#I'm missing some others but meh it doesn't matter

[amaya-writes]

rewatched black clover then saw your event and now i'm thinking how would Finral, Gauche and Leo introduce their fiance to their siblings. for the sake of this req let's say their siblings had no idea they were getting engaged (for Leo maybe his sis knew but brother didn't? idk i cant imagine neither of them knowing)

Ringtober Masterlist

Notes: sorry for the delay!

Warnings: n/a just fluff

Characters involved: Finral Roulacase, Gauche Adlai, Leopold Vermillion

Fem reader, you/yours

Finral Roulacase

His brother needs a minute.

Literally just points at Finral then you and goes you actually managed to convice her to fall for you?

Might make fun of Finral a bit but Finral can tell he's secretly happy for him.

Langris is more interested in the ring than you, he is glad to say that his brother has good taste in jewellery.

They end up discussing family matters after that and what's going to happen with certain pre established marriage agreements.

Overall Langris doesn't really care much, sure he's happy his brother found someone but it's kind of a 'meh' moment for him.

He isn't interested in getting to know you either, in his head you're like the Black Bulls—someone his brother likes but he doesn't particularly care for.

Don't expect to see much of him around either, although he does expect a wedding invite even if he might snark on about not attending.

He does in fact attend.

Gauche Adlai

His sister is so excited it's honestly adorable.

You've already met in the past since Gauche had to introduce the two most important girls in his life to each other, but she gets very excited at the prospect of having you as her future sister.

Gauche has to roam around with tissues because he keeps getting nosebleeds at the idea of the three of you living together like a happy lil family.

Once she finds our you're going to be her future sister in law his sister constantly asks about you when Gauche visits. He almost can't visit her without you because she sometimes seems sad and then Gauche feels very bad.

This one time the two of you got into a fight and she asked about you and told Gauche something along the lines of you better not take my sister away from me and to this day he does his best to never argue with you.

Overall your relationship is really sweet. Since Gauche is kind of like her father figure anyways you sort of become a maternal figure for her.

Leopold Vermillion

Fuegoleon is so genuinely surprised he doesn't even know how to react.

Their parents called all three children to the house for dinner which was surprising in itself, so when he sees you there he is pretty confused.

You're a close family friend, and ever since you were children it was sort of a given that Leo was yours and you were his. You two were just fated to be together.

But Fuegoleon presumed that his parents would at least give him of all people some forewarning before an engagement.

He ends up finding out that Leo actually proposed out of nowhere, you accepted and told both families a few days ago.

So why was Fuegoleon so late to the party?

His sister finds the entire situation funny and doesn't miss a beat before teasing Fuegoleon for being slow and not seeing the signs. Like how Leo suddenly decided to visit their grandfather (for a ring that was pre decided) the day he proposed.

Fuegoleon is honestly very pleased with the entire ordeal. You were always like a little sister to him anyways, but now that relationship is just solidified.

He does however tease Leo quite a bit about being a man and the responsibilities that come with marriage.

He's kind of surprised that Leo is going to be the first of the three of them to be married. That's Fuegoleon biggest concern rather than the sudden announcement.

Mereoleona definitely teases him about how their little brother has a better love life than him.

[dreamwreaver]

I fully agree with you on your takes about Vaggie and Charlastor in general.

I wouldn't mind Chaggie being canon if the show did a better job at having the relationship say something about them instead of just meshing them together like a kid making their dolls kiss.

In fact, I would even go as far to say Alastor did MORE for Charlie than Vaggie ever did! Because he did so out of his own volition, and taking her somewhere where her passion would help them!

Where as everything Vaggie does is tied to making Charlie happy to some extent, not even her going to Carmilla to find a way to fight against the angels is of her own volition! Everything she does is all for and centered around Charlie.

Which kind of beckons the question of would she even still do these things or even stick around if Charlie wasn't her girlfriend. It all feels like the most change she went through was just changing leaders to follow, instead of following a leader that's cruel, she follows a leader that's nicer.

I REALLY hope as the show goes on Vaggie will get the much needed development she needed.

I think that's the biggest problem I have with canon chaggie as it stands. Like, this could be the lumity of adult animation, but it's just... meh? Like cool, they're kind of there. I know in another as I mentioned Kim and Ron as an example of what main characters in a relationship should be, but Lumity is honestly the more accurate example, especially considering how dirty Disney did the third season.

Luz is the cheerful, optimistic bisexual who is ultimately the chosen of a powerful entity just like Charlie (difference being one is descended from one the other is chosen to be imbued with its power) when they face down their nemesis it's with a strength that comes from having their kindness used, abused, and dismissed by said enemy. And ironically, their main antagonist is someone who is so assured of their own self-righteousness and goodness that it doesn't matter what they do or who they harm in the process.

Amity by contrast is the strictly raised over achiever who ultimately has a heart of gold beneath her stern and stand offish appearance. People associate that song "Little Miss Perfect" with her for a reason, though I do feel it applies to Vaggie as well. The difference between amity and vaggie though is that amity's interactions with luz encourage her to rebel against that image. Aside from Charlie offering her a bandage for her eye and indicating immediate interest... what does she bring out in Vaggie? Protective instincts? I mean... cool but we saw that a cannibal kid cowering in fear was enough for her to challenge her own beliefs so it's not like being with Charlie really changed her view of sinners. Hell, like Lucifer she still seems to approach them with condescension and derision, not the best approach for someone managing a rehab hotel right?

And let me be clear, whatever it takes is a great song. But it kind of shows the unhealthier aspects of Vaggie's side in their relationships. "I'll be your armor, I'll spend my life being your partner" you cannot be someone's armor and their partner because true partnership is equal, not one consistently protecting the other. And not to shit all over Vaggie I think her backstory has the capacity to be very moving. But Charlie... isn't the best partner to her.

Can I be real? I love my girl, I am not bashing for the sake of bashing. But Charlie has a tendency to get so wrapped up in her own stuff that vaggie's wants/needs often get... ignored? Not prioritized at the nicest. Vaggie seems hesitant about trust exercises? Well let's put her in charge of the whole thing! Vaggie doesn't want to go to heaven? Charlie makes her come anyways (which, side note if sinners can visit heaven Alastor as a shrewd businessman would have made a better choice just logically or at the very least give a reason why he can't go he's just not in that episode at all for some reason). And she kind of uses the "I'm your partner and I need your support" thing a lot on vaggie. Which, even if it's true Charlie, sweetie, please notice when your girlfriend needs you too.

Vaggie does have points at times about Charlie's ideas being too grandiose or impractical but the average way that goes is;

Vaggie: Charlie no,

Charlie: Charlie yes!

And then chaos happens and it somehow all works out and there's no apology from anyone. I'm also still kind of mad that Charlie didn't LET vaggie apologize for keeping that secret. Like, no, Charlie had as much right to be mad about that as vaggie did for keeping that secret and y'all really need to evaluate your relationship and boundaries and communication skills before you decide to continue it.

One other thing that bothers me is that... literally if you removed the introduction scene to Lucifer and the kiss in the last episode literally no one would be able to tell for sure they're a couple. And tbh? That's just bad writing. Especially considering how much they sideline vaggie from all love interest duties. Charlie's in danger? Lucifer to the rescue! And like... seriously, what was the point of giving vaggie her wings back if she couldn't use them to rescue her girlfriend? Why did she get those back? She doesn't fly at any other point after that, and sure maybe it's a case of she's gone for so long without them it's like learning to fly all over again, but at that point maybe give her wings that are incapable of sustaining her weight in flight? Something to indicate she's got them back but they're impractical for combat use so she has to rely on riding the goat dragons and Charlie falling from a high place would require someone with full sized wings to tackle the problem.

Look, I went into this show knowing that chaggie was canon and that Viv had been planning on doing much of what she called "fan service" for them. But for the love of god at least make it so that people cannot argue they're a couple. A complication of "Chaggie moments" on Amazon's YouTube is them just... talking. Bro, come on.

Vaggie deserves better. Charlie deserves better. Canon chaggie deserves better and the shippers who are not entitled assholes certainly deserve better than having to do all the fucking legwork for a canon ship. At least charlastor being non canon means I have every right to over react about the nuggets of content they give us. One day I will go over some of the insane ramblings I have for why they did so much for the non canon ship but not today lol

[undercat-overdog]

Third and fourth episodes worse than the first two. Thoughts in no particular order.

