#I'm not saying “the Prequels can't be about both those things”

[david-talks-sw]

I'm gonna blatantly use this opportunity to share some of my other writings for those who are new to my blog. Hope you don't mind :)

"It can be both things, and not everything in [the Prequels] necessarily has to be a conscious decision on George's part."

So... yes. It can be about both things.

But on the condition that you decide to forego the author's intended narrative, which is my whole point.

Conversely:

Red Riding Hood is a story about parental neglect and animal cruelty, as the only reason the poor starving wolf gets cut open is because Red Riding Hood's mom let her travel alone in the woods, instead of accompanying her.

Batman is a psychotic rich boy who uses child soldiers to beat the mentally ill, because instead of using his money to end world hunger, he takes the Robins who sometimes were as young as 10-years-old to attack his rogues gallery, all of whom need help and get sent to an asylum for a reason.

These are (uncharitable) takes that can be argued, if you choose to ignore the fact that, no, narratively, the Bad Wolf is a villain and the Robins are sidekicks to a superhero.

But while you can say "Batman is a psycho who uses child soldiers", you can't (not genuinely, at least) say the Batman story is meant to be about a psycho who uses child soldiers. Because aside from a few exceptional tales... it's not. It's a comic about a superhero. Note the word "hero" in the term.

And in a lot of works of art, the artist will leave stuff up to interpretation, so the audience can see it and take away from it what they wish. Many times, they'll refrain from giving their own headcanon so as to not step on anyone's feet.

George Lucas... is not one of those artists. He has been very explicit on what he's going for, just listen to the director's commentaries, read his interviews and watch his talks.

So while the Prequels can certainly be about things, you can't tell me with a straight face that they're meant to be about both those things. Because they're really not.

I mean, take the first thing you argue:

Throughout the prequels, the Jedi look at Anakin with distrust and disdain. He's "too old", he's "too emotional". He cares too much about his mother.

If you look at what George Lucas said about how the Jedi first met him, he openly admits the whole "he's too old, we can't train him" bit is just a way to keep Anakin in the third act of the movie.

He also sides with the Jedi's arguments about Anakin being dangerous and says that Qui-Gon's insistence on training him is controversial.

CLEARLY, the narrative that they "mistrusted him and looked at him with disdain" doesn't fit with the narrative.

"Instead of getting this traumatized former slave actual psychiatric care, or any sort of nurturing that a child needs, he's told to just bottle everything up and ignore it."

Once again, the trauma that a former slave must feel is never even a factor in George Lucas' narrative. In 779 collected quotes, I've never seen him address Anakin's background as a slave in that context, instead referring to it as a humble beginning like in mythological tropes.

But considering how much he agrees with the Jedi principles (or rather, how much the Jedi's principles echo is own ones inspired by Buddhist philosophy) it's clear the narrative is that, well, the Jedi teachings were the "therapy" for lack of a better term.

Which takes us to your next point:

"Or rather, he's told to "let go", but he doesn't know how to do that, and no one ever tells him, so it just sits inside him, festering. And his instructors just roll their eyes and curl their lips and pass him along."

Once again, though... George agrees with the Jedi, on this.

He'll usually blame Anakin's failure to let go as the source of his problems, not the Jedi's inability to teach him properly (on the contrary, he refers to it as a "basic Jedi principle").

This idea that "non-attachment was never explained to Anakin" is pure fanon. It was explained to him. By his mother, in Episode I...

... but also we see he knows the theory of it because he's literally reciting it in Episode II...

... and even teaching Ahsoka on how to overcome it herself.

The idea that his instructors roll their eyes and pass him along is also inaccurate when taking George's narrative into account, especially when you factor in scenes like Mace and Yoda telling Obi-Wan to get off Anakin's back, for example.

Bottom line (and like you acknowledged): personal responsibility is a big factor in George's Star Wars. Just like you can lead a horse to water but you can't force it to drink, and therapy is only effective when the person in therapy wants to heal, the Jedi gave Anakin the tools to get better, but it was up to him to take that last step through the door.

You can ignore all of the above, and say that "we never saw any Jedi explain attachment to Anakin so it didn't happen," but then that's you choosing to forego the word of the author in favor of a story you relate to more because, as you've said, it happens in real life.

"And so in swoops Palpatine, all smiles and understanding. Of course Anakin gravitates toward him. Of course Anakin trusts him. Palpatine would not have been able to groom him if the Jedi had just done their fucking job in the first place."

There is no evidence from what GL said to indicate that the interjection of Palpatine in Anakin's life is the fault of the Jedi.

"The Jedi failed to notice the Sith lord in their own midst. They were arrogant and cocky. They were complacent. They were convinced of their own superiority."

Here too, I mean, it's mixing stuff that is part of George's narrative with stuff that he explained already and didn't frame as a failing on the Jedi's side.

Yes, the Prequels Jedi are indeed complacent and arrogant.

George explains in the AOTC commentary that it's what the contrast between the Jocasta Nu/Dexxter scenes shows: the Jedi think they're prepared for the incoming conflict and no, they're really not. The battlefield has shifted beneath their feet and they're still playing catch-up, instead of adjusting their tactics to the now more-political battlefield.

That said: "cocky" and "convinced of their own superiority" is an uncharitable description that doesn't match the narrative. Because the reason the Jedi can't find the Sith Lord is because the Dark Side has clouded everything.

It's impossible to find a specific black object in a dark room at night.

So there's "being unprepared because you didn't know a threat was looming", and there's "being a cocky asshole who's swinging his lightsaber in a helicopter motion and saying "come get me shit lords, I've got your dark side riiiight here!""

The narrative, through close-ups of the Jedi masters being visibly worried...

... and actively searching for the Sith Lord that trained or was trained by Darth Maul...

... shows that the Jedi are doing their best.

They're not asleep at the wheel, they're just driving through an unexpected fog.

"And when Yoda comes back in TLJ..."

Let's stop right there. TLJ takes plot points from George's Sequel ideas, as I've pointed out in this collection of quotes and this defense of TLJ Luke, but it doesn't reflect George Lucas' intended narrative.

Rian Johnson has said that he came up with it by himself.

"Accepting that emotions are a part of the humanoid experience that you can't just get rid of, and that in ignoring them you drive more people toward the Dark Side, as they find it the only place they can freely express themselves."

The Jedi don't ignore their emotions...

... nor do they ignore their Dark Side.

They have been shown confronting and accepting it multiple times, in both George's narrative and current canon.

I mean we literally see Yoda almost crying in AOTC, we see Obi-Wan get angry multiple times throughout the Prequels, we see Mace get so mad at planetary leaders for killing an innocent animal that he'll pull a lightsaber to their throat.

We literally see many Jedi be faced with a "fear" and overcome it by standing their ground and accepting it as a part of themselves.

The Jedi are about emotional regulation. "Have your emotions, but don't be ruled by them." Not emotional repression.

Again, read the data and you'll see that in George's Star Wars, the Dark Side isn't freedom to feel your emotions. It's freedom to be ruled by your selfish desires and quest for constant pleasure. The Dark Side is greed while the Good Side is compassion.

"The Jedi did fail, and that failure is a major theme of the prequels. The point is being able to learn from that failure."

The Prequels are about the Jedi's failure in the same way that The Lord of the Rings is about how Gandalf went to Mordor (which is to say, not at all).

Yes. That happens in the story. But it's not what the story is meant to be about. And at this point you might say:

"David, I don't give a fuck about what George Lucas says the Prequels are meant to be about. You're not the boss of me, the interpretation of any artwork is subjective."

And my answer is: more power to you. I agree completely.

That's completely fine. Come up with your headcanons and interpretations. If you want to strictly engage with the material but not the narrative, as Karen Traviss did, for example...

... it's fine. That's also literally what the above-quoted Star Wars authors have done.

But 1) there's a difference between saying:

"I think the Prequels are about X" and

"George said the Prequels are about X" or "the Prequels are meant to be about X"

Because the first one only concerns your view, and it holds as much weight as anyone else's (if you adhere to a "death of the author" approach).

The second is verifiable and factually disprovable, as George has been very vocal.

And 2) clearly, a lot of people do give a fuck about what George's view of the Prequels is, as they keep using him as an authority argument, be they current Star Wars creators (for instance, in the above-collected quotes by Filoni & co) or enraged fans.

So - as someone who's read the data - I'm sharing my findings and pointing out that there's a difference.

From this point on, we either all say

"well, fuck what it's meant to be about, I like the way that I (and maybe some new Star Wars media) interpret it...

or we stay consistent and keep putting George's word on a pedestal, in which case, can we please let's stop pushing the narrative that it's about the Jedi's failure? Leave my space wizard meow meows alone.

If I'm completely honest, I find myself being somewhere in-between those two options. But hey. That's my two cents.

I'd say where the dissonance really starts, when it comes to the portrayal of the Jedi in more recent Star Wars stories, is the perception of what the Prequels are about.

They're not about the Jedi.

George Lucas said over and over that they're about:

How a democracy turns into a dictatorship, we see this in the background of the films, as the Republic descends into becoming the Empire.

That first theme is then paralleled with a second theme: how a good kid becomes a bad man. We see this in the more character-driven and personal exploration of Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side.

The Prequels’ focus is on Anakin and the Republic, these films are not primarily about the fall of the Jedi. In fact, I’d argue they aren’t about the Jedi at all!

And when you look at the original backstory, you’ll notice that it also primarily focuses on:

The political subplot of the Republic’s downfall and Palpatine becoming the Emperor.

Anakin’s turn and his betrayal of the Jedi. 

So, there too… the Jedi themselves aren’t really that big a part of the Prequels’ original idea. They aren't mentioned much, beyond their trying to save the Senate and getting wiped out.

The Star Wars movies aren't about the Jedi, they're about Anakin and Luke, they're about Obi-Wan and Padmé and Han and Leia, the Rebellion vs the Empire, the fall of the Republic.

They're not about Ben and Yoda and Mace and Ki-Adi and Plo Koon and Shaak Ti and Luminara.

Just like Harry Potter isn't about Dumbledore and McGonagall. Just like the Lord of the Rings isn't about Gandalf.

On a functional level, the Jedi are:

POV characters who witness the events unfold with their hands tied, they're our anchors, whose eyes we see through to see democracy crumble into dictatorship.

Embodiments/vectors of the message George Lucas wanted to get across through these movies, which is the conflict between selfishness & selflessness, greed & compassion (Sith & Jedi).

But that's about it.

However, if you ask today’s fans and Star Wars creatives, most will say the Prequels are about the fall of the Jedi Order.

This is a take shared by a big chunk of the fandom, including various filmmakers, authors, and executives involved with Star Wars, so much so that the time period the Prequel films cover has now been redubbed by Lucasfilm as the “Fall of the Jedi era”.

Which leaves us with a question... why? Why the dissonance?

My guess? It's because the Jedi are cool. They're awesome.

And deep down, they wanted the Prequels to be about the Jedi. About the Jedi Knights at their height, errant warriors like the Knights of the Round Table.

And they didn't get that. They got a bunch of diplomats serving a political institution. And that didn't make sense, right? That's not what they expected so it's bad. And it's Star Wars. It's Lucas. It can't be bad, right? So like... what were they missing?

Oh... wait... what if... that's the point? That the Jedi were supposed to be Knight Errants and being guided by the Force instead of like - ew - space ambassadors for the Republic. Yeah now it all makes sense.

The Jedi in the Prequels aren't what we wanted them to be and that's their failure! Like, it's not just that I didn't like them because they weren't likeable to me, it's that I'm not supposed to like them because the narrative totally says so--

-- it doesn't.

The Jedi preach and practice the same Buddhist values as George Lucas, mirroring what he says in interviews almost verbatim.

The relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin/Qui-Gon mirrors the dynamic between Lucas and Coppola.

The designs of the Jedi and their temple had to be toned down because they looked too bureaucratic and systemic.

This is Lucas we're talking about. "On the nose" is his middle name. He named the drug-peddling sleazebag "Elan Sleazebaggano." He ditched an elaborate introduction of General Grievous in exchange for just "the doors slide open, in walks Grievous and he's ugly."

If he had really been hell bent on framing the Jedi as elitist squares who lost their way and were mired in bureaucracy, he would've made them and the Jedi Temple look like the authorities in THX-1138.

They weren't likeable to some fans because, well, they weren't developed or shown as much as someone like Anakin. Because it's not about them. It's not their story. It's Anakin's. It's Luke's. It's their respective friends'. Or maybe it's an adversity to "perfect goody two-shoes" characters (which the Jedi are not). But hey, it's a movie for kids. Some 2-dimensionality is forgivable.

Bottom line, had more time been spent on the Jedi, had Lucas made the Prequels into a limited show and give them a whole subplot, had he decided to do away with the 30s serial dialog and let someone else write the dialog, maybe the reception might've been different.

But that's what we got. And guess what it's fine.

It's more than fine, it's fucking awesome.

I proudly and confidently say that I love the Prequels, with and without The Clone Wars.

I love my space monks, I love that they're diplomat wizards, I love that there's such a variety of them, I love that Mace is a no-bullshit guy who genuinely cares about his fellow Jedi and how screwed the Republic is, and Yoda is wise and kind but also a gremlin weirdo who'll embarass you in front of a classroom full of kids, and Ki-Adi has a penis for a head, is constantly calm and yet goes down like a champ even though they take him by surprise. I love that Shaak Ti can kung fu an army full of Magna Guards and still have the energy to charge at Grievous. I love that Obi-Wan is a sass machine who is also hilariously oblivious to the fact that he's just as terrible as Anakin.

They're awesome even if they're not perfect. They're awesome because they're not perfect.

But the movies are not really their story.

They're Anakin's. They're Luke's. They're the Republic's and the Rebellion's. And the fight against a space Nazi emperor/empire.

[slavghoul]

Interview from Sweden Rock Magazine 10/2023

Hi, hi. There is an interview with Tobias in SRM’s newest issue, but it’s in the subscribers only section, so I thought I’d translate/share since I guess not many people will be able to get their hands on it. It is about Prequelle and it’s part of SRM’s „200 best Swedish hard rock albums of all time” series. Prequelle placed #68. The other albums may have scored higher, but for now we don’t know the whole list. Either way, enjoy. Very insightful. 

„Do you think that "Prequelle" is Ghost's worst album?” Now that’s an unusual opening question. Especially when the interview is about an album that Sweden Rock Magazine's writers and qualified Swedish hard rock musicians (including Tobias Forge) have voted as one of the 200 best Swedish hard rock albums of all time. The question wasn’t planned, but comes spontaneously, as a reaction to the first thing Tobias Forge says when we sit down on opposite sofas in the record company office. I'm here for a two-part interview, partly about the EP "Phantomime" (published in #6 2023), partly about "Prequelle". Neither record companies, artists, voters, nor even our writers who conduct interviews for this series of articles have any idea what placement an album has received. Interviews are often done well in advance and we simply don't want placements to leak and become public long before publication.

No Ghost album has ever been on the list before. The idea is actually to end the day with the "Prequelle" talk, but when Tobias Forge suddenly starts with a funny little comment that this album is probably the one that those who have voted think is Ghost's worst or least popular album, I just have to take the opportunity to ask the question: Do you think that "Prequelle" is Ghost's worst album?

No, absolutely not, he says and laughs. If I'm going to be completely pragmatic, I'd say: "How many songs do we actually play from that record?" There are songs that work damn well live and sit where they should. So it's a pretty strong album.

But is this what you are basing it on? "Prequelle" was released after Ghost had become really big so it can't be compared to "Opus Eponymous" and "Infestissumam" which you don't play many songs from. I mean, no matter what kind of record you had released when "Prequelle" came out, you would still have played many songs from it and they would have worked precisely because Ghost's songs nowadays are moulded more to the arena format.

I don't know how to answer that, it's difficult. If the album had been different, it would have been. If I'm going to talk somehow both artistically and practically, I know that for every record we have become exponentially bigger. "Prequelle" was definitely no exception, but it also took us a big step forward and upwards and we became bigger and broader. To the extent that when we introduce old songs in the live set, you notice that there are elements on albums one and two that make some songs more difficult to play. Not technically, we can play the songs, but they don't work in quite the same way as the later songs, which means that there is a slight favouritism.

I asked the original question about whether you think it's Ghost's worst album only because you directly said that this means it's the least popular one.

