, spotting a room off to the side labeled SECURITY. Thankfully, the door opens to a small room with a couple of desks and several lockers. A few of them don't open but others do and I'm quickly furnished with some sort of hand gun, a shot gun that I sling over my back, and some ammo. I also score a couple cans of purified water, some Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, a Salisbury Steak, and some Yum Yum Deviled Eggs. It's not much, but I'm better than I was. I just won't think about how old this food is, even if the computer is wrong. One of the dead security guards was holding a backpack. I take it, shake off some dust and find more ammo inside and another purified water. I put all the food and ammo into the bag and secure it, sliding it around my back, and moving the shotgun to my arm.

I decide to do one last sweep of the small vault before heading back to the main access vault door. I find a small blanket and an axe, along with another couple of boxes of food, half-eaten, and some old comics. Grognak the Barbarian. Benny loved these. Tears well in my eyes, that bile rising in the back of my throat at the idea of him being gone. I shake my head, pushing the intrusive thoughts aside, and slide the comics into my backpack. 

I repeat the process at the panel, with no hesitation in pressing the large, red button this time. The heavy metal of the round vault door groans, sparks flying from some of the unused gears helping the vault door to spin open, revealing the elevator we came down on. My mind flashes back to that moment, just barely escaping with our lives. It was mere minutes ago to me and I haven't really had a moment to process it. Any of this. I just need to get somewhere safe. Or at least familiar, to get my bearings.

I head down the walkway and hesitate for a moment before stepping onto the platform. I punch the button on the cage wall surrounding me and the gate door I came through closes. Slowly and with creaks and groans, the floor starts to rise, leaving the cage and vault behind. Again, I'm thrust into darkness for a short bit, my breath coming out in heavy pants. I'm not even sure if it's safe up here, but if I'd stayed down there I'd have died anyway so what does it matter?

Pure, blinding light breaks the darkness as I'm lifted up, the platform settling onto its original spot and locking in place. I lift my hand to shield my eyes from the bright sun, momentarily blinded by it. I blink rapidly, squinting a bit more before things come into focus and now I have to blink back tears.

Destruction. Everything is sort of grey and leveled, some occasional muted green popping up in weird angles, like weeds coming through a sidewalk. I can see the skyline of Boston in the distance, the buildings mostly gone into piles of rubble or mostly rubble. Some still stand, like broken scraggly fingers that were too stubborn to fully fall. Benny had been there and if he survived, he was buried underneath all of that.

I tear my eyes away from the horror and turn to head back down the path that will lead me to my parent's home where I had been when....no. I can't think about that until I'm in a safe place. A faint, high-pitched squeak brings me from my dark thoughts and I turn just in time to see something fly at me. I react on instinct, trying to dodge but fall, the thing managing to clip my shoulder as it comes at me. I grip the machete tight in my hand and bring it up just as the world's biggest fucking roach jumps on me, its pinchers at least the length of my fingers, its body easily half the length of me. Its legs scramble as it screams, my machete having ripped through it. I yell as I push with all I can to move it off me, tossing it to the side as I scramble backward as fast as I can manage. What the fuck is that thing? It's still moving so I stand up and promptly kick its head in with my boot several times, continuing to do so long after it had stopped moving. My skin crawls as I look at the size of this thing.

Of course. Everything would've been radiated. Deer with two heads, giant fucking bugs, apparently. Weren’t roaches supposed to outlive us all, especially in the case of nuclear war? It only makes sense that mutations would've happened. But if this happened to roaches, what else has happened?

My body shudders at the thought and I tuck that one away for later. I yank my machete out of the giant fucking roach, flinging off its gooey guts and wiping it off in the dirt before starting back down the path. Fortunately, no other wildlife crosses my path as I step back onto the street that runs past my parent's house.

The neighborhood is...gone. Most of the houses are either completely destroyed or half crumbling, the previously perfectly manicured yards no longer exist. New plants have taken over, their foreign petals and colors intriguing the scientist side of me, but I keep my distance, not knowing what fresh hell they could bring upon humans.  Besides, that's not what I'm here for.

I turn and walk slowly down the street, my eyes sweeping from side to side. I spot movement and as my eyes focus on it, I nearly scream with excitement. I start to run towards it, almost crashing into the Mr. Handy robot that had been my family's.

"Hawthorne?" I gasp, my eyes wide with wonder.

His large metal head spins towards me, his round metal eye widening as he takes me in. "Ma'am? Miss Juni?"

I can't help but cry tears of joy. Something, someone that remembers me! For the first time since I woke in that vault turned tomb, I don’t feel alone.

"It's me! I can't believe you're still here!"

Hawthorne launches into a retelling of his time here, how the bombs pretty much destroyed most of Boston, how our fellow neighbors that didn't have a spot in the vaults died within hours of the initial blasts, although some took a few days. Others...I'm not sure what he's talking about. Ghouls? I’ll have to ask him more about that later. But then he's on another topic, discussing how hard it is to maintain the property for the last 200 years and how lonely he's been waiting for us and- wait. What?

"Hawthorne?"

"Ma'am?"

"I...I am sorry you had to deal with all of this alone."

"Thank you, ma'am. I do understand that humans are fragile things and had you remained with me, you would not have survived. I am very glad you did not die."

"Thank you, Hawthorne. I'm glad you're here too. But.. to confirm, did you say 200 years?

"Yes ma'am."

"200 years… since what?"

"Since the bombs fell, ma'am."

I can feel the blood drain from my face. "What's the date?"