General note: I have seen people say that RoP needed more time to develop and that studio pressures to make it faster paced hurt the show. No, what RoP needed was less time and ideally fewer storylines. Desperately need an editor. And no, this isn't a complaint about slow pacing. Its problem there is that pacing is inconsistent.

Other general note: the show has a major problem with timelines, both in its internal narration and how it fits with Tolkien canon. There are a bunch of third age elements popping up (Kings of Men burying their dead in the Barrowdowns? What Kings of Men!), but there are internal problems too, especially the disconnect between Isildur and Numenor (was Isildur in suspended animation for the time it took for Elendil to go from Mordor to the coast and then for not-Brego to travel all that way back?) There's no sense of time or distance.

Things I liked:

The spider fight at the beginning was fun! Nonsensical but very fun. Loved the gleaming spider eggs.

I like the evil Istar and his evil minions, even if the main minion dude stole his mask from General Grievous. I'm also really into the desert setting! It's new and unique.

Some of the set design is very nice. Numenor's is so pretty and I liked Tom's house, especially the star map on the ceiling.

I hope they're going for a romance with Isildur and what's-her-name. It's shallow but cute. If we must have a dead mother, I like how it was drowning and not childbirth or illness, especially in Numenor (though why the angst, Isildur, isn't the sea is always right?) I was meh on a lot of that storyline, but Isildur's cute and so is his horsemance.

Things I didn't like or were neutral on:

A minor sin, but I cannot get over how bad makeup is and has consistently been from the beginning. This time it's Saubranatar and the blond elf OC: their foundation is not the same shade as their skin and goes horribly with the wigs (blond elf OC desperately needs some purple conditioner, very brassy). At least in Bombadil they finally found a character for whom blush overload is appropriate.

Reallllly not a fan of the prosthetics either, especially with the new hobbits.

Still hate the hobbit storyline and now I have more to hate with it, in Bombadil.

I kinda wonder if they've gone to the longer hair because of all the backlash to the short hair lol.

The hobbits are looking for the promised land of Suzat? First, wtf. Second, Westron the language will not exist for a couple thousand years!

Why is we're-not-saying-he's-Gandalf the only character who has been naked so far? More than once!

Is a shot of orc baby the reason people wrote articles about how rop added morally complexity and greyness? Lol.

The Numenorean storyline is incoherent and terminally stupid. I realize that last season didn't leave them a great foundation: still terminally stupid. Why didn't the eagle talk? I do think Pharazon in particular has potential, but he's way underdeveloped.

What the hell is Theo's vest thing? They've moved into a (ruined) settlement and have running water, they no longer need to muck farm! Also I would like if the evil helmet haired kid never comes back. Cannot express how little I care about him or his and Arondir's stepdad angst. He and Isildur sure are monster magnets though.

Speaking of monsters, it felt like an rpg where the DM kept rolling for random monster encounters. In two episodes, we got spiders, Sarlacc creature, Eagles, Ent and Entwife, angry person-eating tree, barrowwights, I'm sure I'm missing something. Just randomly take shit and throw it in, doesn't matter if it fits, fans like references! It's pandering filler that doesn't advance the storyline.

Can we stop it with the PJ movie callbacks? I'm resigned to never getting away from his aesthetics, but all the recreations of different shots. I guess they took the Barrowwight look from Pirates of the Caribbean and not PJ?

We know she's an Entwife and not an Ent because she has flowers.

Lmao that is so much metal to make Rings and the mithril lump is not big. Is it homeopathic mithril? And for a show named after Rings, they sure don't spend a lot of time on them.

I have very little good to say about Celebrimbor and that storyline but it's a character and place I'm deeply invested in so I'll leave that be. On a couple neutral notes, Charles Edwards' acting is better than last season (where I was very not impressed) and I'm curious what they'll do with Elrond's antipathy towards the Three, given that he'll later end up bearing one.

The end credits song at the end of episode 4 was hilariously incongruent.

[hyperpotamianarch]

Well, I can hardly believe I chose this to be my fourth original post, but meh, who cares. Anyway, random note about Howell Jenkins!

Firstly, I'm talking about book Howl, which is why I spelled it Howell - this is his original name, he changed it in Ingary to sound more impressive. He's actually from Wales, which honestly means little to me as someone who never set foot in Britain, but I think I get the general gist of it.

Many things can be said of Howl. He's not really a noble and gentle, if slightly narcissistic, person as you might think after watching the movie. He's mostly a selfish coward, likes to woo ladies but seemingly afraid of commitment, is very bad with money, and... Umm... Yeah, there are other posts that do a better job than I am in characterizing Howl. That's not what I'm here to talk about. Suffice it to say that he's somehow likable in spite of all these flaws.

What I am here to talk about, however, is two common misconceptions about Howl that are somewhat related to the flaws listed above: one is that Howl is running away from student debt and didn't finish his doctorate, and the other is that he invented the titular Moving Castle to evade taxes. While those actions are indeed in character for Howl, they are both contradicted by the book itself (to a degree).

To start with the first one: Howell only talks about his thesis once in the book - when explaining to miss Angorian, an English teacher, why he has a magic spell. Book readers likely know who I'm talking about, and for non book readers, I'm afraid I'll leave the rest of the context to your imagination. Either way, Howell tells miss Angorian that she may have heard that he wrote his doctoral thesis on charms and spells. Notice, "wrote". As in past tense.

To be fair, that doesn't necessarily mean he finished his doctorate. As a matter of fact, it could be a rumor he started in order to explain away why he had spell books. It certainly won't be the first rumor Howl started for his own convenience. But if it tells us anything about him having a doctorate, it tells us he finished it. I don't know much about student loans in UK during the 80's, so that isn't a point I can say anything about, but I am given to understand it was less of a problem.

So, did Howl run away from his doctorate to the magical land if Ingary? No, he didn't. He actually kind of fulfilled every nerd's dream of both doing what he likes most and using it to write his doctoral thesis, killing two birds with one stone. To be honest, what I still don't get is why he kept contact with his old world. I mean, Suliman seems to have cut ties - we never hear of him going back. But Howl, even if we didn't see him use the black door as much at first, seems to keep some contact with his sister and her family, keep a car etc. He might only visit rarely, but he still does.

Anyway, for the second misconception I decided to bring in the big guns: a direct book quote about why the moving castle. Not all quotes on the topic, though, because I'm lazy. Anyway, look here:

This is in chapter four of HMC. It's revealed later in the book that the "someone very powerful" is actually the Witch of the Waste. So, the Moving Castle is there to show everyone what a Horrible and Powerful Wizard Howl is. Also, to avoid attention from the Witch of the Waste.

Sophie herself, in the next paragraph, questions the usefulness of such a tactic. I think it might actually be an explanation of why Howl decided the Castle had to be moving - maybe it's harder to magically detect that way, I don't know. Either way, it's not to avoid taxes - especially considering the fact Howl has an address in Kingsbury, the capital of Ingary, and that this address is known to the local authorities.

I would also like to prematurely dispell an almost plausible headcanon: Sophie's hat-sewing causes so much of the plot, after all. So you might be tempted, when reading that she told a hat that someone should set Howl and the Witch up together, to think that she's responsible for that as well. However, considering the quote presented above, it appears that Howl and the Witch dated before Howl created the Moving Castle, which was the inciting incident for Sophie hearing about him. Thus, Sophie is not guilty whatsoever of getting Howl and the Witch together - just of being oddly on point.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

[sporesgalaxy]

Talking about reading fanfic when you haven't interacted with the source material:

I think there's a lot of depends, especially when it comes to multi-player video games. There's not a lot of story and the game costs money, so instead you interact with fan artists & writers to get your fill.

I love horror games, but hate playing with random people and my friends don't play those games. Dead by Daylight has a lot of fanfic and fanart I like and I adore the original killers they have.

This happens with a lot of horror movies for me too just because there's a lot of meh movies with good concepts and fanfic writers often do that concept better and/or I'm more interested in the killer's story and character more than the leads.

I guess I technically interact with the source material if you count watching 20 min of compiled scenes from a movie. I love horror but there's so many tropes I hate about it that I don't want to sit through. Part of that may also be because I'm not a big scare person either. I'm not here to be scared by horror I'm here to find beauty in the disturbing and disgusting! And when I DO want to be scared, fanfic writers tend to do a much better job with how they make things feel so much more real

Video games are I think where a lot of people misunderstand what I (personally) mean by taking in the source material. How much you can engage with the source text without playing it yourself can vary a LOT on a case-by-case basis in games.

In my limited experience with multiplayer online game characters, playing the game yourself isn't as important as engaging with the character writing, which is usually more separate from gameplay since there's not normally cutscenes in online play.