I'm just so full of myself I assumed all the other albums are also in the top 200, which may actually be incorrect. This might be the best album and the others aren't even there, haha.

It wasn't long after "Prequelle" was released that you were self-critical of the album in interviews, saying that it was too ballad-heavy and a bit too soft. I haven't noticed that before, you being so self-critical shortly after the release.

Yes, but I still feel that way. If, as an artist, I am only going to look at the work with the criticism that one can feel towards one's own work, I think that if things had been different or if I had more time, I might have wished that I had managed to get maybe two more hard songs. Maybe one more hard song would have fit on the album and another harder song might have phased out one of the ballads. Now five years after the album came out, I know that the two ballads ("Pro Memoria" and "Life Eternal"), which I may not think are bad, are one too many. But I know that many of the people who like the band like both of them, so it's kind of a useless argument.

Who sets the length of an album? Have you set a limit, that it can't be longer than this and have no more songs than that?

No, but it must fit on an LP disc and there is a physical limit. I think the absolute pain threshold is 46 minutes and that's 23 minutes on each side. Now maybe Mikkey Dee (co-owner of Spinroad Vinyl Factory) will raise his hand here: "But I can make it longer!" And it's maybe 48 minutes, I don't know, but I do know that when a disc starts getting so full that you start getting close to the sticker, it starts to sound bad. Especially nowadays, because recordings today are so very maximalist in scope. It's one thing if you record 60s music with drums, a guitar and bass where the sound is cleaner and finer or if you play acoustic stuff with just vocals. Bob Dylan records could have eight songs on each side and it worked all the way through. But this kind of fairly compact music doesn't work well. Not only am I a militant vinyl advocate, I think we should respect the fact that most artists don't manage to create more than 45 minutes of good music on a regular basis. A lot of famous double records are not that good. I don't think the Rolling Stones "Exile On Main St" is very good. It might as well have been on one disc. And if I'm actually going to turn it into something completely mundane, I'd say that I think it's irresponsible to sit and make records with twelve songs if it results in the record being 63 minutes long and you automatically have to make a double record. It's pretty wasteful.

When you said that it's irresponsible, I thought you were going to say that it's irresponsible to print a double vinyl because of the environmental destruction that it entails.

Of course, if we're going to be completely straightforward and not do anything that harms nature, we shouldn't even release any records, so I say this with reservation. But with that in mind and for the sake of art, I think more people should embrace the actual given format that has been the most prevalent in rock history. There is a reason why a film is usually one hour and 30 minutes. You can’t take any more. There's a certain dramaturgical structure and there’s a certain comfort in it. Then the CDs came along they screwed that up, and suddenly there weren't two sides anymore but it started one way and ended another. Now that the CD is no longer important and we've gone back to vinyl, creators should follow suit and start embracing the physical rules.

Are there songs that have been rounded off just because you thought „I have to round off here, because if I continue, it won't fit on the vinyl disc"?

We actually had that problem on the last album. „Watcher In The Sky” ended the A-side and the outro is much longer on the CD and digitally. Two minutes longer I think. Much, much, much longer. It's long, noisy and has all these dives. It's a very chaotic soundscape. You get the feeling that it goes on and on, and on the vinyl it's just the beginning of an outro and then it drops almost immediately. I think that was a huge mistake.

So the overall sound quality was more important than vinyl buyers getting everything? Because you could have pressed the vinyl and it would have fit, but you would have had to compromise the sound quality.

Yes, exactly. You can get the song to just keep going until the vinyl simply runs out. Then it just starts spinning in the middle, depending on what kind of record player you have. But the problem then, if you want to anticipate events at a creative stage, is that people today buy and listen to vinyl records and are sensitive. It's quite common for people to complain that the record is broken. I don't just mean our records, but people complain a lot about the presses. If you make ten songs, it's therefore stupid to have a too thick soundscape towards the end of song number five and song number ten. If you want to be really good and old school, that's where you put a piano ballad because it's an easier sound to handle so far into the record. This is what I think about when I make records. But clearly sometimes I miscalculate.

This must cut right through the record collector Tobias Forge's whole body and soul, that "Watcher In The Sky” is shortened by two minutes on the vinyl of all versions.

Well... I don't toss and turn and wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it anymore. But when it happened, I was livid. Luckily it was just an outro. It would have been worse if it had continued with some kind of narrative into the next song. Now I can't remember in my head how long "Prequelle" is, but if I'd had to go back in time and just re-construct it, the re-construction wouldn't have had much to do with the existing material, I would have just wanted to add a scene. And it's not a scene that's missing, it's just for the sake of balance. It became asymmetrical in a way that bothers me a bit.

You've talked about this before, but it was before "Prequelle" that you really started to talk a lot about how you were thinking about what kind of new songs might suit the live show. Can you get stuck in that mindset, thinking more about what songs are needed live right now rather than creating an album that will last 30 years?

Hmm... (long pause)... The reason I'm sitting here thinking is because I'm trying to come up with examples of other bands that I think might have gone through something similar. I’m looking for examples to the answer I'm about to formulate and that is that: yes, I think there comes a point in the career when most bands make a record because they simply feel they need to… Because what we're talking about is that when you go from playing in small smoky clubs in front of an already inveterate audience that already understands the perhaps a little more chewy expression, that experience can change if you start playing in front of a larger and especially a different type of audience. When a different type of audience comes and you play in a different format, you discover that this song doesn't work very well, it doesn't sound very good and it's difficult to get the sound right. Then there's usually a record or two or three during your career when this transition happens where you start filling in with songs that work better live. Look at Piece of mind", "Powerslave" and "Somewhere in time". There's a reason why Iron Maiden didn't play a lot of the first two albums there and then, because it was easier to play the new songs. You get to that point somewhere in your career and it's very difficult to say when it is - there's no given rule and there are artists who continue to release relevant records and have an amazing ability to release new records and just play the whole new record. Well, now Iron Maiden does that and tests their audience a little bit in that way, but then they will always compensate by doing like a "best of" set the following year so everything is forgiven. Now we're in the middle of the "Impera" period here and have a very strong set, but I'm starting to feel that now that I'm about to start writing a new album, it feels like it's not really on my agenda to write three more albums that will change the live setlist ten years ahead. I think we already have the blueprint for what is Ghost's setlist, especially if you include the entire catalogue. After a while, each new record you make becomes a little less important. It's really hard to know when that point comes, but the truth is that new records don't matter in the same way. Slayer didn't have to release "Divine Intervention”. They definitely didn't have to release "Diabolus In Musica". I didn't care about it and I just wanted to hear the old stuff. If they had just come up and played "Reign In Blood" I would have been soooo happy. And that's the way it is with most bands. Nobody would be sad if the Rolling Stones came up and didn't play anything from "Emotional Rescue". And that's just the way it is. In the future, I can see a scenario where there is probably a basis to possibly build up an alternative setlist. There are so many songs that we do not play and that I have nothing against - I love them too! But it would almost be easier to build up a completely alternative setlist and run a show with only the odd songs. There are so many songs now. There's no reason not to build on that. But when I want to make a new record, it's irresponsible for me not to consider that there might have to be some songs that are a bit more direct. But it doesn't hurt me if we have more songs that we don't play live. I don't know if this answers your question...

I would actually like to ask exactly the same question again, because I wonder if you yourself feel that you get stuck during the making of the record. You said that you would have liked to include another hard song because "Prequelle" doesn't have the balance that you would have liked to have in retrospect.

Exactly, but the explanation for that has more to do with my mental capacity there and then. I simply couldn't cope. I felt that I had probably maxed out… It was probably about as much as I could do that year. That's the simple explanation. To get another song that would have fit and that would have fulfilled this requirement that I now in retrospect would have wished I had, it would have required something that I did not have there and then. The only thing that could have made it easier is if I had more time. It is difficult to reason about it, you see.

I was in the studio for a few days during the recording and it's one of the few times in all these years that I've done interviews where someone has started crying during an interview. It was quite obvious that everything that had happened with the split of the band affected you.

Yes. Of course. It did.

Is "Prequelle" a difficult album to listen to for you? Can you sit and listen to it all the way through? 

Well, at the moment I have to do that from time to time, and listen to all the records, because we're just about to start rehearsing again and then I sometimes have to go back and just listen to the record to go: "Fuck, is that really how I sing?" Especially when we start rehearsing, I can be a bit like: "Damn, who changed this bit?” Then I usually sit down and it hits me: "Oh, it's me who has changed my song!" You simply do that over the years, you start singing it in a slightly different way. So sometimes I have to go back and listen, but it’s more practical. I don't think it's fun to listen them. I do it until they are finished. I listen over and over and over again and really try to listen with all the imaginary ears and all the imaginary perspectives you can have. "How would I have listened to this if I had heard it from this perspective?" Just to get as "objective" a perspective as I can until I'm satisfied, but then it's like „No, I don't want to hear this anymore". But I have to say that I think "Prequelle" is a very tolerable disc despite everything that interfered with the process. Therapeutically, it works quite well considering that we are still playing at least half of the album. For every artist there are songs that you want to play, and there are songs that you don’t want to play because they feel too personal. I don't feel that way about this one, it's more like: "Ah hell, they're part of the setlist and people like it and it sounds good. So that's what we're doing."

On a personal level, was Tom Dalgety the perfect producer for you, the way you were feeling at the time? Tom feels like the kindest, sweetest producer you can meet. He wasn't the kind of producer who pushed you very much, it was more of a nice atmosphere between you.

Yes, really, and it would have been different if Klas Åhlund, who is more confrontational, had been in the room. Now Klas and I are great mates, so it would certainly have been very therapeutic also, but it would have been a different process. If an artist comes in who is in such bad shape that they can't make a record, or a band where the main songwriter has just left them, then a Bob Ezrin goes in and says: "If you don't make the record, I'll make the record myself.” And he goes and makes Kiss "Destroyer" or Alice Cooper records. I'm not saying they didn't make them, just that you hear that Bob Ezrin made "Beth". It's a type of producer that's very different from a lot of other producers who maybe act a little bit more like buddies and cheerleaders and make the atmosphere good. Bob Ezrin doesn't care so much about the atmosphere in the room. Klas is somewhere in between, I would say. Given the condition I was in during "Prequelle", the result could probably have been different if Klas had come in. Ironically, there was actually talk of him doing it, but he didn't have the time and we'll never know how it would have turned out. I only know that it would have been different, but right there and then Tom was fantastic. I know that a lot of bands like to work with him because he is technically brilliant. He's really good at those typical sounds that people like: cool drums, guitar, bass, tone and clarity. He is also very "happy go lucky", a nice guy who sits and jokes all the time. Even if he has a bad day, it doesn't affect anyone else, which is convenient.

Let me compare it to when a writer contacts me after an interview and says "that was such a nice interview". For me, "nice" is not something positive in such a work situation and the result is often better when there is a little friction.

Mmm, and that is more Klas. There is more friction and more confrontation. And I was much better equipped for that at "Meliora" and later at "Impera". I felt better and was simply stronger. There wasn't the same survival instinct as on "Prequelle". If I think back, not about how the album turned out and how I have to live with it, but if I think back to the situation I was in, I was very anxious all the time. Even though I'm happy with the result, I wouldn't want to go through the recording again, even though Tom was great. Because it's hard to work when you're under attack. I realised that now when I made "Impera", when it was no longer like that. You are much more comfortable, it doesn't feel the same, you are more mature, you make better decisions, you are more controlled or dare to be uncontrolled. When things are this serious, you can end up in a freeze mode. Maybe that's also why there wasn't another song. The song that I miss doesn't exist because I simply squeezed out everything I had. If I had been in a different emotional state, I might have been more comfortable working out something at the last second from bits and pieces. But I felt that I really just wanted to get it done, deliver it, get back out on tour and start over again.

When you described being more mature during "Impera" you sounded like a 70-year-old, kind of like all the Aerosmith-like bands that have been fighting all their lives and now that they're in their 70s they say "we're soooo mature,” haha.

I think with all artists, especially when they're required to work in a group, there are many recordings that have been a collision with a wall because you're expected to function in a context all the time, whatever and whenever. But you do change and from one year to a few years down the line there can be a huge difference in a person's drive, hunger and priorities in life. Whether you have the same band structure as I do or whether you play in Metallica, people come in one state and they may end up in another, because you have different priorities at different times. It's unfortunately against the whole rock myth. I think that's the biggest problem for bands and businesses, that you always have this idea that if you just get to a certain stage - not just monetarily or career-wise, but you get to a certain stage of fun - then we've reached the status quo. But that is never the case! Never! There’s always something. Even in the best moments when everything is working, the band is awesome, everyone is working well, the crew is awesome, everyone is laughing, it's just a party all the time mentally, you have the world's best tour manager, everything is flowing and the tickets are selling, there will always be someone who doesn't like it and then has to break away and want to do their thing because it's no longer fun. It's usually somewhere in the lead-up to a stage where it's interesting and then once you've achieved it, it all becomes a bit boring. Just like in a relationship some people may eventually think, "well, that's a bit boring, I have to go out and do something else".

Since I was in the studio when you were laying down guitars on "Witch Image", my heart beats a little extra for that song and I thought it would be a great live song, but you've barely played it (at the time of writing it's Ghost's forty-fourth most played song live).

We did it during the "Prequelle" tour, or "A Pale Tour Named Death" as it was called. Then we did quite a few "an evening with" concerts, for better or worse. The advantage was that if you were a big fan of the band we actually played a lot of songs and actually a lot of the first albums, like "Idolatrine" - or "Witch Image". We did a set, a break and then a whole other set. That was a bit of a taste of what I was talking about earlier: doing a slightly larger set and then a slightly smaller one. You just shouldn't do it on the same night because it gets a bit stale. We played for two hours and 30 minutes or something and that wasn’t a good idea, haha. At least we did "Witch Image", but it has fallen behind a bit and it doesn't mean that we will never play it again, just that we don't do it right now. What I've been happy about is that there has been a feeling for the records that we've made recently, "Prequelle" and "Impera", that people still want to hear the new stuff. We haven't gotten to that stage that I talked about earlier when it doesn't matter anymore. Then it's very fun to try to find a new way to perform the songs, not technically, but suddenly a song like "Witch Image" might fulfill a very nice purpose between a completely new song and another song.

Let me speculate: in 30 years, I think "Rats" will be considered the great hard rock song, "Dance Macabre" the great hit and "Life Eternal" the great ballad. What do you think? Will this in the future be seen as the three big songs of the album?

Yes, that makes sense, I think. I understand that an instrumental song automatically ends up in the wake of a "best of" collection, in the sense that you do one in 30 years. I realise it's not a hit but the instrumental "Miasma" is a big part of our live show. It's strong and feels like such a keeper. Now we don't play "Life Eternal" very often actually, but it was very well received. For some reason people like to get married to it, I don’t know why, hehe. It's nice but it's also a bit like U2’s „I still haven't found what I'm looking for" and you don't use that one at a wedding. But people like it and I guess interpret it differently to me. It’s also a song that I don't think is fun to play live.

And why not?

Because I find it hard to play ballads. Physically, they don't feel the same as rock songs. I miss the "dunka dunka". Now everyone who plays music today knows what I mean - sorry, readers who don't play music - and it's that there's a small problem with having in-ear monitors. This means that you have to reach a certain frequency of beats in order to feel the music, unlike when you played at clubs with only a guitar amp behind you. You felt every single note you made and it just went through your body. Nowadays, I think it's sometimes hard when you play slow songs, because you have to trust that it sounds good, whereas when you play a rock song, you feel that it sounds good.

Does it also apply to "He Is” which is such a huge ballad, not least live?

Well, just the intro and then it gets going quite quickly and suddenly becomes a hard and rather fast-paced song. The classic ballad concept has always been that you play so-called edge beats to make it sound soft, while "He Is” is actually a rather hard-played song considering that it is a ballad. Once the drums come in – boom, boom – it's got AC/DC bite to it. It has a rock feel to it that "Life Eternal" doesn't really have. As I said, I don't think that "Life Eternal" is a lot of fun to perform, but that doesn't mean that it isn't quite good to listen to. It’s just that when I play "Dance Macabre" or "Mummy Dust" I feel that I can express myself physically more in line with what the text says and what it means.