"June 10th, 2277."

My legs start to wobble and I slump to the ground, putting my head in my hands as I rest my elbows on my bent legs. 200 years? I thought the computer had malfunctioned. But it all makes sense. The state of the vault, the way things look, that radroach thing...I feel my breathing picking up, hyperventilating as realization dawns on me.

I was right before. It doesn't matter if Benny made it to a vault. He would've lived a full life and died a long time ago.

The scream erupting from my throat is the last thing I remember before my vision fades to black.

When I wake, I'm in a bed. Well, on a mattress anyway. I look around without moving and realize I'm in my old bedroom, the one my parents never quite remade into anything else. Most of the walls are intact, only the one with the window is missing half the panels. And the roof only has a few holes in it. Nothing that Benny and I can't-

Benny.

I turn to my side just in time, throwing up whatever was in my stomach for the last 200 years onto the floor. But that's nothing compared to the hole in my chest, the one that ripped itself open at the realization that I would have to face this new, broken world without my other half, my anchor. My stomach doesn't settle, still churning at the thought, the tears pouring from my eyes as I curl into myself. I don't even say anything to Hawthorne as he comes in and cleans the mess, setting down one of the bottles of purified water and some snacks from my backpack on the cracked nightstand.

What's even the point of going on if I don't have him with me?

Unless….

General Taglist:

@frankie-catfish-morales @chaoticgeminate @janebby @astoryisaloveaffair @balekanemohafe @greeneyedblondie44 @hoeforthefictional @marvelousmermaid @hauntedmama @icanbeyourjedi @wretchedmo @sunnshineeexoxo @livingmydreams13 @adventures-of-a-noodle @sara-alonso @theewokingdead @punkerthanpascal @giggly-otter @f0rever15elf @phandoz @gallowsjoker @lovesbiggerthanpride @booksarekindaneat @charlispersonallyhell @xoxabs88xox @amneris21 @gooddaykate @avengers-fixation @paintballkid711 @harriedandharassed   @ladykatakuri @practicalghost @withakindheartx @batdarkladyvampir @justanotherkpopstanlol   @mermaidxatxheart @alexxavicry @justreblogginfics @kmc1989 @veryprairieberry @mysterious-moonstruck-musings @heartpascalispunk  

[transhetanybodys]

As I am going through my Hamilton phase now for some reason, I've been having a lot of thoughts about it that I'll try to concisely gather here. It's faced criticism for romanticizing the founding fathers and portraying them as more sympathetic than they really were (i.e. Hamilton married into a slave owning family and wasn't actually super pro-immigrant), which I think is fair, but I would also respond to that point by arguing that with the themes of legacy and looking ahead to the future where people who never knew you will be telling your story and you'll have no control over how they do it, it makes sense on a meta level why the characters come off as more sympathetic than they did in real life.

They seem to be semi-subconsciously aware of the audience and purposefully trying to present themselves sympathetically because of that, with the fourth wall breaks and stuff like Hamilton not wanting to refer to the play Macbeth by name even though he in universe is not in a theatre which kind of suggests to me that he knows on some level that he is in a theatre out of universe (the rule about not naming the play Macbeth only applies in theatres) and Burr directly introducing characters to the audience and trying to sell himself as a good person to us/do damage control/lamenting his fate to us in The World Was Wide Enough. And then of course Eliza's gasp at the end is her becoming fully consciously aware of the audience.

I do not know to what extent Lin Manuel Miranda intended for the characters to be semisubconsciously aware of the fact that they are in a play and that they have an audience or if he intended this at all, but with death of the author I think that I can gather sufficient evidence to support this interpretation as a viable one. Still, I have gotten really attached to this concept/interpretation to the point that I've been considering trying to do a rewrite of Hamilton where I take it much further than it's taken in canon if I ever get the time. My ideas are pretty out there and I recognize that, but I think there's some good potential with them.

Imagine if there was a framing device where the characters were temporarily brought out of their afterlives after their deaths (mostly Heaven but there could also be a joke where it's implied that King George didn't come from there) to an extradimensional plane/stage, created by a historian/history writer in some kind of deal with the devil that he struck where he got to bring all of the relevant players in the period of American history that Hamilton covers (some like Benjamin Franklin are obviously missing from Hamilton and thus wouldn't be in this iteration either but let's just ignore that) into this extradimensional plane so that he could get the story of what happened over that period of history directly from them. Hamilton in particular is one of his main specialty areas, so he wants it to especially be centered around him.

After the characters freak out about the fact that they've been randomly summoned from the afterlife, they quickly turn to being concerned about their legacies and start to bombard the historian with questions about what the people in his time think of them. He tells them that answering their questions before they've told him their story would bias how they tell the story, and thus he won't tell them until after they're done telling it. He's going to write a book based on what they tell them, he says, so they can directly influence how they'll be remembered going forward by how they tell their story to him. This is what primarily gets them interested in this exercise of telling him their story, although of course there would be immense variation in how the different characters respond to this situation and how their responses evolve over time with added information.

They realize that Philip, Hercules, Lafayette, and Peggy didn't get summoned with the rest of them because they were off doing something that is beyond the comprehension of mortals on a different plane of existence at the time that the summoning ritual took place (in my head when the other characters explain what they're off doing the descriptions are replaced with eldritch-esque sounds that the historian can't comprehend), and thus Laurens, Madison, Jefferson, and Maria respectively volunteer to play both themselves and them in this musical about their story. Insert jokes about Laurens playing his lover's son and calling him daddy here.