I'm biased because I suck shit at games, but in my opinion, if the story of the characters in the multiplayer horror game is told through text blurbs and cutscenes and advertisement clips, and you watch/read all those things, just like someone who played the game would, that's close enough to engaging with the source material to me. You've taken in the tone of the source writing and you have most of the facts. Maybe there's some context lacking if you don't listen to every possible in-game voice line, but I think the effort to understand whatever you can get your hands on counts for a lot here.

With the horror movies...I guess I can't totally discount watching clip compilations based on what I just said about engaging with certain video games. But I stand by my assertion that you're missing out on valuable intertext for the parts of the movies you haven't seen, and I think it still takes away from your overall experience.

If there's a terrible sexist trope in the source movie, and the fanfic author changes how that scene goes, doesn't it matter how they changed it? How exactly the scene went originally? Did the original sexist trope fall in line with the themes the movie meant to convey? If it did, how does changing it effect that? Does it make the theme feminist-inclusive, or does it just gloss it over and pretend sexism doesn't exist and doesn't tie into the theme of the movie? If you never watched the scene, you can't entirely know / have formed an opinion!

I understand avoiding stuff that is too anxiety-inducing (I've done that with tons of stuff for most of my life because of my OCD). I can't really help you with dealing with when the movie just Is Successfully Scary. But for the stuff you read fanfic to see rewritten.........I feel like ignoring "sitting through" the shitty parts in the source material is robbing yourself of valuable experiences, too, even if those experiences kinda suck?

Understanding the structure of the shitty parts of media (and how one could disassemble them, if so inclined) is how we can learn to recognize shitty patterns we're otherwise accustomed to in all the other media we engage with regularly. It's a really valuable skill to have. So I think that specifically getting into stuff that HAS problems you KNOW about, and yet making no effort to Understand those problems fully (not that people can't fail to understand even if they engage with the source material, unfortunately), is just...a waste of a perfectly good learning experience?? I'm not the boss of you obviously but that's my two cents.

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Feeling very violent rn so here's a very controversial opinion:

Everything after season one of Young Justice sucked.

Look, I know I'm obsessed with the show but that doesn't mean it's good, it means that I'm too deep into it at this point to get out. There are good moments within the other seasons but in general? They were not good.

I'm sorry. I understand that they wanted to be creative and have a neat narrative and deep lore and all that. And they do! The narrative and lore is extremely deep.

But the plot? The characters??

Season one was an actual functional show that balanced character development, plot and dialogue with world building, lore and messaging.

The other seasons do not do that.

Season two bounced back and forth between like 16 characters. We got some development for some characters but even that was minimal compared to the character development in S1. And this isn't me complaining that the og group wasn't in S2 enough. That's not my issue. I would've loved to focus on a new group and I think that Jaime, Bart, Ed and Gar would've been super cool to focus on. I loved what character development they did have and I craved more.

But the problem? The problem is when you have 16 fucking characters that you are trying to develop and shove into a coherent plot and have actual meaningful scenes. There just wasn't enough focus on S2. Imo, S2 was meh because the characters got left by the wayside. The plot, dialogue, world building, lore and messaging was fine, there just seemed to be a lack of heart/warmth in the show because of the characters. It's hard to get invested.

Then holy shit. S3 introduced more characters. And the plot got more contrived and 'big picture' to the point that it started to abstract. It felt like nothing mattered. There were no stakes, you were just watching things happen. There was 50 fucking things happening an episode and 80% of it was lore/world building. It felt like I was studying for a fictional history exam.

I'm pretty sure the main character in S3 was earth 16. Just the entire universe. Because goddamn. We checked in on almost every living being and EVERYTHING was a plot point. Most of it wasn't even relevant to anything happening in the season. Man it was.... it was bad.

And at that point it just wasn't enjoyable at all to watch. I probably should've stopped watching but at that point the sunk cost fallacy had already kicked in. I knew it could be good. Maybe it could be good again. And people were constantly praising it as cinematic genius so I was like 'okay well maybe I'm missing the point? Maybe you aren't supposed to enjoy shows? Maybe this is fine?'

But season four broke me.

The creators heard that people were frustrated by the lack of character focus and the episodes following 72 characters and the episodes switching between 50 different subplots every episode and their solution? Their solution was to take allllllll the different unconnected plots and, instead of evenly spreading them throughout the season, jam them all into 'arcs'. So you had a bunch of mini seasons consisting of 3-5 episodes dedicated to a cast of ~5-8 characters (some of them new). And each of these episodes had unconnected a plots, b plots and c plots.

THAT IS NOT A SOLUTION

Holy shit that is not a solution.

Not to mention the overarching plot of the season, in which we had no fucking clue what was happening until the final episodes where everything became a speedrun to wrap everything up. We literally had no idea what the main plot was until it was ending.

Good god it was bad. It's bad writing!

I know people liked it and good for them. You should like what you like and you don't have to justify it. But for me it was insanity. I'm sorry I actually don't want a season long subplot where Beast Boy is depressed and sleeps all day. I would be cool with it if it had anything to do with the larger story but, surprisingly, spending five minutes watching Beast Boy sleep every episode didn't make for compelling storytelling.

I'm still not over how we didn't even know who the main villain was until the end of the season. And then all of a sudden he does a villain monologue to tell everyone his evil plan and his motives. Super cool actually. I love it when I have no idea what the stakes are for the majority of a show. It's incredibly good storytelling when you leave the audience in the dark about a major player in the plot for all of the plot. And then doing an info dump evil monologue in the final episodes to rush through the explanation??? Fucking fantastic and not a sign of terrible pacing at all.

I'm just so frustrated. The show isn't about being a show anymore. The show is an entire cinematic universe shoved into 20 something episodes. It's desperate to tell every single story at once, audience, pacing and good writing be damned.

I'm so tired of the constant praising of Greg. His whole 'i don't write endings because life doesn't have endings' and 'i don't write cliffhangers, I just leave things open ended' thing is pretentious bullshit. I'm tired of pretending it's not. A good story has an ending. Stories are not life! Some of the best shows I've ever watched had planned endings. And oh my god. The cliffhanger thing... that's just semantics my guy. Greg you write cliffhangers. You can insist they aren't but I'm going to call a spade a spade.

It's also.... I'm fine with explaining things, in fact I love it because it's an excuse to talk about the stuff I love, and I have a fairly decent knowledge of comic book lore. So, I could not only understand what was happening in the show but I was also super enthusiastic about explaining it to people. But hey Greg? Hey buddy? If 90% of your audience doesn't know what the fuck is going on and needs to be familiar with super specific obscure comic characters from the 70's then you might have a problem.

I think I realized halfway through s4 that the most enjoyment I got from an episode was when an obscure comic character would cameo in it. But then I realized that a) they generally weren't explained at all and b) 50% of the time they weren't just hanging out in the background and they were vital to the plot. So to understand who the fuck they were and what the fuck was happening you had to be familiar with... well all of DC comics actually.

Anyway this rant is getting long and unhinged and I don't think there's a point so I'm going to cut myself off even though I have so much more to say on the topic. I think my general point is just that I didn't enjoy watching the later seasons and it's chill if you did and we should all respect each other's opinions ✌️

[xpao-bearx]

Okay S O--

I promise I'm updating my Moon Knight fic (Like A Virgin), but this is an idea that's been nagging me like Khonshu for a while now and I've finally decided to share it! But please keep in mind that it's just what it is: an IDEA. So I'm sorry if this sounds a bit messy/incomplete/all over the place (and there's a possibility that some things could be changed), it's literally just me rambling and I think it's actually a pretty interesting idea! And this turned out a lot longer than expected ;-;

At the moment, I also have no clue what I wanna do with this idea (or if I'll ever even do anything with it at all). But I, obviously, take all credit for this so please don't steal (or at least tell me if you got inspired and plan on writing a similar fic to this cuz I would totally read the F U C K out of it) 🙃

Anywhore--

So my idea is, basically, this: The story begins in Season 1 of Moon Knight and it mainly revolves around a romance with our one and only sassy baby boy, Steven Grant (and of course with some 🔥spahcy🔥 smut thrown in) ❤️

For Steven's love interest, I dunno if it would be an original female character OR a Fem!Reader situation going on, so for now we'll just refer to the love interest as MC (main character)

Now MC and Steven live in the same apartment building and are next door neighbours. They've also been dating for quite some time, but strangely enough Steven doesn't remember ever asking out MC.