[grandlinedreams]

|| this man is an exposed live wire in my brain ok

|| notes: uhh prequel to [this] and [this], semi Canon compliant, pre-s1 but mentions of pre-war Cooper, I love the dynamic 😔👌✨️

|| warnings: hopefully IC Cooper, asshole x asshole dynamic we love to see it, weapons/supply dealer!reader, Canon typical violence, mention of blood/reader is injured kinda, spoilers? Abt Cooper's backstory, kinda enemies to friends/lovers

He doesn't know why he's here.

No, that's a lie ㅡ he does know why he's here, he just doesn't want to admit it. To himself, or to anyone else, for that matter. That he needs help.

Those fancy little bullets for his gun are hard to come by, few and far between when he can't get them by looting and places like Ma June's enjoy extorting as much as they can for so very little.

There's a difference between business transactions and highway robbery, even now. Which is why he's here ㅡ he'd gotten talk about a place that sold weapons and weapon-related supplies at a fair rate, and necessity had made him swallow his pride to go and find out for himself.

Which is why he's not just turning around and fuckin' leaving.

The building is crammed between two others, as ramshackle as the rest being made of recycled tin and wood that's rotted by time and rain in places, but still suggests a stability that won't crumble if somebody breathes too hard on it.

Cooper's spurs jingle as he walks, lost momentarily to the chime of something over his head when he pushes the door open. He looks up, forehead creasing.

Is that a bell?

Rusted but still in working order, it clatters again when he shuts the door, looking around. It's about as put together as any other kind of shop, an eclectic organization to it ㅡ a couple of rifles, a pistol or two, along with an admittedly impressive assortment of knives ㅡ but it's the shine of something on the floor that makes Cooper stop.

His head cocks as he studies the stain, the still-slick shimmer to it that makes him crouch and drag two gloved fingers against it, studying the residue. Coppery, with a hefty dose of some kind of chem to clean it, but still unmistakable ㅡ blood.

Well damn. He doesn't know what's happened here and he's pretty sure he doesn't care to, much beyond the fact that if the runner of this place is dead, that puts a damper on things. Or maybe not ㅡ if nobody's here, what's to stop him from taking what he wants?

"If you're thinkin' of stealing," comes a call that snaps his head up as it echoes from further back in the building, "I'd advise you not to. Less you wanna meet your maker, then I'd be happy to assist."

It's a flat bravado that both amuses him and piques his interest, and he leans against the counter to rap his knuckles. "Not stealin'," he drawls, "just wonderin' what kind of business model you've got if you make customers wait."

"The kind where patience is still a virtue, that's what." Foosteps, unhurried ㅡ and then Cooper is staring at you as you round the corner. You've got a jumpsuit of some indistinguishable color opened to rest around your hips, dingy tank-top underneath ㅡ and a stimpak in your hand. No doubt for the mess of your other arm, bicep wrapped with gauze that's already seeped into a bloom of bright red.

Well now. Cooper wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but you still manage to surprise him. Enough that he's staring, which makes you scowl.

"I know that look," you challenge, "if you think I'm easy picking, you'll get a new place to breathe from, courtesy of the hole I'll put in your head."

Cooper's head cocks. "Well now sugar," he says, "that's not very nice now, is it? Wasn't even thinkin' of that." He turns, jerks a thumb at the half-assed cleaning of the mess on the floor. "That's your doin', I reckon."

You nod. "Don't get trouble much," you say, "but when I do, I make sure to prove a point." You jam the stimpak into your arm, and he watches the tension melt from your shoulders. "Now, what can I do for you besides point out the exit?"

Well damn, Cooper thinks again. You've got a pretty face, but it's at odds with the attitude coming from that nice little mouth of yours. About as welcoming as a rattlesnake and probably just as quick to anger, from the way you bristle as he eyes you.

"Need supplies," he says, and you snort.

"What a wellspring of information you are. What kind of supplies?" You eye him, brow furrowing. "You're a bounty hunter, aren't you? Get your kind in here all the time." You tap a worn boot against the floor, hands now on your hips. "Hope you got means to pay for shit, because I don't do tab and I sure as fuck don't do charity work."

Cooper isn't sure if he likes you or he hates you. Bit of both, he guesses. The like is tentative and the hate is more solid ground, because he hates just about everybody. Makes it easier to do what needs to be done.

"Well, sweetheart," he leans into the counter, tips his hat, "depends on what you got to show me that's worth buyin'."

You stare, unimpressed by whatever angle he's going for. He's handsome, you'll give him that ㅡ but not much else. He also reminds you of somebody, with that hat of his and the way he talks ㅡ the low, drawn out drawl that you've only seen in those movies you manage to scrounge up here and there for your amusement.

Rolling your eyes, you hold up a finger and shrug your arms back into the jumpsuit, though you don't bother to zip it up. "Gimme a sec."

You don't know why you're doing this. Entertaining the notion that if you show him good enough product, he'll become a regular. You like regulars, but most of what you get seem to run on about six months worth of visits and then vanish.

Probably dead. Such is the way of the world, and it's still enough to get by. But you like new faces.

To his credit, he doesn't flinch when you slap the first pack onto the counter, followed by a second, and then a third.

"This is baseline stuff," you explain. "Your usual grade of bullet. Black powder, the standard kick." You shove the first pack at him, let him inspect the bullets. "Then you've got these."

The second pack shoved over, thin fabric parted so he can eye the neat little row of what would be hollow-point bullets if they didn't end with a tiny, pointed bulb of red glass.

"Explosive rounds." Your expression is unreadable. "They do the job, but they need special packing. Unless you wanna be blown up before the damn things even get loaded into the gun."

Cooper hums, eyes the bullet he holds up, the barely there shift of powder in the glass. He watches as you push the third over. "And these?"

"Same, but they pack even more of a punch. I'd recommend only shooting them at shit you want up in smoke." You shrug. "Or people, deathclaws, whatever the fuck you do out there."

Cooper studies you. "Where did you get this stuff? Thought bullets were hard to come by."

You give him a flat look of annoyance. "I make 'em myself."

Cooper stares, then smirks. Another little tip to his head. "Really now," he says, watches you bristle like a viper, ready to strike. Wonders if those fangs of yours pack a punch, what he'd need to do to get you to spit at him. "How 'bout you show me, darlin'? Wanna make sure what I buy is good quality."

You should tell him to shove it. Tell him to get the absolute fuck out of your shop, take his fuckin' yeehaw personality to someone else in the mood to deal with it ㅡ but you don't.

Instead, you sigh and tug the packages back, moving away from the counter. "Well c'mon then," you prompt, irritated. "Don't have all goddamn day."

The back of your shop is half a home and half a workshop, sprawled mess of equipment rusted with time but otherwise well maintained, smell of grease and hot metal and gunpowder that clings to everything.

You don't have to look back to know he's followed you, the jingle of his spurs as he takes his time, eyes missing nothing. The boxes of empty casings and empty glass bulbs ㅡ and the Mister Handy that's slumped in the corner, sparks spitting from it.

"Poor thing got shot first with that...situation earlier." Your voice is quiet. "Gotta fix 'im if I can."

Kind of funny, you sound sadder about the damn machine than the fact you'd killed someone over it. Then again, they'd been trying to kill you, so...eh. Justified, in your book.

The rest of the room is a haphazard attempt at something like a house ㅡ a couch with blankets on it, a short stack of books gone yellow at the edges, a coffee table ㅡ and sitting on it is a shitty little television, staticy and without color ㅡ but that doesn't matter. What matters to Cooper is that he knows what it's playing.

Your flitting around fades a little as he watches himself on screen ㅡ forever ago, a lifetime ago. Before the bombs, before vault-tec ㅡ when he'd been happy.

He'd loved his life, his family ㅡ and they'd loved him too.

"I've got enough stuff to make another round of flash-baㅡ" You stop, blinking at the way he's staring at the television. "Somethin' wrong? I know this isn't much, but it's my way of living, soㅡ"

"Stop your yappin'," Cooper rasps, and you glare as he shakes himself out of whatever reverie he was lost in. You scowl.

"Look, I know this doesn't seem like much of anything, but this is my business, and my shop." Your eyes narrow. "So try to be a little fuckin' nicer if you want me to sell you anything."

Whatever patience he'd had left promptly snaps like a bowstring as he snatches your arm, grips it tighter than he should. "Listen, sweetheart," he hisses, "what exactly is stopping me from just takin' what I want and leaving?"

Something whirrs behind him, distracts him just enough for the cool, sharp kiss of metal at his throat.

"Do it," you taunt, expression unreadable, grip tight on the blade you hold to his neck. "You're not the first one to try, and you won't be the last."

And there, Cooper notes, are your fangs, ready to sink into his skin. The two of you stare at each other for a good, long minute while the Mister Handy spits and sputters. And then Cooper huffs something like a laugh. "Glad to see you've got some bite to you, darlin', but I still think I could handle you."

A threat and something a little less hostile all in one, even as you yank your arm out of his grasp. "You couldn't handle me even if I came with a fuckin' manual," you snap back, but there's a playful gleam to your eyes. "You gonna buy anything or just lookin' to be a pain in my ass?"

A crooked grin tugs at Cooper's mouth. "Both."

ㅡ

The truce between the two of you is tentative. An understanding in the barest sense, because neither of you are dumb enough to pass up a lucrative, beneficial deal. He gets his supplies, you get caps. Simple.

You won't go as far as to say you're even friends, up until the point that you greet him on a visit with, "You know, you remind me of somebody."

He eyes you. "Really now. And who would that be, sweetheart? You workin' with more ghouls than just me?"

You snort. "Careful," you tease, "you almost sound jealous." Your tone quiets as you drum your fingers on the counter. "Nah, you remind me of that one actor, Cooper Howard."

Cooper stills. Watches you warily, turning a spent bullet casing over and over between gloved fingers.

"He played a cowboy," you say, nodding to yourself. "Talked like you do, too. Good movies, at least the ones I've gotten my hands on." You eye him, playful light to your eyes. "Wouldn't happen to be a fan of him too, would you?"

Cooper debates. He's not sure if you've put the pieces together and if you have, you're polite enough not to say it. He appreciates that, makes that fleeting temptation of putting a bullet in your head all the more temporary. He likes you. Be a shame if he had to cut ties.

"No," he answers. "I can safely say he and I are nothin' alike." Not anymore. He lets himself lean over the counter, too close to your face. Intimidation, maybe, or perhaps just because he likes being able to look at you like this. "Got anythin' else to tell me?"

Your eyes flick over his face, down to his lips as you lean a little closer, the suggestion of your mouth just shy of his. "Yeah," you murmur, quiet. "Next time you come by, work on your fuckin' manners."

[delta-drawsarts]

Opinions on Undertale Characters? [Yes that includes the Yellow ones... for obvious reasons]

Love them. Toby Fox did a masterpiece of writing Undertale and Mastersword did a phenomenal job making a prequel that made me cry at the Pacifist ending. And he did such a banger job at writing Flowey's character before the events of canon Undertale.

Though I do see some flaws in some characters. Toriel left Asgore, and her kingdom after war was declared on humanity from the deaths of her children. Instead of taking action to prevent this, she fled like a coward. And what's worse, where she could've accompanied the fallen children, she just left them to go out and die, knowing they didn't stand a chance against the Monsters of the Underground. In a way, she isn't any better than Asgore since she was indirectly responsible for those kids deaths.

Asgore never wanted war, he regretted his decree after his anger had simmered down. His children are gone, his wife left him, and now he has burdened his people with war, even if they hold onto hope of seeing the sun again. And it makes me wonder... What would have happened if he did acquire all 7 human souls? Would he have gone through with it?

For Undertale Yellow, my biggest issue is how Ceroba and Chujin's relationship is portrayed and its downfall. Chujin was an engineer, and probably a good one for that matter (With the space heater at the Honeydew Resort and possibly the filter in the Oasis?) but when making Axis he overlooked casualties. He let his ego think what he made was perfect, and that costed him his job. And instead of being honest with his wife, the person he should TRUST the most to confine to, he lied. Said he retired. And then blows all their savings to make a huge house. Ceroba had to take a job she hated while he traveled around the Underground. And his grudge against humans and his fear that if another one fell it'd be worse than the Snowdin Attack, he experimented with things he could not understand. And he withered away day by day, and on his death bed he burdens his wife to carry on his legacy. A legacy she had NO idea about, and quite frankly how was she suppose to? She didn't have the smarts like him.

Ceroba was so blindsided that her husband was perfect in every way, that whatever he did was for the benefit of Monsterkind. Serums can't make a Monster stronger, we've seen this with the DT and Integrity substances being put into Monsters. The only way for someone to be stronger from a human soul is to absorb it, not extract from it. Though that could likely mean two people would be at the steering wheel, human and monster, and it could be disastrous.

I'm not saying Ceroba's a bad mom when she used the serum on her daughter. It was a desperate act to fulfill Chujin's legacy, and despite his wishes to keep Kanako out of it, she gave in when she pleaded for her mom to inject her with it.

The contrast between the Dreemurs and Ketsukane families are just that: Mistakes that their children pay for. Asgore burdens himself and his people with war. Chujin burdens Ceroba with his legacy. Toriel thinks she's good by protecting the children who fall, but ultimately their blood is on her hands regardless. Ceroba believes what she does in UTY is for the benefit of Monsterkind, but it only hurts the people she cares about.

Chara was pressured to be the hope of Monsterkind, willing them to have their brother take their soul and retrieve more souls only for it to fail horribly, and thus they both perish. Kanako was the same, wanting to be used for a untested serum so she could help Monsterkind, only for it to make her fall down and eventually turn into an Amalgamate.

PHEW! Jeez, I really rambled on there didn't I?

[carlyraejepsans]

Hey, if you don’t mind the question. What’s your opinion on Undertale Yellow?

8/10 game. pretty good at being a game, not so much at being an undertale story. the gameplay itself was fun, the area/puzzle designs too, the soundtrack was untouchable it literally gave me the same rush i felt hearing sburb initiation for the first time. minor NPCs designs were fun but the primary cast was too monotonous, tbh. (all the main characters have tall gangly very detailed designs save for like, axis). its attempts at landing Undertale's humor were quite often successful, but it held back on exaggeration and caricaturing its original characters which took away that oomph from the canon game. the character writing was... lacking. which is a pity.

i love fucked up women so i was really disappointed that every single one of ceroba's actions/ideas/influences on the story were nothing but an extension of her dead husband. when you take chujin away she's just... A Good Wife and Mother. or starlo's past love interest ig. i mean both dalv and martlet's backstory were tied to her family and we never see them interact at all. but they do have an established dynamic.... with the dead husband. again. UGH. she's just really wasted as a character (she and chujin should've BOTH been scientists and she should've continued the project AGAINST his wishes after he died. she's the main cast character, she should be the driving force in the narrative, not him—even if chujin sets the plot in montion by inventing the serum first).

I'm not a huge asgore fan—not that i dislike him, he's just not a character i care about all that much—so congrats to this game for making me say "he would NOT fucking say that". the "fuck the royals" subplot thing was really unnecessary. actually, that was a bit of a recurring thing in the game. suddenly introducing these Huge Social Dilemmas like labor exploitation, anti-monarchic sentiments, misogyny (bro who on earth "needs to take a wife" this is Undertale) everyone realizing that clover is a child, over exaggerating the violence at stake... while also attempting to maintain Undertale's careless, bouncy treatment of the situation. that's... not how things work. undertale is able to maintain its light tone BECAUSE it doesn't let you take those topics seriously, they're not meant to be. the fairytale-like king, the battles, the child protagonist, they're all set dressings for the REAL story and REAL power imbalance it wants to highlight: that between player and game characters. everything is in function of that. you take that layer of separation and make everyone aware that theyre violently attacking and killing a literal child... that's not. a good thing dude. if it's not gonna impact the tone of the story, why acknowledge it in the first place? it's just unnecessary

anyway flowey neutral run was really, really fun. his dialogue writing all throughout the game was very solid and i had a blast having him around. however, they shouldn't have tried to anticipate his character development. this game is a prequel, you can't do that without undermining his arc in the canon events. pacifist should've had him doubling down on his frustration from the neutral ending. i do all this work for you keeping you alive and you make the same mistake i did sacrifice yourself for them??? are you BRAINDEAD???? what I'm saying is he basically should've thrown the biggest tantrum of his LIFE. oh and in the NM run he should've been terrified when he lost control of the SAVE file. this is the first time it's ever happened to him and now he's gonna die for good. he wouldn't have gloated like he did.

if you want to hear more criticism along the lines of what i said then this post by the fantastic @andreabandrea covers a lot of what i also felt during the game. i know this might sound like a lot of negativity, but the fact remains that UTY was an absolutely phenomenal work of fan creativity the likes of which we have never seen before in the fandom. considering the quality and polish, i thought it only fair to approach it as the piece of art it is and give it my genuine thoughts on the matter.

overall, still a really fun way to spend the afternoon with a pal. so. thumbs up

[simply-wlw-kpopstan]

Prequel to the smau 'always been you'

All those nights

Where we laughed until the sun came up

I had to have you

And no matter how late it got

I didn't even care if my mom found out

I had to

"shhh" you quickly shushed minjeong as she fell on the floor of your bedroom. "I could've let you in you know" you stared down at her body as she had attempted to climb into your bedroom window.