The musical proceeds in a similar way to canon, except the element I described earlier of them trying to sell themselves as sympathetic to an audience they're semisubconsciously aware of is ramped up to 11, because they are obviously consciously aware of the historian. Characters who like each other like Hamilton and Laurens hype each other up as good people who deserve to be remembered fondly, while characters who don't like each other like Hamilton and Jefferson trash each other and each other's attempts to sell themselves as sympathetic to the historian. For example, during the first Cabinet Battle, something that could happen is Madison stage whispering to Jefferson that Hamilton married into a slave owning family in life after Hamilton roasts him for having owned slaves, Jefferson triumphantly pointing that out, and Hamilton trying to defend himself.

For some additional concepts I have for this, Hamilton and Burr reconciled their differences at some point in the centuries they've been in Heaven and became friends again, but the fighting they do over Burr trying to sell himself as sympathetic while describing why he killed him reignites their rivalry and causes them to hate each other again. Hamilton was willing to forgive him for the whole murder thing until he tried to say that he (Burr) couldn't let him (Hamilton) make an orphan out of his grown adult daughter while Hamilton in contrast had small children at the time, at which point he started to reconsider that forgiveness. Hamilton, Laurens, Angelica and Eliza (and Martha Laurens but she wasn't one of the people who was summoned, so she would just be mentioned to also be a part of the relationship) have all at some point formed a polyamorous relationship in Heaven where the only two that aren't dating are Angelica and Eliza, obviously, because they're sisters.

When they're done with the production/telling their story, they all stand for a moment contemplating everything before Eliza goes over to the historian and asks him to answer their questions about their legacies and what people in his time think of them, now that they've fulfilled their end of the bargain. He responds something like "See for yourself" and gestures towards the audience, and the characters all see it for the first time. They realize that they've been performing for us, the audience, this entire time and not just the historian. There was never a book, the point was always this play. After the play, during the time when the actors interact with the audience, they stay in character and ask them questions about what they think of them and what they thought of their performance. Maybe there's some jokes like Hamilton and Jefferson still trashing each other and asking people some variant on "You liked me better than him, right?" Anyway I think all of this would be cool and I might write it at some point.

[maleyanderecafe]

Tell Me You'll Die Without Me (Manga)

Created by: Kotoko (琴子)/utu

Genre: Psycological/Drama

I've been on a translation hyperfixation lately, so I translated a non-smut manga, though currently I can only find two chapters that I can translate. Really gives off a more mystery theming since it's about the main character Toruka finding out that the person she loves is actually a yandere. It's too bad as of now current it ends on a cliffhanger.

The story starts with Toruka in the office after doing some really good work at her company. She talks about how she's a normal office worker that was in a coma for two years after an accident when she was in high school (which so far has never been brought up again and is a super weird place to put it) after leaving the building with her friend, she sees her boyfriend, Iori who has come to pick her up. Iori is two years older and the head of a bunch of hospitals as a surgeon and the two of them have a lovely date, while Toruka wonders if they'll do anything for their anniversary. During the date, Iori ends up proposing to Toruka to which she happily accepts. The next day, her childhood friend and beautician Jin comes over to give her some food and we learned that Toruka was basically raised by Jin's family as her own family didn't really pay attention to her that much. Toruka reveals the news that Iori proposed to her, and Jin feels happy about this. After he leaves, Toruka gets a paranoid feeling of things that have been moved without her notice, noting that she feels like she's been watched lately. We also get to see how Toruka and Iori met, with Toruka breaking her bike after commuting and Jin helping to fix it. The two went out together for a bit before they eventually started dating when they found out that they liked similar things. The next day, Jin stops by again to share some food with her, only to see a tired Toruka peek out. Toruka tells Jin about her paranoia and Jin promises to help her, getting things to help search for bugs around the house. While using it, they find that her keychain has been bugged, the same one Iori gave her.

Not really sure, they try again and find that there's a wire inside of the teddybear that she has. JIn goes on high alert and tries to protect Toruka best he can by picking her up at work and giving the keychain to Toruka's friend. Toruka still wants to believe in Iori and hangs out with him for a bit, before he notices that the keychain is gone. Toruka lies and states that she lost it, with Iori promising to give her another one the next time around. Sure enough, the new keychain that she has is also bugged, and Toruka still has a hard time believing Iori could do something like this until Jin snaps her out of it. At the end of the chapter, Jin ends up confessing that he's always been in love with Toruka.

So like I said, kind of the worst cliffhanger to end up on. I am a bit suspicious of Jin though considering that the last two volumes of the this series have Jin in a pretty menacing and suspicious pose, similar to how Iori is here now. We do know that at some point Iori does cage Toruka, as shown in the beginning of the first chapters. Right now it seems like Iori is mostly stalking Toruka through GPS tracking and wires and hasn't quite caught on to the fact that both Toruka and Jin know about what he's doing. I do have to commend Toruka for trying to stick with Iori since it does kind of make sense that you wouldn't want to believe someone near you has been stalking you this entire time. It also makes a lot of his other actions a lot more suspicious like the fact that the two of them had some much in common, the fact that her bike broke down and it probably had something to do with the coma that she had for two years, though that might end up being a stretch. It is kind of cool watching the two discover just how many bugs are in Toruka's house and what they've been doing to prevent Iori from finding out, like giving the keychain to her friend. Though I'm not sure that you should be confessing right now Jin, like I get that you really like her and her boyfriend has turned out to maybe be a stalker yandere, but like, that's not really helping the situation. Could be related to the fact that he might actually be the yandere pulling the strings and whatnot, or I might be thinking too much into something like that.