Steven and MC are pretty much what is considered to be the "perfect couple". You can really tell that they love and care about each other a lot, but recently a rift has been slowly but surely growing between them. It all started when Steven has been mysteriously disappearing, sometimes for days on end with MC not being able to contact him and not knowing his whereabouts. It doesn't help that Steven doesn't know anything either which, obviously, is very concerning but MC really likes Steven a lot and (maybe quite foolishly) chooses to let the matter go. MC thinks that whatever the hell is going on, there is a good explanation for it and can be resolved once Steven is ready to open up.

But things only become much worse from there when Steven started to miss dates and other important events in his and MC's relationship. There are also some days when Steven acts very odd, being cold towards MC and acting as if he didn't even know who she is which obviously hurts MC especially when she continuously tries to help him and just wanting to figure out what's happening.

It eventually comes to a point when MC couldn't take it anymore so she goes to confront Steven about his behaviour. She is rightfully mad and confused, but nothing changes the fact that she's still very much in love with him and wants to properly work things out.

Once MC goes to Steven's apartment using the spare key she has, she is shocked to find a woman there (this is shortly after Steven is fired from the museum and he discovers Marc's things + the scarab in the storage locker). A frazzled Steven is shocked when MC suddenly appears, too, especially when the woman--Layla--introduced herself as his wife.

MC couldn't even say--do--anything, only staring at Steven with such hurt, angry, disappointed eyes before running out the door and out of the building. Steven chased after MC to explain, but he wasn't fast enough and the damage was already done.

Fast forward into Season 2 (I know at this point in time there's no S2 but just indulge me LMAO xD), MC is revealed to be living with a friend of hers as she picks up the pieces of her broken heart and starts anew.

But here's a lil twist: After the events with Harrow and the gods' Avatars died, MC became Hathor's (the goddess of love and music) new Avatar. I still don't know how this came to be, but just roll with meh 👍

While MC does her missions for Hathor, she eventually crosses paths once more with a familiar face who she is surprised to find out is Khonshu's (another god Hathor has quite smittenly told MC a lot about) Avatar--Steven.

Only... This isn't actually Steven, but a man who claims to be Jake Lockley.

Jake then explains to MC that Steven has dissociative identity disorder and that he, along with another man named Marc Spector, were alters in a system with Steven. Obviously this is a fucking LOT to take in, but MC eventually believes Jake and it made sense as to why Steven acted different sometimes when they were still together.

It is also revealed that Jake was the one who asked MC out and before Steven even knew her, Jake was the one who liked her first. But in an attempt to keep MC all for himself, Jake doesn't say the truth about Layla, of how she is now Marc's ex-wife since things never worked out with them and Steven is still very much hung up and in love with MC. So MC is kept in the dark about everything, still believing that Steven lied and cheated on her.

It is definitely weird meeting Jake, especially when Jake is extremely open about his feelings for MC and continuously attempts to go out of his way to find her and woo her (to no avail). MC knows that despite sharing the same body, Jake is an entirely different person. But it hurts a lot to just look at him since all she sees is Steven.

Overtime, however, MC gets over her heartbreak and realizes that she also has feelings for Jake and decides to say "fuck it" and take a leap of faith. At this point in time, MC is still under the impression that Steven is married to Layla (even though she hasn't seen the woman again at all). Deep down, MC knows that it's wrong, but she really does like Jake and believes that they both deserve to live their own lives and have a relationship with each other, even if it may be challenging to keep it a secret.

Once MC confesses to Jake, he realizes that what he's doing is wrong and if he truly cared about her, he needed to be honest. So Jake takes MC out on a date and plans on telling her everything, but before he had the chance to Steven suddenly gained control of the body!

Steven and Marc have both had suspicions for a while that there's a third alter and now it's been confirmed, along with the two of them being surprised and infuriated that Khonshu isn't actually out of their lives. But the more pressing matter is that MC was here, right now, with Steven, even though it shattered his heart to see her looking at him with those same pained, spiteful eyes that haunted him when she completely disappeared from his life.

But in a panicked rush, Steven told MC everything. Of how he didn't know he had DID before, about coming to terms with Marc's existence and Steven's own purpose, of how Layla was actually Marc's wife and they were now divorced, etc.

All of this was much harder to take in than when Jake told MC about their situation. Although, meeting Steven again made MC realize that she did still love him as much as she loved Jake. But that didn't erase the pain in MC's heart and while she was glad that the truth was finally out and all the misunderstandings were cleared up, MC just needed time. Time to heal, time to just really wrap her head around everything and determine where she stands in Steven and Jake's lives and where they stand in hers.

So that's what MC did. As much as Steven missed her, as desperate as he was to hug her and kiss her and just say that everything will be okay, he respected her decision. And he understood because he, too, needed time to get his and Marc's and Jake's shit together.

As time passes, MC and Steven meet again. And this time, they were ready to be together once more and for forever. Jake is there, too, and they all work together to navigate through their unconventional romance, but they don't worry too much because they know they will be alright. Because, just like the constellations in the night sky, their hearts had a special connection.

But as MC's love blooms with Steven and Jake, Marc is there. He's always there, like a dark shadow. Unlike the other two, Marc actively avoided MC and/or openly expressed his distaste. He didn't love Layla anymore, but the divorce really affected him as well as his perception on relationships. He just didn't want to suffer through that same heartbreak again, but this time he had a lot more to be protective over because he not only had to watch over himself, but also Steven and Jake. He absolutely would never forgive you and himself if you broke the boys' hearts.

Though let's just say, long story short, that you work things out with Marc and wormed your way into this lovable grump's heart 🥰

There are also two potential endings for this story. Ideally, of course, I LOVE a happy ending and I want them all to simply be lovey dovey (which they DESERVE). The other ending, ROUGHLY, is that some bad shit goes down and MC ends up having to sacrifice herself to keep the Moon Boys safe and she dies. This obviously completely fucks the boys up, so much so that they never fully accept MC's death while also losing their will to live and blaming themselves. As a result, during a mission for Khonshu, the boys are so out of their element that they end up being killed by their enemy.

B U T even tho me likes some good ol' angst, I could never actually go through it without a proper conclusion!! SO when the boys die, they meet and be with MC again who's been eagerly waiting for them at the Field of Reeds, truly for all eternity now and just U G H MY HEART 😭💔

Now that I've written this out, I'm SO fooken excited!! Though, as I said, this is only an IDEA (at least for now)

Buuut what do y'all think??? :3

[i-restuff]

a personal Mario movie review from yours truly.

ok, so, I'm very natural over Mario franchise. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. so this review is mainly from someone who is there only for the animation (also for Jack Black ofc). cool? cool. alright.

spoilers below

I'm going to be super upfront with the "good stuff", and sorta detailed with the "meh stuff". mostly because the good stuff is very self-explanatory while for the negative ones I feel like at least I should give a little bit of reason why I feel that way.

good stuff

I love the world-building, everything is very well-detailed and the environment is insanely rich

character designs? love it. they look absolutely alive and expressive

the casting. I think they're all really good???? I personally think Chris Pratt is alright too ig? I mean I kinda don't care, I was distracted with everything else in the movie. but he's fine.

Jack Black. nuff said.

I love Toad. I love Peach. DK. BROWSER??? everyone's very likable damn.

I'm obsessed with the 3d models ngl. there are times when I was focused more on the models than I was on the story. It's really distracting in a good way.

Storywise, I think it's decent but also fun!

love love love the dynamic between Mario and Luigi. Peak dynamic, really.

Such a nostalgia trip. I for one who doesn't know much about Mario had such a blast listening to all the soundtracks and looking at the itsy bitsy references and such.

obsessed with Lumalee. let em die :(

/////////////

the credit animation is super colorful I wish I could eat it.

^ I was watching this with a friend who is obsessed with Mario. there are times when he went absolutely insane and explained some stuff that I didn't know. which I think it's cool! it's crazy how there are literally easter eggs and fan service everywhere, it doesn't feel forced too. I really could see why people love it so much.

meh stuff

ok, imma be honest. I'm just gonna complained about the plot holes here,, It didn't really effect the story, but it did confuse me a bunch of times. again, this is coming from someone who doesn't know much about Mario. I might miss some stuff.

the transition when Mario/Luigi got teleported from Brooklyn to the Mushroom Kingdom. like, why? what's so special about that specific pipe?

also before that. why's Brooklyn drowning all of a sudden lmaoo. that part kinda felt forced just so Mario and Luigi had a reason to go below the sewer. it sorta makes sense I guess? but the pacing is pretty dang weird.

how does Peach know her own kind? "you're a human!". she was a literal baby when she first got to the Mushroom Kingdom

I love love love Toad character. I just don't understand his presence? I mean sure, he's bringing the comedy, but you could find the "comedy" elsewhere too. so his character is a bit useless despite him being the protector. long story short, the movie would be fine with or without him < this is how much his character matters imo.

the pacing after Mario agreed to fight with DK and then suddenly he's on the stage. tbf this isn't really a big deal? but the transition kinda bugged me.