"your mom has super freaky hearing, there's no way you would've been able to walk past her bedroom and open the door." she chuckled.

"but she won't hear you falling on my floor loudly?" you cocked an eyebrow at her teasingly.

"Oh hush before she comes in and kicks our asses." She grinned as she plopped down on your bed, "come here" she motioned to come lay in her arms and how could you deny her? She did sneak out and climbed up a tree just to cuddle with you.

"I missed you," you say as you snuggle closer into her embrace, "how was Seoul?"

"it was scary but also amazing. I don't know if they'll accept me though." she frowned at the thought of her audition, " I could always become a soldier." she smirked.

"you would look very good in uniform." you smiled up at her, "but they'd be so dumb to not accept you! You're amazing."

"look who's talking." she brushes her hand up and down your waist making you pull back and laugh. Unfortunately minjeongs grip was stronger then you thought and she continued to tickle you, " have you heard back from any companies?"

You had send in a clip of yourself to multiple online auditions but none have responded yet, "no, but it's okay. At least I'll have more time with you" you smile up at her.

Minjeong leaned down and kissed you gently when there was a knock on your bedroom door, " I know minjeong is with you and I informed her parents she's here." you both stiffened up at your mom's voice, "we'll talk about it tomorrow, now go to bed. I don't want to hear another sound coming from your room."

Now I'm lyin' in my bed

I've been in it since you left

Truth is nothin' that you said

Could make me love you less

There you were. lying in your new bedroom in a small apartment in Seoul. Minjeong got into sm and you got into the black label. Before she got chosen for debut you were living together, not officially but it felt like it. Then the day came, she walked in with a serious face and sat you down.

"I got selected for debut." she said as she looked down at her hands.

"really? That's amazing baby!" you smiled and gave her a hug, "why aren't you happy?"

"I have to move into a dorm with 3 other girls. Immediately. They want us in the dorm by next week."

"w-well that's... It's what you wanted isn't it?"

"yeah but... I don't want to leave you."

"You're just moving in with these girls, it's not like you're leaving me for someone else are you?" you joked and it lifted the mood a little.

" I won't have much time if I get into the final selection. I know we already have so little but it's going to get worse." she sighed and took a hold of your hands, " i'm talking months of not seeing eachother and I'll have to give up my phone, so no texting or calling either. "

" so you'll just disappear?" you frowned, "they can't do that can they? Like they can't force you, you can say no. "

"I already said yes."

"without talking to me first?" you stood up and walked towards the other side of the small place, "I know this is your future but you didn't even think about us? What we would have to sacrifice?"

"if I said no they would've chosen someone else! I can't let such a small thing hold me back!"

"Small thing? That's what this is for you?" you scoffed as you walked towards your bedroom, "just leave I don't want to talk to you right now."

I hate myself

for missin', missin' you

I know I'm not supposed to

I wish I could forget you,

but it's so hard to

I know I'm not supposed to

I, I miss you, I, I miss you

I, I miss you...

As you're laying in bed all the small moments you had together flash through your mind. It's been a week since minjeong came by and told you she had to move in with the others and give up her phone. A week since she called your relationship a small thing. Eventhough she had hurt you by saying that you still wished she was there with you, holding you as you try to fall asleep. The more time passed by the more you missed her, should you call her? What if they took her phone already? You don't even know where she is now and it eats at you. Knowing she's close but still out of reach.

Reckless nights

It was dangerous but you got me so high

What happened to you?

'Cause we went from skin-to-skin

To you never wanna see me ever again

Said you had to, why'd you have to?

When you bumped into one another a couple weeks later it felt like coming home. It didn' t take long for the both of you to go back to your place and make up in bed. Now as your laying naked next to her her words fly around in your head and you get conscious of the situation you're in.

"so, how is training going?" you ask quietly.

"good, I'm in a competition right now with another girl for main vocalist but she's really nice. No matter what happens we'll both will end up in the group." she stretches herself before putting on her clothes again. She noticed you looking and gave an apologetic smile," sorry, I have to be at the company. "

" can't you be a little late? " you pull up the covers which didn't go unnoticed by minjeong.

" no I can't and why are you doing that? It's just me."

"because I kind of feel used. you haven't reached out in months and then we meet again, sleep together and you run off. Not even a word about what happened before."

"wh-why is this my fault?" She frowned, "i' m really busy and I told you that before! I didn't force you into bed so don't you dare accuse me of using you. Last time I checked, you told me to leave you alone so I did. you're the one that didn't reach out."

"a relationship goes both ways minjeong!" you yelled

"Do we even have a relationship anymore at this point?" She yelled back frustrated. "maybe it's for the best that we break up at this point and just... Never see each other again. "

"what happened to you?" your voice broke at that point as minjeong stood in front of your front door, her back towards you as you sniffled. "the person I knew would've fought for us."

All those stupid fights

that go 'til I cry

I don't know how to leave them behind

Venom falls from your lips

The same ones I used to kiss

And I'm tryin' to get you out of my mind

"I've worked so hard for this and now that i'm so close to achieving it... I can't let anything ruin that."

"so that's it? Just screw me over one last time?" you snapped.

"I didn't mean for any of that to happen! We both got carried away by our emotions and that's exactly what I can't afford now!" She took a breath before turning back to the door, "I can't let you distract me so don't reach out, don't talk to me. when you see me, act like you don't know me."

"wow," you scoffed as tears ran down your face, " you know what leave. It's what your best at anyway."

"this never would've worked and you know it. There are Too many things that can go wrong if we continue. We both got in a company, we're both chasing after our dreams. I would never stand in your way and I hoped you would do the same for me." after she spoke those words she left your appartement, leaving You once again.

I hate myself (I hate myself)

For missin', missin' you (miss you)

I know I'm not supposed to

I wish I could (I wish I could) forget you

But it's so hard to (hard to)

I know I'm not supposed to

I, I miss you, I, I miss you

I, I miss you...

I, I miss you, I, I miss you

I, I miss you

After everything that's said and done she was your first real love. The one that will always hold that special piece of your heart and no matter how hard you tried, you can't bring yourself to hate her. She had hurt you more than anyone ever had but it was hard to blame her for it all. In the end she was close to debuting and had tried to warn you about what was going to happen, you let your emotions take over instead of finding a way out.

The moment you made your debut a lot changed, many people tried to reach out again but never her. You had seen her at different stages but her words rang through your head ' act like you don' t know me' so that's what you will do from now on. You collected yourself and walked past her. in the corner of your eye, you saw her looking at you but you kept walking without turning around. you made a promise to yourself in that moment. To never get hurt again, never get too close and everything would be just fine. If only you knew what the future would hold.

[blueishspace]

Hero, Villain God 34

(Prev) (Next) (First)

*Grian's pov*

A movie marathon?

... that's weird...especially coming from Pearl of all people, what is she trying to do?... You have to know, now.

Dumbass: so. Dumbass: why the movie marathon thing. Pearl: So you caught on? Pearl: Good.

Wha- of course you did! You aren't stupid.

Dumbass: so?? Pearl: It wasn't all my idea. Pearl: You know how I told everyone you are my half brother and we were separated and stuff? Dumbass: yeah. Pearl: Told Scott and Cleo that before reuniting you were raised in one of those. Pearl: Uh. Pearl: Anti-technology small town communities. Dumbass: . . . Dumbass: Why. Pearl: Explains why you know fuck all about like. Pearl: 90% of pop culture. Dumbass: I'm not that bad. Pearl: You are mate. Pearl: You are.

Wait, you are getting away from the main point, she's distracting you! Or you are distracting yourself. . . Could be both.

Dumbass: So, the movie marathon is their solution? Pearl: They say it could be a good way to introduce you to some stuff. Pearl: I agree.

Uh... Pearl Isn't wrong, you can't just siphon from Mumbo's favourite tv programs forever. You have a feeling that photography documentaries aren't exactly what Pearl considera "pop culture"... You really don't want to admit it though.

Pearl: I can ask everyone what they are going to bring in the main chat. Pearl: If you want. Grian: sounds good.

Well now you just have to wait and see, what the others suggest... You hate waiting.

-Winners- Pearl: So, does everyone already know what film they are going to suggest? Scott: I was thinking... Mean Girls or Legally Blonde. Scott: On one hand, Mean Girls is peak. Scott: On the other, so is Legally blonde. Pearl: You can suggest two and they'll count as two different ones if you want. Scott: Oh that's perfect! Cleo: I'm thinking Nightmare before Christmas. Scar: Star wars! Scar: I was thinking of where to start. Scar: And while I'm a prequel lover. Scar: It might be better to start with the original trilogy. Pearl: ... All 3 movies? Scar: It gives the chance to know Darth Vader. Scar: Makes the moments in the prequels more impactful. Scar: Cause that's the descent and you know what's going to happen. Cleo: Wow. Cleo You really put thought into this? Scar: I thought about maybe showing the more recent trilogy but. Scar: Can't do that before the original trilogy. Scar: And we are not skipping the prequels. Scott: Why would you ever even consider the sequel trilogy? Scott: Why would you want to subject anyone to that? Scar: . . . How dare you. Pearl: Ok. Pearl: Feel like we are getting a bit off-road. Pearl: What are you bringing @/Martyn? Martyn: Uh. Martyn: The lego batman movie. Scott: . . . Scott: Why though.

You laugh, you can't help it really, you don't really understand what they are talking about but something bubbles in your gut and you wheeze. Oh, this really is the best possible outcome.

[lucius-morningstar]

Questions (Prequel)

Vaggie's always had one question about hell. One that always bothered her so she figures she'd ask the only two people who might have an answer. Vaggie: Okay so there's just one thing about hell I don't understand. Lucius: Shoot. Vaggie: Why was there a child in hell? Charlie: Most of those children are in cannibal town. Vaggie: There's more?! Charlie: Yeah. We have a running theory on that. Vaggie: A theory? Lucius: Uh huh, so my guess is that since most of the children if not all are in cannibal town it actually makes sense. Vaggie: How? Angel: I gotta hear this. Lucius: So you know how were told that eating human flesh is like the worst of the worst. Lowest shit you can do to end up in hell hands down. Vaggie: Yeah? Lucius: Well think about it, the parents, the adults who are cannibalistic, basically sentence their children to life time in hell. Their lives are basically decided for them the second the parent places the meat in front of them. Whether they're aware or not, the second they eat it, they're fucked for life. Vaggie: ...No. Lucius: No? Vaggie: Heaven would-.. No. Lucius: Hey that's the only theory I got. I am not lookin to test it out either. Vaggie: So if a dad or mom or parents are cannibal, adopt a kid and don't tell them it's human meat they're eating. They go to hell anyway? Lucius: That's my theory yeah. Vaggie: That's fucked. Lucius: Oh yeah, heaven being unfair to innocent souls.. How out of character for th- Vaggie: Okay I get it... Don't have to be a smart ass about it. Lucius: I think you and i both know I do. Its in my nature. Charlie: You think they'd at least give child souls a chance to be free. Lucius: You'd think so but what if its a matter of asking, would you rather be with your family or would you rather be in heaven. Of courst most kids if not all of em would choose their family. Cherri: Sounds like they get fucked over. Thinking they might go back to the living. Ugh. Vaggie: ...Fucking hell that's annoying. Charlie: Right? Lucius: Can't be anymore annoying then sparing a child and ending up stuck down here. Vaggie: You say that like it's going to upset me but I got the better end of that deal. Lucius: Really, ending up trapped with a bunch of demons who enjoy pissing you off for their amusement. Vaggie: One of those demons loves me more then any soul in heaven ever could. So yeah worth it. Charlie: Aww.. Lucius: Ew. Angel: Gross, lovey dovey lesbian shit. I'm gone. Husk: I'm getting a drink. Cherri: Count me in. Lucius: Same, you two be cute somewhere else. I want to eat dinner tonight. Angel: By the sounds of it someone's eatin good to-Ow Lucius the fuck man?! Lucius: Don't make gross jokes about my sister's love life. Angel: Can I make gross jokes about your- I'm joking I'm joking geez.. Asshole. Lucius: Yep, that's me.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

yea.... 😭😭😭

now my logical followup is rewatching rogue one for the first time since seeing it (multiple times) in theaters i believe? Will i cry a lot, which i am always prone to do w/media & things but all the more so lately, it seems

[bruhstation]

I've been thinking about the setting of my TUGS au, the prequel to casa tidmouth, and by extention I began thinking about the show TUGS itself.

it's kind of depressing to know that TUGS is most likely set during the years RIGHT before world war 2. I remember watching a TUGS iceberg video a long time ago, maybe last year-ish. after a series of callbacks and alludes to the little environmental details right at the end of the video, the creator said that the show is possibly not set during the 1920s, but the 1930s, nearing another war period, and that's why I've changed the era of what this AU is set in many months ago.

mitton and cardona claimed that the show is set during the "booming era" of the 1920s, but I can't help but think that maybe the 1920s isn't the most fitting era with how the tone of the show is.

the 1930s setting really does make sense though -- the atmosphere in TUGS is much more, I dunno how to exactly say it, gloomy? serious? it's still a mostly lighthearted kids show, but, to quote some things indirectly from the iceberg video; what's with the munitions? the flammable barges? johnny cuba? the constant mention of broken ships? characters dying right on the screen in such a macabre fashion? burke and blair's whole job? then my mind thought about the star tugs and z-stacks, their relationship and purpose and how it ties to the pre-ww2 feeling of the story.

the conflict between the star tugs and z-stacks isn't fueled by personal grudge against each other. I apologize for comparing TUGS to ttte, but in comparison to its sister series where the engines of sodor have personal banter against each other selfishly, still manage to fool around during their jobs, get into accidents due to their own hubris, and end the day where they learned their lesson, TUGS is much different. they're just there to work and carry through their contracts. they still banter with each other but they know their priorities. they are also driven by their conscience and rationale, not just some "oh he made fun of me so I'm not gonna help him out. I'm bigger and more important so I refuse to do this job and go back to my berth".

zorran dislikes the star tugs but knows that the contracts are much more important and he is willing to work with them if it means the job will be done. top hat, despite his personal distaste for anything smelly, QUICKLY changes his mind about lord stinker and works with him to save the goods engine. zebedee is a character more driven by his personal view on what's good or bad -- he helped the star tugs push princess alice back into place and showed concern when ten cents was pushing the oil barge to the sea, but there's a part of him that's definitely concerned for his own well being.

they have their personal opinions on both their teammates and their rival company's tugboats, but they know better than to let those feelings get in the way. not working means their presence as tugboats will be jeopardized.

these points, added to the very high possibility that TUGS is set during the late 1930s, creates another layer to the overall murkier feeling of the show. the characters know the times are dire. the characters know that they have contracts to go through. they know that something big is coming. they've went through world war 1! with how bluenose and the navy inserted their presence in bigg city port, there's also an idea that there's gotta be at least one character with a sense of foreboding amidst the business.

I also reckon they've grown some kind of fondness (???) for their rival company? it's like when there's a kid at school who keeps annoying you, but next day they're not there and you got a bit worried on where they might be. the two factions don't necessarily like each other, but their rival has formed a place in their normalcy that to get rid of them entirely is not going to do any good, really.

so yeah. that's all I have in mind right now.

[popculturebuffet]

Transformers More Than Meets The Eye Retrospective Season 1 Finale: Remain in Light (Patreon Review for Brotoman.exe)

Hello all you happy Autobots. It's been over a year, two spotlight issues, a two issue prequel, an annual and as of this review, 22 issues but we've done it we've reached the end of more than meets the eye season 1.