Anways, a good start to the series, so I hope that I'll be able to translate more of it when it comes out. It does make a good premise in the beginning though that's for sure. Please read it if you have the chance.

[falmerbrook]

Summerset Chapter thoughts

I've actually moved on to Murkmire a bit ago and forgot to do this oopsies.

Overall: I liked it! Although I have a harder time saying why or why not compared to previous expansions (although lord knows I'll certainly try to explain below). I just had a good time with it and looked forward to logging in every day to play, but I don't think it was my favorite thing ever either. I particularly liked the main quest, it gave us a lot of good characters to get attached to.

More details under cut

What I liked:

The characters! I pretty much liked every reoccurring character in the Main Quest. Obviously y'all already know I loved Darien, and I think this chapter did a good job giving him a bit more depth and setting up some very juicy intrigue for him. Raz is always a joy (although he made less of an impact in this chapter for some reason). I also liked Iachesis (although he made me feel kinda sad, but that's a good thing) and I liked how kind and mentor-ly he seemed. I really liked Leythen and Valsirenn. Their relationship was super compelling to watch unfold and they both got their own internal dilemmas set up due to each other than made them both just really interesting. Leythen was really interesting to me, but I do wish they developed what drew him to Mephala enough to make him loyal to her until he literally died. Valsirenn's voice actor was also doing over time good lord she really made me feel horrible for her. Val needs a long ass vacation after all of that. Even in a good number of the side quests there were a lot of good strong personalities that were fun to work with.

The voice acting has gradually gotten better and better with each new expansion, but I think this is the first one where it has been noticeable enough to mention. I liked the voice acting.

There were a good number of interesting side quests. Some good mysteries (especially the Russafeld one) and lots of "well that was fucked up" magical nonsense. I had fun with them.

I liked the cities and architecture. It felt tall and grand. I have more to say in my dislikes though.

I loved Artaeum! It was so gorgeous and the buildings were gorgeous (I liked the disney castle effect they had on Ceporah tower, that was a good touch to make it look bigger). I liked it so much I've taken several opportunities to just take a walk around it. It was the highlight of this chapter.

The themes with Summerset opening up to emigration were real topical, probably even more now than when the chapter first came out, and I liked their inclusion.

I liked the look of Summerset. I bit generic fantasy but it has enough of its own thing going on that I think it still stands out. The fossilized coral forests were very cool, and most of the fauna were unique but also felt like real enough animals (unlike some other eso creatures). Not my favorite visually but still nice.

On that note, I also really liked the Indriks. Good ass animal. Welwas are good too (although I recently discovered they were also in Craglorn but I skipped that one).

In the Russadeld murder mystery quest (which I just really liked in general) I enjoyed getting some worldbuilding on minor things like the different ways forensics can be undertaken. I just always appreciate when side quests are used to develop parts of the world that are otherwise mundane to us but would probably be different in a fantasy setting.

I appreciated how connected some of the story points of the side quests were with either other side quests or the main quest. It usually wasn't important or anything, but it's a nice touch.

Another thing that I have noticed gradually over the expansions that I think stood out most here was that the enemies in each zone are no longer every 5 feet. You can explore the wilderness without having to kill something every 15 seconds, and I appreciate that.

What I disliked/thought could've been better:

Now, I'm not gonna be one of those "but the cities are supposed to be made of glass!!!" people because I generally don't think the games should have to follow every single one off line or lore from previous games, but I do think they should've leaned into the glass look at least a little bit. Make the cities more colorful! The while stone and marble were pretty, but idk I just feel like they could've been colorful. Maybe keep the white buildings but make their windows all ornate stained glass so during the day the reflect on nearby building and light up the interiors with colors and at night the cities look like a sparkling rainbow? Something like that. The architecture, while pretty, was also a bit to generic tbh.

So arguably this is a complaint I could make about literally any zone/environment of any of these games, and I don't expect it to ever change, but man it is disappointing to me to see some interesting ecological lore in books get tossed out the window so we can always have a bunch of hostile animals/plants that attack you on sight when you travel off of any path. Don't tell me that Summerset's environments (or at least major parts of it) have been carefully crafted to be perfect in the way the Altmer culturally see it (and have a quest around it) and not be able to actually see that outside of like, gardens!

I find delves tedious and was annoyed that we had to go through a few of them for the main quest. I don't think that's happened in any of the zones before this but it felt lazy. Like they didn't want to bother making a new location for the main quest so they just plopped whatever you had to grab in a delve they already built.

Veya made me so angry!! I mean I guess that indicates some good writing because I cared that much and it makes sense she'd turn to more destructive ideologies after everything she went through but I was so disappointed in her and they didn't do enough with her! She just became a generic bad guy we killed (I think this comes down to one of ESO's biggest writing flaws imo, that every story has to be accessible to new players)!

So I'll be honest, daedra lore is probably one of the places where I'm weakest, so maybe I'm wrong, but the inclusion of Mephala and Nocturnal in this whole scheme felt really out of character for them. And even if they would go through something like this, they were written to just be very generically evil demon-like to me. They're designs are meh to me too (Mephala's more than Nocturnal's). Vile at least felt in character and like this is something he'd get invovled with (and I liked his design, but that's because the humanoid look is already what he's always been portrayed as). I just always felt like Mephala and Nocturnal were some of the better examples of how the Daedric Princes aren't just evil but have their own complex moralities, but in this they make them "I want to take over the whole universe!" level evil. Their motivations (once again, besides Vile) feel not in character either. They were weakest part of the Main Quest for this whole arc for me (besides Barbas, who I always enjoy).