I don't know what exactly they wanted to do with Mario and Peach relationship. do they like each other romantically? it doesn't feel like it despite being teased a few times.

my dude Luigi has to sit in the cage for how long now? kinda suck. I wanna know more about him, I wanna see him more in action.

that being said. I wish they did more with Luigi, give him something to develop on. because seeing him fighting Browser doesn't feel as rewarding as how we see Mario. all he did most of the time was get caught and sit in a cage while Mario had to go through all those bullshit. but I get it though. storytelling wise, Luigi is supposedly Mario's goal. to get him back and all that. I get that.

I can't feel sad for Mario for some reason??? (this has nothing to do with Cris Pratt btw). his supposedly "emotional" scenes didn't impact me at all. in fact, I felt awkward. I honestly don't know why though.

the final fight scene is also awkward? I mean it's cool, don't get me wrong. I think it has to do with where they're fighting? I guess imma blame Brooklyn for this.

the 80's pop songs felt out of place, but maybe that's just me.

personal rating? 7.

but I genuinely get why people love this movie.

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

I don't think Layover did great tbh. Terrible on YouTube (including all his MVs, Tiny Desk, and music show performances), underperformed in the biggest music markets, did poorly on k-charts (that debut was abysmal compared to the other members), predicted for less first week albums in the US than D-Day despite an extra version (but waiting on chart). Here’s a chart I’ve seen floating around Twitter that gives a good idea. Probably need to verify some of it, but I think it’s mostly accurate...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F6LDbz4bYAADB7M?format=jpg&name=medium

His fanbases started working really hard on his first week Spotify streams when they realized he wasn’t doing great anywhere else, so he ended up with higher first week streams than FACE and LC, but barely, and most of his streams came from SEA (which isn’t a big deal or anything, but a lot of it was definitely from mass streaming farms). He also had a massive day 8 drop and allegedly way lower than day 8 for FACE. And let’s note that Layover has one extra song instead of an interlude too. He’s also higher on some official album charts, but that’s only because FACE wasn’t eligible because it’s an EP. He had much bigger overall album sales, but we were expecting that with vbar. I think they bought like 840k? So over 1/3 of his sales.

Unless I’m missing some achievements or got something wrong (I haven’t kept up with everything), I think it was a pretty meh debut considering all the promo he did and the fact that he’s “the most popular member”. They only have those first week streams, pretty sure. LMA has had good longevity though, so I guess we'll see. And BTW, they’re saying his hot100 performance was hurt because of DC2 sales being gone, which, sure, but he had 50k Slow Dancing CDs to compensate, way more than LC, and they couldn't even completely sell them out. I think his stans were using VPN to buy on iTunes in the US too because a few days in he went from 1 to 44 on iTunes chart with no explanation and never recovered. Curious what his final sales end up being. I'm not saying he did bad, but I don't think it's really anything to brag about either... I haven't seen a ton of objective people talking about it though so idk for sure.

The spreadsheet is killing me hahahs #dedication. I would like to know the missing numbers and positions, tho! Still, thank you.

I knew about kcharts, youtube, albums, and first week on spotify for the album. I saw some number that I assume included his prereleases, and it really is nothing major considering the first tracks released, and the fact that it had one more song than face. Just five minutes ago I saw that on their 8th day, like crazy (combined) had the same number of streams as Taehyung's entire album??

Sidenote: if there's one thing I was forced to learn this year, is how much difference combined versions of a song can make.

I don't think he had that much of international promo, or at least I didn't see it. I know he's been to A LOTTT of korean shows, and also his promo for pre-releases was already longer than Jimin's, but I think he just comes across as a really uninteresting person so I don't know if people would actually tune in to his music, no matter how many times they see him on TV. He definitely got more than Jimin, that's 1000% for sure, even if we consider the MVs alone; he got the same thing Jimin was denied.

I knew he'd get more albums sales, because past experience. And I knew they'd try hard to stream to break some "records", even if it won't hold up for too long. I also knew he doesn't really have many fans in the US, (I still think Jimin's the most popular member there). I've also been saying since the day I opened this blog that his "popularity" is overrated and he's never really been in the same league as Jimin when it comes to music. I blew off so many people here who would come up to me and try to convince me he was competition to Jimin or better than him in some way.

I guess the only thing I'm surprised with is youtube. I got his tiny desk video on my homepage today (saved it to watch later) and it has less than 300k views.......... It's kinda crazy. I wonder if part of the reason he got his visual album was because his youtube numbers were usually better than everyone else's combined and they believed he'd do good.

Oh, and the songs credits. It's unbelievable to me that he did NOTHING on it. People who work on songs get credits even for writing two words, so I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that he didn't do anything at all.

I'm also curious if they would've restocked the digital CD had it been sold out, but my gut tells me they wouldn't have, or it would've been just one more, and a smaller batch.

[gyllenhaalstories]

Hey :D I watched a few movies with Jake and I was wondering what are your fave movies and your least fave? Just curious!

hi anon!!! i hope you've enjoyed the movies you've watched so far!!! 💖 i've made it through almost his entire filmography, i think i'm missing 2 of them? yeah, that's about right. i'm avoiding nocturnal animals like the plague so maybe one day i will be brave enough to watch it and complete jake's whole filmography. it was pretty easy to select my 3 least favourites, but my top 3 had me questioning everything. i just love so many of his movies, it's not my fault! thank you so much for asking this question! i love rambling.

TOP 3 FAVOURITE MOVIES

Demolition (i remember watching this movie and i loved it so much that i watched it a second time right away. it holds such a special place in my heart and it always will!)

Brokeback Mountain and Love & Other Drugs (it feels criminal to put them at the same level but i just love them too much okay!!! they both make me cry a river)

Road House (yeah <3 jake has so many amazing movies but the rewatchability factor is very important to me and i've watched the movies mentioned above SO MANY TIMES and what's the other one that i also watched an alarming amount of times? road house. it's funny, it's pretty, it's not boring, it's not too long, it's got some depth, it's just so good. ambulance would also qualify, i love it so much too. if i was smart i would put wildlife because it gave me a similar gut punch as demolition did the first time i watched it, but i'm not smart so my vote goes for the gyllentitties)

TOP 3 LEAST FAVOURITE MOVIES

The Sisters Brothers (i love john morris & his multiple accents so much and there are elements of the movie i liked, but... it's so long... it's so boring... it's so yeehaw gold rush... it's one of the few movies of jake i have on DVD and i can assure you it won't be played very often <3)

Highway (call me boring and lame and everything you want, but i don't like alcohol and weed and stuff centered around those topics so it's kind of obvious that this movie wasn't for me. pilot's cute, i like him, but yeah. it took me forever to find this movie online in english and not spanish or russian? for some reason? so the intensive research was not all that worth it. if i ever watch it again, it's for pilot)

Life (i love david jordan and his yo-yo!!! i love him so much!!! i watched 2 alien movies in my life and they were essentially the same and i did not like them. why do they always let the aliens inside the spaceship??? aren't astronauts supposed to be smart? it's so stupid that they just think it will end well. it never ends well! so yeah i'd rather watch accidental love than life and that says A LOT.)

honourable mention for spirit untamed. i will never watch spirit untamed. i grew up watching spirit: stallion of the cimarron and my spirit would never!!! i can tell that jake's voice acting improved a lot between this movie and strange world and that's all that matters.

as a bonus, i'll give you the 3 movies that pleasantly surprised me! moonlight mile (i wasn't expecting much? i don't know, i thought it would be pretty meh but it was so good! i really liked it and it's definitely one of my rare comfort watches because jake hates me and doesn't do enough movies i can just watch easily), end of watch (it's so... intense. i almost threw up because of a certain scene, i thought i would have stopped watching before the end but i loved brian taylor so much) and stronger (one of jake's most underrated performances like woah this was so painful and so good and so yeah! i really liked it. you can tell that jake was passionate about telling this story and it deserves a lot more recognition). i'm done rambling now, thank you again for sending this! 💖

[galactic-pirates]

Writing asks: 11, 22, and 31, please!