It's been a long project but one of my faviorites, one I always wanted to do but simply didn't have the time on my own and was more than happy when Brotoman commissioned these. I owe him a world of gratitude for his support and patience. Without him I woudln't of been able to talk about gay disfunctional robots every month and for that, i'm eternally grateful. This is one of my faviorite comics and re-reading it slowly and intently has only solidified that.

So a few things before we dive into this wonderful story: The first is something I forgot to mention last time that brotoman pointed out, something important I missed in my tired daze: How big a moment Rewind saying "I Love You" To chromedome is.

See before this, the series was coy about the two: It made it damn obvious the two were a couple.. but also used terms like them being "friends" and no one using words like couple, common law husbands or pound pals. The two were just a duo at first and if you were a mite thick headed like yours truly, who at the time I first read the comic didn't look for gay subtext like a bloodhound after a cheeseburger, you'd miss it. It was still obvious, the way they act around each other, their history, the way they fight.. the two are ENTIRELY an old married couple and act it and anyone looking closely could see that. But Roberts knew that those three little words were, to quote an interview with Sequart Orignization, a step up.

All that said, the Chromedome/Rewind relationship stepped up a gear – and moved fully into the open – with issue #16, when Rewind tells Chromedome (not for the first time, but it’s the first time we’ve seen it on the page) that he loves him. I was conscious that this was really nailing certain colors to the mast, and I was ready to make a case for those three words to stay in the script. But both John and Michael Kelly at Hasbro were incredibly supportive and encouraging, and the declaration of love survived the editing process. The reaction to the first Transformers gay couple was amazing – overwhelmingly positive. To be honest, I thought most people would be pretty cool with it, because most people are sensible and decent, but it was still encouraging to see. Hooray for Transformers fans."

I"m happy to hear that the reception was entirely positive and that Hasbro was supportive. I'm sure there are still a few idiots who were again it here and there, but like those who actively deny huntlow happened.. their a few idiots who can't accept objective reality and there's only one way to deal with them

Moving on to Remain in Light itself, We need to talk about the big shockwave shaped elephant in the room. Dark Cybertron is intended to be the finale for both this and Robots in Disguises' first season, a big epic crossover to shake up both series status quos and onboard us into season 2.

In practice.. it's the big showy finale to Robots in Disguise with the MTMTE cast guest starring. It's still VITAL to MTMTE, I would've simply recapped it like I intend to recap RID if that weren't the case: Nautica and Nightbeat are introduced, joining the crew in season 2, Megatron has his heel realization that leads to him also joining the crew, Cybertron finds out Prowl didn't kill MOST of the lost lighters (RIP Rewind I), and Chromedome powerbombs the motherfucker off a cliff.

I'll unpack this scene more when we properly get to it but I cannot see Prowl get powerbombed off a cliff while he's somehow SHOCKED this happened despite begging for it. It's Dellliccciooousss.

The fact is while a crossover was inevitable the death fakeout meant both books were completely isolated from each other, and thus their plots.. really don't intersect much. Prowl's actions have consequences and his baiting Chromdome leads to bad shit over in RID, but for the most part the two books are their own stories and their own spheres and by the time they intersect it works well enough... but it's clear they just work better on their own. It's likely why the third addition to this line, Windblade (both volumes) was made to stand on it's own while having an easier time intersecting back with Cybertron as our heroes are one teleport away versus the lost light being deep in space and in it's own character stuff. Windblade, btw is fucking great and I intend to cover it at some point, just not as part of this retrospective. It's it's own beautiful thing.

So while Lost Light was going to get into the Dark Cybertron hype, it needed to cap off it's own story first as it would've been a bit much to try and cram two series with a wide buffet of ongoing plots and plans together. So we get Remain in LIght where a LOT of character arcs are paid off, a few questions are answered, and a few things are set up for both next season and the eventual finale of the series. As usual it's remarkable how much Roberts set up, but here's where it gets to payoff more: last arc paid off the overlord conspiracy and rewind and chromedome's relationship, this one pays off magnus' breakdown, the circle of light and even where we found skids and just what was chasing him. It's a true epic and I can't wait to share it with you under the cut.

Part 1 picks up exactly where we left off: Tailgate is running to tell Cyclonus some "stupid news" while Rodimus, Blaster and Ambulon look over the security footage since Ratchet was busy telling Tailgate he gonna die. And to remind us Ambulon exists before the carnage to come.

For now Blaster's friend Mainframe is able to track the shuttle, so Rodimus is rounding up a crew to go find Magnus, with a determination we've scarely seen and a grimness we really haven't.

Meanwhile it turns out Tailgate's sickness... is cybercois, a condition that slowly kills the trnasformer, taking away their movement , speech and eventually memory.. and given memories of this place are all Tailgate really has he didn't take it well. Cyclonus urges tailgate to face his death with dignity and head on, agreeing to keep it secret and leaving... to mutilate his own face with a large scrap, enraged the one person he has on this ship is about to die and he can't just cut his diseas in half.

Hot Rod leads the crew to a big hole, making it very clear that he dosen't care what they ahve to say their going in... and for once his impusilvness pays off as what he finds is Luna 1, cybertron's missing moon which was mentioned before and I honestly forgot was the setting for this arc but it's a brilliant payoff and a way to have Rodimus have acomplished something big: he found one of the lost moons. Even if the quest has gone nowhere, this is still pretty damn big and he has perceptor confirm it. What's more curious, even if Perciptor dosen't buy it? Luna has a BILLION PEOPLE on board.

So Rodimus assembles his crack team.. and this is the first time we really see what we'll call Team Rodimus come together: While Rodimus has interacted with all these guys before, this is where it becomes clear how much he cares about them as more than just his crew:

First recurit is Rung whose surpised after Rodimus' outburst last time they talked. Naturally that's exactlyw hy: Rodimus flipped out largely because it was something he didn't want to hear... and with magnus gone he NEEDS that opposing opinon.

The rest of the team includes Brainstorm, whose happy to go and is already packed (holds up suitcase), Ratchet as the Medic, Perceptor as the more stable science guy to Brainstorm's mad scientest, and Whirl... who Rodimus flat out admits he just needs to throw a punch. Also going along is Chromedome, who Skids begs to help him: Since LUna 1 is allegedly's a giant treasure trove, Skids wants something to repair his memory. Swerve also wants to go but is harshly turned down by rodimus due to limited capacity, while Cyclonus agrees to go and take Drift's place as spirtual advisor, since he's the most religious person on the ship left, which he agrees to if Tailgate can come.

What I really get from this is while Rodimus is asking most on qulaifications, only being really straight with Rung.. like I said this shows who he really cares about: his team has to be small and he's a dick to swerve.. but it's likely more he knows Swerve might be in danger here and if there were room, skids and swerve would be along. These are who he can count on, who he's leaned on, who he needs without his two main supports on the ship. And this team will only grow as time goes on.

For now Team Rodimus heads to the planet, with Tailgate hoping to find a cure and Cyclonus.. thinking hope is a lie and telling him to never hope. And also he killed his puppy. He made him a puppy and then he stabbed it. A bunch. And then he showed tailgate the pictures.

Anyway our heroes land on the seemingly barren moon only to find...

IT's a hell of a reveal, and one that will be vastly important down the line... it won't really have any consequences for NOW but just remember this in a few years when we get to the final arc. For now jus tnejoy the sense of wonder on everyone's face: even Ratchet, the crankiest of crank and Tailgate who

We then find out what constructed cold means as Tailgate asks... granted I think I covered this definition back in chapter 1, but as a reminder; cold construction is making a cybertronian via "Spark splicing" using a bit of someone elses to craft a new one. This was in part due to demmand: Cybertron couldn't expand out into the cosmos if it didn't have enough people. Problem is as we've seen like any society Cybertron is quick to prejudice, and thus once Nova Prime who invented the process left, many a city started trying to "prove" constructed cold bots were inferior, something Chromedome is still bitter about and rightfully so.

It's about then things go to hell: On the ship commuincation is suddenly blocked between the bridge crew and away team, and Skids hears some clanking. on Luna 1, our heroes are soon swarmed by decepticons as Lockdown arrives

Okay probably not the right reaction but for those curious who this guy is, Lockdown was one of the handful of original characters from Transformers Animated, my faviorite transformers show and the one that reignited my spark for this fandom. And then this comic did it again, it's a bit cyclical. Point is even if I badly need a refresher on that series, Lockdown was their kraven the hunter, a bounty hunter who hunted down autobots for the decepticons, mostly working for them out of necisity and largely being his own man, so he fits for being a gun for hire for someone else. He sadly dosen't get as much to do here, at least in this season I can't remember if he shows up again, but it's just nice to see something from Animated imported as later installments tend to either make new transformers or stick with the core ones.

On the ship.. things are worse... Skids is confronted by those mysterious robots, who i'll just go ahead and call by their proper names: Legislators... only this time their giant sized and emerging out of the oil pool. What's worse is they soon creep up on EVERY deck of the ship, all shouting the same thing: 1984. Oh and in case you thought things couldn't get any worse as Team Rodimus flees... Ratchet is shot down and isolated....

We pick up from the siege in issue 2: the ship's overrun, our heroes are outgunned and only Swerve is able to land a solid hit as only one came to Swerves

... admitely I just wanted to show off the my first blaster. (Clears throat)

SAY YOU, LITTLE AUTOBOT. YOU WANT TO SHOOT THINGS WITH ALL THE BIG KIDS BUT YOU CAN'T FIRE THEIR BIG OLD GUNS FOR BIG OLD BOTS WITH YOUR WIDDLE BITTY BABY HANDS? TRY MY FIRST BLASTER! MY FIRST BLASTER IS A GUN DEISGNED FOR LITTLE FELLAS LIKE YOU. jUST POINT SHOOT AND MY FIRST BLASTER WILL TELL YOU IF YOU DID AND SUPPORT YOU IF YOUR NOT. MY FIRST BLASTER, FROM BRAINSTORM INC A DIVISON OF BRAINSTORM IS SMARTER THAN YOU LLC.

WARNING: NOT SELLABLE ANYWHERE EXCEPT THE LOST LIGHT. DO NOT GIVE TO BOTS UNDER 1. DO NOT USE WHILE DRUNK UNLESS IT'D BE REALLY FUNNY. COPYRIGHT VIOLATERS WILL BE HUNTED DOWN AND DIPPED IN ACID.

Meanwhile Skids continues his fight and easily wins using his super learning, able to predict his new foes attack easily and counter it.. the problem is while it's a great skill when your fighting a few of Legislators.. it's not so great when your fighting NINE of them and they'll likely keep coming.

So back on Luna 1.. it isn't much better. Whirl and Cyclonus get seperated from the group, and Rodimus, while finding out Ratchet got taken down from tailgate.. simply can't go back for him.

Rodimus then procedes to do some dope as hell sacrlige as he plunges into a titans corpse to give him more room to evade their captors. Sadly while his moves are dope as fuck and Lockdown is sure to give them the slow clap they deserve.. he's already gotten everyone else. After taking a second to tell pharma everyone else hates him, a worthy use of his time. What a legend.

So our heroes end up in a jail cell where, for the past two issues, Rodimus has been recapping these events to Minimus, his cellmate.. who looks an awful lot like someone a certain dead bot was looking for.. hmmm. Questions for later.

For now Rodimus admits they weren't just dumped in a cell first, as Rodimus correctly figures Lockdowns taking them to his boss: a long lost moon as a base, teleport tech.. all of this screams big bad.. and Lockdown is at the end of the day a guy just doing his job. Pharma mentioning a collective "lord and master earlier" already told us this, but it's a nice character bit, shows that beneath his reckleness Rodimus is far smarter than he appears and far more capable than most give him credit for. He's an idiot, sure, but he's one with great skill and intiution.

And sure enough there is a big bad behind all this.. and of all people it's..

I was as shocked as rodimus but it's a clever rug pull: We've seen Chief Tyrest brought up a lot, his accords are what Ultra Magnus is duly appointed enforcer of and back in Last Stand of the Wreckers, he's the one who oversaw the Aquetius trials. So seeing him show up is a suprise... but seeing him be BEHIND all this is a nice swerve. He also makes a perfect contrast to our crew: the embodiment of order and rigidity veruss our far looser, far more human crew. Metaphorically I mean thir still giant robots.

Tyrest is being an obstinante dick, proving he really is Magnus' boss, charging our heroes with crimes against creation. We find out our ambus ISN'T dominus, but his brother minimus, an allged energon trader who hasn't tried to escape because he's waiting for his day in court, a BIGGGGG honking neon sign of a clue at who this guy is. But more on that later, for now Tailgate has a bit of a breakdown, with no one knowing why since he didn't tell anyone present he's dying and could be trapped here for what days remain.

Meanwhile Ratchet.. is not doing any better, with Pharma torturning him, showing off his new shapeshifting hands which can become TWO chainsaws. That double groovey. He's no less stable than last time, but now he dosen't need to PRETEND to be and is honestly an even better villian on return: he has a joker style quality to him as he fiddles with his double groovy hands and plays with ratchet making him ask what's in THE BOX

Turns out 9 robots vs skids does just mean send more legislators and we get a nice speech from the guy, with him pointing out how the Lost Light took him in, cared for him and welcomed him no questions asked.. and

Unfortunately while Skid is totally badass.. he's also wiped.. and thus dosen't see this coming

We'll get into who this fine bastard is later, for now he knocks out Swerve too.

Back in Prison, Tailgate asks about tyrest, noting Nova Prime had a chief science offer of the same name.. the same guy. We get Tyrest's backstory: He was a nobody until the war when, with Dai Atlas' help , they helped 10,000 neutrals off world. Tyrest returned to TRY and broker peace, simply two city states, one for each side, but naturally since one of those sides was Megatron that never went anywhere. It instead lead to the Tyrest Accords, a series of rules of engagment the biggest being not exporting cybertronian weaponry. It's thanks to him the universe isn't a smoldering crater and thanks to Optimus he's chief justice.

As for what he's doing here... no one has a clue. He was last seen during the Aquetius trials, which Rodimus helpfully recaps: trials using a judging machine that 100% predicts guilt, and hasn't been seen since the trials. They also pass around energon sticks, something equivlent to either gum or cigarettes or autobot slim jims

Rung offers Minimus to snap into one.. then delberately spills it and spills it more, causing him to HAVE to get them off the ground and organized... and proving what Rung's figured all along:

Yup, while Ultra Magnus was indeed Ultra Magnus... he was also Minimus Ambus. It's complicated and naturally Hot Rod's a bit confused, so Magnus backs it up slightly: he war bought into luna one and reparied... then smacked in the face by tyrest.

Tyrest decides just bitchslapping Magnus PHYSICALLY isn't enougH: having read his logs and found his actions disgraceful, both the micromanagment and the various fraternizations, he disables the armor and left ambus as he was.

As for why Magnus was a fancy suit of armor, turns out Ultra Magnus is a legacy of brave autobots, all one percenters.. but smaller rewind sized ones, Loadbearers. So while their not super tanks from the start.. it means they can be heavily modified and thus wear the Magnus Armor. The Magnus Armor was forged after the original Magnus, a real brave bot, died: Tyrest saw what fear and awe he imposed and realized he could exploit that and thus created an "immortal lawman". If this is sounding very sinestro to you and making you nervous, that's the idea. As for why small transformers it's simply that most cybertronians can't get fancy armored add ons" too much and they freeze up. A loadbearer has plenty.

So our magnus, Minimus was the latest.. and seemingly last. He also has ten days left.. but it turns out Pharma wasn't lying: Tyrests doctors can work miracle.

Back in the flashback, we get a recontexulization of Magnus character from Tyrest, who isn't exactly reliable , hence why I didn't think too heaviyl about his words before.. but in hindsight.. they make perfect sense and the interview I mentioned backs it up: Magnus.. had a nervous breakdown.

For most of the lost lighters the war ending is a fresh start: the war is over.. but for the bulk of them the war wasn't something they fit into. They were fighting because they had no real choice or had been for too long. And in the case of some like Chromedome the war simply took one terrible thing they were forced into and swapped it for another. The war ending means a chance ot start over and do anything else.

Magnus... fit perfectly. He was a stickler for order, a natural talented combatant, and while he was the latest to wear this armor, he more than earned it. The war was chaotic and horrible, but it also had rules, a clear bad guy (even if this book shows there's still plenty shades of grey in the autobots), and a clear end goal. Life.. dosen't have those. LIfe is just doing your best and hoping today is good. It's not perfect, it's often messy, but it's just how it is. Magnus didn't really have to worry about small talk or what he does with the rest of his life.