Kinda related, a lot of their minor daedra from their realms (specifically Mephala, the other two were fine) felt kinda bland or generic to me.

Also kinda related, the didn't sell why anyone in the Court of Bedlam (specifically Leythen) would believe they Princes or go along with their goals. They wanted to create a paradise? They're daedric princes how do you fall for that??? I can see Veya or cultists who already followed them being easily manipulatable but Leythen goes from respected Psijic to taking the Daedra at their word because of seemingly nothing but grief? And he continues to support Mephala until he dies despite knowing they were lying?? I didn't get it.

Finally, there was a moment that implied that Meridia's realm was invaded that never got a conclusion. Normally I'd be like "well maybe they're setting it up for later" but I know they haven't done anything with it yet so it feels like more of a dropped plot point than a set up for the future.

Let Darien take me out for a drink, dammit!!!

[blackdigitalrose]

Now that's Wonderful Precure is finally concluded, I can do one of these! Yay! It is a team of 6, I'll hear no different, even if only 4 get Cure names. Time to rank our Wonderful Precure cast.

1. Daifuku (there's no yellow ¬.¬'')

Toei you said he was grey in the movie but yellow in the finale? Unsurprisingly, while our magical bunny boy and his human form only got about 10 mins of screen time (criminal) , still ten is still better than none at all and with a sense of gratitude that at least that means he's cannon! ( Toei, you cowards, you already gave us a magical bird boy, we could get a whole petting zoo going).

Our mute little bunny of coolness and attitude (XD he's Sonic with more edge) has been there from the start and it was very much this scene where I fell in love with the fluff ball. Situation was different but it was something I so badly needed to hear. So now I've actually sought out merch, with this quote printed out to be used as a daily reminder. Daifuku the best wing-bunny one could ask for!

2. Cure Lilian/ Mayu

Mayu is just super relatable, from her anxieties and nerves of speaking to new people and tripping over her words, to gaining confidence to share the things you love to do, whether others like it or not. To just being the best shipper support ever! She was that understandable big sister sort to both sides and neutral but what is really impressive is how the writing team never made her feel like a third wheel, the group dynamics and friendship still felt natural.

3. Cure Friendy/ Iroha

The actual leader of team Wonderful Precure and a pretty decent one at that. Iroha was the one who often came up with plans, she made the decisions and final calls, Iroha was the one the others followed and it was her sentiments that were usually the driving force on matters but she wasn't above being told different or to do something different because she was either wrong or they disagreed, she still remained very understanding.

4. Satoru

He should have been our mid-season! An initial great support, helpful but not too involved, until Toei made him get more involved and had him on the front lines too often, giving him all these scenes and moments suggesting he was going to be so much more and he's left standing their like a lemon while the others "fight". However, Satoru is the focus, the driving force on quite possibly, Precures best love angle! You couldn't help but root for the guy and I don't doubt most were crying during that confession scene, so sweet, so touching, so beautifully animated (pity all sort of fizzled out afterwards and got forgotten they even hooked up???) Still Toei denied us, Satoru and Iroha could have been an actual Cure couple, it could have added so much more depth and layers to the pair.

5. Cure Nyammy/ Yuki

Fight me Toei, Nyammy is freaking WHITE, her whole theme is snow, her hair, her main attire colour is to, so how did you get blue? Nyammy did have an arc, opening up, learning to trust and befriend the others, to be kinder, however, that's all well and good but our kitty just got declawed and tamed far too quickly, she would have been a great chance to challenge ideals off, find that middle ground but nope, just goes from fighting to hugging with little convincing.

6. Cure Wonderful/ Komugi

No, I don't dislike her per se but Komugi does the baton pass, which means by default Precure standards she is the leader and leader and Komugi don't even go in the same sentence. Couldn't be further from it, so she fails at the one job she was supposed to do. Komugi had a gimmick that was super, super under utilised, her best example was the Fuku episode and they sorta tried again for the finale but that didn't come together as naturally.

[moonfromearth]

My Top 24(-ish) Screenshots of 2024!!

Thank you so much for the tag @salemssimblr!! I thought I wouldn't even find 24 screenshots to post but turns out I had more than I thought 😅

January

Me Before Looking Through Archive: I haven't been playing or posting that much so nothing really changed in 2024.

Me After Looking Through Archive: What do you mean Thunder was still a foal in January?? 😨

So this is about when I realized that I had done more during the year than I thought 😆 This tag was actually really good because I've felt bad about how little I did but looking back we actually made a lot of stuff and now I'm happy! 🥰

February

February was a slower month (and about when I started stalling on a big HR edit that didn't get posted until the end of the year 😆😅).

However, I did finished these sims to submit to @bunnithechubs and @butteredfrogs and I still think they're adorable.

March

I was so sad because I thought I didn't do anything with Corey this year but I forgot about the trading cards I can't believe that was just in 2024!! 🤩🤩

Credits to @squea and @butteredfrogs for the challenge and template it was a highlight of my year. So much fun to see everyone's cards and I learned some new editing tricks making them that helped me later in the year 😉

April

I made up the entire cast of the book I was writing that month (to procrastinate working on said book) and I'm so proud of how each of them turned out! Originally I had all of them in here but I ran out of image space so I had to narrow it down 😢

Anyway, the two on the left are the main characters and they look exactly like they do in my head which is so cool. Also the other character on the right turned out awesome. This year I downloaded a lot of wrinkle details to make better adult/elder sims and they look so good I'm so happy with them now and I've even gotten better at using them throughout the year than even here (sorry that was long lol).