Thank you so much for the ask!!

11) Three tropes that are fine but overrated Hmm this is a hard question because first the instant anyone asks me to name things like tropes - head empty, no thoughts. Total brain fail. Second, I don't know, I don't like to judge things. This is how I wound up writing Time Will Tell (Sanctuary Soulmates fic) because I never liked the Soulmates trope. So I challenged myself to see if I could write a version I liked and I did.

If a trope is 'overrated' is that less the problem of the trope, and more just the versions being read? Not everything can be to everyone's taste. One person's absolute favourite fic, can be somebody else's 'backspace, run far away', or just 'meh'.

I've been enjoying rambling about the romance tropes that purlturtle picked for the bracket lately. There are some there, that just are not my thing at all. Does that make them overrated? It means they aren't for me.

I'm sorry this doesn't really answer the question but it's the only answer I feel like I have.

22) What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again? I touched on this actually in one of my recent rambles on the bracket. I think I was talking about soulmates and fate, and saying that I didn't like it because love is a choice, and it takes work. Thank Eve Baird for saying that real love is hard and that's how you know it's real. But I do love those two quotes about (paraphrased) "no matter the universe I would find you, and choose you" and "I hope in every world there's an us" and it's sort of like that with the infinite ways the OTP can be together. It's transcendent. It's like that multi-verse spanning love in action. Sort of 'proving' how right they are for each other because they just fit. It doesn't matter if it's canon or AU, canon-divergent etc. Some things are just meant to be.

In other words it's comforting. Bringing order to the chaos of the universe. Saying that in this corner all is well because these two (or three) idiots have each other.

31) What was the most difficult fic for you to write (but in the end you made it)? I think I have a "kill it with fire", it's awful, it's unfixable, I can't do this, I'm fed up, I don't want to, I hate it etc. moment with most fics - or at least the longer ones. Although short fics can be buggers as well, especially if they have to be short for some reason. I loathe word limits with the fire of a thousand suns.

I don't know if I can really say that any particular fic was harder than any other. I would probably say that when I was struggling with it, but after? when it's done? The pain is temporary and it's hard to remember after. Each fic brings it's own challenges. Besides if anything was truly too much then it wouldn't qualify for the 'in the end I made it' because I didn't. My abandoned Librarians fic in the structure of the Rashoman Job (from Leverage) attests to this.

(as I'm not sure that I really answered a couple of these I'll tack on another for you)

25) Is writing the whole thing beforehand better or worse than writing it as you go? It is better because there's no risk of writing myself into a corner, and then having to abandon the fic. If I make a mistake I can go back and revise etc. I can post with absolute confidence as I know it's complete. Plus if something goes wrong then it can just live on my HD indefinitely and I can switch to a different project. It's very freeing. Would 110% recommend (I wrote all my fanfics like this from 2020 onwards).

BUT there is something to be said for a live audience. Back in the day when I first joined tumblr/AO3 and I was writing for Rumbelle, I wrote everything 'live'. I don't know if it was the fandom, the time, or what but I got a lot more engagement. There was more community and that was nice. Writing is lonely and what I miss more than anything is being able to talk to someone about my WIP, them being enthusiastic and sort of bouncing off each other. Never posting a WIP means there is zero possibility of that ever which is sad.

Still I would recommend writing it all out first. I feel like it makes for a more coherent story but that's the novelist in me.

[elliepassmore]

A Hunger of Thorns review

4/5 stars Recommended if you like: witchy reads, urban fantasy, magic, quests, LGBTQ characters

This was a hard book for me to rate because there were a lot of really good things about this book. At the same time, there were some things that felt very 'meh' to me.

To start, I really like the industrialization/capitalism-ization of magic in this book. I found it very interesting and true-to-life how magic was initially banned and then regulated into industry so that big corporations could make money off of it in the name of democratization. This background really shapes how each of the characters interacts with magic in this book, and it definately impacts Maude and her family's ways of being. I also think this background works really well and is reflected fantastically in Maude and Odette's relationship, as well as later on with Rufus. It's also very unique and not really something I've seen done before, so I think it was one of the strong points of the book.

That being said, I didn't really have a good grasp on pretty much anything else going on in this world. There are cars and power plants and phones....but there's also farms where girls can go to learn how to be housewives? There's shopping malls but Maude and Odette are lectured on how to be 'proper' girls and I'm honestly kind of confused as to whether any of the women wear pants or not (I think there was a mention of jeans at one point). The point is, this book isn't really grounded in a solid time period or world. I couldn't tell if this was supposed to be a 'way back when' kind of fantasy or an urban fantasy or an 'urban fantasy but make it the 1960s.' It was obviously not set on our earth since the place names are different, but it's in a vaguely-earth world (Anglyon = England, imo). With how strong the magic-industrialization theme is in this book and how thoroughly that impacts things, I just wanted a little more grounding in where and when this story was taking place.

Maude is someone who is constantly making up for the crimes of her mother. Her father was a pro-magic protestor who was killed before she was born and her mother was a pro-magic terrorist (though I'm unclear if she actually was a terrorist or if she just committed major crimes) who was imprisoned and died when Maude was still a child. Thus, Maude mostly tries to stay out of trouble and be a 'good' girl, lest she get branded with the same suspicion as her mother. As a result, she worries a lot about what other people think and can be a major people pleaser, though part of her journey in this book is learning to stand up for herself. This is definitely a magical quest story, but it's also a coming-of-age story, and I appreciated Maude's personal growth.

Odette is...a lot. Maude sees her through a very positive light, but even Maude's rose-colored memories of Odette don't paint a pretty picture. There's obviously some stuff going on there between her and her mother, but that doesn't excuse Odette's behavior (I'm with Rufus on this one). She generally seems like an angry, unkind person, but she does have moments when her fierceness is turned toward good and she stands up for other people, i.e., Maude. In 'present' day, it takes more cajoling to get Odette to come around, and she makes some decisions that I heartily disagreed with and thought were really just downright spiteful.

I honestly felt bad for Maude considering her and Odette's past and present relationship, though they seem to have sorted things out by the end.

I would've liked to see more of Rufus since he seemed like an interesting character and he had good perspective on things. He showed a lot of perseverance and loyalty, as well as an ability to take things in stride, no matter how crazy. He's a good friend to Maude, even when she doesn't realize it. Even when she isn't a good friend.

As mentioned in the book's summary, Odette goes missing and Maude sets out to find her and get to the bottom of her disappearance. This is where the quest comes into play and I found it to be super interesting. A large chunk of magic, as well as family secrets, are at the center of the quest, and I loved the weirdness that came with the powerful magic. There are times when the story verges into eco-horror without going full-on horror, which was a pleasant surprise. I think Maude's role in things (beyond the quest-taker) was interesting too, though I do think she makes some dumb decisions.

This book does have a good mix of twists and predictability to it. There are three major things that happen toward the end of the book that I guessed pretty much from the get-go, as well as something else that I picked up on about midway through when it was mentioned, but there was a lot about Maude's quest and about Odette that I found to be surprising. I think if you're willing to set aside the predictability, there's a lot of great twists in the book.

Overall I found this book to be enjoyable. There were some parts that I think were really fleshed out and then there were some parts that I feel got ignored. The rating for this is somewhere between 4 stars and 4.5 stars for me. I'm definitely curious to see whether any of this or the characters are mentioned/seen in the sequel!