It also explains why he took the lost light: it was seemingly close to what he'd been doing: going through space, righting wrongs, etc, all. Cybertron would've had more order.. but it was also filled with thousands of bots who resented him for everything he'd had to do over the war, and a new world he understood even less. It was the lesser of two evils, so he overcompesated by becoming anal retintive in the extreme. He's a soldier who simply couldn't cope with the war being over, a tale sadly as old as the nasty institution itself and didn't get himself the help he needed.

Magnus replacement.. was Star Saber, that guy we saw make Skids into a kebab. Magnus was mostly talking to them though.. because he was curious. He asked to be put in there as.. nothing is adding up: the decepticons, the titan, and now this "crimes against creation" charge that wasn't in the laws before. magnus, still being a tad naive even after all of this, goes to talk to tyrest.

While he does, WHirl and Cyclonus have escaped having killed a bunch of decipticons themselves and after their done getting to the numbers, see a cell block above... identified as such because it's directly over a giant smelting pool, as whirl puts it "a prison you can dunk" Whirl of all people is the logical one here: They need a ton of weapons to go rescue the others, and he can sniff an armory. Somehow. Honestly I'd question it but if anyone could find weapons through sheer force of will it's whirl.

Back with the head tha twouldn't die, Ratchet assumes this is about revenge.. and it is, Pharma wanted to hunt ratchet down, but his main goal

Thing is Pharma's a mite bit paranoid and hasn't removed them because their hard locked, and he assumes rigged to explode. Ratchet uses this to his advantage: he calls Pharma a coward, stating that he really didn't do it because he's scared he can't and essentially challenges him to a surgery duel: first to fix it win. Honestly Chicago Med and Grey's Anatomy could use WAY more of those. I'd watch every episode twice if it was a death sport race to see who can surgery faster. Get it on it Dick Wolf and Shondra Rhymes!

So back with the bicker twins, Cyclonus and Whirl argue, with Cyclonus pointing out byu this point.. Whirl could've had his own hands back and his face if he wanted, with Whirl genuinely worried if he stops being angry, he wouldn't be him anymore. Cyclonus gets stabbed from behind for our THIRD stabbing this story and our FOURTH in the last few issues, but it's not fatal, Whirl saves him.. and our dynamic duo find the prisoners: not our heroes, who are as it turns out somewhere else.. but the circle of light. It's why they have so many swords avaliable.

Back with Ratchet he made a bit of a tactical error.. while his gambit was clever.. he forgot that Pharma is basically the joker now and thus had ambulon and first aid brought here as swerve and skids were to Team Rodimus cell: their going to be the guinea pigs and despite ratchet's begging, he can't get the contest called off. This is happening. And unfortunately for ambulon instead of across the waist... Pharma decides to go lengthwise.

Semantics point is ambulon is super fucking dead and purple chainsaw blood is all over. It's a brutal, horrifying death.. and tha'ts really the only reason it works. That Pharma set up this horrifying death game, when he could've just done minor surgery and used one of the Legislators, since they aren't really sapient at this point anyway. Otherwise.. Ambulon is a guy we barely knew who disappeared entirely: Pipes was also mostly absent till his death.. but Pipes felt like an actual character and had enough characteirzation up to his death. Ambulon.. feels like he was kept on just for this chainsaw death since First Aid had more to give. It's not a bad death, I mean... look at that gore, but it's not as weighty especially coming after two big tearjerking ones.

Back at the cells, Swerve fills the rest of the crew in: the legislators have locked down the place, and he tells them about Star Saber, who it turns out in this unvierse is a notorious evangelical nutball who tried to do atheist genocide. So you know the MOST stable person to give a big sword. Star Saber being made into a villian.. was a bit contervseral according to tv tropes. Saber Originally was the optimus prime equilvent for one of the G1 animes, Transformers Victory, having a neat design and big old sword. So making him into a sociopathic religious nut wasn't the best for some. Me I think it's fine: the series already has plenty of heroic autobots and it helps reinforce the idea that being on the autobots .. dosen't make you a good person. Same with Tyrest.

He shows up to drop off a new prisoner.. and it makes Chromedome have a relization: when Skids memory was begging for estape it was asking for getaway... the autobot whose now being loaded into their cells.

Minimus goes to confront Tyrest who couldn't give a shit what Magnus thinks.. but is willing to explain what his grand evil plan is and why he's doing all this supervillian nonsense: guilt. Turns out Tyrest is one of the archetechts of Cold Construction, and instead of using sparks.. it used the matrix. This is a brilliant move and explains why, with cold construction only stopping fo ra bit because it was assumed the matrix was dry when really someone stole it assuming this was blasphemous.

And sadly. Tyrest has started to agree. The Aquetius trials drove him around the bend, with all the guilt and horrible actions of the autobots on trial getting to him.. to the point he started to drill into himself, hence the holes.. including one in his own head. Huh Egon WAS right it would've worked.. as Tyrest saw something beckoning him and thus the space bridge is a portal to cyberutopia itself. But being ... unhinged to say the least, Tyrest has decided he has to atone first... since all the criminals on trial were constructed cold, he assumes their an abomination and plans to use a literal killswitch to kill every last one tommorow. And beofre Minimus can stop this.. he has a legislator squish the poor guy's head.

Onto Part 4. After a reminder of the various gushers of blood abound, we cut to a fight with Whirl, Cyclonus and the Circle of Light. Turns out the circle had been cut down a bit, but is still a massive army, allowing for an epic battle while everything elses going on and the revelation that will come in hand in a bit that Cyclonus, being a true believer, can power their faithswords, which use energy from a spark to do something something something religion. Look I'm being as through as I can, but this is a MASSIVE story arc.

In the Cell Getaway TRIES to have a reunion with Skids, while also introducing his catchphrase bomp.. basically a sort of fistbump he used to annoy skids. At any rate Skids can't remember anything but Getaway can and fills the rest of the cast in on Tyrest's madness, which is a term I try to be careful with as someone with a mental illness myself.. but really appleis to a man whose drilled a thousand holes into himself and is trying to do holy genocide right about now. When Rodimus mentions Ambus not being back yet... Getaway drops the bomb on him baby, he drops the bomb on him... that Ambus LURED them here.

Back with Team Holy Genocide, Tyrest explains how the hell he knows this switch will work to someone who was there for it: He kidnapped Pharma because Pharma is apparently famous for being Forged, so he could prove it wouldn't kill Forged transformers. THe attack on the circle of light? A whole cities worth of test subjects, taking ten thousand down to one thousnad. Speaking of which given the Circle is a mite testy about the genocide, Tyrest decides to handle the situation by.. letting the equally religious genocidal monster he keeps on payroll handle it.

Skids has a bit of a breakdown over his missing memories so not wanting to see his best friend break down further, Swerve asks Gateway to fill him in on what he's missing. Skids and Brainwave were partners in the Dipolmatic Corps... which was really Autobot Special Ops. What good would being spies be if they broadcasted that fact? They had a similar job as the wreckers, impossible missions and such, but while the Wreckers were more Impossible MIssions Force, going in somewhat subtle and always ending loud and dangling themselves off cliffs, the ASO were more the stale beer type of spy: get in, do the mission, maybe surivive.

Their mission this time was to put a mind bullet in Tyrest's head.. not kill him, to Skids relief, as the binary gun, that gun Skids couldn't find when he was introduced, wasn't designed to kill, simply implant a thought, and a very simple one at that: Resign. As for why, while Skids boss didn't know the fulls cope of what tyrest is doing he got the feeling something bad was going down given he was chasing down titans and talking to the decpticons. Sadly .. Skids missed, Tyrest set his horeds on them and while Skids escaped, he followed one last protocol: after all the binary gun had two bullets... and the other was used on him to erase the mission

To no one's suprise, Prowl's the spymaster here and to even less shockity shock, him prodding the already deranged man with a god complex led him to speed up his plans. The good news of all this though is Getaway.. can get the mout. He's an escapeologist, a master escape artist, macguver as a transformer and the only reason he hasn't busted out? He didn't have a fresh set of keys.

While Getaway plans his way out, so does Ratchet, who has an argument iwth first aid: First Aid makes the valid point that Ratchet has a savior complex; he hasn't really retired.. because he dosen't think anyone else can do the job as well as him. Turns out this isn't it: Ratchet didn't let first aid help.. because Ambulon was long dead by chainsaw to the face, and he simply was stalling to weaponize his corpse, a nice little callback to drift doing the same. The two argue over what to do with Pharma, Ratchet not wanting to sink to his level and First Aid wisely feeling Pharma will just come back to haunt them again, if probably not the one to do it since i'ts clearly out of anger his friend we saw maybe once just got chainsawed in half by the guy.

The argument is interupted by Team Rodimus. Turns out the keys... were all the stuff on everyone and using Brainstorms breifcase straps (he had it on him as it's designed that only those who KNOW it's there see it) and Chromedome's fingers to create a dart gun, knock out the guard then have everyone use the sticks on the bars at the same time. THeir out, and Tailgate is hopeful he can find a cure. And what I like, and forgot to mention is HOW Luna 1's a treasure chest: it's not because it was lost. Luna 1.. is just luna 2 with a diffrent name. But since Tyrest took up refrence he also took every bit of treasure the magnuses had built up with him and thus he really CAN work medical miracles. It's juts without Pharma.. they might not be able to.

For now it's time to light up the stage cause it's time for a showdown. With team two guys , a religoius leader an an army it's not great as the legislators won't stop and there's a LOT of them, and Star Saber makes it worse. While Dai Atlas does his best against his polar oppiste.. Saber snidely tells him "Primus hates you and stabs the life out of him"

Team Rodimus don't have it much better.. they arrive, point a gattling gun at Tyrests face.. and tyrest simply activates his staff and the bodies hit the floor. It's a subsonic suggestion they can't move, so powerful they don't even belivie it when he tells them and with that.. he pulls the switch. Brainstorm and Chromedome start to fade.. and they aren't alone...

It's a brutal sequence ending with the scavengers... and with that tyrest has almost won, and all he has to do.. is step into the light of his portal as it activates.

So as the final chapter opens, Tyrest is about to get his big prize when...

It's a clever save: Tailgate's condition had been front and center for most of this arc, Ratchet outlined loss of functions.. it's poetry. I also love him jamming his finger in the head hole, it's a detail I did'nt notice till writing this but I love it.

WIth that the rest of the crew can rally.. but Tyrest uses tailgate as a human shield with Tailgate revelaing his condition so Rodimus can shoot.. but Rodimus has grown from the incident with fort max and can't bring himself too... thankfully..

Before we can process "how the hell is magnus still alive", we cut to the battle outside and we get an awesome fight with Cyclonus and Starsaber, with Cyclonus stabbing the fucker in the eye.. before he gets teleported away. Where? Well.. that's al ong ways off from being answered, but for now he's away from gutting people range so that's good at least. Back with Team Rodimus, Rodders asks what we're all thinking "What the hell". Turns out in a clever, if still somewhat labored twist... Minimus didn't tell them HOW many loads he was carring. This is as far down as he goes, but it still makes a lot of sense. Tyrest not KNOWING this dosen't, but we can handwave it as Tyrest assuming he got the heads and just.. not carring enough about magnus to double check the corpse, a mistage that made him into one.

Our heroes need to scramble to find someway to shut off the killswitch though as Tyrest was still sane enough to not put a shutoff on it. Before they can deal with that properlyt hough, Pharma heads into the portal with First Aid giving chase.. and Pharma saying far more than he needs to, chuckling and grinning about all the autbots at delphi and bursting into laughter about his lengthwise joke... and soon bursting from the head as first aid shoots him.. and then collapses, not able to deal with taking a life for the first time

It's a powerful moment. Pharma absoltuely deserved to get his head burst... but it's still a life and it dosen't, as first aid clearly hope, make the pain of everyone he's lost go away.

So while this goes on Perciptor has a hail mary: he hooks rodimus up to it, which MIGHT hurt him and will defintely destroy their matrix piece, using it to undo the code. While Rodimus makes a "there goes our map" quip.. it's very clear he has no intention of backing out: personal glory isn't worth the deaths of everyone.

So with Death on the way he decides to clear the air with Magnus, ask if he really betrayed them. Turns out.. yeah he entirely lured them out here, having become disturbed with Rodimus' increasing irresponsiblity. It wasn't a full trap as he had no idea Tyrest was so far gone, he just wanted him to give Rodders a lecture, snap him out of it, tha tsort of thing not you know, nearly kill them all and then try to commit genocide as an encore. It speaks to who Magnus is: he's orderly.. but he's not the zealot his former boss is. He just wants to do the right thing.

And so does rodimus..w hich leads to one hell of a confession

It's a powerful moment an da wakeup call for rodimus: while he's still carefree after this... it's him realizing he's been way too caviler.. and let his own ego and pride get people killed. And he needs to , instead of hiding from it like he did, face the conseqeucnes of his actions. It's also a nice moment in that instead of seeing his sacrifice as a way out or a glorious way to redeem himself as he might have before the incident... instead Rodimus just hopes he lives long enough to begin the real work.

As he writhes in pain, Tyrest.. turns out not to be dead and says one word: one... which sends all the legislators their way.

In the meantime Skids ends up on Cyberutopia.. yeah... in a big reveal it, or some form of it exists and skids ended up there due to taking the portal: it was blocking anyone who had guilt in them, and Skids.. finally felt free enough to try it.

What he saw there will be important later but for now the plan worked: everyone is saved and Whirl celebrates, deciding to put the past behind him and cyclonus... and after a quick murder fantasy Cyclonus agrees. He has somewhere more important to be.

Back in the control room the legislators swarm and Skids shows up to help.. while something takes Ambulon's corpse through the portal. No time to dwell on that setup now as the legislators need to be stopped..a nd it's tailgate who once again saves the day in a brilliant way too. Remember how Magnus had him memorize the law and just about everything including the dimensions of the kitchen sink? Well when finding out the law computer is right there, this allows tailgate to easily write a new one REPEALLING them all. the legislators freeze, our heroes win the day, and Tyrest vanishes. And sadly while Tailgate won the day.. he passes out.

Thankfully we have a solution: on his deathbed we get a very poginant line from Tailgate, the little bot who simply wanted to be special and important...

It's a small line.. but one that sums up the comic> life isn't about being a big hero or saving the unvierse, though our heroes certainly did that.. it's abotu living it. It can be hard, messy and often rediculous.. but it's more than worth it.. and with that Cyclonus gives Tailgate the gift of life.. by stabbing him in the chest

And for once.. IT IS HEALTHY as it was a way to do a spark transfusion, one Whirl of all people brought up. It was risky.. but it was worth it.

So as Rodimus decides to bounce, deciding this big discovery wasn't really wroth it with one crew member dead, first aid traumitzied and brainstorm in his lab, unknown to all having taken the super spark, and the rest of the sparks having gone quiet after the matrix became dust.. he's lost.

Magnus however.. is found. He may not know what his future is.. but he's finally at some sort of peace.. and has a ncie gentle talk with cyclonus

Remain in Light was one of my faviorite arcs of lost light.. and re-reading it only clinched that view: it's a tense epic that's fast paced but manages to cover a LOT of ground without anything feeling underserved, and the result is stunning. It's a worthy end to season 1.

And it WOULD be where we leave off.. but before dark cybertron we have one issue left, issue 22.

Little Victories is a nice Coda to the season, an issue I skimmed over the first time I read the comic due to the art... not being great. Artist James Raiz takes over from here through dark cybertron and his art style isn't bad, being kind of sketchy and gritty. Not my cup of tea but not bad art. The problem.. is that the art style dosen't fit lost light at all. I mean look at this panel with cyclonus

It's a good joke, but it looks just so dead serous and grungy. It just dosen't fit what's entirely a slice of life issue, showing a recuritment film Rewind made before his untimely passing.

That said giving the issue a second chance or two i've come around... once your ready for the jarring art shift, you can enjoy the story with plenty of fun documentary gags including Magnus having part of the film removed and getting editiing rights, as well as having Swerves swears censored.

There's two plots here: The first involves everyone being curious what Rungs alt mode is, with Swerve having a bet as to who can get him to show it first, leading to a really great, really stupid joke

I love this comic for it's deep characters, engaging plot and world building.. but I also love that a large part of the comic is just roberts letting these robots act like jackasses. It makes them so damn relatable. I mean someone had to try this.