May

Thank you again @havenroyals for putting together the simblr MET gala because it produced some of my best screenshots of the year!! 🤩 It was my first time experimenting with deco sims which was fun and I had an amazing time dressing my sims to theme. And giving them after party looks was the best.

Seeing everyone's sims attending the event was just such a good time and a great moment in the community this year 🥰

June

I almost forgot about the music tag that went around this month and these have to be some of my best of the year 😆 It's some of the most editing I've done and I love how they turned out!! These two especially were the best because they translated from concept to actuality so perfect and I can't wait to actually post the stories they're from 🥰🥰

(there are too many good screenshots from this month I didn't even get to the Edgewave submission!! 😭)

July

July I had several sim submissions I did, but this sim for @thebramblewood is my favorite! I finally got to use some of the historical cc that I download once in a while, plus her cane and personality were so clear and I love her (also the post she featured in was amazing thanks again bramblewood!!).

August - September

I moved during August and apparently forgot how to post because it took me forever to get back into it (and I'm still working on consistently posting but that's a problem for 2025 😆).

October

October is my favorite month for posts because of my beloved Slashed challenge by @folkling. I'm too much of a baby to even watch slasher films but these are some of my favorite characters and I have so many scenes with them that I will finally make one day!!

Unfortunately I couldn't fit all of their 2024 makeovers here, so just a few favorites. Carrie our final girl is iconic as always. Her design has been so consistent since I made her the first time with only a few upgrades in skin/blood details. Also Keaton the hunter got a major glow up from his first edition, which I liked the concept of but wasn't in love with the execution of. And Alicia is still one of my favorites she's so cool 😆

Also included is my experiment with my Rose gen sim from the Not So Berry Challenge in a move that re-inspired me to work on the challenge again (coming some time in 2025 😉). I literally went into cas just to put her in these two cc outfits and got totally invested in going back to the challenge 🤣

November

I finally decided to make myself finish the screenshot retakes I'd been putting off since January and I'm so happy with how they came out. So much had to get done for those scenes, from building the competition grounds from scratch, to retaking the screenshots three times, to editing this article about our favorite mysterious benefactor (who I can't wait to write more of)!!

Even though there's some things I'm still not totally happy with, I'm so glad I finally posted it, and proud of the skills I've learned over the year that made it possible (like the trading cards, which taught me new editing tricks that I used in this and some future websites and articles that you'll see next year 😉😉).

December

Aaaaand theres's nothing except this for December (oops 😅).

This reflection actually turned a bit into a gratitude post because I tagged so many people who used my sims or who's challenges I loved (sorry hopefully that wasn't annoying!!). Given how little I worked on my actually gameplay/story this year, it was the challenges made by other talented people here that really kept me involved with the community, and who made all of the creative screenshots I took this year possible. So, thank you to the simblr community for another amazing year (I'd list you all individually but I'd run out of space 😆).

Anyway, a final thank you to anyone who read this, which turned out way longer than it was supposed to be, and turned into a vent about how happy I am that I had more screenshots than I thought (seriously thought I'd only have two months filled in I posted so much more than I expected 😭).

Happy holidays to anyone celebrating and see you next year! ❤️

[leagueofidiots]

Why I think BNHA 427 was a bunch of bullshit

I am going to leave my personal opinions on characters out of this because that's a whole seperate issue, I want to focus on how this chapter pissed me off from a story standpoint

I think Horikoshi has seriously lost track of what the original point of this story was supposed to be. In general, I have found that the ending (up until now at least, I'm gonna hang in there) has gone completely against the themes originally present in the rest of the story, honestly since All for One's reveal that he orchestrated Tomura's birth.

My Hero Academia has always been about how there is no real black and white, good or evil, just a whole lot of grey area. The heroes are not all good people, and the system itself is corrupt. Most of the villains have been put in situations where they were nearly forced into the lives they lead, even though they're still terrorists. From the get-go, this story was set up to be about A.) fixing hero society, and B.) saving the villains while not dismissing the fact that they're literal terrorists.

For one, I think it is unbelievably fucking stupid that Tomura has been established to have done nothing wrong at this point, that he apparently has never made a decision in his life and is free of all guilt. I won't bother with how stupid it is as a character thing for him, his family, and All for One, because at the end of the day it is a shounen. Whatever. But all along, the theme of the entire league is that they did have a choice at the end of the day. Dabi's life was a living hell, but he still chose to join the LoV. Toga was discriminated against for her quirk, but she still chose to become a serial killer. Twice had the shittiest luck in the world and no support system, but he still formed a self-made gang. Spinner is a victim of quirkism, but he chose to follow in Stain's, and later Tomura's footsteps. While Tomura has always been raised in All for One's shadow, let's be honest. Even after All for One was arrested, and after he realized he had been groomed, he did far worse things than he did under All for One's wing. Part of this is obviously the fact that he was raised to be like All for One, but the level of sadism and power-hungriness he shows is something extremely brushed off by the fandom. The villains are sympathetic, yes, but at the end of the day they are still bad people. Removing Tomura's agency takes away from the whole common thread set up in the MLA arc, that all it takes is one bad day to make a villain. It was obviously just so Horikoshi could take the lazy route in his redemption.