[ftpverse]

touched by her hand an early FtPverse Namiku playlist

two replica kids trying to figure out what love is, and whether or not they're in it

(art source)

--

-> [ listen ] <-

tracklist + liner notes under the cut

--

if i'm honest with myself: all of these songs are more riku pov than they are namine, with the exclusion of "drops of jupiter" (EXTREMELY namine @ riku) and "she is", which is firmly split with the verses as namine and the chorus as riku. what about the bridge? don't worry about the bridge.

however for the sake of these liner notes i have compiled the lyrics i think best fit namine from each song followed by the lyrics that fuckor me the most about riku in (parentheses) so that it feels like we get a lyric from each of them per song.

also regardless of pov i think "i do wanna love you, i do wanna try" from 'for the nights i can't remember' is both of them probably. it makes me Feel Things about namine but it also makes me Feel Things about riku so obviously it's just both of them, even if the rest of the song swings, once again if i'm honest, towards riku pov

(but this is the artistic version of the liner notes, not the honest version)

--

she is - the fray do not get me wrong, i cannot wait for you to come home for now you're not here, and i'm not there it's like we're on our own (she is everything i want that i never knew i needed she is everything)

anywhere but here - safetysuit i'd rather be anywhere but here without you (everything that i never thought could happen or ever come to pass and)

for the nights i can't remember - hedley and i do wanna love you and i do wanna try (believe me girl i'm so tired of running, i just wanna hold your hand)

drops of jupiter - train tell me, did you fall for a shooting star? one without a permanent scar? and did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there? (she reminds me that there's room to grow)

shut your eyes - snow patrol just close your eyes until you can imagine this place, our secret space (shut your eyes, i'll spin the big chair and you'll feel dizzy, light, and free)

always somewhere close - lifehouse it doesn't matter where you go, you're still a part of me (i need you now, i need you next to me)

hero/heroine - boys like girls i won't try to philosophize, i'll just take a deep breath then i'll look in your eyes (i got a closet filled up to the brim with the ghosts of my past and their skeletons i don't know why you'd even try but i won't lie - you caught me off guard)

touched by her hand - tsfh (instrumental)

---

some other thoughts:

this was salvaged from songs scattered across i think just 2 mixes, of which neither was a full playlist on its own. one was angst focused (meh) while the other was cutesy songs (of which like, 2/8 even fit instead of just being Cute Song To Imagine Them To, which has its place but my song choices were cringe ok. if u wanna find it you can find the tracklists buried deep in the playlists tag on this blog. playlists =/= mixes. btw. mixes are for the "you can listen to these off of 8tracks" mixes lol)

anyway yeah a lot of the songs were like. too much angst! or cute but not actually fitting! or... a christian rock song i'd repurposed which i can no longer do in good conscience in 2023. or, quite frankly, a lot of "wow my girlfriend is so great she's there to comfort all my angst yay" overtones WHICH TO BE FAIR THEY ARE BOTH COMFORTING EACH OTHER THRU SEPARATE ANGSTS THRU DEAD INSIDE BUT NONETHELESS . the tone of it was just weird for a consistent playlist to me :/

like they are allowed a bit of fun unhealthy codependence but i hate to enthusiastically frame it as riku putting namine on a pedestal like it's not a problem he's doing that. is he doing that? yeah a little!!!! but if i want to salvage a mix about that i need to make the whole mix about that and not throw it in with songs that are cute about their genuine relationship.

....also i - much like the shad mix - wanted a playlist that wasn't about the angst. so here's me fumbling to make a cute early ftp/DI namiku playlist that isn't about angst without looking up too many new songs. i succeeded!!!!!!

this also WAS supposed to be generally them for the whole of early series but also the first two songs sure are the pining period of part 1 DI haha. unfortuantely she is is THE big di namiku song to me, and i can't NOT use it, but it sure does open on 'do not get me wrong i cannot wait for you to come home' which cements us in the pining period of DI

but it's SUCH a strong opener!!!!! so much so that i actually used it in the liner notes instead of picking my other favorite namine-but-not-in-an-obvious-way "i don't know where / i don't know when / but i want you around" lol!!!! BUT THAT OPENER. I HAD TO SPOTILIGHT HTE DAMN THING. GODDAMN. ITS SO.

my probably-2011 opinions on this song - digging up the deep lore - are that this verse made me feel things about namiku wrt rebellion lol

It's all up in the air and we stand still to see what comes down I don't know where it is, I don't know when, but I want you around When it falls in place with you and I, we go from if to when Your side and mine are both behind its indication

also the bridges are a thing that meant a lot to me in 2011 becuase they fit for a DI endgame thing i was so sure i was going to go with (namine fake dies) so "this will bring me to my knees / i just want to hold you close to me" etc was in fact. also good lyrics for them. ITS JUST THEN I DIDN'T DO THAT THING IN DI ENDGAME . but it makes me fond of the 2011 life i lived.

man. that was a lot of words about one song. what else do i got. uh.

drops of jupiter is... also an old fave.... unlike she is the lyrical association isn't quite as strong, but nonetheless i adore it a lot. also i desperately needed namine @ riku songs and this is it this is the one. hilariously upon reflection the lyrics can also be ftp sokai bUT the association i have for it with ftp namiku is REALLY STRONG lol....

secret but it's angst: "did you fall for a shooting star?" is a funny @ riku but re: the other namine lol. teehee meteor shower metaphors (I'M AWARE IT'S A REACH)

also i AM really emotional about "i do wanna love you / i do wanna try" coming from two replica kids who don't quite know what love is but want to be there for each other anyway. obviously and forever am i fucked up about that.

((HEDLEY WHY DID YOU RELEASE THIS SONG TWICE AND THE ONE TITLED "I DO (WANNA LOVE YOU)" IS JUST OBJECTIVELY A WAY WORSE SONG... i get you wanted normal pop song instead of extremely heartfelt rock ballad but i like the extremely heartfelt rock ballad okay))

otherwise uh my strongest thought is hero/heroine is also a HUGE FUCKING SONG for them to me because of the lines about skeletons in the closet and otherwise just. riku being dumbstruck in love when he didn't think that could happen to him in a positive way... it's cute.... i'm really mad that with the knowledge i have at 26 that this song is almost definitiely referencing the drug heroine in the lyrics. man.

oh and that i had like 3 potential lifehouse songs but all of them were weird on the "she is the only thing saving me from my pain" front but lifehouse as a band was importnat for me to include for them considering at the ripe age of 13 i could without fail turn on lifehouse and find a reason to be upset about repliku ftpverse to it lol. so here's an actually cute romance lifehouse song that isn't like the cliche one (you and me). also always somewhere close is good for both the pining and for their slight codependence lmao.

final thought is that musically as a song i am not as jazzed about touched by her hand as i was when i picked it out as their ~theme song~ in probably as early as 2011 (WHY IS THE INTRO BEFORE THE GOOD PART A FULL MINUTE LONG), but also, it's Their Fucking Theme Song. so i had to

anyway that's it. that's a lot of babbling about early DI namiku.

[semper-legens]

52. Five Nights At Freddy's: The Silver Closet, by Scott Cawthon and Kira Breed-Wrisley

Owned?: No, library Page count: 348 My summary: Charlie died. That's a fact, no matter how many people argue against it. And no matter if Charlie's still wandering around, strange and different and subtly wrong somehow. Charlie died, and John is determined to find out the truth. But there's trouble in the town of Hurricane. Children are going missing. Old wounds are being reopened. And a new pizza place has opened, with a clownish new mascot… My rating: 1/5 My commentary:

I don't know why I do this to myself, I really don't. It's like I need to read a really bad book series every so often, either to keep me humble or to keep me going on pure spite. There's a small, sick, twisted place in my heart that needs to be fuelled with awful prose and terrible characterisation and questionable plots, or else I will spontaneously combust from too much good fiction. Anyway. That's my justification for why I'm reading FNaF. Good news, though! This is the last of the trilogy, and I have absolutely no interest in reading any other FNaF content. The weird fixation is over! I'm finally free! While I've found the previous three books in this trilogy to be bland at best, reasonably inoffensive, just not good quality, this one actively annoyed me. Say what you will about the previous books (and I did), they seemed to be building to something, setting up little mysteries that would all have been revealed in this book. And yet. It's like the previous two backs ran a marathon, only to fall flat on their face in this final installment. It took the series from meh to bad, in one clean stroke!

So, let's get the first thing out of the way here. Charlie is a robot. And has been the whole time. Afton took her, not her brother - she was created by her father out of guilt at what his animatronics had done, and was kept in the dark about her own identity. This makes absolutely no sense if you think about it for more than five seconds. John and the other kids knew her from when they were kids - so did the robot age? Grow? It's mentioned that there were multiple robots, but that seems both hugely expensive for Charlie's dad and, you know, hard to maintain after his death. Did the robot never bleed? John points out that he saw Charlie bleed, but that could have been an illusion. Did it not lose teeth as a kid? Never have an accident and break a limb? Did Charlie just not have a first period? It absolutely stretches credulity that nobody has noticed that Charlie was a robot before now - least of all Charlie! It takes Circus Baby/Elizabeth pointing it out for her to realise that her memories are sort-of-fake. But seriously, how did nobody realise that Charlie wasn't flesh and blood? And for that matter, how did Charlie not get crushed when we saw her die in the last book? There's no explanation for her survival, even though being springlocked to death would proooooooobably do some damage to a robot like it would a person.