The other is Thunderclash, what a guy. Thunderclash is a legendary hero and the king of the parody sues, a guy so noble and kind that even optimus looks up to him, a hero unparalleled. He's this series Ace Rimmer, and intentionally too as Roberts is a big red dwarf fan, something that isn't a huge suprise but is welcome.

For those not familiar with Ace, he's the alternate counterpart of Red Dwarf's Arnold Rimmer, an uptight attempted ladder climber who usually fails due to his own incomptience and ego, while Ace is everything Arnold WISHES he could be: Smart, handsome, good with a joke, beloved.

So naturually someone like Rodimus, full of ego and self importance himself, needed someone just simply better than him doing the same job who everyone on his crew unabashadely loves. Thunderclash is just.. that nice and I love the ways they bend over backwards to make EVERYONE fall for this guy, from him being one of the few autbots to be nice to cyclonus and earn his genuine respect with his knoweldge, to teaching Perciptor of all people something. It's just great fun and it's just as fun to watch Hot Rod gnash his teeth over someone else getting all the attention.

There's also a third kinda plot as the crew runs into the Ammonites, a group of robots fighting a forever war with some bug aliens that whirl seemingly end sin ten minutes. We don't know how and tha'ts how I sleep at night

All three collide at the end: Thunderclash's ship needs a jump, esspecailly since, while an epic hero of epicness, he's dying: the ship is Thunderclash's life support and being the autobot's own personal jesus, he's naturally using this time to save everyone he can. It's why his crew's behind on their own quest for the knights.

Sadly one of his crew turns out to be an ammonite spy and they turn out to not have been the good guys, thankfully Rung has an idea and turns into a blunt insturment. Or is it an object. point is he's blunt, hard and blunt. As for WHAT he is...

This will be important going forward, and in hindsight may be one of the most important little bits in this issue. Thunderclash will be too.

We then get the ending which is... eh in my eyes. I like Lost Light's comedy, I point you to just a few paragraphs ago with the stupid alt mode night joke. But this bit.. feels a bit of a stretch: it turns out the film was being screened to the circle of light who ALL, every one of them, boo hiss and complain about them all being fuckups. Besides being more than a little harsh... the film was made by a DEAD AUTOBOT. Rewind DIED before this was made and i'm damn sure they told them that. I like the jokes and I don't mind shots at how little the crews acomplished, it's a decent runner but here.. it just feels mean. Doubly so since the lost light JUST SAVED THEIR ASSES and the ENTIRE UNIVERSE, and not a one of them think tha'ts neat. We get a heartwarming ending showing how much it means but this joke.. just really dosen't work at all. One of Roberts rare misfires but boy is it off target.

That said the issue overall is fun and i'm glad I gave it a second shot. It's good stuff and like seemingly EVERYTHING before the finale itself, it's got a lot of setup.

Next Time: Before we can get to DARK CYBERTRON we have to see what everyone else has been up to

Thanks for reading

[mdhwrites]

I found this take a little while ago and since then, I've been reflecting on what makes for "satisfaction" in storytelling.

"Any story to be satisfying requires the villains to get what they deserve. Even if Heroes die, the Villain MUST be punished."

Putting aside the fact that what counts as satisfying easily varies from person to person, the tone here comes off as saying "it's not a good story if it's not satisfying." But if that's the case, why are tragedies and horror stories so popular? More often than not, those stories don't end with the villain's comeuppance.

Or for a different example, take Revenge of the Sith. Palpatine gets away scot-free with everything, and while Anakin does suffer for his evil actions by being mutilated and burned, he's still put back together and free to continue serving Palpatine in his reign of terror. Sure, it's a prequel to a story where Palpatine does receive his ultimate comeuppance in the future, but as an individual story and not part of a wider saga, Revenge of the Sith is arguably not "satisfying," as this guy puts it. And that's widely regarded to be the best of the prequel trilogy.

So do you think a story needs to punish its villain to be satisfying, or is that only a requirement for a story set in a specific genre? Is that even a requirement for any genre, given that the writer could be trying to make a point with their story that necessitates the villain going unpunished?

That statement is very Western minded. In other countries, anti-climaxes are much more of a thing. Something that robs you of your satisfaction and leaves you in a disquieting void. Such an ending is often used to leave one to think and ponder on the themes and concepts and come up with their own conclusions to such things rather than cut it black and white. Inception is a small but good example of an anti-climax because while we get the climax in the dream of them succeeding, the spinning top on the table is still given to the audience to make them reflect on what the film had to say.

I also bring up Inception because, and my memories are BLURRY so sorry if I'm a bit off base, it is essentially a heist movie. There isn't a villain in it to be punished. There is a conflict that must be resolved. That is a large part of what this statement is trying to get across but fails because it's too narrow minded. It's not understanding its own goal well enough not to think about just one type of story. Not every story has a villain... FAR fewer have zero conflict.

A better way to put this sort of statement is:

All stories must conclude their conflict. Even if you do not fix the problem, the problem must be addressed and given a climax.

An anti-climax is not a cliffhanger after all. It's usually something where the hero attempts to fix a problem but then it's made clear that the problem is too big, or ongoing, or that what they were searching for didn't actually exist. You still arrive to an answer to the question posed though. If a man needs to learn that paradise exists with others instead of in a place but he sacrifices all those around him to arrive in a barren field, left all alone, he still finds paradise. He simply found the WRONG paradise and might start crying, both evoking tragedy and the feeling that this can't be the end of the story. That there's a scene missing where he must be happy. There isn't something missing though because this is the conclusion of the story and a version of a climax.

This argument makes me think a lot of how some people judge video games entirely on how fun they are. If you give a player a gun, you must then give them things to shoot with that gun because shooting things is fun. If you let them walk, let them run. If they can jump, give them a reason to. This idea that the only correct goal of a work is to be entertainment. I've criticized things for not being entertaining but only when it clearly had the goal of being entertainment. If something is trying to be disquieting, emotional, thought provoking, etc. like that, it does not need to be entertaining because its goals are different. This is actually why so much that seeks base entertainment is treated as low art because so often the easiest way to be moody and thoughtful is also to be fucking miserable, hence the split between what is popular and what is nominated for the Oscars.

It does not have to be this way though. We can let the two mingle. We can have a great story with a hero where the villain gets away because that is thematically correct. We can have a miserable trudge that pays off in joy. People who want to make definitive statements like this, who want to pin down storytelling to a formula...

Look, a Man with a Thousand Faces is just fucking wrong in trying to state all stories follow the hero's journey and you're going to be just as wrong. Even my own statement is not entirely true but I'm willing to admit that. Some of these people and Cambell definitely weren't and it shows in their piss poor grasp on the true breadth of human expression. If they're right... Well, I won't see you next tale. Because the next tale will just be the same tale according to these people and they're wrong.

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I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[zepskies]

I just have to say, genuinely everything in the BMD-verse is some of the best stuff I’ve ever read, BMD has managed to climb it’s way up to being one of my all time favorite fics that I could endlessly re-read and I can’t thank you enough for that. It was so well written and so many subtle details went into making the word feel so real, to the point where I truly felt immersed in the plot and could clearly visualize everything in my head. This fic made me laugh, cry, and had me on the edge of my seat wanting to read more to see where everything went with these two. Reading it helped brighten my day when I wasn’t having the best one. Also I don’t think I’ve ever loved OC’s quite as much as I absolutely love Frank and Loco, you put so much world building and detail into this fic and it really shows so beautifully, you were able to encapsulate the personalities of each character so well, down to the little details in how they react to certain situations or things they’d be likely to say, all while still giving your OC’s just as much depth and personality, you even executed the character arcs so realistically and it was done so damn well. This fic truly felt like a masterpiece and I am so grateful that you decided to create it, so genuinely thank you!

Okay, I didn't expect to cry today but you managed it, lovely Anon. 🥹💚

I've actually been going through a roughish time in my personal life, so you sent me this amazing note at the perfect time...

I'm having a hard time forming actual words right now, but I'm so happy that Break Me Down has become one of your favorite stories, and most of all that it helped brighten your day when you weren't feeling so hot. I definitely have my comfort stories, books, movies as well.

I genuinely put my heart and soul into BMD from conception, to outlining, to writing and editing each chapter. Even now I look at those 19 chapters and can't believe it's something I actually wrote. I'm just a sucker for a redemption story, and after SB's character hooked me, something crazy told me that he should get his chance to become a real hero.

(Here are some more details you probably don't want/need to know about how BMD began. 😅):

After writing Checkerboard, @deans-spinster-witch knows, as I've credited her many times, but she encouraged me to write a "prequel" to expand on how SB might get to that level of character growth.

...And somehow, BMD became an "enemies to lovers" epic. 😂

Thank you also for loving Frank and Loco! I've said this before, but one of the best writing tips I've ever gotten about writing minor characters is this: Write them like they're the protagonists of their own stories.

Give them their own character arcs, however short or long, whether tragic or fulfilled, etc.

When they're in the scene, give them something important to do or say that furthers the plot.

If you can't name a character, 9/10, they probably don't need to be there.

Without both Frank and Loco, Ben and the reader wouldn't have made it through until the end. And those two (especially Frank) now live in my head alongside Ben and the reader and their ever-evolving story.

This fic truly felt like a masterpiece and I am so grateful that you decided to create it, so genuinely thank you!

Damn it, who's peeling onions?! 😭😭

You're so very welcome. 💚💚 It's an absolute pleasure to write for you guys, but also to express myself and get out these stories that live rent free in my head. 😘

(Btw: I totally respect that you're anonymous in my inbox, but feel free to comment on this and let me know who you are -- only if you feel comfortable! You absolutely made my day, hun. 💓)

[korgbelmont]

Choices Insiders January 2024

Happy new year everyone! Hope you all enjoyed and are looking forward to the year ahead!

Actually back this time with this month's Insiders. Apologies for not doing my normal post on the December Insiders, but I was just too ill to be able to focus so decided it was best to leave it.

Anyway! Here we go. New year, new post.

So I chose other and this is what I put;

Found it while scrolling for games on the playstore and thought "yeah, give that a go".

That was in 2018 and here I am haha

I haven't seen anything on Unbridled as to what people think of it, so I won't say much. I'll give it a go when it begins it's release and see what it's like.

Same as above. I'll give it a go when it begins it's release and see what it's like. Other than that, I can't say much.

Let me know what you think of both this and Unbridled if you have played them!

So slight confession with both of these. I've only got to the first two chapters of Ship of Dreams when it began it's release and I've only played the first Chapter of Cursed Heart 2. It's that thing of forgetting one week and then just keep forgetting. I am planning to catch up with it over the weekend as I am intrigued by it and even though for me it's only been one chapter, I'm interested by new characters Oleander and Jack.

I never actually attempted this. I had thought about it, but I can't remember why, but I decided not to have a go. Congrats to those who saw it all the way through!

I haven't played DnD in years, last time was not long before everything hit and my friends and I could no longer meet up to do so. But if we do decide to, I may have a look at the sheets on the wiki and pop a character in to play as haha

Having seen the official cover for Hot Shot, I know which one was used. But to be honest, a majority of covers these days are very similar, so I don't think much.

One thing I would be interested to know is what lead to choosing Ice Hockey as the sport.

Given that they mentioned the shower in particular, I'm guessing there is a scene with the MC and Love Interest in the shower.

The third image makes me think that it is going to be from the CG that is usually seen in the first chapter. Maybe the Love Interest intercepting it or something...

Putting these two as I wanted to discuss a couple things about Blades 3. Firstly, I am surprised a BK3 is happening. This one I feel is the final one as usually they only go up to 3. The second bit is that I am surprised at how early it has been currently scheduled. I can see it changing as it did happen with BK2, but yeah. Same with Crimes 3 to be honest on both points.

Okay, so a couple of new titles, but first I want to speak about The Deadliest Game as when I opened up this morning, I found out about the VIP Exclusive prequel. It has me wondering if we will see this more often or if it just a one off. It does mean though that it looks like it has something related to gambling.

Right, next up is Along Came Treble and The Ghost of Us which were announced last month. I've seen people say about how it is a music book (maybe it's meant to be a mature version of Platinum). I'll give it a go when it begins it's wide release.

The Ghost of Us sounds like a book that could be a book set in two time periods about two lovers reincarnated and their ghosts of their past selves guiding them to the other. Not much information other than the title to go on at the moment.

So the first new new title here is Filthy Rich, and to be honest, it screams that it's a more mature book.

The other new title is Hearts of Fire. I think I remember them saying about a Firefighter book at somepoint last year, and here it is.

But before all of that, there is Immortal Desires 2. I am really looking forward to this one. It was such a welcome surprise to see the 180 and have a sequel greenlit. Looking forward to more Gabriela and curious to see who the villains of this one are.

First Wide Release isn't until next month. I am curious as to why it got pushed back, maybe they're trying to keep with their VIP release schedule and keep double month releases together...

That's it for this month. As always, I will do my best to nab screenshots from one of their other social accounts and post on here.

Keep safe everyone!

[eriexplosion]

5 6 7 10 for Star Wars violence 👀

OKAY TIME FOR THE VIOLENCE (I don't know how actually violent these opinions are but pretend I am Very Vicious)

5. Worst blorboficiation?

sdfsdifj REGRETTABLY... OBI-WAN.... I love the man but fandom characterizations definitely show some Popular Guy Character Syndrome where it's all about how sad and tormented he is and while I respect that as a lover of tormented men, it is certainly an experience when you're like, reading a CodyWan fic and Cody is comforting Obi-Wan through his tragic past like he's never gone through anything difficult in his life. Also some of Obi-Wan's fun edges are sanded off, he's more generically sassy but considerate of others feelings and kind, etc, and like. He's not UNkind. But this is a man that faked his death and did not tell his emotionally unstable best friend like that was going to do anything but drive Anakin absolutely batshit insane. He watched like ten clones in a row die without a reaction and then the instant a Jedi died they all had to stop for a funeral. He tried to get Luke to kill Vader WITHOUT telling him who he was. He's kind of an idiot and can be kind of an asshole. Let him hurt people's feelings! Let him be socially inept! He is a dipshit not a harmless weep blob!

(This ties in with my desire to see CodyWan fic where they straight up get in a fight but is not ENTIRELY connected to that)

6. Opinion on canon and/or fanon use of the secret child trope? Discuss.

It works for Luke and Leia and I think it should have stayed at that. I'm not a big fan of the Palpatine reveal for Rey but I didn't want her to be a Skywalker either, sometimes you want a main that is Just Some Guy, doesn't need to be a secret child of anyone. In fanon I just REALLY do not like it, partially because it's plugging in a blood relation where it doesn't need to be. The other part is that I have mostly seen it for Obi-Wan and Satine with that Korkie kid and with how utterly repressed those two are at each other I refuse to believe they ever successfully fucked.

7. What is the weakest piece of canon writing?

It feels like cheating to say the sequel trilogy mostly because I never finished it so a thing that I definitely finished and loved but makes no sense - AOC is not the strongest movie but ROTS was like, fully just a series of cool scenes stitched together to approximate a movie. And don't get me wrong, I adore the prequels. But the only one that I think succeeds as a Movie is TPM. ANAKIN'S FALL ESPECIALLY IS NONSENSICAL AS SHIT. Like the underlying motivations are there but they were not pieced into anything resembling a coherent narrative. You have a start point, an end point, and everything in between just kind of jumps around with I think the weakest point being the Tusken Massacre - it's treated more like a sign of Anakin's potential darkness than anything when like. That's a whole village. He killed a whole village and it never comes up again! Lucas apparently didn't consider it that big a deal!

It's to a point where I actually think the massacre can't be addressed from a fully in universe perspective, because there's no actual way to twist it around so that it makes sense for that not to be enough to Make Anakin Fall without breaking the already very loose rules of the universe. Most other Star Wars points I can figure out some kind of justification for how it works in world, but to explain how Anakin wouldn't fall here you just have to kind of confront that Lucas is both not a very good writer and also approached the Tuskens with an incredibly racist viewpoint given that he doesn't appear to see their deaths as fully Counting, unlike the Jedi younglings in ROTS. It's a plot choice that, if treated with the full weight it would narratively deserve, completely unravels the entire rest of the series, the only way to make the storyline of everything else WORK is to take it out or change it so much as to be an entirely different scenario, and I can't think of any other things that fuck it up THAT bad.

10. What’s a ship you've unwillingly come around to?

I think 'unwillingly' is overstating it (but then I rarely DISLIKE a ship, so there's usually not much Unwillingly about it) but I thought Tech/Phee was cute at most until everyone started being Like That about them. Now I want them to kiss and get married onscreen. I hope that she hits that every night. Phee deserves whatever she wants.

Also Anakin/Padme probably counts because I did not actually go into the clone wars watch WANTING to love Anakin but Whoops. WHOOPS. So that meant I got An Affection for the two of them in all their messy stupid as shit glory.

[elvisabutler]

could i possibly request more gun kink pls? 🙏🙏🙏

red brass

summary: elvis loves you or at least likes you. elvis learns things on the road. elvis likes to have the girl he likes try the new things he thinks he'll like with him. you allow it. fandom: elvis presley | elvis 2022 pairing: elvis presley x female reader rating: m word count: 3408 just i don't know what happens. i don't know why i write 3k gun kink fics. warnings: gun kink. use of a gun in penetrative ways. guns. implied masturbation ( m ). implied future oral ( f ). technically defined as masturbation or maybe fucking ( f ). dubious, and i mean very dubious consent. 50s era elvis being a little shit. infidelity ( elvis to the reader ). southern accents being mildly butchered. faintly erring toward a sub elvis, while also somehow being a dom elvis, it's nebulous honestly. me implying that texans love their guns a lil' too much. use of nicknames ( honey, darlin', baby. ) and 'vis. no use of y/n. i think that might be everything? author's note: hi anon, i know who you are and i love you. i hope you enjoy this fic that essentially is a prequel-ish, a spiritual prequel to gunmetal. and me basically going, i guess i'm gonna write 50s elvis with a gun kink. generally speaking i don't even know what has come over me with this, i'm just gonna take y'all along for a ride. watch me inevitably write army e or hollywood e with gun kink.

You know you can find a better guy, or at least you think you can, because there's something that makes men- little boys want to prove themselves after they find out you're with Elvis Presley. You're fairly certain that you could at least find a guy who would be there more often than Elvis is, you could find a guy who could take you out on regular dates and could eat dinner with your parents and- maybe even get married to you sooner rather than later. The problem is, you're never quite sure you want to find that guy, never quite certain if that sort of guy would be better than Elvis. For all Elvis is a selfish young man— the kind who will take take take from his girlfriends as much as he gives gives gives- he's also a good man. He's a better man than half the boys who sniff around you, the little hound dogs as you and Elvis like to call them. So it's always a whispered "honey, ya ain't gonna leave me are ya? gonna be comin' home soon and we'll have some fun. gonna show those dogs who they'd be fightin' wit' for ya."

Your friends think you're being silly, waiting on Elvis, thinking he's remaining faithful to you while on the road. Your mama thinks the same thing and god help you even Miss Gladys agrees. She loves her son, she does, but she knows- oh she knows how he's been calling her less and less and knows that can't mean a single good thing. Can't mean anything good for anyone involved. But when her little boy calls you or calls her he's always reassuring you both that the girls don't mean nothin'. He's jus' lonely and he can't take he can't take the love of his life or his mama wit' him so sometimes- sometimes there's a girl in the hotel. June says you shouldn't forgive him when he admits it the first time but you've never been like June, never been as strong as June is and maybe— maybe that's why Elvis liked you so much. You're not June but you're just close enough that he can still have her with the parts that don't fit his life removed. Selfish, but he's never claimed to be a saint, hell no one's ever claimed he's a saint.

The thing is- you've gotten used to him talking to you over the phone about things that don't always happen. Sometimes it's just about his dreams, about his plans for what he's gonna do the second he sees you. Sometimes it's plans for how he's gonna take you out on the next tour, he doesn't care how it looks, he misses ya widdle pussy and everyone already knows he's got a girl, it won't matter seeing ya on the tour. You're expecting tonight to be just the same, another night of promises he can't keep even though he'll be home tomorrow night for at least a week or two. Tonight, though, tonight, he surprises you.

"Baby? Ya- Whatcha got planned for tomorrow? Nothin' fancy right?" He murmurs into the phone, his breath hitching in a way you know doesn't mean anything good.

You hum softly, shifting in your bed a little. "Planned on jus' lettin' ya go home to ya parents, honey, why?"

"Wanna- Ya gonna think I'm crazy but wanna try somethin' wit' ya tomorrow night. Think you'll like it." He sounds excitable in a way that means you're gonna regret telling him no if you do. He'll every bit of the young man he is, the yittle boy who wants so much and now that he's got a taste of people saying yes, yes, yes, he doesn't necessarily want to hear no on something he truly wants. "Ya gonna say yes, ain't ya?"

A sigh leaves your lips as you debate with yourself, debate if you can chance saying no before settling on the a yes that's filled with such trepidation you worry he'll still want to argue with you. "'Course I am, darlin'. Tell me, 'Vis, whatcha plannin' on doin' wit' me. Gonna take me somewhere and have us play there? We gonna have fun in the car?"

The tone you manage is light and playful— or at least as close to it as you can manage before you hear Elvis's laugh. It's a laugh you've never heard from him and one that worries you. It sounds a little demonic if you were being perfectly honest, but you trust Elvis for the most part. He loves you and wouldn't purposefully hurt you and maybe it's just a mean idea. One he shouldn't be asking you but he's going to because he knows you're better than all those girls on the road.

"Ya ever played wit' ya daddy's guns, darlin'? Ever felt the metal on ya? It's cold on ya skin, ya know." He muses, like he's put it on his skin and a rush of jealousy rears its ugly head at the idea that maybe just maybe some other girl has gotten to see this. Or maybe he's done this to another girl. You almost miss his next words. "Bet it'd make your chest- make those pretty nipples of your stand right up. Be beggin' for me to suck on 'em."

Your pussy clenches at his words and you can't help how your breath catches. "You'd- I've never— What are ya sayin', Elvis Presley?"

Almost his full name because you're so taken aback by what he's saying. You're imagining this or he's playing a joke on you, trying to get some sort of rise with you. He wouldn't dream of saying this and honestly meaning it. Let alone telling you over the phone like this, it's almost as if he's warnin' you about this but— why? Why would he want to warn you about something like this.

"Honey, I— down here in Texas they— their girls are wild, ya know? Thought it was jus' the women but no it's girls your age too, ya know? Somethin' 'bout this air that makes 'em do things I ain't ever seen another girl do. And I was talkin' to someone 'bout the gun he had on his holster, prettiest thing I ever did see other than you, darlin'. Told me 'bout how his girlfriend— or maybe it was his fiancée played wit' it." Elvis's voice sounds simultaneously like he's nervous to bring this up to you while also taking on this certain element of delight. Certain pleasure in telling you about this person. "Inside of her."

"Inside of— Now I know you aren't— You mean inside her—" You cough, because you are not some wilting little girl. You are Elvis Presley's girlfriend and you can be a big girl about this. "You mean she put it inside of her vagina?" The last word is whispered almost as if you're scared your parents are going to hear or if it'll make it more real to say it out loud.

Elvis chuckles softly, more of a huff of a laugh than anything else before he responds back with any words. "She did. He said he watched her and said she— She liked it. Told 'im it was even better than when he fucked her."

The image of Elvis pumping his gun in and out of you like he would his cock has you dropping the phone for a second in pure shock. The way you can feel your arousal starting to pool between your legs has you biting your lips and shifting in your bed, your thighs gliding together as your breathing changes just slightly. You know Elvis can tell from how he growls into the phone. He may be a dumb yittle boy sometimes but he knows you just as well as you know him now. "You don't really want me to do that when you get home, do you 'Vis?"

"I think ya wanna do it for me, honey. Think if I was there I'd see ya looking like a damn cricket, sliding your legs together. Just one time, baby? One time and if we don't like it, I ain't ever gonna bring it up again. For me? For us?" He sounds so small when he asks, but you know better, it's him trying to charm you, trying to seem all innocent when you both know he hasn't been innocent since the first time he went on tour or the first time a girl batted her eyelashes and said hello.

Your only response is a simple okay before you move onto better topics. Less arousing topics.

Your parents are used to Elvis whisking you away for any number of things so when he comes home the next night, they don't bat an eyelash at him taking you with him to Graceland with promises about how you'll be in another room and his mama won't let him do anything untoward to you. Nevermind that when Miss Gladys sees you it's for the briefest of moments as her son whisks you up the stairs and has you pinned against the door, hands roaming every inch of your skin threatening to set it on fire as he kisses your lips and your neck. He's needy tonight and you don't know if it's because of what you promised him or if he missed you just that much. You feel a hard mass near his leg and you can't help but wonder if it's his cock or the gun because you haven't seen a holster or anything that shows off a gun. Despite your better judgment when he pulls away and you are nuzzling at his nose you give him a nervous grin and whisper a joke.

"That your gun, 'Vis? Or are ya jus' happy to see lil ole me?" A laugh escapes his lips at the same time one escapes yours before he moves to try and pull down your skirts.

"Lil' of both, honey," he practically coos at you when your skirt comes down and you're standing there in your half unbuttoned shirt and your underwear. "Wanna see ya naked for this. Get the full effect."

You bite your lip, your nervousness finally fully peeking through. It's not as if you've never been naked with Elvis, it's not as if he's never seen you completely laid bare underneath him or above him but this is different. Something about this makes you feel raw and exposed like a live wire. A shiver escapes you as Elvis tilts his head just a little bit. 

“Don’t— Ain’t nothin’ we haven’t shown each other, baby. I ain’t gonna hurt ya. Gonna make ya feel good. Gonna have ya feeling the hot and cold’s what they said,” his hands ghost over your waist before he slides his hands under your shirt to pull it off of you, kissing along the skin he’s exposing bit by bit. “Ya wanna take off my clothes, honey? That gonna make ya feel better? Give ya somethin’ to settle the shakes ya got like ya had the first time we did it in the Cadillac?”

Your hand clenches into a fist before you nod, moving to undo his belt with a speed that embarrasses you a little bit until you hear him laughing softly above you. He finds it endearing, your eagerness or your nervousness and somehow that settles something in you, makes this seem less terrifying. Elvis may have asked you something that’s a mighty strange request but he’s still your Elvis. He wouldn’t hurt you, not intentionally. It doesn’t take too long before you manage to get him out of all his clothes, watching as his muscles twitch under your touch and how the moment you step out of your undergarments his cock twitches so violently in the confines of his underwear he hisses when he gets to pull them off, cursing at his foreskin. The gun is sitting on the bed and you stare at it as Elvis moves behind you cupping your breasts and kissing along your neck slowly, trying to settle you like a scared animal. 

“It ain’t loaded, honey, just— this one time, ‘member? We jus’ gonna try it, see if those Texans know somethin’ we don’t.” His voice is low enough to be crooning at you and you feel your body lean up against him, relax up against him. “You get to do it, baby. Just, do what ya want with the gun.”

It takes you a minute or maybe five of just relaxing against him to get up the nerve to crawl on his bed and prop yourself on his pillows.The gun feels heavy in your hand but you’re pretty sure you’re just imagining it as you let the metal touch your neck— your overheated neck— and whimper at the coolness of it. Elvis settles himself at the end of the bed, eyes watching how your nipples are already pebbling before the gun even touches them. You let your legs fall open to give him a better view and you hear a grunt that has you looking up at your boyfriend’s lower lip between his teeth.

“Already gettin’ shiny down there. Glowin’ in the moonlight, darlin’. Wanna- Gonna taste all that later, if ya don’t leave it all over the bed.”

You clench around nothing at the words and Elvis reaches out to touch you before you shake your head, “no, wanna— you wanna see me play wit’ this. Wanna see me play wit’ this like they did. No- You don’t get to touch.” 

The funny thing is, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Elvis react as quick as he does in that moment. You don’t think you’ve ever seen your boyfriend respond to something you’ve told him to do as quick as he does in that exact moment. His hand goes directly to his own lap as he nods, whining just a little as he does and you have to bite back the soft giggle that threatens to escape you. The gun though, the sharp coolness of the metal helps you, helps distract you from giggling even if as the gun glides across your nipple you cry out almost in agony. Elvis had been right, they were practically begging to be sucked, to be warmed by his tongue and his mouth. Anything would be better than the bite of the metal, the brush of the barrel against them. Elvis doesn’t make a move though, you had told him not to touch and he was being good even as his hand strayed to his cock, playing with it, his thumb brushing over the tip as he pulled his foreskin back. 

Focusing on him made things worse and somehow better, made you wish you had told him he could touch, made you wish he would was moving the gun himself but he told you this was your call, you were in control of what happened with the gun. Small whimpers leave your lips as you try and keep your legs open, practically trying to grind on the air as you slide the gun down down down your torso. You stop just shy of your vagina, your hand shaking a little before you hear Elvis’s voice.

“Ya— Ya good, darlin’?” His question is asked a little shakily but it makes you realize you aren’t the only nervous one here, or maybe he’s just so turned on he can’t speak straight. It doesn’t matter, you don’t think, not with how it calms you just so. “Ya want my help? Want me to hold it for ya?”

“Please?” Your answer comes out rushed and so quiet that you feel the rush and heat of embarrassment as you shiver from it. You want to do this, but it’s not something you’ve ever done and it’s new. For both of you, you hope. Elvis moves closer to you, deciding that sitting next to you might be the best position for this so he can watch and still help you. You move to take your hand off the gun, thinking he wants complete control before he links your fingers together and places both your hands on the gun. You’re still in control with just a little help from him. 

You take your hand that’s not on the gun and use it you spread yourself open, making sure there’s enough of a glide from your arousal- a forgone conclusion you think- to help with the gun brushing against your cunt— your vagina— your whatever the two of you want to call it. As your fingers start to play with your clit you feel the brush of the metal finally sliding down and against your clit. A groan leaves your lips as you grind down automatically, craving something to finally give you some proper friction. It’s cold but it doesn’t have the same bite as it did against your nipples, no it’s almost as if the burning heat that keeps growing between your legs offsets it, allows the gun to be heated quicker than it ever would be outside of you. Elvis’s lips brush against the shell of your ear. “Ya ready baby? Ready to take it inside?”

A hum is all you can manage, too anxious and excited all at once to trust anything other than a whimper to leave your mouth if you open it. Elvis knows you though, knows you like the back of his hand or like his guitar and he pushes the gun inside you, slowly but surely, watching the barrel disappear in between your legs as you practically keen at the sensation. It’s the metal contrasting with your skin, with your arousal with everything. It feels like it shouldn’t be up there while feeling less filling than Elvis ever has been. You rock a little against it as part of it brushes against your clit or maybe that’s just yours and Elvis’s hands. At some point you shut your eyes, not because you didn’t want to watch, but because the sensation feels better when you don’t see it, it keeps you grounded in a way having your eyes open doesn’t. Elvis’s voice seems so far away even as you rock against the gun. Had this been what the women were talking about? Did they feel like this too? Powerful and yet stripped bare knowing what was between their legs sliding in and out of their most private parts? 

“Christ they weren’t lyin’ ya look fuckin’. Gonna hafta help me wit’ what’s ‘tween my legs, honey. Wanna taste ya after this- wanna have ya all night. Missed ya and now ya doin’ this? Fuckin’ perfect for me. Best girl I coulda asked for. Ya gonna— Ya hear how ya sound?” His words are slurred against your ear and you do hear yourself, hear how the gun squelches and squishes between your folds and you whine, your head turning trying to bury your head into Elvis’s shoulder even if it should be impossible. Your brain and your heart and your ears register him shushing you, telling you he’s gotcha, telling you how he wants to see you come like this and that does it. You clench around the barrel and a soundless scream leaves your mouth as your orgasm rips through you and leaves you shaking and twitching against Elvis. There’s a warmth next to your leg and you open your eyes to see Elvis’s own release against your leg as he flushes under your gaze. 

Almost as if he wants to distract you he starts to pull the gun out and you shut your eyes at the sensation before opening them back up again when you hear the pop of it being pulled completely out of you. It takes you and Elvis a few minutes after he tosses the gun to the side before you speak. 

“Can’t do that again tonight.” But perhaps another night, your mind thinks as you move to play with Elvis’s cock.

His hand moves to swat your hand away as he slinks down the bed and puts himself at eye level with your vagina. “Don’t want ya to,” he pauses, licking his lips as you allow your legs to fall open just a hair. “Gonna taste ya though. See if ya taste any different.”

You don't.