To follow this, Tomura, from a story standpoint, should not be dead. Especially as the main villain, and the main one basically the entire cast was fighting to save. He was met with apologies and understanding, so there is at least a level of closure there (more on that later), but it defeats the whole point of the story if Tomura is dead. Horikoshi can obviously do whatever he wants with his own story, but the whole plot seemed to be setting up that the main three villains would live, be held accountable, and considered "saved" when they could live on with at least some sort of happiness and dignity. Tomura will not be held accountable in any tangible way, nor will he get to be at peace. It's extremely unfulfilling from a narrative standpoint.

The next thing I've been seeing a lot of is an absolutely baffling amount of Izuku hate. I have seen people (even canon now!!!) call him a murderer. I have even seen people go so far as to accuse him of mind-raping Tomura. The fandom is one thing, but the fact that Horikoshi seems to want us to agree with this statement, is actually fucking insane. I think that's what really made this chapter especially shitty for me. And I say this as a Spinner fan! It's about the way it's written. From Spinner's perspective, obviously he is going to be on Tomura's side. The narrative seems to want us to be on Tomura's side too, and honestly, I am not. Izuku went above and beyond to not only see Tomura's side of things, but to reach out and acknowledge his pain. Tomura got the only semi-satisfying ending (so far) out of any of the villains, except Overhaul for some reason. Dabi's chapter last week was absolutely sickening as an ending to his story. Now Spinner's arc has been completely written off in favor of serving Tomura (for the billionth time). Toga hasn't even been seen since her fight. Jin's death was pointless. Sako's sacrifice was pointless. Kurogiri's death was the most infuriating shit I have ever had to read. Tomura got acknowledgement from the heroes and the villains, he got apologies from several people, he got to watch All for One die not once but twice, and he got to go out on his own terms. The fact that anyone faults Izuku for A.) fighting a terrorist who was killing dozens of people at a time, B.) not treating him like an innocent little baby, and C.) not being able to help a man who didn't want help is beyond me. Again, the fact that this chapter seems to want us to agree with Spinner about even the people on TV is just honestly unrealistic. He was a terrorist. Obviously people won't care that much that he was traumatized.

BNHA 427 was the latest chapter in a long string of characters being completely ignored for the sake of Tomura's development. Every fight was cut shorter than it could have been all so we could see more of him mindlessly killing characters who don't even have names, and beating the shit out of Deku. A certain level of this is understandable, he is again the main villain, but some of it is just honestly dismissive of other characters.

I'll stick to Spinner since he's the only one relevant to this chapter, but I think his is perhaps the worst case aside from Kurogiri's. Since the MLA arc, the fandom and canon itself have brushed off Spinner as an extension of Tomura, a lense to show compassion towards him and nothing else. With very little development, we are suddenly supposed to believe that he completely abandoned his/Stain's ideals in favor of the complete opposite. Their entire relationship is 100% one-sided until flashbacks during the final war arc about nothing but League of Legends. Tomura claims he fights for Spinner by saying things we have never heard Spinner even mention, nonetheless support (destroying Mt. Fuji, world destruction in general). He is used as a tool in the final war arc to the point where he can barely form sentences, his points about quirkism are ignored, he can't process any sympathy shown to him, and he is immediately written off as soon as he gets to Kurogiri (another character used as a prop for Tomura's development). Even now, all he talks about is Tomura, all that is brought up to him is Tomura. Nothing about the rest of the league, next to nothing about his own physical condition, nothing acknowledging his trauma or the changes that need to be made to society. Spinner's whole character arc is about being empty, about finding himself by acting as someone he admires. His whole character conflict is that he has no identity of his own. So his arc is wrapped up by making everything about him relevant to Tomura? He's going to spend years writing a book about Tomura??? And nothing else for him?????

I don't know what else to say. The story has been going downhill for a while, it's just especially rubbing me the wrong way recently. I'm running out of faith that the next three chapters will be any good, but it's too late to quit now ig

[mysticstarlightduck]

WIP Questionnaire Tag

Thanks for the tag @diabolical-blue (here)!

I'll go with Supernova Initiative for this one!

1. What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

I had wanted to write a science fiction/space opera story for years now! I've always been a huge fan of Star Wars and similar series, and I've always wanted to write something similar! I guess that the actual first part of this WIP I've ever created was the setting - it has remained the same/similar from the first iteration of an idea of this story, while the main characters, title, and plot underwent many, many changes until it all got to the version I'm currently writing!

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Curiously enough, the Supernova Initiative book series is going to be more akin to a "TV Show" format - like Clone Wars, The Last of Us, or Game of Thrones - than a traditional novel format. That's a bit complicated to explain further, but the gist of it is - the chapters are going to be the "episodes", which in turn will be divided into acts/seasons that take place in specific time frames, with the first (5 episode/chapter) taking place 10 years before the main story!

If I had to choose, I would say that the theme song would be a rather energetic rock/pop song! With a similar vibe to these:

(Check out the full WIP playlist)

I'm Dangerous - The Everlove

Shame! Shame! Shame! - Reinaeiry

Let's Do This - Outskrts

El Dorado - Stellar

Anti-Gravity - Runaground

I think that the song would need to have this rebellious/badass energy, mixed with a generally fun beat and good lyrics that touch on the overall theme/plot of the series! Plus a generally youthful vibe!

3. What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

I really love most of the main cast from this WIP!!!! But my Top 3 definitely are Jack Tithus, Gabi Ophyria, and Deimos Soll!

Jack is a really sweet, kind, and slightly reckless guy, who is at the same time outgoing, extroverted, and funny when he wants to be. He is defiant towards authority and fiercely protective of those he loves, to a dangerously selfless degree, all of which are tropes/traits I really enjoy in characters.

(Plus, in a way, Jack is one of the characters that kind of holds a condensation of some of my own personality traits, in good and bad ways - which was something accidental at first, but which I then embraced. )

Gabi Ophyria was one of the characters that came to me a bit later during the plotting of this book, which was surprisingly clear to me from the get-go. She's a brash, loud, fierce girl who lets no one talk her down and who believes in fighting for what she believes in. She also has anger issues - which is something she struggles with and eventually overcomes as her arc progresses, especially as she learns to let herself be vulnerable and trust others rather than try to be unbreakable all the time.

Deimos Soll is one of the most badass characters in this WIP and I just adore him. In a superficial, bad summarization, lol he's basically a young adult, alien version of John Wick and honestly is one of my all-time favorite characters I've ever written. He starts out in the backstory chapters as an awkward, fearful teenager lost in a moon he knew nothing about, but eventually grows into the deadliest and most efficient sniper this galaxy has ever seen, and one of the biggest threats to the Junction. I just adore writing introverted badass/morally grey characters who have a heart of gold. One of my favorite tropes!

4. What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

Definitely other space opera/sci-fi adventures like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Voltron! Those stories introduced me to the space opera science fiction genre which I love so dearly, so I think that pretty much anyone who likes that genre will probably like one of those movies lol. I also think that my future fanbase might also like Six of Crows or the Bad Guys (the DreamWorks movie), as the "found family of misfits working on a heist" trope is a pretty big trope in the first acts of this WIP as well!

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

I think the hardest part about this WIP is that its structure is something I haven't seen before - as in, it's essentially a "TV Show but make it a Book Series" at its core. That means I have to improvise a lot with how I structure the story's chapters and how I structure all the events of the story. One good thing about this format I'm trying to recreate is that it is really visual, and I'm a really visual writer/person, so that means I get to make a really vivid world and characters!

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

There are! A lot of them actually. Since this is a science fiction/spare opera adventure, a lot of the story involves the main characters traveling from planet to planet, especially during their heist mission and after the plot progresses.

They visit all kinds of planets and thus all kinds of biomes - the dusty mining moons like Cethea III, giant winter desert planets like Ivion, or flourishing forest dwarf planets like Stryxus. Cethea III - the homeworld of the MCs in the backstory chapters - is known for giant elk-like oxen that roams the dusty wasteland, as well as smaller lizard creatures and a few strange, venomous mammals. They also have giant birds, known as Harpies, which have a powerful screech capable of blowing out one's eardrums when too close.

Ivion is a gigantic winter desert, home to equally gigantic winter creatures, ranging from two-headed mountain lynx to absolutely enormous dragon-like creatures that burrow underneath the blanket of ice. It is also known for famously adorable, three-eyed, surprisingly big rodents similar to lemmings, which live in packs.

Stryxus has a biome akin to that of a tropical rainforest, which means the wildlife within it is incredibly varied despite the planet's small size, and that it has a vast variety of insects, mammals, lizards, and all kinds of animals you would expect from that environment. And even some you wouldn't expect.

The oceanic depths of Thallassen, in the heart of the Khosmonian galaxies, host especially gargantuan creatures, from pacific whale-like creatures with four, giant glowing eyes, to monstrous predatory lamprey-like creatures that lurk in the water.

7. How do your characters travel/get around?

The main form of transportation between planets, settlements and galaxies are starships/spaceships of varying shapes, sizes and fuel capabilities. Each planet has its own varied form of in-land transportation, but ranging from different animal mounts, hoverbikes, bullet trains, specialized boats/ships, submarines, and/or especially flying cars in the big cities.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I'm currently writing the first draft of this WIP, and am around the third or fourth chapter of the Prologue Act (which consists of five chapters, or episodes). I already have an alpha reader (@sarandipitywrites) who is helping me a lot with ironing out the details of this story! I'm really happy about the progress I'm finally being able to make!

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) You think will draw your audience in?

General tropes: Found Family, Heists, Space Exploration, Whump (especially Lab Whump), rebelling against the system, Dystopian Utopia, Secret bioengineering scheme (as the main threat from the villains), loveable cyborgs/robots, etc!

For romance: Friends to Lovers, Rivals/Enemies to Lovers, Grumpy/Sunshine, etc

Familial/Friendship Tropes: Wholesome father-daughter duo (who are a former assassin and his feisty adoptive daughter), Protective Older Brother & Willful Younger Sister, Adoptive Siblings, general group of misfits fighting against an oppressive government, etc.

For more tropes & details, check out the WIP Intro!

10. What are your hopes for your WIP?

I hope I'll be able to finally finish the first draft of this story this year and that I'll publish it (probably self-publishing or something similar!) in the near future! I generally also hope to have a lot of fun writing it, and that other people will have fun reading this too (especially my friends)!

Tagging (gently) @your-absent-father @ray-writes-n-shit @drchenquill, @saltysupercomputer @agirlandherquill

@sleepy-night-child, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab,

@winterandwords, @cowboybrunch, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart @sm-writes-chaos

@leave-her-a-tome, @writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid

@lassiesandiego, @thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams

@the-golden-comet, @elshells

And OPEN TAG