Part of the implicit explanation is in those stupid discs, which I don't think I mentioned from last time. All of Afton's animatronics carry a disc which emits a strange tone that lets human onlookers see what they want to see. It's used to make Circus Baby look like Charlie, for example, or make the regular Freddy animatronics seem more real. The concept of the disc is dumb. I have no other way to describe it. It's an attempt to science away what is clearly a supernatural concept, and it doesn't sit well because I don't think that's how anything works. It's just implausible, in a way that breaks suspension of disbelief more than the haunted animatronics do inherently.

Once again, we're back up to too many characters. Carlton and Marla from the first book return, and add nothing. I got impatient during their scenes, since they were just doing survival horror stuff that was taking away from the central mysteries around Charlie, John, and Jessica. Circus Baby, and the Sister Location in general, show up and add nothing. Except continuity tangles - I assume that this is a different canon to the games, otherwise Elizabeth being Afton's child rather than Henry Emily's is a continuity error. In all, the Sister Location stuff seems to be there for brand recognition more than adding to the narrative, which is a dangerous pitfall in and of itself. It just seems to be the authors adding new toys to the box rather than crafting a compelling narrative with what they already had. Or like a cliché fanfic, feeling the need to address what everyone is doing and drawing in aspects across the series. Which is fine in fanfic, but just annoying here where I want the narrative to get to the emotional core already.

And finally, this book commits the cardinal sin of a narrative for me, which is that it's all plot, no characterisation. Seriously, the only person who reacts to things is Charlie, and even then only briefly! John is Angry, with no other nuance or depth. The others just do things. Charlie barely even notices that her presumably-beloved Aunt Jen has been bludgeoned to death by her evil robot twin. Character relationships don't matter, other than the hint of romance between John and Charlie, and even then, that's not really expanded on other than an acknowledgement that there are feelings between them. Again, this approach can work in the parent game, because the drive of the parent game is the scares and the survival aspect. But here? We need something to connect us to these characters, some spark of humanity that would make me care about them, and it just wasn't there. Even outside of our protagonists - Afton's back to kidnapping kids, but the question of why he initially abducted -Sammy- Charlie is unanswered. He's just evil. Sure, now he's extending his life (I guess), but before? Shrug. Who needs motivation? Ugh. I'm so glad this book's over.

Next, a biography of the father of the Daleks.

[macaroni-rascal]

Okay, I only have time for a quickie this week. What in the Barry Manilow Copacabana mess was that from the Georgians? Is the 80s theme infectious so it's spreading to the pairs? It was comically atrocious, you'd think Max would have a brain cell or two to advise them against this but I guess it's too much to hope for. All the other juniors are off the hook because they were delightful. The black/teal dress has a bit too much going on but it's the best one yet, I'm glad someone is learning from Ashley Wagner.

Has Lia missed a throw before? I don't think she has. They need to lock Trennt in a room with 4 sports psychologists as soon as he lands home. I worry all the shit he went through has messed with his sense of worthiness to be here. They set a BV world record in the free in France, so they should inch ahead of at least the second Italians, and if my prayers are answered, this soulless "Hungarian" team too. Both panels took a nice little nap during this event, bless them. I'm worried that Annika and Rob will quit ☹️.

I kinda understand why Minnie and Nikita are getting the push but also kinda not, their skating is quite clinical to me? I know they're a new team still but I'm very meh on them. I also don't understand what's going on with Rebecca and Filippo, they should be better than they actually are? She has some classic pair lines and positions yet it never seems to come together, so I get why they're good friends with MT/M. The clipped forward skating into the twist is awkward as all hell. Poor Maxime was holding on for dear life out there. I can't fully get behind them because I despise their coach and everything she represents.

The men! What an event! Shoma really is That Bitch, huh? The only gripe I have is that I'd rather Kazuki were here over Kao because he's still so underdeveloped artistically, but good on him for squeezing out a combo. But omg Ilia's costume. How is the ISU supposed to market this boy when he's clearly shopping at the circus surplus store? There are two types of skating parent/coach: the likes of those of Yuma and Matteo, who know the value of a slow build and not burning out 2-3 years out of an Olympics, and the likes of Ilia's and the Mokhov's, who are clearly frozen in time and are trying to relive their glory days through their kids (yuck), and are throwing in the technical kitchen sink at a time when it doesn't matter. Adam is really testing me but I understand why he might be dead on his feet at this point.

I hate that there's no stream from Golden Spin, Amber landed two 3A in practice (check nora_bruckner on IG for the clips). S/F seem to be reusing their Charles Aznavour FD from 3 years ago (sigh). I'm curious to see how this Aussie team develops under IAMO, they've been struggling for so long and seemed to have no resources at all. It's interesting how teams' skating skills have improved at IAMO but all the MIDA teams still have basically the same ones they arrived with (and weaker material. And barely any political push). I struggle to understand what that school's selling point is and wonder what the first team to jump ship will be (prayer circle it's G/Pa).

A perfect message, Fashionista Nonny, you continue to be an icon. I agree on all accounts about all things, amen.

[astralartefact]

FFXIV 6.5 Thoughts and Feelings the 1 ffxiv player that didn't come here for the story (me) keeps winning while everybody else seems to be losing

I debated writing a review at all - but I'm just weirded out enough by the discourse that I feel the need to say something.

I don't really get what's happening right now. The Fandom vibes in certain places are rancid (thankfully it's not here on tmblr all that much (yet)) and I don't really get why and how it happened so quickly.

I understand not liking the void quests or not liking that Zero gets a cecil makeover into default paladin or that Yoshi-P's vision for this game is kind of questionable at times or whatever else you don't like about these patches, but for some reason everyone is acting so... heated about it? We somehow went from "This game is the best Final Fantasy that ever Final Fantasied, I love you Yoshi-P, take my firstborn" to "This is the worst FF expansion I've ever played. Yoshi-P is a hack and a fool and I don't trust the devs to write something good ever again" in the span of one meh-at-worst patch cycle and I don't know how that happened??? And I know, 6.0 already brought this underlying "Hmm. Not as good as Shadowbringers..."-attitude with it, but still, It just doesn't really feel proportionate how heated people are right now.

To give you my feelings: I don't care. Perfect Indifference. Yes, some pieces are feeling like they're missing from 6.X, but the devs were obviously trying to restructure things in a way that just simply didn't work out. I'm sure they know that nobody really liked it all that much and will adjust for 7.X - but a lot of people are acting as if the devs are suddenly just stupid idiots when the same people - and this time it really is the same people - were acting like Yoshi-P could do no wrong just half a patch cycle earlier.

For the Void Quests: I do think this would have been better as an optional trial series or as the direct prologue to a void expansion right after it and not as a filler bridge to Dawntrail (a contrast you couldn't make more drastic) - and there are more than enough other things I could complain about (The mo-cap eating animations. Why is everybody so jazzed about them wasting so much resources and screen time on fcking eating animations???) but still, I just don't really care. At the end of the day I'm having fun every time I open this game. Yay for me :)

I have realized over the past few weeks that I never really cared about stories in video games. I might be able to really be into certain stories, but generally I'm just simply not a person that cares about that stuff all that much. If it's bad I just don't care. As long as I have something else to enjoy about it I'm good. And I just simply don't play this game for the story either, I play this game to see my definitely not self-insert WoL do cool shit and look good and that's the one thing this game constantly delivers on for me.

But why would I write all of this if I didn't actually care? Why type all of this out at all and not just move on with your life? Do I think I'm better than the naysayers for accepting mediocrity??? Certainly not, we're all equally capable to check if the thing we invest time and money in is worth our while. But clearly something has to have gotten under my skin here.

Well, there is one way to make me, specifically me, care about something too much and it's if I don't understand why something is received the way it is by the general audience/community. Doesn't matter if I think something shouldn't be as popular as it is or if something is consistently hated when I think it's not all that bad - if I don't get it, I can't stop thinking about it.

And I generally try to keep it on the positive/underdog side of things, mainly because I have better things to do than be negative about a thing I can't change anyways. In that case I will usually just happily live in my headcanon and ignore it - but sometimes something so egregious comes along I just can't help myself. And this time it happened again.

Everyone is so mad about everything except for the one thing I am really mad about. That one is apparently okay because it's bittersweet uwu. Yeah, just fully trivialise some of the most integral lore that shaped the entire run of the game, but it's okay because it's sad q.q And I just can't stand it anymore, why does this exact thing always happen to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?????

Fuck Eulogia.

Fuck that thing.

Fuck everything it stands for.

Honestly, it's kind of funny. I just wish I could commit to seeing it that way and not constantly feel threatened about it (I love anxiety <3)

Anyways. Moral of the story? Play YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse.